Game 7 Baseball Magic, Josh Beats Pat, Seattle’s Rise, Cincy’s Fall, and Guess the Lines With Cousin Sal

15:47Cousin Sal:Yeah, I agree. And it's like, and you feel good for these Dodgers fans and there's going to be a parade and there's like fireworks all over the place. It's like, yeah, this is pretty great. Then our producer, Jack, is like, hey, my seven-year-old has seen three championships. I'm like, I'll get the hell out of here. I don't want to hear from you. Fuck off. Yeah, fuck off. I'll pull the David Chang and tell you to fuck off. No, we love Jack and his son, but it's enough championships. Yeah, yeah.

16:08Bill Simmons:No, listen, it's been a great run for them. Kershaw somehow got his last one.

16:13Cousin Sal:Yeah.

16:15Bill Simmons:I'll never forget seeing him come into that 18-any game and how nervous everybody was. And when they showed him in the bullpen, I'm sure all the Dodger fans were like, oh, my On top of it, it was a Saturday night Halloween, which isn't unusual for the sport. Halloween obviously isn't on Saturday every year, but sometimes it is. And sometimes it overlaps with a great baseball game. But the combo, at least out here, it was like Halloween parties. The Dodgers are involved. This game's going late. This was like a water cooler moment. I do feel like baseball is in a slightly different place in the mainstream than it was pre-COVID.

16:50Bill Simmons:Right? Like something has shifted. the pitch clock, getting Otani and the Dodgers, having like big market teams that I think people know some of the players, the sport being enjoyable. I think, feel like kids, there's more kids kind of monitoring what's going on. The video game I think helps, but it just felt like, it felt like the sport we grew up with, I felt like.

17:13Cousin Sal:The pitch clock is great because you still would have been at that 18 inning game. That would have been a 40, you know, if there was no pitch clock. Greatest invention of our lifetime in sports, I think. And yeah, and you know what's sad? You say it's in a different place. It's going to be in a much different place next year when they strike. So that's going to suck. Just please try to get your shit together and ride the wave here because there's nothing better than baseball when it's played at the level we saw this last week.

17:38Bill Simmons:I'm glad you brought that up because we've seen them do this before with some of the worst timing ever for just the two sides not being able to figure something out. I mean, the salaries are definitely gigantic and they are, I know the RSNs have shifted and all that stuff, but if, if they damage whatever has been rebuilt here over the last five years, that would just be, I don't know if a lot of people would come back from that. Shame, shame on them. I don't know 94. Remember it took, it took a couple of years. It was really like some baby steps. It was like Ripken, um, that some of the big market teams got back involved, like the Yankees and the Red Sox got pretty good again.

18:19Bill Simmons:Pedro went to the Red Sox. The Yankees got going. It was kind of shitty

18:22Cousin Sal:until 97, until Sosa and McGuire. That kind of brought it back. the Homer guys. Yeah, they needed that for sure. But yeah.

18:30Bill Simmons:Yeah, I felt like the Braves, Yankees, 96, that World Series was good. The Cleveland, Florida, even though it was two weird teams, that World Series was awesome. Right. And then we had the Bonds and McGuire and Sosa and all that stuff heading into the 90s. Red Sox versus Yankees. Like we had a really, and then all of a sudden it was back and it feels like it's back now. Yeah. So to blow this would just be unconscionable. Don't take it away.

18:55Cousin Sal:Don't do it. And by the way, next year is what? The Olympics? So, you know, people will find something else to watch. They better not screw this up. They really better not.

19:03Bill Simmons:One other guy I wanted to shout out really quickly, the catcher in the Dodgers, Will Smith.

19:09Cousin Sal:Yeah.

19:10Bill Simmons:Who caught all 18 innings in that game three and caught every inning of this series and then hits the game-winning homer in game seven. And I know Yamamoto had to be the MVP, but it almost feels like there should be an intercontinental champion MVP. There should be some sort of second thing that's awarded to somebody who just had a crazy impact on it. I think to watch him get up and then crouch and get up and crouch for seven solid hours, I was like, this guy's like, They're going to have to send him to a fucking hospital in Germany to get him ready for game four. He never came out. It was unbelievable.

19:50Cousin Sal:Taking short hops to the thighs and everything, chasing pitches and everything. Yeah, that was a tough gig. I felt that way too. He should have shot up the MVP rankings after that game. And I mean, just the idea that it was just a few years ago he was banned from the Academy Awards. Oh, no, that was a different one. Jeff Ross said it was good to see Will Smith hitting something other than Chris Rock. I don't know. There's a million jokes.

20:15Bill Simmons:And then Otani, who at some point during game three, it felt like this was going to be one of the watershed months in pro sports history for an athlete. And then by the end of it, he was just kind of barely hanging out as a supporting cast member. He got bailed out. He was out 3-0. Seemed like he had multiple chances to get those runs back and couldn't. And then his team picked him up. But it was interesting to watch this week evolve. And then my guy Mookie was the other one. They had to move him back in the batting order because he was kind of killing him. But at the same time, it's just unbelievable to me that he plays shortstop.

20:53Bill Simmons:This guy went from center to right, to center, to second base, to shortstop. There's never been a career like this.

20:58Cousin Sal:You have to do it if you're a Dodger. And then he gets the double play to end the series. Just ear-to-ear smiles as soon as he fielded the ball. Like you did feel good for him. The one more thing I want to say about that 18 inning game, as great as that was, and that's the pinnacle of sports, 18 innings. And you see that guy Klein who hadn't thrown 60 pitches through college. And oh, my God, he's just bowing these guys down. Unbelievable. They're Dodgers 10th pitcher. That like the biggest difference between my team and the team that's in there. They have pitcher number 10 is throwing 99 on the corner.

21:31Cousin Sal:Right. Like in the and the announcers are barely mentioning it. But how that could have gone from great to absurd if we saw your guy, Mookie Betts, pitching the 19th inning or the 20th inning. Like, that would have been ridiculous, right? Like, then you're like, ah, shit, this sucks. Like, you know, imagine if Ramondre Stevenson is the quarterback of the Patriots because the game went too long, you know? So it is amazing. So what do you do?

21:55Bill Simmons:Do you do, like, by the 18th inning, you start a guy on second base? I don't feel like you can mess with the history of this.

22:02Cousin Sal:I did miss the ghost runner a little bit. A little bit.

22:05Bill Simmons:I mean, sitting there just watching everybody go just zeros for three solid hours was, you know, the Bouges had taken it right now. People had a good idea.

22:14Cousin Sal:Otani, maybe the fourth time he was intentionally walked, he can get second base. Right? Yeah. But at least one more base. You know, you're not allowed to throw the first so many times. They could fudge that rule a little bit. What's the most nerve-wracking sport to you of all the sports?

22:29Bill Simmons:Is it baseball? I just think. For a situation like that. Or is it hockey? No, it's sudden death hockey or is it like an extra innings baseball game with everything at stake?

22:40Cousin Sal:It's, it's gotta be hockey because there's no, you're, okay, if your team's up at bat, you're not gonna get scored on in baseball, right? So you have that at least. It's end-to-end Russian hockey. Like you could, you could be on a power play and get scored on in three seconds, you know, because it's back and forth and back and forth. So it has to be hockey. But the way baseball is shot and directed and the way they'll like, you know, A lot of times it's cold. The pitcher blowing out his hand. They go to the dugout, the shots of the fans. You cannot match that intensity because you have so much time in between pitches.

23:13Bill Simmons:Baseball also has that unbelievable piece where it's like bases loaded. The guy throws, it's like two and O count.

23:20Cousin Sal:Yeah.

23:21Bill Simmons:And the announcer does the, there's nowhere to put him. And you're like, yeah, there really isn't. There's nowhere to put him. Right, right, exactly. In hockey, I guess the version of that is the five on four, the five on three power play in OT. I still feel like I've been in the house for great games in every sport. I've never seen a game seven of the World Series in person. But I still think in football, when it's really, when it's like final two minutes and every play just feels the most momentous and they're coming to the line and it's like third and eight and it's like, if we get a stop here, we might actually win the Super Bowl.

23:58Bill Simmons:There's a different kind of energy with that.

24:00Cousin Sal:Oh, yeah.

24:00Bill Simmons:You know?

24:01Cousin Sal:Neil O'Donnell was driving towards the end zone I was in in the Cowboys Steelers Super Bowl. And I remember thinking, I'm going to have a stroke. I'm like, you know, I'm 24 years old here and I'm just going to stroke out here in the upper deck and that's going to be it. So yeah, there are situations where it does look like they're actually coming for you.

24:18Bill Simmons:I think the single most exciting thing that can happen to a fan in sports is the come from behind home run.

24:26Cousin Sal:Yeah. Yeah.

24:27Bill Simmons:The like Henderson, Dave Henderson in the 1986 American League Championship Series, when we were down three, one of the angels down three runs in the ninth inning, and then he hit a homer off of Donnie Moore to tie it. I still think that's the most excited I've ever been by anything that's happened. Like just a single play, just where you're, it's basically like you get a second, you get a second life, like in a video game, like somebody just gives you a quarter and you get to keep playing. You're like, Oh my God. The most famous one when I was a kid was the Bernie Carbo home run in the Carlton Fisk game.

24:58Bill Simmons:I took it from 6-3 to 6-6. But the home run in the ninth by Rojas, the classic, like, you just want him to get on base. You're not thinking he's going to go deep. And then it's like, oh, my God. Oh, it's out. And then it's just like you black out, basically.

25:13Cousin Sal:And you know why it's great in baseball? Because unlike any sport, there's no hiccup. It's not going to get called back for a holding, right? It's not going to get, as long as it doesn't wrap around the foul pole, You don't have to worry about anything. That's a home run. He's just got to touch the bases and you're good. You have to worry about a penalty kick or offsides or anything bullshit.

25:32Bill Simmons:What's your greatest home run? What's your favorite one for the Mets? The one that made you black out?

25:38Cousin Sal:I think I have to say Dykstra against the Astros in that playoff series. Yeah, that was pretty awesome. But there were a few against you.

25:45Bill Simmons:Every fan base has one of them. Well, the Blue Jays, I feel bad for the fans, but 32 years, They were playing that up. And I can't tell if that's long or maybe we're just old because I told them, remember, when they won in 92 and 93. It's like, all right, they did go back to back in the 90s. Like, this isn't the Cubs.

26:04Cousin Sal:Right. Yeah. I just think they especially want to give it to America here. That also helped in 2025. But, yeah, 30 years is nothing. Try being a Cowboys fan. We're on about that.

26:19Bill Simmons:Same thing. Well, it was almost the worst... weekend in the history of Canada because the Bills almost blew the Chiefs game. I consider the Bills a Canadian team. I was thinking about RL Hawane, who comes on this pod a lot, who I'm friendly with. His three teams are the Knicks, the Bills, and the Blue Jays.

26:41Cousin Sal:Oh, wow.

26:42Bill Simmons:Yeah. Just in 2025, we were texting about this earlier. He had the Bills lost in January. he had that fucking crazy Knicks Pacers series with that Halliburton game which is the most improbable basketball loss you know maybe ever right and then you have this Blue Jays going against going against the Dodgers losing like three horrible stomach punch losses in a row

27:08Cousin Sal:that's a hundred seasons of no winning yeah

27:11Bill Simmons:that's so good yeah he's basically like I might not have gone to work this week do you remember after the Aaron Boone game I left Jimmy's show the next day.

27:20Cousin Sal:Yeah.

27:20Bill Simmons:I left at like one o 'clock. I was, I honestly felt like physically ill. I couldn't, I couldn't, I was supposed to write jokes. I wanted to like put my head in an oven. We also were recording you

27:33Cousin Sal:clandestinely and you're like, fuck you, I'm going to quit this job if you play that on TV. I did get mad.

