The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Greatest Almost-Tie, Comeback Niners, Choking Colts, Sloppy Pats, and Round 1 Lines With Cousin Sal

Episode Date: January 10, 2022

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal to discuss the Raiders’ overtime win vs. the Chargers, the 49ers’ comeback win over the Rams, the Jaguars’ upset win over the Colts, and more (1:59). Then, to close the regular season they ask “Is this it?” for Russell Wilson in Seattle, Carson Wentz as a starting QB, Trevor Lawrence bust-talk, and more (41:29), before guessing the lines for Round 1 of the NFL playoffs (1:02:00). They close the show with Parent Corner (1:22:35). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Cousin Sal Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called 1-800-GAMBLER or visit RG-help.com. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I have a new rewatchables coming on Monday night. We did the 30th anniversary of Juice. You can check that out. I'm also on the Prestige TV podcast on Monday, breaking down Yellow Jackets' first nine episodes. That will be up, I think, Monday afternoon

range. They also put up a reaction pod to the first episode of season two of Euphoria. Joanna Robinson and Nora Pinciotti are on that one. And in general, the Prestige pod is going to be kicking it this week. I think we're doing five shows this week, including Ozark. And I think we are doing, what's that, Station 11? That one's happening. And then Chris Ryan is claiming that he and Chase Aran are going to do Mary Kingstown. So we'll see if that happens. Check that out.

Check out FanDuel Sportsbook, which again is now available for anyone who lives in New York. More details on that later, but congrats to all my friends in New York who finally get to gamble online. I'm so jealous of all of you. I wouldn't have been jealous of you this week because I couldn't win anything. My team couldn't win. Bets couldn't win. We couldn't get the greatest tie ever, but it was an awesome, awesome, awesome football night and just a bizarre day in general. We're going to break it down in one second with Cousin Sal first, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, we're taping this. It is 9.30 Sunday night.

Just watched one of the greatest random regular season games of all time. There was a joke all week that a tie on Raiders Chargers would lead to complete chaos. And we laughed and we laughed and we laughed. And a lot of things had to happen. All of a sudden, Trevor Lawrence is driving down the field on the Colts.

It starts to become a little more realistic. Money starts flying out of my pocket and yours. It doesn't matter. We're heading to Sunday night. And even as this game's going, Raiders are up 12. Seems impossible for there to be a tie. Field goal, 15. Touchdown, two point. Now game's going. Raiders are up 12. Seems impossible for there to be a tie. Field goal, 15. Hmm.

Touchdown, two point. Now it's seven. And then Herbert turns into John Elway in the last drive, 19 plays. Gets to overtime. They exchange field goals. Sal, at that point, just go for the tie, right? I didn't even understand what the Raiders were doing.

It was the weirdest game I've ever watched. You know, I was trying to, I was talking to, I don't know which friend I said it to. I said, but if this storyline was handed to Vince McMahon, he would have looked at the writer and said, get out of my office. You're fired. It's too over the top. Like it was ridiculous, ridiculous. And then 32, 29, and then 32, 32. And I was like, all right, they get a first down at midfield. They're going to, they have to just take a knee at some point. these timeouts were so long. There had to be a nod, some kind of exchange. And now I guess the timeout, the Stanley timeout was so curious.

I think it only changed everything for four seconds, but the Raiders would have punted. They would have gladly punted on fourth down with 28 seconds left, right? What the hell? Does this guy coach next year? What goes on? What did he do? He went for it on his own 16, fourth and four. What did we just see? So he calls the timeout. I think there's 38 seconds left. It's third down and four. And if the Raiders don't get it, then it's fourth down. I think they don't have to punt. They just, the clock, the game ends. Because the play clock resets. And then we just go. And there's no next play.

It's fourth down. They don't do anything. And the Chargers don't stop the clock. And we ended a tie and both teams go to the playoffs. It did seem like when he called the timeout, it made Pit Boss Rich, our guy, it made him kind of reconsider it. And I'm guessing he the timeout. It made pit boss rich, our guy. It made him kind of reconsider it. And I'm guessing he called timeout because he thought his defense was gassed.

I don't know why his defense was gassed. They weren't on the field for an hour during the 19 play drive. Yeah. But it did seem like it made the Raiders reconsider and the Chargers couldn't stop the run. But the guy still had to make like a pretty crazy 47 yarder. Like that was not a gimme. Nailed it. Do you,

and the chargers go home? I don't know what it was. It was like, all right, I hate the Stanley guy. I'm going to give it to him. That's pro our, our odds are good that this isn't going to get blocked and return for a

touchdown. So if he doesn't make it, we're okay. Either way, we're both going to the playoffs, but I don't know. I'd love to know what I want to hear from Versace. Like he's which good fellows characters.

He again, when they, when they go through the bar and he's which good fellows characters. He again, when they, when they go through the bar and they, he's in casino. He's, he's one of the guys that works for Don Rickles at casino. Oh, he's not the,

I got to get papers, the papers guy. All right. No, he foiled, he foiled the double buzzer scam and casino. I see. And they beat that one in the back room.

Yeah. I was trying to think what's the worst thing that could happen on the field goal with two seconds left. It would be a fumbled snap or whatever goes over, but the Chargers had already proven that they're going to fumble

any snap that has a chance to change their destiny. That was another crazy play. Awful. The Chargers tried to give this game away, I don't know, 130 different ways

and somehow we're still in it heading into overtime. They lose the toss, but yeah, I guess we would have felt without any other rooting interest, we would have felt without any other rooting interest. We would have felt worse for the Raiders had they lost, right?

The charges were down 29, 14 with four 40 left. And it was a valiant effort to come back and tie it up. But they were also kind of out of it. And then all the Raiders could have put it away at the end. If they sustained a normal drive. I don't know, man.

I don't know. Who's the full of shit team? The Raiders or the Steelers here? Because one of them is probably going to win next week. I somehow lost two bets because I had the Chargers minus three, which I did. It was a catch-up bet after getting annihilated today, which we'll talk about later.

But I also forgot I had a Chargers to make the playoffs bet that also lost. Oh, nice. I should have just hedged and taken the Raiders plus three. The Chargers, just a list of some of the things they did. Near the end of the first half, they have control of the game. They're up 14-10.

It's third and 23 for the Raiders. And the Raiders do the draw that everybody knows they're going to do a check down or a draw or Carr's going to do the thing where he just checks it downfield and tries to get a pass interference,

which he's the best in the league at. Third and 23 draw, the guy gets it. Carr's like to do the thing where he just checks it downfield and tries to get a pass interference, which he's the best in the league at. Third and 23 draw, the guy gets it. Carr's like, all right, next play, pass interference, where the pass isn't within 20 yards of where his guy was. Yeah, that was more grounding than pass interference. Yeah, it was terrible. So the Chargers, 17-14, they're down all of a sudden. They gave up two terrible pass interferences.

They had a bunch of big drops. They missed a field goal. They fumbled away the game-tying fumble when it was 29-22. The fumble's right there. All the guy has to do is fall on it, and they're on the 10-yard line. I don't know what he did, but he throws it back to the Raiders. But the worst one was

when they went for it on fourth down on their own 18. And the play call was bad. That's the thing. Herbert's got to have it himself one way or the other. Right? Like, never run that play on fourth and three. I don't care. If you're Derek Henry, I don't think I would do that. I went on Twitter just to get mad

because then the people have to do the percentages. Yeah, right. Of what I know is 35% winning if they punt or 35% if they went for it. And as we've discussed many times on the pod, that's all fine. But when you're running your five foot nine running back into the middle of the line, and I rewound it and free it. The Raiders had nine guys in the line.

So you have eight guys blocking nine and you're running backs five foot nine and they're all jumping the snap. They know what's coming. They hit the guy. He loses two yards. He's tackled two yards behind the line of scrimmage. That's not a good percentage play. If you're running a play into the heart of the defense that the other team knows is coming,

and you're on your own 18 and you're down three, that's idiotic. I don't care what the percentages are. Or, you know, roll Herbert out. Do play action. Do something. Do some sort of thoughtfulness, but you can't run Eckhart into the line. And the Raiders were controlling the line the whole game.

I think we're going to find out this Staley character owes $90 million to people, just bad poker debts throughout, just a gambler all the way through and somehow made his way i think he comes from dayton and made his way to the nfl but we're gonna we're gonna look back and see that uh oh yeah no this all adds up this is uh like you know when the islanders owner didn't have any money like this yeah this is just a guy there's just a guy who like uh just like gambles for a living

uh well no problem with me but we know he's full of shit because he hasn't stuck with this. He's the guy sitting in third base in Blackjack who bets against the 13 one time and then the next time he stays and then the next two times he bets against the 13. You're like, what's going on? What's going on over

there? He's like, nah, I'm just feeling it. I'm just feeling the cards. You worry about your Blackjack game. He's been all nah, I'm just feeling it. I'm just feeling the cards. You worry about your blackjack game. He's been all over the map this whole season, and it honestly was no surprise. Schrager and I talked about it Thursday, because I took the Chargers, and we laid out all the reasons not to take them, and it was like, minus three, this is a team that

gives away points, that does dumb things, that goes for fourth downs when they shouldn't, and this is easily the best team that's not in the playoffs. I mean, we have way too many teams in the playoffs anyway, but the Chargers are the most talented team that didn't make it. Am I right? Did you hear that? If you see it, Jaguars are very talented.

I mean, that one girl with the quarterback was like 13 for 14 to start. I don't know how you can say. Oh, good Lord. Yeah, no, this is more than exciting. I mean, imagine Chargers-Bengals would be like 44-42 or something. It would be fun. I know that didn't stack up. That wouldn't have been a game anyway, but yeah, the Chargers are going to give you

an exciting three quarters at least, although I have to say I was so drained by today. My team didn't even play. My team played last night and it was a game for like eight minutes and I was still drained. like eight minutes and i still drained i felt like there were two london games this morning one at 3 a.m and one at 6 a.m and i

stayed up and watched the whole thing like when it was 29 14 raiders i'm like i just let this go i can't win a bet let the we need to reshuffle the deck i gotta get to through the day i know we've made a couple card references here but we got to get to the new deck. And I don't know if week 18 is the answer. Everyone talk about that. I never want to say I don't like more football because I'm a football junkie, but I am so beat right now. So beat.

You must feel the same way. I do. And I want to talk about that because I have some thoughts. Let's put a bow in the Chargers thing. All right. So Herbert is extraordinary. about that because I have some thoughts. Let's put a bow in the Chargers thing. Herbert is extraordinary.

I honestly was watching when we were growing up, watching Elway in those games when Elway's just over and over again pulling plays out of his ass and throwing these 128-pound arrows. He wanted to go to fourth down. Just let me get to fourth down. I'll make it work. A most comfortable fourth down.

