The Bill Simmons Podcast - Red-Hot Million-Dollar Picks, the Mannings, and Fantasy Strategies With Peter Schrager, Bryan Curtis, and Craig Horlbeck

Episode Date: September 17, 2021

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Bryan Curtis to discuss ESPN’s Peyton and Eli Manning 'Monday Night Football' broadcast and whether or not this is the future of broadcasting (1:48). Then Bill is joined by Peter Schrager to help make his Million-Dollar Picks for Week 2 (27:39) before Craig Horlbeck joins to talk about the must-add fantasy football players after Week 1 as well as their favorite QBs moving forward (84:14). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Bryan Curtis, Peter Schrager, and Craig Horlbeck Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Million Dollar Picks with Peter Schrager, Brian Curtis talking about the Manning brothers, and a little Craig Horlback at the end talking about fantasy football. It's a good, it's an all football podcast. It's on next, first, Pearl Jam! All right, Brian Curtis is here. We've worked together.

Has it officially been 10 years? It's 10 years, right? Wow. Happy anniversary to us. We've talked a lot, both socially. We've talked on podcasts about where does broadcasting go? What are the next iterations? And you think back to 2012, 13. I remember we did the Grantland March Madness pregame show stunt. They put this huge satellite pole in my backyard

and it was me and Jacoby and Rembrandt and Jalen and House. And we would try to do our own version of pregame show. Now the technology is much better, obviously. ESPN dives into all this stuff with the mega casts to mix success. And then on Monday night, even though it wasn't perfect, there's a lot of glitches. There's a lot of things wrong.

I thought at the same time, it was the first time it actually worked where I was like, oh, cool. I feel like I'm hanging out with these guys. I feel like I'm part of the mix. You did an emergency pod that night. You were delighted about it. And I think the cool thing, Curtis, is I think this is going to get better.

I actually think Monday night will be the worst version of whatever we saw because there were so many glitches. I think this gets better. I actually think Monday night will be the worst version of whatever we saw because there were so many glitches. I think this gets better. I think they stumbled onto something. I completely agree. Isn't it weird to see an experiment on sports TV? That's a hit right off the bat.

Yeah. We were like, wow, that worked. Isn't it weird to see an experiment on ESPN? That's a hit right off the bat where you're like, oh, after everything that's happened this year and in years past, they got it right.

All the things they got wrong over the last year, then they fucking nailed one out of nowhere. This is in the win column, right? A lot in the loss column, and this is in the win column. It's amazing to me. We can talk about why it works. I think, first of all, Peyton Manning's really good at television already, but did you notice how he was not

only doing color, but he was also doing play-by-play during that whole thing? And I feel a lot of these alternate broadcasts, the thing I don't like is that I lose the game. At some point, I'm like, I don't know what's happening. It's too, it's, I'm missing what's going on. And he was doing a really good job being like, Hey, it's third and 10 zone defense. This is what they want to do. And I don't know if he was coached to do that by ESPN. I assume so a little bit, but he was kind of like the play-by-play guy and the color guy. And I just felt that added this great element to it. And I always knew what was happening. I never felt like I was missing the game. I agree with that. And I like that they realized quickly that certain things weren't working and moved away from them. In the first quarter, they really did kind of lose the narrative of the game

a couple of times because he had this pre-planned stuff they want to do. And by the time I felt like even Barkley comes in and it's a little celebrity thing. I thought when we got to the second half, it really fell into place. Kelsey wasn't that great, but I liked having him. I liked that when he found out he was playing the Ravens the next week. He was like, oh yeah. And he was talking about some tight end stuff.

And then there was some Peyton Eli stuff that started happening. He started making fun of Eli more. But when Russell Wilson came in, that's when it fell into place. And it was like three quarterbacks really excited about the game, like enjoying it. Like they were invested in it. Manning was doing these crazy gestures of the side,

like leaning back. Like, and it was just fun to hang out with them. And I learned some stuff too. Like, you know, they, they kind of,

they, they, when Peyton was on my podcast, he was like, you know, I'm not going to be critical. I'm not going to, that's not what we're going to do in this. If you read between the lines, they were pretty critical of Lamar, I felt like in the second half where they were basically saying, yeah, just play zone and don't let him scramble.

And then you have to make a play. You read between the lines, it's like, yeah, you could stop this guy if you do this. And then when he couldn't kind of get it going down the stretch, it didn't seem like either of them were surprised. So that was the stuff. I think their way of not just picking apart quarterbacks without picking them apart, but then knowing what the defense was doing. That's what he predicted on my podcast, that they know the defenses so well, they were really able to explain what was working and what wasn't working. I felt like I learned more from the broadcast. So I know it happened three days ago, but I had to talk to it about you because with you, because I just thought they stumbled onto something that I now think other people are going to botch and there's going to be some horrible, horrible,

horrible imitators of this. I'll tell you the best piece of criticism is in overtime when David Carr throws the, or Derek Carr, excuse me, throws the interception in the end zone. And it looks like the Raiders have just thrown the win away. And you look over and he was doing the Manning face. Yeah, he was. He was doing a Manning face on behalf of another quarterback. He transferred it. It was unbelievable. He looks so pissed off. And he was his face of, how could you do that? Well, it's the same thing with the false start on the one-inch yard line. And Manny was like, he was a quarterback again.

Like, oh my God. He gave one of those. Just like the cardinal sin. I loved how nervous he was. He was, you know, they made fun of this, but he kept scratching his head in the back, which I think was a nervous tick. Because as the game got better, he just kept going back here like he had dandruff and he was in the first few seconds of a dandruff commercial. And I think that was Peyton just being very into the game.

I think, too, there's a whole – there's very Tony Romo quality to all this, which is the Romo thing beyond Romo predicting plays was he was actually excited to be at the game. And he reminded everybody in TV, hey, if you act like you really want to be here, fans are going to enjoy that. And they're going to feel like they really want to be there. Peyton and Eli too felt like they really wanted to be there. That was a huge part of it. And they didn't overpower the game, which I think is the key thing. And I think whenever I've seen people try this in basketball, the guys, there's way too much energy and they start to detract from it. And I think with this, I'd felt like we were sitting on the couch with them, which is the goal.

You want to feel like you're a fly on the wall. Like him and Eli are on a Zoom and there's random people popping into it, but ultimately they're just hanging out watching the game. It didn't feel overproduced. The first part felt overproduced, but by the time we got to the fourth quarter, you know, there was some stuff that they,

I think they'll fix. Like they just kept talking over the guests. They didn't understand. Like we're doing pods all the time on Zoom. We know like if you're talking and I start talking, the audio is going to cut out. There's all these bad things can happen. So you kind of have to,

as much as you can have back and forth, but you still have to lay out. And they just weren't doing that. Eli, especially Eli was just talking over everybody. They'll fix that. Um, but other than that, I thought it was pretty close to where it needs to be. And, and ironically, there was a hierarchy with the Mannings, which probably exists in real life, right? Just in the broadcast, how that worked compared to the Big Brother, Little Brother thing. Yes. That, to me, was almost the most fascinating part. It's like, okay, Big Brother's going to talk the most. He's going to talk like 75% of the time. And Little Brother's going to sit there and watch Big Brother and go, when am I getting in? When am I getting in? I'm going to get my little

jab in here, get my little analysis point in here. That was fascinating to watch. It was really good. Was Eli smarter than you thought he was going to be? Because at some point he was exactly who I thought he was going to be. And then other times he would have a really astute point. I'm like, oh, Eli. Yeah. And really killer joke, right?

Like when they were making fun of how big Peyton Manning's helmet was. And he was like, would you, Peyton's helmet with the Broncos, would you rather have it filled with $10,000 cash or quarters? Isn't that a really savage joke that just slipped by everybody? It was good. It was really funny. I think, so here would be my advice if they asked me. I would only have one celebrity, if you figure you have four celebrity hits or four guests, I think three of them have to be football. And then you can roll the dice with the one celebrity.

I think where this goes wrong, if you start, if this becomes like a late night show and now like, you know, you have, Oh, it's William Peterson from CSI. You know,

like that's where it goes wrong. I thought the fact that Wilson came on was so great. I would have quarterbacks on as much as I possibly could with this. And you pick the celebrity. It's got to be a celebrity who likes football. Like Barkley's a degenerate. He'd probably bet on the game. Maybe he mentioned that. I missed it.

But you have to have people that are actually invested in the game. I'm sure what they're getting now is all these PR people and managers and people volunteering their clients, right? Like so-and-so would love to come on that, whatever. You don't want to mess up the football vibe because that was a really high level football

talk. All of the thoughts that we had about they would try to be really general and more, you know, try to appeal to everybody. It was the opposite. They were like trying to appeal to you and me. If anything, I had trouble following some of the football stuff. Yeah, like the cover zero. I'm like, I'm still not positive I know what that is. Yeah. And he would just rattle off defenses and I'd be like, wait, what?

Right. What are you talking about? And that would be my note. Maybe just dial that down a smidge, right? Or at least the terminology down a smidge. It felt very podcasty though. And the one thing I'd say about the production, yeah, there were some funny parts when Ray Lewis was in the middle of this two minute long anecdote and they just went to commercial. Right.

Yeah, well, we didn't miss anything. I did kind of like that it felt a little unpolished. Oh yeah, they didn't even throw out the commercials. They would just go to a commercial. Sometimes I felt like I was even hearing the director counting down. Did you hear that during like on the television? Um, I wasn't a good set. Sports TV can be over produced and too polished. We've talked about this before. It can, it can start to feel like it's not a human conversation anymore. It's just like all these things going on. And I did like the fact that it felt a little unpolished

and I do kind of want it to stay like that. I'm amazed that ESPN let that happen. But I think this was really outsourced to Manning's company and he had the creative control over it. And that's, you know, the biggest crime with ESPN is the overproducing, too many producers, producers making it the producers telecast instead of the talent telecast.

I liked hearing the director in the background. I wouldn't mind if that person eventually became the Gilman. What was the guy's name from Regis and Kathy? Gilman, yeah. We just kind of know him in the background and he's just counting down stuff. You know, it was interesting with Ray Lewis. Russell Wilson, he's been on my podcast.

That's what he's like when he's on those things. Ray Lewis has always felt like a missed opportunity for me with TV because he becomes like this really loud, high energy evangelist Ray Lewis, which just doesn't seem that authentic. That was like kind of hanging out with Ray Lewis and it was unpolished and he had too many long monologues, but that was about as good as I've seen him on television. I don't know. That's not that much of a compliment, but didn't you feel like that was the best performance from him that he's had? A lot of those guys were deferring to the Mannix, which I thought was what created the vibe because they were like, hey, I'm here to support you. I'm Andy Richter here. Well, maybe Eli's Andy Richter. So I'm the next guy. I'm Fred DeCordova

over in the wings through a Tonight Show reference. And I thought that did kind of work. And by the way, what's been the biggest problem with Monday Night Football for a long time now? You and I have also talked about this. Way too much football on television by the time you get to Monday. So you just completely, I love watching football. And by Monday night, I am completely worn out, unless it's a great game. So you kind of need a different product.

