The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Butler Trade, Dallas Survives, Trubisky Groupies, and Week 11 Lines with Cousin Sal | The Bill Simmons Podcast (Ep. 441)

Episode Date: November 12, 2018

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal after watching a long day of football together, to discuss the Minnesota Timberwolves trading Jimmy Butler to the Philadelphia 76ers, the Cowboys squeaking past the Eagles, the Titans beat-down on the Patriots, and the Steelers' hot-streak before guessing the NFL lines for week 11. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We have a whole bunch of ways if you still want to go there. Las Vegas, we would love to see you. Come on out. Take some pictures with the boys. Need our ringer fans of Vegas. Come on. Come see our dudes. Coming up, the Cuz First Pro Jam. coming up the cuz first pro jam all right the cuz is on the line we spent spent the whole day together. I'm tired of you. He's tired of me.

But we're going to do it. We're doing a pod. We spent like eight hours together. Jesus. Yeah, only 90 more minutes. Well, how could that hurt? We put a video. I was just taping with my iPhone.

I was taping you and our insane friend Brad was there. It was once or twice a year he comes over to my house to watch football with us. And, uh, and I just started taping. I don't know. I don't know if it's, it might be too little. The whole Simmons family really loves him. Yeah. He's crazy. So we put it into a whole video that's on, you can find it on the ringers Twitter feed or probably on our site somewhere. But he has an opinion on everything and bill, you know,

bill chose to capture, I don't know, a one one hundredth of his opinions. Yeah. They're all entertaining. I think we decided to edit the bathroom visit he made when he was singing to himself and talking about cheese and God knows what else was going on and ended it with false alarm. We were just dying. I might have to just put that up on my Instagram or something. Hey, let's start with the Jimmy Butler trade because- You're dying to talk about this. You had two days where you couldn't say anything. You put the camera to yourself and gave it a good

I did. I did that on Twitter. I don't want to have to do that, but it's, of course, classic bad ringer luck. The trade happens on a Saturday in the late morning Pacific time when, you know, we had to rally the troops, but I, there's some gambling ramifications. This is a good topic for us. Yeah, there sure are.

Philly's 18-1 now to win the title. I'm just going to reiterate what I said in the little stupid Twitter thing I did. I like the trade for Philly a lot. And it's one of those high ceiling, low basement trades where if it doesn't work, you do the blackjack dealer back in 20 minutes hand palm thing and you just walk away. If it does work, they really have a chance to make the finals. They'll have three guys who are in the top 20 in the league if they're all healthy.

And then JJ Redick is the fourth. And then they still have some assets, you know, potentially you go get a fifth guy. There's still one guy short for crunch time, but you, since the last time we talked about NBA, we talked long and hard about the bucksucs and their possibilities contender.

We had no idea what to make of the Raptors. We assumed the Celtics were going to be awesome. We assumed wrong. They have started out rocking to say the least. The East might be better than the West, though. Is that possible? No, come on. Is that possible?

The top four? Well, I mean, it doesn't really matter because the West, you'd still take Golden State minus 200 over everyone, right? Yeah, you would. But the second best team in the West from a talent standpoint, it's arguable. It really is. Denver and Utah are probably the two consensus next main up teams.

And then you have the Lakers with LeBron. We don't know what shape they're going to take then yet. And then you have a whole bunch of Houston out yet. I know that I know that I'm playing lousy, but they could be good. Houston. They had the Carmelo exorcism today. It looked like that might've helped.

It might've helped a little, but yeah, they, they had the bad juju and you know, it's something we were talking about it. We were talking about it today with the Jags, like trying to figure out what happened to the Jags this year. And you were saying how,

how a friend of yours was saying how sometimes when you get that close and you don't get there, it kind of breaks you for the next year. I hadn't thought of it that way. But that might be part of what's going on with Houston. And you kind of have that one shot at it and you know it's your window and you need all these things to come together and you're playing out of your mind and then it doesn't happen. And you're going back and then the next season doesn't start out as well. And you just start going, oh man, I can't believe we were so close last year and now we're here. I wonder if that's part of it. I talked about this.

I don't know where I talked about this, but there's also the backbreaking every week or so there's a backbreaking viral video of a, of a possession, a golden state warriors possession where there's like eight passes that ends in like a, a Steph Curry, you know, floater from six feet and it's like players see that and they're like, Oh God, how are we ever going to beat this team? Yeah.

Even if everything goes right. Might be discouraging. And then you have, you know, in the East, the way Giannis is playing right now, the Celtics spent all this time trying to get rid of LeBron. They finally got rid of him. And then Giannis and Kawhi show up, two MVP candidates. Giannis is the best player in the week this season so far.

And now Philly has, I hate the word big three, but it's a legit threesome. They have three guys who could potentially make the all-star team. It's good, but as your Celtics are learning, sometimes too many guys is not the answer, right? True. I think the reason I thought this might work with Butler is because you're basically just subbing him for Robert Covington, who is a very good defender, and so is Butler. But Butler can do so much more offensively, and he's a playmaker in the whole thing. He does like to have the ball and do stuff with it. And I think that part's going to be interesting with Simmons, whether he can just play off the side. But, you know,

the big thing for me is the chemistry part of this, because with Simmons and Embiid, you know, it's not like they don't get along, but I don't think they're best friends. And, you know, they're both franchise guys who are kind of coexisting and they compliment each other in a lot of ways. And a couple of ways they don't, I I've never been able to really get a feel for what the long-term future of that relationship is, but now you're putting Butler into it with a young team and he's been borderline toxic at three spots now, you know, like in Chicago and then Minnesota twice. And, um, I'm not sure about his leadership.

I'm not sure about his locker room stuff. I thought the stuff he did was borderline reprehensible. Now, he might get to Philly and be super happy and be a good soldier, but there's been enough bad juju with him over the last couple years. What's your take? Yeah, he's T.O. He's T.O. going to Philly maybe, right? Oh, that's interesting.

Just like he did. Yeah. There is some T.O. It's like, I'm better than you guys. Yeah, that's T.O. He's T.O. going to Philly maybe, right? Oh, that's interesting. Just like he did. Yeah. There is some T.O. It's like, I'm better than you guys. Yeah, that's right. I think it's a four-horse race, right? In the East, you mentioned it. Celtics plus 175, betting-wise.

Toronto also 175. Sixers now plus 450, and the Bucs 6-1 odds. Now, the Sixers' odds, what did you say? They went from, they're down to 14-1? I had them at 18 to one. 18 to one? Oh, 18 to one. Yeah. Right. They were 30 to one before the trade. We just mentioning this for laughs,

T-Wolves went from 200 to one to 500 to one. And congratulations if you have the under, I know some of my trifecta had the under and T-Wolves wins at 42, anywhere from 42 to 44. So do you think the Sixers over 53 is a guarantee now? No, I don't, but you need 70 games out of Embiid at least. He's been unbelievable, but I still want to see it. So I wouldn't say it's a lock. I would say it's definitely a really good bet. If you have it, you should be super happy about it.

You know what I'm not happy about? It's the Celtics 59. Oh, yeah. That's not looking great. Not looking great at all. Love, love, love that. I did. I got to say it.

I'm really surprised by basketball stuff. Even the Houston thing, I'm not surprised by it. I'm really surprised Stevens hasn't been able to figure out what to do with the guys on this team. Cause I really thought he was the best coach in the league by far. He has not figured out rotations. He has not figured out who to play at crunch time. He keeps trotting out the same lineup with Horford, Tatum, Jalen Brown,

Hayward, and Kyrie. And it's really low energy. And they just always seem to fall behind or start the game off slow, and it's not until the bench guys come in that they have an identity. And it seems like it's a little mix and match. They're playing Hayward way too much. I still think he's not even close to where he's going to be. And defensively, he's been really not good.

And in crunch time today, they were just killing it. Portland was killing him in switches and stuff. Well, yeah, I mean, you know what the worst part of it is that I don't think you're considering? So two weeks ago, the Red Sox won the World Series on a Sunday night. We have to talk about that for 20 minutes. Last week, the Patriots beat the Packers on Sunday night. We have to talk about that for 20 minutes. This week, my Cowboys finally win.ers on Sunday night. We'll talk about that for 20 minutes.

This week, my Cowboys finally win. We're getting to them. I'm finally not going to go to bed furious at Jason Garrett, and we have to talk eight minutes about Jimmy Butler trade. That's the worst. My audience wanted Jimmy Butler reactions. All right, all right. Yeah, we definitely have a top four in the East,

and then it drops off. Right. I really like having Jimmy Butler on this Philly team because I think it makes the whole season more interesting. Cause him on him on Minnesota. I thought I was going to remember house and I were saying, we hope they don't trade them. We want the dysfunctional year.

It got old pretty fast. I went to the Laker game on Wednesday. It was, it was more depressing than anything really see my towns was going to start crying during the games. So now Butler's on Philly and I really want to see, like, let's see it. You have three guys who on paper compliment each other, Simmons and Bede and Butler, all of them do different things and it should work. And Reddit gives them shooting and the faults is the big X factor, whether they can trade them or not.

