The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Voodoo Steelers, NFC South Comedy, an Eagles Theory, Guess the Lines Round 1, and Jaylen’s Crazy Year With Cousin Sal

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal right after the Ravens miss the game-winning field goal against the Steelers to recap Week 18 (2:26). Then, they guess the lines for Round 1 before ending with Parent Corner (01:02:42). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Cousin Sal Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo This episode is brought to you by Apple Watch. Find our more at apple.com/apple-watch-series-11 The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I want to do it as late to when we're actually putting up the podcast as possible. I hope you checked out the 50 most rewatchable movies of the 21st century that we did last week. Got a lot of commotion for it. It was pretty funny. It played out exactly how I thought it was going to play out. I had a great time doing that pod. I'm glad people enjoyed it. We might have two rewatchables this week.

I think that's in play. We might have a movie coming up on Wednesday, too. I'm going to have a podcast on Tuesday this week, as well as on Thursday and then Sunday coming off of Pat's Chargers, Yikes, round one, which will be available on Spotify as a video podcast on all platforms as a podcast, and then the video will be on Netflix as well. So stay tuned for that in a week.

I just wanted to remind you on that one. Coming up, Cousin Sal and I talk about just, I'm not going to say bonkers. I'm not going to say crazy. Just a bizarre day of football, bizarre two days. So it is all next. We're going to take break, bring a Pearl Jam, and then Cousin Sal.

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Just watch the Steelers, the voodoo stealers, the garbage stealers, the what-the-fuck Steelers, what are they sell? I don't know how they do it. I honestly don't. The wait around for the top two safeties to butt heads and, you know, join the blue tent stealers so you can complete a pass. I don't know what the hell that was. Every time you have a big play in the first three quarters, it's going to get called back with some sort of penalty. or we're going to get some sort of garbage something, and then it all comes down to,

they finally goes against them, they miss an extra point, and it seems like the Ravens are going to knock them out, and then guess who misses the kick, the Ravens. Yeah. Tucker, they got to cut that Tucker, dude. No, no, no. I knew that Tucker was going to backfire.

That was on pace for such a shitty game. That was going to be like a 14-12 game. And then, like, I think, like, what happened with the safety's cliding, that opened up some pass opportunities for Roger, And I think, like, Lamar had what? He had completed, like, four passes before the wide open of Zay Flowers. I mean, Mike, you could throw a spaceship or run that through that zone.

Is that the secondary get a hole of Aaron's biawaska? What was that? Yeah, they had, I think Lamar wrote that Lamar had six passes in the first two hours of the game. It was like four for six. It was like 7.30 at night, Pacific time. Ends up. Flowers finished with four for 138, both of which were in the fourth quarter. I had all these notes about January Lamar, cold weather Lamar.

This is just him just haphazardly going back and throwing it off somebody's hand. And then he came to life like he always does. Only this time it actually mattered. And it looked like he was going to shed his whole thing. Rogers comes back down, leads one last great sports movie drive. It seems like he was going to shed this whole washed up thing. And then the Ravens are going to win and then they don't. Now with the Steelers in the playoffs, that's the worst part out.

What? this was for the playoffs? Yeah. Oh, my God. We have the Steelers in the playoffs now. We have to see them again. Yeah, I know. And I'm not sure I'm ready to bet against them.

They might have some life in them. This is so nuts. Like, I don't know, you know, with those two safeties colliding, they both had a better opportunity at the ball than Rogers than the Steelers did, right? So maybe that's, I don't know if that's by design or what, but yeah, man, he just kept throwing and throwing it. And I'm not sure what the play of the game was. Like, Lamar scrambling, getting,

away from what the first touchdown to flowers was remarkable. That passed to likely was insane. Breaking the sack. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The, is it third or fourth down? That was third down. That was fourth down. That was it. That was the play. And of all the guys likely who's always involved in some sort of Ravens plot, usually for the worst, it's usually his foot on the end line, him fumbling a pass, him dropping a pass. I don't know if he did this, but dropping it going over the end zone. Texans at Steelers is our game now and we'll do guest lines later so we have Rams

App Carolina Patriots Chargers Texan Steelers Bears Packers Eagles Niners Bill's Jags but the Steelers get Metcalf back Right that was the crazy thing about You look at like Adam Thalen's out there And Terrico

or Collinsworth one of them is doing the whole thing about well Rogers He wants guys at the line of scrimand smart guys who are ready to play off him and what he's going to do. I'm like, the one was completely washed up. Like, if that's what he wants,

like, you're in trouble. Like, this is not a good thing to want. And yet in the second half, it actually worked and they were moving the ball. It did help that he knocked out two of the Ravens guys at the same time.

He wants guy, he doesn't want guys leaning into the crowd picking fights with fans with like pom-bomb heads or something. Yeah, I thought for a while, I was like, wow, the Ravens are only going to advance now

because of the Metcalf thing. And they're going to owe, that fan like crab cakes for life or whatever from Baltimore. So I mean, that was a, that was just, that was something else. Like it was, it was so boring for so long that they harped all the brotherly

shove, the two brothers going out of it. And then the mother gets involved. Like, oh my God, this game is so bad. We have to watch them. And then it really, I can't believe how it opened up. Yeah, if you picked a quarterback to look like he was just throwing a turd sandwich for two hours

and then was going to pull three of the best plays of the year out of his ass, you would have said, Lamar, if you're going to pick a guy who was going to throw a pass that wasn't near his receiver that then got two, two safeties colliding and both having to get carried out of the game in a game stoppage, you would have picked Rogers. Right. Everyone was online. Isaiah likely he had to be involved.

Derek Henry looked unstoppable and then didn't have the ball for an hour. You know, DeAndre Hopkins, that classic Lamar play where he lofted it to him and Hopkins didn't know he was supposed to move and they're looking at each other. It's cold. the Steelers fans are going nuts. T.J. Watt's feeling the part he'd been stabbed in the chest. It was really playing all the hits

and the best guy in the field was Gainwell. Yeah, right. He's unstoppable. But, yeah, I mean, I wrote this down. Like, T.J. Watt, like, two weeks removed from a collapsed, punctured, mutilated lung, playing professional football and 30-degree weather. It makes me feel like such a pussy.

I wrenched my back leaning over to grab the Uber Eats bag a falafel left at my front door. And this guy's playing football. Like, this is what it's all about. My God. And the Steel Special hit for the second time this year. Oh, it did. It only hit in week one and week 18 opponent to win the first half Steelers to win the game.

I had for Ringer 107, just a typical day for me, where I had the Ravens money line tied to the under of 50 and a half. And it was, what, 10 to 7 for two hours? Yeah. And then all of a sudden, it turned into the Chargers' Dolphins playoff game. So this is weirdly the worst possible outcome if you're the Ravens. I'm going to talk about the Steelers in a second. Lamar was just special enough down the stretch there that you can't be like, yep, can't win with them.

We've maxed out. We've got to trade them. Like in basketball where Tray Young, John Morant, LaMille Ball, there are some of these guys that just feel like they've run their course with their teams. And I didn't know if Lamar was heading toward that. And I felt like if this was a stink bob today, where we were texting in third quarter, on our thread about, like, would you bring Huntley in? Sure.

Like, if Lamar's not going to move around, if they're not going to throw with them, like, what's the point of playing Lamar? So anyway, he's great in the fourth quarter. Now you have to rethink that, but maybe there's a Harbaugh decision to be made. Harbar was going in the last 30 seconds of this game. He had all three timeouts left. Right. Did he think he was taking them in an OT?

Did the opposite of what Pittsburgh did, using them within before eight minutes left. Right. Yeah, Pittsburgh was just burning them left and right. So I don't know for the Ravens, such a weird season. Kept waiting for it to come around, come around, come around. Then it finally seemed like it did. And now they're out of the playoffs. I'm watching it as a Pats fan going, man, if they win this,

you know, they could absolutely knock out Houston, who I don't want to see, get rid of them in round one, because I want to play the Ravens. I don't have a pass rush. I feel like we can out think these guys. And now they're out, and now the voodoo Steelers are in. If I'm Houston, who would you rather want to play, Baltimore and Pittsburgh after watching that game?

I think whoever had the momentum, honestly, to be honest with you. I mean, Pittsburgh could be a tough out. They really can. And we're not, we don't know that Houston's going to score a bunch of points next week. We'll talk about it, you know, later. But, yeah, I mean, as far as Lamar goes, it's, it's a dumb comparison. Maybe it's not Kyle of Murray. It's not like, all right, Arizona saw what he was their franchise quarterback.

Now he no longer is. They can move on from him. Not going to be a lot of bickering about that. No, no, no, for sure. But Lamar was definitely headed that way. You're going to keep him around. There's no, the problem is his parents named him January. Lamar. And they did it sarcastically. And so he never really had a chance once the

calendar turn. Yeah, I did forget until the game was starting. I probably should incorporate this, but that it was January and that it was cold. Right. Two things you're thinking about in the third quarter when it doesn't seem like he complete a forward pass. I do think this is one of those games that if they played it 20 times, I think the Ravens probably win 16 of the 20. Right? It felt like there's a version of this game where they're just up 20 to 3. in the second quarter where there's not, Henry has that first long run.

There's a block in the back where the guy blocks them in the front. They call block in the back because the first time I've seen that call all year. And it just felt like a bunch of those moments where they couldn't kind of get over the hump. And then Pittsburgh, as soon as the safety, as soon as Hamilton,

who's the best guy in the defense goes out, Pittsburgh starts moving. You got to give them credit, though. They've won a few of these. And they've beaten some pretty good teams, you know? Like, they beat the Patriots in week three in a game that we turned the ball over five times.

including one the guy was about to run the answer. They don't lay down. If they're around in the fourth quarter, it's a mess. They're a hard out for sure.

But yeah, I do wonder about Derek Henry. Again, his usage towards the end. Not great. What did he end up with? So he had 20 for 126? Yeah.

He's got to get that magic number is 25. I know they had three gigantic plays in there so you can't kill him too much. And it's the kicker. It's the January. What's the kicker's name? He's got the January loop.

January Loop. You can't shake it. Should we do the preemptive, everybody's going to do this about 1 o'clock tomorrow on Twitter? Yeah. Leave Tyler Loop alone. If you're on social media

shitting on some football player that you don't know, that says more about you than him. That's true. Just do this now, get that over with? I mean, it does say more about me than him, but I'm going to say it anyway. It's a tough one.

Listen, there are 12 seconds left. They had a time out. Right. I didn't feel comfortable with how long that field goal was. No. Did you? That guy is his first year in the league. They're like, yeah, we got it.

Just like, let's bring them out. Pittsburgh is notoriously a scary place to kick, especially for posing kickers. It's cold out. Crowds going nuts. Incredible amount of pressure. There's a playoff spot on the line one way or the other. I want to get closer. I can use my time out.

I'm getting 10 yards closer. But Harbaugh doesn't care. We're too spoiled. We see the Jags kicker a little, the blast of 67 yards. And it's like, oh, everyone should make 44. But that's not the case. Gainwell, eight catches for 64 yards. Nobody else, the Steelers had three.

So, Ravens win. I'm sorry, Steelers win. You should watch again. The Ravens go home and the Steelers get the host of Texans. Who, I don't know. I felt a lot better about them three weeks ago. Definitely. Why are they giving up so many big plays?

I thought this defense was like, oh my God, Houston's defense. It's like, really? Are we sure? I know, like, the game today didn't mean that much, but it didn't mean nothing either because you wanted to be the five seed.

You wanted to play one of these teams. Yeah. And they were giving up big plays to Riley Leonard. Yeah, I know. Maybe I give them too much credit here, but I think they were scoreboard watching a little bit. So once Jacksonville was up early,

287, in fact, it's probably the only smart thing I did today. When Jacksonville went up 287, I live bet the Colts plus 14 and a half. Interesting. They were down 10. So I don't, I guess that's how you're supposed to gamble and not take jack hole teams like the Bengals on Moneyline farlays all the time. We have a coming for them.

