The Bill Simmons Podcast - Lamar Jackson, Fantasy Dissension, NFL Playoff Scenarios, and a Holiday Parent Corner With Cousin Sal | The Bill Simmons Podcast (Ep. 459)

Episode Date: December 24, 2018

HBO and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal to discuss the gambling implications of the playoff picture solidifying, resolving fantasy football controversies, and reasons why the Patriots should have drafted Lamar Jackson (2:39). Then, they guess the NFL lines for Week 17 (34:28). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's very special Christmas Eve episode of the BS Podcast is brought to you as always by ZipRecruiter. You know what's not smart? Nephew Kyle leaves, doesn't even check to see if we're taping this, didn't make sure Isaac was coming. Kyle leaves, he's just gone. That's it. It's not his responsibility anymore.

That wasn't smart. You know what else isn't smart? Job sites that overwhelm you with tons of the wrong resumes. Luckily, there's a smart way at ZipRecruiter.com slash BS. They find people with the right skills for your job. They actively invite them to apply. Right now, my listeners can try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash BS. ZipRecruiter is the smartest way to hire.

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Right now, we're also brought to you by theringer.com, the world's greatest website, where there will be content this week. Not that much content, but there will be some content. And then Ringer Podcast Network. How many Ringer MBA shows this week, Isaac? We're doing three this week. We're doing three this week? One that's already banked, that's going up tomorrow morning. One reacting to the Christmas Day games on the 26th and a corner three on Friday. That's the star of Hala Luka, Isaac Lee. Now a phenomenon.

How many views for that, Isaac? About 350 on YouTube, I believe. And then like 750, 800 on Twitter. On Twitter, yes. God, they flew him to Dallas. This is great. What a month for Isaac. You get to do this podcast at 10 o'clock at night and you get to fly to Dallas this is great what a month for Isaac you get to do this podcast at 10 o'clock at night

and you get to fly to Dallas to sing the Lucas song Against All Odds with Cousin Sal that's his podcast I don't think he's doing it this week but

for the playoffs be ready for it you know what is coming this week the rewatchables our last one of the year Tombstone so you have one more day

to watch it before we do it. That is coming up. I think we're putting either, I think it's Christmas Day. Yeah, a little Christmas Day present for you. And then we're coming back with a 50-week season next year. So be ready for that. Coming up, The Cuz, Cousin Sal, but first,

our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, Cousin Sal's on the line. We were taping this very late at night on a Sunday night. It was better to do this late at night than on Christmas Eve morning. By the time you would have heard this, nobody would have cared. Isaac is here. Isaac on short duty. Nephew Kyle stiffed us, Sal.

He just left. He left us. Oh, really? Yeah, he's gone. You know what? I hope this results in nephew Isaac getting a tattoo for the BS pod. That would be a great way to flip the tables on Kyle. Nephew Isaac. I like that. You have a Korean nephew? for the BS pod. That would be a great way to flip the tables on Kyle. Exactly. Nephew Isaac.

I like that. You have a Korean nephew? He's my first Korean nephew. I love this. This is great. Sal. Yeah. What a day.

I'm still trying to figure out how I pushed on Eagles minus two. I'm still trying to figure out the playoff picture which is probably the most complicated I can remember heading into week 17 I really thought it was going to be less complicated but there's only 3 meaningless games out of 16 as far as I can tell yeah that part's weird

so what they do is they make sure that no team could see what the other team that they need to win or lose does first before they play. So they stack like Baltimore and who do I want to say, like Pittsburgh play at the same time. So as a result, I think we have eight or nine late afternoon games on Sunday. I love it. And what I thought we'd do, we're going to switch the format up a little bit. When we guess the lines, we'll talk about all the playoff implications, and I split them up into... Because we screw this up every year. This year, I finally paid

attention, Sal. You'd be proud of me. I really tried to figure out what was going on. But before we get to all the lines, what was your biggest surprise of the day today? I have to say, my biggest surprise is, and it came in a winning effort, but my biggest surprise is I found, I think I found a team we could bet against in the playoffs. We've been looking all year. Usually by week 10, it's an AFC South team that we think is going to sneak in or something. And we really couldn't commit. But you're ready?

You're ready to hear it? Yeah. New England Patriots. I'm not kidding. I hate everything I see out of them. And I know it's everything that you've laid out for me over the course of the year. But my God, I had them minus 12 and a half, and I know they won by 12, and it seems like it's convincing 24-12. But they don't things like a fourth and four from the 45, they're not lining up to draw the team off sides. They're not doing that.

Brady doesn't look good. Gronk looks like he OD'd on Molly last night. Like, I don't know. I don't even know what he's doing on the field anymore. Like benching him would make much more sense than benching Malcolm Butler. I mean, what do you see? Is it too late to say that they're playing possum anymore? What's going on?

Yeah, I would say it's way too late. I've been trying to tell you this all year. You never want to listen to me. I know, I know. I told you we're not good. But here's the thing. Nobody's good. There's no good teams.

Who was good today? Who were you impressed by? Seattle looked good. They lost to San Francisco last week. Yeah. Every week now for the last four, we've either gone into weeks or come out of these weeks and been like, watch out for these guys. You don't want to see these guys.

And now we've pretty much run through the whole league. And I'm pretty sure I want to see every team. I'm not afraid of one team. So when I look at the Patriots, I'm like, yeah, this is the least talent they've had since 2009. It's the most unimpressive Belichick-Brady season probably since the year before they won back-to-back Super Bowls in 03 and 04.

And yet they're going to get a bye in round one and then in round two probably play Houston, who they beat all the time. I don't even remember the last time we've lost to Houston. And then who knows what could happen in the Chiefs, whoever they play. So I don't know. Are you impressed by the Chiefs' defense? You don't think the Patriots could run on the Chiefs? No, not at all.

And they played them already, and they did all that. But I would say, and I'm trying to look for positives, but I would say, especially in the AFC, I would only count out, I think, the Titans if they made it to the playoffs. I think any other team could make it to the Super Bowl from the AFC, right? Yeah, I would agree with that.

Because the Titans, the QB thing is just too dicey. Right, right. I personally would have a hard time believing Baltimore is actually going to win three straight playoff games and make the Super Bowl with a rookie QB. I sent you Ravens, just a text today, Ravens Saints 20 to 1 odds before the games today. It was nice.

And you didn't even care to respond. You don't even care. You don't like that at all. Well, because I thought the Saints might lose. Once it shaped up that that was a do or die game for Pittsburgh, I thought, first of all, I was really proud of myself. I stayed away from that game and I stayed away from the Seahawks game. I just felt like those were kind of coin flippy.

But I just thought, I felt like the Steelers, I was like, well, they'll throw the kitchen sink at the Saints and probably win. And they threw the kitchen sink. Roethlisberger played about as well as he could play. Yeah. And they couldn't get it done. And the fake punt at midfield is going to live in infamy if they don't make the playoffs. Which they're probably not going to make the playoffs.

But if that was my team, that's all I would talk about for the entire holidays. People would be running for me at the Christmas table. The fake punt? Yeah. What are you doing? Especially when you, and I tweeted that. I don't want to recount tweets from all day. But you have 17 all pros on that team.

You could have gone Schuster, Antonio Brown, Jalen Samuels the whole fourth quarter. Just alternate who you're getting it to. Forget Ridley. And I know Schuster fumbled at the end, but that would have been the recipe to win that game. And I swear to God, I think the up-pack thought it was fourth and two. I think he thought it was fourth and two when he took that ball. The way he celebrated after like a four-and-a-half-yard game.

It's not hard. Just look to the other side of the field. You'll see those orange little bags on the field. That's where you have to get for a first down. What went on there? I thought it was awful. And it was a typical, terrible Pittsburgh loss that you come out of the game and you're like,

man, if we didn't do this, if we didn't make this dumb play, if we didn't, and then we, you know, yet another game where they kind of felt like they gave it away. Because I thought they were probably the better team. Breeze made some great plays. I thought this was an unusually good Week 16.

