Coming up, The Cowboys, Ruing Sunday. Yes, they did. That's next. We're also brought to you by The Ringer podcast network. I have a new Rewatchables going up on Monday night. It is National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, my favorite Christmas movie. It is me and Sean and Vin and Chris. We didn't do Diehardt because Diehardt is not a Christmas movie. We talked about this. It's almost like we can't argue about it anymore. It's like Republicans and Democrats sitting at a Thanksgiving table just deciding not to argue about it. So we talked about it a lot on The Rewatchables and we just said not to. Diehardt is not a Christmas movie. Here's the thing. If you're releasing a movie in July, you're not a Christmas movie. Even if you're set on Christmas, could Diehardt have happened on Valentine's Day or July fourth? Yeah. It's an action movie that's awesome that just happened to take place on Christmas. I'm never wavering from this, ever. Anyway, we talked about that on the Rewatchables. It's a good one. Coming up on this podcast, you knew Cousins Sal and I wouldn't be able to keep the good vibes going for more than a week on Sunday night.

And we're both in the dumps and it's next, at least The Patriots are a little bit closer number of pick. We're going to talk about that and a lot more. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, taping this 8:35 Pacific Time on Sunday night. Last week, we were so happy. The energy was great. The Cowboys looked awesome. I won every bet. I was undefeated in the Picks Bull. Just great energy. And the Cowboys brought us down. The Cowboys ruined my weekend. I hate them. I'm really disappointed. I'm disappointed at myself. I trusted them. I feel burned. I can't even imagine how you feel. What a disgrace. I'm so mad at them.

Well, I'll tell you how I feel. I feel insulted. You should be congratulating me on my team's playoff berth, but instead, just negativity right out of the gate. That's what a real friend would do. But yeah, we got our asses kicked. I'm not even going to say this is going to serve as a wake-up call. This is troubling. We were bullied on both sides of the line of Scrimage. We got run all over. You never want to see that with your team. And I think it's partially my fault. I came on Cousins' House winning weekend with my new good friend Phil Sims, and we praised Mike McCarthy, top five in the League, and they was never more unprepared, the late hit calls, penalties, personal fouls, just garbage.

Just.

Terrible. I don't know what to say. I'm sorry about your teaser. I don't know what to tell you either.

I love the Rams. I just wanted to put them with somebody I trust it. I'm like, What's more trustworthy than Dallas? That's at least a one score game in Buffalo. I had that game paid completely wrong. I thought Dallas was going to overpower them and have the ball and just run it down their throats and that they were bigger and more physical than Buffalo. But on the other hand, this Buffalo team that played today had no resemblance to the team from the first 14 weeks of the season. Arial Hawani, who's a huge Buffalo fan, he texted me during the game and he's like, This is one of the greatest days of my life. I can't believe this. I've been waiting for this team. It's almost late December. It's finally here. There really was no warning signs for this physical team. And then the James Cook stuff is nuts. Just since they changed offensive coordinators, he's become one of the most dangerous running backs in the League, if not the number one behind McAfrey. And from a fantasy standpoint, I think he's third in all purpose yards for.

The season. Is he already?

My God. Yeah. They just unleashed him. And it started last week. That was one of the reasons I hit that same gamer. And now it's like, hey, let's ride Josh Allen and James Cook, and we'll be this punishing running team. There was no sign of this for three months.

Yeah, I'm with you. And you and I said this all the time. If they could run for 70 yards a game, 80, even 90, they're going to be good, because then Josh Allen doesn't have to do as much. And so his 1.6 turnovers per game, whatever it is, won't show up. But I think you're right. We shouldn't see 266 yards again rushing, right? When you have 266 rushing, you could have 94 passing, and that's what they did today. But I think the Bills are good. I'm going to say something crazy here. I think they might be the only team that could hang with the 49ers. Maybe that's recency bias. And yet you have news for us where they are in the playoff standings. Are they top 10? I guess they're top 10 now.

They are ninth. They had... Every single thing went right for them in the last 11 days. Everybody they needed to lose lost. They won their games. And you would think like, Oh, man, here we go. And yet, they're still ninth. Even Miami losing that stupid Tennessee game. They won today. Diggs had four catches. James Cook had two. Ty Johnson had won. No other receiver or tight end caught a pass to their team. They rushed the ball 49 times for 266 yards. I waved in our vote out lead because I had to byweight this week because I was the number one seed. And I had three defenses. And I looked at Dallas's schedule for this week and the next two. And I waved Dallas. And Dallas was the number one defense. But I was like, I don't-.

I saw that. You're trying to trade me Dallas's defense for like or something a couple of weeks ago.

I did. I tried to sucker you in because it was your team. There were some red flags with them. And I was just like, You know what? I think I have the Eagles. I think I have the Stealers or somebody. But I never expected this. I just never expected them to get overpowered like that. And especially once you realize what Buffalo was doing and they still got overpowered, that was a concern. I guess on the flip side, how many teams other than San Francisco can run the ball down their throat? Yeah, that's the thing.

Right. So I'm not too worried about the Eagles. We'd be an underdog and everything, and we'd go there and that would have to be a big win. But yeah, no one's going to push us around like this, I don't think.

You might play Tampa in the four or five. That's the other thing that sucks. That's the other.

Thing that sucks.

Yeah, but they're not going to run the ball for 300 yards on you like Buffalo did. Then potentially, it could be the Saints. Atlanta choked today, so they're probably out of it. They're six and eight. But yeah, it might be one of those things where you don't even have something like this happen again until you get to the San Francisco game. But the other piece of this is, and I wish there's... There's two things I wish I had thought more about, not to have hindsight bias. But Rahim did a good job this week and I'm wise guys today about talking about Dallas at home versus Dallas on the road and how they're basically two different teams. And until they come through on the road, you just can't trust it. So that was one. The other was no matter what really happened in this game, they're locked into the five seat unless Philly just goes south. And meanwhile, Buffalo is in do or die mode every week now, and you can feel it during the game. It felt like it meant everything to Buffalo and not everything for Dallas.

Well, when we picked the line last week, you were surprised to see the Cowboys were getting one and a half. And you're like, I'm going to put that on the teaser. And that becomes seven and a half right there. And I was surprised, too. You get the public money for Dallas. But that is true. It didn't really matter. It doesn't even really matter for Philly tomorrow against Seattle. They just have to take care of their giants games pretty much to win that division. So I don't want to make excuses. That was probably the worst game of the year. I dropped the lowest quiz game when the quiz score with the 49ers because they're so damn good. But to get pushed around like that, we keep saying that, but that's it. The road thing bothers me too, because I thought we had cured that too, going to Philly. But is it possible Philly isn't that good?

You got to consider it. You have to. Because even like you think... Well, here's my other there I was going to throw you. What if San Francisco is the only good team and everybody else is just up and down and not that good? Because you could say, look at the bears. The bears beat Detroit last week. Detroit looked awesome against Denver last night. That was the best they've looked in seven weeks. Then you have the bears going to the Browns. They blow a 10-point lead. And it's just like maybe it's San Francisco and then 20 teams that could win or lose against anybody, depending on what happens in the first quarter of the game. That's another thing I always see. Whatever happens in the first quarter just seems to determine what's going to happen the rest of the way. Even Jacksonville tonight against Baltimore, they just shot themselves in the foot for an hour. And then Baltimore is like, All right, fine, we'll take it.

We'll take it from here. It's a shame we can't live bet these games. Now, yeah, I was going to throw that at you too. Like, Fandle has 49ers plus 240 to win the Super Bowl. And you look at that, you're like, Oh, that sucks. That's such a low number. But when will we think to bet against them? We won't for another month. Now, the other thing is teams peak and maybe they're peaking too early. I just don't think so. I think they're so versatile, so many levels to this team. Obviously, there could be an injury, but I'm jumping on that 240, Simmons. I'm not waiting anymore. You are. Yeah, that's it. That's enough. Well, what more do we need to say?

I don't trust the health with Kiddle and Debo and McAfrey. That's why- Well, that's it. That's exactly it. That's why I think plus 240 is value. I think you bet a game by game. And there's like, even on Thursday, one of the bets I lost, and I blame Nora, Nora Princeiade, who is a great guest. But I wanted to put something with San Francisco first half, San Francisco game, and I want to put The Ravens. And she's like, No, put The Falcons in there. The Panthers are a JV team. I'm like, You're right. And the best bet every week is Niner's first half, Niner's game. If these guys are healthy, Shane in with what he does. It hit again today. It's hit every week. And usually it's minus 200, minus 300, something like that.

Yeah, they don't usually have to come back to win. I mean, Fandle has all the Super Bowl possibilities. So if you want to do San Francisco with somebody else, good luck trying to figure out if it's achieved. So the Ravens... What is Ravens in San Francisco? I'll find it. I don't want to look at...

Ravens in San Francisco has got to be what?

It's 5:1. It's 5:1. But that's.

A good start, at least. You're just betting those. Bet it week to week over betting a 5:1 long shot.

Is it the best team?

A real long shot is you're betting San Francisco against Cincinnati or something. Right. You want to get real odds. You want to.

Bet the- I want to win. It's been so long. That's what I want to do. I want to just win.

This is a somber sound. We had such good energy last week.

Hey, how about Bills 9 or 16:01?

That's interesting. Well, who is it? Rahim? Who is the one on one of our text threads who said they bet Josh Allen 14 to 1 because if they beat on Sunday- How's that think? How's that think for MVP. How is that? Yeah. Yeah. Those odds have to be better, too. I don't trust Buffalo. No?

No.

And I don't trust Dallas. And all today did was make me just more uncertain about who comes out of the playoff thing. The Ravens Jags, other than Collinsworth, had about 17 Lamar Orgasms. Collinsworth has done this new thing. He's mastered it where there's a crazy play happens, but he doesn't want to interrupt Torico. Yeah. So Tariko will finish the play by play for the next 5-6 seconds, and then Collinsworth will start laughing. He presses the pause button on his own laugh, and it's like, All right, he's talking. He's talking. Oh, my God! And it just comes in late. But he had a couple of today.

I know exactly what you were talking about. It was when Lawrence ran and fumbled and no one hit him and they went right to commercial because it was a turnover. And all you hear going into the commercials.

Well, the play when Lamar scampered around, which is the play of the game, and he hit lively deep and Toriko was excited and he had to finish it and Collins waited. Then he can just do it on command now.

I love that, Lamar. Remember when he took a dump in the middle of the game? That was one of my favorite moments. That was something else.

Lamar is in that MVP conversation now, though, in a real way. Heading into the games today, Daq was a prohibitive favorite. He was like- No, no, no. -in the plus... No, he was like plus 150.

He had the best- Pirty was 140. No, Purdy was.