But yeah, no, Houston was a much scarier opponent a month ago. Well, the other four seed. So we had nobody really wanted the AFC north and Pittsburgh finally just took it. Nobody really wanted the NFC South either. literally nobody wanted it we had three eight nine teams in some sort of weird tie and of course it had to end in the dumbest way possible where tampo beats carolina in the rain yesterday uh fairly convincing it was 1910 garbage back door touchdown at the end and then we have the falcons today holding off tyler shuck and nobody literally nobody i don't know who was on the saints i had them on

a smaller tv i don't know who was catching the ball for them joan johnson caught a couple. I don't know who the other guys were. He's making plays over and over again. He keeps hanging around, hanging around. But the Falcons win, and they celebrated by firing their coach in the gym right after the game. That was it. Yeah. I think the writing... And so Carolina's going to the playoffs is the point. Caroline's in the playoffs. Rehneem Morris is out. And I think he was out when they lost to the Jets.

I mean, had they won that jet game, they would be in the playoffs and the Jets would have the number one pick. What week was that? That was the 27, 24. a game? Yeah, that was, it might have been the Cousins had a shot at the end that was in MetLife. I mean,

they had like six of those. Coup missed the one in the week one. They had a bunch. They missed an extra point. They had a bunch of those. Yeah. And they had terrible special teams and you could always count

them do something stupid. So it looked like today would have been the classic. But then they looked so good Monday night against the Rams. They looked so good. Then they beat Tampa in that crazy Thursday game.

And then before the game, you hear they announce that Cousins has the flu. He's had the flu since 2021. I guess. That's why he's so bad. No. The flu was running through the Falcons. That was it. It was just so weird. I don't know. We talked about it on our thread.

Like, if you're the Bucks owner, can you give Tyler Shuck an incentive to win? Can you pay him 500 grand extra? All we did was talk about incentives all. Oh, Fentor Henry gets over four and a half receptions, but they give him 500 grand. And I get, it's like shaky, but if you say, hey, do a voiceover for my foundation and when the game and I'll send you 500 grand. I think it's legit if you did that. I would say probably no part of that's legit.

Really? No part. Yeah, I don't think so. It feels like a gambling. I mean, there could be definitely, in the Trump world, we could have like Bitcoin just getting transferred. Nobody knows. So you can do it that way.

We actually got an email from Mike from Mar Vista. Is this true? Yeah, no, we really did. If I'm the NFL, I absolutely have Panthers, Division, title hats, and shirts ready for the Falcons. for right after the game. Why would the Falcons say no? That's the only way the NFC can get more ridiculous.

So the Falcons win, they go into the locker and they put on the Panthers T-shirts. Instead of pouring champagne on each other, they're pouring like ripple on each other. But they should have considered that at least. Yeah, that wouldn't have been bad. Yeah, that was such a weird, such a weird, I don't know.

In Tampa, a lot of people didn't think they deserved to win Saturday anyway. I mean, I had them and that was a bad backdoor cover, but they got a lot of calls. to get them even into it. Oh, my God. It really did feel like that one was called in by the league. There was the rip off the helmet play. There was an offensive PI, which has become the hot call this year, I think.

Yeah. For what the fuck text for our thread? Right, right, right. It's like, what was that? You're a tight end. You're not allowed to push off one yard off the line. So they finished with three eight and nine teams. Chris Myers, who I felt bad for because he didn't get to partake in the Panthers.

do winner, the winner allegedly gets sent home game on Saturday. But they put him on

Falcon's Saints. So he's vicariously was the Panthers were living through him so I thought that was nice.

So Ted McMillan became the huge rookie of the year favorite after this game, even though he was even with Tyler Shuck who was awesome

today. There's no award stuff left except for coach of the year, which is down of Rabel versus Mike McDonald.

What do you mean there's no award stuff left? Well, I mean, all the other ones are decided except for MVP. MVP is

going to go down to the wire. But like offensive rookie of the year, defense, like all that shit's kind of wrapped up, except for MVP and coach. I was looking at coach of the year. And I know your boy, Vrable, like, take me, why is Ben Johnson 60 to 1? He did the worst the first thing. There are two seed like the Patriots. He not only brought his team far, but he destroyed the Lions.

So I think he gets, he should get two votes. He did it with a shirt off. The Lions case is good. Yeah. I think more people were convinced that the bears were going to be a lot better this year than the Pats would be one of the things. What were they over-unders? Weren't they similar?

So the Pats were 4 and 13 last year and they were 14 and 3 this year. So the 10-win leap is pretty good. I got to say, like, we were texting about it all week. I just think May, him not winning MVP would be nuts. And we'll talk about that later. Good. Brable, I could see the Mike McDonnell case. That team was a one-seat.

that team beat everybody. That team was number one in DVOA. That team came through in big games down the stretch. They had a bunch of different small but really hurtful injuries that never seemed to bother them. So to me, it could be either of those guys. And honestly, Liam Cohen would be in there too for me.

I don't know why Braybill's the convincing favorite, but we don't understand a lot of these other markets. I don't think that'll ever be as many candidates. Well, now Shanahan's out. Shanahan was out, right? I mean, we used to spend hours the dissecting Shanahan's career. Maybe we should go back to that

because it is spectacular how he's like what's the big one? He's like one in 38 when down seven or more points He hasn't had to come back since 2017. Unbelievable.

Yeah, if he's down more than seven, he's never come back. Listen, everyone's talking about how great their offense was. They scored three points on Saturday night.

Right. They didn't have Trent Williams, but they, you know, they had basically everybody else. So Rahim Morris gets fired. Right. which means we now get to live out warm wins over Raheem Morris in real life next year

with whoever the Falcons coach is. Oh, that's good. I like that. Now we literally get to live out warm. I thought yesterday that Panthers Bucks game was just awful. Yeah. It was raining. Neither quarterback was good.

They both threw picks. They had the three-man booths. I just... You didn't like that. How many... It's 2026. And on Saturday, we had a three-man booths. booth and we started this second game with, I could feel it in the air tonight.

Like, what year? Give me the year when I could have neither of these things. Neither are three men booth. Orlovsky and Riddick are just in a death, death contest to see who can talk for. Is there a split second of silence? No, I got a point. I'm going to say something. I've never heard. Their usage rate was both Westbrook, 2017, like both of them. It was like whoever was over half court got to shoot, but the announcing version of it. Chris Fowers, doing play-by-play. I think you said 50 words the whole game. They were just diving in, jumping over him.

Like, who wants that? And I like Orlovsky. I just don't understand that broadcast at all. I interview them every year, maybe twice a year. Probably not at all after this, after this whole thing. I blame the producers. I don't blame the people in the booth. Like, nobody wants to hear people talk during a game

for 100% of the game. You don't have to do the Kirk Gibson home run, Vince Scully thing where you're silent for two minutes. But They would not shut up. There was so much chatter. You might as well put a mic in the mezzanine and listen to 50 fans discuss the game.

And I like those guys. I do. But it really was like, it reminded me of like a twin seven-year-olds coming home from trick-or-treating and trying to show you how much candy they got at the same time. It's like, all right, all right. I want another time. That's fine.

Like neither waiting for the other to keep quiet. It's a good analogy. And it once again proves that the three-man booths. So good example. this year, Stan Van Gundy, who I thought was bad in the three-man booth last year on T&T because every three-man booth is bad. There's been three exceptions in 60 years, right? Like literally three.

The college guys, the McGuire, not McGuire, no, it was Billy Packer. Yeah. What was that booth? Billy Packer, Al McGuire, and Dick Ember. Rafford? Oh, and Ember. Engberg, right. That was good.

There was probably one good Monday Night Football booth over there at some point. And I can't even think of what the third. one was. You don't need three people to announce a game. CoSell and those guys. Yeah, but that was a million years ago. It was in 1970s.

We didn't know any better. Yeah, yeah. But, and then it's like, anytime anybody wants to get serious, they're like, we have Buck and Aikman. We have Collinsworth and Tor Rico. They put Van Gundy on Amazon this year with I and Eagle, and he's been great.

Mm-hmm. And guess what? Because he's not, he's not fighting for error with the other guy during the course of these games. I just don't understand why they don't see this. They feel like if there's one more person, it feels like a bigger game.

And it just makes it more cluttered and it makes it worse. So that game deserved no announcers, honestly. It really did. Remember the early 80s when they had the no announcers game? Yeah, that was great. It was like Jets Dauphins. It was the perfect. And you know what they did?

What they featured was graphics because before then, you didn't see a score check like every 20 minutes, like every 20 real minutes. This time they had to without the announcer. They had to put graphics up. And then they're like, hey, this isn't bad, letting the viewers know what the score is and how much time is left. Most time in the three-man booth is like being at a coffee place working on something and this loud table sits down next to you and everybody's talking and eventually you're

like, I'm going to move to the other part of the. But this is football for three hours. So anyway, Carolina makes the playoffs. They're hosted the Rams who were asleep for an hour and a half today and then finally got their shit together against the Cardinals. there was one point where the Cardinals were winning or then they lost the weed then they completed yet another long pass

there was some bogus I don't know legal block penalty or something that called back a long play and then the Rams finally got their shit together and that's it but we saw that game and the Panthers beat the Rams in Carolina I had a manis I don't mind the Panthers like I think they can stop

like their front like they can kind of stop the run like you can't run the ball down their throats their games are always a little more low scoring and the problem is Bryce and every time you talk themselves into them Bryce does Bryce stuff and you're like ah fuck. Listen to me. This is not a good team.

Don't bet the Panthers. You could say you don't mind them. Please don't bet them. They had the worst difference. I'm not. I didn't think I was going to bet them. I said I don't mind them. All right. Oh, you don't mind them being in the playoff? Yeah. I mean... I think Tampa would have been a worst playoff team because I actually really felt like they were fraudulent. You know what's weird about them?

But the September, October version of Tampa was better. than most teams we're going to see next weekend. Wasn't it? And they really didn't have a reason to fall off. Agbuka passed away, I think, in October. That was sad. To the point when he was involved in a play and I forgot he was on the team.

The guy looked like he was Jerry Rice in September. Yeah. But listen, Carolina had a worst point differential than the Giants. They don't belong either. And that spread's going to be pretty high, but we won't give it away. But we need a freebie. We need a freebie for sure. This episode is brought to you by Apple Watch.

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Another nobody wanted, nobody wanted the two seed. This was the weirdest subplot of the day in the NFC where the Eagles were like, you can have it. We're not even going to play Hertz and some of our guys. Like we don't care. Playing Washington, they're going for a draft pick anyway. We're just going to show up. won't probably win anyway.

And the Bears were like, well, we don't really want this either. We're going to play this Detroit team that's playing for nothing. And they're going to dominate us for two hours. And there was this moment where Detroit was clearly about to lose and Philly had the ball. But Tanner McKee might have been the worst quarterback performance we've seen in the last four or five weeks. Yeah. They could not complete anything and just seemed completely out of sorts. And then Philly ends up losing.

This was the day to do it for those garbage quarterbacks. Like, hey, you could get a nice bag here, a nice contract, just with one performance. We see backups every single week. You know, there's already talk about Malik Willis going to the Hall of Fame and stuff or at least getting a big contract. Oh, yeah, he's like a real asset now. No one really stepped up.

Quinn Ewers did for a minute, but really no one, no one. And it's like, then Josh Johnson's like, yeah, you're like, hey, it's not that bad. And it's like, because you're so used to crap all the time. And then Josh Johnson's out there. It's like, they gave you prison food, but they've, poured A1 on it. It's like, all right, it's a little better. I don't mind that.

