The Bill Simmons Podcast - Part 1: Sleeper Warriors, Green Bay’s F.U. Potential, and Atlanta’s Big Week With Peter Schrager and Rembert Browne

Episode Date: November 5, 2021

In Part 1 of a two-part podcast, Bill shares his thoughts on a few sports topics including the Golden State Warriors, NBA MVP odds, Aaron Rodgers, Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver, and more (2:43). Then Bill is joined by NFL Network’s Peter Schrager to discuss the Rams trading for Von Miller and AFC standings, before making their Million-Dollar Picks for NFL Week 9 (29:10). Finally Bill talks to his old colleague Rembert Browne about his Atlanta Braves winning the World Series (1:21:25). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Peter Schrager and Rembert Browne Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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using their lines for million dollar picks a little bit later. But I hope you are checking out the underdog parlay boost that we're doing. We hit last week. We hit. They boosted it for us. Steelers Pats. We hit it. We're going to talk about that with Peter Schrager a little bit later. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I hope you're checking out the Prestige TV podcast. A bunch of great shows on that feed. We also have the Reality TV podcast where Johnny Bananas is just pulling in some of the greats for his death taxes

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listening to this podcast and the Ringer NBA Show, Ringer NFL, The Mismatch. We just got a lot of good podcasts in the sports world. So check them out. Coming up, two-part podcast for you. Yeah, two parts. A two-parter. This part will include, I have some takes at the top. I want to hit some football, basketball stuff. Then Million Dollar Picks with Peter Schrager. Then Rupert Brown. I promised him if Atlanta ever won a title, he'd come on. So that's the pod. Stuff at the top, Million Dollar Picks, Rembert Brown. Then part two, a man that deserves his own episode. Let's be honest. One of the great actors of my lifetime, Tom Hanks, finally coming on. And I know he's done a couple other things. I promise you, this is different than any other Tom Hanks interview

we've ever done because we just dove into his movies. I had a lot of questions. And the great thing about it is he has unbelievable recall for the movies he's made. So we put that on its own feed. Part two, Tom Hanks by himself. This is part one. First, our friends from Prochain. All right, I'm taping this part of the podcast on Thursday afternoon. I wanted to hit a bunch of quick stuff before we got to Million Dollar Picks and Rembert Brown. I need a name for a segment like this. If you can come up with a suggestion, telepathically send it to me. But I have one, two, three, four, five things to hit. Maybe the five take, the five some, I don't know. All right, first thing, the Warriors are six and one. I missed on them when we did the over-under podcast, and then I made up for it right before the season.

I told you on this podcast, if I could switch two picks, I would switch the Warriors and go over on them, and I would go under on the Blazers. That's been borne out. The Warriors are still not getting the respect from the gambling community. Last week, I think they were plus 320 to win their division, which includes the Lakers and the Suns and the Clippers and the Kings.

I wagered on that. So did Sal. We jumped on it. Now it's still plus 170 on FanDuel. The Suns have slightly better odds. The Warriors are going to win their division. You look at what they have going on. First of all, they're 10 deep right now.

That does not include Klay Thompson. That does not include the second pick in the draft from a year and a half ago, James Wiseman. It does not include the seventh and 14th picks from this year's draft, Kamenga and Moody. Somehow they're still 10 deep. They have found all these role players. They finally figured it out much better defensively. third and opposing field goal percentage right now they can rebound

their sixth and rebounding right now which is interesting without wise when they have the best chemistry in the league they got clay coming back they're claiming christmas but it's really probably going to be january they also have a trade to make if they want it they have these young assets they have contracts they can put the it. They have these young assets. They have contracts. They can put the Wiggins contract with young assets. There's already some disgruntled teams out there. There could be some players on the move. My point is, this is a team that already looks really good and really finished and really complete. And I think they can actually get better because Curry hasn't played that great this season.

He's had some good games. He's also had games like last night where he didn't shoot well, and they were still able to win. They beat the Hornets, and that's one of the reasons I like this team. They can win this season when Curry doesn't play well. Last year, if Curry didn't play well,

pretty much no chance unless Wiggins got hot or something, which, you know, the odds of those two things happening and the worst still winning, not high. Now Curry cannot play well and they can still win. I like, I, the two teams that have looked the best first two and a half weeks this season,

we mentioned one on Tuesday's pod, Miami, and then the Warriors, they look like they are the most advanced. I think the Bucks will get there when the Bucks are healthy. Um, and then people say, what look like they are the most advanced. I think the Bucs will get there when the Bucs are healthy. And then people say, well, what about the Jazz? Yeah, what about the Jazz? We've already seen their regular season team.

We see this in the NFL all the time. We've seen this in the NBA. These teams that look good in the regular season, I don't trust them in the playoffs. I think the Jazz are 6-1. Fine. They'll probably have a really good regular season record. I'm still not going to trust it.

Look, I'm not saying they can't win the title. I just need to see them come through in the playoffs. I don't believe it. I'm not going to believe it. And you're not winning me over until you start winning some playoff series and get some good teams. The Warriors have the pedigree. And what's fascinating about this, they have this crazy run.

If you really start, 2013 was when they went on the map. They had that Denver series. They basically ended George Carl's coaching career. And then Iguodala joins. They lose a tough one to the Clippers, I think. And then 15 on, that's when they have their run. 15, they win the title, and probably.

16, they should have won the title. Draymond punches LeBron the balls. They win 73 games. Next season, KD shows up. They win the next two. They're going to win in 2019. He blows out his Achilles. They have this incredible five-year run,

which in this day and age, if you can go half a decade with a nucleus in basketball, with the way the salary cap works, and with all the egos and the way guys jump teams, that's almost a miracle. And it felt like that was it. Durant leaves. Then they luck out in this weird follow-up season

where Curry gets hurt. They end up getting a top three pick. They make this D'Angelo Russell trade, a guy they probably never should have gotten anyway. But the Nets need to clear some space for Durant. All of a sudden, they get Russell. They're able to spin Russell to dumbass Minnesota. They get a nice pick back from them. And now they're in this situation where they feel like they're a legit contender again, and they're not getting help from all of this lottery pick stuff they had.

I don't really remember a situation like this in recent NBA history where you have a contender and then you have this deep bench of guys who aren't playing who are actual assets. So I don't know how it's playing out. I like everything I've seen.

And the fact that they are plus 170 to win their division. I wish Fando, Fando should allow me to boost this stuff. I should, I should be able to boost this to plus 200. And then you can wager on it in all the states that you can have Fando sports book,

knock yourself out. Anyway, I'll work on that. I'll work on those guys. Mark it down. Warriors to win the division. LeBron's already hurt. LeBron already has like his first old guy injury.

It's like rectal abductor, rector abductor. I don't even know the name of it. But he couldn't make it four weeks without a minor injury. He's old. This is what happens. He's in year 19. It's going to happen. All right. A couple other odds really quick I saw on Fando. Miles Bridges for most improved, plus 350. Now people are going to say Ja is going to win this. Is Ja really that improved? He jumped up one level, but are you shocked that Ja Moran is better than he was last year and that he might have a chance to make it all NBA team? I think it was fairly predictable.

I think when we did the over-unders, we even predicted it before the season that Ja was going to make a leap. That was why I took Memphis over. What I didn't predict was Miles Bridges becoming Sean Marion 2.0. Did not see that one coming. He is plus 350 for most improved. And I've watched a lot of Charlotte just because I enjoy watching Charlotte. I like LaMelo.

I don't like when he becomes New Zealand LaMelo, but I like normal LaMelo, can barely speak. I like the team. I like the way they play. I think they're in fun games. Even a game like last night with the Warriors, fun game. Enjoyed it.

Charlotte didn't play well. Still fun. But Bridges brings a lot of that Sean Marion stuff to the table where the athleticism has matched the motor and the IQ, which is pretty rare for a wing guy. Usually you get two of the three.

With him, you get three of the three. And I think he's going to win most improved because the Jha thing, I just don't support it. It's like, all right, last year you were the 29th best player in the league and now you're the 14th best player. You're the most improved.

Bridges is like an all-star at this point, borderline all-star. And now I'm doing the thing where I'm calling somebody an all-star, but then when you make the list, he's 17th. Bridges, I'm going to do that again. Bridges is playing like an all-star. So there you go. Plus 350 for him. Tyler Hero on Miami is plus 155 for the six man award. If you watch Miami, what's fascinating about him,

he takes the most shots of the team. Comes off the bench. The offense basically runs through him unless Lowry's trying to do fast break stuff, but he's getting

17, 18 shots a game. He's made a huge comeback from what happened last year as we talked about with Waz on Tuesday. And for me, I think that should be minus odds. I actually think he should be like minus 150 at that point. I would be, if he stays healthy

and just keeps playing like he did the first three weeks and gets the same kind of workload, which I don't know why he wouldn't, that's a wrap. He's going to be the sixth man. You have a guy who can come in and score 38 off the bench. You're winning that award. Clarkson had it last year.

Hero is just more efficient than Clarkson is. Clarkson is like the all-time trick-or-treat guy. And he was very, very treaty for sections of that jazz season last year. But he'll still have the games

when he looks like 2017 Jordan Clarkson again. Hero seems like a much safer bet to me. So I like that. And then the last one I'll throw you is the Warriors for the West is plus 480. The Lakers have the best odds because they're a public team. They have LeBron and AD and people are always going to gravitate toward betting them. Look, I don't know how many times we have talked about the Lakers having holes, but they defensively have some real issues. And we talked about on Tuesday how they don't have Caruso, they don't have Green, and they don't have KCP from the bubble two years ago when they really could lock have now is not built to win a title. It's not built to win four straight rounds. It's a really flawed team. And even if they got LeBron and Davis healthy

for four straight rounds, they would still need a lot of other guys to come through and they need to figure out this Westbrook thing, which I just don't think he's a winning player. You will never convince me. We have just gobs of evidence that when you actually have to win the four playoff rounds, Westbrook becomes kind of a liability,

as weird as that sounds for somebody who puts up stats. I don't see it. I'm never going to see it with the team they have now. Speaking of LeBron, so I was watching Pacers nets over the weekend. So they show this graphic for most career points per game, and it's five guys who'd average 27 points a game. Jordan, Chamberlain, Elgin, Durant, and West. Jordan was the leader at 30.12, and Durant and West were at the bottom at 27.03. Only five guys

ever. It's like a weirdly important club because to average 27 a game for your whole career, really you have to average like 29 or 30 because you're going to have those last couple of years of your career where the average, unless you just retire at the top of your game like Wes did, your averages are going to go down. You're going to have that one year where you average 20 and then that other year where averaged 14. So you really got to average like 28. So I just saw that list. I took, I took a screenshot of it with my phone and I posted it on Twitter and I was like, wow, look at this list. It's so cool. Look at this list. Only five guys. Odds are Durant's not going to be able to stay on it by the way, because he's barely over 27. And if he has those last couple

years, you know, when he starts to dip, he's going to fall off. That's what happens. So a couple of days later, a friend of mine, who's a big Laker fan who's on Twitter was like, Hey, people are mad at you about the 27 point club thing. I'm like, what? Like, Oh, it's because you picked the day that LeBron had dipped under. And I'm like, what? He's like, yeah, people thought you were just waiting for that day because you hate LeBron. I'm just like, I don't hate LeBron. What are you talking about?