Plus 140. Oh, they had the same? Yeah.

Daq was favorite.

They're both under two to one.

And then something happened Thursday night and Purdy took, I don't know, because Colin Moore was so bad. I have no idea why Daq wasn't even playing the game. But yeah, it was Purdy plus 140. But you're right, Lamar is second now at plus 450 and Purdy on Fandal is minus 200.

Would you see what Purdy did? He did a great move today.

Yeah.

I think, were you the one that predicted he should do this? I don't think I did. Somebody on the pod, I'm sorry, I can't remember. But somebody was saying the best move is to basically push the candidacy of the other guy, because then you look even more magnanimous. And Purdy did that today. He's like, McAfrey is MVP. Yeah, I think that should eliminate- All I did was hand off to McAfrey. How is he not the MVP?

By the way, he's exactly right whether he's doing it on purpose or not. But I think that tack should eliminate him from consideration. I don't like that one bit.

You forfeiting your chances.

I'm seeing right through it.

There's also the scenario where we might not know who the MVP is yet, and that's okay. We can say who we think it is after 15 weeks, but I also feel like it could be wide open.

Well, McCaffrey gets a single- I don't think I can feel it. Well, could he get to single digits, McAfrey? There's so much buzz from McAfrey, and rightfully so.

It is one of those things. I have the games on all the TVs. And usually the Niners are in some game where they're just playing somebody they're going to beat by 10 to 15. So I always had that on the high left TV. And you just look up and McAfrey is just running. He's like a prisoner who escaped prison, just running for the hills and down the side of them, there will be nobody near him for 10 yards, and you'll see some safety come flying in and knock him out of bounds. Over and over again, it happens like three times a game.

You should give them your high left MVP, like Bill Simmons' high left MVP award. Sorry.

You made the high left TV exciting.

You just did it. I'm sorry we can't move you from that spot.

The Ravens game today, I mean, a couple of lessons. One is that this is the most fun version of Lamar, I think, where they've figured out how to... The first couple of years with them, where we would always say, Just do the playground. Don't even run plays for him. Just have him run around and do Lamar stuff. And then they're like, Well, we can't do that. That's not working. We got to have more of an offense. And that didn't totally work either. Now they figured out how to have them improvise in some of these plays and just have these receivers that can buy time and know, Oh, here we go. Oh, two more seconds. And then all of a sudden you find somebody. But this is the most fun version I think I'm going to watch. Do you agree or.

Would you go- No, I agree. The one worry was with Andrews being out, right? And I'm not going to say it doesn't seem to matter, but this likely guy is very good. I mean, he's targeted- Did I.

Call him Lively before? I think I called him Lively before.

Yeah, it's likely. Why do we do that? Was there another Lively? I know there's Blake. Is there another Lively?

Because everybody does- I don't know. I apologize. But likely Lively. He's been pretty good, though.

Yeah, we're likely to mispronounce his name again. Yeah, but he has been good. Touchdown's the last couple of games, and he's trustworthy for sure.

They did lose their running back, though, and it looks like they lost them for good. That did not look like a positive knee injury. So I don't know who their speed guy is going to be and whether maybe they'll be able to pick somebody up off Wavr. It feels like there's 70 running backs that can rush for five yards of carry. Every team seems to have these guys who are like, Who's that guy? He just ran for 11 yards.

Yeah. Todd Gurley will be on the roster Thursday.

Todd Gurley. The other lesson is that the Jags are fraudulent. A little bit. I just think they're fraudulent. I can't take them seriously. San Francisco destroyed them. Baltimore destroyed them. There are six and six in the United States and 2 and 0 in London. So I guess the answer would be just more London games. But the Lawrence end of the first half was just brutal. That was so bad. I like when quarterbacks do that where they're like, Everybody thinks I'm going to spike the ball and I'm not. But then he throws an out pass and the guy gets tackled in bounds and they lose three points. That was just stupid.

So do you think they practiced that? Because I like it too, but only if you know what you're doing, right?

You got to go that corner of the end zone. That's where you got to run like that. That's the only time a fade route is good.

Can't be anything short of the end zone. Yeah, that was terrible. The misfield goals took him out of that game. And even that challenging that touchdown, which should have been a touchdown, I guess, with ridley at the end, they lose the time out there. That was dumb to do that. By the way, I like that they brought the guy on the rules expert. They brought him on three different times to confirm that the referees or whatever, the booth in New York screwed that up. Do you get angrier when the analyst disagrees with the call or when he agrees with the call?

Well, the last time on the ridley touchdown, he was like, That's a touchdown. And then they said it wasn't. And he was mad.

Right. I thought it was going.

To be the first time the rules guy was going to be like, That's fucking bullshit, Chris and Mike. I don't see that at all. I wonder if these guys are bet on the game.

These guys are clowns. Something needs to be done. No, but that makes me mad.

But that makes me mad. That was so bad.

It makes me mad when they're like, Yeah, everyone could see it. Even the rules guy, the lawyer, whoever is in there. But when they agree with the call, I was like, You're just a homer. So everything that guy does makes me mad. They should do away with it.

That was Steve Javy in the NBA games for three years. He just agreed with every single instant replay call no matter what it was. It could have been the Artest's Melee. I don't know if that's a flagrant on run. I cannot take the Jaguars seriously. And somehow they're still the four seed. Houston is in a dead tie with them now. Eight and six, eight and 6.

And.

Indianapolis is tied as well at eight and six. So somehow that division is still wide open. And we'll talk about the Saturday games a.

Little later. Those teams have to gain on the Jaguars. They can't end up in a tie with that, right? Yeah, they have to- Is that what Cornaki was saying? So the Jags are minus 140 to take the division.

And they need the Jags to lose one more time, and then they need to run the slate. So the Jaguars have... Who do they have next? Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay. Red Hot, Baker, Mayfield. If the playoffs ended today in the AFC, Baltimore would have the Dubai. We would have Miami, Indianapolis. Right. So it would be Menchie versus Tewa. We would have KC versus Cincinnati.

It's fun.

And then we would have Cleveland, Jacksonville, which we just saw. Right. And I'm just taking Cleveland in that game as long as they don't have more injuries than I have, but I'm just taking them. I think they would beat them.

I think we need to see us settle Joe Flacko. I mean, that was a Jekyl and Hyde routine today. He had some long balls that were great, and then he had just times where he couldn't help himself. It looked like he could throw five interceptions. But by the way, the quarterbacks in the 1:00 PM Eastern were just awful. There were eight or nine interceptions and probably 20 passes that should have been intercepted.

Let's talk about Bear's Browns right after the break. Brown's Bear's, this was brutal for me. I had the Bear's plus three as my lack of the week. I had money on it. They're up 17-7. Their defense is just throttled the Browns. The Browns are all banged up. I think they had all backup offensive linemen like Flacko through a couple of grabs, had a couple of bad picks, and yet somehow they come down and they just stop covering the joku down the stretch. I have no idea why. There's third and 15. It's just wide open, running across the field at one play. There's another play on the last drive, gets wide open again. He had 14 targets, and yet down the stretch, they're just not covering him. This is supposed to be a defense that was coming on. And then.

Flacko- I think he's tough, by the way, before you move on. I think he's what Kyle Pits was supposed to be, where you can't guard him. I don't know. What a.

Late bloomer, too. He was supposed to be five years ago this is supposed to happen.

Yeah, I know. But if you look at him, he's monstrous, and it all makes sense.

Because they couldn't run the ball at all. Flacko throws for 374. And then Chicago, first drive of the game, Fields makes this beautiful play where he by some times and whips it downfield to Tanya, who's wide open, 40 yards downfield. And it's not one of those, Oh, that should have been a tough catch. It's like he hits them in stride and Tanya just does the butterfingers thing and misses it. It would have been a touchdown. Then the last play of the game, they get a really, really good hail Mary where they throw it straight up and bounces and Richochets correctly. Mooney is on the ground and catches it and just fumbles it. But it really seemed like they were going to win. So they basically dropped two touchdowns and they still almost win.

Yeah. And I don't know what it means for Fields either, because it's unfair that he doesn't get credit for that touchdown that Tanya dropped. But then you look at his passing numbers like, Oh, this thing, they really do still have to draft somebody. He can run around. And by the way, that play was spectacular. It's actually not even the one you were talking about when he avoided Myles Garrett's grasp, rolled left, and threw a touchdown. I'm like, Oh, he's got a job somewhere next year starting. But maybe not Chicago. But I think Cleveland is making the playoffs. They have nine wins. They'll have to get 10 to make it. But we have to be careful how we praise these backups because we end up looking stupid. Like Flacko-.

When we did Dobb Sanity for two weeks and now he's USFL?

Yeah. I think we need to do a three-week test. It's like, if you heard your take three weeks ago, would you leave the room discussing this with yourself? Yeah. If somebody who looked like you came up to you at a Christmas party and started talking about the Dobbs making the playoffs like, All right, I got to go. I got to go to the bathroom, even though I just used that excuse four minutes a week.

Well, Cleveland, they're at Huston next week, Home Jets at Cincinnati. So that Cleveland, Cincinnati might end up deciding something. Maybe it'll be a playoff spot. Maybe it'll be the five-seat, who knows? But the best thing that they had today was Fields, as you mentioned. He was 19 for 40, 166 yards. They had six pass first downs. They were four for 18 on third down, and he threw for 166 yards total. And the Browns defense was supposed to be banged up. They're missing starters all over the place. I thought Myles Garrett was unbelievable. I would have picked him for defensive player of the year before that game. But now it's like, I don't see how there's another choice. He was so dominant and so good. And he was just on the TV all the time. They were either showing him getting up after he almost sacked the guy or a replay of him just blowing through two dudes. I thought he was just awesome. And the Browns being nine and five with four quarterbacks? Yeah. With Joe Flacko, who wasn't playing, who just hasn't been good for five years?

Right.

Is the story of the season if you're just talking about it. It's the what the fuck story of the season.

I was looking at.

Stephan's game-.

Yeah, I was looking at Stefan's get 14 to 1 for Coach of the Year because of exactly what you just said. If you're going to make the playoffs with four quarterbacks, that should put you in the top three probably considerations right away. But there's so many this year. Like D'Amico Ryan's, if he makes it- Yeah.

I think.

It's him versus...

Yeah, Stikens in there. I think Ryan's would be the guy I picked because that team is somehow eight and six and they have an't exactly been healthy. They lost tanked out. They didn't have Straud. He made the decision to start Keenem over Davis Mills, which I was really surprised by. That ends up working out. Yeah, but the fields piece of this. So we did last week, I think we were talking about, if you're Chicago, maybe you give this a whirl. And now it's like, I don't know. That was a tough one. Him against a good defense, he really struggles. He struggles. He made a couple of really bad decisions. Even that last drive, they get the first down at midfield, they get out of bounds, right? And they had enough time to run four or five more plays. They were just bad plays that had no chance that had to lead to the eventual Hail Mary. But it felt like they could have... He could have scrambling for eight yards at one point, and he didn't. But it just felt like they could have gotten a field goal range if it was Lamar Jackson.

