Did the Pats Become the Bills? Is Stafford the MVP? Do the Jags Hate Their Fans? Plus, Guess the Lines With Cousin Sal.

10:39Bill Simmons:That wasn't you? I was pumped. No, it wasn't me, but I was pumped anyway. All right.

10:46Bill Simmons:Well, Drake may became the MVP favorite. Yeah. That lasted a little while until Matthew Stafford got hot. I was thinking, how many people do you think waved to Henderson after about eight weeks? Oh, lots. Yeah, right. Less than that, right? I had to have been at least 50 % of the teams, right? There's got to be some word for that. remember when we were working for Kimmel show and there was a, one of the writers, Ribsy,

11:11Cousin Sal:Mark rivers,

11:12Bill Simmons:right. He would kind of zone out. I think he would be working on his talking points as we were going around the table. And it would have come to him, he would do this thing, but somebody had already did an hour ago and we started to call it a Ribsy. And it just became a Ribsy was the name we had. There should be a name for waving a guy who then turns into being a guy down the stretch that you would absolutely 100 % want. Yeah. Because if you had Henderson, you spent, what,$25,$30 on him or you took him in the first five rounds? Yeah, you did for sure. And then you're like, that's it. This guy, this is a sunk cost.

11:43Bill Simmons:I got it. And now he had, what did he have, 27 points today?

11:46Cousin Sal:That was insanity. But how many, what's the volume for him? Like that's the thing we hated with Belichick running backs. Is Vrabel going to, is he still going to get, is he going to get 15 carries a game?

11:58Bill Simmons:The running back situation is bleak because they had some guy, Jennings, who was a practice squad guy most of the year, and then he got hurt. They had Dearness Johnson had a snap. I didn't even know he was on the team until like four days ago. So, you know, they're playing the Jets Thursday. Vrabel, I watched all the post-game speeches. I want to talk about that later. Vrabel is very short and concise. On to the next one. Thursday, we're playing. Like, keep it going. There's no celebration on this team. I said this to you a couple weeks ago on the pod. This team really thinks it's good. I think they believe in the coach and they believe in the quarterback.

12:36Bill Simmons:I don't know how long it's going to last, but they haven't played a bad game since we got to.

12:40Cousin Sal:No, you got to stop with this. They're the team to beat now. They're minus 240 to win the division. It would be upsetting. They're minus 240 now? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You got a game in the head. You have, what, more than two-game lead on the Bills? Well, we play Buffalo again, though. All right. Okay, you don't play them three times. You only play them once. I was telling Kraft today in the luxury box. Yeah. You guys are eating pizza together? I don't know. This is a letdown now if you lose. I'm sorry. It really is. It's a letdown. It's a letdown. I don't know how you did it. You freaking, you just, with the quarterback things, all you do is date supermodels.

13:14Cousin Sal:You go from one to the other. Maybe for like four months in the middle, there was Adrian from Rocky 1. You know, like, all right, she has potential. That was Mac Jones. But there you go. And now you're right back up. Mac. Now you're back.

13:28Bill Simmons:We've resuscitated Mac. That's true. He's 3 ,000 miles away. Yeah. I will say this. They're getting a lot of weak schedule stuff, which admittedly that was one of the reasons we both loved the over because their schedule is pretty weak. What are Indy's big wins? Why doesn't Indy get the weak schedule thing? Indy's in the AFC South. Yeah, that's true. They've beaten six teams with three wins or less, Indianapolis. and their two good wins are Denver and the Chargers. In that Denver game, they should have lost and it was an absolute highway robbery, right? The Chargers was their one good win. They've lost to the Steelers.

14:05Bill Simmons:They lost to the Rams. The Patriots have good wins in Tampa and in Buffalo and really only one bad game that week one in Vegas, which as we've discussed, you just kind of, I guess, throw away week one. Yeah, I'll give you that. Week one's like the last preseason game. But I don't think you could use the week schedule thing and not use it against the Colts. who barely got by Atlanta today and probably shouldn't have. And I can't wait to talk about that game. But yeah, I don't know. I can't tell how good this Pats team is because it worries me that they can't run the ball with a lead in the fourth quarter.

14:43Bill Simmons:And I think you have to do that in January. But Ramondre is going to come back and maybe that'll be the last piece. And I think they've conditioned May now. When he's doing those scrambles on the outside, it's like he's almost like he's gone the opposite of last year like last year he was like Jackson Dart he was like just settle down dude you're gonna get hurt this year he's almost like trying not to get hurt and I feel like he's gonna get hurt doing that he took a couple huge shots today so he's gotta find that middle ground when you tense up

15:11Cousin Sal:well maybe that's where the leader for coach of the year odds wise could get in there and tell him to relax a little did we talk about who's the leader now it's Vrabel plus 125 I think he was 3-1 when we did this last week. Steichen's plus 140. So maybe people are starting to believe in that. What wins do you have, Colts? There you have.

15:32Bill Simmons:Interesting. I would say Vrabel had a probably harder job than Steichen did this year.

15:38Cousin Sal:Getting this together?

15:38Bill Simmons:Yeah. Yeah, the Pats lost 13-plus games two years in a row. And they have a bunch of young guys. He cleaned out. Basically, the Colts thing came down to they added Tyler Warren. and they hit on the Jones thing, which he gets credit for, obviously. But I think Vrabel has more.

15:55Cousin Sal:Well, in August, as is evidence of us betting under seven and a half, we didn't have any hopes for Daniel Jones to do anything.

16:02Bill Simmons:No, but why would we have? Even today when you're watching him in that Germany game, every time there's like some sort of Daniel Jones player, you're like, oh, here we go. Here it is. He's going to pull off his Daniel Jones mask, turn into Giants Daniel Jones again.

16:17Cousin Sal:just now because I was, because you know, I was doing the pregame show. So I didn't have like a lot of attention to it. I would, I would watch, but, and then I watched the extended highlights. I thought he was pretty good. I thought this was like one of their more impressive wins. Like I said, I was going to say like, this should be, this is a first round exit. The Colts put them up there with Denver. I don't, I've seen enough, but he was dumped seven times and that wasn't even, none of those were the hardest he was hit, but that third and 21 play where he runs for 19 and he bangs his head on a bench and he's bleeding from the mouth.

16:51Cousin Sal:He looks like a child who got into the cherry sorbet in the middle of the night. And I don't know. I've just, I haven't lost faith in him right now. I'll say that. They should beat a team like Atlanta better than 30-25 in overtime, but pretty damn good.

17:05Bill Simmons:The fourth and two to Warren was great. Yeah. Because if they don't make that play, they lose the game. I kind of felt like it was going to Warren because that became a video game situation. what would you do if you're playing a video game? I would just throw the guy who catches everything. Comes off the line. Atlanta knows it's coming. He has to throw it high to get to him. And Warren still made a crazy catch. But that was an awesome play. I thought they won the game. They had to actually go take it. With that said, the Raheem-Pennix alliance is an all-timer. Pennix had, I don't know, maybe 12 terrible throws.

17:46Bill Simmons:might have been 15. Yeah. I wish that was a stat. I know there's no way to just, you'd have to have somebody just to sign. Terrible throw. But he just had to, he got behind things. Don't they have it? They have uncutriable throws. I wish they had like. How fast anyone is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wish they just had fucking terrible throws. Like FTTs. FTTs. But bad special teams, like just a fucking staple for Raheem Morris. Like I over, even, even there was one time when they're kicking off and they're like, well, this is going to go to the 45 right at the end, right? You just know the Colts are going to start close to field goal range somehow.

18:25Cousin Sal:Then we should talk about Jonathan Taylor.

18:27Bill Simmons:And Taylor was the other piece. Taylor was incredible. He's spectacular. 4-3 touchdown game.

18:32Cousin Sal:And he is now third. So it's Drake May. He's 3-1. Stafford's 3-1. And JT is plus 500. And I'm not doing it. Well, who do you think is the MVP?

18:42Bill Simmons:I think it's a worthy conversation after 10 weeks. If you had to pick somebody, who would you pick? I can't say. Did you pick Drake May?

18:50Cousin Sal:I can't say Baby. I can't. I mean, I said Baby. I regret it. No, I'm going to say Matthew Stafford. I think he's excellent.

18:57Bill Simmons:So I'm obviously biased because I love the Patriots and I love Drake May. I know it. But I think it's Stafford. I think he's been the best guy. Because it can't just be the stats and it can't just be impact on the team and how actually valuable you are and that there's narrative and all that stuff. Stafford's just been lights out every week. Like he has the performance thing. May will still have like his two kind of sketchy throws a game. He had the one today, the terrible pick near the end. Now granted, he might've been at his bell run. But Stafford's just been lights out week after week after week.

19:30Bill Simmons:And I just think it has to be him. You have 12 touchdowns in three weeks. You're housing everybody. But I think next week will be the MVP test for him. That'll be a big game. Because if they beat Seattle, that'll be it. That's a good one.

19:42Cousin Sal:So now he's going, yeah. So it's hard. maybe stats are phenomenal too, but Stafford, you're right. Last six games, almost 1 ,700 yards, 20 touchdowns, no interceptions. Some of those games without - No interceptions. No turnover, no interceptions. And by the way, today was the first time he hit 500 in his career. He's got 115 wins, 115 losses, and a tie. Yeah. He dug himself out of the biggest hole in history being the Lions quarterback for so many years. I think just the, I don't know, The sympathetic vote should go to him. Maybe he's probably going to win MVPs down the road, but this guy had to go out there all those Thanksgivings and embarrass himself with that crud team.

20:22Cousin Sal:Give it to Stafford if it keeps up.

20:24Bill Simmons:Yeah, I was thinking the shit red herring storylines from before the year that affected what we thought was going to happen during the season. Yeah. The MVP of that was Stafford's back. Right, right. People were so freaked out about Stafford's back, it became the only way they looked at the Rams and they had people, you know, I can't remember if they were actually favored. I think the Niners were favored for the division.

20:48Cousin Sal:Niners were favored. They had a very high. And there was a lot of like,

20:50Bill Simmons:I can see the Rams, the Stafford, who knows? I remember thinking it too. That and I think the Parsons trade were the two. Oh yeah. The two things that skewed how people thought of the season heading into it. Because when Green Bay got Parsons, it's like, oh my God, look out. And, you know, it didn't have the same effect.

21:08Cousin Sal:Yeah, Stafford, I think we were turned off by the fact Like this is a 34, 35 year old who has had spines. So I'm never going to fall for that again. If a 35 year old athlete has spine surgery, I'm betting the house on them every year. Cause it's only pro only good.

21:22Bill Simmons:Yeah. Pro spine surgery. Well, the Pats. Braybo apparently was saying after the game, he was congratulating people in the Pats for being the NFC South champions. Cause they swept the NFC South for no. Yeah. That's not nothing. I actually think Atlanta is like a pretty talented team that just can't stay out of its own way. But I feel like I've watched five or six full Falcons games and they have talent and they can do a lot of different things. And they have this identity where all of a sudden they can run the ball and it just seems like Algier is downhill, just running for nine yards a carry for 10 straight minutes.

