Cincy Fails Burrow, the Boring Eagles, Guess the Lines, and Crawford’s Brilliance With Cousin Sal

9:53Cousin Sal:Right, right, right. Yeah, no, I still think it's NFL. I still think it's NFL because, you know, fantasy you can get, well, you can get a lot of guys who to replace Burrow and get the three points, four points less a week, whatever. But But yeah, when they brought him off, I was like, oh my God, looks like he got his both knees shut off in Vietnam or something. What the hell is going on here? And then to find out it's turf toe. And I was like, what? Turf toe? He'll be back in the fourth quarter. Because they didn't really rule him out until like the beginning of the fourth quarter. And then it's like, no, he's got torn ligaments in this from the turf toe.

10:26Cousin Sal:And so now tomorrow he finds out if he wants to or has to have surgery. And that would spell the end. I didn't get full details. Was that it? It sounded like it's three months.

10:36Bill Simmons:Yeah. If he does the surgery, which basically takes you to mid-December. The good news is eight and nine might be the seventh seed in the AFC, the way we're going. So could hang around. And they do have a backup. I know he had three picks today. But Jake Browning, we've been here with him a few times. And he can make throws, and he can get it to those guys. And he's feast or famine. And you never can feel comfortable whether you're up 10 or down 10 when he's in the game. but I think he's better than most backups. I think they can still put up stats with Chase and Higgins.

11:07Cousin Sal:Well, he's good. I mean, yeah, he was good today. That was a miraculous win and cover, right? They were laying three and a half. So to get it on the goal line and put it home, his problem is going to be, I have to see now their next four games I saw. So even if he doesn't get the surgery, he's probably out a few weeks at the Vikings. All of a sudden, not as bad at the Broncos. All right. Wait a minute. Earlier this look versus the Lions at the Packers. and home against the Steelers. I don't know. This morning, this looked pretty daunting, but that's their five games.

11:38Bill Simmons:Well, and they somehow ended up winning and coming back from Jacksonville. So I wrote down this before he got hurt because I had that game in the multi-view. I'm back on the East Coast, had to pick the four games, had the iPad with four games on much smaller screens, but it was Cincy Jacksonville was one of the four because I had money on it. I had Jacksonville in the over. I had fantasy guys on both teams. And I just thought it would be a really fun game. And I wrote down like 40 minutes in that Burrow was just getting crushed. Like, did you watch it? Every time he went back to pass, there were five guys back there.

12:15Bill Simmons:They weren't even coming close. And this is Jacksonville. It wasn't like they were playing the, you know, 1991 Eagles. And he was under siege. And I have him in our guillotine league. and I was watching it going, I wish I didn't have him. I'm really getting nervous the hits he's taking. Then, of course, he gets hurt like 20 minutes later. Now I do not have him.

12:41Cousin Sal:Yeah, they never fix that, right, for him? Like, hey, why can't we just ever see him be great? Can we see Joe Burrow? We put him in the top four. We think he could be interchangeable in the top three. Will we ever get to see him be great because he's given a decent offensive line or two guys who can block? It just seems from year to year, it's the same shit.

12:59Bill Simmons:Yeah, it's not even, I mean, he would probably take decent. This is, it's like awful every year. I wrote down, I was writing down really dumb analogies. It's like being the biggest cocaine distributor in Columbia, but not having any security guards for the cocaine.

13:15Cousin Sal:Oh, good. Okay.

13:16Bill Simmons:Thank you. It's like buying a million dollar Maybach and just parking it outside your house with the doors open and the keys in it. Like, what's the point of paying Joe Burrow$50 million and then not giving him an offensive line? It's so fucking stupid. What are you guys doing?

13:32Cousin Sal:Do you want Alanis Morissette to record this for you? I don't know what she would call it. What could she call it? Isn't this a coincidence? Isn't this, I don't know, it's something. It's like winning the Emmy, but your whole staff is fired in a few months.

13:47Bill Simmons:I thought you were going to say, it's like being nominated for an Emmy, but campaigning for somebody else in the category.

13:52Cousin Sal:Poor Colbert. All right. There you go. Let's get Alanis on the case.

13:58Bill Simmons:Who is the seventh AFC playoff team if it's not the Bengals? Because I'll give you some choices.

14:04Cousin Sal:Yeah.

14:04Bill Simmons:Buffalo and Baltimore, I think we can pencil in. We can pencil in an AFC South team. Could you pencil in everyone in the AFC West, all four teams? Would you put the Pats in there? Could you say two AFC South teams? Could we get Houston and Indianapolis, who's 2-0? I don't know.

14:23Cousin Sal:I thought you had the seven seed as nine and eight, right? I think we both did before the season.

14:28Bill Simmons:I had the Pats going nine and eight, which is maybe even conceivable. And I had Vegas going nine and eight. I had two nine and eights getting the six and seven seeds.

14:36Cousin Sal:That's going to be a scramble now, like where we thought like maybe three teams are competing for that seven seed. Maybe there's six teams competing. And, you know, I know everybody wants to say the Chiefs suck, but would you say the Chiefs are better than New England right now? It's probably close.

14:50Bill Simmons:with the Chiefs and we'll hit them later. But I want to see what they look like in week 14 when they get their guns back. They just have no explosive plays right now. I guess the question for me, and we're going to find out tomorrow night, what are we getting from Houston this season? Because all of us wanted to pick anyone else in that division. And all of us kicked the tires on Tennessee. We tried that. I couldn't get there. We tried Indianapolis. They had that QB thing and it was Daniel Dimes or Richardson. and I couldn't get there. And then Jacksonville, I just fundamentally can't get there.

15:24Bill Simmons:You got there.

15:25Cousin Sal:Yeah, I want to get somewhere else now, but I got there. You got there.

15:29Bill Simmons:Looking to relocate. Now you're calling for help. But, and maybe it's Indy, but I think Houston tomorrow night, there's two games tomorrow night, and Houston is the team out of the four playing that. Like the Chargers, I think, are at least going to be pretty good. Whether they're as good as they looked in week one, we'll see. The Raiders are going to be able to throw the ball. They'll be a 500 team and a little bit dangerous game to game. Houston, either their defense might be really good and they can throw the ball, or they just might not be good this year. And I feel like we're going to know tomorrow.

16:00Bill Simmons:Tomorrow and then probably next Sunday.

16:02Cousin Sal:They go to Jacksonville on Sunday. So in the next eight days, whatever that is, Sunday to Sunday, seven days. I think we'll know for sure.

16:10Bill Simmons:Well, what do you think of Jacksonville? because Lawrence, I was trying to think of a quarterback who's more terrifying inside the other team's 10-yard line for his own team where you just feel like anything's possible. Strip sack, pick, tip pick, hospital ball, perfect throw into the corner, a great scramble where he stiff-arms somebody. There's like 15 plays, but it's probably going to be disappointing for Jacksonville is how it's going to end. And they had two of those today. He threw a pick inside the 10, and then that fourth and five, they're up three. It's like under four minutes. The book said to, I guess, go for it.

16:56Bill Simmons:I would have kicked the field goal and made Jake Browning, who already had three picks, go the length of the field to try to beat me. Maybe I'm nuts. I've watched a lot of football in my life. Maybe have the backup QB with three picks, have to go the full field. that they went for it, didn't get it.

17:11Cousin Sal:He had just thrown an interception. They could have put the game away. I actually took my eye off the screen. I was like, wait a minute, how'd they get the ball back? But I'd love to blame Trevor Lawrence. Believe me, he's been a disappointment for what I thought he would be coming in. But they dropped touchdown passes today on him, too. They did. That whole team just might be, you know, from the owner up or down, they just might be incompetent. I'll use that word.

17:37Bill Simmons:there's some Brian Thomas Jr. controversy, which I'm following because he's on a couple of my fantasy teams. There was an alligator arms play over the middle. He dropped the last play of the game. There was another one. And on social media, I went to the Jaguars Reddit page to read what they were saying and they weren't happy with him. The coach was asked about him. This is how I found out about it. Somebody put the clip. They asked Liam Cohen about, what'd you think about the effort on Thomas? And he's like, I guess I'll have to look at it later. I don't really know yet. Like didn't defend him at all.

18:13Bill Simmons:It was just weird. So Lawrence threw him a hospital ball in the preseason. I really like BTJ. So I just, and it happened for whatever reason, I happened to be watching. It was a replay or something, but he, and the reason it stuck out, it was like, it's their best guy and it's a preseason game. Right. And then in the, in the game today, I just didn't think he was impactful. This is a guy going for 40-plus in fantasy, right?

18:40Cousin Sal:Yeah, I loved him today. I bet him to score a touchdown. I scored 10 touchdowns last year, right? He was definitely a difference maker, you know, like sniffed around at the Offensive Rookie of the Year last year. To me, it's like Travis Hunter. What are they going to do? I mean, you pointed out last week, did he have nine offensive snaps? Was that it? Was that all he had? He couldn't have had a ton more this week.

19:03Bill Simmons:He only had the big PI today, which I didn't think was a PI.

19:06Cousin Sal:Right. Did you? No, I didn't. I just don't know if he's going to be a force offensively. And if he isn't, that doesn't change the trajectory of this team from last year.

19:16Bill Simmons:No, and I think when we were doing the pods before the season, we were like, this is one of the great X factors. You have multi-view and Travis Hunter's on the screen and get to see. And he just hasn't really jumped out the first two weeks, which is fine. He's a rookie. but they traded a bunch of shit for him including their first round pick next year. You know? And I don't... I hated the trade when it happened. I thought they gave up too much and you're giving up what they gave up. It either has to be for Abdul Carter or it has to be for, you know, a potential franchise QB. I don't think there's...

19:49I just don't think a two-way guy

19:52Bill Simmons:when we haven't seen it for 35 years... I don't know. Just didn't like it.

19:56Cousin Sal:I think Otani ruined everything for all the sports. everybody's looking for the next Otani and you're right it's probably not Travis Hunter

20:05Bill Simmons:wait I had one more thing from that

20:10Bill Simmons:Jake Browning is there who's your number one backup QB right now coming in cold in the league right now that you feel pretty good about is there anybody that tops Jake Browning is Jake Browning the ceiling let me see

20:29Cousin Sal:I mean, he's pretty damn close to the ceiling. Just going through your head. Is there anyone? No, Giants, Cowboys, no. I would have loved to have said Cowboys. Lions, Jimmy G. Jimmy G? Yeah, Jimmy G-ish, maybe. His ceiling might be. And no Trey Lance. I'm just looking at these guys. It's not, I'm telling you, man. There's not a lot of good backup. I mean, Cousins. I was thinking about like Cousins. Cousins. How many teams he would make better at this point. but yeah, because we know what he can do. But we also saw him, speaking of alligator arms, throwing 14-mile-an-hour spirals.

21:05Bill Simmons:Yeah, not great. Well, tough times for the Bengals, and I think it's time to do the depressed fan base rankings. Oh. So I think Bears are number one, and we're going to go into it. Panthers two, Jaguars three, Jets four. If I gave you that list, would you disagree with that order?

21:27Cousin Sal:Bears, Panthers, Jaguars, Jets. I guess you're saying the Browns are in a class of their own?

21:35Bill Simmons:Can they be depressed anymore? Can the Browns fans feel anything? Are they just dead inside? They have no expectations for this year. Can you be depressed when you expect to go 2-15?

21:48Cousin Sal:Yeah, they're just zombies at this point. I think you're right. They probably should just take all the seats out of the stadium and let the zombie fans roam however they want throughout. The Browns fans are zombies. That's all.

21:58Bill Simmons:Yeah. They're like the two people at the end of Sinners, just kind of wandering the earth at night, just trying to listen to jazz music and not see the sun. I think Bears are one because they were real expectations this year. They had this number one pick in the draft where they get the supposed franchise guy and he's just been awful. And there's already been long pieces about how prepared he was during the season that big piece Tyler Dunn wrote two weekends ago. and he looks about as flustered as any QB we're watching.

22:29Cousin Sal:I'll give you Bears one. The Vikings are just for a different reason. I think you got to get them in the conversation because there's so much difference between what kind of team you're getting year to year. You get the 13-win team, then you get the rookie quarterback. I'm not bringing in the history, though.

22:44Bill Simmons:I'm saying right now, fan bases that went into this season and either had their hopes up or they were optimistic for some reason And I would say right now, Bears and Panthers. I mean, the Panthers are a little different than the Browns because deep down they were hoping maybe it would be a little bit better. And it's not. It's really bad. You're right, though. I might be underrated in the Browns.