Well, how about, how do you feel if you're the other guys, the guys on the main channel? What do you tell Steve Levy, Brian Greasy, and Louis Riddick the next day? I don't know. I don't know what the answer to that is. Now, those guys are not like Joe Buck and Jim Nance in the sense that they've been around a long time. I think this would have been a really interesting conversation at Fox if you had said, hey, guys, we got the Mannings, and they're going to be against you on FS1. I think it would have been, wait, wait, what? Or NBC or CBS.

I think that would have been very different. I think because that crew is really young. But you know what? I had this thought, and I'm not firing anybody here. I'm not getting rid of anybody. But could that show be the main broadcast of Monday Night Football? Flip networks. Could it be?

So you're just basically putting the Manning brothers on ESPN. I think they're in a good spot with what they have. But I think down the road, yeah, you're putting the Manning brothers on ESPN. I think they're in a good spot with what they have, but I think down the road, yeah, you're right. Maybe. To me, the most exciting thing for me is what I've wanted forever, which is if you're ESPN, you have all these channels, or if you're Fox and you have Fox and FS1, how do you counter-program this thing you're paying billions of dollars for?

So you have Monday Night Football. What even makes sense to have on ESPN2? Once you get to December, you can do college basketball and you're like, that's a different audience. But for the most part, you might as well just double down on the football audience anyway. And if you can pull even, I don't know, half a million people over to just be fascinated by the Manix things. Like my wife was kind of intrigued by it. She's like, this is kind of like a podcast, huh? And I'm like, yeah, I guess it is. But to me, it leads to innovation that I think, where it gets dicey and what they'll try to push it toward is ESPN+. But that would make it a lot harder because now I can't flip channels with ESPN+.

I'm kind of stuck on ESPN+. I don't know how to fix that. And for the Mannings, that right now is linear TV. Those guys are so big, right? I think you put the gambling alternate broadcast on ESPN+. Or the Blimp broadcast. I don't know if the gambling... I don't know if the... As, I don't know if the game,

as much as, as you know, I love gambling. I don't know if the gambling broadcast works. I think I really was trying to think like, all right, what made this work? All right.

The Manning brothers had good chemistry. That's hard to find. It's hard to find two people that have good chemistry. These guys are really famous. Peyton Manning is one of the most famous quarterbacks ever. Eli, two-time Super Bowl champ. God to the Giants fans. So now we're pulling in that dynamic.

And then the fact that it was so laid back and so football heavy, I just liked it more than the general broadcast. And then when you flip back to the other broadcast, it just felt like all-time missionary position for a for a sports broadcast. You're like, oh man, this is the camera angles are slightly better. Yeah. They like the production was a little better, but, um, just wasn't as entertaining. So I've been thinking about like baseball, I think has the most growth for this because especially like you think with the local TV stuff,

like our, our bracket, the Red Sox can come and go depending on who the color guys are. But if they had multiple broadcasts for that and they got kookier and kookier, that would be really fun. Like if they tried to have it more funny basketball, I think has a really high upside,

but I also think has the highest downside. Cause I just keep thinking of like that KG, that Area 21 thing that just didn't work. There was so much energy, it kind of suffocated you. Hockey would be the same no matter who was doing it. So what do you think, what do you expect? What's next? Because you know everyone's ripping this off. I think golf is a really good idea too. I'd add to the list because I think, you know, when, let's say when Phil Mickelson kind of gets, you know, to then to the retirement zone,

don't you just want him just kind of going on his own broadcast? I mean, you could put him on CBS and he'd be great, but I kind of want him, I just want the Mickelson broadcast. So it's just him. He never leaves. It's him and somebody else. And that's it. That would be interesting. You're right. I think that'd be really good.

It has to be the right, it has to be the right people because, and baseball is good, but I was trying to think like, who, who would you really want for a three hour baseball game? Who could really roll with it and pull it off? You need it. That's where you need like actual celebrities.

Yeah. You almost, you almost need like non-baseball people. It's funny. need actual celebrities. Yeah. You almost need non-baseball people. It's funny. You mentioned golf. I think I'm the most satisfied with golf broadcasts of all the play-by-plays. I actually really think CBS does a really good job. I like what NBC has it.

I like hearing from the people on the ground. Which one is Dottie on? Is she on CBS? I think she's CBS. She's on CBS, yeah. She's great. I just really enjoy the broadcast. So I don't know if I would watch the alternate broadcast.

But for basketball, you know I would. Absolutely. It just has to be, you know, Kobe, when he could have been good at that. And by the way, I think this is going to be the move for the super famous athlete now. We've already entered this phase, right? With what LeBron does, what KD did on ESPN, what Kobe did. If you're super famous, you're like, I'm not going to go work for ESPN. Yeah, and travel.

I'm not going to travel. I'm not going to have a producer telling me what to do. I'm going to do a show and I'm going to sell it to ESPN, essentially. And deliver it to them and get all the production costs and all that stuff. Yeah, you're right. The problem is, for the replication, the meanings are actually authentic. And as we've discussed in previous pods, like there's an authenticity issue with a lot of the superstars we have in the different sports. We don't, you know, it's the public perception that they present and who they present on social media versus the, Oh, now I'm hanging out with you for three hours. What's real. Not,

I don't see LeBron ever doing that. No, I don't see him exposing himself for three hours. You know, everything he's done has been really controlled and, you know, kind of short burst. But like if Draymond green was got knocked out of the playoffs and they were

like, fuck it round two alternate broadcast with Draymond green, green. And, you know, two playoffs and they were like, fuck it. Round two, alternate broadcast with Draymond Green and two of his buddies. I actually think that would be really compelling. And he'd probably get canceled after like an hour. But I was thinking with TNT and ESPN, it does open the door for people who have been knocked out of the playoffs to move into that Manning role. But I don't think it could be the super duper stars. I think it would have to be the lower level Draymond types would be my guess. The knockout of the playoffs is great. I mean, you know, first of all, Aaron Rodgers, I would want to do this, the football version of this for, he needs to be a guest on the Manning. He's ready to do it this week. Yeah. He's ready to go. He's ready to just retire and do it.

He loves doing this. He would be really good, by the way, at this. He would. He would. I think McAfee would be good as a guest on the Manning thing, but also if it was McAfee and Rodgers together, because that's been good as a podcast. Yeah, it's weird. It seems like there's more options in football than there is for basketball, because I think the basketball guys would be really careful. Their brands are almost too big.

Yeah. Draymond's a great idea, though. Draymond's great. I love Curry. I had a really good time doing a podcast with him. I think he'd be pretty careful doing a podcast, especially basketball. They're always trying to pit people against each other. He says one thing

and now it's like, oh, Curry slammed so and so and it turns into like professional wrestling. You could have done that with the Manning broadcast with some of the Lamar stuff. They were kind of saying without saying, but nobody did it because everybody enjoyed it. Yeah. I think Curry would be like in the Russ role where you'd want to have him on for a quarter or something and have him, especially if it was a good game, right? Because then he'd be into it and he'd be talking about how, you know, offense and shooting and that. Yeah, I could totally see that.

By the way, I had a smart friend. Can I make one point real quick? Yeah. I had a very smart friend text me after his opening. He goes, you know why we're ready for the Manning broadcast now? And I was like, why? And he goes, all our TVs are bigger. And so when it's picture in picture, we can actually see the game

like we couldn't 10 years ago. I was like, I wish I thought of that because that was such a smart point. I do think that has something to do with why this works now. I noticed that the US Open ESPN split screen matches that where they were kind of at pivotal moments at the same time, and I liked it. Sure. Instead of just doing it for 10 seconds, they just would keep it on for two, three minutes.

And it worked because our TVs are wide enough that we can do it. So, all right. So before you go, the three guests you'd want to see with the Manny brothers, because I don't know if Brady would be good. I gotta be honest. I think,

I think they would all be too deferential and nice to each other. I don't think there would be a lot of ball busting. So the interesting part of the Brady thing is when everybody was trying to hire Peyton Manning to be in the booth, ESPN, Fox, I think NBC, just to do football commentary, one of his rules was, I don't want to do Tom Brady games. He didn't want to do his brother and he didn't want to do Tom Brady, which I thought was interesting. And I think it's because it was just too weird. Now, the Bucs are going to be on Monday Night Football. So I guess that's going to happen, or it'd be weird if he took the week off, right?

Well, isn't he only doing 10? So maybe he crossed that off. Yeah. But of course, didn't that the week you want him to be on Monday night football doing a Tom Brady game and breaking down Tom Brady. So you'd rather have him do the Brady game than have Brady come on. Cause I think I'm with you on that. Yeah. But do we have to choose if Russ was good in the fourth quarter because Russ was like talking about football, talking about scheme and passing. I think Brady could be good in that. And I think they'd be fine. The key, the key is the fourth quarter guest, because if the game's good, it has to be somebody that can roll with them. Football

wise. If the game is not good, if it's 38 to 15 and you have to fill for a fourth quarter, then that person also has to be entertaining. So that's a tough needle to thread, right? Because if, if Russell Wilson was doing that Ravens game and the Ravens were winning by 30 points, now they're just kind of free-balling it. Here's my list. I'm not going to list these. Phillip Rivers, I think, would be great with these two.

I don't know if they're friends, but I think this is a good format for him. I like his personality, and I think that would be a good format for him and I like his personality and I think that would be a good one. I would love Randy Moss. I think this is like the perfect Randy Moss format. I don't know how that would work with him. And then Belichick would be the dream.

Oh, wow. I think Belichick would love this. I think he would stay on for all three hours. I really do. I don't think he'd want to leave. I think he'd be like, hey, wait, can I stay for the third quarter? Because it's real football shit.

This is what he likes. This is what he thrives on. That's fantastic if it could happen. Worst case scenario, Jerry Jones? Oh my God. That would be like every anecdote is 20 minutes long. Jerry, we've done three commercials since you started that story.