One of the things I liked about what they did is that they left room for one more trade. Because they have a future Miami pick or Phoenix pick, whatever the pick they got in the Bridges trade. They have that. They have faults. I think they have one cap guy that they can move. But I like the position they're in. It's the end of the process, though, Sal. This is it. The process died.

John Gonzalez wrote about that in The Ringer this weekend. The process is now over. It's time. We've reached the finish line. The best part is, like, you know, it's funny. I don't know what videos you posted of our friend Brad, but he says how basketball sucks. Oh, and look at this November game. There's no one in the crowd.

He was going on and on. Calvin Murphy. He went on and on about it. But at least the second round, if the favorites win out, is going to be exciting, right, of the playoffs. It's going to be, you know, it could be Celtics against Milwaukee and Toronto against Sixers. That would be great versus waiting to see who Golden State beats in the finals.

Yeah, I would say any combination of those four is fun, and I would not rule out Indiana. Really? I think Oladipo, he is in the conversation for second best player in that conference, and he might be. 50-1 to win the East, Indiana. The thing I like about them is they have a potential trade to make. I don't know if their team is a finished product yet.

Just as a five seed, it's pretty strong for what the East has had in the past. Other than that, I don't know. But you're right. On paper, that final four in the East. And then in the West, you probably have some version of, I would say, the Warriors, Denver, Utah, and the Lakers would be the favorites right now. I still am not counting out the Lakers at all. And you just saw it last week.

They just added Tyson Chandler out of nowhere. You know, everyone's like, oh, my God, they don't have a center. And LeBron calls the Phoenix GM who he played with forever, James Jones. And, and he's like, Hey man, could you,

could you do me a solid and wave Tyson Chandler, James Jones? Like, sure, I'll do that for you. So he waves them. And now they have another guy. And I feel like that's going to keep happening.

And that's another thing to watch out for with Philly too, is the buyout guys in February. We saw that last year. Remember they added Bellinelli and they added Iliosova and it made a huge impact on them in February. So, and I think that could potentially happen with the Lakers as well. You know, the Clippers are really fun this year too. We should shout them out for a second.

That is definitely the opposite of the Celtics where the sum of the parts or the whole exceeds the sum of the parts. or the whole exceeds the sum of the parts. The Celtics are the sum of the parts. You don't know what the hell's going on. But I like watching the Clippers this year. Yeah, Milwaukee kicks the crap out of Golden State. And they have to continue the West Coast trip. And they lose to the Clippers.

It's fun. They're like mopping up. Nephew Kyle took the other Ben Simmons to the Clippers-Bucks game. He hadn't seen Giannis in person before. That was incredible. He's like an alien, right? Yeah, it was incredible. He turned your son into a Clippers fan.

I don't know how that happened. Yeah, he got into it. He liked Harrell, and he liked a couple guys, right? Yeah, absolutely. Giannis had that one play where he Euro-stepped and then dunked left in overtime. It was unbelievable. Giannis is unbelievable.

He really is. We loved him for MVP. I don't know. Oh, you couldn't bet. You couldn't bet MVP. Yeah, but that was my recommendation. That's right. You know, I think you guys laughed at me

when I talked about Bucks Lakers at 150 to one. Oh, yeah. I did laugh at you, but I did Bucks Warriors. Bucks Warriors was 12 to one. Now that's six to one. Yep. That's a good one. So I'm excited to see how this Butler thing plays out.

And you know, we, the truth is we sacrificed Minnesota to make Philly more interesting. And now, now that's, I can't miss it. Well, just thank God he went to the East.

That's all. That's all I'm saying. It just, if he, if he went to Houston and they dumped Carmelo, I don't know any salary, how that would have worked or any, any combination of that, but that would have been bad. But yes, let's talk about the Philly team that sucked this weekend.

Yeah. Yeah. We're going to take a quick break. I wanted to say with Carmelo though, I wrote about him for Grantland, I think four or five years ago, Carmel, Carmelo is just getting crushed by everybody and with reason to some degree, but he's not the guy that he hasn't been that guy for four years now. You can't look at what he's done the last

three years and then prorated over his whole career. Carmelo was a great player. They're killing the big contract that he didn't deserve. That's all they're killing. Yeah, but I mean, in 2009 with the Nuggets,

Carmelo, it was 2-2 in the Western Conference Finals. Carmelo outplayed Dirk the series before and was awesome in that series against Dallas in round two. And then in round three against Kobe and the Lakers in 0-9, it's 2-2 going into game five and the Lakers won the last two and had the better of them.

But they were pretty close to winning the finals that year. And then in 2013, which I thought Carmelo was outstanding that year. I think I might have even voted him second for MVP that year. But then they go against Indiana round two. And Hibbert just annihilates Tyson Chandler. And that was the reason they lost. Tyson Chandler got his absolute ass kicked by, by Roy Hibbert.

But those two years, Carmelo was absolutely good enough to be the best player in a title team. So, you know, I know, I know it's fun to kick Carmelo and make fun of him and bitch about him and the whole thing and ISO ball. And he's selfish.

The things that, you know, he, he took the money in 2011. He could have just waited until the end of that season and just signed with the Knicks as a free agent, but he really wanted to go to them before that summer because he wanted the bigger contract, made the Knicks trade guys for him.

So they lost Galen, Ari and Mozgov and some picks. And then I think in 2014, you know, he re-signed with them for an absolute shitload of money when he knew they weren't going to be good. I thought, and I killed him at the time for it. It's like, you obviously care more about money than winning. So criticize him for that. But that guy was a great player and he was an unbelievable scorer.

I'm just thinking of all the fan bases who hate you right now, starting with the Knicks. What do you mean? Just for that take. Like, hey, back off of Carmelo. He's one of the most hated players in the league. I know what you're saying. It's all true.

But they probably all wish that he ends up on the Lakers. No, listen. Or the Celtics, rather. You can shit on him all you want and complain about all different things, but don't say he wasn't a good player. The guy was a really good player. He was, for years and years, he was one of the best 10 to 12 guys in the league. And I thought he was the second best player in the playoffs and in the league a couple

of times. Or not in the playoffs, definitely in the league. But there's an interesting, in 2009, we were talking about it in the Ringer NBA Slack today. There was almost a Carmelo versus Dwight Howard finals, which I think would have blown up the NBA as we know it, if that had happened. If Carmelo makes it, one of those guys has a completely different legacy. Anyway, we're going to take a quick break,

then we're going to talk about football. Hey, football season is well underway. Sal has major regrets about his season-long fantasy team. I do not. I have good fantasy teams. I don't have regrets, but I still love the daily fantasy. I've been playing on FanDuel all season. Had a good week this week.

I finally put together a decent team. Russell Wilson, Aaron Jones, Michael Thomas. Who's the other one I had? Oh, Nick Chubb. My man, Nick Chubb. I was all in on the Nick Chubb thing. Time to shine. God, I had a whole bunch of good ones.

But yeah, I finally did well on FanDuel. Over at FanDuel, you get the excitement of researching and building your team each week, regardless of the outcome. It's never been more fun or easy to play. You can check out their Gridiron Pick'em Contest, a free contest. All you need to do is pick winners, no spreads, 10K split amongst the top pickers. If you've tried other DFS sites, and if you're not a fantasy expert, then this is the one for you. FanDuel is clearly the place to play. New users get a $5 bonus when they make the first deposit. Come play with me and a whole bunch of ringer people at FanDuel.com slash BS.

All right, Sal, we did wonder if we'd be saying goodbye to Jason Garrett tonight. We're not going to be saying goodbye to him. Yeah, that's a cup half empty way to look at this. I know, it's true. Damn, he's got to stay, right? They can't get rid of him. I know you like keeping him around. I think for comedy's sake,

when people are dressing up for Halloween as your coach, you know you've really stumbled on something magical. I was actually convinced that we were going to be talking about how that was his last game. And do you think they'll fire him tomorrow morning or whatever? Dallas played really well. They, they'd lucked out at the Eagles just by,

you know, they just lost basically all of their cornerbacks that game. How many were left? Yeah, they all went down. Yeah. Cooper. I will say the Cowboys came out with an aggressive game plan.

Well, first of all, we got lucky that Vander Esch is playing great. There's a lot going on here. I should start with, but that pick off a went, I only turned it into three, but that was a nice start for the Cowboys.

That showed me, wow, they're going to be in this. They're not going to get blown out. And to Garrett's credit, even though he doesn't call the plays, it was an aggressive, aggressive scheme going forward.

They went for it on fourth and one. It was a false start penalty, but at least they tried. They lined up, they snapped it, and then they had the fake punt. It was like un-cowboy-like things to do during a game. And Dak was throwing downfield. Zeke had it all going. It was amazing. I couldn't believe it all came together.

