The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 50: Friday Rollin' w/ Joe House, JackO & Bill's Dad
Episode Date: January 15, 2016HBO's Bill Simmons brings on Joe House to discuss Round 2 best bets, catches up with JackO on Trump/Republican Party & Bill's Dad breaks down Pats-Chiefs matchup. Topics include: abysmal D.C. sports t...eams, Chandler Jones' hospital visit (6:15 mark), Andy Reid & Ned Yost (11:30), Pitt-Den (18:00), GB-Cards (24:00), Panthers-Hawks (35:00), Spurs-GSW(39:00), Trump (44:00), weird Pats week (58:00) and Celtics shake-up (1:08:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Again, approved by my wife.
Let's go.
Clear enough for you?
Yeah, right.
What up, house?
All right, we're rolling.
Round two.
Disappointing performance by us in round one.
I was 2-0 heading into the Sunday games and then took the 0-2 collar after, well, I knew
I was going to lose the Seattle game once Marshawn Lynch decided not to make the trip.
Thanks, Marshawn.
Thanks for that.
But your favorite team, the Washington professional football team,
they let you down.
They let me down.
They let the District of Columbia down.
Well, it was a gravy game.
It was a gravy game.
Oh, you're such a loser.
That's such a loser mentality.
When's the last time Washington won?
What are you talking about?
When you haven't won a title in eons, that's what you say is,
Oh, it was a gravy game.
It was a playoff.
Hey, buddy, we haven't won a playoff game in eons? That's what you say. Oh, it was a gravy game. It was a playoff. Hey, buddy, we haven't won a playoff game in eons.
True.
Forget about a title.
When was the last Washington title?
The last Washington title.
The 91 Super Bowl.
The Caps played in the Stanley Cup in 98.
That's it, right?
That's the closest.
98, 99, somewhere like that.
Why doesn't anyone ever call
Washington, D.C. sports fans tortured?
You've had 25 years of hell.
I will rep D.C.U. a little bit,
the red and the black.
The D.C. United soccer program
has had some success over that time period.
What are you talking about?
Soccer is very popular here in Washington.
Let's recap your points.
Our playoff loss was gravy,
and at least we have
the D.C. United.
It was a one-score game with four minutes left
in the third quarter, and then it all went to hell.
But, you know, the defense was smoke and mirrors
the whole season, anyway. Yeah. I wish you had told
me that before I picked the Washington
professional football team. I wasn't going to go against them.
I didn't have any angles or insider points
on the stupid D.C. Grudens. It's just
I'm not picking against them in the playoffs.
We both went 2-2.
I had the big losers in both games, Houston and the D.C.
I do think if Deshaun Jackson just reaches out and puts the ball over the goal line,
which is what most people do when they're next to the goal line,
you're up 9-0, and maybe the game's a little different at that point.
It's a two-score rather than a one-score, for sure.
Green Bay really got into the zone.
It was old vintage A-Rod.
What does he go by?
Not A-Rod.
I'm going to say he's going to be Aaron Rodgers.
Well, I'll tell you, I have A-Rod on the brain,
and we'll get to it a little while later during the discussion today.
I don't even want to know what that means.
I have a personal thing.
Maybe I'll just tell about it now since I have A-Rod on the brain.
Did you know that I tore my rotator cuff?
When?
Did I tell you that?
It's a full – I probably did it in 2014
and then really did serious damage over the fall of this year.
Because I never really got it fixed.
Full thickness tear of the supraspinatus is the diagnosis.
But guess what?
What I have scheduled for Tuesday.
HGH?
Almost.
Platelet-rich plasma body.
Oh, that's fantastic.
Yeah, Kobe, Tiger, A-Rod.
Oh, that's great.
All my heroes.
Derrick Rose, I'm going in there, buddy.
And doing it.
I'm going right in.
If it's good enough for Kobe and A-Rod, it's good enough for me.
Are you doing it with a director from Canada who doesn't have U.S. citizenship and has weird connections to biogenesis clinics?
I just want to let you know that this treatment
was approved for the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Oh, there you go. It offers an exciting, safe, and simple
option for improving tendon repair quality
and the rate of healing.
So how could I say no?
I'm really excited.
I hope you should just ask your doctor, float it out about the HGH.
Just ask him.
Hey, man.
I'm sitting in there.
I'm laying down.
He's taking the blood.
He's putting the blood back in.
What about a little shot of something extra just for the effort?
All right.
So we're going to zoom through these a little bit because we've got to bring in Jacko
because he's having a psychotic meltdown about the Republican Party.
Because the fate of the free world is in the balance at the moment?
Yeah, and I'm going to call my dad at the tail end
just because he's got medics in the house 24-7
after the Gronk, Chandler Jones, all this stuff.
So he's freaking out.
Pats-KC is the first Saturday game.
Pats are favored by five.
This game is in the Vegas zone.
Oh, I saw four and a half.
You saw four and a half?
Between four and a half and five.
I did.
Interesting.
I have it open right now.
It says four and a half.
I've seen five everywhere.
Well, regardless, we'll say it's five.
Okay.
A couple red flags here for the Patriots.
Their best pass rusher was reportedly shirtless outside a police station
and acting bizarre and might have had a really bad, what do you call it, reaction to synthetic marijuana,
which if this happened to any other team, I would be making fun of this person.
But since it's one of the Patriots, I have no comment.
That was weird.
Belichick had a black eye at the press conference, which he refused to explain.
I thought that was strange.
Gronkowski went to the hospital yesterday for reasons that remain unclear.
Edelman is playing tomorrow, but we haven't seen him in two weeks.
Amendola's playing, but he's a little bit banged up.
We've had 77,000 different offensive line combinations,
and people seem to like the Chiefs a little bit.
Where do you stand?
There's a lot to like with the Chiefs.
The run that they're on is coming up on kind of historic.
They have had great success
against the point spread
this season
in terms of the differential.
The performance last week was dominant
and yet I'm not selecting
the Chiefs this week either.
Here's what I love about this game.
We see it pretty much every year.
Somebody kicks somebody else's ass in round one,
usually the worst team in round one,
and they're feeling good.
Everybody's catching the fumes of that round one blowout.
They get excited for that team in round two,
and they go on the road, and they get killed.
That happens a lot.
It happens a lot.
I'm hoping that that happens here.
My thing is, I think the Pats defense is really good.
Like, really good.
And everybody's back now.
And I just think the Chiefs are going to have a crap load of trouble moving the ball,
especially whether Macklin plays or not.
Either he's not going to play or he's going to play at like 50%.
Either way, that's great for the Pats.
The Chiefs have their, you know, the Charkandrick, West, Spencer Ware.
Those guys are fine.
They're not game breakers.
I'm not terrified of them.
The tight end's really good, Kelsey.
One thing the Patriots linebackers can do when they're
all healthy is is you know they can stay with the tight ends yeah i just think the chiefs are going
to have a ton of trouble moving the ball i think this is gonna be a lower scoring game than people
think i also think just people forget how good the patriots are when they have everybody that's
the well it's easy to forget it's been a long time the whole offense revolves around
Gronk at the line is a blocker but able to go straight out down the field or cut out or do
whatever Gronk does but then these two receivers that either run run across each other in the
middle or act like they're running across each other and then cut back out and you open up that
whole middle of the field,
and the defense is so worried about that,
it takes the pressure off the offensive line.
But my point is, you can't pull any of those people out of that
and then expect the offense to look good.
It really hinges on those three guys.
Is James White the release valve running back?
He's like the third down guy.
I actually think they're going to rely on Steven Jackson.
That is what I wanted to hear.
That's so funny in the first place.
Well, they took him for a test drive.
But also kind of exciting.
They took him for a test drive in week 17.
He looked good.
