The Bill Simmons Podcast - The 49ers Crush the Jet-Lag Bowl, Rams Overreactions, Bills-Texans, and Week 1 NFL Picks With Joe House

Episode Date: September 11, 2026

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Joe House to react to the 49ers taking down the Rams in Australia before making their Ringer 107 picks for Week 1 and more! (0:00) Intro (1:08) 49ers-Rams reactions (24:03) Ringer 107 picks (01:13:14) U.S. Open thoughts Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Joe House Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Chris Wohlers See what boring banking can do for you. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Kentucky, Wyoming. Game problem, cut 1,800 gamble. call 888-7-7-7-7 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. It's the Bill Simmons podcast. We are live on Netflix Thursday night, fourth podcast of the week. If you missed the other three, go check out my archives.

That's Joe House, who seems awake. Do you have coffee, Joe House? I don't need coffee when we have the NFL, even if it's on the other side of the world. I was consuming everything that the good people of Australia had to give us. Noah Eagle got off every single Australia. The Barbie joke, yeah.

He got them all in. And by the way, we call it Melbourne. Everybody calls it Melbourne. We do not. It's not Melbourne, Australia. It's just Melbourne. Well, a lot of people don't know. We knew we were going like about 25 minutes after Netflix's,

the game ended. They were doing a post game show. We simulated this with House in 20 different ways to see if he nap before, if he ate before, if he didn't have food. We tried 15 different ways. And we landed on this one to get the most awake house. Unfortunately, the Rams, who we found out today from Peter Schrager, who's banned from this podcast. Band.

Well, I don't know. He went on part of my take. Didn't come on here. But we found out from him, he reported that the Rams tried 15 different staffers. Last two years, try to figure out the right sleep science for this. And guess what? It came up snake us because they got their asses kicked. 27-7 in Australia.

I don't know where to begin. I'd like to thank the following people, though, House. Thank you to the Los Angeles Rams for taking Drake May off the hook. It was a day-long beating for him in the national media. Now that shifts to the Rams. Drake, enjoy the next eight days. Thank you to Sean McVey for teaching us about 15-hour travel. Thank you to the Rams for, I didn't realize giving us kind of an NFL villain a little bit here.

Oh, fun. Yeah. The prohibitive favorite, the all-star team on both sides of the ball. Is this the best defense ever? They traded three first rounders for Miles Garrett and Jaredverse. They had the 13th pick in the draft and they said, we're so good. We're going to take Matthew Stafford's successor. They were five to one to win the Super Bowl.

Guess what? It's six to one now. It's already dropping. Yeah, Kyle Shannon said, Kyle Shannon said F them, F them boys. F them boys. You know what he did? he put a shrimp on the Barbie. Oh, God, damn it.

Don't do that. No, that's what he did. No, that's what he did. He put a big koala nap on them. They got their asses kicked. And what's funny is this actually could have been a close game. And it all came down to 177. Third down, it looked like Puka scored,

tackled at like the half yard line, whatever it was. Fourth down, they run a QB sneak with the decrepit Matthew Stafford, who moves like we do. Why did they do that? Is it bad back? Does he have a bad knee? Like what's his number one injury now? He's terrible.

It stinks to begin with. And they decide to do that. It gets stuff. The Niners go all the way down the field and end the game. I thought that was an inexplicable decision house. Yes. And that was the sequence of the game, the beginning of the fourth quarter.

That stop followed by a 99-yard masterclass, truly, by Shanahan. And Shanahan was truly firing on all cylinders in terms of the offensive game plan. This is. And how he shifts it during the game, right? They come out second half. All of a sudden, the fullback and the tight ends are doing these little in motion like blocking and chipping people. It's really fun to watch.

This is what we get when you get Shanahan and McVay, though. There is this chess match kind of thing. I'm surprised we didn't hear more folks getting on the, 49ers side in terms of moving the number maybe. There was a little bit of action it seemed like right at the end. Yeah, it was like three and a half three. It was threatening to go to three. It never did.

We had them at three and a half. And all day I was going to hedge it because I parlayed the Niners with the with the Pats yesterday to four and a half each on Fandle. And I was going to hedge that in some way today. Oh. And I didn't. Because the more I thought about it, the sleep stuff, you know. I'm not so sure, though, really it was about the sleep.

I mean, you know, reminder. Oh, are you going to do the talking head thing? Oh, I like to go. Do this. When Fred Warner plays football, when you put Fred Warner at linebacker in the middle of playing defensive quarterback, when you have Nick Bosa rushing the passer, when those guys are on the football field, reminder that, man, that's, that's, that's, That's a hell of a defense right there, Bill Simmons.

Yeah, the sleep thing is insulting. It's insulting to the 49ers. This is a good football team. They didn't win because the Rams made the idiotic decision to fly in for the fucking game the night before. Now, there should be, if we're going to talk about the sleep, somebody should ask Miles Garrett how he rested because that was kind of, those are shocking. He literally rested.

There were shocking numbers, shocking numbers. It wasn't just so he ends the game with zero tackles and zero pressures, which was the first time in a while. It was more than that. It was one of those, wait, is he playing? And they would mention them every so often. And I know Trent Williams was out there. And I know they were shifting stuff away from him and et cetera, et cetera. But he was also not present in the game. And usually, like when you'd watch Miles Garrett and the Browns, you'd feel him in the game no matter what was happening, right? He was always around. He was pushing his side of the line back. It was not happening. It made me wonder, you know, we talked about this Rams super team.

And then the Niners, all their guys played today, they lost two. We'll talk about that later. But, you know, Trent Williams, really good at football. Mike Evans has been one of the most consistent, really good receivers for a long time. Brock Purdy, always has been an underrated quarterback. McCaffrey, always has been when, you know, Fred Warner, both said. It's like, this team's good, too. Did you have regrets with the Niners and how we approach them in the offseason?

where did you have them? I didn't even have them as a playoff team. I took them to win this division. If you look at their schedule. I forgot. Yeah, you did. Yeah, because, you know, the way it lines up for them, you know, the part of the assessment was if they could win this first game

and if, you know, their approach to this rest plays out successfully for them, what they have over the next seven or eight games eminently winnable, including the toughest math. They have still in those first eight games is Seattle, which is in a handful of weeks. And they might face Drew Locke. They might get Drew Locke because we have an update on the Sam Darnold situation, just that he's definitely going to miss at least one game. And the question is whether it's going to be multiple.

It seems likely. My guy is missing four to six. Yeah. And if that's the case, then it might be the case that the Niners catch Seattle with him out. sit down and look at the Niners record. And part of why I grabbed the division number for San Francisco was because if indeed they go on this run, you're not going to get a better price for them to win the division until, you know, much later in the season if they fall off.

Well, right now we have Rams are now plus 155 for the division. That was basically even, right, for the season. Seattle's plus 180. They're 1 and 0. And San Francisco's 1 in 0. They're plus 210. they're bunched together. Rams 6 to 1 in the Super Bowl.

They're 11.5 over under, which had some juice on it for the over. Now the under for 11. 1.5 is minus 130 on 3rd. Yes. They are to miss the playoffs now, only plus 270. And that before the season, I think, was plus 420 plus 430, something like that.

Yeah, it was definitely north of 4.4.1. What's interesting is all of us were a little suspicious of this first game and how they were playing it. And I talked about this with the fantasy guys yesterday about where they basically like rolling. the dice with this game, but they didn't want to screw up the rest of the season, whereas the Niners are like, we're going in early, we have to win the game. And if there's ramifications after, we're fine with that.

So we'll see what happened. I thought all the travel stuff was fascinating. I saw some tweet online. Somebody tweeted, like, if everyone cared about the Steve Ballmer-Clipper's story for the last year, like we cared about the Niners, Rams travel, this Clippers thing would have been settled a while ago. It's like, no, that's not why. I think everyone with the quippers thing was like, just tell us when we know what happened. When the decision happens, we'll be really interested.

This travel thing I talked about with everybody in my life. I thought it was fascinating. Like, how do you play it? Who's going to be right or wrong? So are you convinced now we learn the answer? Is this just a small sample size? Yeah, it's impossible to say. The one thing that was apparent from watching the game is that San Francisco really ingratiated itself with the community.

was part of the community engaged with Melbourne. And what do you call the good people who live in Melbourne? Are they Melbourneites? Whatever. There's Barbie Shrimpers. There was enormous support for San Francisco. There was. It was supposed to be on the calendar, a Rams home game.