And I think the biggest reason was the quarterbacks all showed up for the most part, right? Yeah. Mahomes and Wilson were both terrific. Wilson was – some of the throws he made in that Sunday night game were outrageous. He was great. Breeze and Roethlisberger, I really enjoyed that one.

What was it? There was another one. I thought Lamar Jackson was really good last night. Yeah, sure. And I thought Rivers was probably the only one out of all the MVP candidates and extended candidates who didn't really have a good game. Brady looked up and down and skittish yet again.

And I just don't think he's in that conversation anymore. I hate to say it, but I've been watching the Patriots for four months. Oh, Luck was the other one who came through late. He threw a bad pick early, but yeah, he did well. And Nick Foles made some big plays

too, I thought. We could say, I don't know who which quarterback's looking great who's but nick foals is the bar right now right that's what you need to get you to the super bowl we saw it last year he did it and he got hot and that's all that mattered so um and that game count anyone out maybe blaine gabbert didn't count out but other these other guys are all in it so i won eagles one and a half on an actual bet, but on the podcast on Thursday, it was two. It ended up being a push, which I'm still trying to wrap my head around, but the Eagles dominated that game.

Can you wrap your head around Doug Peterson going for a two-point conversion? No. What is that guy doing? I think I've been on the wrong side of a missed PAT. Yeah. 98 out of 100 times this year. I don't know how it's possible, but every team I've bet on has somehow missed a PAT in the first half. Yeah.

They go up 29-16. They have the ball. Houston doesn't do anything. Philly gets the ball back, and Adams fumbles. They're running out the clock there's like 7 minutes left Houston comes down scores

Philly gets rid of the ball again I think they they might have even fumbled again I can't remember how Houston got it back but

Watson gets two 3rd and 11's one of which was like 3 different guys should have sacked him and didn't and he's just like Spider-Man moving around.

That was a spectacular escape mission. Really, really good. I don't know where he ranks on the scariest QBs to gamble against because Rodgers is definitely falling back. And I think Brady has too. But Mahomes and Deshaun have definitely ascended because it's both guys. It's like, oh, we got him.

Oh, he got away. Oh, my God. How did he do that? And so anyway, Houston ends up not winning. But the shame of it is it doesn't seem like Philly's going to make the playoffs. And I think they're one of the six best teams. Right? Yeah, they got hot too late.

Like one week too late. Their defense, well, not that it was great today but, you know, got torched by Amari Cooper who's sort of disappeared which is also an odd thing. The Cowboys are winning and that guy's not factoring in but yeah, I think they'll be

9-7. The Vikings will be 9-6-1. That's what we think for the sixth seed. Yeah, and I don't want to see the Vikings in the playoffs. I don't think they're good. I want to see Philly in the playoffs. I think Philly at Chicago is kind of overqualified to be a round one playoff game. Well, I'm predicting that's the Saturday night game.

Oh, yeah. I'm predicting it already. Whoever Chicago hosts is the Saturday night game, whether it's Philly or Minnesota. In the Shakey's game, first game has to be I'm assuming Texans win that division. Texans versus winner of Colts Tennessee.

We'll get to it when we do the games, but I can see Houston blowing that Jacksonville game. Houston blowing the Jacksonville game? Yeah, we'll get to it, but that the games, but I can see Houston blowing that Jacksonville game. Houston blowing the Jacksonville game? Yeah. We'll get to it, but that line seemed short for me. So Houston, no Lamar Miller. Maybe he'll come back next week. I don't know.

But Damaris Thomas looks like he's done for the year. Yeah. They lost the other guy. What's that guy's name? Cutie? Yeah. Is that how you pronounce his name? Is it?

Cutie? Cote? Cutie? Oh, Is that how you pronounce his name? Cutie? Cote? Cutie? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Cote? C-O-T-E? Yeah, I don't even know. You know I have dyslexia pronunciation.

They lost a tight end. That was the crazy thing about them getting those two touchdowns against the Eagles. They really had no skill guys left other than Hopkins, and he's hurt too. Alfred Blewett, 14 yards rushing, aside from whatever Deshaun Watson put up. And if you watch the whole game, the Eagles really had a big pass rush on him, I thought, for all four quarters.

And it's a miracle that he didn't get sacked 14 times. I think that's a winnable game for Jacksonville. It's just classic. Bortles screws them out of a top five pick, makes some things happen. They feel good about themselves. They go six and 10. They knock Houston out of it.

And the thing is, if Houston loses that game and Indianapolis beats Tennessee, Indianapolis is the division champ. Yeah, or if Tennessee wins, they're the division champ. But I care about Indianapolis because we have money. Oh yeah, we have 21. Right, yeah. We have them at 20 to 1.

So we actually can hedge that. I'm trying to figure out how we hedge it. So we just do a parlay with the – no, we'd have to bet the Texans. No, all we do is we have the Colts at 20 to 1 to win the division. So all we do is just bet the Houston money line, and we win either way. And then wait well we don't win either way because they'd still

have to win the Sunday night game what do you mean if Houston I see if the Texans win we win that gotcha

gotcha gotcha I was rooting there was a scenario where maybe in my head it made sense but I wanted

Ravens-Browns to be Sunday night game somehow but I don't think it can happen I mean I don't think it could have played out in a way where if Pittsburgh had lost it would have been for absolutely nothing but if they had bet on

oh Pittsburgh is going to win so now the Ravens have to beat the Browns to win the division I think that would have been a much better Sunday night game than and they could have played they they could have billed it like Baker's going for the offensive rookie of the year, which I kind of think, is he in the lead now? What are you thinking?

I mean, Barkley's not putting up the numbers. They have 43 yards rushing. I thought they'd just give him the ball 45 times today. Who cares if they beat the Colts? Yeah, it seems like they're trying not to put any more miles on Barkley, which I totally agree with. Right? Why have him take more hits?

For the offensive rookie of the year, which I have at 6-1. That's why. I forgot you had that. Who's your MVP now? Is it Breeze now? I still go Mahomes. I think 50 and 5,000 is just a spectacular couple of numbers there. Manning only did it. He's the only one to do it. So now what's he at? 48 and close to 5,000. He'll

have to play next week. I like Mahomes. He has 50 touchdowns, 5,000 yards, and 15 times Chris Collinsworth has gone oh wow wow he loves him there's some good wow guys this year but I think Mahomes is the number one wow guy he's had he's had at least I don't know 12 throws from arm angles

that I'm not sure I've ever seen before I know but everyone needs to calm down with that he was a baseball player his old man was a shortstop like he's used to throwing that way I know but I enjoy it I know but how everyone needs to calm down with that. He was a baseball player. His old man was a shortstop. He's used to throwing that way. I know, but I enjoy it. I'm just saying I enjoy it. I know, but how is he doing? His arm, the bones aren't supposed to go that way.

It's like, yeah, every shortstop. I know it's holding a football. That is a good point. I know what he's doing. Yeah, you think Derek Jeter's watching this just getting annoyed? Yeah, exactly. He's not going through his legs. He's like, I've done this.

No, he stole my MVP, though. Wow. I think Breeze, I think he locked it up today. Oh, really? Yeah, because the media, but the MVP is a narrative, and the narrative is going to be Breeze, and the Saints going 14-2, and whatever win streak they're on right now,

I can't even remember how many games it's been. It might be dead even. This would be the first time. The offensive rookie of the year and MVP have never been this close this late in the year. So we should take a look at that. The funniest thing about the NFL MVP is I always care who wins, but then after they win, I can't remember who won.

