The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Fall of the Chiefs (Maybe), SGA Superstar Tips, the Wildes-Greeny Feud, and Week 15 Picks

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Nick Wright to discuss SGA’s greatness and whether anybody can stop OKC this season (2:56). Then, they talk about the struggling Chiefs, Lamar Jackson, and more! (37:39). Finally, Joe House joins to make their Ringer 107 picks for the week (01:20:22). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Nick Wright and Joe House Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Brian Waters This episode is brought to you by Alexa+. Our smartest, most proactive AI assistant yet. https://Amazon.com/NewAlexa This episode is sponsored by State Farm®. Don’t settle for just any insurance when there’s State Farm. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network. I put up a new rewatchables on Monday. One of the most fun ones we did this year. We did shampoo with Cameron Crow and Sean Fantasy. And Cameron Crow just told a bunch of stories about movies I love, like singles and Jerry McGuire and, of course, almost famous, say anything. But we did it all through the context of the movies. Great podcast.

Next week's We Watchables. We recorded yesterday. four people. You heard me mention it with Rob Mahoney. We did High Fidelity, 25 years since that movie came out. John Cusack, just a lot going on. Kind of the end of Gen X. We hit a lot of good topics with that one. So that is coming on Monday. We're running out of Mondays for the rewatchables. We're heading into mid-December. We are not running out of music box documentaries. Jeff Buckley was last week. This week, Wiz Kid. By the time you, you

this pod goes up, it'll probably already have been up on HBO, but it'll be on HBO Max. Really, really cool doc. You get to learn about the history of Afrobeats, and he's an incredible artist. So this is a really well done. You will enjoy it and you will learn a lot. So go check that out on HBO.

Coming up on this podcast, Nick Wright, we've been circling each other for a long, long time. And we're going to argue, now that Patrick Mahomes's career is over, we're going to argue about it on this podcast. Plus, a lot of other fun sports takes. And then a bruise battered Joe House, really fighting for his job here on the BS podcast. We cannot get good gambling picks.

He's doing better on the Sunday show than he's doing on this show. And his job's on the line. I don't know what else to say. If it doesn't work out this week, I'm going to make other arrangements as we headed to the playoffs. So Joe House has to come through this week. We're going to talk about that. We're talking about some hoops and a whole bunch more. It's all coming up next.

First, a break. and our friends from Pearl Jam. This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is presented by State Farm. Having insurance isn't the same as having State Farm. It's like expecting a linebacker on the football field

but getting a line cook. Sure, they both can handle the pressure when it starts heating up, but only one is stopping a touchdown. You wouldn't settle for just anything for your team, so don't settle for just any insurance when it comes to get and help you need.

State Farm is the real deal, like a good name. neighbor. Stay farm is there. The Chiefs Dynasty and Patrick Mahomes, his career was over before I had this guy on Nick Wright. He hosts a show call first thing first with my buddy Kevin Wilde said FS1, among other things. And now the Chiefs are dead and you can finally come on. It's good to have you. It's one way to look at it or it only took four days into Rich Paul being at the ringer for me to finally be on the show.

The Clucks for takeover. That's it. I should have wore my brown clutch sweatshirt with the Chutzy Billups had when he was getting arraigned. Well, that was, you know, that was unfortunate for all involved. I forgot about the clutch piece. That's funny. Let me do the uncomfortable part that you'll be upset with me in the beginning. So despite the fact that many of your LeBron and basically all of your Mahomes takes have infuriated me, this is this is the one show that I always wanted to go on, and I've been very lucky that I had never been on.

And I wanted to tell you, God, it might have been 20 years ago, close to it, because we have a mutual, we both have a friend Connor. I grew up with him. He's a and you've known him forever. I compiled in Microsoft Excel, the archive of your NBA player trade value, all of them, like year by year for all of it to try to say. see like what the overall like Amari Sotomayor once was a six and then fell off and tried to do a whole like smart thing of like could you then retroactively do it for previous eras with this is the template to see like 1970s kareem how does that compare to like 2000 aughts lebron and then i never had the back in the day never had the gumption to actually ask connor to send it to you and i couldn't find it right now so this is i am a long time reader and admirer. And so it is fun to be on here. And I'll be able to finally debunk some of this Mahomes stuff. It's been so hard to hear. Oh, that's good. We could actually start with MBA. Do you see, now you got me excited because that was on my docket. Okay. So I was trying to

figure out this SGA thing, which has been, I've talked about him a bunch of times already this year on my show. And I feel like it's a story evolving in real time where this guy, you know, it's him and Yokic kind of levitating above everybody else. But there's this, there's this two year thing that's in play for him now, where they won all these games last year, it looks like they're going to win 70 plus games this year and maybe even break some records, there's some streak records that are possibly in play, there's a season record in play, there's a him for the decade where he's basically averaging 30 plus points a game for half a decade at this point. And now I was starting to think, this is the first

week I thought to myself, all right, what happens if they win 70 plus? 155 games. He averages 33 a game and they win the title and they go back to back. Where does he go in my brain? Is he immediately a top 30 player? Like if he got abducted by aliens the next day, is he still in top 30? Like what is going on basically is the question I've been asking? So this is, listen, you and I are similar in that we just say in like regular conversation like yeah, he's, you know, he's top 18. Like we forget round numbers. Like we're being precise. precise here because it matters. Yeah. And I get very upset when our mutual dear friend, the legend, Zach Lowe, I sent him like four years ago a text because he just said almost flippantly like Kevin Durant, you know, one of the 10 greatest players of all time. And I text. I'm like, I'm like, Zach, if you put pencil to paper, you would not, you would not agree with yourself there. Like there's the problem with top 10 does you only have 10. And so I think top like SGA, I find. so interesting because I can't think of another domestic player that you, that ended up being an all-time legend that through the first two years of his career, no one thought all-time legend was possible. So you don't think, but you don't think rookie year Kobe, we can glorify it now and go

backwards, but I don't think anybody thought he was going to be one of the top 12 guys of all time after his rookie year. No, you know, we hoped. That's a fair point on Kobe, and maybe I'm grading the high school kids on a curve. Like, because

the, um, and maybe I shouldn't and like, but it feels to me like most of the guys who now are swim in the waters that you're talking about SGA potentially getting to. Like you're talking about the Dunkin-Lebron, guys that have come in this century.

Yes, or even like guys that aren't in that pantheon, but are Dwayne Wade and hell, like Carl Malone, Charles Barkley, like in that 20s range, those guys, the date, like, during their rookie year, people were like, this guy is supposed to be an MVP. This guy and the guys who pop on us, Janice and Yokic, the excuse is, ah, they were international guys. You know, it was kind of a black box. I've never, and I know SGA's Canadian. And there's high school guys same thing where it's like, correct. All right. Oh, year two, year three, huh? Right. A guy getting this much better like year three to four, four to five, five to six to where it's like, wait, if you would have asked me three years ago, it's not that long ago, will SGA ever

be the best player in the league? I would have said, fuck at it. No. Because like he might be like seventh, which is like amazing, but for the consistent improvement and to your point and about if that team wins 70 plus and it's like do they have another top consensus top 20 guy like jdub I maybe but when you see how they play without him it feels like they've got nine guys 21 to 75 you know what I mean? Yeah, it's tough for J-Dub, and it's like, no, he's a top 15 guy. And then they go 23 and one and he's not playing. And it's tough for Chet when it's like what he can be. And it's like, well, we've seen them with and without him. And so I don't, there isn't right now a comp for his career. And you were big last year on best guard seasons we've seen.

And in real time, I was like, man, this feels like a little premature. But then he did what he did. And now I'm worried about NBA talk on the TV show because we're still all football. But I'm like, what is the conversation if every single person agrees? Yeah, I mean, unless there is catastrophic injury, this team's winning the championship. And that's how it feels right now about OKC. I like how you spun that. So how does this affect you, Nick Wright, not the NBA.

But it's funny because I was with Jacoby last night and he was saying what you just said multiplied by five. He was mad. He came over to watch the cup games and OKC was NBA Cup has risen to the place of. Well, we were having dinner. He's in town. Yeah. Let's watch basketball. We're some food.

He comes over. It's like OKC 95 Phoenix 52. And Jacoby was just like, I hate OKC. He does this on his show, too. Like, these guys are ruining everything. Like, who wants to watch this? Like, we should just put their team in half. He was doing that all thing.

He dropped the take today that the rest of the NBA should be embarrassed. He's like, this is a little embarrassing for the rest of the league that this team is doing this. He's like, at least with the Steph KD Warriors, you understood it. It's like this was an unbelievable team that added Kevin Durant. And they thought, and so I don't, and so here is, and I didn't really answer your question. Wait, can I interrupt you on that? Please. I think part of the problem here, when this has happened before with the great teams that we've had, at least in the last 35, 40 years, like, MJ, when this happened with the Bulls in 90, the 95, 96 season, people were so excited to have him back.

Yes. And so excited, especially after the Orlando series, the previous spring, so excited to see him kind of reclaim his throne. then that was really one of the first times we really cared about the wins record i think that probably started like with the 76ers in 83 i don't even think in the 80s that was the bulls team was the first time people were like oh how many could they win and and like it was the thing and then the warriors were compelling because all the drama and the rant and is this fair we had all but with okayc they just really smartly put together this awesome team yes they kill everybody there's no backlash to it yet

it's fun to watch sort of when they have close games but I don't think people know how to put it in context no they have no controversial personalities like nothing like the closest thing is like oh their group interviews are corny like that didn't have any meat to it or like people going after Shays

as a fashionista that had no meat to it I really do think people could seize on the fact that Chet Holmgren seems to be on the record that he's never read a book like that to me I think has something to it very small backlash stuff right there's no there's none of that and it is I think there's two other pieces to it it is such a tactical and almost mechanical not in a bad way style they're just like hey we're gonna play really efficient basketball and at all times have five monster defenders on the court and you're just going to be like,

ah, next game's probably going to be easier. And we're going to win. And our star player is this really one of one stylistic talent who also as as a, and this was the only thing they came close to the backlash on has kind of figured out better than anyone ever, how to game the system on the lunch, right, which is his little lunch. One thing, it's another thing. Sometimes you watch Shay, and again, he's going to be the MVP again probably. But it's like, I don't think he went into that move with the hope of making a basket. I think he went into that move with the hope of drawing a foul. And I think people don't love that. But it doesn't matter because it's wildly effective and nobody seems to have an answer for it. Like I know you're holding. out hope that Denver and Joker can do it. And NBA history tells us that what can stop a team like this is what stopped the 16

Warriors. I know you have, you know, your suspension theories. What it really was is the greatest three game stretch in the history of the league by an great player. Well, I mean, when they got bailed up, Adam Silver? I mean, what's the theory? The theory is that. Did he even like hit LeBron on the ball?

It's like it happened. So it's like a flick. The theory is that. LeBron James had 41 points, and the Cavs won by double digits without Dremond. And then in the next game, LeBron James had 41 points and the Cavs won by double digits with Dremond. So the idea that- That was in Cleveland. Yeah, the games moved places.

