Coming up, football. Basketball. Almost 2 hours. Man, this one's loaded. Next. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast network. Hope you checked out the rewatchables. We did. On Monday, we covered Robin Hood Prince of Thieves as the first installment of wait. That movie made how much money theme week that we're doing. I always have to raise my voice when I do that part. We have an unbelievable one coming on Monday. It's an older movie, but Cr has been doing Wayne Jenkins on the pod for a while. And there might be a new character to rival Wayne Jenkins. We'll see. It was early. It was test driven. On this podcast to big success. We'll find out how it goes long term, but very excited about this one. It was a really fun one. So there you go. Hates audiobooks are on Spotify now, especially if you're in America and if you're a Spotify premium customer, man, it's like over 200,000 books. The cool thing is it's 15 hours a month that you get. So if you try out a book and you don't like it, just move to the next book. You can use up 20 minutes of your 15 hours.

I think it's one of the best things the company's done since we've been a part of it. So check out audiobooks. They are now available on Spotify. Coming up on this podcast, going to talk to Howard Beck and Michael Pina. Three big things we've noticed from the first two and a half weeks of the NBA season. And then our guy Benjamin Solak is going to come on to talk about best future bets going forward for the NFL season. Last but not least, Raheem Palmer came on to join me for million dollar picks. This is the week. This is my favorite gambling week of the season that we've had in NFL. So we're going to talk about that, make some picks. It's all next.

First.

Our friends from Projeb. All right, we're taping this. It's middle of the afternoon before the two Thursday night here. So if anything crazy happens, don't blame us. Howard Beck is here. Michael P is here from the ringer. We are going to talk about one big thing that each of us has noticed about the first two plus weeks of the season. Howard. I'll start with Big. We don't know what the other person's big thing is. We're just going to throw them out. Howard, throw it out at us and let's talk about it.

This was the hardest part of the assignment, was like trying to anticipate not overlapping. In the text, you said like big picture. And my brain immediately goes to the biggest of big pictures. But it also coincided with a little bit of chatter on Twitter today. So it's appropriate. I have been fascinated by, written about, and talked ad nauseam about in recent years, whether the era of the super team and then partially as attached to that dynasties are just over and it's way too early in the season to determine anything about anything, in my view. But it's interesting where the trends are going, and it was highlighted today by this series of tweets. Kyle Newbeck does a great job of covering the Sixers, wondering out loud if the way the team is defending, I wonder this is him tweeting. I wonder if the Sixers will be better served looking for a well fitting role player or two at the deadline rather than hunting for a star. And of course, we all know Daryl's always star hunting. Matt Moore comes back with they're going to trade for another star. It's going to fuck things up and it'll be unfortunate.

We're in a quote, you need to play team basketball era right now. And I thought that was interesting. To which Seth Part, now our friend, the analytics expert writing at the Athletics, says, in general, I think we over index on the one team that happens to have won the most recent title as the example of, quote, how you have to play. But I agree with Matt that the last five to eight years of playoff basketball have illustrated the shortcomings of a stars and scrubs approach, which led me back to my general view or assessment.

Of the last five to eight years.

In general anyway, which is things are different. Things are different. And look at the two super teams that are attempting it right now. The clippers are trying. It too early know judge it. Harden's played only a couple games.

It's not too early. It's late enough to judge it.

You were down on the Harden Clippers before they even had Harden. You were like killing them.

Even the concept of they might not make anyway, go ahead.

And then we have the Suns now suns have been banged up. We still don't have proof of concept because there hasn't been enough time yet of their three on the floor. But part of this is the limitations of doing this exercise now anyway, in a time, in an era where it's so hard to fill out the rest of your roster, so you don't have any room for error because you have all maxes and minimums, you are so top heavy. And so the Suns are top heavy and injuries are undermining them right now. Maybe it'll work out. The Clippers are super top heavy. And I will disagree with you, Bill, in the sense that I think there's still a possibility of things working out. I'm not bullish on the Clippers at all. I don't believe in what they're doing, but there's still a possibility of it. Those are the only two teams that are even trying it. And I should just say a super team to me is at least three stars. It's three top 20 to 25 guys. It's not two. It's not LeBron and Ad. And we haven't had a super team win at all since 2018 with the warriors.

Otherwise, it's like Kawhi at an ensemble, LeBron and Anthony Davis at an ensemble, giannis ensemble, steph ensemble, jokic ensemble. And I think that that's two things. One, super teams may not just be viable now, especially because of the new CBA. And two, I think that maybe I don't want to say the end of anything, but for now, I think that really endangers the idea of a dynasty. And I know, Bill, you've thrown out the idea that the Nuggets could become that because they're young, they're under contract, all this, but shit happens and we're already seeing it. Jamal Murray's got a hamstring that's going to knock him out the rest of the month. And I'm not saying that dooms their season, but stuff always happens and it's just hard to sustain. So, anyway, that's been on my mind. And the series of tweets today just kind of like crystallized this idea that maybe this is just where we are for a while.

Man, that was almost like a Ted Talk. I enjoyed that. I was just sitting back letting you cook. What do you think about that, Peanut? Very much.

First of all, a lot of pressure on my big picture idea now, which does not even measure up. I think it's really real. The question here is about the CBA and its impact on how you can build your team right and how you construct your roster in terms of how many superstars, how many max contracts you can afford. And going forward, that's basically going to be impossible. So I think that there's a difference between also, like, super team and an ability to build a dynasty, because I do think that the Denver Nuggets could be a dynasty. Calvin Booth has spoken publicly about not necessarily angling to win the title this year, but trying to win three in the next five or two in the next four, whatever it is. So from that perspective, it is really interesting. I mean, teams are just under extreme financial pressure, I think, going forward with the second apron, and we'll see what happens with the Phoenix Suns. As you said, they're top heavy. We'll see what happens with the Clippers. I'm slightly more bullish on the Clippers than I think anyone who covers the NBA right now. Apologies, Bill, but it's a terrible take.

But keep.

Yeah, you kind of see also because of the CBA teams sort of going all in right now that wouldn't otherwise like the Celtics are a really good example with the trade for Chris Apsporzingis and paying him with the extension. Drew Holliday, they trade for him. He's an unrestricted free agent, but they're probably going to extend him. And obviously they give Jalen Brown the biggest contract in NBA history. So what is the shelf life of that team and that core? I would assume that it's like a two, three year max window, probably not even that long. So that aspect of it is really interesting. And just the cap ramifications are as much of a factor on this as anything that happens on the basketball court.

I agree with everything you guys said. I would add one thing, so much talent now that I think that helps with this strategy. I was thinking about it last night because the Celtics lose that game to Philly. And Philly's, just you know, you could credit Nick nurse for some of this, but I really do feel like whatever Harden was doing to that team from a flow standpoint and just his moodiness and just never knowing what you're going to get from him to game to game and the fact that he doesn't play defense and just little things that seem to matter in basketball. Removing that and just replacing him with Roko and Nick Batum, who are whatever they're 9th men, 10th men, but they're two long guys, right? They're two guys you can throw at Tatum and Brown. And then most of hardened shots go to Maxi and some go to Tobias Harris and Uber gets some. And there's this distribution of the assets that the team just made way more sense to watch. And I wonder what Howard was talking about. Know this Hollywood movie way of doing stuff where it's like just get your three stars and then just get a bunch of that guys and you got a movie.

I don't know if that works now. I think the league is too deep. You watch Minnesota, like they're bringing Nas Reed off the bench. Nas Reed would have been a top three guy for a team 15 years ago and he's like their 7th guy. So depth seems super important. And I would rather have the Philly situation of basically two potential All Stars and then depth versus what Phoenix is in with the three guys and then cross your fingers that they can play. But meanwhile, poor Matt ishbya the coward. He's all in on the old model, but I think he's probably late on it, right?

He's not only late on it, but it was like even the Durant deal, right? That was the more defensible or the more obvious of the two plays, right? Like, they didn't exactly give up anything. A lot to get. But the more obvious one was if you can get Kevin Durant, you do it. But the amount of assets they gave up, they've mortgaged their entire future. We thought it was catastrophic for the Brooklyn Nets when they sent all this stuff to the Celtics for Garnett and Pierce, right? What the Suns have done to mortgage their future and the Clippers. We have two teams now that are objectively in worse shape in terms of future assets than the Nets were at the time of that infamous deal. And listen, there's still upside potentially for these two current teams. But if they both crash and burn, the consequences could be much more catastrophic than what the Nets were dealing with in the aftermath of that one.

Right.

By the way, you mentioned the Timberwolves. They kind of meet my definition of three stars. If Anthony Edwards is going to be a star this year, and if we consider Gobert is still a star.

Howard, we don't I don't know if we consider Towns a star either, but that's a team that has the depth across the mean. I would argue what McDaniels did against Boston the other night, I would probably put him higher in the power rankings. I've never seen anybody guard Tatum like that before, not even Miami peak. Miami guarded him like that.

I don't want to spoil my big picture subject here, but we're kind of stepping on it right now. Should I just give it up?

Yeah, just go just dive into it.

Okay.

So I previewed this season with a column that had 20 increasingly bold predictions, and one of them was Minnesota, finishing with a top three record in the Western Conference. They look really good right now. Number four in net rating five and two. I still think that it's possible they finish top three in the Western Conference, but I wanted to take this one step further and ask you guys if we should consider them a bona fide title contender right now.

I'm there. I did this on Tuesday in the power poll. I had them fifth, and I think I put it in pen, not I. I'm there with them from a size defense standpoint, and whatever is going to happen with Edwards over the last six, seven months, I mean, there's contenders and then there's like, are these guys a finals favorite? And I just feel like Denver is levitating above everybody else. The Celtics, as soon as they fix two bench spots, are probably the two. But I think Minnesota is right there underneath. Right. I had them with Golden State and Philly. Those were the five. And then we'll see who else joins, but to me, Minnesota, I think they're there. What do you.

You know, look positive sign that the chemistry seems sound. Ish it's early positive that Gobert is now talking about, like, yeah, this is the best. I've felt it forever. Physically back concerns and whatever that were, I guess, hampering him last year. That matters because it felt like Gobert was maybe starting to trend even before he left Utah, even before the trade, it seemed like he was maybe trending downward as that supreme the walking top ten defense is what we referred to him as. Right. You plug him into any team, they're a top ten defense just by Gobert being there. And it seemed like maybe that was over based on age, mileage, wear and tear. But if he can do that again in this context, and they can have it figured out between him and Cat nas Reed plug and play with those guys.

Don't forget about the best player in the league.

Nas Reed, best player in the league. Nas Reed, right. Just a percentage point ahead of the Per 100 king.

Nas Reed.

Was it last night, the pass. He had this incredible pass the other day, too. He was in transition, dribling up the court, and then it was the lob to Edwards, right? Yeah, they do. They have a really interesting mix of high end talent and depth, which is the really tough thing to do right now because eventually your high end talent makes too much money for you to have any depth whatsoever, which, again, this is the argument against dynasties. Eventually, whether it's the Nuggets, whether it's way too early to talk about the Thunder, but the Thunder have all this cool young talent. Eventually you have to pay guys. When you have to start paying guys, you have to start losing guys. Anyway, Timberwolves contender right now. I'm going to pump the brakes. I'm just going to say.

There were.

Too many warning signs with this team even before Cat went down. And Kat's entire career is one big flashing warning sign. So I feel like the bar for them to prove to us that they are legitimate should be higher based on their own track record and frankly, Kat's track record as their centerpiece for so many years. And I know Ant Edwards is essentially the centerpiece now, but Cat looms large in this picture, and you can't just wave him away, and you can't wave his seven, eight years away.

I would say just the recipe here is best defense in the NBA, which they are, and I think is totally sustainable throughout this season because of how Gobert has played. He's averaging over 13 rebounds a game. The field goal percentage at the rim when he's the closest defender is just like, microscopic. He looks vintage. He looks like he was when he was winning defensive Player of the Year awards him. And then just having a guard who looks like I don't know if this is hyperbolic, but he looks like young Dwayne Wade with a three point shot right now. That's what Anthony Edwards is. He's 28 and 550, 40, 85 shooting splits. I think most of that is pretty sustainable throughout a regular season for him. And it's more than the numbers, though. It's just how he's processing defenses. The game is very much slower this year, you can already tell, than it was for him in his first few seasons, where I know his long two shot rate is really high right now through a few games. But when he does turn those shots down and he's patient and he's like, waiting for cutters along the baseline or different opportunities to open up in a player, sometimes he gives it up and moves and gets it back and attacks from a different angle.

