The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where we are still chugging along even though the holidays are coming up.
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Um, coming up, cousin sal and i are going to talk about a very exciting sunday night in the simmons house the new england patriots coming back in baltimore and winning and improving their record to 12-3.
And it was an unexpected delight.
We're going to break it all down.
We're going to take a break.
We're going to bring in Pearl Jam and then Cousins South.
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Hey sal, what's up?
The patriots have made the playoffs.
We did it congratulations.
I don't know where to start, except for an hour ago i felt like this was a loss.
Um, we were gonna have to go back to the drawing board with some of the injury stuff 25 minutes ago, not an hour.
Yeah, whatever it was, drake may went to another level.
Uh, put that one on the old resume.
Collinsworth, I don't know if you heard the tail end was doing the.
I mean Mike, this is, these are the second year guys.
I'm not talking like in the league right now.
I'm talking all time.
I was like, I was like, Oh, Oh, Collinsworth.
What a window for the pats and what a loss for the Ravens.
Where do you want to start?
I heard the Collinsworth.
Yeah.
You know, you just cannot scare Drake Bay.
I've, I've, I've tried it.
I tossed plastic spiders at him.
I threw a shark in his bed one night.
I brought him to the top of Mount Vesuvius and tried to push him off.
You can't do it, Bill.
You can't do it.
Mike, I hid in his closet once, and I had a Michael Myers mask on.
He was not fazed.
I jumped right out.
He didn't move.
He didn't budge.
Yeah, they tried everything.
I mean, the biggest thing they didn't try was playing Derrick Henry in the last seven minutes of the game.
Yeah.
I don't understand what happened.
We couldn't tackle him. well he was just over on the bench with an overcoat on and then after the pat scored to go up four he was still on the bench he didn't get that was weird did he was he hurt they never said anything right i don't know we didn't there were there wasn't a ton of uh injury reporting going today like henderson was just gone we didn't know for an hour what happened to him then like yeah he's gone he's out with a head injury okay thanks But yeah, we didn't have a lot of reporting on this stuff.
That's a big win.
That's a big win.
I mean, you did text us.
You're like, we got too many guys out.
I was like, who's out?
Bronco?
Brady?
DeBondo was getting a little feisty on the Sunday ringer pregame thread about how we were the paper mache Pats.
I was like, hey, we'll be there in January.
We're going to get our guys back.
We were missing all the offensive tackles, the run stopper, and then the home run hitter Henderson.
And it didn't matter because Drake may just said, fuck it.
And Diggs was Diggs was the other one.
Diggs hasn't done that in a month.
You thought he would do it against Buffalo or didn't, but yeah.
No, I see.
Like it's, you know, the, the football gods say, Hey, these guys got beat up by a real quarterback last week.
We got to go back to normal where they just beat up on, on shitty QBs.
So, uh, yeah, my heart bleeds for you.
You got it.
You got, uh, Ty Hundley again.
Nice job, i know, but was was from what lamar has been the last five weeks.
Was it like a massive drop off?
Did you feel like, oh no, i mean i thought it was pretty good.
It was good except for the last drive.
He was okay, he moved the ball.
I mean it wasn't his fault say, flowers got stripped on an awesome play by chase on.
Yeah no, it was a good win.
That's a.
That's the kind of win you want when it's cold and you're on the road and all that stuff.
And now, who knows, maybe you won't even be on the road.
Well, so they're down 24 14.
He hits kyle williams on that bomb in the corner, which is the throw he's made at least 10 times this year for a touchdown and the guys usually never open.
Kyle williams is the speed guy that we have drafted this entire century and have gone basically over 12 in these guys and this is the first one who's actually made plays for them in big moments.
Um, but that was an awesome throw by bay.
And then the next drive.
They're on their what are they on their own?
11 hits Hollins for, for 20.
And they're just moving down.
And then the third really shaky call of the game was that, uh, that long bomb, the booty that he got tackled, no call, even though booty got an OPI on like, You know, a pretty chintzy one earlier than that.
We got a master's class in OPIs and PIs today.
Just all the whole throughout the day.
Like everybody, everybody.
I mean, if I was a Lions fan, I'd be out of my mind.
The Chiefs run that pick play, or at least they did during the Mahomes era.
What did they run that play 10 times a game?
Be careful.
You would have to give back like six Lombardi trophies if you're going to play this game.
The pick plays?
Yeah, of course.
With the Amendola and Edelman?
Yeah.
It was exactly one yard or less than a yard, whatever it was supposed to be.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, the worst one was the St.
Brown OPI.
I just feel like guys do that all the time.
They usually call the big tight ends on that, and that's it.
So May ends up 31 for 44 for 380 with two touchdowns.
And I didn't look at the FanDuel MVP odds, but what do you think?
Did that move him up, or is it Stafford's to lose at this point?
Yeah, it moved him up, because Stafford was minus 350.
He's at minus 185 now, and maybe is plus 160.
Josh Allen is 25-1 now.
Yeah, he wasn't good today.
I think Allen was the right bet for a couple weeks there, but he just didn't do enough in the Cleveland game.
And I think that ship has probably set on him.
Yeah, May is plus 175 right now.
It's moving as we're talking.
It's very exciting.
Well, it's interesting because I have all my notes from when I thought they were going to lose.
And one of the first notes was Drake May, really good.
Not quite good enough because he had the pick in the first half and he had the fumble.
And this is something we've talked about a bunch of times on this pod about like everything is there.
And the last thing is to get rid of those two dumb plays a game and maybe knock them down to one or zero, but the best quarterbacks that they're at one or zero with the dumb plays.
And he had the bad pick and he had the, the fumble and traffic which he's had a couple of times in his career.
And also because the fake punt was terrible.
I don't know why they did that.
What was that?
Fourth and 10.
Yeah.
And it's like if the, if the one receiver is not going to be open over the middle, the place is not going to work.
We're going to have to eat it with our third string.
Safety is going to have to try to take out nine guys.
So I don't know what happened on that.
Let's read your notes as if they lost.
I like let's, you still have those notes.
I think that'll be.
I had a.
Did the Ravens lose anything going from Lamar, from hampered Lamar, to Huntley?
I had.
The pats are missing.
All of their offensive tackles, their run stopper and their home run hitting running back.
Will they be okay in January?
And then I wrote down, is the season just too long?
Because we're just seeing injuries every week now.
And like the lions today were like the fucking zombie lions.
What was that team?
They couldn't even run the ball anymore.
They're not that they were calling running plays, but we have eight, nine teams.
Like the chiefs lost their backup quarterback to a torn ACL, the double torn ACL.
Same injury going for the trifecta next week.
Yeah.
Maybe we don't need an 18-game season.
Yeah, the Lions went through.
They were on their third center of the day today.
Not like of the year, like of the day today.
And they couldn't run the ball.
I think they had 15 yards rushing.
Everyone had Gibbs props over.
Didn't happen.
I'm sure we'll talk about that.
But one more thing about May.
I'll give you credit.
I love how begrudging you are with the May thing.
We're going to talk about Trevor Lawrence later, and I'm going to have some apologies.
You should have lost today.
We should have won last week.
We're up 21-0.
I know you said like the offensive line is, is a mess.
They want to pressure.
That's the one guy in the league.
You can't not pressure.
He will freaking torch you because he has such a good long ball, right?
He does throw guys open from 45 yards, from 18 yards, from 20, all different distances.
I don't know if there's another guy like that in the league where it's like all right, you don't pressure him.
He is just going to destroy you much like number 12 back in the day for you in Foxborough.
So I'll give you that.
Here's the issue with this.
Go ahead.
His numbers against the Blitz are, like, among the best in the league.
Like, that's one of the things he's great at.
And Collinsworth did a good job today, pointing out like he holds the ball to the last possible second and gets rid of it, usually accurately.
But I don't really know what the move is.
Yeah, what's the in-between no pressure and the Blitz that he does well against?
Because that's what teams need to do.
I mean, I hesitated, like, somebody's going to steal my secrets because they won't.
But I would do the disguise thing that the teams used to do against Mahomes, where it was just a bunch of guys and you never knew if they were coming or going.
And it's like, are eight people coming?
Oh, they're all sinking back.
I would just try to disguise as much stuff as possible.
The problem is Well, I, I assume the Henderson is just a concussion and he'll be back in January.
Yeah.
But, um, you know, with, with, when it's just Ramondre, like he's not really a pass catching back.
He, if Henderson had been on that wheel route and the end zone that was just over, like Henderson scores on that, that's a touchdown.
You cannot scare him.
You can't scare during May.
What are you going to do now?
Well, the Jaguars were feeling unbelievable there for about a half hour because they They really had a chance there to steal the one seed with any chicanery.
But now it's too confusing now.
Denver's 12-3, New England's 12-3, and Jacksonville's 11-4.
So I guess it's going to come down in the last couple weeks.
What's interesting is the Christmas games, four of the teams are eliminated now.
We have three Christmas games.
Somehow the NBA games, it's a win for the NBA.
The NBA was like, oh, the NFL's taking our turf.
And now we're in this situation where the NBA games are probably better.
It's one thing to be eliminated.
But when it's Josh Johnson versus Dak Prescott, when it's Max Brosmer versus Jared Goff, when it's Ronix against Chris Oladokun, that's bad times.
That's not really good.
I don't know.
I mean, maybe some of those starters come back or second string.
See, you follow college and I don't.
Chris Saladokin, just a complete stump for me.
Never heard of him.
Didn't know how old he was or where he went to college.
Had to look it up.
He only played for like three colleges.
It wasn't that bad.
He ended at South Dakota State, South Florida, Samford.
Drafted by the Steelers like three years ago.
And now he's the future of the Kansas City Chiefs and the Christmas game.
I need your honest answer on something.
This could be a social media clip.
Get ready, Eduardo.
Do you think the Patriots are good enough to make the Super Bowl?
From what you've seen, you watch a lot of football every week.
And the case for them, I think, to make it is that the AFC is wide open.
They have a quarterback who potentially might have real greatness in them.
They can run the ball just enough.
They should be able to get enough of their offensive line back in time for January.
Their defense is feisty.
It's a tough team.
It's a real together team.
They have good chemistry.
They're going to have at least one home game in the playoffs.
I'm not allowing myself to think about it like in a real way, but I thought that win today was a little different because Baltimore, that just seemed like a game.
Baltimore was going to win and they took it from them.
I'll say it.
Yes.
Yes.
So you think it's conceivable?
Well, why wouldn't it be?
You beat the Bills already and they're like ahead of you.
Like they would have to do it on the road and all that like that.
But you could at least play close with the Bills in January, right?
Because the Bills defense looked horrible today against Cleveland.
