The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Sleeper 49ers, Rodgers Myths, Plus a Big ‘Succession’ Finale With Cousin Sal and Ryen Russillo
Episode Date: December 13, 2021The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal to discuss the 49ers’ overtime win vs. the Bengals, the Buccaneers’ overtime win vs. the Bills, Browns-Ravens, Cowboys-Washington, Bears-Packers..., and more (1:27). Then they guess the lines for NFL Week 15 (35:13), before another edition of Parent Corner (59:35). Finally, Bill and Sal are joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the Season 3 finale of HBO’s ‘Succession’ [SPOILERS] (1:08:27). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Cousin Sal and Ryen Russillo Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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All right.
Taping this 844 Pacific time.
Not a great football day, but a great, like,
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845.
845 now.
Okay, go ahead.
Cousin Sal is here.
Topsy-turvy.
A lot of emotions.
It was just happening the whole time.
We had the Ravens with a ridiculous,
soul-crushing backdoor cover, losing by two.
Lots of close covers, lots of almost covers, right?
Weird, weird day for sure.
A lot of, I can't believe I either pulled this cover out or got screwed and then it would flip the other way.
You had the Bucs, you wrote that one in, you wrote that winning ticket in,
then all of a sudden Buffalo comes roaring back.
Overtime, then the Bucs somehow cover in the overtime,
which was really, if you were watching the last five minutes,
the only way you even thought you had a chance.
Then the flip side, the Bengals come roaring back against the Niners.
They get to overtime.
They get the ball first.
They have first down and goal to go,
or first down from the 25, settle for the field goal.
And then the Niners come back down.
Let's talk about that game first.
Yeah, I said to you, between the Bills and Niners,
those were two late afternoon games. They were the only ones that were close for six hours. We saw
the Patriots, the Bucks and the Niners ahead only to see them blow a lead. And then it didn't matter
in the end anyway. And then it all played out the way we thought it would. Right. Very rarely does
the team get the ball first, go down, kick the field goal and then give up the touchdown.
Usually it's either a tie or the field goal holds,
but San Francisco just, they did the damn thing.
So they're seven and six now.
Well, it's even more rare what the Bucs did, right?
Like they didn't win the kickoff.
The Bills had it, right?
The Bills had it, didn't score.
And then you figured the other team just needs a field goal.
So they're not going to cover.
But no, Tampa works his magic.
Godwin gets free.
Go ahead.
I'm jumping the gun.
There's something about those overtimes when people are around midfield
and they're getting close to field goal range,
and it seems like that 45 to 55-yard touchdown is somehow available
in overtime more than normal.
But San Francisco, they're 7-6.
They play Atlanta at home next week, at Tennessee, home Houston,
and then at the Rams, which worst-case scenario for them
will determine whether they make the playoffs.
Best-case scenario could determine whether they get the five seed.
We were texting about it today.
I think you and I saw the same thing.
That team might be good.
I like them.
I feel like, I don't know, did you have the Bengals today?
Because I feel like all my friends had the Bengals. I'm like, I don't know. Did you have the Bengals today? Because I feel like all
my friends had the Bengals. I'm like, I like this Niners team. First of all, that line didn't make
sense at all. The Bengals are up and down. We could talk about the AFC North as a whole.
I think it's overrated anyway, but the 49ers, at least that offense, I know we laughed at
Shanahan for weeks. We read his record. He's catching Walt Michaels.
I still might do it later.
Really?
Don't tempt me.
Yeah, keep going.
Well, he can't get out of his own way, which is a good team.
He's got a really good, like, Brandon Ayoub,
because all of a sudden, like, a serviceable receiver
could be a game changer.
Deebo Samuel is a top five running back in the league.
You know, like, they just line him up in the backfield now.
And Kittle is fucking remarkable.
I mean that,
that catch,
I couldn't believe they blew it after that catch.
I'm like,
there's no way a team gold misses the field goal,
but that was an amazing catch.
He left this fee.
It was probably like,
it was like Michael Jordan,
about four and a half feet in the air to pull that in.
I like that.
I feel like Jimmy G is more comfortable than even in his Super Bowl year
with these guys.
Except he almost threw a pick six.
Yeah, sure.
He had a regulation.
Yeah, most of the time it's comfortable.
There's still like that,
that Jimmy G,
am I sure I trust him or not?
The blue chipper thing with them,
Bosa and Kittle today
played two of the best games
I've seen all season.
Kittle,
you know,
who's been banged up
the last couple years and you kind of forget how great that you know, who's been banged up the last couple of years
and you kind of forget how great that guy is
when he's healthy.
He's finally healthy.
He was like a combination of Gronk, Kelsey,
and Tony Gonzalez today.
And like you said, that catch he made,
I don't think any other tight end in the league
can make that catch.
I'm not even sure Kelsey makes it.
And then a couple before,
just like threading the needle,
Jimmy G did like just perfect passes
and only he's going to catch it too.
Well, were you getting the announcers?
Because the announcers at some point,
and they're pretty good in that game,
in the second half were like,
well, they're going to go to George Kittle here
since he's got to figure out a way to cover him.
And then they would try to cover him
and he would get open to get another third down.
He was awesome.
And then Bosa just demolished the Bengals.
They could not block him. I don't know what his final stats were, but he was always around. It seemed like every other play, he was in there. And I actually gained respect from Burrow as that game went along because it felt like there was two, three guys around him every play or he was just getting sacked. It was a really good game. It made me like the Bengals more because they fumbled two kicks.
Right.
They dropped the pick six.
They give up gigantic plays every game.
They really do.
Yeah, they do.
That's what they did to the Browns.
They gave up three big, giant plays early, knocked them out of it.
There was a big one to the Jets against the Chargers.
They had a couple with the mix six And Chase giving up an interception.
They give up a ton of big plays.
And Burrow leads the league.
Would you ever think he leads the league in the INTs?
Is that true?
14 coming into this week.
Almost threw a couple more.
Chase saved them for one.
But yeah, you're right.
The fumbled punts and everything.
It's remarkable what they did.
I like them too.
I don't know what to think about that AFC North.
Who could win it?
I feel like none of these teams,
I wouldn't pencil in any of these teams,
but I feel like they could all make a big run
once they get there.
But I don't know any of the guys.
I wouldn't feel comfortable betting any of them right now.
I think Cincy's the best of the three,
but that's faint praise
because I don't trust Cincy
for the reasons you just mentioned. They seem to give up dumb three, but that's faint praise because I don't trust Cincy for the reasons you just mentioned.
They seem to give up dumb plays,
but there's a resilience with them
that both two weeks in a row,
down 24-0, down 20-6.
Today's game, it just seemed like
they were just going to shoot themselves
in the foot at some point.
They had no chance.
And they kind of kept coming.
I don't know.
Like Chase had that.
He caught the touchdown
and then it turned out the ball hit the ground.
It was like this two and a half hours of stomach punches and they rode back.
And then on the flip side, you know, the Niners, I was watching how they reacted.
You know, I'm the body language doctor.
I like to, I like this stuff.
The way they reacted after that win made me think like that team kind of believes it wasn't
just like, oh, we're going to beat Cincinnati.
Like, I think that team knows that if they can kind of get there they could potentially get to a five seed which would be great because
they'd get to play your weird team we'll talk about that in a second but um well you know why
they believe because we believed in them i mean we it was laughable a few weeks ago but we said
six teams from the west right from the afc west and the NFC West. It's really looking like the Niners
could jump in that six or seven spot.
The Rams should have one of the wild cards
and Arizona won the division.
On the other side, Chiefs, Chargers probably,
and maybe Broncos get in.
I don't know what's going on with that seventh seed.
Yeah, the Niners, out of all the teams you just mentioned,
seem to be the one that the arrow's pointing up,
other than our beloved Falcons,
who we're still somehow alive for making the playoffs thing.
I think worst-case scenario they're in, though.
I mean, they're 7-6.
They're a 6-seed right now, San Francisco.
There's five 6-7 teams.
Give me your favorite out of these five.
Washington, Philly, Minnie, New Orleans,
Atlanta, all six and seven. You go one by one, you're like, wow, they suck. They suck too.
Don't like them. I guess Minnesota, just because it'll be more entertaining and there's more
hateable players and there's more likable players and big play guys. But yeah, I think you're right
in general. And are we still like, I think by the time I talk to you next Sunday night,
we will have a much better grasp.
I've always said that.
The end of week 15, which will almost be there next Sunday night,
we'll have a better grasp with three games left.
But I'd still probably say 10 gets you the AFC 7 slot
and 9 gets you the NFC 7 slot wins I'm talking.
So you trust Jimmy G?
I do. I'm talking. So you trust Jimmy G because I do not.
There's that small piece where
I think if he,
if the play is there initially,
he's fine
and he's good at the,
you know,
the chicanery and the handoff
and the,
oh, I thought I was going to hit up this way.
I'll go this way.
He's good at play action.
But as soon as anything breaks down,
he makes me nervous.
Yeah.
He does let the pocket collapse on him a little too quickly.
I think he could help himself out a little
there, but my God, Kittle
might just be the best.
He might be the best. What a safety
outlet that is for anybody.
Yeah, Kelsey was like, what the fuck happened?
I had this.
I had this spot.
Where did George Kittle come from?
The AFC North you mentioned. I had this. I was, I was, I had the spot. Where did George Kittle come from? Um,
the,
uh,
the AFC North,
you mentioned Baltimore,
Cleveland.
I had the Browns.
What was it?
They're up 20.
Um,
and then they're just terrified of their own quarterback.
Yeah.
I've never seen anything like it.
Baltimore was like,
cool.
We're going to load the box
because we don't think you want
you don't want Baker to throw the lead
we're loading the box
you don't trust your quarterback
we know it
and they didn't
and all of a sudden Baltimore is clawing back with Huntley
they get a 4th and 6th
to keep one drive alive
that they went for surprisingly early
it was early in the 4th quarter
and then they get a fourth and 13.
That guy was pretty good.
Like we watch football all day, every Sunday.
Yeah.
That guy's on the upper echelon of, of kind of the mediocre to below average QBs.
He can at least do some stuff.
He throws deep passes.
He can scramble around.
I'd rather have him than like anyone in Carolina.
I know the purists will hate me for saying this, but that division.
Well,
I just don't think,
I think it's vastly overrated.
Now people will be like,
Oh no,
no,
that's smash mouth football.
Wait till you see,
you know,
they play tough against everybody.
You're discounting Pittsburgh.
They come off three days.
They looked like crap.
And even they made a comeback,
but I,
I don't know.
I don't know what I'm watching with them.
I don't know that I'm not saying it's lesser football,
but every week I could re-rank those quarterbacks one through four
or four through one, and it's going to change every single week.
Now, I'm not putting Baker one any of the weeks,
but you know what I mean?
But Cleveland could be the best team by a lot in that division.
I don't know.
It's so bizarre to me that I want to leave it alone.
I can't bet those games.
I mean,
they covered Baltimore.
They covered that freaking game.
You know who their doppelganger
is,
that division
that's secretly
not that good division?
Your NFC East.
Well,
nobody ever liked
my division going in.
We were touted
as the worst.
Then it got,
you got some momentum.
Dallas became
a Super Bowl favorite
at some point. Philly was getting momentum. Dallas became a Super Bowl favorite at some point.
Philly was getting momentum.
Washington was fun.
It's like a frisky team.
What's going on with your quarterback?
He's not right.
He's not perfect.
And the whole team needs to take a month off
because we won the division.
We're 9-4.
No team is beating 9-8.
