The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network.
I have a new Rewatchables coming for you on Monday night.
We did High Fidelity.
We had four people for this one.
Went almost two hours.
This is the 25th anniversary of this movie.
So we did it justice.
I'm excited to have this one come out.
You can watch it on all platforms.
Watch it on Spotify.
Watch it or listen to it wherever.
If you missed Music Box, we put up our latest installment, which was about WizKid.
So we have Jeff Buckley, Wizkid.
And then this week, coming Thursday, The Counting Crows.
Have you seen me lately?
It's called... It's really about their first two albums.
And the idea for this came from a podcast that I actually did on this feed with Adam Duritz once upon a time,
And we decided it would actually make for a really good documentary.
It's really good.
I can't wait for you to watch that one.
So stay tuned.
That's coming Thursday.
You'll be able to watch it on HBO Max as soon as it goes up on HBO.
This was a really sad and just kind of an awful weekend.
We had the shootings at Brown University, which every parent's worst nightmare, every student's worst nightmare, every faculty member's worst nightmare, just horrible.
There was another mass shooting in Australia.
And then, before we started doing this podcast, news broke that Rob Reiner and his wife were murdered at their house.
And it seems like a family member was involved.
I'm not going to speculate on that, but there's pretty strong evidence that somebody who was related to them did it.
And it's just an awful story.
And Rob Reiner is one of those guys that I think had a pretty close to unanimous approval rating for just the career he had.
He was a little bit of a one-on-one.
When I was growing up, he was an all-in-the-family, which was one of the biggest half hour shows of the 70s.
It's certainly in the running.
It was like MASH all in the family.
It was one of the icons and he was Archie Bunker's son-in-law.
Then all of a sudden he did this crossover and he started directing.
At that point he was Carl Reiner's son who had just been all in the family and that was it.
He does Spinal Tap.
He does The Sure Thing, which is a movie we've wanted to do on rewatchables forever.
But you can't find it anywhere.
But it's John Cusack's breakout movie.
It's great.
And then he did Stand By Me.
He did Princess Bride.
He did When Harry Met Sally.
He did Misery.
He did A Few Good Men and American President.
Six movies we've already done on the rewatchables.
And we've done A Few Good Men twice.
And we've talked about him on those podcasts a couple times about some directors just have a knack for having.
He had basically a decade and a half long run there of just directing movies, really entertaining, rewatchable movies that mattered, with big stars and putting stars in the right light.
So he did that.
Just that run alone, it would have been an incredible career for him.
But he also, he did a bunch of stuff as an activist.
He was very, very involved in the community out here.
And then, on top of everything else, started Castle Rock, which did all these different movies you've heard of but, most importantly, greenlit Seinfeld and was the production company for Seinfeld and was the most lucrative greenlight in the history of television.
It's a show that you could go on Netflix right now and it's still on.
This was during a time when a lot of independent production companies either they went under their vanity projects.
There weren't a ton of success rates for this, for somebody being like I'm going to use my clout and the money I made and get a couple investors
Really try to make good movies.
And I've talked on Rewatchables in the past about I have all those premiere magazines from the late 80s and the early 90s.
And Castle Rock's like one of the heroes of the magazines.
Because you have all these big studios and they're trying to make sequels and they're trying to make superhero movies.
And basically trying to ruin movies in a bunch of different ways, and the, the true artists and the true people who cared about talent and working with the best creatives um, there were these smaller studios, places like miramax, places like castle rock that were um, you know, zagging and trying to give people the right voices, and he was a big part of that.
So even if he had just done castle rock, that would have been incredible.
Even if he had just been on All in the Family and met Carl Reiner's son and bounced around as an actor.
I mean, he was in a bunch of movies.
He was in Sleepless in Seattle.
You look at his IMDb, he was in more movies than you realize.
But then you throw in the directing run he had too.
And it was just an amazing career.
And he seemed like one of those guys that was just going to be around forever.
And now, sadly, he's not.
But I think you'll hear a lot about him this week.
And I just thought especially like rewatchables, who've done 415 I think 450 movies at this point, or something close.
There's just certain directors, that something about the way they made the movie.
You could watch it again and again, and again for the next couple years, next 10 years, next 15 years, next 20 years.
The choices they make, they just have a sense of what people want.
He was one of those guys.
I thought this was really, really sad news this weekend.
I felt really bad for his family, and just all his friends because he had a bunch of them.
So I just wanted to mention that.
Coming up, Cousin Sal and I are going to talk a lot of football.
We went live on YouTube after the Cowboys game.
So that's coming up after the break in Pearl Jam.
This episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by State Farm.
Having insurance isn't the same as having State Farm.
It's like expecting a linebacker on the football field but getting a line cook.
Sure, they both can handle the pressure when it starts heating up, but only one is stopping a touchdown.
You wouldn't settle for just anything for your team, so don't settle for just any insurance when it comes to getting help you need.
State Farm is the real deal.
Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
A December tradition going live after a Sunday night game.
That was really bad.
For the Dallas Cowboys.
We'll start there.
It was an action-packed Sunday night, but Sal, I think your season's over.
Any last words?
It sets up nicely for you, right?
Nice little early Christmas gift for you.
I'm happy.
I'm happy.
What's the Christmas gift?
You being sad?
Yeah, you love it.
How is that a Christmas gift?
You love this.
I don't.
I was excited for you to kind of hang around and at least have the Christmas game mean something.
I mean, there's coal under the Christmas stocking of Amazon and Netflix tonight.
Yeah, that's true.
The KC is the Amazon night game.
They're done.
Put a fork in them.
And then the other one, it's Dallas-Washington.
That means nothing.
Right.
And then, although Dallas, it is fun to have them on Christmas, I guess.
But then the other one is Minnesota-Detroit.
And Detroit's on the outside looking in.
And these are all games that seem like they were really good games.
I don't care about those people.
I care about me.
I mean, I love Netflix.
I love, love, love Netflix.
But I just...
No, I got to – I'm a little – I'm relieved, I have to say.
I'm like you know when he was missing those field goals and the Vikings got a couple of first downs to clinch it.
By the way, they scored 34 points, another FU to us, Herschel Walker's number.
But, you know, I was like John Cena, just had a half a smirk on my face, just tapping, just tapping.
That's over.
Let's go.
You paid it forward.
You paid it forward for next season.
Go get it, J.J.
McCarthy.
It's all yours now, whatever you want.
That's awful.
We should talk about that John Cena thing.
I liked it.
Most people didn't like it.
Did you really?
I thought you didn't.
I thought it was a good zag.
I thought it was the Sopranos ending of WWE farewells.
Yeah, that was also terrible.
Like 10 years from now, I think it'll be good.
10 years?
Are people going to know Gunther in 10 years, whatever his name is?
He's a huge heel now.
All right.
It's big for him.
It's fine.
I like it.
Cena was symbolically saying, I'm literally tapping out.
Yeah.
That's it for me.
Well, I actually don't think he tried hard enough, and you keeping him in your living room for two and a half hours didn't help.
He was unfocused.
I might have worn him out.
Yeah, and he should have been more into the match.
There were some spots where he really could have won if he had put his head to it.
I know.
It's just over, and it's so funny with wrestling.
Yeah.
You see when they go for their finishing move, and then the guy kicks out.
You never expect it.
Right.
I hate that Jerry keeps kicking out.
Yeah.
Jerry was at the start of the game, had a big, big smile on his face.
And it was like you know, it's hard not to be cynical and be like oh, the Parsons trade kind of worked out in his favor, I guess.
Now that Parsons is probably out for the year.
Dallas now with a losing record.
And it seems like their big contribution to the year was the tie they had with the Packers, which is going to completely screw up.
All of the playoff standings.
The Bears are in second place now.
We're going to go through all the ramifications of anything.
But the only thing I'll say about the Vikings-Cowboys game, other than Collinsworth just doing an exemplary job of selling us McCarthy for three hours.
Mike, he's having fun, Mike.
He's just slinging the ball, Mike.
It's like Dallas is terrible.
Everyone does this against Dallas.
What are you talking about?
He has two ways to go with these quarterbacks.
If it's a Josh Allen type or, you know.
That's Chuckles.
Yeah, those are Chuckles.
Yeah. otherworldly what he's doing.
But if it's a guy who is just having a good night and isn't expected to repeat this like Oh, he's having fun.
He's doing right.
He's doing all right.
You know, there's a third one.
It's like if he had the Trevor Lawrence jets game today.
Mike I, I think Trevor Lawrence has unlocked something here, Mike.
Right.
Yeah.
I think this is a guy who finally realizes who he is.
I think he would have done that whole thing.
Uh, the Vikings, uh, I don't know.
The quarterback, they're 6-8.
Certainly probably have, I would say, enough talent to be better than a 6-8 team.
But that's kind of the league this year.
All right, enough about that game.
Let's talk about a whole bunch of things that happened today.
Great slate.
Very exciting slate.
Going in, and it lived up to its billing.
Really did.
Won 25 games Pacific time.
Really nice.
Really nice.
Yeah.
We had a nice little multi view in the in the late games, where all the games were in play for a bunch of different reasons.
We got to start with chiefs chargers in the words of Brian Flanagan, everything ends badly.
Otherwise it wouldn't end this, this chiefs thing and ended badly for our wallets.
Yeah.
Uh, for chiefs dynasty stuff.
And then, on top of it, when you thought it couldn't get any worse, my homes, his body, finally breaks down symbolically.
And, uh, And it seemed like, oh, he tweaked his knee because he's a little like LeBron where it seems like he's always hurt, but he's fine.
And he's not fine.
He tore his ACL.
Their season's over.
I guess he'll be back for next season.
That's for football.
It seems like that's a nine, 10 month injury.
So who knows?
But I thought it was a shocking game because it's not like the Chargers did that much offensively.
Their defense won the game.
But it felt like before halftime and the Chargers who did nothing and they had this stupid drive and then all of a sudden they score right before halftime.
And I think Chiefs fans and people who had the Chiefs in parlays and straight-ups were like this is bad.
Yeah, for sure.
You and I were two of them.
We were texting about it.
We were like, that was bad.
Why do we do this?
Last Sunday, exactly a week ago, what happens to us psychologically over the week?
Yeah.
We left them for dead on this podcast.
They got nothing left.
Mahomes isn't the same.
These receivers don't care.
It's three and a half.
Oh, wow.
Went to four and a half.
Oh, it's five and a half.
Oh, we have to have this.
Nothing at all changed from Sunday night.
But then we had to have the Chiefs at five and a half.
But yeah, you're right.
I was pissed off.
I was mad that they were going to get a field goal before half the Chargers.
And then they end up getting a touchdown with 12 seconds left.
I'm like, damn it.
This is going to be tough to cover.
I think that was their only touchdown drive, right?
That was it, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
They three field goals, you know, they scored 16 points.
Yeah.
Did I think the chiefs would have more than 13?
I did.
Yeah.
That was the problem.
But the charges defense, they're really physical to dial it up.
And it was two weeks in a row where the chiefs receivers were just getting the shit kicked out of them.
Right.
