Coming up, I got an NBA Power Poll for you and a lot of NFL talk next.

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It's all done. You can catch up. You can catch up over the holidays. I would highly recommend listen, this one, it's really good. Coming up on this podcast, I have a big end of November NBA Power Poll with lots of thoughts, a couple fake trades, some rankings, all the good stuff.

And then if that's not enough, brought.

In Stephen Ruiz to talk about the Carolina Panthers. What is going on with this team? Is this the weakest situation that we've had in the NFL?

In a while, we're going to find out.

We're going to talk quarterbacks, too. We did some quarterback rankings. It's funny. We talked about Gino Smith. We talked about DK Metcalf was letting him down. And then of course, DK Metcalf had a huge game. So we actually cut that out because we could do that with podcasts.

We could edit them.

Seattle, Dallas was awesome. Tonight. We have a nice little DAC comeback win. Shield Capadia came on and we talked about the Eagles Niners game. And we talked about DAC a little bit on that, about if Hertz lost to the Niners this week, could DAC kind of Dak or Mahomes? Would they sneak into the MVP conversation? Dak definitely helped his cause tonight. So she and I talked about Eagles Niners as well as million dollar picks and what to do for week 13.

Which we have as well.

This is an action packed podcast. My friends first, our friends from taping this. On Thursday night, I waited for all.

The NBA action to end, except for one game.

We're gonna do a power poll.

Haven't done this in a couple of weeks.

We're heading into December.

I broke everybody down from 30 to.

One in some categories.

We're going to rip through it.

I'm going to make some jokes.

I'm going to try to do this in 20 minutes or less. We'll see if I can pull it off. First section is the dregs. And what's crazy is we have eight teams in this bottom category from 30 to 23. The bottom eight teams, they all have a net rating of minus seven or worse. We're going back to the 80s.

When I was growing up, we always.

Had like seven, eight crap teams at all times. It feels like we're back to that.

Number 30, Detroit. They've lost 16 straight.

We'll get back to them in a second. 29, San Antonio. 28, Washington. Those three teams combined have eight wins. Number 27, Memphis. I remember when Chris Vernon said, no, we'll be fine.

Jaw is going to come back.

We'll be like 13 and twelve. No, right now you're four and 13. And Ja still has eight games to go. Chicago is at number 26. They won tonight in overtime against Milwaukee. We'll get back to them in 1 second. Portland 25, Utah 24, and then Charlote at 23.

They're six and eleven, and yet they.

Have a net rating of minus eight.

So going backwards, two teams.

I wanted to mention Chicago, who I watched when they played the Celtics the other night and it was one of the most dispariting efforts I've ever seen. Their coach got mad that the Celtics did hack a drum and he should have been mad at his team. So they play Milwaukee tonight. They don't have Zach Levine, they don't.

Have DeRozan, and they end up having 30 plus assists.

They have this emotional win in overtime.

And to me that's about a 15 foot red flag that maybe you should.

Be making some moves.

The problem is they paid Levine and.

It was like 200 million plus.

And it was one of those things.

It was like the Wizards with Bradley Beale where you had this asset, you.

Want to keep it, but you don't really want it either. Right? It's like you rent this house and.

They kept a couch in the living room that you don't like, but it's.

Like, oh, it's a free couch and.

You just hate the couch the entire time you're in the house.

I don't know what they do with Levine.

I mentioned this on Tuesday's. Pod I went through all the teams. As you know, I'm the Picasso of the trade machine. I went through everybody trying to figure out who would want Zach Levine.

Couldn't come up with it.

Who wants him for that kind of money? He doesn't play defense. His team plays better when he's not out there.

They might be stuck with him, but.

I wonder when this trend is going to end of the team going, we.

Don'T want to lose them.

And all of a sudden they're 200 million in the hole with somebody they don't want the other team.

Here Charlote at number 23, who I kind of mind their starting five when.

Hayward now, he could go down at any time.

But Hayward with Bridges with LaMello Ball.

And Roger mark Williams. Like they're one of those teams when you're watching them, you're going, Wait, is this an NBA team?

Like a decent NBA team? And I was wondering, is this the Zach Levine home? And what would that trade look like? Because they have Hayward on Expiring and.

Could they potentially could it be Hayward.

And Roger who was good tonight for Levine?

And then you take Lonzo Ball back even though he's injured, you could reunite.

The Ball brothers, hope that he comes.

Back in a year. No picks at all. So Charlote would basically just be giving up Hayward's, Expiring and Roger, who's a really solid rotation guy.

And you get Levine you have to.

Take his money back. And Lonzo is hurt.

I was trying to figure out who wouldn't do this, and I'm at a stalemate.

I don't know who says no faster. I think it's a no from both sides, but I do think there's meetings on both ends. But that's where Levine's value is. I think at this point, it's an expiring contract and a rotation guy, and you might even have to take another contract off their team.

All right, that's our bottom eight.

Next category, the trade machine. Mercenaries. I got three teams here. Brooklyn's, nine and nine.

They lost tonight. Toronto is nine and ten, and Atlanta.

Is eight and nine. They're the 20th team for me. These are teams where I don't mind their rosters.

When you watch them, they're fine. They're okay. Like, Brooklyn looked pretty good tonight. Toronto, you watch them.

They're always hanging in games.

You don't mind them. Atlanta, they're fun.

They're fifth in offense for net rating.

And yet something's missing, and you don't.

Even really know what the trade is like.

If you're Atlanta, what's the trade?

You're going to trade like Trey Young. What are you going to get for him?

Who wants Trey Young?

Who wants to pay the price for Trey Young?

You're kind of stuck in the vicinity.

Of the team you have already, so you basically just have to hope they're going to do better. Jalen Johnson got hurt for them, which.

Was really tough because he was probably.

The third best guy on the team. Toronto is a team that I think actually should make a move, and then Brooklyn's in a weird spot because they.

Don'T have their pick. It's going to Houston, so you don't.

Want to go backwards because you're going to lose your pick anyway. You have some assets with Phoenix first and 25 and 27 and a couple.

Of other picks, and I don't really.

Know what they do.

They're in no man's land.

They were banking on Ben Simmons, which you kind of get what you deserve.

That he's already hurt.

That's happening. So they're going to tread water, and it seems like they're one of those teams that's kind of waiting for somebody to get disenchanted with an asset.

Maybe it's Zach Levine.

Toronto is the team I want to.

Talk about, though, because it's a team.

That hasn't made sense for a couple of years.

It's a team that they don't get.

To the line and they don't make threes, which is kind of death in 2024 basketball.

They're in the bottom five on both.

And they have Siakam, who's a free agent whose three point shooting has dropped from 34 to 32% to 20% this year.

20%.

He used to be like I remember in the Kawhi season, you felt like he would actually make a three, and now who knows?

But I still feel like he's an asset. I was trying to think what's a.

Good.

You know, this is why I'm the trade machine legend. Golden state wiggins and Kaminga for siakam. Who says no wiggins.

Terrible season, really, since last year when he disappeared for six, eight weeks. We still don't know what happened this year.

He showed up out of shape and.

He was terrible for a month solid and really, really hurt them. Stopped rebounding. Finally had a good game this week.

But he's Canadian, Kaminga. It's year three for him.

I should know by year three. Do you have a chance of being.

Somebody yet with him?

He clearly needs a new team. And then Siakam take a fire on him if you're the warriors, gives you.

A little more size, changes your team.

A little bit, gets you out of this wiggins situation. Thank you, Wiggins. Thank you for the 2022 finals. We're going to have to agree to disagree on what happened the last year or so, but now you're going to be in Canada.

Good luck.

And they finally give up on the Kaminga thing, which I think they have to.

And you get see akam.

You take a flyer for him. You still have his cap figure.

You got signing trade this summer and he helps them. I kind of like it.

It's just a trade that makes sense in a whole bunch of different ways. And there's two for one. Toronto shakes it up a little. They get an asset in Kaminga. Maybe they can rejuvenate wiggins. That's my idea.

Next group, the Pats Performance All Stars.

We just mentioned Golden State. They're 19 for me right now.

Brutal.

This sums it up.

Their net rating is 0.0. That's golden State in a nutshell.

Clippers eight and nine playing. These two teams are playing each other right now as I'm doing the Power Poll. So who knows who's going to win. But the Clippers are eight and nine.

As I'm doing this and that's with.

Kawhi and Paul George not missing any games. We talked about them on Tuesday. I don't really want to talk about the Clippers anymore. I'm not taking them seriously. I don't really want to go see them play. It's a weird situation. I've had season tickets for 20 years and they've had really bad teams that.

I didn't mind go seeing.

Like there was a year with Zach Randolph and Baron Davis and it was just an absolute mess. It was like a parody of an NBA team.

I had a great time going.

I really enjoyed seeing a weird, bad basketball team because at least that was something. This Clippers team, just watching the stoic demeanor and whoever gets the ball over mid court gets to shoot.

And James Harden just once a week seems to care.

I just can't do it. I don't know how many games I'm.

Going to go to this year. My Clippers tickets, they might end up.

Unless Mike Tolan, the guy I shared.

Tickets with, unless he's taken them, they might end up on some ticket sites, might be happening don't enjoy that team.

Went to the Denver game Monday night. Bad times. Not a fun team to go see.

All right, next category.

This is fun.

The wild cards. Number 17, Houston. I don't love that they're winless on the road. Not a good sign.

It's now December.

Maybe get a road win. Number 16 Cleveland.

That's not what's going to change first. The coach is going to change the JB bicker staff thing. They're ten and nine.

They have a minus net rating.

When you watch them, just something seems off. They just don't seem crisp, they don't seem polished.

And he would be a candidate for.

Me for first coach maybe.

To not have his job at some point, and.

I don't even know what they do.

But they need to do something.

Something's off with the mix. I can't get a handle on it.

But I've watched enough that something just.

Doesn'T sniff right with that team. Number 15, Dallas.

Don't love the defense at all. Hard to take them seriously as a.

Competitor in a two week playoff series. Any game like Luca can get hot, have his 40, 214 or eleven, or Kyrie can have the 30 point game. But for the most part I just don't see them with the current roster being able to get stopped. So they seem like either a playing team or around one and out team, but we'll see. Maybe Lively.

Can blossom for them. I have the Lakers at 14 and.

I don't love anyone counting them out at this point because of the talent.

But pretty unhappy 20 games for them. When you think, man, I think I had them as a top three team.

I had their over under, which was maybe 46 and a half, something like that. They've had some injuries already. But what's a little scary is that LeBron has been around this whole 20 games. So you would think, like, if you're getting a healthy LeBron for the first fourth of the season, you'd be a little better than eleven and nine. They look slow, they have trouble guarding.

Wings, and this feels like an incomplete team.

Of course, the trade stuff has already started with them and they have the Ruby contract.

He got hurt.

They have Russell, they have Christie Hoochiefino, they have their 29 first.

And I'm monitoring the Dallas thing.

I've been talking about this for months, that if that Dallas thing goes sideways at all, is there going to be a Mavs Lakers and Kyrie going to the Lakers. I don't think they would do the Zach Levine move because I don't think that really helps them, especially their problems of defense. I'm sure they're in on whatever if the caruso sweepstakes ever happens, I'm sure.

They'Re all in on that if they could pull it off. But we'll see what their team looks like.

It seems like the trades can start.

In mid December and this does not.

Feel like a finished roster yet.

Number 13 new Orleans I don't love.

Getting sucked back in by Zion, but.

I feel like it's happening, and he's.

Not where he was a couple of years ago when we were going nuts and Rosillo was having a stroke every time there was a New Orleans game.

He's not quite as explosive as he.

Was a couple of years ago, but he's still an absolute bitch to play.

And you look at they have a.

Lineup with Valentine Zion, Ingram Daniels and Herb Jones, which is plus 24.6 when.

Those five guys play together. Didn't mention Hawkins.

Trey Murphy's coming back. Alvarado just came back. Nance got hurt again.

But this is a really talented, flexible.

Malleable team that has multiple guys who.

Can score in any quarter.

Even when their best two scorers are out, it still feels like they can get offense. I didn't mention McCollum, by the way.

