The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Milton Berle Eagles, Baltimore’s Maddening Season, the Surging Broncos, and the Pathetic Patriots With Cousin Sal

Episode Date: November 27, 2023

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal to discuss a classic Chargers loss to the Ravens and the wild Bills-Eagles showdown (1:40). They also talk about the Patriots seemingly cementing a top-three draft pick after losing 10-7 to the Giants, Saints-Falcons, and Steelers-Bengals (23:12). They then discuss Browns-Broncos, Denver's midseason turnaround, Texans-Jaguars, the Chiefs' comeback win vs. the Raiders, Jets-Dolphins, the Thanksgiving games, and more (46:32) before guessing the lines for NFL Week 13 (1:03:28). They close the show with Parent Corner (1:19.30). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Cousin Sal Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, we're back. Sunday nights with the cuz. Have some funny stuff for this one. Can't wait. Next. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all.

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doing a little bit of The Curse, and whatever else comes. I have True Detectives coming, I think, next month. We have some good shows coming in January, February. So stay tuned for Prestige TV as well. And The Watch. Don't forget about that. Don't forget about Big Picture. Don't forget about Higher Learning. Don't forget about Ring of Reality.

All of our great pop culture podcasts. And the last episode of Wedding Scammer is going to be this week as well. If you haven't been following that one, it is our true crime podcast that people really love. So the last episode is this week. Stay tuned for that. Coming up on this podcast, Cousin Sal and I are going to recap, what was it? Three of the last four days, we just had football on all the time. Some of it was fun.

Some of it was terrible. I have some funny stories for you and I can't wait to make fun of the New England Patriots because they deserve it. God bless them. Six Super Bowls. I love those guys. But man, this has been the season from hell. We're talking about it with the cuz next. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, we're taping this a little after 8.30 on Sunday night. Cousin Sal is here. Just watched a ridiculous day of football. Sal, I got COVID on Tuesday night. Oh, no.

I did a double podcast on Tuesday, and I wasn't feeling great Tuesday night with Mahoney, and I was like, oh, man, jet lag. And then the next day, I felt worse. I've had COVID all week, so I found out I had COVID on Wednesday, but I really had it probably since Tuesday. The Lions killed me on Thursday morning.

They killed, like, three different teases. Had to rally back, crawl back. Felt killed me on Thursday morning. They killed three different teases, had to rally back, crawl back, felt like crap, weird holiday. And then it all culminates with the Ravens. I need them to win minus three, have them tied to a bunch of bets. And they just put us through the torture chamber. Never again, Sal. Never again. First of all, I didn't know you had COVID. COVID Thanksgiving is a great Charlie Brown special, if you ever get around to watching it. But yeah, there was a lot of football, and you were so incensed

that I couldn't even tell who you bet tonight. You were dropping F-bombs. I think when the Sunday night game gets started, we're on two or three chains, and you're like, F the fact that Stanley this, and Harbaugh that. And I was like, wow, I don't even know who to root for. I don't really have anything.

I was so mad at Harbaugh. They got four Chargers turnovers, and the Chargers couldn't convert a fourth down in the fourth quarter, and they're still sweating it out. And it's a game that should have been over. They should have been up 20. We should have been talking about what's going to happen with Stanley tomorrow, all this stuff.

And meanwhile, they're hanging around, hanging around, hanging around. But this is what the Ravens, this is what they do. They play dumb games. The Chargers play the dumbest games ever. And then somehow our guy Collinsworth, who we tease every week, but we really love. And you don't really know how much you love somebody until they're gone. And he's gone tonight. I don't know what happened. He's hanging out with his family. And they give us Jason Garrett with Mike Tirico for three hours. And he's spouting out cliches like he has a t-shirt gun and he's firing them in the different sections of the crowd. Momentum and, oh, they're getting in. You got to trick the defense. It was the worst. And I had the Ravens minus three. I was going

nuts. That's why I was so angry, Sal. First of all, I know Stanley, Harbaugh, Jason Garrett, we may never top that combination. Is that the new Bermuda Triangle? Yeah, it's pretty bad. It's pretty fucking bad. I was mad about that Eagles game as a Cowboys fan, and then I go in and I see that,

yeah, you're right, Chris Collinsworth's spending time with his family, even though Jack Collinsworth's there, so I'm not sure how that works. But I'm like, I can't listen to Jason Garrett. I listened for like 12 minutes. And then I had the sound down the whole time because I was like, this is guy. I was like, all right, maybe it's me. Maybe I'll give him a break. And he's like, he has this weird thing where he laughs at his own shit. And it's meant to be funny. He's like, oh, that play reminded me of Dwight Freeney. Remember him? And then Tirico's stuck

because he doesn't know if there's a follow-up or if he should jump in. Like, how about the Jets on Friday? You didn't say anything funny there. I mean, you're a simpleton and I dealt with this at my Thanksgiving table

with my uncle. So I don't want to do it again for three hours. So yeah, I turned it off. I didn't want to be in a bad mood for this podcast. You had a different plan, I think. Well, at the end of the game, it's wrapping up and Garrett, I think he had been sitting on this point all day. It was his

best point where he said it was something like, you know, the Ravens, they're seven and two and one score games. And you know, what I've noticed is the record in one scored games ends up making the difference in whether you have a good season or a bad season. And there was just dead silence from Tirico for a split second as he tried to figure out where to go with that one. Oh, so you're saying one-scored games are important during a regular season, Jason? It was so bad. Herbert blew another fourth quarter with the ball in his hands.

And as always, there's excuses. He didn't have Mike Williams. They were double teaming Kane and Allen. But it's gotten to the point where I don't think he's going to come through. And I think he's the talented quarterback. But I've never seen more of a schism between the nerds telling us how good he is and how great he is when you watch the All-22 and then when I'm just watching

a game and I'm betting against him, I'm like, I'm not that nervous. He's not going to come through. I'm ready to... Nerds be damned. I'm ready to move him out of my top six, I think. I think I am too. We do cross-offs all the time. We could move him out. How many times do we have

to see the same game over and over? And that's like, I was initially, I was like, all right, don't worry about the Ravens. They're going against the Chargers. If it's anyone else, you should be concerned. But the Chargers are going to do their thing at the end. And they sure did. Anyone with plus nine on a teaser there,

boy, did they bite it there. I mean, they probably could have lost by 20. You're right. But I'm sick of these excuses. I mean, there are teams with Colts put up points. And I don't know. Colts have Minshew. Yeah, with bad receivers, too.

Like, you know, we mentioned that. Who else? What other teams? The Texans have managed to score points every week. Yeah, yeah. Tank Dell can't be. Yeah. I mean, he's got seven touchdowns, eight touchdowns this year.

Give me a break. The Raiders were moving the ball on offense. Right. The John Harbaugh thing, I hadn't really thought about it. I know he's been a polarizing guy in certain circles, especially this year where they had the three losses and they had the 94% win probability in all of them.

In my head, he was always like, just mark him down as a top five coach. So then I went back during this game because I was so annoyed and frustrated that the Ravens weren't winning by 20. And I went back to 2014 when they blew that game to the Pats in New England in the divisional playoffs, 35 to 31,

when the Pats came back. And the Ravens were better than the Pats. That was one of the great Belichick games. They're running double passes. They're basically doing everything they can to win. But since that game, 2015, they went 5-11. This is the Ravens. 2016, 8-8.

2017, 9-7. Three straight years now, no playoffs. 2018, 10-6, and they lost in the wildcard game to the Chargers. 2019, 14-2, lost in the divisional round to Tennessee. That was the 28-12 upset. 2020, they went 11-5, won a wildcard game, and lost 17-3 to the Bills. 2021, 8-9, no playoffs.

2022, 10-7, lost in the wildcard game to the Bengals. This is now a decade-long run of completely forgettableness from John Harbaugh. I'm just pointing that out. It's so funny because if you didn't tell me it was John Harbaugh. I'm just pointing that out. It's so funny because if you didn't tell me it was John Harbaugh in the beginning, I would have thought you were reading Jason Garrett's stats because they were very, very similar. Really, even the arc and everything, a lull of a

year or two. I don't know who's good. I don't know who's bad anymore. I don't know who I would trust if you were to build a team with a coach. I'm not sure who that guy, well, you have to say Sirianni. I don't know who you're supposed to say. Maybe Harbaugh should go to Ohio State. They want to fire that guy right now. Flip Harbaugh? Yeah, the Harbaugh versus Harbaugh. Let it be that.

I just think at some point, and we've watched the Ravens a lot this year, you have to feel like they're crisply coached or they're a step ahead. I just don't get the feeling from them. Haven't for a while, but especially this year, where it does seem from a talent standpoint that they're in the upper echelon, but they let teams hang around regardless. I mean, Philly does. We'll talk about Philly in a second for different reasons.

For the AFC playoff purposes, Baltimore is the one seed right now. Jacksonville is now the two seed, 8-3, and Miami is 8-3, and KC is 8- seed right now. Jacksonville is now the two seed, 8-3. And Miami is 8-3. And KC is 8-3 as well. So we seem to have the four division winners kind of in pencil, not in pen yet. And then we got, from a wildcard standpoint,

Cleveland and Pittsburgh at 7-4. And then we have, it just gets frisky with the six-win team, Sal, which we'll talk about in a second. Let's talk about Eagles' bills, though. You have anything more on Chargers-Ravens other than we deserve what we got if we bet on that game? Yeah, you deserve what you got. That's it.

I don't even know what else to say other than, you know, I think, though, what we'll find as we go through this, we could pick wildcard spots better than we could rank the top four seeds in the AFC. I think we got into this a little last year, but unfortunately, somebody has to make the Super Bowl in the AFC, and no one really looks sharp. No one does. I don't think

I like a single AFC team that much. You could even talk in Pittsburgh with this new offensive coordinator getting excited about them in the 4-5 game. The Eagles-Bills game. So the Bills blow this incredible chance. The Bills are 6-6

and you just think that the Jets game, the Broncos game, and this Eagles game are just three wins that I'm still not sure how they didn't win any of those games. But this one was really bad because there's a 59-yard field goal in the rain

that Jake Elliott has to hit. He does. Now, I would say, is he number one for you now with what kicker you would trust with a 59-yard field goal in the rain? I think I would trust him first. Should he leapfrog Tucker, you think? Yeah, why not?

That was a high-pressure kick. I mean, people comparing it to Vincieri. I was like, all right, slow the F down here. But it might be second or third. It might be right up there. It's pretty good. Definitely for bad weather kicks, it was a really good one. But they get Gabe Davis, who's wide open in overtime.

