The Bill Simmons Podcast - A Dallas Downer, Buffalo’s Revival, Pats Sabotage Ideas, and a Lamar/SGA MVP Ticket With Cousin Sal

Episode Date: December 18, 2023

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal to discuss the Cowboys' discouraging loss to the Bills, and Jaguars-Ravens (1:39), before talking Bears-Browns, Vikings-Bengals, Packers-Buccaneers, Patriots-Chiefs, a messy Panthers win over the Falcons, Steelers-Colts, the end of the Giants and Jets' playoff hopes, and Commanders-Rams (20:27). Then, they guess the lines for NFL Week 16 and say farewell to Chargers HC Brandon Staley (48:40), before closing the show with Parent Corner (1:27:14). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Cousin Sal Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, the Cowboys ruined Sunday. Yes, they did. That's next. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste.

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You know me, I can't go a day without sports. I really can't. And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right. There's a new exclusive home for streaming Monday night NHL hockey, and it's on prime all season long. Watch prime Monday night hockey deliver unreal plays. The biggest goals can't miss moments. Matthews, McDavid, Crosby, the NHL's best.

They're all on prime prime Monday night hockey. It's on Monday. It's on prime. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I have a new rewatchables going up on Monday night. It is National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. My favorite Christmas movie. It is me and Sean and Vin and Chris. We didn't do Die Hard because Die Hard is not a Christmas movie. It's not.

We talked about this. It's almost like we can't argue about it anymore. It's like Republicans and Democrats sitting at a Thanksgiving table just deciding not to argue about it. So we talk about it a little on the rewatchables and we just step down to it. Die Hard is not a Christmas movie. Here's the thing. If you're releasing a movie in July, you're not a Christmas movie. Even if you're set on Christmas, could Die Hard have happened on Valentine's Day or July 4th? Yeah. It's an action movie that's awesome

that just happened to take place on Christmas. I'm never wavering from this. Ever. Ever. Anyway, we talked about that on the rewatchables. It's a good one. Coming up on this podcast you knew Cousin Sal and I

wouldn't be able to keep the good vibes going for more than a week on Sunday night and we're both in the dumps. And it's next. At least the Patriots are a little bit closer number of pick. We're going to talk about that and a lot more. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, taping this 8.35 Pacific time on Sunday night. Last week, we were so happy.

The energy was great. The Cowboys looked awesome. I won every bet. I was undefeated in the picks pool. Just great energy. Then the Cowboys brought us down. The Cowboys ruined my weekend. I hate them. I'm really disappointed. I'm disappointed in myself. I trusted them. I feel burned. I can't even imagine how you feel what a disgrace I'm so mad at them well I'll tell you how I feel I feel insulted

I mean you should be congratulating me on my team's playoff berth but instead just negativity right out of the gate I mean that's what a real friend would do but yeah I mean we got our asses kicked I'm not even going to say this is going to serve as a wake up call this is troubling

we were bullied on both sides of the line of scrimmage we got run all I'm not even going to say this is going to serve as a wake-up call. This is troubling. We were bullied on both sides of the line of scrimmage. We got run all over. You never want to see that with your team. And I think it's partially my fault. I came on Cousin Sal's winning weekend with my new good friend, Phil Sims, and we praised Mike McCarthy, top five in the league, and there was never more unprepared, more delayed hit calls, penalties, personal fouls, just garbage, just terrible.

I don't know what to say. I'm sorry about your teaser. I don't know what to tell you either. I love the Rams. I just wanted to put them with somebody I trusted. I'm like, what's more trustworthy than Dallas? That's at least a one-score game in Buffalo. I had that game picked completely wrong.

I thought Dallas was going to overpower them and have the ball and just run it down their throats and that they were bigger and more physical than Buffalo. But on the other hand, this Buffalo team that played today had no resemblance to the team from the first 14 weeks of the season. Ariel Hawane, who's a huge Buffalo fan, he texted me during the game and he was like, this is one of the greatest days of my life. I can't believe this. I've been waiting for this team. It's almost late December. It's finally here. There really was no warning signs for this physical team. And then the James Cook stuff is nuts. Just since they changed offensive coordinators,

he's become one of the most dangerous running backs in the league, if not the number one behind McCaffrey. And from a fantasy standpoint, I think he's third and all purpose yards for the season. Is he already? Yeah. So they, they just unleashed them and it started last week. That was one of the reasons I hit that same gamer. And now it's like, Hey, let's ride Josh Allen and James Cook. And we'll be this punishing running team.

There was no sign of this for three months. Yeah, I'm with you. And you and I say this all the time. If they could run for 70 yards a game, 80, even 90, they're going to be good because then Josh Allen doesn't have to do as much. And so his 1.6 turnovers per game, whatever it is, won't show up. But I think you're right. We're not going to see, we shouldn't see 266 yards again rushing, right?

I mean, when you have 266 rushing, you could have 94 passing, and that's what they did today. But I think the Bills are good. I'm going to say something crazy here. I think they might be the only team that could hang with the 49ers. Maybe that's recency bias. And yet you have news for us where they are in the playoff standings. Are they top 10?

I guess they're top 10 now. They are ninth. Every single thing went right for them in the last 11 days. Everybody they needed to lose lost. They won their games. And you would think, oh man, here we go. And yet, they're still ninth. Even Miami losing that stupid Tennessee game. They won today. Diggs had four catches. James Cook had two.

Ty Johnson had one. No other receiver or tight end caught a pass for their team. They rushed the ball 49 times for 266 yards. I waved in our vote-out league because I had a bye week this week because I was the number one seed. And I had three defenses. And I looked at Dallas' schedule for this week and the next two. And I waved Dallas.

And Dallas was the number one defense. But I was like, I don't... I saw that. You're trying to trade me Dallas' defense for like Christian McCaffrey or something a couple weeks ago. I did. I tried to sucker you in because it was your team. There were some red flags with them,

and I was just like, you know what? I think I have the Eagles. I think I have the Steelers or somebody. But I never expected this. I mean, they got, you know. I just never expected them to get overpowered like that. And especially once you realize what Buffalo was doing and they still got overpowered, that was a concern.

I guess on the flip side, how many teams other than San Francisco can run the ball down their throat? Yeah. In the NFC at least. Right. So I'm not too worried about the Eagles. We'd be an underdog and everything and we'd go there and that would have to be a big win.

But yeah, no one's going to push us around like this, I don't think. Like you might play Tampa in the 4-5. Tampa is technically the NFC South. Yeah, but they're not going to run the ball for 300 yards on you like Buffalo did. Then potentially it could be the Saints. Atlanta choked today, so they're probably out of it. They're 6-8.

But yeah, it might be one of those things where you don't even have something like this happen again until you get to the San Francisco game. But the other piece of this is, and there's two things I wish I had thought more about, not to have hindsight bias, but Raheem did a good job this week and on Wise Guys today about talking about Dallas at home versus Dallas on the road. Yeah. And how they're basically two different teams and until they come through on the road, you just can't trust it.

So that was one. The other was no matter what really happened in this game, they're locked into the five seed unless Philly just goes south. And meanwhile, Buffalo is in do or die mode every week now. And you could kind of feel it during the game. It felt like it meant everything to Buffalo and not everything for Dallas. Well, when we picked the line last week, you were surprised to see the Cowboys were getting one and a half and you're like, I'm going to put that on a teaser. And that becomes seven and a half right there. And I was surprised too. You get the public money for Dallas,

but that is true. It didn't really matter. It doesn't even really matter for Philly tomorrow against Seattle. They just have to take care of their Giants games pretty much to win that division. I don't want to make excuses. That was probably the worst game of the year. I dropped the lowest quiz game quiz score with the 49ers because

they're so damn good, but to get pushed around like that, we keep saying that, but that's it. The road thing bothers me too because I thought we had cured that too going to Philly. But is it possible Philly isn't that good? You got to consider it. Yeah. You have to. Because even like you think, well, I mean, here's my other theory I was going to throw at you. What if San Francisco is the only good team and everybody

else is just up and down and not that good? Because you could say, look at the Bears, right? The Bears beat Detroit last week. Detroit looked awesome against Denver last night, right? That was the best they've looked in seven weeks. Then you have the Bears going to the Browns. They blow a 10-point lead.

And it's just like, maybe it's San Francisco and then 20 teams that could win or lose against anybody depending on what happens in the first quarter of the game. That's another thing I always see. Whatever happens in the first quarter just seems to determine what's going to happen the rest of the way. Even Jacksonville tonight against Baltimore.

They just shot themselves in the foot for an hour and then Baltimore's like, all right, fine. We'll take it. We'll take it from you. It's a shame we can't live bet these games. No, yeah, I was going to throw that at you too. Like, Fandle has 49ers, a plus 240 to win the Super Bowl. And you look at that, you're like, oh, that sucks. That's such a low number.

But when will we think to bet against them? We won't for another month. Now, the other thing is teams peak, and maybe they're peaking too early. I just don't think so. I think they're so versatile, so many levels to this team. Obviously, there could be an injury, but I'm jumping on that 240, Simmons. I'm not waiting anymore. You are. Yeah, that's it.

That's enough. What more do we need to say? I don't trust the health with Kittle and Debo and McCaffrey. That's why. Well, that's it. That's why I don't think plus 240 is value. I think you bet it game by game. And there's like even on Thursday, one of the bets I lost, I blame Nora, Nora

Princey, who's a great guest, but I wanted to put something with San Francisco first half, San Francisco game. And I want to put the Ravens and she's like, no, no, put the Falcons in there. The Panthers are a JV team. I'm like, you're right. And, uh, the, the best bet every week is Niners first half Niners game. If these guys are healthy, Shanahan with what he does, it hit again today. It's hit every week. Usually, it's minus 280, minus 300, something like that. They don't usually have to come back to win.

Fandle has all the Super Bowl possibilities. If you want to do San Francisco with somebody else, good luck trying to figure out if it's achieved. The Ravens. What is Ravens in San Francisco I'll find it Ravens San Francisco

has got to be like what it's 5-1 it's 5-1 but that's a good start you're just betting those bet it week to week over betting a 5-1 long shot a real long shot as you know you're betting like San Francisco

against Cincinnati or something. Right. You want to get real odds. You want to bet. I want to win. It's been so long. That's what I want to do. I want to just win. This is a somber Sal. We had such good energy last week.

Hey, how about Bills 9 or 16-1? That's interesting. Well, who is it? Raheem? Who was the one on one of our text threads who said they bet Josh Allen 14-1 because if they beat Dallas on Sunday?

House, I think. For MVP. So those odds have to be better, too. I don't trust Buffalo. No. And I don't trust Buffalo and I don't trust Dallas. And all today did was make me, make me just more uncertain about who comes out of the playoff thing. The Ravens Jags, other than Collinsworth had about 17 Lamar orgasms. Collinsworth has done this new thing. He's kind of mastered it where there's a crazy play happens,

but he doesn't want to interrupt Tirico. So Tirico will finish the play-by-play for the next five to six seconds. And then Collinsworth will start laughing. He presses the pause button on his own laugh. And it's like, all right, he's talking, he's talking. Oh my God. And it just comes in all right, he's talking. He's talking. Oh, my God. And it just comes in late.

