The Bill Simmons Podcast - Tua Again, NFL Week 2 Either/Or, and Million-Dollar Picks With Mike Lombardi and Joe House

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

The Ringer's Bill Simmons quickly reacts to the Bills' ‘TNF’ win over the Dolphins, and another scary head injury for Tua Tagovailoa (0:55), before he is joined by Michael Lombardi to discuss the Packers likely starting Malik WIllis at QB vs. the Colts (7:39), at what point the Giants should start a rebuild, Jets concerns, the Browns' QB conundrum, Jaguars optimism (22:50), Week 2 "zags", and media member Bill Belichick (49:48). Finally, Bill and Joe House run through their favorite NFL games to wager on before giving out the Million-Dollar Picks for NFL Week 2 (1:16:12). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Michael Lombardi and Joe House Producer: Kyle Crichton 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

Coming up, all the week two NFL subplots, some million dollar picks and a lot more next. This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. You know me, I can't go a day without sports. I really can't. And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right. There's a new exclusive home for streaming Monday night NHL hockey. And it's on Prime. All season long, watch Prime Monday night hockey deliver unreal plays, the biggest goals, can't miss moments. Matthews, McDavid, Crosby, the NHL's best, they're all on Prime.

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I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then trying to back what you think in those first few weeks and then zag the other way if you were wrong.

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I also have my own YouTube channel. It's the Bill Simmons channel, where we run clips and entire episodes from this podcast. On Sunday nights, we're going live, Guest Lines with Cousin Sal. So if you want to watch us do the podcast in real time, subscribe to the Bill Simmons channel. Coming up in a little bit, I'm going to talk to Mike Lombardi. We're going to play a little game of either or, all the stuff that happened in week one, which now feels like it could go either way as we head into week two. What do you believe? We're covering all of that.

And then Joe House is coming on to continue Million Dollar Picks. We had some success last week. We'll see if we can keep it going. I just watched Bill's Dolphins, which a game I was really excited about. And I got to be honest, after the way the Pats looked last week,

as you know, who knows? AFC East, is anybody good? Maybe the Pats could sneak in. I thought the Pats were going to be the, after the way the Pats looked last week, who knows? AFC East, is anybody good? Maybe the Pats could sneak in. I thought the Pats were going to be the worst team in the league. So the Bills just killed the Dolphins. And they looked great. James Cook looked great. They did that whole running tight end thing and just ball control

and Josh Allen doing his thing. And they were awesome. And they were running away with the game. Tua was terrible, including through one of the worst pick sixes of his career. And it looked like the storyline after the game was going to be, here we go, Tua, prime time, or the Bills, and or the Bills. And it just never seems to go well in certain situations for him. But because he was playing so bad, he ends up taking a big chance on a fourth goal play in the red zone

and does something he never did last year. Last year, they were so careful about him not taking big hits. This year, he's trying to get a first down and ends up taking a big hit from Tamar Hamlin, of all people. And immediately, even as he's hitting Hamlin, I'm thinking, oh God. And immediately, even as he's hitting Hamlin, I'm thinking,

oh God. And then of course, there it is, concussion. He's doing the fencing position. And it was just awful. And it changed the tenor of the game. And you flash back to 2022 where he had two reported concussions, but look, he had three concussions that year. The week three one, which they claimed was some sort of weird back issue, but we all thought it was a concussion in the moment. And then whoever thought that was backed up by the fact in week four, he ended up with another concussion. And then we didn't know if he's going to come back all year. And then in week 16, he came back, he was playing again and got a third concussion. And then in the whole offseason, wondering if he's going to play again or not. He ends up, he comes back, puts on weight. They're more careful with him.

And he plays well enough that he gets a max contract. But now fourth concussion. And now we're in this weird area that nobody really knows how to govern with concussions. How many is enough? How many is enough to tell a player to stop? Are you allowed to tell a player to stop? It's the thing that we just didn't think about up until the mid-2000s,

where you go back, you can watch on YouTube, you can watch these players in the pregame, the little montage when a pregame Sunday show starts or Madden in 2002. And the sport was super violent and it was celebrated. And then at some point during the 2000s, that started to shift. There was that famous Pittsburgh-Baltimore game when a bunch of guys got carried off the field. And we all started looking at each other going, wait, are we complicit in this?

We love football. All these guys are getting crushed. And concussion research starts. Chris Nowinski starts doing some great stuff. He's been on this podcast. You should follow his Twitter feed. He was the one that was tweeting tonight, right after the Tua thing happened, the play. And he's like, look, that's a clear fencing. His fist is clenched.

His arm is out. And I know from reading and following Chris all these years, you kind of know the signs of when it was a bad concussion, right? There's like the concussion you don't really know you had, but it turns out you had. There's concussion when you get your bell rung. And then there's the fencing one. And then there's the, I just got knocked out cold. So this was like the second or worst one that you could have. And how do you govern this? I have no idea. The first time this really changed was that KC Indianapolis game in the playoffs when Jamal Charles got knocked out and didn't come back in. And I remember writing about that at the time.

