The Annual NFC Over/Unders With Bill Simmons, Cousin Sal, and Joe House

10:27Bill Simmons:It feels like. Yeah, exactly. I actually thought they should trade it for booty. Okay. I thought he was, I really liked him last year. I didn't enter. I get the Pats were kind of too loaded at receiver, but I thought the Texans kind of stole him. He made big plays for us last year. Yeah, they feel like a receiver short, big Goddard year. I just, I love good offensive lines. There's so few of them now. Right. Like Tampa has one. They have one. You know, Buffalo has one. And I just wonder if that's like almost a cheat code now. But they're D, Carter, Davis, Bond, Greenard. Yeah, four pro bowlers.

11:00Bill Simmons:Dejean, Mitchell. It goes on and on.

11:04Cousin Sal:It's nice. and the GM, he picks up two guys a year that you're like, oh my God, yeah, of course that worked out. But I feel like that offense, I don't know what their identity is anymore. It used to be grind.

11:17Bill Simmons:But can it be worse? They flipped the coordinator again. My argument would be you're kind of buying high on something that everybody's kind of given up on. But I always felt like they went too slow. Like they were almost trying to protect Hurts. and I just don't think they're going to do that anymore. Yeah, for sure. They play the AFC South and the NFC West in a first-place schedule. They don't play a lot of good quarterbacks. They play Dak twice, Daniels twice, Stafford, Caleb, Darnold, and Purdy. Sal, I have them over. It's a slight over. It's an 11-6 for me. Wow. But I couldn't get to seven wins when I went through it.

11:59Bill Simmons:I just think they have too much talent, and I think this is stupid.

12:02Cousin Sal:Yeah, I mean, look, they have one of two teams to make the playoffs in each of the last five years. So that helps. I hate that they have back to back. They broke that streak of like 22 years for the NFC East. Try not to get them a third division title. I have them at nine wins. They were eight and four in one score games. Yeah, I think they're nine and eight. And then I'm going to take the under the adjusted under. I think you get plus 125 for under nine and a half. If you want to do that. Oh, my God. Yeah, I'm going to shove those winnings right off. Big Dumb's ass there. It is a little bit. By the way, I still do this nonsense.

12:37Cousin Sal:I was told by many people, Alice, that there are websites that I'll do this for you. But I put the wins and loss. I'm like, oh, okay, I gave the Phillies a win over Arizona. I got to give Arizona a loss. I got to go to that sheet. So I'm a maniac with this. But meticulously, I said nine and eight. Yeah, it's more likely to happen if you're holding the paper. That's why you need the paper. Right, exactly.

12:58Bill Simmons:a big thing for me and not to spoil the rest of the discussion about the division but I think the other teams in this division other than Dallas are going to be bad and I'm just operating like Dallas and Philly can both go 4-0 in their divisions now Philly always has the weird Washington game every year right is it every year or every other year it's pretty much every year there's something weird like Philly's a big favorite you have them in a three teamer or a two teamer or some sort of parlay, and all of a sudden they're down 10-7 in the fourth quarter. You don't know what happened. Here's one other thing, Sal, before we finish.

13:34Bill Simmons:Well, first of all, new OC, better chemistry, added Jalen Phillips and Woolen. I don't know how they keep adding free agents every year, but I feel like this is like a last harass season for them because they have these offensive linemen that are talking about retiring, right? This is almost definitely Lane Johnson's last year. They have the Hurts contract. They've paid some guys. they have some younger guys that they hit some draft picks, but they're going to have to pay those guys too. They have the Barkley money. Like I, I don't think this is sustainable past this year. And I feel like during this season, if they need something, they're going to go get it.

14:08Cousin Sal:Right. Kitchen sink game for, I think a few teams in the NFC is weird to say kitchen sink for teams that have had success, but this team, the Rams in a way are all in the lions. I think are all in like, this is the window kind of closes after this, except for the fact that you're right. They play in the NFC. of which I gave one over, and it's going to surprise you which over I gave, but it's not this team. I'm going to be a dick. Is that what you're supposed to do from the Craig chair? You said Jalen Phillips. He is now on Carolina. They added Greenard. Oh, I meant Greenard, yeah.

14:39Bill Simmons:I like this, though, the correction. Okay, good, good, good. My bad. I meant Jalen Phillips. Don't do it for me, Hal.

14:44Cousin Sal:I don't appreciate it.

14:46Bill Simmons:No, I meant Greenard. I know. I said Jalen Phillips. You did. Phillips left. That was a really good house. Thank you. I needed to be corrected. I'm old. It's okay. So am I. Plus, House is awake in the mornings. That's one thing with House. Way better in the morning. East Coast time? It's midday on the East Coast. Yeah, he's really awake. Okay. So I'm over. You're under. They play on Thanksgiving. Could swing both of these. Dallas is nine and a half. And pretty straight action. Did it start at eight and a half?

15:17Cousin Sal:Yeah. And it bumped up.

15:19Bill Simmons:Last year was the opposite. You were up one and it dropped a win and it seemed like a red flag. Plus 175 for the division. Minus 120 for the playoffs, which I think is one of the single best bets. I just feel like they're one of the seven best. Yeah, I think they're one of the seven best NFC teams. Wow. 12 plus wins, plus 270. I would personally recommend the number one seed at 13-1 if you're going to do the 12 plus if you really like them. Best record, 16-1. Last year, they were 7-9-1.

15:46Cousin Sal:I hate this.

15:48Bill Simmons:Well, let me ask you this first.

15:49Cousin Sal:I hate how excited everyone is.

15:51Bill Simmons:Including me. What would you consider to be right now a successful Cowboys season? This is a what if? You're in mid-January. No, we're not even at the what ifs yet. We're not doing that yet? It's, let's say it's February 15th. The season's over. Okay. What's a successful Cowboys season for you? Now, obviously you could, you can't say the Super Bowl, but what's like a realistic successful season?

16:13Cousin Sal:Jerry Jones, not a stroke, but now what's underneath? What does he have? Those mini things? Yeah. Maybe it needs a defibrillator.

16:23Bill Simmons:Palpitations.

16:24Cousin Sal:I think, are we going to give our division picks at the end of each thing? Okay. I think nine and eight, and they don't embarrass themselves defensively. That's a success? Yeah, I think so. So you haven't even moved mentally to, we have to make the playoffs? I think that could be enough to make the playoffs in this division. I do say, I am really, usually, you know how it is. If I fall out of favor with this team, you'll talk me back in. You're like, all right, let's see. Let's say they beat Carolina, they beat New Orleans, and we have to go through all the schedule. I'm usually in and out on this team four times.

16:59Cousin Sal:I'm never usually in on them in August. I like everything they did in the offseason. I do too. I hate saying it. I literally liked every move. George Pickens was going to be a headache. They locked him up, franchise tagged him with a smile, right? Javante Williams, a miracle thousand-yard rusher last year for them. Good job. They got him. Defensively, I love it. Malachi Lawrence, Caleb Downs is looking like the best, the edge rusher from Michigan, the third rounder. Everyone loves him.

17:27Bill Simmons:Caleb Downs was the most predictable everybody going nuts about him in August. You knew it in the draft. It's like, this guy's going to fall four spots too low and everybody's going to love him and he's going to be awesome immediately.

17:38Cousin Sal:They extend Quinton Williams. Jones is not going to lose this Parsons trade. If it's the last thing he does, even more than making the playoffs, he has to be able to say, I won this Micah Parsons trade. So extend Quinton Williams. They signed Rashawn Gary. They're doing good preseason. Ed Von Miller as like deep, deep, deep backup. Great. Just in case. When House's team did it, I laughed last year. But then he had like nine and a half sacks, which would have led the team. Bring him in a couple third downs in a big game. And he's like a consultant too. Yeah. Pass a rush consultant as well. Preseason, he kicked the crap out of the defending champ, Seahawks.

18:13Cousin Sal:Yeah. They literally kicked the crap out of the Saints in a joint practice. in another joint practice with the Rams, they say at the end of it, they're like, hey, we're running wind sprints. You want to join us? And they're like, kids, go ahead. Go ahead. You do your thing.

18:25Bill Simmons:And you like the coach, too. He was good last year. I do. He's not bad. It wasn't like the easiest year last year, but it seems like the team likes him.

18:33Cousin Sal:And Iberflus held him back a little. And defensively, they were garbage. Absolute garbage. Has to get better. And I feel like their defense has not been the same since I watched them with House and you against the Packers in the playoffs in the living room. They lost their home field edge and they lost any kind of defensive semblance. But their...

18:52Bill Simmons:New defensive coordinator.

18:53Cousin Sal:He's like, he's 29 years old. I had them at... Christian Parker.

18:57Bill Simmons:My player rankings, I had them at 20 points, which isn't bad. 20 and up is usually around the playoffs. 30 points, sorry.

19:02Cousin Sal:Yeah.

19:03Bill Simmons:I had the Eagles at 32, by the way. Yeah. Quiet, drama-free Cowboy season for the most part of the offseason. Yeah. Like, no, you don't have some weird contract holdout or Jerry being weird, nothing like that. My what if for this team was, what if this is the team people seem to think the Bengals are going to be? Because I do think they're the NFC Bengals. But I think, because everyone, it was like, oh, the Bengals, their defense is better. Cool. You made your defense better, but you have a better offensive line and just a better offense. I think a more reliable offense in general. Yeah. I don't know.

19:38Bill Simmons:I just like the spot.

19:39Cousin Sal:I never really worry about the offense. I guess it is a good comparison. But when Dak plays, I think the number is like 11-plus games. They're a top-eight offense always. So they don't have a problem with scoring points. It's keeping them off the board. They're moving to a 3-4 defense. They can move to a freaking 1-6. I don't give a crap. Just do something different here.

19:59Bill Simmons:You got a good net rest edge third. You got 12 games in a dome. The road games are rough. And you play some good defenses. You play Philly twice, Houston, Seattle, Baltimore, Rams, Green Bay. The Giants twice if they're going to be a good defense. Who knows?

20:17Cousin Sal:Yeah.

20:19Bill Simmons:I'm a hard over.

20:21Cousin Sal:Really?

20:21Bill Simmons:Yeah. I'm a fully erect over.

20:24Cousin Sal:My word.

20:25Bill Simmons:Nine and a half.

20:26Cousin Sal:In front of Farrah here? Come on.

20:27Bill Simmons:I think I have them for 11 and 6. I did stare at the 12-plus wins at plus 270. I think some stuff would have to go right from a health standpoint. and you'd probably have to catch in that bad schedule like one or two of those teams in a week where one of their guys are hurt or whatever. But I think it's either 11 or 12. We're doing locks this year. I didn't tell you. You can slap a lock down on a pick. Oh, really? We do this in NBA. We never really did this for NFL. This is my first lock. Over 9.5 Dallas lock.

21:00Cousin Sal:Oh, man. This is so scary. This is just so he could yell at me. He's doing it to you. When they're 1-3, he could yell at me. is like, this is your fault, but... Well, they're not going to be one and three because they opened with Washington and New York.

21:11Bill Simmons:I'm not spiteful like you. I wouldn't give your quarterback a derogatory nickname and then really push it and say it on pods and probably wear a T-shirt for week one, a Drake maybe. Oh, I got to get that going. You're right. I like being right and winning money. And Dallas is going to be good this year. And I think there's five teams I like in the NFC and we just did two of them.

21:33Cousin Sal:I have nine and eight. And I have the Eagles at nine and eight. So we won't pick our division yet, but we have to make a decision.

21:40Bill Simmons:So that's an under?

21:41Cousin Sal:That's an under. Unfortunately, that's an under. Better than they were last year.

21:45Bill Simmons:So it feels like an emotional hedge.

21:47Cousin Sal:Yeah. 7 and 10 to 9 and 8, always a tough schedule. You know, the defense has a lot of work to do, really a lot. You know, 511 points allowed, 30-plus in eight games. Let's get that down to 26.

22:00Bill Simmons:Did that feel like an emotional hedge to you? A thousand percent. Okay. This is the Cousin Sell undersell. 9 and 8. His enthusiasm. Ridiculous. Full Quentin Williams season. You also have the Parsons not probably coming back to like week eight. And even when he comes back, won't be 100%. So there'll be a lot of like, whoa. Jerry did win that trade. Oh, yeah.

22:20Cousin Sal:Yeah.

22:20Bill Simmons:Yeah. Okay. Next one. The Washington Seawards. Uh-oh. They're over seven and a half wins. Under six and a half. All unfandled. Plus 125. under 5.5 plus 220. Worst record if you wanted to get really crazy, 15-1. That's so mean. They were 5-12 last year. 6-1 for the division, by the way. 7-1 for the Super Bowl. Plus 280 for the playoffs. They lost Tunsil for the season and I didn't like their offensive line to begin with and there's been, if you're actually reading the day-to-day reports really rough stuff with the offensive line, which normally not everybody has a good offensive line, but their quarterback is 127 pounds.

23:12Bill Simmons:So the skinny quarterback who got hurt last year combined with nobody can block, I'm out. Man.

23:22Cousin Sal:I have them over. I like them. I think we correctly sat here. Three in a row,

23:27Bill Simmons:we've disagreed? Yeah.

23:28Cousin Sal:A year ago, we said this is the regression team. They had a ton of luck, right? The Hail Mary, right? The house against the Bears and all that. jayden daniels terrific they're gonna get injury luck they spent a ton of money on old players last year this year they spent a ton of money i think top three uh 200 million and it's a more balanced age wise uh they were 11 months older than the next oldest team which is gigantic difference it doesn't seem like it offensive line that that part sucks for sure but they had seven games with jay Daniels. I have them at eight and nine. I think Owen, Sonny, Sonny Stiles.

24:05Cousin Sal:Stiles is a good pick, right? Always a nice pickup defensively.

24:09Bill Simmons:Stiles is a good pick, but it also might be we should have taken Caleb Downs by league week five.

24:15Cousin Sal:Yeah. They got confused.

24:17Bill Simmons:That's looming.

24:18Cousin Sal:Interesting. How about this? Wes Welker is their tight end coach. Tight end coach? Why is he a receiver coach? I don't know why. I don't know. He convinced them. Plus nine rest advantage. which zero opponents coming off a bye. I see like eight wins here. Three division wins plus Indy, Tennessee, and Arizona. They'll win a dumb one over Cincinnati or something. So I got them at eight.

