The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 132: Jimmy Kimmel and Cousin Sal on Week 6

Episode Date: October 10, 2016

HBO and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Cousin Sal call up Jimmy Kimmel to talk about Dak Prescott vs. Tony Romo, the comedy gold Donald Trump has brought late-night TV, and their live event benefiting the Scholars at Risk program at Harvard University (2:00). Then, Bill and Sal go over the Week 6 lines (30:00) and the Boston Red Sox’s chances in the MLB playoffs (59:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Check out Rocket Mortgage today at QuickenLoans.com Slash Bill Simmons, Equal Housing Lender Licensed in all 50 states NMLSconsumeraccess.org number 3030 again quickenloans.com slash bill simmons don't forget about my new hbo show any given wednesday we're off this week then we come back with six straight 10 p.m every wednesday watch the old ones on hbo go and hbo on demand and don't forget about the ringer.com and The Ringer Podcast Network. We have Jimmy Kimmel coming up in a little bit with Sal and I. Don't forget, Saturday night, October 15th, Boston, Massachusetts,

Jimmy and I are doing a live show at the Schubert Theater. All proceeds will benefit Harvard scholars at risk. There are still a few tickets available. Go to citycenter.org, C-I-T-I center.org or call 866-348-9738. And we are off. Yeah. Clear enough for you. All right.

Yeah. All right, the Cuz is here. Can you picture us rolling? He's coming off a 3-0 Facebook Live. Yeah. Cousin Sal, sure thing, performance. But you cheated to get 3-0 this week. How appropriate that I cheated by betting the Patriots. How did I cheat?

It was two cheaters combined. All right, before we get to the week, six lines. Our cousin Jimmy Kimmel is on the line. Hi, Jimmy. Hey, cousins. What's happening? He's my cousin. He's both of our cousins.

I've known him for almost 14 years. I get to adopt him. I haven't known him that long. Okay. He's your cousin. Hey, congratulations, Cousin Sal. Thank you. Bill has given me a lot of crap for it because he said I cheated, ironically betting on his Patriots.

I cheated because I took the money line. But I will take a win any way I can get it. Thank you. Yeah, no kidding. I don't think you're even taking much credit for it. I mean, there are no triumphant tweets. I mean, take a page from Donald Trump and pat yourself on the back. You're right.

I should be all over this. You're right. He's been careful about bragging too much because it's backfired on him in the past. So he's going like, keep your head down, Belichick, do your job. Since when has Sal ever been careful about anything that's backfired on him in the past? It's a new me, Jimmy. My point was that if you have young aspiring gamblers in high school and college who are following Cous cousin sal and his example for

the first time his leadership with bets not all of them have the bankroll to do a six to one money line but the point is so theory i start with a theoretical ten thousand dollars even though we know it's a hundred thousand dollars no but and usually theoretical goes the other way i know i screwed up but so they can make it a thousand or they can make it starting with a hundred or ten dollars if you progress at my rate and follow my advice at the end of the year there will be a positive return

yeah that's fair I just remember in college I started with two hundred dollars and then if I lost that I had to call my parents and pretend I was joining a gym to get five hundred bucks so you're basically saying you're asking for the gym membership Plus that I had to call my parents and pretend I was joining a gym to get 500 bucks. So you're basically saying you're asking for the gym membership before they follow your best. Everyone should join the gym anyway.

This is why America is so fat. I didn't realize it. Cousin Jimmy, you realize that our cousin Sal is in a moral quandary right now with this Dak Prescott, Tony Romo thing. This is basically the most torturous thing that's ever happened to him as a football fan. I have to say I feel similarly, and I can't figure out. Here's what I'm going to guess. I'm just going to put these thoughts into it.

He wants Dak to do just well enough that the Cowboys are still in the position to go to the playoffs and win the Super Bowl when Tony comes back. But he wants there to be no question when Tony returns of who the quarterback of that team is. Well, unfortunately that moment has passed and it's gone. And now there are questions. Well, the problem is we're running out of time.

There's one more game. They play at Green Bay and then there's a bye and then Tony is coming back, hopefully that Halloween week. And I think Dak Prescott's getting a little too much credit for this last game. Here we go. Romo couldn't hold...

They were scoreless through three-quarters, Cincinnati. Romo wasn't going to win that game? Come on. No, he would have. Of course. This is sad. You have a running back who has 130 yards, three straight games. Everything's falling into place. What's their record with Romo right now?

You think they're 2-3? Look how bad the Giants were. Why couldn't Prescott win that game? I think we should be undefeated right now. Jimmy, you want to handle this? Well, listen, I'm with Sal. I love Tony, and I think that with a good team behind him, it's going to go very well this year. Here would be my counter. I see Tony winning

the Super Bowl this year. There you go. I like it. With or without the Cowboys. The problem is, if you put your ex back in the Romo basket, and he's been injured so many times, that if he then gets injured again all right and now you've lost all these reps with Dak Prescott who's the young a little more athletic a little more durable maybe I don't know if as a Patriot fan I was in this spot in 2001 when Bledsoe got hurt and Brady came in and by about the fifth week most intelligent Patriot fans were like all right it's time.

Let's go with the young guy. I think we reached that point. Yeah, but Bledsoe was not very good at that time. Well, Bledsoe had had about as much postseason success as Romo. Well, we're not in the postseason. Look at how well the team did before Romo went out last season. Then he came back in, and he looked pretty good. Then he got hurt again.

These are all solid points, and they're all colored by the fact that Sal's middle child has the middle name romo i just want to point that out and you both love tony romo just personally no there's a little bit of bias here but you have to put the the starter in you have to put him in there jimmy he got he missed two games in four years before this tragedy last year and the year before. Jimmy, would you agree that the funniest outcome here would be Romo not getting the job back, but the Cowboys winning the Super Bowl with Dak Prescott? Come on. The funniest outcome?

For Sal, yes. For Tony Romo, no. I know I'm going to take shit for this, but I am legitimately rooting against the Cowboys this week. For the first time in my life. Wow. Yeah, I'll say it. I don't care. So Tony Romo has surpassed being a favorite player, and this is like a member of your family.

You could root for logos all you want, Bill. Yeah, you could have Tony Romo. Go ahead. No, I see it. I mean, you have a personal attachment to him. Sure. Of course. The catch is they can't get out of his contract.

So he's basically stuck on the Cowboys because it would cost them so much money to get rid of him. Even that kind of talk is nonsense. They don't want to get out of his contract. I know. As much as we love him, Jerry Jones loves him about eight times more. That's true. That's true. That's true. Well, he has TV.

I mean, he's going to have a very lucrative life. He's going to be on TV for 25 years. All right. He'll replace Bradshaw, and he'll be on the Fox pregame show in like 2045. Sal's so uncomfortable right now. I hear this every week, and I just all, okay, all right, great. With a Super Bowl ring on his finger. That's right.