Rice took more hits in the last two weeks than most guys I think take in a year.
But, uh, It's a weird game.
I'm not sure either of these teams like if the Chiefs had been able to crawl back.
I don't think they would have been a threat.
I don't really feel like this Chargers team is that much of a threat either, but they're going to be hanging around this playoff race.
It was a great win for them.
Cold weather, West Coast team going east.
Herbert's playing with a broken, whatever he has, left hand, left wrist, whatever it is.
It was the best win of all the wins today.
That was the best one for a team.
It was the Chargers, right?
Because I think they were going to have a tough time clawing to 11 wins without this game.
They got Well, I look at it now.
At Dallas, Houston, and at Denver.
Those last two should be tough.
But now they're looking good for the playoffs, at least.
And Herbert was throwing.
I was like, it's his left hand that's messed up, right?
Because some of those passes were very wobbly.
The touchdown pass was wobbly.
A couple others were wobbly.
And then the Chiefs.
But you said it.
Chiefs scored 20 points.
It's over.
They win the game.
But I don't feel like they have any plays anymore.
Do you feel that way?
Well, they have the play where Mahomes would not find anybody open and then roll right and right before he's going out of bounds.
He would throw it to somebody.
That's a good one.
It's that play.
It's tough because they couldn't throw the ball deep and they probably had the worst set of running backs in the league.
Right.
Right?
Did anybody have... Even Houston today.
I had Woody Marks in fantasy.
Mm-hmm.
We'll talk about his controversial touchdown later.
But he goes out.
They bring in some dude I've never heard of.
And the guy ended up with 100 yards.
And their third down back was good, too.
All three of their running backs were better than anybody the Chiefs had.
But they just kind of ran out of skill, guys.
And I think some of the higher draft picks they took, like guys like Worthy.
They took that left tackle this draft that got hurt.
They spent their second round in the last draft on a right tackle who I don't think really made it.
And they started missing on their draft picks, which I think is what really sunk them.
Mahomes, we discussed it last week.
He's not himself.
He was himself.
Maybe two, three levels below what we're used to with him.
But these receivers, they don't do him any favors.
They are so soft rice worthy.
They feel like i feel like they play other positions and like a coach, how much longer do we have to play wide receiver here like they?
They don't really even look like they fit the the scheme of the offense and uh yeah, you're right.
And isaiah pacheco, like you talk about the not being able to get a running game like, would you ever consider starting that guy in fantasy under any circumstances at this point?
What a disaster.
I wrote down we we'd kind of given year from hell to either washington or baltimore.
The year from hell team.
It turned out it was KC pulled off the Scooby-Doo mask, and it was them all along.
This was the year from hell, ending with the terrible Mahomes injury.
So it's year eight for Mahomes, three Super Bowls, and lost the Super Bowl in year seven.
Nick Wright made this point on my podcast on Thursday that the parallel of him and Brady was basically the same arc.
The two guys.
Yeah.
Brady, I think, tore his ACL in his eighth season.
Year nine, I think.
Or his year nine.
And Mahomes was year eight.
But it was just kind of weird how that... But even before the ACL, it was... It had to be asked.
Was this starting to feel a little Pujols-ish?
Right, right, right.
Like with somebody who just looked like one of the all-time guys ever in their 20s.
And then in the 30s, it just tilted a little bit.
I guess we'll find out.
It's certainly, you know, between the way the season ended and now he's coming back from a major injury.
This is by far the most adversity he's faced in his career.
And not to mention, they're 44 million over the cap going into the offseason.
I know the cap goes up and everything, but they have a lot of gaps to fill.
But yeah, I think we have to figure out what was weird when Kelsey used to be open by 20 yards all the time, every third play or nobody ever getting open.
But it was just.
I don't think either of us Thought that the dynasty would end with Gardner Minshew throwing an interception after a delay, a game call that took them out of field goal range.
I forgot about the delay a game.
The interception was actually kind of hilarious because he had sucked me in because I had the Chiefs money line.
He came in and I was like you know I've had some good moments with Gardner Minshew over the years where unexpectedly he pulled and then just a terrible pass in traffic.
You mentioned how they're over the cap next year and I'm sure this will be a topic this week about Whether they make next year.
They'll kind of blow it up and rebuild and take all the cap hits and Kelsey will retire.
Andy Reid turned 68 in March.
And the oldest Super Bowl winning coach ever was Bruce Arians, who was 68.
So you have that piece too, where it's like all right, we're going to do.
You either say we're going to throw away, next year, we'll take our lumps, we'll try to reset our cap in a year from now, when Mahomes is healthy again, or
You do that.
Well, Andy Reid's going to be 68.
Mahomes can be ready in time for September.
And every year we have Mahomes, you can't throw it away.
Let's fucking go.
So it'll be interesting to see how they play it.
Their draft pick will be a little better maybe than they would typically get.
It'll probably be like in the 12 to 15 range.
Oh, they should get a receiver.
They should get a flashy receiver.
Or a left tackle.
A fast one.
Really fast.
Good.
Lit it up in the combines.
That's what they should do.
Right.
Left tackle.
And they have the Chris Joneses, and he's getting on in his career.
They're going to lose Kelsey.
I assume Kelsey's going to retire.
Right.
So we'll see what happens with that.
But that was kind of a shocking game.
Kept waiting for the Chiefs to come back.
Uh, my homes had a bad turnover in the second half.
That was surprising.
It was just that this was what happens with these teams.
Like, what do you think they are against the spread now?
The season.
Because I feel like I've personally lost five games with them this year.
Well, that's what?
0-7?
1-7 in one-score games now?
Something like that.
They're right there.
When that's what's weird, they were going to be favored the rest of the year.
People were talking about it on our pregame show.
Take them to win the Super Bowl if you like them today.
55-1.
Like, all right, I don't know if I like them to win eight in a row, but I do like them today.
God, not even close.
They're not winning the Super Bowl, everyone.
Sorry, Nick Wright.
What happened to how the refs used to fix the games for them?
I guess that can't happen.
That doesn't happen anymore.
Maybe they had an exclusive contract that expired after seven years.
That's it.
Well, great for the Chargers.
And then you look at the big picture with the playoffs where the Chargers are in.
The three wild cards are Buffalo, the Chargers, and Houston.
Yeah, it's pretty much done.
Three teams you wouldn't want to play.
And then the NFC, the wild cards right now would be Seattle, San Francisco, and Green Bay.
That has to be the best six wild cards we've had at least this decade, right?
There's not an easy one out of those six.
It's pretty good.
I don't know if I trust any of them.
That's one thing.
I'm going to trust the fewest.
You're right.
The teams are pretty solid.
But as far as trusting, we're always looking for all right.
Who's the team we're going to bet against?
I have five.
I have like five teams I'm excited about.
Who's the team I don't want to bet against?
Because I want to bet against everybody.
Mine's gone.
Yeah.
So the Chargers are 10-4 at Dallas, home Houston, at Denver, the last three.
They have some good wins, though.
They beat KC twice.
They beat Denver.
They beat Pittsburgh.
They beat Philly.
And they beat Philly the same way they beat KC with pretty physical.
I was not a believer.
I didn't see it.
I thought they had too many injuries, especially after they lost Joe Walt.
They lost Hampton for a while.
But there is like a January recipe for them where they're just like defense, run the ball.
Herbert needs to make two plays.
Don't beat yourselves.
We've seen that work.
I felt like I found an old relic when I dug up that they lost to Jacksonville by 28 a few weeks ago.
I was like, oh, yeah.
35-6, right?
That's what this game's going to be like today in Kansas City.
And it won't really matter, but they'll get housed.
Nope, not even close.
The other AFC West game that had a huge impact was Packers-Broncos.
Hmm.
Great game.
There's this moment.
Green Bay's up 23-14 in the third quarter.
Denver just had a three and out after halftime.
It feels like Green Bay's about to put the game away.
It just feels like they're better.
They say, fuck it.
They go deep to Watson.
Sertan makes a great interception and at the same time hurts Watson.
Denver has the ball, Watson's out, and it just felt like the game tilted and flipped on its axis.
Parsons gets hurt, I don't know, 45 minutes later.
But literally from that moment on, it was Denver's game.
And Bo Nix, any questions you had about him, and I'm not sure I still don't have some questions, but he was incredible for three hours.
He really was great.
He had that awesome fourth and three throw in the fourth quarter, but In the first half he was super accurate.
That was the best game I've seen him play.
So, do you want to go Denver or do you want to go Green Bay for this?
Because it was a really important game for both teams.
Well, you talk about the year from hell.
Green Bay might have had the half from hell, the way you described it, right?
Yeah.
They blow the big lead.
They lose Parsons.
Uh-oh, what does the rest of the season look like?
Parsons was out of control.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Four weeks, just was unblockable and felt like he was being held all the time, basically.
And LaFleur is ballsy.
The play you mentioned, like going to Watson to put the dagger in, right?
They would have been up three touchdowns or 17 with that.
And he's ballsy-er than Dan Campbell is at this point.
He should get the credit that Dan Campbell gets all the time.
But that's what happens with something like that.
Sertan, like you said, made a great play.
But Bo Nix, I haven't seen him play a better game.
Four touchdowns, crisp throws, right?
Lots downfield.
They looked like a team I could see getting to the Super Bowl, right?
And the defense, ironically, wasn't playing their best.
They did have three sacks and had pretty big moments and a couple interceptions, but they didn't lock down like normal.
They needed Knicks in this game, and he came through.
That was a big – you know what?
He showed me something.
I'm going to say it, Bill.
He showed me something.
Oh, you want to give him – he showed me something?
Yeah, he showed me something.
He really showed me something.
I like their pass rush.
I thought it made a difference in the fourth quarter.
Love seemed a little frazzled.
But Love you know, he loses Watson who was, like I think, his most reliable receiver in two explosive plays a game.
They lose Kraft a couple weeks ago.
Then they lose Parsons.
I would argue Parsons, Kraft, and Watson were three of the best seven, eight guys in the team.
So, you know, I was thinking about how Well, you got Jacobs every Thursday.
It's like he might play, he might not.
I mean, he did well today, right?
He caught one and he ran for one.
But if that guy goes down, then a world of hurt.
Yeah, you're always wondering what's going to happen with him.
The other thing was yeah, I'm not going to count Green Bay out, but I do feel like every single week we've come on this pod and decided somebody else in the NFC looked like they were the team.
Right.
And Green Bay's now had their moment and we're back to the Rams.
Yeah.
And Thursday night, Seattle could beat the Rams.
And I'm like, maybe it's Seattle.
I just think it's one of those years for the conference.
There's a weird Denver thing, though.
And I've watched a lot of Denver this year.
We have a bunch of overs with them that have all hit.
I have a one seed bet with them.
I have them for the division, which I think is going to win.
So I've watched a lot of them.
I think Peyton's done some really weird shit.
With the clock management in the fourth quarters of these games.
And it wasn't just today.
Like, they blew two fourth downs today.
They hit one of them on the fourth and three, but it's like this, unnecessarily aggressive, And I get it.