24:41Bill Simmons:Not only do I have them under seven and a half, it's a lock for me. It's my second lock. Really? You haven't done a lock yet. I didn't know you had two. Only in the first division. Two locks out of you. I have two locks already. God, he can't keep it in his pants, cuz. I'm only doing the NFL. He's looking at Vera Fossin locking down everything. schedule. They start out at Eagles, at Cowboys, home Seahawks, and then they have to go to London and play the Colts. That could be 0-4 before we're even in October yet. Or middle of October yet, but I don't see it at all. I was circling the Dan Quinn first coach fired.

25:16Bill Simmons:House was adamant this morning over coffee. No way. They'll keep him for the whole year, but I didn't think he did a good job last year either.

25:24Cousin Sal:It could be a top five. Well, I mean, so many injuries. I think the fourth most injured team out there. So he's not building the roster. Like they tried to run it back after 2024. So you can't fire him for two years. They tried. I mean, Sal made the point. They got they tried to run back that same oldest team in the NFL that experienced veteran stuff. Of course, they had injury regression. The other thing was they were horrific in terms of creating turnovers because all those old guys are a step behind everybody. this defense is the big wild card there's seven new stars on the defense so the whole season will come down to whether or not the defense you know is different see house is representing

26:05Bill Simmons:because he's a DC fan doesn't want to see like a party pooper yeah there's been private conversations with house I acknowledge well the problem is Tunsil like what a punch in the cock how about this Tunsil what skill guys do you like on the on the commanders It's like Terry McLaurin.

26:27Cousin Sal:Is he the 30th best receiver in the league? You didn't mind Diggs. They have that. What is he from Arkansas? You got Antonio Williams, right? Yeah, Antonio Williams is good.

26:35Bill Simmons:God bless Diggs. Diggs played 35 plays a game. He's a possession receiver. They didn't have one of those last year. And by the way, was disappeared in the playoffs. I mean, in the Super Bowl, I didn't even think he played. The running back goes by Bill. And the tight end coach is Wes Welker. You should be in on this thing. I'm out. It's a great point. It's a hard effort. Jake the tight end from Tennessee. Who did you have for this? Huh? How'd you have for the over for this for your own team? I can't remember what we said on the NFC East show. Eight is a super hard number to get to because this schedule is just a punch in the dick.

27:07Bill Simmons:You can't remember if you have over or under? Do you want some more coffee? It's on the Ringer Wiseguy show. I bet I did the over and said eight wins.

27:16Cousin Sal:David Blau, the new offensive coordinator. You remember betting him on Thanksgiving? Yeah, we won some money on Blau.

27:20Bill Simmons:All right. I don't see it at all. The other thing I don't like Because near the end of the season, they have add Vikings, add Jaguars, and then the Cowboys. And I just think, unless the Cowboys are like the one seed, that game is going to actually mean something for the Cowboys. Four of their last five are Houston, Minnesota, Jacksonville, and Dallas. They have a stretch week eight, week nine, week ten. Home Eagles on a Sunday night. Home Rams the next week. And then at Giants on a Thursday night game. that's three in a row and that's like that's the one where

27:54Cousin Sal:it's funny because I look at that 10 to 13 stretch Giants, Cincinnati, Arizona, Tennessee like if they're anywhere near four wins at that point they're an over

28:02Bill Simmons:under for you over lock for me so I've done two locks no other way

28:08Cousin Sal:you went on you are under

28:09Bill Simmons:I'm under you're over that's what I said

28:11Cousin Sal:yep that's what you said

28:14Bill Simmons:second mistake of the pot house it's more pace for 20

28:18Cousin Sal:Netflix you know Chappelle makes mistakes all the time

28:20Bill Simmons:Netflix is like Like, what's going on? Where's the true crime stuff? Are these guys going to try to kill each other? Last one, the Giants. The over-under is 7.5. Pretty even juice on that. Plus 550 for division. They were 4-13 last year. They are plus 265 to make the playoffs. Plus 290 for 10-plus wins. I'd probably recommend that. Under 5.5 plus 250. Worst record, 20-1. First what if for me. what if Jackson Dart plays eight games or less yeah well guess what he's going to play eight games or less so what's your what's your pick knowing that Jackson Dart will not make it to ten games this season

29:02Cousin Sal:yeah I mean

29:02Bill Simmons:he gets hurt every other game

29:04Cousin Sal:how would we analyze Tua like three years ago it's like well he's not going to make it or right and then we were right he didn't make it this will be the same thing

29:13Bill Simmons:yeah

29:13Cousin Sal:and I don't know man maybe you should pass me on this I should pass because I just I just hate this team so much, but I'm going to go under. I just don't think they have offensive players who play defensive football. Like Scadabo took out like secondary guys yesterday. It's like, hey, this is an out-contact thing. And Dart can't stay on the field. He's going to the tent. He's complaining that they're sending him to the tent. Like he's been to the tent 43 % of his games. Like, guess what? The league is not going to go under because of Jackson Dart. You have two concussions already. They're going to send you to the tent.

29:44Cousin Sal:Neighbors at least plays like an offensive player, and he can't stay on the field. Give me an over-under for those three core offensive players playing together. I'd start at like three and a half.

29:53Bill Simmons:So, Nevers, Scadaboo, and Dart all playing a start-to-finish game.

29:58Cousin Sal:Together, yeah. Five and a half? Oh, man. I'd go under. Yeah.

30:02Bill Simmons:I'd go under on four and a half?

30:03Cousin Sal:Yeah. I think it's like three, three and a half is what I would say. Like, I don't know. I don't know. You know, and everybody, there's a lot of pressure on us. We lose our media, sports media card, if we don't take a fourth-place team to win the division. I don't think this is it at all.

30:15Bill Simmons:As you know, I love nothing more than that. Yeah. And it's been really reliable over the years. And every year there's been pretty reliable picks for that. Last year was a little tougher, but the Patriots were a great example. It was like they added Vrabel. They spent some money. They finally had a good draft. It was just the easiest schedule possible. You could see that coming, and the odds kind of reflected it. Right. I just don't think there's necessarily the team this year. You're really jamming it, forcing it. I wanted it to be the Giants in April because they blew chippers on defense. They had two picks in the top 12 and some money to spend.

30:55Bill Simmons:We didn't talk about the biggest reason I don't think it's going to happen. I'm out on John Harbaugh. John Harbaugh, yeah. I think it's going to tie into what I do in the AFC too. I think he ran his course there. I'm not even sure he was good to begin with. I don't think this is like Mike Vrabel going to the Pats or Jim Harbaugh going to the Chargers. I don't think he's going to have an impact like that. And if anything, I think this season might expose maybe he wasn't as good as we thought because of what's happening with the Ravens and then the Giants. They were bad in one score games last year, right?

31:30Cousin Sal:Famously, the Russell Wilson one they blew to the Cowboys, went to overtime and everything. And then John Harbaugh is going to fix that. No one blows 10-point leads like he does in the fourth quarter, right? So that's what's going to be the fix.

31:41Bill Simmons:We talked about this on the Fantasy Pod, too. It's a classic ask the team's fans what their opinion is. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, like I watch every Red Sox game. Literally since the NBA draft, I think I've seen 95 % of the season. And like we have a shortstop, Monasterio, who's like a feel-good story. He's terrible defensively. And if you watch it day-to-day, so like there was a game, a national game, like two weeks ago, and Tom Verducci was the announcer. And he's the national announcer, he doesn't know. but he's like, Monasterio has been really good defensively. On my Red Sox story, we're like, oh my God, that's the worst opinion of the year.

32:19Bill Simmons:But you know, the fans know. He's not watching. And if you talk to any Ravens fan, they were completely out on Harbaugh. They just thought he was bad. Yeah, the canary in the coal mine there is how bad he's been on fourth down decisions and has been going on for a while. He's in the bottom quarter of the league and he's been overly unnecessarily conservative and now he's paired with Matt Nagy. Right. We didn't talk about that. Nagy. If you go backwards, he's probably getting fired that year when he threw Lamar in. Lamar saved his job and gave him the second run. I've always felt like he was a little overrated.

32:57Bill Simmons:I thought his last couple years, I just don't feel like he got enough shit for everything. It really seemed like some of the players were out on him too. This is a big under for me.

33:09Cousin Sal:Lock me in for this. You're locking in for this. Yeah, I don't want to fall too far behind with the locks. The other thing is no one gave up more big plays than the Giants. 124 big plays. And Dexter Lawrence's productivity tailed off a little. He had like five sacks, I think, last year. It's because he was double teamed more than anybody else. They've given up big plays, and the guy who was double teamed all year is gone now. So that's it. So that's what's going to happen. Toughest road slate in the league. Rams, Commanders, Texans, Eagles, Colts, Seahawks, Lions, Cowboys.

33:38Bill Simmons:That's another reason. The schedule is brutal. Rough. 5-12. And then they end the season at Cowboys Home Eagles, and I think both of those teams are going to have something to play for too. Yeah. And then the other question, we haven't talked about this yet, and it didn't apply to Washington, but as these teams get into December, if they're out of it, how do they start handling that? We don't really have tanking in the NFL, but I feel like we're going to have a form of it this year.

34:04Cousin Sal:Well, we saw with Jackson Dart, right, when they were out of it, like, well, we're going to keep them out of these meaningless games. So yeah, that's the closest you'll get to that.

34:11Bill Simmons:Or maybe you decide Jackson Dart's not sustainable as a starting QB. We got to maybe think of another one. Okay, so for the division, you have...

34:19Cousin Sal:I have two nine-win teams in the Cowboys and Eagles, and Cowboys have a better plus number to win the division. So that's my team at nine and eight. So take it.

34:29Bill Simmons:I have both the Cowboys and Eagles going 11 and six. So I'm going to have to recommend the division for the Cowboys. I'm leaning that way for the plus 175. Good for you. Don't get mad at me, please. I have Cowboys over 9.5 lock, and I have Washington under 7.5 lock. You have Giants under 5.5 or 6.5? What do we go with now? It's bigger. 7.5. 7.5. That's a lock for you. Yeah, I'm doing a plus adjustment here. House, we're giving you 90 seconds for each division. Go. I am super bullish on the Philadelphia Eagles this upcoming season. It hurts me in my heart because I have too many Eagles fans in my life, and I really detest it.

35:12But the way this division is shaking out, the step backwards. Washington was poised to make a big jump forward after last season in these injuries that we're seeing offensive line, and especially Tunsell's. Just such a gut wrench, gut punch. Bummer. It's a gut wrench, gut punch.

35:29Cousin Sal:Wow. The Giants are going to suck. The Giants are going to suck, suck. This is it for Harbaugh.

35:35Bill Simmons:This could be like a P. Carroll Vegas leaning more that way where it's like, oh, they got P. Carroll credibility. I love that. I love that. And Dallas is going to be better. I have them at exactly nine wins because of the question marks with whether or not that defense really will translate. But it's an Eagles division. I'm on Eagles overs and all the rest of it. Okay. I guess I have to stick with Dallas for the division. but I do think the Eagles are going to be really good okay that was the NFC East we're in good pace 35 minutes we're going to take a break we talked about Farrah and other things we're going to take a break we're going to come back and we're going to do the NFC Norton the Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by FanDuel where the football season begins every team is undefeated that's right even the Jets every fan believes this could be the year that the team makes the playoffs maybe even lifts the trophy FanDuel they're right in there with it you can bet on all of it you can use your NFL futures reward stack for an even bigger payout.

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37:17Bill Simmons:Man, I missed it. Kickoff's coming. Yeah, we're getting close. We're within a month with NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV. You get every game every Sunday, all in one place. and it's magnificent. And there's no other way to follow the NFL season. I'm so mad I didn't get YouTube TV until a couple of years ago because it's the best. New users, that might include you, can get NFL Sunday ticket for eight payments of just$30 a month. You heard me correctly. New users pay$240 or eight non-cancelable payments of$30 a month. First charged at purchase. Availability varies with NFL Sunday ticket for out-of-market games and YouTube TV for local and national games.

37:58Bill Simmons:YouTube TV required. Terms, restrictions, and embargoes apply. Commercial use excluded. No refunds. We were just staring at Farrah during the break. We're a little distracted.

38:10Cousin Sal:Yeah.

38:11Bill Simmons:I can't tell if that's a shadow or a possible slight cold sore lower lip. Looks like a cold sore. Makes me like her more.

38:19Cousin Sal:And Don Johnson has gonorrhea for sure. Just for being next to Farrah. Did he give her that cold sore?

38:25Bill Simmons:Well, we took a smoke break for Don, and Don still just continued to smoke. You can't be staring at me. NFC North. Hardest division of the eight, right? It's tough. You could really make a case for... There's people making cases for the Vikings. There's a lot of people making cases for the Vikings. We're going to start with the Detroit Lions, though. A sexy summer team. People really excited for them. They're over under a shocking 10.5. I thought it was going to be 9.5. half. I don't, did it start at nine and a half for now? Yeah, it was for, for a little while. Divisions plus one 60 Superbowl eight to one playoffs minus two Oh five, 13 plus wins plus two 70.

39:05Bill Simmons:You're better off doing best record of plus eight 50, uh, under eight and a half wins is three to one. There's a couple of these that hit every year. And we've, uh, we like, if you had the chiefs last year and you had them under even eight wins, that was like plus 400 November. I have two what ifs for you, and you pick which one you want to answer. What if this is the Jameer Gibbs, holy shit, 2006 Tomlinson season? What if this is the Dan Campbell farewell season? You can go either way. Pick one. Interesting.

39:39Cousin Sal:I think this is the do or die for the Dan Campbell kneecap biting experiment. I really do. We talked about like three teams in the NFC. I think this has to be due. I know the injury luck. This is completely opposite of what we're going to talk about with the Bears because they were like 31 in injury luck, 30 or 32 in fumble luck. It's all that crazy stuff. And I'll take both at once because Gibbs should be better dropping Montgomery, right? So should get a lot of those goal line carries. Good for you if you have the number one fantasy pick. But it's going to be a reversal of fortune. Can they not be the number two injured team in the league?

40:22Cousin Sal:Like, it doesn't. That's what we have to get past.

40:25Bill Simmons:It already started out bad because they lost Arnold, and they have a shaky secondary to begin with, which is the big fly. New offensive coordinator and hopefully better health. In my roster rankings, I had them in the 30s at 31. Their offense is fucking loaded. 31? 31 points. Oh, 31 points. Okay. Yeah, one of the 530-puts. Goff, five. Gibbs, three. Could be a four. St. Brown, four. Jameson Williams was like an 1 ,100-yard receiver last year. He had a lock. Laporta, hopefully healthy. Their O-line is above average. Two points for that. And then defense, Hutchinson, Campbell, Joseph, and Branch.

