The Bill Simmons Podcast - Darnold Does It, Snow Game II: Mile High, Pats-Seahawks, and the Wild Taipei Climb With Cousin Sal
Episode Date: January 26, 2026The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal LIVE on Netflix right after Rams-Seahawks to recap the conference championship games (0:33). Then, they guess the lines for Super Bowl LX, answer a ...few questions from the listeners, and end with Parent Corner (54:58). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Cousin Sal Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Chris Wohlers Order ALDI on Uber Eats: https://earn.sng.link/A99vk/i2fm/okid The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Yeah!
Oh, man.
Super Bowl LX.
I'm going to try to calm myself done.
We are taping Cousin Sal is with me.
We were taping 7 p.m. Pacific time.
Just watched an awesome Seahawks Rams game.
My beloved Patriots won the AFC title in a blizzard.
They did not give up a point for 55 minutes and won 10 to 7.
And then we had a really fun football game.
I'll let you pick.
Sal, what do you want to start with?
I mean, I, you know, they're saying me having to listen to you gloat is perhaps the most courageous.
It's the most courageous 90 minutes ever aired on Netflix, calling me the greatest athlete ever if I could put up with it.
I would.
Yeah, you and during this versus the guy climbing a giant building in Taipei.
Right, right, right.
So you're saying it's like 50-50.
I think it's close.
They'll both be about an hour and a half, right?
By the way, I lost money on that.
I parlayed Justin Gachey with the guy to
I bet him to fall, basically.
But so anyway, I had to dig out.
No, you did it. No, no, no.
It hasn't gotten that bad, Bill.
I can't, we got to talk about that at the end.
I can't wait to talk about that thing yesterday.
Let's go.
We have a Seahawks Patriots Super Bowl.
Yeah.
Which I think America's going to warm up to over the next two.
First of all, the villainous patriots are back,
even though this is a precocious overachieving team.
Pat says the underdogs,
flashbacks to 01.
Sam Darnold, redemption.
This is one of the great underdog stories
in the history of the NFL, I think.
Sure.
If they win, he's up there with Jim Plunk and all that stuff.
Malcolm Butler revenge game,
the worst Super Bowl loss.
What was the worst Super Bowl loss in your opinion?
That one are the Falcons 28 to 3?
It was actually a worst loss.
All 283 is so hard to beat.
I mean, it's not like the bills dominated the Giants,
but that Norwood widely,
just knowing what happened afterwards
the next three years was bad too.
There have been some bad ones,
but 283.
Yeah,
I mean,
you're part of the whole.
That was the worst collapse.
The Butler one was,
I think,
the biggest,
holy shit,
wait,
we're not about to win
the Super Bowl and we just lost.
Yeah.
And then the Norwood
was,
I think,
probably the hardest
kicking the nuts.
Right.
That's where I would land
on those three.
Yeah.
Well,
we have that.
So it's a Malcolm Butler
revenge game.
And we have Brable,
basically becoming Belichick.
This is like watching
when Hulk Hogan left WBW
and they were just trying to replace them.
It would have been like
if we'd actually replaced Hulk Hogan.
Maybe that wouldn't have been a great idea.
And then Drake with a chance
to position himself as the next guy,
even though he wasn't good today,
but to emerge,
Josh Allen never made a Super Bowl.
Burrow made one.
Mahomes won a few,
but could he move into that past?
So what are the storylines
are in there for you?
I don't know.
I think you're dead on with,
I was kind of thinking about it.
man, this is such a bummer with the Patriots.
This is like 30 tuck rules in a row, which are 30 for 30 tuck rules,
the way they got to this position here.
But then I'm like, all right, maybe this is, you know,
the football gods trying to build some heat for the Patriots,
trying to make them hated again.
Oh, they got there with the easy schedule.
You know, Mack Holland's proving to be a pregame sociopath,
and Vrable is unlikable.
And I haven't even mentioned the alleged criminals on your team.
But it's building heat.
Like, you just slam snook over there.
head with a coconut. Congratulations. It's it's I mean craft interjected himself into the
Vrable post game. Yeah. You know, Vrable's given this great speech. He's calling them warriors.
He's, you know, telling them basically we have one day off. Then we're, we're about the next
game trying to win it. And he's about to bring everybody in and crafts like, if I can interject,
and comes in and does the game ball thing. But, you know, Crafts on the team for 32 years.
This is his, I think 11th AFC championship.
Because they won in 96, the AFC.
I think it's 13.
I think for Kraft.
Oh, I think he's won.
This is his 11th trip to the Super Bowl.
This is the team 13th.
Yeah, you're right.
Amazing.
Because I remember when he bought the team, you know, we all thought, I was living in Boston,
we all thought they're going to move to St. Louis.
Then it seemed like he might buy them and move to Hartford.
They were the black sheep.
I've talked about all this.
It was a good purchase.
It was probably a smart part.
Really worked out for him.
And it didn't seem as smart this decade after Bell's,
Lachick left, and it looked like we were just going to have a steady stream of Mac Jones's
and those type of guys that was going to be disappointing.
We were going to stink, and that's not what happened.
Why don't we talk about Seahawks Rams first?
Sure.
Because that just happened.
And I have more in the moment thoughts.
I'm more prepared for the other game.
It really felt like two different, right?
We were watching different sports, right?
Between the early game and the, like, it was like our parents playing pickleball on the morning
versus like the Aussie open semifinals.
at night.
Well, I was thinking like,
did we talk about this last?
I remember talking about this in my podcast with somebody,
like this weather variable we have for football,
which we were just used to.
And it's kind of insane that a Blizzard
basically decided this Patriots Broncos game.
And then you watch the next game.
I don't know what the weather was like there,
but at least the field was clear.
And people could see who they're thrown to.
And it was like, oh, yeah, this is a completely different sport.
Yeah.
Why don't we had fire?
Might as well add fire to the first game, too.
Like I put a moat at midfield or something.
I watched this entire game.
I had no idea who I wanted the Pats to play for most of the three hours.
And I was texting.
I was multiple Pats fan threads.
I was texted with my dad.
My dad was just confused.
He's like, I don't know what to root for.
He got bouncing back and forth.
And I think ultimately I'm a little happier that it's the Seahawks because I think all we've done is see them at home.
Darnold was incredible today.
it's going to have two weeks of Sam Darnold and puff and smoke up his butt.
But I just thought the Rams are so scary.
And honestly, that fourth and four was basically the game, right?
Oh, crap.
Like, if they get that.
Sorry.
Did you see this just came in?
Sam Donald got his right arm caught in the door of the team bust.
They have to.
It's another one?
They have to amputate, but he's willing to play left-handed.
After the Bo Nix thing, I'd believe anything.
It's another break for you guys.
Good.
The fourth and four.
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, it's just, it felt like these two teams were even, but when you throw in the home field,
maybe the Rams were like an inch better, but honestly, both of these teams are better than the Patriots.
For the Patriots, we haven't done guess the lines. I've not seen the lines, but there,
it's at least going to be over a field goal for the Seahawks, but I think it would have been either team.
Do you think the line would have been any different depending on who won?
I don't know.
I don't know. Unless there was like a blowout in this game, and it seemed like there wasn't going to be until, I mean, it could have been.
two scores, if not for that
crazy taunting. I don't know in what order
you want to hit this, but
no, if you saw a
close Seahawks-Rams game, it was probably
going to be the same line against the Patriots.
I had a couple things that one hit. We'll start
with Darnold versus Stafford.
So they had that 38, 37
game, which was probably the best regular
season game of the year, and ironically
swung the home field for this
with that crazy two-point play.
I can't believe, if
if we had done this in August when we were
and the preseason guest aligns and all the futures and stuff,
what would the fando odds have been for Sam Darnold versus Matthew Stafford
will be our best quarterback robbery in the 2025 season?
Oh, wow.
Because that's what ended up happening.
Those two guys today and in Week 16 played two of the most fun games we've seen all year
and really seemed like they were elevating each other.
And I just, I let the odds of that, when they got Darnold, you know, over the spring summer,
it was like, ah, they turned Gino Smith,
than the Darnold. Do you think this is, they're better or worse? Now he's going
toe to toe with the guy's probably going to win the MVP. Well, don't sleep on Stidham
against May because that could blossom into a great, great rivalry. We have no idea.
We don't know how it's going to go. Football teams were 60 to 1 to win the Super Bowl.
Your Patriots and Seahawks right around there going in. So for them meeting up,
I didn't even figure out what it would be. But yeah, they're over on. There was eight
and a half wins, Seattle. And I wasn't like sold on Darnold. I said, you know what? He really
didn't have to do anything last week. That game was over in two plays, which makes it, I think
it was five weeks before he had a 200-yard game, the oblique, who knows. So he didn't really
prove what he, it's not his fault. All they had to do was run. And Kenneth Walker was amazing
last week. But I was like, maybe he doesn't have it in him. He was great. I mean,
J.S.N. is terrific too. We can get to all those guys. But, yeah, he did not disappoint at all,
Donald. Didn't turn the ball over. I thought had a couple of, like, superb throws, the throw to
Shaheed and the first drive.
Yeah. Perfect.
Even Brady was like, oh, you got to hit that.
And then they showed the replay and he was like, wow, that was a great throw.
That was an eighth row.
Dropped it right over the shoulder.
He had that.
Thought the touchdown throw right after the, right after the kickfumble when he, I think it was
Bobo in the end zone, but he kind of threw it a little across his body at pressure.
I thought I stepped around.
I didn't see the Sam Darnold panic stuff.
I have a good friend of my Mark Samino, who's a diehard Jets fan and has been pissed that they got
rid of Darnold ever since they got rid of him and actually roots for Darnold by proxy because
he knows that Jets have no chance.
And he's like the most vindicated of anyone.
He was just like, Darnold was good.
We destroyed him.
We poisoned him.
We had him swimming in our poison pool and he got poisoned and he got out and he learned
to swim again.
It was basically the same Darned thing.
But he was really good.
So Jets fans bummed out by it, but also Vikings fans, obviously.
That's got to be the other team that's watching this going, wow.
Jets fans, the miserable Super Bowl, right?
Because you're not going to rule for the Patriots either.
Not this is awful.
