
Detroit’s Grit, Drake vs. Caleb, a Giannis Trade Idea, and Guess the Lines With Cousin Sal
The Bill Simmons Podcast- 179 views
- 11 Nov 2024
The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal to discuss the Lions' comeback win vs. the Texans, the early AFC playoff picture, and the Chiefs sneaking by the Broncos to earn a 9-0 record (2:09). They have a Cowboys reassessment and discuss Commanders-Steelers, a rookie QB ranking, and Bears-Patriots (23:39). Then they talk about the latest "season from hell" candidates; whether to take the Eagles, Cardinals, and/or Chargers seriously; the Saints supporting the "new coach theory" by beating the Falcons; 49ers-Bucs; and Colts-Bills (47:02). Finally, they discuss some Week 10 gambling trends before guessing the lines for NFL Week 11 (1:08:18) and closing the show with Parent Corner (1:30:35).
Host: Bill Simmons
Guest: Cousin Sal
Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti
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What's happening? It's Todd McShea, and I'm back with a new home and a new show at The Ringer and Spotify, The McShea Show. It's a video and audio podcast coming to you year round with all my NFL draft information, big boards, mock drafts, and player movement. Plus, I'll be chatting with some of my best friends in football, including some of your favorite football analysts. During the week, we'll have episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays that will include discussions about my player rankings, who's rising, who's falling, and who your NFL team should be keeping an eye on. Plus, we'll be reacting each week to the college football playoff polls and giving you previews and pics for each Saturday slate. In addition, I'll have episodes on Saturday nights with my immediate reaction to the full day in college football every week. So if you love the college game, the NFL, the draft, or all of it like me, make sure to like, follow, subscribe, and get ready for the McShay Show on the Ringer, Spotify, and wherever you watch or listen to podcasts. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I have a new episode of the Rewatchables coming on Monday night.
We did Meet the Parents, an absolute classic. It has really aged nicely. That will be up on Monday night, and you can watch it on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. You can watch all the clips and videos from this podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. Cousin Sal is coming up in one second to break down everything we saw in a really, Really fun, action-packed week 10 of the NFL season. We did this live on YouTube as we do every Sunday night. I'll have to just subscribe to the Bill Simmons channel, and you can watch us do this podcast live, or you could just listen to it the next day. You do whatever you want to do, but I'm going to bring in Pearl Jam right now because that's what I want to do. Pearl Jam. All right. It is 8:43 PM Sunday night. Just watch Texas Alliance. I'm here with the 47th President of the United States, Cousin Sal.
How are you? There's no way I won. I know who my family voted for, and it wasn't me.
It never is. We just watched an incredible game, and I thought Collinsworth made the key point, and he snipped it out in the third quarter and said he did that. How? I'm just telling you, if the lines could figure this out, this is the game that tells you what... He just did that whole thing, and he was right because I was thinking the same thing. If all the shit that happened, God throws five picks, basically in the first two and a half quarters of the game. If you can come back on the road and win that game, I think that means something more than the game, right? That was the takeaway.
Oh, I thought the point he made that was valid was, if there was just one more coat of paint on those goal posts, we're going over time, Mike. You know that's true. Come on.
One more, Mike.
They ran against them, right? They have the fastest runners. What's interesting is it seemed like, and I think it was those red uniforms, didn't they seem faster, the Texans? Is it a little bit of a flash thing? Like, oh, wow, they're wearing their red uniforms. They're fast. And then us tonight, let's give up. But you're right. If they had had just gone to the running game for most of the game, it wouldn't have been close at the end.
It was very similar to what was happening then early in the season. They had that one game where Goff threw the ball almost 60 times. And some people were out on the Detroit offense. I remember I was talking about it. I was like, I still feel like they just have to remember what team they are. Then this game, it was the same thing. They're chucking the ball around. Goff didn't have it. The running game wasn't great in the first two and a half quarters, but it's like, They don't have Will Anderson. Just on the ball. Stick with it. Stick with it. Play action. And they were able to turn around. But the bigger thing is Houston didn't score again in the second half. There's a bunch of bad advanced metrics with them in the second half of these games. Nico Collins got scratch pretty late. Seemed like he was playing. He was scratch late enough that I think a lot of people, like me in one of my legs, started him in fantasy, and then all of a sudden he was gone. But they got to fix that. I still like that Houston team, though.
Yeah. Here's the thing. No, first of all, yes, I say the lines could have won and not put it away, but they could have been in this much earlier than just the final kick to take the lead. But, man, if Stroud hits Dell, he's open for 17 seconds, and he lofts it, it's intercepted by Colton Davis. So that sucked. But yeah, I like this team, too. And guess what? They could rest her out for a month. He could go whatever. He can go to France if he wants because he's up against Will Levis, Mac Jones, and Joe Flacko or Anthony Richardson. So yeah, I like that. Do I like them as a one seed? No, but they'll be fine in the playoffs, I think.
Yeah. Even you look at their losses, Minnesota killed them. Green Bay beat them by two, and that was a neither or a game. Jets beat them on a Thursday night, which was another one that it felt like they were going to win the game. Garrett Wilson made that crazy catch. And then in this game, they were in it, and it felt a little self-inflicted to me. I know they didn't have Nico Collins, but it The Stroud pass, it was just an... He sailed it up there like there was nobody within 30 yards of Dell. And meanwhile, the safety comes flying over. But even if he had sailed it toward the corner of the end zone, it just... When that happened, I was like, holy shit, the lines might have a chance because I was-Nephew Kyle, 6 Pilsners in, could have made that throw.
I'm telling you right now. I don't know what happened there. And I think the game plan should be, Hey, if we get 30, we win, right? If you're Domingo Ryans, but they hadn't figured out how to get those extra seven.
Yeah, I'd like Stroud, but he needs one of these games. He needs one of these tight games against a really good team, make a couple of plays moments. I was looking up some of the stuff from this game And first of all, has anyone ever thrown five interceptions in a game and then won the Super Bowl? What do you think the answer is to that? Because I actually researched this. Oh, wow. Good for you. Same season. Yeah, I figured out a way to research this, and I think I nailed it correctly.
Well, it wasn't Tony Romo, who was one of two guys who threw five interceptions and won the game. Was it 1970, Colts or something?
No. So the two I found, and maybe there are more than this, but Terry Bradshaw did it in the '79s Steelers, and then Jim Plunket in 1980 Riders. Wow. So back to back years. In general, I was looking up... I went on this interception deep dive because when we were growing up, quarterbacks through interceptions. Steve Grogan had three, five interception games before I turned 10 years old. I was looking at the '19, I think '77 season Brantarkenton led the league with 32 picks, 1978. Stabor was second with 30, and eight other guys had at least 20. This is just what we grew up with. The ball would sail around.
It's bizarre because they definitely didn't pass as much, right? No. They weren't dropping back as much.
But think about it. Like, receiver's going over the middle. You could decapitate them. Quarterbacks, you could dive at their legs. You could close on them. So they're just flinging the ball up, trying to get rid of it. Joe Posarchik was 12 TDs, 23 picks. Kenny Anderson was 10 TDs, 22 Picks. Steve DeBerg was 8 TDs, 22 Picks, on and on and on. To throw five Picks now, you really have to put some thought and time and some shitty energy into it. There was like, how many The record seven. Like, Ty Detmer did it, only two other. So there was a moment there where it was like, whoa, what happens if he gets to six?
He's going to get there.
Do they pull him? But he righted the ship. He persevered through it.
Yeah. He plenty of opportunities. And yeah, he had more than he had all of last year. So I'm not sure. That takes him a little bit out of the MVP running. But we were making fun of PFF because they had them 22 out of 32 for quarterbacks. This guy never throws an incomplete pass. Who are the 21 ahead of them? And then it's like, oh, boy, interception after interception. Maybe they were going to save that for next week. But yeah, it could come back for the lines. They may just have that swagger. It just might be their year, at least in the NFC.
Well, in the AFC, Houston drops to 6 and 4, but they're going to be the 4 seed. I don't see any scenario where Indianapolis or Jacksonville or Tennessee even sniffs them. So they have time to figure it out. I didn't change my opinion on where I thought Houston might be when they get Collins back, they get Will Anderson back. I want to see this team in mid-December with two, three weeks left in this season, right around Christmas. Let's really take a look at them because I think they could hang with KC, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Baltimore. I think they could play with any of those teams. Yeah, I agree. We'll see.
Let's not do what we did last year. We fall in love with the sixth seed or whoever it was. Was it Cleveland last year? Did you have the Houston overclub? Did you have them?
I had a pretty good play off last year. That was one of my huge regrets. Flacko against whoever when he got violated.
Well, we won't have to worry about Flacko, but let's try to stay away from that. We won't have to worry about Flacko.
The AFC playoff stuff we talked about, our Houston's probably the fourth seed, which is going to, I think, put them against Pittsburgh or Baltimore. Whoever doesn't win that division the way it's lining up now, where Pittsburgh is 7-2 and two, and Baltimore, seven and three, and a good team. Probably the fifth seed, unless the chargers just keep kicking everyone's ass. Chargers are six and three. So if KC beats Buffalo next week, they basically have the one seat locked up. Because they'll have a three-game lead over Buffalo, plus they beat them. They'll have a two-game lead over Pittsburgh, and then a three-game lead over Baltimore. If you do the rankings now or the matchups now, it'd be Buffalo Buffalo, 2 against seven-seed Denver.
That would get it.
They're five and five. There's seven teams that have a tire winning record. Number 3, Pittsburgh against number 6, Chargers, and then number 4 Houston, Baltimore. But the AFC is fun. I was looking at it and I was like, The big wild card would be- It is, but I think you bring up a good point with the Chiefs, though.
If they beat Buffalo and Buffalo next week. A lot of team. How do you get up, Houston, for the last seven weeks with no one like, We got this. 8 and 9 could get us the 4 seed. I really feel like 8, 9 wins that division at this point.
Well, I think you could think maybe we could catch the AFC North team and get the three seed. Maybe Buffalo. I mean, Buffalo, this is another crazy thing that's happened through 10 weeks. Buffalo is a five-game lead in the AFCs. Yeah. I mean, that's absurd. I've never seen somebody lead by half as many games as the actual games played.
Your team might have done it a couple of times, right? By the middle of November, you don't think the Patriots had a five-game lead?