It definitely was not that. It was a 49ers home game. Big pops for the 49ers each time they made a successful play. And I think that did have an impact on. the energy, it felt like it did. You mentioned a whole bunch of players. The stadium was weird too, though. Yeah.

The field was, it felt like the seats were really far away from the field, right? It was, it's a stadium that's not built for football games. Sure. But the Niners had been there for five, six days. So maybe they won over some people when they were there. Yeah. Right. Yes.

Demonstrated a commitment to the whole thing. I'm going to give you four possible overreactions because it is. Usually we have overreaction Monday after week one, but now we have Wednesday and Thursday game. we get more overreactions. Four overreactions, pick one. If you had to put your hat on one, give me him. Matthew Stafford looks washed.

Miles Garrett is actually overrated. Rames super team momentum is already dead, or the 49ers are the best NFC West team. Have those four possible overreactions? Which one do you like? The super team being dead one. That's the one. That's the one that feels closest to the truth.

We were skeptical from the get-go. about this. I mean, you know, the super team for the Rams, we're not going to see it until it gets to be playoff time and we'll know by then how healthy they are on both sides of the ball. Yeah, this is like what we have in the NBA, where it's like, judge them in mid-May. We'll see how that goes.

The NFL is judge them in round one. We've judged them in January. That's right. Yeah, they left Arnold, Aaron Donald home. I will say out of those four, Matthew Stiford looks washed, Miles Garrett overrated, Ram Super 2 momentum already dead,

Sam Fran's the best NFC West team. I thought Stafford was terrible. I thought he missed a bunch of throws. I thought he looked old. I didn't like the way he was moving around. He had nine completions through three quarters. Is that good? He missed a couple wide open guys on some big throws.

I thought he put puka in danger a couple times. And just in general, you know, it's week one. He'll probably be fine. I remember last year, the beginning of this season, He also looked a little shaky.

But that was one of the many things to worry about with this Rams team, the 38-year-old quarterback and, you know, who's had some injury and some wear and tear. Things are against them. Okay, a couple more things. I underestimated Mike Evans and Debo. I was going glass half empty on those two. Mike Evans, who plays 11 to 13 games a year,

and you catch him at the right points of the season. It looks awesome. You had Debo last year in Washington. It looked like he was semi-washed. Maybe it's just one of those things where he has to be on this team to look like Diba. Yeah, and I wouldn't say that Dibo looked washed here in Washington. He just, the role that they imagined for him, he couldn't fulfill and they couldn't really put into place because they had injuries right away.

Austin Bacchler got hurt at the very beginning of the season and that completely changed how Washington wanted to attack the ball on offense. So we never really got to see the version. of Debo that Washington had in mind. I will say this, he was smaller and he looked more spry tonight than at any point during his time with Washington. He was much bigger in size and playing a role that, you know, he's doing hot water and lemon? Among other things, for sure, yes. And Mike Evans look great. Somehow the 49ers electric substation, even though they were across the world, and still claimed two victims today.

They lost stribling hurt his ankle, and it looked like Ton just got hurt. But Tom Palisera from the Ringer, who did the Netflix game tonight, he was saying, didn't look like either of those are season-enders. So people were worried the stripling thing was an Achilles.

Injury Twitter was in rare form with slow-moes of non-contact, but it seems like it was an ankle. Okay, good. Knock on wood for that. Unless you took them on your finest team. I thought McCaffrey's backup, Oh, electric.

His name is black. Is that his name? Yeah. They just keep finding these guys. You're like, who's this guy? It's like, oh, this guy's good. It was like when they got Moster at that time and they, Jordan Mason, like over and over again.

They just find these dudes. Emmanuel Wilson. Right. Yeah. Right. Exactly. That's what they do. So this guy came in.

He had a big, I think he played like 16 snaps in the first half. They kept McCaffrey fresh. They unleashed him at the top of the third quarter. when Debo has a big kick return, McCaffrey breaks off two runs, all of a sudden, it's 177, and we feel like we have a game. Yeah, just to put a quick, you know, side note,

reminder, Ram's special teams still suck. Like, you know, another game-altering play from the Rams special teams. They're coming out of the halftime tunnel. They kick the ball off, and Debo has a huge return to keep the momentum for San Francisco. I wonder if the Rams Special Team staff also did the travel preparation for no no we'll go right before it'll be great um the 49ers d

with warner back was i wanted to see it i wasn't against him like i was like oh no he's not going to but i just wanted to see him look like fred warner again he did he did 11 tackles five solo that's pretty good um the big the big revelation from today they ran and had it one my wife joined for a little bit because I had the tennis on the on the small left TV. Cocoa Goff. Honestly, like, left it on the table there in the third set, tough one. But they ran an ad for the Wednesday night Netflix game before Thanksgiving. Okay.

Did not go over well in my house. Oh, no. Because she didn't know that there was a Wednesday night game. I literally wasn't going to tell her. I was going to hide it. I was just going to hide it the whole time. So she was like, wait a second, didn't they had a Friday game a couple years ago after Thanksgiving? I was like, yeah, they did.

And she was like, so now there's a game on Wednesday? I was like, apparently I didn't know. I tried to pretend I didn't know. And then she's like, but then there's also the Thanksgiving games? And I was like, yeah. And then she's like, but then they're also going to have Sunday and Monday. I'm like, yeah. And she was like, you know, fuck this.

Fuck football. Football can fuck off. Say this on your podcast. Football can fuck off. Furious. That Wednesday night is one of the great nights in America. I mean, it's one of the all-time,

it's where everybody's come, has arrived from out of town, everybody's getting together. It's joyous because of what's on tap for the next day. So now we need a football game playing on the TV during all this. That's what I said to her. I was like, it's really for the people in bars.

It's kind of true. And the bars are packed. It's a happy day. Yeah. Very happy day. day. She didn't like it. Yet another reason she doesn't like Roger Goodell. Other than that, I don't know. San Francisco looked like they were in midseason form already and the Rams looked like they were still in the preseason. So I don't know what to make of these games. And the season

is now 18 weeks and takes forever to play. There's going to be a million injuries. I think the one thing that today did for real was it threw some water on whatever the super team people had in their heads with the Rams. I thought it was out of control. The whole off season. They need a lot of things to go right from a health standpoint. They're a top heavy team. And there's other really good teams. And two of them are in their division. So that's those were my big takeaways. Do you have anything else? Do you win money? I did win money because I had teased the Patriots and under 50 and a half yesterday with the San Francisco 49ers plus nine and a half today. So that was a big fat winner. That was a good one. I like that one. Yeah, so I did win money on that. You know what

wasn't winning is putting the Rams and anything. I didn't do it. Like literally anything. Any sort of points thing, any sort of tease, get any of their fantasy guys. I'm sorry. It was just across the board. Not great. It was too many points for what we've seen out of this. matchup over the years. And I understand the question marks surrounding the San Francisco defense. But man, Kyle Shanahan, whatever injuries he suffered from his car accident, he is over them because that man cooked tonight. I parlayed the Niners plus three and a half with Schrager not coming on the podcast this week, but going on a different one. My friend. Shregs. Come on. He shouldn't text us.

a while. I'll just say that. No, I want him to. No, he's in a golf pot. He tagged me this week. He went on a golf pot. He's on the shit list. No. He's on my shit list now. It's got to really make it up. He's got to, if he takes us out to a great Italian meal, we'll be back. I'll be back.

That's all it takes for me. I'm so easily. Obsetting. He had a new thing to promote. I'm not even going to promote it now. You know what? Whatever. Shragger's up to Steph. Good luck to him. We are going to take a break. We're going to come back. We have Ringer 107.

Yeah. Oh, let's go. By the way, we, so we're two games in in week one, two underdogs and two unders. So what does that mean? It's an all-time under week. Yeah, because there's no preseason anymore. Everybody's learning out of play football with each other. Almost 70% to the under.

So beware as you look at the Sunday slate, beware of jumping in on overs. Yeah. proceed cautiously. Okay. Well, I'll give that, that, that, that, uh, that Australia game I'm going to give a C minus. Only one team showed up. Oh, I mean, it's still, it was, you know what?