23:07Cousin Sal:Yeah, well, we can go by over-under wins in terms of expectation. And I think the Bears had the highest, what were they, 7.5, 8.5? What were they? 8.5, right? So I think the Bears are probably going away, actually, if you go by that.

23:20Bill Simmons:Where are the Dolphins on this list for you? Oh, man. I guess they're close, too. They have to be tough. Actually, they should probably be higher because they were booing in the first quarter.

23:29Cousin Sal:Yeah. Like they had a pick or they missed the third down or something.

23:35Bill Simmons:And it was like they were loudly booing. It's 95 degrees at like one o 'clock on a Sunday in mid-September. And they're fucking furious.

23:43Cousin Sal:They should. Their fans are like, hey, we got so many better things to do. We're in fucking Miami. We're going to be at the beach. Did you feel like that was a weird game? It like had a lot of ups and downs. I felt at some point, I think it was late third quarter, that the Dolphins actually took control of it. And then your boy jumped in there. Good for you. I got to watch it with my dad.

24:01Bill Simmons:Nice. We were pretty disconsolate down the stretch there because if the Pats lose that game, the season's over.

24:11Cousin Sal:Yeah.

24:11Bill Simmons:They're 0-2. That's a team that you have. If you come out of the gate and you lose to the Raiders and the Dolphins, you're done. But the real problem is they played really well in the first half. Kicker missed two PATs. They drove. Every time they had the ball, they had these nice drives. May, I thought, was terrific for him. And you just look up and you're like, we're up by a point. What's going on? And then Tua seemed like he was gaining confidence as the game was going on. We lost another cornerback. So we were down on D-backs.

24:41Cousin Sal:Right.

24:41Bill Simmons:And our linebackers in space against these fast Dolphins dudes. Like, I like Spillane, but Spillane got caught with A-chain a couple times. And it was like a nightmare. So it just felt like Miami was going to win. Then they get that kick return or the punt return. And it was like, you had to be fucking kidding me. We lost this team. Like their fans were booing for an hour and a half.

25:02Cousin Sal:Yeah.

25:02Bill Simmons:And then Gibson returns the kick. And then the Pats almost fucked the game up again. But Tua just, he just doesn't have it. He's just not good enough. I've been saying this for three years, but he's just not good enough.

25:16Cousin Sal:Well, he's a tough watch, right? Obviously, we have Dolphins fans, friends. JJ just lives and dies by it. I'm not ready to blame him completely this year. I don't like his style. I feel like he has to get that interception at the end is basically because I can't get hit. I can maybe throw a better ball if I took another quarter or second, but I can't afford that. So I'm going to let this go right now. I got to dump this. Yeah, but their defense is really bad at times. Really, really bad. His numbers, he was 26 for 32, 315, two touchdowns in that interception. So there's other places to place the blame.

25:49Cousin Sal:But yeah, I just. Well, he had three interceptions. Oh, he had three.

25:53Bill Simmons:Three incompletions and three interceptions.

25:55Cousin Sal:Right. That's true. Yeah. That's what it was. 26 for 32. Yeah.

25:58Bill Simmons:But I mean, you know, their longest play, he threw a moon ball to Hill. He underthrew him by 12 yards. Right. And our D back overran it. And Hill ended up getting it. It felt like Hill was open constantly. He overthrew Hill in the fourth quarter. And that was the play that went around on social media where Hill was just like, he had to be. he was open by 10 yards.

26:17Cousin Sal:Right.

26:18Bill Simmons:But I thought the Pats, May made the best play of his career when they really needed it. Big pass rush on a third down. Roll right. Miami had all the momentum and he hit Ramondra and that like delayed wheel route and just put it perfectly in stride.

26:34Cousin Sal:Yeah.

26:35Bill Simmons:And it was just like, that's why the Drake May believers, like I had multiple people like Nate Tice texting me like, that's it. May, he's here. I just thought he was really good today.

26:46Cousin Sal:I love this.

26:47Bill Simmons:And the left side of the line, according to the grades, Will Campbell and Wilson, the other rookie, were excellent. So there's signs of life with this team. I think when they can get Gonzalez back, if he's ever coming back, and they're able to cover a little more. The D-line was good. They shut down the Miami run. And I don't know. They might be able to cheat their way to 8, 9, 9, and 8, not cheat in the Belichick way.

27:12Cousin Sal:This is exciting for me. They'll probably get around to doing that too, but this is perfect. Drake May trades off week to week being great and horrific. It keeps the podcast fresh. You're not talking about Sacramento Kings making the playoffs. You know I've never wavered. Well, last week you said you were depressed. I didn't think he was that good last week. Well, he wasn't, but we had Ted Williams and we had this and we had... He wasn't good last week. Yeah. All right. That's what I mean. He was good this week, though. So it'd be great.

27:40Bill Simmons:He was good. And I thought it was nice to have the McDaniels. Somebody texted me out how I was like putting on a nice old jacket, the dopey McDaniels offense with like these little screens on third down and, you know, these little quick outs and all the little dopey stuff that he does. I thought, here's the thing. It was an incredibly entertaining game. And at the very least, they're entertaining this year. And by the way, the Jaguars are too. There's a couple teams that like they're not that good, but at least they're going to be fun to watch. I think the Jaguars are fun to watch. Dolphins, we blew this last week.

28:14Bill Simmons:We were talking about nicknames for Mike McDaniel. Yeah, there were some good ones. Well, we forgot. Lombardi nicknamed him the DJ last year.

28:22Cousin Sal:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. DJ Mikey Mack. That was the nickname.

28:26Bill Simmons:He's spinning his heads.

28:28Cousin Sal:Well, he could have a couple of nicknames. I mean, Shaq has like six. Yeah, that is true.

28:33Bill Simmons:We'll get around to them. So Dolphins are 0-2, and they play Buffalo on Thursday night. At Buffalo, yeah. It's a monster. And 0-3 is a death sentence. You're not making the playoffs after 0-3.

28:45Cousin Sal:That's our first cross-off. Maybe we have a special podcast Friday morning to commemorate it. Big ceremony. I was going to do this later.

28:53Bill Simmons:I'm ready to do it now, though. Oh, really? Because I thought... Well, so you think Miami? Because I think Carolina has to be in there, too. I would say Carolina and Miami are the two cross-off leaders. Even the Saints, I think, have been... Relatively frisky, both games. They easily could have stolen either overtime or maybe even a win, even though they're not that good. But Carolina...

29:19Cousin Sal:They're the same team. They'll screw up your cover, and that's kind of it. And then count on three to five wins otherwise.

29:29Bill Simmons:I would not cross off Miami yet just because of the 9-8 East. I would cross off Carolina. I think they're really bad. Arizona, that was classic. Arizona has everybody and their brother has them in an eliminator or a money line parlay or a tease or whatever. They go 27-3 and all of a sudden it's 27-15. I didn't even know it was happening. All of a sudden Carolina had the ball and it was 27-15. We put it back in the multi-view. And my dad is still trying to figure out this whole multi-view universe. He's like, what happened? We had that game. I was like, well, I took it off.

30:03Cousin Sal:It's kind of elder abuse what we put our parents through. when we start doing four boxes and switching shit on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

30:10Bill Simmons:The thing he asked for was to put the audio on the Pats game because that helped him concentrate better. That's fair. I can easily do that for you.

30:17Cousin Sal:I'll tell you what happened. Fourth and 16 happened. Frickin' Bryce Young came back from the dead and converted fourth and 16. And then they score just with nonsense. And then they get the onside kick. And I'm like, oh, good. I'm like, you know what? Good. Now that they didn't cover, because we had them in Ringer 107, me and DeBundo, I was like, I hope Arizona loses. And then I look at my losing ledger of bets. I'm like, shit, I have Arizona Moneyline. I'm like four things here. And then they get the onside kick. And it was a miserable, miserable drive after that onside kick. Really bad for Carolina.

30:49Bill Simmons:I like McMillan. He's jumped out to me the first two weeks. I wasn't sure about that pick. It seemed pretty high for him. And those big receivers, you never know. But he's been a couple times a day where he's jumped off the TV with some plays. So that team needs a lot of work. Let's take a break for the podcast. We'll keep going on the YouTubes. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Football fans, best way to game day is on FanDuel. The FanDuel sports app is your home for all your favorite NFL bets. I'm on the East Coast. I made a few of my favorite NFL bets today. Turned out okay.

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32:40Bill Simmons:Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Having insurance isn't the same as having State Farm. It's like expecting the leadership of a team captain on the football field, but getting a C captain? Sure, they're both captains, but who's going to run your offense? You wouldn't settle for just anything for your team. So don't settle for just any insurance. When it comes to getting the help you need, State Farm is the real deal. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Let's play I Give Up. I told you to write down some things that you've just giving up on after two weeks.

33:20Bill Simmons:They could be a future bet. They could be a team. They could be a player. This is fun. They could be anything. So what was the first thing after two weeks? you've given up on?

33:29Cousin Sal:I've given up on trying to enjoy Chiefs games. They're not fun to watch. Unless you're enamored with the Taylor cutaways, they're just way more exciting teams to watch move the ball, including mine, including yours. I don't care how many wins we end up with. I think it's time to give them 1 p.m. kickoff slots. Take away the full dose of primetime games that they have. They have like six. That's the most you could have. it takes them 11 minutes to score and you know when it's a dozen play drive some dumb shit happens like Kelsey did like hits off his hand and interception the other way at the goal line I mean I was looking at this three years ago they averaged 29 points per game and the five years before that they were anywhere from 29 to 35 right since the three years it's 21 21 and 21 and a half that's gigantic movement like I'm not saying that's all Tyree Kill I don't know what it is, but we could pick any team that scores 21 points.

34:28Cousin Sal:Mahomes is just good enough to figure out how to win these games. So I just don't, I'm done with it. I don't think I need to see him every time. Give him the 10 a.m. slot on the West Coast. They don't need to be one of three games and the featured game on a Sunday afternoon. Chiefs fatigue, sounds like.

34:46Bill Simmons:Now, I remember when the Patriots, when my team was taking all the shit that they took in the 2010s and everybody got really tired of them. The Chiefs have been way more in your face than the Patriots ever were. With the tail, like Kelsey coming in today with the suit with the shorts on and all the wedding stuff and Mahomes. And they have this giant documentary series about them. And meanwhile, they're still playing. Right. Andy Reid, all this stuff. Like, I don't, the Pats, you know, were winning and maybe some people felt like were cheating, but they were never like just bombastically in your face like this.

35:21Cousin Sal:I'm more tired of them from that standpoint. The other thing is their point, they still scored. I'm a defensive guy too, but the Patriots put up points. You don't go an hour without seeing them score. When Randy Moss left the team, it wasn't like you went down from 35 to 25 points, right? Brady was still there. It was enjoyable to watch. I just can't watch these Chiefs try to move the ball up and down the field.

35:43Bill Simmons:Well, congratulations. That was a great way to start the game. I had them fourth in this exercise. Okay. My number one team, very similar to your case, is the Philadelphia Eagles. I just don't enjoy watching them play. And it's a lot of the same stuff you said. I don't even think their fans enjoy them playing. Like Shio Kapadia, our friend who works at the Ringer. He even thinks now they're just trying to troll everybody by being intentionally entertaining. He had a tweet about that today. I fucking can't stand watching them. that game was like watching paint dry. I wanted to take it off the multi-view but there were only three games.

36:23Bill Simmons:There was nothing to replace it. I would have to do WNBA playoffs. Your father's like, find more games. What are you doing? They threw deep to Devonta Smith once and it was like, oh, something happened. Otherwise, it's just like these swing passes to Barkley, these boring runs up the middle. Every fourth and one, fourth and two. Now I'm watching Australian rugby for a play and I just don't enjoy it at all. And I like a lot of the players in their team. I don't like watching them play football. These are two games in a row that I fucking snooze fest. I'm on my phone the whole time. That's a football game's happening.

36:59Cousin Sal:Every team in that division is more entertaining than them. I'm going to give a two way to your one B and I give up trying to convince people that tush push sucks, you know, more specifically. It's not a football play. As you mentioned, rugby, it's fat guys shoving a world-class athlete forward. Now it's worse than ever because everyone is so off sides. The refs have no idea what to do. What happened with that?