What's interesting about Sal is he has always been athletes are laundry to him and they just come and go this is the biggest personal attachment I've seen from you since I've known you are you kidding do you know how many times he masturbated to Lima Zilli well that was when he was a kid not really totally different a couple months agomy what's going on with you you had a very successful emmys i was really proud of you you did well nobody ever gets reviewed well when they host any award show and you actually got good reviews so you made history there so what happens now are you just like now it's just Trump, Trump, Trump? Yeah, it kind of is. It's really, here everybody at the show is like, oh, I wish this election would be over already.

But I know what's going to happen is on November, I won't be right. There will be a couple of weeks, and then we'll have Christmas as a topic to carry us through. But once we get to January, none of us are going to have any idea what to talk about anymore because we become so trained to expect comedy from Donald Trump each day. It's almost as if he should be paid a writer's salary. Yeah. I remember the first year of your show when Michael Jackson started acting weird and we got like four weeks out of him. Yeah.

And it was, it really felt like a blessing and we all felt thankful to him. Meanwhile, Trump has, what's it been now, a year and a half? I was going to say every now and then we'd submit material to Jimmy and he'd fire back to the writers like, there's not much here, guys. We're a little thin.

I think it's been about 18 months since we've been, right? Because Trump is good for two great things that we have to touch on a day. It's unbelievable. Charlie Sheen is going to have to step up at the beginning of the year and carry this ball. Somebody's going to have to come through for us. But what happens yesterday where there just wasn't a lot of comedy in last night?

It was just more sad and depressing. Oh, I disagree. First of all, did you see Kenneth Bone at the end of the show? I did. And Carl Becker? Okay, you know. First of all, did you see Kenneth Bone at the end of the show? I did. And Carl Becker. Okay. He'll be on my show tonight. Who will be?

Ken Bone? Kenneth Bone. I should have guessed. He didn't even sit down before I sent that email out. I have a feeling he'll be on our show more than just tonight. He might be right. He might be the guy that helps us next year. That's right.

Yeah. Dickie's worried already about his job after he saw Ken Bone. How can you say there was no comedy? Donald Trump threatened to jail Hillary Clinton. That's true. I will throw you in jail. That's never happened. it seems funnier. I will throw you in jail. That's never happened. Nothing close to that.

I guess the closest thing that happened to that would be like Hamilton and Burr firing weapons at each other. Yeah. Now it seems funnier than it did the first half hour. The first half hour when the family members were there and everybody had those grim looks and they didn't shake hands and Trump just seemed like a wounded animal willing to say anything. I was genuinely frightened. It used to be, oh my God, did you see Ronald Reagan rolled his eyes when Mondale was talking about supply side? Oh, that was great.

He looked at his watch. Now you're on edge every minute with this. I know. I was listening to the debate again on the radio after I watched it. And so I was just listening to Donald Trump's voice. And as you were saying, when he came out, he sounded kind of tired. And by the way, he also assembled a group of women

that Bill Clinton supposedly had sex with and had a press conference with them. I don't know who has ever done anything like that. It's like a wrestling move. It's crazy, except it's real. But I was listening to the voice, and I feel like Alec Baldwin's impersonation of Donald Trump is so good because they are the same person. Oh.

Ooh, interesting. Their voices are almost identical without the imitation. Just that kind of handsome, kind of horny guy who's now hitting a certain age and is still in that mindset, still has that Long Island kind of echo to his words. I mean, there are a lot of similarities there. You know, I realized last night watching him do his thing that Baldwin had that phone message once to his daughter. Remember that was a big deal during his divorce? Yeah.

And yet Baldwin was playing Trump, but Trump would have left the exact same phone message. There you go. Great example. It did seem like. But I said to Sal before, watching Trump in those first 20 minutes, the only experience I've ever had watching TV like that, where I was just I didn't know what was going to happen. I was nervous and I just felt like anything was possible. We're a couple of Mike Tyson post fight interviews in the 90s with Jim Gray. You just didn't know like anything was in play, like him punching Jim Gray and just punching everybody, him saying anything.

I didn't know it was going to happen. And yet here it was with a debate with 70 million people watching. I would add to that every night of the first year of Jimmy Kimmel Live. Jeff Ross and Suge Knight and Pillow Fight. It was a wild west. And Nicole Smith slipping in birthday cake and falling. Right. Oh, my God, I forgot about that.

Ralphie Mayfell, too. Yeah, a lot of falling. A lot of people fell back then. There. Oh, my God. I forgot about that. Ralphie May fell, too. Yeah. A lot of falling. A lot of people fell back then. There were a lot of injuries. There's online. There's a... When Jeff Ross hosted and Lamas came on and Matt and Trey were there from South Park. That's online.

That 11 minutes. And the South Park guys started heckling Lamas. And it seemed like Lamas might actually attack them. It's on the internet. It's pretty great. As I recall, Matt and Trey's plan was to fart on Lorenzo Lamas' head. I think they almost did it. Yeah, that was what they wanted to do, but just physically it wasn't convenient.

So would you have Trump on again, or would you? You would, right? Oh, yeah, of course. Of course. But you wouldn't have, it wouldn't be a kid's glove type of situation. Well, you know, they're interviews. They're not necessarily endorsements. And I don't think, you know, one experience that everybody seemed to dislike rules him out as a late night talk show guest.

You know, I mean, I would love to have him. I'd love to know. You know, I'd ask him right now is, you know, he says no one respects women more than he does. I think I'd have to get him to admit that there are at least like nine or ten people in the world who respect women more than he does. I mean, he can't be number one. He just can't. I think he's thought this through. I don't agree with you.

What do you think the arc is after he loses the election, which he probably will? I think he starts his own Donald Trump network, and he goes against Fox News, and suddenly Fox News becomes the CNN with NBC. MSNBC.

And I think it'll be... I think he'll do very well with it I think he contests the election first I think he spends a good six months contesting something about it it depends on what the margin is because he doesn't like you know he keeps claiming that he's spending a hundred million dollars

on this and I don't believe that for a second and I just think contesting an election is an expensive endeavor, and he's going to have to pay for it himself. He doesn't seem to have the support of the RNC anymore. And when he looks at the bill for that, I think he's just going to claim it was fixed and go from there. Because he doesn't believe that it's going to be fixed. He just wants to put that out there. I was kind of hoping the rumors of Pence dropping out were true last night

because it would have been just amazing to watch somebody scramble for a VP. They said last night he was going to drop out? Well, there was a lot of days before. No, last night there was Twitter buzz that Pence was trying to get out that he'd had it. That would be a similar move to when Robert Shapiro denounced OJ shortly after the verdict. Right.

Did not work for Shapiro. Should we talk about our thing on Saturday night? Yeah, we have a big event on Saturday in your hometown. Yep. We're doing it for the Harvard Scholars at Risk. And I think there are some tickets still available. People seem to be confused. They think we're giving money to students at Harvard, and it's not the case at all.