So they have ten guys counting Nance.

And just scoring at all points of the game. There's never going to be a six minute stretch where they're not getting a good shot from somebody. And they're really hard to match up with with the size.

And then you look at the picks they have.

They have all their own first. They have the Lakers first, which is their choice in 24 and 25. They can swap picks with Milwaukee in 24 and 26. They have the Bucks pick in 27. They have a lot to make moves with, and yet I don't know what the move is because I kind of like the team. Poor CJ. McCollum. It feels like, yet again, he's probably going to be in trade rumors, but I don't even know if I would trade him. I like what they have. I want to see more of it. I want to see another 15 game sample size.

All right, the next category is the possible in season bumpers.

We got three teams twelve Indiana, eleven.

Sacramento, and number ten Knicks, all of whom are in the playing tournament in the quarterfinals at least next week and.

Are in situations where if they could put together a couple of wins and get to the finals or even win the whole thing. This is one of the reasons they developed this in season tournament. They were hoping that it would be.

A thing that the players care about 100% true. They were hoping that for the coaches.

And for the teams, it would be a nice little litmus test for where you stand at a certain point in the season. I think for all three of these teams, all three of these teams could absolutely win one, two, maybe not three games.

The Knicks.

I like the Knicks. I think they're really hard to play. Brunson has so much confidence now. They got Randall back. They have a really good bench. They have a bench that can be down eight, and their bench can come in and start flying around and making threes. And I just think they're playing the Bucks in the in season. I think they're going to beat the Bucks.

I'm just telling you now.

I think they're going to beat the Bucks in that in season game. But all three of these teams, I think the in season is going to be a nice little fork in the road for them. Indiana had a tough loss tonight, but.

Offensively they're just a nightmare.

The pace they play at and if you're just talking about a one game playoff, really hard. Same thing for Sacramento if it's the right matchup for them. And Fox is flying around. So I think all three of those.

Teams are worth watching next week from.

A big picture standpoint. Wanted to mention Brunson quickly. Brunson had 42 tonight. The Knicks are eight no against losing teams. So there's a chance they're the very good, bad team, that they're just the team that's going to beat up all the other bad teams but come up just short against the really good teams. The case for that not being the.

Case is how good Brunson's been this.

Year and the three point shooting with him went up a level. I think he's 47 48% for the season now. He moved his distance back like he's making 25 footers. He's a 25 points a game guy. He's an absolute bitch to match up with with these different teams.

And not only is this a massive.

Massive, massive loss for Dallas, and if Luca ever ends up leaving, there will be probably the first thing that gets mentioned.

But if you're talking best guards in the league right now and you have.

Curry and Booker and SGA as your.

First three, and I think that's set in stone.

And then Halliburton, whether he's on the tier with those guys as the fourth.

Guy or he's right underneath as the fourth guy, I think he's fourth and.

I think Fox and Edwards are right there. And I'm going to say Jamal Murray, just because of the title last year, how he plays with Jokic, how we've seen him come through in big games, I would have him next.

And then I think you could make.

The case for Brunson in this 8th.

Spot before Maxie and John Morant, whatever happens with him when he comes back, donovan Mitchell, who I know has the stats, but over and over again it.

Just doesn't seem like he's making anybody.

Better and elevating anything.

And we now have a pretty big sample size of this.

I'm not ruling it out. I'm just pointing out Brunson seems to.

Have a better impact on his team.

Dame Lord, just a defensive zero.

I mean, I've been talking about this for two years and then LaMello would be the only other one. But I think you can make a case. Brunson's in the top eight now for guards, which is an insane climb for.

Him and just an incredibly impressive fourth quarter guy.

So you look at where the Knicks are.

They have all their own first.

They have some protected picks from Dallas, Detroit and Washington. This year. They have a protected pick from walking 25. They have moves to make, and it's another team where I'm not really totally sure what the move is.

Like.

They could definitely improve the Mitchell Robinson spot, but his numbers are pretty good for them. So my guess is they're probably going to cruise along, see how far they can go this season. But if they win the in season.

Tournament, I'll be interested to see if.

They get a little more frisky around the trade deadline. All right, next group is the Orlando Magic. By themselves in the Young and hungry Assassins group, they are 13 and five.

They are third in defensive rating.

They have a plus 6.2 net rating, which after 18 games is just insane.

It's two moves. It's kamingo over France. When the warriors did that in the 21 draft, which Orlando didn't have control over, right. They had to hope that Golden State screwed the pickup, and it seems like.

Golden State screwed the pickup. So they end up with Franz. Then they have the number one pick the next year. And it's this three headed argument we had for months, paolo versus Chet versus Jabari.

I actually was a Jabari guy, and.

Maybe long term, I don't know if that's dead yet. The Chet piece would have been really interesting for this team even though he.

Missed out last year, putting him on.

This team instead of Paolo. But you can't argue with how it played out.

And they have these two guys that have proven that they can play together.

As the foundation of a team that actually has a defensive identity, which is you just would not have guessed a year ago.

My international basketball theory is yet again.

I don't know how many more times I get to tell you guys, international basketball matters.

Franz and Paolo playing in the World Championships over the summer help both of those guys.

And it always helps unless you're Dane lowered.

Speaking of Dane Lowered, next group, the veterans. I have Milwaukee at number eight.

They're 13 and six.

Heading into tonight.

They were 21st in defensive rating and their net rating was plus 2.9.

That's got to be worse. There's red flags all over the place.

With the defense, and I don't really totally know how they fixed it. They could still protect the rim. Like, you saw Janice with the big block in regulations tonight. But the perimeter stuff, I don't know how they fix it.

They don't have anything to trade.

It's like, oh, cool, they could use Alex Crusoe. Well, how are they going to get them? It's going to take two first to get Alex Crusoe.

They don't have have any first offensively.

It seems like their secret. Like, it's a little like the Eagles this year where the Eagles can be.

Losing in a game and then somehow.

Put together a couple touchdowns late, and all of a sudden they're winning. You're like, how the hell are the Eagles winning this? Milwaukee's had a few of those, including a Chicago tonight where they could be down five, they can be down seven with three minutes left, and all of a sudden Dame will hit a three, dame will set up somebody else and.

They can claw their way. This team, this is not the team.

I'm afraid of in the east. As a Celtics fan, I'll just say that.

And from a well coached standpoint, really grim.

Like even tonight against the Bulls, they're up three, there's less than 5 seconds left. The Bulls take way too long to get into whatever shot they're going to do, and the Bucks don't foul and Crusoe ends up getting a three right at the end of the game. There's some new coach stuff with Griffin.

That it takes a while, and especially.

When you go from a guy who won the finals to Griffin and some of the stuff they're doing, which a lot of people have written about.

This is not the team I fear in the east. The team I fear in the east.

Is Miami, who I have at number seven. Miami is only eleven and eight, but they've been missing some guys and they've.

Had some injuries also out of their.

1St 17 games, twelve were on the.

Road, but you saw it a night against Indiana.

This is the deepest Miami team I think we've had during the Butler run. And it's really an exercise in incredible team building because they let Strus go because he's going to about to make too much money. They replaced him with Duncan Robinson, who they already had. They somehow lit a fire under him. They just poured Heat culture down his throat.

And then, haquez, they draft.

I think he was 22nd, and the.

Moment they drafted him, all of the college guys in my life who worked.

For the ringer were all like, that's unbelievable. Oh my God, I was hoping Miami wouldn't get him. He's perfect for them.

And not only is he perfect for them, I love him and I hate the Heat. And now I'm in this weird position.

Where the Heat have multiple guys that.

I really like, including Haquez, and there's.

Nothing worse than when a team you.

Don'T like has guys you like. So I'll figure it out.

I'll figure out a way to turn on him. But he is just so in my wheelhouse. Everything he does are just things I like. He's always in the right spots. He's additive at all times. He's a sneaky defender, he's a clutch shooter. He's got a great demeanor to him. Seems like his teammates love him, just a great pick.

So they let Vincent go, hoping that.

Lowry could handle the extra minutes. He's shooting like 45% from three this year, so he's in a contract year, but that worked.

They took a flyer on Josh Richardson.

Who my dad liked when he was.

On the Celtics, and then he kind.

Of bounced around the league a little.

Bit, but comes back.

He had 20 against Milwaukee this week. It seems like they've rejuvenated him as at least a rotation guy. They still have Lowry's, Expiring and Hero if they want to do some sort of trade.

The team's good.

And they have Butler and Bam, who are two of the best 20 guys in the league. Bam looks like he's headed for just.

A classic bad luck.

I should be an All NBA guy, but I'm not going to be an All NBA guy because I'm in the same league as Jokic and Embiid and.

Probably Giannis if he's eligible as a.

Frontcore, but I forget how to do the All NBA. No, he's not eligible. So Bam has a chance to at least be third team, but he's more impactful than being a third team omba guy. Last team in this category for me.

Is Phoenix at number six just because.

Of how Booker's playing. And I know he took a slight step back. He twisted his ankle last night, but we wrote about on the ringer this week. The fact that he has figured out.

How to play point guard is just.

An incredible wrinkle for this season. So that him and Durant, the Role guys have been a little better than we thought. Nurkage is going to get hurt at.

Some point and how they handle no.

Nurkage for a month or two months, however long it is. But for the most part, this team is as scary as advertised. That those two guys are on the.

Floor together and then Beal, I don't know what they're going to get from him. That trade might be a bust. I'm not even sure it matters, but.

They have to be taken seriously. And I think the one thing that surprised me about the west is I.

Would have had Golden State in my head.

Golden State was above Phoenix because they were a little more reliable with the infrastructure. And Draymond took a step back, quay took a step back and they never got what they thought they were getting from Kaminga. Chris Paul's already hurt and it just seems like Phoenix has kind of grabbed that spot. All right, top five, the sleeper, Oklahoma City, I've talked about them too many times, but they're twelve and six now.

Are they going to make a trade? They have all their first. They have something like 18 1st round picks. They have great clipper picks.

They have a really good Houston pick in 26.

What are they going to do?

They need one more big guy.

Who's it going to be?

How aggressive are they going to get and are they going to take this chance seriously? Because they have Shay, who's one of.

The ten best guys in the league.

Homegren is probably going to win rookie of.

The year.

Unless Hawkez continues to come on like.

A freight trade, what are they going to do? Are they just going to be like, no, it's cool.

We're just happy to have a 49 win team?

You guys have a chance.

Like, this is a conference right now that you'd probably take Minnesota after Denver as the second best bet to make the finals.

OKC, do something you never know with this stuff.

You should know this from the Durant Westbrook card and Ibaca era. Never assume your window is going to.

Last for ten years.

All right, the contenders, number four, Philadelphia. Not a lot to say about them other than they lose heart and Maxi comes right in and immediately becomes a.

Top 30 guy for them. And indeed, this is my favorite indeed.

Season, yet I love the way he's playing on both ends. The movement they have, the size they.

Got from Covington and Batum, it's an absolute contender.

And yet I'm still afraid of Miami.

A little bit more. Minnesota, number three.

We've talked about them a bunch on the podcast. The size is going to be their superpower.

And then I have for the favorites.

I have Boston, one B and I.

Have Denver, one A.

And I still have Denver. I know Murray's been out. I know they're 13 and six. Like they've lost a couple of games.

But I just think the Yokich piece of it.

We talked terminy on Tuesday night's. Pod said about how Brian Scottbrini said.

How the distance between Yokich and the.

Next best guy in the league was.

The biggest distance we've had since LeBron.

In 2013 when it was like LeBron.

And then a drop off to basically Durant.

Carmelo.

Definitely the case with Jokic.

He is, I think, the best offensive.

Player of my lifetime, at least.

So.

Just the road goes through Denver for me.

I'm not wavering, I'm not changing. I don't really care what seed they are in the playoffs. They're the number one team.

Boston are number know. Porzingis made it to Thanksgiving week and.

Then I had calf tightness. This is going to be the Fear, it's going to be Porzingis and it's.

Going to be Al Horford. What are those guys going to look.

Like in April, May and June that's going to decide the fate of this team?

And we have no answer for that.