I mean, really like awful.
It was kind of shocking.
A lot of big plays.
Like they give up big plays to nobodies too.
I think like Travion Williams and Isaiah Bond, they're eating you up.
If they give up five 15-yard plays, the only thing that's working for them is James Cook has more than five 15-yard plays.
At the end of the day, they have more points.
As you go through all the teams, everybody's got their couple things to point to where we're like.
We have this
For Buffalo, it's Allen and Cook.
It's like, we have this.
The Pats have Drake May and Vrabel.
Jacksonville.
I can't wait to talk about them because I thought that was the most impressive performance today.
But we got to save it for a little bit later.
But you go through the AFC and it feels like everybody you can make a case for, you could poo-poo.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
You're just going down the line of like, no, here's why this Denver...
They've been lucky for three months.
It finally caught up to them today.
This is closer to who they are.
You can just do it with every team.
I mean, what are they going to do?
Like the talking heads are going to say, how's this start?
No way.
New England beats Jacksonville in January.
No way.
New England beats Denver in January.
That's just that's just for clicks.
That's that's not true.
Well, then Houston, everybody's sleeper.
Yeah.
Which I had my fantasy season died today because the CJ Stroud and Nico Collins.
And I can't overstate how bad CJ Stroud was today.
I don't know how many throws he missed, but it was over 10.
We're just like throws.
He just missed that either sailed.
He threw it, led the guy out of bounds, like all kinds of things was just, I don't know what happened to that team today, but the Raiders, like they came very close to beating them.
And it was, they, it felt like the Texans just thought they could show up.
You know, I don't know if they knew it was Andrew Catalan's 200th game.
Oh, I didn't know that.
That was, yeah, they met, they met everybody.
Even, even the officiating guy, he stepped in and congratulated me at 200 games for Andrew.
Wow.
And then it was Chris Myers, 132nd straight Carolina Panthers game today.
That was the other thing.
They stopped the game in the third quarter.
He commented on how he's never heard this play so loud.
It's like, yeah, well, you live here.
You're here more than your actual house.
Your apartment is a suite in the Panther Stadium.
I feel way better about the NFC than the AFC from a Super Bowl standpoint, I think.
What do you mean?
Picking a winner, you mean?
I just think the Rams are... I do, too.
I think the Rams are a class up.
I'm not saying the Pats couldn't beat them.
And, by the way, We saw two games already this week come down to the dumbest two-point conversion I've ever seen in my life.
And then whatever the fuck happened last night in that Bears-Packers game, which was the dumbest win of the year.
The last couple years.
It was awesome.
Congratulations to the Bears, but that was bonkers.
The fourth down guy in the corner that nobody's ever heard of making a shoestring reaching up catch.
And then you get an onside kick.
There's like two outside kicks a year.
And then Caleb has the best throw of the year to win the game.
That was nuts.
That's what I don't understand about that Chicago team.
And we could go through the 10 games they should have lost, when they were losing by six or eight or 10 and with a few minutes left in the fourth quarter.
But when it gets down to it, if they're there, he throws some great balls.
He really does.
And he gets away from sacks.
He really does like...
It could be second and 20 every time and he always gets out of it somehow.
Yeah, but yes, you're right.
The onside kick is insanity.
It's like Dobbs is treating it like it's covered in rhinoceros shit or something.
Just bat that out of bounds.
Get rid of it.
If you don't want to catch it, it's fine.
Just kick it out of bounds.
I don't get that.
I could do it.
We do it in my living room.
Me and the boys, we do it in the living room.
We pretend we're recovering onside kick and I guarantee all of us are better than what we saw the other day.
This is pretty bad.
Well, we have...
So Denver's got at Casey, which is suddenly one of the easiest weeks in the league.
Casey's terrible now.
And then they're home for the Chargers who just keep winning as we keep trying to look for reasons not to think that they have any sort of anything.
And they just keep beating everybody.
Pats play at the Jets, who are just awful.
They are horrible.
I mean, they fell back nine, six.
I was going against the saints defense and fantasy, and it was any third play third down.
It was just a sack.
And then they're home.
For Miami, who looked like they quit today, for they looked like they were done for the season.
They're fine.
Jacksonville is at Indy, who suddenly has to win tomorrow, basically to stay alive and then home for Tennessee.
I don't know.
Who would you bet on for the one seed?
I can give you the odds, too.
Yeah, I have them here.
So are you 650 for the one seed, or did that go down?
No, we're plus 180.
Denver's minus 145.
Jacksonville's plus 850.
Well, I'm looking for it, yeah.
Right.
I think it stays.
I think it stays as it is.
Well, it would have to be the Chargers winning in Denver.
Right.
I think it's Denver because they're going to get an easy win next week.
And then, you know, I think they maybe learned a little bit.
I mean, I didn't think I knew Knicks was like slinging it like John Elway last week.
I'm like, we're not going to get that again today.
Probably.
Are we?
You know, he's somewhere in between there.
But yeah, Jacksonville just beat them up all over.
Like you can't.
I mean, was he 14 touchdowns?
No interceptions in the last four games.
Lawrence.
Just doesn't turn the ball over anymore.
We, I want to dive into that game quickly on a Houston though.
Yeah.
And, and the chargers charges 11 and four, but they play Houston this, this upcoming week.
And then Houston is 10 and five.
They go chargers Indianapolis.
There is a scenario where the chargers could win this Houston game.
And then week 18 means nothing.
Right.
When they played Denver.
If the Colts lose tomorrow, basically, right?
Yeah, if the Colts lose tomorrow, that would be another way.
So there's a bunch of scenarios where the Chargers don't care about week 18 and they're like fuck it, let's sit Herbert.
He's hurt anyway.
So the Denver minus 145, I think, would be the safe move.
That's the one.
Because Casey's done.
Put a fork in them.
That's the one for sure.
And the league is sort of in trouble trying to figure out important games for the next two weeks.
And we went over Christmas.
It doesn't get a lot better for the Saturday, Sunday slate.
Monday, next week.
Well, you know what really hurt was this Baltimore loss today.
Yeah, for sure.
Because now they're 7-8.
Is that their record?
Yeah.
7-8, Pittsburgh 9-6.
So Pittsburgh, the magic number is 1, basically.
That's... How does this happen?
Can we do Pittsburgh?
Yeah, yeah.
Minus 1,100 to win that division.
Every time I think it's the dumbest Steelers one I've ever seen.
They just go hold my beer and they have like a dumber win.
And this one would have been a really terrible loss, because it seemed like the game was over and then, all of a sudden, the Lions are driving.
There's a game-winning lateral to Jared Goff that gets called back by a PI.
That took them five minutes to figure out because I think they were afraid they were going to get jumped leaving the stadium.
Right.
And then they're like, it was a touchdown.
Hold on.
But... Screw you.
The game's over.
Go home, everyone.
Yeah.
Touchdown, but... Yeah.
And we can't get rid of the Steelers.
That's 19 straight, 500 or better Tomlin seasons.
They somehow...
I think they had run out of stupid wins.
So they were like what if we got two OPIs inside the five-yard line with under 30 seconds left to win?
Have we done that yet?
They're looking at their big syllabus of shitty, stupid, ridiculous stealer wins.
They're like, no, we don't have an OPI.
No, two.
We've never done that.
Boom.
I hate this team.
Can I play devil's advocate for a second?
The ending was stupid, obviously.
That could have gone either way.
It's stupid, but I thought the Steelers were very, very good today.
They dominated them.
Yeah, they did.
It would have been a bad bus.
I went into it.
I was like, the Lions are going to score 35 because they need to win.
They absolutely need to win.
The Steelers are on a short week.
Everything was leading towards the Steelers getting just bulldozer today.
And then it's like, Three nothing for a while, right?
And then so you look at it, the time possession was 34-25.
It seemed like 45-15.
Yeah.
The Lions never had the ball.
They didn't have the ball.
They didn't have a second half first down until like 11 minutes left in the fourth.
The Steelers ran all over them.
They had Gainwell and Warren had two 45-yard touchdowns.
I mean, the players are shoving fans in the face.
That's always great.
No, that was bad.
But the Lions had 15 yards rushing.
So I don't know.
And again, we talked about how they went through three centers.
That was bad.
But that was a good performance.
I don't like to compliment Rodgers, but it was like 9-10 down the stretch when it mattered.
The Lions had 11 running back runs for 16 yards.
Jesus.
The Lions are basically done.
Yeah.
Dan Campbell over under...
2027 for him being on the Sunday Fox pregame show.
Oh, wow.
Did you go over?
I'd go over.
October?
No, it would have to be before the season.
Oh, before the season.
The Terry seat will be open at some point.
I'll go slightly over.
Slightly over.
So in the 2020s, it happens.
Yeah.
And it was a big Ben Johnson weekend.
I know they're pulling rabbits out of their asses and how they're getting that done in Chicago, but Detroit definitely missed them again today.
We could show them five, six games where this was the case.
Well, the bigger thing, they ran the ball down their throats.
Rogers had a good interview after the game, but he was like, we ran for over 200 yards.
They ran for 230.
They passed for 251.
I mean the Lions are missing half their team at this point, which is another issue with these 18-game seasons.
But yeah, no Lions.
We talked about it a couple weeks ago about how fast a window closes the lines.
They've even really had a window.
It was like slightly a jar for a year.
And now, you know, they're not even going to make the playoffs.
It doesn't look like under 10 and a half, right?
Clinched.
That's a, they're not getting there.
And then the Steelers are in the playoffs, which seemed inconceivable for three months.
Yeah.
And every time they won it seemed dumb, but they, they do feel like they've stumbled into a little bit more of an identity as the year went along.
The identity without T.J.
Watt?
Is this a Ewing theory?
It's a little bit of a Ewing theory.
Well, Rodgers has three throws he can make, and he somehow just cycles.
It's like Tecmo Bowl.
When we were playing Tecmo Bowl in college, and there were only four plays.
It was like two run plays and two pass plays.
And you had to kind of guess which play the guy you were playing against was going to run.
And if he guessed wrong, it would be like, fuck, I guess wrong again.
And that's kind of like Rogers.
It's like, I could do the, the other shoulder to Metcalfe throw.
Yeah.
I could do like the quick throw to the tight end, or I can do the quick screen pass the bubble screen.
These are my three Tecmo ball players.
And you just have to guess which one I'm going to do.
And those are the plays.
That's it.
And then there's the other stuff.
He schooled Campbell at the end of the first half, with the timeout rushing to the line of scrimmage.
They were running out of time.
It's like, no, Detroit should be calling timeout here.
He still snaps a ball when defense has 12 on the field.
He's still the best at that.
They're there.