The worst version of this was Trey Lance. Yeah. Even if you were doing the Trey Lance is a problem, Twitter video of like his best plays, I'm not sure you could get the 30 seconds. There was like two good scrambles and he might have completed one eight yard pass. He's just not accurate. I don't understand how he was the third pick in the draft.

Well, also, did he become inaccurate? It's interesting. They traded three first round. I'm willing, I know you got to let these things breathe and develop, but I'm willing to say that was a bad trait, three first rounders for trade. Is it too early? All right, maybe I'll wait. It's 26.

I'll wait a couple more years. He did have that preseason game where he threw five interceptions. So I'll wait a little bit. You guys talked about this on the Ring or Gambling Show Friday, but I'm just throwing it my two cents. If Purdy doesn't happen for them, does that trade get everybody fired? It would have to, right? How do you come back from that?

Or it's like just Mac Jones is their quarterback for the last couple years. They're just always able to grab some mediocre guy and turn them into something decent. Yeah. They wouldn't win double-digit games in that tough division every year. That was miraculous.

My team would have been set back. For sure. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know how they did it. So I wrote down, I'm trying to figure out what the Eagles were thinking, is it possible they just don't want to play at home

because their fans hate them if they've only won the Super Bowl last year. They're like, we're better off on the road. The energy, when things don't go well for us in the first hour, like, fuck it, let's get out of Philadelphia. We're better off than any other stadium. Yeah, at least if our fans, if everyone's going to hate us, we can get on a bus

afterwards and leave and then have that the comfort of that. You know, the awkwardness of our family in the stands as people are chaining, you suck at different players. But honestly, what are what they doing? There was a point with like a minute 43 left. The lions are lining up for a field goal.

They're clearly going to beat Chicago. And so Philly gets the one seat if they win. So they're driving the tie. I'm like, you could put Hertz in there and Brown and everybody. I know, like they could have been warmed up on the sunlight. Yeah, to get the two seats. Like at some point, it's got to, you don't want to go to Chicago. You don't want to do it.

I'm pretty sure. It's not 1963. Someone could tell Siriani in the headset that the lions are lining up for a winning field goal that could give you the two seat. Well, meanwhile, the Bears couldn't score 17 points at home against a dome team that was missing half of their team and had already packed it in. Not a great time for them either.

Jared Gottf was wearing oven mitts to throw the ball. I don't know. He just did a good job. There's a bunch of full of shit home teams in this round one that I don't think anybody is afraid to play. My team might even be one of them with the schedule we played. But I don't think this is one of those. Oh, no, we got to go there.

I don't think anyone's feeling that way. Is this the least confident you are as a better going into the playoffs? Because it sure as shit is for me. I mean, I know you might say because Mahomes isn't in there and a good version of Joe Burrow and everything. But I really, I see major flaws in all these teams.

Yeah, because we'll go into the, I don't know what the Rams line is yet. I somehow didn't see the lines. I mailed you them four hours ago because I was worried I was to see them, but I didn't see them. But you would figure Rams Panthers' first game of the day,

everybody, their brother, their sister, their uncle and all of their grandparents are going to be teasing the Panthers or putting them in a money parley. The Pan? I mean the Rams. Yeah. I don't think so. Yeah. That instantly gets my dander up. But playoff manifesto-wise, you're taking

Bryce Young against Matthew Stafford. It violates like three of the 17 playoff manifest. I'm just saying like to win two games. Like who are you really confident in to win two games? Not really. There's no one team. I feel good about the Chargers matchup for the Pats. I do feel like that

was the best team for them to play. I know you do. So they have them and then Jags playing the bills. And the Jags are probably playing the best out of anyone in the AFC right now. I have teams that have actually, yeah, I think the Pats have played really well too, but they really haven't played anybody. But you got Josh Allen playing the Jags. You have Josh Allen against Trevor Lawrence.

That's a really tough one to be like, yep, it's Trevor Lawrence. I trust everything I've seen. I'm going to pick him against Josh Allen. But there's a scenario where they either get this pretty limited bills team in round two if they get past the Chargers or they get a Jaguar team on the road that I wouldn't trust either. So it lined up pretty nicely for the Pats.

It probably lined up the worst for the Broncos as a one seed. It lined up nicely for everyone because every other team is fine, you know? Not great. I think that's good. With the Broncos, like you don't play in round one. That's great.

But then round two, you play the worst team that's left, which is almost definitely going to be a 5, 6, 7 team. And those are all teams that might be scarier than the 2, 3,4. teams. Yep. Exactly.

Or at least the five, six teams. I'd be scared if anyone came to play me if I was Denver. I mean, it's uncommon that they score north of 20. Just look at the slate, whether the game matters or not. The MVP battle. Let's do it. I looked at the odds. Have the odds changed it all?

This is a big topic all week. Now it's going to become even a hotter topic. Oh, Stafford's up now. He's minus 150. Jake May plus 120. I don't know what to say anymore. I mean, they're playing the three-win Cardinals. They're throwing it.

They're throwing it inside the five-yard line. They're just trying to get Stafford touchdowns. And everybody likes Stafford, and he's a great guy. And apparently, that might be enough for him to win because he's a future Hall of Famer, and this will help. I always thought we should just pick the person that deserved the award. You seem to think it's Stafford, though. That's why I should be Stafford.

By the way, shame on you for not betting over two and a half touchdowns for Stafford, because, of course, that's what they were going to do today, right? It was an embarrassing thing. They didn't want to lose three in a row going into the playoffs. So they were going to keep those guys in as much as they could. And there was the prospect of playing the Panthers or the Bucks. But we could go back and forth. I'm going to say this.

I'm going to say, I think it's close. And now that I said that, we're going to go at it like the other one, like murdered the other sister. But I think it's fine to have an opinion either way. Well, it's close. But that's why I thought it was crazy. It was crazy to crazy overreaction led by you and your Boston Beanie cap last week when maybe went nuts on the Jets and, you know, Stafford had a subpar game against Atlanta. It should be the whole year, shouldn't it? And that's why it's close.

Well, listen, anytime you could lead somebody to a five seed, you got to send them the hardware. If he got to the five seed, congratulations. Do you think he would have been a five seed on the Patriots? Well, you think that he would have gone 16 and 1? The strength of schedule thing has already been debunked. Has it? Yeah, because there's all this stuff, if you go by EPA, May actually played harder defenses this year than Stafford did.

Uh-huh. Yeah. What do you say? You have like top 16. Well, they always talk about like strength of schedule. It's like you're just playing the other team's defense. Yeah, but you may's not out there on, he's not playing linebacker, too. Right.

And the defenses that he played versus the defense staff. Stafford's played was pretty even. And nobody seems to factor in the Pooka Nakuwa part or the fact that he is a better offensive line or the fact that May actually can scramble and use his legs. Do you know he's fourth in rushing this year for QBs? He's rushed for 38 first downs. He's led the league in completion percentage,

N yards per attempt. I just like, I would ask everybody if you switch these guys, what are the records of the two teams? Like, just go to that. Stafford's not worse than whatever your Patriots. ended up. He's not. It's fine. Is Stafford walking in week

eight? Have you seen our offensive line? I don't know. I would ask people, if your guy lost to the Raiders, the worst team in football, should you be even eligible? Throw out week one. Throw out week one. Count week 17 times five. That's what we should do. How many teams have

led the, how many quarterbacks have led the league in yards per attempt and completion of percentage in the same year? How many quarterbacks have been that? Is it just, I don't know. How many? Three. It's two. It's two. It's 2001 Kurt Warner and 2007, Tom Brady. MVP, MVP. So we're just going to throw those out now.

I mean, I think there's only one guy who's thrown for over 45 touchdown passes who hasn't won MVP. And it was like, it was Breeze, but in all of the history. But, and two weeks ago, Stafford threw for 457 and three touchdowns against that Seattle defense that you were jerking off to yesterday. So I don't, I don't get it. You had nine touchdowns versus the Jets and Dolphins. Why'd you have to tell people I jerked off to the Seattle defense?

I was trying to hoping that wasn't going to come out. They were going to find out. Listen, Drake was going to win the MVP until this tweet. For me, Matt Stafford blew the MVP in the two games versus Seattle, especially the MNF disaster in Atlanta. I don't care how many TD passes he has thrown. Congrats Drake May. That's from Skip Bayless.

That was the moment Jake May lost the MVP. It's over. Damn it. Why didn't you have to get involved? He didn't give it to Chador? I'm shocked. Wow. Shador threw for 111 yards today.

Yeah. In your defense, I will say, playing on the road during the Shaky's game could be a strike against Stafford. That might be a disqualifying factor. I don't know if Vrable is the coach of the year. And if you said it's Mike McDonald, I would be like there's great arguments for him too.

I don't feel the same way about MVP. I will say this about Vrable, beyond the 10 wins and the culture stuff. And, you know, he brought in a lot of the players, which I don't think you should necessarily get credit for, as the coach, right? He's also the front office guy. I don't think that should count.

Two things he did in the first part of this season that I think really mattered. I'm going to get emotion to her talking about my guy, Reeves. Let's do it. Not really emotional. Remandre Stevenson had that game against the Steelers. Five turnovers in that game.

Somehow the Steelers win 2114, and all the past fans are like, let's wave Remandrea Stevenson. Enough is enough with this. He's been fumbling this. It's never going to get solved. Right. Give this guy a suitcase.

He's getting the fuck out of here. And Vrable went out of his way to be like, this is our running back. Like, he's just got to take care of that. He's got to take better care of the ball. We're not quitting on him because he fumbled. That's ridiculous. Like, he's going to do better.

We believe in this guy. Same thing happened with the kicker, the rookie kicker they had who missed a kick in the Miami game. Brable brought him back out to make the game winning kick because he was like, this is my guy. I believe in you. Like, there's something about him. that really makes the players believe that he believes in them.

And they all talk about it. And I don't know. I think it's a really hard place to get to as a coach. So that would be my case for him. I think it does seem like he's caring and whatever. Like, you know, that's a good guy to have around and the players believe in him. But I also thought he looked at the schedule and said,

oh, my God, you see who we have to play? Don't worry about it. You can miss seven kicks in the next two weeks. You could fumble five times the next three games. You're 11 and six. We're okay. We play the ratings four times. Will Campbell said

I interviewed him after the game today and he was talking about how great he was and he was like I never want to play for anyone else Wow Yeah What a cycle guy

Did a great job We went from having one of the worst coaches We've ever had on any Boston sports team Last year to having a guy Where the guys in the team were like I never want to play for another human being Do you feel people are hating you guys A little more now?

You think you're getting there? No I don't think anyone takes some seriously We haven't beaten anybody So you got to have to Who's the most hateable of all the seeds? It's not. New England. Drink the man hasn't pissed anyone off yet.

I know. That's something else we're really missing, you know? I don't know. I feel like your coach is arrogant and you... I mean, it's probably Philly because their own fans hate Philly. So that's, they probably have the most people that actually hate them. They won last year. Yeah.

You have a couple potential felons on your roster. But yeah, no, I... There isn't, there isn't that one, yeah, the route against Mahomes, root against this one, root against... I mean, Lamar would have been fun, too. I got to say I genuinely hate the Steelers they drive me nuts

Oh yeah He's just the Steelers in general And the fucking way They win games drives me nuts I can't wait To see somebody drive a steak In their heart Michael Meyer style

Wow Matthew Stafford 13 one yard Passing touchdowns this year Set the record Oh fine So take away to 13 He still has more

He still has more He still has more Passing touchdowns Look Tom Brady Thrived on a one yard pick from the From the two

For years and years You never said a word. It's fine. Pooka, 166 targets, 129 catches, 1715 yards, 10 touchdowns, 666 yards after the catch. And it felt like 1,200. Adam, 789 yards, 14 touchdowns. Right. I don't know what to say.