The camera angle makes it seem like it's a touchdown directed at Gabe Davis from how it's showing it. Yet the ball lands behind Gabe Davis. It was like this optical illusion. I saw him open. I was like, you got to be kidding me. They're going to lose this. Then all of a sudden, the ball bounces.

It was classic Bills. Plus, 20 seconds left, they get the ball in regulation and they kneel on it. Which is the ultimate FU to the Bills fans who lived through the 13 seconds game with KC and then you kneel on it with 20 seconds left. I felt like Allen,

I think they had at least one timeout left. Yeah. You got to give Allen, the way he was throwing the ball, you got to give him at least one chance. Can he get to the 35 before you pack it in? What was that? He had three plays. He had three plays. Well,

let's start off with when they, first three quarters, they're pretty much rolling, right? Double-digit lead for a lot of that. And he has a clean pocket. He's thrown. And I was almost like, oh, what am I thinking? The Bills aren't going to make the playoffs. Look at this team. Look how they move the ball. Look how

Allen scrambles. This is the breakthrough game. Yeah, he's scrambling on third and seven. This is what he does, like running to his left and where the rush is coming from his right. That combined with Lane Johnson was a huge deal. Seemed to be a huge deal the first few quarters missing him for the Eagles. Hurts couldn't get free.

Man, you just can't keep them around. You cannot keep them around. If the Ravens had lost, I would have said that's the difference between them and the Eagles. Like, the Eagles win those games. They win every one of those 94% or better probability rates because you keep them around. And now it's a kicker that can't miss

to add to everything else. I wrote down Milton Berle because I think I've watched a lot of these Eagles games and I've had money on a few of them. And they're just the all-time Milton Berle team, at least for regular season that I've seen. They might have a 14-inch cock. It might be 15 inches. I don't know, but we've only seen five inches of it sorry to be crude listeners they've only had to pull out 5 or 6 inches of it during the season

but I think I think it's I think it's Milton Berle size and yet we may never see it they always it's just enough

even their wins this year they have this stupid game last Monday the Valdez Scantling drops the TD they're going to lose that game

they have your dumb team choked on the game-winning drive. Dak got sacked. Rowboat Ron, that game earlier in the year when they didn't go for it. Played him twice. Well, they didn't go for the two-point. Remember when it was like,

what are you doing? You're not going to beat this team in overtime. He kicks to go into the overtime, and then Elliott makes a 54-yarder. But they just have confidence. Maybe it's the tush push. What is it? Maybe it's boring for them.

Maybe it's like, oh, Kelsey's going to the Hall of Fame. Give them a little false start. Let's make it a little challenging here. Let's do it again. Do it again. Go to the bathroom between regulation and overtime. Let's attach a crazy stat that we've never heard before. Buffalo 500 yards,

10 plus third down conversions and lost. Hasn't happened in 40 years. My God. They're just doing it. And I think it is because of the tush push because they know if they knew short yardage or as was the case, I mean, you knew Hertz was scoring at the end, right? There was no doubt about it. They were getting the six,

not even the three. So I don't know what to say other than I think they can be beat. These teams can hang with them. And flying too close to the sun, I'll give them all the credit in the world. They're the best team right now. But can they be beat? Are they dominant like the Rams were years ago or whatever? I think they can be beaten.

Many teams, as you pointed out, have shown that. I'm glad you mentioned the incredible cover because that line was three. Did it ever get to two and a half? Was it always three? It went to two and a half. I said, this is ridiculous. The Bills are going to the best team at home, Philadelphia, not even given three. I had a same game.

My same game parlay with FanDuel had Eagles two and a half, over 43. Brown any time TD and Hurts, 25 yards rushing. I'm like, my same game parlay with FanDuel had Eagles two and a half over 43, uh, Brown, anytime TD and hurts 25 yards rushing. And I'm like, I did it. They get the ball.

Um, Alan has a terrible pick. The Eagles score bills go three. Now Eagles have the ball seven minutes left. It seems like they can just move the ball any way they want against Buffalo at that point. And what do they do? If you've watched the Eagles all year,

you know, it's coming the immediate three and out the ugly three've watched the Eagles all year, you know what's coming. The immediate three and out. The ugly three and out where you're like, wait, what happened? Why don't you have the ball anymore? I thought you were going to run out the clock. It's like they have to add the degree of difficulty to any sort of whatever. The one thing I'll say

with the defense, and I thought Josh really put a spotlight on it, and one of the reasons they succeeded so well in the third downs is they do have trouble with the mobile quarterbacks. And I wonder, you know, the underneath stuff, the eight to 10 yard passes, and then the quarterbacks

that if it's not there right away, they can kind of roll out and beat their linemen. But I wonder, who is the team in the playoffs? It's not your team. Let's say they played, well, they're going to get a one, they're going to get the one seed.

So I guess they would play the four or five. But let's say they played Atlanta. Josh Goffs. I think you're about to say Josh Goffs. There's a weird team that could give them issues just because they seem a little slow and cumbersome sometimes. Mobile quarterback? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, that would be it. Only Dobbs. I'm looking at it. Not Goff. Not my guy. I don't know. But all these teams... Listen, Zach Wilson beat them. So this is football. 2023. That's all I keep telling myself.

That's how I can stay sane. Well, how about they casually tell us during the game, Hertz is moving better. He had a bad knee contusion that he got in week six. Right. It's like, he did? We knew his knee was wrong, but they were telling us it was fine for five weeks.

And now it's like, no, no, it's a bad contusion. What is the point of the injury report? Yeah, it's getting pointless. It's getting really stupid. I don't know. There was a lot. You know what, Bill? There might've been too much football this weekend.

There might've just been too much. And I was all in. If you're saying it's too know. There was a lot. You know what, Bill? There might have been too much football this weekend. There might have just been too much. And I was all in. Too much? If you're saying it's too much, there was too much. I love it, but I just, I'm fed up with the referees

being inconsistent. The coaching seemed worse than ever. And, you know, and then there's little things like the injury report, which is like, eh, what? I feel like we're being tricked

a lot of the time as fans. I mean, I've given up trying to figure out. Herbert gets hit going out of bounds today. I feel like we're being tricked a lot of the time as fans. I mean, I've given up trying to figure out Herbert gets hit going out of bounds today. They call that 100 times out of 100. And today in the first quarter of the Ravens game, they just don't call it. Right. It's like the quarterback. Everybody's eyes are on the quarterback at all times.

Obvious cheap hit. They don't call it. The plays over the middle where the receiver is getting hit. And it's like, okay, the defender kind of launched, which means it's a penalty but then other times they launch and it's not a penalty but if he hits the helmet, inadvertently hits somebody in the helmet, that's a penalty if he didn't launch

and I just, I think they've completely lost the narrative. I never know what I'm watching anymore. Even the continuation catch thing where you saw Deontay Johnson today, caught a touchdown, two steps, lands, rolls over, and the ball comes out. And then later on, who was that Denver tight end? He caught a ball and his hip was down and the ball was in his hands

for one thousandth of a second before he went out of bounds. It was like, that was a catch, touchdown. And then there's every offensive tackle that comes out of his stance a second before he went out of bounds. It was like, that was a catch, touchdown. And then there's every offensive tackle that comes out of his stance a second early and sometimes it's okay and sometimes it's not. Yeah, I know. Or like the motion stuff. Miami, it seems like their guys,

like Houston had a 50-yard play callback today where Doe was, they said it was an illegal shift. But he did the same thing Tyreek Hill does 50 times in a Dolphins game, but they never call that. And I don't understand motion anymore at all. Sometimes it's called, sometimes it's not. You're right.

You know what? Get me into this mid-season basketball tournament. I'm done with football. That's it. I'll give you some picks. We'll ride Orlando. Orlando, baby. Do you care that Josh Allen is 0-6 in overtime games?

Does that mean anything to you well that's gotta drive him nuts because one of those times at least one time he didn't even have the ball against the Chiefs right yeah true so he's gotta get it

he gets a loss for that he should care he should care he should be damn pissed off about that right he doesn't want us dropping him out of the top six

anytime soon like we did to Justin Herbert. We'll do it to you, Josh. But he looked great today. We'll move Russell and Hustle. Russell, Hustle, and Bustle might be moving his way back in. What the hell? I texted R.L. Hawane, the huge Bills fan who comes on the pod

every once in a while, and he's in a dark place. He's, and I know it, and we've rooted for teams like this. He said it's gotten to the point where he just assumes it's not going to turn out well as the game is unfolding.

It's like you're just, when you hit the point where you're like, what's the other shoe? When's it going to drop? What bad thing is going to happen? That's when, that's when you need a new coach

or you need, something has to change. So I, McDermott, he's fired everybody he could potentially blame, I think, at this point. That's one of the worst teams to root for. The team that plays to the level of the competition

and comes up short almost every time, or at least more than half the time. They play, they barely beat Tampa, they barely beat the Giants. Let's throw the Jet game out for a minute. Then they play Philadelphia like they should be smoking them and they just can't put them away. Very frustrating.

Eight straight interception. Eight straight games with an interception. Josh Allen. Yeah. I thought it was very good today, though. Otherwise, I don't know. I agree. That's what's frustrating is it sounds like we're criticizing him.

But if you watch the game, he was the dominant guy in the game. Kurtz was able to match it for, I would say, half of the second half and then OT. But Allen was doing that the whole game and really looked like the version of Josh that you want if you want to try to win the title. Their schedule the rest

of the way, they're at KC next week. They're home for Dallas. And they're at the Chargers. There's a world where they could win two of those. I don't think they could win three, but they could win two. Then they have New England at home, and then they're at Miami in the last week of the season

in a game that who the fuck knows if that's going to mean anything for Miami. I mean, it might mean seating for two, three, four, but at this point, like, do you even care where you are in the two,

three, four? I don't think Miami is not going to get a buy. So if you can't get the one suit. Yeah. I can't count them out. I mean, the biggest obstacle.

So there's six and six Cleveland, seven and four Pittsburgh is seven and four. And then the three, six win teams are Indy six and five Denver, six and five in Houston, six and five. Pittsburgh is 7-4, and then the three 6-win teams are Indy 6-5, Denver 6-5, and Houston 6-5. So Buffalo probably has to go at least 10-7, and maybe even 11-6 to make it, but 9-8 is not cutting it. So they've got to go 4-1 or 5-0 down the stretch.