You're thinking I am sitting around refreshing LeBron's basketball reference page going, damn it, he's still at 27. I can't, I can't, I barely even tweet. I can't tweet my points per game thing yet. Ridiculous. The LeBron fans are reaching Bayhive levels with how ridiculous they are. I just thought LeBron was at like 26.

I didn't realize he was that close. He actually was. This is correct. When they ran that graphic, he was at 26.99. And then two days later, he scored 30 or something. Now he's at 27. So now there's six guys in the club for now. I still feel like LeBron will drop out.

That's not sustainable because he's not going to be able to average over 27 and he'll play at least one more year. Regardless, you people are insane. You think I'm sitting around waiting for LeBron to drop to 26.99? I was just watching the Pacers thing. If you look at the thing I tweeted, you see

a Pacers thing on the top right of the graphic, you dumbasses. Anyway, this is why I'm not on Twitter. Next. Next topic. We talked about the top 10 quarterbacks, me and Sal, on Sunday's pod.

I was asking if Roethlisberger was the 10th best quarterback of all time. Laid out all the names. And it was clearly nine guys that had to be on. And then the 10th spot was wide open. It's like not too early for Wilson, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, it's probably Roethlisberger. Couple people in my life, Niner fans, of course,

were like, where the fuck was Steve Young? Why'd you cut out Steve Young? A couple things. First of all, you're right. He should have been on there. Big mistake. Second, Steve Young stats from 91 to 98. This was when I started playing fantasy football. Steve Young was a god in fantasy football. He was really one of the first fantasy football guys we had. But you look at his stats from 91 to 98, regular season, he was 82 and 29. He threw for 195 TDs, that's in eight years, and threw for almost 27,000 yards. And rushed for 2,875 rushing yards and 33 touchdowns. So combined 195 passing touchdowns for eight years,

but then 33 rushing touchdowns. It was really kind of early Lamar-ish, early Josh Allen-ish, and nobody else was doing that. And for the way fantasy was counted, he was always like one of the first guys you drafted. He would always go in the top three. Eight and six in the playoffs, won a Super Bowl on that Niners team

that killed everybody. He had that one when Rice blew out his knee because Warren Sapp did the face mask, horse collar, whatever he did. It was honestly the worst penalty of all time on a reverse. He pulled, go watch it on YouTube. It was such a bummer

because Rice was still a god at that point. He's still the best receiver I've ever seen. But he was never the same after that, I don't think. But it also cost them a year when they had a chance to win another Super Bowl. But anyway, Steve Young is the 10th guy. So I feel better. Ben Roethlisberger, you are no longer in my top 10.

You're out. Sorry, Steve Young. I should have known because he had that pivotal 90210 cameo a million years ago. Speaking of superstar quarterbacks, let's talk about Aaron Rodgers quick. I went on Coward Show yesterday. I was driving around. I heard him talking about Rodgers and I had to call him because I was so annoyed by the diva, Aaron Rodgers. He really is a diva. I've been making that joke since last spring. Now you can throw in narcissist because this is like narcissistic behavior, right? You lie about getting the vaccine. Now you could say it's a white lie or a lie.

Either way, you made people think you were vaccinated. You said you were immunized. I hate that verb, but he said he was immunized. What does that mean? I'm going to take it to mean you got vaccinated because there's no other recipe to fight COVID other than to get the vaccine. You're not than to get the vaccine. You're not going to take more vitamins. So he makes it seem like he's vaccinated. He's unmasked at the postgame pressers. He has the Halloween party recently with teammates there.

All stuff that just flagrantly violates NFL rules, including like being maskless on the sideline, which was like borderline might've might've violated rules. Turns out he wasn't vaccinated this whole time. Now he puts his team in a position where he's going to be out for at least two games, not to mention he put his own health. Do I think Aaron Rodgers is a massive health risk with COVID? No, I don't.

I don't think a professional athlete in his mid-30s is going to be battling this for the next six months, but he's going to be battling it for the next couple of weeks. And it's just yet another selfish move by him that goes back to the draft when they leaked that story that he wanted to be traded right at the draft to make it the biggest distraction possible because it just seems like he's me, me, me, me, me. Look at me. I want to host Jeopardy. Look at me. I'm in these commercials. Look at me. I need more help. Look at me. I'm mad that they drafted another quarterback, even though I'm hitting my late thirties. Just a lot of look at me stuff. That's not usually how football works. You don't see the look at me guys winning the Superbowls. Maybe that's why he hasn't won a Superbowl since the 2010 season. But the reason I bring this up, remember the railroading of Tom Brady in 2015 by the coward Roger Goodell? Brady in 2015, Brady, who, look, not only is he the greatest quarterback of all time,

but has been a decent fellow, has been a decent NFL employee, has been somebody that has tried to set a decent fellow, has been a decent NFL employee, has been somebody that has tried to set a good example, it seems like, for the last two plus decades. But in 2015, it had been 15 years, he was the most important superstar the league had. And they did this whole railroading of him, including demanding his phone, posting his emails, all this stuff because of this alleged deflated the balls conspiracy. Once the flake had happened, he started throwing the heavier balls. His stats

got better. He won three Super Bowls. So to say that it was the balls, whatever. Could you say it was like a tiny ruin fraction? Maybe. They treated it like it was Watergate, which is like we called it the flake gate. And you think of like how awful they treated that guy. was Watergate, which is like, we called it the flake gate. And you think of like how awful they treated that guy. And I can't believe he shakes Goodell's hand or would ever say anything nice about that dude. It was clearly men at the pats. Seth Wickersham's book did a good job of explaining why there was a lot more to this from the Goodell side,

but they threw Brady under the bus. Well, what are they gonna do with Rogers? What's the punishment going to be for this guy? Because I would say lying about something that actually poses a health risk to teammates, media members, employees, stuff like that potentially is way worse than whatever happened with Brady in the footballs, which we still don't know what happened. Where's Goodell? Where's Goodell in any of this?

This is classic. Just classic why he's so terrible. This is what he does. The Dan Snyder stuff, which Sally Jenkins wrote the best piece about that. Where's Goodell? Oh, I don't know. He's decided not to push forward. This guy has the worst judgment over and over

again with the spirit of the game and what's happened is football is as popular as it's ever been because why because we had covid because we had a pandemic because life sucked life didn't feel normal for months and months and months on end and when football came back there's a sense of normalcy to it that people have really really gravitated to and they need football in their life. It makes them feel normal to have football on Sundays and Monday nights and Thursday nights. And the NFL is profiting from that. And what we've learned, the NFL is in a dark place in 13, 14, and 15 because of concussions, because of Ray Rice, because even how they treated Brady. But over and over again, people were like, is this sport going to be around?

Including me. I wrote pieces about it. Now it's clearly going to stick around. The sport is more potent and powerful than it's ever been. And Goodell, if you believe the story, at least they made $120 million last year from all the money he made for them. And yet anytime there's a real crisis, he either handles it horribly or he's nowhere to be seen. Like with this Rogers thing, why so hard on one of your stars six years ago and you're sitting

out this Rogers thing. Now I'm taping this, it's like four o'clock on a Thursday Pacific time. Maybe he'll step up, but the Rogers thing's a real deal. The guy lied. And if you don't get vaccinated, it's a lot easier for you to get COVID. And if you get COVID and you're not wearing a mask and you're around a bunch of other people, it's a lot easier for them to get COVID. That's the definition of narcissism. So I'll be interested to see if Goodell

does anything about it. But I thought this was really a bad moment for Rodgers. And of course, he's been silent. But this is one of those things. Step up. Say, I handled this wrong. I have people to apologize to. I'll be interested to see what he says.

Last thing before we get to million-dollar picks. ESPN's Baxter Holmes published a pretty massive investigation into Robert Sarver, the son's owner. And a lot of unflattering stuff. Racial stuff, sexual harassment stuff, inappropriate comments, intimidation stuff. There was, on the record,

anecdotes and comments from people who used to work for him, like Earl Watson, his former coach. And the totality of it is pretty awful and a pretty awful picture of a guy that was not the most liked NBA owner. Here's a newsflash. Robert Sarver, terrible owner.

I mean, really bad, really bad. Cost Steve Nash a finals trip and probably a title. No question. Really, the poster boy of why do you own an NBA team? Why do you own any team if you're not willing to spend enough money to actually win a title? There's plenty of people who would buy that team from him. And I remember I was writing about it in 2011. I was talking about it on TV in 2012 and 2013.

Like just sell the team. If you don't want to do all the things necessary to make the team succeed, just sell it. It's fine. Just sell it. Sell it to somebody who's going to spend the money. These people don't think that way. It's an investment to them.

They don't care about the fans. They don't care about the team. They don't care about the players. So he did whatever he wanted. He was a pretty disliked owner behind the scenes, especially I remember during the lockout, he was one of the people that was really, really hardcore. But here's my Robert Sarver story. It's October, 2013. And I am in, I think, Indianapolis for that ESPN event where they have the two college games. And it's Embiid and it's Wiggins and Jabari Parker. It's like Duke, Kansas. I forget the

four teams. I'm in the lobby of the, I think it was the Ritz Carlton before the game. We're having drinks and we're going to go to the game. And somebody comes up to me and it's this older guy with like that kind of hair color that's not like a real hair color. And he's got like this kind of look in his eye. And he's like, Bill Simmons? And I'm like, yes. And he's like, I'm Robert Sarver. I'm the guy you've been a dick to these last few years.

So now I stand up. What an opener. Nobody's ever introduced themselves to me like that. Like, hey, how are you? And I think, I don't know whether he was trying to intimidate me or what was going on. I think I've told this story. If I've told this story right on the podcast, I apologize. I know I wrote about it briefly in 2017, but anyway, I stood up. He was with Ryan McDonough, who was his GM at the time, who's no longer the GM and one other person. And they clearly saw me in this, in this hotel lab. And he's like, I'm going to hotel lounge. He's like, I'm going to go over to Simmons and I'm going to whatever. And we ended up talking for 10 minutes. I heard him out. He told me how he was absolute bullshit.