41:05Bill Simmons:And the rub against them is, well, Joseph and Branch are going to be hurt to start the season. Then you look at the schedule. Saints week one, at Bills, Jets, at Panthers, at Cardinals, bye. only one of those teams are going to be able to throw on them, which is the Bills. I think if they get out of that 4-1, that over becomes more realistic. I like the bounce back. You talked about this on the NFC North pod. They're underdogs in three games against the spread. They get to play the AFC East and the NFC South. The AFC East, Dolphins, Jets, NFC South, really probably three bad to almost bad teams.

41:44Bill Simmons:I'm a slight over. I'm 11-6. and I know it's popular I know it's a sexy pick but I think the schedule they get to play Shuck, Geno, Bryce Brissett, Willis Panic Sertua, Cam Ward who's been a disaster in the preseason Kyler Murray, Jackson Dart or wherever his backup is like wow when you put it that way it's interesting

42:07Cousin Sal:I mean because I think they're going to be a good team but it's going to win 10 games which puts them under right 10 and 7 for me it's a tough one the only thing I disagree with you saying as like an above average offensive line, they couldn't protect golf. They were like 31st. They had injuries last year, though. They had injuries. It's a little better this year. And they're still, they're moving Penny Sewell to the left side. Miller, their first round pick is going to be on the right side. So that's... They've at least spent money and assets trying to fix it.

42:29Bill Simmons:And last year they couldn't. Exactly.

42:31Cousin Sal:So they could get off to a strong start. You said it. Jets, Carolina, Arizona, New Orleans in four of the first five. We could be looking at like a 5-0 Lions team and then saying, oh my God, why didn't we dump more? The problem is they always lose one of those dumbass games like on the road. They'll have like 17 points with four minutes left against like Carolina. It's like, what the hell is going on here? I have Gibbs two plus touchdowns in this game. And it's not even close.

42:53Bill Simmons:One of the reasons I really like the over, because I do think they'll go four and one or five and oh, whatever. So now that becomes easier. If I have to get to 11 wins, now I only need seven. Three months to do it. Yeah. You can also really zag against this at the end of the year because week 17, week 18 is Bears Packers, both road games. so if they're 10 and 5 or 9 and 6 I feel like you can get out of that or you can hedge those games but I just think they're going to be good I think they have too much talent and whether or not this is kind of the the make or break Dan Campbell season I think they have one more in them usually these windows are four right they had two years ago it was like they're big they almost made it but this feels like a four year window to me And Gibbs is spectacular.

43:41Bill Simmons:I mean, the skill positions, when you compare them to the other teams we talked about, like they have a top five wide receiver. They probably have the best running back. They have one of the four best tight ends.

43:53Cousin Sal:And they have a quarterback who every year throws for 4 ,500 yards. Protect Goff and they should be fine. And I think too much is made of, oh, Ben Johnson left and this offense can't do it. Well, they were plus 66 point differential for a fourth place team. That's insanity. And they beat Ben Johnson twice. Right. So they'll be okay. How's you? Are you pro or? I'm very pro on Detroit. They went 9-8 last season with all of that injury. Everything went wrong. They went 9-8. And they had a top 10-ish difficulty in terms of schedule. This schedule is the thing that sets it up for me. You mentioned the division.

44:31If they can go 3-3 in their own division, you can go through that schedule and find the eight wins to get you to 11. so it's a good over for me.

44:38Cousin Sal:A lot of indoor games too. Miami's their outdoor game until like the Bears in January. Like that's their only outdoor game.

44:44Bill Simmons:I would have locked it but I do wonder with the injury juju with them makes me nervous. It just seems like they've had bad luck now for a couple years here. Packers over 9.5. Division plus 260. Super Bowl 22-1. Playoffs about as even as we get here. They're minus 116 to make it. Minus 102 not to make it. 12 plus wins plus 270. under seven and a half wins is plus 260. There's a couple of these, a couple of the all unders for this division. If you figure all four of these teams can't be good, who's going to have like the year from hell or whatever. It's a seven and 10 win candidate. They were nine, seven and one last year.

45:23Bill Simmons:Little fluky. Cause they, they knew they were in the playoffs with two games to go.

45:27Cousin Sal:Yeah.

45:28Bill Simmons:Um, my would have for them is they lost their last five games last year. Post Parsons injury. Right. Right. He's not coming back to week nine. what if that's just who they are? A 500 team.

45:43Cousin Sal:Yeah. I think they could be 500 until we get... I mean, I like this team a lot. A lot more than... Really? I'm so interested. Why? We kill LaFleur. And he's killed us on three-team teasers and parlays and everything, so... He's like, I've killed you, too. Yeah, we've killed you. I feel like to blow those Bears games, that second one, that was like England-Argentina. Like, they just played on their heels. Like, that's perplexing if you go back and watch that game. you had the conversation with Mina Jordan Love I think a lot better not just statistically when you look and I feel like they had seven of the same receivers and they got like five of became too confusing between the Wicks and the Dobbs and now so they settled on Jaden Reed and Justin Watson and those guys of course have to stay healthy but I think that's the best of the bunch Tucker Craft so you think they weeded out yeah I think it just got too distracting like

46:31Bill Simmons:I don't even know when the Wizards had seven swingmen oh here we go Christian Watson Christian Christian Watson. What did I say? Justin. That's okay. That's what I'm here for. No, you're good. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it.

46:40Cousin Sal:I did know that. Yeah. I know. Yeah.

46:42Bill Simmons:So you think they picked the best three? Because I would argue Dobbs is the most reliable of all the guys that... I just don't trust Christian Watson. You know why? Because I've had him in fantasy. I know, yeah. And so have you. Right. And guess what? The red flag is next to him by week three, or he's out, or he's coming back. The challenge flag?

46:59Cousin Sal:Or the red... Every flag. Every flag's next to him.

47:01Bill Simmons:Yeah.

47:02Cousin Sal:Listen, when the ball's in the air and he gets separation, there's probably no one better, right? I mean, Tyreek Hill's gone. So Christian Watson, I got that right, right, is the one. I don't know. They might not even be the best two. I just think it got cluttered with having like five different options. And now he could zone in.

47:19Bill Simmons:So they're only down to Watson, Reed, and Golden, who I had last year on both fantasy teams, who they never, ever threw to. Right. Gannon's the DC, which I liked. LeFleur every year is a top 10 offense so that's a positive. I really went back and forth on this and Tucker Craft I love. I assume he'll be 100%. I did like a better and worse in my notes for how I thought the team was better than last year I thought was worse. The worst like really made me lean under. They lost Dobbs who I thought made big catches for them. Their offensive line and their defensive line in both trenches they really lost like they're but now below average on both sides that's just a fact Parsons probably not back to week eight week nine range maybe even for your Dallas game not only are they only have three receivers left it's a position they've spent a lot of assets on over the years like I think Watson was a first round pick Golden definitely was but just in general they're always over and over again spending stuff they only have three left It's okay to have three receivers.

48:29Bill Simmons:No, I know, but I just feel like they've spent a lot of assets on it, not to mention the Parsons trade, which left them without a first-round pick. LeFleur, even though they gave him a contract, I still feel like he's in limbo. Jacobs got in trouble, had a thing on the offseason, not great. Their special teams always sucks. I had them at 22 points for their roster, which usually throws me toward the playoffs, but I couldn't get there. I'm under. I'm 9-8. Wow. I think they were 9-7-1 last year. I think they're 9-8. There's a team I like more in this division than them.

49:02Cousin Sal:Okay.

49:02Bill Simmons:And I did not want to have three playoff teams, so they were the loser, 9-8. But I don't feel great about it.

49:07Cousin Sal:I have them at 11-6. I think the Jacobs thing... That feels like a lock. Jacobs is troubling, for sure. He's going to miss time. But Marshawn Lynch is not a bad... Marshawn Lloyd, before you jump in there. Marshawn Lynch. And Marshawn Lynch. No, he's not going to do anything. He's a decent replacement. replacement. They have Zaire Franklin who had over 640 tackles in four years. And the Bundo said he couldn't cover like literally anybody in the NFL.

49:32Bill Simmons:Okay.

49:33Cousin Sal:The numbers are there for tackles. Um, the, uh, you know, the other thing is the NFL has a way of course correcting here. So they know Parsons are going to be out two months, a month and a half, whatever it is, three out of first four Falcons, Jets, and Vikings. So we could have a similar situation to the lions where this team is four and one. They don't have to do a lot. And he was concussed down the stretch there. When they were like 9-4-1, he was concussed like the last three weeks, Jordan Lobb.

50:02Bill Simmons:I think there's a real 0-2 chance for this team. Really? At Vikings week one, at Jets week two. Followed by 0-2, complete panic. Should we fire LaFleur?

50:14Cousin Sal:Well, I'll go back to hating him if that's the case because I'll have them win both those games.

50:18Bill Simmons:It's weird. This Vikings game in week one at Minnesota, I feel like is going to determine the over-under. If they win that, I think they get to 10. If they don't win that...

50:28Cousin Sal:I'm dying to know who your team is, and there's only two left in the division. Now there's more.

50:33Bill Simmons:They added more NFB.

50:35Cousin Sal:Goodell, he's always up to something. So you're over. 11 wins for them, huh? Yeah, 11-6. They're favored in 13 games.

50:41Bill Simmons:You've had a complicated Packers relationship. What do you mean? There's been years where you've really loved them. We bet on them to win the Super Bowl last year. Yeah, during the season, They came out the way they started off the season on both sides of the ball. They were incredible. They were definitely, I got some money down after they kicked Washington's ass in week two on Thursday night. They humiliated Washington. They were incredible on both sides of the ball. But the way the season ended, I feel like there's a hangover. You lose a playoff game the way that they did when you manufacture a goddamn playoff loss the way that they did.

51:13You don't, we all thought they were firing the coach after that. They should have.

51:17Bill Simmons:They should have. Can I give you one of my favorite theories? Sure. It's a social media clip waiting to happen. Can't wait for Eduardo. Put this thing on, Eduardo. Sports City Cluster Theory. Let me walk you into October. The Packers are one in three, and everybody's panicking with the Bears game coming on October 11th. That feels make or break for them. Buck season about to start. Everybody's like, what the fuck did we get in this Giannis trade? This is terrible. Brewers, after a great season, just getting bounced. Oh, no. They didn't even make it to October. So they're like, oh, my God, our brewery season's already over.

51:58Bill Simmons:And now Packers must win game, and it's just, like, all colliding. And maybe there's just a blizzard that day in October for the first time ever in Wisconsin. My old college roommate, Chip Kane, just sending me long, incoherent texts about how bad it is. But I just, I think all this stuff might be together.

52:19Cousin Sal:Badgers 2-7. All right.

52:20Bill Simmons:Yeah, the Badgers are going bad.

52:23Cousin Sal:All right. I like them. I don't know what to say. Okay.

52:27Bill Simmons:Chicago Bears over. Nine and a half is the over under. Heavy juice on the over. Plus 115 on FanDuel. Division plus 340. Super Bowl 31. Playoffs. Dead even basically plus 116 for the playoffs. 12 plus ones plus 360. Under 7 out plus 210. They were 11 and 6 last year. people are just spooching regression all over this team regression regression regression regression that's it nobody can talk about the Bears rationally because that's your impression of me 45 seconds it's just regression regression regression regression here's another stat here's another stat they did this they did this counter I'm all in on Ben Johnson I think he's 10 wins every year I don't care what's going on with this team and I look at it this way.

53:19Bill Simmons:So they go 11 and 6 last year, make the playoffs, have a couple miraculous Caleb moments. They shouldn't have been a playoff team last year, right? If they had just gone 8 and 9 or 7 and 10, but had a couple upsets and really showed signs and it was like, oh, this year, here come the Bears. Watch out for these guys. And instead, they threw everyone off the scent because they won like three or four weird games. I think this was supposed to be the Bears year. I'm over. I think they go 10-7. And I'm a fan.

53:52Cousin Sal:They didn't have a couple comeback wins. They had six wins in the last two minutes where they were trailing. That should mean something, though. It does. I don't want to get on quarterbacks like Caleb Williams and Bo Nix, who came from behind and won. That's a clutch gene that you should be very happy everyone in the Indiana area should be very happy that their team has, I'm sorry, Chicago area that has the Bears to win. Caleb Williams, almost 4 ,000 yards, which is unheard of for any Bears quarterback. House thinks he's going to go over this year, right? Listen to the wise guys. That's one of his big but that is regression like no other.

54:28Cousin Sal:Plus 22 turnover margin. Like that's if you look at Warren Sharp, how he outlines this, no one who wins the turnover margin at the top is anywhere close in the second year. Add to it, they weren't really great in the non-turnover drives. So Caleb Williams, this is nice. I appreciate his stretch routine. He doesn't get his black fingernails. Really, that doesn't affect them at all when he's stretching. By the way, Antonio Brown had some choice words for him today. That was tough. Usually holds himself there. I don't know. I got over an 8.5 but under 9.5 for the Bears. I have him at 9.8. 9.8? Yeah.

55:10Bill Simmons:So I have Chicago in this division and you have Green Bay. Green Bay is basically where we differed. I just think that last year was year one Ben Johnson. I feel the same way about Vrabel. Now you have the staff, you bring it over. Everybody's kind of learned the habits from last year. I think they have a lot of skill position talent, right? My big fear, if you're going to pick them apart, I mean, the regression rate obviously is a nightmare. but the left tackle, they have the worst left tackle in the week. Yeah. Right. The defense is a little sketchy, but I do think they can win some shootouts.

55:47Bill Simmons:I had their roster at 24 points. I think Johnson's a top five QB. They had that net rest rank. They're number one. They're plus 15. It's the second highest for any team since 1990. Right. Courtney, you're here at Warren Sharp. Sure. Who told us that Shadar Sanders' 15-minute sideline interview was basically Frost Nixon.

56:07Cousin Sal:Listen, we steal enough of his stats. we should go.

