The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I have a new rewatchable that's coming for you on Monday night.
It is a special episode.
You're probably not going to expect what it is.
Parts of it will probably confuse you, might make you mad.
You're not going to know where it's going.
Uh, that's all I'm going to say, but it's coming on a Monday night.
And if you like the podcast and if you've listened to at least a few episodes over the year, I'm pretty confident you will enjoy this episode.
So that is coming on the rewatchables on Monday.
And then we're moving into um, our big 2026 slate, which I was actually one of the things I was planning out over a little mini break.
They're trying to figure out the schedule for the first episode few months.
So stay tuned on that one.
Uh, coming up on this podcast, cousins house here, as always, we taped, recorded.
I always say tape like it's 1990.
We recorded like it was uh, like we usually do right after the game, except we had to wait a couple minutes because they were trying to release where the playoff matchups were.
So we have that at the top.
We have all the playoff seedings, all the implications for week 18, all of our reactions to a crazy week of football.
Week 17, which went uh thursday saturday sunday yeah, and now monday.
So uh, the nfl, they just, they know how to do it with us.
We have big action-packed parent corner here as well.
So it's all coming up.
Next we're gonna take a break.
Pearl jam, my cousin sal and i break it down.
Week 17, looking forward to week 18 next.
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All right, we're live Sunday night.
Just watched an absolutely awesome Bears 49ers game.
Cousin Sal is here.
We were a little late today because there were so many Week 18 implications, Sal.
Didn't even know where we were going to be on Saturday.
They gave us two awesome games for ESPN.
Holy shit, like two real high stakes games.
We were surprised.
We got Carolina, Tampa for the NFC South and then Seattle and the Rams for the one seed and the NFC West crown.
That's Saturday and Saturday night.
Now we have to tell our families, what are we going to do?
I'm not telling mine.
I'm just going to have to fake it.
I'll go to the hospital.
I'll do something.
Yeah.
I thought Seattle, I thought that Seattle game would go to Fox and Carolina would be Saturday night, but ESPN gets both.
I just, I can go launch into a Collinsworth, but, Football's the effing best.
Isn't it the best?
Today was great.
Come on.
Not today was great.
Football is the best.
Are you defending it after football got its ass kicked on Christmas?
I don't think it did.
Right down the chimney.
The NBA holes were ecstatic on Sunday night or Thursday night.
The Knicks game was close.
They were down by 60 most of it.
Denver, Minnesota was amazing.
Nobody was awake for that.
Got to watch LeBron jog around on defense.
It was great.
This is a bad start.
All right.
I'm going to try to stick to my script and we'll incorporate some of this other stuff.
Here are the things that are still in play with one week to go in this bizarre NFL season.
We might have an eight, nine division champion.
I think that's locked down, right?
Carolina or Tampa, or I guess if Tampa wins, they'd be an eight, nine division champ.
Yeah, right.
Bo Nix and Sam Darnold could be our number one seed quarterbacks.
Incredible.
Drake, May and Caleb and Caleb Williams could be our number two seed quarterbacks, after Jaden Daniels last year made the NFC title game.
We could have three new coaches as top three seeds.
We could have Josh Allen in the situation of having to win four games in a row on the road to win a Super Bowl.
We could have a scenario where Mac Jones beats the Patriots in the Super Bowl.
If Brock Purdy got hurt in the Niners and Pats, but I just thought about that today.
We have Aaron Rodgers, who I think was four yards a pass and just looked helpless today against Houston's defense which, just if you don't like Aaron Rodgers, this is the playoff game for you potentially.
Week 18, six wins total right now for New York football, which I think is the lowest ever.
And then both of them are going to lose next week.
We could have Bryce Young hosting a Shakey's game in round one.
And then, most important I think for this exercise, we could have San Francisco never leaving the Bay Area and playing in the Super Bowl, which I'm pretty sure has never happened right.
Oh, never leaving?
Yeah, a couple teams have won Super Bowl in their own country. stadium, right?
The Rams did it a few years ago, but never no no, never.
Actually, just like, like Tirico said at one point, they don't even have to use their suitcases.
And it's like, Oh yeah, they really don't.
Right.
They can just run it through.
Probably media day is probably like an hour and 20 minutes away.
That might be the furthest they have to travel.
It's actually more traveling for them than maybe people would think.
But the Niners, that was an awesome win for them.
I don't know how they're doing it with this defense.
Collinsworth said the word pass rush I think five times today.
They know pass rush.
It didn't feel like they could ever get a stop.
And then they finally got a stop at the end and stopped Caleb Williams.
He was laughing so much, Collinsworth.
I loved it.
Whenever there's points, he laughs.
I'm just laughing.
Anytime it's a touchdown, I'm slapping my knee like a maniac.
And, you know, Bill, even a field goal gets a chuckle.
But that play to Husek, I was losing it like a hyena at a Dave Chappelle one-man show.
Do you buy Halloween stuff for the front of your house that activates when people show up?
Because I was thinking the Collinsworth cackling thing where you get near the door and he just starts laughing like he does 10 seconds after a play when Tirico sets him up.
Right.
Caleb Williams.
I would buy that.
Anyway, we had Purdy versus Caleb in a Sunday shootout.
We had the Bears in yet another down to the wire comeback.
This time it fell short.
But are they the...
Are they the TV MVPs this year, the Bears?
Were they the most reliable, entertaining NFL team we had this year?
I feel like they were.
I think so.
I would have said maybe my stupid team or the Bengals.
I talk about them maybe playing on Super Bowl Sunday in the morning.
The Bears had, what, eight games come down to the wire or seven?
They're also good.
Yeah, they're also very good.
And they're fun to watch.
Caleb is a rollercoaster ride, but he's really fun to watch.
He can scramble and buy himself 11 seconds and then miss a wide-open guy in the same play.
Or he can uncork that 50-yarder like he did today where it was a wrist flick.
And it's a boom or that, that rifle he threw to Loveland.
I mean, he probably has, I think Drake may as a great arm.
Caleb seems like he even has like 2%, like more frozen ropey than, than Drake.
I would say those are the rockets right now.
And he could take off, right?
He knows all the angles.
He's Mahomes-esque with the angles and getting the first down just by a foot and all that stuff.
And he's cutting down on mistakes.
Not that he had a lot.
I think that out of anyone's first thousand passes, he had the fewest interceptions out of anybody in football.
So that was...
Until Drake can get to a thousand passes.
That's right.
Until he gets a thousand.
Yeah.
And the Niners are just as good, man.
They match him pretty buzzing around the field, throws that pick six.
And he was as cool as if he was up 17 points in the fourth, like really just, and with Trent Williams going out like they kind of seem bulletproof.
Like that might be like the toughest test they have, like something like that coming down to the wire.
Yeah.
It feels like whenever they want, they can go 75 yards.
Yeah.
I had a, I had a lot of Niner stuff tonight.
I had them tied to a bunch of different things betting wise.
And they threw that pick six to start the game basically.
And normally that is like throwing the black cat on the TV or walking under a ladder.
You're just like, Oh, here we go.
I'm done.
Cross this up.
But I never felt that way with them because it's so easy for them to get first down.
So what's weird is you look up like I was looking at their stats in the fourth quarter, and you just look at their receivers and it's It's not like they have awesome receivers.
It's just random dudes and dudes that got patched together and tight ends and backup tight ends and McCaffrey.
And yet somehow Purdy's throwing for 300 yards and he's creating stuff with his legs.
Today he was 303, three TDs.
Ran the ball twice for touchdowns.
Got like a prolonged Collinsworth cackle on that little playground play that he had.
But he was great.
And I don't know who he's throwing to.
They're giving all this money to Ayuk.
He's gone.
Jennings, I forgot, was even on the team and then made the biggest play of the game in the fourth quarter.
But it's a very strange team, and it just seems like they moved the ball.
Yeah, and it doesn't seem like I don't want to jinx them, but I guess McCaffrey would be worth one just looking through a gambling lens to the spread.
But otherwise, you know, Kittle goes out.
They could have scored 50 points today, just like you said.
I forgot to mention him.
Kittle's almost like a bonus for them.
Yeah.
When he plays, I don't know if the defense is making enough stops.
That's.
That's the only thing we could.
We could talk about.
But yeah, I mean I was on multiple Patriot threads today wondering whether we should be upset.
That can wait who the Patriots gave away during the season.
Who plays every snap for the Niners, it seems like.
And it's like, well, why do we give that guy away if he's playing all the time for the Niners?
And then it's like, well, they just gave up 38 points.
We never saw the Bears punt him.
Maybe that's why they gave him up.
It's a pretty, you think like Warner's out, Bosa's out.
They lost the first round pick.
They had D-backs hurt today.
They had backups to the backups that were in there.
It was pretty crazy that they were even in it.
Don't get us wrong.
We're still cursing Robert Sala on various text chains, but it probably isn't his fault.
But both of those teams, very, very entertaining.
Yeah, I don't really understand how they're hanging around like this.
Caleb is now over 3,700 yards.
He's got 25 TDs and six picks this season.
And you're in first-name basis with him, which is even more important than all that stuff.
Well, the other thing I noticed today about three hours ago, he was number three in the FanDuel MVP odds.
Oh, really?
I don't think that's the case anymore.
Yeah, I think it probably dropped now.
He was third.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
It was basically a two-horse race.
Because Josh Allen, and we'll talk about him later, but Josh Allen's campaign was torpedoed.
Um, but so you have him, and then you have Luther burden, as this play of monkey, wrench and Collinsworth is like I've been watching this guy.
He was kind of making it seem like I knew this was going to happen with them.
And it's like, this guy's available in every fantasy league right now in the finals.
What are you doing?
He's 400 yards this year, but he looked awesome today.
I roomed with him at Missouri and it was a little weird because I'm 40 years older, but you know whatever,
We got used to it.
Yeah.
I watched him eat eggs, Mike, and it was just great.
McCaffrey, I think we talk about this every year on Week 17.
Who won everybody's fantasy league?
Who was the guy?
Mm-hmm.
And I think it was McCaffrey.
They handed out that award in the NFL honors or whatever it's called.
It's like guy who won everyone their fantasy league.
It's McCaffrey.
Like our league, our front co-host, the MOOC, he's about to win the league.
And it was basically McCaffrey.
He rode McCaffrey, got hot at the perfect time, crested in the fantasy playoffs and was not priced as like a 60 guy.
What was he like?
45 bucks, I think.
Yeah, 45.
He was like 25% off.
And he ended up doing it again.
This is one of the great fantasy guys I've ever had.
Right?
When he took him, they were like, yeah, you could have McCaffrey.
He'll get hurt week three, whatever.
Check it out.
But yeah.
We've been playing fantasy since early 90s.
What was your first year?
92, I think.
Yeah, I think I was 90 or 91.
McCaffrey is now a first ballot fantasy Hall of Famer, I think.
Oh, yeah.
I don't know if he's past Tomlinson.
I still feel like Tomlinson that six year run Tomlinson had is just unapproachable.
But McCaffrey, I think is right, with Marshall Falk and a couple others, like just generational great fantasy running backs, not to mention somebody who could potentially be on the one seed.
And somebody who I could identify with because it looked like he was dying from a bad back as the game was going.
Yeah, I thought he was going to be using like the Norma tech or something to like the giant back brace vibrator thing to help him out.
The four yard screen over the middle where he just gets pounded instantly or before.
In most cases, I could see him saying the birdie like, hey, can you cut me some slack?
Can you tell us who's checked there?
I don't I don't need every one of these.
Yeah.
Yeah, can you not throw me the four-yarder when you can see the linebacker running full speed about to hit me?
Can we take that out of the thing?
The linebacker's waving his hands.
He's like, okay, I'm ready.
Go ahead.
There was also a hook and ladder in this game, which was the second one we saw today in a pivotal time on a drive that worked.
And you and I have both been on hook and ladder island for a long time.
Always wondering why teams don't do this more.