37:23Bill Simmons:We had the Broncos lost the game because of some ambiguous leverage rule on a field goal kick. I still don't even know what happened. And meanwhile, the Chiefs, every time four guys are jumping forward before the ball snap.

37:35Cousin Sal:Yeah, the Eagles. Right, yes. The Eagles. Yeah, I know. Everyone's on the refs have no idea. And the guys on both sides are jumping. It's like, well, eight guys moved early. fuck it, we'll let it go. And it's a bummer. Well, they can't see. There's 20 guys settled together. I didn't even know it's happening. It's humanity. You can't see the ball at all. It's idiotic. My team's division rivals, so I'm extra worked up about it. But you know what would be worse than just the Eagles being good at this? If everybody was good at the tush push. Think about how unwatchable football would be if only first and second down mattered and the big guys on offense can push everybody around on defense on third and three and fourth and one.

38:16Cousin Sal:That would just go back to this not being... At one point, it was banned. Let's ban it again. Why do we have to wait for someone to get injured? Who cares about that part of it? It's important, but let's just get rid of it. That's the only way it's going to be banned. So stupid.

38:28Bill Simmons:There's going to be some absolutely horrible injury, and then it will be banned. I was trying to think of another type of play that would be technically a football play but would be as ludicrous to watch because it has no correlation with anything else we watch during the course of 10 hours. And I decided it was on a field goal kick. If on the defense, guys were allowed to climb on each other's shoulders, almost like college kids trying to climb over a fence. And you just had three guys climbed on shoulders and one guy had his hands up. And then they kept blocking kicks. And we were just like, what is this?

39:07Bill Simmons:And now you had the offensive line trying to knock the three guys standing on top of each other over and somebody gets hurt. Like that's kind of what the tush push is.

39:16Cousin Sal:It's just not, it's not football.

39:18Bill Simmons:It's fucking stupid.

39:19Cousin Sal:It doesn't look like it. Yeah. I think I came up with an idea where imagine Christian McCaffrey sits on like two linemen shoulders, right? And they carry him like playing chicken. And at the last second he lunges over the goal line, right? From just like six feet up. Like with that, is that a play? Is that a football play?

39:35Bill Simmons:Or if, yeah, McCaffrey, he had two linemen and they flung him like a sink. slingshot once he had the ball. Yes. And they just flung him over the line like he was like a boomerang.

39:46Cousin Sal:Yeah.

39:47Bill Simmons:Yeah. Technically, you could do that. I'm telling you,

39:52Cousin Sal:if everybody got good at this, it would really ruin all football. Well, explain to me this.

39:56Bill Simmons:Explain to me this, people who run football. So leverage, which the Broncos game. Now, if the Broncos game was fixed today, I apologize because it had all the ailments. I don't think it was, but if it was, I apologize for what I'm about to say.

40:10Cousin Sal:Yeah.

40:11Bill Simmons:This leverage play. Set the scene.

40:13Cousin Sal:The Colts try a field goal. They miss it. Colts try a 60-yard field goal.

40:17Bill Simmons:It's 10 yards short, and it's wide right. It's like it basically lands on the goal line. And the Broncos win. And then they're like, no, no, no. There was a leverage play. This is after the Broncos, they've thrown a pick inside, you know, inside Colts territory, and 10 minutes left when it seems like they're going to put the game away. Then Dobbins runs all the way down to the 20 with under four minutes left. Gets up and spikes the ball like a jerk. Delay a game. Next play, penalty, face mask on the tight end. Now we're suddenly at the 40-yard line. Of course, Lutz has to hit the goalpost. Right.

40:52Bill Simmons:Right. So then we come down the other way and it all leads to the Colts with this fucking leverage play after the Broncos stop them. Yeah. And so here's my question. Leverage. This is apparently unsafe for the center. because one guy leaned him down so the other guy could jump behind him. Yeah. What's the tush push? But it's safe to have a running back and shove from behind by his teammates. That's not leverage.

41:19Cousin Sal:Yeah.

41:19Bill Simmons:So leverage is good or bad?

41:21Cousin Sal:What is it? What do we do in NFL? Leverage is good. It's good in almost everything, right? You want leverage in contract negotiations. You want leverage in relationships. You want leverage in almost any situation. If you're looking for a raise, whatever, they need to call it something different. Call it like a cheat jumping or something. But whatever you call it, the guy didn't do it. He didn't. It didn't happen.

41:43Bill Simmons:Do you think they could protest that and just be like, we lost and this was the wrong call? Yeah. Flip this.

41:50Cousin Sal:Those things don't usually hold up. And, you know, we can get into like how Steichen like really ruined that. By the way, he's the favorite for coach of the year right now because they're 2-0. But he didn't do him any favors kicking that 60-yard field goal unless he knew the leverage was coming, like you said. Yeah.

42:07Bill Simmons:That could not have missed more dramatically. Awful. Well, that was my next I give up was I give up with NFL officiating. We had multiple games today determined by it. There were flags everywhere. The Cardinals-Panthers game, as the Panthers were driving, it was just flag, flag, flag, flag. The Giants had like 14 penalties today. The Patriots had, I think, 12 and still won. It's just we've gone penalty crazy. I'm not really sure why, but I give up even getting mad about it.

42:39Cousin Sal:Isn't it like that at the beginning of the year until guys figure out how not to hold and everything? The worst ones were the leverage play and the Hunter pass interference

42:47Bill Simmons:actually swung games.

42:48Cousin Sal:Yeah, the leverage one is something you don't really see a lot. They didn't need to call it on a 60-yard missed field goal. What do you have for your next I give up? What do I have? You know, I give up trying to figure out if Justin Fields is good. I thought I had a good grasp going into this year. Like, you know, it was like, you'll read it all the stats, 35th and expected yards, 32nd and red zone, 39th, 30, 15th. And this, and it's like, Oh wait, he's on the jets. All right. He teamed up with his former wide receiver hookup from Ohio state Garrett Wilson. They scored 32 points versus what we thought was like a vaunted, you know, Pittsburgh defense.

43:25Cousin Sal:And then a big fat nada versus the bills who allowed 40 last Sunday. night. So he has a concussion. I hope he's okay, but I am done judging Justin. Can't figure it out. Their offense was

43:38Bill Simmons:awful. And I actually thought they did a pretty good job for about a quarter against Allen. Then there was this weird moment in the game when he got hit and it looked like he got a concussion or something. He ran off and he took his helmet off. Yeah. And if you had Jets money, like me, had already given up the game, you're like, alright, Trubisky's coming in. I guess I have to leave it on the multi-view now, but it turned out he just had like a bloody nose. Then he came in and just completely crushed.

44:03Cousin Sal:Right.

44:04Bill Simmons:And I continue to think he's the best player in the league. Oh, really? I do. I continue to think he's the best quarterback. Oh, okay. I thought you were talking about Justin Fields. I'm like, oh,

44:13Cousin Sal:I may have to change my thing here. No, Josh Allen.

44:16Bill Simmons:But I mentioned all of this because today, first of all, House and I took the Jets plus six and a half. I put a little money in the Jets as well. And maybe you need, this is where you need like a betting conciliaria or just need, you know, FanDuel will shoot those ads. Like you've been on the site for 52 minutes.

44:34Cousin Sal:Reality check or something? Yeah, maybe there should be an AI person

44:37Bill Simmons:that comes in and be like, we just wanted to remind you that you're betting on Justin Fields against Josh Allen. And be like, oh shit, I am. Why am I doing that? I love it. I love it. Like that should be the AI, what the fuck are you doing guy from FanDuel. That could, I'm giving them that idea.

44:52Cousin Sal:You have to set it up ahead of time. Like slap me in the face if I bet on Justin Fields. slap me in the face if I could cash out on this bet at 15 to one. And I'm instead waiting to see if this 48 yard field goal goes in. It's like, don't be stupid.

45:06Bill Simmons:Yeah. Computer or your iPad just starts vibrating. Yeah. It's a reminder. It's gotta be worse than vibrating.

45:11Cousin Sal:I think you gotta, I needed it today.

45:13Bill Simmons:Cause if anybody had said that to me, I would have been like, you're right. What am I doing? This is insane. This is like, Oh, I'm, I'm taking the jets because the bills are banged up in their secondary. The jets can't throw the ball.

45:25Cousin Sal:Yeah. What is this? I don't think, well, here it is. We can't go on and on every week about how Josh Allen is number one. He's my MVP and this and that. And then just better. We just, as long as like the weather is okay and everything, they're going to score. I know they only scored 30. They could have scored 45, 47 that game. They kind of took their foot off the gas. That's just where they are. So if you think the Jets are going to score in the 30s, 40s, then fine. But no, not even close.

45:49Bill Simmons:Well, so how many points did the Bills end up with? They had 71 points in two games. Yeah. Mm-hmm. pretty good my next I give up

46:04Bill Simmons:Travis Kelsey I think I'm good he seems like a nice guy I know people who are friends with him no shots fired I'm just I'm good I'm good the suit with the shorts today he has the big drop and he makes two plays and he's doing like the WWE flexing. And then of course the ball bounces off his hands for the interception for the biggest play of the game. He's one of the best tight ends I've ever seen. He's not the best. His wedding will be the biggest wedding we've had since Princess Di. I'm happy for them. I'm a big believer in true love. I'm just good. I need a break.

46:44Cousin Sal:All right. I think you were probably on the bubble for getting invited to that wedding, but now you can forget it. You're not going. I don't need to be invited. I just need a break.

46:52Bill Simmons:Yeah, I'm good.

46:53Cousin Sal:Yeah, I'm good. Like how he broke every bone in Xavier Worthy's body? Like a break like that?

46:59Bill Simmons:That's the thing. Probably cost him two games. I'll say this too. He was one of the best guys in the league, but the tight end position is so loaded and great right now. I don't think he's one of the best eight or nine guys I'm watching week to week. The Colts have this dude, Warren, who for some reason, the Bears took a tight end 10th in the draft as the first tight end taken. and it wasn't Tyler Warren who looks like a cross between Gronk and Bowers and Kelsey. He's just a fucking beast. But you watch even the Jags have that guy Strange. You go on down and it feels like everybody has a tight end who can catch balls now and what Kelsey does doesn't seem as special.

47:43Bill Simmons:I'll do you one better.

47:45Cousin Sal:He's a podcaster. That's all he is. And there are probably three better podcasts Three podcasters who are better at football than him right now. Amy Poehler, Van Latham. So let's... Yeah, Van can get in there. Yeah, of course.

47:59Bill Simmons:Let's rank him as what he is. He's a podcaster. That's all. Yeah, we'll see. Because unfortunately, they really need him these next 10 leagues. You're not kidding. I have a... That's another I give up, actually. I just don't think it's going to happen for the Chiefs. I have Chiefs fans in my life who are like, we'll be fine. We'll be fine. Trust the infrastructure. Rice comes back week seven. We're going to get worthy back. We're going to be explosive. And I see the case, but I think the pass rush is not there. And I don't know. You can explain the wide receiver part to me, but you can't explain why you don't really have a pass rush anymore.

48:38Right.

48:38Bill Simmons:I just don't think they have it. And Mahomes, at some point with these long balls, all the stats from the past 25 games, Like there's something really wrong with him throwing deep balls at this point. He did connect to one with Thornton today, but he overthrows dudes three, four times a game. It feels like.

48:58Cousin Sal:Right. Well, I like it. At least he's letting it go at that time. Like, oh good. It's true. 40 minutes. And so we've seen you throw anything other than like a four yard slant or take off for a first down yourself. But so they're 0-2. What do we think? They have to go 9-6 to be in the mix at 9-8 to get like a seed like that or 7. Nine and eight gets them in. So they should beat the Giants this week. So we could come back to this. They're not a cross-off just yet.

49:26Bill Simmons:We don't. Fiendle doesn't have the playoff bets yet.

49:30Cousin Sal:They don't have playoffs yet, yeah. They do have divisions. Divisions, right.

49:34Bill Simmons:The Chiefs are down a plus 210 in the AFC West now. Right. So they were minus 110 to start the season. They are plus 550 for the AFC. and Mahomes is 20-1 now for MVP.

49:48Cousin Sal:I mean, how is he even 6th at this point? I don't know.

49:51Bill Simmons:That's weird. That's weird. Another Mahomes thing, you can't tell me this is good. Mahomes has 123 yards rushing this year. He's on pace for 1 ,000 yards. There's no way that's good. Why do I want him rushing for 1 ,000 yards in a season? I don't want him getting hit ever if I'm the Chiefs.

