The bill simmons podcast presented by fanduel sportsbook.
We're also presented by the ringer podcast network revenue rewatchables coming up on monday night.
So we did just one of the guys.
Oh, that's a great one.
Yeah, i love it.
I love it.
Yeah, it's one for us week because we go to we go to netflix next week And we wanted to bang out a couple.
I'm turning off my hide selfie.
There we go.
Yeah, we wanted to bang out a couple before we started.
Anyway.
You should flash everyone at the end.
I mean, that was the big thing, right?
That's what I said.
I should have pulled my shirt off at the tail end.
There's still time.
Coming up, Sal and I are going to talk about an unbelievable weekend of football right after this.
Cousin Sal is here.
Best Super Bowl draft.
Here are the Super Bowl nominees, Sal.
Wait a minute.
May versus Stafford.
May versus Darnold.
Stidham versus Stafford or Stidham versus Darnold.
What are you the most excited about?
I like Stidham, Darnold.
I mean, I've been rooting for that all year.
You know me.
I'm not a front runner.
That's the one I had targeted all year, Stidham and Darnold.
And it really looks like it's going to happen.
Stidham has one career win.
Oh, man.
How do you do it?
How do you do it?
Don't even start.
Can we talk about Rams-Bears first?
I'm hoping we can talk about Rams-Bears to a point where you forget about your team.
Maybe we can go the whole hour and a half if you want.
How dare you.
Rams-Bears.
Would it have been the Cole Komet game or the Caleb Tecmo Bowl game for you?
Cause that was the original tech mobile offense of just running backwards 25 yards and heaving it toward the end zone.
And then the guy catches it.
But how would you remember that?
Yeah.
Everything's the Caleb Williams game at this point.
It really is.
I mean the guy?
Yeah, because he um, I don't know if he's the best fourth down quarterback we've ever seen in our lives.
How many does he have to have?
How many miraculous fourth down plays does he have to have?
He's got like nearing a dozen now.
But the fact that on that play he was able to weave his way back and create a Hail Mary where he had a third of the end zone to himself, one-on-one.
I just don't know how he does it.
He threw it, what, 46 yards?
It was a 14-yard touchdown pass that actually went 46 yards in the air.
Look, he is replicated...
The best I've ever seen at any quarterback.
The experience of watching a really fun NBA player who's all over the map from game to game in a playoff series.
You just never know when he's going to get hot, when he's going to bank in a three.
He could be six for 22 and then make the last seven shots of the game.
I think this season's been a massive win for him.
I didn't know what to expect from him.
You know, heading into this year, it's like, didn't think it was gonna be a bust, but was it gonna be one of those disappointing?
Was it gonna be passed by Daniels, passed by Drake May?
Now I think he's the most exciting game to game quarterback.
You just don't know what to expect.
You don't want to go.
You don't want to leave the room when he's on the field.
I don't know what he's going to do.
You always feel like there's more there.
Like he could just run around and run for 20 yards whenever he wants.
He can uncork any throw.
The balls go all over the place.
That Rams interception in overtime we should have known was going to happen, because every time you start getting settled in and feeling like okay, I trust Caleb.
And then he veers the other way.
I just there's nobody like him.
It's an incredible phenomenon locally and probably nationally, but at least in Chicago you have like 60 year old truck drivers like Teamsters painting their nails black for this guy.
Like what the hell's going on over there?
Really?
You got Collinsworth with the next gen stats.
I don't know what my sperm count is anymore with this guy, but it's just, It's phenomenal to see.
And it's like yeah, you don't know when you're going to get it, except that it's definitely going to be in the fourth quarter, at a crucial time.
But then he can turn it over again.
I wrote down in my notes that they can't feel the blood in their body until they're down.
Seven with less than five minutes left.
As soon as they're down 17-10, they can get a stop.
You just assume, all right, here they go.
This is who they are.
They left a lot on the table during this game.
But so did the Rams.
And I thought the Rams really tucked their tail between the legs a couple of times, especially late.
They just seemed very safe, like uncharacteristically safe.
And then when they got that interception, I think McVay rightly said, what are we doing?
Yeah, let's go.
Let's, let's turn it up here should probably give credit to most of the defenses that played this weekend.
Right.
Because now now, otherwise it's just, we're just going to crap on the quarterbacks and the play callers.
Like I don't have a high opinion of myself as a play caller, but I think I could have done better in three of the four games we saw for sure.
McVay and Ben Johnson looked like they threw out the playbook.
Like, McVay had like six passes inside the 30 in the go ahead drive.
And then like to kill the clock.
Oh, I knew it was a first down on third and seven, I think.
And it's just like, yeah, a weak run up the middle.
Like, I don't know.
I don't know.
They're flipping coins back there or what was going on.
And Ben Johnson, like you, you were all over it today.
Like just, just, I'm sure of himself.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, the third and ones and the fourth and ones, and just like the really predictable, like Collinsworth kept talking about what a gunslinger he was and this Ben Johnson, look out.
And then it would just be like the most generic play as possible.
I didn't think that Caleb used his legs enough.
I thought that same way about Drake May too in the game before.
But then you think about yesterday, where Peyton does the design rollout with Bo Nix and the guy breaks his ankle.
So maybe that's why they're afraid to let these guys kind of run around and do their stuff.
But I thought the Rams were incredibly fortunate for a couple of reasons, but mainly because if the bears had just gone for two with 18 seconds left, I just feel like they would have gotten it.
Yeah.
I have no evidence throughout the math.
I it's, it's just Pure.
I know the nerds say momentum doesn't happen, but you have that play, you get a touchdown and I at least show like I'm going to pretend I'm going to go for two and make the Rams panic.
I don't know.
I just feel like they would have gotten it.
At that point it felt like the bird with the angel was on their shoulder and they were going to get it.
Birds, angels, everything.
I mean, everything's stacking up.
Yeah, bird shit.
I'm with you.
I don't go by the nerds in that situation.
I go by the opposing team's fans.
We always talk about this, right?
So what are Rams fans thinking?
There are Rams fans, right?
But what are Rams fans?
There's a collective sigh when we see the extra point team come out to tie it up.
Well, you had $28,000 on the ramp.
So what did you want the Bears to do?
I bet you wanted higher.
You wanted them to kick the extra point.
Hell yeah, of course.
You were like, let me take overtime.
Let me have Matthew Stafford against up and down Caleb.
I'll take my chances.
By the way, both teams kicked off, lost.
I mean, we could talk about that.
I think it was worse in the Bills game.
But another stupid thing.
Got a tired defense out there.
Take advantage.
Get the ball.
Yeah, and we just don't have enough of a math sample size to know what we should or shouldn't do in this situation.
But it feels weird to me to kick off. wouldn't you just want the ball and want to lay the smack down and want to try to score and especially if you had the momentum of scoring at the end of the previous quarter i just feel like that's what i would want to do you have to count momentum in that scenario because momentum comes with it is like these guys are playing and now what is it 10 degrees by the time it's 11 o'clock at night yeah whatever it is at 10 but uh yeah and you got to take advantage of that you're giving them like Three free timeouts if they're playing defense second.
And really, what's the benefit of I get the whole, oh, we want to see what we have to do thing.
When does that matter?
Unless they score and then you score like it's then the top of the second favors them because they're going to get the extra possession and they can win there.
Yeah, I don't, I just feel like the longer we watch football, the more we get confused by stuff.
Yeah.
I still don't know what a catch is.
Oh, forget it.
We argued about, we'll talk about the Buffalo game later.
We argued about that for 12 hours.
Yeah, we have 40 inches of text arguing about that.
Devontae Adams had a similar play of it and we were like, no, no, he held it longer.
Like there's no rhyme or reason to any of this.
The more football we watch, the more confused I think we get by all of it.
But it did feel like The big lesson to me during that game was it felt like the teams were really even.
And I don't know if we value enough the weather stuff with these matchups and just in general, I feel like we it's like a variable.
We talk about the same way.
We talk about, like the Rams don't have a, they'll have a good run game and the bears don't have a very good run defense.
They have this, and it's like, maybe you just throw all of it out.
And it's like, is the weather going to be bad?
The game's probably going to be close or in Houston's case, is the weather going to be bad?
Cause they can't block and I don't trust their quarterback.
And maybe I don't need to know anything else about the matchup.
Maybe that's it.
But I don't know.
Do we discount the indoor-outdoor and all the weather stuff too much?
Well, a lot of times the weather report is wrong.
They'll show something in the morning and you'll see snow.
Like, oh my God, how fancy are we going to get in that stadium?
And then it's all cleaned up and everything and it just looks cold.
So I don't try to live and die by it.
But I know one thing we could throw out, the performance we saw last week.
Like, maybe we don't know what a catch is, but we don't know what to think of these.
Like, both defenses played really good today, right?
Bears especially.
Rams had nothing of that against Bryce Young, you know?
Jordan Love could have probably put up 40 points against the Bears in the first half if he wanted to, but they really hit hard.
Well, Collinsworth said at one point, like the Rams were having trouble with the footing and the receivers were having trouble with the footing.
And you think like I.
Obviously I'm biased and you know anyone who roots for an East coast team is kind of biased on this one.
But um, playing outdoors and what it does for your stats and your ability to do stuff on offense versus being in a dome indoors.
I think it's a real thing.
Like I look at the breeze stats and Manning stuff in Indianapolis um, Um.
I just think it's an advantage versus like, if you're you're somebody like Brady, who is not sound like a Brady defender even though, as you know, I am, but he's in the AFC East.
He's playing at least 12 games a year outdoors than a lot of the playoff games outdoors.
And I just think it's harder to put up stats.
You saw the Rams.
Puka's been the best receiver, not only of this year, but of the last couple years.
And he seemed a little more mortal today when you throw him outdoors, although he did end up making the biggest play of the game.
But I think there is something to that, though.
These warm weather dome teams. outdoors like you really have to count you can see the stats on the splits for home in a way with your home is in a dome and most of the time it does make a difference i'll tell you i i think that we set a record this weekend for passes that were just behind the receiver you know like a doomsday was that a doomsday in the first quarter like oh he should have had it but like i felt like we saw like 40 of those all weekend and we'll we could strata made a couple in the game before that too So we had the bears down seven huge drive.
