The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Pats Grow Up, Nobody Believes in the Jags, the Bears are a Sports Movie, and Guess the Lines With Cousin Sal

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal right after Drake Maye and the Patriots take down the Ravens to recap Week 16 of the NFL season (2:15). Then, they Guess the Lines for Week 17 and react to the Anthony Joshua vs. Jake Paul fight before ending with Parent Corner (58:31). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Cousin Sal Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo Michelob ULTRA Courtside could get you closer to the game! michelobultra.com/courtside ENJOY RESPONSIBLY © 2025 ANHEUSER-BUSCH, MICHELOB ULTRA® LIGHT BEER, ST. LOUIS, MO. This episode is sponsored by State Farm®. Don’t settle for just any insurance when there’s State Farm. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Bill Simmons podcast, brought to by the Ringer podcast network, where we are still chugging along, even though the holidays are coming up. I even have a new rewatchable is coming for you on Monday, and we did a big movie. We did a big movie from the 2020s. That would be the hint. I'm not going to tell you what movie is because you've seen it. So that is coming on Monday. If you missed it last week, we did the sure thing on Wednesday, and we did high fidelity

on Monday so go check those out this is the last movie we're doing this year and then we have a special episode for the last rewatchables of the year so you can check that out you can check out all the movies we did in 2025 and then yeah video still available on Spotify has a video podcast much like the Bill Simmons podcast or you can get it wherever you get your favorite way to listen to a podcast which is hopefully on Spotify because it's a great place for podcasts Coming up, Cousin Sal and I are going to talk about a very exciting Sunday night in the Simmons House. The New England Patriots coming back in Baltimore and winning and improving their record to 12 and 3. And it was an unexpected delight.

We're going to break it all down. We're taking break in Pearl Jam and then Cousin Sal. This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is presented by State Farm. Having insurance isn't the same as having State Farm. It's like expecting a linebacker on the football field. but getting a line cook. Sure, they both can handle the pressure when it starts heating up,

but only one is stopping a touchdown. You wouldn't settle for just anything for your team, so don't settle for just any insurance when it comes to get and help you need. State Farm is the real deal. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Hey, Sal.

What's up? The Patriots have made the playoffs. We did it. Congratulations. I don't know where to start, except for an hour ago, I felt like this was a loss. We were going to have to go back to the drawing board with some of the injury stuff. 25 minutes ago, not an hour. Whatever it was.

Drake May went to another level, put that one on the old resume. Collinsworth, I don't know if you heard the tail end was doing the, I mean, Mike, this is, these are the second year guys. I'm not talking like in the league right now. I'm talking all time. I was like, oh, oh, Collinsworth. What a win though for the Pats and what a loss for the Ravens. Where do you want to start?

I heard the Collinsworth. You know, you just cannot scare Drake May. I've tried it I tossed plastic spiders at him I threw a shark in his bed one night I brought him to the top of Mount Vesuvius and tried to push him all you can't do it Bill

you can't do it Mike I hit in his closet once and I had a Michael Myers mask on he was not faced that jumped right out he didn't move he didn't budge yeah they tried everything I mean the biggest thing they didn't try was playing Derek Henry in the last seven minutes of the game

I don't understand what happened We couldn't tackle him. And he was just over on the bench with an overcoat on. And then after the Pats scored to go up four, he was still on the bench. He didn't get things up, did he? Was he heard? They never said anything, right? I don't know.

There wasn't a ton of injury reporting going today. Like Henderson was just gone. We didn't know for an hour what happened to him. Then like, yeah, he's gone. He's out with a head injury. Okay, thanks. Right. But yeah, we didn't have a lot of reporting on this stuff.

That's a big win. That's a big win. You easily, I mean, you did text us. You like, we got too many guys out. I was like, who's out? Ronk, Brady. The Bundo was getting a little, he's getting a little feisty on the Sunday, Sunday ringer pregame thread about how we were the paper machet Pats. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was like, hey, we'll be there in January. We're going to get our guys back. We're missing all the offensive tackles, the run stopper, and then the home run hit her Henderson. And it didn't matter because Drake may just said, fuck it. And Diggs was, Diggs was the other one. Dix hasn't done that in a month, maybe more than a month. You thought he would do it against Buffalo or didn't, but, yeah. No, I see.

Like, it's, you know, the football God said, hey, these guys got beat up by a real quarterback last week. We got to go back to normal where they just beat up on shitty QBs. So, yeah, my heart bleeds for you. You got, you got Ty Hunley again. Nice job. I know, but was from what Lamar has been the last five weeks, was it like a massive drop-off? Did you feel like, oh, no.

I mean, I thought Huntley was pretty good. It was good. Except for the last drive. He was okay. He moved the ball. I mean, it wasn't his fault. It's safe flowers got stripped on an awesome play by Chase on. Yeah.

No, it was a good win. That's a kind of win you want when it's cold and then you're on the road and all that stuff. And now, who knows? Maybe you won't even be on the road. Well, so they're down 2414. He hits Kyle Williams on that bomb in the corner, which is a throw he's made at least 10 times this year for a touchdown. And the guy is usually never open. Kyle Williams is the speed guy that we have drafted this entire century

and have gone basically 0 for 12 in these guys. And this is the first one who's actually made plays for them in big moments. But that was an awesome throw by May. And then the next drive, they're on there. What are they on their own 11? Hits Hollins for 20 and they're just moving down. And then the third really shaky call of the game was that long bomb no booty that he got tackled, no call.

Even though Boudi got an OPI on like, you know, a pretty chinty one earlier than that. But we got a master's class in OPI's and PIs and PIs today. Just all the whole throughout the day, like everybody, everybody. I never, I mean, if I was a Lions fan, I would be out of my mind. Yeah. The Chiefs run that pick play, or at least they did during the Mahomes era. What do they run that play 10 times the game? Be careful.

You would have to get back like six Lombardi trophies to if you're going to play this game. Yeah, of course. With the Amandola and Edelman, yeah. It was exactly one yard or less than a yard. whatever it was supposed to be. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, yeah. Well, the worst one was the St. Brown OPI.

I just feel like guys do that all the time. They usually call the big tight ends on that, and that's it. But so May ends up 31 for 44 for 380 with two touchdowns. And I didn't look at the Fandul MVP odds, but what do you think? Did that move him up or is it Stafford's to lose at this point? Yeah, it moved him up because Stafford was minus 350. He's at minus 185 now and maybe is plus 160. And Josh Allen is 25 to 1 now.

Yeah, he wasn't good today. I think Alan was the right bet for a couple weeks there, but he just didn't do enough in the Cleveland game. And I think that ship has probably said on him. Yeah, May is plus 175 right now. It's moving as we're talking. It's very exciting. Well, it's interesting because I have all my notes from when I thought they were going to lose.

And one of the first notes was Drake May, really good, not quite good enough. Because he had the pick in the first half and he had the fumble. And this is something we've talked about a bunch of times on this pot about, like, everything is there. And the last thing is to get rid of those two dumb plays a game and maybe knock them down to one or zero. But the best quarterbacks that they're at one or zero with the dumb plays, and he had the bad pick and he had the fumble in traffic, which he's had a couple of times in his career. And also, Brable wasn't good enough because the, Brable, because the fake punt was terrible. I don't know why they did that. That was bad news.

What was that? Fourth and ten? Yeah. And it's like if the one receiver is not going to be open over the middle, the play's just not going to work. We're going to have to eat it with our third string safety is going to have to try to take out nine guys. So I don't know what happened on that. Let's read your notes as if they lost. I like, you still have those notes? I think that'll be more.

I had, did the Ravens lose anything going from Lamar from hampered Lamar to Huntley? I had the pads are missing all of their offensive tackles, their run stopper and their home run hitting running back. Will they be okay in January? And then I wrote down, is the season just too long? Because we're just seeing injuries every week now. And like the lions today were like the fucking zombie lions. What was that team? They couldn't even run the ball anymore.

They're not that they were calling running plays. But we have eight, nine teams. Like the chiefs lost their backup quarterback to a torn ACL. The double torn ACL. Same injury. Going for the trifecta next week. Yeah. Maybe we don't need an 18 game season.

Yeah. The lions went through. They were on their third center. of the day today, not like of the year, like of the day today. And it couldn't run the ball. I think they had 15 yards rushing. Everyone had Gibbs props over.

Didn't happen. Well, I'm sure we'll talk about that. But one more thing about May, I'll give you credit. I love how begrudging you are with the May thing. We're going to talk about Trevor Lawrence later, and I'm going to have some apologies. You should have lost today.

But the, we should have won last week. We're up 21-0. I know you said like the offensive line is a mess. They weren't pressure. That's the one guy in the league. you can't not pressure. He will fricking torch you because he has such a good long ball, right?

He does throw guys open from 45 yards, from 18 yards, from 12, all different distances. I don't know if there's another guy like that in the league where it's like, all right, you don't pressure him. He is just going to destroy you, much like number 12 back in the day for you in Foxborough. Right. I'll give you that. But he puts out, here's the issue with this. Go ahead.

His numbers against the blitz are like among the best in the league. Like, that's one of thinks he's great at. And Collinsworth did a good job today pointing out, like, he holds the ball to the last possible second and gets rid of it, usually accurately. But I don't really know what the move is. Yeah, what's the, what's the in between no pressure and the blitz that he does well again? Because that's what teams need to do. I mean, I hesitated, like, somebody's going to steal my secrets because they won't.

But I would do the disguise thing that the teams used to do against Mahomes, where it was just a bunch of guys and you never knew. if they were coming or going, and it's like, are eight people coming? Oh, they're all sinking back and just, I would just try to disguise as much stuff as possible. The problem is, well, I assume the Henderson is just a concussion

and he'll be back in January. Yeah. But, you know, when it's just for Monde, like he's not really a pass catching back. If Henderson had been on that wheel route in the end zone, that was just over, like Henderson scores on that. That's a touchdown.

You cannot scare him. You can't scare during May. What are you going to do? now well the jaguars were feeling unbelievable there for about a half hour because they really had a chance there to to steal the one seed yeah with any chicanery but now the it's too confusing now Denver's 12 and 3 New England's 12 and 3 and Jacksonville's 11 and 4 so I guess it's going to come down in the last couple weeks what's interesting is the Christmas games four of the teams are eliminated now it's not great Christmas games and

somehow the NBA games it's a it's a it's a a win for the NBA. Yeah. The NBA was like, oh, the NFL's taken our turf. And now we're in this situation where the NBA

games are probably better. It's one thing to be eliminated, but when it's Josh Johnson versus Dak Prescott, when it's Max Rosemur versus Jared Goff,

when it's Roe-Nicks against Chris Ola-Doken, that's bad times. That's not really good. I don't know. I mean, maybe some of those starters come back or second string.