Maybe he's trying to establish some sort of mindset, but we've seen it over and over with them where they they're just kind of unnecessarily aggressive sometimes.
And I don't know, like I don't think they can run the ball the way he seems to think they can.
You know, it's like fourth and one, fourth and two.
I don't think they're as lights out as he seems to think.
Yeah.
And at some point it's going to kill them.
And I don't know when.
I am just so numb to teams going on it.
We're going for it on fourth and two.
I know Campbell went on his own 20 today.
What was that?
Like his own 25.
Yeah.
You can't get outraged anymore.
It doesn't look weird to me.
It's like my kid asking for $20 to be sent to his watch.
I'm like, all right, fine.
I don't understand it at all.
So which one?
You did text.
You did have problems.
That was towards the end of the game when they were up eight.
It was like fourth and three from the 45.
That's a tough spot.
I don't know what you do there.
I just felt like Green Bay wasn't going to score again.
And I don't know why I want to give them life and put them there in midfield.
When my defense is playing like that and I'm home and love has that kind of demeanor that he had.
Um, I didn't love it.
There was a lot of clock management.
I thought the Pat screwed up today.
The end of the first half, which this is the second time in the last couple of weeks for able to did this where in the last Two minutes, like going too slow because you don't want the other team to get the ball back.
But really, you should be kind of stepping on the throat and trying to actually score a touchdown.
And they killed all this time.
They ended up settling for a field goal.
Almost didn't even get the field goal off.
Right, almost didn't get the field goal.
But it's like, what are you afraid of?
You have two minutes.
You have a really good end of the quarter QB in May.
Just go.
Let's throw the ball.
Let's see if we can make some stuff happen.
Denver... was the opposite.
But yeah, the Peyton thing I think is a little weird.
Denver's going to be the one seed.
So I guess the question Sal, is if they miss the first round and they're just playing a home game round two, home game round three and you have Nix at home, who seems pretty comfortable at home and he never has to leave Denver, plus you have the altitude, cold weather, maybe they're going to do it.
This is the first time today where I was like, ah, maybe.
Maybe.
I don't know.
Same thing.
I don't know if there was so much talk about, Oh, Terrell Davis and Favre.
This was a super bowl and 97 years ago.
And like, yeah, they really looked like a super bowl team.
And yeah, you're right.
The home games will, will help.
It does seem like they have a lot of like open.
They were terrible against the giants at home.
They want another weird home game.
And they're obviously.
The Raiders was 10 seven, but today looked like an explosive good one seed team beating the crap out of a another solid playoff team.
But, um, Yeah, I don't know.
I think you're knocked out of that.
What are they for the one seed?
What's their odds now?
Well, for the conference, I'm sorry, for Super Bowl, they're plus 950 on FanDuel.
Buffalo's plus 800.
For the conference, they're favored over Buffalo for the conference, plus 320 to plus 390.
And then Denver to be the one seed now is minus 260.
260, yeah.
You can put a little Jags plus 550.
Trevor Lawrence has finally figured it out, money.
I'm happy to book that if you want to do that.
Well, they're playing Jacksonville this week.
So that's going to be that, I think.
And then add Casey and the Chargers.
Buffalo, not totally out of it at 22-1, in case you think they could run the slate and do it.
I want to talk about Buffalo because I actually think that's the team.
That'd be fun.
That's my bet your life team in the AFC.
Like we made the case for Denver.
Today was a great day for them.
They've done everything they needed to do, everything they needed to show, except for like.
Can they protect the lead at the end of the game with the running game?
They haven't had a lot of injuries.
It looks like you're going to have to go through Denver to take them out.
And yet I would still take Buffalo.
So we're going to take a break for the pod.
We'll keep going on YouTube.
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Buffalo puts together five straight touchdown drives and beats my team.
My team was up 21-0.
They needed the game more than we did.
We're missing our left tackle and our best defensive lineman, Milt Williams.
And yet the loss still really hurt.
And it was a unique chance to put the division away, beat them twice in a year.
And now I look back and it's like, really close game.
We won in Buffalo, really close game.
They won in New England. and we're probably going to see them again, would be my guess.
Yeah, but I wouldn't be too disappointed.
If we had this scenario and looked ahead in August, you wouldn't be too bummed.
It was a great game.
You can hang with Buffalo, right?
That's the main thing here.
You hung with them twice.
Even though, if you take the division, and even though Maybe he's ahead of him, MVP odds board.
He's not Josh Allen.
That's just what you see, right?
He took that game over Allen.
He might be in a couple years.
Yeah, sure, maybe.
Yeah, it's not happening now.
Dozens of times before we've seen him do this.
Also he has the second most wins by a quarterback in their first eight seasons in NFL history, tied with your guy Brady and Russ Wilson, and probably the best cold-weather quarterback I've ever seen.
This side of Favre right.
It's outrageous that I love Drake May.
I'm delighted to have him in my life.
There's no way Josh Allen should have worse MVP odds than Drake May.
We kind of had the referendum game today.
The stuff he's done these last four weeks where he just went to a whole other level.
He's so terrifying.
And it was funny because I thought the Pats the first half it was the best game plan they've had all year.
They had some stuff where all the Pats fans were like why don't we ever do these?
Design QB draws with Drake.
Why don't we use his legs intentionally instead of him just scrambling?
And they did all the stuff I wanted them to do.
And then in the second half, I don't know what happened.
I don't know where Diggs was.
I don't know where Diggs has been just in general.
Diggs was the reason they won the Buffalo game in Buffalo.
They had a great game in the first one.
Yeah, right, right.
Didn't get a call, which is fine.
But there were eight calls in this game.
And I think we went 0 for 8 in the eight most important calls.
And Drake wasn't good enough.
The game was in his hands in the last seven minutes.
Henderson scores.
They come back down.
And then Drake has to kind of, you're home.
This is it.
But it's year two.
Year four, I think he wins the game.
I think he had 35 second half yards before that Henderson reverse field run.
Nice job by Drake getting in the way or whatever he did run down there.
That was awesome.
And that was the kind of play where you think like, oh shit, if we win that game, this is going to be a legendary play.
Henderson breaks his second big run.
Mays hustling down to kind of help create the block for it.
But the defense just...
Just couldn't get stops.
The special teams was bad today.
It was an uncharacteristically sloppy game, but at the same time, that team's just a bad matchup.
You even saw like they sat Spillane in the game and they said Spillane was injured.
But I actually just think he was too slow to be in the game.
That's my conspiracy theory.
But, you know, tight ends and running backs coming out of the backfield and QB scrambles.
Like, that's how this Pats defense is going to lose, I think.
They might be a year away from having the kind of ceiling.
The way for them to make the Super Bowl was the way Denver is doing it now, where it's like you have to come here and come through us and we're going to have round one off.
Now they're going to have to have round one.
You know Houston coming to New England, which is terrifying.
I know you saw Stroud today.
Stroud was great today.
Very good.
Yep, yep.
Houston looks excellent.
Houston, that game.
We have to have a nickname for that.
When the game is over, before you even have your floor box situated,
17-0 and you didn't even know the game started.
I have to add another game.
I don't think you play.
I would think if you get the two seed, let's say you don't get the one seed.
If you win the division and get the two seed yes, you're home for houston right, i would think?
Unless they can leapfrog, they play the chargers in 17 yeah, or would you rather have this buffalo wins a division, you're a five and you go to baltimore or pittsburgh, wouldn't you rather have that?
And then i've played denver in round two.
Whatever you're, better than just get out of that one, right?
You don't want to play Houston, do you?
I want to win the division.
I don't want a scenario where they have to go to Buffalo.
Winning in Buffalo twice in the same year seems inconceivable to me.
Okay.
The best case scenario for them is the Chargers end up the seventh seed instead of Houston.
Yeah, I guess so.
And they can get the Chargers, who I think, with the offensive line issues they've had, is probably a pretty good matchup.
They do play in two weeks, yeah.
All right, I offered you this.
Remember, I made you this offer if you didn't take it.
That's all right.
Do you feel, yeah, I will, I'll mark it down.
I did turn it down.
Um, it does feel like something shifted here with Alan.
Now you know where we were and this was talking about this in August and I did my QB pyramid.
I had Alan at the top and I was just like, I just think he's the best guy now.
He's never played in a super bowl.
It's hard to be like, this guy's the best guy, but he's never played in a super bowl.
But he's clearly the best player in the league.
Is there anyone you would put ahead of him at this point?
It's just watching football week to week.
He's the best guy.
I don't even think it's an argument.
I don't think so.
He's getting a lot of help from Cook, though, we should say.
Cook is the best gliding through the snow in first downs and six when he really should have gotten two, and stuff like that.
So that definitely helps.
That would help Mahomes and the Chiefs.
I'm not feeling bad for them at all.
But, yeah, he's the best.
What are you going to say?
He's throwing up on the sideline.
I don't know if that's a fetish thing with him and Haley Steinfeld, but it works out.
Really, he's great.
It might just be when it gets cold, because they did win like six in a row two years ago to make the playoffs.
We keep talking about that.
Some people don't even want to use the weather as any kind of factor.
They were able to pressure the Pats a little bit and I don't know if that was the case of The offensive line is just bad, or maybe their defense is a little bit better.
What did you see when you watched the game?
What did you see from the Pats?
Did they seem like an actual Super Bowl contender to you?
I can't look at it objectively, obviously.
No, except for that second half, right?
I mean, it's the opposite of what the Packers did.
Well, I guess it's the same thing as what the Packers did.
Wow, they were on fire in the first half.
For different reasons.
Everything clicking, right.
But you couldn't move in the second half.
And, like, Allen didn't let you have the ball.
But, honestly, overall, I'll go back to my original point.
You should be – you hung with them.
You'll hang with them again.
I'd be surprised if you ever lost to them by two touchdowns, you know, going forward.
Yeah, that's where I've landed with – I think my dad's in the same spot.
Like, played them twice.
Either team could have won both games.
Got Campbell coming back for the playoffs, which I think is really going to help.
Milton Williams coming back.
Hopefully nobody else gets hurt and we'll see how it goes.
Carlton Davis didn't make it a quarter in today's game.
They might be a cornerback short, but everybody's short something at this point.
I still think like, I just think like Buffalo and the Rams would be the safest pick right now.
I think
But I also think we talked about this earlier.
It's like 2008, that year, the Brady ACL year, when we ended up with Pittsburgh and Arizona, and it was just one of those stupid years.
I'm prepared for any scenario this year.
I'm trying to think of who Buffalo doesn't match up against.
I guess it's Houston again.
It all comes back to Houston just because they're trucking teams.
Are they the only team in either conference that if they're down 21-0 on the road you're not even blinking?
Yeah.
Because that was me today.
I was like, all right, I don't feel like we have this game in hand.
They're going to make a run.
It was 24-7 at halftime.
It's like, they have the ball second half.
I know it's going to happen.
They're going to go down.
They're probably going to score.
It's going to be 24-14.
Can we put a drive together?
We couldn't.
Now it's 24-21.
And...
You know, that's the only team in the league.
Maybe the Rams would be the only other one if they're indoors.
