The Bill Simmons Podcast - Chiefs Doubts, Brady in L.A., Million-Dollar Picks, and Sox-Yanks With Peter Schrager and Bill’s Dad

Episode Date: September 24, 2021

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by NFL Network's Peter Schrager to discuss some of the upcoming NFL games for the weekend and make their Million-Dollar Picks for Week 3 (3:22). Then Bill talks with his dad about Boston sports, the Ryder Cup, and more (1:08:30). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Peter Schrager and Bill's Dad Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, everybody? I'm J.J. John G. Stramski. And I'm Jason Goff, and if you haven't heard, the ringer has gone local. I'm bringing the fire, I'm bringing the rain from the Big Apple with my show, New York, New York. And I'm repping Chi-Town with my new show, The Full Goal on all things Chicago. We've got episodes three nights a week with all the reaction of the local teams and guests. Plus bonus episodes around all the big games and storylines. So whether you're uptown, downtown, in the burbs, or a transplant. Make sure you follow New York, New York, and the full go on Spotify

or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest-rated sportsbook is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on Million Dollar Picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then trying to back what you think in those first few weeks and then zag the other way,

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Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com. 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. Picture this, it's game day, all the gang's here. You're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air? Moments like that. Or when you want a light beer

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Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. We're also brought to you by Fandle Sportsbook, as well as the Ringer Podcast Network, the reality TV podcast that I think we launched this year. Man, that thing's kicking ass. On Wednesday, we had Johnny Bananas breaking down the latest episode of MTV's The Challenge

with Amber B., who won last year, talking about they had Fessy got knocked out, a lot of challenge drama. And then Survivor came back, another season. I think this is like, what is this, year 21 for them? And we got Tyson, one of the famous Survivor people who's ever been on the show. He's also breaking it down on the Ring of Reality podcast.

So on Wednesday night, Survivor and The Challenge, two different episodes posting right after each other, and you can Survivor and Challenge your little buns off. So check that out. Don't forget about our new local podcast, The Full Go with Jason Goff, just in time for the Justin Fields era, which Peter Schrager and I will be breaking down in a second. Hope you're listening to that. Hope you're listening to John Jastrzemski on New York, New York, because he's going into the lion's den this weekend, Fenway, for the Big Three game series. And then one more podcast thing.

We relaunched our TV podcast. It's called the Prestige TV Pod. I was on there with Amanda Dobbins on Monday, breaking down episode one, season two of The Morning Show. I'm also going to be on tomorrow, Friday, with Van Lathan, Wozni Lambry, Big Woz, our guy. And we just decided to do a Sopranos Hall of Fame episode because the Sopranos prequel is coming out. And we ended up doing the episode where Tony and Bobby get into a fight. First episode of season seven. Really fun.

I actually really like the Hall of Fame concept. I'm going to be popping on that. So I'm probably for the next couple of months, if I do TV stuff, it's probably going to be on that feed. So download it. The Prestige TV pod. We're going to have it really rolling in time

for Succession and some of these other shows. And a lot of our ringer favorites are going to be on that one. People you've heard on this podcast, like Fantasy, Chris Ryan, Van Lathan, Mally Rubin, making her watch Scenes from a Marriage. God, Scenes from a Marriage, episode two. Wow. Tough one. Yikes. Anyway, coming up, Peter Schrager, Million Dollar Picks, and then a very special appearance from my dad because this is an amazing sports weekend coming up and he's here in town because it's my birthday

and we're going to talk Boston Sports Writer Cup a whole lot more. So there you go. That's the pod. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, Peter Schrager is here. Every Thursday we do Million Dollar Picks. My headphones are broken. We had to tape this.

Kyle's mad at me. Now Peter and I, we have to take turns talking. You guys don't need to the inside mechanics, but when you take podcasts, you need headphones. So now I can only hear it from the computer. We're going to try to take turns. It's not going to be us interrupting each other the same way as always last week, we won $147,000 or seven straight winning week. It was a miracle. I didn't feel good about it. If the Minnesota kicker misses that kick or makes that kick, we get crushed. We have our first bad week. We lost on the Chiefs against the Ravens, which is a really stupid game. We might as well start there. Do you think lesser of the

Chiefs after that game or was that just arrogance and the one that got away? No, I have real concerns about the Chiefs defense. That run defense looked like circa 2018 Kansas City and Chiefs fans will shudder in fear when I say this name. It reminded me of the Bob Sutton days, who was the defensive coordinator before Spags. They couldn't stop anything. It was 251 yards on the ground and they knew that Baltimore was going to be running the ball the entire time. It was almost like that fourth and one, should we go for it? It's almost theater, like, yes, you're going for it. And yes, you're going to get it. Who are you kidding? Like, yes, you know, you're getting this one because they can't stop anything. They, you know, Chris Jones is now playing defensive end. He's usually in the inside and he, it's going to take a while for him

to get used to that position. He could not do anything in the run game. There's going to be a lot of good running teams in the AFC. And I do have concerns about that run defense in Kansas City, significant ones. So the counter would be they played Cleveland, they played Baltimore. Those are the two teams. If you can't stop the run, you might not want to see those coming out of the gate. The reason we bring it up, I'm looking at this slate. I think this is a really fun slate. I didn't really like last week's slate. I think that was one of the reasons we were struggling. Although I still feel like Arizona over Minnesota was the right call and the Chiefs Ravens, the Chiefs should have beaten the Ravens. I like this slate

way more and Chargers Chiefs is a fun game to talk about. Before we get there, the Arizona Cardinals betting experience. Can we discuss what that felt like for three and a half hours? It was a wild, we texted, it was a wild ride. And even in the wind, it's almost like it's not worth it. It's just so exhausting and scary. And the heart pressure was, it was a nuts game. They were down 20 to seven at one point. They roughed the punter on a fourth down. They, they had a pick six, they threw another interception and they still won. And so we won the bet, but it, and yet Bill, as we get here and we're a couple of days for like, I kind of want to, it's almost like that. I kind of want to do it again. It was fun. Like it was, I was living, you know?

Well, it's like, uh, Rosillo had a thing on his pod about how Kyler is probably the most fun rollercoaster experience you can have watching football every Sunday. And I completely agree. It was way less fun to bet on it. Um, but at the same time, it was like riding a rollercoaster where a week before they had just had an accident and you're like, should we get on that thing? Maybe. And you know, like we're talking about T we're going to do a couple of teases today, I think. And one of the obvious teases is the cards, they're playing the Jags. The line is seven and a half. It's the perfect six point tease. And yet the Cliff Kyler thing, I will never, I texted this.

I will never get over Kyler with the ball running out of bounds with the lead with two and a half minutes left on first down. And it's like, what are you doing? Why are you torturing me? This is the one thing you couldn't do and you did it. Two minute warning was coming up. So it's, you know, that timeout's built in already. And he just like trots out of bounds.

And to your point on Mondays with Cousin Sal, you know, I love Gus and Aki, but like you're at home watching, throwing things. And they're like, and Kyler's protecting himself, gets out of bounds. Like, no, no, don't protect yourself. No, don't do that. It's the last thing to do. Don't do that now.

Stay in bounds. I started talking about the Chiefs. They're playing the Chargers this week. And the Chargers, one of the tough things about after two weeks heading into week three is we have a sample size that we feel like now it's like, all right, we saw two games. But the sample size can be deceiving, right? The chargers, they went in week one, week two, it's just, they're shooting bullets into their feet, their ankles, their Achilles. They just, they just don't want to win the game. Anytime they have a chance to do something that can win the game, they blow it. You look at their, you know, their, their big picture stats, they have 51 first downs in two weeks. They're 19 for 31 on first down.

Herbert has been spectacular, even though the offense hasn't really, you know, lended itself. If you look at the numbers and the stats, things like that. But I test wise, I kind of liked how they looked, even if the results didn't pan out. And I look at them against this Chiefs team, division rival. I like that piece of it. We know they can run the ball. Eckler, Larry Roundtree III, who's been on some fantasy waiver wires, Justin Jackson, they have some things. They can move the ball. They can move the chains. And the question for me is like, A, could they get the Chief touchdown near the end to cover? Absolutely. B, could they win the game? Maybe.

C, can the Chiefs put away games? And this leads to the Clyde Edwards-Hilaire thing. I test-wise, I've watched him now for a season and plus two games. I just don't think he has it. Like, sometimes this happens. We pick Lawrence Maroney in the mid-2000s and it's like, you watch and you're like, maybe, maybe. And then it's like, eventually you go, eh, he just doesn't have it. Like sometimes this happens. We pick Lawrence Maloney, Maroney in the mid two thousands. And it's like, you watch and you're like, maybe, maybe. And then it's like, eventually you go,

eh, he just doesn't have it. Um, recently Sony, Michelle, it's like, this guy doesn't totally have it. He's nice. He can get the four yards. He's he's durable. Can't catch the ball. Kind of is what he is. Is Clyde Edwards Hilaire, is this just kind of who he is? He certainly hasn't had that big home run play that we've been expecting. And there has been a lot of detractors of late. And I texted with a GM who was like, you've been the biggest Clyde Edwards Hilaire guy, but you do realize in college, he had Justin Jefferson, he had Jamar Chase, he had Joe Burrow, He had all these different players. And it was always just a wide open field for him when he was at LSU that season.

That's why he went nuts. I'm not going to jump it off yet. I will tell you this. Jerick McKinnon is in Kansas City and he wears number one. So he looks really fast. There's a big Chiefs contingent and I live on the Chiefs message boards and I follow the Arrowhead pride and the Arrowhead addict and all those guys. And there is a big contingents, a big constituency saying, let's go with Jarek McKinnon at running back. Like he's better, he's faster and let's go.

I don't know if they're at that point yet. I'm also not at the point of picking the chargers for a lot of reasons. You mentioned all those great numbers. Justin Herbert threw two terrible red zone interceptions. I can't disregard. They had, to your point, that shoot themselves in the feet. 10 offensive penalties. 10. Something wasn't clicking. That's at home. That shouldn't be the case. And they gave up 198 yards on the ground last week to a Cowboys team that did next to nothing on the ground against the Buccaneers. Now, of course, it's a different situation, different strategy from Dallas. The last time Kansas City got embarrassed in a loss, and I think they got embarrassed last week, was Tennessee in 2019. Beat them up and down. Derrick Henry ran all over them. The next week,

ironically, they played the Chargers and they took care of business. I think it's in Arrowhead. I think it's an angry Chiefs team. I think it's Mahomes, two games in a row, similar to what we said about Rodgers last week. I would not bet against Kansas City, points or otherwise, this week. I just feel like they'll take care of business. And the Chargers, yeah, the stats always look good. They look good with Rivers too. They scored 17 points. You had to bring up Phil Rivers. The Chargers fans were already feeling bad and then you daggered them. I'm not burying them, but think about what that game was last week. All this talk of the Chargers in the preseason, all this hype, new coach,

new offensive coordinator, the reigning offensive rookie of the year. You've got Nance and Romo on the call. And then how'd they lose? They lost 20 to 17 on Zerline hitting a 57 yarder after the Chargers simply could not score points. And they put up about 700 yards of offense. You could change a lot of things. Like it felt like a typical Chargers game to me. That Sunday night game was, it's so funny to think about four days later, because if you're the chiefs, you leave that game and you go, thank God, Baltimore just didn't run the whole game. We, they would have had even more points and more yards. And if you're the Ravens, you go, thank God the chiefs kept trying to establish the run. We couldn't stop anything else.