But he had a couple today. I know exactly what you're talking about. It was when Lawrence ran and fumbled and no one hit him. And they went right to commercial because it was a turnover. And all you hear going into the commercials. Well, the play when Lamar scampered around, which was the play of the game, and he hit lively deep, and Tirico was excited,

and he had to finish it, and Collinsworth waited, waited, and then he just, he can just do it on command now. I love that Lamar. Remember when he took a dump in the middle of the game? That was one of my favorite moments. That was something else.

Lamar is in that MVP conversation now, though, in a real way. Like, heading into the games today, Dak was a prohibitive favorite. He was like in the plus. No, he was like plus 150. He had the best odds. Purdy was 140. No, Purdy was plus 140. Oh, they had the same?

Yeah. Dak was favorite. They had both under two to one. And then something happened Thursday night, and Purdy took, I don't know, because Kellen Moore was so bad. I have no idea why Dak wasn't even playing the game, but yeah, it was Purdy plus one 40, but you're right. Lamar second now at plus four 50 and Purdy on Fandles minus 200.

Would you see what Purdy did? He did a great move. Yeah. Yeah. He, uh, he, I think, were you the one that predicted he should do this? I don't think somebody's somebody on the pod pod, I'm sorry I can't remember, but somebody was saying the best move is to basically push the candidacy of the other guy. Right.

Because then you look even more magnanimous. And Purdy did that today. He's like, McCaffrey's the MVP. Yeah, I think that should eliminate. All he did was hand off to McCaffrey. How is he not the MVP? By the way, he's exactly right, whether he's doing it on purpose or not. But I think that tact

should eliminate him from consideration. I don't like that one bit. You forfeited your chances. I'm seeing right through it. There's also the scenario where we might not know who the MVP is yet, and that's okay. We can say who we think it is after 15 weeks, but I also feel

like it could be wide open. Could he get to single digits, McCaffrey? There's so much buzz for McCaffrey, and rightfully so. It is one of those things. I have the games on all the TVs, and usually the Niners are in some game where they're just playing

somebody they're going to beat by 10 to 15, so I always had that on the high left TV. And you just kind of look up, and McCaffrey's just running. Like he's like a prisoner, escape prison, just running for the hills. And down the side of them, there'll be nobody near him for like 10 yards. And they'll see some safety come flying in and knock him out of bounds. Over and over again, it happens like three times a game.

You should give them your high left MVP, like Bill Simmons, high left MVP award. Sorry. You made the high left TV exciting. You just did it. I'm sorry. We can't move you from that spot. The Ravens game today. I mean, a couple of lessons. One is that this is the most fun version of Lamar, I think, where they've kind of figured out how to, the first couple of years with him where we would always say like, just do the playground. Don't even like run plays for him. Just have him run around and do Lamar stuff.

And then they were like, well, we can't do that. That's not working. Got to have more of an offense. And that didn't totally work either. And now they've figured out how to have him improvise in some of these plays and just have these receivers that can buy time

and know, you know, oh, here we go. Oh, two more seconds. And then all of a sudden you find somebody. But this is the most fun version, I think, of him to watch. Do you agree or would you go the other way? No, I agree. The one worry was with Andrews being out, right? And I'm not going to say it doesn't seem to matter,

but this Likely guy is very good. I mean, he's targeted half a dozen times. Did I call him Lively before? I think I called him Lively before. Yeah, it's likely. Why do we do that? Was there another Lively? I know there's Blake Lively.

Is there another Lively? Because everybody does. I apologize. But likely Lively. He's been pretty good, though. Yeah, we're likely to mispronounce his name again. So, yeah, but he's been good. Touchdowns the last couple games, and he's trustworthy for sure.

They did lose their running back, though. And it looks like they lost him for good. Touchdowns the last couple games and he's trustworthy for sure. They did lose their running back though and it looks like they lost them for good. That did not look like a positive knee injury. I don't know who their speed guy is going to be and whether maybe they'll be able to pick somebody up off waivers. It feels like there's 70 running backs that can

rush for five yards a carry. Every team seems to have these guys where you're like, who's that guy? He just ran for 11 yards. Yeah, Todd Gurley will be on their roster Thursday. Todd Gurley. The other lesson is that the Jags are fraudulent.

A little bit. I just think they're fraudulent. I can't take them seriously. They've gotten, you know, San Francisco destroyed them. Baltimore destroyed them. They're 6- you know, San Francisco destroyed them. Baltimore destroyed them. They're 6-6 in the United States.

And 2-0 in London. So I guess the answer would be just more London games. But the Lawrence end of the first half was just brutal. That was so bad. I kind of like when quarterbacks do that where they're like,

everybody thinks I'm going to spike the ball and I'm not. But then he throws like an out pass and the guy gets tackled and bounced and they lose three points. That was just stupid. So do you think they practice that? Because I like it too, but only if you know what you're doing, right? You got to go like corner of the end

zone. That's where you got to run like that. That's the only time a fade route's good. Can't be anything short of the end zone. Yeah, that was terrible. The missed field goals took them out of that game. And even that challenging that touchdown, which should have been a touchdown, I guess with Ridley at the end, they lose a time out there. That was dumb to do that. By the way, I liked that they brought the guy on, the rules expert. They brought him on three different times to confirm that the referees or whatever, the booth in New York

screwed that up. I mean, Do you get angrier when the analyst disagrees with the call or when he agrees with the call? Well, the last time on the Ridley touchdown, he was like, that's a touchdown. And then they said it wasn't. And he was kind of mad. I thought it was going to be the first time the rules guy

was going to be like, that's fucking bullshit, Chris and Mike. I don't see that at all. I wonder if these guys have bet on the game. These guys are clowns. Something needs to be done. No, but that makes me mad. That was so bad. It makes me mad when they're like, yeah, everyone could see it.

Even the rules guy, the lawyer, whoever's in there. But when they agree with the call, I was like, ah, you're just a homer. So everything that guy does makes me mad. They should do away with him. That was Steve Javie in the NBA games for like three years. He just agreed with every single instant replay call, no matter what it was. It could have been the Artest melee.

He's like, I don't know if that's a flagrant on run. I cannot take the Jaguars seriously. And somehow they're still the four seed. Houston is in a dead tie with them now. Eight and six, eight and six. And Indianapolis is tied as well at 8-6. So somehow that division is still wide open. And we'll talk about the Saturday games a little later.

Those teams have to gain on the Jaguars. They can't end up in a tie with them, right? Is that what Kornacki was saying? So the Jags are minus 140 to take the division. And they need the Jags to lose one more time and then they need to run the slate.

So the Jaguars have Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay. Red Hot Baker Mayfield. If the playoffs ended today in the AFC, Baltimore would have the byeFC Baltimore would have the the bye

we would have Miami Indianapolis right so it would be Minshew versus Tua we would have KC versus Cincinnati that's fun and then we would have Cleveland Jacksonville which we just saw

right and I'm just taking Cleveland in that game as long as they don't have more injuries than I have but I'm just taking Cleveland in that game. As long as they don't have more injuries than I have, but I'm just taking them. I think they would beat them. I think we need to see a settled Joe Flacco.

I mean, that was a Jekyll and Hyde routine today. I mean, he had some long balls that were great, and then he had just times where he couldn't help himself. It looked like he could throw five interceptions. But by the way, the quarterbacks in the 1 p.m. Eastern were just awful. There were like eight or nine interceptions and probably 20 passes that should have been intercepted. Let's talk about Bears-Browns right after the break.

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On October 18, discover what hides behind the smile. Smile 2. Browns Bears. This was brutal for me. I had the Bears plus three. It was my lock of the week. I had money on it. They're up 17-7.

Their defense has just throttled the Browns. The Browns are all banged up. I think they had all backup offensive linemen. Like, you know, Flacco threw a couple up for grabs. Had a couple bad picks, and yet somehow they come down and they just stop covering Njoku down the stretch. I have no idea why. There's third and 15.

He's just wide open running across the field on one play. There's another play, like on the last drive, gets wide open again. He had 14 targets, and yet down the stretch they're just not covering him. This is supposed to be, you know, a defense that was coming on

and then Flacco throws... I think he's tough, by the way, before you move on. I think he's what, like, Kyle Pitts was supposed to be where you can't guard him.

I don't know. I know... What a late bloomer, too. Yeah, right. He was supposed to be five years ago this was supposed to happen. Yeah, I know.

But if you look at him, he's monstrous and it all kind of makes sense. Because they couldn't run the ball at all. Flacco throws for 374. And then, you know, Chicago, first drive of the game. Fields makes this beautiful play where he buys some time

and whips it downfield to Tanyan, who's wide open 40 yards downfield. And it's not one of those, oh, that should have been a tough catch. It's like he hits him in stride and Tanyan just does the Butterfingers thing and misses it. It would have been a touchdown. And then the last play of the game,

they get a really, really good Hail Mary where they throw it straight up, it bounces, it ricochets correctly, and Mooney is on the ground and catches it and just fumbles it. But it really seemed like they were going to win. So they basically dropped two touchdowns, and they still almost win.

Yeah, I don't know. And I don't know what it means for Fields either because it's unfair that he doesn't get credit for that touchdown that Tanyan dropped. But then you look at his passing numbers, like, oh, this thing, they really do still have to draft somebody. He can run around.

And by the way, that play was spectacular. It's actually not even the one you were talking about when he avoided Miles Garrett's grasp, rolled left, and threw a touchdown. I'm like, oh, he's got a job somewhere next year starting, right? Maybe not Chicago. But I think we have to... Like, Cleveland's making the playoffs.

They have nine wins. They'll have to get 10, right, to make it. But we have to be careful how we praise these backups because we end up looking stupid. Like, Flacco, like... Like when we praise these backups because we end up looking stupid. Flacco... Like when we did Dobbs Sanity for two weeks and now he's going to the USFL? Yeah, I think we need

to do a three-week test. It's like, if you hear your take, if you heard your take three weeks ago, would you leave the room discussing this with yourself? Yeah. If somebody who looked like you came up to you at a Christmas party and started talking

about Dobbs making the playoffs. Like, all right, I got to go. I got to go to the bathroom, even though I just used that excuse four minutes ago. Well, Cleveland has, they're at Houston next week, home jets at Cincinnati. So that Cleveland Cincinnati might

end up deciding something. Maybe it'll be, you know, a playoff spot. Maybe it'll be the five seed who knows. But, um, the best thing that they had today was fields. As you mentioned, he was 19 for 40, 166 yards. They had six pass first downs. There were four for 18 on third down and they down. And he threw for 166 yards total. And the Browns defense was supposed to be banged up. They're missing starters all over the place. I thought Myles Garrett was unbelievable. And he's been, you know,

I would have picked him for defensive player of the year before that game. But now it's like, I don't see how there's another choice. He was so dominant and so good, and he was just on the TV all the time. They were either showing him getting up after he almost sacked the guy or a replay of him just blowing through two dudes.