It was, the Niners were prepared and the rims were not. I give it an A plus because I don't know if the referees when they arrived, six total penalties in the whole game. Do you, like, very quietly in the back of my head, I was really enjoying no goddamn yellow flags anywhere to be seen. Just let them play. Two very good teams. No penalties.

The Seattle, New England, false start here, an illegal shift there. Come on, man. Let's play football. We got that tonight. You know what the other thing with the Netflix? For some reason, I felt like there were less ads. I thought the first half moved fast.

Did you notice that? Yes. They were like scoring or like somebody would kick a field goal, kick off. We just stayed on the field. We're running plays again. Yeah, it was pretty good. Okay.

All right. We're going to take a break. We're going to come back with Harlan Coben's week one NFL picks. I just said that to help with the Netflix algorithm. But now we're going to take a break and come back. And House and I are going to bang out some picks on Pump Buddy. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by Fandul. You know how NFL Sundays go.

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PNC Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865, brilliantly boring since 1865, is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Incorporated. PNC Bank National Association member FDIC. Today's Ringer 107 picks are brought to you by Fandul. Make this your most rewarding. awarding season ever. That's what we're going to try to do. Download the Fendo app. Check out all of our 107 picks and our boosted teaser every week this season. All right, House, we've been waiting

for this all spring, all summer. We've been waiting for redemption. We're doing ringer 107 again. We're changing the rules in general, but also for this podcast. You're getting your own five picks. I'm getting my own five picks. We're doing four today. One has to be a teaser. And then on top of that, we get to do a social media pick on Sunday. That's our fifth pick, which is hilarious because we told Rahim this today. And Rahim, who is the reason we added this rule, because all he did all weekend would be complaining about how the lines moved and it changed. And he hates locking these picks on Thursday.

And two people on Twitter said something to him and he's upset. And then we tell him we're doing this. And then he asked on our text read today, can I put in all my picks on Friday morning. And it was like, we created the rule for you. The Rahim rule. The Rahim rule and he didn't even want to use it. So Rahim was teasing himself through the zero.

Anyway, shout out to Rahim. Shout out to the dream. Love the dream. So we added the teasers because we brought the teaser back on Fandall this year. They're going to do a whole teaser promotion. Six point minus 110 juice. There we go. Up to $50.

And we're doing it. Old school, baby. So that's going to be one of our things. For a teaser. God. damn, let's go. So for us, we were talking about going back and forth, and if somebody makes a pick, the other person can't use it.

But we also want to win this ringer 107. There's going to be prices. So what we're going to do, even if you take a pick and I decide I like it, I'm going to say I'm going to piggyback on yours. And we're going to keep track of the piggybacks all year. And that's just going to be a code of honor. Yeah. Who piggyback the other guys picks more.

Oh, okay, good, good. Because I'm going to try not to piggyback your picks. but we want to give the people lots of things to consider lots of ways of looking at the world we as we've advanced into our uh you know aARP stage of like we see the world the same way quite a bit you know quite quite often so we'll probably you and i see the world this same way that's what i just said you and i see the world the same way yeah i didn't know where you were going with that i got nervous for a second we're we're more aligned the knot these days. Yeah, like we see a story like Aaron Rogers complaining on a podcast

that he proposed to Shailene Woodley, but she has to have sex with somebody one more time. And you and I are probably going to have the same reaction to that, which we don't need to share in a podcast. But I think you and I are on the same wavelength on that whole story. The whole thing's a little suspicious. That's all. So every week we're going to alternate this week because it's week when you're going to go first with your first pick. Then I'll go with mine and we'll keep going. We should. should mention, I really like this season. I like the week one slate. I remember last year being just like trying to talk myself into certain matchups. This one, it's an embarrassment of riches.

I had multiple things for the T's. The lines line up to like teams I really liked heading into the season. Going against teams, I didn't like that much heading into the season. And we had on Wednesday, I thought was a good example of the Pats line seemed a little high. They covered this Australia game just started out, I think, with the travel and stuff where we've learned nothing from that. We are going to learn stuff from these Sunday games. House, you have the first pick. What are you going to do?

Let's go. So this will be, you just hit on this. I want to bet immediately on teams that I have a favorable opinion of for the entire season. I just want to get right into not a lot of foreplay. We're going right to the meat of the matter. And that's why the first pick here is. is the Houston Texans at home catching points from the Buffalo Bills,

which is really just a wonderful opportunity. A couple ways of looking at this. In the first place, Josh Allen has had a problem with the Buffalo Bills, and especially the Buffalo, no, Josh Allen had a problem with the Houston, Texas. The Houston Texans, yes, that's what I meant to say. Was it one in four lifetime? One in four and 0 and 4 when they play in Houston.

I think that this. Houston defense is absolutely magnificent coming into this season. They're the best defense, in my opinion, even with the outstanding performance that we saw last night from the Seattle Seahawks, that's pretty good defense. We have your wise guys showing on this podcast. We were all in on the Texans across the board. That's 100% correct. And part of that is on the offensive side of the board for me.

And I think that this Texans offense has an enormous, you know, know, space to improve into. You have to remember that they had new offensive coordinator, Nick Cayley last year, and he had in mind a rush attack that never materialized. It could not come together because Joe Mixin got hurt at the beginning of the season and didn't play a single down. I think that the addition. The guy they replaced him with is no longer playing football, Nick Chubb.

He is retired. And Woody Austin's a fine. third down. Woodie Marks. Yeah. Austin Marks. I'll get it. Hey, it's a week one start. Yeah, yeah. But now they have David Montgomery, who you and I both love, who was kind of a sneaky fantasy guy, and he's a move the chains, four yards of carry, good around the end zone. He's serviceable. Yes, exactly. So, I mean, in making the case for Houston, the one unit that I trust in this game is the defense. And they've done a really nice job. They have exactly the right personnel to cabin up.

Josh Allen, and we've seen it, you know, with our own eyes. And I think that there's tons of potential for this Houston offense. I think that I wouldn't mess with this game if Houston was favored, and I think they should be favored, but there's just too good of an opportunity here. It's in the Tick-Pack zone. It's Buffalo by one and a half. I think Houston should be favored by one and a half, so I'm with you.

There's also the Kisham Booty where the Pats trade him, AJ Brown gets hurt. They don't have Kisham Booty. to put in for AJ Brown, and I just know he's going to do something in this Texas game. Yeah, there's a giant question mark surrounding this Bill's defense, new defensive coordinator, Jim Leonard coming over

from the Broncos. There's a personnel question at all three levels with this Bill's defense, and if the Texans... How about this? They sucked last year. They did. Whenever people wanted to go down the field on them, they did. And what's going to be better about it this year?

One of the worst run defenses in the NFL last season. I kind of expect to see the same. So if Houston comes out and establishes the run, then I really like what they can do. Obviously, the Houston offensive line. You're not going to go crazy for that. The only pushback for this is, you know,

you're betting it's Josh Allen. Josh Allen numbers. Yes, the numbers are incredible. And interestingly, C.J. Stroud, three seasons, 0 and 6 against the spread in the first two weeks of the season. So, but that, you know, that that's, that's the counterbalance. to, you know, this Houston angle. It's just some, some trend stuff.

There's some good, there's some good football nerd stuff with this matchup, too. Like the kind of defense the Texans have where they can spy Allen and they can, they can basically just make him for it. DJ Moore will be the big X factor that they didn't have last year. Can he get open? But I don't know. I just, I think Texan, I think they have the best defense in the league and this is the perfect defense to go against Josh Allen.

It's Petriot, the super nickel. He's like, not just nickel. he's super nickel. So that's what I, that's what you're getting at. So the fear would be C.J. Stroud would be the, would be the fear that he just basically does

with hit in the playoffs last year. I, I had them down as a straight up as well, but I moved them into the teaser section. Oh. Which, which, I might as well just do now as my first pick.

Great. Nothing more fun in a teaser than taking a home team you'd like to possibly win anyway and bringing them over the seven. So with the six point teaser, you can bring them the plus seven and a half, which is just wonderful,

because I think this is either a one score game or Houston kicks their ass, but I think they'll hang around. I think they're going to win, but I'm happy to take the plus seven and a half. And in general, I think they're the best AFC team. I want to pat you on the back

for this Houston T's leg, especially because these games are always super low scoring between these teams. They don't combine for many points when they play. So that plus seven, and a half is very valuable in that context. And they have a top five field goal kicker. They're home.

