Transcript of A Steelers/Vikings Party Crash, Miami’s Vice, the Blackjack Browns, and Guess the Lines With Cousin Sal

Coming up, Cousin Sal and I are going to recap week three and do guess the lines for week four and make a lot of jokes. It's all next. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast network. We launched a new ringer WNBA show hosted by sir at Sohe. It has its own feed. If you're following the WNBA playoffs, which started on Sunday, nothing major happened yet. I think the week the game twos will be a lot more fun. But listen to that podcast. It's really good. I'm really proud of it, and that is up. So subscribe the rewatchables. We have a new episode coming on Monday night. It may or may not be a movie that involves Sylvester Stallone. I'm not going to tell you which one, but that will be going up on Monday night, and I had a great time. That's all I'm going to tell you about the recording. You can watch it eventually on the Ringer movies YouTube channel as well. We also have YouTube channel for this podcast. It is the Bill Simmons YouTube channel, where a little bit later, you'll hear Cousin Sal and I, we went live.

We go live every Sunday night, and you can watch us through the podcast that you're about to hear. Last but not least, Mister McMahon is coming on Netflix on September 25. So it'll actually be available, I think, midnight late Tuesday night. Six parts. Really proud of it. Sal and I are going to talk about it a little bit later, so I want to give you a heads up on that. Start planning out the middle of your week. All right, let's bring in Pearl Jam. Let's bring in cousin Sal. Let's go. We are live on YouTube. Cousin Sally's here Sunday night. Just watched the Falcons lose by five to the Chiefs. I have good news, though, Sal. Mm hmm.

What is it?

I don't know if you know this, but the Bill Simmons podcast has a ring of honor. And tonight's a very special night because I have inducted myself into the Ring of Honor.

Is it positive or negative?

What kind of. No, it's a positive ring of honor. And the inductee tonight is me, Bill Simmons, of the Bill Simmons pie. Did you see Arthur blank at halftime? I guess. I'm guessing.

Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, is that what he said? He inducted himself, Arthur Blank, at halftime.

It was the ceremony. He made the Falcons ring of Honor. It was like, tonight we're honoring Arthur Blank, the owner. How does he decide to do this? And then the broadcast just glossed over it. He put it in the Ring of Honor.

They're kind of egomaniac, some of these guys. I don't know. I think they figure if I'm not going to get a Super Bowl, I have to at least get in our own ring of honor, right?

He's like, I'll never forget the day I went down on the sidelines when we were up late in the fourth quarter of the Super bowl, and it didn't happen. That was quite a game. I don't know what to make of the officiating with the Chiefs, although they started throwing some flags in the last drive. The game management with the Falcons, they had third and short on the last drive there inside the 30. Just a terrible, predictable run up the middle, gets stuffed fourth down, the pitch to the left. That seems to never work, and all of a sudden, the Chiefs win. That was a recurring theme today, that nobody could convert on short yard. What, what's happened to the NFL speaker two?

I don't know. I have a lot of problems, and I feel so bad about this because we. I love. I was waiting all summer, and I was so excited about the NFL, and it's just not ready for us. We're ready for it, and it's not ready for us. It's like planning, like, a two day Vegas trip with your buddies, and then it's like, cut in half because the plane has mechanical issues, and then the weather's delayed, you can't catch another flight. So. Yeah, well, the weeks, you know, six through 17 will be fine, but for now, between the first of all, no explosive. Okay, I'll take no explosive plays, but if someone can convert on fourth and one, like there was an epidemic. I felt like there was 14 plays. Today was like, fourth and one, fourth and two, fourth and three, and they weren't even close. Like, even the tush push, the fake tush push, didn't work, even though they won.

But, yeah, somehow, somehow everybody could make a 60 yard field goal, but nobody could make fourth and six inches impossible. You're much better off just going backwards 25 yards and attempting a 60 yarder.

Coaching so bad, too.

I don't know.

I don't want to be negative. We haven't even gotten to my, my awful team yet. But, I mean, you know, those early games. Would it be bad if we just skip the early games? There's like ten teams that have seven points at halftime. I don't need, like 40 to 38, but I just. Inept. Ineptitude all around.

The way you laid out what you were laying out there made me think of when you go to a restaurant and it's friends and family night, where it's like, but before the restaurants open, they have that week where it's like, hey, can you come in? We're trying some stuff out. We want to see if the waitstaff works. And you go and there's a lot of mistakes and they're apologizing the whole time, but the food's pretty good and you're like, oh, I can see the potential of this place. Yeah, once they work out the kinks, it'll be great. That's basically the first three weeks in the NFL season.

It's like, oh, I think you're right.

It'll be cool when they can start completing long passes to the receivers and not fucking up late. I mean, the Eagles won a game today where their coach was a crime against coaching and still somehow won. The Falcons lost the game where their coaching staff was just as bad. The Bears coach was somehow the worst coach of the day, which I don't even know how, how that happens, but I guess. Let's start with Chiefs Falcons, really quick. So this is the, this is why we took over on the Chiefs. What was it, eleven and a half wins? Cause they just win. This is the third straight game they, they could literally be owing three with a couple plays and they're three and, oh, and this is what they do. And we're just used to it at this point. But this does not feel like a three and o team, right?

No, but, but I am so glad the Falcons got another shot at it after that. First of all, I have friends and, you know, hench and there's some others who just, just are waiting for the referees to screw up and it's bad. And I still think everything should be reviewed like that pass interference on pitts. He got grabby. He didn't turn around. It should have been pass interference. Then again, it was a bad pass. If not for the pass interference that's intercepted or they go out on down. So anyway, okay, good. They get the ball back and then they don't do anything and they're, they're helped, like you said, by the officials. But, yeah, I. That's it, man. You're, you're right. Like, it's going to come down to it and they're going to pull out the close ones and that's that. But they're not a complete team. Like, I don't know if that there's one complete team. That's why I kind of have hope with my team. And you should even with yours, because there's not one complete team at the top like the Vikings. Like, fast forward to the part where the Vikings aren't the most complete team in the league.

That's when I want to join it.

The Vikings. It is crazy. Well, let's talk quickly on the Chiefs. The Rasheed Rice fantasy. Rope a dope before the year. What did he go for? It was like $10. Yeah, like, I don't know, 1213. Garrett Wilson's going for 44. Drake London's going for the thirties. Everyone's afraid to take Rasheed Rice because nobody can tell if he's going to be, you know, suspended for the season, if there's some possible suspended Goodell sentence out of nowhere.

Right.

And yet he's the go to guy in this offense that he's just going to kick ass the entire time. So that was frustrating. Carson Steele, who was who we thought he was, he just was basically going down on the first or second tackle. But they told this story about his sister got married today. Did you hear this part? Yeah, today.

She didn't have to, though, right?

Well, they, they were like, he's a groomsman of the wedding, but he obviously can't come. But they're having a big party for, we had the game on and they, they made these arrangements a year earlier and it was the day, the only day they could get at the venue they wanted. I'm thinking that nobody brought up this guy might be in the NFL and might not be able to come. This guy's the Chiefs.

Well, maybe married on a Sunday, even worse. Maybe they did bring it up and Carson himself is like, hey, sis, you know, there's a chance I'm, you know, I'm wearing chief's jersey on Sunday. And then they point and laugh. Right. Just make sure you cut your hair for the wedding on time. Yeah.

Okay, here's my next question. Do you believe in the Steelers and the Vikings yet?

I believe they maybe our playoff teams. No, I don't even believe. I don't even know if I believe that. I can't believe in it. I still believe. Okay, here's what I believe in. I believe there's going to be a time when quarterback position matters. I believe we're going to get there and I think it's going to be this season.

The quarterback position is going to matter at some point.

I think so in a positive way. Like good ones that we know of and ones that, you know, can throw downfield are going to thrive and that's going to, that's going to translate into wins even ten or more. So I can't say I believe just yet.

Let's take the Steelers first.

Okay.

True or false, their defense is better than anyone else's anything.

Yeah, anyone else.

Better than anyone else's defense or offense. Just taking that unit. Is that the best unit anybody has right now?

Sure. Yeah. We're not counting cowboys kicking game. Yes. That's fine. It's the best.

I have some stuff for him later.

Okay. All right.

They've given up 16 points total in three games. The Steelers, they had to go three and o in this stretch, and they did.

Yep.

Fields has 20 incompletions. He's 55 for 75 with only one turnover. So they're not constantly going three and out or turning the ball. So the defense is on the field the right amount of time and they're kicking the shit out of people. They kick the shit out of cousins. Week one today against Herbert, and I thought Herbert was really good in the, in the time he was in, the stats aren't going to show it, but they were in his face the whole time. He was making big throws. He was stepping up. I thought he was awesome. And then finally he got sacked by three. Three guys at once and he was done and he was out. But I am a full believer in the Steelers. I've been betting on them every week. They're 30. They have next few weeks at Indy, home Dallas, at Vegas, home Jets, home giants, bye week. They have a real chance now to go seven and one. And you look around in the AFC and you look in their division and I kind of feel like they're the safest bet with the way fields is playing. Do you believe in fields at all at this point?

What does that mean? Do I believe they'll make the playoffs? They can make a long playoff?

I think they can win the.

Yeah, I think they could win this division because it's so lopsome. When we picked the one through four, like, I didn't want to touch this one. I whiffed anyway. I had the Browns forget it. I was wrong. Stupid, whatever. But, you know, the Ravens could be in last place, too, if not for a couple plays. So yes, the Steelers, but I believe that that defense is tops. There's no reason to think it's going to change if they don't, you know, if they stay healthy. But I also believe there's going to be games that they're going to have to score 20, more than 20 points.

Maybe that, maybe that the way the season's being played. I guess maybe 20 points is enough. The Lions have 66 points.

Yeah, right.

The Chiefs have been, Chiefs got the 22 tonight. I really like how they look. I thought they got the run game going a little bit today and, you know, I, what they did to Atlanta in week one, which we kind of came away from that game. Go, man. Cousins doesn't look ready. He can't move. And then Cousins is, I think, looked a lot better in the last two games. So maybe they could say Bo Nicks.

Was a break, even though Bo Nicks looked a lot better today, but you could say he wasn't ready. You know, that wasn't a game that they're going to win. But, yeah, now it's cousins. Now it's Herbert. And they put them both down, the Vikings.

So here's the case for the Vikings. Their defense teams are nine for nine at a 34 on third down against them. So it's like 26%. They've gotten six turnovers. Darnold has been really good on the other end. He's got eight touchdowns, two picks. Aaron Jones has been a step up from, from the running backs. They have. And they're like legitimately winning these games. They're a really well coached team. You watch them and you're just like, ah, we watch so much bad coaching, you know, on all these different tvs, and they're one of the co, one of the teams that the sidelines locked in. The coaches seem like they have a game plan. They're attacking things a certain way. And, you know, they had, they beat San Francisco and Houston back to back. I had those two in the top four heading into the season, so I think it's real. I didn't want to fully believe it until today. I liked them today. I didn't love them, but I put them in a tease. But they absolutely throttled Houston. I mean, that was an absolute ass kicking. You can take this game off the tv with an hour to go kind of performance.

