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I put up two rewatchables this week.
We did just one of the guys on Monday.
We did another 48 hours on Wednesday.
It was one for us week.
On Monday, you will be able to watch the rewatchables on Netflix.
So you will still be able to get it on Spotify.
You can watch and listen to it on Spotify.
And you can get it on Netflix right now in America and Canada and hopefully in more countries to come.
But we are going to be doing Zodiac on Monday.
I'm recording it tomorrow.
I am overprepared.
Very excited.
I think I've solved the case.
Stay tuned for that.
By the way, if you like the rewatchables, February 11th.
I don't know if tickets are left or not, but maybe there's secondary market tickets.
Who knows?
Los Angeles, the Bill Simmons podcast live at the Wiltern. ringer.com slash events.
And a rewatchables is almost guaranteed to break out during this live show.
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That is Thursday, February 11th.
No, not Thursday, Wednesday, February 11th in Los Angeles, the Wilter.
So there you go.
Coming up on this podcast.
I'm going to do some basketball at the top because this Giannis situation.
I feel like I've done this segment five times, but now this is the one.
This is the finalized version of fake Giannis trades that I've combed through.
I'm going to bring in Chris Ryan and Joe House and bounce all of our Giannis ideas off each other.
So that starts the pod.
And then House is staying.
Peter Schrager joining us again because we had good luck last week with our picks.
We had a fun football discussion.
We were talking about the conference championships. and a whole bunch more NFL stuff that's on next.
I'm going to take a break, bring in Pearl Jam, and then Chris Ryan and Joe House.
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All right, taping this late afternoon Thursday.
I was hoping there would be a Giannis trade today, and so far there has not been a Giannis trade.
But Joe House is here.
He's going to be here the whole podcast.
Probably complain if I keep him too long.
Chris Ryan taking a break from preparing for our rewatchables that were recorded tomorrow about zodiac which.
What's the over under and time length, what would fando put in like two, two hours 40 minutes?
It's always interesting to just see the length of the pod compared to the running time of the movie.
And right, i think we're going 57 minutes for the.
I'm going over, you're going over the 157.
Yes, i think great shot.
Gordo might take a full 45 minutes.
Yeah, we have fantasy too, so he's gonna.
I don't know.
He's going to go full.
What's his outfit going to be?
He could wear a beret?
He's got his necklace.
We're talking basketball.
We're talking Giannis.
It feels like we hit rock bottom last night with the Bucs.
And I've done Giannis trade segments before, but now we have more information online with the season.
I would normally throw this at house, but CR, this is in your wheelhouse.
You love hyperbole.
You love things that might not happen.
Your team might be involved in one of my fake trades.
But what would your two weeks left for the deadline?
Is there any chance Giannis is on the bucks in two weeks?
I always think that the January, that the mid-season trade deadline, is a little bit overrated as like a fireworks display, but this seems untenable.
Um, this really does seem like i don't really know he's.
They have tried so many different band-aids and fixes for this and they're out of moves and he seems to be out of patience.
What do you think, house?
I mean, they play okc yesterday, which is the worst case scenario, nightmare situation for a team like the bucks.
But the quotes after the game and i said this in tuesday's pod just like Just ask for a trade.
The Bucs fans will get over it.
They'll under deep down.
They're going to understand you won the title for them in 21.
Like it's time.
Just do it.
What do you think?
So that was going to be my first question back to you.
I was going to answer your question with the question.
What do you think Bucs fans want?
They want to keep Giannis.
They want to get through this season and not trade Giannis.
I think they love Giannis.
They want him to retire with the team.
And I totally get it.
But for him, he won the title there though.
He did.
That's the part, like Nowitzki never won the title in Dallas until 2011.
And there's some other guys who never won, like Karl Malone never won in Utah.
Yeah.
In this case, he delivered them the title.
So if he asks, he's like, all right, it's time for me now to go.
I don't think they can get mad at him, right?
Oh, no.
I'm just wondering if I was a fan of the Bucs What would I want?
Now it's very, very difficult for me to put myself in the shoes of a franchise that's won a title in the last 45, 50 years.
That has a top 100 player.
We have two top 100 players now.
God damn it.
Trey Young is top 100 and Alex Saar is a top 100 player.
I thought Alex was talking about the Capitals.
The Capitals?
I didn't realize you had two top 100 players, House.
Two top 100 players in the nation's capital.
Only three away.
I can only, as a reference point, consider the purgatory of winning 39 to 46 games every goddamn season and not being relevant come playoff time.
Relevant is fine, but it takes these extraordinary superhuman efforts by Giannis.
We literally watched this in the first round of the just-completed a year ago playoffs, where I actually thought the Bucks matched up quite well with the Pacers and the Pacers ran them the fuck off the floor, ran them out of the gym.
It was not close in any way, shape, or form, even with the most extraordinary efforts by Giannis.
So if I'm a fan of the Bucks...
I understand the sentimentality and the loyalty of wanting that Giannis thing, but I think it's time to move on.
Yeah, it's tough because they weren't even that close last year, and they feel less close this year.
And also, CR, I think the league has changed.
We have to vote for this Ringer 100.
We got that email today, the 100 best players.
And that list is just so much deeper and better than it would have been 20 years ago.
You could have gotten away with this weird Giannis Bucks team in 2006, right?
They probably would have made the second round, had a puncher's chance to beat anybody in the East, even with the depleted supporting cast.
Now, it just feels like everybody's too deep.
I don't see it.
Media ecosystem's totally different now, too.
We're doing like five pods a week about trade deadline in mid-January.
So it's like the pressure... that's on these teams and on these players.
I mean, just look what's happening to the Knicks.
They got a get-right game against Brooklyn, but we did so much.
Knicks in crisis cat trade Mike Brown on the hot seat stuff.
That's like a finals favorite.
They're like a pretty good team.
They're still third in the Eastern Conference.
So the amount of pressure and the amount of scrutiny that these guys are under now and also the kind of weird state of the NBA where we've got a bunch of quote-unquote faces of the league that are kind of mired on mediocre teams while these juggernaut teams are kind of like going about their business, is really a fascinating inflection point for the league.
And it's taking a lot of time, energy and attention away from the Joel Embiid renaissance right now.
I know that you're being sarcastic, but they're playing the Rockets toe-to-toe right now.
And I just heard the Rockets broadcast say even though he can't move like he used to, you have to pay attention to Joel Embiid.
I think that's an accurate scouting report.
Even though he can't move at all.
He still can get his points.
All right.
Well, I sent you a list of Giannis trades and I intentionally left a couple off.
Wait, did you answer what you wanted?
Do you think it's best for everybody if he moves on?
Or do you think that there's a path back?
I think when somebody is as good as him, to put him on a team like this for the rest of his prime to be is unacceptable.
And I think they've exhausted every single possibility to try to fix that, including the really really aggressive dame miles turner thing, which i did not agree with.
But they've had a combination of bad luck and you know they they traded a lot for drew holiday, but that this is the thing that seems to happen over and over again with the league now, where these teams make these trades, where they give up all these future assets, and then three years pass and everybody gets amnesia.
It's like we don't have anything to trade.
It's like, yeah, because you traded all that stuff for Drew Holiday.
That's why you can't trade your picks now.
And that won you the title.
So it worked out.
I wonder if, going back in retrospect, it's like they would have just been comfortable running that title team back more or less into the ground.
You know, like would you, obviously hindsight's 2020 with Dame, but.
Well, I think they would.
I don't think they would have done the Middleton trade again if they had to redo that one, but it's.
It's a hard one.
I said this to Mahoney on Tuesday house that these trades now where you get 120 to 130 cents on the dollar for your guy because somebody else feels like they have this short window and they have the assets and they want to do it.
The history of those trades is really good for the team getting all the assets.
You know like even if you look, I think the Davis New Orleans trade probably worked out as bad as it could have gone for new Orleans just because of the actual picks they got and the spots in the draft.
And they never really got lucky with one of the lottery picks and, you know, but that's how it goes.
But they had a lot of bullets in the holster, which I think is what you want with those trades.
I'm sure.
I'm sure Memphis loves the Bain trade, even though I think Bain's become an important guy in Orlando.
I'm sure the nets are happy with the bridges trade, you know?
So I wonder like, Is there a version of that that you could get 120 cents for somebody like Giannis?
I think there is.
Right?
I agree.
And, you know, the thing that the fan base has to be reminded of is patience.
Like even the Pelicans, it's a failure because Zion turned out to not not be capable of playing complete seasons.
Like they, they made many good moves.
They made, they, they drafted good guys.
And Zion was a letdown, but some of the other moves were great.
Yeah.
Um, I mean It's tough, because here's the big variable that we have to mention before we talk about these Giannis trades.
And people have heard these on the other 450 MBA podcasts that have done this, but we just have to mention them at the top like a disclaimer.
They get the worst version of their pick or New Orleans pick.
The best version of that used to be with New Orleans, but New Orleans traded it to Atlanta for House's guy Derrick Queen DMV.
DMV, AAU All-Star.
So Milwaukee is still getting one of those two picks.
And the worst they get.
It's not as bad as you would have thought normally, because the New Orleans pick.
New Orleans is also not doing well.
New Orleans, by the way, might be the best 10 and 36 team in the history of the league.
Every single one of their games, it's a two-point game with five minutes left.
So it actually is in Milwaukee's interest to become worse this year if they make a trade.
And I think that makes this really hard, because there's some trades that we'll go through, where they're getting good guys back, but you're treading water and that's not necessarily where you want to be.
All right, so go ahead.
Before you get started, can I ask a question?
Yeah.
Do you not think that they are now officially competing with Golden State for the pool of assets that are out there?
Well, the Golden State thing's different, right?
Because...
I just think it's over.
So it's just over.
I think it's also over for Milwaukee, but they have a better asset to trade.
Golden State's never trading Curry.
Did you see CR?
Did you see the Golden State box score the first game without Butler?
I saw Kuminga did quite well, right?
Yeah, but you look at it, it's like Curry and 14 other guys.
I bet on that game.
I made so much money on Toronto in that game.
Thank God.
It's just that they have a bunch of ninth man in Curry and Draymond's not the same guy.
It's tough though, because it's like Curry's too old to do a like oh, I have a phantom back injury.
You know what i mean.
Like they're he's moving into the kobe from 2012 to 16 thing, where it's like we can't trade you.
You're an icon, our fans love you, but our team's also not going to be good, so maybe this is just.
This is now.
We're making equalizer four and equalizer five with you, and we'll give you a budget.
It'll be solid.
It's you, yeah.
There'll be nobody else you can recognize in the cast.
There's literally a blueprint from this.
The Sixers did it last year to great effect.
To great outcomes.
I mean, the only reason we're talking about this Sixers team in any way, shape or form being relevant is because Vijay Edgecombe is fucking awesome.
He came in and immediately injected life into the team, the franchise.
Everybody who plays on the floor likes playing with him.
I continue to resent that he doesn't get more shine in terms of the rookie of the year conversation.
Like we have him firmly in third place.
All right, stop sucking up to CR.
The fucking Sixers are in nowhere's bill without him.
Huh?
Stop sucking up to CR.
So you have him over Knipple and Flagg?
I have him over Flagg, and I think he's at least equal to Knipple.
Now, the shooting by Knipple is amazing.
Knipple, the Hornets kind of shit the bed last night.
I was excited for that.
Legs was doing the game.
I was excited for that. for a big thing from them.
I obviously think VJH comes the rookie of the year.
But I'm basically like a cult member now.
Yeah, between him and Maxie.
Yeah.
This is great.
I'm happy for ACR.
I'm holding on to my Philadelphia real estate.
Let's just put it that way.
You're prepared for the maxi injury that's coming, right?
Shut up.
He's playing 41 minutes a game.
He's young.
Let him live.
Let him work.
You got to tone that back, CR.
It's insane.
He really needs to chill for a second though.
Yeah.
Over under on how many weeks he's going to miss.
Well, the other weird thing is that McCain is now Jeremy, if we're doing six, or Jeremy Kane is now in the G league, which is just like I don't understand the rotational stuff or what happened with Jeremy Kane.
He's still like.
I think it's an interesting.
I would have already traded for him if I was one of the other teams.
Hmm.
All right, I derailed us.
I'm sorry.
From least realistic to most realistic, but all trades that I'm sure the teams the other team probably at least had a meeting.
Least realistic, Detroit.
So I sent most of these to you.
Harris, Tobias Harris expiring, Jaden Ivory, Isaiah Stewart, who's been awesome for them.
And that's a tough piece to give up.
Mm-hmm.
And also there's crazy defensive rim protection numbers with him this year, which the eye test backs up.
He had an incredible block of Keita in the Celtics-Pistons game.
Keita was just going in for a two-hand dunk, and he just went up and fucking swatted him.
So Harris Ivy, Stewart and as many picks and swaps as it takes in Detroit, it's like we're going to make a real run at this.
We're already in first place.
I would not do this if I was them.
If I was the Pistons, I would not.
Can I make the case for it?
Yeah.
You're in the midst of an Eastern Conference where the Knicks are in a swoon.
The Cavs look like they don't that this nucleus is not going to be able to put it together and reach the heights that they were at.
Yeah. you're getting off years and off, off eras from Miami and Philly and a couple other teams.
Like this is, this is your year.
Well, on top of it, if you get Giannis, you now have two of the best 10 players in the league.
You could even, you might want to shrink that number a little bit.
Right.
Yeah.
And Oh, how's your thoughts?
