The Bill Simmons Podcast - Tasty NFL Underdogs, COVID Misconceptions, and 2021’s Teen Culture Awards With Peter Schrager, Derek Thompson, and Zoe Simmons

Episode Date: December 30, 2021

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Derek Thompson to discuss media coverage of COVID-19 (1:56). Then Bill talks with NFL Network's Peter Schrager about the Cardinals' three-game losing streak and an updated Super Bowl contenders list (38:24) before making the Million-Dollar Picks for NFL Week 17 (1:01:01). Finally Bill is joined by his daughter, Zoe, to review the year in teen culture (1:35:58). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Derek Thompson, Peter Schrager, and Zoe Simmons Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, if you're into Boba Fett, I hope you checked out the Ringerverse podcast by the Midnight Boys right after the show premiered. Van Lathan, Charles Holmes, they broke it down. And also on theringer.com, Ben Lindbergh broke it down as well. So check it out. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Light keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this. It's game day. All the gang's here. You're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air?

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We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then trying to back what you think in those first few weeks and then zag the other way if you were wrong. You could bet on new and fun markets on FanDuel, like to catch a pass, same game parlays,

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Gambling problem called Win 100-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network as well as the ringer.com where we did a bunch of best of 2021 stuff on there, including Jordan Ritter Kahn wrote a really good piece about Tyler Matzik, who is the baseball player of the year, basically,

for what he did in the postseason and how he conquered the Yips. That's a must-read. A lot of good stuff on there, including Brian Curtis writing about John Madden's death and legacy. Check that out. Check out FanDuel Sportsbook as well. We're going to be doing a couple boosts

on Million Dollar Picks in a second that we use some of the FanDuel lines. In general, if you go to the homepage, we'll have a same game parlay or an underdog parlay boost or whatever, at least twice a week on there. So check out FanDuel Sportsbook as well. Coming up on this podcast,

we got a lot going on. We got Peter Schrager talking about what's going on with the Cardinals. Should we believe in the Rams? Should we do a Rams-Colts parlay? All this stuff, million-dollar picks. That's coming up. I have Derek Thompson from The Atlantic

and from our Plain English podcast talking about COVID and the misconceptions and some of the mistakes the media has made with that. And then finally, my favorite guest, as always, my daughter, Zoe Simmons, doing her year-end Teen Culture Awards. This is a bulbous podcast. Let's bring in Pearl Chip. All right. Derek Thompson is here. He writes for The Atlantic. He hosts a podcast for us that we've had for five, six weeks. What is it? Five, six weeks of this? Five, six weeks. That's correct.

Yeah. Plain English, which has been super smart. I've learned a lot. It's been everything we've hoped for. You were like a fish out of water with that thing. Unbelievable stuff. Just right away. It's like a finished podcast. Great stuff. I've had so much fun doing it. It's been really, really cool. Just like having some of my closest friends in journalism on the pod to talk economics, technology, little Omicron, little politics. It's really been a blast. So I'm having a lot of fun with plain English. We're heading to the point now where we're heading in 2022. A lot of people are getting COVID now from Omicron, but everyone has agreed

these are mild symptoms unless you have some stuff going on with you in the first place, right? But for most normal, healthy people, if you get Omicron, it's no different than getting a flu. Every time I read something about this, it's always like panic headline, big thing, cases skyrocketing, cases doubled, stuff like that. And buried in like the 11th or 12th paragraph will always be in the CDC director,

you know, says, although the symptoms are mild, dot, dot, dot, and then it goes. At what point do we get worried that the media is sensationalizing this stuff? Because it makes for good news that people want to read. People want to consume it. People are obviously drifting to the COVID pieces. I feel like, and I don't have a dog in this race.

I'm not on one side. I'm not on the other. Just watching it as somebody who has two kids who have had COVID impact their life and they're still wearing masks in schools. And it's this generation now that's basically being raised on fear. I'm really starting to get concerned that this panic stuff is going too far. You are the most neutral guy I know on this stuff. What do you see? So I want to take a half step back here and really talk about how the media, when it comes to COVID, has always separated itself into teams. Like any sports league,

it's always separated itself into teams. And sometimes it takes a little bit of time to figure out exactly what the teams are. So you go back to 2020, the first stage of the pandemic, it was pretty clear what the teams were. It was team pandemic versus team flu. And team flu basically said, it's just the flu. And they were wrong. And they said, I'm not going to change my life. And team pandemic said, this is different. We should mask, we should socially distance, we should close the office. The second stage of the pandemic, those teams became even clearer. It was team vaccine versus team anti-vaccine. And you can tell, predict which kind of people are going to flow into which kind of team based on where they were in 2020. This third stage of the pandemic is the strangest

one and the most complicated one. And it's only been around for maybe about a month or maybe a few months. And most of the important action here, most of the important sort of team creation is happening among vaccinated Americans. I think you're seeing the emergence of two subgroups within vaccinated Americans. You have team vaccinated seeing the emergence of two subgroups within vaccinated Americans. You have team vaccinated and still very, very, very, very cautious. And you have team vaccinated and pretty much ready to get the hell on with my life. And the news media has disproportionately come from team very, very cautious. And it's been difficult, I think, to separate themselves, to tease apart exactly what's

happening during a variant like Omicron, which is a little bit complicated because on the one hand, Omicron is really, really transmissible. There are a lot of breakthrough cases, and we are used to reporting on the severity of the pandemic by looking at cases. But the variant really does seem to be milder for the vast majority of people who get it. I don't think it's exactly as mild as the flu, to be honest. I don't know how much worse than the flu it is, but it clearly doesn't seem to be exactly as severe as previous strains of COVID itself. And I think you're starting to see, you know, different organizations are reacting to this new severity. The NBA changes its rules. The NFL changes its rules. But with

the media itself, I think you do see, as you pointed out, some people are reporting on Omicron like it is exactly as dangerous per person as Delta. And that's clearly not true. They're not reporting everything there is to know about this disease. They're maybe a little bit afraid to give pieces of news that seem too optimistic about this variant. But I just think it's a confusing time for the media because the combination of really high transmissibility and lack of evidence about it being more severe has just caused a lot of consternation about exactly how to represent this threat. Yeah, I'm looking. There's these big hyperbole verbs and adjectives

that we're seeing, especially in the headlines that don't seem to measure up with what actually, like I'm looking at my Apple News and this is where it really, I got the idea to be like, I got to talk to Derek about this in the pod. My Apple News has like four to five stories, right? If I just flip to that. And I always like knowing what's going on. Right now, it's unprecedented coronavirus cases yield New Year's warnings. That's the first headline from LA Times. Next one is COVID vaccines are safe and effective for children, according to three CDC studies. But before it had been about, it's always surge, it's unprecedented, it's outbreak. It's these words that are trigger words, honestly, that make you scared. And I guess my question is,

are we just going to spend, we spent 2021 living in fear for most of the time, right? And there seemed like there was daylight in April and there was daylight in May. And it's like, all right, once I get vaccinated, now I'm going to be safer. And also I won't be able to transmit the virus to somebody else. Well, that turned out not to be true. And it's like, oh, I can be vaccinated. I can still give this to somebody else. I can get the virus again. I thought that wasn't supposed to happen. So now there's mistrust with the information we were given in the spring and the last part of last winter, because it's like, well, I was told this thing and now this

didn't happen. So is this a fake news thing or is it, oh wait, maybe these vaccines, we had no idea because we were making them as fast as possible. So there's just mistrust and confusion all over the place. And I see it with every conversation I have now. It's like, are my kids going to be able to go back to school? Are my kids going to be able to play sports again? What are we truly afraid of? What if I'm asymptomatic? Does that mean I have to quarantine for 10 days?

And it's just these moving goalposts. We saw it again this week. You don't have to quarantine for 10 days. Now it's five. We just dropped it from 10 to five overnight. So how do you process this if you're a normal person who just wants to get back to your life? I think it's really important for the media and for other institutions like the CDC to build trust by being honest about when they got things wrong. So I'll go first.

What I got wrong about the vaccines is that I thought that these vaccines were going to hold up much better against infection. And they didn't. The reason they didn't, I think, has to do with the fact that Delta and Omicron emerged. And those were variants that we didn't see, you know, a year ago. And so we couldn't measure the effect of the vaccines against them. And they did. And those variants were very successful at breaking through against vaccination, against the two shots. Now, this is the way that I've come to think of the vaccines. I've come to think of them a little bit like a castle defense system. So a castle defense system has a wall, and then it has knights inside of the wall. The wall is

metaphor for the neutralizing antibodies, which are the little things that glom onto the virus and keep it from connecting to the cells. And then the knights are the metaphor for your T cells. What the vaccines seem to do is, yes, these things break through. These variants get over the wall. But what happens once they're inside the castle? The knights kick the shit out of them.

The T cell immunity that is conferred by the vaccines does really, really well against these against the against the virus. It does even better than the whole castle defense system does even better when you get boosted, because when you get boosted, that's a little bit like rebuilding your castle wall so that the virus doesn't even get inside of the castle. So what am I saying? Big picture. What I'm saying is that I was wrong about the degree to which this vaccine would protect against infections. But I was right about the degree to which this vaccine would protect against severe cases. And I do think the media and other institutions should be a little bit clearer about this, about what I just said, that it's okay for science to be wrong in the short term,

but you need to be clear with the public about what you've got wrong so that people trust you when you say things again, because they trust you to be an honest broker about everything that you can see. So what I'm seeing from the data that I'm looking at is that Omicron is basically like a Mongol army that is, you know, smashing into whatever. I've been listening to a lot of Mongol army podcasts recently, so I won't go too

deep into the metaphor here, but smashing into like medieval Hungary and it's overcoming all of the walls. But the knights inside the castle are doing a really good job of cleaning it up. And that is scary, I think, because there are a lot of people in this country who are immunocompromised, who are elderly, for whom the vaccines might not work as well because their T-cell immunity, for a variety of reasons, might not be as strong. There are a lot of people who are older and really vulnerable. But we should be clear that all the evidence that we're looking at from South Africa to the UK to Europe to Canada to across the US, seems to be telling us the same story when it comes to Omicron. This thing is doing very well.

The variant is breaking into a lot of castles, but the T cell immunity, the knights are doing a good job clearing it up inside the castle. And that's why we're not in March 2020. We're not in June 2020. We're not in December 2020. This is different. And we should probably start to think about

changing our rules and changing our habits to reflect that different threat. Yeah, and we've been wrong on this pod when you've been on it. We, you know, there was a moment in time, and I think it wasn't just this pod, but it was basically everywhere in March where people are saying, get vaccinated.

You will have a defense. You won't be able to transmit it to your loved ones. You have a responsibility to get it. And now I think people are rightly going, well, wait a second. I thought I wasn't supposed to be able to, if I was asymptomatic, I thought I wasn't then supposed to give it to somebody else. I just want to say for the record, I'm vaccinated. I'm boosted. I know you are too. I think- I am. Personally, and I know this has become a personal decision for a lot of people, but I think it would be kind of crazy not to get vaccinated and boosted just because I would rather not get this and be unvaccinated.

But the part I don't get is if we, especially if you're in a situation where a bunch of people, like you're in a school situation, right? You're in a high school where they're doing COVID tests and all of these different things and making sure, whatever. If you're vaccinated and you're boosted, and let's say you get Omicron, Omicron, Omicron. I call it Omicron. A lot of people are calling it Omicron. You get it. It's like, all right. so how long can you live with it? Is it transmittable? Should you have to shut down your life for a week? Should we move to this world now where are we just going to be in mass? Are there going to be more variants? Is this just going to

be the new reality of how we live? And if that is the new reality of how we live, how do we make it more manageable so that we don't raise an entire generation of people who are in fear, which I think is where we're heading with an entire class of people between the ages of, what, 15 and 25? People who are either entering high school, people who are in college, people who just got out of college, who this is just how they've lived now for 21 months. How do we make it a little easier on those people while also keeping all the people safe that we need to keep safe? Because I just think we've been contradicting ourselves left and right. I told this story last week on Parent Corner,

but we flew back to Boston last week and everyone has masks on in the plane. By the way, they don't check vax cards on the planes because they just want everybody's money. So whatever you get on the plane, got to keep your mask on. Then it's like, Hey, the food's here or Hey, the snacks are here. Hey, your drinks here, take the mask off. And now we're all on a plane and people don't have masks on. It's like, well, how does this make sense? So if I'm on a plane for six hours and 82% of the time I have a mask on, I'm safe. Obviously I'm not. What are we doing? And that's the overriding theme over and over again is what are we doing? What's the master plan? This contradicts this. This contradicts that. What are we doing? And

who's in charge? And it doesn't seem like anybody is. Yeah, I think it's really important when you look at who faces the gravest risk from COVID at large and Omicron specifically, it really does seem to be the elderly and immunocompromised. So what I would do if I were COVID czar is I would encourage people to be careful about mixing households with the elderly and immunocompromised. I would issue a vaccine mandate for nursing homes, certainly. But aside from that, I do I'm starting to wonder whether we've made a mistake closing too many things. So, for example, you look at something like schools initially, March 2020, April 2020, when there was a total sort of nationwide freak out about this thing. Of course, we were closing everything left and right. We didn't know what this fact what what this virus actually did. But I think that we've learned a couple of things in the last two years or almost two years. One, we have learned that this virus poses a much lower risk to children than we initially feared. loss from closing schools has been awful, and it's been particularly awful for lower income and minority students who don't have the same kind of access to the internet that higher income and

non-minority students do. So I think school closures have been a colossal mistake and a huge nationwide problem. And I think the Biden administration in this case is right, that going forward, we should do everything that we possibly can to not close schools for any extended period of time going forward in Omicron or after. I really think that, you know, we are not at a place where we have herd immunity right now. Obviously, there are, you know, hundreds of thousands of cases a day. But we are nearing a point where we are beginning to learn that this virus is going to be with us for a long period of time. And we have to react to the evidence that we can see. And what I would do is try to draw a cordon around the elderly and immunocompromised while trying to keep the rest of society as open as possible. So here's one way

that you can think about doing that. Well, what about, would you throw obese people in there? I'm actually, I'm not entirely sure about the increased risk of the obese to COVID, at least as it relates to people who are over 70, over 80, for whom the threat of death and COVID- Yeah, yeah, we have better stats for the other two things. Exactly, yeah, yeah, exactly. We've hired to give certainty about that evidence.