He was zipping. That touchdown he threw to Williams was amazing. Two of the fourth downs he threw were absolutely amazing. He's just so much fun to watch. He's so charismatic. That last drive, which tied the game in regulation, was 19 plays. I think they completed

four fourth downs. They weren't cheap fourth downs. They were like fourth and tens, fourth and nines. It was 126 seconds total. And then the second time we've seen this season, somebody complete a touchdown on the last play of the game from like the 12 yard line. That was the same situation as Detroit, Minnesota. And that time I actually felt like they were in a good defense and he just threw it 190 miles an hour, right to the one spot Williams could have caught it. So I was at, at,

by the end of regulation, I didn't even care about my bets. I was like, we got to get this guy in the playoffs, like just for entertainment. Well, yeah, it is entertainment sake.

I look, listen, he's, he's, he's excellent. He's going to be great. It could be one of the best, but it was 34 for 64.

It was a lot of, it was a lot of incomplete, incomplete, great throw on fourth down, third down, like that kind of thing. Well, it was like young Elway. Elway was like that. Elway would be terrible, and then all of a sudden, he would go eight for eight in a drive, and you'd be like, oh my God, that guy's amazing. But you're right. For entertainment value, he should be playing

in wildcard weekend, for sure. Well, how about the disparity of, instead of getting Herbert in there, we have Ben Roethlisberger who now snuck into the playoffs and now we have to watch him play quarterback in a playoff game. I was good with Roethlisberger a year ago, watching him have to play quarterback and he said, we got to watch him again. Well, don't worry. It's a night game. It's Sunday night. So we'll be doing this podcast at 815 instead of 940 next week. Yeah, is there a chance Ben was rooting for a tie?

Like, hey, let me go out on top. I don't want to go to Arrowhead again and lose by 30. This is my last game. Yeah, it's miserable for me. That's how I felt Steelers fans should be rooting for because they're not going to win four games and make the Super Bowl. I know you have to root your team along,

but they're due for an embarrassment. Let's talk about the Raiders before we talk about week 18 and how ridiculous all this is. The Raiders, I think I lost more money on them this year than probably any team in the last five years. Over and over again, they just stabbed me in the heart. I have no idea how they moved the ball. Josh Jacobs, every once in a while, looks really good. Like today he was good. Other games we've seen, he does nothing. They lost their deep threat, not even halfway through the season. Waller has barely been around the second half of the year and it's just over and over again. Waller two receptions tonight. I know. It's very reminiscent of that Flacco Ravens heyday where the chains are just moving

and you're not sure how it's happening. And it's like, oh, their offense is stalled again. No, Carr's got another 40-yard pass interference in him. Or no, it's some sort of misdirection run play and all of a sudden they're at midfield. Their field goal kicker never seems to miss. Awesome. And they never seem to have these back-breaking penalties

at the worst time. They've won a lot of dumb games this year, like against your team on Thanksgiving. Same thing. Dallas crawls back, gets to the coin toss. The Raiders win an OT. There's some sort of weird confidence that this team has. There's weird everything around this.

Yeah, it makes no sense. For and against this team. Yeah, I don't know. Besides you, they have a spot in Canton for him for sure. But no, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like between them and the Steelers, one of these full of shit teams is going to get there. I mean, you look at the 12 teams playing next week, six of them either lost this week or deserve to lose. I don't feel good about any of the quarterbacks.

But as far as the Raiders go, I don't have any idea how they're doing it. You just broke it down. Their defense has been good. Before the fourth quarter, their defense was good for like a month. It really was excellent. I mean, I think they allowed 16 points a game over the last four. So that's what kept them in it for sure, right? Incredible

pass rush. Over and over again. There was some stat. Crosby had eight fourth quarter pressures. Yeah, he's like this every game. He's just absolutely completely destroying the right tackle. It's car is somebody we've all made fun of. He's a guy that if you bet on him on the wrong week, you feel like the dumbest person alive. He's been mocked. He's kind of like a little bit like, uh, in that cousin's camp where if he's your quarterback, you feel like you can't really do anything. And yet he's way more successful you feel like you can't really do anything. And yet he's way more successful.

I'd rather have him a hundred times out of a hundred over cousins. You know, he does, the team really does seem to like him and he's got some weird confidence to him. That doesn't really make sense. It's not like he's that accurate. He made one great throw in that overtime.

That was that like a third and third and eight, third and nine. Yeah. That guy in that Jones in that overtime. What was that, like a third and eight, third and nine? Yeah, it was great. Hit that guy and hit Say Jones in the corner. Yep. Collinsworth said, not to pick on Chris, he was talking about all the adversity the Raiders had this year. And he said, if the Raiders pull this out,

I think it's going to be one of the great stories in NFL history. That's an exact quote. One of the great stories in NFL history. This is an exact quote. One of the great stories in NFL history. I'm like, you give me the last three years. Is it great, first of all, because you lost your coach in this fucking email scandal, and you lost your deep threat in a DUI murder. I'm not sure great's not the word I'd be throwing around,

but it's certainly one of the most bizarre stories. I don't know if i'll be telling my grandkids about 2022 raiders but it was such a weird thing to say well he was it was it's part of a great game one that i don't think i mean this game is right up there i think with uh dolphins chargers right 81 was that 89 but i think we'll remember i think it's right there but here's the thing sal It's more memorable if it's a tie. Oh, I know. I think the fact that the Raiders won. I think because even like doing the podcast title, the podcast title for this would have been the goat tie

or the greatest tie ever or whatever you want to say. We always would have remembered this tie for our whole life. And now it's just like, yeah, the Raiders won, then they lost in round one. Bizarre. And that's the end. But do you respect this Raiders team? Are you confused by them?

Are you afraid to wager against them? Because we're going to do round one playoff games a little bit. Have they officially scared you off or you wouldn't even want to go against them in a tease or anything? I respect Carr. I'm confused by the rest of the team and how they're doing it, except when they're laying it out on defense, which, like I said, they did for the majority of the game. It was 29-14 in the pretty much midway.

It was a six minutes left. It was 29-14. They did a great job controlling Herbert. Big plays for sure. But I'm trying to think. If they had won, if they had lost, would they have played the Chiefs? I'm now so confused by this. Was there a chance they were going to play the chiefs? I think they would have played the chiefs if Pittsburgh was out on a tie. Not if they had lost, if they had tied,

what they don't want to play the chiefs. Yeah. I think if they tied, they went to the chiefs. Yeah. So they probably, that's probably why they kicked the field goal now that I could be wrong, but I really think they were going to Arrowhead if they had tied. I don't know. Instead, they're playing the Bengals, a team they could absolutely 100% beat. It's completely

realistic to me. Pit Boss Rich, this guy, man. I have some new gambling rules, but let's take a break, and then I'm going to drop some new gambling rules, but let's take a break and then I'm going to drop some new gambling rules on you. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl,

but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. All right, new gambling rules. Speaking of gambling, FanDuel now legal in New York. Yeah.

We have a lot of listeners in New York and I have some people in my life who are like, so I signed up, I got some bonus thing and I was just making crazy bets on Saturday. It was unbelievable. I was in my apartment hiding from people and just making bets.

And I have a lot of people in my life who are just dumbfounded by how great this is. Same here. My buddies all in New York all took the $1,000 risk-free bet, blew through it within hours. I think like North Dakota State, most of them was. Or actually, they bet against. But yeah, it made me think of moving back there. Like California's got to get their shit together. Or I'm moving back there like california's gotta get their their shit together i got or i'm moving back there i may have to sell this house anyway after this week but

uh i'm thinking of moving back just just to be able to do this on my phone like a real person it was legitimately the first time in my life and i'm 52 years old that i actually got jealous of people who live in new york because i've never wanted to live there at any point but now i'm like oh well if i live there at least gambling would be legal. And it goes on during a pandemic. Like this is, oh, well, good things are happening during a pandemic. Wow. We could open kind of shit up that where you just don't have to leave your house.

Like just get it going here, California, everywhere else. Well, God forbid. I mean, we're doing great. We're rolling in money over here. It's going awesome in California. New gambling rules. I have four new ones just from this weekend. First one, don't bet on football if you have COVID.

This is the first time I've ever had COVID. I won the Chiefs in a parlay that I ended up losing today. I lost every single bet I made today. I made five bets. I lost all five. With COVID, you feel like it's, you feel like you're at high altitude all the time. You never feel like you have quite enough oxygen, a little hot. Like you can see my face is red. Like I'm at the tail end of it now,

but it just felt surreal. Just getting kicked in the balls, but not sure if it's happening or not. So I'm never, if I get COVID again, which probably will be six months from now, I'm not making football. I probably, I don't think I have it. And I guarantee I made exactly the same bets as you. So I don't know if you can blame COVID. You are a week ago bragging about how you didn't get it. The whole family's got carried. My wife has got it.

Like, Oh, you might have like 48 hours. And then that should have been one of my, my next gambling rule. Don't brag that you haven't gotten COVID yet. It's somehow my daughter still didn't get it. And now my mom isn't talking to me anymore because I joked on the phone that she gave all of us COVID.

Oh, really? And my mom's Italian. You have the Italians in your family. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And now my mom's mad at me and will not return texts or calls. Oh, man. That's my life right now. If I could get COVID and my mother wouldn't text or call me,

I might take that. What do I sign? I don't know. I'll give you some tips after the podcast. Next gambling rule. Don't bet against Pip Boss Rich. I'm done. Every time they show him on the sidelines,

I feel uncomfortable that I went against him. Right. I'm not doing it anymore. Does he get three more? Does he get a contract? Does he get three more years? What do they give him though? They're not going to give him.

What Rich Versace has done is honestly one of the greatest things I've ever seen from an American man in this century. It's amazing. To go 10 and 7, it's just up there with inventing electricity. Can we get rid of

President's Day and just have Rich Passaggio's day? Come on. What are we doing already? What do you do, though? You can't give them. I mean, any coach is one email away from being fired. You can't give any of these guys five years. Two years?

Two years for Rich. All right, I guess so. Well, speaking of Rich, by the way, what was it like for Gruden watching this game? You know, I was thinking about that. Does Gruden watch? Did Urban Meyer watch today? Did all these guys, all these guys that did, did Vic Fangio? Oh, no, wait.

He was fired after yesterday. We'll get to that. But yeah, I don't know. I think they do watch, right? They have it in their blood. They're not all of a sudden going to go fishing at eight at night on the, on the, on the East Coast. I guarantee Gruden watched.

And he was probably furious they didn't mention him the whole telecast, which they didn't. I don't know if you noticed that. There was no point that they were like, I know Al, I know he left in disgrace and I know he's never coaching again, but John Gruden put this team together.