I just, I like getting that many points. And I'm going to put that with the Jaguars minus two and a half with the caveat. I know this is an obvious pick. Their home, they're eight and a half point favorites against the Browns. It's Deshaun Watson. I have a bunch of reasons I like this one.

I don't really like the Jaguars that much this year. They'll be somewhere nine and eight, eight, eight, nine, whatever, but this is a nice spot for them. Two things. One, we have two more chances. in our lives to bet against DeShon Watson. This week. This is one of them.

And next week. And then we'll never have the chance again, unless it's a situation where he's like the third string quarterback on a team that has a situation like what the Falcons had this week where the top two guys are out. So I just want to enjoy this and enjoy our last stretch here with having money against him and watching him throw grounders to guys cross in the middle and fumble and scramble at the wrong times

and throw it in a triple coverage, that will be fun. It's so sad because the Browns actually have some weapons and talent on offense. Right. And maybe by week three, they'll unleash them. The other thing, and we talked about this, maybe Sal and I talked about it Sunday, the weather is going to be hot and humid in Jacksonville. They're saying low 90s with the humidity way higher than that, it might be a little drizzle. It's just going to suck.

It's going to be like a Miami Vice episode, basically. So you have a road team that normally is, you know, playing outdoors in Cleveland, dealing with the humidity. You have Deshaun Watson, who's already got enough obstacles against him. You have a brand new coach. You have no Jim Schwartz for the Brown's defense who always seemed like he was worth a couple wins. Yeah. And this is one of those. If the Jags can't win by three, punt the season with them.

Like that, then that tells me they're going to be like a seven and ten team. So my teaser is Texans plus seven and a half, Jaguars minus two and a half. half. Jaguars keep it a one score game and the and the Jags just have to win by by three. Feeling pretty good about that one as by first. So this is an incredible segue because shocker, I also have the Jaguars as one of the legs in my teaser for all the reasons you just laid out. But most prominently, one of our last cherished opportunities to bet against Deshaun Watson. That's the number one thing here for sure. They should have a ceremony before the game.

Well, we could do it. All the different people who run the online sports books, the CEO should come out. Christian could come out from Fandall. He can give Deshaun a watch. Thank you for your service. You've made so many better money over the years. We know you have two weeks left.

Here you go. It's somewhat emotional. Three weeks from now, we'll never have this chance again. It's emotional to our pocketbooks for sure. Other leg for me of the T's. and there are many, many good candidates. I love your Houston leg. I'm putting it with the Lions,

where the line has moved from seven and a half down to six and a half, so not getting the benefit of moving through, but the Lions down to a half point from six and a half down to a half. So Lions winning outright at home against the New Orleans Saints as a teaser leg, it's kind of a must play. I mean, for sure, Saints have a lot of pundits blowing smoke up their skirt for this upcoming season. I understand all the reasons that Kellyn Moore seems like he's a pretty damn good coach.

Wait, do you understand the reasons? Because I don't really understand the reasons. It's the Shuck and Kellyn Moore when they went on their little mini run over the last portion of last year against a bunch of bad teams. Yeah, you can pick apart easily with the schedule they played. Bad teams and bad quarterbacks. But New Orleans did beat them. They did.

And they did beat the Buccaneers, which really had a big role in keeping the buccaneers out of the playoffs and kept them from winning the stinky NFC South. I still have questions about the Saints defense. And I think this Detroit team is absolutely loaded on offense. There is some moving parts on the offensive line that are tiny bit concerning. And it's fine to point at the holes in the secondary. for Detroit, you know, with Branch and Joseph both out and Terry Arnold. And Terry Arnold gone.

Yeah, there's going to be a week. Abroad. Abroad. There's going to be a week in these first four weeks when they get absolutely torched by a QB. I don't think this is the week. And even if this is, you know, kind of ends up a shootout kind of thing, I'll just take the half point. That'll be fine.

All I'm asking them to do is win the football game in this tease context. And the Dan Campbell record is wonderful. I mean, he's great against the spread. He's great in the opening part of seasons. He has one of the strongest against the spread records and season openers. This Lions team has something to approve. They're forecast to get to 11 wins. This better be one of the wins.

So I'm playing them as the other leg of my teaser. I thought it was curious that the line dropped. Uh-huh. And I think it dropped under a touchdown because of the cheap touchdown potential. with Shuck, who we watched doing the second half last year against a Lions team that the secondary is shaky, where this is like,

lions are up 14 with three minutes left and Shuck does the drive and all of a sudden. And I think that's why it went down. I think the way you played it, this was my backup choice for a T's, the Lions. So there's three teams that could really F you on a big-ass T's.

One is the Lions who you took. One is the Jaguars who I took. and then the third one would be the Chargers if you wanted to bring them down the three and a half. I got to be honest, I looked at that Chargers game. The Cardinals were the other team

I was looking at for a tease and I backed off because they're the Cardinals. But that line is minus nine and a half. Are we sure the Chargers' defenses? I kind of like the Chargers, but are we sure their defense is even going to be that good this year? And getting that up to 15 and a half

with the way the Cardinals said some of the garbage time shit they did last time. I was like that seemed kind of appetizing. They might be the king of the kings of the back door this upcoming season. With LaFleur, I mean, this is why I've been cautious with my Arizona exposure this season. They have talent on offense. I mean, they still have weapons across the board and they still have, you know, running backs to come in. They can block a little bit too. Yeah, yeah.

Percent wasn't bad last year. I don't know. A lot of running backs. Like they have big play potential with two receivers. plus Jeremy I love. Yeah, decent receiver room plus train McRide. Like, I don't want to be on the wrong side of the back door with that one. I thought plus 15 and a half was enticing, but ultimately I didn't want to do it.

All right. So you have two picks. I got to do this one next. I just love the bucks this week. And I like the bucks in general this season. They're plus three and a half in Cincinnati. Cincinnati has been a very sexy preseason team. We've talked about it for the last couple weeks of pods.

I like the spot for a couple reasons. One, this line is basically saying they think Cincinnati has two points better than the bucks because the minus one and a half is a neutral field. I just completely disagree with that. I think these two teams are, I would have them even. And I think the bucks might actually be a slight, slight more talent proficient. What's the opposite of deficient? Proficient?

Sure. Talent pro. Talent loaded? I'm still. Talent affirmative? Talent affirmative. I don't know. I just like their team more. This feels like a back and forth game.

There's some unbelievable stats with the Bengals in week one, which we just forget every year was Zach Taylor. Every year they look awful in week one. Last week they almost lost to the Browns. It was that 17-16 game, which I think they fucked everybody over on the T's, if I remember correctly. I think they were favored by like eight or eight and a half, and somehow they won but didn't cover the T's.

I don't trust Zach Taylor at all. This whole Joe Burrow is going to be under center a lot more this year when he's all the stats say he's bad when he's under center. That worries me. And I like the Bucks. I just, I think this team's pretty good that they had a great draft. And I think they can go in there and throw some punches.

It feels to me like an either or three point game. Somebody's going to have the ball at the end of the chance to win. And I think the Bucks could win. I like the money line too in this game house. But for the purposes of our contest, I would go bucks plus three and a half. That's interesting. Part of the thing also that I like, you know,

the Buccaneers are coming in off of a failure to cover streak. Yeah. And covered nine straight games. So I like this one coming in, you know, sort of angle-wise. But the real compelling thing is these home openers. To burrow has. With Zach Taylor. Yeah.

And he's four and eight against the spread in terms. of the first two games of the season. Right. Right. So bucks, they're plus 168 for the money line if you wanted to potentially put them with

another dog and we'll talk about some other dogs. All right, you have the third pick. What is it? I am going with, and this is against one of your rules, but I don't know if it applies in week one. I'm going to a shit game.

and it is the New York Jets at the Tennessee Titans. Listen, you think I'm surprised that you're doing this? You have nine Jets bets. I think you might have 10 Jets. How many Jets bets have you been in the last three months?