And then the last game- After game four, when the Warriors played, I think the best game of their... I didn't feel great about it. Yeah, and that was like the whole, all right, let's see. And it's an awesome game that I wish they showed more in Hardbrook Classics. but we were ending that game. It was like, wow, they shut the calves down. This is a wrap.

It sure did feel that way. And then luckily, the greatest player in the history of the sport had the greatest three-game stretch in the history of the sport, and that wrapped things up. Michael Jordan? That's neither here nor there. The point that I'm, to me, the hope for Denver is analogous to maybe Joker can do a 2016 brawn where it's like the other team's way better but i'm just going to carry

go on this supernova stretch what well you would also need s j would have to be injured because curry curried was banged up in the playoffs and and s j would have to release a terrible shoe and we would need some sort of suspension for game five that would be that would be the doppelganger the curry was injured stuff i'm gonna i'm gonna well he was he was he was injured He played hurt. And then Bogot went down halfway through the series. That's how we ended up with Festus Azeleon in game seven trying to guard LeBron two times in a row. That part did happen.

But the Steph Curry protectionism, he's an all-time great player. Everybody knows it. But the Steph Curry protectionism of he can come back against Portland, set the all-time record in his first game back from the injury for points in overtime, literally bellowed to the crowd. I'm back. Had everyone, you, as you were just saying, four games into the series being like, this team is unstoppable. Steph's amazing about to win a championship. And then he doesn't play well in a game seven. It's like, oh, Steph was injured.

Give me a break. That's what I think the LeBron fans have done that with a couple years, too. Here's the thing. This is going back to O'CC. The LeBron broke his hand in 2018 and heroically hit it from everyone. I forgot about that. After the greatest game you've ever seen. Go ahead.

we're talking about how okay so it could be stopped and to me the parallels i mentioned this the other day of mahoney i want to dive into it because i'm interested in your take the 07 pats the streak yeah the pressure of that playing a playoff game basically every week and they wore it down and they really weren't even before that super bowl that like the playoffs it wasn't the most inspiring that team like peaked in like week 12 no question even i would say earlier i thought they peaked the first half of the season. I don't have the exact, but then you saw him holding on because remember, they almost lost that Ravens game, like the Ravens call time out when they shouldn't have.

Yeah. So, but go ahead. Sorry. It's kind of an unimpressive Chargers game, too, where they're playing Phil Rivers. He's got the torn ACL and they, you know, they're also playing this week. I know. I want to come to him later. But I'm wondering, like, with OKC, if there's a streak, because people love streaks.

Like that, I got the Miami. 13 heat. The 2013 heat, I thought, was one of the best moments of the 21st century for basketball. I was so into it. I loved it. Every game was a playoff game. When the Bulls beat them, it was significant. And I wonder with this OKC, if they roll through the cup, if they get into the 20s with that streak.

And now, once you get to around 21, 22, people really start to care. You get to 25. You start passing some of the really memorable teams. Maybe the weight of that could sink them a little bit. I don't know. here's here's why it feels unlikely now it should be said at this moment in December of each of like the last five years four years it is felt inevitable that the defending champion was going to win again like this time last year it sure felt like Boston yeah okay see that Boston's going

to do it and the year before it to me felt like yes Denver's going to repeat the only team that didn't feel like it was going to repeat was Golden State because that felt like kind of a last rah type of thing. No question. And then the year before that, Milwaukee, I thought they were going to repeat up until the moment. Middleton got hurt. Chris Middleton got hurt.

Yeah. So and none of those teams have even made the conference finals to defend their title. What feels different about this OKC team is two things. One is it feels like they can sustain the engine. no matter who it's to as long as it's not shit like anybody else i mean you could argue even with she it might be like a 60 win team well that would be the most i mean honestly that like they just put mitchell in there they'd run more stuff through jalen williams their defense would still probably make them nothing would be 75% of their games nothing would be more confusing

to the NBA ranking stuff that you were talking about at the start is if and you know not hoping for this, obviously. But if a week before the playoffs, Shea went out and it was done for the year and they won the title. Like, that would be sneaky, terrible, but for Shea. I mean, right, would they be, like, still favored? Probably not. But they'd be one of like the three favorites in the West.

Yes, absolutely. And so I just don't, I don't know. So the, like, oh, it's long seasons, guy can go down. They seem immune to it. And the fact that they are just to get to them in the West, one of these teams is going to have to play a war in round two feels like, man, how is it not going to happen? Yeah, it feels like we're headed for Denver, Houston,

just hitting each other with two by fours for two solid weeks. And then the winner gets to play OKC. And it's also why the most interesting. The interesting thing to me about the Western Conference playoff race, if you will, is there is massive incentive to be the three-seed or the two-seat. Like there is such a penalty if you're the four. Like that Lakers lost to that, and I know the Lakers, you don't believe in them probably quite as much as I do, but that loss to the Spurs last night is like, low-key devastating.

Right. If you thought, you know, avoid OKC as long as possible. Being the four or five is a disaster. It's just a disaster. Well, they've had the same. Rich talked about this on Monday on the pot about there's these young, long athletic teams that are just kryptonite for this Lakers group. Yeah.

And like they got killed by Atlanta earlier in the air. San Antonio yesterday. There's a certain type of team with a ton of energy that I think is going to be a problem for them on the schedule. But they're still, you know, they're still a 50 win team. I guess the thing I want to figure out is how you balance with, now that LeBron is back and you saw Reeves kind of fall back a little bit and suddenly doesn't look like Reeves anymore is can you have those three guys?

How do you make all three of them happy and get the right amount of production out of all three? And then how do you hide them on defense? So listen, there is no high. The defensive piece is I don't think there's a fix too. Like it's just, they're just going to be a bad defensive team for the most part. Like I think they could, you could add a piece, what I like, but that's that team strength It has to be, we're going to score one-thirty. Like, we're just going to be a monster offensively.

I think that when LeBron first came back, Austin was still crushing. And the night LeBron streak ended, Austin had 40. Like, I do, and I know you think, probably think I'm biased on this, I do think LeBron at this point, especially because the streaks over, is to a degree post-stats in what he cares about. he has all the records. There's nobody, nobody, there's nothing else for him to chase in that. And because he missed all those games, because I do think he cares about all NBA stuff, but he's going to be ineligible.

He wasn't going to make it anyway. Right. Well, I mean, again, he made it last year, but this year, he's going to be an eligible. It wasn't happening. So, right. And so I do think he's going to be fine being like Jack of All Trades guy. And I think Reeves is, I think Reeves and Luca are a really good, offensive, really good one, two punch with LeBron filling in the blanks. I just don't know how they can guard anybody.

I just don't know how they, and it feels like since Braun's been there, they haven't been able to guard point guards. And the year they had AD and Dwight and won the title, they were just so big it was fine. But who can guard point guards on that team? I don't know. And you're relying on DeAndre Aiton where it's gone pretty well for six weeks. Well. Yeah, but we know. We know what lurks inside. Yeah, I'm looking at my pyramid right now.

And if SGA went back to back, let's say they have a 25 game winning streak, they win between 70 and 74 games. Who knows? It would be hard not to have them in the 20s with the resume he's had with all the all-MBAs in a row. It's just he would have to go down as like the logical successor to the two-guard chain, basically the best guard of live championship. belt goes to him for four years here so can we the so because i think our i think our top 20 would maybe not is obviously the order's going to be different but the if i may just real quick just brawn kareem michael's everyone's top three like that's in stone uh interesting order well that's the order i have it in but i don't want to ask you about that right that's fine uh

I would have Russell three personally. Oh, above Kareem? Yeah, I go M.J. LeBron, Russell, Kareem. Okay. You know why? Because every time Bill Russell played in the playoffs, he won, except for the time he had like a high ankle spraying and his foot almost came up his body.

Or the other time, Will killed him in 67, but he was 11 for 13. But so just, no, that's totally fair. And I'm just trying to like reverse engineer SGA because... Those four have to start. Yeah, those have to start with those four. And magic, and I, magic wilt, Duncan, Kobe, by the way, you're 100% right on Duncan over Kobe. It's the most frustrating argument, but that's fine.

It's by them. Bird. Bird after Kobe. Then is where at nine, or that's nine, at 10 is where it starts to be tricky because it's like Akeem, Shaq, Steph, Joker. Only one of those guys is a top 10 all-time player. Like everyone can stop with like the Janus, Durant, I, Dr. Jay, who I love. Moses, who's the most underrated guy. We just told you nine. And only one

so, like, I don't know who you, who you have highest of those four. I would assume you have Steph higher than Shaq and Akeem. I struggle with that. I think Akeem's become wildly underrated. He has. So, but again, SGA is not in that area. So let's just agree, those are the next four. So 10, 11, 12, 13. My list is a little different. tell me i'm having a lot of trouble joker how it plays out in the playoffs here but just what he's done offensively now for seven years that has no parallel to basically anything in NBA history it's tough not to not to nudge him toward that top 10 but so you you write but and this is like to me he's near wilt at this point but i do think he needs another title yeah but

you don't have him ahead of mary bird no but i do think curry versus kobe is a better argument people want to give a credit for. I mean, Kobe only won one MVP, and he only, he won the two on his own. Steph won four, he won the one on his own, and the other, the other three. I guess you could give him 15. But I just think it's a better argument than people give it credit for. Where Kobe wins it, I think, if you're going to give it to Kobe, is all of those all-MBAs and everything else he did.

Basically, after 08, he has this whole, like, second prime that Steph hasn't really totally had it listen you and i are in lockstep on the i think for the good and bad about kobe like what it what is true on the not on the con side of the ledger is he has a couple grisly finals and they're not always and it's not just when he was a kid um his finals against the pistons was a disaster and it's not just the three years smack dab in the middle of your where you miss the playoffs and then don't get out of round one. But the blowing a 3-1 lead in round one in game seven second half quitting is like a real thing.

Now, he overcame it because of those titles, but that is, does that offset enough of he was such a better defensive player than Steph? Like, you know, but it is, that's a fair argument. But you could argue with the, I mean, the case for Steph, if you're going to go deep on this is the shooting and the threat of his shooting and how it affected the court and how the defense almost like having Tyree kill on offense where the whole secondary has to shift toward him and it opens up all this other stuff that would be part of the Curry case and also like he was an amazing teammate you know and Kobe was up and down on that stuff I think even the biggest

Kobe fans would admit that he had some rocky years there yeah yeah to say the least rocky years I Yeah, he had his coach writing an entire book about what a pain of the ass he was. Like, these are things that happened. But if, so, but if those are the 13, and then we, to me, we get to the Dr. J. Moses, Durant, Janus, Isaiah, Thomas, Eric. I have the, I have the 15. Okay. And then we move into like this Oscar, KD, Kvich, Janus, Dirk, Elgin, Julius, Pettit,

Garnett, Malone, Barclay. So, right. SGA now has a chance to kind of. sniff that so that's where i was trying to get to like who is the best player that with a title you would have sGA ahead of so like i'm thinking in my head i'm like with a title do i have sGA ahead of john stockton yes with the title do i have sGA ahead of david robinson well yeah you're talking like the jason kid nash A couple of those. People that just never won. Chris Paul, John Stockton. The other question

you have to ask is, all right, let's say SJ's career ends this year. I did this exercise of my book. Would you rather have the eight SGA years? You get all of them. You could start a franchise with that, or you could have the 20 years of Chris Paul. What gives you a better chance to win the title? Chris Paul, but I'm probably, I'm not quite Rosillo when it comes to Chris Paul, but I'm a big Chris Paul fan. Right. But I'm saying your goal is to win the title, and you could have the eight years SGA just had

or Chris Paul's entire career. And that's your only goal. What's the answer? I think there's a real case for SGA. It's like at the peak SGA, if I could put a good team around him, I can win a title. So here's the thing.