Very weird game. But back to the Jimmy Butler trade. So you're four and five in the NFC East. The Redskins are six and three. They played Tampa today. You were at my house. We had four TVs going. Did we watch a play of that game? No, I think we saw the Redskins run it out at the end, run the clock out. I think that's all we really saw. We just completely avoided it. The Redskins are 6-3 and they're plus one point differential. Yeah.

It feels like nine wins might win the NFC East. Oh, God, yeah. It feels like nine and seven takes it. This late in the season, six is pretty good, even for a team that we probably can't figure out right now in the Redskins. Like, what did Alex Smith do?

He threw for like 178 yards. Like, I don't know how they did. First of all, that game, I thought that'd be over 55 points right there. Tampa, Washington. Tampa never wants to play defense. So the fact that it ended 16-3 is very strange. But yeah, the Eagles not looking great right now. Giants are not going to play defense. So the fact that it ended 16-3 is very strange. But yeah, the Eagles not looking great right now. Giants are not going to do anything.

I'd like to see the odds tomorrow morning. I wouldn't even say the Eagles have one specific problem. It's like a bunch of things that aren't great. I'm looking at the Washington schedule. Houston week 11 at home. At Dallas, at Philly. Home for the Giants. At Jacksonville, which is suddenly looking like not a hard game,

or maybe not as hard as we thought it would. At Tennessee, home for Philly. I mean, home for the Giants, home for Philly might be enough to win the division, right? They win those two games. They have theants, home for Philly might be enough to win the division, right? Well, they win those two games. They have the home and home with Philly. They split that and they win the Giants game. All they have to do is win one more game to get to that.

That could be enough. Eight could be enough. Well, and then you look at Philly. They have Washington twice, so they could single-handedly make up that deficit. Unfortunately for them, at New Orleans this week. Yeah. Home Giants, home Washington, at Dallas, at the Rams. Yeah, at the Rams.

Home Houston. That's the last game. At Washington. I got to say, they're borderline cross-ups, Sal. They're very close because that Rams game is going to mean something, I think. I think they're going to have to play that game to get home field or second or something. So even if we give them a split against at New Orleans at the Rams, even if they go one and one on those two,

they still have to sweep Washington to have any chance whatsoever. I don't know. And then you look at Dallas. They have any chance whatsoever. I don't know. And then you look at Dallas. They have Atlanta this week. They have New Orleans. They're home for that. I'm just looking at their tough games. And then they have the Eagles again.

They drop those three. That's eight losses. They're done too. I don't know how this plays out. I really don't. This is a messed up division. Week 16, you're home Tampa. Week 17, at the Giants.

Right. So if you can somehow even get to 7-7 for those last two games. Yeah. See if you go 3-2. I don't even look at at the Giants as a win. Who knows what game shows up. You don't know that this is the Cowboys team we're going to see.

But it is nice that they played, so their defense played so hard without Sean Lee. I haven't seen that in a long time. My favorite moment of the whole game was before the game. Michelle Tafoya interviewed George W. Bush and his wife. I missed it. I was just getting out of the car, but I got a lot of notes on it and what happened. And then he ad-libbed this whole joke about Al Michaels and Chris Collins were his

golf games and everyone was laughing. And it was, it was the most conservative Republican quartet moment that we've had in a long, long time. It was, it was, it was really great. It was like the four of them had just come back from hiding more ballot boxes in Georgia. And then they had a nice big laugh. Someone told me it was like he was doing the Will Ferrell impersonation. It was.

It was. It was just great. I mean, I love Al Michaels. All of those. It was just this. Every cliche we have about the NFL, it was everything all at once. It was there. And you can see the other 30 it was everything all it was. It was there. And you could see

the other 30 owners just having a chuckle. Oh, he made fun of Al's golf game. It was just classic rich guy, old, white stuff. Good times. What else did we see this weekend? It was a pretty boring set of games for the most part.

We saw Brad spin around. We saw Brad almost have a heart attack on your outdoor court. Oh, on the TV? Yeah, Brad was really more interesting than any of the games. The early games, there were just a slew of blowouts. So that wasn't

great. We kept wanting Indy Jacksonville to be good. And I guess it was for a few minutes. It was a hell of a push. That's another division that these teams might be good. Yeah. And I guess it was for a few minutes, but... It was a hell of a push. That's another division that these teams might be good. I mean, let's talk about your team now, blowing it to Tennessee.

I think that's next on the docket, right? Yeah, I feel like the Red Sox winning the World Series has just ruined all my other teams now. I can't have good things all the time. I said to you, if you would have heard the final score is 34-10, how many houses would we have put on the Patriots?

Not even our own houses. And you said you would have been convinced that Tennessee won that game. I told you last week I was really worried about this. I didn't think the Pats were playing well. They didn't look good against Buffalo. They pulled a lot of gimmick bullshit last week against the Packers

to steal that one. They got some fumble luck from the Packers. I just didn't think they were playing well. Tennessee is the type of team that gives them trouble, the QB that can scramble around, the coach who knows their offense. Brady, I mean, he looked 41 today. I'll leave it at that. Nephew Kyle wouldn't know

because Nephew Kyle woke up around the fourth quarter. The real reason we lost was Nephew Kyle never showed up. That's some bullshit. That's some bullshit. Bullshit. He followed suit with the Patriots. They both showed up in the fourth quarter. A lot of jokes like that.

If Nephew Kyle doesn't have the urgency to show up for a Pats game on time at 10 o'clock, why would the Pats feel like they had to be obligated to show up? That's true. He showed up at 1230 and they had the same kind of attitude. Fair enough. Brady looked like a 41 year old man today and he probably had 10 terrible throws.

Yeah. I had a dozen written down. Like a dozen bad down. A dozen bad balls. Throwing to the backup tight end and double coverage. The guys weren't open. In his mild defense, the receivers really weren't open. It doesn't really

seem like Edelman can get open in the same way anymore. 3 for 15 on third down. You're not going to see that anymore from them. Or before or after anytime soon, I don't think. Yeah, Lombardi always talks about Canadian football and trying to get first downs and two downs, and the

red flag teams are the ones that are always looking at that third and eight, third and nine, third and thirteen, and that was the Pats this whole game today. They're just not that impressive. They really aren't. I mean, we've learned not to count them out, but if Gronk is

not out there, or if Gronk is 50% of Gronk, and there's just not that game-breaker dude for them offensively, and then defensively, it is what it is. Well, here's why I thought it was a weird loss. Anyone could beat anyone at any time, and Tennessee's decent enough to pull an

upset on the road. But coming off a short week, they beat Dallas Monday night. You got Belichick had already lost to Matt Patricia. How many assistant coaches are going to lose to him one year? You figure he's going to have it planned for Brable. And you guys are on a bye this week. And Pittsburgh looking good Thursday night means nobody wants that two seed now. The one seed is more important than ever.

Pittsburgh. It didn't really add up to me. Pittsburgh really lucked out with when they caught Carolina, catching them on a Thursday, you know, at home, just the perfect storm for them. With that said, they've played well now for five straight weeks. They've looked really good. And if you told me the AFC title game was Pittsburgh versus KC

and no major injuries or anything, I think I'd have a hard time taking KC in that, even in KC. Pittsburgh beats them. They beat them every year, don't they? Whenever they play them in the playoffs, they beat them. KC had a lot of trouble with Arizona today. We had that on for most of the second half. And Arizona's

not good, and they were just hanging around. I mean, you could say it was a trap game, and he thought they could show up and win all that stuff. Yeah, Pittsburgh's last... Well, I mean, they went back and forth between almost losing and almost covering the 16.5 points. Right. I think David Johnson had his best game in years. You know, Rosen, for a team that was catching between almost losing and almost covering the 16.5 points.

I think David Johnson had his best game in years. You know, Rosen, for a team that was catching up, did not have good numbers. It was like 22 for 39, just over 200 yards. But, yeah, maybe they are looking ahead to the Rams game this week and didn't care too much about blowing them out. But it was a little – some of these teams, the Rams need to do something on defense. Okay, how many times they beat Seattle?

And KC needs to lock it down too. Yeah, Steelers last five. They beat Atlanta by 24, beat Cincy by seven, beat Cleveland by 15, beat Baltimore by seven, beat Carolina by 31. The schedule fairies have gifted them with at Jacksonville, at Denver this week, or the next two weeks.

Yeah. Now, those are two games that— At Jacksonville, it was supposed to be the Sunday night game. They flexed that right the hell out to 1 p.m. Eastern. Yeah, I mean, that's a game where you would normally think that would be one of their toughest games of the year. Jacksonville has also had a history of kicking the shit out of them. So that's probably the most fascinating game next week.

I mean, we're going to get to the Lions in a little bit, but there's some demons they have to exercise in that Jackson game. He's spreading that ball out, though. He had seven different receivers for touchdowns last week. Yeah, he looked great. And this James Conner thing. So it really looks like Le'Veon Bell is not going to show up. And I think he knows it. I think he knows.