Well, you mentioned Kansas City. I don't know what to make of this season anymore. They're 9-0. Five of the wins was week one, the Ravens game where likely his foot's on the line. They beat the bangles. Burrow had the fumbled TD. The bangles had a chance to ice the game, didn't get a first down, punted. Chiefs hit a field goal at the end. To have the Atlanta game where they got the fourth down stop when it seemed like Atlanta was going to drive and get them and they got to stop. Last week, the Bucks and OT felt like if the Bucks went for two, they were probably going to win. Then this week, where it seems like it's done, they blocked the field goal and they beat the Broncos by two in a game that was dead even. Statistically, when you're watching it, it felt like the Broncos were going to win. I thought the Broncos slightly outplayed them, and now they're 9-0. And I don't feel like everybody's like, Oh, yeah. Chiefs, look out. I think people are like, Holy shit. How can they keep doing this?
I think you're right. And it's one thing to do. The Vikings did it like, Oh, what did they have in 2022? They had 11 one score wins or something. But when you went through the one after the other, toe in the end zone, barely. This is just a spectacular way to be undefeated in the second week in November. I mean, that kick, if there were no blockers, it would have looked exactly the same. What the hell? What Denver did everything right. You're right. They bled the clock. They had the chiefs use their timeouts. And you almost What do you think there's just no beating this thing.
I was driving home from the airport last night, about midnight, and I was listening to Fox Sports Radio, and there was some show, and they had that guy, Fezic, the Handicapper was on. And I was like, This is great. I'm going like 95 miles an hour on the 10, and I'm listening to Fezic break down the schedule. And he was really bullish on the Broncos in this game. It's like, Broncos coming off a loss. They beat the... And I felt the same way. I doubled on the Broncos in our Picks League. The Broncos last week against Baltimore when it was 17-10 heading toward the end of the first half, and they had really played with them, and Nicks had missed a couple of shutdown throws. And then all of a sudden, Lamar got the countdown. They're down 14, and the game blew open. But I didn't I think they were bad in that game. In this game, they were pretty good, too. They might actually be a play-off day. I think the bangles are going to have a hard time passing them because I think the Broncos are going to be able to get to nine wins.
Well, that's it, right? It's bangles. Bangles have some interesting games. They have the chargers this week. I don't want to call it a loser leaves town for the bangles, but they can't afford to lose two. They still have a lot of their north games.
They're not going to run this.
That's a big one. But yeah, man, I would even say I had Bo Nicks as solid fourth in terms of the four rookie quarterbacks. Is he second now? Is he right behind Daniels?
I have a whole spot in the podcast for this. What? Oh my God. I can't wait to talk about this. In this one? All right. Oh, yeah. In this podcast. Denver, rest of the way. Home Atlanta, at Vegas, home Cleveland on a Monday night, home Indianapolis, at Chargers, and then week 17 at Cincinnati.
Yeah, that's a big one.
Then here's the big one. This is one of the reasons when we did the over-unders, one of the reasons I like the Denver over, they played Kansas City week 18 at home. That's one of those games where we guess the lines, it'll be stupid. Right. Like Denver, favorite by seven and a half or something because Kansas City won't play anybody. So is Denver going to get to nine wins? Probably. They're five and five right now, and I think there's four more in there. So the bangles are going to have to them. They're going to have to beat the chargers, I think, this week.
They're having trouble getting to six. If they get to six, they go over their projected win total, which was five and a half, but they've been stuck on five for a while. But yeah, the problem is as you go through those games and I think about those teams, they're not guaranteed to score 30, right? I don't know who if anyone is in the NFL anymore, but Denver, it's always going to be a game like this. But what they did today is big plays against the Chiefs don't usually happen. They pulled it off. I know you want to talk about Nicks later, but they had some nice 20 plus yard gainers.
I thought that was the best Nicks has looked. And even though I know they didn't put up 30 points or anything, but he had some good plays. He had a typical couple of over throws, but I know you're invested in him because he's an Oregon guy. That's right. Oregon's a duck. But one thing on the Chiefs. So I was trying to think because I mentioned this to House on Thursday. I was like, I'm going to go back and actually look at this. The teams that start off undefeated for a while, and all of us are looking at them side-eye, like, I don't know. The three that really jumped out, 2010 Colts, were 14 and 0. Remember, that was the whole argument of should they go for it? I think they ended up wrestling guys, but they lost the Super Bowl to New Orleans that year. But that whole year, we were like, What is this? Is this a schedule thing? What's going on? Their defense isn't that good. So they didn't win the Super The next year, the packers went 13 and 0, go to the playoffs, get a buy, and then they get killed by the Giants at home in round two in the second Eli Super Bowl season.
Then the third one was the Panthers in 2015, 14 and 0 start, and then they end up losing the Super Bowl to Denver. I guess my question is, is Kansas just better losing now and getting this over with versus just going... I know it sounds stupid, but I'm going 14, and then you're basically not playing for anything for a month, and you get a bye week, and then you just have to flip the switch on. We have real evidence that that's a bad thing for a team.
Yeah. Listen, I think we got to give them a benefit of doubt in terms of how to approach this. Andy Reid, this isn't his first rodeo. By the way, his first rodeo, he killed a cow. It was too much weight, and they knew it was a bad idea from the start.
All tapes have been destroyed.
Right. But So work Hopkins in, right? Don't get injured. Pacheco comes back, theoretically, in a couple of weeks. I think that would probably be the plan. And if you could beat up on these teams, keep it going, I guess. I know what you're saying. It's good to have a loss in there, and then you could deal with it. But I feel like they've been down. They've made comebacks before, right? So they know how to be resilient.
Well, this Buffalo game, it's at Buffalo. I can't wait to get the line for that, and I don't know it. I would have guessed Buffalo as a favorite, but now I'm wondering with the way Buffalo looked a little shaky, maybe it's going to flip. But Casey, I think, would want to go into Buffalo and beat them again and just keep that over them, You can't beat us. We're on this. But then they're at Carolina the next week, and that just like the classic Chiefs favorite by nine and a half in Carolina, punt block, tipped interception, pick six, just nine things go wrong. Everyone gets killed in their tease. It's like the biggest upset of the year. I have that one flag. They play Vegas at home on a Friday night. That seems fishy. Chargers on a Sunday, they're at Cleveland, home Houston, at Pittsburgh, and then home for Denver in week 18. So maybe they have that stretch where it's week 16, Houston on a Saturday, week 17, Christmas night, Pittsburgh, and they're going to have everything clenched. And there's just no way they're going to be playing their guys in both of those games, right?
No way. They're going to put on one of those games.
Do you know what the odds are? I have them here. Don't look to run the slate.
House and I, it's like 5 to 1, right? Higher than that?
Plus 750. But you go through that. There's still tough ones. Could they be looking ahead to the Panthers and blow this Bills game? I didn't even realize that.
I know. They saw Bryce Young today and got freaked out. I think with that Saturday-wednesday thing, there's no way. That It would be insane to get people hurt during that crazy stretch. The other thing with the AFC, other than since he had four and six, I don't see a single team that could make a second half run out of nowhere unless Miami wins tomorrow night. I don't even really totally believe in Miami, but at least he'd be like, All right, two is back. They're in the AFC East. They have some easy games, maybe. But I I don't see any out of nowhere team. So to me, it's Denver and Cincinnati, and then it's a huge drop-off.
Yeah, I would say Miami, potentially because they could score points. But you were already. We don't even know if Tyreek's playing. He's like, What if he said something interesting, and listen, if someone's injured, whatever, this is a crazy game that I could never play. But he's like, we'll see how my body feels if I'm going to play or not. If you're two, you must be like, I don't even know my name right now. You get your ass in that game. We got We got to play. We got to win.
Our whole season is on the way.
Yeah, really.
Tirek does this, though. Remember that game last year when he was just coming in at the game and then his helmet was off, then it was on, then he's playing, then he's not playing?
He does it all the time still. If he runs a long route on second down. Forget it. You won't see him for the rest of that drive.
Hey, we're going to do Who's Delivering? Presented by Uber Eats where we break down the NFL players who have delivered so far this season from household names to out of nowhere surprises. So you have Bo Nicks would be in this as it seemed crazy that they were counting on him the way they are, but now it actually seems pretty smart, especially when they're paying Russell Wilson to play for the Steelers and he's doing well. Right. Bryce Young not being a disaster who's going to get traded for a seventh-round pick, not that he was awesome today, but at least he wasn't a disaster. I was surprised by that, right? Like, whoa. Sure. Bryce Young. I can't believe you have this in you. Who else would you have as a surprise?
You look at that and just why it's a surprise is the Panthers are just destined to lose by double digits. If you just look at their this year, right? If it doesn't happen one week, you could bounce back if it wasn't New Orleans. Let's see. Kyle Pitz is really good. No, let me see. Give me a minute. I wish you would tell me about these things. How about Kate Otton? Yeah, Yeah, he's good. He's solid. Let me find someone like this in here.
Was there a fantasy... I probably shouldn't give him your heads up. Yeah, why not? Why? Give me a heads up. Was there a fantasy running back or anybody that jumped out?
I like Bucky Irving, but I think I gave him out to you a couple of weeks ago. How about this?
How about McLaren being an A plus receiver now? If we're doing fantasy drops over again, I think he's one of the first five receivers.
Looks so much faster now than he was. But yeah, that's a good one.
Mac Jones, I think. Oh, no, wait.
That's a different- I just concentrate on bad players because that's all I'm used to now.
Different category. That's who's delivering. I guess Mahomes' delivering wins despite having the worst statistical Again today, 260 yards, 1:10, doesn't matter, keeps winning. Who's delivering? Presented by Uber Eats, where you get the best deal on game day food all season long. We delivery left the Cowboys out of who's delivering. Uber Eats, the official on demand delivery partner of the NFL. Order now. We're going to take a break for the podcast. What happens to the Cowboys now? I just have some questions to throw you.
Go ahead.
Because your season It's over. Is McCarthy finished the season? That's rude.
It's very rude.
Why pay for another coach at this point?
Yeah, right. Look, here's what I'll The thing about them is, I didn't expect them to win. I really thought they would suck me back in. I thought they were done, but I didn't think they were done sucking me, and I thought Cooper Rush would be competitive. But this game killed me because besides a kicking game, you get to see the Cowboys incompetence on every level. Like tackling, the quarterback play was atrocious. Rush had like 24 yards at the halftime, and then they put Trey Lance, and he comes in for negative six yards with a penalty. Ezequiel Elliott back with a big fumble, which- Huge fumble in the other end zone.
Jesus.
It's like just that, and that's more an aptitude in the front office. And then like, and CeeD Lamb, like yucking it up with the Eagles as the gun sounds to end the game. And then we have the owner. It's like every little aspect of it. The owner who blames the mysterious construction of his billion dollar stadium. That he built. He built it where half the players are going blind.
