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

The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where you can find a new episode of the Rewatchables coming tomorrow, Monday. We're gonna put up a little earlier tomorrow, probably early mid-afternoon ET. It's a good movie.

You've heard of it.

That's all I'm gonna say. We didn't announce the movie this week. Sometimes you don't have to. So that's coming. If you missed the Ringer Fantasy Football Show's live draft that we did on Friday, it was one of the funniest 3-hour runs that we've had at the Ringer. There's people screaming at each other. There was people ganging up on each other. Sal made about 25 off-the-cuff jokes. People were eating as they were trying to draft. People were ripping stickers off the little sticker thing, ripping the— it was just— Everything was in play. Bad coordination, temper tantrums, you name it. And, uh, it all peaked when all of us colluded to completely screw over Danny Heifetz, who thought he was gonna get cute near the end and get a good QB late. And then we just took all the QBs. And now his QBs, I think, are Bryce Young, Cam Ward, and somebody— Michael Penix Jr. Those are his 3 QBs for the Ringer Fantasy Football Draft. So it was amazing. It was about as fun as I've ever had. during a fantasy draft. Great job by everybody. Great job by the Ringer fantasy guys as well.

So that happened. I was gonna do a big topper this, for this episode about the Red Sox-Yankees series, but it basically came down to 2 plays 'cause they split the doubleheader yesterday. The Red Sox lose 1-0 on Friday because Rafaela doesn't listen to third base coach, tags anyway, thinks Bellinger can't throw him out, throws him out, Red Sox lose 1-0. But that was a great old school Yankee Stadium, Red Sox-Yankees pennant race game. I love that one. Didn't like the one as much today where it felt like it was gonna be another 1-0, 2-1 type game. And Rafaela ends up making this great catch with the guy on first base, and somehow the first base umpire, who is just atrocious all weekend, just really atrocious, calls it as a bounce catch. So then there's not enough on the instant replay to overrule it 'cause— Rafael is basically bending his glove over. And, and that opened the floodgates and the Yankees won this series 3 to 1. And now the Red Sox are in a lot of trouble for the playoffs 'cause they really need to get to the 4 seed. I've loved this Red Sox season.

A little weird today. They brought in Roman Anthony and Trevor Story from Worcester and sent down Anthony Sigler and Mickey Gasper, Mickey Gasper, who was the hottest left-handed hitter of on the team and the hottest. Hitter maybe in the league, um, and sent him down. He comes back in 10 days, but I hope it didn't mess with the juju. Um, very fun Red Sox season regardless, but always hate losing to the Yankees. Can only take solace in the fact that the Yankees have won one World Series in the last 26 years. I looked it up. 2009, Obama's first term. Year one of Obama's first term. Last time they won. 17 years ago. So congrats on your win in August. We'll see you in the playoffs, guys. Football, Cousin Sal and I did AFC, NFC over-unders. We taped them all at once. We ran the NFC on this feed on Thursday. We were about to run the AFC feed. So if you notice, we're wearing the exact same clothes and Joe House is still gonna be there as our third person. And I had 5 locks that I loved for the NFC. And I think I have 2 for this one you're about to listen to for the AFC.

I like the NFC more, but FanDuel is still giving everyone 5 50% people BTs that you can put basically on anything up until the end of August. And so if you like any of the locks you're about to hit, or if you liked anything from the last podcast, like Atlanta under 7.5 or Tampa over 8.5, I think we had 5 that I really liked. Dallas over, Seattle over, and then what was the other under I had? Washington under. If you like any of those, throw those into the little FanDuel thing because that was very nice of them to do that for us. All right, without further ado, the AFC over-unders for win totals with me and the Cuz is next. We're gonna take a break and then bring in Pro Jam. 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. With NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, you get every game every Sunday all in one place, and it's magnificent. And there's no other way to follow the NFL season. I'm so mad I didn't get YouTube TV until a couple years ago because, um, it's the best.

New users, that might include you, can get NFL Sunday Ticket for 8 payments of just $30 a month. You heard me correctly. New users pay $240 or 8, 8 non-cancelable payments of $30 a month, first charged at purchase. Availability varies with NFL Sunday Ticket for out-of-market games and YouTube TV for local and national games. YouTube TV required. Terms, restrictions, and embargoes apply. Commercial use excluded. No refunds. The American Football Conference.

Curious, why do we do this not on Netflix? This is your conference. We did mine.

Uh, the National Football Conference. The American Football Conference, more patriotic.

Oh, I see. Okay.

National sounds a little more sinister. The National Football Conference. You made the right decision. Um, okay, AFC. Old guard, new guard. Old guard: Mahomes, Josh Allen, Lamar, Burrow. They're kind of here.

Hmm.

New guard: Drake Maye, Herbert, Bo Nix, and good Trevor Lawrence, who we've only known for 3 months. Yeah. Um, old guard coaches: Andy Reid, Harbaugh, Tomlin, McDermott. 2 of them are gone, plus Belichick. He's gone too.

Mm-hmm.

New guard coaches: Vrabel, even though he is a little older. DeMeco Ryans and, uh, Cohen and maybe Kubiak too. Um, plus you have Peyton and Jim, Jim Harbaugh somewhere in there. Do you feel like this is like a transition year or this is a the old guard reclaims everything year?

Interesting. Um, I was thinking about it in terms of quarterbacks and who we knock out of our top 4, and it's been the top 4 for forever, half a decade. Yeah, right.

Yeah.

I'm not ready to move on from the old guard.

So you're old guard.

Okay.

I'm thinking, I'm thinking Mahomes specifically, and that, that's sort of the part of the bracket.

All right. I am—

Where are you?

I still believe in— I, I'm like a half and half. I'm like half from the old guard. I think especially Lamar this year, if he's just not gonna run in the same way anymore.

Yeah.

Burrow is an all-time prove-it year where he's had 3 good ones and 3, eh. But we'll see what happens. I got a question from Joe from Charlotte. How many quarterbacks would you put on Marino Watch? By my count, maybe 3. Burrow for early success, durability probably rules him out. Lamar, in-season dominance, lack of playoff production, and then Josh Allen. So I guess Marino Watch is like the pressure of, oh shit, I might not actually win a Super Bowl in my entire career. I guess it'd be Marino Watch. I kind of like that.

What about your guy?

My guy's like 23.

Yeah, but he made it in the second year.

Well, he repeated the Marino thing.

Yeah.

Do you feel like Josh Allen is officially on Marino watch? I like the premise of this.

I feel like we've gone too far with the Josh Allen hatred. I really do.

Not for me. I think he's the best quarterback in the league.

Well, you, you tried to say he's the best regular season quarterback.

I know, I got checkmated.

It got— but it's, but it's true.

It's like And he's put up big points in playoff games too.

Yeah.

Who's put up big points?

Whoever, whatever team he's playing. Like in Josh Allen playoff games, the, the defense has allowed 32 points per game. And the visual is of Josh Allen failing in the last drive or whatever it is, which sucks 'cause that's how you're gonna end your season. But this guy's as consistent as it gets. And we'll get to the Bills in a second.

Shades of going Collinsworth there for a second.

Oh man. I just, we got an asshole.

I just can't believe, I just can't believe how good Josh Allen is. I can't believe it. House, are you pro or anti-Josh Allen superstar?

Oh, super pro. Okay. I, I love Josh Allen.

I like him too. I don't like this situation he's in this season. And we're gonna do the AFC East first. Buffalo, 10.5 is the over-under, -135 for the division. The Patriots were 14-3 last year, somehow not the favorites.

Right.

Super Bowl, 10-1 for the Bills, -340 playoffs, 5-1, 1 seed. 13+ wins, you go +250. Under 8.5 is +320. Where are you standing on this one? Do you believe Joe Brady? My what-if for this one, we're doing what-ifs for every team. Losing McDermott for Joe Brady, what if it makes an already super shaky defense much worse?

Interesting.

'Cause McDermott was allegedly a defensive coach. They were not good defensively last year.

He might screw things up. I don't know if it could be much worse. I don't know as far as clutch situations go, but my money's always on them to outscore the other team. Like, I just don't— like, when we do these over-unders, first of all, the AFC East used to be a breeze. We used to just take your Patriots to win it. Yeah. And then for years we took the Bills.

Take somebody to win 9 games.

And now we have to think about it and it sucks. Yeah. But you have to think in terms of consistency, right? And this guy hasn't missed a game since 2018. He has, they have 6 straight seasons with 11+ wins. So why am I gonna take 2 wins away from them? And it's all because he like pulls off like David Blaine types magic tricks in the red zone. Like they're phenomenal down low. They will always score.

So, so you would have 'em in the 10-win club, which I talked about in part 1.

Yeah.

Where it's just like McVay, 10 wins. I think Ben Johnson is now a 10-win club guy.

Right.

So Allen, you would say, I, I really have tried to zag against it last year too. I thought long and hard about how to do it this year. If you're ever gonna do it, this is the year, right? New coach, we have no idea if he's good.

Yeah.

The best thing you could say about them is they got DJ Moore, who, as we talked about in part 1, all the Bears fans were ready to drown in the airport. Offensive line is good, although McGovern's already hurt. I don't know, they overhauled a really crappy D, but I'm not— it's, it's kind of like they painted a crappy house a different crappy color and they're like, look, I painted the house.

Bradley Chubb's a decent pickup. I know they got the second round.

He was good last year though.

Clemson kid, actually, TJ Parker. So they're hoping good things with that. They'll, they'll have decent pass rush with Rousseau and, and Chubb, but I don't, I don't know. They're favored in 13 games. The Pats are favored in 10. I gave them 11 wins. They won 12 last year.

I don't think one player does more work for the over-unders for a team than him year after year.

Than Allen.

Yeah.

If you just put, pick anyone, right? Who's, who's a slightly above average quarterback. Let's put Bo Nix on the Bills.

Right.

Like, are they a 6-win team?

So if you did wins above replacement for football quarterbacks, we have it.

We have it with the spreads. He has the highest if you replace him with the backup.

Yeah.

I had their roster. I had 21 points, which puts them fringe playoff territory. I only had 2 guys that got points on defense. So even though they, and one of 'em is Benford, who I don't even, right. If not even positive, their big strengths are Allen, James Cook, who was incredible last year, and then the offensive line.

Yeah.

I would say they have below average receivers top to bottom. Right. Even the Patriots have better receivers than them. They're playing the AFC West and the NFC North, which is rough.

Mm-hmm.

Their first 5 games are reprehensibly hard. At Houston to start, Detroit on Thursday night. So 4 days later after Houston kicks the shit out of 'em.

Mm-hmm.

Chargers week 3, Pats week 4 at home, and then at the Rams Monday Night Football week 5. So what, what does that record have to be for you coming outta that? Texans, Lions, Chargers, Pats, Rams. 3-2. It feels like 3-2.

Gimme 3-2.

Then it gets a little easier.

But you know what's weird with this 11+ win teams? Like, what was it, 2 years ago? Was it 2 or 3 years ago where they had to win their last 6 to make the playoffs?

Yeah.

Like they always just seem to find the way. It's just ridiculous how they, they do it. And yeah, I don't know. I, the schedule, they, they almost always have a first-place schedule. What's weird about that, I want to make fun of the Pats schedule last year. Look at the extra games. I think I would rather have the Patriots' extra games, even with a first-place schedule, at Houston, at Rams, Baltimore, or at Seattle, at Jacksonville, Pittsburgh. I'd rather have the Pats games.

Yeah, it's one of the big things people are discrediting the Pats with was how easy the schedule was last year. Yeah, it's not that hard this year either, right? It's like there, there's some people have it It's really tough to rank the schedule before the season when we haven't seen everybody, but some people think it's like a top 5 easy schedule again.

Yeah.

Um, they have 5 really hard road games. They only play 3 games indoors, the Bills. I always like when they're indoors. Um, but the quarterbacks they go against, Drake Maye twice, Goff, Herbert, Stafford, Lamar, Mahomes, Jordan Love, Caleb, and Nix. Pretty tough. The best thing that from a schedule standpoint is the +14 net rest, which is 2nd this year.

Right.

Which I'm still— House, you believe in the net rest? You like, you've always enjoyed it.

Yeah, no, I think it matters for sure.

Yeah.

I wonder if we're overthinking some of this stuff now with net rest and regression and it's like—

Of all the metrics, I put net rest like 3rd or 4th. I know that it's supposed to be at the top, but turnover differential, that's way more important to me. Like the plus minus on that. Like, I don't know.

You know what I like? You know what my advanced stats are?

Hmm.

Can you run the ball? Can you stop the run? Can you throw the ball? Can you stop the other team from throwing the ball? And it's really those 4 things.

Really?

I'm not convinced the Bills can move the chains, stop a team from running the ball or throwing the ball.

Yeah.

And the schedule is harder.

You're going under.

I am. I'm going, I'm a slight under. I'm 10. I, it's not a lock. I don't love it. But I think their schedule is awful and they really can't afford an injury to Allen or Cook.

No doubt.

And I, I have real questions about DJ Moore, you know, 'cause people are like, DJ Moore, it's why, why is everybody so anxious to get rid of DJ Moore? So 2 teams now that have been delighted to move off him.