27:38Bill Simmons:Yeah, you were very upset. We'll take a break for the pod. We'll keep going on the YouTubes. 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 Flagg in Dallas, and Wemby and Dylan Harper in St. Antonio. I feel like I'm going to be spending a lot of time in the state of Texas with my basketball choices.

28:15Bill Simmons:There are a lot of moments worth playing for. the ones that taste best are served cold unlike in Texas where it's usually hot whatever happens this season catch every moment with Michelob Ultra the official beer partner of the NBA getting fans closer to the game with a chance to win courtside seats you heard me correctly a trip to All-Star Weekend custom merch and much more Michelob Ultra Superior is worth playing for enter now at Michelob Ultra.com slash courtside Michelob Ultra courtside 2025 to 2020 2026. No purchase necessary. Open to U.S. residents. 21 plus begins on October 1st, 2025. Ends on June 30th, 2026.

28:55Bill Simmons:Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobultry.com slash courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details. NFL, where do you want to start? You want to start Bills, KC?

29:07Cousin Sal:I mean, I just start with me. The gambling gods just said, hey, enjoy your Yamamoto MVP winnings. We're going to take it away from you and then some. And if you're, that's it. If your great uncle leaves you anything in his will, we're going to take that too. Effing Packers, Lions, just the worst.

29:24Bill Simmons:Well, we were worried. We did say that favorites had done really well the last couple of weeks. And we were a little worried about the Parlay's teaser train. There were a lot of obvious ones. And the ones that were the big letdowns today were the Packers and the Lions. I got to say, I didn't have the Packers on the multi-view. Really? Oh, not on the multi-view. Wow. I had six games going, and they were one of the two that didn't crack it, and I didn't put it on until the fourth quarter. Good for you. I kept waiting for them to all of a sudden be up 20-6, and it just never happened. And I obviously saw that awful fourth and eight from the 13.

30:02Bill Simmons:I don't know, would Jordan love just ripping it into the end zone? Was that the worst pass ever? Was it the worst pass ever? Really bad. They didn't never punt it.

30:10Cousin Sal:How do you score 13 points and not punt? They didn't punt. They scored 13 points. The opposing quarterback at 102 yards passing and no touchdowns and an interception. And if you would have told me that much, I would have taken a second mortgage out on the family home here. But it didn't. But yeah, that fourth and eight, are we going to start with this game? Because I just like they, I think these coaches are getting a little ridiculous with not kicking. Like fourth and eight from the 13 with 11 minutes left, you're down seven.

30:39Bill Simmons:We did it on the fourth and 17 and it actually worked. And that worked. I don't understand that one either. That's just a lot of trust in Mahomes. I get it.

30:46Cousin Sal:Like 11? You have to score in twice anyway. Like, I don't know. Even Atlanta passing on the field goal in your game was weird. I know it worked, but I don't know, man. I don't know why you go for it there. So much bad shit.

30:59Bill Simmons:Well, the Packers, I think the Packers have had the biggest swerve over the last week because everyone's feeling awesome about them after that Pittsburgh game. They lose to home and Carolina's 13 and a half point favorites, which I'm going to say will be the biggest favorite to lose a game this year. Like usually we get over 10 points. That happens, what, four or five, four times maybe all year. 13 and a half is like, that's like once every couple of years.

31:25Cousin Sal:It's the biggest since 2023, Titans, Miami. So I'm right. And tied for their largest upset loss since 1970. I don't know.

31:34Bill Simmons:But the funny thing is they've done this in the LeFleur era. They play three really shitty games each year. And you don't know when they're going to happen. And this was obviously one of them. But then the other big thing is it seems like they lost Tucker Craft for the year. Yeah, that looks bad. He hurt his knee and they were doing the thing like, it's not good. Like, how's Tucker Craft's name? Not good. When they open with the not good or it's like, hey, we'll see. You know, MRI tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed. When they do the not good, that means it's bad.

32:04Cousin Sal:They think it's MCL and ACL. So, yeah, that's bad for him. He's a fun player.

32:09Bill Simmons:Well, yeah, I thought he was their best and most reliable third down guy, most reliable red zone guy. So that changes their destiny. And then on the flip side, Carolina's in the playoff picture. Five and four. They're five and four. They played New Orleans and Atlanta the next two weeks. Jesus. So we could have – Carolina could be seven and four in two weeks, and the Bears could be seven and three. and those teams aren't good. Right. Right? I mean, nobody thinks the Bears are good. Is anybody getting offended by that? It's funny.

32:42Cousin Sal:When we went over who's going to be the seventh NFC team, we settled on the Niners and you put together that parlay and it was like, what, plus 340? And then the Niners spanked the Giants. I'm like, oh, that's looking good. But I didn't realize. I'm like, oh, shit, the Panthers are in the picture here. What is going on? Is that really going to? Oh, now the Bears are back in it.

33:00Bill Simmons:Let's go to the big game, the Buffalo-Kansas City game, where Josh Allen beats Mahomes. He's 5-1 in the regular season against Mahomes, but Mahomes has won every playoff meeting. I was trying to think of a real-life example of what this is like. What it counts. Yeah. There is no example. It's like you don't really get to brag about it, but it's also not nothing. And then you think about the four playoff wins they had. One of them was the 13 seconds game where Allen did everything you could possibly do to win the game.

33:35Cousin Sal:Is there a guy who wins a non-title match all the time and then in the wrestling? Oh, like in wrestling? He goes up against Magnificent Morocco and he just pins him four minutes at the medal ends.

33:45Bill Simmons:Yeah, so he's repeatedly winning the non-title matches, not the actual pay-per-view matches. I do think watching that confirms something I've been saying all year. I just think Josh is slightly better than Mahomes for whatever reason right now. and I think the difference is the inside the five yard line stuff and the fourth and short stuff I think Allen is just the best guy in the league there's the tush push in the NFC I get it but I just think Allen is getting into the end zone when you're inside the five and Mahomes they've never QB sneaked him since he got hurt that time and over and over again you can actually do a goal line stand against them because you never have to worry about the QB sneak because they just won't do it they're always trying to cheat around it or a Ram cream hunt in the middle or do these little quick outs.

34:31Bill Simmons:And I think it's easy to play a team when you know they're never going to QB sneak. The Raiders lost today because Lawrence ended up QB sneaking, what, two times in a row to get it finally?

34:40Cousin Sal:Well, because they're the Raiders. But yes, and they're the Raiders. Yeah, those two. Yeah, I think they have to be extra creative down by the goal line. They don't have, you're right, they don't have the luxury of what the Bills do in some of these other, even like the Falcons could ram it in or Seattle as we saw. But yeah, they have to do like the shovel pass to Kelsey or something weird over the middle.

35:00Bill Simmons:The guy in motion who does the quick 45 degree angle, Tyreek Hill play.

35:05Cousin Sal:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Rasheed Rice running it in. But yeah, I mean, what was he held to under 50 % passing? Like this is this Bill's defense. I think we're at a good spot here with some of these defenses getting better, right? Like we worried about the Bill's defense. Who was the other terrible? Like even the Steelers defense stepped up. I didn't expect that to happen. and the Ravens. Why would you? They were terrible last week. They gave up 20 straight passes. Yeah, but the Steelers, Bills, and Ravens might play defense now and could lead to some fun AFC games. Well, you know, it's fun. KC is the 8th seed right now.

35:39Bill Simmons:Wow. Are they really? I'm not sure that because there's only seven playoff seeds in each conference. You don't think they'll change that?

35:44Cousin Sal:Goodell will change that. Change that to 8.

35:46Bill Simmons:It'd be interesting if they changed that in like week 12. Hey, we have an idea. 16-team playoff brackets. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Sal. Yeah. The Patriots with Tom Brady as the starter.

36:02Bill Simmons:Only started five and four twice in 2001 and 2002. In 2001, he didn't even start the first three games. 2002, they finished nine and seven. And then after that, never again. Brady had 13 Patriots seasons of four losses or less. and after 2002, never finished worse than 11 and 5. So everybody can take a big heaping sip of settle down juice in the goat discussion. Tom Brady is, we're still good. Yeah, we're still good. We're still fine.

36:33Cousin Sal:Yeah. Oh, Brady is not the goat? No, he's not the goat. Oh, he is. He's the goat. But we have to settle down? Okay. He's the goat. Settle down. I don't know what you're saying. Oh, I see. Settle down. Oh, I see what you're saying. Oh, he is the goat. Settle down. Okay. I didn't know if you were you were you were it's fine win a few more Super Bowls

36:50Bill Simmons:maybe don't start the season five and four and we can throw you in the go I see what you're saying maybe be Josh Allen

36:56Cousin Sal:comparing them to the current Patriots I would totally misread that yeah

37:00Bill Simmons:this one had a funny one though McDermott they're up seven there's like 30 seconds left Chiefs have no timeouts they're on like the 36 yard line and he decides to try to kick a field goal to go up 10 misses it all of a sudden the Chiefs have the ball back. You punt? You punt there? Yeah, I punt. You're not going 90 yards in 20 seconds. It's not happening. Just punt it out of bounds on the 10. What was it?

37:24Cousin Sal:It was 27 seconds left, fourth and eight. Yeah, just punt it out of bounds. Yeah.

37:28Bill Simmons:What do you want to give them the ball at the 40? Like, that's doable. I can get a pass interference. I can get Kelsey over the middle. I can down it. It's conceivable I can get a score in three plays.

37:38Cousin Sal:Right, yeah. Yeah, those just always go right into the end zone. But I guess it wouldn't matter. from the 20 with your own 20 with 20 seconds left. You're right. I mean, we've seen Mahomes do it, but that was probably. But the kick just missed, and thank God, because we had teasers all over the place with Kansas City. Oh, my God.

37:53Bill Simmons:Yeah, I had the Bills to win the game, and then at halftime I did the Chiefs' money line. The Chiefs were winning by a point in the second half, and that was flipped.

38:02Cousin Sal:We were doing a little chasing, a little Jamar chasing. After the Jamar chasing it. Lions loss.

38:09Bill Simmons:You mentioned that thing about the punting. so I thought the same thing. They're not going to do it because these teams always kick in the end zone. What the fuck do these punters do all day and practice every day? Right. Like how many things are there to practice? It's like, all right, we're in a practice where you punt it as far as you can. And then I thought we'd practice when you angle the punts and they don't go in the end zone. What are the other, I guess you're practicing a fake punt player. What do punters do all day? They can't just direct a punt into the... I feel like when we were kids, punters could do this routinely.

38:47Bill Simmons:Now nobody can bunt anymore in baseball.

38:50Cousin Sal:Right. Well, bunting was taken out of... Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah. But yes, the coffin corner, or at least kick it out out of back. Coffin corner. What are you doing? You're turning your body a little bit, right? And then aiming it, not directly at the sideline, but 25 yards downfield and down the sideline.

39:05Bill Simmons:These guys, it's their only job. It's not like they're also doing five other things and bartending at night. And it's like, this is a real job where they make multiple millions a year. They don't know how to do a coffin corner punt.

39:16Cousin Sal:Kills their net though. Kills their net stats. And then when you go to renegotiate, it's not good. I think it's like the, but now it doesn't matter. Like the basketball player taking a three with two seconds left, full court, goes against the stats.

39:30Bill Simmons:Well, Casey's the eight seed. They're two behind Denver. And here's what they have left, Sal. Five and four. By week next week at Denver. like a real chance to be 5-5. Home for Indianapolis at Dallas. Home Houston. Home Chargers at Tennessee. Home Denver at Vegas. So they played Denver twice. And they already had four losses. And I think their over-under for the season was 12.5, I'm going to say.

39:57Cousin Sal:Yeah. I'm not doing this, though. They'll go under 12.5 for sure. But what does that feel like to you? 11-6? They're still making the playoffs.

40:05Bill Simmons:I don't think Jacksonville...