22:00Bill Simmons:It seems like they can rush the passer, right? It seems like Drake London can just take over the game. There's moments where Bajan, we used to call him Bajan, now he's Bajan, where Bajan seems like he's the best player in the league. And yet, then you look up at the end and they've lost again. They're 3-6.

22:16Cousin Sal:They should be talented. I feel like teams like Atlanta, teams like Miami, they're not awful. They will show up. Could you just tell us when you're going to show up? Right. Give us a heads up. Like Miami, all right, we won't put you in the bottom three. We'll uncross you. But just tell us when you're going to look like the Kurt Warner's Rams on offense. Unstoppable. The same kind of thing.

22:40Bill Simmons:Last thing on the Pats. Thank God. I thought there was a different level to that win because I think Tampa's good. And Tampa was relatively healthy, right? They didn't have Evans. Godwin, God only knows when he's going to play or not play. No Bucky Irving. So if you're a Tampa fan, you'd be like, well, we'll see. We'll see in February if we have all our guys, basically. But I thought Tampa tried to bully them in a good way. Like they were just really physical. They were trying to hit when May was going out of bounds. They were always trying to hit him before he went out of bounds. They were just really physical with everybody and treated it like a playoff game.

23:22Bill Simmons:And when they went in Buffalo, I didn't think Buffalo played that well. I thought Tampa played reasonably well. They really thwarted Mayfield. It was the best defensive game plan kind of execution thing that they've done. Like, it just really felt like it felt a little 2001-ish. I got to be honest. I don't know where the ceiling is. For sure.

23:41Cousin Sal:Yeah, I just, and you could have folded after that Egbuka touchdown. Like, all right, this is, we're not really supposed to win this game. So let's not. But the fact is. It started out terrible.

23:49Bill Simmons:It was pouring rain. We're down 7-0. May was sailing passes.

23:52Cousin Sal:But if they can't, if these teams can't run on you, you're always going to have a shot. And, you know, you're just as good as them anyway. So it was fine.

24:01Bill Simmons:I thought Romo did a great job today. I really enjoyed his commentary. I think Romo, I think he slumped a little two years ago, but I feel like Romo's back. I thought he had a real good sense of who to pick on on defense. It was like all the old school Romo things, like what May was seeing, what this meant. He had a sense for where the momentum of the game was going and what the holes were on the teams. I thought he did a really good job.

24:25Cousin Sal:This one's going to digs and then it goes to digs. I think he has a very tough job because he, he can predict a lot of this shit. I think he could, he could hit like on 85 % of it. It's how much he wants to expose and how much he wants to take away from the viewer and trying to figure out if he is taken away from a viewer.

24:42Bill Simmons:So remember there was one time where they, they audible and they did like 19 and he's like, that's going left. Yeah. And they ran the ball up. And he's like, when they say 19, that means they're going left. Yeah. Right. And then you could hear, he was like, oh, maybe I shouldn't have said that. Yeah, right. I know.

24:58Cousin Sal:He's completely exposed. Like, that's great to know. But then it's like, oh, people probably get mad saying that.

25:04Bill Simmons:We'll take a break on the pod. Keep going here on YouTube. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra, the official beer partner of the NBA. So the NBA season is starting. I'm excited about a bunch of different things. We have a lot of teams up in the air. Boston, Milwaukee, Indiana. What are we getting from these teams? The Lakers. Can they hang on and still be a top six team? I think I'm most excited for the Texas teams. I want to see Duran in Houston, Cooper Flag in Dallas, and Wemby and Dylan Harper in San Antonio. I feel like I'm going to be spending a lot of time in the state of Texas with my basketball choices.

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26:17Bill Simmons:Ends on June 30th, 2026. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at MichelobUltra.com slash courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details. Buffalo, something's wrong. We're officially here. This is a what's wrong with Buffalo segment.

26:34Cousin Sal:Something's wrong with my checking account. Well, we were laughing because we had the most obvious parlay of all time

26:43Bill Simmons:was Broncos, Indiana yesterday, and Buffalo today. I didn't even need to ask to see if you had it. That's exactly what I had. Denver squeezes through. They get the classic missed field goal with four minutes left. They're still like fucking around with either the bitter end they cover. Then yesterday, Indiana, the guy makes probably the greatest catch I've seen in three years. Right. The toe tap where he lifts up the right foot and toe taps the left on Cooper. Just hovering over. Just unbelievable. So they win. And all that's left now is Buffalo. And you can feel it right away. I was like, oh, here we go.

27:17Bill Simmons:This is going to be one of those weird at Miami games that happen twice a year. I'll say this. We said this last week, I think. Nobody's ever open on the Bills. They'll show that wide shot, the all 22, or they'll show whatever, and there's always D-backs right next to whoever's running. They said there was NextGenStats, that Twitter account today, said Allen's average time to throw was 3.53 seconds, which was the longest time to throw of his career since 2018.

27:48Cousin Sal:That was like 14 seconds, so that did one of those. Maybe that beefed it up. But you're right.

27:53Bill Simmons:But he just doesn't have people to throw to. And then Cain got hurt, and it's like, all right, where is he going on 39? I still don't know.

27:59Cousin Sal:And you'll have, like, Mac Hollins get open for, like, a bunch of big catches. I'm like, holy shit. Yes, I know. It's like, why can't Shavers or all these guys we laugh at for the Bills, why can't they do the same? Why does he have to do so much? It was really like when they got down to the 12-yard line, it was like, either he's going to have to run it in himself or they're not scoring.

28:20Bill Simmons:I actually thought he should have run more I was surprised I mean they have Tampa next week they're at Houston and at Pittsburgh for their next three so maybe they felt like they could sneak through this but they're playing this Miami team that is one of the all time what the hell is going on with this team teams week 7 they lose in Cleveland 31 to 6 week 8 they beat the Falcons 34-10 week 9 and they lose to the Ravens 28-6, and then they beat the Bills 30-13. That has to be some sort of record. They have four straight games with 17 points plus or minus each result. How many times could that have happened?

29:04Cousin Sal:I don't know what it is. I want to say they quit on this coach, and maybe they just get up for some games more than others, but then Tua also looked sharp today. He looked pretty good. You weren't ever going to tackle A-chan. They went after them. They crushed them that game. I don't care what the stats say. That wasn't even as close as 30 to 13, I don't think.

29:26Bill Simmons:I agree. It was an actual beating, which is why I started this segment, What's Actually Wrong with Buffalo. And it was the first time I thought to myself, what if they didn't make the playoffs? All right, let's look. Six and three. to have Tampa at home this week and at Houston next week, at Pittsburgh, home Cincy, at New England, at Cleveland, home Philly, home Jets. And the only easy games I see in there are home Cincy, home Jets, and maybe at Cleveland. They need four wins. They need four wins, and I think those are three. So they got to win one of those other ones to get to 10 and seven.

30:10Cousin Sal:What kind of odds do you think you get on a miss on no January?

30:15Bill Simmons:for Buffalo not to make the playoffs, I'm going to say it's like minus 500 or something. What is it?

30:20Cousin Sal:Plus, to not make it? Yeah. To not make it? Plus 820. Plus 820. To not make it. So it's minus 1800 to make the playoffs. But you're right. I mean, also that defense, whatever. Josh Allen's great. He's going to do everything he can. But if that defense shows up every other game, every third game like it did today, you're right, man. That is going to be a tough run.

30:46Bill Simmons:it was weird because when the Pats won there a couple weeks ago and it, Buffalo didn't play that well. And I don't really feel, I don't, I didn't feel the same about the Pats that I do like this week. It was still like, Oh, it'd be so cute if we beat Buffalo. And I think this is a playoff team, but I don't really know what the ceiling is, but Buffalo didn't play well. Last week against Casey, I don't know. They played pretty well. I don't, I don't feel like it wasn't one of those like, Oh my God, the Super Bowl runs through Buffalo. It wasn't like one of those games. It was better. But today was alarming.

31:23Cousin Sal:Might be an overreaction, but they're over on the Windsor is 11 and a half. And you just went through that. There's like six plus three, probably 10 or 11 would be spectacular for them at this point. I think under 11 and a half is plus 115. I'm writing that down.

31:41Bill Simmons:Well, it seems like if you can take out Cook. Yeah. Which is Miami was able to do today. Yep. I'm not sure who you're really scared of out of their other weapons they have.

31:51Cousin Sal:And Kincaid walks off, right? Hobbles off.

31:53Bill Simmons:Right. Who knows what's going on with him? And they were able to contain Allen. It was a really interesting game by Miami. I watched their, I had to watch the post game. I sent it to you.

32:03Cousin Sal:Yeah.

32:04Bill Simmons:I, nothing better than a Mike McDaniel post game speech. He just, he just seems deranged. I don't, I don't even think he knows they're being filmed. Yeah. But a couple of the guys talked and were super confident. Like, this is who we are. Like, I don't know.

32:19Cousin Sal:You know, I'll tell you something about Mike McDaniel. You know how they do the halftime, right? Going into the third quarter interview on the sideline. And they pretend it's happening right then. But it definitely happened right when they came out of the tunnel. McDaniel stuck around for like, that's just a quick soundbite and you're out, right? He was in there for 45 seconds. He was doing a podcast? He was doing a podcast to a point where you could see the empty stands. They had to pan because no one's still back from getting their hot dogs at the concession stand. Half the players are still running through the tunnel.

32:47Cousin Sal:He wouldn't shut up. And then you're right. Then after the game, they're like in big blue buckets riding around the locker room like they won the Super Bowl.

32:55Bill Simmons:The problem with the Buffalo not making the playoffs is you have to find an eighth playoff team that would take their spot. Yeah. So the Chargers are 7-3. Let's put Denver and the Pats and Indy in. Chargers, 7-3. I think that really helped them today. Buffalo's 6-3. And then Casey and Jacksonville and Pittsburgh are 5-4. Baltimore and Houston are 4-5. So I think it would have to be Pittsburgh or Houston taking their spot. I don't think Jacksonville. We'll talk about that in a second. They crushed them.

33:28Cousin Sal:They could have had a nice spot there. How close were they to winning and then the Colts losing? And then we would have been talking about Jacksonville winning the AFC South. and it just dumped completely the other way. But I think those are the teams.

33:41Bill Simmons:There's a reason we aren't talking about it because they suck. Yeah, that's true. That's why. Because they were like, wait a second, we suck. But yeah, Houston's interesting to me because I do think they bring some real things to the table. Their secondary is really good. They kind of dominated that game today, even though they were behind 10-0 in like two seconds. And it was just one of those games where, and I think it was 17-0 at one point. And I had the Texans, so I was watching it pretty closely. And I was like, I don't know how they're down 17-0. Like Jacksonville hasn't done anything. You look at the total yards at the end of the game and I think it was, was it?