I commented this week, like he's the guy bringing a six pack of old duels to the keg party. Like, yeah, no one cares about you anymore. Yeah. And you know, it's going to be for comedy sake, you're going to get hurt your first week back and then you missed a big contract anyway. So, uh, it's probably smart for him to sit the rest out. I didn't agree with this plan of his. It was pretty suspect.

Yeah. It certainly isn't going to drive interest unless he knows he has some sort of wink-wink giant deal coming next year, which I doubt. James Conner's good. I think the biggest thing for me is Roethlisberger really looked like he might be on his way out in those first few weeks and really look good. The last couple of weeks. I thought it was awesome on Thursday.

They have, as usual, they have, you know, three, four good receivers out there at all times. Half of whom you've never heard of until three weeks ago. But yeah, I would say I think Pittsburgh and KC are pretty high above everybody else right now. Chargers,

I don't want to say they're a distance third, but they're definitely unequivocally third. And then after that, maybe the Pats? I don't even know. Are the Pats the fourth best team? Oh, stop it.

Pats are 7-3. You lost one game. You're all right. You're all right. 7-3, Sal. I'm more interested in the sixth seed and stuff like that. I'm looking for that wild. We still need a team to bet against.

And I don't see it in the AFC South yet. But if the Ravens have to start Lamar Jackson, drop a couple in their next games, who's going to get that sixth seed? Not the Bengals, not the Dolphins. Probably going to be another AFC South, like your Colts. You and I really like the Colts. And I had a nice little bet on them today

and it ended up pushing, which I was bummed out about. But now they're four and five. And I had a nice little bet on them today and it ended up pushing, which I was bummed out about, but they, now they're four and five and just naked eye test watching all these teams. I liked it. I just think they can move the ball. I think offensively they can move the ball when they drive down the field, but they'll just get the kickoff.

You'll look up like, wow, they're at the 25 already. What are they doing? They do not have a hard schedule left. Home Tennessee, home Miami, at Jacksonville, at Houston, home Dallas, home Giants, at Tennessee. So they get two cracks at Tennessee.

They can knock them out. The big Houston game is at Houston. They lost the OT game against them in week four. But, yeah, that turned into a surprisingly fun division, right? Yeah. At home against Miami, you said a couple weeks from now, that could be a loser leaves town for the wild card position. They might still come back and win the division.

Who knows how it's going to play out. Well, we decided as we were watching Jacksonville Indy today, we decided that it was a loser leaves town game. This one today? Yeah. Yeah. Because now Jacksonville's three and six. They're not making the playoffs.

That's done. Yeah, you're right. Sayonara. Can we cross them off? Home against Pittsburgh. Can we get a Sharpie and cross them off? Let's do it. Let's cross them off.

All right. Bye. Let's cross them off. Bye, Jacksonville. We're going to take a quick break, and then we're going to get to the Week 11 lines. Let's talk about our old friends from SimpliSafe. If there's one thing I know,

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That is SimpliSafe with two I's. Let them know we sent you simplisaiSafe.com slash BS. All right, we got more football to discuss, but we can just do it under the framework of the Week 11 lines. Some good ones this week. Yeah, we'll fit it in. Not good games, but good lines that I actually had to think about. I'm like, oh, that one, okay.

Well, let me tell you why I think it might be good this week. Why? Because six teams are off. Patriots are one of them. Okay, they're good. We know they're good. The Dolphins are five and five. They're off.

We don't know what's going on with them, if they're any good. I mean, you watch Brock Osweiler every week. That's their identity. The Bills are off. The Browns are off. The Niners are off. And the Jets are off. So that leaves good teams all around the league, right? Pretty much.

I mean, on paper, you're correct, but for some reason they're not playing each other. No, I know, I know. But it's a decent, not too many clunkers, I'm saying. Yeah. I had trouble finding the marquee game. I had some candidates, and then... The marquee game is probably the the marquee game. I had some candidates and then... The marquee game is probably the new Sunday night game.

Don't you think? Yeah, but that doesn't count. That's the Sunday night game. Oh, yeah. We can't count that. Well, let's go Thursday night. Well, the night games are good. I think that's why it's a problem.

They're all good. I like what they've done where they've made the night games good and they've turned Sunday into kind of fantasy and gambling basically. And maybe one signature game. And you're saying, I actually think it's the right thing to do. Seahawks home for the Packers. You and I watched a lot of the Seahawks today.

And that was an interesting game for a few reasons. Once again, the Rams can't really, they, they, they have trouble closing out games with their defense. And the other team just kind of hangs around and hangs around and hangs around. And they can't, they can finish them off offensively, but not defensively.

They lost Cooper Cup, which is a really rough one. I think they can actually replace him because I like that Josh Reynolds. I actually stashed him on my fantasy team in case, a few weeks ago, in case any of these guys got hurt. I think they can actually replace him because I like that Josh Reynolds. I actually stashed him on my fantasy team in case a few weeks ago, in case any of these guys got hurt. I think he's good. But, uh, that, so that was a headline from it. And then also like you and I both like Penny that, that, uh, rookie running back in the Seahawks. So they were, everybody was complaining about in training camp. I thought he had a really good game today. And I had to look at it a few times because this just didn't seem right, but

they ran all over them. They ran all over the Rams. They had 273 yards rushing. Is that right? Now I'm not getting any service on my phone, but Penny had 108, Russell Wilson had 92, Davis had 58, Lockett had 18. Yeah, that's a lot.

That's a big problem for the Rams down the stretch. But the wide Seattle can win or keep up. They still don't throw downfield. Like in a catch-up game, Russell Wilson was 17 for 26, 176. Yeah, remember at one point, it was in the fourth quarter, they showed the stats. And he was like 10 for 13 for 87 yards. It was like five minutes was in the fourth quarter they showed the stats. Yeah. And he was like 10 for 13 for 87 yards. It was like five minutes left in the fourth quarter.

And we were like, what the hell is going on? Well, I think this is a loser leaves town, Green Bay at Seattle. I mean, maybe Seattle is just going to play the Rams tough every time. Maybe that's how it is. Last year I watched that game at your house too, and the Rams just crushed them. But maybe the division game, they get up for it. It's a different story, but either way, this Green Bay, Seattle, one of these teams is going to have five wins or five losses

or one could have six. So it's a tough one. I don't think Green Bay is good. So I, I, my prediction would be they're the loser that leaves town. The only thing I'll say is they have a decent, seems like a decent running back for the first time in a while in Aaron Jones. They have like 145 today, so that helps. That relieves Rodgers of some pressure. There's no, something's

missing with that team. I don't like the vibe. See, it just seems very difficult for them. You think half the team wants McCarthy fired? Yeah, it seems like they're in limbo between errors. I have Seahawks by two and a half over Green Bay. That's exactly what I had.

It's a full three. So I went, I wanted to go three, but we've seen over and over again this year, Green Bay is just getting absurd respect from the Lions. Like even today they were, what were they? 10 point favorites over Miami. They're not 10 point. Right.

Miami's five and four, Green Bay's three, five and one. And the Packers are favored by double digits against Miami. That was ludicrous. That didn't make sense, but they did cover. They did cover. It was, that's the thing. It was, but that was a ludicrous slide. And if you bet on Miami and you lost, you're probably pissed off.

Let's just say last week, the top 11 public plays all covered. This week, they took it back a little from you. Atlanta lost on the road to Cleveland. The freaking Bills, Jets, I still don't know what happened there. Bills won 41-10. Yeah. And of course, your Patriots. And then tonight, a lot of money was on the Eagles.

Drove that line from like 5.5 to 7.5. The Jets being favored by a touchdown over Buffalo was insane. When they were one loss away from their coach getting fired, which he'll probably, by the time you hear this, he might have already been fired. That's it. Some people are saying Sam Donald should win rookie of the year just based on Josh McCown's performance.

17 for 34, 135, two picks, and that's all in garbage time, basically. Doesn't Josh McCown have a 20-year-old daughter? Does he really? I think he does. Research that shit, Kyle. So weekend at Bulls's, this is it. We're now water skiing with him.

He's just bobbing around the water. He's got to be next. Then they're on their bye week. It kind of makes sense. Yeah, it's time. Sunday marquee. I'm going with Steelers Jags. The Jags, we crossed them off,

but they can't officially be crossed off until they get to seven losses. The Jags, we crossed them off, but they can't officially be crossed off until they get to seven losses. But more importantly, I think there's bad blood with these two teams. I think the Jags have had their number. I think there's going to be trash talking all week. This is the kind of game, if the Steelers

really have their mojo, I think this is a take care of business game for them. They got to go in there and kick the shit out of Jacksonville. And that's how we'll know this is a potential Super Bowl team. They have a lot of scores to settle. This is a team that has bullied them and done all kinds of stuff to them and knocked them out last year in Pittsburgh.