40:07Cousin Sal:Do they have odds there? Yeah. I got to look here now. This is bad. It feels like there's two more losses in there. It's not going to be against the Cowboys on Thanksgiving. But what do you think they are to make the playoffs? I would say minus 240. You see, it's minus 650. They're not going to let anybody steal money. Who's the seventh seed?

40:31Bill Simmons:You said they were eighth. Well, Jacksonville's in there now. Just saying. I guess Jacksonville does have the head-to-head, right? Yeah. They're 5-3. They've beaten KC. Right. And they have the rest of the way. They play the Titans twice. That could be seven wins. They play the Jets. That's eight. They're at Cardinals. Next week, they play the Texans. Probably lost. But yeah, there's a path for them to get to 10. Next week, they might be Davis Mills.

41:05Cousin Sal:They might be against Davis Mills next week. I would say he's 50-50, Stroud.

41:10Bill Simmons:Can we talk about that game? Yeah, let's do it. That was my worst loss of the day. I had the Texans. Stroud got concussed. And then apparently D 'Amico Ryans got concussed with about two minutes left because... 1-14. Boot and rally Bo Nix did it again. He got hammered for the first two hours of the game. He passed out. He threw up all over the American flag on the wall standing next to him and threw up all. He had diarrhea. They threw him in a shower. They gave him a cup of coffee and boot and rally Bo came back out for the next hour. Two touchdown drives, ties the game. And Houston gets the ball on their own 13 with a minute and 14 left.

41:58Bill Simmons:Tie game. Denver has two timeouts. And I'm sitting there going, okay, handoff, handoff. third handoff. Sure. You punt it back. They have 10 seconds left. Let's go to overtime. You have Davis Mills as your quarterback. You've scored three points since he came into the game. You're not going 60 yards against Denver's defense. Can I add one more wrinkle? Yeah.

42:20Cousin Sal:His back is to the end zone. The lighting in those Texas stadiums are so weird, and you get in the daylight right in his face, and it's like a fragmented daylight, and so he's got to look into the sun while throwing downfield. Take it from there. What are the three plays they do?

42:37Bill Simmons:Incomplete pass on first down to Christian Kirk. Just didn't even start the clock. It goes five seconds, stops. Jaden Higgins, four-yard pass. And Higgins, for some reason, goes out of bounds. So we really want you guys to have two timeouts. Third and six, incomplete pass. Putting it back to you. 55-yard punt return for eight. And Denver has the ball with two timeouts. thinking with a minute left, they ran 14 seconds off the clock. And other than that, Brian Callahan, when he called, what was that thing when he called a timeout and they were going to kick the field goal and then it was a delay game after they called the timeout?

43:16Bill Simmons:That was good. The delay game after the timeout, that was the worst coaching moment of the year. I think this is the new worst coaching moment of the year because Houston needed the game. They don't have a lot of room for error now. And anyway, Denver wins the game. And it was the first time where I was like, Are we sure D 'Amico Ryans is a good coach? Because this was bad.

43:37Cousin Sal:I'd be pissed too if I had the Texans, but I'd stay the way. I just like this. I thought whoever got to 17 first wins, and that's kind of how it was. But 34 minutes to 25 minutes time of possession for Houston. Denver had one interception and one fumble. They had fewer total yards. Houston was just three for 17 on third down, and it was because they had Davis Mills. Like they obviously won the game with CJ Stroud, I would think at this point. But just the same, roll the dice in overtime. What the hell are you thinking there?

44:08Bill Simmons:You're home. Denver's special teams was awful. And Bo Nix was awful for two solid hours. There was like near the end of the second, I was going against him in our fantasy league. Near the end of the second quarter, he was minus 1.85. That was his fantasy total. And in the fourth quarter, I think he was at five points. And then finally rallied. But that's it for the Texans. I mean, I'm not ready to make them a cross-offs team, but right now they are, let's see, three and five. Yeah. They have the Titans only once. They still have a Bills game on Thursday night. They still have at Colts, at Chiefs, at Chargers, and the Colts again.

44:50Bill Simmons:Right. It's a cross-off in pencil. Mm-hmm. Right? not in pen, but I think in pencil. Because that team's not going 7-2 down the stretch.

45:03Cousin Sal:Yeah, I mean, they're not grabbing a wild card, right? So they have to steal that division somehow. Boy, and it's not looking good, especially if he doesn't start next week. But Denver, are they the full of shit champs of the world? Like this team? I think they're decent sometimes, but they beat Cam Ward, they beat Jake Browning, they beat Justin Fields, they beat Jackson Darnes, they beat Davis Mills. I mean, And that is...

45:27Bill Simmons:There's something to be said for turning it on in fourth quarters and kind of rising to the occasion. But I also think it's the team, like when we're doing over-unders next August.

45:36Cousin Sal:Yeah.

45:37Bill Simmons:They would jump out to us as the full-shit team.

45:39Cousin Sal:Right.

45:40Bill Simmons:Like, look at this. They went 12-5. They were 8-1 in, you know, last two-minute games.

45:46Cousin Sal:Well, we liked them this year because they were 1-6 in one-score games last year. We liked them a lot. I picked them to win the division. Gone too much the other way.

45:55Bill Simmons:I was happy because I have a lot of Broncos over-unders. I was upset because I thought Texans... I just think if Stroud doesn't get hurt, I think this is a win. I don't know what happened. One thing I will say, they blew a couple deep passes. They're vaunted secondary. Denver got behind them a couple times, and that was the difference because they didn't really do anything else. And then, speaking of AFC South teams, Steelers-Colts. so the Steelers have six turnovers which means against the Colts and the Patriots the Steelers forced 11 turnovers so if you want to talk about full of shit teams maybe start there with the short passes and let's just get a turnover every 40 minutes against teams we're playing I feel like it would make so much more sense if they played in New Orleans and were just like the official voodoo Steelers where we're like God, there's some actual voodoo shit going on.

46:52Cousin Sal:Aaron Rodgers injures his hand before the game. The line doesn't move, but then it does move. Yeah. Very weird.

46:59Bill Simmons:The Colts are up 7-0. Steelers are doing nothing. Steelers punt. Punt bounces. Hits the Colts kick punt returner and rolls right to a Steelers. And that was it. You're like, oh, okay, here we go. By the way, that happens three times a year when the dumb kick returner for some reason just is like, hey, there's the ball. It's right next to me. Gets hit by it. And that's just over. Yeah, that was it.

47:29Cousin Sal:How much less do you think of Daniel Jones? I knew he was due for something like this, and the team was. I'm still okay with him. I still would be very surprised if they blew that division. So they're outdoors.

47:45Bill Simmons:Minus 240. They're playing the Voodoo Steelers. Jones looked like 2024 Giants Jones. I mean, he was bad. It wasn't just the turnovers. He was actually just bad the whole game. He had pierced open on a deep one once that he's been hitting all year and overthrew it. He just was not the guy from the first couple of months. I was rooting against them, even though I had money on them, by like 11-15 because I started thinking about the Pats on the one seed. I really started thinking about it. Look at you. I got excited about it. What a great world this is. Indy, rest of the way. Atlanta, bye week. At KC.

48:24Bill Simmons:Home Houston. At Jacksonville. At Seattle. San Francisco, Jacksonville. At Houston. So Houston twice. And then at KC, at Seattle. So they're 7-2. 12-5 is conceivable. I don't think anything higher than that.

48:40Cousin Sal:Yeah, no.

48:41Bill Simmons:13-4, 12-5, somewhere in there.

48:43Cousin Sal:Maybe 11. maybe 11 but yeah I don't they can't blow it minus 240 I'm just trying to look at these other odds I wouldn't take any other team to seal that division I would not either

48:54Bill Simmons:well and then we have well we should talk about the Seahawks quickly because they just absolutely destroyed Washington they're 6-2 could be 8-0 they were first in DVOA heading into this game and this was the best game they put all year Darnold's on a heater you look at their schedule the rest of the way they're toughest road game is at Chargers in two weeks. Alt's not going to probably be playing in that. At San Francisco to end the season or at Atlanta. It's a pretty cream-puffy schedule. And I think there's a real case now for them to be the one seed. Do they have one seed odds for them yet?

49:31Cousin Sal:They're very solid. On FanDuel? I mean, they're not even favored to win the division. Yeah, they're plus 150. Plus 150 for division? For the division, yeah. I don't think they have. They don't have the one seed bet?

49:43Bill Simmons:Yeah, they do.

49:43Cousin Sal:They do?

49:44Bill Simmons:They're plus 470 for the one seed. Man, they look great tonight. Rams are plus 380. I think they're better than the Rams, personally. I think so, too. If on a neutral field, I would pick the Seahawks.

49:57Cousin Sal:I don't know. But is Washington a team like we should be? First of all, we should probably cross. I'm okay crossing them off, especially with, right? That's our next cross-off. It's Mariota the rest of the year. They're not going to get much better, right? They have an Angry Lions team, Broncos, Eagles, in the next five weeks. they have to be a cross-off.

50:16Bill Simmons:I had two cross-offs for you, actually, because I think Arizona's a cross-off now.

50:20Cousin Sal:Oh, you don't even want to see them beat the Cowboys by three touchdowns?

50:23Bill Simmons:No, because I think the NFC West, moving away from them like it has, I don't see a scenario where they climb back. We basically have to have, they'd have to flip places with one of the three teams, and I don't see it.

50:36Cousin Sal:Right, yeah.

50:37Bill Simmons:They have to make up three wins, because we're going to have at least two from the NFC North. so I have for cross-offs Jets, Browns, Tennessee Miami, New Orleans Vegas, Cleveland, the Giants Arizona and Washington that's 10

50:53Cousin Sal:yeah let's do it we're almost there that's fair right

50:56Bill Simmons:we're heading into week 10 we have 10 cross-offs so it's 22 teams

50:59Cousin Sal:and how many teams and then 16 spots or 14 spots yeah 14 spots they look so damn good Seattle and the only good part of the game really interesting was Collinsworth he was like, Darnold, you said he was on the heat it was like 16 for 16, 17 for whatever he was and Collinsworth circles the defensive line for Washington and he's like, do you know how hard it is to have these monsters chasing you? He said monsters. Monsters? It's a pass rush variation, but I'm like, alright, that's just that's a speech thing at this point. Monsters. Yeah. They're so damn good.

51:38Bill Simmons:Darnold, that turned out to be the move of the year. we thought it was going to be a wash and it was going to be an interesting argument over the course of the year, Darnold versus Geno.

51:47Cousin Sal:Yeah.

51:48Bill Simmons:And we were like, oh, we'll be changing our minds on this one nine times. It's like, nope.

51:52Cousin Sal:I was talking about it with someone else and Darnold and Baker make so many teams look bad for passing on them and free agency, right? And just not, we're not sticking with them. But imagine if those guys didn't pan out, we'd have two more teams with terrible quarterbacks. Oh my God. This league would suck so bad. Jesus.

52:11Bill Simmons:I had Seattle to win the division and Denver to win the division before the year. Looking good. To be a playoff team. Those are my three best ones. And Miami to stink. I guess those are my four best ones.

52:23Cousin Sal:Yeah. I've had some bad ones, though.

52:25Bill Simmons:I had Vegas to make the playoffs. Not feeling great about that because they're really, really awful. We were both under on Washington. Yeah.

52:36Cousin Sal:I was honored to win the division. That was my worst thing. But there's more to come.

52:39Bill Simmons:Don't worry, people. We'll take a break and then you want to apologize. This episode is brought to you by Netflix. The T-Mobile Home Run Derby is right around the corner. Might be one of the best showcases of pure power in all sports. Baseball's biggest sluggers, along with some legendary announcers. Pujols, Rizzo, Bonds, Sabathia, Al Duncan. Yeah. Hunter Pence, Matt Faskersian, a whole bunch of people. And it's the one night where you don't swing to make contact. you swing to make history. I'm interested to see what Bond says about this, actually. Anyway, it is all live from Citizens Bank Park in Philly.