Yeah.
He's only 32.
He's still in shape.
It's not like he's Corey Dillon in 2005 or something.
But he can pass block. He can run. He can get the shape. It's not like he's Corey Dillon in 2005 or something, but he can pass block,
he can run, he can catch the ball in the backfield.
And I think what you're going to see
is him out there with Gronk,
Edelman, Amendola,
and it's going to look like the Patriots
again. And when the Patriots have all their guys,
guess what? They score points.
Yeah, I just think
in the playoffs, you go against
Belichick at your peril.
4-0-1 against the spread off back-to-back losses.
Since 1980 in the conference semifinals,
teams that lost the last two games this season,
6-0 against the spread.
I mean, you can't talk me into the Chiefs
if I'm not getting a full touchdown.
Here's what they did when they had their full offense.
28 points against Pittsburgh, 40 against Buffalo, 51 against Jacksonville,
30 against Dallas, 34 against Indy, 30 against the Jets, 36 against Miami,
27 against Washington, 27 against the Giants.
That was the first 10 weeks of the season.
They never had less than 27 points in a game.
Yeah. So the question is
now that everybody's back i would say 27 is about where they're going to end up in this game
especially if justin houston doesn't play so can a can the chiefs get over 20 with macklin hurt
and with the pats defense which again is a really good defense,
and came on as the season went along.
And B, can the Chiefs get to 28 to actually win the game?
I don't see it.
Yeah.
This is the thing. I like to, when I'm envisioning a line in this dead number,
four and a half, five, what's the final score that I like?
And I like something like 27-20 or 27-21.
One more case for the Chiefs.
Randy from our old Grantland baseball writer brought this up to me.
Diehard KC fan.
Feels like his life has been irrevocably altered by the World Series.
Everything he looks at now, he looks at differently.
His point is,
he never thought they could win the World Series with Ned Yost.
Sure.
And now he looks at Andy Reid,
and Randy said, Andy Reid is basically at Ned Yost.
He's like this weird eccentric guy.
Weird things happen.
You think you don't have a chance with him,
and yet there's really no difference between those two from,
from,
you know,
they,
they get results that make you nervous.
And he's just like,
now that I've won a world series with Ned Yost,
I feel so much more comfortable with Andy Reid in the playoffs.
And I was like,
damn,
that's actually pretty good.
I like it,
but it's still Belichick against Andy Reid.
I think,
I think the Pats
are pissed off.
I think this is going
to be a pissed off
Pats game.
Like with all the
media stuff this week,
I think Belichick's mad.
They didn't end
the season well.
They haven't looked
like themselves
in a few weeks.
And I think
they're annoyed.
The media stuff
is kind of funny.
It's not media stuff.
It's defensive linemen
on his knees
at the police station.
Well, you can't judge.
He couldn't really speak.
He's just on his knees with his hands crossed in prayer.
We don't know what happened.
He couldn't really explain what was wrong with him.
We don't know what happened.
Look.
I enjoyed that.
Most males have been in a spot in their lives
where they might have put something into their body that they shouldn't have and had a reaction that they weren't proud of.
That's my defense of Chandler Jones.
I hope to be doing that outside my bedroom tonight after the meatloaf I intend to eat for Friday night dinner.
I remember when I was living in Charlestown in the mid-90s.
We had a baseball draft.
Remember the baseball draft?
You and Jack Oren, you were called the Black Jacks. You and Jack Oren had a baseball draft. Remember the baseball draft? You and Jack O'Reilly were called the Black Jacks.
You and Jack O'Reilly are a team.
People don't realize that you and Jack O'Reilly are like boys.
We're thick as thieves, and it's not coincidental that we sound identical.
Everybody keeps saying we sound alike.
There's a reason.
We're boys.
So we had a baseball draft.
We went to a couple bars, and we ended up at Sully's in Charlestown.
My favorite bar.
Shout out to Sully's.
Shout out to Jack at Sully's.
That's my dude.
We're all there.
We're hanging out and you disappear.
You're just gone.
You're like, that's weird.
Where's House?
House is gone, right?
He must have gone.
We just immediately assume you went to find food. Maybe an hour and a half past, no sign of house. Go back to my apartment, which was, you know, a five minute walk from Sully's. I'm on the second floor, walk up the stairs and you're just passed out like a corpse in front of the front door. Do you remember this? Well, so you're missing two crucial details.
I do remember it.
I remember it acutely.
Yeah.
One crucial detail.
One of the visitors at that time,
now the occasion was the baseball draft
for all of us to be together there.
Yeah.
But we had one of our near and dear friends,
the Blue Boy,
who's made many appearances over the years. Oh living in Portland at the time, but was back on the East Coast at the time of this draft.
He might have brought some stuff from Portland.
He arrived from Portland, that's right.
He was packing.
Speaking of a nature box, the Blue Boy had a nature know, I'm not a person that really cares so much
about, you know, being under the influence. I'm a dabbler. I'm a dabbler. The blue boy,
what was in his nature bag, did something to me. It rendered me speechless, literally speechless while we were out
at the bars and I
had to leave. I made a gesture to
somebody that I was leaving. I came back and
sat on that stoop and waited for
my ability to speak to return.
And it didn't. I couldn't, words could not come
out of my mouth. Yeah.
Thanks, blue boy.
So if there had been the Foxborough police station
nearby, you might have ended up there shirtless. And on my knees. Yeah. So that's blue boy. So if there had been the Foxborough police station nearby, you might have ended up there shirtless.
And on my knees.
Yeah.
So that's my point.
We've all been there.
I'll tell my story next week.
Yeah.
But yeah, stuff happens.
Chandler Jones.
Hey, by the way.
So I, you know, obviously I'm in my mid 40s now.
I'm not really the synthetic marijuana generation.
I do not understand synthetic.
It sounds like people are just smoking poison.
This is the thing that's very scary to me.
How the hell is there any quality control?
What do you know you're getting?
I think what Blue Boy gave me had something funky added to it.
I think he gave me a PCP bomb.
I think it was just Oregon.
They just grow better. It's nice
and moist. My system was not
ready for anything like that.
We were in the East Coast smoking skunk weed.
Well, I didn't
even smoke. I'm just, you know,
this vanilla kid from Washington, D.C.
That's why I retired when I moved
to California.
It was like going from single aid to the majors for,
for,
uh,
for,
for that kind of stuff.
Sure.
Uh,
but yeah,
kids out there don't smoke.
Um,
let's go.
I mean,
I'm,
I don't support it.
I mean,
you might end up speechless.
Bad for your lungs.
Bad for your lungs.
You might end up speechless.
You might end up on your knees in the Foxborough police station.
Uh, just stay away.
Just drink beer.
Or, Tate, you're listening?
Just drink liquor with no stuff like cranberry juice, soda, like that.
Just be careful.
Yeah, clear liquor.
Clear liquor.
Watch your body when you get older.
Yeah, when you get older, you feel.
Delicious vodka with a splash of water and a little lemon.
That's a wonderful drink.
You feel all the mistakes you made in your 20s
when you hit your 40s.
I'll leave it at that.
You do.
Next game, Broncos-Steelers.
And on that note...
Yeah.
So we still have no idea
who the hell's playing for Pittsburgh, right?
No, we have some idea.
Antonio Brown is now out.
That just happened.
Oh.
Yeah.
So the line's going to move.
The line is now Broncos 9.
Yeah, you had to buy it at 7.
It opened at 5.5.
It immediately jumped to 7.
And if you didn't buy it at 7, you're, you know.
9, I don't like.
I'm not picking Pittsburgh, but I don't like 9.
The good news is that Ben Roethlisberger has a ripped up shoulder.
He's going to play anyway.