So I got Denver one, I got Boston two, Minnesota three and Philly four. And I think that's the consensus for the most part in some order. The swing team, if you're doing power.

Poles, is how high you have Miami.

And whether you have them over Milwaukee.

Because I think most people would have Milwaukee over Miami. Miami is a better team.

The irony of that when they try to trade for Dame all summer and.

They'Re probably in a better spot, pretty interesting.

But I have Miami as the third.

Best east team and the number one.

Team, I'm afraid of.

So that's it for the power pole.

Except we have the Adam Silver spot.

If you remember that.

I end every power pole with an Adam Silver thumbs up or thumbs down.

Last time I got a thumbs down. Huge thumbs up this time because the.

In season tournament was a huge success. It got people talking about basketball in.

November and early December, about the quality.

Of play, us enjoying games, us wondering what was going to happen, and not just talking about load management and trades and being upset with guys. This is a huge win. Next week is going to be fantastic.

It'll be interesting to see how much.

Headline stuff they can steal from the NFL, especially going Tuesday head to head on Thursday and then Saturday. But I don't think this could have worked out any better. It's been an A plus plus. So kudos to you, Adam Silver. That is the end of November NBA powerpall. We're going to take a break and come back with Stephen Ruiz.

All right, one of the benefits of.

Working at the ringer is that we have a wide swath of sports fans. We have Steve Saruti, Orlando Magic fan, I mean, just all kinds of types and just fans you wouldn't expect, and one of them is Stephen Ruiz, Carolina Panthers fan. I was thinking this week this might be the weakest NFL situation we've seen in a while because they are the worst team in the league, and yet they don't have their first round pick, which is really unusual for the NFL. We've seen it happen, the NBA, but I can't remember an NFL situation where a team has bottomed out and had no reward. Usually they'll try, they'll get better as a year. They'll have something to play for Carolina. They fire their coach this week, Frank Reich, and yet I still don't see a lot of wins on the schedule. So you're a fan. Is this the bleakest?

It's rock bottom for me as a Panthers fan, and I say that as someone who has sat through a 15 game losing streak and someone who has sat through Jimmy Clawson for 16 games, wow. There's no hope. And I think it is the owner thing, the dark cloud of the bad owner, because as a sports fan, there's no way you can fire him. There's no way you can move on from him. You can't trade him. I grew up in the Washington area. I grew up when Daniel Snyder was taking over the team. I know what this looks like. I've lived through it, and I'm not looking forward to the next couple of decades, however long this lasts.

What's weird about him is he had so much success in the other part of his life as a hedge fund guy, and I think when he bought the team, the consensus seemed to be, this is a really smart guy. This is going to be interesting to see how it goes and then you look back at what he know, he went and he got Matt Rule, who was one of the biggest coaching candidates that we've had the last couple of years. Everybody was down with that. Matt Rule didn't do well, but he kind of jumped the gun on getting rid of him last year. Now that team kind of rallied back. What were they, six and six with Steve Wilkes, and then just all hell broke loose last summer, starting with that Bryce Young trade. I can't remember where'd you stand on what they gave up in that trade when it happened because they didn't know who they were taking. When they did that, I thought it.

Was a good trade in a vacuum. Just because the fan base had been beaten down so much, like, we had nothing to latch onto. I had no reason to watch Panthers games. The last thing I had to watch for was Christian McCaffrey, and they traded him. And whenever you're trading your best players, I think that's the worst sign for a team. It's never a good sign when you're trading your best players. But once I found out was Bryce Young, I was totally out on it for very obvious reasons. He's a historic outlier, and I just didn't see the upside with him. I didn't see the Kyler Murray arm strength, four three speed upside with him. He was just a regular guy who just came up big in big spots. I think that's like commendable. I just don't think you can make an NFL career out of it. So if they would have taken Anthony Richardson, if they would have taken CJ. Stroud, I would be a much happier Panthers fan right now, and I would have been back in April. But I kind of saw this coming.

Yeah, well, that's been the other wrinkle to this is CJ. Goes to Houston. This is a real argument, bryce versus CJ. With Richardson kind of over here as the stealth contender, and then CJ crushes it in Houston. I mean, he had his first kind of semi bad game last week, but.

For the most part, if you're picking.

Franchise QBs going forward the next ten years, I don't know if he's one of the first four, but he's definitely in that next five, six, seven. He's somewhere in there. So that makes it worse and all. How have the Panther fans dealt with the CJ versus Bryce piece of this?

Just coping their way through it, just blaming Frank Reich, blaming everybody. But the fact that this was on the table, that's the thing that there's a lot of talk about. It's too early. You can't call it like this quickly, like, stop trying to jump the gun. But he's a small prospect and we have the worries about the worry about him was that the game was going to be too overwhelming for him. Like the size being in that pocket, an NFL pocket was going to be too overwhelming for him and that he didn't have that next level athleticism to kind of work around that like we.

Saw with so like if it was.

Going to fail, it was going to look like exactly how it's looked like. That's why I'm more so ready to call it already. I'm ready to move on and wipe my hands up and draft the next guy.

You're at that point already fed eleven games.

I was at that point with Jimmy Clawson and that was the right move. They were at that point and that was the right move. They saved the franchise with it. Yeah, but it looks bad in all the ways that you thought it might look bad.

And I don't know how to fix.

Like here's my problem. Even with the quarterbacks, like Justin Fields, who is not an established quarterback at all, but you could see something in his game that you can build an offense around. Like, he's very athletic, he has a big arm. You could run like a read option offense and do all that play action with Bryce. What is it? He doesn't have a big arm. He's small. So you can't really put him under center and do the play action stuff. You can't run the read option stuff because he's going to die. He doesn't have a big arm. You can't do like the deep ball stuff. How do you build an offense around a guy who's just essentially like a point guard, right?

Well, it's with talent.

It's with talent and they don't have it.

All right, so counter, because I still like Bryce, I'm not willing to call him Jimmy Clawson yet I look at who are the weapons, right? You have Adam Thalen in his mid thirty s, and just a bunch know it's the only wide receiver cast that's probably as bad as the Patriots receivers. So you have that the running back situation. They pay miles sanders who stunk? You had Hubbard on the roster already, who's belatedly become the best running back, but you already had him. You don't have an offensive line. And then the Frank Reich situation, which I felt like a voice crying in the wilderness in August. House and I had a huge fight about it on text because on the ringer gambling show, he said, Frank Reich, he might be the best coach in that division. And we were like arguing. I mean, House and I have been buddies for 35 years. I'm like, what's the evidence that Frank Reich is a good coach? Because he made one playoff game like four years ago. Every year they had a different quarterback with the Colts. The team got worse, they lost jeff Saturday came in and won the next game.

That's how bad Frank Reich was. Why do we think he's going to be good on the Panthers? He ends up making history. Nobody since 1978 has been fired after eleven games. And if you watched it. The eye test matched. It like the team was completely discombobulated. They couldn't block. They didn't seem to have any sort of cohesive game plan. He pulled the offensive coordinator's responsibilities. He gave it to him, then pulled it back, and it just seemed like it is that. So I'm just looking at it from the Bryce standpoint. What went well? Not one thing went well, which makes me not want to write him off yet.

I disagree. I do think one thing went well, and that was the game against Seattle when Bryce Young didn't play and Andy Dalton played and threw for like 300 yards and three touchdowns. Like you just explained it. It was a historic disaster with Bryce in there, but with Andy Dalton, andy Dalton like, who's 38 years old and who's never been like some elite quarterback with him in there. It didn't look like a great NFL offense, but it looked like a viable average NFL offense.

Pretty good in that game.

If you can't be better than Andy Dalton, your rookie year, it's not like 1995 anymore where we give these guys a shot. Like, you have to be the guy right away and he hasn't been that guy.

Well, I look at the trade itself. You wouldn't call it the worst trade of the 21st century or anything like that, but there's a chance it's going.

To get mentioned, right, where they pretty.

Bad when you're saying century.

Right.

Well, I'd kind of forgot. I remember that DJ Moore was in it, and even when DJ Moore being in it at the time, and we were going, oh, that's not good. That's a receiver for Bryce Young to throw passes to. But they also gave up the 9th pick, which turned out to be Jalen Carter, who's been awesome. They gave up the 61st pick. They have this 2024 first that as you're making the trade, you're like, well, as long as we're not one of the worst five teams, this will be worth it. Well, you're going to be the worst team, and you're 2025 second. Now, if you had done it for CJ Stroud, that's still a good deal. You would do it 100 times out of 100, but somehow you also took the wrong quarterback. So the totality of that whole transaction, I actually think has a chance to be mentioned historically, that's what makes it.

Worse, is like, the picks that were used have hit like the Jalen Carter, who's basically like Aaron Donald almost in his rookie year. Compare that to the RG three trade, the Rams and Washington. The Rams didn't really hit on any of those picks, so we don't talk about the trade anymore. If anything, Washington probably got more out of that just because of that one season with RG three. This one, you don't have that. You don't have that cover. It's like every pick hit, the guy you passed on is the next great young quarterback, Jalen Carter. And then on top of that, you're missing out on a very hyped draft.

Class when it comes to quarterback. Yeah.

I mean, even if they had just brought Steve Wilkes back on a two.

Year deal, kept the 9th pick, drafted.

Jalen Carter, brought Darnold back for one more year just as a stop gap, and brought Dante Foreman back and just said, we're going to run it back. We were six and 610 last year. It's been really interesting reading all the Tepper stuff this week. I thought his press conference was bizarre.

And I don't know if this works.

When you're a football owner where just every year you just treat it like some business that's not working, you blow it up. You can't really do that with fans. You can't do that when draft choices are involved, and now they don't have a pick at all. I asked you before we came on, was there a bleaker one, and you mentioned the Houston situation with Deshaun was pretty bad. The Browns in the mid 2010s, after Haslam took over, when they just kept changing their front office and their coach, I think they had a new coach three years in a row. That was pretty brutal. But the over the top piece of the CJ stroud with the no first round pick, I think this might be the weakest for, like, when when you.

Start listing the features of a bad.

Owner, I think David Tepper checks off all the boxes.

He's like the Wemby of bad owners. And I think what makes him worse than the Houston thing and even the Haslam thing is McNair was a bad owner, kind of. Haslam definitely was a bad owner or is a bad. Yeah, but they weren't, like, out in public as much, at least from my perception. And I feel like maybe it's just because I'm a Panthers fan that I see him more, but I feel like it's not enough to win for David Tepper. I think David Tepper needs the credit for winning, and he needs to do it in a different like I think that's why so much of what you read about him when he first took over the team was like, that analytics, the quant stuff, the econ stuff, and he's going to use analytics. And then even before the draft, one of the big reasons why they apparently drafted Bryce Rung was the S two test. Apparently he killed the S two test. And that kind of goes along with all of their quarterback acquisition so far, especially in the draft. Like they draft Will Greer, who was a PFF guy. Like, PFF had him as a first round prospect.

No one else did. He fell for him because he put up the stats, because he was a 25 year old in the Big Twelve. Matt Corral, another PFF guy, another analytics back guy.

They traded assets for Matt Corral.

Right.

They traded.

They traded.

The bats are involved.

Yeah.

And then they said they thought he was QB one for them, so they had him at the top of the list. Ole Miss didn't even trust him to run RPOs on third down, nothing else but RPOs. They didn't trust him to drop back and do a rate that's a red flag. And I think he just ignored that and tried to outsmart a lot of people. And it's not so much that he thinks he has all the answers. I think his problem is that he thinks there is an answer. And throughout the history of NFL, I think the lesson that we always learn is luck plays a big part of it. And just being at the right place at the right time and making the right hire like the Steelers, where he came from, that was another thing. It wasn't just like his background. He was a part of the Steelers organization. They do things the right way, and they've done things the right way for 50 years. I mean, also, they kind of got lucky and drafted 13 hall of Famers in one draft in the 70s, right? Yeah. They got lucky and they hired Bill Coward.

They had three coaching hires since the moon landing. David Tepper has six different head coaches, including interim coaches, since he bought the team in 2019. So if he's doing the Steelers model, he's doing a terrible job of it.

