The Bill Simmons Podcast - Here Come the Giants, There Go the Chargers, Wild-Card Winners and Divisional Round Lines With Cousin Sal

Episode Date: January 16, 2023

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal to discuss the Giants' hard-fought win over the Vikings, an all-time Chargers loss to the Jaguars, Seahawks-49ers, a bizarre Dolphins-Bills game, and a heartbreaking Ravens loss to the Bengals (1:19), before guessing the NFL lines for the divisional round (1:02:07), followed by Parent Corner and the highlights of the Jimmy Kimmel Live! 20th anniversary party (1:14:24). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Cousin Sal Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you watched Last of Us on HBO, we broke it down on the Prestige TV podcast. Van Lathan, Charles Holmes reacted to the first episode of Mally Rubin and Joanna Robinson are going to be doing a deep dive analysis during the middle of the week. The Prestige TV podcast. Follow, subscribe. This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. You know me, I can't go a day without sports. I really can't.

And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right. There's a new exclusive And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right. There's a new exclusive home for streaming Monday night NHL hockey, and it's on prime all season long. Watch prime Monday night hockey, deliver unreal plays. The biggest goals can't miss moments. Matthews, McDavid, Crosby, the NHL is best. They're all on prime prime Monday night hockey.L's best. They're all on prime. Prime Monday Night Hockey. It's on Monday.

It's on prime. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then trying to back what you think in those first few weeks and then zag the other way if you were wrong. You could bet on new and fun markets on FanDuel like to catch a pass, same game parlays, highest scoring game across the Sunday slate, offensive TDs in the next drive. They have so much stuff. It's crazy.

The app is safe and secure and easy to use. And when you win, you'll get paid instantly. Plus, look out for FanDuel Squares this season. Here's what you have to do. Visit fanduel.com slash BS to download America's number one sportsbook. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of the episode

for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network.

I have new rewatchables coming on Monday night. It is the third installment of One Word Movie Month. It will be the most controversial choice. I don't know what to tell you. It felt like we had to do it. And that's all I'm going to say.

So stay tuned for that one. Coming up on this podcast, Cousin Sal and I are going to break down Wild and Wooly. Five games. Round one. Round one's not over yet. It's a three-day round one. Five, six of the way through.

It was bonkers. It was crazy. It was predictable. It was unpredictable. My head's still spinning from Saturday night. We're going to talk about it all next with the Cuz first. Our friends from Pearl Jam. taping this 8 30 sunday night just got through five games in two days round one not over yet we still

have another game tomorrow night sal what was your favorite football moment of the weekend oh man i loved it all i really did i went into this weekend thinking the giants vikings is going to be the only thing that could save us i didn't had no idea what to expect from chargers jags which i still saw it and still don't know what to expect. Favorite one was that freaking fumble six. I had a lot, lot of money on Cincinnati there. That's unfortunate for the Ravens, but that was mine. What was yours?

That had all the makings of the tease murderer where Baltimore scores. They inexplicably go for two, but it turns out to be a great call. They're up one point. Cincinnati loses by one. And everyone who teased Cincy, 10 points, seven points, whatever it was, just shaking their heads, holding the lost tickets.

The bets were pretty, I would say, pretty chalked this weekend, except for that insane Chargers-Jaguars game, which we'll get to later. I thought that let's do Sunday and then we'll go backwards. Yeah, I feel like we could do a two hour podcast on Dolphins Bills and a four hour podcast on Chargers Jaguars and then fit everything else into one. But yeah, we'll save that. Maybe it'll be a three

parter. Giants Vikes was the game of the day. Danny Dimes was the player of the day. Danny Dimes was the player of the weekend. Danny Dimes thinking man's Josh Allen. Who would you rather have? I don't know. He does all the stuff I want from Josh Allen and none of the dumb Josh Allen stuff.

I kid. Josh Allen is great. But Danny Dimes, 300 plus yards, 75 plus rushing, two touchdowns, no picks, on the road, super loud crowd, multiple times when he had to navigate like either the crowd near the end of the clock, they're doing like all of these like complicated little run plays, flip plays. They did a statue of Liberty. I just thought he was awesome. And we've been saying this for the last couple of months. We were like, kind of like this Giants team. I think they're a little frisky. They're a little on a man, but they're really well coached.

I don't want to see this team. I compared them on Thursday's pod to like those Philly fighters from the seventies and eighties that just the weird styles. Nobody wants to fight them. They're just weird. They're unorthodox. And now they go into Philly next week. But, um, I was not surprised they beat Minnesota. What'd you do in that game? Did you take the Giants? I ended up taking the Vikings when it went down to two and a half. I was like, this is ridiculous. But I really am pissed at myself because all year, how many weeks were we saying this paper lion, paper tiger, whatever it is, paper Viking team in the minus 19 point differential, whatever it is for a 12 and four, 13 and four team was ridiculous. Oh, we can't wait to bet against Kirk Cousins. Then the opportunity

presents itself. I mean, you and I and Hench and House, we're going over, where do the Giants receivers rank in the top five or six or seven? Do you name a Giants receiver before spot number five? That was before he turned into Jerry Rice. We didn't expect that to happen.

Isaiah Hodgins, yeah, for sure. Dayball, Daniel Jones, and Hodgins are the new Walsh-Montana Rice, it was feeling like by the end of that game. Yeah, look, they've been doing it all year. They got better as the year went along. They played Minnesota a few weeks ago, and that game could have gone either way. And yet, they're up seven. Minnesota has the ball, and we've watched them do this all year.

Like, Slayton drops that pass on third and 15. He's wide open, we've watched them do this all year. Slayton drops that pass on third and 15. He's wide open waiting for the Giants drop all game. They do it twice a game, waiting, waiting, waiting. It finally happens and you're like, oh my God, this garbage Viking team. They're going to do it again. They get the rough in the passer call where you thought it

was a helmet hit. I thought they called it on the helmet. I didn't think they called it on the swing. Whatever it was, it was not rough in the past or whatever it was. All of a sudden they're at the 50 and it's like, oh my God, they're going to do this again. And then the Giants held and Cousins checks down on

fourth and eight. He throws it three yards to Hawkinson, who's completely covered and the game's over. And it was a little similar to that Josh Dobbs play a week ago, which was fourth and 17. Watch that play again when you get off with me because he's, I mean,

he has receivers. I'm not going to say every receiver was open past the sticks, but at least they were past the sticks. What was he doing? Is he so concerned

about his completion percentage? Are we still at that stage with Kirk Cousins? It was almost like he just thought Hawkinson was winning the matchup. It's like, well, maybe, but not when the guy is tackling him as he's catching it.

Yeah, not at that angle. Listen, it was a huge victory for the advanced metrics community. It really was. DVOA, football outsiders, all these Pythagorean formula, all that stuff. I know you talked about it on your pod.

I talked about it on my pod on Thursday with Raheem and Heifetz. There was just an overwhelming amount of evidence that this Minnesota team was fraudulent. They finished the season in sixth worst in DVOA. Every other team that's ever been in the ballpark of that, they lose in the playoffs. But yet, the Giants still had to play well. And I don't know,

man, I believe in this Giants team. I really do. I think they have enough good players that they can kind of cheat with the holes. Like their linebackers can't cover anybody. And Dimes has done it all year. He has a bunch of third and fourth and fifth receivers. Hodgins was waived by Buffalo in November, became their number one guy basically, but they know how to use him. He's got a ton of confidence now. And I go back to that game. What was that? It was probably like fifth or sixth game of the season when Jones screwed up.

He threw a pick. Maybe it was like earlier that it might've been in September. Jones threw a pick in the end zone in the fourth quarter and he came back and Dayball just screamed at him for like 45 seconds. And I remember we were laughing about it that night. Like, oh, man. Like, Dayball, he's probably going to try to get Daniel Jones killed on these sweeps.

But I don't know. He put some chest hair on the dude. The guy's really good now. Well, he's good. First, a couple things. First of all, can we talk about the psychology of betting and our loser friends and what it does to our minds? We saw the Vikings play horse crap for one score games, whatever you want to say, but they went 13 wins this year. But whatever, we knew what they were going in, but yet everybody was on the Giants. You want to know what shied me away from that pick? Everybody, we knew it was on the Giants, right? That's one. Number two, yes, you're right. This Day Bowl thing, you want to see it with Daniel Jones, and they're going to have to pay, right?

The Giants have to pay him now. Whereas six weeks ago, you weren't sure, just in this last month, that's when it really turned the corner. I would say it's the last six, seven weeks, but I think this is... I mean, Flacco's the ultimate example because he went on one of the great playoff runs

and probably the greatest in football history and ends up just, he bet on himself, he wins. But it's like a poor man's Flacco. Like I do think he's going to be 120 million for four years. By the way, I would pay it. I think he's good. I think he's figured it out. It's a rare loss for both of us.

Both of us were completely out on a quarterback evaluation where I just feel like after two years, I'm like, I'm either in or I'm out. And this is one of the rare cases where it's like, I was completely out and two months, about two months ago, I was like, this guy's good. I can't deny it anymore. When you bet against him,

he's scary. When you bet on him, you have confidence in him. He's good. Here's my reservations. Not for the future. They should sign Danny Dimes because everything else is such a crap shoot, whether it's through the draft or if you want to take a chance with Derek Carr, which he won't work out in New York anyway,

but whatever. Sign him. As far as for next week, or this game that we saw today, they're going to go up against a better Eagles defense. The Vikings had quadrants of the field wide open. I couldn't even understand it. That drag route is effective, but should it be wide open every single time?

Whether it's really these guys that we've never heard of. We'll give Dave Ball credit, but the Jets had 464 yards passing against the Vikings. I want to put everything a little bit in perspective. Thanksgiving night, that was such a brutal Patriots loss because it felt like we could move the ball on them up and down the field. And we lost that game.

It was one of the many terrible Pats games. But yet they do it all year. They were able to pull these stupid games out and it seemed like they were headed for another one. I have a Giants question for you. I have a couple actually. Is Dimes the best quarterback in the NFC right now? I heard you saying that.

Yeah. Who did I say that to? I texted it to you, but am I? No, you didn't even ask us. You said he was. You didn't even give us a chance to respond. At least you gave us a chance. Well, would you rather like Hurts is hurt,

but Hurts is probably still over him. But it's at least, like, he's playing Hurts next week. I feel like that's a draw. I know. At worst now, right? Who do you trust more in a playoff game, Dimes or Hurts? We haven't seen Hurts go on the road and do that in a playoff game yet. Oh, my God. I think you're right.

I think you're right. Yeah, I'm right. Cooper Rush, one. Dimes, two. Hurts, three. Yeah, you're right. He's right. Cooper Rush one, Dimes two, Hurts three. Yeah, you're right. He's top two. He's in there. I know.

It's scary. He doesn't tell you. You said it exactly. It's like he does the things you don't want. You want Josh Allen. Josh Allen was dying to turn the ball over today, you know, running with the ball. But Dimes running at seven yards a clip before anybody even like touched him was ridiculous today.

You know what Josh Allen reminded me of today? Turn the TikTok camera on. This is a quick one. Let's dance. Let's dance. It was a Trey Young type of performance from Josh Allen today. It was a hero ball. It was, I'm pulling up from 28. I want to see if this goes in. He was just throwing deep.