I didn't spend the money. Every year they're spending money and I'm just calmly refuting some of his points. Well, you did trade the seventh pick in the draft for nothing. Well, you did give away guys and you did give away the Rondo pick. All this stuff is documented.

I mean, what he did to the Suns, I wrote about it multiple times. I had it in my basketball book. It's terrible. It's absolutely terrible. We did the podcast with Nash for Book of Basketball. Nash still traumatized by the whole thing.

And now poor Nash is in another traumatizing situation, Brooklyn. Anyway, um, it was the most bizarre encounter I think I had this entire decade. We, it actually ended in a kind of a decent place. Like, all right, thanks. Thanks for stopping over. Nice to meet you, Robert Sarver. And I think he felt like he said his piece. I don't know if his intent was to be intimidating or what, but I'm a really hard guy to rattle in those situations. Anyway, he ends up walking away and I sit back down with the three people I'm with

and they're just like, what the fuck just happened? And I was like, Robert Sarver, everybody. So I'm sure there's hundreds of people who have weird stories about that dude like that. Now, obviously he was a pretty awful leader of a team. And some of those stories were just, yikes. I don't know how the NBA is going to handle this one. I think they had a clear path with Sterling

for a variety of reasons. Plus you had a whole fan base, you had the players, you had the coaches, you had a possible boycott with the players. There was real reasons for the NBA to step in. This one is like, I don't know how they're going to handle this one. And my guess is they're not going to be able to get him to sell the team. It's going to have to be the minority owners pushing him to sell the team. But ultimately, if he doesn't want to, he doesn't want to. This is why they couldn't get Sterling out forever. And it was finally his wife and they were able to get a giant price for the team. And

that was basically how they were able to push out Sterling. I don't know what they do with the Sarver thing, but I'll tell you this. I think there's a lot of people out there who would buy the Suns in five seconds. Great fan base, really good nucleus of players. And I'm going to say it again, great fan base, long suffering. They've been there with that team for five decades. And it's just a bummer.

Like having an owner, having the wrong sports owner is like having the wrong family member. You can't get away from it. It's like, oh, there's Uncle So-and-So at Thanksgiving. Oh my God, I can't believe I have to spend four hours with him. That's what it's like to have a shitty sports owner. Hopefully he'll sell. I bet he doesn't.

All right, we're going to take a break. Come back, Million Dollar Picks. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Come back, million dollar picks. 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. Peter Schrager is here. We're taping this a little later today. It's 5 o'clock Pacific time, PM. You should do this in the morning. I feel like that extra seven hours really gained us an edge. We got killed on Million Dollar Picks. We'll talk about that in a second. Action-packed football week. I mean, wow. I talked about Rodgers at the top. I know you talked about it on your show as well. I think we're both interested to see how the NFL handles that, whether they handle it this year, whether they wait, but clearly some rules were broken. So we have that. We have the Odell thing kind of unfolding where it seems like he's going to get waived, traded, whatever, nothing happens. We had the Watson thing where it seemed like that was on like the two yard line to borrow a football term to Miami and ended up not happening. And then, uh, and then your guy McVay goes get and gets

Von Miller for a second and a third and gets Denver to pay his entire salary. Uh, quick question. Is Von Miller still Von Miller or is he 70% of Von Miller? The hope is that he is. And obviously I can unpack this a little bit more that we're three days removed. They tried over the offseason to get Von Miller and the Broncos were like, not yet. Let's see what happens this season. Season starts. Von Miller was awesome to start the season. Once he got on the field, he was second quarterback.

Then last week, the Rams traded Kenny Young, who was a good young linebacker, to the Broncos for a sixth round pick. And a lot of people were like, well, what was that all about? And in those conversations, they're like, would you trade Vaughn? And the Broncos were like, we might trade Vaughn. And then it's really funny that they play this game in Houston, the Rams, and they don't have great Wi-Fi on their plane. So they take off leaving Houston and they have no idea what's happening in the late window games. They land and the Broncos had beaten Washington and the Chargers had lost to the Patriots. So now the Broncos are four and four and like a game out of first. And they're assuming, ah, this thing is done. Like the Broncos, they're suddenly going to say, well, we can actually win the division and call up Monday morning. And the Broncos basically are like a second and a third. We'll pay for most of the salary, but if he goes to second and a third, we can actually win the division. They call up Monday morning and the Broncos basically are like, a second and a third. We'll pay for most of the salary, but if he goes a second and a third, we'll do it. So they're doing it.

And I think one of the reasons Vaughn wasn't dressed on Sunday last week, they thought he might be able to go. It might have been one of those deals where like, let's not risk this trade that we're going to be doing with the Rams. So they win the game anyway. He's practicing. He looks good. And I can tell you like the, the intent, like the intangible stuff,

which it's actually really similar. And I went to their game last night against the Hawks. It's really similar to what Brooklyn's doing where it's like, we, we sold out and we're all in, but like, we're not done. We're going to get Patty Mills. We're going to go and get Aldridge. We're going to go and get Millsap. And like And it's very similar where it's the lift that it brings the other veterans that they know that, wait, the front office, we're seven and one, we're cruising, but the front office isn't satisfied. I'm told Leonard Floyd walked into the building, wasn't aware and caught wind that they traded for Von Miller. It was like running down the aisle, like the hallway. It's like, let's go, Miller. Like that's the cool stuff that hopefully it plays out and he's healthy

and it's all good. But it's the lift knowing like, we're not just all in, we're all in, all in, all in. And we had Scott Pioli, former Patriots executive, and he was a chiefs GM. And I think we had him on good morning football and he was like, none of this matters unless they win. So like we can celebrate their all in stuff. And I'm like, it's a great point, but the Rams know that they're very deliberate. They're like, it's Superbowl or not. They know it's a failure if not. And they'll deal with, they'll cross that bridge when they get there. Um, it's, it's a cool philosophy and it's for veterans.

Like the young guys, they'll, they'll have to deal with that when it's time, but these veterans, they love it. The coach loves it. And they're all in. It's an interesting parallel with the Nets. I hadn't thought of that. So you think like, because we saw this in basketball, and I don't remember when it started.

Sometime this century. It definitely was in the last century of guys kind of doing the ring chasing thing. I guess maybe Mitch Richmond started it with the Lakers. The Lakers, sure. And it's like, yeah, and the older guys would kind of gravitate toward the teams of the superstars. So likeakers, sure. It's not the end of the adventure. Yeah, and the older guys would kind of gravitate toward the teams of the superstars. So like, for instance,

Odell. Let's say Cleveland waves Odell. And could he look at it and go, I'll just go with the Rams and try to win a ring and then I'll figure out my big contract next

year. We certainly haven't seen it work in football. The Pats, I think they're in the Brady-Belichick, the peak. They were always like trying to cherry pick the Ocho Cinco, Albert Hainsworth type guys, trying to get them on

smaller contracts with the thinking you're going to win if you come here. But for the most part, the football players, the time span is so short to make money. I think it's pretty hard to be like, I'm going to take the minimum for a year, just try to win a wing. What does it get you? Well, I mean, it's interesting. So Deshaun Jackson sort of did that with the Rams. And what happens to a lot of these football players, and again, I'll open the bag of what really happened there. He came into McVay's office and was like, let's talk about my touches. I'm only getting five to 10 snaps a game. I want to play a role. And McVay's like, dude, you're in your hometown. We're six and one. You're getting on the field. I don't know. And he said, I'd like to explore a trade. And Sean was basically in the front office. We're like, sure, explore a trade. Where do we go from here? So I think with a lot of these wide receivers, and Beckham to have those, but it was with the Chiefs and the Bucs. And I don't think that validates his career in any way.

And I think it's different in the NBA. It's less people in the NBA too, where it's like, if you're in a nine-man rotation in the NBA, you're really playing. In the NFL, 30 guys are playing? 32? It's like one of those deals where I look at the NFL and you talk about your friend who's a Vikings fan. They're three and four. They've got a lot of good players. They're not winning anything this year. They're probably not winning anything next year. It's like

purgatory. And I was watching the Hawks last night and they're good and they're young and they're going to be fine. But I think of the Hawks in the LeBron era where it was like Al Horford and Dennis Schroeder and they win 60 games, but are they really winning anything? Like they weren't, they weren't winning. So where would you rather be? Would you rather be this team in total rebuild? No. Would you rather be like a good team? No. You might as well be all in and deal with it whenever the consequences come. And for Odell, like I know Sean was interested in Odell a couple years ago when he was traded from the Giants to the Browns. I don't know if this version of Odell at 29 years old and after what just happened in Cleveland, if that adds to a Rams championship piece at all. Yeah. And he's been, he's been hurt a bunch.

I don't know if this made the Rams the favorite because I think it's still way too early with this stuff. And even though the season's only longer by a week, it still feels like so much longer. You know, the fact that we're, basically, we're hitting the halfway point between week eight and week nine. But if you told me Tampa, Dallas, the Rams,

Packers maybe is a wild card. I don't think we're going to know until December. Yeah. With that said, the Rams are really, this is now feels like this is the year type of thing for them. It's like basically this year, next year, I don't know how long you can, you can do this tightrope thing with the salary cap and to not have any picks. Like at some point, I don't know, you're going to have no young players at all. I don't know how that's going to work. I'm fascinated to watch it go, but I just have a lot of reservations. It's never been done like this. And they're trying, they're selling completely out for this one year. And they would argue that, hey, in recent years,

you know, they got this guy, Ernest Jones this year, third round pick, and he's awesome. He's a linebacker. And last year they picked up Darius Williams, who's a starting corner, and they got him as a undrafted, you know, waiver claim. And they argue that they've got a really good pro personnel scouting department. They find enough, but you're not going to win without those core players. And to a point, the Buccaneers did the same thing last year. I mean, they went in all in on Brady, but then they already had had their guys and then they went out and they signed more free agents. But they had a lot of, they had a lot of like guys they drafted first round, second round guys. Yeah. You know, the Eagles,

when they won it, it was, sure, it was Fletcher Cox and some of those guys, but it was a lot of free agent signings who helped play. Like, this might be the way to do it now where you have to be all in,

you have to buy in, and you have to go out and get these guys. They don't have a ticket. Well, you still need four to five monster dudes on your team, which they have.

Yeah. And which, you know, in Ramsey's case, they traded for. Stafford's case, they traded for. And part of the reason they traded for Stafford was because they'd already made a big trade for Goff, which I think people forget like that. Would they give up like six picks for Goff? Yeah, yeah.