So that's the part that I'm not, I'm not sure about in this regard. You do this all the time. I forget who you were just talking about it with. Like, if you do their career a hundred times, this was like a one percentile outcome. Like, they got stone unlucky. Well, LeBron's a good example of that.

Who was the team that if the lottery that year? What was the Memphis? With Jerry West. He goes to Memphis with Jerry West with the guys they had already. Powell Gasol. Is he like still there? They win like nine titles, you know? But so my question is this.

With SGA, is this OKC operation a 98th percentile outcome for him? Yeah, but okay, this is a good exercise because you could say that about Duncan, went to the best possible San Antonio team, the one year they sucked where Robinson's there in a good infrastructure. You could say about Byrd, Bird goes to a team with a bunch of Hallfamers and a great GM and then they make better change. Definitely say it about Magic. Can't say it about Jordan.

Can't say it about Jordan, can't say it about Brown. Can't say it about LeBron. Can't say it about Kareem in Milwaukee. You can say it about Russell because he goes to a team with Kuzi and a whole bunch of other people in Red Arbac. You can't say it about Kobe because Shaq's there. And so he gets the formative stuff. Kobe had one of the best situations of any of them. He goes to a team that has the dominant center that, you know, other than Hakema that decade.

You, you, this is one for your guy. You cannot say it about Steph. That franchise was a, you wrote a whole thing about what a disaster the Warriors were pre-stead. So the only thing for him that it actually might have been a good franchise is all the issues he had with his feet and ankles and whether he was with, like, let's say he goes to the Timberwolves with David Kahn running the Timberwolves and a shitty owner. And it's like, oh, man, Steph's career is over now. Like they wouldn't have come up with one thing to save his anything.

And I do think the Warriors get credit for that or wherever. being in California. Oh, that's a really, I hadn't thought about that, but that's a really good point. Because his career, in the 60s, his career is over in four years. In the 60s, bro.

In the 90s. We're in Congress. He's done. We don't even know who he is. Yeah. I mean, I think that we don't even have to go back that far. I think most, like in the,

yeah. So that, so that is like, so is for SGA, was this the ideal situation, or am I underselling him by saying that? Like, I just go ahead. You're underselling one thing.

He's lights out at the end of these games to the point that he's fucking Michael Myers. It's like, oh, it's a three-point game with four minutes left. Like, you know what's going to happen. And he's got so much confidence. I also think he's been so good that now I find myself comparing other players

to things he does. Like, he's reached that last level. I was watching Dylan Harper the other day. Dylan Harper's footwork is so good for, like, however old he is 19 and 20. You're comparing him to SGA. And I'm like, oh, his footwork's like Shea. Like I would have said Kobe three years ago, and now Shea is the default footwork guy.

I think the one thing that he doesn't have that I don't know how to explain this or assess it is there's a charisma piece that's not totally there that Kobe always had, that MJ always had. And SGA, there's like a small piece missing with how the fans resonate with him when they're at the game. and I don't know. You can't fix that. Right. And there is, in that same bucket, it is every legendary scoring guard except for Iverson has been above the rim. And he's not.

Right. That's good point. And so like the, and he's tall enough, obviously. You know, it's just Iverson wasn't, literally wasn't tall enough. And the other guys who are, I guess Steph isn't, is a scoring guard, but Seth is a different style player. All those other guys had a, It's why people have so long tried to force this Anthony Edwards face of the league thing. What it's all that means is this guy fucking dunks on people and we like it.

Like that's like it's just that that is like a fun, a fun piece of it. I do, I do have the, I want to, I don't know what you have on the docket. I want to make sure. Oh, well, look, can we take a break? Yeah. That was a good segment. I thought we did a good first segment. You know what?

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Kansas, Kansas. Kansas and I are going to do Ringer 107. in a second. We're definitely taking the Chiefs. I think they're going to win this week, which will make them seven and seven. I have a whole, I don't know whether to give you the floor first or give, actually, let me go. You play off me on this one. Sure. I'll try to get this to a-minus. What really happened to the Chiefs? My top ten favorite excuses I've heard from Chiefs fans in no particular order. Okay.

Kelsey got old. I mean, that objectively did happen. That does not explain this. All right. So we're one for one with a good excuse. I don't consider that an excuse. Like, that did happen, but that doesn't explain this. So, like, yes, he got old.

That shouldn't have caused this. Go ahead. Too much physical wear and tear on Mahomes because of his old. line and the fact that he's scrambling so much, and that's why he can no longer connect, really on any deep balls at all? I don't buy that. That feels like an excuse. Okay.

Mahomes can't connect on deep balls anymore. They're too easy to stop offensively. You don't have to worry about the deep. That is a legitimate, fair criticism this year in particular. And last year. Right. I was going to say, I know that. the numbers were bad last year that I think last year the there was more of a explanation

for it of people other the surround supporting cast preventing it this year the offensive line up until this past week has been healthy and good you have the right receivers out there you're no that's a fair you know that is a fairer check against him this season I think this is a good I actually went on Chiefs Reddit to see if I could find any Chief's excuses. I saw this one. From 2018 to 2024, they played 21 playoff games.

Yeah. Almost more than an entire season, they averaged 20 games a year for seven years. And one of the guys on this Chiefs Reddit thread said, they need a break. They needed a chance to refuel and reset. It was the thing that was written. Listen, so here's the thing, and I, there is a reason that only one team ever has had a better, had a run like this of seasons this long that went on longer, and it only went on one season longer, the Patriots from 11 to 18.

So I do think that that is definitionally true. that go like listen there is also a reason that no team only one team ever has been to four straight super bowls i think it's you know maybe less the full seven years and more the last three years and the chase of the three pete and the the stomach punch of the way that ended that i think really has had a knock on effect this season i do believe that go ahead i actually believe in that theory because I think that was I watched it happen with the Warriors last decade where they

going to the five finals in a row and I just felt like they were running fumes I watched it happen with my Patriots you know they were especially like that even the 0304 and when they had the streak and then 05 it was a lot of the same guys

Denver so do you want to keep going through it or can I now throw no I have a couple more just quickly and then I want to revisit it salary cap just super hard once Mahom becomes an expensive franchise guy. That's a, that's an excuse. Everybody's got expensive quarterback.

That's good. Stop it. Yeah, and plus the league now, I don't even know what the seller cap is. You just move money forward. It's like a palsy scheme. Taylor Swift. That's not, stop it. It's not it.

Cardi B has been great for your Patriots. Karma. For what? Just because some of the guys you've signed over the years. Maybe the karma. Yeah. I don't know. I saw that one.

That is rich coming from a Pats fan who's, and the, like, I don't want to hear about. We had a murdering tight end. I don't want to hear about karma. Arrogance. They greenlit a documentary and the run wasn't even over yet. This giant documentary about how they're going to win three in a row. I don't. The documentary was not about how they're going to win three in a row.

It was about the quest. The documentary was great. I don't know. Last one, Andy Reid got old. This has not been Andy's best season. I don't think it has been Andy's best season at all. And no, I think. And that fourth and one call was the worst call of,

they were going to win that Texans game. The Texans were done scoring. All you had to do is just keep punting it to them. And they were going to give you run. They were going to, they were going to win. Okay. So now let me address some of the chiefs, darts you have thrown, and then we'll get to Patrick. This is just rhetoric.

I'm hearing about the three-time Super Bowl champion against the city chiefs. Okay. So first of all, some very odd and scary, for me at least, similarities. Tom Brady, in his seventh year as of. starter, stepped on the field in the Super Bowl, trying to win his fourth ring, knowing if we win this game, I am considered the undisputed goat, and this is considered the greatest team of all time. He lost the game in heartbreaking fashion and then did not win a playoff game, one game the next three years now first year of that was tragic you know week one he gets his

knee blown out but year seven going by your guy i know by bernard pollard i know um we call bernard carmel powered we use his middle name like he's an assassin um year seven going for ring four trying to be the undisputed greatest team ever patrick in year seven was playing for ring four trying to become the greatest undisputed greatest team ever if they pull off the three p they lose that super bowl in very different fashion he doesn't get hurt the next year but it looks like they're going to be out of the tournament in year eight and that scares me about because you guys had a retool in the late 2000 aughts and so like that the first seven years brady to tom or brady to tom brady to patrick the the the way the

they played and the numbers are different but the overall like ledger is very similar um and then tom had you know a little gap and then what i think is the greatest run in NFL history 11 to 18 i so i so this is the question we almost we almost had four retools if you look at it and i think you you're on your second one right now yes i think the tyreek trade the tyreek trade was a retool that fucking worked great. Mahomes won MVP the first year and they won the Super Bowl.

Then they won Super Bowl again. But now you're right. This is a second retool. Go ahead. Sorry. Yeah, we had the retool for the Pats was when they were like, hey, we have Tom Brady.

Maybe we should get him some awesome receivers. And they got Welker Moss. That led basically to the second half of that decade. And then, you know, when they built around the tight ends, that was the third retool. And then the middle of the 2010s was, I don't know what was going on.

We were just winning. So here, so here's my, so here's, and this is not a rhetorical question, it's not a smart-ass question. Do you consider the Pats one sustained dynasty or two separate dynasties? I think the Brady Belichick together, it has to be considered one giant thing. Okay. But I think, I think all the Pats fans think of it as like these little different eras that the, you know, they did it with defense, the first three Super Bowl. That's how they won. Brady was the third most important piece of it.

So you're getting me close to where one of the things I want to get to. But I think you can make the argument you made. It's the same coach, same quarterback. It's one dynasty. The other one is there was 0.1 to 04, the defense led Adam Benetary clutch portion of it. Belichick. I was really like Belichick just the, but by far running circles around everybody else. And then there is 2011 to 2018.

When you make five Super Bowls, win three, peak Tom, and every single year, you played in the conference championship game. Like, you know what I mean? And that was the apex to me of Brady. And so since I view it as two separate things, I get very mad. Like, it's irrational how mad I get when you just flippantly call the chiefs a mini dynasty. I'm like, if we're a mini dynasty, then everything does. but your stupid Patriots is a mini dynasty. Then the damn cowboys were a mini dynasty.

If five Super Bowls in six years with three rings isn't a full grown adult dynasty, then we're never having another one because I don't think we're going to get 20 years of the same coaching quarterback. It's a really good note and it was a little petty on my side. Thank you. Wow. Wow. Thank you.