Yep. They didn't give them a chance. I mean, they fought back Pittsburgh, but were they three touchdowns ahead to start that game? Yeah. And then remember the other time they played last year, Jacksonville beat them up too. Right. So yeah, I'm really interested in this one.

I have the Steelers favored by five in Jacksonville. Yep. I had that too, and it's five and a half. We're right on. You didn't make, had Philly won. You definitely made Philly-New Orleans the marquee matchup, right? Yeah, here's the thing. I realized, I initially had that as the marquee matchup.

I don't really enjoy watching Philly, do you? No, they're not fun. It's not that good. Something's just not, something's kind of just dead inside about them. Like they won their Super Bowl and, I don't know, I just don't enjoy their games.

I thought I would enjoy them more. Well, Wentz is supposed to be exciting and he's not. He's not. It's fine that he hits Ertz, you know, he'll find Ertz in the end zone every hour and a half,

but I don't know. I don't see a lot out of them. How are you feeling about Amari Cooper, by the way? He's good. He kind of extends drives.

He gets open. He's a nice, precise crowd runner. I kind of like him on the Cowboys. They could put him anywhere. I don't know that he was worth a first-round pick,

but, and if they zigzag to eight and eight, I don't know if this was the right decision, but it makes the offense more fun for sure. Well, that's another thing when winning that game tonight. If you lose that one, you're 3-6, and you're really starting to look like that's a top-7 pick.

Right. So now you don't have to worry about that as much. Congratulations on that. It was big. I have two watchables games for you, and one of them is, I don't even think it deserves to be in there, but Saints Eagles, we discussed.

It's in New Orleans. The Saints are the best team in the league right now. And really, really, really eviscerated Cincinnati. We had a feeling it might be coming because since he was so banged up, but the way that line was and the fact that Davenport wasn't playing for the saints and it did have the makings of the Bengals hanging around and make an

interesting. And then all of a sudden, boom, that it was a 30 point game. Saints continued. Breeze is gotta be the MVP favorite in my opinion. And you, you pointed out like there and what did he pass far right for touchdown second

now, second now for touchdown. Yeah. And, and you know out, like, what did he pass Favre, right, for touchdown? Second now for touchdown? Yeah. And, you know, he broke that record early in the year. Like, they really are setting it up for him to win MVP, right? Like, their game plan is such that they should win MVP. Like, any drive that could be a three is a seven. You know, when Ingram's on fire and Michael Thomas,

they're kind of unstoppable. Well, today I was watching when they were running it up. That was when we kind of looked at each other about the breeze MVP. So there's a moment in that game when you kind of just start handing it off and you know, he, uh, they clearly want them to win the MVP and they should, he's really good. He has two dudes on his offense that are twice as good as anyone on the Patriots offense. Kamara and Michael Thomas.

We had Gronk there for six, seven years. He was just a freak and by far the best tight end. You could always say him. And then Edelman to some degree. And then Deion Lewis last year I thought was really good. But those two guys are just... And then Gurley. And you watch some of these guys around the league,

and I keep looking at my team. I'm like, man, we're not even in the ballpark. We don't have anybody in the ballpark for these guys. I wish I could feel bad for your 7-3 team. It's going to be like 13-3 or 12-4 or something. I'm wiping my tears with my five Superbowl ranks. The problem is no one can pressure Breeze either. Like no sacks from Cincy today.

Yeah. No sacks from the Rams last week. Right. What was there? But no sacks. Right. And they punted once. It's kind of the same thing.

Like you need them to punt twice to have a chance. And this is. They don't get there sometimes. It's a revenge game in its own weird way, because even though the Eagles beat the Vikings to go to the Super Bowl last year, that was the Saints' spot. Oh, right, right.

And now the Saints finally get a chance. All right, well, so I hit this one exactly. What did you get? I went Saints by seven. Oh, man. All right, you got it, too. Seven it is. We're teasing them.

I'd be very surprised if they lost that game, right? You know, I've been saying for two months that we can't freak out about the Eagles until mid-November and that they're going to make their run. I think they're running out of time. Yeah. You know, I'm glad i just thought of something that every year no every year we we we say to ourselves on this podcast we should look at that and then we forget and then another year passes and i think we're doing this 12 years so there's there's three thanksgiving games right bears lions redskins-Cowboys, Falcons-Saints.

So the Saints have this, you know, this will be a tough game against the Eagles. Then four days later, they're playing the Falcons. Oh, yeah. That's in Atlanta, obviously. Yeah. The night game, right? Oh, no, I'm sorry. That's in Atlanta, obviously. Yeah. So the night game, right? Oh no,

I'm sorry. That's in New Orleans. So both of these are in New Orleans. Oh, but I wonder, does no AFC teams playing on Thanksgiving? No, no AFC teams.

Hmm. But I wonder, we always talked about whether the thanks, the looming Thanksgiving game affects the team the week before. Oh. You don't remember this? Maybe I was doing this. All right.

Yeah, I'm going to get a stat on that. I'm going to try to find that. It might be another podcast I'm on. Right. No, check that out. That could be a good one for locking in. Okay. Yeah, no, you're right.

All right. The other game I have, I only had two watchables this week. The other one is Ravens-Bengals in Baltimore, just because I'm excited for Lamar. And I like when the Ravens and Bengals play anyway, but I want to watch that one. I'm excited for him. That's a fun one. There's no line on it because I guess there's a chance Flacco could play. I thought Baltimore would be a one-point favorite, but I could be way off with Lamar. I'm going to spend the next four days trying to find the one Ravens fan who hopes Flacco can be activated and start in that camp. I'm sure he's out there somewhere. Somebody really loved that one Super Bowl.

The barely watchables, we have six. It's a barely watchable kind of week. First off, Atlanta, home for your Dallas Cowboys. I have the Falcons by six. I think that's what did you say? Falcons by six? Yeah. I have the Falcons by six. I think that's, what did you say? Falcons by six?

Yeah. I have my four and it's four and a half. Oh. I think that's more than barely watchable. That's a good game. Your team was watchable kind of this week. Kind of. Yeah. What was it?

Three to three? Nephew Kyle took, I think, three naps during the first half. I'm sorry, guys. I don't know if your team's watchable, so. It got a little more friskier in the second half. And then at one point, when they traded touchdowns, Al Michaels

or Collinsworth, one of them said something like, these are just two heavyweights slugging it out. And I was like, maybe more like junior welterweights. Yeah, I don't know how nephew Kyle could sleep through so many bathroom breaks from Brad, but he was able to do it. Neither of us were feeling good today, I'll tell you that.

So I have Falcons, so you won that one. The next one, Carolina's in Detroit. Detroit is falling apart. It's a bummer because we predicted this, or I predicted it. It was one of my passion points in August that Matt Patricia was going to be bad as the Lions coach. And then he was bad to start the year. And then all of a sudden they had that game when they beat the Pats. And it looked like he actually was going to be pretty confident. But now it seems like he's not confident.

I don't know what to think anymore is my point. I have, I don't know. I don't know either, but I do know that the worst team that I could bet on or, or against or anything. So as soon as I lay any sort of money on Carolina this week, it's going to go down.

Right. I also love Carolina. 10 days rest coming off that Thursday game. It's a borderline must win. I have them favored by three. We're going to split this because I said four and it's three and a half.

Well, this is another one. They're game before Thanksgiving, so let's see what Detroit... I'm going to check out that trend. Maybe it amounts to something. I like Cam indoors. Yeah. That was a weird game, that Steelers game. I don't know what to make of it. Panthers jumped out early.

They're up 7-0. They're using McCaffrey Wright and all those things. Maybe Cam's not in the MVP discussion anymore, but still a good team, I think. Yeah, I just think that Thursday night games, you can't ever learn anything from them.

Too weird. So, my Colts, home for the Titans of Tennessee coming off a big win. Deion Lewis throwing some shade at Belichick, was talking about how they were cheap. Oh yeah, I meant to bring that up. Why did he say they're cheap? Kind of agreed.

The Pats love to cut corners. They're certainly not lavish. No, but Deion Lewis, I don't know. I think they proved that, you know, they could do this with James White or whatever. No, Deion Lewis is better than James White. Oh, really? I remember you not liking James White.

No, I didn't. People brought that up to me. They're like, get on Simmons' case. He hated James White. He's about to set the running back record for reception. Oh, congratulations. James White is fine. Whoever has been in that space, people are like, oh, James White is so much better than Shane Vareen.

It's like, Shane Vareen was good, man. We won the Super Bowl with Shane Vareen. Shane Vareen in the Seattle game was absolute money for that whole second half. You know? And Kevin Falk was money too. James White is a terrible runner, is the problem. He's going to maybe set

the record for reshuffle. If you ask Brady, he's probably the MVP on the team. Yeah, but my point is... I'm going to aspirator right now. My point is we throw to the running back all the time because we don't have a tight end anymore. Yeah.

He used to throw to tight ends and he would have the slack eyes and then the running back coming out of the backfield and he would spread it around. And now Edelman doesn't really get open the same way that he did. He had like nine catches in 104 yards, but they were all catches where there were guys draped all over him.