So you follow college and I don't. Chris Saldokin, just a complete stump for me. I never heard of him. Didn't know how old he was or where he went to college. He had to look it up. He only played for like three colleges. It wasn't that bad.

He ended in South Dakota State, South Dakota State, South Florida, Sanford, drafted by the Steelers like three years ago. And now he's the future of the Kansas City Chiefs and the Christmas game. I need your honest answer on something. This could be a social media clip. Get everybody, Eduardo.

Um, Do you think the Patriots are good enough to make the Super Bowl? From what you've seen. You watch a lot of football every week. And the case for them, I think, to make it is that the AFC is wide open. They have a quarterback who potentially might have real greatness in them. They can run the ball just enough. They should be able to get enough of their offensive line back in time for January.

Their defense is feisty. It's a tough team. It's a real together team. They have good chemistry. they're going to have at least one home game in the playoffs. I'm not allowing myself to think about it, like in a real way, but I thought that win today was a little different because Baltimore, that just seemed like a game Baltimore was going to win

and they took the final. I'll say it, yes, yes. So you think it's conceivable. Well, why wouldn't it be? You beat the bills already, and they're like ahead of you. Like they would have to do it on the road and all that like that, like that. But you could at least play close with the bills in January, right? Because the Bill's defense looked horrible to do against Cleveland.

I mean, really, like, awful. It was kind of shocking. A lot of big plays. Like, they give up big plays to nobodies, too. I think, like, you know, Traveon Williams and Isaiah Bond, they're eating you up. They gave up five, 15-yard plays. The only thing that's working for them is James Cook has more than five-fifteen-yard plays. So at the end of the day, they have more points.

But, yeah. Well, that's the thing is you go through all the teams, everybody's got there a couple things to point to where we're like, we have this. Right. And for Buffalo, it's Alan and Cook. And it's like,

we have this. Mm-hmm. You know, the Pats have Drake May and Vrabel. Yeah. Jacksonville, I can't, I can't wait to talk about them because I thought that was the most impressive

performance today. But we got to save it for a little bit later. But you go through the AFC and I, it feels like everybody you can make a case for or you could poo poo. Yeah. You know what I mean? You're just going down the line and be like, no,

here's why this Denver, they've been lucky that for three months and finally caught up to them today this is closer to who they are you can just do with every team I mean what are they going to do like the talking heads are going to say how's this start no way

New England beats Jacksonville in January no way New England beats Denver in January that's just that's just for clicks that's not true well and then Houston everybody's sleeper yeah which I had my fantasy season died today because the CJ Stroud

and Nico Collins and I can't overstate how bad CJ I don't know how many throws he missed, but it was over 10. We're just like, throws he just missed. They either sailed, he threw it, led the guy out of bounds, like all kinds of things. It was just, I don't know what happened on that team today, but the Raiders, like, they came very close to beating them. They could have won't.

And it was they, it felt like the Texans just thought they could show up. You know, I don't know if they knew it was Andrew Catalan's 200th game. Oh, I didn't know that. That was? Yeah, they met everybody, even the officiating guy, he stepped in and congratulations. him. Yeah, 200 games for Andrew. Wow. And then it was Chris Myers'

132nd straight Carolina Panthers game today. That was the other thing. They stopped the game in the third quarter. He commented on how he's never heard this play so loud. It's like, yeah, well, you live here. You're here more than your actual house. Your apartment is a suite in the Panthers Stadium.

I feel way better about the NFC than the AFC from a Super Bowl standpoint, I think. What do you mean, picking a winner, you mean? I just think the Rams are... I do, too. I think the Rams are a class up. I'm not saying the pets couldn't beat them. And by the way, we saw two games already this week come down to the dumbest two-point

conversion I've ever seen in my life. And then whatever the fuck happened last night in that Bears Packers game, which was the dumbest win of the year. The Nike games were great. The last couple years. It was awesome. Congratulations to the Bears, but that was bonkers. the fourth down guy in the corner

that nobody's ever heard of making a shoe string reaching up catch and then you get an onside kick there's like two onside kicks a year and then Caleb has the best throw of the year to win the game that was nuts

that's what I don't understand about that Chicago team and we could go through the 10 games they should have lost when they were losing by six or eight or 10 and a few minutes left in the fourth quarter but when it gets down to it If they're there, he throws some great balls. He really does.

And he gets away from sex. He really does. It could be second and 20 every time, and he always gets out of it somehow. Yeah. But yes, you're right. The on-side kick is insanity. It's like Dobbs is treating it like it's covered in like rhinoceros shit or something.

Like just bat that out of bounds. Get rid of it. If you don't want to catch it, it's fine. Just kick it out of bounds. I don't get that. I could do it. We do it in my living. room. Me and the boys, we do it in the living room.

We pretend we're recovering onside kick, and I guarantee all of us are better than what we saw the other day. This is pretty bad. Well, we have, so Denver's got at Casey, which is suddenly one of the easiest weeks in the league, Casey's terrible now, and then they're home for the chargers who just keep winning as we keep trying to look for reasons not to think that they have any sort of anything, and they just keep beating everybody. Pat's play at the Jets

who are just awful. They are horrible. I mean, they fell back 9-6. I was going against the Saints' defense and fantasy, and it was any third down, it was just a sack. And then they're home for Miami, who looked like they quit today for,

they looked like they were done for the season. They're fine. Then Jacksonville is at Indy, who suddenly has to win tomorrow, basically, to stay alive. And then home for Tennessee. I don't know. Who would you bet on for the one seed?

I can give you the odds, too. Yeah, I have them here. So are you six, no, you're $6.50 for the one seed, or did that go down? No, we're plus 180. Denver's minus $1.45. Jacksonville's plus $8.50. Well, I'm looking for, yeah. Right.

I think it stays. I think it stays as it is. Well, it would have to be the Chargers winning in Denver. Right. I think it's Denver because they're going to get an easy win next week. And then, you know, I think they maybe learned a little bit. I mean, I didn't think, I knew Knicks was like slinging it like John Elway last week. I'm like, we're not going to get that again today, probably, are we?

You know, he's somewhere in between there. But, yeah, Jacksonville just beat them up, like, all over. Like, you can't, I mean, what was he? 14 touchdowns, no interceptions in the last four games, Lawrence, just doesn't turn the ball over anymore. I want to dive into that game quickly on Houston. though. And the Chargers. Chargers is 11 and 4, but they play Houston this upcoming week. And then Houston is 10 and 5. They go Chargers in Indianapolis. There is a scenario where the Chargers could win this Houston game. And then Week 18 means nothing when they play Denver.

If the Colts lose tomorrow, basically, right? The Colts lose tomorrow. That would be another way. So there's a bunch of scenarios where the Chargers don't care about week 18. And they're like, fuck it. Let's sit Herbert. He's hurt anyway. So I would, the Denver minus 145, I think, would be the safe move. Because Casey's done. Like, put a fork in them.

That's the one for sure. And the league is sort of in trouble trying to figure out important games for the next two weeks. And when we went over Christmas, it doesn't get a lot better for the Saturday, Sunday, Sunday, Sunday next week. Well, you know what really hurt was this Baltimore last day. for sure because because now they're uh they're seven and eight is that their record yeah seven and eight Pittsburgh nine and six so Pittsburgh's the magic numbers one basically that's how does this happen can we can we can we do Pittsburgh yeah yeah I minus 1100 to win that division

every time I think it's the dumbest doers one I've ever seen scene, they just go hold my beer and they have like a dumber win. And this one would have been a really terrible loss because it seemed like the game was over and then all of a sudden the lines are driving. There's a game winning lateral to Jared Goff that gets called back by a PI that took them five minutes to figure out because I think they were afraid they were going to get jumped leaving the

stadium. Right. And then they're like, it was a touchdown. Hold on. But who's no PI? The game's over. Go home, everyone. Yeah. Touchdown, but. Yeah. And we can't get rid of the Steelers. That's 19 straight 500 or better Tom one seasons. They somehow, I think they had run out of stupid wins. So they were like, what if we got two OPIs inside the five-yard line with under 30 seconds left to win? Have we done that yet? They're looking at like their big syllabus and, you know, shitty stupid, ridiculous Steelers wins. They're like, no, man. Now we don't have an OPI and the No, too.

We've never done that. Boom. I hate this team. Can I play devil's advocate for a second? The ending was stupid, obviously, right? That could have gone either way. They've caught, well, it's stupid. But I thought the Steelers were very, very good today.

They really did them. Yeah, they did. It would have been a bad boss. I went into it. I was like, the Lions are going to score 35 because they need to win. They absolutely need to win. The Steelers are on a short week. Everything was leading towards the Steelers getting just bulldozer today.

And then it's like three nothing. for a while, right? And then so you look at it, the time of possession was 34, 25. It seemed like 45, 15. Yeah. The lines never had the ball. They didn't have the ball. They didn't have a second half first down until like 11 minutes left in the fourth. The Steelers ran

all over them. They had Gainwell and Warren had two 45-yard touchdowns. I mean, you know, the players are shoving fans in the face. That's always great. No, that was bad. But the lines had 15 yards rushing. So I don't know. And again, we talked to how they went through three centers that was

bad but that was a good performance. I don't like to compliment Rogers, but it was like nine to ten down the stretch when it mattered. The Lions had 11 running back runs for 16 yards. Jesus. The Lions are basically done. Yeah. Dan Campbell over under 2007 for him being on the Sunday Fox pregame show. Oh, wow. Did you go over? I'd go September, October. No, we'd have to be before the season. Oh, before the season. The Terry seat will be open at some point.

I'll go slightly over. Slightly over. So in the 2020s, it happens. Yeah, and it was a big Ben Johnson weekend. Like, I know they're pulling rabbits out of their asses and how they're getting that done in Chicago. But Detroit definitely missed them again today. We could show them five, six games where this was the case.

Well, the bigger thing, they ran the ball down their throats. Rogers had a good interview after the game, but he was like, we ran for over 200 years. They ran for 2.30. Yeah. They passed for 251. I mean, the Lions are missing half their team at this point, which is another issue with these 18 game seasons. But, yeah, no Lions. We talked about it a couple weeks ago about how fast a window closes.

The Lions, they've even really had a window. It was like slightly ajar for a year. And now, you know, they're not even going to make the playoffs. It doesn't look like. Under 10 and a half, right? Clinch, that's, they're not getting there. And then the Steelers are in the playoffs, which seemed inconceivable for three months.