It's true. The Chiefs had second and three. At that point, they're basically in field goal range. All you have to do is just roll Mahomes one side or the other, and he can either get three yards at his legs or do a little quick pass to Kelsey, stuff like that. But I think kind of Andy wanted to see what,

he kept kind of, what do I have? Can I run the ball? And the answer was no, you can't actually. Couldn't. And the alternative that was, I think Andy knew that after it was, you know, once the Ravens were getting the ball and got their ground game established, they couldn't stop the Ravens. So it was like, we need to try to grind out some time, trying to grind out some clock, try to do this. It's funny. They triple teamed and double teamed. Tyreek hit next to nothing. Kelsey went nuts. Pringle stepped up and Pringle was actually really good down the stretch. But if they got just anything from their running backs, anything, they probably win that game. Football Outsiders, a site that I've been a fan of forever. I'm a subscriber.

They had the DVOA, which I love. It's too early to really make any assumptions from DVOA, but they had a graph about great offense with terrible defense early. And this is something they do from time to time. They used to do it during the Mannings Colts era of like, this offense is spectacular, this defense is trash. For the most part, the 06 Colts are the only team ever that really succeeded with the horrendous defense. And they listed some other teams like

just first two games, incredible offensive DVOA, horrendous defensive DVOAs. The 83 Packers, 2000 Rams, not the 99 Rams, 2000. Yeah. 02 Chiefs, 04 Minnesota, 06 Indy was the only team that did well. 2010 Texans, 2013 Packers, 2016 Raiders, and then the 2018 Chiefs. None of those teams other than 2006 Colts even made the conference finals. So again, small sample size, but it really makes me nervous if you can't run the ball. But if Clyde Dallaire doesn't fumble, they probably still win. A fumble is different than establishing the run. It's a freak fumble. It's a great play. And I've had some fun with the kid on Good Morning Football because I couldn't pronounce it. It's Otafe Owe is the rookie. I'm not even attempting.

Otafe Owe. And he actually sent the video to the show because he's like, you're mispronouncing my name. Here's how you say it. And it was great, but that was an amazing freak play where he strips the fumble and recovers it himself. And then of course it sets things up. I don't know if it's much ado about nothing about the running back situation in Kansas city, but I do know at some point you're going to have to stop the run. And in years past, it came back to bite them in the ass a bunch of times until Spags came in there and kind of fixed it. But this looks brutal and brutal because Chubb and Hunt were running all over him too. Even worse, the front seven looks slow to me. It wasn't even like a, it was a brute force thing,

but it was also like, they just, they couldn't get to the outside. Like Lamar basically knew anytime he wanted to get to the outside, nobody in their front seven had the speed to go with them. They had a, they have a guy named Nick Bolton, who's a rookie who they expect a lot of things of. It's very young for him to be. They had a guy named Willie Gay, who's really good going sideline to sideline, making plays. He's not out there.

I think they really miss him. And Nick Bolton, who is, you can't tell a rookie like, hey, we need you now to step up and be that guy. Like, I think he needs to step up and be that guy. And, you know, they used to have Derek Johnson. There was always that linebacker, Justin Houston. There was always that linebacker in Kansas City who like would make the play. They don't have that right now.

And to watch Ben Neiman get turned around and to watch what they're doing in the middle of the field, two weeks in a row, their run defense has been just not good. Well, let's go through. There's one, two, three, seven 2-0 teams. One of them is playing tonight before we tape this, the Panthers. I'm going to assume they're going to be Davis Mills, but who knows? Just quick take. What do you like about these 2-0 teams? So just like a sentence on each and I'll tell you what I like too. The Raiders, 2-0. Resiliency.

The way they won that game on Monday night and then to go and bounce back and win in Pittsburgh, that says a lot about them. So what I like, big plays. They seem like they have a knack and they have a couple receivers. I like Edwards too and he's had a couple plays called back, but R rugs and Edwards plus Waller, they could move the ball and they can

get big ass 25 plus plays. And then their defense, like, um, Ben Solak did a good job on the ringer this week of breaking down, like, is this defense for real or not? But at least they know what they are. They're just playing a zone. They're going to rush for it. They are. They are. And Gawkway are good bus pass rushers. They didn't have either one of those guys doing what they were supposed to do. Ngakwe's new, but Crosby is having the season we expected him to have last year. But, you know,

eight years now with Derek Carr. Never played in a playoff game because he got hurt that one year. He knows what he is, and I think he's living a little looser this year, and the players, they really like him. We talk to all of them. They really like him. As much as we on the media want to tear him apart. He lives and breathes and dies this thing. And he is a Raider through and through. And like he makes big plays and that pass to rugs was huge, but the past tomorrow in the end zone, as he's getting hit was huge.

I think it's almost like, and he doesn't curse. He doesn't use swear words, but it's like the, I don't give a, you know what from Derek Carr this season like I get it like I know what score it is let's just leave it all out there and I respect it I watched the entirety of both of their games and I agree with you on the Carr thing

it's a tangible thing you can really see through the TV sometimes I don't trust the TV but his teammates really like him I think his coach really likes him

he got hurt in that second game and you can kind of, look, when somebody gets hurt, there's always concern, right? People are walking over, but this was kind of like, you can see there was 20 people around him and there was like, oh my God, cars hurt. You know? And yeah, I don't know. I just think that feels like it's his team and I'm with you. It doesn't seem like he gives a shit anymore. It's like, he doesn't. All right, fine. You might trade for Aaron Rodgers in a year.

I don't care. Sure. And every April, I'm talking every April, Bill. I do, you know, it's the Raiders are the team to watch. The sneaky Raiders are the team to watch for a quarterback. Like whether it was Kyler Murray or whether it was Joe Burrow or whether it was whoever, the Raiders are the ones who might be moving up and trying to get a quarterback. They don't.

They stick with Derek Carr. And John Gruden is like, I'm all in on this guy. And two weeks of the season, and they've started off 6-3 and 6-4 and missed the playoffs the last two years. But through two weeks of the season, those are two tough tests. To beat the Ravens and the Steelers, I got to give them their credit. Well, here's the toughest test. They're playing Miami this week, and Brissette's playing QB.

Two is out. Now, I'm not a huge Tua fan. I do really like Brissette's playing QB. Two is out. Now, I'm not a huge Tua fan. I do really like Brissette. He's somebody that Kyle and I have both enjoyed. He had a nice little Colts run and got hurt two years ago. But their offense, the way it's constructed was for, this is the classic thing that people

love to talk about. This is a big Warren Sharpe thing. You built this offense around this specific skill set of your QB and then your backup QB has a completely different skill set. I don't know if that's going to play out. My point is the Raiders are going to be four and a half, five-point favorites at home against Miami. They're 2-0.

Perfect situation for them. Perfect. But the Gruden history is like this is the kind of dumb game they'll blow, right? Absolutely. I don't want to put them in a parlay. Yeah, they almost lost to the Jets last year. And then they had worse losses than that. Of course, this is the kind of game that you would stay away from. And yet, if we're feeling that this is different and that this year of Derek Carr is different, then why shouldn't we just believe in it? Dolphins last year went in there

on a Saturday night and ripped the Raiders' hearts out with the crazy Fitzpatrick, you know, the helmet being twisted and they beat them. And I don't know, I, they should win this game. If they're that team, they should win this game. And I'm okay putting our names on that and saying, let's include them in one of these deals. Hold that thought because after we go through these two note teams, I'm going to ask you, who is the team that when we come out of September, everybody has the big jerk circle about? Which we're getting close. All right. So that's one. Tampa 2-0. We don't need to discuss them. That's a really complete team. We'll see. There's some slight defensive stuff, like why are teams able to move the ball on them? Was it a

fluke just because of the two teams they played? Atlanta was in that game. They were down three with the ball in the fourth quarter, and they were able to get drives. So we'll see with the Rams this week. We don't even talk about them yet. San Francisco's 2-0. Sal and I talked about them a little bit on Sunday, that there's a completeness to them,

that they can kind of steal games by doing different things, which I think is really interesting. Is there anything else you like about them? They won two games on the road, which none of these other teams seem to be able to do. The Broncos did it too. But to go into Detroit, you say, oh, they went to Detroit. That's a weird game. And then to then stay at the Greenbrier in West Virginia for a week, and then the Eagles were ready to go crown this coach and have a Super Bowl parade after week one. And then to go on there and just physically outplay them and find a way to win. I, they're just so disciplined on both sides of the ball

and their defensive and offensive lines are usually going to be better than every defensive and offensive line they face that they're going to be hard to ever blow out. So they'll be in games late. Like, I don't know if they beat the Packers this week, but they are going to make you earn every single victory. So I like that they're tough. I think that's the word I would use. Yeah. Tough and kind of a little Swiss Army knife fish. They'll win a game one week one way and then the next week they might win like a 42 to 30

type of whatever. Denver. So, the Judy thing hurts. Yep. The schedule's been pretty easy. It's easy again this week. I'm not a believer.

But Bridgewater's looked really good. That's been an upgrade for them. I really like Javante Williams. I have him on a couple of my fantasy teams. I think as the season goes along, he'll be even better. They lost Chubb. Chubb's out now for basically half the season. And I think we have this feeling of Denver defense, Chubb and Miller.

It's like those days are kind of over. They do have a bunch of young guys that I think have come on, but for the most part, this is more wait and see to me. The altitude is going to help them at home. I'm not a believer yet. Are you? No. And look, the Jags were right in that game. It was 10 to seven late in the third quarter last week. So you can't be doing flips over them. I do want to give them credit where credit's due. They've won both those games on the road, but it's the Giants and it's the Jaguars. And now they get the Jets at home. They'll be 3-0. The strength of their defense, I mean, Von Miller was actually really good last week, but the strength of their defense is the defensive

backfield and it's hard to throw on them. And you saw what Daniel Jones did to Washington, which is a good defense. Daniel Jones had nothing against Denver and Trevor Lawrence struggled mightily against Denver too. So that bodes well when you play a Las Vegas Raiders, that bodes well when you play a Kansas City Chiefs, you're going to be a better opportunity to win late in those games because you've got Justin Simmons and you've got Fuller. And of course, Sertan, the rookie has been outstanding. So Denver's really good on defense. This is year three of Fangio. They've got the right guys.