Now, can I do the Patrick Mahomes still one day could be the goat argument in dallas or kansas city oh that was rich why did rich do that why is rich trading him to the cowboys i didn't understand that i didn't know i don't know maybe he had inside info so what works and do we agree that because i you keep talking about patrick missing the playoffs as this stinging goat indictment it's not great it right right but but totally not caring that Tom missed the playoffs in a second after they won the first Super Bowl. With the argument being, he wasn't Tom yet, right? Is that driver right?

They still went nine and seven in the last game of the year. It's a really weird, if you go back and look at the standings, it was like all these nine and seven, three-way ties. And so they played the last game. They won the last game of the year and needed some help and didn't get it. But it was a weird year. If you're right that the chiefs are going to beat the Chargers, they have the Titans and the Raiders still on the schedule, that'll be nine wins no matter whether they beat Denver or not. Like, they could be very similar to that. But the argument that Wilde makes and I've

heard other people make is, yeah, but that's unfair to use against Tom because he wasn't Tom Brady yet, which I acknowledge and I understand, but he gets full credit for the Super Bowls. So we shouldn't, when we're talking about like the goat debate, say, because Patrick was instantly excellent, that hurts him in the case that he's better than Tom Brady one day. Like that, logically, I don't follow. Well, can we at least agree on this? Heading into that Philly game in the air was like, if he does this, it's kind of a rap. And Max and I talked about that last week when we were in the pot about these moments people have sometimes in their career,

these little sliding door things where it's like, wow, if this happens. Yeah. It's undeniable. That's why I was on Twitter today and somebody just put on the last 45 seconds at game 6 of 98 with Jordan in Utah. Just that whole sequence of the 50 seconds, which every time I'm watching, it's so mesmerizing. You just watch this guy like levitate above the game basically. It's like just still the greatest thing I've ever seen an athlete do. And it's like, all right, what happens if he misses the last shot and they lose in seven? And it's just like the sliding doors of that, we're talking. about him differently and i think that was if mohomes had beaten that crazy philly team that was just better than them and more talented them if he'd done that it's it was it would have been i still don't think you would have said he was the goat yet i think you would have been like well brady beat him twice in the playoffs i i would have said we had co goats i think there would have been a co-goat possibility at that point so the i so i agree with you that in that

moment his is you know if it's polymarket going into that game, his chance of being known, ending his career as the goat, was it like 76%. And after the game, it dropped to like 49. And as we sit here today,

it feels like it's around 30. But the difference between the two guys is that it feels like Mahomes was just better like three years ago. Just from the eye test. Like, it just feels like he moved better, he threw the ball better, everything. Brady

got better in his 30s. Like, he just did. Like, by the time we got to the Seattle Super Bowl, if you go back and you look at those last two drives, who he's playing with. It's unbelievable. It's out of control. But it's just, like, he couldn't have done that 10 years earlier, I don't think. Like, he definitely got better in the 2010.

So I don't know. The Mahomes thing is so weird because it's hard to, like, really pin down what we're saying because, so, they trade Tyree Kill, And that next year, they're the highest scoring team in the league.

He has more yards than any quarterback in NFL history and was unbelievable. But it was all dink and dunk stuff. It wasn't deep bombs. It was just wildly efficient. They win the Super Bowl. The next year, everyone's like, this is the worst chief's team yet. They actually have to go on the road in the playoffs. And in those playoffs, he has one of the greatest individual playoff runs in the history of the sport,

going to Buffalo, going to Baltimore, coming back a 10 down in the Super Bowl. And it's like, holy shit. Like, why would we doubt this guy again? I mean, to the point that it was impossible to bet on him the next year. Correct. I'm doing playoff manifesto and I'm just throwing out rules because I just don't want to bet against my homes.

And then last year was super weird because he had these insane fourth quarter, third down clutch numbers. But every other number, it's like it's worse than Trevor Lawrence or something. Like his stats last year were not good, but the team won every game. And he was, everybody who watched the Chiefs is like, yeah, Patrick's the reason why. And so, but the numbers didn't back that up. So here's, so I don't know where, I also don't know where actually like if he has a season of failure, which this could be, what that does to him moving forward, right?

In a positive way, I would think. Well, is there the Rocky Four log cabin scenario? Correct. Where you need to almost go to Russia and rebuild it and you're just going with Duke and your wife and Paul, and that's it. You're just rebuilding it. So I think, because I think he's wired that way. I, and then I, because I do have one other chiefs question, I just want to finish this,

Mahomes thought on the goat thing. But my Mahomes could still be the goat argument boils down to this. I think everyone agrees that through eight seasons, which is where Patrick is right now, his career outstrips Tom's through eight years. They both had three rings, but Patrick's been to five Super Bowl's time. It'd have been to four. Patrick has two MVP's time as one. So up to this point in his career, he's ahead of the pace. Yeah, I was thinking about when I was growing up, there was like Marino, L.A, Montana, people like that. The only one that you could put against his first eight years is Montana, who I don't even think

started for two years. Correct. That's the problem. But Montana would be the doppelganger for the first eight years. And he's better than Montana because he played the whole time. Exactly. He missed the first year. That's it.

And so the problem for Patrick is this, if I'm being fair, he's, he needs to be. way ahead of Brady's pace at 10 years and 12 years because the odds that he's going to play 20. Like after year 8, Tom played 15 more years. I know. I know. That's the part is he's not, he can't just be like still like, oh, mile marker 10 slightly ahead because he's probably not going to run as long of a race. And Tom does have the playoff head to head. which sucks for me.

It's great for you. But that's a hard one. So I just don't, I don't like when you say he's eliminated. Like it's out because of this, because it really wounds me. Now, can I ask you one other thing about the chiefs? I'm sorry, but he's eliminated.

It is not. Brady never played a meaningless NFL game. He never started a meaningless NFL game. Patrick has not yet either. He has not yet. The best thing you have going for you is that Amazon bought that, That Christmas night game. There might be some ref greasing.

Bezos. We need that game. So you think the chiefs are going to beat the Chargers this weekend. I still can't believe the Chargers beat the Eagles. Nobody. I don't understand what happened in that game. The Chargers can't block. They can't really do anything.

And I don't understand how they have nine wins. So I don't know if you have really like run. this full scenario full in your head. But here is, and again, the Chiefs have been bad. Is this a Chiefs going 10 and 7 making the playoff scenario? It's very simple. Okay. So again, the hard part is they have to go 10 and 7, which means they have to win the

Charger game and beat Denver in Kansas City, by the way, on Christmas. But their other two games are Titans Raiders. So if we assume they're going 10 and 7, two other things, need to happen. The Phillip Rivers cults need to lose at least twice. Fucking done. They are, they play the Seahawks, the Niners, the Jags, and the Texans. They are not going three and one. They are not. I agree with that. By the way, the chiefs on Fandor plus 520 to make the playoffs, which I thought was high. Well, so this is what I'm saying. So if we eliminate the Colts, because the Colts would have to go three and one to matter.

I'm good, but delimited to the Colts. And we are both saying we think the Chargers are going to lose this weekend to the Chiefs. For the Chiefs to make it at 10 and 7, they need the Chargers to lose in week 18 to Denver. They have to lose that game, which Denver might need because they're trying to get the one seed. Yeah, they might care. One seed thanks to your pets.

And then they just need. the Chargers to lose one of at Dallas or home for Houston. But don't they have to finish above the Chargers? No, so this is what people have wrong. Because they split. The first tiebreaker is head to head. The second tiebreaker is divisional record. They would be tied in both of those.

The third tiebreaker, if you're in the same division, is not conference record. It's common opponent. And the Chiefs have that. So at 10 and 7 with the Chargers, I mean, this seems doable. You've kind of talked me into this. This would be amazing. Again, if the Chargers go 10 and 7 but beat Denver,

meaning they lose Kansas City, Texas, Dallas, then they're out. How are the Chargers going to be in Houston? Exactly. And if the Broncos need the game, how are they going to win in Denver? So you need the Patriots to beat Buffalo this weekend, too. I need the Patriots to keep winning. Yeah. Because I need Denver to be playing for.

matter for both sides. I need Week 18, Denver, and then we're alive. I'm telling you. And then maybe Mahomes doesn't get traded to Dallas. Okay. And then maybe... Wait, can I pick a beef on one of your takes? It's your show.

You do whatever you want. Your whole... I saw what you... I saw the pox you're trying to put on Josh Allen. What do you mean? I saw what you did. I saw the clip came across my Twitter feed where you did the whole... it is all set up for Josh Allen

he has to win now this is lined up if he doesn't win it's a huge failure I saw the whole thing it was a huge failure it was a good take but it was ridiculous

what do you mean Bill? Because the bills aren't that good they don't they their top receiver catch output last week was two they don't have a receiver

who can catch the ball nine yards past the past the first downline they don't disagree with that like you guys a couple years ago. That's not. This is all Alan. Like if he gets into the Super Bowl with the offense he has, this would be a miracle. It would be, it is your hundreds of right.

It's all Allen. And as much as I, to the marrow of my bones hated and texted mutual friends about your preseason Josh Allen take, it is aged well. And so I give you credit there. Age well is kind of an understatement. It's aged amazingly. I put Josh over Mahomes, and it was the right call. So I didn't feel great about it, but it's how I felt.

So what with, so here's, but here's what my take actually is. It has nothing to do with how good the team is. It is. It's actually kind of a Patriot company. If you're Josh Allen. Yeah. And you have been a legitimate contender for the last five years. And in those five years, you have been bounced in the playoffs,

four times by Patrick Mahomes, and once by Joe. borough and in those years played good close but you have won playoff games against lamar and you have had a cake walk of a division where every year it's like we're going to have a home to this year yeah we're going to right and you go through that entire stretch and you don't make a super bowl and then you have a season where Patrick Josh and Lamar I'm sorry Patrick Joe and Lamar are not even even in the playoffs. And by the way, and Lamar's been replaced by an alien.

Right. I want to ask you about that. And you know, oh shit, the division is about to be really hard because Drake May's awesome. You can't have a half decade of a terrible division

and not break through and then a playoff run where you're the only in their prime Hall of Fame quarterback in the whole tournament on your side of the bracket. Yeah, but what do you do with the 13 seconds game in this argument, though?

No, it's... He did everything he should have done in that game and his coach screwed it up. And the special teams, everything. That's like terrible by him. I totally agree with you. I think you're miss... And it probably means... No, I see what you mean.

On paper, if he doesn't make it as the years pass, people will look at it and not remember all the details and all the little things that happen. And it's not even a... about like, like, I want to make it clear. I'm not saying like, oh, it's a choke job if he doesn't make it or like, or he didn't make it in the past because like 13 second game, he was all. Yeah, framed it like it was a little bit of a joke job. What I'm saying is a negative framing.

There's a negative framing you did. It is a missed opportunity. He'll never have a playoffs again. I imagine that Joe Borough Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes are not in. and this is likely the worst Drake May will ever be in his career. Well, and also like, listen, I love this Pat's team. There's 19 different signs that they might have overachieved that this is peak Pats right now.

Then you look at Denver, a team, I don't think anyone's afraid of with a quarterback. I don't trust it all. You agree with me. The bill's got to get to the Super Bowl. But I don't think, I don't like teams that don't get explosive plays. Like basically he's the explosive play. Yeah. But their receivers, I think are the worst that's ever been.