It always either works or at least it gets them first down.
It worked today, but Did you think the bears were going to win when they got that?
When it was there on the four yard line, basically.
And they had one play.
Yeah.
What did you think was good?
If you could alive bet it right there, who did you think was going to win?
I think I did.
I mean I didn't bet it but I would have thought bears there just because I thought.
But I thought like Caleb was going to find an opening and run in.
But on that last play, he was just too scattered and, and, and run back too much.
But he missed a couple.
What did he miss for?
I mean, I thought he was really good in that game but he also missed four wide open guys, including they pointed out that all 22 camera he had.
Who was the guy DuVernay that he grounded?
And it actually seemed like it could have been a touchdown.
So he'll he he should go up a level at some point.
But I was I was thinking if they won that game.
It was the first time I was ready to take them seriously as like could they actually make the Super Bowl.
Right.
Like all these stupid wins they have.
Maybe this is just team of destiny shit.
And maybe this is just where we're heading.
Yeah, well, we went from, you know, a few weeks ago.
So it's looking like we'll go over all this, but it looks like they'll play the Packers, right?
If they get the two seed.
It looks like.
It looks like Bears Packers to seven, unless the Lions have some sort of crazy out of nowhere win in week 18.
So a month ago or five weeks ago, when the Packers played him at home and beat him, we're like yeah, that's what should happen.
Get lost, Bears.
Get out of the way.
And then like when they came back the Bears on that Saturday night and they just like that crazy touchdown at the end, the onside kick, and everything like like, oh man well, that's stupid too.
But at least they're closer now if they play.
I'd be surprised if the Packers stay within within nine or 10 points, honestly.
Oh, especially with all the injuries the Packers have had.
I mean, they, they're like an ambulance unit at this point.
Yeah.
I you know the Eagles at halftime of that uh Eagles bills game.
You're thinking like this, is it?
Finally, somebody has arrived in the NFC to challenge one of these NFC West teams.
Like, thank you.
Thank what you're late to the party, but thank you.
And then the second half hurts, doesn't have a completion and they should have lost the game.
And yeah we're.
We're basically back to where we were, where we had this great eagles win and their fans feel terrible, right?
Yeah, it's just the classic eagles gamut of emotions where they win, they pulled it out.
Nobody feels good about it, not one person.
They won for a month like that, basically not.
You know, now they have two games where he didn't complete a pass in the second half.
Then they won the game.
Like just outrageous to me.
I know the weather was bad, but You know they went up against Raiders Giants.
And if you were to just change the uniforms and said OK, which one of these games, which one of these teams is tanking?
You're like, oh, probably the probably the team of the quarterback who can't complete a pass.
That's it.
They're getting the first pick no matter what.
So I don't know.
I don't know how they're doing it.
That defense is excellent.
Much better with Jalen Carter, obviously.
Yeah, man.
Oh, man.
Put together something, something in the second half.
It's just like a lack of desperation and creativity. when they have leads.
I've felt like I've watched that Eagles game eight times this year, where they look good for about an hour and then they kind of hold on and then you wonder what what what, what's happening?
Why are there play?
Why am I predicting every play?
They're running from the couch, you know, and then they barely hold on and you feel awful.
But Do you think Seriani is like buying into the crap or do you think he just has to be like, Like he's Milton Berling it?
Like he's just pulling out just enough to win every week?
After the game, he's talking trash.
He's going through the tunnels.
Like I told you, no one's saying anything yet.
And he actually walks right by the locker room.
Like everyone's rolling their eyes at him.
But does he think like this is the way to do it?
Like he's going to be able to knuckle balls away to the finals?
Maybe he will if he's been there.
Did five straight punts in the second half.
They blocked the PAT, which is the only reason the Bills wouldn't have just won on that second TD.
Alan kind of gacked the throw.
I got to call it for what it is.
If that's any other quarterback, we're talking about how the quarterback choked.
Alan's been great.
I know he's banged up.
There's a lot of quarterbacks banged up, but it was just a gack.
The guy was wide open.
They didn't really give us the all 22 of, of, They gave us a side view and then another thing.
So I know when the all 22 comes out tomorrow, I just feels like he just completely missed him.
And I don't know whether he was going to his left.
They were trying to make excuses for him.
They're like, well, he was off balance.
He was drifting.
It's like, I don't know, man.
Like this guy is supposed to be the best quarterback in the league.
You kind of have to make that throw.
To Rico just all 22.
We could watch now that NBC has everything.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was, it was a little bit off balance.
It's a throw.
He makes probably 90 out of a hundred times.
It was bad.
It was in the rain, but yeah, definitely his fault.
But getting him down there is just.
It was all Josh Allen like running sideways for nine yards, just lunging on the fourth down and scoring.
I can't believe how many people thought it was the wrong move to go for two.
Like I thought, I was like, yeah, that's a no-brainer.
Which way were you thinking on that?
Oh, 100% go for two.
If it was week eight, or if it was, they actually could win the AFC East, if they win this game.
Maybe you're thinking different.
But they didn't want to.
Allen's already hurt.
It's pouring rain.
The field's terrible.
Your playoff seed is what it is to begin with.
Like, why not go for it?
The Eagles defense had been on the field for like, it felt like an hour straight.
And you should be able to get it.
And, by the way, the guy was wide open and they have the best quarterback in the league and he's got to hit the throw.
Drake May hits that throw.
I'm sorry.
Eagles?
Oh, that's what this is.
That's what you wanted to get.
Drake May hits the throw.
He does.
Why?
I think Purdy hits the throw.
I could name 10 quarterbacks who hit that throw.
I couldn't believe he missed it.
Josh Allen hits the throw.
Josh Allen hits the throw.
What are you going to do?
He's the best QB in the league.
It was terrible.
Right.
But I don't think people should say they shouldn't have gone for two because he missed that.
Like they just like, like you said, like small chance that we're going to win the AFC East.
Anyway, Allen's he is injured.
Like is that foot's a real injury.
They want to probably sit them next week.
They definitely don't want him to play in overtime.
By the way, your kicker just shanked your kicker.
Your bills kicker wearing number 32 in honor of OJ.
Weird enough.
Slices it.
I love that.
That's it.
I love this.
Pay no much.
That's a costume.
That's a playoff game.
You kick the PAT, you take it to overtime.
Fine.
And you trust that your defense has stopped them for an hour and a half and your offense has been moving the ball and you're at home and you're going to win the game.
But week 18, when you're going to be, what are they, the six?
They're going to end up being the sixth seed, I think, is how it's going to shake out.
How do they get the sixth?
Oh, they're seven now.
How would they get that?
Because the Chargers would have to beat Denver to keep the sixth seed.
Oh, they do.
Yeah.
So if they both lose chargers and bills, the bills, the bills went next week and the chargers lose.
The bills are the six.
Yeah.
And the chargers are the seven seed.
But if the bill said everyone, I know it's against, but why would they do that though?
I don't know.
If I'm the quarterback's injured and everything, do you think they, if they're playing the jets, there's going to be like two touchdown favorites?
You're not, you're, You got to at least try to win that game for a half.
We'll talk about that.
But do you think they want to definitely go to Jacksonville versus go to New England?
Well, let me ask you.
The Pats are getting Milton Williams back and they're getting Will Campbell back.
They're 13-3.
They have May, who's playing the best of anyone in the league right now.
Why would they want to play the Patriots over the Jaguars?
Well, cause I think the Jaguars a hundred times out of a hundred.
Alan probably just heard you say Drake may makes that throw.
And now he's angry.
I mean, he was hurt.
It's pouring rain.
I get it.
But if you're the best quarterback in the league, you got to make the throw.
But if that was my homes two years ago and he missed that throw, we'd be like I can't believe my homes missed that throw more times than not, though.
When these teams have a choice between a seven or a six seed, they don't they'll.
They'll err on the side of rest, but they're playing the jets.
Don't want to, I watched the jets for three hours today.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah.
They want no part of even being with it.
They've lost.
I think they're the first team since 1967, since they've kept track of this, where there've been four December games.
They're the first team who's lost all four December games by 23 points or more.
They're going to beat the bills next week.
There's no way all right.
So you you're thinking bills win, charges lose to everybody, and that's, that's the six.
Well, here's these.
These are the pat's threads i'm on, where we talk about why we don't still have key on weight and also how.
Either way, it's great for us because if, if denver beats the chargers fine, denver's the one seed, Pats are the two seed.
Pats then play the Chargers who don't have either of their tackles, who have Herbert, who has this giant cast on his arm and who really did not look good on Saturday.
Or if the Chargers beat Denver, the Pats are the one seed if they beat Miami.
So either way, that's great for the Pats.
The thing that would suck is if Miami somehow beat them with Quinn Ewers.
Oh, you're looking too far ahead with these Chargers.
Well, that's the thing.
I already don't like that it's going to be a late afternoon game.
I don't like the late afternoon Sunday East Coast games.
I think weird shit happens.
It's like getting dark.
It's freezing cold.
The fans are dead.
I don't like those games.
Makes me nervous.
I was looking because they have Fandle has stage of elimination.
I saw that.
And the Chargers, you and I, when we did the futures in August, I took Chargers first round.
They lose.
We could bet it in August.
And right now it's minus 155.
I think that's a good bet.
Yeah, so that's either them going to Jacksonville who housed them five weeks ago or the Pats.
I mean, Herbert, I thought Herbert was awesome in that Houston game.
They certainly didn't lose because of him.
No.
But they just don't have enough.
I mean, the Shakey's game can't believe they might not get the Chargers.
They're like, what are we doing?
You've checked all of our boxes.
You can't block.
Your games are terrible.
The CEO of Shakey's is meeting with Goodell to see if they get the Chargers.
He's like, how do we get the Chargers?
We just want to get them in there.
Stafford, minus 250 for MVP.
Is that changed?
It's 250, yeah.
Drake is plus 200.
Everybody else is gone.
Right, that's it.
So the Rams, the Rams are probably going to be a five or a six seed.
I'm not even sure they're going to care about tomorrow night now which, if you have the Rams and parlays tomorrow, it's like Oh, now what?
Yeah, we both do.
Son of a bitch.
I don't know why Stafford's favorite.
I don't really understand that.
So you're saying, because I know Patriots fans are all caught up in this.
How could a five seed quarterback on a five seed?
I thought we established like it's the one or the two seed usually presents the MVP, plus Drake has gotten better the whole season.
I mean, I don't really care.
I don't have money on it, but right.
Um, I want to, um, I want to congratulate Josh Allen and the bills for five straight AFCs titles.
Hmm.
Which the streak ended today, but five straight's a good number.
Good job by you.
That was one less than Tom Brady's second longest streak of six.
There you go.
He had 11 and he had six.
And then the Bills, who were supposed to own the division, like Tom Brady and the Pats did for the next 20 years.
I think they are the only team to win a division five years in a row and not make or not win the Super Bowl.
I thought it was not make the Super Bowl.
Was it not make?
Okay.
You're all over it.
With all that said, that's the team I don't want to see in any part of the playoffs.
I don't want to see Josh Allen.
I was talking to my dad about it today and we were just going through all the teams and we were like eh, eh.
And then it gets to the Bills.
I was like, yep, don't want to see them.
I don't want to go against Josh Allen for three hours, even though whatever happened today happened.
That's still the guy.
Are you insulted, though, that they have the same odds as the Patriots to win the Super Bowl, 10-1?
I think it's fair because the Pats haven't done anything.
And we've been down this road with them and the Bears and these teams like this, that once it gets to January, I think it flips a little bit.
Pats have stayed healthy.
Today was a don't get hurt game in this Jets game.
Drake had a 99.8 QBR, which was the highest since they started recording QBR.
The Jets were awful.
I mean, it was a combo of Drake and the Pats were good, but the Jets were really awful.
And then they kind of had a rough in the passer.
It was 28-3.
Did you see this?
Yeah, I did.
Yep.