He didn't need to throw deep. Move the ball down the field. That Miami team couldn't cover anybody in their team. And he was so fat. He hit digs on that long pass in the first quarter. And he's like, man, I bet I can just do this once every 10 minutes. And I just thought, first of all, he wasn't using his legs. Second of all, there was that one time when they got the ball back in the fourth quarter.

He just immediately hucked it downfield, missed the guy. Now it's second and 10. I just thought it was a lot of hero ball from him. Whereas like Dimes, I just think Dimes is like just surgically going down the field. How many times did the Giants have the ball in that game? I think they had like eight drives, maybe seven. And the Giants just had these long drives, methodical, really smart. And that's why I think Dimes might

be the thinking man's Josh Allen. I think the other thing we have to examine is who has the best quarterback sneak at this point. Lawrence had a good one yesterday. He had a nice one. Dimes starts with his foot back and I'm most confident

in his, I think. Josh Allen's, I'm not. Because it feels like he might fumble. Brady's still the goat, though. Brady's still the best. I still feel like Brady's hungry now getting the yard. Yeah. But Lawrence, that one he had yesterday when he kind of swung the ball like it was a machete.

And it just felt like he was seven feet all of a sudden. Well, he was 6'7". Was that the tallest quarterback playoff matchup we've ever seen? I think it was. 13 feet between the two of them? Finishing last in this discussion, Huntley. Yeah. Right.

For QB Sneaks. Absolutely. Huntley reaching over from the TR line. You lose all your momentum when you leave your feet, right? It's like when they say sliding into first base doesn't help you at all it's kind of the same thing oh here's the ball come get it well they had a the giants had a moment and i knew they were going to go for it like three minutes left around midfield was fourth and one maybe fourth and two-thirds of one and i just

thought dimes was getting it and we go back and and forth on, now it's turned into you either have to, it's turned into blackjack where it's like, you got to do it every time. And I don't think it's like that. I think it's a little situational. Like when Peterson went for the two yesterday from the one yard line when it was 30-26, I thought it was smart.

They had a ton of momentum and they were running, they were doing everything they wanted against the Chargers. I thought they were going to get it. They're quarterback six, seven. Whereas like when they went for it in the first quarter, when it was fourth and seven early in the game, after he'd already thrown a pick that got tipped twice,

I wouldn't have done that. Like, you know, so I think it is situational with the Giants. I thought they were getting it. Yeah. Yeah. He's a,

it is such a, I mean, you're not going to, you're not going to wait for the Bengals third offensive lineman to go down and be like, all right, yeah, let's, let's QB sneak it now a choice. I mean, you're not going to wait for the Bengals' third offensive lineman to go down and be like, all right, yeah, let's QB sneak it now and borrow, right? It's different from everything else. Yeah, the Bengals still have offensive linemen going down. I have to ask, maybe keep the TikTok camera on,

so we'll put a bow in this Giants-Fikes game. Are there any 07 Giants parallels, like 2011, like maybe more 2011 parallels to this team, this Giants team? Because I think, you know, they have, we know, we both know a ton of Giants fans. Yeah. Too many. They have a quiet confidence in this team. Now they are not afraid to go into Philly. They believe in dimes. They really, really, really believe in this coach. The coach is great. He's been the best coach

all season. And I think they think they can go into Philly and win. And are you starting to get like a little 07 flashbacks? A tiny bit. I'm looking.

I'm starting to match up players like that Isaiah Hodgins. Right? Is he going to catch a ball on his helmet? Right? Is he going to pull the David Tyree?

There's actual player comparisons. You're right. But yeah, Giant fans. I know too much. I'm too close to, well, you hate them for different reasons for those two games. But I'm just head-to-head battling with them every time. And the thing with Giants fans is they're like, it's all gravy. We don't care.

We weren't supposed to win eight, nine games. So it's all gravy. And then I'm like, oh, I almost had a heart attack. I almost punched my grandmother in the face on that last drive. What happened to the all gravy thing? That's what sports is about. It just doesn't matter. Especially the Giants fans.

They like to do this fake rope-a-dub. No, no, no. I'm just glad we made it. It's like you definitely don't feel that way. You're watching the game alone right now. Nobody's in the room with you, and you're throwing shit on every down. Yeah. The day ball thing's been amazing though. And their offensive coordinator,

I think Kafka, I think has to be looked at too. And I don't know how much of it is day ball versus how much of his Kafka, but man, that team every week, they're the most put together. They should have been in Minnesota the last time they played. So they grow into, they're going to Philly.

We'll do Guest Alliance later. I had one last note on that game. I thought Burkhart and Olsen were really good. That was the first time I thought to myself, this actually might be a number one team. I thought they matched the excitement of the game. I thought they had real insight. Like on that fourth and one

play we mentioned, they were all over like, oh, this is what they've done all year. They're going to go for this. This is smart. Whereas like that game we had last night with Dungy and our guy Al Michaels, that was one of the worst announced games that was actually a memorable game we've ever had. Like that game's going to be

on NFL Network. They're going to have to dub new announcers in the game. Yeah, you're right. What happened? I think what happened, I think here's what happened. I think they said, Al, you have a choice here. We could have Tony come in, Tony Dungy, and join you in the booth, or

I could inject you with tryptophan. It's going to be the same result you pick, but whatever you want. He's like, well, I'd like the company. Make room for Tony. All the Tonys aren't great at this. Romo's great. Dungy could stay home.

I'm sorry. That was embarrassing. You need Al to be interested in this game. And it was a blowout at halftime. How are you going to bring him back with Tony Dungy? I think Herbie during the year, as he slowly realized Herbie had never seen an NFL game before, it sucked the life out of him. And then they stick him with Dungy for the last game.

And I have a lot of respect for Dungy as a thinker and a career. He just shouldn't be a color guy in a game. If you're going to have him, you have to have a second color guy to have a three-man booth or something. But you can't just have Dungy. It's just not enough energy. I think Herbie was the big winner in that game. And I think Urban Meyer maybe was the big loser while it was looking really good for him for a minute.

Yeah, you're right. Let's take a break. I want to talk about that game. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day, all the gangs here, you're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when

you're standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air? Moments like that. Or when you want a light beer that tastes like beer, that's delicious. You don't want to load up on those heavier beers and then you only have two of them. Then you feel tired. Your stomach feels full. Miller Lite, it's your friend. It just accompanies whatever else you're doing. You're super happy with it. Opening an ice cold Miller Lite can signal the beginning of Miller time. Miller Lite is the light beer with all the great beer tastes we like. 90 calories per 355 mil can. So why not grab some Miller Lites today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl

ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you can still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. All right, we're going to go jump around. I thought we were going to do Sunday and go backwards, but we got to talk about that Chargers-Jags game. Lawrence, with one of the most amazing 180s

I've ever seen in a football game. And usually, like, there's been some parallels, right? Like, I was thinking when we had it, it was 24-0. Punt hits the guy in the helmet. Chargers recover on the 6th. And there's, like, five and a half minutes left in the second quarter. And it just

and I had the Jags in this kooky 15.5 tease in real life. And I'm thinking like, if they score here, I'm done. Two plays and then third down, he throws it over Allen's head. And Allen's wide open and Michael's, of course, his voice doesn't even go up, but they don't even really explain why he

completely missed him. So it's 27-0. But even that moment, I would have said, what, the odds of the Jags winning that game were completely improbable. What's weird is that nobody got hurt. There was no sort of like seminal, like that Chargers-Colts game. I remember I bet on the Chiefs-Colts like seven, eight years ago when Jamar Charles got concussed. Luck brought the Colts back against the Chiefs. The Chiefs were like, guys were getting hurt. They were running out of people. And it was like, you could feel the game shifting. This one, I never really felt that way until all of a sudden the guy missed the field goal and it was 30-20.

Now the Jags were driving. It's like, shit, they have a chance to cut it to three. And then they cut it to two. And it's like, the Chargers aren't even covering anymore. But when did you start to think the Chargers were actually going to lose that game? When they came out in the third quarter and Staley hadn't been fired. I was like, whoa,

there's a real chance here. By the way, someone did. This might be bullshit, but someone bet a million point four, one point four million dollars to win $11,000 on the Chargers.. I don't believe it. I saw that story. I just don't believe it. It's fun to read. Who would do that? What friend do we have? We know a lot of degenerates. What friend do we have that would do that? I might do it if I had the money, but yeah, it's fun to call people out like that.

No, honestly, I'm not even kidding. As long as he's the coach and he does not know how to kill clock. I was going through my head because they passed so much more than they needed to. So it's either one of two things. Either he doesn't know the game is over when the time expires. No, it's first to 50, right? Isn't it first to 50 points? No, no, no.

You got to run the clock. Or he doesn't know that the clock runs when you run the ball. You know what I mean? It's one of two things. How is he a coach in the league? He's going to be gone by the time this posts, right? I thought he was going to be gone today. I thought they were going to do it during the football games.

They ran the ball seven times in the second half. Now, there weren't a lot of drives in the second half. Their defense gave up, what, five straight touchdown drives? Five straight touchdown drives five straight touchdowns plus five in turnovers and they lost which by the way that's fireable i don't even care if it's in the preseason that should be a fireable offense right there but also worse than all that did you see when they were snapping the ball when the when the clock was running 22 seconds left 16 seconds left 18 seconds left he never took the clock down to three or four.

I mean, this guy's a maniac. He really is. It's malpractice. It was completely fireball. What's funny is this is what Atlanta did in the Patriots game, the 28-3 game. And if you just add it up all the times Matt Ryan snapped it with like 20 seconds, 15 seconds left on clock, the Pats don't even get the ball again for the last drive.

I did the whole podcast about this a while ago, or at least the Peaceful podcast. They just didn't understand. You're not even playing the Pats anymore. You're not playing the Jaguars anymore. You're just playing the clock. You just want that clock to move. It was like Baltimore today.

The two-minute drill when they were just killing... Oh, no. Wait. They were down in the game. My bad. When they were huddling with wait they were down in the game my bad when they were huddling with a minute 50 left in the game for 30 seconds no it was

coaching malpractice and then you go back to last week where he gets Mike Williams hurt where they really needed him especially they had

another receiver go out there in the game but you really felt it around like in the red zone like that first to go from the six

that was Mike Williams territory he would have had that one play where he got past interference it's impossible to lose that game You really felt it around like in the red zone, like that first to go from the six, that was Mike Williams territory. He would have had that one play where he got past interference. It's impossible to lose that game. I've never seen a game in my life where somebody turned the ball over five times in the first half and won the game. It's never happened in my lifetime in a game I've watched. Yeah.

And those are the worst stats any quarterback ever had through a first quarter. Right. And Trevor Lawrence, like they had all the, they were on the road, which is where they make their hay, right? How did they blow this?

Oh, he's got to go. I mean, Justin Herbert deserves better. He just does. The great quarterbacks are the ones that could be great, need to be paired with at least decent coaches. The league, forget about like protecting quarterbacks and sacks and stuff like that and late hits and whatever you want to do protect them from themselves and having bad records because they're stuck with coaches don't know what they're doing well herbert's the internet darling i just

have to point out missing alan on that throw was a murder because that game's over if they 31 nothing is insurmountable and i i didn't think he was a top five reason they lost in the second half, but he certainly, he wasn't scrint. They were just kind of sending him straight back and then there's five guys on him. They weren't using his legs at all.