It's such a bizarre situation with him because they're going to get the Panthers picks, so they don't have to worry too much. But they could have had two picks in the top four if they ended up like a three or four-win team. And then you got the quarterback who's obviously fighting for a job like future prospects, even if it's not on the bears. And he's such an anomaly. He had 18 rushes a couple of weeks ago. He had 166 yards passing, but the Tanya thing would have put him over 220. It would have been more respectable numbers. I still don't want to pretend to be an expert on Justin Fields, but I do. If you asked me, I'd said they'd have to draft. I think they should draft.

The killer for them is they go Arizona, Atlanta, at home, and then Green Bay on the road the last three. And if they had won this game, they really could have potentially gotten a nine and eight and maybe still on a playoff spot. You look at some of the teams that lost, like Atlanta lost, Green Bay lost. We'll see what happens with Seattle, Romaro. But we have the Niners then Philly and Detroit. Tampa right now is the NFC South lead, even though they're tied with the Saints. Dallas is the five seed. Then it goes Minnesota, Rams. That's six, seven, and the Saints are eight.

You're feeling good about our saints?

I'm not. The Minnesota one was the killer this weekend because they had that game. Their defense was great. And all of a sudden, here the Bangles crawling back. They just browned and just kept making plays. The Bangles kept making plays, and Minnesota ends up blowing that game. Now they're seven and seven. But had they won that, I think they would have been pretty set for a playoff spot because they go home Detroit, home Green Bay at Detroit. And that Detroit game is going to be nothing. They're going to be locked into the three seed. So they'll probably not play anybody in that last game. So they could have wrapped it.

That game killed Saturday. Didn't you have Cincinnati, though? I felt like you had Cincinnati.

I had Cincinnati, the money line.

Oh, I see.

Okay. I had the Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Denver. It was like plus 7:49.

You got to the.

Night, at least. I got to the night and I'm like, This is great. You know what? I was going to hedge maybe with Detroit money line. I'm not going to. I'm going to let it roll. And then that Detroit game was over in five seconds. Good for you.

Good for you. Yeah. And people at Cincinnati would probably like, Well, T. Higgins, that should have been a pass interference. But the fact that Minnesota in overtime had third and one against an exhausted defense, an overtime Cincinnati defense in this day and age, you can't convert third and one with two runs up the middle. It's like two quarterback keepers when it should have been Tyson Chanler who would lit up the Bangles run. I don't get it. And then they lose. That was a big loss. But somehow, what did you say? They're sixth?

Yeah, right now, they're sixth. That game starts out. The Bangles have a great drive, and then they have third and one inside the 15 or whatever, and they do a tight end pass, which is awful. Subtle for a field goal. Two plays later, DJ Reader goes out for the game. He blows out his quad. And I'm just like, Oh, my God, this is a wrap, Minnesota. Nick Mollins look pretty good in that game for the most part. Yet another guy who's better than every past quarterback that we've tossed out this year. But Minnesota, the defense at least, maybe they just got tired in the fourth quarter, but the defense for the first three quarters was great. I said this last week, I stand by. I like the Rams the most out of all these... I just think that's the team nobody's going to want to play. They could beat Philadelphia. There's no question. Philadelphia, they hired Matt, or they announced that Matt Patricia got promoted to defensive coordinator. Our ring are fairly special. They did an emergency podcast about it. They're so horrified.

How does that happen? How do they not tell anyone? How do you keep that secret? We know when a coordinator takes a crap. How they put Matt Patricia in charge of calling. I guess, Big Dom would have been bigger news, but then they would have to say it. But Patricia, I guess it's because they don't want people like you and me reacting the way we're about to.

Patricia gave them a Super Bowl as the defensive coordinator of The Patriots when he couldn't stop McFalls for four quarters. So they owe them. He's one of the more despised people in the history of Boston, recent history of Boston sports. So good luck to them. Right now, if the NFC, it would be San Francisco at the By. We'd have Philly and the Rams, which is brutal for Philly. We'd have Detroit versus Minnesota. And then we would have you going to Tampa.

That was the other bad thing about this. I still think Dallas would be favored and would win that game, but I don't like when Baker's throwing, when he's going nuts. We were on a tax chain and Hans is like, Can you imagine if Cleveland just kept Baker and just would get all that money and everything?

Yeah, kept all their first round picks.

Everything. Yeah, they might win that division this year. So it's a little scary.

I had Garrett Bush, who's a Cleveland guy on the podcast for the year. And I didn't realize this, but he was saying that everybody loves Baker Mayfield in Cleveland. The teammates love them. The city loves them. They really like that he embraced being a Brown. He got hurt that one year and lost his confidence a little bit. But I mean, he was out of the league last year. Right. He got picked up by the Rams near the end of the year. And he won that one Thursday night game on that 99-yard drive. And I was like, All right, that looks like that's his farewell. I was looking at his stats compared to Brady's stats last year. So he's seven and seven right now. Braided was finished eight and nine last year. Mayfield is throwing for almost 3,000 yards. Braided was 46, 94, some more passing yards. But the touchdowns, interceptions, Mayfield is 20 and eight. Braided was 25 and nine. Mayfield throws for 6.4 yards of play. Braided threw for 6.7. Mayfield, the team scored 2.62 for the season with them, and braided, they scored 3.13. He's basically done a replication of the braided numbers, except for the extra passing yards.

But they had to throw more last year because they couldn't run the ball. They run the ball a little better this year.

Right. Yeah, he had a ton of yards. And, braided, but didn't scare me as much as a good Baker right now.

Baker is 6-0, 6 touchdown, 0 picks the last two weeks. And he just destroyed Green Bay today. That was one of the shockers of the day. He sliced them and diced them. It was really impressive.

They had a lot of injuries in their secondary at Green Bay, and they were coming off a short week. And that Joe Barry doesn't seem to be able to react to too many moving parts as a defensive coordinator. But I was looking at Baker's numbers for comeback play of the year. It looks like it's going to be Hamlin running away. He's minus 600. But Baker, I figure, would be second or third. He's 16 to 1 still. So way down there.

Who else is on that list?

Stafford, second, 10 to 1. Flacko, 12 to 1. See, Flacko over Mayf... I don't think that's fair just yet. Two of 16 and Lamar 16.

So if the Browns go 11 and six and Flacko plays the rest of the way and he saved their season, I think he would have to be in the conversation for that. But Mayfield being on pace, they got three games left. Let's say he finishes with 3,700 yards, 26 touchdowns, 10 interceptions. That's amazing. Nobody thought that was conceivable. I'll tell you this, you're going to laugh. So multiple threads with this today. If you gave the Patriots Baker Mayfield or Gardener and Minster this year, I think we'd be like eight and six. I'm telling you, even today, this Chiefs game, they were in this game. It's just their quarterback play murders them every game. But the rest of the team, the Chiefs didn't do that much in that game. It was a lot of dumb shit that we did that put them in positions. But we did a good job in the red zone. And it was a weirdly heroic loss because they never pulled away from us. And then, Belichick, it felt like he was tanking down the stretch. We're down 10, and they're just taking forever to run plays. The Pets have the ball.

And you would have thought it was like the second quarter. And it was the first time I was like, Oh, we're not winning again this year. They're not Belchicks in. I think Belchick's coming back. I'm in the minority. I think he comes back as coach and I think they hire a GM. First of all- And I think they agree like, You can't pick the players anymore, but you can still coach.

I know you were down on the Patriots quarterbacks always, but when Belly Zppy was 16 for 18, you weren't thinking, All right, we still got to get Caleb Williams to throw to Devante Parker. You were thinking, Hey, Belly Zppy to Marvin Harris Jr, That could be.

Something else. Never felt that way for a split second.

16 for 18 was crazy that you were in that game.

So that everything starts, I'm super hungover because I had a holiday party last night. And I don't think I've ever won money or had anything good happen in football when I'm just super hungover on a Sunday watching and the Pats are coming down. I'm like, Oh, my God. Now we're going to have the six-pick in the draft. Bellachex is like, Fuck you. I'm out of here. I'll just win all the rest of these games as a parting middle finger to everybody. And I'm like, You got to be kidding me. I'm just drowning in the couch. And then eventually, Bailey Zappi will fall back to Earth. That's what he's proven. The only thing that's happened after every Pat's game is the quarterback apologizing for his play in the game. I've never seen anything like it. It would have been like when we launched Jimmy's show, Jimmy, just after every show, just gave a press conference. They're like, I'm sorry. The monolog just wasn't good enough. I've never seen anything like this season.

He did apologize every night for running out of time for Matt Damon. That's true. He did. Bailey Zappy sounds like four of the drinks you ordered last night. I was.

With our friend, Daniel. Out. So it's always exciting when he's around. Oh, yeah. Yeah, the Pats, they had 10 first downs. They had 206 total yards, and they were two and 12 on third down. And yet they hold the Chiefs to 5.3 yards per play. They got a couple of turnovers. And I don't know, they hang around in these games. You go through and it's like, What would it look like if they had a B-minus quarterback?

If.

You flip Minshu with Zappy, Indianapolis is three and eleven. And I think we're like seven and seven.

See, to me, I would take a different tack because I'd watch that Bangles game and I'd see Jake Browning and like, Wow, that guy's good. He really learned from Joe Borough. I'm excited for him. Glad he's got his suite and everything. But I would look at it and be like, Man, isn't it nice that these guys could get separation once he breaks contain? Yeah, true. Like, he has a lot of, and Chase could be out who knows now how long, but it seems like they have three guys who we get open. You have three guys that you can count on for one week even?

No, we don't. And we don't run trick plays. We don't run anything interesting. It's the most vanilla offense possible. And then the Panthers win. Right. With my dad, it was super delighted. The Panthers have this... It looked like they were going to lose seven to six. And then all of a sudden, Desmond Ritter was just awful in this game.

I.

Think my big lesson with the Falcons is just never spend a top 10 pick on a running back or a tight end. Just never. Just don't. I don't care if the guy looks like the greatest version of whatever that position has been ever. It's not worth it. Is it worth it to get Bijon Robinson with the eighth pick?

No. They weren't even giving him the ball that much.

Right.

Seven carries today and a game. But first of all, isn't it weird, those Panthers game? It seemed like a night game. It seemed like it was... Is Carolina in Dublin? The near Dublin, it.

Starts- Yeah, somebody who's been played in Ireland.