It's because of the title of the organization. These are scholars whose governments either threaten to or are trying to kill them for the things that they write about their government. And they come from various countries. And Harvard gives them, of course, we fund it, but fellowships so that they can bring their family over and not be killed for what they're writing. So it is literally a life-saving endeavor. And it's a charity organization that was started by someone who's been a friend of mine since I've been in high school

she teaches at Harvard and it's a really great organization and it should be a fun night. Bill and I are going to be interviewing each other it's Kimmel vs. Simmons we won't actually be fighting, I hope that doesn't disappoint people

but it will be a night, I think we should talk about some of the stuff that happened in the old days when we first started doing the show. I think it would be fun to kind of go through the story of how I happened upon you and how we became, as you said, cousins. And now we've kind of formed this little community broadcasting-wise. But I think it should be a fun night, and it's at 8 o'clock at the Schubert Theater. You can get tickets at citycenter.org. And if you buy tickets that are in the golden circle, as our agent Baby Doll just referred to it,

you will get a meet-and-greet with us after the show, so we'll take a picture. And then also the phone number is 866-348-9738. And if this works out, we're going to do a second live show to benefit Adam Carolla, who's trying to pay for this $5 million car he has. And there will also be a golden circle for that. You'll get to take a picture with us, Carolla, in the car. The $5 million car. It'll be a golden circle jerk for that one.

Is that Newman Scholars at Risk? It will be the Newman Museum. Jimmy, hold on. Now, is this interview with Bill, is this in lieu of him having you on the HBO show? Jimmy's coming on the HBO show. I got eight left this season. Is he coming on?

I'm there for Bill when he needs, when somebody drops out or whatever. No. Bill told me off air that he has to have Rappaport on four times before he invites you. No, that's not true. That's not true. Maybe we shouldn't talk. Is that supposed to be a secret? No, I'm saving him for That's not true. Maybe we shouldn't talk. Is that supposed to be a secret? No, I'm saving him for November.

November. Kimmel. You just hosted the Emmys. You had the third lead. You had an extra from the night of on instead of him. Extra from the night of. No, he will be on one of the first 20. Jimmy's busy.

He was doing the Emmys. I'm starting trouble. I know. He was doing. Do you think I should have had him on sooner? No, no, no. That's something you have to work out. We'll work it all out on Saturday night in Boston.

Do you remember the first few months of your show when we weren't going to have Carolla on? And it was like, no, no, we're going to wait, wait. Let's have him when we need him to have him on and then he was on like the fourth episode it might not even have been that long yeah they didn't want it to be like the man show and so uh they said you know we gotta really have to be use adam sparingly and we did he was only on like a thousand times what's been the Dancing with the Stars has that been a bump

for you guys this year? no not really it's you know it's kind of a different audience my interest in it is primarily

gambling related I know you always get it right we've done very well we really have done very well I would venture to say Sal would you say

you've had a higher percentage lifetime betting Dancing with the Stars or football? Easily Dancing with the Stars. Well, we're getting nice odds on the winners, so we don't win every year or every other year, but when we win it's like 4-1 or 6-1, right? I think we've won 50% of the time. Yeah? Nice.

Yeah. And we have the winner, I think, this year too, right, Hernando? Yeah. The Olympian. Well, your strategy is always you go athletic or somebody with a major dance background. Right. Well, we also look at the fan support.

For instance, if you're a football player from Pittsburgh, you tend to get more phone calls than if you're a soap opera star. And sometimes a partner helps, like Derek Hoff has come through for us. Derek Hoff will definitely add some juice to your performance. Oh, you get inside info? No, no. No, we just figured it out.

You look at the trends like everything else. A partner, so it's like NASCAR drivers. This is what you should be doing on Facebook, Sal. This is if Cousin Sal's shirt thing is a raging success, we move over to Dancing with the Stars on this other stuff. All right, he was on the show this week, Jimmy? Oh, that's a really great question.

I got it, I got it. Hold on, Don Rickles and John Stamos tonight? Oh, tonight together, yeah. Yeah, together later in the week. We have Jennifer Conley, Matthew Perry, Nas, Colin Farrell. It's going to be a good week. All right.

Jimmy, go work on your show. I will see you this weekend in Boston, Massachusetts, the 617. Thanks for coming. I'll see you in an hour, Jimmy. All right. All right. Bye-bye. Hey, do you remember that time when you, me, and Brad

watched an entire Sunday of football at a Buffalo Wild Wings outside of Dallas before Cowboys game. And it was glorious. Yeah, it was. Remember that? Mm-hmm. Brad ate so many chicken wings that we had to, like, carry him into the Dallas stadium. He still hasn't washed his face, I don't think, since that day.

How many years ago was that? Like four? Oh, more, yeah. Well, I can't remember if they had 21 signature sauces or seasonings to choose from, but they definitely have that now. They do now? I do remember their great lineup of cold and refreshing beers on tap. And I definitely remember their collection of wall-to-wall flat screens that were so big it made our heads spin. It was a really fun day.

Buffalo Wild Wings covers all of those details so they can add up to the kind of game day experience fans can appreciate. And they do it because they appreciate sports fans. Win or lose, if you're a fan, you're still a winner. If you're enjoying the best game day atmosphere there is, we had that moment that day. We did. Did the Cowboys win? We'll have it again.

No, they didn't win. They lost in excruciating fashion. Buffalo Wild Wings was the highlight. Buffalo Wild Wings, wings, beer, and sports. And they do it for us because we are football fans. All right. All right. Football. Let's do it.

So Bears, we like to write off a team a week. So would you write off Browns, 49ers, Dolphins, Bears? Who would be your fifth? I almost have to put the Chargers in there. I don't see how this works. Chargers? Okay. So five. We're sure the A afc 10 wins can't make the wild card in the afc i don't know i i think i think that's gonna be a battle it's too many good uh secondary teams i think but i will

say this i think there are five teams that are exactly the same for the last three years i think san diego is one of them. I think Detroit's one. You watch their games, you know exactly what you're going to get. Slappy. Cleveland. And on the other side, the Patriots, you know what you're going to get. And the Colts now, I think I would add to that. They're going to be losing in the fourth quarter.

T.Y. Hilton, that's going to be a clutch touchdown. Might be enough, might not be enough. Luck will be scrambling all game otherwise i think luck has been particularly incredible this season because he's getting pounded on touchdowns on near touchdowns on everything and that team should be oh and five right he had to make two phenomenal throws just to drag out you know a two and3 record. Amazingly, they're one back in the AFC South. And they play this week, right? Right. And Houston... So, Osweiler...

I might have to admit I was wrong on that one. Which way did you go with it? You liked it? I liked it. He really impressed me in that Patriots game on the Sunday night. And I just felt like he could throw the deep ball and he could move.

He's just terrible. Terrible on the road. Really bad on the road. I don't know if it's the coach because I think that coach is bad too, O'Brien. That Thursday night game against the Patriots was coaching malpractice. He goes on the road against a good team and it's just not going to be close. That's what it seems. But they will

be eight and seven week 16 colts will probably be eight and seven or seven and eight and that's all i think it's good i think it could be six and nine six and nine really wow i do i do it's amazing to me that a team can't figure out how to get deandre hopkins the ball right it's always amazing when they can't figure out how to get any receiver the ball, but especially like that, you just think like five times a game, you just heave it 50 yards downfield and hope something happens. Yeah.