They go all the way down.
They can't get it.
Rams giving them the ball back Caleb prayer.
And then we go to Oh that like it was so much happened.
But the bottom line is the Ram scored.
What?
10 points in the last three hours of the game.
That's true.
And if I'm the Seahawks, I'm probably rooting for the bears as I watched that game.
Right.
But I'm a little less afraid of the Rams because, Yeah, I think so.
I mean, it's a rubber match, right?
Yeah, third time.
I don't know.
I guess McVay's going to have it out for them more.
But yeah, for sure.
For sure.
It's a coin toss now going forward, except for your freaking team.
It's going to go all the way.
Well, on FanDuel now.
Well, don't look.
No, no, no.
I'm not going to look at the lines.
I'm going to look at the futures.
Yeah, Seattle's plus 150 now.
Yeah.
Pat's plus 220.
Rams plus 220, Broncos 13-1.
What happened with the Broncos?
Did I miss something?
They were looking so good.
Why did they 13-1?
So the NFL's best case scenario is May versus Stafford.
The Rams rematch.
McVay getting his revenge against the Patriots.
Yeah.
May in his second year making the Super Bowl.
If you're just talking like big picture storylines, that's probably the coolest.
For sure.
Yeah.
May versus Darnold's. we would just see the Darnold ghosts, the clips of that one jets pass game.
That would just be two weeks of that.
Right.
Well, or Malcolm Butler, right.
That's the, Oh yeah.
That's the Seattle revenge game.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I think three of the four are super bowl rematches, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
When Rams, which was a lousy super bowl uh, seattle new england maybe seattle new england's the best one, because seattle's never won a super bowl.
You can't go wrong, and they would be getting their revenge on that then when we move into the stidham territory.
Now you have to start talking to yourself.
I have this written down the, the backup qb yeah, kind of being heard from either in the conference championship or the super bowl.
The best that's it's ever worked out was hostetler and nick foals who talked shit today i got.
I didn't appreciate that.
I love it.
What does he have to lose?
That's terrific.
Fuck off Nick Foles.
Wow.
Nobody wanted to hear from you.
Yeah.
You know what?
It's good.
It's all good.
So back up QB.
So we had that Brady Bledsoe thing, where then Bledsoe came into the AFC title game in 2001 after Brady had taken his job and kind of held the fort.
Earl Morrill.
Going way back on the Colts, but they ended up not winning.
Tony Eason, sort of.
The 85 Bears, 40th anniversary of the Bears-Pats shellacking.
But Grogan had been the starter.
And then Tony Eason, Grogan had his job.
And then Tony Eason basically took it back for the Super Bowl.
But it felt like it was Grogan's job.
But it's really not a lot of examples.
Did you say Hostetler?
You said Hostetler or no?
Hostetler.
But yeah, Hostetler is the most famous, I think.
Right.
Instead of him having one career win, I think this would be the new standard if he was able to win two more games.
One career win?
He hasn't thrown a pass in almost two and a half years, right?
I kind of like him.
I can't say I feel awesome about if there were some other backup QBs, some of the ones we watched on and tried to bet against during this season.
Really?
I'd be like, oh my God, we get to play this guy?
This is amazing.
I don't know, Stidham's not horrendous.
He can kind of sling it a little bit.
He's one of the highest paid backups in the league.
Right?
I'm calling bullshit on this.
You know what?
Show me your text with your Patriot fan text.
Shame on you and all your incorrigible mass hole chums on your patch chain.
I'm sure you celebrated the second you found out Bo Nix was out.
Go ahead.
Read me something.
We try to be magnanimous and we try to celebrate everybody else's wins.
Yeah, I'm sure you try.
We just play who's in front of us.
Yeah.
So do you feel better or worse about the Rams after that game?
Um, no, I, I agree with you about Seattle.
I think, uh, they should feel better about their chances.
You know they were going to.
I don't want to ruin the line anyway, but you said their favorites win the Superbowl and there's a reason.
So I, I just, in general, I think Seattle is just like, try to beat us here.
You saw what we're all about.
We'll do, let's talk about that game really quickly.
And then we could circle back the, uh, the Sam Darnold injury rope dope.
I fell for it.
Yeah.
I had all these Seattle bets.
Schefter, I don't know.
Not trusting that guy anymore with info.
It really made it seem like like Darnold was.
This could be a miracle if this guy can can throw a pass and then the game starts and he seems fine.
The line moved from seven and a half to six and a half.
And, uh, they just, well, it was seven.
Most, it was seven and a half.
Well, I'm saying seven and a half.
Start of the week settled at seven by game time was six and a half.
Yeah.
Well, Darnell was fine.
I had San Francisco plus seven.
So I don't think I could do much bragging here, but it wasn't because of Sam Donald's oblique.
Like you could, because you could read every Adam Schefter or Jake laser, whatever sports doctor report on the injury.
And you could read one number on Fandle sports book.
And if that number didn't go from seven to three and a half, there was no chance of him like throwing pregame and be like you know what.
I can't make a, I can't make a go of it.
And I looked it up and oblique isn't even a body part, by the way.
I think it's a font.
I'm not sure.
It only matters in baseball.
Yeah.
Somebody can put their oblique in baseball.
They're out for six weeks.
They just have the flat red flag next to them and fantasy baseball forever.
Well, this was one of those where I had people.
I had a couple of people over to watch the first game and they were leaving and And came back in and the Seahawks were celebrating and they were up 7-0.
I didn't even see the first – it was one of those where it's like oh, it's going to be one of these games.
They have no chance.
I missed it too.
I felt like I was still seeing – because I have knucklehead friends reporting on Bo Nix.
I'm like, this isn't true.
I was checking Twitter so much that I missed the first play, the first and only play that mattered.
My big – I mean, I want to talk about the Seahawks in a second, but the –
Most damning thing, I think, all weekend is the Eagles, who didn't even play.
And they lose last week to that Niners team that just seemed so depleted and overmatched this week.
I mean, they didn't have Kittle, but it was mostly the same team.
And if I was an Eagles fan, that would be even madder than I was a week ago.
And I was thinking, is this a possible playoff manifesto ad today?
Um, don't take any playoff team that had a miserable season.
Doesn't seem like they liked each other.
It seems like, it seems like they might be excited to be in the Bahamas in a week over round two.
Wow.
I've just got to remember them with the Eagles because clearly it was a rollover by them.
It's fucking embarrassing.
They should be the champions.
What kind of title defense was that?
Yeah.
In the playoffs.
If I was the Eagles fan, I'd be furious.
Like, really?
We lost to that fucking team?
Who was the receiver who had 100 yards?
Demarcus Robinson?
You didn't have a catch yesterday?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What the hell were you doing, Philadelphia?
Forget about Eagles fans.
What if you're Eagles management?
What if you're Howie Roseman?
Like, you know, they didn't fire Sirianni, right?
He survived the week.
Sirianni must have been like, oh, thank God.
All right, I'm good.
Big Dom, let's go out and get some chicken parm.
We're going to be fine.
Then Howie Roseman sees that.
I would think twice now about keeping him around based on the next game that the Niners played.
What are you looking at?
What are you doing?
I'm asking Gahal if we have to take a break after this.
I listened to everything you said there.
That's all right.
It doesn't matter.
No, I heard everything you said.
Do we have to take a break?
No, not yet.
You want to do the intro again?
Can I have another crack at it, or are we live?
Seattle's now 15-3, and they have the top six best DVOA of all time right now.
They've beaten the Niners twice.
They beat the Steelers, the Jaguars, Houston, Carolina, and the Rams.
Lost to the Rams and the Niners both close.
Really look good.
If you're a Seahawks fan, this is as good of a chance as you've ever had.
You made the Super Bowl in 2005.
But did I, who'd you have in that game?
Pittsburgh, Seattle.
Which one?
Oh, that one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I had Pittsburgh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We were in that crazy Colts game.
Yeah.
We did the show in Detroit.
Yeah.
Pittsburgh had that crazy Colts when when uh, they stopped Manning and then Bettis fumbled on the one yard line and Roethlisberger made that crazy tackle and basically saved the game.
And then they ended up winning and they ended up winning the whole thing.
Um, the Seattle fans still pissed off about the calls in that game.
Yeah.
Defensive holding.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that couple of years later got their NBA team stolen.
So they, you know, they're, they're a little edgy.
All right.
Um, and then what you guys did to him with the Malcolm Butler thing.
Yeah.
I think like, I was surprised that both them and Denver, uh, Didn't come out rusty.
Like, you know, the two by teams, right.
It used to be four by teams, whatever, but both teams were right on it.
Denver scored about 20 in the first half.
Josh Allen helped that.
But Seattle, what was that?
Two plays in the game was over.
Like you had the kick return and then you had San Francisco on fourth and one, with that fullback option to McCaffrey.
Who's checked to McCaffrey?
He's like, Oh, this is, this is way over this game.
Like Donald could throw, I think he threw for 106 yards.
He didn't probably have to do that much to win.
Tough birdie game too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I wonder if McCaffrey, do they start treating him like the Clippers treat Kawhi or something?
Yeah.
Where you just try to get like 10 games.
If you're trying to like actually win a couple of playoff rounds and then do you try to just get 10 games out of him during the season?
Kind of stagger his minutes.
You know, it's funny.
I was looking at him play and I know the Seahawks was swarming and they had more energy anyway, but I was like Oh, even McCaffrey doesn't look fast.
He didn't look like the blaze that, uh, We were used to with CMC.
And then I saw this stat.
It said next gen stats.
Their average top speed this year was twelve point eight one miles per hour.
The 49ers.
That was six slowest in the NFL.
And D. Winters, the linebacker, is the only one to reach 20 miles an hour.
So they I was like, oh, finally, some some useful.
I mean, that actually is pretty useful.
Yeah, I like that.
All right.
So we're going to take, I think, a break.
And then we'll come back and we'll hit the AFC games, because those were well.
There was one game that was the most interesting game in the week.