Even if you look at the Bryce thing, to trade up and not know who you were going to take him yet is just absolutely never any time that situation happens, I'm just not going to understand that. But then it also seems in some of the reporting, even during the season.

When Reich was there, that there wasn't.

A consensus on who to take. And Reich, he had that one press conference, and it felt like he was trying to signal us. Like, I told them to take CJ stroud and they wanted this Bryce Young guy, and maybe that was part of why he had to go. Very strange stuff. All right, so Bryce on your QB rankings is well, he's ahead.

Keep scrolling.

Yeah, he's at number 30. Yeah, Maheda. Zach Wilson and Jake Browning. And wow. Shots fired at Aiden O'Connell at number 35. I actually think he's, like, semi competent. Tommy DeVito and then Tim Boyle, 37. Last how many years have you done this QB rankings for us? This is the third year or the second year?

This is the second year. I've done it for you.

I've done it, like, similar on your own, too? Yeah. Has the bottom five ever been more grim than Zach Wilson? Jake Browning? Aiden O'Connell? Tommy DeVito? Tim Boyle? You don't even have Mac Jones in there.

Tim Boyle is the worst player I've.

Ranked, so tim Boyle? Yeah, yeah.

I have no idea why he's on an NFL team. I'm a season ticket holder for the DC defenders in the XFL, and he would be their third string quarterback.

I don't understand what they're doing with this Rogers thing either, where it's like, oh, they've activated. Like and I said this a couple of weeks ago, I think there's 0% chance he plays this year, but on top of it, I think they're like second or third to last in the AFC. They basically have to win their next game. They're in do or die now every week just to try to stay alive for the playoffs. And Tim Boyle is an absolute catastrophe as a quarterback. And in general, their offense, they're scoring ten points a game. What's weird is you can run the ball in them, too. It's not like their defense is, like, incredible. They're just terrible. So I don't even know what is the point of Rogers pretending he's going to come back?

I think it's just so he could say that he would have been able to come back if he did. Realistically, they're eliminated from the playoffs. I think it's like a 1% chance, and their next couple of games are, like, against the Dolphins or against two good teams that they're definitely going to lose to. So I think Rogers knows that they're not going to have a chance when he is able to hit the field, and he's just going to be like, I would have been able to do it.

Right?

Well, they're playing the Falcons this week, so you had Mac Jones 25. Mac Jones is the worst quarterback we've had in 32 years in New England, and he has no confidence at all. And it's gotten to the point that I actually think he's unplayable. So why isn't he lower than 25?

Because I don't have the psyche grade factoring in. I think there's a good quarterback in there. We saw it the first year, and we saw glimpses of it last year. At times, I agree with you. I think he's broken. He's making mistakes that he wasn't making at Alabama.

No, he's broken.

I was never high on Jones. Like, even before the draft, I didn't see the upside. I thought your upside was Kirk Cousins at best. And even during his rookie season, I was like, this is about what I expected. But he was way better than, like, the interceptions, the ones where he's throwing it. I think it was last week when the defensive lineman popped out and he threw it right to him. He's supposed to be the processing accuracy guy, and he's lost even that. He doesn't have any of that. So I do think it's a lost cause, but there's still talent in there, and based on the metrics or the criteria that I'm using, I still think he's probably one of the 30 best quarterbacks in the league right now. But that's saying more about the bottom of the league than I think it's saying about him.

Yeah.

So you're saying if he can somehow be fixed, his upside is in the top 30?

Get him with Mike McDaniel. I think Tua was broken in a similar way under Brian Flores.

Yeah, Mac had a play last week.

Where he was getting pressured kind of from behind, and they ran a replay and it had a close up of his face and I could see it on my giant TV and there was a guy behind him, but the guy wasn't touching him. But Max face was completely panicked and it looked like he was about to get pushed off a cliff and he was just like the look on his face, I was like, this is done. This is a wrap. Because nobody's touching him and he's so terrified he's going to get hit, he just wants to get rid of it. This is the only sport and the only position where somebody can lose their confidence in a way that you're actually watching them break in real time. Because I felt like this happened to Mark Sanchez, too. Mark Sanchez beat the Patriots on the road in a playoff. He whether whatever you felt about his talent, he did have a lot of confidence and some swagger and could make a couple big throws in a matter. There was at least a case that he was a little Eli Manning ish, and then his confidence broke and within three years he was out of the league.

And I do think this happens.

I think a better comparison is Carson Wentz in 2017. He looked like the next big thing, like they were calling him Peyton Manning, presnap Aaron Rogers, post snap. He was MVP in the second year, like one of the leading candidates, and now does he know how to play football? It seems like he forgot how to play football, and I think you're right. And I think with Mac it's almost a detriment to him that he is like this brainy quarterback because I think he knows how fucked the situation is and I think he can sense that stuff like you're saying he knows, oh, the guy's right behind me, isn't he? And I think that just plays on his mind, his issues even more. I don't know. It's really know. I don't think it happens in New England, but I could see him getting rehabilitated in a Shanahan offense. He could do what Purdy is doing, not like the creation stuff, but he could do like the I think it structure stuff.

Yeah, I think your two example is good, where it's like, just give him 2 seconds only to get rid of the ball and to know, I'm going to go here with my first thing. His processing in 2021 was good. We talked about it with Sal on Sunday, but they beat Tennessee. Tennessee was the one seed in week Twelve or 13 in 2021 and he was awesome. He threw for like 300 plus yards and just really looked like a potential All Pro at some point. So it's lurking in there somewhere. But we've also seen so many guys just get broken by the position. Usually it happens when they're older. I guess that's the only if you're going to say give Mac a chance somewhere else. This situation certainly couldn't have been worse going through your rankings, jordan Love up to 21, and I think if you're talking about fast risers over the last couple of weeks, I've been really impressed. I was kind of completely out on him about four weeks ago. It just didn't seem like it was going to happen. And now it feels like not only are the throws there and they're figuring out using better and the receivers are healthy again, but his charisma came back and his charisma kind of disappeared in October, but now I feel like it's back.

So do you see him ever getting higher than 21?

Oh, yeah, I definitely do. I think he has top ten potential, honestly. I wrote about him before the season. I went to Green Bay's training camp and I interviewed him. I interviewed some players. I interviewed the offensive coordinator, and they said a big moment for them was last year when he came in on that Sunday night game against the Eagles. And this speaks to what you're talking about with the charisma, where it wasn't like a rookie he's not a rookie, but like a first time, a guy that's playing for really the first time going into a hostile environment on the road in Philadelphia, Sunday night Football. And he came in and he was throwing like no look passes and hole shots. That's when I watched that film. And before I watched that film during the offseason, I was like low on Jordan Love just like everyone else's because we hadn't seen him play. And I saw that, I was like, hold up, there's something here to him. And then I went and interviewed a lot of packers and that locker room loves him, man. That locker room loves him. They will do anything for him.

So he checks that box. He checks the confidence box. He obviously has the talent. I think with him, it's just filling into those gaps. And I think the problem is you're going to have those moments, like you said, when you're going to have dips. It's not linear with him. And obviously not being able to start your first couple of years delayed that development for him. So I think that's even rougher.

Pickett's another one that they always say the locker room loves.

You have you have Mahomes one, Allen two.

You're just not going to quit. Justin Herbert. He's three. You don't have crunch time in your rankings. Just I had the ball last and my team lost again. Is that a ranking for you?

I'm assuming you saw the packers game. When he puts it right on the guy and he drops scored. His problem is he has to do two game winning drives. He has to do the first game winning drive. With three minutes, and then when Staley's defense gives up the lead, he has to do the one with 1 minute, and that's the one he can't do.

I love it. The Herbert fans are the best. Lamar four. Burrow five, Lawrence six. And then Dak Prescott seven. And Hertz eight. Now, hertz being eight when he's probably going to win the MVP was the one that jumped out. But I have him on all my fantasy teams, and I've watched a shitload of Eagles, and first of all, he's definitely hurt. They finally admitted it last week. They're like, oh, yeah, he has a bad knee laceration that he got in week six. It's like week six. It's week twelve. You're telling us now. So he's been pretty careful. But I think that tush push thing, that weapon is still the best weapon out of anything other than whatever the hell mahomes, you think it's him? I do, because I watch other teams try to do it, and they're the only team that can do it because of how strong he is. When you watch the other teams do the tush push, half the time, it's a catastrophe. And with him, it's like every time it just goes forward.

I agree with that, but I think I've seen other teams that have coaches from that coaching staff, like the Cardinals. The only team that was better when I wrote about the tushbush last month, the only team that was better statistically than the Eagles were the Cardinals, who had Josh Dobbs, and Josh Dobbs is not jalen hurts. So I think there's so many elements that go into it. It's like you can't discount Kelsey, you can't discount the line. And then another element that I think other teams haven't really picked up on and why the Eagles are so good at it is because they don't huddle before they do the Twush push. So the defense can't substitute other teams. For some reason, they huddle. So you can anticipate and you can adjust, and you could put in a different lineup. The Eagles don't let you do that. So I think it's not only hurts, I do think hurts. I think some of them are hurts, but I think most of them are the offensive line, just the situation. But I do think it's more replaceable than we realize. I don't know, maybe I'm not giving.

Him enough credit, but I don't know.

I don't think I saw the evidence.

He hasn't impressed me as a passer. Like, when you watch him as a passer, I honestly think he's worse this year than he was last year. And maybe it's the injury, but like you said, it wasn't on the report, and I can't account for that in the rankings if we didn't know about it.

Yeah, he's turned in kind of heat checky with the passing. They'll just be impotent for an hour, and then all of a sudden they'll heat up again and you can kind of see when he's getting in a rhythm. The biggest disagreement I had with this was Gino at number twelve, because I just don't think he's been very good this year, and I don't think that team's been very good. Now they've lost Walker, they can't run the ball anymore. I don't really love their offensive line. Metcalf's been disappointing this year. You can make excuses, but he just to me, does not look like the same guy that he was last year.

I think that's fair. I think he definitely has regressed over the last month, and I think it's in the same way that he kind of regressed last year when the offensive line kind of broke down, and that's when you saw them with mistakes happen. I think it's more a statement about what's behind them in the quarterback rankings. There was a clear divide in the grades before CJ stroud really started to elevate himself over the last month. It was like Jarrett Goff was the line and there was like a five point drop in the grades to the next thing. And I just don't think there's anyone that's leapfrogging him yet. I think that's what it is. More so than him, like, maintaining the spot. His grade has actually dipped, but no one has leapfrogged him.

I can't believe I'm saying this, I probably would have had Wilson a little bit higher. You had him 16. You could even talk me into flipping him. And Gino Wilson's at the point. Now, I don't know how he got there, but he knows exactly what he can and can't do. He's got the old dad playing golf, hitting the drive into the woods that bounces back onto the fairway. He has two of those throws a game. He's got a nice sense of it seems like he's about to get strip sacked, but he doesn't anymore. And it seems like his team actually kind of likes him, unlike last year when they despised him. So I just like how he's playing.

No, I do think he has more self awareness. I do think that's the difference between this year and last year, and you could kind of see it over the last couple years in Seattle when he was like, I want a different offense, I want to play like a Drew Brees Tom Brady, and it's like, you're never going to play like that. That's not your style. And I think when he got to Denver, he was finally able to do his own thing and we saw the results and I think it kind of humbled them in a way. And Sean Payton, I think, is just the perfect coach because he's proven even at the end of Drew Brees'career, we saw him coach up Teddy Bridgewater and win games. We saw him coach up Taysom Hill, a totally different quarterback, and win games, and he's proven it once again with a totally different quarterback. So I give Peyton more of the credit, but I do think Russell Wilson has adjusted. I just not as impressed by those adjustments as you are.

Yeah. All right. Panthers rest of the way at Tampa this week at the Saints home, atlanta.

Home, green Bay at Jacksonville home, tampa. I need them to win one more game to have the Pats at least have a chance at the one pick here. It feels like the know there's new coach theory in play. They have no reason to tank. Right. There's a new coaching staff in place trying to impress Tepper. It feels like you'll get one just I guess it would have to be one of the Tampa games, right?