There was no moment like that. He wasn't acknowledged. Is he rooting? He's rooting against the Raiders, right? If he's watching? Yeah, he's probably. I don't know. He's got relationships with Carr and some of those people. Like, I bet he feels probably like at least 50% vindicated.

I know. I laid the blueprint and now we're in the playoffs and I could have been there. He might have thought that. But then when the gushing for Versace comes out, he might be like, Whoa, what happened here? And he's like,

Pipas rich. It's he was a race from history in this game. He was not mentioned at least for more. I watched the whole game. I don't remember being right. It was like, I've been watching a man in the arena, which I told you the Brady thing.

And in the fifth episode, which is when they lose the second giant Superbowl Hernandez, there's no way to avoid having Hernandez in there. Right. He made like some big catches. Um, they never mentioned him. There's a couple of plays where he catches touchdowns and you could tell

they edit the announcer saying Aaron Hernandez. It's like over the middle touchdown. And then there's just silence. And they, they did as much as they could to make it seem like he wasn't on any of those teams. Wow. It felt a little bit like the Gruden thing. I have two more gambling rules for you.

I'm sure you're going to agree on this next one. Don't ever put Carson Wentz in a big money parlay when he's like minus 400 or more. Just ever in the rest of your life. Not even XFL? Would you limit it to NFL, XFL, any league, any football game? Maybe just don't ever put a 16-point favorite in a Moneyline parlay. I don't know.

But yeah, in general. But yeah, Carson Wentz, he was bad. And I saw that stat and I sent it to you. We had a great text chain going all day. It was probably 500 texts from 10 a.m. on. And I was like, Carson Wentz, did you know he hasn't thrown an interception on the road all year? Oh, there it is. Oh, and there's another one.

They got murdered. It wasn't even close. I put it on. I thought the Pats were playing the early game, and I was so upset. Because I was like, fuck, all these games suck. When Rodgers went out of the game, Wentz was the best quarterback out of the 12. Yeah, it was the bad quarterback prom.

Yeah, right. Yeah, and it was like, what am I going to watch? I'll make sure the Colts get a lead. Lawrence goes down. He's like eight for eight. The same guy I watched a week ago. We beat him 50 to 10. They looked like the worst team I'd seen in like five years. Football's so stupid.

I know. And then on the other side, the Colts, it was like they just didn't want to let Taylor take the game over. And then Jacksonville's defensive line actually was pretty good. I don't know where that came from. Yeah. And then Wentz did the rest as soon as it was down 10. Yeah, the other Josh Allen had a million sacks on every play. So the Colts, they gave up their first rounder for Wentz.

It seemed like if you're going to make the playoffs, the upgrade from a second to a first to be in the playoffs, like House was going to bet on them to win the AFC if they made it. I think people there was like a little friskiness with them. Now they're not even in the playoffs, but now they lose their first rounder. And then

if you're Philly, you make the playoffs, you get this Indy pick, and then if you're Philly, you make the playoffs, you get this Indy pick, and then they got another awesome pick. They freed up $132 million. That was the big thing for Philly. And they have three first round picks in the top 20, which is nice.

But yeah, the Wentz thing. This is twice now. Yeah, that was awful. I don't even know what to say. I just kept thinking they would come back. And Jonathan Taylor, probably not winning MVP.

Frank Reich, probably not winning coach of the year. Yeah, we're going to cross them off. Freaking awful. And why did we put them on a parlay?

When you look at the parlay, what did it make us? Like eight cents more? For $100? It juiced it from, you know, not that much. It's definitely not that much. It makes you feel better because if you're betting like $100 and it's $83, but if you throw the Colts in,

now it's 100 to win 100. And you're like, oh, cool. Oh, the Colts will win. But by the way, how did the Colts not win? They had to win the game. It wasn't like they were in the playoffs. They're playing the worst team in the league. And there's a reason they were favored by over two touchdowns.

It was ridiculous. But then you start watching it. It's outdoors. It's a little wet and humid. Wentz is doing Wentz stuff. They have injuries on the Colts on the defensive side. And Lawrence actually got in a rhythm. Lawrence looked pretty good.

No, but you you said it though like if the Jags lost to the your Patriots by 10 last week there'd be moment of pause right but yeah 50 to 10 or whatever it was um really seems like a team that quit how do you rebound from that that's Freddy Krueger bullshit like that's how did they how did they step back up and play like a lot of these teams just came came to life we'll get to the lions too because that at least if the one glimmer that was nice thing was me you and house had that the lions would have the worst hour too yeah and the jaguars like oh my god they're like it's wide open for us right and then detroit a furious

fourth quarter rally like they played like men to beat the Packers. That matters. A division win against the Packers without Rodgers. And we lost that one too. Yeah, I lost two futures that were kicks in the balls. The Lions' worst record, which really came down to that Jared Goff play against the Vikings. And then today, the Jaguars are winning. And if Burrow's in this draft or Trevor Lawrence is in this draft or whoever,

and there's a franchise guy to be had, I don't think the Lions are going for it like they were against the Packers. The GM's probably running on the field like Shooter from Hoosiers to try to get a 15-yard penalty to send the thing back. You've been telling me there's no consensus. You got to take this guy first. It doesn't really matter. So they're like,

fuck it. And they went for the win. And then, you know, I was thinking about Rogers with the MVP. How cool would have been if Rogers had taken off the headset and it's like, fuck it. I'm going back in with like a minute and a half left to try to like,

go get the win. Like just to add to the MVP thing. But now he's just sitting there watching Jordan Love. He likes Jordan Love being terrible. Oh, of course. Of course, yeah. He loved it. It really became his year after all that.

I don't know with Jacksonville. I mean, really, were we supposed to think, no, no, it's going to be the fourth game after Urban Meyer leaves. That's when they come to life. That's the fuck you game. Stupid.

Yeah, well, the Jags game did a couple things. It made the Pats game weirdly less relevant for the Pats because the one thing the Pats really cared about was not falling to seven. And as soon as the Colts lost, that was out the window. So they were going to be five or six and it's Bills or Bengals.

And I think it affected them a tiny bit. But that's dumb too. The Bills were up like 7-3 most of the afternoon. What were the Patriots doing too? I don't understand. The Pats were just bad. We'll talk about them in a second.

But yeah, the Colts thing, it affected a whole bunch of stuff. Well, the one thing that Trevor Lawrence did, it showed you how bad, and plug your ears if you don't want to hear any Mac and cheat jokes here, but it's not even a joke, but in one game, he proved he's as good as any of the five, right? Yeah, he did. All we need is one game. Like, oh, okay. Just step up for 6% of the season. He did. Last gambling rule for me. I don't think I'm betting on McVay against Shanahan again.

Yikes. It really seems like he's got his number down. This is six straight times. This one was on a platter. It was 17, nothing. Jimmy's hand didn't even look right. The Rams had the ball the whole first half.

And then I was watching the paths. I forgot. All of a sudden it was 17, 10. I don't even know what happened. And then the Rams, that was it. Stafford started being weird. They couldn't run the ball anymore. And it. All of a sudden, it was 17-10. I don't even know what happened. And then the Rams, that was it. Stafford started being weird. They couldn't run the ball anymore.

And it seems like McVay just can't get Shanahan. Yeah, it was like three games, right? Rams up 17-0. They look great. 49ers tie it. Like, okay, I'm just waiting for the 49ers to win by like 13 now. But then the Rams, I mean, they're up 7.

You got the kicker punting from the end zone, right? Gould was punting from the end zone with a minute 40 left, down seven. And they couldn't put it away. But that's the issue

with having someone show as you're running back. Our fear with them was always, can they put leads away? Can they put games away? And that's like,

that was a good example, right? And it still went to overtime. And Stafford, I think, had, I think he had the open mat. Like, he just underthrew it. I think that might have been a touchdown. He was looking at example, right? And it still went to overtime. And Stafford, I think, had the open mat. He just underthrew it. I think that might have been a touchdown he was looking at there if he didn't throw the pick to end the game.

Well, the more egregious is how does Debo get a 55-yarder when he's down seven? Right. In the last minute of the game. I'm positive that's the one guy who can't get open. Yeah, it was 41. He's so damn good. They hand the ball to him, and he's good for seven yards

and then another 12 after contact. I don't think I've seen anything like it, certainly not from a wide receiver. What do you think of a rule, no ties in Week 18? No ties? Yeah, I was thinking that. No ties. When it was on.

It's like, keep it going. No ties. It's the last week of the season, you have to have a winner in the games, and then we avoid the tie situation. So I do think in the wrong hands, we could have seen two teams just completely tank that overtime. By the way,

there is now, because we're doing this 20 minutes after the game, there's now Eckler's talking to a Raiders player, Raiders player telling him, hey, we were going to run the clock out before you called timeout.

Maybe he's screwing with him, but you got to see Eckler's face here. Ah, what the hell was that? Oh, the Raiders told Eckler that? Yeah. Oh, no. 47 on the Raiders.

Oh, my God. Well, the Niners were the biggest winner of the day because not only did they bully their way into the playoffs, they're going to play your team, which we're going to talk about a little bit later. But a gutty win. And Jimmy G's been in big games.

He's, as they said over and over again during that game today, he came within one throw of taking the lead in the Super Bowl with two minutes left. It's not like he hasn't done it. I was really impressed with him in the second half. Playing hurt. Seems like his teammates are pulling for him, and it seemed like he got his mojo back. Did you feel the same? Yeah, I did.

Especially against his Rams defense, which I don't understand. Numbers-wise, they had been excellent the last month or so. It kept them in games because Stafford had six turnovers in the last, the two previous games before this. And then what? Two more today.

So that defense really kept them in special teams, kept them in. And I was like, all right, they're going to salivate at either a green Trey Lance or, you know, Jimmy G with a bum thumb. And it's like I said, it was like three games in one, but he really didn't give up. He gave right to him, like right down their throat. Didn't even give a crap. And then that defense, they were in a lot of trouble,

that Rams defense. I don't know. I don't know what we call it. I don't trust any quarterback this week. I really don't. Well, I was thinking with Jimmy G. Mahomes, but that's it. Yeah.

That was the rare case of a quarterback saving his job, maybe. Because if they lose that game, he's not coming back next year. They're probably going to turn it over to Trey Lance, right? But now you saw why they were so afraid to turn Week 18 to Trey Lance. And they took their chances with Garoppolo, who had a bad thumb. Well, there's some gray area. If the Cowboys beat them up next week, which I'm not saying...

Then maybe it flips back. Yeah, maybe it flips back. Strangest season, Pittsburgh or Vegas for you? I mean, Vegas had the strangest from the storylines, but the fact that Pittsburgh is in the playoffs is just inconceivable to me. I never thought... Oh, Al.