Like Derek Carr and Amari Cooper, when you watch the way he uses Cooper, I would assume that Hopkins would be used like that. But we say this all the time. Who the hell knows what's going on? I will say the biggest shocker for me this week was the Cowboys just killing the Bengals. I did not see that coming. I liked the Bengals.

I actually thought the Bengals had a lot of talent on both sides of the ball. It seemed like the kind of game where they lay the smack down. And now clearly something's wrong with them. And on the flip side, your team looked good. The defense looked good. I thought defensively it was crazy. It's insane that they had a shutout into the fourth quarter uh and and you know and you know dac prescott i agree hasn't thrown a bad

pass yet but it somehow was like 28th in the league versus the blitz right i thought cincinnati would figure something out there and they didn't it's just pitch and catch with him and they're doing enough and they're scoring points it's's really something to watch. I wonder if maybe we underrate a really bad playoff loss for the next season. Oh. Because the Cardinals just – Palmer is not the same since that game, and now he's hurt. And I know they beat the Niners last week, but they were clearly not the same team.

Carolina has the traumatic Super Bowl loss. They're not the same team. And then Cincinnati completely blew that Steelers game yeah you might be right and i don't know you think about it all year everybody's right and then maybe they lost some faith in marvin lewis maybe it's time for marvin lewis to go except for the patriots patriots right the ship they had as bad playoff losses anybody yeah i i don't even know if you can count them at this point. But to be down 28-0 to the Cowboys, and they were easy touchdowns. Mm-hmm. Like, they were either the long drives or long plays,

and it was one of those games when they went up 7-0, you knew Dallas was going to win. Right. And I don't know. That's... Weird loss. Weird loss. But I think that's one of those teams you talked about

earlier that don't count them out they're two and three you looked at the 2015 teams they might be they'll be in the playoff uh picture can i give you my 12 playoff teams right now sure pat stewart's jags i'm sorry pat stewart's titans broncos division winners oh really yeah Pat Steelers, Titans, Broncos. Titans? Division winners. Oh, really? Yeah. I'd bet the Titans to be the shitty AFC South. I have to look at that. I think they can go 8-8. I thought that was a big loss last week at Houston.

I think they can go 8-8. And I got the Raiders and Bills as my wild cards. Now, I'm going to change this again next week. This is what if I had to bet my life. Then the NFC. Cowboys, Vikings, Falcons, Seahawks, Packers. to change this again next week but this is what if i had to bet my life then the nfc cowboys vikings falcons seahawks packers i would still put the panthers as a wild card over the eagles really but that that second nfc wild card spot there's like eight teams that could be in play for that

it could be anybody yeah i think the raiders and bills have pole position for the afc wild card though the chiefs i'm sure i wouldn't count the Chiefs out. That's the only one I was going to say. Because the Bills have a pretty easy schedule. They go San Francisco at Miami, home New England at Seattle. So those are two tough ones. Bi-week at Cincy, Jacksonville at Oakland, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Miami, all home at the Jets.

That feels like nine wins. That's a third-place schedule. Yeah, that feels like nine wins. That's a third-place schedule. Yeah, that feels like nine wins. That's what it looks like. And then the Chiefs at Oakland, New Orleans, at Indy, home Jacksonville, at Carolina, home Tampa. But then they go at Denver, at Atlanta, Oakland home Thursday night. That's brutal.

At Denver, at Atlanta, Thursday night at Oakland. Yeah. Then Tennessee, Denver, Sunday night at San Diego. They're probably going to have to go 4-1 their division the rest of the way. Yeah. And a lot of it depends on if San Diego fires their coach and actually plays better, then they could be – because you watch them and it's like they get over 400 yards of offense

every game. It's a competitive team. There should be a prop like will they blow blow a second half lead at this point? It would be like minus 300, right? Because every single game, it's up there for them. They haven't lost on a Hail Mary yet. Oh, interesting. I'm going way back.

I think this was the 1980 Patriots. Right. I think we went 2-14. It was 80 or 81. And it was one of those Mike mccoy charger seasons where it was like everything went wrong at a hail mary you know like the fumbled kid it was like every single way you could lose and about week six you realize it's one of those seasons right and that sort of feels like they're the thursday game this week they have nine fumbles you're just not gonna not gonna be

much better than one and four with nine fumbles that's horrible uh all right let's do the lens all right but minnesota and tampa bay have buys this week uh tampa bay plays tonight minnesota five and oh with no interceptions no interceptions that defense is five and oh do you want to make that uh do you want to make the monday night don julio shot of the week or do you want to go thursday i'm terrible with the don julio shot of the week i think i'm one and four you want throwing them Thursday? I'm terrible with the Don Julio shot of the week. I think I'm 1-4. I've been throwing them down. You won. I'm throwing down Don Julio.

You took Arizona. And the cards. Yeah. Well, let's save it for Thursday because that's a good Thursday game. All right, so Denver at San Diego. Well, who do we think is going to win tonight, just out of curiosity? I think the Panthers do. With Derek Anderson.

With Derek Anderson, I think it's going to be a similar game to what Arizona did last Thursday to San Francisco. They just figure it out. They score enough. Winston has eight interceptions. That's the underrated story of the season. And he had a great first game. Right.

Remember Skinny Jameis? MVP candidate. And he's been atrocious since. Is that the most effed up game of the year now that we know? Atlanta losing to Tampa Bay? Niners 28. Rams nothing is close to. So Thursday night, Broncos, Chargers. Do we get Trevor Simeon for this game?

I can't believe that's going to affect my pick. I think we're going to assume that he is playing because he was almost ready Sunday, and I think they regret not putting him in. I was not, needless to say, not impressed with Paxton Lynch. Well, but doesn't that make you feel good that there is a learning curve and these rookies or backups can come in? Yeah. Especially from a gambling perspective.

You want to see them have to – I hate when these rookies come in, except for mine, Dak Prescott, but they just reinvent the game. It's like professional wrestling when the celebrity would come in, like Seth Green is making the big show submit. It's like, all right, come on. Let's David Arquette's the WCW champion. Right, exactly. Yeah. That happened.

Yeah, it really did. So what'd you say for this? I had Broncos by three. Yeah, you got it exactly. I said three and a half. It is three, and I think we're assuming that Trevor Simeon is taking snaps there. Well, Sal, you don't really drink that much, but when you do, you like to drink shots. Don Julio, the world's original handcrafted tequila with multiple unique tequilas, including Don Julio 1942.

Probably my favorite luxury tequila. Is it? Actually, definitely. Yeah. I really like the don julio 1942 but when you're when you're ordering uh a shot at the blackjack table and at six in the morning they're vacuuming underneath your feet yeah and i'm and i'm dropping cigarette ashes dropping cigarette out you're screaming don julio i'm like yeah i'm like 19 and then that's when they usually they're yeah we're right coming right up and And then they give me the cheapest kill they have, and I can't tell the difference. I like, what's the actual line?

It is three. You got it right. Denver three. I think this is an impossible game to pick. I can totally see the Chargers winning this. You want to take the Chargers, and then you think. I kind of want to take the Chargers. No way to have the end of the game in my head.