He's just talking over everybody. I was trying to think of former teammates that they could have on. done three commercials since you started that story he's just talking over everybody i was trying to think of former teammates that they could have on and it's pretty checkered history for the most famous former teammates like stray hand i guess could come on sure marvin harrison hasn't been seen again since he retired um i like dwight freeney i don't feel like he's big enough like it's not like peyton had like a lot of famous teammates who've stayed in the public profile and then manning had like tiki barber who everybody kind of quit on yeah stray hand who i don't know what would happen if he came out i guess it would be if eli and stray hand like each other maybe but um other than that

i think the the cross network thing also would be really awesome it could probably never happen but if you had the romo drop in for a quarter, the Strahan drop in for a quarter. That's a great move by Romo if he does that, though. It'd be so cool. I actually think Manning wouldn't do that. Yeah, I don't think Manning. I think Manning has taken great pains to kind of not,

basically don't compare me to Tony Romo. And probably partly because he's like, I was way more successful than Tony Romo. Fuck you. Like, even when I brought it up, he thought I was going to, are you going to be like Romo? And he, I could feel him bristling like a tiny bit. And I was like, no, no, that's not what I mean. Like you re you know, defenses, you're going to be able to predict shit. Um, so I, I don't be interesting if he come on, I I'm sure they'd pretend they were all buddy, buddy. Yeah. I find that by the way, as a rule, if you bring up Tony Romo around any rival announcer or network producer type, they just kind of tense up. They've heard so much about how great Tony

Romo is. They're just like, come on, man. I mean, isn't the new take that Tony Romo is I'm tired of Tony Romo is now the place to be in Take Nation? It's the take. And I actually think the correct take is Romo is awesome when the offense is awesome. But when the offense isn't awesome or the game's boring, he's just fine. Like he really doesn't do. Did you watch Super Bowl last year? That was not a great Tony Romo game.

Wasn't great. He just was, he was kind of like, eh, you know, where's the points? Where's the offense? Like he's great. When, when Mahomes is scoring 40 points, which is like every other game Romo does, he's awesome. Well, you know, who's going to be great this weekend, Gus Johnson, Aqib Talib. The dream team has arrived. My number one choice for a broadcast team is finally here. I cannot wait. Incredible.

Absolutely incredible. It's going to be incredible. It's going to be flat out incredible. I forget what game they're doing. I think it's cards Titans. I don't, don't quote me on that, but I am all in.

All right. Brian Curtis cranking out the press box twice a week, cranking out pieces on the ringer.com. What else are you doing? Anything? Yeah, that's that, that about covers it. Yeah. All right. Sho shoemaker you've lost shoemaker to the wrestling feed he's doing

like 10 wrestling podcasts well yeah we're tagging in and out right to do the wrestling you know i i tag in and he's over there resting in the corner and then i come get him when he's when he's you come in hot you like wipe your face like you're yeah all right kurt right, Curtis, good to see you. See you, Bill. All right, Peter Schrager is here. We're taping this. It is a little before 4.30 Pacific time, about an hour before whatever happens in the Giants- Washington game. Listen, we've talked about

our hot streak. I don't think people really realize how great it's been. So before we even get into football, I just want to talk about our Million Dollar Picks Hot Streak. It started, you came on week 17, last year's pod. We did Million Dollar Picks, won $480,000. He's good luck. Bring him back.

Sure. Round one, $847,000 we win. Round two, $1.585 million we win. Round three, $839,000. Round four, we nail the Super Bowl, 1.382 million. So we win 5.133 million in the last five weeks of last year. What do we do? Schrager's got to come back. Surely we'd go ice cold week one, right, Bill? Well, I'd like to apologize. We weren't able to win a half a million dollars. We only were able to win $465,000 in week one.

Come on now. So not really on our typical pace, but we have had six straight awesome weeks. And the teams that let us down, the Patriots, who I feel like we had that game correctly. And then the Falcons. I feel like we had that game more incorrectly than any game we've had. And let's start here because I think the Falcons go into this. And I know it's like everybody talks about overreaction Monday. There's some teams that just might suck.

The Falcons might suck. The Vikings might suck. Hey, there was three different teams that opened up at home that came out completely flat last week. The Falcons, the Titans, which was very alarming, and then the Giants to lay a complete egg. I am sorry to all those people listening last week where I was like, the 9-11 remotion and the crap.

A complete, I mean, to open up at home and lose is one thing. To open up at home and be completely flat in week one, that is alarming. I listened to a bunch of pods over the last few days. There's some really good football pods this year, including a bunch on the Ringer NFL show. I watched Good Morning Football a few times. You guys look wide awake.

But I think one of the things people were shocked by, well, it's kind of a tie, how bad and discombobulated the Vikings looked and how bad and discombobulated the Vikings looked and how bad and discombobulated the Titans looked. And the Vikings thing makes more sense to me than the Titans thing. Both of those teams have had weird COVID coaching

stuff. The Titans, they changed their offensive coordinator. The Packers, they sucked. I think you throw it away. Do you? I think we learned this week with them. Here's my thing with the Packers. Oh, let's hear it. Okay. This is good. No go. All right. So, you know, all the summer, the drama, whatever. Then in August, they had a

couple of good practices and everyone's like, Hey, it's all good. Put them in pen. They're going to be back in the Superbowl and it's fine. Um, LaFleur has been 26 and six in the Super Bowl and it's fine. LaFleur has been 26-6 in the regular season as the Packers head coach. He has never started a season off anything but then with a giant cushion. They were 4-0 last year when they lost to the Buccaneers 38-10. They were 8-2 a couple of years ago when the 49ers waxed them. They'll play Detroit, They'll win, and everyone will be like, see, told you, relax. They have San Francisco, then Pittsburgh, week three and week four. Look, Rodgers is, hey, relax.

It's going to be cool. We're all going to be all good and all that stuff. It's going to be just fine. I don't know. I don't know. It's pretty good. I've done a lot of listening to Rodgers over the last couple of months. I don't know if it's just fine.

At the end of the day, it'll all wash out. They'll win the NFC North and we'll say, okay, they're in the playoffs. But like when you say that you lost because there was low energy, low energy week one, what else are we building towards? And it was one of those deals where Thursday night, they're all watching Brady Sunday, one o'clock, all these games being played, to have low energy in that game. What does that mean? Low energy. I don't know. This team under the floor has always been to this great cushion. I'm not sure it's going to be such a smooth sailing. And I'll go one step further. I threw out one of those cockamamie trade offers and said, would you do this after week one? And it was from Denver. And it was like, if you're a Packers fan, are you accepting this right now

after week one, Teddy Bridgewater, Bradley Chubb, KJ Hamler, and three first round picks. And all the Packers fans were like, yes. And that to me is crazy. Like, they're ready. Like, let's go. Like, yes. Three first round picks and Bradley Chubb. The Broncos fans were like, we would never do that.

We don't want Rodgers. Like, how quickly the tide turns. When this offseason, it was like, no one would ever have enough to trade for Rogers. And yet the fan base, I think in green Bay and a lot of people watching from afar, we're kind of like, you know what, dude,

like what was that? Like, what was that? It was alarming. It was what it was. I'm not ready. Like the Vikings and the Titans, I think have real fundamental issues.

And I think are in trouble this season. The Pack Titans, I think, have real fundamental issues and I think are in trouble this season. The Packers, they're 11.5 point favorites against the Lions. I'm at this point with them. There's no way I would put the Packers in a tease. I need to watch another week. I was fully alarmed by what I saw last week, but I'm not ready to say yet that, oh my God, this is done or anything like that.

It might've just been a horrible week and they were too overconfident. I don't know. That's why I'm so fascinated by, we tuned the thing with the lions. Here's the thing. Really good offensive line. Ben Solak and a sharper breaking this down the ringer gambling show. You can say what you want about the lions, but they can block there. If, if they can remotely try to resemble what the Saints did,

where the Saints just methodically, they're putting together these 15-play drives, the Packers couldn't do anything. And you're like, all right, the Lions can block. What if they can put a nice 12-play drive and get a field goal to start out? They get a dumb turnover, another long drive. I don't know. I have the Lions down as an underdog parlay possibility. I would not put the Packers in a tease.

On the other hand, wouldn't be surprised if the Packers won 40-3 either. That's why, to me, it's a complete stay away. The beauty of this, you don't have to bet on every game. You pick the games you want to. This one is a stay away game, 100%. You're right. They moved Panay Sewell to the left side and he really handled his business last week against Bosa. Like he was doing a really good job against

maybe the best pass rusher in the NFL. And then you have Decker and Ragnow and like, they're going to protect golf and golf is as much as we want to roll our eyes at Jared Goff. He's a competent quarterback. He can move the ball if he has to. I would think the Packers take care of business, but the beauty of this whole thing we could stay away now what week three and week four tell me is what's going on and unlike any other team if they're one and three or they're two and two like i could see rogers being in the dumps and like this thing just goes completely off the rails you know like you need him happy and and motivated and you can't have him being like well you know this is just what

i told you guys like it can't be that. Like, they need to win those games. Whereas the Titans, they couldn't block. No. The play calling went off a cliff. Their defense is still terrible. And I have real concerns about that team. I, and, you know, I, Craig, who's actually producing this,

is on the Fantasy Football Show. They were talking about Derrick Henry. Could this be this year's bust? Sal and I talked about that on Sunday because I was making fun of Sal because he has Derrick Henry for big money in both teams. One of the things with Derrick Henry is like, he's great if they're up by 10 points.

Yeah. But if they're going to be a 6-11 team or a 5-12 team, you don't want Derrick Henry this year. They can't block. And I don't know going forward. They're playing, who are they playing this week? At Seattle.

That line's only six and a half. I had that one marked. We'll get to the games later. That's a nightmare second game for them. 12th man. Obviously, they're a little discombobulated. I had that one marked down. The Vikings was another one I think we both liked. We're there in Arizona. The Vikings, everybody, they were the team coming out of week one. Everybody was like,

what happened to that team today? Did they get thrown chicken blood was thrown on them? Was there some sort of voodoo curse? Like what is going on with those guys? Inexcusable loss. And to see Zimmer screaming, like he's been screaming the last few years on the sidelines, just absolutely frustrated. You know, the Cardinals defense had a really nice outing last week. And we'll see if they could do it again against Dalvin Cook. But to hold Derrick Henry to 58 yards and eight yards in the first half, I think it was. We could talk negative on the Titans or we could talk positive on the Cardinals here.

It's like, J.J. Watt looked great. I don't know if you watched that game. J.J. Watt was flying all over the place on the goal line one time. They gave it to Henry, and Watt came from the left defensive end spot all the way and made a tackle on the right side. You're like, okay, J.J. Watt. I forgot about J.J. Watt. He's really good. Isaiah Simmons, who was lost last season as a rookie, had nine tackles, an interception, two pressures, made that stop on Henry at the goal line. If the Cardinals' defense is that way- How about my rookie? How'd my rookie do?

Zayven played well. Zayven Collins played well. He was all over the field. Byron Murphy, a third-year guy, was playing well. And of course, Chandler Jones had five sacks and made Taylor LeJuan just look like a turnstile. If the Cardinals can do anything, sort of like what they did,

a defensive effort against the Titans, against Dalvin Cook and the Vikings, this could be 0-2 for the Vikings right out of the gates. And this one's in Arizona. It's not like it's going back home in the Marin, Minnesota. Like they're going on the road. It's not easy. This could be an interesting one.

So AFC South, we have no idea. NFC North, if the Packers are really going to keep laying eggs, we have no idea. Packers will win that division, but it might not be the 14-3 that we all penciled them into. Are you ready to cross off the lines yet? That was a really good comeback. It was a weird game, though.