It's not like he bought the stadium from someone else. He built it. He was in charge of every aspect of the construction.
He's pointing at it. He's like, They know where the sun is. Good, Jerry, you go to the sun. Go to the light. See the sun? It's right there. It's right in the crack in the roof where you wouldn't... Everyone wants to put curtains.
He stayed in the sun until he got blind.
Oh, man, it drives me nuts.
Now, the big thing tomorrow is going to be like, should we put curtains up there? It's like this thing, you and I went to the stadium 15 years ago. They couldn't figure out the fucking sunlight after Daylight Savings.
Remember Dallas, the TV show? That was in the opening, the light going through the stadium. Like, oh, wow, that's cool. It's like, No, it's not that cool. I hate this team. I'm really mad. I feel like I get double F here because they don't even change the cadence. Cooper Rush is like, Here we go, and that gets me angry. Then I have to see the play, and that gets me angry. I'm getting angry like 160 times a game.
Are Dack... Shit. My next Cowboys question. Are Dack, Lamb, and Parsons all on next year's team?
Yeah, I think so. There's too much money. What are they going to do?
Is Lawrence also on next year's team? Those four. Those four guys next year.
I do think so. Okay. Yeah. I just want Aubrey. I need the kicker to stay. Listen, if they're not on the team, if they're not on the team, that means Jerry is going to trade him, right? And he's been awful. I mean, we got Mingo who didn't even suit up for a four... You see what they got for Hopkins versus Mingo, and they do it year after year after year. It's getting bad.
I like the philosophy of, Yeah, we got Mingo. We really liked him coming out of the draft. It was like, Did you still like him when he couldn't play for Carolina for two years? Yeah. It'd be like if we really liked somebody for the Ringer two years ago, and then the person went somewhere and just handed in a bunch of columns late and did three podcasts that had to be aborted We're like, Wow, we really did like him two years ago. Let's go get him anyway.
Maybe change the scene. Record labels aren't signing Ditty anytime soon, even though he went double platinum 15 years ago. Is that a bad analogy?
Listen, I'm here for all Ditty analogies. There you go. Here's my next question for you, Cowboys Related. I'm going to go through every team in the NFC, and you tell me which team you'd rather be then for the next three years.
This is a dick move, but go ahead. That's fine.
It's not a dick move. It's an exercise.
All I don't exercise.
Would you rather be Dallas or Philadelphia next three years?
That's easy. Philly.
Washington?
Washington, yes.
Would you rather be Dallas or the Giants?
I'm going to say still Dallas, and then I'm going to get kicked in the teeth on Thanksgiving, and that'll be fun.
I think Dallas is the right answer for that. Okay, so you'd rather be Bay... So the Giants, we have one.
Are we going to really do this 16 times?
Well, if you're rolling in, it's- You're going to join Minnesota, Green Bay, you'd rather be all those things. Sure. Would Would you rather be Dallas or Chicago?
I think their front office is just as effed up, to be honest with you. I mean, we were texting off to the side.
Their coaches is definitely worse. Yeah.
So they have to make a coaching change. Not sold on the quarterback. I think that's a push, actually.
Can I say push? Okay, we have a push. Would you rather be Dallas or Atlanta? I'd rather be Atlanta.
Atlanta.
Would you rather be Dallas or Tampa Bay?
The first thing I'm thinking about is coach, quarterback. Shit, Tampa Bay.
I think you'd rather Baker Mayfield. See him today? He's a fucking hero today. I know. He's amazing. I think he'd rather be Tampa. Who's a hero? You'd rather be Dallas than New Orleans. That's easy. New Orleans is salary. Yeah, that's fine. We don't want to- And the Panthers.
I'd be rather than the Panthers.
All right, so there's three. You got the Giants, the New Orleans, the Carolina. That's exciting. And I don't think anyone in the NFC West, you'd rather be.
I don't think anyone in the West. No.
There's three teams you'd rather be.
That's good. Congratulations. That's good.
What a jerk you are.
Yeah. Because should I do that with you? Why am I a jerk?
We're doing a podcast.
Should I do that for you with the AFC? Do you have more than three?
All right, I'll play.
Go ahead.
Buffalo, I'd rather be. I'd rather be us than the Jets. I mean, hands down. Hands down? You would rather be us than the Jets? We'd be Drake Bay.
Yeah. Okay. That's true. All right.
I think I'd rather be us than Miami because we have Drake May.
Well, if that's going to be your answer for everything.
We're going to have Jake May, we have Gonzales, we have Barmore coming back. We're going to have 100 million in cap space. We're going to have a top six pick.
I feel good about next year. Drake May, Gonzales, and Barmore. Yeah. Listen to you. Big three. What are you talking about? This is like the 78 stealers you're talking about?
Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Since he, I would rather be all those teams. Definitely would rather be us than Cleveland.
Okay, so how many is that?
Cleveland, Miami, the Jets. There's already three. I'd rather be Houston. I'd rather be us than Indianapolis. What's so great about being in that? They just missed on that Richson pick. It looks like he's on play.
I'd rather be us than Tennessee.
I'd rather be us than Jacksonville.
The league really sucks, doesn't it?
Kc Chargers, obviously, those guys. Us versus Denver is probably a push. I'd rather have made than anyone at Denver, but Denver has paid.
You'd rather have made than Nix right now, huh?
Oh, stop. Nix is like 26.
What am I missing with May? What did he do? Hold on. I got to go to these stats again. He's been great.
He has no receiver, no offensive line.
He's been fine.
He's been fine. He's been fine. He's been in these games.
He won because you sacked what's his name nine times.
That's why- We love Jake May.
Come on. I No, I see it.
You know what I love about Jake May? He has a bad play, and he shakes it off, and he goes right back out there and does playing it.
I also- Jack does that, too. Cooper Rush does that. Trey Lance. All the great stuff.
I'd rather be us than Vegas, so that's like six teams. Here's what I love about Jake May.
That's depressing. You'd rather be... You make a good point for all of them. Twice as many teams than I would in the NFC. Wow, that's bad.
I'll talk about the Pats later. I have a different spot. Let's talk about Pittsburgh Washington, which felt like a real playoff game.
That was the best game.
I think it was an honorable loss for Washington, even though I didn't think they played their best, but they definitely hung and were around the game, and that was by far the best defense they had played. It was a great win for Pittsburgh because a lot of shit went wrong for them for two hours. It felt like they were almost trying to give the game away. Then they said, Fuck it, and they just took it. Then Russ made a fucking massive throw at the end. He hit Williams in stride. Fields never would have made that throw. Sal, nobody saw the 7 & 2 Stealers coming. Oh, wait, somebody did. This guy right here.
Who? Who are you pointing to? Me. Oh, you. Me. Yeah, he did.
This guy with two index fingers.
You called it.
That's it. So when people do the thing tomorrow, who would have saw the Steelers 7 & 2? It was fucking me. I called it. I love the Stealers.
All right. All right. Maybe you called it.
By the way, if you go back and you watch our Over-unders podcast, we actually killed the podcast. I have a chance to go 25 and 7, 26 and 6 on those over-runs. I saw that. It's just FYI.
All right, good job. But why then were all the anunciors, both the anunciors in that game, talking about me, me, me, picking the Steeler Special, the South Stealers Special, which is Washington to win the first half.
I'm done bragging and we're going to you because this is way more impressive. Go ahead. Set up the Southern Special.
Opponent to win the first half, Stealers to win the game. It takes the Stealers a minute to get going. More than any other team, this happens. 8 to 1:00. It's cashed three times this year, plus 17 units. Good job by me. Good job by you. Whatever you said in the preseason, but 8:00 to 1:00, three times.
God bless. So it's it three times. And if you bet $100 on it each time, you would have just won $2,300, $2,400 just on those three and lost $100 on the other seven games. You'd be up $1,700. There's no better bet in sports. Thank you. Fanduel gave us these Ringer Specials tab on their NFL page. The Cousin Sal Special should just be its own tab. It should be next to games, futures, Cousin Sal Special.
You know why it won't be?
You've invested this.
They don't want to go bankrupt. I don't blame them for the hiding it within 34 other Ringer specials. But no, the Steelers are good. They're good. They're exciting. And I'm not going to say sky's the limit for the playoffs, but they could... Right now, if you put a ceiling on them, AFC Championship? Not that it's going to happen, but could they get that far or past it?
I had some friends at that Washington game today, and that was the most important home game Washington's had in 15 years, where it was A true sellout, real fans coming back, real energy in the building, people there two hours for the game, and the Stewards didn't play well, and they still figured out a way to steal the game. And they got stops. That game was, I think, 27 to 21, halfway through the third quarter, and they shut down Washington. Daniels missed a couple of throws. I think two years from now, he probably wins that game because he had two big throws in the second half. But the fact that Wilson can make a couple of plays for them, it just wasn't going to happen with Fields. Fields doesn't win that game. He just doesn't. I was thinking we were joking watching the games. Has anybody seemed less cool and more done then rallied back and seems cool again? I was thinking Wayne braided when he did the Shapel show.
Interesting.
And he had that Wayne braided rejuvenation from the Shapel show. But us winning that game and doing a dance and seeming like Russ again. I was like, holy shit, Russ is back.
Yes. I think people are dying to turn on him, too, though, right? I feel like even that with Steeler's fans, they were waiting for the one bad Russ game. But now, you're right, at seven and two, this is a whole different story. And Pickens is the most athletic player on that team. I'm sorry, but he comes up with a dazzling circus catch every week. I mean, football is great when you see these wide receivers. My father's like, Oh, it was always better in my day. These guys didn't sound no injuries. Like, Dad, you don't have wide receivers toe tapping the sideline and pellets kicking up because they know how to drag their feet.
That catch Kittle made today. That catch in the corner, that was unbelievable.
They know how to draw. Whatever. I'm not making it. But you see a spectacular play three times a week now in the NFL. That's why it's the best.
One thing I liked about Pittsburgh, they did the thing that Detroit didn't do. They just kept running the ball and running the ball. They didn't even run the ball that well. I think they were 43 for 140, something like that. They were 3.3 again. They had timely runs, though. They stuck with it. They shoot it. It felt like they were always getting yardage on first down. They made a couple of big plays. They did this Mike Williams trade that the moment they did it, it was like, of course, this guy is going to be decent for them. And they ended up scoring the same amount of points as the Jets today. And then there's the Tomlin piece, which... So where do you think Tomlin ranks for wins all time? All-time coaches, where does he rank in wins? He's only been coaching 18 years.
Thirteen.
No. Yeah, so he's 12. I would have guessed 30th.