They've got it. I still, even though I love all those players you listed, and I think Cortland Sutton played really well in week two, I just don't know about the offense, whether they'll be able to score enough points to keep up with the Kansas City's or the Raiders, or even the Chargers for that matter. The Rams are 2-0.

We'll talk about them when we talk about the Bucs game. Cardinals are 2-0. We've already discussed them. That's just a rollercoaster every week. And then the Panthers, 2-0. We'll talk about them when we talk about the Bucs game. Cardinals are 2-0. We've already discussed them. That's just a rollercoaster every week. And then the Panthers, 2-0. They'll be 3-0 after they probably beat Houston tonight

unless Davis Mills has an out-of-body experience. At all those 2-0 teams, I'm just thinking narratives when we get to the four-game mark, which used to be the quarter mark, but now it's 17 games, so I guess it's the almost quarter mark.

The Raiders, it seems like it's set up for them to be the narrative team. And that's why I think this Miami game is so kind of secretly enticing to bet on because if you're going to take them, and I think it would be money line for me. I don't think I would do the spread, which is four and a half or five by the time we do this.

But the narrative of three no Raiders, Vegas, Mark Davis, maybe he wasn't the loser's son. Derek Carr, maybe he is an elite QB. John Gruden and Mike Mayock, maybe they do kind of know what they're doing. All of that stuff, I can kind of see it. Can you see it? Absolutely. And there's such a momentum once Raiders fans get going and we go through it a lot though. Like they win Thursday night games every year, I feel like, and Aikman and Buck are, oh my God. And like, here come the Raiders and what a win over the Chargers, whatever it is. And then the next week they'll lose some inexplicable game on a CBS call with like the seventh team. And you're like, wait, the Raiders lost? How'd that happen? That's just been the Gruden era.

But to your point, Carr, Gruden, all the failures, all the coming up short, this new arena, this new field, this Vegas Raiders type deal with Waller and Ruggs. I think we also, as a media, we like it when the Raiders are relevant. There's a lot of history there. There's a lot of tradition there. There's a lot of that just win baby stuff. And if the Raiders are in the play, the East Coast watches the Raiders, the West Coast watches the Raiders. Our whole generation watched the Raiders. Our parents' generation watched the Raiders. They're the Raiders. You want to see them, and they haven't been for a really long time. Their over-under heading into the season was 6.5. They were 13-1 to win their division.

They were plus 350 to make the playoffs. If they win this offense game, they'll be 3-0. At Chargers, week four, Monday night. I'm going to say 80% Raiders fans there? 85? Yes. Week five, home for the Bears. going to say 80% Raiders fans there? 85? Yes. Week 5,

home for the Bears. Week 6, at Denver. Week 7, home for the Eagles. By week. Week 9, at Giants. There's like 7-2, 8-1 potential. Sure. They'll lose a couple of those. When is Kansas City? When does that show up? That's the big

bad monster. That's when it gets hard. So then week 10 Chiefs, week 12, they have to play on Thursday and Thanksgiving at Dallas. The road team never wins that game. Then they finish week 14 at Chiefs, week 15 at Browns, home Broncos, at Colts, home Chargers. But could they be, I always call it the rabbit team every year. Could they be the seven and two team?

They're like, Oh my God. And then they finished nine and nine and eight. Absolutely. Well, we'll, we'll talk about them when we do the picks. But,

um, I think out of all those two and O teams, the other one would be Carolina where, just like from a narrative standpoint of like, they were, they rejuvenated Darnold. McCaffrey, is he the best player in the league? The coach, Matt Rule,

imagine if the Jets had gotten him. I could see all those narratives too, right? Yeah, or the Giants, either one. Pick the New York market of choice. I said this on our show this morning on Good Morning Football. I want your thought on this. And this is nothing against the players at all,

but McCaffrey is going to be on national TV and it's already going to have aired. And who knows? He might go for 200 yards or he might go for 50 yards. I feel like he's on a lot of commercials. There's a lot of marketing with McCaffrey. It feels like he's the Mike Trout of the NFL a little bit where it's good take or constantly like, this is the guy. And yet I don't see any kids wearing a McCaffrey Jersey. I don't know anyone who's like, I'm a huge McCaffrey fan. And when you talk about like, who's your favorite and most dazzling player, he's not mentioned. I think they really have to have that breakout season. And he has to be on, you know, Aikman and Buck have to be calling his games. Nance and Romo has to be calling his games. Like he needs that. I still think that matters in a red zone world where,

okay, this is the Christian McCaffrey moment. And I think they need to win games for that to happen. And he needs to be the reason why they win those games. And I, I look, it's year two of the rule era. It took him three years at Baylor, completely different situation. That program was basically going to be canceled, but he turned them around into a sugar bowl team. I think talking to all my guys in Carolina year three is when they really were thinking like, all right, Darnold or whoever else is quarterback year three is when Brian Burns and, and, and Derek Brown and Jeremy Chin, but they're having a lot of success in year two. So maybe they're a little ahead of schedule and that could be just fun house money for them this year. The Saints win was legit. Like their defense dominated the Saints. That was not a fluke

and their defense is fast and Burns, you know, I think if you're going to have a really good defense, you want that one awesome guy and Burns just might be the guy right now. And you'd think like if they beat the Texans tonight, it'd be so funny if they lose, but then they got 10 days before they play at Dallas. So I think to me, the two narrative teams are the Raiders and the Panthers. I think it's one of those two. We're going to take a break. We're going to come back and we're going to start breaking down the week three slate. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl,

but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. Okay, week three. A couple good tweets from our guy, John Ewing, who has a really good Twitter feed. You, week three. Couple good tweets from our guy John Ewing who has a really good Twitter feed you should follow. Since 2010, 0-2 teams have gone 52-36-1 against the spread in week three. 59%. That's a win.

So our win list teams are the Jets, Jags, Colts, Giants, Lions, Vikings, and Falcons. I like one of those teams. And then this is a tweet that he retweeted from somebody at Macnova. Since the 1970 merger, NFL home dogs of seven or more points are 91, 59, and four in August, September games.

That's 61%. So we have three of those this week. We have the Texans, Lions, and Jaguars. What are the old August games in the early 70ies? I'd love to hear about those. This is the new Ewing theory, the John Ewing theory. Let's get into it. All right. So how do you want to break it down? Well, I just Texans, Lions, Jags. I don't really like any of those teams, but, but the, the numbers say at least one of those teams will cover and probably two. So there you go. All right. We're going to, we broke this down into teaser straight ups and But the numbers say at least one of those teams will cover and probably two.

So there you go. All right. We broke this down into teasers, straight ups, and underdog parlay candidates. Our teaser teams. We have three obvious teaser teams, which scares me. Okay. Ravens, seven and a half over the Lions. Yep.

That's in Detroit. In Detroit. Cards, minus seven and a half over the Jags. In Jacksonville. In Jacksonville, which is the red flag of red flags, because who knows? It could be 102 degrees there. And then the Bills minus seven over Washington are the three obvious pieces.

Now, Ravens, Lions. I'm staying away. I'm just telling you. I don't- No, Bill, let me convince you. Can I tell you why I'm staying away. I'm just telling you. No. Bill, let me convince you. Can I tell you why I'm staying away? And then you can convince me. Coming off the massive win.

I think the Lions can kind of do stuff. They should have covered that Packers game. They just kind of did the shoot themselves in the foot thing. But maybe that's who you are when you have Jared Goff. That line's pretty high. And it seems too easy for me, but you can sway me. I'm willing to be swayed. Go ahead. Ravens have, by far and away,

the best rushing offense in the entire league. They can run with anyone, and the offense is built so that Kyle can get in there at running back. And I don't know how you are as a running back, Kyle. You could probably put up 100 yards behind what they do. He's not in shape. Not in shape. Not nearly ready for that. But honestly, this isn't anything against Latavius Murray or Tyson Williams, but I know internally there when they lost a bunch of those running

backs, it was upsetting. But the one that killed them was the Marcus Peters because of how important he is. But they're like the running backs. We love Dobbins. We love Justice Hill. We love Gus Edwards. You name them. Running back, we can figure out. And they have. They also do it against all sorts of pressures and fronts. They averaged last week 5.3 yards per rush when it was a seven-man box, and they got even better 5.6 yards per rush when it was an eight-man box. So it's like, bring what you got. We've got the offensive line, the fullbacks, the tight ends. But here is really why you want this one. I don't know what Joe Barry, the Packers defensive coordinator, was doing in the first half last week. This is a guy who I really respect and has been in the league for a long time, but he was Jared Goff's assistant head coach in Los Angeles for four years with McVay.

LeFleur poached him, took him as his defensive coordinator when they fired Patton. And if anyone knows Jared Goff inside and out, anyone, he's the assistant head coach for the last four years. And yet they weren't blitzing at all in the first half. They like did not pressure Jared Goff

and he was picking them apart. The second half begins and they start pressuring Jared Goff and he's not Jared Goff for the first half on that Monday night game. I say that to lead to this point, wink Martindale, the defensive coordinator of the Ravens, his messages, pressure blitz, go, go, go from day. I can't see Jared Goff having a successful day against this Ravens defense. It is his worst nightmare. It is a defense that comes at you from all over and a defensive coordinator just lives with his foot on the pedal. So I don't like the matchup either way. I think the Ravens take care of business.

Lamar runs all over the place. And on the other end, I think golf is in trouble the entire afternoon. I'm going Ravens big in this game. So the Ravens do have the history of the last couple of years of the Lamar era of pounding bad teams. Yes. Right. It's a blowout team and they, they pour it on and you feel good, especially if you have Lamar on your team. All right. You talked me into it. I'll mark them down. Cards, Jags. You're not talking me into it. I'm not doing it. I need a break. It's fun though. Doesn't it feel like, I don't know, you could say it could be the ex-girlfriend or it could be the alcohol or whatever it is,

but like, I'll go fast food. That's my vice. You're like, I'm never eating this again. And then Friday night rolls around. You're like, all right, there it is. There's the pizza place on the corner in New York City. I'm having a slice. That's how it feels with the Cardinals.

It's so good. I'm not doing it. I'm not. You're so prudent. You're so prudent. I'm not doing it. I just need a week off. It's nothing personal. I'm not. You're so prudent. You're so prudent. I'm not doing it. I just need a week off. It's nothing personal.

