The Bill Simmons Podcast - Eight Possible Super Bowl Teams With Peter Schrager. Plus: 'Outer Banks' and Teen Patrol With Zoe Simmons

Episode Date: August 25, 2021

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by NFL Network's Peter Schrager to discuss their way-too-early Super Bowl contenders, futures bets, sleeper teams, and more (2:15). Then Bill is joined by his daughter, Zoe, to discuss summer 2021 through the lens of teen culture, followed by a new BS Pod segment, 12-Minute Recap, in which they tackle the Netflix show 'Outer Banks' (1:16:57). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Peter Schrager and Zoe Simmons Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Full Court Fits is The Ringer's new weekly NBA video series hosted by Big Waz, a.k.a. Wazney Lambre. Each week, we take you around the world of NBA fashion and share can't-miss style choices from your favorite players and keep you up to date on the latest news and releases in sneaker culture. Waz also talks to experts like Damian Lillard's personal stylist to give you behind-the-scenes looks at how the NBA's biggest stars choose their outfits. New episodes drop every Friday, so make sure you're subscribed to The Ringer's YouTube channel at youtube.com slash The Ringer so you never miss an episode. This episode is brought to you by

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Must be legal drinking age. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet at 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 if you were wrong. You could bet on new and fun markets on FanDuel like to catch a pass, same game parlays, We'll be right back. squares this season, here's what you have to do. Visit Fandle.com slash BS to download America's number one sportsbook. The Ringer

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The BS Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook and FanDuel, as well as The Ringer and The Ringer Podcast Network. If you're getting ready for your fantasy football draft, I would highly encourage you to check out The Ringer Fantasy Football Show. Craig Horlbeck, Danny Kelly, Danny Heifetz, they are crushing it right now.

I think they did their favorite Targets episode. It was the most recent one that goes up, but they are going under the hood, telling you who to gravitate to, who to avoid. That's been a really good growing podcast for us. So very excited for that. Those are good guys. Excited for them.

Coming up, we're going to talk to Peter Schrager about the eight teams that could win the Super Bowl this year and then who might make a leap going deep dive, doing some gambling odds, all that kind of stuff. And then my daughter comes on for a summer edition of Team Patrol. But really, because we're launching a new segment on this podcast called 12-Minute Recaps. I am working on the title.

12-Minute TV Recaps, 12-Minute TV. I don't know what it's going to be but quick recaps of shows I'm watching I think I'm going to do another Tuesday shows first one we're doing

is Outer Banks easily the most ridiculous show I've seen in a couple years and of course I ate up every second of it so I'm going to talk about

what I thought the 15 most ridiculous moments of the first two seasons were and bounce them off my daughter. So that is all happening. It's all next first, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, we're taping this Tuesday afternoon. Peter Schrager is here. You see him on Good Morning Football.

He's going to be on the Fox NFL coverage. He just did Flying Coach Season 2 with Sean McVay. Critically acclaimed. What, eight coaches appeared on that pod? We did eight head coaches. We did one defensive coordinator, Raheem Morris. And then we had a two-parter with Troy Aikman, which Bill was my favorite.

Aikman just completely unfiltered. I loved it. It was great. Who knew? Yeah, and then McVay planted the seeds for if he ever wants to go into media, it'll be an easy jump for him. We have football coming.

I don't know if you heard. Let's go. I did all my homework. I was in Hawaii. I have this whole process. I was telling you before we went on, you kind of have to relearn the league, but you're going to be coming on the podcast on Thursday.

So we're going to be doing million dollar picks coming off. Just an incredibly successful run that we had that America is still talking about all these months later. They're just like, were you there? Remember when? If we talk about this 30 years from now, we're going to try to keep it going. Man walking on the moon. Yeah.

We'll try to keep it going. We're going to talk today on today's pod just because this is the perfect time to talk about stuff like who's going to win the Super Bowl? Who are the sleepers? Whose win-loss total is way too low? Things like that. And I'm going to start here. I have a theory that carefully crafted from the mid-2000s that basically in the NFL,

every year, somewhere between six to eight teams really could have won the Super Bowl, right? And it's somewhere in that range. Sometimes the right team wins. Sometimes we have those seasons where it's like a couple of different teams could have won. There's some breaks, but usually it's that circle. So let's extend it. We'll say eight teams. Okay. So I want to go in and try to figure out right now who's in your circle, who are your eight? I'm going to give you mine. My eight. I definitely have Buffalo and Cleveland.

Okay. You're in on those two teams. Before we even get into the next team, those are the teams this summer. Every summer, there's the two teams that everyone says, like, all right, they got to this point. They're going to get over the hump. They got better.

They added X, Y, and Z. You're in. All right. You know what? I was going to do all eight, but we'll take them two at a time, one at a time, whatever. So Buffalo is 12-1 to win the Super Bowl on FanDuel.

Cleveland's 16-1. They passed a couple tests for me both ways, right? They got a taste last year. They dipped their foot in the playoff pond. Both teams, I think, could have looked back and said, Oh man, if we had done this, if we, if that guy hadn't been injured, whatever, I think Cleveland probably has more regrets

over how it played out. Um, there's a lot of talent there. Things have kind of moved toward this is the season in a lot of ways for both of them. Cap draft picks. They made, um, some contract luck. Baker's extension is coming. Josh Allen's extension is coming. But right now they're on the rookie contracts.

And it just seems like those are the safest bets. Now, some people listening to this would be like, well, wait, the Chiefs, Mahomes, the Chiefs should be the safest bet every year. I don't think that's the case. I actually think Buffalo and Cleveland have as good of a chance to win. And I think, you know, I have some questions about Casey, which we'll get done, but what they did in the draft, and I always appreciate this. And I think the Packers did this back in the mid 2000s when Randy Moss would torch him. They just would draft corners first round, second round, third. Buffalo drafted defensive

end, Greg Rousseau in the first round, defensive end, Boogie Basham in the second round. And they love this guy, Epineza, who is a second year player out of Iowa. He was number 57, kind of was lost at times last year, changed his body. They think they've got now three pass rushers and Bill, you nailed it. It's all right. We have the blueprint with how Tampa got to Mahomes.

We now know you just have to have a lot of good pass rushers and try your best to get to that quarterback. Kansas City beat him twice last year. Buffalo knows it. They load it up. There's no excuse. They are ready to go. And so many times, the NBA, NFL, you get to that conference championship game, you get the taste, you kind of know what it is. Maybe it was too big for them last year in Arrowhead, whatever it was. They believe that this is the year. And I think Buffalo

is going to be right there until the end. I'm with you on that. Well, with the Allen extension, doesn't that kick in a year from now? That doesn't affect their cap this year, right? So this is the last year where that doesn't affect their cap or did I have that wrong? No, how it all maneuvers, it's basically it's accounted for,

but the big money won't be coming into the future years. Yeah, it's much later. It's in there, yeah. Yeah, and then Cleveland's in a little bit of a similar situation with Baker. Now Cleveland, you know, they had a little more injury stuff

than Buffalo did last year. They also, I think, were closer to beating KC than Buffalo was, but that was because they got this fortuitous injury in the game. But, you know, similar thing, right? I like the coach. They got the taste. They have a lot of talent on both sides. I think when even I was watching them in the preseason, it's just like, oh, that guy, first-round pick, second-round pick. Oh, they have a lot of talent on both sides. I think when even I was watching them in the preseason,

it's just like, Oh, that guy, first round pick second round pick. Oh, they have that guy. And, uh,

and it seems like it's all pussy throwing the Chubb hunt thing, which I don't think is sustainable for a third year. This would be the last year they have both of those guys. And then I'm not sure about their division either. You like Pittsburgh more than I do, but, um, I think Cincinnati is going to stink.

I'm not sold on Baltimore. And I think that I think they can win that division by a game or two. What do you think? I think they can. And it's so weird with these new uniform numbers. I know it's such a minor thing, but they have a second round linebacker, Jeremiah Owusu Karamoa, who's going to be going by J-O-K out of Notre Dame, but he's wearing number 28. And it's so weird because he's playing like linebacker and he's flying all over the field and he's 28. I'm like, who is that safety in all these preseason games? No, he's a linebacker. He's awesome.

They added Clowney, which is like a small, quiet signing. But like if Jadavion Clowney is one-tenth of what we hoped he was going to be, you know, coming out of college in the first couple of years in Houston, that makes a difference too. But it all comes down to what this team can do in the offensive game. And it's going to be on Baker. Like, I love that Odell is back, but I'm not even sure Odell is the most important piece to them. It's going to be Chubb and Hunt. It's going to be Baker.

I mean, Landry Mayfield, Higgins was the guy who played really well in the divisional round, who fumbled the ball out of the back of the end zone. They like him. And then they like the kid, Donovan Peoples-Jones, who's a wide receiver out of Michigan going into his second year. I talked to Stefanski a lot. They were very keen to like this summer be like, let's lay low. We're not going to try to make headlines. We're not that team. Baker, like lay low.

Let's be quiet. Let's not do anything. I'll candidly tell you, we had a near 100% success rate booking flying coach. Whoever me and Sean wanted to have on would come on. I've known Stefanski for years. We asked him and he's like, you know, I gotta be honest. I love you guys. I love the concept and I've listened to them and it's all cool. But like the local media hasn't had a chance to talk with me. I haven't done a lot of national media. I just don't feel right. And we're like, no, no, no, no. Like Tomlin's doing it and Kingsbury's doing it.

It doesn't matter. Like this is very important year for us. I'm going to not do any media nationally. So I think they're like in that bunker mode right now where they know that they're that team. I like it. Yeah, they passed the hard knocks era.

And it's just like, we're not trying to sell jerseys anymore. Like we've got Miles Garrett and we've got Nick Chubb. We're going to be in the games. Well, it's a coward. Coward has a good theory about this. Colin coward about like the less noise,

the better. Sometimes if I'm not hearing anything about you, that's kind of where you want to be in sports a lot of the time. And I think, I think with them, that's a good example. Buffalo and Cleveland, just not hearing a lot,

which I think is a good thing. And I think they, you know, you have the coaches that have now been there. So they've learned from their own mistakes as they head into a multi-year arc with the team. One consistency with both of those teams, which I really like. A lot of times these coaches get poached and it's a brain drain. Like, oh, look, the Browns had this great breakout year.

Their whole coaching staff is going to get raided. They bring back everyone. The Bills, Brian Dable, who I think might've had the best year of any coordinator interviewed for a few jobs, didn't get any of them. He comes back with Josh Allen. And it's like this weird deal where, you know, the language, you know, the offense, but then after a year, after a year, after a year, it just becomes second nature. It's what McDaniels and Brady had. It's what the enemy and, and Mahomes now have. And I, and I think both those teams bring them back, the offensive guys, bring them back those

head coaches, and then having all the additions on defense for both, and I think both those teams bring them back, the offensive guys, bring them back, those head coaches, and then having all the additions on defense for both teams. I think they're both going to be in it till the very end. Well, you think if you really sold on those two teams in some way, then there's some other fun bets you can do, right? Like Alan's 11 to one to win the MVP.

I love Alan for MVP this year. The bills to have the best record in the entire league are 10-1. We didn't mention home field advantage. That last year you had this weird COVID year. This year we're going to have fans back, I assume. Who's going to benefit from that? I have two ideas, Buffalo and Cleveland. They're going to have really good fan bases.

And then you look at Buffalo's schedule, which given they were 13-3 last year, you usually think like, ah, it's a monster schedule this year. Nine primetime games, 10 games against, nope, five primetime games. Not even, I think four primetime games. And it's not a crazy schedule for them. They're going against the AFC South, which is other than the NFC East, that's the division you want four games against. And then they're going against the NFC South,

which maybe just might be Tampa is the only tough game in that division, very possibly. And then in their own division, they have two against the Jets, who I think are at least a year away. Who knows with the Pats and then the Dolphins. I think it's more logical for the Dolphins to go backwards than forwards. We can talk about this later. But you have five night games, and I just don't think their schedule is that hard. So I like that the best record. If you're going to go in on them, go in on them with the best record

and go in for Allen for 11-1 because if Mahomes doesn't win the MVP, I would say Allen is the next bet, right? Who else would you have there? Or Rodgers Rogers or Wilson who are always going to be in the conversation. But like, I think Josh Allen is right up there. Um, the NFL does their NFL 100 list. It's always a good barometer of like how the players do these guys. Allen last year, I think was 87. They haven't done their top 10 yet, but he's in the top 10 Allen. Like he made that giant leap. He got paid. They've crowned him. It's a whole thing. I think Lamar got

crowned, and then maybe the last two seasons was kind of figuring it out a little bit more. Alan, it's like, it clicks. It's there. There's no questions. He has surpassed every hurdle, and it took him three years to get there, but now I think Josh Allen's one of the top quarterbacks in the league, and if the Bills are the best team, there's your MVP.

Also, better weapons. Yeah. The dayball thing, that's got one. He'll be a head coach next year, so that's another big advantage for him. Alright, so those are two of the teams in my circle. I'm putting Casey as the best Super Bowl odds, 5-1.

I'm putting them in there, obviously. I guess my questions would be, and a lot of teams have this, right? It's like, well, what happens if Kelsey or Hill get hurt? I just feel like they're relying on those two guys way more than they did in other seasons. They lost their receiver depth. All the side of McColl Hardman,

it's not just like, hey, once a game, just run deep and we're going to launch you a pass or we'll give you a reverse. You're actually going to have to catch seven, eight balls a game now. I don't like their depth as much. And the offensive line for the amount of money they spent on it and the amount of capital they spent,

it's still pretty in flux. Three of the guys are new. I don't know. I just think it's really hard to stay at the top in the NFL for four or five years, which is what they're trying to do this year. It's more likely to me they could take a step backwards. But what do you think?