And Vrabel got pissed and the Pats went into FU mood and drove down and scored.
And then they called a timeout with 11 seconds left.
It felt like the Pats were back.
It was 35-3.
Yeah, Vrabel calls a timeout.
I mean, I guess he figures, what are the Jets going to make me pay for this in the year 2052?
What's the downside?
But actually, the downside is you could be a likable team.
Now that you're good again, but you're choosing not to.
So that's fine.
Listen, today might have been the peak of the year for us.
Like the chance to maybe get a one seed.
We win the AFC East.
Josh Allen doesn't win.
This might be as good as it gets.
But 13-3 is pretty impressive.
And then you get the thing that was being forwarded around today about how they beat one team with a winning record.
Yeah, sure.
And I was like, that's not true.
And then I looked it up.
I was like, ah, that is true.
Yeah, we've had one win against a team with a winning record.
They just demolished some of these teams, though.
I looked up.
It was 22-3 in first downs.
I was like, oh, geez.
Why are you even getting off the bus?
This is just sickening.
And the fact that they have no interceptions still through 17 games.
As a quarterback, you're just foaming at the mouth.
You have as free a game as you want.
Well, I had the New York football stuff.
That's in play right now, other than the four December games by 23 plus points, all losses.
Which Jets made history there.
They were down 35 to three at halftime to a coach that they passed up on hiring two straight years.
They could have fired Salah two years ago and hired him.
Right.
They didn't.
Last year kind of like tepidly went after him and you know, and he was kind of using them as leverage with the Pats.
Um, and then you have the giants Raiders where we have this last 72 hours.
It was hilarious with the injury scratches, giants Raiders going for the one seed.
And we, you have a bunch of giant fans in your life.
Yeah.
And it was like, ah, this is how it's going to play out.
The giants are going to be dumb enough to win this game convincingly.
I actually ended up putting them in a parlay.
Cause I was like, they're definitely stupid enough to the giants.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I finally ended up today.
I ended up putting them in the parlay, but they love doing this.
They, the Raiders now have an 80% chance of the first pick.
Max Crosby's playing basketball and jumping on a trampoline and videos.
And what a mess.
Just a mess all the way around, Sal.
Well, you know how I hate this tanking stuff, right?
I feel like December tanking should be reserved for the NBA and the NBA only.
And I had my fun with it, for sure, on the pregame show.
But the NFL really took a chance by isolating this game.
Yeah.
Like they really like it was that kind of nudge one more early game to late.
They should have sent this to Australia.
This should have been played at three thirty in the morning and nobody should have seen it because.
But it's not like anyone's punting on first down or purposely doing whatever.
Ashton Gentry played the whole game.
I know everyone made a big deal out of the Max Crosby thing.
He hit an off-balance three.
He didn't look that good making that three-pointer.
I think if you film our wives shooting off-balance threes for a half hour, they're going to make one.
That's a good point.
And I just don't like the... I don't know.
I think it's an arrogant stance by the front office of any team that's supposed to be tanking.
Like, oh, we're not good at hiring coaches.
We're not good at signing free agents, but get us our draft pick, because that's where we're going to turn it around.
It's like, no, you're not.
Cut it out.
Just play the game.
Play it away.
I was texting with McShay today and it sounds like if the Oregon QB comes out, Like if you look at Fando Mendoza, who's supposed to be the number one pick, he's only minus 180 to be the first pick.
Right.
Morris plus 250, I think because they don't know if he's coming out yet or not.
But it might be a two-keeper.
So it might have worked out for the Giants anyway.
So the Jets are in trouble.
Yeah, the Jets are the ones.
The Jets are the ones that could be in trouble.
But Gino threw his 17th pick today.
If you thought they were tanking, you didn't see Gino the rest of the year because he was on brand.
He didn't do anything differently.
I didn't see the box score.
Did you mean 17th pick today or 17th pick today?
Today he threw a 17th pick.
I think he had 17 picks and 29 drop picks is where it landed.
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Just go to linkedin.com slash Simmons bill terms and conditions apply Jags Colts.
Two more, uh, Red zone turnovers for the Jags in this game.
Yeah.
Old man Phil Rivers going for his first run.
All these shots of his family celebrating in the luxury box.
They take an early lead.
And it's like, here we go.
Same old Jags.
I know where this is going.
And they won.
They pulled it off.
They staved off old man Phil.
They finally got him to throw a pick.
He was having the old guy luck, like dropping picks and stuff.
And then finally they got a turnover off him.
But did it change how you felt about the Jags at all?
Yeah, it did.
I felt the same way about Lawrence as I did with Purdy throwing that early interception.
Like we've seen them not bounce back.
Like you felt like it wasn't going to sink them.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, I was surprised when it didn't.
I was like wow, we've seen this.
Just put them behind the eight ball and then like they just couldn't come back from it.
But like we have a thing where we text the quarterback's name and then an exclamation point after any interception, there's like 70 of those throughout the day.
But, um, When that happened, I was like, I'm live betting Jacksonville here.
They're just moving the ball too well otherwise.
They're doing good.
Rivers, I know he owes us one.
And also, you can't ask for a lot more than him, right?
I think over three games, he has four touchdowns, three interceptions, like about 550 yards.
That's what you're going to get out of a guy you signed.
It was good last Monday.
He was moving the ball.
He wasn't the reason they lost to San Francisco. he didn't really cost them.
So Riley Leonard cost them one pass and an interception.
No, then the hail Mary.
But no, that's a game.
The Jags have lost a hundred times in four years, you know?
So I felt the same way.
It was the first time I've watched the Jags where they had adversity early and a couple of dumb things happen.
And I didn't feel like, Oh, cross them off.
I also did not put them in anything today other than a 13-point tease that I sent you guys in the pregame show.
But I didn't trust them at all.
I didn't know what they were capable of.
On the one hand, they kind of went for it this year in a bunch of different ways.
They have a lot of first-round picks.
They had a lot of high picks over the last couple years.
They traded for Jacoby Myers during the season.
They went all in on that Travis Hunter trade and traded all these future assets.
So it was a little like Atlanta where they were really trying to be good in 2025.
On the other hand, a lot of it worked.
You know like like, when you look like Myers is over and over again, third and nine, third and seven.
That's, it just seems like that's become the guy they got ETN going again.
And I think they're a mildly frisky playoff team.
Like they're probably going to be, it's a chance.
They're gonna be a home underdog.
If it's Buffalo, if it's a three, six, right.
I wouldn't be, wouldn't be opposed to taking them as a home dog in a playoff game.
Would you?
Me too.
I think like and I I'm pretty brave about this right now, but maybe in a couple of weeks I won't be, but I don't think the bills have four in a row in them.
So I don't know if it's the first one that's against Jacksonville or not, but they get stops.
They do all the right things.
They do all the teams.
I just can't believe is this Indianapolis year. the strangest of any other, like their coach dies.
They have Daniel Jones, they're seven to one, then they're eight and two.
And then Jones goes out and they just free fall to the bottom and they signed Phil.
They haven't won since right.
Sauce Gardner.
Oh my God.
They trade all these assets for sauce Gardner.
So their future is kind of screwed here.
And not only it's the AFC South.
Not only don't they make it at eight and two, but two other AFC South teams make it in the playoffs.
Like they're not one of them.
What a bizarre-ass year.
That first-round pick they gave up for Sauce Gardner, which feels like it was 10 years ago.
Oh, yeah.
And it's like, oh yeah well, they're going to be a one or a two seed, so that pick will be bottom of the first round.
Now it's going to be like 16.
Right in the middle.
Great trade for the Jets.
What do they care?
I actually wrote down in my notes is there an MVP case for Daniel Jones, even though he only played half the year?
Interesting.
Interesting. gets hurt, they never win again.
Maybe he was the MVP.
That should be an NFL honors.
The award, for I didn't realize how important you were until something bad happened, or whatever that's called.
It's so funny because I had in my notes.
That's why I would pick Ben Johnson for coach of the year because he gets the double FU.
We saw with Detroit can't get a first down for some reason and all what he's doing with the Bears the worst to first deal.
Jags-Colts.
Unbelievable turn of events for the Colts and the Bucs.
And I was trying to think, like, is this unusual or what?
And it's just the season's so fucking long.
We talked about this last week.
The season's just too long.
It takes forever.
Guys get injured.
These big injuries.
A cluster of injuries.
Your season flips.
Dolphins-Bucs.
Where?
I don't know if you saw this, but the Tampa players.
They had a press conference about an hour ago.
They announced they've run out of ways to quit on Ted Bowles.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
They said, we've tried everything.
We've lost seven of eight.
We've tried to lose games at the end.
We've tried to get killed during games.
We've tried to seem unprepared.
We've tried to have games where we have 12 penalties.
We don't know what else to do other than not show up for the next game.
We've exhausted our options.
Not only are they trying, the other teams are trying to.
We're going to give you Quinn Ewers on a platter.
We're going to give you the 17 point Lee, everything else.
But I don't get it at all.
And I have this team to win a division.
I stupidly took them.
You might still win it.
Make it.
I guess I just them and the lions like how I look up and I see that they'll have 10 points in the fourth quarter.
I'm like, how does this happen?
How did these who was calling these plays here?
This is outrageous.
And I don't want to hear about Tristan Wirfs.
I get it.
But yeah, you know, I watched every single play.
He had time to throw the ball, right?
He had time to throw the ball downfield.
He actually had that one scramble where he really should have been like he should have been flattened in the pocket.
And he rolled left and he got a first down.
And then he followed it with like the worst interception you'll see if you live to be 150 years old.
He has eight picks in the last seven games.
I was thinking that, well, two things, two awards for him.
I think he took the season lead for hospital balls today.
I think his receivers are now terrified when they're over the middle because his balls, you have no idea where they're going.
But the the Baker Mayfield award for the guy who looked like an MVP for five weeks and then completely died.
And by the end of the year you wondered if he was going to be on the team next year, which I think started with Russell Wilson.
That one year when he Remember, Russell Wilson had that awesome September where, like he's never won the MVP.
How crazy is that?
Is this going to be the end?
But by the end of the year it was like he might be out of the, out of Seattle.
But Baker became that guy this year.
It's just a gamut of emotions.
When the Browns are like, yeah, man, we did the right thing.
Okay.
That's what we, we might've done the right thing. with the Baker.
They might've felt that way until Sanders threw that pick.
He threw the lob Hail Mary.
That's true.
Interception.
Then they're like, nah, maybe we didn't do the right thing.
I think he has a different form of a hospital ball.
Like he throws it to the sideline.
Like he'll throw overthrow Mike Evans by the sideline, but evans has to die for it out of bounds and he could get hurt.
He'll run into like eight guys with jackets on and stuff.
Sometimes it's his own guys, but like he gets up, that's not a hospital ball, that's like uh, it's like a collision ball.
Yeah right right yeah, it's.
Who's the guy that?
What's that all state?
The guy from oz who's always banged up on all right mayhem mayhem right Yeah, whatever.
But he was Ryan O'Reilly and us.
Oh, I see what you're saying.
Yeah, he throws the Allstate balls.
It's like collision insurance.
He gets the Allstate award.
It's like nobody's safe.
Cameramen, assistant coaches.
He should do a commercial for sure.
So this is my favorite stat.
I did a lot of research during the late games because there were only two games to watch and one of them was a complete abomination.
So during the commercials.
Bulls, Todd Bulls.
This might be his second division title where the team went 8-9.
That's like Hall of Fame candidacy material.
Nobody is ever doing that again.
That's good.
How many losing record division champs have we ever had?
He's going to do it twice?
Mike Tomlin's like, get off my back.
You see what's going on in Tampa?
He's like, at least I go 9-8.
I was thinking they could win the title go eight nine, but they'll still.
They'd already planned on firing him after week 18.
They might just do it anyway.
Right.
Just bring in whoever, bring in Bruce Arians to coach it.
One last thing on that game.