56:10Bill Simmons:No, we do. No, we love wearing a shirt. At Vikings Week 18. Yeah. It's interesting. They go Packers Christmas, but that's home. Yeah. Lions home at Vikings Week 18. And that's probably going to decide this, but... That's a lot. I'm zagging the other way against all the regression crap. And I think the Bears are going to be... I think their offense is going to be top seven, top eight. Wow. I think they have an awesome coach. And I just... not betting against Ben Johnson.

56:40Cousin Sal:DJ Moore might have been... I mean, yeah.

56:42Bill Simmons:They drove... DJ Moore was a drive him to the airport. He was about to the airport. The entire fan base was ready to drive him to the airport. And I loved Loveland. I thought Loveland came on. Kraft looked like Gronk in the first eight games of the year, first four or whatever. And then Loveland, down the stretch, he looked like he was the best tight end in the league. I just didn't have a lot of weapons.

57:02Cousin Sal:The Dungeons & Dragons guy... I think people are a little bit too in love with Luther Burden, who's going to start out questionable. Yeah. I just, you know, first place schedule now, six toughest schedule. You mentioned some of their, you know, Christmas, Green Bay, Thanksgiving, Detroit. To me, it's like, I really feel Ben Johnson's a good coach and he's going to, they're going to get better eventually. But he, he locked his door at the end of that season. Like, oh my God, that couldn't have gone better for me, especially with the things that I had nothing to do with. I mean, if they have 16 fumbles and lose only four of them.

57:33Cousin Sal:I get it. That that's, I get it. It's usually a red flag,

57:36Bill Simmons:but I wonder now if we're too obsessed with all of these things and it's, and we're just make, turning it into baseball with like, Oh, it's on basis 300. And that just means, Oh, listen,

57:45Cousin Sal:I am definitely, it's a pretty small sample size.

57:49Bill Simmons:16 fumbles is not like 160 at Panthers week one home Vikings week two. I think they're two and oh after that. And after that, I need to go eight and seven. I get 10 wins.

58:00Cousin Sal:They give the safety Kobe Bryant from Seattle, a big deal. Tough, tough for Kobe. The secondary is a little four months. Yeah, the secondary worries me.

58:09Bill Simmons:But they might not play somebody who throws the ball on them until week seven. I'm not locking it in, but I just think it's going to be a little tougher. Last one's Minnesota. They're over as eight and a half plus 430 for the division. Super Bowl 41 playoffs plus 140. If you want to get nuts and go for them for 11 plus wins, plus 240. They were nine and eight last year. And it's just bizarre to me that people, it seems like more people like the Vikings than the Bears. I just think that's abjectly insane. I don't get it at all. I did my player rankings. They had one guy on defense who got points.

58:46Bill Simmons:Van Ginkle won. O 'Connell gets points. Jefferson slightly above average offensive line. Might give them two points there, but this all comes down to Kyler Murray and my what if for you is, what if Kyler Murray kind of sucks? Why wouldn't he? Why the hell? Cardo's paid him to go away. Yeah. And then it's like, Kyler Murray, who knows? It's like, I thought we went through this already.

59:10Cousin Sal:He signed for$1.3 million. Like half the ringer employees are making that. Here's the thing. Had no other offers. Even kind of sucky, Kyler Murray is better than what they had at quarterback last season. They had arguably the worst quarterback. Carson Wentz played professional football for his team. And Brosmer. And Maxie Brosmer was out there. And Michigan hero, J.J. McCarthy. I know. It was terrible. That's the worst quarterback room in football. But if you put, you could analyze what metric you want in a quarterback. And I think his EPA is like right in the middle, like 16th or something. That's the thing.

59:42Bill Simmons:He's like an advanced stat. It's like, it's better than you think. It's like, okay, so I guess I didn't watch any Cardinal games my whole life.

59:49Cousin Sal:So he's right in the middle for EPA. That's fine. He doesn't run at all. You're definitely not getting the 2021 version. Can't throw over the middle. Can't throw over the middle. He's not going to get the best out of Justin Jefferson if all the stats hold up. He's just a horrific fit for Jesse Jefferson. And he threw in the deep ball downfield is 10%. He's like 31st out of 33 qualified quarterbacks and downfield. So what are you getting? You're getting a guy that hopefully won't hurt you, even though he did hurt the Cardinals many, many times we saw last year.

1:00:16Bill Simmons:So can I read you some stats? Remember the 2021 playoffs when they played the Rams? That was their only playoff game. And I picked the Cardinals over the Rams and I think they lost like 44 to 10 Monday night game. And Kyla Murray completely fell apart. Yeah. Since then, next season, 3-8 as a starter. Year after that, 3-5. Year after that, 8-9. Year after that, 2-3. He's 16-26 in his last 42 games. We have this in basketball. I'm sure the advanced stats are favorable. This is fucking Zach Levine. This is Russell Westbrook in the 2020s. This is Bradley Beal on House's crappy Wizards teams. I'm glad the advanced stats look good, but we all fucking watch the games, and this guy's not a winning quarterback.

1:01:00Bill Simmons:And you can't tell me in this division that you're going to win nine games with him. I don't believe it. I don't think their defense is good either. It's like, Flores, Flores, Flores. No, they don't have enough talent.

1:01:11Cousin Sal:Blitz-heavy Flores. They lose Hargrave. They lose Jonathan Allen. Jonathan Greener gets traded. They're, you know, depending on this Caleb Banks, this defensive tackle who has like foot issues and stuff. They have a rough stretch I penciled in. At Detroit, Buffalo, at Green Bay, at San Francisco. That's weeks eight through 11. I don't think that gets it. I think we're making Max Brosmer jokes around Thanksgiving again.

1:01:35Bill Simmons:Honestly, it's weird because in basketball, it's the opposite. People remember everything and hold everybody, every playoff game against everybody. And in football, we just get amnesia. Like we're just looking forward and trying to figure out stuff and we just kind of forget what happened. Kyler Murray, the Cardinals, not only did not, they were paying him, what,$40 million a year,$50 million a year and paid him to go away. Oh, yeah. And then it's like, oh, I don't know. KOC quarterback whisperer. He's the quarterback whisperer. He just had J.J. McCarthy, who was a complete piece of crap last year.

1:02:06Cousin Sal:He was terrible. He says he's elite, J.J. McCarthy. I don't know if we can go by that.

1:02:11Bill Simmons:You can't be the quarterback whisperer if your last quarterback that you drafted in the top 10 of the NFL draft completely bombed. Right. That means you're whispering, but nobody's listening to the words. Yeah. So I'm under.

1:02:24Cousin Sal:So you're way under.

1:02:25Bill Simmons:Is this a lock? I'm under.

1:02:28Cousin Sal:I have them at seven. So that's under. What's this number? Eight and a half.

1:02:33Bill Simmons:The number is eight and a half. Yeah, I'm under. I'm happy to lock it down if you want me to, but I'm not going to force you. There's other stuff.

1:02:43Cousin Sal:Yeah, I don't like this team at all.

1:02:45Bill Simmons:Yeah, so we're both under nine and eight last year. Feels like they're game where it's the only reason I'm not a lock for this is what House said their quarterbacks were so bad last year that even if Murray can be just not a bottom 10 quarterback, maybe that's nine wins.

1:03:02Cousin Sal:They had to win, what, the last five to go nine and eight? I still really don't understand how they did it. I mean, that Detroit game, they kicked Detroit's ass. Detroit needed that game to have any shot at making the playoffs.

1:03:14Bill Simmons:So they play the NFC South along with everyone else in this division, and they play the AFC East.

1:03:23Cousin Sal:That helps a little bit.

1:03:24Bill Simmons:And that means they get Dolphins-Jets.

1:03:26Cousin Sal:Right.

1:03:27Bill Simmons:That means they get the three South teams.

1:03:29Cousin Sal:Mm-hmm.

1:03:30Bill Simmons:That's kind of maybe where you go with, like, how they could sneak to nine. It's just a great coaching performance. Yeah. Kyler Murray's history was always, Raheem talked about this on your NFC North pod, really good first two months of the season. Mm-hmm. Falls apart. I just don't see it. I also don't think people even remember what Kyler Murray plays like. Right. Like, they think of him as this scrambling, exciting guy. That guy's been gone for four years.

1:03:55Cousin Sal:Yeah, that whole, that whole, that session of his life. I don't think so. They're favored in eight games. So I think they go under, under that.

1:04:02Bill Simmons:It's a possible tank candidate too. I wanted to throw that out there. The under six and a half is plus two 90. But like, if it's just not going well in November, do you just, or do you throw McCarthy back in? Do you see what you have there? We saw it last year. They won their last five games. That's how they got to nine wins. They were a tank candidate last year. That's not in the DNA. He's a sneaky first coach fire to Kevin O 'Connell.

1:04:26Cousin Sal:I totally agree. I don't put him top three, but he could, you know, they get off to a slow start and that middle of the schedule is rough. Cause he could do the whole thing of guys keep giving me these quarterbacks.

1:04:38Bill Simmons:Like why didn't we keep Sam Darnold? You fired the GM that made a lot of these decisions. Like maybe look in the fucking mirror. All right. NFC North, you have 90 seconds house. Yeah. So this division, every team finished with a winning record last season. I think we're going to see the exact same thing this upcoming season. I'm slightly more bullish. You're going nine plus wins on every. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if we get Fandle to do that as a parlay. Yeah. Every team in the NFC North will win nine games. I wonder. Yeah. I'm slightly more positive on Minnesota than you guys are. The fact is what we've been talking about.

1:05:13There's a floor to the number of wins out of this division because of who they play. Every team should have sort of built in six wins. So when you talk about Minnesota, six wins because they get the Dolphins and they get the Jets and they get the NFC South. And then a team like Minnesota, they have Washington on their schedule towards the end of the season. You can go through and find six wins for every one and then you're pushing up. So if you're starting from a six-win floor, getting to nine wins is not that difficult. And we have good positive cases for all of these teams in terms of the skill, even if that Bears defense take a step back and this Vikings defense isn't going to be as good, I still think that we're going to get to nine for every one of the teams.

1:05:56Wow.

1:05:57Bill Simmons:I think this is my number one pick for a division that will have a tie that will fuck with all of this.

1:06:02Cousin Sal:Oh, yeah.

1:06:03Bill Simmons:Well, they had one last year. Where the Vikings go like 8-8-1, but they also knock down the Packers, and the Packers are 9-7-1. But yeah, I'm predicting the thing. All right, so your division winner is who? Green Bay Packers, 11-6. Wow. I'm really surprised by this. Yeah. I have the Lions at 11 and 6. So you think the Packers, what were the odds on that? That is plus 260 you'd like for that. I have the Lions at plus 160. I can't remember a division in a while that had the favorite was plus 160. What do you mean?

1:06:40Cousin Sal:That's pretty high.

1:06:41Bill Simmons:Like, that's the best odds, plus 160 out of 14?

1:06:45Cousin Sal:You can't remember? your Patriots did it forever the Bills even before the Patriots got it.

1:06:49Bill Simmons:No I'm saying usually at least somebody is like minus 110 or plus oh I see yeah I think that's too yeah it shouldn't be a plus. Yeah we're all between like plus 160 and 3 to 1 okay that's it for the NFC North quite a division I think the most action packed most arguments I think it's the most fun to do the do the place finishes you can go in any direction I would probably go Lions Bears Packers Vikes would be my four.

1:07:16Cousin Sal:I would let you pick four division orders and I'll book them all because I think it's that hard. Make it

1:07:25Bill Simmons:all you can eat parfait. There you go. Okay. This episode is brought to you by my old buddy Paramount Plus. See you Sunday on Paramount Plus. You're streaming home for the NFL and CBS all season long. That's right, football fans. Stream your live local CBS games every NFL Sunday all the way through the AFC Championship game. Follow the league's biggest stars, can't miss matchups, and the season biggest storylines. Catch additional coverage with NFL Today, NFL Today Plus, CBS Sports HQ, Fantasy Football Today, and more. So sign up and sign into Paramount Plus today. And we'll see you Sunday for another thrilling season of the NFL and CBS streaming live on Paramount Plus.

1:08:02Bill Simmons:This episode is brought to you by the Hulu original series Chad Powers starring our friend Glenn Powell. This season, the walls are closing in on Chad's biggest secret and with his future on the field hanging in the balance, he'll have to win back the one coach who wants nothing to do with him. Watch the new season of Chad Powers on September 3rd streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. For bundle subscribers, terms apply. All right. NFC South, the bane of our existence just has brought us whatever the opposite of joy is. Unhappiness, despair, disbelief, year after year and on pace again. We talked about how you could go over nine on all four NFC North teams.

1:08:44Bill Simmons:you could go under nine on all four of the nfc south teams and talk yourself into it first one is tampa over eight and a half plus 175 for the division plus 140 for the playoffs 10 plus wins is plus 175 as well 11 plus wins plus 340 keep that in your back pocket um they were eight nine last year in a year where i would argue most things went wrong Baker Mayfield had seven injuries. They lost their left tackle. Wide receiver injuries across the board. Mike Evans got hurt at the worst possible time, came back. It was just a mess. Defense was weird. Weird season. Felt like Bowles was going to get fired.

1:09:27Bill Simmons:They really collapsed. Yeah. Didn't fire Bowles. What if they fired Todd Bowles eight months ago? Would you feel better about this team? Wow.

1:09:35Cousin Sal:Well, can I backtrack a little? Because I have a little NFC South preamble here. Okay. I'm going to blow my wad on the whole division. First of all, it's despicable, and I hate it. And I hate that we have to do futures for it because I don't want to have a bet on... Case in point, last year, Bucs should have won a division. I don't know how they did. Carolina backed into a division title, losing week 18 somehow and getting to 8-9. And then Raheem bragged about how he had Carolina.

1:10:02Bill Simmons:But meanwhile, he had 19 other bets over the course of the year.

1:10:05Cousin Sal:Doing laps for this Carolina win. Ridiculous. This NFC South is, they should call it the NFC DMV because it is the DMV. It's visiting the DMV, watching these games. It's tedious.

1:10:18Bill Simmons:What does that do for your DMV house? The different DMV. Okay.

1:10:22Cousin Sal:Oh yeah, no, yeah. The one where you have to wait in line. Tedious, inefficient. It stinks like piss. This is the NFC DMV. And why do we have to knock ourselves out trying to pick a winner when they don't even want to win? Outside of the division, they win 35 % of their games over the last five years. I saw that. It's by far the worst, right? The three of us have to pick a team to freaking win eight or nine or, God forbid, ten games. I have all four teams at seven and ten. And God bless me, I figured out a way, and it wasn't that hard to do. I did it game by game by game. So let's talk. I mean, there is many, many reasons to not give any of these teams more than seven wins or less than five.