So we'll be back in one second.
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You know, I felt like I was really good last week.
I was on it.
The Pats game took a lot out of me today, Cousin Sal.
Really?
How so?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was kind of a heart attack game.
You're home.
The weather's bad.
The other team's quarterback throws four interceptions in the first half.
And all of a sudden, it's a one possession game.
And we feel like we have no momentum at all.
And there's about 20 minutes of that game.
It got pretty dark.
And I don't think I was the only Pats fan who felt that way.
It was like, really?
This is how the season's going to end?
Where we lose to a team whose quarterback had such deer in the headlights that at halftime the argument was whether they're going to replace him with the backup in a round two playoff game.
When was the last time that happened?
1984?
Yeah. the Marcus Spears, I think it was the right point.
Are they going to bring in Davis mills?
Cause we were texting about it.
And then Ryan Clark came in.
You can't do that.
This guy's your quarterback.
He got rounded that all of a sudden they're having first take in the halftime show.
And I was like riveted.
Cause I was like, I think they should play Davis mills.
I think Stroud's a sunk cost.
Three games, right?
I mean, what are you going to do?
How many interceptions and fumbles?
Eight?
Ten?
How many are you going to allow before your season's over?
My dad and I were texting.
Both of us were like, I hope they don't bring in Mills.
I hope they keep Stroud in.
Please.
So anyway, the third quarter starts.
And then all of a sudden, the Pats can't do anything.
And the Texans have momentum.
And it looks like we can't block Will Anderson anymore.
He's just going by Campbell.
It took a lot out of me.
I can't lie.
We're getting older.
These are tough.
Yeah, I know.
Well, this isn't the bragging I was expecting.
That's for sure.
I really thought you were going to tell me how this is the best Pats team of all time.
That throw to Keishon.
It's definitely not.
Kayshawn booty was uh, i mean, that's the one nice thing i'll say about this patriot scene that i think was the catch of the year.
And we see millions of them.
We see puka going up with one hand but to do it in the snow, whatever else was going on with one hand, and you know it really put a stamp on that game.
Right, like you, you were nervous until then.
Right then, that was that i felt they were driving and looked at they're gonna get a field goal and i didn't think the texans could get 11.
Um, so that would be like, he basically ended the game.
What's interesting is that was like every Drake may game this year, where it's a little choppy for the first 45 minutes of the game, or or you know in real time 45 minutes.
So it's just not.
And then all of a sudden it clicks in and he's off.
And in this game he did that.
And then the third quarter.
All of a sudden he was, you know, that seemed off again and then kind of rallied back.
But every, Every game this season, he's had a perfect 35, 40-yard throw like that.
This time, the guy had to make an amazing catch on it.
But they've hit that throw, it feels like every week.
He was waiting on it, was waiting on it, and then finally did it.
And it ended the game.
You knew they weren't going to get two touchdowns.
That's all he should do is throw long passes.
He shouldn't bother with the shortstop.
He's great at throwing long passes.
As soon as he tries to throw over the middle, he holds on to it too long.
He gets sacked.
He fumbles.
He's subpar quarterback.
You want to call him an MVP?
That's fine.
Just throw long every time.
Subpar is a little strong.
Rear back and throw it.
I think he was holding it a little too long, considering Will Anderson was in the backfield in about four seconds.
Every single play.
They didn't use his legs that much.
I think that fumble kind of freaked them out.
I thought they were going to be rolling them out.
Dude's design rolled out.
The stuff that swung the game was the eye formation.
When they kind of went bigger and really started to try to run the ball.
Ramondre was out for a while.
That wasn't open either.
That booty catch.
I know.
I didn't want to tell you I was doing this.
I wanted to be surprised because I knew how excited you would be.
Go ahead.
Best Patriots playoff catches ever.
Made a list.
I'll just go in descending order to the biggest one.
Gronk versus the Chiefs in 2018.
How many are you doing?
What is this?
No, this is just six.
Gibbons versus the Panthers, second Super Bowl.
Gronk, fourth and 10 against Denver, AFC title game down the middle.
They end up losing that game, but that was, he's double covered, 40-yard pass down the center.
This is my favorite Gronk play.
Edelman, third and 14 against Seattle.
And he's basically concussed during the play and keeps going.
And then claimed he wasn't concussed.
Amendola against Jacksonville.
And then Edelman in the Falcons game.
The dive, the whatever, when it seemed like, wait, did he catch that?
When he caught the deflection.
Which is still the best Patriots catch we've ever had.
So you're not putting this in the top seven?
I think this might be... Seven?
I would put this fourth.
Mm-hmm.
Now, if they don't win anything, if they don't end up winning the Super Bowl, maybe it drops.
But yeah, it clinched a round two playoff game.
It sent them to the AFC title game.
All my texts today were basically like we can go CJ Stroud in the snow, Stidham Sam Darnold and we win the Super Bowl.
It's like we were just sending it back.
Nobody could believe this was the path.
We can only play his in front of us, Sal.
I know, I know, I know.
It really just gets worse and worse.
You get great news that Josh Allen's knocked out of the playoffs and then, four minutes later, you get news that Bo Nix is out of the playoffs.
And then no Chargers with no offensive line, Texans with no Nico, Broncos.
I feel like if the Venezuelan opposition leader presented the Patriots with the Lombardi trophy...
Do you accept it?
Does Kraft lower himself to accept it?
It's not really helpful.
God only knows with Kraft these days.
Well, we were missing guys.
We didn't have Matt Collins.
Yeah.
It's been huge for us.
Might get him back next week.
I can't believe this.
Yeah.
I'll just, I know everybody's going to make the joke.
Everyone's going to joke about the schedule.
It's just how we're going to do this the next couple weeks, especially if they beat Denver.
They'd be like, oh, how do I bet on the past Super Bowl MVP being the schedule?
Like, we know we're going to hear the jokes.
We only play as a front of us.
Do you know who the 2019 Chiefs played in Mahomes' first Super Bowl title?
Do you remember who they played?
You want me to list all the teams that are?
Well, i'll give you the playoffs.
Playoff teams.
Good, they played the crappy texans yeah, they played the titans and ryan tannehill.
And then they played the niners and jimmy garoppolo and they won the super bowl.
Nobody was like who'd they play right and they were down.
Who was it i?
I don't know why we pick and choose the who'd we play thing.
Well, this is that.
Josh allen fucking choked in the in the on saturday, which he did here.
We go for him, Yeah.
He's supposed to be the best player in the league.
He didn't play well enough.
Like that's not the Patriots fault.
We're waiting for him.
He's not there.
I think the Stroud thing is extra damning because he's supposed to be decent and he put out one of the well, two of the worst playoff games of all time combined.
Right.
And they still won, like you know five five, five plus interceptions and five plus fumbles, and a single post season is the first one to do it.
Four plus interceptions in a single playoff game, which puts them in good company.
He tore that Kate Stover's ACL, throwing a pass to him.
It was a non-contact.
It was not, I hope he didn't tear.
I haven't looked up though.
I hope not, but I've never seen that before.
He just like kind of twist himself to get back to an awful pass.
So, um, I don't know what happened.
He had four picks, and then it felt like five more we almost caught or could have caught.
And then four that were just completely uncatchable to guys that seemed like they were open.
I don't know.
I wasn't there.
He doesn't like getting hit, and he especially doesn't like getting hit in the cold.
And that's why that pick six happened, which was really the game changer, I felt.
Well, he almost had a full DeLome.
I know.
It's close.
For the newer listeners or people of the pod, Way back when Jake DeLome, I think he had five picks including a pick six, or maybe it was five picks in a fumble.
Whatever it was.
We called it the full DeLome.
This was just a DeLome.
It wasn't a full DeLome.
Yeah.
Right.
He needed one more.
I was waiting for him to get it and he he couldn't do it, but it was.
There was like a half decent.
How much can you actually blame him?
Debate.
Because clearly he deserves a bunch of blame and he was, he was terrible.
Yeah.
But didn't have Nico Collins.
The running game wasn't there.
The Pats just took that down.
Schultz got hurt early.
Right.
I don't know.
He lost his right tackle.
This all goes on the Lombardi trophy.
All this goes on your trophy.
Schultz got hurt early.
Because they're already talking after the game, like, would you give this guy an extension?
Yeah, right.
He had last two seasons, including the playoffs, 26 picks, 42 touchdowns.
There was a legitimate should they start his backup in the second half of a do or die playoff game combo.
I would be nervous to give him the extension.
I thought he took a step back this year.
I would too.
I think we for sure thought he was the best quarterback in that division, right?
And now we reluctantly have to give it, who is it?
Trevor Lawrence?
Wait, where are we?
I think it is Trevor Lawrence.
Yeah.
I think that's where we are.
It's sitting there for Cam Ward.
Cam Moore could get it, too.
Yeah, and to your point, it helps in these cold-weather, miserable games if you could run the ball right.
Yeah.
I would think.
And Woody Marks was, what, 14 for 17 with a fumble?
You're just not going to get it that way.
In the first half.
Not only do we have the four takeaways and the pick six, they forced 22 plays of zero or negative yards would set the record for this century for a first half in a playoff game.
Yeah.
They had... the run defense in the chargers game, this game combined 30 carries for 61 yards.
Like and this is what I was saying last week before the chargers game like the, the stats with Milt Williams plays versus when he doesn't, it's like night and day.
They have all their D linemen back and they're really good at stopping the run.
The Texans, I thought had a pretty good game plan.
Like they kept picking on Carlton Davis.
Who's the, that's the cornerback.
All the Pats fans are scared of, right?
He's always in the middle of Feels like a PI or a possible PI every time.
He had two picks, he had a couple of PIs.
He went out at the end, right?
And he got hurt at the end, yeah.
But they went after him.
But I think when Schultz went out, I think that really screwed with them because they weren't going to be able to run the ball.
They didn't have that eight-yard guy over the middle.
And, let's be honest, they just were never good enough offensively this year, I think, to match whatever the defense was.
And then I'll say this about the defense, which was admittedly awesome in a couple stretches, but the Pats had three full touchdown drives on them.