So look, just talking from my own life, I've been eating at restaurants. I've been mostly living a normal life. At the same time, about two weeks ago, I had plans to visit my 93-year-old grandmother who lives in Detroit. I couldn't get my hands on a rapid test or a PCR test in time.

And so my wife and I just canceled the trip. We said, you know what? There is a surge of cases right now. We don't want to mix households without having time to do a test to determine if we are contagious. So we're going to cancel this trip and we'll hopefully do something in two months from this Omicron wave, which should, based on international reports, be shorter than other waves when this Omicron wave is hopefully over. But that's just one way I think that you can have an attitude toward this phase of the pandemic that says, I am mostly as a vaxxed, as a boosted individual, going to live a mostly normal life. But when it comes to making a decision that causes me to live

indoors with a 93-year-old for three days, okay, then I'm going to take a little bit more caution. And I just wonder what a policy like that looks like when you spread it across the country. It's probably a lot more complicated than just, you know, my canceling a trip to see my mommy. But I do think that that's probably where we should start. I don't want to start with closing schools and doing a lot of the policies that were extremely detrimental to kids' lives in 2020 and 2021. But on the other hand, and detrimental to kids' lives in 2020 and 2021. But on the other hand, and I'm with you, I agree with you. But on the other hand, if you have teachers in those schools who are like,

I don't feel safe going to work, then that's where the fact that we don't really seem to have the quote-unquote COVID czar, which I wish we had one, that would be an unbelievable title. But the fact that just every rule is different, the leadership's all over the place, the information is all over the place. It's hard for me to say to some sixth grade teacher, yeah, you should go to work or whatever.

Tell anybody to go to work. And I think that's where we struggle with all this stuff. But I just feel like if we're looking at positives, right? We're now 22 months in. Do we hear about the positives enough? Is it a positive that this new variant is much more mild than the two variants that came before? What does that mean?

Does that mean we're heading in the right direction? Or does that mean there's another bad variant coming? Is this going to be how this goes? And then the other piece is, do we have to start thinking about this just the same way we think about influenza and measles and other things that we've grown up with, getting shots with, hearing about polio way back when? Is this going to be our life? This is going to be in our life. It's not going away. There's always going to be variants. And now we have to figure out how to live and move on versus just to be in constant fear of it. Where do you stand on that? I believe in reaction to threats as the threats actually exist. I try as hard as I

can to deal with the evidence as it presents itself. In a typical flu year, the flu kills maybe 60,000, 70,000 people. Right now, today, about 1,300 people are dying a day. So if you multiply that across the year, that's about 400,000 to 500,000 deaths, which means you're looking at something that's like eight times worse than the flu. I don't believe in responding to COVID as if it is the flu today, because it's not like the flu today. It is killing like eight, nine times more people on a daily basis than the flu would. At the same time, I think we are likely moving in a direction in which it will kill fewer people a day for a variety of reasons. More immunity from natural immunity, more immunity from vaccines and boosters, and Omicron seems,

and this might be the best piece of news that we've gotten in the last six months, and I don't think it's been promoted enough, Omicron seems to confer immunity to Delta, which means that all these people that are getting Omicron are likely to be immune or possibly going to be immune

to Delta and other variants as well, that would be really, really good. That would predict that into the spring of 2022, you're likely to see COVID deaths decline rather dramatically. I want to be prepared in that future to have a different attitude toward COVID, one in which we are really encouraging all of our schools to stay open and not to close for any period of time, and in which we are basically trying to live a relatively normal life across the economy. But I am mildly defensive of my friends in the media and my friends in the public health institutions that are at least for this very moment in time saying, yes, we should point out the good pieces of news. Omicron seems to be more mild for Americans and people around the world, number one. And number two, Omicron seems to provide

immunity against the other variants, number two. I wanted to emphasize the good news, but I also think that it is appropriate for the time being to not move all the way toward COVID is just the flu, because it clearly is killing a lot more people than the flu would at this moment. Yeah, that's good advice. There seems to be a middle ground that we're not hitting these days. And I think that's the thing that concerns me the most because we're still doing the same stuff we were doing in 2020 and the first part of 2021 with how we think about how we are supposed to act in public, then some states lifted stuff. Other states have brought stuff back. And there's a lack of cohesion that kind of ties in with the way everything has gone in this country for the last five,

six years. Right now, it's like all the people who felt all along, like those people are like doubling down now. See, I told you. Look at everybody's backtracking here, there, the other way. The states who have practiced, honestly, really lacks attitudes toward this stuff. And then the studies are coming out for the two years. Has it been shocking to you that the numbers aren't that different depending on the state? I don't know

how to make sense of that. And I first saw it when I had a soccer thing with my daughter in November 2020, and we were walking around. It was the first time we'd kind of been out outside of California and seeing all these people in the restaurants with no mask. And we're like, oh my God. And then it's like, well, so why didn't the surges? So there's no rhyme or reason to any of this. And it's left me more confused than ever. I usually like to have angles on things. I don't really have an angle on this. I don't know how to make sense of one thing about it. And you're one of the smartest people I know. You've made sense of some of it, but there's some data that just doesn't make sense.

And we're 22 months in and I can't reconcile it. I'm sure you can't either. Yeah, no, it's interesting. There's an emerging philosophy on this disease that you can sort of think of as like team inevitable, which says this virus is inevitable. Everyone is going to get it. The question is when they get it,

how protected will they be? And that's a strong argument in favor of not just vaccines and boosters, but maybe, and I'm not making this argument, but maybe an argument towards just mandating it for everything. For basically saying, look, we have a high degree of certainty that you are going to get this disease, and we want to protect you as much as possible, so, we have a high degree of certainty that you are going to get this disease and we want to protect you as much as possible. So we're going to mandate vaccines for everyone. The way that I've seen it, that vaccine mandates have been relatively successful where they've been tried, but they've also stirred up a lot of political animosity. And I don't know how, I don't know how wise it's going to be for a lot of, you know, governors and leaders of sort of

moderate states to mandate them for everybody. But that's maybe that's neither here nor there. I think that you're absolutely right that when you look across the world and you say, all right, what are the countries that have really, really done this well? You can pick out a few. You can look at Japan. You can look at South Korea. You can look at maybe some countries in Europe. But it's really, really hard to devise like a total pattern, like a full philosophy, the same way you could from like, you know, the way that you typically would for like a sports league where you say, look, the teams that are taking more three pointers a game are clearly scoring more points. We should take more three pointers a game. That's a pattern you can see throughout the data. And that leads you to a clear conclusion.

You don't see those same kind of patterns for the non-pharmaceutical interventions, the MPIs, like social distancing or masking. It's much harder to reach strong conclusions there. Where it's easier to reach conclusions is vaccine share. The states that have a higher share of vaccines, they're dying less. The counties that have a higher share of vaccines, they're dying less. The countries that have a higher, you go on and on and on.

The vaccines clearly work at preventing against severe illness and death. But honestly, besides that, it has been harder than I anticipated to draw clear conclusions between policies, behavior, and outcomes. The vaccines just sort of swamp everything in terms of their power.

And so maybe that's the only place you can really land here is just to tell your friends, tell your family, and encourage people in your life to get vaccinated and boosted because it does seem to be the clearest evidence. Maybe would it help if instead of reporting cases and rising cases and things like that, we had multiple categories, right?

Like severe illness cases and deaths. And if we put those into a better, broader context versus just like cases are up, cases are up. It's like, well, cases are up. But if people are vaccinated and or boosted or if they're asymptomatic, should they be counted? Should that count as much as somebody who gets COVID and they're in the hospital for three, four weeks? Because I think having that data

would really help people understand how important it is what you just said, that yeah, when you get vaccinated and or boosted, you're in a better position to fight this thing if you get it. You just are. All the evidence says that. Now, the evidence also says

that you can still transfer it to another person, which we did not think nine months ago. I get it. But I just wish that stuff was out there more prominently than just COVID surge, cases up. And to me, it feels like panic headline stuff. And I just don't like it.

I don't think it's productive. Yeah, at the end of the day, what we want is we want people to be safe. And we thought initially that cases were the best proxy for measuring this pandemic. But then you saw this sort of split between cases and outcomes because a lot of people were getting the disease,

but they were breakthrough cases. And so they weren't as likely to get severely ill. Then you look at hospitalizations. Hospitalizations, I think you're right, are a pretty good indication of the severity of the pandemic. But one thing we're starting to see with hospitalizations is that because there are so many asymptomatic and mild breakthrough Omicron cases,

people, and we saw this in South Africa, it's really interesting, people would go to the hospital for, let's say they broke their leg, and then they'd be tested for COVID. And then they would be positive for COVID. But they'd be like, I'm not even here for COVID. I'm in the hospital with COVID, but I'm in the hospital for my broken leg. So then it looked like the best way to measure the severity of the pandemic wasn't cases and wasn't hospitalizations. It was ICU admissions, right? Severe hospital patients. If you look at that, if you look at ICU admits in South Africa and in England and in New

York and across the country, that is where the most optimistic data for the Omicron wave seems to live. We clearly seem to be seeing a smaller share of people who test positive for Omicron winding up in the ICU for whatever reason. Maybe the variant is intrinsically milder. Maybe the vaccines or previous illness confer really, really strong immunity, T-cell immunity, but we just see fewer ICU cases. That's really good news. And I'm with you. I wish the media was clearer about reporting the good news with the same clarity with which we report the bad news. But I think that my big picture thesis here is that Omicron really is just extremely confusing. And there are reasonable, smart, non-ideological journalists that are just a little bit frazzled about how exactly to communicate the threat that Omicron

poses to people, because it is so, so transmissible, but also significantly milder. And it may not threaten a typical 25-year-old at all, but it might threaten a typical 85-year-old significantly. And so how do you communicate risk when risk means two completely different things to a 25-year-old, 85-year-old, and when it's so, so contagious and typically so mild, it really is just a strange evolution of this disease. And I guess where I would land on this is to say the press always has the option of communicating the conclusion that this thing is just strange. That we are just human beings like you, like the readers, working our way through a very complicated emerging mystery without having the full 100% answer to it. That doesn't work for Apple News though. Right. And sometimes we communicate negativity with 100% certainty and positivity with like

10% certainty. And we need to do better at communicating everything with the proper degree of certainty. I would love more data. I think like smarter data, the same way, like how basketball, where we went from, I feel like it, oh, you'll like this. The way we're covering COVID now, if you go back and you look at the way they did box scores for the NBA in like the sixties and seventies, and it was just like field goals made, free throws made points. You'd be like, Derek Thompson had 28 points. He was 10, 8, 28. And that was all I could learn from the box score. And then box scores got a... USA Today comes in, the box scores get a little wider. Now it's like, oh, now I have field goal attempts and free throw attempts. And oh,

there are some three-point attempts and steals and blocks. And now I have a better picture for what somebody's game was. Now we're in this era in 2021, heading 22, where I know that Grant Williams is shooting 55% from the corner on threes. I don't just know his three-point thing. I know that he is number one in corner threes. I know what somebody's percentage is in the restricted area. That's the kind of stuff COVID I still feel like is the 1960s NBA box scores. It's just like cases, deaths, ICU. It's like, all right, well, what does this mean? Is this different than what it was like a year ago? Is it different than what it was six months ago? How has it changed in the last two months? Nobody is doing this work. And if they are, I'm not getting shown that work. Where is it?

I love that. If I can take that just a half step further, I would say that Omicron is the Russell Westbrook variant. Because if you look at an old-fashioned box score, you're like, oh my God, it's filling up the box score. Like 30 points, 15 rebounds, 15 assists. But then you extend, you press that plus minus extension on the ESPN box score that gives you the full plus minus. And it's totally unpredictable. It's like maybe Russell Westbrook had a triple double and he was plus 15 in the game.

Or maybe Russell Westbrook had a triple double and he's minus 30 in his 26 minutes, right? You can't see the impact just by looking at the initial statistics. And that's kind of where we've been with Omicron. We've been really, really good at measuring cases, really, really good at measuring early hospital admits. But those data might confound the ultimate conclusion, which is that Omicron on a per case basis is actually milder. And then you have to cut the data even further. Okay, for whom is Omicron on a per case basis is actually milder. And then you have to

cut the data even further. Okay, for whom is Omicron actually really severe? Is it severe for the unvaccinated, the unvaccinated who are old, the vaccinated but not boosted who are very old in their 80s, 90s? That's the ultimate plus minus that you want to see from the box score. That's the so what, not just the what, but the so what. And I do think you're right that we're in a phase of the pandemic right now where we're looking at Russell Westbrook's box score, but we don't see the ultimate plus minus of his contribution to the team. And that's what we're working toward. Or we don't know that he had 38 points, but he took 37 shots. Exactly. Because all we see is the made field goals and the made free throws. So yeah, I'm just hoping for 2022,

we just all go up a level with the information that we have on this stuff. And I think if the two biggest mistakes, I think the media made, and I would include the two of us, is just thinking, being told this information, if you get vaccinated, here are all the things that will 100% happen.

And the 100% turned out not to be 100%, right? So that was one thing. The second thing was a media issue of, when you have a virus like this, virus have variants. You said this on my pod initially, but I don't think that was communicated to the general public correctly. Like, hey, here's COVID.