We were texting when all the shenanigans at the end of the first half happened.
Campbell called timeout. it ends up buying the Steelers time to get a ridiculous touchdown.
All of a sudden it's tied at halftime.
And it was just, there are these plays that happen when you're watching the football games.
You're like that team can't win now.
Right.
You know like somebody will take a dumb intentional grounding safety, or they're just certain, or somebody fumbles as they're about to go in for a touchdown.
And it's like, Oh, touch back that 20.
You're like, they can't win now.
It's just not, it's, they're not destined to win.
And that felt like one of those moments.
Who would you rather play right now?
The Steelers or the Texans?
Because if I asked you last week, you wouldn't be no hesitation.
I thought, I think the Texans have, well, Woody Marks didn't play today.
And I had Woody Marks on a couple of fantasy teams.
And I think he's legitimately good.
But always seems to have some sort of injury.
When they don't have him, they can't run the ball at all.
Chubb's like washed, sadly.
Right.
Um, he had a big, the Raiders who haven't won.
And since what?
Mid September, they were annihilating the Texans run game and they're pressuring Stroud.
Yeah.
And they stink.
So in the playoffs if they're on the road.
I feel like I was a believer in their offense after last week.
They looked really good last week.
Like, that's why I wanted to start Stroud in a fantasy playoffs.
But they had a lot of trouble.
I'd probably rather play them than the voodoo Steelers.
Like, just the weird shit that goes on with them.
Right?
Isn't that the right answer?
I think so.
Because I was thinking about it.
You know, you have...
Two of maybe the favorites, the Super Bowl favorites as five seed, sorry.
The Rams, I know stuff can happen in the AFC, but I think the Rams will be a five seed.
I think the Bills will be a five seed.
And they might be two of the three favorites to win the Super Bowl when it shakes out, right?
Even now, they're two of the three favorites.
I love the Rams going to Carolina or Tampa and winning that game.
We don't have to guess the line now, and I don't care that they lost to Carolina already.
That's going to be a blowout.
And I know Pittsburgh lost to Buffalo, but I don't know now.
If Buffalo goes to Pittsburgh, is that possibly a game now?
The way Buffalo's defense has looked.
Allen got banged up again today.
He's had a lot of those where he's limping off.
They show him on the sidelines.
There's three people milling around him.
I just feel like he's taking a lot of hits.
Cook's really great, though.
It was such a pleasure to have him on a fantasy team. just like lights out.
It felt like every time he had the ball it felt like he could break a 60 yarder.
But they have no deep threats at all.
All their, all their stuff is like 10 yards and in.
And I thought the Browns did a good job against them today.
Their quarterback wasn't good enough today.
Yeah.
Shador was just he uh, you know they.
He just could not rise to the occasion, which we saw in 10 games.
How many times do you think he got sacked today?
It felt like at least five.
Yeah, it was two.
But it always feels like five.
It always feels like five or seven or something because he has to get rid of it.
And he threw the two interceptions.
And I don't know.
I mean, he's lucky he's such a good solid clubhouse guy.
Well, they had one where it was like the big drive to basically go for the field goal to tie the game.
Right.
And in three plays, it was fourth and 32.
And they were on the 32-yard line.
It's like, okay.
Yeah, normally you go for it.
I'm like, this is not a makeable down.
They really do have to punt here.
This is stupid with no time left.
So this time one thing, we did the uh over unders for the year, which we had pretty mediocre year, this year.
You had mediocre.
I was subpar.
I think I was like nine and 14.
I think you're like 11 and 12 so far.
We're both going to be around 500 last year.
I was lights out.
You were good too.
Um, but we did the Steelers and I went under, did you go under or over?
I think I went slightly under.
This is one where the line was in between.
I didn't have them making the playoffs, so I went under.
I just don't understand, when it's two straight decades of them just having winning records, why you talk yourself out of that.
And I don't know why I did that.
It's just the Rodgers was so bad last year.
It's like, well, this will be the year.
But Rodgers has been okay.
He's not one of the best 15 quarterbacks, but he's not one of the worst 10.
He was very good today.
It doesn't look like the cold weather is crushing him or the longer season, but let's be fair.
The first eight games, if you would have told us well, Burrow's going to be out, Lamar's going to be out and the Browns are the Browns.
They'll settle on a quarterback who won't be good by week 10.
I might've gone over eight and a half or not, whatever it was.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But they're, they're solid.
They're solid.
They're there every year.
The weird thing with him was he looks so bad.
What was that?
The chargers game where he looked like he was 55 years old.
And then lately he looks good.
But I was thinking maybe this is just what happens when you hit like you're.
You're about to hit your mid-40s.
Because I know it's happened to me when I play.
I played tennis a week ago.
This is where I compare myself to a professional athlete.
But I played, me and Howard Owens, we beat these two British guys.
We defended America.
It was one of the best wins since the Boston Tea Party.
Just the doubles tennis, straight sets.
It was really great.
I was moving awesome.
Five days later, I hit with my wife and I couldn't move.
And I couldn't move side to side.
I felt like I was 100.
And I was thinking to myself I wonder if this is just what happens to somebody like Rodgers, where they're like I was moving so well five days ago.
And now I can't move side to side.
And then you get a massage or something.
You're like, I feel great.
But maybe this is just the roller coaster ride we're going to be on with a 43-year-old quarterback.
Can I tell you what Rodgers' secret is?
I'm surprised you didn't read this.
What?
Shirtless sauna.
Try it.
Try it once.
Try it.
See what happens.
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This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra, the official beer partner of the nba.
Uh, we are a little past the quarter mark of the nba season.
It's been, it's been some some fun stuff's been going on.
We have we have four really good teams in the west, the knicks seem like they're good in the east, and then my celtics is the thing i've been the most excited about.
I thought they'd be a little better than 500.
But what we've seen so far, they've been one of the underdog stories of the year.
No Jason Tatum.
Jalen Brown putting it on his back.
The guard's playing better.
It's been really fun to watch.
So if Tatum comes back, they might actually, who knows, be like a sleeper in the East.
But it's been an unexpected delight for me.
They won two games.
Game on Friday, game on Saturday.
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Really fun to watch.
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We're going to talk about the Jaguars.
So they put out a nobody believes in us social media video that Kevin Wiles and I were both excerpted from.
All the people who didn't think the Jaguars were for real.
Which included me this week.
I didn't think they were for real.
I wasn't buying what they were selling.
I thought Lawrence was awesome today.
That was easily the best game I've ever watched from him.
The crowd was crazy loud.
I thought Denver's defense, especially in the first half, was really flying.
I thought he was as good as Drake May was in that Sunday night game.
Like really like pushing all the buttons.
I've never seen him play like that.
Did you see the same thing?
Excellent.
Taking off for first downs, flying horizontal to the ground, all the stuff he needed to do.
And you're right.
It was really loud.
Like twice the whistle blew.
Remember he got like pounded.
He just got destroyed from the back.
Huge hit in the back.
They took the camera off him.
Wasn't expecting it.
I'm like, he's going to be down for a while.
And he got right back up.
And I almost think like, he does better when he can't hear the wit when it's too loud.
Like you play in Jacksonville and you can hear your parents making dinner plans in the in the crowd, like distracted by his dad's voice.
Yeah, exactly.
You play in Denver.
And first of all, they shouldn't um, they probably even shouldn't use whistles, because they don't work.
Like, I don't know, like, Maybe you blow a horn that says, what's the Bono line?
Well, tonight they got it, Sam, instead of you.
Something.
Yeah.
Something other than a whistle.
Sing the rest of it.
No, that's enough.
That's enough.
But yeah, I said like, and what's weird about them is.
Yeah.
I'm listening.
I'm just turning the air on.
I'm just, I'm getting hot.
I'm getting sweaty from the past.
Oh, wow.
Look at you.
Keep going.
Yeah.
I took them over and I took them to win the division.
Because I thought Travis Hunter would be really good.
Because I thought Brian Thomas would be really good.
I forgot about Travis Hunter.
Yeah.
Isn't that crazy?
I thought about him in a month.
And Brian Thomas has put up nothing, right?
He'll have a decent first down every now and then.
But Brian, if you would have said Brian Thomas is a non-factor and Travis Hunter is not even like you know, he's on IR since week four.
Why would you put Jacksonville then?
Well, the Myers trade turned out to be the best deadline trade anybody made.
They already extended them.
And he's like this reliable security blanket for Lawrence.
But I listen, I've watched a lot of Lawrence and we've been stuck watching him in that 6 30 AM Eastern time twice a year where you can really watch.
And he always just seemed frenetic to me.
I just, I'd given up on him.
I talked about it in a pot and I just thought we'd seen enough.
How many, how many starts can somebody have where they kind of are who they are?
Right.
I don't know if it's a new coach.
He seems more confident.
Like even like he's like, there's like a, like a leadership aspect to him.
I always thought he seemed kind of overwhelmed, especially like in a game like the atmosphere today.
Yeah.
I think a year ago he, he, he throws three picks and he throws a red zone pick.
I just think he would have stunk and he was really good.
They did play like there was Bolton board material.
I don't know if it was you and Wilds or if it was Sean Payton.
Sean Payton said the small market.
And Liam Cohen talked about that after the game.
And it really did look like they responded to that.
And I just don't want to get caught where we were with Bo Nix last week.
Like, oh, man, this guy's back.
What did he throw?
Four touchdowns?
No, but here's the thing.
Here's the difference.
There was a lot of evidence that Jacksonville might be good.
There was a lot of advanced metric stuff from the last six weeks.
They were, the line was between three, three and a half.
A lot of the sharps were on the Jags.
And I think people were wondering, but weren't convinced.
Could this be that the second half make a jump team, right?
So now they've won six straight.
I think Lawrence has 16 passing TDs and two run TDs.
They, their defensive line can get pressure.
Secondary is good enough.
They still give up a couple explosive plays a game.
ETN has been way better.
And they're better at using him.
They'll run those little quick screen passes to him.
So there's been signs of this, but they put it all together today because I thought Denver hung around in that game and the crowd was in it and they really wanted them to make a run.
And Jacksonville just kind of slammed the door.
It's impressive.
And then I thought that Sean Payton I thought it was Every week he does something where I wonder where it's like.
Are we sure Sean Payton's good?
Oh, you didn't like when he kicked the field goal down 17, right?
You hated that?
There's what, 11 minutes left?
But they need three scores.
They're down 17, they're on the two.
Yeah.
Was it the two?
The two or three?
They're on the three.
Mm-hmm.
It's like you're, you need two touchdowns.
You're not going to get much closer.
If you can't get it here, even if you don't get it, they're stuck on the three.
They got to play out of the end zone with a lot of noise.