That's the type of stuff that super duper stars do. And the fact that he's already doing it at this young age, this early in the season, showing real comfort with Jaden McDaniels, with Mike Conley, with Gobert. He threw a lob to Gobert the other night when last season, he basically never even looked at Gobert when he was rolling down the paint. So I just think these pieces make so much sense. They have so much depth, they have space, they have so much size, and they match up really well with the best team. And, I mean, they spanked the Denver Nuggets a little while ago and they.

Beat the the Edwards piece. The decision making still makes me a little nervous because they should have lost the Celtic game in regulation. If Missoula calls a timeout and actually sets up a play, maybe the game goes differently. But he heats up in a way that reminds me of the best players of all. Don't, I feel totally comfortable saying that. He takes over games for three, four minutes in ways that remind me of the best players I've ever seen. And Howard We're, the two old guys. I don't think that's nuts to say. When Edwards is feeling it on both ends for three straight minutes, it's way, way up there. It's at a different level. And to me, that's why they're a real contender, because they have somebody who can elevate like that. Shay can do it, but he can't do it on the other end. And Shay's a good defensive player, but not Edwards was like he imprinted himself on that overtime in a way that I thought was pretty unique. So you throw that with the other stuff. I'm with you. Howard on, you know, he's the fart in the church of this team right now.

I would say that one of the reasons why people are skeptical about this team is obviously their offense. When Towns is on the court with Gobert, so far, 118.9. Offensive rating, extremely good. The Denver Nuggets, this seat are 118.4 just for some comparison and some context. And they're doing things on defense that they just never have done for like half a decade. Like, they're not fouling. They're grabbing defensive rebounds. They're getting back in transition.

When you can protect the rim and you can defend the two best perimeter guys in the other team, that's like 97% of the battle. What we're talking about ties into Mine. So let's take a break and then we'll go into mine. Score early this NFL season with FanDuel, America's number one sports book. Right now, new customers get $150 of bonus bets when your 1st $5 moneyline bet wins. I am putting up a special bet on Friday that's going to be from FanDuel. We're waiting to see some of the lines, but you can listen to Million Dollar Picks with Me Raheem later. We love the Ravens in a tease. Just as a spoiler alert, join on the action on FanDuel live same game parlays find Bets New Explore tab parlay Hub just the best visit fanduel.com BS Kickoff the NFL season FanDuel official partner of the NFL you must be 21 plus in president select states. $5 pregame moneyline wager required. First online real money wager only. $10 1st deposit required. Bonus issued as non withdrawable bonus bets that expire seven days after receipt. Cterms at Sportsbook Fanduel.com all right, so here's mine. And it ties into what Peanut was just talking about with Minnesota.

I think size has become the most important thing in the league and think about how different that is from where we were even ten years ago or where a team like the warriors could go 73 and nine or the Miami Heat winning 27 games where it's like centers, whatever, just grab whoever. You look at the best teams now, the teams that I think have a chance to win the title, just go through them. Not only does Denver have Yokich, but they also have Gordon and Porter and Calvin. Booth talked in the Koc piece about he just cares about length. He wants just like size all over the place. The Celtics have Porzingis and they have Tatum and they have Brown and they have Horford and they're just kind of long all over the place. Philly's got embiid and now they have all these long wings and they're just kind of a bitch to play now. Golden State I don't think totally counts with Looney and Draymond and Wiggins, but they can at least fight it off. But you saw last night with Jokic where Jokic owns the warriors now. I don't see what they do with him going forward.

Minnesota, we talked about not just go bear Towns and Reed, the fact that they always seem to have two of them out there, but then McDaniels on the wing and his ability to guard basically anybody of any height. Milwaukee's got Giannis and Lopez. Phoenix is a no. Lakers have Ad and what their size was one of the reasons know they got to the final four last year. And then this is one of the reasons down on the Clippers just night after night, they're not going to have the size or the ability to protect the rim or just do all the things you're going to need to do when you're playing all these teams. So, Howard, I wonder, are we back in the is this Samson, Elijah and Parish and McHale time? Is this the new wave version of that with threes? Is that where we're headed?

It's really fascinating. Now that Porzingis knock on wood, knock on everything, that he stays healthy, is this really effective player who is much more of the new age big man.

Right.

He's great at he'd do other things but primarily shoots threes. So he's going to pull the other center away.

Block shots.

Porzingis versus Embiid. To the extent that sixer Celtics has been a thing for a while now, it actually did hit me at one point. Oh, wow, we haven't had like a big man thing in a while and oh, wait. Embiid versus Jokic last year, they only played each other once because Embiid was out the second time. But their head to head because of the MVP race was a big deal. Their rivals, of a sort, because of the MVP races of the last couple of years, they don't play each other enough. But I was like, well, no, that was the first step toward us getting big man rivalries again. And the big men mattering enough that we actually get for the longest time, it's been watching Durant and LeBron go at each other steph and whoever you want to plug into the equation, two centers going at each other, we could actually get excited.

Yeah. How about the Dwight Howard?

That part of it feels like a throwback.

Well, Dwight Howard with the five six straight first team o NBAs, or the year that Andre Drummond made a third team omba. Like, the center thing was dead. It was over.

It was dead. It was so dead that the NBA made all star ballots. Two guards, three front guys. It took centers off the ballot and.

Bring the old ballot back. We're ready. Let's have centers back on the ballot. I think we have enough again.

But the interesting thing is this. Whereas back in the day, it was about Elijah Wan, Ewing, Morning, Shaq Smith, whoever, David Robinson, and they were definitely defensive forces, but you played through them. The value of size in the NBA once upon a time was if you got a really big, really strong dude who could get really close in the paint, no one's going to be able to stop him from scoring. And now it's a variety of things.

Right.

Jokic is not the classic scoring center, but he could certainly score at a high level. But his playmaking is what makes him truly elite. Embiid is kind of a hybrid of old school and new school. Porzingis is a shooter, rim protector. They're all in different towns. Yeah, they're just in different forms now. Part of the evolution of the big man is that it's now resulted in you've got all these different versions of a really impactful big man, and they're not all doing it the same way, but that's kind of the fun of so, yeah, like, they're really relevant again. And watching them go at each other actually matters now in a way that it hasn't mattered in a long time.

And pina the other piece of this. Even the bad teams and the mediocre teams have a guy, right? Like, Houston's been one of the most fun league pass teams this year. Shanghun is like a real this is really happening now, like, in a real way. I don't know how he grew two inches, but he's impactful the kings who suck right now. They have Sabonis. Memphis has Jaren Jackson, who at least he doesn't rebound like the normal centers do. But you go through the line and it's almost like if you don't have this is why I'm so suspicious of Phoenix. Like, I just don't see Nurkage being able to battle these dudes night after night after night and stay healthy. What were you going to say about this?

It's not only the size at the center position. And the spurs are another team. By the way know they're playing Victor Wemignyama at the four with Zach Collins, and I think know it's about having fives and big fours. Who can shoot, who can put the ball on the deck, who can drive, who can create plays. All that pass vision and defend multiple positions. That's like what it is right now. And I think that's really important. Size will always matter in basketball. But the thing that's really interesting to me, that touches on this is just kind of the combination of that with the death of the old school point guard. Like the six two traditional pass. First guy where you look. At the spurs as this really interesting example, and I don't know if this is going to work, probably won't, but they just completely are punting on the point guard position with Jeremy. Sohan you look at the Oklahoma City Thunder are just huge at every position because Josh Giddy is like 610 or whatever he is. And I personally look at the Thunder and I think it's great that Chet is playing at Chet, who's looked fantastic.

He's playing at the five. He can space. He can do so many amazing things with the basketball. But I look at how the spurs are playing with Wembenyama and putting him next to Collins or Bassey or whoever, and they'll play Benyama at the five sometimes and he looks great. But I want to see another big next to Chet, too, and someone who has some skill. I don't know who that is right now, but if they can bring someone in just because they're a little small in the front court and when he comes out of the mean, sometimes they just have these really small lineups and they get beat up on the boards. But that's just really interesting to me and Phoenix to what you said about Nurkish. They're going to be in a little bit of trouble potentially, but that's another team that just has totally punted on having a point guard. I don't know if they'll do that for the entire season, it's kind of come back to bite them already with just like their turnover rate and how.

They can't especially in the last 30 seconds of a game, like the inability to guess who's good in the last 10 seconds. A point guard who knows how to go into the corner and get the ball and take a foul and make two free throws. Yeah.

So even I'm watching the Orlando Magic. I know Cerudi is on this call. I don't mean to blow smoke up your ass, Rudy, but they're probably going to win the title in 2027.

They.

Look so incredible. They're built for the future. They have guys who have skill at every position. Anthony Black has size. He was guarding Luca on post ups and not getting completely destroyed. He's not huge. He looks like he's twelve years old but forcing turnovers. And Suggs plays up a position. He's like the smallest guy on the court sometimes. So I think size is like size plus skill has always been where the league is trending towards. And we might be hitting a point now. We're really season where we're here. Exactly.

Yeah. I wonder as we were watching centers getting phased out in the early two thousand and ten s and they're like these relics to the way basketball used to be played. Like somebody like Mosgoff Mosgoff wouldn't play 1 minute of an NBA game. Now I just think he'd be too tall and clumsy and Roy Hibbert. Yeah. Roy hibbert. Guys like that. It reminds me of I actually like watching the WNBA games now. I like the style of it. And one of the things that changed about the WNBA over the last 25 years was they were big. They had like that Samson Elijah on kind of set up for the players and it was just kind of clumsy and the shooting wasn't good enough. And then you watched over the last ten years the slashing kick drifted into that league. It completely changed the style. And I think we're seeing it here with the big guys where those Roy Hibertys are gone. And all these new guys that are coming in the league are guys like Chet who are 7ft but have learned how to either shoot threes or play with the ball at the top of the key and just things that we don't see anymore.

And then the other like the the revelation for me with Porzingis was like house was telling me he did this last year in Washington, but I never trust House. He was like, if you put a smaller dude on Porzingis, he will bring that dude's ass down into the paint and he will jump hook right over him. I was like, all right, we'll see. Anytime somebody puts somebody small on Porzingis, he goes at them. Same thing for like the Celtics are trying to punish teams that do that, at least in theory when they're playing well. But the versatility of these dudes, even somebody like Vusovich, who is he even like a top ten offensive center anymore, I don't even know. But he's somebody who in the right matchup could have 35. So it feels like you can't compete for a title now unless you have somebody who can at least trade punches with one of these.

At least I was going to say or at least protect the rim because I think gobert in the right circumstances could have already been the backbone of a contending team. But I don't know that Voch could have been. In fact, I'm certain he could not have been. And I think it's the problem for I had this broad question, and I think I remember even having this conversation with a couple people at Sloan, I think, a year and a half ago. And this came back to not haunt me. But I got the answer to my question, which was, can a team built around a primarily offense first center, in this case, Jokic, win a championship in an era where what you really needed out of the center position more than offense was rim protection and mobility that allowed you to defend away from the basket and various places on the court. Because of the era that we're in and all the screen and roll and all the need for bigs to be able to guard a lot of area, could you build a championship team and a respectable enough defense around a guy like Jokic? Well, a few months later, we had the answer, but the mini version of that is the Kings with don't.

Unless the Kings could go find like an Aaron Gordon and Contavious Caldwell, Pope and everything else, I'm skeptical of their ability to make those steps forward. And I do think, like, choosing between them, like, all right, Embiid can do both. Jokic is just such a phenomenal elite offensive player in so many ways, playmaking scoring that it almost doesn't matter that he's not your prototypical rim protector. He just has to play passable defense and they've got all this size to it still matters, like who you've got around. You right, all that said. But I think Booch is the obsolete version of this. He can get you your 20 or 25 points. He's never going to be. We've seen it. We've got enough years of him in Orlando and Chicago to know that is not the model that is going to get you anywhere in the NBA.