To move up from like 12 to one. And, you know, they also, they signed Robert Woods. They did a great job in And, you know, they, they also, they signed Robert Woods. They, they did a great job in signing, um, you know, some of these offensive linemen that, that, you know, Andrew Whitworth, no one really wanted. He's now in his fourth year as a starting tackle for the ramp. Like they've done a really good job in free agency and sometimes it doesn't work out. They signed Eric Weddle and Clay Matthews in recent years. And those guys are no longer with the team and they retired and it's what it is, but like, they've always had an eye for the veteran talent to add to it. And you know, this is it. And it's, they don't, I think Kevin Clark on your site wrote

it well. It was like, I don't think they have a non-compensatory pick until the fifth round this year. And they don't have a first round pick till 2024, but that's not what they're worried about. They're worried about January and February. And there's almost something refreshing to that. So the inefficiencies, if you're trying to do it this way, there's a couple spots in football that I think you can get lucky at. Like the Pats. This guy, Miles Bryant, they have, who's kind of stepped in in the slot.

Mina texted me about him because Mina was watching the Pats tape. And he was like, whoa, where'd this guy come from? I'm like, Belichick can't draft D-backs to save his life, but he can find them off the scrap heap better than anybody. But you can, it seems like you can find slot corners.

You can find the occasional rando wide receiver dude, like even Berrios on the Jets like making a great touchdown last week. Those guys you can find, you can find like the rando wide receiver dude like even Berrios on the Jets making a great touchdown last week. Those guys you can find. You can find the rando tight ends. And running backs. Yeah, the rando running backs. And you can always seem like you can find some left guard

or right guard out of nowhere who all of a sudden finds his home. So you can pack around the fringes but you still need five or six stars which is what they have at least at this point. And you need really good coaching to coach up those guys. So like Austin Blythe was their center last year.

He leaves for free agency. So they give it to this guy, Brian Allen, who is not a traditional NFL center. He goes in there. He's been great. He's playing at an all-pro level. And it's because they've got really good coaches. And their coaching on the offensive line has been really good this year. And that's the kind of stuff where it's like people roll their eyes about coaches and their coaching on the offensive line has been really good this year.

And that's the kind of stuff where it's like, you know, people roll their eyes about McVay, but he's on there, he's on the field every day coaching these players up and giving them the confidence and he's hiring a really good staff. So again, veteran players, less to worry about, less chance. And right now the Eagles have three first round picks in the top 10 if the draft is tomorrow.

I think you guys might've run it. The order where it's like the Eagles had like two, eight, nine, and the Jets had seven and 10 or something. That was crazy. But like, and nothing against Howie Roseman or nothing against Joe Douglas,

but would you rather have Von Miller and Aaron Donald and, and Matt Stafford, would you rather have the seventh, the eighth and the ninth pick and just kind of rolling the dice on a draft pick? Well, if I was, if I own the Eagles, I would try to get the best, whoever the Theo Epstein is of football in time for this draft. Cause that's like unprecedented to have three, four. It almost seems like you look at it on the screen. You're like, that almost doesn't seem real. They're going to pick three times and nine

picks. No, but Eagles fans roll their eyes and I'm not a Howie Roseman apologist. That's how he built it. He built this whole thing, set it up this way with the trade for Wentz and the trade obviously going from six to 12 with an eye on this draft and this free agency. They have the number one free agent space salary cap wise, and they have 11 picks next year and they have three first round picks. So to say, well, then we're going to go get the Theo Epstein. Well, he would probably say, Hey, I am the Theo Epstein. He's right here. I won a Superbowl and I built this. Well, they,

they caught an unbelievable break with Derrick Henry's injury too, because the Colts had hit that point where they're looking at it going, is it worth it to play Wentz? What is it? 70%. It's going to be a really interesting topic. But you have Tennessee now. This dude who everybody was picking up in the three fantasy leagues, I mean, Jeremy McNichols. Jeremy McNichols out of Boise State, sure.

Basically, he's like a poor man's James White. He's just a third down back, that's it. And now he's the guy. And you look at how Tennessee built their team, they build it as like this run blocking team. Now they have to like reinvent themselves on the fly with Tannehill. I think they're going to come back to the pack. And then on the other hand, I don't like the Colts either. So I don't know what happens to that division, but I think they have to keep playing wins and the Eagles are probably like play them, play them,

play them. Cause what is it like 12 games and they get the pick, 13 games? It's 75% of the snaps. If he plays 75% of the snaps. And there's this great debate amongst NFL executives. It's unprecedented to ever have that. Would Chris Ballard and Frank Reich, if they're within striking distance,

would they think towards next year's draft? Because that pick, it could be a top 10 pick. Yeah, so what would happen if the Colts are down a game in week 17 and they're like, hey, we've decided to take a look at another quarterback. Right, what if they're seven and nine? And it's like, right now you have the 11 pick and you could make the playoffs if you win one more

or you're six and 10 and there's a still outside chance if you make the playoffs. But if you bench Wentz, you have the number eight pick. If you don't, the Eagles have the number eight pick. It's a wild predicament they set up this way. And I don't think anyone else... I love it.

It is cool. And we've never had tanking in the NFL like that where you're hovering on a playoff spot. But if this guy plays enough snaps you lose the pick it's a very interesting dynamic uh before we'll do million dollar picks after the break but i i did talk on coward i know you heard it about how things are kind of shifting new england's way here in the afc where you have the bills now who are the queer favorite. They're plus 220 on FanDuel to win the AFC. You have the Ravens whose defense

I think is bad. That's one of the teams I'm looking at to go against an underdog parlay. There's a lot of eye tests plus some really bad defensive stats with them. I'm just not a believer. Casey Mahomes

has now reached and I know with Doc Gooden in 87, you weren't alive for it. It was different. And I'm just not a believer. Casey Mahomes has now reached like, and I know with Doc Good in 87, you weren't alive for it. It was different, but- I was alive for it. Well, not alive to like really remember it. Yeah.

Doc Good, and he had cocaine. So he had like a real issue for it. But 86, Doc was just different than 85, Doc. And all of us were like, what's different? It seems like the same guy. And then 87, we found out, oh, he's been bad battling a drug issue. I don't think Mahomes has a drug issue, but we're at the point where you watch this and you go, what's going on? People are just looking at each other. What's going on? What are these throws? What, what is this look on his

face? Anyway, can't put them, can't, can't, don't feel great about them. Tennessee, no Derrick Henry. Chargers just got waxed the last couple weeks. Bengals. Cleveland has, their quarterback has one arm. Raiders, yikes. Bengals lost to the Jets. Steelers have Ben. And there are the Pats at 31-1 when the AFC on Fandled.

Now, granted, they're 4-4, two of the Windsor gets the Jets, one of the Texans, but it's an arrow that's pointing up, and it's a team that does a lot of good stuff. So tell me I'm crazy. Do the Pats actually have a chance in this conference? Can I give you my nine-week journey with your Patriots Super Bowl pick and what I deal with in airports, what I deal with in New York City, what I deal with when I see people with Red Sox hats, and what I see with most people see me like you're such a bib you didn't even stick up for it you took it you know simmons picks the patriots and you nod there like some sycophant and i'm like i didn't think it was that crazy as a and then this week those chirping on twitter the chirping and it's getting a little quieter bill it's getting a little quieter it's getting a little quieter, Bill. Is it getting a little quieter? It's getting a little quieter. I think people see the final score of Chargers-Patriots,

27-24, they think that was a game. No, the Patriots waxed the Chargers last week. That was not a game. After the first two drives, it was dominant. And you look at the schedule, and I'm not usually schedule guy. There's two against the Bills. I'll even give the Bills both those games. The rest of the schedule is very favorable.

It's Tennessee without Derrick Henry. I mean, do you have it in front of you? Let's go through it because the Patriots schedule is as manageable a schedule as there is. And let's even say they have two losses. Let's give them six losses on the year. 10 wins is enough to make the playoffs. And this is the thing that the Patriots are doing.

They're getting better every single week. And as much as we were critical of Josh McDaniels early on, don't you see Mac having a little more confidence? Don't you see them taking a little more shots? And I don't, by the way, Mac wasn't even good in the first half of that Chargers game. They're trying things,

trying. So here's who they have. They have Carolina this week with McCaffrey coming back. We're covering that million-dollar picks. Cleveland at home. Nice time to catch them. At Atlanta. Home, Tennessee.

No Derek Henry. At Buffalo. At Indy. Home, Buffalo. And then the last two are Jacksonville and Miami. You don't see five to six wins in that batch? That gets you in the playoffs. Ten and seven is the floor for this team, in my opinion, if they stay healthy.

Now, you never know. Somebody could get hurt. Let's be sober about it. Let's say nine. Let's say that's the very worst. They go nine and eight, probably make the playoffs. Nine and eight is probably a seven seed. Yeah.

And guess what? Who are the two seed? Are you scared of the Patriots going into plane? You can get hot and that's where you make your, your, your playoff run. This is where it is. Well, Carolina McCaffrey coming back was a little bit of a bummer, but it looks like Darnold's hurt. Darnold was, uh, it's shoulder or post concussion stuff or both. Nobody knows, but he's not taking snaps in practice. He hasn't. So if it's PJ Walker, I mean, I'd take our chances there, but even more so, you know, the one thing that's crazy is that Gilmore played last week for the Panthers and Bill,

he was really good. He was all over the field. He locked down Kyle Pitts. He had a pick. He was great. And it's like, gosh, the Patriots could probably use Stephon Gilmore. It was done? That had nothing to do with football. I know. That seemed like a staring contest between two really proud guys and Gilmore wanted to make more money and Belichick wasn't sure. And at some point they agreed to disagree and shook hands and he let him go to Carolina and got out of the thing.

But I think, you know, it sucks because Jonathan Jones got hurt. The Pats can get through with the secondary they have, but one more injury, it gets really, really dark. How about this? Damian Harris, I have 80 to one to win the rushing title. What's he at now? Is he like sixth or seventh in the league?

He's like fifth. Yeah. And Henry is going to be in first place for three more weeks. He was like 300 yards at everybody else. But basically, it's like Zeke. I forget who. Eckhart is around there. Jonathan Taylor, right?