And from what I've seen, I don't see it. Like Romo at one point was like, Von Miller starting to show signs of life, Jim. I'm like, Von Miller's a corpse. What are you talking about? They have one guy who could rush a passer. I think they could go 4-1. If that version of today, yeah, I think they could.

So, I mean, at the Chiefs, you weren't, you know, from much of that game, you weren't impressed with them. We know what happens with my team. Chargers, forget it. That's here. I mean, there's going to be Bill Moffitt what happens with my team. Chargers, forget it. That's here. There's going to be Bill Moffitt. They're going to be breaking tables at midfield. That's going to be a

dumb game. And then, I don't know. You're Patriots. I know you have a lot of confidence in them, but I'm not sure. They could be all right. They could be 3-1 going into that last game. Let's take a break and we'll talk about the Pats. This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. You know me, I can't go a day without sports. I really can't. And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right. There's a new exclusive home for streaming Monday night NHL

hockey, and it's on Prime. All season long, watch Prime Monday Night Hockey deliver unreal plays, the biggest goals, can't miss moments. Matthews, McDavid, Crosby, the NHL's best. They're all on Prime. Prime Monday Night Hockey. It's on Monday. It's on Prime. 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 can 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, Sal. So February 2002, Adam Vinatieri, after previously making a couple weeks earlier the greatest kick in Patriots history in the snow against the Raiders, and then he made it again to win. And then he makes the greatest kick in Patriots history in the snow against the Raiders. Then he made it again to win. Then he makes the winning kick in Super Bowl XXXVI and goes down as an icon.

21 years later, my guy Chad Ryland comes in. It's 10-7 Giants. 35 yarder to send the game into an overtime nobody wanted. Chad said, you know what? I'm going to hook this one left. Sends it left, puts the Pats into the top two with an outside chance to get the first pick in the 2023 draft. They are probably not going to win another game this season. I would say it's a safe bet. I don't know if Fando has odds on it, but they're going to be prohibitive underdogs, I think,

in all the games except for the Jets game. They play home Chargers next week at Pittsburgh, home KC at Denver, I think, in all the games except for the Jets game. They play home Chargers next week at Pittsburgh, home KC at Denver, at Buffalo, and then home against the Jets the last week where Aaron Rodgers is never coming back. But this was

both the nadir and the apex of the 2023 season, Sal, because we needed the loss. It's a weird situation against your team. I know you hated it. I do hate it. I do, because this is a rivalry.

Jets, Giants, Patriots is a rivalry. You should never root for the other team. You should never be rooting for Tommy DeVito on the other side to put you out of your misery and vault you up these ranks. I don't know what kind of chart you even know who you even know who you're going to draft like, oh, Marvin Harrison Jr. All right. Marvin Harrison, there could be three receivers down in the bottom half of the first round that are as good as Marvin Harrison Jr. You just don't know it yet. And you've made your decision. You're not going to root for Bill Belichick to break the record as a Patriot,

guy who's done so much for you and everything else, you're now rooting for losses. That's what I don't like. Well, I think he's also rooting for losses. No way. Because what other explanation was there to play back Jones? No way. Belichick did the classic. He split the snaps with the guy all week. He left everybody in the dark for who the starter was going to be.

He made it as tenuous as possible for Mack. He did everything possible to completely undermine his confidence. And guess what happened? Mack, who was already a shell of himself, went out and played his worst game yet, which didn't seem possible. You said Zappy's worse. You said it on text. Zappy might be worse.

So his hands are tied. I don't know what he's... He's not trying to lose. That kicker's not trying to lose. It's a fun joke to make. Like, oh, Kraft was on the phone. He made it, you know, he put in the call and that's it. Kick a miss by three feet.

He didn't hook it, you know, into the right corner of the end zone. That's a glorious three feet. I actually think you could argue, I don't know how bad Malik Cunningham is, but at least he can run around. One of the things that's crazy about the Pats QB situation, like these guys combined today, they were 12 for 21 for 89 yards. They threw three picks and no touchdowns. And they had zero rushes. So not only are they terrible pocket passers, but you don't have to worry about, even PJ Walker, who's terrible, right? But at least with PJ Walker, it's like, oh, he might run for a first down. There's some linebacker who's like, we got to worry about this guy a little bit.

The Pats, they have terrible quarterbacks who are also slow and clumsy. So you don't even have to worry about anything other than them just throwing the ball to you. The Giants got 10 first downs and they won. The Pats defense, which lost Judon and Gonzalez, and has allowed 40 points in the last three weeks combined, all losses, and this is the darkest Patriot season in 31 years. And you should feel nothing but pity for Bill Belichick, and God forbid, let him scratch out a win or two, root for him in these close games.

They do it for Bill. Both Bills, you and Belichick. I don't see any other way to root for this. All right, but here's the counter with the Belichick thing, who brought us six Super Bowls, and I love the man. He did pick all of these players. It's not like there was another GM or another... He's trying to do all these jobs at once, which made a lot more sense when he was in his 50s, maybe even in his early 60s, but now he's in his 70s, still trying to do it. And they've just whiffed on these drafts in dramatic ways. And on top of it, taking guys that actually seem pretty promising.

I'm sorry, Mack was pretty good two years ago. He was the signs of something. He played really good games. I think two years ago, this weekend, they beat Tennessee and Tennessee was the signs of something. He played really good games. I think two years ago, this weekend, they beat Tennessee and Tennessee was the one seed in the AFC and Mack was, he threw for like 300 yards and had a really good game and just looked like crisp and like a game manager. And two years later, he looks like he's Private Pyle in full metal jacket.

So at some point, like developing a QB and having the right coaching staff, that's part of Belichick. Don't get me wrong. I love it. I love every minute of it. I'm rooting against them, but you should root for them. That's all I'm saying. I'm supposed to root for wins? Why? I want to get a quarterback.

Cerruti, will you come on for a second? Steve Cerruti is going to join us. Okay. So Cerruti watches even more college football than you Sal or maybe it's a dead heat I don't know it might be a tie he could take the title I'm going to sit out this quarterback

thing because I have not watched enough quarterback stuff in the draft but there's Caleb Williams who everyone was saying after his sophomore year looked like the next Mahomes and then there's Drake May and everybody was like, no, no, he's the stealth franchise guy. Watch out for him.

So Cerruti, we are now in the end of November. Are either of these guys slam dunks? Like where do you have them? Who would you compare them to? I mean, Rosillo always talks about this. Like the problem with Caleb is he was so good last year. He obviously won the Heisman. That like the expectations are so high.

And the USC team, the defense is as bad as there is in the entire country. So he's constantly having to throw for five touchdowns and 400 yards a game. And that's an impossible thing to do. So, of course, as he makes mistakes, it's not looking as fun as it was last year. So he's getting knocked down a peg. Plus, he had this thing where he was crying with his mom on the stands after the Washington loss. Then he was talking about after a game one time they wanted to go home and cuddle with his dog. So he's really going to test the Haro

meathead. That's very New England. Yeah, they'll love him there. He's going to really test the meathead Haro draft guys of whether or not, is this guy an actual NFL quarterback? Is he the guy you want to lead your franchise? Do you want to toss him the car keys? Yeah. They're going to get

galvanized guys. I don't really get worried about that stuff. I mean, Drake May has definitely risen in a lot of them. I mean, he's he's goes one to

to the Bears and a lot of mocks now. And that was certainly before the season was all Caleb. So it's definitely a conversation for sure, at least with the mock

draft expert guys. But Rudy, did you like did you like Bryce Young last year? Did you like I did? Did you think Mac Jones was a good pick? Did you think he was a top four guy three years ago? Like this,

you gotta get so lucky with this. You hit like 34%. Definitely great draft guys. You know, there's actually like, I mean, even if you go beyond Caleb Williams and, and,

and Drake, there's, you know, Jane Daniels is, he might win the Heisman. He's unreal at LSU this year, putting up legit video game stats. Bo Nix kind of looks like not to make the Oregon comparison. He's like a poor man's Justin Herbert. He's unreal at LSU this year, putting up legit video game stats. Bo Nix kind of looks like, not to make the Oregon comparison,

he's like a poor man's Justin Herbert. He's physically pretty impressive. You got McCarthy at Michigan, Michael Penix, Jador Sanders. There's a lot of actually kind of, even if you don't get one of the top two, there's a few guys maybe the Pats can get later in the first or early in the second round. I want to throw something at you, though, guys, and specifically you, Bill. Because they sit, I think, third right now in the draft order. And there's a lot of mobs. I think to throw something at you though, guys, and specifically you, Bill. Because they sit, I think, third right now

in the draft order. And there's a lot of mobs that have Caleb. I think they're second now. Second or third. I'm looking right now. They're second now. So second, either way. So if they end up getting Caleb, or say they get Drake May, who knows? Is there a comp to the Greg Popovich getting Wemby, like Belichick

getting one of these young quarterbacks? Is that a thing? Or are we just completely sour on Belichick to the point where he has to go if there's a new quarterback? So on one of my Pat's Twitter things that I follow, they retweeted somebody who said this in May after the Spurs got Wemby. And they were like, now watch the Pats try to do this with Caleb Williams. I guess Sal makes the key point. And I know Brasile has done a lot of stuff on this on his pod about what a coin toss this is. And I remember even writing about this at Grandland. I don't think it's ever changed.

It used to be 50% if it's a top six quarterback, and now it feels like it's around 35 to 40. So you spend all this time hoping you land somebody, but then it's situation, it's his offensive line. It's like what happened with Bryce Young. If you put Bryce Young in Houston and CJ Stroud in Carolina, I have no idea what the sliding doors thing would be. I guess my thing, Sal, is Belichick's history, everything we've learned from the guy since he took over with the Pats would indicate that

he would get this pick and try to turn it into as much value as possible and trade backwards and try to get all these different things. It would be like his dream situation. It's like, oh, I turned this into seven assets. But the Pats fans are sitting here going, you're batting 10% on your last six drafts. Please don't get more draft picks. Just take the guy. So where do you stand on all this? Here's where I stand. I watched a lot of college football this weekend, and I see a lot of guys, J.J. McCarthy, Drake May, all these guys are good decision makers. And I know that's not going to translate in the pros,

and it's depressing. It's like, I know this guy's going to suck on Atlanta or whatever. I could feel it in my bones. Bryce Young was a good decision maker. He was a good, I don't want to say game manager. Bryce Young was a good decision maker. He was a good, I don't want to say game manager, but he was a good technician. Bo Nix is like throwing for 80%. It's insane. And he's nifty, getting out of the pocket and getting out of trouble.