Well, yeah, what I was going to say is that just beyond your quote unquote, front court, like having size everywhere. Like Aaron Gordon, we keep bringing him up. He's the reason why he was the big advantage that the Denver Nuggets had in the NBA Finals. There was no answer for him. And he had so many gravy buckets where he would just duck in on Vincent, like you couldn't put anyone on him who was smaller. And the Miami Heat was just full of just a roster full of guys who were smaller than Aaron Gordon or he would take them down to the block. So I think that just having as much size as before the season. I wrote about the Clippers and just how optimistic I was before they traded for James Harden. And one of the things I wrote about was how maybe they shouldn't be targeting another ball handler. They should be targeting someone like John Collins and just getting as much size as you can in your front court. Obviously, they chose to go a different route, and Mason plumley's injury has them behind an eight ball right now, but having as much size as possible.

So you aren't vulnerable on those post ups from guys like Aaron Gordon or Jason Tatum or whoever. Kawhi Leonard on switches and mismatches, because that's what the playoffs are now anyway as well. It's just a lot of mismatch. Yeah, it's just it's an interesting phenomenon.

Your offense better be just unbelievable if you're not going to have this stuff at this point. Like for Phoenix to win four straight rounds, you're talking Booker and Durant averaging 60 points a game combined for two months. On top of the fact that the no point guard piece. You got twelve fouls from Eubanks and Nurkage. Who knows if Nurkage is even going to make it to December. That guy's injury history is terrible. I like Minnesota. Somebody texted me today that Minnesota to win the in season tournament was 22 to one. And I was like, that's the perfect team to win the in season tournament. A team that a tournament that nobody is even sure we totally care about, but I could potentially see that happening.

If you're betting on the in season tournament, you need to reevaluate your life. I'm just going to say that to the listeners out there.

If you're betting on reevaluate it right now. And I'm betting on it. Have you seen Shangoon yet in person?

Beck I have not.

And I think I missed the Rockets all of their trips through here last year. They haven't exactly been a high priority to see him personally.

Me neither. I haven't seen him yet. I'm dying to see him because there's definitely some Yokaji. I hesitate to use it. Yokich is on another level, but there's some discount Yokaji stuff with him, the passing, which he always had the footwork, and I just think he's really hard to play against and he seems really confident now. They have the right team around him, at least for a young up and coming team. Pina do you have them in your predictions for any sort of like, I'm psyched for this team, or.

Have, I'm working on a Shingoon profile right now. So I've had a conversation with Shingoon, EME, Raphael Stone, a whole bunch of people that should be coming out next week, hopefully. I'm obsessed with him, have been for a couple of years now. And when I heard that he grew two inches, I was just like, this is just absolutely incredible. And he looks if you just look at obviously the numbers are kind of eye popping right now, but defensively, his mobility, his strength, he just looks like a different player. That entire team looks incredible. I mean, he has a real point guard with Fred Van Fleet. Dylan Brooks gives him this moxie on both ends. I think they're top ten in offense. I think they're fifth in net rating.

Right.

Just like a crazy thing right now where EME Oduko would probably win coach of the year if the season ended tomorrow. But he looks amazing the way they're finally playing through him. And he just allows all every other young piece. Like, their role is way more clarified. Like, Jalen Green goes five for six by in the three point last night. He's not taking these crazy contested step back, long twos on every other possession anymore. So I just think he's really smart. And baby Jokic is kind of I mean, he looked up to Jokic growing up. That was his as. The size isn't there, which is a big part of Yokich's dominance in the post and on those short roles.

But at least he's at least tall enough now. I think at six nine, this didn't work. But at 611, this now works. Yeah.

And he's super crafty. He's got that shot put shot from the free throw line. That's like going in every single time now. So he's got touch and he's making the pass that won't get you the assist, which is something that he always used to do. So he's just really seeing the floor really well. And he's still super young. I think he's just turned 21, I want to say. So the fact that he's in his third year, they drafted him when he was like 18 years old. So the future is amazing, and the present is just beautiful.

Yeah, well, the defense was so bad with him last year that even he definitely was something last year. There was no question. It was like, all right, this guy's going to be something. But it was like, but what? Is he just going to be one of those good stats, bad team guys? Beck one of the great things about this, OKC had it. They had him. They traded the pick. They traded it to Houston and did one of those trade backs and grabbed assets thing. And this guy is like the most OKC guy. Like, can you imagine him on OKC? They just could have easily had him and Chet next to each other on this crazy, weird team. They already have that.

I love watching Dream right there.

Oh, my god. He's like literally the perfect guy to put next to Chet.

Bill sam Preston could go out right now and buy 72 more Alpine Shangoons because he has all of the picks until the end of time. If they need a Shangoon, if they need anything, they could just go shopping anytime.

Howard. Howard, there's only one Shangoon. Let's not get crazy.

Yeah. I guarantee it. It must drive Presty crazy. He's like, I fucking nailed this. I have 200 million picks. We have an awesome team that might actually win like 48 games. And Shangoon was right there. And I can't believe we fucked that up.

But that's how you know a team is really good at assessing talent, is when you can point to something that was a mistake, where we could sit here and go, oh, man, they'd love to have that one back. And yet you look at their roster and go like, no, man, they're fine. Yeah, maybe they'd be better, but also, eventually, again, you can't pay everybody. But actually, one other quick thought, as I was at the Garden last night, for Wemby mania, which ended up being sort of a dud just for that night. Wemby is not a dud, but it did not live up to the hype. There's too much hype for him to live up to. He can't possibly do it every night. And the garden's different.

But Howard, are you saying Wemby is overrated? Is that what you're saying right now?

Wow.

That chant, by the way. So that chant broke out, I think it was like, in the third quarter. He goes to the line, fourth quarter, and I've been there for a lot of different chants of various degrees and various themes and levels of insults and profanity. It wasn't that bad. It lasted only a couple of seconds. It wasn't that loud. It wasn't that bad. But it was still striking like, whoa, folks, come on.

Hold on.

Do you realize who you're it's fine. It'll be a fun little footnote eventually when he becomes, like, a five time MVP.

Can I say something on that, though? Yeah. I don't blame the Knicks fans for any sort of bitterness after the century they've gone through, when they lash out, I'm like, you know what? I get it, guys.

It's fine. But also, it's playing to type, right? This is kind of what we expect of New York fans to be edgy. They're going to boo all their own draft picks. It's fun. It's part of just the landscape. It hit me at one point last night before the game, talking to people about Wemby and then somebody know and blah, blah, and Chet Holmgren's name came up. And I realized, like, man, poor Chet Holmgren. Like, he not only injured his whole rookie season when he could have been getting maybe this kind of buzz, and he's look, he's put on some weight and muscle and everything since then. He's probably better off now having red shirted the year, essentially. But if Wembanyama had come over one year later, we would be all buzing about like, did you see what Chet Holmgren did last night? Because that dude does a lot of really amazing shit. And he is also really tall and really long and has guard skills in the body of a center and is really fluid and just moves with a ball. He shoots the three better than Wembenyama. At this stage, we would be talking about what an alien Chet Holmgren was instead of Wembanyama.

And he's like, almost maybe it's to his benefit that he's kind of, like, in the shadow almost at this stage.

And you left out he's a competitive motherfucker. That's what I like the most about him. He's kind of a badass. Like, he really is feisty. I love watching him. I'm with you. I think if wemby's not in this season, we're talking about Chet, we're talking about Shengun, we're talking about the Revamped Philly team and then probably Ant, right? Who else? Those would be the four pina.

I'd have to think Casey Wallace just dominant shooting, like 78% at the rim. No, I have to think about that. Those are all really great storylines, for sure. Cam Thomas just sprained his ankle averaging like 35 points a game. There's one for you, but no, that's probably what everyone would be talking about.

Absolutely. I think Barry or Mahoney, one of them was talking about Cam Thomas yesterday and was saying, like, he's the perfect guy where he can be the number one guy in your offense and put up stats, but if he's the number eight guy in your team, he would also put up the same stats exactly. Depending on what minutes he's like, exactly the same player in any situation. I thought that was a good way to put it. All right, we got to go. Good to see you guys. I'm glad we started. I liked our three big things. I feel good. Thumbs up. Thumbs up for this segment, but good to see you guys. Thanks.

Thanks, Bill.

Thank you.

All right. The man, the myth, the legend. Benjamin Solak from the ringer is here. You can hear him on the ringer. NFL with shield. Capadia. You can hear him on the Ringer's philly special. You can watch the play sheet. And you are not a fan of the New England Patriots. But I'm going to ask you this question before we do the assignment that I assigned to you. Should Bill Belichick be fired just from as a neutral observer, knowing nothing, having no attachment to the team, just from what you've seen, from the preparedness, the personnel, the game management. Is this a good coach anymore? Because this is something that people keep asking me and I don't know how to respond.

No, he shouldn't be fired. He should be told that if things don't change, he's going to be fired. Right. So I think that right now, what you've seen obviously isn't good. This is not a well coached team. I think Barnwell had the point earlier in the season where he was like, listen, the Patriots special teams is one of the worst in the league. That's how we know we're in trouble. Belichick's special teams unit isn't playing that well, so it hasn't been a well coached team. But you have a large body of work with Bill Belichick being a successful coach. And again, there's not a lot of defensive coaches in the league who successfully install new game plans, come up with solutions, and he's still one of them. And so I would say no, but one you tell hey, like, you have to relook at how you do your staff. We're not going to do like your sons and your buddies anymore. You have to get more serious about this.

Right.

The other thing is, should Belichick be fired? Even if you think yes. No. Because you can get an owner to trade for Bill Belichick. All right. You should not be firing Bill Belichick, letting him walk on the street when there are plenty of guppy owners out there, guys who want a big name, big splash. Go convince you. Josh Harris just bought The Commanders. Why don't you go trade for Bill Belichick? Right. So even if you think you want to get rid of him, don't act like you want to get rid of him and see if you can get draft capital for him. If they fire Belichick, he'll be snapped up tomorrow by some team and that'll have been a waste. I think they need to work the trademark it if and when they plan on getting rid of him.

So I agree with you. And that's what I've been telling people because there's a feeling that this Indianapolis game in Germany is going to go bad.

Yeah, I saw like they're not going to let him back on the plane. They're going to leave him in Frankfurt. He's going to have to get home on air. Lufthaus. I don't know what it's called. I find this very funny that the Germany game is the one we've all set our sights on.

Well, there's the by week after it and if it's a rock bottom type of heard, you know, I get some pat's info from time to time. I don't know if Belichick and Kraft are, know, playing poker on Monday nights together at this don't. I think it's a pretty terse relationship. I wonder is he just at the you you have grandparents, I'm sure that you've watched hit different stages. Right. And at some point it's like, hey, maybe grandpa can't drive us the 5 hours on the trip to Washington, DC. Maybe one of us should just you hit points. I'm sure I'm going to hit a point like that pretty soon myself because I'm getting old. But I just wonder, is it possible at this point? Because I don't think it is for him to do everything anymore. Because the personnel stuff specifically dating back to the last two Brady years and then going all the way through, it's just been bad. They've had bad drafts. They've had bad free agency signings. They've emphasized the wrong things. They've spent money in the wrong places. So there's that piece. But then also just from a game to game standpoint, the delay a game at the worst possible time, the fumble at the worst possible time.

The special teams play at the worst possible time, the third and four, that just it just doesn't have a feel of a Belichick team anymore. It hasn't for a while.

Yeah. And the thing that I always take for granted when I talk about Belichick, that I have to remind myself and pause and stop and make sure I qualify is I think he's still generally got the goods. I just saw him be such a smart coach for so long that I can't imagine that all evaporated yesterday. But if he individually just doesn't have the fire, if he just doesn't have the interest in it, it doesn't matter whether he has the goods or not, because he's not going to like being a coach of an NFL team. Takes an exorbitant amount out of you independent on. Are you calling plays? Not calling plays. Defense, offense, how are you preparing? No matter what? Just costs a ton. And so if he doesn't have a fire in his belly, I don't want to do the John Gannon do you have a fire in your gut? Thing. But if you don't, then it's just a hard position to kind of I don't want to say coast on because coast probably too critical of a word, but still just kind of like, not go 110% on. And that's partly on Belichick and then also it's on ownership to be able to say, like, hey, you're a great coach, and you could still be a great coach, but if you're not willing to do the figure out how to make Mac Jones feel better on the sideline thing, that's a lot of what coaching is.