Right now, it was rainy. Did you see that we were charging 45 cents for tickets? 45 cents for tickets.

It was pouring rain with wind.

Really bad weather. And Bryce Young went 93 yards. We haven't seen that drive out of most teams. And I can't even remember too many good passes in that drive. There was some nice catches. But yeah, that's a good riddance, Atlantic. Get them out of there. Aside from our Saint's bet, I don't want to see them in the playoffs.

Ridder, I don't know how he comes back. He just can't help himself twice a game. But the Panthers have Home Green Bay next week at Jacksonville, Home Tampa. So next week is the week for them. And they have nothing to play for, unlike the Pants that can gain the system a little bit. The Panthers, they don't have their pick anyway, so why not? I have an award for the Falcons.

Oh, God.

And even though there's three weeks left, and I know we're not supposed to decide or words. The Falcons win 2023s. I hate myself for betting on them or against them a word. Either side, you hate yourself. No matter what you did, you hate yourself. And yet again, even Falcons moneyline, it's like, all right, I'm not even going to mess around with the minus three. I'll just take the money line. They just can't play a normal game. They can't do anything right. They also can't do anything wrong certain days, but I just don't ever want to bet them again.

Yeah, it's probably similar to your hangover this morning. You're like, Why did I do that? Why am I betting the Falcons? It's 7:00 to 6:00, or it's 12:10 in the fourth quarter every single week, and I don't like what I'm seeing, or I could get screwed here. But yeah, they're bad news. I don't know what to say. I was thinking about like, It's really tough to pull the Full of Shit title away from the Stealers because they were out gained in almost every game, I think every game, and still won a bunch of them. But the Falcons are right there. I know they lost today, but I don't think any of their wins should count.

The Stealers yesterday, speaking of Full of Shit teams, where I don't know what happened at Tomlin. I used to think he was one of the five best coaches. He's been awful the last couple of weeks. Yesterday, there was, what, 25 seconds left in the first half? They were on their own 20. And the Colts had just done something good. And just instead of running out the clock, they have Trubiskis running around trying to make something happen. It's like nothing good is happening right now. What are you doing? And then when they get to the second half and they actually have to take chances and do things, all of a sudden, they're just running one-yard runs into 19 guys again. You guys don't even make sense quarter to quarter. And then they had it was third and 20. They're on the Indy 39, they're down 11. So they need two scores. It's like midway through the fourth quarter. And Trubiski is already completed a third and 20, which is the odds of this happening twice on a drive with Trubiski are like a hundred to one. And they try to go down field to Pickens, who, of course, is not even close, then they have to punch.

Tomlin punts from 39. Why didn't you try to get seven yards and kick a field goal and cut it to eight? This is basic Madden video game shit, and they're not even getting that correctly. So I don't know. This is a really sloppy Steeler's team all of a sudden.

I don't get it. Another undiscipline, 101 penalty yards versus 10 for the Colts, Tomlin. And that bizarre, I know this only gamblers care about this, but the over on there was 41 and a half. He's calling timeouts, Tomlin. After giving up the game, he's calling timeouts when the Colts have the ball, allowing them the kick of few. I thought the only over he cared about was over eight and a half wins. He really cared for over 41 and a half in this Colts and Steeler's game that ended 30 to 13. Their kick or kick their, I don't know, fourth field or whatever it was, maybe more. Right.

I watched the game, those early games with a friend of mine today, and I was saying, she's asking about Belichick. What do you think? Has he lost it? They always showed the stat. They have to show it in a Pat's game of like, Belchick's record with braided and then after braided. It's like, so what happened to Belchick? I think my theory is that nobody can be a good coach without at least like a B minus quarterback.

We Tomlin.

Is another one. Rothesberg in the last two years, he wasn't good. Now, he's got this picket, Trubiski, Mason, Rudolph. He's in that Bermuda triangle. I just don't think anybody can be good with bad quarterbacks. Maybe you can steal a week. But for the most part, could Andy Reed? Andy Reed had near the end with MacNab. All of a sudden, he sucked in Philly. And the member, they pushed him out. And it was like because he didn't have a quarterback. So maybe it just comes down to there's good coaches, but they still have to have a quarterback. And you could be as good of a coach as you want in the NFL. But if you don't have the other piece, it just doesn't matter. Sure.

But that said, I still think they have some good pieces.

I think they're just.

Picking the wrong quarterback. Wouldn't you rather like to see Zappie with Pickens and J. W. And Warrant and Freyermuth?

I think that gives you a chance.

I.

Think that's.

An extra three or four points a game, maybe.

Yeah, it's true. Titans, Texans happened today. Tennessee were the Oilers, Strobecks. How did you feel about that? I thought that was a total fuck you.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. This is something Belichick should have done 10 or 15 years ago if he could. But you don't do that if you're struggling Tennessee Titans, do you?

Comes back and bites them and they end up losing. The other thing that happened today, both New York teams, their playoff dreams officially died.

We.

Had the jets just get annihilated by the Dolphins. And once Tyreke went out, I ended up making a late bet on the jets because I was like, Oh, yeah.

I know you love it.

Here we go. And Zach fumbles on the one-yard line and the game is over immediately. And then the giants against the Saints who are they're garbage. And yet the Saints killed the giants.

That was my best bet. The Saints were my best bet. Yeah, you called it. It was six, and I likened it to Linn Sanity. I said, This is Linnquini Sanity with the Tommy DeVito stuff. I don't know what's going to happen. And it's a great thing when you have a thing like Tommy DeVito does that thing with his hand, and the agent does that thing with his hand in front of his face. And then everybody on the opposing defense is doing that to you. It's like Mutombo with the finger. Then everybody did it to Mutombo, and it became a pain in the ass. But yeah, I think that's it. And the agent thing is fun. But how much is he rooting for Tommy DeVito? Because if he does well, that guy loses a job.

Immediately, right? Yeah. It's like that guy gets replaced by CAA.

Yeah.

And Davido went out in that game, but the giants had 3.2 yards per play, 12 first downs. The jets had 103 yards offense, 11 first downs. Wilson got pulled again. I think he broke the record today. This was the fifth or sixth time he's been benched during a game. And this was coming off a week where he was really good.

We have- It's funny you see, I'm sorry, you see legitimate reporters actually saying why he was out. I saw a wrist injury. I saw a head injury. I saw benched, and I saw dehydrated. All of them in five minutes. And I believe all of them.

Or Choice C, all of the above. Well, we don't have to pretend three things. We don't have to pretend there's a Zach Wilson resurgence. That's not happening. We don't have to pretend the giants don't need a QB. They still do. And we don't have to pretend Aaron Rogers is coming back. That's our big win. I just can't believe the story every day. I look great. They got to decide by Wednesday that today's game will determine whether they take them off the injured reserve or not. The dumbest story of the year.

Aaron consulted with a coven of witches in Newark, and it's safe to return, but only if the jets are still alive in the playoffs.

He's in a darkness room. Really ridiculous. And this probably worked out. I do know a couple of Jets fans who were back in this week. So even the Jets fans who know better, they still got found a way to get kicked in the teeth one more time by those guys. The only other one we didn't talk about was the, Ram's Washington, where the Washington stages this late comeback with Perset. They waited 15 weeks to play Perset. Just looked immediately better. But then they had this long drive to cut it from two scores to one score. They're inside the 10-yard line for an hour and a half. Like 60 minutes is ready to come on. They're still going. And Robo Ron, I'm just really going to miss him. I realized today I was like, Oh, man, I'm going to miss you, Robo Ron.

He's going to be coaching your team. I don't think you'll miss him.

He'll be the special teams coach. It's just embarrassing how poorly managed that team is. I was.

Thinking.

The same thing.

With Preset. I was like, He ought to be ashamed of himself with this roster of awful quarterbacks we've seen. It took him 15 weeks to get in there. I had the same thought as you.

I wonder why they didn't trade them before the trade deadline on one of the nine teams that needed quarterbacks. I actually thought for the most part, I thought this is a pretty bad day of football. I thought it was one of the worst weeks we've had. It wasn't that exciting. Browns-bears was probably the best game, but that wasn't exactly the best played game and turnovers and dumb mistakes. Even this Ravens game tonight, the Jaguars just screwed up the whole game.

Well, the Saturday, three games where every team was over 500 definitely was going to screw us for Sunday. And as soon as I had Cowboys, I think I texted you between that terrible or that awful Thursday night game and the Cowboys, Bills, Herb, Street, Michaels, Romo, and Nance. What was it? It was like 93-21 in the games that they did, the two games that they did. Yeah, you're right. It was bad.

Take a break. We'll do Guest of the Lion for week 16. All right. Before we do Guest of the Lion, it was the first week of the fantasy playoffs. What was the biggest murder this weekend with fantasy playoffs?

Which player?

Which- Like, Daq was a homicide. Daq was bad. He did nothing.

Yeah, he didn't do anything. Who else did do anything? I just know my players. I don't know. Kelsey continues to be-.

Well, you're advancing. Yeah, Kelsey has been underweight. You were-.

Let me say something about Kelsey. I think if Taylor Swift had Travis Kelsey on her fantasy team, they wouldn't be dating anymore. She would be done with him. She would know. I don't know how much that hurts. But I don't know if I'm advancing. I'm up, what am I up? Like 11 on Nathan Hubbard, who's in.

The non-vote-out league.

Yeah. His football knowledge tops out at what Taylor Swift is eating in the Chief's luxury suite. No, I love him, but I need his kicker to.

Go down. Well, his ninth-grade son is supposedly running that thing.

That guy's smart.

That's word. Yeah. So you're up 11 points and he's got Jake L. I. A. Tomorrow night.

Yeah.

So basically one 50-plus-yard Jake L. I. A. Field goal, and you're probably done.

Twelve, seven, Eagles win. I got it. Yeah.

And then in our vote-out league, where I got to buy a league. Well, I haven't had a chance to vote anyone out since you came up with this dumb rule and ruined all of our lives with it. But the Jennings-.

It's you and Hedge, right?

The Jennings who talk a lot of shit during the season, and they just limp-dick their way out. They have 46.1 points right now with Kenneth Walker, the third left. What a disgrace. They should vote themselves out.

You hate that.

They started, Justin Fields, 11.3 points. Thanks, Justin. So they're out.

He said you don't have the balls to kick him out of the League, but you've now promised to kick four teams out. I don't know how.

You're going to do it. They're on the list. Really? They're on the list. And Hinch advanced in our league, too. But yeah, it's been- That's who you're playing. -next week will be good. And there's some good matchups that will go into that will end this up to some fun fantasy. But week 16, we do have a Thursday game.

We have a Thursday game? We have two Saturday games. We have three Monday games. We're coming to you Christmas Day. That's how much we love our listeners, right?