He doesn't stretch the field for sure. And that was the problem with the Bills. They didn't have like a burner, right? To, to get like, yeah, they're very low percentage. The other thing to worry about with the Bills is We talked about these quarterbacks who just stopped running when they turned 28. He turned 30, I think I just saw in May. What if that stops?

Like, new dad too.

That's it. Yeah. Yeah.

New dad turning 30. There's some not running anymore signs. The, the counter would be he's superhuman.

That's it.

And unlike Drake May, where I'm terrified he's gonna get hurt, right, Allen, you're terrified the other guy's gonna get hurt.

Mm-hmm.

I'm a slight under. I don't love it. I wouldn't bet it. But I think he has to be in the 10-win club.

I have 11.

New England Patriots, 10.5 is the over-under. Division +135. Stupefying to me that they have the same— that Buffalo is just much better for a division odd bet than the Pats. I don't get it. Super Bowl 17-1. Number 1 seed, 8-1. 12+ wins, +220. And if you want to short them, under 7.5 is +380. My what-if, talked about it on Tuesday, what if AJ Brown is a 2007 Moss-like, yeah, super boost for this team?

I—

we're not asking for 5 awesome seasons from him, just give us one fuck you season. And it seems like he wants to do it.

There's a world where, yeah, where maybe throws for 41 touchdowns and 13 go to AJ Brown. And what was his over-under? I mean, if you get the escalator on the 12+, it's ridiculous odds.

But their deep threat last year was Booty, who I really liked, and I thought Houston made a smart deal with him. We traded him for a 7th round pick and a backup safety. That was our deep threat last year.

Yeah.

Diggs was the other guy who might get open. He played 35, 40 plays a game.

Right.

And then I wouldn't trust one other guy in the team.

So I wanted to come on here and be like, this is it, the ultimate regression team. They played Alcorn State 14 times last year. They're gonna go 3-14. And I can't do it because I think they could arguably be better on paper at least than they were last year.

They're definitely better talent-wise than they were last year.

But with a record with fewer wins, like with 4 fewer wins, I think that's a definite possibility.

Well, they went 14-3, so if they have 3 less wins, they're still 11-6 and hitting this over, right? Couple things just to— I don't think get mentioned enough when everyone talks about the schedule. They still have Drake May on a rookie deal, which is the biggest advantage you can have in football right now. If they're not going to use the money to then give Christian Gonzalez, a top 5 cornerback, you know, for some reason they're lowballing him. Kraft's history of, uh, I don't want to say cheapness, so I'll just say cheapness.

Yeah.

Um, his history of cheapness a pretty long legacy of trying to cut corners here, and they always seem to have $50, $60 million of open money and money that they can push, but they never actually seem to spend it.

These owners are hurting. You don't understand. I know some of them are spending only $140 on— right.

You know. Oh my goodness.

Like, go sell 5% of the team for $1 billion, right? The team's probably worth $10 billion, right? Um, but so the Gonzalez thing makes me nervous, but they have Drake Maye on a rookie deal. They are one of only 8 teams that have the same head coach, OC, and DC from last year.

Right.

So they actually have continuity. My fears are, 'cause they, they, the O-line's gonna be better. Will Campbell's healthy now.

We got the kid from Utah, right? Yeah.

They have a little depth. They brought in Byard from the Bears, a little safety veteran guy in the back.

He's good.

The, the reasons to short them, you mentioned the regression. The Vrabel scandal, what happened, is that gonna have any sort of carryover to how he performs this season? I have no idea. And then, uh, the Gonzalez contract makes me nervous.

But how about this? I have 2 words for you. Maybe you're not familiar with these. Cover 6. Have you heard about COVID 6?

What's Cover 6?

Cover 6 is a defense that all 3 playoff teams last year doubled up. Some of them play like 30%. They doubled it up to 60% against Drake Maye. And it was effective. It's essentially taking away— it's doing a cover 2 and then 4 on the other side of the field. And under— oh, read about COVID 6 'cause you could be in trouble. Those 3 playoff teams did it against—

Oh, they did that thing. They're rushing 3 or 4 but dropping everyone back.

Right.

And there's no inside.

And Bills did it in their second regular season game against them. Yeah. And it was effective. I don't know why every team doesn't do this.

I didn't know it was called cover 6. I just knew it was called the defense that works against Drake Maye and last year's Patriots team.

Yeah. I wonder if anyone else pick up on that.

Well, you know what's gonna happen this year? AJ Brown will just run down the field and get open.

And then he's gonna say goodbye to the 6.

And they got Dobbs too. I mean, AJ Brown and Dobbs versus what they had last year, it's fucking bonkers. It's night and day compared to the receiver. They also drafted this tight end in the either 2nd or 3rd round, Eli Raritan.

Yeah.

Um, who's this like just beast blocker, and they have just more options than they did last year with lineups.

Yeah, the big guy.

I have them at 27 points in my roster rankings. And they play the following shit QBs: Rodgers, Cousins, Murray, Geno twice, Willis twice. So you figure with Buffalo owning the pass, that's 4 wins against the Jets and it's offense. It's just, that was the hard part with the Bills. Anyway, I'm, I'm going over 11 wins for the Patriots. Not a lock though. Over, already have enough pressure on them.

Over 10.5.

Over 10.5 wins.

Okay.

Yeah. 11 wins. We're going under 10.5 to 10. I think the Bills have 11, the Patriots have 10.

Okay.

And I am not acknowledging—

I flip that. I have the Pats at 11 and the Bills at 10.

I'm not acknowledging their Super Bowl appearance. I'm not doing it.

That's fine.

I mean, you, you enhanced—

Did you make money from the Seahawks at least?

I did that. I'll acknowledge.

Okay.

But I mean, you, you guys tore— you've like, he made it in the third last time and Dak Prescott's like, you didn't make it to the— he didn't make it to the Super Bowl. I likened it to going to Six Flags. and waiting in line for 2 hours, getting to the very top, and then you're on the whatever free fall and you see the drop and you shit your pants and you come back down to the bottom.

You can only play who's in front of you. I don't ever remember people doing this with other football teams.

But he got scared. He got very, very scared in the Super Bowl.

I don't think he was healthy.

I know you keep saying that.

I think if they lose to the Chargers in round 1, In round 1? Yeah, last year.

Oh, last year.

Most recently, they go 14-3, they lose to the Chargers, and everybody say, oh, they're young. Oh, they added. Oh, look out for this team.

Right.

But the further they went, it actually makes people not like them as much for this year.

Yeah.

Well, I feel the same way about them as I do with the Bears. I don't think they were a Super Bowl team last year. I don't think the Bears were a 12-win team or whatever they ended up last year. But I think this year was supposed to be the year for both of the teams. And especially when you have Caleb and Maye in these rookie deals and, you know, it's the biggest advantage you can have. So I hope they take advantage of it.

I mean, we're completely gonna discount, we're gonna get to the Texans later, but 2 pitiful quarterback performances in the playoffs.

I'm not discounting it. I really, 95% sure he was hurt and that's where I've landed. I watched him all year and he didn't look remotely—

He said today he wasn't hurt. I don't know if you saw, he said in an interview, he was like, don't let anyone try to make excuses for me.

I was awful.

I wasn't hurt.

I'm gonna make excuses. Also, our left tackle was playing on one leg.

Yeah. That's bad.

New York Jets over 5.5, division 18-to-1, playoffs 7-to-1, 10-plus wins 8-to-1. Last year they're 3-14. They're 6-to-1, have the worst record this year. So they made 2 straight conference finals in 2009 and 2010.

What? Yeah.

Way back when with Rex Ryan. I mean, 2 straight. I think there's been in the last 30 years, 120 teams that could have potentially gone back to back dating back to '96. And I think it's either 29 or 30 have ever done it. And half of those teams are like when the Patriots did it for 8 years in a row.

Right.

And the Chiefs did it for 7 years in a row. Yeah. The Jets did this 2 years in a row. They were in the Final Four. And then They've not made the playoffs since that.

Well, they've come close.

Not even, not even a wildcard.

Surely they've come close.

It's a 14-team playoffs every year in a 32-team league.

Wow.

It's basically 45% chance.

Yeah.

Never did it.

Well, New York, small market. How are they supposed to? No one's—

My what if for you. What if the Jets aren't dumb enough to tank this season? What if they're just competitive enough that they go 7 and 10?

Yeah.

And now get knocked outta the top 5 and win a couple games, get their fans excited, and then all of a sudden the merry-go-round stops and there's 4 quarterbacks available and they get none of them.

Do you think keeping Aaron Glenn means they're not— it's fine, they're okay with tanking? Like, to me it's like, I cannot believe that guy is back. And look, I was rooting for him and I thought he took a lot of shit for celebrating on the sideline when they went to overtime against Tampa only to lose. But yeah. This is a defensive specialist that they brought in and they did not have one interception over 17 games.

And it seemed like they quit as the, in the last month of the season. That was one of, how many teams just felt like that last month? Like they were just like, I'm ready to go home.

You can't have the defense quit on you if you're Aaron Glenn. It's like 9— that 92 years no one's had no intercept. He's a specialist and they brought him back. It's like you hiring a, a painter And the guy comes out the first day and paints your dog and the, and the hedges and you're like, all right, well just come back tomorrow. You'll hit some walls and it'll be fine. I, I don't understand.

Well, apparently he had 22 assistants on last year's staff and replaced 12 of them, including the OC and the DC. Hired Joe House's guy, Frank Reich.

That's not my guy.

Your guy. You said he was the best coach in the conference 3 years ago.

Never said that. I never said it.

You 100% said it. And he definitely said it. We joked about it in the text thread and he got fired in like week 11 in his first season.

Not House. Frank Reich.

Frank Reich.

Yes. Yeah.

Now House somehow survived. The good news for the Jets, they loaded up in the draft.

3 first-round picks. The only team, right?

And they had the 50th pick.

Yeah.

So they had 4 of the top 50. The bad news is the reason they had 2 of those 3 first-rounders is because They traded their 2 best players on defense for the first-rounders. Gotta factor that in. But they are, they're gonna be better and their offensive line's gonna be better. It might actually be like a top 12 offensive line, maybe.

Yeah.

So I have them as a slight over.

Yeah, I do too. You have 6 wins?

Yeah, right now I have 'em at 7-10 just 'cause I had trouble finding AFC wins anywhere.

I had 6-11. The schedule's kind to them. 4 of their first 8 are against the Titans, Browns, Dolphins, and Raiders. So they could be 4-4 at the halfway point. That could be the exciting story.

What's funny, Titans is week 1.

Yeah.

And then they go Packers at Lions at Bears.

Robert Saleh game.

And if the Titans were good, yeah, you'd be like, oh, that could be 0-4. And now what do you do? Do you fire Aaron Glenn? Do you say, fuck it, now let's go for the number 1 pick? But all the buzz on the Titans has been so bad in the preseason, and I actually think they'll probably beat the Titans.

We're gonna be overwhelmed in a stupid way by the winner of that Titans-Jets game, I think.

Well, we talked about this.

Let ourselves do that.

We talked about this, tried to remember it midway through the year. We were like, let's remember this for next year. The dumbest week 1 result.

Yeah.

And last year was the Raiders beating the Patriots, which just led to all these different dumb outcomes in our heads that then the opposite happened. It's that Titans-Jets game is a candidate for what could be the dumbest result.

I looked through them, but you know, if you look at the rest of the schedule, there are a lot of games where they should win if they score like 21 or 22 points. I just know with Geno— so Geno went from Seattle, good, to the Raiders, just pathetic. The Jets offensive line's probably somewhere in between And probably enough to watch this game.

Geno was an outright atrocity last year, but they couldn't block for him and he was running for his life.

Right.

So he's either washed up or the Raiders thing was, was really bad. They play Malik Willis twice, Cleveland, Cam Ward, Cousins, Brissett, Kyler.

Yeah.

Maybe can win 6, 7 of those. I have them at 7-10. I don't feel great about it. I wouldn't—

Both have the Jets over. My God.

I know. I just think it's too low. I mean, what were they last year? They're 3-14, but they traded their 2 best guys midway through the season.

Yeah.

And also had, you know, we, we were trying not to talk about regression too much, but that, that was one of the craziest things ever, not having an interception. Okay. Miami Dolphins is the last one. They have a new coach. Let's pour one out for DJ Mikey Mack.

That's it.

He's done spinning the discs in Miami. The clubs are quiet today.

He landed on his feet.

Yes.

He's clubbing it out here.

Clubbing it out in San Diego. Miami was, uh, 7-10 last year. Their over-under is 3.5.

I had to double-check that. I'm like, oh yeah, you're right.

7-10. 15-1 to make the playoffs. Yeah. Worst record, they're +220.

Good.

If you wanna zag and bet on them to go 8-9, it's 7. Plus $700,000. I'm gonna list their highest played— highest paid players for you this year. Have you seen this graphic?

They're somewhere else.

Yeah. Tua, $55.4 million. Yeah, not on the team. Tyreek, $28.2 million, not on the team. Waddle, $23.2 million, doesn't play for them. Jalen Ramsey, $20.9 million, not on the team. Fitzpatrick, $13 million. Nope. Zach Seeler, 11.4 on the team. We got one.

Welcome.

Bradley Chubb, 11. Nope. And Armstead, 10.7. So their 8 most expensive guys that they're still paying—

You said Waddle too?