I thought he was just awesome. And the Browns being 9-5 with four quarterbacks, with Joe Flacco wasn't playing, who just hasn't been good for five years. Right. Is the story of the season, if you're just talking about,

it's the what the fuck story of the season. I was looking at Stefanski. That's crazy. Yeah, I was looking at Stefanski at 14-1 for Coach of the Year because of exactly what you just said.

Like, if you're going to make the playoffs with four quarterbacks, that should put you in the top three, probably, considerations right away. But there's so many this year. Like, D should put you in the top three, probably, considerations right away. But there's so many this year. D'Amico Ryans, if he makes it, that's a stike.

Yeah, Stiken's in there. I think Ryans would be the guy I picked because that team's somehow 8-6, and they haven't exactly been healthy. They lost Tank Dell. They didn't have Stroud. He made the decision to start Keenum over Davis Mills, which I was really surprised by. That ends up working out.

Yeah, but the Fields piece of this. So we did last week, I think we were talking about, if you're Chicago, maybe give this a whirl. And now it's like, I don't, you know, that was a tough one. Him against a good defense, he really struggles. Like he struggles. He made a couple really bad decisions.

Even that last drive, they get the first down at midfield, they get out of bounds, right? And they had enough time to run like four or five more plays. They were just like bad plays that had no chance that had to lead to the eventual Hail Mary. But it felt like they

could have... He could have scrambled for eight yards at one point and he didn't, but it just felt like they could have gotten a field goal range if it was like Lamar Jackson. It's such a bizarre situation with him, right? Because they're going to get the Panthers pick, so they don't have to worry too much, but they could have had two picks in the top four if they ended up like a three or four win team. And then you got the quarterback who's obviously fighting for a job, like future prospects, even if it's not on the Bears. And he's such an anomaly.

He had like 18 rushes a couple of weeks ago. He had 166 yards passing, but the Tanyan thing would have put him over 220. It would have been more respectable numbers. So I still don't want to pretend to be an expert on Justin Fields, but I do. If you ask me, I'd say they'd have to draft. I think they should draft. The killer for them is they go

Arizona, Atlanta at home, and then Green Bay on the road the last three. If they'd won this game, they really could have potentially gotten a 9-8 and maybe still in a playoff spot. You look at some of the teams that lost, like Atlanta lost, Green Bay lost. We'll see what happens with Seattle tomorrow.

But we have the Niners, then Philly and Detroit. Tampa right now is the NFC South lead, even though they're tied with the Saints. Dallas is the five seed. And then it goes Minnesota Rams. That's 6-7 and the Saints are 8. You feeling good about our Saints? I'm not. The Minnesota one was the killer this

weekend because they had that game. Their defense looked great. All of a sudden, here are the Bengals crawling back. Brown just kept making plays. The Bengals kept making plays. And Minnesota ends up blowing that game. Now they're 7-7. But had they won that, I think they would have been pretty set for a playoff spot because they go home Detroit, home Green Bay, at Detroit. And that Detroit game is going to be nothing. They're going to be locked into the three seeds. So they're probably not play anybody in that last game. So they could have wrapped it.

Now they're going to kill it by Saturday. Didn't you have Cincinnati though? I felt like you had Cincinnati. I had Cincinnati, the money line. And then India, I had the Cincinnati Indianapolis, Denver.

It was like plus seven 49. All right. You got to the night at least. Yeah, I got to the night and I'm like, this is great. You know what? I was going to hedge maybe with the Detroit. I'm not going to.

I'm going to let it roll. And then that Detroit game was over in five seconds. Good for you. Good for you. Yeah. And people at Cincinnati would probably be like, well, T. Higgins, that should have been a pass interference. But the fact that Minnesota in overtime had third and one against an exhausted defense, an overtime Cincinnati defense, and this day and age

you can't convert third and one with two runs up the middle. It's like two quarterback keepers when it should have been Tyson Chandler who lit up the Bengals. I don't get it, and then they lose. That was a big loss, but somehow what did you say? They're sixth?

Yeah, right now they're sixth. That game starts out the Bengals have a great drive and then they have third and one inside the 15 or whatever and they do a tight end option pass, which is awful. Settle for a field goal.

Two plays later, DJ Reader goes out for the game. He blows out his quad. And I'm just like, oh my God, this is a wrap, Minnesota. Two plays later, DJ Reader goes out for the game. He blows out his quad. I'm just like, oh my God, this is a wrap, Minnesota. Nick Mullins looked pretty good in that game for the most part. Yet another guy who's better than every Pats quarterback that we've tossed out this year. Minnesota, the defense at least, maybe they just got tired in the fourth quarter,

but the defense for the first three quarters was great. I said this last week. I stand by it. I like the Rams the most out of all these. I just think that's the team nobody's going to want to play. They could beat Philadelphia. There's no question. I mean, Philadelphia, they hired Matt,

or they announced that Matt Patricia got promoted to defensive coordinator. Our Ringer Philly special, they did an emergency podcast about it. They were so horrified. How does that happen? How do they not tell anyone? How do you keep that secret? We know when a coordinator takes a crap. How do they put Matt Patricia in charge of calling points? I guess

Big Dom would have been bigger news, but then they would have to say it. But Patricia, I guess it's because they don't want people like you and me reacting the way we're about to. Patricia gave them a Super Bowl as the defensive coordinator of the Patriots

when he couldn't stop Nick Foles for four quarters. So they owe him. He's one of the more despised people in the history of Boston, recent history of Boston sports.

So good luck. Good luck to them. Right now at the NFC, it would be San Francisco with the bye we'd have Philly and the Rams which is brutal for Philly

we'd have Detroit versus Minnesota and then we would have you going to Tampa I mean that was the other bad thing about this

I still think Dallas would be favored and would win that game but I don't like when Baker's throwing like like when he's he's going nuts. We were on a text chain and Hench is like,

can you imagine if Cleveland just kept Baker and just would get all that money? Yeah, kept all their first round picks and everything. Oh, yeah. They might win that division this year. So it's a little scary. I had Garrett Bush, who's a Cleveland guy, on the podcast for the year. And I didn't even realize this, but he was saying that everybody loved Baker Mayfield and Cleveland.

The teammates loved him. The city loved him. They really liked that he embraced being a Brown. He got hurt that one year and lost his confidence a little bit. But I mean, he was out of the league last year. He got picked up by the Rams near the end of the year. And he won that one Thursday night game on that 99 yard drive. And I was like, all right, that looks like that's his farewell. I was looking

at his stats compared to Brady stats last year. So he's seven and seven right now. Brady was finished eight and nine last year. Mayfield is throwing for almost 3000 yards. Brady was 46, 94, some more passing yards, but the touchdowns interceptions Mayfield's 20 and eight Brady was 46-94. Some more passing yards, but the touchdowns, interceptions, Mayfield's 20-8. Brady was 25-9. Mayfield throws for 6.4 yards a play. Brady threw for 6.7. Mayfield,

the team scored 262 for the season with him, and Brady, they scored 313. He's basically done a replication of the Brady numbers except for the extra passing yards. They had to throw more last year because they couldn't run the ball. They were running the ball a little better this year.

He had a ton of yards, Brady, but didn't scare me as much as a good Baker right now. Baker's 6-0. Six touchdowns, zero picks the last two weeks. He just destroyed Green Bay today. That was one of the shockers of the day. He sliced them and diced them.

It was really impressive. They had a lot of injuries in their secondary at Green Bay, and they were coming off a short week. And that Joe Barry doesn't seem to be able to react to, you know, too many moving parts as a defensive coordinator. But I was looking at Baker's numbers for comeback play of the year. It looks like it's going to be Hamlin running away. He's minus 600.

But Baker, I figure, would be second or third. He's 16-1 still. So way down there. Who else is on that list? Stafford, second, 10-1. Flacco, 12-1. See Flacco over Mayfield? I don't think that's fair just yet.

Tua, 16. And Lamar, 16. So if the Browns go like 11 and six and Flacco plays the rest of the way and he saved their season, I think he would have to be in the conversation for that. But Mayfield, Mayfield being on pace, they got three games left.

Let's say he finishes with 3,700 yards, 26 touchdowns, 10 interceptions. Like that's amazing. Nobody thought that was conceivable. I'll tell you this. You're going to laugh. I saw multiple threads with this today. If you gave the Patriots Baker Mayfield or Gardner Minshew this year, I think we'd be like 8-6. I'm telling you. Even today, this Chiefs game, they were in this game. It's just their quarterback play murders them every game.

But the rest of the team, the Chiefs didn't do that much in that game. It was a lot of dumb shit that we did that put them in positions. But we did a good job in the red zone. And it was a weirdly heroic loss because they never pulled away from us. And then Belichick, it felt like he was tanking down the stretch. We're down 10 and they're just taking forever to run plays. The Pats have the ball and you would have thought it was like the second quarter.

And it was the first time I was like, oh, we're not winning again this year. They're not. Belichick's in. I think Belichick's coming back. I'm in the minority. I think he comes back as coach and I think they hire a GM. And I think they agree. You can't pick the players anymore, but you can still coach.

I know you were down on the Patriots quarterbacks always, but when Belly Zappi was 16 for 18, you weren't thinking, all right, we've still got to get Caleb Williams to throw to Devontae Parker. You were thinking, hey, Belly Zappi to Marvin Harrison Jr. That could be something else. Never felt that way for a split second. 16 for 18 was crazy. You were in that game.

So everything starts. I'm super hungover because I had a holiday party last night. And I don't think I've ever won money or had anything good happen in football when I'm just super hungover on a Sunday watching. And the Pats are coming down. I'm like, oh my God, now we're going to have the sixth pick in the draft. Belichick's like, fuck you, I'm out of here. I'll just win all the rest of these games as a parting middle finger to everybody. And I'm like, you got to be kidding me.

I'm just like drowning in the couch. And then eventually, Billy Zappy will fall back to earth. That's what he's proven. The only thing that's happened after every Pats game is the quarterback apologizing for his play in the game.

I've never seen anything like it. It would have been like when we launched Jimmy's show, Jimmy just, after every show, just gave a press conference. They're like, I'm sorry. The monologue just wasn't good enough. I've never seen anything like this season.

He did apologize. He apologized every night for running out of time for Matt Damon. That's true. He did. Bailey Zappi sounds like four of the drinks you ordered last night. It's with our friend Daniel. So, you know, it's always exciting when he's around. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, the Pats, they had 10 first downs. They had 206 total yards, and they were 2-12 on third down. And yet they hold the Chiefs to 5.3 yards per play. They got a couple turnovers. And I don't know. They hang around in these games. You go through, and it's like,

what would it look like if they had a B-minus quarterback? If you flip Minshew with Zappi, Indianapolis is 3-11, and I think we're like 7-7. See, to me, I would take a different tack, because I'd watch that Bengals game, and I'd see Jake Browning, and I'm like, wow,

that guy's good. He really learned from Joe Burrow. I'm excited for him. Glad he's got his suite and everything, but I would look at it and be like, man, isn't it nice that these guys can get separation once he breaks contain? Chase could be out, who knows now how long, but

it seems like they have three guys who can get open. You have three guys that you can count on for one week even? No, we don't. And we don't run trick plays. We don't run anything interesting. It's the most vanilla offense possible. And then the Panthers win.