They were down 38-10. Okay. All right. Somebody weird has to come out of one of those divisions. One of these divisions. Maybe it's the to 10. Okay. All right. I just, somebody weird has to come out of one of those divisions. Maybe it's the Texans. I don't know. It's gotta be somebody that seems completely absurd. When do we get to celebrate the fact that we were the only people in the world to bet on the Texans money line last week? Oh my God. So yeah, to recap last week, we had, we had one of the underdog parlay of the week, which we put $33,000 on.

It was over six to one. Texans Raiders. And the Raiders get to the one inch line. We think they score. They celebrate. They don't. Guy gets a false start. It's an interception off the helmet.

Monday night. So I travel on Saturdays to Los Angeles. I do the Saturday show. I fly back to New York from LA. I come back Monday. I do a whole good morning football fly back to New York from LA. I come back Monday. I do a whole good morning football. I'm like, all right, Monday night football. Let's see. And then it just happens to be the longest, best game ever. And we've got the Manning brothers who, I know you're talking to Curtis. The first quarter I didn't think was lights out. And then by the end

of the game, I'm like, please don't stop talking. I love these two. They were getting into the rhythm. That game was the craziest ending. And I get the feeling a lot of people on the East Coast didn't get an opportunity to really watch it because they were just footballed out. But to have the false start on Leatherwood, who is one of the most debated first round picks in NFL history, then to throw the interception

right through Willie Sneed's hands, then for the forced fumble, and then for the touchdown, just a crazy win. And the fact that it was the final piece to our Million Dollar Picks week was like the most jubilant I've been at 1 a.m. And the fact that it was the final piece to our million dollar picks week was like the most jubilant I've been at 1am in the morning in quite some time. And a fascinating Lamar game, right? Now, wide receiver core, not exactly great. He's down to

his third, fourth, fifth, and sixth receivers. I get it. But rooting against them, wanting the Raiders to win because we had our underdog parlay of the week. I just wasn't scared of him when he had the ball late in the game. And I don't know whether it had to do with the weapons or the fact that the Raiders were kind of playing him correctly and keeping him in check and not sending the house at him so then he could scramble around. Also, he's running for 30 yards, which he ended up doing once or twice. I just didn't feel like he was going to beat them. And I'm really wondering, I've been saying this for a couple of weeks, that this is a year from hell season for the Ravens. All the fucking

breadcrumbs have been dropped, culminating in that Monday night football game. It's crazy. They're up 14 at one point. I mean, okay, you say that about Lamar, let's flip the table or flip the script here. 29 seconds left. Derek Carr gets the ball down three. Is there any confidence he's going to lead them? And he does. Like, weird things were happening. I don't have a lot.

No, but there was one thing with that. They couldn't cover Waller. They had no chance. They couldn't. That one was Edwards, though. No, no, but I know. But I had confidence only because it was like they threw to Waller 20 times and he caught 18 of them or whatever.

It was nuts. And the other two were thrown behind him. He was wide open the whole game. So I was like, well, maybe Waller can get open. Yeah. I guess. And they were then double teaming Waller and sending the house. Wink Martindale sends the house on literally every play.

And then they just got this guy, Brian Edwards, a third round pick from last year's draft class who made some huge plays down the stretch. That Raiders game was really fun. We could talk Ravens. Raiders going into Pittsburgh on six days when the Steelers have seven days doing their home opener. That is the classic Raiders dramatic win.

And then the next week, Raiders just get absolutely pushed around, whatever happens. Well, what do we make of the Steelers? Hey, Craig, can you join the Zoom for a second? Get in here, Horlbeck. What's up? Craig's a Steelers fan. Craig, it felt like you should have won the game by 20 points.

You left a whole bunch of stuff on the table. I don't know if I liked how your quarterback looked. And then there were these crazy Najee Harris stats after the game where he played every snap. 100%. Every time he was, like 75% of the time, somebody hit him behind the line before he's able to get over the line of scrimmage.

And then it just seemed like, I thought Sharp and Solek did a good job of breaking down. They had this incredible scheme with Allen where they just didn't blitz him. And they just like Jedi mind tricked them and did the whole thing. Are the Steelers good? Well, after the first quarter, I was like,

oh, they're going to lose 14 games. Like Ben couldn't do anything. And I was like, we're screwed. And then down 10. Oh, they looked awful. And then I just they started using Claypool a little bit more. They still don't use him enough. I don't know why they don't. They've heard of Juju way more than they did Claypool, but it was all defense.

I mean, the punt, if they didn't block the punt, they'd probably lose that game, but they basically just use the same thing. The bucks did to the chief in the Superbowl. They got four guys to rush Allen and they out scheme. Then they had the whole off season to plan.

I think the Steelers defense is going to make them like a 10 win team still. And if Ben can stay upright, they'll win like 10, 11 games. But offensively, I still don't feel good at all. Bill.

I took, I took the Steelers to make the playoffs this year. I know we did our podcast before the season. I said, Steelers and Seahawks are my teams that no one's talking about. Let's go with them. If you were to bet right now, Pittsburgh is still plus three 10 to win the AFC North.

I think that's a good bet. I still like Cleveland the most. I was impressed by Cleveland and that loss. I know they shit the bed and it was the classic dumb Browns-Chiefs game that I guess we're just going to have every year. But I thought they hung with them and I thought they did what they wanted offensively

for most of that game. What was a better win though than the Bills being the Super Bowl pick, everyone taking them, and the Steelers going in there, regardless of how it looked. They start six rookies, including their amazing punter, Presley Harvin III, who is going to be a superstar with just everything he's got going on. Seventh round pick out of Georgia Tech. But I look at what the Steelers did and I'm like, all right, this is a coaching deal where Mike Tomlin is a really good coach and he's not going to have his team come out and be outmanned.

And they heard all the talk this off season about them not being what they used to be. And quite frankly, I think they heard that the bills were supposed to go to the Superbowl. Like, all right, let's go ruin their dreams. Week one to this week,

you get the terrible towels going, you get the renegade going, you get the whole thing going. I feel like Derek Carr on a game going into Pittsburgh. Steelers could be 2-0 after two games and suddenly we're like, oh, Pittsburgh. Of course, Pittsburgh. Well, you think week one is always tough because you have so much time to plan for it.

And especially when it's arrival, you can even put more thought into it. They caught a huge break with this. Raiders. If this was a normal situation, I would love the Raiders as an underdog parlay. but the Raiders were playing it was like a couple hours ago

1am on Monday night they're playing or 12.30am whenever it was and then they have to play the 1pm Sunday game that's too brutal man Tomlin's got a history of losing these weird ones I think they lost to the Bears a few years ago so I was going to ask you that,

you know, you know, it's going to happen in the next five weeks. It will happen. It's a terrible game. I don't think it happens week two. I don't think, I think they win this game.

I think they take care of business in this game. And then we're talking Steelers for the next several weeks because their defense is really good. Melvin Ingram is a guy that no one else wanted, did not get many, eight pressures in that game and looks healthy. And he's on the other side of TJ Watt. And I think Melvin Ingram might be an upgrade

from a recovered ACL Bud Dupree. Like, it might be an upgrade. You go right down the list. Minka was amazing. Devin Bush, TJ Watt. Their defense is going to keep them in a lot of games. And no, the offense didn't look great, but they're on the road in Buffalo.

I feel like their offense will find itself and Najee will be just fine. They can get pressure without doing crazy blitzes. Yep. That's a short list. Yeah, that's a short list. Are there less than five teams that can do that?

Yeah, I mean, maybe San Francisco and Tampa. Tampa. I'm hoping my Patriots can get there. I always appreciate Craig's honesty about the Steelers. He's like, you know how the fans of teams can go one of two ways? I like to think I'm honest about the Patriots. Like I know when we don't have it.

I know when we have it. I still think they have it. All right. When we come back, we have a lot of games to go through and we have a streak to continue, my friends. Million Dollar Picks is next. All right.

As always, we are going to go through the games that we're looking at, that we're circling, we're searching, we're sniffing out. Kind of like my dog, Willie, always sniffs something before he eats it.

We're going to sniff out these bets. We have four possible tease-slash-parlay teams that I like. Two I love. something before he eats it. We're going to sniff out these bets. We have four possible T slash parlay teams that I like. Two I love. The other two I'm going to talk about. Patriots are minus five and a half against the Jets. I think this line moves to seven or seven and a half by game time. I don't understand why the line is so low, especially when Becton, the Jets left tackle, is now out. Zach Wilson seemed like

he was running for his life half that game anyway. Sacked six times. The Pats, I think, are good. I actually like, just for this game, that they're coming off a loss because Belichick does

the 0-2 thing, no. Mack answered a lot of questions for me in that game. And it was a really stupid game that they lost. I think they have way more talent than the Jets. So I want to put them in a tease or a parlay. Do you disagree with any of that? Before we get to this particular matchup, the amount of responses, I think I live on Twitter a little bit more than you do. I'm never out there. Oh, I know. I know. The amount of responses I got being tagged in every post because you took the Patriots to win a Super Bowl

was enough for me not to get out of bed the next day. What has been the reaction in your circles of you picking the Patriots, not only to make the playoffs, but to win the Super Bowl before the season? I got to tell you, I feel better about it this week than I did last week. Of course you do.

Wait, the Chiefs defense, week than I did last week. Of course you do. Wait, the Chiefs defense, did they impress you last week? Did anyone in the AFC North knock your socks off? Did the Bills knock your socks off? I think it's open. I don't think there's a great team. You saw that pass that Tua threw

off his back foot. You're like, all right, they're going to win this game. And then Damian Harris fumbles. You're just like, what? And they just don't get the ball back. And then we're off to 60 minutes. And I'm like, wait a second.

There's still more to be played. It made no sense at the end there. I thought they were going to win that game, but they didn't. This week, just take care of business. I think the way the spread is like that is I think Vegas and a lot of other people just don't see how the Patriots are going to generate enough points to win by a touchdown. They'll win, but it's not this high-flying offense. They don't put points up on the board. They only scored what I think 19 or 18 points last week, whatever it was.

Yeah. But Miami might have a really good defense. They might. And they might have that. But I think the Vegas and all those folks really respect Salah and Belichick was so complimentary of Salah this week that I think he knows the scheme he knows going in, but I agree. This is one of those where Belichick kills you with kindness and he's gonna cut your throat like I think they come out there this Mac played so well last week and I know it doesn't show up in the fantasy football numbers but Flores sent pressure the entire game and Mac Jones he faced five or more rushers on 48 percent of his drop backs and he stood in there and delivered. I'm looking at some of the numbers I've jotted down doing research on these games.

Flores sent pressure more than 25% of his dropbacks, and Mac Jones had 123 passer rating when he did. Jones is going to be there. He's so competent. He's so capable. And quite frankly, on the other end, Zach played well, but rookies are 6- 20 against Belichick.