Can we talk about, um, can we, can I ask you about Lamar real quick? Or do you know what to? Yeah, no, ask me. Can somebody please report on whether or not Lamar Jackson and John Harbaugh even talk to each other? This is the weirdest fucking story in the league. So it is every time Lamar, has suffered an injury in his career. John Harbaugh has had one timeline about when Lamar's going to play,

and Lamar has had a totally different one. We were told three years ago, oh, it's nothing close to season ending. It was season ending. The next year we were told we think he's going to be back in a week. It was season ending. This year, he was asked about why they had optimism after the buy. He's like, well, we're going to have our quarterback back.

The game comes after the buy. the quarterback is not back. He then finally does come back and he has different random injuries that cause him to miss a day of practice and by the way, plays the worst

football of his career while missing a day of practice each week. The worst football of his career. Did you see the next gen stats? His MPH is way down this year. Yeah, he doesn't really. He's like down to like 12 miles an hour now. No, seriously, I read that today. He's went from like 16 to 12th. By the way, passes

the eye test he doesn't run and he's not as fast i think i could run 12 the 12 that's a five minute mile i think if i had a lot of coffee and maybe some cocaine i think i can run 12 but to finish it this week lamar doesn't practice wednesday he's it's listed as no injury harbaugh when he's asked about it says yeah you know i think when you know a player says they need the day you have to, you know, you trust the player. Doesn't cover for him at all. Meanwhile. So you feel like we're in Kauai territory here a little bit,

like 2018 Spurs, Kauai kind of area? Harbaugh over the last couple. Remember like two off seasons ago? He's like, we believe Lamar Jackson is going to be not the best quarterback in the league, the greatest quarterback in the history of football. And then the following off season, so last off season, he was like, I want to make this clear, forget running. As a pure passer of the football,

Lamar's the greatest pastor of the league's ever seen. Like, eh, doth protest too much, buddy. Like, I think you're trying to fix a relationship. And Lamar, I think is over at all. I think Lamar's checked out.

And I would bet if we were doing like the fantasy draft of coaches, we don't think we'll be coaching the same team next year. I think he would be a very high pick, Harbaugh. And by the way, Sean McDermott, if this goes badly. Yes.

I think he's on the list. I think Sirianni's on the list. the last like that's funny there's a lot of high profile coaches that who knows would you do this who who says no to this trade because you saw joe burrow you saw joe burrow say if i keep playing i need to be happy again so when house and i do picks oh sorry they said no no i'm just saying this made me want to take the ravens even though i don't even think they're good it's like you it seemed like burrow was having like an existential crisis at the podium And I don't blame them because they spend the least amount of money of anyone other than maybe the Pats.

They never are able to block. I don't know. I wouldn't want to be Joe Burrow in Cincinnati. I'd want to go somewhere else. So I have two. Are you talking Burrow for Lamar just straight up like NBA style? That would be sick. Stefan Marbury style?

I don't think they would do it within the division. And I think there's going to fire the coach in Baltimore and keep the quarterback. Joe Burrow for. Jalen Hurts and one first round pick. I'd want more if I was Cincinnati, considering people are wearing Tanner McKee jerseys in Philadelphia right now. That's fair. But that's at least,

we're at least having the conversation, right? Like, it's a, hey, jail is going to be available. You can't even make football trades like that, which is, by the way, what the NBA has turned into now, where these stupid aprons have ruined all the, like, fun trades we can make. But, so Joe Burrow, if Joe Burrow went to the Eagles,

they God help us. He's got these two receivers. Like, you know, it works. The other, the other, there are the two other ones that involve draft picks are, because in the NFL, the most first round picks you can trade is three, unless you have extra picks one year, you know who has an extra pick. You mean like the Rams? The Rams.

If Stafford retires, I could see the Rams trading four firsts and three seconds. for Joe Burrow. Well, the Rams got that Falcons pick. That's what I'm saying. For the 26th last year, that's not like the eighth pick in the draft. So I think the Rams would trade four firsts for Joe Burrow, and I think the Vikings would trade three first, three

seconds, and J.J. McCarthy, and Joe Burrow gets to be with college teammate Justin Jefferson. I just know he's not happy. It's year six, and he's saying, if I want to keep playing, that's terrifying. I got to say, if I was a QB trying to look at my next 10 years, I would want to be

warm weather indoors. I think Brady was an anomaly. I think Mahomes has been anomaly, but just in general, especially when you get to these December-January games. Like, T. Higgins, his head hits that. Like, he's just a concussion. Like, you're playing on a concrete parking lot, basically.

I have some quick questions before we go, because I already kept you for an hour. Why do you think Kevin Wilds hates conflict so much? Do you think it's like a childhood thing? Like, what is it with him? He just always want everyone to get along at all times and then he's on a sports take show. So I, I one time in passing described our job as competitive sports debate. And Wilde's had like a record scratch, full stop moment where he's like, hold on, to be clear, that is not what we do.

I'm like, yes, it is. And he's like, no, it's just a good hang. We're having fun. You and I are trying to do different jobs, bro. Having fun talking about sports in a polite way. Chat. Now, I don't know if you've noticed a new Wilds has emerged. Well, confident Patriots Wilde. Yeah, I noticed.

As the Chiefs have fallen and the Patriots have risen, we are really getting, you know, peacock in Kevin Wilds, as he regularly says right before the show starts. Well, because Bruce a Ravens guy, I'm the Chiefs. I guess I'm going to have to carry the show again today, boys. Right. It's the only, yeah. The only team that's good.

All right, what else? With the Wilds thing. So, I mean, I've known Wilds for almost 20 years. You did this whole thing about media rivals, like your weight class, your generation of sports media rivals. When did you do that? So I did that. And, you know, that was the first down. in a thing that landed yesterday and oh the third thing yeah yeah you talked about other

people your age range yeah i said anyone who does what i do or similar to what i do that is my age or younger i consider a rival and i want to vanquish them cheek and i will vanquish them like i need to be in my head atop that like i don't i've never really felt like i'm competing with you because Because I grew up reading you or whatever. I feel like you're competing with Colin and with Dan. You know what I mean? Like that, you're that generation.

And I know you and Colin do different things. But like I do it like Colin Levittar Dan Patrick to me. We're all like competing for the same term. So I had that for me. I disagree. I don't think I compete with any of those guys. Well, you're in a different way. I don't even think about shit like that.

I like how you're thinking of it though. Like you're rising. up. You're rising up the ranks. These other people are rising up the ranks and you want to destroy them as you're rising up the ranks. Correct. And I tried to convince Wilds. Right. Wilds needs a feud. That's what we're, that's what we're getting. So there's an obvious one he should have. Oh, can I guess? He has an obvious rival. So age range. It's age range. Is it Peter Schrager? No, similar job as well. Similar job. So like kind of ringmaster for a show, Mike Greenberg.

Yes. Greenie. Yes. I want Wilde to start occasionally just dropping little sub-tweets about Greeney. Oh, I'm happy to do that on this podcast to try to see if I get it going. That sounds great. He will be so mad when he hears this. Because Wilde is like, I don't want a rival.

He thinks I'm insane. I mean, the whole thing. And I'm like, bro, Greenie's standing between you and the Emmy. Like I always try to stoke it. He's in their way. He's standing between you and what you've worked for, but he won't listen to me on it.

It's like he's a Jets fan. You're a Pats fan. Like it all makes sense. You both really care about your hair. Like it makes sense. Wait, before we go. this is my last question for you what do you want for the rest of the 2020s

with LeBron James would be your wish how does it how does it what's the perfect way for it to play out your favorite player yeah so my all time for this year to go fine you know nothing crazy this year like I think the

I disagree with Rich I think the ceiling is the conference final but they would have to get, you know, pretty lucky in the seating and all of it. I just think, I think people sometimes forget how great Luca is. That's more of a Luca take than a LeBron take. But for this year to not have anything crazy, LeBron to be healthy. And then where's next year? What's your dream next year?

Cleveland or New York. One year. Feels like Cleveland's the move. Right? New York would be pretty sick. It's not like Cleveland's lights out right now. I mean, they're kind of a mess, right? And they'll be in that kind of, we got to shake things up.

Maybe he goes in, plays for a minimum. And I guess my other dream would be that if somehow he rallies this year and once again makes an all-MBA team that Bill Simmons-Ringer 100 rankings going into the season. Too many good players this year. No. Well, that's true. That's fair. guy was sixth in MVP voting last year.

How many times do I have to hear about how Kevin Durant's better than LeBron James when he's never been better than LeBron James one year of his life from a guy that wrote the book of basketball? I got to listen to how LeBron's an injury risk. I'm like, I don't know, Durant's not healthy all that much about LeBron's a problem with games. Every team Durant goes to is miserable. And I got to listen to how Durant's 12 and LeBron is competing for the judge.

He's like, I don't know where to put LeBron. 24 felt good to be. Well, he got hurt. Is he better than Alex Caruso? We do the rankings because he's 41. He's 41. We don't know if he could play 40 games. He was awesome.

Yeah, we put him up. We put him like 11. Thanks to the other people. Your right thing was dragging him down. No, I had him high by the end. I voted for him, second team all NBA. Yeah, I appreciate it. I call it like it is.

I voted for him for four MVPs. Yeah, well, that means you cost him three. What are the three? Were there three? So I've heard you do this. No, there's only four. 2018 is his only other case. But then you have to just throw out the three weeks when he was throwing the tantrum and trying to get them to make trade.

Just have to toss it away. 2018, there is a great argument. There is. The year he finished. Oh, 11. The first Miami year, there's a retroactive argument. No question. And the year Nash.

He finished second. in one of the Nash years. Oh, yeah. So, 06. 06 maybe. Yeah, there's a case. That Kobe should have won that year, though. Kobe should have two.

That's, but 06, they didn't even make the playoffs. No, Kobe, that was the year they made the playoffs and he averaged 35 a game and it was fucking crazy. Oh, okay. He should have won that year. Oh, you're right. 05, they missed the playoffs. 06. So that, so those would be the years that I.

I thought it was interesting. LeBron, it's not like he's unearthed. a shitload of gems on that mind the game show but him saying no i'm just saying i'm not like 2018 was the my peak is is interesting is that what you're about that was i actually had a couple conversations about that with basketball friends i was like wow i would have gone with that second miami title year when they won the streak when he was shooting like 60% for he was the year like he was and he was like the best defensive player in the league on top of it so he was like adamant it was 18 so that miami so that miami was

year he was the best defensive player in basketball so that's the argument there well on top of he shot 60% he was like queen of the chess board he was like peak of his powers that year it was unbelievable to watch him 18 though he had the a bit like that that 2018 playoff run the playoff runs the playoff run is yeah no question playoff run of his career and the game 7 48 minutes in boston like the shit he was doing And the game one, he played against Golden State. Right. I mean, that you've said it, and I agree with you, I wasn't there. But you've said that, you know, that might be the greatest game, individual game you've ever seen.