Someone's got to catch these balls, right? He's got good players. Can I praise myself really quickly? Before the year, one of my worst takes was that I thought Trayvion Henderson could be like rookie Jamar... Oh, yeah, yeah. And then he was terrible for five weeks

and it vaulted into the pantheon of dumbest things I ever said. Do they compare statistically? Oh, no. 945 yards for Gibbs rushing. Henderson finished with 911. 10 rushing TDs for Gibbs, 9 for Henderson. 52 for 316, receiving for Gibbs,

35 for 221 for Henderson. Really? It's that close. It's pretty close. Yeah. And he got better every month and really was starting to work in traffic. But I don't think he's Jamir Gibbs, but at least I don't feel like he needed anymore. Can we go back to it real quick? Oh, what are you going to do?

This is more, I mean, no. What are you going to do? More drink-based stuff. I just had some quick stats. Do you know who won the rushing title? Who won the rushing title? This is, it wasn't Derek Henry. Oh, was it Bejohn? It was James Cook. Cook. Oh, Cook, yeah. Okay.

1621. Yeah. Do you know when the receiving title? I don't know why. It's, was it, JSN? It was. I thought it was Puka. J.S.N. They were very close last week.

1793 was his winner. So who's our fantasy player of the year? It's McAfree still. I think it still has to be McCaffrey. I think he won a lot of leagues. But I want to do, I do want to say something about Nakua. And I feel like all the catches he makes are like, if our father, watched those in the 70s, they'd be like, this is the best thing I've ever seen.

And I'd be like, Dad, he had 10 better than that this year, that catch you just saw. And he's like, and they would never believe me. But these guys, and especially Nakua, is now able to go up in the air and just grab it with one hand and kind of, I'm not going to say push off, but create enough separation with the other hand, that it's an easy interception. It is spectacular to see. So when people say, why do you love football? It's the same thing over and over.

It's like, no, I can watch that a thousand times. I still don't know what I'm watching. I feel like he's the best skill position player we watch this year. Yeah. And I thought JSM was awesome. But when you throw in his blocking and just you always feel his presence in the game. And then he always has two holy shit plays every game. It's kind of amazing he doesn't have 150 yards a game.

It feels like the shit. The catches are insane. The way he lunges for, first downs, like extra yardage and stuff. I don't feel like JSN does that quite that much, but he's spectacular. I like that he's a little, little kind of out there, too. I feel like we've been missing that lately with our NFL players. Yeah.

Like, we didn't have enough weirdos there for a while. Especially with the wide receiver position. You know the guys to go on the podcast and just say really crazy stuff that starts a two-day news cycle. Quickly, some of the other games, Broncos, Chargers. I just can't describe how bad. Tray Lance was. I actually felt like that was a winnable game for the Chargers.

Did the Broncos offense have a touchdown drive? Do they have a touchdown drive? I don't think they did. Oh, no, because it was a defensive score. Or maybe until the very end of the game? Yeah, yeah. I looked at that line at Tray Lance minus 140 to throw an interception. Like, this isn't a guy that throws, you know, he comes four times a game.

If he has to throw 25, he's going to toss one up. He should have four today. He had one. Right. Well, that was the bet. The purdy Bryce Young will both throw a pick was the bet of the weekend. Oh, yeah. I don't think anyone was offering that.

Giants to Alice, Giants win again. What is it that in their last three years, they've won half of their games in week 17 or week 18 or some stuff that was going around today of that. They screwed up their pick. Your team got a better first round pick, but you don't have it. We don't have, we don't get it. I thought, I don't know who that's more embarrassing for that win, the Giants or the Cowboys, but also good for the Giants. I know you hate this, but that's the spirit of athleticism. Just go out there and win.

Games played on the field, Simmons. One of your worst takes. Spreadsheet. Why is this a bad take? By the way, you had seven, the seven bottom teams, the bottom seven teams, four of them won. Yeah. One of them, the other ones, one of them was Arizona, who hung for a while. One of them was, who was the other.

Oh, Cam Ward, who was up seven nothing before he got hurt. And then one was the Jets. I'm proud of those seven. I'm proud of this league. I think it's easier to do when there's no consensus number one pick and you don't really care where you land in the top seven, probably. Okay. Remember that for the NBA because I don't know who everyone's going nuts for this year.

What's your final grade for the Cowboys season? Probably don't do the Quinn and Williams trading over again if you do a redo on that one? I hated a lot of it. I really did. I don't know. I didn't enjoy maybe two or three games, C-minus. I mean, imagine they could have, it's so hard to get to 500 with 17 games. and they could have been eight.

By the way, they could have been five and one in the division had they beaten the Giants. Imagine we were five and one and didn't make the playout. That would have been, so I'm glad they lost. So you finished seven, nine, and one. Yeah. What was the over under? That went under.

It was eight and a half. They were. Oh, wow. Yeah. Then we have, what else? What other games there? Oh, Colts Jags. They ran a double fake punt.

Never saw that before. That was the highlight. Did you see that? Yeah. Did a fake punt, it worked. And then they lined up again to play. punt and the tech the jacks had 12 guys in the field were completely confused had a call time out and they were like yeah i wish they would have put a camera on riley leonard would be like

all right well you know that's where i come out right yeah that's a strange game uh browns bangles we have to talk about because this just this was the one i would have won everything today for the actual bets and this was the one that i had tied to uh won all right awesome teas that would have won, except for the fact that the Bengals, they're down 12 to 6 in the second quarter, and the Browns have 27 total yards. And we're just texting each other, like, of course, why didn't we see this? Joe Burrow looks like he's not even bothered. Looks like he's about to go at brunch. Like, he's trying to figure out if he wants Eggs Benedict or a waffle. The whole team looks like they can't decide which one of them wants to quit on

Zach Taylor the most. They have Higgins and Chase, who are making $30 million combined, none of them run pass routes for more than five yards they just run out down the sidelines nobody's over the middle nobody's deep it's like they don't want to get anyone hurt um and yet they're still winning the game and terrible kickoff as usual with them and the browns have to go 30 yards shadr finally puts together two plays browns get a field goal browns win the game and during all this miles garrett became our sack game yeah and it was just an egregious loss and i thought he was going to be the first coach fired, but it turned out to be Rahim Morris. Yeah, yeah, maybe by a few

hours. I mean, I was steaming mad for a long time after this game. This game killed, because you're right, the body language was awful for both quarterbacks. Like Joe Burroughs, like, Joe cool, Joe too cool to be playing this game, Week 18, didn't care. And then you have Shador, who like, you know,

converts their third first down of the game two and a half hours in and somehow finds the camera and he's like mugging to the camera. What is going on with these guys? Yeah, but since he was happy to have like three possessions in the second half, there was no urgency, there was no nothing. So they were really going to go ahead at the end. You knew they weren't going to make the two-point conversion.

And I think you made the best point. You're paying these guys all this money, and this guy has to get rid of the ball in two and a half seconds because he can't dodge a sack. Because they can't block anybody. Listen, I'm not trying to, I don't want to be emotional here because they lost me a lot of money. He's not in my top four anymore. I don't know who's in the top four. I'm out as well. Yeah, he's at for me as well.

I thought he had a terrible year. I didn't understand any of the stuff he was doing as, like, the leader of the team. It was just very strange behavior. It was more NBA than NFL from him. This is like the kind of shit people do in the NBA when they're trying to get traded. I didn't get it. I mean, Cleveland wins the game. Sanders is 11 for 22 for 11.

Their top rusher is 10 for 32. Their top receiver was one catch for 23 yards. They punted five times. Yeah. And they got two defensive touchdowns, right? Somehow they had the ball the whole second half. But, yeah, 12 QBR for Shador today, 18 on the year, which is the worst of any Browns quarterback ever.

Can you imagine having the worst QBR of any quarterback ever? So they're obviously, they're going to move on from him. Pretty tough. I mean, if you're making the case for him, I guess he lost some weapons. He lost Judkins near the end of the year. And I'm done that in case. Sure, that's fine. Garrett's our new Sack King.

I liked when he kind of complained about the direction of the team. Yeah. After nine months ago, he signed the giant extension with that team or whatever he did it. It's like you knew what team you were on. This is a quarter century of just them being schmucks. What do you think was going to be different when you signed the extension? You took the money. You don't get to say anything.

It's like when the NBA takes ESPN's money and then they complain about ESPN, the way they cover the week. It's like you keep taking their money. You don't have to take their money. But Garrett, it's like, just shut up, dude. You took the money. You can't say anything now. I think he's,

I think it's all lip service anyway. I mean, he was so happy. That sack record is basically, is the Super Bowl for him, honestly. And he got it and he knocked it out, and his parents were there and everything. But they really probably should have let him

get the record like in the first quarter and get it out of the way. The Bengals, just to try to win the game. Yeah, they would have sat a little bit. I don't know. What a disaster.

He was a maniac. the fourth quarter. I mean, he was like, it looked like somebody in a video game turned off the off-sides penalty. Oh, yeah. He was lining up, middle linebacker was trying everything he could to get free.

But no, I mean, with that 2.5 seconds and Burrow getting it out and less than that, you're going to throw interceptions. If you have to throw it that quickly, you're going to get balls tipped at the line of scrimmage and the freaking Browns are going to run it back and you're going to lose that way.

So I don't know what happened to him. Vegas Chiefs, I guess, was the senior ball. it looks like Pete Carroll's is going to be gone that stuff's starting to leak out so once they were locked into their pick they didn't care chiefs didn't care

I don't even know who won the game Seahawks 9 or Saturday night so I threaded the needle on this one I went to the Celtics Quippers game yeah but that felt like the Seahawks had the game in hand when we were in the car right I was still watching it

before the game but it it was a pretty dominant performance by Seattle. Like I was actually felt like there's they play that's another one. They played that game 20 times I think they probably win convincingly like 15 of them right? No doubt. And I don't know, like

I was nervous because you love Seattle. I love Seattle. Donald had like a million and a half dollars in incentives to gain in this game. He went against like the team that was like 29th in pressures. They had no sacks. You know, last in sacks. I was like, oh my God, he's going to be able to do what he wants. Trent Williams is out. I was like, I'm too high on. So yeah, I got to check my blood sugar here. And it was like a miracle that was 10-3 at half. Like, they should have had like 30 points in

there. So, I mean, 28 wins for Darnold is really, you can't really, we like to make fun of them. And if you looked at our text chain, it was probably unfair to Darnel, but. Please know. Please don't look at it to any of our text chains. Is he outside the top three quarterbacks you trust in this playoffs? It can't be, right? That I don't trust? That you trust. Like you'd say Josh Allen. I don't trust Sam Darnet at all. Can you make a different list? I think the moment they play a good defense,

I don't think the Seahawk fans trust them either. He's got 28 wins. He knows that a way. When he's playing the Niners defense, it's one thing. But I do think there's a scenario where he's playing a good defense where you're just not going to feel good if you bet on them or you're rooting for him.

It's just shaky enough at all times. I get it, 28 and 6. But that was one of the reasons I loved the Seahawks so much. in that game because the Niners' defense is so bad. And then they don't have Trent Williams. I actually think, so, and this might have changed, but this was the case five hours ago, the Niners are 22 to 1 to win the Super Bowl.

And I don't necessarily think they're going to win the Super Bowl. But I think those odds are a little out of whack just because of what happened the last two weeks. They're going to get Trent Williams back. The receivers are going to get more healthy. McCaffrey's going to get more healthy. And, you know, I don't know. They're not defense as well. But that defense is what scares me, right?