No doubt about it. They're, like I said, they're the only complete team I see so far. Right? Like, they moved the ball. You may not like Sam Donald. You know what else you may not like about Sam Donald? He's younger than Joe Burrow. He's younger than Joe Burrow. Like, like age. If you were to ask their parents, like, when was this one born? When was this one born? Donald was born after Burrow. And the miraculous thing is, like, they, they had the worst offseason out of anybody. That two DUIs, one player, you know, one, one coach assistant coach. You know, Addison was one of them. Addison gets hurt. The third round pick dies. The first round picked quarterback tears as meniscus. He would have been like, oh, boy, this is, sorry. Sorry, coach. But yeah, you're right. This coach is great. And to your point, like, the Steelers may have the, the best coach, too. Like, the top two or three coaches. I think there's like four or five that have emerged as great, and then about ten that are just like, they could be sent their walking papers any day.

It's fun that the Vikings and Steelers are good, too. Like some of the teams that are good this year, I'm like, oh, I'm happy for the, it's a lot of, I'm happy for those guys. Teams.

Sure.

The Vikings definitely are one of those where it felt like, especially once they lost a lot of their draft from April, you know, they have a top ten pick and the guy doesn't even get to play in a regular season game. That's usually a terrible sign.

I was just looking at their, the one thing is their schedule. I guess it doesn't matter because they weren't really supposed to be, they weren't supposed to beat the Niners or the Texans either. But at packers, it's a fun one. Jets, who are tough now, lions at the Rams, colts at Jaguars, you know, and then it gets a little, then I get like two or three easy. But, you know, if they're four and three after seven weeks, maybe we're not singing as many songs about them.

I've decided to take myself out of the ring of honor for not having enough battery in my computer today and for having my mirror image the wrong way. I need to reevaluate. Maybe next week I'll put myself back.

All right. There's a space in the ringer of honor. All right.

What did people say to Arthur behind the scenes? Like, congratulations, man, you deserve it.

I think you did it for yourself. You must have been nervous when you got that call. Oh, no, wait. No, you're the one who said, yeah, you pushed it.

Can Kim, we'll do this. Can he just give himself an Emmy? I've decided to give myself the Emmy for best late night show.

Kimmel live on.

Here it is. Thank you. Thank you. I've won. Just take someone else's Emmy.

Yeah.

Oh, I had this for you, actually, I have a lot for you. Let's take a break for the podcast, and then we'll come back. Coming off another great NFL weekend, FanDuel's giving you another chance to start this season with a big return on America's number one sports book. You'll get started with $200 of bonus bets guaranteed. When you place your 1st $5 bet on tonight's game. For instance, jags, bills, you can do the bill. The Jags plus five and a half. Trevor Lawrence to throw over 200 yards and Brian Thomas junior anytime touchdown. And that's like plus 550 range. I think all three of those things might happen. Just visit fanduel.com B's to make every moment more this season. FanDuel is an official sportsbook partner. The NFL. You must be 21 plus and present in select states or 18 plus and present in DC. First online real money wage ear only dollar five. First deposit required. Bonus issued is non withdrawable bonus batch, which expires seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook dot fando.com, call 100 GAMBLer or visit rg help.com. all right, we are back on YouTube and end the podcast as well.

It's been rocky here on YouTube, but I'm having a good time somehow. I had a. I made some homemade s'mores. Do you ever make homemade s'mores?

Look at me.

I call him the raw dog s'mores.

You just have questions.

Take a marshmallow, get the Hershey's thing underneath. Put it on Graham cracker. It's not warm. You don't microwave it. Just kind of eat it. Like it's a. Like a gross cracker. Yeah, that's what I had some.

Got an air fryer. Air fryer will help it along. It's a little more conventional, but air.

Fryers are pretty good.

We do have.

My wife makes chicken in the air fryers.

Yeah, everything. Throw everything. We threw one of the kids in there. Yeah.

Are they allowed to have them in college? Cause it seems like it would be a great thing in college.

Oh, I don't know. No crock pots.

That's like a health. Health hazard. All right, new topic. Which 2023 playoff team is in the most trouble? I'll give you six choices. They're all one and two. The Miami Dolphins, the Dallas Cowboys, the Cleveland Browns, the San Francisco 49 ers, the La Ramse or the Baltimore Ravens. Who do you have?

Okay, I think, and I think you'll agree the Dolphins are in a class by themselves because out of these six teams, they don't. They don't have the quarterback that they had in 2023 playoffs. Not that that guy was good in the 2023 playoffs, but Tua is a upgrade from Skyler Thompson who the announcer today is. The first two drives were caught was calling him Skyler Murray, and now he's out, and so I don't even know.

Who that really happened.

Yeah, he called him Skyler Murray. I was like, oh, that's like Kyler Murray if he sucked. Okay, Skyler Murray. And I think he was correct.

That sounds like the character in a new Netflix series.

It's gonna be my Halloween.

Have you seen Skyler Murray yet? It's great.

That's right.

Yeah.

So he's out and.

Yeah.

So they're. They're in a world of hurt. Right. And what are we guessing? We're guessing two of plays again, by his own volition and week eight or something. All right. Yeah. So I think they'll be done by that. So I think they're in a class by themselves in the most trouble. I can rank the rest if you want to comment on.

Let's hit them first, and then we'll hit the rest. Yeah, I completely agree. I had them in a class by themselves as well. I said, I replaced you on the ringer Sunday pregame today on YouTube. Tv.

Yes.

And, uh, you know. Cause we like to protect your pitch count. You were a little gamey in week one. I thought you were worn out. You were tired. We're throwing you out in the mound. I want to make sure.

Just trying to make the ring of honor. No, I just. Just put me in the ring of honor. Trying to do my best.

But I said to JJ. Cause, you know, Raheem, nobody loves the alt win totals more than Raheem.

Right.

That's. He feels like those are the best. The Dolphins were plus 198 to go seven and ten or worse. And they were like, plus 350 to go six and eleven or worse. And I was last week. No, this was today.

Oh, today. Yeah.

And I was saying to those guys. Cause there was this weird Skyler Thompson, member of the Buffalo game. And actually, if you go back and you look at the stats and how the Buffalo game actually went in the playoffs, he was in his doing.

Yeah.

And Josh Allen had a fumble touchdown. He threw two other picks and in his own territory. So Miami had a really good field position. He wasn't good. Skyler Thompson. And I was just like, there's a chance he's really bad in this. Miami season's over. And we were kind of stunned that the odds were two to one for them to go 710. Now, I bet those odds are close to even, because I don't see a path. And poor Tyreek.

Yeah.

Talk about wasted you put him on that team, what are you going to do? You're just going to throw bubble screens to him? It's not like that. They've no quarterback that can even get it near him.

I was thinking of the same thing and I said the whole poor Tyreek thing. I'm like, no, he's got. He's done with his. And then I looked up his stats, I'm like, oh, he's a leading receiver on the team right now. Four for 38. That's what it's going to be. Yeah, he was wow at the time. So I don't know if he. But that's, that's nothing. That's not using him to his best capabilities, I don't think.

Well, they have not scored a touchdown since Tua went down. I have them first. I had for the second. So when I, when I sent you that list, we kind of forgot about these guys. Cleveland has to be second on this list with, with their offensive line.

I agree.

They lost three guys today. Watson is probably the most disliked Cleveland athlete in a long time. He somehow, his stats looked way better than the performance that I saw on my television. I don't really see a path for them. We argued about this before the season because you like them for the playoffs and it was. You're buying in on DeShawn now. You didn't know that this was going to happen to their offensive line. Their offensive lines completely fallen apart.

Now, you don't have to make excuses for me. It was a bad pick. But I would say this. I still think they could. I don't understand the reservation behind not putting Jamison right now. He's clearly, he or anyone is a better choice. And I guess I do. I would understand putting yourself in the ring of honor as an owner before. I would like just choking on this contract. And I get that you can't cut him because then it's dead cat money. And those are all. That's all. But Deshaun Watson, he got injured. He wasn't the story. Last year. They went through five quarterbacks and it wasn't as glaring of a fuck up as it was this year now, because he's actually playing and bad. Like if you could make the playoffs with five quarterbacks, Joe Flacco being the best of them, why can't you try Jamis? I don't, I don't. I don't get it. So I do think that if they made that switch now, they could. They could turn it around maybe a little. That said, you're right there are five guys getting mris tomorrow, so maybe it's not going to work.

Yeah, it would seem like it would make the most sense just to bench him and say, hey, yeah, we just want to sit him down, get his head straight. We're going to try Jamis. We're going to try whoever and. But I don't know if the owner is basically telling them he's starting. He must, you know, we mortgaged everything. You've got to make this work. You've got to keep throwing him out there. He'll get his confidence back. This guy was great four years ago. They lost to the Giants today. And not only they lose to the Giants, they had 217 total yards today. They scored first. The game was seven nothing right away because they fumbled on the kickoff. The Browns got it. They scored right away. And then I think for the next 30 plays they ran, they got 25 yards. They showed a graphic, they said since first drive, 30 plays for 25 yards. They got stuffed on fourth down twice. I was looking at their scores for the year. They have not cracked 19 yet. So 17 points, 18 points, 15 points. They're basically playing blackjack. Yeah, it's like 17. Stay right. 18.

Stay 15. Oh, you have a six. Stay there. The blackjack Browns, they can't get to.

20 and their defense isn't as good as the Steelers to, you know, justify that. Right. So they're not going to be two and one or three and. Oh, with that, Miles Garrett with the hurt foot and everything. But just specifically, you could look at box scores. But if you watch Jamie, did you watch that game? He, I mean, maybe a dozen bad throws. Like. Oh, yeah, bad throws between receivers. You know, you know, two bounces thrown out of bounds. Really, really bad, which, I don't know what more you need to see if you want to win.

Might have had the saddest receivers other than the Miami receivers right today. Yeah. So I don't see a path for them. I don't know if I'd cross them off. But when you're getting basically annihilated by the Giants. Cause the Giants were in control of that whole game, and I actually think the score was a little closer than where it ended up. Okay, so we have Cleveland second. The third spot is between the cowboys and the Rams. So I guess this is a good spot to talk about your.

I have the same thing. I have the same order here. Yeah, I came on here. I was going to be like, I'm not worried. Look, I'm going to put on a brave face. I'm going to tell Simmons. I'm not worried, but I have four days more of not being terrified because if they lose to the Giants on Thursday night, like, that is a must win. Emmett Smith 1994 January that they have to have that otherwise start from now. Dax says get off. There's, you know, if you want to get off, get off the train. Get off now. Did you hear him say that after the game?

Who'd he say that to?

To the fans? It was just like, just in general, he's like, get off. You know, he's not putting anyone in the ring of honor, so.

Jesus, but get off the train. Like, like, what is he mad at the fans for? You're the one who's down 28 to six.

No, I could do better. He's right. I could do better. But, yeah, I don't know what it is. You can blame the defense. And that's, I feel like that gets a pass on some of these games where the, where the offense comes out on the other team and just scores a bunch like the Saints did to us and how Baltimore did today and everyone's like, oh, fire Zimmer. Oh, he's nuts. Get him out of there. He's not ready. You know, his style doesn't, isn't cohesive with this one. But I, when like Nelson Aguilar is torching us and I thought he retired in 2017, it's just bad. Just not beating everybody. They're just playing harder every other team.