There will be more strains of it. They're going to come out of different countries and they're going to come out of nowhere and they're going to act differently than the previous thing. This is how viruses work. Because the more you read about this stuff, every scientist said the same thing. It's like, this is year one of this is going to be a slog. This is be years. There's going to be different strains. Our immunities will build up. What the vaccines will get better. And eventually we'll have a handle on this. How many years will be? We don't know, but strains are coming. I don't feel like that was communicated correctly. Do you? No, I don't think it was communicated ideally at all. And I'll put myself in the, in the category

of, uh, of, of people who are wrong about this. I did not anticipate that the Delta wave would be as severe as it was. I did not anticipate that a variant like Omicron would come through and be able to break through so many castle walls, so many doubly vaccinated people. I didn't anticipate either of those things. Neither did the experts that I spoke to, but I don't want to pretend that, you know,

I'm not blaming the experts. I'm just telling you where I got my information from scientists. I think that it's important to be clear. It's important for the media to be clear about how we were wrong and how we were right. So, you know, trying to set a good example, the way I was wrong was number one, I wildly underestimated how successful variants were going to be at breaking through doubly vaccinated people. Where I was right is about the protection of the vaccines to severe illness. And I think we just need to go forward by, you know, getting a little bit smarter, as you said, with a sort of advanced box score analysis of what's happening on the ground. Sort of keep both eyes open toward what's actually happening. And what is actually happening right now is, number one, Omicron cases are going crazy, hundreds of thousands of new cases a day. But number two, we do seem to have pretty clear

evidence, not just from the US, not just from South Africa, but around the world, that on a per person basis, especially if you're vaccinated or have natural immunity, this is a milder disease than previous variants or the OG coronavirus. And we should start to think about- Which we think is a good sign. We think that's- Which we think is a good sign.

That is a positive sign. We're not 100% sure, but we're pretty sure that that's a good sign. We are pretty sure that that's a good sign, yes. And I don't want to make any, any, uh, overly strong predictions. Um, but a, a, let me put it this way, a variant that is very contagious and not particularly mild that does provide, uh, uh, immunity to other variants is, is much, much better than something like Delta, which was very severe and did not provide any kind of immunity

or did not provide a strong immunity to Omicron. So there are reasons, yes, to be optimistic, but I would just encourage people, I guess, to go back to something I said a few minutes ago and encourage people to recognize that America is not just a bunch of people with the same risk to COVID. It's really more like three or four different rings. One ring in the middle is people who are non-seniors and

boosted. A ring just outside of them are people that are doubly vaccinated and not seniors. And the ring just outside of them or the ring just outside of them are people that are extremely elderly or unvaccinated entirely. And this disease just poses a very different threat to those rings. And so I think we should just be mindful of when we are mixing with people in different rings. It doesn't mean entirely changing your life. It does mean having a kind of clarity about when you are putting someone that you love or just putting someone else at risk with this variant. All right. This is really interesting. I appreciate it.

And I appreciate the podcast too. I've learned a lot even in the five or six weeks. Can't wait to see where it goes in 2022. Lots to discuss as we anticipated. You just never know with the way things are going these days in tech, in the world, politics, everything else, economics. So happy new year. Thanks for coming on. It was good to see you. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too.

You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way.

Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. All right, we're taping this. It is 1030 Pacific time. Peter Schrager is here. We have been having some success with million-dollar picks like we always do in December. Won almost a million bucks last week, $887,000.

We are up 553,000 for the year. Positive. We'd like to get that to seven figures heading into the playoffs, which I think we can do. Before we do that though, tell me about the Cardinals because they let us down on Christmas. I don't know if they let us down on Christmas. I don't know if they let us down because did we bet on them? I can't remember. We did have a little... We did not. No, we stayed away.

I bet on them personally. They let me down. We recused ourselves because I was doing the game. Right. Which, thank God. There's some crazy Kingsbury stat that I saw on Twitter

about what happens to his teams in the second half of the year. The Cardinals, games one through seven this year, they're 7-0, rest of the year 3-5. Year before, after game seven, 3-6. Year before, 2-7. Then you go back to Texas Tech, after game seven, 0-5, 2-4, 2-3, 2-4, 1-4. Is that just an aberration, bizarre stat, or is there something there? What do you see? I don't know. They didn't have DeAndre Hopkins on the field in these games. They're losing. I think they're really missing him. When he went down a lot of, a lot of the analysis and I was surprised to see it was well, Christian Kirk and AJ green and Rondell more like DeAndre is one of the top three wide receivers in the league. So he goes down. They haven't won since they lost him.

Now, I'll add in this. I was on the sidelines before the game. They're pumped. They're looking good. Everything's right. Colt McCoy, who I've known for quite some time, walks by and he's like, what's up, Shregs? I'm like, what's up, dude? He's got the helmet on. I said, he's like, our punter is down with COVID, so I'm

holding today. And I'm like, all right. I mean, whatever. I don't know. You're a backup quarterback. He's like, never done that before. I go, no. He's like, never have done that in 12 years in the NFL. And I'm like, all right, sure enough. 51 yards, Prater snap comes out, laces in miss next one. They got the touchdown extra point. Miss Colt got replaced. They had, uh, the, the punter then went in and started holding, but like that kind of shit you can't account for. Our punter's down with COVID, and they're winning that game if they hit either one of those, and they're up early.

I'll go one step further. To be critical of the Cardinals, I will say this. There isn't that sense of urgency. And I don't know if that's fake and real for the cameras or anything, but like Cliff is an even-keeled guy, and that's his greatest strength. And I'm starting to wonder if that could be his greatest negative.

And you can say, well, Belichick's even-keeled, but no, you see Belichick get the guys together and give that fiery speech in the defense when he needs to, and McVay's always fired up, and you go through the championship coaches, there's always that moment. I'm on that sideline on Christmas Day, and like, Kyler, no real urgency.

The guy that was the most fired up on the sideline was Buda Baker, and he's a safety. And I don't know if it can come from a safety. You know, you kind of want to see Cliff and Kyler feel the same urgency that the quarterback and coach usually feel. But it's almost as if, hey, you know what? Sunday, they woke up, they clinched a playoff spot. I'm not sure if that urgency is suddenly going to be here the final two weeks either. It might

just be one of those deals where trust us, playoffs, we're going to put it all together. Because Kyler, talking to him last week before we did our podcast, he's like, people say I can't win the big game. I laugh at that because in high school, I went 43-0. And in college, I won plenty of big games. And it hasn't happened at the NFL level yet. But, like, come on. Like, it'll happen. There's no sense of, like, wait a second.

Maybe I can't win the big game. And, again, that could help. That could hurt. But I really think the biggest thing was no DeAndre Hopkins because at the end of that game game, AJ Green wasn't breaking a play and nor was Christian Kirk. And they didn't have Rondell Moore. It just didn't feel like they had the guns to go and just put up offense right away like we expect them to do. And these teams seem bound and determined not to let Kyler break out on either side of the pocket. And on top of it, it doesn't seem like he's as anxious to scramble, you know, like he used to.

And I see the same thing. We talked about Russell Wilson a little bit on Sunday on this pod. I think Russell Wilson's been bad this year. I was shocked. I watched football all day Sunday, and I thought he was one of the worst quarterbacks I watched in that game. It's not like they don't have weapons. Penny's doing really well for them.

They have Metcalf. They have Lockett. Now they're playing in semi-bad weather, but in the past that used to be not a huge issue for him. And he just doesn't look like the same guy to me. He's not scampering around. He's not this threat. And I feel the same way watching Kyler where teams were so scared of him. Now it seems like they've kind of unlocked it a little bit. Just keep him in the middle and he's short

and he's going to have trouble seeing over people and we're going to be able to bat balls down and his sight lines are going to be off. Whereas you looked at what the Pats tried to do with Josh Allen, where they didn't really blitz him that much. And there's some really interesting advanced metrics on send the house on Josh Allen and his numbers go down.

The Pats did the opposite. They laid back. They played nickel early. Then they moved to dime. They're in a lot of zone stuff. And basically just telling Josh Allen, just methodically go down the field on us. We don't think you can do it. And he just did it for four quarters.

He had one of the great games, but was also able to run when he needed to. I don't see that from Kyler. I don't see that sense of, oh, this is what my team needs in this game. I'm just going to do it. So then when you go back to the personality piece, I do think teams get their personalities from the coach and the QB

with the exception of if they have an awesome defense, right? Sometimes the defense can become the personality of the team. Their defense is good. It's not like that. But I do wonder if there's something to what you're talking about here

where you have Kyler, who just seems same demeanor no matter what the situation is. And then Cliff, who's, you know, he's like the Brad Stevens type. He's just on the sidelines. He's just kind of watching. And when there's like real urgency,

who knows? I would hope to have urgency this week, even though they've already clinched the playoff spot, because that difference of winning the NFC West versus having to go on the road in that five seed, which they're probably going to be, I think that's, I would, if I'm them, I'd much rather play in Arizona than in the LA stadium. What's your take on that? Well, they're, they're three and four in that Arizona stadium and you know, so maybe it doesn't matter. And that's the thing. They're seven and one on the road and they're three and four. Now, of course they haven't won a game since November at this point, but, uh, Kyler is eight and O at that stadium in Texas. Cause he won his high school championships there and he won in college there a bunch. So he's eight. You almost wonder if Kyler's more comfortable

in Dallas than he would be in Arizona. I'll add this to the stuff with kyler he had one great run to start that game on saturday and it was a 50 yard and they did the amazon speed and he was 25 miles per hour and it's like all right so so you can't tell me it's all right he's banged up and it's health and it's so they still have that it's just can you unleash it now let's assume james connor's back with his heel injury and let's assume that ron dell Moore comes back and suddenly you start getting pieces better. I would hope to think that they have a better, a better, uh, offensive attack, but gosh, it, it was dead on, on Saturday dead. And like, I think that's a bad sign. I really do. I think that's a bad sign. Like the Pats lost to Bills, but the Bills played awesome in that game. That

was a big game for the Pats, but the Bills were incredible and the Pats hung around even though they weren't playing well. You'd think that J.C. Jackson dropped pick with seven and a half minutes left. Allen finally throws us one in the game. Allen's playing incredible. That's the one mistake he makes.

Jackson drops it, but if we get that, we're on the Buffalo 35 with 7 minutes left and we have a chance to steal the game Arizona had a chance to steal that game last weekend a bunch of different ways they left a lot of points on the table but at the fourth quarter was really concerning

to me the lack of urgency Kyler seemed out of breath nobody was getting open and there's no weapons on the outside like Christian Kirk is not a number one and AJ Green no as great a story as it was so now you're looking at Kyler to go do it all and a lot of quarterbacks say okay bring it on let's go I think that's Kyler's mentality but like he shows up shows up to the game wearing an Oakland Athletics jersey all right okay fine okay, fine. You know, team that drafted him in baseball. Great.

There's no real urgency. The quotes afterwards don't leave you feeling like he's as burned as some of the diehard fans. At some point, the fan of the team and the observer is like, and Carson Palmer, who was interviewed by Dave Pasch, actually, on a podcast that I think Pasch's podcast is like a Cardinals podcast because he's the play-by-play guy for their radio,

was like, the body language is concerning. Like, I don't know what Tyler, like, and that's, that damning, you know, like Carson Palmer and Dave Pash, like two Cardinals people are like, the body language is damning. So I felt that way watching it. Cause I bet on the cards. I had them in a parlay or T I had them in teas and in the fourth quarter, I didn't feel confident because it didn't seem like they were confident. It didn't seem like they had the urgency. On the flip side, Dallas, who is pretty locked in now, and they're favored by five and a half in this game. And we're not going to bet on this game, but we thought about it and we talked about it. We talked about different scenarios.

The lack of urgency with Dallas, where does it really matter if you're two, three, or four? Probably not. On the other hand, they have their three defensive guns back. And I'm not counting Diggs, but now you have Lawrence back, you have Parsons, you have Gregory, and you have three elite pass rushers all together. So I'm kind of fascinated for this game because on the one hand you have Kyler, I think is going to have to create some stuff and move around and you have probably the worst defense for him to go against, you know?

And on the flip side, Dallas just seems like they're getting healthy. You look at their, uh, you know, you look at their season and it's like, what are their huge wins? Well,

they beat the Pats by two and they beat one other playoff team by three that I'm blanking on. They have two really good wins. I'll find it as you're talking. They hung with the Bucks and the Chiefs and that's the almost thing you want to take away from it. Like, all right, they didn't get blown out by those two teams. So we know they're good enough and now they're healthy. I'll find that second team that they hung with as you're talking, but they haven't had the statement win against a good team yet.

The Pats, they barely beat. And the other one where they won by three that I'll have that one for you in a second. But they haven't had the game where people are like, oh, there's a lot of fucking stars on this team. Jesus, could that be this week? Yeah. The other, the flip side of it is they haven't lost since Thanksgiving, but they've beaten Heineke and Mike Glennon and whoever else was the quarterback of whatever game they won in the last couple of weeks. That was against the Saints guys. Simi.

Yeah. That combo platter. Matt Ryan. Little cousins. By the way, it was the chargers. They beat by three in a week too early. Those are their, yeah. We too. Those are their two best wins. Chargers by three, Pats by two.

And the Chargers had 11 penalties in that game. So you can go a million ways. I'm not hating on what the Cowboys have done because Sunday, that was as definitive a win that any team's had all season long. It was such a blowout against a division rival, National TV. And you're right. Lawrence looked great and Diggs had the pick and Parsons is all over the place. But to your point, at some point, we are going to have to see Dak Prescott outdo Aaron Rodgers, outdo Tom Brady, outdo Kyler Murray, outdo whoever else in the NFC, Stafford and that Rams team. And that's where I think, you know, I'm looking for him to, let's see if it's a, it's a shootout against the Cardinals. Can he go and do this against another quarterback that can run around and throw the ball? So I'm not going nuts on the Cowboys victories just yet, just because the last month, who have they beaten?