He's so good moving around. They weren't doing that at all. It was a really poorly coached game and maybe, I think it was a Hall of Fame playoff loss. I got to say, if Falcons 28-3 is the 10 out of 10 and Ernest Biner,

that wasn't up there, but it was a level below. But the good news for your Chargers fan is it now opens the door for Sean Payton, which is all that should matter. Now, I've heard, I've asked some people who know stuff. Everyone who knows things seems to think the chargers are way too

cheap to fire Staley and then pay Sean Payton. Right. This is a team that's like a tenant and somebody else's football stadium. Yeah. So who knows? But Sean Payton, if I'm him, this is the job I want. I get to coach Justin Herbert and I get to be in LA. That's the best job by far.

You're going to go to Carolina? You're going to go to New Orleans? Come on. It's no contest. Right. First of all, I think he likes it out here. In fact, I know he does. Not that he wants to make his career or his life or everything, but he definitely likes it out here.

It's funny. Denver meets with him tomorrow in LA. He's like, no, yeah, you can meet, I'll meet with you, but meet in LA. Like,

all right. So where, what does that look like? They take them out to dinner. Like, wow. Mastro's is great. I could have this every night.

Yeah, but no, but remember we're with Denver. Oh, okay. All right. I think he does end up here. I think it makes sense for all the sense in the world.

He wants a quarterback, right? He's not going to one of these bad teams that doesn't have a draft pick. He doesn't want to take a chance on one of these college quarterbacks. It really is perfect. Well, you know it wasn't perfect. Our 12-1 AFC Chargers. I'm sorry. I talked you into some buds. You didn't talk me into anything. I went willingly and I was excited about it, but we did it before that Week 18 game. Then it's like Mike Williams went out. That's

not great. Bosa's out. That's not great. But then Williams, it turned out he had a small fracture in his back playing in this game that didn't matter. We, we talked about this last week. The Bosa thing was hilarious. So Jacksonville is not going for two. If it's 30, 26 from the two yard line, that That doesn't make sense. From what it made sense because they have a tall quarterback, whatever. Bosa comes off the field, and clearly it was a false start. There's no question. It was one of many terrible calls to miss.

Doesn't even get off the field and whips his helmet down. And Staley, for some reason, scutters over to him like a waiter and picking up his napkin and gives him his helmet back and then bosa whips it again i thought i'd watch that clip like seven eight times but bosa ended up really murdering them because i think that it sounds weird but there's such a big difference between 30 27 and 30 28 30 28 it was like, oh my God, they're going to lose. 30-27 is like, eh, all right. You're fine. Field goal catches you, but the 30-28

was like the Grim Reaper, and it was all because of Bosa. It was his fault. And what did he think he thought when he gave him back? Like, oh, coach liked what he saw. I'm going to do it again? It's like, throw it again! Come on, do it again for distance this time.

What did he say? What did he say to the ref? Because he didn't get called for the throw in the helmet, right? He got called for what he said. The ref kind of chased him up the field there a little bit. That was so weird. Yeah, the whole thing was strange. So our guy, Doug Peterson, who we've poked fun at a little,

going for two was great. He was super aggressive in the second half. And, you know, I do think whether you think he's a good coach or not, there is something to be said for like, oh, that guy beat Belichick with Nick Foles in a playoff game. When you're down like that, at least he has some gravitas. Where if you're the Chargers, you're like, Brandon Staley's never going to be a head coach again, this is our guy.

So it was a little bit different, but I thought he had a couple, a couple of good ones, but that, that two point play, did you, did you like that when they did that? Cause I actually liked it. I don't know why I did. I would hate it. But at that time I was like, the chargers are reeling. This is great.

You should definitely do this. That's what we talk about. Momentum, how easy it was to score on the drive, getting there, all that stuff. The Chargers being the Chargers, whether it was going to be a coach or a quarterback or a kicker missing a field goal. It all pointed in the direction of, all right, Jaguars, just don't take your foot off the gas and you'll be there at the end. Chargers, just a doomed team. Very similar to the Clippers. Feels like they should just merge yeah

alright let's go we'll quickly rip through Niner Seahawks and then we'll do the other two which will be more fun interesting that this became

the biggest blowout but it was like a one point like Gino was 9 for 10 the first half and I'm like holy crap do we have to bet away from our we got a hedge against our Moneyline parlays here yeah I never felt Like Gino was nine for 10 in the first half. I'm like, Holy crap. Do we have to bet away from our, uh,

we had a hedge against our Moneyline parlays here. Yeah. I never felt, I was never that worried. What I, what upset me was one of my bet. And it was a smaller bet, but it was a million dollar picks where I'd see it. San Francisco.

First half wins the game. Buffalo. First half wins the game. The parlay plus one 15. So it's 16 to 14. They, they, I think kick a field, whatever they do, the Niners go up to, and there's 13 seconds left. And I like went to the bathroom. I went to go get chips. I didn't even realize that they squib kicked it, had a penalty in Seattle, and I lost the first half Seattle, but I had no idea. It comes back and it's all right,

let's start Seattle 17 to 60. I'm like, what? I had no idea what happened. So I'm rewinding it on the freaking TV. The guy was an idiot. They needed 40 yards and eight seconds and he like speared them on the ground. Like so stupid. So dumb. Um, but yeah, Seattle, they, they made it fun for about an hour and a half. Um, the big thing was, was Pur and a half. The big thing was Purdy. Two big things. One was Purdy. We needed to see him do it. There was a moment there in the first quarter where he had a couple iffy throws. I was like, oh, is he going to turn on Pumpkin? Nope. He was

great. But the big thing for me that I took away from that game, and this is something that some of the smarter football people have been saying, people smarter than us who watch the 22-man film and all that shit. They were like, you can throw on the Niners. You can throw over the top on them.

You could do this. And we watched Metcalf just completely torch them. And now I'm thinking, so they have they're going to be playing either Dallas or Tampa. Two teams that are going to be able to throw over the top on them. Your team should be able to throw over the top of them

if you can get by them R&A. So did that make you feel better about the game if you have to play them? No, I love this team. I mean, I don't love them. I'm obviously rooting for my Cowboys if they get there. But I think just eventually they figure it out. It doesn't matter.

And they shut you down. And what was it, 25-, six in the second half. Seattle scored twenty five straight. Yeah. Yeah. It was twenty five. Yeah, right. I guess Seattle scored six at the end there.

And what's getting me crazy is I can't pinpoint who this Brock Purdy reminds me of. I mean, who do you think? Like he'll even in his incomplete passes where he he'll roll left and like really just just tiptoe along the left sideline and then throw it away. Like, oh man, that kid's smart. How is he doing that? And so there's a little weird farve in there. I don't know. Who pops

up when you think of him? First of all, thanks for asking. He reminds me of later career Rich Gannon. Really? That's the vibe. Rich Gannon was a little smaller and he used to be a career Rich Gannon. Really? That's the vibe. Like Rich Gannon was a little smaller and he used to be a scrambler initially.

Give him a better upside than that. Give him a little better upside. Rich Gannon was the MVP of the league. Rich Gannon made the Super Bowl. He had the tuck roll game where they could have made it the second time. Yeah, Rich Gannon was a real guy for like three years there.

I guess he was. That's right. I apologize. So he reminded me of that. Like game manager can use his legs when he needs to, but kind of doesn't, you know, very calm.

I think the big thing for him, if you have a rookie quarterback and you're a team like the Niners that has that many weapons is you just want to make sure your quarterback seems like he thinks he belongs there. And that guy has a lot of confidence. Yeah. So he said it that first night, we remember we did that whole segment and, and, uh, we are our friend, Brent Montgomery.

We saw him at the JKL 20th thing on Friday. And he was like, why don't you guys get more praise for being on this purdy thing? And I was like, I don't know. That's not how this stuff works. And we're wrong plenty of times too, but we were on the Purdy thing from week one. Cause it was like, he just, from the moment he went in, he looked like he belonged. And that's, I don't,

he's never wavered from that. We haven't seen him have a bad half yet. He's not going to screw it up for them. I am almost positive at this point with three weeks left. And I think he'll be playing in all three games left in three weeks. He won't screw it up. I don't know who will. They're,

they're really damn good. I will say who's not, who's not good. The meteorologists, those creep up. I don't know who will. They're really damn good. I will say who's not good? The meteorologists, those creeps. I bet under, I had the under and everything. And how could they be that far off? It was like sunshine throughout. They missed the monsoon by hours. And I'm good to these people.

I tip my meteorologists. I don't know if you do. When they're right, I'm all over. Nice Christmas gift. This was bad. That was a big Warren Sharpe thing because they're right, I'm all over. Nice Christmas gift. This was bad. That was a big Warren Sharpe thing because he was like, the weather's going to be bad. That kills Seattle. They won't be able to throw the ball over the top.

And I was like, the weather's fine. Well, the reason it hurt us is because we had the Bills to be the top scoring team. We didn't count on the Niners to score 41 in a mudstorm. That was stupid.

I made up for it. I hit a Danny Dimes over completions 22 and a half with Giants to win. It was like three to one. So I was able to win our little bet that we made on the highest scoring team. By the way, I've never won. Send me my half. I've never won that highest scoring team of the weekend bet. I don't think ever in my life. It's always like, remember last it was like the Rams I think

in the last day had the most against the Cardinals and it's just it's always the team you don't expect I thought the Giants were going to do it for a second today they were scoring I've never even won it like when it's just a Super Bowl left I've not won the highest scoring team that's how bad I am I can't pick between two.

Damn it. We had the announcing crew wasn't awesome in that one. Joe Davis, like, he's very polished, but just

a little more personality. Like, like just you can't sound like you're an AI announcer. I'm telling you, I thought Burkhart and Olsen

won the weekend. I thought they were really good. Let me tell you what's especially good about Burkhardt and Olsen. I look at that game aesthetically. I'm like, oh, crap. This is indoors. I feel like everything this time of year should be outdoors. It takes something away from it, you know?

But, no, they brought you back. I mean, it was a good game, too. Yeah, they were really good. Olsen's really good. So, two things with the Niners. One is, I do wish that game. Two things with the Niners. One is I do wish that game had been Lions Niners. I think that would have been

a more explosive game. I think they would have scored more points to the Lions. We just lost the Lions and then Pittsburgh. I think Pittsburgh could have gone into Buffalo and beaten them. The way Buffalo's playing, we'll get to them in a second. The other thing with the Niners,

they're now like, what do they do with Trey Lance? They traded all these picks for Trey Lance, right. To move up to the third pick and they ended up getting their quarterback on the last pick of the seventh round. Who's clearly better than Trey Lance. So now what do you do is,

is Trey Lance now available? Would you trade for Trey Lance like he's coming off an injury they have two quarterbacks that I feel like could probably start for other teams but Purdy should unless Purdy completely self-destructs I feel like he's going to be the guy well I don't even know what you'd get for him right because anything that needs a court yeah would you if you're another team you'd make him your starter Trey Lance if you're like any of these teams that need a quarterback? I mean, 12 teams need a quarterback.

Oh, man. See, to me, it's like roll the dice. They probably keep him. Yeah, they probably keep him, right? Roll the dice. Yeah, well, they'd keep him, but I'm saying the other teams, I think it's better to just even go into the draft or something. Purdy was 18 for 30, 332 yards, three touchdowns, zero picks.