Yeah, Jonathan Taylor is in there. But Harris, I think, is 300 yards the past three weeks. And in that Chargers game had 50 callback. They're finally running the ball with him. He's not fumbling. They're finally figuring out how to use the tight ends. Yeah, he's not fumbling, and the play action's starting to work, and I feel like

this team has an identity. I'd never seen Damian Harris speak before in media opportunities. We had him on Good Morning Football. This guy was amazing. Yeah. Super impressive guy, And what he said was, he's like, you know, you guys in the media and everyone out on the exterior looks and just thinks Bill is like, you know, whatever doomsday. He's like, this guy loves us. He loves us. And the love that he shows us behind closed doors, like we don't need to express it. It was a really eloquent way to put it,

but basically to everyone on the outside, like kind of sort of fuck off. Like we're good. Like this is our coach. You know, you can make your Brady narratives about how that worked out, whatever. But this young team, they really respond to Belichick. He's still connecting with them and they're all committed.

They haven't given up. And I know those losses stunk against the Cowboys and Cousin Sal gave you shit the next morning and all that. Those are great games.. And I know those losses stunk against the Cowboys and cousin Sal gave you shit the next morning and all that. Those are great games. Those are great games for a young team. And like, we went toe to toe with the Bucks and the Cowboys. We're okay. It's only going to help them as the season goes on. I told Sal this story when it happened, you know, I was talking about, but the 2001 pads, they'd have a game like that where they lost to the Rams 24,17 on a Sunday night,

but they really hung with them. And for whatever reason, from that loss, they gained confidence and kind of went forward. But look, they have to win this Carolina game and this Cleveland game. I think they should win the next two. They're favored in both. And if they're 6-4 after those games,

when you think they still have Jacksonville-Miami left, the thing that sucks for this Pats case is just Buffalo's game. Buffalo's so good. Well, Buffalo's five and two, and they have Jacksonville and the Jets and the Colts and then at the Saints on a Thursday night, but it's Taysom Hill. And then it gets hard the last six. They got New England. They're at Tampa, home last, then it gets hard. The last six, they got new England.

They are at Tampa home, Carolina at new England again, but then they finish home Atlanta home jets. So they're definitely the one seat. You're going to have to go there to beat them. And that's it. But, and I know it's, and I know last year it went Buffalo's way,

obviously. And at the end, Cam Newton fumbles in a crazy game that I thought the Patriots could have had. Are you, you know, are you, are you scared of Belichick versus McDermott after all these years? Like, are you scared of the Patriot uniform going into Buffalo? I feel like they can rally the troops and they can find a way to win one of those if they had to. I don't know about Belichick. I know he lost two last year to Buffalo, but throw out last year, but it just seems like we beat Buffalo for 20 straight years. Coming back, we're going to do Million Dollar Picks.

How can you be sure you're making the right decision when choosing a university? The smart approach is to look at the facts, like the fact that York U graduates have a 90% employer satisfaction rate. That's because across its three GTA campuses, York U's programs are strategically designed to prepare you for a meaningful career and long-term success. Join us in creating positive change at yorku.ca slash write the future. All right. So last week, Million Dollar Picks, the White Lotus himself, Mike White, took us out with the Bengals.

It was brutal. Couldn't believe it as it was happening. Bengals blown an 11-point lead to the Jets. Where did you watch it? As it turns out... It was Halloween. Were you watching on a couch? Or were you out trick-or-treating?

I was watching with my friend Hershey. And it was miserable. As it turns out, we would have lost the tease anyway because the Bucs ended up blowing it to the Saints. Valuable lesson last week. I couldn't find the tease last week.

I felt like we force fed it. And, you know, sometimes, look, if the bet's not there, it's almost like if the receiver's not open, don't throw it in double coverage. I felt like we forced it in double coverage last week,

but we did hit our first underdog parlay, which Fandle boosted up to plus 800. Okay. Steelers. Patriots. Patriots.

And Fandle, they lost two and a half million dollars. No. They did. That's what they told me. They said I can mention that in the pod. We cost Fandle

two and a half million dollars. I don't know why they... Are they like, we're out of business? Well, they're doing it again. No, they're like, look, we love it. We love the action. This is what we want. So we have another one coming that we're going to boost. I'll give you a hint. It involves

two teams that I don't like, but we're throwing them in anyway. All right. We're going to rip through some of these games fast. Can I just tell you about this Jets game real quick? They're up 11 with four minutes left. I'm on a plane and I'm sitting next to the most interesting man I've ever met in my life. This guy is, I'll say his name.

He's Tory Burch's ex-husband and we just get seated next to each other. And he's an investor and he's talking about all his different brands. And I'm captivated by this man and his conversation. And yet I'm watching out of the side of my eye. And I'm like, finally, I'm like, dude, I got, you got to stop talking. I got to watch how this goes. And Mike White just broke our heart. And he's like, well, what's going on? I'm like, no, no, you got to understand the story here at this. This is an incredible story. And I think Bill Simmons just lost $700,000 of fake money. I think that just happened. He's like, yeah. Well, and almost

$700,000 of real money too. Um, well,. He's like, yeah. Yeah, well, and almost $700,000 of real money too. Well, Mike's playing today. We'll find out if he turns into a pumpkin against the Colts or not. I, look, I thought he looked for real. I didn't think it was a fluke.

I thought he was really, really impressive and I'm a believer. So, yeah, we'll see if it stands. Teasers, parlays. There are some ones I like this week,

including Dallas nine and a half to Denver. This Denver team is so flimsy. They just don't have the horses anymore. And the Von Miller trade to me is like, we know we're not good here. Oh, really? We can get a second and third for a guy who's leaving at the end of the year. Let's grab that. And what's that? What's that tell the rest of the team, right. Is that a great sign for a team? Like, they know they don't have the quarterback.

Like for the X number of years, they've screwed up the quarterback spot and Teddy's fine. Fine. There should be a word for the person who's too good to be a backup, but not quite good enough to be your playoff starter. That's a good club. It's like, he's basically a tweener,

right? Yeah. I feel like Nick Foles is like that. Somehow Nick Foles beat the, Tyraoles is like that. Tyrod Taylor. Tyrod Taylor's like that. There's a few of them. So I just like Dallas to win or in a tease. Nine and a half.

I believe in the Dallas team. They're healthy. Lock that one in. We have Buffalo, which the line's too high to tease, but we have them as minus 1,000 that we can throw them in a parlay to juice the odds a little bit. They'll beat Jacksonville.

We have the Rams minus 7.5, minus 360 with the Titans. I love the Rams in that game. Well, it's interesting. Even if Henry was playing, I would still like the Rams because all the eye tests plus the actual stats tell us that you can throw in the Titans

until the cows come home. And I think they're going to really, really open it up against them. The one thing that worries me, I got to be honest, is the team that has to completely change their identity. Who's that? The Titans.

Where it's just like, you're playing this team that is now, they basically just came out of the phone booth and there's somebody else. They're probably worse, but they're going to be trying and doing a lot of different things. And I think that's hard to prepare for. Makes me a tiny bit nervous. It's a great test for, so it's Vrabel obviously, but they've got two first year coordinators and Shane Bowen on defense. But then I think Todd Downing is the, the offensive coordinator. It's like,

okay, you built this offense around Henry and on the fly, you need to now say, cause they've been talking the talk when they went and got Julio and they got, obviously, you know, they,

they built this off. We've got this, this passing offense. We got Tannehill, all this stuff. Well, okay, now let's see it.

Like, and they got to go do it. So our, the fourth team I have in there for the teaser parlay thing is the Pats. Against Carolina, minus 190, minus three and a half. And if you wanted to get a little ambitious, you do money line parlay, Dallas, New England, and Buffalo.

Okay. Plus 107. All of them have to win. We're using Dallas and we're using Buffalo to bring that Pats line down. So we're basically betting on the Pats and assuming the other two are going to hit. You also could do a Dallas with New England,

bring them down to minus two and a half. So there's juice on that with the Dallas Moneyline. Pats have to win by three. Dallas just has to win. That's plus 103. We could do a Dallas Rams Pats, three of them together money line or Rams Cowboys Patriots, seven point tees. You bring the Pats to plus three and a half. Okay. I like you bring Dallas to minus two and a half and you bring the Rams to a half point and that is plus 140,

Peter Schrager. I figured that was the one you were going to like. That's the one. That's the one. I'm not, I can't guarantee that the Patriots

are going to win this game, but I know the Patriots aren't getting blown out in this game. So let's go with that one. Let's do that last one. I like the points there. So the favorite of the Pats

is McCaffrey. Yeah. This guy's awesome and we haven't seen him yet and he practiced this week and he can come out there and last year he missed a ton of games, goes into Kansas City for basically one game

and goes for like 180 and just terrorizes the Chiefs defense. And if Joey Sly makes a field goal at the end, the Panthers beat the Chiefs in Arrowhead last year. I lost money on that game. Did you? Joey Sly. Every time I see Joey Sly, I just see money shooting out of my TV. So the other option we have is we can knock the Pats out of that completely.

And we can just do Dallas and the Rams. You already have enough riding on the Patriots long-term, everything. Don't put too much pressure on this week. Oh, no. We're betting on the Patriots. Don't you think we're not betting? So we could do a Dallas Rams two-leg teaser, which is minus 150 on Fando if we do the plus seven. So we'd take Dallas to minus two and a half and take the Rams to zero,

but we'd have to lay some big, 150 to win 100. Can we put the bills in there or no? Can't put the bills in there because you're bringing them down to like seven and a half. Like we always say, Warren Sharpe is cringing at this conversation, me asking that question. Well, my thought is, I like the Pats. I think the Pats are going to beat the Panthers. I believe in the Pats.

Okay. So if we lose money on that, so be it. And I think it's a way to bring in the Rams and the Cowboys, who I think will both win. Let's do it. Plus 140. Okay. Are people going to accuse you of being my lapdog here? It's fine.

I'm in. Look, I'm saying— Are you worried about injured Sam Darnall and P.J. Walker against Belichick? I'm injured about Christian McCaffrey going bananas and us being like, of course that happened. We knew that was going to happen. Christian McCaffrey, the Mike Trout of the NFL. That's what we said.

Of the 72 and 90 Angels every year. Let's give him another MVP. Straight up bets. I love the Bengals this week. I can't believe I want to go back to the well. But it's minus two and a half against the Browns. Baker, I thought looked like shit last week. And I can't believe they're playing him.

I would play Keenum. I think that's nuts. Odell's now out. Landry's playing injured. Chubb doesn't seem healthy to me. They just lost Jack Conklin, their right tackle. Good QBs against the Browns. Mahomes put up 33.