Well, the thing I noticed watching today was we should have had Dak for most passing yards, I think was one of the, one of my biggest future regrets before the season. Playing from behind because you can't run the ball. He, they're going to be playing from behind a few more times, but in general, if you're going to move the ball, it's going to be because he's throwing it, even if he doesn't necessarily have the targets. But I just feel like, like if you had to say now who's going to throw for the most yards in the league? I would say Dak. Right? Wouldn't you? Who would you, who?

Yeah.

Who'd be the competitor to him? Yeah.

I mean, he, he did it last year, right? It was second. No, he was second. They had the most.

My fear with him this year was that they didn't have receivers other than lamb, but they're just not going to.

Be able to have running backs. And boy, were you wrong about that.

What was that?

No, no. Can I say something about CD Lamb? I love him. He's the best thing to happen to this team in years. I wish he was a little fiery. I wish he was, like, a little more of an asshole. Like, I'm used to that with Dez and, you know, tl two point. Like, I feel like maybe he could get the team rally behind him. Like a defensive player like Parsons does that, but you can only do it so much, I think, on defense. Plus, he was getting dragged around by, like, Henry the whole game. That wasn't cool. But, um. Yeah, so just.

So you want to send, like, diva camp?

Yeah. Just someone other than the. The owner needs to be an asshole. I think that's. Anyone could.

He's taking a lot of asshole. He's talking a lot of asshole territory.

It's true. He is. Maybe.

Is Jerry in the ring of honor? He must be, right?

I don't think so, actually. I mean, he should have wait till he finds out about this.

I don't know if Arthur Blank's married, but can you imagine? He comes home, he's like, honey, I've got some good news. I'm getting inducted in the Ring of Honor. And she's like, oh, you got voted in. She said, no, I'm Max. I just decided I'm going to be in the ring of honor.

Jerry is. Wear your best hat. There's going to be a ceremony at halftime. Yeah, Jerry's not in, as far as I could tell here.

So I texted you, and I think you got Madden in Dax defense. They did say this would be like a playoff game. No, no, I had heard you didn't like that. You responded. You retaliated with some Brady stuff. Dallas's defense. Here's the most alarming stat for me. Dallas's defense the last two weeks.

Yeah.

How many incompletions do you think they've forced from the other quarterback?

Oh, wow.

I didn't see this last two weeks. Incompletions from the other team.

I think. I think Jackson was twelve for 15. Three, seven.

Eight. Yeah, eight.

Yeah.

That's a bad stat.

No good.

Cause when teams are running on you and every time they throw the ball, it's complete. Not great.

So you have, defensively, you have the.

Giants on Thursday, and then you're at Pittsburgh in two weeks, which I think will be a possible disaster at Pittsburgh, because Pittsburgh's like, oh, you're one dimensional. Boom. And that's what they did to the Chargers today. They're like, you. We don't think you can throw the ball. We're. We're taking out the run. That's it Dobbins, who was headed to the hall of Fame after two games, they took him out. There's an interesting Lamar stat, although Lamar had another classic through a great seven innings, and then they were holding on for dear life in the fourth.

They still can't close games, right?

No, they cannot. Um, did you see he's 21 and one against the NFC.

NFC, yeah. So 21 stat.

That is. What is the explanation for that? 21 and one?

I don't know what the explanation is, but it tells me maybe he should have signed with the Falcons. Like everybody else said, just roll through.

Well, so we said Dallas, so you're properly concerned. And then the Rams would be the other choice for that spot. And the Rams had just an incredible, incredible comeback win against the Niners because they were down 14 nothing. They had didn't seem any receiving possibilities. Not a two, two at well. And just guy, you're like, oh, DeMarcus Robinson. And then they call fake punt, and it works. It flips the game. And Stafford and McVeigh were just incredible in that game. I try not to do too much hyperbole on the Sunday nights because we both went to hyperbole rehab. But I thought Stafford was so good in the last hour and a half of that game, just like every play he had to make, he made. He scrambled around. He took a ton of big hits in the first half. And then they just were like, we're taking the game. We're stealing this from you guys. We have no business winning this, but we're stealing this from you guys. They stole it. They got a big kickoff to set up the game winning field goal. It was just a great win. It really. I had no dog in the race.

I didn't bet on it. I didn't really care who won. I was just really into it. It was enjoyable.

And you're right. It's like they're doing more and more with less. I mean, Jordan Whittington, let's get. Let's learn Jordan Whittington's name. And I think we were texting, like, Stafford's not going to make it to the finish line here. This.

Oh, now it seemed like he was going to be limping off at like, maybe 05:00 eastern time.

One more drive. You might have thought, like, to take him out even like this. This is a mess. And to his credit, like, purdy was excellent. He's 22 for 32, 92, and he had some runs, some nifty runs. Like, really, like, oh, boy. I haven't seen a lot of guys pull that off and diving forward for the first down.

So I'm kind of like Doug fluti a couple times. Yeah. Zooming around, like, buying time, scrambling, doing the u turn, you know, running this way and then zooming the other way. I thought he was good. It wasn't his fault they lost.

But that's. It's a tale of, like, one team and one coach McVeigh, like, who could do a lot even with a ton of injuries. And then the 49 ers where it was glaring. Like, Juwan Jennings had a career day because he was on your bench in fantasy, which is hilarious.

I picked him up for $2, started Rashid Shahid over him, who had zero points, and Jennings had like 29.

Right? So much.

Oh, my God.

Two combined touchdowns the rest of his career and then three today. But, yeah, I'm looking at. You know what? I was just going to crap on the Niners a little bit, but they won. Total yards, 425 to 296. I feel like they just got out, coach. I guess they had 111 penalty yards, which is. Which is rough. But, man, that's that Sean McVeigh is something. The way he gets it done.

So if you're going to say. Because heading into this week, the Rams were the prohibitive year from health team, which we have every year, we have the team that's like, wow, holy shit. I can't believe all the stuff that happened to that team this year. And now the Niners are kind of creeping into that. The Niners are now one and two. A bunch of guys are hurt. Shanahan, the luster is coming off. I didn't think he coached a good game at all today. Um, and injuries on both sides of the ball. I don't know that year from hell. It feels like a toss up between those two now. It's going to be one of those two teams, though.

I wish I can get a handle on this. I think you're right, but I don't. If you were to pick, like, an outlier game, maybe we saved this for next week, like, which is the game we're going to look back on, like, well, how the hell did that happen? I don't even know. Maybe it's niners, jets. Like, I have no idea at this point.

No, I have.

Good. You do already.

I had this coming up later.

Okay.

Cause we do this every year in the pod. We're like, oh, my God. Remember in week two? Dot, dot, dot.

Yeah.

I think Raiders Ravens is going to.

Be the dumbest result of, like, four and 13. The Raiders or something.

Yeah. That ravens are up ten. The Raiders just for some reason put together ten confident minutes, steal the game within a week. You know, they're rolling over against Andy Dalton and the Panthers. Antonio Pierce is giving a crazy press conference. That press conference after.

Yeah.

When he was like some guys out there down the stretch were making business decisions. Well, we're going to be making some business decisions of our own. It's like, what's going on, right? You're losing by 30 to the Panthers. What are guys are supposed to be stretching over the middle and traffic for balls. What are you, what are you saying? And why wasn't your team prepared?

They didn't prepare for Andy Dalton. They only had six days and 43 years of tape on them. How are they supposed to.

Marvin Lewis on their coaching staff. He coached Andy Dalton.

Right.

They're completely blindsided that he was going to be accurate with, and, and if you didn't pressure him, he was going to be good. They didn't. Now, Max Crosby was hurt in that game and you could kind of feel it. But with an injured Max Crosby, not a great team. Anyway, I think week two Raiders Ravens is the leader in the clubhouse right now for stupidest result. Also, Pat, Seahawks going overtime. We might look back at that one if the Seahawks turn out to be really good, just that the Pats actually hung with them for reasons that remain unqueer.

Also, the formula is the underdog beat the favorite and their records, which is the biggest disparity after 17 weeks. Right? You're saying.

So it's probably going to be Raiders Ravens.

Yeah, right. Oh, man. I think you're right. I might want to throw my cowboys in there. Maybe the Browns. Jaguars. Maybe. If the Browns end up with four wins and the Jaguars end up with ten. No way. No, you're right. You're closer.

Well, the other 222 23 playoff teams, Baltimore and San Francisco. So Baltimore, I mean, that was my big, my biggest pick today. Of all the picks, I did really well today, but I saw that.

Nice.

The Baltimore not going zero three. It just seemed too inconceivable. They're too good. I think they're fine, ultimately. So I asked you to write down who you thought right now, after three weeks, if you had to guess seven playoff teams for each conference, who you would pick. I thought it was an interesting exercise. You can't say eight. You can't say either or. Just give me seven for each conference. So you do AFC, then I'll do my AFC and we'll see if we agree or disagree.

First of all, shame on you. For forcing me to do any kind of exercise. I mean, you could see that's not my mo. All right, but you're not going to like it because you're just buffalo. No water, right? Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Houston, Casey, Jets, Raiders. They had to go Raiders. Had to do something.

Still the Raiders.

I'm still going Raiders. Well, who's your seven? I mean, that can't be a good charger you have. Really.

I think the Chargers are good. I really do. I think they're good. I thought they, I thought they swung haymakers with the Steelers for 2 hours and once Herbert went out, you know, they couldn't hang. But their defense was again really good and, and Bosa got hurt during that game. I mean, I guess we shouldn't be shocked when Bosa gets hurt, but I think their defense is legitimately good.

They just have the feel of like an Easton stick. Taylor heinecke is going to, you know, start eight games to me and harbaugh's going to be like, oh, well, next year is our year, but maybe you're right. I mean, whatever. I took the Raiders.

I don't know, that game was, I was sweating that game out. I really thought the Chargers had a chance to steal it. So we agree on jets, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, baltimore, houston by default. Casey.

Yeah.

And you have the Raiders. I have the Chargers.

By the way, I didn't mention Steelers again. I really should make a bigger deal out of this, but please do it every week. Steelers opponent, first half, Steelers to win the game.

The cousin Sal hit again.

It did hit again. Plus 700. You could have got a plus seven.

Oh, my God, it hit. If you had done that this week, you would have already covered all your Steelers bets.

I know, I know.

Because it was plus 800 last week, right.

They just do it. They just don't maybe have enough out of the gate and then they just wear you down, you know? I know.

I got to say, I hated the Steelers for the entire Brady era. And I kind of hated them in the nineties, too. They beat us.

You like them now?

A couple of times? No, I just, you know, my favorite futures were Pittsburgh and the Chargers and the Seahawks. Like, just for, like, that's what I had the most action on. That was my most excited about. I felt like I was like the only one picking the Steelers. Everyone was out on them and I just really admire how they do the most with not a ton. Like, they're definitely really talented on defense, but offensively they have one receiver, you know, and the big play of the game was fields who they've been really. I've watched every play of every Steelers game. They've been really careful with fields. Don't throw over the middle. We don't want a ball get tipped. We don't trust you. And he did finally have an interception and it was over the middle, but the big play of the game, he had Austin over the middle and Austin took off.