Aside from your friend, I don't know how many are excited about Sam Darnel.
This is the first time the Jets fans have felt awful during a Super Bowl.
Oh, no.
That's right.
No, it's every time.
They're not going to get there.
So Darnell was 25 for 36, 346 yards, three TDs.
And Stafford was over 300.
too with three TDs.
But I just thought Donald was great.
And the other fascinating thing was
McDonald.
So remember week one?
Because I had the Seahawks for the division.
I had a bunch of Seahawks overs.
And they lost week one.
And he kind of coached scared in that game, remember?
Sure.
We came on the pod that night and I was bitching about it.
And I was like, he doesn't trust his team.
Like, you got to be aggressive.
They were really aggressive in that last drive.
They got that fourth and four stop.
And they had the ball.
And instead of like being just tainted.
into the line and trying to chew clock.
They did some play action.
They ran out.
They completed some passes.
I got the call.
I got the holding call,
but that helped.
But yeah,
that was,
yeah,
they weren't laying back.
That was for sure.
And like they kind of came in spurts,
right?
Like Kenneth Walker was great in the beginning.
It's like,
and then he kind of got lost for a couple quarters.
And like,
if you've had Kenneth Walker in fantasy,
they're like,
you had like eight weeks where he had like under 60 yards.
It wasn't pretty.
Yeah.
And then,
but then JSN steps in.
Like,
I know we talk about QB,
ones all the time. Oh, is it Alan? Is it Mahomes? I think we settled on Alan being a QB2 and no QB1.
The receivers are really the fun rankings, right? Whether it's JSN or Puka, once in a while,
we'll throw Jamar Chase in there when he'll have like 15 catches. But JSN is a man. And going
over the middle, he got just slaughtered that one, that one shot, that one long pass. When he jumped
in the air, yeah, yeah. And he also had a couple of catches that didn't count. He cut that ball under the
goalpost that was seven yards out of bounce.
Right.
He was 10 for 153 with a TD and Puka was 9 for 165.
Incredible.
And they're just clearly the two best.
And it's interesting because a year ago, you would have said Chase and Jefferson were
clearly the two best.
These two now, I thought they needed all the catches and all the yards.
Puka had a couple, like he had playing in the first half when he was like going out to
his right, cutting in like he was going to cut it almost to do like a butt.
hook or something. And he had a step on the guy and then he veered in front of him. It was like a
basketball move. It's like what you're doing basketball when you're in a fast break. You have the
big man behind you and you want to put him on your hip. He kind of did that with that guy and then
went deep and Stafford hit him. But he does shit. No other wide receiver does. And then JSN, same thing.
Like he's doing stuff along the sidelines where you think he's going out of bounds and he's tiptoeing
down for another eight yards. He catches over the middle. Catches in the corner so he can go deep.
Like those two guys just can do everything.
And they're reliable too.
And they, especially Puka, some D-backs have come out.
And I think the other D-backs are mad saying, like, it's kind of not fair what he's able to do in space.
Like, it's unguaritable.
It's not fair.
You know, it's like a Euro step or something.
But he's getting open.
And Jason, like you said, dragging a feet in the sidelines.
He can go over the middle.
But, you know, I want to get into it.
But Cooper Cup had a huge game.
That third and three with five minutes left.
and the third, like, you know, converting.
Obviously, that first down was huge.
So they really brought it all.
Yeah, all his overs came in.
Four for 36 and a TD and a really big third down catch.
It looked like a little more explosive.
It's funny because, you know, they don't have a backup running back anymore.
That guy, Halani.
Yeah.
I watch football every week.
I'm not positive.
I ever remember seeing him.
I'm sure I did, but he certainly didn't jump out.
And then, you know, they have the ball.
Bobo and Barner and these dudes, but it's one of those offenses that you never feel,
you feel like they just shut down the one guy and you'll be fine. And then somehow,
Darling's a 346. They also have an awesome punter who I thought had a couple big ones and
was single-handedly responsible for that guy muffing the punt. Right. That thing just kept
carrying and carrying and carrying backwards. And he finally, like, just, he, like, tripped.
He tripped over his own. I do feel bad because I cut away to the new special teams coach.
And it's like, all right, what the F is that guy supposed to do?
tripped over his own feet.
He can't, like, hold them up there.
But yeah, that is a tough, that is a tough catch to make from your back.
And you figured that was it, right?
When you fall, you just have to basically spasm forward and try to avoid it.
Oh, get out of the way if you can.
But I think he was so cooked by then.
It didn't matter.
It was going to hit him.
You know, it's funny.
When I watch football, I'm always thinking of all the things like you and I
couldn't do when you watch these games, right?
Or, like, how many times we would just be knocked out or how much,
certain hits could hurt.
Like today, Ramadre in the first game
was running and he was pushing the pile
and it kind of stopped. And then
Funga came flying in from behind and just like
nailed him in the back. I was like,
I would still be down. Like they would
have, I would be pieces of me would be going
on three different cards. And you watch
this stuff and you're constantly marveling. The thing
I'm always amazed by is that, or one of the
things is that people don't muff these punts
more. Yeah. When you think like these
giant stadiums with the lights,
how high it is. Yeah. And the ball's
doing, there's wind, and these guys make it look so easy. And then when somebody actually,
and then plus there's gunners running at you, like trying to fuck with you, like they're going
to hit you and then cut into the side. And it's weird it doesn't happen more often. But the irony
of the Rams special teams murdering them in a game. This was the problem with their whole season.
Yes. I literally put them in the manifesto. This was rule number 13. Like, be aware of the bad
special teams. It should be like, you know, you talk about this game all week, these two games, right?
and we did it on the pregame show.
And it's like,
we probably mentioned the special teams
out of an hour and a half.
We probably mentioned it for 40 seconds.
And it was a huge,
you know,
like some things you can't,
you can't like handicap like missed field goals.
Who's going to miss?
Who's got the day?
You know, two weeks ago,
miss field goals were bad.
But the special teams with the Rams,
you can almost guarantee
that's going to be one play
that screws them or they overcome it.
It's so weird.
McFa's like,
I think everybody considers him
one of the four best coaches in the league,
right?
How does he not fix this?
Right.
This seems like one of those
where you just, you do the roadhouse move
and you're like, I'm getting the best cooler in the south.
I'm bringing Dalton in.
Name your price.
I'll pay $1,000 a week.
Or just take everyone off the field.
Like, don't return puns anymore.
Just everyone's gone.
Oh, that would be interesting.
Yeah.
Yeah, we're not trying to block puns or return them.
We're just letting them bounce around.
This game had great QBs, great receivers.
We had multiple goats because we had the Rams punt return.
Then we had woolen with the taunting penalty.
Yeah.
which I want to talk about one second.
And it felt like that might flip the game.
I thought the announcers were excellent.
I thought Brady's come back for the year.
Is he eligible?
Oh, really? Interesting.
I think he's been really good.
I really do.
I think he's last year, and he said it.
There was an article written about him this week,
and he basically said what we talked about last year on the pod.
It felt like he was so over-prepared.
He was trying to work all this information that he learned all week
and was just like doing,
and now you feel like you're watching the game with them.
and he's weaving in like his experience when he played.
And the stuff he was doing about like that I thought his best points today was the JSN,
the shoulder pads.
Yeah.
And he was like when somebody's running and their shoulder pads don't move, usually if their
shoulder pads are going like this, you know, they're going deep.
If they're lower, they're going to stop.
And he's like nobody, yeah, nobody can read his shoulder pads, which makes them impossible
to read.
I was like, holy shit.
I've never heard anyone said that before.
Yeah.
He's like, he's like, shut up, Tom.
This is my secret.
Don't let that out.
But yeah, no, he's good.
he's better he's growing on me.
He doesn't get Botox during the games anymore,
which I think helps.
He could focus now.
Yeah,
the halftime probably is hurting.
He was as good announcing this year as he was bad at running the Raiders.
So we'll see if he can pull out both of them next year.
But I thought those guys,
I thought they had good chemistry.
So we had the Cup revenge game,
which you mentioned.
And then we had the,
the Darnold coming out of it out doing the guy who's probably going to win the MVP.
Let me follow.
Oh, yeah, yes, probably.
Yeah, we had that as well.
It'll be weird now of May.
Stafford was going to win it anyway,
but May has been just shaky enough in the playoffs
and Stafford was good enough that...
Speaking of shaky, how embarrassed you and Hensch
going off on Stafford, how he sucks,
and then, oh, my God, amazing MVP.
The Carolina game.
Yeah, yeah.
You're just being good fans.
My God.
That's all I remember.
So Seattle threw for 201-year-old.
yards in the first half, kept it going.
Let's talk about the big swing plays, the taunting penalty.
What's your take?
Because I do feel like they were reffing a lot of this stuff differently in the playoffs
than they do in week three.
Yeah.
Week three, they're calling that.
We're now in the NFC title game.
They just got this awesome stop.
It's 3120.
They're about to punt.
Guy runs over, talks to the bench.
the of course the officiating guy
they have in the booth he's got to agree with it
like thank God we have those guys
just to agree with everything
I think those guys were
trying to think a one
useful moment
I can't think of any today
yeah they had the one on the fourth
and one Drake May
may sneak
to whoever was there for
nothing offered zero
they could be
there could be AI at this point
I mean you know exactly what you're getting
for that but yeah
the taunting my thing is who care
I don't care.
The fans don't care.
The people getting taunted don't care.
There's no way the Seahawks were like insulted.
This is why they do training camp.
That's why on hard knocks,
they'll sing songs and embarrass themselves and everything, right?
So they can get used to getting taunted because emotions are going to run high in a football game,
let alone the NFC championship.
So whatever.
Flags are going to go one way or the other.
If you get a tug on the shirt, you can maybe call holding.
But I don't like taunting at all to change a game.
I don't know who it's for.
I don't know if they're trying to teach sportsmanship to younger people.
They felt like something was going on a line.
Here's where it falls apart from them.
It's the same sport with the same role of that after a turnover or safety or whatever,
all of the defenders can run into the other end zone and fucking do snow angels and stuff.
So it's like that's not taunting.
But Wolland getting excited that he just made a great stop and he's in front of the bench
and he yells at a couple people.