And so I think that was like peak powers brawn. Also, by the way, on the MVP's thing, did you not think he had a legit argument in 2020? The COVID year? It was the COVID year. Yannis won it. He finished second. The Lakers had the best record in the league. He was unbelievable, but okay.

I think I voted for Yannis. He was in the mix, though, no question. All right. So the biggest thing we learned is that Mike Greenberg and Kevin Wilde need to feud. Yeah. I'm going to do my best. We haven't solved my homes. You gave me hope for a Chiefs plus 580 playoffs.

And if they make it, Bill, I'm telling you, part of this, part of the scenario is the Broncos have to beat the Chargers in week 18. Which, if that happens, the two seed probably will be New England. So if they make it, Chiefs, Pats, round one in Foxboro, your nightmare. Let's roll. Oh, my God. Your nightmare. It'll be an amazing way to end the dynasty of the Chiefs, the mini dynasty. Oh, the mini dynasty.

Thanks for having me on Bill. All right, solid A minus. I thought you did a great job. You know what? I just give myself a B plus. Okay, great job. Good to see you. Hey, as you know, I'm a Patriots fan.

Big game this weekend against the bills. We kind of need it. I'm going to make some predictions using fan duels, odds that they have, some of the props for this. One of them is, will Drake May use his legs more against better competition? This would be the Mahomes model. I only scramble when I really need it in big games. 20.5 rush yards over. 100% over.

Will the bills continue to run effectively against my Patriots? I don't have Milton Williams, James Cook, 80 plus five rushing yards, I'm going under on that. The paths have been good against the run, even with the, I know it's down a little bit since Williams left, but I still feel like they're going to move everybody up and make Allen throw the ball. And then last but not least, will Diggs have another revenge game against Buffalo, 47 and a half receiving yards? I would go way over on that because I think this is the game where you unleash Diggs.

He plays way more snaps that he's played all year, and you're relying on him on any 30s. down a dark horse anytime td pick uh it's always hunter henry in a big game that's always where drake may seems to look when he really needs him so uh i would look at whatever his odds are usually they're in the 200 to 300 range you can bet all these are ringer 107 picks and so much more and fandole be sure to check all the available betty markets before the sunday games all right joe house is here he's sick he's tired it's 5 p.m on a thursday i said at the top of the pod house If we don't win our picks this week, you're getting fired as my conciliary. We're still going to do all the games.

I'm just going to go rogue. Not even involve you in the final five. This is it. Go ahead. Step up. You're like Lamar Jackson. I need to see something. Now, we've just had terrible luck.

And it's getting the point when you're near the playoffs. Something needs to change. May it have to bring back our picks relationship person, Billy Gill. Oh, that was pretty good. Or we could have no on and go four in one again, you know, All that is correct and Verno, incorrect. I just had Nick right on for like an hour and 15 minutes. And somehow we didn't talk about Phil Rivers.

Oh. And I haven't talked about Phil Rivers all week. I think this is one of the most unbelievable sports stories of all time. My immediate, my head went right to, how can we bet against this? Not playing for five years, but he knows the offense. This is absolutely ridiculous that he could just step on in the field with the speed of an NFL game. And he's playing the Seahawks, unfortunately, a team that has either the best or second best defense in the league, depending on how you feel about Texans. I'd have them second.

And I can't think of a worse situation. Not only has he come back to play them, he's playing the Niners, the Jags, and then he's finishing at Houston. Are they trying to kill him? Why are they doing this? Yeah, I mean, over under on number of games that he completes, do you think that he makes it out of this first game? healthy well to go through those first three and then you have to end with houston the team of freaking pit bulls like what a nightmare um it shows how desperate they are it also shows you that we really only have about 40 capable quarterbacks alive who can play an NFL game to the point that a

team's like instead of signing somebody on a practice squad who's going to get annihilated maybe phil rivers will be better after not playing for five years i did go back and look up his 2020 and some of my notes from that year like a week by week. He wasn't bad on those Colts teams and even was okay in the playoff game and we never, I never had anything in my notes like with the pods was sour anywhere else

where it was like Phil looks washed. It's over. It wasn't like the Matt Ryan situation, but it was five years ago. Your kid was 10 years old five years ago. I don't think he ever really lost arm strength. I mean, we'll have to check the next gen stats

to see how many miles an hour he was throwing five years ago. But the thing that, that became the real issue is he couldn't move. And I don't think that got any better. I don't think that got any better house. So my guess is, this is as we go to Ringer 107,

we had another classic week. Like we have the bears. We think it's going to be a tight game. It was, it's a one score game. They're inside the 20 turnover. They don't cover by half point. And then we had the Eagles,

which maybe we should have known. But I just think that, Chargers team is so lousy. Not by a lot of fault of theirs. They've had so many injuries, but I just still can't believe the Eagles didn't finish that game. I don't know. I watched the whole game, and I still don't

really fully understand what happened. By the time Sunday rolled around, I will say this. I could not figure out why we didn't pick the Rams at the Cardinals. Why didn't we pick the Rams laying? I laid on the Sunday show

24 and a half or 23 and a half points at plus 470 that was one of my favorite bets of the week and you know what I maybe for Ringer 107 next year we're going to have to have more gimmicky bets because we're both pretty good at those

I agree versus the straightups or maybe we just have to make better picks it's one or the other the river's thing though so this defense he's going against since week seven starting with week seven games. How many first half touchdowns do you think Seattle has given up?

Seven games. Not very many. Four. Two against the Rams. Yes. Okay. There you go. My guess is they're going to do the super conservative handoff, hand off, hand off, hand off, play action. Hand off, hand off, hand off, play action. I don't think that's working in Seattle, especially when you look at the track record of these things. But it does make me like the under. I want to throw this series, though. The curse of Peyton Manning. Oh, okay.

I don't know if I'm test driving this for you, for you in the audience. So remember Peyton Manning gets hurt and the Colts have a terrible season. Yes. And they end up getting the number one pick and they get injured luck. Incredible.

Peyton Manning, a hero in Indianapolis. Beloved. Beloved. It's like, oh, they'll just probably. trade out of that pick. Trade down. Get Peyton meeting some weapons. What do they do? Payton, thanks for everything. Send him packing.

He goes to Denver and goes out a huge revenge store. And they have Andrew Luck. Since that happened, they get luck. He ends up getting banged up, retires. Jacoby Brissette, Phil Rivers, Carson Wentz, Matt Ryan, Gardner, Minshu,

Anthony Richardson, drafted top five. Danny Dimes. They finally struck. Eric oil blows out as Achilles. Now they've turned back to 45-year-old Philip Rivers. I think it all goes back to that patent-manning decision and the rules of karma. Doing that to your best guy. I think they would.

They got to look at the mayor a little bit, I think. Don't you think they would do that over again to have Andrew Luck? I wouldn't, if it was the Pats with Brady? Yeah. I don't know. I wouldn't have been cool with it. I get it. I understand. It's just, I don't know, pretty clear. So you have no takes on this. How much cold medication are on right now? Should we just sit through these picks? Quite a bit, quite a bit. No, I, you know, I'll get some energy going here. I like a lot of picks. Please do. We're videotaping this and it's running as a podcast. Well, I was looking Seahawks minus 13 and a half, but we could take that to Seattle minus six and a half with the under of 48. and a half as a parlay get us in the minus 120 and just make that at one of our picks sure done say less that's easy is that game go to 49 points is there a scenario no no i mean it would only be if seattle ends up with a bunch of short fields and scores you know remember seattle a handful of times

this season has come out in the first half and drop like 35 points on a team before you know the first the first five drives um well the coltsloss gardner ward had a concussion they do get bucked her back for the defensive line, but I just, I can't imagine. My, my guess is the Colts are going to try to really slow this game down, 40 seconds of play. I agree. Let's do nothing crazy. Field goals. Let's try to, you know, make Seattle make some plays on offense, and it'll just be one of those games that each team has the ball six times or something. Yeah, yeah. So, all right, so Seattle minus six and a half under 40 and a half. I only had one maybe game. And it's the Ravens and the Bengals.

It's Ravens in Cincinnati. Ravens minus two and a half. The Ravens had a five-game winning street. Then they lose to the Steelers by five. It's winner-go-home for them. There's no T. Higgins. And yet, it's 18 degrees in Cincinnati. Joe Burrow's been good in the cold weather.

Lamar has not been a huge fan over the years. And then Joe Burrow has the press conference this week that Nick Wright and I just talked about. where he seemed like he was having like a crisis on the podium about I don't know why I'm doing this like it was like one of those where clearly wasn't super happy from a football standpoint so I feel like it's a stay away but I wanted to talk it out did you have some strong thoughts on this um I would play the Ravens the way that they lost the last two games to these Bengals and then the Steelers um were both like so heavily unlucky for them

I mean the way the ball bounced with the turnovers against the Bengals and the short fields that they gave that they likely play all that stuff yeah and then to follow that up with basically a carbon copy against the Steelers

turning the ball over you know and and game deciding plays one one but both times involving the refs I mean the the roughing call on the center turned into four more points for the Steelers

and you know Isaiah likely catching the ball holding it for two steps but not you know dancing a pirouet with it and doing the splits means that it's not a catch so Ravens lose I had the Ravens mark down as well

as a minus two and a half maybe we'll use it yeah the red spot makes sense the season's over if they don't win just quickly do any of these games did you had any of these games written down rams saints colts browns giants eagles jaguars texans niners cowboys or uh that's it any of those on your list i did have rams um i think rams minus six and a half at home against the lions i thought it was five and a half but in either way it's it's fine i think that they are capable of

winning by margin this is just a brutal situation for the Detroit defense. The Brian Branch injury just can't you can't overstate how meaningful that is. They are on like their fourth string and fifth string safeties right now.

Taryn Arnold's been out for a bit. They don't get pressure anyhow. And so I think the... Is this going to be on the Sunday show? Is this a Rams 30 plus points? It might be. It might be. There's two candidates for that

where I'm going to alt spread. I might do both. We'll see. Rams is definitely one of them, especially the way they took care of business against the Cardinals. All right. I'm taking Bill's Pats off the board because I think the bills are the pick

and I don't want to pick the bills. We did that once in Ringer 107. I didn't feel good about it. 29 degrees with snow. That's so fun. Let's just watch it and enjoy it. Yeah, I just... It's going to be great.

No Milton Williams. Yeah. Buffalo needs it a little more than the Pats, but then the Pats are coming off a buy. No left tackle for the Pats. That makes me nervous, but the Bills have no explosive receivers. It was a pick-em all week. It ended a Bills minus one and a half right now.

It feels like the kind of game the Bills should win and will win. And when you go back to the 2320 Sunday night game, the Pats, even though they won, a lot of things won right in that game, and they bury one. Yeah, it was three turnovers and 11 penalties on the bills at home. Yeah.

Just one to me is just, you know, if I had to bet it, I would just bet on Josh Allen and that's it. Dolphin Steelers in Pittsburgh. Interesting. Steelers minus three.

Pittsburgh's defense, 27th EPA against the run. Miami has reinvented themselves and this is power running team, although we don't know how healthy A chance is going to be. It's a Mink of Fitzpatrick revenge game.