Pats are in a similar boat where I think the last two weeks were a little eyeopening where the other team had the best offensive player in the game. And that's where you look at the Pats and you go, who's our best player on offense? Because it can't be our rookie QB. And when we really need him when we're behind, he did a better job in the Indianapolis game. He lost a couple

receivers as the game went along. And last week he was just not good. Harris was good. Harris might be the best player in this offense, but that's one of those things where you kind of need the lead with him. I've gone through the seven stages with that Pats game because initially I was like,

wow, we're out, man. This isn't happening. Then you start reading some of the stuff afterwards about just how great Allen was, which he felt in the moment, right? It felt like one of the best possible games he could have. But then you see the stuff afterwards, like? It felt like one of the best possible games he could have. But then you see this stuff afterwards. Here's the complete list of guys who have thrown for 300 plus and 50 yards rushing in the same game, quarterback. And it's like, Steve Young is our career leader

with eight. Josh Allen now has five. And you're like, oh, so he's done that five times in his career because it certainly felt that way. So now if I'm a Pats fan, which I am, the question for me is, A, do I overreact from that game where the Bills just kicked our ass and played awesome and we couldn't cover McKenzie and we tried this defensive strategy against Allen and it didn't totally work?

Or should I be nervous that this Bills team that everybody liked before the season as a potential Super Bowl favorite has kind of figured out their identity now, which is Josh Allen in shotgun, getting as many touches as possible. Can he get 40 passes and 10 runs in the same game? Every third and four,

seeing that shotgun with the field spread, just deciding how did I sack? Have they figured it out? What's your take on that? Well, you could also say fourth and one, four minutes left to go. Allen dead to rights. Jamie Collins has them all lined up. JC Jackson's back there.

And he's just such a beast that he slides out of the way, shimmies one way, and then gets six yards for a first down. And you're like, oh, this guy's fucking awesome. Like, that is what he can do. He can convert that on fourth down. And when they played Tennessee earlier this year and everyone went nuts that they went for it on fourth down and Tennessee stopped them on the Monday night football game. It's like, no, that's what you do. If you drive Josh Allen fourth and short, he can pick up that yardage. He was so good on Sunday. The numbers tell one story. They didn't pump the ball the entire game. First time ever against

a Belichick team, there was no punts. That was without Beasley and without Gabriel Davis. If you're doing Super Bowl picks right now, Week 17, the team that I would say circle as, hey, maybe they figured it out. It just took them four months to do it. It's the Buffalo Bills. They look like

they put it together the last couple of weeks. This is what Warren Sharpe was talking about on Ringer Gambling Show with Solak for nine straight weeks. It's like, what are the Bills. They looked like they put it together the last couple of weeks. This is what Warren Sharpe was talking about on Ringer Gambling Show with Solak for nine straight weeks. It's like, what are the Bills doing? Why are they so committed to running the ball with these mediocre to below average running backs? Why not just put their fate in Josh Allen's hands?

They finally, it seemed like they finally got there last week. The Pats fan in me who has learned to trust Belichick with my football life and has seen him rope-a-dope teams every once in a while, I do think it's weird that we never blitzed out on that whole game, that we never changed up what we were doing, that we stayed in this defense that wasn't working because he was just killing us,

that they were just like, oh, cool. Let's just we'll just keep going with this. It's going to work eventually. It's not usually what he does. So as a Pats fan who watched Belichick once upon a time stare down Pete Carroll from the opposite Super Bowl sideline and Jedi mind trick him into throwing a slant. I do wonder, is it possible that Belichick left stuff on the table wondering if he was going to see these guys again in January, that there are some wrinkles that maybe they didn't break out? Please tell me that's not wishful thinking. My only counter to that would be how demoralizing

would it be if they beat them again and they had swept them and Belichick just got the win. You can't touch us. No matter how good your quarterback plays, no matter what you do, we still have an answer. I can't imagine that there's much stuff left in the bag that they just saved because of that. But you're right. Belichick has plans for the entire year. He's not one game to one game. So who knows?

No, just admit you shit on my theory and I'm screwed and the Bills are way better. Listen, it's tough. They had to win that. I don't want to say it was a fluky way, Just admit you, you shit on my theory and I'm screwed and the bills are way better. It's tough. Like they had to win that. I don't want to say it was a fluky way, but like they had the greatest game plan ever for that Monday night game in Buffalo and the conditions matched it perfectly. And he did out coach McDermott in that game, but gosh, in a game where it's not a inclement weather and you need Mac Jones to outscore Josh Allen, it's going to be tough. You can't even believe some of the conversations I had with my Pats fans friends this week

trying to find silver linings. This is the thing I actually said. Well, we didn't have Aguilar. Yeah, Aguilar, there we went. They were able to move everyone up because they didn't have the deep thread of Aguilar. It's like, all right, I'm really reaching. Yeah, I think if we're looking at the teams, we always talk about the

circle. We'll take a break after this and do million dollar picks. We always talk about the circle of teams that could win the title. And I was doing a little mini power poll. I think there's two top tiers and the Pats aren't in either of them, but the top, top tier is Buffalo, Tampa, Kansas city, green Bay. Fair.

Yep. Right underneath them. Dallas Rams, Tennessee Indy. Right. Sure. Yeah. That's our eight right now.

I always talk about how eight, yep. Every eight teams can win the super bowl and you're going to have these games and weird shit's going to happen and your punters going to get COVID and you don't have a holder and you just, you just don't know, but eight teams are going to be in the mix and you need somel and you're going to have these games and weird shit's going to happen and your punter's going to get COVID and you don't have a holder and you just don't know. But eight teams are going to be in the mix and you need some skill and you need some guys to step up and you need a little luck too. I think right underneath those eight are New England, San Francisco, and Cincy. And then I think that's it. Cause the next tier I had was Arizona, Philly, Chargers, Miami. I just

think without Hopkins, I don't want to write off Arizona, but it's hard not to. I think they're kind of out of the mix now. I underestimated what a beast he is and how important he is to that offense. Because talking to Cliff before the game, it was just like, he's not fast. He's not particularly graceful. And yet he never drops a pass, and he's always open, and he finds a way. And that's the ultimate comfort for Kyler Murray, who's going to scramble around, lift his head up. Where's DeAndre? And that's his first, second, third option to not have him. That takes a lot of the dynamic part of that offense out. So I would agree. Arizona's not in there. San Francisco, complete wildcard. Philly, to me, is interesting. I got

to see Philly over the next two weeks because Philly runs the shit out of the ball. They run the ball for 200 yards, and Lane Johnson did not make the Pro Bowl, is going to be a first-team All-Pro. He's that good. It was ridiculous he didn't make the Pro Bowl. And their defense is getting better and better. Their defensive coordinator, Jonathan Gannon,

has had one of the great turnarounds for a unit. They were a joke for six weeks of the season, and now you don't want to play Philly's defense, and they're all playing great. So Philly is interesting to me because come January, it's not Jalen Hurts that's going to scare you. It's the way that they just dominate the ball and run it right down your throat. I can't get there with them because of the schedule they've played.

I just can't. Yeah, they haven't beaten anyone. You're right. And we also, we had them that week when they lost to the Giants 13-7. And it's the Giants were just like, Hertz, you're not running. And the Eagles were like, oh my God, what do we do? But you look at all their wins. They killed Detroit. They beat Denver. They beat New Orleans. They beat Denver in that weird one where, remember Teddy didn't go for the tackle and Darius Slay. And it felt like Denver kind of, if two plays go different, Denver maybe wins. They beat New Orleans. They beat the Jets.

They beat Washington. They beat the Giants. I just can't get there. I just, I want to see them do it against a good team. And we haven't. Now you can say that about a bunch of teams, but I just think when, maybe they're the good bad team this year and that's how it is. Yeah. And that, and that's fine. And maybe it's them

and the dolphins are just one of those teams that, that just win games against bad teams, get to the playoffs, lose first round. I just know that in Lane Johnson and Kelsey, like they can mall whoever's in front of them. So if they can find a way to eke it out, I would be, I wouldn't want to face them. They're going to beat the shit out of you. And it's going to be running down your throat the whole game. Could be a good cold-weather playoff team. So you agree, Buffalo, Tampa, Kansas City, Green Bay, slight drop-off, Dallas, Rams, Tennessee, Indy.

Now, people would say, why isn't Dallas in that top four? That should be a top five. I just want to see them have a statement game. We still haven't seen it. I think they have the talent to get in there. And honestly, I think Green Bay is the team that could drop out of that because I don't think their defense is very good. I don't love their coaching.

And I think their special teams we know is bad. But they have some red flags for me that I think combination of schedule, the fact that Rodgers is who he is, and they've been able to pull some of these things out. But I feel like you can really, really, really attack their defense and move the ball on it. It's, it's amazing. Cause after that game on Saturday, it was like Russell Douglas, this is unbelievable story. The truth of the matter is Cleveland and Baltimore with a lot of people down, went up and down the field on that defense. And yes, they, they had four interceptions on Saturday, but like Nick

Chubb is still running. Dearness Johnson is still running. Like there were some serious questions about that defense, uh, the last two weeks. So I, I don't know though, if they're home and it's Rogers and it's like this whole last dance field. Did you think the Browns were going to win that game the other day? I did. I did too. And they were on the 50 with three timeouts left. And I was like, they figured it out. Just don't let Baker hurt you. Just run the ball. And then, of course, he throws another pick. But he threw four picks. Three of them were 100% his fault. It was like the Packers defense was producing picks. One of them, they made a nice play.

But three of them were just Baker's bad. Absolutely. So anyway. So yeah, I think Dallas could take that Green Bay. I think I could see Green Bay and Dallas flipping. But yeah, I think it's Buffalo, Tampa, Kansas City, Green Bay. Then Dallas, Rams, Tennessee, Indy. And then lurking

right underneath are the Pats and the Niners and the Bengals. All of whom have interesting prove-it games this week, right? San Francisco should just take care of business. Kill Houston. The Pats should kill Jacksonville. Since he's got the biggest test of all, we'll cover all of this

right after the break because they're coming up in Million Dollar Picks. All right. Million Dollar Picks. Week 17. Here's what we're looking at. Do we... Let's start here. Do we like the Rams this week?

Because I do. How are you feeling? I like the Rams a lot this week. Okay. Here's what we have for the Rams. They are playing the Ravens. Lamar, like, do we see Lamar this season until the playoffs? What is going on with this?

Okay. So it's a bone bruise. He couldn't go last week. He practiced. We're doing this on Thursday. He practiced Wednesday. I spoke to some folks that are in the know. Did not start this on Thursday. He practiced Wednesday. I spoke to some folks that are in the know, did not start practice on Thursday.

And when I see that, that he was limping around yesterday, I would expect Huntley to be the guy on Sunday, which might be better off than hobbling Lamar, who can't walk right now. I'd rather, because we're going to play the Rams in this game. I would much rather see hobbled Lamar than Huntley. I think Huntley's pretty good. I really do. He's cost us money. He was making fourth and 13 throws on us and, and getting us. So the Rams are favored by four over the Rams. And we can get a little ambitious moving that around.

We have some straight up possibilities, some alternate possibilities. I, uh, the Stafford thing, I it's, we're just going to have to deal with it for the rest of the year. But I,

I do feel like the Rams got back a little bit to kind of the balance that I was used to with McVay, where it wasn't just like Stafford, Stafford, Stafford, throw, throw, throw. It was like, all right, here's Sonya Michelle. back a little bit to kind of the balance that I was used to with McVay, where it wasn't just like Stafford, Stafford, Stafford, throw, throw,

throw. It was like, all right, here's Sonya Michelle. He's a solid C minus, but he knows how to run forward and fall for four yards. And let's just ride that. And they felt,

they felt a little more McVay-ish last week. Also Odell. How's he health wise? He's fine. He's okay. Okay. He had one catch last week, I think, uh, against the Seahawks. Odell Odell's case of Baker Mayfield was holding me down. It's helped every week by Baker Mayfield. Well, it was funny. Odell Beckham was trending on Sunday and I'm like, ah, shit, he got COVID again or something. And it was just people bashing Baker. I'm like, all right, well, that's like, well, that's how this

works. A quick couple of things on the Rams, because I spoke to those guys this week. Do you know who the NFL's leading rusher is in the month of December? Is it Sony Michelle? Sony Michelle. Wow. 423 yards on the ground. NFL's leading rusher. Secondly, they were without their two top tackles, Noteboom and Whitworth on Sunday. They were without their center. Allen went down. Stafford stunk, did not play well. And they won on the road in Minnesota.

I think that matters. That's good shit. That's the stuff that you're like, all right, it's not just everyone's healthy. Cooper Cup, go and figure it out. Special teams touchdown, which is so rare for them, which has been an atrocious unit for them. And their defense stepped up

every time they had to on Cousins. Like these last two wins over Russell and the Seahawks. And I know there was an atrocious fourth down pass interference that wasn't called fine, whatever. They won by 10. And then against Minnesota,

like ugly wins. And that stuff's good for a team as they start to figure things out and say, OK, well, we won with not our best effort. Imagine if we all put it together and we play well. Titans are another team like that, a team. And I think the Ravens were like that until they passed the point of no return with injuries. But these teams that can win these ugly games, you're like,

wow, how did that happen? How do you win a game when Stafford makes the three throws that he made? Usually that's a loss every time. And they pulled it out. I was impressed. I want to put them in there. We have Colts up to minus seven over the Raiders, but we can get a little ambitious with the money line. So with the Raiders. Wait, real quick on Cam Akers.

Everyone's fantasy championships. It's Thursday. Everyone's like, should I start Cam Akers? Please don't. Yeah, that's a playoff move. Advise against. Yeah. Colts Raiders.

So the Raiders, I called them the Michael Myers of this season. Where we've thought we killed them off three times and we just haven't been able to do it yet. And they're certain types of games.

They've been frisky underdogs where you kind of know it as it's happening. And then there's other games where you're like, the two Chiefs games specifically, where you're like, wow, this team blows. I like this Colts spot. I like that it's a must-win game. It seems like we'll have Wentz back in time

because they changed the COVID rules. And it feels like the Colts can run on them now. Should we be afraid of the Raiders in this game? How are you feeling about Colts, Raiders, Colts minus seven, but just the Colts to win if we had the Colts money line? Have you been watching hard knocks at all or no? I have not. I'm not saying to go binge it now,

but you might want to pick the Colts to win the Super Bowl watching hard knocks. That is how much you love Frank Reich and his coaching staff. They're just dealing with shit from all over. No Quinton Nelson. His response is like, all right, that's fine. We got a really good offensive line. Let's go.