I don't know.
I'm just, I was a little biased.
I'm like, you got to go for that.
I had Denver on the 25 and a half points is my wisest wager.
So I didn't mind that at all, but yeah, you're right.
It's a but, you know, in our defense uh, The AFC South has beaten us up over the last decade.
Bets wise, right.
So we're thinking, all right, only one team's going to come out of it.
And Daniel Jones was leading the way.
It's like, all right, we'll root for that because they look unstoppable.
It's like, oh, it's not three.
Now three teams are in the running as of December 21st.
That's insane.
But yeah, Jacksonville is everything we didn't think they'd be.
Well, how about this?
If Daniel Jones never gets hurt and Jacksonville is doing what they're doing, Could we have had three AFC South playoff teams, two in the AFC?
Now we have eight playoff teams.
I don't know who gets bounced.
I guess Houston?
Maybe Houston doesn't make it at that point?
At that point, you're saying?
Yeah, maybe they take the Houston spot?
Yeah, that would be it.
Because Indianapolis was 8-1.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah, it would be Houston.
This comeback would be too little too late, I think.
Well, I don't want to overreact.
I feel like we've overreacted a few times.
No, this was a different one just because of the crowd and the defense.
And listen, Lawrence's stats were a little bigger than maybe what the actual pass.
Like they broke two short passes that were just terrible tackling by Denver.
And I was talking to our buddy Gus about it after.
He's a huge Broncos fan.
I was like, what happened to your team today?
And he was like, we were just due.
We were due for a shit game.
And that happens.
So maybe if they play a month from now, maybe Denver is a little different.
I thought RJ Harvey was actually good today.
But Jacksonville, if you talk about teams that can kind of do everything, they could at least make a case like hey, I know for throw away the first half of the year.
Just look at our last six weeks.
Stop.
Stop saying, oh, it was against the Jets.
Maybe the Chargers 35 to six.
Yeah.
We were like, well, the Chargers lost other guys.
I don't think the Chargers have lost since then.
No.
So I don't know.
Maybe we maybe we read this one wrong.
And listen, I'd still be surprised if they made it to the Super Bowl.
But we can make a run here.
They've won a playoff game with Lawrence.
They beat the Chargers.
Right.
And that crazy game a few years ago.
So.
They can figure out how to do it.
They're not going to embarrass themselves the rest of the year.
They're going to get in, maybe not as a one seed, but they'll be good.
What's their record?
At Indy and then Tennessee?
Oh, it'll be 13-4.
The thing I don't understand I've never seen somebody so blatantly acknowledge and embrace that nobody believes in this thing.
Because usually that's more of a Fight Club thing.
It comes out after.
Right.
I've never seen somebody aggressively market the game as a nobody believes in us and then back it up.
Cause.
Now I don't know if that can count, as I don't know what that it's like.
Different than a, nobody believes in us.
If they back it up.
Yeah.
Just like pointing out before the game that nobody believes in you.
Oh, I see.
It's like a different, they might've created a new thing.
I've never seen it before.
Joe Namath guaranteeing the victory kind of thing.
But everybody thought he was crazy when he did that.
Yeah.
The Jags were like here's.
Here's a video we've made of all of our detractors and we're going to shove it in their face.
And they're talking shit about Sean Payton after.
It's pretty interesting.
Should we change it?
We have a lot of confidence.
Only Shakey's believes in us?
Shakey's.
Because if they get the onesie, they won't.
It's not them, but... Well, so they... The Pats probably aren't going to see them in round one.
Right.
The thing I don't like about them is the explosive plays, like going against them.
They get big, like 20, 25 30-yard plays which I think in the playoffs can tilt games where you feel like, oh this team, they're on the road.
It's like all of a sudden they've just busted one.
That's why everyone's afraid of you.
Strange.
Yeah, the Pats have that too.
Although we'll see with Henderson coming back.
Quickly on Bears-Packers from Saturday night.
Cause this is the other team that's come on like a freight train.
The bears have now six wins after trailing in the final two minutes of the fourth quarter, which is the most since 1970.
That's ridiculous.
And four of them were really ridiculous.
And then Saturday night was the most ridiculous, but I think the the they basically have to be either at San Francisco or home Detroit and they win the division.
Green Bay can only win it if they win their last two and Chicago loses their last two.
They're basically looking great for the NFC North.
They had a number plus 550 for the one seed at this point.
It's gettable.
It's gettable.
As great of a win as it was for Chicago, I thought it was a worse loss for Green Bay, because on top of everything else then Love gets hurt.
They've had all these other injuries too, but I don't know.
Well, kudos to both teams after I called them out for not providing decent games for what's supposed to be the greatest rivalry ever.
They gave us two.
Maybe they gave us another one in a few weeks.
But yeah, I watched with a couple of Bears fans because we were between Little League games and they were going nuts.
And It's funny, they get mad if you say you're full of shit.
You could enjoy your team's success and still admit they're full of shit, right?
Because in your mind as a Bears fan, you're not going to be shocked if they lose by 17 a playoff game, are you?
Based on everything we've seen from the six games?
Yeah, because the case would be like, did you know who number 20 was five weeks ago?
Oh, I like that.
And...
Um, how many onside kicks can you name that have happened this year, that have been recovered, that you can remember from the 2025 season?
Right.
By the way, what's the answer to that?
Is it two?
Uh, it might just be two.
Yeah.
I do remember another one.
Is it my dumb team was against.
It's a lot of feistiness, a lot of upset fan bases.
Jaguars fan base is mad.
Bears fan base is mad.
It gets crazy.
Sean Fantasy stormed out of the conversation today.
He got mad.
He didn't think the punishment had been discussed at that time.
It was this whole group text that it said, Sean Fantasy has left the conversation.
Just left the text.
Unbelievable.
I don't know whose side I'm on.
Couldn't tell if it was a bit.
I can't tell whose side I'm on with that.
It's a long story.
What is the argument?
So the last place team is supposed to suffer a punishment, a punishment that you drafted.
You could draft a punishment.
So you could forego your seventh round pick on a player and draft one of the 10 punishments.
Like I drafted to get my ears pierced.
I'm like, I'm not losing this league, whatever.
I'll take the hard one.
You drafted to wear a jersey chosen by everyone else.
Not for three straight podcasts.
Exactly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. fantasy draft to wear a headband on a podcast, but you can never mention it.
Right.
So he, he comes in seventh, not 10th.
And yeah, to his credit, I thought that it was the last place in the regular season.
I, I, in, in Sean's defense, I did as well.
And then they were like, no, no, no.
We had this whole toilet bowl playoffs communicated it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so now he's in the seven, 10, he loses the seven, 10.
So now he's in the finals of the, the bad prize thing.
I don't know.
It's going to be wearing a headband talking to like Noah Baumbach.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
Big picture.
That's funny.
I like that.
He stormed out of the text thread.
Meanwhile.
Van wanted to finish last because it was like somebody else gets to tweet for you for a week.
And he was excited about it.
But you're right.
Tensions are high.
You're right.
The season is too long.
Like, fantasy means so much now.
And now, like every single, every call, every pass, interference call, whether it's for your team or not, the bets, I'm sorry.
They get higher and higher as we run out of games.
It's rough.
It's rough out there, people.
I've only been in two so-and-so has left the conversation text threads this year.
Fantasy and then our cousin Jimmy once a year.
Our friend daniel makes him so mad he just leaves the text conversation.
Yeah yeah, is he back, he's gone.
Yeah, he came back.
He came back like four days later.
Yeah, he's the only one.
I thought that was his move.
But fantasy like uh, i thought the fcc suspended him from our text chain.
That's all he left on his own.
That might have been it, i couldn't remember.
Something happened um panthers bucks, which I lost for Ringer 107.
I think I went one and three.
For some reason, I'm winning bets on Sundays, but Ringer 107, I'm dying.
I can't really figure it out, including the 13-point tease I sent into the show today.
That was nice.
The last piece of it was Lions plus five and a half, and they lost by five.
That's insane.
That's insane that you win that.
Panthers-Bucks watched the entire game.
I have no idea how the Panthers won.
The Bucks seemed like they could just move the ball and do whatever they wanted the whole game, and then they lost.
It's the most aggravating three hours of my week watching this putrid Bucks team that I have to win the NFC South.
And they still might win.
I don't get it.
They're minus 175 to win the division.
They should have been out of it five weeks ago.
Yeah, I watched it.
I'm like, why is Baker, why does he have 70 yards passing?
There's two minutes left in the third quarter, you know?
And the Panthers do nothing.
They had 275 total yards.
Bryce Young, like, escapes a third and impossible and throws a touchdown pass.
And that's what they seem to win all the time.
That's all they need.
I think the Bucs are one of the five worst coach teams I watch week to week.
Yeah, maybe really bad.
Like when you think, like liam cohen, like bowls was kind of 50 50 to go last year, wasn't he?
And they kept him and liam cohen went to the jags and like the shit.
Today it's well.
It's tough when you keep winning the division.
Yeah, to fire somebody, but well, they've lost six of seven right, and somehow still have a chance to win their division.
They have guys like Bucky Urban will just be gone for like a half hour.
You know what happened to him?
Then he comes back and runs for eight yards.
You're like, where was he?
Wait, why were you just playing your third string running back?
They have a Bucco who had 600 yards in like the first month of the season.
And he had a long pass in the second half today.
And it was like, I forgot he was on the team.
It was like, Hey, it's a Bucco.
Where'd he come from?
Um, they get around the goal line.
They just throw the same goal line fade to Mike Evans over and over again.
They know their first down.
Yeah.
It's the only time they throw.
I wonder what they're going to do.
Yeah.
It's the fade to Mike Evans in the corner again, but they just really sloppy.
They just do dumb shit.
And then they let Bryce move down the field on them.
And like Bryce young is good every other week.
And I wouldn't even say he's good.
He's like decent, but McMillan was killing them.
They never doubled them.
They never tried to take them out of the game.
I just thought it was very strange.
If he sticks around in the fourth quarter like Bryce Young now he's the guy that's going to beat you.
And I don't know what's with Baker.
I know he had injuries, like slight injuries that he played for.
Don't you think he has like a real, like some sort of torn something?
If this was me and I went from like the ninth best quarterback to the 39th best quarterback, I would say I'm playing through a horrific injury.
I'm like, I have a ruptured spleen and I had it replaced three times.
He was an MVP candidate.
Yeah.
I'm looking at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Reddit.
One of the top posts is Liam Cohen and Dave Canal is both one today.
And the guy who posted it, his screen name is Fire Todd Bowles.
That's the third post.
Another one is Grizzard on the sideline calling plays.
There's a Scooby-Doo post.