T.J. Watt's probably out. And Aaron Rogers, who looked good last week, would have to then do that two weeks and around. The catch is it's a Monday night game and it's going to be like 20 degrees and it's Tua in cold weather. Yeah. But then the Zag on that,

because normally it'd be like Tua cold weather done, the Zag would be, oh, you should press the cough button. Wow. You really are sick. The Zag would be yeah, that's why you take the Steelers, but that's actually stupid because they don't really rely on two anymore.

He barely has to do anything. They run, run, run, run. They don't want to ever have him screw anything up. So this is actually the perfect time to take Tua. And the line feels a little high to me. I've got to be honest. I don't see any difference with these teams. This feels to me should be Tick-Tac 1.5.

Interesting. So I don't mind the Dolphins case. I think they've been pretty good the last couple weeks. I agree. And to your point, you know, I sat down after we took the abysmal um jets and tried to do the math on what you know that was just a bad read toa threw the ball 20 or 21 times for like 125 yards and the dolphins ran the ball 41 times for you know 200 yards or whatever um and a chan just had had his way i think that's that's

not a bad blueprint for for going up against this dealers team and look to uh he he did it and the jets game. Sal and I talked about it. He had a screen pass, like from his own goal line that almost got picked off. It was just awful. I know he's going to do that. He's going against the Stewards team that has had a horseshoe and it's asked for most of the year. Maybe it's one of those things where it's like, I can't believe we bet on two in 20-degree weather or what are we doing. But it's literally the only reason I can think of not to bet the Dolphins in this game, other than you continually pressing the cough button and not knowing where we are at this point. It's very good. But I just feel like this is an either either team could win game and we're getting a point in a half i think the dolphins

are just better um which surprises me to say because i have all those unders that i had from before the season i think half of them are probably going to lose at this point but um i want to do some research i understand directionally what you're doing and it's correct because um the dolphins were getting three and a half and it moved down to three and at this stage of the week for that to happen that means it's sharp money. It's not, um, the public isn't betting on the dolphins and, and the Steelers on Monday night football yet. So, um, that to me means that we're, we're thinking correctly about the, the handicap for this one. Um, I just wonder, there, there are other games out there. Well, you left out the part that we've lost on the Steelers one way or the other, I think,

seven times this year. So let's, let's go back for more for four games under 500. Let's try to solve them. I have two more games. This is my second favorite game of the week, Packers, Broncos, Packers in Denver. Denver, I have them as six wins, zero losses, and seven either-eer games. Okay. Nobody has legitimately beaten them this year. So if they're a professional wrestler, it would be a lot of, like, rough countouts, somebody interfered with the match, but they haven't actually been pinned. And I really think this is the week. To me, like the, the, the if you're going to go over under regression for the pat's regression on the broncos the over under is one yep and i think the bet probably is to say over on both but i just think

the packers are better i don't think they care where they play and um i think they might have the best all-around team in the league right now that they could they could do the thing where they score 14 points and we're furious at ourselves i don't i don't I don't see it. I think they're good. I just think they go in there and roll. So it's schematically a matchup that really favors the Packers and really disfavors the Broncos. So the Broncos play single high safety and they also play man coverage.

And Jordan Love has been extraordinary against those two defenses. And on the other side, Packers love to play zone and Bo Nix gets lost in zone. I mean, we just watched Jalen Hertz. Yeah, good God, get lost in zone. I think it's similar. The only thing that gives me pause is each time the Broncos have played a team that is a step up in class, they've really been impressive. I mean, they beat Kansas City at home. They went to Houston and won.

Now, that was, you know, they knocked out C.J. Stroud. Yeah. They went into Philly and won. You know, the Dallas win was. was pretty legit. So I, that's the only concern, but I'm with you. I'm prepared to play the Packers here. So those games you listed that were their best wins.

Casey, team with a losing record. Philly, a team that's in a free fall. Houston, Stroud got hurt. They should have been in Indianapolis during a time when Indianapolis was playing well. Yeah. I mean, you can do this game with the Patriots, too. To me, this is like a weight class game.

I think the Packers are heavy weights, and I think the Broncos are light heavy weights. By the way, I think the Patriots might be light heavy weights, too, just for the record. Well, I totally agree with you, which is why I did that exercise of going through their schedule. Yeah, yeah. This is an uptick in class. How have they done when the class is up? But it's a different version.

This Packers team keeps showing us, and I have no problem at all with them on the road. And also what the bears were trying to do them last week and did to some degree as they held Parsons for three straight hours, which I'm sure 50 of those clips got sent to the NFL league office. Yes. I just don't, I just, I actually think that should have been a slightly different game.

Because the bears couldn't really throw the ball at all, you know, and they were running, running, and then every time they passed, it felt like Parsons was just getting mauled. All right. Last game, Chiefs Chargers. Nick and I talked about this earlier. I already tipped our hand on this. 17 degrees. Chargers offensive line on the road.

It's not even good at home. This is a classic Lombardi, bad lines, don't travel game. Chargers have been under 49 points. Their total games in every game since week seven. The Chiefs have six wins this year by 13, 15, 13, 31, 21, and 3. Only one of those games went over 48. And you could either do the parlay of Chiefs money under 48.5, which I think is a great bet and I'm going to probably do in real life.

Or you just smash the Chiefs at five and a half and think that they're going to get a lead. The Chargers aren't going to be able to block. The Chiefs need the game. Casey, it's going to be even hard to get a backdoor cover. can't block, et cetera, just ride the Chiefs minus five and a half,

which I think if we want to use that parlay option, we only have one in Ring or 101 7 on Seattle and the under to get that game in there, then it's just Chiefs, fuck it, Chiefs minus five and a half.

I much, much, much prefer that approach to this. Let's use the parley on Seattle because I think the Chiefs are, this is a smash spot. This is another one where I'm going to play alt spreads.

It's just a brutal spot for the Chargers coming off in overtime. Monday night game that was physical the whole time. And, you know, you mentioned that the pressure rate that the Eagles were able to mount was nearly 70%. They had seven sacks. And Herbert has one hand.

And it's going to be freezing, freezing. Yeah. And as it is, this Chargers team has not been good on the road. They got since the offensive line injuries. Also, California team in cold weather is another fun one. Right, right, right. Yeah. Smoke by Jacksonville.

You know, I don't think they covered against Tennessee. Barely won against Miami. Lost to the Giants. Just not a good team on the road. Is there a game we didn't mention that you think we should take? Because I'm ready to lock and ringer 107 right now. no the only other one that i'm kind of inclined um to to dabble is is probably carolina i did look at that one for them you know there's just Carolina and Baltimore

are both in the same boat which is it's revenge games they're both on the road um for both of those teams the um their their playoff fortunes depend on them winning outright so um and and you know unsurprisingly the line is the same in both games, basically. I did take a test drive of Browns plus seven and a half in Chicago in a 10-degree game, and I couldn't get there. No, I did stare at it for a split second. That's too many points, but I don't want to bet it.

And I also thought, I don't want to bet the Jets again after what happened last week. Never again. That's it for the season. But the Jaguars being favored by 13 and a half over anyone in the league gave me pause. Do you know the last time? they were favored by 11 points or more. Do you know this? I ran across this nugget in the research.

1998? Yeah, I mean, you're not that far off. It was 2007. The last time they were favored by 11 points or more. Wow. I didn't know their quarterback was. There was a Vikings, just that line's too high too. There were a couple lines where I'm like, wow, that's too high.

Cowboys minus six and a half against the Vikings when we don't know if CDs playing, the Vikings are pretty much back defensively now and look good last week. Three straight weeks of good defense. I thought that line would go down and it didn't. Yeah. And I would, I'll put it this way. I would never want to take Dallas minus six and a half.

So I looked at that one as well. Yeah. All right. Ringle 107, brought to you by Fandul sports book where we are not going to take either side of the Bill's Patriots game. I can't handle it emotionally. We're not going to take any game.

with House's commanders because he can't handle it emotionally. No, no. But we are going to take, we are going to take Seattle in a parlay minus six and a half under 48 and a half against 45-year-old Phil Rivers. Do I feel bad that it's an old guy that we're rooting against when we're too old guys and has to barely get through the podcast right now? No, I don't. What are you talking about?

You did make it. Yeah. There's one. Alphins plus three against the Steelers. We are taking Tua in cold weather in the ultimate Zag. People said they would never thought Simmons would ever do it. Take two in cold weather and especially with House as is consider area. But we said fuck it.

We did it. On Monday night, we're going to be so mad. The text to each other Monday night. This might be how you're going to fire me. It could be that, you know, it'll be Monday night. You didn't stop me? We'll need it. Yes, we'll need it to go three and two.

when you'll be like you son of a bitch I like how we did it though we couldn't come up with a single reason to take the Steelers other than the Steelers' favorite is always a disaster Yeah yeah all right so that's two Packers minus two and a half against the Broncos We felt like this was a heavyweight

Against the Light Heavyweight Yes Chiefs Chargers Thought about a parlay here but we're just going to Chargers don't 100% need the game Chiefs desperately need the game Chiefs offensive line. They needed, but the Chiefs are like their seasons over if they lose.

17 degrees, Chargers can't block, don't overthink it. And then last but not least, we kind of begrudgingly landed on Ravens minus two and a half in Cincinnati based on a lot of different reasons, including winner-go-home for Baltimore, Bengal season over, no T. Higgins, 18 degrees in Sinti would be the reason not to like this with Lamar, but maybe this is a smash game or it's Derek Henry being Derek Henry again.

Could, could have it. And I would just be surprised if the Bengals won this. Yeah. Like Hendrickson went on IR this week. No Higgins. They got their win. They got the win. The win that made everybody excited reminded everybody that Joe Burrow is Joe Burrow.

That was on Thanksgiving. That was their Super Bowl. And they almost validated it with a great effort against the bills in Buffalo. But now tough spot division rival. they always split the Ravens and the Bengals so this is the Ravens turn. That was the Ringer 107

presented by Fandoz Sportsbook online subject to change. Speaking of Fandoz Sportsbook, I mentioned this to Nick earlier, has the Oklahoma City odds dropping for the 74 wins. Oh my God. Remember it was like plus 670

where you're texting about it? What do you think it is now? Under 4 to 1. plus 235. Oh my God. That's horrendous. Plus 235 house. You know why that is, though.

It's because it doesn't matter if guys get hurt. Like, we talked about if Shay just was out for the season tomorrow, would they still win like 62 games? And the answer might be yes. I would definitely say yes. I'm a knock on wood. I hope that doesn't happen.

No, no, we don't want that to happen. I'm not going on wood, too. There was a couple of streets. things too including 29 plus games beating golden states 28 yeah that's plus 450 oh that's terrible not great ads you got to give me 10 to 1 on that at least it's only happened one nothing time them to beat the lakers 33 12 to 1 okay now you're talking now you're talking what is it now it's like 17 something like that yeah because their NBA cup uh They're minus $2.50 now for the cup.

They were a minus $1.35 for a couple of days, and it was the dumbest thing in there. Nobody's beating them in the planet. Do these games count for the streak? The cup games? Good question, House. I want to check with the sports book. I thought the final game didn't count. Right.