Let's just take three or four weeks off. It's fine. Everyone get healthy. Zeke get healthy. Pollard get healthy. Dak, yeah, Dak does not look good. He hasn't looked good in a while. Was he 22 for 39? Barely over 200 yards. They didn't have to do much because they recovered four fumbles. But I was shitting myself when it was 27-8 and then 27-20 eight real minutes later.
Disgusting display, but
Mike McCarthy, it wasn't going to be
rosy. He predicted a win.
They weren't going to win by
40. Of course, it had to be close and make me
miserable.
Remember when Dak was doing
that whole...
Everybody was doing the whole, Dak might be playing better
quarterback than anyone in the league right now.
Right.
We're doing that whole thing?
That's not the case anymore.
Doesn't run anymore at all.
I hate that.
I can't stand that.
I don't know what happened with that.
I was looking at QB stats because I want to see how bad Baker Mayfield was.
You know, ESPN has that QBR, which I don't fully understand,
but it seems a little more reliable than QB rating because QB rating can reward at least a little bit Baker for it's third and 13.
He throws a seven yard completion. So they have to punt and, you know, I think QBR values stuff
like that a little bit, a little bit more, uh, harshly Baker's 26th and QBR right now out of 32 quarterbacks. To put that in perspective, Darnold's 27.
Daniel Jones is 25.
Roethlisberger's 24.
Dak Prescott's 23.
Is he really?
Wow.
He's below Taylor Heineke, Jalen Hurts, Teddy Bridgewater,
Jacoby Brissett, and Matt Ryan.
That's weird.
Well, that's a racist stat then.
That's all I can say about that.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I know the QBRs.
Typically, it's reliable.
But again, give me a month.
Jared Goff's 29.
Davisville's 30.
Justin Fields 31.
Zach Wilson 32.
That was heading into tonight's games.
But yeah, Dak was on par with Rodgers and all these other guys.
The first felt like first five weeks of the season.
So do you think his leg injury is worse than maybe they're letting on?
Yeah, I think there's legs, there's shoulder.
He's definitely not rearing back into these passes as well.
You know, it's not these guys, their routes are not consistent with what they were in
the beginning of the year.
Everything's so much harder for them.
I don't want to say the season's too long because that's ridiculous because we haven't even played the 16 yet.
But I want them to have a couple weeks off.
I really do.
I'll take the blame if they go 9-8 and don't win the division.
I can't believe your team is the one that might not hold up the bargain for the Cowboys-Pats Super Bowl.
Yeah, you'rel. Yeah,
you're right.
Well,
we got our heated seats.
We got them.
That worked.
So many people were mad at that.
Yeah.
Why are people?
How do you get mad at that?
I didn't understand that.
Why is that?
If you get mad at someone who brings their pillow on the plane,
like I'm like,
Oh no,
I'm actually jealous.
I should have thought of that.
That looks great.
That Washington stadium is a shit hole. There's like raw sewage, like running into the stands. Like it's just a, oh, no, I'm actually jealous. I should have thought of that. That looks great. That Washington Stadium is a shithole.
There's like raw sewage running into the stands.
You should be able to do whatever you want.
It seemed like it was, what, 70%, 75% Dallas fans?
Yeah.
Yeah, and then that's happening too.
Yeah, it's good.
It's good.
But yeah, Washington was full of shit.
I'm sorry, Joe House.
But they won 17-15 twice in six days
and probably could have lost both games.
So you're right. If you want to say the division is
garbage again, it is. But
I think if we made it
and we were healthy, we could at least win
one game. I don't think we're beating that Packers
team we just saw. And the
Bucs are weird, but I don't think we'd beat
them when we played them the second time.
Your defense looked good for like two
and a half quarters, and then it kind of flipped. I want to talk about the Bucs, but we'll them the second time. Your defense looked good for like two and a half quarters. And then it kind of flipped.
I want to talk about the Bucs, but we'll, uh, we'll take a quick break.
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All right, Bucks Bills.
So I was so fired up when the Bills were down 20.
I was going to make the lead of the podcast.
Bill Belichick has broken the Buffalo Bills.
He may still have.
I was going to do that whole thing. But then the Bills actually showed some fight down the stretch.
And part of it had to do with the fact that
they were finally playing the style that they should probably play,
which is this, you know, Josh Allen kind of schoolyard style, right?
They can't run the ball.
You might as well spread things out for him, let him run around,
have your running back come down to the backfield
and just kind of attack, attack versus whatever the hell
they've been doing the last few weeks.
I don't know if this is a weird FU to Belichick,
but do you know that Josh Allen didn't hand off at all in the first half?
He took the ball himself four times, but he didn't hand off to all in the first half. He took the ball himself four times,
but he didn't hand off to a running back at all.
Interesting.
He did the reverse Belichick, and obviously it wasn't helping.
It was like 24-3.
And then Tampa Bay's defense, little old, secondary, little old.
You still got your Richard Shermans in there.
I don't know.
It's going to be interesting to see if they can hold up, uh, with injuries
and everything else, but they let them right back in that game.
Yeah.
At one point they were pointing out in the fourth quarter, like Richard Sherman playing
safety.
And I was thinking that's not good.
Yeah.
Pretty sure.
Pretty sure he's not a safety, but yeah, Tampa's secondary and also their inability
to run the bomb, protect and protect whatever lead they have.
Fournette, I've changed my opinion on 10 times this year.
Like last week, you're like, Fournette,
put it all together.
And then this week, like, you know,
they can't move the chains, get first downs.
Brady had a couple.
Oh, he had a decent game.
He had over 100, 113.
No, but I'm talking about putting the game away
in the fourth quarter.
Like, just like, that's kind of what he in the Jacksonville
days was supposed to do right oh you're loading
the box I'm going to push everybody back
and Brady had a couple bad throws
I know he had
two TDs no picks he had big yards
especially coming up that last play
but he missed some wide open guys
got a couple calls
a couple calls as usual
well Tampa has the number missed some wide open guys. Got a couple calls. A couple calls as usual.
Well, Tampa has the number one seed
unless they fuck up one of these
last couple weeks. What do you mean?
They're going to pass Arizona? I mean, we don't
even mention Arizona. It's so funny.
Yeah, I think they have it.
I don't think Arizona runs the slate. I don't think Arizona
is going 15-2. I don't.
I don't either, but who the hell do they lose to?
They're going to beat my Cowboys.
They're favored tomorrow.
They have five games left.
One against Detroit. That's hard, but they go
Rams, Indy, Dallas, Seattle.
They're not going 5-0
against those. I think the cards
are underrated, but they're going to lose one of those.
Then it'll come down to
conference record, all that stuff.
The Packers have the tiebreaker
on them, but if it's a three-way tie,
then it gets sticky. So if it's Tampa, Green Bay,
and Arizona, then I don't
think Green Bay advances.
Green Bay's schedule is a little harder.
Tampa's got the cream puff schedule.
They're going to be favored by
at least eight every game
they're going to win. They've least eight every game they got two against Carolina
the absolute perfect time to play Carolina
when they have no idea who their quarterback is
and their coaching staff who knows
with that either and this is why Brady's
minus money now on FanDuel and MVP
he's minus 150
when do we bet it at five to one?
yeah we had it at five and I got a little on
at six
I looked at Rodgers to try to see that.
Could there be some sort of zag?
But Brady's stats are just better.
Yeah, they are.
He scared me a little, Rodgers.
I mean, well, there's two ways to look at it.
Like, they could have won 60 to nothing, if not for the Bears special teams.
Yeah.
Or you could look at it like, here's a team that hates you.
You said you own them.
They had a big lead on you, and you thumped them.
None of it mattered.
You just went out there and you did own them
because you run your offense better than everybody else.
And that's what Aaron Rodgers did.
He made a couple of ridiculous throws that game.
Brady is 10-3.
He's thrown for over 4,100 yards, 36 TDs, 10 picks,
7.5 yards per pass or per attempt,
which is just, you figure if he stays on that pace,
he's going to be well over 5,000.
He's going to have 50 touchdowns as a 44-year-old.
It's stupid.
And they're going to have 14 wins.
That's enough.
Right.
Well, I was trying to think,
is there a game out of these next four that they could run it up?
Because New Orleans, I think it'll be hard.
He's had a hard time against them.
But that at Carolina could be one where they pour it on.
Because I think you could do that against Carolina.
Maybe it's that Jets game in week 17.
On the other hand, who knows?
In that week 18, they might not have something to play for.
The game tonight, Bears-Packers, where it seemed like there was
a moment where the Bears
might have a moment.
And I had a lot of money tied
to the Packers money line, and I looked
long and hard at that Bears plus 12,
and I just couldn't put it on Matt Nagy
ultimately. I decided to ride it with the Packers,
but then had the same kind of
scare that everybody else had.
That was it ultimately ultimately though, right?
He's not going to pull out a close game and it ended up not being close,
but he's not going to,
eventually he's going to let the game get away from him, Matt Nagy, right?
Yeah, you would think.
The pick six, until the pick six, it felt like it was in play,
but the more enjoyable part was the broadcast.
Yeah.
I don't know what was going on with Al and Chris tonight,
but the Aaron Rodgers stuff.
Well, see, I did what you did.
I watched freaking Succession because I thought we would talk about it.
So I missed the last 40 minutes.
I watched the game, but didn't hear the last 40 minutes.
But I heard them fillet Rodgers enough.
Is that what you're talking about?
At one point, Collinsworth said,
have you ever seen anyone be more honest than Aaron Rodgers? Okay. So they're talking about, I was like, what?
And then I searched on Twitter to make sure I heard it correctly. And I did, but I was thinking
like they have this and a lot of announcers do this, but they do it, especially when these
announcers spend time with somebody and they completely overrate the interaction. Right.
Where it's like, well, we spent time and he told us.
And so they, they did this whole thing where it's like, because they spent time, they're
not reporting it.
Don't get too carried away with this, but they just got the feeling that a lot of, a
lot of fences have been mended, that this is in good shape.
And I'm like, well, what are you guys talking about?
How do you know?
Rogers is all over the map.
He's a complete diva.
He could get mad two weeks from now because his omelet was too cold.
Like, who knows?
So they did this whole thing.
Yeah, you called him for a good hour on a Friday
whenever they interviewed him.
Yeah, it's like, so now he's staying?
What are you talking about?
He completely tried to torpedo his way out of here.
So I was thinking, what other funny things,
Al and Chris, in history, where there could have been like,
like if they're at the Beatles get back session.
So like, Al.
Right.
I mean, we talked to Leonard and McCartney.
Those guys, I don't see them breaking up.
They're fine.
They're fine.
I think McCartney likes Yoko.
I think he really does.
I think they like having her around.
But that's what it was like listening to him today
with the Packers.
I think if they don't make the Super Bowl,
I'd still think he's out of there.
I'm not buying any of this.
I think he wants to move.
I think either way.
Honestly, I think if he wins it, he's out of there.
If he makes it and loses, he's out of there.
And believe me, I was one of the few
that ever even said that he would stay in Green Bay.
I didn't believe the Denver thing for this year at least,
but I think he's gone.
Kyle, turn the camera.
Uh-oh.
What's a bigger Super Bowl, in your opinion,
if the Patriots made it?
Is it Patriots-Bucks,
or is it Patriots-Packers
with Rodgers potentially playing his last game in Green Bay?
Just from an interest, hype, storyline,
everybody going nuts about it.
I still think it's Pat's bucks,
but I do think Pat's Belichick versus Aaron Rodgers
maybe playing his last Packers game would be gigantic.
I hate to even think about this
because I don't even really want to think
about it.
The Patriots making the Superbowl,
but the best laid out plan right now is Patriots Packers.