Yeah.
That I can see, like, 21-0 doesn't matter if you're playing this team.
It is bad when you can't spot a team three touchdowns.
It's got to be four for them to be completely out of it.
Don't hang your head up, kid.
You did good.
You did really good today.
It's been a great Pat season.
And also, by all accounts, I knew a couple people that were there.
The crowd was great.
It was everything you want.
There was some self-inflicted stuff, but it'll be a good experience for them.
Rams-Lions.
The Rams are now the new, they look like the best NFC team.
Puka got banged up.
I was thinking about who to name this award after, because he's definitely the number one.
Oh God, he's out, he's hurt.
This is bad.
And then he's playing two plays later.
And then five minutes later, it's like, oh no, what happened?
And then it's like, he's fine.
But I was thinking, who would get that award?
Who would you name it after?
And I thought, I realized it was Terry Glenn.
Remember Terry Glenn?
We both had Terry Glenn.
It's like, oh no, what happened?
Did he tear his ACL?
Did he sprain his ankle?
Did he separate his shoulder?
Oh, he's back.
He's back in there.
This is great.
But one of those like rope-a-dope guys where you're just never sure if they're healthy.
But Puka's like, Even at the end of the game, he limped off in the sidelines.
Is he fine?
Is he not fine?
I don't know.
I don't think he knows.
I keep it a little closer to home.
This guy never made an NFL team, but our friend Brad, he'll fall down the stairs and stuff.
I'm like, oh, Manette, should you call the ambulance?
He's like, no, no, no, Randy, let me just shake it off.
I'm fine.
Let me just put my kneecap back on.
He's down in the sun-kissed two minutes later.
He's fine.
But Devontae Adams did get hurt, so that was the big thing from this game.
He definitely got hurt.
They have a game Thursday.
They're playing Seattle.
They have the same record.
And bad timing for the Adams injury.
Yeah.
I would say.
For sure.
But again, another team that showed me a lot.
I mean, winning that game 41-34.
But the Lions are just... They're the other end of that.
They just don't... boy, everything has to go right for them, right?
Like it did the Thursday night game against the Cowboys.
Like you need, you know, I was looking at Gibbs touchdowns the last seven games.
Zero, three, zero, three, zero, three, zero.
What the hell is that?
And so unless it's him and I'm on Ross St.
Brown, The golf is kind of lost back there.
And they had what should have been a pick six there with Hutchinson.
He looked back.
He was running it back.
I think they scored anyway on that.
But they had a nice little margin there, and they couldn't put him away.
I was going against Stafford in our fantasy playoffs in the league we care about the knockout league.
And it just felt like any time he wanted to throw for 12 yards, it was there for somebody.
Like when they really...
Oh, do we need 12-yard?
Fine.
I'll hit somebody else over the middle again.
I'll hit this tight end.
I'll hit Puka.
Now there's Adams.
And Detroit just couldn't stop them.
They had no chance.
That's it.
They're the eighth seed, and it's probably staying that way would be my guess.
I'm looking.
What's their number to make the playoffs?
I know they're a plus.
Well, the bigger question is who would be the team that would have to fall out for them to make it?
Because you have that dock with all the games left.
Right.
Is it San Francisco or would it be Green Bay?
Green Bay is minus 1150 to make the playoffs.
Which seems aggressive considering they've lost three of their best guys.
It is.
San Francisco, as far as Vandal's concerned, is not even on the board.
So these are teams with 10 wins.
Green Bay essentially has 10 wins.
They're 9-4-1.
Chicago's minus 370.
So they would be in competition, I guess, with Detroit.
And what's Detroit to make the playoffs right now?
Plus 148.
Well, that doesn't make – so who is the team that's going to fall out then?
Because they could get the division, I guess, technically, but not really.
So they're basically saying it's Chicago versus Detroit for that one spot.
And they have Green Bay in.
And yet Green Bay has at Chicago, home Baltimore, at Minnesota.
I genuinely think they could lose all three of those.
I mean, they could also win all three of them, but at Chicago is going to be a hard game.
Now it's a 9-5-1 with home for Baltimore who has to win.
See, I'm thinking of it as if they get to 10-4-1, then someone has to go 11-6 to beat it, right?
Like 10-4-1, that'd be 10-6-1.
I think they kind of only need one more.
Who would you pick at Chicago next week?
Would you take Chicago or Green Bay next week in Chicago?
I would take Chicago right now.
I think they'd beat Baltimore.
I think they win the home game against Baltimore.
And then that's 10-5-1. than I think they have it, but... It's tight.
It's pretty tight.
Weird shit happens in the last three weeks.
Yeah.
As we always know.
Chargers now, minus 4,000.
I guess I'm not going to win my... They're not going to make the playoffs bet.
Such a big game.
So, Rams-Lions, the other thing I was thinking... You really need the one seed in the NFC...
So you don't have to play in that first week with those three wild cards.
I don't want to see any of those wild cards, whoever it ends up being.
I guess I wouldn't mind seeing Detroit cause they can't stop anybody.
But if it was green Bay, it was Chicago or, uh, the, you know, the Seattle Rams who the one who doesn't make it, all of those options suck.
Yeah.
You have, you get the two seed and you have to host green Bay.
Right.
Or you have to host San Francisco?
Like if Purdy's just like throwing bombs?
I don't know.
I don't like any of those scenarios.
Yeah, you definitely don't want to play a division team.
And you got Seattle and San Francisco are going to be two of the wild cards, right?
If you're a division winner.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, so to get the one seed, they're minus 160.
They're 11-3.
It's not going to be from the South.
Yeah.
It's not going to really be the NFC East.
Wait, who's the other?
Who else could it be?
I'm looking.
No, it's the Lions.
Your team's out now.
Oh, it's all there.
We're eight teams.
We have eight teams now.
Yeah.
I was just looking for the one seed.
So Seahawks are plus 210.
San Francisco plus 750.
Rams minus 160.
So interesting.
If you want to bet the Seahawks, you're almost better off betting their one seed at plus 210 than you are betting them on Thursday to win that game, right?
Smart.
Yeah, right.
Because who do they have for their last two?
At Carolina, at San Francisco.
San Francisco is still kind of in this.
This is interesting.
Something weird will happen.
Every time we think something, we know it's going to happen.
Speaking of the NFC West, we're going to talk about Rivers.
I thought that was stunning.
He was competent.
It was amazing.
He wasn't good, but he was confident.
First of all, it was a fascinating game.
We had the Seahawks.
How many bets did you have with the Seahawks in it?
All of them.
Every bet you can make.
Did you have OKC in bets?
I did.
That was good.
You could have given me a heads up there.
I didn't know Wemby was playing.
I was mad at some NBA people I knew.
I was like, what the fuck?
I was at a Christmas party.
I didn't even know Wemby was playing.
So Rivers, first of all, they win the coin toss and they elect to receive.
And I was like, oh.
And then once you started watching the game, you realize why they did it.
It was what we thought.
This is why I love the under.
40 seconds of play, 35 seconds of play, field position.
Don't take any chances.
Short passes.
Run the ball.
Try to keep the ball as long as possible.
And then every time they punted, it felt like the Seahawks were on their own seven-yard line.
And it was just one of those games for two hours.
And it turned into a field goal game.
Rivers cannot move side to side.
Could he throw a pass longer than 14 yards?
No.
No, it didn't look like it, no.
And yet it seemed like they were going to win for two hours.
Right.
What were you thinking as you were watching this?
Well, I got, first of all, what a crazy week with, oh, the old man this.
We heard the same two jokes a thousand times.
Old man Rivers, we have to say it with a straight face, even though we have 10 years on him, right?
Like, oh, he's dying to get away from his wife and kids.
That joke was welded into the...
But he needs to show the ref his AARP card.
Meanwhile, I thought he did a good job under the circumstances.
I forgot his release which, even when he was good, Looked like he was never going to get to the receiver.
And then at 44, 45, like, wow, this is interesting.
But you're right.
He did what every 24-year-old backup should do.
Just control the clock.
Check down.
Don't throw long because you're not doing it in practice.
He said during his week of practice, he said, the balls I've thrown have barely hit the turf.
And I think he meant, like, hardly.
But he said barely.
Like, barely means they're all hitting the turf.
But he did, you know, I...
He did a good job on those circumstances.
But if Seattle makes a couple of those touchdowns out of the six field goals, this isn't even a discussion, right?
I know.
So he had the charisma and the leadership pieces.
Yeah.
And the whole team seemed like they were completely bought in on him doing well.
And like that they believed in him.
And you could see it on the sidelines, the way people were reacting to him.
And he had basically everything other than just athletically.
He's not close.
But I actually thought he was doing a better version of what Rodgers was doing, with a couple of exceptions this year.
Rodgers was good two weeks ago.
But for the most part, he didn't hurt them.
He didn't have a turnover until the last play of the game when they had to throw the ball downfield.
Right.
But...
And he had the throw to Pierce, which was good.
I'm trying to think of his longish throws.
That first down catch by Pierce late was good.
Everything was crisp, though.
His quick wide receiver screens, all his stuff, it was... Catching his guys in stride on a slant.
I just couldn't believe it.
I thought it would be inconceivable that he would be able to match the speed of the game when he hadn't played in five years.
And then there was the experience of being a fan of football and watching football day in and day out.
And just not seeing this guy for five years.
And then he came back.
It was like getting like, it was like deja vu.
Like, oh, that guy looks like Phil Rivers, but it is Phil Rivers.
Just forgetting, like his weird releases and those fucking you know those little balloon balls he throws.
Like there's just no zip at all, but it always hits the guy.
I don't know.
I had a good time, even though I thought I was going to lose my bet for the entire time.
It was rough.
It's fun to watch.
I thought like, well, I don't know.
I mean, then we could talk about Sam Darnold and how he wasn't getting it done.
And the Colts defense was pretty physical for most of the game for a team that was missing a lot of their defenders.
Right.
They kept JSN in check for at least the first half, probably the third quarter.
They may have been looking ahead to that game.
You talked about the Rams, but Mike McDonald actually impressed me because the offense wasn't working and he at least was smart enough to figure out how to keep 47 seconds on the clock to set up your guy, your fantasy legend, to kick that field goal.
Sixth field goal, Jason Myers, no relation to Michael.
Single-handedly got me into the next round of the playoffs.
I texted a couple of my Seattle friends what I had in my notes.
And here's what I wrote.
Seattle is 11-3.
They've won four straight.
Their three losses were by nine points.
They were number one in DVOA heading into the weekend.
And their fans feel terrible.
And Danny Kelly, one of the people I texted that to, texted me back, I'm miserable!
Exclamation point.
Like It was weird, because they won, they got the job, they pulled it out.
They're playing on Thursday night.
They have a chance to do the division, but offensively they're just not good enough.
They have one good player.
Their running game's awful.
Yeah.
Like Charbonnet and Walker, they're not quite as bad as the Chiefs running backs, but they're not good.
They don't, Cup looks like he's a tight end now, the way he moves.
They just, you know, Shahid, at least, they weaved him in a couple times.