Yeah, right. In the NBA, you could throw any year at me, I'd remember. In the NFL, it has no impact. Because it's almost always Brady versus Rodgers that comes down to it. It was nice this year. We got a little break from that. Sorry. My dad is out of his mind about the Lamar Jackson, Sonny Michelle thing,

even though Sonny was good today. Oh, yeah. But he was on the Lamar Jackson thing from before the draft. We had two cracks at him. We passed them twice. He talked about it all summer. And then Brady's starting to look like a 41-year-old man trying to play quarterback. And now Lamar comes in and the way they were talking about him in the broadcast and these big big stages this is where he comes alive and my dad can't handle it it's it's rough it is crazy that we didn't take him we had two first round picks

look i i love your dad i think he's gonna live for a long time but uh i think brady's gonna be the last quarterback he sees i mean brady's not gonna leave for 15 17 years it's gonna be bad he's gonna leave on his terms. Unless Lamar Jackson. Lamar Jackson could play tight end for them right now. I agree with that, but I don't know. I don't think he's getting a clean break from Brady anytime soon. Yeah, he's going to be like Noah Wiley

on ER, where he's just like as long as this show's on, I'm not leaving. Right, right. I'm going to keep cashing these checks. Let's take one more break and then we're going to talk about one of the craziest Fantasy League things that I can remember. All right. Let's take a break to talk about Project Blue Book on History Channel

based on the true top secret 1950s and 60s United States Air Force investigations of the same name, Project Blue Book, follows Dr. J. Allen Hynek, a brilliant astrophysicist and college professor, recruited to spearhead this clandestine operation. In total, there were 12,618 UFO sightings reported to Project Blue Book, of which 701 remain unidentified. Each episode will draw from the actual files. It stars Aidan Gillen, who you might know as Littlefinger on Game of Thrones.

EP'd by Robert Zemeckis, the one and only. It is a new drama. It premieres Tuesday, January 8th at 10, 18, 9 central on History Channel. Visit history.com slash projectbluebook to learn more. Do you believe in UFOs, Isaac? I do not. I not only believe in them, I really believe in them.

So I'm going to be watching Project Blue Book. I'm a UFO guy. Check it out. Check out history.com slash projectbluebook. So our fantasy league, I swear this isn't going to be

a people talk about their fantasy league story. We had the most controversial trade that's ever happened in our league. We've discussed this on this podcast before. It was an 0-5 team traded Todd Gurley. Classic three for one. Polarizing when it happened, became more polarizing. The team that got Todd Gurley ended up making the finals. We had a whole other round of emails this week that lasted two days that got testy again. And everything led to Todd Gurley getting scratched two hours before the late games, but too late for

the team that got Todd Gurley, our friends Jamie and Tall John. We're not able to sub in anyone else because all of the other backups had started except for Chris Carson's backup. And they had to start two Seattle running backs in the finals, and they already lost. Yep. Sal, was this the greatest example ever of karma in a fantasy league

that you've ever seen or no? You think so? Oh, I think it was. I was playing Radiohead Karma Police all day just thinking of Tall John and Jamie. Really? As Todd Gurley with the scratch. First of all, I've never heard of the guy being approved to play and then getting scratched like 90 minutes before the game.

That was unbelievable. He's the opposite of Juju Smith-Schuster, who came out and actually tweeted or sent a message. I forgot how he met with him. It was on Instagram. He's like, you drafted me. You're going to get the best of me. I'm going to go out there and try,

you know, not even sure I should be playing, but I'm going to go out there. But girly stop seven yards short of the end zone decides he's not playing, tells him he is playing, you know, he plays it completely differently. I actually think,

I think the TV networks actually handled it wrong. It should have been treated like the most important story of the day. You know how they have the breaking news thing where it says like, breaking news, Dallas has won the division. All of the breaking news should have been Todd Gurley's now playing, you're effed if you have him. Yeah, it affected more viewers than any other thing that could have popped up on that screen. 100%. Because odds are, if you had Todd Gurley, you're probably in the finals. Guy was putting up 20 plus points a game. Well, so now you could say how you really feel to Tal and Jamie because they're not going to vote you out. They're not going to win.

So go ahead. Let it fly. Well, we still haven't figured out how to do rules on trades, whether you do a trade committee or if a team's down a certain number of games below 500, should they be prevented from trading? There's no solution. That's the most frustrating thing about it. I don't think you want 0-5 teams to end up 1-13, whatever the fuck I was, 1-13, 1-12, whatever it was. Because if you're vying for the playoffs, you're going to need that bad team to

beat someone along the way. You don't need them to lose the rest of the way. So you can't really, you need to inspire them to keep making moves and stuff. Now, maybe they shouldn't have traded their best player but I don't know. What if we just vote on trades? Well, what I was thinking was alright, so you start a service.

Maybe you and I, we start this service. And people just, when there's been a controversial trade, they just mail us the trade. And then we decide we're like Roger Goodell. We just come in. We know nothing other than what the records are of the teams. And here is the trade. Does this trade seem fair? And we look at it in five seconds and say, no, like this should be Amazon has the Alexa. They put like billions of dollars into Alexa.

It's pretty good. Like just, hey, Alexa, is this trade fair? And then like Todd Gurley, whatever, you say the trade. And then Alexa goes, no, the trade is not fair for the team that got Todd Gurley. Right. And then that's it. You can't make the trade. I like that.

Let's spend our money this way. Then we miss out on hundreds of emails where people call each other's make the trade. I like that. Let's spend our money this way. Then we miss out on hundreds of emails where people call each other's mother's names and stuff like that. That's fun stuff to me. I mean, I don't know. This could be it for our league. It really split the league apart. I watched with Hench,

and he was rooting against the team that had Gurley so much that they also had Aaron Rodgers, a quarterback. Yeah. He was rooting against them so much that he was freaking out about Rodgers because he thought you had Rodgers. He was playing you in the consolation game. And every time Rodgers scored, he went nuts. I'm like, Hench, you're not even playing against Rodgers.

He's like, oh, yeah, yeah, right. That's the team who has Gurley. I'm sorry. I'm just so mad. Yeah. He definitely lost that. I don't, first of all,

why did we have a consolation game? Does third place get money? Third place gets more money than fourth. Yeah. Oh, I would have been rooting for that a little bit harder. So yeah, Alexa and people with Amazon come up with some sort of trade judge that,

that can just veto trades that seem slightly unfair. Cause you're right. If a team's on five and there's no rules against it, why not make a trade? Yeah. Who cares? What do you care if you're screwing up the playoff? The thing is, we could put it to a Twitter poll,

and if 65% think it's unfair, then that could be the Alexa for now. I asked people in the ringer Slack about it, and Riley, who cares about fantasy as much as anyone at the ringer slack about it and Riley who cares about fantasy as much as anyone at the ringer thought it was unfair unless they were planning on spinning one of the running backs off into somebody else interesting yeah I just want the 40 hours of my life back that were spent on that email chain and just getting email after email while we're all at work having to deal with like more important things and there's just this chain that won't end. People yelling at each other.

I think, forget about getting the hours back. I think we need to add a few more. I really want to get a roundtable discussion. We'll put it on the ringer. We'll get me, you, Tal, Jamie, Hench, Powell. And of course, we'll get Brad in there. And let's just hash it out. Because you're right.

There are some friendships that are going to be lost over this. Hench is a madman with this. You got to hear him. I was thinking maybe we just do a documentary. Maybe I get the guys who did the Momentum Generation on HBO. Maybe this is their next project. They just talk about how our league fell apart. So, yeah.

So, Rodgers had 47 fantasy points today, which had to have swung, I don't know, a decent amount of leagues, right? Rodgers had to have been starting for some people out there. I think so, yeah. I mean, it wasn't announced until Thursday-ish that he was actually going to start. Right. But that, I think, was just, he was just willed. He didn't want to go 0-8 on the road,

especially against the Jets four-win team, right? Jets up four wins. Well, he didn't want to lose to the Jets. Four-win team, right? Jets up four wins. He didn't want to lose to the Jets because he's going to be playing for them in about four years. He's going to be playing for wherever Vince McMahon puts him in two years. CJ Anderson was another one.