I think they were very deliberate in that offensive line. They knew that that's what was their Achilles heel in that Super Bowl. And instead of futzing around, they were like, no, let's go and rebuild it. So they have three new players on this offensive line, but all five positions are going to be new because Remmers moves from left to right. But they've got two rookies who they love. Now, we could do this with rolled eyes, but everything out of Chiefs camp is that the center,

Creed Humphrey, out of Oklahoma has been incredible and that they've got a sixth-round rookie starting at right guard. And his name is Trey Smith, and he was the number one prospect out of high school, had all this hype going to Tennessee. He had a rare blood issue that was detected during the draft. And a lot of teams said, well, we're not drafting him.

They took him. And the rare blood issue has not come up as a hindrance at all in training camp. And in fact, I've been getting texts and stuff from guys there saying, hey, look what Trey did today. So they're really excited about it. And then they spent all that money on Joe Tooney, who was your guy in New England. So they're like, we're very deliberate. They're like, this is what is going to hurt us, and we're going to address it. But you're right. You've got a lot of questions about the depth on offense. And how long can you ride that? Well, Kelsey's unstoppable. And Tyreek can't be stopped.

Well, they were stopped in the Super Bowl. The question is, can any other team besides Tampa copy that blueprint on a week-to-week basis? Now, we know they're always going to be the hunted team. And I know their front office feels like they did everything they could to stay afloat and stay atop in the AFC and might even be better this year. But there's reason to wonder. Sammy Watkins might not have been Jerry Rice out there,

but he was a very reliable number two when they needed him to be. Their over-under is 12 and a half on Fandle for wins. Out of 17 games though, right? Remember, it's an extra game now. Right, so they'd have to go 13 and four. They're coming out of the gate. Browns week one, Ravens on a

Sunday night at Baltimore week two, and then Chargers week three. Now two of those are home, but that's like not an easy first three. And then, you know three. Now, two of those are home, but that's like not an easy first three. And then, you know, they play the AFC North. They lucked out. They got the NFC East, but their own division, I think,

is going to be pretty good too. And then, you know, these 18-week seasons, who knows? All that does is increase the chances of another devastating injury. Injury, exhaustion, like, ah, here we go again, another week. You know, it's interesting because philosophies are very different across the league on how you handle these three preseason games.

I talked to Sean McVay for a while. It's like, you know, we're not playing any of our starters. You're not going to see Stafford. Brandon Staley, who comes from that McVay camp, is in Los Angeles. You know, Justin Herbert played one year in the league, but he will not touch a football during preseason. Mahomes played 33 snaps the other night against, you know, number one defense in Arizona, their starters.

And like, Andy's basically like, we have a new offensive line. I want to see this offense start clicking. So that could be a positive and saying, okay, well, he's just getting the rhythm. Or it could be, all right, we just added three more weeks to the season on Patrick Mahomes, which is already going to be a long season if you assume you's just getting the rhythm. Or it could be, all right, we just added three more weeks to the season on Patrick Mahomes,

which is already going to be a long season if you assume you're going to the playoffs. And now instead of it just being an 18-week regular season with the three playoff games, well, now Mahomes is playing two preseason games. You're making it 24 games. It's an interesting philosophical stuff. And like, you know, Rogers wouldn't touch a ball.

Dak's not touching a ball, but they've got Mahomes and Roethlisberger out there actually playing because they have new offensive lines. They want to try it out. Something about them, I can't put my finger on it. They also have the Bills in week five. They lucked out because they have the Browns and the Bills at home, which I think is helpful.

But there's something about them. I really do think it's going to be Buffalo's year. So that's how I have... That's three. Any more AFC teams, or is that the only three AFC teams? Those are my three locks, but we'll litigate the other ones in a second. Okay. Tampa, definitely.

Definitely. Tampa is plus 650 on Fando to win the Super Bowl. Look, we're not going to say anything that interesting about Tampa. The continuity is outrageous. Outrageous. To win a Super Bowl. Coaching staff, too. Look, we're not going to say anything that interesting about Tampa. The continuity is outrageous. Outrageous. Coaching staff too. Yeah. To win a Super Bowl and basically like, we're going to run it back. That just doesn't happen in football anymore. And you know, the X factor is Brady's 44. And at some point it ends. We don't know. At this point, we've

stopped thinking about it. We're going to be shocked when it happens. A couple of little nuggets from their camp, because I talked to them too and i talked to them earlier uh this week the rookie the first round rookie is a guy named joe tryon out of washington it took him 30 second overall and it's just another defensive lineman and like that was the strength of their team and one of the guys in their organization sent me a quote from one of their linebackers this guy nunez roches his nickname is Nacho. He's basically like, everyone thinks they're a first round pick. And then you see the first round pick and you're like, oh no, no, that's a first round pick. And that's what this guy is joining with Vita Vea and with Sue coming back

and with JPP coming back and Barrett. And they're just so loaded up front that it's hard to think many offensive lines in the NFC or maybe the NFL can just handle that. The waves of just pass rushers every week. The other piece to it is they added a couple other players. This guy, Darden, who's a fourth round pick that Peter King wrote extensively about in his article this week, but he's at a North Texas. He's wearing number one. He's going to be returning punts for them.

He is a speed burner and he had 20 touchdowns last year in college and already Brady's found him. So those two guys are new. And then they say that Winfield, the safety is having like that Devin white off season that Devin white had last year where it was like, Oh crap. Like this guy's, they think Antoine Winfield jr. Can be one of the best safeties in the entire league this year. So it's all positive. Of course we can puncture holes and all those things, but they certainly didn't get a step back this offseason. The only variable is, of course, every team circling them on the schedule. And then the other part of it is just at some point, I don't know,

does Alex Guerrero in the TB12 method, does it just not enough? I mean, it hasn't caught up to Brady yet. I don't know. At some point it might, but that's, I don't know. It didn't happen last year. I'm not sure if it's going to happen this year. Very unusual lack of disease of more with this team. Oh my God.

Because they seem like a really good candidate for it in February, right? It's like, what are they going to do about these contracts? And then how do you keep that? And it's just, everything's fine. Levante David took a deal that I think he could have made more. Shaq Barrett took a deal he could have made more. And then the crazy thing is Godwin is on the franchise tag,

so we'll get him for at least one more year. There was a thought that at least one of those three is definitely gone. They're all back. Crazy. There's,

if you gave me this team's going to be better or worse than they were last year, I would pick better. Like, if those were the only two choices. I actually think there's a chance. Their over-under is 11.5

now part of that is because like the week 3, 4, 5 they're at Rams at Patriots home for Dolphins week 12, 13, 14 they're at Colts

at Falcons home for Bills then home for Saints the next week so they have some tough stretches but their division might suck if Atlanta's not good I don't think the Saints are going to be good. And then the Panthers, I, you know, they were five and 11 last year.

They're not going to be much better this year that there's a chance they, they go six and O in their division. Yeah. And do you remember going back to like the Thursday night loss to Chicago and they were throwing to guys that maybe there wasn't that chemistry yet. And then there was that weird Monday night game where Brady threw two picks to the Rams and they lost at home and they almost lost the Monday night game to the giants. Like that seems like it never happened, but it did. And then they caught their swag. They got, they got fire. They started winning. They won seven in a row, win Superbowl. Like there will be no growing pains this year. That's the difference. Like last year it was like, all right, there's an adjustment with

Arians with all this stuff. And Brady just needs to work out the kinks. This year, the kinks have all been worked out, so I don't see a slow start. I think 11 and a half would be, I'd be shocked if they didn't win 12 or 13 games. And the primary reason, and this comes from folks there, Brady won't let us lose more than six games. Brady will not allow that.

So they'll win 13 games. Division is minus 185, which seems like stealing. I'll be putting that in multiple bets. Before we go to a break, you were mentioning the Chiefs camp, your guys in the Chiefs camp. We should mention, you're like one of the biggest reasons,

if not the biggest reason, that everybody overpaid for Clyde Edwards Hilaire in their fantasy draft last year. The blood was on your hands. In my fantasy auction, Connor paid $59 for him. Yeah. No, Conor will probably do it again this year

because I've been hyping him up even more this year. All those Chiefs fans, all those Chiefs fans are like, what happened with Clyde O'Dellar? I'm like, he ran for 160 yards against the Bills last year.

What do you mean what happened? He got hurt. He's actually coming off a little bit of an injury now too, but he's going to be all right. And now there's no other guys in that backfield. I don't trust your Chiefs. C-E-H. Let's chief. You really heard a lot of people last year. I feel like you should

apologize. False info, bad stock tips. So we have Casey, Buffalo, Cleveland, Tampa. I'm going to give you my other two. We're going to take a break. 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.

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like the fact that York U graduates have a 90% employer satisfaction rate. That's because across its three GTA campuses, York U's programs are strategically designed to prepare you for a meaningful career and long-term success. Join us in creating positive change at yorku.ca slash write the future. Okay, Coming back. The eight possible teams that can make the Super Bowl, in my opinion. I gave you Buffalo, Cleveland, KC, Tampa, which was none of those were hot takes except maybe Cleveland. The other two I have lumping together, San Francisco and the Rams.

Okay. Some people would say, why not Seattle too? The Rams, I'll make the case first. You did a podcast with the Rams head coach. So we're a little biased on this, but when you're talking to, he's infectious about his team. He's so excited. He's got Stafford, but the case for the Rams is simple for me. They've mortgaged a ton of picks and a ton of time and equity and salary to try to win the Super Bowl, basically this year and next year. And I guess you could throw in last year too,

but they had some bad injury breaks. But really, this is the year. You do all these trades because you're trying to build a team that's going to win this year. So I look at the Super Bowl odds and it's 15 to one for them. For the over under for wins, it's 10 and a half. Their division, they're 15 to one for them. Um, for the over under for wins, it's 10 and a half.

Their division, they're two to one to make the playoffs. They're minus one 78. I would be flabbergasted if they didn't make the playoffs. Now the case would be their schedule. Their week, three week, four week,

five is bucks cards at home. And then at Seahawks on a Thursday night game. Then they end the season last five weeks at Cardinals Monday night, Seahawks, at Vikings, at Ravens, home for the Niners. So it's not the easiest schedule. They do get to play the AFC South. I just don't see how they're not a Super Bowl contender. Is there any alarms to you with them as a Super Bowl contender in your mind? The alarms would be that the depth on the roster is not what it used to be. Now wide receiver, they're loaded quarterback. They upgraded, but the running back situation is a bit curious right now. We know that acres had a full load in the playbook and there was a whole offense built around him.

He's not going to be there this year. Then it was to Daryl Henderson, a guy who hasn't really had that season yet, despite being a very coveted player coming out of the draft in Memphis. Now it's on him. Well, he banged up his thumb. So we're going to see how he is. Like that's the question mark. And then they lost a lot of like key guys,

but they feel like they replaced them on defense. So you could say coordinators are both gone. Brandon Staley is now the head coach of the Chargers. That's a tough one. Morris, you think is going to be good though. I think Morris is going to be great. And Sean goes so far back with Morris. They speak the same language and the players love Raheem Morris. So I don't think that's that big a drop off. And then the other one is Shane Waldron, who was one of their big offensive guys there, is now the offensive coordinator in Seattle. But gosh, Kevin O'Connell, who's the guy that remains, is really going to be a huge

part of this. And apparently he and McVay are having great success with Stafford in the room. So I'm with you. Pat's draft pick, Kevin O'Connell. Of course. Great Patriots legend. And he's been around the league. He's been like a hot coordinator for like a few stops in Washington and elsewhere. But it feels like he and McVay are really hitting it off this year. So I'm with you on the league. He's been like a hot coordinator for like a few stops in Washington and elsewhere,

but it feels like he and McVay are really hitting it off this year. So I'm with you on the Rams. Well, you just met, you mentioned the name. That's the biggest piece of this is Stafford. They had Jared Goff the last few years who they had to give equity with to take back Matthew Stafford, just to stick the lions with Goff. there's no way that's not worth a couple of wins. And I've said it, and I think I listened to the fantasy podcast you do, and Craig's been mentioning it because Sean says it, and it's not like he's saying it off the Zoom or away from it. Like, they might throw the ball 50 times. They might throw the ball 60 times.

That running game is huge, but in his dream offense, McVay has Stafford under the gun or out of the gun, just chucking it, like chucking it. Let's go. Like, let's just light up the sky. He's at the line. He's audibling stuff. He's just, he's going, going, going. The defense is going backwards. One of the things that, that LaFleur told us that like, you know, I saw the twinkle in, in McVay's eyes that like LaFleur is like, there's five seconds and they call it the shot clock, which I love, but the play clock, there's five seconds left on the play clock and Rogers will quickly do an audible and LaFleur is like, what is he doing? What's he doing? And then there's one second left and he gets it off and it's perfect and they make it work. And like Stafford

can do that. And that's nothing against Jared Goff. There wasn't that green light. There wasn't that confidence that he could handle that. So Stafford's like a coach on the field. He's 11 years in. He speaks McVay's language. I know a lot of people roll their eyes at the Stafford stuff. 11 years, not a single playoff win. And what's he ever done in a big moment? I don't know. But McVay's banking on him. And I would trust that as opposed to just saying, hey, look what happened in Detroit. It was a pretty bad situation there for many years. I can't imagine how many coaches, schemes, coordinators, teammates. I don't want to say I was lukewarm on him, but at some point I gave up on him in Detroit as somebody who could basically carry a bad team or a mediocre team. He had four different offensive coordinators.