Yeah. And every time they won, it seemed dumb. But they do feel like they've stumbled into a little bit more of an identity as the year went along, right? The identity without T.J. Watt? Like, is this a Ewing theory? Is this a... It's a little bit of a UN theory.

Yeah. Well, Rogers has three throws he could make, and he somehow just cycles. It's like Tecmo Bowl. When we were playing Tecmo Bowl in college, and there were only four plays. It was like two run plays and two past plays. And you had to kind of guess which play the guy you were playing against was going to run.

And if he guessed wrong, it would be like, fuck, I guess wrong again. And that's kind of like Rogers. It's like I could do the other shoulder to Metcalf throw. Yeah. I could do like the quick throw to the tight end or I could do the quick screen pass, the bubble screen. These are my three Techmo Bowl players and you just have to guess which one I'm going to do. And those are the plays. And then there's the other stuff.

Like the like he schooled. at the end of the first half with the timeout, like rushing to the line of scrimmage. Like he, like they were running at a time. It's like, no, Detroit should be calling timeout here. He still snaps a ball when the guys that,

when defense has 12 on the field, he's still like the best at that. They're there. We were texting when, when that whole, all the shenanigans at the end of the first half happened, Campbell called time out. It ends up buying the steward's time to get a ridiculous touchdown.

All of a sudden it's tied at halftime. And it was just, there are these plays that happen when you're watching the football. ball games are like, that team can't win now. Right. You know, like somebody will take a dumb, intentional grounding safety, or they're just certain or somebody fumbles as they're about to go in for a touchdown. And it's like, oh, touchback, that 20 are like, they can't win now.

It's just not, they're not destined to win. And that felt like one of those moments. Who would you rather play right now, the Steelers or the Texans? Because if I asked, if I asked you last week, you wouldn't have been no hesitation. I thought, I think the Texans have, well, Woody Marks didn't play today. And I had Woody Marks on a couple of fantasy teams, and I think he's legitimately good, but that always seems to have some sort of injury. When they don't have him, they can't run the ball at all.

Chubbs, like, washed Saturday. He had a big first down. The Raiders, who haven't won since, what, mid-September, they were annihilated in the Texans run game, and they were pressuring strad. Yeah. And they stink. So in the playoffs, if they're on the road, I feel like I was a believer in their offense after last week.

They looked really good last week. Like, that's why I wanted to start Stroud and a fantasy playoffs. But they had a lot of trouble. I'd probably rather play them than the voodoo Steelers. Like, just the weird shit that goes on with them, right? Isn't that the right answer? I think so. Because I was thinking about it, you know,

you have two of maybe the favorites, the Super Bowl favorites as one seat, as five seats, sorry. The Rams. I know stuff can happen, the AFC. But I think the Rams will be a five-seat. I think the bills will be a five-seat. And they might be two of the three favorites to win the Super Bowl when it shakes out, right? Even now, they're two of the three favorites. I love the Rams going to Carolina or Tampa and winning that game. We don't have to guess the line now, and I don't care that they lost to

Carolina already. That's just going to be a blowout. And I know Pittsburgh lost to Buffalo, but I don't know now. If Buffalo goes to Pittsburgh, is that possibly a game now? The way Buffalo's defenses looked. Alan got banged up again today. He's had a lot of those where he's like limping off. They show him on the sidelines. There's three people milling around him. I just feel like he's taking a lot of hits.

Cook's really great, though. Yeah, yeah. It was such a pleasure to have him on a fantasy team. Just like lights out. It felt like every time he had the ball, it felt like he could break a 60-yarder. But they have no deep threats at all. All their stuff is like 10 yards and in.

And I thought the Browns did a good job against them today. Their quarterback wasn't good enough today. Shadour would just, he, you know, he just could not rise to the occasion. You know how many times you got sacked? In 10 games. How many times do you think he got sacked today? It felt like at least five.

Yeah, it was two, but it always feels like five. It always feels like five or seven or something because he has to get rid of it. And he threw the two interceptions. And I don't know. I mean, he's lucky he's such a good solid clubhouse guy. It was like the big drive to basically go for the field go to tie the game. Right.

And in three plays, it was fourth and 32. And they were on the 32 yard line and it's like, okay. Yeah, normally you go for it. I'm like, this is not a makeable down. They really do have to punt here. This is stupid with no time left. So this time one thing, we did the overunders for the year, which we had pretty mediocre year this year.

You had mediocre. I was subpar. I think I was like 9 and 14. I think you're like 11 and 12 so far. Yeah, we're both going to be around 500. Last year, I was lights out. You were good too. But we did the Steelers, and I went under.

Did you go under or over? I think I went slightly under. This is one where the line was in between. I didn't make them have them making the playoffs, so I went under. I just don't understand when it's two straight decades of them just having winning records, why you talk yourself out of that. And I don't know why I did that. It's just the Rogers was so bad last year.

It's like, well, this will be the year. But Rogers has been okay. Right. He's not one of the best 15 quarterbacks, but he's not one of the worst 10. He was very good today. It doesn't look like the cold weather is crushing them or the longer season, but let's be fair.

The first eight games, if you would have told us, well, Burroughs is going to be out. Lamar's going to be out. And the Browns are the Browns. They'll settle on a quarterback who won't be good by week 10. I might have gone over eight and a half or whatever it was. Yeah. Yeah, but they're solid.

They're solid. They're there every year. The weird thing with him was he looked so bad. What was it, the Chargers game? Where he looked like he was 55 years old. And then lately he looks good, but I was thinking maybe this is just what happens when you hit like your, you're about to take your mid-40s. Because I know it's happened to me with when I play, like I played tennis a week ago. This is where I compare myself to a professional actor.

But I played me and, me and Howard Owens, we beat these two British guys. Like we defended America. We really like, it was like one of the best wins since the Boston Tea Party, just a doubles tennis, straight sets. It was really great. I was moving awesome. Five days later, I hit with my wife and I couldn't move. And I like couldn't move side to side and I felt like I was 100. And I was thinking to myself, like, I wonder if this is just what happens to somebody like Rogers where they're like, I was moving so well five days ago.

And now I can't move side to side. And then like you get a massage or something. you're like, I feel great. But maybe this is just the roller coaster ride. We're going to be on with a 43-year-old quarterback. Can I tell you what Roger's secret is? I'm surprised you didn't read this. What?

Shirtless sauna. Try it. Try it once. Try it. I got to do shirtless. See what happens. I'll try it. That's a good way.

The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by Fandul. Tis the season to be boosting on Fandil this year. You're getting seven straight days of holiday rewards, each one waiting in the app for you to unwrap every day, bringing a new way. to play. Keep checking in and see what drops next. All of it leads to the Christmas Day special where you can get something extra special. I'm going to be doing my

ringer 107 picks for Christmas on Tuesday. Got to study the lines. We have four teams eliminated out of the six, so I got to take a look at it. Seven days of gifts. One big finale, head to fandole.com slash BS to get into the holiday spirit. Fandul player game. You must be 21 plus present,

States are 18 plus and President D.C. Kentucky, Wyoming, opt and required bonus issued as non-drawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration of max wage or amount. C-terms at sportsbook.fender.com. Gammon problem. Call 100 gamble or visit RG-dash-help.com. Call 8887-89-77777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by Micalob Ultra, the official beer partner of the NBA. We are a little past the quartermark of the NBA season.

It's been some fun stuff's been going on. We have four really good teams in the West. The Knicks seem like they're good in the East. And then my Celtics is the thing I've been the most excited about. I thought they'd be a little better than 500. But what we've seen so far, they've been one of the underdog stories of the year. No Jason Tatum. Jalen Brown putting it on his back.

The guards playing better. It's been really fun to watch. So if Tatum comes back, they might actually, who knows, be like a sleeper in the east. But it's been an unexpected delight for me. They won two games, game on Friday, game on Saturday. They'd be two good teams. Really fun to watch. There's a lot to look forward to this season, but the best moments are served cold.

It's almost as good as an ice cold, Mikhail of Ultra. It's a superior light beer, only 95 calories getting NBA fans closer to the game with exclusive prizes and a chance to win courtside seats. Miguelobotra, Superior is worth playing for, enter now at michelobotra.com slash courtside. Mickelobotra courtside, 25 to 26, no purchase necessary. Open U.S. Residence 21 plus begins on October 1st, 2025, ends on June 30th, 226. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at micheloboture.com slash courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details.

We got to talk about the Jaguars. So they put out a nobody believes in a social media video that Kevin Wiles and I were both excerpt from all the people who didn't think the Jaguars were for real, which included me this week. I didn't think they were for real. I wasn't buying what they were selling. I thought Lawrence was awesome today. That was easily the best game I've ever watched from him.

The crowd was crazy loud. I thought Denver's defense, especially in the first half, was really flying. I thought he was as good as Drake May was in that Sunday night game. Like really, like pushing all the buttons. I've never seen him play like that. Did you see the same thing? Excellent. Taking off of first downs, flying horizontal to the ground,

all the stuff he needed to do. And you're right, it was really loud. Like, twice the whistle blew. Remember he got, like, pounded. He just got destroyed from the back. He took a huge hit in the back. Yeah, it wasn't expecting it. I'm like, he's going to be down for a while

and he got right back up. And I almost think, like, he does better when he can't hear the, when it's too loud. Like, you play in Jacksonville, and you can hear your parents. making dinner plans in the crowd. It's distracted by his dad's voice. Yeah, exactly.

You play in Denver and, first of all, they shouldn't, they probably even shouldn't use whistles because they don't work. Like, I don't know, like, maybe you blow a horn that, that says, what's the Bono line for, well, tonight, thank God it, Sam instead of you, something, something other than a whistle. Sing the rest of it. No, that's enough. That's enough.

But, yeah, I said, like, and what's weird about them is. Yeah. I'm listening. I'm just turning the air on. I'm just, I'm getting hot. I'm getting sweaty from the past. Oh,

wow. Look at you. I took them over and I took them to win the division because I thought Travis Hunter would be really good because I thought Brian Thomas would be really good. I forgot about Travis Hunter. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? It's the first time I thought about him in a month.

And Brian Thomas has put up nothing, right? He'll have a decent first down every now and then. But Brian, if you would have said Brian Thomas is a non-factor and Travis Hunter is not even like, you know, he's on eye on. watching a point. Why would you put Jacksonville then?