Like we saw the bear score on them, you know, only touchdowns. Like I said, Seattle should have scored as much as they wanted, really. That's what, you know, it was going to be a nice little thing if they were going to play all their games at home. But again, that's like not a team, I would bet to win two games. So they play the Eagles. Yeah, but they're playing the Eagles who, you know, can just go in a coma offensively for two hours. Right. And it's not like they're going to be coming up with any tricks. Yeah.

You know? I mean, maybe I won that game. That's another one where I wouldn't feel good about throwing the Eagles in a tease. Before we do the playoffs, I've got an email from a guy named Kilton. You haven't read emails in like 24 years. I know, I've been going through the thing. Well, it's good. We're trying to spurs up the pod.

He said, not really a mailbag question. Pretty much just to thank you for giving guys something to make friendships over. One of my best friends from college became my friend because I told him to guess the line for a lion for a bar. He called me Cousin Sal. And we discussed your pod for hours rather than chasing women. We still keep in touch weekly, including me sending Joe, not house. This is his friend Joe, a picture of the shaky pizza mug I found in my fiance's grandparents' cabinet this Christmas.

Nice. For a mailback question, could you give us some sort of time travel to what you thought of D. Rose after the 2011, 2011 playoffs. Thanks for bringing you guys together. BS, go bears. We like Derek Rose. That's our answer. Anyway, thanks, Cilton.

Yeah, thanks, Colton. I thought Derek Rose was going to be one of the best players of his generation of course yeah he was in college he was dominant in memphis yeah i mean you'll speak more about derrick rose and i can if someone called you cousin sal again though i think you that deserves a punch right in the chin right in the kisser i wouldn't take that from that one playoff blueprint number one buys denver in seattle they put out the schedule and we knew what the shakies game was gonna be it was no surprise yeah it was like knowing who's going to win the oscar two months ahead of time it's like the lady from hamnet it's like get get

What, I'm announcing now she's going to win best actress. But this is kind of an A-list team they're getting with the Rams, right? Because it kind of had to be, it's weird that it's on an AFC South team, but I understand why it isn't. But they're getting like a blue-chip team in the Rams. A lot of people think could win it. Well, it's interesting. Yeah. Because Steelers Texans normally would be the shakies game.

Right. But I think when there's an eight-nine playoff team, you throw all the other rules out. I think that's just automatic shakies. I don't know if they've ever deviated from that over the years. Eight, nine, shakies. It's just they go hand in hand. We've seen eight and nine teams win this, right? What was your favorite of all the shaky games?

I was thinking mine was the Tebow game when he threw the 80-yard overtime pass to win. That was a good one against Pittsburgh. And then prayed in the field for five minutes. Yeah, eight-nine. I think that was my favorite. We actually watched that at Shakey's. Beast mode was a Shaky's game. Beast mode was a Shaky's game.

That was a really good one. That was probably the most entertaining Shaky's game. Yeah, otherwise it was a lot of match job and a lot of bad stuff. Wasn't, was Trevor Lawrence, Herbert, whatever that comeback was, was that a night game? That was a night game. Yeah, I was out. I was out to the dinner night game. Because normally the key to the Shaky's game is it's Matt Shob and you can't remember one thing that happened.

Right. Somebody went 20 to 10. So this is going to remember who won. Yeah, for the most part, this is going to be a lousy game. Probably going to be a thing. Yeah, they put, also they wouldn't, if they can get a bad game. Aaron Rogers at night. They're going to do that.

So the surprise to me, I sent my guesses to you in the morning. The surprise to me was, I thought for sure Pat's Chargers was going to be the Saturday night game. The Pats have usually been Saturday night. I don't know if they have a deal with Kraft or whatever. They made Bears Packers Saturday night on Amazon.

Then Sunday goes, Jags, Bills, Eagles, Niners. CBS, Fox, yep. And then Chargers at Patriots, Sunday night. and we're doing a live podcast. The first one we're doing on Netflix. Wow.

It's right after that game. It's like they're trying to kill me, Sal. Do you think that's fixed? Do you think the league fixed that? I don't know who fixed it. Do I wish the Patriots were playing right before we did a live podcast? I don't.

I don't. I was really looking forward to this Saturday. Should I just have like a therapist in the room, like sitting in the chair over there? Like just kind of. I like it. Yeah, I have a lot of therapists. I don't think one's going to do it.

there's been a, I don't know if we've come on live, because we've only been doing this for a couple years where we've been live podcast where you can see us. I don't think we've had a huge Pats game. We had like the Bills Pats game in like week six, whenever that was. Right, right, right. This is like an actual like real stakes game. Oh, and you're so, Paul, you're so, I'm not going to say convinced they're going to win, but this is the team you wanted to face a month ago. I don't know if I, I don't know how much to trust this Pats team. But yeah, do I want to play the team that's missing their left and right tackle. I do it.

And as the quarterback who has his left hand in a cast, it sounds pretty good. Yeah. You know, who got waxed by Jacksonville five weeks ago, like that would have been my pick, but I don't, I didn't feel comfortable against any of these teams.

Mm-hmm. So I just don't want to end up on a chalkboard for the Chargers. I know. Oh, Netflix. It's going to be good. I will say I don't ever remember that Pat's losing the Chargers.

I know it's happened. I just feel like we've had their number over the years. It's been one of those teams we've consistently beat. Just set it up. Just set it up. I like it. I put that on the chocolate.

And then Monday night, Steelers, Texans. Yeah. Just guaranteed that that's a weird game. You can just lock that down now. Yeah. I would, yeah, I mean,

what about now? You would rather have Chargers than Texans? It's close. I think I'd rather, if you think Chargers going west coast to east coast chargers with a pretty

shaky offensive line I think their defense is good though they can run the ball they have a couple good receivers you know it won't be an easy game but it's a game the Patriots a 14 and 3 team should take care of business at home I love it I'm so psyched for this this is going to be good

but it's a young Patriots team Sunday night could be cold I don't know who that helps I don't think that helps the Chargers necessarily. If you're thinking about home field advantage, if you had to say Patriots, Jags, Pittsburgh on a Monday night, Bears on a Saturday night, Eagles, Carolina on a Saturday afternoon, I would say Steelers would have the kind of the biggest home field advantage of all those, right?

Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right. I mean, it's not the Eagles. They didn't even want to play at home. We saw what they did. It's not going to be the Jags. Yeah. I was wondering, what do you think the desired Super Bowl match?

for the league is and for NBC who holds a game. I think there's only one answer. For the league, it would be, wouldn't it be Josh Allen versus the Rams? Or Josh Allen versus the Bears? I still think Bill's Eagles. I think you get the defending champ in there. I think that's A number one. Really?

Does anyone like watching the Eagles? They're the champ. I'm going to ask everyone to meet this week if they enjoy watching the Eagles. Because their own fans don't enjoy them. Yeah. But watching them get beat would be fun. So you think Rams Bills? Playoff odds. Seattle and the Rams have the best odds plus plus 440 and plus 490 to win the Super Bowl. Denver's 3 plus 850. Soce Philly at plus 850. This is on Fandle. Buffalo's 10 to 1, New England's 11 to 1. Houston's 12 to 1. From a conference bet, New England plus 460. I mean, they're so good at pricing these odds now. I don't think any of these are worth it. The only way it's worth it is if you're going nuts and you're doing like, you know.

Niners 10 to 1 to win the conference or something. That's pretty crazy that the Rams are plus four. They're so close to the top there. And they have to play the extra game. They're 490. Seattle's 440. And ideally they would play each other in the second round unless there was a further upset in there.

That's giving the Rams a lot of credit or they're just giving them a win automatically. Don't you feel like you can throw the ball on the Rams? Yeah. I feel like you can do a lot. I think every playoff team in the NFC can throw that would be able to throw the ball in the I think.

So Denver's plus 280 to win the conference. So two games. So that would be let's say first round. They're the one seed. Let's say all the favorites win except for the four or five.

So Houston at Denver is probably in the four to seven range. Well, they'd have to be a pickum for both games for plus 280 to be worth it, right? Yeah, that's why they figured these out. I feel like we had such better stuff here 10 years ago. I know. Need the Chiefs back.

AI just ruined gambling. All right, guess the lines round one. All right. Can I clinch the season tonight? Oh, I think you can. I'd like to do that. I don't need enough tension. I have enough tension next week.

All right, you went in 10 to 8, and there's only two or three more weeks after this. There's three. so you can clinch a tie at least Rams Panthers in Carolina the Shaky's game I'm happy for the fans of Carolina

not a lot of good times with Carolina the last 10 years right I have the Rams favored by 7.5 all right I haven't looked

I had plus 8 it is now 10 and a half so I edge you out there. Oh, my Lord. I guess they just can't make it. They're not letting you do the two-team teaser thing with them. It's a little bit high.

How many double-digit underdogs that we had in round one? This does feel like Seattle, New Orleans was nine, I think. Not too many others. I thought that was higher. I thought that was like nine and a half. Oh, really? Yeah. I mean, it was nine-and-a-half.

It was right in there. I'm telling you, I know I sound crazy. I don't mind this Panthers team. I still know what you're mean by that. You don't mind watching them or you would actually take them in this bed. I don't think they're as bad as like the eight, the typical eight, nine, NFC South. Like, I thought a lot of stuff went against them in that Tampa game.

Did you see that fighting and come back? The flea flicker was bad. Let's get rid of that from the play in the playbook. A couple of their receivers get open. I don't mind that tremble. I think T-MAC is like a legitimate stud now. You know, you always. wonder why they just don't chuck it down the field.

But the problem is Bryce could just completely shit the bed and you have no chance. But I don't think their defense is that bad. I mean, they beat them already, right? So they beat them by three, and now they're getting 10 to half. It is a big number when you look at it that way. But this is an embarrassing loss.

The special teams coach a couple weeks ago. Yeah. They still give up big plays that Wilson got open on them three times today. Got wide open down the field. Yeah. Look, I thought they'd look a lot better at these last few weeks. They haven't, but maybe the playoff Rams are different.

So you're putting the Rams in a three-team 10-point tease is where we're going here. With the college stuff, hopefully I'll need it to just win. And that'll be that, but I doubt it. All right, next game. Bears, home for the Packers. I think the Packers are going to get a of momentum as a popular underdog pick this week.

Be my guess, because I think everybody's appropriately scared of the bears. I don't think this line gets to three, even though it's in Chicago, even though the Packers are missing a few people. I had Bears minus two and a half. Okay. I said Bears minus one and a half. I think they're going to lean heavily into it's hard to beat a team three times. It's Packers minus one and a half.

that's really dumb. Wow! That's really stupid. Oh my God. Wow, that changes everything. Now the bears are eligible for nobody believes in us. What? What is anyone seen from the Packers?

When was the last time they played a good game? Holy shit. That's a lot. Yeah, I'm looking at that right, right? Wow. Well, we have two nobody believes in us teams already. As you know, that's the strongest force of round one. That's right.

And when you compare this season to 2008, which is a very smart thing to do because it's very similar in a lot of different ways, including that we don't seem really have a dominant team. All hell broke loose in round one in 2008, and we had same situation. So we have two home dogs in a row. And I think there's another one coming with the Steelers and maybe with the bills too.

So we're potentially have four home dogs here. It'll have been three weeks since he played, or more? Three weeks? Three weeks. What's the Jacobs, they rested, so he's probably mostly healthy. Okay. No Parsons. Watson is back.