The Pats beat the Packers.
Aaron Rogers goes and does whatever.
And then you get the game Patriots bucks next.
Oh,
the rematch.
Well,
then it's like,
all right,
Bill's one,
one Brady's one without a rematch. I guess it's like the rubber match. Right, the rematch. Well, then it's like, all right, Bill's won one. Brady's won one without him.
Or not a rematch.
I guess it's like the rubber match.
Right, right, right.
But again, I don't want to see
any of that shit.
Sal, as a football fan,
as just a red-blooded man,
I should be voting for that?
No, you loved what Belichick did
last week with the three passes.
You loved it.
Deep down.
Deep down. You're a. Deep down. Deep down.
You're a spiteful guy.
You love nothing more when somebody sticks it to somebody.
And Belichick stuck it to them.
You loved it.
Explain what's going through my mind and my physiology here.
When I have a lot of money to make on Belichick to win coach of the year,
and yet I'm rooting against it.
And I need money.
Believe me.
You might not think. I need money. I show you my ledger of my bets. I could use this money
coming into offset some of these gross Amanda Nunez money line on everything losses. But,
and yet I'm still rooting against it. I like, I said like last week, I was like,
is Lucy a genius or is Charlie Brown a moron? I don't know. What are we saying here?
He freaking could.
They can't stop the run.
Oh,
finally they stacked the box and stop the run after he passed three times.
But I'll tell you one thing.
I never thought they were going to blow that Monday.
Did you ever think it?
I mean,
you could shut that off at halftime.
Oh,
I got nervous.
You did.
Yeah.
14 points is just never seems like enough to win a football.
I know,
but the narrative is not going to be like,
the old man lost his mind.
He handed off every play.
Of course, it's not going to be that the next day.
I texted you the picture of Hench.
Yeah, yeah.
What was that about?
What was that like?
Last five minutes, he just decided to just stand up
so he could stare at the TV more closely.
Not caring if he was blocking anyone's sight.
It was great.
He had a lot of nervous energy.
There was a weird confidence.
We hadn't watched a Pats game together in a while.
And it was good.
He's unbelievable, right?
Because I do watch football with him.
He loses weight on Sundays.
He doesn't touch food.
He walks around.
He pontificates.
He probably burns 600 calories going through his ideas and stuff, gesticulating.
He's something else. Speaking of his ideas and stuff, gesticulating. He's something else.
Speaking of
Collinsworth and NBC,
you know,
no Michelle Tafoya
again this week.
Oh, I didn't see that.
She wasn't on Succession either.
Third straight week.
She wasn't on Succession either.
And they had some stuff
about how
she,
she,
they give people on NBC,
they give them bye weeks,
apparently.
Uh-huh. This is what they told Andrew Marchand
at the New York Post.
There's some good
conspiracy stuff going on about this.
Because she hosted The View in the beginning of November.
She was in the conservative seat.
Then a couple weeks later,
all of a sudden,
she's on a bye.
Taking a break. Taking a couple weeks off. It'd be one thing if the show was on 52 weeks a year, is that right? Take a couple weeks off.
It'd be one thing if the show was on 52 weeks a year, but it's only on what?
16, 17 weeks a year or 17.
Do you need like three weeks off during a 17 week season?
Like you and I, like we managed to do this every week for every Sunday.
We didn't need like, we didn't have guest hosts.
Yeah.
I'm just suspicious.
Al is 93 years old
and he hasn't taken us
on a date.
He took,
oh, he took one.
Oh, he did take one this year?
He didn't go to,
I don't think he wanted
to go to Cleveland.
There was one,
there was one location
he was at.
He's in the conservator seat too.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Also, if I'm Michelle Tafoya,
aren't you protecting your seat?
Right.
I don't want anybody,
anybody guest sideline
reporting for me
what if they're better than me
it's probably not her choice
her decision then I guess
yeah I want to know more
I feel like there's more to this story
very strange
alright
quickie questions
who's the MVP we both think Brady
yeah
do you know how many Panthers games
in a row
Cam Newton
Cam Newton has lost?
Oh, I did know this.
What is the Cam Newton losing streak right now for the Panthers?
How many games in a row has Cam Newton lost?
Is it 12?
It's 11.
Okay.
He's lost his last 11 Panthers games.
It doesn't seem right because he's celebrating almost every play.
I know.
He gets those touchdowns. It feels like he scored 30 points's celebrating almost every play. I know he gets those touchdowns.
It feels like he scored 30 points.
What a short memory.
What a short memory.
But I don't know.
This might be a bad year for celebrate early celebrations.
And what the hell are you celebrating down 22 points for?
Like, are you going to throw a pick in four seconds?
Why are you celebrating?
It's a weird year for that.
Gun to your head.
Who wins the AFC North?
See, I hate this. No, you got to pick.
I think I just pulled the trigger.
I'm going to say something
stupid, although
I can't do this. If you asked me
last week, I would have said the Ravens, but I don't know
that they have a win on their schedule.
Do I have to take the
Browns? I'm going
to take the Browns. You take the Browns. Yeah, I don't like that Bengals team. I don't like the Browns? I'm going to take the Browns.
You take the Browns.
Yeah, I don't like that Bengals team.
I don't like the Browns either.
I don't know.
Look, this year,
no one's going to put together four great weeks in a row,
unless you're Green Bay.
But can I see two?
Can I see two good weeks in a row
from any of these teams?
Just two or one and then a half.
You sound like Mad Dog.
Can I see two weeks?
Give me two weeks for crying out loud.
Just give me two weeks. For the love of God, Mike.
I would say
Cincy.
I start believing. I don't
know why. I'm
not proud of it.
I found the Marshan thing.
NBC Sports spokesman on Michelle Tafoya's third straight game off.
As we've done repeatedly, we're again giving our SNF announcers bye weeks in 2021,
and we plan to do it well into the future.
It's a 17-week season.
What do you need bye weeks for?
She's a sideline reporter.
I wish I cared more about this.
What is she at the Pentagon getting nuclear war secrets?
I don't know.
All right.
Bengals at Broncos.
Bengals home for Ravens.
Bengals home for Chiefs.
Bengals at Browns.
I don't know.
I mean, they could lose all those too.
What a schedule this is for the AFC.
Well, this ties into my next question.
Injured Baker Mayfield or healthy Case Keenum,
who would you roll with the next four weeks?
Man, we go over a lot.
I know you want me to say healthy Case Keenum, who would you roll with the next four weeks? I know you want me to say
healthy Case Keenum,
but if the idea is to
lead him to the playoffs, at least Baker's
done it. And he's got to get a lot better.
Case Keenum's done it. He made a play.
He made it to the third round.
Sure, but wasn't he 1-7
with Washington after that?
After that. It's been
a while. I think Baker's terrible. I rolled the dice with Baker. I think he's terrible that. It's been a while.
I think Baker's terrible.
I rolled the dice with Baker.
I think he's terrible too.
I would do Case Keenan.
Do you trust the Los Angeles Chargers?
No.
I don't either.
No, I don't.
And yet, they have a decent chance at winning that division, right?
They have an easier schedule than the Chiefs.
And, you know, they're only...
I'm not going to...
We guessed the lines,
but they're only a few-point underdog to them Thursday night.
So they could win the division, a tough division,
with a 31st-ranked run defense.
I don't trust them either.
I know you love Herbert.
I do too.
That's another one where I was going.
I know that one throw was insane.
Rolling to his right, 60 yards. Jesus. I think too. That's another one I was going. I know that one throw was insane. Rolling to his right 60 yards.
Jesus. I think it was more.
Does Urban Meyer quit
or resign? Oh, man.
Because you could argue that he would quit
to grab. If he went
to the owner and said, I want to take this
college job. Can I quit?
They'd be like, can we drive to the airport?
Can we make sure you get on the plane?
They would try to get him out. I think it's a better chance he quits. So if we were betting on this and you had the same odds on each, quit or resign? So they're not, they would,
they would, well, quit is resign. Quit or get fired, you mean? I'm sorry, quit or get fired.
Yeah. Quit or resign. Yeah. I'm going to say step away. I'm going to say a third step. No.
Well, if they fire him, they have to pay him, right?
Yes.
So he'd be dumb to quit.
But no, he's not long for this team.
He's a schmuck.
They all hate him.
And he's going to do great things for some college team.
I don't think he should get that chance.
I say they fire him and work something out.
What do you think?
I think he quits.
I think he lines up a college job and he runs from this.
And this was the most likely prediction the whole year.
What was the buzz on him at Fox?
They all loved him.
Yeah.
They all loved him.
Our guy Stone, they all...
I think he was a different person because he would grunt next to me in the makeup chair.
If I mentioned anything to him.
Usually it was gambling related, so he didn't want to talk.
But yeah, I don't know why, but what was the more appeal for the Jaguars for him?
I mean, this guy won't even shake hands.
By the way, I don't mind that shaking his, you know where his thumb has been.
I wouldn't want to shake his hand either.
Yeah, you probably have the, you're holding Purell in the other hand. Exactly.
You're shaking hands with him. Yeah.
Last question. This is a big one. Kyle, you might have to turn
the camera back on. Uh-oh.
Who would you rather Dallas
played in round one if you were the
fourth seed? The LA
Rams or the San Francisco
49ers? Oh, that's a good
question. You could pick your opponent.
Let's hear it. That is a good question. I pick your opponent let's hear it that is a good question
i mean the 49ers beat him up i i oh man shit kyle turn the camera off turn the audio off too
kyle keep it on i think i'd rather play the ram shut it off kyle uh i think i'd rather play the Rams. Keep the camera on. Shut it off, Kyle. I think I'd rather play the Rams.
And now watch the Rams just crush us.
But just slightly rather play the Rams.
I think McCarthy would have a fit with the 49ers offense.
I think the Stanford would be bad.
I think that's the right answer.
I think you have to say the Rams, especially no woods.
It's a weird team.
I don't think they're that tough on either line.
And they can't really run the ball.
Even if they got a lead on you,
I think they'd have trouble keeping it
and you could come back on them.
I just don't think they're that good.
I'd much rather play them.
I'm so much more afraid of Kittle
than anyone on that Rams team.
Yeah.
I know Kopp leads the league and everything else,
but I feel like you could potentially lock him down.
Our defenders are built for that, but Kittle is
just a freaking wrecking ball.
Plus,
now that you've picked the Rams
as the team you want to play, now you have a better chance.
You might be on the chalkboard.
Oh, right. That's right.
Should I bet the Rams?
Can I bet the Rams to win one playoff game?
Ringer analyst Cousin Sal would rather see the Rams.
All right.
We are going to take one more break and do guest lines.
All right.
Week 15 lines.
Thursday night.
Good one.
Chiefs Chargers.
You're up two, right?
You're up seven.
Yeah, I'm up two.
Seven, five, two going into 15.
I'm up two.
Shout out to our friend Dave Jacoby
who listens to Guest Lines every week.
Roots for you to win.
And then you kind of,
you'll blow it down the stretch.
You'll have like an 8-5 lead.
I'm sorry, Jacoby.
I'm trying.
I swear to God, I'm trying.
He gets really upset when you lose.
He's rooting against you.
Doesn't that bum you out
that he's rooting against you?
You're long time confident.
I think he loves us both.
Likes me more. All right, go ahead.
Now, this is weird. We're in a weird
situation here. This is the best game of
the entire week, and it's on
Thursday night. When was the last time that happened?
The second best one is probably Saturday night.
Saturday night, yeah.
Chiefs at LA. There will be a lot of
Chiefs fans here. I'm sure
we've seen this happen in the past
that this is a holiday trip,
I think, for people, potentially.