Yeah.
He hasn't been coaching two decades yet.
Yeah, but they're never under 500, so you don't have any five and elevens or five and twelves in there.
He's 180 and 102. He's won a Super Bowl. He only has eight playoff wins. But I was thinking today, Belichick and Reid are the best two coaches of this century, right? During the quarter century, doing the all NFL teams. Sure. Tom is probably third. It's either him or Sean Payton, right? Maybe John Harbaugh is in there. Probably not Dungy because he retired pretty early.
No respect for McCarthy. It's unbelievable.
Definitely not McCarthy. There's a mild Tom Coughlin case just because he won the two Super Bowl, but as a regular season, coach wasn't great. But I think it's pretty unassailable. Tom is either third or fourth, depending on who you have him versus Keaton.
Yeah, because Harbaugh has how many fewer with it, right? If you just go go a season, if you go like that.
Tom has hit this point, though, where you just feel like he's getting to 9 or 10 wins, and it doesn't matter who's on his team. But it's a specific type of player that he always seems to have. They've looked out over and over. No, I haven't locked out. There's real ingenuity behind the receivers they take. I don't know. It feels like one of his great seasons.
They're very good. He was the one that... He almost didn't bring the offense out on fourth and two, right? And then he did. I was screaming, Simmons. I just had this stupid Steeler special thing. But you got to do that, coaches. You have to at least do the hard count on fourth and two. It's not going to work every time. If you get a false start, you're actually in a better position to punt it to the 10 or whatever. It was great. They killed them in time of possession, too. They deserve that game.
For Washington, now they're playing Philly Thursday night, and they might going from seven and two to seven and four in the span of five days, but they're still a playoff team. I thought that was weirdly a good loss for them. They hung with a really good team, and I thought those were two playoff teams. Yeah. All right. Next question. So I was going to ask, would you rather have Drake May or Caleb Williams? But you even want to introduce Bo Nixon for this. Yeah, I think- So give me the rankings.
Just of the four?
Yeah.
I'm going to drop Caleb Williams to four right now.
I think you have to.
I'm going to do it. I'll put your guy third. I think Bo Nixon is second. I know you would flip him, but this is just for this year, right? Bo Nixon.
I'm not looking- No, I think who do you want to have going forward? Oh, yeah.
I'd be very confident in the top two in Daniels and then Bo Nicks and your guys third. I don't know what to make of Caleb Williams. I really don't. Because they won some games they shouldn't have won. It's a very strange team. They're not resilient at all. They were like one play away from being five and two. Now, you don't see them in the playoffs at all, right?
No. I think the Hillmary probably murdered the team or murdered this season. It's weird. All the stuff you heard about him at USC that people were worried about are on display with the bears, too, right? He just seems almost like a tennis player playing quarterback. He's playing an individual sport, but also running a team at the same time. He makes a lot of really, really amateur mistakes. It was interesting reading the stories after the game. The Patriots did all this stuff. This was the I guess the Pats did okay last week, too, but this was actually a very well-coached game. I got to hand it to Mayo and the crew. They really had a game plan. They wanted to pressure him. They brought in Schooler, who's the best special team's gunner in the league. They Brought him in as a linebacker to basically spy on Caleb in certain spots. But they basically studied him, and they were like, The guy holds the ball too long. We felt like if we pressured him, and we put a spy on him, and we just pushed him that we could get to him. They were right. Caleb does hold the ball in too long, and he's not accurate.
Apparently, according to the stats, he's the second least accurate guy in the league for just uncatchable passes. They took advantage of all the stuff he wasn't good at. The team can't block. The crowd turned on them immediately. By the second quarter, you could already hear the boos. And I just felt like he checked out. So we'll see. I think so, too. We'll see. He's a rookie QB. We've seen rookie QBs fail, but we'll see.
Avera Fluss is going to take the brunt of it, though, right? Everyone's like, Oh, he doesn't last until tomorrow. You were the first one I heard that talked about Caleb Williams. Maybe not stepping up in this situation. But right now, it's squarely on the coach losing the locker room, wide receiver is walking off the before the play is done and shit like that.
Yeah, I mean, I had the pats in the bet today. I thought they really had a chance to win. It was interesting with Caleb. He had those three games in a row, and it was against the Rams who were banged up on defense in week 4. They scored 24. They won. They killed Carolina in week 5, 3610. Everybody's like, Caleb, bears. Here we go. And then they beat the Jaguars. I think that was abroad in week 6, 35, And then they had a bye week. And there were two narratives. One was, Caleb's figured it out. Here come the bears. And then I was more in the camp of, Can we see them play some good teams first before we have a parade? So they had the bye week. They lose that game to Washington when they only score 15, and they really couldn't do anything the whole game. Arizona kills them last week. And then the Pats, who have a shitty defense, looked like the 85 bears against them. So they can't block But the body language on the team is awful.
Well, it was also their defense had gone like 12 straight without allowing more than 20 points or something, once in 12 games or something like that. And so he was benefiting off of that.
He didn't do it today. They were at 19.
Yeah, he's like teflon because the defense was very good. And when they lose, it's Ibraflus' fault. And you could say the Hell Mary, they got rooked. But what about week one when Levis just handed them? They had no offense. They had like 140 yards of offense. So I know it's week one, it's his very first game, but this team is where they should be.
I'm sure this is going to be a huge topic this week, and there's going to be people defending him, and then there's going to be people really breaking down that he hasn't been good.
Didn't he want to own the team, a piece of the team? When you say he was running the team, that's what I thought of immediately. That would have been good.
From what I saw today, I wasn't afraid of him when he was going back to pass. I don't know That team might be really poorly coached. I went to the South East Nets game on Friday night. See, I was able to bring basketball. There we go. Good job. The Nets are really well coached. I felt that way watching them on TV, but I got to see it in person up close. And that team was on the same page. They were bringing in bench guys who were playing hard, who were playing defense, who were picking up guys full-court. They were rebounding. They were really, really trying. They were running good plays out of timeouts. I was like, This team's well-coached. You watched the bears today, and it's like, This team's a fucking disaster. They clearly shouldn't have this coach anymore. But it's a franchise that is usually afraid to make moves until after the season. From what I saw today, and I watched that game pretty closely, that Hale Mary, it seems like that killed that Uber flu, Sarah.
Yeah, for sure. For sure. He might have lost the locker room before that. But yeah, it is tough to spot an okay or bad team who's well-coached. I think we felt that about Tennessee when Vrabel was around. They've won some divisions, too. But even when they were bad, you're like, All right, this team, they fight for them and they're good and they do the basics.
Yeah, Tom has been like that, too. Where Tom could have these crappy offenses and still figure out how to go nine and eight. This Bear's team's a mess. The Jaguars look like a mess. There's teams you watch and you're like, This team's a mess. Brandon Staley last year, Ron Rivera last year. You know who the teams are that are super sloppy.
The Jaguars, by the way, I know we don't need to spend much time on that, 12:7, Minnesota. It was 42 to 18 in time of possession for Minnesota. I was thinking, I want to see time of possession, like Jag's time possession versus progressive ads we saw in the three hours. Mac Jones or Flow? Who do we see on the screen more? I think it would be close.
What a wonderful... That should have been a great fan of a bet of combined Darnold-Mac Jones because they were zero touch downs, five I was in Boston over the weekend, and I did a interception parlay. So great having legal gambling, just being able to go on and make dumb fan-duel bets. It was Bryce Young, Mac Jones, and Will Levis. It was like three and a half to one. I was like, This is going to be so much fun. And then, Carolina, I wake up, they're up seven, nothing. Bryce somehow doesn't throw a pick. The bet doesn't win. The other two guys did, though.
Oh, they did? The other two came in. Yeah, that's right, though. Yeah, that's the problem with the Giants. Of course, they came in. The Panthers took a lead, and it's like, oh, shit. Bryce Young is only going to throw the ball 10 more times in the second half.
Yeah. So big picture. Caleb is obviously an asset. He's obviously talented. They have to figure out the coach thing now because you don't want this to go in a direction where he loses confidence. The chemistry goes completely sideways, whatever. Let's take one more break for the podcast, and then we'll keep going. Season from Hell rankings. We had San Francisco in the lead. Until today, I think it's the Jets.
San Francisco was in the lead? Season from Hell.
Because all the injuries they had and They were 500. Yeah, it's just like, what else can go wrong? Mccaffrey misses 10 weeks. Ayouk goes out for the year. They lose guys on defense. They play a couple of dumb games. They were felt season from hellish, but now I think the Jets have locked it up.
Well, it depends how you look at it. My quarterback's out for the year. Maybe you didn't think he was doing much anyway, but the Jets' quarterback is still hobbling around, and you know he's not the right guy. That's the season from now. I'm fine with the Jets being the season from now.
Well, think about all the trades they've done. They fire their coach. They think that's going to fix it. Then it's Devante Adams is going to be the savior. That's going to finish. They have six points today for them. Some of the stats from this game, Tyler They completed 17 straight passes at one point. The Jets allowed four 70 plus yard drives in the same game. The Cardinals had 28 first downs on 57 plays. So that jumped out to me. I was like, That almost seems impossible. I got to go and look at NFL history and see. So you can do it on that stat head thing. Teams that had 57 or less plays and 28 or more. It only happened one other time in the history of the week. The In the 2023 Niners, 53 plays, 30 first downs. There were three teams that ran 58 plays and had 28 first downs or more. But that's how rare this is. That's how bad the Jets were. They were historically awful giving up first downs on first or second down.
I think the defense... Remember coming into this year? Whatever. Rodgers was always going to be a question mark. The Jets defense is elite. All you need is Rodgers to be average. Well, Rodgers is a little below average.
He just needs to be better than Zack Wilson.
Yes, exactly. And he's not. If you look at how many points they have through week 10 this year and last.
Do you want the exact number?
A point? Total points?
Last year, they averaged 16.6 points per game. This year, they're averaging 18.3..
Oh, really?
Yeah. That's so much more. Rogers is worth 1.7 points more, but their defense is worse. They lost Salah, who... Seven kids Salah, he made a lot of jokes, but their defense played better when he was the head coach.
So he was just in the As a Patriots fan, you have to love this, right? You have to absolutely love this.
I have Jets fans in my life that I have real affection for, and they're about as downtrodded about football as any fan base I know. So I feel bad for that. But Rodgers has just been such a prick the last few years. It's hard.
I know what you said, too.
It's hard not... I know what you're saying, too. Even trading Mike Williams and making them trade for Devante Adams and all this and the coach getting fired.