He had several different head coaches. But you think about the different offensive lines the different wide receivers the different it adds up and and he got the shit kicked out of him too

which wasn't great beat up and you hope that he's at 32 he's going to be upright and he's going to be fine and he's rejuvenated and you know

again all I could say is what McVay says and he says that he's looks amazing they're having a blast they're having fun This could all change week one if the Bears come and beat the

crap out of him and McVay's in the dumps. It could happen. Have you seen the Bears? That's not happening. That's probably not happening, but it could happen. The Bears stink. What about the new stadium? We didn't talk about that either. That's another team that's going to benefit from actually having fans this year. They have this almost $6 billion

palace that really nobody has gone to a game in yet. So I just think there's going to be real energy around them this year. And even like the preseason games and the people that went to them are like, it was sick. I know it's the preseason, but like fans came out

and I know the viral video was some like brutal fight in the stands, but that's happening everywhere. The true story is that a lot of people come out and there's a question of like, are people going to actually go to these games? You know, LA football was kind of nothing in the Coliseum. The preseason is an indicator. There's going to be people going to these games. And apparently the stadium's sick. I've not been there yet. All right. So I have the Niners as the other one.

Fun team. I don't know. I'm willing to be talked out of this because Jimmy G has been pretty shaky in the preseason. And it seems like whatever they're trying to go for with the quarterback thing might be a year away. It might actually play out against them. So you can talk me out of this. There's a lot of injury luck stuff with them. There's some great schedule stuff with them. They have a ton of talent.

They have a good coach.. They have good coach. But if you want to talk me out of it, go ahead. I'll tell you what I know. I know that they do like Jimmy, but you're going to see Trey Lance. You're going to see him. And it might not be under center for starting week one, but they are going to work him into the offense. Now, I don't know if that means 10 plays a game or it means two plays a game or it means 30 plays a game. But Trey Lance, there is a piece of this offense for Trey Lance. And a lot of it is the stuff you have not seen yet in preseason, which is the mobility. All we've seen are these crazy. I mean, he's got an arm. He's got a cannon. It looks a little bit like Kaepernick when he cocks back and he just throws those bullets. He's such a big arm, but he can move also. And they're going to use that in the offense. And for Jimmy, it almost feels like it's house money for Jimmy. This is probably the last year, I would assume,

unless he goes on this crazy run and leads into a Super Bowl. And it's an audition. And it's like he's playing carefree. Even his first press conference, Jimmy was cursing. It was like, that's not the Jimmy we know. He seems like he's a little loosey-goosey, not so nervous. And I think that Garoppolo is pretty confident that there will be a paycheck waiting for him somewhere after this season. Just go out there, play the best I can,

and try to lead this team. The big question mark is not the offense for me because they're going to run the hell out of the ball and they're going to put up points just because that's what Shanahan does. He always finds a way to generate points. Robert Sala was a genius on defense. He's gone. So D'Amico Ryans, the former player for the Houston Texans, is now the defensive coordinator. It's his first time being a coordinator. Everyone says it's going well. He's got Bosa. He's got Armstead. He's got all the guys. He's got Fred Warner doing a new contract. But that is a loaded division, and that is a big responsibility for a team that is talking Super Bowl for a first-year defensive coordinator. And we'll see how that goes.

Yeah. So that, that, and the whole weird quarterback thing, my friend, Kevin Wilds on a FS one had a good take that I was jealous of where he said, uh,

I think Jimmy Garoppolo can take the Niners to the Superbowl. And you know why? Because he took the Niners to the Superbowl. Like right. It's not like he didn't already do it. I was like, all right, that's a good one.

Um, so would you put Seattle in that spot then? didn't already do it. I was like, all right, that's a good one. So would you put Seattle in that spot then? I would. If you were doing the circle. All right, make the case for Seattle. Seattle is 20 to one. Do you want to talk about

an under the radar team that won a division last year? No one is taking the Seahawks. New offensive player. 12 and four last year. 12 and four beat all these teams we're talking about.

And then of course they started off hot, but it wasn't like they started off hot and then got bad. Their defense got beat all these teams we're talking about. And then, of course, they started off hot, but it wasn't like they started off hot and then got bad. Their defense got really good at the end of the season. Like out of nowhere, their defense was lights out and Jamal Adams is sacking every quarterback and Bobby Wagner looks like he's 25 years old again. So if they can put that together,

the offense being what it was at the start of the season and the defense, what it was at the end of the season, you're talking about a team that went 12- four and couldn't even get it all together. I love, love, love the connection between Russell Wilson and the new offensive coordinator. So they basically said to Russ, and there's a lot of talk about Russ being unhappy. He had a lot to do with who the new offensive coordinator was. So Brian Schottenheimer is no longer there. He's in Jacksonville. Russ was like, I like what they do in Los Angeles. I like what they got going on there. He takes Shane Waldron from the Rams, plucks him from the McVeigh tree,

which Pete Carroll has no real history with. And now he's the offensive coordinator. So they're going to run a lot of the quick stuff that the Rams did. Russ is going to use his legs. And I think they've got the best wide receiver duo in the NFL between Lockett and Metcalf. And then they got a good running back group. So I like what they've got there. And then their defense, this is the wild card here because you've got Wagner, you've got Jamal Adams. And then there's like a bunch of question marks, but they think this kid, Jordan Brooks,

who wears 56, second player, is as good as Devin White and those guys. And it's going to have one of the, and Fred Warner are going to have one of those breakout years. And they've got all these big guys up front, Puna Ford, Harold Taylor. He's no Josh Uche though. I they've got all these big guys up front. Puna Ford. He's there, Josh Uche, though.

I love Uche. I do love Uche. He's no Uche. I love Uche. But they think that they've got the young talent. And then Russell Wilson's pretty good, right? Like Russell Wilson at quarterback is the ultimate X factor. So I will not remove Seattle from that conversation, though.

I have not seen anybody, anybody put the Seahawks in that Super Bowl conversation yet this year. Week three at Vikings. Vikings might be sneaky good this year on defense at least. They might be able to run the ball, make a couple plays. I don't know. I'm not saying at Vikings is an easy game yet. By week three, we might decide it is.

Week four at 49ers. Week five, Thursday night home for the Rams. Week six, Sunday night at 49ers, week five, Thursday night, home for the Rams, week six, Sunday night at Steelers, week seven, home Monday night Saints. So we'll know after those five. We'll know. We'll know. We'll know.

And I still think like, you know, people roll their eyes and I feel like you and cousin Sal once hit it right on the money where everyone's like, did you know that Russell Wilson's never won an MVP vote? And it's like, yeah, but who's voting?

Who are you voting him in for instead of like you need to someone. This might be the year where Russ puts it all together and is like, all right, it all lines up where he wasn't in the top 10 for the NFL 100. He isn't being talked about as an MVP. This team is not being considered. This is the year Russell says F you to the rest of the league and just lights it up. Well, I don't know if you heard Ben Solak on the Ringer NFL show had a really good take on this new fancy Seattle offense.

Because he was like, maybe one of the reasons why Russ was really good was the offense was kind of vanilla and then he could freelance on it. Fair. And that's fair. What if it's, what if the fancier the offense,

the more constrictive it is for Russ? I was like, oh, solid take. I like it. I like it, Ben. Welcome aboard. Ben, welcome to the rigor. Right out of the gates. Yeah.

So for player props, uh-oh, that's not what we want. Season awards. I got it. Wait, wait. Did we finish our eight? We didn't finish our eight. No, we didn't. I'm just going, you got finish our eight? We didn't finish our eight No we didn't

I'm just going You got me excited about Russ 20 to 1 on Fandle Come on Come on It's Russell Wilson You like Allen for 11 to 1 Or Russ for 20 to 1?

I like both But I think Russ 20 to 1 Is a far more enticing one Yeah a little better value Okay So we have six We have KC, Buffalo, Cleveland, Tampa, Seattle, and the Rams.

We have two more spots. I'm going to give you the candidates. Green Bay, 12-1. Baltimore, 14-1. San Francisco, 16-1. The Chargers, 33-1. Pittsburgh, 44-1 to win the Super Bowl. New England 37

to one. And then I can look up the Minnesota odds or something like that if you want it. But if you had to pick two out of those teams or anybody else, who would you pick? Green Bay for sure. The way this all worked out, I had a lot of agita over it over the offseason with Aaron

and he's not around. And then again, speak with LaFleur, speak with Nathaniel Hackett, the offensive coordinator, stick with Joe Barry. These guys are like, this guy's amazing. Like he shows up and everyone loves him.

He's got the best demeanor and it's worry about all you want in April and May. The fact that he's there and it's like, let's go. And they just had inner, they had joint practices with the jets. And we could talk about some of the teams on the bottom of the league this year.

And the Jets are going to be one of those teams. You mentioned their year away, the Packers, the Packers, it was really lopsided. Like the Packers ones against the Jets ones was not a fair matchup. Rogers is dialed in this Marquez Valdez. Scantling apparently has put it all.

Wait a second. Rogers is dialed in. What's your evidence? All he did in the off season was he did Instagram videos. He showed up. He hosted Jeopardy and caused like 17 soap operas. What is he dialed in for? He made. Because he showed up for training camp?

He made life hell for those front office. They didn't have summers. It was every night, sleepless nights, all that stuff. What a guy. What a gentleman. He shows up. He shows up and it's like, oh, well that's, he's really good. And he's,

maybe he's overdoing it and over compensating, but he has taken extra time to work with all the young guys and he's done everything he possibly could since he's gotten there. I'm not saying he's the best teammate. And I've gotten a lot of texts over the off season when we're on good morning football in the middle of may. And I'm like, you know,

they need to go hat in hand and apologize. A lot of old school football guys are like, F that, who is this guy? Like, it doesn't know. It's never worked this whole, you know, that said he gets there and it's his show. And whether you like it or not, it's his show. And those guys believe in him and they know it's his show. So I think the Packers are going to be right in there this year again. Couple red flags. Let's hear them. On Fando, the over-under is only 10.

It's very suspicious. They're not going to go 10 and 7? Why isn't that over-under 10 and a half? I stared at that and I'm like, I feel like I'm being tricked. What's happening with that?

I think there's an expectation that because he wasn't around this summer, it's like that they are going to be slow out of the gates or that they're not going to have it or that it's like that they are going to be slow out of the gates or that they're not going to have it or that there's some residual bad feelings.

But no, they brought in a really good defensive coordinator in Joe Barry. They've got a great scheme. Okay. Another red flag. They play the NFC West. Okay, that's tough. That's the division I don't want to play out of the eight.

And then they play The AFC North Which might have Three possible Playoff teams If Pittsburgh's good Sure So Really the only

Two easy ones Cincy's the only Easy one Out of those eight And then maybe In the NFC West Maybe Arizona Look at their own division

Their own division Right so they get The Lions twice Lions twice Are two wins Bears I would assume The way that they've Dom So they get the Lions twice. Lions twice or two wins. Bears, I would assume the way that they've dominated them and the Bears, I think it's twice. It doesn't seem like the Bears can block,

which seems like I'm going to say that's a problem. Not being able to block at all. It was fairly alarming seeing Justin Fields' helmet go 30 feet in the sky, but that was the fourth offensive line, which we could talk about all that and why Fields isn't playing with the ones in preseason, but Matt Nagy's locked in.

Trust me. Andy Dalton is the quarterback. Matt Nagy is locked in for me, Sal and House doing first coach fired. He is in. That is our lock-in. We also bet the Lions for four to one worst record. Did I tell you that? Lions worst record?

What was the odds? Four to one. Jets might give him a run. And it's not that I don't like the quarterback. Jets might give him a run this year.'s not that I don't like the quarterback. Jets might give him a run this year. Jets are really thin everywhere and really young. It might be Lions or Jets. Lions with AFC North, NFC West, Green Bay twice.

Like that could be 10 losses right there. I don't know. Anyway, I interrupted you. Go ahead. Not that it's a fantasy play per se, but they've got this running back in Green Bay, Kalen Hill, out of Mississippi State, who apparently is lighting it up in practices and stuff too.

And they've got already Jones and Dillon. And I think this guy might get a lot of carries as well. Kalen Hill is his name. So they're loaded on offense. It's Rodgers. But to your point, NFC West, the Rams give him trouble. The 49ers defense has given him trouble over the years. Seattle's given him trouble over the years.

There might be some hiccups along the way. I was trying to figure out if Minnesota could steal that division because there's some fun wildcard bets on FanDuel where you could do basically like, I bet this team will, it's like an exact bet. I bet Green Bay will win a wildcard, which means they won't win their division.

And it's five to one. So it's like, well, why wouldn't they win the wild card? Because Minnesota would win the division because Chicago ain't winning, Detroit ain't winning. Minnesota, their over-under is eight and a half, which is minus 160. So that means a lot of action on Minnesota. For the division, they're plus 250.

They have the same, the issue with them, the more I looked at it was they have an absolutely brutal schedule where that where it's just like i bolded look at this like i bold the teams when i think it's like a hard game yeah i can't say i had i have 11 bolded games out of the 17 for them where it's like oh that's a hard one so and then throwing the kirk cousins thing and but I think defensively, they're going to be a lot better though. Yeah, they're much improved on defense.