Al, I just never thought ever watching this team that this was a playoff team, Al. Al, I just never thought ever watching this team that this was a playoff team, Al. I hate watching the Steelers. I hate them. It's the same shit. If they get the 20 points, it's a miracle. I mean, maybe it's not Ben's fault. Maybe it's the offensive line,

but they always have 58 yards passing at half, and the other team struggles to score 20 because they do some dumbass shit. And I just think they're beating up on broken down quarterbacks and getting lucky. And like I said, I'm not even sure Roethlisberger wasn't rooting for that tie. I think he's had, he might

have had enough and now they have to go to Arrowhead. But, um, well, the way the announcers react to Ben, your son's playing eighth grade. Is it T-ball or are they actually, they're pitching to him now, right? No, no, no. Yeah, he's playing. Not eighth grade. Yeah, eight-yearball or they actually, they're pitching to him now, right? No, no, no. Yeah.

He's, he's playing. Not eighth grade. Yeah. Eight year old. I mean, eight years old. Um,

when anything good happens in a baseball, the parents overreact. Oh yeah. That edge like, Oh, great play, Timmy. Yeah.

That's how the announcers are reacting. Roethlisberger is throwing like 10 yard outs. Right. Like third and seven. And it's, and he's like, Oh, Oh,

what a throw by Ben. It's like, that is a basic 12 year throw. Grandpa, grandpa went on the roller coaster at six flags. Oh, wow. It's ridiculous.

It's like the family softball game when like your, your grandfather comes in and he was able to hit it the third day. Oh, grandpa still got it. Right. He's really bad. It's a one-time thing. Don't,

we don't have to keep watching it. He's really bad. It's a one-time thing. We don't have to keep watching it. He's really bad. And I guarantee his receivers are like, wow, if I could get through this season without having a serious head injury or some sort of vertebrae injury from these passes that are wobbling up in the air, I'm jumping into three guys.

They must be so nervous getting through the season. I don't know how he won that game. In the rain and everything. Oh, my God. And they were down. Right. And the Ravens, like, it wasn't, you know, the Ravens, if they won, it wasn't, like, inconceivable

they could have made the playoffs. Mm-hmm. I mean, it was a little inconceivable. All right, can we talk about the Week 18 thing? Because I'm with you. The season was too long. I think part of the reason it was so hard to bet, I like to tell myself that I'm not just

terrible at betting and that you're not terrible at betting. The rollercoaster ride of how long this is and there's no streaks and between the length of the season and the COVID, there was just no rhyme or reason to any of this. And not even like in a fun way necessarily. It was just shaking the snow globe every week and watching where the flakes go. It really feels too long. I don't like it. If we're going to go 18 weeks, I would have gone maybe 16 games instead of 17 with two buys for every team. This is ridiculous. These teams have had seven different story arcs during the season. I mean, you look up and it's rare to see both teams with their starting quarterback and you don't even know.

And then some of them are like, oh, maybe this guy should be the starting quarterback. I don't know. Gardner Minshew. Let's see a little more of you or whoever. But here's one thing I think hurt because, again, I don't want to go again. I'm not going to root against less football, but 18 does right now seem longer. But it might just because it's the year it's just the first year right if like your boss adds a half hour to the schedule you know like and you're

leaving at 6 30 instead of six like oh my god this is crazy but in a year it might be like yeah whatever we're used to it i don't like back ending the uh backloading the division games like i don't think that works anymore it really every division was settled unless it was Buffalo, New England, and they didn't play each other this week. Bills played the shitty Jets and New England played the shitty Dolphins who they have trouble beating. But other than that, I mean, they got really lucky that the Chargers and Raiders meant anything.

Otherwise, they would have been screwed for a Sunday night game. And here's the other thing. If you add games, the division is more likely than not going to be established by week 18. If you go 25 games, the better teams are eventually going to pull away earlier on. So you're left in a situation where you're going to have two teams. Yeah, sure, they're rivals, but they're not going to give it their all. So I think that is a problem. I don't even like it.

When the Cowboys play the Eagles and it's like, oh, they could play him again next week. I hate that shit. People like that. Like, yeah, Niners and Rams could have played again two weeks in a row. I'm like, no, I like that. I want to mix it up. I'm with you.

I would look at it like succession, 10 episodes. It was actually nine this season because of COVID, but it was 10 episodes. And if HBO said, man, that was great. Succession went awesome. We're going to make it 13 episodes this season. Eh, 10 was good. 10 was the right amount. I felt sad when it was over. I didn't take it for granted. It wasn't too much. This feels like too much football. I can't believe I'm saying that. It feels anti-American, but the season just feels like forever. And we're heading into these playoffs, and I don't feel like we have any great teams.

I don't feel like the 17 games and the 18 weeks really solved anything. I'm not even sure what the number one seed did. Tennessee got the number one seed in the AFC. Does it mean anything? Do you feel better for them? I don't know. Here's the other thing. Also, almost another like the Saints would have gotten in.

If we had the Saints and Steelers in, okay, there's too many playoff teams. Had it ended last week, what would it have been? Like the Colts and the Chargers would have made it? Right? Would that have been the... It screwed up the records.

Brady threw for 5,000 yards. Now he did. the records are, I guess he did. I was cup had this, this, and this is like, all right,

but he had one more game than everybody else. Well, but the only, that's the only thing I'll say is we get used to anything. Right. So when they changed the record, the games to from 12 to 14 and then 14 to 16, after a few years,

we didn't give a shit about the records and who played how many games like, uh, you know, and even when Romo's record was broken uh the other night and i was like why the hell is dac still in this game i was bummed out because i love romo but i was like ah you know what this is just how it's going to be for now what am i going to hold on to i mean 14 games probably wasn't enough i remember there was a pats team i'm gonna say it was like the 77 pats and they went like nine and five or 10 and four and they didn't make it. There was less playoff teams,

but it was just like, wow, we're, we went nine and five. We were good. Like, how did we not make it? Yeah.

So I'm glad they added the playoff teams, but, um, I don't know. 16 was the right number. I think we're all good with it. I, I'm sure there's people out there.

There's a no, no, it's great, but it felt like the fantasy was weird. It seemed like every week that went by, more guys got hurt in the fantasy, too, and fucked with that. Amon Ross St. Brown

became the most important receiver in the league of the Super Cup. My oldest son was screaming when he scored a touchdown. I was like, oh my god, this is week 18 and you still have fantasy? One of those stupid free ESPN leagues where there's two-week finals and stuff. week 18 you still have fantasy one of those stupid free espn leagues with us two-week finals and stuff like how do you still have it going let's uh let's take a break i want to play a game of is this it all right so is this it you did this last year

carson wentz is this it is You did this last year. Carson Wentz. Is this it? Is he a starting quarterback anymore? Man. Yeah, I think he is. I think he probably is too. There's some bad started quarterbacks. Yep. I think he comes back. Does he come back to Indy?

Yes. I don't know why. I think they're all in on him. I think they got unlucky with close games, and they don't want to blame him. He'll look at his stats. He'll show you that, like I said, he was a warrior on the road,

and that's a shit division. I think they stay with him at least another year. I don't remember if I've made this point on a podcast before. I was thinking the Andrew Luck abruptly retiring. Yeah. Might have been the most underrated NFL story of the last 10 years. That's so funny. I was thinking about this the other day. Kyle, turn the camera on. Let's talk about this. Kyle fell asleep.

No, I think Kyle fell asleep in the third quarter of the Chargers. Think about it. What was he like? He was like the sixth best quarterback in the league, the seventh best quarterback in the league. They had this offensive line. They had this thing.

They had the salary. They were paying him. So it knocked them. It hurt them salary for at least a year or two, but also like he's way better than Carson Wentz. And you think like what, since he has with Burrow, what the Chargers have with Herbert,

like fuck what the Patriots might have with Mac Jones. And they had it with luck and he goes. And ever since then, they've been chasing this quarterback thing. And now this year with Wentz, like, they go 9-8. That wasn't a 9-8 team. No. And Wentz was Wentz and Tua were, you know, if you were winning despite those guys,

you weren't winning because of them. And if Luck just physically doesn't take the beating that he took those first few years because they didn't have any linemen, because Ryan Grigson was such a bad GM, maybe he's still there and maybe that's the favorite in the AFC right now. It's such a weird what if that I don't feel like you and I have talked about once on this pod. Well, let's ask. We'll take you now to the comments of one Andrew the Giant Luck. Andrew, is it, was in fact the offensive line

woes that made you retire and quit wrestling forever? Well, you know, I don't want to blame anybody. I think sometimes football, when it's time, it's time. It's just

my time, and I'm not gonna blame anybody but yeah it'll be nice to be out there i i'm at it i'm out of practice there you go and you will see andrew the giant luck at the allentown fairground oh no we'll never see him again where is he he's he's done a great job of just amazing just like kind of fading into the sunset i bet he has a great life i'm sure he's like he made some money he had a great time but man bet he has a great life. I'm sure he was like, he made some money. He had a great time. But man, he was a lot better than Carson Wentz was. He really did.

Marvin Hagler. That's what I'm going to do. Nobody will ever see me again. Joe Judge, is this it? Well, I don't get it. You have some Giants fans in your life, right?

Yeah. They're furious at Joe Judge. Oh, they hate him. Did you know tickets, the cheapest ticket at MetLife was $6? And I said it to our friend Brad. He's like, really?

It's too much. I still wouldn't go. $6 for a ticket at MetLife to see that crap team. There were pictures online today on Twitter of the parking lot, and it was just completely empty. That parking lot at MetLife, that's usually a shit show.

I mean, part of the problem was they built that stadium right before they kind of figured out how to build modern football stadiums. So it's not fun to go there. It's a pain in the ass to get there. And then the team's awful. It's not fun when it's third and nine and you're doing a quarterback sneak from your own six. That's not fun either.

But we're going to see Zimmer get fired. We're going to see Nagy get fired. Joe Judge. But no, I don't know. Like these guys are going to go and maybe Pete Carroll, but Joe Judge is going to see Zimmer get fired. We're going to see Nagy get fired. Joe Judge. But no, I don't know. These guys are going to go and maybe Pete Carroll, but Joe Judge is going to keep his job. You think he's gone? I think they do keep him.

Giants organizations. But I don't know how you fire the GM and not the coach. I think you fire everybody. I think you start over and you have Parcells and Francesa. Whoa. Oh, great. I think you bring them in as co-GMs. Nice.

In the car keys for two years. At least the press conferences would be fun. Yeah. And don't they co-own a horse? They could bring the horse and ride the horse into the sidelines.

Francesca give press conferences. I was talking to Bill. This is a humongous, humongous draft for us. It's humongous. Yeah. The Giants fans are out on Joe Judge.