Todd's press conference after the game.
This is fine.
Burn it all down.
Really bad post.
Um, they might be, I think them and the Bengals might be the two angriest fan bases right now.
Cause the bucks actually have talent.
Yeah.
Like for them not to win that division would be Godwin back.
Evan's back.
As you mentioned, like just on the, they play good defense.
So they're at Miami and then home.
And then the Carolina game is where it's all at right at home.
One thing I'll say about the bug, uh, the Panthers, um, Macmillan's really good. every game he's he's you just feel him for three hours just either going deep making little third and nine you know sideline big catches and traffic he's that was a really good pick i'm looking at this by the way sorry uh mcmillan is offensive rookie of the year minus 290 uh the shuck master tower shuck plus 430 and egbuka plus 1700 those are the top three all nfc south guys Well, Henderson, I think, could have been in the mix if he had had a good game today.
He was kind of lurking.
Texans, Raiders, we discussed.
Titans, Chiefs.
It's yet another rock bottom for the Chiefs.
It was officially a feel bad for Kelsey.
Guy's a Hall of Famer.
He's getting married to Taylor Swift, having a kid with her.
He probably flies everywhere.
Has private security everywhere he goes.
And he's just kind of running around this fucking Titans game, trying not to get hurt.
Faking injury.
Yeah, faking injury.
And the thing.
Vikings-Giants?
That was sickening.
So the Giants...
They had a red zone drive.
I wrote this down the first quarter and it ended in a turnover and downs.
And they showed a graphic that it was the 10th time this year.
They've been in the red zone and lost the ball on a turnover or downs, which is the most in this 21st century.
Wow.
So congratulations to them.
I didn't even know that was people were keeping track of that.
JJ got hurt in that game.
And Jackson Dart might as well be hurt because they've completely neutered him.
They don't let him do anything anymore.
And what's left?
If he's not going to run around and be a maniac, what's left?
Well, I'm on a text chain with Giants fans.
I'm like, hey, this is what you wanted.
You want him not to run.
So here's what your non-running quarterback looks like.
They had 141 total yards of offense.
I think he had seven yards and two rushes that he was forced to make.
You know, nothing was designed.
He had 33 yards passing.
It was disgusting.
And McCarthy goes out and they still can't win that game.
Can we hear more about your text thread with giants fans?
No, that's as good as Brad on it.
He's on and off.
I think he left the conversation stormed out.
Well, we have giants Raiders next week is going to be the Mendoza bowl.
Yeah, that's it.
Whoever wins that or ever loses that gets Mendoza.
I think we can't pick a line for that.
Right.
That's just, that's an exhibition.
They can't, they can't have that.
We're doing it.
Um, Bill's Cleveland.
We talked about, but we didn't mention Judkins broke his leg.
Yeah.
And they did the, they've done this really smartly this year.
Come back from commercial and they're like, we're not going to show you the replay.
And I think there should be a name for this when they do that.
Like, it's like a verb where they're just like, We're going to have to Theismann that replay.
And we're just going to keep it going.
But it needs to have some sort of term.
So we just know.
It's interesting because we're going to date ourselves here.
But when Blackjack Mulligan would put the claw on somebody, they would put the big X. Yeah.
So maybe we're going to take a Mulligan, even though that's a golf term.
That X used to make me so mad.
I know.
It used to scare me.
What's going on?
They put the X on.
Is there a murder?
What happened?
Spurning blood.
Come back.
There's yellow tape everywhere.
Yeah, for anyone listening, go on YouTube and search for Blackjack Mulligan Censored Claw.
Yeah, that's it.
And it'll just be all of these clips of him.
And they're like, oh, no, oh, no.
And it'll just be like a giant X. Yeah, the graphics were not great back then.
It was basically the Family Feud X. They just borrowed that.
Bengals Dolphins, Bengals World.
We don't need to talk about that.
It didn't matter, except for fantasy.
Falcons Cardinals, I think every single Cardinal is hurt now.
Yeah, right.
I think that by the end of the game, I think everyone who started this season is done.
And then Saints, Jets, Brady Cook, probably not the answer.
Yeah.
Any other notes for today?
How'd you do in the gambling?
I'm trying to think.
I did all right with the gambling.
We can't hit our 107 picks.
By the way, you fired House from the 107?
Didn't fire him.
Are you sure?
I took a week off.
He's very upset.
He wasn't upset at all.
He couldn't have been happier not to do the picks.
You can't fire people before Christmas.
You know better than that.
Didn't fire him.
It's not like I did better without him.
I just have bad juju.
I'll say my dumb team 4000-yard passer, two 1000-yard receivers, a 1000-yard rusher and officially out of the playoffs with two games to go.
Oh, your dumb team.
That's it.
Nice going, Jer.
Good work, Shoddy.
Um, no show it again today.
Not that it matters at all.
That was one that I threw into, uh, that was a late, no, that chargers.
I did the, uh, okay.
By Sunday I was like, Oh, Quinn Williams not playing.
Like why, why are the Cowboys going to win?
This was one of those.
Right.
But, uh, I don't do the chargers.
What's their, what are their best wins this year?
Just out of curiosity.
Um, well, Denver, I guess the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
Right.
And they beat the chiefs twice, which I don't even think counts as the best one anymore.
Yeah.
11 and four.
We've probably talked about them for three minutes total.
This is right.
And I think they're good, but they're not like I.
I'd be surprised if four other teams weren't better than them, in the AFC playoffs at least.
Right.
That could make a run.
The physical now Hampton's back.
They can run the ball.
They have a double, double attack.
Yeah.
Johnson got going today.
Herbert seems, you know, he's up and down.
Extends it.
See a funny jet stat.
What is it?
You've seen this.
15 straight games without an interception.
Without them getting an interception.
Defensively, yeah.
And this is, they faced Tua twice.
They faced Gabriel, Cousins, Flacco, Shuck, Shuckleberry.
And now Drake and Josh Allen.
It must be nice for you to go there next week.
And be like, yeah, we're just not going to turn the ball over.
Isn't that nice?
Through the air.
I mean, that is a don't get hurt game if there's ever been one.
That's like, please, let's just leave without an injury.
Tampa is minus 166 to make the playoffs and Carolina is plus 138.
And that game is in Tampa.
Right.
So if you think Tampa, I mean, at this point, I don't even know who I would pick.
How do you pick Tampa when they've lost six to seven?
What sign is there that they're going to turn it around?
I'm not going to chase good money with bad money.
I already have so much on them.
That's disgusting that they're favored by so much.
And the Colts are now minus 4,500 to miss the playoffs.
So are the Lions.
The Ravens are minus 1,400 on FanDuel to miss the playoffs.
Do you think Rivers is better off with the extra week?
We were talking about this on the pregame show.
I heard it.
I watched the entire pregame show.
You don't have to.
I did.
I watched the whole thing.
What do you think, though?
Or do you think now that there's tape on the second version of him, he's in trouble?
What is the tape?
What did they learn?
He couldn't move and he's old?
What were the revelations?
Okay, so then he should be better then.
I think you should be better.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think they're a live dog tomorrow.
I like them tomorrow.
Yeah.
Beware, everybody.
Do some Guest Alliance Christmas games.
We got three.
They kind of all stink.
Poor Amazon.
Amazon and Netflix, right?
Yeah, but Amazon just has one game and it's Broncos at Chiefs.
Denver KC.
Yeah.
Oof.
A game that they probably paid a pretty penny for thinking.
Oh, yeah.
You know, you knew we both thought the Broncos were going to be good.
The Chiefs are the Chiefs.
Like, oh, this would be an incredible.
Right.
Probably for the division.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Guess what?
You're getting.
What's the guy's name?
South Dakota State.
I already forgot.
Yeah, it's not good.
It's not good.
But people will watch because it's finals.
It's the final week for fantasy.
Like football always gets nice ratings.
Dallas, Washington do fine.
Detroit, Minnesota will do well.
Who was the one, I'm stealing this from somebody, and I can't remember who it is, so I apologize.
Somebody else came up with this idea with Flacco.
Yeah.
That he should just always be available for teams in a pinch.
Oh, right, right, right.
He's not starting.
Yeah.
That he should basically be the human fab.
Mm-hmm.
That for the chiefs they could just he's available, almost like that.
Uh, that backup quarterback commercial with Tommy DeVito and the backup quarterbacks come in all time back.
And it should just be a pool of him and JMS and Russell Wilson.
And they should just not be on teams and they can only sign for a week for situations like this Christmas game.
I like it.
We need you for this Christmas game.
It's Amazon's first Christmas game.
We can't have Chris Oluwaku, whatever his name is.
We need a recognizable QB.
You're the fat uncle on Thanksgiving when the kids are running around a turkey bowl.
You can't run routes, so you're going to quarterback for both teams.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's like, that could be Russell Wilson for the next two years.
He's just not on the team.
He's just available.
Should that be an award with the MVP and everything else?
Like every year it changes?
Or it doesn't change?
Yeah.
Who else would be other than those three guys?
I guess that would be Phil Rivers.
Yeah, he's available every year.
Yeah, definitely.
I wonder, like, did Brady ever really think about it?
Hmm.
I guess because he has that Raiders minority stake.
But there was always that story that I got confirmed two years ago that he was like if anything happened to anyone on San Francisco he was like ready.
Just made it clear, like I'm working out, I'm ready if you end up needing me.
It's so funny because I heard that about Romo in San Francisco too.
So I wonder if that's just a thing with San Francisco.
I mean, Romo couldn't, his back was messed up six years ago.
Like there's no way.
Right.
Hmm.
All right, guess the lines.
Three Christmas games.
Wait, what's the score in weeks?
I have to guess.
All right, 9-7.
This is a good one.
Oh, you came back a little.
Let's do it.
Cowboys at Washington.
I thought Washington spirited effort against the Eagles, and then they just couldn't keep it going.
I think if Mariota hadn't gotten hurt, I actually think they would have covered that game and Yeah.
Could have been a problem.
You know, the bundle makes us take bad quarterbacks.
And he's my ringer one Oh seven partner.
I didn't know you could fire people.
I didn't, I, you didn't make that clear.
So I might just have to let him go, but no firing.
He always makes us take bad quarterbacks.
And the problem with having a bad quarterback in Mariota is when he gets hurt.
It is an awful quarterback.
And that's, that's what the great JJ himself, Josh Johnson has done.
Yeah.
When he came in, that was definitely a, Oh yeah.
I didn't realize you were still here.
They said he hadn't played in four years.
Right.
Yeah.
Cowboys at Washington.
I'm going to say the Cowboys.
It's in the tic-tac zone.
I'm going to say Cowboys minus one and a half.
Oh, that is not a good start, Bill.