Well, the Myers trade turned out to be the best deadline trade anybody made. They already extended him. And he's like this reliable security blanket for Lawrence. But listen,

I've watched a lot of Lawrence and we've been stuck watching him in that 6.30 a.m. Eastern time twice a year where you can really watch. And he always just seemed frenetic to me. I'd given up on him. I talked about it in a pot.

I just thought we'd seen enough. how many how many starts can somebody have where they kind of are who they are right I don't know if it's a new coach he seems more confident like even like there's like a like a leadership aspect to him I always thought he seemed kind of overwhelmed

especially like in a game like the atmosphere today yeah I think a year ago he throws three picks and he throws a red zone pick I just think he would have stunk and he was really good they did play like there was

Bolton board material I don't know if it was you in Wilds or if it was Sean Payton. Sean Payton said the small market. And Liam Cohen talks about that after the game. And it really did look like they responded to that. And I just don't want to get caught where we were with Bo Nix last week.

We're like, oh, man, this guy's back. What did he throw four touchdowns? And no, but here's the difference. There was a lot of evidence that Jacksonville might be good. There was a lot of advanced metric stuff from the last six weeks. They were, the line was between three, three and a half. A lot of the sharps were on the Jags. And I think people were wondering, but weren't convinced,

could this be that the second half make a jump team, right? So now they've went six straight. I think Lawrence has 16 passing TDs and two run TDs. They're defensive line can get pressure. Secondary is good enough. They still give up a couple explosive plays a game. ETN has been way better. And they're better at using him.

They'll run those little quick screen passes to him. So there's been signs of this, but they put it all together. today because I thought, you know, Denver hung around in that game and the crowd was in it and they really wanted them to make a run and Jacksonville just kind of slammed the door. It's impressive. And then I thought the Sean Payton, I thought it was, every week he does something where I wonder where it's like, are we sure Sean Payton's good? Oh, you didn't like when he kicked the field goal down 17?

No. Right? You hated that? There's what, 11 minutes left? But they need three scores. They're down 17. They're on the two. Yeah.

Was it the two or three? They're on the three. it's like you need two touchdowns you're not going to get much closer if you can't get it here even if you don't get it they're stuck in the three they got to play out of the end zone with a lot of noise i don't know i'm just that's a little biased because i'm like you got to go for that i had denver under 25 and a half points is my wisest wager so i didn't mind that at all but yeah you're right it's uh but you know in our defense the a fc south has beaten us up over the last decade bets wise right so we're thinking all right only one team's going to come out of it and

Daniel Jones, like, was leading the way. It's like, all right, we'll root for that because they look unstoppable. It's like, oh, it's not three, now three teams are in the running as of December 21st. That's insane. But, yeah, Jacksonville is everything we didn't think they'd be. Well, how about this? If Daniel Jones never gets hurt and Jacksonville's doing what they're doing, could we have had three AFC South playoff teams, two in the AFC, like now we have eight playoff teams.

I don't know who gets bounced. I guess Houston? Maybe Houston doesn't make it at that point? At that point, you're saying? Yeah, maybe they take the Houston spot. Yeah, that would be it. Because Indianapolis was 8 and 1. Right.

Yeah. Yeah, it would be Houston. This comeback would be too little too late, I think. Well, I don't want to overreact. I feel like we've overreacted a few times. Yeah. No, this was a different one just because of the crowd and the defense. And listen, Lawrence, his stats were a little bigger than maybe.

with the actual past, like they broke two short passes that were just terrible tackling by Denver. And I was talking to our buddy Gus about it after. He was a huge Rock Rose fan. I was like, what happened to your team today? And he was like, we were just due. We were due for a shit game, right? And that happens.

So maybe if they play a month from now, maybe Denver is a little different. I thought RJ Harvey was actually good today. But Jacksonville, if you talk about teams that can kind of do everything, they could at least make a case like, hey, I know throw away the first half of the year, just look at our last six weeks,

stop saying, oh, it was against the Jets. And they beat the Chargers, 35 to 6, which we were like, well, the Chargers lost out of their guys. I don't think the Chargers have lost since then. No. So, I don't think so. Maybe we read this one wrong. And listen, I'd still be surprised if they made it to the Super Bowl,

but we can make a run here. They've won a playoff game with Lawrence. They beat the Chargers, right? And that crazy game a few years ago. So they can figure out how to do it. They're not going to embarrass themselves the rest of the year. They're going to get in,

maybe not as a one seed, but they'll be good. What's their record, at Indy and then Tennessee? Oh, yeah, maybe 13 and 4. The thing I don't understand,

I've never seen somebody so blatantly acknowledge and embrace that nobody believes in this thing, because usually that's like more of a fight club thing. Like it comes out after. I've never seen somebody, aggressively market the game as a nobody believes in us and then back it up. Because now I don't know if that can count us. I don't know what that's like different than a nobody believes in us.

If they back it up. Yeah. Just like pointing out before the game that nobody believes in you. Oh, I see. It's like a different, they might have created a new thing. I've never seen it before. Joe Ameth guaranteeing the victory kind of thing. But everybody thought he was crazy when he did that.

Yeah, yeah. The Jags were like, here's, here's a video we've made of all of our tractors and we're going to shove it in their face and they're talking shit about Sean Payton after. It's pretty interesting. Should we change? You have a lot of confidence. Only Shakies believes in us? It's shakies.

Because if they get the onesie, they won't. It's not them, but Well, so they the pets probably aren't going to see them in round one. Right. The thing I don't like about them is the explosive play is like going against them.

They get big like 20, 25, 30-yard plays, which I think in the playoffs can tilt games where you feel like, oh, this team, they're on the road. It's like all of a sudden they've just busted one. Well, that's why everyone's up for you. They came on, too. Strange. Yeah, the pets have that too.

Although we'll see with Henderson coming back. Quickly on Bears Packers from Saturday night, because this is the other team that's come on like a freight train. The Bears have now six wins after trailing in the final two minutes of the fourth quarter, which is the most. since 1970. That's ridiculous. And four of them were really ridiculous,

and then Saturday night was the most ridiculous. But I think they basically have to beat either at San Francisco or home, Detroit, and they win the division. Green Bay can only win it if they win their last two, and Chicago loses their last two. So they basically, they're basically looking great for the NFC North. They had a number for plus 550 for the one seat at this point.

It's getable. it's getable it was as great of a win as it was for Chicago I thought it was a worst loss for Green Bay because on top of everything else then love gets hurt yeah yeah

and they've had all these other injuries too but I don't know did they well kudos to both teams after I called them out for not providing a decent games for what's supposed to be the greatest rivalry ever they gave us two

maybe they gave us another one in a few weeks But, yeah, I watched with a couple of Bears fans because we were between Little League games and they were going nuts. And it's funny, like, they get mad if you say you're full of shit. Like, you could have enjoyed your team's success and still admit they're full of shit, right? Like, because in your mind as a Bears fan,

you're not going to be shocked if they get, they lose by 17, a playoff game, are you? Based on everything we've seen from the 16th? Yeah, because the case would be like, did you know who number 20 was five weeks ago? Oh, I like that. And how many onside kicks can you name that have happened this year that have been recovered that you can remember from the 2025 season? Right.

By the way, what's the answer to that? Is it two? It might just be two. Yeah, I do remember another one. Is it my dumb team it was against? It's a lot of feciness, a lot of upset fan bases. Jaguars fan base is mad. Bears fan base is mad. It gets crazy.

It gets crazy. Yeah. Sean Fantasy stormed out of the conversation today. he got mad. He didn't think the punishment had been discussed at that time. This whole group text that it said, Sean Fantasy has left the conversation.

Just left the text. Unbelievable. I don't know who side of him on. I can't tell who side I'm on with that. What is the argument? So the last place team is supposed to suffer a punishment. A punishment that you drafted, you could draft a punishment to the players. Right. We drafted in September.

So you could forego your seventh round pick on a player and draft one of the the 10 punishments. Like, I drafted to get my ears pierce. I'm like, I'm not losing this league. Whatever, I'll take the hard one. You drafted to wear a jersey chosen by everyone else, not smart. For three straight podcasts, yeah.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Fantasy drafted wear a headband on a podcast, but you can never mention it, right? So he comes in seventh, not 10th. And to his credit, I thought that it was the last place in the regular season. I, in Sean's defense, I did as well. And then they were like, no, no, no, we had this whole toilet pole playoffs. They communicated it.

Yeah. Yeah. And so now he's in the 7-10. He loses the 7-10. So now he's in the finals of the bad prize thing. I don't know. It's going to be wearing a headband talking to like Noah Baumback. Yeah, right.

Yeah. On the big picture. That's funny. I like that. He stormed out of the text thread. Meanwhile, Van wanted to finish last because it was like somebody else gets to tweet for you for a week. And he was excited about it. But you're right, tensions are high.

You're right. The season is too long. Like fantasy means so much now. And now like every single, every call, every pass interference call, whether it's for your team or not, the bets, I'm sorry, they get higher and higher as we run out of games. It's rough. It's rough out there, people. I've only been in two so-and-so has left the conversation text threads this year.

Fantasy and then our cousin Jimmy. Because once a year, our friend Daniel makes him. so mad. He just leaves the text conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is he back? He's gone. Yeah, he came back. He came back like four days later. Yeah. He's the only one. I thought that was his move, but fantasy, like, uh, I thought the FCC

suspended him from our text chain. He left on his own? Wait a minute. I could remember. Something happened. Panthers bucks, which I lost for Ringer 107, a long way. I think I went one and through. I'm just, for some reason I'm winning bets on Sundays, but Ringer 107, I'm dying.

And I can't really figure out, including the 13-point teas I sent into the show today. That was nice. The last piece of it was Lions plus five and a half, and they're lost by five. That's insane. That's insane that you win that. Panthers' Bucks watched the entire game. I have no idea how the Panthers won. The Bucks seem like they could just move the ball and do whatever they wanted the whole game,

and then they lost. It's the most aggravating three hours of my week watching this putrid Bucks team that I have to win the NFC South, that they should have, you know. And they still may win. I don't get it. They're minus 175 to win the division. They should have been out of it five weeks ago. But yeah, I watched it.

I'm like, why is Baker, why does he have 70 yards passing? There's two minutes left in the third quarter, you know? And the Panthers do nothing. They had 275 total yards. Bryce Young, like, escapes a third and impossible and throws a touchdown pass. And that all, that's what they seem to win all the time. That's all they need. I think the Bucks are one of the five worst coach teams I watch week to week.