Yeah, I said that at the top. We're going to do Monday night instead of Sunday night next week. We're not doing Christmas Eve. Thursday night in L. A. Rams. Saints. L. A. Has this game? Has Christmas Day, Celtic Lakers?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. First one ever. Saint's at the RAMs. I wanted to say minus three, and I kept thinking about it. And I kept thinking about it. I kept thinking about it. And I bumped it and I did minus three and a half.

Yeah, I had three and a half. It's four. I thought that was a little bit rich, even though we both like the RAMs. I know we do.

Car is the single most annoying quarterback.

The worst.

Even when good stuff happens and they cut to him, he's annoying. When they're like, His teammates must. Cashbar car. There's no way his teammates like him.

Cashbar car. I commented like he was getting a little better over the weeks. He was overthrowing receivers by seven yards and then five and then four. It's like contractions. I think we were going to get there, but I don't know if it's this week.

Saturday, two games. Bangle, Stealers, Bills, Chargers.

And.

I think we're going to have two home dogs. Bangle Stealers is in Pittsburgh. I can't believe it. But I think Jake Browning is going to be favored in this game. Is there any Kenny Picket chance?

I hadn't heard, but I thought no. I thought we had a.

Little bit- What was Kenny Picket's injury?

I don't even know.

Was it a high ankle sprain?

We just need to.

Figure out high ankle sprains in general because Trevor Lawrence is fine and Kenny Picket is on crutches.

Wait, does he need surgery? He needs surgery, right?

No, maybe he needs surgery. Yeah, you're right. He tore some ligaments.

Yeah, high right ankle sprain. So it's either you're out for the whole year or you're back practice at Tuesday. That's the high ankle sprain.

Bengoal Stealers in Pittsburgh, where there might be some booze, where it seems like the Mike Tomlin, with Rothisberg, are coming out and throwing a soft Grenade, I thought was pretty interesting choice recently.

Yeah. He was terrible his last couple of years. He was really bad. He didn't win the playoff game in this last five years, he talked about checking down. He couldn't move. They would score three points in the first half every single game. Awful team.

I don't think he was counting on us remembering that. He was really bad. We used to bet against him with teams that had a good pass rush. There's no way he's going to have enough time. I think the Bengals are favorite. I put in the TikTok zone. Even though it looks like Jamar Chase is going to be in this game either. Bangles, one and a half. Yeah, I.

Said Bangles, one. It's two. You get it. I don't know. Well, Pittsburgh beat them, right? The first time 16-10?

I can't.

Remember who. I don't remember that game very well.

Would you put Jamar Chase? Not entirely his fault because Burrow got hurt. But would you put Jamar Chase on your first team, fantasy murderer or All-Pro team? For a while, receiver? I mean, Stephan Diggs has to get the other spot.

You don't count like injuries. So Jefferson's not-.

No, I don't count. It's not his fault.

All right. I had a lot of hope in Michael Thomas this year. I don't know why. But yeah, I think you're right. I mean, who else are we looking at? Chargers, maybe somebody.

Right now in our League, he has the seventh most fantasy points. Diggs is somehow ninth. I can't remember a single awesome game that he's had.

No.

Puca Nakua, at least in our League, is 11th. And it seems like he was way more prominent week after week after week. I guess, DK Metcalfe is a possibility. Devante Smith.

Oh, yeah. Those Seattle guys for sure.

Garrett Wilson, but not really his fault.

Well, Devante Adams. Did you say Adams?

Oh, yeah. Devante Adams. You're right. He's a first teamer. Yeah. So you go Devante Adams and who?

Yeah. I don't think I put Chase to fourth or fifth. Metcalfe, I always think that guy is going to be better than he is, but he's right.

Up there. You're right. We should do actual work on this and announce our team before week 18 for running backs. Oh, man, Tony Pollard. He was going for like, 58, 60 bucks. He's not even the top 12 here. Very, very bad. I mean- down there, though. Austin, Echors is not even the top 20.

Nadey Harris always is there.

People felt they had Nadey Harris, then no.

Yeah.

I guess they are. Remember, everyone was like Warren is going to take his job?

The Jonathan Tettler got hurt.

Chuck got hurt. Aaron Jones is way down there, too. Yeah, we got to do that next week.

Yeah, we'll.

Figure out. Other Saturday game is Bill's at Chargers. A little AFC. A little AFC late 60s feel, those chargers.

That's in L. A. Too. We didn't.

Think about it, Brandon Staley.

Oh, we did.

Any farewell thoughts?

Well, I mean, is it possible? I think he was dealing mini Baccarat at the win Thursday night. I don't even think he waited until Friday to get it right. Is that tampering? If Steve or Wayne, Hyerson before at all. But yeah, if you're going to fire a guy, if you're ever going to fire a guy, it had to be then.

We talked last Sunday. We were saying Staley would have been fired on Monday if they didn't have the game on Thursday. It's too hard to fire the guy with the Thursday. The natural reaction that would have been, well, then why didn't you bet the Raiders on Thursday because the Raiders scored zero points against the Vikings. So I don't want to bet them either. And it's a Thursday-Night game. So I just stayed away completely. And I went to the basketball game that night, looked at my phone and it was- Don't throw your phone, and it was 21-nothing in five seconds. I was like, Oh, my God. Why didn't I bet the Raiders? But it's hard to jump on a team that scored zero points. But you knew Staley was done in the first half.

I would never urge anybody to not gamble. God forbid. But when the Raiders put up a goose egg at home against the Vikings and then 70 or close to 70 the next week. Four days later. Yeah, that's a bet. I wouldn't tell people to not eat pizza. But if you look at just those four days, that's disgusting. I don't think he gets a job. Does he get another job? You give him an over on there for two and a half years for head.

Coach or no? He'll get a coordinator job. But what's funny is they hired him because of his defensive acumen, but their defenses were never good. And then I mentioned earlier about the coaches that don't have a QB, it's tough for the judge them. He did have a QB the whole time and still couldn't win with them.

But they should have fired him- And good won.

Receivers, good everything. They should have fired him after the playoff game. We said that after the game in January.

Yeah, you're right.

I can't come back from that.

That was a wrap. Some owners are just very different. They're very, very different about how they approach this.

It's weird because nobody cares about the chargers in LA at all. Do you know a single Chargers fan?

Not really.

Between the two of us, we know a bunch of people. I don't know anybody who loves the Chargers. No.

And we live right here.

They moved from San Diego and they do it in a way that all the San Diego fans are like, Fuck that team. They're dead to me. Then they come here and the L. A. People are like, Well, I don't care about the Chargers. And they're just in there the tenon in somebody else's building. So you could argue they're in the worst situation of any professional sports team. They're in a city that doesn't like them. They don't even own their own stadium. They have no history because all their history is San Diego and Phil Rivers and the Danny and Tomlinson and Dan Fautz and Kelly Winsow. It's basically like the Seattle Supersonics with Oklahoma City, where it just doesn't feel like a piece of them anymore. Right. And now they have no coach and no GM. But at the same time, I feel like it's a pretty good job because you get Herbert, you got it going, you got some excitement. And to me, this is the Bill Belichick team.

Absolutely. If you want to break that record, you want to do it in two years, not four years, right? And to go into a team that can't win. I did something on my show. I thought the Chargers, who were coincidentally playing the Raiders, they should just swap sites and not even move. But Spanos should talk to Mark Davis and be like, Look, we screwed up. The Chargers have no place in LA. The Chargers will be in Vegas. They're used to not getting fans anyway. That's fine. It's a more fun experience. The Raiders could come back to LA where their fans are. You'd still do see Raiders flags flying everywhere. So that would be the swap to make. But yeah, otherwise, it's not looking good for the LA Chargers.

Or move to Mexico City or London or Germany or do something like that. I just don't know what they have to gain from being in LA. I don't understand it. They don't spend a ton of money. I think they're notoriously cheap, which would be the case against them getting Belichick. The other thing is if you get Belichick, I wouldn't want him to be Coach GM because he's just proven in the last six years. He can't do that job. We have the worst kicker in the League, Chad Ryland. He's, I think the only guy who's under 70 %. He's like 13 for 20 this season. He's the only guy who's under 70 %. It's terrible. We took him with a fourth rounder this year. He's the 112th pick in the draft. No other team took a field goal kicker before the sixth round. Belchick took him in the fourth round, and he sucks. How many mistakes could this guy make in free age? And I don't blame him. He's the greatest coach of all time. I just think it's unrealistic to think you could do both jobs when you're 73 years old. But if he's just a coach, I think he'd be good.

Yeah. I just don't know how many organizations offer that, really. And as far as the charges staying in LA, there's got to be a financial motivation. We don't see charges, jerseys, and we don't see this and that, but it's got to be worth it. Otherwise, you just lose and lose and lose money year after year.

Would you do Jim Harba? Yeah.

I think that could shake things up a little bit as much as I don't love them.

What about a famous legendary coach who's dead?

Oh, yeah. Interesting. What are you talking about?

They hired Tom Landry. Nobody in here even knows what's going on with the church. Well, they got Tom Landry. They just tried to jet on my chair. But it's a guy named Tom Landry, but it's not actually Tom Landry. She wears a hat in Orange County. Yeah, where's the hat? There he is, Tom Landry, but it's not.

Tom Landry. Madness back. Look at him go.

Or they can hire Al Pacino. They can hire somebody who played a football coach. Try that.

Yeah, get Tommy DeVito's agent. He loves the sidelines.

What's Tommy DeVito's agent's name? Sterling Stileto?

Yeah, something like that. Stephen Stileto or something.

I was thinking when I moved to L. A. And Jimmy was involved in that St. Generic Feast. Oh, yeah, right. And it had all those C and D list actors and celebrities, Italian guys. And it would be like, There's Carlo from The Godfather. And I was just thinking that that's Tommy DeVito's destiny like 20 years from now. There's Tommy DeVito. I won a couple of games for the giants. That's definitely him and Tommy DeVito in 2048. His agent, it's him right now. Right. I thought you were the agent. Tommy DeVito in like 2042. Move. It's like, There he is. He won three games for the New York Giants.

Well, some pizzeria was going to pay him $10,000, I think, in New Jersey as an appearance fee to show up next week or something. And he was on board and he's like, No, $20,000. The agent is pricing him out of the game in the pizza place is like, We can't afford that. And you guys suck today. So the shine's off.

I see a really good media career for him. The JJ and Tommy show on New York, New York just taking over. Do you think JJ would take him? Jj would take him. He's got a good personality. I think JJ would like him.

Yeah, I think he's got to do the tour. He's got a DJ with... Who's a Jersey Shortkit? Pauley D? Yeah, he's got to do that. He's got to be like the Keto Guido with the other one. He's got to do that round first, and then JJ is up.