But you know it's not going to translate. So your eyes end up playing tricks on you. And I don't know. I have a couple of my favorites. I like Bo Nix, and I like McCarthy, and I like Drake May. But I don't know that those guys are going to be good, I like Bo Nix and I like McCarthy and I like Drake May, but I don't know that those guys are going to be good

or one or two or three of them are going to be good. Here's the thing. Half those guys too, they've got better weapons in college than some of the, like the, than the Pats do.

Right. You know, like Drake May, I mean, certainly Jane Daniels, Bo Nix probably, maybe even Caleb. Like they've got,

they just have better weapons than the Pats do right now. So if you, if you put like those guys in this exact Pats offense, they're going to struggle. Well, and then you think, Minshew is 6-5 with the Colts right now. Right?

And over and over again, the Lions were able to turn their fortunes around by making that Stafford trade and putting Goff behind what seemed on paper to be a really good offensive line. It was a good last Thursday. But sometimes I wonder, does it just make the most sense? Every year there's one incredible left tackle. Just take that guy and then just keep building around your lines. And then eventually you're going to be able to grab

one of these either disgraced quarterbacks who failed another team or some middling quarterback or whatever, and you might be better off because there's only what 32 team league. There's only like five guys who actually make a difference. And if these, if none of these guys in the draft are going to be one of those five guys, then take Marvin Harrison or the left tackle. That'd be my, so how far would you draft drop in the draft to take Gardner Minshew?

If you could have Gardner Minshew on the team next year. Or like a Brock Purdy, right? That's your best case scenario for like, I didn't have to waste a high first round. I think it's so complicated and so hard to figure out. I can't believe we're not better at it. I talked about this a few weeks ago, but I just like in basketball,

almost all the time it makes sense to me. Right. Like even you watch like somebody like Franz on Orlando and I'm sure the Warriors are like kicking themselves. I brought up Franz to, to, uh, makes me really happy. Appreciate that.

But like Franz, the stuff he did in college, like you could see if it was the right type of team that took advantage of the things he was good at, it would make sense that he would become a good pro. Halliburton was like, you know, the, the advanced stat people, like would make sense that he would become a good pro. Halliburton was like, you know, the advanced stat people,

like they loved him. They were like, here's the great thing. He doesn't need to have the ball a lot. He's putting up huge stats. Very rarely do we have like shocking NBA success stories. But in the NFL,

like the C.J. Stroud, Bryce Young thing to me, that everyone argued about that for what, three months? Yeah. And then you watch CJ Stratton, I know they lost, but the guys got so much poise. There was times in that game where Jacksonville was coming at him that whole game and he was escaping and stopping and just taking the extra two seconds. You're like, man, this guy has it. There's no question. But why didn't we know that

in April? Well, remember there was this like Ohio State quarterback thing where people were saying, you know, is the system what they do in Ohio State like is that just those guys weren't translating to the pros it was like three or four different guys and so I think that kind of knocked him plus they've had awesome receipt they've had like two wide receivers draft in the first round I think the last like two years they're gonna have another one this year so it's like is it the system is the weapons or is it the quarterback so that was the question I think around I mean everybody I think before the draft said Stroud was the one that threw the best ball. It was just, is he the system and the weapons?

Or is it all him? And, you know, it's probably a little bit of both. It's like Henry Winkler, Simmons. Like, he got typecast for being Fonzie and couldn't get a job after that. That's sort of what happens to these Ohio State guys. Like, yeah, all right. But you had all these receivers and everything.

And I don't care that you... Yeah, you had Anson Williams, Donnie Burrows. Yeah, right. You had Pat Morita. 48 points against Georgia. You had Big Al breathing down your neck, so it didn't matter. Did you guys think Burrow was a slam dunk

when he was coming out? Because he had the greatest college year in the history of college football, but was he considered a slam dunk? He was so poised in all those things you say, what you talked about. But it was really just that senior year, though, right, Saruti? Yeah, I mean, he was an Ohio State quarterback

that transferred out and went to LSU. So he found a home there, and that was arguably the most talented team. I mean, I'd ban Latham would tell you that's the best team in the history of college football he played on. So it was not a... I mean, people like Burrell's moxie.

Like, the guy is just... I mean, you just love that guy when you spend probably two seconds with him. He's just a dude. But no, he was not a slam dunker. I mean, Trevor... Burrow's moxie. The guy is just... I mean, you just love that guy when you spend probably two seconds with him. He's just a dude. But no, he was not a slam dunk. I mean, Trevor... I think people thought Trevor Lawrence was more of a slam dunk than Burrow was for sure.

But Drake May and Caleb Williams are not on the Trevor Lawrence slam dunk level. It does not seem. I don't think Drake is. Caleb Williams is under pressure. Caleb Williams is pressured more than any other quarterback because their line is weird and everything else.

And his numbers under pressure are not great. That's the only thing. That's the only thing I would, my only reservation with him because he can sling it. He resembles Mahomes a lot in his mannerisms

and everything else. So you don't want to pass on him just for that reason, but under pressure, it's a whole different story. And you have that sample size with him. Yeah, to your point, Bill, I think when we miss drafting on these

quarterbacks so much of it is about just like what what team and system you're drafted into like who's your quarterback coach who's your off like you're getting andy reed you can kyle shanahan or you're getting the jets you know like it's and and like jalen hurts if he was if he goes somewhere else is he jalen hurts that we know now maybe probably not though and so i think again like a lot of these guys like if if goes to, you know, the Bears, we were talking, could Caleb say, hey, I actually don't want to go there.

Like, could he pull an Eli Manning and just say, now I'm going to pass. Or because he could always come back to school too. And now with the NIL stuff, like these guys could make money. It's not like they're going to be, you know, maybe they might not make,

like, you know, whatever an NFL rookie is going to make, but they'll make close to it. So who knows? Like they have that chip too. It would seem like one quality would be there's some sort of competitive gene that these guys have or don't have.

I heard Lombardi last week on his podcast was talking about Zach Wilson, about that he just didn't feel like Zach Wilson had the competitive intensity for a three-hour football game, that he had the desire or intent to just dominate, that some of these great guys have. The best guys, and I think this is the same way in basketball, these guys that it's not even just about the sport they're playing, but they're

on the plane playing cards. They're playing Scrabble on the fucking bus. Anything they're doing, they're trying to win, win, win, win. And I think Burrow's like that. But last year, you would have said Bryce Young was like that. And then you watch him on Carolina, he's a shell of himself. So is that the offensive line's fault? Is that Frank Reich? He's throwing to Adam Thielen.

To me, the Bryce Young thing screws it up more than anything because he's in the worst possible situation and we have no idea if he's good or not. Yeah. It's Coach Sp good or not. Yeah. His coach is about to get fired. Yeah. It's a big year for 5'9 guys. I guess Tua passed the test.

He's back. He stayed upright for so far 12 weeks. Bryce Young, not so lucky. That might put the 5'9 and other guys back a little bit. But if you put Tua on I don't know, pick a team that didn't have Mike McDaniel and Ty Rico and Jalen Waddle where you get rid of the ball in

two seconds. Yeah, Nate Hackett, you're screwed. Is he remotely the same? I have no idea. Well, here's what we learned. There's no fucking way to know what you're getting with the quarterback. I'm going to, as this keeps going, I know I'm going to, as this keeps going, I know I'm going to see some 15-minute YouTube video of Caleb Williams.

I'm going to lose my mind. I'm like, oh my God, we got to take this guy. He's a problem. I'm going to send that to my dad. He's a problem. You think he's going to be a problem guy? No, I mean, he's great. No, in a good way.

On Twitter, like, oh, Caleb Williams, sidearm throw. He's going to be a problem. All right, Cerruti. Thanks for making me more confused. Thanks, guys. Thanks for bringing it back to basketball.

That was great. Big Tuesday night. We're rooting for a Raptors victory over the Nets. Shout out to the Magic. I got to say, I

didn't think Tommy DeVito was that bad, by the way. All right. That's exactly what I was just going to say. That's the other side of this.

Some of these guys are getting a little better. Jordan? All right. That's exactly what I was just going to say. That's the other side of this. Some of these guys are getting a little better. Jordan Love is better. He's better. Tommy DeVito. Jordan Love is a lot better. Not bad. That was my fear with that Lions Thanksgiving tease

that was the easiest tease of all time is it looked like the Packers, they were getting receivers back and we're starting to move the ball. We'll talk about them later. I have a Thanksgiving spot. A couple more games quickly. We completely changed the fate of the NFC South.

We put a big bet on the Saints. All it did was light a fire under the Falcons. They rushed 41 for 228 today against the Saints. It was the quintessential Derek Carr game. 24 for

34. 304 yards. Yeah. Like 190 at half. Yeah. No touchdowns, one pick six and they lose. And if you just look at the stats,

like, oh, Carr had a pretty good game. It's like, nah, he actually didn't. He was, he was checking down.

He was not a threat at all. And he threw the worst play. The worst start of the game was his fault. It was terrible. And, uh, I actually think the Falcons are just better. The Saints were losing

guys during the game too, but by better, maybe they're not as bad. I don't think they're a threat in the playoffs, but I do feel like they have an identity. They can run the ball and their defense revolves around Bates, who was... When was the last time we had a good free agent safety signing? That never happens. So I don't know. I give the edge to the Falcons. It's so crazy because what was it? 10 days ago, we saw the Saints. Me, you, and House were like, we have to do something big on the Saints. What do we do? Saints, Lions,

Chiefs to win the division? Oh my God, that's even. We have to do it. Look at the Saints' schedule. Look at the quarterbacks going to face over the next month. Now we're like, House is all over Ringer Wise. Guys are like, I love Atlanta. I love Atlanta Atlanta to a point where I had to look at my notes. I'm like, did we bet Atlanta to win a bit? No, what are you doing house? We have to root for the saints in a game like this. He's like, no, Atlanta is better. And yeah, I don't know what you do with

the quarterback situation. Like Taysom Hill, we know takes it inside the five. Should we just keep moving them back? Like, no, he should be the quarterback inside the 10, inside the 30 at midfield until he finally takes the job. Or is Jameis Winston, I think is one of the more curious things in the last few years, why he's not ready, why they're not willing to put him in. Certainly a number of opportunities to try him out again. The Dennis Allen, Derek Carr combo was everybody's fear with betting the Saints before the season. I'm with you. When they play Hill a quarterback, they're the scariest. Right.