He made a couple plays, but for the most part, it's JSN.
That's it.
And that's about it.
And a bunch of tight ends you've never heard of.
We thought Walker would be much better, right?
At least that platoon would score, at least by the red zone.
No pop.
Right.
But he wasn't great either.
I don't know.
I'll chalk it up to them looking ahead and them laughing at the same two jokes, like everybody else did about Phil Rivers.
But, yeah, that was not a good effort.
Do you think there was anything to Buckner being back?
Because I thought the Colts front seven was really good.
Yeah.
Very solid.
They're missing both cornerbacks.
This Jason Myers in field goals in general with fantasy, it's gotten to the point.
What did Hench pay for Aubrey in our league?
Three bucks?
The kickers are crazy.
Yeah, three bucks.
You could argue the top three, four kickers are worth 15 bucks.
I went against Fairbairn.
I beat Damoshek in our league.
He had Fairbairn.
Fairbairn?
Fairbairn?
And another crazy defense.
He's the kicker.
I think you lost the defense kicker battle 37-32 or something, wasn't it?
Yeah, he got 18 points from his kicker.
And then I got 24.
But this seems like it happens every week.
Last week, I got another 20 for Myers.
But this never happened in fantasy before.
I wonder if we have to change the rules.
And it doesn't make sense because teams are going for it on fourth and one more than ever.
Much more than ever.
But we're still getting these 55-yard blasts in cold weather.
I had, in that Houston game, Woody Marks scored.
It was shotgun.
I couldn't tell if it was intentionally in a hammer or it was a fuck-up.
But it was a shotgun snap that went by.
Stroud's bounced right to Mark's and Mark's ran in for a touchdown.
You think that's a touchdown?
You think that should count as a touchdown?
I think when a guy runs it in as a touchdown, it's a touchdown.
Okay.
So we've used CBS forever.
I mean, you've had CBS since the 90s, right?
People made fun of us for that when you posted that.
They're like, that's what you get for using CBS.
We like seeing the history and everything of 25 years.
Yeah, it has every champion and every season we've ever had.
At some point, we're stuck with CBS, whether we like it or not.
So five minutes passes, there's no marks update for my touchdown, my six points touchdown. and then I'm looking at the play-by-play or whatever, and it says Stroud fumble marks recovery, which, by the way, we also count.
Sure.
But if you watch the play, I don't understand it.
A millionaire said that was a fumble recovery.
It was a run play.
Yeah.
It's a shotgun snap that went to him, and he ran it in.
How can they fuck this up?
It's the playoffs.
Have they not given you credit still?
I don't know.
Let me look.
Let me look at the double deuce.
Yeah, they haven't. assholes.
Give me my six points.
I only won by 3.9 points.
This could have been.
I was like one more Stafford touchdown away where I would have lost by 01 because the CBS jerks wouldn't give me my six points for Woody Marks.
And then he immediately got hurt right after.
All of a sudden, red flag.
Yeah, right, right.
He always leaves games.
He set the record for leaving games.
Yeah, I forgot he only plays for an hour.
And then his backup came in.
And ran for 100 yards.
Yeah.
Because I made this big play this week.
I had Stratton as my QB with Marks and Nico Collins.
And I'm like, Houston's going to roll it up on Arizona.
And I was right.
And unfortunately, Woody Marks didn't want to join the party.
How is just this team?
I'm looking at this Val Lizard receiver, Boutte, Marks.
He was another one.
How did you get this?
I picked up Vele.
Isn't it Vele?
Yeah, it's Vele.
I don't know.
On the Saints, who was great.
And then he left.
Right.
He got injured, too.
Yeah, they should give you – look, it has to count as a touchdown for someone, right?
So if it's not a defense or special teams touchdown, which it's obviously not, then it has to go to – I don't care if it's a lineman or a fan or whoever jumps on the ball and runs it in.
They get credit.
Here's the thing.
They're updating everybody's scores constantly.
So they obviously have a million people working behind the scenes.
This Woody Marks thing is one of the most important things that happened all weekend.
They couldn't have figured out a ruling?
Jerks.
Why did they torture us?
Panther Saints, by the way, that was incredible.
Way more entertaining than it should have been.
And I think Tyler Shuck might just be good.
I don't even know if he's serviceable.
I think he actually might be good.
If I'm a Saints fan, I don't want a quarterback next year.
I'm good.
Let's roll with this dude.
Get him more blocking.
If you look at the top six, I think only the Raiders are going to take a quarterback.
I mean, there's going to be shuffling around, and the teams are going to trade.
But I'm with you with Chuck.
I was watching with my kids at halftime of the late afternoon games.
I'm like, let's take an underdog.
Let's pick an underdog.
Who do you want?
And we all took the Saints, and that was exciting as hell.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Watch the Panthers just beat.
We haven't even talked about it at Tampa, how they've blown this.
Pretty damn good.
They're still in the lead somehow, even though they chipped on Thursday night.
They're the favorite.
The Panthers kind of got dominated, I felt like, in the last hour of the game.
Yeah.
Saints were moving it.
Panthers couldn't run the ball at all.
Saints.
So I lost.
I had an all-line Saints minus three and a half future.
That was like two to one.
But you know what?
Hats off to them.
Under three and a half?
Under three and a half.
It was plus 200.
Gotcha.
Say goodbye to that one.
But I got to give the Saints credit.
I thought they played a good game, could come back.
A lot of it was great down the stretch.
And now we have two depressingly ugly Panthers-Bucks games in the next three weeks.
To decide who will be the host of the Shakey's game.
Because I don't see any other way.
Oh, you're right.
Yeah, they have to.
In fact, I have a line.
Can Fando put this as a line?
Tampa-Seattle minus 135 over Jacksonville and the Chargers.
Ooh.
Jacksonville-Chargers feels very Shakey's-ish.
What is that?
You're thinking that's a 3-6?
4-5?
Yeah, 3-6.
No, that's not a 4-5.
3-6.
Yeah.
So, yeah, it's funny how Baltimore-Pittsburgh won't be a Shakey's game, even though they're junk.
No.
Although if Pittsburgh's the fourth seed, it could be the shakiest game.
But the problem is they won't put Buffalo or New England in the shakiest game.
They'll get Aaron Rodgers in a prime spot if he's around there.
They're not putting a good quarterback in a shakiest game.
I was so mad at that Tampa game Thursday.
But also glad it was a Thursday, because I would have had it in thousands for T-shirts if it was Sunday.
That was the worst loss of the year, I think.
You're up two touchdowns.
The team scores two touchdowns and misses both conversions.
19 penalties.
What else do you need?
Kyle Pitts wakes up, has more touchdowns.
There's like 8% of his career fantasy points in one game.
Come on.
Come on.
Raheem Morris is like, this team had 19 penalties.
Never say die, guys.
Meanwhile, they're minus 330 to win the division.
Carolina plus 260.
Yeah, so the playoff odds, the playoff matchups right now, Denver and Rams won seeds.
So we'd have Pats Texans, Jags Chargers, Steelers Bills.
So Pats Texans would be the best of those three games.
And then in the NFC, Bears Packers.
That's a good one.
Eagles Niners in Philly.
And then Tampa, Seattle.
And the thing with Seattle is that the offense just I just don't know how they're going to get to like 20 24, 25 points in a playoff game.
And the defense against Phil Rivers, I wouldn't say they were they were awesome to watch.
They were fine.
Seattle's going to lay two and a half to Tampa for the Shakey's game.
We're going to love it.
We're going to be all over it.
And Tampa's going to win by three touchdowns.
Mike Evans is going to have 160 yards.
We're going to be vomiting up Mojo potatoes on the way to the parking lot.
Quick on Texans cards.
The Stroud starting to put it together in a real way is the December wildcard for me.
Yeah.
Because if he can create plays and put up enough offense to match their defense, then they're just a live underdog in every playoff game.
Jaguars-Jets.
Trevor Lawrence is here to rope us in.
Five touchdowns today.
Yeah.
I'll be interested to see if the fans get chirpy this week because this podcast, along with every other podcast, every other writer some serious questions about Trevor Lawrence which apparently now have been answered, because he lit up the Jets.
He's playing your dumb team next week, so he'll look good in that game too.
So I feel like there's going to be some real Trevor Lawrence momentum.
He's not playing my team, I thought he plays your team.
No, the Chargers play the Cowboys.
Jacksonville plays.
Oh, they're at Denver next week, so now we'll know.
I just want to remind people before they start throwing the Trevor Lawrence stuff at us, heading in today he was 30th in EPA for quarterbacks, between number 29, Michael Penix, who's no longer playing football, and number 31, Carson Wentz, who's also no longer playing football.
So congrats on the Jets game.
I'm still not buying Trevor Lawrence stock.
I need to see a little more if that's cool.
I need to sell you a little more too, but I have to physically be able to see it more, because this was on such a small TV.
I call this game a squinter because I had a squint to my eyes to make it out on the very small four box I have in the TV.
It's a squint box.
It's a squint box, yeah.
What is that?
I was like, I know Brady Cook's going to throw with three interceptions.
He wasn't good in Missouri.
He had 11 touchdowns his senior year.
Yeah, but the one thing Jacksonville's doing is I know it's the Jets, but they're kind of hammering teams early
Right?
It's not like 16, 14 late.
You know, they get some groove and they got some feeling and they have a little home swagger.
So I don't know if it keeps up.
They might have a good coach.
I mean we might have, like Vrabel, Ben Johnson and Liam Cohen, like having these dramatic impacts, and then Pete Carroll doing the opposite in Vegas.
I think he's like one win away from being fifth all time in Jacksonville Jaguars coaching wins.
Liam Cohen.
Liam Cohen?
Yes.
Just from this year.
Eagles, Raiders.
Eagles got back on track.
Raiders are now the worst team in the league.
Biden was on the sideline.
For this game?
That was Pete Carroll.
Oh, that was Biden?
What game was Biden at?
Wasn't he at this game?
Do you think he was at there because he saw Pete Carroll and he felt like he needed to be on the sideline with him?
Brother!
I'm going backwards for the season.
Um, I think, looking back the week, everybody spent wondering if Tom Brady had an unfair advantage with all the inside info he was getting in the games he was doing.
Was that unfair for the Raiders?
Is the funniest storyline in retrospect.
That's good.
That is pretty good.
Because they're terrible.
And now if we've learned anything, it's that that hasn't helped anyone.
Congrats on that.
I think this was the most foolish I felt about a pick.
I took Vegas plus seven and a half since betting tight.
Oh, God. betting Tyson over Jake Paul.
I think that was like oh, we're getting not only seven, we're getting seven and a hook and Kenny Pickett revenge game.
Like, what am I doing?
75 total yards for the Raiders?
It just gets worse and worse.
I didn't watch Giants, Washington, or Niners, Titans.
And in fact, I've watched less of the Niners this year, I think, than any other playoff team.
Take one more break for the pod.
Come back and I want to talk about the Ravens, Bengals.
We'll stay here on YouTube.
So, Ravens killed the Bengals.
The Burrow situation is getting weird now.