Herbert put up 47. Murray put up 37. And now this is the fourth good QB they're going against if you think Joe Burrow's a good QB, which I do. Their offensive line got massacred last week. There might be reasons for that. The Jets, one thing they do, they

have a really big physical defensive line and they can push. I don't see that happen to the Bengals two weeks ago. I love that this is under three. I really like the Bengals. What do you think? Let's go Bengals. I'm with you. The Browns, you know, Stefanski won coach of the year last year, and it was this great story.

This is where you make your bucks as a coach. This is where you earn it. And it's like, if they win this week, if they beat the Bengals, great. Like, let's go. The season's alive. If they lose, we're right back to the typical Browns, and it's the same conversations we've had for years. I feel like there's a lot of pressure.

A lot of pressure on Baker. And I think the Odell thing, if anything, it is a distraction and he hasn't really been one, but like the LeBron tweet, his dad, the whole not coming to practice, like no one wants to deal with that shit right now. And I feel like it's at the worst time of the year they are dealing with it. I think it's a good time, especially with the Bengals, everyone kind of getting off the bandwagon. Let's see what they're about. I'll go with the Bengals. Yeah. Cause I think a week ago, this line is Bengals. Everyone kind of getting off the bandwagon. Let's see what they're about. I'll go with the Bengals. Yeah, because I think a week ago, this line is Bengals by four. Agreed. Everyone lost.

Everyone's done. It's like, you know, you feel like, that's why they're the Bengals. They lost to the Jets. And I'm out of my survivor pool because of it, you know? But you think like classic trap game. It was their third world game in a row. The Bengals.

They had come off this emotional Ravens win. Now they're back in Jersey. It sucks to be in Jersey with a plane, a crappy team. You just want to get through without anyone getting hurt. All of a sudden you're losing and they knew the Browns were coming this week. So it's just, I think, I don't think the Bengals are as bad as they were last week. And I don't, I'm not sold on the Browns at all. The interesting thing with the Browns, they lose this game. They got the Pats in week 10. Then they could be four and six. I know.

With a quarterback who's got one arm. Anyway, I like the Bengals. Let's go. I want to start doing three picks for the straight ups. Second one, this is, you're not talking me out of this,

Chargers minus one half against the Eagles. Phillies three wins, Atlanta by 22, Carolina by three, Detroit by 38. Congratulations. They lost to San Francisco, Dallas, Kansas City, Tampa, Vegas. Chargers three losses, Dallas by three, got killed by Baltimore, Pats by three. They played the fifth hardest schedule so far by DVOA. And that includes the Pats who were kind of underrated since they're better in week eight than they were in week one. The DVOA for the teams are pretty similar, but I just think the Chargers have more talent. And the one way to beat them is to like run the ball

down their throat. Is Boston Scott and Jordan Howard going to cost me money in this game? And also like, are the Chargers really just going to keep losing? They have too much talent. I don't see it. The only thing I would say on this, and I would, I would be nervous because last week we took the lions to beat the Eagles. I watched that game. I watched the entire game. It was on, it was on my flight. I was like, Oh, I'm watching this in the jet game. And they're both killing me. Cause we bet against them. Um, their offensive and defensive lines, absolutely manhandled Detroit's. Now you say, okay, that's Detroit. Chargers have the worst run defense in the entire league. And if you're talking about a really good offensive line in Philly, and I know it is Jordan Howard and Boston Scott and Kenny Gainwell, and you're not losing sleep on those names, but the Eagles are strangely alive. They're like three and five and they didn't trade off Fletcher Cox and they didn't trade off Lane Johnson and they didn't trade off a lot of these guys

that everyone thought might be on the trading block. I don't know. I would almost say if we could stay away from this, I would. Chargers suddenly after two losses, what gives you any feeling that they're going to finally find themselves against the Eagles?

Here's Philly. Week two, lose San Francisco. Week three, killed by Dallas. Week four, lose to the Chiefs. They beat Carolina in week five in a game. No McCaffrey. They were down 10. They find a way. Lose to Tampa, which they were getting killed. Came back late. garbage time stuff. Garbage touchdowns, yes. Vegas, same thing.

Way behind garbage time stuff. You're right. And then they kill the Lions, who are the worst team in the league. Who everyone kills. Yeah. And we stupidly were like, oh, this will be the week the Lions get one.

I'm not proud of it. I mean, we did underdog. Did we do underdog parlay or straight up? Yeah, we did underdog. We took a flydog parlay or straight up? Yeah, we did underdog. We took a flyer on him. Yeah. I think the talent difference. Philly's still playing, what, 35 million under the cap?

Yeah. Like with dead cap weight and all that stuff? Yes. I just think the Chargers are, you know, just look at the two teams. Of course. How do the Chargers, how are they not favored by three? I'm getting a point and a half of free stuff here

just because the Eagles killed the Lions? I'm including them. You've done a sound job convincing me. I will roll with you. Let's go with the Chargers. Jordan Howard and Boston Scott. By the way, it's now Chargers minus two. So there's been some action on the Chargers

as I'm looking at that. Cardinals, Niners. All right, let's talk about it. Which way do you like that? I think it's a stay away. But Niners minus two, I feel like I'm getting a free point. I don't know if there's a difference

between these two teams. And the way I like to look at week eight, week nine, week 10 is, am I getting free stuff? Are people, did people tilt too far one way or the other? This line should be minus three and it's minus two.

What do you think? Kyler is the X factor and we're doing this on Thursday. Missed practice today. He hasn't practiced, but I think he plays. Kyler is the X factor and we're doing this on Thursday mispractice today he hasn't practiced but I think he plays if I know Cliff well so stay away

so we stay away I think Kyler's gonna play and I don't think Colt McCoy will be under center last possible whatever stay away that goes from Kyler being Mr. Warrior I'm gonna go

like that's the deal Giants plus three and a half against the Raiders who just had this horrible rugs thing happen. Terrible. 156 miles an hour and he's drunk

and he's got guns in the car and he's got a passenger. Like, what the fuck are you doing? Terrible, terrible story. They waive him. He was really important to their passing game and this team is just taking

hits left and right. And at some point, it's weird that the line isn't reflecting that that much. The Giants, they're 2-6. Two really stupid losses. Right? They jump offsides on the field going week

two. And last week, they're about to beat the Chiefs and they screwed up. Well, they get the pick and then they go offsides again on that. And then there was a... No one even talked about the taunting penalty by Eli Penny, who, like, I don't even... He's doing this, and it's like a 15-yard penalty. Yeah, Giants gave that game to the Chiefs.

But Saquon now is on the COVID list. There's other injuries all over the place. The Giants are flat. And it's, again, I always fear this with the Giants. They go into a cold, like empty MetLife stadium where it's gray and stale and it's a bunch of 70 year old fans just being angry that they're sitting in the cold.

If the Raiders come out early, screw it. Let's go with the Giants. Let's go with the Giants. Wait, you just, you just one-aided me. I was crossing them off. I know. And then I'm like,

I said that last time. By the way, how about just stay away? We can just stay away. The last time I did that spiel about I could see the Boo Birds coming, they went and they blew out Carolina.

So like, you don't know what this Giants team. My question is, are the Giants the good-bad team? I think that's giving them too much credit.

Who's the good-bad team if it's not the Giants? You could say Phillies. Seattle. Against a really bad team. But who's the team that beats up the other bad teams but can't hang as soon as the level. That's Denver. They're 4-4.

Oh, yeah, you're right. Denver, you're right. They beat all the bad teams. They stink against good ones. Well, our other option is we could just bet the Rams. Because I really wanted to get to three straight up picks, but the Rams are... What are they now?

They are minus seven. So we could just lay the touchdown against Tannehill and those guys. I do worry about the cheap touchdown potential at the end of the game. And I also worry about the Rams' inability to run the ball when they have a lead at the,

in the fourth quarter. That's why I think it's a stay away. It's a real concern. I would stay away from that seven. That's a lot. It's funny. I like, I like the underdogs.

I like some of the underdog bets. If we had the other one last week, here's the other one I was looking at. Yeah. Maybe we do this. We grabbed the points here. Packers plus seven and a half. Let me make the case. Hey, Kyle, turn the camera on, turn the camera, turn points here. Packers plus seven and a half. Let me make the case.

Kyle, turn the camera on! Turn the camera on. Packers plus seven and a half. Little Ewing theory with Aaron Rodgers even though he's ineligible because he won the Super Bowl, but maybe there's a 10 year after 10 years you become eligible for the Ewing theory. Little fuck you from

the team. Hey. Hey, this fucking guy, huge diva the whole offseason, made it seem like we weren't good enough for him, was a dick to Jordan Love, wanted to be a Jeopardy host. Now he was mouth-breathing all over

us and he wasn't even vaccinated. Inviting us to his Halloween party, not vaccinated. Puts our season in danger by getting COVID, puts himself in danger, and now he's out two weeks. Like, this guy doesn't... You know what?

Let's shove it in his face. We're going to fucking win this for Jordan Love. All right. I don't see it that way, but let me swing it a different fuck you way. Let me go a different route with it. Oh, a second fuck you path? Let me tell you this path.

Matt LaFleur has the best record through 40 games of any NFL head coach since the Super Bowl era began. And all anyone says is, well, that's because he's got Rodgers. Right. It's because he's got Rodgers. He's nothing without Rodgers.

A one last week without Devante Adams. F you. They come into this week, they go into Arrowhead and they say, you know what? We're going to screen you to death. We're going to hit Aaron Jones a hundred times, a little five yard. Jordan Love, we're going to little sneak peek at the future. It's a freebie for us. We got nothing to lose. Not only are we going to cover this game, we're going to walk out

of Arrowhead with our heads held high because we, the Packers, without Aaron Rodgers behind our great coach, are going to get the job done. Let's go. This is a good one. Kyle, did the camera overheat? Packers plus 7.5, we get an extra half point. I mean, we could get

the cheap touchdown at the end. By the way, I watched Jordan Love in the preseason. He looked good. He's pretty good. And guess what? I've watched a lot of Chiefs. We had to bet on him every single week.

It'd be nice to bet against him one week and not have the pressure of rooting for them. Yeah, I haven't seen anything I like from the Chiefs. Like literally anything. I can't believe how bad Mahomes looks. I can't remember. What's the best Mahomes theory you've heard? Just like, is he dealing with some stuff off the field? Is he hurt?

No. The theory is that there's now this way to beat them ever since Tampa employed these two safeties. The two deep safeties. And the 25 yards and Mahomes is just impatient. Like, does not want to win that way. But that doesn't account for how bad

some of his throws have been. And so imprudent they've been. And it's like the elephant in the room. I don't think it matters. People want to talk about advertisements. But he did that all last year. He was all over ads last year. And his brother was TikTok dancing last year. And the ones I look at though in this are like, hey, Eric Bien-Ami, Andy Reid, Travis Kelsey, let's all step our games up a little bit because it seems like the team came out flat on Monday night and that was inexcusable also. They win that game, but gosh, it's hard to wrap your arms around these chiefs. Green Bay, 14th in DVOA. Fourth offense, 22 on defense.