Right. My dad was super delighted. The Panthers have this... It looked like they were going to lose 7-6. And then all of a sudden... I mean, Desmond Ritter was just awful in this game. And... Yeah.

I think my big lesson with the Falcons is just never spend a top 10 pick on a running back or a tight end. Just never. Just don't. I don't care if the guy looks like the greatest version of whatever that position has been ever. It's not worth it. Is it worth it to get

B. John Robinson with the 8th pick? No. They weren't even giving him the ball that much. Right. Seven carries today. Yeah, and a game where, but first of all, isn't it weird those Panthers game? It seemed like a night game.

It seemed like it was, is Carolina in Dublin, near Dublin? Like it's dark. Yeah, it's similar to being played in Ireland. There was no, it was, I know it was rainy. Did you see that they were charging 45 cents for tickets?

Yeah. 45 cents for tickets. It was pouring rain and wind. Really bad. Really bad weather. And Bryce Young went 93 yards. We haven't seen that kind of drive out of most teams. And I can't even remember too

many good passes in that drive. There were some nice catches. But yeah, that's a good Riddance Atlanta. Get them out of there. Aside from our Saints bet, I don't want to see them in the playoffs. Ritter, I don't know how he comes back. He just can't help himself

twice a game. But the Panthers have home Green Bay next week at Jacksonville home Tampa. So next week's the week for them. And they have's the week for them. And they have nothing to play for. Unlike the Pats that can kind of game this system a little bit.

The Panthers, they don't have their pick anyway. So why not? I have an award for the Falcons. Oh, good. And even though there's three weeks left and I know we're not supposed to decide awards, the Falcons win 2023's I hate myself for betting on them or against them. A word.

Either side, you hate yourself. No matter what you did, you hate yourself. And yet again, even Falcons' money line, it's like, all right, I'm not even going to mess around with the minus three. I'll just take the money line. They just can't play a normal game. They can't do anything right. They also can't do anything wrong certain days, but I just don't ever want to bet them again. Yeah, it's probably similar to your hangover this morning. You're like, why did I do that? Why am I betting the Falcons?

It's 7-6 or it's 12-10 in the fourth quarter every single week, and I don't like what I'm seeing, or I could get screwed here. But yeah, they're bad news. I don't know what to say. I was thinking about like, it's really tough to pull the full of shit title away from the Steelers because they were like out gained in almost every game. I think every game and still won a bunch of them. But the Falcons are right there. I know they lost today, but I don't think any of their wins should count.

The Steelers yesterday, speaking of full of shit teams, where, I don't know what they, I don't know what happened at Tomlin. I used to think he was one of the five best coaches. He's been awful the last couple weeks. Yesterday,

like, there was, what, 25 seconds left in the first half? And they were on their own 20? And the Colts had just done something good. And just instead of running out the clock,

they have Trubisky kind of running around trying to make something happen. It's like, there's nothing good is happening right now. What are you doing? And then when they get to the second half and they actually have to like take chances and do things all of a sudden, they're just running, you know,

one yard runs into 19 guys again. It's like, you guys don't even make sense quarter to quarter. And then they had, it was third and 20. They're on the Indy 39. They're down 11. So they need two scores. So it's like midway through the fourth quarter.

And Trubisky's already completed a third and 20, right? Which is the eyes of this happening twice on a drive with Trubisky or like a hundred to one. And they, they try to go down field to Pickens who of course it's not even close. Then they have to punt Tomlin punts from 39. Why didn't you try to get like seven yards and kick a field goal and cut it to eight. This is like basic Madden video game shit and they're not even getting that correctly. So I don't know. This is a really sloppy Steelers team all of a sudden. I don't get it. Another undisciplined

101 penalty yards versus 10 for the Colts. Tomlin and that bizarre, I know only gamblers care about this, but the over under was 41.5. He's calling timeouts, Tomlin. After giving up the game, he's calling timeouts when the Colts have the ball, allowing

them to kick a few. I thought the only over he cared about was over eight and a half wins. He really cared for over 41 and a half in this Colts and Steelers game that ended 30 to 13. Their kicker kicked their, I don't know, fourth field goal, whatever it was, maybe more. I watched

the early games with a friend of mine today, and I was saying, so he's asking about Belichick. What do you think? Has he lost it? They always show the stat. They have to show it in a Pats game of Belichick's record with Brady and then after Brady.

It's like, so what happened to Belichick? I think my theory is that nobody can be a good coach without at least like a, like a, like a B minus quarterback. Tomlin's another one, right? Roethlisberger the last two years,

he wasn't good. Right now. He's now he's like got this pick at Trubisky, Mason Rudolph. He's in that Bermuda triangle. I just don't think anybody can be good with bad quarterbacks. Maybe you can steal a week. But for the most part, what, like, could Andy Reid?

Andy Reid had, you know, near the end with McNabb. All of a sudden, he sucked in Philly. And remember they pushed him out? And it was like, because he didn't have a quarterback. So maybe it just comes down to, like, there's good coaches, but they still have to have a quarterback and you can be as good of a coach as you want in the NFL. But if you don't have the other piece,

it just doesn't matter. Sure. Cause, but that said, I still like, I still think they have some good pieces, right? I think they're just picking the wrong quarterback.

Like, wouldn't you rather like to see Zappy with Pickens and, and Jalen Warren and Fryer moves? Like, I think that gives you a chance. I think that's an extra three or four points a game, maybe. Yeah, it's true. Titans, Texans happened today.

Tennessee were the Oilers' drawbacks. How'd you feel about that? I thought that was a total fuck you. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is something Belichick should have done like 10 or 15 years ago if he could. But you don't do that if you're the Tennessee, struggling Tennessee Titans, do you? Comes back and bites them and they end up losing.

The other thing that happened today, both New York teams, their playoff dreams officially died. Hmm. We had, we had the Jets just get annihilated by the Dolphins. And once Tyreek went out, I ended up making a late bet on the Jets

because I was like, oh yeah. I know you loved it. Here we go. And Zach fumbles on the one yard line and you know the game's over immediately.

Hmm. Um, and then the Giants against the Saints who are, you know, they're garbage and yet the Saints then the Giants against the Saints, they're garbage. And yet the Saints killed the Giants. That was my best bet. The Saints were my best bet. It was six.

I likened it to Lynn Sanity. I said, this is Linguini Sanity with the Tommy DeVito stuff. I don't know what's going to happen. It's a great thing when you have a thing. Tommy DeVito does that thing with his know what's going to happen. And, uh, you know, it's a great thing when you have like a, like a thing, like Tommy DeVito does that thing with his hand and the agent does that thing with his hand in front of his face. And then everybody on the opposing defense is doing that to you. It's like a tumble with the finger. Like then everybody did it to my tumble and it became a pain

in the ass. But, um, yeah, I think, uh, that, I think that's it. And, uh, the agent thing is fun, but how much is he rooting for Tommy DeVito? Because if he does well, that guy loses a job immediately, right? Yeah, it's like that guy gets replaced by CAA. Yeah. Giants, and DeVito went out in that game, but the Giants had 3.2 yards per play,

12 first downs. The Jets had 103 yards offense, 11 first downs. Wilson got pulled again. I think he broke the record today. This was like the fifth or sixth time he's been benched during a game. And this was coming off a week where he was really good.

It's funny, you see, I'm sorry, you see like legitimate reporters actually saying why he was out. I saw a wrist injury. I saw a head injury. I saw a bench. And I saw a dehydrated. All of them like five minutes.

And I believe all of them. Or choice of the above. Well, we don't have to pretend three things. We don't have to pretend there's a Zach Wilson resurgence. That's not happening. We don't have to pretend the Giants

don't need a QB. They still do. And we don't have to pretend Aaron Rodgers is coming back. That's our big win. I just can't believe the story every day. Oh, he looked great. They got a side by Wednesday. Today's game will determine whether they

take him off the injured reserve or not. The dumbest story of the year. Aaron consulted with a coven of witches in Newark and it's safe to return but only if the Jets are still alive in the playoffs he's in a darkness room

really ridiculous and this probably worked out I do know a couple Jets fans who were kind of back in this week so even the Jets fans who know better they still found a way to get kicked in the teeth one more time by those guys.

The only other one we didn't talk about was the Rams-Washington where the Washington stages this late comeback with Brissette. They waited 15 weeks to play Brissette. Just looked immediately better. But then they had this long drive to cut it from two scores to one score.

They're inside the 10-yard line for an hour and a half. Like 60 minutes is ready to come on. They're still going. And Robot Ron, I'm just really going to miss him. I realized today, I was like, ah, man, I'm going to miss you, Robot Ron. He's going to be coaching your team. I don't think you'll miss him.

He'll be the special teams coach. It's just embarrassing how poorly managed that team is. I was thinking the same thing with Brissette. I was like, he kind of ought to be ashamed of himself with this roster of awful quarterbacks we've seen. It took him 15 weeks to get in there.

I had the same thought as you. I wonder why they didn't trade him before the trade deadline. One of the nine teams that needed quarterbacks. I actually thought for the most part, I thought this was a pretty bad day of football. I thought it was one of the worst weeks we've had. It wasn't that exciting.

Browns-Bears was probably the best game, but that wasn't exactly the best played game and had turnovers and dumb mistakes. Even this Ravens game tonight, the Jaguars just kind of screwed up the whole game. Well, the Saturday three games where every team was over 500 And even this Ravens game tonight, like the Jaguars just kind of screwed up the whole game. Well, the Saturday three games where every team was over 500 definitely was going to screw us for Sunday. And as soon as that Cowboys, I think I texted you like between that terrible, that awful Thursday night game and the Cowboys, Bills, Herbstreet, Michaels, Romo and Nance.

What was it? It was like 93-21 in the games that they did, the two games that they did. So yeah, you're right. It was bad. Take a break. We'll do Guess the Lines for week 16. First, the bad news.

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and experience to help clients build diversified portfolios that can thrive in a variety of market environments. Feel more confident about your financial future. Dynamic Funds. Invest with advice. Visit dynamic.ca slash advice to learn more. All right, before we do Guess the Lines, it was the first week of the fantasy playoffs. What was the biggest murder this weekend with the fantasy playoffs? Which player? Dak was a homicide, right? He did nothing.

Yeah, he didn't do anything. Who else? I just know my players. I don't know. Kelsey continues to be underwhelming. Yeah. Kelsey has been underweight. You were Kelsey.

Let me just say something about Kelsey. I think if Taylor Swift had Travis Kelsey on her fantasy team, they wouldn't be dating anymore. She'd be done with them. She would know how much that hurts, but I don't know if I'm advancing. I'm up. Um,

what am I up? Like 11 on, uh, Nathan Hubbard, who's football knowledge. In the non-vote-out league, yeah. Yeah, his football knowledge tops out at what Taylor Swift is eating in the Chiefs luxury suite. I love him. But yeah, I need his kicker to go down.

Well, his ninth grade son is supposedly running that team. That guy's smart. That's the word. Yeah, so you're up 11 points, and he's got Jake Elliott tomorrow night. Yeah. So basically one 50-plus yard Jake Elliott field goal, and you're probably done. 12-7, Eagles win. I got it.