What is it?
I said six.
It's five and a half.
Really?
Not a good start.
Yeah.
Why is the line so high?
Is the Mariota playing?
I thought it's just Josh Johnson, isn't it?
Is Josh Johnson actually starting?
I just thought Mariota left the game.
Like, he's not going to play this week?
No.
Wasn't it like a concussion?
What was Mariota's injury?
I don't know.
I'm going to look this up.
Probably should have been more prepared.
Injury up there.
He had a hand injury, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I thought he might play, though.
Well, you throw the ball with your hand.
Oh shit.
I forgot.
Some quarterbacks still do.
Yeah.
They're going to shoot it up.
They're like, dude, we can't start Josh Johnson.
You got to play.
All right.
Well, I'm off with four points.
Netflix needle.
It's coming for you.
Next one is a lions at Vikings.
So the lions, are they officially out or are they almost out?
They have to run it and green Bay has to lose both.
I'm going to check their odds.
Minus 4,500.
So they're as good as out.
And no JJ McCarthy.
He really did seem like he got hurt.
Yes, he did.
Yeah.
Rosmer came in.
I had the Vikings in a multi-team tease today that I was feeling great about.
And then all of a sudden, Rosmer was in.
But Rosmer wasn't terrible.
No, he wasn't.
I think he realized like hey, I could throw an eight yard out to the best receiver in football and he'll go get it.
I think that's kind of what he did to extend that one drive.
I felt like he realized I should throw it to my own team.
Right.
That was one of his revelations.
Lions minus two and a half over the Vikings is my guess.
All right.
I'm going to get this too.
I said three and a half.
It's five and a half.
Wow.
They're going big.
I'm a mess.
They're not screwing around with these.
I like the Vikings.
The Lions couldn't, they couldn't stop anything today.
You have 230 yards rushing.
Is it a Brosmer thing?
Did they shut JJ McCarthy down?
He has some of the worst TD celebrations we've seen in a while from a QB.
He had one today.
He's not used to it.
He's like doing like his version of the discount double check Rogers thing, but I don't.
It's like he's putting a gun back in a holster or something.
I don't know what he's doing.
Yeah.
Broncos at the Chiefs.
And I don't know who the Chiefs quarterback is going to be.
I don't know how high to do this, but let's go nine and a half.
Oh, wow.
I said 10 and a half.
It's 12 and a half.
Merry Christmas to me.
I'm getting smoked.
You love it on a teaser.
That's a 13-pointer for you right there.
Definitely.
That's a leg.
Big star around that.
You know, Schrager talked me out of the Titans in Ringer 107 because my philosophy just over the years is like when you're out and Mahomes is out, usually the team, if it's like a former contender, it's usually like a crater.
It's like you're just going into the center of the earth.
Right.
That turned out to be what happened, but we didn't take the Titans.
I was thinking of actually doing for the four awful teams the Giants Jets, Titans and Raiders money lining against them 12 games.
What do you go?
10 for 12?
11 for 12?
That might have been the only one that wins the rest of the way.
Yeah, at least nine for 12.
Yeah.
Nine for 12.
I might do it for the last eight.
Saturday.
Chargers at home.
Against the Houston Texans.
Oh, it's like a, it's like a Shakey's preview on a Saturday at the same time.
Everything.
Yeah.
What are the potatoes?
The mojo potatoes.
Yeah.
They've served a mojo potatoes for this one.
I think I would have said one and a half yesterday, but I'm going to say two and a half today.
Chargers by two and a half.
You should stay with it.
I said two and a half.
It is one and a half.
Oh my God.
I'm a mess.
This is a cell.
They tic-tacked it.
I'm not touching this.
I don't see a million things going to happen here.
The only case for Houston, after watching every play of that game and being tortured by CJ Strada today, is that they were trying to go as vanilla as possible because they knew they needed the Chargers game.
Yeah.
And they just wanted to get through this game and not do really anything.
Sure.
Packers home for the Ravens.
So no idea if Lamar's playing.
Well, Lamar or Orlov, right?
Right.
So I'm just going to say.
It's a short week.
Not exactly a short week because they played Saturday night, but did they let him back on a Saturday to Saturday?
We've seen with concussions, it's usually nine to 10 days seems like.
So that would mean he would miss it.
I'm going to say Packers minus two and a half.
You get that exactly.
I said one and a half.
Okay.
All right.
So I'm down.
It's one, three, one right now.
Sunday marquee.
You think it's Bill's Eagles or Jags Colts?
I think it's Bill's Eagles.
Okay.
Even though they're both in.
That's fine.
I had Jags Colts.
Do whatever you want.
No, I think you're right.
I think I wanted it to be Jags Colts because it would have been so much fun to have an AFC South Sunday marquee game in a week 17 right after Christmas.
Bill's Eagles.
Bill's I'm going to say Bill's minus two and a half.
Oh shit.
I said three, it's two and a half.
Get it.
Are the Eagles all the way back?
Were you impressed with them?
No, never impressed by them.
I was watching with uh yeah, we carry.
My wife was um well, you know that's my wife, but for the audience making Christmas cookies and having drinks yesterday with her friends.
And I went over and I was like, is the Eagles game going to be on?
Yeah, it's going to be on.
So I went over and uh, One of our friends, their husband Robin, big Eagles fan, wouldn't come over.
And I'm just texting, just come over.
You're going to win.
Just come over.
He came over.
But these Eagles fans are just at another level of torture.
They almost can't be around other people when there's an Eagles game.
Right.
It's really like a specific kind of species.
But they're just not... They're almost like not...
You know like when they have like people adopt wolves.
You see like on Instagram like I've adopted a wolf.
It's domesticated.
It's like, yeah, but it's still a wolf.
Right, right, right.
Like, you know, it could still go wolf at any time.
That's what Eagles fans are like.
Just not sure.
You don't know if they're just going to flip out.
Well, they're all crazy, but I think there's two kinds of crazy, right?
There's the ones that want to watch alone and trust themselves, but don't trust themselves.
And then there's the ones the shirtless ones are breathing fire, who want to be around everybody and just want to kick everybody's ass.
And if they happen to catch a glimpse of the game along the way, then fine.
So-
No, but then there's the third one.
It's like, I shouldn't be around other people, but I'll come over.
All right.
And then they're just reigning it in, which I think is Rob.
Robin did a good job.
He was, he, he stayed in, but they were also winning.
Yeah.
But it's just sitting there.
And it was funny.
Cause we were with another, another friend of ours, Jeff is a huge longtime bears fan, like forever.
Just can't believe they have in this season where like good things are happening.
Yeah.
Which is fun to be around when somebody's like, I just can't believe this is happening for us.
Do that.
Don't get mad at people like us that point out when they're down.
Six with two minutes left.
14 out of 16 games.
What's the maddest you've ever been at a Cowboys game where you're around other people?
That's a good question.
It's been a while.
I've been sad more than mad, I think.
I don't know.
Like, I mean, obviously I cried at the Clark.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think the best thing I've ever seen was it must've been 20 plus years ago.
We were at Jimmy's house.
Yeah.
What was the terrible giants playoff loss with the guy?
Like miss, they missed the extra point.
Didn't run the route when Eli beat us.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, no, no.
This I'm talking like, Oh three, something bad happened on a kicking thing.
It was, it was a field goal.
The snap was bad, but they ended up throwing it downfield and it was complete.
But they called it incomplete.
Well, I didn't get mad at that.
I got mad at that?
No.
Brad left.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
But remember, he left and he didn't have a car and he was just gone and nobody knew where he went.
Yeah.
And he was just gone.
Right, right, right.
And he didn't know how to get down the hill.
I think Sarah Silverman found him like an hour later.
He was in Burbank, just wandering Burbank, screaming about the giant sauce.
That was one of the best ones.
Yeah, that was good.
All right.
Bills minus two and a half.
One wrinkle with that game.
There's only two late games on Sunday.
Yeah, I saw that.
So we have... Why is that?
We have Bill's Eagles, and then we have the Mendoza Bowl, Giants-Vegas.
Those are the only two games we have.
Why couldn't they give us a third game?
It's not even enough for a multi-view.
Yeah, that is weird.
There has to be a reason.
Are those both... Does CBS have something else?
I think they wanted to blow out the Eagles-Bills game.
Yeah, alright.
Well, they blew it out, alright.
And now we're going to have to bet the Giants-Vegas.
You know what we do have, though?
NBA whole bill is going to point out that same day, Philadelphia OKC.
On Sunday?
The Red Hot Celtics play in Portland.
Okay.
So there'll be enough games for you.
I might actually watch.
That's a little multi-view action there.
Watchables, too.
Jags Colts.
You said this wasn't a Sunday marquee.
Doesn't matter what I say.
I think this has to be over three now combined.
Phil Rivers combined with how well the Jags are playing and then what the Niners line was today.
So I'm going to say Jaguars by four.
Oh, good.
I said four and a half.
It's six and a half.
Oh, wow.
They're not letting you have a free anything anymore.
They're just jacking everything up.
Yep.
That's pretty high.
I think because there's a chance the Colts could be good tomorrow.
And then you'll feel like, all right, Colts at home.
Seahawks at the Panthers.
I said Seahawks minus three.
Wow.
I said four, and it's seven and a half.
I haven't been off like this all year.
That's four games now where I've been off by four points.
Well, and it's not even like the favorites dominated today, right?
Why would that be seven and a half?
It's in Carolina, though.
Right.
Yeah.
You agree with that?
Sam Darnold laying seven and a half points in Carolina?
And it's not even like... That passes the sniff test to you?
No, not really.
Not really.
This is a revenge game.
I don't know what this is.
But it's not even like if Tampa wins, they wouldn't have to play or anything like that.
Yeah, that's strange.
Is that still the land?
Yeah, seven and a half.
Seven and a half.
I just have no feel for this anymore.
It's just one of those years.
I got to rally for the playoffs.
Can I tell you, with a Rocky Balboa I got to go to a cabin.
Start lifting some sleds, start chasing some chickens, or something.
I know you talked about Seattle on your Friday pod, but can I tell you one thing that really uh like the bad the lateral two point conversion.
Everybody hates it.
And the refs got it wrong and everything.
That was awful.
But the intercept it was Ernest Jones.
Uh, Picks the ball off, but the tip of the ball hits the turf right.
I know.
And he's like, come on, guys.
Let's go celebrate.
Everybody runs for 60 yards.
Everyone runs for 60 yards.
Of course, then they say it's not an interception.
Two plays later, Puka's wide open for a touchdown.
And it's because the 325-pound idiot who had to run and celebrate at the end of the field is like damn, I can't get a pass rush here.