Yeah, maybe. Really bad. Like, when you think, like, Liam Cohen last, like, Bowles was kind of 50-50 to go last year, wasn't he? Mm-hmm. And they kept them. And Liam Cohen went to the Jags. And, like, the shit today, it's... Well, it's tough when you keep winning the division.

Yeah, to fire somebody, but... Well, they've lost six of seven. Right. And somehow still have a chance to win their division. they have guys like Bucky Urban will just be gone for like a half hour you know what happened to him

then he comes back and runs for eight yards you're like where was he why were you just playing your third string running back they have a Bucca who had 600 yards in like the first month of the season and he had a long pass in the second half today and it was like I forgot he was on the team he was like hey it's like Bucca where do he come from

they get around the goal line they just throw the same goal line fade to Mike Evans over and over again They know their phrase. Yeah. That's the only time they threw on first down. It's like, oh, wonder what they're going to do. Yeah.

It's the fade to McEvins in the corner again. Yeah. But they just really sloppy. They just do dumb shit. And then they let Bryce move down the field on them. And like Bryce Young is good every other week. And I wouldn't even say he's good. He's like decent.

Mm-hmm. But McMillan was killing them. They never doubled them. They never tried to take them out of the game. I just thought it was very strange. If he sticks around in the fourth quarter, like Bryce Young is, now he's the guy that's going to beat you.

But, and I don't know what's with Baker. I know he had injuries, like slight injuries that he played for. Don't you think he has like a real, like some sort of torn something? If this was me and I went from like the ninth best quarterback to the 39th best quarterback, I would say I'm playing through a horrific injury. I'm like, I have a ruptured spleen and I had it replaced three times. Yeah, he was an MVP candidate. Yeah.

I'm looking at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Reddit. One of the top posts is Liam and Dave Kinell is both. one today, and the guy who posted it, his screen name is Fire Todd Bowles. That's the third post. Another one is Grizzard on the sideline calling plays. There's a Scooby-Doo post. Todd's press conference after the game, this is fine, burn it all down. Really bad.

They might be, I think them and the Bengals might be the two angriest fan bases right now. Because the Bucks actually have talent. Yeah. like for them not to win that division would be and they're all back Godwin back Evans back as you mentioned at Bucca like just on the they play good defense so they're at Miami and then home

and then the Carolina game is where it's all at right at home one thing I'll say about the the Panthers McMillan's really good every game he's you just feel them for three hours just either going deep making a little

third and nine you know sideline big catches and traffic fact, he's, that was a really good pick. I'm looking at this, by the way, sorry, McMillan is offensive rookie of the year, minus 290, the Shuck Master, Tower Shuck plus 430,

and Egbuka plus 1,700. Those are the top three, all NFC South guys. Well, Henderson, I think, could have been in the mix if he'd had a good game today. He's 19-8-4. Texans Raiders, we discussed. Titans' Chiefs, it's yet another rock bottom

for the Chiefs. It was officially I feel bad for Kelsey. Guy's a Hallfamer. He's getting married to Taylor Swift having a kid with her. He probably flies everywhere, private,

has private security everywhere he goes, and he's just kind of running around this fucking Titans game, trying that to get hurt. Tiling around with his loser friends. Yeah, fake an injury and just,

and the thing. Vikings Giants? That was sickening. So the Giants, they had a red zone drive. I wrote this down, the first quarter and it ended in a turnover on downs and they showed a graphic that it was the 10th time this year they've been in the red zone and lost a ball on a turnover of downs

which is the most in this 21st century wow so congratulations to them that i didn't even know that was people were keeping track of that um jj got hurt in that game and jackson dart might as well be hurt because they've completely neutered him they don't let him do anything anymore and what's left if he's not going to run around to be a maniac what's left well that's i'm not on a text chain with Giants fans. I'm like, hey, this is what you wanted. You wanted him not to run. So here's what your non-running quarterback looks like. They had 141 total yards of offense. I think he had seven yards and two rushes that he was forced to make. You know, nothing was designed. He had 33 yards

passing. It was disgusting. And McCarthy goes out and they still can't win that game. Can we hear more about your text squad with Giants fans? No, that's as good as a guess. Is Brad on it? He's on and off. I think he left. the conversation stormed out well we have giants raiders next week is going to be the mendoza bowl yeah that's it whoever wins that or ever loses that gets mendoza i think we can't pick a line for that right that's just that's an exhibition game they can't have that we're doing it um bills cleveland we talked about but we didn't mention judkins broke his leg yeah and they did the they've done this really smartly this year come back from commercial and they're like we're not going to show you the

replay. And I think there should be a name for this when they do that. Like, it's like a verb where they're just like, we're going to have to thysmen that replay. And we're just going to keep it going. But it needs to have some sort of term so we just know. It's interesting because we're going to date ourselves here. But when Blackjack Mulligan, we'll put the claw on somebody. They would put the big X.

Yeah. So maybe we're going to take a Mulligan, even though that's a golf term. That X used to make me so bad. I know. It used to scare me. Like, what's going on? Put the X on. Is there a murder?

What happened? Spurning blood. Come back. There's yellow tape everywhere. Yeah. For anyone listening, go on YouTube and search for Blackjack Muggan, censored claw. Yeah, that's it.

You know, just be all of these clips of him. And they're like, oh, no, oh, no. And it would just be like a giant X. Yeah, the graphics were not great back then. It was basically the family feud X. Like, and they just borrowed that. Bengals Dauphens, Bengals rolled. We don't need to talk about that.

It didn't matter, except for fantasy. Falcons Cardinals, I think every single Cardinal is hurt now. Yeah, right. I think that by the end of the game, I think everyone who started this season is done. And then Saints Jets, Brady Cook, probably not the answer. Yeah. Any other notes for today? How'd you doing the gambling?

I'm trying to think. I did all right with the gambling. We can't hit our 107 picks. By the way, you fired House from the 107? Didn't fire him. Are you sure? I took a week off now. How's his...

He's very upset. He wasn't upset at all. He couldn't have been happier not to do the picks. You can't fire people before Christmas. You know better than that. Didn't fire him. Yeah. It's not like I did better without him.

I just have the bad juju. No, my dumb, I'll say my dumb team, 4,000 yard passer, two 1,000 yard receivers, a thousand yard rusher, and officially out of the playoffs with three games to go, or two games to go down. Oh, your dumb team. That's it. Nice going, Jare.

Good work. Gotti. No show it again today. Not that it matters at all. That was one that I threw into, that was a late, no, that Chargers. I did the, uh, okay. By Sunday, I was like, oh, Quinn and Williams not playing. Like, why are the Cowboys going to win this? It was one of those. Right. But, uh, I don't, did the Chargers, what's their, what are their best wins this year, just out of curiosity? Um, Denver, I guess the Steelers. They beat Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

right and they beat the chiefs twice which i don't even think counts as the best one anymore yeah 11 and 4 we've probably talked about them for three minutes total this right and i think they're good but they're not like i'd be surprised that four other teams weren't better than them in the a fc playoffs at least right it could make a run the physical now hampton's back they can run the ball they have a double double attack yeah johnson got going today Herbert seems games, you know, he's up and down. It extends it. What I thought?

See a funny jet stat. What is it? You've seen this. 15 straight games without an interception. Like what a, without, without them getting an interception. Yeah. Like, and this is, they face two or twice. They faced Gabriel, cousins, Flacco, Shuck, Shuckleberry.

And now, Drake and, and Josh Allen. Like, it must be nice for you to go there next week and be like, yeah. we're just not going to turn the ball over. Not nice through the air. I mean, that is a don't get hurt game if there's ever been one. That's like, please, let's just leave without an injury. Tampa is minus 166 to make the playoffs in Carolina's plus 138. And that game is in Tampa.

Right. So if you think Tampa, I mean, at this point, I didn't even know who I would pick. How could you pick Tampa when they've lost six to seven? What sign is there that they're going to turn it around? I'm not going to chase good money with bad money. I already have so much on them. Like, that's disgusting that they're favored by so much. And the Colts are now minus 4,500 to miss the playoffs.

So are the Lions. The Ravens are minus 1,400 on Fanduil to miss the playoffs. Do you think? Pretty high numbers. Rivers is better off with the extra week. We were talking about this on the pregame show or. I heard it. I would listen to the entire pre.

I watched the entire pregame show. You don't have to. I did. I watched the whole thing. Yeah. But I think the, what do you think, though? Or do you think now that there's tape on the second version of him, he's in trouble? What is the tape? What did they learn? He couldn't move and he's old?

Whatever. The revelations. Okay. So then he should be better then. I think he should be better, yeah. Yeah. I think they're a live dog tomorrow. I like them tomorrow.

Yeah. Beware, everybody. Do some guest alliance. Christmas games. We got three. They kind of all stink. Poor Amazon. Amazon and Netflix, right?

Yeah, but Amazon just has one game and it's Broncos at Chiefs. Denver KC, yeah. Oof. A game that they probably paid a pretty penny for thinking, oh, yeah. You know, we both thought the Broncos were going to be good. The Chiefs are the Chiefs.

Like, oh, this would be an incredible Christmas game. Right, probably for the division. Yeah, yeah. Guess what? You're getting, what's the guy's name? South Dakota State guy. I already forgot. Oudocan.

Yeah, it's not good. It's not good. But people will watch because it's finals. It's the final week for fantasy. Like football always gets nice ratings. Dallas, Washington, do fine. Detroit, Minnesota will do well. Who was the one?

I'm stealing this from somebody. And I can't remember who it is. So I apologize. Somebody else came up with this idea with Flacco. Yeah. That he should just always be available for teams in a pinch. Oh, right, right. He's not starting.

Yeah. That he should basically be the human fab. Mm-hmm. that for the chiefs, they could just, he's available, almost like that backup quarterback commercial with Tommy DeVito and the backup quarterbacks come in. All-time backup. And it should just be a pool of him and James and Russell Wilson.

And they should just not be on teams. And they can only sign for a week for situations like this Christmas game. I like it. We need you for this Christmas game. It's Amazon's first Christmas game. We can't have Chris Oluwaku. What is Davis? We need a record.

you're the fat uncle on Thanksgiving who when the kids are running around a turkey bowl you can't run routes so you're going to you're going to quarterback ball teams yeah yeah it's like Russell that could be Russell Wilson for the next two years he's just not in a team he's just available should that be an award with the MVP and everything else like every year changes or it doesn't change yeah who else would be other than those three guys uh well rivers rivers yeah he's available every year Yeah, definitely. I wonder, like, did Brady ever really think about it?