It wasn't like you watched and you're like, oh, they had these intercepts.
They had three drives to score, including to end the game, and the Texans didn't stop them.
So like when people are talking about them compared to the 2000 Ravens, like settle the fuck down.
All right.
But three touchdown drives for 193 yards, nine other drives for two total yards.
I think you had seven first downs after three quarters.
Like if you just isolate that, I agree.
CJ Stroud should be ashamed of himself for not beating that.
You know, I didn't love the play calling.
I thought may, um, really took a while to get going.
Um, And it's a real thing, these young quarterbacks in the playoffs, because we saw it with Caleb too.
They're just all over the map.
They're not consistent enough yet.
But he ended up, he had, you know, three touchdowns.
Thought he had some really good throws.
I think next week will be easier.
Are you, like, wildly impressed by the Denver defense?
Because I'm not.
I don't think it's going to be as good as what we saw today.
No.
But maybe they'll play with a chip on their shoulder.
So, all right, give me the unbiased just watching the Pats.
Do they seem like a Super Bowl team to you?
Because to me, I feel like it's a year early.
What do you mean Super Bowl team?
Will they advance to the Super Bowl?
Like, as you watch them, is it like, holy shit, this is a team that belongs in the Super Bowl?
Because to me it feels like we had this in Parcells' last season the 96 team, which just felt like a year from now was going to be the awesome team.
And then all of a sudden they made the Super Bowl.
And it's like, all right, I guess we're ready.
And that's kind of how I feel about this team.
I mean probably not.
But what you know, when Denver's the number one seed and Jacksonville's fighting for the number two seed by the, you know, by the last year, by the last week, and Buffalo shaky you might as well be.
Yeah.
Yeah, sure.
And that scenario, I think you are.
And you're, you're right there.
I'm not, I really have to say something nice about this team.
Well, I tried to trap you and you wouldn't do it.
I'm not doing it.
Um knew a few people who were at the game and they said uh, the electricity was a hundred percent back.
Really?
It was paid the bill thousands level.
Like just everybody loved it.
Yeah.
Um, it was old school, like a feisty D doing the whole thing.
So the pads go to Denver, where their own four in the playoffs in my lifetime, all games that were memorable for some reason the Rulon Jones safety on Tony Eason.
Right.
Um, down three with the ball and somehow fucking Tony's and get sacked for a safety.
Never forgive that dude.
Um, the plumber champ Bailey game plumbers, like one good playoff game.
I guess he had one against Dallas too.
Um, and then, the champ Bailey, when Ben Watson ran, basically, I don't know.
They didn't have the next gen stats for that.
He was probably like 32 miles an hour.
He's off the charts, Bill.
We can't even measure that.
And uh, ball goes out at the one i thought it went out of the end zone.
That's the one apparently, for brady.
That's the super bowl.
That no seven are the two that bother the most that really get.
Yeah, because i think they they might have been the best team in 05.
Uh 2014, that was the year hernandez, stuff went down right before the season and then that didn't bother brady.
That that stuff didn't bother brady.
They tried to play on and then TJ Ward took out Gronk.
So we went into Denver without both of those guys.
Lost that one.
And then the last one was the noodle arm Peyton Manning season.
The 2018 loss.
Two-point conversion.
Two-point conversion.
Didn't get it.
I think Brady was concussed for that entire game.
So anyway, my point is they've never won there.
I have a vague memory of Elway beating us 20 times.
I don't think the stats back that up.
But this has been...
Mostly a house of horrors for the Pats.
And now Jared Stidham awaits.
But the good news is there's not one player associated with any of those years anymore on either team.
So you're good.
So you don't believe in the laundry baggage?
I don't know.
I might if Bo Nix was quarterback.
I mean, we're going to get into that game, but I just can't believe it, man.
I just can't believe it.
I'm ready to get into that game right now.
Let's do it.
Where do we start?
You want to start on the Denver side or the Buffalo side?
You should do the intro.
Talk about what just one of the guys... Should I do the intro again?
Yeah.
Just one of the guys coming on the rewatch post by today.
Well, I think we got to reluctantly kill Josh Allen for this.
Two picks, two lost fumbles, including...
A fumble before the end of the first half that cost them three points.
That was something like Shader Sanders or pick a rookie quarterback.
It was a rookie quarterback play.
It was inexplicable.
Missed Knox for the game-winning touchdown.
Down three, 20 seconds left.
Missed Hardman in OT when they're driving.
They would have been in field goal range.
He just threw him a grounder.
Bad throw.
And then the Bills fans fixated on those three calls.
The bottom line is Allen missed a ton of throws.
Their defense was up four with four minutes left and had a chance to close the game out, and they didn't do it.
And then they had to hold an OT and they couldn't.
And they gave up the two PIs, which by the way, were both PIs.
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
I'm proud of you.
I'm good.
Well, I know you're going to have the anti-bill slant anyway, but yeah it was.
It was Josh Allen's fault.
You could, you know, at this point a year, like I feel, like I'm, it really gets taxing, like defending referees and Tony Romo.
It ends up being like 22 hours of my day.
But the referees are going to make calls.
They're not going to make calls.
Say what you will about those pass interferences.
The game could have ended 30-30.
There was a hold in the end zone.
If you want to be like that, it could have been 32-30 Denver.
On the safety, that would have been that.
It was 100% a hold in the end zone that day. that guy.
And they missed calls both ways the whole game.
Of course.
And guess what?
They're not trying to keep Josh Allen out of the Super Bowl.
That'd be a great story for them.
That's what they want.
This one is, and I feel like the others maybe weren't all on Josh Allen.
I feel like this is 70-80% on him.
The others, it's a kicker that misses.
The Chiefs were better.
I want to go through those.
We can, but it's just like this is This is just, it's rough for him.
It's rough to see him cry.
And both locker rooms are crying because of the result.
But, you know.
It was a brutal loss.
Allen was 0 for 9 on passes, 20 yards downfield, including the two picks.
He just wasn't good enough.
And he should be able to win that game.
Because I thought his defense was good enough.
Kept him around.
And it really felt like the way Cook was running the ball.
If he had a normal Josh Allen game, I think they'd win.
So you go through like he's eight and seven, the playoffs now.
And he said four horrific playoff losses, which was the first one was the 2019.
That Houston overtime loss.
Right.
They were, they blew a 19 point lead in that.
They lost to Casey by 14.
I mean, they had a couple, a couple normal playoff losses, but they had that OT loss.
That was not his fault.
The 13 seconds game in 22.
They had the loss last year by three, when they basically went four downs and out when they had a chance to close the game, and then they had the one this year.
He's had.
In his last three playoff losses, or three of his last four, he's had the ball with a chance to close the game and he didn't do it.
And he hasn't done it yet, and they haven't made a Super Bowl yet.
And I think he's the best player in the league, but I don't know if you can say that anymore if this keeps happening.
I've been on that corner since August.
This is the first time where I'm like, I don't know if you can say it anymore.
That was bad.
Yeah.
How about this?
He's QB two and there's no QB one, but he's not QB one.
So it's like, it's like the WWE title is vacant because somebody got injured.
I'm fine with that for this year.
I'm fine with that.
I don't think there's anyone top of the mountain right now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And your guy, I think it's vacant.
My guy could do it.
My guy's not ready for that either.
Yeah.
I mean, this is six divisional round games.
Oh, for six.
Can't get past it.
I think six overtime games.
He had the ball and a chance to win in five of them.
He has it.
He's put up three points in those six games.
It's rough, and it's really rough.
And, you know, we talked about all the weather that went on this week and the bad stuff.
Like, well, a good running game could disguise bad quarterback play.
You never thought you'd have to disguise Josh Allen's quarterback play.
But the Bills had the most rushing yards this weekend out of anyone.
They had 183 yards.
That was such a bonus for Cook to be on fire.
What do you have, like 117?
The terrible fumble.
I mean, it was reminiscent of the Jacksonville last week, who was up 7-3.
They didn't fumble, but they missed on the fourth and one.
This week, Buffalo's up 7-3, about to go 14-3, and Cook fumbles.
But the difference is you have Josh Allen.
You should be able to overcome that.
Yeah.
And if you're going to make excuses for him and we.
We haven't talked about the call yet, but we will.
But if you're going to make excuses like depleted receiving core, right.
So he had cooks involved in multiple huge plays who wasn't on a football team seven weeks ago.
Right.
He had Hardman who I don't even think was on the team a month ago.
Right.
He's out there in an important spot.
Shakir is like, basically they're using him like he's tree Brown in 2001.
But there's been other great quarterbacks who've been in situations with like inferior receiving like Brady won his first Superbowl Jermaine Wiggins and David Patton.
And, um, I think David Givens.
I can't even remember who the received.
Troy Brown was the best one.
But then you go on through like 06 when they almost beat the Colts in the AFC title game, the Pats.
That was the Rache Caldwell, Jabbar Gaffney, Benjamin Watson.
Like this happens sometimes when you're paying your quarterback 55 million.
Sure.
And you have some bad luck.
You might end up with this.
You can't have everything.
His tight ends are very good.
His tight ends are very good.
And his offensive line is good.
His offensive line is good.
He had 18 touchdown passes to non-receivers.
So he's been able to figure out how to make it work between throwing to running backs and tight ends for sure.
But Brandon Cooks, boy, my God.
What a frustrating player.
I mean, this guy was on, what, like a half a dozen teams before age 25?
Something ridiculous.
Yeah, including the pats.
You're right.
And he's supposed to be a speedster and Alan barely overthrew him like three times.
And then he takes a little off of it and he actually catches it, but not long enough, because I actually didn't think that was Alan's fault, because he has to on the throw this guy he's overthrowing because it can't catch his speed.
But you thought, you thought no catch.
I thought, I thought they should have looked at it, for God's sakes, for longer than what they did.
I was shocked that people... It was a good argument because people felt strongly about it both ways.
I didn't think it was a catch.
I didn't remotely think that was a catch.
Because...
He's catching and he hits it and people freeze frame.
And if you freeze frame it, great.
But that's not how football goes.