1:11:04Cousin Sal:So you want to talk with Tampa Bay? Yeah, let's start with Tampa. All right. I think they're, first of all, maybe I'm a little harsh on them because they did win the division four years in a row before this. And Baker had, you talked about that, it was injuries, bicep, shoulder, oblique. This is why they won't give him the extension.

1:11:19Bill Simmons:We were talking about it for MVP on our Sunday night pods for three weeks in a row. And then by the end of the year, he was body parts were falling off.

1:11:27Cousin Sal:I loved it. People kept them out of their top 12, like quarterback rankings. I said, this is despicable. What are we doing? They have a new OC in Zach Robinson. that's a fifth OC in as many years. Like you said, they lose Mike Evans. I think it's a little better with Kenneth Gainwell, right? Bucky Urban missed some time. I still like that offense that Reuben Baines, a stud from Miami, is a little banged up to start the year. They get Vita Vea, who threatened to hold out. They're favored in nine games, but I still give them seven wins. Like they were 0-6 against the AFC North under Todd Bowles.

1:12:00Bill Simmons:You didn't mention they lost Mike Evans.

1:12:02Cousin Sal:And Mike Evans, yeah. so that's

1:12:04Bill Simmons:I don't know I don't love the cornerbacks on this team and I'm not a Todd Bowles guy but Gainwell I thought was awesome last year for the Steelers their front seven they nailed the draft I think they if I gave points in my player rankings for drafts Bain is like that was a miracle he fell to them their front seven is going to be really good like it's going to be get after the passer kind of dangerous good and this this Ted Hurst they took receiver in the draft who seems like he's actually going to play. And I like their receivers before that. I like Tess Johnson. I thought he had some moments last year.

1:12:42Bill Simmons:Like Buka, who got hurt halfway through the year.

1:12:44Cousin Sal:But I think they have firepower all over the place.

1:12:47Bill Simmons:I had their offensive line for six points. I had them as a top three offensive line. So they have that. The running game with Irving and Gainwell together. There's guys I like on the defense. I had four guys on the defense with them. the problem is they play some good QBs Lamar, Burrow, Caleb, Love Goff, Dax, Stafford, Herbert they also play some horrible QBs two Atlanta games Brissette, a Cleveland game Aaron Rodgers, Bryce Young twice, Shuck twice I'm all in really not only do I have them over over 8.5

1:13:24Cousin Sal:plus 110

1:13:27Bill Simmons:over 8.5 I'm making it a lock. Wow. I think they can go 11 and 6. I have them. 11 plus wins is plus 340. I think this team is actually going to be good. I'm in on the Bucs. I think they nailed their draft, and I think they're going to be healthy, and they're in a shitty division. You are a glutton. I know. A glutton for punishment. I broke the news to House this morning, and guess what? We started debating bets. We started going through it.

1:13:56Cousin Sal:they're the best team in the division, but it doesn't mean they have to win any more than seven games because they're the toughest three hour watch in all of football. They're four and 12 in primetime games. I think they're one on their bowls. They're one in nine since Baker got there. It's despicable. Their red zone defense is just awful. Anyone gets to the 10, just don't even run another play. You're in.

1:14:19Bill Simmons:I don't know. I think their front seven is going to be good. I think they're going to be good. Also, here's another thing. This is how much thought I've put into Tampa. So at Bengals week one, we'll talk about Bengals and AFC, but you can probably guess I'm zagging on them. Next three games, all at home in September, Browns, Vikings, Packers. Let me walk you through your memories of what happens in Florida in September. It's fucking hot. This is like Lombardi. I always used to talk about this. These games in Carolina or Tampa in the first three or four weeks of the season, where it's like 95 degrees on a Sunday or it's 80 with like a ton of humidity.

1:15:00Bill Simmons:The Browns, they get the last Deshaun Watson game ever. That's a win. Kyler Murray the next week. And then the Packers, I actually think they could be 4-0 heading into week five against your Cowboys on a Thursday night.

1:15:11Cousin Sal:Talk to me about December. That's when they lose their games. That's fine. That's when they blow all their games. That's cool.

1:15:17Bill Simmons:Well, they do. And we're going to talk about the Falcons in a second. I think the Falcons are going to be bad. So that's two wins there. But I'm in. I really like this Tampa team. They bit me hard last year. I get it.

1:15:29Cousin Sal:What was that Thursday night against Atlanta? If you could give yourself amnesia for last year,

1:15:34Bill Simmons:I feel like you'd feel better about Tampa.

1:15:36Cousin Sal:They're the best team. They have the best roster.

1:15:37Bill Simmons:They definitely are better than they were last year.

1:15:39Cousin Sal:Yeah, sure.

1:15:40Bill Simmons:So the question for me is, is Baker, is he just the guy who gets hurt every year?

1:15:45Cousin Sal:Yeah.

1:15:46Bill Simmons:He's had a lot of injuries. He's been banged up a few different times. Who is the backup? Jake Browning? Yeah.

1:15:50Cousin Sal:I'm looking. They have the Kansas quarterback. Oh, Jalen Daniels is fine.

1:15:54Bill Simmons:They have Werfs back. Everybody glosses over that. Like, we just made a big deal about Tunsil and Washington. Werfs was one of the best left tacklers in the league. They didn't have him last year. That's true. Saints, over 7.5, plus 270 for the division, plus 198 if you like them for the playoffs. Under 5.5 wins, plus 250. They were 6-11 last year. What if they played Shuck all last season? Do they win the division? We all love Shuck. Yeah.

1:16:22Cousin Sal:Well, were they 6-11 you said last year? Could they go 8-9 to win the division? Yes. I think that's the answer. I was going to pencil them in for eight wins, but then I thought 7-10 for everyone is funnier. And also, not great offseason, right? We got Kamara's banged up. Alave already. Well, they paid for ETN. Right. ETN, I don't know if he's a$48 million running back, but an improvement.

1:16:46Bill Simmons:But he was 10th in our league in fantasy points last year. Yeah.

1:16:49Cousin Sal:Jordan Tyson, that's not good. The wide receiver from Arizona State. pick. No good.

1:16:53Bill Simmons:Yeah. It's so funny when they take these receivers who couldn't stay healthy in college and they take them eight. The Saints did in this case, but these guys are top 10 picks and the draft guys are like, if he could stay healthy, it's like, well, we have a whole track record. He can't. Then he gets to the training camp. Guess what? He gets hurt. Was anyone shocked to see that Jordan Tyson is hurt? No. I think this can be a whole story.

1:17:17Cousin Sal:He was fun to watch when he was on the field.

1:17:18Bill Simmons:Yeah, he had like two of those training camp things where I'm losing my voice. You're getting emotional. Yeah. I'm really upset about Jordan Tyson. But he had like two training camp moments where he'd be like, oh my God, whoa, look at this guy. Got hurt. Right. I just want to say, because I have no other platform to do this other than probably this podcast. I love Deshaun Vele. He was my favorite random receiver last year. I had him in fantasy and he was like a God and then he got hurt, but he was like, I just keep an eye on him. can Tyson or Lave stay healthy is a big question mark with this team my guess would be probably not Brandon Staley is still the DC they just they have no blue chippers on D at all it's basically Chase Young's resuscitated body and that's it

1:18:04Cousin Sal:yeah I mean he had 10 sacks in 12 games last year I just the trade off it was tough for me to reconcile is number 3 dead cap money which doesn't that's really tough versus number 2 easiest schedule

1:18:18Bill Simmons:and they have nine home games instead of eight so nine in the Superdome Falcons who I think are going to stink so they're at Lions at Ravens first too so they're going to be 0-2

1:18:32Cousin Sal:we've moved on to the Falcons?

1:18:34Bill Simmons:no this is the Saints Raiders week 3 Falcons week 4 week 4 Falcons is the Hurricane Katrina anniversary game. They're not losing that. Vikings week five at Giants week six. That just feels like three and three. Right? So at that point, the over-under is seven and a half. Can I go five and six the rest of the way? Yeah. With the Saints? Shuck worries me because of, he just took huge hits last year. He's like a little Jackson Darty-ish. Less blue tent, but just completely fearless. I don't even know who their backup is.

1:19:20Cousin Sal:Yeah, I think it's... I wonder if we're giving him too much credit because he went like 15-2 on teasers for us. But he's like 30th in the red zone. He's a rookie. You know, it's hard.

1:19:31Bill Simmons:I'm changing my pick. I had them as an over 8.5. No, you can't change. No, I'm doing it. I'm doing unders. Really? I have them at 7 wins exactly, 7 and 10. So that's under. That's it. That's under. 7 and 10. I can't go 8. Keep everyone at 7 and 10. Chuck's probably going to get hurt.

1:19:44Cousin Sal:It's the easiest thing to do. Everyone's at 7 and 10. The crazy thing with the Saints, their home schedule is incredible. They only play one team with a win total forecasted to be better than 8 1⁄2. They play, you know, Minnesota's sitting right there at 8 1⁄2, and Green Bay is at 9 1⁄2.

1:20:04Bill Simmons:They play Tua or Penix twice. Brissett, Deshaun, or Sanders. Dart, or his backup. Kyler Murray, Cousins or Mendoza Rodgers and Bryce Young twice I'm changing my pick back I'm going over What the hell is going on here? Back over I changed my pick back

1:20:26Cousin Sal:There are no rules I tell you when the backups are you might change again Spencer Rattler, Zach Wilson Spencer Rattler is still there Go back under now

1:20:36Bill Simmons:Can I pick the 7.5 exactly? What are the odds for 7.91?

1:20:41Cousin Sal:You said there'll be a tie. It doesn't count.

1:20:43Bill Simmons:See, this is, but this is the thing. The end of the season when we're, when it's like, we're doing the total. It's like, oh my God, I had the Saints over. I hate this.

1:20:51Cousin Sal:I almost might let you

1:20:52Bill Simmons:make the pick for me here. Are you over on them? House can't remember. We haven't done the NFC South yet. Well, do it now. Okay. I'm under. I like them at 7 and 10. 7 and 10. It's just too much open question with the defense. I'm not, I'm not there. defense is bad.

1:21:11Cousin Sal:One more thing, and I meant to give this to you before you went on with the fantasy fellas there. Taysom Hill retired.

1:21:17Bill Simmons:Yeah. That's a win. There it is. That'll be the extra win they don't get. But fantasy Hall

1:21:24Cousin Sal:of Famer? Like, really like... I think so. Incredible. Most added drop

1:21:28Bill Simmons:player ever, you think? More conversations about his eligibility than maybe every player ever. No doubt. More fights. More fights. I feel like he swung weeks. Yeah. There was playoff games that he felt like. Right.

1:21:40Cousin Sal:True fantasy Hall of Famer.

1:21:41Bill Simmons:Yeah. Alright. Atlanta Falcons. The over-under is 7.5 plus 290 for the division. Under 5.5 wins is plus 220. Last year they were 8 and 9. My what if for you is, what if this is actually somehow a worse QB situation than Cleveland? Wow. What if this is our number one worst QB situation? Because here's the situation. Tua, who got paid to go away by Miami because he literally can't play football anymore, competing against Michael Penix on his third torn ACL, who hasn't even really started scrimmaging until this week. And Tua couldn't win the job. He was competing against nobody. It was like he was playing tennis against a big backboard and couldn't beat the backboard.

1:22:31Bill Simmons:House asked this today. Why didn't they just keep Cousins, who they're paying anyway?

1:22:35Cousin Sal:Yeah.

1:22:36Bill Simmons:Why not just keep Cousins instead of like, oh, we can get two of it for$1 million? Yeah, because he sucks. This is going to completely ruin them. I'll give you some Michael Panik stats. Four and eight as a starter career. 12 TD, six INT. 22 for 80 rushing. Might be the least athletic quarterback in the league. And has a bad knee. And they're dying for him to get back.

1:23:00Cousin Sal:Like Stefanski's like, you're ready. I don't care. Can you play in crutches?

1:23:03Bill Simmons:That's it. Stefanski is basically the only thing that's good about what they did. Here's what's bad. The QB situation. They took Pierce and Walker. They're two big first round picks a year ago. Pass rushers. We're going to have speed on the edge. We're going to be a different Falcons team. Pierce was stupid. Dumb. Well, he's... Pierce is out for the year. Tore his ACL. Walker got suspended through week eight. Those guys are gone. They lost all the other guys that they had. They have the worst front seven in the league. They have no wide receiver past Drake London. Their offensive line, which was always top five, is now no longer top 15.

1:23:43Bill Simmons:I think this team's a dumpster fire. This is, I have them going four and 13 this year. This is my biggest lock out of all the over-unders. Wow. Falcons, I couldn't be, it's a fully erect underlock. Another one. Sorry, Farrah. Poor Farrah. I just can't believe how bad. I can't believe it's 7.5. I think it should be 5.5. How do they have don't have the worst thing

1:24:10Cousin Sal:other than the Cardinals in the NFC? Because it's the NFC South. They can't put anybody that low because there's wins all over the place. They could be the dumpster fire and still go 3-3 in the division.

1:24:21Bill Simmons:I agree with you. Also, their schedule is weirdly hard. Here's who they play for quarterbacks. Love, Lamar, Burrow, Caleb, Purdy, Mahomes, Goff, Daniels, Baker twice. with a shitty defense. They're going to go to at Steelers week one. I'm betting the Steelers now. I'm just telling you. Home Panthers, at Packers, at Saints, home Ravens, home Bears, home 49ers, at Bucs.

1:24:44Cousin Sal:Yeah.

1:24:44Bill Simmons:And they're playing the Bengals in week nine in Madrid. They might be 0-8.

1:24:48Cousin Sal:Interesting. It gets easier towards the end. I think December is there. Cleveland, Washington, Tampa, New Orleans, and Carolina. They have the division games plus Cleveland and Washington. Week 10 Chiefs?