It's having that 23 year old, 24 year old who's pissed off about something, and it's a little bit unreasonable, and you got to deal with it, right? Like Mike Tomlin with George Pickens stefan Diggs sean McDermott It's part of his dealing with players. And if that's just not something that Grandpa wants to deal with anymore, then it's just going to be tough for him to do the job, even if he would have the goods. Otherwise, if he's just not in it, he's not in.

Well, like, I remember when Phil Jackson took over the Knicks, and he wasn't working that hard, so that was one problem. But his philosophy of what basketball was the sport was shifting, and he didn't see it.

Right.

He was trying to run like he wanted to put in the triangle, and he wanted to do things that worked in the don't feel like Belichick has hit that point, but I don't think he's as innovative as he used to be. This is the most innovative football coach of all time. Even when you look at something like drafting Gronk and Hernandez together and what he wanted to do with those two guys, it was pretty revolutionary. The stuff they were doing defensively in the early 2000s was, like, revolutionary. And there's not a lot of revolution happening with this team anymore. When you look back at some of the drafts, man, that 2020 draft where it's only three years later, duggar Uche, Anthony Jennings, Asia, and Dalton Keed, and the two third round tight ends who I don't think caught a ball between them, the kicker who they immediately had to wave because he had some weird shit.

Marshall kid. Yeah.

Michael Anwenu. But it's just you go through and it's like, okay, so we got Anwenu and Duggar out of. That cool. But he's going to be off the know, he's gonna be gone in a year. And then the next year, they got Barmore and Ramandre out of getting like they're getting two, but they're also missing over and over again on receivers, on corners. They're moving backwards and up, but they're not getting, like, these impact guys. And you look around the league and it's like Baltimore's impact dudes that they drafted in the top couple rounds.

Right.

We passed on Lamar a couple years. Just they haven't landed the impact guys on top of all the just I don't know, just the sloppiness. There's no other word sloppiness. That's what I watch week to week. It's a two and seven team that honestly could be five and four with a couple of plays, and I wouldn't feel great about it, but the sloppiness is what's killed them.

And that's the thing, is I'm getting guff from the rest of staff, but I still have the Patriots a lot higher than the rest of staff on our power rankings. And it's because I watch them and I'm like, okay, well, they're like one or two little edges away from winning a lot of these games. Belichick used to be the king of little edges. And absolutely, especially when you look at the draft history, the free agent signings, it feels like the little edges thing is being lost because that first Dolphins game, they walk out with, like, three safety defense, and they kind of punk Tua and Mike McDaniel for a couple of drives. And you're like, oh, yeah, this is what it used to look like. It used to do stuff like know, against McVeigh in the Super Bowl and come out with game plans and little bespoke designs. It was sick. And then by the second quarter, McDaniel, Tua, they'd corrected. They'd caught wind in their sails, and Belichick and the Patriots just had no way to capitalize. Even when they get one little edge, they can't fully finish the job the way they used to.

So I don't know. It's a very dissimilar Patriots team to a Patriots team that we're used to seeing now. There's still, like, Kyle Duggar and Gibril Peppers is like, all of a sudden, everything that everybody ever wanted him to be five years later. So it's like flashes of it, and that's why it's hard to fully sell on it. But, yeah, it looks a lot different than it used to.

And they had bad luck. Gonzalez, who looked like an absolute star, he gets hurt. You don gets hurt. They've had some bad wide receiver injury. But, yeah, as I'm watching it, and especially the Mac Jones piece of it, and it's like, I just don't think anybody would be a good coach with don't you're? Nobody's going six and four, seven and three with Mac Jones and these receivers. But on the other hand, Belichick was responsible for the receivers. The reason I wanted to lead with this is just I feel like this is an important moment. This is the greatest coach of all time. And if you don't think he's the greatest, he's one of the three greatest, but the resume is probably the greatest. And I don't know, I'm old enough to remember when this happened to Landry and Chuck Knoll and even Don Shula. And sometimes you kind of lose it. You get older. Some of the philosophies you have, like you mentioned, the inability to connect with Mac Jones, that's a real thing. Belichick 71 years old. I guarantee he doesn't understand the Mac Jones generation of players. So I feel like this game, I do feel like if it goes horribly, I don't think he'd get fired, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a step down or this will be his last season with the Patriots or something like that.

So I'm honoring that.

I hope just whenever the Belichick era New England gets the nail in the coffin, it is not Gardner Minshew in Germany who puts it in that he is inglorious.

Isn't this how this ends, though? This is how it ends. These things never end well. It's not like, oh, he rides off in the sunset on the shoulders of his players. It's Gardner Minshew in Germany.

I want it to be like CJ Stroud or something. So, like, in ten years from now, when he's still good, we can be like, oh, in that one game where he knocked Belichick off the pedestal, if it's Minshew, I know you're a Minshu guy, but me, I'm not into that. That's not epic enough for me as a finish.

Whatever happens, the resume will be the resume and the legacy will be the legacy. But it is just weird to watch a Belichick team that's this kind of messy. All right, I brought you on to talk about best future bets, and we're going to talk about that through the context of what we think is going to happen in the league. Future bets can go division there's on Fandu, you can bet best record, you can bet conference there's over, under stuff, things like that. But let's start with the AFC because I think the AFC is more fun where you have eleven teams that can conceivably make the playoffs. I'm including the four and four, Chargers, four and four, Texans and four and four, jets, who probably won't. You also have this buffalo five and four, cleveland, five and three, pittsburgh, five and three. There's only room for two, maybe only even room for one if somebody gets hot. Who are you looking at as like the best value team right now in the AFC?

I do like Ravens plus 320 to get the one seed. Right now. They have the same record as the. Chiefs do. Chiefs are favorite for that at plus 115. So both of them are two lost team when you go in your luck. Baltimore has had a fairly easy strength of schedule to this point. It's about to get way harder because they're about to play their entire division a bunch right, second hardest schedule left according to unpredictable, whereas the chiefs are, I think 15th. Yeah, 15th. But baltimore also when you go into some of the luck numbers that you look at in terms of penalties and turnover, EPA baltimore has actually been an odly unlucky team in terms of their defensive takeaways. They've had a couple of key ones but in general haven't had a ton of defensive turnovers. Can do more there. Offensive turnovers have been unlucky. Lamar has like at least one fumble in the pocket a game where you're like, dude, just hold the two hands. Lamar, they have stuff that's actually, I think, held them down a little bit in power rankings. When you go and you start to try to draw out some of the luck plays.

A couple injuries, too, especially in the first quarter of the season.

Yeah, and that's the second thing. They've been extremely banged up on the defensive side of the ball, been musical chairs back there, and they're trying to get back to full strength and then someone else will go down, what have you. Over nine weeks, baltimore has played better ball than kansas city. Frankly, I'm not worried about kansas city, but baltimore has played better ball. I do think that the divisional schedule is know I don't know if they're going to be able to sweep the bengals and sweep the browns, but with.

Only are you counting this weekend's game against cleveland as worrisome? Yeah, 100%, even with the cleveland's offensive line being in shambles.

So the ravens pass rushers and they've been playing great. I don't want to make too much fun of them, but I can only put so much weight on judavian clowney and kyle van noy in 2023 as like big scary threats. The thing is that this browns defense is legit, a game winning defense, a takeover defense. When they're at their top, they are suffocating at really impressive levels. Like over the last decade of football, the first team that kind of actually a little bit embarrassed them this year got on them was these ravens, and now they're seeing them for the second time this season, and I wouldn't be surprised if we get an extremely spirited effort out of them. So I do like the ravens in that game, but AFC north, man, I mean, it's been a slobber knocker forever, and I count my chickens there until they hatch. So I do like ravens plus 321st season AFC. But I understand why there's some pause there. I'm willing to believe in the talent, believe in the upside, believe in how well this team is playing.

It's the best team I've seen in the AFC this year. One of the things I like about them, it seems like they have answers for whatever type of game is going to unfold. And that's what I worry about with Casey, because I don't see the same firepower with them this year. I'm not the first person to make that point, but just doesn't seem like guys are open, and it seems like it ebbs and flows on Kelsey, and if they can get some crazy play from their running backs, but for the most part, they're just not explosive. They don't seem fast to me. Baltimore still feels like they're scratching the surface. I actually feel like the room for them to get better. And even somebody like Zay Flowers, who I have on two fantasy teams, I feel like he has a level to go up. He jumps off the TVs when you're watching him. It feels like they're running the ball better. They just seem like the most complete team to me. Honestly, I think Cinci is a better kind of complete team bet to me than Kansas City right now. But we've learned all these years not to bet against the Reed Mahomes infrastructure, but I just like, since he's upside more than Kansas City's this year, it's no shot at Mahomes, no shot at Reed.

But even last week, they were like, our defense, man, our defense won this game. It's like, no, no, you won the game because the ball slipped out of two, his hands on a wide open touchdown that would have tied the game. You're going to lose an OT. That's why you won the game. It wasn't your defense getting stops. You got a ridiculous fumble touchdown. They should have lost that. I just I have them third behind CinCin. Baltimore just in my head. You agree with that, or you still have Casey second?

I think I still have Casey second. I'm worried about Cincinnati's receiver health. Right. T didn't practice this week. Didn't practice today. Jabar did practice today. Again, he's got the soreness. My entire line on this Bengals passing attack through the season has been like, all right, you're surviving with this extremely fast time to throw and these shallow targets, and they've gotten much deeper down the field and much more like the Bengals of old last couple of weeks. But the thing about those five, six, seven weeks of playing that style of football is it accrues an enormous amount of hits on your receivers.

Right.

It costs a lot out of your guys. Jamar got injured on a ball 50 yards down the field. I know he didn't get hit, like, within 5 hours, line of scrimmage, but in general, this is a very wide receiver dependent.

And Collinsworth called it out on the play.

Yeah.

Collinsworth is like, oh.

That man will hurt in two days. And he did. Jamar is in front of his locker room like, man, this is killing me. So I was very pleased for Collinsworth, but in general, this is a very wide receiver dependent offense. Obviously, Burrow is the driving force, but when you're so much spread and shred, you need multiple receivers who are really good threats. And if they have constantly banged up Chase and banged up Tee, that worries me a little bit for this team. So the Bengals over the last few weeks have looked exactly like the team we expected them to. They've looked terrifying. I'd like to see it a little bit more, and I'd especially like to know about the health of the receivers before I fully put all my chips in the middle.

One of the ones that I love is the Bengals to make the playoffs, which is like -290 something like that but just to parlay with something else. But I think I want to wait now to see what happens in this game on Sunday on that one with the receivers. Because if you're going to take out both of those guys or they're going to be compromised in some way, I don't know. I don't know how much I trust them to equal one out against the hottest quarterback in the league.

Texans might get Stingley back for this game, too, which is going to help normalize their defense a lot. Defense has been a big problem for them. Texans bengals is one where I'm very, very interested to see the results of this game, even like win loss, how it affects the playoffs, what have you. This is a big heat check for Texans offense. Bengals defense, like Bengals defense, have been lights out last few weeks. Texans offense obviously like bad game against Carolina, but generally really impressive unit. Going to learn a lot in this one. I'm very excited for that game.

Can we talk people out of a possible tease there once and for all to throw the Bengals in a tease for any reason?

I love a Ravens tease. Get that down to a pickup. I do not want to touch the Bengals. Texans tease. No, sir. Give me more. Give me more. Titans plus seven and a half in my teaser legs this week.

Who do you like with a Ravens tease? Just out of curiosity, because that's gonna be a topic with me and Raheem later, because I'm dying to tease them with somebody and it was going to be the Bengals and now I have an open spot.