So the problem with taking
Pittsburgh is putting
your fate in the potential hands
of Landry Jones.
Yeah, I would
say that's more than a problem. I would say
that's a terrifying proposition.
On the road
against the best defense in the NFL.
Yeah.
Do either of us really think Denver's the best defense in the NFL?
I don't think that.
They were, they, over the course of the season.
I know, but they really.
They held it together in an impressive way.
They really rendered the inefficiency at quarterback,
which is a pretty interesting accomplishment in this day and age,
where quarterback is by far the most important position in the entire game.
They were able to overcome a pretty abysmal quarterback situation with that defense.
Let me ask you, Ben Roethlisberger with a
banged up shoulder, is that any different
than Peyton Manning with his current body?
In the sense that he might not
be able to play, yes.
He might come out after one
series. The first time he gets
knocked down and it's going to happen in the first
possession. I think he's playing. down, and it's going to happen in the first possession.
I think he's playing.
I think that guy's indestructible.
I agree that he's playing.
I'm just saying he might be re-injured in a way that really limits his
effectiveness very early in the game,
and then you're stuck with super injured Ben or Landry Jones.
And we saw that last week.
It wasn't a good combo.
The other issue is with Brown out.
Like, I thought Pittsburgh's receivers were excellent.
But one of the reasons Martavis Bryant is excellent
is he's the number two receiver with Antonio Brown,
and they're worried about Antonio Brown,
and he's going against the second-best guy on the other team,
that whole thing.
Now the defenses can actually try to take him out,
which leads us to Wheaton,
who now has to actually make some plays.
And then on top of it, you have,
what's, I don't even remember,
I can't even remember the third string running back's name.
Francois Toussaint?
Yeah, Francois Pierre Trudeau Truffaut.
Yeah, that guy.
If they fall behind like 10 to nothing, you'd be concerned.
Now here's the case for Pittsburgh.
Let's hear it.
Number one, it's the playoffs, which means Aqib Tlaib will be leaving the game
in the second quarter with an injury and never to return because that's his move.
And I'm not bitter at all about that as a Pats fan.
But Pittsburgh's defense might be able to stop Denver a little bit here.
They have like the fifth or sixth ranked run defense.
Might even be higher than that.
And I think they have the sixth ranked defense overall.
The one thing that they're bad at is stopping deep balls.
Manning can't really throw deep.
So this might just be like a 10-7 game where they have a chance to steal it.
And, you know, who knows with Manning?
Are we sure Peyton Manning's good?
The guy was 19-8 and 17 picks when he got benched for a few weeks
because he was hurt.
Yeah, we have no idea whether he's good.
But I just can't lay the points with all the injuries at Pittsburgh.
It's a lot of points, man.
Well, the difference between seven and nine, I'm going to go back into the combobulator
and try and come up with some angles.
I like Denver pretty well at seven.
And that's the pick that, that appears on, on, you know, in a public place.
That's the pick that I'll be making.
Well, there's going to be one walk game this week. And this one has the most potential. I think I could totally see Pittsburgh
winning this game and all,
and like everyone teasing Denver with everything and throwing them in every
parlay and oh yeah, Antonio Brown's, Roethlisberger's hurt, cross off Pittsburgh.
Meanwhile a week ago we were saying Pittsburgh was the biggest sleeper threat in the AFC.
So and I totally get the reasons.
My point is we've gone from...
An extraordinary sequence at the end of that Bengals game.
A snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
I get it.
The likes of which, you know.
I get it.
It just, nine seems high.
I don't believe in this Denver team.
Nine seems high.
Let's congratulate them, though, for being the luckiest team ever, I think.
This is the luckiest NFL team that's ever lived.
Like a true Pats fan. The horseshoe that lives up Denver's ass is like encrusted in little diamond studs.
It's unbelievable.
Yeah, I'm bitter.
You are bitter.
Oh, congratulations.
I think Peyton Manning might have killed Al Jazeera America.
He did do that.
There's a little cause and effect there, right?
Talk about a W.
I won't see you, but just shut the whole thing down and we'll be good. I like that. He never denied that
his wife got the HGH, by the way. No. Has your wife ever gotten any HGH? I don't know anybody
who has gotten HGH. I've never met one person in my life who has gotten HGH except for Jacoby's grandmother.
Jacoby's grandmother.
He's 92 years old.
That's right.
So I'm going to do something crazy here.
Go ahead.
I'm going to take the Steelers.
It's not that crazy.
Big Ben obviously has a really good record.
Three and one against the spread as a road dog.
Peyton's terrible at home
with rest during the postseason. 1-6
against the spread. 0-5 against the spread
if his team's favored by 7 or more.
I just think it's a low
scoring game. I think the defenses
control this game.
And I think Pittsburgh goes super conservative
and they try to have their
defense make plays, and they
try to get Manning to lose the game.
And that's their game plan.
I like the narrative.
I don't know the answer yet to who I'm
going to pick, but I like the narrative.
I would have bought Denver
at 7 this morning.
Here's my money. Denver
minus 7.
The move. By the way, I think this game's a stay away. Denver at seven this morning. Here's my money. Denver minus seven.
The move.
By the way, I think this game's a stay away.
I wouldn't bet on it.
I wouldn't do anything.
I just have to pick it.
But the move, if I had to do anything in this game,
is Pittsburgh plus 300 to win outright.
Yeah, I like that a lot.
Those are good odds.
Manning could just suck in this game. He could throw three picks and single-handedly blow it for Denver.
All right.
Let's go.
Let's say Panther Seahawks for last.
Cardinals, Packers.
Cards by seven?
You have it at seven?
I have it at seven, yep.
I just think Arizona's great.
I'm not thrown off at all by the Week 17 thing.
I don't think the Packers are very good.
I think I watched a lot the Packers are very good. I think, I watched a lot of
Packers games this year.
The three quarters they played in Washington,
the second, third, and fourth quarters,
had no relation to anything I saw
for three
months from them, other than
the one Minnesota game when
Bridgewater got hurt.
I just don't think Green Bay is very good.
And I think Arizona is great.
I think they're a monster home team.
And I just think they're going to roll over them.
This feels like a 40 to – this feels like one of those games where Rogers is down 28
and is kind of rallying back and you get worried about laying the minus seven in the fourth
quarter because he's going for cheap touchdowns.
I just don't think they have any chance to beat Arizona.
I agree with every single thing you just said.
I have a tiny angle to add into it.
Teams that lost their last regular season game
and then won in the wild card cover 10% of the time
when they're going up against a team like Arizona
who lost its last
last regular season game but i mean arizona number one ranked off as number five ranked defense the
difference in class between the dc grudens and the arizona cardinals is um sizable and i'm i was
impressed by uh green bay it was a good lesson for theC. Grudens to see what kind of a seasoned
outfit, the combination
McCarthy and Rodgers,
they gave Randall Cobb the ball
in about 15 different
positions during that
game, and Washington can't figure out a way
to get Deshaun Jackson the ball.
It was a good lesson to the D.C.
Grudens, but
lesson time, going up against
a team like the D.C. Grudens, but less in time, going up against a team like the D.C. Grudens
who you make the playoffs once every presidential election cycle
and going up against...
Bruce Arians is a good effing coach.
Every week I look at the numbers for him in situations like this
and he's just kicking ass and taking names.
So, yeah, difference in class. I love Arizona here.
So, you know, I keep track of the straight wins, straight losses in either or games.
Arizona had 12 legitimate wins, two legitimate losses in two either or games this season.
That was the best record in the NFL, wasn't it?
Yeah, it was up there.
And in seven of those wins, which I always, if you just kick somebody's ass,
I always write ass kick next to it.
It's seven of the 12 wins were ass kicks.
48-23 over Chicago.
47-7 over San Francisco.