Waddle.

Yeah.

Yeah.

7 of the 8 are not on the team.

Yeah.

They're paying 7 of those guys not to play for the—

6 players, $162 million. The guys are not playing.

Malik Willis. They're paying Malik something.

I'm just, I just gave you 8 guys. Malik, Is— what was he, 20? But they could spread it out. Oh yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Um, oh man.

I, I, I—

so the only case for them is if you feel like they actually had the worst quarterback situation on one of the top 3— Cleveland, Minnesota, Miami— and Willis will actually be pretty good. They're bringing in Halfway for the defense. And then could there be some sort of— could they just be this funky run team that 5 times a year they just rush for 280 yards on somebody that has a bad front 7 and sneak to 5 wins. I don't think they want to. It's a problem.

They don't. They did the bare minimum. They extended De'Von Achane, right? Superstar player, right?

Who they could trade in October.

And they signed Malik Willis just to have someone back there. Malik Willis, who did he walk out on practice yesterday? Was that a story? Like, you know, and he takes sacks, this guy.

So that was gonna be rough. He got so frustrated with the offense that he left.

Yeah.

Their wide receivers are—

I was just gonna hit this. Go ahead.

Well, the initial list of who their wide receivers were, 2 of those guys I don't think are the wide receivers anymore.

Who is it?

It's Chris Bell.

Uh, yes, he is out. Yeah.

Well, who are the receivers?

Malik Washington, Jaylen Tolbert, and Tutu Atwell.

I think 2 of those guys have been nudged out. I don't even— I think they're—

I checked the depth chart. Wait, wait, let me see the—

well, regardless.

It's still Tolbert, Malik Washington, Caleb Douglas, Texas Tech. Okay. Yeah. Tutu's 4th. Chris Bell's out. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's garbage. It's rough. I don't know. You know, again, you don't want to give anyone 2 wins, but very surprised if this team had more than 3.

Offensive line is actually weirdly competent. I wouldn't say it's great, but it's solid.

Yeah.

Secondary is all time. Like they traded Waddle basically for that Chris Johnson, the cornerback. And if he's not good, I don't even know who's covering receivers for them. It's the— and it's not like the pass rush is gonna be better than—

You remember the Jets futility, what, 2009, '10, whatever? 25 years since the Dolphins won a playoff game. And on the season ticket this year, it actually says 20. They crossed off, it says 26. It's like, don't even expect anything this year. Jesus. That's how it is. House loves Bobby Slowik though.

A lot of Chop Robinson that they have to push that this is a breakout year for Chop.

Yeah.

Yeah. Bobby Slowik. Here's the other weird thing about them, and this is why I think there's a real case for the under. They play a lot of good quarterbacks. They have the Drake Maye-Josh Allen combo 4 times. Purdy, Mahomes, Burrow, Goff, Caleb Love, and Herbert. Yeah. And this is with the worst secondary in the league.

Oh my God.

So this is gonna be one of those situations where it's like, oh, my QB's playing the Dolphins this weekend.

Like, right, 6 of the first 9 against playoff teams. Yep.

With all that said, I, I'm, I'm ready to be talked into going over and saying that I'm gonna go 4-13. Now I wanna talk it out.

Oh, I thought we just did.

It's either 3 or 4.

They're favored in one game against the Jets.

Could they do like a funky running thing 3 times?

We get yes, and then, and it's still an under 3 total. 3-14 is under 3.5 wins.

I think it's a battle to the grave with the Cardinals for that first pick.

I think you're right. I, I think if you're gonna go over with the Jets, you're not allowed to also go over with the Dolphins, right? Is a good way to think about this.

13 draft picks though, so maybe in a couple years it'll figure out.

At Raiders, at Niners, home Chiefs, at Vikings, home Bengals. Basically the Raiders is a must-win game if you're going over. I think if they lose that game, it's, it's a wrap. You're not getting the over on that. House, give us your AFC East thoughts.

So I'm in lockstep with the Cousin Sal. Um, the Buffalo Bills haven't lost, uh, well, I'll say it the other way around, have won at least 11 games since 2018. So if Josh Allen's the quarterback and he plays, then the Buffalo Bills are gonna win 11 games. I really am intrigued by this New England situation because I think that they're a 10 or 11-win team, but I'm, I'm gonna sit tight. I want them to, to start the season off 1-3. They, they are at Seattle, they're home against Pittsburgh, they're at Jacksonville, they're at Buffalo. If the Patriots come out 1-3, I am— the win totals that will be available at that point of the season, 4 weeks in, mark your calendar right now, get in there and jump on Patriots 10 wins at that point.

He's still injured. You could see, you can't— he can't throw, he can't rear back. That's what we're gonna hear. 1-3.

That feels like 2-2.

Okay, I, I don't disagree. I'm rooting for 1-3.

The greatest thing about that, if you had the Pats over, if they somehow won the Seattle game, you'd be like, oh my God, right? That was the guaranteed loss of all of these.

Your, your best price is going to come from them being a little bit, you know, where people have questions.

So you have Buffalo for the division too? I do, yeah. Jets over?

Jets over, yep. The Jets have 8 new starters on defense. The Jets went out and got Minkah Fitzpatrick and David Onyata and all these guys. Crazy.

I kind of liked what they did.

Yeah, there's—

I won't name names, but there's a couple Jets fans in my life, not fantasy, um, who are like weirdly optimistic about this Jets team. I think it's kind of hit the, you know, if we can just get Geno back to the Geno from 2 years ago. I do like the tight end, Sadiq. I think he's gonna be good.

Yeah, Oregon kid.

Yeah, but we'll see. All right, so NFC— I'm sorry, AFC. No locks for us in this.

Nah.

You have Buffalo-New England. I have New England-Buffalo. And if you do either of those with Jets 3, Miami 4, I mean, the, the, the higher money thing would be to do the Pats. Go Pats, Bills, Jets, Miami is probably at least like 5-to-1.

Yeah, it's probably 5-to-1, 6-to-1 range.

We'll do this next week, but, um, Jets 3rd place I think is even odds.

Really?

Yeah. Isn't that good?

Yeah, it's pretty good.

You have to root for them just enough.

All right, that's it for the AFC. Coming back with, uh, the AFC North after this. 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. AFC North, Baltimore Ravens. Their over-under is 10.5. Some juice on the over division, +105. Super Bowl, 11-to-1. Playoffs, -300. Number 1 seed, +410. 12+ wins, +125. Under 9.5 wins, +200.

They were 8-9 last year.

Hmm.

My question for you, what if Jesse Minter is a massive upgrade over Zombie John Harbaugh. What do we do then?

Oh, that's a good one.

Zombie John.

Zombie John.

He's just like, um, I'm still coaching the New York Giants.

Yeah, Zombie John.

Zombie John gave that New York Giants speech. Oh man, you play for the New York Giants.

Why did they clip that out? I don't know. They put that on their social media.

It's like, really? You know, our wives have friends that they'll send the Instagram photo they're thinking about posting to make sure that they look okay. And then you have to get the approval. It should be that way for the football teams with these social clips. There should have been somebody in the Giants like, no, we're not posting that. It looks like an idiot.

You gave a pep talk to the Ringer staff and everyone was just looking at their phone. You would fire the social media person.

This is the Ringer. We work for the Ringer. It was like a Will Ferrell speech.

Very weird.

I drive a Dodge Stratus.

That never gave—

You play for the Giants.

And now he's gone.

I have thoughts on this, but I'll throw it to you and the Ravens. What if Jesse Minter's good?

Yeah, that would help, right? So, and they have like a 29-year-old offensive coordinator, so it all, it all helps.

They're Declan Doyle.

Declan Doyle.

Great name. That sounds like a Showtime show.

Yeah.

It's like new, new from Showtime. Declan Doyle. Did you, uh, he's a cop on the edge.

Yeah. Declan Doyle, get that badge. They signed Trey Hendrickson. You say there's no karma in football, but that Max Crosby, how they took advantage of the disabled Raiders and the Ravens do that shit every year. Yeah. This year it hurt. They got Trey Hendrickson. But maybe the karma is they lose Tyler Lindenbaum to free agency and now they have a center out. Yeah. So that's tough.

Third stringer.

Yeah. You always talk about it, right?

San Diego got Brandon.

Brandon Brandt. Right. So the funniest move they did was extending, and I know you like this, to Zay Flowers, and they gave him just a ton of money. And like, to me, I think the litmus test is they're treating this guy like a superstar, but If NBC was like promoting next week's game, like Baltimore against, right, you know, the Chargers, it would be Herbert. And if they put Zay Flowers up, would, would you chuckle? If you chuckle, then it's a terrible signing giving him all this money. I think we're at that chuckle point. So I don't know.

It's like in the NBA with the last guy introduced in the starting lineup.

Yeah.

So if I'm like, ooh, right. Yikes.

There's a reason.

Who's gonna be the last guy for the Wiz this year, House? Trae Young or Anthony Davis?

AJ Dabanza. What are you talking about?

He's gonna be the last guy over Trae Young.

He's the most exciting player. He's the number 1 draft pick.

That's what I would do.

I don't know what the hell's happening to some of you guys.

Lamar, since his calf injury, what was it? Right? When he, 25 yards per game rushing. And that's big. And we talk about these guys all going from 28 to 29 years old, whatever that—

Really shocking when you look at the Pro Reference, Pro Football Reference, the career and watching the attempts and the yards. Right.

And I hate to harp on it, but it's big. I mean, on 3rd and 4, that was really a lot of times their only outlet, like, to continue to drive. So trenches were bad, 26th in pass blocking, 28th in sacks on the other side.

Offensive line is the thing that probably worries me the most.

Yeah.

I don't think it's gonna be bad, but I don't think it's gonna be good either. They just need to be mediocre. 2 things that jump out. maybe top 3 easiest schedule in the league.

First 7, early, early.

Yeah, first 7. It's like, how are you not 6-1 after these first 7? I talked to Mallory last night 'cause for help for the AFC North. At Colts, Saints, at Cowboys, Titans, at Falcons, at Browns, Bengals.

Well, Cowboys is in Rio, but yeah.

Mm-hmm. Should be 5-2 minimum.

Yeah.

Those are some of the worst teams in the league.

And they were 2-5 to start last year. Right.

So good QBs they play, which is another thing I love to look at. This was huge for the Pats last year 'cause they played no good QBs. Burrow twice, Dak, Josh Allen, Lawrence, Herbert. That's it.

Hmm.

Basically 7 out of the 17 games. I'm all in on Jesse Minter. And my favorite thing to do, I talked about this in the part 1, is the coach that can come in and do Mike Vrabel, especially if they're following the shitty coach. Mike Vrabel following Mayo or Dan Quinn following— who's the crappy guy? Um, Ron Rivera.

Yeah, Riverboat Ron.

And it's just so easy. It's like, oh, that, that's worth 6 wins. We didn't really have that situation this year with the new coach hires, but I think the 2 new coach hires that were the significant ones, this is one of them because it's like, oh, John Harbaugh was good, he won all those games. I actually think he's going to be a massive upgrade. I thought he was unbelievable with the Chargers last year. That was like one of the best coordinator coaching jobs anyone did. Their defense was kind of old. They had injuries, and it just didn't seem to matter. They were flying around. And I was won over. As you know, I overreact to social media videos in August and quotes from teammates about players on their team that are young players or rookies. That video of him singing Eminem as the whole locker room is going nuts.

Yeah.

I was like, I've seen enough. The jury's in.

Um, should Harbaugh have tried that with the Giants?

You have the Harbaugh thing on one where he's doing Will Ferrell, and then you have Jesse Minter singing for his team and they're all fucking losing their minds. 12-5.

I'm way over.

Way over.

So is this a lock?

This is a lock.

Wow.

Can I say this is— I'm jealous of this take now. Like, if I could change—

Take it right now.

I'm locked into 10.

We're all friends.

No. No, not after this.

So you're going under?

I'm going 10. Well, it's, it's a good year. It's 10. It's the playoffs.

I have to. And then 12+ wins. There's been some juice on the Ravens, but 12+ wins is +125. I mean, AFC South and NFC South are the divisions.

Yeah.

The quarterbacks I mentioned, like I said, and I'm jealous. And honestly, if you read between the lines, you talk to like Mallory and I were talking about it last night, the Ravens fans was the Harbaugh was drive him to the airport status for everybody. Seems like it was the case for Lamar too. There's a little fuck you with Lamar, I think, this season.

Really?

Like, oh, you're counting me out? Oh, you think this was a big loss that we lost this fucking clown Harbaugh? I'm not saying he said this, but I think he's gonna have a little, little oomph to him. Derrick Henry, oh, you're counting me out? You think I'm old? You think I can't do this again? It's just a fucking— this is a chip on the shoulder team.

Interesting.

Jesse Minner proving that he belongs with the big boys. We have a new coach every year that crushes it. Just, it's a lock. I think he's the coach.

All right. I mean, honestly, the counting us out, that's the only thing you would go against. Like, what if their running game is nonexistent with Lamar getting older and choosing not to run? Derrick Henry, finally the touches carrying, catching up with him. But other than that, you're probably right.

Week 5 at Atlanta and their shitty defense.

Yeah.