Their special teams coach, Bubba Ventrone, who was with the Patriots for years on their staff, is one of these high energy, nothing can stop us. We can overcome. They didn't have Quentin Nelson, Ryan Kelly, Darius Leonard, or anybody on that offensive line on Saturday. And it was like, they were, it wasn't like, oh, we can overcome. It was more just like, no big deal. Let's go and let's do our thing. And then Wentz and you guys hit it. You and Sal were great on it. And I

respect you guys giving him credit when he had to the throw, that was as good a throw as anyone has thrown in the NFL this season. And it's like, gosh, if Taylor can still run for 100 yards with four offensive linemen down, and Wentz just has to make one or two throws, this might be the team that finds a way to win no matter what. And I look at this squad, what they've been through. They're getting back Nelson. They're getting back Leonard.

They're getting back a lot of guys. I don't know if Wentz plays on Sunday. I've got friends who have been the shit kicked out of them from COVID. And we're just saying, all right, well, there's new rules. Five days after being unvaccinated with COVID, I'm not sure if he's going to be able to go Sunday. We'll check in on how he's feeling. Technically, he can be out there. But that just is like the story of their season. I would not bet against them in this game. Not the way that they're playing right now. Does the Wednesday make you want to stay away from this or you're fine either way?

No, I'm fine. I don't care if it's Wentz, Wentz 50% or Sam Ellinger. I feel like they'll find a way to win. Here's just a quick look for the listeners at the Raiders. The Raiders are three and five in their last eight games. The three wins were the overtime Thanksgiving game against Dallas, which was the worst officiated game, not only the year, but maybe the last three years.

You have the two-point win over Cleveland on the Monday, which was the bizarre COVID game, which they almost lost that one anyway. And then you have last Sunday against Denver. Which we bet on. We took them. We took them.

And it was more a bet against Drew Luck, who was as terrible as advertised. And the Fangio-Drew Luck combo, which they ran 40 plays total, which was close to an NFL record of minimum plays. So those are their three wins. There are five losses. Loss to the Giants by seven.

Loss to the Chiefs by 27. Loss to the Bengals by 19. Loss to Washington by two. Loss to the Chiefs by 39. I don't think the Raiders are good. No Waller Lost Ruggs forever Offensively

It's a lot of Renfro and some Jacobs And then Carr depending on the quarter Pretty good pass rush Couple good guys on the front line I like that Crosby Crosby jumps out every time you watch It's cool It just feels like the Colts

The Colts also need the game It's not like the Colts, if they're really going to be... The Colts also need the game. Yes. It's not like the Colts can be like, ah, yeah, let's throw this out. It's like a must win for the Colts. Forget the division, like wildcard wise. Both teams need it. I mean, the Raiders, I think I could be wrong.

If the Raiders win out and they've got to win the last two games, I think they make the playoffs. It's a very strange season. It feels like it's been 18 months. It's just been 18 weeks. But I think Colts at home, that place rocking, Nelson back, Leonard back. Sorry, I got to go Colts. So we'll have

the Colts. We're in team with the Rams. Just on the Ravens quick, the Ravens are three and six in their last nine. They're minus 48 in those games. They've fallen a 19th in DVOA. What's interesting is you'd be like, well, Lamar's been out. It's not Lamar. It's the defense. They're 28th in DVOA in defense. The Rams are fourth overall. They're seven, six, and five in the three categories.

And we're going to put the Rams and the Colts together. Here's my question for you. Yeah. Rams, Colts, Moneyline, Parley. Just they both have to win. Even money. Plus 100.

All right. Or, we could take the Rams to plus 3.5 on Fando with the alternate line, which we've had some success with. So we could have the Rams three and a half. That's minus 350. Colts money line. We could sprinkle in the Bucks 7-1

to beat the Jets, minus 700. Those three together is minus 105. So the question for you is, just do the straight money parlay, or do we want to buy some insurance in the Rams game? Are we worried about Tyler Huntley at all? Plus three and a half, and we could put in the bucks minus 700.

Let's go money line. Let's do it the right way. Let's just pick the winners. Rams, Colts. Okay, let's do it. I'm with you. All right, so we'll mark that one down. Rams Colts even parlay.

Speaking of crazy parlays, this is on FanDuel. They said they would boost this for us a little bit. The reason they'd boost this for us is because it's a dumb bet and they don't think we can win. It's a 14, 13-point parlay. Talk to me.

Wow. Pats, minus 16.5 against the Jags. How many guys are they missing now? 27? Yes. And depleted. Interviewing coaches as we speak. Yes.

I actually watched some of the Jags Jets game with, uh, with the Nets because I was going against Lawrence and fantasy. So I was intrigued. The Jags are horrible, horrible. They're so bad. I couldn't believe how I was shocked how bad they were. And I don't, I'm not going to overreact on Lawrence yet, but I gotta say, like, I was expecting this short thing, Andrew Luck coming into the league right away, being good type of guy. He makes a lot of bad throws and a lot of bad decisions. I'm not a giant fan. I've learned from learning at the knee of Troy Aikman, and I've become friendly with it,

that first year, Aikman went 1-15. Throw it out. Aikman went 1-10, I think. And then Peyton Manning obviously led the NFL on interceptions. Most record ever for a rookie. Throw it out. They have a new coach. But yes, it's alarming how bad they are. That Jets-Jaguars game, everyone was like,

wow, Jets won with Ron Middleton. The Jets had some of the most ridiculous game management decisions. Insane. It actually looked like they were trying to throw the game. At one point, CJ Mosley just dropped the pick six that would have clinched it. And it was like, wait, is he on the payroll? What's going on here?

I once covered a Jets Cardinals game probably like five years ago with Greg McIlroy. And I believe either Ryan Lindley or John Skelton. I was sent there by Fox and I left that game and said that is the worst game of NFL football ever played. And I think Jets-Jaguars might have been worse. Well, the Pats are

16 and a half, so we can bring that down to three. They'd have to win by four. The Jags are plus 750 as an underdog. Remember that. All right, next one is

Tampa minus 12 and a half against the Jets. This is Tom Brady against the Jets, a team that he's had an incredible amount of success with. Also, we just talked about how bad the Jets jags. The game management, just a bunch of things not going great with the Jets.

I will say, it looks like they had a really good draft. Oh, Wilson's good? A bunch of these guys, yeah. Michael Carter? Moore is good. Like, Wilson showed his legs a little bit on that touchdown run. People like the offensive linemen, too. Oh, Vera Tucker's been playing very well.

They've got a good draft here. Both Michael Carters. The safety's been really good, too. With all that said, this feels like an Antonio Brown 17 catches for 190 yards type of game. We could take Tampa. They're minus 12 and of game. We could take Tampa. They're minus 12 and a half. We can take them basically to even. Jets are plus 520 to win that game.

Just throwing that out there. Next one, Niners, Texans. This is the one that worries me the most because, drum roll please, Davis Mills might be good. Davis Mills might be awesome. Davis Mills. Davis Mills, what the hell is going on?

Niners are favored by 12.5 Texans are plus 520 The Texans have been very kind to us With underdog parlay Over the season I think we're like 7-0 Betting on the Texans Either with points

Or underdog parlay They are our team from 2021 Yeah No Cooks. Is Cooks back this week? He did not play last week. Don't know. We'll see.

Well, Niners must win. Could take them down to even. Texans are plus 520. And then the last one, Bill's Falcons. Bill's are minus 14 and a half. Could take that down basically to minus one and a half. Bill, I didn't get your opinion on the John Lynch tweet gate.

Did you follow that story at all? To me, that just screamed of my kids are running my Twitter account. Okay. Yeah. I don't think he could even log on to his own Twitter. What was your take? It's just like, I don't know, man.

How does that happen? It just still happens. These things happen. To me, it's just funny. I'm laughing. But it was an issue there. They were all in crisis mode. It just sucks. I don't think he clicked on it knowingly, but to your point, I just laughed that an NFL

GM likes a tweet of a meme of we should leave the quarterback in Nashville. Jesus. Bills minus 14.5 against the Falcons. Some Atlanta stats that are pretty incredible. I don't think we've made enough of this amazing Atlanta season. They're 7-8. We're like, oh, great.

Who cares? They're 7-8. Well, the 32nd in DVOA. this amazing Atlanta season. They're 7-8. We're like, oh, great. Who cares? They're 7-8. Well, the 32nd in DVOA, Aaron Schatz on Football Outsiders this week, he did a whole scale of every record, the worst DVOA with every record, right? From 0-16 all the way to the 16-0 Pats. And it's like wherever Atlanta's record ends,

they're going to be the lowest DBA for that record, no matter where it lands. 7 and 8, they're minus 122 for the season. They've played six playoff teams that they lost by 26, 23, 40, 25, 13, and 18. Even when they beat shitty teams, they barely beat them. It's always coming down to the last minute. It's always guys

high-fiving after some fourth down stop. A young way coup. Right. And it just seems like the Bills just beating the Falcons by two is a home run. So my question for you. The craziest Falcons stat is that they won their first home game last week in week

16. Wow. That's bonkers. So Pats minus six and a half, Tampa minus 12 and a half, Niners minus 12 and a half, Bills minus 14 and a half. If we brought all those down to 13 points, which one scares you the most? Davis Mills, doesn't it? Yeah yeah I would stay away from Davis just because I don't know the Niners quarterback situation and that might be good might be bad

but I'm not so okay with doing all those games Bill if you want well I asked people on Twitter

I went to the Twitter did a poll I thought you said you're done with Twitter I did a poll poll I'm picturing you at home trying to figure out how to do a poll on Twitter.

It feels so proud. Oh, it's easy. Oh, come on. My Twitter skills are still on par. 16,443 votes as we're taping this. That's a lot. Ask them which one scares you the most. 50% said the Niners.

Davis Mills. Davis Mills is a real thing. Davis Mills. How could you pass on me at third overall, Davis Mills? Well, if you do a 13-point tease on FanDuel, it's minus 175. They're going to boost this for us to minus 130.

So we can either do that or here's my other option for you. We can say one of these teams is going to fuck this up. We'll bet the four money lines for the underdogs and we'll put 100K on each and if one of them wins, we win.

So we can do Jags plus 750, Jets plus 520, Texans plus 520, Falcons plus 660. And the thinking would be just have to hit one if we lose we lose 400,000 if we hit one now we've made some money or we just do the tees I'm more prone toward the tees me too I think this is this is I look at all four of those games I think there's something we can say about each one of these underdogs. And then I go to bed at night and I'm like, they're not winning that game. So I'm saying let's go with the favorites and the teaser.

All right. So we are, we'll boost that to a minus one 30. And then I have another one. This is, you're calling this the Davis mill special. Boy, this is,

he check. This is, this is a really special one. So you have, you identified three games where you like the over. I texted you and I said, I want the over on three of these games. Chiefs.

Chiefs Bengals. Texans 49ers. Falcons Bills. Shootouts. All three games, shootouts. And one of the beautiful things On Fando Is they have the alternate lines

So we're doing an alternate line Over parlay Yes And here's where we landed Chiefs-Bengals Minus 200 Over 45.5 46 points

Wins Texans-Niners Over 39.5 Minus 200 46 points wins. Texans Niners, over 39 and a half, minus 200. 40 points, we win. Falcons Bills, over 38 and a half, minus 250. 39 points, we win. You put those three together, plus 215. All of them have to win.

Chiefs Bengals, 46 points. Texans Niners, 40 points. Falcons Bills, 39 points, plus 215. I love it. I would encourage everyone listening, you're looking at a Mahomes-Burroughs shootout, which I think we deserve on New Year's weekend. Can't wait. That's going to be great. Houston has scored 41 and 30 their past two weeks against fine defenses, the Chargers and whoever else they beat. Maybe they beat the Jags. That team sucks.

But still, Houston, they put points up. And then Atlanta is terrible on defense. Terrible. And Buffalo's really good. Let's go. Plus 215. So we got that. Before we do underdog parlay, just two games quickly,

I think we should hit. I'm staying away from both. Just want to make sure. Titans minus three and a half against the Dolphins. Dolphins feel good, bad team-ish to me, much like the Eagles, the AFC version of the Eagles. But I do think it's a team that knows who they are. They know how to protect Tua to the T. He knows every play exactly what he's doing within a second and a half.

Their defense is a second and a half. Their defense is a little frisky. They're well coached. They've won seven straight, which is nothing to sneeze at no matter what the schedule is. On the flip side, the Titans with A.J. Brown back just seemed like he unlocked them

in that Niners game. But I'm staying away. I was trying to think about Titans. Is this our one chance to bet against Tua? Is this a game T to bet against Tua? Is this a game Tua falls apart? But I think it's a stay away.

Any feelings on that game? Yeah, I'd stay away. They've got also the intangible there. And I know a lot of the guys in Miami, they are so all in on no one believes in us stuff and all that crap. And Flores' defense is dialing it up right. But the Jalen Waddle factor is like whenever they need a play, he's going to break the receptions record

for rookies in a season. He gets the ball every single down. He's going to be the number one fantasy player over the last month. Jalen Waddell is the ultimate security blanket for Tua, and I could see him having just as good a game as A.J. Brown if they need him to. He's a different player than Debo,

but same kind of impact for his team, right? Yeah, he's just all these different situations. I do like it. The other one we should mention, Brown Steelers, minus three and a half for the Browns. And I do like the Steelers. Ben's last game at Heinz. Baker against the defense.

My question for you is, what's the deal with TJ Watt? Because he got hurt two weeks ago near the end. He didn't look like himself last week. And if he's not himself, I don't really want to take the Steelers. He played with a broken rib. So everyone celebrates, but he didn't look like himself last week. Um, I don't know, Ben at home against a team that he is like dominated his entire career. And I know they lost the playoff game to them last year in Heinz field. And you can say, oh, that's just, you know, whatever.

