The Bill Simmons Podcast - Part 2: NBA League Pass Rankings and Million Dollar Picks With Chris Ryan, Rob Mahoney, Wosny Lambre, Sheil Kapadia, and Anthony Dabbundo

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

In Part 2 of a two-part podcast, The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Chris Ryan, Rob Mahoney, and Wosny Lambre for the 2024-25 edition of NBA League Pass Rankings (0:56). Then Bill talks through the weekend's NFL slate with Sheil Kapadia and Anthony Dabbundo (1:16:58), before making the Million Dollar Picks for NFL Week 8 (1:56:34). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Chris Ryan, Rob Mahoney, Wosny Lambre, Sheil Kapadia, and Anthony Dabbundo Producer: Kyle Crichton The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up part two of the Thursday BS pot extravaganza, a lot of football and a lot of basketball. Next. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by Fandual football is in full action. Fandual's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet at all. We've been doing pretty well. A million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking. I think Pittsburgh is going to be good. I think the chargers of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's gonna be good.

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The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and help lines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states, gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler, or visit rg-help.com. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite.

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my buddy Jacko. Part two is coming up right now. It didn't really pass draft with Big Waz and Chris Ryan, Rob Mahoney, and then I brought in Sheila Capadia and Anthony DeBundo to help me with million dollar picks for week eight. We have a little momentum going. Can we keep it up?

It is all next. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right. We're taping this. It is 1 30 Pacific time Thursday here with Chris Ryan to Charles Nelson Riley of the Ringer. It's on 17 podcasts this week. This is the one that counts though, man. This is the one that matters. I appreciate that. C.R. Big Was. Yes, sir. This is the one that matters. I appreciate that, Sierra. Big Was.

Yes, sir. How are you? I'm happy. Good to see you. You're happy. Yeah, you love this is your time of year. Yeah, it is. Especially like, Hope Springs Eternal for all of these teams. For at least the next month. And the one and only Rob Mahoney. Hi.

Who's somehow breaking down the NBA again and not weird shows on Apple. It's getting weirder. Kenny, do both. We'll find out. What's that new show with Kevin Kline? Disclaimer. Yeah. My mom was like, this best show in a while.

My mom's 76. She hasn't gone to episode five yet. I can tell you. She likes super weird. So, anyway, it seems disturbing. So, we're going to do League Pass rankings, which is great because we were actually supposed to do this on Tuesday and fate intervened. I got super sick.

But I'm glad we got to see Two Days of Games because I feel like this is a better way to do this on Tuesday and fate intervened, I got super sick. But I'm glad we got to see two days of games because I feel like this is a better way to do it. Now I have a better feel for the season. So shout out to Zach Lowe, back in the day at Grandland, we came up with the league pass rankings, I think in 12 or 13. We had five categories, I went back and read what the categories were.

They're gonna shape what we do for this. So you can't just say Brooklyn's my number one. Because literally why would you? Yeah, who did you think we'd say that? Wait till we get to Brooklyn. All right. Category number one is relevancy of the playoff picture. Category number two is hoop nerdgasm potential. Category number three is the league pass experience, which was a big passion of Zach's and still is.

Announcing teams, sideline reporting, uniforms, the mascot, like the Clippers last night just was a 10 out of 10 with how weird that was. Fucking guy came out of the rafters. What's that guy's name? Their mascot. Dropped from the rafters. I actually don't know.

Owen Hartstyle, it was terrifying. I didn't know that was going on. Yeah, they have the, like, they don't know. Owen Hart style, it was terrifying. I didn't know that was going on. Yeah, they have that, like they're all excited. I was mesmerized by the wall. But I didn't see the mascot. Well the wall was cool. Are we sure it wasn't James Harden?

He didn't come down? No. Category number four, individual player appeal. And then category number five, the most important for all of us is unintentional comedy, irrational affection, and personality intangibles. I'm just gonna make this easy. Sierra, I'm giving you first pick.

Oh, you are? And we'll just go around. Okay. And there's no stank fashion. Okay. There's no real way to win this, but. So we'll just get started. You didn't wanna do any headlines,

you didn't wanna ask any in-bead questions, nothing? We'll get there. The silly will be mentioned, it's up in the pod. And as we hit each pod, each team, we'll talk about variables you know, variables. Like is your best player ever gonna play? So why did they give him an extension when he's not helping? Those are questions we'll ask.

We're not there yet. With the first pick, I'm gonna go with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Oh, okay, explain. Ant is my favorite current professional athlete. Wow. I think even within... Over Angel Reese?

In a day and a half, he has managed to already make like hilarious content out of one game where he told Bronnie he didn't need to take a shower. I love that so much. He yelled at Vanderbilt and said, you haven't played in two years. Yeah. It seemed angry about it. Did Vanderbilt chirp at him? Like what happened? They used to be teammates. Yeah, Um... It seemed angry about it. Yeah.

Did Vanderbilt chirp at him? Like, what happened? They used to be teammates. Yeah, I think it's just shit time. Familiarity factor. The Brian thing killed me. If there was a premium tier to pay $1,000 for a season to have Ant miked. Yeah. And it was just going into my AirPods.

I don't even know if $1,000 would be too high. Like, I would pay pretty much anything and I would just spend it to you. Well, there's a new level with Swagger with him because now he played with all the best guys. So now he's on the court with LeBron and he's just like, ah, fine, I'll talk shit with him. Yeah, and LeBron probably edited him out of starting five a little bit

so that he didn't steal the show. Then you add the Dante piece, which is this weird revenge tour that he's on that seems to be metastasizing beyond even the Knicks and it's like, he's angry and playing hard. I think that they're just going to have like a tougher, more competitive, more fuck you team without Kat. Don't forget the Go Bear piece.

And there's Go Bear. Yeah, there's Go Bear just going out there and getting choked out. So I think it's just a really exciting night to night team that's going to be in the mix for the title. Just to tear down your team right off the bat. OK. How do you feel about the thing you love most? Watching Anthony Edwards play basketball,

being actively stifled, every possession by Julius Randall doing whatever it is that Julius Randall wants to do. You don't like Julius Randall jab steps? I actually I'm like a big supporter of Kentucky alumnus across the board. So I I'm excited actually because I also think Randall at least is saying the right things where he's like, you know what? I can pass I've just been in situations where they've asked me to take 26 shots a game So I'm sure it'll clog up the way a little bit

I told was before we started that I had Minnesota second and I moved them down six spots after watching Randall for two hours that I had Minnesota second and I moved them down six spots after watching Randall for two hours. I was just like, wow, I just don't like watching. Forgot, I just don't like watching him play basketball. Nothing personal, I'm sure he's a great guy. But I bet for all of us, Minnesota's towards the top of the board, right? 100%.

They're fun, they're interesting, they're gonna be good in competing for things. And the go-bare part of it, like having a guy on your team that everybody else wants to dunk on, Rockets them up a ranking like this. Also, speaking of Kentucky alumnus Dilligan. I'm I'm like already like do we think he's gonna play? I it just I when he does I think he's jumping out of the building. Got you It would be funny if there was like an actor an actress like go bear that everybody who did a scene with them

Just wanted to destroy them Maybe he was like Taye Diggs people are saying I'm fucking destroy Taye Diggs. Dave Gobert brings something special out of everybody's got a grip of them. There's like American foreign stuff with him there's defensive player there's guy there's inter French beef yeah yeah he's just despised it's bizarre yeah he's the individual version of like Memphis who like everybody hates. Yeah. As a team.

Right. Rudy's just that individual for every single NBA player. Four hundred and fifty guys hate him. I didn't agree with the first pick, but I see you. I see you CR. I see you. You've been putting the word CR. I see you Chris Ryan. What do you have for number two, Was? Uh, my? My number.

Man, I didn't know I was going to be put in this position. To draft? Yeah. You know what? I'm going to go with Oklahoma City. This is the pick. Which I think everybody's really excited

about watching them. It's not just Shay. It's J-Dub. It's Chet for me specifically. I'm a big, big Chet guy. The new additions, Hardenstein got hurt. A lot of people said I jinxed it because I said on our pod,

I said their depth was unbeatable. And then he got hurt the next day. What power you have. We did the over-under. We all did over-lock 57 and a half and I think he broke his hand listening to the podcast. But I still think they can hit it. It's just young guys.

My favorite thing about League Pass outside of great teams is a sense of discovery. Watching guys week after week learn new things, beat new things. Or teams discover things about them and then they overcome that adjustment by other teams. So I think OKC has it all. They have the top to bottom talent and then they have this sense that you're going to be learning new things about their potential every single week. Yeah, and every single game. It's not even like is this guy having a great week? It's oh I didn't know Kays and Walls could do that. I didn't know these guys could pop off in that way and they're so deep. They have so many interesting players.

I'm not worried about the Thunder to say the least. I think they're gonna be awesome. Do you think there's any like over it's like too predictable how good they're gonna be? Like I was thinking about this like I would Love like a crazy midseason. Koki, Presti move like trade for Kawai, you know I just do something nuts to like upset the Apple cart Yeah, I know I think the Hayward thing also probably scared him off of doing that ever again, too They've even elicited a terrible Kendrick Perkins take before the season started Take how SGA needs to cut his scoring down to 24 points a game and get other guys involved.

It's very specific. It's like, other guys involved? He's one of the most inclusive stars we have. He is the driving kickoff. What is that take? It's like him and Steph Curry. Where are the producers on those shows? Like, no, Kendrick, no, please don't say that.

I like the discovery thing. I especially like with league pass day in day out when guys get scratched Guys aren't playing or you're just flipping around in second quarters I like I feel like for a league pass you need kind of a bench that could either be really good Or really weird. Yeah. Yeah, really weird is like there's a couple teams that will get to we're just like wow this guy Holy shit. Yeah, Which I think is fun. Now that burns off, what, by November, December? You're like, all right. But that's where them having all this stuff to trade,

even if it isn't a Coke-y trade, they could mix it up any time they want to. And they could have a slightly different team or a very different team by February. And I think that potential makes them super watchable too. This is a good character for us to develop, is Coke presti Coked up press and what he could do with all these picks. It's like Saul Rubenek and true romance

Alright, okay. See now you're up Rob. This is I feel like this is a Easy pick but you won't make it What does that mean? Don't think you're gonna make the pick you should make. I'm gonna take the San Antonio Spurs. Wow. Easy reason, straightforward reason. Although look, I'm also gonna talk you off about Chris Paul and how much I'm looking forward to seeing him there.

I just have no idea what Wimby is capable of and I very much look forward to seeing what that is. And Paul's already resting? No, I'm not. Don't worry about it.'m not don't worry about it Okay, don't worry about it. He's gonna be fine Chris Paul is theoretical Theoretical yeah, he's he's like Kawhi Leonard. Did their bodies are shot incredibly rude They're not gonna play these guys don't play but the reason why look I was quite

Idiotically skeptical of Wemby Performatively America first skeptical. Yeah, I was like, oh what, he did it in the French league, give me a break, do it in the ACC. Obviously I was wrong, but my thing about the Spurs, why they're lower on my list, I don't care about anybody else on that team. Like, not a one other player do I get geeked to watch. Even though Wemby is, yes, you know, he's trans it's transcended But you know, I like to pick you're not into Harrison Barnes like that. Harry Barnes doesn't do it for me for Harry

No, but Stefan Castle though, like they do have interesting young guys. So some pop some intrigue obviously Stefan Castle, yeah, you con I Come on. Yeah. Stephon Castle? Yeah. Yukon? I hated the feeling last season when you would watch the Spurs and Wemby would have like, he'd be drawing like a triple double in the first quarter and then Pop would just go against

all vibes and just pull him out for like most of the second or you know sit him like, we're just like unrepentant, just like we're managing it, we're managing it. It's like people want to watch this guy explode. Let's go. Yeah. I had them like in the eight to 10 range because I'm with Woz. I really only want to watch Wemby.

I don't know if Castle's ready yet, but the thing with Wemby is anytime he gets going or makes some crazy play, I'm going to see it on my phone in five seconds, right? So all the stuff that he did last year, or when he had like the 17 points and six minutes in five seconds, right? So all the stuff that he did last year, or when he had like the 17 points and six minutes in third quarter, like you start hearing about it as it's happening,

just go over and get it. So I don't know, I still don't know what this team wants to be. They're not gonna be that good yet. Yeah, I don't feel like they will, and they're over and under, I thought was pretty high, but there's some people really going in on them being good. And I just think Chris Paul's too old, right?

I'm with Woz, like all of the evidence in NBA history is against point guards, little guys, at his age being really good. I don't see it. He's not gonna play a ton of games, but when he is out there, he will actually throw the ball to Victor Webinama, which is something that they needed.

And I think, I hear your point about the highlights. I think it's well-founded. The thing you will miss is Webinama trying shit that doesn't work and he has some of the most elaborate and incredible like near highlights of any player in the league the time he Jumps at a ball but can't quite block it or goaltends it the threes will attempt like I want to see all that stuff in addition to the great highlight place I Have Orlando at number four. That's the team that I should have drafted? Well...

I'm not talking down to him. I love the magic. Here's why. I have a bunch of reasons. One is I think they're really fun to watch. Two, Sarutti's here and I just wanted to make this thing. He's got a big smile on his face for those at home. Three, I think they're the discovery team this year along the lines of what OKC was last year. And we were banking on this when we did the over-unders. I know you guys like them too.

The 47 wins last year, it felt like of any team in the league, them or Cleveland had a chance to jump. But I loved what they did last night. There was a real killer instinct with them. Palo is clearly just a level higher than he was last year. And I want to just watch them because I don't know what their ceiling is. Like I watched last night, and I know it's early, I'm not trying to overreact after one game. And I want to see the Knicks game 25.