Right.

And it was, I felt like that was an important moment for them because all they were doing was, like, having him throw it down the sidelines or do screen passes and they're, they're trusting him more. And I, I think that team's a ten win team.

At least he gave them more than they need out of him. He gave him. Yeah. One touchdown winner. Interception. Fine, 245 yards. My God. Nobody gets that anymore. Are you kidding me?

Right? 500.

That's a whole football field more than we need from you. As long as we're going to also rush for 114 and play defense like we do.

Okay, so NFC. Who are your seven?

I think we. Well, you could be. You could just take.

I thought NFC was harder. Just for the record.

Philly, Detroit, Atlanta, Dallas, and then three teams from the NFC West. San Francisco, Seattle Rams. So you're not going to have Dallas in there. That's fine. Go ahead, take them out. I know what you're going to do.

I mean, Dallas is ridiculous. You almost, like, ruined. I'm taking you out of the Ring of Honor. This is terrible.

You're out.

We're taking a statue out.

I was on for twelve minutes. I was in.

Wow. I have Philly. I have three NFC north teams. Detroit, Green Bay, Minnesota.

Wow.

I had New Orleans over Atlanta. I have San Francisco and I have Seattle. And San Francisco was the one I wavered on the most. And I don't know if I'm right, but I didn't want to put Arizona in. But for the record, I thought Arizona again was good today. Like, they had a pretty noble loss to the Lions. The Lions did the Lions thing again where they had, they had the ball ton. They ran a lot of plays. Their defense just completely shut down the Cardinals running game. But the Cardinals, like, they hang around. They hang around. You can't quite put them away. You always feel like they're one play away from getting back into it. I, I think they, they lost to Buffalo by six, Detroit by seven. I thought those were good losses.

Yeah, that game sucked for us. Cause I think we both had Detroit minus three. And they wanted, desperately, they wanted that game to end 2017. They tried everything. They did. And I was so happy when it was 23rd time. Okay, now we're gonna play defense. But you're right. I just worry that they don't. Man, the Lions really have trouble. Did they have 20 in the first half? They shut them out in the second half.

Yeah.

And so the Cardinals could play that tough defensively. Obviously, down the stretch, they could sneak in nine. I think they could be like a nine win playoff team, if that exists in the NFC.

I thought the crowd was good both ways because there were Lions fans there, too, but it was just like a lively game. The Cardinals defense stepped up a bunch of times and I don't know, I didn't think it was a bad loss for them. So new. So you have Atlanta, I have New Orleans for the speaker. Zero.

Well, here's the thing. There's no way we're going to be able to tell who's better, Atlanta or New Orleans for another ten weeks.

No, we're taking that to week 18.

You could pretend Trump and Kamala are in the margin of error for every swing state. So go ahead and make your predictions. You have no idea how it's going to turn out. Same thing for Atlanta, New Orleans.

By the way, five wins in the NFC south?

Is that what you have? Wait, what do you mean five?

Five total wins right now through three weeks in the NFC south? Yeah.

Well, Andy Dalton killed you. He killed your, your bet.

That was their only win today. But that we're for under 30.

You could have been two and 15 with that Panthers team.

Out. Any dog. So the news flash. So I have Detroit, Green Bay and Minnesota, and I'm going to make the case for Green Bay.

Lafleur, great.

Has stepped up into the top six or seven as a coach. The fact that they were able to steal both of those games and buy some time with love, their defense was really good. Love's going to come back. They're going to have a top six or seven offense when he comes back. And I just think that's a ten win team. I felt that way before the year. And the fact that they're two and one right now is probably where you would add them anyway. So love will be back next week or the week after and I think they get to ten wins.

I think you said it without saying it. There's three head coaches in the NFC north who are probably in the top six or seven overall.

Right?

Like really, really good. Lafleur, how he figured that game out and we know Campbell's solid and what O'Connell's doing with Minnesota is spectacular, which is why I am not as worried about the Cowboys. If they lose the Giants, a different story. But if they're two and two a half game behind Philly, who I get to nine wins.

You could. You could.

We haven't even played Philly yet. That coach blows more games than McCarthy. Like, he couldn't call anything right today. Not one thing could he call right. What was.

You gave us 72 points in like two and six and a half quarters.

You can't worry about anything like that. No, no.

That's until the Ravens did the weird Ravens thing they do where they just can't figure out they've dared. They've, Derek Henry and Lamar Jackson have no idea how to get first downs with a ten point lead.

I've never seen anything like that.

Yeah, dumbest, like quietly the dumbest team in the league. I don't understand them.

Well, listen, everybody gets mad at me for my you don't need running backs comment, but the three and o teams, the running backs are James Cook, Zach Charbonnet for the most part, Nadji Harris.

When it comes to.

Okay, yeah. Aaron Jones. All right. No, no one's breaking the bank for those guys, so.

But you know who's breaking the bank? The Bears, who spent 24 million on DeAndre Swift for being unclear.

Right.

We have Deandre Swift. Meanwhile, Philly goes and gets Barkley, who's, who now is leading on fandor for offensive player of the year. He has the highest odds.

Should they have stayed put with Justin Fields and just had a boatload of picks and Harrison and everything else?

I, I feel like that discourse will start this week. If you put behind that Bears offensive line, he would be just as, as shaky and sketchy as Caleb Williams has been.

Yeah.

They couldn't block the fucking Colts. They couldn't block the Colts without Buckner.

Yeah.

What the hell is that?

No, it's rough.

We liken they have 20 receivers and no offensive lineman.

So what the colorado does and Deon Sanders and the offensive line, it's the same thing. It's just under siege for 3 hours.

So we said before the year, my big case was that I thought there was going to be three NFC west playoff teams, and I had San Francisco, Seattle, and the Rams.

I still have that. Yep. Yeah.

To me, the NFC west, you could tell me any of those teams are going to win the NFC west, and I wouldn't say you're crazy. You tell me Arizona is going to win the NFC west. I don't think that's insane. Rams, if they can get. If they can hold on until cup and Puka come back, like, not insane. San Francisco, obviously they're still the favorite. And then Seattle, who lost? They lost Williams and Murphy on their d line today. They're two best guys, right. Those guys are going to be hurt next week. Their offensive lines a mess. Their schedule is about to get harder. I don't know that nine and eight might take that division for all we know.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of divisions where there's three teams that could win a division, can win it. I really do. Maybe that's what I like about football now. Yeah, I know it's, it's not great to watch when quarterbacks have 43 yards at half, but yeah, that, it's competitive.

I wrote down I have a category, sneaky teams and Zona is my number one sneaky team. Denver was two. I thought Denver, I wanted to bet the money line so bad. I just never pulled the trigger today with them because that line was six and a half. They were dying for you to tease Tampa, suffocating Tampa, coming off this upset, went over to Detroit where Detroit just gave them the game and ran 83 plays and somehow didn't win. But we said, we said on Thursday when house and I talked about this, a million dollar picks. Denver against Pittsburgh in the second half was like sneaky good. Like they controlled the second half. The game. Today they dominated Tampa. They took over the game. Bo Nicks was actually really good. Peyton's trusted him, kept him going. So I have them and then maybe Jacksonville, depending on what happens tomorrow night, as like three teams, is there anybody else he would say is like, I know what their record is, but would you put the Giants in there? Cause I would not.

I mean, people might put, no, I don't think so. The thing, the thing is, Giants play the Cowboys and the one thing they have in common is they both beat the Browns. So you really can't we going to be able to tell. Yeah, they have, they're going to have to play that game before we even see anything. Um, I guess you could say the Bengals if they're, well, you would obviously.

Have the Raiders because you still think they're making the playoffs.

Yeah, well, I think it's a no brainer. I don't even think it's sneaky. Of course the Raiders are making the playoffs.

You make it a business decision. You're gonna make a business decision that I'm gonna make a business decision. I'm gonna go to break right now. Couple more things. Giants, browns, giants one by six. Malik neighbors is so good that it doesn't matter that Daniel Jones is his quarterback. He's somehow Tyreek Hill. It does matter that Skyler Thompson's his quarterback. But Malik neighbors, they just throw to him all the time. I think he has more targets than anyone else in the league. He's super exciting. He's made some holy shit plays. Think he went six? That might actually. Might actually nail that pixel.

I I know what the combine said, and I was pretty, like, I thought I was sure of everybody's dimensions. He, you know, he's seven foot four. You know, he's like Andre the Giants height.

Like.

But I feel like he's picking. Oh, nice shirt. I feel like he's picking the ball out of, like, throws that would go through the goalpost, and he's, like, grabbing him out of the air. He. Who's. Okay, who's he like, what's the comp?

I said, it's like Tyreeko crossed with.

Somebody else, but he's bigger than.

But, like, Kyrie Kell was size almost. I don't. I don't know. I don't know.

I said a little Calvin Johnson. People went nuts on me. But he's not. There's a little. No, I know. All right, so maybe there's that combination there. Really.

I don't know if we've seen anybody quite like him, but he's pretty goddamn exciting. I mean, the Giants literally would be two in one if they had just signed or added another kicker in week two when they knew that their first kicker wasn't hurt. All right, Lions, Cardinals. Lions won by seven. Goffs has four picks in three games and a pick six that would have swung that. I forgot to mention that when we talked about Arizona. They get a pick six right before the two minute warning, and they said, no, no, it was the two minute warning, and they replay it, and it's so not the two minute warning. There was 201 left when they snapped it, and pick six just vanishes. Cardinals might have won the game, but the Lions have scored 60 points in twelve quarters, six in overtime, so 66 total. They've ran 151 plays the last two weeks and only have 40 points. And I don't really understand it, even as I'm watching it. You watch them and you're like, how is this team not scoring 38 points a week? What am I missing?

I don't know. Did they have a fourth and one two? I'm trying to think if they were one of the teams that got stuck in there. Everything is like, I think they got stuck.

Yeah, I think they were one of the ones fourth down.

They were all for one. Arizona was over two. Yeah. Everyone was bad on fourth down. Yeah. I mean, St. Brown had a nifty play with the. The hit the hook and ladder, and St. Brown scored. But they. This is a game where I thought they would kill him. I was like, this is going to be 30 315 or something. 30 316. They can't pull away.

I don't understand it. Chris Meyers on the call today, is he. Has he replaced? I mean, they're still laughing.

I like Chris.

No, I like him, too. It's just the oldest old guard guy now. No, I mean, I guess Al Michaels is still in there, but because we would have forever be like Dickenberg and they'd always be like, the older guy. Now I think it's my. And Chris Myers isn't even that much older than we are.

You mean, so this is.

He's got to be in his mid sixties, right?

How old is Nance?

Oh, yeah, you're right. Nance. Nance, you know, he's 83.

No, I'll stop that. Stop that now.

I thought Romo. I think Romo's been good this season. I think Brady made Romo step his game up.

Yeah, yeah.

Romero has been excellent this season.