I just don't understand why do you have these two different outcomes for things
that you're just governing completely different.
You can instruct the bench to look away.
Don't look at that end zone.
There's some stuff going on that you may not like.
It might hurt your feelings.
They're pretending that bowling pins right now.
If you're more than 20 yards away, you can time.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah.
Just look away.
And then it's like you can't take off your helmet on play,
but yet we see it all the time as the guys are walking off the field.
they'll take it off.
They don't know.
I've stopped trying to figure it out.
Did you think the Seahawks were the best team in the NFC?
I thought it was the Rams.
I lived and died with them,
and I thought actually,
like,
you know,
it's like this team,
maybe that Carolina road win wasn't great.
Maybe the Bears' roadwin wasn't great.
But the fact that they're winning these games,
you know,
means that,
I don't know.
I just thought there was a smidge better than Seattle.
But I have no problem with Seattle going to the Super Bowl.
It's the other conference that's,
sort of messy.
Seattle had three, I'm not going to ignore that.
Seattle had 396 total yards.
The Rams had 4.79.
Wow.
And Stafford was like nifty too.
Like he had that Fernando Mendoza type run, right?
Like to get that first down, he like had a weird pass to Nakua when nothing was going
on left.
He was about to get sacked.
So it was a different kind of Stafford that we saw.
I was surprised that they were able to run on Seattle like they ended up doing as
it felt like as the game went along, what did they go for?
Corum was 9 for 55,
Williams was 10 for 39.
Corum's longest was 19,
Williams's longest was 11.
It's not like they were like getting huge plays.
It just felt like they were constantly getting four or five every play.
I thought after last week,
the reason I picked the Rams in this game,
I mean, I'm sorry, the Seahawks.
I just thought the Bears should have won last week.
I didn't think the Rams are good enough.
And I thought the Bears left a ton on the table
from a passing standpoint,
which the Seahawks,
kind of bore out this week.
It really feels like the Rams peaked in the first,
I would say three plus months of the season as an all-around team.
And then as the longer we went along,
it just kind of became Stafford in the running game in these two receivers.
But that was kind of all they had.
Everything else was sloppy.
Special teams was bad.
And I didn't feel like they could get stops.
Yeah.
So that's why they lost.
It's so close, right?
They lost that overtime, that game on the Thursday night.
They win that their home.
Maybe it's a different story.
By the way, 30,000 tickets sold it so-fi today for people to just go in and watch on the large screen.
75% Seahawks fans.
No, I don't know.
No, I don't know.
I would have to believe that?
I know.
But would that be more disgusting than actual Seahawks fans showing up to a real game?
It's like more humiliating.
Yeah.
I want to count on that if anyone was there.
I would like to know.
Well, if the Seahawks win, this would be the first time they've ever won the Super Bowl.
Yeah, I know.
I heard that last week.
good luck to them
how about
or the second time
it'll be the second time
they've won the Super Bowl
because they beat the Broncos
40 to 8
and it gave them we bet on
and I forgot last week
and you didn't correctly
I know I love Shreger
the suck up blaming me
throwing me under the bus
I started the segment
saying three of the four outcomes
or rematches of the Super Bowl
what am I supposed to do
I don't know
Shringer the suck up
he knows it
no it's okay
just just leave
Tony Romo alone.
These things happen, you know?
I was excited.
I was excited that I apologize last week.
You know,
a heartfelt apology to Danny Kelly
and the rest of the Seahawks fans
because that really could have come back
to haunt me these next two weeks.
Definitely.
You don't even remember we won a Super Bowl,
motherfucker.
I don't know.
Some people,
Mina Kimes is not accepting the apology.
A lot of people,
Joel McHale,
a lot of Seahawks fans.
Don't want anything to do with your apology.
Tall John just doesn't like it either way.
Yeah, he's just unhappy regardless.
Well, when they played the Broncos,
the Broncos were favored, right?
Yeah, it was slight, but yes,
I'm pretty sure they were favored.
When they played the Patriots,
who was favored in that?
I don't want to say we were favored.
I'll look it up as we're talking.
It was like three or three and a half, right?
I think we were favored.
They were going to cover.
I don't know.
That was 2015?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was three, wasn't it?
Yeah.
I think we were favored.
So this will be the first time they've ever been favored in Super Bowl.
I guess.
I'm afraid to say anything anymore.
Seattle is minus one against.
Oh,
that's right.
Yeah.
And I think it,
I think it tick-tacked around a little bit.
Yeah.
The Pats are favored at one point.
Mm-hmm.
And then the other one, Denver was favored by two.
And the one that Seattle,
we watched that Super Bowl in a group of people that,
we'll probably never gather again at our cousin Jimmy says.
The Seattle, the New England one?
Yeah, that was a really tough watch there.
Yeah, anyone, any macehole you can imagine with celebrity status.
We had Affleck and Damon, Tony Cornheiser, Dickie Barrett.
Who else was there?
It was just a hodgepunch.
It was basically the cast of Rift.
I think Whitey Boulders.
Yeah, Whitey Bollger came and he left.
He left at halftime.
Yeah, he was still hiding.
I think Seattle's really good.
I think they've been good all year.
and I haven't seen anybody kick their ass yet.
Now you have to say that.
I mean, even they have three losses and they, it's not like the Pats
sucked in week one against Vegas.
They sucked in the second half of the second Buffalo game.
They kind of sucked offensively for the entire game today.
There are other reasons for that, which we'll get into.
But Seattle's much sturdier team.
That's why I was so surprising to see the Rams kind of go up and down the field on them.
I think you deep down, you can't say it now because now you have a lot of negative
mojo for Seattle.
No, I think you're happy.
I think you're happy that the Rams are out of this.
I don't think you wanted to see Stafford.
I'll tell you what, I think the Rams pass rush was a little better than Seattle's today.
And that's, you know that too, and you like that, and you don't trust Sam Darnel as much as you do Stafford.
So I'm just telling you things.
So that's where I landed for most of today that ultimately I would rather place Sam Darnold on a neutral field than Stafford and Puka and Devate.
Adams and they're running game.
So the Rams, you'd think like the McVeigh stuff starts in 2017.
They lose the wild card to Atlanta.
The next year they win the NFC title on that ridiculous Saints call,
although it did go to OT and the Saints did choke.
Lose to the Pats 13 to 3 in a game that nobody could remember four plays from.
Can you remember four plays from that game?
It was a big Bronch play.
Jared Goff was bad enough that they had to trade him.
I had the over, so I think I might have napped at halftime.
I don't think I even saw the rest.
2020, they lose to the Packers and they end up moving on from Goff.
2021, they win the Super Bowl, and they win three straight three-point games against Tampa and Brady, San Francisco, and Sinci.
But then there was a couple, they didn't make it the next year.
they lose the tough Lions wildcard game.
Right.
Yeah, that one in 23.
And then the Eagles game last year
when it felt like they were coming on down the stretch
and they had a chance to steal it.
So this has been almost a decade now.
McVeigh, it's been pretty relevant.
Yeah.
But one-on-one in the Super Bowl.
Maybe it's the home field.
You know, sometimes home field doesn't matter.
It didn't matter in the AFC game today.
But, you know, could have,
if that game's on in Philly,
Maybe the Rams do win that.
If that game's not in Seattle today, maybe they do win.
Three road games in a row is pretty hard.
Yeah.
So the big question, the reason I brought that up is Stafford's going to be 38 next year.
He allegedly had a bad back this year, although he seemed fine all year.
But I just wonder how long he can keep this train together, right?
Puka takes a million kajillion hits.
I've no idea how long his career is going to last.
But I'm guessing it's not going to be a 15-year career for him.
Yeah, I don't know.
30 giant hits a game.
If he goes out for any substantial amount of time, this Rams team, even Stafford at his best is not a not a 13, 14 win team for sure.
Last thing I'll say before we throw a break, I do like the Seattle fan base in general.
I'm probably my favorite non-Boston ones.
I always hate.
No, I don't, I like the basketball team got stolen.
I like the Seahawks fans.
They go way back to that Zorn Largen poster with the, when they're wearing the terrible jeans.
Did you have that one in your room?
Yeah, I remember that one.
Depleted jeans.
Yeah.
But, you know,
checkered history and then it all came together
in the beginning of 2010s.
And then they were the afterthought
for most of the season.
Everybody was so focused on the Rams.
Then it was Rams or Niners.
People were picking the Cardinals
as a surprise team.
Yeah.
I mean,
you and I made a list of
after that Caleb Williams crazy
to hell marry that didn't matter.
Like we made a list of like the most,
the greatest,
most inconsequential plays of all time.
Caleb Williams on.
That's your main curse catch.
We forgot about that one in the Super Bowl.
Yeah.
That was, I mean, that might be one and one A, those two.
So, yeah, these poor fans, just let it.
There was also three minutes where it seemed like the helmet catch that was like an official curse.
Mm-hmm.
For the Pats.
Like, it was like, we're going to lose in the helmet catch and that.
We're never running another Super Bowl in my lifetime.
All right.
We're going to take a break.
We'll come back, talk.
Pats.
No.
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2001, maybe it was January or December.
I can't remember.
Tom Brady's first playoff win, round two, Raiders in the snow.
The last home game in the old stadium, which had really had,
you want to take a talk, I'll just talk to the camera.
You know what, let me say something, because I want to let you have your fun.
I just want to give the Blizzard's history.
You could have your fun and you could gloat, but so that this isn't...
Not gloating.
So that this isn't a completely miserable situation for me.
I have brought in a prop here.
I have a Rosa pizza pie from Bianco Pizza.
Can you see that?
Oh, that looks delicious.
Well, I know.
I wish I ate carbs.
Yes, you can't have pizza.
My current diet allows for it.
So go ahead.
You go talk about your snow game, vintiari and everything.
I'm going to eat some pizza while you do.
You got the Rosa?
I got the roser, right?
Your favorite?
Oh, you're going to have a slice.
Yeah, eat a slice.
I'll do this snow.
That looks delicious.
Go ahead.
That looks really good.
So snow game, come back from down, I think 10.
Ugly like this one was where they couldn't get any offense going for a long time.