Is there safety going to be back? McKinney or has he gone? I don't think he's back. We have to watch the injury report. Yeah, I don't know why. I mean, is this like everything have to do with what the Bears did today? Damn, I love the. I love the

Packers as a dog but now I'm a little nervous Well now you have the Bears on a teaser There's no doubt you're doing that Getting noise of the touchdown I don't think the Bears are very good And they're like the Steelers Where they've had the horseshoe up the ass team

But they've You know you can play their schedule a few times And get some eight and nine results I think Yeah And I'm not sure about their defense at all Like that Niners game last week All the yards and all the points They give up to the Niners

week later, scored three against Seattle, I must win game. Right. I mean, they must be pissed, though. I know you say nobody believes in us, but, and I don't know how many players follow gambling, I'm sure they all do. They're all going to know they're an underdog to a team they beat twice. That's going to piss them off. So let's see how they react. The players don't follow gambling, but they all know what an underdog is. Right. And then that means

all they know is that means people don't believe they can. More people believe they can't win than can win, and then they grasp onto that. So, by the way Packers Bears in a playoff game how many times does that happen not a lot since we've been alive does that happen less than five times

there was that NFC championship where Cutler was hurt right and that was a disaster like the Packers just rolled them but yeah it hasn't happened a lot I listen I've been proven wrong this rivalry has come back to life both the regular season games are great

now we have the Saturday night showdown well i couldn't have been more right with my question how many times you think they played in the playoffs oh somebody jumped in i just went on stat muse which normally redirects you to you know some sort of turkish trafficking site since we've been born or is that what uh is how about ever i'll give you ever well the way you're saying it's six two really 1941 the NFL divisional game. Don't remember it. I'll give you

it's Green Bay at Bears. I'll give you the line of I'll give you I'll give you Bears Bears minus five who you have the Bears went like 63 to 14 or something. 33.14.

Yeah. Okay. And then 2011 the Rogers ends up goddamn. God damn. That was that long ago. They've never played a playoff game in Green Bay. Both things were in That's nuts. These teams have been in the NFL for the entire time.

They've played twice. We're ducking each other. I mean, maybe that's why the bears blew it today. I was wondering if both the bears and the Eagles were afraid of playing the Packers, and that's why they were doing the shenanigans, whether they'd want to admit it or not. Were they more comfortable playing the six seed? This was such a terrifying. Did you have a headache by the end of today?

We're trying to figure out which coaches are putting which players. in and these lines. I mean, we did that pregame show. And, like, JJ's like, all right, this line opened at seven. And this morning it was 10. And now it's 13. Rahim, what do you think? Why do you think that is?

And he's like, because people are losing their minds. I don't know. There's no, like, and then Josh Allen plays for one play. And then he's gone. It didn't matter because, like, I, I just, I can't even believe I survived. I forgot to write that up. I forgot to mention that. Yeah.

My least favorite move in sports, the person who keeps the consecutive game street going by playing one play, which was started by AC Green when he broke his nose or something and he missed two weeks and he would just come in for a second and then come out to keep his streak going.

That's not a streak. That wasn't even A.C. Green's most remarkable streak. No, it was the second most remarkable streak. I don't like when people do this. Yeah, that's true. All right. Next one. Bill's Jags.

Are we going to have three straight road dogs here? This is in Jackson, bill. The bills have to be favored as well as the Jags has been playing. I don't see a scenario where they're not favoring Josh Allen in a playoff game over Trevor Lawrence and the Jags.

I think this is in the Tic Tac zone. I have bills minus one and a half. I thought it would be Bill's two and a half. I just don't think you would get people to bite on anything less. You were right. It's bills by one and a half. Oh, I got one.

Yeah, you nailed it. So you're up two to one on me. I like the Jags a little bit. I like the Jags a little bit. I don't really want it. I would love a great quarterback to still be alive in the second round, but they're going to be able to run on Buffalo. The Jags have played well for real for like 10 weeks.

Mm-hmm. Tough spot for the bills. I don't know that Lawrence has to do a ton. Which out of these six games, which one do they rig for one of the bills? for one of the teams. Oh. I think this would be a candidate,

Bill's Jax. All of them. Yeah. Let's get Josh to the next round. Maybe the Rounds against. Then they would be a play either the Patriots or the Broncos in round two. Yeah,

they have. They have to survive. I'd be scared if I were the Jags. Start complaining about the whistles now. Just talk to the Panthers fans about that Bucks game yesterday. Right. Man.

That's just a bad line. every sharp that we know is going to think the Jags are they probably Rahim will be Rahim on Gamelik show will be like I have my formula I have the Jags favorite

by two and a half on my model everyone's going to have their model with the Jags favorite so see they could was I was half joking when I said at a protest I'm going to make every line to pick them

because nobody deserves to be favored in these playoffs but when they have two of them that are basically pick us they threw a tick tack at us the last two games and you still can't get over it like Green Bay

Chicago's one to half in Jacksonville, Buffalo, one-a-half. Stimey. I mean, this is all you need to know about the 2025 playoffs. We've done three games and they're all home underdogs. This is the fucking playoffs where the higher seed should have an advantage. Yep. No doubt. Okay. I think we're finally going to have a favorite here.

It's the Eagles and the Niners. This was actually the one I had the most trouble with this. Because you could have told me this was going to be six and a half. And with the way the Eagles have looked, I just couldn't get there, especially with the offense and the backdoor potential and Shanahan. I just don't know what to make of this Eagles team. So I went with Eagles minus three and a half. Yeah, you nailed it.

It's three and a half. I thought two and a half. I guess the Niners, I should have gone higher. I probably wouldn't have gone higher than three, though. But the Niners did not look good. I think if you're the Niners defense, this would be the number one team you'd want to play in the playoffs other than the Panthers.

Really? A team that just does the same. thing every drive, move super slow, you know, just they'll probably shoot themselves in the foot at some point. You might be able to get off the field. And then you can get McCaffrey out there and try to have these big drives. Like, I'm really comfortable in this game if I'm the Niners. With that said, I can see them losing 40 to nothing. The coaching battles similar. The quarterbacks are similar. You don't know what you're going to get from Barclay, Barkley versus McCaffrey. It's really kind of great on paper. It almost is a gambling stay away.

but I think putting the Eagles in a tease you go Rams 10 point T's with the Rams and the Eagles and maybe our next game get the Eagles to plus six and a half not bad so out of the ones we've had Rams

Packers, Bills, Eagles and paths and state what is the blowout game who wins by 25 points out of these six if you had to say right now by the way you can change your mind in five days in the mayor of gambling but just looking at a line right now

who's the blowout who's the 48 to 20 round one win well I mean the easy answer would be Rams because the spread is so high and the potential in Carolina though I wouldn't do that it could be the we're just happen to be their factor a little bit

I don't I don't think so though I think you're right I think Bill's Jags and I could see it either way honestly that was my pick I could see Jags 44 to 28 or something Yeah. It's just a lot of points. Right.

Okay. Two games left. Sunday night. I get Collinsworth for this too. Yeah. Oh, Mike. Patriots home for the Chargers. I almost put this in the Vegas zone,

but I really don't think people respect the Pats that much against better teams. And I went with Patriots minus three and a half. I said Patriots minus three. You have now won three in a row. You're guessing exactly. Oh. Okay. Three and a half.

If that line moved, which way would have moved? I think towards chargers. I already think it's rich. I don't know. Have you earned that yet? I think it ends at three. I think it ends at three. What's your ideal weather for this one?

Freezing. Freezing cold. So cold. Herbert's not sure of his hands. He can't even feel his left hand. Wow. Yeah. Tiny bit of rain.

Yeah. You might get it. A little wet, cold. Yeah. Although the Chargers have been living in it here in LA for the last week, getting ready for this past. That's true. Because the weather's been awful here.

Man, what a world. The paths hosting a round one Sunday night game as three and a half point favorites as a two seed. Can't believe it. Four and 13 last year. It's like 2000. up down the stretch when they could have gotten the number one pick

and ended up with the number four and somehow it all worked out. I can't believe it. So happy for you. Really. Thanks.

I need to be really happy. Plus, we have an MVP candidate and Jalen Brown. Is it a defensive end? I can't. At the end, I got to talk about

Celtics quippers. You just got to give me like three minutes. Texans at the Steelers. So I can only tie here. All right. I just can't, I got to look again

to make sure the Steelers in the playoffs. Hold on, let me check the standards one more time. Did they really win the... You saw that kick at the end? Just looking. No, I got to check one. Zay flowers, how did he do it? Oh my God, they went 10 and 7.

They were plus 10. 397 points and 387 allowed. Just unbelievable. How is that team in the playoffs? How did they win 10 games? I don't know. They laid down against the Browns. The Ravens were one in five and were favored to win the division.

It's been the craziest roller coaster ride, you can imagine, for the AFC North. They won, week one, that ridiculous Jets game, 34, 32. Week three, they beat the Patriots by seven with five turnovers, including one where the guy was running in the end zone and fumbled. Week four in Dublin, they beat the... They beat the Vikings by three. That was stupid. They beat the Colts on November 2nd, 2720. I have a vague memory of that one being stupid.

We might have lost money in that game. They beat the Ravens earlier in the year, 2722. Ridiculous. They won that crazy Lions game, 2924. And then they won this game today. Like seven of those could have gone the other way. they beat the Ravens twice like that

you just never would have thought that with Lamar coming back right that was going to be the be all and the okay how much of the Ravens going to beat Pittsburgh by 30 and they just hung and stayed and missed kicks and here we are.

I don't know how can you bring Harbaugh back after that with what's happened the last like seven years like at what point do you just have to do something drastic did you make that official or was that just on a text chain

no I had that like two, three months ago. Well, you said, what's the biggest Monday surprise? Oh, Harbaugh. Yeah, yeah. I thought whoever lost this game was not going to be the coach of their team next year. I thought it was like a legitimate Rattie Roddy Piper, Greg the Hammer Valentine, dog collar loser Leaps Town match. Right.

And it might be. Poor Roddy. But the thing is, if they fired Harbaugh, the Giants hire him five minutes later, right? Well, you know, I had a similar idea for Tomlin. This kind of screws it up a little bit. but my hot take for 2026, I had three. Tom one goes to the Falcons. Rahim Mars getting fired was part A of that.

And then I thought like he got like, all right, he could win a division at eight, nine, seven and ten. He wouldn't have to be crucified like he is in Pittsburgh and he probably wants out anyway. That was one. Number two was you will have pizza before February 9th. I know you're all no carved up. That was my second high take at 26.

Holden strong. The number three was that Baron Trump is going to fight on the UFC card on the White House lawn this summer on the other card. That would be amazing. Yeah,

they're gonna get... Is he old enough? He's seven foot four. They're gonna get him a fight against like a groundskeeper and that'll be that. Yeah, he'll win. I actually,

I was at the little club where the Quippers game is for the game, eating a hot dog without a bun with mustard on it. And I was like, I really hope somebody doesn't take a picture

to send this to Sal. And you'd be upset. You've got to stop with this. Your weight hasn't fluctuated three pounds in two decades. I feel better mentally. You do? You look terrible.

Thanks. Texans at Steelers. There's just no scenario where the Steelers are going to be favorite in this game. So I'm going to start there. Wow. I forgot to guess this game, so I'm doing it on the fly. It's not going to be over three. I think it's going to be Texans minus two and a half in Pittsburgh.

You want to come back. for you. Well, to come back, you lose the first two. You're rattled. I said Pittsburgh minus one. Maybe I was, I don't know why I was taking them back. You thought Pittsburgh was going to be favored?

Just by one. No way. I just didn't think you can make you. You know, Houston's first playoff game on the road. All those shaky games, they hosted. So this is the first,

yeah, like ever? This is the first wild card playoff game or whatever. Yeah, it's that, it's three and a half this line. Now you're,

You're scared. Well, it's just, you're just setting the Steelers up to do what they do. I know. This is like throwing meat over the cage to the lion. Like, this is all they need. This is where they, this is how they live. It's how they breathe. Today was the classic Steelers.