53:17Bill Simmons:Watch the T-Mobile Home Run Derby live on Netflix Monday, July 13th at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. On the court, the pitch, the track, even the pool, professional athletes show extraordinary physical flexibility. For us normal people, we've got PayPal's flexible monthly payment plans. Pay nothing at checkout, then enjoy a flexible monthly payment plan that works for you with no signup or late fees. And it's available millions of stores. Pay monthly with PayPal. Subject to approval, pay monthly consumer loans made by WebBank, available through PayPal Inc.

53:54Bill Simmons:NMLS 910457. Learn more at paypal.com slash pay monthly. This episode is brought to you by Holiday Inn by IHG. If I'm ever traveling for work, where I stay, is so important. I actually really care about this because sometimes I even have to do a podcast wherever I'm staying. In general, I don't go on the road that much, but when I go on the road, I like to be in a nice hotel with a nice room. I'm spoiled. If you sound like me, check out Holiday Inn. It has a whole new energy, especially for business travelers. You'll see it everywhere from refresh rooms to re-imagined social spaces and dining done right with new drinks and dishes.

54:35Bill Simmons:And for business, there are flexible spaces that work for the way you work. It's a new day and a new stay. Book now at HolidayInn.com. Listen, people.

54:46Cousin Sal:Yeah.

54:46Bill Simmons:All right. Staying here on YouTube. All right. You wanted to apologize. We had, we wished some luck from Baby Doll Dixon a couple weeks ago. Today, you just had some apologies to hand out.

54:57Cousin Sal:Yeah, I just feel like a lot of people said, F you, you guys, you're talking too much shit for a month, two months, whatever. I mean, I think J.J. McCarthy's at the top of that list. We're talking about, is he even injured? Is he coming back? You know what? Doesn't matter. Hiding an ankle sprain. Yeah. Wentz with a broken torso is better. And I think these are temporary apologies, right? I feel like we could take them back, right? Like, you still have to pass the road test, but pretty damn good. Like, if Caleb Williams had blown that game, I was going to say, you know what? J.J. McCarthy's the best quarterback in the NFC North.

55:30Cousin Sal:I take it all back. So I apologize, JJ McCarthy.

55:35Bill Simmons:I thought he was all over the place in that game. He was streaky in this, like basically streaky the way some guys are in a season over the course of four quarters. There was a couple stretches where he looked awesome. And there were a couple other stretches where he looked like a rookie QB playing his third start, basically, like some ran out of bounds stupidly in one play. But for the most part, I thought he was, he was really solid. Like that was a great win combined with the fact that Flores and his defense finally figured out Goff how to like bug him. And Goff's one of those where you know 40 minutes in if you have him in a teaser parlay if the defense is hitting him a certain way and he starts fucking bounce passing those passes over the middle.

56:20Bill Simmons:You're like, oh my God, here we go.

56:22Cousin Sal:Yeah, Flores dialed up a nice plan for Goff. I think both teams had five sacks but the Vikings five sacks were definitely more effective. The Lions couldn't muster more than 65 yards rushing, I don't think, and that just screwed Goffa. I know it ended up being a close game, but probably wasn't even that close.

56:38Bill Simmons:Well, it's weird because they came out, good drive, Laporta, Laporta, Laporta, touchdown. It was like, oh, here we go. Lions, I can't wait to cross this one off. They only ran for 65 yards. They were five for 17 on third down, and yet again had another game where multiple guys, you know, either limped off the field or were helped off the field. And they're five and three. It was a team I really battled on whether I wanted to put them in the playoffs or not. And I finally kind of begrudgingly got there. I had them at like 10 and seven as a wild card. But this has been kind of the uneven lion season.

57:17Bill Simmons:I think all of us were worried about, right?

57:19Cousin Sal:Yeah, but I wouldn't. A lot of injuries, obviously. I also don't think I'd be betting against them much. You know, there'll be a couple spots, I think, that where they're on the road. and this week's not one of them. But I still think top to bottom. I was surprised Campbell just didn't have them ready. He had like scored 88 points off of buys his last two years. So I thought, like you said, they did come out scoring, but yeah, Flores was the MVP of that game.

57:43Bill Simmons:That was a flash sale line. We talked about it last week. It was, the line was, it felt like two and a half, three points higher than it should be.

57:51Cousin Sal:Right.

57:52Bill Simmons:And they were dying for anybody to take the Vikings. And we were all like, no, we're actually going to parlay the Lions and put them in teases, and we got screwed. What's your next apology?

58:01Cousin Sal:I'm going to say Colston Loveland. Tight end for the Bears. You know, we were all like Tyler Warren, Tyler Warren, Tyler Warren. The Bears are nuts for passing on Tyler Warren. Colston Loveland saves the game, saves a pick. That was like one of the I'm going to quit gambling picks. The Bears. Can we go over that? I just, you know.

58:22Bill Simmons:I actually took it off the TV because they did a pick six and they were up 48 to 27, 48 to 27 with three minutes left. And not realizing that they reviewed the pick six. I still don't understand how it wasn't a pick six.

58:39Cousin Sal:It was like the guy, the intended receiver breathed on him or something. I don't know what touched the interceptor there. That was ridiculous, but they called him down.

58:47Bill Simmons:We do this a lot with football where we're like, we watch football every day and the rules seem to just change depending on the situation. That's one where it's like, I watch football every week. He gathered the ball when he finally caught it and he got up and ran. And they always call that a touchdown. And why are they bringing this back? So anyway, they have to punt. All of a sudden, Flacco scores. I didn't even know about it until Hench texted us. Hench's text is like, Flacco has 400 yards. I'm like, yeah, who gives a shit?

59:14Cousin Sal:So what? Yeah, they're down six with the ball driving.

59:18Bill Simmons:And it would have been one of the worst losses of all time. And then it seemed like the Bears were going to win by two and not cover. And then Loveland saves everybody.

59:26Cousin Sal:Amazing. And there's a still of Loveland like twisting in the air with three defenders around him. The caption is, he scored on this. Like he just bulldozed it. Probably should have gone down at the two like Gunnar Stockton did for Georgia Saturday. And then they just kicked the field goal. Right. But thank God he didn't. But by the way, I'm not going to, you know, Ben Johnson says, don't. And you love those, right? The press. Ben Johnson's my favorite. I seek them out now. I'm like, did he do a post game? You're going to pay him to come to your house. I love it. Yeah. He's like, this is what we do.

59:59Cousin Sal:It's like, this is what you do. You blew a 41, 27 lead with two minutes left. Yeah. Don't apologize for a win. He tells up like, all right, maybe apologize for allowing 15 points in 49 seconds. Maybe apologize to giving up 480 passing yards to a guy whose shoulder was so bad.

1:00:16Bill Simmons:He threw a 40 yard Hail Mary. Right. It's a slight apology. I love his things.

1:00:21Cousin Sal:But as a gambler, I don't want to get, I feel like I was taking shit. Everyone's like, oh, you got so lucky with that Bears game. Like, it shouldn't have been close. Like, this is.

1:00:30Bill Simmons:No, that's a win.

1:00:31Cousin Sal:We should have won that by three touchdowns. It's like saying a guy born without any limbs, he wins a trip to Puerto Vallarta and the price is right. It's like, oh, you're so lucky. Like, no, it's so much bullshit going on. Before the kickoff return for a touchdown, the block field goal, the onside kick recovery, 15 points in less than a minute. The interception, like you said, for a touchdown, I was called back. All that wasn't very lucky. So eat it. I'm taking that win.

1:00:56Bill Simmons:Swift's replacement was awesome. I have him in our Ringer Fantasy League.

1:00:59Cousin Sal:Yeah, where'd you get him?

1:01:00Bill Simmons:That guy, if you didn't watch football all year, or you were in a coma, or you were in outer space and just landed and watched these games as your first games of the year, you would think that he was like Jonathan Taylor. He was fucking incredible. He was over and over again just doing shit.

1:01:14Cousin Sal:The wrong guy. And that's why I turned it off. I'm like, he's just going to, he's running for seven yards a clip and they just need to kill the clock. And then Ben Johnson gave him a game ball. Oh, he did.

1:01:23Bill Simmons:Okay, good. Yo, man, I love everybody in this room, man. It's a great win. We got to keep it going. They all say the same things. It's unbelievable.

1:01:32Cousin Sal:That's good.

1:01:33Bill Simmons:Nobody's ever like, nobody ever gets it. It's like, I knew I was better than DeAndre Swift. I've been telling all you motherfuckers all year. This is my team.

1:01:43Cousin Sal:Well, the other locker room that was different, like Jamar Chase and Chase Brown going off on the defense. I kind of like it. I kind of like it. I really do.

1:01:52Bill Simmons:It's in the running for the worst defense I've ever seen.

1:01:55Cousin Sal:Yeah. It's now many, many games.

1:01:59Bill Simmons:Ripping off 10-yard plays over and over again. I had Caleb in fantasy who had 40.5 points in our league that we care about. That's nice. Um, Montagal had 198 total yards. The bears ran for two 83 Flacco at four 70 for four tees. I think that, I think the Bengals are the most entertaining team in the league now. Like if they can play another shitty team, it's going to be a 40 37.

1:02:24Cousin Sal:Should they play the Cowboys leading up to the Superbowl? Like the morning of the Superbowl Saturday game. That'd be great morning of. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Make it like a hundred million dollar game.

1:02:34Bill Simmons:Get Netflix to do it. Yeah. Oh, more apologies. Who do you have next?

1:02:40Cousin Sal:Let's see. Who else do I have? Oh, Diddy. I mean, he's going to be out of jail soon. That's great. How did he do it? We'll never doubt him again. What a legend. Oh, you know what? This is dumb of me. I'm going to apologize to YouTube TV. I don't know why I didn't know you could customize the four box. Why didn't I? I'm sitting there like a forensic scientist in a lab trying to match up screens. You didn't know you could just press the thing? Oh, my God. That's all I do. This is great. This is unbelievable. This is a game changer. And I apologize for anything I've said to YouTube TV. I've gotten to the point where I like, for good luck,

1:03:14Bill Simmons:putting the pats in the bottom left. Oh, really? So I'll just, I'll keep moving the multi-views, like trying to do it until I finally get the pats in the bottom left. And then.

1:03:23Cousin Sal:I'm an idiot. Bad job by me. I don't know why I did that. And I'll apologize. I have an apology.

1:03:29Bill Simmons:Can I do an apology? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. I'd like to apologize to Mike Tomlin. Really? Two weeks in a row betting against him at home in Pittsburgh as an underdog. I should have known. I should have known he was going to do all the dumb, dumb stealer shit that they do all the time. Like I just, I should have known it was, it looked too easy. Daniel Jones on grass. This was like the exact type of situation Tomlin loves. They were just going to get six turnovers out of nowhere. I just should have known. He's, he's just, this is who he is. He's going to be this guy until he's like 70. Just winning game.

1:04:07Bill Simmons:They're always going to go nine and eight or 10 and seven. I don't know why I went under with them. It doesn't matter who's on the team. They can have a 42-year-old QB. They can have a defense that gives up 20 straight passes the week before. They're always going to be fine. They're always going to go 9-8 or 10-7.

1:04:20Cousin Sal:Well, 9-8 was still under, wasn't it? Wasn't it 9-1⁄2? No, they were 8-1⁄2 this year. Oh, right. That's right. If you wanted to go over. They still went under. All right. What's your last apology? One more. I just have nerd clusters. They're fantastic. I laughed at them. I'm like, you kids are wasting your time with these nerd clusters. They're all of a sudden. Have you had them? They're my favorite non-chocolate candy now. They've grown on me. Is that what Brad threw on our ribs? He just did regular nerds, but they have these clusters now. It's like in a gummy. You haven't had this? You're not living right.

1:04:51Cousin Sal:You're just unhealthy. Yeah, of course it's unhealthy. Look at me. We can give you a health advice. I've been eating a lot of Kit Kats lately. Been on a Kit Kat run. Oh, that's your thing?