Nance is six. Why? Because he talks. He actually. He actually says things when, like, the play is developing.

Yeah, he had. He does that. He, uh.

I know your boy. I know you can't. It's tough. It's tough.

Now let's do it. Let's talk about it. SNL had this sketch with Nick Cage, like, 30 plus years ago called Tiny Elvis. Do you remember this? Yeah, yeah. And Nicolas Cage. It was like a shrunk down tiny Elvis. And he was just sitting on a table. And he had, like, his bodyguards with him. He would just make jokes. You'd be like, look at that salt shaker.

That thing's huge.

And the bodyguards would be like, oh, good one, Tony. Good one. You did it again. That's what these Brady games are like. They're so. They're, like, over overreacting to every comment he makes. They're trying desperately to, like, set him up and be like, whose diet were they talking about? Derek Henry's at one point. Like, he doesn't eat until 05:00. He has an avocado at 05:00. It's sounds like your diet tb. And they're just, like, trying so hard to make him a personality, and three weeks in, it is just not working.

So I don't think it is, but I don't think it's the worst thing in the world. It's not the worst thing, but. So he's. He's a studio guy, then? So he's better as a studio guy. Like, I still think he has a lot to offer. I don't think he can get it out in 6 seconds, you know? And I'm not sure that he wants to.

Yeah, that's a good point. I heard this theory that he's a big swear when he's not doing games, and that's why he's, like, kind of stilting as he does it. I'm not ready to write it off yet, but I thought it would be better by week three, and it's just not. And do you think he needs in.

There and Tony Hinchcliffe and, like, that he was his best at the roast? Like, maybe he just needs those guys. You know?

I want. I feel like he's holding back is one of my biggest issues with him.

Right.

You know? Like, I feel like he wants to talk about how dumb of a throw that was or, like, you can't put your receiver where he's about to get, but he's. It's like he's being nice, and I don't know if you. He's not critical enough yet.

Well, these guys interview quarterbacks on Friday, right? So the Friday before the game, I think they all. Romeo said they interview the coaches. They interview the quarterbacks. They talk to them, you know, and what they let go out on the broadcast is up to them. I could see him being a little nervous, like. Like, hey, you know, I. These guys were all good to me over the years. It's like, yeah, you were the fucking best. Of course they were good to you. Like, I'm not. Why would I burn a bridge here? So it's tough.

Yeah. At one point, what did hench text us about when he was like, well, Lamar lives for moments like this when it was in the fourth quarter. It's like, lamar's been terrible at moments like this. What are you talking about?

But he lives in fear.

I would love insight from him of, like, and maybe Burkhardt hasn't figured out how to set him up yet, but just talk about, hey, the Ravens are really struggling in these fourth quarters. Like, what makes a team be good for 50 minutes and bad for the last ten? Like, did you. Were you ever on a team like that? What are the reasons? How do you fix it? Like, it's almost like they should be thinking about him like he's the fixer. It's like this team's doing this. This is stupid. What would you do? Why is this team like this? If they asked you, what would you tell them? And that. And they have to like reset his brain to think that way and it's just nothing. How's it going?

You're the quarter, you're the greatest quarterback of all time. Tell us what one.

Give us answers. You're the answer man.

As the greatest quarterback. Well, just like what Belichick is doing on 40 other different shows, right?

Belchick's on 45 other shows, but it just seems like he thinks the job is, well, you see there, dak, he saw Zeke coming out of the side. He just hits him with that pass. That pass has to be better. He let him too far away and that's why it was incomplete. And, and it's like, cool, like, can you give me more? I could tell. I'm watching on tv.

He'll be fine.

I'm not ready to write him off.

Yet, but he's going to be just fine.

As Hench said, when the Pats fans are like, ooh, Brady's not great, that's not a good sign. We didn't talk about the Eagle Saints game, which kept me from sweeping million dollar picks, at least for today.

Yeah, that sucks.

Saints finally go ahead. They're up five, somehow missed a two point. Cause they don't have taste of hill and they don't have any two point plays that don't get him. But that's fine, right? Eagles have the ball. There's like under two and a half minutes left. Third and 16, Devonta Smith's out of the game. AJ Brown's not playing. The only guy in the field who can hurt them is Dallas Goddard. And they're inside their own 30. And somehow Dallas Goddard gets open for a 60 yard play. And the Eagles end up going up by a point and a two point and they're up three.

Yeah. The first down is also unacceptable to Goddard on third and 16. And I understand two guys ran into each other, but to go untouched for 60 yards, like he shouldn't go untouched in his house for 60.

Like I'm not about double him, just put a guy on him and another guy behind him, like he's the only guy in the field that can hurt you.

Hurts, can run for it maybe. And that's the other one. But yeah, it's him. And Goddard now is terrible. And that bailed Sirianni out. I think that would have been the big story today. If they're one and two, it would've.

Been fired if they lost that game. I don't know if he's receivable, right?

No, I think big Dom would have stuffed him in the trunk of a Tesla or something and that would have been that. I don't know if they could fire him. That seems too cruel, but I mean, he could.

They went for it twice on fourth down. Both times as they're doing it, you're watching on your tv going, this is weird. They went for that 60 yard field goal with Elliott, which if you missed it was going to just give the Saints all this life, which is exactly what happened. There was other stuff too, but it was.

What was the one you hated? The one, the right before half, there was like 12 seconds left. He went on fourth and one or something when they could have kicked the field goal. Did you say that?

Oh, well, I mean, I said they got stuffed on two fourth and ones, but one of them, they could have kicked a field goal.

Yeah.

And instead they ran like a sweet play that got stuffed, but the only way that play made sense because they had no timeouts left was if they thought they're getting a touchdown out of it. And they were in like the 15. Yeah, it was inexplicable.

Can I, can I just say something about this in coaching? Like, why can't you replace a coach during the game? Like we, well, just take the quarterback. Quarterbacks again, $360 million. And if they don't have it, just like, you know, CJ Stroud. We know he's great. He didn't have it. They took him out. Do that with a coach. The coach doesn't have it. Today he was over five on his fourth down call.

Sirianna is in the, in the box for the second half, right?

He's in the box. The sister coach or big Dom is making the calls in the fourth quarter. I don't think. That's a ridiculous notion.

I really like it. Arthur blank should have thought of that. He one thing with the Saints, the McCoy got hurt. Three plays in their best, their best offensive lineman, they couldn't really totally block. But what it led to was the return of Derek Carr. Yeah, Derek Carr's, he already has a brother, David Carr, but this was Derek Carr's other brother, like dirt car or whatever you want to call, like evil Dare Car showed up, they were pressuring him. They got all this pass rush that they just didn't. And Atlanta against Atlanta, they touched cousins twice the whole game. This game, Carter was a maniac. They're pushing the line, pushing the line. And Derek Carr looked like last year. Derek Carr and looked terrified. I was thinking about hedging at halftime because I was like, I don't like how this is going. Then I would have been so mad when the Saints were up twelve seven on third and 16, but Car was bad. I don't know what to make of this with the Saints offense that looks so awesome the first two games. And, and, you know, like he missed. Shahid was wide open on a bomb and he under threw him.

It just would have been a touchdown if he'd put air on it. There were some other plays that it felt, it just, they felt super sloppy. Um, and McCoy going out early obviously hurt them. But I've cooled off on the Saints now.

I'm with you. And you know what? You want to blame someone for Derek Carr? Failure? Car. Car problems? Um, blame me. I bet him over one and a half touchdown passes, I had all these trends. I was so excited. I was like, he's going to get to. Because he has like, he played great in the first two games. He didn't even play really the second half to score. You know, it's like this guy is in sync. They, all they had to do was get rid of Michael Thomas. That guy was the issue. And now. But you're right, they didn't look anything. They didn't look as fast as they did in the last couple of weeks. Maybe the Eagles are just as fast as everybody, but very disappointing. Maybe.

Maybe they just need to play Dallas every week.

That's true. Yeah. It's so funny. I feel that way about the Browns. Just play it. Let us play Cleveland.

It's almost like sports just changes every week and you play good one week and not that good the next week. I was surprised, though. I thought they would put up more than twelve points against the Eagles. I don't really fully understand that. So the Panthers killed the Raiders. We mentioned that. What happens with Bryce Young now? Because there was, I think Diana Rossini reported that she thought they were actually done with Bryce Young and that they're going to trade him after the air. A couple other people have said that. I find that hard to believe. They would just be done with him.

I know, but I also think maybe, you know, a lot of these guys benefit from a year under the starter. Let's say it's Andy Dalton.

Like Drake may right now.

Yeah, right, exactly. Andy Dalton, who, by the way, the only quarterback this year who had 300 yards and 303 touchdowns in a game. Sickening. But I don't know if Bryce young is that guy just from watching him and just watching how he just really might be too small and not built for this game. And the other part is, oh, they should trade him to the Rams. What do you fetch for Bryce Young right now? Like you're selling really, really low. I think you have to hold on to him.

You have to hold on to him. But I thought the Dolphins would have been a fun one for him. Right. Cause that's kind of the, if you're going to put him in a system where he has to dump the ball. A couple people mentioned this last week, I didn't come up with this, but get, getting rid of the ball then 2 seconds, maybe that's one. But I would.

He's better than Skyler Murray, that's for sure.

Speaking of quarterbacks, Sam Darnold's mvp odds on Fanduel now 25 to one.

Is he like 8th or something now 25 to what?

Sam Darnold. I was out of the league. I'm wondering. So the Vikings beat the Texans 34 seven and Houston looked like they couldn't block. Mm hmm. Maybe the AFC south sucks. Is that possible? Houston, Indianapolis, Tennessee, Jacksonville? Houston might not even be that good at nine and eight and they're just going to get the four seed and just lock them in and they're going to be playing whoever doesn't win the AFC north.

That division sucks right now for sure. Richardson, through his two interceptions, I thought the first one was just, just out of this world bad triple covered four yard pass in the end zone and then the second one was even worse. I thought I. Yeah, so, yeah, you have quarterbacks that aren't ready. You have teams that can't put the offense together and yet they won.

Colts.

Right. Like they avoided being on the feet somehow once.

The Bears cannot block at all. And I thought we're somehow the most poorly coached team of the day, which is really saying something. But Iber flu's, I, I don't know what that guy's doing. He, he, his timeouts and challenges, they're, they just operate in this alternate universe. I'd be going nuts. I was a Bears fan and they also don't seem like they know how to run an offense for a team that obviously can't block.

Right.

They're just, Caleb's just going back. Like, he's going to like, maybe I'm going to have time this time. And he goes back, it's like, no, there's four guys on weekend. It's like, yeah. The next time that you're going, that's going to happen again. Guess what? There's going to be four more guys the next time. Yeah.

52 attempts. If you get them, give them 70 attempts. The next 18, he's going to be crushed. Six of them. You know, doesn't.

They're trying to wear down the other team's defense ratio. Yeah.

Yeah. You guys tired yet?

But iberfloos was awful. You mentioned Richardson. Did you see? He has six interceptions.

Is it six already? Wow. It's a lot.

Which we talked before the season. We were talking about who could win the interception title.

I had Caleb. Yeah.