For it. Great stuff. Great name. Tommy DeVito is just an awesome Italian name, too. I have a Bill's at the Chargers. I got the bills by eight. Oh, wow.

All right. I'm like, Simmons is going to crush me on this one because I was off five points, but you were off five and a half points. It's 13 and a half.

Oh, my God.

That's ridiculous. Thirteen? I'm checking again. It's 13 and a half. I was about to say to you, watch the Bulls lose this game with the East and Stick, and I'm still not sure if they're going to win.

Thirteen and a half. So are the Chargers now the worst team in the week? That's what that line tells me.

I guess so.

East and Stick was really bad.

Even Denver didn't get this many points when they gave up 70 to the Dolphins. They didn't get that the next week.

This is bad. Who are we putting the bills in a 13-point team with?

There's only two other games.

Three more teams.

They're on Christmas, you'll see.

Sunday's Marquee game. Your piece of shit team, the Cowboys, Jerks, they're in Miami trying to redeem themselves against the Miami Dolphins. I'm assuming Tyreke plays.

That was so weird. You see him walk? He walked quickly into the stadium. He was jumping around the sideline like he had a Fitbit. He was checking steps. He really looks ready to play. They cut away to him too much, I think.

I thought the Monday Night injury was one of the weirdest in-game injury, sagas I've ever seen, because he came out. He never went in the blue tent, or at least they didn't show it. Then he stood on the sidelines. He wasn't sitting. He wasn't on crutches. He was just standing on his bad ankle.

He would sprint to the sideline.

Yeah, then it seemed like he might come in. Then he did come in. Then he came out. Then he came in again. And then he sprinted back out. And it's like, What the hell is going on? Are you hurt or not?

I don't know.

I don't know what's happening. And then he got scratched this week. Very strange guy. I have the Dolphins favorite by three over the Cowboys.

All right, I hit this exactly. It's one and a half. And I think I recommend taking the Dolphins. This is just going to be a bunch of games that Cowboys don't need here.

I don't know.

Don't take the seven and a half. I know you're looking at that one and a half saying plus seven and a half on a teaser. Don't you dare do it. I won't let you.

Maybe your team just need to get slapped in the face.

No, we have some issues. Although, I mean, by the way, Mostart, the way he runs the ball, everyone's talking about Tyrae Kale. I get on JJ all the time because he's a big Dolphins fan. They're screaming about Tyrae Kale for MVP. This guy's got 20 touchdowns. He's a very underrated player right now in the League. Yeah. He's going to have like 26 touchdowns when it's all done?

I have three watchable games. One is Cleveland at Houston. And we think Strat will be back for this, right?

I'll tell you, they're basing it on him being back. Yeah. Seems like it.

I have the Texans by one and a half over Cleveland.

It's what I had. It's two and a half.

It's a tough one. Their pass rush was phenomenal. It might be as good as the Browns. I know it's against a weird team, but-.

What was the job he didn't want to take? Denver? Who's this? D'amico Ryan? D'amico Ryan? Didn't he bow out of the Denver one because he wanted to go to Houston? Yeah, right. He could have either. Smart move.

I guess so. It's very risky, right? They're two, one, and dones before him at Houston.

So if Houston loses that, I think Houston is in they have to keep winning or they're in a lot of trouble range here because they have this home, Tennessee, and add Indy. They're going to have to win the Indy one, too. But I think they have to win this Cleveland. Cleveland could potentially lose it... I think it would be okay, but they have the jets the next week and then add since the last week.

Do we think a 10 and seven is going to get bounced?

Yeah, I think it's possible. Wow.

The bills. Interesting.

Next one is Lions, Vikings. It's in Minnesota. I think the Lions are going to be favored. And I'm putting it in the TikTok zone. I got lions by one and a half.

I got you, B. I said two and a half because I figured it would be like when they played Chicago, they gave three and it was crazy. It's three and a half.

That's too high.

Detroit-favored. And they play again week 18.

I don't agree with that. They're going to put the fucking living shit out of the golf and the crowd's going to be going nuts. This is a bad spot for the Lions. I like the Vikings.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what to make of the line. I don't think they're what we saw Saturday night Detroit. Not quite that.

They want to be up 10-nothing. That's when they look awesome. Last one is Bucks at home for the Jags, the Florida battle. I got the Bucks by one and a half.

You got the Bucks by one and a half?

Yeah.

Oh, that way. Yeah, you're going to get this. Help me figure this out. I had Bucks by two. It's Jags by three.

I win.

Yeah, you win.

How did you have to figure that out?

I don't know. I was lost. Actually, now it's Jags by two as I look at it, but you win either way. Yeah.

Man, do you agree with that line?

Not after what I saw.

Tonight, really. What's good about the Jacks? Why should they be favored by against any 500 or above team?

I don't get it. I think we like Tampa more than a lot of people do, but still.

Well, what's funny is Tampa and Indy are very similar. You don't want to take them seriously. And then if you actually watch the games, they move the ball up and down the field and their quarterback hits guys on third and 8, 3 and 13. In the red zone, he hits tight ends jumping. Both teams just make plays. I know, give it up.

I know he'll crush us, Baker. He will because he just will. But when he throws like an 18-yard pass over the middle. I'm as confident as I am in really top seven quarterbacks.

Both guys, also the teammates like them and the teammates respond to them. You can see that on the TV, too. It is not the their car situation. Fairly watchables, Atlanta is home for the Colts. And I think this is going to be the 90th straight week where the Falcons Lion is going to be weird.

You're right.

I'm going to say Falcons minus one over the Colts.

I said Colts by one. It's Colts by one and a half.

Oh.

Jesus. I take Fandles off the Falcons.

Yeah.

I think everyone's like, Yeah, this team scores 16 points no matter who they play.

Wouldn't you rather have the Falcons at home than on the road, though?

I guess so. I guess so. It just seems like a same deal, Colts. This is in a dome. I don't know. This doesn't scare me.

Do you like the Colts?

Yeah, I'm going to get crushed with the Colts. I had them to not make the playoffs and a lot of parlays and stuff. I'm in a lot of trouble with them.

Falcons defense seems like it's banged up past the point in our turn. That's not helping them. Right. And then they spent all this first round capital on Drake, London, and Pits, and Bijon, Robinson, and none of them are special. They spent a high second round around Ritter. It's a lot of capital to not end up with one guy that jumps out of the TV. And Bijon, especially in the first time of the season, looked like he was really, really talented. But you watch the games and he just doesn't really seem that impactful. I don't know if it's an offensive lines fault or what.

All the teams have passed on Lamar Jackson. The Falcons are.

The dumbest, right? As the free agent. Yeah, it's the least defensible. I think Arthur Smith's a dark horse to get bounced at the end of the season, too. I've never watched that Falcons team and thought, Oh, man, crisp team. All right, five teams are in the poop fector. Seahawks at the Titans. I had the Seahawks favored by one and a half.

I had two and it's two and a half.

You're beating me this week. I know.

I'm barely. I looked at everything. I was like, this is one and a half or two. I really couldn't differentiate.

Broncos are home for The Patriots, and I think this is in The Vegas Zone. I have an idea for The Pets, by the way, because we really need to lose these last three games. We got to take care of business. Right now, we're number two.

Yeah.

I think they should Platoon, Zappy, and Mac, and not even each guy gets a series and it just goes back and forth. I would say every three plays, Belcheck could just say, We're trying something here. It's never been done, but we really think the defense will have trouble adjusting. Every three plays, a new guy is going to come in. They need to just shatter the confidence of whoever is the quarterback. Not that that needs a lot of help because they've been bad, but let's experiment. It's super weird with this. And just make sure that we don't win any of these games.

Well, first of all, I don't know if you're how much of joke here, but where do you think Belichick's head is really with winning these games? He wants to win these games.

He wants to win these games. It didn't seem like he wanted to win the game today in the fourth quarter. I thought the clock management was super weird.

Your idea would work after this week because the problem with platooning, everybody says is, Well, you take your quarterback out of a rhythm. Your quarterback, whoever it is, is coming in, can't be in a rhythm. Belly's happy with 16 for 18. So you can be like, Hey, screw you and your rhythm. It didn't work out. This is what we're going to do. I don't mind that idea.

The rhythm method. Yeah. Broncos, I have favored Broncos minus 5.

All right, you get it. I said four and a half. It is five and a half. Must win for Denver. Must lose for New England. So of course, it's going to be close. That's a night game? That's a Sunday night.

Christmas- Can I do my impression? Is it a night game?

I think it's five. Yeah, I wrote 5:15.

Can I do my impression of whoever the announcements are for this game?

Yeah.

We talked to Sean Payton. We talked to him last night, and he has so much respect for Bill Belichick. He just thinks the world of him. He just couldn't spend enough time talking about what a great football coach is then an hour later. We talked to Bill Belchick last night, and he just has a world of respect for Sean Payton. He just says he is just one of the best coaches he's gone against and really, really respects that guy.

Asking all the right questions.

Have you ever heard of we talked to them yesterday and then there was some revelation? We're like, Wow, that was really interesting.

No, I don't think so. I think they hold back to good stuff. I really do. I know those things go for hours sometimes, and there has to be something good that comes out of them. But I think it's just like, Hey, keep this under your hat. Promise me you won't say anything on the air.

Well, I remember because a couple of times I announced basketball games and we got to meet with the coaches beforehand, and they were way more candid and they're trusting you not to use stuff. But they're like, God damn, that guy's driving me crazy. They're like, Oh, good to know.

But.

Yeah, they just used the boring parts of it.

I think this is a Collinsworth game. This is a Sunday Night game. If he's working Christmas. All right, Eve.

I'm parlaying the Bronco's money line with Collinsworth saying that Sean Payton, they talked to him yesterday and he just has so much respect for Bill Beljack. Parlay, Fandol. Did you see? Did you say they were the same.

Gamer for me? I think they would. Yeah, put that up there, Fandol. Let's have some fun, some Christmas fun.

By the way, I don't know what the exact money figure was, but 110,000 people bet my Bill's same game, Parlay, last week.

Oh, and they won.

They won. 11-1. Yeah, I don't know what the exact number was, but I.

Was excited. Oh, my God. Yeah.

Have some fan duel. Yeah, but.

They're making it all back on your basketball Parlay.

I'm in a basketball Parlay swap. I got to get one this week. Okay. Jets, home for Riverboat Run, now Rowboat Run. And maybe Jacobie and Breset?

Why not?

Honestly, you could tell me any line for this. I said Jets by two. I have no idea.

It's what I had. I had two, it is three.

Five.

And nine versus.

Four in a game. What a dumb game.