I love it. The ball goes right through Devante Adams' hands on third down, and then a big sack on fourth. It was just all falling apart. I do feel bad for New York. Just in general, New York teams are like 5 and 15. I know the Liberty one. That's fun. But for God's sakes, Jets over Giants for a year from hell, I guess so, only because of the expectations.
Yeah, I guess if you're making the case for the Giants fans, they have to watch Daniel Jones.
Yeah.
That Panthers game today.
Did you wake up? Be honest.
I woke up, it was seven nothing. Even though I flew in last night, I was still like, This game is to Germany. I wasn't making beer garden jokes. I got to wake up. The Panthers are just awful. It's unbelievable that they went two in a row. I'm telling you, they're terrible. In Panthers, it's like, Fuck you. We're getting better. It's like, You're not. You're not a good team.
I believe you. I believe you.
You're really awful. You're terrible at football. You have no business winning the game. Like, no miss to field goal. Jones had that interception he threw late in the fourth quarter. And then they run that flea flicker. Flipper, and he misses the two completely wide open guys. They're talking about how upset dayball is. It's like, it was third and one, and you're running a flea flicker with Daniel Jones. Just hand the ball off. Why are you making him do anything? It's like, if I took my dog outside without a leash, and he ran across the street and ran up to the neighbor's yard and like, trounced the flowers and then got in a fight with their dog, it's like, Is that my dog's fault or is that my fault? Is it my fault for letting my dog out without a leash? No, I'm just saying- Is this your parents calling her?
No, of course.
When we take our dog out, he is in leash shot. It's like, You've been a Jones on your team. Don't do flea flickers with him. Don't have him throw in tight windows when you need a A score inside the 20-yard line. It's idiotic.
That'd be a good nickname for a dog, Flea Flicker. But no, you're right. That was awful. I'm sorry you got to wake up. I mean, that was a hostage situation, keeping them for overtime to see the freaking Panthers win 20 to 17.
They all seem drunk. They seem drunk and happy, the Germans. Yeah, it's true.
Yeah, it doesn't matter. Can I tell you? I want to pitch that, and this would be better than Hard Knocks. And we make jokes about the flight back from London. I want to see the losing coach from checking into the airport, whether it's Heathrow or whatever, Munich, all the way through to flight New York.
Going abroad with Blink. I want to see it.
I want to see the losing coach fly home, wherever it is, Munich.
Going through customs, just being bummed out. Tanzania.
I want to see what he orders and drinks on the plane and what he says if he's mean to the flight attendance and hear him cursing in his sleep. I'd watch that five-hour stream.
I would do it. I was mad because House and I have $4 million pics. We did Giants to win by 14 plus and Niners to win by 14 plus. So they got on 7-0. You got to be kidding me. But I also had the Giants in a money line. I did a stupid parlay when I was in Boston. So I was like, All right, at least can the Giants just win this? And the Panthers are terrible. They're really bad. Chuba Harbor is good, and he was probably the reason they weren't. But their team's just not good. They don't have any... They can't put their downs. People are like, Oh, Bryce Young looked better today. It's like, okay, I guess he looked better than somebody who shouldn't be in the league. But it wasn't like he was good. He was missing 39 throws all over the place. Doesn't really run.
I think I was off for Chuba Hubbard in three fantasy trades this week, and I was mad at the people who proposed it. And then I looked at his numbers. I'm like, Oh, my God, they're pretty damn good. I was like, I don't want to watch them and root for their offense, right? Why would you ever want that unless you live in the state?
See, I feel like this maybe even Even though I lost a little money on this this week, I still feel like long term, we're in a good spot because they're coming off a buy, and then they have home games against Kansas City and Tampa.
Who are you talking about? Carolina?
Yeah, it'll be like, Oh, Carolina, two-game winning streak. They've righted the ship. But it's like, I don't think they've righted any ship. I think they stink. So I guess we'll find out. All right, what else did I have for you?
Well, the problem is there's nine teams that stink. We're going to get seven or eight teams with five with six wins or fewer. It doesn't really happen if you look back in the last five years. There's two or three teams with four, but to get close to 10 teams with six wins, it's gross.
When do we start taking the following team seriously heading into week 11? Are we there yet? The Eagles are seven and two. Do you take them seriously as an actual contender who could be in the NFC title I do.
And it's not just coming off this Dallas game, but I feel like they hit their stride. They got the running back they need. The push-push works with their freaking backup. When stuff like that happens, that's good. I still have the lions a big step ahead of them, but yeah, they could be deep into January.
You don't think so? Not quite there yet. No? I want to see Thursday night. Yeah, their wins this year. Green Bay in that Brazil game. They beat the Saints, the Browns, the Giants. They beat the Bengals. That was a good win. No Tee Higgins. Beat the Jaguars. They beat your team, which was a corpse. My team's good.
They're still not really fully healthy. I don't know if they'll get there, but that's the other thing.
I want to wait because they play Washington this week. They're at the Rams. They're at Baltimore. I know it's a cop-out, but I want to wait for those three games. But they definitely look better than they did second half of last year, start of this year.
This is where they were last year, right? About seven and two or something. Then they just tank the last minute. I don't trust their coach.
Do you trust the Cardinals yet?
I like watching them. That's all I could really say. I like watching their offense, right? And they don't embarrass themselves on defense. They have What do you mean trust for the playoff?
Are you taking them seriously yet? Yeah.
I think I have to because of their schedule and the fact that they're able to move the ball and don't seem afraid of any of these teams.
They have the Pats in Carolina later. So That's probably two more wins. They play Seattle twice next three weeks. Played Minnesota, they played the Rams, they played the Niners last week of the season. I think it's a 10-minute team. That's the last week? Yeah, I think they're a 10-win team.
Four division games, so that's the key, right? A lot of these teams haven't played anyone in division, so that's big.
I like how they can run the ball, and they're really fit. Like, Connor is just... I remember when Pittsburgh let him go, I didn't think it was a big deal at all, right? Did you? Sure. No. Oh, my God. They let James Connor go. Nobody said I think he's been good in Arizona.
Mcbride's good. They have some. I was surprised to know that that was Harrison's fifth breakdown. I was about to come on tonight and go on a rant about how they've done. Where is he? They've done well despite the fact that this generational receiver hasn't produced, but five touch downs. Pretty good.
Yeah, so playoff picker, if you got Detroit at eight and one, Minnesota seven and two, I'm still not positive as a playoff team because Darnold seems like he's arrow pointed down. Washington, Philly, Green Bay. And then you have Arizona, San Francisco, Rams, 6:00 and 4:00, Arizona, 5:00 and 4:00, San Francisco, 4:00 and 4:00, Rams. I think they're a playoff team. I think they're going to make it. I thought today was a key one. I Austin and I talked about it Thursday. I didn't understand the line. I didn't know what I was missing. I didn't understand why people were overrating the Jets based off that Texans game on a Thursday night. I think people always overrate those Thursday night games. I didn't think the Jets were good. I thought Arizona was better. And to me, it was like an easy bet. But the line shifted. The Jets were favorites heading into the game. I was like, What am I missing with this Jets team? They suck.
Isn't that what happened against Houston? Houston was favorite by one and a half when we did the pod, and then the Jets were favorite. And as soon as that one and a half, which is the mysterious number this year, flips, I get in sprinter's position. I'm like, I'm staying away from this game. You figured it out. That was good for you. Arizona is minus 110 both ways to make it or not I like it. It's a fun one.
The Chargers. I think I believe in them, too. I think that's a five-seed or a six-seed. Excellent defense, excellent QB. Herbert's been really good this year. Excellent coach. They can block. Their receivers, I think, are a little better than we were expecting. That Quentin Johnson, who anybody could add in a fantasy draft, nobody took him. They have a two-game lead for the wild card. Here's the key, though. Their next four is Sintzee, Baltimore, at Atlanta at KC. They probably have to go two and two out of those four. Three and one, they're golden, but two and two gets them to eight and five, and they're cruising after that. But I think that team knows who they are, and they're really well coached.
Two weeks ago, I agree. They were minus 1:15 to make the playoffs. Last week, minus 3:10, now minus 4:30 to make the playoffs. And I'm just not used to the chargers winning games they're supposed to win. This is three weeks in a row, the Browns, the Saints, and the Titans. So Big test next week, as we said, with the bangles. That's a fun game.
I have some 2024 Dallas Cowboys Silver Lining for you.
I thought we were off this.
No, I forgot to have this part, too. Silver Lining number one. Really good draft pick coming. You're not like a top seven pick. Good. Now, granted, Jerry's going to probably trade up so he could take Travis Hunter and put him next to CeeD Lamb and be like, Oh, look at our receivers. Travis Hunter and CeeD Oh, my God. We have nobody who can block, but look at those two receivers.
Good draft pick. He'll mortgage everything to get Travis Hunter, Shador Sanders, and Deion to coach. That's when I think I walk away. I think that's got to be it.
That's it? I think that would have to be it. When Larry David quit the Jets?
Yeah, because then he's just screwing with everybody. Now it's like, Oh, this was a practical joke. All right, Jerry. You're the funiest owner.
Silver Lining, Belichick or Vrabel? Who would you pick? You got choice of one.
I think Vrabel.
I think that's the right pick.
Really? Yeah. Let's get into this. Why?
I think Vrabel is a really good coach, and he's 25 years younger than Belichick. Right.
Yeah, but his girlfriend is not. She's only about four years old.
His girlfriend's 20 years older than Belichick.
That's crazy.
More Silver Lining. We don't have to watch TV segments about them anymore because I just don't think by, I don't know. Week 15, there's nothing left, no meat on the bone.
Nfl is in trouble a little bit with some of these night games and nothing they could do about Thanksgiving. But one thing you could always say about the Cowboys, even if they were out of play on contentions, everybody watches them because they have fantasy players. It could be tough to start.
Yeah, if they shut down CeeD Lamb.
Ceed Lamb in three weeks.
Ceed Dallas has Luke in the maps. That's Silver Lining. I don't care. And then even though you haven't made the Super Bowl since '95, there's a bunch of teams that have longer droughts than that. Oh, great. Detroit, Cleveland, the Jets, Minnesota. Miami hasn't made the Super Bowl since 1976.
I know that. Oh, man, I feel so fucking good. I thought I knew. I need to. Thanks, man.
Oh, and curtains. You're going to have curtains in the stadium. So you think the receiver will get blinded.
Was the last Russellmania there when we were there? I think it was. They were showing the curtains they put up to block the sun and everything. Yeah, it's just easy. They just use He's got his curtains.
You have the curtains. The new Coach Theory is back. House talked me out of it. That motherfucker on Million Dollar Picks.