I respect them. The Florida in September scares the hell out of me. The Jags have lost 17 straight games and look worse and worse doing it. Only three teams, here's a stat for you, since 1970 have lost 18 straight games. The John McKay, 76 bucks. The 07 Lions, 09 Lions. And then the 72, 73 Oilers, which I have no memory of. They're about to join that club.

They are really in a rut. And I don't know, you think that they're going to come out there and rally the troops and beat Kyler Murray? I don't see it. It's one of these three teases he's going to lose. I'm just telling you. Ravens, Cardinals, or Bills. So let's talk about the Bills.

Bills minus seven over Washington. I think everyone now realizes Washington doesn't have that good of a defense. I think they realize maybe it's hard for them to move the ball. The Giants should have beaten them. I thought played outplayed them. I still don't know how they lost.

And then you have the Bills two weeks of what's wrong with Josh Allen. What's going on with these guys? I thought these guys were going to be better. What's happening here? This feels like a kitchen sink, lay this smack down old school. We'll tell you what's wrong with Josh Allen. Nothing. Watch this kind of game, right?

I agree with you. And I think the Bills defense had a statement quietly last week against the Dolphins. I know everyone was like, oh, well, Tua's out. Brissette's not that big a drop off from Tua. And the Bills defense was destroying him. They got this rookie, Gregory Rousseau, who was taken at the end of the first round. He had five tackles, two sacks, and he was flying all over the place. And AJ Epineza on the other side was coming in there,

like their pass rush is significantly better. I don't know what Taylor Heineke is on the road. He had that home playoff game, obviously took care of business enough where he gets to stick around. And then the first two weeks on the season, they've been home games for them. This is the first Taylor Heineke real Washington quarterback game on the season, they've been home games for them. This is the first Taylor Heineke real Washington quarterback game on the road going into a hostile environment. And I think you're right. It's not only the players that are like, wait, we stubbed our toe week one. I think these fans are ready to explode again and be like, no, no, no, we get a redo here. Let us, let us now we're home now in our building. And I think, I think this one could be ugly. I think the bills take care of business. And you have week one, they're playing Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh spends the summer planning for a specific way to surprise Buffalo and do whatever.

The Miami game was weird. They broke a 50-yard play early. All of a sudden, they're up 14-0. Miami changes QBs. Buffalo just doesn't put them away for whatever reason. They had some drives. I think Miami's defense is also pretty good. They are. And then they took care of business the second half, and people are still

like, eh, Buffalo, eh. And I actually like their running backs, I think, more than most people. I kind of like Singletary and Moss. He had a big run, obviously, and Moss had those two touchdowns and an angry run one time. They're a good one-two duo, but neither one of them scares me.

No, I know. I just think people, I would rather have those guys than Clyde Edwards-Hilaire. Potentially. Or the guys that the Rams have. I don't think they're below average. I think they're average,

but they each bring something to the table. It just feels like the Allen breakout game. All the fantasy people are panicking who went all in on Josh Allen this year. All right, so we'll mark those down. Raiders, I'm not going to do the Raiders four and a half, but I like the minus 200. I think we should mark it down

because then the question is, can they do what the Cardinals did last week? Like, could they win by three? Could they win by one? Could they squeeze it out? Could they pull it out? I like having the minus 200 in play with some other stuff. If we want to get ambitious, we could put Raiders minus 200 with like Ravens minus 360 and make that even. Like we could do,

we could put them in a seven point T. So mark that one down. Okay. And then the last one, let's argue about this one. Cause I think we feel differently. I watched that entire Vikings game because that we had the Vikings cards. We had that in the big TV, Gus and a key Kyle and I, um, I was kind of impressed by the bikes. I thought great.

I thought offensively they kind of were able to do whatever they wanted. Cook was dominant at times. They have multiple receivers I'm afraid of. Cousins looked really good. He had time to throw. When they needed a drive at the end of the game and they needed to put themselves in position for a game-winning field goal, I thought they were going to go down the field

and get yards, and they did. They have, I think, over almost 900 yards in two games. They've made big plays. They can run and pass. And, you know, yet they're home in a must-win game. They're 0-2 against a Seahawks team that, honestly, I wasn't impressed by

last week in that Titans game. They had a huge lead at home, and they couldn't put them away. They couldn't stop the run. Offensively, I don't know what's going on with them, but they had 24 points basically at halftime and then I think nine the rest of the way or whatever it was. And I just like, I love that. I feel like I'm getting points that I shouldn't be getting.

I think this game should be a pick-em. The Vikes are plus two and a half. They're back at home. They haven't been there yet. They've lost in two freakish ways. The Dalvin Cook fumble in Cincinnati, they probably could have won that game if he held on and they converted one more first down. And then last week was an inexplicable loss. But then you look at the numbers and sadly for Mike Zimmer's teams of late, they are becoming more and more

explicable. They're 0-2 to start the season, and they have given up now 400 total yards and scored more than 24 points in both games. They're one of only three teams in NFL history to do that. The 94 Patriots, the 89 Redskins. And you'd say, oh my gosh, that's a weird stat. They have now lost six games the last two years where they score 24 points and put up 400 yards yards and they still have lost six of those games. Their defense is atrocious. They have allowed 24 points in the last nine games they've played. And I, Russell Wilson owns this team. He's seven and oh, all time. He owns Zimmer. He owns cousins. Those guys were drafted the same year. Russell in the third. Cousins in the fourth. Oh, shit. I forgot about that.

For whatever reason, Russell just completely dominates this team. I don't see Seattle losing two straight games, especially the way they lost last week after having that giant lead and giving that one up against the Titans. I got Seattle. Minnesota's plus 450 to win the division. From what I've seen of the Packers those first two weeks, that is not a division champ. And it might just be a division that has no good teams.

But like you mentioned the coaching stuff, how do you play golf and not blitz for an entire half? How do you look as bad as you looked in week one? And the Rodgers thing, and then Rodgers comes out

and makes everybody else feel bad. I don't know what you got. It's like you've created a soap opera and you guys sucked in week one. Of course, we're going to talk about it. And, you know, congratulations. You gave the ball to Aaron Jones against a bad team and you look good.

But I don't trust that team. They were down 17-14 at the half and they won, obviously. And I think a lot of people maybe didn't watch the game because the next morning it was like, oh, Packers are back. I'm like, well, there were some issues on defense. And

I don't know. It wasn't like they were lights out on offense either. So Minnesota, their over-under was eight and a half this year. They play the Seahawks this week and the Browns at home next week. I don't like it, Bill. So you're out. You're out on the Vikings. I don't know if I was ever in on the Vikings. You got to play defense

in this league. Well, let me ask you this. As a defensive coach. Let me ask you this. What's the difference in the Vikings and the Cowboys to you? It's fair.

It's fair. Put a lot of points. They're the same fucking team. They have a really good running back situation. They have multiple same fucking team. They have a really good running back situation. They have multiple receivers who can make plays and a quarterback who puts up stats that I'm still not totally sold on if it's January.

I'm not sold on either of those teams, though. And maybe you are with the Cowboys. I'm not. Neither one of those teams do much for me. So Vikings, eight wins. I don't see that. Yes, they've lost in freakish ways the last two weeks, but good teams don't lose in freakish ways two weeks in a row. So if I tease the Vikings to plus eight and a half, you're still not interested.

I might not be. Okay. All right. We can, we can. It's your picks. Listen, this is valuable information. Kyle knows what I know because he watched that whole game with me. The Vikings can move the ball. Those are our teaser possibilities. Straight up. I'm going to stay away from Pat's Saints. I think the

Pats are going to win. I'd love the minus three. I don't like the Saints coming off a loss. I don't like the Peyton Belichick stuff. Damien Harris is hurt. He's got this finger thing. He wasn't playing last week. It concerns me that this receiving core just does not seem like they're able to get open.

Miami has a good defense. That's fine. The Jets have a young, fast defense, but I still feel like there should have been more big plays than there were. It just feels like Mac and these guys, I just worry about something about that line freaks me out. Why is that line four? Why is it three? What am I missing? Well, the Patriots are averaging five yards of play this season. They need to have a short field to score, it seems like. And every time they've

scored, it's been because of a turnover. And look, it's a great variance when you say, if Jameis doesn't turn the ball over, we're in good shape. But if Jameis, of all people, doesn't turn the ball over, I don't know. I haven't had any indication through two weeks that Mac Jones is leading his team 80 yards on a touchdown drive at any point. And if they keep the game close, the Saints can win this game. Honestly, I look at this and it's all about just limiting Jameis. And then if you're the Patriots, how much are you willing to let Mac do? And I don't know if Bill's ready to let him go. And Josh McDaniel seems to be protecting Mac Jones.

Yes, they blew out the Jets, but you can't walk out of that game being like, Mac Jones is the man. It seems like every play design was to keep it safe and make sure he doesn't make a mistake. It's a stay away. So we're staying away. We can't bet the Pats every week anyway. Can we talk about everyone saying that I've just been kissing your ass on the Pat stuff? Because Cousin Sal had a shot at me in the Mondays and said that I had to say, yeah, Bill, you're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go Patriots. Not fair. Not fair at all. I thought, first of all, it was a shot. I thought it was uncalled for. And I think you've pushed back on the Patriots a lot. And frankly, I think he's a little jealous of our million dollar pick success. It's pretty good. That's

what I read from it. When you go to a gambling website and your picks are, and then we'd have this one little thing and we just kind of clean up. I can understand you being upset about it. Yeah. To me, he was just salty about the success. I can understand you being upset about it. Yeah. To me, he was just salty about the success. And that's why I didn't take it personally. Games we do like. Eagles plus three and a half against the Cowboys. And everything you just said about the Vikings, we can say about the Cowboys. I think the coaching situation is just as shaky to me.

The Cowboys also have this weird situation now. I like the 10-minute podcast that pro football focus does. They did a whole thing on Monday about, should they just play Tony Pollard? And I was listening to it though. I'm like, yeah, I, it actually seems like maybe that he should play more than Zeke Elliott when you watch these games, especially his ability to catch the ball out of the backfield, stuff like that. But, um, I thought they were lucky to win last week. I'm not sold on them at all. I think the line should be Cowboys by three.

So I'm getting a free half point with the Eagles. And as we discussed on Sunday with Sal, like that Eagles-Niners game, the Eagles gave it away in the first half. They really should have been up 13-0, 14-3, whatever it was. And they kind of blew it. And the Niners were like, cool, all right, we'll take it. But the Eagles do some stuff I like.

I think they can really rush the passer. They have skills, guys, that are a little scary that seem like they can make big plays every once in a while. And I think Hurts, in this kind of game, Hurts has seemed pretty limited last week.