It's like a continuation.
Why can't it freeze frame?
We freeze frame pass interference, as they call it.
There's a slightest tug of a jersey.
I get it, but you have to catch it and you hit the ground and you have to survive the catch, at least a little bit.
He lost the ball immediately.
And if the Bronco wasn't there, it just would have been incomplete.
But he lost it right to the Bronco.
I don't know.
I thought like immediately I was like, oh shit, that's an interception.
Really?
But as we talk about over and over again, the definition of a catch seems to change week to week and people can bring in plays from the past.
Like here's the play when they called that a catch for the receiver.
No doubt.
I never thought he had the ball.
We could instantly find five examples.
I thought he lost the ball in one hundredth of a second.
It was out of his hands.
What's the answer?
Does it have to be six one hundred?
Who decides?
You?
Me?
Who decides how long it has to be?
It can't be incomplete because it never hit the ground.
It never hit the ground.
Yeah, right.
So one of the two had to catch it.
He took two steps, hit the ground, immediately lost it.
And in any other scenario, they would have said he didn't continue the catch.
It's not a catch.
But McMillan has one hand on the ball.
It went to the Broncos.
So at what point can they be like, all right, hey, it's not long enough, guys.
Let's let five of us come in here and swarm that ball out.
Is it two seconds?
Is it a half a second?
He doesn't need to make a football move at that.
Maybe a half a second would have been nice.
I agree that they should have looked at it longer.
It was kind of a big play to not be like hey, we're going to look at this for a minute here.
They spend 10 minutes looking at spots, fourth down, spots like third down at one.
Like they could look at his McDermott's like, uh, I'm going to call timeout.
Maybe I'll call all my timeouts here, because I really think you guys should look at it for 40 seconds.
And we still don't know what that eye in the sky and go to New York and booth review.
Like we're still unclear about that, but there should have been some explanation about it.
That's all I'm saying.
I agree.
I don't think it was a catch.
Um, I thought it was a weird call that you're.
We saw this even in the Rams game today, where it was before the field goal to win the game.
They just took two shots at the end zone for no reasons.
Like, why aren't you guys getting closer?
Why are you so comfortable with a 48 yard kick at a, what was it like 10 at night?
Yeah.
In Chicago, freezing cold.
Why are you so happy with this?
Special teams have been great.
So I think they got well.
So I was doing a.
You know I was nervous about the game and I was doing a bunch of research about Alan and I was thinking this might be the best version we've ever had of the QB, the great QB that can't get over the hump.
Cause when we were in high school and college, it was Marino.
No way.
Right.
And, and they were like the, yeah, but QBs where we would be like, ah, they're so great.
But um, and especially Marino cause.
Marino really peaked 84, 85 and 86 when he led the league in yards and TDs.
Every year they made the super bowl.
And it just seemed like he was going to rip through the league and he never really matched it, but he lost the super bowl to Montana.
He lost the AFC title at home and to the 85 pats lost to Jim Kelly twice.
They blew a 21, six lead to San Diego 95, uh, Then he became pretty immobile.
And it just kind of, that was it.
I still think he's one of the 10 best QBs Since the merger.
He's one of the best can be as I've ever seen.
He didn't win.
Me too.
I don't think he was my kids highlights of them.
And I'm like, come on, doesn't that, isn't that great?
Doesn't that look different than a lot of what we see?
Then they're like, yeah, that's good.
I mean, I don't know.
He wouldn't be top five type four today.
I'm like, oh God damn it.
Of course he would.
I promise you he would.
Well, if you factor in like people are diving at his knees and hitting him after he throws it, and you know all the things that you had against you.
So he was star crossed.
But I don't think even close to Josh like year after year with these horrible losses, not to mention the Buffalo bills history and all the stuff, all the baggage that comes with being a bills fan, all the terrible things that have happened.
And now you have this guy who's the best player in the league.
And every year something happens.
Elway was the other one.
Yeah.
And Elway was from 83 to 96.
Seven and seven in the playoffs got blown out in the super bowl three times.
Had that huge choke against the 96 Jaguars.
Did you have them in a parlay?
Yes, I did.
The Brunel game?
I forgot.
I looked up that game.
They're up 12-0 at home.
Yeah.
And then the Jags scored 23 straight points and ended up knocking them out.
But then he flipped it.
And they won in 97-98.
They won back-to-back Super Bowls.
And it was moot after that.
And then the other one was Peyton Manning, who the first eight years of his career was three and six in the playoffs, lost to the 99 Dolphins, lost to the Pats, twice in a row, lost to the 05 Steelers, his big favorites.
And that's probably the doppelganger for this.
Allen and Manning.
And Manning won in 06.
Minor league version of that, I'd put my guy in there, Romo.
You can say what you want about him.
No, that's fair.
They had some really good years.
They had 13 win years and 12 win, you know.
And the other one is Phil Rivers.
I think you have to get thrown there too.
How long was Breeze before he went over the top?
He got his early because they won in 09.
Against the Colts.
Yeah, that was 09.
He'd only been on the Saints for a couple years, so he doesn't count.
Then I was going back to the 80s and there's like Dan Fouts, people like that, who had Little mini runs.
This is crazy because he's clearly the best quarterback in the league.
But now there's this playoff thing hanging over it.
And we see this.
This happened in basketball more than football.
This was like the old Carl Malone thing and people like that were they couldn't get over the hump base.
Couple things make this worse.
Social media, right?
Because within four minutes of the loss, you see Josh Allen come January and there'll be a picture of Aaron Judge in a Bills uniform, you know.
So that's awful.
The second thing, he just falls to pieces during these press conferences.
Like, man, I don't know that it meant that much to Dan Marino that he was losing.
I'm sure it hurt.
Dan Marino just yelled at people.
Yeah, exactly.
Would have excoriated an intern.
Yeah, get out of my face.
And I'm not talking to anyone until September kind of thing.
And Josh Allen is just even on the sideline, just broken up and just, it's miserable.
There's something with the baggage.
Like I was talking about it with a couple Red Sox fan friends about and I wrote about this a hundred times when I was writing for ESPN about the mentality of a fan base, when you just feel like you're getting kicked in the nuts at the end of every season.
Yeah.
And we hit, you know from our generation, from that the Pedro era, through the Aaron Boone game where it was just like I don't know if I should follow sports anymore.
Like it gets...
The darkest of dark.
You're just like, why do I do this?
Like, should I do this?
Do I want to give this team to my kids?
And I think the Bills, the combination of everything that's happened to them really since the I don't know 80s.
Sure.
Late 80s into whatever.
Combined with the fact that they have this guy and they had this season, where by far he would have been the best quarterback left.
Yeah.
Right?
And now, on top of it, you get to watch the Broncos advance and Bo Nix is out and you have Jared Stidham.
Like they're probably like, couldn't that Bo Nix injury have happened like 20 minutes earlier?
Like we could have Jared Stidham.
It's really brutal.
It's brutal for the fans.
As bad as it gets.
I went to college in upstate New York.
Everyone was a Bills fan.
Some of them were bearable.
Some of them not.
But the core fans are just, they're great fans up there.
And I think now I know why they dive through tables.
Because they want to get concussed so they can forget about all this nonsense every year.
It's really bad.
Yeah, so they were fixated on the call.
McDermott played it. big but i i just thought they blew that game in a bunch of different ways and honestly he's got to hit knocks like yep you just have to you want to i had my best qb since the merger brady montana mahomes manning elway rogers marino farve young allen I think those are the best 10 QBs since 1970.
And then you can throw Stafford, Breeze, Rivers, Kurt Warner, Bradshaw, Staubach.
I just think Young and Allen were better than all those guys.
Favre has to be above them, like when you throw in stats in a Super Bowl.
But it's weird.
Allen is the only one that, I guess Marino would be the other one that doesn't have that.
Marino only played in one Super Bowl and lost.
Yeah.
I mean, it's phenomenal that he's 0 for 6 in this round.
And lost to Mahomes over and over again is the other problem.
That's like his biggest rival from his generation and lost to him every time.
This was bad because Nix, I think, is the worst quarterback he's lost to.
I think so.
I mean, I know you were down on Nix.
I don't know that.
I think he probably played better than every quarterback this weekend.
Like who played better than him this weekend?
We know that he threw the key P.I. throw.
He had a broken ankle, it seems like, when he threw that last pass.
How about this?
You don't have to worry about a call, ticky-tack call, if you have some safety help there.
If it's a one-on-two and you're Eli Manning and you underthrow it, the refs are less likely to call a pass interference if it's an uncatchable ball like that.
I don't know.
Don't leave it up.
Where was the help on any of that stuff?
He was kind of smart, Nick's.
Throwing it like that.
We've talked about it forever.
Was it Rivers that was doing it for a couple years there or Flacco?
Somebody was doing this in the late 2010s where this Roethlisberger tried to do it.
This offense where you're like, maybe we'll get one.
There's three outcomes.
Two of them are good for us.
Let's just keep doing this.
But one of them was clearly designed to get a PI.
That last one he threw was almost like a Hail Mary moon ball to drop down and try to get the D-back to collide into him.
White was pissed off.
I thought there was no question that was a PI.
I thought so too.
I thought second one for sure.
First one was, eh, but.
I don't know.
I get it.
If I'm a Bills fan, I'm making excuses for my guy.
I'm fixating on that call.
I understand all the stuff they're doing, but they blew the game.
There's no other way to say it.
They blew the game.
They should have won and should have won 34-30.
He should have hit knocks.
The game should have been over.
Is it like this in basketball, would you say, where the officiating is scrutinized 500 more than the playoffs, than it is the regular season?
I guess because NBA is pretty bad too, but it feels like the calls are bigger in football.
Right.
You have these calls that literally swing games.
And basketball...
You have the foul baiting and some stupid stuff, but it's hard to swing a game with a call in basketball.
And I've always said it's tough to officiate.
Like, otherwise, it's just a practical joke on all us fans, right?
Like, no, no, we're going to make the officiating in every sport bad.
It's like, no, these guys are fast.
It's hard to see.
It's hard to make calls.