The defense seems the most discombobulated when that's happening. Steelers-Bengals. Yeah. That was also important because I think we can put a fork in the Bengles officially. And they hung around in this game. What's the space? Jake Browning is two big plays are both tip passes,

right? The Steelers had their hands on Jake Browning passes all day. Um, they just couldn't move the ball. I felt bad for chase Steelers. New coach theory wins again, 400 plus yard game for them. Um,

they actually threw the cap Friermuth. One touchdown, but I guess it's... They didn't have the ball though. All right. They threw to... They had a couple turnovers inside the 30 that I think made the score a little closer. They found something with Friermuth

it felt like. And then Pickett, whatever. He can throw that 30 yarder down the sidelines twice a game, and he can throw that eight-yarder to Friar Muth, and Warren and Harris can run the ball. I don't know. That team might go 12-5. I'm just preparing you now. Yeah, they're infuriating. You don't have to prepare me. I'm set with the Steelers. I could be mad at them, but I don't know why you made fun of this bet today. I'm still doing opponent first half Steelers to win the game, but now it's down to like- I didn't make fun of it. I made fun of the fact that you made fun of this bet today. I'm still doing opponent first half, Steelers to win the game.

I didn't make fun of it. I made fun of the fact that you've murdered the value of it. It used to be 10 to 1, and then you kept winning on it, and now it's 4 to 1. No, no. It depends if they're favored or not. If they're a three-point underdog, it'll be 7 to 1. If they're a three-point favorite, it'll be 4 to 1. You never should have said anything.

You should have just quietly pocketed profits. It's all right. It's still going to win. It's still going to keep winning. So go for it. I don't know. I think they're the team we target to bet against in the playoffs, but now I'm not sure anymore. Oh, see, I was

thinking... JJ doesn't listen to this podcast, does he? I think he does. Crap. I think the Dolphins, with losing Phillips and just in general, I don't love their offensive line. I think the Dolphins with losing Phillips and just in general, I don't love their offensive line. I thought their defense was the reason you could say like, oh man,

now they've got Ramsey back. They've got a little bit of a pass rush. But losing Jalen Phillips was a mass murder for them. And I just don't feel like they... I thought that was a talented team. I picked them to win the division before the year, but it's not a team that could afford to lose blue chip guys.

Cause they're, they're pretty top heavy. Yeah. And, uh, I don't know that, like I was looking, if you look at the matchups right now,

it's Casey versus Indy, Jacksonville versus Cleveland and Miami versus Pittsburgh in round one. And I was thinking, what a fucking terrible spot for Miami to play that goofy Pittsburgh team in Miami in round one. And they'll be favored by what? Six and a half, seven? They'll be like, oh, tease Miami. Pittsburgh sucks. They can't even score 20 points. And then all of a sudden they're doing Pittsburgh stuff. And that's like a worst-case scenario five seed. Five or whatever. Yeah, it could be three versus six, two versus... Yeah, they could meet them a bunch of different ways.

Out of those wildcard teams, though, I'm not sure the Colts are definitely in there. But that's the only team I would feel okay playing in the first round, right? You don't want to face the Browns or the Steelers. I think I might want to face the Browns. Let's talk about the Browns-Broncos game after the break. All right, Browns-Broncos. Denver has, is this right, 15 turnovers in the last four games?

That's the right number, right? I thought they were plus 12 over the last four. But they made a couple. I think their defense has 15. There's a Sean Payton revival that's happening that is now undeniable. They've won five straight. I love Cleveland today.

I thought their defense, I thought, all right, Denver, this is cute, four in a row, but Cleveland's defense is just going to throttle them. This little stupid misdirection with Russ and this goofy run game they have. It ain't working. And Denver,

the first two drives, they just stuck it to them. They just went right down the field both times. And it was one of those games you knew by the end of the first quarter where it was going. Denver might be the team. I remember I had Lombardi on the pod. I'm going to say like four weeks ago and we're trying to figure out who's

going to be the sneaky second half team that nobody saw and i think he landed on denver because he was like i think maybe you think like slow start but whatever but they're clearly the second half team now i think it's it's probably them and the falcons yeah if you you don't want to see russell wilson the playoffs a confident russell wilson the playoffs where they could score and and create turnovers. For sure. I'm with you. I had the Browns on a tease. I was like, oh my God, getting eight and a half? Who knows if the Broncos would even score eight and a half points

if the Broncos could even pull it off. They look good. I have some money on, people laughed at me on Sean Payton, comeback player of the year, coach of the year. If you base it on from when he gave up 70 to Miami on, he kind of is the comeback coach of the year for sure mean, if you base it on from when he gave up 70 to Miami on, he kind of is the comeback coach of the year

for sure. But I think it's got to change a little bit. They're at the Texans, at the Chargers, at the Lions. Actually, they have the Chargers twice. Yeah, they're going to make the playoffs. They have the Chargers twice. Forget everything else. I think they're going to make it too. It's an old school Belichick team where

they only do the stuff they're good at. Russ, who still makes you nervous if you're betting on him. And it always seems like he's about to commit a turnover. He's about to fumble on a sack or he's about to do something completely stupid. But he's got a little of that old dad on the golf course luck. He'll chuck it up to somebody twice a game and either the guy will catch it or the guy will drop the interception.

I think he's been okay. We thought he was washed up at the start of the season. He's been flawless in the red zone. I don't think he screwed up once in the red zone. They can run the ball. All of their running backs run really hard. They love to pound into guys and bounce off them and Sutton's made

plays over and over again now in traffic and then defensively they can rush the passer they even they lost that Kareem Jackson who did the double suspension but I thought when he was out there I thought they were even more dangerous but he'll be back in time for the playoffs but

I have to say like Baltimore, Jackson say, Baltimore, Jacksonville, Miami, Kansas City, let's put all of them in. Let's put Pittsburgh in. I don't think we can deny them. And then if you gave me Cleveland, Indy, Denver, Houston, or Buffalo, and I had to pick two of those, I'd probably pick Houston and Denver as the six sevens. Yeah. And I don't think I'd have Cleveland because I, you know, the, the Cleveland part, that was the other thing is that, you know, DTR actually had a little momentum in that game. Then he gets knocked out. Right. Walker comes in, he's terrible.

So they've gone through three quarterbacks plus Dobbs who they traded right before the season. And they just seem kind of snake bit. Like at some point, maybe if you lose your best guy in week two, maybe it's not your year. Right. Sure. And with Watson and Chubb. But you think it's 10 wins gets to seven or nine? See, if it's nine, I think the Browns are right there.

They just need two more, right? I think they do well. They fare well with some tiebreakers. So that's the Rams. You do. I think, I think, because I think Buffalo's either going to get to 9-8 or 10-7.

So the Browns, let's forget the Texans and the Jaguars. We could chalk up losses there. Go through the Browns. Go through the Browns. All right. Browns at Rams. See,

that might be the game. The Rams are looking good though. I think the Rams could beat them. That might be a loser leaves town match actually. All right.. I think the Rams could beat them. That might be a loser-leaves-town match, actually. All right. So, Browns at Rams. Browns home for Jaguars. Browns home for Bears.

I think that's one. That's one. Browns at Texans. Okay. Browns home for Jets. December 28th. That's two. And then Browns at Bengals.

Against Jake Browning. Oh, they could get to 10. Yeah, they'll have nine going into that last week. Their defense could just win three. Yeah. But now Garrett's shoulder popped or something. So we'll look at that tomorrow. Yeah, Garrett was in a sling.

Yeah, because the Jets are at this point. I'm going to, this is the third straight Sunday. I'm going to say this, but the Rodgers thing, just stop. He's not coming back. People don't like this. People really don't. Who doesn't like it? People are weighing in, saying, you're going to get sued.

You and Simmons are going to get sued for saying it was a fake injury. I'm like, let's say it's a fake injury. Who said it was a fake injury? I don't know. MB119 at... I don't know. It was a real injury. It's just he's not coming back from it mid-December.

Right. If it was a real injury. It's ridiculous. The Jets are going to be better off just continuing to lose and to get a top 10 pick and have Rodgers come back next year, take one of the receivers, there's three of them, and you're good to go. Or use the pick and trade for somebody.

Man, you're right. Cleveland only has to go 3-3 here, and they have three shit teams. So they'd really have to screw that one up. Houston, we didn't talk about Houston-Jacksonville. You love Jacksonville. Jacksonville had 445 total yards. Lawrence had one of his best games. Texans moved the ball really well, too. It almost seemed like it took

them too long to start throwing it. But did you like what you saw from Jacksonville? You believe in them at all? Yeah, I think so. They're just better than Houston. They're a little underrated. People hated them when they got murdered by the 49ers, but they had won the five before that. They beat Tennessee

after that. They played well, jumped up to a lead. I thought that was a dumb thing right before the half. I was like, take the field goal. They had that long pass that went down to the one. If you're up nine on Houston at half, that's demoralizing enough. You don't need to go up, get the touchdown. Then the

officiating got bad. I know they made up for it, but Ingram got his jersey ripped. It was like a non-consensual jersey swap in the middle of the game. They didn't call it. He was picked off, and then Houston came back and scored. It was as good a game as we thought, aside from the officiating. I think they're going to be good.

Don't be surprised if they sneak out that one seed, looking at their numbers the rest of the way. People were on that three, four weeks ago, just from their schedule, that they were a one seed dark horse. I still feel like the Chiefs are going to sneak in there. Chiefs came back, beat the Raiders. I think Antonio Pierce has reached the,

if it's cool, we're just going to let you be the interim coach the rest of the year and continue to assess what's happening, but we are not going to have the tag removed. I was reading, there was a point in that game where the Raiders, Carlson missed a field goal and it felt like the Taylor Swift thing was going to get going. If the Raiders were up like 21-3 at halftime, then somebody was going to tweet out, did Taylor Swift ruin the Chiefs? And then it was off. Then we were going to have out, did Taylor Swift ruin the Chiefs? Right. And then it was off.

Then we were going to have the holy Twitter war of all time between football and the Swifty universe, but the Chiefs rallied back. But it's sitting there. That is sitting there. That's a volcano waiting to erupt on the right Chiefs last night. Well, if they don't win the Super Bowl, we'll have that conversation. Did Taylor Swift ruin the Chiefs, Super Bowl champs? Then they can't repeat.