And I think Irv Smith is going to have a huge year at tight end and is a big upgrade from, and I love Kyle Rudolph, but he's a big upgrade for what they can do with him. But the offensive coordinator is 34 years old. It's Clint Kubiak, Gary's son. Wow. Clint's whole deal,

it's not like he runs the Gary Kubiak offense, which we knew in Denver and all the places he was, Baltimore, Houston, everywhere. It's like Stefanski's his guy because they were together in Minnesota. So Stefanski's the guy who kind of trained him. And I think it's an interesting offense. You mentioned the cousins thing. I think you're alluding to the vaccination stuff and he might just miss random weeks and random games. It's a real thing. And I find the dialogue from some of these coaches really interesting. Like, you know, the Cam Newton thing comes out and the Patriots take the high road. They're like, it was a misunderstanding. And,

you know, he tried to do everything right, but he didn't do everything right. And in fact, wasn't in the facility to take a test. And now he's missing a week of practices. And whether you believe in the vaccines or not, and that is for not this podcast, and it's certainly not coming out of my mouth, but there is a competitive advantage thing at play where if you're at practice for five days, your team is better off those five days than when you're sitting on Zoom or you're watching from afar. So there's always this dangling deal because Cousins has made his stance pretty public. And I'm not questioning his stance on that, but I'll question the competitive advantage that if he is to miss five games as a starting quarterback, that puts them in a tough spot.

Whereas it is just a giant wild card for a team when the starting quarterback can miss a week here, a week there, based on whether it be a false test or whether it be a close contact. The NFL made the rules with the NFLPA. They're really, really stringent. So there is a very thin margin. And you're playing with a little bit of fire here. If you're starting quarterback could potentially miss some games. If you're trying to bet over-unders on a team.

I think it decided that Cam Newton, Mac Jones thing. I could tell you that. Who is more Michael Corleone than Belichick, right? And he's going to look at this and go, am I going to spend the next 18 weeks with putting my eggs in the cam basket and then finding out on a Wednesday that I don't have them for five days?

Now I got to rush Mac Jones and I'm just going to start Mac Jones now. He's playing as well as him in the preseason. Anyway, I think Mac's going to be the quarterback. It certainly opened the door for Mac to take that job. And here's the other thing. They're practicing with the Giants. Mac's getting all the ones this week. This is the final week of the preseason. He's getting all the ones. Joe Judge knows Mac Jones from Alabama. There's a lot of like Mac Jones juice in this practice. I'll tell you, there's going to be a lot of love for Mac Jones. The entire Giants coaching staff is basically Alabama guys or Georgia guys or whatever it is, SEC guys. And, you know, like I said,

the Patriots put out a statement when this came out and they said it was a misunderstanding. And I'll tell you this, in my 30 years of knowing Bill Belichick, I don't think the Patriots had any misunderstandings on this. Dude, we know what Belichick wants. Consistency. He doesn't want drama. He wants day-to-day reliability. That's what, 20 years ago, that's why he picked Brady over Bledsoe. He knew what he had with Brady.

And he's like, I think I can actually maybe make the Superbowl with this guy just day in, day out. And I don't have to worry about anything else other than this guy. And he picked Brady. Nobody else would have done it. I think Max the QB. Yeah. They just might not want to rush Mac out there. If they think Mac can do it, he'll do it. Here's the issue though. They spent a hundred million dollars on offensive free agents. And it's like, Cam Newton's been here for a year. The guys love Cam Newton. Belichick has been over the top with his praise of Cam Newton.

He looks good. He looks healthy as far as the shoulder and his throwing motion goes. So I think the plan is for Cam to be the starting quarterback, but this certainly did not do him any favors. And it would be a shame. I think that plan's out the window.

It would be a shame for him because it was this great redemption story that, all right, Cam beat out the rookie and all this stuff and held him off. And it was this great redemption story that, all right, Cam beat out the rookie and all this stuff and held him off and it was his job. We'll see what happens. Quick question

before we go to a break. What is a more likely scenario for you? Minnesota stealing the division from Green Bay or the Chargers stealing the division

from Kansas City? Minnesota. I'm not ready to do the Chargers. First year head coach. Don't know what we're getting in that offense. A lot of new players on the offensive line. I might not be all in on the charges until I see them actually play football. Herbert hasn't taken a snap yet. I agree with you. And I think the case for Minnesota would just be maybe it's nine and eight wins that division.

Sure. Right. And with the both teams have really tough schedules. You have one injury that knocks somebody out for four weeks. And all of a sudden you have two teams that, uh, with a week to go are both eight and eight heading into week 17. It's possible. Great fan base, great home field advantage and Zimmer and cousins, though they might bang heads sometimes here and there they've, they've went in and beat the saints in a playoff game in new Orleans. They've been through it. I could see them strapped, that is kind of figuring it out and winning nine or 10 games this year. All right, so we have seven teams for our circle.

We're gonna take a break, come back, and we're gonna pick team number eight. What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend that 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, here's our circle. Buffalo, Cleveland, KC, Tampa, Seattle, Rams, Green Bay. We need one more team. I think we should probably look at the AFC because I don't want to do three AFC teams, five NFC teams, unless you feel really strongly about San Francisco. I think we're looking between two teams.

Baltimore, 14-1. Chargers, 33-1. I liked them more two weeks ago, but it's unclear if they're going to be able to block, which as you know, one of my weird things is I like when offensive lines can block. It's just one of my kooky.

Pittsburgh, 44-1. And then I think the Pats have to be thrown in at 37-'s just one of my kooky. Pittsburgh 44 to one. And then I think the paths have to be thrown in at 37 one just because of the defense. They're going to be able to run the ball in their defense of Belichick. And I think they have a chance

to be really good. I think they're going to win 11 games. I think the Patriots are going to be good. I don't know what we're getting with the quarterback, but you see the five running backs they have.

You see that these guys, Matthew Judon. How about my guy Ramondre? Ramondre? Ramondre Stevenson. Oh my God, he's finally in shape. The guy's a beast. Looks tremendous.

And then they put in JJ Taylor, who looks like he's one eighth the size of him. And it's like they play the same position. It's crazy. They've got five running backs there. Judon looks incredible. And he's wearing a single digit. He's wearing that nine, I think it is. It's disorienting.

It's like a quarterback plays defense. And he's got these red sleeves. And he's wearing a single digit. He's wearing that nine, I think it is. It's disorienting. It's like a quarterback plays defense. And he's got these red sleeves. And he's just everywhere. You're like, that guy's everywhere. So they're going to be... I'm telling you, I know people think I'm a homer. So people listening, I don't say stuff like this lightly because as you know, I love gambling more than anything.

The Pats defense is going to be like potentially awesome. I think the one thing that worries me is if they don't figure out the Gilmore thing. I think the Gilmore thing is the, that's the guillotine hanging over this. If he doesn't come back, I recant. But if he comes back and he's healthy, this defense is going to be awesome. Cannot say enough about the job that they did two years ago with that defense, keeping them in, I mean, they eventually, Tennessee beats them in the playoffs, but that team had no offense and they still found a way to win the division and

be in the AFC playoffs. I do like that team and you know, Belichick redemption, like a revenge, whatever you want to call it, missing the playoffs. I don't see him missing it two years in a row, but Superbowl that's asking a lot with that quarterback situation. I want to quickly go back to the chargers because their offensive line, they put even more of an emphasis on offensive line and they got Corey Lindsley, highest paid center in the league. Uh, they drafted Slater. He fell to them somehow. They got, they've got Bulaga already. They got this guy, they called it anchor who played in Pittsburgh for years. Like they feel like they're good, but we haven't seen it yet. So that's, that's the whole rub on that one. I, they just haven't, I haven't seen it yet with Herbert. Would you see

the, the coach called out to the lineman yesterday? Yeah. Staley, I think, is going to be really good. So that would be part of the case for the Chargers is it's the classic. And I remember writing about this for page two a billion years ago.

It's like the really good new coach coming in for the old coach who was pretty, I don't want to say incompetent, but not great. And it's usually worth four wins if it plays out correctly. You don't, you don't want to say what do you want to do is this? Cause it's almost like the Jets did this every other year. The Jets would have a hard ass coach like Mangini and then they'd hire like Rex Ryan to like soften it up.

And then they'd hire another hard ass coach and Todd Bolt. Like that's what it was. Cause Anthony Lynn is the ultimate players coach. Guys would run through a wall for Anthony Lynn socially and love them. But like Staley comes in and is a hard ass. That's what he is. And he's, they were also,

they were seven and nine last year. It wasn't like they were two and 14. They, and they, seven to nine where they lost, they had some dumb losses. Yeah. Terrible time management at the end and they rattled off wind.

So the chargers, they'll be good. They'll be better. Um, but I think it comes down to the Ravens and the Steelers as Superbowl teams. And the question is whether you're banking on those two quarterbacks can Ben, I can't, you're not getting me there with Ben. I'm not going there. I'm not doing it. All right. Make the case. I'm not doing it, but make the case. All right. Took this contract where he gave

the team back some money and basically is like, I'm all in for this year. If you guys are all in for me, got his guy as the offensive coordinator. Now, Matt Canada is the offensive coordinator. He was the quarterback's coach last year and spent decades in college. He runs all that pre snap motion stuff. He runs a lot of creative stuff. He's got this entire offense that Ben has not operated yet. And you might say, whoa, slow down. You don't need that. It's going to make it easier on Ben. They also have Najee Harris, who in fantasy football, we could talk about what Najee's going to be.

Trust me, the way that they were talking about Najee Harris before the draft, they were so excited about him. It was the one player that I could say, they're taking Najee Harris if he's on the board. They did. Tomlin loves him. They love him. He is going to be a huge upgrade from the running game last year.

Can they block for him though? That's the, that's the big question. Is it going to be one of those things where he's just taking down three guys every time? That's the question. And they put an emphasis on it. Look,

we know that Pouncey's gone. Phil Noweva's gone. They lost a lot of key players, but they, they brought in some new guys. Trey Turner's one of them. They've got a lot of veterans and I'm banking on the offense being good enough and that defense being one of the best in the entire league

with Minka and TJ Watt and Devin Bush healthy and all the boys up front with Cam Hayward and, of course, Steven Tuitt and the rest. So I think the Steelers are going to be really good this year. I think Tomlin has them dialed in to the point where, same thing as Seattle, no one's talking about us. No one's believing in us. Guess what? We won the freaking division last year.

It didn't end the way we wanted, but we won that division last year. When was the last time they won a playoff game? It's been a while. It's been a while. You know what they're over under us in FanDuel? Double digits? Eight and a half. Get out of here. That's the Steelers. Tomlin's never missed. So basically,

they go nine and eight. You win your bet. Tomlin's never missed. So basically, if they go 9-8, you win your bet. Tomlin has never gone below 500 in 15 years. It's just not happening and I don't see it happening. Well, playoffs is plus 170. So just to make the playoffs

plus 170, the schedule is brutal. And I think that's part of why I was looking at the Chargers versus Ravens or Steelers. Because, I mean, I'm just going to read it. At Bills week one.

Okay. Yikes. Probably a loss. Raiders-Bengals home. And then at Packers, home Broncos, home Seahawks Sunday night. So, pretty brutal start. Then it finishes. Home Ravens. At Vikings on a Thursday night. Home Titans brutal start. Then it finishes home Ravens at Vikings on a Thursday night,

home Titans at Chiefs, home Browns at Baltimore. Those are their last six games. This is a team that completely died. I know fell apart the last four weeks. So that that's why I just can't get there with them, but I can't really get there with Baltimore either. I might have a seven team circle. I don't give you an eighth, maybe Tennessee. Make the case for the defense. Cause I, the defense was so bad last year.

It really was new defensive coordinator and Shane Bowen. He comes in and I didn't first year guy. I don't know if that's the reason why you would pick them, but just that their offense is really good that they had a bad year last year. Vrabel's got too much pride for this team to just be a team. No Arthur Smith. No Arthur Smith.

So Todd Downing's a new... How many miles on Derrick Henry the last two years? He's like a car that they're just driving back and forth cross-country for two straight years, basically. I worry about him staying healthy. Add Julio, Tannehill. What are they adding with Julio? They're adding nine games and seven on the IR?

What are we adding? I can't figure out who's going to win that division. I have a bet on Jacksonville, like 10-1 to win the division just for the hell of it. Just in case it's like 8-9 wins the division. We were texting about this. I think Colts are kind of sleeper or sneaky. You're just, you can't get out.

Wentz is just tough for you, huh? Well, maybe it's not Wentz though. Yeah. Maybe it's Jacob Eason. Eason or Sam Ellinger. Well, you know, part of the problem

with the Colts is they don't have, they're not going to have Wentz the first month, right? No, he might play, dude.

You think he could play? Okay. Yes. Because they have, week one, he might be all right. They play the AFC East and the NFC West this year.

They go Seahawks Rams first two games it's tough and then Titans week three at Dolphins at Ravens

those are their first five so if they don't have Wentz and that's Jacob Beeson could be 0-5 I I gotta I'm really monitoring the Chargers

cause I think they have a lot of talent and if they figure out their offensive line, you mentioned all the assets they added, but if they can figure out just five guys, and then you think... Derwin James comes back. They're good.

They're good. And then the Herbert leap, right? The year two of a potential superstar QB, that jump is in the year two. That should be something. What about Eckhart, too? They're talking about Eckhart is going to be like. That should be something. But what about Eckler too? They're talking about Eckler is going to be like McCaffrey, basically.

I mean, here's the thing with Austin Eckler. Love the guy. Had a great year when Melvin Gordon was out. It's not like this guy, it's not Walter Payton back there. And everyone's telling me, Eckler, Eckler, Eckler. Like, let's see it first.

Let's see it in the full-time role. You know, like Arizona Cardinals. Anything for you? I can't get there with Cliff after last year, some of the coaching malpractice. And then the Kyler Murray thing, it's can he play 17 games? Because he made it like seven last year.