I haven't played out. But this is in San Diego. Right. That doesn't help the Chargers. They have no home field advantage. I'm taking Denver with my Don Julio shot of the week. Alright. I'm going to use mine up tonight, I think. I could do that. I could take Carolina. Minus five. Minus five?

Alright, I'll do that. We can do the Monday nighters. I don't know. What do you want? Oh, I thought last week. No, we can. Forget it. No, All right. I'll do that. We can do the Monday night games. I don't know. What do you want? Oh, I thought last week. No, we can. Forget it. Forget it.

No, we can. Let's do it. Is that too confusing? It's a night game. You know what? Minus six. Minus six. I'll take Carolina minus six.

Then I'm flipping mine to Tampa Bay. You are? My shot of the week is going to be Tampa Bay. I'm staying away from Broncos charges. All right. We're going head to head. I'll take my six with Tampa. Beautiful.

All right. Sunday games. L.A. We have a team at Detroit. Case Keenum. Jared Goff really has to be behind the learning curve that they're not throwing him out there. That was the moment we were waiting for, the gambling moment.

The Case Keenum pick six, and we weren't on it. Bummer. I had the B six, and we weren't on it. Bummer. I had the Bills, but I didn't bet. I had such a bad week four I stayed away from gambling. I have the Lions by two. Yeah, I said three and a half. It is actually three and a half. Wow, that's a lot of respect for the Lions.

The Rams aren't getting any respect. They didn't get yesterday. The Bills end up favored that game. But the problem is that they were a 3-1 team at home, and they weren't even favored by a field goal or favored at all, and now they're 3-2, and they're getting 3.5 at Detroit. The problem with this line is that the Bills might actually be decent. I think they are.

And so the Rams, they lose that stupid first game. They beat Seattle 9-3. They beat the Bucs 37-32. They beat the Cards 17-13. And then they lose to the Bills. I think they're better than the Lions. That's one of the worst offenses, though. They can't get out of their own way.

They can't throw downfield. And that Tremaine Johnson, the cornerback, who I think led the league and passes broken up, he might be out for a while. they can't throw downfield and that's remain johnson the cornerback i think led the league and pass passes broken up he might be out for a while we got uh mad in 2017 because my son my son is now his friends are playing so he wants to play so my nephew kyle was over and it was downloading once it gets to 33 you can play a game so we play and it's like you can only play the game that's in the system like the the kind of tester game and it was rams versus redskins and i was like oh i want to play the pages like you can't you have to play this game so i had the rams so we played a game i was the rams and it was literally like being a rams fan nice it's. You have nobody to throw to. None of your receivers can catch a pass.

Kyle was just lining up eight guys to stop Gurley. I'm trying to get Kenny Britt open and Tavon. It was a disaster. You can't get bottled water under 90 degrees. My fans are fading in the stands. But I was like, ah, I get it. It must suck to be a Rams fan. Awesome.

All right, Sunday game. San Francisco at Buffalo. Yeah. So I went high on this. I said Bill's 7.5. Yeah, you didn't go high enough. I said 7. It's 8.

Feels like a tease. You're looking at a teaser game. Is Kaepernick in? Is he playing this game? Well, not with all the, if he gets injured they'd have to pay next year's 15 million bucks that was a big story last week right people think they're icing them because they don't want they want to make sure he doesn't get hurt yeah so interesting i think they should play him i mean at this point what do you have to lose if they do play him and you're

buffalo do you pump in the national anthem as he's dropping back to pass? Because then he has to take a knee, right? Or just play it every year. Or just have the fans sing it or something. Like every time he drops back, he's constantly taking a knee. It's a good strategy, I think. It's almost better for Kaepernick if he doesn't play. Oh, for sure. Because if he comes out, he throws out like four picks.

I'm like, oh, Jesus. For sure. All right. Jacksonville or Chicago? Wow, these Sunday games are not good. That's a horrible game. LA, Detroit, San Francisco, Buffalo. Jacksonville at Chicago. Wow, these Sunday games are not good. That's a horrible game. LA, Detroit, San Francisco, Buffalo, Jacksonville, Chicago. Bears, I have Bears minus two and a half.

I don't feel good about that one. You're going to get it. I said four. I thought I'd go a little higher. It's minus two. Would you trade for Cutler if you were one of the ten teams that need a quarterback? I don't know. Isn't it his destiny to be in the Jets?

I mean, yeah, but you watch what's going around in the league. You can get a good rookie in the fourth round, it seems. Right. Why do you want to be tied to Cutler's nonsense? So Cutler's going to be out of the league. His negative attitude. Yeah, they've moved on from him. It's very weird.

We have to see. I looked up Hoyer's wife because we have a thing with the NFC North having pretty good-looking wives and girlfriends. Yeah. Yeah. She's all right. Really? She's an 8.5, 9, I would say.

Wow. NFC North doing it again. Cleveland at Tennessee. Really bad game Sunday. Really bad. Look at those four. This is why I'm bullish on that Tennessee team. We waited too late to bet on them to win the division.

Is it too late? No team. We waited too late to bet on them to win the division. Is it too late? No, it's never too late. I had the Titans by 7.5 in Cleveland. I said 6, and it's 6.5, so I get that one. I just want to explain to you what an incredible experience it was yesterday when Kessler got hurt, and they showed Whitehurst warming up. That was good. Just knowing,

knowing the win is going to happen now. It's like, Oh, that's Charlie Whitehurst. We've got this. Is it? It's the most dangerous job in the, in the world.

Brown's quarterback, right? You know, like the police six, right? The police chief in like Juarez city. What's the, the, the very South chief in Juarez City. What's the very... Oh, in South America?

No, no, in Mexico, there's a very dangerous city. Whoever's named police chief is murdered three days after they're brought in. That's what the Browns keep me sick. That's the Browns quarterback like that. I don't know. What's going on with them? Well, it's... Tennessee, you might be right.

They may have given the Vikings their best game. They were up 10-0 in that game. They might be good. Did I go through the Tennessee schedule? Their next three are Cleveland, Indianapolis, and Jacksonville, all home. At San Diego, which is basically like a home game because their fans are checked out. Home Green Bay, they lose. Then they have at Indy, at Chicago.

They go one-on-one with those. And then KC, Jacksonville, Houston to finish. They're good. They're getting their offense together. DeMarco Murray is quietly having a great year. It's like 460 yards. Major, major secondary issues, though, is their only fear for them. Philly at Washington.

All right, this is a tiny bit better. not totally ready to give up on the eagles yet uh i have the skins by three this is a fishy line i was way off too i said skins by two and a half it's philly by two on the road wow interesting i'm stunned to hear that three 3-1 Philly at 3-2 Washington. Getting points. So Washington, have they had a good win yet? So Cleveland. They got killed by the Steelers. They lost to your team.

Then they beat Washington, Cleveland, Baltimore. Baltimore just fired their OC today. No, no. They beat Cleveland, Baltimore. And who? They beat the Giants, Cleveland, and Baltimore. Giants, Cleveland, Baltimore. Baltimore just fired their OC today. No, no. Cleveland, Baltimore. They beat the Giants, Cleveland, and Baltimore. Giants, Cleveland, and Baltimore. But is the Giants even a good win? I don't know.