They've had the worst half decade of any team in the league, which is saying something. Even the Jaguars were in the playoffs a couple years ago. And yet, in Man in the Arena, they win two of the episodes. And I'm still fucking pissed about it. I mean, did we see, hadn't you that we were all trading texts about the Giants? Why are we not betting this?

I mean, they've had their last 12 games, the first half. They have 0-3-3, 0-0-3-3-7-3-3-0. Like, what are we doing? We got to be smart about this. After seven of those games, we should be betting them. They have the fifth pick and the seventh pick. So this is a nice job for a GM.

I would not trade anything for Russell Wilson. No. I would. I think there's some good kind of mid-level quarterback signings out there. You know, there's got, there's this year's versions of like the Wentz kind of trades, but I think there's better versions of those guys.

Like if Jimmy G is available over the, over the winter, he's a better option than anybody who was an option last year. Sure, if you can't get Aaron Rodgers, and you don't want to draft, I think that's just the type of guy you want. Well, Joe Judge got annihilated by Sally Jenkins, who is the best old-school newspaper columnist for sports

in the country right now. And she just annihilated him. She's great at these 1,100-word annihilations, and she really did it to Joe judge. Next one for this. Is this it? Russell Wilson in Seattle?

Yeah, I do. I do think he goes somewhere, somewhere else. Uh, and I don't know if it'll be a good move. New Orleans, like Cleveland or New Orleans or something like that.

I can see that. Cleveland would be interesting. I know. I think that's too small of a market for him. What about Pittsburgh? I think he goes, it's funny. I would have said Vegas,

but now if you're Vegas car seems like, uh, he's got that whole locker room. It seems like they love him and he's playing. Well, I don't know if they're going to be looking for a new quarterback. I wonder like, do we,

I know it happened like with Gretzky and like, but, but whenever you're like, oh, Rodgers, Rodgers might go to Pittsburgh, might go to Denver. It's like, oh, his girlfriend doesn't want to live in Denver.

You wonder with Russ, oh, Ciara doesn't want to live in New Orleans. Does it matter? Does that ultimately matter? Have we seen that become a big thing? Yeah, they're five months.

Yeah, right. Oh, I forgot about Denver. So Denver would be the one for Russ because that team was actually I thought they had some talent. They had an awful offense coaching situation, which was what a weird thing, though. I just was talking about like quitting on your coach. The Broncos should have won that game. They should have beat the Chiefs. That fumble six was ridiculous.

They were about to go up. I think two scores. It didn't seem like a fan. Joe is probably not the answer. He lost 30 games in three years, but it's weird that they didn't quit on him. Right. Like there's something to be said about that.

And I don't know what it is. Sometimes people are bad at hiring. Yeah. You know, and like he hired a bad offensive staff and they watching their offense was just painful. Believing that drew lock was going to do it. I mean, Drew Locke, that was the best he's ever played yesterday,

and they still almost didn't win. Maybe only 20 men or women in this country are able to coach. Like, we know somewhere between 26 and 28 men are able to be quarterback for a team. Maybe it's even fewer that could head coach, and Fangio could be a great defensive coordinator or something for the, for the bears. Like go back, go back to wherever it doesn't matter. It'll be a great DC. Well, it's like how many people can be an executive producer of a late night television show. It is like that. It's okay. It's kind of

like that. I don't even know where you're getting that. Oh, the whole Fallon thing. I know what the hell you're talking about. I'm just throwing some bait at you. You're just having fun. You're having some COVID fun. COVID chuckles. Is this it for me and gambling? I might have to retire. I have four rounds left

to turn it around. You better not. I got crushed. Believe in the Patriots. Is this it for the Trevor Lawrence bus talk? I think it is. He showed me enough today where I'm like, all right, let's throw away this season, which I felt this way anyway.

But I think we have to go into the offseason and say, throw it out. Ridiculous year. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. He had no weapons. But if you watched him manage the game today, there was enough there that made me think there's something there. I agree.

I just don't know why there weren't three or four games like this. Right? It's just weird that it was only one and it was the last one. I guess he had a couple of decent ones, but this was a- Is this it for Trey Lance and San Francisco potentially? I think we have to wait a week. Like I said- What if they make like the NFC title game?

What do you do with Trey Lance at that point yeah that's rough does he become like a trade asset I don't know I think so is this it for Baker Mayfield yes

yeah I could not tell the difference between him and Case Keenum Case Keenum yeah I had I was watching on DirecTV that channel

that has the four games at once and he was in the small TV and there was no discernible difference whatsoever between Baker and Case. Well, they won at the end of the game. They were celebrating. I guess. No, there was a discernible difference.

Jarvis Landry a couple of times made a cut and the ball arrived where the fans were. So I guess that was the one difference. We talked about this. I think Baker did himself a disservice. He was playing with an injury. He played through it. He should have just cut his losses week eight and popped it out of the year. And then he would have been worth something.

They would have re-signed him. I guarantee they would have re-signed him. No big deal. He could have lived on during the season in progressive insurance commercials. That's right. Speaking of commercials, this is it for Matt Damon crypto commercials. What's going on? How much money has Matt Damon made?

He's made hundreds of millions of dollars. He must have equity. He must. And how much is that crypto doing? That's got to be successful. That's the next thing. Do we get out of gambling and into crypto? Maybe Matt Damon's got to come over and teach us a thing or two.

Let's do that. We have one buddy that knows about all this stuff. That's right. We're not allowed to mention on the podcast. We can't. We can't. Is this it for a two, uh,

in Miami? Huh? Do you think he's the starting quarterback for them? Week one next year? Does it isn't, um, I think he is. If they don't get the Sean Watson,

I kind of think that's the only guy they would replace him with at this point. Or what about Wilson? No, I don't, I don't think, I don't get Deshaun Watson. I kind of think that's the only guy they would replace him with at this point. Or what about Wilson? No. I don't think... I don't know why. This is all just based on a feeling. Because they came very close

to getting Watson initially. Yeah. Yeah. I will say, he's the worst kind of quarterback to have your favorite team play against or to gamble against because he's terrible.

I have no problem saying he's terrible. I think he was like 15 for 22 for like 106 yards or something this game. But then he's good at like the RPO he's good at. He's good at these quick bubble screens. He's good at these bubble screens. And then he scrambled for a first down, but the whole time it's happening, you're furious.

He's like one of those guys, you're like, oh my god, this guy, you just have no respect for him even as he's getting first downs on you. Right, yeah. So that's got to mean something. I think he sticks around. Okay. I'm on St. Rob Brown. I'm on St. Rob Brown.

I'm on Ross St. Brown. Is that your keeper? Ross St. or St. Rob? Ross St. Brown. Ross St. Yeah, right? I'm on Ross St. Brown. They showed his dad

in the stands and he was a former Mr. Universe. Oh, right. Yeah. This guy's got an unbelievable backstory. Is he a first round fantasy pick next year? What?

Are there 40 teams in the league? Third round? Is he one of the top five guys drafted? I don't know. That's unstoppable. I know. He's fun. He's fun.

But who's fun with him? We'll end on this. Is this it with this topic? I think this is it for the 2021 slash 22. Pat says a playoff contender. I don't think they have it. I came to the slow realization today that they were basically the good, bad team.

Yeah. Three of the last four games, all playoff games, Indianapolis, Buffalo, and then Miami today. Even though today they didn't 100% need it, but they still needed it to lock down the five seed. They fell behind by two touchdowns in each game.

They over and over again made dumb plays. And they can't get stops. And the story of this Pats team, people are concentrated on Mack. Does Belichick trust Mack? Why at midfield at the end of the first half, when did they go for it on fourth inches, which by the way, they should have. But over and over again, they just haven't gotten the one stop. The New Orleans game, the beginning of the season, the Miami game, the first week of the season, the game this week, Miami got two first downs to put the game away. The game against Buffalo, the game against

Indianapolis, where it's like, if you stop them once, we're going to go down and tie the game. And then Taylor breaks the 65 yarder. You look at those seven losses, six of the seven, the defense had to just get one stop and couldn't do it every single time. It's just not that good of a team. I'm not going to argue with you because I love what you're saying. I love the anguish in your face when you're saying it.

It hurts. It hurts my feelings. Now I know why you don't like the 18 weeks because the season was too long specifically for your team. It was about six weeks too long. Maybe four or five weeks, right? We peaked the week before Thanksgiving. I think you did.

I think you did. Now, they're not going to end the season Thanksgiving, but I will say this. Like I said, I'm not afraid. Patrick Mahomes aside, I'm not afraid of any quarterback this week. You could go in, any team will win. We're going to look, the spreads are three, they're four for the most part, any upset could happen. And then you get, you get a little momentum. You can get right back at it. I really wanted you to play Cincinnati. I thought that would be the four or five. I thought it would be Monday night. And I was like, you're going to win

that game. That's a bad matchup for the Bengals who can't protect Joe Burrow. I'm not saying this as a reverse jinx. I would tell you'd be able to tell him. I think I could tell. Yeah, you're not. You're not. But it's early. You'll by Saturday afternoon, you might convince yourself that this team went 10 and seven.

And what was the best win? They beat the Chargers by three. Mm-hmm. They beat a bunch of non-playoff teams. It's a bummer because I think they're talented, but for whatever reason, like today was a perfect example. We had like McCourty, interception drops it. Right. Right. We have Mack, terrible pick six, throwing to Howard's side. You should know on Howard's side. Don't go near there. Midfield, minute left, first half, we're down 10, fourth and inches,

and we don't trust our quarterback and we punt it. There's pass interferences that should never happen. It's not a typical Patriot team. It's not. It's not a typical Patriot team. Well, I'm sorry, but you could be like everybody else's team

and still, you know, nickel and dime your way to a playoff win. You don't have to be the Patriots. We have not shown that we can do that. We have not shown, like even today,

Max Crosby down the stretch was like this dominant defensive player. We don't have that guy in our defense. And then on offense, it's like, who's our Hunter Renfro?

Who's our Debo? Who's our guy when we actually need to play? Who's going to make it? They don't really have it. So maybe not, but you're going against the Bills who, for whatever reason, struggle with everyone in the first half. The Jets today, even the Falcons last week, they put 9-6 against the Jaguars not long ago.

If you win that and then you go to Tennessee, you don't think you're going to have momentum. You don't think you'll be able to convince yourself that that's going to be a game. Anything could happen. AFC is special. I was talking to some of my Pat's friends about it. A lot of guys have been hired away from Belichick too

because AEP's coaching tree gets raided all the time or people into college or whatever. It's just not that well coached of a team. Sometimes like there was this pivotal play today on a punt when our nose guard guy just lined over the center on the punt and it was like fourth and two and they threw the flag and now it's first down Miami. And it's like, there's been a hundred of those this year.