I have said. And I have the Jets a million ways on T's or legs as well. So yes, I have the Jets all over the place. Many of those bets that I'm referring to when I'm making the references in our threads about having Jets exposure. It's in this,

the tease context. I have them teased with Houston. I have them teased with the Jags. I have them. I can't. I just can't put bad teams in the tease. I'm really trying not to do that this year. I like the straight up. The Salah revenge game is funny because I don't, does he even have revenge in him? I don't know. No. No. They looked. He has, he has semen in him. I mean, he does have that. Yeah, he's five nine kids. Right. But they had probably the worst buzz of any, any AFC team in the preseason? Right. At the beginning of August,

people were seriously looking at them as like, could that be a worst of first? Right? Could that be the Patriots this year? They fit a lot of the profile. By the end of the preseason, people were wondering if they could win four games. So I like this a lot.

It scares me. It's a stay away for me because of what we saw from Gino last year, which is now it's, funny is the we get amnesia with all this stuff but gino was really reprehensibly awful last year and now it is because in september of the new year it's like well his offensive line was terrible and he didn't have any weapons and bowers got hurt half the year and it's like all those things are true or he was awful i don't or maybe it's both maybe those things were true and he was awful both things could be true um it is he might be completely washed so he might be but they have a vastly

superior offensive line with the New York Jets than what he experienced with the Raiders. This might even be and you know, folks can look it up and see this offensive line for the Jets might be better than the offensive line that Gino played

with in Seattle before he jumped over to the Raiders. You can go back and look. That Seattle team was decent, but that offensive line could not establish the run. I think that this offensive line against the Titans, and the Titans Front Seven is good, and that's the strength the team, but I think they're going to be able to establish the run.

Very quietly, the Jets did something that was curious. They gave us the indication they were going to be in rebuilding mode. And then they went out in the offseason and got a bunch of talent. They got talent on both sides of the football. We all liked them. We all like the defensively. Yeah, we had like seven, eight wins possibly for them. Yeah.

So I look at this offense and, you know, they establish a run with Brees Hall. They have 80, Mitchell joining opposite Garrett Wilson. It didn't seem like Cooper had a good preseason. That was one where they thought, because it was like the Jets had three first rounders and it's unclear if Cooper's going to play. So counters to the Jets buzz here, they're the Jets. That would be my biggest counter.

It's a good counter. You just have to keep your guard up at all the time. I like that you're playing them straight up and that you're not putting them in a tease. I'm with you. I think they should be favored in this game. I think when Sal and I did guest the line Sunday, I think I was off by four points on this because I just assume the jet why are the Titans favored against anyone other than Miami. Yeah. Maybe Miami is the only team, right? Right. That's that's the point here.

And it was there was a time. I think this line opened at two and a half and it's, you know, bet down to one and a half, which tells you a little bit of something directionally about the market. But the the Titans over the last three seasons haven't been favored very often. They're one and eight against the spread as a favorite. So I'll go ahead and take it. that. I like this Jets team. If we are going to get to a Jets over, then this is one of the wins. Right. And that's part of the priors. They're not going seven and ten or eight and nine if they don't win this game. I think that's fair. All right. We're going to take a break and then we're going to do the rest of the picks. And now it's time for a special part of today's episode brought

to you by our buddies at NFL Sunday ticket. The NFL Sunday ticket in YouTube TV. You get every game, every Sunday all in one place. And I cannot recommend it highly enough. YouTube, as you know, has crowned me their CMO, their chief multi-view officer. It's my job to tell you which four games deserve a spot in your multi-view this week. Well, obviously Tampa, Cincinnati, fantasy guys galore. I love Tampa just in general this season, and I don't like Cincinnati that much. So you can guess where I'm standing on that one. Buffalo Houston is the best game of the week.

Cleveland Jacksonville, just from what's going to happen with the Cleveland quarterback. situation plus Jacksonville scores a lot of points. I have my eye on that one. And then my last pick would be Baltimore at Indianapolis, Baltimore as road favorites, Indianapolis, all the signs pointing toward them being frisky, at least for this one. So those would be my four. Also keeping an eye on Atlanta Pittsburgh as well for financial reasons for myself. Guess what I'm talking about there. That is the beauty of multi-view. You don't just have to watch Houston Buffalo, which is going to be awesome. Fit three other games in there as well.

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This one is easy. I can't believe it's still on the board. It might be our first piggyback. Cowboys Sunday night minus two and a half against the Giants. I think this line's inexplicable. It's been between two and a half and three all week. By the time when we locked down the lines on Thursday, it was Cowboys minus two and a half.

I'm grabbing it. Dak has had a lot of success against the Giants and in general, this whole division. This isn't the Giants team that I think we're going to see probably in week eight when they have all their dudes back. Like, we're not getting, you know, 70 plays from neighbors in this game.

They don't have Wondale Robinson this year, which I think people forget. He had a thousand yards for them last year. He was on the Titans now. And look, this is a classic. I was high in the Cowboys. I was low in the Giants. And it's a borderline miracle that they're playing each other

and that this is the line. I honestly do not understand the line. I think the line should be Cowboys minus four and a half. This is a case of people are like, ah, suspicious of this Cowboys thing. And it's like, I think they're going to be really good. I don't love that they lost their all pro guard right before the season. That's my only fear, especially against this Cowboys defensive line.

But man, if you think that Cowboys are going to be good this year, you have to take them in this game. So Cowboys minus two and a half. I'm taking them. Is this a first piggyback? This is a piggyback. Oh, all right. I'm looking at my notes. I had them right here.

I could not agree more vigorously with a proposition that this is underpriced. And it's a market that is reflecting sentiment that is not in alignment with reality. This is a Harbaugh driven. He's going to come right the ship. Look at the offensive coordinator. This is the thing that really pushes it over. Go ahead. Let's do it.

You're going to put Jackson Dart in the hands of Matt Epping Nagy? Show me the last time that we saw Matt Nagy give us anything that looked like innovation, that look like modern football. I mean, this is a wonderful opportunity. So if this Dallas defense has any of the potential that we've come into this season anticipate, we better see it because their offensive line remains to my way of looking at it. It's shaky. It is not a top half of the league offensive line.

Yeah. Neighbors, who the hell knows? It's a receiver room. Wondale going abroad is not helpful to DART. He was DART's safety blanket. Go take a look.

Scada bow coming off of, you know, that bad injury. This is not a team that is built to hang in with the Dallas Cowboys within a field goal unless Dallas's defense

looks like last year. And that's the big open question. The other element of this. They've made trades. They've spent money. They've spent draft picks. Like, And as the Bundow pointed out on Ring or Wise guys, 17 to the 26 guys from last year's defense no longer play professional football.

That seems relevant. That's interesting. But look, their defense, I mean, you can say the same about Cincinnati. And you could honestly say the same about the Lions. Their defense just needs to be somewhere between 14 and 17 for them to be a 10-win team. I think that's going to happen, especially with the schedule they have. The giant secondary is super getable. You're going to let Dak cook with the weapons that he has.

I mean, this is, they better get the pass rush. No Dexter Lawrence. Okay, well, let's see what, when Dexter Lawrence isn't occupying two linemen, let's go ahead and see what these other guys have in them. You also have the Brain and Aubrey Factor. That's worth three points. You have a Giants home game, but you know there's going to be cowboy fans there. You know it.

I don't know how many cowboy fans, but they're going to be there and they're going to be loud. So. The one thing that will, well, we'll, Just confess up front. We are putting ourselves in harm's way with one of the most compelling week one trends. Go ahead. Talk about this. Divisional home dogs.

You go back 20 years when two teams inside the same division are playing each other. And one of them is at home as an underdog. They are 27 and 16 against the spread. This is from the Good People at Action Network. 11 and 4 against the spread since 2018, 19 and 6 against the spread since 2012, 25 and 9 against the spread since 2000. So all of the more recent vintage reflects that that home dog is valuable, that home indivision dog.

Yeah, but I think the line reflects that. And the Seattle New England line on Wednesday night was the same thing because it was three and a half. And I think it was as high as it was. because of the Super Bowl and the loser and all the, it was basically an extra point toward the Pats, which ended up helping them cover. So in this case, it's the other way.

Drew Luckett's quarterback helped them cover. Yeah, that did help us cover. But we lost him anyway, because I did. Quarterback threw three interceptions. That did happen. He became the first quarterback since Cordell Stewart, 2001, throw three picks in the fourth quarter of a game he had a lead in.