Collinsworth. I think they're gonna have to hose him down.

That's an NBC game. Yeah.

Oh my God, Lamar. Anyone who thinks Lamar isn't back, come on, come on.

I mean, Arthur Blank could have signed this guy. What is he kicking himself? Arthur Blank, Arthur Blank in the luxury box, just beating himself up.

So win that game 52 to 10, then next week lose to the Browns in Cleveland.

Yeah.

'Cause that happens every year. Uh, I'm really hard aggressive over Ravens.

7 to 12 is tough. Cincy, Buffalo, Jacksonville, Chargers. Yep. Panthers, Texans. So 5 playoff teams in a row plus Cincy.

Cincy, the sexy team du jour in the AFC East. Sorry to say du jour and make you hungry, House. House hears du jour, he thinks of soup. He thinks of— I do like the specials.

Yes.

What special, House? Oh, when you're— when the waiter comes over, what's the number one thing where you're like, oh, you mean like it's not on the menu?

Yeah, what tonight's special is when he's talking about steaks, fish. We've covered this territory because it is special. The veal chop. Oh, we have a veal chop tonight. We're going to do it with a little Marsala sauce.

What if they gave you the pounded veal chop bolognese?

Phenomenal. That's an absolute—

that's a blind order for me.

Yeah.

Veal chop Milanese at a nice restaurant.

It's like, really great.

That sounds awesome.

I, I tune— I almost always tune the specials out.

You do? Why, man? You've already decided. You're like the Ravens. Well, I've already decided on 10 and 7. I don't want to hear your opinions.

What's your track record with specials? Like, mine's like 10%.

So with that in mind, special to the restaurant, the chef's like, I was excited to make this thing.

You gotta pretend, you know? Yeah. But you're not even— what do I care what he— he almost definitely has different tastes than I do.

Well, Cincy is the sexy team du jour.

Yep.

Their over is up to 10.5 inexplicably. They were 6-11 last year. -198 for the playoffs, +165 for the division, 21 for the Super Bowl. Uh, you can super short them and go under 7.5 for them at +420, which— Which, which guy in Ringer Wise Guys is gonna do that? What?

It feels DeBando-ish. Yeah, they, they, we've already covered this, this hard. All under.

Sure. Yeah, I can't remember. Yeah.

No, 420.

Really?

420s. That's under 7 and 10. So that's a 5-week Burrow injury basically.

They could do that. They could do that.

My what if for you, never mentioned in all of the, we love the Bengals regression schedule's so much easier. Joe Burrow. What if the Bengals can't block for Joe Burrow again? Because I don't think they're gonna be able to.

They didn't do it. First of all, it, it sucks that their defense was maybe worse than their offensive line, which could never protect Joe Burrow. Yeah. And they decided to put all their assets into defense, all the picks.

But with, but with part of the logic being, if we improve our defense, that makes it easier for Joe.

He won't have to be on the field as much. It's like, right.

Is, does that make it easier for Joe? He's, he's still running for his life when you run plays for him. How is that easier? I would've rather got an offensive line.

It's bad. But they did score 37 back-to-back games and lost both. So I think that has to be the concern. But then again, you're right. Yeah, he's played 6 years. He's made it to the finish line 3 of those 6 or whatever, as, as they played it.

And honestly wasn't playing that well last year before he went down.

Yeah.

And he gave up 492 points last year.

The Super Bowl year, he wasn't that wasn't his best year either.

Right.

I wanna talk about Zach Taylor because this is the hottest of hot seats.

Like, he's number one hot seat, right?

If this is Hot Ones, what, what flavor of hot is this house? Is this like Armageddon?

Yeah. Whatever the atomic one.

Yeah.

One of the last 2 or 3.

Yeah. Torchbearer.

The only reason I don't think it's the hottest is 'cause they're so fucking cheap. They would have to do the calculus of paying 2 coaches.

Yeah.

Like, how much extra is this gonna cost?

Well, what, what happened to the—

$75,000 in the middle of the year? Yeah.

Right. The interim is an assistant and they just promote the assistant.

Now he had excuses.

I don't think he had has him this year.

If Burrow makes it or not, I think this is it.

Absolutely. I wrote— it's funny you said hot seat. I wrote make or break coach this year. Sure. Um, just like, this is it. I did— there's no way he comes back if they don't make it. Also, Burrow has not made the playoffs since 2022, and I do wonder if there's a world where Mahomes doesn't get concussed in that playoff game, which he clearly got concussed, and then they left him in. They don't even make it to cost the 3 of us a lot of money.

Yeah.

And also led the Bengals to the Super Bowl. And Joe Burrow has never been in a Super Bowl. Mahomes just makes it again. Like, do we talk about him a little differently?

Right.

Does he just become Dak Prescott at that point?

Maybe.

Way better pass rush, easy schedule, and easy Patriots-ass schedule. That's about it.

Extra games at Miami, at Washington, home for KC. No short week games. Right. They, they finally took a center in the 4th round, but otherwise it was all defense. They signed Dexter Lawrence. They get him from the Giants. Their 2nd round pick.

They signed and traded him basically. They gave up the 10th pick in the draft for him.

Right. That was it. So the 1st pick was a 2nd round pick. This guy has historically short arms, they say. Cassius Howell, the edge, but he's supposed to also help. 3rd easiest strength of schedule.

I have their roster at 17 points.

Mm-hmm.

Burrow is 8 of those points. He has an 8. Josh Allen was a 9. Burrow was an 8.

Yeah.

Chase was a 5. Highest receiver points you can get in my system, 5. Higgins was 2. So just 15 points for those 3 guys. I had the offensive line as a -1. You could talk me into a -2 for them. And Lawrence has 3 points and no other guy's got points. And this is like, I take the player ranking thing seriously. I don't know if it always works, but I read all the lists. Like ESPN has a great list, PFF. Sure. They have 4 good players. I don't understand how we're penciling them in for 11 wins. I don't care how easy the schedule is. I don't see what's different about them than last year. I don't really get the case.

I don't normally bite on Cincinnati. I'm always like, yeah, this is a sexy team. I don't know why I'm going over. I probably wish I could reverse what I did, but you know, you did with the Ravens and Bengals, but I'm going— I'd go over 10.5 at +105. What is— that's their number?

Yeah, 10.5. Yeah, they play— the only good QBs they play are Lamar twice, Mahomes, Lawrence, and Daniels. And that's the thing, they move into the Stroud, Rodgers 2 times, Baker, Shuck, um, Bryce, and Daniel Jones and his one leg. And then they play Watson twice, Willis, Cam Ward and, and Tua/Pennix.

I think what I'm looking at, giving them 11 wins.

I went 10 wins even though I don't even like the team. I just feel like they're gonna score 30 points 10 times against a shitty team, right?

Yeah. And, you know, take it for what it's worth, favorite in 15 games.

Yeah.

15 is something.

I think that matters.

Yeah, for sure.

I just, 11 wins seems rich for me considering, right, A, they can't block. B, Burrow injury potential. C, how many times, how many games did Chase and Higgins play together?

Right.

I always feel like one of them is banged up or Higgins goes out for 3, 4 weeks. So I don't know, 10 wins seems, the under seems safe because if there's an injury to Chase or an injury to Burrow or an injury to Lawrence, like any of those 3 guys, you could say this about a lot of teams, but especially this team, like they have no room for error with their star players. So under for me.

You don't like Flacco coming in in relief? No.

Pittsburgh Steelers, their over-under is 8.5, 5-to-1 for the division. A couple Ringer wise guys kicked the tires on that one a little bit. Playoffs +160. 10+ wins is +180. I would do that over playoffs 'cause I think, I think it's gonna be 10 in the AFC. Under 5.5 wins is +380. Couple what-ifs here. What if Rodgers cannot make it through the season at age 42?

Whoa, whoa, bombshell.

Well, what if— is there any chance with Drew Allar that they could still hit the over? Oh, the preseason was pretty impressive for, for our guy Drew.

Yeah.

And I don't— yeah, I don't, I don't feel— I feel like they could go 9-8 even if Rodgers doesn't finish the season. What are your thoughts on that?

That's interesting. I do have him playing over 3.5 games, a line I made up in my head. I don't know that this reincarnation of, you know, Mike McCarthy, and I don't know if this, this isn't the offense he signed up for. This guy throws 30% of his passes beyond, behind or at the line of scrimmage.

I mean, and they're trying to stretch it out.

Yeah, we could cry. I mean, everything was as good as it could be for the Steelers last year, right? Yeah. Like they were 10-7. To say they're gonna regress 2 games and break that streak. And by the way, I wish they had a camera on Mike Tomlin when they officially go 8-9, 'cause that's where I have them here.

Okay.

But yeah, it's, it's all Rodgers. Thanks for coming back, but I will not take the fifth as I review his putrid, putrid stats here. 32nd in success rate, 33rd in air yards, 28th, 3rd and outs. Dead last completion under pressure. There you go. I said it.

I think I rooted for the team that he had the good game against, or bet on the team that he had the good game against all the times it happened. Yeah, I felt like I was 0 for 6.

How lucky could they get? Burrow was out. The Ravens started 1-5, 2-5. The Browns were the Browns.

There's some injuries on defense. Yeah, there's a Week 13 game. They go Broncos Black Friday. at home, and then the next week Sunday Night Football against the Texans, and Tomlin's gonna be there obviously, or, or it's a Tomlin game, and that is the worst possible defense for a 42-year-old.

Oh yeah.

Aaron Rodgers. I just feel like they'll be cutting to Tomlin kind of being like, um, all right, so I mentioned, I mentioned the coaches thing with when we were talking about, uh Yeah. Mentor about how this year it's weird with the coaching changes 'cause they're the ones that I think are gonna be significant aren't necessarily the ones you would think. Kind of feel that way about Pittsburgh. I think my other what-if would be, what if Tomlin was kind of washed the last couple years? Hmm. Their offense was an abomination. They have good players in their defense. Like I had in my player rankings, 5 guys have points in that defense. Everybody loves their front 7. Yeah, right. Especially if they can revive TJ Watt. Like, special teams pretty good.

Jamel Dean, great signing.

Their front 7 is gonna be awesome. Yeah, really good. And him and, and, uh, they got Pittman, which I think was important. They got Dowdle, who I've always liked.

I feel like they've set Rodgers up better than they did last year.

Yeah, this team's good. I, I actually think they're pretty talented.

And, uh, you're gonna go 9, 10 wins? What are you doing?

Well, here's the thing with McCarthy. He has basically the exact same credentials with the records as Harbaugh and Payton.

Mm-hmm.

They all won a Super Bowl. They've all around the same with the wins. Like if you, if you hid the names and just looked at the thing, you wouldn't know who was who.

Right.

I just feel like this is 10-7.

Hmm.

And maybe even a little bit higher. I think their offense is gonna be way better. He's good at offense. You had him in Dallas. I know their offense put up, their offense did shit.

Our, our quarterback throws beyond the line of scrimmage though.

True.

Do I have to take you through those numbers again?

I get it.

And I know they get a wide receiver, Alabama, they're excited about and all that. But I, I just, I don't like the schedule at all. I feel like they have to go 6-3 before that mid-stretch of Cincinnati, Philly, Denver on Black Friday at Jacksonville and Baltimore. That is crushing in that middle of the month.

Week 10 to 15. Yeah.

10 to 15. That's it.

Cleveland twice, Atlanta, Jones, Shuck, Bryce, and Ward. So they have 7 bad QB games basically, which is okay.

I think they're collapse-proof though, pretty much because they knuckleball their way to wins. They win these clownish games. So that's why I have 'em at 8-9.

But zero indoor games for the Steelers. Outdoors for 4+ months.

Yeah, I think that's fine.

I think that's good for them though.

Yeah.

They beat the Falcons week 1, Patriots at Patriots, Bengals at Browns, home Colts. I genuinely think that's 4-1.

They're gonna have— that's what they're gonna have to be with those other games we, we mentioned.

The problem for them is they lose to the Browns or have a weird game against the Browns every year. They have week 8, November 1st, Browns Thursday Night Football.

I'll—

I'm already predicting that's one of the 5 weirdest games of the year. Yeah, yeah, that'll be decided by Something bizarre. I like this team though. I think, I think this is the 10-win team, not the Bengals.

Wow. You think the outdoor games help?

Although I had the Bengals 10 wins too. I think for, I think it'll come down to the matchups. I think they're gonna get the playoff spot, not the Bengals.

No kidding. Interesting.

I had the Bengals at either 9 or 10, but I think that Steelers get the 10.

I mean, they faced the number 3 pass defense right now this year. in their schedules. I don't, I don't know. I don't know how he does it.

I like the vibes. I like everything I'm seeing from the training camp. And I think Tomlin, I think that just got weird. I think, you know, you're the coach of the team and everybody kind of knows it's ending and he almost didn't come back the previous year. I just—

You say all that, but remember, go back and look year over year over year, their record in one-score games. Their— and, and the record of the Steelers as underdogs. Nobody matches Tomlin for that. And they, they ran that playbook to a T last year.

7-3 last year, one score, +12 turnover margin. You know, I just think—

Well, can't they have the DNA from that with also having a better offense?