John Gruden chokes on, I think, second and short, third and short, does he get a first time,
punts it back.
We get the field goal of Vinotary and everything starts.
This was snow game, too, the mile higher revenge.
We've never won in Denver in the playoffs.
were owned for.
Ruland Jones,
Jake Plummer,
Champ Billy, 2005.
Still mad about that one.
Two Brady Manning losses in Mile High.
And then it decides to be a giant blizzard today.
And they go up 7-0.
Jared Stidham
makes his only good throw of,
I think probably the entire day,
hits Mims in stride.
They end up scoring.
Five minutes in the game,
it's 7-0.
And I'm just like, I can't believe this is yet another decade where we're going to get our ass kicked in Denver.
And then Denver never scored again.
And the Patriots won 10 to 7.
I'll start with Rabel.
So you didn't like this game.
I'm going to go.
No.
No, from an entertainment standpoint, you like it.
The gig job.
I didn't like this game.
From an entertainment standpoint, you didn't like a lot of people, didn't like it.
They talked about how bad it was.
Let me defend it.
If you go back and you look at like pro football reference in the playoffs in the 60s and 70s,
football was, there were a lot of football games like this where it was like bad weather,
field position, making some defensive stops, fourth and one plays, don't fuck up on special teams,
like really hard field goals, a 45-yard field goals, not like an easy one anymore.
And everything is about positioning and not turning the ball over.
And it was a chess match.
And Vrabel won it.
And Peyton, not kicking a field goal to go up 10-0.
was the biggest mistake of the day by in either game.
Take the points.
We couldn't do anything.
Let me say this.
First of all, the mix of pistachios and red onion and parmesan,
Reggiano, virgin olive oil.
I mean, you wouldn't think it's a great marriage,
but it really is better than chocolate and peanut butter.
And then the back is so charred and crispy.
I should review pizza.
That's another key.
Does anyone do that for Netflix?
I thought Peyton, I'm not going to say that he was happy with the Bonnix injury.
Of course, it was a big bummer.
But I think eventually he convinced himself.
He's like, this could be my game.
This could be my game.
I'm not the hero.
I'm the hero.
You know, there's only a certain amount of games.
Maybe you know of more where the coach is remembered for the game more than the players.
I think Parcell is winning Super Bowl 25.
The Giants beat in the bills.
It was a great game plan.
It's Parcells being carried off that.
But Peyton himself when the Saints beat the Colts, right?
And this could have been another one.
Belichick's first Super Bowl in 01.
Belichick was a Belichick title.
against the Rams for sure.
So I think he thought he's like,
I'm going to do this.
And I actually believed him when he said,
I'm not worried about Stidham.
I'm worried about everyone else.
That's like a kind of a great way
to give your quarterback confidence
and not piss off the rest of the team.
But I was, I didn't,
boy, I had a lot of problems with his game plan,
mainly that there was no trickery involved
because you would need it with Stidham.
But you thought that was like a 90-10 play,
like going forward versus kicking?
I thought it was like close.
I could just tell you what my texts were.
Yeah.
Because I think that was a little bit of a break
because they had to measure it first.
Right.
And I'm watching it going,
I pray to everything that they go for this.
And I have multiple texts to back it up
because I thought if they went up to nothing,
I didn't know if we were going to be able to come back
because their defense,
both sides,
both tackles were already getting annihilated, right?
May looks skittish.
You know, he looked combination of nervous
and like he didn't think he had enough time.
Booty was just
Patrick Sertan just took him out
first time they threw deep to him. He was running side
by side of them. So it's like, all right, cross off
that half of the field.
Right. And I just thought, and especially
with the weather coming, it was like, man, I don't
if it's 10-0, I don't know if we can come back,
but I think we can get a stop if it's fourth and one.
But if it's 14-0,
it's lights out, right? Like,
don't you think like that takes all the air out of it?
Didn't guarantee they were going to score a TD though.
No, I don't know. I don't know.
listen, we talk about this all the time in the pod.
These fourth and one, and it's like situation says, it says it's 72% of the time, whatever.
I think you throw that shit out in a game when there's a fucking Blizzard come in the second half
and you have a chance to basically just, what, basically my thing is, what's the final score of the game?
How many points do I need?
If I'm the Broncos, it's like, I just need to get to 14 to 17 and I win the game.
Give me the field goal.
I can go 10-0.
Yeah.
Let me try to get a turnover.
And so that was one mistake.
And then the other one was sit him in that third down throwing the ball backwards.
Why are you putting him in the position to do anything like that?
Is your backup quarterback?
Well, that was just.
He's him played quarterback all year.
I mean, if a guy is, I mean, that's the punt or fall in that punt return are falling down.
Like, what are you going to do?
I mean, he should know to get rid of that ball.
By the way, can we talk about that one for a second?
There's a couple plays, right?
Look, he probably deserves to turn it over because it was so awful, such an awful decision,
such an awful play.
But why aren't the.
they stopping that to review it? They first
called it an incomplete pass,
arm going forward, and everybody
has to stop. It should have been a, if it wasn't,
the Patriots would have scored on a touchdown.
I can't. Can I hold you on that?
By the way. I'm going to take a bite.
All year,
all year they've been
let in the play role and not calling it dead
and then deciding after whether it was a touchdown
or not. That was one of the only times this year,
I remember them just calling it dead.
But it was like, in the moment, it was like, I think you threw it backwards.
Anyway, go ahead.
Right. Let it go. That's fine.
Let it go.
learned that less than this year.
Could they review it?
Couldn't they review it?
Why is that a lot different?
If a guy throws a pass and it's batted down behind the line of scrimmage,
I know that's more, you know, that's more obvious,
but couldn't this have been that?
Couldn't it the ball have been going forward and it had been deflected backwards?
Should we have looked at it for like a minute?
Can't we just look at it?
It's a play of the game.
Oh, come on.
They barely.
I thought they did, though.
I mean, it was clearly backwards.
It was a bigger bummer for the...
It was deflected, though.
If it's deflected, though, if it's deflected,
it backwards, it's incomplete, isn't it?
Whatever. It's fine.
It didn't deserve it. Whatever. I thought he threw it backwards.
Well, it seemed like the pads were going to get screwed.
And then on second down, made as the QB draw that I was screaming for it, because you
could see with their defensive line was loaded one way and it was sitting there.
Right.
My son thought I was like, had, it was like clairvoyant.
I was like, run it, run it. And then he did the QB draw because you could see like Denver
just didn't have a guy in the right spot.
But those two plays cost them the game because once the second half started,
they couldn't move the ball.
And they couldn't.
If I had the lead and the Pats can't do anything,
I'm doing what the Patriots in the second half.
And this is why I wanted to talk about this because I thought of Rabel in the second half,
he just managed the situation, right?
We have a lead.
We don't think that they can go 40 yards.
They're not going to be able to kick a field goal that's more than 37.
And we don't think they can make plays.
I'm not taking any chances.
They did that third down.
It was third and eight and May just rolled out and threw it out of bounds.
They didn't even go for it because he didn't want to commit a turnover.
I thought that was so smart.
I thought he did a great.
I didn't think he did a great job in the first half,
but I thought second half he was great.
It's because he got the version of Jared Stidham that most of us thought he would get this time last week.
Right?
Like I was talking about, we're talking on the pregame show.
It's like when there's two games left,
you could really convince yourself during the week by overanalyzing, you know,
analysis leads to paralysis that Stidham's not a, you know,
Stidham, Nix, it's the same thing.
What was interesting, though,
is he had that 52-yard, 54-yard pass to Mims, whatever, right?
And then they call timeout,
and then I think to give him a trophy or something,
I don't know what they did.
Participation trophy.
Exactly.
But then they score.
So, like, in Peyton's defense,
he must have thought, all right,
this guy's got, like, more than one first down left him
the rest of the game,
and not that horrible pass,
play whatever drop forward that it was.
He did, I wrote in my notes,
Stidham kind of sucked them in a little bit
thinking that maybe he could do a little more.
I thought you made the key point on Peyton.
This was a hero ball performance by him.
Yep.
Like if you're actually just trying to win the game,
take the points, go up to nothing,
don't have Stidham do anything
that could put himself in harm's way
for the rest of the game until we have proven
that we can do a long drive.
Even the beginning of the third half,
or the second half, third quarter,
we have like a 10-minute drive.
Yeah.
to chew up the clock.
I'm going to say we like I'm on the team.
You are.
And we can't even get a touchdown out of it.
We had the ball for 10 minutes.
Like,
we couldn't compete with complete 10-yard passes.
I thought their defense was excellent.
And we had a lot of trouble blocking them.
Really good.
Yeah.
Look,
the biggest asset either team had on offense was Drake May's legs in the second half, right?
You're going to scramble for first rounds.
It looked for a second that Stidham could do the same thing.
But what bummed me out about Peyton is,
you guys had that flea flicker, which kind of got you in field.
It did get you in field goal range.
Yeah, we missed a field goal, but it's good play.
Yeah, who's the quarterback that hasn't taken a snap in two years versus who's the MVP caliber quarterback?
I think you need some flea flickers in there if you're Denver.
I think you need an end around for Mims or something, something to juice it up to create a mistackle or something because they had nothing at all in the second half.
Well, they were missing two receivers which hurt them because Franklin was scratched for the game.
Brian got hurt during the game.
So all of a sudden, Humphrey's out.
out there in big spots.
I think I saw it was that Skymore out there?
There was a more.
Is that Skymore?
It is, right?
Yeah, I think it was to me more.
Yeah, they were really,
more.
It was a more trouble.
I thought they ran out of guys.
It was a good match.
I mean, the big thing for us is
the run defense has been awesome.
The Patriots defense,
I know they're going to take shit
for the next week, and that's fine.
Your defense was good.
I like it in 2001.
Defense is giving up 26 points in three games.
It's good.
They've given up two times.
touchdowns, one of which was this touchdown the first five minutes of the game.
The other was that one in Houston off the Drake May fumble or whatever was where they had to go 10 yards.
Other than that, 26 points in three games and pretty close to dominant.
I think they had two bad plays in the last three weeks, right?
The one, the Mims play, right?
The Mims play, the Gonzalez one last week, like you said.
And I don't think any really against the charge.