1:05:00Bill Simmons:Kit Kats are really good. Well, my wife bought Halloween candy and bought the bigger Kit Kats.

1:05:06Cousin Sal:Yeah. Can I tell you something? I think bigger Kit Kats are so much better than the smaller ones. And I think it has to do with the ratio. They must. I think the ratio of whatever is perfect. There's more chocolate in the bigger ones. On the big ones. Yeah.

1:05:20Bill Simmons:Yeah. I'm with you. Okay, good. Pats-Falcons. Pats win. Don't cover. All the Pats fans were worried about this game. And yet the Pats were up 21-7 driving before halftime. At midfield, there was like 25 seconds left. It felt like 24-7 minimum. And then May get sacked, fumbled. Falcons come back down. Didn't even get sacked.

1:05:47Cousin Sal:It was such a wuss play. Just gave the ball up. Almost like a tap. What's wrong with that guy? He's not that good. But go ahead.

1:05:54Bill Simmons:He's on pace for 4 ,400 yards and 34 TDs and eight picks and breaking the completion record. Completion percentage record. He actually would have the record all time in the history of the NFL right now.

1:06:07Cousin Sal:I just can't believe this. I really can't believe we're doing this. Years later, you should have had to suffer like a Cleveland Browns. I did suffer. We suffered for half a decade. What do you want from us? Please, please. Half a decade, and then you should have stayed with Mac Jones. You shouldn't go half a decade and now have Junior Goat here. It's just so stupid.

1:06:29Bill Simmons:Well, he got sacked 12 times in two weeks. Yeah. And was under real duress. And there's some issues with this Pats team, which we've known. But they are 7-2. They are going to, I think, be a playoff team just because of their schedule. And they do have their trade deadline coming up with like$48 million under the cap. They need a pass rusher. They need another receiver. The game flipped today, not because of that fumble, but because Booty got hurt. And all of a sudden, the Pats had nobody getting open. Diggs is still like on a snap count. So it's like Pop Douglas, it's Kyle Williams, the rookie receiver who every time May throws to him, either Williams gets crossed up with May or vice versa.

1:07:08Bill Simmons:He's never in the right spot. And basically, they're just throwing the tight ends and throwing swing passes. I thought they were really lucky to win the game. Drake London was killing them. He's the worst Gonzalez has looked all season. He is tough one-on-one. Drake London was dominant.

1:07:21Cousin Sal:Very tough to cover that guy.

1:07:23Bill Simmons:Yeah. They shut down Bijan. I thought Penix was really up and down, but it came down and they missed an extra point.

1:07:30Cousin Sal:Yeah, you get to play all the bad teams with all the bad coaches, all the bad quarterbacks, and all the bad kickers. So it's hard to lose. And you're going to have A.J. Brown against Tampa next week.

1:07:41Bill Simmons:I don't think it'll be A.J. Brown, but I am looking at those Dolphins guys. That Jalen Phillips, Hendrickson would be great. The Bengals lost again. I don't think the Raiders will trade Max Crosby.

1:07:53Cousin Sal:Nah. But look at you. The rich get richer here with this team. Do you think Vrabel, 2-1 for coach of the year, is a better bet than maybe for MVP? Because he's sneaking up there, Vrabel.

1:08:05Bill Simmons:It's either Vrabel or Steichen, right?

1:08:08Cousin Sal:Yeah, so that's who you'd have to be.

1:08:10Bill Simmons:Does that come down to who has a better record? That's who wins coach of the year?

1:08:14Cousin Sal:I think if you win the division and, you know, well, I don't know. This is some schedule. I had Vrabel at plus 750. You do? That's good. From before the year. I picked that in our futures draft, too. Oh, no. So one more thing I'm going to lose? Terrific. You had some good ones in the futures draft. I forgot who I had. Yeah. I had one stupid thing going.

1:08:38Bill Simmons:You know, I think the Pats are missing a couple. I think they have a real chance to do something in January and maybe win a playoff game or two. But the offensive line is becoming real concerning. Will Campbell got worked a couple times. He got just shoved backwards into May a couple times, which I have not. I don't remember seeing that before. They never monitored it either. Quickly, do we care about 49ers, Giants, Dayball being first coach fired? Probably not.

1:09:08Cousin Sal:No, I'll say is... Niners are 6-3. We just need to be smarter about some stuff. Like, we need to start respecting our cross-off teams and treating them as cross-off teams. And when you can bet against them getting 2.5 points, just go for it. Especially since San Francisco was one of our playoff teams. Like, how do we think this is all going to work out?

1:09:25Bill Simmons:How do you bet the Niners when you don't even know who's playing for them?

1:09:28Cousin Sal:I know. I know. But the Giants had worse injuries, it turns out. Although now San Francisco lost someone else too. But yeah, they heard us loud and clear about being the seventh seed and they just demolished that team.

1:09:42Bill Simmons:Jags-Raiders. Jags win, don't cover. They win in OT. They win because they score in overtime. Another weird overtime thing. They take like seven minutes. Even though they basically took the kickoff almost to midfield. Then they were just doing 40 seconds of play. they go down in the red zone. Nothing has been more exciting this year than watching the Jaguars execute plays inside the 10-yard line. They had a pick in the end zone in the first half. They actually scored. Raiders come back down, they score, but they don't get the two-point because instead of throwing to Brock Bowers, who had 12 catches, 127 yards, and three TDs and was running amok, they're like, no, no, no, we're going to have Geno try to hit Tyler Lockett over the defensive line.

1:10:25Bill Simmons:There's no way this will get tipped.

1:10:27Cousin Sal:And they lose. We knew we were on a text chain like this is 30-29 as the Raiders got the ball. There's no question. They're going to overthink it. You said it was weird overtime. I thought that was the perfect. That is exactly how it should be. One team gets it, goes six or seven minutes, scores. The other team has a shot, has three or four minutes, scores, and goes for two. I would go 12 minutes. I love that. I know. I just think they've worked out one possession each. That said, I thought this game should not have been in the late window. So it should have been in a cricket stadium in Prague at 3 a.m.

1:10:59Cousin Sal:Pacific time.

1:11:03Bill Simmons:I have three questions coming out of this game. Would you like a rule addendum that if you score the first TD in overtime, the first team to have the ball, they score a touchdown. If they go for two and get it, the game's over. Oh, no.

1:11:18Cousin Sal:I still want both teams touching the ball. It's not fair. The defenses are exhausted. It's not fair if one team wins a coin toss. and the other team doesn't get it. But I get what you're saying. Whatever avoids a tie is best. Here's my next question.

1:11:33Bill Simmons:Is Pete Carroll the new clapper or is he the new Joe Biden? Because it's one or the other. Because he's on the sideline. He's not really, doesn't seem like he's doing that much coaching. His mouth's kind of open and he's just doing this like, he's chewing gum or he just kind of has that vacant look. Chews gum hard. It's a lot of clapping. A lot of clapping. I feel bad for him. Clapper 2.0?

1:11:57Cousin Sal:I mean, he's sitting there watching 68-yard field goals, and he must be like, what the fuck? This is not my day and age, my game here. I mean, you're four aren't going to win that game.

1:12:06Bill Simmons:It does speak to how well-liked Pete Carroll was and how disliked Bill Belichick is, that they're basically in the same situation in college and pros.

1:12:13Cousin Sal:Yeah, well, if he had a 24-year-old girlfriend, I think it might be a little different story. But they covered. I'm proud of them. And I'll say this. Ballers makes them watchable like has a tight end he was awesome but has a tight end ever made an unwatchable team watchable just a tight end I don't remember

1:12:31Bill Simmons:I have him in all my fantasy leagues he was awesome against the Pats he got hurt they played him hurt for like three weeks then stopped playing him right and now he's like great again like it was like that touchdown whatever injury he had he's fine he was like an absolute beast right and they were throwing it to him throwing it to him throwing it to him to the point where they're like hey man Don't get this guy hurt again. Like, 12 catches is enough. Like, how many... What is he going to have? 17? Was Russ Francis your guy? Like, with the Patriots... I love Russ Francis. I love all those guys.

1:13:01Cousin Sal:But the Patriots were bad. But you watch because of Russ Francis. Like, I'm trying to figure out another... No, we were good.

1:13:06Bill Simmons:We were good in 76 all the way through. We were favored to win the AFC every year, basically.

1:13:11Cousin Sal:Really? Yeah.

1:13:12Bill Simmons:We had Russ Francis. We had Stanley Morgan and Daryl Stingley and Dale Jackson.

1:13:18Cousin Sal:You weren't favored over the Raiders and the Steelers? What are you talking about?

1:13:21Bill Simmons:It was the year where we were favored to win the AFC. Yeah, 2009. No, 1978, maybe. Really? One of those years. Yeah, we were like... Like when Denver won? We almost made the Super Bowl in 76. We got robbed in the Raiders game.

1:13:34Cousin Sal:We were good. All right. I'm trying to think of another tight end that made a team great that was not great, but watchable.

1:13:44Cousin Sal:I'll come off with it. Kellen Winslow. That team was good, though. Gonzalez. Good team.

1:13:50Bill Simmons:Ben Coates? Maybe. One more thing from that game. 68-yard field goal. We've talked about this before. Not even a blip. I don't even think it made SportsCenter that somebody broke the record by two yards. So I think 75 yards has to be the number that people would actually be impressed by at this point. Interesting. 68, it's bouncing off people. 70, I don't even think people would care. 75, we're like, oh, wow, that's long.

1:14:19Cousin Sal:75. Yeah, I want this to go up the record one per year for the rest of my life.

1:14:25Bill Simmons:So 101 yards?

1:14:27Cousin Sal:101. I'm not going another 33 years, no. But if I got another 15, 16 years. Matter of fact, nerd clusters. 84-yard field goal is what I want to see. Yeah, but you're right. There were only three games played in that late window. And the guy kicked their 68-yard field goal. And it was like, all right, if we get to it, we get to it.

1:14:45Bill Simmons:There should never be less than four games in the late window. Right. Amen. They should have moved the Houston game.

1:14:51Cousin Sal:I thought the Colts Steelers would move. Or Colts Steelers. But they wanted all the eyes, the CBS eyes on Buffalo, Casey.

1:15:01Bill Simmons:Ram Saints, nothing to report here except Stafford is the MVP candidate of the week. That'll be a story to my own. Stafford, why isn't he the MVP? Last year was Jonathan Taylor. This week will be Stafford. Plus 500. It's moving up. Chargers, Titans. Herbert, eight picks this year and a couple of really bad ones. It's like year five for him.

1:15:23Cousin Sal:He just doesn't care, I don't think. He is just slinging it. It's Brett Farvish, I think. I got to be honest, I didn't have this on. This is the one that kicked in until it got close to the spread at the end.

1:15:34Bill Simmons:I had this on instead of the Packer again. Chargers, to be a sneaky fallout of the playoffs team, right now they're six and three. There's three, seven, and two teams. Chargers are 6-3 Buffalo is 6-2 Chargers rest of the way Pittsburgh at home their road games at Jacksonville at KC at Dallas, at Denver and they also have Philly and Houston in LA and if their offensive line is going to look like it did in the second half of the game and how it's looked without Joe Wild I think this is a team that could drop out

1:16:10Cousin Sal:I think that could go from 6-3

1:16:12Bill Simmons:to nine and eight seems conceivable.

1:16:14Cousin Sal:Really? All right. So let's see. Three more wins here. Fandle agrees with you. Minus 225. So they're right there.

1:16:24Bill Simmons:Ten wins, we think? Yeah. That has to be AFC. You can't get in with nine, I don't think. I think it has to be ten. No, I don't think nine. So... I think four wins is going to be hard for them.

1:16:40Cousin Sal:They're done with the Raiders?

1:16:41Bill Simmons:KC is going to need the game.