1:24:57Bill Simmons:They might be 0-10 heading into their bye week. I think they're going to be awful. Look, this is tough for Stephans. right? Two-time coach of the year. That's the other thing. It's like, oh, Stefanski. Stefanski was terrible last year. We were complaining about him the whole year. The Browns blew these games last year. I don't think he was terrible. He was a classic

1:25:13Cousin Sal:are we sure he's good coach last year? I mean, his best win was when he was coaching from home with COVID. When they beat the Steelers in the playoffs. But he also has these, like, shiny toys on the top shelf that I don't think either of the quarterbacks could reach with B. John Robinson and even Kyle Pitts like broke out a little bit and obviously Drake London so Kyle Pitts broke out a little bit

1:25:36Bill Simmons:just enough to get him a contract that now he's going to go back to being Kyle Pitts yeah House can you name a single receiver other than Drake London on the Falcons no because I knew Darnell Mooney was on the team for a little while but he plays for the Giants now

1:25:48Cousin Sal:it's like Dotson or something right Zacharias

1:25:52Bill Simmons:Drake London just double team him yeah he probably doesn't even make it through the year Zacharias branches the Georgia receiver they like. Also, here's another thing. Not only are they going to suck week three, Thursday Night Football. Week four, Monday Night Football Saints. Week five, Sunday Night Football Ravens. Why are they giving us the Falcons at night games? It's stupid. They're going to fucking consult anybody on this. Well, because of all that Bijon, Bijon gave us, that's the most fascinating thing for fantasy. Where does Bijon go this upcoming season? Not on my team. I agree. Not on my team.

1:26:24Cousin Sal:You have number three tomorrow. You're not going to take Bijon? I'm not taking Bijon.

1:26:27Bill Simmons:Is that right? I don't want anybody in the Falcons. So you just have blind seven and ten?

1:26:33Cousin Sal:It's fine. Seven is under, right? It's under seven and a half. So I'll go under. That's a violent, violent. Jahan Dotson is on this team. Olamide Zaccheaus. This is the fifth string wide receivers from Washington. They have all these dudes. I've seen both of these guys. They did a nice thing. They drafted the brother, the Terrell brothers or cornerbacks. This is fun. It's fun to watch.

1:26:53Bill Simmons:They're going to stink. I feel the strongest about this, about any NFC team. Last one, Carolina, over six and a half. division plus 340. So if you think the NFC South is going to, everybody's going to suck again, might as well grab the plus 340 from Carolina. Plus 245 for the playoffs. Don't do that. Worst record is 15 to 1. Super Bowl is 80 to 1. The what if for them, Sal, is what if they've had too many injuries already and this is shaping up as a bad juju season. They've already lost both tackles, who I think will come back maybe October. They lost their third receiver. They lost Nick Scorton.

1:27:29Bill Simmons:um who they paid money for um and it's just it this felt like the team when training camp starts and it's like uh-oh this happened uh-oh this happened um they weren't good it's fine you

1:27:42Cousin Sal:could say it they weren't good they had a what the minus 69 point differential for a division winner and by the way what's their can you imagine they're a division winner not many changes they're over under six and a half it's because they were disgusting they were seven and three in one-score games. They have the third toughest strength of schedule this year.

1:28:00Bill Simmons:They don't know what to do with Bryce. They didn't even give him an extension or anything. They didn't.

1:28:03Cousin Sal:If anyone needed a 50-year guarantee to check out to see if he's good, and I don't think that he is. He's 31st in EPA. What do you need to see? I have them 7-10, but I felt like they're as lucky as you could get, as the team was.

1:28:19Bill Simmons:I had them at 7-10 as well because I really like the Rams playoff game. they played. I thought they had a couple games last year where they threw some punches. We watched that at Chaggy's. That was the Chaggy's. They threw some punches against good teams. We also, House and I, sat next to Jalen Coker. Yeah. At the Bob Cousy game. Love Jalen Coker. And he was talking about how he was really mad. He felt like they could have beaten the Rams. And he wasn't like saying it. Like he was serious. Right. So I'm slight over for this.

1:28:52Cousin Sal:You talk about three, three, we have to watch them three primetime games too. Two on the road at Philly and at Green Bay.

1:28:57Bill Simmons:I wrote about this once back when my fingers worked like 20 years ago. The backhanded compliment scale for starting QBs. From 1 to 10. 1.0 is shrugging helplessly. I think that's Cleveland and maybe Atlanta this year. Right. 2.0 is, I mean, he's not a train wreck or anything. 3.0 is you could do worse. 4.0 is you could definitely do worse. 5.0 is, I'll tell you, he's not bad. 6.0 is throws a good deep ball. I will say that. 7.0 is say what you want about the guy, but he makes plays. Baker Mayfield. 8.0. It's not pretty, but he's pretty effective. Number 9.0 is you could make the playoffs with this guy.

1:29:43Bill Simmons:And 10.0 is look, if the Ravens can win a Super Bowl with Trent Dilfer, dot, dot, dot. Hit it, Paul. My question for you is where is Bryce Young in this? Is he a You could do worse, or is he you could definitely do worse?

1:29:57Cousin Sal:He's an 11.0. When the hell do we see Kenny Pickett?

1:30:01Bill Simmons:I would add one to him. So you're at Shrugging Help Us.

1:30:03Cousin Sal:Yeah, I mean, look, again, very lucky. Give him seven wins. Let him fight it out. Week 18 with everyone else. I know. I'm no fun with this division. I'm sorry. But you're not going to convince me to bet a future on it.

1:30:15Bill Simmons:Better and worse. Year two of McMillan is probably the one better. They have five guys on their defense that got points for me. Brown, Phillips, Warren, Jackson, and Morag. They have a great punter, Blackshear. Pretty good special teams in general.

1:30:31Cousin Sal:Good for him.

1:30:32Bill Simmons:So that feels like they'll steal a winner, too. I wouldn't do it as a lock, but I got a lock for them.

1:30:36Cousin Sal:I like their second-round pick. This guy, Lee Hunter, is from Texas Tech. They call him the Fridge. I'm excited to see him. The Fridge? The second Fridge? Can't be the Fridge. We had a Fridge.

1:30:47Bill Simmons:House hasn't eaten today. He just made one great. I'm sorry, House. 90 seconds on the NFC 7. I would advise everyone, if you like the way that these guys have been talking, to get on the FanDuel Sportsbook, where you can play division exact order. If you believe that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are going to finish first, and the Atlanta Falcons are going to finish last, you just swap Carolina and New Orleans in the 2-3 position. Both ways are better than 10-1 odds. That's a nice way to make some money for America. Better than 10-1. Atlanta first, I mean, Tampa first, Atlanta last. Bet both ways, Carolina and New Orleans.

1:31:25I'm trying to help America here.

1:31:26Cousin Sal:I am sooner able to figure out the equation on the blackboard in Goodwill Hunting than to fucking pick a one through four. But do it.

1:31:34Bill Simmons:You got to do it. No way. It's such a bummer because when I do the prep and there's like, I love the worst of firsts, as you talked about earlier. You can't force it. I tried to force it a couple times the last two pots. I'm not doing that anymore. And then the, oh, this division sucks. I'll talk myself into a team that has the worst odds. And you just can't. Least wins by division. Last year, the NFC East was 27 wins. That was the worst. 24, AFC South, 25 wins. 23 was NFC South, 27 wins. And then the AFC South at 22, 23 wins. So that's the lowest we've had. So you think 28 wins for this division?

1:32:17Cousin Sal:Yeah, 7 and 10 is across the board. I'll pick, you want my worst at first? I'll take New Orleans to win the division. That's fine. Okay. That's it. That's 7 and 10.

1:32:24Bill Simmons:I have a hard, hard, hard lock on Tampa. Okay. And I think they win this easily to the point that week 17, 18, they got week 17 Rams, week 18 Saints. That might help the Saints over. Right. If Tampa's just like, ah, we're the three seed. We're not doing anything. Okay.

1:32:43Cousin Sal:that's it for the nfc south we made it so we got through it we did it never again next year hey uh

1:32:51Bill Simmons:quick quick break for fandle our friends let's do it nfl is so close to being back fandle as you covered all season long um they have an nfl futures reward stack for the nfc so backstory i tried to get our friend christian happy birthday christian yeah yeah this weekend yeah the ceo great job we love him he's been a great friend to the ringer love everybody at FanDuel we try to get them to do like a Black Friday type thing for Friday and this is so smart

1:33:24Cousin Sal:I wish I had thought of this reasons we couldn't

1:33:25Bill Simmons:totally do it but they're doing it anyway because they have an NFL futures reward stack and it's for the NFC and you can do five profit boost tokens where you get a 50 % PBT so like for instance

1:33:38Cousin Sal:speak English there's a nice discount you get a nice little discount

1:33:41Bill Simmons:on the yeah basically Like if you like my Tampa case for plus one 70 or whatever they are to win the division, put that in on the Fando with the PBT. They'll add 50 % to it. Um, any of this stuff we've talked about so far, which will go through the locks at the end of the podcast. Um, and they have player milestones. They have regular season wins, make miss playoffs. Um, and two wildcard things. You get, you have up to five, uh, player milestones. This is one you did on the NFC North Podhouse. The Caleb over for passing yards? What was it, like 3 ,700? It's 3 ,575 and a half. I couldn't recommend that more highly.

1:34:22Bill Simmons:And he beat that by like 400 yards. Yeah, he almost beat for 4 ,000 last season. Schedule's harder. They're going to be in more games. Their defense isn't as good. He's going to have to throw. I thought that was a great one. Receivers are better. Good one. Regular season wins. You can use either of the ones Sal and I did. Make or miss playoffs. I really like Dallas to make the playoffs. I think you do too. But I would also do Tampa. And then you can do whatever you want with any of the other ones. Fandois is covered right now all season long. Listen to all of our future picks. Make sure to get into the action yourself.

1:34:54Bill Simmons:The PBT five-pack expires end of the day, Monday, August 31st. You have five days, house. You'll be back in D.C. You can jump on all of these. You know I'm going to be on all of them.

1:35:05Cousin Sal:The five-pack. Yep. All five. Five for five. Show us your five-pack house. It's right here. After. The pizza. Ten slices of Bianco going right into the five-pack.

1:35:18Bill Simmons:Nathan, once again, beat you. Oh, he's a dominant pizza consumer. We ordered. Nathan Hubbard. Too many pizzas. And Nathan always brags about how much pizza he can eat. Yeah. With good reason. There's one sad slice left after all these things. And Nathan's like, I'm done. I've tapped out. And the thing was there for five minutes. and we're like, Nathan, really? This is just, they're going to throw this out? It's a long time. Yeah. And he just kind of sadly reached over and finished it off. He's about to get on a flight too. Yeah, he's probably destroying some airplane bathroom right now. This episode is brought to you by Workday.

1:35:52Bill Simmons:Guessing is for game shows, not your business, especially when your margin for error is zero. Workday is the enterprise AI platform for HR, finance, and IT with a deep understanding of your organization's context and guardrails. So every AI action is permission aware, giving you accuracy 24-7 and the ability to not just get work done, but get it done right. It's a new workday. This episode is brought to you by Mazda. There's driving and then there's driving with peace of mind. Knowing you're behind the wheel of Consumer Reports' safest new car brand, Mazda. The Mazda CX-50 hybrid comes standard with a suite of proactive safety features.

1:36:33Bill Simmons:so confidence isn't an upgrade. It's a given. Mazda, move and be moved. Visit MazdaUSA.com. Discover how confidence comes standard. Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services. Visit MazdaUSA.com to learn more. The NFC West.

1:36:52Cousin Sal:Okay.

1:36:52Bill Simmons:Wow. This is more like it. This is good. Let's go. Come on. Some good arguments here.

1:36:57Cousin Sal:Yeah.

1:36:58Bill Simmons:We'll start with the LA Rams who are prohibitive Super Bowl favorites. Plus 500. Nobody else is lower than 10 to 1. 11 and a half wins, minus 145. 12 and a half wins, under is minus 145. So Fando has them pegged basically exactly at 12. Divisions, almost even odds, minus 115. Playoffs, minus 550, plus 410 for the Rams not to make the playoffs house. Yep. Do you stare at that at all? Yeah, I mean, at that price. We'll talk about the case for that. Best record, plus 330. Under 9.5 wins, plus 360. They were 12-5 last year. I think they lost the five games by 11 points. They're in everything. And they're over, under, again.

1:37:51Bill Simmons:They need to get basically to 12. My what if for you. What if, let's go big picture beyond the gambling. What if they don't make the Super Bowl this year? Yeah. Like, to you, is this make or break, do or die, it has to be this year? I kind of think, I feel like Matt Stafford,

1:38:10Cousin Sal:why the hell isn't he put in a coffin debate? Like, how has this not happened already? And yes, in that regard, yeah, it's got to be this year. How many years can we hear about back surgeries, spinal fusion? That sounds like an ugly term. It doesn't matter. Like, they extend them for$55 million. And now they have the offensive MVP. Yeah, you got them right. He won it over Drake, maybe. And the defensive MVP, Miles Garrett. I hate it because the last six weeks, I put together a 157-page document just to tell you that the Rams are going to be as good as everybody says.

1:38:44Bill Simmons:So you think they will?

1:38:46Cousin Sal:I do.

1:38:47Bill Simmons:Yeah.

1:38:48Cousin Sal:Last 30 years. You're going to talk us out of it. Go ahead.

1:38:50Bill Simmons:Last 30 years, only the Patriots have been big favorites like this and actually won the Super Bowl in 2018. Every other time, the team fell short. they added McDuffie and Watson. They added Garrett, obviously, and probably Aaron Donald, which I think has been overrated by everybody because if he plays, it's going to be in the digs, 30 plays a game type thing. Right. In the playoffs, it'll matter, I think, more than it does during the regular season. Here's what's worse about them. Offensive line is unquestionably, I think, shaky is fair, right? Okay. Depth, they don't have it. Puka had, we talked about this on the fantasy pod I did on Tuesday.

1:39:32Bill Simmons:Puka had just the weirdest nine to 10 months you can have. And then it was like, no, no, I'm fine. I went to rehab and then walked through a glass door at Michael Rubin's white party. I don't know what to make of what's going on with him. Stafford's 38. I did this when I, when I had Pellicero on two weeks ago, about 38 and up. It's basically 10 seasons that somebody has really come through. Yeah. I don't like the Australia game to start the year. It makes me nervous. and then they had the 13th pick in the draft and took Ty Simpson who's not going to play. Don't love him. Special teams always bad.

1:40:09Bill Simmons:Always seems to cost them two games. Alaric Jackson, is he going to get suspended? Not suspended? That's their left tackle. I had them at 32 points for their roster. They play AFC West, NFC East. They have the most brutal five weeks of anyone to start the season. 49ers in Australia. Giants on Monday night. at Broncos, at Eagles, home Bills, just to kick off. I couldn't get to 12 wins with them. I'm under.