But I love sending you the live lines when the Chiefs are down, down 7-0. Right. What was it, minus 180 at one point? Minus 186. It was plus 125 when it was 14-0. And then they just came back and they covered. It was really it.

It was so weird. They could just slow down. I like O'Connell. I think he's all right. He didn't have bad numbers. Colts, Bucks. The Colts have a winning record. I looked up Minshew's career stats.

If you just pull away the Urban Meyer season, he's a 500 starter with a 25-game sample size of no Urban Meyer. It's crazy. Indy's scheduled the rest of the way. Tennessee and Cincycy they'll be favored in both of those at home for Pittsburgh

at Atlanta home Vegas home Houston so you know I mean they could have been seven and four if not for that dumb Browns game

well it's been an amazing season and that's why we're going to bring in their owner right now Jim Merce come on in no he's not he's not here

no I watched the real sports thing I actually felt bad for a little bit for a second Jim Irsay, come on in. No, he's not here. He's not here? No. I watched the real sports thing. I actually felt bad for him a little bit. You stared at me in horror for a second. I was like, am I supposed to do an Irsay impression? I forgot. I felt... Oh, I should ask you to work on that.

Watch the real sports thing. You'll feel bad for him a little bit. I saw it, and I felt bad for him. I think, you know, he's had some demons. Cardinals, Rams. Rams' first half and some demons. Cardinals-Rams. Rams' first half and game was my easiest bet of the week. That was plus 170.

But the Rams, this Williams who came back for them, their running back, every year there's a guy who swings to Fantasy League playoffs and he's kind of, he could be the guy this year. It's like, oh my god, that guy had 228 yards again. Rams, I don't know, the Rams are kind of, he could be the guy this year. It's like, Oh my God, that guy had 228 yards again. Um, Rams, I don't know. The Rams are, are kind of lurking a little bit. Thanksgiving

leftovers quickly. Did you like the black Friday game? Um, I liked having something on there. I wish some of these were competitive. Like nothing was competitive. We just saw our, our lions teasers go down at, uh, you know 9.30 in the morning on Thanksgiving. But none of these games stood out as competitive. But I don't know. Yeah, I like it. Yeah. Let's have a good game.

I liked it. The Rodgers injury not only killed the Jets season, but it killed about six national televised games. I thought Tim Boyle was a hilarious addition to my COVID Thanksgiving weekend. Really enjoyed that. What did you, did you almost call the score? What did you have?

I was off by like four points. I had the same game parlay with it, but it is fun to see Boyle. I mean, Rogers is the king of the Hail Mary. And not only is he not the king, Boyle, but he's the anti-Rogers friend that gets taken back for six the other way.

Spectacular stuff, really, Jets. And the Lions, who have had a heavy whiff of fraudulence for the last couple weeks defensively, and then the Packers did whatever they wanted against them. So it looks like they're going to win their division. They have a three-game lead over Green Bay. But I don't feel great about the Lions. It'll be a long time before I throw Jared Goff

into another tease. Yeah, it's not a good sign when you can't handle the bottom two teams in your division. Not a very good division. They beat the Bears, but let's face it, they could have lost that game. And then a few days later, they got really beat up by the Packers, who maybe are

okay. I don't know. Like I said, it's nice when some of these bad quarterbacks get better. Well, they got Watson healthy. As soon as I waved him on all three of my teams, he started to look like Watson again. Reed, the rookie, they got him going a little bit. And Love seems like a different guy than he was six weeks ago.

LeFleur has coached some playoff games, so he's not like a first-year coach. I could see I have, if you figure there's going to be an NFC South team in Dallas and there's two spots left for Minnesota at 6-5, Seattle 6-6,

Green Bay 5-6, New Orleans 5-6, and the Rams 5-6. Yeah, we went over this on Wise Guys They have the Giants They have the Panthers And they have the Bears I'll spare your team for a second here Those are the three worst teams in football, right?

Three of the four or five worst teams in football What did you have? I saw that on Wise Guys They were like, what, plus 118 to make the playoffs? That's exactly what it was, plus 118. But Raheem brought up a good point. The Rams, as a long shot, was probably a better bet than like 4-10 or something, which is much less now.

Out of the way those five teams are playing, I would probably like the Packers and the Rams more than the other ones. Because Minnesota, I just find it hard to believe. Dobbs is a great story, but is he going to win three more games? We think nine and eight for at least the seven seed there. I think so. And Seattle, we went over their record. They easily could be six and eight in a couple weeks.

Yeah, they're in trouble. So right now, if the playoffs ended today, for two seven would be San Francisco, Seattle, then Detroit, Minnesota, and Atlanta, Dallas. And that's a bad draw for you guys. Just throwing that out there. than Detroit, Minnesota, and Atlanta, Dallas. And that's a bad draw for you guys. Just FYI. Just throwing that out there. So I started a Twitter riot with my Cowboys tweet.

Yeah. People were upset that I just pointed out all the teams you beat. None of them had a winning record. And people were very upset about it. What the hell are we supposed to do? We play the teams on our schedule. We beat them up pretty well. Your team was on there, who you initially thought was going to make the playoffs. Let's be real. I did. You did? I did. All right. The Jets were 1-0 when we beat them. We lost Arizona,

so we take shit for that when we lose to a bad team. But when we spank a bad team, that's not good either. Look, all I have to say is, didn't you think we could have beaten the Eagles? We got beat up by the 49. All right, so what is what it is? What do you have to point out? I think I had a reaction to Romo the whole time as they're just beating up another crappy team and Romo's like, this is a Super Bowl team, Jim.

This team has everything. This is a Super Bowl team. It's definitely not. You got to beat somebody good before I'm ready to go. They're's still playing for the Cowboys. Leave him alone. Dak is 6-1

to an MVP. Third best odds. Hertz is down to 2-1. That was my preseason pick at 12-1. Mahomes is 3-1. Lamar is somehow 6-1. Let's cool off on that.

He was second. He was second all week. Now he's fourth. That should be double figures. Two is eight to one. Purdy's up to 14 to one. And then, I mean, Tyreek, we talked about this on my pod on Tuesday.

Tyreek is still 40 to one. I still feel like he's been one of the most important players. These guys are all good. The top three you named, but this would be the year to give it to a Tyreek or a McCaffrey or a Miles Garrish. No question. Isn't it?, but this would be the year to give it to a Tyreek or a McCaffrey or a Miles Garrett. No question. Isn't it? Right? This would be the year. The only other thing from Black Friday is

Chang made this crazy sandwich. What was it called? The Wedgebuster? The Wedgebreaker? Spent like seven months developing this and Al Michaels shot it down like he was being offered the COVID parmesan.

Now, Al doesn't eat vegetables. We've had Al on our podcast, and we love Al. It was like in wrestling, if somebody does their big move, and the guy just jumps right up. Is that all you got with your DDT? Right. Poor Chang. Chang jumped off the top rope and did a double backflip and landed a DDT on Al and Al just hopped up. What was that? Did you just

do something? It was unbelievable. I was so mad at Al Michaels. I love Al Michaels. I shouldn't be mad at Al Michaels. My Al Michaels, it was like Chang served him a doubleheader of Cardinals Bears in the middle of December in Chicago. He had to go out there, take this. It didn't even have a lot of vegetables. He opened it and he saw green and he freaked out. He's like, yeah, thanks, I guess. But then they were smart enough to have a tomahawk steak backing up. They should have given him a background on Chang.

Because Chang, afterwards, he's like, the players loved it. He listed dolphins. They asked for multiple pieces. I think Al really shook his confidence. No, I was with Al. Al's talking about his days with John Madden. We used to have the turducken.

And I was like, all right. Yeah, cool. John might have lived a couple of years longer if he threw some kale in that turducken. I don't know. The only other thing that happened over the week

was CM Punk came back to WWE out of nowhere. Yeah. People were pissed about that. People were pissed or happy? Well, the wrestlers seemed to be pissed.

They did a nice job of keeping it a surprise from the Seth Rollins of the world and everybody else, right? But, yeah, I mean, what kind of odds would you have put on that? a nice job of keeping it a surprise from the Seth Rollins of the world and everybody else. Right. Um, but,

uh, yeah, I mean, you would have, what kind of odds would you have put on that? I was shocked. I thought he had reached that, that kind of Keith Olbermann zone of,

it just was impossible for him to come back, but then there he was. Right. Crazy. All right. We'll take one more break and then, uh, we'll do the week 13 lines.

All right. Week'll take one more break, and then we'll do the Week 13 lines. All right, Week 13 Thursday. Your dumb team's playing. Yeah. The great bad team, the Cowboys. Uh-oh. Now what does this mean? We got another reeling contender. Do we get any credit for this?

Because you just said Seattle could be a playoff team. They're 6-5. You get credit. It's a big game for them. Alright. This game's in Dallas. What's our head-to-head, by the way? It's 5-5-2.

So we're tied. I think you've won like four in a row. Tied one and won the last three. I'm not happy about it. But I did pick this one exactly. You should be able to get it too. I had Cowboys by 7.5. Oh I did pick this one exactly. You should be able to get it too. I had Cowboys by seven and a half. Oh, you should have said seven.

Ah, okay. Right there, seven. It'll probably be seven and a half tomorrow morning. It makes you feel better. That looks like the easiest tease. Oh, shit. It is seven and a half. I could have been dishonest there. So I got it. God damn it. You got it. It moved in the last 20 minutes.

I'll take it. Why am I so honest with this? I'm teasing you guys. Let's put your money where your mouth is. We're putting you in a tease. Let's see it once and for all, Cowboys. Are you front runners or can you handle being in one of my teases? We'll come through.

We'll come through for you, Bill. I really – it's special that you're putting money down on the Cowboys. This is one of the rare instances where there's no rest in bed, right? They both have a week off, so it's good. Well, not really, though. Yeah, they both have seven days off. They both have a week off. Yeah, no advantage.

The Seahawks definitely an arrow pointing down for them last couple weeks. I do not think they're a very good team. I think they need that burst from Kenneth Walker and they need whatever Geno Smith had last year and he doesn't seem to have it. Sunday marquee game. This one's pretty easy. Chargers-Patriots? Eagles home for the Niners of San Francisco.

Yeah. I have Eagles by two and a half. Okay, good. I had Eagles by two. It's 49ers by two. Come on. Shut up. Yeah.