I think so, but I also think that's like a horrible matchup, like going against a Todd Bowles defense where he's just going to blitz the shit out of you and it's just going to bully you for Brian.

Maybe it's like the Derek Carr just I think it's a God's word for you.

All right.

The saints are falcons. I think it's those two games. And another element you're missing in the Bucks game is the Baker Mayfield revenge element, which can go either way. Either you get a Baker meltdown or he just goes off for like 400 yards.

Didn't even know he was eligible. All right, Ruiz, you can read his QB rankings every week on TheRinger.com as well as his other features and listen to him on Ringer NFL Show with Nora on what is it, Sunday? And yep.

Yeah. All right. Good to see you. Thanks for having me.

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All right, there's.

A huge Eagles game this week, so we had to get Shield Capadia who is on TheRinger.com and has a podcast with Ben Solak on Ringerfl Show and does Ringer Philly special and is attuned to this Eagles team. This is one of the craziest schedule stretches I can remember in a regular season where you have that Casey Monday night game. We immediately go to the Buffalo game, which then goes into overtime and your defense gives up 500 plus yards, and you're on the field for, like, almost 100 plays. Now you got San Francisco this week, and then looming is Dallas. I can't remember another run like this. Now, Buffalo is not one of the best teams in the league, but they still have Josh. But you're going against all these elite offenses and teams you might have to see again in January and February and I don't know, what kind of shape is your team in? Like, this is a brutal it was.

When the schedule first came out, everyone I think Solak and I did a pod and we're like, oh, my gosh, that stretches like a gauntlet. These are all Super Bowl contenders. And then going into it, everyone's asking know, what do you think? Like three and three, four and two? And I think I said, yeah, three and three, four and two. You're probably in good shape to still be competing for the one seed. And every week I'm like, all right, I think this is the week. They probably lose. Like last week against Buffalo, I'm like, come on, that's a tough spot. You're coming off a win against the Chiefs. You got the Niners next week. This is going to be the letdown. I'm feeling great at halftime. I'm like, nailed this. And then they come back and they win again. So it's just been such a hard team to figure out. It's been four straight games they've been losing at halftime. They've been outgained by like, 90 or 100 yards in every one of these games. And guess what? They're the only one team loss in the NFL. So it has been a strange season, perfect for Eagles fans, Bill, because they can still rip the team amongst themselves as much as they want, but then anyone else does, and they're like, what are you talking about?

We got one loss. So it's really the ideal Eagles season for Eagles fans.

Yeah, you're ten and one. You only have two wins in double figures, right? The Niners have seven wins by 13 plus points. I wrote down all the stats next to each other because I couldn't believe that the Eagles weren't favored in this game. When Sal and I had to guess the lines on Sunday, I think I guessed Eagles by two or Eagles by two and a half. And then it was the other way. It was San Francisco by one and a half. Now it's up to two and a half. I'm like, man, that is like, for a big game, I can't remember being that far off. And then you look at all the stats and it's brutal, man. Like, San Francisco, they're third and first down. Their offense, they're fifth on third down. They're 6th in the red zone. They're eigth passing. And then Phillies d 27th on first down, their 30th on third down. They're 29th in the red zone. And the eye test, I've watched a lot of Philly. Not as much as you. But I have all the Eagles and my fantasy teams, and that defense. You can just move the ball in them all game, right?

And they just have this knack over and over again. They'll make one play on one end, one play on the other end, and all of a sudden they're stealing the game. But this Niners team looks like the worst possible team for this defense. Do you feel that way going into it?

It's a very tough matchup. I mean, the Eagles weakness already was the middle of the field. Their linebackers weren't good, and now their two starting linebackers are both injured. And so, like, the Niners big thing is they play like no other play with they'll play with two running backs all game, where, hey, we're going to keep you in your base defense. You've got to have your linebackers out there. And it's like the Eagles don't even have linebackers to throw out there. And so it's going to be very tough for them to cover the middle of the field. But your point about the way they play defense is pretty interesting, just, like zooming out in the NFL because I feel like defensive stats are always tough. In 2023, so much of it is like, what quarterbacks have you faced that's almost all that matters. And so I kind of like the high variance approach. Like their defensive coordinator, Sean Desai, he will not do one thing. It's almost like those Bengals teams always got praised where you weren't like, the Bengals defenses are elite, but against Mahomes or Allen in the playoffs, you're like, maybe they'll cook up something because they try different things.

That's sort of been the approach. So, like, they had that game against the Chiefs. That was pretty good. I mean, the Chiefs handed them a bunch of plays, but they held them in check. They played the Dolphins. That was pretty good. And so you're going back and then they get carved up by Josh Allen. So there's kind of this back and forth. I think they're a high variance defense, but they'll try things which I like. They'll be aggressive. They'll call an emotional blitz when they're like, nothing else is working. Just send everybody at Josh Allen, and him and Gabe Davis aren't on the same page in that game last week. So that's kind of how I see their defense.

It's a whiff slow. Like, I feel like Kiddo over the middle. McCaffrey delayed screens and little wheel routes. That's going to be a problem. I'm sure. Shanahan, one of the bets I was looking at, if you like the Eagles to win, fando has Philly to lose the first half. San Francisco wins the first half. But Philly wins the game is plus 800. And I was like, that's actually what I think would happen if Philly wins the game. Like, Shanahan comes out. He's got his perfect script. They're up 13 to three. They look great after a quarter and a half. And then Philly does the thing they've done all year where they hang around, they make a play up there's. AJ. Brown for 39. Oh, my God. Forgot Devante was in this game. Oh, he just had a 40 yarder. And then all of a sudden, it's a three point game. You're like, Are they going to do this again? Then Jake Elliott hits, like, a 60 yard field goal, and you're like, Man, I can't believe this is a tie game. The Niners are dominating. They have twice as many yards. So I think they could, if they can, hang around.

But I do worry about that first half for them. And the Niners are the classic. Oh, yeah, we blew a 24 to seven lead. We blew a 14 to nothing lead. They do this over and over again where they take the leads, and then they kind of let their foot off the gas pedal. So I don't know. That's kind of how I see the game going. Early niners, and then you start doing your weird Eagle shit.

I agree with that. I sort of think you like that theory. Yeah. I mean, I think Jalen hurts. I think it's eight straight games that they've been trailing by double digits. They've come back and won.

Wow.

Eight straight game. I don't know if it's a record or what. I don't even know who keeps this stat. I saw it somewhere after last week's loss. But, yeah, it's incredible. They have these stretches offensively where my phone's just blowing up on seven different threads of people. Fire the offensive coordinator. They don't have it. And then in the second half, like last week, they scored touchdowns on three straight possessions. And it's like you take that for granted. That's hard to do. It's hard to just come back and 21 straight points all of a sudden in one quarter. So, yeah, I don't want to say I'm not a find away guy. You know that I'm usually like, all right, look at the analytics, the X's and O's, the matchups. I'm usually like, if a team keeps finding away, they're probably getting lucky, and they're not that good. But now we have two seasons worth of evidence. They're 24 and two in Jalen Hurts's last 26 regular season starts.

Wow.

And they're underdogs at home this weekend. It's incredible. So, yeah, I think if the Eagles win, I'm with you. I don't think it's a game where they come out and they're blowing out the Niners. I think the Niners have a lot of schematic advantages. But then you're like, well, if it's a close game with four minutes left.

Who do you like?

Who do you like in that spot? And I'm kind of with you. I feel like with the way the Eagles have that experience, they might be the team.

They're 17th in defense.

DVOA Niners are first on offense.

The Lane Johnson thing is alarming when he doesn't play that the stats are bad. The stats of a team that had an overtime game and won just what they look like the next week against the spread, that's terrible. That's like in the mid 40s. Then there's on the injury report. There's some major dudes on there. I don't know what it's going to look like by Sunday, but both receivers are hurt. Swift's hurt. Jordan Davis is hurt. I assume all those guys are probably playing, right?

Yeah, I think most of those guys are okay. I think even Lane Johnson practiced earlier today, so he could be back there, which is big. Fletcher Cox, the defensive tackle, that's probably the big one because you mentioned it, they played 92 defensive snaps last week. Oh, my God. Now you got these young Jordan Davis and Jalen Carter, these guys who were rotational players at Georgia. That was their big thing. Hey, these guys aren't going to play a lot of snaps. Like, Jalen Carter, I think, played over 80 snaps last week. Jordan Davis played over 60 snaps last week. So now they're coming back and they've got to key this defensive effort. So, yeah, to me, defensively, it's not going to be a game where they're like forcing the Niners to go three and out. To me, it's like you just have to take some chances. Like, you might give up a 65 yard catch and run to Christian McCaffrey, but can you force a couple of turnovers? Because that's the big thing with Purdy. I mean, you look at like I was looking at every statistical category with Purdy this week, and it's like one, two, or three against man, against zone, you name it.

The only area where I think you look at it and say, hey, that has been a weakness, is just he'll give you, what, two to four opportunities every game in the services that charge a ball? Yeah, it's like, hey, if you drop that pass, you might give up 35. If you make that play, you might win the game. And so I think when they have those opportunities, whether it's a sack fumble, whether it's an interception, because he's an aggressive player, you got to make those plays when they present themselves.

Are you a believer in the whole Philly needs this game, but they don't 100% need it, whereas the Niners really need it? Because I do wonder about that with football sometimes where you never want to lose a game. But the Eagles could lose this game, right? Dallas is the one. They could lose this, but as long as they beat Dallas, they're good, and they're going to be probably the number one seed anyway, whereas the Niners have to think about a whole bunch of stuff you don't want to be. They have at least a third seed pretty much locked up, but it's not 100% locked up yet. But also to send a message to this Eagles team after they lost in the playoffs to them last year. This is a revenge game. There was a lot of shit talked on both sides. It just feels like a more important game for the 49 ers, but I don't know. Is that like a bullshit sports media narrative or are you buying it?

You know what? In week 18, when I do my picks every year, I kind of fade that narrative when you always have the team that needs the win for the playoffs, like, I think it was the packers last year against the Lions, I always take the opposite side and it seems to always work out. I mean, I'm with you. It makes sense. But like, last week, Buffalo needed that game. I mean, if the Bills win that game, we're probably talking this week, you know, don't count them out. They still have a chance. And the Eagles, that was like a meaningless out of conference game, and they still won. So it can change quickly. Like these next two, like, if they lose this game to the Niners, now all of a sudden next week against, like, you're talking about you could be the one seed or you could be the five seed if you lose the division. And then everyone saw they were frauds. They won all those close games, but now they lost two in a row. So I hear you. I think you're right. The Niners have had this one circled on their calendar.

Like their players have just yeah, this.

Is game of the Year.

It's crazy.

Yeah.

I've never seen anything like it. So I do see it in that respect, but I don't know, that tends to burn me. I feel like when I ride that narrative too long.

Yeah, you think? Eagles, ten and one. Valdez Gantling catches the pass. That's nine and two. Jake Elliott sid a 59 yarder in shitty weather. Now he did. And that's part of what makes the Eagles such a great team is I would say he might even be the number one kicker right now, but he still had to make it. I didn't think that was going in. That seemed like a lot to ask. And then all of a sudden you're eight and three and the line makes more sense. We had John Ewing look it up, and it's only been the third time this century that a team that was ten and one or better at home was an underdog, and the team went one and two against the spread. So it's like there got to be something to it. Big picture, eagles question where's he levitating these days in the Philly athlete kind of stratosphere. Is he, like, above MB? I mean, Bryce Harper is number one because he's the mayor of Philly, I assume. But is hertz like, in the top three? Where is the what's the word on hertz?

Yeah, I mean, hurt hertz might be number one with the way the Philly season, kind of. Hertz and Harper were the two guys who were last year when the Sixers flamed out. It was like, Hertz and Harper are the guys you can like they show up in the big vaulted they vaulted MB. Now, the Sixers have had a nice surprising season here so far, but no one's going to put MB over them until they do something in the playoffs. You can't go five for 18 in game seven and have year after year of disappointment. So, yeah, I think Hertz is one now, honestly. The thing is, he's so young. What is he, 24, 25? If you zoom out and you're like, what could this career actually look like in terms of all time Philadelphia athletes? And it's still early. We know there's injuries and stuff happen, but that ceiling is there for him. And he just sets the tone like Nick Sirianni after these games, he's yelling at Chiefs fans and going crazy. And like, Sirianni has become this hated coach by every other, but, like, the team takes on, you know, they're just like, all right, go to work.