There were signs last week.
Kaus and I talked about this on Thursday because we took the Ravens, partly because we didn't understand some of the Burrow quotes.
Burrow is awful in this game, like really bad.
And afterwards he said there's not a team in the NFL that would have won the game today if I was the quarterback.
I don't know what's going on here, but it really is starting to seem like maybe he's not on this team next year.
I mean, he got suckered.
There's talk about how he might pull an Andrew Luck.
You could see him just retire altogether.
His during the week comments were bizarre, too.
I know sometimes you get sucked into weird questions by the reporters, but he's like, yeah no i don't know if i'm having fun i mean he couldn't even explain it so and then he said guess what anyone who bet the bangles plus two and a half you're not gonna have fun either i mean he threw one of the worst interceptions that was that was brosmer level pick except it was forward and not backhanded but i don't know what the hell's going on with him they played on thanksgiving you look great really bad so max and rich on their show on friday which is a really good show actually um They talked about Burr of the Giants, just like off the comments he had about, well, if he was going to go, where would you want to see him go?
You know, they're going to have, what, one of the top three picks?
Right now, they're scheduled to have the number one pick.
Yeah.
I guess Mendoza would be the number one pick.
Maybe they'll get the third pick.
I don't know, but.
My NBA brand's working here.
What's the right price for Burrow for you?
Let's say the Giants were like, let's go get Joe Burrow.
It's a big contract.
We have the cap space.
We'll throw in Jackson Dart.
We don't think he can stay healthy.
He got possibly concussed again today.
But is it Dart and two firsts?
Is that what I'd have to get if I'm the Bengals?
Is it Dart and one firsts?
Is it more than that?
What is it?
I think it's one now.
I really do.
You think it's just the top three pick?
Because he's been hurt basically every year.
He's 29 years old.
Yeah.
Yeah, there's a lot.
His willingness to play the game if he wants to still play.
All of that stuff.
I think he went from fetching two ones to one one, and plus a Jackson dart.
But you don't see him in Minnesota?
Could you see him in Minnesota?
Like, oh, I'm going to revitalize Justin Jefferson.
We got the LSU connection going.
Goodbye, J.J.
McCarthy.
Like J.J.
McCarthy in a first and a second?
That'd be the most fun, I think.
I don't know if they have the calf space.
It'd be fun to have him in the Giants.
You just don't want him in your division.
No, no, no.
That's enough.
Do you think he's on the Bengals next year?
Yeah, I think after all this shakes out.
I mean, they got him as receivers.
That's the thing.
It's just not working out.
And Higgins being out was not good.
They still can't block for him, though.
I would have rather had the ability to block.
Yeah.
Right, every year it's the same thing.
Well, that's what happens when you pay two monster wide receiver contracts.
But it doesn't seem like anyone cares in that organization.
They didn't even sweep down the snow off the seats today.
I saw that.
I saw that.
It's like, we're not going to score anyway.
You don't want to use these seats.
It's fine.
They're the cheapest organization in the league by far.
Yeah.
Their fans are miserable.
I think they leave as much unspent cap as anybody.
They have this incredible asset.
We talked about this in our, in our preseason overrunners.
They had this incredible asset that they just decided not to protect with their offensive line in any way.
I don't know.
I would, I would probably, uh, I would probably think about moving on.
We thought they were back though.
Well, What we saw on Thanksgiving was like, oh boy, just too little too late from this team, right?
Joe Cool.
Joe Cool's back.
We saw him in the tunnel with various ascots and everything.
Good job.
And then even the first half against the Bills, he was very good, right?
It's not good.
I'm also a little worried about our fourth place bet that we did.
We have Saints.
Yeah.
Browns.
Titans.
Is that it?
Browns and Titans are doing a solid.
The Saints, was there one more?
I can't remember.
I think we were good with three of them, but the Saints winning doesn't help.
But Atlanta winning that Thursday was okay, too.
Let's do guest lines.
Week 16, I won last week.
I don't like this.
You're up 9-6 after 15 weeks.
We should mention two Saturday games this year.
This week, yeah.
This week.
So we go Thursday, two Saturday, Sunday, Monday.
It's officially a don't get divorced weekend.
It's tough.
Christmas shopping, kids home from school.
Just be careful with your relationships and your marriages and everything else.
Two Saturday games.
Two Saturday pro games, three college playoff games.
Saturday.
A lot going on.
Thursday night.
Rams at Seattle.
I don't see how Seattle is favored in this game.
After what I watched today, even with Devontae Adams hurt.
I put this game in the tic-tac zone.
I have Rams minus one and a half.
All right, we're tied here.
I can't even get off to like a lead here.
It is one and a half.
If Adams was playing, I probably would have gone two and a half.
Really?
Yeah.
That much difference.
I think he's worth a point.
This is going to be a mess.
I know there's no way we could stay away from it, but I think you called it.
Seattle could now look like they're the best in the league.
I mean, three days rest.
They've got to figure out the special team stuff.
Shahid finally didn't do a fair catch at the five after he did one in the first quarter again today.
I think the fair catch in the five is my most annoying play of 2025.
Did that internal rule go away?
Don't have a fair catch inside the 10.
Keep your feet on the 10.
If you feel yourself going backwards, don't catch the ball.
Just run away from it.
Yeah, well, it used to at least be the 5.
If you feel yourself drifting, just, yeah, sprint to the sideline.
Quite a spot for the Seahawks.
Yeah.
Saturday, you can skip the first game.
Eagles-Washington.
I feel like this game happens every year.
The Eagles are always favored.
We put them in nine parlays, and then Washington wins.
Yeah.
So let's not do that this year.
Oh, we're not going to bet?
No, we're not going to do that this year.
Let's not do that.
All right.
We can guess it, but we're not going to bet the Eagles.
Just promise me you won't let me bet the Eagles.
I promise you.
Yeah, because they seem too back.
This is what we needed.
The NFL really needs Washington to be frisky in their three games.
Yeah.
Like you said, the Christmas game, this one, and Week 18.
Why don't they try to figure out?
Why don't they look at the same stuff we look at when we're doing over-unders, when they're figuring out the TV schedule?
Looking ahead?
Washington was the most obvious regression team in either conference.
Right.
Why didn't they realize it might be a little dangerous to put them on Christmas or Saturday or whatever?
There's here the 19 reasons they might go backwards.
Way too many eggs in the Washington basket.
I have Eagles by minus five and a half.
Directly in the Vegas zone.
All right.
I don't know what point I have to call cheating here, but you nailed it exactly.
Again, I said seven and a half.
You don't think it should be seven or more at this point?
Well, Washington won today.
They've been okay the last two weeks.
I don't care if they play bad teams, what they do.
Or I guess I should say the same about Philly.
You know why I went, why I didn't?
I thought about doing the seven or the seven and a half because of the teases.
Yeah.
I just don't think anyone wants to lay more than five and a half points with the Eagles at this point.
Mm-hmm.
Going seven and up with that team, you just feel stupid.
Is this the Raiders thing?
I want to see team's records after playing the Raiders.
It's like playing horse with your six-year-old son.
Right.
Getting a pickup game.
Like eating ribs with Brad.
Yeah.
Packers at Chicago is another game.
Now, this is an awesome game.
Really good.
So spend time with your family during the first game.
Carve out the second game.
And is this going against a playoff game?
It is, right?
It's going against a college game?
Yeah, it is.
Yeah, there's three.
Is this the Texas A&M-Miami game?
Yeah, I think so.
This is against a good one.
I feel like there's going to be some marital and relationship strife on this Saturday.
And there's parties Saturday night.
Yeah.
We've got to figure this out.
I hit this exactly, so really concentrate here.
Packers at Chicago.
I went Packers minus two and a half.
Yeah, it's Packers minus two and a half.
Three for three.
Did I hit the first three exact?
I didn't hit the Rams game, did I?
You hit the first three exact.
Yeah, what do you want me to say?
What a streak I'm on.
Look at this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, you're looking ahead of time.
You're looking ahead.
What's your record?
Nine or something?
Not looking at anything.
All right.
Packers minus two now.
That's a tough one.
We got lucky.
Oh, you didn't have that.
Two weeks ago, you had Chicago, right?
When Green Bay won by seven.
That was last week already.
Yeah.
That was last week.
I lost that one.
Yeah.
All right.
I like the Bears in that game.
Sunday marquee game.
This has to be the first time in years that the Jaguars have been in the marquee game.
Yeah.
Right.
And yet here they are playing in Denver.
And I have the Broncos favored by four.
Wait, what happened here?
I think I get this.
Broncos minus four.
I said two and a half.
It's three.
I'm not used to winning.
So, yeah, that's it.
Wow, that's a lot of respect for the Jags.
Yeah.
I don't know if I agree with that.
Denver's won 11 in a row now?
Yeah.
We'll see.
Watchables.
Got three watchables.
I put your dumb team in here.
Cowboys home for the chargers.
Yeah.
It's playoff implications.
You're not quite dead yet.
It'll be a fun game to watch.
You know, I wish we weren't, I wish we didn't have to worry about playoffs, right?
Like it just puts such a sting in it.
Like I.
It would be.
It'd be so much fun to watch if we were like the Savannah bananas of the NFL.
You know, just an hour.
Yeah.
Who said you were the entertaining team?
You're right.
Let's just switch the uniforms, get it done.
Is Justin Herbert a starting quarterback in fantasy playoffs this week?
Playing your team?
Yeah, I think so.
I would take him over like Lamar and some of these less trustworthy guys.
I have a tic-tac.
I have the Chargers minus one and a half over the Cowboys.
I think I'm going to get this.
Oh, you have the Chargers.
I had Dallas minus three.
It's Dallas minus two and a half.
Over the Chargers.
Let me see if I'm looking at this right.
Dallas minus one and a half, 49 and a half.
Yeah.
Minus one and a half.
Yep.
Oh, what did I say?
Oh, shit.
Well, you still got it because I had the Chargers minus one and a half.
Okay.
Don't you think that flips by Sunday?
Yeah, probably.
Why would people be excited to bet that Cowboys here?
What's George Pickens' price now?
It's going to be interesting.
He went from $28 million a year to $2.8 million?
Who do you franchise tag, Pickens or Aubrey, if you're Jerry?
Aubrey.
You do?
Wow, you didn't even think about it.
Don't even blink at that.
Yeah, because kickers aren't even that expensive.
So then you're going to lose Pickens, probably.
Okay.
That's fine?
All right, wow.
Yeah, it's a couple of good-bad games.
That's all it takes.
Sorry, George.
Watchables, Bucks at Panthers in the future at NFC South.
This could only end in a tie.
It would be the only perfect outcome.
It's in Carolina.
I have Tampa favored by two and a half.
We both get that.
And that is exactly what it is.
There was an interesting video of the Bucs leaving the field on Thursday and the defensive guys yelling at each other.
That I thought was noteworthy.
I couldn't hear it because I was yelling myself at everyone in the house.
You were yelling at everybody.
You had 19 fucking penalties.
You still lost.
Disgusting.
Yeah.
Everybody praising Raheem Morris.