It's not that great. I don't think the Giants are good. No. But I think Philly, you know, I don't know about their play calling. It seems like that screen to Sproles is good for 23 yards any time they want it. Yeah, but then you don't see it the rest of the game. It's going to be an interesting one.

Sproles is the scariest guy in football who never touches the bone. Quick break to talk about our friends at Sling TV. There's a lot of stuff going on. Please don't tell me you're spending these next few months of football season hoping a friend will invite you over or you're saving up to splurge on a night of lonely sports bar drinks. You have a better, cheaper option at Sling TV,

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That's it. Start watching for seven days free at sling.com slash Bill Simmons to get Sink TV on your favorite device. Restrictions do apply. All right. What do we have next? Baltimore at the New York Giants. It's an interesting game. I felt bad for Baltimore's offensive coordinator getting fired.

Because I actually watched that game. And if Perriman just keeps his feet in bounds, they win the game. And he has his job. If Mosley just doesn't reach over the goal line from four yards away, they have the ball. There's no way they should have lost that game. Mosley's getting a lot of shit for that. They're like, why would you reach?

I was like, when you practice hours and hours and hours and never touch the football, and now you have a shot at a pick six, you're going to go for it. I'm sorry. It's not going to click something inside and say, no, no, no no no no just just go down kneel down at the one or something it's like your classic people who haven't played sports just not not understanding anything about like this guy's probably had three chances in his nfl career to score a touchdown touch the ball he's going to try to score a touchdown right i don't know tressman out morning way again you know like you said marty baltimore the least successful head coach of all time he's here to rate the ship baltimore's

had uh 19 games decided by eight or fewer points since last year yeah that's a lot john harbaugh john harbaugh might be this decade's jeff fisher oh the guy who was awesome and then yeah all of a sudden though all of a sudden he's not awesome anymore. Actually, that's probably Sean Payton. Right. I'd like to apologize to Sean Payton.

Right. We take it back. Sorry. I think we both had minus three here for the Giants and it is, in fact,

minus three. I think this is a loser goes home match. Really? Yeah. I do. Yeah,

I guess so. Baltimore being in that division. I don't think the Ravens can get to 10 wins unless they win this game. Interesting. That was such a sloppy Sunday night game. I know you didn't watch it, but Eli Rogers probably could have had like seven interceptions. And he overthrew the fullback tie and then like a clear touchdown and then fumbles the next play.

And Green Bay, I think, kicked the field goal and that was it. Important question, though. Aren't all these games sloppy? Yeah, they are starting to get sloppy. Like, your team actually looked good. And one of the things that jumped out in that game was just that they looked well organized and they executed plays and stuff. And I'm so used to watching bad football.

Everyone's talking about the ratings and about, is it the election? What are the factors, the concussions? I think at least part of it is these games are terrible. Giants-Packers should have been 10 years ago. That's an incredible game. And now it's like I watched the debate. I didn't even totally care if I watched it. It was sloppy and it wasn't that much fun.

And it's like that seems to be the NFL now. The debate was sloppy too. Is it because they can't hit in pads as much as they used to in the preseason like so the first two three weeks you kind of have to you know they're just getting it getting their reps in it's that i think it's the cba with all the young players on every team but i just think all these games look sloppy. Weinberger was pointing this out. You really notice it when it's just one game, like when it's the Thursday night game, when it's the Sunday night game. There's no other games to flick around.

There's no fantasy. There's no updates. You're just concentrating. The games just don't have the right flow anymore for the most part. Yeah, maybe the NFL isn't doing themselves a favor, putting the Colts and Jags in Londonondon for everybody to stay isolated like that or hot take maybe we have too many teams interesting we don't have enough quarterbacks for all these teams every week there's 10 teams that just have a shitty quarterback maybe we need to go to like 28 again

let's get rid of the patriots. Carolina at New Orleans. Well, I hate this because we don't know what to expect from Carolina tonight. So let's assume Cam is starting. Two, one, and three teams. I had the Panthers by one. I had them by two and a half. It's three. They'll be favored by a field goal.

You know, I'm going to just briefly ask you to reconsider the Saints a little bit. You're looking at their schedule? I don't know who they would have to be playing for. They lose to the Raiders last second, right? Last minute. The Raiders are good. The Raiders are a top-ten team. That's not bad.

They lost to the Giants in a stupid game that was just ugly. They get killed by the Falcons, which seemed at the time like, oh, my God, the Saints are terrible, and now the Falcons might actually be a top-five team. And then they beat the Chargers. They're only 1-3. Right. And if it's nine wins to win the NFC.

Maybe. My point is I'm not crossing them off. Well, their defense is atrocious it's terrible i mean aside from that giant game which somehow ended up like 13 10 or whatever it was but that's the thing that's really bad i only have 10 i have nine teams that i like we mentioned vikings in the nfc what you're saying no just in general vikings pat stewart's falcons broncos i think are the top five right packers seahaw Seahawks, Cowboys, Raiders. And then I have the Bills as the 10th.

Well, this is a loser leaves town, right? Carolina, New Orleans? Absolutely. Yeah. I just think we're going to see a 7-9 AFC South team, and I think we'll see at least one 9-7 wild card in all the conferences. Interesting. All right.

Pittsburgh at Miami. least one nine and seven wild card in one of the conferences interesting all right pittsburgh at miami steelers by six all right i said steelers by seven and a half steelers by eight and it probably should be higher and what we should just kick each other in the nuts repeatedly when whenever we have the chance to get Steelers minus six at home. Yeah, we're teasing this today. We pass up on them, giving less than a touchdown. I'm telling you right now, before people even hear this podcast, we will put in a giant Pat Steelers

tease because the Pats are playing the Bengals. Good, I like that. I like that. And the Steelers, you have to survive ten deep throws from Roethlisberger. High percentage somehow, deep bombs. And I don't know if you could prepare for that as a defensive coordinator. So I picked up Sammy Coates in our fantasy league. And he had a good day.

He actually had a disappointing day if you watch the game. Really? He should have had like 220 yards and four touchdowns. He literally dropped a seven-yard touchdown and went through his hands. But then he had another one and it's like he was open the whole game. They threw to him 11 times. I got him for a dollar in our league. That's nice.

But they threw to him the whole game, and then he said his hand hurt afterwards or something. Are you talking about that league that I'm 5-0-ing? I think you are, yeah. Yeah, you're controversial. No quarterback until the wee hours. That's right. With Matt Ryan.

Matty Ryan for $2. Jesus. Cincinnati at New England. I had the Pats by 7.5. I probably ate too low. Too low is right. It's 9. So we may have to do a Moneyline parlay to get off that.

We do 6.5 point tees. Yeah. Could do that. This is the least scared you have been of a Bengals team in 10 years. They can't run the ball and they only have one receiver. And I think as your team proved, you take out the one receiver and then what's left. And now Jeremy Hill's hurt, yeah.

Now Jeremy Hill's hurt. I will say there was a moment in the second quarter of that Pats game when they got Bennett and Gronk going at the same time. And it might be uncoverable. I just don't know what you do. They put one guy on one side, one guy on the other side, two receivers spread out and a single back. I don't know how you stop it.