He's steady. He'll figure out a way at the end. There was this clip last week of Brandon Graham, the defensive end, on one of the final possessions. He's Micked up, and as the ball's being snapped, he's like, you don't know Jalen hurts. Like, I know Jalen hurts. We're winning this. He's yelling this to the offensive tackle on the other side. And so I think he's number one right now. And him Harper. And then if embiid if the Sixers do something in the know maxey is so lovely, his approval rating might be the highest of any of them, just because he's like lovable, and the expectations aren't quite as high, obviously, as those other guys.

I like the approval in thing.

Yeah.

Everyone loves Maxi. He just seems like the most beloved guy on and off the court. The thing that's been interesting to watch with Hertz is his demeanor is exactly the same at all points of the game, no matter what just happened. And then sometimes it's maddening. Like in that jets game where it turns out he was hurt. Of course, they didn't tell us, but when he was bad in that game but there was like sometimes you feel like, dude, where's the urgency, man? You haven't in first down in an hour. What are you guys doing? And then all of a sudden, you can kind of see him get into these it's it's weird to call him streaky because he's not streaky. He's actually pretty consistent. But at the same time, I do feel like there's a streakiness to the Eagles offense that I kind of like, because you can feel it when it's happening. You're like, uh oh. Oh, here they go. And they'll just do it. They'll have three straight touchdown drives in a row, but they'll look like shit for an hour and a so what.

It'S like once they get that first one, they feel unstoppable. You're just like, all right, they're going to score. But then they have these stretches, specifically in the first half. I mean, that's been the big difference this year to last year. If you look at a lot of the numbers, like, they averaged, I think, 28 points per game with Hertz last year, and this year it's 27. So you're like, it's not really that different. But the way they get there has been very different. Last year, they would jump all over teams in the first half. Hertz would be on the bench in the last six minutes, or they're just running the ball in the last six minutes. And this year it's, no, no. First half, they can't do anything. At some point in the second half, they figure it out and then they come back and they win these games. But yeah, sometimes the camera goes to him and again, on these text threads, people are like, look at Hertz. Why isn't he? I'm like, if you why does he care? He just looks the same every time. Like, they literally hit a 59 yard game winning field goal and he's shaking his head because he's mad about how the last possession went.

So it's kind of like all the sports cliches that we get tired of. He's like the guy they kind of apply to the next play and stay even. Like all that thing that athletes spew, and we're like, all right, give us a break. He actually abides by all those. So, yeah, it's kind of tough to wrap your head around.

Warren Sharp was telling me this week that it's that irony of that Eagle stat of last year and all the numbers versus this year that it's pretty similar because it's actually deceiving. Last year's offense was way better because they were just doing it in three quarters, and then they would just be up by 20. And if you just actually just look at the first three quarters of last year versus this year, it's no contest. And this year is much harder. At the same time, it just feels like AJ. Brown went up a level from last year, and sometimes they forget about him or I don't know if he's getting double teamed, but he is at the point for me now where I always feel like, hey, man, it's third and 16. Just get it to AJ. He's going to make a play. And there's only three guys in the league like that. He's better than anyone ever could have expected when they got him, right? I mean, he's a level higher than in your wildest dreams you could have imagined, right?

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I was going through, like, an All Pro team earlier today, just say, where do I have everyone ranked? And he was definitely know was him. Tyreek Hill and C D Lamb were my three wide receivers. He's. Just such a problem solver. Like you said, you can go through a rut, and then there'll be these plays where he's literally double teamed and on the chalkboard on, like, a Wednesday, if they're going through that play with Hertz, it's like, no, don't go to him. Here's a route underneath. And Hertz, let's just be like, I'm going to throw that. That guy's really good. And he just makes a contested catch in between two players. So he solves that problem. You can just throw him a slant on third, down a screen, whatever, and he can solve those problems. So, yeah, him and Devante Smith, and like you said, they double AJ. Brown. And now Devante Smith. Think if Devante Smith were on, like, the Chiefs this year, I mean, he would probably be an All Pro. He would have, like, 1400 yards on the Chiefs. So I think they have to keep figuring out that dynamic, making sure both guys are happy.

But, yeah, they just solve everything. For the Eagles passing game, smith does.

Seem like twice a game, he's just wide open by five yards. And you don't know, he's just one of those guys. There's only like six, seven receivers who just seem like they're just wide open, and you're like, what happened? Did somebody fuck this up and say, no, he just completely dusted somebody and he's wide open in the middle of the field or whatever. But, yeah, I do wonder what he would be like on a different team.

You know what he is. He's let you know that it's like the comedian's. Comedian. He is the wide receivers. Wide receiver. Like, wide receivers are just like, oh, my, this is teaching tape. The way he ran this route and read the leverage and the separation, like AJ. Brown is just a physical specimen where you're like, oh, my God, this guy's a beast. Devante Smith is the guy who's just like a technician there. And so, yeah, his body control, his instincts are incredible.

Well, I'm leaning toward the niners minus two and a half because of all the stats I'm looking at and the fact that I think you've overachieved a little bit. And eleven and one coming off that overtime game, and the Casey Monday night, the schedule, the gauntlet, the whole thing. Whereas the Niners, this is just a nice spot for them. They can go in. They have it circled. They've been thinking about the game all year, and I just feel like it's probably the right line. And I can't believe it. I can't believe a Ten and one team at home in back to back home games would be getting points. It seems like a miracle. And at the same time, I actually think the healthy Niners are the best team in the league. And the only time that they haven't been is when Trent Williams was out and Debo was out and they were missing some of their major dudes. But they have everybody again other than the yeah, and I just think they're the best team. And we're doing playoff game rules with this game. And I have the 49 ers slightly over the Eagles. Do you think that's fair?

Yeah, I would say they're neck and neck. I think it's going to be a field goal game. I picked Eagles 24. 49 ers 24 and I'm sick of picking. I'm like all the Bills are covering and I'm like, why don't you just go with again? They're 24 and two with hertz as a starter. I think 14 and one at home. Just make it easy. If they lose, they lose. But yeah, I don't want the Philly special audience to be coming after me for picking the Niners and then I'm wrong.

We have one other way to go, though. We could just take niners first half minus one and a half.

Yeah, you know what, that's not a bad and by the way, if you're looking at like if you're really digging deep, the matchup for the Niners in terms of props to me is George Kittle. I mean, his over under for receiving yards is 47 and a half in this game. The Eagles are 32nd in DVOA against tight ends and they're down. They're two starting linebackers. I don't know. Listen, I don't want to say it's like a lock. It's never a lock. I get these wrong all the time, but when I saw get hurt, yeah, he could get hurt. But that is the guy who I feel like is going to have a monster game if the Niners win.

All right, we're going to take a break.

I didn't ask you. Who do you have for MVP? We only have like five weeks left. Is it hertz?

You know who I think is going to win MVP and now might be a good time to jump on. I actually think Mahomes is going to win MVP. He's plus 350 right now, their offense and we might get to this game here coming up. I thought their offense really found something last week. And if you're looking at what's going to change the most between now and Monday morning, if the Eagles lose to the Niners and that's a toss up game and then Mahomes beats the packers on Sunday night, we're going to have the whole narrative of like, oh, come on, it was him all along. If you plugged in a league average quarterback with what is surrounding Patrick Mahomes right now, that would be a bottom ten offense in my opinion. So I think Mahomes hurts Lamar Jackson. They're all in there. I think Trevor Lawrence and DAC are pretty good sleepers. I think Mahomes is going to be the guy in the next six weeks who ends up winning it. I know that's not like a hot take or anything, but he's not the favorite right now. He's plus 350.

No, I think that's a good one because of course, I had to weigh Rashid Rice on two of my three fantasy teams for him to finally turn into the guy I've been waiting for for eight weeks. But I thought what he did last week, and you get Kelsey going, and if Rice over the middle can make four or five plays a game like that combined with Kelsey, now you got something now, then maybe one deep threat once a game, just keep defenses honest. But it did feel like the makings of something for them. But I was thinking Dak would be the other one. And I hate it because all their wins I've talked about this, they don't have a good win yet. But if Eagles lose this and then Dallas beats the Eagles next week and Dak has a good game, you could see him leapfrog it, right. If they're a potential one seed and he has really good stats, and it's not his fault that they had the schedule they had. The Eagles had a fairly similar schedule with, like, two more tough games, but you can't blame them. But that would be the third one.

Lamar, I think the ship is sailed. Trevor Lawrence ship is sailed.

It's a very predictable award. It goes to the quarterback of the one or the two seed in one of the conferences. So, yeah, you can really whittle it down based on what team. So you're right. I think if the Eagles lose this week, I think Dak would need next week to light up the Eagles. And if the Cowboys, like you said, if they get the one or two seed, if they overtake the N, he's going to have all the numbers. He's going to have all the stats. Because you mentioned he's been piling up big stats against bad defenses. So, yeah, the DAC campaign, to me, really comes down to one game. That game against the Eagles. It's Sunday night. Everyone's going to be watching it. If they light the Eagles up and they overtake him for first place, I think he's got a legit shot at it.

Well, you know, it's a narrative award, too. And who gets narratives pushed harder than the Dallas Cowboys, who won three Super Bowls literally 30 years ago and haven't done anything since? And we spend more time talking about them than anybody. Your team owns them. I'm sure you're delighted to play them next week. Not that concerned, I would guess.

DAC was impressive. He lit them up the last time they played, and it was another one of those games where the Eagles came back and beat them. But, yeah, it's been, what, 27 years since they've gotten past the divisional round? So it's one of those weird arguments with an athlete where it's like, once they do that, then we can talk about the guy differently. But until they do that, I'm not making the leap with the guy.

All right.

Million dollar picks. I asked you to bring two picks with me. I'm going to start with this game and maybe it's one of your two picks. Falcons jets. The line is minus one and a half on FanDuel right now for the Falcons. Is that the Jets Tim Boyle playing again. He's the worst quarterback we've had all year. It's hands down. The jets score ten points a game. What's interesting is this is actually a terrible opponent for them because you can run the ball on the jets. The jets have the 31st defense against the rush and eye test wise teams have just been pounding them all season. This is literally all the Falcons do is they're good at running the ball. They're 6th and first downs. The jets. They're 32nd. I just feel like they're going to be able to run the ball. Bries hall is questionable whether he plays or not. So I don't have 100% bries hall. I have the worst quarterback of all 32 teams. I have a fan base that is just done with this season. And I kind of like this Falcons team. They always hang around. They're frisky. Their defense is pretty good.

Their defense is third in red zone this year. And it kind of backs up when you watch it like they have a knack for making big plays or getting turnovers in big spots. Why isn't this line higher? What's going on here?

Well, that's what I was going to say. What does JJ. Call it? The rat line. Always look for the this to me looked like the rat line. I mean, Tim Boyle, one and a half now. I don't like this Falcons team. Solak and I argue about it on extra point taken on the ringer NFL feed. Every week he's pushing them and I'm like, this team is not good. So you have to ask yourself, how do the Falcons lose this game? I think one Desmond Ritter is like the most turnover worthy he has the highest turnover worthy play rate tied with Mac Jones in the NFL. I don't even know. The over under for this game is 34, Bill. 34. All it takes is if there's one pick, six, if there's one sack fumble in the red zone, all of a sudden the jets are right there. So the Falcons are just going to run the ball and run the ball and run the ball some more. But I don't think they're going to be able to pass the ball at all against this jets defense. I don't think they want to. I don't think they're going to try to.