Yeah. And I had, I, I think I had Sam Darnold and we argued about was he going to play enough games to get it. But we thought somewhere between 15 and 19 would be the interception title. That's usually where it lands. Richardson cardiac at six.

If you count Sam Darnold, like the NFC championship game in the Super bowl, you might. He might get the most interceptions at the playoffs. Jesus.

So Richard Santa's thrown 73 passes this year. How many do you think he's completed?

73. You said six are interceptions. 67.

35, 36. Okay, so he's just under 50%, but it feels worse when he's on one of the tvs. Cause they're sailing everywhere. But then he'll uncork the most beautiful 50 yard pass to somebody in stride and you're like, oh, I get it. I get why the combine. He blew everyone away. He'll also have like two runs a game where he's just running over people like Derek Henry. So there's something there. I don't think he's a bus by any means.

You have to have a name for that because you now put together a four box for YouTube tv. Right. And that was, I imagine that was your fourth choice on the fourth box. Right.

That cold.

It was game. You have to have a name for like the dangling box or something. You're ready that can move in and out at any time. That interesting because to me that was just between that and the, the Giants browns. I thought was. Which train wreck do you want to watch out of those two?

It's almost like a six man or like, what's that? Starter in baseball, the. The reliever starts the opener.

The reliever that starts the opener.

In baseball they call it. What do they call it? The opener when the relievers just pitches the first inning and then he leaves.

Oh, yeah. Like the Rays do.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like that. It's like, I'm gonna start the game with cold spares. Yeah, I was moving around. There was a couple, like Texans Vikings was just, that has to go. I thought that was going to be a staple. And, you know, an hour and a half in it was Broncos Bucks is the last one. So the six plus faves after this. After today, they are two and 15 against the spread.

And how many outrights?

Nine outright losses for the six point favorites. So if you love teasing.

No. Good.

You're probably telling your mom you need a gym membership and more money. The $500 I'm joining Equinox. It's $500, but it's cash. It's not credit card. Do you have $500 cash?

Yeah. Right. They're, they're laughing at us. All the purists that laugh at teaser players. And guess what I'm doing tomorrow? Effing teaser. Better believe it.

Would you do Buffalo and hit Buffalo game?

I'm actually going to do Jacksonville and Cincy. I mean, they got it. Since they have to. Both those teams have to come close.

I mean, Mike, I don't see Trevor Lawrence losing eight in a row.

Mike, you know, I watch Patrick Mahomes lead his team down the field so that Harrison Bucker could kick 300 yards worth of field goal. It was just, it was amazing.

They were, what were they waving? Susan B. Anthony.

Oh, yeah.

In the crowd like to try to psych him out. They're waving Susan B. Anthony.

Right, right. Yeah.

And then somehow he missed the extra point because he was probably like, what the fuck are they?

I don't even get it. Now she's in the Ring of Honor. That's great. With Arthur Blaine.

We're going to take one more break and do guest alliance. Today's guest alliance is brought to you by Workday. Get the whole band together with workday and pair finance and hr on one platform for an epic performance. With Workday AI at the core, you'll make confident decisions faster than ever. And you'll drive flawless business and finance operations with an agile platform that constantly evolves to future proof. Your organization, ba Finance and hrtaine rockstar with workday. Visit workday.com to learn more. All right, guess the lines. Usually when I'm dead on for guess the lines, it's usually good for my gambling, which was the case last week when I nailed like six straight on. So we got, you were good.

And it's one, one, one after three weeks.

All right, so we're fresh start. We're basically starting. It's, we're dead. Even Thursday night your team is playing the Giants in Giants Stadium. This felt like Cowboys minus three and a half to me.

Wow. Wow. The disrespect. I might just, I may have to quit the week here because I had six and a half.

Yeah.

Still the Giants. And it's four and a half. You get it?

I think that ends under four. I think that gets to three and a half.

Really?

Yeah. Your team's not good. I know you can't see it yet. It's fine. Well, team's not that good.

Okay, but don't we match up against the Giants? What?

Not your fault.

Just hold.

Not your fault.

Hold me through the zoom.

It's not your fault. Your team is not neighbors. We have, my team's not good either.

We have two bad teams is better, our quarterbacks better. Okay. All right. We always listen.

Dak might win nine games just, just by himself, which he probably should if you're paying him $60 million, but your team's not very good.

Okay, I guess that's it. I mean, you usually, you'll agree, though, they usually throw a cowboys tax in there, right? And three and a half or four and a half. What it is, doesn't seem, I would.

Argue you had the Cowboys tax this week when the line was one and a half when it should have been three.

Oh, you thought Raven.

The Raven. I thought the Raven should have been favored by three. Yeah.

By the way, we didn't. Yeah, that flip from when we bet last week. I don't even want to talk about that game.

Well, the big flip from last week was that Saints.

Eagles.

Saints, like five points, right?

Yeah. Cause the Eagles lost on Monday and that moved it. Yeah.

Sunday marquee. So I'm going to do this one, even though it's probably not the marquee, but it is for me. Chiefs at the Chargers. Chiefs coming. La Harbaugh, his first time going against Andy Reid and Mahomes. Herbert probably playing, I would assume, and assuming he does play. I just think this is a really fun game and I'm excited to watch it cause I think I'm a little higher on the Chargers, especially their defense than most. So I'm going to say Chiefs by six.

All right, I'm going to suggest we throw this out. And it's not just because I lost. I said Chiefs by three and a half, but this reads for sure like he's not playing. It's eight and a half.

Oof. Cobra throwing it out because I won.

All right, fine. I mean, yeah, but all your analysis was Herbert's play. I mean, he's clearly not playing this game.

Right. Well, he's gonna be a lot of Chiefs fans, too, don't you think? 30,000 Chiefs fans of that game, not.

Eight and a half points worth of the Chiefs fans. That's craziness.

That lines too high. I agree.

Will you look at the great. I'm not, I'm not screwing that up. Sunday, 425, eight and a half. Right. Okay.

That's two injuries. That doesn't look great. Where that one and Laporta looked like he was really hurt.

Yeah. Like we came back for a second.

But, yeah, did not. That guy just seems jinxed.

Yeah. All right. You get that one, you're up to nothing. But I'm surprised that already they, they're assessing that he's, he's out.

Well, I'm leading to nothing already for the week. I'm excited. I have two watchable games. Oh, three. My bad. There's one in the wrong category. Okay, first one, saints at the Falcons. I almost want to call this a loser leaves town match, but we can't because this, this division is going to be dragging dragon out for 14 more weeks. I had the Saints favorite in this game. I did. Saints by one. I just think they're better.

All right, I'm going to get. Do I get this? You figure out the math? Yeah, I get this. I said Atlanta by three. So I was like, you know what? You don't step into Atlanta. They have the ring of honor with the owner in there. Atlanta by one and a half.

Yeah, you did get that.

So I was off one and a half. You were off three. I think that could move. That could tighten them.

Okay. Atlanta by one and a half. Interesting. Did we, did we hammer Raheem Morris hard enough in the pod? Can't remember.

I mean, I guess there were so.

Many bad coaches today, but I. Special kudos to him for those terrible, awful third and fourth down calls.

I mean, that last fourth down. I don't know, man. I seem, I've seen so many up the middle that didn't make it. I've seen so many jet sweeps that didn't make it. I don't even know what the right call is on for now.

What about the timeout? So they get a first down. It's under a minute left. There's a play, and then he just calls timeout.

Right.

And then the next play, Reed calls timeout before Raheem Morris is able to call timeout, which should have told him how dumb the first time there's a minute left. You're on the 15. There's no, you keep your three timeouts in case you don't get it. Keep the clock running. Either way, make the Chiefs call timeout. He's just completely mangled it. He was terrible the last time he was the head coach. Yeah, but I thought he'd be better this time because everyone was talking about what a great defensive coordinator he was. But when he was the head coach for Tampa, he was awful.

Didn't we make a deal with ourselves that we were going to wait till after three games and then bet Atlanta to win the division? It's like they could be zero and three or one and two or something. Now they're plus 180 in their home. I guess if you think they're going to lose this one, then you wait even longer. But we did make a deal that we never came.

I thought we had to wait until, oh, I guess this was the week.

Yeah.

Wait, so what? So they're all right. I'm going to Fanduel. So they are. Saints are plus 145. Falcons plus 180, Tampa's plus 260.

Cause they were a minus to start the year, right. So we were like, no, just wait. I'm a few weeks and they could be one and two or o and three.

What team do you like more?

I guess that's what it comes down to. I like the saints team I saw last week beat the shit out of my, my cowboys. That's the team that should win a division.

I like the Saints a little more. Okay, next one is Eagles at the Bucks. Eagles have to be favored in this game. I'm going to say Eagles bye. One and a half at Tampa.

I got this exactly right. Unless it changed. I said two and a half and it is. Sorry. Still two and a half. Yeah. Phil was favored. That's a playoff rematch, right?

The Bucks waxed them the last time. So either that's a Bucks feeling confident cause they beat them the last time.

Yeah.

Or the Eagles mad that they beat them the last time. I never know. I never know how that works.

Yeah. Let me know how that turns out.

Yeah, I'll never figure that one out. Next one is packers at the Vikings. This arguably could have been the marquee game, but I didn't know if Malik Willis was playing or not. By the way, shout out to Malik Willis. Malik Willis was good. Was pretty good today.

Very good. I mean, maybe I'm crediting the coach too much, but Malik Willis didn't screw up. He ran along with that team. They pounded the ball and that defense. I guess we should talk more about the packers young, excellent defense. It already has six interceptions. And when they had seven all of last year, very, very good.

Well, he cost me money twice because he cost me money last week because I bet against the packers only because of Malik Wallace, because of his career to that point. And they, they won. So I stayed away this week. But then with Skyler Thompson, I was like, I just want to bet against Skyward Thompson. He's in Seattle. That Seattle's defense should just kill him. Like, what are we doing?

Right?

But I was so scared off by the Malik Willis thing, I held off.

Oh, wow.

It's almost like your second loss scared me off of easy Skyler Thompson money. So fuck you a second time, Malik Willis, because he's responsible for all your.

Bad bets here going forward.

I have the packers at home, right?

Yeah. Packers at home. Yep.

Minus one and a half over Minnesota.

I narrowly beat you. I said three. It's two and a half.

So that's a line that good game. That. That's a line that is saying Jordan loves playing.

Loves playing. Yeah. I think he wanted a guy.

I should have factored that in. God damn it.

Too late.

I should have cheated this week. I forgot to cheat.

That's a fun one. That's a good one early on. I like that.

Yeah. That probably should have been the Sunday marquee game. If love's playing. Yeah, I'm going to flip that. Even though it doesn't matter because we already did the podcast. I'm going to flip that just for my own records. Fairly watchables. I got five. Jets, Broncos. Not a terrible game. Yeah, it's, it's a Jets home game, and I think the Broncos showed enough today that they moved that line under seven. I have jets by six and a half.

All right, I'm making a move here. I said seven at seven and a half.

Oof. It's a little too high.

Three to two. Good guys.

So the Broncos had a really good second half against the Steelers and played a really good complete game today. So they've been good for a game and a half. And I think that lines too high.