Oh, no, I thought CR was still going.
No, I'm just saying this is it.
This is the moment.
You're never going to get a guy like Giannis to be like, I'm signing with Detroit.
So this is the shot you have.
Totally agree with all of that.
And on top of it, it's a lot of pressure on Cade.
And I don't mean, like, you know, the psychological whatever.
No, it's the game-to-game fourth quarter stuff.
Game-to-game.
It's the same as Maxie.
Like I want both those guys to take a little all-star trip to Boca, trip to Cabo, whatever they need.
Get those guys away from basketball for a little while.
They're going to go to the all-star.
Both Maxie and Cade are both starting.
And I know for sure Maxie's starting, right?
Brunson's starting?
Oh, okay.
Well, whatever.
Fine.
I think all three of them might be starting.
I thought Maxie and Cade were starting and Jalen Brown and Brunson.
Isn't that what it is?
What those guys really need are breaks from basketball so they can get ready for the playoff run.
And that's why Giannis to Detroit makes an enormous amount of sense.
It immediately changes the impact.
It turns.
It takes a, this version of cade, which is like a 9875 out of 10 yeah into, you know, north of 10 potentially, and janice will, will absolutely love it.
I just there's nothing in this that's interesting to me.
If i'm milwaukee yeah, not one piece of this interests me.
If you're detroit and you end up with janice, with cade, with duran, with Thompson, with a couple of shooters, you're feeling great.
Would anyone ever score again on that team?
Well, and then a rejuvenated Giannis too, on top of it.
I think house made the key point.
There's too much on Kate in these games.
I think it's, I'm not that scared of them in a playoff series.
Like you normally would be the one seed, because I think there's a sameness to how they play that I think is going to be trouble for them.
If you're seeing it for seven straight games, you know, over the course of two weeks, it's like Oh, you're going to do the thing where just Cade has to come up with something again.
Like at some point you need more than that.
I don't think they have enough.
You know what they need?
Malik Beasley, who was on their team, who they were about to resign.
Goodness gracious.
Speaking of the Knicks, this would be the trade.
I don't think either team should do.
Well, the Knicks would do this, but Townsend Ananobi to Milwaukee Giannis with Portis and Kuzma, who would be the Giannis trade tax.
Who's got a deal for this year or next year?
And that actually works under the cap.
And that would be the lateral move trade for the Bucs.
I have no idea why they would do that.
I would just keep you honest at that point.
I would reject that.
I think you guys agree.
Yes.
I mean it would have been an interesting hypothetical world to live in if they had lost to Brooklyn yesterday.
It was like full panic.
It would be more interesting if they had like three first round picks they could throw into a framework like all the Bridges picks, basically.
Right.
I, before we keep going, I want to mention something.
It's a point I made a month ago and it was near the end of the podcast.
I thought it was a really important point and I'm going to, I'm going to basically karaoke it.
Do we think Wesley Giannis as an all-time guy, when he seems really available right now and everybody's like eh, like Philly would be like?
No, we're not.
Max is off the table.
No, thanks.
I just wonder, like I made the point that in you know the mid two thousands, if Duncan, like when KG became available, every team in the league was trying to figure out how to get KG.
When?
If Duncan was never available?
If Duncan had been available, every team in the league would have been like what do you want?
Maxie done.
Let's call it in right now.
Something about Giannis and how particular his offensive game is.
And I don't know, and maybe his age, but it's I don't know if his trade value is as high as maybe I think it is in my head.
So what do you think of that house?
Not only do I vehemently disagree.
Great.
I vehemently disagree.
I think it's impossible, in the collective bargaining agreement world that we live in now, with aprons and every other sort of all of these nonsensical efforts at a hard cap in basketball, to measure era against era.
This is a one-of-one.
And we still haven't really yet gotten to the full effect of the ramifications, the barriers to the old-school way of doing trades and stuff.
And the only thing that teams are looking at this is my sense is what's our flexibility?
Flexibility is the thing, cap space, the.
There's nothing more valuable in the nba than than cap space and flexibility, and so that now becomes the.
That that's much more important than how much janice is going to help your basketball team this season or next season.
It's just also a referendum on he's now it's.
It's been an unhappy situation for several years now, So it's it's.
We've got equal amount of years of not necessarily him being unhappy, but the bucks not firing on all cylinders or having a postseason, you know combustion, because you know he gets injured, or something like that.
So I wonder whether or not people are like, I'm going to keep my powder dry or I like my team.
We're going to go through a couple of other teams.
And I do think Zach and Kirk were talking on Zach's show the other day about there is just a popcorn butts in seats, ratings and jerseys element to getting Giannis and getting one of the most recognizable names in the sport that I think most owners in this league would probably be like.
Yeah, I want that.
But I don't think it's any kind of like referendum on his ability or his, his legacy or all time standing.
I just hard for me to believe the three best teams in the league are like, yeah, we're good.
And Giannis is basically on Amazon right now and a lightning deal. comes along.
If you, if you buy one battle on 4k, you get well.
Do you see?
The Kurt Russell movie breakdown was lightning deal or it was like 50 off.
And I was like, that's how they get you.
I was like, Oh, that's a pretty good price for breakdown.
I really liked that movie.
I get the train crashing in a 4k.
All right, next one.
We're starting to move a little more realistic, but I still don't like this either.
It's Miami.
And there's a lot of variations where you could go with this.
And I actually brought in a third team the one I sent to you where Miami has to give up Bam in the trade, in my opinion.
When we were doing this two months ago, it was Khalil Ware.
It was Hero and Picks.
And I just don't think that's going to do it.
And also Bam's.
Maybe his trade value has dipped a little bit with how he's looked offensively this year.
So anyway, the trade would be Miami gets Giannis and Portis.
Atlanta gets Bam.
Milwaukee gets the Rozier contract which I'm just trading until Adam Silver tells me not to, because it's still waiting on a ruling for him.
The Porzingis expiring.
Reese O'Shea, three Miami picks, and they get their New Orleans or Milwaukee pick back.
And they get all of that, and they give up Giannis.
And now we're in the neighborhood of there's a lot of assets there that you'd have to think about.
So as you look at that, what makes the least sense out of those three, C.R.?
? for, for which team makes it, does it make sense?
Which team is probably like, eh, I would probably say Atlanta, I guess.
Doesn't why, why would Atlanta get help people out here?
But well, if you could get, if you could basically trade research and that you get bam, I see.
And you get bam.
I got to say when you did this, I put together my starting lineup for the Heat and I was like that's nerve-wracking.
That would be like the newly constructed Heat would be nerve-wracking.
I don't know.
If you're throwing in all those picks, I think this is the best deal you sent us, honestly.
Wow.
What do you think, Hess?
CR beat me to it.
I quite like this trade and I don't know why you have it in a lesser realistic kind of place.
It feels very realistic to me, probably because it was like bam was like off off the table for a long time and now it's like okay, what are we talking about here?
Like if you could do where?
And yannis in a front court.
I mean, i guess the hard part is anytime there's a three teamer.
That's why i make it less realistic.
I think the three teams hard atlanta would have to decide the richard say pick and the chance to move into the top three with that new orleans or milwaukee pick.
You're just cashing in with BAM right now.
And I don't know if they would do that.
Maybe Riche is just not in the trade.
Maybe it's just that pick only and they get BAM.
But the Celtics fan side of me is looking at it going fuck.
If Miami could somehow just turn BAM and expirings and picks into Giannis and Portis, who would be the most heat guy since Haslam, like that would.
I'd be a little nervous about that one.
Basically, they could not get a single injury to their starting five.
No.
But they would be terrifying in a playoff series.
Next one.
All right.
So we marked that one down.
We liked that one the most.
Next one is just a straight one with the Lakers.
It's just Luka and Kleba's expiring for Giannis.
What?
What did you just say?
I didn't put that one on my list with you guys.
I wanted the reaction.
It's just the Lakers saying, fuck it, and turning Luka into Giannis, paying Reeves, keeping LeBron.
Bill, is Rich Paul in the room with you?
No, I want to talk it out.
The part that makes no sense is Luka going to Milwaukee.
But if you're Milwaukee, you do this now, and you have two weeks to trade Luka. it's a Luca auction.
Remember when all the teams were mad last year?
Man, last year, when they're like Utah, they were like we have 17 picks.
We would have traded all of them for Luca.
If we knew is available.
It's like, all right, walk is now acquired Luca.
Here's the auction.
Let's go.
You guys got two weeks to make us your bed.
And then, and then they basically just shop.
So is the idea here that, uh, Giannis would fix the Lakers defensive problems.
And then it's Reeves and LeBron and, And that's the team?
Yeah.
Boy.
It's not bad.
It's a terrible trade.
It's not bad.
No chance.
No, it's not going to happen.
It would be one of those.
I do feel like out of all the things on this list.
Were you moving towards realistic?
Why did you drop that one into here now?
You thought I should have started with that one?
Yeah, maybe.
It's by far the least realistic.
Is it?
The idea of trading Luka again.
Yeah.
Why?
For what?
Under what circumstances?
I don't know.
I was throwing it in there.
Starting shit.
Haven't you done enough?
Yeah.
We'll take a break and then we'll keep going.
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All right, coming back with some Giannis trades.
Here's another one on the list that I did not send you.
It involves the Philadelphia 76ers.
And here's the trade.
It's Giannis and the Gary Harris tiny contract.
Always loved Gary Harris.
For Paul George...
The 2029 Clips Phillies swap pick that Milwaukee has in Vijay Edgecombe.
No.
No!
No.
Flat out no.
For the Sixers.
It's a no.
I want to move on.
I want to live in the world where Vijay and Maxie are the backcourt.
And I don't want to...
Watch Embiid and Giannis occupy the same areas of the four.
So CR is telling us that Vijay Edgecombe has a higher trade value than Giannis Antetokounmpo.
I'm trying to get this straight.
There's a five to ten year future of this team that doesn't exist the way you just set it up.
And I want to cheer for a fun young backcourt.
It's been a while since I got to do that.
So if you're just asking me as a fan...
I'm cool standing Pat.
You know what I mean?
This is a fun team to watch on a night-to-night basis.
A little bit maddening generational divide sometimes on the court, but I don't I don't think so.
This goes right to the heart of what I was trying to articulate maybe not so artfully a short bit ago, in terms of how do you properly assess Giannis' trade value?
It doesn't make any sense for him to go to Philly.
Would Giannis and Embiid, would you say they were the favorites in the Eastern Conference?
You know what?
I wouldn't.
The reason to do this, as a long time Daryl's been in my life for 20 years now.
Daryl has always been one of those.
If I have three of the best guys and I can win the title, I'm going to move the math my way.
And this trade would end up giving them Giannis and Maxie and the same team with the Embiid wildcard.
And you could say wow, if we can get Embiid somewhat healthy in April May, June and I also have Giannis and Maxie who are two all-star starters in a pre-deconference, I can make the finals.
That would be the conversation you would have.
I don't think they would do it either.
How old is Giannis?
Yes.
I've stuck CR in.
Giannis is 31.
He was in the 2013 draft.
You know how you're like, you take the phone call, you go have the coffee.
It's like, let's get the coffee.
Let's walk around the block a couple of times.
But I don't.
See, this is like Zodiac where I'm Jake Gyllenhaal and you're Ruffalo.
And I'm like, Arthur Lee Allen lived 50 yards away.
I don't know.
It's not him.
Handwriting sample said no.
I know.
I think you're right.
I think they probably would not do this because they'd be afraid of how mad the fan base would be, because the fan base has already decided this is great.
Maxie and BJ sign us up.
We're good.
House is laughing.
He loves this.
Well, I do think it makes sense.
It's bananas for the Sixers to just sit tight.
They should move off of Paul George by any means necessary.
Yeah, but he has two years left after this one.
So you could say you're getting off Paul George.
You're using the edge comb thing to do that.
God, you have no idea how fun it is to watch him play.
He's such a fun player.
I think they say no.
So if I do trade value again, forget about all the reasons for it.
I do think Vijay Edgecote might have a higher trade value than Giannis.
As crazy as that sounds.
On a rookie deal, 40 games into the season, and it's like, we can't trade him.
He might be fucking Dwayne Wade.
Like, for real.
This might be mid-2000s Dwayne Wade again.
We're not trading him.
I love him, man.
I don't know how contagious that is for everybody else in the national scheme of things watching him, but it's.
It would be really tough to watch him go away.
And also like, so what's Giannis' current deal?
How many years has he had?
Like two years left.
So you'd have to worry about that.
But do you wind up going right back into, will Giannis stay or will he go?
Yeah.
And is Giannis happy?
And does Giannis like Nick Nurse?
And does Giannis like playing with Joel Embiid?
And does Giannis like the apartment that he got in Philly?
Like, or whatever, you know what I mean?
Like, I don't, I'm just really, really enjoying the page turning that's happening for the Sixers.
CR was like Andrew McCarthy in St.
Elmo's Fire.
He's like, I love her, man.
I just love Maxie, man.
Rolling his eyes.
All right, we're moving on to the next one.
I did not come up with this idea.
It did come from a mailbag emailer named Will.
Jason Tatum for Giannis, straight up.
I'm glad that you're doing some self-reflection here.
He wrote, I don't want to do this, but this Celtics team is the honest team that he's always needed.
And JB is the exact teammate that Giannis needs this team and what they have going this season.
This team Giannis needs.
I don't want to do it.
Tatum is going to be awesome, but would you have to have a meeting about it?