Yeah. And especially like how much his legs were so important to his success the first two months. If we're going to remove that in some way, I didn't feel like he had a plan B at all. Terrible division. Dolphins, I can't get there with Tua. He's going to have to prove it to me.

I'm not against it. I just, I need to see it. Show it to me for a month. They're really excited down there. I mean, He had a good preseason. Yeah, and the argument is like, Chan Gailey was their offensive coordinator

last year. And that's Ryan Fitzpatrick's guy. And Tua was running an offense that wasn't, it wasn't built for him necessarily. He gets in there now and it's Studsville and it's Godsey. And I'm not sorry. And it's Studsville and it's, why am I going blank on? I said, George Godsey. I think that is who it is. And the two of them are co-coordinators and it's like an offensive game plan built around Tua's skillset. And Tua's always won wherever he's been. If you're in on Tua, you know that you're going to be relevant because last year they won 10 games with Fitzpatrick. I don't think I'm in on Tua is the issue. I'm going to guarantee the Pats have at least one

more win than the Dolphins. Okay. All right. I'm in there for guarantees. I think I'm going with a seven-team circle and I'm leaving the eight-seed blank for the Pats, Chargers, Ravens, Steelers.

We didn't really talk about the Ravens. That's another one where I feel like I've seen the movie a couple times. But great in the regular season. You're talking win totals.

I know. Great in the regular season. Other than Dobbins, what skills guy on that team do you love? Andrews, I guess. It's not. Andrews is great tight end. Do you love a single receiver that they have?

No. They bring in Sammy. And think of all the equity they've spent on receivers. I know. Like first and second picks. I know. And I just don't trust any of them. It's not their offense.

You know what I'm saying? Like they don't need that. They don't need Bateman to go nuts. They need a couple of big plays from Hollywood. And when Bateman gets healthy, you get him there and Sammy, that's three receivers that are serviceable. But that offense is going to be all about Lamar Jackson,

two fullbacks, three tight ends, J.K. Dobbins, and they're going to just win games by time of possession and just running the ball. I do love Dobbins as a fantasy guy. All right, I'm going with a seven team circle. Here are my seven. Casey, Buffalo, Cleveland, Tampa,

Seattle, Rams, Green Bay, and we'll leave the eighth spot open. I'm going to say put Pittsburgh in there, and I will just throw another wildcard team out there for you to think about based on the coach alone. Do the Saints not stand a chance if good Jameis shows up this year? No, I'm not putting Jameis in the circle.

Jameis, well, listen, the circle isn't exclusive. It's not like the Soho house where it's like membership only. You can play your way in the circle. No, I get it. But going into the thing, I'm only going seven.

Some favorite bets. Bill's Rams was 47 to one on FanDuel to win the Super Bowl. Brown's Rams was 60 to one. Pat's Rams was 120 to one on FanDuel to win the Superbowl. Like Browns Rams was 60 to one. Pat's Rams was 120 to one. The, uh, the Browns to win the AFC is plus seven 50.

There's a bet where the bills and the bucks each over 11 wins. Both of them have to go 12 and five or better. Both. I like that. Plus two 30. I like that. I thought that was good. I was trying to figure out how

could that get fucked up and it's basically Josh Allen getting hurt. Yeah, but the thing is the Trubisky, that is the rare case of like, no, I like when teams sign backups that make sense for their team where it's not like Joe Flacco replacing Jalen Hurts.

You know? Mariota is there and then you're going to sign Tannehill because if Mariota goes down, Tannehill can do what. You know? It's the, you know, Mariota is there and then you're going to sign Tannehill because if Mariota goes down, Tannehill can do what Mariota does. It's that same thing.

It's, yeah, Lamar goes down. Okay, we had, they had Robert Griffin because he runs a similar offense. It doesn't have to blow up the whole thing.

Like that's, it's a smart play that way and that is what that is. Trubisky looked good in a preseason game. I know we all roll our eyes, but he was the number two overall pick.

New situation. If he had to go in, I don't think they'd have this massive drop-off and miss the playoffs. Tannehill's success in Tennessee makes it at least not completely insane that Trubisky might be okay in Buffalo

with an incredible offensive coordinator and a lot of weapons. And an offense built for him. A couple more. We mentioned the Lions is four to one. You had the Jets. They're only two to one. And then the Bengals were 11 to one. I think the Bengals are a sleepy worst record team because- I love that topic. A sleepy worst record team. A sleepy worst record team. Have you read one thing about Chase that made you think, oh my God, this guy...

It's like the opposite of all the Waddle stories. The Chase stuff makes me nervous. It seems like T. Higgins is going to be their number one guy. Burrow coming off the knee injury, which that's always a nightmare. And then, like, I honestly, I think they should have drafted Sewell.

I just would have. I just would rather have... Sewell's been terrible too this preseason. Oh, has he? All right. They shouldn't have drafted him. I don't know about Zach Taylor, but I just think that team might be a mess. I don't think they're going to the playoffs this season. I don't think they're winning any division titles. I think they'll be improved if Burrow's on the field. That guy's awesome. He's awesome. I know he's coming off an injury, but a lot of quarterbacks have come off

an injury. And I think Chase will be fine. It's preseason. He's had drops. It's not like he doesn't know the route tree. He's just had a couple drops in the games. I'm a little worried. All these receivers are going to be awesome. There's going to be at least one oh-go out of all these dudes. Because it seems like Waddle's going to be awesome. If he stays on the field, he's going to be awesome.

I love Waddle, and he's going to return punts and kicks, too. He's going to be electric. Devontae Smith will be great too. The Jets thing, I want, you know, this is not a negative on what they've got going on. They're not going to be good this year. So it's just like, I want to tell Jets fans this, like cold water, whatever it is,

Wilson has a lot of things going for him. He's going to be awesome in the future. They know internally, this is not built for 2021. This is built for 2022. They're going to build and see what they are. But that roster is just not going to be able to compete with the AFC's best teams just yet. That's just what it is.

They're too young. It's fair. Pats to make the playoffs is plus 125. By the way, people listening, I'll have lots more as we get closer because this is the key week for the preseason where I just think a lot of info really starts coming out. We start finding out like,

oh, this guy actually isn't going to be able to help as much as we thought. This guy might be amazing, et cetera, et cetera. We didn't talk about teams that might make the leap. Yep. And this is something I've been obsessed with really since when I had my football column way back when, always trying to figure out who is the breakthrough team.

Now it's become a science. Everybody and every people use the Pythagorean formula and injury luck and all this shit. And everybody kind of knows who the teams are. And it's the usual suspects, right? It's like Atlanta, it's Denver, it's San Francisco. I always look at it like who can be a plus six from the year before, right? So if it's like

a team that was four and 12, can they get to 10 wins? Like Jacksonville, I think could be a plus six and they might, they'd still be under 500. I just keep coming back to the Falcons.

I've been looking at them since last spring. What do you like about the Falcons? Arthur Smith. Okay. Incredibly bad since last spring. What do you like about the Falcons? Arthur Smith. Okay. Incredibly bad luck last year. Yep. I think the Julio thing,

there's some Ewing theory possibilities with him because it's like, oh my God, they lost Julio. It's like, all right, well, how many Super Bowls did they win with Julio? Oh, zero. Okay. And it's like, who's their running back? I don't know.

Mike Davis, I'm sure it'll be fine. Like Mike Davis, he'll be that guy that he goes way too late in your fan. The fantasy football guy, the show that we had, uh, on the ringer show, they did a good job of breaking down the Mike Davis thing. He's going to play all the time. He'll put up stats, Ridley gauge pits, good receivers. And then, you know, relatively easy schedule there. There's a bet for them.

You can bet them second place. in the NFC South. So you're picking them against the Saints and the Panthers, essentially. Plus 250. Second place exactly. Falcons get a wild card plus 340. So I think the two teams that you're talking about, like the jump teams, would be Carolina or Atlanta, and you have to pick which one you think. Carolina? How come? Carolina has Christian McCaffrey, maybe the best player on offense in football, coming back full strength. Second year with Matt Rule.

It's non-COVID offseason. And an upgraded quarterback. They think Darnold is better than Bridgewater. So all those things, plus the defense coming together last year down the stretch, I don't think Carolina is going to be challenging for any division titles, but couldn't they be better than Atlanta?

Sure. Is Darnold an upgrade over Teddy Bridgewater? I think he is. Did we decide that? I don't know. I don't know if I think that. I think that. Well, one thing with them,

they play AFC East, NFC East. So the NFC South teams, I want to play the NFC East. I think the NFC East is going to be terrible again. I don't get the Dallas thing at all. Dallas is at all. Like Dallas, Dallas is over under. It's like people are on drugs.

Dallas is over under is nine and a half. They'd have to go 10 and seven for you to win that. We have no idea if Dak has 200 throws at him this year. Not to mention,

is their defense going to be good? What are we getting from Zeke Elliott? What is that team? They were 6-10 last year. I don't know if you had a chance to watch it while you were out, but did you watch the first two? Do you feel better about the Cowboys after hard knocks

or worse? It's one of those deals where I'm watching it and I'm like, all right, okay. I think so. Dak seems like a great leader and he's a stud as far as a human being goes. I'm with you on this one. I don't know what to make of Dallas.

I told you earlier in the offseason, I'm in on the Giants this year. I feel like this is the make or break year for a lot of the folks. The quarterback, the head coach has to prove that he's got it going on in this market

where it's cutthroat as ever. And Saquon's coming back and he's going to have a contract looming in the distance. So I feel like the Giants might be a sleeper team out of the NFC East more than the Dallas Cowboys. I don't love the Saquon piece of it. I don't blame you.

I see him going really high in fantasy lists and stuff, which I'm just confused by. I mean, when did he tear his knee? Wasn't that the end of September last year. It hasn't even been a year. I think it was week two or three last year. It makes me nervous. I don't know.

How long do you need? Like, I feel like Adrian Peterson, like turned his around. These guys do it now. And it's not fair. He's been there. He's a free plus,

plus one 30 for the division. I like that. They have, they play the AFC West and the NFC South. Here's the thing. They play the, they're at Washington week two.

And I think if they win that game, I'd immediately be like, Giants win the division. Here we go. Week two. I feel like it's between them and Washington. Right?

Because Fitz will be fine. Fitz will be better than what they had last year. And their defense is still going to be really good. The Ron Rivera, there's some weird Ron Rivera stuff this year when his relationship with the team and some of the stories that came out. And, you know, I think out of all the COVID storylines, that's the one that I thought was the most alarming just for how it could affect the season where he's rightly saying like, hey, I could really get sick here.

If you guys cared about me and then we have, it becomes a thing. It's just, I don't like that whole angle at all with them. It makes me nervous. I don't want to talk too much on it, but he did. He's basically telling his guys like, I'm a cancer survivor. I need you to get the vaccine he brought in one of the scientists who helped create the

vaccine and happens to be an African American doctor and was talking to the African American players like look I don't know what to tell you it's the vaccine and some of these guys are just like I just don't feel comfortable with it so he Mike Zimmer a lot of these guys were very vocal and pushing but I also know a lot of these guys are just like, I just don't feel comfortable with it. So he, Mike Zimmer, a lot of these guys were very vocal and pushing, but I also know a lot of these guys are like, all right, that was for May to August. I made my effort. I made, let's go play football. And now it's time, you know, and I don't think there's any conflict or ill will towards the coach. And I think Washington's defense might be lights out. I just have so many questions about that offense. I just don't know if they're going to be able to put up enough points

to win too many games. Hot take. Is it possible they have the two best guys in the division, Chase Young and Antonio Gibson? You love Antonio Gibson? I do. I do. I fucking love Antonio Gibson.

I love that. I love him. I had him on one of my teams. Thanksgiving Day, just another touchdown? He was a beast, and they couldn't even block for him and he had no quarterbacks. And he was like watching like the most awesome high school player on a high school team.

Just like pulling yards out of his ass left and right. By the way, you asked me a question about, did Hard Knocks make me like Dallas less? I have an announcement to make. I quit on Hard Knocks last year. Why? No, I'm in on Hard Knocks. I do one of these podcasts for them.

No, I get it. We're HBO guys. We love podcasts. I know. No, no, no. I love the franchise. Incredible respect for it. I just feel like I've been watching it for 20 years.

There are no surprises left for me with it. Get back in. It's a lot like The Bachelor where I'm just like, I kind of know all the beats now. I get it. So, I'm not saying

that the show's bad or anything like that. I just feel like I've taken hard knocks for me personally as far as I could go with it. Let me make the pitch for this season.

Okay. Whereas we know the beats traditionally and it's the seventh wide receiver trying to make the team and all this stuff. Yeah.

This year, they're basically like, we're going to play the hits. It's stuff. This year, they're basically like, we're going to play the hits. It's Dak, it's Zeke, it's Micah Parsons, and it's Mike McCarthy.

And it's like, these guys are all under the fire. Let's go. That's pretty good. And we're seeing Dak go through, which from afar, we're all trying to speculate. And it's like,

all right, Hard Knocks comes out on a Tuesday night and we see exactly what Dak is doing and how he's doing it. So I'm going to make the case for it. But I understand.

That's fair. It's tough. All these guys are on Instagram. All these guys are on Twitter, and there's 24-7 coverage. It used to be like, oh my God, did you hear what Rex Ryan said mic'd up? We get it every day now. I get it. Hard Knocks led to the first real fight I had behind the scenes at ESPN.