First of all, I don't feel like that's an easy Pat's dolphins game next week, even though we haven't guessed the line yet.
I don't know what it is, but I think that dolphins have been reasonably frisky 80 of the time for two months here.
Um, I mean, they just came off two weeks off of that.
Pittsburgh game was an abomination on Monday.
Right.
They played last week, Cincinnati who was left for dead.
And then they, I don't know.
I, they look pretty well.
I mean, I know they look fine today.
Well, Tampa's still alive because the Panthers couldn't beat the Seahawks.
And uh, I was texting with Danny Kelly and Mina Kimes about this two Seahawks fans asking them if the Seahawks have finally beaten out any confidence they had in January.
Is there any, is there a small piece left?
And it's just, I think it's gone.
I don't think you can watch this team for three hours a week and think they're going to win a couple straight playoff games and make the Super Bowl.
After today, you thought they beat Carolina?
No, but just when you watch them for three hours, it's like, this is all cute.
Right.
There's just no way they're actually going to make the Super Bowl with this team.
Darnold has 20 turnovers, which leads the NFL.
Seattle has 28 turnovers, which is the second highest.
And here's another stat for you.
They've only gone for it on 13% of the first downs this year, which is the worst in the NFL.
So the coach doesn't trust the offense.
The offense still turns the ball over all the time.
It just feels like it's ready for a January playoff tsunami for themselves.
So you trust them least out of the three NFC West teams?
I think out of all the good teams, I trust them the least.
I just don't trust their offense.
Their offense hasn't been good for two months.
I don't see how it's going to change.
Just take out JSN as much as you can.
What else are they going to do?
I guess.
Screen pass to Kenneth Walker?
What else is left?
And sometimes that works all game, all three hours, and sometimes you don't see it at all.
But I don't know what to do with this.
I feel like I have to step aside.
Sam Darnold has 26 wins in two years.
26 wins.
Well, their defense won the game today.
Bryce Young had 54 yards passing total, which is the same number... as Times Panthers fans have switched their opinion on him.
I think they're now glass half empty on Bryce.
But like a week ago, it's like, we might have a guy.
It's almost like it needs to end.
What would you do if you're a Panthers fan?
Would you want him back next year?
He threw 24 times.
You could have 54 passing yards on like six or seven attempts, but not on 24.
Yeah, what was that?
You mailed me that stat.
Who was the guy, the last guy who did it?
David Woodley.
David Woodley in 1980?
Yeah yeah yeah sorry, david woodley, i'm sorry we don't bring you up that much, but that's uh sadly.
I'm old enough to remember david woodley and he was not good.
Yeah hey, if i can get malik willis, i i would do that over bryce young.
I think i mean he's gonna get paid now, malik willis isn't he?
Would you take mac jones over bryce young?
I don't know, because i think i would.
I don't know, it's close.
I just don't think this team should be anywhere near where they are.
Anyway, We just can't escape the crumminess of the NFC South.
And the funniest thing is the best QB in the conference now, or the division now, is Shuck.
No doubt.
It's not even close, is it?
I mean, he was 22 for, he gets the Titans, but he was 22 for 27 for 333 and two TDs.
Name anyone he played with today.
Who was on his team?
It was unbelievable.
If you actually look a lot, a lot of it has like nine touchdowns.
That surprised me.
I looked at his numbers and everything.
Yeah.
A lot of it's been his one guy, but they had he had valet, who I had on my uh, My fantasy team for a week.
He's out for the year, but they lost Kamara.
They've lost all these guys.
Shuck is now plus 120 for Offensive Rookie of the Year on Findo.
I saw that.
Why is he behind Ted McMillan?
I know you shouldn't get too excited about a win over the Titans, but this guy's solid.
He's not going to really lose you games like this.
And like you said, I know I'm being facetious.
I think he's better than solid.
I honestly think he's better than solid.
I think he's legitimately...
Pretty good.
Well, he has more 300-yard passing games than Drake maybe, so maybe.
And he's tough.
We talked about him last week.
I was texting with McShay about it because McShay was all in on him from the senior bowl.
What a name dropper you are, McShay and Mina, Danny Kelly.
I have more.
I have more coming.
David Woodley.
But McShay was wondering, like, these older QBs, maybe this is like an inefficiency now.
In the NFL, these guys who have just lived some life, instead of just bringing these, maybe think of, like that Oregon QB who's going to be like 21 next year.
Like maybe, maybe that's not a good idea.
Yeah.
To bring in like the baby.
No, I know.
I mean, it's like this old guy has bounced around.
We've seen both, right?
We saw like Bo Nix.
It's a million starts.
And a lot of these guys are going to have like 60 starts per day.
So we've seen it go both ways.
But I might rather have an older one.
Except that when you sign him that contract, then you have a big decision to make when he's like 29 years old.
First time.
Right.
So the Seahawks win next week.
They're playing the Rams.
I'm sorry.
They're playing the 49ers.
Which number one seed would you feel worst about?
Denver or seattle?
Or, if i'm the opposing team, just you in general, from a gambling standpoint, from a football fan standpoint yeah, just everything like which one, which one makes you queasier out of those two?
So you're gonna say seattle, but i think denver.
I would say denver yeah, because at least seattle's defense we've seen them really turn it up whereas denver's defense i'm not even sure where we totally are with it at this point.
Denver they beat the Jets by two.
They beat the Giants by one.
They beat Davis Mills by three.
They beat the Raiders by three.
And then they beat them by seven.
That was, you know, that was a weird one.
The Casey game was alarming.
Like, Casey almost beat them.
Chris Oladokun by seven.
What the fuck was that?
Kelsey's, like, wide open.
He's the only receiver they had.
Yeah.
Like, we've seen them open up their offense and play great.
But that's half their schedule, I just read to you.
Well, I was thinking I was looking back at the 2008 season because I was trying to think of the last crazy I've mentioned this before but the last really truly crazy season.
And that was the year when Pittsburgh played Arizona in the Super Bowl.
But I was looking at the first round where so things that happened.
That year Arizona was a nine and seven champion that then made the Super Bowl and just kept upsetting people.
Mm-hmm. the chargers were an eight and eight division champ.
They of course won in round one.
But if you look back at round one, I think all of them were upsets.
The chargers beat the Colts, the Eagles beat the Vikings, the Ravens beat the dolphins.
Um, each one it felt like, I think, the underdog, maybe one outright three of the four, and it just kind of kept going and was just one of those stupid years.
And it ended up with a Pittsburgh, Arizona uh, which I think was the birth of the Gary Russell prop.
Oh, beautiful.
But looking at that first round made me wonder if that's what we're headed for this year, with even more games, where we're going to have six games round one, or we just got like five upsets.
I just, and I texted you, I texted Bill Simmons.
I'll drop a name like an hour ago.
I was like man, this is we are going to have.
It's going to be impossible to make money in the playoffs, because who do you trust?
I think your overall point is Denver and Seattle.
You're not getting that trust factor because you're not getting that go-to quarterback.
The one that's been there for so many years, but I guess we're just looking at like, yeah.
Who couldn't we put as the anchor of a tease or parlay?
Who's like a minus two 50 minus 300 seven point favorite seven at point favorite.
I don't have the team.
I don't like, I don't trust the Niners from what we saw today.
Their defense can't stop anybody.
They're good.
Like, they're going to have to outscore somebody, which is what they did today for two hours.
But then they finally had to punt and it felt like they were going to lose the game.
Not to mention if you have one turnover.
So a couple more games quickly.
Brown Steelers, which we thought the league, this was the one you rig.
If you're going to rig a game, not that the league's fixed, but if it was true, this would be the game you fix, where the Browns win.
Now there's no DK Metcalf.
That was the case for Browns Moneyline.
Who had that on the pregame show?
Somebody must have had Brown's money line, right?
A few of us had plus three and a half or plus three.
I thought Brown's without Metcalf.
Rodgers was helpless.
39 attempts for 168.
It looked like the classic bullshit Steelers game that they're going to somehow win.
And they didn't win.
I mean, deep exhale from Roger Goodell as Rogers sailed that fourth down pass out of the end zone.
He got his Sunday night matchup for 18, but Yeah, man.
I, you know, I don't want to, I'll give miles Garrett credit.
It really, it seemed right.
Like, yeah, they were just too worried about stopping me.
They weren't worried about like winning the game.
Like they really didn't plan.
They were moving him around and he was a pain, and Rogers didn't throw downfield until like late in the game when they played prevent, which was driving us crazy.
Yeah.
Like two or three first downs in a row, but it is the same old pittsburgh team.
Like they're either going to go nine and eight or they're going to be a first round casualty.
So that'll be that.
I wonder, like in classic pittsburgh fashion, will metcalf somehow get exonerated, because there was a story today about how, when he played for seattle, the same fan messed with him?
Will they review it and be like no, actually we can't spend you, suspend you for week 18.
And then all of a sudden he's back there playing baltimore.
Um sanders Had a couple good throws.
Had one of the worst picks I've ever seen in my life.
They did not score 14 points.
There was a stat that they lead the league in the 2020s.
They have six wins where they didn't score 14 points.
So congrats to the Browns fans.
You guys did it.
The Steelers looked awful, though.
And I've learned not to bet honor against them in these games.
They're just a complete stay away now, right?
I know.
What are we going to do next Sunday, though?
Yeah, I guess we are going to have to bet on that.
Yeah, you know, when Deion is hiding behind his cowboy hat, things are bad.
You can't spend it anymore.
That was tough.
Saturday football, we had the Derrick Henry fuck you game.
Yeah.
Two 16 and four TDs.
We had a ridiculous Texans win over the Chargers that I still can't believe I lost.
Kicker dicker.
Mr. P.A.T. in a field goal.
Gaston dropped what's just sent an interception up in the air.
Herbert was amazing.
The Texans had two long passes and then did nothing else the entire game.
They've somehow won eight straight.
I don't know what to make of them.
It was a weird day of football.
Which game did you take more out of?
I mean, that Ravens-Packers game.
I would have thought under.
I would have thought there wasn't going to be that much offense, at least from Baltimore.
And I don't know.
I look at it.
I'm like, Harbaugh kind of blew it for this team.
If they don't come away with a win Sunday night against the Steelers, like...
So many times he had a healthy Derrick Henry available to close out a game and just forgot about him.
What he had to 16 and four touchdowns.
He has almost 1500 yards and 16 touchdowns.
And what do you have?
Like 18 carries against you guys and 10 against Cincinnati.
I didn't play against us in the last seven minutes.
Why?
Like, does he just forget?
Like set an alarm.
The game starts at one, set your alarm for three, 15 and then your iPhone goes.
It has all kinds of like audio, sounds like a radio and canopy and chirp and story.
Just get the alarm you want and put him in.
Like it's insane.
Yeah, that was very weird.
I tell you what, I don't mind Huntley in the playoffs if it comes to this.
Somebody will make this a story Tuesday, Wednesday.
Would you rather have a healthy Huntley or a banged up Lamar?
I'm not saying that, but I don't mind him.
I don't think he's not awful.
We'll see what we're saying.
Would you rather have a healthy Huntley or a banged up Lamar?
Oh, shit.
I didn't know you were going to ask me that.
If Lamar can't really move around like he normally does and he's hampered and he just doesn't seem right, it's at least a discussion.
I know they'll go with Lamar because he's been in the big games, but I love the Ravens on Saturday.
If he can't move like Huntley did yesterday and the other team knows about that then yeah, it's Huntley.
I love the Ravens on Saturday night, had multiple real-life bets on them and somehow in Ringer 107 lost our Ravens bet because we moved it to four and a half did the under of like 55.
And of course, what were the odds that game was going to have over 50 points, much less 60?
It's a 65-point game.
Willis and Huntley, always a boner burner.
Willis is, that's worth a gamble, I think, in the offseason.
That could be the reclamation guy this year, right?
Yeah.
We were talking about it on the pregame show, and Matt Flynn got his bag, as you'll say.