34:21Bill Simmons:Well, lots of catch. It was twice as much, right?

34:23Cousin Sal:Yeah, lots of catch. Lots of garbage time, right?

34:26Bill Simmons:It was 4-12 to 2-13 though. But it was 29-10. And 213 total yards.

34:31Cousin Sal:It was 29-10, the fourth quarter against Davis Mills. They ought to be a share. The win probability machine blew up. They had to bring in the backup win probability machine. And it was a tic-tac line. Was that a generator? Was that the worst bed ache of the year, if you had Jacksonville, plus one and a half? Well, it tic-tac back and forth.

34:51Bill Simmons:Both teams were favored by one and a half basically every day last week. I wrote this down in my notes as the game was going on. It was 29-10, and I had the multi-view in their other games. that like the Saints game was close and the Giants game was close. And I kept it on because it's the Jaguars. And it's like, well, of course they could blow this. And Davis Mills was getting like pretty comfortable as that game was going along. So I kept it on. I just, I never stopped watching it. There would have been other times when I would have turned it off. But with Trevor Lawrence and with Jacksonville, you can't turn it off.

35:26Cousin Sal:And you didn't really have anyone to throw to. So it wasn't 100 % as far as it was. I mean, when you're up 29-10, you won the game. Like, just come on, defense. Get a stop. Don't let Davis Mills go 97 yards with the sun in his eyes. What the hell ever was going on there?

35:39Bill Simmons:But they're not good. They don't have a good defense, though.

35:41Cousin Sal:I know. You know, we were confused because they had such a plus turnover ratio, like, you know, three weeks ago. And it's Davis freaking Mills. Like, you know, he takes the sack, Lawrence. Okay, that was bad. But then he runs for 20 and then a hands to the face penalty. Like, otherwise, they were in good shape. And they have the kicker. I wrote this down in the notes when I thought they were going to win, but that kicker I thought would be a real difference maker. I'm like, all right, this guy is going to help a team that's not necessarily good, but they're in the AFC South. Maybe they can win the division just with this kicker.

36:14Cousin Sal:Nah, no way. 36-27.

36:18Bill Simmons:It was interesting. They're driving for the game, tying, whatever, and they put the distance they need to reach, and they had midfield. Yeah, right. which I think the only other one is your kicker. Right. Where it's like they just have to get to the 50. I mean, you already get the ball at the 30-plus now when you return a kickoff. So you get the ball back. You basically need to go, I don't know, a first down and a half, and you're in field goal range. I don't know if I like this kickoff thing. Well, it's not the best. I think it's too easy to get to midfield.

36:50Cousin Sal:No, it is probably too easy. But, yeah, we're going to see that where that kicker, where he needs to go. It's just going to be like the midfield stripe the whole time for all 32 kickers eventually.

37:01Bill Simmons:Well, if he was kicking a 70-yarder, I would have thought it was going through. Because we saw the guy do a 68-yarder last week. Oh, for sure. This guy, John Shipley, covers the Jags. And he tweeted, trying to think of worst Jags losses since I've covered them. And he listed a bunch of them, including losing to that Raiders roster last year, losing to Deshaun Watson at home last season, a couple Detroit games with Doug Peterson. Think that is the top five, but this is number one. So he thought this was the number one loss. And as you mentioned, it was an incredible bed egg too because the game's over.

37:38Bill Simmons:Houston had a chance to go for the two point, didn't get it. So they're winning by one. Some people had them minus one and a half. Other people had them plus one and a half, whatever. But Trevor Lawrence figures out a way to have like a fumble. Was that a pick six or a fumble six? It was a fumble.

37:52Cousin Sal:Danell Hunter was one of his three and a half sacks, knocked it down, then it was run back by...

37:57Bill Simmons:And then he did the Michael Jackson over the goal line, but he crossed it and the guy knocked it out. Anyway, they covered. Here's why I thought that was significant. Now, forget the Jaguars because they suck. I think the Texans might be pretty good. That's a team that... And House and I talked about this Thursday. Just because of how good they are in defense, and I like Woody Marks, Collins is back. There's, you know, they can't really block is the one thing, but everybody's got some sort of flaw. But their defense is good. That Stingley is incredible.

38:32Cousin Sal:I mean, you mean good for next year? Because they have nowhere to go, really, with that Colts win. They're still three and a half years behind.

38:40Bill Simmons:As it comes along, if they can get a seven seed and they can get in.

38:43Cousin Sal:Oh, seven. I mean, they're four and five.

38:47Bill Simmons:Yeah, but I think nine and eight could be, nine and eight or ten and seven could be the playoffs.

38:51Cousin Sal:I'm thinking 10 and 7, which means 6 and 2 for them. I'll have to look. I know they have some crap on their schedule there.

38:57Bill Simmons:They have some crap on their schedule. Two teams that don't have crap on their schedule, the Seahawks and the Rams, who might be the two best teams in the league. I keep track of wins, losses, and the either-or games. Yeah. I have the Seahawks at seven legitimate wins, zero losses, and two either-or games. and I have the Rams at six legitimate wins, zero losses and three either or games. Those are the two best records out of everybody. And the Rams are plus 420 for NFC, Seattle's plus 490. So basically the two and the four best odds. Seattle's number one in DVOA and their last three, they have, I think they've been up 21-0, 28-0 and 35-0, something like that.

39:47Bill Simmons:Just killing everybody.

39:48Cousin Sal:They were up 28-0 twice. The last two games in the second quarter, they're up 28-0. And I mean, it might just be that they face now an Arizona team who was due to get whipped, right? Jacoby Brissett on the road enough already.

39:59Bill Simmons:I mean, that line was only seven with Seattle home. So there were some Arizona, like that was like the tease of the year. And everybody's like, I don't know. Arizona looked good last week.

40:10Cousin Sal:Well, I think most people had the Marcus Lawrence scoring under one and a half touchdowns. I think that was the problem. But you were sending us some hilarious live lines. It's like 34 and a half in the second quarter. You don't see that in the second quarter. But all those games, I really wish someone would have said, all right, just take all three favorites and all three overs in the 4 p.m. games. I would have been like, all right, I'll sleep in. I won't watch the early games. That was so freaking easy. 44-22, 44-22, 42-26.

40:38Bill Simmons:I almost feel like they have to rig one of the games to have them be relatively close. So the Rams, their best four wins are Houston, Indianapolis, Baltimore, and San Francisco today. Seattle's best wins are really only Pittsburgh and Houston.

40:53Cousin Sal:That's another team that the schedule hasn't been awesome so far.

40:59Bill Simmons:But now they're going at Rams. They play at Atlanta. They play the Rams twice. They're at San Francisco still. But they have an easier schedule than the Rams. The Rams have some tough ones left. they still have to go at Seattle, at Atlanta, at Arizona, at Carolina. I don't even know if that means anything anymore. They got Tampa and Seattle at home.

41:21Cousin Sal:The Rams are a slight favorite to win the West right now. Well, who do you like? That was going to be my question. Who do you like more? We were talking about Seattle four weeks ago at eight to one. And now it's like a coin flip. Yeah. So I'm going to stick with that. I think, I don't know why. I just feel like they have it. You don't want to pick against McVay over and over and over, but I think they're in there, man. I don't know. I hope it's not just that the last two teams they played were disasters, but they're showing me a lot.

41:54Bill Simmons:The one thing I've noticed with the Rams, and I think it's intentional, they have all these tight ends.

42:02Cousin Sal:Yeah.

42:03Bill Simmons:It feels like they have 20 tight ends on their roster, and sometimes they'll have three out there at the same time, four that guys are catching. You don't even know who they are. Um, but it's, it's become this really physical offense with these two receivers, both of whom Puka especially are physical. And I don't know, they've just completely redid their identity. And when you watch it, you can really feel it. And I'll be interested to see how Seattle, you know, that I think they have the best defense in the league and this Rams team that will obviously try to go bigger and try to go bully ball with them, which has been, you know, think about how the Rams used to be five, six years ago.

42:41Bill Simmons:Like they weren't like that at all.

42:42Cousin Sal:Oh yeah. It was all flash. They were like just dudes running around.

42:45Bill Simmons:They were like a lot of smoke and mirrors. Now it's like this kind of punishing team. So, and defensively, like you can't run outside of them at all. McCaffrey tried over them. They stuffed them. I thought the Niners Rams game was closer today than the score was because it really came down to Jennings fumbled that ball and McCaffrey tried to get outside on that fourth and one and the first just stuffed them. And then the Rams seemed like they scored every time they had the ball, but the Niners were moving the ball on them. So I wonder, can Seattle move the ball on them and can the Rams bully them?

43:20Cousin Sal:Right, so the Niners defense, I think, is just going to, once in a while, they'll surprise you, but there's just too many injuries, too many. So you knew the Rams were going to get to 40. Mac Jones wasn't, and that was just the answer. Mac Jones though take him back come on it was more fun when he was on your team

43:38Bill Simmons:just take him back please what's the funniest 2026 team for him for you next year what's the one that you're like oh that could work and what's the one that you'd go oh no that's going to be a disaster

43:51Cousin Sal:Raiders is always the funniest right no matter what and then I had Cleveland

44:00Bill Simmons:I don't know how he'd end up there

44:02Cousin Sal:everyone's got to end up there I could convince myself that he'd be okay in Arizona.

44:07Bill Simmons:Arizona. The Jets, I think, would be the saddest for everybody, for the fans, for Mac. What team would he go to that you'd be, like, what would be the Daniel Jones-Indianapolis situation?

44:20Cousin Sal:That he could actually pull together? Yeah.

44:26Cousin Sal:Indianapolis. I don't know. After Jones plays out. I don't know if there's a team like that. I wouldn't have said Indianapolis either. I'm not sure. Who do you say?

44:36Bill Simmons:I was thinking Minnesota if they cool off on McCarthy.

44:38Cousin Sal:Oh, they got so many quarterbacks. Yeah. Yeah, I guess that would be it.

44:44Bill Simmons:I think he's been pretty good. This is about as good as you're ever going to get from a backup quarterback in a league that only has 20 quarterbacks. You can't ask for more than this.

44:52Cousin Sal:Hey, I was looking at it, man. I was like, hey, Chuck was good today. And who else was good? Like, you know, Davis Mills. I'm like, thank God these guys are good. I'd rather it be when I don't have money against them. But it's nice when there's not 15 quarterbacks who you know are going to be awful every week.

45:10Bill Simmons:Well, I mean, Browns, Jets accepted. Yeah. I think Rodgers was probably the worst quarterback today. Yeah, you're right. He was awful. Everybody else at least had flashes. Penix was really bad too. We should have, when you did that hour and a half pregame show today, Did anyone mention that Brissett was going from playing the Dallas defense to playing the Seattle defense in a week?