Oh, really?
He was like, We can't bet on Derek Carr. He tried to murder his teammate last week. I was like, Fine, we won't. And then new Coach Theory wins. Darren Rizzie, who sounds like somebody you would be buddies with. Yeah, Farley Kids coming and Brad, and Darren Rizzie.
Darren Rizzie, the Farley kid.
Ken, he's in a fight with Ken. Harry had I'm going to intervene because Ken got mad at Darren Rizzie.
There's so much truth to that. I like this guy. He's fun. How am I not rooting for this team? We talked about the clogging the toilet this morning in his morning shit before the game. I was like, This should be my guy. And he has a player stretching out. He's like, one of my big things is- Do we need a nigger for him? Well, what's the crazy commercial we see all the time with the Rizzie? Sky Rizzie? I mean, if he doesn't really make sense.
He talked about clogging in the toilet. We got to call him the clogger.
Oh, I see. The Clogger. Yeah. Oh, the Clogger. Yeah. Clapper meet the Clogger.
The Clogger. Well, we had Pit Boss Rich, who treated us really well that one year with the Raiders. Yeah. We went on him a bunch of weeks. Now we got the clogger.
Oh, I love the clogger.
The clogger is in, man.
Here we go. Is he going to do that? Is that good luck? Is he going to have to do that every Sunday now?
Yeah, he's going to have to have a lot of Metamucil cheese the night before a game.
Beam burritos.
Yeah. I broke my rule on bet on the Germany game, which I swore I wasn't going to do. I somehow... All my rules for the year, don't bet on the Germany game, don't bet on a game with two bad teams. I was sitting on a plane before takeoff, which is, I think, the single most dangerous time to be on FanDuel. Yeah, right. And just like, Ah, Giants. Just killing time. Yeah. Next one. Was Debo Samuel right or wrong for getting mad at the kicker? The guy missed three field goals. How many field goals did he have to miss?
Was it the long snapper, right? Wasn't it?
No, he was mad at the kicker and the long snapper intervened.
Oh, he went after. He got his throat.
Yeah. What an interesting- He was yelling at the kicker.
I don't know what happened with Debo. There might be some medication issues. Did you see what he came in dressed as, down the tunnel? No. And then, yeah, he had a nice little leather number up top and then shorts. And then he's going after his long snapper's throat. But I think he's right. He can't go missing all these kicks.
That's crazy. Well, what's the right number of miss field goals before you're really allowed to get mad at the kicker without repercussions? Interesting. He missed seven. Could you get mad at him?
Yeah, I think so.
We have a friend- Three feels like the right number. At three, somebody in the team can at least side-eye him.
We have a buddy, Steven Green, who kicked, and he was a great kicker in high school and then college and then quit. And then we made a push for him to be on an arena team, and those goalposts were like, it's nothing. It's really like 18 inches away from each other. I think he was playing for like Gainesville, Florida or something. He missed the field goal, and they were screaming him at him on the bus the whole way back to wherever he was. They were in Alabama, had to drive Florida. Yeah, I feel like there's a lot of that. Just kicking in general, what happened in September? They were blasting like 57 yards. Yeah, they got sideways.
Yeah, Ganoma is like a 40 yarder there.
We saw it happen with the lions, too. That was crazy. With Fairborn missing and then lines just turning it right around.
This is a really bad omen for the Niners, and it's something I bet against over the years, and it's been successful when it gets third play-up time. So before this game today, they were 30th in special teams, DBOA. So they were one of the three worst teams. Today, they had three missed field goals, and they muffed a punt return. They might have the worst special teams in the entire league. There's no way that's going to turn out well for them in the playoffs. No way. It always rears its ugly head. Week 18, round one, something bad happens with it. So I'm just flagging that now.
They don't even get to play the Cowboys. I know. I looked at that. Do you know how many yards, total yards? I know you said Baker was great today. The Tampa had 215 total yards. I said, How is that game close? How is that 23-3?
He was great because you had to watch it when they're like, sacking him and he's just not going down. Even braided was making noises with some of the Baker players. Oh, wow. Yeah. He just made like a rouse. He woke them up.
Do they have a meter? They should have a Brainy noise meter. He's like, Oh.
Can Joe Flacko win the Come Down Player of the Year? He won Come Back Player of the Year last year. Come Down? Or is Sam Aren't Arnold eligible just from the come back and then the come down in the same year?
Could it be Come Back? Or should it be go away. Should it be come back and go away award. Go away award? Go away, Player of the year.
Just leave. Use the back door.
I'll tell you what, I was proud of myself. I Live Bet the Bills. I saw a flackle throughout three passes. He definitely doesn't have that zip, right?
He doesn't look great. He did look bad last week, too. Yeah, he did.
The only thing now, it's all about how dare they bench Anthony Richardson. I'm like, All right, it Two weeks ago, he was like two for 15 at halftime with 28 yards. How about they figure something out where they put them in packages and figure out how to use two quarterbacks? Is that the worst thing in the world?
I'm so glad you brought this up. I've been dying for a team to do this where it's like one guy comes in and then the next series, it's the other guy. If I'm the other team, I would hate that. It's like, well, both of these guys suck, but now you're using both of them and I don't know what to do and what defense is to use, basically.
Listen, you're not going to raise the level of Anthony Richardson's confidence, putting them back there on third and twelve, right? But if it's third and two and you're bringing them in, it's like, oh, my God, now this guy's run for four first downs in a row, or if he's even faked a run and thrown from. That's the way to build it back up, I think.
Seven turnovers combined for Joe Flacko and St. Arnold today. We're going to take one more break for the podcast, then we'll do Guest Alliance. Before we do Guest Alliance, the Lines, the Underdogs made a little bit of a comeback today, but you know what else has quietly made a comeback? I almost don't want to say it. I'm going to knock on wood. The Tees has made a little bit of a resurgence. Egles Chargers hit. I hit a four-teamer in real life. Egles Chargers. That's a two Ravens on Thursday night. And then what was the other obvious one today? Eagles's Chargers. Did you have the Chiefs? No, it wasn't the Chiefs. What was the other one that was like a seven-point game?
Minnesota. No. San Francisco, no. Chargers, I said.
Chargers, Eagles. It was the Niners. Yeah, that one hit.
That was good. Yeah, I like the teasers. I did a deep dive on something with teasers. Everybody always tells us we're playing it wrong. If a team is a five and a half point favorite and we tease it, and then the snooty gamblers don't talk to us for three weeks, they get mad.
Because we crossed the line.
Because we crossed the zero. They said, never do a teaser unless you're crossing the three key numbers, three, six, and seven. So if it's on the plus side, you want to get it like plus one and a half plus It's seven and a half, yeah. And if you want to bring it down, it's eight and a half, seven and a half right there.
I agree with that.
Yeah, I know. I'm not going to do it. I just thought it was interesting.
Well, on the other end, you just could have teased the bills today to plus one and a half, and you would have won because you had the bills in the tease. Thursday night. Really good game. Eagles Washington. I would say this is probably the most exciting Thursday night game we've had. There's real stakes, divisions at stake. Washington could go from 7:02 to 2:00 to 7:00 and 4:00 in five days.
Better hit it exactly because I did.
I was vacillating between 2:30 and 3:00, and I went, Eagles It goes by two and a half. Good.
It's three and a half.
Oh. That's what I have. Okay.
Not trusting Washington. A little high.
I guess they think maybe the eagles can run on Washington.
That's a tough spot for Jaden Daniels, right? Still on the road in division. They're not going to take the Eagles by surprise, that's for sure.
Sunday Marquee. It's a nice little seven-point tease with Washington. Get them the 10 and a half. Sunday Marquee game, Chiefs Bills, game of the year so far, probably, right? Yes. It's been a better game since maybe Chiefs Ravens week one.
Lots of fun.
So as I said earlier, I would have the bills by one or one and a half. But I think after today, I just think the... I just think the Chiefs are going to be favored. I just have chips minus one.
Wait, what happened? I had bills minus one, and it's bills minus one and a half. I don't even understand that logic. What did you see out of the chips that you loved there?
It was more what I saw from the bills. I feel like with the receivers.
With the receivers being out, I mean, I feel like he's got so much to do.
Cooper didn't play. Coleman didn't play. I don't know if those guys are playing next Sunday.
They have tight ends that can catch the ball. That Ray Davis guy. I feel like Alan gets it done. He figures it out eventually.
Zero touch downs and two picks today.
Yeah. All right.
And they still win. You're telling me I get to bet on Patrick Mahomes as an underdog again? Is what you're telling me? Yeah. Well, that's great news because there's no better bet in sports, and I'll be making it.
Well, you should make it soon because I'm also telling you that the one and a half have swung almost every time this year, so they could easily be giving one and a half.
Well, the move is to tease them right now with at least one game.
Do it with your The beloved commanders.
The Watchables. Five Watchables this week. Steelers home for the Baltimore Ravens. I think the Stealers are going to be favored by one and a half.
Oh, wow. Way off. What do you mean way off? You'll love this in a teaser. I had Ravens by three. It's Ravens by three and a half.
Get the fuck out of here. I guarantee I'm right on that.
I guarantee you're wrong.
No, I'm saying I guarantee my instinct on what that line should be is the right instinct. That's stupid.
See, I thought the Stealers should have been- It's an idiotic line. Fevered over Washington. But Washington was favored over the Stealers. Baltimore has got a very big power.
Stealers are good. All their dudes are back. Now, we'll see with Highsmith, whether he's out for it because he hurt his ankle in the fourth floor.
He need all hands on deck.
Yeah, the Stealers were healthy until that happened.
Well, they'll score. I mean, that's one thing with this Ravens, man. Look out. There's no shortage of points when you play them.
Their defense stinks. I should say their past defense stinks. If you're within seven points of them in the last 10 minutes of the game, you can go down the field and throw the ball on them over and over again, and they can't stop it.
That was a great Thursday game, too. It was. It was. Yeah. Zack Taylor, we kill a lot, but go for two. Nice. We need a different play, but that was a good decision, I thought.
It was a good decision. I thought to put up that offense without Higgins was really impressive. Chase was obviously out of his mind, but no, they're good. Chase Brown had that fumble, and I just felt like that was an either or game, and the Bengals have somehow lost three of those this year. I'm putting this in the watchables just because Drake May, for me, is now just in the watchables category. I'm in charge. You guess the lines. I could do whatever I want. That's true. I have the Rams at the Patriots. I have the Rams favored by three and a half.
I said four and a half. It is five and a half. Just a little bit off there.
Stop it, Vegas.
Wait, what was the line today?