He might have swung some leagues. That was it. That's my guy. If your league allowed a week of the finals pickups, I don't know. That's my guy. If your league allowed, I don't know, week of the finals pickups. I don't know. That would have been the only way because it's not like he was Gurley's backup all year. No, not at all. Yeah, he was solid.

Nick Foles. He might have swung some. We're just going by players who shouldn't have done anything? No, just some fantasy heroes. Oh, I see. First of all, we spend months and months throwing ourselves in the stupid fantasy leagues, and then it gets decided by C.J. Anderson and Nick Foles

and Aaron Rodgers having his one good game of the year and Todd Gurley deciding not to play. Right. And Pat Mahomes. Yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense. About Kyle Rudolph. Did nothing for me all year. I'm out of the playoffs.

Catches a Hail Mary. One that I've never seen only one guy out of 16 in the end zone jump for a ball. That was his Minnesota before the half against the Lions. Baldwin. Baldwin was big tonight. Baldwin's good. I actually thought of one more idea for fantasy. All right, so our league, it's six teams make the playoffs.

The three through six play, and then the top two teams get a bye. Right. What if the top two teams got to draft one player each from everyone who didn't make the playoffs. So you just get one player from the four rosters who didn't make it. That's the one advantage plus the bye week. Now winning the

regular season is actually worth something. Now? This sounds like someone who scored 72 points after his bye week. Yeah. Rule coming. I don't mind it. That would be pretty cool.

That would be kind of cool. Well, because the whole thing is whatever happens in the regular season, you make the playoffs, and then it's just like you're shaking a snow globe. Right. And there's no rhyme or reason to any of this. So it's like maybe there's some sort of advantage to winning it beyond you just get a bye week. That's not bad. It's not like you have home field advantage.

That's not bad. Let's bring it up in the round table. I'm excited for this. You really want to do the round table? I really want to do it on the other side of the year. Everyone will still be as pumped up about it as they are right now. Do you think we're still going to have a world in nine months?

No. That's all we have to do in January. Probably get it over with. I mean, seriously, the government can shut down, but our fantasy league will not. We'll,

we'll all be like, uh, serving each other beans during the second great depression being like, remember that time we were mad about the fantasy Todd Gurley trade. Now, none of us have a house. Hey, crown Royal is doing something pretty cool.

This football season, they launched a responsible something pretty cool this football season. They launched a responsible drinking campaign called the Water Break. It's all about encouraging people to hydrate between drinks for a better experience, whether at the game, watching at home, or at a bar. Have a great time. Enjoy some Crown. Just don't be that person. That ruins it for everyone.

We've all seen that guy who drank too much watching the game. Make the right call. Take a water break. Sal, who made the right call this week? Well, you touched on it. I watching the game. Make the right call. Take a water break. Sal, who made the right call this week? Well, you touched on it. I like the Rams. And, you know, they had a lot of options. They could have gone Matt Forte.

They could have gone Fat Eddie Lacy. Trent Richardson. Joyke Bell. Lots of great names out there. But they signed C.J. Anderson. Like you said, he lit it up today. 20 carries, 167 yards. I'm not sure if that's the right call or if any call is the right call anymore.

Can you put any running back in? Certain schemes, certain systems? Does it matter who plays for the Chargers, who plays for the Steelers, who plays for the Rams? Not exactly sure, but I'm going to give it to the Rams today for CJ Anderson. That's a good one. And I think you're right. Like Damian Williams is another one. He looked fine today.

Chris Carson, what round was he drafted in? I don't know. It's a good question. I'm not even sure he was drafted. No, I think he was. I'll look it up. Yeah. I wish somebody had had this conversation with Belichick

before we spent a first-round pick on a running back. We could take a quarterback. That's where it started, I think, for the Patriots, when they went against the grain for them. 249th overall, seventh round, Chris Carson. Jesus. I mean, how many of these dudes are fourth through seventh or undrafted?

I mean, he was such a nothing player. Some fantasy guys traded him for a defense. Hey, that trade got me a bye week. Son of a bitch. If Belichick called the Ravens right now and offered them Sonny Michel for Lamar Jackson,

do you think they would keep them on speaker but muted so they could all gather around and laugh, entertain them for two seconds before they hung up or no? Yeah, I think they would laugh. I think it would be like celebrity roast, like spit takes from the 70s kind of thing.

They'd all get a mouthful of bourbon. My Ray call this week is the Ravens giving John Harbaugh a contract extension at 7 o'clock on Friday night. It was somehow there was murmurs that he might not be coming back and they just squashed it. And it was one of those things where they were talking about it before the game last night. And it almost made me feel like between that and them talking about Lamar Jackson, he's ready for this stage, that whole thing. I was like, wow, the Ravens are going to win this game. And it was totally illogical.

It was just because they gave a guy an extension and because one person mentioned that Lamar Jackson seemed ready for the stage. And I was like, oh, shit, they're going to at least cover. But I thought that was really smart to make it so that that was not a topic. It seemed like it might have gotten the team fired up. I don't know. Yeah, I think so. I think so.

I think it's fascinating. I don't know who said it, but this team has played the same way for 20 years. You know, that's many quarterbacks for the Ravens. I mean, I know it's Flacco mostly, but the Ray Lewis team played the same way. Isn't it weird that you kind of have the same identity for this long? I don't know any other team like that except the Patriots.

Well, they definitely look for certain types. Yeah. Lamar is about as ambitious as they've gotten, I think. Mm-hmm. Right? Because usually they just have the, I guess maybe they grabbed McNair there for a couple years, but he wasn't as athletic as he was in Tennessee. Hey, let's face it. Guys are terrible at taking care of their health. Studies show 70% of guys

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For a free online visit, go to getroman.com slash bill. All right, we're going to do Guess the Lines for week 17, breaking it up into different little groups just so it's easy for everybody to follow. First group. I was going to say there are five lines that are not available right now. Oh, God. Well, that makes sense. It's okay. We'll get through it.

Alright, AFC South title. Titans are home for the Colts. Texans are home for the Jaguars. If the Texans win, Titans and Colts play to see who's the sixth seed. If they tie and the Steelers win, the Steelers make the playoffs, but that's not happening.

Forget the ties. Yeah, forget the ties. If the Steelers win, the Steelers make the playoffs. But that's not happening. Forget the ties. Yeah, forget the ties. If the Texans lose, winner of Titans-Colts wins the division. So I have Texans favored by seven over the Jaguars. I have to find this. All right, I said nine, and it's eight. So we'll split this one, right? That seems high.

Oh, man, I thought it was low. I don't know. But then again, Jaguars, what? Is that two of the last three weeks? They won in Miami. Why are they even trying? And was it two or three weeks ago they shut out the Colts? So who the hell knows which team is showing up here?

They got a lead? That's it. Don't tease the Texans. Listen to me out there, America. I'm going to tell you what happened in every game. Because every team is playing a division rival this week. Texans won 20-7 in late October. Titans-Colts in Tennessee.

I have the Titans favored by two and a half. Yeah, I said two. There's no line because of Gabbard. I guess they're maybe expecting Mariota to play, but I don't see it happening. I got to say, Gabbert made two good throws in that Redskins

game when it seemed like the Redskins might actually steal that one. Yeah, I was ready to write him off for dead, but he did play. I mean, you're not going to get as much. He's not going to run the ball, but he's okay. He's focused. He's all right.