50:10Cousin Sal:He's definitely taking off out of necessity for sure.

50:14Bill Simmons:Listen, you can only pay the piper for so long in the NFL with this cap and trying to get lucky on these picks over and over again. And it looks like all those rookie offensive linemen and these young guys, rookie and second-year guys, they're okay, not great. The defensive line, it's okay, it's not great. Running back, skill position guys, it's really like a lot of Sanjay when Rice comes back. and Rice is really good.

50:41Cousin Sal:Yeah. Look, I said this is, you know, we want to think of them as the Bills of the early 90s that scored a million points or the Rams, you know, that scored a ton of points or anything. So the Bills, this year's Bills are the only team like that. This is the Chiefs that can score 20 or 21 on average. And they're either going to get a little help from the refs or Mahomes is going to pull them out of a ditch in the fourth quarter. Otherwise, they're going to lose a lot of these games.

51:05Bill Simmons:You know who sounded really happy today? Who's that? Tom Brady announcing that game.

51:10Cousin Sal:Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

51:13Bill Simmons:He's like, assignment to more Chiefs games. This is fun. How many Super Bowls does Pat have? Oh, three. Yeah, yeah. That's what I thought. Do you think he has an app

51:21Cousin Sal:where he checks his legacy, how much difference there is between these guys? He's like, oh, yeah.

51:28Bill Simmons:Good throw by Pat. It's a nice job by him there. You know, like kind of like slightly condescending with his dancing. He's got a mute button

51:35Cousin Sal:where he's celebrating.

51:37Bill Simmons:He's like high-fiving everyone. Another overthrow. I would hit that guy. 0-2 teams. So right now we have the Jets, Dolphins. Are we done with the game?

51:46Cousin Sal:I give up? We give up on the game? No, no, we're coming back.

51:48Bill Simmons:I'm just on the Chiefs really quick. Jets, Dolphins, Browns, Tennessee, Kansas City, Giants, Bears, Carolina, New Orleans. We have nine 0-2 teams. This isn't a death sentence, but it's never good. We talk about this every year when we're heading into week three. The 24 Rams were 0-2. They made it. 23 Texans were 0-2. they made it. 22 Bengals were 0-2. They ended up making the AFC title game. So, one of those teams, Jets, Dolphins, Browns, Tennessee Chiefs, Giants, Bears, Panthers, Saints. One of those teams.

52:26Cousin Sal:The Chiefs are in so much better shape than ALS because they're the Chiefs. And Texans maybe.

52:33Bill Simmons:Yeah. So, it's going to be Chiefs or Texans if the Texans go into it. It's probably one of those two. Yeah. One of those two, right?

52:40Cousin Sal:It's easier now, though, right? Because... No case for the Giants for you?

52:45Bill Simmons:There's more playoff days. I don't know.

52:48Cousin Sal:If they play up my Cowboys every week, they'll get there. They'll have 10 wins. Good God. Major points. What do you have for I give up? I got one more, yeah. Complaining about quarterbacks trying to draw defenses from the shotgun. Offsides from the shotgun. I'm done with it. These guys, it's fourth and half a yard, and you'll see a guy line up in the shotgun, and his deafening roars from the crowd. You need like Superman-esque hearing, outer body hearing to be able to hear the cadence instead of being on the ball and trying to get these exhausted D-linemen to jump off sides where like just a little head shake could do it.

53:23Cousin Sal:What's with the shotgun? Like, I don't know. I don't care because I'm done complaining about it. I just don't understand.

53:30Bill Simmons:80 cookies.

53:32Cousin Sal:What's he saying? Yeah. But get up close. You would scare me. You're doing that on Zoom and I'm getting a little jittery. But if you were right in my ear, right, it'd be a little more effective.

53:42Bill Simmons:I don't know how you're not over center if you're trying to drop people offsets. I completely agree with you. That's a great point. I have one more I give up. Go ahead. Well, I actually have two, but we can talk about one of them later. Daniel Jones jokes.

54:00Cousin Sal:You're not done with those. You don't give up.

54:06Bill Simmons:He's pretty good in those two games. Yeah. he really was. I thought he, I thought he made good plays. I thought he had, I don't know. I thought he had good command of the offense. Taylor was great. Taylor really seems like he's a hundred percent back. I mean, he's got to be one of the three best running backs right now. I don't know. I thought he was all right. He definitely, you know, for a guy whose career seemed over last year, did not seem over in these two games, including today.

54:34Cousin Sal:Wait, wasn't he better than all right? Denver's defense is supposed to be good. It was top five. No, that's what I'm saying. He had 316 yards. I'm trying to be calm about it because it's Daniel Jones.

54:42Bill Simmons:No interceptions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was legitimately good in that game.

54:46Cousin Sal:I don't want to give up the jokes just yet, but if he has a great running back, I know he did in Barkley also. I also wonder if Brian Dayball could get fired just based on Daniel Jones' performance on the Colts, like having nothing to do with what the Giants do this year. Like if the Colts go 12-5 and the Giants go 9-8. I mean, he got 400 and something yards out of Wilson, though,

55:07Bill Simmons:who's half dead. Yeah, I know. I know. Well, that's not going to continue. Seemed like a good breakup.

55:11Cousin Sal:Oh, boy. Yeah.

55:13Bill Simmons:I'm not ready to give up on Caleb Williams was the only other guy I had in there. But I did want to ask you, right now, how many 2024 NFL draft QBs would you take before you took him in a draft? Yeah, let's hear him. Well, you tell me. Oh, all right. Well, I'll go with... Who was the second guy in that draft? Hold on, I'm queuing it up. I should have had this. No, it's all right. It's Jaden Daniels. Oh, Jaden Daniels. You're taking over him. Would you rather have Drake May or Caleb Williams? Oh, man. Come on. Come on. Let's go the other way. Who's taking Caleb Williams over Drake May? That's ridiculous.

55:54Bill Simmons:I say Pennix and Knicks, both of them. So you take Knicks over Caleb Williams?

55:59Cousin Sal:Yeah, I think so.

56:01Bill Simmons:You would take Pennix over Caleb Williams?

56:03Cousin Sal:Yeah, I don't know about Drake May. Hey, you sure this kid's good? Why are you doing this to me? What's their record? It's probably the same. I don't know. He finally got protection today, and he was excellent. Right. All right.

56:20Bill Simmons:So that's basically everybody in the draft? A lot of them, yeah. No, there's other quarterbacks in that draft.

56:25Cousin Sal:Well, I think it was just six, right? Oh, that's the first round. Oh, McCarthy. Yeah, McCarthy, not yet. Would you rather have Rattler or Caleb Williams? Caleb Williams. Okay. Although I want Rattler around. I do like betting against him, Moneyline, at least.

56:41Bill Simmons:Would you rather have Florida State's Jordan Travis or Caleb Williams?

56:48Bill Simmons:Hopefully Caleb will be fine, but it's pretty grim. That's why I didn't want to put in I give up, but he has a couple plays a game that just look like when you're watching a bad college game. and Sean McDonough's like, oh no. He has a couple of those passes.

57:05Cousin Sal:This has to be one of the more depressed evenings for Ben Johnson, right? I'm annoyed I didn't convince us to bet the Lions over 27.5 points or whatever it was because this was the FU Ben Johnson game, right? So if they were ever going to break out, it was going to be this one.

57:23Bill Simmons:I guess that would be an I give up because I give up on my Bears playoff prediction and the bet I have on them. I think out of the teams, I try to take a couple swings with the picks, and that's the only one that feels dead already. Because I had Seattle. I thought Seattle was good today. We'll talk about them in a second. Pats, not giving up on that. Vegas, but the Bears, doesn't look great.

57:51Cousin Sal:The Lions aren't going away. I think I put them at a four when we did the panic meter thing last week. I think I put them at a four. They're still going to be solid. So now the Bears have to...

57:59Bill Simmons:Well, here's the thing. Green Bay might be fucking awesome. So that loss in week one doesn't look as horrible as it did in the moment because Green Bay is the best team in the league. You know? They're playing the Bears. It's a little...

58:10Cousin Sal:Listen, that Micah Parsons trade crushed the Cowboys and was not good for Caleb Williams. Those are the two entities that really suffered. Well, you wouldn't have been able to pay your cornerback who's already out now. Right, right. That's true. You wouldn't have been able to do that. We're not going to be able to pay our kicker. The kicker is the one we have to... Jerry's going to have to back the truck up for.

58:29Bill Simmons:Oh, yeah. Let's we'll take another break for the pod. Keep going on the YouTube. That refresh you've been putting off until the right deal came along.

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59:03Bill Simmons:Let's talk about your team. So I wrote down, you know, because you have the uniforms. It was a high scoring game and it was the icons on the screen where it's like Cowboys versus Giants. So it feels big, but it's like those, when you go on Amazon and it's like, it's a new movie with John Travolta and Bruce Willis. and you're like, oh, oh, that's probably not going to be, did that come out in 22? They're cops, what? That's so mean.

59:34Cousin Sal:It's so much meaner than what I said about Drake May.

59:37Bill Simmons:Well, it's like a straight-to-video movie.

59:39Cousin Sal:It's basically Cowboys, Giants. See, the Cowboys, the Giants. These are cover bands?

59:43Bill Simmons:Kevin Spacey's the bad guy.

59:45Cousin Sal:They're not the real band? It's just cover bands playing each other? Yeah. Oh, shit. It's really depressing. Kevin Spacey's the bad guy. I wish it had been a tie.

59:52Bill Simmons:The highlight of the game, though, was, You have the ball, you're over midfield, and there's nine seconds left, and there's time to really try to get into field goal range. And Schoenheimer does a handoff left for three yards to set Aubrey up on the left hash mark from 64. Right. He's like, no, no, we got him. And then Aubrey fucking nails it. And I'm like, what am I watching? I watched 19 people at Miss PATs today, and the Cowboys are setting up 64-yard field goals and draining them.

1:00:22Cousin Sal:I love Greg Olson, but today he was like, when Javante Williams gets that carry, they have nine seconds left and a timeout and he gets a carry and immediately trips forward. And there's like, yeah, well, when, you know, when you get the ball like that, you don't know what nine seconds is like, yes, you do. Yes, you do. You can get six yards and then like call timeout if you're on the quick out. Yeah, right. Exactly. It's like, I know everybody. Oh, Brandon Aubrey is going to make any kick. He tries. They, all they have to do is get to their own thirties. Like, no, even the 64 yard or barely made it.

1:00:52Cousin Sal:Can we get to a decent spot? But yeah, Yeah, that was a miserable. I mean, I just early on, I was like, okay, my team sucks. So when your team sucks, you just want to win certain games, right? You want to win home against the Giants. You have to win that. I'll take four and 13. If I can get out of this somehow with a win, I promise I will. And it was just a matter of what's going to happen first. Is Russ going to throw for 500 yards or the Giants going to amass 500 yards and penalties? It was that sloppy game.

1:01:21Bill Simmons:14 penalties for the Giants. 54 first downs in the game.

1:01:27Cousin Sal:Yeah.

1:01:27Bill Simmons:You had 31 or 32. Almost 1 ,000 yards in offense. And some genuinely nice Russell Wilson throws. Definitely. And Neighbors was unstoppable. Now, you don't have any defensive backs anymore, but he was all running amok. That's a problem. I thought it was very entertaining. I enjoyed it. I thought the announcers were good. I thought, you know, but it was two teams that combined. How many wins Cowboys and Giants combined this year? 12? 10?

1:01:55Cousin Sal:Oh, yeah. 11? 9? Yeah. Well, they have to play each other again. So that's going to be one. They could tie. They could tie that. It was close enough. Yeah. It's bad news. It really is. I don't know. I was happy for you. You didn't want to be 0-2. No, I didn't want to. I was texting my buddies. I'm like, I take a tie right now. I will take a tie. probably four different times I said I'll take a tie

1:02:20Bill Simmons:you know what it felt like last night the Netflix undercard fight Mobili against Martinez and these guys are just beating the shit out of each other for 10 rounds they always call these the rock 'em suck 'em robot fights and just a thousand headshots and nobody's getting phased and then at some point it's like just make it a draw there should be no loser for this and it was a draw That's how I thought about Cowboys.