Yeah. And then in our vote-out league, where I got a bot league. Well, I haven't had a chance to vote anyone out since you came up with this dumb rule and ruined all of our lives with it. But, uh, the Jenny's it's you and Hench,

right? The Jenny's who talk a lot of shit during the season and they just limp dick their way out. They have 46.1 points right now with Kenneth Walker, the third left. What a disgrace. They should vote themselves out. You hate that.

They started Justin Fields, 11.3 points. Thanks, Justin. So they're out. He said you don't have the balls to kick him out of the league. But you've now promised to kick like four teams out. I don't know how you're going to do it. They're on the list. Really?

They're on the list. And Hench advanced in our league too, but yeah, it's been... That's who you're playing. Next week will be good. And there's some good matchups that we'll go into that will lend itself to some fun fantasy. But week 16, we do

have a Thursday game. We have a Thursday game. We have two Saturday games. We have three Monday games. We're coming to Christmas Day. That's how much we love our listeners, right? Yeah, I said that at the top. We're going to do Monday night instead of Sunday night next week. We're not doing Christmas Eve.

Thursday night in LA. Rams, Saints. LA has this game. Has Christmas Day, Celtics-Lakers. Oh, yeah. Yeah. First one ever.

Saints at the Rams. I wanted to say minus three, and I kept thinking about it, and I kept thinking about it, and I kept thinking about it, and I bumped it, and I did minus three and a half. Yeah. I had three and a half. It's four. I thought that was a little bit rich, even though we both like the Rams. I know we do.

Carr is the single most annoying quarterback. The worst. Even when good stuff happens and they cut to him, he's annoying. When they're like, you know, his hand, his teammates must. Cashbar. Cashbar Carr. There's know, his teammates must. Cash bar.

Cash bar car. There's no way his teammates like him. Cash bar car. I commented like he was getting a little better over the weeks. Like he was overthrowing receivers by seven yards and then five and then four. It's like contractions. Like I think we're going to get there, but I don't know if it's this week. Saturday, two games.

Bengals Steelers, B-Bills-Chargers. And I think we're going to have two home dogs. Bengals-Steelers is in Pittsburgh. I can't believe it, but I think Jake Browning is going to be favored in this game. Is there any Kenny Pickett chance? I hadn't heard,

but I thought no. I thought we had a little bit. What was Kenny Pickett's injury? I don't even know. Was it a high ankle sprain? It was a leg. We just need to figure out high ankle sprains in general because Trevor Lawrence is fine and Kenny Pickett is on crutches. Right.

Wait, does he need surgery? He needs surgery, right? No, maybe he needs surgery. Yeah, you're right. He tore some ligaments. Yeah, high right ankle sprain. So it's either you're out for the whole year or you're back practice on Tuesday.

That's the high ankle sprain. Bengals Steelers in Pittsburgh, where there might be some boos, where it seems like the Mike Tomlin, well, Roethlisberger coming out and throwing a soft grenade, I thought, was a pretty interesting choice recently. Yeah. He was terrible his last couple of years.

He was really bad. They didn't win a playoff game his last five years. He talked about checking down. He couldn't move. I mean, they would score like three points in the first half every single game. Awful team. I don't think he was counting on points in the first half every single game. Awful team. I don't think he was counting on us remembering that. He was really bad.

We used to bet against him with teams that had like a good pass rush. We'd be like, there's no way he's going to have enough time. I think the Bengals are favored. I put in the tic-tac zone. Even though it looks like Jamar Chase is going to be in this game either. Bengals, one and a half. I said Bengals, one. It's two.

You get it. I don't know. Pittsburgh beat them, right? The first time, 16-10. I can't remember who. I don't remember that game very well. Would you put Jamar Chase, not entirely his fault because Burrow got hurt,

but would you put Jamar Chase on your first team fantasy murderer all-pro team? For wide receiver? I mean, Stephon Diggs has to get the other spot. You don't count injuries, so Jefferson's not. No, I don't count. It's not his fault. All right. I mean, I had a lot of hope in Michael Thomas this year. I don't know why. But yeah, I think you're right.

I mean, who else would we look at? Chargers, maybe somebody. He was the sixth. Right now in our league, he has the sixth most, seventh most fantasy points. Diggs is somehow ninth. I can't remember a single awesome game that he's had. No.

Puka Nakua, at least in our league, is eleventh, and it seems like he was way more prominent week after week after week. I guess DK Metcalf is a possibility. Devonta Smith. Oh, yeah, yeah. Those Seattle guys for sure. Garrett Wilson, but not

really his fault. Devonta Adams. Did you say Adams? really his fault. Devontae Adams. Did you say Adams? Oh yeah, Devontae Adams. You're right. He's the first teamer. So you go Devontae Adams and who?

Yeah, I don't think I put Chase to like fourth or fifth. Metcalf. I always think that guy's going to be better than he is, but he's right up there.

You're right. We should do actual work on this and announce our team before week 18 for running backs. Oh, man. Tony Pollard. He was going for like 58, 60 bucks.

He's not even in the top 12 here. Very, very bad. Saquon's down there, though. Austin Eckler's not even in the top 20. Najee Harris always is there. People felt the Najee Harris thing, though. Yeah, I guess.

Remember, everyone was like, Warren's going to take his job. Jonathan Taylor got hurt. Chubb got hurt. Ooh, Aaron Jones is way down there, too. Yeah, we got to do that next week.

Yeah, we'll figure it out. Other Saturday game is Bills at Chargers. A little AFC. A little AFC late 60s kind of feel. Those Chargers. That's in LA too. We didn't say goodbye to Brandon Staley.

Oh, we did. Any farewell thoughts? Well, I mean, is it possible? I think he was dealing mini-Baccarat at the win Thursday night like I don't even think he waited until Friday to get it right is that tampering if Steve Wynn hires him before at all

but yeah if you're gonna if you're gonna fire a guy if you're ever gonna fire a guy it had to be then we talked last Sunday we were saying Staley would have been

fired on Monday if they didn't have the game on Thursday it's too hard to fire the guy with the Thursday the natural reaction that would have been well then why didn't you bet the Ra game on Thursday. It's too hard to fire the guy with the Thursday. The natural reaction to that would have been, well, then why didn't you bet the Raiders on Thursday? Because the Raiders scored zero points against the Vikings.

So I don't want to bet them either. And it's a Thursday night game. So I just stayed away completely. And I went to the basketball game that night, looked at my phone, and it was 21-0 in like five seconds. I was like, oh my God, why didn't I bet the Raiders? But it's hard to jump on a team that scored zero points. But you knew Stanley was done in like five seconds. I was like, oh my God, why didn't I bet the Raiders? But it's hard to jump on a team that scored zero points.

But you knew Stanley was done in the first half. I would never urge anybody to not gamble, God forbid. But when the Raiders put up a goose egg at home against the Vikings and then 70, or close to 70 the next week. Yeah, that's a bad. I wouldn't tell people to not eat pizza. But if you look at just those. Yeah, that's a bad, like I wouldn't tell people to not eat pizza, but if you look at just those four days,

that's disgusting. I don't think, I don't think he gets a job. Does he get another job? You give him an over-under for two and a half years for head coach or no?

He'll get a coordinator job. That's it. But what's funny is they hired him because of his defensive acumen, but their defenses were never good. And then I mentioned earlier

about the coaches like that don't have a QB. It's tough to judge them. He did have a QB the whole time and still couldn't win with them. And good wide receivers. They should have fired him after the playoff game. We said that after the game in January. Yeah, you're right. I can't come back from that. That was a wrap. Some owners are just very

different. They're just very, very different about how they approach this. It's weird because nobody cares about the Chargers in LA at all. Do you know a single Chargers fan? Not really.

Between the two of us, we know a bunch of people. I don't know anybody who loves the Chargers. No. And we live right here. They move from San Diego, and they do it in a way that all the San Diego fans are like, fuck that team. They're dead to me. Right? Then they come here and the LA people are like, well, I don't care

about the Chargers. So they're just, and they're the tenant in somebody else's building. So you could argue they're in the worst situation of any professional sports team. They're in a city that doesn't like them. They don't even own their own stadium. They have no history

because all their history is San Diego and Phil Rivers and the Danny and Tomlinson and Dan Fouts and Kellen Winslow. It's basically like the Seattle Supersonics with Oklahoma City where it just doesn't feel like a piece of them anymore. And now they have no coach and no GM. But at the same time, I feel like it's a pretty good job because you get Herbert, you got it going, you got some excitement. And to me,

this is the Bill Belichick team. Absolutely. If you want to break that record, you want to do it in two years, not four years, right? And going to a team that can't win. I did something on my show. I thought the Chargers who were coincidentally playing the Raiders, they should just swap sites and not even move, but Spanos should talk to Mark Davis and be like, look, we screwed up. The Chargers have no place in LA.

The Chargers will be in Vegas. They're used to not getting fans anyway. That's fine. It's a more fun experience. The Raiders could come back to LA where their fans are. You still do see Raiders flags flying everywhere. So that would be the

swap to make. But yeah, otherwise, it's not looking good for the LA Chargers. Or move to Mexico City or London or Germany or do something like that. I just don't know what they have to gain from being in LA. I don't understand it. They're also, they don't spend a ton of money.

You know, I think they're notoriously cheap, which would be the case against them getting Belichick. But the other thing is if you get Belichick, I wouldn't want him to be coach GM because he's just proven the last six years. He can't do that job. Right. He's he, I mean, we have the worst kicker in the league, Chad Ryland. He's I think the only guy who's under 70%. He's like 13 for 20 this season. He, the only guy who's under 70%. He's like 13 for 20 this season. He's the only guy who's under 70%. It's terrible. We took him with a fourth rounder this year.

He was the 112th pick in the draft. No other team took a field goal kicker before the sixth round. Belichick took him in the fourth round, and he sucks. How many mistakes could this guy make in free agency? And I don't blame him. He's the greatest coach of all time.

I just think it's unrealistic to think you can do both jobs when you're 73 years old. But if he's just a coach, I think he'd be good. Yeah. I just don't know how many organizations offer that, really. And as far as the Chargers staying in LA, there's got to be a financial motivation, right? We don like the Chargers staying in LA, like there must be, there's got to be a financial motivation, right? Like we don't see Chargers jerseys and we don't see this and

that, but it's got to be worth it. Otherwise you just lose and lose and lose money year after year. Would you do Jim Harbaugh? Yeah. I think that could shake things up a little bit as much as I don't love him. What about a famous legendary coach who's dead? Oh, yeah. Interesting. What are you talking about? Like they hired Tom Landry.

Nobody in here even knows what's going on with the church. They're like, well, they got Tom Landry. They're just trying to Jedi my church. But it's a guy named Tom Landry, but it's not actually Tom Landry. It's just a guy who lives in Orange County. Yeah. Where's the hat? It's like, there he is, Tom Landry, but it's not Tom Landry.

Madden is back. Look at him go. Or they can hire like Al Pacino. Like they can hire somebody who played a football coach. Right. Try that. Yeah. Get Tommy DeVito's agent.