Yeah, I like that. The Titans tease at plus seven and a half going against the Buccaneers. Tampa's defense right now is about as big of a funnel defense as we have in the league, where they're extremely good against the run and extremely bad against the pass. The Titans are in a spot where obviously historically been a heavy run team, but with Levis, they're very clearly opening the passing game up a little bit more in, kind of like a let's see what the guy's got sort of a situation. But you have talent enough receivers in DeAndre Hopkins, in Traylon Burks if he's available, in Kyle Phillips, who Levis was working with nicely this past week, where you think, all right, this team can actually work pretty well in the passing game. I wouldn't be surprised if that game ends up just a one score game the whole way. Titans are going to be extremely tough on defense in general. So Titans plus seven and a half. I like, I'm putting that on a leg with Baltimore. I think I have that already, if memory serves. Yeah.

I was staring at Denver, bringing them to almost 14 points in Buffalo. Buffalo, another team meeting today. It was just like, man, Denver has been pretty good since that 70 20 game, and Buffalo has gone the other way. And that just to get that to 14. Let me throw this one at you. The New England Patriots, worst record in the league, ten to one right now.

Oh, wow.

All right, I just want to talk through it. They're two and seven. I think they're going to lose to Indy this week. By week, the tough one is going to be they're at the Giants. Maybe Tyrod Taylor back for that one. Home Chargers at Pittsburgh. Casey at Denver, Buffalo. Oh, home. Casey at Denver at Buffalo. Home jets. It feels a little three and 14 ish the way this season is going. Ten to one seemed like pretty good value. I guess the fear would be Carolina's one and seven right now. Yeah.

So I looked at these numbers earlier. I liked the Giants a little bit. It was plus 300. It's plus 280 now. The Giants, like you said, maybe Tyrod for that game. We don't really know exactly where Tyrod's at. Tyrod, the line from Brian Dable was that we're unsure if he's going to play again this season because of the ribs injury. So not committing to anything. They're not not committing to anything. If this team is going to play Tommy DeVito for multiple games intentionally, I'm going to find every way to fade them that I can, one of which will be worst regular season record. So the Giants are the team that I liked for that. The Patriots would have to want to intentionally tank because they have just a lot more talent. I know they don't have a ton of talent, but they have more talent than, like, the Panthers do and the Giants do with the injuries the Giants have. So they'd have to want to tank. And so if we feel good about, like, Belichick might legitimately get left on an airstrip in Germany, then it's probably a good look now as opposed to later after the Colts game, if they decide to blow things up.

They have the worst record in the AFC, though. That was the only thing I was like, man, I think they're the worst team in the AFC. So if I'm getting ten to one ODS. Who the f knows your team, Tennessee that you mentioned earlier, they're three and five and you look at their schedule and yes for playoffs for them. What do you think it is?

Oh, man. Plus two. No AFC. Plus 310.

Plus 920.

Holy Moses.

So they go Tampa. They're at Tampa at Jacksonville next two weeks and then they have home Carolina, home Indy. We've seen Mike brable do weird shit before. They're at miami home. Houston home. Seattle at Houston home. Jacksonville. I was trying to figure out could they get to nine and eight because nine and eight might be the 7th seed in the AFC. Because all these teams have to play each other constantly and it's like could they go six and three down the stretch? It seems conceivable at plus 920.

I feel like you got to be ten and seven in AFC. I don't think nine and eight cuts it. I mean if we're talking nine and eight then that's the jaguars and the Texans probably that's at least three of the AFC north teams. I would say that's bills and Dolphins in the east and then in the west that's chiefs and maybe Chargers. That's like ten of the 16 teams. If we're talking about a nine win team.

Let's walk through that though. All right. I'll concede. Baltimore, Casey, Jacksonville, Miami and Cincinnati all getting the ten wins.

Yeah.

Do you feel good about Cleveland with their quarterback situation, their offensive line going? They're five and three right now. Getting a ten and seven. That's five and four. I could see them going four and five.

I said three total in the AFC north. I think one of Steelers or browns will be a ten win team.

You've had the chargers in there and I don't see any way the chargers get to ten wins.

Chargers, chargers are nine win team. Yeah.

Houston's not getting the ten wins. Jets aren't getting the ten wins.

I think houston more likely than the titans get to ten wins. I love this texans team. Man, I'm in.

I got to be honest. Not only do I not think buffalo is going to get to ten wins. No playoffs is now -102 I know.

They'Re spiraling holy shit are you fully cashing in on the bills season. Armageddon. Are you waiting for really the bricks to start falling before you start cashing it in because that was your big take coming in the preseason.

I'm going to give you my answer right after the break.

Wow.

All right. We're talking Buffalo Bills? So worst defense in the league last five weeks. According to DVOA that's not a small sample size. Five weeks is a lot. It also matches the eye test. Allen doesn't look 100% to me. I don't know what the percentage is but he doesn't look 100. I think the deep throws have been really weird by him this year. In general, the vibe seems a little off. The players meetings are a red flag. If they get the ten wins, it's going to be like what you and Shield. Said before the season, where you were like, I don't really like this Buffalo team, but Josh Allen just gets to ten wins, and that was it. You just went chalk on it, and it was the right move. But he would have to single handedly drag five more wins out of this team. And you look at they got this sneaky Denver game this week. It's a little sneaky. Just looks easy for a Buffalo tees. They're back on track. Home jets then this gauntlet at Philly at KC home, dallas at Chargers home, new England at Miami There's five wins in there, potentially, but there also might be three wins in there.

What do you think?

They have to go two and over this split. Broncos and jets to then go 500 over the home stretch and then end up five and four.

So you think they have to be seven and four heading into that gauntlet.

Yeah, I think they will be. But, man, it doesn't feel good, does it? To feel that, to think that I have to trust the caliber of offense. Like, this has been one of the top offense in the league all season. Find most metrics. Bills fans say, oh, they're only good against bad defenses. That's not true. They've been good against all A. This is going to be an offense powered team. Sean McDermott keeps talking about complimentary football defense. Got to get off the field, and it'd be nice if they could steal a turnover here and there and get a stop here and there, but with the amount of injuries they've accrued, it just has to be an offense powered team. And so long as they get away from the turnovers, they're 7th right now in turnovers per drive. They should be okay. So you got to trust that that noise is going to go down and that the offensive numbers and the offensive production is going to hold true. That's what we know about football over large samples is that offense is king and turnovers are noisy, so it should be fine. I don't love the players meetings.

That worries me. It'd be better if this was like a Chiefs team or a Bengals team that had been to the peak and they had a lot of trust and a lot of faith. This is a Bills team that's kind of near the end of their rope in terms of how often they've been close and not quite. And so there is a little bit of energy. You in the powder keg right now, and you're worried about this thing really exploding.

I can't take credit totally for this one, even though it was one of my big takes, because I had no idea they would lose, like, three of their best guys on defense, including Milano, and it gets a little goofy when that happens. I was also wrong on a lot of shit. Do you have one more AFC future before we move to the NFC?

AFC? Yeah. I wrote Bengals down at plus 320. That's to win the Division. I think that that's worth looking into.

As a long shot. I like it.

Okay. I prefer the ravens. Like I said, I had Ravens plus 320 to win the conference. I was looking at season long production. I do think that there's an interesting conversation. Right now to lead the league in receiving yards. You have Tyreek Hill is -125 and then AJ Brown is plus 360 it's like currently a two horse race. We're starting to look NFC now as well. Do you know off the top of your head? Do you have any idea how far apart those two players are receiving yards wise. You have a guess?

Well, I have both of them on my fantasy teams.

That's a good day.

Aren't they pretty close?

They're 70 yards off. They're really not far off. And the Eagles aren't winning games like they won last season where it's multiple scores and we just sit on the ball in the second half. Brown is going to continue to be used at an extremely high ball. I do think that Hill being -125 and Brown being plus 360 is wrong. For the fact that this is pretty much a two horse race at this point. You're risking yourself from injury. Like. Sure. CD. Lamb or Stefan Dix could go thermonuclear, but that'd be legitimately historic run. I like Brown plus 360 as lead the league and receiving on fandol to get over Tyreek. That's not explicitly AFC, but I was surprised to see Tyree Hill's number that big.

I went all in on the Philly offenses in fantasy, as you know. So I've had a vested interest in just their offense succeeding. It's funny how when things don't work out for just somebody says in the headset, just fucking throw it to AJ. Brown. And then he has, what, three routes or four routes that he runs? Four Routes. That's it. And they just, like, run AJ.

Brown digging to go.

Run, AJ. Brown eight on the sideline. Right. And by the way, it always works. And it's one of those things, like, we had this with Moss in seven when it was just like, just throw it to Moss. Like he's going to catch it or it's going to be a pi or something will happen. He is unstoppable.

Yeah, they threw that third down. It was like third and four. Third and five that they threw to him late against the Cowboys when they could have ran the football and taken a little bit more time off the clock. Throw a one on one ball to him. And I had no shot. It was well covered. Whatever. And Eagles fans were real pissed. And then after the game, Siriani said, we like that play for us. A high percentage play.

And he's not wrong. He's a bad throw.

Yeah. The way that they use Brown is astonishing. And honestly, infuriating at least with the Dolphins is cool. The Eagles, they're just like, big man, run far. We'll throw it near you, just shove a corner and catch it, and it works every time.

Can I introduce you at all in Denver to make the playoffs? A plus 1300?

No.

I did my dalliance with maybe the Broncos make a playoff in the preseason. I'm done.

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

Well, that was the new coach theory. That was a really compelling theory from Shield. Shield. Was like, I have no real other reason with the Broncos other than it's a new coach. But now we saw that with Antonio Pierce last week. So I feel like it's been vindicated some ways. I don't know. Maybe Demiko ryan's. If they can get to like nine and eight, that might vindicate the new coach theory for this year. Even if they don't make the playoffs.

I'm a believer in Texans playoff run. My ties are the Texans. That's the team that I think has a shot still to push for the division and push for last wild card. I like the state.

That's plus 250.

I think that number is not good enough. Two weeks ago, it was a little bit better. Plus 250 is probably accurate. I don't know if I would take that. But altogether, this Texans team, they can score with a lot of teams. And defensively, they're getting talent back and they're young teams. They get better week over week. I think that Texans I wouldn't be surprised if we're looking at like, oh, all these teams have locked down the division and we're there in week 15. It's like the Jaguars have an 85% chance to win the division because the Texans are just sitting on the front, stoop, knocking, asking the Jags to drop a game.

Well, if they somehow can beat Cincinnati this week, which seems actually somewhat conceivable if two receivers are going to be out for Cincinnati.

Higgins, by the way, officially out raptors tweeted it while we were chatting.

Oh, shit. Okay. They're next three after the Cincinnati game, they're home Zona, home Jacksonville, home Denver, and then they're at the could they could legitimately be like seven and six or eight and five coming out of just I worry about them on the road. To me, they're like, home Texans road texans are just two different beasts, and.

They'Re about to play some really good defenses. Right. They're going to get the Jags, who are one of the top defenses right now by a lot of metrics. They're about to get the jets. They're going to get the Browns, going to play the Titans twice. So I really like this offense. I think Cedar Stroud's doing a lot of big boy stuff. I think that he's going to look good against these top defenses. It's the line and the receivers and some of the ancillary three pieces that I'm worried about. I think that with the defenses they face, I don't want to be too over leveraged on believing in these texans, but they are fun to root for, I'll tell you that.

They don't really let you parlay the props for playoffs on FanDuel, but if I could parlay anything, it would be the jets and the Chargers. Not to make the playoffs the Chargers are -162 not to make it it's a little too much straight up. But I also would totally condone it. I just don't think the Mike Williams thing was just massive and every week. They just look like their offense has been dented and on top of, like, I don't like their coach and I just don't see a scenario where they go six and three down the stretch. I don't think it happens.

They have pretty dramatic offensive line liabilities and pretty dramatic coverage liabilities. As everybody knows, I love their quarterback. I think Herbert's great. I think he's played great this season. Overall, it's not been his best season, but he's been really, really good.

Great. Oh, interesting. From ben the soccer bomb.

I said it's not been his best season, but overall he's played well. He's played great.

You said great. How about can you downgrade it to.

Well, he has played great. I am positive of that. It's not his best season. I said he had a bad stretch there for like, weeks. Like three to five. Three to six. Really rough.

It's only 40% of the season.

Yeah, exactly.

I only have cool.