Right? I'm not going to judge the Knicks after one game. Let's wait until 25. Let's see when Mitchell Robinson comes back. But Orlando's really fucking hard to play. And Saruti made the key point when we were talking about it about today they can just play well for six minutes and go on like a 19 to 1 run and you're like what you know they're almost like a football team that can score points and bunches they're just really scary I was scared last night watching them for the Celtics and then the Palo piece is the X factor for a league pass like he's just gonna have nights where puts up 38 and 20 and

nine assists. So that's my fourth pick. What I like about them too for a league pass team is their style is very distinct. Like nobody's as physical as they are. Nobody's as downhill as they are. Their entire core is young guys who are still trying to establish and prove themselves. That's what I really like about Orlando. It's like you're not going to watch a team that plays that style where

they're just like hitting you the entire freaking game. Several teams in the Eastern conference, especially the favorites are all kind of like on a almost organizational load management program, you know, where you're like, Oh yeah, you guys are going to build up to the spring. There's a couple like, uh, this one, the one that I might pick next that you're like man every single night I bet you guys are gonna go for it. Yeah, they're gonna have to like protect these things from not playing. Yeah, so like I think that's a that's a cool pick. There's also a version of a defense first team that is not that fun to watch That's like a real slog. The magic are not that like yeah watch Jalen Suggs play defense. He's flying around. He's hounding everybody

He's gonna make every guards life miserable. Talking shit. Talking tons of shit, but great vibes on the magic side. Like they have so many guys who are very physical, but super watchable. So one other thing with this from a league pass standpoint, because they did, and they started this last year where they basically show the jumbotron camera during the timeouts. So you just stay with the feed. Orlando's got one of the most lit crowds. Yeah. Yeah, it's just cougars everywhere Yeah, it's a lot of older pro golfers. Yeah, weird celebrities like golfers and mascot drivers. There's older rich guys sitting in the front row with some wife that's like 40 years younger than him I just I actually really see Rob shaking. I really enjoy their time out stuff.

Rob's trying to make a trip to Disney World. I'm just trying to get out of this room. I'm just trying to get away from this table right now. Cougar Central, the Orlando Magic. It's pretty funny. Alright Chris you're up. Alright. Number five pick. So there's an extra element I'll just throw into one of Zach's criteria there. Which is something that's more recent for me but it is fantasy.

And I got Mowgli this season. one of Zach's criteria there, which is something that's more recent for me, but it is fantasy. And I got Mowgli this season. And let me tell you, small theater sample size. Yeah. Mowgli. Mowgli and the Atkinson program might be incredible. And we've been waiting for this, like Tim Duncan next generation thing to happen.

It's only one game, but I think that Cleveland looks like what the kind of team you want to watch every single night. My stockbroker is still hammering me about all my mobile position. Yeah, just like we are just overextended. Is it considered insider trading for, I'm also incredibly over leveraged in Evan Mobley stock.

If we talk him up on this pod, is that a crime of some kind? I think it's very smart. 25, eight and three in 27 minutes last night. And that's the other team that kind of has the look a little bit. Like granted, one game sample size, but they did all the right things in the offseason. They got Mitchell to commit. And if you're Cleveland, you can't really afford to be like, we'll start playing hard

in February. It's like, no, you guys got to like, you guys got to go. Yeah, they have to do it now. And I think Atkinson is bringing just a whole new dynamic. Rob mentioned it on the live stream yesterday where he's like, yo, Moby, we're going to give you the ball and actually allow you to do something with it. We're not going to treat you like some traditional big and give it to you on the block and think you're going to dream shake people to death.

Like, that's not how he's doing. He's just more creative than the last coaches. And I think that's reason in and of itself, even though like it's the whole team is back from last year. If they're just healthier and more creative on offense specifically, then yeah, they're definitely worth a watch. I also don't want to let the larger conversation about Donovan Mitchell cloud the fact that he's fucking watchable and like,

tricking every time he's on the floor. Super fun to watch. Yeah. Especially them against a good team. It's going to be entertaining. On the West Coast, those Central Time Zone games are very in the sweet spot. Every time he's on the floor. Super fun to watch. Yeah. Especially them against a good team. It's going to be entertaining. On the West Coast, those Central Time Zone games are very in the sweet spot. If you've gotten home from work, you can throw it on as you're making dinner. You can check in with them.

Definitely. Wow, six pick. This is easy for me. It's the Philadelphia 76ers. For both sides of it. One, because I do think legitimately when everybody's available, this can be a really good to great team. Just the talent that's available. The other thing, so just on a talent contender, we all know that. On paper.

The other thing that I like is that I know for a fact the entire fan base is ready to turn on these guys. The second... Ready. The second that it doesn't... Lock and load. No. They are ready to kill these dudes. So it's like both of those elements,

like do they fulfill their potential? Do we just watch one of the worst car crashes of recent memory? Paul George had an excuse. He has a bruised knee, that was hurt. That's a two week injury. That was a real injury knee those hurt that is that that's a two-week injury That was a real injury. Yeah, like my daughter just had that in soccer and fucking hurt She was limping around for two weeks. You can't there's no way to heal it and beat is here for my daughter George

Huh? He's recovering from the thing is where hard work losing 25 pounds. Yeah, you lost too much way That's a lot of cardio explain the extension to me CR. Hmm That's a lot of cardio. Explain the extension to me, CR. Hmm? Uh... Hmm? You gotta, I mean, like, I, like, you're gonna really play, like, show us, prove it to us with your own beat? How about, yes.

Show me another example in the NBA of that happening right now. I, as you know, I don't, I don't understand why the Quippers did it with Kawhi. I don't understand the point of these extensions when you have no idea if the guy's gonna be healthy three months from now I'd rather be like I think they're moving into a new building He's healthy they're moving into a new building and they need to have like a stable face the franchise and maxi for as much as he's Beloved in the city is not there yet Also, he's awesome. Are we just pretending Joel and beads not good like he's hurt a lot The playoff concerns are what they are, but he's an excellent player who I like I would be in business with that idea

He didn't look healthy in the Olympics. He didn't look healthy in the playoffs and now he's not healthy. That's six months Yeah, but you're not playing for now. You're hoping that he's healthy by May Yeah, that's the example of what I was saying where it's like do you really want to watch the Sixers in December? Probably not Now I just want to say no franchise has ever said this before as like a selling point to their fans. We only care about the playoffs. Like, no fucking kidding, everyone cares about the playoffs. Oh! Whoa, new theory! We only care about the postseason, okay. Cool.

The problem with taking that stance if you're the Sixers is that you've never done anything. Right? Like if Boston decided tomorrow, like, yo, we're chilling until the playoffs. It's like, yo, they've been going to finals, conference finals. He didn't say I'm chilling until the playoffs. He said I want to be as healthy as possible for the playoffs. And that means I'm going to try and monitor my body. I don't care about MVP. I don't care about all NBA.

The extension is done. It's all about being healthy. I'm just playing devil's advocate. He wasn't like, I don't give a all NBA. The extension is done. It's all about being out there. I'm just playing devil's advocate. He wasn't like, I don't give a shit until the playoffs start. I think, I just think it's a weird decision to treat the regular season like, you know, when you go to a restaurant that there's the 20% gratuity automatically and then they're like, you can put a plus three if you want. And it's like, that's how he's treating the regular season. Like that's plus three.

It's like, it's optional. Like I didn't mean it's not that important. You know, the gratuity is happening already. It's just like, I don't care. That's what it feels like. And it's, with a brand new roster construction, again, I bring up Boston because they've had sustained success. It's like conference finals, finals, all the time for six years. So they're like, look, we get the regular season.

We're worried about getting to our final destination. There's credibility there for a team that just got constructed to be like, we're going to figure out what kind of team we are in the playoffs. That doesn't make any sense to me. From a league pass perspective, here's what I'm not looking forward to,

is this exact conversation every time I see a visiting or an opposing broadcast. They didn't make one of the three TVs for me last night. It's like, I don't want to fucking watch Andre Drummond. No, thank you. I'll be tuning in as long as two of the big three are in. Did they get bumped off for 2B? No, I had three other games.

You can get league pass on three different outlets. So I had all three. Rob, you're a conspiracy guy based on some of your TV watching. Wow, OK. This is some of your TV watching. Wow, okay. This is like an Apple TV question. Um, is this just an excuse that Embiid's not healthy and this is like they sat in a room for five hours and they were like, yeah, let's do a whole, we only care about the playoffs, we just want to get him ready. This is one random quote that Embiid made.

You guys are making it sound like this. Maybe it's not healthy. They're not putting up billboards in Philly that say, Sixers, just wait for the playoffs. We're seasoned with this with five years of Kawhi. This is five years of Kawhi, which same blueprint of like, ah, you know, being careful. Leading up to the Paul George injury, I would say that this has been the most enthusiastic people have been about the Sixers in a long time. Like where it was just like, holy shit, this actually worked.

You actually did sign a guy into cap space. He actually might be the perfect third wheel. People were enthusiastic for the Joker too. Were they? He drafted him, you know what I mean? Like I feel like I have to defend these guys. No, look, again, like I said, as long as Joel or Paul George are on on the two of the big three and maxi

I'm gonna be interested to see how those guys work particularly Paul George around Joel and bead Because he's never played with that kind of player before and Joel's never played Well, he had the one season of Jimmy, but he's never played with a wing. That's that's he's never had a wing That's also like I'm happy to be like the beta here like Jimmy was obviously like, you know he would go in and out of like wanting to be like the The playmaker I hate this He's also never played with someone like Grisham Yabu Saleh and I'm not afraid to say yeah boo fun guy None of this is passing the spell test for me.

Okay. None of it. That was Waz's pick. That's my pick. And I think they're putting too much pressure on Maxie because now Maxie is becoming... He's fine. It's like when this... I remember writing about this a million years ago.

It happened with David West in New Orleans. Everybody talked about how great he was so often. It was like he somehow became overrated by not doing anything. And Maxie, it's like I'm actually love max like oh He could be the face of franchise. It's like can we see maxi like be the best guy in a team for three weeks in a row? Why okay? Guards in the league right now. No, I picked them Yeah, and second of all this is the lead pass rankings draft and now it's just been like unloading on the six well

Five that's what we do And it's unloading them for them for like what they've done in the playoffs. We blaze the magic. We're just these guys, fighters, every single night. That's right. That's right. But I think to me again, I think the human interest of it appeals to me. Like, Joelle's story, Paul George's story, even, you know, Darryl's story even you know Daryl's story right like like the the way this team is

Put together and how all in it feels like that's compelling. Yes. I'm paying attention. It's a burn the ships do yeah, sure Good luck. We're gonna take a break. Let's see our regroup Pick up a win this NFL game day on FDuel, America's number one sports book. Right now all customers get a profit boost every single NFL game day. That means you can pump up your gridiron winnings multiple times a week. FanDuel has tons of ways you can get on the NFL action. Bet on money lines, player props, game day specials, fun parlays, whatever you want. Plus, super simple live betting, lightning fast bet settlement, and instant withdrawals.

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Just search Movember. All right, coming back. Somehow we've only done six teams. Rob Mahoney is up with pick seven. I'm going to take a team that is in close games all the time. Usually because they're blowing lots of leads. At least that was the case last season. Also crucially on the league pass side of things,

as Chris pointed out, I'm going the other side of the time bracket. West Coast, kind of a tough slot this year. Not a lot of teams I'm super invested in except the Sacramento Kings. Give me the Cardiac Kings. They found every way to blow games last year. Now, let's put Demar DeRozan in there.

Let's have a closer. Let's have two of the best closers in the league between him and De'Air and Fox. It's a weird basketball fit. I want to see if it works. They have an overall alignment that I think if they put two other stars on the floor at all times could result in like really high level baseline play all the time. I'm excited to see it. I'll be committed to watching them all season

for the fun factor and again because their style is so distinct even though I know that they will not do anything in the playoffs as constructed. They may not even make it to be honest. Right, but it's just the visceral feeling of watching these guys play so fast and be committed to that style. That like every single team every year says, yeah, we're gonna play with more space this year and like never does it, but Sacramento's gonna actually do it and deliver while playing absolutely no defense, but I'm still here for it. They might be the most entertaining team on the West Coast, right? Incredibly. They were entertaining last year.

Yeah. And now the DeRozan thing makes it even better. I feel like we can't lose with the Kings because if it doesn't go that well, then it just becomes the earned Fox trade machine time. Let's go. Yeah, let's go. Let's start making up trades with him. Coke Presti on the phone.

Coke Presti's like, hello? What's the Scarface thing where they're like, ah! Tony. But I actually think they're going to go be more entertaining, would be my pick for them. I like their team. I thought they won 48 and 46 the last two years. I don't know why they would go backwards.

Also pretty fun arena, and when it's close games, they get pretty, pretty well. From a league pass standpoint, a lot of good stuff from that. Like I like Light the Beam. I like their fans. Their games always have a good atmosphere. So strong pick. I'm taking the Celtics eight and-

This sucks. You're picking your own team? Well, they're really fun to watch. They shoot a shitload of threes, they have two of the best- Can I tell you on behalf of our nation, who all love you and love your podcast, they're not that fun to watch. They're fun to watch! They have some of the best players of the week! Show of hands, does anybody find the fucking Celtics fun to watch? They're like in the middle of my ranking.

Okay. Yeah. Here's my question. It's my pick. Is there anything left to discover that we don't know? Yeah, so here, so I'm going to make the case why this should be higher. Oh, Christ, you had to ask this? I think there's a chance, my fingers crossed, sometimes when a team wins the title,

the next year they come back and they actually go up a level. Like, and Steve Kerr's talked about this because I remember talking to him about this from my book. There's a weird confidence that comes into play. And I felt like they had that in that next game. So I'm intrigued by how hard they go this season. I think they're going to have a lot of blowout wins. I think Tatum is really motivated. Is a lot of blowout wins good for League Pass?

Well, it's more... It's good for you. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. But it's interesting to watch these teams try to figure out. They're just bouncing around the schedule. Every team has these weaknesses. And then they come in and the Celtics have 43s in the first half. These teams, they almost don't know.

It's almost like in football when you play those teams that are just throwing it every down. You're just like, what's happening? No other team plays like this. I don't know. There's a vibe. I think the atmosphere is good. I like the announcers. And I don't know. I just a vibe. I think the atmosphere is good. I like the announcers. And I don't know, I just think they're really good to watch.

I'm more interested in them for non-basketball reasons. I'm interested in them for Missoula post-game quotes. Absolutely. I'm interested in them for who's the worst person they could possibly be sold to who will bankrupt the team. That is a conversation topic right now in Celtics Nation. Six months are going to be on here defending sovereign wealth funds. Yeah, you're like, look Abu Dhabi, you take the phone call. You can't judge.