That's the worst version of this.
But at least they were like 25 good quarterbacks back then.
Right.
Yeah, it was a stretch, but they were good quarterbacks.
Malik Willis is a no-brainer at this point.
He could start for probably 16th.
Mitchell and Matt Flynn.
Those were the two famous ones.
Mitchell, right?
Scott Mitchell was a classic.
And then the Christmas was awful.
Do you have fun at least with the Cowboys Washington?
Oh, that's great.
That's it, man.
I keep you know, we did our Netflix thing and then we watched Josh Johnson.
Looked like a playoff quarterback but yeah, that was fine.
Cowboys win.
Rosmer versus golf was amazing.
Especially if you had the Vikings and then, uh, and Broncos Casey was abysmal.
I have my parent corner is going to be about that.
Actually.
I had one last thing for you.
I was going to say that Detroit thing, like just put another nail on Dan Campbell's golf.
And like I think, since he announced he's calling the plays uh, that offense has been a complete curiosity.
Like he's, I think that's the worst plot proclamation of 2025.
Him saying, Hey, look at me.
I'm calling the plays.
It just all went.
Yeah, I've got this.
Like dad's driving now.
Give me the steering wheel.
I've got it.
Kids get out of the way.
I think I wrote down top four worst proclamations of 2025.
It's Dan Campbell announcing that he's calling the plays.
It's pam bondy saying the files are on my desk.
It's me announcing my nickname for the pats qb.
Or drake maybe.
Drake maybe yeah, follows me everywhere.
Or you announcing your addiction to hot water with lemon.
So i think we should put that to a poll.
Those four, you have it.
Look at you, i got a new thing actually.
What is it?
Let's hear.
Well i, i did something you're not gonna like.
What is this?
Is this in the top four?
Is this a new entry in the top four?
You're not going to be happy at all.
Christmas was my last day eating bread and dessert.
And really any sugar.
Oh, stop it.
I'm done.
I'm done.
And guess what?
I feel great.
I think I've been really good on the podcast so far.
You can feel the difference.
Did someone give you a skirt for Christmas?
Like what?
No sugar in the morning on my coffee.
Just coffee and half and half.
No dessert.
I'm just done.
I'm done.
I realized sugar was just like bad for me as we get older.
And I'm just going to try life without sugar for a while.
All right.
So of course you're right, but don't do it.
So the only thing I've allowed myself is hot water with a little honey in it just a little, so I can taste it.
And that's it.
That's what's keeping me alive right now because I can't have dessert, pizza, no pasta anymore.
I'm giving up a lot of stuff.
You saw me do this in the 2010s.
You saw me do this for like four years.
I was pretty committed.
You're always the same way.
Yeah, Bianco's out.
Chris Bianco's gone.
He's out of my life.
That's terrible.
Out of my life.
Turns out I didn't really need him.
Congratulations, Dan Campbell.
You're bounced from the top four worst proclamations.
I made a list, to celebrate the end of 2025, of my list of things during the typical NFL weekend that I've given up figuring out of seven things.
Driving the QB into the ground on a sack being either a penalty or not a penalty, depending on how the linesman's feeling on this specific play.
I've just given up.
Sometimes it's like if you wrap your arms around, but it's for one one hundredth of a second too long, or you push, you have to tackle him, but you can't tackle him too hard.
You have to kind of pull your arms as he's landing.
You have to pull your arms back.
But even then, it might be rough in the past or anyway.
I think that's fat shaming.
I think anyone who is bigger than the quarterback.
If you weigh four more pounds than the quarterback, you can't drive into him and complete a tackle.
I don't like that.
That's fair.
No pizza, no bread, taunting penalties just there's no rammeries in them anymore.
I watched there was one in the browns game today.
That was.
It was awful.
There was other ones where the guy stands over a receiver and that nothing happens.
They just that's arbitrary right.
When you can take your helmet off on the field has now we've gotten really flimsy with this right.
You see this a lot now.
As the guys are walking off, they just take the helmet.
This used to be like dating back to duane rudd.
This was like you can't take your helmet off to get to the sideline.
Now it feels like maybe you can take your helmet off.
I don't know what to think anymore.
They don't call it.
When was the last time you've seen them call that?
Yeah, you're right.
They haven't called it.
They're not consistent.
Caleb does it a lot.
Caleb does it as like, he's not even on the sideline yet and it's off.
Good, good.
They should have flagged him.
Yeah.
I know if you get it ripped off you could basically you get a free, like you could do a chorus line on the field with your helmet off.
You can do whatever you want.
You can do a podcast.
Yeah.
Four more.
This was really important yesterday in the Chargers Texans game.
And it goes both ways.
These pass interference bump clutches after five yards like six, seven yards when the guys are tangled up.
And then sometimes it's offensive pass interference because the guy pushed off.
Other times the guy held too long and it's just game to game.
You have no idea. how to interpret it.
And for some reason, it decides games left and right.
And they've never decided on an explanation.
And whoever the rules analyst is, they take the side of the referee in that case.
You can't do that.
It's like you're getting scolded by the principal.
Don't do it.
You can't push off and break away.
And then offensive pass interference is the other one where we've seen Especially near the sideline now.
They're calling the little shove-offs when the guy's going for it, but they're not calling the opposite when the guy's getting shoved and it feels like they bent it against the receiver.
Second to last one, the left and right tackles being able to jump backwards for the snap.
We just don't call that anymore.
I don't know why.
I don't know.
It's a false start every time.
You're allowed to do false starts.
And then last but not least, obviously, is continuation catches on TDs.
Which one was that this week?
It wasn't this week, but it'll happen five times a year and we've never landed on what's fair or not fair.
Oh, yeah.
You have to do the Lambeau leap and still have it in your possession for it to count.
Yeah, it's stupid.
You can run four steps with it. flip it to the cheerleader.
It's like, no, flipped it too soon.
Didn't count.
Not a catch.
I don't know anymore.
Is there any, any other ones you can't figure out?
I just like, uh, my thing always is trying to draw the guy offside.
This is not a rules thing, but trying to draw the team offsides from the shotgun in a loud venue.
Like you're never going to do it.
No one.
I appreciate when you try to draw a team offsides and then punt it, but don't do it from the shotgun.
I don't understand.
Don't you want.
If I'm screaming at you from six inches away, you're going to be more startled than if I'm seven yards away.
Right.
And everybody else is drowning me out.
So that's, that's my, uh, big pet peeve.
The new one people are trying is in the shotgun.
They do this really fast. hoping somebody's going to jump, but everyone knows that trick now.
I can see that.
If I hear something, I might jump, right?
But if I see that, and we also laugh at the guys trying to down the punts now.
Nine times out of ten, everyone should just run off the field if you're trying to down a punt inside the five, because you're ultimately going to kick it into the end zone or have we always text about that with our friend hench, because it's his favorite play in sports when yeah, the punt's about to land at the one and the punt defender guy steps on the goal line or fucks it up or goes to throw it back and ends up throwing it forward.
And uh, the one today was epic though, because the guy saved it on the eagles was the eagles, it was the eagles.
The next guy comes in to make sure the ball doesn't go to the goal line but steps on the goal line.
If I was the putter, I'd be so mad.
But this is where we need Hench as a special teams coordinator.
Just be like, there's Eagle special teams coordinator Kevin Hench, and he's just like, ah!
Ah!
He's left the building.
He's the Zamboni machine ran him over.
He just stabbed the trader.
Yeah.
Any, any time you, me or hands can make a better play on something like that.
Uh, it's not good.
The one I almost added.
But I do think the refs have a handle on it, but it always takes them an extra 15 seconds.
I have no idea why is the uh is intentional grounding uh, When the QB throws it away, and it's clearly intentional grounding, but they don't call it.
And then 15 seconds pass, and the refs kind of look at each other, and then they huddle up.
And they're like, yeah, that probably was intentional grounding.
And then they throw it.
I don't know why we need 15 seconds to wait on that.
Hopefully, in the next couple of years, replay assist will be broadened.
Just immediately.
Let that take care of a lot of these things, so we don't have to worry about it.
Playoff matchups right now. would be Denver with the one seed.
Pats Buffalo.
But as we discussed, it's going to end up either Pats Chargers or Pats with the one seed.
Jacksonville Chargers, which we've already seen, which might end up morphing into Jacksonville Buffalo.
Pittsburgh, Houston.
So let's be smart and we'll say Denver, Chargers, Pats, Buffalo Jags, Pittsburgh, Houston.
Or Baltimore.
Pittsburgh or Baltimore.
Yeah.
Yeah, Pittsburgh or Baltimore against Houston.
Then Seattle in the NFC.
Bears, Packers.
Eagles, Rams.
Panthers, Niners.
So I just gave you six matchups.
Panthers, Shakey's game to lose right now?
Like minus 200?
What is it?
Yeah, I think so.
That's pretty good.
They'd put the Niners in the, in the shakies game, early start Saturday.
You don't think they'll go AFC South for one of these?
Like could, could Jags charges make it?
Could be Jags Chargers.
I think that's the other one of those.
If it's Jags Buffalo, they're not putting Josh in the first play.
Right.
Right.
Because that's like he's the most famous QB left at this point.
If we're getting Rams Eagles in that first round, that's I mean, if we get Rams Eagles, I know you don't want to think about it.
And Pat's bills.
That's a solid that I go back to.
That's supposed to be incredible.
Yeah.
There's no question that would be a who has the ball with two minutes left.
Yeah.
Just prepared mostly.
The Bills could be missing.
The Bills had fucking Brandon Cooks today.
Made four big catches for them.
I don't even think he was on an NFL roster five weeks ago.
I said to my son, like, did you know he was on the Bills?
Because he's their best receiver right now.
That's it.
Right.
He was the only guy who could get open deep.
And Brady was like, oh, Cookie.
If you played with him, I was like, you played with him a year.
Settle down.
Guest Alliance.
Week 18.
What's our score?
Nine to eight.
I mean, you're going to win because I w I don't even think this week should count.
These lines move around so much throughout the week.
Coaches lie about quitting.
Well, cause I was off 40 points over 12 games or whatever.
Probably first game Saturday, NFC South on the line, Tampa home for the pack Panthers.
I mailed you two games cause we knew what we were getting into games.
So I, you know, I actually had this.
Yeah.
Um, It's in Tampa.
I don't like either of these teams.
I'm going to be hard-pressed to wager on this game.
I think it might have to be a 13-point tease, and that's it for me.
Really?
Which way are you at?
I don't know.
Or maybe put both of them in it.
Bucks minus three was my guess.
You got it exactly.
I said three and a half.
I thought it was a little too much for Carolina to handle, but it is three.
Little caveat here.
Doesn't necessarily get Tampa the division with a win.
This is the craziest stat of all time.
Really nuts.
Atlanta, who's been eliminated six weeks ago.
But if they were to beat the Rams and then beat the Saints next week, wouldn't matter if Carolina won or lost.
They'd be the champs.
So Carolina gets the South.
If Atlanta beats the Rams, who might not have anything to play for anymore and might just say fuck it with tomorrow's game?
And McVay's done that, by the way.
He rested his guys last year, McVay.
Did that line move?
No, it didn't.
I wrote down my guess already.
We'll get there.
Well, it's tomorrow.
You're talking about tomorrow's line.
Did that line move?
Still seven and a half?
Seven and a half, yeah.
The funniest thing about tomorrow.
So you have that weird Rams thing where now suddenly the NFC South is tied to it.
But then you also have Kyle Pitts potentially swinging fantasy titles tomorrow night.
This guy who everybody's had, everybody's gone a couple rounds with and waved or hated it or hated the experience.
And whoever landed him around week 12... just hit the lottery, basically.
He'll probably have 40 points tomorrow.
Yeah.
I think this is.
I have a bigger thing about fantasy later in parent corner, but I feel like this week should not be utilized.
I mean, imagine having Puka in your lineup and McVay says, hey, we're sitting everybody.