Let me hear. Story time. It was the Baltimore season. Okay. The first season ever. This was when the writing was so traditional back then. There was nobody doing what I was doing. And then eventually Bloggin came in. So it was just chock full of stuff for me to make fun of. And I remember Brian Billick in the hammock reading like success is a choice. And I, I, I just wrote like a really funny piece about how ridiculous the show was. It made fun of a bunch of stuff and they cut like a whole bunch of stuff out. And it's like, well, Brian Billick might be a TV guy someday for us. So you can't make fun of them. And I'm like, wait a second. What? And we just went back and forth the whole weekend. And that was what my life was back then, just fighting for jokes for the dumb hardback thing. Did we answer the question about who the leap team is?

I have the Falcons. Who do you have? Giants. So you have Carolina. Giants. Carolina or the Giants? You have the Giants. Giants.

Over Carolina. Yeah. I mean, somebody's going nine and eight in that division. Yeah. I mean, somebody's going 9-8 in that division. Yeah. Look, if Dak's healthy, sure, we could say they've got CeeDee Lamb who might be the best receiver in football this year. And there you go.

There's your team. But I don't know. Giants seem complete to me. If Joe Judge is what I think he is, they're going to win games this year. Dallas not to make the playoffs, plus 128. Giants to win the division, plus 130. Washington to win the division, plus 260.

And then Philly, who I think is going to... I'm just not sold on the coach. The coach QB combo is one of my least favorites. And then their first seven games are just brutal. It's Falcons 49ers Cowboys Chiefs Panthers Buccaneers

Rams we got a gift and I don't know if anyone's beyond the Philly market but like this Sirianni is a fantastic quote

a fantastic press conference guy between him and Dan Campbell we got gifts this offseason they are both going to be great

great entertainers I don't know if their teams are going to be any good but they will be wonderful at the press conference every week I can't. I don't know if their teams are going to be any good, but they will be wonderful at the press conference every week. I can't wait.

I can't wait. We need it. You lost your guy, Nate Burleson. Ah. It's like the end of Shawshank, only there might not be a beach hug. I mean, all right. So he's been on ours with you, Nate and Kyle and Kay,

five years. Five years. This guy's in your life when you're like five in the morning, 5.30 in the morning. Share a dressing room with him. We watch literally, we watch Everybody Loves Raymond every morning together on the TV. It's on TBS at five in the morning.

That's what we watch to get ready for the show. We're not doing all 22 film, I'll tell you that. Nick certainly isn't. But he's one of my best friends, and he announced that he's leaving to go to the CBS morning show. And you cannot begrudge someone for taking that leap and doing it. But I'm busting his balls this entire week. I'm like, are you excited to talk about Kabul and Afghanistan? He couldn't say no. It's a great opportunity for him and his exposure.

And obviously they'll pay him more, but gosh, I will miss him. And we haven't found a replacement yet. I'm sure they're working on it. That's not my job. But Nate leaving is a major blow. And you've had this when you left ESPN for doing your own thing. Like you leave these guys and like because of contractual reasons,

you can't work with them. It's sad. You love these guys and gals. The people that you... We built this show together and Nate and I have like inside jokes that have 13 levels that we just have a text chain with. And I don't know, it's sad, but it was the time for him and eventually he was going to move on. And at least he's going up and he's not going down.

That makes me happy. Yeah. It seems like he's ascending. Do you know what? There's non-sports stuff that he can be tapping into here. The irony of it is this, and you'll appreciate this because of how these things work out, and it's kismet and it's whatever, but for the NFL schedule release, they were like, we're going to go all out this year. We're going to put Strahan on Fox,

and we're going to put Al Michaels and Tirico on today's show, and on Good Morning America, it's going to be whoever, Randy Moss, Al Michaels and Tariko on, on today's show and on good morning America, it's going to be whoever Randy Moss and, and on the CBS show, we're going to put Nate Burleson on that CBS morning show for a day to talk about the CBS schedule. So he missed our show on May 14 to go do their show. And of course, Nate is like the most electric magnetic guy. I don't know what the temperature is usually on the CBS morning show. I don't watch it. And he comes in and he wows them and they're like, wait a second, wait a second. What is this? And this guy's got great energy and he's smart and he's funny. And you know, some guys are undeniable in the room and Nate can literally do anything he wants. So I blame

ourselves for putting Nate on the CBS. You don't let him do that. You keep them in a bubble wrap on our set and you let them do it from there. But there you go. So when's the last show? Friday? Friday. This Friday, his last show with us.

And then he'll pop in here and there during the season, I think, on Fridays and do stuff on the mofo for us. Do you cry? Kyle cries? What happens? Are there tears? Kyle's more the emotional type. Kyle might break into tears.

I'm very interested on the... I don't know. It's the last show that Nate's going to be in that chair. And we've had so many hilarious moments and life moments. I had a kid. Nate was sitting next to me when my son was born. All that stuff. And then he's going on to join Gayle King and whoever else and talk about hurricanes and tornadoes and kids and vaccines. Hey, Nate, good luck, buddy.

I mean, I'd rather talk about Chubba Hubbard and the, and the Panthers running backs, but that's what he's doing. But yeah, it's going to be emotional out there. I think it will. Yeah.

I had that when I left with Jalen and Jacoby and, and wilds were just three people that were in my life all the time. And then suddenly they weren't, you know, happy for them. You're still friends and texts, but it's just like, you realize like, oh man, we did a shitload of stuff and Connor too. But, um, it's just like these people that are in your life for years. And then all of a sudden the switch gets flipped. And, you know, you and Connor go to war for 30 for 30 and you have all those stories. And then you get out of it on the other end and you're like, it was brutal in the moment, but holy shit, was that fun. We're up at 4.30 in the morning every day for five years of our life

on these conference calls. And all four of us, we get along really well. But Nate, the inside jokes, they go so deep and we've gone out crazy nights in New York City, like fun times. And it's, it's crazy Thursdays during this season, we will be doing million dollar picks. We'll be going for like, you know, that'll be a solid 45 to an hour. We'll really go deep and we're going to try to see how high we can get that dollar figure, hopefully, and we'll have some good insights,

all that stuff. I'm looking forward to it. Schrager, great to see you as always. Great to see you. Thanks for having me on, dude. I loved it. All right. My daughter, Zoe, is here. We're doing an end of the summer team patrol. It's a big week in our house because Zoe hopefully will get her driver's license this week. She has the big test. It's been an odyssey.

You failed your permit test at one point. We talked about that on Parent Corner. Sorry about that. Thank you for reliving that so everyone can be reminded about how I filled my permit test. Not like I'm embarrassed about it at all. Well, then you passed it. So that was good. And now tomorrow you're going to pass. You've been driving us around. It's great. And I just feel like it's going to be like sending a bird out. Sending a bird off to the world. You're going to be horrified every second. What do you even mean? So you're going to be driving to get iced coffee. You're driving to see your friends. What else are you going to be doing? Life is going to change. I'm going to be driving to get iced coffee. You're going to be driving to see your friends. What else are you going to be doing? Life is going to change.

I'm going to be driving to do some drugs in a dark alley. Oh my God. I'm going to hang myself. So we're going to go through the summer. And then really what we're going to do is talk about Outer Banks, which you bullied me into watching. And then on Hawaii, I somehow ended up watching 20 episodes of it. And I'm going to give, we're going to do a recap of the most improbable

moments in Outer Banks. That's coming up at the end of this. So if you liked Outer Banks, stick around, but we're going to go through the summer. So some of the bad stuff from the summer, Billie Eilish's album was disappointing. It was a lot of hype, and then it kind of came and went. What happened? I would say it's more than disappointing. As everyone knows, I'm a huge Billie Eilish stan, and just because I did not like her album does not mean I don't support her as a person. But the direction her music has gone into is kind of spiraled out of control, and I'm just not enjoying it. Every song on her album sounded exactly the same. There was no diversity or anything throughout the album. And I just wasn't excited by any of it.

It just was kind of depressing. And it wasn't, it might've been the wrong time to release it when we're in summer and we're all happy and we're about to start school. And it's like this exciting moment. And she releases this album that's like all wah, wah, you know? And about her like struggles with fame and being a superstar. Not really relatable. No, it's not relatable for someone like me. And I feel like her music before, she was all famous and these were her big problems.

It was a lot more relatable because she'd be talking about teen girl struggles more so. And now she's talking about famous super person struggles. Yeah, which someone who's famous might relate to, but not someone like me. So I just, I didn't connect with the album. I was disappointed by it.

And then Olivia Rodrigo, who kind of took her spot and became the biggest new star of the year. But then now it's been oversaturated. Now you're kind of out on her too. I mean, I haven't listened to her album Sour in at least a month, which is a lot for me because I like to replay music. I like to listen to music over and over

again. And I loved her album at first. You remember, that's all I would play in the car. Yeah. And I still love it and have a great appreciation for it. But this always happens with these internet stars and these new people that are in our realm. They get played, everyone's obsessed, it gets hyped up, and then it just keeps playing until you hear it. And you're like, can we please turn that off? Well, it seems like there's no mystery with your generation. You can find out everything you'd ever want to find out about anyone you like. You can listen to all their music on demand and you can kind of just rip through somebody in three months and then you kind of spit them out and you go on the next person. Yeah. And I mean, I don't know if I like that. I don't either because there's,

you're right. There's no, there's no secrecy. What's kind of relationships are like that. Yeah. I was about to say that. You have a lot of access to whoever you like. You can FaceTime. Yeah. It's all out in the open and then there's nothing left to find out. That's how I'm feeling with Olivia right now. Yeah. Sorry, Olivia. Well, Kissing Booth 3 came out on Netflix. If I had told you a couple of years ago, there Olivia right now sorry Olivia well Kissing Booth 3 came out on Netflix if I had told you a couple years ago there's going to be a third Kissing Booth you'd be like oh my god nobody even cared this time

you didn't even watch it yet everyone was afraid of it if I'm being honest Joey King got absolutely brutalized in the first one when the second one came out like people really just went at her I'm surprised that she even decided to do the third one. I think contractually she had to, I guess,

but they were really, really mean to her. These haters, just bullying. And Noah too. Noah took some stuff too. Right. Or Jacob,

Jacob. Yes, Jacob. But he didn't, he didn't get as much as Joey King did. It was rough. Poor Joey. So that happened.

Then Grey's Anatomy, which you, you stayed loyal the 15 seasons, 15 seasons. And then if I, I don't know what happened, but you were like, I that happened. Then Grey's Anatomy, which you stayed loyally 15 seasons. 15 seasons. And then I don't know what happened, but you were like, I'm out. This show is stupid.

It got so bad. Every good character got kicked off the show and it was just left with all these scummy people and then Meredith Grey. And that was really it. Well, now season 19, she's going to be dating the dad from the OC. So good luck.

18, whatever. And then Kanye, you and Ben were all excited for Kanye's new album to come out. And then he's basically been teasing everybody for a month and it still hasn't come out. Yeah. He's been saying, Donda's coming. Good. Donda's coming tonight.

And then everyone's like, oh my God, Donda's coming out tonight. Like staying awake until midnight to listen to Donda. You know, your son a few weeks ago stayed up till 12 because he thought it was getting released. And then he was like, okay, let's wait another hour and see if it gets released. Did not get released. And that went on until 5 a.m. And he was like, OK, I'm going to bed. I like how you said he stayed up till 12. He's up till like three every day. What are you talking about? He's always stayed up to 12.

All right. So those were the bad things from the summer. The good stuff, your show, The Four Freak Show, came back. Yeah, The Four Freak Show. We've covered this before. Just a group of teenagers who do Zoom meetings and put on these characters. They disappeared. There might have been some cancellation issues with a couple. Which were on the bad part of the cancel culture thing. I think that was really stupid, what they got canceled for. Anyways, they disappeared off the face of the planet. A few TikToks here and there from them, but really just it quieted down.

And now they're back. They posted their first video all back together. And it just felt so reminiscent. It was a wonderful feeling. Congratulations. So you have them back. You fell in love with La La Land, the movie. Oh, I'm so late to the train.

When did La La Land come out? Like 2017? Yeah, it was involved in probably the train. When did La La Land come out? Like 2017? Yeah, it was, it was involved in probably the biggest Oscars scandal we've ever had. I remember. And I was so upset because I hated it. And then I rewatched it on a plane, cried for about an hour and a half afterwards. You cried. You're like a cyborg. I've never seen you cry over TV or movies or anything. I was really upset. And now I listen to the soundtrack every day and it's, it's just, it's a great thing. There you go.

The pandemic's really wreaking havoc in our house. I made my first TikTok, which was a great thing for your summer. This was the highlight of my summer, guys, because we know my obsession with TikTok. I opened my For You page. I see a DM from MrBS33. And I'm like, okay, what the F is this? And he's like, look at my TikTok. So I was like, okay, this is going to be great.

And I open it and your TikTok was like one of those old men who are really creepy who don't know how to use their phone correctly. No, but that was

the point of the TikTok. I tried to make it creepy but then it wasn't creepy. It was terrifying. Yeah. It was wonderful though. I mean, it was just it made me happy

to another level. I was really happy I impressed you. You have some daily vloggers you like. So you're watching like back to school daily vloggers and makeup daily vloggers. Who are the daily vloggers? I'm trying to get back into the school groove after being on a very lax summer. Yeah.