Hmm. I guess because he has that Raiders minority stake, but there was always that story that I got confirmed two years ago that he was like, if anything happened to anyone on San Francisco, he was like ready, just made it clear, like, I'm working out and I'm ready if you end up needing me. It's so funny, because I heard that about Romo in San Francisco, too. So I wonder if that's just the thing with San Francisco.

I mean, Romo couldn't, his back was messed up six years ago. Like, there's no way. Right. All right, guest alliance. Three Christmas games. Wait, what's the score in weeks? You've got to, I have to get, all right, nine seven. This is a good one.

Oh, you came back a little. Let's do it. Cowboys at Washington. I thought Washington spirited effort against the Eagles and then they just couldn't keep it going. But I think if Marriota hadn't gotten hurt, I actually think they would have covered that game and could have been a problem. You know, Dubundo makes us take bad quarterbacks.

He's my Ringer 107 partner. I didn't know you could fire people. I didn't, you didn't make that clear. So I might just have to let him go. There's no firing. He always makes us take bad quarterbacks. And the problem when having a bad quarterback in Mariotta is when he gets hurt, it is an awful quarterback.

And that's what the great JJ himself, Josh Johnson, is done. Yeah, when he came in, that was definitely, oh, yeah. I didn't realize you were still here. They said he hadn't played in four years. Right. Yeah. Cowboys at Washington. I'm going to say the Cowboys, it's in the Tick-Tac zone.

I'm going to say Cowboys minus one and a half. Oh, that is not a good start, Bill. What is it? I said six. It's five and a half. Really? Not a good start. Yeah.

Why is the line so high? Is it Marriota playing? I thought it's just Josh Johnson, isn't it? Is Josh Johnson actually starting? I just thought Mario da left the game. Like, he's not going to play this week? No. Wasn't it like a substantial?

It wasn't a concussion. What was Marioita's injury? I don't know. I'm going to look this up. Probably should have been more prepared. Injury update. There's a hand injury, right? Yeah.

Yeah. I thought he may play, though. Well, you throw the ball with your hand. Oh shit, I forgot Some quarterbacks still do Yeah They're gonna shoot it up They're like dude we can't start

Josh Johnson Yeah maybe not You gotta play All right Well I'm off with four points The Netflix needle It's coming for you Next one is

Lions at Vikings So the lions Are they officially out Or are they almost out? They have to run it And Green Bay has to lose both I'm gonna check their odds I think I have 15.

Yeah, minus 4,500. So they're as good as out. And no J.J. McCarthy. He really did seem like he got hurt. Yes, he did. Brasmer came in. I had the Vikings in a multi-team teas today that I was feeling great about.

And then all of a sudden, Brasmer was in. But Brasmer wasn't terrible. No, he wasn't. I think he realized, like, hey, I could throw an eight-yard out to the best receiver in football. and he'll go get it. I think that's kind of what he did to extend that one drive.

I felt like he realized I should throw it to my own team. Right. That was one of his revelations. Lions minus two and a half over the Vikings is my guess. All right, I'm going to get this too. I said three and a half,

it's five and a half. Wow. They're going big. I'm a mess. They're not screwing around with these. I like the Vikings. The Lions couldn't they couldn't stop anything today.

You have a 230 yards rushing. Is it a Brosmer thing? Do they shut J.J. McCarthy down? He has some of the worst TD celebrations. We've seen it a while from a QB. He had one today. He's not used to it. He's like doing like his version of the discount double-check Rogers thing,

but I don't, it's like he's putting a gun back in a holster or something. I don't know what he's doing. Broncos at the Chiefs. and I don't know who the chief's quarterback is going to be. I don't know how high to do this, but let's go nine and a half just for fun. Oh, wow. I said 10 and a half, it's 12 and a half.

Merry Christmas to me. I'm getting smoked. You love it on a teaser. That's a 13-pointer for you right there. Oh, definitely. That's a leg. Big star around that. You know, Schroger talked me out of the Titans in Ringer 107

because my philosophy just over the years is, Like, when, like, you have, like, you're out and Mahomes is out, usually the team, if it's like a contender, former contender, it's usually like a crater. It's like you're just going into the center of the earth. Right. That turned out to be what happened, but we didn't take the Titans. I was thinking of actually doing, for the four awful teams, the Giants, Jets, Titans, and Raiders, money lining against them, 12 games. What do you go? 10 for 12, 11 for 12.

that might have been the only one that wins the rest of the way. Yeah, at least nine for 12. Yeah. Nine for 12. I might do it for the last eight. Saturday. Chargers at home against the Houston Texans. Well, it's like a, it's like a shaky preview on a Saturday at the same time, everything, yeah.

What are the potatoes, the mojo potatoes? Yeah. They've served at mojo potatoes for this one? I think, I would have said one and a half yesterday. but I'm going to say two and a half today. Chargers by two and a half. You should have stayed with it. I said two and a half.

It is one and a half. Oh my God. I'm a mess. This is a soft one. They tick-tacked it. I'm not touching this. I don't see a million things can happen here. The only case for Houston after watching every play of that game

and being tortured by CJ Strata today is that they were trying to go as vanilla as possible because they knew they needed the Chargers game. Yeah. And they just wanted to get through this game and not do really anything. Packers home for the Ravens. So no idea of Lamar's playing.

Well, Lamar or Love, right? Right. So I'm just going to say... It's a short week, not exactly short week because they played Saturday night, but did they let them back on a Saturday to Saturday? We've seen with concussions. It's usually nine to ten days,

so that would mean he would miss it. I'm going to say Packers minus two and a half. You get that exactly. one and a half okay all right so i'm down it's one three one right now uh sunday marquis you think it's bill's eagles or jaggs colts um i think it's bill's eagles okay even though they're both in that's fine i had jags colts but do whatever you want no i think you're right I think I wanted it to be Jags Colts because it would have been so much fun

to have an AFC South Sunday Marquis game in a week 17 right after Christmas. Bill's Eagles. Bills, I'm going to say Bills minus two and a half. Oh, shit. I said three, it's two and a half.

You get it. Are the Eagles all the way back? Were you impressed with them? No, never impressed by them. I was watching with, uh, yeah. we carry my wife was um well you know it's my wife but for the audience making christmas cookies and having drinks yesterday with their friends and i went over and i was like is the eagles game

would have to be on yeah it's going to be on so i went over and uh one of our friends their husband robin big eagles fan like wouldn't come over and i'm just texting just come over they you're going to win just come over right came over but these eagles fans are just at another level of torture like they almost can't be around other people when there's an eagle right it's really like a like a specific kind of species but they're just not they're they're almost like not you know like when they have like uh people adopt wolves you see like on instagram like i've adopted a wolf it's domesticated it's like yeah but it's still a wolf right right right like you don't it can still go wolf at any time that's what eagles fans are

like just not sure you don't know if they're just going to flip out well they're all crazy but i think there's two kinds they're crazy right there's the ones that want to watch alone and trust themselves, but don't trust themselves. Like Unabomber style. And then there's the ones, the shirtless ones, are breathing fire

who want to be around everybody and just want to kick everybody's ass and if they happen to catch a glimpse of the game along the way, then fine. So be it. No, but then there's the third one. It's like,

I shouldn't be around other people, but I'll come over. All right. And then they're just raining it in, which I think is Rob. Robin did a good job. He was, he stayed in, but they were also winning.

Yeah. But it's just sitting there. And it was funny because we were with another, Another friend of ours, Jeff, is a long-time Bears fan, like, forever. Just can't believe they have in this season where, like, good things are happening. Yeah. Which is fun to be around.

And somebody's like, I just can't believe this is happening for us. Do that. Don't get mad at people like us that point out when they're down six with two minutes left, 14 out of 16 games. Yeah. What's the maddest you've ever been at a Cowboys game where you're around other people? That's a good. question.

It's been a while. I've been sad more than mad, I think. I don't know. Like, I mean, obviously I cried at the Montana, the Clark. Yeah. Yeah. I think the best thing I've ever seen was it must have been 20 plus years ago when we were at Jimmy's house.

Yeah. What was the terrible Giants playoff loss? Would the guy, like, miss? They missed the extra point or something. Patrick Creighton didn't run the route when Eli beat us? Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. I'm talking like 03.

Something bad happened on a kick-in thing. It was in the playoffs. It was a field goal. The snap was bad, but they ended up throwing it downfield and it was complete. But they called it incomplete. Well, I didn't get mad at that. I got mad at that? No. Brad left.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But remember he left and he didn't have a car and he was just gone and nobody knew where he went. Yeah. He was just gone. Right, right, right. And he didn't know how to get down the hill.

I think Sarah Sullivanman found him like an hour later. He was in Burbank. He was in Burbank. screaming about the giant sauce that was one of the best ones yeah that was good uh all right bills minus two now one wrinkle with that game there's only two late games on Sunday

yeah I saw that so we have why is that we have Bill's Eagles and then we have the Mendoza Bowl Giants Vegas those are the only two games we have why can they give us a third game it's not even enough for a multi-view yeah that is weird

there has to be a reason are those both Does CBS have something else? I think they wanted to blow out the Eagles Bill's game. Yeah, all right. Well, they blew it out, all right. And now we're going to have to bet the Giants, Vegas. You know, we do have, though,

NBA whole Bill is going to point out that same day, Philadelphia OKC. On Sunday? The Red Hot Celtics playing Portland. Yeah. Okay. So there'll be enough games. I might actually watch.

That's a little multi-view action there. Watchables, too. Jags Colts. You said this wasn't a Sunday Marquis. It doesn't matter what I say. I think this has to be over three now. Combined, Phil Rivers, combined with how well the Jags are playing, and then what the Niners line was today.

So I'm going to say Jaguars by four. Oh, good. I said four and a half. It's six and a half. Oh. Wow. They're not letting you have a free anything anymore. They're just jacking everything up.

Yep. That's pretty high. I think because there's a chance the Colts could be good tomorrow and then you'll feel like all right Colts at home Seahawks at the Panthers I said

Seahawks minus three Wow I said four and it's seven and a half I haven't been off like this all year this is like that's four games now and I've been off by four points well and it's not even like the favorites dominated today right

and everybody, like the books lost money. It's in Carolina, though. Right. Yeah. You agree with that? San Donald laying seven and a half points in Carolina. And it's not even like, that passes the sniff test to you?

No, not really. Not really. This is a revenge game. I don't know what this is. But it's not even like if Tampa wins, they wouldn't have to play or anything like that. Yeah, that's strange. Is that still the rest?

Yeah, seven and a half. Seven and a half. I just have no feel for this anymore. It's just one of those years. I got a rally for the playoffs. Can I tell you with a Rocky Bobo? I got to go to a cabin and start lifting some sleds. Start chasing some chickens or something.