People coming from KC, LA trip, whatever.
I think you'll see a lot of people walking around
wearing Derek Thomas jerseys
and Travis Kelsey and Joe Delaney
and whoever else.
I think the Chiefs will be favored by three points.
I'm on the board, Jacoby. I said three and a half, and it is three and whoever else. I think the Chiefs would be favored by three points. I'm on the board, Jacoby.
I said three and a half, and it is three and a half.
Do you want to look at these schedules real quick?
Because if the Chargers win this game,
they have it a lot easier.
A lot easier than the Chiefs, I think.
All right, so Chiefs are at LA,
home Pittsburgh, at Cincy, at Denver.
That is tough.
I guess Pittsburgh's the easiest one, but
even then, Pittsburgh's probably playing for their life.
That'll be a physical game if they have
defenders in there. Chargers have
Casey at Houston,
who looks like they, if they could, would just
go home for the rest of the year.
Home Denver, and then at
Vegas, another team that looks like they might
have turned the faucet off.
Two teams that are maybe walking away from the game
and then home for Denver versus the Chiefs are at Denver.
So somehow, as good as they look, the Chiefs,
this could be it for them if they lose.
For the division, at least.
Yeah, and maybe...
I mean, I would say it doesn't really matter for either team, honestly.
It doesn't matter?
KC can win anywhere.
I don't think there's a stadium that they would go into
that they'd be like, oh shit.
And then the Chargers have the home field advantage.
They don't need to be home.
They're probably better off on the road.
We've decided to punt on having home field advantage
in round one.
We were giving away the four seed.
We would rather be a five seed.
That was a waste because the Chiefs
aren't getting the one.
It's a good argument.
They're not getting the one though, right?
So they're not...
Although, they're tied for the one.
I think it's a much bigger game
for the Chiefs
in the one seed sense
than the division title sense.
Because the Pat...
We'll talk about Pat's Indy
in a second,
but that's the type of team
that would beat the Patriots.
Mm-hmm.
So...
Yeah.
No, I'm saying Indy.
Oh, gotcha.
That's a really dangerous game for the Pats.
And then Miami in the last week,
who they've had trouble with a lot.
So the Chiefs are definitely still in this.
They crushed the Raiders.
We didn't talk about the Raiders
doing the kneel at the logo thing.
But nobody should ever do this before a game.
Why do anything that makes the other team mad?
And last year, they took a lap after winning in Arrowhead, right?
And then so they do,
they have their shit together just to do a
dance on the midfield
logo, and then they've been outscored
89-23
by the Chiefs this year. This was going to
be a playoff team, the Raiders, a couple weeks ago.
I'll never get over losing money
on Thanksgiving to them. Yeah, I was just gonna say.
Against your dumb team who won the coin toss
and still couldn't win the game.
Against Derek Hart just
throwing 50-yarders downfield,
trying to get interferences. You know what? The heated bench
didn't work that day. What are you gonna do?
You really blew it. Next one.
Saturday, we got
two games. We got Browns-Raiders.
Mm-hmm.
That's a pretty ugly game Browns are home
It's in Cleveland
The Raiders just when you think you figured them out
They zag the other way and all of a sudden decide to care
So God only knows with them
It's never fun to bet on Baker Mayfield
Certainly not fun to have them in a tease
And I think I'm not going to be betting on this game
I think Browns by six Alright I right. I'm not lying here. I got it again, Jacoby five
and a half. So we know how I blow leads. Wow. You've been on this two and oh, pretty good.
I'm going to lose this one. I'm going to lose this one for sure. The nightcap. And by the way,
this game Patriots at Colts is opposite the Jimmy Kimmel Bowl at SoFi, Oregon State and Utah State.
Same time, Saturday night. Tough beat. Who knew this Pat's Colts game would be so meaningful a
couple months ago? I know. You're right. The two winning teams now. Well, this game's in Indy,
where I think the Patriots have had a lot of success, at least recently.
And I think they're going to be a lot of success, at least recently.
And I think they're going to be favored,
but not by three points, by two and a half.
The Patriots are favored, you said.
Patriots by two and a half.
That's exactly what I said.
And it's the Colts minus one.
Oh!
Okay.
I don't like that.
We're still the underdog, apparently.
Man. I mean, are we looking at a six and a half point teaser
to bring that to seven and a half, eight, somewhere in there?
That's weird.
That's weird.
You did say they were the kind of team that could beat them.
Yeah, because if they got a lead, I think they could run the ball on us.
But I still like our chances against Wentz.
All right.
I can't say I'm terrified of Wentz.
Do you think Zach Wilson
wishes, like everyone's like, oh,
they wish they took Mac Jones at three,
the Jets do. Do you think Zach Wilson
ever thinks, yeah, I wish the Jets took Mac Jones
too. I could have been a freaking patriot.
Or I could have gone to the Niners.
I would have been fine. Simmons
wouldn't have been talking about me having a DVR
of 32nd in the league, whatever
it is. Right. Would have
been good. Well, think about this Niners team,
how much we like them if they had just
kept the 12th pick and
all the other picks they had. Right.
Either taking Mac Jones or
just taking Michael Parsons
or whatever. Right. Instead
they spent all this draft capital
to take a guy who's not even playing for them
and they're still really good.
Little Warriors-esque.
Colts minus one Pats.
I'm surprised.
Sunday's marquee game.
This is by default.
This speaks to Sunday might be a game to go shopping with your fans.
This is when we shop?
Yeah, because we can't do it Saturday.
Yeah, this is a holiday.
It's a holiday shopping day.
Packers at Baltimore, I think, is our game today. We don't know if Lamar is going
to play. There's another decent one, but okay, that's good. Lamar, who knows? Sprained ankle
Lamar or Huntley healthy? Who would you rather have? Well, and I think you put it perfectly.
I don't know what I'm looking at when I see Lamar. He's a generational player. I know he's going to the Hall of Fame,
but this year you have... We do?
We know he's going to the Hall of Fame? I think
so. Yeah. I think he is. He's got to stay
healthy. Yeah, he's got to stay healthy.
It's pretty early. And he can't play like this.
But you know what I'm saying, right?
Yeah. He could win a Super Bowl or he could
not make the playoffs this year.
I don't know. What do you have for this line? He's not winning
a Super Bowl with this team.
I have Packers by three.
I had five. Six and a half is the number. Jesus.
They're finally, finally on
to the Packers.
I would say they're finally on to the Ravens.
Well, we're not letting you win any more
money on the Packers. It's just been too much
free loot. We're shoveling
towards Packers, Packers.
Today, they almost
blew it. They lost the onside, but then
Bears could do it. Packers
have covered every time but two.
One of them was Jordan
Love. Yes,
I think that's right. No, Jordan Love covered.
Oh, you're right. He
did. Yeah. Wow.
Packers, what a year.
Did the Ravens, how many points did the Ravens score today?
22.
Okay, so they had four in a row where they didn't score 20.
So now they have four and a 22 in there.
All right.
That game was so stupid.
I was going nuts.
Huntley, fourth and 13, hitting Bateman on this perfect looping 40-yard pass down the sideline
that 100 times out of 100, either the guy's out of bounds or gets overthrown.
Huntley's just dropping it in.
Oh, my God.
Don't do that to him.
God, I would have had an awesome day today.
The watchables, I got two games.
Steelers-Titans, I think, is weirdly watchable
just because I like watching one off the spur.
He's either completely horrible or he's
fighting back for a quarter.
I was saying he's like, I don't know if he
knows when it's the fourth quarter, but
John Smoltz was a great starter. They made
him a reliever. Can't Roethlisberger
just come in in the fourth quarter? Oh, that's good.
This is a good bid. I like this. Eckersley
was a great, they made him a reliever.
There's another one, Kerry Wood, right?
Yeah. Unless he needs two quarters to warm up, then it's a different story but he was very very good
in the last quarter and a half uh Thursday night but just terrible terrible um the first half
uh Al we we talked to Ben yesterday and I I just see a fire in his eye Al I don't know if he's
done playing yet. Ben knows.
He's a lion. He doesn't
care about what people are saying.
He's tough. He'll be back.
This guy is in intensive care
Friday when we interviewed him.
And he jumps out here
just slinging the ball, Al.
Where's Michelle? What happened to Michelle, Al?
Let's go to Michelle.
Oh, wait.
She's not there.
Yeah, Ben took three ribs out of his body.
Had the doctor put them back in with staples.
What did we say?
Steelers by one?
That's what I had over the Titans.
Yeah.
What's the line?
Oh, I'm sorry.
Steelers by one.
I said pick, and it's Tennessee by two and the line? Oh, I'm sorry. Steelers by one.
I said pick and it's Tennessee by two and a
half.
So you.
Oh, man, you're killing
me.
Oh, I get that right.
Yeah, you get that one.
Yep.
Tennessee by two and a
half.
I guess.
See, I don't know.
I thought pick was
generous, too, because
it was a must win really
for the Steelers.
The Titans.
I just.
We're in the playoffs now,. People are going to be starting Dante
Foreman in a playoff game in fantasy
next week. Could happen.
The other watchable is
Broncos-Bengals.
I thought you would rate this higher.
In Denver? Well, I thought it was a borderline
marquee game, but
you know it is so.
It's a loser leaves town. It's a loser leaves town.
It's a loser leaves town match.
Let's go live
to Joe Burrow. Joe,
this is your first time wrestling
in Mile High Stadium.
Yeah, I think loser is out.
But you thought they were going to win the division,
Cincinnati.
Yeah, I think if the
Broncos lose, they don't get to the playoffs.
If the Bengals lose, they can't win their division.
So there's some loser
leaving in some form.
Well, you say that, but isn't everyone
in their division going to lose? Baltimore should lose
to Green Bay. Pittsburgh,
well, I guess that's a toss-up with Tennessee.
So are you predicting somebody's
going to win this division in Week 18?
Shit, I don't know. Where all four teams lose and then somebody has a tiebreaker.
Everybody keeps losing?
People are celebrating as they're losing the game?
Yeah, this could be the 7-10 division after everything's said and done.
What did you say with this?
I have the Broncos favored by one.
That's exactly what I had.
And it's Cincy favored by one.
God.
I swear, we've been doing this forever.
These are the dumbest lines.
These minus one, and then you watch a stupid game like today with the Ravens,
and now you realize why these lines aren't minus three anymore.
And we say it every time.
Like, all right, the home field doesn't mean three,
but then when we sit down and figure these out, we don't factor that in.
Like, no, they got to give them a nod.
Nope.
Cincy's favorite.
Barely watchable is I got five.
Bill's Panthers, which you could argue this is in the poop fact,
but I kind of strangely enjoy the Panthers that they keep starting cam.
I keep it on the TV to watch what happens.
I have the Bill's favored by 10 over Carolina.
All right, you get this.
I said nine.
I was light, and it's 11 and a half.
Yeah.
That's a three-teamer.
Got to be.
The Bills aren't losing three weeks.
There's another one coming that you're about to mention.
Cowboys at the Giants.
Could be this one.
How many Dallas fans there?
55%?
Yeah, I think so.
I think that's about right.
Although, I mean, I guess this isn't a gauge,
but I know some giant fan friends that went to that tailgate today
and they said it was all giant fans in the parking lot.
Oh, interesting.
Just getting drunk, burning to death.
I don't think this game can go to nine.
I actually have it at eight.
I have Cowboys by eight.
I said nine and it's ten and a half.
Oh, that's stupid.
They beat them 44-20.
That Giants team was better
back then. Come on. So was Dallas,
I guess. Your team shouldn't be favored by that
many people. Glennon wasn't bad today.