He's a good backup. Poor Josh Johnson was filming a sports movie and then sailed the pass 17 feet over, somebody said, for the pick. And it's like, oh, that's why you're 32 and you've been on five teams. Yeah, that was a strange game. The Titans, the Colts won 38-10 middle of November, this game. AFC North title. These are the two teams in this group.

Ravens are home against Cleveland, and the Steelers are home against Cincinnati. If Baltimore wins, Pittsburgh's basically done. Now, Cleveland can beat Baltimore. That's 100,000%. This could be their Super Bowl. Now you throw in the whole Baltimore used to be the Browns. They stole the Browns from Cleveland.

This is arguably the Browns' biggest game in like 12 years or so. Yeah. This is why it should have been a Sunday night game. I wish they should have America vote on who they'd rather see. I would rather see Ravens-Browns on Sunday night, even if it's not worth anything. I think it would be more exciting

than watching freaking Blaine Gabbert or Marcus Gabbert. I agree. Gabbert, even though we just sang his praises, it kind of ruins the allure of that game. Yeah, it's like, oh, it's Al Michaels. There he is, Blaine Gabbard. Yeah.

So I have the Ravens favored by five and a half over Cleveland. You're going to get this. I said seven. I went way high, and it's four and a half. I don't know about this. I don't know what to think about Baker anymore. I'm starting to feel bad for Hugh Jackson, a guy who had a job for many, many years longer than he should have.

I don't know why I'm feeling bad for him, but you're eyeballing him every play down the sideline. It's like, all right, enough already. The guy's got nothing. I guess he's got an assistant job. He must have been a real asshole for Baker to act that way. He must have rubbed Baker the wrong way in a variety of different ways.

Is it that or is he that competitive that he's like, yeah, this guy cost me the playoffs. I'm 7-7-1. We would have beat the Raiders in overtime. We would have beat the Steelers. We should be a playoff team. I kind of think that's it. But maybe it wasn't that. It is funny. The Browns and Eagles are two of the best 12 teams, I

think. And neither of them are probably going two of the best 12 teams, I think. And neither of them are probably going to make the playoffs. Well, that's how we felt about the Chargers last year, right? Yeah. Remember, they weren't in. Nobody wants to play the Chargers. They didn't make it. I think they can beat the Ravens. I really do.

I think they can win that game. Steelers home for the Bengals, who really almost gave me a heart attack today. I had the Browns in a parlay with the Bears, just the money lines. It was like 23-3 or 26-3. I don't even remember the score. You came back. Yeah, then all of a sudden the Bengals scored, and then they scored immediately again, and it was an eight-point game,

and they're doing it. Yeah, my God. There were three backdoor covers within like six minutes. Your Patriots gave it up. Yeah. Cowboys. My Cowboys gave up a cover. And this game.

Yeah. The Browns-Bengals. I tried like hell to get you not to like Buffalo. Not to like the Pats in that Buffalo game. Well, worse than that, I had Pats over three and a half touchdowns. And they had, and it could be a defensive touchdown, whatever. And they had two touchdowns with nine minutes left in the second quarter and then they then they just i don't know what happened

like they they just got went into we don't care what happens the rest of the year mode so sick of this team i heard uh i was driving to and from the airport on tuesday and thursday and heard lock it in which is on my fox channel on Sirius, and I was listening to it. They bring the ex-player in, and you guys pitch them the bets, pitch them your bets, and they have to decide. Was it Schlereth? No, I heard TJ Houshmandzada. Oh, Houshmandzada, yeah.

I think you should do, one of these times, you should just make up a completely fake game and see if the guy notices. Bushman's ought to actually bet. He was talking to me before the show, all these pulls he's in, and he's taking money from all his friends. Is that fair if a player takes money from his friends? Yeah, that seems like insider trading. That's a good idea, though.

I do like that. Yeah, just throw in two teams that are throwing an NBA team against an NHL team and see if they notice. All right. Steelers, home for the Bengals. I have Steelers minus 11. You're going to get this. I went 10. Biggest spread of the weekend, 14. Now, we should point out that it's tough to win. It seems easy to parlay all these big money favorites together, money line favorites. But it might be better just to take the first half because what ends up happening is you go scoreboard watching

and the Steelers are going to watch and the Ravens could be up. I don't know if this is going to happen, but they're up 17-3 on the Browns late in the third. You might see some Steelers sitting players, right? Isn't that how it works? Yeah, which is why they should have the Steelers early and the Ravens late if they were doing this correctly. Oh, you would give the Ravens the opportunity.

Oh, I see. At night, you mean. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Well, let's be careful because it was the Bengals, albeit with Andy Dalton, who ruined the Ravens last year, right? I'm telling you, this could be Baker Mayfield.

Yeah. This is how it happens. This is the biggest. the Ravens last year, right? I'm telling you, this could be Baker Mayfield. This is how it happens. What was the game when I was still working at Jimmy's show Derek Anderson played a playoff game for the Browns? We watched it in the office. We met him. It was a Saturday game, right? I think that was the last biggest Browns game ever.

That was like 15 years ago. That was it, yeah. All right, two games for the NFC two-seed clincher. Rams home for the 49ers. Bears are at the Vikings. If the Rams win, they're the two-seed and the Bears are the three-seed. If the Rams somehow lose to the 49ers,

the window's open for the Bears to sneak in potentially. You really did. I am proud of you. I like the way this is set up now. This is the way to do it. So the 49ers have been pretty frisky now for three to four weeks. They really have played teams well that are good. They beat Seattle last week.

I was sweating out that Chicago game today. Like, they were right in that game. This would have been their third straight upset, and Mullins on fourth down could have run for 20 yards. You were watching, right? I saw, yeah. I don't know why he didn't. I think he thought he was going to get chased from behind.

I don't think he realized how far the guy away was. Oh, man, he had such daylight. It still would have been tough to score a touchdown on them, but, yeah, the Bears barely survived that. Really, it's weird that some of these teams are trying to win games the way they are. I like Mullins. Mullins has won me over.

Yeah. He has no weapons at all. Like, Brita went out in the game today, and then one of his receivers got hurt, and he just keeps making plays and moving the ball. I think he's good. I mean, he's good for like a backup. He's, you know, in that Tyrod Taylor kind of area.

That team's going to be interesting. But did you bet under six wins with me? I don't know if you went in with me on that. After Garoppolo got hurt, they still had a line on them for over under wins, and it was six. I stayed away from that. But the one I'm devastated that we didn't do is the Raiders will get the top pick in the draft.

It would have been great. I don't know what the odds were for that. Do you think that's going to happen? Well, we'd be in it at least. It's them and the cards. My Against All Odds podcast co-host, Brother Bribe, went with that too, but he's freaking out because he thinks they're

going to screw him over again. He's a Raiders fan. Well, we have the Monday Night Game. It could be their last game in Oakland, right? Right. Yeah. That was another funny subplot today was the Jets fans having a heart attack because the Jets were trying to beat the Packers

and screw up their picks. Yeah, it's weird. A lot of these teams are playing their best ball in late December. Yeah. Well, it turned out well for them. So I have the Rams by 14 against the 49ers. So I had 13, and it's only 9.5.

Vegas really respects this 49ers team. Yeah, that's impressive. Yeah, I should have gone lower too. I respect the 49ers team. I thought they would jack it up because the Rams have to win. And then I have the Vikings favored by 3 over the Bears. I said 4, and it's 6. Yeah, it's funny.

I had the Bears favored, and then I went through that whole process that we always forget to do, and then I actually remember to do it this year. Yeah, at halftime, if the Rams are up 21-3, they're just going to arrest everybody. Well, I'm warning you. Maybe you delete my number because I am going to be calling you all week and we're going to put the Vikings money line on a lot of things this week. Vikings win and then next Saturday, the Bears kick the crap out of the Vikings. That's how it works.