I wouldn't do it.
Would you have the meeting?
I would.
I just, I think karma wise.
No, I love Tatum.
I think he has a chance to have a Curry type of career.
It is amazing how logical a basketball trade it is, because for Milwaukee it's an official tank, right?
They'll tell Tatum, come back in October, and then Boston just turns Tatum and Giannis, basically.
So basketball always makes sense, but I don't think Boston would ever do that.
Would Danny Ainge do it?
Danny Ainge would have done it already.
He would have done it as Tatum was working out on Monday.
It would have been done.
I don't think anyone else that is affiliated with this team would do it though, but it is a really interesting basketball trade.
All right.
The only, so there's three teams plus this next one.
And this is the last, like semi unrealistic one, even though you guys like my Miami trade.
But there's a golden state scenario where, where it could be Giannis and Kuzma
Kuzma's the Giannis tax.
Milwaukee gets Butler's contract which she's not playing this year and maybe comes back trade deadline next year.
You could either trade them, whatever.
Kaminga, Podzemski, and then just all of the picks and swaps you can possibly get from Golden State.
And you just go for broke.
Yeah, I'll take all of them.
Give me the next seven years of stuff you have.
And in whatever order you want to do, I'll take everything you have.
And you're basically betting on shorting the Warriors.
And if you're the Warriors, you're like we have this generational Curry thing going on that we still might have three, four years left.
We're adding Giannis.
We can build around this.
Who cares about the picks?
It's mildly interesting.
It becomes more interesting now that Butler's hurt because it helps Milwaukee this year.
But what'd you think of this house?
I need to know more about what the picks are.
Do they have their own first round picks for the foreseeable future in Golden State?
Yeah, they have a, I have it here.
I have a whole document.
They have their, basically all their own first round picks.
And then they have this weird 2030 situation with Washington where.
Not weird.
Washington got that for Jordan Poole.
Yeah.
But it's like, they still, it's, they still keep it under a lot of different scenarios.
Right.
All right.
So that's that.
I don't think this trade will happen.
I think Golden State would be nuts to mortgage their entire future for Curry Giannis and nothing else.
Well, I mean, it's almost like it's too late.
They could have mortgaged their future a year or two ago.
Well, they did.
Kind of.
That was the Jimmy Butler acquisition.
Yeah.
All right.
We'll move on.
Just towards ACL.
That's all.
Three teams left.
Here's the big three.
We got to talk about the Rockets.
I did every machination.
The one I sent you guys was just Giannis Van Vliet's in it Shengun, a 27 Phoenix first and an unprotected 2031 Houston first.
Maybe one more pick needs to be in.
I don't know.
But you're basically turning Giannis into Shengun, $20 million last year and a couple of picks.
And it seems like a pretty fair trade.
I think that if I was Milwaukee, this would probably be the most excited I would be.
You're getting a young center who's on a really good contract.
Who might even be, I mean at least like analytically or statistically, would probably even pop more in a world where there wasn't so much sharing going on.
Right.
Even though he's a great passer, but yeah, I think this would get me the most piped up.
House, would you rather pursue him or Amin Thompson if you had a choice?
Ooh, that's a great question.
Which player do you like more as a building block for the next 10 years?
I might be higher than is rational on Sengun.
I think Amin Thompson is going to be incredible.
He already is incredible.
But I feel like the direction the league is in right now.
Having somebody around the rim who's as effective as he is, that's an asset.
That's an outsized asset in this day and age of mine.
I have no doubt that Amin's going to become like what we all think he's going to become.
But it's just like, I feel like you can build around Sangoon and you can run a system based on him.
And Amin seems more complimentary.
Both of those Thompson kids, like the South, that came on Monday night.
They weren't even guarding Amin, the Detroit Thompson, at the end of the game.
Like, yeah, they were just like, do whatever you want, man.
So he was kind of roaming around like a free safety on offense.
But, um, I gotta say, I wouldn't do this if I was Houston.
It's weird.
Cause the Durant timeline kind of confuses them.
It feels like then they should have urgency cause the ages have, but that I.
That wouldn't make me want to I.
I still feel like Shangoon and Thompson are.
I care about that with Jabari and with Reed.
And I feel like that's my team and that's my team for the next seven years.
And Katie can help us with the ceiling of it, but I'm not making trades because I have Katie I think is where I've landed and I wouldn't do it.
I would keep Schengen, especially 20 million less.
So it sounds like we all agree.
This next one's more interesting.
So I sent you Yannis, the Kuzma tax and a small contract coffee.
For Vassell, Olenek's expiring, Barnes is expiring, and Dylan Harper.
Under the old adage, if you're going to get something, you got to give up something.
So it's like, you want Giannis?
Give us Dylan Harper.
Like, pony up.
I don't think the Spurs would do this.
I don't either.
It's a realistic basketball trade though.
It's a really good realistic basketball trade.
It's exactly the kind of trade of the bucks are going to trade Giannis.
And they're like, what'd you get back?
We got a guy who can be an all NBA guard in four years.
Have you seen him?
I mean, if anything, he's fallen off a little for San Antonio cause they're too good.
Like they, he actually is a little bit of a little up and down, but house your thoughts.
Yeah, so I'm looking at it and I'm like, well, where are the picks?
Because if I'm Milwaukee, I want some picks.
But the answer is, well, the pick is, we have a pick.
You have a pick.
It's Dylan Harper.
They were sending you a franchise, potential franchise guy.
And guess what?
You don't have to go into a draft and take a swing.
This guy can play.
We've seen him.
He can play in the NBA.
He can be impactful.
He's probably ready to be more than what he is now, even at this early age.
This is kind of similar to the Philadelphia conversation, but if you're San Antonio, aren't you thinking these guys are on Wemby's timeline?
We like our team.
We've worked really hard to get this.
We got really lucky with Castle and Harper.
We have Fox.
We're very excited about this guard rotation.
Why disrupt it?
That's where I would land if I was San Antonio.
I would not do this trade.
I wonder if people are listening and they're like, you're insane.
If you have a chance to get Giannis, you do anything you can.
I guess the question is if I'm trading for Giannis, I need to feel like I'm actually going to win the title.
Like when the Celtics traded for KG, and that what they gave up ended up not being maybe as potent as it seemed in the deal.
But it was like we're getting this and we now are the favorites in the East with this trade and have a chance.
I don't know if Santona did this.
If I would feel like they were the favorites in the West, I would still think it's okay.
See, so how would they play together?
That's part of the thing.
When being honest together, I'm not even positive.
I like it.
I think they should trade for Trey Murphy and actually overpay for him.
That would be, I talked about that on Tuesday.
All right, so we're crossing them off.
Well, this last thing, this is the deal that made the most sense to me by far.
It made the most sense six weeks ago.
It makes the most sense now.
It's especially now that CJ McCollum's an expiring contract and you can put him and Porzingis together two expiring 60 million research that New Orleans or Milwaukee picked.
They also have the worst version of the Bucks or New Orleans pick in 27.
Give that back.
Maybe even give them another one and just give Atlanta Giannis.
And now, if I'm Atlanta, I have Giannis, I have Jalen Johnson, Daniels and I can patch together everything else.
And I'm relevant in a way that I just even though they've had good teams they had a 60 win team once
It's different.
This would be the biggest.
The biggest star they've ever had on the Hawks since Bob Pettit.
And I love Dominique Wilkins, but it's just a fact.
Giannis would be the biggest star they've had.
Bob Pettit.
What it's worth.
I wonder if that, if Giannis I mean I don't know how much Giannis obviously hasn't officially requested a trade.
I don't know how much influence he's going to have over a prospective destination.
But I wonder if he wants to stay in the Eastern Conference just to stay out of the bloodbath in the West.
So you stay in the East.
It's a soft East.
This is why I was excited about this for Detroit even.
It's like you just have an easier path to the finals this way, I think.
House?
Yeah, I agree with that.
The thing I wonder about to the point, you know, the observation around what would Giannis want?
Don't?
Doesn't he want to go to a team that he feels like he can take over the hump?
That's the problem with this trade.
If i'm honest, i'm like well, the hawks have three more wins than the team i'm on now.
Right yeah, that would be the evidence.
That's why that miami trade is is kind of fun, because it's basically the same trade, except you're just putting him in the bam spot with portis.
And now you could now I have this bolster as my coach and I have a bunch of shooters and maybe have more of a chance.
Yeah.
My body fat content is already heat, heat level.
You know, I don't have to worry about that.
The thing I don't know yet, because nobody knows, is how loyal they would be to a Giannis trade request where he's like I've decided I'd like to be traded and I'd like to go to Houston, you know, or wherever he says where he's just like I want to go to that team.
What is the responsibility of them to them?
Make a deal with that team.
When you basically have the leverage.
We saw this with allegedly with Durant, with Phoenix and Brooklyn, when they basically just figured out that whole trade and didn't involve other teams.
We've seen teams do this, but that's a pretty stuff, tough spot to be in.
If you're the bucks or somebody, I don't get me.
But one spot like house, do you get the impression that like, once Giannis disappears, if Giannis leaves is off the bucks?
Like I don't feel like there's a lot of guys working at the Bucks who are going to be there next year.
So they're not incentivized to be like, oh yeah, and then we'll work on this five-year rebuild.
They're probably like, there goes my job with this.
So I think that changes things a little bit.
Well, you would have to have so much confidence around the picks that come back with that.
And the problem with Houston is we all think Houston's going to be good for at least the next three years, probably longer.
I like Houston next three.
Yeah.
I think when they have, when they have.
Well, now Adams is hurt, but when they had their two centers with everybody else, I'm like this team.
I would not want to see this team in a series ever.
As soon as one of those guys is missing, it feels different.
But I thought the size that they have is really unlike anything anyone else has.
All right.
Well, I don't even know where we landed.
No crazy wildcard team?
No.
I looked.
I tried.
Well, to me, it was the Lakers.
And you guys laughed me out of the room.
You accused me of trying to start shit.
Why did you say Luka?
I'm sorry.
I'm giving you my butt cheeks together.
I listed 10 teams.
Yeah.
Top seven guy.
That's that would be.
By the way, if they traded Giannis for Luca, I think that would be the biggest pound for pound NBA trade ever.
I was trying to think like from an actual, like the talent of the two guys and the stature.
Cause like remember when the kid Marbury trade was just a straight up and and we were like wow that, what a cool trade.
Like a slightly younger, awesome point guard in his prime point guard.
These never happen.
Trades like the one-for-ones never happen like that.
Why again wouldn't Tatum for Giannis make sense?
Tell me again why.
It would make sense.
I just don't think Boston would trade Tatum.
Why?
I just don't.
Because he's going to be back by Valentine's Day.
Everyone in Boston loves Tatum.
He's coming off of a torn Achilles.
Why wouldn't Boston trade Jason Tatum?
He delivered them a freaking title.
He made them relevant, competitive for the entirety of the career.
They were on an accelerated timeline because of him.
They made the Eastern Conference finals a bunch of years.
Gladly, gladly.
I would have you know, but I'm not in the business of, you know, trying to take money out of good, hardworking people from Bethesda and Northern Virginia.
Just come on down here and watch this team flame out in the first round of the playoffs every year.
That's not my business.
It's none of my business.
Would you trade Jaden Daniels?
No, I would not.
Yeah, Tatum's pretty beloved.
I don't see it.
We'll see.
I think out of the actual wildcards, I would say Philly is the wildcard, not just because CR's here.
Just because I think Daryl's like Danny.
I don't think he gives a shit.
When you talk about the I don't give a shit GMs.
Danny in Utah.
He's not in this discussion because they're never getting him.
I don't think Palenka cares.
I think he'll slice somebody's hamstrings if he has to, if it's going to make team 10% better.
I don't think Boston's wired like that right now.
And maybe Riley used to be wired like that, I guess?
Well, the Riley thing would be the last great work, right?
That would be like I'll finally paint my masterpiece after like six years of being in hot and heavy rumors for any given available star and missing out on Dame and Durant and everybody.
I mean, where does Giannis' brothers want to go?
Miami's got to be up there.
I forgot to put them in the trades.
Miami's got to be up there.
Somehow I think they'll make their way to wherever he is.
By the way, I was reading that Lakers story that Baxter did.
And Baxter was on Zach's pod today for people listening to this one about all the Buss family drama.
And I was thinking if it got really contentious, wouldn't the fuck you move have been to just trade Bronny?
Like, if we were like, we're really starting... We're really...
We're tired of this guy.
We're really in FU mode with LeBron.
Like you, just like, trade him to Sacramento for with a second round pick.
Just like a dump, just to like, just to basically do this.
It would have been an amazing trade.
I don't think it's that bad.
I don't, I don't think it's great, but I don't think it's acrimonious like that.
I don't think genie's like that unless it's old family business stuff more than it was about LeBron.
Pretty fascinating.
I got an email from somebody that asked me what family was more fucked up the bus family or the Roy's?
It's close.
It's close.
It really does feel like the bus family matched that last season of the of the Roy kids, just ready to fuck each other over for the throne, no matter what it took.
Right.
I had no idea how many brothers were employed by the Lakers in different jobs.
Then there was another one.
I didn't even know about Sean Buss.
That was the mother's kid.
I didn't even understand that one.
It's really something.
This worked out great for the Lakers.
They have the Dodgers owner who spends a kajillion dollars and doesn't seem to care about money.
I would say it was probably a win for them.
We'll see how it goes.
CR, who's your football picks this weekend?
Seahawks and Patriots.