He was bad when he was bad, but
he had two touchdowns
and one rushing.
I had that. I had, I knocked that one off the TV and put basketball on.
You didn't, didn't see the belated giants come back trying to threaten the, uh,
he came back a little bit. Yeah. They, they got the onside kick and everything.
Congrats to them. I will not be putting the Cowboys in the tees. Eagles, Washington,
a borderline loser, leaveave-towns match.
I think it is.
You think it is?
Yeah, sure.
All right.
Let's do it then.
It's in Philly.
I have the Eagles favored by three and a half.
Oh, you son of a bitch.
See, this is where you make your move.
I said three.
I said three.
It is three and a half.
Washington's pretty flimsy.
That winning streak,
which we,
we Schrager and I talked about the other day,
they had these three,
four game winning streak and three of them came down to have one play went
the other way.
It was,
yeah.
And now they got sweating sweats out and young's out.
Yeah.
And Heineke's out now.
And it's like,
where are the player?
You,
we could say McLaurin over and over and over,
but really that's,
but Heineke was,
he was awful. Yeah awful in that game.
He was bad.
We pressured the shit out of him, too, though.
It was nice.
49ers home for the Falcons.
You know what?
I should have put this in the watchables.
This is a watchable.
I made a mistake.
I apologize, America.
I think you need to talk to God here.
I think Michelle's
not listening to you. She's not listening to anybody.
We are
going to bet the 49ers heavily, and
this is where the Falcons screw us because they
haven't in four or five
weeks. Well, this is a wonderful
time to hedge our
Falcons will make the playoffs.
Oh, that's true.
That's true.
You could just go 49ers money line here and you're just out.
What do you think it is?
I had the 49ers by four.
Oh, wow.
So I said five and a half.
It's eight.
Oh, I thought this was in Atlanta.
Oh, yeah, good.
That's a bad job on me.
You needed a break like that. I'll take it.
I'll take it, Jacoby.
I'm not giving it back to him.
I'm definitely not teasing them
because the Falcons are dangerous
when they're getting like six to eight points.
I don't like how frisky they are.
Cornerell Patterson, four touchdowns.
What is going on with this 49ers defense?
He might be like the seventh best player of the league.
It really might. Seriously, is anyone more reliable
week to week than Cordero Patterson?
It's like him, Debo Samuel, and like two other guys.
He's on their depth chart. I think he's on there as a
safety, like a third string safety too. He does
it all. Maybe he's MVP. He was on
the pads for three years and we couldn't even
throw him like a swing pass. How is that?
That might be
Coach Belichick's biggest disappointment right there. Well, he was a great even throw him a like a swing pass how was that that might be um that might be coach bellacheed's
biggest disappointment right there not well he was a great kick returner yeah it's just like he
didn't you could run reverses with them that was it right i don't think they ever thought he was a
running back uh last one for barely watchable's ram seahawks seahawks with we oh my god we we did
schrager nine million dollar picks we did did the Santa con special of these two wonders that we finagled on
FanDuel.
We kind of moved the odds.
Yeah.
And one of them was Seahawks Packers,
46 and a half.
And of course,
immediately there's points and we think we're going to lose it.
The other one was jets.
Seahawks.
Jets game,
which one?
I'm sorry.
I was Seahawks Texans.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
And the other one was Jets Saints,
which went easily, but this Seahawks Texans game, yeah. And the other one was Jet Saints, which went easily.
But this Seahawks Texans game, there's a lot of points earlier. Then there's no points.
And then all of a sudden there's a lot of points and it's 27, 13, they get the two point. So it's
like one more touchdown. We lose the Santa con special. We're shard penny, like 55 yard touchdown
arts. Yeah. Boom to break.
And they missed the extra point.
And we won by a half point.
You could always count on a missed extra point.
Oh my God.
There's so many of them this year.
It's like one out of every 10 misses, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that's about right.
I mean, every time you look up.
Yeah.
He's not supposed to be connecting with Lockett.
Russ.
Right.
In fact, in a way.
So this is a rematch of the Thursday night game when they won 26-17 Rams. not supposed to be connecting with Lockett, Russ, in fact, in a way.
So this is a rematch of the Thursday night game when they won 26-17 Rams.
Rams, I have by seven.
You get it.
I said seven and a half.
It's six and a half.
I'm not teasing the Rams.
I think the Seahawks are an underdog parlay candidate.
Yeah, maybe.
I don't like it.
I don't like it either.
Penny was good today. I was impressed. I mean, like it. I don't like it either. Penny was good today.
I was impressed. I mean,
they famously took him over Nick Chubb,
and that became a tough one for
Seahawks fans.
I don't know. He's finally healthy.
Didn't they have another touchdown call back,
or did they end up scoring there also? Yeah, they did, right?
It was Metcalf, wasn't it? Yeah.
Poop Fecta, two games.
Cards at Lions.
Lions are...
There was some comedy with the Lions today.
The quarterback just tripping on
snaps and all kinds of stuff.
It made last week them
single-handedly ruining my game.
I don't know who the announcer was,
but he kept calling Goff, Goff.
He's like, Goff! Goff
back to pass.
I'm like, that sounds, why is he doing that?
We've heard his name a zillion times.
I'm like, it should be Goff because he's off.
He's off every game.
Like, yeah, it should be Jared Goff.
Or just Jared Off.
Yeah, Jared Off.
I have the cards by 10 and a half in Detroit.
No, no, no.
They got to make this higher.
I said 13 and a half.
It's 14. Oh, wow. No, no. No, they got to make this higher. I said 13.5. It's 14.
Oh, wow. Yeah, no.
10-2 against 1-11-1
on the Dome.
Alright, well, that's how I felt last week.
It turned out terribly. You're right.
Dolphins home for the Jets.
Mm-hmm. And
this one they will knock
at least at 9 because they do not
want us to tease the Dolphins in this game.
So I'm going to say Dolphins by nine and a half against the Jets.
All right.
I said eight and a half and it's nine.
So we split it.
Are you going to win?
I think so.
Three games left.
I really think so.
Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
Yep.
It's over.
Three games left.
Jacoby, you did it.
You got your wish.
We did it, Jacoby.
Three more games. We have the Poopfect. You got your wish. We did it, Jacoby. Three more games.
We have the Poopfecta Bowl.
The 2021 Poopfecta Bowl.
Yeah, this is terrible.
Jaguars home for the Texans.
The Urban Meyer-David Culley handshake at the end of this game.
I guarantee it won't happen next year.
This will be the last time we see this specific handshake.
Somebody will not be there for the handshake. Probablyhake. Somebody will not be there for the handshake.
Probably both of them won't be there for the handshake.
What if they're on an unemployment line?
Hey, great to see you.
We're working at Fox. Shake my hand.
I have the Jags
favored by two over the
Texans. That's what I said, and they gave it the full
three. So the Jags get a full three
over the Texans, a team they
lost to 37 21 to start
this season but yeah I don't uh I don't know this is obviously a stay away betting wise but you know
what you can do and Fandel has like uh the lowest scoring team every week and I thought the Giants
at nine to one was good yeah I didn't know if we were going to see Jake Fromm or what it was going
to be but the Jaguars it's tough to beat zero.
It's tough as a low score.
We might just want to go with them.
We have to zone in on who's giving up instead of who's going to be the seventh seed.
Let's figure out.
I thought the Texans had some fight today, though.
Sure.
I kind of like them plus three in this game compared to the Jags,
where they're all shitting on each other. And Urban Meyer's starting to go after the leaks and all this stuff.
Give me some Davis Mills.
But I'm telling you, there's money to be made,
like eight to one, nine to one,
if we can figure out who's really packing in.
I would say the Giants are a candidate.
Yeah.
But they had like 13.
What'd they have today?
Saints, the Sunday night game,
which we're about to do,
is Saints at Bucks.
Yeah.
I don't know if you saw Taysom today,
but I wouldn't say his hand looked great.
I wouldn't say his throwing looked awesome.
So this could be a blowout game.
I have the Bucks favored by 10 over the Saints.
I said 10 also.
It's 11 and a half.
All right.
So they're not losing twice to the Saints.
So we got that.
We got Buffalo.
You don't like Miami over the Jets?
Putting two in a tease makes me nervous.
The highlight for the Saints in that game is going to be the montage of how well they've done
against Brady that they show in the first quarter
from the last couple years.
Let's say it's always you're having not having a great
season when the montage becomes your highlight i gotta yeah al i talked to taser mill he should
not be a quarterback i'm sorry what am i saying no no michelle take my place
al we talked to sean payton and he told us privately that true breeze just fucked him
just flat out fucked him but not being able to play as long
as some of these other guys.
He said,
Tom Brady's playing his 44.
Brees can't make it a 41.
We talked to Alvin Kamara.
He doesn't know where Michelle is either.
Maybe she's Christmas shopping.
Maybe she had a fight with her agent.
I have no idea.
That'd be so funny
if she's interviewing
Alva Kamara
and he's like,
hey, what happened?
He's like,
where you been?
And then the feed went dark.
Oh, man.
Monday night,
Vikings at Chicago.
Poor Justin Fields,
two weeks in a row
with the spotlight on him.
Jesus.
He looked good.
I don't think he minded it today.
He didn't.
I mean, obviously, he minds the loss, but he's looked good. I don't think he minded it today. He didn't.
I mean, obviously, he minds the loss.
I would say he minded getting the shit kicked out of him.
He's pretty elusive, though. Did you see him by the end of that game, though?
No, I know.
I know.
He got smashed.
But when he gets out of the pocket, he's looking pretty good.
I don't know.
Between Detroit, Carolina, and Denver, I don't know what fan base should be the most upset about not getting him or Mac.
Yeah.
I mean, can you imagine being like a Lions fan?
You're like, well, Sewell's pretty good.
Right.
Sewell's good. The guy can block.
And you're just like, you could have had a franchise,
two franchise QBs or just sit there and you have Jared Goff.
And they're going to do it again, too.
They're going to take probably A.D. Hutchinson, right?
They're going to pass on a quarterback again.
Who do you think should be the number one pick in college?
I don't know.
I don't know. I think Sam Howell.
I don't know.
Don't know who that is.
He's with Michelle Tafoya right now.
I have the Vikings minus three and a half
over the Bears in Chicago.
I'm going to give you this one. I said three
and it's four.
So there you go, Simmons, four, five, six, seven. No, that's bullshit.
That was a nine.
Six, seven, eight, nine.
Twelve to nine, I think, something like that.
No, I got that.
I said three and a half.
You said three, it was four.
I know, I'm giving it to you.
I'm adding the whole thing.
Yeah, six, seven, eight, nine.
He still beat me.
Twelve to three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Yeah, twelve to nine.
So seven, six, two.
All right, good.
We want it to be close, don't we? We lose listeners.
Don't get cocky.
There's a lot of losers leave town.
I know. How does Nagy still have a job?
Like, he really should leave town after
one of these games. It could be Catherine
Tappan versus Michelle Tafoya.
That's good.
They should just have them both on the sidelines.
Just whoever does better.
Chris gets to decide
after spending time with them.
Ooh, see, that's good.
I thought Catherine
asked some great questions.
All right.
We're going to take a break
to do Parent Corner.
Yeah.
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Sal, what do you got? All right. So my eight-year-old, it's baseball all year round now. And I worry about it because baseball's, when did you
stop playing baseball? Stop playing baseball? Yeah. For my son? You, you. Oh, me. Ninth grade.