1:16:43Cousin Sal:Definitely. When they play Denver in week 18,

1:16:47Bill Simmons:that might be Denver playing for the one seed. They're going to give a shit about that. Philly. So it'll come down to Pittsburgh. If they lose to Pittsburgh next week, I think they... So that's Sunday night. We're going to go over this in a second,

1:17:00Cousin Sal:but it's Sunday night, and it's going to be 80 % Steelers fans. Yeah. All right.

1:17:05Bill Simmons:One more break for the pod. This episode is brought to you by TikTok. Did you know you can use TikTok to connect even more with the sports you love? It's not just highlights, it's everything around the game, including the sports community. Find breakdowns of classic basketball plays, deep dives on baseball stats, even videos on how athletes train and recover. There are people teaching strategy, sports, history, even ways to improve your jump shot. It's kind of like the biggest locker room ever and everyone's sharing what they know on TikTok. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. We are in the heart of the FIFA World Cup 26.

1:17:41Bill Simmons:Every play matters here. FIFA World Cup 26. For you, the stakes are just this high. Michelob Ultra, the official beer sponsor of the FIFA World Cup 26, is giving you a chance to win$1 million worth of tickets and prizes. Michelob Ultra, from the pitch to the poor, superior is worth playing for. Enter now at MichelobUltra.com slash superior access slash FIFA World Cup 26. Michelob Ultra FIFA World Cup 26 Superior Access No purchase necessary Open to US Residence 21 Plus Begins on December 1st, 2025 Ends on July 31st, 2026 Multiple entry periods Visit www.micleobultra.com slash superior access slash FIFA World Cup 26 for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details Keep going on YouTube Guest Alliance Week 10 I'm up 6-3

1:18:33Cousin Sal:Yeah, you're up 6-3

1:18:36Bill Simmons:By weeks, Cincinnati, they need time to figure out a defensive plan. If they're ever going to trade Trey Hendrickson, this is the week, right? He doesn't have a long-term contract. Team's going nowhere. How are you going to pay him when you already paid your receivers in Borough? Why not try to get like a second or a third for him?

1:18:56Cousin Sal:No doubt. Or maybe he'll just drive off a cliff, take the easy way out. Poor guy.

1:19:02Bill Simmons:Cincy, Tennessee, Casey, and your team Dallas. Yeah. You get a week off from not watching them. So excited. Thursday night. Broncos home for the Las Vegas Raiders. The Broncos are almost definitely going to be eight and two on Thursday night. I have Broncos by nine.

1:19:24Cousin Sal:I had ten and a half and it's nine and a half. Oh, you get that. Shit. I got excited for a second because I can't do math. Nine and a half. Shit. I know what you're thinking.

1:19:38Bill Simmons:Can they just rest Brock Bowers for that game for fantasy reasons? Or if they've down 10, just not play him anymore? I need Brock Bowers in week 15 and 16. Don't get hurt in this game, Brock Bowers. Take it easy. Gino's going to take it easy. We know that. Gino just doesn't have it anymore. There's just basic passes over the middle where he had one pass in the second half. The guy's kind of crossed the middle. and if he leads him a little, I think it would have been a touchdown, but he throws it behind. The guy has to fall down to catch it. It's just a lot of those. He just doesn't have it anymore.

1:20:11Bill Simmons:It's too bad. Germany game. Colts-Falcons. Pretty good game.

1:20:20Cousin Sal:Yeah. I feel like there's going to be like...

1:20:23Bill Simmons:Does Gendell like Germany more than England? That's my takeaway from this year.

1:20:26Cousin Sal:I think Gendell's going to be like, hey, we didn't realize these teams were going to be decent at this point. We'd like to take a rain check. We'll send you something else. Hey, the Jets are playing the Browns. We'll send you that instead.

1:20:37Bill Simmons:Let's get started in another world war. England's like, what the hell? Germany.

1:20:45Cousin Sal:Colts, neutral field. I have in Vegas, I'm five and a half over the Falcons. Is this going to be one of these days? I had five. It's six and a half. Oh.

1:20:57Bill Simmons:So what does that mean if it was Indianapolis? So it'd be Colts by eight. Well, what was your team?

1:21:01Cousin Sal:Your team opened at five and a half at home, right? The Colts are, right. It went down to four and a half, but the Colts are power ranked. Couple points better than Patriots. I guess that makes sense. Yeah.

1:21:14Bill Simmons:If we were playing the Falcons on a neutral field, that would have been like three or three and a half.

1:21:18Cousin Sal:Right. Right. Yeah. I think that's fair. You just don't know what Atlanta team's ever going to show up here.

1:21:25Bill Simmons:Sunday's marquee game. We did it, Sal. We're back. You made it. The Patriots are in the Sunday marquee game. No argument. They're sending Nansen Romo and Tracy Woodson. Romo's going to do that. Okay, Jim. Here we go. Here we go, Jim. Drink, mate.

1:21:49Cousin Sal:How did he do that? Do you think he had to pay the Howard Letterman's estate? Is Howard Letterman still alive for that? Okay, Jim. I have Larry Holmes four rows to two

1:22:01Bill Simmons:I love Terrell Letterman

1:22:02Cousin Sal:that was great

1:22:04Bill Simmons:I have this as a hardcore tic-tac game Bucs minus one and a half at home against the New England Patriots

1:22:11Cousin Sal:good I get this one from you I said three it is two and a half oh look how insulted you are well so how healthy are the Bucs going to be well I mean you're playing them at their best spot right That's off a buy. Yeah, they were off this year. I don't know how healthy.

1:22:32Bill Simmons:This guillotine league that we're in, which I've really enjoyed. It's the best.

1:22:38Cousin Sal:Everyone do a guillotine league. It's so much better. I just want to say, it's like the scramble you have to make to add drop players every week. Whereas in your other leagues, there's no players on the waiver wire.

1:22:49Bill Simmons:Yeah, because every time somebody gets voted out, you get their players. Or you get to beat on them.

1:22:54Cousin Sal:Feeding frenzy, right.

1:22:55Bill Simmons:So I tried to gamble this year and tried to not spend a lot of our$1 ,000 budget on free agents. And just tried to patch it together week after week, hoping if we could get to like week 10, I'd have more money than everybody else. And today I had Caleb Williams, who had 38.7 points and single-handedly carried me. I had Bucky Irving, Mayfield, and Anik Buka on the bench. And I had more money than everyone else. I'm starting to get ideas.

1:23:22Cousin Sal:And there's only four bench players, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty good.

1:23:27Bill Simmons:Starting to get ideas. Good.

1:23:28Cousin Sal:I hope they light up your Patriots next week. You'll be happy.

1:23:31Bill Simmons:Well, Bucky Irvin, I think, will be back, right?

1:23:33Cousin Sal:They were saying it looks decent that he's back, yeah. Yeah, I have a bunch of leagues, too.

1:23:39Bill Simmons:This is a tough... You know, obviously, the Pats have won a few in a row here. You could lose one here. What is it? Six in a row?

1:23:45Cousin Sal:And six in a row against the spread? Just enough. It's enough. Let the other kids have a shot.

1:23:51Bill Simmons:I do think they're going to make a trade. I really do. I think they're going to add somebody important. I think they're going to add an impact guy. I think the AFC is wide open, and they know what they need. They need a pass rusher. If they got an awesome linebacker, probably not conceivable, but yeah, offensive line, everybody's looking for that, whatever. Pass rusher and extra receiver they need.

1:24:11Cousin Sal:It's going to be Vita Vea, taking right off the Tampa roster, throwing right in there head-to-head Sunday.

1:24:17Bill Simmons:Watchables, I only got one. Rams at San Francisco. I have the Rams favored by three points.

1:24:27Cousin Sal:Yeah, I said one and a half. It is. It's three exactly. No, it's three and a half, but you get it. Three and a half it went to. Probably Purdy for this? I mean, you keep saying that. Probably every Sunday night we've said probably Purdy, but... Mac Jones looked good today. Maybe they don't want him to come back. No, no, he looked okay.

1:24:47Bill Simmons:Did these teams play already?

1:24:48Cousin Sal:Yeah, they played that Thursday night game, right?

1:24:49Bill Simmons:Oh, yeah, they beat them.

1:24:50Cousin Sal:Yeah. Yeah.

1:24:53Bill Simmons:So, bigger game for the Rams because they need to split this with the Niners or else... Mm-hmm. Yeah.

1:25:02Bill Simmons:Okay. That's our last watchable. Sorry, Sal. Is that really it? We have four fairly watchables. Ravens at Minnesota? Yeah, that was the... Would you put that in a watchable? I guess that should be in a watchable. At this point, it is.

1:25:16Cousin Sal:Vikings play good enough.

1:25:17Bill Simmons:Yeah, I think that's fair.

1:25:19Cousin Sal:I'll put that in there. I have the Ravens favored in that game by one and a half.

1:25:29Bill Simmons:Oh, I said four and a half. It is three and a half. Really?

1:25:36Cousin Sal:Yeah, really.

1:25:37Bill Simmons:So we're just all in on the Ravens as a contender again,

1:25:39Cousin Sal:even though they're three and five, really?

1:25:42Bill Simmons:Because they look good against Miami Dolphins, who fired their GM the next day and should have already fired their coach and benched their quarterback. We're just back.

1:25:49Cousin Sal:I think it's two... God, it wasn't against good teams, but it was all about the defense, right? Is this team going to allow 40 a game? Did you see the montage of all the terrible Tua passes?

1:26:01Bill Simmons:I actually watched that on ESPN the next time. It's having coffee. They showed a montage of the all 22 of Tua just missing guys. It was like six passes.

1:26:11Cousin Sal:He's great. He's really good. He'll be on Good Morning Football in two years? Maybe that's one of the guys you trade for. You got a lot of money. Good backup.

1:26:27Bill Simmons:Fairly watchables. Three then. Texans home for the Jaguars. I would have had this a watchable, but I'm going to guess CJ Stroud doesn't play in this game. Right? I can't say that. The concussion is usually you get scratched for a week. Right. So knowing that, I'm going to say Texans by two and a half at home against the Jaguars.

1:26:46Cousin Sal:All right, I eased this one. I said one. It's one and a half. Okay. That'll move around a bunch, though, right?

1:26:54Bill Simmons:I thought ETN was really good today.

1:26:56Cousin Sal:Yeah, he did everything but score. I have him in fantasy. He really had a huge impact on that game.

1:27:02Bill Simmons:Brian Thomas got hurt. Brian Thomas had an awesome play over the middle, ran for 40 yards, and got hurt. It was just when it was like, here he comes. He's back. Seahawks home for the Cardinals. Wow. I did these guesses in the afternoon, and I guess Seahawks by six and a half. I'm bumping that to seven. Seahawks by seven.

1:27:26Cousin Sal:It's six and a half. All right, I lose it. I had eight. No, you won it. I had eight. I thought that should be higher. I don't know. Arizona, short week, going to Seattle. So you're playing them tomorrow,

1:27:40Bill Simmons:and there's a weird Brissette-Kyler Murray thing happening.

1:27:44Cousin Sal:where Kyler Murray's available but not starting. Yeah.

1:27:48Bill Simmons:Yeah. I think there's seasons on the line. You know,

1:27:52Cousin Sal:Kyler Murray is 9-0 at AT &T Stadium. He won like a schoolboy tournament there and he won his high school thing. I'm aware. Yeah.

1:28:01Bill Simmons:It seems like they don't want him to play because if he does well, then they're kind of stuck with him for the rest of the year because he played well in this Monday Night Football game in Dallas.

1:28:08Cousin Sal:Interesting.

1:28:09Bill Simmons:So they would rather play Brissette, maybe try to win anyway, but then they don't have this Kyler thing. I just think it's weird if he's available to play and you're not playing him. Like, if Drake May was available to play, we would play Drake May. Right.