He loves the sidelines. What's Tommy DeVito's agent's name? Sterling Stiletto? Yeah, something like that. Steven Stiletto or something. I was thinking when I moved to LA and Jimmy was involved in that San Gennaro feast. Oh, yeah, right.

And it had all of those C&D list actors and celebrities, Italian guys. And it'll be like, there's Carlo from the Godfather. And, uh, I was just thinking out that's Tommy DeVito's destiny, like 20 years from now.

There's Tommy DeVito, won a couple of games for the giants. Like that's definitely him and Tommy DeVito in 2048, his agent. It's him right now. Right. I thought you were going to say the agent was at the feast. Tommy DeVito in like 2042.

It's like, there he is. He had that, he won three games for the new york giants well some pizzeria was going to pay him ten thousand dollars i think in new jersey as an appearance fee to show up next week or something and he was on board and he's like no twenty thousand like the agent is pricing him out of the game and the pizza place is like yeah we can't afford that and you guys suck today today. So the shines off. I see a really good media career for him. The, the JJ and Tommy show on New York, New York,

just taken over. You think JJ would take them? JJ would take them. He's got a good personality. I think JJ would like him. Yeah. I think he's got to do the tour. He's got a DJ with,

what's the, who's the, who's the Jersey Shore kid? Pauly D? Yeah. He's got to do that. He's got to do the tour. He's got to DJ with... Who's the Jersey Shore kid? Pauly D? Yeah, he's got to do that. He's got to be like the Keto Guido with the other one. He's got to do that round first.

And then JJ's up for it. Great stuff. Great name. Tommy DeVito is just an awesome Italian name too. I have Bills at the Chargers. I got the Bills by eight at LA. I'm like, Simmons is going to crush me on

this one because I was off five points, but you were off five and a half points. It's 13 and a half. Oh my God. That's ridiculous. 13? I'm checking again. It's 13 and a half. I was about to say to you, watch the Bills lose this game with Austin, with Easton Stick.

And I'm still not sure they're going to win. 13 and a half. So are the Chargers now the worst team in the league? That's what that line tells me. I guess so. I guess so.

Easton Stick was really bad. Even Denver didn't get this many points when they gave up 70 to the Dolphins. They didn't get that the next week. This is bad. Who are we putting the Bills in a 13-point piece with?

There's only two other games. They're on Christmas. You'll see. Sunday's marquee game. Your piece of shit team, the Cowboys. Jerks. They're in Miami trying to redeem themselves against the Miami Dolphins.

I'm assuming Tyreek plays. That was so weird. Do you see him walk? He walked quickly into the stadium. He was jumping around the sideline like he had a Fitbit. He was checking steps. He really looks ready to play.

They cut away to him too much, I think. I thought the Monday night injury was one of the weirdest in-game injury kind of sagas I've ever seen. Cause he came out, he never went in the blue tent or at least they didn't show it. And then he stood on the sidelines. He wasn't sitting, he wasn't on crutches. He was just standing on his bad ankle. He would sprint to the sideline. Yeah, then it seemed like he might come in. Then he did come in. Then he came out. Then he came in again.

And then he sprinted back out. And it's like, what the hell is going on? Are you hurt or not? I don't know. And then he got scratched this week. Very strange guy. I have the Dolphins favored by three over the Cowboys. All right, I hit this exactly.

It's one and a half. And I think I recommend taking the Dolphins. This is just going to be a bunch of games the Cowboys don't need here. I don't know. Don't take the seven and a half.

I know you're looking at that one and a half saying plus seven and a half on a teaser. Don't you dare do it. I won I know you're looking at that 1.5 saying plus 7.5 on a teaser. Don't you dare do it. I won't let you. Maybe your team just need to get slapped in the face. No. No, we have some issues.

Although, I mean, by the way, Mostert, the way he runs the ball, everyone's talking about Tyree Kill. I get on JJ all the time because he's a big Dolphins fan. They're screaming about Tyree Kill for MVP. This guy's got 20 touchdowns. He's a very underrated player right now in the league. Is he going to have like 26 touchdowns when it's

all done? I have three watchable games. One is Cleveland at Houston. We think Stroud will be back for this, right? I'll tell you they're basing it on him being back. Seems like it.

I have the Texans by one and a half over Cleveland. That's what I had. It's two and a half. It's a tough one. Their pass rush was phenomenal. It might be as good as the Browns. I know it was against a weird team, but... What was the job he didn't want to take? Denver? Who's this?

D'Amico Ryans? Didn't he bow out of the Denver one because he wanted to Houston? Yeah, right. He could have either. Smart move. I guess so. It's very risky, right? Two one-and-des before him at Houston.

So if Houston loses that, I think Houston is in, they have to keep winning or they're in a lot of trouble range here. Right. Because they have this, home Tennessee and add Indy. They're going to have to win the Indy one too.

But I think they have to win this Cleveland one. Cleveland could potentially lose it and be okay, but they have the Jets the next week Cleveland could potentially lose it and be okay, but they have the Jets the next week and then AdSense the last week. Do we think a 10-7 is going to get bounced? Yeah. I think it's possible. Wow, the Bills.

Interesting. Next one is Lions-Vikings. It's in Minnesota. I think the Lions are going to be favored. And I'm putting it in the Tic Tac Zone. I got Lions by one and a half. I got you. I said two and a half because I figured it would be like when they played Chicago. They gave three.

It was crazy. It's three and a half. That's too high. Detroit favored. And they play again week 18. I don't agree with that. They're going to put some fucking living shit out of the golf. And the crowd's going to go nuts.

This is a bad spot for the Lions. I like the Vikings. Yeah. I don't know what to make of the Lions. I don't think they're what we saw Saturday night, Detroit. Not quite that. They want to be up 10-0. That's when they look awesome.

Last one is Bucs at home for the Jags. Little Florida battle. I got the Bucs by one and a half. Tampa Bay. You got the Bucks by one and a half? Yeah. Oh, that way.

Yeah, you're going to get this. Help me figure this out. I had Bucks by two. It's Jags by three. I win. Yeah, you win. Why did you have to figure that out? I don't know. Is by three. I win. Yeah, you win. Why did you have to figure that out? I don't know.

I don't know. I was lost. Actually, now it's Jags by two as I looked at it, but you win either way. Man, do you agree with that line? Not after what I saw tonight, really. What's good about the Jags? Why should they be favored by against any 500

or above team? I don't get it. I think we like Tampa more than a lot of people do, but still. What's funny is Tampa and Indy are very similar. You don't want to take them seriously. If you actually watch the games, they move the ball up and down the

field and their quarterback hits guys on third and eight, third and thirteen. In the red zone, he hits tight ends. Jumping, like, these, both teams just make plays. He'll crush us, Baker. He will, because he just will. But when he throws, like, an 18-yard

pass over the middle, I'm as confident as I am in, like, 20, really top seven quarterbacks. Both guys also, the teammates like them and the teammates respond to them. You can see that on the TV too. It is not the Derek Carr situation.

Fairly watchables. Atlanta is home for the Colts. And I think this is going to be the 90th straight week where the Falcons line is going to be weird. You're right. I'm going to say Falcons line is going to be weird. You're right. I'm going to say Falcons minus one over the Colts.

I said Colts by one. It's Colts by one and a half. I think Fandles off the Falcons. I think everyone's like, yeah, this team scores 16 points no matter who they play. Wouldn't you rather have the Falcons at home than on the road, though? I guess so.

I guess so. It just seems like the same kind of deal. Colts, this isn't a dome. I don't know. This doesn't scare me. Do you like the Colts? Yeah, I'm going to get crushed with the Colts. I had them to not make the playoffs on a lot of parlays and stuff.

I'm in a lot of trouble with them. Falcons' defense seems like it's banged up past the point of no return. That's not helping them. Right. And then, you know, they spent all this first-round capital on Drake London and Pitts

and B. John Robinson, and none of them are special. They spent a high second-rounder on Ritter. You know, it's a lot of capital to not end up with one guy that jumps out of the TV. And Bijan looked like, especially in the first two months of the season, looked like he was really, really talented. But you watch the games and he just doesn't really seem that impactful. I don't know if it's the offensive line's fault or what.

All the teams that passed on Lamar Jackson, the Falcons are the dumbest, right? As a free agent. Yeah, it's the least defensible. I think Arthur Smith's a dark horse to get bounced at the end of the season, too. I've never watched that Falcons team and thought, oh, man, crisp team.

All right, five teams are in the poopfecta. Seahawks at the Titans. I had the Seahawks favored by one and a half. I had two and it's two and a half. You're beating me this week. I know. I looked at everything. I was like,

this is one and a half or two. I really couldn't differentiate. Broncos are home for the Patriots. And I think this is in the Vegas zone. I had an idea for the Pats, by the way. Because we really need to lose these last three games. Like, we got to take care of business. Right now, we're number two.

Yeah. I think they should platoon Zappi and Mack. And not even, not even like each guy gets a series and it just goes back and forth. I would say every three plays, Belichick could just say, we're trying something here. It's never been done, but we really think the defense will have trouble adjusting.

Every three plays, a new guy's going to come in. They need to just shatter the confidence of whoever's the quarterback. Not that that needs a lot of help because they've been bad, but let's like experiment. It's super weird with this of help because they've been bad, but let's experiment. It's super weird with this. And just make sure that we don't win any of these games. I think, well, first of all,

I don't know how much you're joking here, but where do you think Belichick's head is really with winning these games? He wants to win these games. He wants to win these games. It didn't seem like he wanted to win the game today in the fourth quarter. I thought the clock management was super weird.

Your idea would work after this week because the problem with platooning, everybody says, is, well, you take your quarterback out of a rhythm. Your quarterback, whoever it is, is coming in, can't be in a rhythm. Billy Zappi was 16 for 18. So he'd be like, hey, screw you and your rhythm. It didn't work out. This is what we're going to do. I don't mind that idea.

The rhythm method. Yeah. Broncos, I have favored Broncos minus five. All right. You get it. I said four and a half. It is five and a half. Must win for Denver.

Must lose for New England. So, of course, it's going to be close. That's a night game. That's a Sunday night. Can I do my impression? Is it a night game? I think it's 5. Yeah, I wrote 5.15. Can I do my impression of whoever the announcers are for this game?

Yeah. We talked to Sean Payton. We talked to him last night and he has so much respect for Bill Belichick. He just thinks the world of him and he just couldn't spend enough time talking about what a great football coach is then an hour later we talked to bill belichick last night and

he just has a world of respect for sean payton he just says he is just one of the best coaches he's gone against and really really respects that guy they're all asking all the right questions have you ever heard of we talked to him yesterday and then there was some sort of revelation. We were like, wow, that was really interesting. No, no, I don't think so. I think they hold back the good stuff. I really do. I think some of those, I know those things go for hours sometimes and there has to be something good that comes out of them. But I think it's just like, hey, keep this under your hat. Promise me you won't say anything on the air. Well,

I remember cause a couple of times I announced basketball games and we got to meet with the coaches beforehand and they were, they were way more candid and you kind of, they're kind of trusting you not to use stuff. Yeah. But they'll be like, God damn, that guy's driving me crazy.