Ninth grade, 13, 14. Everybody stops 13, 14. And I feel like, I love that he loves baseball,
but all year round and you could play any sport. That's the great thing about California,
but also terrible. You can play any sport all year round. When we were on the East coast and we played baseball,
you had to practice in the gym, right? For April and you know, whatever. So anyway,
he's playing all year round. I'm worried he's going to burn out, but he loves it. He loves it.
He's on a good team. They're in the semifinals, um, Saturday afternoon. And if they win,
they play in the finals Sunday morning. So each team,
you usually get 50 pitches per guy, per kid. But if you pitch more than 20, you can't throw the
next day. So everybody's hoping to play the next day. So we're seeing like six pitchers with 20
pitches each. Well, this one team, their sixth pitcher was better than their first, and he was a lefty. And so when Harrison comes up in the last inning, down 8-5,
bases loaded, two out, and the fans are screaming.
Our fans are screaming, and the other team's fans are playing music,
which we were not happy about, and I could just see it in his eyes.
It's just too big a moment for him.
And I always tell him, I was like, listen, if you try your hardest,
there's nothing you can do.
I'm going to love you no matter what.
Just go out there and try your hardest.
And he goes out there, and I could just see it, three lazy swings,
strike one, strike two, strike three.
It's over.
And no emotion in his face, like just walks back to the dugout.
I'm like, oh, son of a bitch.
This could have been such a big thing.
It would have been great.
And then I see him, and he's like, dad, I tried my hardest and that's all I could do.
I was like, all right.
But, but did you?
He's like, yeah, yeah.
I'm telling you, I tried my hardest.
So now I'm like, I got to tweak this for now on.
Right.
I can't just say you try your hardest because I'm not going to hook the kid up to a lie
detector test, but I know he didn't try his hardest.
So I think the new thing and for any father's listening, and if you have kids who you want to excel in the next couple of weeks in their sports, just say, I love you no matter what, if you try your hardest.
But Santa wants you to make contact.
That's my new that's my new line.
And the elf on the shelf is watching you.
So there you go
that's uh that's my uh parent corner and then i'm that freaking idiot i i tweeted about this
they lose the game they're not even playing the next day but as we go to uh pick a christmas tree
i'm following if you have game changer on your phone i'm following the other team's game on my
phone and let's get a tree or it's like, no, no, no.
If Noah C. strikes out Tyler M.,
then the sluggers are in the finals.
She's like, who gives a crap?
Let's get our two.
Harrison's not even playing these guys.
So yeah, I have some problems myself.
But as long as I try my hardest.
I hesitate to tell you this,
but you haven't tried bribery at all with Harrison with baseball? Bribery? Yeah. If you win, you get this, if you get a hit. No. Yeah. If you get three hits,
you get dot, dot, dot. I think I did, but I don't know what happened with it. Yeah. Give that a
whirl. Yeah. Yeah. That seven years old, eight years old, very bribeable. All right. Yeah.
It's a lot harder to lose your concentration
when it's like you get more Roblox dollars.
Yeah, you're right.
Damn it, you're right.
Yeah.
That's why we're here.
Anything's better than try your hardest
because that is not verifiable.
I'll tell you that much.
I have two short ones.
One is,
went out to dinner on Friday night
and my son had a friend over
and all of a sudden, there's another friend coming over and he goes, when do you guys think you'll be back?
A question he's never asked when we're out.
Uh oh.
Little gleam in his eye.
And I started to get worried he was having a party.
So I was like, look, if there are people coming over, we have cameras.
Every time the door opens, we can see who's walking in.
I wouldn't have people over if you want to live tomorrow.
So don't do that.
And he's like, no, no, I wasn't.
But it was the first time where I got a glimpse into my future with my son.
That's great.
So what time do you guys think you're going to be back?
I was like, wait a second.
I know that trick.
I know.
And then he's probably
checking us on Life 360
to see how far away we are.
You're checking each other.
I'm really worried
about the next four years.
He doesn't believe
in the elf on the shelf.
So that doesn't matter
who's watching.
They just believe in anything
other than hoping
we leave the house.
Right.
So my daughter,
she had a soccer this weekend.
She had like a showcase thing.
And I don't know if I talked about this
in the pod,
but she had an injury
over the summer
where she hurt her back.
Did we talk about that or not?
I think you did, yeah.
Yeah, she had a bulging disc,
which is like for your back,
like a sprained ankle.
You just have to be super careful with it.
You gotta, you know,
needs rest
and you gotta do all these things and it will heal, but you can't like rush it back or it could get worse. So she took like,
she had like four months off and I felt really mad at myself as, as the dad, you're supposed
to protect your kid. I could tell something was wrong with her in the spring and early part of
the summer. Cause she didn't seem like herself. And you think like, oh, is it, what's going on?
Is it like, because she's older and she's other pursuits,
maybe she doesn't care as much
because she's pretty physical and she wasn't as physical.
And it's like, what's happening?
And now I look back, I'm like, oh, she was clearly,
you know, she'd be like, I'm sore, I'm banged up,
but you know, oh, you got to play through it
and do all that stuff.
But she was actually, you know,
had an injury that got worse. So took time off, handled it right. She's healthy.
So has this tournament. She's really feeling good. Like she's like in great shape, the whole thing.
So we're playing that. She's got this five 11 sweeper that she's dealing with the whole game,
this big kid who was, who's, who's good. And the one last piece with this coming
back from the injury was like, you got to take that one hit, right? Where you got to get over
that mental hump of, Oh, I had a bad one. You get up and you're like, Oh, my back doesn't hurt. I'm
a hundred percent. So it hadn't happened yet. And we'd talked about it and I'm kind of waiting for
it to happen in one of these games. So near the end of this game, there's this ball that's going down the, down the sideline and she's running for it. And the five 11 kids running for
it, who thinks she's going to let up. But when my daughter's usually playing well, she doesn't let
up. She'll put the shoulder in. So now it's like, there's this one second where it's like, oh my
God, they're going to collide. Like, this is the moment I'm like about to shit my pants.
They collide. My daughter puts her shoulder down and the kid goes down. She knocks the other kid down. I was like, so excited that she didn't like back up from it. And, uh, and then I was like,
I am a psychopath. That was my, I was just psyched that she took a hit and was fine.
And then we talked about it after and she's like, yeah, it felt good.
Could she hear you?
Could she hear you?
No, I don't know.
I don't know how loud I was.
I might have been muted, but I definitely like, I was, I was excited.
She survived her first collision.
Soccer is a violent sport.
It really is.
Maybe she could bribe you not to embarrass her.
Maybe the bribe could go the other way.
Well, it was embarrassing, but anyway, it was, it was good to see her out there the bribe could go the other way. Well, it was embarrassing.
But anyway, it was good to see her out there.
That's great. Good. I would encourage all the parents
out there, like,
especially because the odds are you've seen your kid
play more games than any other human being.
Sure. And if something
feels off, it probably is, would be
my advice to the parents out there.
How long did it take? Was that beginning of the summer
you said? No, she got hurt in March.
She got nailed in some game on a throw-in
where the kid chipped her
and she was off balance
and she started holding her back
and it was like never right after that
for a couple of months.
This is nine months, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, it was basically, yeah, eight months.
Anyway, she's good now.
All right, that's it for Parent Corner.
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All right, last but not least, we're going to talk succession. What a treat. Two of my favorites.
Sal is here. Ryan Rosillo joining us. It's his favorite show. It's my favorite show.
I made Sal watch as he was watching Packers Bears, which was actually surprisingly easy
because there's so many football commercials.
But I guess we'll start here.
Big night for Tom.
Big night.
It's a hard show to find people to root for
because everyone's deplorable,
but I found myself reacting to Tom's little chess move,
which I did not see coming
until it started to unfold halfway
through i was like i couldn't believe how much team time i was how are you feeling about it
i've always been team tom because it's just so weird that he's a perfect hybrid if as if two of
my college roommates had sex and had a male adult version of themselves like he's these two guys
perfectly and it freaks all of us out he's got the same forehead as one of the guys,
and he's got the same kind of Fairfield County upbringing
that fits perfectly with Tom.
But I got to tell you, early I thought this might have been a Connor podium game
because Connor finally stepped up.
This entire finale was people finally saying the things we wondered
if they were to ever say.
And early on, Connor's just moving the ball around. He's getting rebounds. He's hitting a couple of corner threes. And I was
like, look at Connor stepping up. Like he's finally saying shit. Like I'm the oldest and you guys
treat me like a dick all the time for three years. And now I'm going to tell you how I feel about it.
So obviously Tom just made everything in the fourth quarter, but Connor had some moments early. You know know i wasn't even sure if connor was the oldest that's how stupid that whole thing was
i'm like is he the oldest they're not they yeah well if he's right they don't what kind of thing
is that for ken to say like listen as the oldest son i'm getting screwed here like wait a minute
yeah would you ever say that if you knew you had an older sibling there yeah that was strange for
sure yeah it was a bad connor season i thought, for the most part. He was my favorite,
probably my favorite character the first two years and was not this year. I thought they
had struggled to kind of fit him in a lot of times. Do you know how much he got for Ferris
Bueller's Day Off? He said it on Kimmel and no residuals. How much do you think he got?
How much? Tell us. $15,000. It was his first gig yeah and nothing and he can't even market his
um you know remember i mean he's wearing a detroit red wings jersey right so that's not his so
there's nothing there's nothing he can make after that i mean shit the best thing he could have done
was keep that red wings jersey he probably could have sold it in one of these auctions for like
two million bucks that's all we should all we should all order red wings jerseys that say fry although look i i admit the new mexico scenes were stronger
in season one but when he's again asking the room can you back me to become president and no one's
taking him seriously and and logan just to fuck with him is like, what about Con? Piss is pretty straight.
He got 1%. He pisses pretty straight.
It's a great line.
Did you think
that it was too campy this episode?
Because they tried to resolve a lot.
My take, because I
know there were probably some people
out there that was like, oh my god, this was
too big of a swerve.
I think at least with the Conner thing, how they set up that last episode made sense where it kind of made you
think, did that guy die? Did that guy, it was the big kind of red herring swerve for what was about
to happen here. Logan trying to finally fuck over his kids, the kids realizing it, the kids banding
together. Um, and then I think one of the best scenes in the history of the show when Kendall breaks
down and tells the two siblings that he killed a waiter and just the way it was shot. And it was
kind of like downhill. They're sitting downhill. His pants are dirty. They're shooting it up.
They're shooting it sideways. Shiv's trying to pretend she's a human being, trying to feel bad
for a couple times what do
you think of that scene riscilla well again i'm in the tank for the show so there's very rarely
i'm going to find something i don't like or how they did it but what i i think is most shows would
have made a mistake was okay we finally have to have this moment like kendall has to break down
like this moment had to happen it would have been weird if the show ended without this moment and
how are you going to do it and they start veering into how i think everybody would do it and then as soon as they're like i don't know he's a waiter like
you didn't really kill him and then and then roman's like no wonder it took so long to get
a gin and tonic so they did it the way they would do it which is what i loved about it right
bro it's like well you dove back to get him it's technically not murdered which you think that's a super yeah it was a superhero thing i would have been i would have fucking been out of
there isn't he's the best first of all he is the best roman out of anybody and had he started on
snl he would have had a bigger career than david spade right because in a way he's a funny like a
more biting version of david spade and i can't get enough of him and i'm afraid he's going to
be typecast we're never going to see him in anything again. But yeah, that's a good point. That scene
was terrific. It was, I gotta say, I don't, we can get to the ending, but, and I love the show,
but it was a little disappointing. I mean, we're coming off two monster endings for season finales.
It's like watching Rogers throw two Hail Marys in consecutive consecutive games and then the third one, like Crosby
kicks a 55-yard field goal to win.