Shouts to MBS. But no, I actually, on our show yesterday, I think the Celtics could win 70 games this year. I really do. I think there's enough fuck you factor to Tatum with the Olympics, Brown with the Olympics, Joe Mazzullo who nobody respects still, even though he just won a championship. I think legitimately these guys, you know this like nobody believed in us and nobody respects us, like Jordan just completely made it up out of thin air, it wasn't true.

With the Celtics it's true. Like they've been legitimately disrespected especially on an individual level so I could see them chasing 70 wins or even trying to break the record and they got the talent they got the continuity to do it I really do see them as like a 2016 Warriors type. Yeah if they hit that streak in the middle of the season where it's like the heat when they were on their run or in the Rockets where it's like 18 regular season wins in a row. Like we're locked in for 19. Like we want to see if they can pull that kind of stuff off.

One thing, I forgot to mention this in my league pass case. They've mastered the regular season I think out of all the teams where they'll just rest one guy and then it'll be like Sam Hazard, it's your night. So this is cool. Yeah, it's cool in the South Beach. Here you go. No, but they have an infrastructure where they fit these people in and they actually make sense in the game.

Versus like, oh, Embiid's playing... Well, there's no reason Ricky Council can't be getting blooded by the Nick Nurse. It's just all part of the plan. But I like as a fan, it's like, oh, it's going to be a Peyton Pritchard. Let's cut him loose game. Anyway, CR Europe. For pure aesthetic reasons. And we were talking a little bit about like everybody wants to push the ball.

Nobody pushes the ball like the Pacers. So I'm going to go with them. Matheran's back, which is the kind of thing you say on a podcast, but I actually love Benedict Matheran. He brings a little bit of that crazy fuck you energy to the games. Halliburton presumably does not have a hamstring injury right now and they're just a really exciting team. Is he gonna be good again or are we just that's never happening? It comes Justin Verriert. They just went to the conference finals. Yeah but that was kind of like a flukey blazers run. There's some flukes involved but he was still good like their offense was still

good yeah and he's driving their offense. So, is he going to be good again though? When we saw him at in-season tournament, like, he was in, he was MVP level, right? And that's when I was really like, when I saw it in person, I was like, damn, like, that's when I really joined the Halliburton train. But ever since he came back from that injury, he has not been that dude that was like doing the dame time to Milwaukee and like showing everybody up and just destroying people. So I think, but I think the level that he got in certain games against the Knicks is still a high quality all-star level guy.

It might not be every single night. He hasn't been MVP level like he was very early on. His first two months, he was one of the four best guys in the league last year. Yeah, it was crazy. Even yesterday. Yeah, his first two months he was one of the four best guys in the league last year. It was crazy even yesterday So I was watching Mather and had a look at his eye like I'm here guys No, I was the missing piece last year very clear out for me Yeah, he really is a video over the summer of him like dominating Carmelo's son and like Sicko stuff that I love what any of players like I'm not even going to let you get an Instagram reel off of me.

He's one of those guys who takes, you know, he takes the challenge. Oh no, it's Gilbert Arenas, this kid. He takes the challenge of being really good, seriously. He dealt with a lot of nagging injuries last year, but you know, a lot of times these guys we think in the second year it's going to happen, and then it doesn't. And then, you know, ultimately the third year becomes the year that they take that proverbial leap. They have so many young guys who's like is Matthew gonna pop is Nemhard gonna take a step forward is Jarris Walker gonna give them anything like I want to see what all this stuff can do.

Or is Jarris Walker a bust? What's going on with him? Two other things with them. They're a good opponent. Mm-hmm. They bring out really fun games from the other team and I like their home court. Like for League Pass, it's just fun to watch games there where the fans seem really close to the court. It's like the only thing, it's like the field house. It's like almost like this throwback thing. And so it also goes along with like McConnell pressing guys for the entire full court. It's like, it's just, they're fun games to watch. Fun time out stuff too with them. It's like Pacer fans, let's honor Bob from Bob's Hardware Store.

Show us a Bob one. Available for 60 years. Selling the best hardware in Gary, Indiana. Bill, your Heartland voice is perfect. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right, you're up, Wes. I can't believe they've lasted this long.

It's Luca Doncic, the favorite to win the MVP of Dallas TV show. the Dallas Mavericks. I just, I think Dallas is going back to the finals. I think Luka's going to win the MVP. I think they've constructed an even better roster around him this year, around the edges. Klay Thompson is one thing, Najee Marshall is another, but I think also just going that far in the playoffs and learning what it takes to actually win at that level.

I think Dallas is going to level up this season and I'm excited about Derrick Lively. I think I'm over the moon for him in terms of his potential. And the Kyrie thing of course is fun, the twisty layups and the handle and all of that stuff every single game. But really it's Luka who, I was joking to Rob the other day, my first next LeBron was Giannis, then it was Jokic, now it's Luka. I really do think Luka is the next LeBron in his poise to really make this thing happen. I have nothing to add.

I think there are guys, there's some people who I think are turned off by Lucas style. Like how much he has the ball in his hands, how much he creates. I am turned off by Lucas style. I can't connect with that. I think in part for me it's like the longer his possessions go,

the more dramatic they feel. Like his passes are so exceptional that I'm just like waiting to see how he gets himself out of the straight jacket. I think it's awesome in the playoffs. It's a little bit of a tough beat on a Tuesday night. I hear you. And that's where you hope that the Kyrie factor, like the space they'll have with Klay, everything lively is gonna be popping off this season. That stuff will help.

It's a tough beat for PJ Washington year two, now that it's not a new team anymore. Yeah. It's like, oof, six months. I'm gonna just be in the left corner. I hope that I get passed. So are you kind of like completely neutral on this team? I don't know. Listen, I've talked about it before. I don't love the heliocentric. Yeah.

Harden to me is like my idea of hell to watch. Like I didn't go last night. Granted, I was sick last night, but I just... I just don't want to drive 45 minutes to watch James Harden have the ball for two hours straight. It just sounds horrible. Nothing against him. Some people like it. I want to drive 45 minutes to watch James Harden have the ball for two hours straight. It just sounds horrible. Nothing against him.

Some people like it. I just, that's not what I like. Not absolutely nothing against him. No, I just don't like that style of basketball. Rob makes a good point. Like other people see it as like, this is amazing to watch this person solve all these machinations off this same thing

over and over again. I just don't personally like it. They've made a lot of advances at the Intuit Dome. It's like a new experience. I would love it if James Harden got a notification every time you're coming. So that he's like 23 seconds at the top of the key. He's like... The lunging into people.

I just... Bill got up to go to the bathroom. I could pass it. Every time Bill goes to the bathroom, Harden's like, alright, I'll sit now. When he comes back, let me know and I'll dribble for a while. Who do you have? This team would have been very high for me,

except for opening night. I'm gonna take the New York Knicks. A lot to figure out. I think the fact that they don't have a bench makes them a better regular season team in some ways. I'm not gonna get a lot of bad minutes from guys who can't play. I think we're gonna find out pretty quickly if like Daddy A can be

literally anything for them, if campaign can be literally anything for them. But Jalen Brunson has to play. Well, Jalen Brunson has to play huge minutes. Like their best players have to play huge minutes every night. And so it's almost the Knicks are the opposite of the Sixers problem where their best guys are going to be out there. Like they're going to run themselves into the ground to try to get this thing through. And I want to be there to watch it.

And I want to see if they can solve some of the clutter that they had on opening night, for sure. I agree with Rob. I want to watch just to watch McHaleburg just shoot. It's like, it really should be a sixer with that shot. His last three was good, though. Okay. You know. That one looks smooth.

It looks... It was looking pretty gamey for the last couple of weeks wise Where do you stand on bodega cat? Look my thing is the same I like that he's the seventh most important voice in the room that he's coming into a situation where like Nobody's ever called you the savior of the Knicks. You've never been the golden boy here You're coming here and people looking at you like you got to assimilate to this culture. I love that aspect of it. He's not being asked to lead anybody, because let's face it, he couldn't do that.

But like I think he's old enough and I don't want to say wise enough, but like I think he'll get the hint that he has to conform to what they're trying to do. And I would hope that it's impressed upon him the sort of magnitude of what they're trying to do. And I would hope that it's impressed upon him the sort of magnitude of what they're trying to accomplish there. Like what it would mean to the people in New York, the fans of that team, for them to actually live up to their expectations. Like, you know, Jalen Brunson so obviously gets it,

like truly gets it, like what this Nick thing is. I just hope that Carl Towns gets to that point. I think if he does, he's gonna learn how to be additive to what they're doing. I don't think he's gonna be Will Chamberlain or anything stupid like that, but I think he can be very complimentary to Jalen Brunson, what he's trying to do in the in-between game,

and I think he could be, obviously, way better than Julius Randall. So, like, yeah, that's where I'm at with Kat. I thought Brunson looked pretty good in the first game considering he was still covered in Dante G. Ficenzo's blood After the ruthless trading of his college buddy. My god, would I ever trade Joe House? It's like sorry House. If we had a chance to get so-and-so, you're now working over there. Sorry, buddy. We're still gonna hang out, right? That's so awesome. It was fucked up!

Can you imagine if I was just like screaming at Sarutti like, This is what happens when they let you run things, Sarutti! We have to talk about the magic before the Sixers! Oh my goodness. Well, this draft has been too predictable and I'm about to uproot it. And it's genuine too because I love this team and I almost picked them four picks ago.

They were on the big screen last night for me. There's a lot to love, the Atlanta Hawks. Wow. I have their over, 36 and a half. I like watching them. Trey is just like, thank God DeJante Murray's not here anymore. Yeah, the vibe change was crazy. Incredible vibe change.

Lobs galore. Multiple 6'9", 6'10", skinny guy. You can, you have to really look. You can almost not tell them apart. But you have to like, I'm still getting used to like, oh, is that, no, that's Johnson. That's, and they all like like it's just like interchangeable length and weirdness and I'll be honest man was I we haven't talked about this I have

property on Richochet Island like I'm legit in on him I like that guy. I liked him in the preseason. Listen, it was not expensive. Is there a vineyard attached? Expectations were down. I like that guy. I like how even his boxcore last night didn't really show what he was doing. Can I read you the ESPN headline here? It says number one pick, Richa Chay, opens with three, goes two for eight. That's a headline. Mr. Lamp in traffic.

That's clickbait right there. I thought he was good. I think he hustles and he makes sense to me as somebody who will be a valuable person on a really good NBA team and they have him and they have Dyson Daniels and they have Johnson. They're just weird. They're fun to play. They have two big guys. The Congo came in. Bogdanovic comes in and just takes over the offense for six. I think they're pretty good. I gotta say. There's a, it's a good question when you say like, um, you know you have Lee pass when dot dot dot. Dyson Daniels is trending on your for you.

Right. Dyson Daniels is locking guys up. Alcatraz, let's go. Well, last night he was almost murdered in real time by Nick Claxton. Yeah. Nick Claxton was trying to get suspended for the season. So he doesn't have to get suspended for the season. So he doesn't have to play with Cam Thomas anymore. Who can blame him, honestly.

He was like, this is my one shot to get out of here. That game was super fun. There was almost two fights. It got super feisty. It was close to the end. Atlanta's also not good enough to close games, which is great for league pass. They're up by like eight with a minute left somehow.

Brooklyn had a chance at the end. Thumbs up. That team seems like a 43 win team to me. Yeah, I'm a Jalen Johnson believer. I really love his package of both physical gifts, but he has a nose for the game. He has genuine feel. He's not just out there some robotic athletic guy. I like that.

And I think, like you guys said, the De'Jonte Murray thing was a clarifying trade. Like the team now has an obvious focal point and it's more organized instead of the sort of your turn, my turn nature that they were doing last year. And you know, for league pass purposes, Trey Young is going to get on people's nerves and that's always fun Like he and he's gonna make a point of it plus He went to Istanbul y'all I seen it. I see the new beard. We know what's going on with that So we can't put that pass. You get tired all season long.

Yeah, I'm just kidding. He was like give me the Antonio Conte. Come on now. You had me at they could be fun to watch you lost me at 43 wins like this team is not winning that many games Well, that would be like six over the over under I think they can get to like 43 and 39 because it looks like Miami Might be worse than we thought Or they got magic. Did you see all those sucky Eastern Conference teams yesterday? Yeah, it's brutal. Yeah, it is like somebody is gonna have to win 43 games that we don't. Like could it be

Charlotte? I don't know. I think the Hawks are like way better than you know Washington and Chicago. Detroit. They're way better than that group but I don't know that they're that close to the Miamis and the Indies and you know. No I think there's a level below That somebody's gonna be in and I would it's either them or my you could step on rakes all season and make the East play in So like I'm not ruling out. They could be there There's gonna be a Bulls Hawks kind of like totally raced in the bottom there I kind of like their team and I if Reese's Shade turns out to be good right away Which I think there's a chance he's a little bit impactful

I good right away, which I think there's a chance he's a little bit impactful. I don't know. Watch out for them. All right, CR, we got to move faster. Okay, I'm going to go with the Rockets. There's very few teams who market themselves as tough. So it's kind of fun to watch them on any given night, getting to people's shit. It's more of a preseason thing, but the Reed Shepard experience so far has been delightful. He didn't get as much of a look last night, but Sangoon did and basically did baby Yocach all night. And I still have, and they lost and they lost.

I know, which is kind of the fun part is because there isn't like the Boston thing where you're like, can you win 70 though? It's like, no, are these guys going to actually pick a rotation, pick an identity, pick a, like a sort of hierarchy and and are they gonna play tough every night, which I think they will. This is very foreign for me, because I usually traditionally do not like the Rockets, but this is a collection of guys that I like

and a collection of guys that I hate watch. I'm in violent agreement with you. I watched a lot of them last night, same thing. And I don't think they have any idea what their rotation is. They played their top five a lot. Whitmore barely played. But he played, which I thought was a pleasant surprise.

Right. So he tried to play 10, and then... Shepard, it's just... He just seemed tiny to me. Yeah. Like, people were talking about him coming in. They got smoked as soon as he came in. I'm still a re-Shepard guy. No, I'm in too, but it was like, oh, this guy's little. I think once it slows down a little bit, but like the preseason it was like, is this Pete Maravich? And now it's like, no. Now it's like, oh, this guy's little. I think once it slows down a little bit, but like the preseason, it was like, is this Pete Maravich?