It just doesn't seem like you rarely see him just flying open in the open field. And then Hogan, I don't know what happened to him. I think he was replaced by an imposter. Yeah, he was like better last year when he was nicked up and playing every other game. But I think they're throwing to James White so much because he doesn't really

have anyone else to throw to. So it's not like it's like in Creighton. Tennessee beat my team, then they beat your team. I like Deion Lewis, and Deion Lewis was awesome last year down the stretch

for the Pats. What's our next game? We didn't get Tennessee-Indiana. Oh, yeah. I got Colts by three over Tennessee in India. Yeah, we both said three, and it is three. Probably a stay away, but I want to bet the Colts. I like the Colts.

I like the Colts. By the way, we cover that if Vinatieri makes a field goal. Oh, that's right. How long was that? We didn't even figure that out. We just kind of saw the end of it. Yeah, that's right. How long was that? We didn't even figure that out. We just kind of saw the end of it. Yeah. I think Brad, Brad was taught, was that when Brad was telling the story about how he woke up because he was having a stroke? I think that was it. He woke up, he claims he last night, he woke up at 4.30 and he said, God was ready to take me. And I said,

nope, not yet. And out of spite, he went across the street and got a hot dog at 7-Eleven at 445. It's like, take that, God. He had a whole thing going. Well, he was explaining it to us that you know when you're about to have a stroke. Yeah. And you can fight it off. You know what the signs are. But neither of us knew what to say.

I think your son was just tuning him out but it ended with him waking up and walking around the kitchen for a while to shake it off and then decided to go to 7-Eleven he said he got a hot dog and then in a in what's not a news flash apparently

the hot dog wasn't very good he said it was terrible from the store 24, I'm sorry, the 7-Eleven in a not great part of LA at 4.45 in the morning on a Saturday. Apparently that hot dog wasn't that good. The Rampart 7-Eleven.

The Rampart 7-Eleven. The 5 o'clock hot dog scene is apparently lacking. Oh, man. The Texans are in Washington to play the Washington team that nobody has watched this year except for Joe House and Donnie Kwok.

I have the Texans favored by one and a half. You know, it's funny. Washington Redskins fans, they all say the same thing. Like, oh, cuz, you should have checked with me before betting my Redskins. Like, well, what does that even mean? They're 6-3.

There's got to be some good time to bet them, right? Today was a good time. But what did you have them as a spread? I had Houston by one and a half. Yeah, what am I missing here? I was way, way off here. I had Washington by two, and it's Houston by three. Both 6- three, right?

Road game. I know Houston's coming off a bye, but. I think it's more of the NFC East is just not good. I guess. I don't know when all the AFC South got so much juice, but I guess that's the case. We had a ringer mid-season NFL meeting on Wednesday and Joe house was in town. And I was like, you should come to the meeting. He's like, great.

We got like 30 people in there. I got a lot of my young ringer people in the room and some interns and start talking about quarterbacks and house hasn't, isn't saying anything. And then somehow Alex Smith comes up and you've met some of my ringer people. Sure. Just a nice, nice, quiet, professional group of young people, for the most part. Some older people, but just a nice group. Let's go.

Hey, House, what do you think of Alex Smith? He's like, that motherfucker sucks. He starts bad-mouthing Alex Smith. Drops like three MFers in the meeting. I was like, oh, my God. Good. Not a fan of Alex Smith. We need to throw MFers in the meeting. I was like, oh my God. Good. Not a fan of Alex Smith. We need to throw MFers around.

Not a fan of Alex Smith is the moral of that story. He didn't kill them today. I really don't know what happened. Not much of anything happened in that game. Last one, barely watchables. Chargers home for the Broncos. Yeah. I got the Chargers by nine.

Oh, no, you get this. I went way higher. I went 11. But Vegas only has it as a seven-point favorite. You want to tease that with the Saints, but you're a little nervous. I like the Chargers. They've been good for that. Phil Rivers in both fantasy leagues.

Enjoy that. He came up a little short for me today. But they... I want odds on Gruden making it to Vegas. They beat the Raiders 20-6 today. I want odds on Gruden making it to Vegas and Carr making it. Carr going to Vegas is like, is it 10-1 now? Oh, 10-1?

I would say like 20-1. They have to cut him. They just have to say goodbye to that contract. There's a really weird moment at the end of the Chargers game, and I don't know why I noticed it, but the Raiders are trying to score, even though they're down 20 to six. And they ran a play and it was like ticking down.

I was like 10, 9, 8. And Carr was like frantically at the line trying to get one last playoff. And like his running back was in the right spot. And with like about three seconds left, he realized they were going to get the playoff. And he looked like a little kid, like all the life left his body. And it was just, he was like, like those old incredible Hulk shows that we grew up with when Bill Bixby at the end of the show is like, it didn't work out.

And you had another location and they would play the sad piano music. And it would just be like, backpack on walking away from it. And it was like, Cara just kind of the life went out of him. And he just kind of had this look on his face like, God, my life sucks. And he did the incredible Hulk walk away. And it felt really bad for him.

And it was 20 to 6. It didn't even matter. Well, I guess he wanted to cover the spread. He wants to be welcome in Vegas with open arms. Maybe he had a tease. Hey, Crown Royal is doing something pretty cool this football season. They launched a responsible drinking program called the Water Break. It's all about encouraging people to hydrate between drinks for a better experience,

whether at the game, watching at home, or in a bar. Have a great time. Enjoy some Crown. Just don't be that person that ruins it for everyone. We've all seen that guy who drank too much watching the game. Make the right call and take a water break. So, Sal, who made the right call this week or not? Well, this seems ridiculous.

I don't think anyone would ever say the Browns front office made the right call, but they did. They did in trading Carlos Hyde for a fifth know, for a fifth rounder to Jacksonville. Now you don't get much for a fifth rounder, but yeah, it opened up the opportunity to feature Nick Chubb who went crazy today. He had, what did he have today?

I had written down. He had 176 yards on the ground and 20 carries. He's been lighting it up for like a month. He's over 400 yards, four games on the ground. He catches passes. Nick Chubb. What a fun player. He catches passes. Nick Chubb, what a fun player to watch, right?

Nick Chubb's great. I'm on both fantasy teams. I have a Nick Chubb in my pants right now. There you go. Good decision. Brown's front office. Yeah, I said those words. Unbelievable.

My right call of the week is going to go to a guy that I've been really critical of Jimmy Butler let's talk about that for 15 minutes he acted like a huge dick he did everything he could to get traded he was a terrible unprofessional teammate he was completely nonsensical

I still don't understand what he was so upset about in Minnesota, but he clearly just wanted to be on a different team. And somehow it worked out for him. He ended up in Philadelphia. The T-Wolves lose five straight games. Thibodeau realizes, I'm going to get fired. The only way I can save my season now is if we actually get anything for this guy. So they get Sarge and they get Covington for him.

And they might actually be better just because their team chemistry is going to be so much better. And Jimmy Butler ends up on Philly on a contender playing with two of the best under 25 guys in the league. In a weird way, he made the right call. I got to hand it to him. I didn't. So what was the right call?

Acting like an a-hole? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. He sabotaged his way out of town and it worked. It really did. It worked. He did it from every sort of thing, every move that he played and picked and

tried and whatever weird strategy he had, it worked. He's in Philadelphia. Congratulations, Jim Butler. Crown Royal reminds everyone this football season to take a water break and drink responsibly. The Poopfecta. Four games left. Two in the Poopfecta.

Giants home for the Bucs. I didn't watch one moment of Bucs-Redskins. I promise you I'm not going to watch one minute of Giants Bucks. Giants, I have favored by two and a half. Oh, man. I had two. I guess I get it because it's minus one. I'm not proud of guessing that closer than you are.

Congrats. I don't know. I don't know what to do with them. I don't know what to do with them tomorrow. I guess we have to stay away, right? Would you take three points? It seems like this Mullins came out like Joe Montana. Maybe he is.

I'm not going near that game. I need 12 points from George Kittle, so I'm going to be rooting for them. There you go. Cards. Fastest tight end in the league by far. Cards Raiders. Cards home. I was mildly impressed by the cards today.

They, I thought they, they hung with Casey a little bit. I have them favored by three and a half over David Carr and his sad bill Bixby walk in the Oakland soon to be Las Vegas Raiders. You get that. I said, too,

I don't, I don't think you can make the Cardinal that, that much of a favor, but it's actually four. Vegas hates the Raiders. They're moving there and everything, and Vegas all of a sudden hates them. I guess for good reasons.

We should mention, I forgot to mention, you finally won in fantasy this week. Yeah, I did. I want to thank Matt Ryan. I want to thank Ezekiel Elliott, Leonard Fournette. Thanks for stepping up. You poured it on. You won by 40 points.

We did it. We did it. I have to just keep winning because I don't want to pay for this banquet, this Shakey's Pizza banquet. I was so excited for you to go 0-13. I really feel like it would have been something for the ages because you were trying to win every week. I really wanted it to happen.