It's a very complex defense. This is not the Phil Snow Panthers who had six sacks. This is Belichick, Patricia, and all the different Belichick kids drawing stuff up to confuse a rookie. I see them rolling in this one. I also thought they were way too conservative in the first half, maybe first three quarters of that game. And Mackle looked a little nervous. I get it. But they were doing a lot of too tight end, a lot of always running on first down, stuff like that.

And I actually thought when they spread it out, he was pretty good. And he has that Brady ability. If he goes to the line, he's kind of looking around and he kind of knows where to go. And I bet they unleash him a little bit in this Jets game.

I really think they're going to kind of experiment with some different formations. I think you hit Becton being out. The Jets offensive line is atrocious. One of the worst in the leagues. The Panthers had six sacks and they're not exactly, you know, the 90s Eagles. Yeah, they're not that. I think you're going to see a lot of Josh Uche. I think this is where you get your sacks from the backfield.

I could see this being... I know it's on the road and the Jets always play hard when it's the Patriots in town, but I could see this being ugly and very early. Belichick against a rookie QB. I need to know no more. We're going to probably use the Patriots as a swing team for a couple of different bets.

The other one the other one I really like cards minus three and a half against the Vikes your guy Cliff that was one of the crispest games anyone played and I gotta say I said this Sunday night watching it it's clear that Kyler Murray

was just really hurt the second half of last year because that looked like the old Kyler Murray he was flying around. He just flying. And defensively, they're frisky. I know the Titans were having some issues, but they're frisky. So I look, they're only laying three and a half against the Vikings. I think the Vikings are getting this weird respect from the...

Vegas's job is just to make the spread to get equal action. I think people still think the Vikings are good and they're not, it's not a good team. They're not well coached. I think Zimmer is, has to be in the running for first coach fired. You can't overstate what an abomination that week one loss was and how bad they were. And then the cards, you know, at least for September. Um, yeah, I don't know. I. I just, I was surprised that line wasn't like cards by seven. Vikings defense was the worst it's ever been under Zimmer last year. And then all, all off season, it was, they're built up the defense. They're healthy.

They've got what they need. The defensive, they gave up 27 points, 370 yards and could not do anything to stop Joe Burrow and those guys down the stretch. So if that's the case in week one- It was embarrassing. Here comes Cliff, who you say, my guy. He is my guy. I talk to him all the time. And all the Reddit people are going to be like, enough with Schrager name dropping his friend. No, I'm telling you, here's the deal. He hasn't even touched the depth of the playbook. They were up by so much early.

They were in their fourth quarter or fourth, you know, four minute offense last week where it was like, let's just run our standard stuff. Like they got a whole part of the playbook for Rondale Moore they haven't used yet. They haven't even gotten AJ Green. He had a good game. I think he was four for 68.

Yes. And then they went through in the last quarter. And they used him in a really cool way where it's like, hey, let's go bubble screen, go. You're the man. Rondale is going to put up huge numbers this year, but AJ Green is healthy and has a whole part of the playbook that they haven't even touched yet. I feel like this was, oh my gosh, we're beating the Titans by this much early on. Let's just call off the dogs and not show anything on film.

They have a whole other part of this offense. So Kyler, who was running 50 yards in the backfield and then completing passes, just an insane thing to watch. It's September. He's healthy. He hasn't been hit yet. This one to me is Cardinals. And I think yet again, I think they put up a lot of points on a Vikings defense that was supposed to be much better this season. And they're at Jacksonville next week, we should mention. So as you know, we love narratives here on Million Dollar Picks. The 3-0 Cardinals feels like a narrative.

Oh my God, this NFC West, could we have four playoff teams? Could we have six playoff teams for the NFC West? One thing I loved about that offense, because the offensive line had its bad moments last year, especially down the stretch against San Francisco and LA. Last year, Kyler had an average of three seconds when he was under pressure before he had to throw the ball. Last week, he had more than five seconds back there. So the offensive line played better. And that could be a result of Tennessee's defense not getting what they needed out of their front four,

whatever it is. But gosh, if Kyler's got time back there, he can extend a play with his legs. He's maybe the most versatile rushing quarterback. I think he might be a more dangerous threat than Lamar even back there as far as using his legs. And then he's got this crazy where he like crow hops and throws these wild 60-yard passes off his back feet. He's got four receivers that are all really good. And Christian Kirk was one of them. Really like the receivers.

I like the Rondell Moore addition. So they're only three and a half over the Vikes. You could put a Pats Cards parlay together for plus 116. So mark that the fuck down. Let's go. Next two that we have to mention in the Tees parlay group. Seahawks, minus six and a half against the Titans. You really have to believe that the Titans are just not...

Let's talk it out. The Seahawks there, minus 300, three to one odds, or you can put them in a tease. There's red flags with this for me, which is why I had it third. I hate the team that looked awesome in week one

going, it's the team that looked like shit in week one. So you really have to commit to the Titans bit. If you believe, if you're going to put the Seahawks in a teaser, probably you have to think like that team sucks. The Titans stink this year. And in two weeks, this line would be Seahawks by nine and a half. A couple of things I would, why I would stay away from this altogether. I don't know if you saw Vrabel in the post game, just tear Julio a new asshole. Did you see that or no? No. So Julio had a dumb penalty. It was a 15 yard penalty. And here's Vrabel gets to the press conference and destroys Julio, like basically just completely rips him apart. And it's like, it's unacceptable. And yeah, I'm on good morning football and the next day, I'm talking to Thomas Davis, who was a 16 year NFL linebacker. He's filling in for Nate this week.

And I'm like, gosh, that was harsh. And he says, no, you need to do that. You need to call out your most established veteran and show that everyone is getting criticized this week for that effort. So yes, it was- Should I do that with Brian Curtis when he comes on? I'm just going to rip Brian Curtis when he comes in. He's my established veteran. He's your guy. You've had him for a long time. I'm going to do that. When he comes on, I'm just going to start screaming at him.

Okay, keep going. The way that that is, though, that's like Vrabel, almost like red alarms, sirens to everyone in the building. No one is untouchable. If I'm taking on Julio, who is a Hall of Famer, first week as a Titan, I'm taking on all of you.

So you're thinking Titans plus 245 a little bit here. I would not touch this game for a million. The old B. Arthur line. Let's just go with that from the roast. I'm not touching it. That's all I'm saying. I would stay far away because I think Seattle's good, but no idea what Tennessee comes around. Vrabel is what you call a red ass. He will get into, like, there's no way they're coming out flat this week. What about the COVID pieces of it? Yeah. I think that might've played

a role until week one. Yeah. That's what I mean. So does that go away? Stay away. I would stay away from this team altogether and at least give me a couple weeks before I bet against the Titans as if they're a walkover. I think the red flags of week two is when you avoid that specific somebody coming in way too high, other one coming in way too low.

By the way, the Colts might suck. Who knows? Okay. Last one would be Chiefs minus three and a half over the Ravens. The money line. this line has moved. I actually bet it when it was two and a half on Monday before the Ravens game. It's now minus three and a half.

It's in Baltimore. And the Chiefs are basically two to one favorites. What would you say? So this is why I bet it when it was two and a half. I just feel like if I have the Chiefs offense healthy against pretty much anyone in the league except for three teams and it's less than three points, I'm just taking them.

I just am. Now, after what we saw from the Ravens, the fact that they had a long grueling game on Monday, that they've had even more injuries, I think their scope position guys are bad. Mark Andrews is one of those where it's like, Mark Andrews, it's like, all right. Big contract, three catches, 20 yards.

Is he better than TJ Hawkinson? Is he better than Tyler Higbee? I don't know. I just think the Chiefs are better. I think they have Lamar's number. And I think it's Ravens 0-2 panic time. Now, the question is, do you want to lay the 3.5 or do you want to put them in a parlay where it's like the minus 198

or you put them in a tease, something like that, so you don't have to worry about the cheap touchdown, all that stuff. I think the Chiefs win. That's my premise. I think they win the game. I don't know about the spread, but I think they win. What do you think? That place is a hard place to go into at night.

Fair. Sunday night. Mahomes, though. Collinsworth and Michaels. Oh, Patrick Mahomes. It's Patrick Mahomes. My God, Al. My God.

This is actually interesting. So, obviously, Mahomes cannot lose to any of these young quarterbacks. I think he's undefeated against Josh Allen undefeated against Baker. He's three and Oh, all time against Lamar. I looked this up. Brady beat Manning the first six times they played. Then I was looking for other rivalries. Bradshaw beat Staubach the first four times they played and Aikman beat Steve Young the first three times they played. That's like the biggest differentials of great quarterbacks going up against each other. Is Lamar really going to go 0-4 against Mahomes?

Like at home in front of their audience? I guess I would push back. Is Lamar a great quarterback? That's fair. Because I'm not sure he is. That's fair. I wouldn't put him in the Mahomes class. That's fair.

I think the Chiefs win. I would feel a little nervous about the three and a half or four and a half spread. What is going on with the Chiefs defense, in your opinion? Because that was the most... If you're going to take Baltimore in this game, you're going to take them because the Chiefs defense looks so bad against Cleveland.

Couldn't stop them. Honey Badger was out because of the COVID. He was actually fine to play, and then they didn't dress him. Frank Clark, obviously. And then, you know, all things that we hear all off season is just how good Nick Bolton is and how good the, you know, wow, Chris Jones is going to be defensive player there. He looks unstoppable. And then the same things happen with the chiefs where they're down in the fourth quarter and they need Mahomes to pull a rabbit out of his hat. And he does every single time. I don't think we're ever going to see a steel curtain-like defense from the Chiefs.

It's just not built that way. So do I see Lamar running all over them? No, but I do see the Ravens putting up more points than you would imagine as far as, oh, on paper, here we go. Chiefs, of course, they'll blow out the Ravens. And the Ravens will keep up with the Chiefs. I mean, what if they just play a zone the whole game,

have a spy for Lamar, and just be like, bring your scope positions at us. We don't care. We're not afraid. Marquis Brown, we're doing this on Thursday. He might not go on Sunday night. You're right. They have just been stung by the bad luck. And I think the running game was actually fine. Tyson Williams played well. Latavius will be all right. They're fine because of the scheme, but gosh, to be out there without Marcus Peters, you really felt it. I felt like Derek Carr was just, you know, picking them apart in the fourth quarter. Marcus Peters is such a big player. Like Humphrey on the other side is

probably the better overall corner, but Peters is your game breaker. He's your interception guy. He's your pick six guy. And to lose him with his, he's also got a certain, you know, zest for it on the field where he's a talker in it. I don't know. Ravens defense might not be what we thought they were going to be either. So two ways to go. You can just do a Chiefs-Pats or a Chiefs-Pats-Cards parlay. Okay. And that would be a plus 226 or three teams, seven point tees, bring the Pats down to plus 1.5, Cards to plus 3.5, Chiefs to plus 3.5, that's plus 120.

That's too safe. I like the first one better. Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. All right, we're going to take a break and then we're going to go through the rest of the games. All right, let's rip through these really quick. Bills, Dolphins. I'm crossing this off.