And now it's like, oh, this guy's little. Like, they're going to hunt him on defense. Yeah. Well, in the holy war that is developing, Chris, do you identify more as a Shangoon guy or a Jalen Green guy? I think I really way preferred watching them on that run they went in after Shangoon.

But they are aesthetically way more pleasing to watch with Shangoon. Isn't the question, are you a Shang Goon guy or a Jabari Smith guy? Because that seems to be the fundamental... Like Jabari was invisible last night. And I thought what made them special was him as the stretch five, like in that kind of pseudo towns role. That was... And then that opened up the paint.

If he's not playing five, he has to like apply some basketball like feel. And that's not what he does. Where do you think Miami's gonna play him? When they trade for Jimmy Butler. This is the thing is that I feel like Houston, even though they haven't really proved anything, are almost at a point where they have to do some subtraction. You know what I mean? I did this in part one of the pod.

I think it's a three for one trade team. And I don't know what the trade was. Could it be Jimmy Butler? Could it be somebody on that level where they just kind of cash in? From the pod, I think it's a three for one trade team. And I don't know what the trade was. Could it be Jimmy Butler? Could it be somebody on that level where they just kinda cash in? Because I think they have too many guys. They have like six players who could deservingly

play 10 more minutes a game than they will probably play. Well, and also Thompson seems like he might actually be special. He looks really good. He's almost like a can't keep him up the cork guy. So I don't know what that means either. He's maybe the biggest quirk in the shangoon part of that. Because playing Jabari at the five is the clearest way to make

Ahman Thompson really, really good really, really quickly. Or at least give him lots of opportunities. And maybe it's like a first line, second line thing. Where the second unit is the time where he gets to cook. Like I floated this in part one. Brooks Adams expiring and Thompson for Jimmy Butler is like a really interesting who says no. And I don't know if I would do that if I was Houston.

I think I would rather... I don't think that guarantees me round three. What's the point of that? I think we're in the same phase we've been in the whole time. Of the team. Alright, what do you got, Wes? Man, this is tough. It's not that tough, actually.

It's the Los Angeles Lakers for me. And the tier that I put them in is like, you know, Steph, KD, LeBron, like, it's like your favorite bar just announced that they're about to close in a few weeks. So you go for a few last times. You go a couple more times. For all the time. Yeah. I gotta steal the last. That's why I'm tuning into the Lakers.

LeBron is 40 years old, right? So for that reason alone, and then Quad has kept the Lakers have been one of the most hilarious teams to watch in the league for two and a half years now. Like a bunch of blown leads, like dissing the coach for no reason. Both Vogel and Darvin Ham. Even though we lose that element with JJ, the players won't be sniping at him, but the JJ media interactions are going to be entertaining. Would you see his first in-coach interview, in-game coach interview?

He gave like a minute and a half long answer. It's like, JJ, one sentence is out. JJ's like, here are the four things I thought went well in the first coach interview. He gave like a minute and a half long answer. It's like, JJ, one sentence is out. JJ's like, here are the four things I thought went well in the first three quarters. Then he did the post-game thing where he was like, he had just gotten out of the shower and he was like, I'm writing a letter to the league requesting that we use worn basketballs.

Yeah. I was like, you gotta fucking take it easy, man. I gotta say, I was... The creative were watching on TV. I was pretty impressed by him. I mean, their team was really good. He seemed locked year. Great, and we're watching on TV. I was pretty impressed by him. I mean, their team looked really good. He seemed locked in. He was locked in on the refs.

They ran good plays out of timeouts. I thought he handled the Bronie thing as well as you could have possibly handled that situation. They did a really good job just being like, we're doing this, we're getting it out of the way. Yeah, let's get the fuck out of the way. It's not gonna be any LeBron watch. They really ran through Davis.

Like, they weren't beholden to, all right, LeBron, a tear of all time. And they're using Connect in the right ways. I thought he did a good job. We also, with League Pass standpoint, you get the celebrities and the shots during the timeouts and just you get a taste of how fucking weird LA is every time out. Yeah. Do they count as a League Pass team if they're going to be on national TV every day?

It's an interesting. Well, it's a soap opera because they, you know, they're going to have, they're going to lose three in a row. The first passive aggressive D'Angelo Russell. Yeah. He's available. That's going to happen. LeBron. First time LeBron's like, I just work here. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know why I only took eight shots. You have to ask JJ. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll have all the roller coaster ride of that stuff. I love that stuff. Who do you have, my honey? Easy one for you. Memphis Grizzlies? Yeah, that's it. Thanks for me Love watching John Maran play basketball. I'm a simple man simple pleasures

He does incredible shit on the stretch last night was was nice the up-and-unders the dunk attempts the the way to like Intercept like intercept feels the way care which which guy huff. Where'd he come from? Cover basketball for a living. I was like, who's this? And he was on two teams the last two years, but never really played. Well, I know Woz. Huge Santi Aldama game too. I know we're locked in on that Woz. Yes, we. Huffy could have told me 30 countries, and I would have believed any of them. But I think he's from here. Yeah, I'm with the job parts.

Fun to see how it's gonna play out, whether he can get to where he needs to go. Scottie Piven Jr. 22 minutes last night. He's legit. I think he's a legit backer. He's a legit guy. I really like a lot of their players and especially once Gigi Jackson and Vince Williams get back. There's just like a lot of them. Probably going to have a little bit less Jay Huff though. That's going to be a tough blow for Bill. I wish he didn't have a first name. I just think bit less Jay Huff though. Yeah, that's gonna be a tough blocker, Bill.

I wish he didn't have a first name. I just think he should go Huff. He should get yourself a name. A jersey. A Huff jersey. Huff. Marcus Smart looked a little doughy to me. Just gonna mention that. I don't have the day-age or what. They were playing 15 guys. So he looked a swole.

Is Marcus Smart not gonna be in the Celtics Ring of Honor? Oh yeah, you guys are not gonna retire his number? No. You guys aren't gonna... is he gonna get like... We all have a lot of affection for Marcus. I just thought he looked big. Like he put on like weight. I'm not saying he looked fat, I'm saying he looked like... Try celebrating that Celtics title. Muscle.

Also Memphis barbecue not to be trifled with. Let's all be honest about it. I'd like him a little leaner. I'll make this quick, I'm taking Denver because of Jokic. Yeah, that's easy. We don't need to discuss them. Although it is fun to watch whatever the hell is going to happen with their bench and see if they can figure out whether they can find eight guys who can play consistently. But Jokic.

This will make me mad this year that his team around him isn't better because you have this incredible asset and He has no bench and they were trying to do the thing where they were much smarter than everybody and we're going young and Length and it's like, you know, it helps some fucking players that could come in and play well for 15 minutes Yeah Couple of those the thing about Yokes too like he doesn't he doesn't strike me as a guy who's like Reading the press clippings is like all Denver's gonna stink this year. He doesn't he doesn't strike me as a guy who's like reading the press clippings is like, oh Denver's gonna stink this year He doesn't yeah

He's just gonna go out and do what he does. He's like right about this You guys like this? Yeah, I just have a bad feeling we may get to the point in January where it's like the Faku Compazzo nuggets vibes. It's like why is this guy out there? Yeah. Yeah Why is this guy Michael Malone like performance art of like refusing to play anybody under 26? There's Arthur Hunter Tyson like let one of these guys play yeah It could be like an amazing yoga chair where he's just like all right get on my back everybody I'm just gonna make chicken salad out of chicken shit again. See are you up? I'm gonna go pelicans aka Philadelphia South Dejante I think he had ten assists before he fractured his hand last night Zion Williamson out for these guys

Probably should have gone higher Bill Simmons flew but as far as like watching on leap past goes Zion still is One of the top five reasons to watch basketball when he's on and when he's playing it's just so fucking fun and interesting They have fun bench guys too. I like Messi. I like Hawkins. Yeah. Hawkins is really good and yeah. I think when Murray comes back, the fact that they don't have a center might be an issue at some point at the season.

Seems like it could, yeah. But I love how like freestyle it can be and Willie Greer can throw all these different combinations and if you get Zion out there it's worth watching alone. Plus we're on Brandon Ingram watch. That's right. Yeah, it was good last time. Entering year six of it. Yeah.

No questions. Obviously he wants a new deal. Good luck. He was so clearly on the trade block this entire summer. Well, last year too. But yeah, I'm interested to see how he responds to that. Could that be a Coke Presti phone call? No, no, no.

Don't do it. I think he's more of a somebody's had a chance to compete at a really high level and their best player got hurt or their best scorer got hurt. Or like Sacramento's, like, I'm desperate now, let's do something. Why would you get Brandon Ingram when you have Damar at home is my problem. From a lead pass standpoint, I just want to point out the New Orleans is kind of a bummer sometimes. Yes, sometimes there's 14 teams. The crowds are awful sometimes, where you're just like,

Jesus Christ guys, Minnesota's in town. Jose Alvarado is a guy that's a soft spot. Christ the King guy, Puerto Rican guy. If you grew up in New York City, you absolutely know a Jose Alvarado. And so, you know, love that guy, Rufin. What I love about the Pelicans is we're talking about all these other teams in the sense that like we're all going to watch the same version of the Sixers, whether they're healthy or not. When you watch the Pelicans, there's like your version of that team within them. The five guys that you like playing together, they may not actually get that much time on the floor as one unit.

But everyone has their version of that roster that they like. It's just a matter of whether they get enough run or not. This is another team that feels like it's not going to be the same team in February. Something will have gone very wrong if it is. All right, we're going to take one more break and then now we're entering the most exciting part of the podcast. There's only seven rounds and two teams will not get drafted. Who are the two teams that are going to live in ignominy, not getting drafted

in the league pass draft that's coming up next. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. You can now get almost anything you need for the season delivered with Uber Eats. What do I mean by almost? Well, you can't get a snowboard delivered, but you can get a charcuterie board. A hot sauna, that's a no, but a hot soup, definitely a yes. A fur coat, sorry, no, but a gravy boat, happily yes. Baby kittens, unfortunately not, but knitted mittens, that is a yes.

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Why? You can skip it. Oh, what? Just like that? Just like that. How about dinner with my third cousin? Skip it. Prince Fluffy's favorite treats that? Just like that. How about dinner with my third cousin? Skip it.

Prince Fluffy's favorite treats? Skippable. Midnight snacks? Skip. My neighbor's nightly saxophone practices? Er, nope, you're on your own there. Could've skipped it. Should've skipped it.

Skip to the good part and get groceries, meals, and more delivered right to your door on skip. All right, come back. Rob Mahoney is up. free meals and more delivered right to your door on skip. All right. Come back. Rob Mahoney is up. I feel like we're in a very simple part of the ranking now in the draft. I'm taking the Milwaukee Bucks. They have Giannis on their team. I will watch him play every game that he can play, watch him run through the wall every time he wants to run through the wall. I know they have their issues as a contender,

but as a regular season product, Dame and Giannis is pretty great where I stand. Yeah, Dame with a summer workout regimen too. Dame can go from being once a week to twice a week as having good games. Which is, if he does, they're going to be far in the way. He started off slow and there was little grumblings in the room that we were watching again like, can you believe they gave up Drew Holliday for this? And then he's drained like four threes in a row from 30 feet away. It's like, oh, that's why they traded.

Those were also, those were partisan gripes. Yeah, we know. They were being made. We know. Shouts to Mike and Pina. Yeah, we don't need to do too much on Milwaukee, but the Doc, the Doc coach interviews are always fun too. Yeah.

Doc, what happened out there? You told me we were terrible. Not sure. We were apparently, we're not playing defense tonight. He just doesn't give a shit anymore So I'm up then yeah, who do you think I got it right? I just got to keep track of this Okay. Oh man. I really want to Do I want to throw the draft out of whack again? No, I'll take Phoenix Guess what Kevin Durant still really fun to watch. Yeah, I

Thought it was interesting that they still don't seem like they have chemistry yet And then rough on that and so far last night Booker was the one that suffered But it seems like they can't get all the guys going at the same time But I like seeing coach bud who just seems like he was on a Zembeck or Atkins or something. Or both. Kind of the Arizona Sun was really getting him. But yeah, Phoenix for me. Yeah, I hope that Coach Bud could get them to be more elastic in their games, man.

Like KD, Bradley Bill are just so used to playing one way like I hope he could coax some Elasticity out of him, but you know yeah still KD when he's just like dribbling people at me Yeah mid-range and just training it super fun from my next pick I'm gonna go Steph in the dirty dozen. Yeah, I just got watch that while he's still here. It's just crazy that we get this far in the grass. Wow, you sound like you're talking about like Grandpa. We gotta go visit Grandpa while he's still here. I honestly weirdly feel like the extended Twilight of LeBron has overshadowed this is probably also the Twilight of Steph.

Do you know what I mean? Or has it? Cause I feel like Steph can play until he's like 48. But like literally no guard has ever done this before. No one his size has ever played this well this late. So they were, I mean I think, they had the Blazers last night, that was pretty quick. Yeah. But, and they played like 14 guys. But it's a weird-

Would you see what Kerr said? What? I mean he literally did a 12 man rotation and talked about it after. He's like, I just wanted to see if we could figure this out. I mean how did you feel about that as someone who watched Jason Caden be excised? It's an absolute violation. What's a violation?

Yeah, especially at the Olympics. But no, I just don't think, I think you play 12 guys during a season, but during an actual game, it makes no sense. You've played basketball. Occasionally, yeah. Because you're just not playing enough. It's stupid. Yes.

I don't get it. As an experiment, I think it's interesting. But yeah, I'll go with Warriors and, you know, no clay. Curry has to be, he can't be in the bottom 10 of a draft. No. No. My team is Charlotte. God damn it.

That was the one I almost took two spots ago. Yeah, Charlotte and, you know, Brandon Miller, I feel very heavily invested in. I watched him play two games in the SEC Tournament. There you go. He declared him the rightful number two pick in the draft. Seed investor. And I've just been holding on ever since when I put my scout hat on.

But no, I just really love his fake Paul George routine that he's doing, especially early on in his career. Aspirational Paul George routine. Okay, aspirational. Oh, I like that. See, that's where you get paid the stars. We're reaching for the big bucks, Rob Mahoney. And then of course, LaMelo Ball, man, like he dropped 34 last night.