If you're going to run and bring your team to celebrate, make sure it's more than a 50-50 thing that you're going to get this interception.
They should put the camera on the defensive line guys, kind of like, should we wait?
Hold on.
We're just going to wait.
We'll wait two more seconds.
It's like the bullpen when there's a brawl, right?
Yeah.
Oh, boy.
We really have to, by the time we get to deep second base, the fighting's going to be over.
We have to run out.
Is Wilson Contreras any good?
I saw that.
That's not a bad pick.
I don't know anything about the National League.
He's all right, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right. fairly watchables three Steelers Browns in Cleveland.
I'm going to do the honor system and not change my picks, because they've been jacked up beyond belief.
I had Steelers minus six, which is probably too low.
You're going to get it.
I said seven and a half.
It's four and a half.
Oh, could this, could they blow this?
Would it matter?
I'm trying to think now, because this is the kind of team that can maybe make Rogers uncomfortable a little bit.
Well, it goes back to my analogy earlier of like just old guys playing sports.
Like what happens if he just sleeps wrong on Wednesday night?
It's like, ah, right, right, right.
Oh man.
I was watching below deck and my fucking necks got stuck.
Ah, pull up deck.
I was thinking of the show where Rogers would watch.
So I was catching up on somewhere.
I turned pretty and I fucking fell asleep.
And then my pillow just, um, Bucs at Dolphins.
I mean, I don't want to watch one minute of this game.
I don't want to watch the Bucs anymore.
I think I'm good with the Bucs.
I really empathize with their fan base.
I'm drawn to it on the four box and it's almost all bad shit.
Always.
If you're rooting for the Bucs and I am with this big season long bet.
I wonder if this could be Andrew Catalan's 201st game.
Oh, is he?
Oh, he didn't retire after 200.
He's going to keep going.
Oh, wow.
A trooper.
What's the proper anniversary number for that?
You'd be impressed.
Like we could say like, this is our, how many guests the lines have we done?
We've done... How many years?
21 a year for 20 years.
So we could be like, this is our 400th Guest Alliance.
But I feel like 500 is a good number.
Yeah.
When Collinsworth announces... Or 250?
Collinsworth announces 500.
500 feels like a number.
I don't remember his 300th or 400, right?
I feel like they kept that quiet until it got to the golden number, whatever it would be.
Yeah, 500 feels good.
Well, congratulations, Andrew.
That's still good.
I mean...
It's still not as impressive as Chris Myers' 132 Panthers games in a row.
That's like the fucking Joe DiMaggio.
He's got a residency.
He's like Mariah Carey at whatever stadium that is.
September to December every year.
He's in Charlotte.
He's at the Sphere in Raleigh.
He's got to be so excited they're good.
Yeah, exactly.
The Panthers are 8-7.
This is amazing.
Bucks to offense.
I don't want to watch this game, and I'm going to get the line wrong.
I said minus three and a half.
I hit it exactly.
Four and a half.
Vegas zone.
Why didn't I guess?
Watch Miami win this easily.
Just watch.
A-chan might be the best running back of all time, and we'll never know.
He's just every once in a while, he just busts like a 55-yarder.
He's got no quarterback.
They have no receivers.
He wasn't when I needed a Monday night against the Steelers.
Like we all fell for that.
Patriots at the jets.
I had this in double figures even before the line inflation for this week.
I had a Patriots minus 10 and a half, which is you get me.
Now it's nine and a half, unless it changed.
I said 11.
Hmm.
Wait a minute.
It changed.
I'm being honest.
What is it?
It's 12 and a half now.
I'm not screwing around.
That was shady.
I know.
That was a little shady.
That was like the fucking pass interference calling booty.
I wouldn't have done it that way if I was going to cheat.
12 and a half.
Why did it go up so much?
Because the Pats have a chance to get the one seed and they need to turn the Jets on.
All right.
So...
We need a third team because Denver is going to win on the road.
The Patriots are going to want to win on the road.
When they're up 10, I want them to take May out.
Really?
The giant stadium turf is terrifying.
I mean, this is literally like going into an empty conjuring house when you go play there.
What's a scarier state here?
Maybe Cincinnati?
Yeah, it's bad.
It used to be Philly.
Philly used to be veterans way back when.
Whoever you put in doesn't matter.
They don't get interceptions.
You're fine.
True.
You should play.
Bring some Josh Dobbs in.
Get in the sauna and then go out to MetLife.
Poopfecta.
Bengals Cardinals.
Does that one qualify?
The Cardinals have no healthy starters left.
Yeah.
I think that's good.
They have zero guys that started the year.
Bengals minus four and a half over the Cardinals.
I had six and it's six and a half.
Wow, I'm just awful.
Come on, get with it.
The holiday's coming up.
I don't get the Bengals.
I mean, there's like a dozen perplexing teams.
The Bengals, are they at the top of the list?
Are the Falcons still at the top?
Joe Burrow's doing like a Joaquin Phoenix every time he does an interview.
It's just a press conference.
He had zero points last week.
This week he had 38 fantasy points.
Shutout, then four touchdowns today.
Don't understand it at all.
Saints at Titans.
The Saints are, I think, legitimately frisky.
I'm going to say Saints minus two and a half.
You'll get this.
I said one and a half.
It is three.
How about that?
They're favored on the road.
Shuck.
I would have been better off starting Shuck this week.
We're CJ Stroud.
Shuck had like 20 points.
Raiders home for the Giants and the Mendoza Bowl.
They were playing hard for Pete today.
They, they showed on the sidelines that it was like this, some turnover happened or something.
And he was celebrating the players.
He turned around and Landon Roberts slapped him in the ass, like a way to go.
Pete, Pete kind of jumped.
It's Pete's like 77.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You can't slap Pete in the ass.
I know he looks like a young guy, but don't find that.
There should be a sign.
Don't touch Pete.
Don't slap Pete in the ass.
Now they should have won.
That's such a bummer that they didn't win that game.
I have a Raiders minus four.
Ooh, Raiders minus four.
I said Giants.
It's in Vegas, right?
Raiders are home.
I said Giants minus one.
It's Giants minus two and a half.
What?
Well, the Raiders are the very worst, aren't they?
I'm just kidding.
It's like I'm like the Chiefs.
I've completely fallen apart.
I used to be a dynasty.
I wouldn't get down on yourself for not getting this game.
I mean, it really shouldn't even... This is... this is a Tyson exhibition fight.
Like it shouldn't be on the board.
Yeah.
But the giants were terrible today.
They can't, they couldn't even throw the ball.
Dart had two yards at halftime.
Yeah.
All right.
Sunday night, 49ers bears.
This game actually might mean something.
It's in San Francisco.
I have the 49ers by three.
Yeah, you have it exactly.
I said two.
I was a little low there.
I really have to get back to the drawing board with these guest lines.
Yeah, I'm going to be one right up on you.
Terrible performance.
Monday night, Rams at Falcons.
I have Rams minus six and a half in Atlanta.
That's what I said.
Eight and a half is the number.
They've inflated the lines this week.
So is there something with the holidays or what's going on?
I guess so.
People will be boozing it up.
More bets than ever.
But let's just focus on us here for a second.
Denver, just to win.
The Rams, just to win.
And your Patriots, just to win.
You love that.
Denver.
Trying to think who I don't trust.
Rams.
Patriots.
That's pretty good.
Yeah.
All three teams need the games.
Yeah, we're good.
That's good.
Let that be the only thing we do.
So, in real life, in real life, I hit a five-teamer.
You talk about no one does these 13-point teases.
No, no.
This is a seven-point tease.
Okay.
All right.
Philadelphia yesterday washed it up to plus 14 on both sides.
Barely got that.
Yeah.
Bears plus six.
Had no business getting that.
That's fine.
Jacksonville plus ten and a half.
And then Ravens plus four was pushed.
Oh.
So it ended up winning two to one instead of like three and a half to one.
But the Ravens pushed on the plus four.
But it was very exciting.
That was a seven point?
One of the dumbest bets I've made all year.
Yeah.
It was when the Ravens were minus three.
When were they minus three?
Oh, yeah.
I guess it went all the way up.
Yeah.
All right, good.
You're getting good at these.
I don't know how many more weeks are going to let us win these.
Then I had a 14-1 parlay.
Buffalo money.
Minnesota money.
Tennessee plus 155.
Chargers money.
Tampa money.
Lost.
Ugh, scumbags.
I could have just bet all of them individually.
Just every touchdown was a field goal.
Just jerks.
Nonsense team.
Jerks.
Um, anything else before we get to parent corner for the holidays?
Well, we didn't talk about, uh, the J the Joshua Paul, right?
Oh, let's talk about that.
Yeah.
I had a good time.
I enjoyed it.
That was good.
Oh, you went?
What do you mean?
No, I had a good time watching.
Okay.
It seemed like a complete spectacle of a disgrace, but I was pretty riveted for the entire fight.
Well, but Warren, I mean, I was like, I was getting very upset with the state of the world.
We bet Joshua pretty big for us to win by knockout, right?
I could tell people that.
And I think we weren't alone on betting the minus 380 knockout.
Yeah, and he was hanging with him.
I'm like, oh, shit, he's going to carry him for eight rounds.
And this is what sucks about betting, and it sucks about boxing.
And we were sure he was going to knock him out, and then he walloped him in the fifth.
And to Jake Paul's credit, he was 0 for 15 in takedown attempts, but he was knocked down.
Behind Marab.
Yeah, behind Marab in trouble.
He was knocked down four times.
He didn't have to get up the first three.
He was done for.
I also thought he landed a legitimate right.
He did.
Yeah.
That he can take that as he's recovering from his shattered jaw for the next six months.
He could at least be like, I landed a right on that dude.
But Joshua, this is the problem with normal people, no matter how long they train stepping in with somebody like that.
They actually connect with a flush right.
We're watching on Instagram boxing, best knockouts ever.
And it's like Duran takes that from Hearns and his jaw doesn't shatter and he's fighting again in three months.
Jake Paul takes that and his teeth go into basically his tongue.
Yeah, he's got a balloon head now for weeks, but i, i do.
He is a tough bastard for hanging in there and uh, it's impressive, impressive and he got 92 million and i got 92 million laughs watching him get busted up.
So that was good.
Is that how much he got?
They said he.
They both got around 92 million.
That's what i saw, what i know.
This is insane.
Why, what's that?
What's netflix good?
It seems high.
That seems like a high number.
I don't know.
I don't know why it was reported.
It seems pretty exact, though.
92.
Well, it seems more believable than if they had said 90.
Yeah, I guess so.
92.
Yeah, 92.7.
Well, so does he fight again?
That was it.
He cashed in.
Because people are like, why is he doing this?