I mean, they played all the hits today. And so do the Ravens. Run up the middle. Stuff for three yards. Play action pass and second down. Tipped at the line of scrimmage. Terrible third down. punt. That was like the entire

Raven season. Then all of a sudden they become this fun team and you're like, where was that team the whole time? These eight flowers running downfield. Anyway, that line's too high. The Texans should not be favored by that. The Texans are going to score. So their team total for 39.5 is probably

2118. I don't know. If they're supposed to score 21, 21.5 points, wouldn't you like the Steelers at this? Plus three and a half? comes back. Yeah. That's big. The Steelers, do you think they have the plays in the playbook where they're like, all right, we're going to run the Fryermuth play where he's in the back of the end zone and the guy has draped all over him and I'm going to throw it to him over his head

but he's going to flail up like James Harden and flail into the guy and the reps will be dumb enough to call this. On two. Right. Break. Just run straight for the goal post and throw your arms Turn around and do the James Hardin into five guys move, and they'll throw a flag. Don't worry about it. Meanwhile, that was the smartest thing the Ravens could do, because then they went for it with two seconds left and a half. Right. The terrible play flipped it left.

Texans minus three and a half. So we have four home underdogs out of six teams. Yeah. And the two teams that are favored are the two seed patriots that haven't done anything in the Eagles who've been half asleep since January. or February, whenever they won the Super Bowl. Yeah. When was the last time we didn't get a home team favored by four or more in this round?

I don't think ever. No. I'd love to. Our guy John Ewing's usually good at this. I'd love to know if we've ever had a playoffs where no home team was favored by four points. Let us know, John. Otherwise, we're going to have to go to stat news, and then that's going to be embarrassing. Yeah, but might end up in Turkey.

Yeah, right. Unbelievable. God. do we bet next week? Maybe it's just a complete stayaway next week. No, we have to bet. I just, the Bengals really screwed me so much. I would have had a nice, tidy something to do it.

You were very upset today. I was so mad. He said some mean things about Joe Burrow. By the way, we didn't even talk about how we handled our great bet of like four teams to come in last place. And the Saints were the only one giving us trouble. And so we hedged it. You didn't hedge it? no i i rode the falcons i didn't hitch i went i went i went raw dog on the

falcons really kirk cousins with the flu you went yeah when you heard that it wasn't phased we had almost three to one on our bed i was like i'm raw dog in the falcons all right but me hench and house went plus three and a half i mean when the hell is that going to happen we never middle anything oh you middle that was perfect yeah yeah yeah it was great oh i didn't know you guys I was going sensed. Yeah, because I was so mad about the Bengals, nothing mattered in life after that. Oh, because normally you're more excited about a middle. I know.

I couldn't look. We could talk money, but it was a big difference. I had, we did a bad job on overrunners this year. Yeah. But I don't feel that bad about it because our best picks all did really well. Patriots, Broncos, Seahawks. I had the Jags in a division. You had the Jags.

I had the Bears. we were both shorting the Washington right that was the big one but the one that killed me and prevented me from I did really well in the futures especially on airplane runways

in Boston in Chicago and Indianapolis which I'm convinced that they give you extra time but the case he just who gives you extra time the airline the airports are working with Fandul and everybody else yeah they're like can you just stay

just stay on the runway for 10 extra minutes We look like we have a couple live ones. Interesting. Making runway bets. Yeah, it's so funny. I have a whole bunch of runway fan dual bets. But they won. Even the Collectors Convention in Chicago.

Yeah, and they hit all of them. I had bears over and all this stuff. But the one that killed me was the Chiefs. I had the Chiefs tied into a couple awesome ones. Like the Patriots and the Eagles to win their divisions with the Chiefs, like shit like that. And the Chiefs, the most reliable bet that we've had for the last seven years just finally shit the bet. Well, because that's what we call what that. We call that the KCD, like a CD.

Like, yeah, they're 6 to 1. Mahomes is 6 to 1 or 7 to 1. Ride those in the next 5 or 6 years. It's going to cash. I think we have to walk away from that, though. I had some other, I had some player prop stuff that was bad, like Burrow, passing yards and some of the other ones. But the stuff that we did the best on was the last place stuff.

Yeah. Like we had all those teams pegged like Tennessee and the Saints and. Yeah, those were done. The Browns, right? Those were done like a month ago. Although the Browns ended up close with Cincinnati. I just go figure, but the two South divisions just murdered me this year. I think I went like one and seven of the two South Division.

We had under 30. I think I got every team wrong. What do we have under 33 wins for the AFC South? I think I had the wrong over under on every team in the South. And I think I might have had, I had Houston over. I think I went one and three in the, in the AFC South. I stand by the bucks. I still think, if there's a week 19, I think they're going to, they're going to

shake in somehow. What a weird thing for them. They celebrate the win, but they didn't win anything. Yeah. Then they have to watch Flew-ridden Kirk Cousins going against Taylor Shuck with no weapons and then get Dick T's for three hours and then end up. So that was a win for the league, right? Because they got the extra game that mattered.

I mean, they're constantly searching for games that matter in week 18. Totally win for the week. They had to put the Tampa Carolina game, whether it was a clincher. or not in that early slot Saturday. Well, that's why people were crying about the refs yesterday because it was in the week's interest. Right.

Campa to win because it's set up a better scenario. Speaking of one thing we didn't hit, I know this is going far afield at this point. Yeah. Did LaFleur down 16-0 with the spread at 13 and a half call time out with a second left to kick a effing field a field goal? He sure did. He sure did.

He sure did. Oh, my God. Oh, boy. Boy, this is a weird thing we've seen head coaches do where they don't want to get shut out. Okay. It's something about the shutout leaves them uneasy, but it was one of the three shakiest gambling moments of the year. You've got to go 16-8 there and then 16-16. I know with one second left, you can't do that, but you have to score a touchdown. That's nuts. Good luck to him.

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butler yeah then of thieves had the most iconic bennihana scene in the history of bennihanna what do you got for parents corner parent all right don't have um Did we change it to Parents' Corner? I just stumbled. I'm already nervous about past chargers being live next week. Why are they doing that to us? Could you have been live after the Roebo game? I thought you were kidding.

Live, no. I was hiding in a movie theater. Could you have been all live after the Roe game? Just taking a microphone. I'm in the Rose sobbing in a movie theater in an AMC. Yeah, I have a couple things that are not great. It was my son Harrison's birthday. like Tuesday, turned 12, and the kid loves fishing.

He loves fishing. I don't know where he gets it. His friends love fishing. We have a pier not far from us. They go all the time. They went today in the rain. He blew off watching football with his old man to go fishing with his friends. Whatever, fine.

And so there's this giant, like a bait shop. I can't even call it a bait shop. It's like a big five, but for fishing. But it's like five times the size of a big five. Bass Pro Shop and it's in Irvine and that's where he wanted to go. It's about 40 minutes away. So we take him on his birthday and I like Irvine

by the way. Great use sports location. It's my number one use sports location. Great sports complex. Weekend stuff. Always stuff to go. Good fields. They have the nice outdoor mall. Thumbs up for Irvine. The mall's awesome. The Bass Pro Shop is fine

but not for an hour and a half not for someone like me and I just, we get there and I'm like, all right, this place is huge but like a lot of it's like hunting crap and boats that I know he's not going to buy and like giant knives and everything. We were there for 90 minutes

and I was like, you've got to be kidding me. I can't, I just can't do it. And he's buying lores. Like, you need like three lores. And he like had a gift card to this place. And he's really like exploring. He's right in there and talking to everybody and the guy, well, this is better for carp.

And if you're going to hook a, you know, if you're going to hook, you know, just in case you hit a stingray, like they're talking about all this crazy stuff. Oh, stop it. After an hour, I didn't, I'm like, I'm done. So they have these giant tents that they also sell. I zip myself up in the tent, lay down on the cot that was in the tent, and watch whatever bowl game I was losing money on.

And I was like, you let me know when you're done. And it was like 45 minutes after that when he finally was ready to cash out. You just bedged out. They didn't say anything to you? No, I was like, oh. Let's see what happens here. It's not like sitting on a toilet in a Home Depot, but I wasn't like laying in a tent.

So it was nice. Did you get stink eyed by anybody or no? I did check before I unzipped to see if anybody was watching. But no, it wasn't too bad. See, these are the kind of stories when people talk about how technology is ruining everything. Yeah. 20 years ago, you couldn't have done that. You just sort of been wandering around the store like you were in a coma.

Now you just pull your phone out and you'd be like, go ahead, Harrison. and take an extra 40 minutes. Your mistake, though, was not... Capping it. No, having cousin Jimmy go with you. I feel like he would have gone on that trip. He did want to go, but he couldn't make it there. Yeah, he actually...

Yeah, you're right. I actually think you should have just taken him. Next time. I had him go, paid for the Uber, had them go just and have Jimmy do all of it. I think he would have done it. He's that weird. I mean, he's a very strange guy.

Yes. I didn't think like a major celebrity would go, spend the Saturday in an Irvine fish shop, but he would have. By the way, he's a Critic's Choice Award winner. Jimmy Kimmel Live, congratulations. Saw that. Yeah, yeah. Critics could be very critical, so that was the thing about that.

He was the critic's choice. He was the choice of all the critics, so nice job. Aaron Rogers won two, so I guess it's a give and take, but what are you going to do for him? Aaron Rogers, oh, he won the football game. I was going to say, he won a critic's choice for the Hiawaska documentary? No, no. So anyway, he ends up with 40 lords. So that was that. The other thing real quick...

Can you tell us how much everything costs? It's like $275. And he had like $100. He had like $150 and gift cards and stuff. Yeah. But we hit Korean barbecue afterwards, so it was fine. But anyway, you have to do this stuff because there's a whole Hermosa Beach teen gang scene that's pretty crazy.

You got to make sure he doesn't get in with some ruffians. Yeah, you're right. To make sure you have to keep your father's son relationship. Should I move? What's out of all the six places you live? What's the nicest neighborhood that I can go? I think you're in a good spot. I think you're fine.

Well, what it doesn't have, where we are, is a Steelers bar where my son Jack is just getting back, 17 years old. Oh, my God. Oh, yeah, that was a big win for Jack. I forgot about that. Congrats to Jack. I can hear him stomping around still. But anyway. I'm surprised he hasn't crashed the pod.

I know. I keep checking because it looks like it's going to be close. but that was going to be a sad night for him. And now next Monday night, he'll be out on a school night. Very weird. But you know I'm stupid. And every year I go through, like, my favorite new person I met in 2025. I do the same thing.

I have a winner as well. Yeah. No, go. You can do yours. Well, no, I asked Jack, and he rattled off like 30 names of these people in this bar that he goes to, so like 30, like 50-year-olds, he's 17. So that was interesting. So he counted down from 25 to 1?

They were all over 35 years old. He knew it like I was about. about to ask him. He really said him all, are you ready to give yours? You want to give yours? No, I'm not ready. Oh, you're not going to do it. I pretend that it was. Do you have one? Oh, I can do one. I feel like every year I made a friend that I met.

Yeah, it's got to be someone you met for the first time in 2025. And it can't be over Zoom. Oh. It has to be somebody I actually literally met this year. Yes, yes. I need more time to think about who that is. I would narrow it down from mine to the guy who both fixed and broke our stove three times before he was rounded up by ice, no joke, and didn't see him.

Oh, no. Yeah, yeah, that's not great, but... That's horrible. He was a nice guy. And then secondly, I would say Seth Myers, who's a big fan of this podcast. Did you not know Seth Myers at all? Never met him.

Never met him. Oh, Seth Myers is a great guy. You've had him on the podcast. Big win today for Seth Myers. Yeah, yeah. Good job by him. Good job by you. Oh, man.

I got to think. I'll have an answer next week. I really want to think about this. Who's new with the ringer that you met? I got to think about this. I don't want to have the wrong answer. And there's a couple people that I met that I thought was this year, but it was probably last year.

Really? Okay. All right. My parent corner. So I have some parent stuff for you about when is it time to let go? So, like, Ben's 18 now. And it's been break, and he's always going away, like driving away. He's going, I'm going bowling with my friends, going to see my girlfriend.