1:28:24Cousin Sal:I think it's exactly that. Like, Brissette, anyone should look good, right? They don't want Kyler Murray anymore. It's a John Moran situation. Going against this Cowboys defense, yeah. Yeah. Brissette almost beat the Colts in Indy, so. Might not be that bad.

1:28:39Bill Simmons:Third watch, fairly watchable. Well, this might be a poopfecta if Daniels is out. Oh, yeah. Lions-Washington. I got to change my pick on this. Yeah, I'm going to change it too. Even though it's in Washington. How many points am I allowed to bump it up? Three? I'll bump mine three. You bump yours three. All right. I had minus six for the Lions, so I'll bump it to minus nine.

1:29:00Cousin Sal:Plus nine. Yeah. You get it. Shit. It's eight and a half. I said six and a half. That was dumb. Dumb. Five to three. You're up. Teaser? Oh, you love Detroit. Parlay? Detroit and Denver so far. Let's keep going. You'll find another. Denver? Oh, I do like those too.

1:29:25Cousin Sal:They're not going to screw us two weeks in a row. Come on.

1:29:29Bill Simmons:Broncos over the Raiders just to win by three and then the Lions to win by three. There's another one. That sounds great.

1:29:35Cousin Sal:There's another one for you.

1:29:36Bill Simmons:Oh, I see it here in the poopfecto list. You see it? Pills Dolphins. That's the one. Bills in Miami. DJ Mikey Mack staying for the rest of the year. I guess so. He's going to be spinning his records for seven more weeks here. I have Bills by nine over the Dolphins.

1:29:54Cousin Sal:I had nine. I got this exactly. Nine and a half it is. So there you go. Who screws that up? Bills just to beat Miami. Detroit just to beat Washington.

1:30:06Bill Simmons:Is it wrong that I'm still scared of Miami after that Falcons game?

1:30:12Cousin Sal:extended rest, they're home. They played them tough when they played on that Thursday night, right? They covered. Yeah. Yeah, you shouldn't be scared.

1:30:21Bill Simmons:I got to ask you, how many wins did the Dolphins end up with? Because I may or may not have multiple win total unders. I had six and a half and four and a half and three and a half on them for the season. Oh, man. Right now they have two wins. They have two, right? They played the Bills, so that's a loss. They played the Commanders in Madrid. Saints home at Jets at Steelers Bengals home Bucks at Patriots six seems improbable

1:30:48Cousin Sal:Jets and Bengals they have to split that for you to sweep the board here

1:30:52Bill Simmons:four and thirteen I win I think every bet I made except one that was

1:30:56Cousin Sal:good for you yeah don't get beat by the Jets or get beat by the Jets yeah at Pats week 18 oh two seed that doesn't care oh boy I'll be able to hedge it

1:31:13Bill Simmons:alright poopfecta bears home for the giants we don't apologize for wins

1:31:24Cousin Sal:we're 3-1 in the second quarter thanks coach I wasn't planning on it you didn't apologize to the dry cleaner who's he supposed to apologize to he might need a sedative before those speeches he's like too jacked up

1:31:37Bill Simmons:he gets too fired up

1:31:38Cousin Sal:I think Caleb Williams should paint his nails before every game. Just calm him down a little.

1:31:44Bill Simmons:I thought Caleb was pretty good today. Yeah. But then I kept remembering that he was playing the Bengals.

1:31:51Cousin Sal:Yeah.

1:31:52Bill Simmons:You just had to keep remembering. It was like watching one of your sons play a video game, but it's on the all-rookie level. And you're like, whoa, Harrison's doing really well in this game. And it's like the easiest level possible.

1:32:03Cousin Sal:You know what he was good at, though? Like, all right, the guy's wide open. Sure, the secondary sucks. He was pretty nifty in the pocket. He really was. A bunch of times I thought he was going to get sacked. And to me, that's not all the front seven's fault. They had a paw on him a bunch, but he was good escaping.

1:32:20Bill Simmons:I had him on two of my fantasy teams and had very high hopes for him in that Bengals game. Yeah. The Bengals defense might be the first defense we've had in a while where you just want to start whatever quarterback is going against them. I think I guaranteed 25 fantasy points.

1:32:35Cousin Sal:Flacco is just, you see it in his face. It's just exhausting. These guys just want to kill all the defenders. What did they score? Like 38, two games in a row? The only team to lose both games after scoring 38? Ever. That doesn't seem right.

1:32:50Bill Simmons:Jeff Browns in New Jersey.

1:32:56This, I mean, this is like first pick.

1:33:01Bill Simmons:This is first pick in the draft, maybe. Oh, you think? No, just it's in the Jets, Browns, Saints. Those are probably three of the... Titans, no? And Titans. But I thought the Titans looked pretty encouraging today against the Chargers. I had that game on. I thought they looked all right. They just had a good start.

1:33:18Cousin Sal:They had a couple big fluky plays.

1:33:20Bill Simmons:Can't more look good in that game.

1:33:21Cousin Sal:Yeah.

1:33:22Bill Simmons:I have Jets minus one and a half at home.

1:33:25Cousin Sal:You nailed it. I thought tic-tac, but I really, I don't know why I thought the Browns would be favored by one and a half. One and a half.

1:33:32Bill Simmons:I'm really worried I'm going to put this in Ringer 107 as a Browns plus one and a half.

1:33:39Cousin Sal:Right.

1:33:40Bill Simmons:Because you always love Dylan Gabriel on the road.

1:33:43Cousin Sal:You always love it.

1:33:44Bill Simmons:Well, that's why I hope I don't do that. But I just keep thinking of the Browns defense against the Jets. It just sounds delicious.

1:33:51Cousin Sal:Would this be a fun one to put your door in if you were ever going to try him out? In New York.

1:33:58Bill Simmons:Big, good game, right? The Sanders family needs something. Deion's getting annihilated at Colorado. Panthers home against the Saints with a chance to go 6-4. Their over-under was 6-1⁄2. Right. I have the Panthers by 3-1⁄2.

1:34:18Cousin Sal:I said 5-1⁄2, so we split that. It's 4-1⁄2. No. The Saints can't be on the road getting less than... To a 5-1 team?

1:34:29Bill Simmons:I'm not sure the Saints are going to win again.

1:34:32Cousin Sal:Yeah. Sunday night. The mother shockers didn't have a ton.

1:34:38Bill Simmons:Sunday night Chargers Steelers in LA with, there's going to be a lot of Steelers fans. Yeah. A lot. Like a lot. And I have the Chargers by two and a half.

1:34:54Cousin Sal:You edge me out here. I said two and it's three. Did you win again? 5, 6, 7, 8, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. That's it? We got a Monday night game. We didn't do Giants-Bears, did we?

1:35:07Bill Simmons:Did we pick it? I guess we talked about it and didn't actually pick it. Yeah. Bears home for the Giants. I had Bears by 5.5.

1:35:14Cousin Sal:Yeah, I had 5, and it's 3.5. Oh, so you win that one. I don't think that's enough, though. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. What happened? We ran out of games. These teams can't be on buys. I need more games here. I'm sorry. Come on again.

1:35:32Bill Simmons:Sunday night, Chargers-Steelers. Yeah, we did it. No, I know, but it just... Let's do it again. A lot of Aaron Rodgers in primetime games.

1:35:42Cousin Sal:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:35:43Bill Simmons:Right? And it seemed dubious before the year, but they've actually been pretty entertaining. This works out. Monday night, Packers-E-Bills.

1:35:52Cousin Sal:Sorry, before I move on, they are going to have to move Washington out. Washington's got some prime slots here. they play in Denver on Sunday night football. Can you bounce a Madrid game? A Madrid game against the Dolphins. That's pretty bad. Washington against Miami.

1:36:08Bill Simmons:That might, instead of a loser leaves town, that might be a loser stays here match. Yeah. Loser just has to stay in Madrid. Loser leaves the globe. Yeah. Oh, man. Hey, Madrid, we hope you guys like football. Here's Tua Tagliaboa and Marcus Mariota.

1:36:25Cousin Sal:We hope you like this. Good luck pronouncing their names. And then watching.

1:36:32Bill Simmons:Yeah, so they have Washington's on... I mean, out of all those TV games you listed, the Christmas one's probably the biggest hit. Oh, yeah.

1:36:40Cousin Sal:That's a really tough one. Yeah.

1:36:42Bill Simmons:Because that's one of those where you don't... You're not going to the streamer intentionally. Right. You're not, like, stumbling across that one. All right, Sunday night, or Monday night, we have Packers-Eagles, which I mentioned. I have Packers in Green Bay favored by two and a half.

1:37:00Cousin Sal:Alright, well, so you win anyway. I said two. It is two and a half. And watch the Packers be great and we're talking about how they're the best team in the league again because they look past the Panthers. Let's not do that again.

1:37:13Bill Simmons:Let's all agree not to do that again.

1:37:15Cousin Sal:They burned our trust too many times. I don't get it. I don't get it. I also think if you wear like 1920s outfits, you're destined to play that way a little bit. You're going to go three yards, a clip, and then you're going to get stuck on fourth down. And that's that.

1:37:30Bill Simmons:Not to step on parent corner, but the Packers are like my son where it's like, when are you going to be home? I'm going to be home at 3.30. Let's hang out. And then he comes home at like 7.30. It's like, I thought you were going to be home at 3.30. Oh yeah. Right. I went there instead. Now I'm home.

1:37:46Cousin Sal:And after a while, when he gives me a time,

1:37:49Bill Simmons:I just don't believe it until he actually walks through the front door.

1:37:52Cousin Sal:To me, that's the Green Bay Packers. Should we guess? I don't trust the Packers at all anymore.

1:37:57Bill Simmons:The Packers are like, we're going to win. We're taking this seriously. We're going for the Super Bowl. It's like, cool. I don't trust you.

1:38:02Cousin Sal:I think that should be added to a line. All right. Ben says he's going to be home at 3.30. All right. Bill, what did you pick? Sounds like 7.25. I picked 5.15. Oh, you get it. I picked 6.30. He had a good one today.

1:38:13Bill Simmons:He said 1.30 and he came home at 5.30, which is anytime he can be an extra four. And there's always a weird excuse too. Yeah. Always something with like the girlfriend. We didn't realize we had to study. It's always a we didn't realize. He's like a mattress delivery company.

1:38:27Cousin Sal:He gets a four hour window, right? Or a spectrum cable. Right.

1:38:32Bill Simmons:Be there between nine and one. All right. That's it for Guest Alliance. I'm sorry, Warren. Screw you. We do have, we do have a, I don't have the parent corner. I guess I'll have to do that read. I don't have the read for that. See, this is what happens when we're live on YouTube. We'll just have to insert it in after the fact. Parent Corner, go ahead. Let's see what we got.

1:39:02Cousin Sal:All right. So we're trying to raise funds for Cooperstown, which is the end of July, right? So this is my 12-year-old Harrison's team goes up there, and it costs like a lot of money, so we want to offset a few of the costs. So one of the parents runs a little league, actually, and has access to fields and was nice enough to throw a fundraiser where all eight-year-old teams from all over the area would come and play. And the 12-year-olds, Harrison and his buddies, would umpire, right? So they had to go through some slight training, but they, you know, whatever. They're umping eight-year-old games.

1:39:36Cousin Sal:So it's okay. So Harrison's going to ump four games this weekend. So two yesterday, two today. And I'm not going to watch him ump two games, right? There's too much college football for me to bet on. Wait, you were expected as a parent to watch him be an umpire? I don't think so, but he had to get there and I had to pick him up. So when I picked him up, I caught the end of his second game and he did fine. Like he didn't screw up, right? You know, it was just two close plays at first and that was it. So, and then he went back today and my wife, Melissa, was in charge of it. So I get home from watching games today and she says to me, she's like, I was like, how did he do today?