So I've been watching Miss Remy Ashton, Alicia Marie, Caroline Manning, like a bunch of different people who are just, the two of them are older and they're just doing their back to work vlogs. They're getting ready for Halloween. And then I watch a few teenagers who prepare themselves for their high school days, which I need because I'm not used to waking up early in the morning, et cetera. So I'm just getting in the mood for school. Check them out if you want that. All right. A couple of trends tips you flagged for us. Yeah. First one, this whole 2021 internet famous people, people who became famous on TikTok or whatever other platform for doing dumb dances or whatever, are now trying to cross

over. We've seen it work in boxing. We are not seeing it work in music. People are trying to host things. So people are now using TikTok as a music people are trying to host things wait is it so people are now using tiktok as a platform to spin off into other things what's going on they're using they're using tiktok as like their homeland their base right and then from that they're trying to get promoters other creators to become interested in them so then they can enter new realms of the

internet and it's commonly it's through music. Like people like Nessa Barrett, Nass Lewis, et cetera, like Addison Rae, they're all making this music, which is trash for the most part. Nessa Barrett has a few good songs just about ex-boyfriends, et cetera. But I mean, they have a really wide viewing age, which is like from what, eight to 12, really?

And these are the people who just chew up stuff like this on the internet. So their music's getting a lot of attention. I don't know if it's rightfully so. But yeah, they're trying to cross over. But we won't be telling our grandkids about it. No, no one's going to be talking about Nessa Barrett's song in 10 years. But the 12-year-olds are loving it right now.

And you know what? If they're finding out what works for them to get all over the internet even more, then good for them. But it's interesting how music used to be so sentimental to people. And it's like, this really came from the heart and this is what they wanted to do all their lives. And you're speaking like you're true through music. And now it's just, it feels like music is, what's the word? It's a gateway. It's like, it's not being used for true love or like passion that you have for it. It's just kind of being used to get more famous which is upsetting to me that sounds like our culture

in general yeah another so you like clero is oh clero yes tell us my favorite right now clero is i found her on tiktok originally just her music being in the background of some videos and i'm like dang i really like this it's kind of an indie vibe. Yeah. I would say, but very summery, very happy, great lyrics. And I've just, I looked her up on Spotify after hearing about her all over TikTok and she's legendary. Like I'm, I'm obsessed with her right now. All of her music, it speaks to someone like me, but it's just very happy, uplifting, just great music. I'm going to see her in concert, hopefully. Another TikTok thing. Cause we talked about Bo Burnham's comedy special, but then that had like this whole weird second life on TikTok. Yeah. So Bo Burnham's entire show came out. I

had not heard about it at all. And then on TikTok, there was a song about Jeff Bezos and I was like, holy shit, this is great. Like this is a bop. And I heard it and I'm like, oh my God, Bo Burnham, that's my guy. That's eighth grade. I love him. Yeah. We interviewed him. You did a podcast with him way, way back a few years ago. Great guy. But I heard that song and I was like, like, this is great. This is really funny. It's satire and people are using it in such interesting ways. And then I hear another song from him and it's just, it keeps coming and coming like white girls, Instagram, et cetera. And it's like, these are really, really funny songs. He's using this music type of crossover thing in a good way where he's actually taking his comedy and how he's a comedian, but he's

putting it throughout music. And now people are using it on TikTok. Digestible bites. Yeah, exactly. It's like, he's not giving too much. He's keeping kind of the mystery, which I enjoy. And he always has more to give. So love you, Bo Burnham. So he was a winner. Yeah, for sure. The show Never Have I Ever was your favorite. That was your favorite season of anything that came out this summer, right? Yeah. Well, I mean, Outer Banks. Well, we'll get to Outer Banks. But that doesn't count. Yeah. Never Have I Ever is great. I mean, I feel like some shows, especially nowadays with the writers,

are unrealistic because they'll either try to be too woke or too unwoke. And I feel like this had a good level of wokeness while also being realistic. Whereas it was showing teenagers in real environments, being in school, hanging out with friends at parties, etc. And some of this stuff was a little exaggerated, like the outfits. They can never figure out the

outfits in any of these shows they're always just bad and it's unrealistic so that that was a downside to this what was that there was another show you were going nuts about how bad the outfits were compared to what people would actually wear i don't know we talked about this before but it's just yeah these it's a recurring theme for you millennials or whoever writes these shows just don't understand the way that teenage fashion is in reality. So what's the biggest thing they're missing? It's just they're dressing us like we live in the 2000s, like the 2000s layered t-shirts and weird like shorts and skirts. It's just it's not realistic.

Like teenagers dress a lot more scandalous than they show on TV. And it's just it's weird. Or maybe that's just in California. I guess it might be just in California, but who knows? than they show on TV. And it's just, it's weird. Or maybe that's just in California. I guess. It might be just in California, but who knows. But this show's great. I truly love it. I hope it comes back for a season three.

And you like the Cruel Summer was another one you liked. Yes, Cruel Summer was great. But this was more of a murder mystery kind of downsider show. Like I felt kind of upset watching it the entire time. Yeah. But it also was a good show, good teenage show. Like, I felt kind of upset watching it the entire time. Yeah. But it, it also was a good show,

good teenage show, and I felt like they were a bit more realistic with their clothing choices. And you loved White Lotus as a lot of people did. Oh my God. White Lotus passed your test

of take, take me to a tropical location, preferably a resort. And a murder. Yeah, and a murder. It's the perfect show. It hit all of your,

all of your things. I really, I truly loved it so much. That might have been my show for the year. Season two. I liked that we watched it together. Yeah, we did.

We banned that one out. And then in terms of like teen trends, the biggest one that I've noticed this year that seems like it started in 2020, it might've been earlier, but these people who have parties where they have an Instagram account for the party. And then you either get followed and invited to the party, but then you might get

uninvited late and you just get unfollowed. And then that's it. You're out. Can you explain this whole thing? Cause I was super confused about it. It's weird. So you'll get a text from a friend on like a Thursday night and there'll be like request August party 2021 on Instagram. So I'm like, okay, I'll go look up. So it's like they create a private Instagram account for this party. Yes. And then you'll request the account. If you get accepted, then you're on the list. They'll post stuff like the address, what to wear, the theme, like, et cetera. Everything will be on the account. You can't see it unless you follow it. So if they let you follow, then you're like,

okay, I'm into the party. So then you kind of keep keeping tabs on it, like what you're supposed to wear, the address, et cetera, from whatever they post. But if you get kicked from the account, they can remove you as a follower. So then you just, the account disappears. You don't see it anymore. You're not going to the party. Well, couldn't you just go to the party anyway, or you're just not on the list? I mean, you could, but they usually have bouncers or people there that like have the list. Somebody with a party. And if you're not on the list, you don't get in. God, it's so different from when I was a kid. It's crazy. When I was a kid

you'd just be like, somebody's having a party. Yeah, but this is LA. Yeah, but this has happened in other places though, I think. Yeah, but I feel like LA is like the most prominent place that it's happening because there's so many different types of people. Like, we don't all live in one neighborhood. Everyone's from all over the place.

You got to drive around. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. It's still kind of disturbing. It is disturbing. You left your purse at a party. Okay. This weekend.

And that was, I guess we could do Parent Corner right now. Yeah. Top five maddest moms ever been at you. It was really bad. You just make a lot of rookie mistakes. I do. I'm not an OG partier. No, you're not street savvy enough yet.

We're trying to teach you how to become smarter and street savvy. I'm too trusting in the world. You're a nice person. I like to look at the best. This party has a hundred people at it. I'm just going to leave my purse in the front. Nobody's going to take that and all my stuff in it. By the way, we had to show our vax cards to get in just so no one clowns me.

Yeah. So how does COVID factor into all the party stuff? Not that you're like going to parties left and right. No. You've stopped by a few of them. This is outdoor as well. Just so everyone's aware. But the COVID thing is they'll just be like, you must show your proof of your vaccine card.

Like you need to bring it and show the bouncer or the host or whatever. And then for the most part, you'll be in. Most of my friends get tested before, including myself, just to make sure. You know, got to be COVID safe. And you're headed for junior year, which is the single worst year of high school. Everyone's been telling me this, and it just makes me more and more unexcited every time I hear it. But I also hear that it balances out with the social aspects.

So I feel like it should be all right. Well, you'll have a car. You'll get to drive around. My life is going to change if I get my license tomorrow. I'm praying to God. I really am. Please refer. All right.

It's time. Outer Banks. So I made my list. So Outer Banks, if you didn't watch the show, you can just stop listening right now. If you did watch the show, we're going to start a new segment that I'm going to call 12 Minute TV.

It's 12 Minute TV Recaps. When it gets to September, Amanda Dobbins and I are going to recap the morning show on Tuesdays every week. Oh. You got to watch the morning show. Catch up in time for season two. All right, I'll try. Yeah, you like kind of bad over the top television. Oh, you got to, you got to watch the morning show. Catch up in time for season two. All right. I'll try.

Yeah. You like, you like kind of bad over the top television. Oh, of course. You like Jennifer Aniston. You like Reese Witherspoon. What? Yeah. Yeah.

They're both on that show. I love them. All right. So Outer Banks season, it was described to me. I still was on the fence. And then Mally Rubin of the ringer who I love told me you should watch it. It's like the OC crossed with Fast and the Furious. And I was like, that's like a show that

I would like, so I'm going to watch it. Before you elaborate anymore, would you say that it is like the OC crossed with whatever you also mentioned? Fast and Furious? Yeah, Fast and Furious. Definitely there's DNA about it. Does it get that? Does it get to have? It steals from a lot of shows. It definitely is like

that guy Topper has been that's totally the guy in the OC. Yeah, that's been a million different characters. He's the guy I forget the blonde haired guy in season one of the OC

who was like the bad guy then became the good guy. But yeah, it's that karate kid Johnny Lawrence type. Yes, of course. They have that. They have the

the kid who's from the wrong the wrong side of the tracks or he's not he doesn't have what the wealthy side has and you end up rooting for him and then there's some class thing. Like they stole that from the OC with Summer and

Ryan. I made you watch season one of the OC. You did. And then I like that we go into a world, like I don't know that part of Carolina wherever it is. Yeah. I just don't know that area so you feel like you're in it. So I like that piece.

What's your favorite thing about it? Before we get to my things, I'm going to pick apart. I like that the entire cast is very attractive. Therefore, it's like it's enjoying to watch because it's like there's no one that's just kind of repulsive when you're watching the show.

It's just like, oh, there's another hot person coming in. And then it's just like, oh, there's no one that's just kind of repulsive when you're watching the show. It's just like, oh, there's another hot person coming in. And then it's just like, oh, there's another one. And then you're just kind of having a good time watching it. I like there's some bad acting, which I enjoy. I like the witty banner between the, what are they, the pooks? The pokes? The pokes and the kooks. The pokes.

I like that. They have like good sarcastic banter with each other. Especially season two. It got better. Yeah. I totally agree. I think that the pogue and kook thing is a little unrealistic.

Oh, to say the least. Just because it's like, what? But. I like that I could have it on the background as I prepared like all my football homework

for 2021. Like I was never totally watching it, but it was on and I could just look up when stuff was happening or there was a car chase. There's always something happening. That's a good thing. Like I was never totally watching it, but it was on and I could just look up when stuff was happening or there was a car chase. There's always something happening. That's a good thing.

Like it will keep you entertained even if it's unrealistic. Yeah, I would say it is the whatever this generation's kind of legacy of the 90210, OC,

Gossip Girl. It kind of led to whatever the hell Outer Banks is, which I think it's not the greatest show in the world. No, but it's very led to whatever the hell Outer Banks is, which I think it's not the greatest show in the world. No, but it's very enjoyable to watch. And it's very bingey where it's like,

you kind of want to stick around for whatever the next one is. Unfortunately, it's also ridiculous. Yes. It is in the running for most ridiculous shows I've ever watched. You don't remember 24, which was like 20 years ago. The 24 was like everything was in one day and it was this FBI agent who was basically trying to stop a terrorist attack.

So each episode was in real time and it would lead to like the season. It ended up getting more and more ridiculous. As time went on. And by season four, it's like there's a bomb in the White House. You lose plots at that point. You're like, what can we do from here

to make this entertaining? All right. So here, in no particular order, even though they kind of are in order, the most ridiculous things I watched during those two seasons of Outer Banks. Number one, Sarah, the lead actress. I knew this was coming.

She gets shot in the third episode of season two. She gets shot in the waist. It was like third or fourth episode by her brother accidentally, which is also funny. Doesn't realize she's shot right away and it seems like she's going to die. They race her in the Bahamas

to some weird doctor, this weird doctor character that emerges out of nowhere. It seems like she's dead. She is dead. The lead guy does JB. I call him JB, Jambi. He flips out. Oh my God, she's dead. She is dead. The lead guy does, does JB. I call him JB, Jambi. Jambi.

He flips out. Oh my God, she's dead. He's kicking stuff. And then she kind of comes back to life. Yeah. It's like, well, she'll be in the hospital for a week or so. Yeah, like recovering. If she literally, she flatlined.

And with my Grey's Anatomy knowledge, you can't really get up after a flatlining. Like that just doesn't, that's not the way it works. Yeah, You're being visited in the hospital for a few days. Yeah. At least. Well, she's back up an hour later and within two days, the gunshot wound, I guess just it healed itself. Did you buy some cream in the pharmacy? Like what happened? So there's, there's chase scenes with her, like two episodes later. She's running through the streets of Charleston with her gunshot wound. So I guess maybe they put

some Kleenex in it. Can I hit you with a theory right here? People think that and spoiler alert, the bandana around John B's neck, which his father gave to him, which he uses as like a reminder of his dad, whatever. People think that it's magical, the bandana,

and that when it touched Sarah Cameron, she came back to life. And people think that in later episodes, they're trying to find this cross that has this healing power inside of it that this older lady's trying to find as well who was feuding with the family who had the cross originally.