Well, let me check again. 49ers by two two it's now one and a half but yeah oh my god i i'm honestly i'm stunned i mean they have one they have one loss i don't know i mean i guess we can't scream about what a fraudulent team the eagles can be and then be surprised by something like this sounds like we gotta send the bad signal out for our guy, John Ewing. Yeah. How many times has a team been 10 and one or better and been an underdog at home? It's a good one. That could not have happened.

I feel like that happened once with the Colts and Pats in the 2000s with one side or the other where somebody like the Colts were 11 and one, but they were underdogs at home against and Pats in the 2000s with one side or the other. The Colts were 11-1, but they were underdogs at home against the Pats. But that can't have happened more than five times. Yeah, think about it. I mean, only the Patriots are like 10-1, and they had that string of being favorites for 17 years.

So, yeah, you might be right. You got to give John Ewing... I got to plug his... I got to plug his Twitter because he has good stuff. Oh, it's at John Ewing. gotta plug his I gotta plug his Twitter because he has good stuff oh it's at John Ewing yeah that should be

easy to remember yeah he's good he jumped right at it he does good stuff though he gave us that tic tac right we're like yeah he gave us

the tic tac numbers so many finals ending on a one point or two points he's like yeah 18 it's by far the most in the last two decades I don't think we mentioned

on the pod yeah it was the most since 2005. We said last week on this podcast, we were like, this is weird how many results are two or one. This is unusual. It doesn't always happen this way. And it turns out we were right.

Right. I test wins again. Wow, 49ers by one and a half. I'm stunned by that. That's a Nick Seriani, put that shit on the chalkboard type of thing Yeah I'll tell you what, I'm betting the Eagles I'm done, I can't count on the letdowns

Oh, they're going to let down after the Chiefs Oh, the Bills got them, they need it more I'm betting the Eagles That's it, I'll take my lumps if they lose I'd like to know Lane Johnson's status because it is one of the weirdest stats how when he doesn't play, they're

just a completely different team. I never knew a non-quarterback could mean so much to a team. The watchables, I got two. Detroit at New Orleans. Somehow this is a watchable and not a fairly watchable. Detroit at New Orleans. Somehow this is a watchable and not a fairly watchable.

This is a game I'm not going to bet, Sal. I'm going to have no money in any way, shape, or form on a tease, on a parlay, anything. I'm staying away. I think the Lions are going to be favored by two points over the Saints. All right. I said three, and it's three and a half. So I get that one.

Not a lot of confidence in New Orleans. That's too high. Scoring. Yeah. Just trying to think, what's their best win, New Orleans? I can't believe we put so much money on this team. How did we do this? I don't think the Lions' back of the defense can stop anything.

If there's ever a game Derek Carr could throw 400 yards and no interceptions, it's the Lions' defense because they stink. What was the Saints' best game? We'll throw your Patriots one out. They won 34-0. Are you looking at their wins? Yeah. I thought they had one good win.

They beat the Colts 38-27. They killed your team. That's decent. Beat the Bears. Beat the Titans. Not really. Yikes. Lost to the Jaguars.

Why did we do this? I don't know. Why did we do this? The other one we have is for watchables. Browns at the Rams. Yeah. Almost loser leaves town match, but the Browns could probably afford to lose it,

but the Rams need it. I'm putting this in the tic-tac zone. I'm going to say Browns minus one and a half. Well, you were way off, and I think I was way off too. I had Rams minus one and a half. Well, you were way off, and I think I was way off too. I had Rams minus one, and it's Rams minus four and a half. Wow. I haven't been this off on my picks in like eight weeks.

Yeah, that's a bad one for both of us. That's crazy, though. Rams minus four and a half? Yeah. PJ Walker, what's the line if it's DTR? That line seems to be right. What could it be? Okay.

Man. Maybe Miles Garrett is definitely out. I haven't heard that Miles Garrett is out, but that seems like a line. See, the Miles Garrett is worth like two and a half points. Where are these points coming from? I don't heard that Myles Garrett is out, but that seems like a line. See, the Myles Garrett is worth like two and a half points. Where are these points coming from? I don't know. Fairly watchables. Steelers, Cardinals in Pittsburgh.

Cardinals look terrible. Steelers look great. I'm going to say Steelers minus four. Yeah, you're going to get this. I said eight, and it's five and a half. Okay. Why? That feels like a money parlay.

Why should it be less? Go in there and beat Pittsburgh. Yeah, that should be higher. The Rams just went in there and beat them up. Texans home for the Broncos. I guessed this line in the morning and I had Texans home for the Broncos I guessed this line in the morning And I had Texans by three and a half

And now I'm going to lower that a half point Because of what Denver did today And I'm going to say Texans by three That's right, we both had three It is three That's fair That's a good game Texans had some good gambling games this year

That's only fairly watchable? I put that up there, I think. Yeah, you know what? I did that in the morning before the Broncos looked great again. I'm going to move them up. You know what? You're right. I'm going to promote them.

When I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Solid game. As Dave Damoschek quoting Jerry Orbach would say, what is it? When I'm wrong, I'm wrong? No, It's, oh, what the hell are you saying? I think it's,

when I'm wrong, I will get it. I only heard it a hundred thirds of times, but I should. I can't wait to vote him out next September. It's going to be great. I don't even know

how I'm going to be able to work up drama for other people to get voted out. Really? Oh, yeah. There's so many options. Ham would be funny.

I clinched our one seed in the vote-out league. This would be one of the great chokes. I'm not going to say anything bad. Since I haven't won since 2007. Yeah. I'm not going to say anything bad about you because that's the way to play it. Fairly watchables.

Falcons at the Jets. This is a fairly watchable for two reasons. The Falcons are fun to watch. And I think Tim Boyle is going to be the QB again. This fairly means something other than what I know it to be. All right. I'm going to say Falcons by five and a half at the Jets. Oh, you went too high.

I went one and a half. It's two and a half. Oh, that's dumb. This is what the Falcons do. It is. Tim Boyle wasn't great. Look at Ritter's numbers. How did they win that game?

He threw a really nice touchdown to Bijan. That 30-yard half-fling he threw, I like that. 168, two interceptions, 63 rating. Yeah, not awesome. Last one, Dolphins at Washington.

Whatever this line ends up being, I'm nominating this as the rat line. I'm going to say Dolphins by seven and a half. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a rat line even more because I had five and a half and it's eight and a half. Hmm.

I don't like that spot for the Dolphins. Yeah, that feels upsetting. Let's see them play their best game. Both of these. I think it's kind of close. Actually, they do.

Poop Factor, Chargers at the pats and I don't see how the pats can be favored or can be getting less than I mean this has to be chargers by three and a half all right I get this I said four it is four and a half Vegas on

yep there's gonna be a weird upset isn't there this. I said four. It is four and a half. Vegas 7. Yep. There's going to be a weird upset, isn't there? Yeah, everyone's like, take your Thanksgiving money. The favorites went 13 and three. Congratulations. If you survived Detroit, you won all your Moneyline parlays. Now we're going to get you in week unlucky 13. I could see

it. I feel like Belichick's done really well against the Chargers. I'm going to look this up real quick. Sure. Belichick versus Chargers. against the Chargers. I'm going to look this up real quick. Sure. Belichick versus Chargers. You beat Phil Rivers every year, didn't you? Jesus. Won 10 of the last 11 against them. All right, but I'm going to tell you,

things might have been different for some of those games. Well, I guess you could say the quarterback situation's a little worse. Yes, yes, Starting with that. Five, six, seven, eight, nine. Yeah, 10 out of 11. Wow. Titans are home for the Colts. And I can't believe this, but Gardner Minshew is going to be favored on the road against the Mike Vrabel team.

That's how this is going to play out. And it's going to be in the tic-tac zone. And it's going to be Colts by one and a half at Tennessee. Oh, you son of a bitch. I had one. It is one and a half. Yeah. What's the score here?

I've got my confidence back. 5-5. Yeah, I have some clunkers too coming up. Holy shit. Minshew could be seven and five after this game. Yeah. Craziness. Bucks, Panthers is our other poop fact of the game. Looks like the Bucks Panthers is our other

poop fact a game looks like the Bucks season ended today yeah I'm gonna say five and seven

if they win this but yeah I don't know if this gets quite to seven but it's in the seven-ish range I'm gonna say

Bucks by six and a half over the Panthers we split it I said five and a half it is six all right you're teasing Tampa Bay no I'm not I 6.5 over the Panthers. We split it. I said 5.5. It is 6. All right. You're teasing Tampa Bay.

No, I'm not. I'm definitely not doing that. When do they win if they don't win this one? Definitely not. Putting Baker Mayfield in a tease. Sunday night. Chiefs at Packers. Wait, that's it?

It's down to two? It's 6-6? Okay. Yeah, don't we have some buy teams, right? Yeah, that's six bye teams. Thanks, NFL. Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago, Vegas, Minnesota, and the Giants. All off.

I'm calling right now that the Packers are going to be everybody's upset pick next weekend. Has all the vibes. Chiefs haven't looked good. They look a little gamey. Packers on the rise. Nine days rest. Jordan Love's feeling it.

Yep. I'm going to say Chiefs by two and a half. Oh, wow. Wow. I said five and a half and it's six and a half. Whoa.

Three games where I was way, way off and usually when that happens My instinct was right So we'll keep track of this That line's crazy Six and a half That doesn't correspond with the football I've watched

The last couple weeks The Packers could absolutely beat the Chiefs What were the Lions favored by? What did that close on Thanksgiving? Seven and a half. All right, so that was wrong. That was in Detroit. And they were home.

Right. I'm trying to flip it. Packers are going to be going nuts. That line's going to get out of three and a half, four. I would bet anything by game time. All right. There's no way that line stays there. That's your upset.

There you go. Monday night, Jags, Bengals. This is for the win for you. Come on, Sal. Hang on. I'm going to say Jags by seven and a half. I said seven. It is seven and a half. We tie.

Tie? Yeah. Seven to... Wait. I win. I win eight-seven. Swear to God. What the hell? You told me it was two left. We-2. Wait, I win. I win 8-7. Swear to God. What the hell? You told me it was too much. We were tied.

All right, this is going to be an inquiry, but I won this. What a controversy. Yeah, because we tied Carolina-Tampa Bay. I win at Simmons. 6-5-2. Mr. Corleone demands an apology. 2-3-4-5-6-7. All right. I was in this absolute covid fog watching football and all the godfathers were just on showtime every single day thursday friday saturday and i was just watching godfather and

football and nice more godfather and more godfather And I made the decision that I think John Cazale's performance as Fredo in the first two movies is my single favorite performance of all time. Oh, good. Okay. Yeah, that's where I've landed. Are you being facetious? I'm not being facetious. It's my single favorite.