Like, oh, he did it.
What a great job, Herbstree.
What a great job.
You got these guys together for this.
They had 19 penalties.
They really didn't do a great job.
I yelled at Rich.
That was my first note on the Max and Rich because he said Raheem Morris was a good coach.
I had to mail him his record.
Why do you say that?
Raheem's not a good coach.
I just thought he was a good coach.
I was like, I have to correct you.
He's not a good coach.
He's a mediocre coach, but he's not good.
He's 33 and 57, lifetime.
Lions, Steelers, in Detroit.
And if there's ever a game that has to be in the Vegas zone, this is it.
And I have the Lions by four and a half.
All right, good.
I had you out here.
I said five.
It's seven.
It's all the way up to seven.
Lions are weird.
We didn't talk about T.J.
Watt getting stabbed by the Chargers doctor.
Yeah.
Oh, no, it was his own doctor.
It was his own doctor, yeah.
I don't think we can blame the Chargers doctor.
How did this happen twice in a decade?
I guess this wasn't as crazy because what do they call it?
They don't call it a stab, but a poke?
I don't know what they call it, but it's pretty routine, but it went poorly.
I would say so.
It collapsed part of his lung.
Yeah, it's not good.
It's not good.
Like, if that was like, let's say, Zoe was having a breathing issue or something, and they did that and it collapsed half of her lung, I would be out of my mind for like three weeks.
No doubt.
I'd be so mad.
I would be like trying to sue everybody.
In sports, they're like, oh, kind of a fuck up.
It's pretty weird.
I always thought a collapsed lung should be a worse prognosis.
But you kind of recover fairly quickly from a collapsed lung.
Yeah, it's crazy.
That sounds like one of the worst injuries you could have.
It should be.
Yeah, it sounds like you can bounce back.
That line is too high.
Fairly watchables.
I got three.
Chiefs at Titans.
They really screwed up.
I didn't want to put this in the poopfecta because this whole Post Mahomes era Chiefs.
It's at least worth a whirl on the multi-view.
Right?
Post Mahomes?
Yeah, a little Minshew.
Do you get Post Mahomes new CD?
Download that on Spotify as soon as you can.
I put this in the Vegas zone, too.
Chiefs, five and a half.
Who gets this?
I said four.
It's three and a half.
I get it.
This is Minshew leading this team.
I guess you have to get points no matter what.
So, if Mahomes is the QB, what's the line?
Nine?
It's so stupid.
Yeah.
So, he's worth five and a half points?
Maybe four and a half.
Maybe four and a half or something.
They dumbed this down, this whole thing.
Who on the Sunday Ringer gambling show is going to take the Titans as their underdog?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
This has a whiff of JJ to it.
Man's best bet.
Yeah.
Friends don't let friends bet the Titans, but I'm not listening to you.
I'm taking them.
Mike McCoy has figured it out.
Fairly watchables.
Dolphins home for the Bengals.
I can't believe it, but I'm going to lose all my Dolphins-unders.
I had already spent the money in my head after they were 1-6 or whatever.
And they went on this winning streak.
They're probably going to win tomorrow night in Pittsburgh.
And now they're playing a depressed Joe Burrow and a terrible Bengals team in this game at home.
And I have them as three-point favorites.
Miami is three.
I had two.
It's one and a half.
All right, good.
I'm starting to build some momentum.
What's the score?
Hey, so we, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven to four.
It's a nice little lead for me.
For you or me?
For me.
I'm losing now?
Yeah.
I got the first three exactly.
How am I losing?
You went on a sad streak after that.
We also, speaking of sad streaks, have a big bet of Miami to not make the playoffs on a parlay right.
Oh, yeah.
You're not worried at all about this?
They're not going to make the playoffs.
Yeah, that's true.
I'm looking at this now.
10-7 is the best they're going to do.
Can I give you the futures I'm most depressed that I lost?
Yeah.
These are losing bets.
Philly, KC, and Baltimore all to make the playoffs was plus 110.
I somehow lost that.
New England, Philly and KC all to make the playoffs plus 312.
Wow, loser.
I see a common theme here.
Casey for the afc west plus 110 loser.
I was right with you.
This one really hurt 200, 200.
I did this on fando, it was plus 2200.
Yeah, new england, casey and philly all to be in first place and new england was the wild card one And that hit.
And somehow KC is not going to be in first place.
Did you have that for a couple weeks at least?
It might have been exciting for a couple weeks.
Yeah.
But I have these no playoff bets that we did.
Miami, Cleveland, New Orleans, Tennessee.
Right.
And then we also did Miami, Cleveland, Giants, Tennessee.
And then we have our last place thing too.
Yeah.
This was fun.
Plus 337.
Denver makes the playoffs.
Cincy, the Saints, and Cleveland don't.
Mm-hmm.
I'm counting that as a win.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's good.
What's more embarrassing?
When you um bet a team to make the playoffs, like the chiefs, and they don't, or when you bet against the Colts and like by week eight there.
Uh although, although that's looking good, that's not a good example, but did they?
But they hit the over though.
Yeah.
They hit the over.
That's, that's what they hit.
They're overhead early, but they're plus eight, 10 to make the playoffs.
So Jesus.
Um, okay.
Guess the lines.
Next one.
Yeah, we're still doing it.
I still can come back here.
Bills at the Browns.
Tough day for Shador.
Not a lot of texts from Charlemagne today, and my text started that I'm on with him about Shador.
Oh, really?
Last week, there was a lot.
Are you pro Shador, and he's against him?
No, he's pro.
He was really bullish last week on Shador.
This week, quiet.
Has Shador made one team regret the decision to pass on him, including the Browns who passed on him four times before taking him?
I thought he was pretty good last week.
There were signs, at least.
This week, he was pretty good.
He lost to the Titans, but yeah.
I mean, the first two minutes of the game this week, there was a false start and two delay of games.
And he throws Jerry Judy under the bus in the post-game press conference.
I didn't like that.
It wasn't his fault.
That would have been a really, really tough, hard catch for Jerry Judy.
Yeah, right.
He held the ball on fourth and goal for 7.92 seconds and took a sack instead of throwing it.
And the front office is like, we need Deshaun back.
What's his status?
Let's do it.
I don't know what his ceiling is or what he's going to look like four years from now.
The two things I've noticed is the same shit that people said in college.
He holds the ball too long, and it doesn't seem like he's quite athletic enough.
You know what I mean?
You want him to be more athletic than he actually is.
I don't know what the ceiling is, but I do think there's something about him that makes sense when you're watching.
You're like, oh, I can see it.
I feel like I've seen this before.
Can he put it together, though?
Yeah, can he put it together?
But I don't think – it's not one of those where you see certain quarterbacks and you're like I don't see it.
This guy does not have it.
Like a Nathan Peterman or somebody.
Brosmer.
Yeah, Brosmer.
It's like, I don't see it.
Well, tell Charlemagne to figure it out.
Yeah, I'll argue about it with him tomorrow.
I was off by a point here.
What do you have?
I had Bills minus 10.5 in Cleveland.
Oh, you got it exactly.
I said 9.5.
All right, so that's going to be on your 13-point teaser or 10-point teaser.
I mean, that's a freebie.
We can't love Josh Allen all the time.
I guess my question with the Browns is do they have one more game at home where they get a lead and their defense kind of lays the smack down and they're awesome?
Because they do this like four times a year, right?
They'll get like a special teams play.
They'll get a long pass play.
They'll get some sort of fumble thing.
And then their defense, Myles Garrett goes nuts.
Right.
But I'm not worried about that with Josh Allen in the game.
I'm not either, unless he gets hurt.
So to answer your question, I will be putting them in a team.
Yeah, I mean, we should figure that out.
We should have cross-off teams that are just not going to be competitive these last three weeks.
Are the Raiders one of them?
Are they ever going to be in a game that rests a month?
Are the Browns?
Are the Titans?
Really figure it out.
Well, the Raiders have a chance.
For what?
So if they fire Pete at the end of the year, they're probably still paying Antonio Pierce.
Paying everyone.
Do you think they're still paying McDaniels?
Aren't they paying Gruden?
And they're still paying Gruden because that was like an 11-year contract.
They might be able to pay five coaches next year.
That'd be good.
Poop fact of four games.
Saints home for the Jets.
This is going to be one of my ringer 107 picks.
I love the Saints.
Saints minus two and a half.
Oh, I get this, right?
I said six.
It's four and a half.
And I can't believe it's not.
Why do you think it was two and a half?
Cause it's the saints.
They're four and 10.
They're decent.
Jets are three and 11 with the going nowhere.
Yeah, I probably went to, I like this too.
I don't love that it's in the Vegas zone, but I do like, I like the saints here.
Vikings at the giants.
Uh, let's put a 0.5 on that and do Vikings minus three and a half.
Um, that's exactly what I said.
And it's one and a half. unless it changed after, let's see.
It's two and a half now.
It's two and a half now.
Either way, we split it.
Falcons at the Cardinals who have to be, this was not a good last couple weeks for them.
I can't imagine Jonathan Gaynor will be the coach next year, but we'll see.
Falcons minus three is my pick.
They lost 11 out of 12.
Their one win was against the Cowboys.
You're going to get this.
I went way too high.
I said five and a half.
It's one and a half.
Falcons by one and a half.
Do I have any chance of winning?
Let's say seven, two, three, four, five, six.
Nine to seven.
Yeah, there's three left.
Yeah, okay.
And I was off a lot and won.
Texans home for the Raiders.
I thought this was a higher than you thought game.
And I went high and I did Texans minus 13.
Yeah, I said 12 and it's 14 and a half.
Oh, that's higher than I thought.
See, I was right.
One, two, three, six, eight.
All right.
I'm up one.
I have to maintain, and it's got to be on this game, I think.
Did you see Hamnet?
No.
What is that?
Jon Hamm?
It's a movie.
It's Jon Hamm's new movie.
It's got a net.
Really?
He's a trapeze artist?
No, it's Hamnet.
Hamnet.
Hamnet.
I forget how you pronounce it, but it's really great.
I think it's a good one to watch with the wife.
It's emotional.
No, I was thinking your football season's over.
I want to watch an emotional movie with your wife.
Yeah, that's what I want to do.
That's a cheer.
That'll pick me up.
Sunday night.
Patriots at the Ravens.
It's a tic-tac game.
And I went back and forth.
And I landed on the Patriots minus one and a half.
Okay, good.
All right, I win the week.
I said Baltimore minus three and a half, and it's two and a half.
Wow, I was up by four points.
Yeah.
You love the Pats on the teaser.
You love them.
Plus eight and a half.
That's on your ring of 107.
Honestly, I think that's outrageous that the Pats aren't favored in this game.
Really?
Yeah.
What's good about the Ravens?
Well, let's see.
They were two and a half to Cincy, right, today?
On the road.
So that's the same number.
Now, nothing's good about them, except when you see Henry with a burst of energy.
Every once in a while, yeah.
That's what that should look like.
I thought Burrow single-handedly lost that game today.
All right.
Just for fun, let's do San Francisco-Indianapolis.