I kind of like the Steelers too, Bill. I don't know. Tomlin, Ben, like find a way, one of those games. It's a Monday nighter. The Steelers are plus 150 to win. They're plus three and a half to cover. And I don't know. It's Baker Mayfield.

What's more fun than betting against him? Well, which one do you like? You like the plus three and a half or you like the money? I like the money line. But we shouldn't put them in underdog parlay, right? We're just like straight up. Straight up. Straight up.

Straight up. Okay. Do you like the Dolphins money line? Kind of. Gets the Titans? Kind of. that could be another straight up so Dolphins money line

is plus 142 do you does that Ryan Tannehill revenge game do anything for you or you don't it scares me a tiny bit

yeah I also I just think that there's a resilience to that Titans team that scares me a little bit. I can't believe they covered last week. No, it was nuts.

That's an amazing win. And Vrabel's my coach of the year. They've had 88 different players, and they won last week without Henry and Luan and Saffold. They were down 10-0 last week's win. If that didn't open eyes to what Vrabel's doing with those guys, nothing will. All right, we're going to take a break,

come back, do underdog parlay, and then release the million-dollar picks. All right, this is our kind of week for underdog parlay. Just a slew of underdogs I like. We got Steelers plus 150 against the Browns. Dolphins plus 142 against Tennessee. We have the Cards plus 210 against the Browns. Dolphins plus 142 against Tennessee. With the Cards plus 210 against the Cowboys. Want to scratch that one? Yeah.

Yeah, let's scratch it. We have the Bengals plus 184 against the Smokin' Hot Chiefs. So there is a Bengals play I was thinking about if we wanted to do that one straight up too. And I think we both, even though the Chiefs. So there is a Bengals play I was thinking about if we wanted to do that one straight up too. And I think we both, even though the Chiefs are red hot, they're probably a stay away,

but this game is in Cincinnati. And if you're thinking, if you're just looking at the week 17 slate and being like, who's going to be the overreaction team coming out of this weekend?

The Bengals are a good candidate, right? If they win, it's like, remember a couple years back, I think it was like 2002 or 2003, the Chiefs were undefeated and Chad Johnson and it might have been Kitna and Rudy Johnson, they beat them and it was like, the Bengals! I remember

it feels a lot like that again. If the Bengals win, there's going to be some points in that game, correct? Yes, absolute shootout. That's how that game's going to be decided. If the Bengals win. Yeah. So we could do Bengals plus 176 with the over 51

is basically 4-1. It's plus 401. So if we go Bengals, we go over, that would be the bet. I kind of like it. Let's do it. All right. We'll put that one in.

So instead of putting that in underdog, we will do Bengals over as its own thing. A couple other underdog possibilities. Broncos plus 220 against the Chargers. That would involve us betting against Drew Locke, so that's out, right? Yeah, we're not, no. The Lions.

Our old friends. Jared Goff back this week. Supposedly, maybe he's got a little knee something. What's going on with him? We're hoping. The expectation is he'll be back. Plus 245 against the Seahawks, who are just awful. They stink.

What's good about them? How is there that much of a difference between the Lions and the Seahawks? To me, they look very similar. They lost to the Bears last week after being up 10 points in the fourth quarter. I mean, yeah. Lions plus 245.

We have the Vikings plus 240 against the Packers. No Thielen. Thielen's out for the year. But that would be the classic, oh my God, just when people are feeling great about the Packers. Wow. They have a week 17 stink bomb. And then Washington plus 146 against the Eagles. Washington, when guys fight on the sidelines, I'm usually

out. Out of all those, do you like Lions and Vikings together? I don't like the Vikings. I like the Lions, and I would go with the Dolphins. For underdog parlay? Yeah. Lions and Dolphins

I like. That Washington for underdog parlay. Yeah. Lions and dolphins. I like, all right. Um, that Washington fight. It's very rare. You get the Walter Payton man of the year nominee, punching a teammate on the, in the face on the sidelines.

That's what happened. Do you like lion Steelers or lions dolphins or both? I like lions dolphins. I'm convincing myself dolphins right now. Bunch of, a bunch of young rookies just showing up. Holland and Phillips. And let's go. All right. It's time, Pete.

Peter. Nobody calls you Pete. You're a Peter. You're just not a Pete. Schrags or Peter. We had Goodell on the show, Good Morning Football, and he referred to me as Schrags. And I was like, that's pretty cool. All right.

Let's go. Got to make a marker. Let's go. Goodell's on the Manning cast. Yeah. When's he coming on the BS report? Never. The answer would be never.

I think he hates me and I don't like him either. So that's probably not happening. But I can't wait. He'll be terrible on the Manning cast. Anyway, the Million Dollar Picks. Week 17. Once again, we are up $553,000 trying to get to seven figures for the playoffs so we'll have a little fake spending money

all lines courtesy of FanDuel our first one the Rams and the Colts the Rams are playing the Ravens they are minus four point favorites the Colts are playing the Raiders they are minus seven point favorites

we love the Rams we love the Colts we playing the Raiders. They are minus seven point favorites. We love the Rams. We love the Colts. We love them just to win. If the two of them win, it's even money. Who are you more afraid of in this game, Shakes? I'm more afraid of the Raiders because I don't know what the quarterback is going to look like

and who the quarterback for Indianapolis is. But I'm betting on 51 other players to carry the load. Let's go Colts. Yeah. And it's also one of those things where it's like, oh no, we don't have Carson Wentz. It's like, eh, I think you'll be okay. You still have all the other best players in your team and maybe it won't be that much of a drop off. We're not scared of no Carson Wentz. We also think there's a gambling opportunity here. We're putting $500,000, even money. Rams win, Colts win. So there you go. That's our first one.

Second one is a little special parlay that Fandle has, the 14-13 pointer. It's really called the idiot's delight. We're doing it anyway. They're going to boost it to minus 130 for us unless there's some sort of injury. It'll go up Saturday. If something weird happens, that'll be off.

But the plan is if things go well, but we're going to grab the minus 130 now. 13-point parlay. All these teams have to cover. Pats from minus 16.5 down to minus 3.5 against the Jets. Yep. Tampa from minus 12.5 down to plus half against the Jets. Feeling. Tampa for minus 12.5 down to plus half against the Jets. Feeling good about

that one. When in doubt, bet against the Jets. Brady versus the Jets is usually a fair bet. Niners, Texans. A little more worried about this one. This is the one. This is the scary one. Niners, minus 12.5 taking that down to a half point

against the Texans Doesn't it feel weird betting against Davis Mills But you know what I'm with you we got to do it Davis we've paid you our proper Respects here We're nervous as hell to go against you Love them What more do you want plus a little

Lovie Smith on the sidelines with the charged up Texans defense With that great beard David what's his name David Cully The Cully the fighting Cullies I love up Texans defense. That great beard. What's his name? David Cully? The fighting Cullies. I love the Texans this year. Fighting for an extension. And then finally, feel great about this. Bills minus 14-and-a-half against the Falcons

who are 7-and-8 and 32nd in DVOA, making history every step of the way. The odds of the Falcons being 8-and-8 to me feel like zero. We are combining all of these. We're going to boost this to minus 130. And we're going to put

300K on this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's go. 300K on this. If we lose, we lose 390,000. Now we have some underdog bets for you, America, heading into 2022. Little underdog, little underdog bets for you, America, heading into 2022. Little underdog, little underdog nearest thing.

The Steelers. Ben Roethlisberger's last home game, probably. His last chance to throw some wobblers. Let's go. But he's going against his doppelganger for interceptions. The one, the only Baker Mayfield. We're hoping T.J. White figured like shoot a little Viking in and it was broken rib.

He'll be fine. Let's get that rib right. Maybe Chase Claypill shows up for the first time all season. Maybe. We're going to take the Steelers plus 150 against the Browns. We're going to take the Dolphins plus 142 against the Titans. So we're going to hope one of these hits, we'd love if both of them hits.

We're going to put, what do you think, 200K on each of these? 150? A little less? 150? All right. 150K, Steelers plus 150, 150K, Dolphins plus 142.

Let's hope one of those hits. And then, just for fun, another parlay Bengals in the over against the chiefs make the case. How did the Bengals win this game? What does it look like? Joe Perro, Joe Perro says, I'm the, I'm the dude. I'm the dude throws the ball all over the yard and, and just says, this is our team. And we've got three great weapons at wide receiver. And I am that guy and stop talking about Justin Herbert and the rest of these young quarterbacks. I'm the dude. Bengals and the over plus 401. Wow. That's a lot. You want to put 100 or 150 on this? 100. It's hard to bet against the Chiefs right now, but it's a fun story if the Bengals can get this thing going.

100K and the Bengals plus 401. So we have those three parlays. If one of them wins, it pays for the other two losses. If two of them win, we're dancing in the streets. Dancing in the streets. And then finally, underdog parlay. We got the Lions

plus 245 against the reprehensible Seahawks. I think the Seahawks fans hate them more than any other fan base hates their fans right now. Just complete disgust. They have no first round pick.

There's going to be some terrible Wilson trade coming. But by the way, might not be a terrible trade. Russell Wilson hasn't been good in a year. If he's not running, what is he? What am I getting at? He's going to be 34 next year. Should I be that excited to get Russell Wilson?

Give up four first round picks for him or whatever it is? Would you do that? Not four, but I would sign up for Russell Wilson. I'll roll the dice on Russell Wilson. I know it doesn't look great this year, but gosh, nothing does on that team. Would you trade Zach Wilson and the higher of your first-round picks if you were the Jets, plus a future

second? No, because the Jets are not ready to win a championship right now, but if I'm Denver or if I'm Carolina or if I'm one of those teams that has some really good talent, I would go very aggressively towards Russell Wilson. So you'd trade two first-round picks if you're Denver? Yes.

Without blinking? Yes. Underdog parlay. We have the Lions and we have the Seahawks. And we're looking at plus 734. Wow! We are going and we're looking at plus 734. Wow. We are going to put 33K on that.

All right. So what teams? It's the Lions. And who's the other team? Lions plus 245. Dolphins plus 142. Yeah, there you go. Those are the two teams that Dan Campbell has been the head coach for.

This is the Dan Campbell weekend. Did we not bet on our crazy over with Houston and San Francisco and all those guys? We didn't do that one. I forgot to get that one in there too. Get that one in. My bad. Davis Mills heat check game. Yeah, the last one we have is the Davis Mills heat check game.

Alternate overs on FanDuel. Kansas City Bengals, over 45.5, minus 200. Texans Bengals, over 45.5, minus 200. Texans Diners, over 39.5, minus 200. Falcons Bills, over 38.5, minus 250. Put all

those three together, plus 215. We're going to put $150K on that as well. Yes, sir. And there we are. The million dollar picks. We'll see if we can. We have a lot of stuff on a lot of things, but the new year is coming.

We're festive. We're hot, baby. We're hot. We're festive. We're feeling great. Those are the Million Dollar Picks for week 17. Peter Schrager, we can see. Are we seeing the sidelines this weekend?

Or no, that was fun seeing you last week. I will be on Fox on the weekend doing the pregame show. I love being on the sidelines, but the studio show is where my home is. I'll be there. Fox 5, doing the pregame show. I love to be on the sidelines, but the studio show is where my home is. I'll be there, Fox 5, whatever local channel you have, Fox. Cool. All right. Happy New Year.

Good to see you. And we'll see you next week for week 18. Happy New Year. Let's go. All right. My daughter Zoe Simmons is here. She's 16 and a half years old. She came here at the end of 2020. We did the Teen Culture Awards for 2020. We did a half year in June for 2021. And now we're here for the end of 2021. your whole world that you're immersed in, especially during a pandemic when there's a lot of dead time.

And now COVID seems like it's rearing its ugly head again, which one of the only benefits for me is you're in the house more. Yeah. You haven't had a hold of me for like five months. I've just been gone. I know you got a driver's license. I left. The driver's license took over. I'm back though. We're back, baby. Round two, 2020 version. Well, the only problem for us is less of you means more of your younger brother, Ben. And this is unlike sports where it's like the number one shot maker on the team leaves. And then another guy, the second guy steps up. He's done the opposite.

His usage rate is somehow, he doesn't want to see anybody. He's 14. He just wants to be alone. I could not tell you where he is right now. Yeah. And that's most of the time. Yeah. He's a pro skater, guys.

You guys used to be close. We did. He just does his own thing. It's unfortunate. Maybe this COVID new strand will bring us back together. I doubt it. I doubt it as well. All right.

Team Patrol 2021, your influencer awards. We're going to go through some categories. I'm going to set you up. We're going to go through some categories. I'm going to set you up. You're going to go. I don't understand what most of these things are. I don't think most of our audience does either, but a lot of the times the daughters of people that listen, or maybe even some of the younger people will get some of this stuff. Anyway, lingo in 2021, we have some new words that have rose to prominence either in your life or just in general. So let's go through the words. What are they?

All right. So simp is our first one. What do you think simp means, dad? Simp? Does that mean like a simpleton? What does that mean? No. Okay.

So a simp is someone, it's a dude or a girl, someone who's like really over infatuated with another person that they'll do anything for them. So you're simping for someone. Okay, give me an example of how this would be used in everyday culture. Ben, with one of his 10 girlfriends, he simps for all 10 of them. All right, you're throwing flames early.

I like it. I gotta get him. All right, next one is flop, which is a big one. A flop is like a miss. Like let's say a movie came out. Oh, that was a flop. That was a miss. That one's easy. I'm letting you guys know all this stuff so you understand what i'm saying i'm saying flops been around forever all right i'm just making sure this one comes back

you're ancient you're ancient and i need to make sure that we're on the same page all right next one next one sussy something sussy something suspicious that one's pretty simple but it's it's very prominent nowadays so an example would be like you have a friend who's kind of dating somebody, but he's sliding into somebody else's DM. Yes, that is sussy. That's sussy. Or sus. People are sussy.