Something is different. In the old days, Jamal Charles would have come back in because it's in the playoffs and now we're watching it. And even if you had money on the Chiefs or you're rooting for the Chiefs, you're going, please don't come back in. So it's been about 10, 11 years since we really started thinking about it from the players perspective and really started to all collectively go, hey, whoa, this isn't right. And it feels like we're in that zone with two and he's not the only one. Like Denzel Ward on the Browns got his fifth concussion in training camp. How many is enough? What's the number? We don't really know. And we leave it up to the players. And this happens not just in football, but in UFC.

It happens in wrestling. There's a ton of concussions. In boxing, you get knocked out and you get little tiny ones. Your brain learns to figure out the violence of it. But this Tua thing is really tough because it feels like this has to be the last one. And if he comes back and he gets another one, I don't know how the dolphins in the league can keep getting it going. Every time you get a concussion, it's much easier to get the next one. And we just now have a ton of research about CT, about repeated concussions, about how bad it is for you physically down the road.

And allegedly, as a society, we're supposed to care about this stuff. So, just a brutal night for the Dolphins overall

because Tua's going to play again in 10 days, potentially. I don't think he should play. There's no rule in place that says he can't, but he shouldn't. Right? He shouldn't. So how's it going to play out?

It's just another thing we're going to be talking about. Somehow the NFL in September, it's always like these subplots that end up taking over the first couple weeks. And they're always a little unseemly. And this one felt unseemly tonight because it brought us back to 2022. And I don't think he should have come back after the two concussions in two weeks. But we'll see how they handle it.

Pretty brutal night overall. It obscured the fact that the Bills looked really good again, that they had a pass rush, that their ground and pound game combined with the stuff with Kengade, that Allen looked really good, that they just, you know, a team that I didn't pick for the playoffs because I just felt like at some point we have $61 million in cap money. You've lost a bunch of guys.

At some point you have to have a transition year. I thought the Jets were going to be the AFC East playoff team. Now it looks like it's going to be the Bills. But that's the great thing about week two. By week five, it might be somebody else. Maybe it'll be the Patriots. Who knows? Anyway, weird night in the NFL.

We're going to bring in Pearl Jam and then Mike Lombardi next. all right i wasn't able to have this guy on before this season but he's here now our old friend michael lombardi. Week one in the books. Week two coming. This is one of my favorite. We text a lot during this time because there's a lot of stuff we either know for sure that people don't fully know yet, but we feel like we do. Or there's stuff you think, but you want to see it for another week. And then there's the stuff that's just, I have no effing idea.

Here's one thing I know for sure, Lombardi. Malik Willis is terrible at playing quarterback and he's going to start, he's going to start week two for the Packers. And I was waiting, I thought Monday they'd sign somebody and Tuesday it's like, oh, when's the Tannehill announcement coming? Then Wednesday, now it's Thursday and they're just rolling with it. They're going to play Malik Willis, a guy that both of us watched play quarterback in real games. He started three. He went one and two. It didn't go well.

And what are they doing? What are they thinking? All right, so let's go back. We'll touch on Malik in a second. Ryan Tannehill and Matt LaFleur have the same agent. So there was conversations. But I think Tannehill's like, I'm not going somewhere unless somebody pays X, Y, or Z. And so that ended that conversation.

And now somebody in that building, I don't know who it was, saw a tape of Malik Willis, and I don't know what tape they watched, that said, hey, he's going to be a really good backup one day. Like, I don't know where that was. I'll be in search of it. I mean, it's like finding the lock that sponsor that safe, but let's, let's have a walk down memory lane and talk about one of the greatest games in NFL history, a game that should be in the hall of fame, a game that Malik Willis participated in. It was in early November in

Kansas city. It was a Sunday night game. I'm sure Al's tie was perfectly laced up there. No, Al wasn't probably. He might have been doing that. But anyway, so Kansas City plays Tennessee. Malik starts. And from the beginning, it's a disaster. Malik attempts 16 passes in the game. He completes five. One of them was a 48-yarder to the tight end on the screen on the first drive of the game. He came 80 yards in that game. Now, as bad as that was the great Mike Braybill, one of the great head coaches in our league got the Kansas city chiefs who

won the Superbowl that year to overtime. And remember it took two Patrick Mahomes runs scrambling out of the pocket to get the game to overtime. Like that's how, and so like, I don't know how this works for the green Bay deep, the green Bay defense and Matt, the four ain't make variable.

I could tell you that. Like, how do you do this? And so you sit there and say, here's what they all say. Whenever they get a quarterback, like Malik, well,

we'll run a lot of boots. We'll run on naked. We'll give him a lot of easy throws. The problem is he can't make an easy throw. Yeah. I remember that game as the Mike Vrabel is one of the five or six best coaches in the league audition tape. And of course

he's unemployed right now. Of course he is. I think that game belongs in Canton. I mean, that's one of the finest coaching to take as good a coach as Andy Reid is with his Patrick Mahomes and Kelsey was a better player and they had guys and to get that game to overtime when basically they were playing 10 on 11. I mean do you realize this I've said this many times Malik Willis is the only quarterback

I've ever seen in the history of my career that got benched during a drive in a preseason game Rabel had had enough and basically sent another quarterback out there and said, get him out because he was screwing up everybody else. Well, how about they traded him for a seventh round pick? What? A month ago? I know the Packers probably saw him as a reclamation project, but if they go 0-5 to start the season or they go 1-4,

I think they kind of have to go 2-3 in the first five if Love's really going to be gone a month. Maybe they think they can push it back sooner. But we've seen seasons where if the team doesn't fix it in the first month, it becomes impossible to come back. What do you think? It's 9 or 10 wins for the seventh seed in the NFC? I think it'll be 9.