1:40:35Cousin Sal:They lose the OC, right? Michael Floor.

1:40:38Bill Simmons:Yes, they lost him too. I just, I can't. Devontae Adams is going to be 34.

1:40:44Cousin Sal:I just, there's blue chippers all over the place. The one thing that screwed them was the special teams. And I feel like that's the easiest thing to fix, right? If you had one unit, and they bring this guy in, Bubba Ventrone is now their special teams coordinator, who sounds like an 80s jobber, right? It sounds like he's going to lose. Bubba Ventrone sounds like somebody. Bubba Ventrone.

1:41:02Bill Simmons:It's like Tony Barbieri would bring to the draft. Bubba Ventrone's in town. Well, I don't want to get too excited. He might be a jobber because he was the special teams coordinator for Cleveland. Guess what plays Cleveland? Oh, my God. They were terrible.

1:41:15Cousin Sal:Yes. I'm not going under. They figure out this offense. Corum and Kieran Williams at 2 ,000 yards combined and 19 touchdowns. They do the two-plus tight end set better than everybody, right? I just, you know, I know top five hardest schedule, but I don't think... I can't put this team under 12 wins. I got them at 13 and four. Okay.

1:41:37Bill Simmons:You said blue chippers everywhere. I would counter and zag the other way and say it's a top-heavy team with a couple guys that worry me. Adams is right at the range when wide receivers do this. Puka, we talked about. Stafford at age 38.

1:41:52Cousin Sal:He gets rid of the ball so fast. I know. It doesn't seem to matter.

1:41:56Bill Simmons:I was between 11 and 12. I just, I like the, I like the juice better for under on Fandle is plus 125 for the under 11 and a half. And I like another team more in this division is really what it came down to. Really? But this seems to me, we've seen this happen in football before when there's this much smoke being blown up the asses of a team and one bad thing happens or somebody gets injured or they lose some game and they shouldn't lose. And that's all anyone talks about. It becomes the biggest story. I just feel like there's such a big spotlight on this team. I still have them in the playoffs.

1:42:34Bill Simmons:I still think they're going to be one of the seven best teams.

1:42:36Cousin Sal:Weren't they the scariest team last year? Weren't they the team you didn't want to play forever? Even when Seattle got lucky in the regular season game and that could have gone either way. You look at Byron Young. He's the other edge. He had 12 and a half sacks. He had 29 quarterback hits. and now he's going to have free run at these cornerbacks with Myles Garrett probably would be double team. And I think the secondary will be better because Myles Garrett is double team.

1:43:03Bill Simmons:Schedule is really rough.

1:43:05Cousin Sal:Are they still favored in like 13?

1:43:07Bill Simmons:By the way, this division plays the AFC West and the NFC East. Right. So you get the three good AFC West teams and the Eagles and the Cowboys. So that could be five tough games, not to mention all the other stuff we said.

1:43:21Cousin Sal:But that O-line allowed 23 sacks, I think, which was the least. So somehow they do protect him. Because he gets rid of the ball. Yeah.

1:43:29Bill Simmons:And then there's McVay. The Ty Simpson pick was just so weird.

1:43:34Cousin Sal:Yeah.

1:43:34Bill Simmons:I'll never understand it. On the one hand, you're going all in for Garrett. And on the other hand, you're like, we've got to think about the future. You just traded all your picks for Miles Garrett. It's also totally fine to have that mindset. why would you use a 13 pick on a guy that everybody projected to be was third round at best? I don't like those. They could have had Reuben Bain. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

1:43:57Cousin Sal:And Stetson Bennett's a backup, by the way. If you look at the depth chart, he's number two right now.

1:44:01Bill Simmons:I thought that was so weird. So you're over. Okay. I'm going on. I can't put this on there. Seattle Seahawks is over 10 and a half for the defending champs, plus 220 for the division. Please mark that one. One of my favorite bets. I don't understand how they are 2-1 odds to win the division and the Rams are dead even. Go figure. Playoffs minus 215. Number one seed plus 650. Best record 8-1. 12 plus wins. I have been bold. Plus 155. 13 plus wins is plus 280.

1:44:35Bill Simmons:Okay. I haven't done this the whole podcast. What are we? Hour 40 in? Six hours, 12 minutes. I haven't talked about the New England Patriots yet. Oh. You did talk about the Red Sox. Yeah. And something about the Wizards. That was your first interjection I didn't like. I'm at the Patriots. We win the Super Bowl the second time they beat the Panthers. Right? Uh-huh. 0-3. Ended up winning the Super Bowl in 0-4 as well. And between 0-3 and 0-4, what happened? Everybody's like, eh, Colts. It's Colts here. Here it comes. Colts, Colts, Colts, Colts, Colts. What happened? The Pats, I think they won 21 straight over the two years, which was a record.

1:45:15Bill Simmons:They put together the back-to-back like 14-2, 15-1. I can't even remember. It was so long ago. They went in and put the smack down on the Colts again. I love that it is a very rare occasion where somebody won the Super Bowl and it's also the Nobody Believes in Us team. Wow. Just an amazing spot for them to be in. They win the Super Bowl and everyone's like, eh, Rams, Rams, Rams, Rams. These guys brought everybody back. Everybody. Not everybody. Well, they lost Woolen.

1:45:42Cousin Sal:How about the Super Bowl MVP?

1:45:44Bill Simmons:They lost Walker, but they drafted Price from Notre Dame to be whatever. But when I did my roster, they had the most roster rankings, most points, 38. I had seven guys in their defense that got points, which is by far the most. Not to mention their special teams are awesome. Dixon and Shahid both got points for me on that. They have one of the best receivers in the league, if not the best. I think the Price thing we talked about in the fantasy, I think he's going to be good. I don't think they're going to lose anything. And then McDonald was the best coach in the league last year.

1:46:17Cousin Sal:I'll give you that.

1:46:18Bill Simmons:This is a team that should have gone 19-0. The games they lost, they easily could have won. They kind of blew. And I think they're better than the Rams. I really, I've thought, I've felt this the whole summer. It's not a zag. I genuinely think they're better. And I love that everybody's saying the Rams are better. I think this is perfect. I think there's a real back-to-back case for them.

1:46:36Cousin Sal:Maybe I'm just bored with hard knocks because they put, spent like 20 minutes on Sam Darnold's spiral. Yeah. The other day. I was like, all right, enough. But my counter is, how the F did this team win the Super Bowl? Sam Darnold went from 12 interceptions to 14 interceptions. He was the most turned-over player in the NFL last year. Their over-under was 7.5. This is remarkable what they did. Here's who has an over-under of 7.5 wins. The Steelers, Bucs, Saints, Colts. Would you bet any of those to make it past the divisional round?

1:47:09Bill Simmons:I mean, that was one of my big bets last year. We won all kinds of Seahawks futures.

1:47:13Cousin Sal:I just don't know. You know, the second most giveaways, first team to have zero turnovers in the playoffs. It was a miracle that they had all these giveaways. They were awesome. I think McDonald's great. I really do. I think that's the difference.

1:47:28Bill Simmons:I think he's the best coach in the league.

1:47:29Cousin Sal:Top three offense, top three defense. You could say whatever you want. You could explain it away. He is great. 15-2 on the road in the last two years. They don't take any games off. They play hard for him. They have a real home field. I just think it's tough to do. They lose the Super Bowl MVP. All the quarterback coordinators left with Kubiak, which is kind of a big thing. I don't know that he could do it again. The Kubiak thing is the one piece that worries me.

1:47:52Bill Simmons:But I would argue he created this template that they're going to continue to use.

1:47:57Cousin Sal:No, he took that with him.

1:47:59Bill Simmons:No, he didn't. Okay, all right.

1:48:00Cousin Sal:They lost three starring defenders, too.

1:48:02Bill Simmons:Here's another thing.

1:48:03Cousin Sal:Yeah.

1:48:04Bill Simmons:So their schedule, which is hard, but not quite as hard as you would think it would be, one of the best things to happen on them, They're playing the Patriots in the first game. The Patriots aren't going to win that. I love the Patriots. We're not winning that game. Button your shirt. We're not winning that game.

1:48:17Cousin Sal:Who cares?

1:48:18Bill Simmons:Super Bowl loser going back, playing the Super Bowl winner. Like, we're not winning that game. But later in the season, maybe we can go in there. But that's just like such a bad spot for the Pats. They play the Chargers at home. They play the Cowboys. That's a Monday night at home. They play the Eagles in mid-December, right around when the Eagles start doing weird shit. and then they're at the Rams, but it's week 18. They might not even need the game. Or they might really need the game.

1:48:44Cousin Sal:Six prime time and five are at home. So that definitely helps.

1:48:47Bill Simmons:There's some shit teams on this schedule too. But I just...

1:48:51Cousin Sal:So you don't think 14 to 11? Like that's where I have them. I have them 11 and six. Still a good team. Well, the over is 10 and a half.

1:48:58Bill Simmons:Right. Okay. That's an over. So there you go. It's a good over. I have them at 13 and four. And I like the 13 plus wins at plus 280. I like the one seed at plus 650. I like, I like, I'm bullish on all of these. How about, uh. I think it's going to be surprising every time they lose.

1:49:14Cousin Sal:Sure. What about Terry and Arnold karma?

1:49:17Bill Simmons:I didn't love that. I don't get it. But how, that didn't stop the Chiefs as they had 14 weird things happen over five years. No, I get it. I just don't know. I don't believe in football karma anymore because the Chiefs like defied it. Well, why? I guess kind of the Patriots did too, since we had a double murderer on our team. Oh yeah. Yeah. We had that guy. I didn't.

1:49:35Cousin Sal:And we're going to see what the Ravens, with the Max Crosby thing, because that was ridiculous too. But why do you do? Why do the Lions have to cut him and then another team could just get him and it's fine?

1:49:46Bill Simmons:I just think there's no honor in football.

1:49:47Cousin Sal:Okay.

1:49:48Bill Simmons:They lost their second rounder, Bud Clark, who wasn't supposed to start, but was important for their backup stuff. Really, if Price can be 95 % what Walker was, and the Seahawks fans, I think all really liked Walker, but also didn't 100 % trust him because he was never, He'd always have some weird banged up in some way.

1:50:07Cousin Sal:Charbonnet's a little hurt, too, right? Charbonnet's a little hurt. So if Price is a bust, I don't think he's going to be. I'm just saying, House, Darnold wasn't all that. It was a remarkable run, but statistically, it was improbable. And yet, they did it. Yeah.

1:50:27Bill Simmons:I'm going to walk you through this really quick.

1:50:32Bill Simmons:there's a world where they're 10 and 0 after 10 weeks wow I think you make a case they're favored in every one of these games pats week 1 at cards at commanders I think that's 3 and 0 chargers 49ers at home they're going to be favored in both of those at broncos on a Thursday night might not be favored on that that's week 6 chiefs bears home cardinals home at Raiders week 10 And the bye. And the bye. Yeah. I think they're going to be 9-1 or 10-0. I have a mate in two, but... I feel like I'm taking crazy pills with the Seahawks. Their roster is so fucking loaded. And the only thing you can say is, oh, they won last year.

1:51:10Bill Simmons:It's the year after. It's like nobody's picking them or talking about them and everyone's moved out of the Rams. I think they'd see it and notice it. Good team. We more or less agree. It's an over, right? Yeah, but you like the Rams more.

1:51:24Cousin Sal:I do.

1:51:25Bill Simmons:There you go. See, put that on your bulletin board, Mike McDonald. Cousin Sal, year 20. San Francisco 49ers, over 9.5. Division plus 340. I would not recommend that. Super Bowl 17-1. 12 plus ones plus 230. Playoffs minus 134. Not to make it plus 114, House. Under 8.5 wins plus 190 if you're really banking on the year from hell. Last year, there were 12-5 and nobody understood it as it was happening. what if we already know this is the year from health team you can argue they were the year from health team last year let me give you some stuff Kyle Shanahan terrible car accident covered up we still don't know what happened and got a severe concussion bad start big little scandally over there Jed York owner in a trailer park in Ohio Say it without laughing.

1:52:25Bill Simmons:Allegedly paying for a prostitute. Had that happen. Ricky Pearsall, they lost for the year. George Kittle tore his Achilles in 2026 in January. He's just going to come back and be George Kittle again. He's in his early 30s now. Fred Warner coming off a really bad knee injury. Was it a knee injury or ankle?

1:52:45Cousin Sal:It was a knee, I thought.

1:52:48Bill Simmons:McCaffrey, they struck oil with him last year. There's a lot of advanced stats against him. they're rolling the dice with Evans and Debo together. Two guys that They didn't want to sign Debo.

1:52:58Cousin Sal:They're like, well, please what do we have to do? Please, we can't do this. Everybody's hurt.

1:53:01Bill Simmons:And they have an electrical substation that might be fucking up all their players next to the thing.

1:53:06Cousin Sal:I'm out. Let's talk about that electrical substation. Yeah. Why can't they move? It's a practice facility. Right. Let's see what happens. Maybe everybody's wrong. But move for a year. It can't cost too much money to move those players.

1:53:19Bill Simmons:If I owned the team, I would move the practice facility. Just move it.

1:53:21Cousin Sal:Live it to a trailer park in Ohio, whatever you have to do. Maybe he was scouting locations. Exactly. That's what I would have said if he was smart enough. I was looking at me.

1:53:28Bill Simmons:Ohio is not that far from San Francisco.

1:53:30Cousin Sal:Yeah, yeah. Short flight. Here's my counter. I think they're bulletproof with these injuries. It's very fair. They had 74 player injuries before week one last year. Yeah. And they were still, they could have won a division. They were playing Seattle, what was it, week 17? Like they were up right to win that division. so they would have been in the mix it's very weird

1:53:54Bill Simmons:listen this is not a lock for me I did a very tiny under at 9 and 8 it's plus 115 on Fando so there's a little juice on it they're either going to be 10 and 7 or 9 and 8

1:54:05Cousin Sal:I had them at 11

1:54:08Bill Simmons:I would not do that

1:54:10Cousin Sal:Miami, Arizona, home for Denver I think could be 3 wins outside of that Rams game they travel more than anyone else i'll say that like 38 000 miles um which has never been seen before

1:54:23Bill Simmons:uh i had the roster at 26 points which says they're going to be a playoff team but doesn't account for the fact that they're in a division with probably the two best teams in the conference oh land's a little above average defense should be okay shanahan assuming he's recovered from his mysterious car accident is still a top five or six coach. I guess the question for me, can they be three and two after five weeks at Rams in Australia? Dolphins, Cardinals, Broncos all at home. Right. At Seahawks. Feels like that should be three and two. Three and two. If you're three and two at that point, now I need to go eight and five the rest of the way to get there.