But against the Cowboys defense, can do some Hurts stuff. So anyway, I think they could win the game. I don't know if they will, but I like getting the extra half Dallas. He's got the t-shirts going. This guy's amazing. Beat Dallas. And he's got another thing up his sleeve for this Monday night game. Here's the only thing. The Atlanta game, I'm looking at it now. Atlanta's defense is atrocious. They have no pass rush. And it looks like Philadelphia's offensive line was mauling guys. Last week against the Niners, it was the other way around where the Niners are like, all right, we have actual dogs on this defensive line. To your point, I don't know if Dallas has that. I thought Michael Parsons was incredible against the Chargers playing defensive end for the first time. He was amazing. But how sustainable is

that over the course of a season, having your linebacker playing defensive end, which he might have to do again. I think Dak is a big game guy. I would be a little nervous betting on this, but I understand if you're saying with those points, you would want to do it. Another one, Colts plus five over the Titans. Out. The quarterback situation, we're scratching it off. It's in the Vegas zone, which Sal and I always talk about when it's four and a half, five or five and a half. That means even Vegas is like, hey, we don't know either. The Colts QB situation makes this a stay away. But man, I just feel like the only reason I'm bringing it up is don't put the Titans in a teaser parlay. I think this game's a complete

stay away. Yeah, I agree. And the Colts, you could say, well, their quarterback situation, Eason could come out and be just fine and do exactly what Wentz was doing the first two weeks. And they run the ball and it's Jonathan Taylor for 200 yards. I would stay away. I don't know about this game. So that's the case for the Colts because it's like, oh, they don't have Carson Wentz. So what? So they're not, they're not going to be able to get their C minus from the QB position today or their D plus. Had you ever heard that? I'm not laughing at it. He has two sprained ankles, both ankles sprained. I'm like, Josh Carson, like two weeks into the season.

I don't know if he's just got the injury bug thing or what, but it's like this poor guy, not poor guy, this guy is just, he can't get out of his own way. Steelers minus three over the Bengals is another one we're staying away from. Roethlisberger might be hurt. He might not. I mean, the Steelers always kill the Bengals. Their defenses should be good enough to win this game

on their own, but if Dwayne Haskins is involved, I'm out. This is a stay away to me. Out. I'm with you. And their defense is already all banged up and they've got guys up and down the injury list. I'd stay away too. So we'll take away the Eagles from the straight up picks. We have, oh, Niners minus three over the Packers was the other one I want to mention before we get

there. Okay. Let's talk about it. Cause I don't, I don't know where this one goes. I think it's a stay away, but I also could see the Niners winning 35 to 10 and then complete panic with the Rogers Packers thing. Which the Niners have done to that very team multiple times. Two years ago, it was, I think, 38 to 10 in the regular season in the NFC championship game where he most are just scored another touchdown as we're sitting here. Um, I think he had 600 yards and 16 touchdowns.

Like, and there's a mind thing here where I, I don't know if this is real or if it's just perceived, but like LaFleur worked for Kyle Shanahan for years. And when they get in these games, it's like Kyle Shanahan just absolutely like, it just does dirty. They dominate them. And last year the Niners played them when they were all injured on a

Thursday night and still were competitive with the Packers. I don't know. The Niners are rocking with the 94 Niners uniforms this week. Remember those with the shadow, the 75? I love those. I think that place, home opener, I think it's going to be rocking. And that place doesn't get particularly loud typically. I would think the niners take care of business in that one i like them i like the minus three piece because if they win they probably win by three so you at least get the push rogers scares me a little but i i wonder if that's legacy stuff like near the end with far where you're like i'm worried about far but it's like should you be with rogers with this team i don't know he shut us up. He could have one of those nights and it's Al and Chris or Aaron Rodgers doing the thing.

But I don't know, first two weeks, I haven't been blown away by them. Four games or three games straight up that we have to talk about. We're gonna take a break. What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend to powers your scale with no preset spending limit, more cash on hand to grow your business with up to 55 interest-free days and the ability to reach further with access to over 1400 airport lounges worldwide

redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. All right, these are the ones we really need to talk about because these are the ones I actually want to put some wood on. Bears plus seven at Cleveland. Justin Fields' first game,

an incredibly important game to everybody in Chicago who's been waiting. Basically, if you're like Jason Goff, who hosts our Chicago podcast, he's 40 years old. He has no recollection of ever having a competent quarterback

other than the one and a half years when Jay Cutler was good. See, this Fields thing, Dalton heroically steps aside with a knee injury, paves the way for Fields. Their defenses look pretty good, I think better than maybe we expected. They can run the ball a little bit.

They have Allen Robinson. I'm sure they'll design some stuff for Fields. Fields is a big game guy. You're going against Cleveland, who is out. They're two starting receivers now. And basically just has speed guys left. I think it's going to be hard for them to move the ball. They're going to have to run it a lot. The Bears will be ready for it. And the line is Bears plus seven. It just seems a tad high.

What do you think? I think we all overestimated or inflated how good the Browns defense was going to be before the season started. They're not that good. Clowney hasn't been doing much. Their defensive backfield, which they beefed up with all these new safeties, have not been great. And if Tyrod Taylor doesn't get hurt last week, I don't know if the Texans don't beat them.

They were winning and Tyrod went down and then Mills came in and played valiantly, but you're not going to necessarily win that one. To the Bears stuff. All right. So Nagy and I have FaceTimed over the last few years, or I've done a Zoom call with him, whatever it is, and he's down in his basement and it's a poker room. And the walls of the entire room, and this sounds like it's like Carcosa, True Detective stuff, are old play sheets of his. So he hangs them up as decorations in his man cave. So the entire man cave is covered in old play sheets. And I'm like, what the hell is that?

And he's like, oh, I love it. This one, I remember every game. He's like, that was week three when I was with the Eagles and this is what we did. And this is when I was with Kansas City. And oh, this is when we did the special play, the Statue of Liberty play against the Giants. He has all those plays. He's been building a playbook for Justin Fields. He hasn't unveiled it yet. I would assume there is three or four crazy outside the box, not Andy Dalton plays that are going to come out in this game. And I think that might be the difference of having a little bit leg up than just your standard rookie quarterback going out there, babe in the woods type deal. I like the

Bears in this game. I do a lot. I think they're going to be fine and competitive. And I know those players, they really like Justin Fields. They're not going to let him falter if they can do anything about it. Who is Baker's security blanket on third and seven? Where's he going? Used to be Jarvis. Where's he going? Is he going to People's Jones?

People's Jones? Screen pass? Who? That running back, the third string running back? that guy's excellent Fenton Dometic Fenton yeah he's good

got a nice spinning run last week he was really good I like that guy alright we're gonna mark down the Bears Chargers Chiefs we mentioned Chargers plus six and a half

Sharp said something interesting on his podcast with Solak on the Ringer Gambling Show which is an excellent show that everybody should listen to I like this Solak by the way you reference him a, which is an excellent show there, but you should listen to it. I like this Solak, by the way. You reference him a lot. I follow him on Twitter. He's very good. He's good. Where'd he come from? I was not aware of him until last

couple of years. I see the analytics. He's not just promote your guys, but he's a good follow. What's his story? We got to Spotify 18 months ago, went down to Sweden, and we basically put this stuff on a notebook of like, create a football guy for us. So they use all this stuff, the DNA and they just, they've CGI'd him. He's not a real person.

No, we, he was from Philly. He's, he's really good. And he's been an incredible addition, but yeah, he's.

ESPN made that same trip and got Mina Kimes a couple of years earlier. You guys went and you got Solak. That's what we heard about the Mina Kimes thing. We're like, we have to do this. So Sharp said on the pod, since week nine, 2020, the Chiefs are one and 11 against the spread. One and 11.

All right, so what are the reasons for that? The public loves the Chiefs. The public loves Patrick Mahomes. You feel good when you bet on the Chiefs. I really think this line should be Chiefs by four or Chiefs by four and a half. I think they bumped it by two points because everyone bets on the Chiefs. This is, in my opinion, a must-win game for the Chargers. I love the plus six and a half. I know you like the Chiefs a little more, but I just think you can run. You'll at least get in cheap touchdown zone, even if the Chiefs are up by 11 with two minutes left. I still feel like the Chargers get it. So we're marking that down.

Here's the big dog, Bucs-Rams. I've switched my opinion on this. Okay, let me hear. Initially, I was like, oh, the Rams, they're home. This is great. And then the line moved toward the Bucs. That's weird. Now I'm getting the Rams at home with points. But I thought about their defense those first two games.

It just wasn't good. I just wasn't impressed. I thought it was going to be better. Now, obviously, they lost their defensive coordinator, their chargers. Raheem Morris is in who everybody likes. But I just didn't feel like they were getting stops either week. So now you have the Bucs coming in. And from what I've seen from the Bucs, man, Brady fucking knows that team now. He knows it. They're not even running the ball that well,

but it just seems like anytime he wants to get 7 to 10 yards, he can get it. Their defense, people are like, ah, Bucs defense, what's going on there? Well, week one, Cowboys, what's going on there? Well, week one, Cowboys, that's a top five offense. Week two, Atlanta, for whatever reason, the Falcons have always been able to move the ball on them. And I think that, to be honest, I know this sounds so simplistic. I think they got bored. They were up and it was like, all right. And then they woke up and then they were like, all right, let's put them away. It never felt like

that was a game. It was a three-point game. It was almost like the Buccaneers were like, just like, all right, fine, yes. And then it was like, okay, turn it back on, you know? So I feel like with the reason I lean toward Bucs minus one and a half, I know this is tough for you. This is your co-host, Sean McVay,

your flying coach co-host. You're always going to, you know, you like the Rams. You're in on the Rams this year in general. And I am too. I have multiple season bets on them. I think at this point of the season right now, I think the bucks are better by December.

We'll see. But I think right now Brady has a command and I've seen it because I watched that guy for 20 years. I know when he has a team that he likes and when he just kind of knows he just, he gets this team. I think he's going to come in. I think he wants to be three, you know, heading into that Pat's game. I think he's going to come in. I think he wants to be three,

you know, heading into that Pats game. I think he's going to have that whole team locked in. And I just think they're going to beat the Rams this week. Okay. A couple of things. It's a couple of things. Oh,

and I didn't mention the Sony Michelle Henderson thing. I think having really, really below average running backs is a fucking problem when you have to beat an awesome team. Yeah. First off, the Brady never playing in Los Angeles narrative is going to be a big one. He's never played a NFL game in Los Angeles. There was no teams in Los Angeles for a lot of that period.