But in the case of the Cooks catch, where you could review it, that's where I think they need to get it right, or they need to explain, or they need to do something different than you know on the spot call, which you can't review.
Well, the Broncos win.
It's one of the great, I mean, they've won Super Bowl, so you can't say.
It's one of the great non-Super Bowl playoff wins, probably.
You defeat Josh Allen, this great home win.
It seems multiple times, it seems like you're going to blow it.
And then 15 minutes later, we're all getting the text from each other.
Whoa, oh my God, Knicks.
Yeah.
It's like, did he get hit by a car?
What happened?
It's like, no, he broke his ankle.
How did he break his ankle?
I watched the whole game.
Would he break the ankle after the game?
Um, Well then it was a little bit weird, because most of the reports were that he got it kneeling down, which wasn't the case, right?
It was like, oh, my God.
It was that little design rollout thing.
So they had an incredible amount of luck this year and then get a bad break at the worst possible time.
I still think the Stidham thing, they're home.
They have a really good defense.
You saw this Pat's offense could be a little, the blocking could be, I would say, sketchy.
Mm-hmm.
Will Campbell texted us.
They have that.
He was watching the video of when Vrabel stands in the tunnel and he hugs each guy after.
When the guys, the Patriots come in and each guy does the handshake and the hug.
And he said Will Campbell looked like he had just gotten back from like a tour of duty and some military site and just like just deer in the headlights.
I mean, he got, he has not done well as the left tackle.
And now you have this Denver team that's going to load up on him.
Um, they're going to, you know, they're going to try to prevent the Pats from running the ball.
I'll tell you why I'm not buying this.
Um this what was me thing with the Denver thing, because if you are to lose to Denver, you're definitely listing your top seven Patriots playoff losses next year.
And you're putting this in the top three.
We're not going to have to worry about it.
It's not going to happen, but I'm just telling you, that's what would happen.
This would be pretty tough with the, with the way it's lined up now.
Mm-hmm to play Darnold on a neutral field as the prize, who I still feel like and I think our defense is good.
I felt like people were sleeping on it.
Uh, I think they can at least get pressure on him, make him try to work.
I think Gonzalez could take out JSN and we'd match up pretty nicely with them.
And I'm excited to watch the Malcolm Butler clip for two weeks.
But the the, The Pats have to get there first and they have never, ever won a playoff game in Denver.
You could hire Pete Carroll as like a consultant, right?
Like they've done that.
Like right now?
Going into that game.
Like he's like the Denver conciliary?
Yeah.
Well no, not Denver for the Seattle game.
Yeah like hey, here's all for the seahawks.
Yeah, oh yeah, because he was there since last two years and he was the guy.
Yeah, i thought you're gonna say the denver game because vegas played them twice.
Oh, that's true too.
I think pete was only there in spirit.
Yeah, did you see?
Vegas is the raiders record and not the record, but the scores against these playoff teams, like you know, you guys, before that are left yeah unbelievable, like they either won or lost by three football's weird.
That was when I really was concerned about Stroud when I started him that week in fantasy in the playoffs.
And he played Vegas.
Yeah.
And he was terrible.
And I was like, what's up with this dude?
And that was the guy that showed up today.
Well, we've guessed the lines and we have two.
Is this where you get sad?
I'm already sad.
Before we do guess the lines, how'd you do in the gambling?
I did okay because I had teasers all over the place.
I have a ton, way, way too much.
I'm going to have to pull my kid from college if the Hoosiers lose tomorrow, because I had a bunch of bills plus seven and a half Seattle money line tied to Indiana.
So fingers crossed, I get over the finish line there, across the finish line.
But how'd you do?
You did well, right?
I did well.
I would have done awesome if I hadn't panicked and done some Niners protection stuff.
Oh, I got really scared.
Sue Schefter.
You should sue him.
I got really scared.
I did some, but I had my favorite one.
I did like a 14, seven point tees.
That's like two to one odds are close.
Yeah.
And, uh, I took both sides of the bills, Denver game.
Cause I was like, that game's going to be close.
I'm just betting on that one.
And I had that with the Seahawks and then the bears plus 10 and a half today.
When they were down 23-10, I was nervous too with having the Bills plus points at 23-10.
Then you look up, it's like, how are they winning this game 24-23?
What did Denver do?
Yeah, that was the weird thing.
It was a little like the Stroud game, where Allen was bad enough that all of a sudden the Bills were in a power position in the game.
And it's like, I don't understand how this happened.
It was weird.
They didn't use Sutton enough.
I thought some of the Sean Payton play calling, I thought was a little, little, little iffy.
I don't, I don't really remember that much about Stidham.
I don't think he can move like Knicks could obviously, but I think he throws a good deep ball.
Yeah.
So I don't know if they're going to try to just do heavy run and then play action with Stidham.
And if they do that, that's perfect for the Pats because they eat up the run.
Why don't you check out his preseason games?
I'm sure there's tape of it, because he started every preseason first.
Two preseason games every year.
It's a great spot for Drake.
We'll see.
I don't think he was probably happy with those first two playoff games, especially the ball protection stuff.
They got lucky.
There was one fumble that really would have hurt them, and the Pats were able to get it back.
But I think they need to start rolling them out away from pressure.
I just can't, I can't believe with the way this team blocks that they're in the final four.
Yeah.
When, uh, it just doesn't seem like he has more than three seconds ever.
Yeah.
You know, when do you think, uh, Donald gets hurt?
Like, is it like washing his car?
He just like uh see, we went through this with the Celtics two years ago, with all the teams the Celtics played that year, and it was like asterisk, asterisk.
And then they beat Dallas.
Especially this is incredible though.
This is just every week, right?
Even when the good teams don't show up.
But if you had this situation with your guy Tony Romo in the late 2000s, you would have loved it.
Of course I would have loved it.
You have to love it.
Yeah.
We knew this was going to be a weird year.
We were saying this in October.
We were like, get ready for fucking weird playoffs.
None of these teams are that good.
Who are the good teams?
I'm just saying, don't accept the trophy.
That would be like a bold thing to do.
It'd be like, you know, like the fans of Massachusetts.
Fans would be like and people would be like all right I'm, I'm okay with them now.
Just, I bet maybe at five to one for MVP for Superbowl MVP.
I did on the priest pregame show today.
I was like, enough is enough.
Throwing in the towel.
How much was it?
I'm Duke and Rocky four, five to one odds.
That was this morning.
It's got to be updated.
It's got to be less than that now.
So do they have the Super Bowl MVP odds or no?
That's what I'm saying.
Up right now?
Do they have all of them up?
Oh, yeah, they do.
Yeah.
Darnold's plus 250.
May is plus 280.
Stafford plus 330.
JSN 14-1.
Puka 17-1.
And Walker 20-1.
I think there's a real JSN case.
Really?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because if the Seahawks won and we've seen receivers we just had it happen with Cooper Cup a couple years ago.
We've seen receivers win MVP when the quarterback stats aren't that good and the receiver's like 10 for 122 with a touchdown or whatever.
Sometimes they'll win it.
I'm predicting you put a Hyundai on Christian Gonzalez at 225 to one.
No doubt about it.
He was good today.
We got that.
He was excellent today.
It really helped him that Nico Collins wasn't playing, obviously.
I don't have to tell you.
We have Stidham versus an aging Matthew Stafford versus Drake May versus Sam Darnold.
And that's our final four of QBs.
What were the odds of that, you think, in August?
You couldn't get it.
Is it like a million to one?
Yeah, you couldn't get it.
And if I told you Stidham was starting in the...
AFC title game at home.
You would have thought Bo Nix got hurt in like week four instead of did like a Nick Foles.
Well, yeah, I guess so.
Yeah.
I guess that would be the only way to do it.
Oh man.
It's fricking Patriots.
All right.
Guess the lines.
So bummed.
Go ahead.
So I don't even know.
Do we know what's the first game?
What's the second game?
I'm assuming Pat's Denver is first game, right?
You think you're in the night game?
They should send your game to Europe.
They should play that in Ireland somewhere at three in the morning.
Of course you're in the first game.
You should have been the first game Saturday, if not for Houston and the rest.
They moved our game this Saturday.
Yeah.
I went Pat's.
So Pat's in Denver.
I went Patriots minus one and a half.
Wait a minute.
Really?
That's what you did?
Yeah.
I said Patriots minus five, and it's Pat's minus five and a half.
Are you crazy?
I was wondering why you were so worried.
You got this, buddy.
So if Knicks was the QB, what would the line have been?
I think it would have been a tic-tac.
With you maybe favored by one and a half.
Really?
Yeah, I think so.
Did anyone say our offensive line today?
Well, I don't know.
You've been power ranked higher all year than Denver, right?
Haven't you?
How do you think it's one and a half?
This guy hasn't thrown a ball in years.
You're saying Bo Nix is worth... six points to the line?
Like he's Patrick Mahomes?
That's ridiculous.
If New England was favored by one and a half, this would be four to the line.
I don't think we would have been favored by one and a half in Denver against Bo Nix.
Well, who's betting Bo Nix?
Stidham.
I think that's the question.
People have to decide.
Are we good or are we not good?
Because everyone's like, oh, it's schedule, schedule, schedule, schedule.
But then we should be favored in the AFC title game?
Which is it?
Well, I think you have to decide because you obviously don't think enough of your team.
I mean, you have a four-point gift here.
You should bet a lot on Denver.
We can't block.
Oh, man.
I don't know.
Will Anderson almost had seven sacks in that game.
You are...
Does FanDuel let us?
They have to keep a third tight end next to our left tackle so we could have our quarterback have two seconds of time.
100%.
You're betting the Patriots.
We've never won a playoff game in Denver.
I'm not betting this game.
In the Ringer 107, there's no question you're betting the Patriots.
Well, I'm going to do that.
I'm going to do that.
What am I going to take the Broncos?
I'm going to go against my team.
That's what everyone's saying.
Oh, what are we going to take the Broncos?
Like this is teasers.
Like they got to move the, they may move us to eight.
Who knows?
I'm positive.
You were going to tease the Broncos to like 11 and a half.
No way.
No way.