And he's like, he's doing this because he's cashing in.
He's making an incredible amount of money.
I think he'll be smarter about it.
Line up three more YouTubers and then fight someone who he could maybe beat who's 44 or something.
This sets up Fury Joshua in England would be my guess.
Yeah.
That'll be the next one.
That'll be good.
But, um, and then we have, there's wrestling in January.
There's big card.
Oh yeah.
Um, big, big, what is it?
Royal rumble.
Did you see Chalamet and Cody Rhodes?
No.
What did he do?
Chalamet went on the Cody Rhodes podcast as a guest and was like a legitimate wrestling fan.
Really?
Like legitimate.
Just made me wonder.
It just got my interest as he's in Oscar promotion time.
Run him in with the masked man.
Do we see him run in with a mask on?
Everyone thinks it's Seth Rollins.
Like, oh my God, it's Timothee Chalamet by the Supremacy.
Sitting people with like a ping pong paddle.
I like it.
I like it.
That'd be good promotion.
It's Bob Dylan from the dead.
Who would you want him feuding with Tom?
Oh, that's a good one.
Yeah.
Dominic.
Yeah.
The problem is a pretty skinny dude.
Like he's, He probably weighs like 155.
He'd get tossed around.
Could he play a heel, though?
He really hasn't.
Maybe he's a manager.
He does like the Cyndi Lauper thing.
Right, right.
Attaches himself to somebody.
Start him off like that, yeah.
Yeah, I think that's a good move.
That's the kind of stuff he should be doing to try to win an Oscar.
Definitely.
Coming into the Royal Rumble.
I think that's the kind of credibility you need.
Fight Jake Paul, maybe?
For $95 million?
So you think Jake Paul fights again?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Why not?
There's another 30 million somewhere for him.
I don't, wouldn't want to get punched in the face.
He did look bad, man.
I can't believe those pictures.
I mean, I really now with AI you don't trust anything.
But there are some crazy hospital pictures circulating.
I don't think those are real.
Cause I saw one of those too.
And I was like, but yeah, I don't know if that's real.
All right.
Parent corner.
Let's do it.
Um, So I told you I meant to send this to you before, but so when I watch games during the day, like Archie's on Sunday, like Archie's home now my oldest he'll come by the studio and it's right after the pregame show.
And I just like veg out and watch him.
We order food.
My middle guy, Jack, the youngest one at a baseball tournament.
So I wasn't around for that.
But Jack goes to a bar with strangers.
I told you the Steelers bar, right?
A local Steelers bar.
And now he's like friends with like people my age.
I mean it was just weird to me that like he's like now he's ditched me but is hanging with people my age, like it's one thing if he has a girlfriend right, his friends his age, but he's hanging and he's like posting pictures of it and like posting reels and stuff and they're singing songs.
I'm like he likes these strangers better than me.
Someone bought him a christmas gift.
It was like a stealer's mug and like what the hell?
What is going on here?
So i guess i just need a little therapy to be okay with this.
But his new friends are um, Not of his age but of kind of my age.
And they're complete strangers.
That's it?
I don't know.
And then I'm like, you know, like, Do you feel like you have to do a background check of everybody?
I feel like I do.
And then the other thing is this is being selfish, but the day after Christmas, December 26th Friday, I have to take him to weigh in for his wrestling tournament in Upland California, which is, I think, 90 minutes away.
Weigh-ins are 7 a.m.
There are no buses.
The team doesn't have a bus.
I have to bring him.
We have to wake up at 5.30 the day after Christmas to get the weigh-in.
And I'm like, Why don't your middle-aged Steelers pals drive you, buddy?
Yeah, get one of those guys.
Yeah, exactly.
He'd show up in a Cam Hayward jersey.
Yeah, get the Cam Hayward, get the Sprinter van, and he takes you.
I don't know.
I got to get over it.
I just think it's a little weird.
I'll send you the video.
I don't have a parent corner this week.
It's been a good week for the fam because just my kids are home and my daughter's home for the holidays.
Christmas is during the week.
I've turned into the lightning rod of the family.
They call me the shitster and the potster.
Why?
Everybody kind of teams up on me.
I don't know.
They're always like, oh, you started this because you brought up whatever.
So they all team up.
I think they all like having a three-on-one against me.
But it's good to have the family dynamic back.
Yeah, it really is.
Well, it's weird because your family is the same way, right?
We just make sarcastic comments.
That's what we do.
That's how we grew up.
But now you have this generation of the under 25s where every sarcastic comment needs to be Addressed.
Yeah, addressed.
Why'd you say that?
You're trying to start something with me.
And I'm like I'm just doing what i always do yeah um, but yeah, it just seems like i'm getting tag teamed up a lot, which i'm fine with that's.
Do they threaten to leave you and go watch uh, football with like middle-aged men that they don't know?
No, they haven't done that yet.
Oh, that's coming.
Yeah, but it's a lot of like we're just gonna go out and get food.
You won't come because there's basketball on.
It's like i gotta trying to figure out my uh, my footing, my footing in the house.
Do you find, while we're talking about footing in the house, I recognize less and less, or fewer and fewer Christmas cards?
Like, we might have talked about this last year, but I'm at like 40% of people.
I open it up.
That would be a good thing to keep track of.
I'm like, who is this?
And sometimes my wife Melissa is like, you know them.
We met them at that party three years ago.
And they have the son who plays the tuba.
I'm like, I don't know.
But then there are some people.
Ooh, nobody knows.
I feel like people are getting my address and just sending stuff.
You must have a few of those.
Do you look at the cards at all?
We definitely do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, my wife has her whole, because she plays tennis six times a week.
And there's all these people from the club that I have no idea who they are.
Right.
And I think she barely does either.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And those people send the cards.
Like we've been divorced and she let me back in the house after five years.
And now I'm looking at these cards.
I'm like, oh, who are all these new friends?
Except we're not divorced and I live here.
I did have another parent corner topic.
Having gone through all the stages of when you have kids like in nursery school pre-K, elementary school, and then you know junior high, high school and the kind of parent dynamic.
Mm-hmm.
Having people that I'm friends with or that I work with, like people like Fantasy and Jeff Chow, who have little kids or smaller kids.
Right.
And they're now going into it like in the elementary part.
Listen to them, talk about the parents and how you become friends with the people your wife made friends with because they had a play date and it's like you would love her husband.
And then you have to go on these dates, these double dates with these guys you never met.
And it's always easier for the girls to get along than, than the guys.
And it's funny being like the Mr Miyagi for these situations where it's like, just just find out who likes sports and just go go that way.
Exactly.
That's it.
Right.
Like when we get shoved in these situations, it's like, please God, let this person like sports.
Yeah.
Just like three kinds of Eagles fans.
Well, that could go the other way.
That could go the other way too.
Cause if there are no at all about sports and and you know, that could get yeah, that could get ugly.
I don't want to seem like pompous, but it's like, I don't want to talk to you.
I want to talk to Simmons about this.
And my son, the worst part is though, like, Oh, the NFL playoffs run this week.
You get those guys.
Oh, this kid is games on Saturday.
Yes.
Games on Saturday.
Yeah.
I don't really follow sports.
Like, all right.
There's not going to be a lot to work with here.
Right.
I feel like we lucked out with our elementary school parent friends though.
Yeah.
Like we had like a good crew.
I don't think that is always the case for people.
Right.
When you get stuck in the, in the play date circle of friends, when people start getting together.
But anyway, it's, it was fun to be older than that.
Watching other people go through it.
Yeah, you know, it's like oh yeah, i remember those days but like, so relieved that somebody knew like there was two wild card games that night right right, right.
Like oh, this guy, i like this guy, or they somebody mentions they have us up early watching premier league, i was like oh, this might be a good one.
Yeah right, until your wife pulls you aside.
It's like uh, he cheats on his wife, don't talk to him.
So he slept with the third grade teacher right, he's the only one i like here.
I don't care.
Oh, my God.
Can you imagine having Daniel in your parent group?
Why did you make that leap from when I said that?
This guy, his name's Daniel.
He bet $2,500 on the Red Sox to win the World Series in December.
He brought lemon shots to the PTA meeting.
You got to meet him.
Oh, God.
All right.
That's it for parent corner.
Anything else?
No.
Merry Christmas.
Happy holidays.
All that.
But are you going to say what we're going to be on Thursday?
Oh, we're popping on the Netflix pregame show.
Yeah.
Hell yeah, we are.
A little short segment for them.
That's going to be fun.
It'll be good.
And then what are you doing for bringer gambling?
Tuesday, Wednesday.
Just Tuesday.
Just Tuesday with Tate.
And then with you on Thursday on Netflix.
I have to lose weight before Thursday.
I want to look really good for that.
How are you going to take peptides?
I'm going to go run now.
I'm going to go run to that Steelers bar downtown.
How bad are our Ringer 107 picks going to be when we're making them on Tuesday for the Sunday games?
Oh, Jesus.
I didn't think of that.
We could have had one of the five shows do well.
It doesn't.
I'll say this because the super contest which we're trying to copy, because they copied us right.
Yeah.
Fueled that one.
If you look at that, the medium score or the mean score is also bad.
So we just, it's rotten.
Like 29 teams have given up.
It's not our fault.
Well, you told, did we talk about this last week?
Got the ZFL, the thing we do with Gus every week.
Oh yeah.
No.
What was it?
The ZFL, the picks league.
Yeah.
He's had since like 1990.
He said, this is by far the worst picks records we've ever had across the board.
It's the worst.
So I don't really know the reasons for it other than I feel like it's like 2008.
That was the last really weird football year that ended up being Steelers Cardinals in the Superbowl.
Right.
The year Brady blew out his ACL.
It's the whole bunch of weird shit happened.
It was really hard to figure out all year what was happening.
Maybe that's what this year is.
I like, I mean, If we have the bears are going to be the one seed.
No, it's having set the record for most comeback wins in the last two minutes of the game.
Obviously this is a weird year.
Mahomes blows out his ACL.
Drake may becomes an elite quarterback out of nowhere.
Trevor Lawrence figures it out in year six.
Maybe it's just one of those years.
Right.
And Mahomes was losing every one score game before that.
Right.
Right.
Who knows?
All right.
I'll see you on Netflix.
Yeah.
Let's do it.
Good job by you, Sal.
Good job by you, buddy.
Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well.
And I'm going to be back with another podcast on Tuesday.
And we have a big rewatchables coming on Monday too.
So stay tuned for that big, big movie that came out this decade.
Really?
Yeah.
I'm not even going to say what it is, but it's a last movie we're doing this year.
Then we have a special show into the air, but it's a show.
I'll see you in a couple of days.
All right.
You got it.
Okay.
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