It's like, wow, that was a long field goal and pretty good,
but it wasn't like any of the other two with
the double crosses, right? Well, that's
a prestige TV thing.
Usually the ninth episode is the best
of the season. Sometimes the eighth and ninth.
The tenth is like
they're trying to tie up some
stuff but move you toward next year and at least lay out the structure of what was going to be. And, you know, a lot of people really did think Kendall was dead, including me. was that he had, had to shift, right?
Just him being against the siblings, him being,
he either had to change teams, some sort of thing had to shift.
He had to be vulnerable.
He had to be vulnerable.
Yeah.
So now it's like, all right, now the siblings are aligned.
So that's a shift.
I was good with that.
What did you think, Russel?
Well, I want to get back to everybody thinking Kendall was dead
because you and I did a pod on Tuesday. We did a bunch of nba stuff we talked about the penultimate episode and
when i watched that in real time there wasn't a moment where i thought he'd be dead i was like so
when you brought it up i was like okay wow this is interesting and then there's a moment i'm like do
i suck at watching dramas am i not figuring this out and then i started reading all the stuff and
after i got after i gave you a compliment I want to take back some of the impressiveness
that I had with you and Chris Ryan.
Please do. Yeah, do it.
Because I read everything.
Because I started just going through it all,
reading everybody's synopsis
and what it meant and all these things.
I'm like, you guys are just playing the results.
And I'm not saying you specifically, Bill,
but I meant kind of the way pop culture
basically was like,
well, remember when he looked over a ledge?
And remember when he did this?
And you know, like, look, Bill Murray sat in a pool in Rushmore.
He didn't kill himself.
He was just bummed out, you know?
So, like, I think that there were a lot of things to make it into this extra thing
that it became really convincing to explain it that way.
And then it's like, oh, not even close.
Didn't even show it.
Didn't even show him getting saved.
Didn't even show it. Didn't even show them getting saved. Didn't even show it.
Looks a little beat up.
Love that they had the detail of the Italian sports drink.
You know what I mean?
Like those things that you buy and they're always warm because Europe is just low on ice and they have been for decades.
But I just thought that that was a really interesting shift because for a couple of days it totally was in my head where I go, did I completely miss all these little signs?
And then once I read everybody's stuff on it, I kind of felt like I think you're just pointing to a bunch of stuff, hoping for this conclusion.
I just didn't think that storyline, although succession, as we said on Tuesday, would probably be the show with meat on the bone to say, screw it, we're done.
I just I don't know what the show would have been.
At least I mean, look, it's three seasons in, not six to take out the father-son dynamic.
I overreacted to the New Yorker profile
and the timing of it.
I thought it was so strange that it came out that night
and that multiple people on the show
murdered him in the profile.
It was a good argument, though.
It made me think it was interesting the way you present,
you know, but now we're realizing people are pissed
that the guy who did the profile
left a bunch of stuff out.
But in a way, they did kill off whatever his arc was for a year without killing him off.
And now they're reinventing him as it was done.
I finally come to grips with the fact that I've had this pit inside of my body for two years that I murdered somebody and my dad had covered up for me.
It's slowly eating me away and murdering me. And I have to tell somebody. Do you think it would have been
better if he came out with it out of the blue rather than his father last week, setting him up
and saying, Hey, you know, I, I went to bat for you, son. Don't forget. I'll never forget it
because I kind of, not that I forgot it, but I was like, Holy shit. Yeah, he did. He was,
he had him dead to rights.
He would have been in jail forever.
But it might have been a little better if like that moment, as great as that scene was
when his pants are dirty and he's checking out the other bus.
But I was like, oh my God.
Yeah, that's right.
Like, wow, this is, this is what happened.
Instead it was, it was fed to us the week before.
Well, it's his one leverage against his dad.
Right.
Ultimately, if, if they just run out of ways to try
to get one up on their dad that's the one thing they could play he could get immunity
and how his dad covered up this unintentional homicide that he had basically i mean did they
have to kill off michelle tofoya in this episode probably not riscilla wasn't here for that. Sorry, Priscilla. We had a big combo before about where's Michelle Tafoya at.
She's back from season four.
That's, yeah.
Look, let me ask you this.
Didn't you feel like the Kendall guy who's kind of a version of the person that we probably all make fun of,
like cares about social issues when it's convenient,
you know,
buys a hoodie for whatever that week's causes,
posts a picture on Instagram and then it's like,
gives it to goodwill,
you know,
like I'd like to do more,
but I just,
I don't have enough time,
you know?
And so he never was doing anything except fighting evil that he was hoping to
inherit.
So even his,
he wasn't like altruistic.
He just wanted the shine of going at the enemy.
And it felt like that had run its course.
Not Kendall, but that line.
Even though I loved watching him around being this detached,
like lack of self-confidence kind of fraud.
I don't know how much longer we could have gotten more run out of that.
Well, his dilemma was,
no, I'm a good person.
And by the end of this episode,
he basically comes to grips with like,
I'm just as awful as all these other people.
And now is there a way for me to grow?
And he's actually leaning on his two
reprehensible siblings
who've been terrible people to him
and vice versa,
where those are the only two people he can reach out to.
I don't know what happened to his coke girlfriend, though.
Naomi.
They didn't really solve that one.
All of a sudden, she was out.
Oh, yeah, you're right.
She went from petting his hair on the balcony
in the last scene of the eighth episode
to we don't see her again.
What about...
Where do you stay with Shiv, Sal, after three seasons?
She bugs me a little bit.
I gotta say.
I know.
It's,
it's one note.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sure.
Yeah.
We could talk in the other room.
I don't know.
It's just,
it's a little much.
And I wish they would write better for her.
She's the only one.
I'm with you on that
because I was so delighted Tom
flipped it on her that it made
me think part of it was that, and we
talked, House and I did a 25
favorite succession characters for the season.
I had Shiv like 19th.
I always thought the
actor was good, but the material wasn't
good. And this season was the same thing.
So, all over the map.
Is she smart? Is she not smart?
Is she conniving? Is she stupid?
Does she care about anybody? Does she
actually care about Tom?
I don't feel like they've...
That's the one weak spot, I think, in this show.
Well, and I think that's what...
You know, that's a big
point of contention with this show. It could be
if it goes six seasons, like you say,
how many double crosses are we going to be able to handle like shiv was like a four-time loser this season
starting with the first episode where she couldn't even secure the good lawyer right
and if this happens over and over and over to everybody it's going to become like gilligan
not getting off the island um why can't he just do it already? Two words for you. Orphan kid.
For Shiv and Tom.
Yellowstone?
They borrow the Yellowstone model?
Smart.
So season four starts with just an eight-year-old kid with torn jeans just shows up on their doorstep?
Yeah, but he's going to have an awesome name like Tistleton Featherstone.
I love Sarah as an actress actress i really like her i think the the pattern of of you know speech is something that um even in the first season i'd
kind of be like everybody kind of has the same cadence which is interesting but then i think by
design um and then i just became such a fan of it
all that i could watch him walk around a party for 45 minutes and talk because there was always some
line where they found a way to kind of tell you how everybody felt and where everybody's head
was at in an incredibly efficient way where other writers were just right and right and right and
like look at how amazing the speech is and these guys just can get it done in just a matter of
words but i'm with you in that it felt like towards the end of the season shiv was like oh wait is now it's just
shiv's turn and you're like nope it lasted like 30 minutes yeah i thought logan had a great season
brian cox i'll be interested to see who actually wins the me for best supporting because you could
argue that all the guys in this show could be in that category. I don't know what the other
candidates are.
One guy showed his dick.
That's a plus,
right? It was somebody's dick.
It was about time, by the way.
What did the New Yorker say? Was that his dick?
I didn't read the article. We'll find out someday.
Can't wait.
Tom, I thought a couple episodes ago
where there was kind of the Tom episode
and everybody was like, that's it.
Locked up the Emmy.
But Logan was amazing today.
I thought that was a really good Brian Cox episode.
That's one of the cool things about the show
is each person can kind of carry an episode.
Kendall was great in the last one.
He's like, I don't lose.
It's like, of course.
Of course you don't lose.
That's it.
That's why this is going on. I love hope when he says you came to me with love you came at me with love
all the cards on the table uh i think a lot of people love that no to stay on the logan beat
though real quick bill i think a lot of people were just like you know what even if logan logan's
terrible as you said it's tough to pick a side i'm always going to pick greg and tom but when he's like you come at me with love you come at me
you nosy fucking pedestrians yeah nosy fucking pedestrians and i think it was the final point
of when you kind of give up figuring somebody that you really care about where you go wouldn't
every father who built a billion multi-billion dollar empire that's the equivalent of like,
this is supposed to be like a Rupert Murdoch thing.
Wouldn't he eventually look at his shitty kids and be like,
fuck all of you.
Yeah.
I'm surprised they didn't get to that point.
Make your own, make your own pile, Ben Simmons.
So compare and contrast Jerry, Carl. What's the other guy's name who's in there?
Sledgehammer.
Compare and contrast those three in the way they kind of go to wherever the wind is blowing to executives at ESPN from what you saw when you were there.
Where longevity becomes really the only driving goal.
I just put it this way.
Whatever Carl is, that version of Carl would have reached out to me like six months ago saying, I never doubted you.
Never doubted you, Rosillo.
That version of Carl was like, I told you it was a mistake to have multiple countdown lead hosts.
I told you that wasn't going to work out.
It's like, but you were in the room when we were making all
those decisions. This is
Bucci Gras. This is Bucci Gras all the way.
I know it is. Jerry's like,
I'm all in on this version
of SportsCenter. And then later on, it's like,
I didn't like this at all.
I don't know why they thought that was going to work.
Yeah, Jerry just played the classic
this is why I've had a long, awesome
career. Oh, the wind's blowing this way now.
Sorry, Roman, I'm out.
Out.
I'm going to be going.
Out, stern.
I'm going to be drifting this way.
And then Carl, who, what's the other guy's name?
It's going to drive me crazy now.
Carl and then the other guy, the other old guy.
Those guys, it seemed like they'd been out
a hundred different times.
And then they got back in and they're aligned with Logan again.
Frank.
Frank.
Frank.
Yeah, Frank.
Yeah, Carl and Frank.
And then Hugo's the other one, but he wasn't in tonight's episode, was he?
It's like wrestling where it's just like there's storylines.
And then all of a sudden somebody's mad at somebody.
And then all of a sudden they're switching to the other side. Yeah, and his heel turns
like four times an episode, right?
Yeah. I don't think, I think the show goes
two more seasons, that's it. I think
it's five seasons and out.
I don't see any scenario where it goes past
that. I think five would be a lot.
I think five would be. Really? Yeah,
I think we'd be, well, I don't know. I don't know what
we'd have planned because you can't
kill anybody off, right?
You can't.
Logan dying is the last card you have
for like seven more episodes after that.
Right?
Right.
Logan has to die at some point during the show.
Interesting.
You know, yeah.
When you think of where this thing started
in his health deal,
I mean mean the first
scene we see is this guy taking a piss in the wrong room on the floor and then he takes a piss
in kendall's office when stewie's in the building to meet with him and then the coffee thing like
all the things that happened early with him and then he gives the speech and the speech crushes
and he basically like one of the first times he's castrating Kendall. The health thing has definitely gone away,
other than the UTI infection episode,
which was just sort of weird
until you understood what the hell was actually going on.
I just want
to share this with the world, the Greg line.
It's actually a Grand
Duchy.
That was good.
Terrific delivery, as always.
How'd you feel about Greg's usage rate this season?
That was a little high.