Isn't it our destiny to lose one last time on Kirk Cousins? Yeah, probably. Kirk, don't call me Kirk Cousins. This is the time to do it. Three NFC wildcard. This is the time to do it. Three NFC wildcard. This is the really interesting one. If we can figure out what happens in this threesome, we'll really have done something.

The Seahawks are home for the Cardinals. If the Seahawks win, they're the five seed. The Vikings and Bears we've discussed. The Eagles are at Washington. Only two of these teams can make the playoffs right Seattle's in right? yeah yeah only two but

Seattle's one of them so it's either the Vikings or the Eagles but I mean I guess for the five and six seats Seattle I have favored by ten and a half over the Cardinals no line on this I had yeah I had 10 and a half over the Cardinals. No line on this. I had, yeah, I had eight and a half.

So somewhere in there. Vikings, Bears, we did. And then Eagles, Redskins. I have the Eagles laying four in Washington. I had six and I had six and a half. Oh. You think that's too high for a division game? I think Washington's... I agreed with the guy who went off on the defensive coordinator

after the game on Washington. I think they have good guys in their defense. I don't know why they lay back. They can get pressure. That was weird. They should have beaten Tennessee. Yeah, I guess they just don't... I look at the...

If there's no quarterback, you have to look at a running game, right? I trust Adrian Pearson to put up 100 yards every game. Yeah, he looked good. Yeah. He's a fountain of youth guy. Eight and seven. That's going to be close.

Yeah, I think the Eagles are done. I think they're going to be out. What a shame. I was really enjoying the Foles thing. No, let them go away. Enough. You work with 40 Eagles fans at the Ringer. I know, but I really wanted them to make the playoffs

and then get bounced in round one after they got all obnoxious about it. Right. AFC seeds, the 1, 2, and 5 are still technically available. We have the Chiefs who can clinch the one seed by winning home against Oakland. We have the Patriots who can clinch the two seed by beating the Jets. And then we have the

Chargers who are in Denver who are hoping that the Chiefs lose. It's how this plays out. You know what's not happening? The Chiefs aren't losing to Oakland in Kansas City when Oakland's going for the number one pick. I'm positive that's not happening. I have the Chiefs favored by

13.5 in that game. I'm looking for a line for them. No line. But what'd you have? 13.5? I had 15. I think it's going to be even higher. 15. Yeah, that makes sense. Raiders on a short week

trying to tank. Pats I have by 11 over the Jets. I think it's too high. I already like the Jets. I have 11 also. Vegas doesn't think it's high enough.

13. I like the Jets. Why do people keep giving the Pats these high lines when they love giving up the back doors? That was sickening.

I know. If they played a quarterback with just a little more confidence today, that would have been a nail-biter for you. I just feel like Edelman's the only one trying on that team. Well, how about there was that one play in the first half. He hit the guy in stride, and the guy lost the ball in the sun. See that? It's like a 50-yard pass.

Foster? That was lucky. Pats have had a lot of lucky breaks like that this year. And you know what? They've lost to five. When could you ever say this about them, even when they had like two losses? Five losses this year, all to teams that are not going to make the playoffs, if Pittsburgh doesn't make it.

Yeah, it's not great. Bizarre. They've beaten the Chiefs and Bears, though. Right. Chargers at Denver. I have the Chargers by seven. Who knows? I had it by six, and I think there's no line on this either.

I think the Chargers were the big loser of the weekend in this sense. They had 10 days to get ready for that game. They knew exactly what the Ravens were going to do. They knew what the pace of the game was going to be like. They knew they were going to run the ball and run the ball 40 seconds per play. And they seemed completely blindsided by all of it.

Yeah. I wasn't impressed. I think they were blindsided by the refs a little too. Refs weren't great. They got a little lucky, I think, against the Chiefs in a game we were vomiting over together at the Ringer party last Thursday night and I think it turned on them

this week yeah in general I don't know why it's so hard to find this stat but I love to know how many times teams have fallen behind by like 10 or more

I think it's a bad sign 10 or more what do you mean? 10 or more points during a game because like even the Texans today they're down 13

it should have been 14 but the Pats have been behind double figures at least 5 times this year right I don't think it's a good sign and I don't think

it's a good sign in basketball either like in basketball the Celtics have been down 10 plus like 15 times this year already yeah well this year I think in basketball is an anomaly like all the good teams have been down 10 plus like 15 times this year already.

Yeah, well, this year, I think in basketball is an anomaly. All the good teams have been down. Toronto's beaten everybody by 25. All right, next category has clinched everything already. Saints, home for the Panthers, Cowboys at the Giants. I went Saints by three over the Panthers I had no idea what to do with that did you pick one?

I said four let me see they didn't have a line on this earlier yeah I'm not seeing anything for this you know what was stupid

by the way in that Saints game the interception thrown by the guy who's not Drew Brees the 50 yarder Taysom Hill yeah

number seven not sure not sure I would have broken out the bomb by not Drew Brees not drew breeze, the 50 yarder taste on Hill. Yeah. Number seven. Not sure. Not sure. I would have broken out the bomb by not drew breeze. They have him in really weird situations like third and fours and where they really need the first down. And yeah, I wouldn't use that guy as much as they do.

So it's, it's going to backfire on them at some point. It's adorable. It's a fun regular season thing. But once you get to the playoffs, I don't want that guy throwing 50-yard passes. I agree. I agree. You have too many studs on that team.

Cowboys-Giants, the Clapper. Your record could be what? 10-6? We're 9-6 now. Wow. A 10-win season for the Clapper. And miraculously, my big futures bet was over 8.5 for the Clapper. And miraculously, I won that. My big futures bet was over eight and a half for each division winner. And this is obviously the NFC East was the one I was worried

about. So thank you. Thank you, Cowboys. Thank you to a much lesser extent, the Clapper, but Jerry Jones for making that trade. Yeah, they look good today. I mean, they actually didn't look that great, but Randy Gregory did something that wasn't horrible. Elliott had over 100 combined. And we have the best field goal kicker in history, I think. I mean, that's... 59 yards. That's pretty frightening that the Cowboys have a good field goal kicker. I'm not ready

emotionally for that. Yeah. It's nice when you have a quarterback that throws for a buck 60 every game, you need a kicker that boots it from 55 plus. Cowboys, I have by three over the Giants. I have the Cowboys by three also. It's the Giants by seven because they're sitting everybody. Jesus.

All right. We're going to take one more break. Come back with the Poop Facts and Parent Corner. Let's take a break to talk about Zoom. Video conferencing has changed the way we do business. Fewer long distance trips, more FaceTime at the click of a mouse. By 2018, the clear winner is Zoom. They deliver flawless video.

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Visit zoom.us to set up your free account today. That is zoom.us. Meet happy with Zoom Video Communications. Back to the podcast. Alright, the poop fact that these three games are horrible. There's no fantasy implications. There's daily fantasy, I guess. You need the little fanduel.com slash BS. Dolphins at the Bills.

Wow. I don't know what's at stake. I can't think of one thing. I'm going to say Dolphins by three. I said Bills by two. It's Bills by three and a half. Really? Yeah. Why not? I think this type of game, they don't care who's playing. Home team gets favored. Rough year for the state of Florida. Remember when the state of Florida started out six and oh? That's right.

And I think they've probably won six games since. Well, maybe it's getting better because three of the top four teams that Flacco is supposed to go to are from Florida. God, who would you least rather have, Flacco or Eli? I think Eli. You wouldn't want Eli more? Gosh, I don't know? I think Eli. You wouldn't want Eli more? Gosh, I don't know. I think Eli.

Although Eli has like some mystique to him, right? You see like one last flare? I would want neither of them. I would rather have the kid on the Niners. You want Mullins? I would take Mullins over both of those dudes. People were saying Mullins over Trubisky. Who would you want?

Oh, wow. As we were watching that game. Really? That was a conversation? It's weird. I really hope Robert Mays is listening to this right now. He's furious. He wouldn't like that.