This is like, continues to be the most incredible story. It's not, there's really no, not a lot of angles on it other than to say this is incredible, but this is incredible. And it makes you think like just how stupid drafting is. Yeah. You know, like we see it with Philly did the process. I was talking to Lombardi about this. Philly did the process and somehow didn't take Giannis.

Their whole thing is we're just going to take projects and we're going to suck for multiple years. Somehow they don't take Giannis. The Niners trade all of their guys, all their picks to get Trey Lance, and now they're starting the last pick of the seventh round. It's like there's fucking no rhyme or reason to this. All right, Bill.

Bill, let's take a look at that. That's your second NBA reference. Let's take a look at the next-gen stats for Bill injecting two basketball references. I just love how he keeps bringing the NBA into this. A hundred and thirteen percent that Bill was going to mention the NBA twice. Wait, the way he weaved in Giannis. There's nobody better. There's nobody better. There's nobody better.

He really loves his basketball, I'll tell you. Alright, let's go to Dolphins Bills. You watched that Jets Dolphins game, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Skyler Thompson was an abomination? Right, yeah, that one. Couldn't do anything.

And today I thought if his receivers had caught a couple more passes and there was a couple great, like, last-second tips by the Bills, he could have, like, 400 yards passing in this game. He's really good, kept him in it. And then on the flip side, Allen kept him out of it. It was the same thing we saw with the Jets game. It was the same thing we saw with the Jets game. It was the same thing we saw with the Patriots in week 18. Teams are just moving the ball on the Bills' defense.

And I think the Steelers, I honestly think the Steelers could have beaten them or come close if that had been the seventh seed. And now I look at the Cincinnati team coming in and you think like, this is what a setup for them. And yet Cincinnati lost another offensive lineman today. Now they don't have their left tackle, their right tackle, or their right guard. We don't know if the left tackle is coming back, but they might have this decimated offensive line and we might, somebody's going to get this Bills team

and I just don't know what week it's going to be. But I defensively, I just don't think they have it. I have not seen it from them. No. Well, first of all, none of it would have mattered if I didn't text you. I'll just read it at 1056 AM because we had the Bills to be the highest scoring team. What was it? 17-0? Yeah. No, no. It was 14-0 and they scored to make it 21-0 and we went to commercial. It was 20-0. All right. And I text, perfect start for us. Did you hammer the Bills blowout ranges? Because in addition to the top scorer, we had Bills by 21 to 25, 25 or more.

And you're like, no, I didn't. I just did our scoring bet. And I was like, what's the matter with you? And then what happened? Milano misses a tackle. No, they overruled the touchdown. That's right. They brought it back.

They took it off the board. So we went from 21 to nothing to all of a sudden it was 17- touchdown. That's right. They brought it back. They took it off the board. So we went from 21 to nothing to all of a sudden it was 17-7. We went backwards. And then from there, it just became a comedy. Two field goals, two long drives for field goals.

But even with that, we had 34 with two minutes left in the third quarter. We had 34 the whole fourth quarter. Yeah. And Allen was just trying to do his hero ball 55 yarder to somebody. I don't get it. I didn't understand the missed tackling. I thought it was alarming. I thought Skylar Thompson was picking them apart and finding guys all over the place and buying time. And it just, it's, they just weren't impressive. It was not a good win if you you're the bills, like you did great, you advanced around too, but you can't feel awesome about this next game.

And now, you know, we're going to have this really, really, really surreal bills Bengals matchup. This is three weeks after the Hamlin game, right? Like, yeah, it's like now it's like, all right, Hey guys, we're going to do this again. It's just all the whole vibe is just weird. It really is weird. And Josh Allen's play is where it is. 30 interceptions going to do this again. It's just all the whole vibe is just weird. It really is weird. And Josh Allen's play is where it is. 30 interceptions slash fumbles this year.

That's an astounding number. And it looked like he wanted more, right? Like they wanted just the way he was carrying the ball. And like you said, their defense, you know, they, they just, they miss Vaughn Miller. It's just not, it's not impressive. Now, like you said, if the offensive linemen are out, if all these guys, if it's Kappa Collins and Williams all out, they may get to him five or

six times. It won't matter. But, um, I think the fans won this game for them. This, I called this game the, um, prior to the snap ball, because they had to move the giants Vikings kickoff 20 minutes because this was so long and it wasn't because of an injury. Thank God. Right. It was all because we couldn't get any plays off and there were incomplete passes. And it was like prior to the snap false start prior to the snap, this guy took his home prior to that. It was so many prior to the snaps.

It was terrible. And, uh, it just wasn't Bill's football. There was no flow. So it's going to be interesting next week. I don't know what to make of it. It cost me two real life bets because I was going to bet on the Giants and I was waiting

because it was plus three minus 120 odds. I'm going to wait till it gets closer, see if that changes. And the freaking Bills game went so long that I flipped over to Fox and it was four minutes in and I was like, wait, I missed it. So somehow I don't get a Giants bet in. And then I'm like, well, now I was going to bet on the Bengals and maybe tease the Ravens and tease the Ravens in the under or maybe do Ravens straight up.

That line dipped to like eight, seven and a half range. And I said to myself, because you and I have been in this situation many times, like, well, I've missed this bet with the Giants that would have won. That's money lost. I can't now chase it with this other bet. So I'm just going to back off for the rest of the day and keep the big teases I had. And then

of course, the Ravens covered too. So it cost me two bets. They screwed us. They really did. And you know what? That game was four hours. How do we have a four-hour regulation game? Not only was it four hours. How do we have a four-hour regulation game? Not only was it four hours. Maybe it's comparing it to a Springsteen concert, but just four hours of regulation.

And the fans really wanted for them. With all those prior to the snaps, a lot of it was because it was so damn loud. I was getting reports from Bills fans like, wow, it's loud as it's ever been in here. It really is. So good job by them. The game was so long that Romo ran out

of ways to say, here we go, Jim. He started saying it in other languages. Como se dice, Jim? He did. He ripped off 15 here we go, Jim. The staff kept messing about. He's very versatile. I don't know.

Yeah, that was ridiculous. I have no idea why. And why not? I mean, we're going to have all these games. We're going to start a playoff game when the other game is still going on and it's a three-point game. Can't wait. Can't knock that one and push it back. The fans will wait the extra 12 minutes. Believe me.

You get your bets together. It's the exact reason you laid out. We need a break. We need a 10-minute thing You want to be able to think. Yeah. All we care about these days are gambling ads and all the gambling being legal in all these states. And this is like, give us 10 minutes. Run your Magnum PI night court ads. Run them back to back for 12 minutes.

We're fine. We'll do something else. I was like, wait, that's not Magnum. Where's his mustache mustache what's going on really didn't look like him really doesn't 100% didn't I thought Josh Allen looked like Mitch Trubisky

I wrote that down I wrote down that there were so many ads in that game and I don't know whether it was just a long game. So we noticed the ads, but it really felt like,

cause CBS only had one game that they'd had. They thought they're going to have two games and they sold two games of ads. So they're just cramming the ads in like it was like a, you know, Harry's dinner plate. Right. And then the, the two,

a thing. Is that the biggest, what if of the season now? Because I think if, no, let's take away all the Tua concussions and it's just healthy two in that game. Could they have beaten the Bills? Because it really seems like they thought they could play with them

and the announcers over and over again were like, Mike McDaniel told us, blah, blah, blah. He felt great. But do they win that game with Tua? They might, but that was the other weird part of it, right? Forget how long. Well, I guess this leads into why it was so long,

the incomplete passes, because everyone was dropping balls in the sun. I went to school in upstate New York. The sun came out not in january you didn't see the sun in january let alone like a one o'clock game like why were people losing the ball in the sun waddle had to drop two in the sun right digs dropped one um it was it was very weird so i don't want to say inserting two and definitely get some there but yeah maybe it well with thompson's numbers it was terrible for what for them having been in there.

They were terrible, but he did have at least four or five passes that were dead on and either they got trapped or picked at the last second. 18 for 45 and they were right in it. Well, the other thing with that game, a lot of people

probably talked themselves into the three-team 10-pointer once that Buffalo line got up to like 13 and a half. They were like, oh, man, I don't want to tease that, not have it go below the three. Then you look at it a little longer, Skylar Thompson. And then you finally talk yourself into it, and the Bills win by three. Yeah. So that was a tease killer.

Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what else killed them. I don't know if Tua being in made a difference. Yeah. So that was a tease killer. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what else killed him. I don't know if like Tua being in made a difference. Probably Mostert. You and I love Mostert. Yeah, that was tough. You could have used him for sure in there. What did they end up out like Jeff Wilson was their leading rusher

with 23 yards. Yeah, and that's probably next week if the Bengals are able to run the ball at all with whatever offensive lineman they have. You got to pound it through the bills. I don't think they're a very good tackling team. You mentioned the Von Miller thing. The pass rush isn't quite what it used to be.

And Allen's been sloppy. He just has. He's no Danny Dimes. I'll tell you that much. All right. We'll take a break. Then we'll talk Ravens, Bengals, and do a little Guest Alliance. When you ride transit, please be safe.

Yeah, be safe. Because what you do, others will do too. Others will do it too. So don't take shortcuts across tracks. Don't do that. In fact, just don't walk on tracks at all. Not at all. Trains move quietly, so you won't hear them coming.

You won't hear them coming. See, safe riding sets an example. Yeah, an example for me. Because safety is learned. It's learned. Okay, give it up. Give what up? Really?

Really, really. Ugh. This message is brought to you by Metrolinks. Y'all afraid of ghosts? How about ghost peppers? It's the moment you've been waiting for. The ghost pepper sandwich is back at Popeyes. All right. your ghost pepper sandwich today at Popeye's before it ghosts you for another year. All right, last game was Bengals-Ravens,

which was a weird one. Classic Ravens. The Ravens to me are so similar. I've said this before, so similar to the Miami Heat where it doesn't even matter who's out there. It just feels like in a playoff game, they're going to hang around and be close. And what was uncharacteristic,

they really fucked up the last couple minutes of that game, especially the two-minute drive. Like, Harbaugh left that game with a timeout. Two, really? I mean, the clock was stopped

with eight seconds left and he took his second timeout. Yeah. He said the whole clock, man, they had about 3.30 left, got down to two minutes. It was like a fourth and one, I think. Third and one, fourth and one, whatever it was.

They get it. And they huddle. They don't use the timeout. That's fine. But how do you not have the second play? When you get it, they don't snap the next play until it's like 1.25. I think it was an incomplete. Now it's 1.20.

And I think they only ran four or five plays in the last two minutes of the game. It was very uncharacteristic. I always thought he was on a shit. But, you know, that's not why they lost. They lose because of the QB sneak where I've been waiting for this to happen, just for the record. The reach over. People were getting a little too comfortable with the reach over the line thing. And this goes in cycles. And we'd been seeing a lot this season and we hadn't seen it get knocked out yet.

But in that case, he was too far away. I don't know why he did it from that far away. He reaches over. It's not even close. And then somebody comes up and hits it. And that was the game. But do you think they win if he gets that play? I think it's tough, man.

I think the Bengals, that really might have deflated them if he had scored there. And yeah, of course, go low. I think maybe you'll see those go away now. He would have been up seven. I think you see those go away now. I think everything's going to be low for the most part. And especially when you can have a fullback shove you in the ass until you get through the goalpost, basically.