1:40:13Cousin Sal:She's like, well, I thought he did well, but one of the fathers was complaining about a couple of his calls. I was like, what? I was like, you were watching and you saw this? She's like, yeah, he was pissed that his kid's team lost. And he's like, well, we probably would have won if there weren't so many botched calls. And I was like, well, he was probably kidding around. Did he know, Harris? He's like, no, he wasn't kidding. And I said, well, did you say anything to him? She's like, no, he's an idiot. And I said, well, who was it? And he says, I don't know. I think Michelle knows who it is. I'm like, well, tell Michelle to tell me who the fuck it is.

1:40:42Cousin Sal:Cause now I got a, who the hell is going off on a 12 year old umpire in an eight year old game. She's like, well, he didn't yell anything. He was just very vocal. And I'm like, yeah, that's enough. If he was vocal and like pointing out my son, like that's, that's weird. So she's like, well, what are you going to do? I'm like, I'll, I'll think of something. And so I said to Harrison, I'm like, what, what happened? He's like, dad, I was right about both calls. The runner came off the base. He came off second base twice. It happened like within an inning and I called him out. I was like right there.

1:41:10Cousin Sal:So I was like really pissed off. I don't know what I'm going to do. But, you know, Michelle, if you're listening, I want names. I want to find out. I need to know who this is. And then I realized like an hour before the podcast, I'm like, this was me four years ago. So what can I really do here? It's all come full circle. Yeah, it really is. Such a mess.

1:41:31Bill Simmons:I still want his name. I still can't believe you haven't been in a near altercation on the sidelines. Yeah. Keep waiting and see that on TMZ Sports.

1:41:40Cousin Sal:Would that be just the best to catch that? I would love it. Didn't What's-Her-Name get arrested for that? Jana Soprano. Wasn't that an episode?

1:41:50Bill Simmons:Remember a million parent corners ago, my wife got into it with some older lady who was the grandmother of another team and was going off on the lady?

1:41:59Cousin Sal:Right, right, right, right. Yeah, grandmothers, they're rough. They are really, they get in there.

1:42:05Bill Simmons:Well, I found the sponsor, by the way. Today's parent corner is brought to you by Workday. Are you a forward thinker? Then you need an HR and finance platform that thinks like you do. Workday is the AI platform that helps propel your organization, your workforce, your entire industry into the future. Workday, moving business forever forward. Learn more at workday.com. My parent corner, my son turned 18 this weekend.

1:42:28Cousin Sal:Yeah, I saw that. Good job.

1:42:31Bill Simmons:When they get to 18, it's different than when you have a daughter that gets, With the sons, it's like you just start thinking of all the missed calls where they may not have made it to 18. The times they almost bled to death or the time when they fell or they almost fell down the stairs or they dropped a rock on their foot. It's weird. It's not exactly, you're not just thinking, it's not like a Hallmark card. It's just missed calls. but we had a party and then my son was supposed to be home today to help, help clean up after backyard, some stuff out there and instead took his girlfriend to breakfast and then somehow ended up back at her place and then told us that she got him as one of his birthday gifts, a puppy yoga session.

1:43:23Bill Simmons:You familiar with these? So this is something, This is like an LA thing that's pretty funny, actually, but I've never done it. I'm going to hate this. What is it? It's in Burbank. You relax, stretch, and cuddle puppies in a unique yoga experience. So that's what my son was doing at some point today. And he was supposed to come home at 1.30 to clean up and came home when it was dark at 5.30 and then immediately started making himself food. And I was like, you're going to clean up in the back. And he said, Dad, I haven't eaten yet. and I was just like happy birthday. I'm glad he made it to 18. He's now like more like a roommate.

1:44:02Bill Simmons:Right. I would say more, less like a son, more like a roommate that we're renting out a studio, one bedroom apartment to in the second floor of our house. Yeah. And he just kind of comes in and you have to go in and you have to go like, hey, the cable bill, it's, you know, we got to pay the last two months. I just need a check or Venmo me. Yeah, yeah, I'll get to it. I'll get to it. yeah, happy 18 to Ben.

1:44:28Cousin Sal:I'm going to, I have to hit him up. I'm going to contact him because you're not, you're not focused on the right thing. You want him to clean the fucking backyard. Who cares? He should not be doing puppy yoga. He can't, he can't do it. He can't. This is a gift your girlfriend gives you. Puppy yoga club. You say, thank you. I'm going to go. And then you lie to her and say you went and it was great, but you don't need to do it again. But they went together. They probably went together. They went together. Oh, Ben. All right.

1:44:58Cousin Sal:puppy yoga

1:45:01Bill Simmons:we went through a lot of the college app process which I know you went through with Archie and it's just so different than when we were applying to college a million years ago there's like early decision, there's early action there's the common app, there's these essays but then there's like these 200 word little mini essays where they tie it to what school, how do you see something like specific to the school and all these little things? And they try to flip stuff around and try to find out more of you. I was thinking about how haphazard it was when you were going to college.

1:45:37Cousin Sal:Oh, it didn't matter. It was like, where are you applying?

1:45:39Bill Simmons:I don't know these schools. And then it's like, yeah, there's like an essay. And then you got to send them a transcript and get two teachers.

1:45:44Cousin Sal:Right.

1:45:45Bill Simmons:Yeah.

1:45:45Cousin Sal:Does he have regrets? Does he have anything Carrie's yelling at him saying, I told you you should have worked here or you should have volunteered here because that's a lot.

1:45:54Bill Simmons:No, it's actually, it worked out great because he's writing a 650-word essay about how the puppy yoga class changed his life.

1:46:01Cousin Sal:Good. Rejected.

1:46:04Bill Simmons:How puppy yoga taught me the more sensitive side of myself. I want to do it now. It sounds great. Maybe I should have brought him on. Don't freaking do it.

1:46:14Cousin Sal:Let's, you know, we don't have to be that gritty, but come on.

1:46:19Bill Simmons:speaking of parent quarter yeah my daughter's in the playoffs next week for soccer oh nice and had a great season and it was really fun to watch her the Div 3 athletes cross the board there's a lot of colleges these kids are 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 grad school students they're doing all their stuff and then on the side also playing for these teams and they're committed to it and it's just cool like I really think like for if you care about sports, like the D3 athletes putting in the time when they don't really have to. You know, it's not like they're going to school for scholarship and it's almost like a job and they made a commitment.

1:46:59Bill Simmons:Like, this is a little different.

1:47:00Cousin Sal:Are you going out there for it?

1:47:02Bill Simmons:Of course I'm going out there.

1:47:03Cousin Sal:Do you feel like she gets more nervous or, I mean, I'm sure she's a pretty sure. She likes when I go.

1:47:10Bill Simmons:Maybe 10 years ago would have been more nervous. Oh, really? Look at you. You're all grown up. Nice. No, I just go. I have my little spots. I don't do the pacing. And it's really fun. This is it.

1:47:19Cousin Sal:Second to last year ever. If for whatever reason there's a 12-year-old ref, take it easy on him, right?

1:47:25Bill Simmons:There might be a 12-year-old ref for the round one playoff game. We'll see. Anyway, good luck to Emerson. Good luck to everybody in the puppy yoga class. That's a baby doll good luck, by the way.

1:47:37Cousin Sal:That was today's paracorder.

1:47:39Bill Simmons:It was sponsored by Workday.com. Learn more at Workday.com. So we completed October. We reached daylight savings time. We got through the World Series. NBA is starting to calm down a little bit. Now we have actually a feel for the teams and what's happening. Football is in the grind. Are you starting to get sad about football? This is right when it really starts to hit you.

1:48:03Cousin Sal:No, not yet. Not yet. Should I be? You tell me when.

1:48:07Bill Simmons:We're almost at the halfway point now. We're at the halfway point of the regular season. Right? Headed toward Thanksgiving. playoffs I guess we're no you start to get sad like after Thanksgiving is when the depression comes in

1:48:22Cousin Sal:that's it yes right after all the food is wrapped up and given away on Thanksgiving I was definitely I'm not going to lie I was definitely sad when Jordan Love threw that pass in the end zone to a guy in the opposite he really did that was the puppy yoga pass of the year so that was it but yeah And by the way, I bet, I'm sorry, I bet against your Celtics. I thought you were too high on the Celtics packing it in. And I told House Wednesday, I'm like, I'm taking Boston over Cleveland here at home. I'm taking the money line. And there you go. So you're going to jump back here. They're going to make a run at the NBA Cup.

1:49:00Cousin Sal:And then they're going to suck again, right?

1:49:03Bill Simmons:It's weird. Them and Indiana, there's just so much infrastructure from being good once upon a time. Like Indiana beat Golden State last night. Right. This guy, Quentin Jackson, Carlisle is just regenerating guards in his garage that you've never heard of. And the guy had like 25 points to assist. But there, you know, there's proud dudes on each team and they play these games and they're, especially like national TV or against a good team. And they, so I don't know. I feel like all these teams are going to be probably closer to 500. I wonder if the league's so deep now that we're just going to see a lot of weird Charlotte beat who?

1:49:42Bill Simmons:Phoenix beat San Antonio today. Makes no sense. San Antonio hadn't lost all year. Phoenix beat them by 20 and shut down Wemby. All these teams are pretty talented. You were very excited

1:49:53Cousin Sal:about our NBA Cup parlay that you put together. Oh yeah, what was that? Read that one.

1:50:01Bill Simmons:Philadelphia, Milwaukee, San Antonio, and OKC. and it was 116-1 on FanDuel.

1:50:10Cousin Sal:Just to win their groups, right?

1:50:12Bill Simmons:To win their groups. And then Philadelphia lost to Boston.

1:50:15Cousin Sal:That's all right. We'll get it back.

1:50:17Bill Simmons:But they can still get there. Yeah, we were excited. We needed something to make the NBA cut more fun. Yeah. All right, cuz. We'll see you on the Ringer Gamble Show Tuesday.

1:50:25Cousin Sal:Yeah.

1:50:26Bill Simmons:Wednesday. Friday.

1:50:28Cousin Sal:And then the pregame show. Maybe at the end of the year,

1:50:30Bill Simmons:we'll have you rank the shows and see which one you like the most. Right. Okay, good. And then Raheem, did we settle the thing where he tried to cheat on the Sunday pregame show or no?

1:50:38Cousin Sal:We didn't settle it. I don't know what, you could have settled it and you could have said minus 120s or less.

1:50:43Bill Simmons:I think minus 120s

1:50:44Cousin Sal:should be the highest you can go on a single bet. He gets mad because he thinks they're moving during the show, but it never moves against him. I just, anyway, he lost. He wanted to take the Chargers minus nine and a half and not 10 or 10 and a half as Vandal had it. And so, whatever, I gave it to him. But still in first place.

1:51:04Bill Simmons:All right, that's it. We're wrapping it up here on YouTube. So, Cus, as always, great job by you.

1:51:11Cousin Sal:Good job by you.

1:51:13Bill Simmons:All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Cus and Sal. Thanks to Jonathan and Eduardo as well. I'm going to be back with the Rewatchables Monday night. I'm not sure of the schedule of my podcast this week because I'm going back east to watch some soccer. So I know we're going to have a Thursday podcast and hopefully one more during the week. So stay tuned, bear with me, and I will see you a little bit later in the week on this feed. I want to see them on the way you saw that everyone said I don't have feelings with them.

1:52:06Bill Simmons:Connecticut, or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. This message is brought to you by Mariner. It takes the right team to help develop an athlete's talents. Managing your money works the same way. You've ever thought, am I getting the most out of my financial plan? You're ready for Mariner. With Mariner, you get an advisor backed by a full team of specialists. So everything's working together toward your goals. Take the next step in your financial journey with Mariner.

1:52:43Bill Simmons:Investment advisory services offered through Mariner LLC and SEC registered investment advisor. For more information, visit Mariner.com.

1:52:52Cousin Sal:Good energy in. Good energy out.

1:53:00Cousin Sal:Storm. Zero sugar, 200 milligrams of caffeine, and immunity support. Storm. Energy for life.