I'm not betting it. Stay away. It's a stay away. I do think the Steelers, that might have been fluky, making the Bills look bad. And I just know rooting against the Dolphins for four quarters, two and third and eight or worse, you're stopping them. He's just, I just don't think he has it.

I think if it's gimmicky, if it's second and two, third and eight or worse, you're stopping him. I just don't think he has it. I think if it's gimmicky, if it's second and two, third and four, first and 10 play action, he can move the ball. Basically, if you know he has to pass, he's not going to do well. Remember that Flores is 0-4 against Josh Allen. They've lost five in a row. They've given up an average of 31 points those last five games to Buffalo. Buffalo owns the Dolphins. I would have to think that Flores has these guys well aware, home opener, down there in the heat in Miami. We can get them here. If Miami wins, they have basically a three-game cushion on the Bills because they would have the tiebreaker early on and be 2-0 and Buffalo would be 0 and two. I think Miami is going to fight hard in this one.

I would stay away from that one altogether. Yeah. Cause I could see either way, right? You could see the Josh Allen. He owns the Miami narrative coming out of this. You could also see the, Oh,

Miami really is good. I think the Patriots are good. And the fact that Miami went toe to toe with them. And I think some of the two stuff maybe will take a couple months to unfold, but how good was Jalen Waddle though? He looked great. I was some of the Tua stuff maybe will take a couple months to unfold. How good was Jalen Waddell though? He looked great. I was terrified of him. Isn't that guy scary? Alright, we're crossing this one off.

That's out. Eagles used to be plus three and a half at home against the Niners. There was a lot of Eagles money. The money line shifted from I think minus 170 or plus 170 to plus 130 on FanDuel. And now they're plus three.

The Niners are decimated in their secondary. Already. They have Elijah Mitchell, who Craig and I, at the end of this podcast, we're going to do some fantasy stuff. We're going to litigate this. Should you feel good about yourself if you spend $40 on Elijah Mitchell?

Use all your fab points. All your fab on this guy who's like their third back. I liked what I saw from the Eagles. They also didn't really ask... Well, they didn't ask Jalen Hurts to do that much, right? He wasn't throwing it downfield. It was all like short stuff,

gimmicks stuff, screens, all fast stuff. And the Falcons were awful. So... I told you this. What seemed more sustainable to me was the Eagles' defense. I thought they had like a legit pass rush. They were active. They had energy. They had more. I just liked what I saw. I don't

know if it can continue. Yeah. I watched that whole game. Greg Olson's debut on the broadcast was actually very good. And he was just crushing this kid Mayfield, the offensive lineman from Atlanta. But I don't even think it was Mayfield's fault. I think the defensive front from the Eagles is really good. I mean, Javon Hargrave is all over the place. Fletcher Cox was really good. Brandon Graham was making plays. I told you last week, I was like, I don't know what to do with the Eagles because as much as Sirianni seems like a joke, I know what he's giving to that team. And it's these crazy motivational speeches. And it's just like impassioned. Like we're in this cause we love each other stuff. And players respond. They came out like a house on fire last week. And what I heard was, and it was reported by John

Clark, uh, in Philadelphia, but I heard it Sunday, uh, Saturday night, he did a speech before the game against Atlanta. And he, he told the players to all hug each other. And Sirianni was crying in the, in the Saturday night speech about how much he loves his team. Like this is week one, like just all in like, like emotional, like, let's go. He'll get them going. That, that Philly fan base went from being in complete hysterics and nerves over this hire to now Nick Sirianni will never have to eat and never pay for another meal again. Like they are all in because what he plays on is like, we embody Philadelphia. We're tough. We have tough offensive line. We have tough defensive line. We're going to grind it out on you. And the players are buying in, uh, San Francisco to start the season like they did in that weird fashion and now travel all the way across the country to play the Eagles. And what's going to be. I don't, I don't even think they traveled. I think they

stayed on the East coast, but I'm saying like, but they have like, they're on their third and fourth running backs. They're on like their third and fourth cornerbacks. It makes me nervous. I had a, a rival GM who is no fan of the 49ers text me and said, is it that the 49ers have incredibly bad injury luck or is it that they always sign players with terrible injury history? Like Jason Verrett can never stay healthy. He's going to get hurt. That's just what's going to happen. Mostert's hurt every year. He got hurt four years earlier than he usually does. So you gave Mostert this big extension, but like, I don't know. So other people would say you can't predict anything, but the soft tissue stuff is like whatever it is. But look, the Niners have a roster of guys who have injury

history and eventually guys with injury history do get hurt. And those two players, Mostert and Verrett, unfortunately have a really long decorated injury history. I didn't like the Iuke thing made me, that was weird. Iuke and me... Ayuk and Sermon. Yeah, but I guess Sermon just didn't do that well. Ayuk was really good last year as a rookie, I felt like. And then this year, they're like, yeah, you're going to sit... It just feels like there's some weirdness going on there. The Trey Lance thing has been weird. The fact that they gave up all these picks for a guy when...

I watch Fields and Jones and I'm just like, these guys are starting quarterbacks. Why did you have to trade up in this draft to get one of these guys anyway? There's a weird vibe developing around that Niners team and maybe the cards take their spot, I'm wondering. And yet, they won.

They're 1-0 and they'll probably win this week. That was like a bad loss though. It was the weirdest game of the week. Yeah, I mean, Goff is driving to win. So anyway, it was the weirdest game. Oh my God. Yeah. I mean, that golf is driving to win. So anyway, it's Eagles plus three. I stay away.

What makes me nervous is it seems too obvious. I liked it more three and a half. We'll come back to it. Just, this is really quick. Just the bears are terrible. The Bengals are also kind of terrible. And because the Bengals won,

the bears are minus one and a half at home over the Bengals. If the Bears don't win this game or the two Lions games, do they just go winless this year? It kind of feels like they have to win this game. Now I know the Bengals were able to throw the ball and at least move it. But to me, this is like a pick them game and I get the team at home. I just wanted to mention it. The Bears defense, I said it last week, I is like a pick-em game, and I get the team at home. I just wanted to mention it. The Bears defense. I said it last week. I'm like, they have this first-year defensive coordinator,

Sean Desai, who's really well-regarded. But the deep pass to Cooper Cup in the third quarter, there was three defenders looking at each other. And those are good defensive backs. Eddie Jackson is a good player. It made no sense that that was happening. And then McVay didn't even have to go deep in the playbook. Stafford had the highest passer rating ever against the Bears in a game.

Stafford did it. My driving daughter just brought me a Starbucks. It's like having your own Uber driver, Shanks. You said I heard it in parent corner. Craig, you see this? Look at this. It's my own Starbucks. Did you go Trent-icized?

What? Oh, now she's mad at me? Your driving daughter? No, I said my driving daughter. Driving daughter. Yeah, no, I was complimenting you. I adore you. You're my favorite person.

I really appreciated the Starbucks. Craig, you can leave this in. You're a great kid and you're a credit to the Simmons family. No, she can stay. The car hit something. That was amazing. All right. Sorry, I interrupted you.

Keep going. Just that Stafford had his way. It's the first time out there in this Bears defense. He looked great. The Bears defense gave up the worst passer rating ever in the history of the Chicago Bears franchise to a guy playing his first game with new receivers. I have no confidence that Joe Burrow is not going to light this defense up. I have no, at no point in that game.

Did I think that Stafford ever had any issues just throwing all over that team? Now, of course the Bengals aren't the Rams, but I don't know. Like is, are we sure that Cincinnati is not going to put up 400 passing yards on this team?

It's a stay away. Craig, can you come back in? Yeah. Does this kill you with the recording when we use your zoom or it's good? It's okay. Um, no,

he's making a face like, all right, this will be the last time I do this till you come on. No, no, it's fine. It's fine. Um,

where were you on the Cooper cup had an ACL. That's actually a two year injury. We should be talking about this guy as the best fantasy receiver you can get in 2021. You literally, this is your show. You have a fantasy show. What a great take that would have been. Where were you? And my God, do you not speak with his head coach

10 times during the off season? You produced Flying Coach. How is that not your take? This is the year of Cooper Cup. Craig was talking about Marquez Calloway instead. I was not on Marquez Calloway instead. I was not on Marquez Calloway. Listen, I was in on the Rams receivers. I was huge on Higby, which

hit. My whole thing was that we were ranking the Rams receivers as if Goff was still the quarterback. They were essentially just in the same slots we had them every year. So I was like, this should be higher. I don't know why both of them I didn't know which one was going to hit. It looks like it's going to be Cup, but I was like, we're not ranking them as those Stafford's here.

Well, I, from what I saw in that game, and then you see the yards after the catch, if we're redoing what fantasy receiver would you want to take Tyreek off? Yeah. Who's two, who's two might be Cooper cups.

Not to Deandre Hopkins. Sure. I think I'd rather have cup watching, watching how they did that offense. What about Amari Cooper now after that game? No, stop it. He'll get hurt.

Knowing that McVay is like, I'm going to vindicate the Stafford trade at least three times a game by having him air it out for 60 yards and I'm just going to... I really think I would take Cup second.

And the play of the day was not even the deep stuff. It was the third and 13, the backbreaker. They're up 13 points in the fourth quarter and they throw him like a bubble screen and he goes 13 yards and fights off eight defender. Cup is so good, so tough. And I could tell you that Van Jefferson touchdown where no one touched him, that play all week was going to cup. And then they threw Van Jefferson out there and they're like, it's wide open. Let's just go with Van and do it. Like they're so interchangeable. All those guys. Um, I just, I'm so high on their offense, put up a lot of yards, but Cooper cup is long been one of the best receivers in the league

and does not get the respect he deserves. Craig, do that on the show tomorrow. Is Cooper cup the second best receiver? If we had their drafts again, also Schrager, you should know because he produced flying coach. Yeah. Craig now has like $58,000 worth of Rams Stafford future bets. Like he's like, he's so all in on the Rams. That's actually bad for him. If anything goes wrong. That's a hundred percent true.

Yeah. Um, Craig, while you're up here, do you want to tell Bill and the listeners about your experience at Shea McVay? Well, uh, I went, uh, before the season started to set him up. I was like, hey,

I can just set up your equipment for you. I can do it outside. I don't have to come in. He's like, no, come on in. What's up? Let's talk. And I went in and chatted with him for 30 minutes and he's the best. And I was like, well, I'm a Rams fan now. Sean told me that he went to the bathroom and came out and Craig was fumbling through his acc, like his accolades and his awards. Like he went into the room and he saw Craig just going through like his NFC championship ring and all this stuff. Paging through his yearbook. Yeah. I was doing everything. Yeah. NFC championship ring. Exactly. Cause the Patriots took the real ring from him. I don't even know if there is an NFC championship ring. You guys should have like McVay Kool-Aid drinking meetings. Wait, Craig,

stay on for this one. Cowboys Chargers. That line has moved to three and a half plus for the Cowboys. It's in LA. To Marcus Lawrence being out. I know, I know. But for some reason, they're judging this like it's a home field advantage thing for the Chargers

and yet, what, 95%? Craig, you live live here do you know any chargers fans i'm becoming one but no i don't know any i love the charges but this screams cowboys tees you get them up to 10 and a half if you do seven point tees on this that's easy pair it with like the rams get them to like plus three that's easy this game's to be like 30 to 35. Bill, does Craig have a history with million-dollar picks? Do we give a shit what he's saying right now? I mean, we could listen to him

and see what happens. I mean, what part of how you grow an unbelievable franchise... Maybe this is it. We'll give him a shot. Craig, let me ask you this. You teased the Cowboys to 10.5. You teased the over down to 47.5. You teased the over down to 47.5. Oh, my God. Lock of the century.