But back to Harbaugh for a second, those timeouts suck that he had those. He, I think it was like roofied the last drive. What was that second down play that ran it? Yeah. Because they got the holding, you got the holding,

but best case scenario that he gets one yard and the clock runs. Right. So you're really wasting a time out there, but that's really what killed them. Second and 23rd and 24th, right? But yeah, that was unfortunate, that fumble six. Our boy Nathan Hubbard, right?

Is that who returned that? Nathan Hubbard. 105 yards. Yeah. Yeah, so they would have gone up seven and I think they'd probably win if they get that. Because it just felt like they were locked in.

They were super physical. They were laying the pads all over the place. I really liked how they played. And then the elephant in the room is not only did Lamar play, he wasn't in the building. Right. And I just think that's super weird. There's no defense for it.

Like I know he's hurt, but are you the leader of the team? Like the quarterback is supposed to be the leader of the team or one of the leader of the team. How is he not at the game? And then if it's like, if you're going to play next week, why would you want to be in the sidelines? You couldn't have offered help or assistance anyway. So as far as we know, he wasn't there.

And to me, I just read that as that guy's out and that it doesn't seem like they really care either. Yeah, I'm with you on all that. I don't think he comes back. I think he said goodbye to them early in the week when he laid out all his, you know, what's going on with his leg and everything. And, you know, I'm not saying what,

was it Vic who said, you know, put that thing in a brace and play And I'm not saying, was it Vic who said, put that thing in a brace and play? I'm not sure that's the answer either. But come to the game, no matter what. Just sit there. Don't talk to anybody, but at least be seen at the game. That's what's weird. I was also going to ask you, if they score there,

we were going back and forth on text. Do you go for two if you're the Ravens? Yeah, I thought they 100% would have gone for two. And of course, Collinsworth never mentioned it. But I think they would have. And I think the history of Harbaugh says he would have. I was thinking at the start of that draft, I was like, this is it.

This game's not going over time. Because I don't know if it would help, but it's different now, the playoff rules. This is the first year where both teams get it, even if the Bengals were to score a touchdown. You don't, it's different now. The playoff rules, you know, this is the first year where both teams get it. Even if like, even if the Bengals were to get a, a score touchdown,

you don't like it? No, I don't. I don't. If you give up a touchdown on the opening drive of overtime, go home.

You deserve to lose. Yeah. Do your job. Don't give up a fucking touchdown. Yeah, I know. But when you're four hours in the defenses are kind of,

kind of, this is class. This is our culture now. This is everybody gets a trophy. Everyone's the MVP of the baseball team. This is what we've turned into. Both sides have to get the ball now. You know, you sound like Prince Harry right now.

Is that who you want to sound like? Oh, no. I sound like Prince Harry. One of us sounds like Prince Harry. That's so funny because I was going to actually bring Prince Harry in and talk about the Lamar Jackson situation. Should I bring him in? Yeah, go ahead. Let me hear him. Prince Harry, come on in. I just don't understand why this bloke who's getting paid to perform in these American football games would not be on the sidelines. I remember with the Royal family, I'm sidelines. I remember with the

Royal Family, I'm losing it. I've lost the accent. I had it first. I was so close. It started to sound like a Nashville accent. Ted Cruz a little bit. Yeah, I don't know. Hey, since we started making fun of Prince Harry in the podcast last week, the world turned against him. He became a punchline. I know.

You did a good job with that. It was really great. I felt like I was two days early on it. Loser. He's going to go back. That guy. Back to the motherland. How do you read your own book where you have those passages? Like Kimmel was doing them all week, but do these passages about how your dick had frostbite? Yeah. Like you're just sitting in a recording studio reading that? How humiliating. money do you like what else would you do for money would you go on like that what's that show where joe rogan made

you eat stuff oh fear factor like would he go on that what would prince harry do for a paycheck at this point well here's what's gonna kill you i mean i i say leave well enough alone i know you don't like that he's doing absolutely nothing and and profiting off of it well yeah what's gonna happen when he like goes into comedy and someone has to buy his sitcom or it has to do this or prince harry god forbid isn't he already in comedy right now yeah i know but yeah intentional hear some of the excerpts of his book i did he's doing performance comedy do 20 minutes on his frozen penis at the laugh factory it You're going to hate it. Yeah. I'm so glad America has come on my side.

I don't even know why. Just whining about shit. Here's my book. I'm just going to whine about shit for 400 pages. This one day. You think one of your sons is going to write a book about your other sons? This sounds like something Jack might do. And then one day Archie drank the rest of the orange juice.

There was none left. Chapter two. It's actually my parent corner. Way to step on it. Thank you. That's exactly that. Oh, shit. Chapter four. I went to poop and there was no toilet paper left.

What a loser. Go home, Prince Harry. Go back. Find another country. Get out of this one. Loser. It goes full circle. It goes full circle. It comes full circle.

We go Prince Harry pooping and back to Lamar Jackson talk. Let it off the field. Yeah, true. Lamar and Prince Harry, maybe that should be the podcast. Lamar can complain about the Ravens and Prince Harry can complain about everything else. Then this other time we were playing Scrabble. And William turned over the cue. He made believe it was a blank.

I went to my room crying. You have to have him on. You have to have him on. What are you talking about? He doesn't have any hobbies. He just whines about his life. What are we going to have a conversation about? There's going to be a little inside baseball. I wish you were there for this. We had a few executive producers. Our second one

was Duncan Gray over at Jimmy Kimmel Live. He came out from London. He does even a better English accent than you do. I told him about Prince Harry and your thing with him and everything. What's he doing? He's making a name for himself here. He doesn't do anything. And I'm like, we can't stand him. And our friend Daniel's like, oh, no, no, we love him. We do love.

We've embraced him. We really love him. And so now Duncan's confused. I'm like, oh, forget it. I'm walking. Daniel said we loved him. Yeah. He said we love him.

Who loves him? I don't know. And then I'm like, well, maybe I'm wrong about this. Maybe this is just Simmons thing. And then I'm looking around. I'm like, well, maybe I'm wrong about this. Maybe this is just Simmons thing. And then I'm looking around. I'm like, no, we don't love him. This is crazy. I mean, I guess people watch this, these documents, everything he puts out.

So in that regard, we love him. Who loves him? My dad didn't hug me for four months. Bengals, Ravens, Joey B. Our guy, Joe Burrow was slinging it a little bit trying to make stuff happen they didn't really block for him the second part of the game and Huntley just you know

you can only go so far with the Huntley Skyler Thompson types if you're playing especially on the road pretty hard to win with those guys well you know House loved this stat this trend and I loved it too Thompson types. If you're playing, especially on the road, pretty hard to win with those guys. Well, you know, house love this stat, this trend,

and I loved it too. So first time playoff quarterbacks against non first time playoff quarterbacks, just 22% against the spread. And what did they do this year? They went, they went three and oh, today Huntley, Skyward,

Skyward, Thompson, Huntley, and who else would it be? Who was the first? Oh, Daniel Jones. Yeah. 3-0 against the spread. That Ravens line was too high. It just was.

It just was. You knew that was going to be a one-score game. You knew the Ravens defense was going to show up. I didn't understand it. The Sharps bet it down in the 12 hours leading up to the game. They bet it down, what? Two points?

It's so tough. AFC North ball. AFC North football was really, really rough. I think you're right. It didn't matter what happened last week. This was going to be

a good game this week. And I don't know. These teams are just so built. And they talked to McPherson. They're like, look, man, if you guys go up 9-0, can you miss the PAT so the score looks weirder? game this week. And I don't know, these teams, they talk to McPherson. They're like, look, man, if, if you guys go up nine, nothing,

can you miss the PAT? So the score looks weirder. He's like, cool. I got this. Well, that's, what's weird.

That guy was so hot going into the playoffs last year. Right now. He's that's, I don't trust him anymore. I, I, even the PATs, I'm like,

is this going to go in? Um, yeah. So that it feels like Lamar's done there. And I don't know what team will be desperate enough to trade for him, so it feels like Lamar's done there and I don't know what team will be desperate enough to trade for him, but it will be a team. Somebody will do it. We saw

Cleveland pay $250 billion in three firsts for Deshaun Watson. Lamar will get at least 80% of that as a trade haul and I'm sure the Ravens will move on, would be my guess. I still think they franchise tag him, but you're right. He's got to remember to show up and I'm sure the Ravens will move on would be my guess and the fact that he wasn't there

I still think they franchise tag him but you're right he's got to remember to show up to the games it's imperative um Mally Rubin

diehard Ravens fan oh yeah her take was um one of the one of the worst plays of my entire life the the Huntley play. Seriously, I'll remember it until I die was her take on Huntley reaching over the goal line.

And then later to fantasy and those guys. I'll carry that one with me to the grave. Wow, that's dark stuff. Just wanted to win. Wanted a Ravens-Bengals win. Yeah. So I'm looking for it. That's Prince Harry talk right there I don't know you better keep an eye on her what were your gambling highlights for round one were you up or down this weekend no I was up because ultimately San Francisco Buffalo and San and uh what's the last one Cincinnati was a winner so I put all my eggs on that

but I screwed up with you again I pulled you into that Chargers bet so that loses that future I had a big bet at the start of the week I had the 10 teamer or 3 team 10 pointer with the Niners when it was 10.5

with the Bills when it was 10.5 or Niners when it was 9.5 Bills when it was 10 and a half with the Bills when it was 10 and a half or Niners when it was 9 and a half, Bills when it was 10 and a half before it jumped and the Bengals all the way to plus 3 and a half. So I had that. And then Saturday I did, the first time in a while, I did a 14-13 pointer, which I don't think I've

done in a couple years because I was like there's no way the Niners lose and there's no way Buffalo loses. So I get to move two other games, 13 points. This sounds awesome. So I called house and I'm like house. I talked me out of this and I laid out the teas.

He's like, that's great. I'm doing it. I'm going to do that with you. So I'm like, is that a good sign or a bad sign? Now house is doing this with me. Was it Jacksonville? Jacksonville. So we had Jacksonville plus 15 and a half.

And Lawrence is just throwing picks left and right. And I'm like, this is my fault. I did this. I had the Chargers minus two and a half and million dollar picks. But then this Jacksonville one. And then somehow they covered it. So anyway, I hit it. I have that.

The last one is your team. Ten and a half tomorrow night. Dallas. Oh, I'm sorry. No, I feel I have that. The last one is your team, 10 and a half tomorrow night, Dallas. Oh, I'm sorry. No, I feel good about that. Well, I mean, whenever you want to talk about it, I'm ready. I'm not shying away. I'm not shying away. We're going to win.

This is an 8-9 team. I think 2 and a half is a steal that it went down to 2 and a half. Everybody wants to talk about Dak and how he's going to throw an interception, and he's going to because that's what he does. But I think it's going to be about the defense. I think we bury Brady. You know, they were averaging like four sacks a game through the first 12. And then like Micah Parsons hurt and this and that.

He's healthy. I'm reading great things about him. Van Der Esch is back. Micah Parsons just had a baby girl. He was snubbed from the all-pro roster, which is a joke. And you know what, Simmons? You know what I'm calling him? I'm calling him Micah Parsons just had a baby girl. He was snubbed from the all-pro roster, which is a joke. And you know what, Simmons? You know what I'm calling him? I'm calling him Micah Possum because he's playing possum.