That's stupid. That crowd is going to be in. The Pats fans are in on Drake May. This would be a good crowd on Sunday. I know.
I'm seeing this.
I think there's real excitement about him now. That's too high. I think that drops.
Maybe a little.
Jets, Colts, I think has to be a Watchables because this is The Jets are train wreck TV now, right?
Mm-hmm.
It's like when my wife watches below Deck Australia. It's not a good show, but weird shit's happening every episode. I feel like that's the What is that shit?
What is that?
Below Deck Australia. The below deck, your wife doesn't watch below deck?
No, I'm on the Penguin right now.
It's a reality show. It's like these people that work on yachts and these people rent the yachts for a week, so they have to work for the people, but it's all about underneath the boat, all the relationships, they're all hooking up, getting mad at each other. But then they have to deal with these people that rented the boat for the week. My wife loves the show.
That's fun. Are you buying another yacht? Is that what you're saying? What do you mean another yacht? Well, you have one, and then this would be another. I don't have any yachts. All right. Come on, I'm just jashing.
You're jashing?
I'm just jashing, yeah. You're going to get this one.
Jets home for the colds. I have the Jets minus two.
Oh, all right. I had two and a half. It's three and a half. Come on.
This is good. I haven't got one right yet.
This is good. No, I'm up five nothing. This is insurmountable at this point.
It's usually a bad sign for my betting when I'm off on the lines like this.
Well, how long are they going to be in the Jets corner, these odds makers? Because this is a little bit silly.
I thought this would be the week when maybe they watched the Jets and saw that they gave up four 70-yard plus drives and 28 first downs and 57 plays. And we're like, Maybe this team's not good. Bronco is home for the Falcons. This is like an actual good game that I'm excited to watch. Who would have thought? Falcons by one and a half over the Broncos.
This was Falcons one night. You're going to think I'm screwing with you. It was Falcons one and a half. I said Denver minus one. It's Denver minus one and a half now. I promise that's how it went. And they should be favored. Denver should be favored. You don't think they're better than Atlanta right now?
I mean, Atlanta could have three less wins, and it would totally make sense. Right. Last one, Niners, Seahawks. It's in San Francisco. I think this just absolutely pulsates of the Vegas zone. Now, I'm going to say Niners by five.
You get this one. I said four and a half. It's six and a half. That's high. I think they play two in the next three weeks. Is that possible?
Yeah.
If you look at Seattle right now, which- No, They played already. Sorry. Yeah, good.
Seattle's season isn't over, but it's not looking great. They're four and five. And they have at San Francisco, home Arizona, at Jets, at Arizona. And they have to go at least three and one in those four, I think, to even sniff the playoffs.
I agree.
Four and O, ideally.
I don't know. Is Metcalf going to play? It seems so important to them, like A. J. Brownish.
Be fairly watchables. Packers at the bears. The bears are not watchable. I can attest to that today. I'm going to say packers by three and a half for this.
Yeah, I said that, too. We're way off, let's say, six and a half.
I guess that makes sense because the bears look awful.
Everyone's out on them. Why can't Vandall be out on the jets like they are the bears?
I'll say this. If they fire their coach, I'll be betting the bears in that game.
Oh, interesting. Does he have to clog the toilet or you'll do it like the clogger? Shit unseen. Yeah.
I love the clogger. I came up with a new coach check the other day. This podcast was a success. That's good.
You did a good job.
Lions are home for the Jaguars, and you can't quite go to 10 for this. I'm going to say nine and a half.
Oh, you can. I said 11 and a half. It's twelve and a half. Oh, stop it. I mean, they're just going to kill some teams, right?
Yeah, but that's Steve.
I love that. Three team teams.
Coming off like an emotional win. We're doing a three team- So we could three team tease that still at twelve and a half.
That's what I mean. Yeah, you could get the chiefs- Wait, can we take the chiefs to eleven and a half? Yeah, you can.
I'm doing that when we- And then the Jets to plus 6.
No, no. No, no.
Not touching that. Last one is Dolphins Raiders in Miami. I said Dolphins by six and a half.
Got it. Exactly. Good job. I said five, six and a half it is.
Poop Fecta, Vikings at Tennessee. I have Vikings by three and a half.
No, you went low here. I said five and a half. It's six and a half.
I'm putting that game on upset watch.
They're not screwing around with these lines. They're like, We're not... Even though I know the underdogs fired away today, they're making this line.
The Vikings easily, easily I really easily could have lost that game today, the Jaguars.
I know, but look at the numbers. I know what you're saying.
It was sitting there as a loss, and the Jaguars are just too stupid. Saints are home for the Browns. New coach theory. Still in existence for the second week. I got the Saints by one and a half.
You get this. I don't know why am I doing the pick-ums. It's so stupid. It's two and a half.
Sunday night. Chargers, bangles. I have a must win for the bangles. I'm going to say Chargers by one and a half.
Oh, no. Are you making a comeback here? I said one. One and a half it is.
That's I know. I don't think there's going to be a huge Cincinnati crowd.
Nine to five. Can we go to that? We should go to that and do the podcast right afterwards in the parking lot. Sunday night? No, we're not doing that.
Monday night, Texans, Cowboys, Battle for Texas.
Putting it in the cusp of the Vegas zone.
Texans minus five and a half at Dallas.
Oh, no. I said seven, it's six and a half. I get it. Got that one, too.
All right, you won the week. All All right.
6-4-1 overall. I love it in weeks. The league must be so pissed. They have to show the Cowboys in primetime. What a disaster.
Can we talk basketball for one second? Sure.
I'm going to go clog the toilet. Go ahead.
Actually, let's take one more break for the podcast because I have a basketball thing I want to bring up. I have this basketball thing. I didn't want to wait till Tuesday because I think it's important. Yannis, the Bucks lost again today. They're two and eight. Yeah, what's up? I think the Yannis Trade stuff is really going to start. People making up fake trades. So So as I said, I went to that Nets Celtic game on Friday. And the Nets are pretty good. They traded Bridges for all these piques. They were supposed to try to tank. They got their pick back. They have just a shitload of piques. They have Ken Thomas, who I was really impressed by, who's a very good scorer. They have Kam Johnson. They have nick Claxton. They have Schroeder's playing really well. They have a bunch of good, not stars, But enough of a team that the team makes sense when you watch it. They're good. They play defense. I like them. I actually think they're a playing team, at least. I think they could just go all in for Giannis because people are going to ask this week, who's the team that makes sense for Giannis?
They're going to be like, What about Miami? I actually think it's Brooklyn. I think Brooklyn is going to be the team that trades for them because they can just overwhelm Milwaukee with all these picks. They own their own first in They own Phoenix's first. They own the Knicks first. They own Milwaukee's first, which is one through four protected. If it's five or after, they get it. So the Bucks can get their pick back. They own their own first in '26 and '29. In '27, they can swap with you or Houston could swap with them. They own the Knicks first in '27. They have Philly one through eight protected in '27. They have their own. They have Knicks first in '29. They have another Dallas, Phoenix, Houston worst pick in '29. They have all their own first. They have a Knicks first in 31. They just can say, Hey, Milwaukee, here's Ben Simmons' expiring contract, and here are all these picks. Just take all of them. Take as many as you want. Give us Yannis, and put Yannis in Brooklyn. I think it makes sense because I think Milwaukee needs to get out of this Dame Yannis thing.
I just think they have to trade Dame and trade Yannis, and just they won the title. Get out of this. To me, it's either Brooklyn or Houston. Because Houston is the other team that could... They have Picks and young players. It's just like, if I'm Giannis, would I rather go to Brooklyn or Houston? I don't know. Anyway, is it crazy to think Brooklyn could trade for Giannis? No.
Why not? Well, could you go over their Picks they have one more time?
I No, but listen- I just wanted to make the point how many Picks they had.
How about this, though? Here's the only way I could be helpful. I'm looking at the nets to make the playoffs, 22 to one.
This is why I brought this up, because to me, it's conceivable that out of nowhere, it would Oh, my God. Brooklyn traded nine first-round picks, Ben Simmons' contract, and two swaps. This is the most pick anyone's ever given up for a player in the history of the NBA. But then you look at Brooklyn, so regular season wins right now. Their over as 21 and a half. To make the playoffs, yes, it's 22 to one. Yeah, that's the bet. To win in the conference, they don't have it for the East right now. But The point is, if you think Giannis is going to get traded, play them, play Houston. I don't think Golden State has enough because Milwaukee is going to want to pick, and I think it's Houston or Brooklyn are the two teams that have all the picks.
So if they had odds for where Giannis is traded to, I haven't seen them. If they do, I don't think they do. They wouldn't be 22 to one for the nets, right? They would not. So this would be the bet. They would be like six to one for the Nets or something.
Houston's minus 128. Houston made that trade. They have Brooklyn's 2026 first. They can swap Brooklyn in '27. They have a Phoenix first '27. They own all their own pigs. They have a Phoenix or Dallas first '29. If they have enough to put a Yana's thing together with some contracts, give them a young player. The problem is they gave extensions to Green and Schengen. So I don't think those guys could be in the trade, but they could patch stuff together. But I think those are the two teams. I don't think Miami has enough. Miami would have to put out of bio in it. And if you're Miami, you're trading out of bio in all these pics to basically put Giannis on the same team he's on now. If you're Brooklyn, you have all these role players you can put with them. Then you have the cap space maybe to get some other guys. You have shooting, you have... I don't know. Anyway, I just wanted to put that- My wife was saying that's all the same things today.
Let me ask you this. Yannis, if I would have told you second week in November, Giannis is 25 to 1 to win MVP, and he's not injured, what would you have thought happen? What the hell would you...
I would have thought he got hurt.
Yeah, but I'm sorry, he's not injured. I guess you would just... They'd have no wins, I guess, is what you would have to think. Well, the crazy thing is- 25 to 1, he'll never be 25 to 1 again.
No. But let's say he got traded to Houston and they became a four seed. Yeah. Those are the only two teams I can see because you go through everybody else- I'm going to bet these. If you go through all the other teams, I just don't see another team because some people have thrown Golden State around, and I don't see how they could do a trade that could compete with Brooklyn. If I'm Brooklyn, I need to do whatever I can to get Yannis because I'm completely irrelevant.
But how much is this you drumming this up? Or there's a very big favorite that they hold.
It's me completely drumming this up because I went to the game Friday and I was really impressed by the team they had.
No, but would they trade? They're likely not going to trade. What's the odds that they even trade?