Yeah, they could get— the funny thing is they're going to get as far as they did. That, that's absolutely the furthest. Who'd they play? Houston the first round and got smoked. You play the outdoor game and now you got a 40-something-year-old quarterback. Yeah. who has to get rid of the ball.

Yeah, I don't think they're winning a playoff round. I just think that there's a path for 10-7. And most of it has to do with Cincinnati, who I kind of wish I had picked for 9-8, but I just, I couldn't, I really had trouble finding AFC wins. I was really low on everybody. Like I added it up and I was like, ah, fuck. Like I'm 7 wins lower than I need to be.

Don't tip your hand here. You added 7 wins. Don't, don't dance yet.

You gave 5 of the first, we've done 2 divisions in the AFC and you have 5 of those teams at at least 10 wins.

Yeah, he found, he found the place.

He has Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Cincy.

Yeah. Maybe a little Buffalo.

That's 50 wins.

And I know he has Houston at 15 wins, so I don't think—

Maybe I need to move Cincinnati to 9-8.

Move 'em to the NFC.

All right, last one is Cleveland. Cleveland was my favorite sleeper for about 2 weeks during the part of the summer when you start talking yourself into teams.

Yeah.

Their over-under's 5.5, playoffs +640, worst record 6-1. Last year they were 5-12. Um, they had a harder schedule, a worse roster, in the same terrible QB situation they're in now. Um, they also had Myles Garrett and they had Jim Schwartz.

Mm-hmm.

And Stefanski. Um, what if the Browns miraculously get like a C- from the QB position? What if Watson has a little bit of a turnaround or Sanders comes in like just a C-, not even a C+? Mm-hmm. Could this team win like 8 games?

No, C- still gets them to 7 games, I think.

Okay.

I think, I mean, this is a laughable situation and a mutual friend of ours.

Yeah.

Who hates the Browns.

Yeah.

Said, has this Deshaun Watson signing handcuffed them more than any other player in any franchise ever? for as long as it has. Now, the counter to that is they always make mistakes anyway. The Browns ownership, they weren't going to win anyway.

They were just going to fuck it up with somebody else.

Yeah. But in terms of morally corrupt, going in and then signing him in and giving him the big money, and then for him to go out there and say, why am I getting booed? How dare they? It was like, who's going to get booed if you don't get booed? You played 19 games in 3 years. You've been horrific. and they can't move on because of you. And now you're the starter.

It's pretty rare. Like, you see teams or players, like, they bum out their fan base, suck the life out of them. You rarely see the fan base enraged. Yeah, it's the hardest thing to do. Like, when the Red Sox traded Mookie Betts, like, we were enraged. We really— made us mad. This is like a whole other level. I don't even know.

There's no one, right?

This is like somebody walking in on their wife or husband just having sex with the doorman.

Yeah.

You know, and not even normal sex, like, like a crazy position.

House, right?

Lord.

Yeah.

I thought House told you not to say anything about this.

Sorry, House.

Yeah.

No, but just like you walk in on something pretty crazy, right? What was the movie? The Hangover? When the people are showing up for the orgy? Not The Hangover. Old School. Luke Wilson comes home.

Oh, yeah.

The people are coming for the orgy. It's like that.

Right.

The Browns fans are like that level. Like, not only is their life collapsing—

5 years, it's been a 5-year orgy. 4 years.

Well, some stuff in their favor. Myles Garrett, turns out he is eligible for the Ewing Theory. They won jack shit with him. Okay, great player. They had another monster draft. They've had 2 awesome drafts in a row. This one was like, they got a new left tackle, Concepcion and Boston. Everybody loves these guys at receiver. They got McNeil Warren at safety. All those guys were top 60 picks.

The last draft was Fannon, Judkins, and Schlesinger, the Defensive Rookie of the Year.

And there was one more. And Judkins, did you say Judkins?

Yeah, the running back. Yeah.

They have young talent anywhere. And I, again, I thought Stefanski was terrible last year, like to the point it seemed like he was throwing games, but he might've just been bad. Their offensive line's iffier. And no Jim Schwartz, who, um, sadly they couldn't keep or figure out how to have coach.

Yeah. Here's why I think your C-minus quarterback thing won't hold up. I don't think the defense will be nearly as good. They boast like having 45 straight games without allowing a 300-yard passer. Guess why? Because Myles Garrett is getting double-teamed. Jared Verse is a nice player, but yeah, it's not gonna be the same thing.

So, so you're not buying the Ewing theory?

They're gonna have to score 27 to win a lot of games, I think.

One case for them is how awful their schedule is. I mean, how awfully good it is for them. Rodgers twice, Bryce, Geno, Cam Ward, Cousins, Stroud, Shuck, Tua, Dart, Jones are all quarterbacks they play.

Mm-hmm.

So if their defense is good, they really— there is a path for them to get to 7-10, even if they're just handing the ball off every, you know, for 4 quarters. I, uh, I have them as a slight under at 5-12, and you could even talk me into 4-13. And the reason is, now it'd be the most Browns thing ever for them to fuck up their chance to finally get a quarterback by having a bad pick. But I just— how are the incentives aligned to do this? Like, we just saw how— Haslam owns the Bucs. He could have traded Giannis for Jalen and picks, right? And tried to be good. And instead they tanked and they're gonna rebuild and I, I don't understand that.

Well, he's used to being wrong, but they did ask Haslam, or he offered it. I think they asked him. They told him it was 5.5 with his over-under. I'm serious. And he said he would go over. Right. So that's just something else he's gonna be wrong about. That's probably what the only thing we've needed to discuss in terms of picking this.

So they have Watson for 2 games at Jags at Bucs.

Yeah.

Jason Lloyd, who does a good job at The Athletic, wrote a piece about They're telling, they're telling you all what they think of Shedeur Sanders by how they've handled this. Like, they obviously just don't think he's good, right? And there's no other— unless they trade for, I don't know, Stetson Bennett or, uh, Tyson Bagent.

Jimmy G's a free agent.

Yeah, talk Jimmy. If you're Jimmy G, do you want to go play for the Browns and get the shit kicked out of you? I'm a slight under. I'm 5-12.

5-12 is where I have it too.

Can't— I couldn't go over on this.

Yep.

House, your thoughts on this division?

Yeah, so I am drinking the Cincinnati Kool-Aid.

Um, I knew you would.

You have to believe that the offensive line, that the idea of continuity, even though they were substandard in execution, that the guys returning, that there's an upside to it. That's the only way this makes any sense, because you have appropriately criticized that offensive line, and it has been the thing that's held them back because they can't keep Joe Burrow upright. But when he's upright, With all those weapons. Now, I have a view. You and I talked about this before taping today. I think that defense is, is potentially sneaky good. It took them a while to get used to Al Golden, who came over from Notre Dame.

I'm in on this too.

Half of the season, we talked about this, and the splits for them the latter half of the season, he did some things that, that, that, um, uncomplicated assignments. He altered the scheme and they all got on the same page. Now you pointed out, look at who they played.

I was in on this theory till I looked who they played, but he won me over for 10 seconds with this theory.

Yeah.

And then we went and actually looked who they played.

What about you can only play who's on your schedule?

No, no, no. I think there were reasons that he played.

And it was a very good defense against those shit teams and those shit quarterbacks. And this schedule that the Bengals have in front of them, that's what really bolsters the case. I love what you're doing with Baltimore and I don't really disagree. I just, To me, as a brand new coach, I have Jesse Minter and this Baltimore team in the exact same place as Seattle with Mike McDonald. They won 10 games as soon as Mike McDonald arrived, and then Super Bowl the second year. I think it's going to take them one year to kind of get their legs. That defense was so bad last year, that Baltimore defense. That's what let them down more than any other thing. Jim Harbaugh, the Harbaugh coach, and the defense. So 10 wins for Baltimore is good. It's crazy to me that they arrived at 11.5. They were the top win total in the AFC for most of the summer. It just dropped down as we're, you know, everybody's starting to pay attention to 10.5. So I have Cincinnati at like 11 wins, Baltimore at 10, and then I think Pittsburgh's taken a big step back. You have to like really give credence to what Tomlin did in one-score games.

It's not just last year when 70% of their wins were one-score games.

Yeah.

It's Tomlin year after year after year.

I'm not in on it.

I get it.

And then Browns in last.

I get it. I wonder how much of it is just the franchise and the identity of the city and just weird shit happening year after year with them. 18 years. We're gonna find out for that, but we're gonna find out now that he's not there if it was Tomlin or if it was something deeper.

The Trey Hendrickson, I know we touched on it, but it's a, it's a key piece to this division, whether or not the— it makes the Ravens better. There's this, you know, there's the belief that he's 31 years old. He missed what, 9 or 10 games last year? Like you're not getting the best version of Trey Hendrickson. And if that's the case, kudos to—

I always thought he was pretty good when he played.

Yeah.

Wanted to mention quickly Fando's NFL Futures reward stack, where it's basically, it's a 5-pack house, unrestricted, 2 unrestricteds, a make-or-miss playoffs, regular season wins, player milestones. You can do any of those and you get the 50% Profit Boost Token, AKA the PPT. PBT.

PBT.

PBT. I always have Profit Boost Token. PBT. Pardon my speech dyslexia.

No. Yeah.

Fando has us covered. Uh, you have until Monday, um, August 31st, the last day of August as it turns out, to hop in on this. I would highly encourage it.

That's tomorrow.

We've given you a bunch of picks.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. He's given you a bunch of great picks. And what do you have? What's your favorite? Do we have a player one for the AFC or have we not gotten to it yet? Are you like, if you had to do an over—

Yours is AJ Brown, right?

Yeah. I would do any AJ Brown touchdowns. I'd probably do the touchdowns for AJ Brown.

Yeah.

'Cause I think there's gonna be some fuck you touchdowns in there.

Mm-hmm.

Would be my guess.

Does FanDuel list fuck you touchdowns?

I mean, I looked, I searched for fuck you and I couldn't find it.

Like a 6.5 or something for Henry.

All right. The most boring part of the podcast and every Ringer podcast is the AFC South and the Houston Texans. Yeah. It's rare we're all aligned on a team. I, I had to make some moves to be able to get these Houston bets in, in a month ago that I don't wanna talk about.

I love this. Please talk about it.

He made some moves.

I'm gonna talk about it. My daughter's—

and then think about it.

Yeah. My daughter's boyfriend Hank, who's a great kid, um, both turned 21 this summer, as did my, uh, my daughter. And FanDuel is in Massachusetts, obviously. And there was a couple bets I really wanted to get in. I wanted— there was UCLA overs, but Houston, the market had not shifted appropriately yet. I can't have my daughter do it. My dad would have no idea how to do it. But Hank, I really Trust Hank. I, I let Hank log into my FanDuel as me. I get the code to make sure it's me to my phone. I give him the code, he logs in, and I have all this money that I had from last year because I actually hit a bunch of futures last year. And he's putting in bets for me, and honestly, it was the closest I've ever felt to Hank. It's a real bonding moment for us. A week later, called him up, so good. Ran it back. We did some more.

You know what's great about this for Hank? Like, you know, the, the, the groom is traditionally supposed to ask the father of the bride if she can have her hand. Do I have your blessing? And he's like, oh no, I have his Fandule password. I, I definitely have his blessing to take his dog.

If Zoe calls him, he's like, Dad, I broke up with Hank. I'm like, hold on, I changed my password.

It's the greatest.

Uh, Anyway, Hank, have you told her she needs to give you a heads up if they're going to break up so you can change the password?

Oh, like inside information.

She needs— yeah, you need that.

She's going to give it to Adam Schefter. He read Adam Schefter. What did you say?

What was the weird news? Dead fish.

You dead fished House. He met House, met Adam Schefter a couple of years ago. Like a pretty— not that big country club golf. Well, that was a very nice charity event.

Very nice.

Yeah. And House went up to him knowing that he'd been— Adam Schefter had been on my podcast, obviously. House introduced himself, and I'm at The Ringer.

And I just want to express my admiration.

It wasn't like I'm not here to talk for 10 minutes.

It wasn't an earbender. I didn't show up with intentions, and I made it clear that I would move right on. I was near the bar. It was a drive-by.

He just deadfished House.

Was he on 2 phones at the time?

House didn't tell us this for 2 years.

Yeah.

What the hell, House?

Why are you holding this in?

I've been saving it. He really was, uh, he didn't need to be so mean to Jed York, so I had to share the story now.

Okay. He was really upset about Jed York. I've known House since 1988. This is less than 3 stories of people who have deadfished House. Yeah, everybody loves House.

You don't deadfish House.

I couldn't believe it. How dare anyone's mean to House? Um, Houston Texans over 9.5. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah.

Divisions +120. Sign me up for that. Playoffs -176. Throw that in any parlay. Number 1 seed +950. 12+ wins +220.

You, you love this.

Best record 12-1. I, long storied case on why I love this, but I'll give you the what if. What if they can semi-salvage Stroud this year? C+ Stroud. Oh yeah, just gimme a C+.

Yeah. Well, listen, he was fine except for those playoff, and those playoff games is what cost him an extension, right? Like he really should have been re-signed. Anybody else would've. But then what did he do? 5 interceptions, 6 sacks, no touchdowns. Maybe showing up to training camp with the awkward backpack and like he's about to present his social studies project. I mean, that might've hurt too, but other than that, it doesn't really matter. It really doesn't. Like they get so much pressure from Denell Hunter and Will Anderson, who they extended, and that's all they kind of need defensively. They're the scariest team in the league, and that's why as long as they're healthy, they're bulletproof the rest of the way.