45:34Cousin Sal:Yeah, less than a week.

45:35Bill Simmons:Maybe we should have factored that in, how ridiculous of a jump that is.

45:39Cousin Sal:Right, and how hilarious. DeMarcus Lawrence, another FU to Dallas right there. I know. Against Brissett, who kind of torched them. Yeah, I guess we should keep an eye out for that. So with the odds, just for this NFC West,

45:53Bill Simmons:to me these teams are dead even, and I would just rather have higher odds than take Seattle. And I think Seattle might be better anyway. But I don't think the Niners are worth it, right?

46:02Cousin Sal:We look at third place teams in these 850. It's still not worth it.

46:07Bill Simmons:This is the single best game of the year next year so far, I think. Really? Yeah, not from a marquee like, oh, it's Mahomes and Buffalo. Like there's sexier games and there's like more fun for casual fans. This is like the best game in terms of I can't wait to watch it. I want to see the matchups. I want to see what the coaches do to each other. I want to see what they pick at because I really feel like this is a playoff game. And Eagles-Packers will be really good tomorrow too, I think.

46:34Cousin Sal:Yeah.

46:35Bill Simmons:I don't know if those teams are as advanced as these two are for being ready for January.

46:40Cousin Sal:Detroit-Philly also next week, right? So probably four of the last five or six teams in the NFC. Yeah, I'm excited for it. But we got to get through it.

46:48Bill Simmons:Oh, we got to talk about Detroit's... Campbell took over the plays. Did he announce that after the game? There was rumors all week that the players were bristling at offensive coordinator John Morton, I think his name is. Campbell took it over. I think kind of a dick move. I mean, it worked. They scored 44 points. But to be like, this is the week I'm going to take the offense over and seem like the hero when we're playing this Washington team that's like a corpse. Exactly. I got this from here. It's like, why didn't you do this last week?

47:26Cousin Sal:Right.

47:27Bill Simmons:Yeah.

47:27Cousin Sal:We had a harder game. I don't know. I would have been mad. That was, and yeah, and like you said, like the Commanders are outscored 110 to 43 in the last three weeks. I was told listening to that telecast that they were a great, great team. I learned a lot. I learned that. Tremendous team. I learned the Commanders are a great football team. Their prices are way, way down. So, but other than that, I just thought, you know, this is, Detroit's going to have these games, right? Weren't they like, first of all, this is a rematch. playoff rematch. So when Dan Campbell gets mad, I think that's why he took the reins.

47:58Cousin Sal:He's like, we have to teach this team a lesson. Oh, that's interesting

48:01Bill Simmons:because they beat them last year. I didn't think of that. Yeah, he wanted to stick it to them. I don't know if we've had a more classic year after team than the Washington Commanders this year. No. They had every single sign of a massive regression. They had the massive regression. It was even more depressing than I think people realized. And they didn't even really make it to November before their fans are like, oh, we're going to go 5-12. This sucks.

48:26Cousin Sal:Yeah, I love it because you and I called it. You and I are going to make money off it. And then our friend House is so sad. He's so dejected. I see him with the Washington jerseys and the pregame show behind him. It's over. It's like the sewage in the stadium is about to run through again. Really is no better than it was two years ago.

48:43Bill Simmons:I'm trying to figure out how I didn't do better on picks this year when my preseason picks, the three teams I liked the most were the Pats, the Broncos, and the Seahawks. And those are the ones I had the most bets on and I was the most bullish on the whole thing. And then Miami shorting them, not liking Washington. I feel like I had a lot of the framework for the season and then the season started and I've screwed up the week to week. Why'd you screw up? I mean, the Broncos don't cover. Because I keep doing stuff like betting on Aaron Rodgers and Sunday night game and then he does nothing. Jets, Browns, the depressing ball I had that on a small Do you watch this if you're fans of those teams?

49:29Cousin Sal:I don't know why you would I mean, then you see like the Jets like, hey, just return kicks and punts back for touchdowns back to back in the first quarter and you'll be fine Why is that so hard? He had what, 12 yards passing before that touchdown throw? That screen pass? I mean, it's so miserable. Every week you see a stat about the Browns that you've never seen before. Like no team is ever without a turnover, lost to another team that only had 150 yards of offense. And yet they do it every single week.

49:59Bill Simmons:Yeah, it's almost like they're not happy stats. They're like, how the fuck did we lose this game stats? It's some sort of name. I had some PTSD kicked in today. So I'm all excited. I'm on JetBlue. and it's one of the newer planes. So it has the DirecTV. It doesn't have like the whole guide of channels. The older planes have like the actual football package. The newer ones have like less channels, but the Wi-Fi is way better. And they had the local CBS and the local Fox and the Red Zone were the three NFL channels. So I'm like, oh, this is great.

50:37Cousin Sal:Did they really?

50:38Bill Simmons:Maybe they'll have Pat's Tampa as the national game. Don't tell me. They fucking had the Giants game and the Jets game on the two channels. I was like, oh my God, it's like 1990 again. We used to get screwed by this over and over again. Or 1996, whenever those two teams sucked. Turn this plane around. I can't do this. Where's the Pats game? Well, I got on the Wi-Fi, but I was just laughing. I was like, man, what a bummer. If you live in New York, you have to watch these. You can't get any of the good games because you have to sit through fucking Brian Dayball in this terrible Jets team.

51:14Cousin Sal:Yeah, or pay$600, whatever it is. Yeah, my God. I don't even know what to do with these. I had it on the smallest screen I possibly could. I'm going to buy that thing you talked about, that thing. I'm going to buy an extra small screen. Like a walkie-talkie? I guess I'm just punishing myself, but I would show that on my thumbnail if I could. It was that bad.

51:35Bill Simmons:The Jets traded two of their best guys and won anyway. Yeah. There's a setup here. I'm not sure if you're aware of this. week 14. Browns Titans. Both teams have one win. Who's the prize? Is it going to be the Indiana QB? I don't even, I'm not even positive about him. You know, the thing is, I saw the receivers do a lot of work for him.

51:57Cousin Sal:Yeah, that was a great drive, especially after the interception and everything. But it was the tight end who had seven catches in the game, flying out of bounds, making catch. And that catch at the end was insane. but I saw the top five who has the first five picks. Who definitely takes a quarterback out of those five teams? Maybe nobody. How could that be? It's Tennessee, one. New Orleans, two. Giants, three. Cleveland, four. Jets, five. Jets. Jets, right? I don't know if the others bite. You don't think the Browns would roll the dice

52:35Bill Simmons:with the quarterback position again?

52:37Cousin Sal:Why not?

52:38Bill Simmons:Let's just keep doing it.

52:40Cousin Sal:I guess it doesn't matter. And Tennessee can't. Shuck is fine for now, right? We like Jackson Dart.

52:49Bill Simmons:Shuck won you over by putting up 17 in Carolina?

52:52Cousin Sal:It's fine. I had him straight up. That was my best. You did have a couple good throws.

52:57Bill Simmons:Bears-Giants was the other one that, you know, Dayball might get fired tomorrow. Yeah. because what he's done with Dart this year was just nuts. And this is the same thing Mayo did with Drake May last year, which is one of the many reasons I thought he should be fired. These rookie quarterbacks who don't know any better, you have to protect them from themselves. Right. Like if I leave 100 pounds of food in the kitchen, Murph's going to eat the 100 pounds. Is that Murph's fault or my fault? It's my fault. I should have done that. I'm putting him in harm's way. Interesting. This Dart is a maniac and he's running around.

53:37Bill Simmons:He thinks he's like stiff harming people in traffic. And he thinks he can navigate these 250 pound dudes and 300 pound dudes that want to take his head off. And he's just going to be fine and duck around. And every Giants fan I know is like, Dart's fucking amazing. We just got to make sure we can keep him out of the blue tent. Like you shouldn't be saying that about your prized possession quarterback.

53:58Cousin Sal:Yeah.

53:59Bill Simmons:It should be point blank. Keep him out of the blue tent. Your team sucks. What is he taking on eight tacklers for? So anyway, he finally gets concussed, and it was the most predictable concussion of the year.

54:09Cousin Sal:Yeah. First of all, a little pat on the shoulder here. People should tune in to the Ringer pregame show. It's a really good show. We give out a lot of winners, too. Like, big same-game parlay winners. Might be on a lot more channels next week. Oh, I wasn't going to say anything.

54:23Bill Simmons:Well, it just might be. Keep an eye out.

54:24Cousin Sal:Is it because I gave out Jackson Dart two-plus touchdowns at 14-1? Maybe. Wow. Did you really? Don't worry. to make a slightest dent in my losses. But yes, I did give that out. But did you give out Russell Wilson

54:36Bill Simmons:will run out onto the field and the fans will groan collectively and you can actually hear it on TV in an airplane? Talk about, I didn't have that.

54:45Cousin Sal:Was it the flight attendants? Everybody's like, oh, people thought the flight got delayed. It was just Russell Wilson coming in. Put out the barf bag and everything. Yeah, and by the way, talk about like it's our fault. Why didn't we just bet the Bears live line when Russ came in? But that should be an immediate thing. I mean, it should be an immediate bet. But back to the coach, like we talk about like coaching conditions, like when certain things happen, a coach has to be fired. So they should sign this when they take the job. Like, hey, sorry, but if any of these things happen, it results in immediate dismissal.

55:20Cousin Sal:Like if you go winless two years as a coach, we have to get rid of you. If you show up high on meth to practice for all of August, you're gone. If we find out you're plowing the owner's wife, you're gone. If you're 0 and 4 in road games that you've led by 10 or more points, and, you know, sorry, you signed it. There's nothing we could do. Imagine that. Four road games. That would be a good one to put in. Double digits.

55:42Bill Simmons:I would have just had from the beginning of the year, Dart cannot keep getting hurt. Yeah. This can be my one thing I ask from you. Right. Keep this person healthy. And Russ has to keep getting hurt. Did you see the thing? they have 25 designed runs for him this year. Dart. Oh, man. Is it that many? Yeah, 25. And by the way, he wasn't the starter until like week four. Three of the runs are to the blue tent.

56:08Cousin Sal:But it's like, yeah, take a right and then head straight and then walk around it. Yeah, it's sad. But this blue tent runs a stat. No one's taking the full of shit crown away from Denver, but the Bears are for sure the NFC representative, right? the way they have these and these teams they play and everything else.

56:28Bill Simmons:They're 6-3. Nuts. And I can't get enough of the Ben Johnson postgame speeches. I know you love it. My fucking favorite. And he is now in full. This is what we do. Yeah. We know what's going to happen when it gets late. Let's say you do. You know what's going to happen. How do they know? You do? How do you know Ryan's know? You read the tea leaves again? Right.