I mean, I'm sure somebody will figure out a way, but just watching it, I was just thinking about playing a video game. How do you stop this? They've reinvented the wheel. They're going small inside and big outside. They have tight ends lined up wide, and you have the Edelmans and Amendolas and Hogans running around in the middle. And White was able to run for these little seven-yard runs

just because of the way the offense was. But when they have Deion Lewis come back, it's going to be a danger. The defense I'm still not happy with, but the offense looks good. All right, the late afternoon games, Kansas City at Oakland. So the best early game was? Raiders not covering really hurt. 34-24.

Yeah. Just finish it off, Oakland. They really. Finish it off. It really does seem like they just go through the motions and know they could beat these teams whenever they want. Derek Carr, you would think he'd been in the league for 12 years. But Crabtree's now one of the most clutch receivers in the league.

I know. He's got your fourth quarter touchdown. What was interesting was they could have had like 20 more points. Yeah. Because Cooper just missed a couple. They finally got him at the end. But I really, I tweeted yesterday yesterday it's easily the most fun team like just from a channel clicking standpoint every raiders game is fun car is really fun to

watch she's easily the best under 26 guy i think other than luck i agree but uh that's a fun team that's going to be a fun playoff team and i gotta say like if that team makes the playoffs i'm not i'm not crazy about seeing them in January. No. What do you have for a – you had minus three? I had minus three. I had three and a half, so you're going to get it. Oakland only one and a half. Vegas was in love with this team.

And now it's evened out here. You can kind of see the blueprint, though, where you have the Chiefs, the 15-play drives, keeping Carr off the field. I can see it. I probably wouldn't bet the Raiders on this one. 2-2 at 4-1, and Oakland's only fair by a point and a half. All right, Atlanta at Seattle. I guess this is the game of the week, right? I'll tell you one thing.

If Oakland wins that game, they're 5-1, and they'd have at Jacksonville, at Tampa coming up. Third-place schedule, looking good. What's this next one? Atlanta at Seattle. This is a good one. That's a really good one. I think Pat's Bengals is a good one, too,

just because the Bengals, that's a must-win for them. I don't think they can lose that game. Seahawks, I have 4-1. I put that in the Vegas zone. You're going to get that. I only had 4, and it's six and a half. I wouldn't touch it. That seems a little high.

Yeah. This Falcons team was impressive defensively. Victor Beasley Jr., three sacks. Keanu Neal, safety. And Julio Jones had 29 yards receiving. That was the part I didn't understand, is that everyone, like Lombardi, who watches all this stuff and gets it.

He was like, the Falcons defense is terrible. They can't rush a passer. Weird. And within three weeks, they figured it out, and they had like a real pass rush yesterday. Yeah. They're doing things. Six acts yesterday?

Yeah. It was good. They're good. They're good. Dallas at Green Bay. By the way, shout out to Dave Tooley. What did he do for you? when we saw him

view from Vegas Twitter handle and he writes for ESPN but when we saw him in Vegas at Westgate I asked him any opinions you had this year

and he's like the one team I really like this year is the Falcons I think they have the best value made a big Falcons case he is going to love that you're talking about him right now Too He's a good guy. I like him too, but it's over

for him. That's all he knew. You talked about him. He could jump off the stratosphere. It's the only thing he said to us. He was like, this is my big opinion that I like this year is that I think the Falcons are going to be good. I thought he said too much. Come on. I love him. Dallas at Green Bay. Here we go. I'm just kidding. I'm rooting for the Cowboys here. Let's. I love him. Dallas at Green Bay. Here we go. I'm just kidding. I'm rooting for the Cowboys here. Let's go 5-1. You definitely weren't kidding.

I know when you're kidding, and you weren't kidding. You would totally take a Prescott three-interception game. No. You would sacrifice it. Very good. You would sacrifice that game to the God of Romo. He would have to throw downfield to get interceptions. He doesn't do that.

Packers by four and a half, and I like your team. Well, I said Packers by six, and it's four. So you're getting it. God, you really do? I mean, you're basing it off that crappy Giants game. That's why you like. Green Bay's offense still isn't right, you don't think? Your running back's terrific.

The three best running backs are your running back, David Johnson, and Le'Veon Bell. Right. Everyone else is like a notch or two notches or three notches below. Those are the three difference makers. And your whole offense is built around being a good running back because you have a good line. Now you have a quarterback who can do a little play action rollout. I don't know, man. It's a good team.

To win without Dez doing anything those last couple weeks? I was just going to say, I feel like, I hope, in a way, if Dez plays this game, we have the Lambeau curse with us. Yeah. Maybe he just sits out one more week. Yeah. Don't you feel like something stupid is going to happen again with him? When Dez comes back and you have basically the same offense you're running now

with the possibility of the play-action rollout heaved down, it's going to be a really tough off that stop. I love it. Tony Romo's going to be unstoppable. Sunday night, Indianapolis at Houston. I would say division title on the line, but you say Tennessee. Hold on, before we do this, we've got to talk about

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Stop paying crazy amounts of money for your jeans. Go with the stilt. All right, the night game, Sunday night. You're saying this is for second and third in the division. Cards, Jets? No, no, Indianapolis-Houston. Oh. Sunday night.

Texans by three. I actually like the Texans. I think the Colts are terrible. Yep. I really think they're just a terrible football team. I went Houston six, and you're getting it. It's three and a half. It's just Andrew Luck respect,

the respect of being able to come back in these games. But, man. I feel like there's not one thing I could learn from this game or these two teams. It's a stay away. It's a non-watch. I'm so happy I'm going to be on a plane coming back from Boston. Yeah. Let's have another debate for this Sunday night.

Yeah. And Monday, Jets at Arizona. Another loser leaves town. Todd Bowles going against his old team. Oh, right. Carson Palmer. Yeah. We think he'll be back.

You know what's interesting? I always look at the DVOA starting around week four that Football Outsiders does because you can't really tell anything before there's like three or four game sample size. Right. I think they had the Jets last going into last weekend. It was one of the reasons I took the Steelers. Really? Statistically, they were the worst team in football.

We discussed it with House. I love their under. That's one of the few things I was right about, the Jets under this year. Their first six games were miserable schedule. Yeah. And they're one and four. And who's your team? You said that don't count them out yet, the two and three is it cincinnati

well i i think arizona's mine well five games in 26 days i think i think they pick it up here and they have a they have a couple great skill position guys and they have a coach who until this year was good yeah so usually every year there's a team that was a contender that just completely free falls out, sometimes two. Right. And then there's the team that starts a little late and becomes a contender like Seattle last year. Right. So I think Arizona's the best argument for that team.

I think so, too. Wait, did we do this line? No, I had the cards by seven. You nailed it, and you beat me this week. I had three. It is seven. We might consider them on a teaser, unless you think there's a kitchen sink game,

but I think they sold the sink. I think they got evicted. Why wouldn't we do a Pats-Steelers-Cards three-team seven-point tease? I don't know why we wouldn't. Let's do that. I think maybe just Pats-Steelers and maybe for the rest of the year. That should be our teaser. Let's do that.