I think it's, you know, everything has come sort of like as a given, right? Like they gave him that big extension just automatically, just as a given. I think it's now finally time for him to actually put this stuff on tape and show like why he... You think so? Year five, maybe it's time? I think so, yeah. I think it's... I thought he was awesome last night. I watched that whole game. That was one of the three TVs.

And that team... So, Verno talked about this on the mismatch. Yeah, he talked about Charles Lee. He sat next to the bench. And this is... The Celtics love Charles Lee. And this was, I thought, the hardest hardest over under for me because it was 29. I really liked the over.

I also don't know what incentive they have to be like, we made the play in. But you watch them last night and it's just, they're a good team. Like, I mean, a good, bad team, but they had, you know, they have Curry, they have Grant Williams, the miles bridges, they haveing, and LaMelo was awesome. And then out of nowhere, Trey Mann... I know. He can hoop. If they can say mildly healthy, I think it's going to be... Well, yeah.

But I think the team I watched last night was well-coached. They had a specific style. They had an identity. They were tough. They were like walking around with their chests out. And I was like, oh, this is... I might have bet on them too, so I was enjoying that part. But I think for the first month they're a team to kind of watch as a frisky, dangerous...

Oh my god, Charlotte beat Cleveland in Cleveland last night. I do think they might be one of those teams. Yeah, they're not as good as the Pacers, but they play a similar up-tempo style. LaMelo has a similar kinetic energy to him that's really watchable. And when he's healthy, they win a lot of games. So I hope he can be healthy. And he puts up big stats. Puts up big stats.

Fun to watch in like a no no no yes kind of way. Like the step backs. The killer he shot, he took like a 30 footer to close the game yesterday. There you go. That's what you need on a league pass like Thursday, like Tuesday night, I guess I should say. I thought that, I thought that team, and we haven't talked about Detroit yet, but same thing where they just seemed like they weren't rudderless anymore. Detroit seemed more professional to me.

It wasn't Monty Williams benching change. No, it's like, what's going on here? It's like, all right, they have Malik Beasley, but at least he's an adult. You know, anyway, all right, what do you have, Rob? This is where I feel like there's a chasm. Like the Charlotte was kind of the embankment for me. There's a drop. I am gonna take the Pistons here.

I just, I want it to be true so bad. I want them to be fun and watchable. I'm not even hoping for good yet. Just can they be an entertaining basketball product because they have a really exciting playmaker in Cade Cunningham. They have, in theory, better spacing. I don't know that those guys will actually hit shots. I see a lot of like one for seven. They're going to take them.

They will take them. And that's the thing like is Tobias Harris enough of a shooter that people will kind of guard him in ways that they wouldn't guard Pistons of Seasons past. And if so I think the Pistons are going to be at least watchable. He's a better shooter than the Beef Stew. I thought they were watchable last night. I mean we it seems like I enjoyed in the end of the tree Overestimate how bad Monty was for that team. Yeah, the Monty Williams experience was I mean, Jayden Ivey was one of my favorite guys coming out of college that yeah So it's really exciting to see him score 17 It's almost like you shouldn't beg a guy to coach your team or GM your team like the Knicks did Phil Jackson

Well, he was supposed to professionalize them and for all their flaws last night, they still couldn't close it. They did look more professional. New hair for Cage. He's like, I'm a new man, new team. I thought I took note of that. In the Trey Young sense of new hair? I like new hair. I took a... Beef Stew was out there. Yeah.

Always enjoyed him. Yeah, they're interesting. They're... It's either gonna be Charlotte or or Detroit for that 10th play-in spot and we'll see who gives a shit more about uh The season wow this is getting dark Man I really want to take Brooklyn here, but I'm not going to know that's why would you know way? What is the what is the urge you're feeling to take Brooklyn maybe I'll take take them with my last pick. So, Utah, I have no... They have to be the next pick. I have no idea what they want to be. I assume they don't want to win,

and they're just stockpiling picks. But you watched them last night, especially in crunch time, and it's like, these guys are pretty good. They're well coached. They have a score at the end of games. They have rim protection.

They have guards that can go by people. They seem like they're trying on defense. And they're just going to be a lot of fun West Coast games. So I feel like I'm not going to, I won't get fooled again with the Jazz because I know what's going to happen, which is at the trade deadline or right after. 22 and 21 record to start. And just going to happen, which is that the trade deadline or right after 21 record to start And just gonna come make the phone call and it's like look if we need to get in the Cooper flag business stop fucking Winning these games. Well, the guy to trade is Kessler then if they're gonna do that cuz he's that way

Well, just like you want to start weakening your team with like let's get rid of our shop walking Or they're not gonna trade marketing They're not allowed to or you can continue to empower kiyonte George to take 18 shots and Colin Sexton to take eight. I know. That's one way to ensure that you get the number one pick in the next season. They do have two of the 12 guys you probably wouldn't want to play with if you were a swingman. I think Colin Sexton- I like Colin Sexton.

Sexton's a guy that contenders should call about. He's not as ball-hoggy as he used to be when Kevin Love was like beaming him In the back of the head. Honestly, I think he's been a boy scout over there Yeah, I think he's really turned his career and I want to say I hope by the deadline that he's able to go to a contender That needs like some scoring pops some ball handling, but he's a six man Yeah, yeah, he's not a or the point guard has like like we were talking about him for the magic like yeah wing playmaking that needs Maybe an alternative look at a scoring guard like he could make sense on a team that has like, like we were talking about him for the magic, like wing playmaking that needs maybe an alternative look at a scoring guard, like he could make sense for a team like that. Well, I don't know if you noticed during the Nets game, Dennis Schroeder was actually wearing an Orlando Magic jersey

with a Brooklyn logo taped over it, just praying for them to trade for him. Alright, CR, I think this is it. We only have six teams left. This is our last round. I can't wait to see who doesn't get drafted. This is it. We only have six teams left. Oh, okay. This is our last round. So... I can't wait to see who doesn't get drafted. Alright, this is in the spirit of 2012 era. Real heads kind of league pass, like possibly stoned watching on your couch, looking for almost abstract art in your basketball. So I'm gonna pick the Blazers.

Yeah. Because... Is Scoot high on his couch watching abstract art while he's playing who are these guys is? Denny for real like how many centers do they have is Klingon gonna be like what he was in the preseason Also, they might go oh and 15 to start the season Yeah, how many player pods is Chauncey Billups gonna do where he's like just being like I hate all these guys How many player pods is Chauncey Billups gonna do where he's like just being like, I hate all these guys. So I'm excited for the Blazers experience and it's like often the last game ending on the West Coast. So it's kind of fun to just be like, yeah, it's just me and seven other dudes watching this Blazers Kings game. Chauncey's agents like, yo, if you can get out of your contract right now. NBC and Amazon are looking for guys. You gotta get out now.

So I'd play, scoot 48 minutes a game and just tell them to clear out. I'm a big Anthony Simons guy so I'll always enjoy those minutes, particularly on this team. Dominating, just being happy to be wildly overpaid. I love that it takes three. So yeah, I think you have to pick one complete shit team and it's, for me it's the boys. Oh, I have a different shit team. But Simon's I think is another fun

contender piece. Yeah. I'd like to see him on Orlando. I don't know if they, you know, but they need somebody like that on their team. I've been saying that for a year and a half now. Yup. Alright, Walsud, yeah. We disrespected this team by not picking them. I'm picking the Miami Heat. Like, come disrespected this team by not picking them. I'm picking a Miami Heat like come on, man It's Jimmy Butler is BAM

Jaime, Hock has you know, you know, you feel like this is like season 11 of this time I know it's yeah, I know River still on like it's Grey's Anatomy at this point. I get it. But um I'm gonna watch them when they're on right, Especially over the teams that are left on this list. So yeah, Miami, you know, they're going to be well-coached if not very fun. And yeah, I can't in good conscience pick any of these other teams left. That's the thing. The alternatives are very, very bleak. So thank you for that. I appreciate it, Was. It's fair. And they'll get going at some point, but I...

Probably my least favorite stadium announcer timeout situation of the crowd. People showing up at 8.25. I was about to do an impression of you play by play, but I don't know. You don't want to pop that off? No. The heat culture, like the, it's like an infomercial.

It's not a very fun experience. It's fun to have them on a small TV with no sound. Rob, who do you have? I feel terrible about all these teams. I will take by default the Toronto Raptors. Oh, interesting. The RJ Barrett Renaissance is upon us, my friends. I'm eager for him to get back, back in the mix. I think it's like week to week right now,

which is not what you want to hear coming into the season, but I identify as an Emmanuel quickly guy. I love watching him with a little more room to work. I think we're all eager to see what Scotty Barnes can become. Are you one of those hipsters who thinks Scotty Barnes is like the prototypical NBA player? I'm not. But I'm invested. I'm invested in the greater project. Got you. I don't want to watch them at all.

So this is the Mr. Irrelevant pick you've got here. Well, you're telling me you would take Brooklyn over this. Here's the thing. I fucked up. We skipped a Waz pick. I'm going to blame the fact that I'm still on cold medication. We skipped a Waz pick. CR took New Orleans. It skipped to Rob who took Milwaukee and I took Phoenix.

Oof. So Waz, I'm sorry. I have to pick another team? I hope you have to take another team. Come on man. Take the wisdom. Are we sure we don't want to make fun of, are we sure we want to make fun of Toronto for another second? Because what the, did Messiah Harry like he won the title and that he got another job? What's he doing? Yeah, I don't know.

But I think he got equity in the team. So why is he then trying to take them? Equity in the team means you put together a bad team? Make them a less valuable property. That's a great question. That is like a brutal team to watch. Didn't Yaka Poodle say like it's not like we're trying to win every game like it was like his quote. I had them in my bottom too. Yeah. Oh, I'm... No. I think you really underestimate the winners.

I just don't like watching that team guys that can be fun to watch. Well, you get to watch them and be like, this is basically what it was like watching the Knicks five years ago. Yeah, that's what it is. I want to see the R.J. thing get like where it goes. I want to watch where that story goes to go from the guy that got picked directly behind Ja and Zion and what those guys have become bonafide all-stars when Zion plays, well, Ja too too, to like RJ who's just like, eh, you know, he was so disappointed in that. Counter.

Not that interested. Wise, there's four teams left. Chicago, Brooklyn, the Clippers, and Washington. Those are our big four. I'm picking Chicago, and it's for Kobe White alone. He's one of my favorite guys to watch in the NBA. His elevation of his game from like just this volume sort of shooter guy to like legitimate ballhandle, turn the corner on guys, firing up pull-up threes.

He's one of the most fun guys to watch. And so I'll be watching for that alone. I don't care about, you know, the freaking Josh Giddy thing. I think he stinks. Yeah, but if Giddy and Lonzo are both playing, you could have like a pretty fun passing team. But Lonzo thinks fun. I feel like we shorted them a little bit, unfairly. I don't know.

You guys think this team's gonna be fun to watch? Lonzo accepts that. Also, for the best, Stacey King's a pretty fun announcer to watch, but listen to. He is fun. So it's good. Well, I was hoping they'd still be there. Pick 28. Do it. And they are. Do it.

The Brooklyn Nets. How many Justin Kan Thomas' did you see? I was absolutely riveted by them last night. Ben Simmons, who actually looked pretty good. I did something on part one about, I think, you know, there's a little showcasing. Nick Claxton was like, I got paid, I also don't want to be here anymore.

Maybe I can get ejected right away. The Cam Thomas thing is the funniest league pass subplot of the season. Why is this happening? Why do they let him do this? This is like the NBA I grew up with in the late 70s,s where guys were like I'm coming in and I'm shooting every time I'm shooting every time he he might actually lead the league and score in this year if Lucas decides not to score less They were feigned to odds on him. Really? Yeah, he might score 30 points a game He will not score. He will not score. He shoots all the time. Who's idea was it? Nobody else shoots on this team. It's Cam Thomas' idea. I can assure you. Why is this happening? Like he could literally he could lead the league in scoring and not make the all-star team.

There's zero chance he makes the all-star team. Oh, not only will he not make the all-star team I He might they might just have to send him home so other guys can shoot This is basically like why like how many nets have just been like please get me out of here because of this So nobody wants to be there. So Rob scoffed. Yes. I can't even feign enthusiasm for this team I can't know you scoffed at the camp Thomas scoring title. Yes Right now he's the seventh highest odds on Fandel out of all the players in the NBA

I feel legally obligated to inform everyone listening to this podcast. Do not make that bet. Are you sure though? I'm so sure. Luca's the favorite, plus 145. Embiids plus 390, he's not going to play 55. He won't qualify. Shea, Giannis, Brunson, Edwards, and Cam Thomas! He's literally on Fandl right now.

Cam Thomas. How many coaches now have gone through the process and like, I'm here now and like, I've taken over for Jacques Vaughn or whatever. And like, they still just let him have green light. Well, the other piece of it, when he doesn't get the ball late, he gets visibly mad on the TV, which I love. And this is the NBA. This is all these late comers,

and like it's a friendlier brand. This is the NBA that, these are my roots. These are my roots. This is the 90s coming back, where guys just being like, I'm shooting 30 times. This is JR Ryder in Minnesota. I'm fucking shooting every time I get the ball.

I love it. And the Simmons thing is really fascinating because there's moments where, you know, he was all NBA four years ago. And there's moments where you think, oh, that guy's a real basketball asset. Will somebody talk themselves into him? They will not. Coke-prestie.

Coke-prestie. There's not enough Coke in Oklahoma. And then I like their swings and there's a lot of trade bait on the team too. Yes. All right so that was the last pick. Not picked the Clippers and Washington. 100%. Now we knew Washington wasn't getting a pick but the Clippers. Clippers are depressing. Clippers did it themselves. They gave the Suns a fight at least. You would only watch for the arena basically. If you if you've had the Harden experience you would only watch the arena. And it needs to be said again Harden said he watched the Mavericks

go to the finals and Luca was playing his brand of basketball. What he saw was that his brand of basketball is a winning brand of basketball. Confirmation by this is a powerful drug. That's what he learned from last year's NBA playoffs. That the James Harden brand of basketball is championship quality. If we have one wish to make to the NBA gods, it's that the Clippers trade for Cam Thomas. Oh my god. And that Harden and Thomas get to go bottom and bottom from each possession. I actually think he's one of the great tanking assets any team's ever had.