On the fantasy show coming out tomorrow, we talked about the over-under for Dak and Herbert's yards are both around 300. Hammer the over on that. They're both going to throw for like 370. Herbert was weirdly good last week for such a strange game. I mean, Rashawn Slater should be your AFC offensive rookie of the year. He held Chase Young to one pressure and completely held it down as a starting

left tackle in his first career game. Unbelievable. He was awesome. And then Lindsley, their center, Bulaga, the Chargers offensive line is going to keep that pocket clean. I think the Chargers beat the Cowboys this weekend. That's my take. And home field really doesn't play much of a role because it's going to be mixed. I'm with you on, I think this is a stay away as a straight up, but I like the idea of a tease. So we'll get back to that. All right. Thanks, Craig. Love you, Craig.

Two more quick ones. Texans are plus 12 and a half against the Browns. It's just way too high. It's just way too high. It's the most the Browns have ever been favored, I think think since they moved back to cleveland in 99 i don't know if the texans are bad bill the texans are going to be fun as hell to watch they they ran the pistol offense last week the entire time they had the pistol out there which is like nevada chris alt type stuff um tim kelly's the offensive coordinator i you know i

don't think anyone talked about the Texans because it was like, Deshaun Watson's not there. Well, Deshaun Watson was four and 12 as the starter. I don't know what the rest of the team felt about the being dismissed, but I know that Tyrod Taylor, Danny Amendola, Mark Ingram, Justin Britt, Brandon Cooks are pros. Those are pros. They don't come out and they don't get pushed around and they're not going to get embarrassed

by a first-year coach and a first-year quarterback. They took care of business and they were underdogs at home last week. I don't think necessarily that this team is going to get blown out by the Cleveland Browns, even in Cleveland. Tyrod's got a lot of pride. That team has a lot of pride.

And they play a smart football. If you saw last week it was like they just moved the ball down the field amandola is still playing seventh team got signed about two days before the season starts and he's killing mark engram they have some like old kg veterans oh my god philip lindsey i mean he's not as old as those guys but these guys listen texans plus 12 and i have lions plus 11 and a half, Lions plus 11 and a half. So then the obvious thing would be like, oh, cool. I'll do a three-team 10-point tease.

Browns only have to win by three. Packers only have to win by two. And I have 10 free points to move everywhere else I want. It looks too easy on paper, Peter Schrager. I'm afraid of it. I don't know. Which one are you more afraid of? Because we talked about the Lions-Packers case earlier. What if the Packers just suck? What if the lions are able to just

block them? And I'm afraid of both of those games. So I just wanted to flag that, uh, real quick on the Texans. They ran something called 13 personnel, which is three tight ends, one running back, one wide receiver, a bunch of times during the game. And the Jaguars, it looked like they had never seen it before. What the Texans were running on offense was so fun to watch. No one watched this game. They were all over the field with all these different formations. They can confuse a defense. I think they're going to be sneaky competitive in this one. So stay away. Are you ready to have the, could the Texans win the AFC South conversation yet or no? No. Cause I saw the Jaguars win their first game and lose 15 straight last year. So I'm going to

slow down on the Texans hype, but I know this, I talked to a guy in their organization the night before the game. And I was like, so what about the Sean Watson? How's that? And they're like, dude, it's not even a conversation within the team. They all have their own thoughts on it, but like, there's too many professionals on this team. Brandon Cooks has been in Super Bowls. Mark Ingram has been in big games. Tyrod's won a Super Bowl ring and he's played. They're not worried about, is Deshaun coming back or not? These guys are all playing for their careers. So that was never really an issue within that building. Do you want to hear the AFC South odds on Fandle? Yeah. What do we got?

Titans minus 105. Okay. Gave up five sacks to one guy last week. Yes. Colts plus 140. Probably one of my three least favorite quarterbacks in the league. Jags nine to one. Ridiculous. Texans 13 to one. How do the Texans have worse odds than the Jaguars? Didn't people watch football? Just beat them. Should we put a 13-1 on? I don't know, man. They're fun to root for. Certainly thought about it.

Okay. Underdog parlay possibilities. Dolphins plus 156 against the Bills. I like it. Panthers plus 160 over the Saints. That's a classic. Saints looked awesome. Oh my God, Jameis.

And then it's in Carolina. Is it in Carolina? It is in Carolina. It is in Carolina. They start the first two games at home. Yeah, and they're plus three and a half. And those NFC South games are always super close. So Eagles plus 130. Texans plus 460, Lions plus 440. And I just

want to mention Lions-Texans parlay, 29 to 1 if they both win. I don't want that. That can't happen. 29 to 1. That can't happen. We rooted so hard for the Texans and Raiders last week and pulled it off. I feel like we're pressing our luck if we go for that parlay, but I like the Dolphins. So you like the Dolphins. I think I do too. I don't think you bet them plus three and a half. I think if you like them, you bet them plus 160. Bet them to win. Put some chest hair on your chest. Let's go. Dolphins, and I will roll with you at the Panthers if you want to have a long shot parlay and do Dolphins, Panthers. All right, so Dolphins, Panthers. That is plus 565.

You don't want to throw the Texans in there with the Panthers? No, because if we get those first two and the Texans don't deliver, we'll be kicking ourselves. No, I'm just saying Texans, Panthers. Oh, just Texans, Panthers. Texans don't deliver, we'll be kicking ourselves. No, I'm just saying Texans-Panthers. Oh, just Texans-Panthers. Texans win in Cleveland. Get rid of that and then Texans plus 460.

That is $100 to win $1,350. Can I suggest one? Can we do Miami win straight up and then Panthers win straight up, and then Texans keep it within 12 and a half? And do that as a-

No, that violates the underdog parlay rules. Well, plus 565, that's what we'll look. All right, when we come back, the Million Dollar Picks for week two. Yes! Million Dollar Picks week two. Yes. Million dollar picks week two. We made $465,000 last week. You know we're going well when we're like,

all right, that was good, but we know we can do better than that. We're about streaks. We're about positivity. We're about plus signs. Plus. Let's go. Money plus.

First one, Patriots. They're minus 5.5 and minus 240 at the Jets. Cardinals are minus 3.5, minus 190 at the Vikings. We're going to use the money lines. We're going to put those together. Pat's cards, plus 116. We're going to bet $500,000. Boom.

On that. It's a huge one. Kyla Murray, Mac Jones. Here we go. Pat's Chiefs. Chiefs money line plus 198. We're really loaded up on the Patriots here. We're going to take the Pats. We're going to take the Chiefs. We're going to parlay them together. And that is plus 113. Yes. We're going to put 200K on that. So now we have 700K on the Patriots. Hey, when they're your Super Bowl pick, why not?

Let's roll. We're going to do some sprinkling. I love a roll. We're going to do some sprinkling. I love a sprinkle. We're going to do a sprinkle. 100K on the Eagles plus three against the 49ers. Okay. We're going to do a 100K on a seven-point tease. Cowboys plus three and a half.

Teasing them to 10 and a half. Seven-point tease. The over in that game against the Chargers, 54 and a half. Bringing that down to 47 and a half. And we're throwing the Patriots in again. Of course. Why wouldn't we? We're throwing them down to plus one and a half. We get plus 120 odds on that one. And then last but not least, our underdog parlay of the week, Dolphins, Panthers. Dolphins plus 156. Panthers plus 160 against the Saints. Dolphins playing the Bills. Both have to win. We're playing with house money.

We won six underdog parlays basically last week when we hit on 6-1. We're putting 33K on this at plus 565. Dolphins. Panthers. To recap, Pat's cards, 500K plus 116. Pat's Chiefs, 200K plus 113. Sprinkles,

Eagles plus three, 100K. Cowboys, Cowboys over. Patriots, seven point tethers, 33K plus 565. You won't let me bet 10K on a Lions-Texans 29-1 parlay? No. No. No. But I love that underdog parlay. Real quick before we wrap, the Sopranos prequel movie.

I've got invited to the premiere next week. Are we in or are we out before we even get to it yet? I don't think I've heard you talk about it yet. I'm 100,000% in. I cannot wait. I can't wait. I'm mad it's not just a TV show. Why is it a movie?

Why can't this be 10 episodes? What are we doing? They're doing a premiere at the Beacon Theater in New York. And I get all these emails. I'm like, yes, I'm in. I'm going to that. I cannot wait.

I cannot. Some of my favorite character actors too too, are in this thing. It's Joey Coco Diaz is in it. I can't wait. I'm in, bro. It is going to be so good. Well, I cannot wait for week two of the Million Dollar Picks. Let's go.

We'll see if we can keep the streak going. Peter Schrager, my friend, good to see you. The best. Thanks, Bill. All right, before we go, Craig Horlbeck was pressed into duty to produce the pod, Nephew Kyle's Traveling. He popped on earlier. He's also on the Ringer Fantasy Show

with all those guys, producer of the Rewatchables. We texted a lot about fantasy stuff. Elijah Mitchell. Yeah. Went for 40 bucks in one of my leagues and 35 bucks in another one. And people have just penciled him in as the RB1 of the Niners this year. They liked how he looked against the crappy Lions.