He's going to put Brady in the dirt. Here comes Dallas into the big sombrero. Legacy game. Brady no longer the goat after this one. 28-21 Cowboys. There you go. Interesting. I think if you win, it's, Cowboys. There you go. Interesting. I think if you win, it's even more substantial.

Really? Okay. Yeah. I'll take it. The longer that Tampa team hangs around, we've seen it. Mm-hmm. It's in that 20-21 range. Mike, Evan's talking shit. You had one good game in the last three months.

What are you doing? Go ahead. Bring it. I took Dallas in the last three months. What are you doing? Go ahead. Bring it. I took Dallas in million-dollar picks. I took them in real life, and I feel good about it because I think this line should be Dallas by 4.5 or Dallas by 5.5, something like that. It's two things that seems to reflect the line. One is this perception that Dallas is slumping

or not playing well or is vulnerable, which is like, would you go 12-5? Yeah. So, all right, you're a little unfocused in Week 18 against Washington in a game that really didn't ultimately matter at all. No. So now I'm supposed to be scared? After the Week 1 loss to Tampa, you had two OT losses.

You lost to Philly, and that was it. Like, after the week one loss to Tampa, like, you had two OT losses. You lost to Philly, and that was it. Dak, people are now treating like he's Skyler Thompson because he's, like, shaky. I'm not the most giant Dak fan, but it's not like this Tampa team's a joke. You're just way better than them. I don't... Like, if you lose this game, this is a catastrophe.

Yes. It's a catastrophe. He'll be fine. You know, Josh Allen was right behind him. It was, catastrophe. He'll be fine. You know, Josh Allen was right behind him. It was like one interception behind Dak. Right.

These guys throw. That's what they do. So you're not going to give up on the Bills because of Josh Allen. He's better than Dak. But believe me, there's other factors.

I'm telling you, I think CeeDee Lamb goes nuts. I think we turned Brady over at least three times. 28-21, I'm being a little generous, but take it. Well, you know what? You know what position is still open?

Every year, round one, we have the team that comes out of round one looking great and we overrate them based just on the round one game. Nobody was really that team this week and it feels like your team could slide into that spot with like a big ass win over Tampa.

Dallas better watch out for them. I was trying to caution you with the Giants for that, but you don't want to hear it. You think he's the best. They barely won. What are you talking about? Minnesota was moving the ball on the field. They barely won. Minnesota had the ball

the chance to win. It wasn't like the Giants were awesome. I was nervous. All right, let's do Guest Alliance. We have three definite games, and then we're going to do mock guesses for the fourth game.

Who the hell knows what's going to happen tomorrow. We also don't know when these games are going to be played, but I assume the Dallas. No, we do. I got them all. Give us the matchups. So Saturday, 4.30 Eastern, Jacksonville at KC.

Saturday, 8.15 Eastern, Giants at Philly. Sunday, 3.00 Eastern, because they move them up now. Sunday, 3.00 Eastern, Cincy at Buffalo. Sunday Sunday, six 30 Eastern, either Dallas or Tampa at San Francisco. That's Sunday. Oh, Sunday. Given the NFC poll positions. Yeah. Okay.

So Casey Jackson was the first game. Yep. I think they're going to jack this up so we can't tease KC. So I think it goes nine or over. And it's either nine and a half or 10. And I'm going to say KC by 10. All right. You get this. I said 10 and a half.

I think it should be in 10 and a half, 11 range. I said 10 and a half. I think it should be in 10 and a half 11 range. It's eight and a half. Oh, that's too still teasable. You could still get that teaser if you hop online and grab that one. Wow. Is this going to be one? This is actually the same kind of same time too. Wasn't it

Mariota who went into Kansas City and AFC South team kind of same thing through a touchdown pass to himself. Should we be worried about this or should we just tease the Chiefs? They're going to advance. I can't even keep track of all the Andy Reid playoff teases

that we've lost since I've known you. There's been at least five. Yeah. It's like, oh, we got it. Oh, last year we had one. Well, let's talk this out. What did Jacksonville show you last night? Such a messed up game.

First pick Lawrence throws was tipped by two people. And then the second pick was the most obvious PI of the weekend that wasn't called. So those were the first two. And the third and fourth throws were bad. And then he was really good from basically the fourth interception on. I was tweeting about,

I had this thing in my column way back. It was a mailbag question where the guy said, because Jake DeLome had this famous game in the playoffs. I think round one or round two in 09. He had five picks, including a pick six, and he had a fumble. And he was saying it was,

the reader was saying that that should be the DeLome during the regular season or the full DeLome if you have the pick six. And then if it's in the playoffs, it's the Royal DeLome. So Lawrence was eligible for the Royal DeLome. And then he rallied.

And I don't know. Kirk's been playing really well. I think Kirk's been getting open for them. And ETN, he does have some speed on the outside. He does keep teams honest. And I do think their front four, they've gotten pressure the last couple weeks. At least against the Chargers.

It was fairly impressive the way they pressured Herbert. Yeah, I got sacked three times. He was pressured. Well, here's the other part of it. They didn't want any part of the Chargers, the Chiefs, right? It's like, oh, and everybody, all the pundits, like, oh, if the Chargers go to Kansas City, look out. That's going to be a game.

Maybe they're looking past Jacksonville a little. But otherwise, for God's sakes, it's Jacksonville. It's interesting that the Monday Night Football game when Hamlin went down and they basically stopped the game. I think we both thought the Bengals

were going to win that game, right? It just felt like it was their day and the way they're moving the ball. It was a bigger game for them, whatever. And the Bengals would have been the two seed. Right. And instead now it's flipped and the Bills are the two seed.

But the Chiefs were always going to be the one seed. However, that was going to play out. They just beat the Rangers, right? It really feels like we're heading toward this KC versus Buffalo in Atlanta with the way the Bengals' offensive line is, which makes me think it's too easy on paper and something fucked up is going to happen,

either with Jacksonville or Cincy. Somebody's going to screw this up. Can I just say something about the... And I'm with you. I mean, I had money on the Bengals, and it was unfortunate, whatever. I forgot about the money immediately with DeMar Hamlin and the situation. But then we thought about it. Oh, boy, the Bengals might have was unfortunate, whatever. I forgot about the money immediately with DeMar Hamlin and the situation. But then we thought about like, oh boy, the Bengals might have been winning that game. Then I look at these games.

Not one of them ended up like it started. Look at the five games this weekend, right? You read Niners. The Niners was tied at half or whatever. It was close and they blew them out, right? The Chargers were crushing. The Jaguars came back to win the bills. I'm texting you.

We're in the money. All this, right? I think the Vikings scored first, right? Were Chargers were crushing the Jaguars, came back to win. The Bills, I'm texting you, we're in the money, all this, right? I think the Vikings scored first, right? Were they up 7-0? Yeah, they scored in the first drive. So they do change. Maybe it wasn't a foregone conclusion. You know, it'll suck if, well, it won't matter if the Bengals win, right? Because there was

no way they were going to catch the Chiefs. Well, to me, what they were doing in that game was reflective of what we've seen from the Bills' defense the last four or five weeks. It just seems like you move the ball on them. And it doesn't matter who the team is. People are going up and down the field on them. They're completing

third downs on them. They're not getting stops. They're missing tackles in the open field. And I think it's going to continue. But they caught this huge break now at Cincinnati with probably missing 60% of their line. And it's lined up continue, but they caught this huge breakdown at Cincinnati with probably missing 60% of their line, and it's lined up for KC in a huge way because going to Atlanta,

being on turf with them, you always want to play at home, but it's a pretty good thing for them to be on turf, and it just feels like lined up. So to your point, it almost looks too easy. We've been here before with Andy Reid, especially with these

eight and a half, nine, nine and a half, 10 point, oh, throw him in a tease. And I don't know. I'm going to have to look. I'm going to do the research this week to see how many times he's come through in this situation. You're right. I do feel like now that you're mentioning it, I feel like we've been screwed over a lot.

Remember that Baker Mayfield game when Chad Henney came in? That was another one of these, right? Was that this round? Oh, yeah, you're right. It was either this round or the next round. They're big favorites against just like year after year. I don't trust them. Yeah.

That was Chad Henney this round. Yep. So then the Suns and Philly. Yep. I feel good about this guess. You're going to have to get it exactly. I had Philly by six. No, not enough.

Seven and a half. Oh, that's what I had. That's too high. That's too high for my guy Dimes. Everybody loves these giants. Oh, Bill, I can see it in your eyes. Daniel Jones. My God.

You know what killed killed me by the way so at the end of the first quarter they threw to Maria Taylor Chris Sims and the Clapper and they recap the Giants game and the Clapper goes

go get him DJ it's my guy DJ go get him DJ and he does this whole thing and it's like DJ the guy whose career you almost destroyed the last two years when you were the offensive coordinator,

when you tapped into none of this potential. And by the end of the year, it was like, do we let him go? Do we waive it? Whatever. And they were like, go get him, DJ. It's like, oh man, imagine if you'd only been his offensive coordinator.

Oh wait, you were for two years and you sucked. I don't know if you remember, and now I'm bringing basketball into this, but you remember, obviously, Hoop Dreams, one of the greatest sports documentaries of all time, and the father who wanted nothing to do with this kid, one of the two kids that was featured, he's like, yeah, that's my kid,

that's my kid, and he's just rolling his eyes like, just get away from me, old man. That's a Daniel Jones look. Daniel Jones must have been watching that like, are you fucking kidding me? How dare you call me DJ? Keep my name out, your mother. By the way, we may have done something terrible. We, for weeks and weeks and weeks,

made fun of that tease, that halftime tease, where everybody speaks for three seconds. Yeah, they got rid of it. It was just Maria. Maria did it alone. Now I miss it. We screwed up. We apologize.. It was just Maria. Maria did it alone. Yeah. Now I miss it. We screwed up.

We apologize. I miss it. We should have just kept that to ourselves. I know. You're right. Prince Harry was tweeting about Dana Jones. You go get him, DJ. Now I've lost it.

I've completely lost the English accent. It'll work. It'll be fine. All right. So you got that one. And then the last one that's static for Guest Alliance. This is a Sunday game. Buffalo. Home. All right, so you got that one. And then the last one that's static for Guest of the Lions. This is a Sunday game.

Buffalo home for Cincinnati. Yes. I would have said Buffalo minus three and a half, except this offensive line injury stuff. I'm going to bump it a point. I'm going to say Buffalo four and a half. I'm putting this in the Vegas zone, Sal. I got it exactly. I'm not cheating, I swear. I got it. It. I'm going to say Buffalo 4.5. I'm putting this in the Vegas zone. I got it exactly.

I'm not cheating, I swear. I got it. It's 4. Look right now on family. Okay. I should have bumped it a half point. I would have thought it would be, if not for the injuries, I just think Cincinnati's better. I'm taking Cincinnati. I'm riding this team. If Cincinnati's safe to go back,

I'm going to take them too. The other thing with the plus four is they could get the cheap touchdown in garbage time even if they're down 10. It's not like Buffalo. It's not going to give that up. You talked about NFC, who you trust most.

Go ahead. Who's number one in the AFC? What quarterback? I put Joey B right there. I love Joey B. Number one. Joey B. I mean, Mahomes would be... Isn't he number one?