42-17 Detroit.
27-3 Rams.
40-17 Eagles.
And they killed the Packers in Week 16.
Six of them, I'm sorry, not seven.
Oh, no, and they killed the Browns, 34-20.
My point is they pour it on when they're up.
I think that's a crucial thing to remember,
especially in Round 2 with like seven points.
Oh, that's a lot.
Certain teams just turn it up when they have the lead.
This is one of those teams.
I love the running back, the rookie running back.
I think he's really good.
It's incredible they're on their third running back,
and all of the running backs this season have been badasses.
Yeah.
That's incredible.
By contrast, Denver, who had four legitimate wins,
three legitimate losses, and nine either-or games.
Here are the margins that they won this year.
6.7, 12, 3, 6, 3 in overtime, 19 over the Packers.
That was their biggest win.
2, 6 over the Pats in OT.
They beat the Chargers 17-3, so 14.
Week 16, they won by 3. Week 16, they won by three.
Week 17, they won by seven.
This is not a team that blows.
Yeah, they don't blow teams out.
I'm taking Pittsburgh.
Are you switching?
Well, I want to see if the line goes up.
I'm switching.
This was breaking news that the line went from seven to nine
because Brown was confirmed out. Let's take Pittsburgh. Whatever. Let's take Pittsburgh plus nine. Yeah, I'm switching. At 9, this was breaking news that the line went from 7 to 9 because Brown was confirmed out.
Let's take Pittsburgh.
Whatever.
Let's take Pittsburgh plus 9.
Yeah, I'm taking Pittsburgh.
Very hard for Denver to win by 14 plus.
They just don't have the track record this season.
If it was Pittsburgh and Arizona, I'd be like, no effing way.
I'm taking Arizona.
They're going to pour it on.
Denver is not a pour it on team.
All right, last game.
By the way, Arizona has the best Super Bowl odds, plus 360.
Pats are plus 400.
Carolina's plus 500.
Denver is plus 500 now.
That's kind of interesting.
Seattle plus 575.
And then it gets a little wonky after that.
All right, last game.
Panthers, Seahawks.
It's been between one and a half and two.
We'll just call it two.
Panthers were 15 and one this year.
They did not lose a game at home.
They have two weeks rest.
They have the best player in the league.
They're playing a team that just played
one of the all-time debilitating cold weather games ever
and should have lost if somebody had made a 22-yard field goal
and looked impotent offensively except for the play when the ball got snapped past Russell
and he picked it up and was going to take a sack but realized nobody was going to sack him
and ran around and got a 50-yard play out of it.
That team is getting less than three points in Carolina. I don't think I've seen a nobody
believes in us game like this in a while for Carolina. I mean, this is just flat out insulting.
How are they not favored by three house? You know, I think at this stage of a full half decade in with Seattle
and the success that they keep showing in the playoffs,
is it five years now?
It's four years.
Yeah, they played two playoff games in 2012.
They won the Super Bowl the next year,
and they lost in the last minute of the Super Bowl last year.
They've played, I think, eight or nine playoff games in the last three years,
and all of them have been close.
They've not gotten their ass kicked once.
So that run of sustained success in the playoff makes it such that, you know,
you want folks to, Vegas wants people to play the Panthers.
They have to entice people.
Now, I saw in here the Panthers had 70% of the action at three,
and I guess because it's on that magic number.
But everybody, every sort of commentator or whatever that I look at
in terms of making picks loves Seattle in this position.
And I love Seattle in this position.
It's a different Seattle team than the one that lost to Carolina midseason.
And, by the way, they had 15 different ways to win that game.
They were winning the entire game until they lost.
And, you know, Panthers missing two of the top three cornerbacks.
Seattle has now a whole bunch of defensive guys that they didn't have the first time they met,
including my boy Bobby Wagner and my boy Jeremy Lane, two of the greats.
You know, I like – we talked about this last week.
Seattle has their starting defense.
Now, last week, you know, we called that almost perfect.
Oh, you took Seattle because of the Marshawn Lynch thing.
I said it was going to be 10-7.
I mean, I didn't know it was going to be 10-9, but.
The cousin I teased Seattle with the under and won,
but I don't feel good about it because Blair Walsh's life was ruined.
And I like Vikings fans, and I don't.
Did you see the story Blair Walsh was with the first graders?
Oh, that's nice.
Whole bunch of first graders wrote him
don't feel bad notes and then he went and visited with them.
He's okay. Blair's alright.
Before we give our picks for the best game of the weekend
I want to talk about our buddies at Squarespace.
They build
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I'm semi-normal.
You just launched, yeah, it's true, you're not normal.
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It's a fact.
Tate, go to housefromdc.com.
Check that out.
Well, what's going to be on this site?
House, did Squarespace make it easy for you to build beautiful websites regardless of skill level, no coding needed, easy to use tools, and state-of-the-art technology?
I'm a middle-aged non-millennial, and I have to tell you, I was able, with a little bit of help
from a millennial, to navigate around, figure the thing out. There's pictures, there's words,
there's tabs. There's a website, housefromdc.com.
There might be some food in there.
There might be some links to Friday Rollin' in there.
There might be some links to some old house eats
popping out of that thing.
You know, it's a place to go in there
and enjoy the silliness that is this character,
House from D.C.
House, do you realize you're getting 24-7 online support
and a beautiful website
for only $8 a month?
I did not realize that.
Did you realize
that you got a free domain
for buying Squarespace
for the year?
I did realize that.
That made me happy.
Did you go to
squarespace.com
and use the offer code BS
for 10% off
your first purchase?
I don't think I remember
to do that.
Gosh darn it.
10%, I could have had off.
Yeah, 10%, it would have been great.
All right, housefromdc.com,
check it out.
House is the most computer illiterate
person I know and somehow
has a functional website.
And we look forward to you
putting up pictures of food.
Yeah, there are a lot of pictures
of food.
The last six months of my life, the food pics, there's some delicious lamb pictures of food. The last six months, uh, of,
of my life,
the food pics,
there's some delicious lamb lollipops in there.
The prime roast,
uh, the prime rib that I cooked for,
uh,
Christmas is up there.
Delicious meal at Momofuku here in DC is up there.
There's some good pics in there.
All right.
Panther Seahawks.
So this,
this,
uh,
site called Hawk Blogger
Shout out to Hawk Blogger
10 facts you should know about the Seahawks and Panthers
Written by
Hey, I clicked on that too
Yeah, written by Brian Nemhauser
Good job, Brian
That's what I just quoted from
About the defense being improved
Yeah, so he
The Seahawks
Here are just facts from him
The Seahawks have played the Panthers five times in the last four years.
They're 4-1 in those games.
Carolina has played just four teams with winning records this year,
and two of those teams were 9-7, Houston and Washington.
He has the thing you mentioned about how the entire defense is back.
Bruce Irvin has seven sacks in four career games against Cam Newton.
Kerry Williams does not play for Seattle anymore.
It was somebody Cam Newton picked on.
Panthers are missing two of their top three cornerbacks.
Carolina has only played one game this year where they failed to force a turnover,
and that was against Seattle.
Cam Newton's passer rating after three quarters in the first game was 15.5.
The Panthers have only trailed one team at halftime
and at the end of three quarters this season, and that was Seattle.
Carolina this year has only faced one top five defense
and one top five offense, and it was the Seattle Seahawks.
Thanks to Hawk Blogger for those stats.
Great job by Hawk Blogger.
I mean, you see all that stuff
and you think
this looks really good
for Seattle.
And yet I'm taking Carolina.
We also like the same season
revenge angle against the spread.
At least I like it.
I do too. I'm taking Carolina.
I just want to get all of that whole case out there.
I get it. I totally get it. That's fantastic. I just want to get all of that whole case out there. I get it.