I was making pickups. I make like two pickups a week, which cost five bucks a transaction. I'm in it. I need to win. I can't have that hanging over my head. The funny thing is half of us don't even go to the Shakey's Banquet. It ends up being like a $50 bill. Yeah, that's true.

You spend more on transactions trying to avoid the Shakey's Banquet. I wish I was smarter. I would have been able to figure that out ahead of time. Sunday night at Chicago, Minnesota is going to be visiting them. Trubisky looked good yet again today. You know what's weird? Every week he plays, and it's like, I don't know if I could take Trubisky giving seven points. I don't know if I could take him laying three points or four points on the road.

And they kind of went and covered a lot. Yeah. I think Trubisky is starting to get, it reminds me a little bit of the Sixers with the process the first couple years when everybody was so mad when they were losing intentionally. And then this small fan base of people

who were convinced that Sam Hickey was bringing them to the light and that this was a new way to approach how to build a basketball team and they got named the process, the whole thing. And they just became these insufferable zealots for the process. Kudos to them, by the way. It was fun. Yeah.

If they win this week, they have a game and a half advantage with six left. That'd be big. So the Trubiskyites remind me of those Sixer fans in the process, the early stages. I feel like, what should we call these people? The pro Trubiskies. Just call them the Tate Fraziers of the world, I guess. He's one of their leaders.

There's no question. He's like the world, I guess. He's one of their leaders. There's no question. He's like the dude, I can't remember the guy's name, the guy who writes the Ricky Sanchez podcast. Spike Eskin. Oh, okay. I think Trey Frazier can be their Spike Eskin. Yeah. Mitch's bitches?

Yeah. That's the one. No, Mitch's bitches? That's not as catchy as The Process. Oh, The Process, okay. No, Mitch's bitches? That's not as catchy as the process. Oh, the process. Okay. No, it's like, it's like true biscuit, true biscuits. Oh, okay.

True biscuits. True, or biscuits, or I don't know. The listeners, if you're out there, try to come up with a name for these true biscuit maniacs. Yeah. Because I'm starting to, I'm starting to feel them out there a little bit when he does well. It's like, yeah, yeah. You, you think out there a little bit when he does well. So yeah. Yeah.

You, you think Trubisky sucks. He just shoved it up your ass. Yeah. Who sucks? No. Seven year Mitch. I don't know.

Seven year Mitch. We'll figure it out. Yeah. How's shitting on Trubisky going? He just threw for 300. Well, you know what? We never see,

especially with these young quarterbacks, this might just be in my head, but I feel like he gets rid of the ball faster than he did even like five weeks ago. He doesn't hang in the pocket forever, take stupid sacks. I like to see time in the pocket. We have hang time for

punters, right? I like to see that for just quarterbacks. I bet he shaved off a half second in the pocket. Helped. I think he is unquestionably more comfortable than he was in the past. Now, I will say

it's not like they played a juggernaut slate of teams. No. They played man, these are some bad teams. You go backwards... But Tampa was the big game where everybody padded their stats. It's good, but... Since week three, they're at Arizona,

Tampa, at Miami, home for my crappy Pats defense, the Jets at Buffalo, and then Detroit. Yeah, the Patriots are the only playoff team in that bunch, yep. Yeah, well, yeah, keep shitting on Trubisky, man. More excuses.

No, it's the schedule's fault. Maybe he's just good. Trubisky. What do you have for a line? Bears by three. You're going to get it. I think you beat me this week. I had two and a half.

Yeah, I see it. you didn't believe in him one two three six seven oh yeah you have nine I have seven not including the tie including the ties as a win for both of us so there's one game left you won already? yeah we're done

this is terrible Monday night a classic game of the year do we go to this? do we go? it's in Mexico We're done. This is terrible. Monday night, a classic. Game of the year. Do we go to this? Do we go? It's in Mexico. Sure, we can go.

You have your visa up to date? We are not going then. I've done my one sporting event in Mexico City for my lifetime. That's it? Yeah. That changes my line. My line guess. I'll go with... Wow, that's interesting. Neutral location. Yeah, that changes my line. My line guess. I'll go with...

Wow, that's interesting. Neutral location. Now I got to rethink this. Yeah, leave it to the NFL to give this great game to Mexico. It's crazy. Well, if it had been in LA, I think there would have been 50,000 Chiefs vids there. Yeah, maybe. I'm going to say Rams by three and a half.

I said three and it's two and a half. I get that. Okay. I would think that goes up. And it's, I think our friend Ben Folk said it's the biggest spread since 1986. 64 points. Biggest over on there. 64.

God damn. Let's take a quick break. Then we're going to do Parent Corner. Oh, I'm so glad before Parent Corner and talk about MeUndies. Tackle your holiday shopping. Get everything you need for you and your loved ones at MeUndies. The only underwear I wear. Four different cuts for men and women. You get a style that's perfectly suited for you.

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Meundies.com slash BS. All right, we're back. I have an apology to make to my degenerate son. Last week, I said on the parent corner that he threw his remote at the TV and broke the TV and now is banned from playing Fortnite. What actually happened was

he threw the controller on the ground angrily. It bounced off the ground and ricocheted into the TV. Oh, wow. So what's funny is my son adamantly saying how he didn't throw the controller into the TV. That's not what happened. I threw it off the ground and it bounced into the TV.

That's somehow much better. So anyway, apologies to him. I had my facts. Well, what he didn't tell you is that he had been practicing that move for weeks, bouncing it off the ground into the TV. So, um, I don't know. You could maybe give him more credit. I don't even know how he did it. Like I, I, what are the, I, this TV is probably like four or five feet up off the ground.

It had to have been a real whip. You got to live parent corner today as Brad was heckling and braiding my son and talking about how he's going to be trouble. And it's fine. I went one for two because he likes my daughter. But this other one is almost hopeless. We played pig. You didn't hear when he was taunting your son while he was playing pig.

He's like, oh, you're going to hit the rim? Every time your son would shoot, he'd be like, oh, cover your head! Cover your head! Screaming at him. What do you got for Paracorner this week? Not a lot other than well, you know what?

The greatest athletic performance in the Iconal family for many generations to come occurred this Saturday when my four-year-old Harrison scored six goals. Wow. Six goals. After not scoring one, I guess he scored one the whole season, first seven games. Scored six. Doesn't do anything special.

He hustles after the ball. He runs through his kicks, follows through, and just is very focused. And actually, he does do one thing special. He hustles after the ball. He runs through his kicks, follows through and just, uh, is very focused. And actually he does do one thing special after the goal. He does a Bushwhacker type celebration dance, not even really a dance, but he just does, you know, look at it online. The Bushwhackers were a tag team in the late eighties, early nineties in the WWF. And, uh, and he did that. He avoids the handshakes and everything. Um, he just Bushwhackers his way back to midfield and they start again. So congratulations

Harrison. There you go. Did the other parents look at you kind of side-eyed a little bit when you were in the bushwhacker? After like the fourth goal, I was kind of drifting towards my car a little. I was like, alright, come on. Also, play a little defense. You don't have to go up every time.

He really wanted those goals. I, I think nothing would be funnier than if he became a soccer kid and was like in the club soccer scene and you had to go to all these soccer games. After all the shit you've given me over the years. Have it with basketball now, the worst. My,

my parent corner is really quick, but I think it says a lot. It's a very short story. I was sitting watching TV with my son like three nights ago, and he was playing on his iPad, and he's like, Dad? And I was like, yeah? And he's like, do you think I'll ever be the president of a frat someday and I was like

probably and he's like alright cool and then just went back to the fortnight I have no idea why he asked me this I don't know if he now aspires to be the president of a frat but were you watching I was watching like basketball.

It was, that's what made it weird. It wasn't like watching animal house. It was like revenge of the nerds was on. And he was like some, it was just out of nowhere. He's just on his mind. He was wondering if someday there's a roadmap to him becoming the president of a frat. Well, I wonder, I would have maybe issued a follow-up question there. What the heck are you talking about? I didn't really understand it. I didn't know anything about frats and presidents and everything.

So then we saw friends this weekend whose son went to USC and they have frats at USC. And he was in a frat and he was telling my wife about the frat. And she's like, I think Ben should go to USC because they have frats. And I'm like, what's going on? Yeah. And then the other thing is he. Does USC have concrete screens in their plasma TVs? Yeah, hopefully.

That's what they need more than frat. So then my other part of the parent corner is um he told me we were out oh at the staples center yeah he smelled he smelled weed in la live oh and told us that so excited he knows he knows what weed smells like because from the migos concert and now he knows what it smells like well now he smells hot dogs and he's like that's weed i was he smells hot dogs, and he's like, that's weed. I was like, no, that's food, and he's like, oh, okay, all right, but that was weed. He's like the weed detective. It's hard to

blame the aroma on the California fires at the Migos concert a month ago. Nephew Kyle has a cousin corner. Oh, from the game? This fucking tattoo I have now is like a fucking target on me. Kyle has a cousin corner. Oh, from the game? Oh, that's it. So some dude stopped.