It's like, it's weirdly like the, the sloppiest Patriots team that I can remember since the early 2010s. Good. Or late 2000s. Good. That's football for everybody else.

I know. But I'm just telling you, people are going to talk themselves in the pats this week. And I'm not trying to neg it. I'll talk myself into it because that's what I do. And I'm going to root for it. But we have shown no signs in 18 weeks that we can win a playoff game

on the road. We haven't seen it. They haven't done it once. I'm trying to think. They haven't done it once? No, against a good team. Is that true? Yeah.

What's their big win this year? It was like beating the Chargers. Great. Chargers didn't make the playoffs. Yeah. It's rough. The best win of the year Was the Buffalo game

In 40 degree weather When our quarterback Threw three times You played good team stuff though You played a lot of good team stuff Yeah but that's the thing We played We built for the last

Four or five weeks of the season It was all like Alright here we go Here's the foundation Let's do this And we went backwards Yeah And we played three

Of the last four games they sucked and over and over again they fall behind and then they're scrambling back and i'm just telling you i'm not listening you put me in an uncomfortable situation where i'm defending your team and i really don't want to but well defend this you sent me this tweet the cliff kingsbury where he's the end of 20 and 21. He's four and 10. And one of those four wins was a Hail Mary last year. And this dates back to college too. His teams. Oh yeah.

You can go back backwards. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it lost his last four to five last five out of seven. Yeah. And that, what'd you say?

Four and 10 the last two years. Yeah. Just for Arizona. What were they doing, too? Right. Like, that was, again. But then you have the Rams. There's no one to trust.

We're going to talk about it in a second. The Rams are 0-5 against every non-Arizona playoff team. Mm-hmm. So I don't know what to do with that game. I fully expect to just lose more money next week. Let's take a break. We're going to guess the round one lines. I have not seen them yet.

I mailed them to you, but I was able to avoid them. So we're going to do this in one second. Kyle, is your mic on? Yeah, why? Did that hurt your feelings, what I said about the Pats? I hope you're doing that for credibility and you're going to actually be nice to me about the Pats when we talk about them he doesn't do anything for credibility

well why this would be the first time Kyle Kyle you're like the most you see the good in all Pats related things you even bought a Cam Newton jersey do you have you seen anything in 18 weeks that makes you think we can win

a road playoff game? Yeah, guy, we're in the playoffs. What else do you need to know? That's how I feel about it. I'm going to throw the Cam Newton jersey on. I'm going to get some red sleeves put on under it and just I'll be happy and then I'll be sad or whatever. I don't care. Kyle, turn the radio on.

Turn the camera off, Kyle. Kyle and I, he's going to come over Saturday. We're going to give each other COVID again and we're going to watch the Pats. Listen, I'll talk myself into it. Who's good next week? What are you talking about? Haven't we seen enough football to know that nobody's going to

stand out in any time you could take momentum away from anybody? I'm in a dark Boston sports spot right now. Everyone in Boston wants to trade Jalen Brown. We have no idea if our coach is even competent and we're

going to panic and trade one of our two best guys. I bet your dumb team when Barrett banked it off the glass. Terrible season. Who knows? Belichick is now in the position that he's been dying torible season. Who knows? Maybe who knows? Never. Belichick is now in the position that he's been dying to be in. And we're going to talk about that first.

We're going to do guest alliance. We have six playoff games. The COVID really kicked in because I briefly thought the Pats were going to Cincinnati in a playoff game. Obviously they're going to Buffalo. All day. I thought they were going to, to play Cincinnati.

And then it seemed like the Chargers were going to win. And it was... Anyway. Round one. So we did UB and House and Hench. We tried to guess the six TV matchups yesterday. And I think all of us went 0 for 6 with the time slots. You were the only one who had a shot with...

It was going to be... I bet Bengals-Pats in the first game. And that's what it was going to be had the Chargers won. But yeah, we went 0 for 24. We did this last night after we knew the results of every game except the ones today. So our Shakey's game, we used to call this the Shakey's game because

every year for our West Coast Fantasy Draft, we would have the fantasy banquet at this terrible Shakey's Pizza on Santa Monica Boulevard that we've told a lot of stories about over the years. It's a place that Brad is high-end for the Shakey's. Yes. I can't even imagine what it's like now. Oh, my God. Now it's like, Jesus.

Everything's run down in that area but um we'll say like escape from new york now yeah yeah they're using mojo potatoes as weapons for people trying to break in but i would say there's no shakies game usually you could put a shitty afc south team in there well the shitty afc south team has a buy and the colts didn't make it so now you got you got some frisky teams in there. Bengals Pats was the perfect Shakey's game. This kind of overrated Pats team against this Bengals team that hadn't done anything. Bengals Raiders is our Shakey's game. And that's a pretty fun one because the Raiders have proven that they're an entertaining team that regardless of

what happens, the game's going to be entertaining. And then Cincy, which has a lot of mojo right now after beating the Chiefs. Although after watching the Chiefs yesterday, starting to wonder is like, first of all, is it impressive to beat anybody anymore? I don't even know. But my guess for this one, it's in Cincy. Bengals by four over the Raiders. Yeah, you're going to get this. I said three and a half. It is six. Woof! I think that's too much. Pit boss Rich. What do we have for a money line in that game?

Oh boy, here we go. 275-225. Oh man, that's coming down. There could be an underdog parlay of the week Because The Raiders could definitely be one And you could definitely talk me into the Niners

When we get to your game Yeah, there'll be a couple road wins, I think, for sure So Bengals, and then the Bills are the other Saturday night game And Bengals-Bills Is the very obvious two-team tease So somebody's losing I don't know if it's very obvious.

You beat this team. I know it was under weird circumstances, but you already beat them. Man, I love your confidence. I just... I'm equally not as confident in every team. I think we split this, though. What did you say for this?

If people get mad that it sounds like I've turned on the Pats... First of all, I love the Patriots. I've loved them my whole life. I'm just upset because I think they're talented. I think we have a lot of talent on our team. I don't understand why it's not translating. Is this a pep talk? Come on, Patriots.

Come on, Patriots. This is in Buffalo. It builds by five and a half against the Patriots. We split it. I said three and a half and it's four and a half. Ooh, a La Vega zone. Yeah. So we lose to Josh Allen a few weeks ago in a game

that he has one of the great games of his career. We also drop a pick with seven minutes left that if we catch the pick, we might actually steal the game, even if we didn't play that well. And then he hasn't played well since. I don't know what to make of it. You know what's going to happen?

I know exactly what's going to happen. We're going to think we're cute. We got killed betting all the favorites this week. We're going to be like, oh, wow. Raiders plus 12. Patriots plus 10.5. You know you like that. You can say what you want. You can go on and on about how Patriots are done. You love Raiders plus 12. Patriots

plus 10.5. Gets us out of Saturday unscathed. You love Raiders plus 12, Patriots plus 10 and a half. Gets us out of Saturday unscathed. You know, Schrager called it on the pod. He laid out the whole nobody believes in us case for the Raiders, which I ignored. Forgetting yet again that nobody believes in us is the most powerful force in football week after week, year after year, during games that matter.

And I guess the best thing that could happen for the Pats right now is if this became a nobody believes in us game, which I think it might, because I don't know a lot of Pats fans right now who are like, we've got this. Things are looking up. I've no idea.

Our rookie quarterback in any big game has not been able to play four good quarters in a row. He's got like two in him, it seems like. There you go. Here you go. You're coming around now. I would say, to add to Schrager's theory, the least powerful force is the

Chargers' run defense, which was like 30 seconds late and gave up 175 yards. Josh Jacobs. Yeah. Alright, Bills minus four and a half. You know. You want to know the weather on Saturday?

What is it? this is according to Google well it says 21 degrees during the day and 18 at night and it's also got those sprinkle things which I think means light snow is that what that means

hey Google what do the sprinkle things mean dear Google so 18 degrees for Is that what that means? Hey, Google, what do the sprinkle things mean? Dear Google. So 18 degrees for our guy, Mac, who has fully admitted that he doesn't love cold weather. That's another concern. It's going to definitely be windy. Ben Roethlisberger won a game in the rain today, throwing passes.

Most of them were four yards short. What game was Alan Chris doing? Are they doing Chiefs? No, they're doing Rams Cardinals? No, they're doing Chiefs Steelers Oh, we get to have Alan Chris talking about Ben That's exactly right That's probably why they had it

This guy is so tough What are they going to do? This guy is so tough I have so much respect for this guy Mahomes leaves this game early And the Steelers win right And then everybody's money line parlay goes down Could the Steelers defense keep them hanging

In this game I don't know Why was it so easy for Drew Locke To just complete open passes To wide open guys on Saturday In a game that the Chiefs like ostensibly needed. That was weird too. It was weird too.

I don't know how the Chiefs, the Chiefs really screwed everything up by losing to the Bengals. They had a two touchdown lead. They played cover zero on third and 27 against Jamar Chase. And had they won that, like a lot of games would have mattered today. It would have been more interesting. We would have been on the bad side of all these shit bird games. Sunday.

First game, Bucs-Eagles. This is a weird one. This is surprising to me. This one has a feel like the Bucs win by 20 or the Eagles just win the game. And there's no in between. Let's do that. Let's bet Tampa minus 14.5

and then Philly Moneyline. Tampa 7-1 their last 8. Philly went 9-8. Guess what their record was against playoff teams this year? Philly? Yeah. 1-6? They didn't play that many. 0-7.

Including Vegas, who they lost to. Yeah, they're 0-7 against playoff teams. They finished 98 on the season. And on paper, I can't wait to bet against their quarterback. But this Bucs team has some bad juju with it. Right. Also, how about Antonio Brown? What happened?

Throwing Brady under the bus. Like, what are you doing? Well, Brady really stuck it to him. Brady's the only guy who was nice to you. Brady stuck it to him today, too. He stayed in the game long enough to get Gronk his incentives, right? So that was a fun little twist of the night. Oh, yeah.

He took a shot at Alex Guerrero? He's an idiot, Brown. Well, Alex Guerrero, that's going to blow up. Brady's shitting bricks about that. But the fact that, like The fact that he promised me like, hey, you were a free agent. You could have gone anywhere. What are you talking about? I have

the Bucs favored by nine against the Eagles. You're going to win this week. I said seven and a half. It's eight and a half. I almost said eight and a half. I think this went up. I don't know if it opened that. They are dying to be teased.

So this is important because, you know, we were talking about it on text. Like even last year, they put Brady in the primetime spot, right? Even against that terrible Washington team, which it was kind of close. I think it was like 24-16. But they took him out of the primetime slot and put Mahomes in there, even though Big Ben's a train wreck. A little bit surprising that he's an early game Sunday. I think those games are equally bad.