I totally get it.
That's fantastic.
I just think this is a nobody believes in this game.
And I believe in Cam Newton.
I think he's been the best player in the league this year.
And this is a Cam Newton, I'm the best player in the league game.
He's going to win this game.
I believe in Cam Newton.
I'm throwing all their logic out the window.
I believe in Cam Newton.
I think he's going to win this game.
I think he's ready for a big playoff moment.
I like what I've seen all season from him.
I'm glad.
We're on opposite sides of this.
I'm definitely taking Seattle.
We need one where we're on the opposite sides of each other.
And if Ted Gane drops the 55-yard touchdown that screws me over
and leads to the Seattle win, I'm going to be angry.
You should prepare to be angry.
All right, we'll see.
Yeah.
Carolina, nobody believes in you except for me, Bill Simmons.
So we have Pats minus five.
We both have that one over KC.
We have Pittsburgh plus nine in Denver.
We have Arizona minus seven over Green Bay.
And you have Seattle plus two.
I have Carolina minus two.
House. It's a good slate. I have Carolina minus two. House.
It's a good slate.
No NBA talk for us this week.
Other than, did you see Kawhi shut down LeBron?
Yeah, that was an impressive beatdown last night.
I mean, they're just the best.
Can we just, you know, San Antonio is the best team in basketball.
All due respect to Golden State.
It's going to be really interesting if everyone's healthy on both sides
and it's San Antonio versus Golden State in round three
with Golden State with home court advantage,
and yet San Antonio's probably going to be their favorite
or it's going to be dead even from a gambling standpoint in that series
because when they throw out Duncan and Aldridge together with Kawhi,
with,
can we call it Tony Parker rejuvenated?
I feel like we kind of can.
Have you seen him?
He looks good.
After what we saw over the summer and the pessimism,
the proper pessimism from,
from how beat up he looked,
some combination of rest,
maybe,
maybe,
maybe a wonderful shipment of Nature Box.
Rest, diet, I don't know what else.
He's germinated.
He looks great.
That was my biggest question for him, and he's got the hop and a step back,
and they've got shooters, and they've got lots of looks they can throw,
but, man, when you're throwing Duncan and Aldridge out together,
that is like cleveland
not sure what their answer is yeah and they don't have an answer i i counted out lebron a little bit
last year i was like ah you know this is what happens it's year 12 for him he's not at his apex
anymore this is a different level for him and then all of a sudden he clicked his fingers and he was
lebron again watching this year now it's year 13 for him.
The one thing I've noticed, and it'll be interesting to see as the year goes along, if this comes back,
but it doesn't seem like his first step is there like it used to be.
It seems like people can move their feet left to right and stay in front of him more.
And he's getting a lot of calls that seem like they could be charges or a lot of no calls where he's just kind of plowing into guys.
Have you noticed that?
Yeah, that's been going on a little bit like the last year and a half,
it seems like.
But especially this year.
Yeah.
It just seems like watching Kawhi last night,
he just had to look like,
I'm going to stay in front of this guy.
I can stay in front of this guy.
He can't get by me.
And that's, I don't remember,
three years ago you did not see that.
I don't know. Kawhi is special
in that regard too though. He is.
I kept telling you, remember earlier in the year
I was telling you to buy 50 to 1 MVP
odds on him and you were like, no, I'm too much
of a puss. I can't do it.
I'm not going to do that. There's no way he can do it.
It's going to be Steph Curry.
San Antonio Golden State
really has a chance.
That one has an
all-time chance.
Yeah, because
the point differential for both of them
is like a historical. They're both in the top
five or top ten all-time at this point
in the season.
You know what I liked?
That Golden State sucked in Denver without Draymond.
I'm starting to think he might be my number one MVP choice.
Oh, you were validated, vindicated by the fact that they didn't look, they looked a
little discombobulated.
I like that Denver effort, by the way.
I like that Denver team.
I like guys on that team.
I agree.
I think they should go the other way and make a trade to try to make the team better.
I like Gallinari.
Me too.
I like this Will Barton.
Oh, man.
He was like a second rounder.
This guy's a gem.
He's a play.
I love Will Barton.
Farid, I've always liked.
Yeah, they have dudes.
They have guys.
They have dudes.
Moutier feels a little Tyreek-ish.
He's a brand new point guard.
They gave him the keys.
Have you watched?
Are you into the college hoops vortex yet or not really?
I'm still circling.
I haven't sat down and watched any game from beginning to the end. I watched nearly all of, what was the double overtime game last week?
Oh, Kansas-Oklahoma, triple.
Yeah, that was awesome.
Yeah.
I love that dude from Oklahoma.
It's a good year for college hoops.
It's a rare good year with fun teams.
And what we learned yesterday is Tate hates duke so much that
somebody brought up somebody i'd do like duke yesterday and tate just went on some rant about
like i've never seen anything like it like we could watch brandon ingram my house could be on
fire right now and brandon ingram could go in and pull my kids out of the house and tate would be
like oh he's a loser that guy's a loser he never should have he i could have pull my kids out of the house and Tate would be like, ah, he's a loser. That guy's a loser.
He never should have.
I could have gotten the kids out of the house
so much faster than that.
Anyway.
All right.
We're going to go to Jacko.
Yeah.
Please figure out a way to save America.
The two of you.
Housefromdc.com.
Check out his new site.
Talk to you soon.
All right.
All right.
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Speaking of security, we might need security from Jacko right now.
Let's call him.
Complex litigation, this is John.
Johnny.
I was worried about you last night on Twitter.
Worry, yeah.
It was like, who was the guy in Network in 1976, that movie?
The guy who freaks out?
I'm bad as hell, I'm not going to take it anymore.
Yeah, that guy. You were that guy.
Yeah, Howard something, I think his name was. It escapes me, but yeah, it was not going to take it anymore. Yeah. That guy, you were that guy.
Yeah. Howard something. I think his name was, it escapes me, but yeah,
it was a little bit before our time, but that's a, that's an iconic scene. So I did remember that.
Yeah. I am that guy. I feel like I am that guy screaming that at the Republican party, but they're not listening to me. So they're going to go off the cliff and I'll just be here in
the fetal position. You're a diehard Republican who can't believe that your party seems to be going to hell right now in a handbasket.
That's exactly right.
I mean, I was raised as a Reagan, Buckley conservative and proudly have maintained that mantle. And I'm just completely dumbfounded that at what should be a very winnable election,
the party has hitched its, a large majority of the party, let's not kid ourselves, has hitched
its wagon to Donald J. Trump, essentially a lifelong Democrat, certainly a financial
supporter of Democrats, and more importantly, a blithering fucking buffoon who is so wildly unqualified to be president that it's downright frightening.
And the American people are going to see that and he's going to lose in a landslide.
But we're going to go right on his train there.
It's frightening.
He had like a poignant moment when he talked about New York and 9-11 last night.
And people were like, oh,
a human moment from
Donald Trump. That's a bad sign.
Well, that's the thing. I mean, everybody today is
like, people that should know better
have been giving him these glowing reviews
because he, you know,
wrapped himself up in the mantle of
9-11 in response
to Ted Cruz's idiotic attack
of New York values.
I mean, there's so much more to attack Trump on than the fact that he's from New York.
I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean.
I mean, he was a liberal as of like two years ago, three years ago.
So the notion that he has New York values of supporting abortion or gun control or all
the other positions that he held until five minutes ago, Everybody knows that, and they don't seem to care.
So I think there's ways to attack Donald Trump more effectively than New York values.
And even dumber for Cruz was Trump had gone on TV yesterday.
I think it was yesterday before the debate, or maybe it was Wednesday.