Are you feeling half full or half empty? Glass half full, glass half empty about the. Patriots again after after you've not had 24 hours to kind of to first of all thank you for asking yeah um I've landed here Drake had no preseason a j brown got hurt halfway through the game the game plan was awful and the Seahawks have an awesome defense and we're at home when we started the podcast last night I felt like we're gonna be 06 and 11 now I'm like you know what there was a pat super bowl oh three team maybe oh one of those ones where they got killed by Buffalo 31-0

and week one and they ended up rolling off. So I'm just trying to calm down. But Drake was really bad and I don't really have an explanation for it. He was just really awful. Well, I have an explanation for it. The Patriots couldn't establish the run. And so you let that- We kept running it on every first down and getting stuffed.

And Seattle was like, thank you, thank you, thank you so much. I mean, there is a tiny bit of a mismatch there. That offensive line for the Patriots isn't quite up to that elite level to take on a front seven like Seattle and the innovation of Seattle. What McDonald brings to the table and stunts and simulated pressure and all that stuff. What you saw out of Byron Murphy all game long, moving side to side, they couldn't locate him. And he was awesome. Yes. I think it was an awful, awful, awful game plan.

And it really, it honestly concerned me because it was just the opposite. Like Danny Kelly was on the pod. He was like everything in the Pats did. He was like relieved and excited. That shouldn't be the case. It's like, please don't throw deep on our on our precocious cornerbacks with A.J. Brown. They never did it.

They never went to him once. Here's the surprising thing to me. The single best weapon and the thing that keeps that Seattle defense off kilter off of being able to just load up is. is Drake running. And he's so good at it. Drake May running, not scrambling.

Scambling, he's very good at also. Semi-design runs. Yes. Almost like you were doing video games. You send everyone deep and roll them out. If you can't establish the run, then let the quarterback run.

They can't account for it. That's the one position that makes it a challenge. I'm sure Josh McDaniels is in the lab cooking up some stuff to respond. It was a, it was a horrible, horrible, a horrible game plan and they were not aggressive enough and they lost the game in the first two hours of the game before Drake May ended up actually losing the game.

I agree with all that. They played like 10 points. It was good enough to win. They did the same thing in Denver last year and it actually worked because they played the odds right with their backup quarterback. But the Seattle defense is a different animal at home than Denver was in a stone store. Also remember the weather in Denver went from like perfectly solid. And then all of a sudden we're playing in a blizzard.

Like the weather produced that outcome as much as the backup quarterback, as much as Jared Siddon. The Super Bowl, making the Super Bowl really threw off all of the expectations and everything about this Pat's team, which was a young team last year that probably shouldn't have been the Super Bowl. And now it feels like they should be a contender on par with some. I think they have as much talent as Buffalo. But I don't, I don't defensively like Seattle and Houston,

possibly Philly. Like I want to see this Philly defense, especially this weekend. But for sure. There's a defensive class at teams. That's just a whole level above the paths. Anyway, I don't like that. It's 10 days till the next game, too.

Because in Boston, everyone's going. Oh, losing their mind. Everyone's going crazy. It's a home game against who? Somebody decent. It's Pittsburgh. They have a good front seven. Yeah.

And speaking in Pittsburgh, I thought about holding this pick because we get one extra pick on Sunday and holding this pick hoping that Tua was going to be cleared to play and that the line was going to go down because this was three and a half this was three

three beginning of the week got to three and a half it was still too low because Tuoh was the quarterback in Pittsburgh against a team that has a really good pass rush and two is not a starting quarterback anymore. He gets hurt now it's Cooper Rush line goes to four and a half which is in the

Vegas zone and and you have this weird team with Aaron Rogers, inexplicably doing this super candid podcast right before the season. I don't know what he was thinking. Inexplicable podcast. Although I did enjoy the shots at Dana-Kopatra.

It worries me to lay this many points with them. But I think before the year, I had the Steelers of 10 wins. I actually like McCarthy. I think they're going to be a playoff team. And I think the Falcons have a chance be the worst team in the league, or at least the worst team in the NFC. And this is minus four and a half.

And I wonder in five weeks is this line minus eight, minus eight and a half. So I'm going to hold my nose and I'm going to lay the four and a half. I think in real life, we don't have a parlay option for this, but to me, this is a natural money line parlay with something else. Just take Steelers money line, put it with another game. Like it would be like the Ravens. Maybe you like the Bengals money line. but I like that Steelers money line with something else.

I thought about teasing them through the zero and putting them in the tease. Don't do it. Just to lay the Smackdown with Rahim just right away to show him. That's not a smackdown. That's a dumb down. Don't do it. Yeah, that was a dumb down.

That's why I didn't do it. There's too many good ones out here. So I'm going to hold my nose and I'm going to do Steelers minus four and a half against a Falcons team that looks like it's starting Cooper Rush. Well, I'm putting together a parley, a moneyline parley. Oh, boy, do I love this one. What is it? I came dressed in my team's garb today to show my respect, to show my enthusiasm.

No games have been played. Hope Springs Eternal. It's a divisional game. Washington has demonstrated an ability to be feisty with the Eagles. They've also gotten slaughtered by the Eagles. But they, look, it's week one. Nobody knows anything about this Washington. Oh, so you like their money line for this?

I sure do not. No, sir. Why are you bringing up Washington? You already made your four picks. I'm just saying you raised the idea of a little money line parlay. Why wouldn't we just go ahead and give the people a way of looking at some other games? This Philadelphia Eagles team is so good in the trenches. And on paper right now, on paper, the Washington team is very bad in the trenches, especially

with the absence of Larry's. I know where you're going. See, this. I'm not playing. I've already looked at this. Any numbers. I'm not playing the numbers. But look, the Eagles on the money line parlayed with the Steelers on the money line is dead even money.

Money. I am betting that. I'm telling you right now. Philadelphia Eagles at home beating Washington on the money line. Pittsburgh Steelers at home beating the Atlanta Falcons at home. Even money line parlay. Let's go. That's one that I'm getting down right now.

Okay. I really like it. And I wanted to talk about some possible options for the fifth pick. And one of these was the Eagles, which is five and a half right now. And I think the way to play them is the money line with the Steelers and hold your nose and bet against two bad teams on the road, basically. My fear with the Eagles and why I didn't put them in a tease other than it would have teased them through the zero. How many times have we been fucked over by an Eagles Washington game when way or the other? It's once a year.

Fair. Yes. It's once a year. Something weird happens, right? And I don't understand for the life of me why this line isn't seven and a half. Right. Other than these divisional matchup under, like all that shit. That's really the only reason.

But the Eagles have way more talent. They're dominant in the trenches. Washington is going to be the opposite, especially because you don't have tonsil. And I just, I'm dumbfounded by this line. Is it because the Eagles, the line is telling you? Well, it's an unknown. quantity with the offense in its entirety. Because Wix is the number two

receiver for them now because Lemon, I guess, wasn't good in the preseason. You can see it has a hamstring problem. Yeah, but I think he's playing week one. I understand, but I'm just saying we barely saw him because he missed a big chunk of preseason. But you could see it in the fantasy drafts because I had two, I'd one on Monday and one on Tuesday.

And Lemon, I don't even think Wix got drafted. Lemon was like $1 at the end of the draft. Like this is not nothing. So, you know, if Devante Smith is, oh, he was number two all along, it's the basketball analogy for this. Well, not Bradley Beale, not Bay to Beal. Bradley Beal took Chris Paul's number.

The Clippers are like, they had a staff meeting. It's a number? Chris Paul's number three. I know, but so what? Bradley Beal was number three for the Wizards. I know, but Chris Paul I mean... His legacy isn't the Clippers.

Well, whose legacy is he then? What team is his legacy? The New Orleans Hornets? But for the Clippers, the longest. Like he had most of his good years there. All right. I just think if the Clippers were ever going to retire a number, it would be Chris Paul or Blake Griffin.

They have no retired numbers. They showed us what they think of Chris Paul. I know. They kicked them to the curb, unceremoniously. So on top of time, top of that, they gave his jersey number to bait a bill. What a fuck you that is?