I'm not looking at this as the Rodgers FU. I'm looking at this as the LaFleur FU. It's beautiful. We're taking them. All right. Underdog Parlay of the Week. Our nominees are the Vikings plus 215 against the Ravens. The Falcons plus 205 against the Saints. The

Bears plus 215 on Monday night against the Steelers, and then the Packers plus 265, but we already took them. Falcons-Vikings right now is plus 861. And on FanDuel, I'm going to call the boost right now. I'm going to say we're going to boost that up to 10 to 1. Now, on Saturday, they'll give the official thing, but for us, we'll say that's the underdog parlay of the week boost presented by FanDuel Sportsbook

and we're giving ourselves 10-1 odds and we're going to grab it. Falcons-Vikings. Here's the case. Vikings. Everyone's done with them. They suck. Fuck those guys. Vikings fans, including my buddy Jeff. We're out. What's up, Jeff? I hate this team. I hate Kirk Cousins. They suck. Fuck those guys. Vikings fans, including my buddy Jeff.

We're out. What's up, Jeff? I hate this team. I hate Kirk Cousins. Zimmer's going to get fired. I'm out. Total embarrassment. This is kind of when the Vikings thrive.

It's what they do. When people are just dumping port-a-johns on them and complaining about them, and this is kind of what they do. The Ravens, Bill Barnwell had some good stuff in his column this week about them. Worst tackling team in the league.

We have all the tackling stats. They're allowing 7.5 yak yards after catch. They can't tackle. Well, what do the Vikings have? Guys who can break tackles and run after the catch. Isn't that Thielen and Justin Jefferson and Dalvin Cook? That's what those guys do. So I like the matchup for them.

And I'm just... The Ravens are kind of due for a shit game. They haven't had one in a while, right? Just like the, ooh, what happened game? The Bengals kicked the shit out of them two weeks ago. No, but I'm saying the game against the team, they were heavily favored. The fact that this line is in seven, seven and a half

tells me something. But I like the thought of the Vikings beating the Rams. I don't know if it'll happen, but I think they're a strong, strong, strong underdog. We have bet on the Vikings several times this season. It has been a thrill ride. We did the Arizona game. We were lucked out.

We bet for them in the Detroit game in a crazy way, and they lucked out in a teaser. You know this game is coming down to either Justin Tucker or Greg Joseph. And I say, Bill, it's Greg Joseph's day. The kicker, Greg Joseph. Bird and magic of great field goal kickers. This is it. Greg Joseph has been our nemesis.

He is going to win us the day I'm in. Let's go, Vikings. And then Falcon Saints. This is, I don't even need to make the case. Taysom Hill. 30-year-old Taysom Hill somehow laying six points to this Atlanta team that is three and four. It's frustrating as hell.

But they've been able to move the ball against basically everybody. They have Matt Ryan. I get it. You don't want to ever have money on Matt Ryan, but you know what I like Matt Ryan when he's getting a lot of points, you still want Matt Ryan laying points ever under any situation. You want to put Matt Ryan in a tease where you want him is like getting six to 10 points against a seemingly better team.

And in the Saints case, a team that just played in a bunch of big games in a row. Now they're like, all right, Superdome. Finally, we get to reset against a shit team. You let up a little bit. And the stuff that the Saints are good at, the run defense is great, right? Well, the Falcons have a shit run game.

They do a lot of weird misdirection stuff with Patterson. I think this is a very winnable game for the Falcons. What do you think? I do too. And I think they have a history of fighting the Saints really tough

when the Saints are significantly better year in, year out in a lot of these seasons. I would also add that last week was it was the Super Bowl for the Saints. It was in the Superdome tampa comes in we're going to revenge that loss last year in the playoffs jamis is going to get his jamis goes down

and like they were so good last week and it was trevor simeon and kevin white and alex arma jr and like they were getting great production from these guys that i are we now dipping back into that bag and saying, all right, it's going to be Taysom Hill and Alex Arma Jr. Like I could see a serious letdown. And Sean Payton's a good coach. I just think that this Falcons are playing for their season. Saints kind of had their biggest game of the season. It's hard to play like that two weeks in a row.

I could see the Falcons sneaking up on him this week. Me as well. So Falcons Vikings, we're going to boost that to 10-1. We'll be doing that one. And then, I'm just throwing this out. The Bears are plus 215 against Roethlisberger. I don't love the Bears, which is why I think it's a stay away. I do feel like, though, with Roethlisberger,

with the fact that they basically score 12 to 19 points a week. And now you throw in the one pick six, the one punt return. Anytime they're laying points, I think they just have to be seriously discussed as how do you go against them in Notre Dame Parle. I don't like the Bears

coaching. They're 32nd in the league in offense. It's hard to say. And they've had some injuries, so it's a stay away. I was looking. There was a Bears-Packers parlay that was plus 1050. You bet 100, you win 1050

if those two hit. But we'll stay away. We'll just do what happens. Steelers defense is really good. Bears offense is really bad. All right. Million dollar picks. Week nine.

Last week, we lost the most money that you and I have lost together since we started doing this. $639,000. It hurts. Courtesy of the White Lotus himself, Mike White. He did it. No shame. It happens. The good news, we're still up $924,000 for the season. We've also coming off of winning underdog parlay. Yeah. And I think we've hit three. Yeah. And we've been lights out. We talked last week about betting $3 million on the Bengals and we stayed away. So I feel like that was house money. That was you. That was you. You

were the wise one on that one. Cause I was ready to do it. Thank God that didn't happen. Okay. First bet, week nine. Rams teasing them down from seven to zero. Seven point tees. Teasing the Cowboys from nine and a half to two and a half. Teasing the Patriots from three and a half to plus three and a half against Carolina. Rams-Cowboys-Pats, seven point, three team tees, plus 140.

We're going to put 500k on that. Okay, that's good. It's prudent. I like it. If that hits, we win 700k. Dallas wins. Dallas wins by three. Rams win. Pats either lose by a field

goal, win, whatever. Straight up, we're doing three bets for 200K. Bengals, minus 2.5 over the Browns. That is minus 106, by the way. So we're only risking 212 to 200. Chargers, minus 1.5 against the Eagles. You were a little worried about this. I don't believe in the Eagles.

You also talked me out of Seattle against Jacksonville last week. I think you get a little squeamish sometimes with the bad teams. Bad teams are bad teams for a reason. I just you get a little squeamish sometimes with the bad teams. Bad teams are bad teams for a reason. I just have watched the Chargers. Herbert breakout game, Staley kitchen sink game. Okay. Come on.

Come on. Alright, I'm in. Last one, Packers. Plus seven and a half. Let's go. I caught it. The Jordan Love fuck you game. You caught it. The Matt LaFleur fuck you game. There's a lot of fuck yous flying around. Packers plus seven and a half to cover against the Chiefs.

And then we're going to do, as our underdog parlay of the week, coming off a big win, FanDuel is going to boost us up to 10 to one. Sorry, FanDuel. Sorry, FanDuel. Falcons win. Vikings win.

If both of those things happen, 10-1. We're putting $33,000 on that. We win $330,000 if that wins. Last week, we cost Fando $2.5 million with the underdog parlay of the week. Hoping to repeat it as much as we love Fando. It's all out of love, Fando.

Fando, we're driving action your way. Sometimes we know what we're just, we're driving action your way. Sometimes we know what we're doing with this stuff. Any last predictions for week nine? No, let's have a great, great weekend. Let's get back on the plus side of this. It was a tough week for me. I licked my wounds.

I'm ready to go, dude. Before we go, check out in the Good Morning Football Twitter account, Stroller Guy, submarining you and Kyle Brandt on the streets of New York. They're doing this bit on the sidewalk.

It's a two minute bit. And right near the end, some dude just walks through classic New York with a stroller. Talk about fuck you. Does not give a shit. And I'm like, you know what? You're right. I wouldn't care either.

He just comes right through the shot. It was very clear. There was a TV filming going on. Guy comes in with a stroller. His kid was probably named Jagger or Zander or like Wildflower. Right. He just comes right through. Does not care. He had places to go. So did the kid. All right. We could see you on Fox this weekend as well. Peter Schrager, a pleasure as always. Love it, Bill. Thank you.

All right. I've known Rembert Brown for 10 years since we worked together at Grantland. And I always told him, if any Atlanta team wins a world championship, you're invited on my podcast. Now we narrowed it down to the baseball, football, basketball teams. I never thought you'd actually be on the podcast to discuss this, but it happened.

The Braves. The Braves. The Atlanta Braves. The Braves. The Atlanta Braves. Hi, everyone. This is world champion Rembert Brown here. And what a moment this is in my life. I can't believe

the Cobb County Braves. They moved out of downtown Atlanta and won a World Series. It's unreal. The Hakuna gets hurt and now immediately enters the Ewing Theory Hall of unreal. The Acuna gets hurt and now immediately enters the Ewing Theory Hall of Fame. But Acuna gets hurt. But he gets hurt early enough in the season

and the division is crappy enough that near the trade deadline, if they're in the Dodgers Giants division, maybe they don't do this, but they look at it and they go, go make a couple trades. Nobody's taking them seriously. It's like, Dodgers Giants. Who's it going to be between these two behemoths?

And they end up beating the shit out of each other all the way to the final day of the season. Max Muncy gets hurt. Then they have to, there's a play-in game. Then they have to go head to head.

And Atlanta's just lying in wait, just waiting. The perfect place for an Atlanta sports team to be. Zero pressure. Almost forgot we are in the league. No one is thinking about it. That was the beauty of the Hawks team. No one expected it. People are like, the Hawks, it's not a real thing. They're kids, blah, blah, blah. Then we go on this run. It is the run that i would always like atlanta to be in which is like the third or fourth priority no one's taking us seriously and then we just get so hot in the

most beautiful time it's just i honestly it's it's it's so interesting because the braves are my first team because i'm a 90s baby so i had the whole Glavin Smoltz Maddox run and then I lost some me and me and baseball took a hit yeah you know basketball presented itself what a sport football problematic but I'm into it Mike Vick Braves became for a while the third team. And for a little moment, when Atlanta United happened, arguably the fourth team on my list. But there is something about the Braves that

even brings the Atlanta person who watches one baseball game every five years as like, that's my team. Those are my boys. Freddie Freeman, I'll take a bullet for that team. That's how people are that's how people are right now

it's amazing he was the big winner the Freddie Freeman the homegrown star sticks around had a couple good years in a row leading up to this moment

huge in the playoffs and and just teeth everywhere big teeth big smile on that Freddie teeth flying after the game

I I love you know I've always had like a kind of complicated relationship everywhere. Big teeth. Big smile on that, Freddie. Teeth flying after the game. I've always had a kind of complicated relationship with Chipper Jones. I don't blame you. Nobody likes him. Never really knew if things that were going to come out of Chipper Jones' mouth were the things that I believed in in this world.