There's no big one.
Yeah.
Well, I thought Vrabel, it's funny because Belich,
when he flipped stuff around in the 2000s.
And a lot of it was like defense, game management,
like just out thinking the other team, good game plan, strategy.
And Vrabel, ironically, the last game of Brady's career was that Tennessee game.
Right.
When Vrabel, like, outwitted Belichick.
And it was like, oh, my God, the pupil has become the teacher.
It's one of those.
And now Vrabel's the coach.
And this flipped in a year.
With Jared Mayo last year, who was one of the worst coaches we've ever had in any Boston team.
And now we have this guy who I really felt like
MacGyvered this game.
You know, I don't know.
They didn't.
It's a little too much credit.
I know.
You beat Jared Sted him.
He outwitted, you outwit a five-year-old when you put a coin behind his ear
and pull it out.
Like, oh, look what I got.
He falls for it.
You're on the road in a blizzard and we didn't turn the ball over.
That's the key, right?
Like you, I think your first half, would you have 48 yards in the first half?
It was terrible.
They had about the same in the second half.
The difference is you guys were locked at seven.
You got the point.
And you didn't, he didn't, maybe to turn it over.
But for God's sakes, 28 quarterbacks beat Drake maybe today.
28 beat him last week, maybe 20 the week before.
What the, what the F is going on?
It was the worst throwing game he's had since the Vegas game in week one.
I thought he missed seven open guys and throws that he's made all year.
Sertan broke up that one bomb that was perfect.
He threw another bomb that was a good one.
But he did have the naked bootleg to clinch the game, which they did.
And he called it himself, I guess, right?
Yeah, I sent it to you.
I thought McDaniels called it.
He didn't tell anyone in the team he was doing it.
If you watch the clip, Hunter Henry's blocking his defensive end out to try to keep him from coming toward, you know, the line of scrimmage.
And meanwhile, May's running toward the guy.
And Henry's blocking him toward May, but May just audited it.
But for the old school past fans, the pre-2001, that was like the famous Grogan play.
Yeah.
which he used to do.
He most famously did in the 85 season
when they went to the Super Bowl against the Jets.
He had like this old naked bootleg
where he was like glimping into the end zone.
And it was always like the Grogan play.
And then so he does that.
This team has pieces of that 85 team.
To Grogan also have 10 completions in a win?
Did he also?
I mean, he probably did.
If you go back to Grogan's stats, they were not good.
You like, I'm sorry.
You like bringing up Kobe in game seven against the Celtics.
What was he?
Seven for 28 or?
Six for 24.
I hate to always bring it back to basketball.
This is a, this had.
You always do this.
I know.
Go ahead.
He wasn't great.
The defense carried him.
His legs made a couple good plays.
And then the naked bootleg.
But, you know, I said this last week.
It feels like the 96th season,
Parcells was last season when it was like,
oh, I guess we're in the Super Bowl.
I don't think anybody believed it.
I think Brable believed it.
But when you look back at who they beat,
they beat three top five defense.
I think it's the first team ever in playoff history to beat three top five.
He was terrible in the three games, though.
He wasn't terrible.
He had 15 sacks.
He was good in the second after the Chargers game.
He took three interceptions.
He took 15 sacks.
He wasn't terrible.
I'm not going to offend him.
Okay, but you're going to go crazy about what he did against his three defenses.
Six fumbles, 15 seconds.
I'm just saying they beat three top five defenses.
I'm very, you can see another one.
18 points of a game.
I know, I didn't finish the first.
The happiest you were when you're finishing the pizza.
Do I think this is the Super Bowl team?
It's hard for me to believe.
We had some in the 80s and 90s
where it's like, wow, they made it.
I love that you're eating.
Like the Titans Rams' Rams Super Bowl that year,
it's like, wow, the Titans are in?
This is weird.
But we don't usually have these.
Let's rank the worst Patriots Super Bowl teams.
I'll make it quick.
Number one is this year's team,
12-way tie for the number two.
That's all I'm the same.
The defense is really good.
They were good.
And they've been with Milton Williams.
They've been really good this whole year.
So I think the recipe would be a little like 01,
where they won the Rams game in 2001, I think,
2017.
Yeah.
It's probably a score like that.
Keep it down.
There's a really interesting darnal element to this
that I forgot to mention the previous segment of,
the Patriots are basically the team that ended his Jets career.
So he had that ghost game.
He never recovered from the ghost game.
Remember that when he said,
Belichick?
And he was like,
I was seeing ghosts out there.
And it became a week-long internet thing about how Sam Darnberg was seeing ghosts.
And I don't know.
He gets revenge on that.
So here's the good fortune.
This is no good.
They're saying Kenneth Walker got run over by a snowmobile,
and he's listening to his doubtful for the Super Bowl.
I mean, all good news for the Patriots always.
Not even snowing.
Yeah.
Hanchion and I were trying to figure out the highlights for the Patriots in this game,
like actual highlights.
Fourth and goal stop.
Stid him backward pass.
May draw touchdown, the QB draw.
Fleaferkin to Hollins resulted in no points.
Leonard Taylor blocked the field goal.
I guess he tipped it.
A guy that I didn't know he was on the team because they just added him.
Literally didn't know he was on the team.
The Patriots punter who was terrible today.
Like really like he would have been the villain of the game if they lost.
That's the guy that angles it out of bounds normally, right?
He was terrible.
I mean, he skunked one.
He was just so bad.
His last punt was a 33-yard punt with no return when they're in the 40.
And it was actually like he came up a little bit big.
So that was fun.
Gonzo's interception and then the naked bootleg.
It wasn't like a bevy of highlights.
I do think, well, by the way, all those runs of the naked bootleg, all those,
the fourth, the one that they converted, that he might not have converted,
ended up being the biggest run, wasn't it?
Like, you kick the field go after that.
Yeah.
And they have the eye in the sky.
We're never going to know what gets reviewed and what doesn't.
But still sucked for the last two hours.
And if I'm a Bronco fan,
I just feel like I would have won that game.
He's not the franchise.
Yeah, I'm not like we don't have a QB controversy in August.
But I think I would have, I would have left that game thinking we win with Nix.
Like, just we win.
Nix gets us to, he uses his legs.
He probably rushes 10 times.
I think Drake was 10 for 65.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
I think Nix is probably like nine for 40, nine for 50.
He probably extends three drives with his legs.
And he's a fourth quarter comeback quarterback.
You could say what you want about him.
He might have been able.
I did like, you know, you talk about what's cool about the weather.
Like, Romo was two minutes left.
Patriot is like, better hurry up.
You're going to lose the wind than the fourth quarter.
I think they did made, did a good job of figuring.
Even the sideline reporters were excellent.
today, I thought. I thought that was the best sideline reporter performance in a while when
Tracy Wolfe sent it, though, watch the snow come into my face. Now watch when I turn. I was like,
yeah. Yeah. By the way, they're going to isolate that as what you just said for sure.
What do you mean? I mean, they're going to make it filthy that people, the people will do that kind of
thing. Oh, you think I'm in trouble now with social media? No, no. Watch the snow come in my face.
It's fine. It's good. I just see what now. I see what you think.
Oh, man, somebody's going to film a winter porn with my face in it.
You're going to.
Damn it.
Blizzard Bill says, watch the snow.
Come, Blizzard.
So the defense gave up zero points in the last 55 minutes of the game.
Yeah.
I thought I wrote that in my notes.
The game was like Game of Thrones because they kept telling us the snow was coming.
And it was, I've been rewatching Thrones.
It was like, winter's coming.
Winner's coming.
And that was another reason why I can't believe Peyton didn't take the field goal.
In the first quarter, yeah.
They knew around halftime, snow was coming in for real when they did that little stop thing.
Anyway, things I have left, I think Drake has to probably play two-thirds of a good game in the Super Bowl for them to have a chance to win, which in the regular season, he would play 75% of an awesome game.
but he would always start out slow.
I think they have to figure out how to start him
faster and use his legs, get him
involved in the game
with his legs, and then for some reason
that opens things up for him.
Stidham,
is that it?
Do we ever see him start a playoff game again?
What more do you want to say?
Or do you say it's the blizzard? It was really hard to throw.
No, I, Blizzard made it hard to throw, for sure.
But I don't think we've ever
seen anything like that, where a backup comes
And immediately like, like, how nervous were you?
Like, oh, my God, if we get to, if they do get to 10 or 14 to 17, we're kind of done.
Like, I think the agreement with the defense would have been like, just let me get 23 points.
Just stop them from getting 23.
Like, no, you needed less than half of that.
And still.
And then just like nothing the rest of the way.
It was actually shocking.
Went from this makes sense to this makes, I don't even know what I'm watching anymore.
So you don't think Stidim's earned itself a $25 million contractist?
No.
No. I think CBS needs to offer Tomlin like $50 million a year to join their halftime show.
Really?
I don't know if you saw the halftime show.
Yeah, it's rough.
I would try to get Tomlin.
Sertan, I think, was the only Broncos winner out of that game.
We tested him once and it was like, no more.
It was great early on.
No, thank you.
You never see a D-back, have his head turned running for 10 yards with his head turn,
which almost definitely, you know, calls off the pass interference if you do that.
that.
Pats ran the ball if you include the Drake May scramble's 38 for 141.
And I think the Rams unlocked a little bit of a running blueprint with the Seahawks
because I thought they were over and over again able to gash them in the middle and move
the ball.
So we'll see if that's a thing.
So we have two weeks now to think of the Super Bowl.
Have you gotten sad yet that the NFL season's almost over or more sad that the Patriots
are back?
I don't know.
It's very, very hard for me to separate those two.
but, you know, I don't like that.
I can't make a two-team teaser anymore.
I guess I could use the total and the line.
And I don't really love the Super Bowl.
You got, you know, you're stuck at someone's house.
You watch, you got your wife's friend's, dumb husband,
asking you what the spread is every four minutes.
Can you put a bet in for me?
Yeah.
Can I bet one side?
You guys want to bet this?
Yeah.
I don't know how this works.
Can I bet the Cahawks and the Patriots?
Then I won't lose, right?
Oh, geez, just killed me.