Let's say they made me a consultant to the franchise and they're like, What do we do? I would like, Trade Yannis and Dame right now. You have no chance to win a title with this team. Trade these guys now. You got the title from Yannis. You have no picks left. You have no path to ever be a title contender with the group you have now. Cut the cord now. Try to trade for one of these teams before these go away to somebody else. Because the only other team is Oklahoma City, and they're not going to do anything. All right.
I'll do 22 to one. It has to make sense that I lost the last seven minutes of my life. I have to do 22 to one here. I like it.
Listen, this will be a YouTube clip that gets at least 80,000 views. Sourdi is so excited. Saree is sending tech. Saree, come in for a second. Are you there?
Oh, no. I love Sourdi.
What's he doing? Sourdi? What's up? Brooklyn or Houston, is there anyone else? Why does Giannis want to go there? Why does he want to go to Brooklyn?
Oh, that's the other thing.
Why does he want to stay in Milwaukee? I mean, it just seems like if he actually does pulling the plug on this and I want to get out, he's going to have more suit. I just feel like he's going to have the pull to be like, I don't want to go to Brooklyn, dude. This is the worst place in the NBA for me to go. Wow. New York City. Is it, though? Technically, yes.
I know.
Wow, he's right, too. How about Houston? No state taxes? Houston Houston's great. They have the assets. That'd be a great spot for him. But I don't know why anyone would want to go to Brooklyn.
Damn, it's Rudy.
Golden State would be the other one, but I just don't know what the trade is with that? Because they don't have that because they don't have the same picks. Kominga, it's not even close to what the other teams could get. It has to be like, I want to be there. It has to be, Hey, just trade me here. But he just on a contract, essentially. What leverage does he have? I don't I was thinking, what if it was Anthony Davis and all the rest of the Laker picks? Oh, wow. What would they trade have to look like? But it was like this door I didn't even want to open. It's like the door in the attic that you don't want to open because there's some ghost that's going to come out.
Does LeBron agree to it if they want Bronnie? If Milwaukee says, We're only doing it if you throw Bronnie.
Bronnie has to be in the trade to make the salaries work.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's it. Those are the only ones. You go through all the teams. It's really hard. All right. Thanks, Rudy. Thanks for throwing my water on my Brooklyn idea. Sorry. Let's do some parent corner. What do you got?
Let's do it. What do I have here? Oh, all right. Well, first of all, there's a lot of traveling in these tournaments, and we have friends in town. So I told my wife, I'm like, I can't go wherever the tournament is. It's in Santa Barbara, which is not close, right? So that's an overnight thing. My wife goes with my son. It's a baseball tournament. It's two days. They leave Friday right after school. First of all, the school thing is crazy. They had teacher conferences all week, so they're out at noon every day, five days in a row, out at noon, off Monday for Vets Day tomorrow. Okay, so anyway, they go on this thing. You're not going to have a problem with this, but I promise it's relatable. I see on the parent text chain that my wife paid for the dinner last Last night. And it's like, Hey, there's no way to tell how much everybody paid. So you could Venmo me here. And there wasn't a lot of, Oh, thank you so much. Yes, I will Venmo you right away. And I'm looking at this bill right when I have a ton on the Chief's money line.
It looks like they're about to fucking blow it. I'm like, No. It's like the worst news I saw on my phone in months.
Well, you had the Chief tied to a whole bunch of games yesterday, right?
Oh, yeah, exactly. I had a lot from Saturday coming over. I'm like, shit, I'm going to get 30 % of the money back. But anyway, that's no big deal. Whatever that ends up being, fine. My kid goes, they win, they come in second place, and there's a picture of the team with their second place rings, and everybody's fun. It was happy. It was like five or six games during the weekend, and they had their rings. And I'm scanning the picture, and there's my kid with a sourpuss face, not even showing his ring purposely putting his hand behind his back because he's not okay with coming in second place. So he just came home before the podcast. He just made it home. I was like, Dude, look at this. You look ridiculous here. This kid's laying on the dirt, celebrating, waving, showing their rings. He's like, I don't like it. I don't even like the ring. I'm not even going to display it. It's a nice ring for a kid. I was like, You're a Cowboys fan and a Mets You have to be used to losing by now.
Second place is great. This is crazy.
Yes, exactly. Look at how the country is reacting to second place. You should love it. So I don't know if I should push this more or where should I be? This is a delicate balance, right?
I don't want to lose. I love it. He's a Championship kid. Really? He just wants titles. That's it. Yeah.
8% of his team.
He's all about the titles.
It's just him. All right. That's it.
He doesn't like this trophy generation we live in. He wants real titles. He doesn't want to pat it back for a finishing second.
I do respect it, but I'm going to take that ring and sell it and try to get some of that dinner money back from last night. My wife will never recoup.
You don't think she's going to be circling back a week from now? Hey, just a heads up. No fucking way. Some of you still owe me for dinner on Saturday?
No, because it'll be like, Oh, Margaret owes me. But then I had a drink with her the other day, so It all evens out. It's all going to even out somehow, except there's going to be no money coming our way. I do love the parents, though. I do. I have to say most of them listen to this podcast, but the timing of it with the chiefs and the field goal, it wasn't Ideal.
I went back to Boston because my daughter played soccer for Emerson. She was hurt last year, which we talked about on the pod. She had a ham string and then a knee thing, and the knee thing didn't go away, didn't go away. By February, it still wasn't going away. So we started going to doctors to see what was going wrong. I didn't talk about this, but I had these different opinions from people thinking what it was. One of the doctors thought she might have a partially torn ACL. We were like, Oh, my God. You get surgery out for a year. Another one was like, No, it's just banged up. You got to rehab the muscles around it. It's going to heal. You have a really bad bruise. Basically, every doctor said something We decided, All right, just rehab your legs, put real time. I'm going to try to build everything up around, get in really good shape, and see if you can come back. She really was committed to it the whole spring, the whole summer. She didn't play spring soccer. She didn't even really start practicing until August and just tried to work on her legs, getting back, and they put her on her minute schedule.
Raises up, raises up, and we get to beginning of October, start league play. She scores in the first game. Two days later, somebody She bangs her in the knee. She's a bruised knee, like what Paul George had. So now she's limping around, and she's like, I'm so tired of being injured. This sucks. And I'm thinking, this really might be it. I could see her. She's just so tired of being hurt. And so she was still playing, but not as much. And she was like 80, 90 %, but not 100. And then the last week or so, she felt good again. And so they gave her more minutes. So they were in the league play and she played a lot of minutes in the Tuesday game, and they won, and she scored. So they went there in a round two game. So I was like, I'm fucking flying back. I was like, I'm going back. That's it. So flew back. They had this game, which they lost 1-0. It was like your classic soccer game that they had most of the chances and whatever. But she played like 78 minutes and she looked like her. It was the first time she really looked great.
This last week where she's flying around. And I was just thinking, I thought it was going to be over. Now we got two years left, hopefully, and hopefully she could stay healthy. But I was thinking with the stuff you talk about with your son, when you go through all these little steps with them, from AYSO in the beginning to when they're on club team, and you don't know when the journey is going to end. It was just really cool to watch her flying around 100%. I was like, I didn't know if I was going to see it again. That's great. Now she's got two years left. She's going to hopefully keep the legs going. You got to keep your fingers crossed. You get hurt. But we were talking about after. I was like, You have two years left, and then that's it. Especially people who play D3, a lot of them are doing it because they're not getting paid to play for the school. It's not like when you get a scholarship in D1. But the people that stick with it really love it, and she really loves it.
That's awesome. There are pro-lagues, though. What do you mean? No, there are.
It doesn't have to be over. But you see, as your kids get older and you see all the teammates they had and people start dropping out, right? And they drop out for different reasons. They get hurt. They don't want to keep the commitment to it. And at some point, people hit some thing where they're like, Do I really love doing this and having a part of my life or I don't? And that's when they go sideways with it. And it might happen when they're 15, 16, maybe they get a boyfriend. And then some people stick with it. So she still really loves it. But it was super cool watching her fly around. That's great. Because it was like, I was I've been watching her play soccer since I was... Since 2009, 2008, whatever. But it was cool. I was glad I flew back. We got to hang out, went to the Celtic game on Friday.
Good time. Listen, I'm proud of her for scoring a goal. I have a second place ring if she like, it might be a little small, but I could ship it to her there. But no, it's great. It's fun and enjoy the next two years. But it gets me mad that why are there four opinions on this knee? If you would have surgery, you would have been robbed at that.
I know. It's 2024. Who knows if we even made the right decision or not? I'm sure we're going to look at it again, but the body is like a crazy thing. You have these different people look at it and it's like they're right or wrong. They see what they see, right? And they judge it a certain way. But sometimes you start wondering, is somebody's snake bit? They're like, God damn. How does you bang the same knee right after it was finally out. Right. Good for her. Anyway, that's exciting. She loves it. It was fun. I think next year's team will be good. It was a good experience.
Nice. That's good.
I'm trying to think. I have one more parent corner thing for you I wanted to mention. See, I can't do any of the Ben Simmons ones. Can we do a Patreon where it's just a subscription?
Well, I don't know. If it's a subscription, if it's worth it, we'll pay for your medical expenses, I guess so.
I just really wish I can do the Ben Simmons ones.
If you asked him ahead of time, can I talk about this? He would absolutely say no.
We should probably be recording them, and then 10 years from now, I can run some of them. He's like 27.
It seems like it was the way to go.
All right, that's it for Carent Corner. What else do you have? Anything?
That's it. Threw the Ringer with Tate against the Lods a couple of times this week. We did the Ringer pregame show. I'm 8 and 2 with my wisest wagers. That Texas. I was going to be so mad. It's a Texas plus three and a half didn't cover. And Roy Jones Jr. On Cousin Sal's winning weekend. We're going to talk about the Tyson fight. A lot of people now like Tyson.
What are the odds on the Tyson fight?
It's plus 230. It was plus 250. It's tightening up, and I bet it's even tighter than that come Friday. I don't know.
You seem bummed out about the Tyson's fight. It's every Everything you like and everything you don't like all wrapped in the one sporting event.
What's the most likely scenario? He just gets jabbed to death. They give Paul the decision because he's the more marketable fighter and Tyson doesn't care. Is that probably the most... He wins by decision.
Tyson's so old. I just don't understand how he would win a fight against anybody.
I watched Paul against Furry again, the Tyson Furie's brother, who was the only real boxer. He was good. He was decent against him. He lost, but he was decent. We're betting Tyson. No, we're kidding.
Yeah, we're definitely betting Tyson. We were watching that fight together, too. Yeah.
Hell, yeah.
All right, Cus. Good job by you, as always. Good job by you, buddy.