Well, we didn't talk about the jets at all because it was a Thursday game. I guess you talked about it on Friday. But I think people need to calm down just a little bit. Just a little bit with Aaron Rodgers in the jets just, and I'm not saying this because I don't like whatever. I had them Thursday. I think they're a playoff team, but they played a bottom five team. Sorry. You shit on my team enough today.

I'm insulted. You said bottom five. They're about three team there. You call us the bottom.

Bottom three. I take it back.

Three years old, you again, three worst teams at us.

Bottom three. Bottom five on three days rest, so anything could happen. And they took advantage. But he looked good. He looked good. But he wasn't. Wasn't forced out. I mean, I had, like, design rollouts out of the pocket. I think he was forced out too much.

I thought he looked good. I thought he made good throws.

A little bit high. Tiny bit.

Texans are home for the Jaguars. So I have Texans by three and a half. But I think if the Jaguars look good, I think this line goes under three. But for now I get Texans three and a half.

I said four. It's four and a half. I went a little higher. These are good division games. Mini Green Bay, Jacksonville, Houston.

That's Casey.

Chargers.

I think that's an underdog pick. So the Jags. I'm going to bet the Jags again. Just honestly, just club me in the head.

We have to now.

That's too many points. The Jags have a good pass rush. The Texans can't block anyone. But you can get to Stroud.

Yeah.

And they can't run the ball. We'll see if they get a mix and back next week. But they couldn't run the ball, which is problem. Okay, next one. Steelers at Indianapolis.

This is your team. You should get this. I was off by half a point.

Steelers by two and a half.

I said two. It's one and a half. Look at this. Look how I'm elbowing you out of here.

God damn it.

I promise. Look.

No, I believe you. I'm not like you. I don't. When I'm losing, I don't use the other person of cheating. Cheating like I'm. I think, like, I think, like you're the real life. 2014 Indianapolis Colts. You're just accusing when you're losing. Just lash out.

I don't know why you don't do that. I think that's a character flaw, to be honest.

That line should be. That line should be up to two and a half or three by game time, because Anthony Richardson against that Steelers defense is not going to be pretty.

At some point, they have to take a. Like, they. They could take one game a month off the Steelers defense. Right?

I don't know, man.

That's not what defenses do.

Isn't that what's possessed this year?

Yeah.

Last one I put bears, Rams, as a fairly watchables only. Cause I don't know what the f. To expect from either of these teams. It's definitely not a poop fact. The game and the Rams really won my respect today.

But you're going to get this.

Am I? Cause I have the Bears favored by one and a half.

Yeah, you got it. Exactly. I had the Rams favorite by three and I. Talk me out. Talk me out of this. Why the Bears are favored, I don't know.

Because the ranting got super lucky today and probably should be, you know, zero three.

Well, I mean, if anyone should be owing three. Okay.

Yeah. The Bears got super lucky against Titans.

Yeah.

Will Levis, eight turnovers this year. Forgot to, forgot to shout him out.

So good. So good.

Eight turnovers in three games. What a pace.

Poor JJ made that his best bet. I mean, imagine giving points with Will Levis. You know, right away it's over.

There's different ways to do these best bets. I. I am personally not a. I'm going to make my best bet of the week. A bad quarterback or a bad team?

Oh.

I just, I don't, I can't personally do it. I don't like betting on bad teams. Cause I just think there's too much variance.

I'm the same way. I think you bet underdogs. If you make a living betting underdogs, you. You'll live eight years shorter because you're betting on a bad quarterback to do a good thing in the fourth quarter.

Right. Poop fecta. Bengals. Panthers. You could argue this is a fairly reward. Uh, fairly watchable because of Dalton going against his old. Is he in the Bengals ring of honor or no?

300 yards, three touchdowns. Yeah.

Took us to seven playoff games. Here he is. I have the Bengals right in the Vegas zone, laying five points in Carolina.

You're going to get it. It's five and a half.

Hmm.

Yeah, he was. Yeah, he was instrumental. He was in the shakey's game every, every year. Right? Dalton, he was that Saturday game, him and against Matt Schaub, wasn't that.

I see Dalton and I just think of warm, kind of gross pizza that might give you diarrhea in a couple hours. I see his face. That's my, that's my instinct, being on the bowl, wondering why I had that sausage pizza slice.

He's going to get you back by putting up six w's for Carolina, moving that NFC south total up to 33.

Here's, here's a hard line. 49 ers at home for the terrible New England Patriots. Yeah, I went with 49 ers by nine.

Yeah, I went seven and a half. You're going to get it. It's ten and a half. I was way off. I just didn't think ten and a half existed anymore, honestly.

Is that our first one?

We didn't have one last week, right.

I don't know if we've had a double figures one. Yeah, that's our first one.

Let's see. This is easy enough to do.

This will be Jacobi Brissette's last start.

It's the first one. The Bengals didn't give the Patriots ten. Right. That never got to ten. That would have been the closest one. It is the first one.

This is the farewell star for Jacoby.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah. You said this is the last one. He said this is it. Yeah.

Drake May will be the starter for week five against Miami.

Okay.

And predicting that, I think that's the right move. Let's get him out there. Let's see what he's got. Don't be scared out by the Bryce Young thing. Maybe think more CJ Strad last year. Just get him out, have him run around. I think it'll be okay.

I think that's fair. What's that game again? What's the game?

Five.

No, we.

Game five is home for Miami. It's perfect.

Okay, great.

Here's your competition. Skyler Thompson.

Skyler Murray. Yeah.

Just be better. Better than Skyler Murray Thompson. Maybe you should hyphenate it. Skyler Murray Thompson.

I love that.

Cardinals are at home for the Washington Sewards. And I was surprised. I bumped this to cards minus four.

See, now you're. Now you're making a run here. I think it's four and a half. Yeah, it's four and a half. I said three and a half. So you get it.

I think there's a cards parlay with some adjusted under, I think is worth considering because both of those teams score points like cards, money line, and you take the under.

Oh, I see.

I mean, I'm sorry, the over. But you, you adjust it down so it's like over 40 and just parlay that together and try to high overdose.

That. Is that the highest over the week? 49 and a half, but that's the highest of the week. I guess it might be one two versus secondary.

So get that down to like 42, something like that.

And not bad.

Yeah. Two good garbage time. Touchdown. Teams, too, where the game's over, but they're just driving like it's the last poop factor game is poop tastic raiders, browns. It is a spilled porta john of poop. It's in Vegas. I have no idea who should be favored. I almost wanted to do Raiders pick them, but I did. Raiders minus one.

I did raiders minus two. It's Brown's minus one and a half.

Wow. Not surprised.

You get that. You love, you love the Raiders on a teaser, getting more than a touchdown.

You will never be bet on the Raiders, ever, especially after the coach coming out and just bashing the players in the, in 2024. I don't know if that works when you've, when the coach has basically done nothing.

Right.

It's not like he's like a three time Super bowl champ, right? He won a couple games last year down the stretch. Now he's just calling guys out, taking shots. It just doesn't work. We have lots of evidence in the last five, six years that this is a bad strategy.

Yeah, coach, I appreciate the criticism, but I don't know if you remember, you punted on fourth and one from 43 last.

I'm sorry I didn't try as hard this week, but I still can't believe you punted from the 40 yard line. So I made some business decisions today. I will say this, if you bet on this game, you might need to go to a meeting.

Well, they gave us, they're doing better. It's eight and four kickoffs and four four pm's or 425, whatever. So, yeah, there are other games. You don't need to do.

This one, we have this little outdoor area my, in my house, and I didn't want to put a tv out there. And then my wife was like, put on a tv. I know you're gonna use it. We should put one out there. I'm like, all right, fine. I was out there for the late games today. It was just, I felt like a new man. It's really because you're just sitting indoors watching tv for, you know, 10 hours, and just to be outdoors for 3 hours watching a tv with the little four box on it, I was like, this is great. I'm having a great time.

It does make you feel a little less shitty about yourself, right?

Yeah, it really does.

There's really does. I'm sorry about this, but I've only heard about this, but there's the leaving the strip club when it's light out feeling like, oh, boy, what's with what? Where's my life? And then there's, you know, a little further, further down is.

What about that? What about still playing blackjack when they're vacuuming under the table. That, yeah, which you've personally witnessed with me.

That would have been a better use. I'm sorry, it was a little less sketchy.

Fortunately, we're. Fortunately we're not live. Oh, no, we're in place.

Same place.

Vegas Sunday night Ravens, Bills. This is a really good game.

Great game, Lamar.

Jack.

Oh, Lamar.

Just these two guys. You think you have them. Stop. Mike. You think you got them and they just pull a play right out of their butt cheeks, Mike. Right out of your butt.

You try to tackle them. Mike, we're going on the field now.

You do everything right and he just plows over you and gets four more yards.

Mike, that was a great play. I will say the first 1st down, when he, when he held the ball, he d the director and everyone. And the announcer still, Brady still thinks that it was a sweep left. And then, and then the pass on was third and 6th. The flowers. He pulled it out. That's what he lives for.

You know, he lives for those moments.

Yeah, those moments.

I have ravens minus three against Buffalo.

I think we split this. It's two and a half.

I said two.

All right, let's add these up. One, two, three.

I have to be winning.

Come on, 82345, you're winning by two. One of the Monday night games. They have two again. One. I'm off by one and a half points. So you could write. You could wrap it up with this first one. Damn it.

Two Monday night games again. The first one stinks. Dolphins. Titans, Skyler Thompson against. No, what's it. What do we call him? Skyler Murray Thompson. Scyler Murray. High speaker. Three against Will Levis. The Titans fired Mike Brable, replaced them with a guy who's like, will Levis is my guy. Malik Willis goes to this other team and somehow they've rejuvenated him in two weeks and it's not going great for ten.

Is there a Malik Levis? Because that would end. That's another interesting. That would get super so confusing.

I have the Dolphins favored by two and a half over the Titans.

Son of a bitch. You were way off. But I was way off. I said minus three. Tennessee's favorite by one and a half.

Oh, my God. It's almost like they saw. It's almost like they saw Skyler Thompson play quarterback today. Jesus.

But Lev is against.

How the mighty have fallen. Is it? This is unbelievable. The Dolphins are getting points against Will Levis in week four.

All right, I got to see something. Is Will Levis, was he favored three times this year? No. He wasn't favored against the Bears, was he?

Twice.

Was he favored against the bet? No.

So I wrapped it up. Yeah. All right. Monday night, second game. Pretty good one. Lions against the Seahawks. Seahawks, a little banged up. So I bumped this a little toward the Lions. Had the Lions by five.

We're going to split it. I said four. It's four and a half. So you win ten to eight.

Wait, we have one more bonus bet on Tuesday night, midnight, East coast time. The premiere of Mister McMahon on Netflix.

Oh, yeah.

Home game against the Menendez brothers. Six episodes. The monster. The Menendez brothers. That's on Netflix right now. Mister McMahon. I don't know who's favorite in that. Mister McMahon. I mean, there's two Menendez brothers.