I think he's... Just a trust factor. It's just a little different. I leave my wife with him for a week. Joe Burrow. That third and one play. Oh my God. Oh, did you see? He showed a clip of him

bumping into me walking through the tunnel. That was a career highlight. I don't even know if he meant to do it. Did you see when I think it was after the first quarter maybe it was halftime when Melissa Stark interviewed John Harbaugh and she's like,

what do we have to do? What do I have to keep doing? He's like, you preached, um, you know, no turnovers. And Huntley just had that pick. What needs to happen is like,

don't have turnovers. And he was just like getting pissed. And it comes back to Collinsworthy. He's like, Whoa, Melissa really tapped into something there. Whatever I said, I was,

I was dying. It was so awkward. Those, why do they interview the coaches during the games? What are they going to say? I don't know, but I think they should like set it up. There should be a disclaimer, like, all right, I'm going to ask you a dumb question and it's not my fault. It's kind of my boss wants me to ask this. So, um, do you think you need to still turn the ball over to win? Would that be okay? There it is. So just save yourself a little. What if she had just said, John, I can't help but notice

Lamar Jackson isn't here. Does it bother you? It's just like a Barbara Walters question. He's in the bathroom. He's coming out. He'll be here soon. All right. So we're going to guess the, we're going to do two guesses for the San Francisco game?

Yeah, let's do it. And you'll have to beat me here to win the week. Okay. All right, for Dallas, I'm going to say San Francisco by four and a half. Oh, boy. We're going to be way off then. I said two and a half. Oh, so there's no line?

No, it's not even a game yet. No. Okay. We're going to have to let everybody know. I have the Niners by seven. I said five. All right, so someone's going to win this out of us. I'm winning.

You're winning that? You think so, huh? I'm winning one of those. I mean, they always pump Dallas up, don't they, with these? Yeah. Well, Dallas is the most public team possible. Right. So it's going to be less than what it should be.

All right. Let's take a break and do Parent Corner and talk about the J.K.L. 20th anniversary party. Today's Parent Corner is brought to you by CarMax. CarMax makes shopping for a car easy for everyone with thousands of CarMax certified cars to choose from. There's a perfect match for your budget and life. Learn more at CarMax.com. CarMax.

Car buying reimagined. Is it my turn? Yeah. All right. I don't know if you've had to deal with senior pictures yet. High school senior pictures. It's- Had to deal with them.

Yes. You know, you order a bunch. They take a few poses and, you know, there's one for the yearbook. And then there's another one that's not the yearbook that you could pick that I guess you hand out to the grandparents, right? Whoever's still alive. So we didn't have this. At least I don't remember having this, the touch-up process.

Now you could pay to get the pictures all touched up, right? When we went to school, like if you had a zit right between the eyes, that's it. Yeah, if your right eye was going the different direction, you're stuck with it. Right. That was if you committed a crime and they showed that on TV 15 years later,

that's your picture or whatever. If you just look through the yearbook, that's how you were remembered. Now you have it retouched and it's supposed to clear up acne or if the hair is weird. So one of the pictures, I thought three of them were fine. And then one of them, my son Archie had, I guess, flyaways. I guess his hair was a little messed up. So my wife had them fix it. And the way they fixed it, he ended up having like a mullet.

And I thought it was hilarious. I was dying laughing. And she is so upset. And even Archie's kind of laughing at this point. And he didn't care. I didn't care. It's one of four pictures. We could pick the other one.

And I'm like, why? Like, really? Like could pick the other one. And I'm like, why? She was like, really like a visceral reaction to that. I'm like, what? So what? We're going to pick the others. This is kind of funny.

I want to, I want to hang this in my room. You don't have to give this out. And then, um, she told me how much we pay for these retouchings. Oh, and I decided someone better erase this fucking mullet very soon.

I mean, do you ever look into how much is paid for retouchings in California? At least you could tell me any number and I would probably believe I'm not even going to say it now. I'm not even going to say it. But the point is, these kids have a million pictures up on Instagram, right? They're going to remember when we had our yearbooks. This this was one of, you know, before our parents, when they had their yearbooks, it was the only picture taken of them within seven years, right? So yes, it would have made more sense then. But do we really need to pay hundreds of dollars, I'm not going to say, to retouch these damn photos

when there's 10,000 of them posted a year on any site you want to look at? I say no. Yeah, why can't you just post your own? It's a racket. Right. It's a racket. Right. It's a money grab. Yeah, you're right. I think you should have to submit a digital picture and not use the yearbook photographer. And then we could all save money

and maybe put that toward the prom party or something. We've gone crazy with the pictures. Even like Pony League baseball pictures. Like, okay, pictures are on Sunday at noon. Like, can't we just do it after a game? We all have these iPhones that take really good pictures. Get the kids together. They're in their uniforms.

Take them out. No, no, no. No, because the leagues and everybody has to make money. Like, all right, we don't even have a game Sunday. Like, really? We have to go to this? Oh, man, it just drives me crazy. That's my least favorite.

Enough already. The picture day. Your weekend hasn't been ruined enough by the fact that your kids play sports. Can you show up an hour early? An hour earlier than usual. Or maybe even we don't even have a game. An hour early? Yeah, we didn't have a game.

Yeah, that's terrible. Enough. All right, go ahead. My son finished the football season. He weighed 155 pounds. I like where this is going. He started the season weighing like 163, but he was playing wide receiver

and he was initially playing linebacker. But I think there was so much running in the pads and he just couldn't keep the weight on and got to the point where he couldn't even play defense. He was too small. So he finished season, he's 155 and he's like, he's like, that's never happening again. I'm putting on the weight. So they start the lifting and he starts like, I will say this. I know we've made fun of my son a lot, but when he's like determined to do

something good, like, first of all, he's always on time. He's, if he has a plan, like he really does like execute it. So he talks to people about how can I put on weight? And they tell him like, you've got to, you know, you got to eat more and you got to like turn it into muscle. And he's like, fine, I get it. And you know, you've seen him anyway. He has one of those weird, crazy bodies anyway. He, so now it's what, uh, mid January. So it's two months after the season ended. He weighs 175. Wow. He put on, so he put on the weight back that he lost during the season.

So he was around 161 and he put on like 13 pounds of muscle. And the reason I mentioned this, I think he can officially beat me in a fight now. I think it's like officially over. Like, and I think he knows it now there's a different, there's a different energy in our house now where he's like, he kind of knows he's the alpha. And I would still beat him because I would fight to the death,

but I'd really have to cheat now. Like I would have to like poke him in the eye. I would have to hit him in the balls. Yeah. I would have to poke him in the eye. I would have to hit him in the balls. I'd have to hit him in the balls. I would have to grab his hair. I'd have to basically... I'd have to Roddy Piper it, basically. I'd have to throw salt in his eyes when he's not looking.

If it's just convention... I'll know all the tricks. I'll still win. It's like my wife plays tennis six times a week and I'll always be able to beat her because I can always get in her head. With him, I'll still win. But if it's just straight up, like if we're in a UFC cage or something, he's winning now. It's over.

My day is done. It's a wrap. Wow. Really? It's over? You don't want to check next-gen stats or Kornacki or something? Come out here and figure it out for you. It's really over. 52%. I think it's done. 175 is like pretty,

he's like 5'11 and a half, 175. He has no body fat. And he's just like, he's just walking around with his boxer shorts, kind of like sizing me up. Yeah. Like if this,

if this goes down, I'm winning. Here's a kind of look to him now. You should just ask him. Why don't you ask him straight out? What would he say if you asked him? Like you think you could take me right now? He would say,

absolutely, I could take you. And then I would just punch him in the balls, and then I would knee him in the head, hit him over the head with a chair. He's like, yeah, who's the tough guy now? Forget about that. Just stop feeding him. That's the problem. Yeah, I was making meat sauce because I was like the cook during the first

day of football. I like to cook and the cook during the first day of football. I like to cook and watch football and make all day of it. And I was making this bison beef. And he's like, can I have half of the second thing of bison beef you're making? And I'm like, what are you going to put it with? He's like, I'm just going to eat it. So he's in that mindset. So anyway, so now he's talking about playing lacrosse.

He's going to play spring lacrosse so he can hit kids so this is all happening what does he want to be by September or August when football rolls around does he want to hit two bills he wants to be 180 with all the same speed yeah that's good yeah when he puts he might grow he might have like you know

two more inches well you know if he wants to pay $950, they could really work on his yearbook picture to make him whatever weight he really wants to be. He could look like The Whale, or he could look like Chad Johnson, Ocho Cinco, whatever he wants to do. It'll be the most famous family fight

since Prince William shoved Harry lightly backwards in the kitchen that time. Right. And sent him off balance for a split second, which is chapter 18 of the book. Spare. I only exist because they needed my organs in case something happened. Send this guy back to England. Put him on a plane. All right.

That's it for Parent Corner. Today's Parent Corner is brought to you by CarMax. Take advantage of the nationwide inventory at CarMax. Start your shopping online, browse and compare their full inventory and choose a vehicle from any store across the country. Fees and restrictions may apply. Learn more at CarMax.com.

CarMax, car buying reimagined. All right, so this was a big week for us. Can I just say, I know we broke already, Max car buying reimagined. All right. So this was a big week for us. Can I just say, I know we do, we broke already, but you think that then making sure Prince Harry lives with us is for all the shitty games. We sent them,

sent London all the times we send the Jaguars over there. And they're like, all right, we'll get you back. We got you back. We got a doozy. It's going to top all that. Here's some of the worst content you'll ever have in America.

Here you go. So our cousin has his 20th anniversary. Yeah. It is going to be basically 11 days from now. We're taping this on January 15th, Sunday. So the real anniversary is January 26th. So he shot the anniversary show on Friday. And then there was this giant party on Friday night that was basically

Jimmy's wedding all over again. Um, it was everyone who worked on the show basically was invited. Um, 650 people showed up. It was this giant long tent that never ended. And it was just this big, crazy drunk fest. And there was a show that day and, um, pretty emotional show. I w I didn't see it, but you were there. And, um, and the whole weekend was great and got to see a lot of faces we hadn't seen in a while and everybody had an awesome time. But I think that the big thing for me, and I'm sure you've felt even more strongly about this cause you stayed on the show way longer than I did. But just not just the 20 years, but all the people involved in the 20 years and just like that pass through the vortex of that show. It was really amazing, especially like when you think that first year so easily could have been over in a flash.

The moment ABC was like, wait, what are we doing? And it just kept going. And now you have this two decade run of it was hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. I think there's still 17 still there from the first day. And it was just really cool. And Jimmy gave a long speech and I was just so proud of him and so happy for him. It was great. He did great. And he made a great speech and he did his best to really thank everybody he could. I mean, he did it by memory and then he would like just pick people out in the crowd and thanked everybody that was there. But yeah, you're right.

It's Bob Iger actually made a speech and like really brought into focus how close we were to not making it to 20 days, let alone 20 years. I mean, it really is. There's a lot of luck involved and obviously Jimmy's hard work and pushing the right buttons and all that. But really, yeah, it was like waves like four different waves of employment were there, right? I was trying to cut it into

three or four or five year chunks and we saw a lot of the originals and a lot of people like Ray Oldhoffer we tried to run from and then we found out he was sober. Okay, well, we'll talk to him. And then he's still covering our face, playing what he calls the breathing game with us, even though we're like in our 50s and everything, where he tries to stop us from breathing.