1:02:47Cousin Sal:It was like that if there were like 40 low blows in the fight. I mean, you said there were 14 penalties. There was one penalty, I don't think they even counted, where the Giants had four penalties on the play and the Cowboys had one and it offset. So they really had like eight. Oh, and it counts for only one? Yeah, it counts for none. It's like CeeDee Lamb like taunted somebody and they're like, well, we have to disregard the other four penalties.

1:03:09Bill Simmons:So the Pats won. They had 12 penalties, two missed PATs, roughly 500 missed tackles and they gave up a kick return TD and somehow they won. The Colts had 473 yards of offense, two touchdowns and five field goals. They had seven scoring drives.

1:03:31And leverage.

1:03:33Bill Simmons:And leverage. And leverage. I wrote this down. I'm trying not to get too excited about them because if you remember 12 months ago, the New Orleans Saints and Derek Carr, went 2-0 and had all this offense. And I think I came on for this podcast hitting into week three, wondering like, ah, they feel a little 99 Rams-ish. Right. And it's one of the worst moments in the recent history of this podcast. I am not saying anything about the Colts, but they did win and they're 2-0. And I have no idea if it's going to last. But I will say Taylor and Warren might be top five to seven at their positions, right?

1:04:15Bill Simmons:Their receivers, that Pierce always gets open once a game deep. They have Downs, they have Pittman. They have a little bit of a pass rush. Their defense is okay. Good special teams.

1:04:28Cousin Sal:Their defense is definitely better than last year. Definitely better. AFC South, which is, you know, anyone's game always. but it begins and ends with the quarterback right and we've seen all of these you said right Derek Carr like these old guys or who are good or some guys who were never good between the Derek Carr's and the Zach Wilson's but then there's a Sam Darnold who wins like 13 games so you can't discount all of them but you have to keep your eye you gotta be level headed

1:05:00Bill Simmons:yeah I I told you I test drove the Colts for AFC South. Right. And I talked to a Giants friend of mine who watches every player of every Giants game, and I was like, how bad was Dimes last year? We talked about this in the over-unders pod, and he was just like, so bad. Don't do it. Don't stay away. And it did sway me. But he does look better than last year. A couple more games. The Lions-Bears. Detroit had seven 20-plus yard plays in that game.

1:05:31Cousin Sal:Yeah.

1:05:33Bill Simmons:the Bears a friend of mine who's a Bears fan was sending all the draft picks they had who did nothing in this game because they had a lot of firsts, seconds they made some trades especially if they don't hit on Caleb Peace just seems like a write-off I don't know if they're a cross-off but they would certainly be on the list I would still have the Panthers over them can we officially make the Panthers our first cross-off team you want to do it now? they're the first one there's no way they make the playoffs If Tampa loses, aren't they a game out? No. The Carolina is not making the playoffs.

1:06:06Cousin Sal:Oh, yeah. No. Let's cross them out. All right. They're not making it. I just feel weird doing it before the Saints. I don't know why you like Spencer Rattler over Backdoor Bryce.

1:06:17Bill Simmons:Backdoor Bryce. I had that written down. Tepper, 38-82 as an owner in 120 games. He's good. 120 games, 38 wins for him. The Seahawks Steelers we did not talk about. I think I was right about the Seahawks and I think they just fucked the game up last week. They were much better this week. Their defense is good. They did get a break of Caleb Johnson just forgetting the new kickoff rules. But, you know, considering that at one point they had two picks on the road, right, and it just feels like, oh, they're going to go on two, but they clamped down in the second half. They have a couple, JSN, they can run the ball.

1:06:59Cousin Sal:He made some plays. I was looking. Did you see their, did you say their division odds or that was somebody else you said?

1:07:06Bill Simmons:No, but I can give them to you. Because they got to be a little better than they were with this. They're still 9-1.

1:07:14Cousin Sal:What were they? Was that what they were? Were they 10 or something? Yeah, they haven't budged. That's pretty good. That's pretty, I mean, what other 1-1 team do you think has a shot and you get 9-1 odds?

1:07:25Bill Simmons:Might bet that right now. Yeah. Yeah, because the Cardinals are 2-0, and the two games could not have been less inspiring. They barely held on against Spencer Rattler and Bryce Young. Like, barely held on down the stretch. Like, they're holding on for dear life. And they had some D-back injuries and, you know.

1:07:44Cousin Sal:I'm with you. I don't know why I had them winning 10-11 games, but two might be it.

1:07:51Bill Simmons:They're 2-0. Two might be it. One thing on Pittsburgh and Rogers is, it's like last year, if you pressure him, he sucks. And now there were stats coming out of today's game where it's like just as long as you're making him move around, he's not good. I don't know what happened in their run defense.

1:08:07Cousin Sal:Yeah.

1:08:07Bill Simmons:Because the Jets ran all over him, and then Seattle was able to get whatever they wanted today. So I don't think Pittsburgh has it this year.

1:08:15Cousin Sal:Pittsburgh and Denver defenses are wildly underwhelming so far, right? In terms of teams you thought were going to be good coming in.

1:08:22Bill Simmons:I don't think it's fixable either. Ravens killed the Browns. We didn't talk about that.

1:08:26Cousin Sal:Hey, 23 and a half. I had minus 23 and a half. We do need to talk about that. Oh, congratulations. Good job, I mean. Thank you. Four to one odds.

1:08:33Bill Simmons:That was got a little hairy there for a little while.

1:08:35Cousin Sal:Yeah, it was. I mean, that touchdown the Browns scored was hilarious. I mean, not for me, but yeah. Niner Saints, I wrote down this question for you.

1:08:45Bill Simmons:What's the opposite of a multi-view game? Is it an oh-no tie view?

1:08:55Bill Simmons:Christopher Moltisante view there's got to be some name for it but I really didn't want to ever put this in my four and then there are a couple moments when we got near the end of the first early game hour the ending where it's like alright fine now we're watching my dad's like whoa this multi-view is crazy now we're watching Saints Niners we're watching college teams? how did you make that out? I thought that was yesterday what's this guy's name? Spencer what? Spencer Rattler, Mac Jones.

1:09:25Cousin Sal:The 0-9 tie view? I don't know. I had to watch it. I thought I was smart by making the Niners my best bet because it went from 7.5 and then Purdy's out and Mac Jones is minus 3. And I looked at Mac Jones' stats. He's like 6-3 against the spread as a starter. It's like, wow, really? Is that good? And then Rattler was like, oh, 6-1 or something. I was like, I'm going to keep betting against the Saints until they give me a reason not to.

1:09:49Bill Simmons:Great job. The mutilate view? then Rams Titans nothing really to say other than Tennessee's just not well coached they had that one play

1:10:00Cousin Sal:you see his touchdown pass though I watched it live it was incredible that was something else that gives you hope it was like a 50 yard pass across the field

1:10:09Bill Simmons:they'll have a new coach next year I mean really that's the type of quarterback Ben Johnson should have been aligning with instead he went all in on Caleb okay we'll take a break for the pod.

1:10:48Cousin Sal:Good energy in. good energy out

1:10:57Cousin Sal:storm zero sugar 200 milligrams of caffeine and immunity support storm energy for life

1:11:03Bill Simmons:we're gonna do guess the lines thursday night bill's dolphins it feels like this is the thursday night week two or week three game every year yeah i don't know why um and it's in buffalo you beat me the first two weeks in guest lines yes i did uh dave jacoby the most excited he really likes it yeah he loves he really roots for you wait for that text every monday i have the bills favored by nine and a half over the dollar oh you son of a bitch i had nine

1:11:36Cousin Sal:it's twelve and a half whoa twelve and a half how many money line everything are we putting out with

1:11:47Bill Simmons:So if the Bills kill the Dolphins And the Dolphins are 0-3 And there's 10 days until the next game This is where DJ Mikey Mack Might meet his demise

1:11:58Cousin Sal:Oh right, I didn't even think of that If it's bad

1:12:03Bill Simmons:Just throwing that out there Sunday Marquee game I do not think this is the best game To watch next week For reasons we described earlier But it is the Eagles and the Rams In Philadelphia because that's a rematch of an excellent playoff game last year. Kind of know how this game's going to go. I'm not going to enjoy it that much. The Eagles will probably lead for most of the game. The Rams will come back late. It'll be exciting for about 10 minutes. And I have the Eagles favored by 3.5.

1:12:35Cousin Sal:I guess we split it. I said 5.5. It's 4.5. Ooh, Vegas. Right there in the Vegas zone. Yeah.

1:12:44Bill Simmons:I'm not sure about the Rams yet. The running back situation, I mean, what was Kyron Williams going for in fantasy leagues? Like 38-40?

1:12:54Cousin Sal:Right. And then it's Blake Corum getting the goal line carries.

1:12:57Bill Simmons:Yeah, split backfield situation. The two receivers are putting up yards.

1:13:03Cousin Sal:I don't know what it is for me. I don't get excited for their offense, right? I should. Nakua is a dynamic player. Great. Now he's getting handoffs and everything. and it's just fun to see Stafford succeed, right, for as long as he can. But, yeah, this already bores me, this game.

1:13:20Bill Simmons:Yeah. Like, if I'm, who is it going to be, Brady and Burkhart? Yeah, probably, yep. I'd probably be like, yo, what are the other games?

1:13:34Cousin Sal:Can you get me a date with St.

1:13:36Bill Simmons:Seahawks? I only have two watchables. First one, Washington and the Raiders. I just think this will be a fun game. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, Super Bowl rematch. Let's do it. Washington with a lot of rest, Raiders coming off whatever happens in the Monday night game. And I have Washington favored by three and a half.

1:13:57Cousin Sal:That's what I had. And it's five and a half. Oh, that's why we split that. It's a little high.

1:14:03Bill Simmons:Two Vegas zones out of the first three. This is a, let's be careful, week three. The other one is Chargers-Broncos, which I thought long and hard about putting in the Sunday marquee.

1:14:13Cousin Sal:Wait, you don't put your team as a watchable?

1:14:15Bill Simmons:This is watchables we're doing? Yeah, I'm doing it for America. I can't be selfish. Oh, you're doing it for America. Okay. Yeah. I mean, Steelers-Pats is watchable for me, but I don't know if for America watching those two teams, two non-playoff teams playing, I wouldn't put the watchable category. Chargers-Broncos. This is a good game. Ooh, this moved. Did it move? Mm-hmm. I had Chargers by two and a half.

1:14:44Cousin Sal:You'll get it either way. I had two. It was two and a half. It moved to three.

1:14:53Bill Simmons:There'll be a lot of Denver fans at this game, we should mention. Yep. Well, we'll know. We're going to know tomorrow night with the Chargers if we have a real contender with them or not. Right?

1:15:04Cousin Sal:Yeah. I mean, I'm on Vegas tomorrow. It's one of my 107s, so you can root against that.

1:15:09Bill Simmons:I have money on Vegas. You do? I'm with you. Okay. Bowers is playing. Yep. I think they, I don't know. I wouldn't say they have a home field advantage, but they do have a good crowd. Yeah. And we'll see. We're going to find out a lot from the Chargers.

1:15:25Cousin Sal:It's just like neither of these two teams put together two good games in a row ever. So it's like, oh, I'll take the points.

1:15:32Bill Simmons:Well, if the Chargers spank them tomorrow, they have a case for being the third best team in the conference.

1:15:38Cousin Sal:Oh, yeah.

1:15:39Bill Simmons:Yeah.

1:15:40Cousin Sal:For sure. Well, I was predicting you and I talk about Pete Carroll as one of the coach of the year contenders if they win that game. Right there.

1:15:50Bill Simmons:Fairly watchables. I have seven. Let's describe it as a fairly watchable week three. Packers, Browns, normally would go in the poopfecta, but it's in Cleveland. And I like watching the Packers. So I have Packers by nine and a half.

1:16:08Cousin Sal:I was going to say, you better get it exactly because I did. Eight and a half.

1:16:15Cousin Sal:They can't lose that, right? It's not cold. It's not anything.

1:16:20Bill Simmons:I mean, that is the definition of a three-team teaser slash eliminator pool. Just keep throwing it in things. I feel pretty good about that.

1:16:30Cousin Sal:Speaking of keep throwing, I mean, this is supposed to be like Flacco's semi-retirement. He's thrown 90 passes in the last two weeks. I know. He's like 56 for 90, I think.

1:16:40Bill Simmons:Poor bastard. Did you see that thing today about how Shadur, the Ravens told him they're going to take him in the fifth round and his team discouraged it? Because he didn't want to back up Lamar?