They should have given it to Uncle Dennis. We've given Uncle Dennis number three. Yeah, I mean, that three is one worse than two and he took a giant number two all over that organization. They should retire Kowaz number. The Cooper's, they have staff

meetings trying to figure out how their fans can possibly hate them more. They haven't apologized to their fans. They've said nothing. What about the lawsuit? Oh, Oh, we're going to sue. What happened? This whole thing was nine days ago. What are you guys going to do?

The season's starting in a month, in five weeks. What are you going to tell your season ticket holders? Look at the other teams that cheat the salary cap. Look at, look at the, I'm not going to name teams or players, but I mean, I guess that's it. I, I, anyway, Devante Smith might be just a number two. You're right. The problem is we have no idea. what the hell's going on. I'll tell you, the clippers are definitely a number two.

Okay. So, yeah. So here's some possibles for my fifth pick on Sunday. Right now, leaning toward Broncos plus two and a half against the chiefs. I didn't do it in the ringer 107 now because I'm really hoping that goes to three. I want to take the Broncos plus three. It's a super cheap two and a half. It's minus 105.

So the three is right around the corner. at a fair, like minus 118, minus 120 to get the three. That's super fair. That's a very fair price. By Ringer 107, it's midnight, Saturday night, I think. Oh, I got it. I'm not going to circumvent. I'm going to play by the number that is the number. Do we have a piggyback rule for the fifth pick or no? No piggyback rule.

Okay. So it doesn't matter. Yeah. So that's who I already, I mean, that's who I'm 96% there already with Denver. I thought about that long and hard for the T's too. That was the other one. They were one of the runners up for that one. Amazing teaser leg.

I don't understand how this isn't a one score game one way or the other. I think Denver, both of us think Denver is just better than Kansas City. So that was one. I'm still looking at that Panthers Bears line. There's a lot of good things toward the Panthers in that, especially the weather. Yeah.

It's going to be really bad. Yeah. It's going to be hot and humid. I think that's going to be an advantage for them. Um, the bears, are a very live, um, teaser leg also. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but they, they did have the bad juju, uh, preseason, which worries me. So I'm going to stare at that a little longer.

I'm staying away from Ravens Colts, except for the over, I thought was enticing. The over is 47 and a half right now. It's indoors. Yes. Um, and I don't really trust either defense. And I wonder if that is going to be a point. Bonanza. So we're allowed to pick overs for the fifth one, right? I don't know. Was it just for teasers?

Oh, yeah, it's for teasers, sorry. Oh, yeah, right, right, right. Yeah. I mean, I like that over quite a bit also. That game is fascinating. I decided to stay out of it, just like you. I don't like the hook. It's Ravens three and a half.

I don't like that. And Ravens have cooked. Lamar has absolutely cooked against Anurumo defenses. Yeah. He's annihilated them. But I can't get into a game. with a guy coming off in Achilles at record speed.

I just, you know, oh, he looks fine. He's been fine in practices. We haven't seen him under center. We haven't seen him try and play proper football against it. I'm very skeptical about Danny Dimes coming out and just, boom, slotting right in and stiking in that offense being, you know, but maybe modern miracle medicine, maybe so. I just need to see it before I'm going to bet on any of it.

There are a 14, 13 point teaser candidate that over under a two. You bring that down to 34 and a half. It's the 35 points covers. They'll have that at a half time. Yeah. It's back. Are you putting out Sunday morning? Fendell would not give us juice on the, yeah, no, I'm going to send it to you guys.

Fender would not give us the juice on the 13 point teaser. Maybe we could talk to Christian. I don't know. But yeah, getting that down to 34 and a half. I think there's going to be plus it's in a dome. Yeah. I just think there's going to be points in that game. And then the other one I was looking at was that Titans Jets game that you already took.

The two stayways for me, Raiders doffins, especially with Bowers out, it's, what really annoys me about this is it's one of the late games. There's only like four late games. And I know we're going to all end up betting on this game. I don't want to bet on this game. I'll bet I'm betting on it. I don't want to bet on it. I want to stay away from it.

It's stupid to bet on it and I know it's going to suck us in, but Raiders minus three. Now without Bowers, I don't think they have a single receiver or tight end on their roster that would get like a 70 in Madden, right? That's true, right? Yes. They have two running backs, but right, not a receiver or tight end. Right. who the F knows. But then the other stay away to me.

Vikings Packers, I really wanted to talk myself into the Packers. I just can't. There's bad matchups everywhere. If Kyler and his first start going against Jonathan Gannon, who coached him last year, that's a red flag for me.

You have the shitty Packers offensive line against Brian Flores, even though I can't name five guys in their defense anymore. I'm staying away from that. I don't want to bet on Kyler. I don't want to bet on Green Bay with the bad offensive line in Minnesota.

I'm just out. I'm out on that game. I came like not this close, but this close to taking Minnesota because it kind of fits my narrative coming into the season, which is I think Minnesota is going to be a slight tick better than their forecasted win total. And I have green. I'm very pessimistic about Green Bay this season. The only other one I was looking at from a parlay standpoint was something, trying to

keep something in the same game with the with the Chargers and the Cardinals and doing some all, all stuff like getting the chargers down to minus two and a half trying to get the over under as far down as possible with the over so that it could get to like plus 100 but um because i just feel that game has cheap touchdown potential to me i think the chargers are going to be pulling it out dirk digger style yeah i agree they're going to be slapping it on the table and and flapping it around and and doing everything and it just feels like they're up 15 in the fourth quarter and percent oh michael wilson And the Cardinals aren't that? Oh, they're going for two.

And now it's like, oh, my God, could the Chargers? It just has all the makings. Chargers under Harbaugh, early season, they come out and they look ready. They look ready to rock the last couple of seasons. Like they're like there have been an early season. They've impressed us even with the offensive line situation of last year. I like the Chargers. But I see what you're doing.

I don't mind it. They're saying Harbaugh is like a young Bob Chesney. Um, wait, which, no, the other way around, Chessney's much younger than Harbaugh. I know. I was kidding. I'm a dummy. That's the other, uh, one for parley's. UCLA is minus, UCLA is minus 12 and a half and minus 480 this weekend at home against San Diego State.

The coach made the San Diego State made a mistake. Um, took a couple like light shots at, uh, UCLA about polos and tried to make it seem like they were The rich kids and San Diego State were the gritty. Yeah, it was... Pop the collar. It felt sour grapesy. He was also up for the UCLA job and didn't get it. Oh, interesting.

I do not think there is any chance. You say we'll lose this game. Wow. I would put them in a... Flat on saying... Yeah, I think... On the money line. Yeah, on the money line.

Okay. Hold on. I'm going to put them in. Put them in. Put them in... Add their minus 480 in new... What time do they play on Saturday? Do you know yet?

They're playing at... It's a... game. It's 715. Okay. So let me get there. I was debating about going since I'm an unofficial Ucester, but I didn't want to go to the Rose Bowl and spend my entire day going back and forth to Pasadena. I mean, that's understandable. Today's Ringer 107 picks were brought to you by Fandul. Download the app now to find all of our 107 picks and make this your most rewarding season. We're trying for you. Fandul, play your game. Odds subject to change. Spotify advertising connects with an audience that's engaged and ready to discover your brand.

Launch a campaign with Spotify Ads Manager. I didn't get a chance to talk about the U.S. Open and how stupid it was that the best match of the entire tournament started at 11 o'clock. And then people defend it. What? Who's defending it? People are like, well, you got to understand people in the night.

No, you don't. Don't understand anything. There's two matches. People pay. It's got to be an ash. Nope. Don't have to understand that. of it. Can you imagine if they started the Eastern Conference NBA finals game seven at like 11 at night

and it just ended at two in the morning? How fucking stupid that would be? It was like, hey, or when Spurs Thunder game seven? Oh, the other games ran late. It's not going to start until 1130 tonight. What are you guys doing? You have Alka-Rez against Shelton. This is like the best possible matchup you can have in the whole tournament. You're trying to establish Shelton as American Superstar. You've got Trinity Rodman in the stance. You have this awesome, incredible five-set matchup, which, by the way, took four and a half hours, as usual. And the games that the match is ending at 3.30 in the morning. Right. 3.30 in the morning. It was great for me. I had nothing to do at 1230 at night. On the West Coast. I came home from my fantasy draft and watched the fourth

and fifth sets. I loved it. But guess who didn't see it? Everyone I know in the East coast, including you. Most of fucking America. Like, it is stunning. It's beyond stunning. How can you be so disrespectful to your own product? Like, this is a moment in American tennis that we haven't had in a couple generations. We haven't won since 2003.