And I think when they do, it's going to lead to bad things. So I'm not going to come on here and say, no take, you got to take Tim Boyle at home. Live a little. Take Tim Boyle at home. I'm not going to do that. But I did look at that and I said, you know what, I would not want to go anywhere near that game. But I could be wrong. I mean, on paper, it's yes, it should be easy. Falcons run the ball, win. Like, even if it's 1310, they cover that's fine. I don't trust this Falcons team at all. I don't trust the quarterback. I don't trust the coach, and I wouldn't want to go near it.

They won me over a little last.

Week where they kind of eked one out, and I thought Ritter, who was.

Admittedly a little bit terrifying, made a couple of big throws.

To me, it's more of what do.

You see coming out of this game? Do you see Tim Boyle leading the jets to victory and people being like, man, they said not to believe in Tim Boyle, but then the jets won 16 to ten. Or is it like, oh, shit, the Falcons kind of handed their business to the jets and now they're in control of the NFC South. And could this be like a late bloomer running identity type of team? I like Algier. I don't know what happened to him the first two months of the season, but last week I thought he looked more like the Algier from the last third of the season when he was just running through everybody. And they got Coral Patterson going now, so they got the three backs, and maybe they just pound the ball and just be like, hey, Ritter, no turnovers, please. I have that one circled.

They definitely could. Now, in terms of the be, I don't think we're going to get a Tim Boyle. Nobody believed in me. I mean, that would be shocking if anyone was running with that. But if the jets somehow were to squeak this out, then, you know, Monday, hey, they're still in it. Aaron Rot. Practice window open. Please kill know. I know neither of us want that, but I'm just trying to play this one out.

So? Yeah.

I don't know. I mean, it's hard to envision a scenario where now Tim Boyle does anything that leads the jets to a victory. I'm more concerned with the special teams, the defensive turnover, and all of a sudden the jets are up, like, ten, seven with three minutes left in the fourth quarter. I could see something like that Arthur.

Smith having another weird game. Somebody pointed out a Robert Salas stat. To me that completely changed my thinking on him, and this was the stat. How many kids do you have?

Two.

What would your life be like if you had seven kids? Would you be good at your job?

No, I would be terrible.

So you have three and a half times as many kids as you have right now, and that's just what your life is like. You have seven kids. So Robert Salah has seven kids. I heard that. I was like, how is he even like the special teams coach, much less the NFL head coach? I don't know anyone who has seven kids.

As a fellow bald man with I'm like, how does he have time to just shave that dome? I mean, it's always bright and shiny. If I had seven kids, this thing would be growing out quite a bit.

So? Yeah.

I don't know. He's figured out some way to keep his seven is just like, daunt. Like, I can't even envision it in my head. If you say three, I can envision it if you say four. Like, give me ten minutes, maybe I pass that. It's just like, what is happening here?

Do you know anyone with four kids?

I don't know. Now it's just like once now with my friend group, it's like once someone has the third, it's like, whoa, what happened there? I feel like two has become the very common number for most people of my age.

Three kids really feels like you're riding a motorcycle 90 miles an hour without a helmet. Seven kids. Anyway, I might be going against seven kid robert Saw all right, I ask you for two picks. What's your first one?

All right, first one. I am going to Houston. I like this Texans team minus three and a half at home against the Denver Broncos. So this is part a little bit of a fade on the Broncos and part I really like this Texans team. The first part is the way the Broncos are winning. I give them credit. You and I talked about before, the know, I adopted, your know, replace the horrible coach and then bet on that team. And we were like, all right, Sean Payton, Nathaniel Hackett, this is going to be easy. And then a month in, we're going, all right. That didn't work out well, now they're right in the mix. They've won five in a row. I don't think the way they're winning is sustainable. They're plus 13 on turnovers during this five game winning streak. That's five turnovers better than any other team. Like, that's great. Turnovers are important. There's also a randomness to it, a luck to it that I don't think they're going to be able to keep winning that way. Offensively, it's like Russell Wilson check down, hand the ball off. And then like, three times a game, he makes an incredible play to courtland.

Sutton but he's thrown for 200 yards once during this five game winning streak in the year 2023. That's like, unheard of for a quarterback. So I just think offensively and defensively, I think the Broncos are competent. I think they're still below average. I don't think they're nearly as good as that five game winning streak would indicate. And then on the other side, I really like this Texans team. Even last week, they lose to the Jaguars. But CJ. Stroud, like, they weren't winning that game. Schematically he was just creating and making plays, and he looked incredible. Like, he's gone from, hey, he's a fun rookie quarterback to now I think he's like, one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. They're third in passing TVoA right now with that supporting cast with a rookie quarterback. He throws for over 300 every week. And so I think Stroud and this Texans team, they're going to bounce back. Their secondary has gotten healthy. I think they're making the playoffs. I don't think the Broncos are making the playoffs. And I like Houston quite I wish it was minus three instead of three and a half, but I still like them at three and a know.

Sometimes you can't be afraid of that hook. You just got to do it. Yeah. So I was looking at this one as well. That Denver five game winning streak. They beat the packers by two really weird 24 to nine, chiefs win, which whatever that'll happen, I think, yeah, mahomes.

They still won, but game had a.

Weird vibe the whole game. Buffalo, 24 22. A game that Buffalo is just kicking themselves. Minnesota, they win 21 20. And it felt like Dobbs had a chance to steal that one. And then last week they beat Cleveland 20 912. That game was pretty close and DTR got hurt and PJ. Walker came in and it was over. But I felt like Cleveland had a chance to come back. What was interesting is Denver came down the first two series and just buttsmacked the Browns defense and scored both times. And that was the first time I was like, wait a second. What is this? What's happening with this team? I'm with like, how can you keep that turnover streak going? I also think Houston can throw in them. And I was really impressed with how Houston fought back against Jacksonville last week. Strat took a like he took two dumb sacks in the fourth quarter that I thought really hurt them. But for the most part, they were in that game and, you know, so, yeah, I have that one circle as well. I didn't know if it was going to be Texans money line or Texans minus three and a half.

We can talk about that later. All right, I'm going to give you one. There's two teaser teams that I like this week, and one is the aforementioned Jaguars who are playing Monday night against Cincinnati. They're eight and a half point favorites. Cincinnati, forget about the Jake Browning part and the fact that they can't throw the ball anymore and that their two biggest plays last week against the Steelers were tip balls that went right to a Bengals receiver. Forget that part. Their defense isn't good. The stats on their defense are like appalling. They're 32nd yards per play. They're 30th and first down. They're 20 eigth and third down. They're 29th and rushing yards. I love Sweet Lou, but he doesn't have the horses this year. And they've had some injuries, too. And this Jaguars offense is kind of one of those bully offenses. Like if they're playing a weaker team, they can run it up and they can look awesome. I love them in a tease. And I love Miami against Washington. Miami down to two and a half. There's a little scariness with oh, boy, Sam Howell getting whatever, but Miami's defense is just I mean, Washington's defense is just bottom three in every category that matters.

Red zone yards, per play points, you name it, they're bad. And then no Jalen Phillips. But Washington can't block Miami's second and sacks like they actually have a pass rush. This has blowout potential. I like getting Miami down to two and a half. Are you down with both of those before we try to figure out the third team? Jacksonville down to one and a half. Miami down to two and a half.

Yeah, I think the Jaguars, the last two games, their offense has looked the best it's looked all season. I think Trevor Lawrence has held the and you mentioned it. You look at the stats for the Bengals last week, and you're like, all right, he threw for 200. And then you watch the game and it's like two deflected passes to Jamar Chase. Like, they had ten first downs total in that game. So, yeah, I like the Jaguars quite a bit in that spot. Commanders, Dolphins, the nine and a half would scare me because I just have a little worry about that Dolphins defense without Jalen Phillips and their safety, Javon Holland, who's, like, one of the best young safeties in the NFL. He's been on the injury report two days this week, so I kind of feel like the Commanders might be able to move the ball a little bit, but if you move that down to two and a half, I have a hard time seeing a scenario where the Commanders win that game. So, yeah, I think moving both of those makes sense to me.

So what's the third team I'm giving you seven points and we could mess with? We're staying away from Chargers. Pats, just so you know. You could move the Saints all the way to plus eleven and a half against that weird Detroit team that looked like crap. You can take the Steelers, maybe just do a money line with the three Steelers against the Cards. You can take the Colts all the way to plus five and a half. You take the packers backwards to plus 13. You do chiefs moneyline. What is it? What do you like?

Oh, my gosh. I usually do not mess with the teaser.

Well, it could be a moneyline parlay, too.

Yeah. I mean, when you said Chiefs moneyline, that got my interest a little bit. How do you feel about that now? I guess if you do Browns Rams, that's only getting you to nine and a half with the Browns. So that probably doesn't make a lot of sense there. What would Colts move to now? Colts, you're moving through zero. You're not supposed to do that, right? I don't know. What's the rule on moving them through zero? I think you're not supposed to do.

That with no, no. So I am actually in favor of doing that. Some of the hardcore gamblers like Raheem this is like he thinks it's a personal attack. If you tease somebody through the zero, everyone gets upset at this. I look at it like, well, we could have the Colts against Tennessee getting five and a half points with Will Levis, and I don't know what the hell this Tennessee team is. And the Colts are averaging, like, 25 a game. Tennessee is averaging 16. So just on the face of it, the only thing that worries me about the Colts is the Pats defense, like, completely shut them down a couple of weeks ago in Germany, and I don't.

Really know what that means.

Yeah, they've got no Jonathan Taylor for this action where Minshew turns the football over a little bit there. What were the ones you were leaning to? And then I'll tell you which one I like the most, because I'm struggling here.

Well, where I was leaning the most.

Was this is just a straight moneyline parlay. Chiefs, Jaguars, dolphins is plus 107.

I like that. Okay.

I've got all those teams.

I think I do, too.

Okay.

I'm a tiny bit worried about the packers in Lambeau at home getting a ton of points, but I'm with you. I think the Chiefs found something, and I think they need the game. And if we lose because Mahomes shits the bed in Lambeau, I think I'm.

Okay with the second the second game. You asked me to come with two games. My second game is Chiefs minus six at Green Bay.

All right, let's hear it.

Yeah, I like them quite a bit in this spot. Now I'm in on the packers. I think the packers are going to sneak into the playoffs. I think Jordan Love has strung together like, a month of playing good football. But it's one thing to beat that Lions defense, which has been playing terribly for six weeks on Thanksgiving, and it's another to in a big spot in, like, beat the Chiefs. The Chiefs need this game. If the Chiefs win this game, they're tied for the one seed here. So they need this game. It's a big you know, like we were saying, if you look at all the nerd stats I like to look at, last week was the Chiefs most efficient offensive game of the entire season. I think they found something with Rashid Rice had ten targets. He looked good. Travis Kelsey was more involved in that better. Yeah. They get down early, and then all of a sudden, they're playing really well. I don't trust that packers defense. I mean, they're up and down. They're mediocre. I think this is a game where Patrick Mahomes is going to have a big game. The Chiefs offense is going to have a big game, and then on the other side of the ball, that Chiefs defense is so hard to prepare for for younger, inexperienced quarterbacks.

They had one pressure in that game against the Eagles. They ran the same, like, blitz three times in the second quarter and all three resulted in sacks. And that's like a veteran eagles offensive line. They couldn't figure it out. They were just taking sacks and ruining possession. So I like love, but I think this is sort of a slow it down, pump the brakes a little bit type know. This week it's been like, hey, love is coming on. And I agree with that. I think after this game it's going to be all right. Slow down. They're not quite there yet. And by the way, the chiefs are coming on strong the last two weeks. So I like the chiefs quite a bit in that spot.

Yeah.

The other thing with that Thanksgiving game against the Lions, right. Couldn't have gone better for the packers. Unbelievable game. They get four turnovers. One of them's, I think, a turnover than that. But they win the turnover battle big time. Love plays great. They won by seven and it felt like the lions were coming back until the very end and the packers kind of held on. And it was a game where literally everything went right for them.

And I don't want to say they.

Barely won, but they kind of squeaked it out. I really felt I had lions in a bunch of teases and I was like, they're going to fucking come back. This is going to happen. I'm going to win this. And then they so all right, so we're good with those. The Pats plus five and a half.

I'm not going to bet it, but.