But yeah, it was like, I thought, did you feel like it was like your wedding? Except like times, like every time you turned around, there was someone new to talk to. It was very, very, very cool. It was great. Ray greeted me with a kiss on the cheek. And then he punched me in the stomach, good naturedly. And I was still delighted to see him. He was the inventor of Touch the Back, which was, there was a bus that went a couple times when you guys did the man show, the bus going from point A to point B.

And he created this game called Touch the Back where somebody at the front of the bus said, I guess the game was you had to touch the back. Yeah, you just yell someone's name, like, touch the back, Sam, and touch the back. And then you'd be in the front and you'd have to try to get to the back while everybody fights you off.

But then you'll end up, it's like Royal Rumble style. You'll end up having like three or four people at a time eventually trying to touch the back and it's just just bedlam but yeah ray but ray invented those ray invented the he's basically like i don't know who invented the over the over the top pass in football or somebody's like hey if you throw it the ball moved faster ray took would take all his clothes off yeah and then basically just try to touch the back and you had to decide whether you're going to touch naked Ray or not.

It was worse than that. He would stick his fingers somewhere and lead forward and then you really had to think about what... Thank God he didn't do any of that on Friday. No, he's older and more mature now. Yeah.

He was there. And then the original EP, Daniel Callison, who was saying he didn't want to go, but that we knew he was going to go. And then, of course, he was as delighted as anybody to be there because he'd hired a huge bunch of the first batch of the people. Yeah. But then...

I felt like there were a lot of people, our friends, KP and Lisa, who are the bookers, but like, you know, we're not comfortable with their jobs for various reasons in the beginning. Like they maybe thought they were like out of their,

you know, first of all, very hard. Yeah. Well, it was a hard show to book. Right. Right.

Like we had the man show roots were, were deep. It was very tough to get a female guest. Right. We shot at 9 PM live, right. roots were, were deep. It was very tough to get a female guest, right? We shot at 9 PM live, right? 905, 905. So the publicists themselves were like, we don't want to ruin our night. So in order to make up for that, we had this kick-ass green room, which ended up being

like the best in town, right? I mean, it would be open till two in the morning with hard alcohol flowing. And, um, and so that sometimes that overpowered the show you know and so uh but anyway these people were like i think they were a little skittish going in and then like an hour and they're like whooping it up like yeah this is the best time of our lives we don't even care who's here yeah the first year probably the green room was one of the big signature pieces of the show, for better or worse. But yeah, we were, I think by the fourth day,

Leno had basically put out the ultimatum of, if you do that Kimmel show, you don't get to do ours. Right. So the guests dried up pretty much immediately. We had the Armenian comedian as a guest on our fourth show. And it seemed really iffy. What would you have put after that first week? What were the Vegas odds

we were making it out of year one? See, I think you had a better sense of everything. I'm an idiot. You were too close. I thought everything was great. I was like, you probably thought Coldplay opening on Hollywood Boulevard was good.

I thought Carolla and Jimmy sticking the Armenian comedian's puppet in a deep fryer while they were drunk. That was funny. I thought that would move the ratings too. So I had no idea. What worried me was the lack of guests.

I really felt like this is bad. This is a talk show that's relying on celebrities and we can't seem to get them already. And this seems like not great. Also, there was so many just learn on the fly type things where Jimmy behind the desk and Jimmy turning, instead of looking at the camera, always turning over Clito. So it's the side of Jimmy's head and Jimmy's not wearing a tie and all these things we had to figure out on the fly. But now it's like,

oh my God, it's so crazy. We didn't do it the other way, but that was the great thing is he got to learn and figure it out and eventually figure out what his version of a show that's on at 1135 should be. And then he figured it out. And then 20 years later, there we were, I'll get drunk together. Then you have a crazy party, baby doll, James Dixon, smoking indoors. Like a tent is indoors, right? We were in a tent. You know what's funny? He just did it immediately. We had been there for 45 minutes. I posted two pictures on Instagram. Daniel had an unbelievable picture of him smoking a cigarette with your hand chippy indoors in a tent, just sitting on two couches. It's like 1957. He just doesn't care. What was going to happen to him? I don't know.

But I had dinner with him Thursday night too. He is in a smoking frenzy. I don't know. Marrying off two daughters. I don't know. But he's just coming out. He's not slowed down at all. He's not slowed down.

And he's still showing his abs to the waitresses. And he's really dark, right? Because he spent all of January in, where is he? Florida. God bless him. He almost set that tent afire though. He really did. Well, he had, so his daughter just got married

and he had a very, very big and expensive tent for the wedding. Right. This party we had that ABC threw for 650 people had an even longer, bigger tent, which Dixon then made a point of telling everybody that his tent was still better than this long seven. It was like comparing the Astrodome to like,

you know, a tiny high school basketball gym. But he was like, my tent was still bigger and better. Yeah, look at the top of the tent. You can see through. That's bullshit. You didn't have that with my tent. Thank you. Couldn't see the fucking sky.

And then him and Mike August made up sort of. That was nice. Mike August who blew off the wedding and blew off a gift. And yeah. So I think things are, things are coming together. It was a nice night. I talked to so many people that I was so pumped to see.

One of them was Daniel's first assistant, Naomi, who was great, who was always like one of those people are like, wow, we could probably put her in charge of the show and she'd do a better job than some of the people we have. And she was dating this actor who used to come to the green room all the time that first year, Adam. We were like, oh yeah, Adam wants to be an actor. He was a super nice guy. I the time that first year, Adam, we were like, Oh yeah, Adam wants to be an actor.

He was a super nice guy. I was like, Oh yeah, Adam's good. And we knew so many actors. Like I was another one of those actors. And then one day he came in and was like, or Naomi came in and was like,

Adam got Scorsese movie, the aviator. It's about Howard Hughes. And we're like, what? And it was like all the, and then he became Adam Scott. He's been 20 years. Now he's in New York filming Severance season two, but he was in that first year and that was that green room. It was all that like Jon Hamm

generation. These guys that moved here in the 96, 2003 era, trying to make it all these comedians, because Sarah was like the queen bee of all the comedians at that point. So all these comedians. Cause Sarah was like the queen bee of other comedians at that point. So all the comedians were in there from that era and Jeff and Jeff Ross, obviously, you know, but it was just everybody. So that was the green room. It was all.

Yeah. Then there was the Aaron Paul's of the world. He used to sneak into the green room. Right. And it wasn't really that no career at all. And it's like, just cause it was a place to be. And yeah,

it's a miracle. Everyone's having this huge party, drinking, going nuts, and you and I are in the back playing some dumb video game. What was that video game? Which one was it? Some football game. It was like Blitz, Super Blitz. And you and I are back there as everybody's getting bombed

and Tracy Morgan shirtless standing up, and you and I are arguing with each other about the fourth quarter. It was a blitz game. Well, our girlfriends have no idea where we are. No, no, the show ran late. We're going to be back later. We're playing a video game for an hour. My cousin Mickey used to drop my uncle Frank off because he liked to immediately go home and watch himself on TV, right?

So she dropped him off like in North Hollywood and come back to party in the green room. Like that's how crazy it was. People are astounded that we were in an office together for 18 months. Nobody can, but people just think we became friends through Jimmy and then the podcast, which we've had for 16 years. But the part where we were next to sitting next to each other in office for 18 months, I'm always flabbergasted people.

Cause I always tell people when they ask me, I'm like, yeah, we would write jokes and Sal would write like five jokes and then he would just annoy me and bother me for the next 20 minutes so I couldn't write jokes. And then I would finally go, I would sneak out with a notebook

and I would go sit on a fire escape to get away from you so I could write 25 minutes of jokes because we had no internet back then. And I would just hand write all my jokes and then come back and frantically type them as you were like trying to hit the space bar and knock me and hit me and just torture me I knew it would work it was a method to my madness or you would stand behind my you would stand behind me as I was typing what are you typing like you Like, you were like, Bill Murray, what about Bob?

And then you, the best thing for me was you, then you would move over to somebody else at the office. So I would have 10 minutes while you tortured

somebody else. But you had all these. We needed to look, but then we would look at NBA games, right? There was some of these sketchy websites where we would bet.

Oh yeah, we were early. That was early internet gambling. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was it. We would write jokes and then whatever i would go get a coffee and then we'd spend the next hour and a half figuring out who we're gonna bet on

the four o'clock nba or baseball or whatever right and then go down rehearsal and that was our routine well and then we'd have to watch they would know now they have what's called tv watchers who like they have they spend all the tv right and uh and they watch for clips that we could put in the show and everything so it's like prince harry getting interviewed by oprah and it's like somebody's watching that writing notes right but that was big was that near the strike i mean it was flooded with reality tv right so it's like'm a celebrity, get me out of here. So we were assigned... Joe Millionaire. Yeah, Joe Millionaire. We would watch even Survivor. We would run

clips, you know, and like... I'm trying to think of what's... Yeah. Well, I remember the first one was that there was a Michael Jackson 2020 interview when he... When it was like he had this 13-year-old kid that he was friends with and the kid was like, no, no, he was always great to me. And it was just like the craziest 13-year-old kid that he was friends with and the kid was like, no, no, he was always great to me.

And it was just like the craziest off-the-wall interview ever. And I think that was the first one that we ran clips from and then Jimmy kind of made jokes before and after. And then we were like, oh, that's something. And then it was a little bit of the talk suit model, but it felt unique to him.

And then all of a sudden we were watching every show trying to grab clips and stuff to make fun of. What was it? Paradise? Not Paradise Island. Something Island. Oh, Temptation Island. Paradise Hotel was one. That's it. That's what I'm mixing. Yeah, we were watching all those, trying to grab comedy. It was good to see everybody. It was a great party. Our buddy Paul Colors couldn't make it. Shout out to him.

Yeah, that was too bad. He'll make the 25th anniversary show. But yeah, we had a great time. I want to say that I would have stayed longer, but it was my wife's birthday. Oh, yeah. And it was time to get her out of there. Really?

Listen, we've been together a long time. It was, you know, it was like, she was like that pitcher that's like, wow, you made it to the eighth inning.

I don't think, is one more batter is risky. We got two guys on, let's get you out. She, I looked over my shoulder and there was like an ice luge and somebody was pouring her

a shot down the ice luge. Oh no. She's like, it's my birthday. And I'm like, all right, we're going. Fat ass.

I think she accused Super Dave's wife of looking like Stevie Nicks. She's like, what? That's fine, right? I'm like, yeah, I guess so. Yeah. Yeah. She could take that.

Stevie Nicks? That's what she said. She's like, I told Super Dave's wife she looked like Stevie Nicks. I don't think she liked it too much. Well, our friend Daniel didn't recognize our friend Shrifty's wife, which was, which is a big.

Yeah, you should have taken him home. Yeah. Yeah. I think he was the last to leave. Anyway, it was a great night. Very proud of our guy. And when's that? So that is show running that night?

It'll be the 26th or 27th, right? 26th. Yeah. 26th. Can't wait. there's a special little wrinkle to that that i'm not going to spoil oh yeah good stuff yeah we're all good job by you jimmy do another 20 it's easy jimmy 20 more years 20 more years all right so as always good job by you i'll see you in a week bye buddy all right that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kyle Creighton for producing, as always. Thanks to Cousin Sal.

Don't forget about the rewatchables coming Monday night, One Word Movie Month. And I will see you on this feed on Tuesday. I don't have feelings within On the wayside, on the first night, never on the side I don't have feelings within