So, yeah, this isn't the best.
we'll take a we'll take a break for the podcast we'll keep going here on Netflix um let's guess the line
all right i haven't seen it i don't know either i swear i haven't now let me just let me set can
i set the stage can i build build some heat here build some drama all right um so where are we
we okay so after 21 weeks you're up 11 to 10 you have the lead i have an opportunity to tie
tie breaker is Zoe Simmons takes penalty kicks on us for
three and a half hours until one of us gets lucky and blocks one.
Or you could win it right here.
Even a tie wins it for you.
Let's see what happens.
I have the Seahawks favored in Super Bowl LX by four points.
It's going to be hard for me to win now.
What did you guess?
You didn't even tell me.
Did you guess four?
I guess four.
You win.
You're off the hook, Zoe.
the actual line
I almost won four and a half
well that would have won two
Seahawks minus four and a half
over under 46 and a half
Vegas Zone
yep
wow won another year
now I get to hit you with a rose of pizza
a hard rose of pizza crust
it is damn good I'm sending the rest of you
that looks really good
well
I had some other stuff I wanted to hate with you
before a Parenthorner
A new coach got hired for the Pittsburgh Steelers,
and it was Mike McCarthy,
who was your coach on the Cowboys for a few years.
Right.
Am I wrong thinking that's now he's an underrated hire,
Mike McCarthy?
No, I don't think you're wrong.
Like, I think there's two ways to look at this, right?
Like, compared to Mike Tomlin,
maybe not better, you know,
maybe in ways a little worse.
But compared to the pool of coaches that was available,
I think he's good.
I think he's solid.
I think it's weird to take a chance on these 35-year-olds, you know,
and just like, you know, it's, I know you don't want to sign old guys to five-year deals,
but I think to get a steady guy in there,
it's going to be better than rolling the dice,
which the Steelers don't do anyway.
20 coaches have 10 plus playoff wins.
Yeah.
And only four of them started coaching this century.
Mike McCarthy, Harbaugh, Sean Payton, Sean
McVay. His numbers are very similar to Harbaugh. So there's a lot of people who love the Harbaugh.
Love the Harbaugh hired. So McCarthy was 174 and 112, 11-11 in the playoffs and won a Super Bowl.
Harbaugh was 180 and 11 in the playoffs and won a Super Bowl. Peyton is now 184 and 101,
10 in the playoffs, 1-0 in the Super Bowl. And Tomlin's 193 and 114, 8 and 12 in the playoffs, won a Super Bowl.
So if you just covered those four guys up, you wouldn't know who is who.
And yet everyone's like, oh, John Harbaugh, restoring giant.
It's like he was about to get fired before Lamar became Lamar.
McCarthy was on the Packers, kicking ass with Aaron Rogers.
And then eventually it became, oh, it's only because he had Aaron Rogers.
Like, why isn't that what we say about John Harbaugh?
I don't get it.
Yeah, I think that comparison is good.
Yeah, it's Giants fans just getting excited, I think.
I will say this.
If he brings Rogers in, not no personal.
bias. I know that's impossible to think, but I don't think that's a step forward, right?
If he's guaranteed to have to bring Rogers in McCarthy, I think that's a couple more years
of just nothingness. It's a tough one. Well, I think it seems like some of the assistants will get
poached because there's still some jobs left. Yeah. Hilariously, nobody wants the Brown's job,
which I thought was funny. A couple of mailback questions. This came from Jack in Saskatchewan.
He suggests a new manifesto rule. Can you picture the QB holding the
the trophy.
The Malcolm Gladwell blink test
for when you're picking the Super Bowl.
Seattle has the best shot.
Picture Sam Darnold holding a trophy
with confetti coming down.
Can you see it?
I thought that was pretty interesting.
Sam Darnal kind of looks like Theon Lovejoy.
Ooh.
We are watching this game.
Yeah, I'm really about getting in on Thrones.
But I was trying to think of
most unlikely guy who held the trophy.
It was probably Dilfer, right?
Yeah, I think so.
They're like, wow, Daufer won the Super Bowl.
What just happened?
Doug Williams.
Yeah, those are some weird ones.
I think Dillfer is probably number one for me.
But yeah, so I don't know.
I can see both of them holding it.
I could see Mabey's wife baking cookies the whole time,
handing them out while the trophy's going around.
I could see both.
The Seahawks fan named Chris was talking with his friend Ryan
about signature celebration dances.
They would do their NFL plan player.
That would be the funniest.
And they decided it would be the tuck dance that Buffalo Bill.
did in silence of the lamps.
And then we're wondering if somebody could do that.
And would they get a penalty?
So you'd have to like kind of push, push your stuff in and do, and do this.
Right.
Or maybe put the football in.
I feel like it would be a 15-yarder.
Yeah, I think so.
You think that's taunting?
You think that's something the sidelines should be taunting.
Yeah, you do the tough dance.
Yeah, I think, yeah.
Joe Buck wouldn't like that.
Simon in Australia has said that I almost threw a no-hitter with my O.J. Simpson-Pat and
in and comp. But then when I said
what car would he be driving, I didn't
make the white Bronco joke that was sitting
there. Yeah. Right. Denver.
Yeah, yeah. What Peyton? It's all right.
He compared it to Andres Galaraga's perfect
game. That was going great.
Blake in Nebraska
wants to know is it time to
discuss Josh Allen and the Ewing theory?
Hmm.
Wait a minute. How so?
He does fit all the parameters.
Media loves them.
It's considered to be one of the best guys in the league.
He's never actually won anything.
So what would have to happen is he would have to have some sort of injury next year.
The backup would have to come in and then basically do Tom Brady in 2001.
Listen, he is on the Ewing theory watch list, I think is fair to say.
Well, yeah, that's the big part of the Ewing theory, the actual doing it part of it.
He actually doing it, but I think he is definitely a candidate.
Peter Krauss
was saying how Rams
Pat's Super Bowl would be an uncanny
2001
kind of doppelganger thing
where the Rams would be the favorite
but that didn't happen
so I don't know if the
I don't know if the Seahawks thing is the same way
I got to tell you I do think the Seahawks
I think like we'll break Netflix records
if the Pat's lose the Super Bowl
to the Seahawks and we're on immediately afterwards
I think that's going to be like...
You think that'll be a stranger thing?
That'll be like six Chappelle specials lined up back to back.
So if you love the ringer, ultimately it's good for the ringer.
You should root for your team to lose, I think.
How about I'll eat a rose of pizza if the pads to win.
Oh, do it.
I'll just pour some extra gluten.
February 9th is long enough.
Seth Morgan sent me this email before the game today.
He said he went to a strip mall dive bar in Littleton,
kind of place where only three guys are at the bar talking sports.
talked about the Broncos, and somebody said,
Stidham will be an even more potent threat than Nix
because there's no tape on him.
The lack of tape will lead to a 25% Stidham advantage.
And if he's 20% worse with the 25% advantage,
that might actually give the Broncos an extra 5% chance
to win the Super Bowl.
Therefore, we are better off with Stim, go Broncos.
And then he said, shout out to the Littleton Colorado Bar.
Okay.
So, listen, that's the kind of thing that happens in a bar.
I can imagine the Patriots defense.
Like, he's throwing it forward or backwards.
What are we supposed to do?
There's no tape on this guy.
He's right-handed?
What are we supposed to?
Come on, guys.
We had no heads up here.
He told me he was left-handed.
Let's just let it go.
Tim from Westfield, Massachusetts, wants to know if Stefan Diggs can be called the QB whisperer
because Kirk Cousins, Josh Allen, C.J. Stroud, all of them blossomed when he was there.
I guess today wasn't the day to ask that one.
I like it.
He's definitely a whisper of something because I think he's on pace for four kids in the last year.
We call him a lot of things.
Yeah.
He's whispering something.
You think it's because of the easy schedule?
I haven't seen the women, but being able to impregnate it.
If the schedule is harder, it would be tougher.
Miles from Austin via Boston thinks the stars have aligned for the Pats to be a generational.
Nobody believes in this team because, and this he sent this before the game, bad schedule.
Are we sure Drake May is good?
they're so lucky.
The Rams Seahawks Super Bowl just happened.
I am saying there's a lot of nobody believes in this.
You didn't say it for Denver, though.
That would have been a time to say.
I thought that was going to bite you in the ass
for not labeling the Broncos and nobody believes in us.
The straight-up pick was Broncos.
I thought that line was too high, the plus four and a half.
But I thought the pets were annoying.
Well, it's going to be a similar thing here.
Here's a question for you from Connor from Minneapolis.
Hit it, Connor.
What is it?
Who was Sal rooting for in Super Bowl L-2?
aka Super Bowl 52.
I imagine him being in a real bind,
knowing that the plurable Eagles would win
or that he'd have to go in the pot
and listen to you go on and on
about the greatness of Brady.
Which team was a bigger nightmare to win for you?
I got to tell you, Connor,
and thanks for the question.
Really, like, eight out of the last 10, 15 out of the last 20 Super Bowls,
I'm just a basket case.
I don't know who to root for.
Eagles, I had a problem with every play
in the Eagles Patriots game.
Same with Patriots giants.
I didn't want the Patriots to go undefeated.
Definitely didn't want the Giants to win.
Yeah, it's disgusting.
They had knocked the Cowboys out in one of those years.
So, yeah, this is why this is kind of like the last good week of football for me.
But you like Seattle, though.
You'll just go all in on Seattle.
You'll do some sort of parlay with Seattle Moneyline with...
I'll see.
Some sort of adjusted under or something.
Ruben Silva said in the Sunday night pod,
we wondered what rule the NFL would change to help.
help Josh Allen make or win the Super Bowl.
We forgot.
The NFL has already changed a rule for Josh Allen overtime.
After the 13 seconds game.
Right.
They changed the overtime role.
So that is fair.
Right.
Last email I'll read from Bill.
He said, listen to you and Cousin Sal
discussed a generational disappointment being shared by
Bill's fans and their children.
As an Atlanta native, I'm 47,
part of the first generation to grow up as an Atlanta sports fan
and pass it down.
He said, you mentioned age 9 to 10 as being the critical age for sports disappointment.
Consider the nine-year-old that grew up in Atlanta and experienced 28 to 3.