I love Fredo. I love how he plays Fredo. I love all the Fredo scenes. Every single aspect of how the character grows. He's my number one. I think, who's your number one? Who's your favorite movie character of all time? Interesting.

I don't know. I'm going to give a cheesy answer, like probably like Hanks and Gump or something, or Marty McFly. But as far as like gangster movies, I got to go Pesci and Goodfellas. Pesci and Goodfellas. That's a good one. Got to go. Got to. I love Cazalefellas. Pesci and Goodfellas.

That's a good movie. Got to go. Got to. I love Cazale. It's too chalky. Cazale's unbelievable. He's so good. Yeah. It's a shame.

That was it, right? You're going to take care of me? I'm your big brother, Mike. You're going to take care of me? COVID fog is... Rule him. Let's is... Rule them. Let's do Parent Corner. Today's Parent Corner is brought to you by CarMax.

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love and get pre-qualified today. CarMax, the way car buying should be. See details at carmax.com. All right. What do you got, Sal? All right. Well, listen, I hear you have a good one, so I'm going to hand you the floor in a second. But honestly, I feel like this is the best weekend. I really do. I love Thanksgiving. I just want to say that most of the time we're lucky enough to get our work out of the way by Wednesday morning, the latest. Then you enjoy Wednesday night. Thursday's great. Friday, it's football. Friday, you spend all day deleting emails from any vendor you bought anything from in the last five years. But otherwise, you have the day off and it's football, football. I thought about it. And Thanksgiving weekend, like Thursday through Sunday, is like a trip to Vegas. But you're with your family. So you're home.

You're gambling. You're watching football. You're drinking. You're eating like crazy. Everything's in the excess. But you have to behave yourself with your family. So that's what I'll say. And my son came back from college.

And so that adds to it. Did that add to it for you? It's like, oh, my God. Thanksgiving is Thanksgiving. And now I get to see these people that I don't see for two months. Like that was an extra great thing. And then he went and saw his friends like 93% of the weekend. So that wasn't as great.

But the only parent corner thing I'll say is I'm watching that Cowboys game. I'm enjoying the beating. They're giving houses commies. And Prescott hooks up with Lamb. And I do a little dance in the living room. And my nine-year-old son is furious with me. He throws the very hard plastic football at my hip and hits me because he is playing against Lamb and Prescott in his freaking fantasy league where he's three and eight and there's nothing at stake.

There's no punishment. There's no money or anything. And I was like, if I can't root for my team on Thanksgiving and you're going to injure me, you're leaving this house, kid. So I sent them with a drumstick. And I don't know where he is. I can't root for my team on Thanksgiving and you're going to injure me, you're leaving this house, kid. So I sent them with a drumstick. And I don't know where he is. I haven't seen him since Thursday.

You don't have any divorced parents stories? No. No, we had to split those people up. That's what happened? You had to move them to different conferences? They're the AFC and the NFC? We saw the NFC Friday morning for our breakfast. AFC

won this year. You're so right. The key part of the parent corner is the kid coming home and how great it is when they're home and then they're like, I gotta go. I gotta go see my friends. And they're just never home. I'm out. We hung out with Zoe

like twice in four and a half days. I asked him point blank. I'm like, which life do you like better? He's like, oh, I like it better at school. I was like, all right. Well, why do we even try? We did our job. We did. I mean, it took six weeks and they decided they have a better life. But all right. Yeah.

They got nobody bitching at them, yelling at them. All right. I couldn't wait to tell you this, Parent Corner, all week. So my son, he played, all week. Let's hear it. So my son, he played football this season. He was up to like 179 pounds at one point. And finished the season, he was about 174. And that was the end of October.

And then he's been doing some weird eating shit lately. Like just, they've been like, he's like, no, I already ate, ate today. He'd be like, you ate lunch, you're not going to have dinner. He's like, no, I'm good.

And just, we're like, what is going on with this dude? Where, and he's, you know, he used to, we'd get breakfast

and he'd be like, I'll have the, you know, I'll have chocolate chip pancakes. All of a sudden, that wasn't happening. So he's had this girlfriend for three months

and my wife and I were like, oh, he's like trying to get skinny because he's a handsome kid. He's always trying to get handsome and skinny because he's got this girlfriend. So it's going and it's going. And then Thanksgiving, he's not eating as much either. And he's really been into MMA the last, really the last year. Like my son moves these obsessions and lately it's been MMA and he's always watching the YouTube and he's watching the, we have to get the pay-per-views and we went, I've talked about this before. And he, uh, he's, he's just been kind of over the top with it and he's in the house. He's always like doing like fake John Jones things and just always

pretending, blah, blah, blah. So he gets these gift cards for his birthday that he gets, I think, $200 from my dad and my stepmother from Amazon. Spends all $200 on this giant six-foot MMA dummy that comes to the house that you have to put stuffing in. So anyway, at one point we're like, how much do you weigh? Not Thanksgiving stuffing. Yeah, we could have put actual Thanksgiving stuffing. So at one point we're like, how much do you weigh, Ben? And he's like, I weigh 158.

Whoa. But I think I could cut to 150. Oh no. And we're like, cut could cut to 150. Oh, no. And we're like, cut for what? You're not doing MMA. He's like, well, I might do MMA. I'm like, you're definitely never doing MMA. Like, just let's get that clear.

You're not doing MMA. It's never happening. Like, you can do jiu-jitsu. He's like, well, I know I'm not doing MMA, but I might do wrestling. And we're like, what? And he's like, yeah, I might do wrestling. And we're like, what? And he's like, yeah, I might do wrestling. Like for the team, he's had this whole plan for the last month that he never told us about that he's going to, I guess, start, he's going to go to a high school wrestling team this week.

Yeah. And he went from 174 to one because he wants to wrestle at either 157 or 150 he's never wrestled before he's studying youtube and he's going to school tomorrow and he's just going to go to wrestling practice and just try to crash the wrestling team and he's all excited about it and he's like i've studied the moves i know i can do it i know what my technique is i was like you've literally never wrestled for one minute but he's's at him and he can do this. This is awesome. And there are, this is great. This is great news for me.

I love this because I'm entering my kid in like these separate tournaments that are outside of school. And Ben should get in these tournaments. He needs to get matches. I want to talk to him. I don't know if he's going about the weight thing the right way.

There's a certain way that you know this, like you can be too sucked out, too drawn, and you won't be strong for your weight class. No, he's not too drawn. He'd be too drawn if he went to 150 because he's almost six feet tall. But now he looks good. But he's supposed to be playing lacrosse in the spring,

which is going to be his best sport, it seems like. He said, no, no, I'll put the weight back on when it's lacrosse time. He's acting like he's a 38-year-old nutritionist, and he's like a 16-year-old who's like, oh, I'll just lose the weight and put it back. Anyway, we had no idea he was doing this for a month. That's great. And he lives in our house, and he's just kept this a secret from us.

That's amazing. And we've kind of been like, what? It's weird. Why isn't he eating as much? Is it the girl? No, he had this secret plan to wrestle. Well, you must have noted that's a considerable weight loss in a month and a half. 79 to 56. Is that what you said?

He went from 74 to 58. So he lost 16 pounds. Okay. All right. Wow. Good. Oh, I'm excited. I'm going to call him tomorrow. I want to talk to him about this. This is good. This could be done the right way. Hey, Kyle, can you pop on for a second? Because Kyle didn't know any of this. Kyle, let him take you down. He's got the dummy and everything. Kyle, what are your thoughts just hearing that not having any idea what I was going to say? I'm excited. I love watching him

go to stuff and the pats have just kicked me in the balls over and over again. I didn't even watch the game today. I'm looking forward to looking at something else. I'll be in that sweaty fucking gym watching Ben Simmons. That's great. I'm all over the mat. It'll be great. You know what it's going to lead to?

It's going to lead to Christmas Eve dinner where Ben's going to be like, I think I can take Kyle now that I have this month of wrestling moves in my hip pocket. And it's just going to lead to some Christmasy brawl that falls over a table and God only knows. Kyle, you need a taser. Yeah. So my big parent corner lesson is if your son just mysteriously starts talking about cutting weight, there's probably some reason other than he's dating a girl that he likes. That's awesome. I'm worried a little bit. I'm worried more for you than I am Ben, because being a wrestling parent, it's like's like bleachers for hours because the thing with wrestling is i'll tell you this i did not sign

up for the wrestling parent piece i might actually pass it off to do they televise it can i just watch not really video stream uh i don't know for the good schools maybe but i think uh yeah because that's the thing with wrestling with these, you don't know exactly when your kid's going to wrestle, even in a dual meet. How did this happen to me? It's going to be 45 minutes off. I just thought he was going to do box for cross.

Six years ago. We always said he should wrestle. This is great news. I love it. All right. That's it for Parent Corner. Today's Parent Corner is brought to you by CarMax.

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maybe you'll plan your next family road trip even if it's just around the block. CarMax, the way car buying should be. See details at CarMax.com. All right, cuz, what do you got to plug? All right, Cousin Sal's winning weekend, Friday mornings on FanDuel TV. I hit two same game parlays this, and you hit yours, right?

I did. With the Bills Eagles. That was fun with lots of scoring. Against the odds a couple times this week on the Ringer Podcast Network, through the Ringer with Tate, Tuesday morning, FanDuel TV, and the Ringer Wiseguys, which is a lot of fun, every Sunday morning. Best pregame show in America. And I'm pulling you on a rewatchable soon.

I haven't told you yet. Really? Yeah, there's a movie that I can't do without you. Godfather 3. No. Godfather 2. He said he had something for me! It was going to be my thing!

I love Fredo. I can't believe you're not with me on Fredo. Of course. I just don't put it number one. Mike, why didn't we hang out like this before? So tense when they're in Cuba. Oh my, the banana daiquiri scene? Yeah.

It goes from the banana daiquiri scene right to him in the hotel room with shirtless Hyman Roth. Right. It's like within 10 minutes, it's like two of the greatest scenes of the seventies. They're just basically back to back. Unbelievable movie. Best movie of all time. All right.

Cousin Sal, as always, good job by you. Good job by you, Billy. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti.

Thanks to Cousin Sal. I will see you on this feed on Tuesday. Don't forget to rewatch what's coming on Monday night. Until then. Yes, we can On the wayside On the Bruce and Leveron Say it I don't have To ever