But he was our guy. He won it for us in 95. Freddie wins one. I've been saying it all year. Freddie wins. Freddie replaces Shipper in my head. He's someone that I feel more comfortable cheering for because I think Freddie

is the guy. I think he's the big smile tooth man that is an incredible face of Atlanta. I hope he comes back. I hope we give him every dollar that we can find. And Swanson's another one. Handsome guy,

that Swanson doing his thing. Another homegrown guy. We've talked about the, uh, the hair length of your son, the overall flow that he is taking into the world. Dansby, that's like a handsome, beautiful man

with a great head of hair. I love Dansby. Dansby is like is so Atlanta. He's like so like north side, like, you know, where the stadium is Atlanta, but also like all the people like from the actual city of Atlanta, everyone's is, Atlanta, but also all the people

from the actual city of Atlanta, everyone's like, yo, I fuck with Dansby. I love it. The Migos love Dansby. Oh! Quavo and Dansby are like best friends. What was Migos' relationship to the World Series? It's a little harder now because we have the nets.

It's a little less prestigious to sit in the first row. You're just hit by a net. Yeah, I think the Migos continue to provide us a soundtrack for what we would hope would be victories. I think the thing about

Atlanta in this moment is Atlanta is like undeniably a cool place. And we were a cool place while being one of the great losers of this country. We would lose, and then everyone would still want to come to Atlanta.

So the idea of Atlanta having good teams, the idea of Atlanta being talked about when it comes to victories, that plus Atlanta already being one of the three most fun places to be in the country.

It's an exciting but maybe dangerous time. They have shut down schools, which is wild. It's just going to be a mess and I'm so excited to be there from the other side of the country. That's on Friday or Saturday?

Friday. Friday is... I've taken off work tomorrow. I haven't told anyone, but I will not be working hard tomorrow because me and my friends, we're just referring to each other as champions. I think it's the most excited I've been for a non-Boston parade.

My hopes are through the roof. I have no idea how many people are going to be there, but I think it's going to be an incredible amount. And I think it's actually going to feel like a party crossed with a parade. I think they're going to figure out how to blend those two worlds. So it's not just vans driving through and people cheering.

It's going to be more festive than that, I would guess. I think it's going to be really beautiful. I think, you know, it's no secret that there are like two Atlantans, you know, that that is just a very real thing. I think this parade is going to allow both Atlantas to really have their fun, maybe separately from each other. But everyone's going gonna get a chance to see the boys and i'm excited like like there is something like kind of wild about shutting down all of the schools but it's also like wow like everyone is understanding like we don't know when this is gonna happen again like we gotta we gotta we gotta celebrate like i know jock is on is on

the Braves and he seems to win wherever he goes. So if he stays in Atlanta, we'll probably win again because that's how he does. Jocktober. Jockvember. Jockcember.

So when they were up 7-0, it was like seventh inning. Terrified. The most terrified. I didn't want to text you. I stayed away from you because I knew what kind of pain you were in. But it did.

Somebody got a hit and I was like, oh, man, this is like the 28 to 3 kind of moment of this game. I wonder if they can get through it. You got through it pretty easily. But I did have that thought. There was a moment when I think it climbed from 5-0 to 7-0 or 4-0 to 7-0 where I got more scared. Yeah. I was like, oh, no, Oh, where I got more scared. Yeah. I was like, I was like, Oh no,

no, we're doing too well. This is, this is setting the stage for like a, uh, to make 20, 28 to three seem like nothing. Like,

it's just like, I can't, I was reading all of these tweets just about, you know, the, the Atlanta sports fan, just like even in the deep into the eighth inning, I, there was no relaxation.

We had that with, we had that with Red Sox Yankees, the game seven, we had a huge lead. I never felt comfortable or safe ever. You start counting the outs and there's like 14 outs left. Now, now we have,

now we're down to 12 and then Pedro came in and they started chanting, who's your daddy, Adam. And I thought we were going to lose. We had like a six run lead. Yeah. You just assume the worst until it's done.

You have to assume the worst. You know, 28 to 3, like supported the idea of a curse. The Braves, I'm not saying that we're going to win every championship, but the Olympics curse. Right. Well, and also, you finally won a real world series that doesn't have an asterisk next to it.

The 95, I never felt great about the 95 season. It's fine. You won. It's fine. It counted. You know, when I was eight, I wasn't out here talking about asterisks. I was like, let's go to the parade. I'm trying to party. I'm eight. You know, when I was, when I was eight, I wasn't out here talking about ass ruts. I was like, let's go to the parade. I'm trying to party. Yeah. You know? So I, I mean, yes, I completely understand that. It's nice to have one that no one can undercut. What do you, well, what do you say to the Dodger and giant fans who are like,

all right, we want 107, 106 games. We had to play each other. And then the Dodgers didn't have home field advantage to a team that they finished, I think, 18 games higher than the standings. Any thoughts for the Dodger fans? I have a thought for Dodger fans, which is, I think the phrase is paper champions. I've never said it,

but I've heard people say that. Talk about asterisks. They won the 60 game season title. That's the biggest asterisk we have. The COVID season. People weren't even playing. I, um,

I went to, um, Dodgers Braves game four in LA. Um, very interesting experience because I realized I don't like going to home Braves kids. Right. Well,

I can't fucking stay in the shop. Yeah. The chop's been awful for ever. And now it's even doubly awful because all this other stuff's getting canceled. And the chop is just, it just keeps going like this boat in the ocean that has no pilot. Also like when it gets like i've been in

atlanta fulham county stadium turner field when the shot like everyone's doing it and it sounds loud but when the tv like isolates the chop sound it sounds like the loudest thing i've ever yeah heard it like adds insult to injury in this weird way. I love to go into the Dodgers game in a full Braves outfit, blah, blah, blah. I love going to home games, but that is one weird thing about the Braves. It's just like, I don't

love going to them at home. Well, the way it played out was perfect because you went into Houston. I can't stay in Houston. They took out my team. I don't like them. Carlos Correa, what time it is. You know what time it was? It's time for you to leave the World Series. You lost. Go away. I agree. I could not

agree more. Check and watch, Carlos. Oh, wait. It's time for you to leave the World Series. You're out. What's your least favorite team? Right now, it's the Astros. I mean, the Yankees. We've been dominating the Yankees for this entire century. I think I have Astros 1A, Yankees 1B. The Yankees, we've been dominating the Yankees for this entire century. So I think I have Astros 1A, Yankees 1B. The Yankees thing is more sad.

Like we just beat them all the time. Yeah. It's like, oh, you remember last century when this was a thing? Yeah. It's like, remember when this was more even? Now it's just, we take them out left and right. So do you feel like you had the Hawks run? You have Trey Young.

You have the Atlanta superstar that you've been waiting for since Mike Vick was taken down. You have the world champion Braves. Now the last piece of this is Matt Ryan has to go and you have to get a more fun quarterback and then everything's in place for you. Is there a football season

happening right now? I heard. I know that Sundays people do things. Kyle Pitts is ready to become an Atlanta hero. He's ready. He's just like, give me a quarterback and I'm ready. Sign me up. That dude is a football player

and I am so excited. When the Falcons go through three to four years of extreme therapy to figure out how we can get out of the mental hole that we're in. I'm ready for the Falcons to be good again, but all of my energy is being spent on celebrating the Braves, shouting out Trey Young,

saying crazy things about how good Cam Reddish is. Yeah. And I don't have much energy for the fact that the Falcons haven't had a good secondary this century. Plus the TV show's coming back. How is all this going to affect the

TV show? The last time we left those characters was downtrodden sports hell of Atlanta. Now it's more of a flip big show. It's a great... I think it's another weird, hilarious, great time to have some of your life

touching Atlanta. And yeah, you know, like I... The Falcons... Once the Falcons at this point go under 500, for me, the season is over. Sometimes

that's week five. I'm like, we're one and four. I think I know what's going to happen next, which is like, we're going to go on a late season run and then end up six and ten, but I'm going to get my hopes up for like three weeks and it's not going to work out.

Yeah, you're three and four right now. And I actually think you could win this week. I think they're going to string you along for a couple more weeks. That seventh seed in the NFC is wide open. There's going to be a moment at like the end of November when you're the seventh seed on paper. Well, this was like my entire childhood with the Hawks, which was like, the Hawks were like like kind of like a reliable five seed. Yeah. But there was never a world in which we were going to actually get past

Chicago or get past any of the teams that are going to go to the finals. So it's like, why am I investing in this thing that I know is going to disappoint me? I am not there with the Hawks because I think the Hawks literally have all the tools to accidentally win the title this year. We could just do it.

A lot of talent. The Falcons, I'm just like, I love you all from afar and I hope you give me something to get excited about, but I can't check in every second. You have to go, but before you go,

any last words for, one of the fun things about the Braves is how much the Phillies fans and the Mets fans hate the Braves. I love it. It's this, it's this nineties residue of just absolute hatred, mostly centered around Chipper, Chipper Jones and the Tom Harkchop and their pitchers nibbling,

the pitchers nibbling around the plate, but there's real hatred. And it came out the Mets fans and Philly fans openly rooting for the Astros just so the Braves would win. I enjoyed that piece. I guess the thing I'll leave is, you know, Atlanta fans often get a bad rap for like not caring a lot,

you know, cause we don't like boo people out of careers and stuff like that. To Philly, to New York, we're just like, see you next year. We're just happy people. We don't wish your downfall. We don't spend much time thinking about y'all. I know y'all hate us, and there's a lot to hate. But we're excited to play y'all next year as world champions.

The world champion Atlanta Braves. The world champion Atlanta Braves. Remember, Brown, I can't wait for the highlights from the parade. It should be truly special. Congratulations. I'm proud of you. Thanks, man. All right. That's it for part one. It was produced by

Kyle Creighton. Stay tuned for part two. We'll be putting that up as well. Tom Hanks, the one, the only, finally getting to talk about his movies with him. That is in part two. See you over there. I don't have a few years with him on the wayside

on the front side never I don't have a few years