I can't bet bad quarterbacks.
I'll bet you're a bad quarterback.
That's it.
I got to look at the manifesto and see what's going on.
There are a couple quarterback rules in the manifesto.
Just go to letter S. Understood them.
Bad offensive lines usually don't travel.
And from what we saw, the Pats offensive line, it was pretty sketchy.
I mean, May in two playoff games, I think got stripped from behind as he was throwing five times.
Five or four?
Four or five?
That's not a good sign for us.
Denver's got a good defense.
I'm looking now.
I didn't look at these before.
I guessed, but some people are saying So.
Denver's the first home underdog in a conference championship game since Pat's Colts.
2015.
No, Denver, New England.
2015.
Oh, noodle arm.
2018.
What was that?
Two and a half, three?
And this is the biggest home underdog any one seed has been in a conference title game since 1970.
All the Sharps are going to take the Broncos.
Yeah.
There you go.
All right, so I win the week and go within one if I get this or if we talk.
Manning was good in that AFC title game.
Even though he was noodle-armed that whole year, he actually was pretty good in that game and he hurt us.
Rams, Seahawks in Seattle.
I have the Seahawks favored by three and a half.
Wait a minute.
Who gets this?
I said one and a half.
It is two and a half.
So we tie.
And so you win the week.
I win the week.
And it is now 10 to nine.
No, it is now.
I'm still up by 11 to 10.
You can tie for the year.
Oh, what a great treat that would be if we tie.
Netflix really did the right thing.
I like when we tie because then you're in a better mood.
If we tie.
If we tie, let's go to penalty kicks, and Zoe, we're the two goalies, and Zoe kicks against us.
Let's do that.
That would be great.
Let's do it.
She'd probably love that.
Zoe could probably hurt either of us.
I know.
It's all right.
I deserve it.
Seattle, two and a half, huh?
Yeah.
I would have thought.
I feel like that should be higher.
I haven't been that impressed by the Rams.
You think going into this week it was lower?
I kind of thought they should have lost today.
If there's not midfield and overtime, it felt like that game was done.
What would you have made this line Friday night or whatever?
Probably two and a half.
Two and a half.
Yeah.
Instead of three and a half.
Yeah.
I have a couple emails from Bills fans.
This is from Brian.
Hmm.
I'm a lifelong Bills fan.
I have two sons.
Our 10-year-old is completely bought in.
He's watched every game in the past four seasons.
I've done everything I can to warn him about how the season will end.
After the loss to the Broncos, he went full Brad.
I guess that's now a verb for our crazy friend Brad.
He went full Brad, was inconsolable, and launched into a fallen asthma attack.
30 minutes of hysterical crying, purple lips, and wheezing.
I tried explaining that like the Masters.
This is a tradition like no other.
And the Bills NFL finding a way to absolutely gut punch us, the most resilient fan base in the NFL.
I felt nothing.
They've crushed my insides.
Do I have an obligation as a father to completely disavow the Bills?
That's from Brian.
It's pretty bleak.
That's for Child Protective Services to figure out, I think, Brian.
Maybe you ought to get that on the record.
They're knocking at your door.
You're lucky Bill didn't say your last name.
That sucks.
That sucks though.
That's we could laugh and everything, but that absolutely sucks.
Yeah.
And unfortunately your kid inherited the team and he can't switch.
He's stuck with the team.
Did you, that's nine and 10 are the worst times for, to have a loss like this.
Those are the nine was the twice I've cried from sports.
And those were the two times when I was nine.
You know what?
You didn't have to worry about 2006 when you were in your mid thirties.
And also, but like going to school for you, you all like sympathize.
You're all together.
You're all in it together.
Like I was a Cowboys fan in New York.
You know, the Mets is a different story.
All my friends were Mets fans or Yankee fans and they hated the Mets.
But yeah, that's, that's an extra hurdle.
You have to, you have to get over.
Yeah.
We had the Yankee playoff game and then we had the too many men on the ice against the Canadians, I think within six months of each other.
I think my parents got divorced in the middle of that.
Oh, no.
Because of that?
I think I might have had a 30-minute asthma attack.
Wait a minute.
Your parents got divorced because there were too many men on the ice?
No, I was just taking losses left and right.
Shale from Columbia Maryland, asks the NFL famously changed the rules on how defensive backs could cover receivers to get Peyton Manning a ring.
This is true, by the way.
Which rule are they going to change to get Josh Allen over the hump?
Could it be that QBs don't count against the cap anymore?
They did change the rules for Manning.
That was 100% happened.
Yeah.
I don't know what rule they would change.
If your wife has been nominated for an acting award, you get 10 million more on the salary cap?
Start every possession at the 45?
I don't know.
I don't know what it is.
There were a couple kickoff spots during these playoffs.
Down in the end zone, you throw one 15-yard pass and you're over midfield.
I can't get used to it.
I can't wrap my head around some of the spottings.
You're like, wait, we're on the other team's 45 already?
What's happening?
This is why I want to get rid of kicking in fantasy.
Colton asks, You've talked a lot about how it could be Josh Allen's year.
You forgot to mention how good his life is going.
He's married to Haley Steinfeld.
They have a baby on the way.
He's not hungry enough.
One of the main reasons Tom Brady was so good, especially in the last few years of his career, is because his personal life was teetering on the edge of collapse.
Do you think Allen misses those throws against the Broncos if his personal life was collapsing?
I think not.
Wow.
You think that matters?
I don't know.
It's a theory from Colton.
I did did make me think like Brady met Giselle in the mid two thousands and we didn't win a Superbowl for like eight years.
Yeah.
And then he started ripping them off near the end.
And now she's married to her jujitsu instructor.
Brady was hungry, but I think it's because he was dedicated to carrot and ginger soup.
He was like literally just hungry because he was eating almonds.
Gotta be hungry to be hungry.
Yeah.
He was actually hungry.
Um, And then Alan asks, he said, I'm a hardcore NBA fan, a casual NFL fan.
Is there a modern NBA equivalent to the Buffalo Bills and Josh Allen, a proud but tragic small market team that's never made it over the hump?
I don't think you can compare any other sport to what happened to the Bills in the 90s, right?
No way, no.
I don't think.
But you could say, like the Pacers last year, but then seven other horrible things would have had to happen to them.
So they hit six divisional titles round games in a row without winning a Super Bowl.
This Bills team has hit six in a row without getting to the Super Bowl.
But yeah, that was absolutely brutal.
And they hit the lottery with the, I mean, you go back at that draft and how it worked out.
That was such a weird draft where we were trying to decide who the good quarterbacks were going to be out of it.
And there were all those choices.
And then they ended up getting the one you had wanted.
Yeah.
I was thinking that that uh, that Caleb, if Caleb had made the next round and we would have had Caleb Drake and Jaden Daniels all in the conference title game in the first two years of that draft.
And they went one two, three.
I don't, I don't know if that even has happened in the NBA where we went one, two, three like that.
I don't think it has.
We've had like top fives where there were three guys, but not like one two, three.
All of the guys were awesome.
Yeah, I think it takes less time for a football team to change their fortune than a lottery-picked basketball player, probably.
Yeah, that's true.
Do you want to do some parent corner?
Let's do it.
I mean, that was a parent story.
That's going to be tough to top.
Poor guy.
Yeah, that was sad.
I mean, he did create the word full Brad.
He doesn't know what he's talking about.
Remind me to send you a video of Brad trying to get himself and somebody else a Mountain Dew soda at Shakey's from two weeks ago.
Himself and someone else?
Oh, someone at the table?
Yeah.
It didn't take a short amount of time.
Spoiler alert.
It's the simple tasks.
It was an eight-second task that took two minutes.
This is uh not a parent corner thing, but we took him to uh yogurt land a few weeks ago.
I took him with the boys and he had never been to one and he was screaming at the people behind the counter because he didn't realize you have to do it yourself, right.
Like you have to put the yogurt in and then you add the toppings.
And he didn't think that was right.
And he was wondering what they were doing behind the counter that they couldn't do this.
Oh, I got to do this.
Oh, I got to do this myself.
Oh, really?
What do I get?
What do I get?
Like eight bucks an hour?
What do you get?
I'll take half what you get.
God, Jesus, just eat your chocolate swirl.
Let's get out of here.
We might have to have him on the Super Bowl props podcast when we do that two weeks from now.
Can we have him on?
Is it possible for him to be on a Zoom?
I think so.
Yeah.
I mean, it's going to take a lot to install a camera.
I got to talk to Netflix.
I don't know if he's allowed on Netflix.
Yeah, you're right.
It's too controversial for Netflix.
What do you have for a parent corner?
All right.
Well, my parent corner involves my wife, because she sees me as a child, so it counts.
Although I feel like I'm very mature in this situation.
So she's in a baseball mom's fantasy league, right?
So all the moms of Harrison's 12-year-olds Um, right there.
And she does the draft in September and she, I give her a nice grid.
I was like Hey go running back wide receiver running back wide receiver, maybe wide receiver running back.
I don't care.
But for those first four, do that.
Just keep doing that and do it through six rounds.
Um, So she for some reason waits until the fifth round, take running backs, despite the fact that I gave her a nice grid telling her what to do.
And she ends up with, like James Connor and Dobbins, all this crap for running back and they're gone early.
So she can never catch up.
She has some bad luck.
She goes two and 12 and she blames me.
And because I can't dig her out of the hole, she's like, you watch football.
You watch every single play.
You can't help me here.
I'm against mothers.
I'm like, sweetheart, it's all luck.
Fantasy is all luck.
So as it turns out, there's a punishment for last place.
She was in two and 12.
Yeah, there's a punishment for last place.
So she says the other day to me, Um, she's like, Hey, so-and-so is going to come by.
She's dropping off the sign for the lawn.
I was like, what sign for the lawn?
So it's a sign that says uh, it's a fantasy football, sign that says I suck at fantasy football and it has to go on our lawn for a month.
I was like, that's not going on our lawn.
She's like, yes, it has to.
There's nothing I get.
And the kids are like, no way.
No, we're not doing that.
Cause then that looks like someone in this house.