This fucking tattoo I have now is like a fucking target on me. So we were leaving the Clippers game, and some guy screamed out, Nephew Kyle. And I turned around because I'm an idiot. And he's like, oh, my God. And that's the real Ben Simmons. And Ben and I are waiting for our cab. And he asked us to take a picture.

He's like, thank you guys so much. And he walked away. And Ben, for the whole 30 minutes that it took us to get back, was like, thank you guys so much. And he walked away. And Ben, for the whole 30 minutes that it took us to get back, was like, we're famous now, Kyle. We're celebrities. It's like, no, Ben, we're not. And he literally was just high the whole time. He was high on life.

And weed, I guess. I don't know. Where do we tell us the guys at the frat? I was just going to say, this is going to pale in comparison from when he's named president of his ex-frat. I'd worry about him being like an enforcer, though, comparison from when he's named president of the next frat. I'd worry about him being like an enforcer, though, within a president, like a sergeant at arms, sky, at the frat. Hey, we should mention it was a horrible week in California here, or a horrible weekend. And it really looked bleak there on Friday. We were just watching this fire rip through Calabasas and Thousand Oaks and

Westlake and all these places. It was just going closer and closer to the ocean. I got out here in 2002, which you were out here a couple years before. But when both of us moved out here, there was this legacy of all this terrible stuff that happened in the 90s, right? They had the earthquake, Northridge. They had the fires. There's some big fire in the mid-90s. I can't remember. And the OJ trial, the Rodney King, the race verdict, the riots,

all this stuff. It was just all these terrible things that happened one after the other. And then when we got here, nothing really bad happened. This is the first time I've been out here where I was like, oh my God, is Malibu going to burn down? It really started. I went to bed Friday night and I couldn't fall asleep and I was watching the news. And the fire was getting closer and closer to Pepperdine,

which is the most beautiful campus in the world. I've been there a bunch of times with my daughter over the years playing soccer and it's just like the best. And they're debating whether to evacuate the kids off or not. And it was just a whole 24-hour stretch. It was just absolutely petrifying. And a lot of people lost their homes. Some people died. All these people were fighting the fires. It's still,

we're still not out of the woods really yet. And, you know, as usual, Trump comes in with a, with a tweet and just not empathetic at all about anything that was going on, but it was a really scary weekend to live here. And, you know, you see stuff that's happening, you know, when you're living your daily daily lives and things are happening in this city or that state or over there and you're not part of it. It was really crazy to, to be this in the middle of it. And, you know, even sitting in my backyard on Saturday,

45 minutes away from all this and there's ash falling on us, and you can smell it, and I can't even imagine what it's like to be in the epicenter of it. But this was the scariest thing that's happened since we've lived here, right? I think so. And conversely, people that live on the East Coast and check with us, they're like, hey, I would never give up the weather for the earthquakes. And I was like, all right, let that be their thing, thing because the weather's great and the earthquakes are few and far between so fine jokes on everybody else but this this is terrible this is really bad i mean you see things

on the news you see pictures and video like you would never imagine in a movie would take tens of millions of dollars to recreate what's going on out there. So, yeah, I mean, donate whatever you can. There's so many different organizations, firefighters. People have lost their houses. And, yeah, there's a lot of people to reach out to. It never really dawned on me how scary this would be for Malibu because it's a two – the PCH, basically, the Pacific Coast Highway. You go from the 10 and you go in, and the highway is two lanes, two lanes, one way, two lanes, the other way. There's a couple of points where it spreads to three lanes for a little stretch, but for

the most part, it's two lanes. And when you're evacuating, you had all these people that on Friday that, you know, everybody was like, get the fuck out of here. Like, get out now. You have to get out of here. Get out now. You have to get out of here. And nobody could get out because it was two lanes. And people were on the highway for four and a half, five hours. A quarter of a million people. And no hotels from Malibu to where I live.

And by the beach, another 40 minutes away. Right. And then you had- Really rough. The fire. So the PCH is about... I don't know. The whole stretch of Malibu,

it's probably like 30, 35 miles, something like that. And the further you get away from LA, you know, it gets a little more remote. That's why a lot of celebrities live out as of further. Like when you hear people like Caitlyn Jenner and stuff like that. But it gets down towards Zuma Beach and Paradise and Paradise Cove.

And you're just farther and farther away from everything. So to evacuate, to try to get toward LA or wherever you're going, you're really stuck in there. But it was really frightening. And what was weird was the channels were all they're running the news for it and then like it was like 1130 on Friday night

and they're like alright now it's time for the late night shows and like you know Kimmel and Colbert and Fallon come on Friends was on the channel 5 and like Cheaters was on channel 9

or whatever the hell they were showing and I was like really that's it? all you guys are going to reruns and shows like is it really seemed like pepperdine was about to burn down and they're like all right and now it's time for friends this is the episode where rachel and ross might actually kiss it's coming up now i'm like can we find out what happened to pepperdine so So I'm on Twitter. Like just, I have Malibu as a search term and I'm just re I'm just reloading Malibu over and over again to find out what happening. And thank God a lot of people were tweeting and some people were on Facebook. There was a news reporter that was on Facebook who, uh, who was just there. It was like a Facebook live basically. And they're showing

that. But, um, I was shocked that one of these stations just didn't stay on all the time. It was like a Facebook Live, basically. And they're showing that. I was shocked that one of these stations just didn't stay on all the time. It seemed like a pretty significant thing that all of Malibu had a chance to burn down. Yeah, for sure. And I don't know a lot about it, but they say, well, if the wind shifts and it of course can,

then that could be another thousand houses or something. It's crazy what could happen. What could you see from Manhattan Beach? Nothing. The air, I don't want to, this is a nothing thing, but they canceled some soccer games Saturday because of the air quality. But that's it.

You can't really see a lot. But you couldn't see the fires burning from over the ocean and stuff? No, just a little faintly, but not too much. Yeah, they canceled all the soccer here too. over the ocean and stuff? No, just a little faintly, but not too much. Yeah, they canceled all the soccer here too. Zoe had a game early afternoon on Saturday, and they canceled it at 9 o'clock.

I was like, all right, that's crazy. Those fires are so far away, and they were right. The air quality by the afternoon was pretty miserable. But pretty awful. Our thoughts are out there to anybody. If anybody out there is listening to this who had a rough weekend, we were feeling it for you. Malibu, I think, just that whole area, you go there, it's so conflict-free.

It's the ocean. It's just beautiful. You almost feel like you're in another country. So it was weird to see it under siege like that. And God damn, really scary. We really, really did. That was the most scared by far that I've been since I've lived there. Yeah.

So long as Mel Gibson is off the road, it's pretty much conflict free. Yeah. But yeah, we, like I said, yeah, reach out and donate if you can. That's it. That's the thing. Like, it was like people, like there was this weird

part of it where it was all these celebs from, you know, celebs we hadn't thought of in a long time that were in the middle of this.

Eddie Money. Eddie Money. Like Martin Sheen. Robert Hayes. Caitlyn Jenner. It was just bizarre. It was bizarre to follow the news and truly scary. So anyway, it seems like, I don't want to jinx it,

but it seems like things have gotten better and hopefully they've figured out how to stave things off. Knock on wood. But anyway, the Cubs, lock it in. Did you win last week? No, Clay Travis won. I made 40% on my money, but he just went 7-1 yesterday, all college SEC garbage.

But you can catch me Monday through Friday, 430 and 530 Eastern. Jimmy Kimmel Live, also all week, 11.35 ABC. I'm on the Fox pregame show also Saturday doing picks. And against the odds, the Wednesday crew, Harry is red hot. He's like 12-1-1 in his college picks, last 14 or something against the spread. So listen for that. And plus, Ken was in that. He was in the Utah Celtics game.

I love that. I love that video. My friend Ken looks a lot like, you know what Ken is like, oh, that guy's like five foot six. I'm like, no, he's standing next to a guy at 6'10". Yeah. You're right. Yeah, that's you.

All right, Sal, good job by you. Good job by you, Billy. All right, thanks to Sal. Thanks to ZipCruiter. Don't forget to go to zipcruiter.com slash BS. Thanks to Caesars Palace. Don't forget to go to zipcruiter.com slash BS. Thanks to Caesars Palace. Don't forget to go see the boys. Kevin Clark, Robert Mays, Ryan Rosillo.

If you're listening to this on a Monday, you can go to Caesars. Go see them. Live podcast tonight. Thanks to FanDuel, where you get the excitement of researching and building your team each week, regardless of the outcome.

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SimpliSafe.com slash BS. Hey, we have some good guests this week. A couple surprises. I'll leave it at that. Stay tuned. Might be a four-podcast week for us. Who knows? Talk to you in a couple days. I don't have. you Thank you.