I felt like I was taking crazy pills the entire offseason. They have the best defense in the league. Yeah, it's the best. Nobody would argue it. They didn't lose anybody from the defense and added Blankenship, right? So everybody's back. I thought they were probably the best team last year, and Stroud just fucked 'em in that game. Why did he fuck 'em? Bad offensive line. They had the worst running backs in the league, and they had wide receiver injuries. And I just think he lost his confidence as the year went along. Montgomery, not gonna tell my grandkids that I saw David Montgomery run the ball in the NFL.

Your grandkids are gonna have your password to—

Yeah, my grandkids are like, Grandpa, I'm on your FanDuel. But Montgomery's really solid. They had Nick Chubb last year who just retired.

Yeah.

And they had Woody Marks and they, it was just a rotating, you know, and now they, they're competent there. Wide receivers deeper.

They have, they had red zone woes, definitely. And Montgomery should solve a few of those.

Really frustrating if you bet on them last year. I had them in a tease to watch them. Collins, the 2 rookies from last year, they're back.

It's a bummer.

They're—

Higgins is hurt, but Noel's back. And then Tank Dell is in the Higgins spot. And then they traded for Booty, who I really like.

Yeah.

And then the offensive line is the question. Yeah. It's not great. And it's the one red flag to me. The offensive line I'm much more worried about than Stroud. The problem is, I mean, the problem for the rest of the conference in the league Their defense is so fucking good. I'm not really sure it's gonna matter that much. Like they're gonna have leads, they're gonna just absolutely smoke teams. In my rankings, I had them at 27 points. I had 7 guys that got points on their defense. Anderson, Hunter, Alshayer, Stingley, Lassiter, Bullock, and Petre. And that's not— Blankenship didn't even get it. Fairbairn is one of the best kickers in the league. Ryans, I think, is like one of the 7 best coaches.

Right.

And I, I think their defense and the coaching and the special teams can carry this.

7th easiest strength of schedule. First 3 outta 4 are home. It's all looking good. I would put—

Does it worry you that all of us are all in on this?

Yeah.

And I, it's my only thing that scared me. Of course, I felt like as everybody was getting behind them, Higgins blew out his ACL like the, the next day almost.

That wasn't great. But I also feel there's a lot of Stroud talk. I think they could be 10 wins plus with Davis Mills. Right. And he shows he could win games only because you only have to score like 17 points to win some of these games.

It's a good point. I like Davis Mills. Yeah. If I was Cleveland, I would trade my 3rd round pick for him.

And yet they had 404 points last year, which was the 2nd most in franchise history.

Here's the thing with Stroud, at least Stroud has done it.

Yeah.

At least we know he was good at one point, which was only 2, 3 years ago. Sure. And at least we know there were real reasons he wasn't good last year. They couldn't block, they couldn't run the ball.

Yep.

He had nobody to throw the ball to, lost his confidence. That's fine. Bills-Bengals to start the season, both at home. We'll know a lot more after week 2, but they own the Bills.

Yeah.

I think, I think this defense, I think, I think they thought they were the best team last year, right? They're going in this year. They're like, we're the best team in the AFC. We're gonna go show it. So I have them, it's an over, it's a lock for me. 12-5.

12-5's the same I have 'em at. They have this Georgia Tech guard who I think allowed 2 sacks in 43 games. They're shoring up that offensive line as much as they can. They got a Michigan tight end. So I don't know. And that, that schedule, what did we say? 4 primetime. They play the Jags in London.

4 night road games. Yeah. Plus Jags in London. So that's not awesome.

No teams coming off a bye. They face no teams coming off of byes.

AFC South goes AFC North and NFC East. So not awesome. They play Allen, Burrow, Dak, Herbert, Lamar, Love, Daniels, and Hurts. And I'm not sure that's gonna matter. They end the season with the Titans, which could be dangerous for the 12+ wins bet.

Mm-hmm.

If they have whatever clinched in their—

All right. Hedge. If you had got that far. All in.

I really like the coach too. I think he's good. I, I think they probably should have beaten the Pats last year. Like, Stroud just single-handedly screwed the game up, but they— we couldn't do anything against their defense.

Yeah.

And then eventually the defense realized like, oh, we're, we're just screwed. Jacksonville, 8.5, +210 for the division, 27-1 for Super Bowl, -106 for the playoffs. Really the most dead even of all the playoffs. 12+ wins, +360. Under 7.5 wins, +190. This is yet another turnover regression team. Everybody's been regressing. We need a word for this. It's a regress— regression orgy.

Yeah.

Just these regression teams. But what if there's a crazy turnover regression coming for them? And then you pick apart the streak at the end, the 8 games, they're averaging 32 a game, and you actually go back and look at some of those games. The only really super impressive one was Denver. Right. And there's some other ones like they played Indy twice during that stretch after Jones had already gotten hurt. And yeah, I can't get there with this team.

I don't know. This is the one where my reasoning doesn't match up with my pick at all. And I have them at 10 wins. And last year we sat here and I picked 'em to win the division. And because Travis Hunter's gonna be great and Brian Thomas Jr.'s gonna have a great, what a sophomore year.

Neither, neither one happened.

And one didn't play and one barely played and it was terrible.

Yeah.

And it was all Jacoby Myers coming in. And Lawrence like stepping up like we— no one, no one's business. Etienne's gone again. I don't know why I'm ignoring the regression here. They had what, 6 one-score games and top 3 in takeaways. But I do think this is just one of my gut feelings. I'm going under because I think Indianapolis takes a tumble and I think Lawrence has the confidence to get them to double-digit wins at this point.

Oh, so you're under on the Jags?

No. Well, I was— is it 10.5?

I'm going 8.5.

Yeah, I'm going 10 wins.

Yeah. So you're over?

Over.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm under.

You choose to the over.

Yeah.

I have them at 8-9. You could talk me into 9-8. You cannot talk me into 10. My biggest thing with them, the, you know, this Hunter trade they did, which cost them a lot of draft capital, like their draft sucked. I think they had the worst draft in the league.

Yeah, it wasn't good.

And all the people I know who liked the draft also thought it was the worst draft anyone had.

The tight end, no first round pick, 19 catches.

Yeah, it was just weird.

Yeah, it wasn't that good.

They lost ETN, they lost Lloyd. They were playing, I guess, Tootin, hopefully. Keep your fingers crossed. We talked about him on Tuesday's pod. Below average offensive line. That's another thing I don't like. And then the, the Brian Thomas Jr., where it's like, no, no, he's doing great. It's like, I had him last year. I've never taken that guy again.

Yeah.

A lot of red flags. I, from a roster standpoint, I had them at 15. And that's what's giving Parker Washington a 2. I only had 3 guys on defense that I thought were impactful, and I don't like the schedule at all. They have 9 road games plus 2 in London, so they have 6 home games in Jacksonville.

Mm-hmm.

And then 11 games at all other locations. And defenses they go against this year: Cleveland, Denver, New England, Philly, Houston twice, Baltimore, Giants if they're good, and the— in, uh, a shootout with the Bears. But, um, I couldn't get there.

Yeah. Again, I don't have a lot to— they have to get to December. Like, that's where they have kind of easier. They end with Dallas, Washington, and Indianapolis. Um, they— I think they have 35 days between home games because they're doing renovations on their stadium. But I have them winning both, uh, London games. So that's why I'm at 10.

So that includes beating the Texans?

Yeah.

So I had them getting swept by the Texans, which then puts them 8-7 for everybody else.

Sure.

And I think they're a .500 team. I don't feel great about it. I certainly wouldn't make it a lock or anything. I, I, I, I just don't understand the letting Etienne go and then you get Tootin and Chris Rodriguez, House's guy. Do you watch him last year? He's fine.

He's a third stringer.

Run-of-the-mill third stringer.

The problem for this team is—

Their run game was so important for them. They have a doofus GM. James Gladstone.

We can call him out by name. He's a goofball. He's on the wrong side. Like all of the draft analysts, he's picking guys, you know, 30 spots earlier than where consensus has guys. And he's done it for 2 years. He grossly overpaid for Travis Hunter. He's the single biggest impediment to this team's advancement. 'Cause Kollm is good. He's a good head coach.

Yeah. Did he dead fish you? Is that why you're upset?

I don't know. He dead fished Shane Gladstone.

Wow.

House was like, hey, you know how I'm doing? And he's like, hey, nice to meet you.

That's it.

Indianapolis Colts over 8.5. A tale of 2 seasons last year. Yeah. Number 1 seed, 25-to-1. Gonna rule that out. Under 6.5 wins, +210, division +340. What if Daniel Jones, who blew his Achilles out halfway through last season, is not 100% this season?

No doubt.

How can you pick this team for any— for a winning record if it's Daniel Jones not 100%? Yeah, I don't see the case.

This is my lock under 6-11. Sorry, Tony Tokens. Tony and all the token family, everybody. Yeah, I'm going under here. I think you're right. I think we'd have to do exactly what he did last year, which means use his legs to extend plays. And, uh, I don't think it's happening. And Pierce just came off the PUP.

As far as that part made me nervous too. Big contract for Pierce, hasn't got the surgery after the contract or whatever the timeline was, and now it doesn't seem like he's 100%. I don't know why I'm thinking that.

They lost Pittman. I'm dinging them for what Jacksonville did too. They had turnovers in 15 games. They forced turnovers.

Yeah.

So I don't think that's happening again. I think this is a 6-11 team.

Ravens week 1, at Chiefs week 2, Texans week 3.

Yeah.

That's 0-3 with Daniel Jones on one leg, basically.

I think you can keep going. I think it gets worse and worse.

It's crazy.

I really was thinking about a lock. Should we lock this down together?

The other part of it is Lou Anarumo's, the second version of his defense. I like it less and less.

The bend, don't break.

Yeah, the bend, don't break. I think it breaks.

Yeah, I, I mean, 8, 9 and 8, I'm not gonna lock it.

Top 3 tacklers gone. Franklin, Cross, Pratt.

I might lock it. I'm gonna keep thinking about it.

All right. You lock it.

Their first 8 I do not enjoy. Good offensive line though. I'm not gonna lock it. Like Tyler Warren.

Sure.

Taylor was great last year. They get a full Sauce Gardner season. We'll see if Ward can avoid the concussions. All right, Titans over 5.5, under 4.5 is +220. Worst record's +750. I'm not giving you the other ones. They did, did bring in Big Shot Bob. Salah, right? Dayball. What if Cam Ward doesn't have it? What if he just doesn't have it? What if it's, what if he is not good? The advanced stats against him were horrific last year, right? But they also had the worst coach probably of this decade.

He's gotta show a little more than once a month doing that thing where he rolls right and he is almost stepping outta bounds, but then heaves it across the field to the coffin corner.

The video gameplay.

Yeah. It's a little bit of like a Hail Mary and did that like twice and everyone's like, oh, maybe there's something there. But yeah, you're right. The EPA, everything, it's way under.

Really like abysmally bad. No, you can't even compare it to, I don't know, Drake Maye's rookie year. Like if you watch Drake Maye that year, like, man, this guy, I was really bullish on him after the year. He's running for his life, but he was making plays and seemed like a winning quarterback. And Ward, I want him to be good. We need more good quarterbacks. I just don't know if he's good.

And again, there's a pressure on us to, to go from a 4 to a 1. a 4th place to a 1st place. I did put them at 8 wins. I do think Wandale Robinson's gonna help and Carnell Tate, like that'll be as good a wide receiver return.

8 wins this year?

Yeah, this, this year, 2026. 8-9, I have 'em. Yeah, it's okay. What's wrong?

Do you hear this, S?

House, he needs help.

What? You have Tennessee at 8-9?

Yeah. Gus Bradley, defensive coordinator. You got Saleh in there.

Gus Bradley is terrible. It's fine.

It's gonna be good. Well, 8-9.

They were at 6.5 nearly all summer, um, in terms of the win total. And then here we are and it's down to 5.5. Um, locked in, but juice to the over.

Franklin Myers, that Denver player, is really good. They locked him in. I think defense will be better.

They spent over almost $300 million on free agent talent.

Right. So it's 6 wins is -135. And Cousins is saying he sees there's a possibility for 2 more, and the schedule is including that Week 18 game that you talked about. Yeah, right.

They drafted Tate and they signed Wandale Robinson, so he's got 2 weapons.

Mm-hmm. They have the Jets and Giants too outta the first 3 weeks.

That's gonna tell the story of the season.

That's Saleh and Daboll. That'll, that'll be fun for sure.

I don't mean to be a dick 'cause he seems like a great guy and Schrager likes him. Even if Schrager won't come on my podcast anymore.

What?

Nah, he won't.

Um, that more—

that's nice. Like Team ESPN now.

Oh yeah.

Okay. Still friends with them. Friendly, friendly, but just won't come on.

Mina's on ESPN. She comes on.

Schrager's turned down multiple invitations.

Really?

Why? A lot of golf.

No kidding. Don't make excuses, house. You play golf, you're here.

I know.

I had for their roster, I had offensive line too.

Yeah.