Do you count being the backup on a Rose Bowl team in 1998 as having played in Los Angeles? Did not play. Brian Greasy was the quarterback. Does not count. So this is his first game in Los Angeles. All right. They're traveling really late on Saturday night. And I say this because I know a lot of the guys on the Buccaneers staff and I had plans. I'll be in LA on Saturday. I was supposed to get together during the day. And they called me and they said, Bruce changed his schedule up middle of the week. Now we're coming in late. So we're doing all our meetings and then flying in and then getting in late on Saturday night. And then we're going to play obviously on Sunday afternoon. I don't know what that means or whether there obviously was some reason that Arians was like, all right,

here's why we're changing that strategy, which I love that kind of stuff, the travel logistics and why and when, and I'll get the answer. But this Buccaneers team knows what happened last year when they played these guys. The Rams beat them in Tampa. They're pissed about it still. This guy Jordan Fuller picked off Brady twice and it was the game and it was Monday night game. And of course they would lose to the chiefs and then they wouldn't lose again. I think there's a lot of respect mutually for both these teams. The reason I would take the Rams on this, I think it's even and the Rams are the home team and it's a Sunday afternoon game in LA and it's the second game in there. And I, if you're asking me, does home and away matter? Here's the classic example of I will take the home team in this game just because I think both these teams are really good and I can't make a decision based on their offense will blow that defense out. Rams are home. Tampa's flying across the country. I know Brady's doesn't get worried about these type of things. I like the Rams. See now Sal on Sunday's gonna be like, Oh, Schrager. Of course he wasn't going to go against the Rams. He might. Now it's another thing. I like the bucks. See, now Sal on Sunday is going to be like, oh, Schrager. Of course he wasn't going to go against the Rams.

He might. Now it's another thing. I like the Bucs. I think they're better. And the Michelle Henderson combo, I just can't get past it. Does the Fernette-Rojo combo do much more? I don't think they're going to even need those guys, though.

Part of the problem with the... Here's what would really worry me if I'm a Rams fan which I'm not why don't they just double team Cooper Cup just take him out now what do you do Robert Woods

like what the Ravens did with Tyreek Hill last week yeah hey Cooper Cup you're not beating us you're gonna have three catches for 18 yards that's gonna be

your stat line today now where do the Rams go Robert Woods great or Deshaun Jackson 190 Or Deshaun Jackson. 190 yards? Deshaun Jackson? Come on. We're marking the Rams down.

Underdog parlays. So Bears, we mentioned, plus 265. You know what's funny? We really struggled with the underdog parlay last week, and then none of them won. So it was like there was a reason we were struggling. No, we took the Panthers.

We had the Panthers. We had one piece of it. We couldn't find the other team. I know. It turned out it was the Titans, but neither, we were both like, you're not,

we're not going to put anti Seahawks in Seattle and underdog. So we got bears plus two 65. We got Colts plus two of five against the Titans, which I'm crossing off. Eagles plus 160 against the Cowboys. And Chargers plus 235 to beat the Chiefs, which I'm afraid to do. So it's looking like Bears-Eagles. Unless there's another big dog that you like.

Whose favorite Atlanta versus Giants? No, that's not enough of a... It's a plus three. It's not enough of a choice. Not worth it. So it's looking like Bears, Eagles. All right. When we come back,

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across tracks. Don't do that. In fact, just don't walk on tracks at all. Not at all. Trains move quietly so you won't hear them coming. You won't hear them coming. See, safe riding sets an example. Don't do that. Not at all. You won't hear them coming. Yeah, an example for me? It's learned. Give what up? Really? Really, really.

This message is brought to you by Metrolinks. All right, it's time. Million dollar picks for week three. We did something we haven't done in a while. During the break, we actually strategized a little more to try to really figure out how to land this plane. Not being up a million dollars yet through two weeks, we both took that personally. We got to get there.

First bet, we're going to do a teaser. Ravens-Bills. This will be our signature tease. Ravens down to minus one do a teaser. Ravens-Bills. This will be our signature tease. Ravens down to minus one and a half, and the Bills down to minus one. Both of them have to win. We're putting 400K on that one. You're going to indulge me on the Raiders with the Vikings.

The Vikings were teasing the plus eight and a half against Seattle. The Raiders were teasing the other way. We're going to make them plus one and a half against Miami. We're basically like, they just have to win. And we're going to put 200 K on that. Can we make a plea to Mike Zimmer, just less than 500 yards from the sea.

Let's just keep it somewhat reasonable on defense. And we can win this thing. Yeah, just... And even if you're down late, give us the cheap touchdown. Just keep us in the mix. Okay. Straight up bets. We're going to do 200K on the Bears plus seven

in Cleveland. Justin Fields, we're with you, baby. Here we go. It's fun. We're going to do Bucks minus one and a half against the Rams, which you don't fully support, but you understand.

And you're much like me with the Pats. You're a little tainted with the, you're glass half full with the Rams. So I talked you into that one. And then do we do Niners minus three against the Packers or no? I don't know. Stay away?

Stay away. All right, stay away. I like it. Not enough to I don't know. Stay away? Stay away. All right, stay away. I like it. Not enough to ruin million-dollar picks. Stay away. All right, so we have those. And then our underdog parlay of the week is just a beauty.

Really, really love this. Bears and Eagles, they both have to win. Plus $789. Going to put $33,000 on that. So there you go. And then anytime you can bet on Justin Fields and Jalen Hertz going on the road in a parlay, you have

to do it. You have to do it. And that's it. Those are the million dollar picks for week three. You can find all those lines on FanDuel Sportsbook. We've had good luck with FanDuel Sportsbook on the Million Dollar Picks. So there we go.

We made $147,000 last week. For the season, we're up $612,000. Come on now. So we'll see if we can get into seven figures, Peter Schrager. Before we go, tell us about the Sopranos prequel movie.

I went last night, Beacon Theater, Saints of Newark is what it's called. I'm not going to give any spoilers away. I'm just going to say this. It is fucking incredible. I loved it. I loved it.

And I am a Sopranos diehard. I am like with you and Alan Sepinwall and the whole gang. Like I go deep. I was dreading this movie the entire time leading up because of my love for the original franchise. Bill, it is so good. And it is David Chase in all his glory. I'm not going to give too much away. Alessandro Nivola, not really familiar with him as an actor. He plays the uncle to young Tony, who is Christopher Maltesante's father. And I think he might win an Oscar for this movie. He is that good. I tell you, amazing, amazing movie.

Wow. So he's your MVP. He's my MVP. Although I have a fun story quickly. So it's every character has their version of them at a younger age. So the kid who plays Silvio is fantastic. And the guy who plays Junior Corrado is actually Corey Stoll, who you know from House of Cards. And they're great. But Big Pussy is played by a young man. I wrote his name down here. Samson Mowiak-Kiola. And I'm like, oh, this guy's playing Big Pussy.

He's got this big jersey, Italian guy. I talked to him. I went up at the premiere. I went up right to him. I'm like, you're fantastic. And he's like, went up right to him. I'm like, you're fantastic. And he's like, dude, I know you. I'm like, oh, okay. Here I am, Mr. Big Shot.

Of course you know me. He's like, no, no, no. He's like, I'm Nathan Peterman's best friend from high school. I'm like, Nathan Peterman's best friend from high school. What a small world. He's like, we went to school together in Texas. I was the best man in his wedding. He plays Big Pussy.

It is incredible seeing these guys playing the older versions. I loved it. I think it's on HBO Max starting in October. I'm not sure if it's in movie theaters, but I saw it in a theater full of Jersey and New Yorkers. The emotions of seeing a movie in a theater with all these people and everyone watching The Sopranos, I can't hype it up enough. And I was very nervous going in that they were going to tarnish the tradition. And I would say this, you don't have to know The Sopranos inside and out to love it.

It's a standalone movie, which makes it cool. And the Sleeper MVP, Ray Liotta, is incredible in it. Wow. Incredible. We relaunched our TV pod feed as a prestige TV pod. Me, Van, and Waz did a Sopranos Hall of Fame episode that's going up on Friday. We did the Tony Bobby fight.

Yeah. That episode, which is kind of, there's some sneaky, great Sopranos episodes that never get mentioned enough because people always go like, oh, Pine Barrens. Pine Barrens. Or they took over the last one.

And there's like five other ones that are like just unbelievable and should be mentioned more. And the Tony Bobby fight is an incredible episode. There's so many little nods. Bill, you will love this. There's so many little, it's like almost Easter eggs, little nods that don't take away from the movie that are like, and the way these actors embody the other ones, like the little tics that Corey Stoll has that plays it as Junior and Vera Familia, is that her name?

Yeah, Vera Familia. I'm not good with names. Football players, I can do. Actresses, I can't. She does the Nancy Marchand stuff. She plays Tony's mother at a younger age. And it is so fun. It's two and a half hours.

I loved it. I would watch it for seven hours. I just high praise from a fellow Sopranos fan. Can't wait. Can't wait for you to see it. Yeah. Can't wait. Greatest TV show of all time,

other than maybe The Wire. They're in the finals. Fair. Peter Schrager, we can see you on Fox this weekend. We can see you on Good Morning Football. We'll see you on Million Dollar Picks next week. Go Million Dollar Picks. Let's keep it going, baby.

That's it. Let's go. You're the man, Bill. Thank you. All right. My dad is here taping this on a Thursday. He hasn't been on the pod in a while. Every time I call you,

your Wi-Fi is terrible at your house, but you're actually here. It's my birthday this weekend and you came to visit me to watch Ryder Cup, to watch the Patriots, to watch the Red Sox. We took a 625 flight this morning from Boston, came to visit me to watch Ryder Cup, to watch the Patriots, to watch the Red Sox. We took a 6.25 flight this morning from Boston,

landed in LA at 9.02. Fantastic. In the morning. You can hear him on the spot on the Ringer Podcast Network. He's the host of the Blue Plate Special. Does it three times a week. I'm still waiting for that to happen. I'm available.

We had talked to Swedes and they've given you that. We haven't talked about this Tom Brady thing who looks better this year than he looked really the last couple of years with us. And just seems like he's... You mean because he has nine touchdown passes in two games? Where have you landed? Because I actually root for Brady. I think it's, I try to bet on the Bucs when there's opportunity and just in general, I want him to do well. I don't really have any spitefulness at all. Are you spiteful at all or no? There's a part of me that's spiteful.

On the other hand, I hope every week that he does really well. So I'm conflicted. And it didn't help yesterday when I read all the comments from his dad about how it was time for him to move on because Belichick was treating him like a 20-year-old. I thought Guerrero said that. His dad said that, too. Guerrero said that, too. His dad was saying that Belichick never appreciated everything that Tom did, that it was time to move on.