He's not that bad. No. Are you talking about Cam Thomas? Cam Thomas. I thought you were piling that on James. No. Camp Thomas puts up points, Keeps you in games, casual fans think he's amazing. And ruins your locker room. Yeah, you're definitely gonna lose if he's your best guy and he's gonna shoot every time he gets the ball. I think it's it's wonderful to watch. I'm just glad that guys like this still exist in the league. The league was getting pretty like, saying everyone comes in, all the swings can shoot threes.

All the point guards play certain ways and Camp Thomas is like clear the fuck out. I am scoring. It's my time. It's my time. Oh, they're gonna- they don't even send doubles at them because they're like, yeah, go ahead cook, Camp Thomas. Take it, shoot it again. We'll give you 70, man. It's OK. I love that. I really enjoyed watching them last night. Anyway, that's it for the week past draft. You can hear Woz and Rob on group chat on the NBA,

Ringer NBA feed. Where are you going to be, Charles Nelson, are they? I don't really have a podcast anymore. You're going to be on Card Sharks? This is it. Card Sharks. On MBR, yeah. Card Sharks, 20,000 pyramid. I'll be on MSNBC election night.

Family Feud, you're going to go with that? Yeah. Family Feud. That's CNN election show? Steve Harvey. Good to see you guys. This podcast is brought to you by Humber River Health Foundation. From the discovery of insulin in 1921 to the promise of universal healthcare in 1966, Canadians

have always made healthcare our mission. Now we face our biggest challenge yet, a cure for healthcare. Reduced wait times, safer patients, advancements in technology, the end of hallway medicine. We're finding it all here at Humber River Health. Help us innovate to keep healthcare alive. Donate at healthcarelives.ca. All right, we're gonna do some million dollar picks. We have all the ringers in town this week.

So I grabbed Shilka Padia, Anthony De Bunda. They're doing this with me in person. And I'm super happy that you're here because this is the toughest week of the year. The lines are super weird. They're like old school high lines, huge home dogs. There's teams that I feel like we've either given up on or we're too bullish on. And it has all the makings of a zigzag week.

And I'm scared. And I might actually did really well on million dollar picks last week. I thought we should have swept lost by the half point in Packers game. And then I still don't know how the Chargers didn't beat the Cardinals. But when you have a guy on the team you bet on that fumbles the ball out of bounds for the touchback, has that team ever then covered?

No, that's an L every time. You just immediately know, it's like a black cat gets thrown on the TV. What are you the most afraid of from this week? I think you said it, the big Lions. Like you have the Lions. I'm like, the Lions are awesome. The Lions can get to the Super Bowl.

They're 11 and a half point favorites. I'm looking at the Panthers who Andy Dalton gets in the car accident and Bryce Young is back. I'm like, do I want to take Bo Nix to cover 10 and a half points so those two giants. Can the Broncos score 10 points? Yeah. Ravens, Browns.

Everybody scores 20 on Carolina by halftime though. Right. So the big lines are the scariest. What are you the most scared of? The bad teams are worse than they've been in years, according to DVOA. That's scary. And road favorites are 16 and two in the last three weeks.

Wow. It should have been 17 and one if the Chargers beat the Cardinals, right? Jalen Rager elevated from the practice squad to Ruin the Game. Unbelievable. So you beat the Cardinals, right? Jalen Rigger elevated from the practice squad to ruin the game. Unbelievable. So you're the most scared of that? I mean, it just, things never last forever. NFL not for long.

So I feel like there has to be some mean reversion. The first four weeks I came on the pod, we talked about it. Underdogs were crushing it. And now the spreads are really, really big. There's six games with at least a touchdown spread. And I don't, there's a couple I like and a couple I want no part of. So I'll walk you through a couple of the games that I ultimately decided to stay away from before we get to the ones I liked and then I want to hear what you guys like.

I was looking at the Seahawks all week plus three against Buffalo because I still feel like you can throw on Buffalo and that's the one thing I really believe Seattle can do. And I actually think their offense might be a little better than people realize. And then ultimately Metcalf being hurt, not knowing what's happening with him. And then I realized like, I just hate betting against Josh Allen.

I just don't like it. And you just feel so stupid with, and so I was like, I think I'm out, but you guys could also talk me back Into that I like the other side quite a bit. Oh good. Yeah, I like the Bills minus three is one of my favorite favorite picks of the week I'm looking at it that Seahawks team last week against the worst pass rush in the NFL in Atlanta Gino Smith was pressured on 50% of his drop backs now. We played awesome He's able to play under pressure and he did

that in that game and they won. But the Bills defense is overachieved this year. I mean, they've got a good pass rush. Their offense is top five in the NFL against that Seahawks defense that has not been great. I feel like the Seahawks, I don't want to call them the good bad team, but I do feel like they're that if you lose to the Seahawks, you probably stink. But against good teams, they played what the 49ers the Lions those have both been double digit losses this year so I think the Bills are really good actually with that Amari Cooper edition he played well last week and so in kind of a three run the ball yeah they can run the ball there they're offensive line is good so I like the Bills minus three and then you

think the Colts are the good bad team or would you go with the Seattle are they good enough you're he's the Colts guy are they good enough to be the good bad team maybe they're the coin the Seattle? Are they good enough? You're he's the Colts guy. Are they good enough to be the good bad team? Maybe they're the coin flip every game team. Every game just decided in the last five minutes this year. Yeah, I was looking at their point point for every game and every game was like two points, three points, six points. Yeah. Yeah.

So I mean, the Colts, I think the Seahawks are better than the Colts. I think the Seahawks will surprise some teams, but they're not healthy. They're not good on the offensive line. And it's like if Gino turns into a magician and has one of those games against a bad defense, they can win. But I think if I see a team that I think can get to the Super Bowl playing the Seahawks,

I feel pretty good about that team taking care of them. Any other Seahawks thoughts? Buffalo has been running the ball a lot all year. Until last week, they actually got more pass happy for the first time. And it is interesting to me because they have now more options with Cooper in the lineup to throw. And the one concerning thing with me for Buffalo is it's always been that they play the two

high they never give up big plays. This year they are giving up more big plays. And so I do kind of think Seattle could stay in this with some explosives if they had MedCaf. But without him who's the explosive threat on this offense now? Seattle, 27th against the run, their defense. Feels like Buffalo can run on them. Yeah, they should. If Metcalfe was playing, I'd be

a little more bullish on Seattle, but. So that was one. Can we, I guess we gotta talk Packers-Jags. I can't believe the Jags are even in the conversation. But this line is offensive. I mean, the Packers are four and a half point favorites in Jacksonville. It's probably gonna be hot.

The Jaguars are probably gonna be able to move the ball on them, I'm guessing. And then conversely, I haven't liked the way Jordan Loves looked. I like that Packers team, but they have a big game next week coming off. They have a big game next week coming off. They had a big game last week. This just feels so trappy to me. I know we're going to go to the Jacksonville and beat the shit out of them and it just scares me.

Somebody who likes to kind of follow where does the lines move on certain teams throughout the year because you'll see that big groups people with a lot of market influence they will bet certain teams repeatedly throughout the year. And there's no team in the NFL that has gotten more of that support than the Jags. If you look at the spreads, week three, week four, week five, week six, somebody has come in and said, we love Jacksonville. I don't know who they are. If they are, if you're betting Jacksonville every week and you're listening to this podcast,

call me. We can talk about what you see that I don't, but Green Bay has some real red flags. Well, talk about them. Give us three. So their early down numbers are terrible. Their success rate numbers are very mediocre. It's a very boomer bus team and they forced a ton of turnovers. They've hit a ton of explosives. That's good, but how sustainable is it is a question that I have about Green Bay.

This would be a stay away from me. We've had interventions on this podcast about the Jaguars before. I'm not doing it against Matt LaFleur, who wins what, 70% of his games or whatever it is. And you're right about Jordan Love, but we saw him the second half of last year. There was some boom or bust to him,

and then he put it together and he was sensational. I think that stretch is coming. If you're looking at sleeper MVP candidates, I think Jordan Love has a seven, eight game stretch coming up where he's going to be one of the best players in one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. I just don't think those turnovers are going to last. I can't take Jacksonville.

They won by what? Running it 18 times in a row. Like how often is that going to happen? So I understand sort of the analytical view of- They meet the soft Patriots. That's right, the soft Patriots. I don't know that that formula is going to work against So I understand sort of the analytical view of... The soft Patriots. That's right, the soft Patriots. I don't know that that formula is going to work against the Packers. You know, you should put this in your column.

You write an excellent betting column for us every week. Every year there's an I hate myself team where you bet them and then you just, you literally hate yourself halfway through the game. And that's the Jaguars. I don't even know who's even in the running against them for that. I mean, if you bet the Browns at any point this year, you probably need to... Yeah, but that's it. Yeah, they got duped.

Cardinals? Cardinals? You're just ignoring obvious signs. Well, the Cardinals are just like the zigzag team. Like it's like, oh, they're the... And then all of a sudden they're losing by 30. Yeah. And certain defenses just seem like they can shut down Kyler completely. And then other ones just let them run around.

And I never understand how teams don't just defend Kyler the same way. Yeah. Giants are probably in that, I hated myself for picking the Giants last week. You had the Eagles and I was like, I don't know. You know, I kind of liked the, I hated myself one, uh, you know, eight minutes into that game. So if I gave you a parlay with the Jags up to plus seven and a half and the over up to thirty nine and a half and it was minus one twenty, you're not intrigued at all.

Because there's probably going to be points in this game, right? I know you don't like team totals, house, you got mad at house about that, but why not just bet the Jags team totals? I just had bad luck with team totals. I'm not saying I'm right or wrong. Okay. I just stink at them. I like the Jags. I think I just had bad luck with team totals. I'm not saying I'm right or wrong. Okay. Yeah. I just stink at them. I like the Jags.

I think there'll be points. So I generally agree with that. All right. I'm going to cross them off. This next game, I might not cross off Colts who, as we said, they might be the good bad team catching Houston in a really interesting spot where they've already played them. The game was close. Every game they're in is tight and they're getting five and a half at home and I don't understand without Nico

Collins why I wouldn't tease the Colts backwards and play around with the over-under. Why wouldn't I do that? Every advanced dad and DeBundo and I have talked about this every advanced dad on the Texans is suggesting they're a fraud. And I like the Texans coming into the season, but if you look at any of the offensive stuff and what they're doing on early downs, they're what, plus six on the season, their point differential, like their offense is underachieved maybe as much as any offense in the NFL. But they didn't have Mixon for half of that.

Yeah, but I don't know, like Joe Mixon's fine, but I'm not. If Joe Mixon means that much to your offense, then you might have some issues. So I know they don't have Nico Collins, but yeah, I like the Colts a little bit. Uh, in that game, I don't totally trust it, but I don't trust that Texans team. I think fading the Texans while their record's really good and all the numbers suggest they might not be that good is probably a good play for the next whatever, two, three weeks. Do you believe in the second game thing?

I think it's fascinating how much the perception of these two teams has even changed in the last seven weeks. Like both have overperformed relative, if you just look at their records, right? If the total Colts fan before the season were going to be four and three, they would have taken it. Texans, five and two, they feel great. And yet I feel like under the hood,

both are kind of worse. Like, Richardson has been worse than I think most expected. It's very boomer bust. And honestly, Stroud has been very boomer bust. And the whole Texans offense is, okay, it's third down, Stroud drops back, he looks, where's Nikko Collins? He throws in the ball, and they move the chains. That's the whole offense. And the last two weeks, they did it to your team, everybody has. They can't score in the second half. Every game it's like three points second half, three points second half against Buffalo, against pretty much every team they've played this year. Last week Stroud couldn't get to 100 pass yards. So I don't really trust this offense. Colts to 11 and a half and the under up to 52 and a half.

I don't, the only way I lose that is if Anthony Richardson just loses his mind and throws like a pick six and has a fumble. I haven't liked what I've seen from him at all. It doesn't seem like he's ready to be a efficient starting quarterback yet. And the thing that made him special was the running, which they seem a little more hesitant for him to do now. So now it's like, well, what is this then?

Because we were being promised like this Cam Newton, Josh Allen physical threat who's gonna run the ball. And now they're seemingly afraid to do that. This is your favorite team. But don't you feel like they have them on the shackles basically? We were sitting in the movie theater

in the Spotify office on Sunday and at one point Danny Kelly turned around and said, so like, are you still a believer? And I'm like, yes, but I have to be a little quieter about my belief now. It's harder for me to like, put my chest out and say, we got the QB one in the draft because obviously Stroud's been as good as he's been.

And you know what, I would still happy they took him over Levis because that was basically the option. Right. And you know. I'm going still still happy they took him over Levis because that was basically the option. Right. And I'm going to say that word. It's a low bar to clear. Yeah, I don't know. It's a low bar to clear.

I don't know how confident you are. But you had to take the swing and I'm still not out yet. Well they're in a weird spot because they're four and three in a conference that's not that good. Yeah. Right. With a defense that stinks. Right.

Yeah. But I like your receiver weapons and it seems like whoever's in the game can run the ball So I don't know I'm gonna mark this one I like the I don't think these two teams can get to like their first game was 56 points I was with Nikko Collins and with Richardson hitting some bombs. I don't see that happening again. I'm gonna mark that one down and then though the down and then the the I just the Chiefs Raiders game is a stay away to me as much as I want to be like oh they talk shit to my homes I just think those home teams getting that many points the history of that is a nightmare with

teases and we have the Browns in that situation and we have the Raiders I think the Raiders are awful I just don't, to me that's an automatic no play. It's probably a stay away division game, line that high. I am tempted a little bit though with the Chiefs, with the way they've played the last two weeks. They've had double digit wins in each of those games. And I agree with you that Mahomes narrative thing is kind of a factor. I'm sure that's it. He's looking for anything. Last week, look how we, you know, their underdogs, and I know we had the two interceptions, but he was treating that

game with the way he was running. Like that was a big game. And that Raiders team just, I mean, they're just waiting to, I mean, they've already collapsed. They're just waiting to collapse more. They traded their best wide receiver. They've got nothing to look forward to. They have no players. They can't run the ball or stop the run. And they turn it over. Their defense isn't good. Their defense was good last year when they played the Chiefs and upset them. Their defense this year is like a bottom five unit. So if I had to pick a side, I would pick the Chiefs, but I'm kind of with you.