Everyone seems to be ignoring the whole Kyle Shanahan, A, hates fantasy. B, there might be seven running backs that lead this team in rushing this year. It leads to a good debate, though though of should you just go all in with your fantasy money right away in week one if you like somebody? Because I actually agree, you should if you like somebody. I just don't think it's for Elijah Mitchell. You spent money on him. What was your case? I spent 36 bucks on him and got him. Listen, people are way too precious about their fab money as people call it. I finish every year with like $72 left and I regret it. Why not spend some money? Like, okay, 36 bucks. Like that means you have, you still have what, 64 left to like, that's two more. I feel like use it three times, three $30 chunks, get the guy you want. I mean, even if Trey Sermon comes back and becomes a guy, then it's a two-headed beast, which you already... People drafted Mostert and Sermon thinking those two were going to be the

two-headed beast, and people still took them in the sixth round. So now you're just getting a sixth round draft pick for 30 bucks of your free agent auction money. Who cares? It's worth the risk. I still don't trust him, but I think- Who else is there? In general, it's worth the risk. Well, you could trust him, but I think in general, it's worth the risk. Well, you could wait a week. Cause like in my fantasy keeper in baseball,

my AL keeper league, um, I think it was like the second week we went all in on this guy, Julian Merriweather, the blue, this blue Jays guy who was throwing a hundred looked like the closer next day, sore oblique,

and then was caught for the next four months. And we had spent like 36 of our 31 of our 100 and it was we just felt so stupid and that's that's the problem with this whatever life is short spend the money like if he ends up he's the first big guy of like the fantasy season off the waiver wire but he had 19 carries shanahan was like yeah he was just better than trey sermon in training camp like i don't know what else you really need here. Even if he ends up splitting time with Sermon, who cares? 12 carries a game on the

Niners, that's worth it for me. Who else did we like as sneaky pickups? Because I was telling you how I have Juwan Johnson in two leagues. Caught two touchdowns. Didn't have a lot of targets, but what's cool about him is in your league, you can just get him for a buck if you need a backup tight end.

Cause he's listed as a receiver on CBS and a couple other places, but now he's tight and eligible. I like those like flexible guys. It's like in baseball when you have like the infielder that can play every position. Yeah. It's like Taysom Hill last year when he was quarterback tight end and like through fantasy for a loop.

I mean, I feel like it's obvious, but the Denver guys, Tim Patrick, who has an all-time boring name, if his name was Jamar Chase, he'd be getting drafted. But Tim Patrick's like good every year. And Cortland Sutton still is like coming back from his ACL.

He caught like one ball in week one. Tim Patrick's like, and Noah Fant are going to be the two guys I think in Denver, like leading the league in catches every year. So he's like super easy to pick up. He's probably like a six buck guy that you could get and start, I think immediately. Well, we both, we were all in on Judy this year

and I thought he broke his leg. I was watching it when it happened. It was like one of those, oh no. And then the way he reacted and then they're like, no, it's a high ankle sprain. He's be back in four weeks. It's like that. He's back in four weeks from that.

His leg went sideways. I'll take it. Yeah. Six weeks, whatever's a high ankle sprain. He needs to be back in four weeks. It's like that. He's back in four weeks from that. His leg went sideways. I'll take it. Yeah. Six weeks, whatever. As long as he needs. Like he'll be back this year. I'm fine with it. He looked like he was like borderline dominant in that game too.

It was such a bummer. I was so fired up for it. Yeah, he had like 70 yards in like the third quarter. He looks so good. What other fab pickup guys do we like that are, we think, sneaky? Because like somebody waved the Ravens defense in one of my leagues because sometimes

you have these week one overreactions where people are like I'm out and then all of a sudden you're cherry picking things that we thought were an asset a week ago

just because somebody sucked in week one is there anybody like that well I mean it's easy to ride like I kind of don't mind I thought the Browns actually did kind of

a good job against I mean if Mahomes didn't like make that crazy comeback like the Browns D did kind of a good job against I mean if Mahomes didn't like make that crazy comeback like the Browns D looked pretty good and they're playing Houston and they were

pretty available I'm a guy who just kind of streams defenses like I'll just take the team play in the Jags or whoever like the Browns look pretty good this week

did you from a rookie quarterback standpoint do you feel like any of these rookie quarterbacks could actually start for somebody in

week 15, week 16, week 17 in the playoffs? Probably only like fields or, or, or if Lawrence goes full like Bortles and they're just like full garbage time, they're down 15 and every fourth. And, and Trevor Lawrence just throws two touchdowns every fourth quarter. I think Lawrence is like, could be a guy. And then if Fields starts, he's just going to run so much that he could just end up being like, you know, 80 yards a game rushing and that just keeps you alive. Well, the other thing with Fields is the garbage time stuff. Totally.

Right? That's what you want. Garbage time plus rushing is kind of like the perfect cocktail of what you need. Yeah, your ideal Fields game would be they lose 37 to 27. They were down 37 to 10 in the fourth quarter to the packers. Yeah, he just climbs 62 rushing yards and 380 passing and all of a sudden he's like the number one guy in the league Are you a kyler murray believer or no? Yeah

Yeah, I mean he's incredible. I didn't get him because I was a little nervous. He's gonna get hurt He still obviously could but I mean if he's healthy he's incredible. I didn't get him because I was a little nervous he was going to get hurt. He still obviously could, but, I mean, if he's healthy, he's like, probably even above Mahomes because of his rushing. I kept him at 23 in my keeper league

and it was too high. It was like, because the quarterback price is like Stafford, Herbert, those guys, everybody was like between 11 and 15.

But I just wanted Kyler Murray because I, if he's healthy, I feel like he's 30 to 35 points a game. But then the moment he gets, you have to have the backup for him is the thing. It can't be one of those things where it's like, I have my homes and if he gets hurt, my season's over. Like with Kyler, you have to have a backup. Well, and I feel like this year we realized so easily, we're like, oh wow,

offensive line really makes a difference. Like the Cardinals got a new old line. Kyler immediately was amazing. And the Chargers, like, I'm having an affair with the Chargers, by the way. Don't tell the Steelers. I love Herbert and the Chargers. Oh, I just think they're the best. I love Herbert. This is a good fit.

Football affairs. Yeah. I'm all in on the Chargers. Honestly, the Rams too. Just SoFi. I'm having an affair with SoFi Stadium. But yeah, they look so good with the offensive line. Like Herbert's even more comfortable

than he was last year. I think he's going to win the MVP. Well, you guys on the fantasy show, you were on the Keenan Allen thing all preseason. The way they used him even in week one, there's a chance he's... I said he could lead league in catches. It could be like a Michael Thomas

two years ago type season, where it's like 140 catches, 1,500 yards, 17 TDs. I really could see it, because he was open the whole game. Herbert's really special. I mean, I can't even imagine what it would be like to be a Dolphins fan. Can you imagine?

This is like 20 years of your life. I would say to my dad, the Mac Jones thing, it's like, this guy might be in my life for the next 15 years. I'm going to be in my mid-60s, and he still might be my quarterback. And you pass on Herbert, and that haunts you for 20 years. The best thing that ever happened to the Chargers is the offensive coordinator for Oregon sucked,

and no one knew he was that good, and he just fell in the Chargers' lap. And they were like, oh my God, this guy's super smart, athletic, he can do everything. I wonder if there's MVP possibilities with him. I guess it would depend if they can beat Dallas. The narratives always start in September, but I bet on Mahomes at four to one. I just feel like if Mahomes is healthy he's winning yeah doesn't sal say that just like bet him every year and you'll win like two out of the four herbert needs to beat my homes once this year probably to win the mvp like that has to be on the resume this what do you your steelers what happens with rothlisberger like his if i said to you he's not your quarterback in week 10 what would you say to that like why isn't isn't he there? I'm just saying, hey,

somebody just came from the future and told me Roethlisberger's in week 10 not your quarterback anymore. Oh, he got lit up by Miles Garrett and tore his knee in half and we're tanking now because we couldn't get him. Dwayne Haskins is throwing picks for us.

Why didn't you get Minshew? I don't know. I swear to God, Minshew is 100% better than Ben Roethlisberger. There's no question. He is definitely better than him. Yeah. I have no idea why we didn't get a backup quarterback. I know this is Ben's last year, but we're like a top five roster in the league. And if Ben gets hurt, we're effed. Right. Yeah. What do you do? Is it Haskins or Mason Rudolph? I'm done with Rudolph. I'll take a shot with Haskins. Rudolph is terrible. Yeah. He's pretty bad. That's the thing. Like,

it's not like Minshew was, you know, it was like the price was a first round pick. Like they gave a conditional six for him. The guy had 37 touchdowns in two years. I know. Once the Eagles did that, I was like, wow, maybe the Eagles are up. Eagles might be smart this year. Grab that as a sneaky pickup. It was good. Are you one of those Steelers fans that wants the Ravens to just be in a dumpster fire every game? Like that Monday night game

was a sheer delight for you? Yeah, I bet on the Raiders I was fully pulling for Oakland. It was such a fun bet. When you have the winning bet snatched out of your hands and then it falls apart and you're like,

oh my, this is how my year's going to start with this Raiders bet that I'm going to lose and then they won. I'm also from Oakland, so I was happy for Raiders fans. It sucks that they're in Vegas now, so I was happy for them. Yeah, it was a good one.

Any other fantasy tips before we go? My Mike Williams bet's paying off, baby. What was that? I was like, he's going to be a top 20 guy this year and everybody called me a moron. I'm cashing in. The stock price is high right now. I'm buying more.

He is one of those guys, if you're watching the right quarter, you would just assume he was one of the nine best receivers of all time. He's enormous. He's got great hands. He's using them well. Yeah, he's this one-handed Odell 39-yarder down the stretch. All right. Listen to the fantasy show.

I like the Power Poll. It's funny. I told you about my, you call it the Power Hour on Wednesdays. I told you about my Power Hour stories. Power, what was it? Power 90 Minutes? No, it was the Century Club.

Oh, 100 Minutes. Well, explain to the audience what the Power Hour is. Power Hour is you have a shot of beer every minute for an hour, and there's these playlists. I mean, I don't know what you did back then but now on YouTube there's these playlists and every 60 seconds the song will change and that's how you know to take a shot.

It equals about 7.5 beers in an hour. So we did it. It gets awfully fast in the last 20 seconds. I would not encourage it. Then we did it with this thing called Green Death which we ended up calling Green Death Night. But then the Century Club is 100 shots. And we did that at Rollins College when I was going to visit my buddy Gus. And that was flat out a mistake. I do not recommend the Century Club.

I mean, nobody wasn't throwing up, but I was telling you, in the late 80s, early 90s, drinking was... You knew everybody in your hall who smoked pot. Now, it's completely flipped the other way. Oh, yeah. In my dorm room, we used to do power half hour before SNL. That's how lame we were. We did power half hour then. Power half hour is barely whatever. I threw three beers in a half an hour. It's not bad. Century Club.

Is that on YouTube or no? Do people even know the Century Club? I'm sure. Maybe there is a 100 minute. I hope I'm not killing college students with this. Don't do a Century Club if you're listening. Don't take the challenge. And don't do it with green beer.

No. Yeah. That was called. I mailed that to you. What was it called? Like Heffenrefer or something? Hefenrefer. I'm telling you, it was Green Death Night.

People blacked out. It was a disaster. Not great. College. It was $20,000 a year when I was going. It was just money down the toilet a lot of nights. All right, but check out the fantasy, Ring of Fantasy show, you and the Dannys.

If you had to pick, which Danny would you save? Good son, set out. Both Danny's are hanging off a cliff. You're losing your strength in your hands and you have to drop one to save the other. I'm letting Heifetz go. There you go. The ringer fantasy show. Check it out. Craig produced this podcast.

Craig, thanks for doing that. We'll be back on Sunday with The Cuz. Break it down. We too see you then. On the way.