But I can't trust this chargers team because of the pass production liabilities and the coverage liabilities. They just have way too many gaps to be a real legitimate, actually good team. And you've seen that now over too.

Many games and you didn't even mention the coach. All right, NFC.

Yeah, he's not doing great, too.

So your team a sneaky eight and one, but the schedule is going to get a little harder down this stretch.

How are they a sneaky eight and one?

Well, because you could tell me they could be nine and oh, you could also tell me they could be six and three and all the eagle fans in my life, I've never seen a group of people more unhappy about an eight and one team. Like, just be like, they lost Zach.

Wilson it was very embarrassing.

Embarrassing to my betting account.

Oh, my goodness, no, we lost Zach Wilson's, jets. My mom's team. If I could have beat one team this year, it would have been my mom's team. Lo and behold, we lost the jets. It was like four turnovers. Disgusting.

They to start the season.

They were playing more teams close than they should have. They've definitely rounded into form in month two kind of in the second quarter of the season. And as to be expected with like, a new OC and a new defensive coordinator, they're a little bit more balanced a little bit more under control. They know where their bread is buttered. They're a better team than they were. That being said, they're not going to go six and over this stretch, right? You can't go Dallas into Kansas City, into Bills, into Dallas again, into San Francisco, into Seattle and just walk out unscathed. So we'll see how they rebounded some losses. We'll see how they play some tough teams. They're obviously very good. They're obviously in control of the NFC. So long as they don't drop too many dumb games, they'll be in control of the NFC when they come out of the stretch as well.

Plus 145 for best record. I would not recommend it and I'll never personally recover from Hertz's third and nine throw in the jets game right at two guys who flipped a coin to see who wanted to intercept it. The best record bet that I kind of like, and this is best record. This isn't just one seed. The one seed, ODS are going to be lower, but the Lions of Detroit are ten to one have the best record. And you just look at their schedule and it's like, all right. Chargers.

Bears.

Packers. Saints. Bears again. Broncos. Vikings. Dallas. Minnesota. And then that's the schedule. The only game that they're probably going to be underdogs in is the at Dallas game. And the question is now that they're healthy, I think they were banged up for a couple of weeks there. Now that they're healthy, is there like a 13 and four potential with them? I feel like I'm higher on them than most people. Where are you?

Yeah, I have lines written down for potentially the best record as well when I was doing prep for this. They have the six easiest schedule. The rest of the way coming off of it, they had a top 15, top 16 above average difficulty schedule to start the season. They also get golf largely in domes at home and in domes over the rest of the way, which just when you start talking about late season lions, you just try to find the cold weather game or golf has. To throw in, like, eight mile per hour winds. And you know that they're not going to be able to throw the ball that well. They're largely protected schedule wise in terms of where they're playing. So they have the potential to just keep pointing points, pouring points and pouring points. This is also going to be a team that I don't envision a Dan Campbell coached Lions team coasting in December. I don't envision that this is Lions first time being a good team in a long time. They're going to milk it. They're going to juice it up inappropriately. So they also, I think, know what home field means for them because of Goff's home road splits.

You go and look, there's few quarterbacks in the league that are affected as more home on the road than Jared Goff. Is, and we talk cold weather, especially. They know what it would mean to be able to play the Eagles, be able to play the Niners in their home stadium as opposed to potentially well.

How about not playing in round one, too? Yeah, you get that one seed, you miss round one. Home, home golf, super protected and the roadmap would be the breeze. 2009 Saints team. There it is. They never had to leave a dome.

Great. Yeah. And there aren't like, home field advantage from a betting perspective, not necessarily what it was 510 years ago. Ford Field, man. Lions fans will go out for a home team. Lions team that's in the playoffs. They've been waiting for that for a long time. When Brian Johnson decided not stick a head coaching job and took the Lions OC job, retained there for 2023, he gave a great quote where he was like, we want to put a home playoff game in Ford Field. We're very oriented. I want to feel what that environment looks like. We care a lot about this fan base. And so they're going to be going out for a top record. If they smell blood in the water from the Eagles, they'll push. And so I do think Lions ten to one is a good luck for best record.

They're plus 600 for NFC as well. One of the things I like about them, I feel like La Laporta is going to keep getting better. I traded for him one league, I had him another. But I just feel like I think that guy has it as a real weapon, especially as it gets colder, December January type of stuff. I don't know about Jameson Williams yet. It seems like they run like the one play a game for him, but compared to what I think they thought they were getting versus what he's shown so far, who knows? But they have seemed like they trust, right?

Yeah. No, I mean, he's had injuries and he's had drops problems. He had the gambling suspension. There's just a lot of disconnect there, I think, which I really, really wanted them to push for a receiving option at the deadline and they didn't goff. Loves congrats. That's awesome. They get Donovan peoples Jones as a late round guy. I don't think that's the field structure. Game changer you needed. So it's on la Porta. Who. I agree. Laporta's looked great. My number one takeaway from Lions camp when I went there was like, all right, they're going to throw this by the ball a lot. They loved him a lot. And then they're getting Gibbs activated, potentially david Montgomery and the interior offensive line back from injury this week. Full strength Lions with that rushing attack and with Gibbs being more involved as a Gadget weapon, the way they talked about preseason, there's still a lot of meat on the bone for them offensively.

Totally agree. Who do you have in the New Orleans versus atlanta death match to see who gets to host Dallas in round one.

So I did a bad thing, right? I had a lot of Falcons futures coming into the season, and two weeks ago it was offloaded Saints bets. No. So I looked at them like, I had saints plus 202 weeks ago and I was like, you should just take it. Just take it. But I've been defending the Falcons tooth and nail to Shield. He's gotten under my skin. And so I didn't take the Saints bets.

I didn't hedge. No.

And then here we are now, saints big favorites, falcons big dogs. I mean, I'm not going to touch this. I do think Falcons plus 210 is a nice price, but I'm obviously not going to take it and I'm not going to endorse it. Once you lose to Will Levis and Jaron Hall into Josh Dobbs off the street in back to back weeks, I can no longer full throatedly believe that you are a serious team. And so the Falcons have the infrastructure to win the south. They have the infrastructure to beat the Saints. They have the infrastructure to win no matter if it's heinecky or Ritter playing. But I've been saying that for a month now, and they continue to lose games. So at some point I run out of faith.

You could have a YouTube video of all the terrible plays the Falcons have done inside the ten yard line. And I think the video would be like seven and a half minutes long. I've never seen anything like it with this team. If somebody gets tackled on the two yard line, which happened last week, and of course I had money in the Falcons, I'm like, oh, they're not going to score. They're going to figure out a way to go backwards. And it's exactly what happened.

Yeah, I remember. I want to say it was like week five, week six, and I was like, the Falcons are 500, but they're like 24th right now in red zone efficiency. And they're like eigth in the league in turnover rate. So once that normalizes, they're going to be fine. And now they're like 30th in red zone efficiency, like fifth in turnover rate. It got worse. They are.

I thought Arthur Smith was supposed to be like this offensive genius. How are they so bad inside the ten yard line?

Here's what's really frustrating. When coaches are between the 20s, they just run their usual stuff, right? They run like, their classic stuff, and their classic stuff is really good. Now the smart coaches will pull something out of their bag like the 45 yard line, and catch defenses by surprise, like nice little change of pace. Once a coordinator gets like, inside of the ten, arthur Smith in particular, that's where he's like, oh, time to do tricky things. It's like, no, you have a team full of rhinoceroses. Even people say, oh, they give the ball to Algier too.

Much.

I don't mind that they give the ball to algae. Algier is a big guy. Stop with the Cadero Hodge touches. Stop with the john who Smith touches. Turn around, put the ball in the belly of the back, be bigger than the other guys. What you built the team to do and it works great between the 20s. Why do you to stop when you get close to pay dirt? Desmond Ritter, when Ritter was starting, had one of the highest pass rates inside the red zone of any quarterback in the league. This is a third round player, man. Just get the ball to the big guy.

It's crazy because they do have the most talent, but the Saints are going to win the division. Can I interest you in a Chiefs, Lions, Saints, all to win the division? Parlay on FanDuel that's plus 105.

Oh.

Plus 105, who kills that lions?

The Saints.

Chiefs. Saints. Well, the Saints, but now I'm giving you them at plus 105. ODS what would have to happen for the Lions and Chiefs not to win their divisions? You'd almost have to have a mahomes injury. I even feel like if Goff got injured, I still feel like the Lions would win.

I mean, the most legendary Josh Dobbs season you've ever heard of brings the Vikings to the promised land. This Vikings team is so tricky to figure out, they might legit make the playoffs. As a seven seed in the NFC.

Would you say their ODS? Their yes. Plus 104. Now it's basically even ODS for Josh Dobbs to make the playoffs.

That's such a funny thing on defense where, like, the first few weeks of the season, brian Flores, their DC longtime head coach of the Dolphins, walking out here with the weirdest defense you ever saw. Their rate of sending at least six men on a pressure is more than triple that of second place. Right. And then their rate of sending only three men on a pressure is double that of second place. They're bananas. They are a kitchen sink defense, all or nothing. And for the first three, four weeks of the season, it was like, hey, that's kind of cute. That's cool. Make the best out of what you got. Chicken salad, whatever. We're nine weeks in. They're like top ten. This isn't cute anymore. It's actually working. It's chaotic and it's nuts and it's liable, but it's working. And so defensively, they have teeth. They beat bad quarterbacks because they terrify them. And then offensively Kevin O'Connell, man. I mean, Justin Jefferson down. Kirk cousins down. Just lead a game winning drive with Brandon Powell.

Osborne down. They had one receiver last week.

Something to see, man. It really is.

It's great. I would actually have O'Connell for coach of the year right now because I'm dumbfounded by what they did. One thing on New Orleans, they're five and four quarterbacks they're going against the rest of the way. Sal pointed this out to me. Dobbs heineken goff Bryce Young, Tommy DeVito or Tyrod Taylor? Probably not. Stafford, Baker, Mayfield? And then heineckey again, it's the all time bad quarterback. Souffle which we have seen year after year is a recipe for a team to go eleven and six or twelve and five and you can't believe it happened.

Easiest schedule left by unpredictables numbers is the Saints. But here's the tricky thing. The easiest schedule to this point in the season was also the Saints, right? And they're five and four with some nail biters. And so it's like, all right, they have an easy schedule. They should be fine. Dennis Allen defense. Do whatever. But also I've watched a lot of Derek Carr and I don't like trusting Derek Carr. It doesn't feel good.

Well, that's why this Minnesota game this week, what's Flora's going to do? He's going to send the house after Derek Carr every single play. And guess who doesn't like having the house thrown at him? Derek Carr. We can I would be not the.

Least bit surprised if it has halftime and it's like three to six and Scott Hansen has not cut to this game once. It's just been carnage on both sides of the ball.

Defensively, I like your Giants plus 280 for worst record. But can I tempt you at all with Rams at 26 to one? Yes, you can. I can.

Absolutely.

Oh, I can offer you Rams wrapped in bacon.

Yes, because I was on rams are going to be really bad this year preseason because I was like, stafford's coming off this elbow injury, he's coming off this back injury. Three. He's not going to be able to play. They're going to put him in bubble wrap, put him on the shelf. They've been thinking about trading him. They don't know about the contract. They want to move forward to the future. And then Stetson Bennett stepped away from the team. Okay? They don't have a QB two. Now. Stafford walks out. They're playing pretty good. Puk and Aku is a sensation. All right, I called that one wrong. Well, here we are at the halfway point. Stafford's got a thumb injury and I don't know if they want to bring Stafford back out here and continue to push. Maybe they're trying to go for an early first round pick. The Rams own their first round pick. They have it. They can use it. If they lose games, they get the pick. Another team doesn't. It's been years since 2016 since they have this. And so we'll see if they are putting carson Wentz out on the field. Presumably they're trying to stay competitive, but they have wentz and they have three.

Games and we'll see what they do by week. This week home Seattle at Arizona is going to be the swing bet for this because if they lose to Seattle, then Kyler Murray beats them. Then they go Cleveland, Baltimore, Washington, Saints, Giants, niners right away. I mean, they can throw away the last six. All right, before we go, give me one more NFC future.