Simmons, 3 points. Stonehouse, 1. And that was really all the guys that got points on this defense. Even Franklin Myers.

Yeah.

Like, I wouldn't have put points for it. All right. Here's the thing though. Big shot Bob Sala mentioned, friend of Schrager. He was terrible on the Jets. Remember, like we called him A-Kid Sala. We talked about what a fucking train wreck that team was.

They didn't have a lot of help.

Their defense was, was always pretty good with him, but Right. You know, and then Dayball was a maniac on the Giants sideline. So I don't know. I, I can't, I can't get there with this.

Well, we're forced to take a 4th place team and I won't put one in the playoffs like this, but they can go a win and a half over their expectation, right, House? Why not?

Yeah. That's all.

They basically have to beat the Jets week 1 in the, uh, solid revenge game. 'Cause after that, if I'm looking for wins at Giants, maybe at Colts, home Browns, one of the Jags games, home Commanders, at Raiders.

Yeah.

Now you're in that 6-ish, but you have to win 80% of those.

Yeah.

I'm going 5-12 under.

All right.

I don't feel great about it. House, the AFC South, talk to us.

Yeah. I mean, we're so bullish on Houston and we all bet them. I'm, I'm all the way up at like, you know, 12 wins. They all, Alt win total for Houston. Yeah, for Houston. The most important thing for them to me is giving their offensive coordinator, Kaylee, the opportunity to run Stroud out of under center. And that's going to translate into a bunch of opportunities with motion and all kinds of stuff. Like, we didn't see their offense because they thought Joe Mixon was going to play running back for them until the goddamn season started. They didn't have a plan B. So this is the version of the offense, and I think it really helps settle down the offensive line as well. So that's why, that's part of the case for being bullish on, on Houston. The Jacksonville thing is so fucking weird. They were 13 wins and the market said, congratulations, we think you're an 8.5-win team. 13 last year. And now here's your window.

Why don't we get pissed about this? With the Patriots, you didn't like the disrespect.

I have no, I have no counter.

Uh, and yet I think it's the right number, and it's the right number because of— I did— this GM stinks. They're not replenishing. They are letting guys walk and they're not replenishing.

That's the problem. The Patriots actually got better.

Oh, okay.

The Jaguars got worse by any way you want to look at it. They have worse players than they did last year. It's just a fact.

I'm mystified by the Colts. I think Steichen is incredible, and what he showed us over the first 7 games last year, it was like what a revelation that no, nobody had the Colts coming out and leading the league in efficiency and scoring and all the rest of it. But I cannot, I will not and cannot, and under any circumstances endorse a guy coming off an Achilles this, in this short period of time.

Right.

And think that, that, oh, that's just a, their quarterback room with impaired Daniel Jones and Riley Leonard and Anthony Richardson. That's as bad as it gets.

Richardson moved down to 3rd, by the way, on the depth chart. Yes.

Riley Leonard.

So I'm under on the Jaguars. the Titans and the Colts. Yeah, it'll overrun the Texans. I think this is a one, one-horse division, right? Because House was worried I was taking too many 10-plus wins.

Yeah, kind of running—

you're gonna have a couple here.

You worked it out, but there should be a couple more.

This— there's a way this division might actually be in the running against NFC South for least wins.

Fewest wins, huh?

I would favor them. It's a big FanDuel thing.

36.

If I gave you AFC South 1.5 wins more than the NFC South. Who do you take?

Well, I have 7-10s all over, so I have to take— I may have 28 for NFC South.

So 3.5. What would be the number?

3.5?

36 for, uh, yeah, that's, that's probably the number.

Okay, you can do this. It's available on FanDuel. You can take divisions, uh, and there are odds available right now, division matchups.

But not spreads.

But yeah, not spreads. That's right. But you can get an implied probability out of it.

I love it. I had Hank too. I had Hank too.

What a scandal.

The Browns +200 against Atlanta.

You did?

Head to head.

Yeah.

For more wins. Yeah.

Oh, interesting. Yeah.

I just like that.

That's fun.

2 to 1.

That's fun.

Figured they'd probably push.

Yeah.

All right. And hey, hey, hey, this is our last one. AFC West.

Hank is led away in cuffs.

Somebody arrested him live. AFC, AFC West, Denver Broncos over 9.5. They won 11 games last year, 9.5 this year. Division 2-1, playoffs -148, 12+ wins +250. What if this was actually the best AFC team last year?

Hmm.

You have 2 teams that are probably spent the whole offseason going, we should have been in the Super Bowl. I think this one Maybe Buffalo. I don't know if Buffalo— Buffalo fired their coach immediately, but I definitely think Houston and Denver were both like, how the fuck did we not make the Super Bowl?

I still don't know what happened to Bo Nix. Was it the last play of the game? Did we in the locker room, what was— did we even say anything?

Really was nuts. So what are your thoughts this year? Denver was very kind to us last year.

They were.

Futures was one of, one of the big hits last year.

But it was a down year for the division in terms of You know, Mahomes out there, they had 2 score, 1 score wins against the Chiefs.

Chargers got decimated.

Yeah, Chargers decimated. The Raiders were the Raiders. This team, I don't know really what to do with them because I think they're very good. I kind of liken them to the Bears, who I know you love, but it's the same sort of 1 score luck, you know, turnover luck. 11-2 in 1 score games, 1-6 in 2024. They trailed in 15 games. They won 14 games and trailed in 15. Now, I don't wanna kill Bo Nix for being a clutch, having that clutch gene because all that's all that means. He trailed and they brought him back. We watched that Giant game together. That was insane. I would normally sign up for a 5-game decrease. I, I mean, I wouldn't sign up, but their first 6, laughably difficult. Casey, Jacksonville, Rams, 49ers, Chargers. Seahawks. I won't say which is home, which is away. I think that's 3-3 at best.

But they're playing the Chiefs on a Monday night in KC.

Yeah.

When, first of all, is Mahomes is like, no, I'm feeling good. Like, it's his first game. It's gonna be weird emotion there. I don't know if I, if I'm playing at Kansas City, that's the game I wanna play week 1.

Really?

I wanna come right at them before Mahomes is settled and he is back to himself. I don't even know who their receivers are.

Yeah, the defense I think is a shade below Houston, and that's what's going to keep them in games. Like Vance Joseph, they have 68 and 63 sacks over the last 2 years.

I have more stuff for you than everything you laid out. I mean, their defense is really good. It's not top 3, but it's probably top 6. They have the best offensive line in either conference. Yep, I got them 7 points for the offensive line.

They don't give up sacks.

Traded for Waddle. They have 2 receivers that I gave 2 points each to. Waddle and Sutton. And Waddle, I think, will really help Bo Nix. And then they have Sean Payton, who's one of the 6 best coaches in the league. So I, I can block, I can defend, and I have a really good coaching staff. I'm not as scared about the schedule. Week 10 through 15 are pretty easy. Bye week, Raiders at Steelers, Dolphins at Jets, at Raiders. And then they get the Chargers the last week. I'm, I'm—

You're going over.

I mean, that's what you're saying. Oh, I'm not only going over, I'm 11-6 and overlock. This is one of my locks. I'm in on Denver.

Wow.

I don't understand why. There's just too much of a foundation here. Like we talk about like Cincinnati, like one injury, the thing can fall apart. This team has like, things can happen and they'll still be okay.

You know, and things happened last year and they were okay, but they really happened. I mean, the one score—

It's a little bit of a window team too. They're in a little bit of a similar spot with the Pats, whereas Nick's on a rookie deal.

Right.

Where you were able to spend this money all these different ways. I really like RJ Harvey. I, I thought he had real moments last year. I wanna see, yeah, more from him this year.

Waddle's a good pickup. He throws short, anything like at the line of scrimmage and stuff, he's gonna make a big play out of.

Our fantasy guys were really bullish on Waddle. Like they were just like, this guy, talk about bad quarterbacks. You know, he's put up big stats last year. Right. With just absolute crap. So I'm in. I, I, this is my favorite team in the division and I like the division 2-to-1 odds. I already bet that I have the over, like I'm in on this team.

All right. I have 9 and 8. I think that's a tough, tough early stretch. 3 and 3 out of those 6.

Okay. Next team is the Kansas City Chiefs. Over is 9.5, division +175. They have better division odds than the Denver Broncos. Go fucking figure that one. -174 for the playoffs, +146 not to make the playoffs. Under 8.5 wins is +190. 13+ is +440. They were 6-11 last year. They basically flipped their secondary. They lost McDuffie. They drafted Delane as, as, uh, what was he, like the 6th pick in the draft?

From LSU.

They moved up to get him. Um, they drafted him and a defensive tackle and an edge all in the top 40.

Yep.

People like Cyrus Allen as a wide receiver sleeper. Mahomes is allegedly healthy. So when this happened to Brady after the ACL, the '08 season, they still went 10-6 without him. And then he came back the next year and there's like this little dark run here of '09 and 2010 before they rebooted and ran off the next thing. They were still good. They were like 10-6 one year, 13 and—

Yeah.

3 the other year. They had the number 1 offense. I just don't see the talent with Kansas City. Like, I don't feel like there's a foundation. And it, it's weird to hear people talk about Andy Reid, like, well, and they have Mahomes and Reid, and it's like, Reid was terrible last year. Their coaching staff was terrible.

Mm-hmm.

All the stories that came out from Kansas City was that the team was unfocused. that guys were lazy coming outta meetings and like that. It was kind of like, you know, the classic, the players were running the team and—

Yeah.

I don't see it. Like they signed Kenneth Walker. Okay. Rashee Rice might not be in jail for most of the year. Fine. Worthy's healthy. Are we sure he's good? It's a lot of like glass half full with them 'cause they're the Chiefs. I would argue this is like the rebuilding year to lead to next year. Like, Kelce, I, I just feel like I don't— I didn't even give him points. I think it's over for him as an impact guy. And then Chris Jones is what, 32, 33? Just feels like they're gonna move into this different era. And I think they know it from the way they treated trading guys and the draft and trying to get picks. I think this is a transition year for them. I'm under, I'm under at 8.

I feel like I shouldn't say anything. I don't want to get in your way here, but, uh, No. And I, maybe I just have this old man approach to romanticizing the Chiefs and saying, I don't blame you. Oh my God, you could get 'em at to win 10 games and you'll get, that's the over. You're good with that. And I think when we give our top 3 or 4 quarterbacks, it's always still gonna be Mahomes in there.

Right.

And so I'm gonna take the over until he gives me a reason not to. Everything you said is true.

Well, over here is 10 and 7.

Yeah.

For him.

10 and 7. And you said, what you said is true. Like he thrives when Travis Kelce's good and fast and not lumbering. And anyone who has Travis Kelce on your fantasy team or is waiting for the Taylor Swift cutaway knows he doesn't get that 14-yard pass until like the late—

Like, is he a dollar in our league this year?

Yeah, I think like my wife took him in her draft. Yes. I'm like, ugh, what is that? Then she yelled at me. She's like, oh, we have to root for Taylor. I'm like, yeah, I don't know, you take Goedert there, you screwed up. But they— the NFL has a way of doing Mahomes a favor. And they did it this year in the Rehab Bowl against Bo Nix. It's the very last game of week 1, so they gave him enough time. They gave him an easy early schedule. First of all, he has a bye in week 5.

Yeah.

And then what is the, what are the first 3? I forgot now. I forget.

Broncos, Colts, Dolphins, Raiders, bye. Yeah.

Right.

So just trying to buy him as much time as he needs.

So maybe they're 3-1 or 4-0. I'm not, I'm just not ready to close the, the book on him. I, I see getting B. Enomy back as a positive. I know people laugh at that because we're talking about the old guard and everything. And I think the Kenneth Walker signing's like solid. We talk about like these, it's overblown if you take a Super Bowl MVP. Cowboys had one, Larry Brown, right? When he was in the right place, the right time against Neil O'Donnell.

Larry Brown was where my brain was going.

Yeah.

I think this is like with the, you know, lacking the tight end outlet pass, I think Kenneth Walker on a screen is gonna be the outlet and it's gonna help Mahomes. And I think it's gonna make the offense good enough. It's the defense who did okay through the draft.

The secondary's really young.

That's the thing. They're gonna have to develop.

Week 12 through 17 at Bills, at Rams. Yeah. Both on Thursdays at Bengals, home Patriots on a Monday night, 49ers at Chargers.

Mm-hmm. All in a row. Right.

I can't get there with it. And, and it's, it reminded me of the early 2020s, Pats, when we were giving Belichick all that respect and rope because he was Belichick.

Maybe.

And it's like, I, at some point, this is, you get older.

Any of the older coaches that you answered your own question.

I thought Reid was out to lunch last year, and I think he's the most media-protected QB in either conference, especially with all the shit that happens to that team off the, off the field.

That, well, Shanahan's the most media but well, Shanahan for law enforcement and media. Yeah.

But the read is like everybody's looking the other way. Is this— it's— he's gonna be 70 soon. Like, this is— I don't know.

Now they were 6-11. They had a +34 point differential. That I think is important.

And they lost some stupid games. The Jaguars game was the dumbest loss probably of the year.

They went from 9 one-score wins to 1.

Yeah.

Like, they're never in the middle. It's either like 10-10.