56:51Cousin Sal:I really love it. He also gave Caleb a ball, right? Yeah, he did. Gardner Johnson a ball, gave Caleb Williams a ball, and he said, this guy has ice in his veins. It's like, ice? Crush or cubed? That's got to hurt. Isn't it ice water? Oh, wow. All right. Yeah, ice water. Walking around with 12 extra pounds? That's interesting. This guy has crushed ice in his veins. This guy's got big, giant rocks. Can we pencil Chicago into the Shakeys game? Oh, man. No, we don't have them. And we have San Francisco as the seventh team, don't we?

57:27Bill Simmons:Well, if Chicago takes the San Francisco spot. Yeah. Oh, I guess you would be San Francisco. I haven't looked at their schedule. Seattle, Rams, Philly, San Francisco, Green Bay, Detroit, Chicago. We gave this out a couple weeks ago. It was like three to one. Right. I still like that. That's still going to be the five. Carolina blew it. Carolina had a chance to bulldoze their way in, and they lost to the Saints for some reason.

57:48Cousin Sal:Chicago right there, though, plus 146 to make the playoffs. Man. Plus 146 to make it? To make it. Really? But San Fran's minus 325 to make it. Yeah, they're not letting you make too much off of these.

58:03Bill Simmons:I hit my first future on FanDuel that I made in like... What was it? Patriots? June in Indiana. Patriots plus seven and a half. Okay. Pretty exciting. I didn't know I was going to hit that on November 9th. That I was going to be a... Wouldn't have guessed that one. We'll take another break for the pod. Keep going on YouTube. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Countless hours in the gym, a thousand shots before tip-off, day after day on the same court with the State Farm stanchion right there. That's right, the best players put in the work. And State Farm is the same way with insurance experts who put in the work as well.

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1:00:01Bill Simmons:This episode is brought to you by PayPal. We've seen some legendary athletes don the number four jersey. Now, I can't name names, but you guys know who I'm talking about. In fact, if you look at my studio, there's a framed picture of one of my favorite number fours. He played hockey. Anyway, you know what else is game changing for? PayPal Pay-in-4. No fees, no interest, no impact on your credit score. It's just the flexibility to pay the way that works for you. And it's available at millions of online stores. Pay-in-4 with PayPal. Subject to approval. Learn more at paypal.com slash payinfor. PayPal Inc.

1:00:43Bill Simmons:NMLS 910. Four, five, seven. Cross-off teams. So we had the Jets, the Browns, Tennessee, Miami, New Orleans, Vegas, Cleveland, the Giants, Arizona, Washington. Is there anybody else you would like to add? It's been weird to cross off Cincinnati in their bye week, but I've seen so many better teams than them now. So I was going to raise the Cincinnati question. Yeah. They're three and six. they're two back for one of the spots, but their defense is just abhorrent. Abhorrent? Abhorrent. I'd say abhorrent. Yeah. It's abhorrent. It is boring.

1:01:27Cousin Sal:Yeah. It's abhorrent.

1:01:29Bill Simmons:Stress the bore. Why not? I think they should be on there. That's the worst defense I've ever seen, and it doesn't even seem like their players like playing for them. So this is interesting. I don't think Atlanta is a cross-off team for me yet because I really do think there's something there, And they might go 5-12, and I'm like, I don't know. This could be the week. But they really have a lot of talent.

1:01:50Cousin Sal:They should pick up a game. They play Carolina, who they got crushed by. So there should be some motivation there. And so that would make them, what, 4-6? I'll say this.

1:02:01Bill Simmons:I've watched, obviously, every play of every Pats game. I thought Atlanta was, if you didn't know anything about the season records, anything, you would have thought Atlanta was the best team they played out of everybody this season.

1:02:12Cousin Sal:Oh, yeah. Yeah, they stayed in with you. Yeah. Drake London, I think he has potential to be one of the top three or four receivers in the league. Yeah. I think also, I said it during the week, I think he's going to set a record for catching balls over his head, not using his body at all to catch balls. He has so many of these before going out of bounds. They'll have the record there. But, yeah, that offense is, if Penix can get it together, I know we love to hate him, but all he has to kind of do is be average. Right?

1:02:43Bill Simmons:I don't think he can do it. He's not athletic enough. He's not accurate enough. And then during the times he is accurate, half the time his guys will just drop the pass like Pitts did in the first quarter today. It was interesting being on the East Coast for the early game, by the way.

1:03:01Cousin Sal:You don't have to, yeah, wait. Oh, for the early, early game. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. 9.30? Yeah.

1:03:06Bill Simmons:Yeah. I got up at 8, had coffee. I was packing. I was in the car on the way to JFK. I was watching the Germany game, having a great time. Super Bowl circle. We always say eight teams. Always eight teams you think can win the Super Bowl. Okay. I think I have six. Three in each conference. Indy, KC, New England, Philly, Seattle, and the Rams. Two spots open. Who are you putting in there? I didn't mention Green Bay. We don't have Buffalo or Green Bay. I didn't mention Detroit. I didn't mention Buffalo. I didn't mention Baltimore.

1:03:47Cousin Sal:Isn't Buffalo, Green Bay your Super Bowl heading in?

1:03:50Bill Simmons:Yeah, but I'm just saying this is the circle. These are like the eight teams. I'd put them in. The way they're playing right now. Who would you put in?

1:03:57Cousin Sal:I'd put both of those in, Green Bay and Buffalo.

1:04:00Bill Simmons:So I think I would too. Yeah. I want to make the case for Baltimore, but I didn't really totally see it today, even though they won. I didn't think the flow was there. I didn't think Lamar looked great. I thought they just don't seem crisp to me, and they haven't really seemed it all year. I know they've had a lot of injuries, but I haven't seen them play the smackdown. Maybe Minnesota's a hard team to play.

1:04:23Cousin Sal:Maybe they're just a weird team to play, but yeah, we automatically assumed also that Baltimore's defense is back when like three weeks ago, They were giving up 40 points to anybody. So that could be a problem too. But yeah, I would still put Buffalo in.

1:04:37Bill Simmons:So you'd put Buffalo in over Denver just because of how Nix looks?

1:04:41Cousin Sal:I wouldn't trust him as much in the playoffs as we have. Like I know we'd load up on a parlay for them week one, the playoffs, divisional round, whatever. I just wouldn't trust him as much. But I like that quarterback so much that I think he can get them in.

1:04:57Bill Simmons:He was so bad on Thursday. I know.

1:04:59Cousin Sal:Oh, Nix.

1:05:01Bill Simmons:He was doing this thing during the season where he would be bad for two hours and then be really good for the third hour. Now he's narrowing it down where he's bad for like two hours and 40 minutes and then he'll give you a good 20. But that Thursday game, now granted we don't want to overreact to Thursday games. They're always weird. That was the first time I just felt like he was openly missing guys and missing looks. And like he had that one all 22, the behind him camera they had.

1:05:35Cousin Sal:Right.

1:05:35Bill Simmons:When he had that guy just running in for the touchdown, he just threw a grounder at him.

1:05:39Cousin Sal:Yeah, yeah.

1:05:39Bill Simmons:And it was like he just would have hit that guy five weeks ago. So I'm starting to worry he's losing his confidence a little.

1:05:45Cousin Sal:You know, I don't get it with him. I really don't. Like I watched him, you know, my son goes to Oregon, so I had to adopt him as a Ducks player. He was good there. I watched him even at Auburn. He could throw a long ball. He could run for first downs, which he still does. I think the one good thing he does is when he steps up in the pocket, he's like a yard behind the line of scrimmage, and he could fire like an eight-yard pass. Like, I have confidence in that and nothing else. Like, I'm not sure what the hell.

1:06:12Bill Simmons:I don't mind the design rollout with him when he kind of throws the sidearm to like the tight end for seven yards. All right, fine. Two things, but I mean. I don't ever think his deep pass is going to connect. No. Like, when he's getting, putting his feet into it, I'm like, here we go. This is five yards past the guy. I mean, he's played in two of,

1:06:31Cousin Sal:I'm not even the worst games this year. That Jets game, and then their standalone games too, that European game. And then Thursday night, they're like just hideous. No one's benefited. I'm trying to think if you put him on another team. Like if he was on New Orleans and Shuck was on Denver, would they have, like they have 46 sacks. That's great. That keeps you in every single time. Yeah.

1:06:55Bill Simmons:Yeah, you think like they played nine games, so it's 27 hours of QB play. Yeah. And he's probably been bad for like 17 of the 27 hours. Maybe like 19. Or just not effective. Because I've watched almost all of it because that was like one of my big teams heading into this season. And not to compare him to May just to do it, but when May misses dudes now, I'm like surprised. Like if he sails it over or if he's putting his feet into a long ball, I just assume he's going to hit the guy in stride. And when he does it, you're like, oh, he missed one. Knicks is the opposite. It's surprising when he hits the guy in stride at this point.

1:07:35Bill Simmons:So they got to figure that out.

1:07:37Cousin Sal:I was thinking, I want to do, you know, I always say, I can't wait to bet against them in the playoffs. Fandle allows us to not have to wait. You could bet Denver to lose in the first round at plus 120. Right, true. Plus 120. Plus 120. Wow. So what kind of value would you get if they're home? They'd have to win the division to be home, right? But other than that, I don't like them on the road. I don't like them at all. If they played KC on the road or home, I would take that team.

1:08:07Bill Simmons:Well, that's one of the Pats. The Pats have a real chance here to get a top two seed now.

1:08:13Cousin Sal:I know.

1:08:14Bill Simmons:And Denver and Indy are really the two competitors. because even though the Chargers look good tonight, I would just be surprised if they went like 13-4, whatever. Who do you think is favored to be the one seed? I would say Indianapolis.

1:08:31Cousin Sal:You'd be wrong. Who is it? It's the Patriots. What's the number? Plus 220. It's close. Colts are 240.

1:08:39Bill Simmons:Well, they don't really have... I think they have one 10-win team on the schedule left. Yeah. Ironically, now the schedule is going to get easy. What do they have? They have Jets, Bengals, Giants, Bills at Ravens. That's a hard one. At Jets, Dolphins. I'm betting. Two hard games left.

1:08:58Cousin Sal:I'm betting them to get the one seed. I have to have an emotional hedge in there. This is just too much. It's too much.

1:09:04Bill Simmons:Mike Vrabel's not thinking about it. He takes it one game at a time. All right. Guess the Lions, week 11. You've been in a tailspin.

1:09:15Cousin Sal:This is getting disgusting here. It's 7-3. 7-3.

1:09:18Bill Simmons:I don't think I'm going to win this week. I did this on the plane. My head gets screwed up going cross country. I didn't feel good. So ironically, the Pats are playing, and they're playing the Jets, which I think I can't imagine a better time to catch the Jets than after they won in Cleveland playing four days later with a relatively depleted team.

1:09:37Cousin Sal:Good news for New York fans. They'll get a different local game next Sunday, right? True. They'll get the AFC team.