I don't know well then we have the seth wickersham book that's coming out next week too which i did a blurb for it because i got to read an early copy and it's excellent and yeah it's look it was a more complicated relationship i think than all of us realized and they hit a lot and I do think it does seem like a big part of this was Belichick just saying, no, you're just one of the 53 guys. Which as a longtime fan, I don't understand. I mean, he led us to six Super Bowls. Six? We made like nine. No, I mean wins.

Yeah, titles. I mean, you could argue we could have won on nine. You could argue we could have won only four, but that's a moot point. I don't understand Belichick's lack of appreciation of rating, but that's from the outside looking in. I don't know the conversations like you don't. Does this book have any insight to? Yeah, I think it has a lot. I do think, I think Belichick was probably, you know,

we felt this way even watching it. Belichick's playing the odds, right? Brady's going to be in his early forties. I didn't know QB. He's slipping in these little tiny ways. I have Jimmy here. I know Jimmy at some point and Brady wanted to play until he was 45. It seemed crazy. Now he's 44 and he's as good as he's looked in four years. I said this to Schrager when he was on before. One of the reasons I like the Bucs in this game, it does feel

like it's Brady's team when you watch them. He's handpicked a lot of these guys. He convinced Gronk to come back. He convinced him to take a chance on Brown. It's his offense. He knows Gronk to come back. He convinced him to take a chance on Brown. It's his offense. He knows it. Like, it's all him. And I just don't think the Patriots were ever going to do that with him.

Well, I agree with all of that. It looks like that coach, Arians, is allowing Brady to run the exact offense that Brady wants to run. With the guys that he wants to throw to? With the guys that he's comfortable with. You know, to be realistic, though, looking at that Tampa Bay team, he has wide receivers and tight ends he never had in New England. Except for 07.

One year. Yeah, one year. A year and a half, two years maybe. You know, it was always the thing, hard to figure out why Belichick didn't give him more weapons. And he goes to Tampa Bay and look at the weapons he has. You know, if he had those weapons in New England,

I think we would have won three more Super Bowls. Well, I think the thing that now that we have some distance and we certainly can't complain with the success. Not complaining. But the thing that I think they'd missed on was what we see in the NBA. Like with somebody like LeBron, where LeBron becomes this draw for other great players. And you have Anthony Davis trying to get out of New Orleans to play with them. And you have these other guys taking these basically veteran exceptions and making two million a year instead of

seven to, cause they want to play with LeBron. It just happened. And all 21 other starters came back to Tampa Bay. That's the thing. So like they thought they were going to lose. I think it was Godwin. Yeah.

Um, Gronk, who was good with playing for the Patriots, but was able to come back to play with Brady and the continuity piece. I think that's kind of what Belichick maybe didn't navigate the greatest. I have this incredible resource who's actually taking a pay cut versus making $40 million a year. And yet they didn't really funnel that toward what Tampa has been able to do. Well, a consistent topic you and I have talked about over the years has to do with the team that wins and what happens the following year.

Yeah. It's, it's, I want mine. And disease of me. Yeah. And Tampa Bay. And I,

I credit Brady. Um, they so much want to play with him and he has surrounded himself with people he wants to play with. Yeah. And they all came back. That's unheard of in this day and age of free agency. Yeah. And I'm not even really critical of Belichick either,

because I do think he was playing the odds. I remember doing TV with Doug Collins, and he was talking about those MJ years with the Wizards. And when MJ wasn't quite MJ anymore, but he was still ordering everybody around like he was the best player in the league. And that's where it gets dangerous with these aging. It happened with Kobe and the Lakers. Like we see it happen with basically every great athlete. And Belichick probably just didn't want to be there when that happened.

But on the flip side, I think he really, really underestimated Brady's will to keep going. And also all the advantages we have now and the fact that you don't really get hit playing quarterback anymore. Well, I mean, it's almost like arena quarterback playing now. But there is a piece,

and I wonder if this book touches on it because I haven't seen it yet. It's not out yet. It has to do with the owner of the team, Bob Kraft. And, you know, you mentioned Jimmy Garoppolo. At least from the outside looking in, it looks like the move to trade Garoppolo came down from Kraft. Basically him picking Brady over Belichick. Yes, exactly. Okay, so three years later, less than three years later,

Kraft changes his decision and says it's time to move on from Brady. I don't know, is that what happened? But it's inconsistent. It made no sense to me as a fan that Kraft would have no role in pushing for Brady to stay here. Well, he's also, Kraft's at an older stage of his career as an owner, you know, and maybe he didn't navigate that. I mean, he makes you look like a young chicken.

Well, is it touched on in the book at all that you- Yeah, there's some Kraft stuff. I don't want to step on the book too much because I think I was privileged reading it. Seth's also going to come on this podcast next week and we'll talk about some of this stuff. But yeah, I mean, it was this triangle that I remember when Seth was writing about in 2018 and I just didn't believe a lot of it. I thought things were getting leaked, but it turns out like all his information was dead on and that, you know, I was wrong to doubt it. I think it just got really complicated. I think it's an amazing thing to stay together for 20 years

when you think like, look at where Rogers is in Green Bay now, but then he's had all these different coaches and they don't really have an owner there. You think about the NBA, LeBron spends six, seven years in Cleveland, four in Miami, four in Cleveland. Now he's in the Lakers. He's constantly moving. Is there a comparable situation that you could cite?

Because as you said, they were together 20 years. All these other- Yeah, 18. Was it 18? Yeah, I guess like 19 years. 19 years. You know, all these other superstars and all these other sports, they've gone through multiple coaches in this day and age.

So there's really no comparable situation and maybe brady didn't power play it enough i think he was so loyal to the team and to the crafts and to just trying to win and he you know it's a little on him too he knows having belichick was one of the best advantages you can have so he kind of swallowed some stuff because he knew it gave him the best chance to win. And they had the second run from 2014 through that Rams Super Bowl. And they were really, you know, they could have won the Super Bowl every year. They ended up winning three. They easily could have won four. It does bring me though, to some of the comments from Brady's father yesterday, where Brady's father talked about the Patriots not offering Tom a long-term five-year contract

that would have kept him in New England. I had not heard that before. Yeah, he wanted that around 17, 18 range. Because he told them, I want to play until I'm 45. And Belichick's like, cool. No, Belichick said cool. No, he's like, cool. I don't know what you're thinking.

You're getting a five-year deal. So I guess, get back to your point. I try to watch every Tampa Bay game. Yeah. I am still a little bit conflicted because I don't know the whole story. Like most fans don't know the whole story. I wish Brady was still here. It's great that we

have Mac Jones and we're rooting for him to be our new guy. He's not going to be our new Brady, but our new guy. But I would have loved to have seen him sitting this year learning under Brady. Yeah. I just want to know why you didn't give interviews after I left ASPN, critical of ESPN. I tried. Tom Brady's dad just stepped up to the plate more than you did. I called Bristol and they just didn't want to hear from me. Yeah, it's very similar.

Brady left. He went to Tampa, kept winning titles. I left ESPN. I started winning titles elsewhere. So what the greats do. But his dad defended him, I guess. I kept waiting for John Skipper to give me a call. They're playing the Rams this week.

That's one of the many games we're watching. We're also watching the Pats. We're playing the Saints. This is a super sports weekend. And your favorite event, the Ryder Cup. You love it. I wish it was in August. I wish it wasn't against football.

Yeah, it never, well, I guess it always is. It's always second week of September. Yeah, it's't against football. Yeah, it never, well, I guess it always is. It's always second week of September. Yeah, it's always against football. Wait, we're talking about Ryder Cup in a second. I want to talk about this weird Red Sox season. They've won 88 games. They're 88 and 65. Well, can I just say that I'm one of the few people in our family that never gave up on the Red Sox?

Yeah, I bet on the over. What are you talking about? I bet on the over. What are you talking about? I bet on the over 81 wins. What, last week? No. Before the season. I don't recall that. I didn't give up. I still don't think it's a World Series team. Oh, it's not. It's a team. We have no closer.

Our best guy right now is Iglesias, who's not going to be on the postseason roster because they signed him three days later. I don't know if you watched the game last night. They're leading, I think, 11-4, 11-3 or something.

They brought Barnes in in the sixth inning. Our lights out closer from the first four months of the year. He won a third of an inning. He was our all-star. Boy, I talk about losing confidence quickly, but that's a scary proposition for us because nobody jumps out for us as a ninth-inning person against what could be a one.

As a ninth-inning person? What about an eighth-inning or a seventh-inning person? Yeah, that's a little scary. You know, the other thing is I've watched, I know you have watched a lot of Red Sox this year and I have too, because I like this team. I do too. I've watched an incredible amount of Red Sox and I'm embarrassed by it. Didn't like the team last year. I like this team. It looks like they have good camaraderie, chemistry. They all root for each other. I liked a couple of the new guys they brought in.

It's one of those teams where the new weird uniforms work and they just wear them the next day and they have like little rituals for the home runs. It's been a great season. Yeah. I don't understand. You know, they get a double and they're all making... Gestures at each other. Yeah.

I don't know what that means. But on the other hand, after watching this entire season, we're going to end up hopefully, possibly in a one-game playoff. Yeah. It's kind of weird. I wish there was a three-game playoff. When you think about it, Tampa is better than us. And when we play Tampa, even though talent-wise it seems even, but they're just a machine. They're like the Belichick Patriots where they make all the little things happen.

I don't totally agree. They're in a slump right now. I mean, we're six games behind. You're going to tell me Tampa's better than us? We have no closer, and every player on defense is below average except for Iglesias, who's not going to be on the team. This is what's happened to you, though, out in Los Angeles. No, we are bad defensivelyly and we have no bullpen.

I'm going to root for us. I hope we do well, but it's not a recipe for post-season success. Do you think? Well, everything would have to come together. This is a team where if there's two outs and the bases are loaded and we get a fly ball in the outfield,

I'm holding my breath until the guy catches it. We used to have this outfield where we would have Mookie chasing down fly balls that seemed like they were going to be a triple and Jackie Bradley in center. Every position on this team makes me nervous defensively now. Even Devers and Bogarts. I actually think they've made some adjustments. For example, Iglesias was a great pickup. Again, not on our postseason roster. Not eligible. I realize that. But to get to... We're not yet a postseason team. So right now,

we can play him at second, which means Hernandez can play center, which means we can put the other position players in right and left. Devis has played a little better defensively. Dahlbeck has been – not Dahlbeck. Our first baseman has been better defensively. Dahlbeck. Yeah, Dahlbeck. Well, Dahlbeck, that's been the most fun part of this season for me. As you know, I told you, he's on my AL Keeper team.