I wrote down Cowboys 500 plus 500 to win the division, which is not like it's just too big of a price. They should be closer than that. I don't think they're going to win the division, but I was surprised to see that that number was that big. I'm not going to take that. I'm not too concerned about that. Christian McCaffrey, lead league in rushing touchdowns. Well, how about 300?

Dallas was plus 20, or I'm sorry, 20 to one for best record. I wrote that one down. I wouldn't bet it, but I thought like, all right, there's a world where they beat Philly in the next game and maybe Philly goes somebody goes 13 and four, the other goes twelve and five. I don't know, 20 to one seemed like decent value.

Yeah. They need, I think, a little Philly implosion, which you can look at because Hertz has this knee thing that's going on, so it's not like there's no shot for it.

You mean the thing where he looks miserable every time he runs for ten yards, where he walk back to the.

Scrimmage, where he's objectively limping all the time?

I've noticed the limping.

Yeah. I think that some Eagles fades make sense. Cowboys plus 500 to win the division to me is the safest one I think is a reasonable one. I do like Christian McCaffrey lead league and rushing touchdowns, which is plus 300. He's second on that ODS right now. Raheem mostert is two touchdowns ahead. He's got eleven. He's plus 190.

But the chain is coming back.

H coming back and Jeff Wilson is back. So the running back room is at full strength. Raheem's obviously is played great. I'm not convinced he's going to be a short yardage back for them. He's going to be the goal line back for them. So this is all who scores way out from distance right when they get these big long runs. And they certainly trust Raheem, but I think they're going to get a Shane to be a lot more active when he comes back from injury. So I wouldn't be surprised if Raheem's numbers get cut down. Well, we know for a fact niners get the ball inside the five, they're finding a way to give the ball to McCaffrey. It is rushing touchdowns, so you worry a little bit about receptions, but in general, they're very willing to hand the ball off to McCaffrey and let him chug along. And so I do. McCaffrey plus 300, lead league and rushing touchdowns. I would say with Raheem's numbers cutting down, that's a market worth looking at from a couple of different player perspectives. McCaffrey is my favorite.

All right, we're going to go. What is your number one cheese for Thanksgiving week? Oh, man. Only bring one cheese to somebody's house.

So I'll be honest with you, Bill, I'm trying to not put on as many pounds this season. I have previously. I've had night cheese twice the entire season. One time it was diet baby bell, which barely even counts. Not even.

Come on.

So Thanksgiving, I guess, to treat myself, but I haven't been buying too many cheeses recently. I'll get a good I'll go something good. I'm seeing my pops for Thanksgiving and he's coming off. He had a heart attack earlier this year and so we're trying to not bring high cholesterol things. Maybe I'll sneak in something good.

Okay, that was a boring answer. I thought you were going to go with like an Irish cheddar, like an age 20 years Irish cheddar or something like that.

I'm off the cheese bill. I'm moving on. I'm growing up. I'm maturing.

I don't like this. Ben Solak, thanks for coming on. Good to see you.

Thank you, Bill.

All right. Raheem Palmer is here. You can hear him on the ringer gambling show. You can see him on the ringer. Wise guys on Sunday. My favorite Sunday show. He's feeling good because the sixers look good last night. Yeah, I could see it. You're just like beaming.

Yeah, most definitely. I mean, after the Phillies disappointment, it's finally good to get somebody who's winning games. So it's great.

At least you're fun to watch this year. Unlike the two man game of just everybody standing around, it was much harder team to play as I'm rooting for my own team. But we could talk about that another time. You're going to help me do million dollar picks. Last week I won $240,000. I'm only down 1.69 million for the year. This happens to me right around week nine, week ten, week eleven. There's always like a week of the year for me where I'm just like, man, I like a lot of games this week. I'm seeing the chessboard. I just feel really good and usually I open up when that happens. I really like this week, Raheem. This is my favorite week of the year. I've had a lot of trouble, like just getting a handle on stuff, trusting bad QBs, being on the road with like, oh, yeah, Zach Wilson. I'll just do it this week. I'm in. Where are you on this week in general?

I'm solid on a few totals. I mean, it's NFL, so I never really love just it's just one of those things to where it's just like I end up liking a couple things and then if it goes well, it goes well. But it's the NFL. It's the sharpest market in the world.

Well, you're not as optimistic as me, but I'm going to raise your optimism as we you. How have you done this year? For the most part, you little up, you little down. You feel good about performance sideways.

My second halves in my lives are incredible in every sport. Like, you've seen some of the tickets. I'll show you my second halves in my lives. They're just unbeatable. But my full game stuff is just up and down.

Well, you and I are aligned on the Clippers to win the NBA title at 13 to one, on FanDuel being the single dumbest bet maybe in the history of futures. I just can't believe, like, fandel just move that to 30 to one. You're fine. Try to get more action on it. The Clippers aren't winning the title this year.

They aren't. And I was like the president of the Clippers fan club for the longest. I couldn't quit them. But when you add Harden to this team, they already struggle in transition. I mean, they're 19th and transition points added and then their 20 eigth and turnover rate. They just have too many ways that they could lose a game. And then you have to deal with the injuries to Kawhi Leonard, so they're not winning anything.

And they lost a lot of size on the perimeter. And I don't know, to me, they're plus 200 have missed the playoffs. I really like that bet. I don't know if they're one of the eight best teams, so I'm not.

Going to go that far just because I do think some teams in the west have took a step back. You look at the Kings like they look awful, right? The Lakers look awful. So I think they'll get into the postseason, but they're going to collapse at some point.

Are you sniffing the Rockets a tiny bit here yet?

EME's doing a good job.

EME is a good coach, man. I saw it firsthand. That guy knows what he's doing and he gets guys to just give professional efforts on both ends and Shanghun's dylan Brooks.

Dylan Brooks shot six times last night.

Right. Because what will happen is EME will pull him after the he won't say anything to the reporters. He won't say anything from the team. He'll pull the guy into the hallway and he'll be like, look, man, you're going to shoot six times or you're not going to play. We're not fucking around this year. We actually have a chance to be good. I'm intrigued by the rockets. I don't know what the playing ODS for them, but we could talk about basketball another time. Million dollar picks. I asked you to bring two picks. I'm going to throw seven at you and we're going to whittle this down, but I think I'm going to open up this week. The first one. Solak and I talked at the top about this Colts Pats game in Germany. I think the Pats, for whatever reason, the market is still suspicious of just closing the coffin on the season. And the team in general, they're just bad. And actually, I think the Colts have been a little friskier than maybe people give them credit for. I know. It's Germany. I know there's a big Pats audience, but to me it's a miracle.

This line isn't Colts by three right now. It's Colts by one and a half and I really like the colts and I'd be surprised if the Pats won the game. How do you see it?

So this is the under. I like the under on this game. I agree with you on the colts. I just think when you like this team reminds me of last year's Tampa Bay Buccaneers where it's just you had sharp money coming in them every single week and they continued to stink and people just continue to buy into the mystique. They did it with Tom Brady last year. They're doing it with Bill Belichick this year. So I agree with you on the colts.

Okay, I'm going to put them in bold. Lions, chargers. This is a tough seems like there's a ton of money in the Lions. It's at the Chargers, which doesn't scare me because I think there's going to be 45,000 Lions fans there and I just don't think the Chargers have the home field advantage. So my first question is if this game is in Detroit, is the line Lions by four? I think it is. So why am I getting a discount of a point and a half in La. When the Chargers don't have a home field advantage? Second thing, lions coming off a buy. And they're healthy, right? We haven't seen them healthy in a while. I think they had some hard games early on in the season. They were banged up. Now they got all the weapons back. They have a running game again. Their offensive line is in better shape. And Solak and I were talking earlier, I actually think they're a dark horse. Like if you want to think about them for best record and some long shot futures, they're interesting because they might go on a run and I don't believe in this Chargers team at all.

You guys had when you did the Monday show, JJ. Was really high in the Chargers against the jets and I was like, that's crazy. I don't think the Chargers are good. As it turns out. Zach Wilson was like, I got you, JJ I'm going to do this for you. I just don't think the Chargers are good. And I look at like, to have this line under three is like a miracle. I love the lions. So talk me out of it.

I can't talk you out of it. When you look this Chargers offense, their 20th and success rate and you look at since they lost Mike Williams to a torn ACL, they lost Joshua Palmer, that offense is a mess. They scored 13 offensive points the other day and they got three fumbles. I mean, they recovered all three fumbles so they just were lucky. So I think this is a smash spot on the Lions. If there's one thing that I would be concerned about is still that Lions passing defense. But I agree with you. Under three. I like the lions.

Okay, so we have two. I hesitate to bring this up because the Niners minus three over the Jags in the early part of the week, I was like, oh, jags at home, jags plus three. That'll be a nice one. Then I started thinking about it and started thinking about it. Started thinking about it. McCaffrey's back, Debo's back. This Niners team, this is a nice spot for them to maybe they've kind of been shoved off to the side, right? They're five and three. The purdy. All that dialog started, and it's like the Niners now don't seem like they're in the conversation in the way that they were four weeks ago. Now they got everybody back. The kind of style that they have offensively seems like a style that Jacksonville's had issues with, like that zone running game and stuff like that. And I like the Niner spot, and it makes me nervous. But I also don't think the jags really have that great of a home field advantage. It's like, oh, man, we're going to Jacksonville. I don't think it matters. So this just feels like one team's really good and the other team's not as good.

Why not lay the three? What scares you about niners minus three?

What scares me about this game is that my model makes this a pick.

Okay, that's good information, but there's going.

To be Sharp money on both sides of these games. So sharp money already hit this when it was below three, and I think that was the right move. When you get Trent Williams back, you get Debo back, you got a healthy Christian McCaffrey. I think it was the right move to play it under three, but if this goes to three and a half, I think you're going to have Sharps on the other side as well. I'm personally staying away from it just because I just got the sneaky feeling that Jacksonville is better than what people think. But I'm not mad at it if you take it under three.

So how does your model do it if Jacksonville doesn't have their left tackle for the first four games of the seasons? Right. And then he comes back and it's just like two different teams, basically. We see this a lot with football where it gets to week nine, week ten, and it's like, all right, this team was this for four games, but now they're kind of this. So how do you reconcile that with the model?

My model is at the team level, so I do have to make a lot of manual adjustments, but it's weighted towards more recent data as well.

Got it.

Yeah.

But then I have priors in. So just because football is such a small sample size, I still have stuff from last year, so it takes into account of everything.

All right, I'm going to take off niners jags. I like the Niners, but it's one of those where you're like kicking yourself after no matter who you take.

There's some weather issues as well. It's supposed to rain out there as well.

Titans at the Bucks. Titans are getting one and a half. We talked with Ben about we've seen Brabel do stuff like this where it's like, oh, that team looks dead. They come back. Or oh, that team's overachieving. It feels like they're in an overachieved spot. If Will Levis is way better than what they were getting with Tannehill, which it seems like he is. He could throw the deep ball. He got Hopkins going. And I don't think Tampa is good. The fact that they just couldn't stop Houston at all down the stretch of that game, even when Stroud had the ball with like, 50 seconds left, the game's done and Stroud still brings them down scores again. I don't know what's happened to them, but I think this is a nice spot to just grab a team that I don't feel like is totally out of it yet, especially in the AFC where nine and eight could get a seven seed versus a Tampa team that I just don't see it. What do you see with this game?

So I hate Tampa as well, and I faded them last week and I got burnt because the kicker got hurt. So that was very frustrating for me. Like, extremely frustrating for me. But I think the biggest thing is that this Tampa defense isn't what it was. I know Jamel Dean, he got banged up last week. He had a concussion. And I think that led to the Texans driving the field and scoring that touchdown. The biggest thing is with Tampa is that they tend to run on early down so much and it just puts them behind the eight ball. Neither one of these defenses are any good at all. So it's hard for me to trust Will Levis in this spot against a Tampa defense that's going to blitz a lot. When you look at his passer rating under pressure, he has a 74 passer rating under pressure. When he's clean, he's 113. So Tampa doesn't generate a lot of pressure, but they're going to blitz a lot. So I don't know what to do with this game. I'll be honest with you.