All right.
Well, we're going to send you packing.
I'll see you tomorrow for our three-hour Zodiac session.
I'm just going to start drinking hot water and lemon right now.
House is staying.
And we're going to do some football right after this.
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All right.
Peter Schrager is here.
You can see him on ESPN.
Sometimes on shows with three or four people, sometimes on shows with six.
Like I saw today, it was a six person studio show.
I always admire ESPN's, uh, It's been pursuance.
Persistence?
What's the right word?
Pursuance?
Pursuance works, man.
Is pursuance a word?
I don't even know.
How about insistence?
Yeah.
Before you popped on, you asked us what was the first conference championship game you remember watching?
House has no long-term memory, so it's a tougher question for him.
You and I have that brain where I remember exactly where I was.
When I was watching it, who I was with, and I just posed it because you guys are sports junkies.
I want to hear your answers.
Well, I thought I had that brain until I forgot the Seahawks won the Super Bowl on Sunday's pod.
That's on Sal.
Come on.
That was this week.
Terrible.
Amazing.
Outrageous.
I genuinely think the first one I remember watching was the Drew Pearson game.
Was that conference championship?
The Hail Mary?
Yeah.
Wasn't that a conference championship game?
Yeah.
Yeah.
77?
No, that was like 75.
I remember watching that game though.
Okay.
And then probably somewhere in the 75, 76 range.
Because you used to have a column and I used to love it.
And this was probably when you It was probably 15, 20 years ago where one time you just wrote out every Super Bowl the winner, the loser and the MVP.
Oh, what I remember to the game?
Yeah.
This guy shares my brain.
Mine is...
1990 Candlestick Park Leonard Marshall sacking Joe Montana, Gary Reasons on the fake punt and then Lawrence Taylor recovering the Roger Craig and then Matt Bark hits the field goal.
I know exactly where I was in my living room as a kid, with my father and my brother, and I was eight years old.
But that's the earliest conference championship game memory I have.
House, what about you?
Oh, so I don't, that was before the conference championship, my pick.
That was the round before.
Was it just a playoff game?
Yeah.
I don't remember the 75 ones.
I do remember Vikings Rams in 76.
That was 76.
Cause I love, I love Sammy White as a kid.
He was the only non-patriot I liked.
Remember Sammy Whitehouse?
Of course.
I love Sammy White.
So I, I, I remember watching that game.
So what was yours house?
Um, the 1982, 83 Washington Redskins, because that was like, you know, at an age where.
Oh, I shouldn't say this out loud.
I could be a lusty fan.
I was going to make.
I had something and I was going to talk about it, but like the stage of my own development my, you know, as the pre-presidents and the all of that, I was I I.
It was Washington against Dallas in the conference championship 1982 for the chance to go to the, to the Superbowl.
And I was with, you know, my, my, my cohort and we were all like, going crazy for it.
You know, you're watching just Mark Mosley bang field goals and you're banging.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
This is something I've been Dallas's ass.
That's the key.
This is something I've been thinking about in the last, the last couple of weeks.
Cause I started following that Kevin Gallagher guy who just posted football, but I had never been following him until December and he was posting these games.
And I was realizing that.
First of all, I've been watching football now since you know 74, 75 range, right.
And all these huge games and I cared about all of them and I watched them and I thought about them.
And then, when I was writing a column, I was writing extensively about them, podcasting about them, but there's almost been too many.
So I started this document two weeks ago and I was just writing down all the games, just with the scores, to like refresh my memory.
And I wrote down all the conference championship games and What I realized.
You think about it.
There's two games a year and House and I we go back to 1974, 75 range.
That's over 50 conference title games in each conference.
So now that's just 100 games out of those, 100 plus.
That are in your brain.
Plus like 52 to 54 Super Bowls.
So these are 160 of the most important games that I watched.
That I kind of have to jog my memory to remember what happened.
It's not like baseball house.
Basketball, I can still remember all this stuff.
See, I can tell you about Steelers, Colts, and Harbaugh playing Pittsburgh in 95.
I remember all of these games.
And I think NBA, I would be a little shakier.
Yeah, I go backwards with NBA.
With NFL, I'm always moving forward.
Like today.
Somebody was talking about the on Twitter was talking about Marino's last chance in 95, the Chargers game.
Yeah.
And Stoyanovich missed the 48 yarder.
I was like I think I bet on this game and I think I I think I covered, and I just went on YouTube and I watched the last five minutes of it and it was fucking awesome.
The charges, the charges went down.
They scored with like 30 seconds left.
Then Marino got a pass interference.
And I was like, this is great.
I was like, it's almost like we have football amnesia.
I didn't remember any of the details.
I was like I might just spend the off season just watching one football game a day until the playoffs.
Yeah, and i think you'll appreciate this.
There's, there's a there's like one that's called like giants vhs.
Tapes to twitter feed.
They'll show the intros to the games.
So it's like you know, some are all in madden 92.
You know it's cowboys versus cowboys versus niners.
You know it's just like you get chills.
Well then you get the ads.
The ads are great.
I really house.
I really miss dick emberg.
That was one of the things like watching a couple of days, a lot.
Right.
Yeah.
And then he's with Merlin for a while.
And I was, I just thought he was like lights out.
I really liked Charlie Jones was great, but, but yeah.
So you think in one of the recurring themes when you see these old games is how important weather was.
It's just this fucking crazy variable that football has where, like the chargers, don't win one year because they go to Cincinnati and it's like freezing rain in Cincinnati outdoors.
And they just got a week after Kellen Winslow game they go to Cincinnati and it's ice cold and it's the coldest game basically.
But yeah, the weather, and last week I felt like I thought the bears outplayed the Rams, but I don't know how much of it was rather weather related that made the Rams look that way.
I don't know.
What do you take from that game?
So, um, but anyway, it's, it's going to be my off season project house.
I love it.
I'm diving through.
I'm jogging my memory because I was writing columns about these games.
I barely remember half of them.
Do you ever go back and watch or think about any of the Bills AFC championship games in the early 90s?
Wow.
They would kick the shit out of these teams.
I think they beat the Raiders 53-3.
Just huge blowouts four years in a row.
And then obviously we know what happened in the Super Bowl.
But conference championship week... to me has like a real special place.
Like, and I, and even this week they were interviewing McVay and McDonald and Peyton and variable.
And there's like an NAFC NFC championship logo in like the background of and like that.
Even that, I get like tingles.
Like I, it's very, I don't know.
It's very historic and very reminiscent and nostalgic to like these classic weekends as a kid.
I love it all.
Yeah.
I think my favorite non Patriots one was Patriots.
Maybe that wasn't the conference championship.
What was the one where Emmitt had the separated shoulder?
That was a regular season game.
Against the Giants.
Yeah, it was against the Giants.
But then in the playoffs, but he wasn't right.
And then in the playoffs, and just kind of threw the Cowboys on his back anyway.
I just love that whole Emmitt run.
It was really enjoyable.
The Niners, when Montana got knocked out, was an amazing game too.
There were so many good runs.
We're going to talk about two games, which one do you want to start with?
Or do you want to do off-season stuff first?
No, you choose whatever.
Before we do the games, give us your number one coaching subplot this week with all the roulette that went around.
Coaching subplot, that's interesting to me.
So McDaniel picking the Chargers job, so he couldn't get a head coaching job?
What happened?
He could have been in the running in Cleveland.
And he said, I'm going to pull my name.
Jim Harbaugh said, we'd love to have you.
Basically, he knew he wasn't getting the Baltimore job.
So he told them he's in.
His wife is from Southern California.
And He and Harbaugh hit it off.
Now, can you imagine the conversations that the two of those guys are going to have?
Two of the most enigmatic personalities in the league, Harbaugh and McDaniel.
But they're going together.
And then he withdrew his name from the Cleveland interview process, which so did Jesse Minter.
But we knew that the reason Minter was withdrawing his name from Cleveland is because he was getting the Baltimore head coaching job.
Today,
So.
I don't blame McDaniel for that, because he just lived in a world where he didn't trust his quarterback.
And now you go to Cleveland and you're in the same situation with worse weather.
Why would I do that?
You go to the Chargers, you resuscitate Herbert, maybe even try to get him to win a playoff game before his career ends.
And then you're the hot candidate a year from now if it goes well.
I think it's smart.
You like it, House?
Buffalo is the one that's... we could really dive into.
Well, let's do it.
Doing your whole Davis web, 30 years old.
Can you hire your best friend as the coach?
What do you think?
I don't know.
I don't, I don't know if I'd hire a house as my head NFL coach.
If I was the quarterback, what happens if we disagree on something?
So for the, so he McDermott gets fired.
We have that, Fiery press conference.
Everyone is crying for Keon Coleman for a full day.
And then the next day, it's like, all right, they have to hire a coach.
So today, they interviewed Luanna Rumo and Dable.
We're doing this on Thursday.
They have Udinski, who's the 30-year-old kid from Jacksonville, interviewing Sunday.
Anthony Weaver is interviewing this weekend.
And there will be a couple others.
The wild card is Davis Webb, who is 30 years old. was Josh Allen's backup for three years.
Also, his best friend was, I believe, a groomsman in the wedding.
And his final year with the Bills as a backup quarterback was like running the quarterback room.
Went to the Giants for a year with Dable.
And then Sean Payton, the second he met him, was like, you are going to be a coach.
You're retiring today.
You're going to be a coach.
He's been on Payton's hip for the last three years.
All this happens.
Josh Allen, I'm told, is going to have a voice in the head coaching process.
And that led to this conversation, which I guess we could open it up.
Do you let the quarterback have a say first of all, then B?
This is such like player empowerment era that we see in the NBA.
But if he really was to push hard and be like I, want Davis Webb as the coach.
Are we okay with that, considering their relationship off the field as blood brothers, whatever it is?
What do you think, S?
Fuck no.
I mean, what are you talking about?
It is insane.
The quarterback is going to say who the... What?
No.
No, no, no.
But he might prefer that.
The answer... Well, I mean, I'm not going to sort of take too much time on Webb.
Webb yet could be a good... uh, answer.
It's not the answer.
Right.
That's really pushing it.
And the, and the, and his best attribute is he was under the tutelage of, of, uh, Peyton.
That's a good attribute.
What's the, what's the experience in terms of like being leader of men?
Like we just went through this.
We, we have a lot of failures, more failures than not.
Dable's the right answer.
Bring Webb in as a, you know, whatever.
The quarterback's coach or whatever.
Let him be there in waiting.
As you guys were talking, I looked up the Emmett years.
It was the 92 one, but it was the year, I think it was the year before he hurt his shoulder.
But that, so 92.
They beat the Lion?
No, they lost.
It was Dallas winning in San Francisco.
In Candlestick, January 93.
And Emmett was 24 for 114.
Seven catches for 59, which is fucking awesome.
I loved Emmett Smith.
So good.
Who did they beat in the wild card that year?
They beat... Eagles?
Yeah, Eagles.
And then they killed the Bills.
But the Niners, it felt like such a big game.
Those Niners Cowboys and then when the Redskins were in there for a couple years, Giants were in there.
It just was like those four teams all together.
It was great.
I want to get back to that.
So if it's not 30-year-old Davis Webb, who is it then?
Could it be 30-year-old Udinski?
You wouldn't want that either, Joe?
Joe House?
No, Joe House would not want that.
Too young.
What happened?
I'm 12 hours behind the cycle.
Where's Flores?
I know Flores signed an extension with Minnesota but he has the possibility of if he gets a head coaching job at one of two places, he can leave.
Flores to Buffalo.
He interviewed in Pittsburgh.
He hasn't interviewed in Buffalo yet.
Okay.
Well, both of those are good, perfectly fine answers.
Both of those would be...
Great, great answers to me.
You know who could give Pittsburgh some 14 to 12 type of games?
Brian Flores.
You interested in a 15 to 13 final?
Yeah.
Don't need a quarterback.
I'll just have an awesome defense.
That'd be fun.
I'm excited that Buffalo overreacted, even though I think it was probably the right reaction.
The press conference was a disaster.
It was the complete opposite of that Ravens press conference.
It got people feeling bad for Keon Coleman who, by all accounts, was a schmuck this season and had to be benched even though they needed receivers.
Like, oh, I feel bad for Keon Coleman.
Like, how about just showing up for work every day and being reliable?
I don't feel bad for him.
But it just feels like a mess.
It's so funny.
It felt like they had the AFC East on lock for 15 years.
It just flipped on them. two things can be true, right?
Like it's amazing for the first eight years that local fan base and that media was pretty harsh on McDermott.
And when he gets fired, but being doesn't suddenly McDermott is this like night and shining armor.
Look, could they have fired both of them?
Sure.
The other eye side of it is should the GM be allowed to pick his coach one time?
Usually in the NFL, the GM will get that opportunity.
McDermott's defense is Playoff games gave up 31 and a half points per game.
That's tough when you're a defensive coach.
Yeah.
It's like, what's, what is your number one thing you're bringing to the table?
If you're a head coach, if it's like, eh, it's not really offense.
It's obviously not really defense either, because over and over again we saw that team not get stops.
And then it's like, well, is your game management awesome?
And, and does your team good when it really matters?
13 seconds.
Yeah.
Over and over again.
That's been bad.
So I don't know.
I felt like I actually thought what the owner said was the right answer, which is like we took this as far as we could go.
We needed a new voice.
I was like, I actually agree with you.
Yeah.
And I think the NBA is a better comparison than the NFL.