So upset. Packers home against the Detroit Lions. I have Packers by seven. Yeah, you get it exactly. I had six. Lions have Packers by seven. Yeah, you get it exactly. I had six. Lions have packed it in. And then Bucs are home against the Falcons. That is truly abysmal game.

Jameis did. Did you see Jameis today? Losing track of what was going on on the one-yard line. God, he's like a high school quarterback. It doesn't look like he's playing for his contract year, right? He's playing to get released from his contract so he could be the face of the new XFL. That's right. Vince has big plans.

Bucks. I had minus two here for the Bucks. I had two and a half. It's a pick them. Yeah. Well, there you go. We've guessed the lines. Did we do it? We did it. All of them, right? We did card. Yeah. Well, there you go. We've guessed the lines. Did we do it?

We did all of them, right? We did card see-hawks. I'm trying to think. So if it's assuming what we think is going to happen happens, barring something crazy, round one is going to be, I mean, I think Indianapolis is going to be Tennessee, right? We like Indianapolis. I break it down.

Texans home for Indy, the Saturday morning game. The Saturday night game, Bears home for Vikings. And then Fox gets Dallas-Seattle Sunday and CBS gets Baltimore-Chargers rematch. So, Fox is the big

winner of this whole thing. Why so? Well, because they get either, both of those NFC games are just big market better games. Oh, they're better, yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Dallas, Seattle, and Chicago, Minnesota, those are just good games. And then if they got Chicago, Philly, that's even better. Right. Baltimore Chargers,

we just saw it. That's a fun week, though. That's a fun week. Honestly, I said it last week, I think the Chargers have a better shot doing this from the road. I really do. It sounds like they have the greatest.

I don't know. Does it matter? It's the worst. You look up, you look up chiefs, chargers, look at pictures of that game when it was in LA, all red,

a sea of red. So yeah, but they're playing on the road. The thing is, it's not like the Ravens are going to have a ton of friends that travel. That's probably a good team for them to play, I would think. Right. There's no way Baltimore can get to the three seed, right?

No. They're 9-6. They can't get there. I can't believe the Pats got a bye. I just can't believe it. Only four out of 32 teams got a bye, and they're going to be one of the four. Well, the problem is all the good teams ran out of shitty teams to play. Patriots, like, ah, we have the Dolphins, we have the Jets,

and we have the Bills. We'll win two of those, and we'll get the two seats. It's really embarrassing. We should mention, before we get to Parent Corner we do that wins pool every year that we've talked about

on this podcast. We don't need to mention it. No, I want to mention it. And I had the fourth, 18th and 25th picks. I took New Orleans fourth.

I took Tennessee 18th and I took Chicago at 25. All three won again today. I'm at 33 wins now with a week left. Nobody's ever had 33 since we've had this pool. We've had this pool for like 10 years.

No, I know. Yeah, I went Patriots, Lions, and Seahawks. I'm going to have two playoff teams, but I wasn't even close to you. So you had Patriots, Lions, Seahawks. So the Lions were the ones that screwed you. Oh, yeah. So you were like, what? You had the first pick or the second pick?

I think I had the first pick, right? So you had 120 and 30. 120 and 26, yeah. Oh, yeah, 120, 26. So if you had taken, there were a couple of good teams left. Dallas went early and we all laughed and Dallas is going to win 10 games. I love the Winspool. The Winspool is the best.

It's good. People are like, when you're not in first place, you do keep track of the score. When you're not in first place, we get two updates a year. And when you are in first place, we get two updates an hour. I really resent that. Daniel said that. And that wasn't true. That's not what happened.

That's not how it played out. House is going to finish second. He had 8, 17, and 21. He took the Chiefs, Bengals, and Redskins. And the Bengals started off hot too, right? Right. It looked like House was going to win early. Redskins too.

All three of them, yeah. And then Lewis has the Rams, Colts, and Bills. He was 215 and 29. It's really hard to hit that 13. The Cowboys went 24th. Yeah. So Connor had the Chargers, 49ers, and Cowboys. 10, 12, and 24.

And what killed him was the 49ers at 12. Well, Garoppolo sticks around. He's right there with you. Right. But if he had taken who was 13? Oh, so. 13th was the Jaguars. That was no good. 14th, Panthers, no good. Ravens. Ravens 15th

was a good number. What a stretch. It just goes to show you how stupid the NFL is. Yeah. Texans were 11 and then the next three were all like just shit shows. All right right parent corner let's do it let's do it all uh my five-year-old now my four-year-old turned five turns five next week um so and it's so it's really hectic with Christmas but you know obviously he has to have

a separate party with everything else so we have it at one of these uh trampoline places adventure plex or something where there's 14 parties going on. So he invites everyone in his class and a couple of relatives, kid relatives, cousins and everything. And he loves the Hulk. He loves everything about the Hulk. He loves the Mark Ruffalo Hulk. He loves the Lou Ferrigno Hulk. We'll watch old episodes.

He makes me fast forward through the boring parts of the David. And believe me, there are really boring parts. Like for an hour, he hulks out for like a minute and 10 seconds. Right. Hulks out twice, which adds up to about a minute. You're talking about the ones from 40 years ago. Yeah, exactly. He would hulk out at around the 28-minute mark.

Yes. And then at like the 52-minute mark. Yeah. And it's abysmal. Isaac, did you ever see this? No. The Incredible Hulk from 40 years ago?

From 40 years ago? No, I only saw the one that was relatively recent, but in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Bill Bixby was the Hulk and he would just, he just had a knapsack, right Sal?

He barely had any clothes. Yeah, he was David Banner. He had a knapsack. It was, he'd rip through his clothes every time he hulked out. Did they have enough CGI?

No, they had no CGI. They had red contact lenses. And then he would make a face like he was constipated. I got to check this out. And he would blow through his clothes. But each week, he would be working at like a rodeo. Or he'd be working like on a movie set. And then something would go wrong.

Somebody would mistreat an actress. He was like a scientist. And he didn't want to have problems with anybody. And yet, trouble found him every week. Everyone wanted to kick his ass. And it was always hard. But the end of every show was him sadly walking, hitchhiking with the sad Incredible Hulk music. And it used to tear me apart emotionally.

I was just like, God, poor guy can't find a home. Really sad. Yeah, and wherever he ended up. It was the same situation the next week. But those shows are really slow, though. I can't believe your son's watching those. They're interminable. He gets mad.

He makes me fast forward to the good parts. We know by now. But anyway, you could DVR these, and they're on those channels in the DirecTV, like 20, 24, 27. They're in there somewhere. But he loves the Hulk. And all he does is talk about the Hulk. He got his Hulk costume for

Halloween like the middle of October and has worn it every day since. So now we're talking like 70 days straight. He's worn it. So he wants the Hulk at his party. So we hire this Hulk. We find out the morning of the party something happened to the Hulk costume. I don't

know if he spilled something on it or what. He didn't go into details. He can't be the Hulk. I was like, well, what are we going to do here? We already paid this guy $250. He's going to go to a kid's party. He's like, well, I have an Iron Man suit. I was like, all right, my boy's going to be very disappointed, but dress as Iron Man.

Wait, the guy you paid to be the Hulk couldn't be the Hulk? Never, never told us why he couldn't be the Hulk. Something happened to the costume is what it did. I felt like one more question, I would have been just so disgusted in the answer that I didn't even ask. Yeah, it sounded like an amateur porn accident or something. Yeah, exactly. What could have spilled on it that would have been satisfactory to me? So I was like, all right, I'll leave it at that. You got your money. What else can you be he's gonna be iron man great he shows up as iron man we already warned my kid and he's like he's not happy but fine iron man showing up so iron man shows up

and all the kids attack him and i didn't even know what he was gonna do i don't know what he's gonna do i thought he was just gonna stand in the corner but no he he brings out balloons i guess he twists balloons and um i don't know if he was trying it for the first time, but he had this whole pouch of balloons. He made me hold the pouch and my kid gets the first balloon. It's his party. And he says, I want a green balloon. So this guy has three green balloons out of a hundred. So he pulls out the first green balloon. He starts twisting it and breaks it immediately. And then he starts on the second one, makes me fish through this pouch.