And it was sometime prior to the debate, and he had basically some reporter had asked him this question,
and he already gave the 9-11 answer then.
So he had to know he was going to do it again.
So it's like, don't walk into his trap of giving him this chance to get misty-eyed about 9-11.
Who are you rooting for?
I like Rubio.
I think Rubio is the most effective Republican presidential candidate in at least a generation.
And that he's young, he's forward-looking, he's well-spoken, he's extremely knowledgeable on the issues.
Now, people don't like him because he can come across as too packaged or too rehearsed.
I mean, I think he's great in these debates. He always has answers on the issues.
And what harms him is that he foolishly got on board with Chuck Schumer and the Gang of Eight immigration
bill a few years ago. That would have been a disaster for the country, and it would have been
a disaster for the Republican Party. And he got sort of led down the road, signed on to that,
and now he's semi-repudiated that. But that's like the one great scarlet letter in the Republican
Party now is immigration. Everybody's all in on being a
populist and being anti-more immigration. So that's his great sin, even though Donald Trump
has 20 other quote-unquote sins of supporting Democrats in the past that we just shove off,
because he calls people stupid and yells and screams, and that's wonderful.
So I like Rubio, but I mean,
at this point, I think it's too late, unfortunately. And so we're going to nominate Trump,
who's going to literally lose 35 states. It's going to be a landslide, and the party's going
to be a disaster. And all these people are angry at the quote-unquote Republican establishment,
which is understandable. If you want a primary Mitch McConnell, I would give you money. I'd support it. You want to challenge all the entrenched Washington elite?
Absolutely. But the answer to challenging the Washington elite is not to nominate Donald Trump,
lose an election resoundingly, and then think, well, now the elites are going to become even
more conservative, because they're not. Now they're going to say, look, we ran your boy
Trump, and he got his ass handed to him. So now we're going to become even more liberal.
So that's going to fracture the Republican Party, which will be out in the wilderness for a decade or more now.
It sounds bleak.
It's terribly bleak.
The country is a mess.
The world is a mess. You know, when you have this week when the United States Navy, the most powerful military in the history of mankind, and our sailors are treated like hostages by this third-rate nation, American sailors on their knees, blindfolded and held overnight, and our leaders say, thank you, Iran, for being so wonderful.
Thank you.
May I have another?
That's the vision of the future because that's what we're going to end up with.
We're going to have four or eight more years of that. But the Republican Party liked Donald Trump
because he calls people stupid and you're ugly and you're stupid.
That's wonderful.
That's our wonderful vision to put forward for the country.
It's embarrassing.
Are you disappointed in Chris Christie that he never got it together?
You never thought he would change?
No, because I don't love Chris Christie.
I like Rubio.
Rubio was my guy. I had some hopes early on for Scott Walker, who's the governor of Wisconsin, who I
also like, but he was too milquetoast. And the problem for all these guys is that basically
Obama has cleaned the Republicans' clocks for years, even though the Republicans have made
amazing gains in midterm elections and what have you, but they haven't done anything legislatively.
They haven't challenged him. They haven't fought back enough. So the base is extremely angry. And what they want is like raw
red meat. They want blood basically. And these guys that are trying to be like competent and
positive and knowledgeable on things that that doesn't count anymore. All you have to do, you
need to be screaming and ranting and like foaming at the mouth like Trump. And that's like you're
fighting back against political correctness. So when you see the Democrats, which they aren't doing that as much, but it seems like Hillary's going to take it, right?
Is there any Bernie Sanders chance or not?
I don't know.
Hillary is – it's funny.
I was out with some buddies the other night.
We were watching the college football national championship game.
And I was lamenting this Trump – I was doing this trump brand lamenting the state of the republican party
and he's a he's a liberal democrat he's let not really down with hillary but he doesn't think that
bernie can win yeah and i mean there's really no enthusiasm for hillary clinton in the democratic
party doesn't seem like the real enthusiasm the democratic party now which is essentially a
you know it's all ivy league egghead essentially socialists, old hippies that are, you know, that they've taken over the party.
They love Bernie Sanders.
They love 90 percent confiscatory tax rates.
That's the greatest.
And, you know, redistributing the wealth.
They can't wait for that.
But they don't think that Bernie can win.
I mean, their heart is really with Elizabeth Warren, who hasn't run.
Yeah. But they don't think that Bernie can win. I mean, their heart is really with Elizabeth Warren, who hasn't run.
But all these polls, Hillary should be, like, wiping the floor with Bernie, who isn't even really sort of only running half-assed and gets, like, enormous crowds.
And he's had enormous fundraising.
Because the Democratic Party, their heart is with him.
They don't love Hillary. And the same thing that happened when Obama beat her in 2008.
Their heart was with him.
And, you know, he was a much more viable candidate than Bernie.
But what's going to happen to her if she's not careful?
If she loses Iowa and she loses New Hampshire, the party's going to get together,
and they're going to say, we can't run her.
She can't win.
And they know Bernie is not really a true presidential candidate.
So what could happen is, I mean, the party could get together
and have Joe Biden parachute in with Elizabeth Warren as his running mate,
and they'd wipe the floor with her.
That'd be the end of Hillary.
They'd have to drag her out kicking and screaming, but I don't think she could get the nomination in that circumstance.
So I think she's in some trouble.
What are the Joe Biden odds?
It's all the more agonizing for the Republicans to be fooling around with Trump when it's a totally winnable election.
I wonder what odds are out there on Joe Biden right now.
I mean, he gave some interviews the other day, which was surprising, right before the State of the Union.
And they said, you know, the reporter said to him, it was actually a Connecticut reporter.
It was here, a local Connecticut interview.
She said, do you regret not running?
And he's like, every single day.
Wow.
That's a pretty strong statement, obviously.
You know this stuff more than I do.
Has there ever been a weirder political election year than 2016?
What's topped it?
Well, this one is pretty crazy because if you told me a year ago that Donald Trump was going to be the overwhelming favorite to be the Republican nominee, I'd have said, what are you smoking?
It's ridiculous.
A year ago?
It was like three months ago we were laughing about it.
Exactly.
It was like a joke.
I mean, there's been other odd years, certainly.
I mean, in a lot of ways, this is like 1968, because LBJ was sort of, was not sort of,
he was completely embroiled by Vietnam.
Yeah.
The Democratic Party was wildly against that.
Everybody thought that he would cruise to the nomination, and he suddenly announces that he's not going to run.
Eugene McCarthy, who was an anti-war senator from New Hampshire, I think he was from South Dakota, wins New Hampshire, or almost wins New Hampshire.
And he caught fire, and the Democrats said he can't possibly win.
And that's when Bobby Kennedy got involved, and Hubert Humphrey ultimately the nominee because Bobby Kennedy got assassinated. But in terms of like strange things and surprising things and people getting
in at the last minute,
it sort of resembles that.
I've known you for a long time.
This is the most upset I've ever heard you about anything.
I mean,
I've seen you upset,
like especially at like two in the morning in college when somebody wouldn't
let us into a party or somebody ran out of a keg or you've definitely flown off the handle or like a late night pinochle game
where somebody made a comment.
You're like, you've definitely, I've seen you throw some tantrums.
This is the most upset I've ever heard you.
Well, because this is literally the future of the country is at stake.
I mean, it literally, I mean, Donald Trump's ascendancy,
and it may already be too late, is it really,
it has the potential to destroy the Republican Party, as we know it.
I mean, these Tea Party people may just go and form a third party, and then you're just going to have Democratic rule for as far as the eye can see.
And the country can't take any more of that in terms of the taxing and the spending.
We have $19 trillion in debt.
We're only going to add to that because Hillary is trying to out-Sanders Sanders.
We're going to pay for everybody to go to college.
We're going to pay for everything for everybody.