That's the concerning thing to your point. gonna ride with Mahomes until he, he proves that he— you shouldn't do that. Well, he did have 5 5th quarter touchdown, uh, 4th quarter interceptions last year.

He was 6-8. He did.

And by the way, he got hurt at the closer to the end of the season when it was already done.

He was 6-8. Like, he should get a little more crap for it.

House feels more strongly than I do.

Yeah, I'm, I'm way out on this Kansas City team. I, I don't— I mean, this, this is— you have to do what you're doing, which is say priors. And, and that's the case for this Kansas City team. Priors aren't playing in the secondary for this team. Priors aren't— this, this pass rush for the, for the Chiefs has been worse year over year, and they haven't done anything to improve the pass rush. So you have one of the youngest secondaries in the NFL with a pass rush. Their defense was the reason that they lost games last year. The offense was— Mahomes had a pretty good year efficiency-wise, and he ran—

His offensive line was awful.

And, and it's, and it's not much better this year coming in.

Below average this year.

Yeah, it's not Spags on defense pulling off you know, miracles anymore.

It's not—

I get it. But it's always been like that.

Mahomes with coming back with an ACL and like anytime they're in a big game, 4th quarter, he takes off, he runs, he uses his legs. Is he gonna do that again?

No, if he doesn't, it's, it's done.

Is he gonna be more stationary like Brady? I didn't feel— even though the stats were relatively the same, felt like it took him 2 years to get— yeah, the guys falling around your knees.

I just don't think they go 1-5 in the, in the division again. So give 'em, if, if they go 3-3, now they're back up to 8. I think they can get to 10.

I think this is all reputation. So what do we do?

What do we just argue until one of us convinces the other?

No, we're gonna go to the next team. They play a lot of good QBs too. Drake Maye, Burrow, Herbert twice, Allen. Yeah. Stafford, Mix twice, Darnold, Purdy. Yep. Chargers 9.5. I went back and forth on this one the most of all 32 teams.

You did.

Division +195. I think that's a good bet. I think Chargers and Broncos are good bets. Like, you could argue bet both of those and just try to hit one and hope nobody else beats you. Playoffs -158. Number 1 seed +800. Under 7.5 is +310. Best record, 14-1. They were 11-6 last year. Year 3 of Harbaugh. He, he wins 11 games every year.

Yep.

Sure does.

I think he's in the 10-win club, which is ultimately why I put him at 10 wins. Mikey, Mikey Mack is new DJ. He's coming in.

It's a new DJ.

He's bringing, he's gonna use some salsa and some disco.

He's gonna play some Omarion.

People like the rookie pass rusher.

Yeah.

The bad side, they lost Jesse Minter. They already lost their center. Their guards suck too. And schedule rest. is all-time. Warren Sharpe like had a stroke about their schedule rest. It was -24. It was like the highest, the worst they've ever measured for schedule rest.

Yeah, I saw a lot of travel, but this team doesn't have home games, so I think they're like, yeah, get us to the road. I don't think it matters.

17 road games. They're them and Deshaun Watson just playing on the road all year. I, uh, I landed at 10, and that's a slight over. I just couldn't pick Harbaugh for 9 wins.

Hmm.

I really worried about the middle of their line though. Like, you lose the center and their guards are both terrible and their tackles are elite, but everything in the middle's awful and our team's just gonna, yeah, push through the middle at 'em. Where do you have—

I have 'em at 11 and I know they're starting with this bullshit with the Bia Das being out in the offensive line and they were like, they had the 27th best injury luck in the league. But Slater and Ault being back, it's all the difference when those guys—

They won 11 games without those guys. It's fucking crazy.

Exactly. It really is nuts. And I have to think Mike McDaniel— I really— this could be the biggest overreaction in terms of an assistant coming over, a coordinator coming over, but—

Well, that's how bad their offense was before.

Yeah, right. I like it. I like them winning 11, and I have them winning.

I really want to do 11. I talked myself out of it because of the schedule rest and yeah, the center really threw my— that threw me off. They're starting a rookie at center.

Yeah, it's not great.

Cole Strange is one of their starting guards who is so bad. The Pats were— the Pats who didn't even have a good offensive line last year was like, we gotta get this guy outta here 'cause we might be dumb enough to play him. Just waived him. Losing Minter worries me as well. And they have a schedule, so they go Cardinals, Raiders first 2 weeks.

Both 2-0. There you go.

And then they have the next 7 are just all-time. At Bills, at Seahawks, Broncos, at Chiefs, bye week, at Rams, Texans, at Ravens. It's a fucking gauntlet. And then you gotta keep your quarterback, yeah, you know, upright. That Texans game, you think the Texans are gonna be going up the middle on the Chargers?

54 sacks last year, 3rd most for any quarterback. So I just think if they could just protect, I mean, that's the case for everything. And Hampton only played in 9 games. That could help them out a little bit, you know, if they get a little bit of a run game.

I do think Herbert and Maye suffered from a little bit of the same problem as we got to January last year. It was like the accumulation of just getting fucking popped, you know, and the fact that the, the Chargers offensive line was worse than the Pats. But at some point when you're just going back, just assuming I only have 2.3 seconds to throw, I'm about to take a giant hit. Um, at some point as the stakes get higher and more stuff's going on and the teams get better, um, and you're not healthy—

They were in the red zone a lot and couldn't score, and that's supposed to be where Mike McDaniel's gonna turn it around.

I don't like Campton as much as some others, but I do think having him the whole year will probably help. Receivers I don't love, they're fine. Yeah, Herbert's a very sexy MVP pick.

It's Ladd McConkey, Quentin Johnston. and Trey Harris, and already a couple of those guys are questionable.

All right, so we're both over for them. And then the last team is the Las Vegas Raiders. Over-under 5.5 wins.

Mm-hmm.

5-to-1 to make the playoffs, 15-to-1 for the division. They were 3-14 last year. 8-to-1 if you want to go for them for worst record. They improved their offensive line, improved their run game, and they have Mendoza lurking Plus they have Clint Kubiak.

Yeah.

Why wouldn't we go over on this?

Oh, I was gonna say, this is my most embarrassing pick of all, picking them over. I won't do what I've done in prior years, take them to win, get a wildcard or anything that.

Yeah.

But I do think they're gonna go 7-10. I have for this team. And, and it doesn't have a lot to do with Mendoza, my dumb reasoning. Like Kubiak, it was a few years ago, but Kubiak, And Cousins, that was his most productive year. He had 31 touchdown passes that year. Now, I can only say this with so much confidence for a team that boasts a wide receiver room of Trey Tucker, Jack Beck, and Malik Benson, which I think only next to the Dolphins is, uh, that might be worse than the Dolphins. But, um, little Max Crosby karma in there. They spent $308 million in free agency. That's the second most. You know, they got Tyler Lindenbaum, they got some Colton Miller, they have some good linemen in there.

Yeah.

I think they're gonna be competitive.

Yeah.

You went over too.

I went under.

Oh, you did? After all that?

Yeah.

I, I just had them at 5-12. I couldn't get there. It's safe, you know, Kubiak, sure. He's gonna be way better than the ghost of Pete Carroll.

Right.

The, the franchise just seems like a mess.

Hmm.

I don't know what's going on with them. Like the Pete Carroll hiring was weird. They spent money, but then they also brought in the worst receivers of all time to play with Mendoza.

Mm-hmm.

And then they brought in Cousins as a Mendoza stopgap, but Mendoza's clearly gonna play by week 4 and have nobody to throw to. And Gente, the 6th pick last year, was, was bizarre. I just think the roster's too weird for me.

Can I give you my Tom Brady take here? I feel like, I, I feel like people have to be reminded that he's part owner of this team. Right. It's so low on the list. And I think it's purposely, it's by design that no one remembers because he's involved in all this other crazy shit. Right. You know, he's doing roasts, he's doing Subway commercials when he hasn't had a, a, a piece of bread in 16 years. He's, you know, he's, call— he's going after whatever the fuck Paul brother. Um, everything's tight leather pant photo shoots. It's all to distract the fact that he owns the Raiders and that's what he's staying away from. So I guess I'm saying good job by him. He's like the GOAT of distractions too.

Like, it's the best defense I've heard of Brady's behavior yet.

Yeah. Throw it all out there. And the broadcasting, which is his thing.

Well, that was the controversy of the first part of the season, right? The broadcasting and him being the owner and, you know, Was he in on Pete Carroll? And pretty quickly became apparent he was out on him. That was a big storyline.

Does he ever step up and make this offense somehow respectable? Like him himself, does he ever get that involved somehow?

Doesn't seem like he cares that much.

It's crazy.

How old is he now? 45?

You think he's in his 40s?

Might be turning 50.

I've—

let me ask you a question about the over-under. 'Cause they play the AFC East and the NFC West in the, uh, in this division. So what's their record in the division? 1-5?

I think I gave 'em 2 wins.

This is the math that makes the most sense for what you're, you're advocating for. I've, I've done this.

1-5 or 0-6?

I totally agree with this. I know where you're going.

I gave 'em 2 wins. They always have one-score games against Denver, and I think they pull off—

1-5 or 0-6? They beat the Chiefs.

Okay.

Let's go 1-5.

All right. You won't let me go 2-4, but that's fine. Yeah.

Bills, Patriots, Rams, Seahawks. Let's go own 4 for those. Now I'm at 1-9.

Almost beat the Patriots line.

So now, now do the Niners.

And the Niners are sitting there as well. I just, if you go them 1-9 for those 10 games.

All right.

I need to go 5-2 in the other 7 games.

Mm-hmm.

And that's why I went under.

Jets, Arizona. Miami.

And by the way, every, every bad other bad team you're playing, they're like, holy shit, we might win this week. We're playing the Raiders.

Okay.

I couldn't get there.

I know I wasn't proud of that. I didn't finish strong there, but I did have them with 7.

Listen, I didn't make it a lock. I'm just, I didn't really love it either way. House, your NFC, your AFC West thoughts?

Yeah, I like Denver to win this division. And mainly it's because the odds are sitting there at 2-to-1. And the way I think that Denver and the Chargers are like neck and neck. And my, uh, the reason I went in the direction of Denver is because, um, I match up the units. I think that Denver's defense is the best unit of those 2 teams doing offense, defense, special teams. I like the Denver defense the best out of all of them. The, the, um, the schedules are comparable obviously because they're in, in division. And the Chargers with the uncertainty that's coming into that offensive line, it's, it's, it's annoying. I'd really like to see this Chargers offense one time.

Yeah, I might have put in a bet a month ago on the Chargers for the division before the center injury.

You might have.

So it's Broncos, Chargers, Chiefs. I'm so far out on the Chiefs, I'm doing alt unders on the Chiefs. And then Raiders under 5.5 because the math you just laid out, that's the way I'm playing this.

This is one of my favorite exacts: Broncos, Chargers, Chiefs, Raiders. I think that's how it goes.

I look forward to Zoe and Hank and a picture of them on a yacht after the Texans won the Super Bowl. And you're like, oh, that's nice. Whose yacht is that? And he's like, it's mine. I took all your money outta the FanDuel account. I withdrew, idiot.

Yeah.

Dumbass. Thanks. AFC locks. So you had which locks?

What did I have?

I have, 'cause I had Houston over 9.5.

Mm-hmm.

And I had Denver over 9.5 as my only 2 locks in the AFC. So I did 7 total, right?

I'm going Chargers over, I'm going Jets over, and that's it.

All right.

Only 3.

So you only had 4 locks total?

Yeah, that's it. Yeah.

I had for the NFC, Dallas over, Washington under, Tampa over, Atlanta under, Seattle over.

Right.

And then you had, I can't remember what that one had. You had Green Bay.

I had Green Bay over.

And did I have, were you at some unders?

Well, a bunch of those NFCs.

So many, it was so many hours ago.

Yeah, it's fine. We're coming back probably a week from when this airs.

Week from when this airs. We're gonna do Guest Alliance, but we're also gonna do our NFL Futures Draft. And that's gonna be this Sunday heading into NFL season. And then you guys on the Ringer Wise Guys, you are gonna finish the last 2 divisions.

Yep. Yeah, we have 2 NFC South and West Monday and Friday. Yes.

Yeah, very—

he will change his picks right up to when you guys start the show, the rundown. Um, there we go, we did it, Sal.

Yeah, baby!

4 hours, 32 teams, uh, only a couple arguments, one dead fish, one fish, two fish, one illegal gambling story. Uh, we, we had a whole bunch of stuff. Thanks, House.

My pleasure. Thanks for letting me sit in the Craig chair.

Thanks, Sal.

Great time.

Thanks, Kahal. Thanks, Eduardo. Thanks to everybody at The Ringer. And don't forget to come back on the BS Pod and on Ringer Wise Guys. And then me and Sal a week from now. Thanks, Sal.

Good job by you, buddy.

Good job.

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Sal and House. Thanks to Eduardo and Gahal. As always, don't forget, new rewatchables coming tomorrow afternoon, ET time. Can't wait for that because we did A really good movie. Like, a really, really good one. Um, I'll see you on this feed probably Tuesday. Might just be Thursday this week, but I think it's gonna be Tuesday, Thursday this week. So I'll see you at some point this week. 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. 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplineMA.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. For Louisiana, call 877-770-7867.