1:55:07Bill Simmons:I still get to play the Falcons. I get the Raiders. I get the Giants. I get the Cardinals in week 18. home against Washington Minnesota yeah

1:55:16Cousin Sal:winnable games for sure yeah it's

1:55:18Bill Simmons:I'm probably wrong but I I just when there's this much bad juju before we're not even two weeks away from the season what else is gonna happen and then everybody's like stripling looks great he's gonna be an impact guy right away when are rookie receivers impact guys when does that happen well

1:55:35Cousin Sal:would you say Tatt McMillan was a

1:55:36Bill Simmons:yeah as the year went along alright but it took a while and it was really like down the stretch. They need him, like, in week one to be seven catches, 100 yards.

1:55:46Cousin Sal:Yeah.

1:55:47Bill Simmons:Like, somebody's gonna pay 20 bucks for him in our fantasy auction.

1:55:49Cousin Sal:You guys talked about a fantasy yesterday, the day before, Purdy quietly, like, top 10 whenever he's healthy. He's really good. You know? So, they have, like, 70 % pre-snap motion plays and still, to give Shanahan credit, has not been solved by these defenses. I might change my pick. Well, you don't want to give all these top-heavy wins, but we get to Arizona next and we could just bombs away on them. What do you think, House? House might swing my pick here. I like the San Francisco 49ers for 10 wins. I like them over this upcoming season. That schedule has too many built in. Them getting Washington and the Giants.

1:56:31I think I'm going to change my pick. And two Arizonas. You get the 10. And Shanahan always. I mean, what Shanahan did to the Eagles in the first round of the playoffs, that's like a reminder. He can come in and scheme against excellent teams. Mack Jones won five games last year. I really wanted to hold strong here, and I just can't.

1:56:47Cousin Sal:It's okay. Ten wins for them.

1:56:49Bill Simmons:We'll tee off on the Cardinals, and it'll all make sense. Right. Can I figure out how to pick them for ten wins but not make the playoffs? Maybe I'm going to try to do that. Hold on. Can I do that? Seven-nine rounds. Oh. I can do that. Okay. I've done 10 wins but missed the playoffs.

1:57:05Cousin Sal:I love this. I was up to like 2 in the morning the other night, meticulously going. Then you're like, I'm going to change my pick here. What am I doing? Hey, listen. You can do it. It's America.

1:57:14Bill Simmons:Playoffs, plus 114 to miss. So I'm going to go over, but they're 10 and 7, and they're in a tiebreaker with somebody. The tiebreaker will be with Dallas. I was just going to say that. There you go. Yeah. Yeah, so if they lose at Cowboys Week 10, that's going to cause them. That's the playoff spot. There we go.

1:57:30Cousin Sal:Favorite in 12 games. beat the hell out of Dallas.

1:57:33Bill Simmons:Shut up, house. Last year, I lost... The money I lost last year on futures was multiple Niners bets on the under. They went over. And then the Chiefs, which killed all of us. The Chiefs, talk about Netflix true crime. That could have been the Idaho killers. The 2025 Chiefs just murdering everybody who loves division. I will do no division parlays this year. I only made one parlay

1:58:02Cousin Sal:to win the division oh really but you'll do this first to fourth bullshit

1:58:05Bill Simmons:but that those are like big odds I'm saying like in the past you would yeah you would call me like on August 20th and be like hey Simmons doing a cousin what I don't like this at all hey Simmons if we do Bills Chiefs Rams all for the playoffs plus 112 who fucks us

1:58:28Cousin Sal:that's what is that? That's you committing a bird worry. It's like a heavy brother. Yeah, it was very breathy.

1:58:35Bill Simmons:But we would do these three teamers.

1:58:37Cousin Sal:To make the playoffs. We're always in the playoffs.

1:58:38Bill Simmons:And the Chiefs were like, well, throw them in. They're going to make it every year for the rest of our lives. And then they went 6-11. Yeah.

1:58:44Cousin Sal:We called it the KCD, right? Like a CD. Like you're safe for the future.

1:58:51Bill Simmons:The reason I brought that up, I think Houston and Seattle both to make the playoffs is my favorite one of those. That's like plus 120 on Fandle, something like that just houston and seattle will make the playoffs put your profit boost token 50 add on that i just don't see how that gets fucked up like cj strad would really like have to turn into a deshaun watson level collapse you have that 30 wins between those teams yeah yeah it would take a lot yeah i think house is nodding well it's because we talked about this some on our gambling show, the direction the league is going where defense is becoming much more sticky than year over year, and you just named two of the best defenses in the entire NFL.

1:59:34Bill Simmons:That's been a recurring theme for me with these features is defenses and offensive lines, and if you have a really good version of one or both, I'm in. And in this case, Seattle has an above average offensive line, and I think the best defense in the NFC. I think Houston has the best defense. Alright, last one. Arizona Cardinal over three and a half. These are really tough historically when teams are just supposed to be bad.

2:00:04Bill Simmons:Division, they're 100-1. Playoffs, they're 20-1. If you want to bet them not to make the playoffs, it's 71, so don't do that. 70. So I have to borrow$7 ,000 from you to win 100? Yeah, I'll give it to you when you leave. All right, thank you. Worst record, plus 250. Last year, they were 3-14. Yeah. This year, if you're picking them to go under, you're going to say they go 3-14 again. And my question for you is, what if they start out 0-11? Do you still feel good about the under 3.5? It's great because... Because they're going to start out 0-11.

2:00:34Cousin Sal:There's an 0-5 thing on Fandle, a number for that, for them to start 0-5. And I love that.

2:00:40Bill Simmons:Doesn't Fandle have the bet where it's like, who's going to be the last team that has a win? Yeah. Can you find that for us, House?

2:00:46Cousin Sal:Yeah, House, please. That's a good one.

2:00:47Bill Simmons:I think it's Arizona, because they go at Chargers, Seahawks, at Niners, at Giants, home lions at rams broncos at cowboys at seattle rams at chiefs i have them one in ten yeah are they going to be getting less than seven points in any game other than the giants game no the

2:01:04Cousin Sal:giants will probably be like plus four and a half or they're not favoring any games right zero games look this is a stupid stupid franchise not not billionaire seeking out a hooker for 140 $40 stupid, but I mean, to draft a running back who's already banged up with a draft cap, first round draft capital, when you don't even have a quarterback, first of all, that running back is going to be wasted for at least two years. They ran him 14 fucking times. Awful. In the first preseason game, and he looked awesome, by the way. And you don't fucking hurt, but you don't have a quarterback. You have to at least have a quarterback sign.

2:01:43Cousin Sal:Instead, you have Jacoby Brissett who holds his team hostage for most of the summer. He's like, hey, I'm 1-11 with you guys. You definitely need me back. You see what I could do in garbage time, right? That's why my stats aren't completely miserable. You know what it is with Brissette. I can't believe...

2:01:59Bill Simmons:Brissette was so bad with us two years ago, but he was pretty good in garbage time last year. That's all it is.

2:02:04Cousin Sal:It's fine. They had all those games lost before he did it. They were 0-6 against the NFC West. This sounds like a lock for you. You can't lock a three, though, because you have to be, you have to give them two wins then. But here's the thing. I went three and 14.

2:02:17Bill Simmons:I did as well. Yeah. But you're not going to lock that?

2:02:20Cousin Sal:Killer division. I'll lock it. Yeah. Zero games played the toughest schedule. I don't see how any of this works out for Michael Floor. Oh, and by the way, Nate Hackett, private eye, is the OC.

2:02:31Bill Simmons:Our guy. We should have mentioned that sooner. The love pick was just malpractice. I know everybody likes him, but it's fine. They're like super deep at running back because they also signed Tyler Algier for some reason. Right. So it's like, hey, we have some awesome running backs. It's cool. Every other position is below average.

2:02:51Cousin Sal:Yeah. The coach didn't believe it. What was it? It was the OC who said, yeah, he's a rookie. What did he say about love? Yeah, he's a rookie. And I'm excited to see James Conner and Algier compete. Like he doesn't even get them.

2:03:03Bill Simmons:I had them for roster rankings. I had them for six points. And McBride was three of them. Baker I gave a two and I gave Marvin Harrison a one probably him or Wilson is a one combined maybe

2:03:17Cousin Sal:but

2:03:20Bill Simmons:I just think they're going to get smoked I mean Sharp did these oh pretty colors Sharp did these graphs for some of the teams and it's the win total projections and they're just all at the top for 11 weeks it's the hardest schedule in the league

2:03:40Cousin Sal:Yeah, because they don't have to play them. They can't play themselves.

2:03:44Bill Simmons:Yeah, that's why this has been a hard, I think, summer to figure out all this stuff. Because sometimes the hardest schedule in the league, you want to a team, like, give it to San Francisco. And then it's like, oh, yeah.

2:03:56Cousin Sal:Right, but they're going to go 0-6 again because they can't go 0-8. Yeah, and in the division, I don't know what it meant. I mean, the best thing you can hope for is, like, if Carson Beck steps up and looks good for next year or something.

2:04:09Bill Simmons:I'm going to make my annual plea. Let me be able to look at my camera for a second, but then look back and go back and forth. You have your own. Where is it? My camera's there. Your camera's there. We're just going to get fucked three Sundays this year where there's two games in the afternoon window. One's a blowout, and the other is the Cardinals losing by 38 points in the second quarter. It makes me so mad. They should never, there should not be one situation this year where the Cardinals are one of two games in the late window.

2:04:37Cousin Sal:Right.

2:04:37Bill Simmons:We have to at least have three. Protect us. Protect us, NFL. Don't just leave us hanging in the toilet with no toilet paper with the Cardinals. Wow. Just wondering, hey, can you give me some toilet paper? Right. Think about us. Think about the fans. Yeah, spare square.

2:04:54Cousin Sal:How about this? I'm going to use your camera, too. No, use your camera. Your camera's right here. I'm going to use my camera? Yeah. Goodell, petition the Cardinals to move to Arkansas so they can play the 10 a.m. Pacific time. Oh, yeah. Yeah, move to the East Coast. Yeah, so put them with the garbage games there. Can they switch with the AFC team? That we like in the East Coast. Yeah, the Bills. Yeah. They put the Bills on the West Coast. That'd be amazing. Pass 90 seconds on the NFC West. I have the Seattle Seahawks winning the division at 12 wins. Right behind them, the LA Rams. Right behind them, San Francisco at 10 wins.

2:05:30And Arizona to win worst record. That's the correct play for sure. It's between them and Miami. you'll be able to hedge it out at the very end of the season. Because you're going to have the tanking stuff, too.

2:05:39Bill Simmons:There's going to be three quarterbacks everybody's going to want. That's exactly right. So other than Arizona, good division. We're going to see great games in between those two teams. Those three teams, they always round robbing it between the three of them. So you're just not scared of the San Francisco bad juju at all? I mean, 10 wins. That's a step backwards from last season.

2:06:01Cousin Sal:You have more wins for the NFC North or the NFC West?

2:06:05Bill Simmons:I think I'm dead even, although I might have added a win with San Francisco, which screwed up on my map. Oh, yeah, you changed it, so. Come on. Okay. So our locks.

2:06:13Cousin Sal:That's a fun thing for Fandles. You could do one division more than the other, and West is a good place to start.

2:06:18Bill Simmons:I was trying to get them to do NFC, like, biggest... Differential. Most wins in one division, least wins in the other division. Oh, that's fun. Do you think the NFC West has the most wins?

2:06:30Cousin Sal:I think I did. I lost that one of 60 sheets here that I can't find. But yeah, well, I have the three double digit.

2:06:38Bill Simmons:Because the most wins, I had this somewhere. The most wins. I have 39 for the NFC West. And yeah, 30. So I had trouble getting a 40 wins in any division in my laying it all out. Last year, the winner was the NFC West with 41. That was the most wins. Right. In 24, the NFC North had 45 wins. Wow. 2023, the AFC North had 43. and then in 2022, the NFC East had 43. So history tells us we're between 41 and 43, basically. And I couldn't get to 40 anywhere. So maybe it's this one. Who knows? Okay. To recap, let's recap the locks. Are you only in two locks? I think I had two, right? Yep. You had Arizona.

2:07:23Bill Simmons:Cardinals under and Giants under. Those were your two.

2:07:27Cousin Sal:To me, I think if we were going to do a playoff parlay, let's do a not make the playoff parlay. Every year we do a two-make-the-playoff parlay, and then a team's like two and four. We can work on that for part two.

2:07:36Bill Simmons:I have Dallas over 9.5, Washington under 7.5, Tampa over 8.5, Atlanta under 7.5, Seattle over 10.5. I'm calling it right now. That's going to be 5-0. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Vandal, put that on your site. My five-team parlay of win total overs and unders. Say it on my camera now. Vandal. Okay. And we think the NFC champion is going to be? The LA Rams. I have the Seattle Seahawks. I will say, I thought long and hard about picking your team. But I felt like you were going to walk out and not do part two. It's so funny. If I had taken Dallas, I think you would have left.

2:08:20Cousin Sal:I have Dallas. You motherfucker. How can you do this to me? Dallas is a three seed over Seattle is my first round pick. And I have the Rams beating the Packers in the NFC championship.

2:08:31Bill Simmons:The only thing we know for sure is Tampa will be the four seed. Ready to play either Seattle or the Rams. Tampa already is getting five points in the wild card game, even though they haven't played yet.

2:08:41Cousin Sal:That's the only line they have, playoff line.

2:08:43Bill Simmons:House, what was your favorite lock? The Atlanta. I'm so super out on Atlanta. That's it for part one, which we were happy to do live here on Netflix on Sunday. We're going to have part two, which is going to be the AFC. Same format, same strategy. We're going to take a break. Maybe get some drinks. Thanks to Gahal. Thanks to Eduardo. Thanks to FanDuel. Thanks to everybody behind the scenes at The Ringer. Thanks to Don Johnson. Still smoking the same cigarette. Thanks to Farah. And I will see you for the AFC, can't we?

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