Take everybody's money.
We're going to pay for everything for everybody.
It's unsustainable in a country with 300 million people.
It's totally unsustainable.
So it's really – I have young kids.
I have a soon-to-be 10-year-old and a 4-year-old.
I'd like to leave some,
have some country left for them that resembles some,
one of the country that we grew up in. And I'm not,
I'm not sure that that's going to be possible, frankly.
When you're out with your friends and stuff on a Friday night,
do they just not even bring this stuff up with you anymore? You're so upset.
They're just like, so how'd they, how'd the Yankees look in there, Jacko?
See any movies?
I have, I have, you know, most of my friends
are of mixed politics, so I never really
talk about politics
with friends anyway, but yeah, when it's
brought up and something about Trump and
just like start quietly shaking my head
and looking down at my shoes and they just know to move on.
Yeah.
I don't know what to say, Johnny.
Nah, there's nothing you can do.
This Trump thing is the most flabbergasting thing I think that's happened since I've been alive.
I just don't understand it.
It's unbelievable to me.
It's really incredible.
I mean, I posted a thing on Twitter yesterday of some rally of his the other day, and they had these young kids.
You know, I'm not going to kill the young kids that are, you know, put up to this by their parents or whatever,
but these young girls in, like, red, white, and blue leotards, and they sing this song to Trump.
That was, like, straight out of a Kim Jong-il songbook.
And this thing, like, it starts off with these kids saying, cowardice, not amongst us or something.
And I was just like, oh, my God, what country is this?
And people at these rallies, like, it's like a religious revival.
These people are orgasmic at a freaking Trump rally.
It's unbelievable.
And he says things that are just so stupid.
I mean, I'm just sitting there going, he is so fucking stupid.
You know, I mean, Jesus Christ, he's so fucking stupid. You know, I mean, Jesus Christ,
he's so fucking stupid.
How can you be like waving your flags
and singing anthems to him?
It's mind boggling.
If Mike and the Mad Dog were still together,
Mad Dog would be like,
I mean, Mike, he was 10 years ago,
he was telling Omarosa that you're fired
and now he's going to be the president.
Exactly.
It's just frightening.
It is a humongous, humongous mistake by the United States of America.
Yeah, it's quite a pickle.
Well, all right, Chad.
At least the Yankees have the greatest bullpen in the history of baseball,
so that's good for me.
Yeah, you reconciled
that Chapman thing.
Well, I would afford his off-the-field
issues, but, you know,
everybody runs into problems now and again, and
hopefully those kids will work it out, and
whatever his punishment is, we'll take that
and we'll move on.
Who's the closer? He is.
I was surprised. Girardi came out
the other day and said going into spring training
chapman's the closer i was shocked by that i figured they'd go with miller but then he said
they said well chapman's been a closer and he's never been a setup guy and miller and batances
have both been setup guys so they're used to that role so that really is on paper probably the
greatest bullpen anyone's ever had it really is like. It's an amazing bullpen.
The Yankees had good ones in the past, like in
96 when they had Romero Mendoza
as a set-up guy when he was effective, and Mariano
and Wetland, but I mean... Not three guys.
Three guys. Miller
had whatever many saves he had last year.
It was one of the top closers
in the AL. Patances was
phenomenal. He had like a.91 ERA.
He throws like 100, and Chapman throws over 100. I mean, the Yankees have a lead in the sixth inning, Tancis was phenomenal. He had like a.91 ERA. He throws like 100, and Chapman throws over 100.
I mean, the Yankees have a lead in the sixth inning.
The game's over.
Well, at least you got that to look forward to
as the country's falling apart.
It's like the Roman Empire when there was like, you know,
bread and circuses.
They gave everybody bread and had circuses for entertainment.
Nobody noticed that the Roman Empire was collapsing around them.
So I'll just entertain myself with the Yankees bullpen
while the country collapses around me.
All right.
You can check him out at Jacko2323 on Twitter.
He melts down every once in a while.
I'm sorry this is happening to you,
but I look forward to continue to have you on over the course of the campaign.
Phenomenal.
Talk to you soon, buddy.
Can't wait. Bye-bye.
All right. Last but not least, we're gonna
call my dad really
quickly because he's freaking out
about the Patriots. Am I on the
podcast right now?
Yes.
Oh. Are you awake?
Are you taking a mid-afternoon nap?
Well, I am older.
I'm really
nervous. Yeah, I figured.
I was just checking in really quick.
Tumultuous week for the Patriots.
Well,
maybe the weirdest week ever.
Except for the
Hernandez being accused of
murdering 20 people. Yeah, that was probably weirder.
Yeah, that might have been weirder.
What about Irving Fryer's wife stabbing him
with a knife in his hand,
knocking him out of whatever game that was?
That was pretty weird.
I forgot that one, but this one was pretty weird.
And then when you thought it couldn't get weirder,
you start reading yesterday that Gronk,
the most invaluable player besides Brady,
is in the hospital getting some kind of injection, probably cortisone.
And then last night they released the second injury report and the back that he's already
had operated on twice is a problem. I mean, really? All this is going on now?
I'm still taking the Pats.
I'm still taking the Pats, but it's been, you and I have talked, but you know, if I
know a lot of teams have had injuries, you know, you look at Pittsburgh and other teams
as well.
I don't know that any team has had as many injuries as we have had.
And it's been a really crazy season.
You just look back at the team we had in the beginning when Lewis was running,
and we had the big back and the small back,
and just not the same team.
I don't know.
So you don't like a minus five?
I think we can win this game.
I'm not sure what happens after that.
I mean, every game we have,
it seems like somebody else gets injured,
so you worry about that, even if everybody suits up on Saturday.
I certainly was a lot more optimistic around Week 9.
Oh, sure.
I'm looking back fondly at Week 9.
But our defense is really good, and that's what I'm holding out hope for with the Chiefs.
What is the reaction?
The reason I was calling was, like in Boston right now,
all this stuff's going on.
Belichick has a weird black eye
that he won't talk about.
What are people talking about there?
Well, if you listen to talk radio,
which occasionally I do,
there's all kinds of conspiracy theories.
And the funniest one I heard was yesterday,
late yesterday afternoon that Belichick went to break up a fight between Gronkowski and
Chandler Jones who Chandler being out of his mind at the moment and that punched
as he tried to separate them and And Gronk heard his back.
Belichick got the black guy and Chandler Jones ended up in the hospital.
That's a good one.
That ties in all of them.
Yeah, that ties in all three things.
It ties in all three things.
And there's a possibility if you think about it, but of course, not really.
But it's funny to think about, but not really funny.
I don't know.
A lot of conspiracy theories.
The black guy on Belichick, of course, that he won't talk about, wins all kinds of storytelling for people when you combine that with what happened with the unbelievable morning for Chandler Jones.
Well, if the Pats lose this game, knowing how the city of Boston goes with stuff like this, it's going to be a long next couple weeks for Chandler Jones, Belichick, all those
people.
I think there's going to be a lot of saltiness.
You know, I won't be shocked if Chandler Jones doesn't go out there and have an unbelievable game.
Maybe whatever he took on Saturday night, maybe he should take just a smaller amount.
No, come on.
I agree with you, though.
I really like Chandler.
I was bummed out that it was him because he was one of my favorite Patriots
they miked him up
for a couple games
this year
and he just seemed
like he had
one of the best
personalities on the team
great teammate
I loved the way he played
like he had an awesome season
yeah me too
all of that
it was really exciting
not a typical guy
that we have
like just this
athletic pass rusher
that every other team
usually has and the Patriots never have right yeah I athletic pass rusher that every other team usually has and
the Patriots never have.
That was bumming.
I think he's a restricted or might be a restricted free agent this year or has one more year.
Well, I think his price is down.