1:09:43Bill Simmons:Well, will they just replay this one? It's so funny. I remember the darkest days of the Pats when we would get just the one in 10 Patriots at Houston. That would be like, and it would be like no competitors. So it'd be the only game. Couldn't see anything else unless they showed highlights. I want to see Terry Bradshaw. And then you get the NFC game and it'd be like, well, then it would be like the Giants in the late game because they always felt like, because there was a Boston Giants at one point that people cared. and it would be like the Giants just killing somebody where they'd be up like 35-0 in the second quarter.

1:10:18Cousin Sal:The St. Louis Cardinals. Yeah.

1:10:19Bill Simmons:They'd be like, cool, that was my day of football. I hit two games. That was it. Thank you. So then like that ESPN game with Paul McGuire and Mike Patrick, that was like the first chance to see an actual decent football game. Even more than that, it's funny, someone wrote about that,

1:10:34Cousin Sal:how TNT and ESPN used to split those games and then it all became ESPN. But think of how important Boomer and Berman and TJ that was, because that was all the football you missed during the day. That was great.

1:10:47Bill Simmons:And we had no internet either. So we, we didn't know what was going on except for the ticker. Yeah. And especially like I started, we, you started gambling a little before me, but early nineties I'm gambling and you're just kind of waiting for the ticker. Yeah. And then it would be like, Tampa 17, Carolina 16. I'm like, Whoa, what happened? And then you just wouldn't know. It was all of a sudden the score would change.

1:11:11Cousin Sal:CNN would have the 28-58, right? Like they'd have scores at the top. Like Van O 'Reilly. Van O 'Reilly. If you bet the unranked team, you would never see your score. You would have to see it in the paper like three days later. Or then we had the 900 numbers we could call. That was the other sad thing. Yeah. Get all your sports news instantly. Dial 976-1313. Yeah, I cried. It's like a dollar. I jacked up a lot on that, yeah.

1:11:38Bill Simmons:Thursday night, Pat's home for the Jets. and I think this has to be close to two touchdowns, and I'm going to say Pats by 13.

1:11:49Cousin Sal:That's what I said, too. And it's 10 and a half. What gives? Okay.

1:11:55Bill Simmons:Come on. Thursday line, you think? Just like thinking the Pats are just going to try to get through the game. That's not fair.

1:12:04Cousin Sal:That's asking too much of the Jets. It really is putting a lot of pressure on Justin Fields to have more than like 45 yards passing in the fourth quarter.

1:12:15Bill Simmons:that's the first that has to be the first time the Pats have been favored in a night game like that probably since Brady's second last year because Brady's last year they were fine they were like 10-7 but yeah it's been a while we have a Madrid game we went from Berlin this week to it was interesting the announcer told the story about the stadium they were playing in or you were doing the show you couldn't have heard it they were playing in the stadium where they had the 1936 Olympics so he told the whole Jesse Owens story which is an awesome story obviously and it's like and Adolf Hitler and you know and he just goes through the whole thing and Kurt Warner didn't have a lot of places to go so he was just like yeah that was some it was just an amazing event like it was like that nothing you could really add to like a jesse owens hitler story right um but uh but yeah that that arena they played in today that stadium it's like a hundred year old stadium it was pretty cool yeah uh oh that was i think germany has i think that germany has the least exciting anthem you'd want to hear before a

1:13:31Cousin Sal:game right say it to their face when bad bunny does it in february you'll love it what's your

1:13:38Bill Simmons:favorite anthem of all the countries other than our own.

1:13:41Cousin Sal:This is going to get me in trouble. Other than ours, right? Other than ours. Canadian. Is it? Canadian. I thought you would go Russia. The Volkoff. Yeah.

1:13:54Cousin Sal:The Iron Sheik standing at attention and then just to spit the original Hawkeye. Canada's really good. Oh yeah. It's a great song.

1:14:05Bill Simmons:Madrid game. Dolphins home. Mm-hmm. For the Washington C-words, I got Miami by two and a half.

1:14:19Cousin Sal:Why isn't it more than that? And why is it less than what you guessed? It's one and a half. Come on. I said three and a half. This Washington team's... All right, maybe we're just counting. Are we doing what we did with Pittsburgh now with Miami? Like, they're back. They're fully back. Everything's back. I guess maybe we should back off.

1:14:40Bill Simmons:Do you think Vegas is just, they're putting in like the zigzag of the Dolphins where they're this, and now this week they're going to be this. Right. And they're just assuming they're going to do this.

1:14:50Cousin Sal:Okay. But how much has Washington zigged and zagged over the last three weeks? All they do is give up 35 points.

1:14:55Bill Simmons:Daniels could play in this game, right?

1:14:57Cousin Sal:Is that what they're saying? I don't know. He might. Just sit him for the year.

1:15:04Bill Simmons:Sunday marquee. I have four watchable games plus this one. Next week's a good week.

1:15:10Cousin Sal:Yeah.

1:15:11Bill Simmons:Next week is the last normal football week.

1:15:13Cousin Sal:Is that right? You looked ahead? Yeah, because... What do you mean?

1:15:16Bill Simmons:Well, because then we have a lot of buys in week 12, then Thanksgiving. Right. It just gets wonky basically from that point on.

1:15:23Cousin Sal:Yeah. After Thanksgiving, it's tough viewing. I don't know. You're going to have to take two seats on a plane because you're going to get like 10, 1 p.m. Eastern once those buys are shot.

1:15:35Bill Simmons:I think this is the marquee game. Well, you tell me. Is it Seahawks-Rams or Chiefs-Broncos? Carolina-Atlanta?

1:15:42Cousin Sal:Yeah.

1:15:43Bill Simmons:Seahawks-Rams. Okay. That's the one I want to say. I had Chiefs-Broncos, but I think it's Seahawks-Rams. Or we could just say there's two marquee games. Chiefs-Broncos is a great game. So Seahawks-Rams, it's in LA. Yep. And I think the Seahawks are going to be one and a half point underdogs.

1:16:07Cousin Sal:Oh, I was hoping you said favorite. That's exactly what I had. It is two and a half.

1:16:14Bill Simmons:Two and a half. I think our friend Tal John's going to be there.

1:16:20Cousin Sal:Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, he loves that Seattle team. This is a great game. I guess, I mean, they covered that easily today. but it was a little suspicious that they were giving that many points. But Vegas, I can't say Vegas. Vandal respects the hell out of them. Two and a half at home.

1:16:41Bill Simmons:Chiefs at Broncos. And the Chiefs are going to be favored. This is a, so we say every week somebody emerges as a new MVP candidate and this week it was Stafford. Even though these guys were already candidates. Right. This has the makings of a Mahomes throwing himself back in the ring for the MVP race. Anyway, I have Chiefs minus three in Denver. Come on.

1:17:08Cousin Sal:Can I get a half a point on you? It's three and a half. That's what I had. I had three. We split it.

1:17:17Bill Simmons:That ends up at three. I don't think that ends up at three now. That's fair.

1:17:20Cousin Sal:That's fair. I mean, let's just bet the first half under. Let's bet the Broncos first quarter under. Let's just get it out of the way. We know what this game's going to look like.

1:17:29Bill Simmons:Yeah, I mean, maybe this is the new Cousins-style special team this year, the Broncos. Yeah, you're right. You just bet Chiefs' first half Broncos game. It's a good call. They probably hit that four times. Watchables, three of them. Buffalo is home for Tampa Bay. And I had, I guess, these lines before, when I was on the plane before the Bills game, and I had Bills by five, and now I'm dropping that to Bills by four.

1:17:55Cousin Sal:Ooh, all right. Minus four. I get you. I said four and a half. It's five and a half. Oh, that's too high. They're really putting in some must win points in there. Well, when are we going to get a cold weather week? Is it this week? I mean, they say technically that Bears game was the first snow game. But yeah, it would be nice to see something. Tomorrow is a little weather.

1:18:21Bill Simmons:Next Sunday.

1:18:22Cousin Sal:Green Bay is supposed to be at Lambeau. It's supposed to be in the 20s by halftime.

1:18:27Bill Simmons:It says 45 degrees on Sunday in Buffalo. Yeah, not good enough. That's not cold enough. Next one. I think this is a watchable. I'm surprised that I'm saying that, but it's kind of a loser leaves town match for the Vikings. Yeah. Vikings home for the Bears.

1:18:50Bill Simmons:I have the Vikings by a two and a half.

1:18:52Cousin Sal:Yeah, you get this exactly. I said one and a half. I don't know why. That was dumb.

1:18:59Bill Simmons:Let's see it this week with this goofy Bears team that has all these dumb wins against bad teams. Let's go into Minnesota, move the ball for four quarters, and let's see you do it against the Flores defense.

1:19:12Cousin Sal:Ben Johnson's got some game balls to give out. Well, they lost to them.

1:19:17Bill Simmons:What was that, week one? 27-24. Is that what it was? Yeah. Good game. cards are home for the 49ers. And I guess this could probably go on fairly watchables, but I always feel like these games are entertaining when the Cardinals play the 49ers. So I put it in there. I have the Cardinals favorite by one and a half.

1:19:36Cousin Sal:Oh, I'm going to get this right. Oh no, we split it. I said four and a half. Oh, Cardinals favorite. Okay. Yeah. Oh no, you're wrong. I said San Francisco by four and a half at San Francisco by three. Oh my God. That was way off. Well, they have six wins. They're going to be a... They're our playoff team. Didn't anybody watch the game today? I know. You know, it's weird.

1:19:58Bill Simmons:Their defense didn't come close to stopping anything.

1:20:02Cousin Sal:If Purdy comes in, doesn't matter, right? Doesn't... Murray, forget him. This is just what they have. This is what the line's going to be Sunday night before.

1:20:14Bill Simmons:I liked Keon White when he was on the Patriots. I always thought he had a lot of potential. or is this defensive end we had? Yeah. He showed flashes. And then this year, the team was good. And he just didn't play. Vrabel didn't play him. And then eventually, they just traded him to the Niners for like a seventh-round pick. And when they did it, it was like, oh, that's cool. I like that guy. I hope he gets some run on the Niners. And there you go. He was like playing a lot today. And I just thought it was interesting. This guy that literally couldn't play for the Patriots. And he's just out there for the Niners.

1:20:46Bill Simmons:And so that's not a good sign for your defense.

1:20:48Cousin Sal:You want to play a lot, that's the team you go to, the 49ers. A spot will open up for you eventually.

1:20:53Bill Simmons:Yeah, they're listing dudes where you're like, oh, Bryce Huff. Oh, there he is. Fairly watchables. Packers, Giants. So this feels like a Russell Wilson start. I don't know how dark gets cleared in six days. They make them sit one, right? So I went high. I went Packers nine and a half. Oh, I said six and a half. It is 7.5.

1:21:20Cousin Sal:They're baiting us, right? Watch, Green Bay's going to win like 30-10 tomorrow, and then we're going to all have them on a teaser next week, and Russ is going to have the last good game of his career.