But like Mark Jackson took the Warriors to a certain point.
Steve Kerr got him over the top.
Doug Collins got the Bulls to a certain point, obviously.
Phil jackson, over top thibodeau, got the next hoop.
They hope mike brown, like we see this in the nba a lot, these teams that fire coaches despite great playoff appearances.
The nfl we don't see it quite as much.
Yeah, you kind of know when, especially now in this era where the coaches seem to have a shorter shelf life.
I mean, i'm gonna whisper this, but you could argue, maybe that should have been andy reeds last year, last year.
Why hasn't that been a topic?
Who was more disheveled and weird and seemingly rudderless than the Chiefs last year?
And what did they really do to fix it, Schrags?
They brought back Eric Biennemi.
Oh, my goodness.
Who from 2018 to 2022 was the offensive coordinator when they were humming.
And the hope is...
If Andy isn't necessarily the what's the term?
The red ass that people wanted at times.
Eric Bien-Ami is that guy.
And the hope is that his voice coming back sparks something new.
But Andy's going to be able to say when his time is up and he's going to be able to ride off into the sunset.
I think he said it with his coaching job last year.
It's pretty right.
We watched that happen with Belichick, with the Pats, when some of the game management stuff started slipping.
It was pretty alarming, but they just didn't seem prepared to me.
They weren't fixing issues they had.
I don't know if the locker room was that great behind the scenes.
I don't know.
There was a lot going on there.
It didn't seem like a happy team to me.
There were a lot of voices on my network and others that were throwing Belichick's name in for Buffalo and the premise being roster's built already, they're one win away.
Like can Belichick give you one or two years to get this team over?
Could you see it or no?
What do you think guys?
Of course you can.
You see it.
Yes yes yes i, i can see it.
I mean, he doesn't.
You don't let him anywhere near the player personnel room you like.
Don't even say oh yeah, that that room has its own set of keys.
We don't know, nobody has it like you know, as long as it's just come in and coach up that defense and get some.
You know the pressure's on me now.
That's really interesting, so that's just like talk show stuff.
There's no actual smoke to that.
No, there's none at all.
And I know guys at Buffalo and I would tell you that, that name has not come up, but I saw it.
Uh, we did it on get up for like a throwaway segment.
And then I saw someone else talking about it.
And when you think about it just on paper, like, The roster's built.
We got the same guys.
We have playoff experience.
We just need to get over the hump.
Is there someone who can just win us a game or two more?
And I don't know if anyone can win you a game better than Bill Belichick.
That's a good get-up segment.
That's like the coffee hasn't hit in yet, and then somebody's throwing that out.
Like, whoa!
It's like throwing a shot of espresso in there.
I... So he would...
Well, it's a moot point because you said it's not happening.
But if he wasn't involved with any sort of picking the players, well then the other question would be he wasn't exactly awesome at hiring coordinators and coaches the last few years.
No.
The better question is as a Patriots fan, would you be more worried about him or would you be more worried about Davis Webb being hired?
I'd be more worried about Belichick.
That's telling.
I would.
House agrees?
Of course house agrees.
What are you talking about?
See, now I'm going to get worried this might happen.
I mean, it's fun.
As a Pats fan, I hope to hire a third-year-old coach.
That would be the dream.
How old was McVay?
McVay was 30.
He's the youngest ever.
And then this Udinski is younger than him.
McVay's a fucking unicorn.
So if you're thinking about matching that one again, good luck.
McVay was hired after and house.
You remember this season they lost to the giants Washington in week 17, to a giant team that already clinched.
They lost 19 to 10.
McVay was the play caller only one year.
And I remember talking to him.
He's like, I just pissed down my leg.
I have no shot at being a head coach.
Like it's never going to happen now.
And he got interviews with San Francisco and the Rams and he won the Rams job, despite being on a team that didn't make the playoffs, being 30, and And despite, you know, falling on his face in week 17, like that is such a swing.
I don't know if the bills or the Browns are willing to take a swing on you.
Dinsky who's 30 or Davis Webb, who's 30.
Like I, I love being aggressive, but not when you have Josh in the prime of his career house.
What would be that?
You can't say Hugh Jackson or people like that.
What would be the funniest coaching hire for the bills?
Is it Mike McCarthy?
Yeah.
Where it's like, it's just, you can talk yourself into it, but.
I kind of could talk myself into Mike McCarthy.
But it is kind of funny where you're just going sideways from Sean McDermott to Mike McCarthy.
No, Tony Dungy would be funnier to me.
It would be like grabbing somebody off of TV.
Well, Jason Garrett would be the funniest.
Jason Garrett would be the funniest.
But he got an interview in Tennessee, which was literally amazing.
He did not get a second interview.
One of my favorite stories.
And then your guy, 9KidsSala, got the Tennessee.
Got the job.
Got the job.
Nine kids.
They're going to be moving from San Francisco to Nashville.
His third place in three years.
Pack the kids.
Let's go.
That's great.
I mean, perfect place to live.
Get a nice house like 20 minutes away from the city.
You get like a nine-bedroom house.
Live in that Brentwood, that Franklin.
Yeah.
Great job.
All right.
I want somebody in his life to say...
You know, the Jets to the Titans isn't like the line.
Like, you just went through chaos and chaos.
And you saw how much it sabotaged you.
Because I actually think that Salah's, Bobby's, I think he's got a, there's a coach in there.
A good coach in there somewhere.
And what he did with that defense.
Like, hey, that San Francisco defense.
But going to the Titans with that spring trust.
Well, I don't quarterback that.
The key is the quarterback.
And I think this pod and the three of us last week were very positive on Cam Ward.
And I got texts from people being like, whoa, you house and Simmons sure love Cam Ward.
I'm like, he showed great flashes.
And that's why that was an attractive job.
There's also a new stadium coming next year.
And there's a lot of salary cap space in their new GM.
Mike Borgansi is a smart dude.
Boston guy.
Okay.
Smart guy.
That's it.
All right.
The offensive coordinator position is what matters because Salah doesn't call the offense.
So you hire Salah and now we're two days later.
Cliff hasn't committed anywhere yet.
He might go to Baltimore or Nashville or maybe Vegas.
And then who else are you talking to?
You're thinking Daybol maybe if he doesn't get the job in Buffalo.
But that's going to be the most important hire there, because Salah's got nothing to do with Cam Ward.
And third and six
What are we calling?
I thought it was interesting what happened in the Jets defense after he left, where it became clear that Jets defense was overachieving when he was there.
And you could see it just do this right after.
So they bought a Buffalo is probably the most.
That would be the second most nervous I'd be as a Pats fan.
Because he knows the city.
He gets it.
He's worked with Allen.
He's been really good.
I think you could argue that Giants thing.
He just had bad luck left and right for years and years and years.
And maybe he learned some stuff.
Who's the defensive coordinator, though?
I need to know the answer to that before I have an opinion.
Luan Arumo.
Maybe he's bouncing around.
Could be.
Last one, Vegas.
That's not terrible.
The Vegas one.
As you know, I love that job.
And Mendoza, I think his stock's even higher than it was two weeks ago.
And I think they have talent on the roster.
Like I don't mind the job.
So who gets that one?
I was there on Monday night at the college football playoffs and I'm on the sideline before the game just doing my usual walk around like a whatever, a nebbish.
And I'm watching Brady, Mark Davis, John Spitek, Egon Durbin, the other owner, the four of them just staring at Mendoza, just watching every like, like they're at like a bar at two in the morning checking out a chick.
I thought he was going to say staring at a boil of danger, staring at Alex Earl.
Um, just, just watching how everything he did.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's what I do when I go to basketball games.
I love watching the guys in the warmups.
I like watching them during timeouts.
Like you, you can learn so much from that stuff.
And he played amazing.
And he was awesome.
And on fourth down, makes the play that's everything you'd think Brady would ever want.
Just give up your body and just dive and flip and do the helicopter, whatever it is.
So I would think he's their quarterback, I would think, not knowing anything.
And I think I said this last week, Brady's gonna make that decision.
And if Brady isn't a fan of Mendoza, that won't be the quarterback.
So anything...
I say, or Danny Kelly says, or Field Yates or Mel Kiper or Daniel Jeremiah says means nothing.
It's whether Brady thinks he's the guy.
But I think Brady was probably impressed by that.
The coaching position is fascinating though, because I had been hearing Minter as a popular choice for Vegas.
And then Davis Webb's name keeps coming up there also.
So you've got defensive coach...
Yep.
Or Cliff hasn't interviewed there.
They haven't given Cliff an interview.
So Vegas, to me, who's going to be best with Mendoza?
That's it, right?
That's the answer to that.
If you take Mendoza, then you need a coach that is going to help that kid become the best version of himself.
Do you have to hire?
Is there a time limit to hiring a head coach?
Has anybody ever dragged this along until March?
Just been like, yeah, we still don't know.
Well, the Colts were left at the altar when Josh McDaniels left and they hired.
Who did they end up hiring that year instead?
I'm going blank.
Was it Chuck Pagano?
Yeah.
Whoever's between Pagano and Shane Steichen.
I'm so embarrassed right now.
Frank Reich.
That's who it was.
Frank Reich.
And then last year.
We made money on Frank's last year.
Frank was a go-to.
And then last year, Kellen Moore wasn't officially hired until after the Eagles won the Super Bowl.
They can't meet with any coaches in person and they can't interview them in any sort of way If the team is still alive in the playoffs.
So if Shula or show house or Davis web or Vance Joseph or Clint Kubiak, you go down the list of all these guys.
I don't think there's anyone in new England who's interviewing for head coaching jobs, but any of those coordinators win another week.
Well, that only pushes it back even more.
And I don't know if these teams are looking to wait.
I was worried about our, uh, our precociously young defensive coordinator at the step up.
Yeah, he's like 28.
Because our defense has been really well coached and has gotten better week by week, month by month.
It's noticeable.
It's way different than it was.
And I think he has to get credit for that.
Yeah, well, Tara Williams fell ill early on in the season.
And then this guy has been calling the plays but is maybe the most underappreciated gem of this entire Patriots run.
He was an inside linebackers coach.
Him and Matt Collins, the two unappreciated gems of the 2025 Pats season.
All right, we'll do the games.
I just want to say, beyond the record, I think Kubiak would be amazing in Vegas.
I think Kubiak and Mendoza would be really.
Because what Kubiak did with taking what every single one of us at least I won't put you in our box Schrager, forecasting how the Seahawks was going to do, the bit that we were most concerned about was that offensive line.
And somehow that offensive line turned out to be absolutely perfectly.
Sam darnold was back there thriving over these last six weeks.
They established a run game, a two-headed monster.
Kubiak has really uh, just excelled.
I think i agree with that.
And i looked at vance joseph's broncos thing because i remember not feeling great about him as a coach but not feeling terrible.
But then you look back at the He had no quarterback at all.
It was like Osweiler.
Yeah, it was a mess.
Paxton Lynch.
I think when these guys that have failed but they failed specifically because they had no quarterback whatsoever that was how Atlanta jumped on Stefanski right away, because you could excuse the last couple of years.
Now, whether it's valid or not, you find out when he's in the next spot.
One team that's interesting is Arizona.
There's very little reporting on it.
The team does not announce when they interview coaches, which is so refreshing and fun.
All these teams put out the social media posts.
I don't get that at all.
I don't either.
Let the reporters do the job.
Go find out who reported.
I will say this.
Raheem Morris interviewed very well. back into the head coaching world.
Can you just hire a game management assistant?
They won their last four games after being eliminated.
There's something to be said for that in Atlanta.
I think he would be awesome as the defensive coordinator of the Bills.
Dayball and Raheem Morris would be that.
Now that would be something.
I've made this point multiple times.
I thought Atlanta was easily the best under 10 wins team in the league.
If there was a play-in tournament of all the non-playoff teams, I think they would have been favored.
And they were one of the best teams the Pats played.
Oh, they should have won that game.
We talked about that.
Missed extra point.
But I was there when they beat the Rams.
I was there when they beat the Bucs.
They win.
I was there when they beat the Bills.
Weren't they three kicks away from being 11-6, basically?
I think that's what it was.
It was like a missed PAT, the coup field goal, and one other one.
All right.
Which game do you want to hit first, House?
You pick.
Broncos or Seahawks-Rams?
No, let's do Seahawks-Rams first, because the Broncos and Pats is just so hard to put arms around.
I feel like
The more straightforward one is just this rubber match.
Seahawks minus two and a half.
That's the line on FanDuel.
Threatened to be three for a while.
Settled there.
Big question is what we're getting from Sam Darnold.
So Schrags is going to tell us right now.
How healthy is Sam Darnold?
Because I was worried about him last week.
I ended up hedging some bets and felt stupid because he was fine.
He threw a pass across his body in the back of the end zone to Jackson Smith and Jigwa that I'll put up against any pass that was thrown this entire NFL season.
It's just beautiful precision.
I would say his oblique is going to be fine.
That's now eight days, nine days removed.
We went on the pod, you and I, Bill House, you weren't with us.
It was the one day you were out and I filled in and it was after Seattle Rams part two.
And that game was unbelievable.
I have gone back and watched the first two times these teams played.
If you were to do a prize fight which we love talking boxing and you were to say each quarter counts as a round, Chris Shula's Rams defense was up seven to nothing on Clint Kubiak's City Hawks offense.
That included all those interceptions from Darnold, seven interceptions, all that.
But then the fourth quarter and overtime of that second game They started doing play action.