Roddock won in 2003. That was the last American U.S. Open winner for men. And the three greats have cleared the space. Nadal, Federer. And Joe, Mitch. Yeah, they're out. are all out.

And so it's wide open for Americans to take the stage. And Big Foe is doing his part. And Shelton is doing his part. And Fritz is doing his part. Like, you know, this is an amazing moment in American men's tennis. And they have come up with an arrangement where they have marquee matches going off after fucking 11 o'clock at night on the East Coast. The marquee match.

This is the best match you could have. shouting against Alcarez. Do you want people to watch? Do you care about, like how... Dumbus fucking shit. How does ESPN tolerate this? The ESPN pays a fuckload of money to have this tournament on its station

and then ultimately on ABC. How can you go along with the number one player in the world playing one of the very best American prospects going off after 11 o'clock at night because they had to accommodate two very attenaries.

talented American women, Navarro and Pagula, playing in prime time. We can't have that that match happen simultaneous with Shelton and Akura's playing in prime time. They can't be on ESPN and ESPN2. That's impossible. Is that what you're telling me? How about do a poll? What do people would, where they rather watch in primetime?

Navar and Pagula or or, or Shelton against. It's bad shit crazy. It's other world crazy. They tell me as a right. as a sports fan who tunes in because it's our national championship. What they're telling me is to fuck off. We don't care what you think. We don't give a shit about you.

Who cares whether you watch or not? The matches are too long anyway. And I said this last week. I planted my flag on it. And I knew, you know, the tennis people, they get mad when the outsiders come in. But the reality is nothing before like the quarterfinals should go for four and a half hours. and I think it's arguable that the quarterfinals should go for four.

Like in basketball, when we had the best of fives, the best of fives are great. Sometimes you'd have an upset, but it would shorten the series. Then there was too much money at stake and they didn't want to do that anymore. And the tennis,

these guys are, these rallies are just longer. The sport's harder to play than it was 20 years ago. The equipment's better. The conditioning's better. Everything's better. And the game and the match are just longer.

They're all like heading toward an average of three hours now. have to figure out some sort of fix and they just won't. Well, I don't mind long dramatic matches. It does heighten like the Mickelson Big Fo match that ended up going five sets. Yeah, but that was the reason that the Alcrest match didn't start to 11 o'clock. Well, no. That was what the Bundo said.

He was like, well, you had four matches on Ash and they played the maximum 16 sets. And it's like, well, this is dumb. If you, if that, if you didn't have that variable that, oh, if there's 16 sets, Everyone's going to be here until 3.30 in the fucking morning. No. Without a way to get home, by the way. The Pagula Navarro was the reason. That's why those guys came on at 11 o'clock.

Also, like, if you have Alcaraz Shelton, that match has to start on Ash. I would say at like 9.30 at the latest. At the latest. Because it needs to be on television for everybody like you on the East Coast to watch it. So I can get invested. Sports 101. Like, are you trying to build your sport or not, dumb asses? of Tuesday fucking night.

There was nothing else on. I would have washed it. I would have been all the way in from not. And by the way, you know what the schedule said that match was supposed to start? 930 at night. It didn't because the other matches went long and then you had to end the Pagula Navarro. If the matches go long, have the ability to take that other match with Pagula and move it to the stadium that what has 14,000 people push it over.

That's fine. That would have been fine. We could have live with that. I mean, whatever. It's ridiculous. It's up to Tennessee. can do whatever they want. I do really love big foe.

Big foe. Because it's like rooting for one of those teams that you know, you know they're going to, the tire is just going to blow at some point. You know what it is. Heartbreak could be right around the corner at any moment. It's just, and it's almost like he needs to go down so that he can have the comeback and yell to the crowd and do fist pumps.

Like he just can't have it easy. He can't cruise. Oh, you know he's my guy. He's from PG County. He's from the DMV. I mean, we go thick. We're very thick with big foe love here. Yeah.

So, and then Shelton, I can't believe how good shape these guys are in is the other thing. Shelton's doing like the hardest possible serve to do. Like he's jumping up in the air and fucking hitting 140 mile an hour serves for four and a half hours. Like these guys, I don't think anyone's maybe soccer player. Who's in better condition than some of these tennis players? Well, that's also part of what really adds to. the drama of it. They're incredible athletes.

These marathon contests, if they were playing at the appropriate time of day, that we could enjoy it. I think I wouldn't mind if it was like three sets, two or three sets, and then maybe the third, fourth, and fifth sets just have less games or something. It's like you have to get the four.

I like best of three up to quarterfinals. And when you're in quarterfinals, or do that. That's fine. Played all five. That's the three of the quarterfinals is great. Yeah. That sounds awesome.

Let's get through it. I also like, I think there could be a mercy rule where if you're up more than, if you're up three games in a set, you won the set. One of the five sets, but if it's like you're up four one, you've won. Now let's look. The next set. All these innovations you're talking about in terms of shortening up, that makes sense for lesser tournaments.

When we're playing in the majors, then let's have a rule where we can have five set, you know, competitions for the majors. Or best two or three until we get to the quarters. Yeah, because there are these, these, uh, the 500 series tournaments that only play best two out of three sets anyways, but tightening that up so that we get our best players not coming in injured, right? Like, you know, there has been a lot of scuttle, but in that tennis world about the guys, the schedules to compress, the guys are, you know, and gals are not coming in healthy.

It's similar to basketball. Yeah. I just think the sports. to play than it used to be. And what's happening is not sustainable to me. Right. Right. Unless you use PEDs and sheet in various ways.

I'm okay with that. By the way, do you see that picture is a Sabatini? No. I send those to you? She looks great. One of the heroes of the 80s for us. I'm relieved.

Yeah, no, she looked awesome. I'm glad to hear that. Okay, good. Very important person for us in the 80s. Very important person for us. I don't even think we knew each other. My buddy Bish from high school, We just completely in love with Sabatini.

You were a big tennis guy back then, too. Still a big tennis guy. I was. All right. Anything else where we go? Just this four-leg parlay that I want to make sure America hears. We're going to take the Eagles, the Steelers. We already put those two together.

If you add the chargers and your UCLA Bruins plus 192 on a fans of sports book, almost two to one. Will they put that on the... Four leg. I'm going to ask... I'm going to ask Jack to put that on the Fandle for us plus 192 410 pets

it's a juicy price 4 leg money line parlay we must be playing some fucking football it must be football season 4 leg money line parley must be football season what happens if we take Philly out of that just out of curiosity we can do that for sure yes

because I still don't know if I trust Philly okay fine how many times with Philly like Jalen Hurts slow to get going and it's like well I have a parley on him. Plus 108. Plus 108 if you take Philly out. Still plus money.

So that's Steelers, UCLA. Yep. Oh, man. Steelers charges Bruins. Steelers charges Bruins. Plus 108. House, you're an American treasure.

It's great to see you. I will see you next week for week two of Ringer 107. Don't forget, we have our bets coming. Our fifth bets will be online. We'll tweet them out on Sunday, morning. And here's to a whole year of winning. Thank you, House. Thanks to Eduardo and Jack and Chris and Gahau as well. Our guys, we're going to be back on Sunday and it's going to be live on Netflix with the dastardly cousin Sal. I'm really starting not to like coming off this Cowboys

Giants game. You'll be coming off of Cowboys Giants. Right. So I might put as much money on the Cowboys as I can put on a game and feel good about it. Well, how's Hank, how's Hank feel about that? On the Cowboys? Yeah, I'll talk to Hank. Yeah, talk to Hank. Hank's doing great. Hank says a little, by the way. Thanks, everybody.

Have a great weekend, and we will see you on Sunday night here. Must be 21 plus in President Select States for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus in President D.C. Kentucky or Wyoming. Game, a problem, call 100 Gambor or 1-800-800-by reset. Call 88879-777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or MDGamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling help line, MA.org or call 80032750 for 24-7-support in Massachusetts or call 8778-8-N-Y or text Hope NY in New York for Louisiana. Call 8777-7-7-867. Where some see heroes and others see egos. Bloomberg sees the airbag.

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