I thought they kind of went out of their way
to run plays for him every once in a while.
That's okay.
It's kind of good with him as a stretch four,
and that was about it.
Really?
No, I'd say his numbers are good enough to just,
look, I don't care.
Keep shooting.
What do you think?
No, I don't think he seems any more annoying than he needs to be.
What have we got? About
six minutes per episode probably with him?
It seems like they jacked it up a tiny bit.
Yeah, I thought it was more too. It felt more.
They wove him in
a lot more. I actually thought he got more time than
Connor did this season. Alright, big
question. Who is the MVP this season?
Who do you have, Sal?
I go
I go
Kalkin. I love him. I'm telling you.
He's the best.
He's the best. I mean, I would love
to know what's written and what's not because I feel
like 70% is improvised.
He's just so off the charts.
And I don't know who he is that we hang out with,
but it kills me. It eats me up that I can't figure out like you or so you knew uh tom was two college
roommates or college guys you went to college with who is the macaulay culkin's brother like
i don't have no idea who that is but we definitely hang out with him well i think it's a much more
damaged hench is he a damaged hench yeah it. It's funny because, you know, 30 years ago,
Macaulay Culkin was like one of the biggest stars in the world, right?
And one of the questions was always,
what kind of career is this kid going to have when he grows up?
Right.
And now it's like, this is kind of the grown-up Culkin,
but not the one we expected.
It's this different Culkin.
I'm with you.
I thought he was the MVP of the season.
I think the scene when the dick pic he realized went to his dad was MVP of the season. I think the scene when, when the dick
pick, he realized it went to his dad. It was one of the funniest things I've seen on television.
And in general, like I thought his character evolved and you know, it, it got to the point
where he was finally able to stand up to his dad in the room today. And, um, he was able to grow
kind of with what, what that character could do, where he just seemed like kind of Fredo-y.
And then I don't know, it was, it was not unrealistic to me that character could do where he just seemed like kind of Fredo-y. And then, I don't know, it was not unrealistic to me
that he could at least sit there with the Swedish guy.
Who do you have for MVP, Russela?
No, to stay on the Roman thing,
it felt like Logan actually liked him the most
out of any of the kids.
Or maybe he felt like he could control him
because of the boat scene today
when he's like, look, whatever's wrong with you,
I don't want to know about it, but yourself straightened out you know that he even cared you know right
this is after he just saw his son's dick on his phone um and then he knows about the jerry part
of it all this stuff that he still kind of liked him or maybe he was using him because of madsen
but then he still felt like he had enough influence with him to have him turn on shiv and
and kendall at the very end in that last episode um but then i
kind of liked on the van ride over as they were going to see their father where shiv is like look
the reason it's not going to be used because dad thinks you're fucking weird and fucked up and if
we want to start talking about this the way we should all like you guys just want to let it fly
and kendall's kind of sitting there being like you've already said it all about me so it doesn't
really matter and i thought that was kind of like again colt plays it so well
because it looked like somebody being like i now have to admit that i am kind of fucking weird and
you're you're calling me out on it and now it's not as comfortable i'm not it's a lot more
uncomfortable we're all actually admitting the truth about how i feel um i don't know i just
always love tom i like the way he plays maybe the one guy that you want to have come out on top on all this as the,
as all the siblings become,
you know,
their approval ratings go down.
So I don't know.
I'm sort of,
I'm a Greg and Tom guy.
And Tom just had more important storylines here as always.
It'd be funny to think of Tom as like the lead character next season,
basically.
Cause you figure he's going to be the right hand man for Logan and,
uh, and the Swedish guy. What's figure he's going to be the right-hand man for Logan and the
Swedish guy. What's that guy's name?
The Gojo?
Gojo Madsen. The Gojo
guy. I thought that scene was really good, too.
Hey, by the way, what's the budget?
Bill, can you figure out the budget part
of this? Because this has turned into some James
Bond location type stuff.
I mean, they were in New Mexico for season one,
and again, they went to England for the wedding. But this has been intense, man. I mean, they were in New Mexico for season one, but this is, and again, they went to England
for the wedding. But this has been
intense, man. I mean, this is, I guess,
a part of Tuscany that I was
looking up just to, you know.
Soprano spent the season in Italy, right?
What was it? Yeah, this was way
more lavish, I think, than that
Soprano season. I mean, there was that
one time at the end of season two
when they're on that yacht
for like, I don't know know they must have filmed on it for three weeks two weeks it was like 140 foot
yacht i can't even imagine how expensive that was hey when they went out there yeah totally right
right sorry to interrupt but like when they went out there to mattson it's the bill is that
realistic on like mergers for hundreds of millions of dollars go down?
Nah.
Like for Spotify, did I have to fly to Tuscany?
He's saying you.
Yeah, I get it.
I got your chip.
No, I'd like, so I watched the morning show,
which is probably the worst show of the last couple of years for prestige.
Oh no.
And they would spend money that just really stupidly where there'd be like,
you know,
they'd have this 200 person party for no reason.
It was almost like they had money was burning a hole in their pocket.
This show,
when they spend money,
I feel like it makes sense in the prison,
like the hell,
the way they use the helicopters and these big buildings and these big
lavish parties.
I,
I think that's what it's really like would be my guess.
Gotta be realistic. If you're going to do this show, you have to what it's really like, would be my guess. Got to be realistic.
If you're going to do this show,
you have to do it that way.
You can't cut corners.
I love that you just said that about the morning show.
You're like, of all the stuff we cover.
That's fair.
Maybe the morning show is a bad example.
No, I'm with you though.
They do a really good job.
Fantasy pointed this out last year
of trying to get people
in settings where there's a lot of people
and they can play off each other.
You know, like,
I think the most fun Sal and I ever had together
was probably Jimmy's wedding
for a variety of reasons.
But Jimmy's wedding was like a succession episode
with all the characters
and people you'd bump into.
Right.
You know, at some point,
we just ended up hanging out outside by the valet
watching Dixon smoke cigarettes for three hours,
watching people go to...
By a food truck.
Yeah, by this food truck.
And it was like a Succession episode.
And Succession manages to pull that off,
it seems like, every other week.
They just get these people in a location
where they can kind of make barbs.
But Jimmy's wedding was like $109 million.
That's true.
Maybe it was close.
I forgot how expensive it was.
Yeah, I wonder.
So next season will be
the three of them plus Connor.
So three and a half
against Logan and Tom and Greg
and the Swedish guy
and Jerry and Frank and Carl.
Right.
And then you'll have the side of Shiv and Tom getting divorced.
So that'll be ugly.
I don't know what happens with Kendall.
I guess we still have the waiter murder is lingering over all of this.
And then what else?
What else am I missing?
Greg and the Countess?
What else, Priscilla? A Grand Duchy, actually. I need unhinged Tom. this and then what else what else am i missing greg and the countess what else priscilla a grand
duchy actually i need unhinged tom i need tom who's not trying to worry about his standing
and if his standing is now by betraying shiv now he doesn't have to play the game anymore he doesn't
have to do all those little things like i thought they were smart to make a midwestern midwest
sensibilities to make him from a you know i don't know if it was a middle-income family or whatever, but you know, clearly even higher end upper class isn't close
to what we're talking about here with the Roy's. So I don't want him worrying about his position
anymore. I want him secure in his position and I want him unhinged for at least a year.
And maybe Kendall buys the phoenix suns there's just a side plot with with mba stuff
uh who do you have for rookie of the year so rookie of the year what wait what are my choices
here we have uh it's really i guess the swedish guys probably on fandle would be like your minus
300 favorite yeah right there's not this is like when it was mb'd in brogdon i
can't even think anybody right now you got uh the adrian brody character the layered no way
i'm just saying he's a candidate um dude shot that down pretty quick the assistant i mean she
doesn't really do a ton i didn't love the casting with her i thought that could have been a better
part in the right hands. You know what?
I thought they kind of did it the right way.
Because if you're going to be that young and be hanging out with a guy who's almost 80.
I guess the lawyer.
I guess the lawyer in the beginning.
She didn't last long, but she was pretty effective for the first three or four weeks, right?
With Kendall?
Yes.
Yeah, she was good.
She was good.
Man, probably the Swedish guy.
He was able to go toe-to-toe with a bunch
of different uh right thanks all right final grade for the season Marcelo a plus a um man a plus for
me that's that's that's tough yeah you don't have a pluses in your arsenal I'll go a minus because
I'm still not sure if the mother would have done that to her kids. Yeah. Oh, I'm glad I forgot to mention that.
That was, I thought that was my biggest nitpick.
I didn't understand that.
I didn't understand why she married this loser.
Like what, what she was getting out of this guy who, you know, they established.
Well, she mentioned him banging her a hundred times over the last couple episodes.
So I think that was part of like, hey, hammer this thing home.
But then they kept bringing up the flat. She wants to keep this flat.
Like she would she have really even if
she's an awful mother and detached from him emotionally,
would she have sided with her ex
husband who she divorced over her? Yeah,
she hated to fuck them out of all of
this. I don't know. That's why I give
it a B plus. And for the fact that that
final double cross came on speaker
phone, which is like, all right, I don't know.
That guy reminded me of Godfather 2,
like the people that would date Connie in the first hour.
Oh, yeah.
Like that guy who came in to meet Michael.
He had that kind of vibe to him.
I'm actually, I think he could be a good character the next season.
Like if he's trying to get some business going, some side hustle, that could be a good character the next season. Like if he's trying to get some business going,
some side hustle, that could be a fun episode.
Yeah, listen, I think this is the best show
in the last five years.
So A- for me, but by normal TV standards today.
But I think for this show, A-.
I don't think it was quite as good as the first two seasons,
but I think it had a couple episodes that were up there
and some really good scenes.
The scene today with the three siblings
was really, really, really great.
And three scenes from the last episode.
Last episode was all a famer.
Last episode was so good.
So I think there have been some peak limit-pushing scenes here
in the third season that I don't even know
that we necessarily even got.
But it's hard to match the
drama of the storyline of the end of
season one where Kendall kills
this kid in this accident or the
kid dies in this accident, depending on how we're revisiting
this now.
They went Chappaquiddick on us there and that lingers.
So it's tough to match the
importance of what that was, which is the whole
point, because it's supposed to linger for this
long. Well, they do a good job. The security guy that Logan has, which is the whole point, because it's supposed to linger for this long.
Well, they do a good job, though.
The security guy that Logan has,
who is the guy who Kendall saw the next morning,
that guy's kind of lingering, like the black cloud of this whole thing.
He's always there kind of looking at Kendall with like,
oh, yeah, I know what you did, buddy.
I remember.
All right.
Great recap.
Sal, want wanna plug anything?
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What do you think, Russell?
Chiefs.
Chiefs. I think they're figuring this thing out here.
This is it.
The Chargers, other than Herbert, have a bunch of problems.
I mean, Bosa was good.
But when you dig through...
I mean, you guys already know this shit.
Yeah, it's funny.
There's a lot of stuff around the Chargers.
You go, wait, what?
It's kind of like the Ravens.
I feel like the Ravens are starting to have to pay the tab on some of these early wins.
Kind of like every team
in the AFC except the Patriots.
God damn it. Yeah, you're right.
Who do you have tomorrow, Ursula?
We got Dilfer, we got Bob Myers,
the Warriors joining us later in the week.
Oh, there you go. All right. Good to see you
guys. This podcast was produced by Kyle Creighton
who didn't see the last episode of
Succession and we ruined it for him uh check out sorry kyle uh rewatchables coming monday night
last boy scout see you in the speed on tuesday I don't have feelings
within
on the wayside
I'm a person
I don't have