1:16:49Cousin Sal:Yeah, right. And now he's the fourth backup to Flacco?

1:16:54Bill Simmons:That can't be. You don't want to back up Lamar. Who is a better person to back up and learn, like go to a great franchise and back up Lamar and try to pick some shit up? You're not going to be a starter for a couple years anyway.

1:17:05Cousin Sal:Did he say this in the third round when no one had taken him? Did his team, was he still like trying to be a big shot? I think they told him, according to the report,

1:17:14Bill Simmons:they're going to take him in the fifth round, and he didn't want them to.

1:17:18Cousin Sal:Like that day? That day? Yeah, that day. Yeah, I mean, you would have told him the day before the draft. He was like, go screw yourself. Well, he thought he was going in the first round.

1:17:26Bill Simmons:Right, right. Colts-Titans. Wow, this game is pulsating as a don't be careful. it's in Tennessee. Yeah. It has the makings of like 92 % of the people on whatever have picked the Colts. I have Colts by three and a half.

1:17:48Cousin Sal:We have, we hit that exactly. Yeah. Yep. Both of us. That's tough. That is a,

1:17:56Bill Simmons:that is a, be careful. Yep. That's a leverage. All week. Colts two and O Daniel Dimes rejuvenated. Yeah. Ursae's daughters she's on the sidelines with the headset taking notes there's a new energy around this team everything is so great Colts Colts Colts and then it's like punt return Titans up 10-0 leverage play against them

1:18:20Cousin Sal:see it coming

1:18:20Bill Simmons:exactly Vikings Bengals in Minnesota Jake Browning aboard this has to go in the Vegas zone I had the Vikings by 5.5

1:18:34Cousin Sal:did this move I had five it's three and a half no I promise no I had five it's only three and a half I mean we probably should have adjusted this after I did this before the before that miserable game we just saw

1:18:52Bill Simmons:yeah but that line that doesn't make sense to me because how many more points is Joe Burrow worth than Jake Browning like six six, seven. So if Joe Burrow was playing, the Bengals would be three and a half point favorites in Minnesota. I think so. I mean,

1:19:09Cousin Sal:I think the better question is how many more points is JJ McCarthy worth than Browning?

1:19:14Bill Simmons:That line's too low. That's going to go up. Next one is Steelers at the Pats. I think I hit this one. Exactly. I did not see it. Go ahead. Steelers minus two and a half.

1:19:24Cousin Sal:It's yeah. I think I cheated. I said two, it's one and a half. Oh, they tic-tac'd me. They tic-tac'd you. That could move, though.

1:19:34Bill Simmons:I think we can win that game. I think we can run on that team. That's a fun one. I like that game more than anything. As you know, I love the locker room videos.

1:19:44Cousin Sal:Yeah.

1:19:45Bill Simmons:Fantastic Vrabel locker room video. He's about to give his first game ball. Kraft wanders in. Hold on a second. Then he just grabs it and does a little speech for Vrabel. Gives him the game ball. And then Vrabel goes around and gives game balls to like, like Ramondre and Milton Williams and all the heroes of the game. And then the last game ball turns to the kicker, this motherfucker who missed his first two PATs and then field goal and made the 53-yarder to kind of pseudo-ice the game. He's coming in and we're like, this guy missed two PATs. He's going to do a 50. And he nailed it. And Vrabel throws him the ball and he's like, hey, we believe in you.

1:20:27Bill Simmons:We sent you out there because I knew you were going to make that kick. and team cheered. They did?

1:20:32Cousin Sal:But that was a fake cheer. Like 48 guys are like, they're like, get me the ball. I worked my ass off and didn't miss extra points. What are you doing? It was like, we ought to work our asses off

1:20:41Bill Simmons:because this shithead missed two PATs.

1:20:43Cousin Sal:Now he gets a game ball.

1:20:44Bill Simmons:This is a participation trophy? What is this? I liked it. He was like, this is my kicker. Right. Jaguars, Texans in Jacksonville. And if I've ever seen a one and a half line, this is it. I have the Jaguars by one and a half.

1:20:58Cousin Sal:You nailed it. Good. Good. I said one. You get that. It's a good game.

1:21:05Bill Simmons:So if the Texans are awesome tomorrow, let's say they beat the Bucs. This line immediately flips to Texans minus one and a half, I think.

1:21:14Cousin Sal:I guess so, yeah. They're counting the short week here, but they're not counting the long hair on Trevor Lawrence.

1:21:22Bill Simmons:What do you think the AFC South odds are right now? Did you look? Do you know this?

1:21:26Cousin Sal:I haven't looked.

1:21:28Bill Simmons:Who do you think the favorite in the AFC South is right now?

1:21:32Cousin Sal:So the Colts are 2-0. Jags are 1-1. Titans 0-2. Texans 1-1.

1:21:38Bill Simmons:And we're favored the whole preseason.

1:21:40Cousin Sal:I mean, God, did they make the Colts the favorite? The slight favorite?

1:21:45Bill Simmons:Slight favorite. Plus 160. Texans plus 185. Jags plus 260. Titans down to 13-1. So the Texans win. Plus 160 is pretty enticing.

1:21:58Cousin Sal:They have a minus if the Texans win tomorrow. They'll have a minus. Oh, I forgot.

1:22:03Bill Simmons:Yeah. We're legally prohibited from betting on the AFC South division.

1:22:08Cousin Sal:Yeah. Trump signed that rule.

1:22:10Bill Simmons:He said he didn't allow anybody to do it.

1:22:12Cousin Sal:That I would abide by. What is our bet? It was a rare win for Trump. We have something like that.

1:22:19Bill Simmons:We have the NFC South that's going to win more games than the AFC South. and we have juice toward the NFC South. And then we also have under 29.5 wins for the AFC South. We have two AFC South bets.

1:22:32Cousin Sal:Oh, okay.

1:22:33Bill Simmons:What was Hench complaining about? I mean, that's a whole... Hench is complaining because the Colts won and that bumped, that thrones our AFC South. Yeah, we're all right.

1:22:41Cousin Sal:We're okay.

1:22:41Bill Simmons:The problem with doing these future bets with Hench is he talks about them every week. And at some point, you almost start mentally rooting against them. So you don't get the text anymore.

1:22:49Cousin Sal:What was Hench complaining about could be a whole nother segment on this podcast. Well, he did not like the Broncos. No.

1:22:55Bill Simmons:Hench had some thoughts on the leverage rule. Bears, Cowboys. This is a borderline loser leaves town match. And it's in Chicago. And there's going to be a week of Caleb Johnson, Caleb Williams, Ben Johnson, Ryan Poles. This is the referendum week. Right. How did we get this so wrong? What's going on with this team? And Nick Wright picked them to win this, to make the Superbowl a year ago. He did that? Yeah. Yeah, he did. High hopes for two years with this team. I picked them to make the playoffs this year. Now it's a big referendum. And now they're playing your dumb team.

1:23:34Cousin Sal:I was off by half a point. I'm warning you here. And I'm proud of myself for getting it even that close. I tic-tac'd it. I went Bears one and a half. Son of a bitch. That's exactly right. Am I winning? Two, three, four, five, six, seven, two, three, four. 7-6, you're winning.

1:23:51Bill Simmons:Oh, great. Last one, Niners cards with Mac Jones because Purdy's not going to play and it's in San Francisco. And the cards are one of the least impressive 2-0s that we've seen. They can't believe they're 2-0. I have the Niners 1.5.

1:24:09Cousin Sal:I mean, you're closer than I was. I had the Niners by 3 and it's Arizona by 1.5.

1:24:17Bill Simmons:Oh, my Lord.

1:24:20Cousin Sal:Let's look at that for a second. Really? Arizona Cardinals, minus one and a half, minus 104. San Francisco 49ers, plus one and a half, minus 180. Yeah. I really disagree with that.

1:24:31Bill Simmons:Yeah, I do too. Then again, you get to bet against Mac Jones, so why not? Yeah, Mac Jones. Poop Fecta. Bucks Jets in Tampa. And I have the Bucks by six and a half. Oh, come on. Do you really?

1:24:50Cousin Sal:Let me see it. What is it? Let me see it. I can't see. It's six and a half. I said seven. You get it. Is that a tease for us? Yeah, I think so. Old school? The Test of Verde Bowl.

1:25:05Bill Simmons:All the six and a half level teases, parlays, we're hitting the first two weeks, which means we're due for one of them to. Yeah. A lot of overs. Cardinals today was a great one. Falcons at Carolina. this is interesting I had three and a half before the Falcons game today and I bumped it to Vegas zone afterwards I have Falcons by four and a half

1:25:27Cousin Sal:it's three and a half I said four we split that right no you win that then wait are you sure it's three and a half oh yeah I do want it yep three and a half I didn't write it because we didn't have it is it still three and a half I'll keep staring at it yeah Falcons three and a half at Panthers yeah I get that Who's taking the Panthers plus three and a half? So somebody, we have to, you know that thing you were talking about where the AI warns you not to bet it? We can't bet this. Either the Panthers are upsetting the Falcons or, like you said, the Titans are upsetting the Colts.

1:26:02Bill Simmons:Well, this is Falcons outdoors. Falcons as a road favorite. Right, right. Falcons with positive momentum and good feelings and good vibes. Yep. And, yeah, it's a statement for sure. and if it drops to three or below, I'll be betting it. Seahawks in Seattle against the Saints and this is either seven or seven and a half and I went back and forth and I landed at seven and a half.

1:26:27Cousin Sal:Seattle was seven and I had nine and a half so it doesn't matter. You get it. Yep.

1:26:33Bill Simmons:Yeah.

1:26:34Cousin Sal:You like that better than any teaser.

1:26:38Bill Simmons:Yeah, that's pretty good. Spencer Rattler in Seattle. Defense is good. get a nice win on the board, run the ball. Saints outdoors. That's a pretty enticing car. I would like it more if Seattle was coming,

1:26:51Cousin Sal:if they were coming off a loss. They always have the one fucked up home game, right?

1:26:55Bill Simmons:Sunday night. Chiefs at the Giants. I got this exact. I'm warning you. Okay. I Vegas zoned it. I did Chiefs by four and a half.

1:27:05Cousin Sal:It's five and a half. Fuck. So I'm up one. Man, there's a lot of teaser games. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 2, 3. Oh, you're up two. It's over? Oh, Jacoby. It's over. Finally. W for this guy. The good guys finally got one.

1:27:21Bill Simmons:Jacobes. I'm resting my starters for the Monday night game.

1:27:28Bill Simmons:Ravens home for the Detroit Lions. A game that a week ago I wasn't that excited about, and now I'm like pumped. Yep. A great game. I did Ravens minus three and a half. All right.

1:27:41Cousin Sal:I said four. Doesn't matter. It's five and a half. So you win 10 to nine. So we have, let me see. There's a lot of teaser Vegas zone games there.

1:27:54Bill Simmons:Four Vegas zone games. And then we have. And then you have Green Bay's a teaser game. Bucks minus six and a half. Yep. And then Packers minus eight and a half for the teasers. And Seattle, right? In Seattle. In Seattle minus seven. Oh, we're going to get crushed next week. This is bad. Bonus. There's no answer for this yet, but Crawford-Canelo rematch.

1:28:17Cousin Sal:Ugh. Who's favored? All right, so Canelo was, what, like a minus 180 going into last night? Yeah. Man, I think it's a toss-up. Like minus 120 each side, even?

1:28:32Bill Simmons:There's no line yet. I looked because the rematch hasn't been announced yet, I don't think they have lines. I think it would be Crawford by minus 125 to minus 130. Yeah. Yeah, because people are bad.

1:28:44Cousin Sal:I hope people appreciate what Bud Crawford did Saturday night, right? To go up two weight classes. I want to talk about it.

1:28:50Bill Simmons:First of all, my sources say that there will be a rematch.

1:28:55Cousin Sal:Yeah, there should.

1:28:56Bill Simmons:Yeah, that is happening.

1:29:02Bill Simmons:I rarely am, like, awe-stricken by a sporting event, But I thought I've been watching boxing my whole life, dating back to Ali in 1974 all the way through. And he's just one of the - You were 18 months old then. Just watching fucking Wide World of Sports, watching Ali fight whoever. Like that's when I always loved boxing. And Crawford's one of the best fighters I've ever seen. He's, if I'm making some list, he just has to be on it now.