Thirteen years have been eliminated from the playoffs in a row? Seems like more.

Yeah, 13. This is going to be a tough YouTube, multi-view day because not only is it Christmas, but a lot of these games aren't that great. Yeah, we have.

Six in the morning or six in the morning.

Fortunately, you can do the three squares instead of four. So you can just not have... I did that with Jets Dolphins. I was like, I got to get that off. I don't want to watch one second of this. Packers are at the Panthers. I have Packers. I put this in big. I'm Packers five and a half.

You're going to get this. I was stupid. I said two. It's four and a half. Why did I say two? I guess because Atlanta, I guess Green Bay is considered better than Atlanta at this point.

So the Packers, they have one of the worst defensive plans in a long time against the giants on Monday night.

Oh, yeah.

That was just abysmal, letting Tommy DeVito just run around. And then the game this weekend was just as bad. And now they could do the trifecta and blow their season. Lafloor went from... Look at LaFloor. Look at this guy doing it without Rogers, too. I actually think he's a firing candidate if they lose this game.

Wow. Yeah, he doesn't lose in December, unless it's the last two weeks, the 17th or December 10th, then he lose a lot.

It's a winnable game for Carolina. Green Bay is banged up.

I.

Know. I know it's so weird. And they got nothing to lose for. Why not? They don't have their pick anyway. Tepper looks a lot better to go three and 14 or four and 13 than it does to go two and 15. So we're trying to win.

There was a play. I don't know if you saw it. It was a bad measurement. And so the defense thought they held and the Panthers thought that they got the first down. So the Panthers stayed on the field, and then Atlanta's offense came on the field, too. So both offenses were on the field.

While the.

Referees figured out what the hell they were going to call. And Ritter stood next to him. They're like, Oh, look at the two quarterbacks. You're going at it. They're talking about it. I was like, Oh, that's not a quarter-bomb. Ritter is about a foot and a half taller than Bryce Young. He is so small. I'm not a big guy, but for God's sake, I can't believe how small he is.

You saying that made me think maybe that should be the overtime roles for-.

Whoever's taller wins.

No, if the game goes to overtime and both teams are under 500, only the offenses can play in the overtime. So one offense has to stop the other offense and vice versa.

I like.

That a lot. Get the game over fast. Yeah, it'd be fun. Maybe the USFL could do that. Packers minus four and a half. That was my guess. So I won that one.

You got.

That one.

I guess five. Yeah, you got it.

Last one is also terrible, Bear's card finals.

Yeah.

In Chicago, Tyler got hurt today, but I couldn't tell if that was... Is he playing next week? How bad was.

The injury? Oh, he got an elbow to the nuts. It was actually funny. As long as he's okay.

My thumb rolling around. I think it's back. Okay. I'm going to say bears by five and a half.

All right. You're going to get this. I said three, and it's four and a half.

Let.

Me do the score here. 1, 2.

3- I think I tied it.

-8 to 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. You're winning eight, seven.

Oh, my God. Three left. What a comeback.

Oh, no, four left. It's tied. You're right, Kyle. You're right. It's eight, eight.

Great job, Kyle. Three left, Christmas Day. Did we have three Christmas Day games.

Last year? I don't think so.

Seems like a lot.

Just an extra nice gift. Oh, you don't like this?

No, I'm excited for it. Just Christmas, Monday, three games.

Yeah.

You know, it's not exciting my wife. Also, I did broach that there was a Celtic Laker Christmas game that I was thinking about going, and I did the I have to go for work excuse. And she's like, But I thought you and Sal were doing your podcast on Monday night. So what are the Celtic-Lakers? I think I just screwed it up.

I love this because I don't want to get into it. But one of the considerations of whether or not you're going to do the NBA countdown was Christmas Day, right? I can't keep missing holidays. And now there's- That.

Was why I didn't want to come back for the second year. I missed Christmas.

And now there's like 14 football games on and basketball.

But my kids don't want to hang out with me anymore. So it's actually way better.

Makes.

Sense. Monday, first game, Chiefs Raiders, the Red Hot Raiders. So my initial instinct was to do Chiefs by 9:00 because it was in Kansas City. And then I started thinking, should they be favored by that much against anybody? And then I said, Fuck it. And it's Chiefs by 9 as my guess.

I wish you would have talked yourself lower. I said 11 and it's 10, so we split it.

Just hard for them to score, man. Kelsey does not look the same anymore. It's so weird. I don't know if he's nursing an injury or what, but he just is moving slower. He's got jet lag from all the private jet flights.

It's not good. I think he got banged up a little, too. He sat out and Tony dropped another ball. And if they weren't playing the Patriots. They wouldn't have covered nine and a half probably today. But I don't know, they just beat up on the Raiders. What? They beat them 31-17 last time?

Yeah. Eagles are home for the giants. And ironically, I had this right around that 10-2, but I did Eagles nine and a half for this.

All right. I got this exactly, 10 and a half. So you got to beat me to tie here in the last one.

Oh, fuck you.

Yeah, sorry. Jesus.

So what are we looking at for Artisa? So you like the Bulls, Chiefs.

And Eagles. We'll do the last game and then we'll figure it out.

All right.

Because I'm going to nail this exactly and we're going to tie.

Okay. I was off by a point and a half. I'll tell you that much.

Okay. 40 Niner is home for the Ravens, and I have 40 Niner by four.

Yeah, you got it. I said six because they've been jacking up these numbers, at least until Thursday, then they go down. It's four and a half.

Oh, Vegas Zone. Interesting.

So we tie. Yeah. Yeah.

All right.

Is that game going to be as good as we hope it is?

As long as the Fortinators are healthy, I just think they smoke everybody. I don't even think this is hard to figure out. They're dominant. Right. Don't you think?

Yeah, absolutely.

If all those dudes are playing, somebody was saying during the... One of the announcements was saying during the game today, it's like watching an All-Star team. They have one of the top four tight ends. They have the best running back. Debo and Ayouk are up there as a combo- We forget about Ayouk.

Ayouk is great, too.

Yeah. Purdy is about as accurate as any quarterback we have in the league, and they have a top three offensive line. It's ridiculous. And their defense can make.

Plays- And their defense, I think, is going to make the difference here. The Ravens don't have that.

And every game, they have a lead.

Yep. All right. This is what I mean. You say, All right, you don't like the plus two, 40, whatever, for Super Bowl. Let's go heavy on the 9ers here because I'd be shocked if they lost this.

Thirteen point T's, Bill's down a half point over the chargers. The 49ers, I know this will make Rahim mad. Taking them through the zero.

And.

Making them plus eight and a half.

At home.

Against the Ravens, that's going to lose? That's good. All right, so we need two more.

You don't like the other two Christmas games?

Chiefs Raiders? I'd want to have the Chiefs at plus three and a half to pull that off. Eagle's giants is a stay away.

This becomes difficult now then.

Yeah, this becomes harder. Colt's Falcons, the Colts going... We take the Colts to plus 11 and a half.

That sounds exciting. The thing is, now you got a bad quarterback, though, right? Now you had Josh on nice. Well, you have Purdy. Good.

Let's take a shot at Minhsie? Jesus.

You could I have my homes. But no, you don't want to do that.

Yeah.

That's what it's all about.

Let's take a break and we'll do a little parencour. We are supported by NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube and YouTube TV, where it's easier than ever to follow the race to the playoffs. And it is a race because it seems like everybody's involved in the playoffs right now. You can get the midseason price starting at $7.9 for the rest of 2023 season when bundled with YouTube, TV, and you can have a court-side seat, a sideline seat, whatever you're close to the action seat is to all these different teams fighting for playoff positions. Fun storyline. It's like, are the bills going to make the playoffs? Can they do it? Their ninth right now is we're hitting into the final couple of weeks. What's going to happen with Philly in Dallas? It seems like Philly has the inroads on that. The NFC South, wide open. Afc South, wide open. All kinds of stuff happen. And there's no better place to watch all those different races than with NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube and YouTube. In addition to Multi View, they've got great features like Stat View and Fantasie View. Check those out if you haven't. But thanks to NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube and YouTube TV for sponsor in this segment.

Truly, it is the best place to keep up with all your favorite teams out of market Sunday games. And now again, watch the rest of the NFL season for a lower price. Get NFL Sunday Ticket starting at $79 when bundled with YouTube TV where you get even more football. Sign up now, YouTube. Com/bs. Lowest price on YouTube to be with base playing rest of 2023 season. Terms and embarkos apply no cancelations. Today's Parent Corner is brought to you by Car Max. Every day as a parent is filled with lots of quick decisions to make for your kids, and they aren't always easy. But when it comes to deciding what car to buy a car, Max makes it simple. You can take a full month up to 1,500 miles to love your car or return it guaranteed. Learn more. Find a car you love today at carmax. Com. All right, what do you got, Sal?

All right. Well, I want to go over the life of a wrestling parent. I don't know if you've experienced it yet so much. I know Ben is into it, right?

Yeah, he's doing it. He's going to start actual matches in January. I thought it was going to be this weekend, but they pushed it.

Okay. Well, my middle guy, Jack, had a tournament. He has to make weight for the Saturday tournament, and he has to weigh 120. And he's 122 Friday night. I was like, Listen, you got to just tough it out. You can't eat anything. He's like, Well, what can I eat? I'm dying. I was like, You can have a couple of pickles. He had two pickles. I was like, Now just go to sleep. It's eight o'clock. We have to be at this tournament. You have to weigh in at seven. Thankfully, it's not an hour and a half away. It's like 20 minutes away. But if you eat anything after six o'clock, it's going to tack on. You're not going to be able to burn it overnight. Look at me. I'm an expert on this picture of hell. So he does it. He wakes up. We're out of the house at 6:35, 6:40. He gets there, weighs in at seven, finally weighs in. He makes weight at 7:10. He's like 1:19 and a half. He makes it great. It's 7:10 in the morning. The thing doesn't start till 9:30. It doesn't make sense for me to go home.

Now I'm in the parking lot drinking a coffee, betting EPL. I'm watching on my phone, like English Premier, and I can't see him until 9:30. So that's a fun weight in the car right there.

So it's a constipated gambling morning in your driver's seat.

Yeah, exactly. The Vikings game doesn't even start till 10:00, so I'm stuck. He doesn't have his match until 11:00 AM. So now we got there like 6:40, it's 11:00 AM, and he's probably going to have another match. It's double elimination. He goes out there, God bless him. Great kid. Doesn't listen to anything I say, gets pinned first period.

And.