Like, that just sucks.
Like, week 16 is when I think fantasy should end for now on.
Gahow said the chat voted for hot water and lemon as the worst proclamation of the year.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
That's good.
Pam Bondi's off the hook.
All right.
Damn it.
Can't believe she couldn't beat me.
Bucks Panthers.
I feel like we should fan.
Don't let us do some special bets for this.
I'm going to ask them like, should we be like, will this game have a pick six?
Oh, I see.
What were the odds on that?
Plus 200.
A pick six?
Plus 300?
What would be the odds for a pick six in a game that's clearly going to have a pick six?
Oh, I see.
Yeah.
Normal pick six odds are like 50 to one or 10 to one, whatever.
This is like almost a lock.
Somebody's throwing a pick six.
Right.
Yeah, for sure.
Over under combined interceptions?
Mm-hmm.
Two and a half?
That's good.
I think so.
Attempted down punts where the guy steps in the end zone.
Seven and a half, I would say.
There's stuff you wouldn't be able to bet on.
Like, number of times the fan base quit on their quarterback during this game.
Right.
I mean, if Tampa...
Think about this.
They're minus three at home against Carolina to make the playoffs.
Like if they can't win this, what the fuck?
If we, if we talked about this in September, like here's Tampa season, they just have to be Carolina by, by three.
They've had so many bad losses.
So many bad.
I mean, imagine they lost that Thursday game to Atlanta.
They're killing them.
Saturday night, NFC West on the line, one seat on the line.
These two teams can't believe they're not playing on Sunday night.
They don't know what else they needed to do.
Niners home against the Seattle Seahawks.
And I have the Niners favored by two and a half.
I feel like that's low.
I don't know why I went the other way.
I thought it was tic-tac.
I was right about that.
But I had Seattle as the favorite.
It's San Francisco one and a half.
So you get it.
I went too high.
Wow, so they full tic-tacked it.
Yeah, that's a good one, man.
It's a good one.
I'm going to apply all playoff manifesto lines to this game.
And one of the number one rules of the playoff manifesto is please study the quarterbacks long and hard and think about who you'd feel good about having in this game.
I would not feel good about having Sam Darnold.
Just period.
I just wouldn't. how about McDonald on the road?
Like that's good.
Like it's all I.
How about the team that doesn't ever want to go for it on fourth down in a big game?
No, I get it.
That sounds terrible.
What'd they put week one, San Francisco beat them week one, right?
17, 13.
All of these NFC West games have been close across the board.
I like the Niners.
I do think it probably not awesome to have the six day turnaround for this one.
Yeah.
All of a sudden, they're playing five days from now.
They just had a pretty grueling Bears game.
McCaffrey looked like he's going to have to fly to Italy or Germany or somewhere to get some stuff.
The marquee game Sunday night.
AFC North on the line.
Ravens at the Steelers.
We assume no Lamar for this?
Probably?
I can't say anything.
I can't say.
I assume no, Lamar.
I think the Ravens are favored either way.
I think Mike Tomlin is exactly where he wants to be as a home underdog in a must-win playoff game.
He must be delighted.
I have Ravens two and a half.
All right.
You're going to get this.
I said Ravens by one.
I thought that was fair.
And it's Ravens by three.
You're going to kill me.
I mean, these are the ones I'm closing.
I like the Ravens.
That's what they want you to say.
Could I lose one more time on the Steelers this year?
They said it couldn't be done.
They said I couldn't lose a ninth time on them.
If Metcalf doesn't play, I don't know how many people listening are watching all the games.
You really had to watch that game, how fucking helpless they were.
They just didn't have anybody open.
They were trying to run their normal garbage.
Steeler plays with back shoulder, throws and Little lob pass in the end zone.
They're running them with their number nine receivers.
Sometimes their defense gets mad enough where it just doesn't matter.
I mean, think of how surprised we were when they lost the first week in December in Baltimore.
Could this be a Ravens alt line like Ravens by 20?
Like if they win, they're really going to win.
Like it's like almost like that that Packers game or outline 17 or something where they just run all over them.
Like if Harbaugh gives Henry the ball more than 12 times, like they could actually.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Could be that.
Well, think about the Ravens.
I'm scared to take the minus three here.
I know they're better.
I know all this stuff.
It's all what you're saying, but there could be one more screw job in there for us.
There's no question.
All right.
Next one.
AFC number one seed on the line.
There's two games.
Broncos home for the Chargers.
Really tough one to figure out from a Chargers standpoint what their motivations are.
Yeah.
The Chargers lose.
They fall to a seven seed unless Buffalo also loses.
Right.
The Chargers win.
They get the six seed.
Do they care?
And then the Broncos, do you feel good them getting a lot of points over anybody?
I didn't know what to do.
I did the Broncos minus seven and a half in Denver.
You're going to be closer.
Now I said nine and a half.
It's six and a half, but I think this will go to nine and a half.
I think some you know Harbaugh, like I said, is going to lie and he's going to say Herbert's not playing and he's going to play like one series or something.
And I think it'll go up.
Everyone, the right people will know about it.
But I'm very much looking forward to putting that on a Moneyline parlay and losing.
I think the Broncos are a must for a Moneyline tease.
Yeah.
Pencil them in as an anchor.
No doubt.
I don't see... If it was like the Chargers going from a seven seed to the five seed... Mm-hmm.
Maybe, but you have the Texans playing the Colts, who it sounds like Phil Rivers is done.
He talked about these three games.
I think that's it.
I don't think he's playing week 18.
So that's Riley Leonard.
So odds are Texans win that.
So Texans are going to be the five seed, it looks like.
So do the Chargers.
Yeah, I'd rather play Jacksonville, but would you rather just get the rest?
They don't care.
Teams rarely care about that, right?
Five, six, or seven.
Well, the Patriots are home for the Miami Dolphins.
And I think this line is going to be higher than it should be.
They lock down the two seed if they win.
They could get the one seed if they win and Denver loses.
I have the Patriots by 12 and a half.
Whoa.
I said eight and a half.
It's nine and a half.
That's good.
So that's a second anchor for your money line parlay.
It is Quinn Ewers on the road.
I just want to point that out.
It's got to be.
Yeah.
Isn't that what we saw today?
Yeah.
Quinn Ewers on the road.
Yeah.
We saw that today against Tampa Bay.
So that could be a... You're not going to blow that.
You can't blow that.
What did you beat them the first time?
33-27?
That was ages ago though, right?
I think we get Milton Williams back for this game.
Yeah.
And then Will Campbell, not until round one, I don't think.
He's just throwing all over the place.
I think it'll be similar to, it was Burrow that threw four touchdowns against them last week, right?
Against Miami.
It's also, odds are, cold weather, Miami and cold weather.
Right, right, right.
There's some good signs for this.
Forgot about that, yeah.
The late East Coast start always makes me nervous, but as we discussed.
All right, AFC seeding on the line.
Three games.
Texans-Colts in Houston.
Houston gets the three seed with a win if Jacksonville loses.
Houston gets a five seed if they win.
And odds are it's Riley Leonard.
I think the Texans are a classic.
Be careful when they're favored by more than X amount of points, and we're probably here.
I have Texans by eight and a half.
You're going to get it.
I said seven and a half.
I don't know why I thought it was rivers, but, and I'm not even sure.
What do you think?
There's a point difference from them, but anyway, it's 10 and a half.
That's too high.
Is that three?
That could be our three right there.
They can't really run the ball.
They scored on the first two drives yesterday.
And then for the next two and a half hours did nothing.
I don't know.
That's a lot of points.
See, I'm more.
I think it's more likely that a team playing for a draft pick screws up a teaser than a team like the three teams we just mentioned.
The Raiders, after all this, could beat the Chiefs, and then that'll be hilarious, right?
I don't think Pete Carroll would find it hilarious.
They probably told him, like, we'll bring you back next year.
Just make sure you lose the rest of this.
And then they'll fire him.
Jaguars home for the Titans.
Jaguars locked down the three seed with a win.
I didn't look.
I think the Pats get the two seed either way.
Win or lose.
Um, I don't think that Jags flip over them, but I might be wrong.
But you know there's a lot of moving pieces.
But I think the Pats are locked into a two seat.
Wait, 12 and four, 13.
So, uh, they'd both be 13 and four.
You say New England goes over Jacksonville.
I think they've been over them and all the weird tiebreaker stuff, but maybe I'm crazy.
Um, regardless Jags, I have minus 14 over the Titans.
I said 13 and a half and it's only 10 and a half.
Didn't they screw something up?
Was it the Jags or the Colts a few years ago on week 18?
It was the Colts.
No, it was the Jags or the Colts.
It was Lawrence, wasn't it?
It was one of those AFC South teams.
I can't remember.
It was awful.
No, it was Indianapolis.
It was Carson Wentz.
That's what it was.
And we all had them on every single teaser.
I will tell you right now, I'm not putting the Jags in a tease.
I still don't 100% trust them.
Do 2% trust Cam Ward?
Well, we know there's going to be a wonk game.
We know it.
We know one of these games is going to be fucked up.
And the thing that scares me is it could be the Dolphins.
And then did we do Bill's Jets?
We didn't.
Bills home for the Jets.
Bills stay the seven seed unless the Chargers lose.
You could make an argument.
They might throw the game away and not give a shit and rest Josh Allen for a week.
But I did not factor that on my line.
They're in Buffalo.
I said Bills by 14 and a half.
All right.
It is Bills by 12 and a half, but you're going to get it because I said nine and a half.
Killing you this week.
I think the so it's Trubisky.
If it's not Josh Allen like, even if it's a couple like the the, the great thing about this is you don't have to worry about throwing interception against the jets.
Cause it's just not going to happen.
Yeah.
Any, any turnover at all?
Yeah.
Trubisky's got a thousand yards.
Yeah.
The jets need to get a top three pick.
They'll probably rest everybody.
Hmm.
Do you think the Jets and the Giants are now lumped in for every stat?
Their home record at MetLife is just extraordinarily bad, and they haven't had a winning team in however long.
Do you think at this point they should be like hey, I want you guys to start including Buffalo when you talk about New York teams.
Right, to boost our numbers.
Yeah, to boost our numbers.
It'll take the attention away from us a little bit.
I think that's a really good idea.
They should make a statement.
I like that.
I can't imagine the Bills.
I mean, this is a 10-point teaser.
I'd feel good about the Bills in there, unless they were starting to arrest people and just throwing it away.
But we'll find out as we get closer.
All right.
NFC seeding on the line.
Bears-Lions mentioned that earlier.
They get the two seed with a win, the Bears.
And it's in Chicago.
I don't know what's going on with Detroit.
What would you put for odds on Dan Campbell on the Fox studio show next year?
I asked you like before 2030, but what about next year?
No.
Next year is what?
2026?
Nine months from now.
September?
No, no, no.
They get rid of Bradshaw, there's Dan Campbell.
Or they get rid of Gronk.
One bite, kneecaps.
No, I would say that's still plus 1500.
Okay.
He needs another year.
I love Gronk.
He's the best tight end I've ever seen in my life and one of my four favorite Patriots.
It's upsetting to me how Fox uses him, and it really makes me mad.
Why?
What do you mean?
They use him like he's the village idiot.
At halftime of the game today, which is the only game I didn't watch and they go and he's standing on the second level and there's a table.
And Kurt Menefee is awkwardly standing next to this table and Gronk's like at halftime, am I going to jump through that table?
And it's like, what is he, our drunk uncle at Christmas?
It was like, Oh, uncle Gronk's going to knock over the Christmas tree.
Watch this.
Like this is a football studio show.
He's the best tight end of all time.
Why are you making him like a self parody?
I love Gronk, because what are the producers doing with this?
His predecessor is terry bradshaw, who's got, like he's got a pee, so that's it.
They're grooming him to be like the next person everyone makes fun of.
Well, i don't know.
I think i think gronk's podcast is good at the one with him and edelman, like there's a lot more there.