Yeah? Yeah, Bucks, Eagles, Chiefs, Steelers. I think that Chiefs, Steelers is more compelling from a storyline standpoint, right, than Bucks Eagles? I guess. But if they go down early, I don't want to hear a word about Ben. Unless it's your Ben. Thanks.

Cowboys Niners. This was not the team you wanted to see in round one. I'm guessing. This is old school. You brought it up. This is old. Growing up, it's on CBS for some reason. And I don't know the

priority of who got to pick what game but yeah like old times like oh so you think this is the romo game no uh it has to be right okay jim does he do both it's pats buffalo with cbs or um it'll be pats buffalo right saturday night night. If I had my choice, I would rather have Nancy Romo on Cowboys Niners. And I can't believe that's not a Buck Aikman game. They've got to be furious. That's a great game. I don't know what happened here.

I like the Niners. We've gone back and forth with the Niners. I've been told we're not allowed to comment on them. Their quarterback got hurt. They boned us over on a Thursday. It's the same coach though that we've been making fun of all year long. Oh, I have some updated stats on him. Go ahead.

He's up to 41 winning percentage. He passed Rex Ryan today. 41 doesn't seem like a lot. He's just behind Norv Turner and Joe Walton. If another win, he passes those guys. Wow. We have 17 to 1 somewhere on them to win something, right? We do. NFC?

Yeah, but since I have it, it's going to lose. The Niners are 7-2 in their last nine, and somehow I bet on both of the games they lost. Dallas is 6-4 in their last 10. Right. How are you feeling about Dak's scale of 1-10? I don't know. 6.

I'm not putting any stock into these games. Yeah, that's a stupid game that they won, that they kept them in. I can't believe it didn't backfire McCarthy. I mean, I'm glad he did well. As long as he's going to be in there, I'm glad he does well. But Slay wasn't in there. None of the Eagles defenders were. So not giving it too much credence.

Oh, Cerruti texted me. Nance Romo is Niners Dallas. It is Niners Dallas. Okay. Yeah. Oh, so Rudy texted me. Nance Romo is, is a Niners Dallas. It is Niners Dallas. Okay. Yeah. So I wonder who does that. Oh, here we go.

I called the screen today. Like it must hot read. He had that. What was he? What did he say? It was a hot read. Yeah. He knows too much.

It's not fair. Well, he doesn't know too much because he would give us gambling advice because we need it. Cowboys Niners in Dallas, and I don't think it's a three-point line, Sal. I said Cowboys minus two and a half. It is a three-point line, and I thought it was four. All right, so you're going to win the week here.

That sucks. That's not enough respect, even though we could lose. So the Niners punt. They punt from their own end zone with their field goal kicker who somehow blasted past midfield. They get the ball back. They get the ball wide open to Debo for 55 yards in the last minute, even though he's the second best receiver in the league

and worked their way into this game. And now they're a team of destiny and you have to play them. And you have Mike McCarthy as your coach. Yeah, I don't like any of it. I don't like a single thing about it. So the Rams, yeah, the Rams losing that because there would have been a two seed. Cowboys would have been a four and then would have played Arizona. A fickle Arizona team who I know beat us a couple weeks ago.

But that's who I'd rather have. Well, what did the Rams do in the first quarter and a half of that game that went away? Like, what were they doing to the Niners that the Cowboys can borrow? Because it seemed like a lot of, like, run game, play action. I think it just started moving the chains.

Yeah, I think shit just started to work for them. But it seems like you could emulate that in your game. Yeah, maybe. With the team you have. We got, like, a bunch of ball hawkers on defense. I think it'll started to work for them. It seems like you could emulate that in your game. Yeah. Maybe the team you have, we got like a bunch of ball hawkers on defense. I think it'll be a different, um, no,

I mean, not that the Rams don't, but it just scares the shit out of me. This 49ers team. Chiefs Steelers is the Sunday night game. Do you want to guess what Ben Roethlisberger rushed for this year? Rushed for or rushed against? Do you want to get rushes and total

yards rushing? How many rushes do you think he had this year? 12 carries minus 8. 20 for 5. 20 for 5. Nice. He threw for almost 4,000 yards though. Oh yeah, he always gets up there no matter what.

He had some good second halves. He really did. I don't know that I count today as one of them. Chiefs minus 11 against the Steelers. That's what I have. I said 10.5. It's 12.5. They have to make it like that. And so Mahomes is the new

Brady. Put him in the night spot there. I guess you're right. I guess it's more compelling. There's not much to talk about with Philly. I'm going to say this very gently about Mahomes. His demeanor this year kind of bums me out. I want my best quarterback in the league

to have this larger-than-life swagger. Even Rodgersgers for how fucking weird he is he's still when they cut to him the sideline he's got that long hair it looks like he's gonna be in you know some he's like a licorice pizza extra and he's just got like a swagger he they show my homes and he just he always looks like he just got in trouble or like his mom just found his playboys under his bed or something. I don't know what he had like a spirit to him last year that I don't see in the same way this year. Am I overthinking it or did you notice that? Maybe his brother just sucked it all out of him.

He's like, I can't compete with this. I'll direct you to a TikTok account if you want a swagger. But I don't want to deal with it anymore. One of the things I loved about him that first, second year he was a starter was he had this kind of charismatic, kind of spunky personality. And now it just seems like he's put out. It's like watching a tennis player. It's like watching when Serena, when she was getting older, she just was constantly put

out by the officials. Maybe that's it. I mean, Rodgers, for sure, has seemed bored with the game for many, many years. Yeah, but he's still like, there's some sort of confidence, calmness within him. That Mahomes, I'm not saying he doesn't have, but I don't see the joy with him this year. And that was one of the things I always liked about him.

Maybe I'm overthinking it. I don't know. I mean, that was a weird game also. I know you're saying just in general, but I mean, Tyreek Hill at one point had played like seven of 33 snaps. So they tried to win, but they didn't lay it on the line.

By the way, our West parlay, remember Fandle? I know we were so close. So if that ties six, we said six playoff teams. What were the six playoff teams from the West? Was it 10 to one?

Did they give us something like that? Yeah, I think it was like 10. What the hell? If they run the, let the clock run in that chargers game, we get it. They call if Staley doesn't call timeout Staley villain of the year.

He started a whole bunch of annoying advanced metrics arguments. And then the analytics crowd is still like, no percentage wise. It was the, it was, you can't say it was the wrong cause. Like, no,

I can't actually, I'm telling you, he owes some bad people, a lot of money. You heard it here first. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to run our 5-9 running back in the nine guys. They're not going to see this coming. Stupid. And they still could have won.

Chiefs 12-and-a-half. Last game. This game leaves me cold. It goes back to what you said earlier. How many Rams-Cardinals games have we watched over the last couple of years? Now we're going to watch it again. It doesn't feel special in any way. Too many Rams-Cardinals games have we watched over the last couple of years? Now we got to watch it again. It doesn't feel special. Too many West teams made it. What are you going to do?

It's in LA. Good news for LA because that means there won't be a lot of Arizona fans there because there aren't a lot of Arizona fans, period. Arizona finishes four and six in their last 10. The Rams were 0-5

against every non-Arizona playoff team. Stafford has eight picks over the last four weeks. And I have no fucking clue what happens with Kyler Murray. So good luck trying to figure out this game. Yep. I have the Rams by three and a half over the Cardinals. Yeah, we both said three and a half, and it's four.

And I hope it doesn't come down to this to make money for the week. You're right, because I won't have a shot. I think this is... I'm going to do... You know, anytime I hit rock bottom, I break out the playoff manifesto and I really study it. And I will be doing that.

You have four additions now, right? Four new rules. Well, yeah, I have some new rules, but one of my favorite rules was the bad quarterback rule. And really, the only bad quarterback is Ben. Now, you could say rookie Mac Jones in 18-degree weather might

qualify. I certainly don't feel great about it. I don't know if I want Hurts more than Mac Jones. Oh, Hurts might qualify too. You're right. Look, it might have just been a bad game, but I watched that Giants game because that was another game I lost this year

and all the Giants did was just keep him in the pocket and he was completely helpless and couldn't throw a complete pass to anybody yeah you gotta throw it all these games that's the blueprint for him right just don't let him run right make him a pocket passer and shut down their run game great fantasy quarterback you'll end up with 25.6 points. But yeah, I don't want him to lead my team in the playoffs. So three-teamer, Tampa, Chiefs. Who's the third one? We can't even get past it.

Tampa, Chiefs. Cards to 14. Rams to six. I'm sure we'll figure it out. I mean, the Niners to 13 is good too. I can't do it just yet. Oh, man. Rams to six I'm sure we'll figure it out I mean the Niners The 13's good too I can't do it just yet

Oh man Raiders to 16 How many A lot of people lose money In New York This week God bless fans I love what they did

But I had a fan to a source That said Are they burning down the streets It did not go well For the New York Gettlers In the first weekend, apparently. Couldn't they start this next week?

Well, think about it. Any sort of tease that you did was going to lose this week. I don't have to think about it. I'm looking at my ledger right now. There's not much thought to put into it. I don't need to think about it. I'm a New Yorker in LA and I got crushed. Oh my gosh.

So the trifecta, you have two or three there. Yeah, yeah. They went nuts. So were they going nuts? Yeah, they said they lost their minds. They just said it's too much, too fast. And we did this other thing, the extra points power hour from 3.30 to 4.30 Eastern, where we bet the end of every game.

We had 1,000 fake dollars. And I got to do that with you, you too because that's just crazy, just betting the ends of all these early games, although now we only have a couple at a time. But yeah, it's too much for these guys, too much for my friends to handle, this gambling on the phone. The danger

with the FanDuel for me is the alternate lines that you can parlay them and you can get really ambitious and fun with teasing somebody down to minus two and a half and all that stuff. We hit... The only thing we did well on Million Dollar Picks this year was these underdog parlays. We hit another one this week.

Steelers-Lions. That was our eighth one we've hit in 18 weeks. All for six to one odds or better. I was thinking for a New Year's resolution, I'm like, what if I go a whole month without taking favorites? I just take under no teases and parlay. Yeah.

Just, just underdogs month of January. And I woke up new year's day and I, I like took Arkansas. I was like, Oh, I already forgot. I already forgot.