I like to stay away when it's a division game that lined that high. So if I gave you this eight point tease, which is even money on Fandl, Ravens minus nine and a half, Lions minus 10 and a half, and Chiefs minus nine and a half. And you could tease all those under three and all of them have to cover. Who would you be the most worried about? Ravens, Lions, or Chiefs? That has to be the Ravens.

Right, the first game with Jameis? Well, which could go either way. Right, but that's you're introducing. I think that Brown's defense has been okay. I agree. And Schwartz The problem is the Ravens are rushing for 200 plus yards a game. Yeah Yeah, just I can't

The ravens have given up the most 20 plus yard plays in the league So if Jameis wants to get in there and lob some balls up, see what happens, could get dicey. This feels like the kind of game that we look late in the fourth quarter and you're looking at it and you're like, wait, Baltimore's up three with the ball. I know. It seems too easy. I think that teases the stay away. But I looked at it long and hard. Dolphins against the Cardinals with Tua coming back.

And the Dolphins actually played pretty well last week considering they don't have a quarterback. Like I thought their defense kept them hanging around, but I just, this to me seems like an all time zigzag stay away. 100%. I didn't even, yeah. I want no part of this game.

I want no part of the game. I agree. I don't know what to expect. Arizona might be a no bet team for me now. I don't know how the Chargers didn't beat them. I don't even really know what the Cardinals did. And then, for me now. I don't know how the Chargers didn't beat them. I don't even really know what the Cardinals did. And then,

you guys have a minute to talk me into the Cowboys plus four and a half against the 49ers. Go. I'm not doing it. I like the other side. This Cowboys defense stinks. I don't care who's out for the 49ers. Give me Kyle Shanahan against the Cowboys defense

that probably still won't have Micah Parsons that can't stop anybody. And I like the Niners in that I'm not a believer in this Cowboys defense that probably still won't have Micah Parsons that can't stop anybody. And I like the Niners in that I'm not a believer in this Cowboys team at all. I think the Niners actually bounce back in that game. I've been a Dak guy forever, but there's one team he has never solved and it's the Niners. They that their defense, no matter who the coordinator was, that personnel like Warner's ability to take away the middle of the field has really, I think, hurt that hurt Dak and and he's always had problems in That matchup. That's what scares me the most more than any of the Niners stuff. I mean

offensively They look like mess you guys talked about on the ringer NFL show all yak now It's no more easy button plays for Purdy to just kind of get guys in space and just dominate the mon stars are no longer, but I I don't know. I don't trust Dak. It's kind of a must win for the Niners too. Yeah. They'd be three and five.

Well, Dallas isn't good. I mean, that's the reason to pick the Niners over everything else is I just don't think Dallas is good. Yeah. But I also don't know who I'm scared of of Niners if Debo doesn't play. So now it's just like, I got to stop George Kittle. This feels like all the nerds after this game are like,

oh my god, Kyle Shanahan, look at what he did on this run play, and oh my god, he had this linebacker and a blender. That type of game. The Ronnie Bell game somehow. Stay away. Okay. Let's go to the picks that I actually liked. So, and you guys can feel free to throw your body in front of any of these. Oh, first of all, before I do that,

what's your favorite other than the Bills? I like the Bears. I have them, they're coming up. What's your favorite? I'm gonna go with the Jags. Wow! Yeah, I hate it. I hate having part of it, but...

Give me the, yeah, Jacksonville. I'm gonna hate this on Sunday, but... At least it's not a London game. You won't feel terrible until like But, yeah, Jacksonville. I'm going to hate this on Sunday. At least it's not a London game. You won't feel terrible until like, you know, 2 o'clock Eastern time. You and Raheem just cannot resist. You just can't. And Austin Gale is the worst. He was like Deshawn's last fan. He's like, no, this is the week. I think he can get it going. He needed Deshawn to keep flying so he could have the content on Twitter where he could say Deshawn is the worst quarterback in the history of football. He just would not give up on him Okay, my first favorite game

Sorry shield the Bengals down to minus one and a half against the Eagles. Okay, I Don't think you can stop passing offenses and I mean you like you're on the Eagles I just don't think you're gonna be able to stop Higgins and Burrow and Chase. And I think that Tampa game a couple weeks ago was more of a snapshot for who you are on defense. It could be. Now, the last two weeks, they haven't allowed a touchdown. I know they've played bad offenses. Bad offenses? You played Deshaun, you played Danny Dimes. Listen, Dimes was carving up some defenses earlier this season. No, it's true. This is a test for them.

I will say their corners though have played really well when they were struggling against the Bucs. A lot of it was the pass rush wasn't getting home. They had eight sacks last week against the Giants. Again, I know it's the Giants, but their corners, the rookie Quinian Mitchell and Darius Slay have been having awesome seasons here. So it's gonna be a lot of one-on-one, I think on the outside with those corners versus the Bengals receivers. And can the Eagles pass rush get home without blitzing? So I actually took the, took the Eagles this week minus,

now I was against them last week, but yeah, I was on the Eagles this week because I think Saquon can have a monster game here against that Bengals. So that's the fear. Yeah. Yeah. Since he, some bad defensive stats with them. They're actually higher on DBOA than Philly is but um, We're just staying to Bundle. So, you know, you want to guess how many points the Eagles have in the first quarter this year?

It's not many. It's it's not any Zero, they still have not scored in the first quarter. Yeah, I mean Kellen Moore What I don't know what to make of that I mean the offense looks you know, very similar to what it looked like last year. The passing game is a mess. If there's a reason to take the Bengals, it's because the Eagles, they had 21 dropbacks last week and seven of them were a scramble or a sack. They throw a goal ball stage at Brown, there's literally nothing else with this entire passing

game. So I understand that reason to take the Bengals. I actually like the under in this game. I think both defenses are going to play pretty well and it's going to be a little low scoring. I was looking at my favorite bet on Fando, the first half game bet. And I thought I'd get more value on Bengals when first half Bengals win game, but it's only plus 130. It's not worth it. Maybe she should do the Cousins South special, do Bengals first half Eagles game comeback.

Maybe. That is plus 750. Lean into the script problems. A little bit, a little sprinkle. Where are you on Hertz mentally these days? He hasn't played well. I mean, their passing game is a mess. He's turning down throws.

They're playing like they did at 2021 when it was just run the ball, run the ball, run the ball, hit a couple deep shots and that's the offense and they've got nothing else. So he's got to play better. There's jokes about how they're like a service academy, just run, run, run the ball, run the ball, hit a couple deep shots and that's the offense and they've got nothing else. So he's gotta play better. There's jokes about how they're like a service academy, just run, run, run. But even Navy and Army have more interesting offenses than the Eagles do now. My fear with taking the Bengals is

their offensive line's banged up and your defensive line could just take over the game and Burrow would be running around for his life. But I think the Bengals can move the ball and throw in them. I think Burrow's 70% completion this year. He's either leading the league or second, which is basically the Tampa recipe of just the chains are moving, balls going six yards here, 15, six, and they take the lead early and then you're in a spot you don't want to be in if you're the

Eagles. Yeah, that absolutely could happen. I think you're right. The left tackle injury for the Bengals against the Eagles pass rush, can they get home? That'll probably determine the game. Bengals run defense has been a little better since Rankins and Hill came back, the two defensive tackles, but they also played some bad run offenses. I'm not sure where I stand on Cincinnati run defense. Yeah, they play the same two teams, right? The Giants and the Browns, the last two weeks, same two teams as the Eagles. Are you ready to see the Bengals go three and five? That seems improbable to me.

Especially for someone like me who picked them to win the Super Bowl. I think I'm going to keep them. I think I'm going to keep them in the division. I heard all the warning flags. I think I might keep that one. Next one is the Bears, which it sounds like we all like. That's up to two and a half. I'm gonna do the rare thing of if Daniel somehow plays, I must feel like that bet should be scratched. I agree with that. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think that's fair to be stuck with that line if Daniel's playing, but it doesn't seem like he's gonna play.

I think I would have liked the Bears anyway in this game. Their defense, the stats are pretty good. They're third against on first down, seventh on third down. They're fifth yards per play. Third turnovers. They're good in the havoc stuff. I like that havoc ranking. And then Caleb looked really good against some bad teams and some bad defenses.

Guess who doesn't have a good defense? Washington. So whether Daniels plays or not, I think they can move the ball. He's got all three receivers. This feels like a get everyone's hope up in a real way. Bears win followed by their schedule gets harder. Well, they've got the hardest remaining schedule in the NFL

if you look at the betting markets and win totals. But my big, I mean, I don't know if I would like it if Daniels was playing, but Mariota, I think people are looking at that game last week and oh Cliff Kingsbury created this quarterback proof offense it was the Carolina Panthers we've seen in there by far the worst yeah we've seen enough of Marcus Mariota over the years like I want a three-game sample of Marcus Mariota and this offense is gonna be trash so that's the reason this Bears defense you mentioned it they don't give up 20 points right against good offenses

So against Marcus Mariota, I think after this game We're being like wow Jaden Daniels was a big big reason why that commanders offense you lose all the explosive plays with Mariota Yeah, he's gonna have a dumb turnover and there's a reason You know, he's been in the league for a long time and nobody's ever really been happy with the experience Like he got benched when he was on the Netflix show. Yeah, that was an amazing day. He just left the show. Yeah, he's like, I'm out and I'm out on the show as well.

What do you have to add? This game for me, I wrote the least on it just because I don't have a strong opinion, but I don't really see the case for Washington. There's one thing that they've gained and no team has gained more win probability from turnovers than the commanders this year. That tends to be kind of fluky. And this is the Bears off the by, right? So if we're going to see any imagination from this offense, which we have seen very little of thus far, maybe this is the spot we see it from Chicago because I still have major

questions about their offense. Like you said, they beat up on some of the worst defenses in the league. It would be a horrific Bears loss Like wow, we just lost to Marcus Marriott and our schedule is about to get harder conversely Washington wins. They're fine. It's like hey, we're our record is still awesome We still have the NFC East like we still have control over it. We didn't have Daniels for this game. We're fine Yeah, the commanders still have to play Philly and Dallas twice each, so the NFC East is going to be decided much later than this week for sure. They have to play Philly twice and they have the privilege of playing Dallas twice.

Not sure how Dallas gets any stops, but I'm still not, DAC has just dominated the NFC East in a way that I refuse to give up on them stealing a bunch of division games and somehow sneaking in. Falcons bucks is my next one. I don't understand this line at all. And I do understand it, but I also don't. The Falcons, this line moved to Falcons minus two and a half. They looked awful last weekend at Seattle. Chris Godwin and Mike Evans are no longer playing

for the Bucks. We're skipping over this? Yeah. Like that was the whole reason they were successful. And Bucky Irving's pretty good too. But Baker had these two great receivers that he had real chemistry with and was just moving the ball left and right. And in one game both of them went down. I just picked up Jalen McMillan in two of my leagues for big money by the way. He's the new number one. He's 22 years old. Feels like a little must-win-ish for the Falcons.

Coming off an awful loss. I get it. They can't rush the passer, but I just find it hard to believe they're not gonna be able to beat the Bucs without any star receivers. I've got the Falcons. I mean, you nailed it. I've got the Falcons. You watched that Bucs offense. It's not just like, oh, they lost good play. Like, that was the offense offense if those two guys can't win one-on-one or create Explosive plays or yards after the catch. I don't know are they good enough to scheme stuff and you lose both of them It's not like you lost one of them. You know what it's like if you had opening night for the Sixers Yeah, Bede and Paul George didn't play. Who's Yabba Selle? Who's gonna be playing? Tray Palmer is. Jalen McMillan is Yabba Selle

Atlanta's offense fifth against the fifth passing. Tampa's D 29th against the pass. 28th first down. Their defense isn't that good. And they do they try to do a lot of gimmicks with the buts and stuff which might work against cousins because the offensive line has been great. But I just you know first game Atlanta stole it. So there's our revenge spot.

Kirk threw for 500 plus yards in that game. Right. And Tampa Bay's secondary has given up more explosives than anybody. Them in Baltimore, giving up the most explosives in the league. Also, what's... So Atlanta is... I'm looking up the standings. I did tease Tampa for the record.

Oh, you did? Up to eight and a half. Yeah. So Atlanta's four and three and Tampa's four and three. This game's for the division. For the division in week eight? If Atlanta wins, they're going to be two games up with the tiebreaker and Tampa's not going to have their best receivers. Atlanta wins this division's kind of over.

Well, more amazing is that one of these teams might have five wins after week eight. Like, what the fuck? I almost feels like this has to be a tie. But I mean, if Atlanta loses this game, that's embarrassing. You can't beat the Bucs without Mike Evans and Chris Godwin as literally their whole team. Yeah, that's my only... Is it a little rat-linie? I mean, I'm with you. I saw a minus two and a half. Well, Atlanta lost by 20 to fucking Seattle last week.

So I don't... And Atlanta, they're four and three, but literally could be one and six? Yeah. Atlanta's had one game that wasn't down to the final possession basically, or two games now with last week. Every other game is like two minutes to go. They're within six either way and Kirk's got to lead a drive to try to win it or lose it. And they got a couple home. They didn't get others home.

But yeah, these division games at home catching eight and a half and a tease. I love Tampa. You love Tampa? And a tease. And a tease. Can you name for Tampa receivers? What do I get to count the running? For it name for that's the thing though. They do they run in a four receiver set they use they're not going to that's the one concern So they run a lot of 11 personnel. Yeah, they don't have three full receivers now So they got to go a little heavier but Kate on.Dotten. See, this is young and experienced, youthful exuberance. We just got to keep them in the ring or fold as we teach them.

That's right. Trey Palmer is going to be pissed off. He's going to get a big game for him. Last one. I'm marking the Falcons down. If they lose that game, they should give up the team. By the way, Sheil, if they didn't take Pennex after having seen all the rookies, who should they have taken that would have had a huge impact for them at number eight? Yeah, I'm trying to think of who

was taking, I mean, I don't want to be a homer, but Quinian Mitchell would be looking very good as a corner in that secondary. And just look at like the last three years the guys they could have had. Oh my god. Three or four years they really could have built on the lines of scrimmage very well, but yeah, that was one name that came to mind. Byron Murphy, I know he got hurt, but I think he would have been really good for them too. Jared Verst, I mean, there were definitely

good defensive players that they could have taken and added to that group. One of the stories is that none of the defensive guys have really taken the lead. But we knew that in the draft, right? Nobody was taken till pick 15. People were pretty down on it. But yeah, you're right.