I have no idea how that will warp them.
My nine-year-old cried for 45 minutes in his Matt Ryan jersey while my youngest proclaimed
he's not waking up.
Obviously, I've saved the video for his wedding.
That has to shape a child's character.
And then he says, the small group of Falcons fans are now around 18-year-old.
and will probably have to be studied and monitored.
It's a really interesting one.
See, they should do.
They should do.
They should do.
Yeah, and these people are going into the world, right?
They've graduated high school at 18.
They're gonna probably, yeah, the September maybe.
They just don't trust anybody?
Yeah, it's a mess.
It's not funny.
It really isn't funny what we do to our kids.
I mean, it's not fun what you do to them either, just winter after winter.
By the way, I'm looking at this.
Mike McDonald arrested for public urination on a playground, an hour
go. He was by a sandbox he sentenced to three weeks in county jet. Tough break again. Good for the
Patriots. There was a rumor today on Twitter that got like two million retweets or something
where the guy said that Bowenegs actually got hurt in the locker room. I saw that nonsense.
That had to be fake, right? Well, we saw him limping around before, right, in the postgame interview
and everything. So Seahawks, minus four and a half. The over under is 46.5. That seems high.
And then futures,
Darnold plus 130 for MVP,
Drake May plus 230,
and JSN is 5 to 1,
which was when we talked about
two weeks ago when he was like 18 to 1
for Super Bowl MVP.
And if, by the way,
who wins the NBA?
That was the Super Bowl today,
Seahawks Rams,
who would have won the MVP?
Oh.
I would argue JSN.
Yeah, I think so.
It's a tough one.
It would have been like a split vote, right?
Right, right.
The fucking one-hand catch?
He was amazing.
Maybe the guy who taunted.
That was a pretty big play.
Well, with the way the Patriots have been playing, if they won...
No, it's got to be maybe.
He was five to one last Saturday.
No, but it could honestly be like Christian Gonzalez at 201 getting two picks or something.
It might be one of those.
Who was the guy who won in your last Dallas one?
Larry Brown.
Larry Brown.
They kind of didn't know who to give the MVP to.
The Raiders after that, yeah.
And then not really a lot of stuff on.
We'll have a lot of time to talk about this.
Yeah.
to like Kenneth Walker
Wow his rushing
80 plus
rushing yards
Kenneth Walker is
minus 102
they have those
up already
under on that now
that's the whole line
I guess
oh wow
maybe is
I'm just doing that for you
40 plus rushing yards
plus 174
yeah it was so easy
today house was leaning on that
I'm like yeah that's such a sexy
pick Drake man
he missed it last week
his over yardage total
but once he got like in the
60s. Like, all right, no kneel downs.
I're going to bring this under. He's good.
Well, that was the old Mahomes thing we used to talk about every year.
Right.
That they use the legs more in the playoffs.
All right.
Parent Corner, what do you got?
All right. So,
my son, Jack, he's a junior in high school.
He's going to be 18 in a couple weeks.
And I told you he loves the Steelers, basically because of Heinz ketchup.
He loved Heinz ketchup when he was young.
And then they played at Heinz Field for like a year before they change it
Acchishar and then anyway he took he's the pirate he's the Steelers fan so i mentioned that there's a local
bar slash restaurant that uh he goes he wears his jerseys and his terrible towels and he's
become friends with these 50 year old men and women so when they lost to the texans a couple
mondays ago he was bummed out and you know he didn't come back with any stories that we were doing
the podcast right we did an extra one that day so um i was like hey you're okay yeah he's like yeah it's
sucks, it sucks, it sucks. So the other day, fast forward just to like three days ago,
we're on the phone with Archie, my oldest is in college. And we put him on speakerphone,
and he's talking to the whole family. And Jack comes in and Archie's like, hey, I didn't talk to
you. Sorry about the Steelers. And Jack, it's a quirky kid. I'm going to say it that way.
He's very quirky kid. And he says, oh, I have a story about that. Like, uh-oh, here we go.
Buckle in. He's like, there was a couple when I was over at the bar sitting next to this table
and I sit with all these strangers who have become my friends,
but then there was another table with Steelers fans
that we haven't seen before.
And someone delivered French fries to their table,
and one guy at our table said,
all right, the fries are here, everybody go in.
And I thought he was serious.
And I grabbed the French friar from this woman,
and I started eating it.
And she's like, oh, you're nasty.
Those are my fries.
Though you're nasty.
And then the guy was mad at me.
He was like pointing at me.
And I didn't know what to do.
So I said, okay, I'll give you $20.
$20.
And then, you know,
and they were still.
calling me nasty. And then my friend at the table is like 55 year old guy says, you don't know what
you're talking about. And he ends up giving the guy the finger. And then the guy gives him the finger.
And then the guy punched him in the face twice. And I took my ginger ale and threw it in the guy's face.
And then they got thrown out. And I'm like, what the fuck? What is this? Well, this is 10 days later.
Where is this coming from? You got in a bar fight kid? You're 17 years old. They're throwing ginger ale on people.
What's going on? And Archie's just dying.
just dying laughing.
And my wife is like, are you kidding me?
This is what we're letting go on here.
He can't go anymore at night.
I was like, did you get thrown out of the bar?
He's like, well, I don't know my status, but I think I'm going to be all right.
It was the last game of the year.
So we're going to see next year.
So this is lunacy, though.
That's the story of the year.
That's it.
He threw his ginger ale on the guy's face.
His friend got punched in the face twice.
Oh, my God.
So Jack goes over to the table and just takes a French fry.
Just grab the fry.
thought it was a community fry for the,
oh, where fans, your fans? And they took it
that personally? Yeah, the woman was like really
pissed off. So, um, and they were
like yelling at the fan. They were not from in town.
They were like, don't come back. Don't come back here
again. They said to the woman in our husband.
So, uh, yeah, we may
need a new place for a Jack to watch dealers games
next year. Probably the basement.
I can't believe that. I know.
Everyone in your family to get in a bar fight.
Clearly I would have picked Harrison first.
Harrison, it's coming for sure. He's going to
step it up.
we would have come over and like punch the guy in the nuts.
My parent corner, so my son's at that age where we're just rewatching all these great movies
from the past.
Yeah.
And we've done, like we did seven earlier in the week and he watched Fight Club and now he wants
to watch heat.
And he's just like, he's basically just ripping off the classics.
And I get to relive the classics through him and all the swerves.
Like he didn't know there's the quote unquote.
seven big turn that happens.
So we haven't done the mafia ones yet.
And there's some pressure on some of the ones that are coming
because I feel like, and he's like the right ones so far.
And this is right around the age when you really get into movies.
But there are a couple of that I'm going to get nervous that if he doesn't like them,
I'm going to really be upset.
About as upset as anything.
Like if he watched The Godfather and he's like,
ah, it was slow.
Yeah.
If we watch if we watch heat and he's like, man, why hasn't anything happens since the bank shootout?
I'm just going to be like, right.
So I don't know.
There's a lot of pressure here with reliving these.
You shut your mouth and tell me your apex mountain right now.
Who does Fitz and Hayter remind you of?
But, uh, so you got good fellows.
You got casino.
You got the departed.
Like what those?
Yeah, we're doing all of us.
Like we've done everything.
He even watched Devil Wears Prada with my wife.
rounders, swingers,
like all like the town,
all the classics.
But for the mobster ones,
I wonder what the sequence is.
Do you show them Godfather first
and then the more contemporary?
So I was thinking about that.
So the sequence,
I think, is one and two.
Yeah.
I think you moved to Scarface,
almost like a sorbet.
Yeah.
Dan Goodfellas,
which he's seen,
but we'll watch again.
And then Casino.
And he's seen,
so he's seen Bronx Tale
and he's seen good fellows.
He loved us.
He loved us.
Yeah, yeah.
But I am worried there's going to be one
that he's going to shit on
and then I'm not,
we're going to have like some real attention.
But, you know,
every time I think I run out of reasons
why I was great to have kids,
then it's like you get to relive
all the great movies with them
and you're just running it back.
Yeah.
And you have amnesia for what you experienced
the first time you watched it
and you get to live through it through them.
So that's been fun.
There's nothing you can do about the slowness
of some of these movies, though.
There's just nothing you could.
We talked about Rocky, too, and like, it's like, and even Rocky, like, oh, man.
Rocky one is a really hard run.
Rocky's one hard.
Three is perfect because there's three fights, right?
And they kind of get right into each one of them, you know.
But then when you go two and one, cinematically, whatever, nicer.
But if you got a 16, 17, 18 year old, they may not appreciate it.
Yeah, my wife's been gone for her.
Oh, yeah.
She went away.
So it's me and Ben.
So we're actually like hanging.
I'm starting to see the finish.
line because he's going to college next year and then then that's it. You, you, you were the genius with
having the extra kid. That was a great move. That was like, like signing Jared Sidham to the
backup quarterback deal, just in case, wait a minute, just in case you need a really good backup.
It's not going to be a first down for the last four years. That was a great one. The other thing
we did last night was we watched UFC at the same time as the Netflix building climb and also
self-exposed was on.
So I had the three TVs.
And it was like just randomly one of the more fun like,
oh my God,
I can't believe these three things are happening at the same time.
The building thing I actually think was underrated
as one of the craziest things I've,
I think it was the craziest thing I've watched that.
I didn't know it was going to be crazy since that David Plain special.
Oh, yeah.
When he was fucking with all the celebrities,
which remember how everybody went nuts when that happened.
Then he never did it again.
Yeah.
Get out of my kid.
His wife.
Yeah.
But I couldn't believe it.
And there was a couple, like, are you afraid of Heights?
Oh, God, yeah.
Yeah, I got a little with a chair in like two minutes.
Yeah, I'm afraid of heights.
I didn't used to be, but over the course of the century.
And there was a couple where he's reaching back.
Yeah.
Where it was like the overhang, so you have to reach back and then pull yourself up
where you're just like, this guy's going to die.
Some weird stuff he had to step into.
Like, oh, that looks complicated to have to get your foot out of maybe.
if you can't.
But he was so comfortable,
just like,
I'm going to take a break and sit on this ledge.
And it's like there's wind.