Super confusing, but she finds the cross, opens it, no healing power in it. People think that John B.'s bandana is what was missing from the cross, and that's the healing power thing. So that's how the gunshot wound healed in nine hours? That's just a conspiracy. There's no evidence towards that whatsoever.

Can you not get shot by a gun because it doesn't heal as fast as it doesn't? Stay away from bullets. Yeah, stay away from bullets. One of my advice is for you. Speaking of that, so season two starts with John B and Sarah have to escape. Yes. And they escape on a boat.

Everybody just has a boat available to steal at any point. Yeah. There's just always boats around with keys and they're nice. They're not like just speed boats. No, they're very nice They're really nice boats that you can like even sleep in and stuff. Giant hurricane come in. They have to get out of there. The police is looking for John B. He's been framed for a murder. They decide to go right into the hurricane. Just such a smart move, right? The boat flips and then it's like, oh, well they died. We wake up the next day and they're both hanging on

sides of the boat. So the boat flips, they have life jackets on, I guess. But then there's this massive hurricane. They somehow stay on the side of the boat. They get on the bottom of the boat. Actually, the boat completely flips over. That's what I mean. They're hanging to the bottom of the boat. Somehow in that point of where they lost consciousness after getting struck by a ginormous wave, they had time to swim on top of the boat and still survive the rest of the hurricane without a scratch. It was really something. There's another one where they leave the Bahamas and they end up in Charleston. Yes. And then at the same time the pokes are there the pogues the pogues the pogues are there the rest of the pogues squad you know there's a famous irish band

called the boat the pogues that jack really uh the pogues are there because they're going to see the evil cross lady yeah i don't know if she's evil or not she just really wants to crush she might be evil she's evil but then there's a whole chase scene with them and then john b and sarah are also getting chased she still has by different people by different people they she has the gunshot rune they just run into each other they just they magically run into each other sarah cameron and john b have a tandem bike which is so rare who whoever has a tandem bike with like another attachment on the back so people can sit just like the most. Sarah and John really needed that tandem bike for two people. But lo and behold, they run into the rest of the pokes.

Ridiculous. The odds were slim. So slim. Another odds being slim. Pope almost died. He got stung by a wasp. Yeah. By multiple wasps.

By multiple wasps. And he was dead. And then he came back to. By multiple wasps. And he was dead. And then he came back to life. Well, yeah. Allergic reaction. Allergic reaction. Went to JJ's sketchy, like, cousin's house. Right.

So they ripped off Pulp Fiction, a movie you've never seen. They do the adrenaline shot. And then he's, like, totally wired. Ends up crashing in a car. There's multiple car crashes on this show, too. That was ridiculous. They filmed Gavin's murder when Sarah's dad...

And somehow when they took that evidence to the police, no one believed them. Right. They filmed the murder. It's all going great. They're videotaping it. And then at some point, Kiara just decides to scream murderer at the guy. It's like, why? Why are you heckling

the murder? Like the guy's got a gun. What are you doing? So now they have to race out of there and they drop the camera and they ruin the evidence. Why would she scream murderer? It's like maybe litigate that later. I just she's known for screaming at the most horrible moments possible and always ruining everything. My hot take is Kiara's a liability. She's known for screaming at the most horrible moments possible and always ruining everything. Yeah, my hot take is Kiara's a liability. She'd be better off if she had the bullet. Maybe she's like, because she is a kook. She's the only one that's truly a kook.

She's like the mole. She's trying to sabotage them. Yeah, what if she is a sabotager? Listen, she did so many dumb things in season one and two that I wouldn't be surprised if she was the mole. She rides with the pogues, but maybe she is the mole. Maybe she's the mole. Ward's fake death. Ward is Sarah's dad, who one of the worst actors who's been on these shows in a while. He was on Jesse too. He played the dad in Jesse.

He fakes his own death on a boat in front of everybody. Then he just blows up. They blow up this beautiful boat. And this is how he commits suicide. And at no point does anybody look at each other and say, wait, are we sure he's dead? Did we find a body? Is there, why did he do that? Why didn't he just like shoot himself?

Like why the elaborate boat? Why did there have to be an explosion? Yeah, why? Just what happened there? No, Ward's dead. I can't believe my dad's dead. I didn't see it coming at all. I like, that was completely out of left field for me. That's like a soap opera. No, I saw a TikTok

which was like a video of the boat Sarah crying on the beach and then there was this like just video of Ward Cameron in a submarine. Well, shocker of shocker, he's alive in the last two episodes. Couldn't believe that. Not. Another one. John B.

got bit by an alligator, but it was a flesh wound. It's fine. It was the most aggressive bite I've ever seen an alligator, alligator give a person. And then he's fine. He's running around two, two seconds later. Also, what are the chances that they're like in this area? That's just completely dry. But then somehow it becomes an entire swamp when tide gets high.

Ridiculous. I just did not understand that. He bites it and say, no, no, I think it's just a flesh wound. It's like he, he bit your entire thigh. Like you have a ton of muscles there. Like I'm pretty sure something terrible happened. Um, so JB and Sarah, they go to the Bahamas after they escaped the hurricane. JB, I call him JB.

Okay. They go to the Bahamas and,amas and she uses her rich girl instincts. Yeah. Which I don't know how she figured this out, but she's like, we're just going to pretend we're staying here at the resort. I've been to a couple of these really nice resorts.

We've been fortunate enough to go. You could kind of fake it, but once it gets past 10 o'clock at night, you're not faking it. No. And then also it's like that Ocean's 8 moment where they take the stuff from the racks and they're like, I'm trying to return this, but I lost my receipt. And then they're like, you can't give it back. Then you take the purse. Yeah. It was like one of those moments. And then also unrealistic, they're sleeping on the roof and on lawn chairs. Like there's not

security everywhere in a nice hotel. They have cameras everywhere. It was ridiculous. And they're just navigating. They're just going to buffets. They're just really using the resort. In their dirty clothes. They rented a cabana. Yeah. They're wearing the same clothes for what? Eight days? Sarah Cameron wore the same t-shirt

for like seven episodes straight. Yeah. It's just disgusting. Ridiculous. Tough hygiene on this show. So we had that. We also, Kiara's parents,

we should mention. Oh, just the only parents that we really see in this show who seem to care about their kids. Yeah. And she should have been grounded 18 incidents and episodes ago. And every time they're like, last chance. But then they're all like. She steals their car.

Yeah. And crashes it. Yeah. And totals it. But like, worst parents maybe ever who actually seemed like they cared. They put her in her room and she just still gets out. Like, it seems like they should amp up the security at some point if she continuously sneaks out of the house.

Or she needs to go to like a mental hospital. It's like, maybe don't hang out with these kids that when you're hanging out with them, you're just getting shot at. I mean, it's just absurd. Terrible job by them. The unlimited access to nice boats. I don't know how it works with boats. I've never really been in the whole boat scene.

In like a harbor, I guess. Yeah, in the Carolina, who knows? But it's just like, I got a boat. But how do you turn that on without the keys? There's no way that there are keys lying around in every single boat on the harbor. I just don't understand it. I got two more. So

this is like four or five episodes in. JB's gonna go to a foster home, it looks like. John B. Yeah. And Sarah's dad, who at this point knows that, A, he's killed John B's dad. And then B, John B clearly knows something's going on with the maps.

With the gold. And instead of being like, you know what would be better off? This kid just goes to a foster home and he's never seen again. He's like, have a plan. I'm going to become your legal guardian. I'm going to get you closer.

Yeah, and I don't want you in her room after 9.30 at night. Like that would ever work. This is your plan, Ward? You moron. How did John B. not scope that one out in any way? Like the fact that it's weird that his girlfriend,

who's not really his girlfriend's dad. They were barely dating. They were on like two dates. And he doesn't accept a pokes, but somehow John B. is just, he's the exception. Yeah.

Oh, you've taken my daughter out for ice cream once? Come on and move in. I'll be your legal guardian. Absolutely ludicrous. And then, along those same lines, they shoot the police officer

who I liked. Yeah. The crazy brother shoots her. And then Ward and those guys try to frame JB for the murder. And then everybody just believes it. There's no witnesses.

It's an airplane runway. There's no witnesses. There's no cameras on the tarmac. Like, there's nothing. It's just, it's insanity. Honorary mention. I have one. I have one more big one.

But go with your honorary mention. Let me hear yours first. I'll save mine. So they end up in the Bahamas again. Yeah. On a boat as stowaways trying to get back the cross from Ward's boat,

now realizing Ward's alive. Who do they run into? The Bahamas girl with the bad accent from the first three episodes of season two just happens to be working on a different boat. They could have been any boat. And she's just like working on the kitchen crew there.

It's like, hey, you. What's up, Cleo? Nice to see you. This show has more I can't believe I just ran into you moments in two seasons than we've ever had ever. Agreed. Totally agreed. What was your honorable mention? My honorable mention was when JJ has the escape plan for John B in jail, when he goes to visit John B for some reason,

he's acting like an asshole and the police still let him in to go visit John B in a room where they aren't separated in any way they could touch. There was no officers or anything in the room. Yeah. They make this entire escape plan for John B. Where JJ is going to take his cousin's like emergency vehicle ambulance. And then John B. is going to fake having appendicitis. And then JJ is somehow going to be the ambulance that picks up John B. And they're going to escape. Completely ludicrous. John B. ends up getting beaten up by another inmate

that Ward Cameron pays a police officer to let them do. And J.J. ends up picking up a cancer patient from a hospital and having to try and actually get the cancer patient to a different hospital because he thinks that

he's the ambulance guy. Right. And on this show, the cancer patient, probably the cancer healed 10 minutes later and he was fine. He was probably playing flag football. He was just... The ambulance was ditched in the middle, the cancer patient, probably the cancer healed 10 minutes later and he was fine. He was probably playing flag football.

He was just, the ambulance was ditched in the middle of the street. And somehow the sick guy in the back just got the bum end. Yeah. It's fine though, because we had to advance the plot with the ambulance. Yeah, of course. This is ridiculous. I think Fast and Furious crossed with OC and then basically having a head injury would be my review. Having a head injury would be my review. Yeah. It's like,

it's a car accident where the show goes through the windshield and it's never quite the same, but it's still trying to, it can have a job like IQ standpoint, but that's it. I just was stunned by how dumb the show was. And I loved every minute of it. Exactly. Yeah. And I really appreciate you bringing it into my life. I can't wait for season three. You're welcome. What happens in season three? I think that we were, we were right on track with our, maybe Kiara being the mole of the group.

Oh, you like that theory. I do like that. I liked your magic, your magic hanky theory. Yeah. I mean, I feel like,

I don't know if it's, it's already a hokey show, but bringing in the magic might be a little sus, but we'll see. I think that. Well, this is a show with a giant gold cross. Yeah. magic might be a little sus, but we'll see. I think that- Well, this is a show with a giant gold cross. Yeah, that could be a possibility. Holograms.

Ward Cameron, I don't know what's going to happen with him if he's just going to keep isolating himself on that island with the rest of his family and Sarah Cameron somehow not going to rat them out. Yeah. I don't really get that part. Oh, we forgot to mention in Ridiculous Moments

when they broke into the Bahamas house and all the security came and they all somehow got away. Even though there's like 12 cops there. And yeah, John B, who has like an alligator bite, whatever, beats up four different cops who were trained for years. Ridiculous.

Worst characters, the stepmother wanted more from her. Yeah, she sucks. I feel like the other actress called in sick and they had to get that one. Yeah. And then I wanted more from the little sister. Oh, Wheezy? Yeah.

Like, can you be more sarcastic? Can you be like... Yeah, some sort of comedic relief. Or yeah, be either funnier or be a potential danger once you get older where you might actually be out going to parties. Like, I need some sort of vibe from you other than I just sit in my room and read a book. Yeah. Why are you on the show?

Totally agree. This is the most ridiculous show on the planet. Why do we need a normal character on it? No, I... She should have been like, had like a crystal meth lab in her bedroom or something.

The 11 year old? Are you insane? This is the dumbest show I've ever watched. Have her be up to something. She should be making moonshine in her bedroom or something. She should be up to something. Everyone on the show is up to something. I also think making moonshine in her bedroom or something. She should be up to something.

Everyone on the show is up to something. I also think Topper is a pretty terrible actor. Well, the thing with Topper is like, is he a good guy? Is he a bad guy? We don't know.

What is it? I just have a hatred towards him because he keeps trying to get in the middle of Sarah Cameron and John B. Yeah. Well, then Sarah Cameron and John B.

started dating in real life. Yeah. Can't tell if that was for a promotion for the show if that's genuine. They've been going strong. I really enjoy seeing them. John B.'s like my age.

He's like, isn't he like 49? Are you serious? He's pretty old. Oh, yeah. He's playing a 16-year-old. Another ridiculous thing that the entire cast looks way too old to be 16-year-olds. They do. With the way that our generation today is,

I think people are taking that as like 16-year-olds should look like this. I agree with you. I was surprised they did it that way. But all those actors are pretty good. like 16 year old should look like this. I agree with you. I was surprised they did it that way. But all those actors are pretty good. So maybe that's why they did it. True. Outer Banks available on Netflix. It is the dumbest show I've seen in a long time.

Thank you for bringing it into my life. You're welcome. It was really fun. That's it for 12 minute recaps. Zoe Simmons, good luck on your driver's license test tomorrow. This podcast was produced by Kyle Creighton. Thanks to Peter Schrager. And we'll be back on Thursday with another podcast.

See you then. Feelings within On the wayside On the bruised side Never once said I don't have to be