The cornerback that you got, the guy Detroit got, the D-back. Arnold, yeah. It seems like those have been kind of the winners. Yeah, there hasn't been one dominant guy yet for, you're looking at the defensive rookie of the year odds, I can tell. Yeah, Jared Vers is the favorite.

Vers was good last We finally the guy they you know if you had to pick one guy if they could redo it that'd probably be the guy All right last one that I really liked and I try not sorry Kyle Try not to bet against the Patriots. Oh Kyle sad You're blame seven with the Jets. No, I'm not I'm going to tease the Jets with the over of 35 down to 35 and a half the overs 41 and a half tease the Jets? No, I'm not. I'm going to tease the Jets with the over of 35 down to 35 and a half. The over is 41 and a half. Tease the Jets to one over 35 and a half.

The Pats are a sneaky, the over under Lions have not caught up to the team they have. Their defense sucks. It's awful. The quarterback actually makes some plays. Mays pretty good. And they're a garbage time threat, right? They're an end of the half, two minute warning. They could actually get a field goal. They're not, offense isn't terrible. And it's also an all-time must-win for the Jets. Like their season's over if they don't win this. They beat them already. And the only fear would be like a 24 to 3 type game,

like what they had on the Thursday night. But this Pats team is gonna be able to put up like 14. So 35 and a half seems right. Is there any way that Pats actually win this game? Wait, what's the teaser? So Jets down to minus one. Minus one. The over to 35 and a half. I just need to get to 37 points.

Jets can win 2017 and I win. Is it a good sign that Devontae Adams had to give a fiery postgame speech when he had been in New Jersey for like three days after last week's game? Did you see this story? I did. So you have that. I mean, everything that can go wrong has gone wrong with the Jets. You mentioned it. Drake May will push the ball downfield. The Jets defense has actually been the bigger story over their offense. They're 21st in defensive DVOA. The offense ranks exactly the same. 21st. You thought you were getting a mediocre offense with a great defense and their defense isn't good. But Rogers basically said that.

He's like, our offense needs to take care of our defense. We need to score points, give them lead. He's basically saying our defense sucks. Yeah. Which I was surprised by. But as usual, Aaron Rodgers. Yeah, as usual, Aaron Rodgers said something that you should have. I think you're on the right side. I would be afraid to have any wager depending on the New York Jets with the way this season has gone. I don't think you understand. And nobody does because nobody cares about the Patriots, nor should they.

This was a pretty traumatic week in Patriots Nation. I've been following. The, the Mayo soft thing. Nobody cares about the Patriots, nor should they. This was a pretty traumatic week in Patriots Nation. I've been following. The Mayo soft thing, first of all, they were, and we talked about it Sunday night in the pod, so I'm not going to rehash that. They were so bad on Sunday night, and so poorly coached, and just everything was mismanaged, and they looked awful.

And then the quotes after the game from him, which as usually, Mayo took no culpability for anything, and just blames everybody else, says he's soft and that really went badly. And then Belichick said, fuck it. And just started like doing little sniper shots at him at the eight different shows he's on and just escalated the stakes. And there's like a real conversation now in Massachusetts because God knows they love

the media loves this stuff there. It's like, can this guy be one and done? Would Kraft do this? I personally don't think he would. I think he'll give him more time, but it's, it's a fucking mess. The wide receiver room, they've had like three different guys have complained publicly. No other team has this. I feel like this is an under the radar, like huge story for week eight, the pay with everything you said, and I've been following it all week long. Like if they come out and are just get blown out by 35 at home, at home, what

are you doing after that with the head coach? Now, is there a chance that it's not as bad on the inside as it seems on the outside and they come out and they play well and some players actually like Gerard Mayo and they figure some things out. That's the other thing, you know. Maybe you come out of this saying, oh my gosh, everything last week was so overblown with the way they played in London and they're competitive in this game.

But they're a sneaky big story, I feel like, in this week. I always, listen, the player podcasts are for the most part ridiculous. And player interviews, expert interviews, you always have to take with a grain of salt. I was shocked by how many people who talk or have platforms were like, wow, you don't call your team soft. That's never worked.

That's never motivated anybody. That's like the number one thing you can't do. Like people were pretty horrified by it. You try to walk it back the next day. He's like, I wasn't saying the team was soft. I was saying we played soft. It's like, no, you said the team was soft. That's actually what you did.

And it's one of many huge mistakes he's made. But they just seem really poorly prepared and poorly coached, which every year there's two teams. Right, like Carolina last year with Ryke, you knew something was like way off. It's like something, Monty Williams and the Pistons. It's like, this seems off, something's wrong. And that's the vibe I'm getting from the Pats.

It just doesn't seem right. What do you see when you're watching? Maybe they could try a different former linebacker as their head coach next year. Mike Vrabel? He is available, I believe. Yeah, I think the offense is kind of interesting early in the game. And then the second half offenses have not been as inspiring. Like once they get off the script.

Yeah. Once they try to establish the run, it's a disaster because they can't run the ball. But the ones that I like, they were 31st in explosive pass rate the first five weeks with Percet. They're up to 15th the last few weeks. Yeah, Kyle. Hitting some big plays down the field. They finally hit some 10, 20 plus yard plays. And that's when you don't have a good you've talked about this. You know, the good offense try to hit some big plays down the field. They finally hit some 10, 20 plus yard plays. And that's when you don't have a good, you've talked about this, when you don't have a good offense, try to hit some big plays and see what happens.

We had a Drew Bledsoe season. I think it was the second season. They had the same thing. Couldn't run the ball. Team wasn't very good and they were just like, Drew, air it out. And he did and it was kind of, it kind of worked a little bit. And he's just flinging the ball. They had Ben Coats that year.

I have a feeling if they're actually going to try to win this game, which I would assume they'd want to, because it's the Jets. Like, that's it for the run game. They can't run the ball, the line sucks. So I just generally like the over, because I don't think they're going to be able to stop the Jets. The tackling linebackers, they've made history with how bad the tackling is. I've never seen anything like it.

So I think Breeze Hall could have a big game. So I like Jets minus one with the over 35 and a half. All right, so we have four on the fence with Colts plus 11 and a half with the under 52 and a half in Houston. I'll let you guys vote on that. You like that one? I like it, I like it too. Okay, so we'll add that.

Cardiac Colts. And then Bills minus three in that. You like that one? I like it. I like it. Okay, so add that. Cardiac Colts. And then Bills minus three in Seattle. What are your thoughts? I'm completely passing on this game. I'm excited to watch it. I like it. It's one of my favorite. Listen, I thought the bundle, you know, we had a nice dinner last night, but I thought he would come in, support me, my pick. But that's okay. Listen, you got to speak with whatever you're feeling at the time.

I do like the Bills, minus three at Seattle. Well, maybe what I can do is do little half bets. Or we could do a parlay with all three of those. This is fun. Bills minus three, Jags plus seven and a half, and the over. Or maybe just Bills minus three with Jags plus seven and a half. I do feel like Charlie at the wall and it's always sunny.

And I know that they filmed it right outside the office. I try to keep track of all the teasers that have just been thrown at me in the last 10 minutes. What if, what if we teased Jags Bill up to, or not teased, nudged it up to plus seven and a half. So we get that touchdown buffer with Bill's minus three and it's a debundo shield parlay. All right. You're responsible for the Jags part of that. Let's do it.

All right. There you go. All right. So we just looked this up. Bill's minus three and then the jags up to plus seven and a half. That parlay is plus 179. So I think we'll sprinkle something on that too. I also need an anytime touchdown scorer, preferably a tight end because Fandl is running a very cool touchdown bonus. What are we getting for that one, Kyle? 30% profit boost. Has to be a tight end? Does it have to be a tight end?

No. I was gonna say Kate Otten's looking real good this weekend for the bucks. Tucker Kraft? Somebody's gotta score. Oh my God, Tucker Kraft. Emotional hedge. No, we Craft? Somebody's got to score. Oh my god. We're against. Emotional hedge. No, we're not emotionally hedging Tucker Craft. I do Brian Thomas often. So maybe he

could score for the Jags. So you got the only reliable receiver. K. Dotten plus 180 any time score? Sure. I love it. Yeah. Somebody's got to score for the Bucks. They will eventually get points in the game, right? So, hopefully. What a performance by you. Kate Otten and the Jags just coming in on fire. What a performance. This is the NFL. And we're definitely doing Colts under.

Okay. We're going to do million dollar picks in a second, but first we're going to do Who's Delivering? Presented by Uber Eats, where we break down the NFL players who have delivered so far this season from household names To out of nowhere surprises. No surprise that Lamar Jackson has been delivering I feel like he has the MVP in his hands now, right? Is there who would you even put against him at this point? No, he's the favorite. He's never played better their offense has been so much better than any other offense in the NFL It's crazy. He's coming off an MVP and he's playing better than he did last season. Have you seen the Stephen Ruiz updated QB rankings? No. There's a new number one, Lamar Jackson. He wasn't number one before? Well,

Mahomes has had the number one spot for I think a few years now. Mahomes has took the year off. He's uncivatical. And yet undefeated. Six touchdowns, eight picks. No, I'm kidding. Mahomes, don't listen to me. Five years from now, he's gonna come back to haunt me. Another one who's delivered, the Derrick Henry trade slash how awesome he's been. It's just fun to watch those dudes together. Any receiver? I would've said Nikko Collins here, but you know.

I was gonna say Mike Evans, but now he's here. All the receivers who have been delivering are basically out. Yeah. I feel like St. Brown could get going with no Jameson Williams for two games. He's been right on the cusp of having an awesome game, but Brian Thomas Jr. Brian Thomas Jr. Another one who's been overthrown for a couple of touchdowns too. What's your favorite defense for delivering? My favorite, it's got to be the Vikings, right? Yeah.

With Brian Flores, they've had the best defense in the NFL, even though their team isn't great. I feel like their coaching has been unbelievable. Yeah. They're a state, I'm always scared to go against them now. Yeah. I didn't even feel good taking the lines against them this week, but it did it.

Pittsburgh's defense has been pretty good too. Pittsburgh's been good. I think we, this is the year of Spagnolo. Casey's defense. Yep. All right. That was who's delivering presented by Uber Eats. We can get the best deals on game day food all season long.

We didn't talk about a kicker who's delivering. Brandon Aubrey. Aubrey delivering for society too. Aubrey is just delivering all over the place. Uber Eats, the official on demand delivery partner of the NFL. Order now. All right, Kyle, it's time. The million dollar picks for week eight.

Coming off a $580,000 windfall last week, that really should have been more. We're up $163,000 for the year. Mainly because I don't bet on Deshaun Watson do some of the stuff your buddy Austin Gale does on paper chasers. I'm glad we came up with a name finally for the pod. We had a bunch of trademark violations before we got to paper chasers. Million dollar picks week eight. We all love the Bears minus two and a half against Marcus Maradota and Washington. Do we put the caveat that if Daniels plays this is a no bet or do we just ride it? I would be shocked if Daniel's plays. Okay, let's just ride it.

You know what, we're gambling. Let's go. Bears minus two and a half. Washington doesn't need this game. This is the last easy Bears game before it gets hard. Washington D is terrible. The Bears come with the ball in them. So that's our first one.

Falcons minus two and a half against the depleted Bucks. DeBundo doesn't like it, but you like the Bucks and the Tees a little bit, even though you could have named three receivers on the team. Sheel and I like the Falcons and the Bucks back. Minus two and a half, no Mike Evans, no Chris Godwin. Just played on a Monday night. These teams have already played.

This feels like Atlanta gets their team right. That's two. The Bengals minus one and a half against the Philadelphia Eagles. Schiele doesn't like this one. The Bundo likes it. The Bundo likes it. Yeah, a little bit. I'm, you mentioned havoc.

I'm a little scared because the Bengals do not create much. They do not create much havoc. The havoc might be on the Philadelphia sideline with people throwing stuff. Uh, I just think we saw this game a few weeks ago, a version of it with Tampa, where they just threw on Philly the whole game. Philly's defense wore down. The Bengals I think can do that again.

I don't think the Bengals are going three and five. So that's three. We're going to put $200,000 on each of those. We are also putting $200,000 on the Jets. Teased down to minus one with the over of 30 down to 35 and a half because Drake Man can get cheap points and I think the Jets win. If the Jets lose this game, this becomes one of the dark moments in Jets history. They lose this dysfunctional Pats team that's turning on the coach. Come on. And we all like this one. Another tease. Colts up to 11 and a half against Houston.

They've already played. The under up to 52 and a half. 53 points needs to beat this. No Nikko Collins. Yeah, he's dominated the Colts in this head to head. The fear would be the Anthony Richardson pick six. Like to start the first quarter. It's all of a sudden at seven nothing.

You're like, oh my God. All right. And then last but not least, we're doing a little 100k on a DeBundo-Shield parlay. Shield love the Bills minus three against Seattle. DeBundo likes the Jags. We're going to bring them up to plus seven and a half. That is plus 179 on Fandle. So we'll put, actually we'll put 120k on that so to get that over 200.

And then last but not least, Fandle's 30% touchdown scoring boost. You in on Otten? I can't wait. This is all I'm going to be watching. Kade on plus 180. I'm going to have to have a screen on Falcon's Bucks now for some reason. We'll throw 25K on that just to respect ourselves. Yes.

Shil Kapata, we can hear you on the Ringer NFL show. DeBundo you're on the Ringer gambling show. You pop on Philly special from time to time, right? We had a short-lived Philly's playoff run to reminisce. My short lives. I didn't have a playoff run at all, so I'm jealous. Good to see you guys. You too.

Good to see you too. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Waz and Mahoney and CR and Kapadia and Dabundo and Kyle Creighton and Steve Serti for producing as well. That's it for the two-part pod. I will see you on Sunday unless I'm dead of an illness. I don't have a few years with him On the wayside, on the brink of so much leverage

I don't have a few years with him or 18 plus and president DC. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-hope.com. Call 1-887-897777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here, visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York.