Yeah. So that's a dark. A double. Well, can I just say this on your behalf? The Menendez brothers say, don't watch it. They are not happy with how they were portrayed. So, yeah, I don't know, maybe Mister McMahon isn't either. But let me just say I saw it. Thank you for the advanced screening. I fucking loved it. It's like crack cocaine to me, and I loved it. And I want to. I don't think you had anything to do with it. No, it was great. It was great. You picked all the perfect spots, let me just say that. And I also thought it was fair. That's all I'm gonna say.

I appreciate it. We're really proud of it. I'm trying not to say too much, but it premieres Wednesday on Netflix.

Your birthday.

Yeah, weirdly my birthday, but it's really Wednesday on Netflix is really late night Tuesday. So the people on the west coast, they're gonna be like, oh, I'm just gonna watch the first one. And I'm telling you, you're gonna watch at least four. It's impossible to watch the first one and stop.

Plan on doing three and three?

Yeah, four and two. It'll be one of those. That's Mister McMahon is coming on Netflix September 25. We're going to take one more break and do a little parent corner. Thanks again to workday for sponsoring this segment. Be a finance and hr rock star with workday. To learn more, visit workday.com. all right, parent corner, what do you got? So.

Well, this isn't earth shattering, but this is something I want to discuss. So my youngest, ten year old Harriso, disappointed me. He actually, like, burned a little in my stomach when he told me what he had done the other day. And he's in a couple of fantasy leagues, ten years old two fantasy leagues, more than enough. And he offered his friend a trade and he told me about it and he offered to give him Zach Ertz lad McConkie and an extra defense of his. He's like you. He dressed like four defenses for no reason. So Ertze, McConkie and a defense. I can't remember who for CD Lamb and I had to have a talk with him and I was like, listen, don't be that guy. Don't be that little dick.

You need to learn this right now. Even at age ten, you can't beat.

This guy will hate you. First of all, there's a problem. He's like, well, he's getting three, I'm getting one. It's like, that doesn't matter. He's going to have to cut two guys.

Yeah.

You're giving him crap for. He would have drafted these idiots two weeks ago if he wanted them. Instead of cd lamb. You have to. You have to do it. This is a more important lesson than respecting your elders or, you know, just do it. Like being able to, practically being able to change a flat tire. You have to offer sensible fantasy trades. If I leave you one thing in life, just please do that. Don't be that ass. You will lose friends over it. People will make fun of you and it's not worth it. And he looked at me like I was nuts. And he's like, well, what am I supposed to do? My team, I was like, start dropping defenses first and pick up the white running back on the Chiefs. Or do something like that. But don't offer.

Pick up the guy who gets tackled by the first guy every time he's running.

Exactly. Yeah. His sister had a wedding while he was running the ball. But I think this was, I think this is a valuable lesson. Right? Like, I think this is valuable.

What if some other. Don't be that guy lessons for a ten year old? Like, don't have a crush on the girl that your buddy likes.

Yes. Don't do that.

That's a, that's a huge one.

Right? Don't leave the strip club when it's light. Oh, no, no. We already hit that. No, don't. I don't know. I mean, I wanted to start with this. I think fantasy is important. And if he's going to do this for another 40 or 50 years, if people do that to him, it's one thing. Just don't. I wanna know that I raised you the right way.

You should tell him. Don't be like Uncle Brad and draft eight running backs. Have we talked about that on the podcast.

I don't think we did our fantasy league at all, our draft or anything. Yeah.

Our friend Brad, who. I wouldn't say he's playing with a full deck. Is that fair?

It's fair. He's gonna kill you. But it's before your birthday, so good for you.

That's true. So that's why I didn't say it.

No, it's too full. I think the deck is too full. Let's say that. I think he's playing with like 57 cards.

He has 56 points today with James Cook left in the docket, but he took eight running backs. So he has James Cook, Ramonre Stevenson, Rashid White, Najee Harris, Tony Pollard, Aaron Jones, Josh Jacobs and Brian Robinson juniore are all on his 18 person team. And we think it's hilarious because every week he's going to just try to figure out which two. So this week, Aaron Jones is on his bench, who had 21 points.

Yeah.

And instead he started Ramandre Stevenson, who had 0.34. This is why you don't have eight running backs. You're never going to throw the dart right down the middle on this.

Well, the best.

Even I wouldn't do this strategy.

No, you wouldn't do this. You're right. You would. More integrity. And. But. But the better part of it was, I think that it was an auction draft and it was like eight of the first, like 25 guys. So if there was a running back, he was draft. And like, a lot of times, like, I nominate James Cook for Dollar 15. He's like, who the fuck is that? And then he bid on him. He'd take them from me. Like, what are you doing?

He was trying to psych us out. He's demeaning the bid. And then he would bid on the guy. It was an interesting way to do it.

I'm going to have Harrison trade with him. Cross league if it's possible. It's the only way it's going to work.

My parent corner, my wife said I couldn't do. So I'm going to have to do a historical parent corner.

Yeah.

We're going back ten years. Ten years exactly. To when you and I did a podcast together that ended with me getting suspended for three weeks from ESPNA.

Oh, yeah. Is it ten years on your birthday?

It's ten years exactly. It was a Monday. We used to tape the podcast on a Monday afternoon. It was a couple days where the whole Ray Rice thing was happening, and all of a sudden, Ray Rice was suspended indefinitely. Cause that TMZ video came out of him assaulting his girlfriend, and Goodell suspended him again. And then there was a whole thing. There was a big piece about it, about how Goodell suspended him, definitely, because there was information he didn't know when he met with Rice. But then rice was like, no, no, I told you that I actually physically struck with. So basically, Dell suspended him twice. And I was pointing it out, and I was saying, he claims he didn't know what happened on that tape. He's a liar. Got a little carried away, and the whole thing happened. Suspended for three weeks, and we didn't get to do guess the lines right. But we were doing old school. We were on the. We were. We were on the phone doing it that way. And then I came back three weeks later.

Yeah, you got one free call.

You were my one call every week, by the way. I was right. He did. He did lie. Because Ray Rice definitely told him in the meeting what happened, and then he somehow got suspended. But if you remember, Ray Rice then got exonerated from the second suspende suspension.

Right.

They overruled it.

Yeah.

Just pointing that out.

Now YouTube's gonna suspend you three weeks. That's great.

Well, here's the thing. So my kid, my daughter was, I think, nine, and she came home from school and it was, you know, people were talking about this, and she's like, daddy, what happened to you at work? People were saying, like, you got. You got in trouble and just was really upset about it. And now I feel like if it happened now, she wouldn't care to. At age 19, probably wouldn't even find out for, like, another two weeks. Well, Ben back then was really upset. No idea. I don't even think Ben knew that. Knows that I have a job, definitely. But anyway, when stuff like that happens, you don't realize, like, there's this whole family piece of it, too, right? Where people are like, hey, you all right? What's happening? And then your kids are like, what's happening? Are we going to lose our house? Are we, like, you know, this is.

A nine year old. Well, that just. You were already. You were already angry. Yeah, understandably so. And then when the family members who you don't think are going to be affected are, it makes it ten times worse. Stupid. And for what?

Remember we. We used to tape the pod. It would be like. Because you would have, like, the Jimmy Kimmel talking points.

Yeah.

And we would tape the podcast about the Sunday games at, like, Monday at, like, 02:00 West coast.

Yeah. Right.

And, like, hustle it up and the game. Meanwhile, the Monday night game was about to start. Now we're doing live on YouTube. That's so much. Things change.

Unbelievable.

We are. That's it for parent corner. What else do we have to talk about? Anything.

That's it. I'm trying to think. We did the Emmys last week. Got for me through the ringer with Tate. Wednesdays cousins house winning weekend Friday. Mina Kimes is a guest ring. A pregame show. Always great fun.

Mina Kimes was on family feud.

She was right.

She was.

She.

Chang had her on a family feud with Pablo and a whole bunch of. Bunch of.

Oh, I didn't know. Well, she got. She famously won Chang a million dollars or helped on millionaire. Yeah.

So did Kimmel ever do family feud?

No, I don't think so. I mean, I would have known.

Yeah, he should have been on. So who would have been his five?

It would have probably been me and Chippy. Maybe cousin Mickey.

And Mickey has. Would have to have been one of the. One of the five.

Yeah, but she couldn't do the fast money and then Jonathan couldn't do that. Yeah, maybe Jonathan or he never did that. Yeah, we got to do that.

He should do that, do that, do that. Wow. Chippy can. Can still probably get in trouble.

Wheel around, curse Steve Harvey. Also, I should mention against the laws twice a week, bring her podcast network. The parlay kid is going for 14 in a row. Baseball picks. I know people forgot about baseball, but. And he's had some pluses in there. He never goes higher than -130 so. And he's made money for a lot of people. Of course not for himself, because he feels like he's going to jinx it. So check that out on against all odds.

I feel like Ohtani was single handedly bringing baseball back last week.

Oh, yeah.

That was the first time baseball seemed to cross over into some sort of people texting each other. Did you see what's going on with Otani? And then he had the third one. But I had that list for you. Actually, we forgot to talk about Brandon Aubrey, your kicker.

There'll be plenty other weeks to do it.

Well, think about this for next week. Like the people who are the absolute best at their jobs. Cause I feel like he is by far the best field goal kicker now. And Ohtani is like, by far the best baseball player. Would you say Mahomes is by far the best quarterback?

Best at their job in sports?

Best at their job compared to everyone else they're competing.

I gotta say me here. I don't know. You're leaving me out. All right. I want to think about that because there are people still claim it's a, it's Conor McDavid.

Oh, he's a good one, too. So Aubrey today, he had an onside kick and it's like, well, clearly he's going to do an incredible onside kick. He's, he's Aubrey. And then of course, he some day somehow get the ball back. They set him up for a 65 yarder like, yeah, send him out 65 yards. Boom. Nails. That I, and Brady, I thought was his best point when he was saying he was kind of like Steph Curry, like, there's no range for him anymore.

Yeah, right.

I was like, you're right. There's never been a field goal kicker where it's like, oh, 72. Yeah, he could probably make this.

Yeah, we as fans were mad when they passed on the 71 yarder at halftime a couple of weeks ago because a special teams coach said no. But the only thing that's going to suck with Aubrey is next year, late August, when he's holding out for $25 million, and then Jerry gives him $35 million in September. But other than that, I'm really excited.

Your whole salary cap is four guys and then a bunch of been rub things. All right, Sal, I will see you next week live on YouTube. Good job by you.

All right. Don't get suspended. Good job by you, buddy.

That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Cousin Sal. Thanks to Steve Ceruti and Kyle Creighton as always. And don't forget, you can watch this podcast that we just did on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. You can watch the rewatchables when it goes up on Monday night on the Ringer movies YouTube channel. Or you can listen to it. But I will be back on this feed on Tuesday, so see you in a couple days. Must be 21 plus and president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and president DC gambling problem. Call 100 GAMblEr or visit rg dash help.com, call 1887-8977 or visit ccpg.org chat in Connecticut or visit md gamblinghelp.org. in Maryland, hope is here. Visit Gambling helpline ma.org or call 803 two seven 500:50 for 24/7 support Massachusetts or call 18778 HOpe NY or text Hope NY in New York.