I get the second balloon. Same thing. I was like, dude, you only have one more green balloon. And by the way, this is taking like three minutes per balloon. And there's 12 kids asking for a balloon. So do you want me to help? I was like, how about you take your gloves off? And now he's not supposed to speak, I guess. I said, take your gloves.

He's like, no, no, no. That would ruin the costume. I was like, all right, let me twist the balloon then. I just saw what you did. It wasn't that spectacular. I think I could do it. He's like, nope, I'm twisting the balloon. Third balloon pops. That's it. No more green balloons. My kid eventually gets a purple balloon, and then two other kids get a balloon, and then they're throwing us out of the trampoline place because it's too late. I forgot forgot that he showed up 20 minutes late because he's putting his costume on in his car and it took forever so there you go so i don't know what the moral is but uh i walked away from that party uh much like david banner with the knapsack on the sad music playing in the background i have an important question was the guy brad

i should have hired Brad why didn't I just get a costume and hire Brad it could not have been worse why didn't you just hire Brad give him $200 to paint his face green he already has the clothes post Hulk rip depending on the time of day he may not have even had to

paint his face I don't miss those birthdays. The other classic is the bouncy castles, where it's just somebody's getting a mild concussion. You have the 22 kids just flying around in a bouncy castle. We put our kids in car seats, and we go out of our way to just protect our kids at all times. And then we throw them in this unsanitary bouncy castle and they just

ricochet off each other completely uncoordinated and bang heads, knock each other's teeth out. It's all fine. Right. Yeah. Best case scenario, you come out of there with like a four day flu. Right. It really is.

The, it is like germ central. It's whatever that what was that movie Outbreak yeah Outbreak with Dustin Hoffman yeah it should have been it should have been

starting in a bouncy castle and not from meat it should have just been a bouncy castle I've seen how they wash those down it's not it's not a

it's not very you know they take some bounty and they I think they lick it and then they wipe the walls they use saliva

to wipe it up yeah so last week we did Parent Corner my son gave his Christmas list oh yeah and I think they lick it and then they wipe the walls. They use saliva to wipe it up. So last week we did Parent Corner and my son gave his Christmas list. Oh, yeah. A couple of days ago, got an email from Mattel saying, hey, we heard your son's things. We want to send him some advanced WWE toys. Oh, boy. So I make the mistake of telling my son this.

You can imagine how it's gone since. Does Mattel make gold chains? That would have been even better. Dad, when are they coming? Dad, did they say when they're coming? Why do kids ask the same question 735 times? Dad, did you check your email? No, I told you it's going to be early January.

Dad. So anyway, so I have that subplot going. But my wife decided to get this big Monopoly game, really nice wooden Monopoly that you can put on a table, and it actually looks like part of the table. Yeah, nice. Looks cool. So my wife's parents are here and

I'm watching football in the back and everyone decides to play Monopoly. And my son, my son decides he's going to be the banker. Do you want to finish the story? Can you imagine how this one, knowing what you know about my son, how do you think this went with my son as the banker? I don't think he ripped himself off anything. That's for sure, right? No, he helped himself liberally to money to the point that my wife got mad at him and pointed out that he has his own pile

he's not allowed to pull from the bank. And then he said that he, well, you're the banker, you're allowed to get paid when you're the banker. And everyone explained no. And then he got mad and ended up storming off. And that's how the Monopoly game ended. That was it? Yeah, he was embezzling from the bank for 20 to 25 minutes

and finally got called out on it. Screaming match with my wife and then stormed off. So there you go. It's yet another example of why he's going to be living at home until he's 40. Monopoly is six and a half hours long when you have a legitimate banker. Right. When you're arguing with the banker, it goes into a three-day session. My son is a banker.

Sounds like a YouTube series. Like a YouTube comedy series where he's the banker for important Monopoly matches. Not even positive he knows how to add. By the way, he's going to be testing toys for Mattel. I hope you put two and two together here, right? Get him that job. Oh, like that Ryan's toy thing? Yes.

Yeah. I mean, they said they had some new ones that hadn't come out yet, which that's really the secret sauce for my son. Even if he's getting it like four hours before other people, he feels like it's 17 years later. And you're cool in his eyes. That's great. I'm definitely not cool in his eyes. But this was... By the way, I'm surprised he hasn't barged in to ask me it again.

So Christmas, you have to be waking up at... I don't know. What time are you going to get up to put the presents under the tree up at, I don't know, what time are you going to get up to put the presents under the tree? Well, we do it the night before. But yeah, these kids go to bed really late now too, so it's stupid. But yeah, we'll probably wrap and put them under at like 1, 1.30 and probably be up at 6.37. What about you? God.

Well, now my kids know that nobody's coming down the chimney. But do they know not to open the gifts until you wake up? Yeah, we wait. We wait until Christmas. That's nice. It's going to be a good one. It's weird. The Tuesday Christmas,

kind of like it. You end up with basically the whole week off. Who's going to go back to work this week? I have to work tomorrow. I work Christmas Eve. Oh, you're doing Lock It In? We're doing Lock It In. Yeah, we have to go over all our big bowl games this week. There's a lot going on. We scaled it back in the ringer, right, Isaac? Yeah. It's only me

on the podcast side, at least. Yeah, Isaac's done. He's going for some sort of award at the ringer. He does it all, man. That's great. Listen, if you're short-handed there, I know a really shitty Iron Man who could use a few hours. He was the backup for this. What's the next song, Isaac?

The next song? I don't know. We got to do one. A lot of people have been tweeting at me with suggestions, and they're mostly Clippers-related because I'm a Clippers fan, but I don't know. Maybe something with Boban? God.

So I took my son to see the Clippers the other day. Yeah. The Luka Doncic game. That was a bad beat for you, right? Yeah, it was a tough one. Yeah, they didn't cover by a half point, the Mavs. Boban, first of all, it's like for little kids, he's got to be one of the five most powerful.

It's like Curry's one, Giannis is two, gotta be one of the five most, it's like Curry's one, Giannis is two, LeBron's three, and Beaubon's probably four. Ben, all he wanted was Beaubon to come in the entire game. And then he, then he came in,

he played well, he karate chopped some dude and got a flagrant foul. Ben, I've never seen him happier with anything that's happened in a sporting event. And then Beaubon got fouled and was at the line shooting free throws and the entire Staples Center chained MVP. Really? Yeah. And Ben was going nuts.

Beaubon, he thinks... Maybe Mattel last week. Maybe Beaubon this week. Maybe Beaubon will reach out. Wow. Maybe Mattel can make a Beaubon action figure for him. Oh my god. Could Mattel do that? Maybe, yeah. He could do anything.

Why not? Yeah, well, we'll see. Sal, Merry Christmas. Happy holidays to you and yours. Isaac, Merry Christmas. Happy holidays to you and yours. Merry Christmas to everybody out there. Thanks for listening all year.

Sorry if we lost you guys' money. You're unable to get your kids' gifts as a result, but we'll do better. Merry Christmas to Iron Man. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to go to ziprecruiter.com. Don't forget to watch Sal. Unlock it in on FS1. And don't forget about Against All Odds.

You're not doing Against All Odds this week, though, right? No, we have the week off, but we're going to come back real strong for the college football championship and wildcard round and everything else. January is one of your wheelhouse months. Yeah. It's a lot going on. All right, Sal, good job by you. Good job by you. See them on the way. So I don't have.