Very first game. No. All right. What's time? Parent corner. Today's parent corner is brought to you by CarMax. Take a full month to love it or return it with the CarMax Love Your Car Guarantee. Now you have 30 days to decide if a car is the right fit,

and you can return it for any reason up to 1,500 miles for a full refund. Make sure it fits the golf clubs, the kids' sports bags, and all the stuff you actually drive around with every day. Learn more at CarMax.com. CarMax. Car buying reimagined. Sal, you are up. I don't even really have, now that I think about it,

I'm just like, it's just been a shit show trying to get these kids to school. This isn't even like a story, but like every day we need, I need like a Zoom meeting with my wife to tell, we live in the same house, to tell like which kid has to get tested and where this one has to get dropped off. And this rugby coach is mad because he's not making the trip, but it coincides with when the kids need to be tested. And this one's girlfriend, or do we tell anybody we know that this one's girlfriend who was hanging around Archie tested positive?

I've had enough. How am I supposed to keep track of gambling when I have to test three kids like three times a week? I don't know what the answer is. Cause I know there are, there are some terrible tragedies involved with this. But I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. I know you have it.

You had to just keep the kids home this week. Right. So that was easy. You know, I was thinking like our kids, your son Archie and my daughter Zoe were born a month apart and have known each other since they were little babies and we have pictures of them and it's adorable. They got it so that the pandemic starts and it's March of their ninth grade.

And now we are heading into the second semester of their 11th grade. And it's been almost two years of it. And I think this, my daughter was getting like bummed out. She was like, is this going to be my entire, now granted there are worse problems.

And I think like how, how many horrible things have happened with COVID, but this is just like, you don't get high school back, you know? And at some point now they're going to be seniors by the time this is hopefully even normal again. This is an entire generation

that's going to be like the COVID generation, basically. Well, let me just say this. They've stopped testing college points. First of all, everybody's getting it. Everybody's getting it in the last two weeks, but nobody on this Alabama or Georgia squad has gotten it.

It's shocking. They stopped testing a lot of these. I know the SEC team stopped definitely during the bowl season. I think they stopped in the pros too. I mean, how many Tuesdays in a row was like 100 players out on a Tuesday? Now, with the new protocol, they might be able to come back Sunday, but we didn't get anything this Tuesday. I think that's kind of what it has to be for this variant.

At least once we have enough data on something, I don't want to preach. I'm not a doctor, but I'm really like my kids have like deviated septums now from getting tested. I know there are worse results. I know there are long haulers that are going to tell us to shut the fuck up, but let's get through the school year, right? It's brutal. My parent corner, I have two. Do you want the one about the dog or the one about the human first? The dog. So my guy Murph is 15 months old.

He's my best friend in life. I love him to death. Just unbelievable dog. Just really love the guy. We hadn't cut his balls off because I read all these things. Because we neutered Rufus when he was like probably seven or eight months old. And there was less data back then. But now you read the data and it's like 12 to 18 months is

really when you should do it for boys because it really reduces the cancer stuff. There's a lot of benefits. So I talked my wife into that. And then as it went along, and I don't know if this is a man like having balls of my own, you start really like thinking like, man, maybe we won't have to do this. Maybe this could be like the rare case, like he can behave himself, can keep his balls. This would be great. Keep his balls.

Well, he had other ideas. His behavior started, they just get way more aggressive. Like you're taking him for walks. He wants to fight every dog. He's trying to hump everything. And at some point, my wife, it was basically like, if we don't get Murph

fixed, you're going to have to move out. It was like one of those. Maybe not as drastic as that, but it was turning into a real issue. You have to move out or the dog? One of us. So, got him fixed on Thursday.

And first of all, I was thinking Wednesday night, they should have dog prostitutes. He should have had like one great night. Nice. One great night. Like there should be Tinder or like those,

I don't know, some site where I could order like a dog to come over and he could have sex one time before he cut his balls. Dog prostitutes. Good idea. Kyle, you in on that idea?

Dog prostitutes? I'm just trying to figure out if I have to cut that. No. Who's that going to offend? idea? Dog prostitutes? I'm just trying to figure out if I have to cut that. No! Who's that going to offend? Who's dog prostitutes offending? Oh, PETA is going to freak out. And maybe Giuliani. Or maybe he could

have had his own litter. It could have been a fun Wednesday night. Maybe there's some website. But anyway, I was thinking about that Wednesday night. Then Thursday, he comes home. He's got the fucking cone on his head. And he's kind of side-eyeing me. Just like, what did you... Why?

Why'd you do that to me? Now he's got no balls. But we're okay. I think we've worked through it. That's my dog story. My son's story... Same story. It's the same.

You cut his balls off. We've got him neutered. Actually, it might not be a bad idea the way his age 14 has been going for him. Well, the comb on his head would be funny at least. Yeah. So he gets his gift certificates and he decides he doesn't like all the clothes

that are available that he could make better t-shirts than anybody else. Oh. So he finds some website that he could make better t-shirts than anybody else. So he finds some website that he could take pictures that you can find like high resolution pictures and they'll turn them into t-shirts. So he's got, for four or five hours, he's in his room and we're like, what are you doing up there?

So leave me alone. Finally comes down, he's all excited and he used this gift certificate to make these 10 t-shirts, t-shirts that he's all excited. And he used this gift certificate to make these 10 t-shirts. T-shirts that he thinks should exist. And it's like this Tyler, the creator picture, that's going to be on a t-shirt and this Juice WRLD picture. And basically all the musicians that he likes. And this Kanye one he was all excited about.

So all these t-shirts are coming in the mail. And my wife and I are so excited because, A, we're going to be like, wow, this guy actually, maybe he's an entrepreneur. Or B, from an unintentional comedy standpoint, these t-shirts are going to be the most ridiculous, funny t-shirts that anyone's ever made. You have a 14-year-old boy who's, you know, 14-year-old boys for the most part, morons, designing t-shirts that anyone's ever made. Like you have a 14 year old boy who's, you know, 14 year old boys for the most part, morons designing t-shirts. I have no idea. It's, it could be Raiders or Chargers in that game today. It could go either way. I have no idea. So I'm excited to show you pictures, how it turns out. Wait a minute. You got to tell everybody. What? We haven't gotten them yet. We're waiting for them to come in the mail.

Okay. Yeah. I think he said next week. He's all excited. He's been checking the mail every day and he's like, Dad, people are going to see these t-shirts. They're going to go nuts. Well, you have to do it. Are they? Like you did the baseball card. It's got to be like a box break thing, right? Yeah, maybe we'll do that.

I'll do it on my Instagram. You're running a risk though it really could be I don't know yeah live it won't happen it could be Lady Gaga with like a sword through her head or something I don't know well he did tell me he did a Tower of the Creator from the Igor

album I think Kyle is Igor an album? yep it is now he said one and he said it might be controversial. He might only be able to wear it in the house. I don't know what's going to be on that. All right, so you do have to do it on tape. All right.

We're going to have to do it on tape. But Sonny, we're going to see how that goes. Six seconds away? I don't know. We'll figure it out. The other thing is he made me FaceTime Chang the other day because he loves Chang's Majordomo noodles. So we FaceTimed Chang at like 10 o'clock at night.

For some reason, Chang was shirtless. And he was telling Chang about his noodles. So Chang made him record an ad for his noodles that's going to run on Chang's podcast. My son's ad for Majordomo noodles. We can run it here. Kyle, could we run that on this podcast or no? No, we'll just run it on Chang's. Does Chang run out of shirts?

Maybe Ben can make him a shirt, maybe, right? It seems like he needs a t-shirt. Maybe we'll give Chang the Igor shirt. Like, tie with a creator? Yeah. Anyway, that's Paracord. Nice. Today's Paracord is brought to you by CarMax.

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Car buying. Reimagine. All right, Sal. Next time I see you, will there be really rock bottom for us from a gambling standpoint? Or things will have flipped. Listen, it's got to flip. Also, both of our teams, what are we doing next week, by the way? We don't have all the games yet.

What are we going to do? Oh, right. So what will we do? Which games will we have? We won't have... We'll have five of the six. We're going to come on Sunday night after the last playoff game, but then we have this stupid Monday night game that they did. I mean, I'll do both, but here's the thing. We're going to come on Sunday night after the last playoff game, but then we have this stupid Monday night game that they did. I'll do both, but here's the thing.

Arizona Rams, unless a six or a seven advances, goes to the Packers, right? Right. So if that's the case, then we can just guess the line either way. We could do it. And I'm happy to jump on twice, too, if you want. Whatever you want. But we'll see how it goes.

Yeah. They messed with guess the lines. I didn't look like. Yeah. They messed with Guest Alliance. I know. They massacred my boy. I wonder if Goodell had... If he had knowledge of this, I bet he would change up the schedule, too. Goodell, he's the worst.

Goodell's like, hey, this Manning cast is going great. Let me get out of this. I'll be the worst guest in the history of the Manning cast. This will go awesome. Was he shitting with that Steelers thing? Although I guess... Oh my God.

They couldn't give him too much crap for taking a knee there had they done it. What about when... It was like, Roger, you played football as a kid, right? He was like, I did. Then all of a sudden there's a picture of him as a kid. It's like, who is this for? Who's the fucking audience for this? Nobody likes this guy. Right.

I know. I didn't mind. What game was that? Was that the Steelers also? It was the Monday Night game. Who was it? Which I can't even remember who it was. They all went together. Wait, wait, wait.

Hold on. I don't remember what game it was, but I know I lost money on it. Oh, it was Cleveland-Pittsburgh, right? Oh, no. I won money on that. Yeah. I was like, poor Aaron Rodgers and Manning, the three great quarterbacks have to watch this shit show

and doing a good job not saying anything. The worst quarterback matchup we've ever seen. But anyway, Fox Bet Live, Monday, Thursday, Friday this week. Listen, extrapoints.com, all your sports gambling needs taken care of. And against all odds, we'll go over the monday night georgia i'm not going to tell you i think it's going to win now but georgia and alabama good you'll watch that game simmons when are you going to tell us when are you going to tell us who you think is going to win what podcast against all odds you'll hear it and then the

graphics up but we watch it there'll be like 26 pros in that game i know who's going to win oh you watch the sec championship then you who do you. I know who's going to win. Oh, you watch the sec championship. Then you, who do you like? I know who's going to win Georgia. You're right. You know why I said it right there?

Yeah. Well, you can't, you can't beat the same team twice. If you're pretty equal. Is that what it is? I, yeah.

I know nothing. Yeah. Check the manifesto. You have a college manifesto. It only has one rule. College manifesto. Really hard to beat the same team twice. I love it.

I love it. All right. So good job by you. Good job by you, buddy. All right. That's it for the podcast. Don't forget. I am on the prestige TV podcast talking about yellow jackets later on Monday.

New rewatchables coming juice on Monday night. I'll be back on this feed on Tuesday. Thanks to Kyle Creighton for producing this podcast. Thanks to Dylan Berkey, Steve Cerruti for joining as well in the background. Help it out. And I will see you on the way so I can never say I don't have feelings with them. On the way so I can never say I don't have feelings with them.