1:21:32Bill Simmons:I'm trying to think of how high this would get to before I took Russell Wilson in a bet. Like 14.5? It's so rough. You can't run.

1:21:45Cousin Sal:You can't throw.

1:21:46Bill Simmons:He's completely shot. Steelers-Bengals in Pittsburgh. And I still think this has to be a touchdown, even though the Steelers look like shit today. So I'm going to say Steelers by seven.

1:22:00Cousin Sal:Yeah, you edge me out here. I said seven and a half, and it's five and a half. What are they doing?

1:22:06Bill Simmons:Vegas zone.

1:22:07Cousin Sal:What are they doing? The Steelers lost that Thursday night game. They can't. This would be... Maybe they're thinking this is like a last team with the ball kind of game. Oh, my God. They were so embarrassed in Cincy a few Thursdays ago. I think you have to add two points. We have another one coming up with Atlanta-Carolina. Carolina got shut them out. I don't know. I think these need to move.

1:22:31Bill Simmons:Chargers at Jacksonville. I have the Chargers favored. Chargers minus one and a half in Jacksonville. I got it exactly. Two and a half, unless they change it.

1:22:41Cousin Sal:Nope, two and a half. You're beating me this week. Hold on, three. 7-6.

1:22:52Bill Simmons:Three poop-fecta games. Unless you think Ravens-Browns should be a fairly watchable. No. I'm guessing no on that one.

1:23:00Cousin Sal:Especially in that window with Seattle. That's the late afternoon, but we don't have to watch it.

1:23:05Bill Simmons:Ravens at Cleveland. It has to have at least a hook. So I'm going to say Ravens by 7.5.

1:23:13Cousin Sal:I mean, I went crazy here. I said 11 and a half, and it's 8 and a half. Why? Why? Because the Ravens didn't look good today. 41-17. It wasn't Flacco, was it? I think it was. This guy's so much worse than Flacco.

1:23:34Bill Simmons:This is rough.

1:23:35Cousin Sal:What are they going to do?

1:23:37Bill Simmons:Falcons home for the Panthers. if this is in the Vegas zone, then I don't know anything. I have Falcons four and a half.

1:23:45Cousin Sal:Yeah, that's exactly what I had. Three and a half. Oh, three and a half. There's got to be blowing the water.

1:23:54Bill Simmons:I'm going to end up betting on the Falcons again.

1:23:56Cousin Sal:I know. I am too. They lost 30 to nothing to the Panthers. You don't think they have this game circle?

1:24:03Bill Simmons:So I didn't have the Panthers game on today. I had no interest. I only had four spots. It wasn't cracking it. Those are two non-playoff teams. Apparently, Bryce was really bad. Yeah. Like, even for him, like, really, really bad. And it just feels like we are not making the progress we thought we were going to make with that dude. Right?

1:24:23Cousin Sal:I watched it. I had it on a small screen because New Orleans was my underdog pick. And when Chuck goes wire to wire on you at home, you're just a cross-off. It just doesn't matter how many. I mean, their thing is they can't be favored in games. This is 11 in a row where they're favored and they lost. It's like a child wetting his bed at home, but he's okay during sleepover. It's like, dude, you're home. It should be easier. You're favored.

1:24:49Bill Simmons:So maybe they're in the spot they need to be in. Getting points?

1:24:55Cousin Sal:Yeah, maybe.

1:24:58Bill Simmons:Texans at Tennessee is the last one, and I put this in the biggest zone too. Texans by four and a half is my pick.

1:25:05Cousin Sal:Oh, all right. I'm closer. I said six. It's seven and a half. That's dumb. They beat them 26-0 the first time. Week four.

1:25:17Bill Simmons:Titans coming off a bye week. Sunday night is a really good game. Eagles home for the Lions. Good one. I have Eagles minus three and a half.

1:25:29Cousin Sal:We split this. No, I get it. I had two. It's one and a half. Wow, you beat me. Look at that. Come on, I'm back.

1:25:36Bill Simmons:We did it, Jacobes. So Eagles, one and a half over the Lions. They're saying these two teams are even? Because now you get one and a half for home. So they're saying these are dead even teams. I guess so.

1:25:47Cousin Sal:They haven't been power ranking Philly high. I mean, think about it. Green Bay is up to what now? Oh, there's still one and a half.

1:25:56Bill Simmons:Yeah, maybe it should be a tick higher. It's a small thing, but it's also not. I don't like when teams have stuff where they're like, coordinators are getting fired or guys are losing their job or this guy's going to call the plays now. I think when that's happening in November, that's a horrible sign. Which thing are you talking about? For the Lions.

1:26:17Cousin Sal:Oh, the Lions? I didn't think this was – I know they played well today,

1:26:20Bill Simmons:but I don't think this reflected well on them at all. It just tells me they hired the wrong guy. This is your offensive coordinator. It's the biggest job on your team other than your head coach. I know. You blew the job, obviously. So now Dan Campbell is going to call plays for them the rest of the year. Like, I don't think that's a good sign at all.

1:26:40Cousin Sal:Do you ever think like Goff, he does look good. I know we're playing each other in fantasy. You were watching him closely. We're neck and neck this week and I had Goff. But if they could have a better fit, like what do you think Stafford would do with this Lions team? Oh my God. It's just so much talent. And if you can't, like Jamison Williams, like, oh yeah, that guy. Why is he getting like two targets a game? Look at him. He's in the end zone. They just released the ball.

1:27:05Bill Simmons:It's an embarrassment of riches. It feels like they can go to La Porta over the middle for 15 yards anytime they want, and they never do it. Right. Monday night. Oh, your sad team's playing. You're in Vegas.

1:27:18Cousin Sal:Call the season. You going to this? No.

1:27:25Bill Simmons:It's your team. It's an hour flight.

1:27:27Cousin Sal:Yeah, let me lose like six grand playing blackjack and then go watch the Cowboys at night.

1:27:33Bill Simmons:Raiders, I have favored at home by one and a half. You have the Raiders favored. Yeah. Your team's terrible.

1:27:41Cousin Sal:I know, but they are favored. Why would they be favored? They're favored by two and a half. They're favored by three. Oh, my God. I said two and a half. That's ludicrous.

1:27:49Bill Simmons:Your team stinks.

1:27:49Cousin Sal:You're not taking Vegas here. Cut it out. You're not taking them.

1:27:55Bill Simmons:I'm taking whoever is getting points. Those are two terrible teams. 11-8. You didn't see those trades Jerry made earlier in the week? You must not have seen those. Oh, man. I know you already talked about that on Ring Our Gambling Show, but it just has to be mortifying when it's the same sensation we have with our parents, but the guy's actually in charge of one of your teams. Yeah. Where you're just like, what do we do? They get the better first. Why did we do that? And it's just a trade that is just official and approved by the league. Yep.

1:28:33Cousin Sal:And it's all now because he realized the Micah thing is a disaster and he's got to make that look good before even the offseason. In a season that we don't have a shot, like we're going to go two and four the next six. Like had we won against Arizona, it still would have been probably a bad trade. But I think he's got no short-term memory. I think he forgot about the Arizona game, even though the trade was in the works. And he's like, oh, I have some really good news for you people. Great.

1:28:58Bill Simmons:I think he might have forgotten that there were only seven playoff seats.

1:29:02Cousin Sal:Yeah, maybe that's it.

1:29:03Bill Simmons:I think he just thought it was like the March Madness.

1:29:06Cousin Sal:I thought we voted on a 22-week season.

1:29:09Bill Simmons:I thought it just kept going until we played a playoff game. All right. That's it for Guest Lions. Really good week next week, though. Jesus.

1:29:19Cousin Sal:That's good. And there's so many good games. I was like, oh, the others are going to suck. But no, somehow it matches up nicely for like seven teams, seven games.

1:29:26Bill Simmons:This episode is brought to you by Expedia. Family vacations are the absolute best. I think my favorite place that I've been to a bunch of times with my family is Hawaii, a place that we could not go to when I lived on the East Coast because it was too far away and we went to the West Coast. And now it's like just close enough. Really fun. Sun's out every day. Nice hot sun. Just happy. Get to eat fish. But listen, when you're booking a family vacation, and you're quartering everyone's calendars and agreeing where to go and snagging deals before it's too late. Yeah, there's some part about traveling that's not great, which is why Expedia's bundle and save feature is a total game changer.

1:30:05Bill Simmons:It combines flights, hotels, and cars into one package for impressive discounts. And there's no pressure to decide everything at once because as a member, you can book one part of your trip first and add more right up until your last day of travel. Planning your vacation just got a whole lot more relaxing. Book now with Expedia. This episode is brought to you by PNC Bank. In today's sports, everyone is constantly trying to outdo each other. Trick formations, infield shifts, constant rotation changes, yet it's proven time and time again that strong fundamentals are the thing that will lead you to victory.

1:30:38Bill Simmons:Banking, no different. While everyone else tries to outdo each other, PNC Bank just keeps going right down the middle with steady calculated money moves and the financial wins just keep coming. PNC Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865, brilliantly boring since 1865 as a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Incorporated, PNC Bank, National Association member, FDIC. Today's Parent Corner presented by Uber Eats. Let's be real. It wouldn't be game day without a spread of your favorite foods, pizza, burgers, burritos, you name it. Uber Eats is here to deliver it to you all season long.

1:31:16Bill Simmons:Ironically, I got Uber Eats two hours ago.

1:31:18Cousin Sal:Really? Yeah. I got it this morning.

1:31:20Bill Simmons:Yeah, it was delicious.

1:31:21Cousin Sal:Grapes, Coke Zero, watermelon, and Fritos. I shouldn't have gotten that. Fritos? Yeah.

1:31:28Bill Simmons:What kind of Fritos?

1:31:29Cousin Sal:Oh, I got the barbecue ones. Have you had? I've had.

1:31:34Bill Simmons:Those are pretty good.

1:31:35Cousin Sal:Yeah. I'm in bad shape.

1:31:36Bill Simmons:There's a couple of people in my life that that's their number one.

1:31:39Cousin Sal:Really?

1:31:39Bill Simmons:The barbecue Fritos, yeah.

1:31:41Cousin Sal:You can't say their name? No. Blasphemous? Okay.

1:31:44Bill Simmons:Well, one of them's my wife's friend, so I think doesn't tell her husband she's not.

1:31:47Cousin Sal:Oh, I see. It's a Jenny Sack situation.

1:31:52Bill Simmons:what do you got for paracorder?

1:31:54Cousin Sal:All right. Well, okay. So let's start with the other parents, like our parents, my father in particular, who he has trouble getting around. Yeah. He's in his mid eighties now, but he loves going to the kids game still. So we take him to Harrison's flag football playoff game, by the way, go bolt up there in the finals next week. So we take them and we're driving and we get there and now we're driving home and these are Friday night at eight. So, but it's like 10 o 'clock while we're driving home. So everyone's quiet in the car. And so I was like, you know what? I'll put the 70s station on for him, even though that's like two to three decades too contemporary for him.