But it should. Yeah, that's an interesting conundrum. I like that. anything else you're noticing an NBA before we go? What do you guys have been talking about in the ringer and gambling show? That Lakers performance

there's two performances where I wanted more out of Miami against Orlando and the Lakers against the Spurs. Now glass half full and give Stefan Castle this huge tip of the hat that he deserves.

He took the game over. But at Lakers, you have no chance if you're not going to play defense. They just don't, they don't get out there. They don't rotate. They should be athletic enough, but they're not.

Game was awful. I think there's just a certain type of team that's going to give them a lot of problems all season, those young athletic teams. Nick and I talked about that. Have you been in the tree? Go ahead. Did you at any point during that game think to yourself how the Wizards didn't take Castle?

Even though most of the people, the ringer, thought he was the best. bet to be the best part in that draft? I honestly don't really think it was a big mistake taking SAR because he is such a one of one in terms of the size and the ability to make an impact on both ends. I like this. Yeah, I think he

might ultimately be... He might ultimately be like a very good defender. And you can see how well he moves out on the perimeter. I like Sart too. I think it's defensible. Yeah, defensible. That's That's right. With that said, I was pretty sure Castle was going to be the best guy in that draft. I mean, what would he be doing on Washington? How would that help him? He'd be one of your 19 guards. Right. How would he get better?

I want to know if you've been in the trade machine for Tyler Hero yet. You started that? For what? For you? No, for anybody. He came back, and Miami has looked bad. and there's something their their offense has glitched they don't play the call is always to Sacramento that's my first call from the GM back there hey you ever seen Tyler Hero play we've got a white guy that's a shooter

there was a story I never know what to believe with these stories that end up on like on hoops hype all these other places but there was a bonus to the Bulls buzz somewhere I don't know whether it was made up or what. Yeah. But it was just so funny that Chicago and Sacramento making another trade, it's like the two teams that just don't know what to do, they just kind of,

it's like these two people that keep hooking up when they know they're never going to date. Wait a minute. What do you mean? I remember those days. You do? A million years ago? It was a long time ago, but I remember those days. Would you try to trade subonis, trade for subonis?

That's an awesome question. And as you were describing it, and I think he could really help a couple teams. Honestly, no joke. I think he could help Miami. I mean, playing him with Bam? Yeah, yeah.

Because Bam likes to get the ball at the free throw line. They run that offense with him at the top. I thought, uh, make it high, low. The most interesting one to me would be a Clippers move. Oh, God. Zubots in it, like a Zubots hardened, you do that whole thing, and Subonis becomes basically the hardened replacement as like a focal point of the offense. That's just like, neither of us are going

anywhere. What do you think? One of those trades. The wildcard team for Sabonis would be Golden State, which would not help their defense. Oh, wow. But would be so interesting to watch him in a system like that. I do feel like there's a team for him that. That, could unlock a lot of the stuff that I like when I watch him. What about the Raptors? The thing that, you know, they, they've hurt, as usual, a bunch of guys missing games. I noticed the, it's, the fans have gotten quiet. Well, they're injured.

I mean, RJ Barrett and quickly, fans were loud, fans were loud. There was loud noises from Canada and it's now eerily silent. Well, because the guys are hurt. What do you want? They still have Ingram. They still have Scotty Barnes. I mean, you know. It's not like they were in a bus crash.

They missed a couple guys. Everybody has injuries. Those guys are pretty good. I'll say this. I have a couple, even though I just did a long NBA podcast with Mahoney. The one thing I thought about watching that Tuesday Raptors next game. When they have their five, that's the safest base. in the east, right?

Yes. I don't know if they're going to have their five in April and May. Yep. But if I just, if my life depended on it. Yes. So the Fendell agrees because they're plus 270. Yeah. I don't know what's going on with the Cavs.

But, you know, I don't think they could beat any of the top three teams, which Mahoney and I discussed from the West. But I do think they are clearly the class of the East now because of whatever the hell happened in the Cavaliers. Yep. Cavs have a deal or two yet to make. They have to do something. My team's down to 7-1 for the East.

This is part of the thesis for why. Did we all go over for Boston or at least two of the three of us went over? We had the right instincts with Boston and Indiana about the infrastructure and the guys who've been there. But Indiana just got immediately hurt 17 ways. And that was there. McConnell got hurt right before the season. Right, right, right. We top and got hurt.

That's a losing ticket. Yeah, that was too bad. Yeah. Yeah, it feels starting to feel a little Nixie coming out of the east. One of my questions, and this has been a big topic all week, is does anybody say fuck it and try to chase when OKC is looming at the end with a giant pickax? The other team I would have is Orlando. and this cup game of Nix Orlando, I actually think that would be what I would bet on

to be the East Finals, right? If you have any two matchups, I think that's the pick. Orlando's played the Knicks tough too. They went into Math and Square Garden and beat their ass. They just out-tuffed them. Bane's pretty good in terms of...

Yeah, Bain has quieted the skeptics of all those picks that they gave up. He delivered an attitude. And then Orlando didn't know... Little Dylan Brooks. He gave a little Dylan Brooks. brook's edge. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The problem is this team can't play 10 games in a row without somebody getting hurt. That's outrageous. Dating back to last year. It's outrageous. Did you hear

Mahoney and I talked about this because it was Zach's idea about just a hypothetical Palo for Yannis trade who would say no faster was a thought a really fun topic. Who else does Milwaukee get in addition to Palo? That's it. It's a one for one. I don't know do you want the brothers I'll throw on the brothers it's not terrible it's actually

you know do you want finassus and Alex they three for one that's a package deal but there'd be no doubt I thought it was a fun hypothetical it's interesting

I don't hate it the one team at all the ones with the assets the one team that could chase if they really wanted to is Atlanta they have a whole bunch of stuff they can do

can we talk about Derek Queen really quickly before we go? I'd love to. He's a DMV guy. Yeah. You've known him since forever. Baltimore High School area and then played the University of Maryland. Our boy, Jr., who's

one of the hottest AU coaches in the country. What's his high school now? No, he coaches high school. He coaches Paul the 6, which is nationally ranked every single year. But I thought he also did like a club team too, though. No, he doesn't really do that. Oh, he doesn't do that? All right, my bad, Jr. Is a full-time

job. Right. So he, Queen, he's forever. He has. He was on that team with Cooper Flag and he was a voice crying in the wilderness during the Queen trade like, hey, by the way, Queen's really good. I know they shouldn't have put the predictions on that pick. Or they should have put

protections on that pick. But yeah, have you seen Queen though? Of course. Yes. I mean, rooting for that kid. The only thing that was like a kind of question mark, there was a you know a sort of sentiment that he needed to grow up a tiny bit but

he's showing a level of professionalism in a situation where you really have to work hard yeah they have some of the guys that I like I think Murphy's a pro too they have pros in that team we'll see what happens they've got to move that team before we go we got to talk about

Bob Chesdingo and UCLA your guy well he i wasn't ever going to say anything but he kind of talked about it in a in a radio show or something he did about how i about how i started the whole process wow gave you yeah so now i have to tell the story he did um this was they fired whoever the coach was mid-september and my friend casey who's one of the people the ucla boosters in charge of trying to figure out who the next coach should be and he asked me he was like

any idea what we should do and sent me some names and I was like how do you not get the James Madison coach so I started bombarding him with stuff from when he coached our beloved Holy Cross

and how he completely transformed college football for us and as I'm doing this is like mid-September as I'm doing that James Madison just keeps winning and winning and winning True story.

And then I looked like a profit. Maybe they would have found him out anyway. But as they're looking at this, James Madison's going up and at some point it got serious. But yeah. Well, James Madison's now in the playoff. James Madison's now a 12 seed in the playoffs. Our guy Bob Chesding, who took Coley Cross to the semifinals.

He did that. Yeah, for sure. Deshaun Foster, that's who UCLA fired. Yeah. My single favorite thing so far, from Chesney. In addition to him giving you credit, that's amazing, is he's already saying like, hey, USC, you've got a little, you're a little comfortable. I know that you think that you own college football in this town. Just get ready. I love that. I'm really excited because

obviously I don't have a college football team other than Holy Cross who putted on college football except for when we had Bob Chesney. So I feel like legally I'm allowed to really adopt you. now, and I'm all in. It's where you live. Yeah, I've kind of wanted an L.A. team. We, like, we test drove the, the, when we got the king season tickets, my kids got into that, but I was still, I couldn't not root for a Boston team. That got weird.

I feel like this is pretty clean. I agree. Right? We never, neither one of it. I grew for Maryland because I grew up. You were for Maryland basketball, but, yeah, the football. And the football has been good, you know, like four or five times over the, no, man. I might, I might just.

be, I might just throw myself into this UCLA thing now. Go for it. I really want this to work. Who's going to stop you? Yeah. He's giving me partial credit. Men. But by anyway, Bob Chesney, UCLA. Congrats. And we'll see how it goes. Because they've tried to hire all these different coaches and they've done the Chip Kelly route. They did the, we, oh, here's an alumni who used to play for us. Right. Now it's like, hey, maybe we should just get an awesome coach who wins all the games that he coaches. An innovative coach.

Like, just look at a couple of times some of the offense the schemes that he puts in place. Yeah, and builds a culture around players. So anyway, I'm all in. Love it. UCLA, welcome me aboard. Pass you went in?

Are you going to move for him too? Maybe. We have to talk to Lewis. It doesn't Lewis root for you. Lewis is all in. I was telling Lewis in mid-September that this was in this was, I was like,

hey, you got to watch, watch what's happening with James Madison because that might be your next coach. Yeah. I bet he sent you a bunch of eggplant emojis. Honestly, Lewis is so far up Will Arnett's ass this whole holiday season. Just doing PR for Arnett and then Polar and he's got Jimmy. And I'm like a blip on his windshield.

I'm like a bug that hits his windshield sometimes. In view of what you just gave him, how much you improved his life. I mean, it's kind of immeasurable when you have a great football team that you root for. he's like I think he's 48 so he's the right age oh yeah like they're gonna get it's like when the paths just got Vrabel he's like the right age right time perfect fit and uh I'm really excited so for the UCLA fans like this is not a joke like Chesney like changed uh we we had given up on football we didn't care at all and never thought Holy Cross was going to care and he just went in and single-handedly transformed it yeah and it was unbelievable we went to the that semifinals who do we

play like South Dakota State or somebody and they, all the guys in that team were 300 pound offensive linemen. It was like a fucking pro team. And we, we competed for we competed. Yeah, we were hanging around. Yeah. So anyway, congratulations. Great job, coach. House, I hope you feel better. I hope

you don't get fired if our picks suck. You're the boss. Whatever you want to do. I'll be fine. Good to see you as always. Good to see. See you. All right. That's it for the podcast. Don't forget to listen to the rewatchables with shampoo. high fidelity coming on monday you have four days to watch that don't forget about the new max and rich podcast we launch game over they will have another one coming on friday i'm really happy we

launch that one i'm glad it's doing well as well uh and don't forget about music box whiz kid it is up go check it out uh that's it go patriots please for the love of god let's beat the I don't have periods with him. Must be 21 plus in President Select States for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino

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