And then on that show they make him seem like the.
It's like oh, he's so.
He's like the fucking wacky neighbor in an 80s sitcom that comes over.
It's like oh, gronk's here.
Oh, he knocked over.
He knocked over a plant.
I It's like how did he end up with this role on the show?
I honestly think there's precedent and that he is, Bradshaw's grooming him.
It's the best tight end of all time.
You're like getting upset that Sammy Hagar screams during his songs.
Like, yeah, this is what family, that's what they did.
That's what they really brought.
It's fine.
It's upset.
He means a lot to me, Gronk.
Just like show Gronk some respect.
Am I going to jump through this table?
That's coming up next.
What are we doing?
It's a network television show.
Rams.
Oh, that'll, by the way, that'll be on a sports blog with like a really angry headline.
Bill Simmons eviscerates Fox's use of Gronkowski.
You want to apologize now?
You shouldn't be.
No, I'm not going to apologize at all.
You're not going to do it?
I'm glad.
Give the sports blogs their meat.
Okay.
Just treat Gronk like he has an IQ over 80.
Because I'm pretty sure he does.
His podcast is good.
He's capable of conversations.
Because I think it rang in at 77.
Am I going to jump through this table?
Rams cards.
No, we didn't do bears.
Oh, we still didn't do bears.
Well, Gronk jumped through a table.
I got distracted.
I have the Bears by eight and a half.
All right, so we're going to have to talk about this.
Because I said six, and I'm staring at this line, and the Bears are favored by one and a half.
So did they lock down number two?
We must have misread something.
So we fucked up.
We must have, right?
Wait a second.
What's their record?
Oh, I know what it is.
They did lock down two.
No.
Well, because they beat Philadelphia.
I don't think so.
But Philadelphia and Chicago have the same record.
So if they win and Philadelphia wins, it doesn't matter.
They get the two seed.
But why wouldn't they want to win this game?
They'd want to be the three seed?
No, if they lose and Philly wins, they have the same record.
And Philly's the two seed.
We're going to go through this one.
We used to be able to press pause.
Right now, Philly's 11-5 and Chicago's 11-5.
And Chicago beat Philly.
So they have the tiebreaker over them.
But if they lose and Philly wins, Philly is in the two seed.
I guess they don't care about the two seed.
I mean, they are still playing a game.
That doesn't make sense.
We got to be missing.
Can people in the chat if we're missing something with that Bears game, please put that in the YouTube chat.
No, you've read it right.
They're both 11 and five.
So if they lose a game to Philly, they're not going to They're going to be a three seed.
Yeah, but why wouldn't they want to win and be the two seed?
And Detroit's season is over.
These teams just like to rest.
It's just better to have a rest unless you have a shot at a one seed.
That's just how it is now.
So they'd rather be the three seed?
So three.
So that would mean they would play the Rams.
I'd rather play banged up Green Bay than the Rams.
Like 100 times out of 100.
Tough to beat a team three times, but you're probably right.
Let's ask Rob Gronkowski, who's currently drinking Drano.
Drano is our sponsor of the Halftime Show.
Gronk, how's the Drano taste?
It's the best tight end of all time.
Protect Gronk.
Hire him away.
The ringers should do it.
Put him on with Kellerman and Rich Paul.
Do something.
Anything's better.
All right.
That's crazy, though.
I would have thought it was like six.
I mean, that is what I guessed.
Rams-Cardinals.
It's in Los Angeles.
The Rams are basically locked into the sixth seed.
I still think they're going to be favored by seven and a half in this game.
All right, I get this.
I said eight and a half.
It is nine and a half.
Am I coming back here?
Not really.
Six for you.
You're not coming back.
They're coming nowhere.
I mean, if they're going to maybe sit guys tomorrow when they also maybe definitely sit guys week 18?
That's that's high.
I know Arizona sucks.
So if you were the Rams, would you sit Puka and Stafford for the last two games and just get them ready?
And anybody else you have who's banged up and just get them ready for round one?
Because as you mentioned earlier, they've done this.
They have done it.
They didn't do it two weeks before.
They did it on week 18 last year.
We saw Jimmy G out there.
But I wouldn't do it because I would feel bad for everyone who put a teaser in on them, like Tuesday or Wednesday, and wasn't thinking this through like me.
I have the Rams in one When Rams tomorrow and a thing that all the other pieces hit, thinking that they were a lock and now they might not care.
It's not good.
Eagles home for.
Uh, for Washington.
Eagles locked into a three seed could get the two seed with the Chicago loss.
And, as I said earlier, I still feel like that two seed matters, because you get to play green Bay.
Who's missing everybody?
I have Eagles by 10 and a half.
Uh, I get this.
I said six at seven and a half.
See, we're all over the place here.
Why is it seven and a half?
Are they, are they think they're going to arrest people?
This is Josh.
This is Josh Johnson.
That's such a stupid guessing game.
This is the hardest week.
So we have five games left.
What's the score?
You come back.
I'm so fucking up.
Six, five.
You said I was going to win.
Well, I think you got all out of sorts with this Gronk thing.
Gronk sent me in a tailspin.
This game means absolutely nothing.
Packers, Vikings, and yet Green Bay is the seventh seed either way.
I'm off by three points, so you could steal this one easily.
I went low.
It's in Minnesota.
And I did Packers minus two and a half in Minnesota.
Packers minus two and a half.
Yeah.
I said Vikings minus two and a half.
It's Vikings minus five and a half.
Oh, you're going to lose your shit.
What the hell?
I mean, they're definitely sitting people, right?
I mean, that's not we're going to see guys, who we're going to see, some like milk farmers or something from Wisconsin.
What do the Vikings have to play for?
You know, I mean, think about what Brosmer and Jalen Hurts did.
They had almost negative yards passing combined.
And they both won.
Wow.
Okay.
Next category.
Four games left.
Top three draft pick on the line.
First one.
Chiefs at Raiders.
Chiefs at Raiders.
We just saw what the Raiders are capable of this week.
Yep.
It's in Las Vegas.
I wanted to put this in the Vegas zone in honor of the Raiders, but I had to bump it up a point.
I did chiefs minus six and a half.
Well done.
I had five and a half.
It is six and a half.
Exactly.
And yet you can't cheese the tease, the chiefs.
No, because their quarterback is Michael Ola candy, whatever his name is.
Can't put it.
Can't put a first round.
Pick his number one, but I uh Yeah, I get that.
The Raiders know the assignment, but is Chris Oladokun going to play ball?
Next one's a little harder.
Cowboys at the Giants.
Giants won today, screwed up their chance at the number one pick, and now we'll be somewhere in the top five.
Cowboys, you don't have your pick, right?
You don't have your pick.
We're doing all right.
You don't have your pick, but you have the Packers pick.
Right, yeah.
You get the worst one of those two.
That is what happened.
Yeah.
I've Cowboys minus seven and a half is my guess for this.
All right.
I get this.
I said six and a half.
It is currently five and a half.
Yeah.
Vegas.
Okay.
Last one.
Bengals who are just peaking at the right time here.
Um, home for the Browns.
I had the Bengals by seven and a half.
We split it.
I said six and a half.
It is seven.
All right, so one game left.
What's the score?
Hold on, hold on, hold on.
Five, six, seven, eight.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
You fucking rope it open.
I think it's tied.
Six, seven, eight.
God damn it.
Seven, I swear it's tied.
But is there one game left?
Yeah, there's one.
Falcon Saints.
I'm off by two points.
Falcon Saints in Atlanta.
You're going to steal it.
Falcon Saints in Atlanta.
Saints showing signs of life lately.
I have the Falcons by three.
Yeah.
Congratulations.
It's two and a half.
I said it's two and a half.
I said four and a half.
Oh, that sucks.
That's all.
I kind of came back for nothing.
By the way, we have a lot of money.
Me, you, House, Hench bet the Saints to come in last place.
We have to really give it like 20 minutes thoughts of how we're going to hedge out of this.
So if the Falcons win one of the next two, we're good, right?
That is true.
Let's see.
Wait, where are they?
Falcons are one ahead of the Saints.
No, so they're six and nine.
So if they win, they're seven and nine tomorrow.
Saints are six and ten.
If they both end up seven and ten.
Oh, they have the same record.
They both have six wins.
Six wins, yeah.
So we're going to have to hedge this.
How is this even?
We should have won this 40 times over.
They're going to have the number one pick.
Could he win coach of the year?
So what do we have?
We have Cleveland, Tennessee, and the Saints, right?
Just those three.
Yeah, just those three.
And the Jets, maybe?
The only thing that could stop us was Tyler Shuck.
Oh, yeah.
Improbably getting the job and then playing so well that he's now one of the favorites to win the Offensive Rookie of the Year.
And that's exactly what happened.
He beat everyone in that division.
Sickening.
I lost some crazy futures.
I thought I was going to win 75% of my futures that I made before the year.
Today, I lost the Browns.
I had three and a half wins under Browns. which was plus 200.
Lost that one.
I had the Miami Dolphins under six and a half wins.
That was like plus 185.
And what were they?
One and eight?
It seemed like that was a lot.
They just played a bunch of cupcakes.
Stupid shit like that.
What are you going to do?
We're excited when it's August.
You got to fire away.
Parent Corner presented by Greenland 2 Migration.
Saw an ad for this during football.
If you love the disaster hit film in 2020, the end of the world was only the beginning, apparently.
Gerard Butler, Monterey Baccarin.
They're back for the sequel.
Oh, no.
I call it more.
It's Morena Baccarin.
All right.
Morena Baccarin.
You're dumber than Gronk.
You can't even say words.
Back for the sequel.
More on that later about Greenland 2 migration.
We're going to do Parent Corner, though.
What do you got?
Uh, all right.
So i mean christmas great, everyone's home together at the tree, go and the gifts, it's beautiful, it's fun.
My son jack, my middle son, gave me the best gift the father could ever receive.
We were scheduled um.
He had a wrestling tournament friday december 26th.
Weigh-ins were at 7 am in upland california, which is a good hour and a half drive.
At 530 in the morning you could get there probably an hour and 20 minutes.
So I was going to have to be up on December 26th at 5.30 to take him to a tournament.
And then he was going to the rest of the tournament didn't even start till 11.
So I was going to have to sit in my car and bet like English Premier Soccer.
Christmas Eve wrestling practice.
He throws up in front of the coach and three other kids throw up.
This is like the fourth throw up story with Jack we've had on parent corner.
Oh, he's so good at vomiting.
And the coach is like, see you Monday.
It's like, you did it, buddy.
You did it.
What do you want?
Do you want a pony?
Whatever you want for Christmas, I'll get it for you.
God bless you.
And so the poison Cheez-Its you gave them, that had like the stuff, the XLAC stuff, to make them throw up.
Whatever it was, that was it.
Yeah.
And now I'm not eating bread or pizza.
No, that's you.
But so that was, What a miracle for you.
Really great.
Really was a Christmas miracle.
I can't thank him enough.
Honestly, I was I was so relieved to not have to get up at 530 in the morning.
I have another one.
So fantasy football is just awful.
Right.
I'm in a high stakes league and I'm in the finals.
So second place is nice prize.
But first place is a ridiculous.
We did some texting about this.
Yes.
And I have a decision to make.
And going into Saturday, and it's basically Christian Watson or Alec Pierce, right?
So have you checked the history of this?
Whenever somebody has a 50-50 decision like this, they lose 100% of the time with who they picked?
I researched this.
Nobody ever has the positive story of they picked the right person.
It's always the wrong person.
Didn't break the streak this time.
So I'm thinking, all right, Malik Willis, Christian Watson.
Watson had the red flag.
He had the red flag.
Everything's pointing against it.
Alec Pierce had two touchdowns last Monday.
Crazy figure.
Phillip Rivers loves him.
He's in sync.
So I ask you and Hench.
I ask my buddies Brian and Darren.
I ask my buddy Alec. uh, it was named Alec and still didn't say it.