Bill Simmons wins eight to six i finally beat you yep uh first coach fired still looks like mccoy and i had a good draft kings week those were the only two other things i had to cover nice yeah i had a team that actually won 175 dollars in draft kings yeah what is that? I had Tom Brady. I had Le'Veon Bell. I had Amari Cooper. I had some other receiver who went nuts. You really need

you have to hit on oh the Bills defense. You have to hit on four guys you have to hit on your defense is my new theory. What is that? Not a head to head right? No I did those single entries.

I like those. Alright. That's I don't know. I found that speechless no i found that i kind of like because my my own fantasy teams are so terrible daily fantasy right all i have on sunday wait a second give me two minutes to talk about familia oh come on no come on i don't want to come on both of our baseball seasons are going to be over by the time people hear this tomorrow morning. I just hate it, you know, because you don't want to get mad at a guy who blew like two saves all year,

and they wouldn't have been in the position they were until they got there. But you know damn well that that's it. That three-run homer was coming. I knew it. Did you feel like you were going to win that game? No, I thought Baumgartner, if that was a five-game series, he could have pitched all five in five straight days and beaten us every time. He's that good.

Is he the best pitcher since Pedro? I know he's not statistically the best pitcher. What do we suggest overall? Just like clutch, I think, for sure. I just feel like if my life depended on it, that would be the guy, but it would have been the guy at any point in the last five years. I don't remember who the pitcher was before that that anybody would feel that way about.

Before Pedro and before Baumgartner. But the guy between Pedro and Baumgartner. Because I know the Kershaw statistical case is there. Right. But I just know Baumgartner going into that that game and I don't watch barely any National League during the season. You just know it's going to be 1-0. Like he's going to come through. There's a great presence.

You're kind of screwed as soon as he takes them out. What about your team? You have three games in three days. You're confident. No, I'm not confident but as I told you so we're taping this on Monday morning. I do feel like having the two day delay helps the team that's wounded.

It helps you kind of, I don't know, get your shit together a little bit. And I'm not— You've got to bang it off that wall a bunch. You've got to come out and win 14-4 today. I watched more Red Sox than I let on this year because it's nobody wants to hear people talk about their own baseball team until the playoffs but just talk about your draft kings my draft kings line up is so much more interesting but uh there were quietly signs of this in the last couple months because their offense there was this like three week stretch

in july or early august when the offense was like oh my god this team's gonna score 20 runs a game right the thing i was worried about going in the playoffs was bogarts wasn't hitting he hadn't hit the whole second half sandy leone had kind of crashed back to earth jackie bradley jr was like hitting 230 the second half of the year and there were signs of this being the case, but Mookie had been so great. And we had four or five guys that I trusted. And if you have five, you're in good shape. And then Mookie comes up in the first inning of game one, third and first.

Trevor Bauer already looks like he's going to get shelled. And Mookie struck out, and it was like the most uncharacteristic guy bad he'd had all year. And I was like, oh, no. But I don't know. They just don't look like themselves. And then Porcello gives up three homers, which he hadn't really done the whole season. No, no.

These best of fives, man, it just flips. I was just going to say, I think baseball playoffs have become too random, and I don't even have a problem with the wild card. I like it better than the old wild card system in that you're not giving the wild card team the same you know gravitas as the team that won the division they don't go right in against each other you have to win a playoff game but teams are clinching too early and third week in october it gets cold and teams don't rangers were a good team and they got swept like it's just it's just weird it's just too too random but it does expose it it does expose your holes right sure you know

the rangers had a shitty bullpen and right i didn't trust that bullpen i didn't think they're gonna come through they didn't come through toronto has bats that i'm afraid of right it comes down to these little blocks simple things and like kluber's really good like i didn't think we were gonna hit him in game two you know you'll see him earlier now that you had the rain thing right i know all right i know what we need is i think to come back from o2 in a baseball series you need the momentum turn or game three win that puts the team on its heels we have the the city cleveland i still have some baggage i don't care if the calves one if it goes back two to two there's gonna be nerves in the crowd.

But if Mookie's not going to hit, we don't have a chance. That's been our guy. The first five of the order to just all of a sudden put Mookie in a slump. I think if you can get an equipment guy to deflate the baseballs, I think you're in really good shape.

Come on. I have shifted into 2017 is really the year mode. Really? No, no. I still think this year's team is really good, but it is like there is a parachute of next year's team is also going to be really good and probably better. Yeah.

So maybe this team, maybe they were a year earlier than these guys. Can you get five innings, two runs out of a pitcher today? Yeah. I think it's going to be one of those 11-9 type games would be my guess. Well, then no. Then the answer is no. I do think with young guys in baseball, they almost have to get their feet wet once. Yeah.

Don't you think? Yeah, probably. Like, Mookie just looked nervous the first two games. You go down the line and get all these young guys. How are you feeling about the Mets? It's a lot of re-sign. Like we may love Cologne, but we may have to get rid of them to open up money for Cespedes.

He's 48. Right. He's going to be 44, but he pounds those innings. It's nice. Got to re-sign Walker. We have a lot of work to do. I said to Fantasy, who's another distraught Mets fan, as I watched that whole Mets-Giants game,

I didn't feel like he had one bat that I was like, oh, this guy's going to come through. And he's like, we did. It's David Wright. Like, he got all defensive about it. But it's like, it's funny how in those games, you have to have that one guy where he comes up and you go, this guy's going to come through.

And that's kind of for Boston. Mookie was that guy. Right. And it was Daniel Murphy for us last year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if Mookie becomes that guy in game three, I think we have a chance. If he's going to get in his own head, I'm worried. All right.

I wish you luck. You seem really into this. Well, we made a Red Sox. What was our Red Sox? Red Sox Blue Jays. Blue Jays. Division parlay i still like it i wonder what the odds would be for that now well the red socks now are like

yeah they're four to one underdogs now the red socks for that series for just for the series it's about right i will say the cubs are really good and they have the same issue with the young guys but um man i i mean i know people have talked about it, but when Chapman comes in, I've never seen somebody throw so hard that the catcher almost can't catch it. The catcher's like falling backwards as he's catching these. That's the guy everybody's got to get, Chapman, right?

In the off season. I don't understand how you hit him. No. But I think that's going to be, to come into Wrigley, down one in the ninth, and that guy comes in, and that crowd's crazy. That's what they want. And he's throwing 120 miles an hour.

All right, what do you got to put? That's it. I mean, Cousin Sal's short thing. Check in with me Friday at 9 Pacific or noon Eastern, 3-0 last week. Profit of $1,400. Congratulations. Thank you. I'm really happy for you.

I'm back on track. There's a $1,000 prop bet challenge. Someone predicted Redskins running back. Matt Jones? 31 yards and that Trump would win a red tie. Someone would wear a red tie. $1,000.

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seconds uh and we'll be back later on friday with uh lomb, Joe House, and a special guest. Until then, enjoy the rest of the week. Go Red Sox. Please don't let the season end today. Anytime y'all want to see me again, rewind this track right here. Close your eyes. And picture me rolling.