They started doing trick plays.
There was all sorts.
And Sam Darnold came alive.
It's like seven to one as far as the rounds go.
But the rounds that mattered Seattle.
At the end there, just like any issue of like Oh the Rams, defense has dominated Seattle.
Like I throw it out the window, because they crack some sort of code there in the fourth quarter and overtime.
I think they're going to be okay.
As far as an offense goes, they showed flashes there in that second game.
So the two questions I have on that note, how impactful do you think the Charbonnet is? uh, losses.
And are we a thousand percent confident that Charles Cross is a hundred percent ready to go?
No issue whatsoever.
Not diminished.
Don't know the latter.
The former, I will say this cause I don't, I couldn't tell you the X's and O's of it.
I was talking to Orlovsky today who you see on ESPN all day, every day.
He's just a energizer bunny, but I was with him today and I said tell me, like Charbonnet says, the thing that no one will know is, or that no one talks about too often.
He's like, I watch all the tape.
Kenneth Walker is not a great pass blocker.
And that's why Charbonnet is in as much as he is.
And in fantasy football, you want to bang your head into the wall.
If you're a Kenneth Walker owner, you're like, why is he ever out?
So that might be what they're missing more than just the interior runs.
I thought Charbonnet from an actual running standpoint was pretty grim.
And he was, I think, a very frustrating Seahawk for the fans.
But the pass protection stuff is worrisome.
Gambling manifesto beware of the.
Looked a little too good.
The previous round team is just pulsating seahawks like you can't have a better game than that and that it was actually a little too good of a game.
There's some gambling stats about like, if you blow somebody out like that in a playoff round, what happens the next round?
Um, the beware of all dome or warm weather, teams playing outdoors and cold weather.
I don't think it's gonna be cold right, it'll be okay decent, it's not going to be like in the chicago yeah um, aging cube being cold weather.
We don't have to worry about that.
The only other one that really stood out to me, because even the coaches one is out we have four really good coaches.
Rule number 13 don't dismiss the nerd evidence.
If the nerd evidence is absolutely overwhelming, i just feel like the ram special teams has to come back and haunt them in one of these games.
This is their third road game.
Third road game in a row.
And a road game where you end up in the worst spot in the league for a road game, Seattle.
It's the furthest, you know, anywhere.
So you're flying, where'd they go?
Carolina, they're in the southeast, come back.
Then they go to Chicago, come back.
Now they're going to the Pacific Northwest, which from LA is in six hours.
But The three road games in a row really worries me.
And then the bigger thing, Schrags.
I just didn't think the Rams looked that good the last couple games.
It was almost like that, that Ram, especially that Rams game, those Rams Seahawks week 16, as they lost steam in that game, they never got the steam back.
That Carolina could have beaten them.
They weren't better, but they could have.
And I just thought the Bears were better and should have won the game.
I went back and I watched the fourth quarter in the OT.
The Bears had it.
They're in midfield.
They fucking had the ball.
They had momentum.
They had everything.
How about McVay not letting Stafford throw the ball in overtime, first drive, three runs in a row?
It's weird.
How about two minutes eight seconds left and they decide to run the ball and they call a timeout before the two-minute warning?
Right.
Sean open.
I talked to him afterwards.
He openly was mortified with the way he called that game.
And he's like, the players bailed me out.
Mevis bailed me out.
And Cam Curl, former Washington commander, bailed me out.
Incredible.
Don't think that was lost on me.
Forbes.
For sure the Rams defense is that good.
No.
Because the advanced metrics like it a lot more than my eye test has liked it, dating back to that Week 16 game.
It feels like teams are now just going up and down the field on them.
Fucking Bryce Young was doing it.
So we have all these, we have the advanced stats, and it's like a four-month sample size.
I feel like they're a team that's running out of steam a little bit.
When you need it most, on a third down, McVay calls timeout.
He talks to Stafford.
They see the hot route.
No, I'm talking about defense, not offense.
Interception.
Yeah.
And then there was a terrible miscommunication play and a play that I'm not sure why you're trying to get to the 20-yard line when you need to get to the 38.
And they weren't being stopped.
And Caleb Williams used his legs, got two first downs.
Just use your legs, throw it to the tight end for five yards, do a design scramble.
If I was a Bears fan, that game as the weeks pass.
House, let me throw this at you.
The Rams, who have been an awesome offense, are they a little slow to you?
Like a great defense like the Seahawks.
And I think that at home, I think we can give them the great tag.
Not like 2000 Ravens great, but really, really up there.
And I don't think they really have any.
The way they defend the run gets great.
They don't have any weaknesses.
And the Rams, the way they do it, it's methodical.
You go down the field and, you know, and then hope Puka can break a play.
They don't really, they're not getting the long plays like they used to.
And I don't really know who their speed guy is.
Well, it's 2-2 Atwell and he didn't dress last game.
Right.
And then Puka, like you look at the game, he was like five for 50 last week.
Their biggest play that anyone made was Parkinson on a little tight end route.
And I just wonder, are the Seahawks going to move everybody up?
And basically dare the Rams to go over the top and attack and hit Puka and just kind of keep everybody in front of them and just make it a game where it's going to have to be 12 play drives to go down the field on them.
So I I thought where you were going with this when you started uh, and I actually uh, quite like it as I'm thinking about it is are we waiting on the Rams to go up tempo?
Like this, this methodical bit that you're talking about, you can do that in Seattle.
But they did it in overtime.
That's what they did in overtime.
And it worked.
Tough for three hours.
Tough in that cold.
Let me throw another thing at you.
Stafford does look a hundred percent healthy to me at this point.
And I think had had a couple of really hard games there.
Adams we know is in a hundred percent and Puka has taken more hits this year than anyone else in the league and now has to go against the Seattle defense.
And Forbes went down with the hamstring.
He'll play.
I just, that's, that's real.
I think that there's a lot of miles that have added up on this Rams team.
That makes me really nervous about them on the road.
I think the line should be three.
What do you think the line should be, House?
Yeah, I'm listening.
I'm listening.
I'll give you another little Schrager side note, fact, anecdote type deal.
Schrager side notes.
That's good.
That's it.
Not notes.
Not for Pete's sake.
Not for Pete's sake.
Not this one.
Very difficult conversations they had internally after the season.
And they were like, it's time to move on from Cooper Cup, who is a beloved Ram.
Triple crown winner.
Super Bowl MVP.
And they basically told Cooper, we're not going to pay you what you were making and you're free to go explore.
He was a free agent for quite a bit, a couple days.
There were no real takers.
The Seahawks paid him a lot of money, and they're like, well, we got a spot for you.
Meanwhile, the Rams used all that money and paid Devontae Adams.
It looked great for the Rams all season long.
Cooper Cup's a competitor.
Keep that in mind.
Ernest Jones, Super Bowl hero from the Rams.
They said, this isn't working here.
They moved on from him.
He had a nice little couple years, whatever, in Tennessee.
Then he's become the Seahawks' best linebacker and he is a vocal player and he is a super spirited guy.
I love revenge stuff.
I love all that.
You know I do.
Cooper Cup, Ernest Jones, just put those two out there.
Ernest Jones cost me so much money, because when the Rams moved away from him I was like, oh so the Rams are tanking.
The Rams are getting ready for whoever the next quarterback is going to be.
I don't remember what the quarterback class was.
They rope-a-doped the shit out of it.
I lost... because that defense was, was a no name defense.
They had two incredible draft picks.
Then they immediately fortified the front again.
Yeah.
And, and, and, and verse has been incredible.
Like, God, it's OK.
I mean, the money's gone.
I lost it fair and square.
But that's part of why I have to give McVay credit.
They they they retooled.
They did not rebuild in any way, shape or form.
They they pull the defense together like that.
I think you know the.
The argument for the Rams is that they're not going to be scared of going to Seattle.
They've won there for years.
Third game is always scary games there.
And it's just, he's a fucking unbelievable coach.
And he's had a bad game last week and they survived.
He's not going to have a bad game two weeks in a row.
Case for Seattle, other than what we've already talked about, they've only lost one since week five.
They've won eight straight.
In the last few weeks, they beat the Rams and they beat the Niners twice.
Now the Rams game was goofy, obviously.
The revenge stuff you mentioned.
They seem pretty healthy, other than the Charbonnet thing.
They're home.
Rams special teams scares the living shit out of me.
And I just did not like what I saw from the Rams the last two weeks.
I don't know how you can feel good about it.
And I think playing three road games in a row in the playoffs is fucking meaningful.
I don't think you can skip over that.
They're the first team in the Super Bowl era to not cover the spread in the first two games.
They have arrived at the conference championship without covering in either of the two previous weeks.
It's really, really hard.
One of one.
And they also have a rest disadvantage.
And there's a nice action network.
Teams with the rest advantage, 21-7 straight up at home.
Seattle at home with the extra day.
Have you guys been to a game up there in Seattle before?
I have.
I'm dying to go.
It's so cool.
And I did Monday Night Football this year against the Texans.
But I was at the playoff game where they played the Michael Crabtree-Aaron Andrews game.
That one, I was at the Sherman game.
When it gets... like, like last week when Shahid returns to kick camera, yeah.
Yes.
And it's like an avalanche.
It's like, you just, you can't stop it.
It's just too much to momentum.
They don't lose many playoff games at home.
The one that I remember was against the Rams, but it was during COVID and it was a weird year and it was Jared golf, with nine fingers, beats Russell Wilson off and golf came in off the bench.
But like, They don't lose many games at home.
And when that crowd gets going, especially in a night game, it's very hard to win there.
Well, one other thing I like about this it feels like every week they've gotten a little bit better at using Shahid and kind of figuring out what kind of weapon that is.
But him on special teams, I think should be terrifying for the Rams with how bad they've been.
But then they can just get him involved a couple of times in different ways.
And I think I think they can throw on him.
Now there's a chance Darnold could just shit the bed again.
Can't be ruled out.
But he's thrown seven interceptions in two games against this team.
Not great.
Mike McDonald's first conference championship game as a head coach.
I like the look of it.
He was a coordinator for Baltimore when they lost to the Chiefs.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I like the two and a half too.
And that's where I'm leaning.
Unless you want to try a fair number.
No, it's so it's super fair.
One and a half, you know, uh, whatever it was three weeks ago, two and a half now.
And you know, I think, the extra point, half of that, extra point for the incredible home field advantage in the playoffs and extra half a point for how good that defense looked last week.
Shahid Shahid to score a touchdown in the first half.
18 to one.
Oh, see, I like cup.
I think they're going to score the first touchdown.
18 first touchdown.
I think cup anytime score to plus to get him.
They want to get him in there.
Trust me.
I got to make a note of this.
Hold on.
I like uh, I like the um.
I like the Seahawks minus two and a half and I like Stafford interception minus 114.
That Stafford will throw one pick.
I would like to.
So for ringer 107 we have.
We had to pick both games straight up and you can parlay them or go straight up and then props are unders for the other two.
And I would like to suggest as a possible prop house, Stafford interception minus 114.
Did you have, go ahead, Pete.
Did you see the whole thing with the Pope and the Seahawks?
Have you seen that?
What's that one? oh, this is up your alley.
In 2005, we got a new Pope and the Seahawks went to the Super Bowl.
In 2013, we got a new Pope and the Seahawks went to the Super Bowl.
In 2025, we got a new Pope to the Seahawks.
It sounds like I have to add this to the gambling manifesto if it happens.
Don't bet against the Seahawks in the year of a new pope.
Make this a social clip, will ya?
Well, I was thinking the flip side of this.
Patriots, 2001.
Brady's first Super Bowl.
They upset the Rams.
It all comes full circle in 2018.
Brady's last Super Bowl.
They beat the Rams.
Now we're starting the Drake May era.
Could it be Drake May trying to beat the Rams? for his first super bowl.
And we're basically just bookending.
I like your Pope thing more though.
All right.
So it sounds like Schrags kind of understands why we're going Seahawks minus two and a half, but doesn't really want to say I don't think I'm not saying a pick.
I'm just.
I laid out some things.
And Donald, against the Rams, doesn't you know there's.
You can make arguments to the contrary.
Um, Patriots Broncos.
By the way, you read Klosterman's book, right?
Yes.
Do you have any knowledge of that bloody Sunday that he wrote about?
The Super Bowl X Cowboys versus Steelers.
And the line started off at two and a half, but nobody was betting it.
Oh, the Jackie Smith game.
Yeah, that was the Jackie Smith game.
That's the most famous.
Did you know that story?
Oh, yeah.
I had never heard that story.
That's the most famous gambling story.
They moved the line around and basically the books lost on every version of every bet.
Got smoked with a middle, right?
Yeah.
That was like the first famous gambling story I think I ever knew.
I had never heard that.
And basically, if you haven't heard of it, Chuck writes about it.
I ripped through that book in like three days.
It was two and a half.
No one was betting on the underdog, which was the Cowboys.
I thought it was three and a half.
Was it three and a half?
Yeah.
It moved between three and a half and four and a half.
It bounced back and forth.
And every time the line moved, it ended up winning.
And then it ends up being a four point game and all the betters who came in early and all the betters who came in late, all one.
Right.
And I'm like, this is incredible.
And then, and then the pushes, which is the worst case scenario for the books.
Not great either.
Um, how start us off with Broncos, Pat's.
Well, the starting point is what your perspective is on the amount of line movement, because where is it sitting right now?
It's four and a half.
It's four and a half.
It's bounced between five and a half and four and a half.