I know you talked about Seattle on your Friday pod, but can I tell you one thing that really, like the lateral two-point conversion, everybody hates it, and the refs got it wrong and everything. That was awful. But the intercepted, was it Ernest Jones, picks the ball off, but the tip of the ball hits the turf, right?

I know. And he's like, come on, guys, let's go celebrate. Everybody runs for 60 yards. Everyone runs for 60 yards. Two plays like, of course, then they say it's not an interception. Two plays later, Pook is wide open for a touchdown. And it's because the 325 pound idiot who had to run and celebrate at the end, it feels like, damn, I can't get a pass rush here.

Like, if you're going to run and bring your team to celebrate, make sure it's more than a 50-50 thing that you're going to get this interception. They should put the camera on the defensive line guys kind of like, should we wait? Hold on, we're just going to wait. We're just going to wait two more seconds. It's like the bullpen when there's a brawl, right?

Yeah. Oh, boy. By the time we get the deep second base, the fighting's going to be over, we have to run out. Is Wilson Contreras any good speaking of baseball? I saw that. That's not a bad. I don't know anything about the National League.

He's not right, right? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Fairly watchable is three. Steelers Browns in Cleveland. I'm going to do the honor system and not change my picks because they've been jacked up beyond belief.

I had Steelers minus six, which is probably too low. You're going to get it. I said seven and a half. It's four and a half. Oh. Could they blow this? Would it matter?

I'm trying to think now because this is a kind of team that can maybe make Rogers uncomfortable a little bit. Well, it goes back to my analogy earlier of, like, just old guys playing sports. Like, what happens if he just sleeps wrong on Wednesday night? It's like, ah. Right, right, right. Oh, man, I was watching Below Deck and my fucking necks got stuck. Ah, Below Deck.

I was thinking of the show here, Rodgers would watch. It was like, I was catching up on somewhere I turned pretty, and I fucking fell asleep, and my pillow just. Bucks at Dolphins I mean I don't want to watch one minute of this game I don't want to watch the bucks anymore I think I'm good but the bucks I really empathize with their fan base

I'm drawn to it on the four box and it's almost all bad shit always if you're rooting for the bucks and I am with this big season long bet I wonder if this could be Andrew Catalan's 201 first game Oh, is he, oh, he didn't retire after 200? Is he going to keep going?

Oh, wow. A trooper. What's the proper anniversary number for that you'd be impressed? Like, we could say, like, this is our, how many guests the lines have we done? We've done 18, how many years? 21 a year for 20 years. So we could be like, this is our 400 guest lines. But I feel like 500 is a good number.

Yeah. When Collinsworth announces. Collinsworth announces 500. 500 feels like a number. I don't remember his 300th or 400, right? I feel like they kept that quiet until it got to the golden number, whatever it would be.

500 feels good. Well, congratulations, Andrew. That's still good. I mean, you know. It's still not as impressive as Chris Myers 132 Panthers games in a row. That's like the fucking Joe DiMaggio. He's got a residency.

He's like Mariah Carey, like whatever stadium that is. this is September to December every year he's in Charlotte that's it it's at the sphere in Raleigh he's got to be so excited

they're good yeah exactly he's like the Panthers are eight and seven this is amazing uh bucks Dolphins I don't want to watch this game and I'm going to get the line wrong

I said minus three and a half I hit it exactly four and a half Vegas zone why didn't I guess watch Miami win this easily just watch A-chan might be the best running back of all time

and we'll never know every once in a mile he just busts like a 55-yarder he's got no quarterback they have no receivers he wasn't when I needed a Monday night against the Steelers

like we all fell for that Patriots at the Jets I had this in double figures even before the line inflation for this week I had Patriots minus 10 and a half which is too well

you get me no it's 9 and a half unless it changed I said 11 hmm wait a minute it changed and I'm being honest it's 12 and a half now

I'm not screwing around that was shady I know that was like the fucking pass interference call on booty I wouldn't have done it that way if I was going to cheat 12 and a half.

Why did they go up so much? Because the pets have a chance to get the one seed and they need to turn the jets on. All right. So we need a third team because Denver's going to win on the road. The Patriots are going to want to win on the road. When they're up 10,

I want them to take May out. Really? The giant stadium turf is terrifying. I mean, this is literally like going into an empty conjuring house when you go play there. It's like, what's a scarier state here? Maybe Cincinnati. Yeah, it's bad.

It used to be Philly. Philly used to be veterans way back when. Whoever you put in doesn't matter. They don't get interceptions. You're fine. True. You should play. Bring some Josh Dobbs in.

Get in the sauna and then go out to MetLife. Poop Fecta, Bengals, Cardinals? Does that one qualify? The Cardinals have no healthy starters left. Yeah, I think that's good. They've zero guys that started the year. I have Bengals minus four and a half over the Cardinals. I had six and it's six and a half.

Wow, I'm just awful. Come on, so awful. Come on, get with it. The holiday's coming up. I don't get the Bengals or the, I mean, there's like a dozen perplexing teams. The Bengals, are they at the top of the list? Are the Falcons still at the top? I just, Joe Burroughs doing like a Joaquin Phoenix every time he does an interview. It's just a press conference and then.

He hit zero points last week. This week hit 38 fantasy points. Shut out and four touchdowns today. Don't understand it at all. Saints at Titans. The Saints are, I think, legitimately frisky. I'm going to say Saints minus two and a half. You get this.

I said one and a half. It is three. How about that? They're favored on the road. Shuck. I would have been better off starting Shuck this week. Yeah. We're C.J. Stroud.

Shuck had like 20 points. Raiders home for the Giants and the Mendoza Bowl. They were playing hard for Pete today. They showed on the sidelines that it was like some turnover happened or something. And he was celebrating the other players. He turned around and Landon Roberts slapped him in the ass, like a way to go, Pete.

And Pete kind of jumped. Pete's like 77. Yeah, yeah. You can't slap Pete in the ass. I know he looks like a young guy, but he should have find that guy after. There should be a sign as you have to the stadium. Don't touch Pete. Don't slap Pete in the ass.

Yeah, they should have won. such a bummer that they didn't win that game. I have a Raiders minus four. Ooh, Raiders minus four. I said Giants. It's in Vegas, right? Raiders are home. I said Giants minus one.

It's Giants minus two and a half. What? Well, the Raiders are the very worst, aren't they? I'm just kidding. It's like I've complete, I'm like the chiefs. I've completely fallen apart. I used to be a dynasty. I wouldn't get down on yourself for not getting this game.

I mean, it really should. shouldn't even this is this is a tyson exhibition fight like it shouldn't be on the board yeah but the giants were terrible today they can't they couldn't even throw the ball dart had two yards at half time yeah all right sunday night 49ers bears this game actually might mean something it's in san francisco i have the 49ers by three yeah you have it exactly I said two. I was a little low there. I really have to get back to the drawing board with these guest lines.

Yeah, I'm going to be one right up on you. It's a terrible performance. Monday night, Rams at Falcons. I have Rams minus six and a half in Atlanta. That's what I said. Eight and a half's the number. God.

Like, they've inflated the lines this week. Yeah. So is there something with the holidays or what's going on? I guess so. That people will be boozing it up. up more bets than ever but let's let's just focus on us here for a second Denver just to win the Rams just to win and your Patriots just to win you love that Denver trying to think who I don't

trust Rams Patriots that's pretty good yeah all three teams need the games yeah we're good that's good let that be the only thing we do In real life In real life I hit a five-teamer You talk about No one does these 13-point teas It's like you might as well

Seven-point tease Oh, okay All right Philadelphia yesterday Washington up to plus 14 At both sides Barely got that Yeah

Bears plus six Had no business getting that That's fine Jacksonville plus 10 and a half And then Raven plus four was pushed. Oh. So it ended up winning two to one instead of like three and a half to one.

Mm-hmm. But the Ravens pushed on the plus four. The Ravens, it was very exciting. That was the dumbest bets I made all year. Yeah. It was when the Ravens were minus three. When were they minus three?

Oh, yeah. I guess I guess it went to, yeah, it went all the way up. Yeah. All right, good. You're getting good at these. I don't know how many more weeks are going to let us win these. then I had a 14 to one parlay Buffalo money

Minnesota money Tennessee plus 155 Chargers money Tampa money lost scumbbacks I could have just bet all of them individually

just every touchdown was a field goal just jerks nonsense team jerks anything else before we get to Parent Corner excited for the holidays what's going to happen? We didn't talk about the Joshua Paul, right? Oh, let's talk about that. Yeah, yeah.

I had a good time. I enjoyed it. That was good. Oh, you went? What do you mean? No, I had a good time watching. Okay. Oh, you got good time watching. It seemed like a complete spectacle of a disgrace, but I was pretty riveted for the entire fight. Well, but Warren, I mean, I was getting very upset with the state of the world when we bet Joshua pretty big for us to win by knockout, right? I could tell people that. And, you know, when he was- I think we weren't alone on betting.

the minus 380 knockout. Yeah, and like, he was hanging with him. I'm like, gosh, shit, he's going to carry him for eight rounds. And this is what sucks about betting and it sucks about boxing. And we were sure he was going to knock him out. And then he walloped him in the fifth. And to Jake Paul's credit, like, he was 0 for 15 and take down attempts, but he was, he was knocked down. Behind Marab.

Yeah, he and Marab and trouble. He was knocked down four times. He didn't have to get up the first three. He was done for him, so... I also thought he landed a legitimate right. He did. Yeah. That, like, he can take that as he's recovering from his shattered jaw for the next six months. He could at least be like, I landed a right in that dude.

But Joshua, this is the problem with normal people, no matter how long they train, stepping in with somebody like that, is that they actually connect with a flush right. We're watching on Instagram boxing, best knockouts ever. And it's like, Duran takes that from her. and his jaw doesn't shatter and he's fighting again in three months. Jake Paul takes that and his teeth go into his

basically his tongue. Yeah, he's got a balloon head now for weeks. But I do, he is a tough bastard for hanging in there. He's impressive. Impressive, and he got 92 million and I got 92 million laughs

watching him get busted up, so that was good. Is that how much he got? They said they both got around 92 million, that's what I saw. What? I know. it seems high why what's not what's netflix going to you it seems high that seems like a high

number i don't know i don't know why it was reported it seems pretty exact though 92 well it seems more believable than if they had said 90 yeah i guess so 92's like hey you got 92 yeah 92. 92.7 well so does he fight again that was it he cashed in because people are like why is he doing this he's like he's doing this because he's cashing in he's making an incredible amount of money yeah i think he'll be smarter about it line up three more YouTubers and then fight someone who he could maybe beat who's 44 or something. This sets up Fury Joshua in England, would be my guess. Yeah.