So, you know, then it'll look like I suck at fantasy football.
Right.
And it looked like uh, you know, my kids are like they'd rather fail all their classes than have someone think that they'd suck at fantasy football, at this.
So she's like, well, the alternative was get this.
I'd have to walk up and down the pier with a sign that says I give great BJs.
And I was like, ah, Jesus Christ.
What kind of league is this?
Even my league is like, this is nuts.
What is this, like the Ice Storm League?
What's going on in this league?
I give great BJs?
I would have tried harder if I knew what's at stake, you know?
So, but then I'm thinking like, all right, she would, carries that sign that makes me look better at least but i i get why she doesn't want to do it but uh so like we're fighting about this so we have to put the sign in our yard and uh i was like she lost you gotta do it i you gotta put your face on it i was like we have to people have to know she's like no no no i don't want people knowing my i'm like why you walk the dog people see you out every day it doesn't matter it's like no no i'm not so now we're it's like what do you think we should do here like the kids we're all fighting about this So it should say the sign should be, I'm Melissa and I suck at fantasy football, something like that.
Yeah, but it's already here.
It just says I should make a new sign.
I should just change it.
Or put her face on it.
Right.
Put a picture of her face on it.
Yeah.
Do you have a picture of her from the other night?
I don't have pictures of her.
I like this.
I think it should go on your front line.
And I think it could apply to the whole family.
How many leagues did you win this year?
I love that.
I like telling him like, Oh, sweetheart, it's all luck.
And then I'm like, no, I'm like, we're not putting that on the day.
If it's all luck, I shouldn't have a problem with it.
Right.
My uh, my parent corner is so my son.
My son is in college or he's in high school, but got into college.
And it's one of those things where you still have the second semester.
Yeah.
And you've still got to put in the work, but he's already in.
And it struck me that this is all the times when we have kids, when they're younger, and you have to lie to them about the repercussions of things right.
And it peaks with Elf on the Shelf, which...
When we started doing Parent Corner, we talked a lot about Elf on the Shelf and how ridiculous it is that these elves, we move them around every day.
And if the kid doesn't obey, if the elf gets mad, they might not get Christmas presents.
And they're stupid enough to believe this.
I feel like this is the last stage of Elf on the Shelf.
It's like, if your grades go down, they might rescind you. your application and you're not in there.
But meanwhile you can probably Google that and I don't know if that's true.
But just threatening your kid with something that deep down, they probably know, isn't that true?
So now I'm just guilt tripping.
Like you gotta finish strong.
You became such a good student.
Like, you got to finish this now.
You got one semester left.
Like, do this for pride.
The point is lying to our kids doesn't work anymore.
I think they've just completely figured this out by age 18, right?
Yeah.
Well, it certainly doesn't work now that you're telling the story.
Well, because he knows.
Oh, he does.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He already read me.
So it's, it's, yeah, that's a good point.
We're going back to past with our kids and they know exactly what offense we're in and where the receivers are going.
And it's just.
I don't think we can slip anything by them, but I wonder what age that is when that ends.
Yeah.
That's like 15, 15, 16.
I think that's it.
The only thing you could do is like, you could have a story attached to it.
Like, look, for the most part, this doesn't matter.
But my friend, Joe house is, Right, his son.
No, him.
He was in Notre Dame.
He got in and whatever.
He was in.
He was going to Harvard.
He was in Harvard Law and they saw his grades and pulled it.
He got rowdy at a bar and something happened and then he had to be out two weeks.
Try that.
See if it works.
I should have said that.
Well, one thing is I know he's probably not watching.
Not watching this anymore.
Uh, that's it for parent corner.
Anything else we got to hit?
Yeah.
I want to hit a couple of things here.
First of all, we uh most of our beginning of the year.
In August we hit, we did our futures bets right.
Yeah.
Um, what the good news or the bad news?
Well, we did the, we did over unders, which was disappointing.
Right.
And then we had a futures draft above our futures.
Yes.
I'll tell you what the good news is we hit 12 bets. six each.
The bad news is we gave out 53.
Um, but some of those were high end.
Okay.
Yeah.
So your best, what am I in?
Like I had like a Denver to make the super bowl.
Like I have some ones that have like pretty big odds.
You did better than I did.
And we still have three left.
You have Rabel for coach of the year, which is going to win.
That's about seven to one.
I have Sal for assistant coach of the year.
And I have, like Penny Sewell for protector of the year, which i haven't seen an update since august on that.
But anyway, your best was seattle, plus 500 to win the division.
Good job by you.
New orleans cleveland, for last place, plus 158, and denver, or green bay, number one seed, plus 550.
Those are your best yeah.
So the thing is we throw a bunch of these out.
We try to hit 10 because they have the big odds right.
But I think my issue was I tied Casey to all these.
Casey killed us.
Casey just murdered us.
What happened?
Dumbass team.
Nowhere close to playoffs.
The other thing is I listened to your Friday show and Schrager mentioned the Bill Simmons re-apex, which is great.
I mean, he just he loves to kiss your ass.
My God.
My God, Schrager.
I love Schrager, but could you give it a rest?
You got the Friday spot locked up.
You're going to be fine.
I love you, Schrager.
But anyway, the example he used, and I'll admit it's a great scenario.
Was it an email or just a scenario he came up with?
How does it go?
If there's an OJ type Bronco chase in 2026, who's the most compelling current or former athlete?
Who would be the 2026 equivalent?
To pay it to OJ Simpson.
If that happened now and you had to have the surprise factor, the likability of the celebrity and the fame.
That everybody's in, now everybody.
Everybody's like, oh my God, I can't believe this, yeah.
Peyton Manning's not in the top 20.
Why is he number one?
Who do you have?
First of all, if it's the same scenario as Travis Kelsey, because that means he would have killed his wife, Taylor Swift, of course that's gotta be the answer. you can't think of that yeah uh josh yeah that's true he would have killed the yeah anybody who's married a celebrity it's a bigger it's a bigger deal that's a pretty good point even josh allen but that's not equal then that's a higher thing oj was a married celebrity so it has to be oh it's got to be there to announce i mean i think like shohei otani would be big you'd be like oh that guy was gambling he's running from his book he had to kill somebody like that that's pretty good lebron caitlin clark steph curry we kind of know his wife right all but it has to be a retired athlete though it had to be retired yeah because oj was retired you're trying to fit the box of like former athlete moved into a second phase of his career everybody liked him did commercials dabbled in tv stuff and movie stuff all right all right so travis kelsey the other ones Somebody, uh, there was a couple of emails, actually people pushing Michael Strahan saying that that's actually the closest because like OJ went into TV after crossover, um, was on the Regis and Kelly show and is on the ABC show.
So means something to like the female audience, kind of like OJ was in the Hertz commercials.
So Strahan was interesting, but I don't think Strahan's as liked as OJ was.
Well, Brady then for sure would be up there.
How about this one?
Because we know the wife, Triple H. Triple H would be good.
I don't know.
I think a wrestler, everybody's kind of like they're 20% not surprised.
They know the McMahons.
Al Michaels would be ironic.
That would be fun since he called the original.
Yeah.
Michael's on the run from Toscano's after he just put down a veal chop.
That'd be good.
Riding through Brentwood, the same streets.
He's crazy.
This is what happens when you don't eat vegetables.
You lose your mind.
That's a good one.
The more I thought about it, I think Serena might've been the answer.
Oh yeah.
That's a good one too.
Cause it switches over.
Everybody loves Serena.
Nobody ever in a million years would have thought anything would happen with her.
And that's good.
I think the shock value, I think my wife would care the most versus, like Michael Strahan, people like that.
That's a good call.
But Manning is kind of fits the OJ profile of almost in some ways feels as big as he did when he played from all the stuff he's up to.
Right.
And you know, we're missing one.
I wrote down Bowen Yang, but I don't know if that's the same.
I'm a force of Bowen Yang joke in every Netflix podcast.
I watched, by the way, I watched the Kill Tony show on Netflix.
Yeah, I haven't got to.
And that guy Cam Patterson came in and just absolutely crushed.
He loved it.
On there.
Yeah, I like the Kill Tony show.
It's kind of like Gong Show crossed with Don Barris' Ding Dong Show crossed with.
Cross with like a Jeff Ross roast.
I don't know.
It's all over the place.
I like that show.
All right.
There you go.
Anything to plug?
Bring your game to the show all week.
All week.
I'm on with Tate, the Bundo, House, High Fits.
Great group of fellas.
We do it over again Sunday morning on the pregame show.
And you know what?
I'm going to give...
10 people, $50.
I got to change my mojo.
If you had a bad beat, hit me up at The Cousin Sal on Twitter.
Show me a copy of your ticket stub, whatever.
I'll give 50 to the first 10 I see.
Had to be a bad beat in the Buffalo game or this other stupid one we just watched.
Well, we almost had the Rams with the overtime cover.
Felt like it was in play on those last two throws.
It's almost like he had them.
All right, so two rewatchables coming this week.
Double rewatchables.
We have just one of the guys on Monday and then I'll tell people what the Wednesday movie is.
On the Monday pod.
So we have that.
We're going to be on Netflix all week on this pod.
Rewatchable starts next week on Netflix as well.
And Cuz...
I will see you in a week or big debate about whether my dad's going to come out for this Pat's Denver game.
Oh, really?
What's the debate?
He's got to do it.
Talking about making the fight.
Yeah.
We've watched a lot of these.
You never know, after we had that last Pat's chiefs one, uh in 2018, which I think we watched together.
Um, now that we're back, I think he might come out for this one.
So I don't know if that's going to help my luck or not.
I could have them as I'm doing the pod.
I can just have them sitting in the seat behind me.
Just, Probably a coma from the game.
Yeah.
And you know what?
You should say to him you know, dad remember senior year.
You told me I have to give it my best.
Second half.
You were full of shit, right?
Yeah, you lied, didn't you, dad?
Look at us now.
Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well.
Because as always, good job by you.
Good job by you, buddy.
We'll see you next week live on Netflix, but check out the BS Pub Tuesday and Thursday as well.
See you in a couple of days.
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