Situations are sussy. Yeah, everything can be sussy. Anything. But it's more sus. Sus is like better than saying sussy. Okay, last one. Next up is clout and clouted. Do you know what clouted means

or am I making another assumption? I know what clout is, but does it mean something else? It just means when someone has a lot of fame and attention, that's clout. Oh, really? Like, of course. Okay, sorry.

I don't know what you know that I don't know. All right, so you gave us two that actually work, simp and sussy, and then flop and clout, which I've been about my whole life.'t know. All right. So you gave us two that actually work. All right. Simp and sussy and then flop and clout, which I've been about my whole life. Great job. All right. You also in our family, Ben uses mid all the time. But that one hasn't caught on.

Oh, mid is huge. No, I think a lot of people use that. That's more of like a Twitch streamer, video game guy. Mid just means medium, which is like average kind of ass. Ass is another one. How was the Clipper game last night? It was mid. But Ben says this so frequently that his teachers actually had to email our

mom. Right. Say something about it. Yeah. These are the stories I don't tell on parent corner. The mid. All right. Next category is,

well, what was the winner? What was the winner for best link? Best new lingo of the year. There's no winner for that. I think sauce. I use sauce much more. Okay. All right. Next category. Tick tock.ingo of the year. There's no winner for that. I think sus. I use sus much more. Okay.

All right. Next category. TikTok follow of the year. Last year, the winner was Sienna Mae. Oh my God. She's so canceled and everyone hates her. I don't like her either. Okay.

So who's the follow this year? The follow this year is Emily Mariko. You have no idea who she is. I'm about to tell you. She's an almost 30 year old woman who basically spends her time on TikTok making delicious meals out of past used food. She makes healthy meals, just meal inspiration. But the reason why she caught on so much is a video like nine months ago about a salmon and rice leftover dish where she mixed it all together, kind of like

a poke bowl. And this caught on and became a huge, huge trend because of her. And now everyone is basically in love with her. Her entire comment sections are people simping for her, for the food that she makes just for her life. Because in this time and day, teenagers are so all over the place. Like no one is put together. And Emily is almost like a motherly figure where we watch our mom, Emily, like making these delicious foods, like going to the grocery store, getting all her shit done. And she's a really put together person. So she's kind of like she's the mother of TikTok or like the cool older sister where she has her life together and we all admire it. Interesting. I'd see that some things are successful on TikTok. Can you elaborate on the teenagers are all over the place? You don't think teenagers are always like that?

Or you think the pandemic has pushed it to another level? Well, I think pandemic has definitely pushed it to another level. And like teenagers being the prominent users of social media and someone like me who I was in a funk for a while, like I'm a junior, I'm all over the place. Like most of the food I'm getting is from fast food or things like that. Like I don't have great options because I'm always all over the place. I don't have time. And watching someone like Emily is like a reset. It's like a mini brain vacation almost

being on her page. It's actually been good for you because you're in situations where you have like two soccer practices in the same day. Yeah. And I have to go to Trader Joe's and pick up some like random foods. But I don't know. She just, everyone adores her because she makes you feel like you're put together by watching her be put together. All right. So a year from now, is she going to be canceled or are we in good shape? No, what I'm hoping she'll do is maybe she'll make some sort of like dish line or maybe like some nutrients or supplement brand. Like she needs to brand herself because I think she can be really successful and she has the money to do it. So rooting for you, Emily.

All right. Congrats, Emily. You did it. Biggest disappointment of 2021 was? Chase Stokes and Madeline Klein breakup. Do you know who those people are? I really don't. Okay.

So you binge season two of OBX and season one, Outer Banks. What did you call it those people are? I really don't. Okay, so you binged season two of OBX and season one. Outer Banks. What did you call it? OPX? OBX. That's what you call it, Dan. OBX? Who calls it?

OBX. Outer Banks. I just call it Outer Banks. Okay, that's because you're old. But this is like an insane thing in my world right now. I'm like freaking out. So Madeline Klein and Chase Stokes, they were the lead couple. Two main characters. Yes. I never believed they were dating. I always thought they were. They were. And this is tragic because this show is so widely loved by everyone in the world.

And the two main characters who you basically bank on the fact that they're in love with each other in and out of filming, they're broken up. It's like the most heartbreaking thing. So you thought they were headed down the aisle, the whole thing? I thought that they were just going to continue it on or at least fake it until the seasons were over so that people could enjoyably watch the show. Like, I'm not going to be able to watch the show the same.

Oh, stop it. You totally... No, I won't. I'm going to watch it. But it's not going to be the same. I was excited for them to get married and then invite people from different them to get married and then invite people from different classes to the wedding. And then there would be a whole class war brawl at the wedding followed by people getting chased.

What are you saying? That's every episode at her base. It's like, oh, my God. Oh, run. Oh, punch somebody. Oh, my God. Find the treasure. Hey, there's my friend. I can't believe it. I didn't think they would be here, even though I'm in the Bahamas. That is the worst show I've ever watched that I've enjoyed. Do not say that. Oh, okay. I appreciate that. I enjoyed it. It's really dumb. All right. So Chase and Madeline, it's over. Was Madeline, either of them rebound? Anybody? Oh my God. So there's one dude, I could not tell you his name. He's like,

I don't want to, I don't want to hate on anyone, but he's always with the most attractive females. Like he was with Madison Beer. He was with like Ariana Grande. Like he hangs out with these really attractive women and he's like short and kind of stubby. And I don't know what he does, but they've been pictures have been taken of him and Madeline Klein going to dinners and things, or people are raising speculations. And I don't know what to think of it because going from someone like Chase Stokes, who is very attractive to like a not so attractive guy. Yeah. It's just, it's shocking. Wilmer Valderrama in the 2000s dated basically every attractive early 20s girl for years. That's crazy.

I think sometimes if you get the first, get two that you have on your resume, then it's like you become accepted by all the other beautiful women your age. Yeah, didn't I go from the Connie Crows? That happened to him too. Adam Duritz is another one. He did it every attractive lady.

Yeah, he dated two of their friends. Once that happens, everyone's available. Oh my God. It's like that in school too, guys. Maybe it'll be like that for Ben Simmons someday. All right. Biggest comeback of the year. What was that?

David Dobrik. And this is, I never thought I'd be saying this because we know that David had a very big canceling scandal where he, one of his buddies, I don't want to talk about it because it's like uncomfortable. You talked about it in a previous podcast. Yeah, I talked about it. If you guys know, you know, I'm not going to explain it,

but he was in a bad situation. Yeah, I talked about it. If you guys know, you know. I'm not going to explain it. But he was in a bad situation. And with this cancel culture era, people don't come back from this. Like it's constant hate. I don't know how you rebound, but somehow he's managed to do it with two measly, poor apologies that were not genuine.

Yeah. And then he just continued on filming. That got mocked on SNL. Yes. They were terrible. They were terrible apologies. And there's really no right way to apologize because you're never going to be forgiven. But he's just persevered. He's continued

on. He's made content every week. And I have to say, I'm enjoying it. Like, I don't support the situation. I don't condone anything that he's done and like the minorly kind of abusive tactics he has with his friends and his videos sometimes. But his videos are really funny and they're entertaining and they always remain the same and it feels nostalgic for me. Like I like watching his videos. All right. So I don't know. David, welcome back to Zoe's Good Vices.

You did it. Our next one, this category is called COVID Round 2 Trend. So we're saying round two is where we are right now. Yeah, round two. I would argue it's like round four. Well, yeah. But this one's more intense. What's the trend?

The trend is live e-dates. Okay, what's that mean? So this is basically like a live bachelor situation over Twitch. And one of my buddies started this because he has COVID right now and his friends do as well. And they're single and they want ladies. So the eight of them go on these live streams and invite one female. And then they all try to win her affection separately, like a bachelor situation. It's almost like a game show. Yes. Like going on dates. And then in the end, they choose a person. But it's like,

who thought life would come to this to Twitch streams of live dating? So it's somebody on a Zoom. They have eight suitors. Yeah. They go around. The suitors have to impress them. Does she eliminate people? Yeah, she eliminates people.

So she cuts down from like eight to four and then four to two? Yeah. And then it's done. Are you watching these? Yeah, you can stream them. Like it's, but people are doing

shit like this because this is what life is coming to in quarantine. Like, what else are you going to do? Especially if you want like female or male or whatever attention. You know, I was in a dating game senior year in college. I feel like you've told me this before. You won? But I had a girlfriend, so I couldn't go on the date.

Oh, why were you in the competition? That is sussy. It was the whole gym full of people. It was like a chance to be funny. I didn't expect to win. Oh, my God. That is sussy. It was the whole gym full of people. It was like a chance to be funny. I didn't expect to win. Oh my God. That's crazy. Look at you. I'm one to know in dating game situations. Okay. Live e-dates. That's our COVID round two trend of the year. What was our feud of the year? Our feud of the year was Corinna Kompf and Natalie from David's vlogs. And here's why. Who's Corinna Kampf?

She's just an influencer, a personality in David's videos. She has very highly streamed OnlyFans, if you're aware of that one. Is that like, what goes on there? Nudity? Yeah, it's a lot of things that we don't want to see. Like people in lingerie? Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. So if you end up on OnlyFans, I should just... Kill yourself. Okay. Don't go on OnlyFans. I should just... Kill yourself. Okay. Don't go on OnlyFans. I don't plan on it, dad. Thanks. But she's a huge person on OnlyFans, blah, blah, blah. And she dated David's buddy, Todd,

who's another personality in their vlogs. And they didn't have like a real relationship. It was more of like a hooking up and then like saying you're in a relationship. It was more for like the funniness on the vlog. Okay. But then Natalie and Todd now have a very real relationship together and natalie and corinna are friends and there's a lot of speculation in the videos of him david just making jokes about how corinna

hates natalie and how they're gonna fight and all this shit because it's like a it's a love triangle situation and todd kind of effed over corinna so it's like i don't know so now they're rooting for in a feud you're always rooting for somebody i kind of i'm over Corinna. So it's like, I don't know. So now they're feuding. So who are you rooting for? In a feud, you're always rooting for somebody. I kind of, I'm rooting for the underdog in this one. I'm rooting for Corinna

because I don't know if I like Natalie and Todd together that much. I just, I can't tell if I like the situation. All right. Pop culture crossover moment of the year.

This is an easy one. This is Pete and Kim K. And I have a lot of conspiracies about let's hear let's hear all of them all right so pete and kim k obviously will never work out in the real scheme this is kind of the situation with the madeline klein and the weird dude and i'm not like disregarding pete in any way because i love him one of the most popular people i love him i think he's an incredible actor.

He's hilarious. He's a great comedian. But females just tend to go for those dudes that look like they're withering away. Yeah. Like he doesn't look alive anymore. And Kim Kardashian, who could basically have any man she wanted in the world, she went for Pete. He's 13 years younger than her. 13 years younger. And he has a completely different audience. I just don't

see, like, what do they talk about on dates and things like that? I just don't know what goes on there. I think it's a brilliant career move. No, but here's why. He's incredibly popular with people under 30. Yeah. He's hosting a New Year's Eve show with Miley Cyrus. He's been in movies. He's had his

SNL comeback. Sheeta, everything's calculated with her. So that leads to your conspiracy. So this is my Kris Jenner curated conspiracy. The ringleader. It seems like the pictures of Pete and Kim K going out and things only turn up when there's a scandal within the Kardashians. The first time when Tristan cheated on Khloe and then that entire situation. Oh, pops up pictures of Kim and Pete. And then the next time

when the Travis Scott thing happened at the concert, the Astroworld, more pictures. So it's just, I feel like this is Chris curating this. And because obviously, Pete has such a large following

and so does Kim, that's going to bring in so much media that these other terrible situations are just clouded. And it always comes in at the right times. Like props to her, honestly. She's an incredible manager. Yeah. Like she knows her shit,

but they would never really work out in the scheme of things. Plus like the Miley Cyrus speculation. So it's just... What's the Miley Cyrus speculation? Oh, people think they're hooking up too. Pete Davidson and Miley Cyrus? Yeah. Because they're hosting a New Year's special together?

Yeah, but they hang out a lot. They go on dates, like shit like that. Pete's another one who's crossed the line where now he's dated enough. He can date anyone. Good looking celebrities that he's been welcomed into the group. Well, I feel like it's almost a privilege to date him. I feel like he's like my degenerate older brother. Right.

I have a degenerate younger brother and a degenerate older brother so this is definitely the most interesting celebrity relationship of the year i don't think we have the whole kanye piece and everyone says kanye's mad about i don't even want to speak on kanye well our family loves kanye yeah but we don't love some of his actions we can't say we can we love his music he's been with you guys your whole life. He has. He's like a. I'll never officially. I won't. No, I won't disown him either.

He's my guy. I was saying to Ben. Ben was, of course, he took over my music in my car, as he always does. And he was playing like Through the Wire. And he's like, Dad, this one's. I'm like, how dare you? You showed us this. You're listening to Kanye.

Dad, this one's a banger. Oh, do you know banger? That should have been another one. Well, I kind of have used banger in my pod sometimes. Oh, that makes you uncomfortable. What does banger mean in your words? I just don't like that. No, it means the same thing.

I just meant, I mean, like, that's a great song. It's a banger. Yeah. Just don't like that. One more Pete Davidson thing. I'm going to make this. I get to give an award on your award, even though this is your award thing. Biggest influence on your brother, Ben.

Yeah, he's basically becoming him. We should send him to Staten Island. He does this thing now. I talked about it on Parent Corner. If you're yelling at him or you're upset with him, he just does the Pete Davidson. Okay. Oh, yeah. Okay.

Okay. Okay. And that makes you madder. It's like the Pete Davis. Okay. Oh yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. And that makes you better. It's like throwing gasoline on the fire. He won't admit that it's from Pete either. He's like, this is all me. That's my thing. I know. I know. What is he doing? I know. He's a psycho. You know, it's funny. Two years ago, it seemed like, why does SNL even have Pete anymore? He's a mess. He can barely be in sketches. And Lorne Michaels, the guy who runs SNL even have Pete anymore. He's a mess. He can barely be in sketches. And Lorne Michaels, the guy who runs SNL,

clearly saw some sort of star power thing with him. He's incredible. Now he's been like, the last year and a half, he's been awesome on the show. Really? He's like, we love you, Pete. We love you. Like, full support of you, Pete. Get away from the Kardashians.