In Indianapolis, Niners minus two and a half is my pick.
I don't know.
I said three and a half.
It's five and a half.
Come on, Bill.
You got to get better at this.
The Niners are favored by five and a half in Indianapolis.
Yep.
After what we saw today, the Indianapolis played well today.
They power rank them high when they go against 72-year-old quarterbacks or just quarterbacks that aren't established.
I would not be laying that five and a half.
But maybe they'll see stuff with Phil.
Yeah.
All right, nine seconds.
All right.
Back in it.
Congrats.
I spent a lot of time with Jacoby this week because he was in town.
Yeah.
We watched some basketball.
He roots for me a lot, yeah.
Yeah, he mentioned it's one of the highlights of his week, rooting for you.
So sad.
Yeah.
All right.
He really enjoys it.
I'm glad I didn't let him down.
All right, Parent Corner, you're up.
We're doing it?
Are we sponsoring?
Yeah.
No, we're not sponsored.
We're just going.
Nobody wanted to sponsor us after we had a controversial parent corner a couple weeks ago.
I just don't have a sponsor this week.
All the kids are home, right?
It's great.
You got the kids home.
College, Zoe's home.
Archie drove 14 hours.
And his girlfriend arrives tomorrow.
And she's staying for most of the week.
And uh, my wife's just a little too crazy, like trying to figure this out what to put by her bed.
Is it sees, candies and flowers?
And I was like, first time, first time.
Okay.
First time, basically first time we met her, we met her in New York for about 40 seconds.
And then they went there separate ways.
I don't know why she happened to be there.
We were there.
So anyway um, we get like one dinner with her and then he's going to do whatever the rest of the few days.
Uh, they're together.
So I was like, all right, we'll go to Bianco Monday night.
And, uh, And that'll be good.
And she'll have some good pizza.
And my son, Jack, is like, I'm not going to that.
The Steelers are playing.
I'm a big Steelers.
I'm going to the bar.
He goes to this bar locally and watches the game with these strangers, like these 50-year-old strangers.
And I was like, you're going to blow off the dinner to go to this bar?
He's like, yeah, she'll understand.
Archie will understand.
Otherwise, I'm thinking, like You know, we better just let him go, because he'll be watching the game on his phone at the dinner.
And he is not like me where he bottles up his emotions.
Like every play, there'll be an F-bomb and the waiter will look over.
I'm like, let's just let him go.
So my wife's like, really?
Since when do you bottle up your emotions?
When did that start?
That's just tonight.
Just tonight.
Yeah, it's working.
Yeah, it's a pre-New Year's resolution.
But anyway, all right.
So he's not going.
My youngest son will go and he'll be looking at his watch, talking to his kids, talking to his friends, the whole time.
So she's not going to be impressed with that.
And then there's me and I'm like, I don't trust myself at one of these because I love eating.
And I said to Archie, I said, what is the acceptable amount of pizza?
How many slices before you guys have a conversation about me afterwards?
Right.
Let me hear your answer first.
There are small slices.
You know how it is.
I was going to ask.
So give me more info on the slices.
Well, you know, it's Bianco.
What do you mean?
But is it like when Bianco when he makes the pizza, or is it like the individual when you order the slices?
No, no, no.
It's when he makes the pizza.
So we'll get a Rosa.
So it's a little smaller.
Yeah, yeah.
Are you going to eat the crust?
I will eat the crust.
You know how it is.
I think that's a waste.
Yeah, you always get mad running underneath the crest.
I don't like it.
I think it's childish.
That's where all the good carbs are.
She won't notice the first four.
Yeah.
Five, I think her radar will start going off.
Six is my answer.
Oh, no.
I was hoping I can get eight.
Six?
Only six?
I think six.
I think she becomes concerned at six.
Well, that's what Archie's like.
If you're in the crests.
Archie said six also, but I said, what if it's eight?
And he's like, I just, it kind of depends what it is.
It can't be like everyone's done and then you're going to have four more.
So I have to time this.
Oh, the Joe House.
Like when you come in late, you come in out of the bullpen and you close.
Yeah.
Like you don't like when I do that either.
You're like, well, what are we ordering for Sal?
And I was like, all right, screw you.
I'll eat most of the calamari rings because I'm not getting a drink here like you guys.
But whatever it is.
First of all, that's just not true at all.
I've always encouraged your overeating.
You do?
I've never judged you ever.
You don't like to share.
You don't like to.
But when we do the sharings.
I don't like to share dessert.
And I stand on that till the day I die.
Yeah.
I think it's weird to like, let's share an ice cream or let's share pudding or.
Okay.
Tomorrow you would recommend we each get our own dessert.
No, you can do what you want.
I just don't personally love sharing dessert, but I'm also an only child.
I'm not going to defend myself.
Yeah, you really are.
Yeah.
Your father can't fix that, huh?
No.
All right.
Maybe there's still time.
I don't know.
I'm going to eat eight slices of pizza tomorrow, and so be it.
If they talk, they talk.
I'll let you know how it goes.
And is this the only dinner where you're all going out together?
I think so.
Yeah, maybe ever again.
Yeah.
My wife is very nervous about this whole thing.
See how it goes.
This all sounds great.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't actually really have a parent corner this week, other than something I brought up a few weeks ago, but I'll bring it up again.
This whole thing where our parents don't tell us that there's stuff going on with them because they don't want to worry us.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I really want to talk this out.
Because our parent corners, because our kids got older, are now turning into parent corners about our parents and not us being the parent.
Are you going to do this when you're in your late 70s?
You'll have some procedure and you just won't tell Archie?
And then you'll tell him after the fact and then he'll be like, why didn't you tell me?
I would have loved to have known or I could have driven you.
And you'd be like, well, I didn't want to worry you.
Right.
Is this just something you do when you're in your late 70s?
So if I have to get four slices of pizza removed from my spleen and I don't say...
You have to have your stomach pumped.
Right.
I'm leaning towards not saying anything, I think, only because— So we're going to do this.
I think I'm rebelling against my parents, who are just the opposite and don't—.
Oh, they gave you too much information.
Every single step of the way.
They made a left turn or a right turn before they got to see their sign.
Whatever it is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I think I would do that.
Cousin Jimmy, Jimmy's dad.
Mm-hmm.
Is the opposite.
He's an overshare, right?
He loves it.
He's like, here's the update.
I went and whatever.
But our parents don't do that.
Right.
Mine does.
Yours don't.
Yeah.
Yeah, my dad does.
Really?
And you don't like that?
Well, I'm 3,000 miles away.
I'd like to know.
He's having some arthritis stuff in his neck, but he had some procedure.
And he's like yeah, I didn't want to worry you, but I'm home for the next couple of days because I had this procedure.
And I'm like, what do you mean a procedure?
Like a surgery?
He's like, well... And I was like, did they have to put you out?
And he was like, yeah, but it wasn't a serious one.
I was like, but you had to go under?
But he didn't want to worry me.
But I think it worries me more that he didn't want to worry me.
Now I'm even more worried that that's his attitude of not worrying me.
And you could talk to his wife?
My stepmother.
Yeah.
Well, because my stepmother, she's not...
She won't tell me.
Oh, I see.
She's going to be loyal to him.
Right, right, right.
That's tough.
The only thing I'll say is when it gets to this age and this isn't going to be comforting you could assume that every four months is going to be.
Well, that was his thing.
It's like it was nothing major.
I'm old, blah, blah, blah.
I got arthritis.
And then, you know, my mom had the same thing.
Like she had a cut and she went to the ER for it.
And she told me like two days later because she didn't want to worry me.
She was like, it was no big deal.
I was like, well, if you go to the ER, I'd like to know.
I'm here.
I would go.
I think you could understand it, though.
You're a pretty private guy, though, when it comes to stuff like that, right?
Isn't the parent-child ER slash surgery slash whatever?
I feel like I'm entitled to the information at all times.
All right.
You are an only child.
It's not like he's telling the others.
My daughter came back from college today.
The whole family's back.
I'm really excited.
What do you mean?
She was back, wasn't she back?
Well, then she went.
She went back for classes for two weeks.
Now she's back.
Now we're now, we're all back.
It's nice, isn't it?
It's great, really nice.
Yeah, the family's back.
Did you, did you ever have the empty nester combo with your, with your wife, about what happens if everybody's gone?
Um, What do you mean?
Like all the kids are out of the house.
I know we're replacing them with dogs.
I don't want to take it back to dogs because I know you hit that.
So more dogs.
I think it's going to be one more.
It's going to be two dogs.
Yeah.
Why?
Did you have that conversation?
No, it's just, you know, Ben's going to be in college next year.
Right.
Unless we have another kid.
I don't know.
I got to check.
Yeah.
Pretty old at this point.
Have another kid.
Your dad should have another kid.
You figured it out.
You really solved it.
Yeah, I mean, freaking... No, you have the Harrison thing.
You solved it.
Right, every other week.
You mean Cooperstown in July?
That's fine.
99 degree, staying in some barracks?
Between now and July I have 30 tournaments, two-day tournaments in cities in California.
No one would ever want to.
It's amazing Babydoll doesn't own one of these Little League tournaments because it's the all-time money grab.
It should be like the Money Grab production.
Yeah, it should be Money Grab Field of Dreams presented by James Dixon.
Yeah, we got to get him in there.
He buys dumb shit.
I talked to him this weekend, and you're not going to believe this, but he was in Martha's Vineyard.
And it was beautiful there, baby.
How many country clubs?
11?
I don't know.
We got that Christmas card from our cousin.
Yeah.
He makes a James Babydoll Dixon Christmas card and pretends Babydoll sent it and even somehow gets Baby's return address on there and sends it out.
And it's all braggadocious stuff about what he's accomplished this year.
I belong between 11 and 16 country clubs.
Yeah, right, right, right.
I almost got to have dinner with Al Pacino.
It would have been one of the great moments of my life, but...
It goes on and on.
So good.
All right.
That's it for Parent Corner.
That's it for the pod.
You got the Ringer Gambling Show Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.
You're doing a good job.
But when you're driving, I think the hosting's really gone up a notch for you this year.
Yeah.
I like what you've done this year.
Well, thanks.
You've added some things.
I try to be like Terry Bradshaw and Colin Coward in a nice little combination of those two.
It's like how Jalen Brown added that little crossover step back.
I feel like you've added a couple moves.
Thank you.
I like to add a couple wins so I don't have to go to the bank and meet with weirdos.
We'll be back next Sunday.
What's the Sunday night game next week?
Your guys.
Oh, yeah.
They flexed us.
That's a fun one.
That's a good one.
Yeah.
I'm already taking the line personally.
Yeah, so we'll be back after Raven's Pass on YouTube.
Sal?
Good job by you.
Good job by you, buddy.
Thanks to Gahal and thanks to, I think Brian's on because I think Eduardo's off.
Eduardo's off and the Chargers just keep winning without him.
That's it for YouTube.
And then I'll be back.
Rewatchables Monday, High Fidelity.
And then I got a podcast on Tuesday.
I'll see you next week, Sal.
Very good.
I love you.
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