Yeah, his price is down.
So maybe he'll have a great game to show people that he didn't want to be a negative influence on the biggest game so far in the year.
And maybe he'll take a hometown discount to re-up.
What is that? You're Saturday, 4.30 p.m.
Are you going to be alone? Who's watching? What's happening?
That's a good question.
I'm encouraging
my stepmother
your stepmother my wife Molly
to go shopping
have her nails done
come back
we have a family dinner
at one of our
favorite restaurants Toscano
being run by my brother
Don at 8.15 Saturday night.
So overtime is bad.
Can I just spell this out for you?
It doesn't matter to me.
I'll come for dessert.
They can all meet at 8.15 and hopefully I'll still be alone watching TV with my trusted golden retriever.
But I don't want overtime.
I don't think my heart can take overtime.
I want a 27-14 victory, and I want to see Macklin doesn't play
or he goes out there and he's limping so badly he doesn't have an impact
because they don't have much else besides
Macklin when you look at their tight end is good but um I don't like your plan I don't like your
Saturday plan but having uh having spent a lot of time in that house uh and even written about it
and I might have even done a cartoon about it at some point. Your wife has the ability to
if you send her out, she's going to come home
with like six minutes left in the game
during some crucial moment.
I'm going to try to point out that when she goes out
she can be out long enough
that then she can, wherever she goes
she can go directly to dinner at the restaurant
and never come back home.
Yeah, I don't see that.
Her history says she's going to be back with five minutes
and there's going to be some question that popped up
that she had to ask you,
and it'll be right there in your third down.
Yeah, that's a possibility.
I could shut the door.
Yeah, but then you have bad blood for next week.
You don't want to do that either.
Well, it's not that, but like everyone else,
I have a superstitious way of watching the game.
I sit in a certain spot, the doors open a certain way.
You know, you do the same thing.
You're a little worse than I am.
Maybe.
You had your brother was visiting week 17,
and you let him watch the game with you,
but only if he didn't talk unless it was a timeout,
which I thought was an interesting move. Yeah, we set ground rules before the game with you, but only if he didn't talk unless it was a timeout, which I thought was an interesting move.
Yeah, we set ground rules before the game started.
And he did very well with the ground rules.
A couple of times he started to say something,
and I said, Greg, Greg.
And he remembered the ground rule,
and he waited until the commercial.
But I'm sure there's people across the state of Massachusetts
who have similar ground rules.
Well, I think the move, if your dinner's at 8.15, the move is to send your wife out for drinks at like 7.
Like to get a pre-dinner drink with somebody.
Oh, maybe at halftime.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Try to hook her up with somebody who doesn't care about the game for a little pre-dinner drink.
And then you're off the hook.
Actually, that's a better idea because
yeah I will
can I
tell her that you suggested
this idea? No don't tell her
she won't listen to the podcast so she won't know
unless somebody brings it up on one of your dog walks or something
but yeah I think that's the move
that sounds like the move
because like you said
i can see her coming in with five minutes to go a tie game we have the ball on the 40 yard line
and she wants to know how's the game going or what am i wearing to dinner something like that
we had some classics where your your old house where you could see the lights and the driveway
would come in and it would always be like the eighth inning two out spaces loaded pedro trying to get out of a jam that the lights would
start hitting the thing like oh and the window that faced the driveway was next to where the tv
was so it was like oh well the good news is that my wife does all that same stuff, too.
So I think it's hereditary, even though we're not related.
Maybe your wife likes football a little bit.
As you know, your stepmom doesn't really like football.
Yeah, my wife doesn't really care either.
Her sport is basketball, fortunately.
That helps.
Unfortunately, with the Celtics falling apart.
We're going to the Phoenix Suns game tonight.
Oh, that'll be a good one.
Should be a good one.
That could be a win.
It's maybe the last game Keith Morris is going to play, from what I'm reading.
Oh, he's getting traded?
There's lots of rumors about him being traded.
I'd take him in a heartbeat, but...
I would too.
You know, wouldn't you?
Package a couple of guys? we need to package a couple guys
need to change
the Celtics team somehow
I'm not sure how
but it's a bunch of
we have too many
similar pieces
at each position
yeah it's
it's like watching
a movie where
there's a bunch of guys
I've heard of
it's like an action movie
there's a bunch of guys
I've heard of
but there's not
the lead guy
and it's
it's fine
it's like an ensemble movie.
It's a cable movie.
It's fine.
But you wouldn't pay to see it in the theater.
That's the Celtics this season.
Well, they're not going to get a lead guy out of any trades.
Well, there's certainly no rumors going around about a lead guy.
But I think Morris, he's just an example of somebody, if we traded two for one.
Yeah, we need to make it three for one.
It would help with the log jam we have at forward.
Every time Brooklyn wins a part of you, a little piece of you dies, right?
Can you believe, I mean, we lost to the Knicks on Wednesday night, I guess.
Yeah.
And then I saw that the Knicks played Brooklyn the next night.
But, of course, I forgot that Carmelo got injured in our game.
And he didn't play against the Nets.
And I look at the box score and I cringed.
They have a couple of teams with 12 wins.
I know.
I thought when Jared Jack got hurt and then they fired the coach,
I was expecting like a 30 loss tailspin for them.
And yet somehow...
I read on Hoops Hype today
that, I didn't realize this,
but three Nets
players were quoted as talking about
how hard it was to play for Hollands
and how much they
feel relieved to be
playing with some freedom with this new
coach. I wish they hadn't
fired Hollands. I didn't know that was going on. that's not good. I wish they hadn't fired Highlands.
I didn't know that was going on.
That's not good.
My fear for them is that they're going to do some trade where they trade Joe Johnson's expiring contract
and get real players back with longer contracts
because what do they care?
They're screwed for the next three years anyway.
Right.
So if they traded Joe Johnson to
New Orleans for
Tyreek Evans and Eric Gordon,
they just got both of them back. And Tyreek's contract
goes a year after this one. Eric Gordon's
expiring. But for New Orleans, they're getting
rid of the Tyreek contract. I'm not saying New Orleans
would do that, but a type of trade
like that where they're getting two bodies
back but longer contracts and they'll be
slightly better this year, that's our worst case scenario please don't make that trade brooklyn i think
it's more apt that he either he'll be traded to a contender or they're just going to buy him out
um if if i was running the nets i would trade the joe johnson pick for players like i i would be
calling houston trying to get dwight Howard and Ty Lawson for
Joe Johnson.
Like just basically throw them a whole bailout for their whole luxury tax
situation.
Everything.
Houston's not going to win the title this year.
I'd be making all of those calls trying to,
I try to get Marquis Morris.
Well,
maybe they are making those calls.
Like conceivably they could get Tyson Chandler and Markeith Morris from Phoenix for Joe Johnson's expiring and basically give Phoenix a reset button.
Right.
That's what I'm worried about, the Nets.
Or we could do the same thing with David Lee's contract.
Yeah.
I mean, we're in a similar similar position he's a much more
I mean
I thought
I thought he'd be more helpful
to us this year
he
I've watched him pretty carefully
he
he's on the downside
he doesn't have the leap
in his legs
that he used to have
so he's
you probably have noticed
he's getting these
short shots
blocked
yeah
he's below the rim now.
I like him. He's a great team guy.
If you watch him on the bench, he's terrific.
And he can't guard anybody.
Too bad.
This is point of season.
Execute that plan on Saturday night.
I'll be texting you during the game.
Good luck.
Talk to you soon.
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The premiere of Amanda Dobbins joining Juliette Lipman.
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enjoy the weekend enjoy the football and we will be back on monday with the cuz
we about this bitch anytime y'all want to see me again, rewind this track right here, close your eyes,
and picture me rolling.