Then in the spectator area, I could... You can see his group there. And he immediately gets off the mat and goes to his phone and it's like playing this football game on his phone. I'm like, God damn it. I've been here four and a half hours. He gets pinned in the first period. Now he's playing football. Why am I more worked up than that? I yell, I'm like, Jack, meet me in the lobby. He meets me in the lobby. We walk. It's about a two-minute walk. We meet each other. He says to me, he's like, I swear to God, he did this. He said, Well, what did you think? What did I... What did I think? As if he cradled Dan Gable in the 20 seconds in. I was.

Like, Jack.

You got to shoot, man. It's three one minute periods. You got to be a great. You can't score if you don't shoot. He's like, Yeah, you're probably right. You're probably right. So his second match was much better. He lost a close one. But the what do you think four and a half hours after getting stuck in the first period was bewildering. And that's what you have to look forward to, except your kid will probably be better.

You're like, What do I think? We have to stop at a jack in the box because I didn't go to the bathroom. I've been in four and a half hours.

Holy shit. What did.

You think? Jesus. That's a classic. My parent corner, my daughter came home late, late Thursday night. And I was just thinking about it from my dog's perspective, Merth, who's not a rocket scientist, but the flight was late. She came home at like midnight. So my wife went and got her and comes back and he's sound asleep and then wakes up and the doorbell rings. And all of a sudden, she's coming with a suitcase. It's like, Murph. He fucking loses his mind. It was like she'd come back from Vietnam in 1973. And I was thinking like, what did dogs think when somebody lives here and then they're just gone?

Yeah.

What is their long term memory? Because sometimes when you leave a house and you come home. I could go get a Starbucks and come home a half hour later. And Murph is so excited I just came home. And I was like, I was just here a half hour ago. There's no way this is exciting. But then when Zoe came home, he was jumping up in the air and just losing his mind that she was home. So do you think he thinks she's just gone? Like he's never going to see her again? Or the dog's like, Are they too stupid? I'm giving them too much credit.

I thought about this, and I wonder, so is it anxiety or do.

They think.

Is time different for them? Because obviously one year is seven years. So if she's gone for two months, she's gone- So.

That's like a year?

Over a year. Yeah, it's.

Over a year.

I'm going to... My limited knowledge of this and how much effort I want to put into it, that's what I think. I think it's time seven. So if you were gone for coffee for an hour, you're gone the whole day in their head.

It strikes me that there's way more dogs now than there used to be. Everybody has a dog now. I think when we were growing up, there were probably, I would say, one-tenth as many dogs. It seems like everybody and their brother is a.

Dog now. Talk to Gavin Newsom. I know, that's something else.

But we have such limited knowledge of dogs. I saw this Instagram video, and it was like, Five signs your dog's happy. And it was like, Number one, your dog approaches you and sticks his jaw out. Number two, your dog will come up and kiss you for no reason. Number three, your dog will do zoomies, like those circles and just be super happy. I was like, Oh, Murph does all those things. He must be happy. I'm like, I'm a fucking lunatic. How do I know if he's happy? But we just have no intel. Anyway, so my daughter came home and said, This is great. So glad to have her back. Can't wait. I haven't seen her since the morning. She was friends. She was out. I've seen her for a total of 10 minutes.

Yeah. Listen, you posted a very nice thing about on Instagram, and I think she responded with, I missed you the most, right?

I think she actually said that. Yeah, we went to dinner for Friday for an hour, and that was about it.

Yeah, but to say she missed you the most, that's got to.

Make your wife- Listen, I've learned not to believe anything I read on social media.

There you go.

But good to have her back. It's nice to have the unit. The nucleus is back. I love it. It's nice. I just want to ask Merth. I know we have AI. We have all these technological advancements. I really want to be able to talk to dogs before the end of my life. Thirty years from now, I want technology where we could just find out more. But they might just have nothing going on. They might just be like, I need to take a shit. I need to eat. I'm happy you're here. I'm sad you're not here. And it just might be those five emotions, and that's it.

Yeah, that's good. I know a guy, it's going to cost you like $3 or $4 million who can answer all these questions for you. Who is it? I'll send you the number.

Brad Mulcahy?

Yeah. He talks to dogs.

All right. That's it for Parent Corner. Today's Parent Corner is brought to you by Car Max. Parenting is always going to be a little tricky and filled with split-second decisions, but buying a car doesn't have to be with Car Max. You can take a full month up to 1,500 miles to love your car or return it. That's the 30-day money-back guarantee. Learn more. Find a car you'll love today at carmax. Com. All right, before we go, quick NBA. As you know, I'm not allowed to bet MVP.

I did know this- Wait, I'm going to predict in my head. Who I liked? Don't say Tate, I'm 18 to 1. Stop with that. No?

Celtic is 14 to 1 at home.

That's what it is, right? Yeah.

Pretty good. All right. That's good. I got to say, I was impressed. They had the back to back against Cleveland and then the back to back against Orlando at home on the same week. And it's like, all right, which one are they going to play the shit game in and lose, right? There's no way they're going to play well in all four of these.

Didn't.

Have to. They won all four of them. It was impressive. They would have done that. Last year they were the Bullman.

So Halliburt and 20 to 1? That's what you're saying. No. Well, you told me, Devon Booker, a couple of weeks ago.

You still like that? I just like the odds. It was 26 to 1. But now the Suns look like I'm a little worried about them.

All right. I give up. Who?

Sga 10 to 1.

So.

Here's the case. Well, he did it again last night. I don't know if you saw it, but Denver is up one. They run the worst play ever for this trend where these teams try to kill the clock, like 35 seconds left. That's like, Let's burn as much clock as possible and then get a terrible three with two seconds left. And SGA, they don't call timeout, and it comes down and just nails the shot. So OKC right now, there's 16 and eight. There's second and the west. They're plus 6.8 in a point differential. And I think they're going to be a top three team if they don't do anything. But they have all the shit to trade. And the combo of like, I think you have to be a top two seat to be an MVP. I think you have to be one of the best five players in the league and one of the most valuable guys in your league. And you also be having to be having a really good season. He's averaging almost 31 points a game. He's a first team All-NBA guy by any calculation. And if they make a trade and end up being a 55 or 53-win team, something like that, I just think his odds should be better.

So I was surprised because right now, it's Yoke, which is plus 2.10, Luca is plus 4.30. By the way, you compare Shay to Luca. Okc's team is doing better and his stats are just as good as end of the game stats. He's probably one of the best of the game guys in the league. Embetus plus 4.30, Giannis is plus 8.50, Shay is 10:1, Tatum is 18:1. But to me, Shay should be second in odds right now. I think it should be Yokeage and Shay.

Let me tell you why I like this.

And why I hate it. Okay.

I like it because I think it's important in these things for a guy.

You're.

Suggesting to get votes. I feel like votes are important in these things. People will scream about McAfrey. I'm like, That's not a good bet. Running backs don't get votes ever.

Right.

Stop it. I don't care what you're seeing on your TV. Sga was fifth in votes last year.

Right.

So he's got some... I don't think you voted for him.

And that's what I hate about it. I voted for him fourth, I think, for MVP last year.

All right. So he gets votes. So he's in that group, the select few that get vote. What I hate is you typically give me four guys to bet on for MVP, and I just think it's like you and Dr. Jay, it's a practical joke on me. You're just laughing. You're just laughing. Are you.

In house or something? I know. Every time I do this, it's always about the value- The odds. -of the odds in the moment. And when Booker was 26 to 1, it was just those are pretty good odds because it seemed like Phoenix had a chance to be really good. And the more we watched them, I think Phoenix has a lot of flaws. I don't think they have any chance to be in the top three team.

So he averaged 31 last year, though. You know that, right? I mean, I know you know that.

Yeah, but their team is way better. And I think if the team, they're 40 and 42 last year, and he was number five MVP. This year, 16 and eight, and I think the thing... They're also, I think, the highest scoring team in the league or their highest scoring team in the west. But what I like is the trade possibility because they have expiring contracts. They have all these picks. They might go get Laurie Marketing. Right. They could get, I don't know, pick anybody to put in there. And even if they got Terry or from OKC, they're going to get one more guy and they're going to one more big guy.

And then so what seed will they end up with for him to... Where they have to get?

So this was my big prediction this year was I thought they were a 50-win team because of their youth and because they had a good guy and they had stuff to trade. I think they are unquestionably a top three seed because the thing with young teams is they're just healthier and there's less variance with them. They're just good every game because they're not... It's not like the clippers where you're like, I don't know if James Harden is going to show up tonight because he's 34 years old. So with them, 16 and eight is the right record. You could argue they actually blew a couple of games they should have won, but that means they're on pace for 40 and 24. So they're on pace for 54, 55 wins, and that's before the trade. So they're going to add one more piece of this. The other thing is they hit with Kason Wallace, the guard they took. That guy's good. He's playing for them. He hits three. All right, here's.

What I'm going to do. I'm going to bet it. I'm not.

Telling you to bet it. I'm just saying I like.

The value. It doesn't even have to win. But if he doesn't get 50 votes, which he had 46 last year, if he doesn't get 50, you have to ask Murph what his deal is and what he believes and what he has.

Until- I have to have the podcast with Murph.

Until he answers. You have to repeatedly ask him until he answers. That's your punishment. I thought.

Yokeage was going to cruise, but Denver is down to 17 and 10. Yeah. And I don't know, are they going to get to 50 wins? And beat versus Yokeage has always been an argument for the first third of the season. But I think Shay, when you look at how young that team is, right? This is the shit's first year. It's Taylor Williams's second year. They have that whole Josh Gidey situation, which nobody knows when it's going to play out. They don't really have a deep bench. I think the fact that they're a top two seat is pretty great. So that's the case. Right.

All right. I already bet, Yana, at the end of the year, I do have four guys to look at, so I might as well have SGA in there.

I like the Yanes bet too. Yanes for the year is 31.6, 10.7 rebounds of five assists already. But I just don't like the odds as much. All right, what do you got to plug?

Lots of things. Lots of things against the odds a couple of times this week. That'll be fun. Ringerwise, guys, I hit my best bet, my dog, my prop parlay. That's always a good time on Sunday. We'll come to you on Christmas Eve. Through the ringer with Tate Tuesday morning and Cousin Sal's winning weekend. Boomer, Siason on this week. By the way, I asked Sims. I had Phil Sims on last week. I asked him your question about whether or not he was rooting against Tostetler in Super Bowl 25.

What is that?

He got pissed. He left the Zoom. We had half an interview. No, he said it was a good question, but he absolutely was rooting for him because then he went into how his ankle really hurt. It's not like he could have gone there. I'm sorry. You talked the question. Yeah, that's it.

There you go. Good job by you, Kus.

Good job by you, buddy.

That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kyle, Creighton, and Steve, Siruddy, as always. Thanks to Kus and Sal. Don't forget who Rewatchable is coming on Monday night, and I will see you on The Speed on Tuesday.