I personally think it should be three and a half, but fine.
So you have to first get yourself comfortable with the math problem, which is Um in the absence.
If Nick's was playing, I think Denver would be favored by one and a half.
Do you agree with that or no?
I, yeah.
Denver at home.
That's all we're saying.
This is the problem with this line.
And I said this Sunday night, I don't think going from Nick's to Stidham should be worth six points.
I thought it was going to be worth three.
That's the way off.
I picked Pat's by one and a half and the line opened at five and a half.
Because I think there's ways for them to win the game without having to rely on sit-em too much.
I just thought it was an overreaction.
If it was Josh Allen, I get it.
But not Bo Nix.
I get it.
I get it.
That's seven points better.
Here's the thing.
The way that the Broncos decided to scheme offense last week against the Bills.
They threw the ball 51 times the strength of the Buffalo's bills defense was supposed to be defending the past.
Now the way that that Denver played all season long one of the I think they were either the second lowest or lowest air yards right,
They, they don't, they don't go down the field, that everything is around the line of scrimmage in terms of how the ball comes out.
That's something where they have such an implicit trust in, in Knicks.
This is that this they're going to have success with that.
And so if you want to say that, Can they replicate that with sit-em?
Are they going to be comfortable doing that with sit-em?
Can they run that?
You left out the other variable because the Pats run defense.
People are finally starting to realize is really, really good.
And they're going to have to throw the ball on us to beat us.
Denver can't run the ball.
I tried that last week.
I invested in RJ Harvey.
There's some McLaughlin in there.
Dobbins might come back.
Take my money and set it on fire.
The Broncos are not going to try.
The J.K.
Dobbins thing, what's the current state of affairs?
Do we think that he's going to play?
By the way, is it going to really make?
He's going to come back out of nowhere and his foot's going to.
I don't know.
I'd be surprised.
The practice window is open.
We'll see.
It's got two days.
That could change it.
Because they did establish the run with him.
Let me give you some history with this Jared Stidham situation.
Not sure if it was covered on GetUp.
Might have been.
Greeny might have been on this.
Past 50 years, playoff home dogs of four plus points are 9-0 against spread.
It's true.
No QB has ever made his first start of the year in round three.
Never happened?
Well, Staubach did it in 72, but it was the second round.
Round three.
It's never happened.
It was the NFC Championship game, but yes, there was only two rounds.
Go on.
Sorry.
Yeah, true.
He's the seventh QB since 1950 to make his first start of the season in the playoffs.
And I'm going to talk about the other six.
One of whom was near and dear to House's heart Taylor Heineken 2020 with the Washington Commanders.
Covered.
Covered.
They lost Tampa's favorite by 10.
They went by eight.
Heineke throws 306 with a touchdown.
Played well.
Did.
Ron Rivera.
Connor Cook for the Raiders.
I don't even remember this game.
I'll tell you that was against the Texans.
Here's what happened.
It was.
Derek Carr got hurt late, and then Matt McGloin was supposed to play and he got hurt in week 18 and then they had to start Connor Cook.
Well, they lost by 13 and he threw one touchdown and three picks.
I do remember this next game.
Joe Webb, the 2012 Vikings.
Packers favored by 10.
Saturday afternoon game, Christian Ponder's wrist, I believe, was what the issue was the morning of.
Joe Webb threw 30 passes.
How many did he complete, Havs?
Oh, I remember this.
We won money on this.
Less than 12.
Yeah, it was 11.
That was a Saturday day game, and then the night game was that crazy Arizona-Green Bay game when Rodgers hit two Hail Marys.
Oh, right, right, right.
1992, the only win out of all these first-time starting all-year playoff guys.
Can I guess it?
Frank Reich?
Frank Reich.
Yeah.
Great call.
Amazing.
So here's how it's a little different, and this has happened a couple times.
Frank Reich, he played a bunch the week before.
He at least got his feet wet because I think Kelly got hurt.
Buffalo was favored by two at home over the Oilers.
They fell down 35-3, staged the biggest comeback in the history of football.
Just an amazing moment.
I definitely gambled on the game, but I don't remember who I had.
But I was definitely gambling at that point and had one of the two sides.
Maybe I must have had the Oilers because I think I have blacked out.
So that's the only win.
This one is a great one.
1983.
The Detroit Lions are playing Montana and the Niners in San Francisco.
They win this game, right?
They do not win this game.
They do cover because the Niners were 7.5.
They lose by a point.
Gary Danielson, 23-24, they lose.
And they lost on a missed field goal or extra point that was like a chippy.
Well, that's one of the reasons they lost.
They also lost because Gary Danielson threw five interceptions.
That hurts.
The full DeLome?
He did a full DeLome on us.
I don't know if any of them were a pick six.
Before DeLome.
And then the last one was Staubach.
Dallas got killed in Washington.
So 1972.
So six quarterbacks, they go one and five straight up, three and three against the spread.
The only thing that's different is that Buffalo was the only one that was home.
And that was Frank Reich who won.
Yeah.
So I don't know what we learned, House.
I'll give you, I mean, just, he hasn't thrown a pass in a game in over 730 days.
That's a lot.
And, all right, so we had him in New England.
I can empty the bag on what Peyton's told me if you wanted me to give you the rallying cry behind it.
Well, here's the thing.
When Brady left, he was supposed to be the starter the next year, and he got hurt.
And he hurt his back, and he missed the whole year.
They ended up doing the Cam Newton thing and Brian Hoyer.
But it was supposed to be Stidham's job, and they liked Stidham.
And McDaniels went to Denver and was like, I need Stidham.
Vegas.
I mean, Vegas.
Took him with him.
He was like, I'm taking Stidham.
That's my guy.
And then Peyton was like, I like him, brought him to Denver.
So he's been a pretty fairly paid backup.
I think he's one of the highest paid backups in the league.
And I think coaches have liked him and think, think he's at least competent coaches and players.
So his nickname is steady.
Yeah.
He's got a ton of like charisma and swag and jason mccourty was on those patriots teams and was telling me like oh, steady thinks he's.
You know he's the number one quarterback in the nfl and he acts that way and you almost love it because he's on the scout team that whole season and he's talking to all the defensive players.
He was beloved in new england the very first day.
By the way, they let him go because I think they got Mac Jones.
I think that was one of the reasons they were like, okay, good luck, Stidham.
So McDaniels brings him with him.
Obviously, they bench Derek Carr.
It's great controversy.
Derek Carr, his brother talks on NFL Network, having this all, everything.
And then Stidham comes in against the number one defense in the entire league, the 49ers.
And Stidham throws for 350 yards and lights up the Niners as a Raider.
Free agency comes.
Sean Payton's first year with Denver, has a big board in his office and he's listing out his priorities.
Now, he's already got Russell Wilson, who they're on the hook for, for about a billion dollars.
And the first name on the list is Jared Stidham.
And they paid him as high a salary as any backup quarterback in the league.
And they brought him in.
And then you'd say, okay, well, Russell didn't work out.
Why would they draft Nix?
Well, they fell in love with Nix.
They took Nix.
He's been there all along on Peyton's hip, on Davis Webb's hip, on Joe Lombardi's hip.
And when I tell you talking to Peyton in the summer telling me stories about Stiddy, they love Stiddy.
So Well, did you buy anything when he came out and did the press conference immediately that he got hurt?
Yeah, he's a master.
I saw on one of the shows.
They were like he wanted the Patriots to know he was fine with going to war with Jared Stidham the next week.
Yes, it's also for the Broncos to know that.
So, instead of Schefter coming out with a tweet during the second half of the Seahawks game, Peyton gets in the news runs to the podium.
There's never, ever been a second tweet. coach's press conference.
They assemble the media and he's like, yep, Knicks is hurt.
We got Stidham.
We feel great with Stidham.
Stidham's good.
Look, I'm going to give you a quick Sean Payton history lesson here.
You know that he won a Super Bowl and you know that he got suspended for a year from the league.
That's two big things in his career that everyone knows him for.
Gut-wrenching, horrible, all-time playoff losses.
You're talking about Minneapolis Miracle.
You're talking about Alex Smith to Vernon Davis in candlestick at the last second to be true, breeze.
You're talking about the Nicole Roby Coleman play where they didn't call the pass interference.
They were home and lost an NFC championship game.
You're talking about that wild game against the Buccaneers in the playoffs, where they were the home team, and Tom Brady lights up the Buccaneers, it lights up the saints and wins in the division round.
And then the beast quake where they're 11 and five and they got to go to Seattle.
So like they've had horrendous Sean Payton has had horrendous playoff losses.
And it's almost like, well, I mean, the worst one ever was that Rams one.
That's, that's probably the worst call of the quarter century, right?
That's the number one worst call.
Non-call.
It was such a bad non-call that they brought in a brand new rule that they never used one time.
We'll review pass interference.
I honestly don't understand how they messed that up.
It was one of the most blatant pass interferences.
Probably the most blatant pass interference that wasn't called that I can remember.
Now, the Rams fan will tell you this because I've often said that.
And the Rams fans' retort is the Saints were up 13-0 at home. and lost that playoff game.
They also got the ball in overtime.
Drew Brees threw a terrible pick.
I remember making that point in the podcast.
They did get the ball in overtime.
It was still a bad call.
So anyway, Peyton's had all these horrible losses.
It's like he's always got some crazy way to lose.
Is this the year with Stidham that they get over the hump and he gets back to the Super Bowl?
Crazy stat.
Seven coaches have coached in two different Super Bowls with two different teams.
No coach has ever won a super bowl, two different teams.
Peyton would be the first house.
Give us your Jared Stidham thoughts.
Cause I'll just tell you right now, he's violates at least three, three rules in the manifesto.
How can I have any rules that try to cover this?
Like, please don't talk yourself into Jared Stidham as a manifesto staple.
It's a scheme, uh, concept.
You just have to believe in what the Broncos are doing scheme-wise.
They do have one of the top three offensive lines in all football.
That will be a difference for the Patriots.
The Patriots had the luxury of playing at home against two of the worst offensive lines.
And now they're going up against, by many measures, a top three offensive line.
You know that he's going to be comfortable at home.
You know that he's going to be comfortable with the rhythm that they want to play at.
It's just execution.
I have no effing idea.
How can you handicap that?
You figure there's some kitchen sink stuff in this game with the Broncos, right?
Every trick you can imagine.
They're going to be pulling out all the stops.
Yeah, whatever.
And pro-stadium stuff, other than that, we know Peyton likes him.
There's a really gruesome Patriots and Denver playoff history.
So have you guys ever won in there or no?
Not in the playoffs.
0-4 and bad losses.
Rulon Jones is a legendary loss.
Denver altitude, not great.
Denver... is not going to be able to run the ball.
And I think Denver is going to know that and sit him.
It's not going to be like Hey, sometimes you're, I think they're just like dude you're going to have to chuck it in this game or we're not going to win, which I think might be good or might be terrible.
If you're going anti, if he starts out slow and a couple of bad things happen, the crowd's going to die.
Yeah.
And the team morale is going to go.
It'll just, we've seen this where it's just like, it gets dark.
And then I think McDaniels really knows him.
He does.
Inside and out.
I would say Sean Payton's his biggest supporter.
Josh McDaniels might be his second biggest supporter in the world.
I mean, so much so that they had him as the guy and put that in New England until the injury.
And he brought him to Vegas with him.
So he knows everything he can do and not do.
100%.
Pro Pat stuff beyond the run deep.
Matt Collins coming back is huge.
I'm just telling you.
He really is going to help them run the ball.
And he's kind of Drake's twice a game guy on like a third and eight.
I feel like may is due for a good start to finish game.
Maybe it's just maybe it's just too young in his career, but he has this habit of just starting slow for an hour and then it kicks in.
But Denver's defense, not as good as Houston or the chargers, I don't think.
And I think Denver's defense has had some games where they've looked pretty shaky.
Um, and then the Sean Payton thing talking about They're going to have plenty of rest.
The fans got to be loud.
They're going to be plenty of rest in two weeks.
Vrabel's going to fucking jump all over that.
What are you doing?
You can't do that with Vrabel.
He's going to bring that up all the time.
So those have been my big ones.
House, any other, if you're going pro-Pats, anything else you're looking at?
No, I was thinking more.
I wanted to hear whether there's any indication that Stidham can run, because Nick's ran 12 times last week.
Now it was only for about 30 yards or so, but that the ability of the quarterback scares you enough.
At least
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Does he have that?
Do we think he's got it, but it's not, it's not like we've seen it.
I mean, he's got that in his game.
Apparently he can move.
I asked the same thing and yeah, he's got some mobility, but he's not bow bow.
Nick's can run.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Definitely can.
I don't, I don't like this line at all.
Wait, Bill, a couple of thoughts on the Patriots for you.
And I want to hear your thoughts.
First thing, Drake may six fumbles and two playoff games.
Not great to Will Campbell.
He might start in a Superbowl at left tackle.
I'm not sure this guy is your franchise left tackle.
He might be an amazing left guard.
I don't.
I understand.
Khalil Mack and Will Anderson are unbelievable, but like Every time May went back last week, it was hold your breath.
This Nick Benito can run and can rush the quarterback.
So that's something I would watch out for.
Shriggs, I'm aware.
I'm going to float this at you.
Are we sure Will Campbell's healthy?
Fair.
He missed, what, three or four weeks at the end of the season?
He doesn't look like he has the same kind of side-to-side movement that he used to have.
I'm a little worried about that.
Um, then i have a flip side kind of thing for you.