1:29:28Cousin Sal:No question about it. And I feel like he falls victim to the fact that boxing hasn't been good in, I don't know, 15, 20 years. I don't even know what it is. So it hurts his legacy. And Canelo's too, by the way, that there's no Sugar Ray. There's no De La Hoya. There's no Hearns. Like even like a Winky Wright, right? Like those guys were great, you know.

1:29:48Bill Simmons:His best, his biggest fight was Spence. And he killed Spence to the point that it almost didn't seem like they were on the same level, which wasn't his fault.

1:29:56Cousin Sal:Yeah, he's 42 and 0. And Spence is the only one anyone cared about. and most people, like a lot of people, only knew about Crawford like last night. But that doesn't happen going up two weight classes like that and winning as a 37-year-old. It's just crazy.

1:30:10Bill Simmons:Right? It's a crazy thing to do. He gained 21 pounds and fought a dude who is naturally already one of the strongest people in the history of that division, who, by the way, has one of the... Max said this last night. I thought Max was great. I love him. I miss him. Max was so good on that fight. But Max was saying he has one of the great shins of all time. And it's like, yeah, he actually does. There was that great social video that happened of when Crawford stunned him and Canelo did almost a 180 and was like, whoa, I've never seen stars before from a punch. But Crawford, the chess match that was going on, it was just such a high level of boxing.

1:30:50Bill Simmons:It was so different than that Rock 'em Sock 'em fight from the three fights earlier. Yeah. It was just these guys feeling each other out and Crawford, right as Canelo was starting to feel like he had momentum. He just shifts. He gets inside in his body and starts using his athleticism. Then he moves back again. He's moving side to side. And it was just a masterpiece, man.

1:31:09Cousin Sal:It really was. It was a clinic. Young boxers should learn from that. Canelo's not in his prime either, but the fact that the game plan for a lighter guy is always hit and move. Just hit and move and don't get in the clench. Somewhere early on, he must have realized, I could take Canelo's best punch. I don't care. I'll fight inside against him. Or he just doesn't give a shit. That's probably it. He's like, I'm so tough. It's all right. I have a good chin too. and listen, it was just great. It's a shame boxing only produces a fight that we care about that doesn't involve one of the Pauls every four years.

1:31:44Cousin Sal:So there better be a rematch.

1:31:46Bill Simmons:Yeah, like when Sugar Ray came back and he moved up to fight Hagler, which was the same spring as Hogan versus Andre, I think it was like two weekends apart and it was, you know, for us, it was like one of the greatest stretches ever. Yeah. I was so scared for Leonard moving up. I really felt like he was potentially going to die. This is a suicide mission that he's doing this. What Crawford did was five times crazier.

1:32:14Cousin Sal:Yeah.

1:32:15Bill Simmons:To move up, jump two divisions like that. And even the first couple rounds, Canelo's hitting him on the sides. He's hitting him on his hips. He's hitting him low. And it's just like, there's no way he's ever felt punches like that before. But he was just, they're bouncing off him. Really good. It's like Superman. He's so good.

1:32:31Cousin Sal:Were you nervous for Hogan when he went up in class to fight Andre? Is that what you're saying to you? I was nervous the whole time. Andre was unbeatable. He's going up anywhere from 250 pounds, maybe. We can't get a reading.

1:32:46Bill Simmons:When Leonard fought Haggar, he was so surgical about how he would attack the rounds. And he would just kind of, he was on his bicycle and then he would come in, do little flurries, get out. And he would pick like these little 15. Crawford wasn't doing that at all. Crawford was like, I'm fighting this guy.

1:33:02Cousin Sal:Yeah.

1:33:02Bill Simmons:And I'm not afraid of him. He can't hurt me. I'm faster than him. And I thought, especially in the later rounds, it felt like Canelo got really discouraged. I thought in the 10th or 11th round, it almost seemed like, not that he was quitting, but like he had kind of just lost, I don't know what. But then he came back. But of course, the cards were outrageous. Well, the two judges had a tie. Two of the judges had a 5-5.

1:33:27Cousin Sal:Yeah, going into the 11th. That's terrible. I don't know what the answer is to that either, because I was like, maybe we just let AI score these, but the Netflix AI had it a draw. So I'm not sure what the deal, thankfully they didn't screw Crawford. And then I'm reading online, like, Oh, he was, there were people describing it. Like you've said that it might've been like, Oh, he really didn't. He only engaged with them in four rounds. Like no way he was taking it to Canelo. Like he didn't care. No,

1:33:55Bill Simmons:he was in command of the, the command of the fight has to matter if you're scoring it. I don't think we've ever totally figured out how to score these things. We should have more than three judges. It's crazy they only have three. Right? Talk about small sample size. You just need two people to fuck up out of three and you have the wrong decision. It should be five. But then you have these rounds like the first round where nobody wins the first round and people are just like, oh, Champ gets that one. You should be able to give 10-10.

1:34:22Cousin Sal:I think it's frowned upon if you're a professional judge and you give a 10-10 round. but some rounds are... First round was a 10-10 round.

1:34:31Bill Simmons:Nobody won in the first round.

1:34:32Cousin Sal:One guy lands six punches, the other lands five. What do you got? You got to pick one? Oh, come on. Yeah. But I thought the ones that were won were won by way more were won by Crawford.

1:34:43Bill Simmons:I thought Canelo won three rounds and given the first round, congratulations. But I thought for boxing, it was a great night. I mean, I don't know what the official audience was, but it was probably like 60 million people watching that.

1:34:55Cousin Sal:Yeah.

1:34:55Bill Simmons:which so it's the biggest boxing event ever most of those people have only tangentially heard of Crawford and he has his his greatest fight Spence this was his most important fight yeah but took it to him and I don't I think if they fought 10 times I think he would be Canelo every time maybe one of the 10 times Canelo would maybe catch him once but athletically he just was never in danger ever. And I really thought he took it to him a few times too. That's what was special about it.

1:35:27Cousin Sal:Canelo, it's funny we say that because Crawford's got three years on him, three years older. But Canelo, if you look at his last, what do you have? He's coming off seven unanimous decisions, right? And the volume just isn't there like it was like Cinco de Mayo 10 years ago. Yeah, I mean, yeah. And the power, I think, has gone through. He does do that thing that you were talking about where he'll just like turn his head. Like, oh, did that hurt? you or did that miss completely? So he really does have a good chin, but he had to use it for sure.

1:35:57Bill Simmons:There was a little bit of this meant more to Crawford than Canelo. Not that it didn't mean something to Canelo, but even his quotes afterwards. Canelo is like minted, whatever happens. He's one of the most popular fighters of the last 30 years. And he's already won a shitload of fights and he's made a shitload of money. And whether he won or lost this, I don't think really ultimately mattered. But for Crawford, it did. Because Crawford had to win this. Now he's on this completely different list. He's one of the two or three most important boxers of the first 25 years of boxing. And if you go back to the last 50 years since Ali, he's on that list too.

1:36:36Bill Simmons:He just has to be on there with Mayweather and Hopkins and whoever else you want to put on. And that's what he needed it.

1:36:44Cousin Sal:but I mean how many times have we seen a guy go up to weight class and it's like, ah, shame. We root for the little guy and it just doesn't happen. It just gets, it just gets, you know, engulfed, but it wasn't like that at all. So I wonder he probably,

1:36:58Bill Simmons:he could probably go down to middleweight and win that one too, if he wanted, because I don't think anybody there could be. He could also go up to one 75 and try to fight B ball, which would be fucking crazy. But imagine if he did that, he's like, all right, I'll just now go to 175.

1:37:16Cousin Sal:That's going to be his 40s. Yeah, that's what he's going to do in his 40s.

1:37:19Bill Simmons:It would be nuts if he did that, but, you know.

1:37:22Cousin Sal:Well, Bernard Hopkins was doing that, right, late in his career. He's just taking all the fights and making as much money as he can, and the weights were all over the place. But he's great. He's great. I'm glad a lot of people got to introduce to him yesterday.

1:37:36Bill Simmons:There's a charisma and a coolness to him, too, that I think is unusual. You know, like people like Hopkins, Larry Holmes, like some of these guys who had these great records or streaks, but there was something slightly missing from a personality standpoint. Hopkins, and Hopkins knew it and was always trying to overcompensate for it. But Bud's just, he's just got it. There's something about him that, I don't know. There's just that charisma to him. I wish I had gone. I really regret not going, but I came back East. Trying to be a good parent.

1:38:05Cousin Sal:You were in the wrong, you know, she doesn't want to transfer to UNLV. You can see a lot of the fights there.

1:38:13Bill Simmons:All right. We have to do, let's do a little parent corner.

1:38:16Cousin Sal:All right.

1:38:17Bill Simmons:Let's do it. Hold on. Oh, yeah. Parent corner brought to you by Workday. Are you a forward thinker? Then you need an HR and finance platform that thinks like you do. Workday is the AI platform that helps propel your organization, your workforce, and your entire industry into the future. workday moving business forever forward. What do you got, Seth?

1:38:40Cousin Sal:All right. So my 12-year-old now is on this travel baseball team and they've been playing together for like three or four years. And this is the year at 12, you go to Cooperstown, right? Now it used to be all only the best teams in the country go to Cooperstown. Now you could just organize your own. There are so many tournaments up there, right? So you don't have to be great. And it's in July. And so as long as Harrison doesn't get cut between now and then, He's batting like 240 right now. So let's cross our fingers. But so you go a week to Cooperstown in July. You're there upstate New York. It's great.

1:39:13Cousin Sal:Guaranteed like five games as a home run derby. It's beautiful. But the shit's expensive. It's like$2 ,600 per kid. And that includes like flight, boarding. They're all in like bunk beds in a hotel in Cooperstown, like in the barracks. It's fun. And you get food. And that's just for the kids. The rest of the family pays for themselves. So we're trying to fundraise. It's going to be harder to get to either. It's very hard. Yeah, you have to land. There is an airport in Albany, but you're probably going to land in the city and drive. Connecting, there's buses. Yeah. It's going to be, it better be fun because it's a trudge for sure.

1:39:47Cousin Sal:So we're trying to fundraise because at$2 ,600 a kid, I think we're trying to raise like$35 ,000 to get just that, the team part of it paid for. So as a fundraiser, we have all these parent parties, right? That was your Broncos bet today? No, it's a kid. Believe me, it gets there. You have all these parties, right? And you sell tickets to these parties and it's raffles and everything's going on. And like, I'm going to help run the Super Bowl squares pool, but I'm going to buy like half the squares, right? And it's not like these kids do anything. They don't sell lemonade or like Christmas wrapping paper or something.

1:40:23Cousin Sal:It's all on the parents to get together for these fundraisers. So Friday night, Melissa's at the fundraiser. We already bought the tickets. I can't go because I am at Harrison's flag football game. So there's a family that's nice enough to host. She goes, I go to Harrison's football game. All the while I'm watching on my phone, I bet the Mets, stupid, dumb, just dumb. And I bet UCLA, which is even stupider, right? The coach has been fired since. So I'm bummed. We get home around the same time from the flag game and from the fundraiser. And I said, how was it? She says it was fun. And we love all the parents.

1:40:59Cousin Sal:It's like they're dynamite. So she had a good time. I get a little gossip from the party. And then she mentions there's a 50-50 raffle,$1 ,000. And then she won. I was like, oh my God, this is great. I was like,$1 ,000. She's like, well, I won 500 because it's 50-50. 50 % goes to the fundraiser. I'm like, okay, wow, 500, that's great. And I'm like, I'm thinking I lost my UCLA. Maybe I can get my money back here. Can I see it? Can I at least see the 500? Maybe I won't get any of it, but let me see it. She's like, oh, well, I gave it back. I mean, it's all for the fundraiser. I was like, you gave it back?

1:41:36Cousin Sal:What is the fun? Why don't we just pay for our kids if this is what it's like? You gave it. I had UCLA and the Mets. And she's like, but this is what you do. If you win, you give it back.

1:41:51Bill Simmons:So then it's a 100-0 fundraiser.

1:41:53Cousin Sal:Yeah, that's it. You got to change it from 50-50 to 100-0 or 0-100. She's like, well, all the parents are doing this kind of thing. I'm like, yes, but all the parents aren't betting UCLA and the Mets. So it just weirded me out. And like I said, all these parents listen to this and they're going to think I'm a nutcase here. But fundraising for kids is kind of a joke. It just is. You've done this, right? You had to have. Lacrosse, something, soccer.