You know, they're like, Oh, good to know. But yeah, they just kind of use the boring parts of it. I think this is a Collinsworth game. This is a Sunday night game.

If he's working Christmas Eve. I'm parlaying the Broncos money line with Collinsworth saying that Sean Payton, they talked to him yesterday and he just has so much respect for Bill Belichick. Parlay, Fandle. Did you see? Same gamer for me? I think they would. Yeah, put that up there, Fandle. Let's Did you send the same gamer for me I think they would Yeah put that up there Fandle

Let's have some fun Some Christmas fun By the way I don't know what the exact money figure was But 110,000 people Bet my bills Same game parlay last week On Fandle

Oh and they won They won 11 to 1 Yeah I don't know what the exact number was But I was excited Oh my god Yeah Yeah have some Fandle

Yeah but they're making it all back on your basketball parlor, so. I'm in a basketball parlor, so I gotta get one this week. Jets, home, for Riverboat Run. Oh, that's good. Now, Rowboat Run. And maybe Jacoby Brissett? Why not?

Honestly, you could tell me any line for this. I said Jets by two. I have no idea. That's what I had. I had two. It is three. Yeah. Five and nine versus four and ten.

What a dumb game. 13 years they've been eliminated from the playoffs in a row? Seems like more. It's going to be, yeah, 13. This is going to be a tough YouTube multi-view day because not only is it Christmas, but a lot of these games aren't that great. Yeah, we have six in the morning.

Or six games in the morning you can do like the three squares instead of four so you can just not have I did that with Jets Dolphins I was like

I gotta get that off I don't even want to watch one second of this Packers are at the Panthers I have Packers I put this in Vegas on Packers five and a half.

You're going to get this. I was stupid. I said two. It's four and a half. Why did I say two? It's dumb. I guess because Atlanta, I guess Green Bay is considered better than Atlanta at this point.

So the Packers, they have one of the worst defensive plans in a long time against the Giants on Monday night. Oh, yeah. That was just abysmal. Letting Tommy DeVito just run around. And then the game this weekend was just as bad. And now they could do the trifecta and blow their season.

LeFleur went from, look at LeFleur. Look at this guy doing it about Rodgers too. I actually think he's a firing candidate if they lose this game. Wow. Yeah, he doesn't lose in December. Unless it's December 17th or December 10th. Then he loses a lot.

It's a winnable game for Carolina. Green Bay's banged up. I know. I know it's so weird. And they got nothing to lose for. Why not? They don't have their pick anyway. Tepper looks a lot better to go 3-14 or 4-13 than it does to go 2-15. So they've been trying to win.

There was a play. I don't know if you saw it. It was a bad measurement. And so the defense thought they held and the Panthers thought that they got the first down. So the Panthers offense stayed on the field. And then Atlanta's offense came on the field too. So both offenses were on the field for the, but for while the referees figured out what the hell they were going to call

and Ritter stood next to them. Like, Oh, look at the two quarterbacks going at it. They're talking about, I was like, Oh, that's not a core.

I'm like, Ritter is about a foot and a half taller than Bryce Young. He is so small. I'm not a big guy, but for God's sake, I can't believe how small he is. You saying that made me think maybe that should be the overtime rules for whoever's taller wins. No, if the game goes into overtime and both teams are under 500, only the offenses can play in the overtime. So one offense has to stop the other offense and vice versa.

I like that a lot. Just to get the game over faster. Yeah, that'd be fun. Maybe the USFL could do that. Packers minus four and a half. That was my guess. So I won that one. You got that one. I guess five. Yeah, you got it. You got five. Last one is also terrible.

Bears-Cardinals. In Chicago, Last one is also terrible. Bears Cardinals. Yeah. In Chicago. Kyler got hurt today, but I couldn't tell if that was... Is he playing next week? How bad was the injury? Oh, he got an elbow to the nuts. It was actually kind of funny.

As long as he's okay. That's why I'm rolling around. I think he's back. Okay. I'm going to say Bears by five and a half. All right. You're going to get this. I said three, and it's four and a half. All right. You're going to get this. I said three

and it's four and a half. Let me do the score here. One, two, three. I think I tied it. Eight to two, three, four, five, six. You're winning. Eight, seven. Three left. What a comeback. Oh, no. Four. It's tied. It's tied. You're right, Kyle. You're right.

It's eight, eight. Great job, Kyle. Three left. Christmas Day. Did we have three Christmas Day games last year? I don't think so. Seems like a lot. It's just an extra nice gift. Oh, you don't like this?

No, I'm excited for it. Just Christmas Monday, three games. Yeah. You know who's not excited? My wife. Also, I did broach that there was a Celtic Laker Christmas game that I was thinking about going, and I did the I have to go for work excuse.

And she's like, but I thought you and Sal were doing your podcast on Monday night. So what are the Celtics Lakers? So I think I just screwed it up. I love this because I don't want to get into it, but one of the considerations of whether or not you were going to do the NBA countdown was Christmas day, right? Like I can't keep missing holidays.

And now that was why I didn't want to come back for the second year. Yeah. I missed Christmas. And now there's like 14 football games on and basketball, but my kids don't want to hang out with me anymore. So it's actually way better. Makes sense. Monday, first game, Chiefs Raiders.

The Red Hot Raiders. So my initial instinct was to do Chiefs by nine because it was in Kansas City. And then I started thinking, should they be favored by that much against anybody? And then I said, fuck it. And it's Chiefs by nine is my guess. Oh, I wish you would have talked yourself lower.

I said 11 and it's 10. So we split it. Just hard for them to score, man. Kelsey does not look the same anymore. So weird. I don't know if he's nursing an injury or what, but he just is moving slower. Yeah.

He's got jet lag from all the private jet flights. It's not good. I think he got banged up a little too. He sat out and Tony dropped another ball. And, you know, if they weren't playing the Patriots, they wouldn't have covered nine and a half probably today. Yeah. But I don't know.

They just kind of beat up on the Raiders. What did they beat them? 31-17 last time? Yeah. Eagles are home for the Giants. And ironically, I had this right around that 10-2, but I did Eagles 9.5 for this. All right.

I got this exactly. 10.5. So you got a beat made a tie here in the last one. Oh, fuck you. Yeah, sorry. Jesus. So what are we looking at for our teaser? So you like the Bills, Chiefs, and Eagles?

We'll do the last game. Then we'll figure it out. All right. Because I'm going to nail this exactly, and we're going to tie. Okay. I was off by a point and a half. I'll tell you that much. Okay.

49ers home for the Ravens. And I have 49ers by four. Yeah, you got it. I said six, because they've been jacking up these numbers at least until Thursday, then they go down. It's four and a half. Oh, Vegas zone.

Interesting. So we tie, yeah. All right. Is that game going to be as good as we hope it is? I mean, as long as the 49ers are healthy, I just think they smoke everybody. I don't even think this is hard to figure out.

They're dominant. Right. Don't you think? Yeah. Absolutely. If all those dudes are playing, somebody was saying

during the, one of the announcers was saying during the game today, it's like watching an all-star team. Mm-hmm. I mean,

you know, they have like one of the top four tight ends of the best four tight ends. They have the best running back. Debo and Ayuk are up there as a combo. We forget about Ayuk. Ayuk's great too.

Purdy is about as accurate as any quarterback we have in the league. And they have a top three offensive line. It's ridiculous. And their defense can make plays. And their defense, I think, is going to make the difference here. The Ravens don't have that. And every game, they have a lead. Yep.

All right, so this is what I mean. So you say, all right, you don't like the plus 240, whatever, for Super Bowl. Let's go heavy on the Niners here because I'd be shocked if they lost this. 13-point tees. Bills down a half point over the Chargers. The 49ers, I know this will make Raheem mad,

taking them through the zero and making them plus eight and a half at home. Oh, man. Against the Ravens, that's going to lose? All right, so we need two more. You don't like the other two Christmas games? Chiefs-Raiders? I'd want to have the Chiefs at plus three and a half

to pull that off. Eagles-Giants is a stay away. This becomes difficult now then. Yeah. This becomes harder. Colts-Falcons? We take the Colts to

plus 11 and a half? That sounds exciting. The thing is, now you got a bad quarterback though, right? Now you have, you had Josh Allen. Nice.

Well, you have Purdy. Good. Just take a shot at Minshew? You could have Mahomes, but no, you don't want to do that. Yeah. That's where the 13 stuff.

Let's take a break and we'll do a little Paracord. We are supported by NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube and YouTube TV, where it's easier than ever to follow the race to the playoffs. And it is a race, because it seems like everybody's involved in the playoffs right now.

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Terms and embargoes apply, no cancellations. Today's Parent Corner is brought to you by CarMax. Every day as a parent is filled with lots of quick decisions to make for your kids, and they aren't always easy. But when it comes to deciding what car to buy, CarMax makes it simple. You can take a full month up to 1,500 miles to love your car, return it guaranteed. Learn more. Find a car you'll love today at CarMax.com. All right, what do you got, Sal? All right.

Well, I want to go over the life of a wrestling parent. I don't know if you've experienced it yet so much. I know Ben is into it, right? Yeah, he's doing it. He's going to start actual matches in January. I thought it was going to be this weekend, but they pushed it. Okay.

Well, my middle guy, Jack, had a tournament. And so he has to make weight for the Saturday tournament. And he has to weigh 120. And he's 122 Friday night. And I was like, listen, you got to just tough it out. You can't eat anything. He's like, well, what can I eat? I'm dying. I was like, listen, you got to just tough it out. You can't eat anything. He's like, well, what can I eat? I'm dying. I was like, you can have a couple pickles.

He had two pickles. And I was like, now just go to sleep. It's eight o'clock. We have to be at this tournament. You have to weigh in at seven. Thankfully, it's not an hour and a half away. It's like 20 minutes away. But if you eat anything after six o'clock, it's going to tack on.

You're not going to be able to burn it overnight. Look at me. I'm an expert on this. I'm the picture of hell. So he does it. He wakes up. We're out of the house at like 635, 640. He gets there, weighs in at 7.

Finally weighs in. He makes weight at 710. He's like 119 and a half. He makes it. Great. It. He's like 119.5. He makes it. Great. It's 7.10 in the morning. The thing doesn't start until 9.30. It doesn't make sense for me to go home. Now I'm in the parking lot drinking a coffee, betting EPL

and watching on my phone. I can't see him until 9.30. That's a fun weight in the car right there. It's a constipated gambling morning in your driver's seat.30. So that's a fun wait in the car right there. It's a constipated gambling morning in your driver's seat. Yeah, exactly. The Vikings game doesn't even start until 10, so I'm stuck.

He doesn't have his match until 11 a.m. So now we got there like 6.40. It's 11 a.m. And he's probably going to have another match. It's double elimination. He goes out there. God bless him. Great kid.