1:32:28Cousin Sal:But yeah. And Paul Simon's 50 ways to leave your lover is on. Right. And my father starts humming and then starts singing the song, except he kept saying 50 ways to please your lover. And he's not doing it ironically. He's not trying to be funny, but he's loud about it. He's like 50 ways to please your lover. And my wife is like gagging in the back seat. I could see her. And he thinks that's the words because I know he's screwing up the other words. Like, dude, he's got everything wrong, but 50 ways to please your lover. Sorry, Paul Simon. So that's my old dad going at it.

1:33:06Bill Simmons:50 ways to please your lover. Fantastic.

1:33:08Cousin Sal:Not leave your lover. Some of the tongue. I don't know. Anyway, next. Okay, so my son Jack is a Steelers fan for no reason. Same as me being a Cowboys fan. A couple of weeks ago, I sent him a picture of a bar right around where we live and they hung a Steelers flag. And he ended up looking up the bar and he does the research. And not only is it a Steelers bar, but they have a fan club. And he ends up emailing the president of the fan club. And now they're emailing each other. And now he wants to go to the game. I forgot that the Steelers were at SoFi tonight. And he wants he's like, can you take me to the game?

1:33:48Cousin Sal:And I was like, I can't go, Jack. Like, I don't even see the Cowboys. I have to work. We do the live show right after the game. It's just not going to happen. So maybe you can find a friend to go with. And now my wife is like, no, no, no. We're not letting him go alone with a friend, just a friend. You know, they're still in high school and he's going to go, you know. So and now he's going to go with these. He can't go with these new adult friends. So I was like, well, you know what this means? This means you have to go. So my wife took Jack to the Steelers game tonight at SoFi. The game is at 520.

1:34:20Cousin Sal:I was like, all right, just take an Uber there at like four or something because traffic's going to be bad. No, no, no. Jack wants to go with this club because they rented a Sprinter van and they're going at 11 a.m. and they're tailgating at SoFi. So my poor wife, who now hates me more than she's ever hated me in my life, has to go to this game at 11 a.m. And tailgate? And tailgate. I'll send you the videos later. And they are not back yet. So this is going to be good. I was checking in. She was very, very short with her responses. But what am I going to do? Did they leave at 11 o 'clock or they got there at 11 o 'clock?

1:34:58Cousin Sal:The bus left at 11 a.m. And it's a sprinter van with like a stripper pole and everything. I got to send you this. It's really nuts. Really, really nuts. And did they score a touchdown? We went on right before the end. They didn't even score a touchdown, did they?

1:35:12Bill Simmons:Oh, my God. I can't think of anything your wife would hate more than that.

1:35:16Cousin Sal:I might have to leave the back door open. I may have to stay with you tonight. Oh, they did score a touchdown. All right, at least they scored a touchdown.

1:35:24Bill Simmons:I went back to Boston because my daughter's team was in the playoffs. Yeah. And they were the higher seed. So I went back for the Tuesday game thinking I'd at least get to see two games and maybe they'd make the finals. And, of course, they got upset in the first game and lost. But it was still a good season. I was psyched for my daughter because she stayed healthy the whole year. She played a ton of minutes and had a really good year. Good job, though. So that was good.

1:35:54Cousin Sal:She doesn't have a Brian Dayball who's not looking out for her, right? No.

1:35:58Bill Simmons:Good, good. But yeah, she made it healthy, really good season. So on Friday, we went to Stanford because it was my Uncle Ricky's 80th birthday party.

1:36:09Cousin Sal:Nice.

1:36:10Bill Simmons:my uncle Ricky, who had one of the great quotes of all time at his 50th birthday, 30 years ago, when he told us, hey, when you turn 50, just remember these two things. Never pass a bathroom without going in and never leave a heart on unattended. That's his advice to me. That's 30 years ago.

1:36:30Cousin Sal:Imagine you telling your kids or nephews that.

1:36:33Bill Simmons:He passed those words of wisdom. Did you pay attention? Did you follow his advice? So it's been ringing in my head. Just a legendary member of the family. Just too many stories. So we had a whole weekend and a couple of dinners. But we took the Amtrak, my daughter and I, and we watched this Peacock show called All Her Fault with Shiv Roy. Where she is this mom who has a play day with her kid and the kid gets kidnapped. And it's like your classic. It should have been like a Nicole Kidman show. I don't know how she turned it down. Maybe she's too old to have a five-year-old kid. But we're on the Amtrak in the quiet car and I'm watching on my iPad and she's watching on her iPad and we sync the iPads so that it's happening at the same time, but we're not looking at two iPads.

1:37:24Bill Simmons:But then a couple of times the wifi would stop and my daughter would get really mad if my iPad was ahead of the iPad. So she would make me stop. So the iPads would sync. And this is how we spent three and a half hours together going to Stanford. And I was thinking of her boyfriend now is Hank, who's a great guy. And I was just thinking like, good luck, Hank. Sinking those iPads. Sinking them off. I was like, I can't even imagine what the days are like. She's furious. Like, you're two seconds ahead of me. I'm like, it's the same scene. What are you doing? But anyway, we had a good time on the train.

1:38:01Bill Simmons:It was awesome being on. That was where I basically grew up on that Amtrak, going back and forth as a child. It's nice now, right? It's really nice. Great times all around. But anyway, it was some good dad-daughter time, but she said she might not come back for Thanksgiving, and I was heartbroken.

1:38:17Cousin Sal:Oh, no. She's going to Hank's?

1:38:20Bill Simmons:Well, Hank's on the basketball team, and he's got to stay, and I think she feels bad, and so I don't know. We've had every Thanksgiving with her. It's really the beginning of the end in all these different ways for us as parents. Yeah, I was thinking about this. right? Where it's like, yeah, I'm not going to be back for Thanksgiving. It's like, oh, what do you mean? We spent every Thanksgiving together since you were a baby. You're just not going to come back. So I don't know if she's coming back.

1:38:46Cousin Sal:It doesn't seem right. I'm trying to think, when did you blow off your parents' Thanksgiving?

1:38:50Bill Simmons:I was trying to think of how many times I blew my parents off for everything. And it was, it was a lot. And she made that point to me. Like when I was complaining about the iPad, she's like, you're lucky I'm here. I'm a college student. I'm giving up a Friday night to take the train to Stanford to go to my uncle's thing. Like you should be more appreciative. And you're not even syncing up the Shiv Roy rom-com or whatever

1:39:14Cousin Sal:the shiver watching. Yeah. No, it was a shiver of kidnapping. Oh, the kidnapper. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a good show. I think that's a good Netflix show. You and Zoe riding an Amtrak watching these and critiquing these shows.

1:39:25Bill Simmons:And then she goes to the bathroom and disappears. And then it becomes like, Oh, right. Or I disappear. One of us disappears.

1:39:30Cousin Sal:Well, you've never passed the bathroom that, that you've, well, now I can at age 50.

1:39:35Bill Simmons:Never, never pass the bathroom without going in. Right. All right. Um, I realized that Shibroy just is Shibroy from now on. Oh, she is. You can't unsee her. Cause I know, uh, Tom from succession is in this new thing that's on Netflix, like some presidential assassination show. I wouldn't be able to unsee Tom from him either. I just think, remember with the Sopranos, those people, some of the actors just never shook the characters.

1:40:01Cousin Sal:Right.

1:40:01Bill Simmons:You couldn't do it. Like Moltisanti, I just couldn't, couldn't see Imperioli as anybody else. He was just Christopher. Yeah. Big close to him. Adriana was just always Adriana.

1:40:10Cousin Sal:Yeah. But, and I, yeah, I feel that way with all those succession characters too, except I would never would have thought Cameron, is it Cameron from, from Ferris Bueller's Day Off? Right. He's kind of Alan Ruck. I was okay with that. He kind of transcended.

1:40:24Bill Simmons:Yeah. He was okay.

1:40:25Cousin Sal:Yeah.

1:40:26Bill Simmons:All right. But Jeremy's strong and that's a tough one too.

1:40:28Cousin Sal:Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. All the main characters for really good shows. It's tough. I'm telling you, that's a good show. You and Zoe on the Amtrak. Amtrak and the -

1:40:37Bill Simmons:All right, I'll work on it. I'll pump a script into AI tonight. I'll just have AI spit out a script. Love it. Today's Parent Corner presented by Uber Eats, who also sponsored the, what was the van that your wife took? It was a Sprinter van. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sprinter van, the Steelers Sprinter van. Get almost anything for game day, Like your favorite game day foods, drinks, and snacks on Uber Eats, the official on-demand delivery partner of the NFL. Order now. How's it going on Ringer Gambling Show with DeBundo? Have you and House illegally adopted him yet on Wednesdays?

1:41:10Cousin Sal:He's very serious about his bets. He also comes on the pregame show, and I think he's like 7-1 with his best bets. And, yeah, yeah, we're out. But, yeah, House and I have fun with him. And Tuesdays with Tate is great, and Friday with DeBundo and Heifetz. And, yeah, Sunday pregame. Like I said, lots of winners, lots of big odds winners. There's SGPs and tune in. You may see it elsewhere. Not going anywhere, but you may see it other places.

1:41:33Bill Simmons:Yeah, we might add a couple spots to watch. I was thinking, tell me if you think this is a good idea. I know Fando doesn't like negative props.

1:41:41Cousin Sal:Right.

1:41:41Bill Simmons:But I was thinking interception parlays would be such a fun corner. Oh, yeah. There were a couple guys today that were just clearly throwing an interception. Like J.J. McCarthy. There was no question he was throwing a pick to somebody. Mack Jones, you've got to pencil him every time. Lawrence, did he actually throw an interception or was that a fumble? But I think he did it before.

1:42:05Cousin Sal:Did he get one? Yeah, he threw one. Yeah.

1:42:08Bill Simmons:But there's some, but I think interception parlays, I want to make that my corner the rest of the way, especially with some of these bad QBs. Why wouldn't they do that?

1:42:17Cousin Sal:You could bet under and passing yards and stuff like that.

1:42:20Bill Simmons:They don't put the interceptions in the same game parlays. But you could bet under passing.

1:42:23Cousin Sal:you could bet negative stuff. I don't know. Come on, Fandle. Yeah, that's a place. Yeah, just jack up, you know, Cam Wards to minus 500. Do whatever you have to do. We just want to put the parlays together.

1:42:34Bill Simmons:Yeah, I want two of them. Maybe even three altogether. All right, cuz. As always, good job by you.

1:42:40Cousin Sal:Good job by you, buddy.

1:42:41Bill Simmons:Thanks to everybody who watched on YouTube. You can watch this podcast Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday on Spotify and on YouTube as well. Thanks to Gahal. Thanks to Eduardo as well. And I will see you on this feed on Tuesday.

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