1:42:19Bill Simmons:I never knew people pocketed the 50-50 part. I always thought that went back to the thing. Oh, so you were with her. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just thought it was like a Ponzi scheme for the, you just gave it back anyway.

1:42:33Cousin Sal:It's really a hundred zero. But the fund, it's not a fundraiser. If you're paying all the funds, if everybody, all the parents are paying, I don't know. They have to change it. It would have been funny if you won and you're like, yeah, you're waving the$500. Yeah. Can't wait to spend this in Cooperstown. I'm getting my kids some, some hats, some signed vintage hats. Oh shit. All right.

1:42:56Bill Simmons:Well, maybe I'm the idiot then. Whatever. I've missed out on Cooperstown because it was the year my son was 12. It was COVID.

1:43:06Cousin Sal:Oh, right.

1:43:07Bill Simmons:We had a whole Cooperstown thing. We're about to do all the same stuff. And then no tournament.

1:43:13Cousin Sal:Come with us in July. No trip. You should go next July. You know what? I'll fundraise for you. I can get$2 ,600 for you to go.

1:43:21Bill Simmons:My wife and my dad, you didn't have a daughter. And you miss out on the daughter. wife dynamics, which are just spectacular. So I flew in Friday night and I was getting here in time to maybe go to dinner. My wife was already here. So my wife was here. I'm here. We're going to go out to dinner with my daughter who's playing in a game the next day. And I'm just going to read highlights from the text thread as I'm on the plane and we're trying to figure out the dinner. And I'll redact the restaurants. So I said, blah, blah, blah. I suggested a restaurant. I'll drop my stuff off and meet you. Zoe says to my mom, did you see this?

1:44:03Bill Simmons:Blah, blah, blah. It's too late. Let's go to the second restaurant. What time are we going to eat? That's now a bunch more tech. So now I'm on the plane. I'm watching this. I'm like, oh boy. It's like watching the two hockey enforcers out that are skating around and they're about to like get into it. Now Zoe goes, I'd rather eat earlier because of the game. Is 8 o 'clock possible anywhere? I agree. Do you want Italian? Then she suggests a steak place. Zoe comes back, what about American? And then she says, I want Italian. Let's go to the North End. Then my wife now is getting mad. She's like, well, dad's flying in.

1:44:44Bill Simmons:He's going to land. He's going to drop his stuff off. That's going to be too hard. I suggest a place. Zoe shoots that down. She does this other place. It's supposed to be amazing. 8.15. All right, in there. She can't get a reservation. We do another thing. We try another one. Now we're up to 10 restaurants we've tried just on the text thread. And I'm like, now we're going to get in a fight. It's going to happen. Finally, my wife gets mad. Change of plans. We're just going to order in. Z, you can just come over. I like this idea. Now Zoe starts suggesting restaurants we should order from. now we start arguing about that finally hold on I'm scrolling through all the text have you put your input at all

1:45:30Cousin Sal:at this point or you're just watching

1:45:31Bill Simmons:I've just chimed in a couple times now we're on like our fifth Postmates thing and I finally text it's too bad we couldn't have made this more complicated over the past few hours joking so he comes back all you've done is fly today chill as a text. And then I say, I'll do whatever. And then Zoe does the, I can also do my own thing for dinner and hang out later. Oh boy. Now Carrie comes back with the seriously exclamation point. Let's fucking get it from somewhere else. And I'm like, oh, now we've had an F-bomb. Now Zoe goes, why are you guys being so crazy? It's not too complicated. It's dinner.

1:46:12Bill Simmons:Who cares? She suggested 15 restaurants and seven Postmates restaurants. And we keep going. We keep going. And then my wife does that. I've spent a lot of my day and a lot of energy talking about dinner. And I'm being super rude as I spend all this time on a meal. Just call me and let's figure this out. Pick up the phone. And then Zoe goes, well, who cares? I didn't think this was such a big deal. And it keeps going. And it keeps going. And it keeps going.

1:46:39Cousin Sal:No.

1:46:40Bill Simmons:Zoe says, I don't understand how this is upsetting. It's dinner. Jeez, fine. I don't even care where we eat. She's up to 17 restaurants. She says, that's this point. I've had a super long week. More texts, more texts. This is honestly bumming me out. It keeps going. This is going to stress me out. And we just go. And then we finally just ended up getting Postmates somewhere. And it was... Is it American? No, this is when whatever the version of the Iran-Contra hearings, when they confiscate the phones, People would just be studying to 700 texts that led to me having a chicken parm that was like a B - from someplace at 930 at night.

1:47:21Bill Simmons:You missed out on all of this, though. And then they were mad at each other for like two hours.

1:47:25Cousin Sal:Oh, that's terrible. She should have picked up the—they should have called on the phone. It would have been fine, right?

1:47:30Bill Simmons:Or you make the decision. The last text on the thread is, no one says you can't come over and see us. It's just easier if we don't have to deal with winter because you can't seem to make up your mind. And then it's really something. Do I have to have a girl? You missed out on all of this. I know. You just have your wife just getting disappointed that your son doesn't show enough affection.

1:47:52Cousin Sal:Right. Yeah.

1:47:54Bill Simmons:Meanwhile, I'm flying cross country to see my daughter.

1:47:57Cousin Sal:You should get to pick dinner then. You absolutely should. I mean, I know you're not going to be able to explain that to a kid. And here's the other thing.

1:48:07Bill Simmons:She's going to be mad now that I even talked about this. How about this? We don't even have to go to dinner any night.

1:48:12Cousin Sal:This is going to be another 80 text. I love it. I'll keep you posted. All right. Keep me post-mated.

1:48:18Bill Simmons:I'll keep you posted. That was today's Parent Corner. And it was brought to you by Workday. If you're a forward thinker, you need an HR finance platform that thinks like you do. Workday, the AI platform that helps propel your organization and workforce, your entire industry into the future. Workday, moving business forever forward. learn more at workday.com. How's it going at the Ringer Gambling Show?

1:48:39Cousin Sal:It's good. It's a lot of fun.

1:48:40Bill Simmons:Who's your favorite partner? You have Tate on Tuesdays.

1:48:43Cousin Sal:Oh, man.

1:48:44Bill Simmons:You have Dabundo and House on Wednesdays, Dabundo and Heifetz. Do you want to power rank or do you want to wait till October?

1:48:49Cousin Sal:I got to wait a little bit. I think the shows are all really good. I'm closest with Joe House and Tate. I got to... Yeah, don't make me do this. Don't make me. This is like ordering dinner. I can't do this. Yeah. It's a lot of fun. The new guys. Yes. If you're a forward thinker, Tuesday at noon with Tate, Wednesday with Joe House and Dabundo live. This is on the Ringer Gambling Channel on YouTube. And Friday with my Ringer 107 partner, Anthony Dabundo and Danny Heifetz. It's all a lot of fun. And then the Sunday pregame show. We gave out a bunch of winners, probably losers too. But you got some winners today.

1:49:23Bill Simmons:There were some good ones today.

1:49:25Cousin Sal:Will you please tell Raheem, God bless him, he can't take the Chiefs as an underdog if they're minus 107. And I, if it, Howie and Terry do it, whatever, it's fine. They don't know any better. That's, I think that's your number one pet peeve. I hate it. I hate it. And I, and then I have to be a salty the whole rest of the time. And when I give my underdog, I'm like, your head's going to spin because I have a plus money dog, my underdog, you're not, you're not going to understand this concept, Raheem. And he's like, what? Why are you getting so mad? Underdogs have a plus.

1:49:58Bill Simmons:So what was the best underdog that went today? It was Colts plus two and a half.

1:50:04Cousin Sal:Should have been the Giants.

1:50:06Bill Simmons:Should have been the Jaguars. Oh, Seahawks plus three. Patriots plus one and a half. Falcons plus three and a half. That was the biggest one.

1:50:18Cousin Sal:Falcons, yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Falcons plus three and a half.

1:50:20Bill Simmons:I don't know if... We definitely didn't have a plus 200 or higher money line. No, but you can't take minus. Stop. Come on.

1:50:28Cousin Sal:You can't take a minus as an underdog. That's too bad. I apologize that you did that.

1:50:34Bill Simmons:You won on Crawford, right? You bet on that.

1:50:36Cousin Sal:I did. I loved it. I was a little nervous. I bet. You know what, though? To Raheem's credit, that's a nice hedge, the draw. If they don't feel like giving the challenger the win sometimes. But there was already a draw on that card. So I was like, all right, well, there goes the draw. They're not going to have two draws. But that's a good way to hedge a little bit.

1:50:53Bill Simmons:I didn't necessarily know who's going to win. I just thought the odds were off.

1:50:57Cousin Sal:Yeah.

1:50:57Bill Simmons:And I thought it meant a little more to Crawford, but I also would not have been surprised if Canelo won. But I thought the plus 140 was a little insulting.

1:51:04Cousin Sal:And how rare is it that we're on the fun side of history in some of these, right? We won. We did it. It was great.

1:51:11Bill Simmons:Who was your favorite celebrity that was there?

1:51:14Cousin Sal:I like that Saudi guy in the front row who wasn't watching. I assume he's famous. He got booed. He did? Yeah. He got booed. He's on the undercard of the rematch. I don't know. I wasn't. Who would you like? I mean, I like Tyson always.

1:51:33Bill Simmons:You know, they interviewed Mark Wahlberg at one point. And I've done, I've had him on, I had him on the pod when I was ESPN. I thought he was a good guest. But some of these celebrities don't feel like they have to try to be that entertaining when they're being interviewed. They're in that no man's land of they want to talk about the fight. Right. And they, but they, like if you go on a talk show, they, they come in with their stories. But when they get interviewed for things like this, they kind of don't know how to act. I think there should be a consultancy firm to help them out with some of this stuff.

1:52:00Bill Simmons:Yeah. They come in, they're like, they don't really have jokes, but they don't have expertise either. And they just kind of go, it's great to be here, man. I'm so excited. But they don't really have anything to say. That's a great idea. That's a really good idea. Just be like, hey, Mark, tell a story about the time you met Lennox Lewis. They should have anecdotes.

1:52:19Cousin Sal:I was, cause I was trying to think like the publicist isn't enough, right? Like our dear friend, Louis K could give some advice to someone, one of a client that's coming on for the first time. But yeah, you're right. As far as like structuring stories and stuff like this will work. Have like one anecdote.

1:52:35Bill Simmons:Yeah. I like the time you met Muhammad Ali at the 2012 Olympics, or I've loved boxing since the day of whatever.

1:52:40Cousin Sal:Do your best three parent corners. Um, and just read texts. Yeah.

1:52:44Bill Simmons:Has Chris Chan invited you to play at Bell Area? No, play what? Golf? Chris Chen, our friend, belongs to Bel Air Country Club now and he got upset last week because House and I talked about it.

1:52:56Cousin Sal:Oh.

1:52:58Bill Simmons:He was trying to keep it quiet because he didn't want to have a lot of people know because then people want to play there.

1:53:04Cousin Sal:Right.

1:53:04Bill Simmons:And then we talked about it and now he was upset because a lot of people had reached out to him. So I didn't know if he'd reached out to you about playing at Bel Air.

1:53:12Cousin Sal:I see. No, no, he hasn't. He hasn't. But we're off the air, right? Because then even more people. No, we're still on. Oh, we're still on. Oh, all right. Okay, so good for Chris.

1:53:20Bill Simmons:Maybe he'll invite you. You don't play golf, though. I don't, but I'm glad. Maybe he'll come invite you for a hang.

1:53:25Cousin Sal:I'm glad you mentioned it now. I'm definitely going to reach out to him. Yeah. Reach out to him. We're in a couple of things. The Bell-Ai Country Club is a good place to start for me.

1:53:33Bill Simmons:Yeah. All right. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo. Don't forget, I have a rewatchable. It's coming Monday night, Tin Cup.

1:53:41Cousin Sal:Oh, nice.

1:53:41Bill Simmons:And Prestige TV, we've been covering, we've been recapping Task, which is an excellent, excellent show on HBO. So, have that too. Cuz, I'll see you in a week. Good job by you. Good job by you, buddy.

1:54:08Bill Simmons:Must be 21 plus in President's Select States for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino. We're 18 plus in President of D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming. Gambling problem? Call 100 Gambler. Visit rg-help.com. Call 1-887-897777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-887-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York.