Yeah, i i've seen this a lot a lot of hate on this patriots run and that like we should discredit it based on the quarterbacks that are, the teams that they've played in the easy schedule, and all that as someone who follows the nfl, i am here to tell you and i am not a patriots fan by any means it is the most ludicrous thing To say that a team that's on the eve of a Super Bowl has had an easy path.
I think it's absurd.
That defense that they faced last week against Houston is one of the best defenses the NFL has seen in years.
And the Chargers defense, whether or not they play that way consistently all season, was phenomenal against the Patriots that week.
Denver's good too, but if I'm a Patriots fan, do not apologize for anything.
This has been an amazing run.
I made that point on Sunday.
The Chiefs had that first...
Superbowl Mahomes, one where they played like they're freaking Texans and then tiny Hill and the Titans and like Jimmy Garoppolo in the Superbowl.
No, nobody was like, Oh, who'd they play?
Um, I uh.
There's some stat going around on one of my Pat's text threads about the DVO way of the defenses.
The Patriots have played this year is seventh and the Rams defenses is ninth.
It's like, why don't they mention that?
Um, I think the line's too high house.
But I also think the Patriots are going to win.
Okay.
So I'm really, I just, I think this is going to be a close game.
I think it's really hard to like win a game convincingly in Denver with a team.
It's one thing if Stidham came in in the second quarter and they're like, oh shit, we got to change everything.
They've had all week to figure out exactly how to do this.
They're going to be able to throw on the, on the, pats a little bit.
And then it's really going to come down to is Ramondra going to be able to run the ball and is Drake not going to turn the ball over?
And I don't know the answers.
I think Ramondra's going to be able to run the ball.
I want to ask you.
You need to run the ball.
And for God's sake, can Drake May run the ball?
Is that too much to ask for?
The fourth quarter, finally, they started running.
It was crazy.
A couple of the bets that I like for the props...
Drake's longest run is 12 and a half yards.
He did that in six of his last eight games.
Not against Houston.
No.
Ramondre's longest reception, 10 and a half yards is the over-under.
He's done that in seven of the last nine.
Is he 100% healthy?
What's the deal with his eye?
He's fine.
He got poked in the eye.
So I like that.
And then there's some Stidham props, like Stidham basically to throw 20 completions or more, as is, 19 and a half is the completion number.
And I just don't think they're going to be able to run the ball that well on the paths.
And Stidham is going to have to throw the ball.
They, how many times they throw it last week?
51.
Yeah.
Plus he scrambled 12, 46, 46, 46 passes.
And then Stidham 199 plus yards.
I thought it was interesting too, because they're going to get offense.
Shregs, I know you love the tie first half, money line second half game.
I was texting you throughout the first half.
I'm like, I don't like this.
They're up 11.
I don't like this.
They're up four.
That's 16 to one.
Do it.
And then there's some money line stuff we can do, House.
You can do Pat's money line with the under of 50 and a half.
That fits ringer 107 rules.
You can do Pat's money.
Denver plus 14 and a half.
It's minus one away.
So basically the Pats win between one and 14 points.
We could do that.
We could do Pats plus five and a half with Denver plus eight and a half.
That's minus one 11.
Basically saying it's going to be either the Pats will lose a close game or Denver is going to lose by less than a touchdown.
Um, those were probably the ones I was looking at the most, but I had the Pat's money line with the under 50 and a half.
There'd be 51 points in this game.
It seems pretty high.
If, if we knew how many turnovers there would be, then I would feel more comfortable with it.
But like we, I just let's just hope there's not a close call at the end, because the NFL has got to, you know, Get it going.
We got to kick off afterwards.
Triggs, Broncos D gave up 29 to Indy, 32 to the Giants, 24 to Dallas, 26 to Green Bay, 26 to Washington and 30 to Buffalo last week.
Yeah, and yet they rushed a passer, which is what you have to be worried about with your quarterback.
Yeah.
Can we just target Riley Moss and throw at them?
I think they might have led the league in sacks.
I could be actually throwing that number out.
They might not even be good at sacks.
Can we go big picture?
Did you think Denver was that good this season?
Cardiac kids type season, like the Bears.
Just won amazing games, but I don't know if they're that good.
They're the number one seed though, and they earned a home field advantage, which I think is huge there.
I thought they were good.
House?
I thought they were good.
I think the Seahawks are another level than the Patriots.
They're good.
They're fine.
Two fine teams.
The conference championship's right to go to the Super Bowl.
Fine.
So it sounds like we have to trust the manifesto.
What's the manifesto net out with?
We had a lot of different arguments there.
It says, beware the nobody believes in us team for the Broncos.
That's scary.
Beware of any team that could use a notable off-field distraction.
Major injury or tragedy is a galvanizing force.
They fit that one.
Never pick an underdog unless you genuinely believe that it has a chance to win.
They hit that one as well.
Rule number 11.
Don't talk yourself into a terrible QB ever for any reason.
It's tricky.
We don't know if he's terrible.
And be super careful with first-time playoff QBs who are basically like 20 and 42 against straight up and
Also terrible against the spread.
And then remember the law of Lombardi.
Bad offensive lines don't travel.
That could be the Patriots.
Yeah, that's the Patriots.
Denver's offensive line is pretty good.
Rule number 18.
Take one last look at the quarterbacks.
It doesn't help us.
The fear of this is you talk yourself into the Broncos all week.
And then Jared Stidham sucks.
And the reason he sucks is because he's been a backup QB his whole career.
And you're watching the game and you're a half hour in.
You're like, what did I do?
I just bet on the Broncos backup QB in the AFC title game.
I'm an idiot.
Sean Payton loved him so, so much that he drafted Bo Nix in the first round with him on the roster.
Right.
He loved him so much.
He used the biggest draft capital piece he had on a competitor that could take his job.
Here's what I envision.
And when you're talking about oh shit, you start the game and you're like wait house is exactly right.
One of those wide receiver screens to like Marvin Mims or Cortland Sutton.
And he throws a wobbly ball and it's a pick six to start the game.
And you're like, all right, here we go.
Right.
House, we taking the Pats minus four and a half.
I hate it.
We're not.
You got to take Denver.
The math says take denver, there's no no, from from the perspective of like just the basic math of it, you have to play denver.
You can't, i can't do it.
You can't lay four and a half, it just doesn't.
There's no basis for it, doesn't make any sense.
All right, so i'm gonna do pat's money line with the under 50 and a half then.
Okay you, i'm not gonna argue with you.
Uh, i'm just.
You know, and We haven't had great success tying things together.
Maybe this will be when it turns.
It could be.
We did go 3-1 last week.
We should have gone 4-0.
We talked ourselves into the stupid Niners.
I know.
That was me.
It was fair.
Very interesting nugget here.
Maybe my most insightful stuff.
If it goes as you guys say...
We'll have two Mikes coaching against each other in the Super Bowl.
If it goes the opposite way, it'll be two Seans coaching against each other in the Super Bowl.
My work is done.
That's so dumb.
You don't like any under in the Seahawks, right?
That's a stay away.
All right.
Winger 107 is presented by FanDuel Sportsbook.
That's where we get the lines from.
And our first game is going to be the Patriots Broncos.
We're going to take the Patriots money line parlayed with an under of 50 and a half.
So if this game goes to 51 points and up, we lose.
We're scared of the line.
It's happened.
Broncos plus four and a half at home.
There's no sign of history of this not covering, which is a little worrisome.
There's also some bad, but we covered all of it in the pod.
That's one.
Second, Ramondre Stevenson, longest reception, 10 and a half yards, over.
Little bailout.
Love this.
I adore this.
He's did it seven of his last nine times.
That's our second bet.
Love this one.
Third bet, going Seahawks, minus two and a half against the Rams.
Rams, third straight road game.
I think the Seahawks are the best team in the league.
We'll see if Darnold's oblique can hold up.
Then last but not least, What do you think Matthew Stafford for the interception minus one 14.
What is the cup anytime touchdown that we didn't, we, but we're doing ring around a seven.
We don't need to take like a risk.
Got it.
Got it.
Got it.
So we can do, we can do Stafford.
You could do the Drake may, longest year, longest rush, 12 and a half yards.
Or we can do Stidham plus 19 and a half completions.
Hmm.
What excites you the most house?
Stafford interception?
That would be the most fun to root for.
You don't like that one?
Well, he didn't throw.
He just doesn't throw a ton of picks.
It's like not his thing.
And he didn't throw it, you know, whatever that was three weeks ago.
No interceptions.
Shriggs, is there a guy in the Seahawks-Rams game you feel like could be heard from?
I like Cup.
You like the Cup alt-receiving?
I feel like they're going to... This sounds absurd.
I feel like they're going to make a priority and an emphasis on getting Cup involved against his former team, with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line.
Cup, 30-plus yards, minus 114.
Fits our parameters.
I like it.
You like that one, House?
That's my favorite of all the ones.
Really?
You like that more than the.
My second favorite is Stidham Completion, so you can tell where my head's at.
And the tie.
Well, I'll parlay it.
I could also offer you Rashid Shahid.
Five plus rushing yards at minus 108.
It's one sweep around the corner.
They had that great sweep for a big play.
Just one time.
One little gimmick sweep.
I love that one.
Why did you wait so long to do that one?
I don't know.
We'll do that one.
That's a terrific one.
That's one run.
Rashid Shahid.
Five plus yards.
Minus 108.
Today's Ringer 107 was brought to you by FanDuel.
Odd subject to change.
Shrinks.
So you're going to the Super Bowl?
Yeah.
And then what happens?
Are you at one of these games this weekend?
I'm not.
I work on Monday Night Football, so there's no Monday situation.
I'll say this.
There's supposed to be this horrendous blizzard.
Joe House, I know you're aware.
It's coming.
It's coming.
I think the NFL... is in cahoots with the weather gods.
The ratings are going to be absolutely insane.
No one's leaving the house for two days and we just have two football games on.
I can't wait.
There's even stuff in like Texas, like Dallas, is getting annihilated, like they did at that Superbowl.
Yeah.
We were at that Super Bowl.
We were.
The ice bowl.
That was my favorite Super Bowl.
We were the only ones there.
Nobody else could get there.
Shregs, were you at that one?
Of course I was.
That was the best one.
That was my favorite one.
I don't think we were higher.
We had a great time.
I don't think we hung.
I think the first time I hung with Bill at a Super Bowl was New Orleans when it was 49ers Ravens.
Oh, wow.
I think Louis K introduced us and I was like a kid in a candy shop.
I was there.
That was 2013.
That was me against Cousins Al.
Were you there the last night and before the game in Dallas, when we went to that party and nobody was at the party and they had like a million things of booze uh, was that the party?
And it was outdoors, cold.
Ashton kutcher yes, and we were all huddled under the heat lamps.
Yeah, with aaron andrews name drop, motherfucker we did it all.
Lewis was there.
We had a bunch of people, but lewis was there.
We were drinking and freezing to death and i flew from there to new york and i got bronchitis.
I was the sickest i've ever been.
I was in the ironically the Trump Plaza Hotel in New York City for two days, like having like fever dream, like thinking I was going to die level seven and missed multiple flights back.
It was the most sick I've ever been, but I had a great time.
Thank you, Dallas.
Thank you, Dallas.
Thank you, Dallas.
Did you go to that Nick and Steph's?
Great steakhouse down there.
Definitely did that.
Are Nick and Tony's?
What's it called?
Nick and Sam's.
Dallas is set up where it's like they have no snowplow.
They have no ice.
They have no salt for the ice on the things.
They just have no plan if there's ever bad weather.
It's like, sorry, guys.
You're on your own.
It's the strangest thing we ever saw.
Nobody could drive around.
No, the bus drivers didn't know how to do it.
They careened off the road, if you remember.
It's like black ice.
Yes, it was brutal.
Honestly...
Dallas's handling of bad weather would be the most inexplicable thing this century with Dallas if they hadn't traded Luka Doncic for a banged up Anthony Davis.
That's still number one.
How about you suggesting Luka?
How about you suggesting, what was it, LeBron James for Cat?
All my Knicks fans texting me.
Would they get mad?
No.
You missed earlier in the podcast.
We traded Luka for Giannis.
He just tried that.
Yeah, you tried.
It got rejected.
All right, real quick, shrinks real quick.
Oh go, netflix.
They've had this whole thing.
Netflix is a joke.
I've seen all these ads about tim dylan doing something and this one's doing something.
Can we get a simmons in house may?
Netflix is a joke, like a live event where you guys are doing something for netflix.
Can i go and attend that?
I would love that.
I'm actually doing that because i'm doing something with the guys from tires.
I have to invite myself to be in the audience for that.
You and I will be backstage.
Wearing Bill Simmons t-shirts.
Where's the food?
It's in LA.
Oh, great.
I think I'm going to see Shane Gillis this weekend if the snow doesn't stop me.
He's playing at the Garden.
I have friends that are going to that.
Happy for that, dude.
Shregs, great to see you.
House, thanks for sticking around for two hours and nine minutes.
You did it.
You know how we do it.
Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well.
Don't forget, new rewatch was coming Monday.
First time on Netflix.
Uh, it is going to be zodiac.
You can also get it on spotify spotify as well.
We're taping it.
Tomorrow could be three hours.
Yeah, me and fantasy and chris ryan fincher.
Um and uh, and that's it.
We have a bunch more pods going on netflix as well.
Uh, starting on monday guys, enjoy the weekend.
Go pats, let's go football.
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