I just didn't understand what I was watching.
I almost broke my brain.
It's great because it's not,
first of all,
we grew up with evil caneval,
right?
But there's a lot of buildup for that.
And then it's over in a couple seconds, right?
But it's pretty cool if he makes it,
if he almost doesn't make and he breaks every bone of his body.
Short of that,
They've had like trapeze artists walk across a tightrope, I think, for like 20 minutes or so.
But that's kind of the same thing over and over.
I think scaling a building, you get to see different weird facade.
Like it's, it was extra extra gnarly, I thought, for sure.
Well, one of the crazy things was there was people on certain floors, like taking pictures and waving to him.
And it was like, I was thinking, I was thinking if you were there, you're the same person who almost ended Jimmy's wedding.
when the wedding cake was coming out
because you saw this chance
to push the cake into baby doll.
And I was thinking like that guy,
he's climbing up and you just throw yourself
into the window to see if you can rattle him.
David Blaine,
would that be murder?
Yeah, I think it would be attempted murder.
Jimmy sent me to New York when David Blaine was in that tank.
Remember it was in like in a tank for four days?
And he's like, walk up to him with a hammer.
I'm like, all right, this kind of sucks.
Like, you know, yeah, I will.
I'm not going to, I can't break it.
I think that's a felony.
that's bad.
Yeah.
When I walked up to him,
we kind of know Blaine a little
to our crazy friend Brad somehow
and he's like, no,
right.
Like that would have been it.
But yeah, this climbing thing,
I don't know that he's one of the greatest athletes.
Everyone's got to make that great jump now
that he's the greatest athlete we've ever seen.
You're going to put,
you're going to throw them there?
I just had more questions than answers.
Like my son was like,
what happens if he runs out of,
he had that special powder,
like that stickum powder?
Yeah.
he had that little satchel in his back pocket.
It's like, what happens if he's like, oh, shit, I didn't bring enough powder.
And now you're like only four-fifths up the wall.
And then when he got on the top, which was amazing, and he was just standing there and he
was so comfortable.
Yeah.
Just like being like, hey, look at you.
I was like having an absolute stroke.
I couldn't handle it.
It's a whole different.
And they were doing these like, I just couldn't handle it.
And then it's like, how's he going to get back down?
Oh, this would be easy.
He's just going to repel down.
That seemed terrifying.
Every piece of it seemed terrifying.
Yeah.
We had a zip.
Do you ever go zip lining?
I have, yeah.
I don't know why I did it.
We went when the kids at a game in Hawaii.
You know, it was in Hawaii.
And the zip lining sucks.
That was bad for me.
I was like,
I'm never doing this again.
But worse off,
there was this bridge that kind of like shook back and forth when you walk past it.
Oh.
I laid on that bridge for 40 minutes because I could not move.
Like, there's no way.
it's going to break, but I'm like, I'm not moving.
I'm not going forward. I'm not going back. I don't know how
people do this.
Did you think he was going to have like a little backpack on that would have been a
parachute if you fell?
You would think, right? You see all these like safety nets or safety something, but
some harness, nothing.
I thought it was incredible. When we were kids, I remember somebody tried to
climb the World Trade Center or Empire State, one of those in New York on wide world
of sports.
And I don't remember watching it live, but when they would do the anniversary
shows for World of Sports, they would always show.
It was like George Willis or his name like that.
And he would, he climbed up the World Trade Center and like, this is crazy.
He didn't have permits to do this.
And that seemed nuts.
I think all this, I don't understand.
I don't understand why somebody would want to do this.
Yeah.
How somebody could be that calm.
Like, it's almost like, is this the right use of this person?
if this person is this calm
with this much like
how scary this is
should they
it's almost like good will hunting
and it's like well hunting
you should actually work for NASA
you're too fucking smart
right this guy
should he be flying
like the scariest planes we have
or do have to teach him
to be a pilot
what skills could he add
that would be better
than just going to the building
the parkour guys
are especially insane
and I would think
that you would be nervous
that Ben was going to become one of them
he was on his way for a second
Well, yes. Ben was, I was relieved that Ben was scared watching the sky last night. I was kind of looking over.
My worst nightmare would have been like, this looks so fucking cool. I'm so jealous. I'm like, no, don't do this.
So if he had just fallen, would they have cut the feed?
I'm sure they had some kind of plan for it. Yeah, they couldn't just show that. That would be bad times.
I think I think they'd have to, they'd have to come. I'm like getting queasy thinking about it now. I can't
So we had that and then UFC
we had Gachi going against Patty
and it just turned in
and you had the knockout plus 170
but it was just an absolute
Slugfest that seemed like it was going to end every round
and didn't and it reminded me a little
of the first Leonard Durant fight where Patty
was just trying to fight him and was like
no no I can beat this guy standing up
and Gatchie yet again and like
I don't know how many years now we've been doing it with him
I think he's 38 now
I would love to and we have
had this with like Matthew Stafford.
Goddy. Yeah, he is. He didn't say he's going to be a quarterback for the Rams next year.
He, uh, remember Gotti and Ward? And you're like, oh, I just wish we could watch these guys fight
forever. I want them to protect Gachie's brain because he takes so many shots now. Like, I don't
even want to know what that looks like now. But that's a guy I want to watch for the next
decade because he just brings it every single time. It was a little like Cesar and Chavez
near the end where he, right. It was almost like the blows. His brain wasn't even bouncing back and
forth anymore when he took a blow. Right. He knows.
It seemed like at the tail end, he got hurt.
Yeah.
The other thing that was interesting was the heavyweight fight was bad.
And just like what a bad situation, the heavyweight division is in compared to where
I felt like we were.
That's another one.
When I started watching it.
Derek Lewis just holding, I mean, is he still in that ring holding himself?
Like that, that was, that was.
That was number five against number eight.
And it was awful.
So I don't know if, if like, giant people just aren't doing MMA anymore or what was going
But it was interesting Paramount weekend because they had the boxing on Friday.
Yeah.
And they're clearly trying to like play the Smackdown.
But it was weird not to pay for a UFC pay-per-view.
I know.
I know.
They had a few more ads on Paramount.
Yeah, exactly.
It's not the way they show the odds is different now.
We don't have to get into it.
But they've aligned with somebody differently is different.
Yeah, yeah.
But anyway, yeah, I love not paying.
A lot of people said this is the first time I'm going to buy.
I'm legitimately watching a pay-per-view.
because everyone steals for years and years and years.
And yet I thought the climb in the building was better.
Yeah.
Like the Celtics were fucking around with the Chicago Bulls game
that kind of neat, it would have been a nice back to back.
I was just like watching the building guy having an heart attack.
Do you think you could watch that?
You think you could watch, like keep watching?
I mean, could they do that once a month and the buildings just get taller and taller?
Is there more than a...
I think the next one would have to be not a building.
I think it would have to be some sort of summit, right?
Yeah.
It would have to be some or some sort of mountain that you're not supposed to climb.
Right.
Where you have to go like Slice Stallone.
Yeah.
Goes for hours.
Anything else you want to hit for a dog?
Yeah, I did a couple.
First of all, I loved you and Mad Dogg.
It's the best one he's on.
Yes.
And can I give you my favorite exchange between the two of you?
I'll attempt to do both voices.
I can probably guess what it is.
I've never done this before.
I was like, all right, here we go.
This first one's going to be you.
All right, man, Doug.
Let's talk about the top 10 quarterbacks of all time.
I think Elway is in there.
Two Super Bowl wins, but he also had some stinker playoff games.
What'd you take on Elway?
Well, first of all, that is an excellent, excellent job by you, Bill.
You remember that John Elway's playoff games weren't always great, and he,
listen, he wasn't always John Unitas out there.
So, excellent job by you.
You did your homework.
Excellent job.
And I was trying not to laugh.
I can hear you laugh.
We love bad dogs so much.
He was great.
We have him on and I didn't prep him for anything.
And within a second, he's like, well, Otto Graham, 1995.
And he just is like banging out.
1955 for reference.
That was good.
All right.
And I have a, uh, well, yeah, just to have a plug here.
Sal super squares on Splash, giving out 25,000 and prizes, 10,000 to the winner of a grand
prize, completely free to enter.
Go to splashboards.com.
And also I'm doing a new contest around bad beat.
Send me a screenshot of your bad beat on Twitter.
And that's it.
Every bad beat gets a free play on Splash.
There you go.
And we didn't talk about the terrible murder of Alex Pretti in Minnesota,
but I wanted to mention how awful that was.
And we tried on this podcast, try to steer it towards sports
and be a place that, you know,
is a little bit of a distraction area.
and if you want some of the other stuff go there.
I thought that was horrible.
I remember when we were kids growing up reading about like Kent State and things like that.
You're like, man, how did they let that happen?
And this felt like that.
And I just don't know how we got to this spot.
So I wanted to mention that.
I thought I was horrified about what happened.
I don't want to talk about Minnesota.
Absolutely.
I'm going to shove pizza in my mouth.
I don't say anything wrong.
I did Charles Bark.
We did a good job summing it up in the minute, whatever he did.
I don't know what we're trying to accomplish in 2026, but I don't like it.
it. That's it for the podcast. Sal, we're going live on Sunday night. We're going to be doing
Super Bowl props live on Sunday night. Probably like seven. Maybe like six o'clock, Pacific time
range. Whatever you want. I'll have the pizza ready for both of us. Thanks to Gahow and Eduardo
and Chris behind the scenes for helping us out. I'm going to be back on Tuesday on this podcast.
Rewatchables launches tomorrow on Netflix, those on Spotify as well. We have Zodiac.
What do you think was longer, the movie or the podcast?
The rewatchable.
Fifty-seven minutes.
Oh, man, you went past two and a half hours?
I'll go.
I'll go the movie.
Was it close?
Podcast was like 250.
I think we went 20 minutes longer.
Your re-apex is just untauptable.
Well, we had to solve.
We solved the Zodiac murder as well.
Oh, you did?
Okay.
Yeah, that was another great thing.
Yeah, we solved it.
So that was good.
Anyway, that's coming Monday.
It will be on Netflix as well, as Spotify as well.
As always, good job by you.
Good job by you, buddy.
See you on Tuesday.
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