Tampa 21st DVOA tennessee is 19. But the thing I like about Tennessee, I feel like if they get the lead, you feel great, right? If it's ten to three, Tennessee, you're like, all right, here we go. Now they're going to start running Henry. Now they will play action, go deep. I think I might talk myself into Tennessee in this one.

I think it's a good teaser spot taking them back.

Yeah.

House loves to play those teasers. And then you have a low total of 39. So those points are even more valuable in this situation.

Interesting. So we could potentially put them that could be the team to go with the Ravens because I am teasing the Ravens this week. We got to find a second. Team for that. Okay. Steelers. Packers. I think the packers stink and they are poorly coached. And they beat the Rams last week because the Rams didn't have a quarterback. And the Steelers, who are five and three, even though they could have lost all of those games, I'm just a believer. I just think they get the shit done. And this is a good coach against a bad coach, and I just think they're better. And this will be the week people are like, Holy shit. The Steelers are going to go ten and seven or eleven and six. I can't believe it. What scares you about the packers, if anything, in this game?

Like the stillers stink. They're five and three, and they've been outgained in every single game this year. They're basically winning with voodoo.

Listen, you can't question voodoo, Raheem. You should know this. This happens. This was Minnesota last year. We kept waiting for it to turn.

That's exactly what from a numbers perspective, I don't want to lay the three with the Stillers, but the Stillers are likely going to win this game the same way they do every other game. The packers, they stink like Jordan Love can't throw a five yard out. And they were struggling against the Rams with Brett Whippen last week. So I can't be mad at you for taking this pick, but just from a numbers perspective, I have to stay disciplined and stay off of it. I think you're going to have sharps on the packers.

Can I give you one more thing to wet your beak on this one? Yeah. On the road in Pittsburgh against TJ watt, Tomlin, the crowd, the whole thing, and I'm going to war with Jordan Love and Matt LaFleur. Those are my two guys. In that atmosphere, just think about, like, I'm going to end up talking myself into it. Next one new coach theory still in effect with the Raiders playing the jets. The Raiders right now, the line is plus one at home. They are home dogs against Zach Wilson, who is such a disaster that Robert Salah was asked to comment about why he's still starting Zach. And he basically said, I don't want to talk about Just. It was like watching somebody on the stand who saw murder. Just was like, I plead the just. This is a rare chance to bet against Zach Wilson again. I don't know how many more of these we have, and I actually think the Raiders the coaching situation obviously just murdered their season. They've talked about it openly. They've talked about it as openly as I could remember a team being like, yeah, we hated our like, did you see that quote where they asked Devontae Adams, why were you smoking cigars after you won this random game?

And he's like, Because it's been miserable in here and this is the first time we've all been happy as a group. I read stuff like that and I'm like, wow, why isn't this line Vegas by two and a half? I am grabbing the plus one. Unless you talk me out of do.

You can't bet Aiden O'Connell against this jets defense. The jets have the best unit on the field.

It's their defense. How dare you besmirch my guy? Aiden O'Connell, did you see him in the first half last week? Just throwing darts. Throwing mean.

He looked good in the preseason, and he looked good against the Giants defense. But this jets defense is for Max.

Max Crosby against Zach Wilson.

It's ugly, but I would have to take Zach Wilson here.

So you think the jets defense can single handedly beat the Raiders? This is one of your picks, it's not one of your takes.

Yes, but I think they have the best unit on the field. And I think you're getting value on the jets because of what happened last week, because of the prime time spot, because the new coach I just think there's no reason why they should be a pickup.

Well, I'll give you a couple of reasons. The jets, since week two, they score ten points against Dallas, they score ten points against the Pats, 20 against the Chiefs. They put up 31 against Denver. That was their biggest offensive explosion. 20 against the Eagles, where they got four turnovers, 13 against the jets in a game that really it should have been seven. And the Giants blew the game at the end and then six last week. How do they even get to 14 points against the Raiders? It's the Raiders defense. That's it.

Yeah.

This is a defense where the jets should be able to run all over them. I think that what are the Raiders 30th and Russian success rate on defense?

Me out of this. What about the new coach theory?

It works for one game.

You might be right. All right, the last one I had, man, you really just took Aiden O'Connell the woodshed there. You basically said, there's no way he can win against Jed C. Ben. You're right. Jeff, saturday last week only worked for one game. Broncos plus seven and a half at Buffalo.

I love it.

Okay, do you want to go through all the reasons or no?

Well, I think the biggest reason is that when you look at Sean McDermott, he basically has, like, a governor on this offense to protect the defense. And then when you look at what the Broncos defense has done weeks one through 430, 2nd in DVOA, now they're 17th in DVOA. So they've improved drastically.

Then when you by the eye test, too, they just seem like they're playing harder and getting stops finally.

Meanwhile, the Buffalo Bills defense is going the opposite way. They lose Trey White. They lose Matt Milano. Like, they lose a bunch of guys, and they've gone from third in DVOA to 32nd. They can't stop a nosebleed.

Yeah. So you like the Broncos, the plus seven half or do you think that's a teaser?

I like the Broncos. I wouldn't tease it just because I'm really strict on the wine teaser rules, but I do like the Broncos plus seven and a half.

Okay, so we have colts, lions, steelers, broncos, and some sort of ravens teaser. I told you to bring two picks. Did we use one of your picks yet?

No, we didn't even talk about them. I have a total. I have two games for one, and then I actually have three picks. But let's go with the Saints. Vikings under 41 and a half. Okay, this is the year to unders are 835-2161.

You and Warren Sharp had a good conversation about this. Pretty weird. It was an aberration that just turned into the season, and you guys laid out all the reasons why.

But I really like this under. I mean, when you look at both of these teams struggling to red zone, vikings 23rd and red zone TD percentage, Saints 20 eigth. But you look at this Vikings offense, there's no way in the world the Saints are going to let dobbs just roll to his right and find open receivers all game long like Arthur Smith and the Falcons did. The entire offense is basically in a hospital. Justin Jefferson, injured. KJ Osborne, concussion. TJ. Hawkinson, rib injury. Left tackle Christian Darisol missed the last week's game. He could be out. Cam Acres is now out for the season, and they can't run the ball. Alexander Madison, 3.6 yards per carry. And the Saints are, like, top ten in every defensive category. DVOA EPA for play success rate. So I just don't see where the points are coming from. And honestly, I like the Saints as well. Minus two and a half.

It's up to minus three on fando, unfortunately.

I still like that under, though. I still like the under.

Can I talk you into adjusting the under, which you're allowed to do on FanDuel to, like, what number would get you titillated? 48 and a half. 46 and a half.

So I'm not big on teasing totals, but if you're going to tease a total, I think you want to no.

We'Re doing a money parlay. We're doing a moneyline Saints moneyline, and we'll do some adjusted under. So how high do you want to go?

We could tease it to, like, a key number, like a 44. If you want to tease it to 49. I'm good getting those key. Numbers are key if we're going to tease it.

Okay, so we can do Saints moneyline with under 48 and a half is plus 109.

I love it.

Okay.

Yeah, I love it.

I like it too.

The other pick I had was the Ravens, which I know you had already.

Okay, so who are we teasing the Ravens with then?

I think we could go with I like Seattle. I think this is a great spot for like I would either go with Seattle or I know you said you like the Titans, but I think the Seattle Seahawks are just this is a prom bounce back spot, especially if they got blown out last week. Washington is on their second straight road game. They should have lost to you guys last week.

They should have. So Washington sucks because I watched it firsthand for 3 hours. I guess my only fear with throwing Seattle on a tease is what is going on with Gino Smith this year? And can they mean?

You know what I always say, it's only so long fake dogs can pretend. I just never thought Gino Smith was that guy.

Mean.

But this is the defense where he should be able to bounce back.

So you like Raven saints? Yeah. I'm sorry, raven Seahawks as a teeth.

Yeah.

I mean, look at who he's faced the last two weeks. He's faced two of the top five defenses. Baltimore has the number one scoring defense in the league. And then before that he played the.

So we have that line is now six and a half. Beautiful. Okay. All right, it's time. So we're dumping the Titans officially.

Okay.

Yeah.

Definitely Seattle.

But I'm saying just in general, no Titans money this week.

Yeah, I just don't have a good read on the game.

Yeah. All right, here we go. Million dollar picks for week ten, down $1.69 million. And as I said, this is my favorite week of the year. We're opening up. We are going what do you think? Four hundred k a game.

Yeah, why not? Let's go.

Why not? Four hundred k a game. First one. Colts minus one and a half in Germany against the decrepit Patriots. I can't believe this line is at three. We're grabbing the extra point and a half. Lions minus two and a half at the Chargers. Can't believe this line isn't four. Getting value there? Love the lions. We're both all in on the Lions. Are you worried about them for the one seed at all with your team or no?

Because you got the cowboys.

Lions are going to be the three.

I think the Lions have a real shot at getting the one seed based on their schedule.

Yeah. Good value in that right now. Next one. You didn't condone this. I forced it on you. Steelers minus three packers. This is a straight shorting of the Jordan Love Matt LaFleur combo because that is about as sloppy of a team as we've seen this year. And I'm just going to bet this Michael Myers infrastructure, whatever's going on with Pittsburgh, six to three. I guess one thing we could do with that is we could I'm not doing first.

I think you're right. I think you're right. I'm not like, disparaging your pick or saying you're wrong on this because I think Jordan Love really stinks. I'm just being disciplined for the number, but I think you're dead right. I think there's just no way the packers win this game.

You don't think, could this be the game that the Steelers actually win the first half?

That is very possible because when I.

Look at plus 110 for them to win the first half in the game, I guess that's not good enough value.

It's not great value. But the packers have lost the first half in every single game except for the Falcons game. And Desmond Ritter was like owing eleven in first half.

I'll stick with Steelers minus three. I hope we don't get screwed like we did with CJ. Stroud last week. Kneeling down up to it was the right move. It hurt my feelings. Next one, broncos plus seven half at Buffalo. This is a live dog. I mean, you could talk me into the moneyline with this, too, and we'll see if the Bills have to have another players meeting in a week. But we both like the Broncos. Broncos just two teams. First since the 70 20 game. I actually feel like they've been pretty solid and they can run the ball, too. Then this is your one and I love it. Saints moneyline going against the Vikings, a banked up Vikings team. And then we're going to take the adjusted under to 48 and a half. The combo of that is plus 109. Saints moneyline, saints under 48 and a half. And then last one, ravens tease. Ravens against the Browns. Browns offensive line banged up. Ravens are much better. I don't know how many points Browns score in that game. Ravens tease with the Seahawks. And Raheem loves the Seahawks in a bounce back spot. So we're putting 400K on all of those.

This is my biggest week of the year. Raheem?

Yeah.

I don't know. I hope you're as confident as I am.

I'm confident. But one thing I will say, next week we're going to sell the Ravens. This is a preview for everybody else because the Ravens play the Bengals on Thursday Night Football.

Okay?

This is the last week we can buy the Ravens at a good price.

All right, Raheem, we could see you on Sunday, 08:00 Pacific time, 11:00 Eastern time. You, JJ. House and cousin Sal banging it out. Who's your favorite out of the three? Have you decided yet?

It's definitely because, I mean, he's the only Cowboys fan. The rest of them root for losers.

Right, I forgot that part. All right. Good to see Raheem.

Good to see you, too.

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Ben and Raheem and Howard and Michael. Thanks Kyle Creighton and Steve Saruti as well. Have an awesome weekend. Don't forget about ringer wise guys on Fando TV on Sunday. Enjoy the weekend. Beat them on the way. Side. I don't have on the wayside on the first. Must be 21 plus in President select states. FanDuel is offering online sports wager in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino, LLC. Gambling problem. Call 1800 Gambler or visit Fanduel.com slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee and Virginia. You can call 1800 Next Step or text Next Step to 53342 in Arizona call 188-78-9777 or visit Ccpg.org Chat in Connecticut 1809 with it in Indiana 1805 two two 4700. Or visit Ksgamblinghelp.com in Kansas 18770 stop in Louisiana, Mdgamblinghelp.org. In Maryland, 1800 gambler Net in West Virginia or 1805. Two two 4700 in Wyoming. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 803 2750 50 for twenty four Seven Support in Massachusetts or call 18778 Hope NY or text Hope NY in New York.