Doesn't listen to anything I say. Gets pinned first period. And then in the spectator area, I can oversee his group there. And he immediately gets off the mat and goes to his phone and is playing this football game on his phone. I'm like, God damn it. I've been here like four and a half hours. He gets pinned in the first period. Now he's playing football. Why am I more worked up than him? So I yell, I'm like, Jack, meet me in the lobby. And he meets me in the lobby. We walk. It's about a

two-minute walk. We meet each other. And he says to me, he's like, I swear to God he did this. He said, well, what'd you think? I said, what did I think? As uh he cradled dan gable and then 20 seconds in i was like jack you gotta shoot man it's three one minute periods you have to you gotta be great you can't score if you don't shoot he's like yeah yeah you're probably right you're probably right so his second match was much better he lost a close one. But what do you think? Four and a half hours after getting stuck in the first period was bewildering. And that's what you have to look forward to. Except your kid will probably be better. You're like, what do I think?

We have to stop at a Jack in the Box because I didn't go to the bathroom. I've been at four and a half hours. Holy shit. What do you think? That's a classic. My parent corner, my daughter came home late late Thursday night and and I was just thinking about it

from my dog's perspective Murph who's you know not a rocket scientist but the flight was late she came home at like it was like midnight right so my wife went and got her and comes back and he's sound asleep and then wakes up and the doorbell rings and all of a sudden she's coming with a suitcase she's like Murph and he fucking loses his mind it was like she'd come back from

Vietnam in like 1973 and I was thinking like what did dogs think when somebody lives here and then they're just gone? Yeah. What, what is their long-term memory? Because sometimes when you leave a house and you come home, you could go get, I could go get a Starbucks and come home a half hour later. And Murph is like, so excited. I just came home and I was like, I was just here a half hour ago. There's no way this is this exciting. But then when Zoe came home, And I was like, I was just here a half hour ago. There's no way this is this exciting. But then when Zoe came home, he was like jumping up in the air and just like losing his mind that she was home.

So do you think he thinks like she's just gone? Like he's never going to see her again? Or the dog's like, are they too stupid? It's the, I'm giving them too much credit. I thought about this and I wonder, so is it anxiety or is it, do they think, is time different for them? Because obviously one year is seven years. So if she's gone for two months, she's gone, you know.

So that's like a year. Yeah, it's over a year. So I'm going to, my limited knowledge of this and how much effort I want to put into it, that's what I think. I think it's time seven. So if you were gone for coffee for an hour, you're gone the whole day in their head. It strikes me that there's way more dogs now than there used to be. Everybody has a dog now. I think when we were growing up, there were probably, I would say, one-tenth as many dogs. It seems like everybody and their brother has a dog now. Talk to Gavin Newsom.

No, no, that's something else. But we have such limited knowledge of dogs. I saw this Instagram video, and it was like, five signs your dog's happy. And it was like, number one, your dog approaches you and sticks his paw out. And number two, your dog approaches you and sticks his paw out. And number two, your dog will come up and kiss you for no reason. And number three, your dog will do zoomies, like those circles and just be super happy. And I was like, oh, Murph does all those things.

He must be happy. And I'm like, I'm a fucking lunatic. How do I know if he's happy? But we just have no intelligence. Anyway, so my daughter came home and it's like, this is great. So glad to have no intelligence. Anyway, so my daughter came home and was like, this is great. So glad to have her back. Can't wait. Haven't seen her since. She was with friends. She was out. I've seen her for a total of 10 minutes. Yeah. Listen, you posted a very nice thing on Instagram and I think she responded with,

I missed you the most, right? I think she actually said that. We went to dinner for Friday for an hour, and that was about it. Yeah, but to say she missed you the most, that's got to make your wife upset. Listen, I've learned not to believe anything I read on social media. There you go. But good to have her back. It's nice to have the unit.

The nucleus is back. I love it. It's nice. I just don't know. I just want to ask Murph. I just, I know we have AI. We have all these technological advancements. I really want to be able to talk to dogs

before the end of my life. 30 years from now, I want technology where we could just find out more. They might just have nothing going on. They might just be like, I need to take a shit. I need to pee. I need to eat. I'm happy you're here.

I'm sad you're not here. And it just might be those five emotions and that's it. Yeah, that's good. I mean, I know a guy that's going to cost you like three or four million dollars who can answer all these questions for you. Who is it? I'll send you the number. Brad Mulcahy? Yeah. He talks to dogs.

Alright, that's it for Parent Corner. He talks to dogs. All right. That's it for Parent Corner. Today's Parent Corner is brought to you by CarMax. Parenting is always going to be a little tricky and filled with split-second decisions, but buying a car doesn't have to be with CarMax. You can take a full month up to 1,500 miles to love your car or return it. That's the 30-day money-back guarantee. Learn more.

Find a car you'll love today at CarMax.com. All right, before we go, quick NBA. As you know, I'm not allowed to bet MVP. I did notice. I'm going to predict

in my head. Who I liked. Don't say Tatum 18-1. Stop with that. No. Celtics look great.'t say Tatum 18-1. Stop with that. No. Celtics look great. Celtics 14-0 at home. That's what it is, right?

Yeah. Pretty good. All right. I got to say, I was impressed. They had the back-to-back against Cleveland and then the back-to-back against Orlando at home all in the same week. And it's like, all right,

which one are they going to play the shit game in and lose, right? There's no way they're going to play well in all four of these. Didn't happen. They won all four of them. It was impressive. They would have done that.

Last year, they were the bull one. So Halliburton, 20 to one. That's what you're saying. Ooh. Well, you told me Devin Booker a couple weeks ago. You still like that? I just like the odds.

It was 26 to one. But no, the Suns look like, I'm a little worried about them. All right, I give up. SGA, 10-1. Ooh. Here's the case. He did it

again last night. I don't know if you saw it, but Denver is up 1. They run the worst play ever for this trend where these teams try to kill the clock. Like 35 seconds left. That's like, let's burn as much clock as possible and then get a terrible three with

two seconds left. And SGA, they don't call timeout and he comes down and just nails a shot. So OKC right now, they're 16-8. They're second in the West. They're plus 6.8 in point

differential. And I think they're going to be a top three team if they don't do anything. But they have all this shit to trade. And the combo of like, I think you have to be a top two seed to be an MVP. I think you have to be one of the best five players in the league and one of the most valuable guys in your league. And you also be having to be having a really good season. He's averaging almost 31 points a game. He's a first team all NBA guy by any calculation.

And if they make a trade and end up being like a 55 or 53 win team, something like that, I just think his odds should be better. So I was surprised because right now it's Jokic is plus 210, Luka is plus 430. And by the way, you compare Shea to Luka. OKC's team is doing better and his stats are just as good as end of the game stats. He's probably one of the best end of the game guys in the league. Embiid is plus 430.

Giannis is plus 850. Shea is 10 to 1. Tatum's 18 to 1. But to me, Shea should be second in odds right now. I think it should be Jokic and Shea. Let me tell you why I like this and why I hate it. I like it because I think it's important in these things for a guy you're suggesting to get votes. I feel like votes are important in these things. So people scream about McCaffrey.

I'm like, that's not a good bet. Running backs don't get votes ever. Right. Stop it. I don't care what you're seeing on your TV. SGA was fifth in votes last year. Right. So he's got some, I don't think you voted for him.

And that's what I hate about him. I voted for him fourth, I think, for MVP last year. All right. So he gets votes. So he's in that group, the select few that get votes. What I hate is you typically give me like four guys to bet on for MVP. And I just think it's like you and Dr. Jay, it's a practical joke on me. You're just laughing. You're just laughing. Or you and House or something. Every time I do this, it's always about the value of the odds in the moment. And like when Booker was 26 to 1, it was just those are pretty good odds

because it seemed like Phoenix had a chance to be really good. And the more we watch them, I think Phoenix has a lot of flaws. I don't think they have any chance of being the top three team. So he averaged 31 last year, though. You know that, right?

I mean, I know you know that. Yeah, but their team is way better. And I think if the team had, they're 40 and 42 last year and he was number five mvp this year 16 and eight and i think the thing they're also i think the highest scoring team in the league or or their highest scoring team in the west but what i like is the trade possibility because they have expiring contracts they have all these picks like they might go get Laurie Markkinen. Right. They could get, I don't know,

pick anybody to put in there. What if they got, even if they got Terry Rozier from OKC, they're going to get one more guy and they're going to get one more big guy. And then so what seed will they end up with for him? Where do they have to get? So this was my big prediction this year. I thought they were a 50-win team because of their youth and

because they had a good guy and they had stuff to trade. I think they are unquestionably a top three seed because the thing with young teams is they're just healthier and there's less variance with them. They're just good every game because it's not like the Clippers where you're like, I don't know if James Harden is going to show up

tonight because he's 34 years old. So with them, 16-8 is the right record. You could argue they actually blew a couple games they should have won. But that means they're on pace for 48-24. So they're on pace for like 54-55 wins, and that's

before the trade. So they're going to add one more piece of this. The other thing is they hit with case on Wallace, the guard they took, like that guy's good. He's playing for them. He hits threes. So,

um, all right, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to bet it. And I'm not telling you to bet it. I'm just saying, it doesn't, it doesn't even have to win,

but if he doesn't get 50, 50 votes, which he had, you know, 46 last year, if he doesn't get 50, you have to ask Murph what his deal is and what he believes and what he has.

I'll do a podcast with Murph. Until he answers. You have to repeatedly ask him until he answers. That's your punishment. I thought Jokic was going to cruise, but Denver's down to 17 and 10. Yeah. I don't know.

Are they going to get to 50 wins? And Bede versus Jokic has at least been an argument for the first third of the season. But I think Shea, when you look at how young that team is, right, this is Chet's first year. It's Jalen Williams' second year. They have that whole Josh Giddey situation, which nobody knows if it's going to play out.

They don't really have a deep bench. I think the fact that they're a top two seed is pretty great. So, that's the case. All right. I already bet Giannis. I have to,

at the end of the year, I do have like four guys to look at. So, I might as well have SGA in there. I like the Giannis bet too. Giannis for the year is 31.6,

10.7 rebounds and five assists already. So, you know. But I just don't like the odds as much. Alright, what do you got to plug? Lots of things. Lots of things against the Lods. Couple times this week. That'll be fun. Ringer-wise, guys, I hit my

best bet. My dog, my prop parlay. That's always a good time on Sunday. We'll come to you on Christmas Eve. Through the Ringer with Tate, Tuesday morning. And Cousin Sal's winning weekend. Boomer Esiason on this Eve. Through the ringer with Tate Tuesday morning and Cousin Sal's winning weekend, Boomer Esiason on this week. By the way, I asked Sims. I had Phil Sims on last week.

I asked him your question about whether or not he was rooting against Tostetler in Super Bowl XXV. What did he say? He got pissed. He left the Zoom. We had like half an interview. No, no. He said it was a good question, but he absolutely was rooting for him.

And then he went into how his ankle really hurt. So it's not like he could have gone to... It's an inductive question. Yeah, that's it. All right. There you go. Good job by you, cuz. Good job by you, buddy.

That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti, as always. Thanks to Cuz and Sal. Don't't forget New Rewatchable is coming on Monday night and I will see you on The Speed on Tuesday on the wayside I'm a person never lost And I don't have feelings