So I said, everybody says Watson and my son Archie.
I'm like Archie, I'm going to let you be the deciding factor.
And he's like, uh, well, actually everyone said Pierce, I'm sorry.
So I said, I'm going to let you be the deciding factor.
He's like, start Pierce, pick up Barner.
He's looking through the things like pick up the tight end in Seattle in case something happens to Pierce in the morning.
I'm like, all right, that's a good idea.
So I take Watson out, fricking goes nuts immediately.
Their first touchdown, Malik Willis throwing to him like they were college roommates.
It was so in tune.
It's insane.
He puts up 23 points and I'm losing my mind.
I come downstairs and I'm pacing and everything.
And Archie's like, huh, Watson, huh?
I was like, yes, motherfucker.
I'm cursing under my back.
And then Watson will catch the pass and he goes to high five me.
I'm like what the fuck are you doing, talking to you?
He's like yeah, i was like well, this is not, this is not.
You know, like you're gonna just stay in your used corolla tercel like if right, if he's like he's like what, you put watson in the lineup?
I'm like no, i didn't.
And because, a lot of because of you, i said pierce and like, and we picked up barner, remember all that.
He's like yeah, oh yeah, i didn't.
Okay, i didn't hear you right.
I was like yeah, you certainly didn't.
He's like, oh, calm down.
Now you're fighting.
Now we're like arguing over this.
So I'm getting mad.
I'm like, whatever.
I end up losing by 60.
So that's good.
I'm not going to lose any sleep over this.
But I don't think anyone should ever play fantasy for anything more than pride.
I just don't like because now Archie and I will never be the same.
It just ruined the relationship.
That was it.
We're never going to be the same because of sister Christian Watson.
That's it.
So I don't even know what the moral is, but fantasy can really... Don't play fantasy?
Don't play fantasy.
I had that last week with CJ Stroud just single-handedly murdering my season.
And then I'm watching the Chargers game yesterday and he's just immediately two 70-yard bombs to start the game, or whatever happened.
I'm like...
Of course, why do we do this?
But you're right, there should be sharp and square picks.
What everybody would go with is the square pick, so I should have started Watson.
Yeah, just zag.
Yeah, he's got the red flag.
Well, in our knockout league, it looks like our friend Coherst, the MOOC, is going to win the league with McCaffrey, as we mentioned earlier.
This will be his fourth title since I won my last title in 2007.
And we still use this dumb CBS site, and it has all the champs.
Right.
Dating back to whenever you started the league, even before I was in it, before I moved to LA.
Right.
And this is how sad it's become for fantasy for me.
And by the way, I won our guillotine league.
I've won the league.
I'm in with my college and high school buddies with like I.
I've hit that, but somehow I can't get over the hump.
I went back and I looked at my 2017, like I was looking through an old photo album.
Yeah.
I went through it.
I'm like, oh man, Tomlinson, Peterson, Carson Palmer was so good.
They had Romo was on the team.
Wes Welker.
I'm just going through.
I'm like, ah, that was such a great year.
You should have a reunion.
19 years coming up.
18 years.
18 years ago.
It's there on the fucking site.
Anyway, congrats to the MOOC.
He's won four times.
You should win it once in a while.
Once in a while.
I'm good in all the other leagues.
I know.
My parent corner.
So Christmas night, my kids are excited.
And by the way, my kids are barely kids anymore.
Like my daughter's going to be 21 in May and my son's 18.
All that Christmas.
They just want to race through it because Netflix is releasing the next three episodes of Stranger Things.
That's all they care about.
I love that you're on TV Christmas, but they never even came over to the TV for that.
No, could have cared less.
Stranger things is coming.
So we set the dinner so that we can finish and everybody can get out of the house by you know like uh, I don't know six o'clock, and then they're going to watch stranger things and it's going head to head against the NBA.
It's like the end of the second to last game.
And then Denver Minnesota, which I was excited about.
But I have the setup where we have the big TV and then I have the two side TVs so I could watch Denver Minnesota.
I'm like, it's Christmas.
I'm going to hang out with my kids.
I'll watch Stranger Things with them, which I think was almost four hours, because the episodes were longer than an hour.
So it's episode five, six, seven, but somehow not the eighth.
I've never seen the show other than like the first episode six years ago.
I have no idea what's going on with any of it.
I'm just completely out.
I don't know anything.
And I'm just watching the show, but I'm really watching the basketball, which turns out to be this incredible game.
Jokic has like a 55, 15, 16.
It goes into overtime.
Edwards has a crazy shot.
And they're watching Stranger Things.
This just seems like the dumbest show.
I can't believe this is a phenomenon.
But the reason it seemed dumb to me was because I didn't understand any of it.
They're so far advanced and their kids are explaining it to me like no no, only Eleven and the other person.
They're the only two people that can go back and forth between the worlds.
And this person can't, but they think they can.
There's an upside down.
And then there was like the end of the fifth episode.
They're going nuts because something, and I'm just watching it.
And I didn't know anything that was happening.
I was like this must be what happened when people watch sports with us and they don't know anything that's going on.
We're watching football and we're going nuts on every play.
And whoever's sitting there, they don't care about the NFL.
And they're kind of annoyed that we're that into it.
So it flipped on me on Christmas.
I was just kind of annoyed by Stranger Things.
I was excited to see Winona Ryder.
She meant a lot to us once upon a time.
Linda Hamilton came in at some point from Terminator.
She was playing a bad person.
Other than that, if you quiz me on what happened, I don't think I'd be able to answer three questions.
You can't jump into something like that.
That's not like Landman or something.
There's so many twists and turns and stuff like that.
But that specifically, yeah.
It is so far down the rabbit hole for people who watch the show.
It is completely inaccessible to people like us.
Oh, right.
I had no idea it was happening.
No.
I'll tell you this.
My kids were fired up and excited for four hours.
They thought it panned out?
It played out?
They were mad at the end of the seventh episode that obviously there's one more coming on.
New Year's Eve.
I see.
Okay.
But they were like, oh, now we have to wait.
It was like one of those.
What are you going to do New Year's Eve?
You're going to have to watch Ohio State play.
What was it?
Yeah, it's Ohio State Miami while watching the finale.
There's a couple and probably some good basketball too.
They decide and get sucked in.
And I feel like now I know what happens for the most part.
I don't want to spoil it for people who haven't seen it yet.
It hurt my head.
I had to quit because it was, first of all, it was very long.
To knock through season four or three, whatever it was, was very long.
But people do love it.
The big winner of the show seems to be Kate Bush.
Cause they keep playing that song she has.
Yeah.
And they actually weave it into the plot.
So like, she must be delighted that that happened.
But anyway, parent corner, I tried, I tried to, uh, I tried to get into it for my kids.
It just didn't work.
Today's parent corner presented by Greenland to my migration.
Where were we?
That's right.
The sequel.
Five years after a comet strike devastated most of the earth, the Garrity family leaving the safety of their bunker in Greenland in search of a new home.
We'll see.
We'll see what happens to them.
A disaster film.
And my guy, Gerard freaking Butler, my guy from Den of Thieves.
What else do you need?
Greenland to migration in theaters, January 9th rated PG 13.
I have a quick NBA thing for you.
Go ahead.
And just so people know, this is where I just sit and I nod and, um, I can't contribute more.
And I furiously, but you still, you're on our gambling shows.
I'm just, no, I'm not.
The Warriors had a really bad, Warriors had a bad loss today in Toronto, like a bad one.
They controlled the whole game.
Um, I actually had it on because we only had two NFL games.
So I was watching it and they just couldn't close and they just kind of like broken.
I don't know what the fix is.
It's, No matter how good Steph is, they can't fix it.
Toronto wins in OT.
They've just seemed like they've taken whatever iteration is as far as they can go.
Then you see the Lakers.
I think they're 3-6 since LeBron came back.
He's kind of screwed up their team.
Nobody wants to admit it, but it kind of has.
Now Reeves is out for a month.
Redick seems like he's not handling things great.
And I was just thinking like, let's, how do you make the league more fun?
You have a team that nobody's excited about, with the Lakers, and a team that feels dead with the Warriors.
LeBron for Jimmy Butler.
Oh, okay.
That's it.
And I looked it up cause Bronnie probably has to be in it too.
And the, the words can throw in will Richard.
I S I sent this to a couple of people, including Zach who got excited about it.
Zach Lowe.
Um, but, uh, It feels like for the good of the sport trade, it's just more fun.
The Warriors are not fun.
I don't see a scenario where they become fun, but now you put LeBron on the team with Curry.
LeBron reinvigorated, and who knows?
And then Butler is probably a better fit with LeBron and Reeves anyway, with Luka and Reeves anyway.
Who's more likely to say no to that?
Golden State, right?
I don't know.
That's why...
Oh, I think Golden State would probably do that.
I think so.
Because LeBron is an expiring contract in the year.
Maybe they'd throw him one more year.
It's a good who says no, though.
Because if you're the Lakers, you can lock in the Butler contract for an extra year, because all they care about is two years from now.
But maybe Butler is a better fit with what they have anyway.
Because LeBron doesn't really seem like he wants to be on the Lakers.
No. my take.
And then Bronnie has to come over.
Does Jimmy Butler's son have to, do they do like this?
Uh, Timmy Butler, he also has to be involved.
Jimmy Butler has any sons.
They also have to be in the train.
Okay.
I think that works.
That was my idea.
I like that.
That's all I got for you.
Why couldn't you tell me not to, uh, bounce back with, uh, the Spurs, not bounce back.
Cause they had beaten the, the thunder on Christmas.
But I stupidly took them on a Moneyline parlay against, what was it, Jazz?
That was the most obvious loss possible.
Oh, shut up.
That was ridiculous.
You know what was another one?
And I would never bet against the Celtics.
But this road trip where it's like, they're only playing under 500 teams.
And it was like, the Portland spot was so dangerous tonight.
And of course, they lost in the last two minutes.
And now they're playing the Clippers who are coming on and...
They're like four bad teams that are playing well now, right?
The Clippers, the Jazz, the Wizards won.
The House's Wizards won back-to-back.
The Nets are playing well.
The Nets.
Stupid Hornets.
Porter's playing so well for the Nets that they're going to have to emergency trade him.
It looks like.
Yeah.
They're going to have to move in the next two weeks before he completely screws up their chance to get a top three pick.
There's a lot of teams that are not happy about about their team right now, including the Warriors and the Lakers, which is why I thought of it.
Anything else before we go?
That's it.
We're going to be on, uh, mom with Tate Tuesday.
And then, uh, Friday, we've got a lot of college football to talk and, it's good, good time of year.
Lots of fun.
All right.
Well, we're on our last live show on YouTube is going to be, um, next week.
Oh, right.
After, uh, week 18, after the NFC West one seed showdown, we'll be live.
And then, starting on the January 11th, Sunday, coming off three NFL games.
We'll be live on Netflix for that one.
And you'll also be able to get it on Spotify, by the way.
It is not exclusively on Netflix.
You will also be able to watch on Spotify.
Yeah, you have to say that.
We're on Netflix and Spotify.
They cut the biggest check.
Don't be stupid here.
And then in three weeks from then, we're on Tubi.
I don't know how this works out.
Tubi, those are the classic episodes with us.
From years past where we're flipping out about terrible bets.
You'll get to see Simmons 2007 fantasy team highlight video yearbook.
Like one week I'm eating gluted and the next week I'm not.
I'm drinking water and honey.
What the hell?
What happened?
Well, I'm psyched that I beat Pam Bondi, because it was a very strange year for a lot of different reasons.
But in a lot of ways, I'm glad we're at the end of it.
I'm excited for 2026.
As always, good job by you.
Good job by you, buddy.
Thanks to Gahal.
Thanks to Eduardo as well.
I'm going to see you on Tuesday on this feed and then a special episode of The Rewatchables tomorrow as well.
Bye, Sal.
See you, bud.
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