I'm so scared of this game. I just want to talk it out with you for 5 seconds.

Yeah.

What do you got?

No. Bosa.

Keenan Allen officially has seven injuries and nine red flags next to him in fantasy. And you have no idea what he's capable of.

Right.

They have no other receiver. Lindsay's out. Slater's, questionable. The chargers are the chargers, right? Do you ever want them favored by five and a half against anybody with what we've seen from them the last two years? The Pats are changing quarterbacks. Their defense has been really good for three weeks now where I think they've given up 40 points total in three weeks and they've been in all these games and even last week 35 yarder. It's going to go to overtime. The guy misses it. It's too many points. The line should be like, chargers two and a half. I just don't think the chargers are good. I'm not betting on it, but I'm flagging it.

Yeah.

I was looking at because every week I look at the patriots game and I'm like, they should be able to keep it close. But then I zoomed out the last two seasons when they're underdogs, they're three and 13 against the spread. So you always talk. Yourself into. Well, maybe Belichick will cook something up, but their offense is just so bad and so mistake prone and can't score enough points that they don't end up doing it. So, yeah, I don't have a good feel on that game. I went ahead and took the chargers minus five and a half to the chargers. I look at it one of two ways. One is like the pressure's off now and these are know they have a good game and everyone starts tweeting out Justin Herbert clips and it's like, all right. It doesn't know mean anything. The other one is like, does Brandon Staley have a job on Monday? If they like, this could be rock bottom.

That would be the narrative.

They go there and lose this game.

It's literally rock bottom for everybody because it would be a devastating win for the patriots. We're already like a million Drake May versus Caleb Williams. Arguments? I don't want them to win this game. And then the Chargers like, that's it for Staley. I don't even know if you let him on the plane. Hats to win both halves is plus 340. Just going to mention that I'm staying away, though, because it's stupid. Another line that I thought was out of whack was saints, lions where the saints are plus four and a half.

And I'm just not impressed by the.

Lions defense at all. I don't think they're good and I think even the saints, a team that has checked down cash Bar, Derek Carr, I could just see them moving the ball up and down the field, at least getting the 20s, kicking some field goals and maybe putting a little pressure on golf and who knows? But that line seemed way out of whack to me. What did you think of that one?

Yeah, I like the Lions to bounce back, but I wasn't going to make it one of my I didn't feel good enough about it to make it one of my top two. I think the lions offense is still really know when they turn the football over. Obviously that's an issue. So I think they're going to be.

Able to move the ball in New Orleans. I forgot to mention.

I know.

You know what?

It's a lot of points.

Yeah, it's weird. The Saints like, at home has not like I always, oh, great home field advantage. I think the numbers of them, like, gambling wise are not great at home. And you know what to take. Like earlier when I picked the Texans, it's fun to gamble on CJ. Stroud or pick him. You're just like, all right, 100%. You know what's not fun? Dennis Allen and Derek Carr having any type of anything. It could be $2. It could be my pick on TheRinger.com I do not like having their side in any game. And so, yeah, the number is a little high to me because I think they can move the football that Lions offense. I mean, defense has been terrible for like six or seven weeks. Everyone's moving the football on them, but I just don't like backing Derek Carr and Dennis Allen. It's not a fun experience.

Do you have any thoughts on the.

Steelers who are five and a half.

Against the Cardinals just to win outright moneyline steelers, because everyone can run the ball in the Cardinals, right? Steelers got a little momentum last week. 400 plus yards offense. They finally got rid of Mac Handada. New coach theory strikes again. Even though he was an assistant coach. I'd just be surprised if the Cardinals went into Pittsburgh and just beat them with a team that I don't think their defense is good. Doesn't seem like they can put together four good quarters. And Zach Ertz just asked for his release and got it. Maybe he's coming back to your Eagles. Feels a little tankish. Steelers can just win this, right?

Yeah, I think they will win the game. The five and a half was what do you call it? Like the be careful over there, Michael Conrad. Yeah, because I was just like, all right, recency bias. We all watched the Steelers last week and we're like, oh, they put up over 400 yards of offense.

It's fixed.

They got rid of Matt Canada. I mean, they've scored more than 20 points once in the last five games. So it's like, can Kyler Murray run around and make like two plays in this game? Are we sure the Steelers offense is going to look really good? So I like the Steelers to win the game, and I actually can see a scenario. I think you and I both like the Steelers before the season. I can see a scenario where the Steelers go on a little bit of a roll here. Their pieces are in place. I think Minka Fitzpatrick might be back for this game. I was just like, I want to see that offense a little bit more in the post Matt Canada era before I'm like, oh, yeah, minus five and a half no problem. But yeah, I do think they win the game.

So if I gave you the steelers.

Minus 255 money line and I put that with the Houston Texans -174 with the double money liner and that takes us to plus 119. Does that interest you at all?

Yeah, because the Texans three and a half scares me a little bit. Now, listen, it's a small line. They could easily lose that game. But those are two teams that I like quite a bit, where the line is under a touchdown, where if you just combine them for the money, I always get scared with combining them. That all right. One thing is going to go wrong and I'm going to lose this one. But I do like both those teams to win those games quite a bit. The Steelers and the Texans there.

All right, my last one is Rams over the Browns, and there's a bet on fando. Rams win first half. Rams win. The game is plus 110 because you could have Rams minus three and a half. The half scares me. The Browns, like, they're missing both of their tackles. Right. Flacco probably is playing in this game, and Flacco hasn't been a good starting quarterback in a couple of years. Ward's hurt, Thornhill's hurt. I have no idea if those guys are playing or not. And I thought the Rams looked good last week and are kind of frisky as a possible seven seed. They're a little healthier.

And I just.

Think the ship might have sailed on this Browns team because the quarterback situation and the line situation yeah, I guess.

The case for the Browns would be they incorporate the well known Joe Flacco offense, which you've been talking about.

Chuck it up.

I mean, listen, the over under for this game is 39 and a half. Like, if you get two, chuck it up, 35 yard pass interference penalties, and then play well on defense, you have a chance to cover that three and a half. That's why it scared me a little bit. But you're right, it's tough to know what version of the Browns defense you're getting here because of those injuries.

We didn't mention Miles Garrett, who's like, oh, he might play. It's like, well, that's important. He's the second or third best defensive player in the world. So he's not healthy, but he's going to play. But he's hurt. He's got a bad shoulder. That doesn't sound good.

Yeah, I feel like whatever you do on this game, wait till, like, Friday afternoon final injury reports, because that obviously is a big deal. Miles Garrett specifically, so I could see a like, I like the Rams a lot. I think the Rams have a chance to make the like, their offense last week was incredible. And then so I'm trying to say, all right, is that recency bias where what we said because two weeks ago, remember, they played the Seahawks and they almost lost that game. They didn't do anything. So I'm a little bit scared off by what they did last week, influencing me too much. And looking at this Browns defense, which, yes, it's been a little more gettable, but on the season, I mean, we're still talking about what, a top three defense overall here.

I don't like shaky offensive lines on the road, either. One of my thoughts with this Browns.

Game was they don't 100% need it.

Right, for a six seed or seven seed. And if they just get there, they get DTR next week, who I actually thought had some potential, showed some potential last week. And then they have the Jags at home. They have the Bears at home at Houston, jets at home, at Bengals.

Right.

Propping with three of those. And that gets them to ten wins, which is where they need to be. So this is not a kitchen sink for them against the Rams is my point.

That's what I want for you.

Offensively, I feel like every game they're throwing out the kitchen sink, reverses and double passes. I know too much. We got to do something here. So it feels like that's their approach is just like empty everything out every week because we've got nothing on offense. But, yeah, I think it depends how the game goes. I mean, I agree with your initial sentiment that I do feel like the Ship might like the Browns. Just I'm not picking them to make the playoffs. I know they've got a big edge right now and a high percentage to make it, but, man, I could see this thing getting ugly for them with that quarterback situation down the stretch.

So maybe the move is just to.

Take I'll figure it out.

I'm going to take some time on this one, Shill. But the ones we definitely like, we like that jags, Miami, Casey Parlay, and.

We both like the so those seems.

To be the ones that we're focused on. I like the Falcons more than you. I like the 49 ers slightly more than you. But you're a bad. You have to keep your rep with the Philly fan.

Listen, I have a podcast to promote here. I can't go in too far, and.

I might end up taking the Pats plus five and a half because that line is ridiculous. But you'll see. I'll text you what we did. Shield. Good to see you, as always.

Thanks for having me. It was funny. All right, it's time.

The million dollar picks for Week 13. Last week I lost $194,000. I'm still up 76,000 for the season, still battling in the positive. I really like week 13. We just talked about all the candidates with our guys, shield, Capadia, and here is what we landed on. 300,000 on a parlay. The Jags just to beat Cincinnati and Jake Browning and the Bengals. Terrible defense, that's bottom three in every kind of relevant category, like red zone, first downs, all that stuff. Jags just to beat them. Miami just to beat Washington. Washington's defense is terrible. Not sure if you noticed, but Miami's offense is really good. And then last but not least, she'll love the Chiefs in Lambeau in a really big let's remind everybody that we're the chief spot. They're favored by six points in this game. We just want them to win the game.

That's it.

And if the Jags, Miami and Kansas City all win plus 107, we're putting 300,000 on that next one. Falcons minus one and a half at the jets. We're putting 300,000 on this. This is one of my locks of the year. The only reason you'd be afraid of this is just because of the Falcons, because of the history they have. And she'll talked about all that stuff. He didn't scare me off.

The jets, you can run on them.

They're 31st against the run. They have the worst offense in the league. They have Tim Boyle as their quarterback. The Falcons can't win this by three. Brisal is questionable. I'm not going to overthink this. I don't care that it looks like a little bit of a rat line. I think the Jet season ended three weeks ago. Falcons minus one and a half. This one hurts because shield. Is a huge Philly fan. It was nice enough to give us his time, but we're going to go against his beloved Philadelphia Eagles. 49. Ers minus two and a half on the road, $300,000. All the matchups favor them in this.

Statistically, you have their top three in first down.

They're fifth on third down. They're 6th in the red zone. They're eigth against pass. Philly. Philly's D, 27th against first down. 30th and third down, 29th in the red zone, 29th against the pass. They've had this knack of pulling these games out week after week, and as I told Sheila earlier, I think a healthy niners, that's the best team in the league. And this is a statement game for them. They lost that playoff game in January.

And now they're going to get their revenge. Niners minus two and a half.

All right, so then we have three smaller ones.

We have the Rams to win the.

First half against Cleveland and win the game. You can get this bet on Fando. We won it last week at the Rams. This week it's plus 110 for that to happen. Rams win the first half. Rams win the game against Cleveland. There's a chance Joe Flacco might play in this game. That's enough for me. I actually like this Rams team. I think they're going to make the playoffs. We're going to put 250K on that. We're going to put 250K on a Texans parlay. She'll love the Texans. He thinks they could throw in Denver. He thinks Denver's turnover luck is going to turn. So we're going to do a little.

Same gamer Texans moneyline, CJ.

Stroud to throw for at least 225.

Passing yards, and the Texans Broncos adjusted.

Over 36 and a half. So if the game gets to 37 points, we win Strad 225 yards or more, we win Texans moneyline, we win that's plus 121. We were betting 250K on that. And then last but not least, we're going to put 150K on a little Steelers parlay.

Steelers moneyline, Warren, 40 plus rushing yards.

Harris, 40 plus rushing yards.

That's right, jalen, Warren, NAJ, Harris, both.

40 plus yards rushing. And then Friarman, 25 plus receiving yards. You know what? I'm scaring myself as I'm doing this. Let's go 125K on this. But this is a same game parlay, and the reason is the Cards have probably the worst run defense in the league other than the jets, and I think they run all over them. Steelers win 125K on the Steelers, plus 309 for that parlay.

Those are the million dollar picks for Week 13.

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Stephen Ruiz and Shioka Patia. Thanks to Isaiah Blakely and Steve Saruti for helping out tonight. Producing. I'm going to see you on Sunday with the Cuz. Have an awesome weekend. Wanna waste.

I don't have you with him on the wayside on the first.

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