It's 12.30, you know, we don't know when he's coming back. And my wife is just like, well, I can't go to bed until Ben comes back. And I'm like, really, you can't? Like, he's 18 now. Like, he could legally just leave. He doesn't even, even. He's not even legal required to live with us. Right.

What is the right age to basically be like, I'm just going to bed. I hope he's here the next sporting. Because I was thinking about when I was in like after high school, college range, and I just went out and they would always annoy me when my parents are like, weren't you going to be back or my mom would be waiting up in the kitchen. I'm like, the fuck, I'm 20. Why are you up? And Zoe like can do whatever.

And, you know, Zoe's almost 21. But Ben is 18. It's like he's right in that zone of should I still be worried when he's out. Right. It absolutely depends on the kid. Like we have friends whose kids, if they went out, they should be sitting on the porch all night long and waiting and making sure that. That is true. Ben is not one of those kids.

Ben, I don't think is one of those kids. Do they wake you up when they get home anyway? Not tap you on the shoulder and wake you up, but them coming through the door, does that wake you up? Murphy usually makes a point of pretending that he's guarded in the house for five seconds. So that kind of wakes you up. I'll roll over and go back to bed. My wife will then be up watching heated robbery or whatever she watches. Right, right, right.

Yeah. I think you're good with Ben. I think until he gives you a reason not to be. That's been my case, but my wife's still very hands-on. Yeah. That's hard for me to tell him that. And she's checking on Life 360 to see where he is. Oh, yeah.

This is crazy. Yeah. Yeah. My son is now 20 went back up to Oregon and we were watching he has a 14 hour drive and it was like

the conditions aren't great and she's watching like a video game just like watching him on we do find mine not live 3 6th I'm like all right you got to let him be he's just driving he's like oh he's 66 miles and out you think that's too fast

I'm like just please just let him get there he stopped hard three times exactly he passed the Costco what do you think that's about he loves the hot dogs there it is it is definitely the start of some pay-per-view movie that I'd probably rent where somebody's watching their kid on Life 360 and they're just doing a straight drive and then all of a sudden the car goes right

and just keeps going right and they were like, oh my God, where's he going? And also he's in like Nevada. Right. Or Sacramento or something. Yeah, that's that's a kernel of something. I had a similar thing with the game changer where you could watch your kid. You could watch like a cartoon version of your kid playing baseball. Yeah. Hoping he gets a hit. You find out after.

Harrison got hit by a pitch and it says bad or hit by a pitch. And so I'm like, all right. And I'm like one minute, two minutes. Five minutes passes. Five minutes past.

I can't get a hold of Melissa. I'm like, I don't know if there's like a cartoon ambulance about to come on the screen and like pick him. I'm like, fucking throw the next pitch. Please.

Please. I'm like finally. The next pitch was and it was okay. But yeah, that's a similar. It was, they got to add that. Why not? So, yeah, so Ben's out.

We never see him. So we went back to college. And my wife and I, we went to Selt the Clippers last night. We had a great time. She's watching heated robbery. She banged out all six episodes this weekend. I guess it's just what happens. I'm just glad we still like hanging out with each other.

She watched all six episodes of heated robbery in like 20 hours. And we're sobbing at the end of the six one. Wow. Yeah. Do you know this show? No, I don't. I don't know. You literally haven't heard a heated robbery?

I've heard of it, but I don't know. She's sobbing. I should like this. You should like this. I mean, you pick devil wears Prada as your number one. What the hell? What happened to you? We're not the audience for heated robbery.

Okay. It's my wife and her friends who have all devoured this, and they've been talking about it for a week. And it's a phenomenon on HBO Max. Does your wife know about this? Yeah, she does. She was talking to friends. But I didn't think, you know, I got a lot of,

now that the bowl games have settled. down. Maybe I'll watch them and this stuff. Oh, from a TV standpoint, this is like the worst time for us to jump in anything. There's too much football. Yeah, I know. And there's basketball. There's going to be all kinds of traits. Today's Parents Corner,

I don't think parents in the copy. Well, because they missed, they did a typo. Today's Parent Corner presented by Greenland 2 migration. We're worried, that's right, the sequel. Five years after a comet strike devastated most of Earth. Not unrealistic right now. The Garrity family is leaving the safety of their bunker in Greenland in search of a new home. And it's a disaster film.

And it's my guy, Gerard, Freakum Butler. What else do you need? Greenland 2 migration in theaters January 9th rated PG-13. This one of the other thing I would have done for Parents born. It's not really apparent. But I went, so I went to Seltz Clippers last night. This has been, I don't think I've missed a Seltz Quipper game since I moved here. I think this was like my 23rd or 24th game.

And the Quippers have been playing well, right? They, Kauai Leonard, they've kind of climbed back. And it's actually, I've been sending you the Pacific Division odds because I do feel like there's a chance they can get back into it. And the Celtics have been playing really well. They're three and one on the road trip. And it would have been a nice one. It was going to be a hard game. I think they were one and a half point underdogs.

Jalen Brown didn't get player of the month last month. He's been awesome. He's like 30 points a game. I said on Tuesday, I think he's the first team on NBA guy. Kauai's playing great. So we first play the game. I said to my wife, Jalen's got like the freaking

like Usec kind of look on his face. Like this is like he's going to battle. Like this is going to be really fun. He's going to go at Kauai. He guards Kauai the whole game, shuts him down. He scores 50 points. He goes nuts in the second half.

He's like he's become other than Shea, probably the most reliable mid-range scoring the league. He's really in year 10 has gone up a level and kind of breaks the Quipper's spirit. There's probably 7,000 Boston fans there

maybe 6,000. They've designed this arena for Quipper fans. It's Clippers, Quippers, there's a wall. It's like Bombers' creation. There's all these Boston fans and they're chaining

Let's Go Celtics. Bomber was so fucking pissed. Really? He was like doing this, like looking around. Like he was watching little kids play on his lawn who weren't supposed to be on the loan. He was just doing this. And Jalen's just romping on them, trying to get to 50 points and gets it. And it was honestly

one of the best road games I've seen this Celtic play in person. He was unbelievable. And it's a really weird situation because Tatum hasn't played this whole year. And Jalen somehow went up a level. And I don't really know what happens when Tatum comes back. Because Jalen's averaging 30 a game. He's been, like, awesome. He's been, they're a half a game out of the two seed. And then Tatum's going to come back. So the good version of this is he just comes back and you give him the Samhouser minutes and he's on minutes limit.

He's just going to shoot threes and rebound and play defense and be completely additive. But he's kind of coming back to somebody else's team. And I don't know how it's going to play out. Do you think this is a Snoop Huntley situation here? Like maybe Tatum, maybe January Tatum sits. Maybe we don't need to say it. Well, we did win a title with the old way of doing it. That was so long ago.

Like, obviously Pippin was the comparison in this when Jordan went to play baseball and Pippon was great. He took the bills to, Bulls to 55 wins. Jaylon's been better than Pippon was that season. Like, he's every night, he's 30 plus points. I think he's probably, I saw his Fandu odds. What is it? I thought, I couldn't believe that they were as high as they were because I would have him I think Maxie's the other one

I'm not allowed to bet on this He's 80, Jalen's 80 Maxi's 200 Yeah so that's the other Jalen Brunson is plus 45 Right Like to me Cade Brown Maxi

In some order and out at Brunson 5th And SGA first And I wouldn't have Luca in the top five Like that's crazy to me Yeah but don't do this Don't give these out And then you're going to vote for Shea anyway

You shouldn't do that No, I'm just saying the public perception on what's happening, and maybe it'll become a story this week about how good Jalen's been because they're, you know, they have a pretty easy schedule next five games. They play Denver, no yokeage, they play the Spurs, no Wembe, everything's at home. And there's a chance they could be like 27 and 12, 26, 13 with no Tatum. And they traded Drew Holiday. They have no Porzingis.

They have no Horford. Like, this is fucking crazy. What's happening? They started out of our own three. This is a nuts story. But I don't think Jaylen's got enough credit for how. But it's baked it. That number's baked into the fact that Tatum's coming back and then they're going to have to share the team. If Tatum was out, if he comes out, out, yeah. That's true.

I mean, part of the thing about how well they've been playing is they have the luxury now of keeping a mouth. Really being careful when Tatum comes back. Like, even when he comes back, like you're in a minute, you're going to play seven minutes a half. Like we're going to ease you back. Like Otani didn't have to pitch until you had to pitch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just be like, hey, come in and be like the most awesome version of Sam Hauser from a kind of get your sea legs. But to watch somebody go up a level in year 10, I haven't seen this before. At least for basketball,

it's really unusual. Like for somebody who was already really good to then now be one of the best seven, eight, nine players in the league. Like, he did not expect this. I like that Balmer thing. I mean, that, that people, I don't know people know what that arena is like,

that into it. He's got it all tricked out. It's a weird place anyway. You have to basically, like, you have to live through your phone and that thing. And he might have locked it up on you guys. He presses one button. And you guys will be like...

No, he definitely had a meeting afterwards trying to figure out how this can never happen again. Really? He's so crazy in a good way about having everybody focused on the quippers in the game. Like even when you go in the, you know, wherever to go piss or go get food, there's no TVs. Right, you've got to get back to your seat. Everything is driving people back into the seats because he wants as much noise as possible.

But the sounds like we're just really, really good. It's a really, really tough team. I don't know. I wasn't between this and the Pats. This is about as good as it's been for two teams at the same time in a while. And your Red Sox are right there. It's all looking good. Red Sox not right there.

How are you feeling about the Mets? I don't know right now. It's not good. We're not the Dodgers. That's how I feel about the Mets. My God, it's 1025. We've got to wrap this up. Oh, yeah.

Let's get out of here. We talk about fishing and the Celtics and the Plippers. What do you got to plug this week? Nothing. time. The ringer gambling show. Check it out all week long. It's a lot of fun. It's right here on YouTube. We are not abandoning YouTube altogether. We got all that ringer gambling content on there and it's going to be fun. Good time. And we have a big week next week. We got two ringer Sunday pregame shows on Saturday and Sunday before the games. And then we're going live on Netflix

next week. Beautiful. This would be our last journey on YouTube. I don't really have any fond farewells or anything for YouTube. We're still going to be putting up shorts and clips on my channel, but the live video. And by the way, can still watch us on Spotify. If you don't want to watch us on YouTube. We will be on video on Spotify. Please don't forget that part.

Good save. We'll be able to watch us in one of two places. That's right. But if you want to watch us on Netflix, we'll be there as well. They are putting your head up there. I went to watch the Ricky Jervais thing, and I see a silhouette of you.

I got suggested. You're looking like Ellen DeGeneres, circa 2008. But whatever. It's a plug. It's good. The generous, they should give me like something where I look like

like I'm an erotic thriller from Columbia where it's like me and some secretary and she's got like, yeah, I'm going to tell them the sexy my thing up, make it seem like it's a more provocative show. You're going to go all Dave Chappelle on sports, right?

Yeah, that's what we're going to do. Just go and, yeah, I'm going to try to lose my mind. All right, Caz, I'll see you in a week. As always, good job by you. Good job by you, buddy. Thanks, take a house. and Eduardo as well. Thanks to everybody for listening and watching and I have new rewatchables coming on Monday.

We got a mailback coming tomorrow. So stay tuned for that. I will see you in a couple days. Must be 21 plus in President Select States for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas. casino or 18 plus and president in D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming, game problem, call 100 gambler, or visit RG dash help.com. Call 88879-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or MD gambling help.org in Maryland.

Hope is here. Visit gambling helplinema.m.m.org or call 800-327-50-50 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 878-8-Hope-N-Y or text Hope NY in New York.