Yeah. Biggest flop of the year. Now, I don't know if this was technically a flop because the show got renewed for season two, but I think for what it's supposed to be, what was it? The D'Amelio show. On Hulu.

On Hulu. And this could have either gone one of two ways, but the piece that was missing is that D'Amelio's are probably the two most boring people on the face of the planet. So giving them a reality TV show is just like, what are you going to do with that? And this TV show basically like highlighted

their everyday lives, just what they're going through, like how they exist being famous teenagers. It was interesting for about 11 minutes. It was interesting, but only for the fact that their lives are so depressing. And it seems like it's entirely their parents who pushed them to do this. Like they don't even want the life that they're living like they want to be normal and their parents are basically using them

that's my impression that their parents are using them for this entire star fandom and and to make money off of it so basically this show is just like sad then from the people that i talk to about it like my friends we all think that they live a very depressing lives. Like they're like, just, it's terrible. I feel bad for them. So that was, I feel like it was a flop because it was totally not what they wanted. We need to do another video where you're dancing crazy in front of the camera. It's five o'clock. Like, it's so sad. It's really sad. Cause they started out just one random hit. The video went crazy. They went viral. And now it's like their parents have taken over. I never see them on my free page. When I was growing up, we had all these child stars on all these different TV shows that I

watched. So we only had three channels. We had no internet. So everyone watched all the same shows. And a lot of the child stars from those shows ended up becoming like complete messes when they became adults and they would have drug problems. Yeah, like Drew. All these different things. There's like so many of them. And I wonder like what's going to happen to this influencer side when they hit like 28, 29. It's such a weird way to live.

Like mental health is also so prevalent throughout these times being in COVID, but also throughout teenagers. Yeah. Obviously. And I feel like that's becoming more outward because of COVID and because people are becoming more comfortable with themselves. Yeah, I'm sure like they've talked about it briefly, but I'm sure they deal with a lot of mental health issues, especially because of comments because of mean like fans and things like that, like putting yourself on this high pedestal, like with the spotlight on you at all times as a teenager is just terrible. Like I could not imagine the lives that they live.

With that said, you don't like their show. Yeah. And I feel bad for them. Heartthrob of the year. Who is it? This is Andrew Garfield. And this one, this one was more of a later heartthrob because there wasn't one staple person like Jacob Elordi will always remain my guy. Like he's, he's the one Vinnie Hacker, half and half. He's a TikTok personality. But oh my God, Andrew Garfield just came in like a hot rod

after Spider-Man came out and everyone's obsessed with him. And it's funny because he used to be like known as the worst Spider-Man of the three. And now he's the one. He did the music stuff too, right? Yeah. Well, that was big, but it was really the Spider-Man movie and his like quirky,

cute personality. Like everyone really likes him now. And all I see is TikToks about him. Andrew Garfield. Good for him. He dated Emma Stone

once upon a time. Oh, really? I love Emma Stone. She's great. Good for him. The Lele Pons Award. Explain what the Lele Pons Award is.

The Lele Pons Award is just an influencer that should not, should no longer be in this world. You're boring. As an influencer. You're too old and no one's really watching your content. You're not influencing any people. No.

This one goes to Gabbie Hanna, who has been a YouTuber for years and years now. And at this point, she's kind of just going off the rails. Yeah. Like a lot of her videos are just her singing creepily and these weird t-shirts and her hair all fucked up. And it's just like, it's really, she's going for that. I'm manic and in a depressive, crazy state.

And that's like her attention grabber for her videos now. And she's just creating beef with people like Trisha Paytas and who you never create beef with. We've talked about this before. Yeah. Never beef with Trisha. But she's just like beefing with everyone. She's just she's going crazy. And the ways that she's trying to get her viewers are from acting like a degenerate.

So Gabby needs to get off of YouTube, which is the bottom line here. What is this 16 and 17, 16, 17 year olds are the pioneers of social media. What award is that? Oh, that was an award. What is that? You might got to got that. I just wrote that. Well, explain it.

It's not an award. No, it's not an award. I just like wrote that in there because I was thinking. So you think the people who are controlling social media right now are 16 and 17. Like, I feel like I am.

So you're in the wheelhouse right now. No, but I just feel like I'm like one of the pioneers as well as any. Not you, but your generation. No, but yes. Yeah. I'm like one of the pioneers as well as any, but yes, like we're the face of it. Like maybe you had like Yahoo or AOL or whatever, like, like those were, those were the millennials. Like that's, they had internet, but we have social media and like, I feel like all, all things should be catered to people my age.

Cause we are the ones, you know, you should be the, you should be the arbiters of what everyone spends money on. Yeah, no, just, and this is not in like an egotistical, everything's about us kind of way. It's like, we were truly the first people who were obsessive over social media. Like we know how to use it the best. We grew up with it. Like our lives have only been social media. So I feel like everything should be for us. So maybe that should be an award. It's like, give, give us our props. Give us our props. Give us our props. 16 and 17 year olds. That sounds so egotistical. We're controlling everything. Uh, next one is most iffy relationship, which includes one of your two favorite people. Zendaya and Tom Holland. And I love them so very much. Genuinely, both separately and together. I think they're great people and would be great friends. But having a romantic connection between the two of them is so like far-fetched for me. Because Zendaya is like 5'9", 5'10", and Tom's probably like 5'7", 5'8". So there's a height factor there,

which is just like, it works sometimes. Like I've seen it work in some of your friends and in friends in real life, like there's shorter male to female ratio and there's no problem with that. But I just like watching them kiss in Spider-Man in both of the ones that Tom and Zendaya have starred in has been like so weird for me. Like it's almost uncomfortable kind of. To be fair, you have a weird thing about

guys being shorter than girls. No, don't say that. Don't say that. Dad, that's terrible. Guys, I don't feel like this. You go for all tall guys though. That's just my preference, but there's no problem with short people. You're going to get me canceled. I'm not saying you're going to get me canceled. I'm just saying you like tall people. I do. I like tall people. You're going to get me canceled. I'm not saying you're going to get me canceled. I'm just saying you like tall people. I do. I like tall people. You like people taller than you. But there's no problem

with like a shorter guy dating a taller girl or whatever. Like that's not a problem. It's just like... So why haven't you had a shorter boyfriend? Chemistry wise,

I'm not talking about me right now, dad. Chemistry wise, I just don't see it for them. Like when they're kissing, it's like it doesn't look like they're meant to be kissing, you know?

Like something is off about it to me but i really do love them i loved her with jacob alordi was they were a couple oh yeah they were on euphoria together and they were a couple for a little bit that was like my favorite zendaya face because he's like way taller than six five australian no he's just like gorgeous no but it's just their chemistry like worked so well together. And they weren't even like romantically involved in the show at all. And I was still like dying for them to be together. I don't know.

I loved them together. And I loved Sunday and Tom. So no hate. All right. Your favorite shows that you streamed in 2021, not counting Grey's Anatomy, where you watched 15 seasons and became convinced

that you could medically diagnose people. And I was also medically depressed after watching it. Yeah, you were. You were like down. We had to intervene and make you stop watching. That show's too gloomy. Nobody should binge watch. They should have a warning on Netflix.

They should. All right. Outer Banks was my first one. Just an incredible show. Netflix original series. If you haven't watched it, go watch it. it's the exactly teen vacay that you need um sex life of college girls which is was a suggestion by the by you oh my god i'm like having a stroke over here hbo max yes incredible show sex in the city for college girls almost i thought it was really good i thought it was really good

as well because it was the most realistic tv that I've watched that's similar to how human beings my age or a little older than me actually behave. Because they had all pieces of the world right now that are prominent within my age group, like gender differences, sexuality, diversity, like everything. Everything which was so realistic to the way that life actually is. And some shows try way too hard. Like the Sex and the City remake. Yeah. And even like sometimes in Euphoria, like it was just way too much. Although Euphoria does a pretty good job at it. I felt like this was the most realistic version of social media representation of like human representation in general i just felt like it was super realistic and funny that's why i enjoyed it so much and then vampire diaries which

comes at a whopping third which i love i'm like halfway through season two it's an incredible tv show it's kind of timeless you just put it on and so here's what i don't understand about this list what you were obsessed with you and you watch you you know why it was fourth or no but you dark for you it was i felt like i was in a weird place after i watched it like i felt because he's a sociopath because he's a sociopath and you're basically when you watch you you are joe yeah so it's like i felt like i was a sociopath and i was like vicariously uncomfortable with his actions yeah i was putting on a weird littleopath and I was like, vicariously uncomfortable with his actions. Yeah.

I was putting on a weird little hat and I was like stalking people. And I was just like, I was like, I was like going through something. I don't know what was going on. It made me feel weird. It's an incredible show though. All right.

Last but not least, your top five songs to cry in your car to in 2021. What does this mean by the way? So I got my license in August and my favorite thing to do is drive car to in 2021. What does this mean, by the way? So I got my license in August and my favorite thing to do is drive. I love driving. I love listening to music. And sometimes you're just really upset.

And being in my car is like the only place where I'm actually alone for the most part. Yeah. So sometimes I just need to cry. And I'm sure people out there need music to listen to when they want to cry to get those tears out, to convey the messages that you want. And this is my list for that.

I feel like that's a pretty valid thing. Like most people do this. I don't see you doing that. Maybe it's like a journey song or something. But for people who like this type of music, who want some suggestions, I got some for you. Okay. So first one is All Too Well, 10-minute version, Taylor Swift. A classic.

If you don't like Taylor Swift, then I don't like you. Yeah. She's incredible. And this 10-minute version is just crazy. She's just kind of going off on Jake Gyllenhaal. But it really makes you think about a scenario that you had like Taylor, where it was just things were all too well. It was short brief little thing that you had with someone and it didn't end well and it was all too well you know yeah so i could just cry about that i feel her lyrics next one

repeat until death novo more this group's absolutely insane like they're so good just some nice like cry type sounding music but it's's, oh my God, it just hits different. Pluto Projector, Rex Orange County. Another cult classic. And if you say it's basic, it's not basic. Incredible song. Just goes crazy. State Lines by Novo Moore.

Another one. And then Strawberries by Camp. Which is just like, this one's more about a happy, sad song where you just like love someone so much. So those are my five. And you have to listen to them if you're ever upset. I swear by it. You're not driving around LA and crying in your car, are you? Sometimes. You had a rough year. Or you had a rough

first semester. It'll be like night and night. I'm coming home from soccer, screaming in my car to all too well, pulling into the gas station. The gas guy's like, why are there tears on your face? So I'm like, oh, that's awkward. You got through it though. You made it to the gas station. The gas guy's like, why are there tears on your face? So I'm like, oh, that's awkward. You got through it though. You made it to the holiday break.

Yeah, I feel like I'm finally normal again. I'm hoping when school doesn't come around that that just changes. But school is actually what makes me happy. It's just like having so much going on that I'm like, I don't even have time to think. Well, the other part for people in your generation is you think COVID has a finish line and now that it's coming back and you're thinking like-

Epidemic. That's the word I learned. Yeah. Are you going to be spending just your entire high school career in a mask? I sincerely hope not because of mask fishers, for one. I have a boyfriend now, so that's not a problem for me. Explain what mask fishers are to the people listening. So a mask fisher is kind of like,

to give an example to relate to any of you who haven't had to deal with this, it's like a guy has a really cool haircut and it covers his entire face almost and then a burst of wind comes by and then he's just like not cute so a mask fisher is like like half of dude when you're wearing a mask half of your face is covered so it's a bargain with everyone around you so you don't know people in your class and you're like oh that guy has like some cute eyes and nice hair wonder like what

he looks like you don't really know what's under yeah you don't know what's under but you're it's like it's almost the mystery that you enjoy and then they pull their masks out to drink some water it's like oh fuck you're not cute oh wait you have you have a wispy mustache you're not who i thought you were yeah and it's just like it's rough because you don't you don't know who to go for these days i don't have a problem with it anymore but like it's just it creates. And then the mask need to, it's just like, oh, so frustrating. Because you can't breathe sometimes. Like I have to walk up so many sets of stairs to get to classes. And I'm in class and the mask on my face like.

It's just like everything about it, I hate. But I'm always going to wear a mask for everyone that knows. Just because I want to keep everyone safe and myself safe. And I do appreciate what they do. But it's really unfortunate to be in high school and have to wear one. All right. That's it. Good check. And any predictions for 2022 teen culture? Um, we have euphoria coming. Yeah. I was about to say, I think euphoria is going to be insane. I'm really excited for that. That's I'm just, I'm quite excited about that one. The two episodes that they did, focusing

in on two main characters, I didn't love. So I'm hoping for a good season to come in. What do I want? I don't know what I'm expecting. There's probably some new shows coming. Netflix. The Netflix algorithm probably looked at Outer Banks. Oh, Outer Banks. Yeah, they are renewing that. There's another

season coming out. I'm excited for that. I don't know can i can i plug my instagram right now yeah god all right follow for reals or team patrol on instagram we do some fun lives sometimes i was like i miss i miss talking on here it's like i'm like sad alright so Simmons hang in there don't cry in your car so much in 2022 and if you ever

see me driving around just make sure not to look too close probably crying if you see me crying on the I-10 know that I just had a four hour

soccer practice alright happy new year bye dad that's it for the podcast thanks to peter schrager thanks to derek thompson thanks to my daughter zoe thanks to kyle creighton for producing this podcast thanks to everybody who listened this year in 2021 um i am looking forward to taking this podcast into a new year and we'll see if, uh,

if things calm down at 2022, I sure hope so. Happy new year. Stay safe. And we'll see you on the other side. I don't have feelings within On the wayside I'm a person never lost I don't have feelings within