Hench and I paid $18 for him. So every time he failed the first four months of the season, it was like getting kicked in both nuts, not just one nut. Don't you think he was pretty close to being sent down? Yeah. I thought he was going to be sent down for about two weeks there in July because it just seemed like, and we would text about it. Like it was tough to watch.

No chance. Like strike one swinging, call it the second strike, third strike over his head. He swings anyway or whatever. Right. And then all of a sudden, and Eck was on it early, Eckersley, the one of our color guys in the thing where he was just like, sorry, he's starting to get it.

I'm getting optimistic. So that made me feel good. because I really love Eckersley. I think he does a great job. But then now he's basically turned into this monster. He's a monster. I think he's going to get hit every time. Batting seventh in the lineup too. Right.

I mean, it stretches our lineup. Well, last night was a good example. We scored 12 runs against the Mets. Yeah. Night before, we scored a lot of runs against the mets we can we can score runs our record against the top level teams though isn't that good and that's what would worry me i mean we have beat up on a lot of the under 500 teams the reliever thing is is, I mean, you could argue Whitlock could have been the MVP of the first five months by how many games he kept us in or saved or whatever.

And then he finally broke down. And I know he's supposedly coming back. Well, hopefully, if he doesn't come back, and Barnes, I don't know in this short period of time that Barnes can regain his confidence. Barnes is like, it's so funny when this happens. Or it's not funny, but like, remember Keith Folk in 05, where all of a sudden it was over? And you felt bad because he carried one of the craziest postseason loads of all time in 04.

You could say the same thing about Kimball. And then you see Kimball being traded from the Cubs to the White Sox, and he's blown three or four games already for them. He's been terrible. Yeah. So we're playing the Yankees this weekend, which is the reason we're mentioning this. I wanted to get three games ahead of them heading into that series.

Somehow it's two. And the first game is Cole and Evaldi. And Evaldi is probably the other than sale to start you or trust the most, but has the tendency of like around the sixth inning starts getting a little gamey. He can give you the good six innings, but we're need now

their bullpen hasn't been that that's falling apart too. They don't trust Chapman. They've had some injuries. Chad Green has probably been their best reliever, but anytime he's a closer, it's bad for them. So I think it's going to be one of these rollercoaster ride weekends where leads are changing hands in the seventh, eighth, ninth inning. It's in Boston, which is good for us, I guess.

We've also hit Cole, and I know you're aware. That doesn't cheat anymore. Cole's last start four days ago was horrible. Yeah. He got knocked out within the first four innings. But there is a lot on the talk radio in Boston, which you probably are not able to receive here, a lot of talk about why did they start sale last night?

Why didn't they save them for game one against the Yankees? It's because they're missing those random dudes you can just bring up for the start who are actually competent. They've tried it a couple times and the guys have gotten shoved. Well, that was the argument. You lose the second game against the Mets, then you've lost the game on the Yankees. What's the difference? Right. So I think that is a good argument. Unfortunately, like you said, our AAA pitches,

except for how there's nobody really you can bring up. Well, we knew they didn't totally believe in this team when they didn't really do that much at the trade deadline. So it was clear they felt like the team had a little bit overachieved. But just as an experience of rooting for them day in, day out, I've really enjoyed the season. I liked Evers. Verdugo.

Although I still think about Mookie Betts. Every three, Verdugo at Betts. But still, I enjoy watching him. You know, people make the mistake of saying he replaced Mookie Betts. No, it's not his fault. It's not. I mean, he got traded here with two other people, one of whom is… Downs is heating up.

I know you've… Not just Downs, but… Yeah... Downs is heating up. I know you've... Not just Downs, but yeah, Downs is heating up a little bit. Downs came around. They got a catcher that's pretty young, long. Well, I know you follow the farm system stuff. They have some studs. They do.

This guy, they took a first-round pick on that guy, Nick York, and everybody got mad, and they're like, what the fuck? Nobody else had him as a first-rounder, and he's like the best minor leaguer they had this year. And then Cassis, the first baseman, he's going to be a stud. So they're going to have some options. Cassis

played his first game in Worcester last night, hit a home run in his second at-bat. So, yeah, and I've enjoyed Kike. Right. Renfro, even though he's kind of a train wreck in Redfield, he's got an absolute cannon.

Yeah. And he unleashes that thing like twice a week, and that's been really fun. And then the Dahlbeck thing's been fun. Whitlock's been good. It's a fun team. They've definitely overachieved. 88 wins right now.

It feels like they should probably have like 83. Well, they were picked to win 81-82. The only mistake I think they made and I still don't understand it is Benintendi. He was your son's favorite player. That didn't last long. Well, he's hitting

275-280 for Kansas City. He's got almost 20 homers. Why'd they give him away, basically? They gave him away. They got nothing in return that's going to benefit us. Yeah, that is right. It never made sense. He wasn't making a ton of money. All right, I'm going to give you a couple scenarios here.

One is we missed the playoffs entirely. The second scenario is we have a one- game playoff to get into the wild card, but it's against the Yankees. Yeah. Obviously we would pick that, but from a health standpoint, is it better for you if we just missed the playoffs over the one game playoff? Cause we lose a one game,

anything to the Yankees, it's going to ruin my entire rest of the year. I said this on John Jastrzemski's podcast the other day. I actually hate the Yankees more than I like the Red Sox at this point in my life. We've won four titles. It's like we're playing with house money with the Red Sox. I just hate the Yankees.

We have this advantage over them now. And I don't want the risk of the one-game playoff against them. I think Bucky Dent ruined your childhood. He really did. It was one of the two times I cried from sports. You weren't the only one, but I want us in the playoffs. Are you kidding? After watching this much baseball?

But the ideal thing would be us making that one and then Blue Jays Yankees in the other one. Let them beat the hell out of each other. No, there's only one wild card. No, but I'm saying like a one game playoff with them for the right to play us in the one game playoff because they have

those. Don't they? No. I thought they did. Tampa's going to win the division. Right. And then there's one wild card game. I know, but if there's like this three game. We all finish the same. No, there's a wild card game, but there's two wildcards, but there's three teams going for two. Yeah.

And if there's a tie for the second spot. If there's a tie. Yeah. Oh. So the ideal scenario would be. A tie is possible. Because the thing is, I think the Blue Jays are really good, but I would rather lose to them than lose a one game playoff to the Yankees. That's my worst case scenario.

Blue Jays are, certainly they have a great hitting lineup. They're unpredictable. Yeah. Every time it seems like they're about to take off, they'll blow a game to like the Orioles. Like last night, they blew a game. Ryder Cup. So you watch a lot of golf.

You watch a lot of TV because you're retired. You're available. Well, I do enjoy sports. You love golf. You watch a lot of TV because you're retired. You're available. I do enjoy sports. You love golf. When the Cantlay-Bryson-DeChambeau thing happened, I didn't need to text you to tell you to turn that on

because you were already watching. I probably was channel surfing with different sports. USA is minus 225 to win the trophy. I also like the Revolution soccer team. So that was this weird revelation where you claimed you've been watching the Revolution for like six years.

And then UConn women's basketball. That was the other one. You have all these things I didn't know about. I love UConn women's basketball. I'm following the recruiting trail right now, who they're trying to bring in. Who'd they get? Anybody good? They're still working on it.

And the Revolution, how are they looking? Heading into whatever the playoffs are. They won 3-2 last night against Chicago in Chicago, which is tough to do. Who's your favorite Revolution player? I like Turner, the goalie. I think he's really spot on.

Great. Ryder Cup. You think the U.S. is going to win. They have some point scoring stuff on FanDuel that I thought was fun. We both like Xander in this tournament. You know, we do. We both like Xander. So he was 12-1 to have the most points this weekend, and he's plus 470 for top rookie.

I like both of those. I like both of those. As you know, I also like Justin Thomas because he just seems to be a bulldog in the Ryder Cup. Yeah. And those are my two players.

You know, it's hard not to like Cantlay right now because he's on a roll. Yeah, House doesn't like Cantlay, but I'm in on him. He's a rookie in the Ryder Cup. I like the putting piece with him. I like the putting piece.

Because this Ryder Cup always comes down to those tense 15-footers. Well, you and I were talking that Sunday, which of course is going to be up against the Patriot game, unfortunately, but who they match in the one-to-one, I'd love to see Cantley matched with Rahm after the battle that they recently had. And Rahm was 7-1 for most points, plus 3-8 to be the foreign player at the most points.

Rahm. That makes sense. Rahm's terrifying. One of the reasons I think we're going to win this year is they don't have that old guy. They don't have the crafty old guy. Poulter, I guess, is technically hip. He's like 25-1 for most points,

12-1 for most foreign. Best foreign guy. Their so-called crafty old guys, a Poulter and Westwood, who I think are probably four years beyond being crafty old guys. Yeah, it's not. Who is the guy who used to kill us like 20 years ago?

Ian, not Woosdom. O'Connell Montgomery? Was that it? There was always those type of guys. Yeah, those type of guys. Great leadership. I mean, Poulter's not had a good season, but he always does seem to show up for the Ryder Cup.

All right, so on Sunday we have Ryder Cup. We have Red Sox Yankees. Which I think is a 1 o'clock. Well, no. 10 o'clock here. We have Pat Saints. Is Red Sox Yankees a night game? I think it's a night game.

We have Pat's Saints. One o'clock. Buck's Rams. Oh, 10 o'clock here. Yeah. Buck's Rams. It's a smorgasbord. What time is the Buck's Rams?

Four TVs. I might need like three more TVs. Buck's Ram, I think that one's later. That's in the afternoon. It's great. I mean, talk about a great... The other thing, if you're out in LA, which, as you mentioned, I am right now,

the time difference is hard to get used to. It means that the 1 o'clock game is actually at 10 o'clock here. The Ryder Cup tomorrow, which starts at 9 o'clock, is actually starting at 6 o'clock here. Yeah, but you wake up at like 4 o'clock cause you're always like screwed up. Yeah. I'll be up. Wow.

And then all the way through and then even Sunday night is Packers, 49ers and Red Sox Yankees, same time. So it's going to be like 14 hours of us not moving and just a lot of resentment from everywhere. But it's my birthday weekend. I could do what I want. You know, and, and, and I'm trying to support you's my birthday weekend. I can do what I want. You know, and I'm trying to support you on your birthday weekend. Thank you. Be me, you, and Murph.

The three of us. Three guys. Yeah, unfortunately, our wives won't be talking to us. Yeah, it'll be fine. All right, Dad, good to see you. Thanks for the Boston Sports Update. All right, thanks for having me out here.

Thanks to Schrager, and this podcast was produced by Kyle Creighton. We will see you on Sunday with The Cuz. Until then. We'll see you next time.