That'll be the next one. That'll be good. But then we have, there's wrestling in January. There's big card. Oh, yeah. Big, big, what is it, Royal Rumble? Did you see Shalomey on Cody Rhodes? No, what did he do?

Salomey went on the Cody Rhodes podcast as a guest and was like a legitimate wrestling fan. Really? Like legitimate. It just made me wonder. It just got my interest as he's in Oscar promotion time. Run him in with a masked man. Do we see him run in with a mask on?

Everyone thinks of Seth Rohn. It's like, oh my God, it's Timothy Shalameh. By the Supremis here, sitting people with like a ping pong paddle. I like it. That'd be a good promotion. It's Bob Dylan from the dead. Who would you want him feuding with? Dom.

Oh, that's a good one. Dominic? Yeah. The problem is a show me is a pretty skinny dude. Like he's, he probably weighs like 155s. Could he play a heel, though? He really hasn't. Maybe he's a manager.

He does like the Cindy Loper thing. Right, right. Attaches himself to somebody. Start him off like that, yeah. Yeah, I think that's a good move. That's the kind of stuff he should be doing to try to win an Oscar. Definitely. Coming into the Royal Rumble.

I think that's the kind of credibility you need. Fight Jake Paul maybe for $95 million? So you think Jake Paul fights again? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, why not? There's another $30 million somewhere for him. I wouldn't want to get punched in the face. He did look bad, man.

I can't believe those pictures. I mean, I really, now with AI, you don't trust anything, but there are some crazy hospital pictures circulating. I don't think those are real. Oh, really? Because I saw one of those two, and I was like, but yeah, I don't know if that's real. All right, Parent Corner.

Let's do it. So I told you, I meant to send this to year before. So when I watch games during the day, like Archie's on Sunday, like Archie's home now, my oldest, so he'll come by. The studio, and it's right after the pregame show, and I just like veg out and watch him, we order food. My middle guy, Jack, the youngest one, had a baseball tournament, so I wasn't around for that. But Jack goes to a bar with strangers. I told you, the Steelers bar, right? A local Steelers bar.

And now he's like friends with like people my age. I mean, it was just weird to me that like he's like now he's ditched me but is hanging with people my age. Like it's one thing if he has a girlfriend. Right. His friends is age. But he's hanging and he's like posting pictures of it and like posting reels and stuff and they're singing songs.

I'm like, he likes these strangers better than me. Someone bought him a Christmas gift. It was like a Steelers mug. And I'm like, what the hell? what is going on here? So I guess I just need a little therapy to be okay with this, but his new friends are

not of his age, but of kind of of my age, and they're complete strangers. That's it? I don't know. And then I'm like, you know, like, you know, all right. Do you feel you have to do a background check of everybody?

I feel like I do. And then the other thing is this is being selfish, but the day after Christmas, December 26th, Friday, I have to take him to weigh in for his wrestling tournament in Upland, California, which is, I think, 90 minutes away. Way-ins are 7 a.m. There are no buses. The team doesn't have a bus.

I have to bring him. So we have to wake up at 5.30 a day after Christmas to get the way in. And I'm like, why don't you middle-aged Steelers pals drive you, buddy? Yeah. Get one of those guys. Yeah, exactly. He's show up in a Cam Hayward jersey. Yeah, get the Cam Hayward, get the Sprinter van, and he takes you.

I don't know, I got to get over it. I just think it's a little weird. I'll send you the video. I don't have a parent corner this week. It's been a good week for the fam because just my kids are home. Yeah. My daughter's home for the holidays. Christmas is during the week.

I've turned into like the lightning rod of the family. They just, they call me the shitster and the potster. Maybe it kind of teams up on me. I don't know. Like, they always like, oh, you started this because you brought up whatever. So they all team up. I think they all like having like a three on one against me. Oh, that's a parent corner.

But it's good at the family dynamic back. Yeah, it really is. Yeah. Well, it's weird because, I mean, your family is the same way, right? Like, we just make sarcastic comments. That's what we do. That's like how we grew up. But now you have this generation of the under 25s where like every sarcastic comment

needs to be like addressed. Yeah. addressed, why'd you say that? You're trying to start something with me, and I'm like, I'm just doing what I always do. Yeah. But yeah, it just seems like I'm getting tag teamed up a lot, which I'm fine with. Do they threaten to leave you and go watch football with, like, middle-aged men that they don't know? No, they haven't done that yet.

Oh, that's coming. But it's a lot of like, we're just going to go out and get food. You won't come because there's basketball on. I got to trying to figure out my footing, my footing in that. house. Do you find while we're talking about footing in the house, I recognize less and less or fewer and fewer Christmas cards. Like, we might have talked about this last year, but I'm at like 40% of people.

I'll open it up. Oh, that would be a good thing to keep track of. I'm like, who is this? And sometimes my wife, Melissa, is like, you know them. We met them at that party and three years ago. And they have the son who plays the tuba. Like, I don't know. No, but then there are some people who nobody knows.

Like, I feel like people are getting my address and just sending stuff. You must have a few of those. Do you look at the cards at all? We definitely do. Yeah. Yeah. Well, my wife has that her whole, because she plays tennis six times a week, and there's all these people from the club that I have no idea who they are.

Right. And I think she barely does either. Yeah. And those people send the cards. Like we've been divorced, and she let me back in the house after five years. And now I'm looking at these cards. I'm like, oh, who are all these new friends? Except that we're not divorced and I live here.

I did have another parent corner topic. Having gone through all the stages of when you have kids, like in nursery school, pre-K, elementary school, and then, you know, junior high high school. And the kind of parent dynamic, having people that I'm friends with or that I work with, like people like Fantasy and Jeff Chow who have little kids or smaller kids. and they're now going into it, like in the elementary part, listening to them talk about the parents and how you become friends with the people your wife made friends with

because they had a play date. And it's like, you would love her husband. And then you have to go in these dates, these double dates with these guys you never met. It's always easier for the girls to get along than the guys. And it's funny being like the Mr. Miyagi for these situations. Right. Where it's like, just find out who likes sports and just go,

go that way. Exactly. That's it, right? Like when we get shoved in these situations, it's like, please, God, let this person like sports. Yeah. Just tell them.

It's like, there's three kinds of Eagles fans. Well, that could go the other way. That could go the other way, too. Because if there are no-it-all about sports and you know. Oh, that could get,

yeah, that could get ugly. Yeah, right. I don't want to seem like pompous, but it's like, I don't want to talk to you. I want to talk to Simmons about this. And my son, the worst part is, though,

like, oh, the NFL playoffs run this week, you get those guys on. Oh, this game's on Saturday. This game's on Saturday. Yeah, I don't really follow sports. Like, all right. There's just that could be a lot to work with here. I feel like we lucked out with our elementary school parent friends, though.

Yeah. Like, we had like a good crew. I don't think that is always the case for people. Right. When you get stuck in the play date circle of friends when people start getting together. But anyway, it was fun to be older than that watching other people go through it. Yeah. You know, it was like, oh, yeah, I remember those days.

So relieved that somebody knew like there was two wildcard games that night. Right, right, right. Like, oh, this guy, I like this guy. Or somebody mentions they have us up early watching Premier League. I was like, oh, this might be a good one. Yeah, right.

Until your wife pulls you aside, it's like, he cheats on his wife. Don't talk to him. He slept with the third great teacher. He's the only one I like here. I don't care who he slept with. Oh, my God. Can you imagine having Daniel

and your parent group? Why did you make that leap from what I said that? This guy in our thing, his name's Daniel. He bet $2,500 on the Red Sox to win the World Series in December. He brought lemon shots to the PTA meeting. You got to meet him. Oh, good. All right, that's it for Parent Corner.

Anything else? No, we're on. Happy holidays? All that, but are you going to say what we're going to be on Thursday? Oh, we're popping on the Netflix pregame show. Yeah, hell yeah, we are. A little short segment for them. That's going to be fun.

And then what are you doing for bringing your gambling? Tuesday, Wednesday with, just Tuesday. Just Tuesday. Just Tuesday with you on Thursday on Netflix. I have to lose weight before Thursday. I want to look really good for that. How are you going to take peptides? I'm going to go run now.

I'm going to run to that Steelers bar. downtown. How bad are our ringer 107 picks going to be when we're making them on Tuesday for the Sunday games? Oh, Jesus. I didn't think of that. So bad.

We could have had one of the five shows do well? It doesn't I'll say this because the super contest, which we're trying to copy because they copied us, right? We fueled that one. If you look at that, the medium score or the mean score

is also bad. So we just, it's rotten. Like 29 teams have given up. It's not our fault. Well, you told, did we talk about this last week? The ZFL, the thing we do with Gus every week? Oh yeah. No, what was it?

The ZFL, the Pix League. Yeah, yeah. He's had since like 1990. He said this is by far the worst picks records we've ever had across the board. It's the worst. So I don't really know the reasons for it other than I feel like it's like 2008. That was the last really weird football year that ended up being Steelers Cardinals in the Super Bowl.

The year Brady blew out as ACL, it's the whole bunch of weird shit happened. It was really hard to figure out all year what was happening. Maybe that's what this year is. I mean, if we have the bears, are going to be the one seed. No, it's good. I think set the record for most comeback wins

in the last two minutes of a game. Obviously, this is a weird year. Mahomes blows out as ACL. Drake maybe comes an elite quarterback out of nowhere. Trevor Lawrence figures it out in year six. Maybe it's just one of those years. Right. And Mahomes was losing every one score.

game before that, right? Right. Who knows? All right. I'll see you on Netflix. Yeah. Good job by you, Sal. Good job by you, buddy.

Thanks to Gahau and Eduardo as well, and I'm going to be back with another podcast on Tuesday. And we have a big rewatchable is coming on Monday, too. So stay tuned for that big movie that came out this decade. Really? Yeah. I'm not even going to say what it is, but it's last movie we're doing this year. Then we have a special show into the year.

It's a show. I'll see in a couple of days. All right. You got it. I want to see them on the way you start that I don't say I don't have a few years with him. Must be 21 plus in President Select States for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus in President D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming.

Game problem. Call 100 Gambler or visit RG-Halt.com. Call 88879-77777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. or MD gambling help.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline, ma.org. We'll call 800, 327.50 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 8778-8-Hope-N-Y or text Hope NY in New York.