I think there's too much competition. I mean, I don't know. We'd get to the bears later, but I don't know where this all comes from, but look, I don't know how you win games. I mean, if Indianapolis doesn't go up there and if Malik Willis is the starter, now the floor is couching as if they're going to go eventually to that, that there's a chance that love could play. I don't see how that is, but maybe it wasn't as bad as we thought. You know, maybe there's not any swelling. But, I mean, if Indy doesn't go up there and win by 10 points, then something's really wrong with Indy,

which I think something is really wrong with Indy. But Green Bay, I don't know. Look, it's so interesting when you follow this whole quarterback carousel. So Malik Willis and Bo Nix were both at Auburn. Bo Nix won the starting job. Malik transfers to Liberty, right? Sean Clifford, the third-string quarterback at Green Bay, was at Penn State along with the great Will Levis.

Levis couldn't beat him out. He's third-string in Green Bay. Meanwhile, Levis is talking about being the starting quarterback and turning the Titans franchise around. Like, somebody make sense of all this for me. Bill Walsh would have said, wait a minute, he didn't beat out Sean Clifford and we don't like Sean

Clifford? Why do we think we're going to make him into a good player? He started three games. They scored 48 points in the three games. He had 11 first downs in the three games. Passing first downs. Got sacked 10 times.

I think those numbers are painful to listen to, but watching them is more painful. Yeah, I don't get it. You know, you mentioned the Indianapolis defense because that's another piece of this game. Because I'm going to do

million-dollar picks later with House. And just spoiler alert, I just feel like this is a once-in-a once in a lifetime chance to bet against Malik Willis. It seems like we're heading that way and Indy's minus three. And the reason they're minus three is because their defense, Houston ran all over it. But this is what I love about week one heading into week two, where you think certain things because of what happened in week one, but maybe some other things are true that you don't fully realize yet. And one of the things with Indy's D and you've been, you've been

super critical of them, Gus Bradley, vanilla scheme, all that stuff. And I totally get that. But what if Houston's offense is just awesome? And it's like, we either have to give up this. It's almost like San Francisco against the jets. We either have to give up this or this. So we're going to give up this and hopefully you don't kill us with this. And San Francisco is like, cool, we're going to run all over you. And Houston, it almost felt like they were more comfortable. You want to just run Joe Mixon? Cool. We don't want to give away big plays. We're afraid of Stroud. And if you want to gash us that way, I mean, they stayed in the game. They only lost by two. So I guess my question is, is Indy's defense that bad or is Houston's offense that good? Okay. So Indy's defense is bad when they go against the coach who's very good at understanding

what they're doing in the scheme. Indy's defense can look better at times when they go against not a good offensive coordinator, but Slalwick understood what they were doing. And your analogy there, they didn't take away Nico Collins. Like, if Gus Bradley would have worked for Al Davis from the time the season ended until that first game, he would, every day, Al Davis would have called him on the phone

and said, what are we planning on doing for Nico Collins? Like, we can't let Nico Collins beat us. And of course, Nico Collins beat us. I get the theory, let Joe Mixon run on it. But one of those Nico Collins plays, he caught a pass with two guys draped all over him for like 50 yards. I don't know what else you can do in that situation.

It's the Belichick in and out coverage. Belichick hates that. You got him, I got him, nobody got him. And so he just ran, he split it. So I don't think Indy wants to win with their defensive line. And this whole theory of Bradley's defense is about if we have four great defense alignment, we'll win the game. That that's that's not working anymore. You don't have four great defense alignment. I mean, you're going to draft. You need a draft from Canton, not from the draft.

So, look, I think Houston's's really good i think you're right that houston is good i think they're a little bit better based on indy because there's so much that they know about one another uh but i i mean look stroud made a couple throws that were big time throws that i didn't think he would make i mean the throw on third night at the end of the game was as good a throw as you're going to make. But to me, in these defense, anytime they play a good team who knows how to run the ball against them, who understands how to attack them, I don't think they're good enough. Okay, but what if they're playing Malik Willis? Well, that's where, okay, so here's what worries me.

Here's what worries me. If I'm in that building,'m saying to gus gus we can't let them run bootlegs we can't run on my naked and if you have to get into a short yardage defense on first and ten no matter what they put on the field right in the box baby let's go let's go nine in the box can we put 11 in the box there was a game there was a game when I was a kid. I was 11 years old, and the Packers were playing my favorite team, the Washington Redskins, and George Allen was the coach. And the Green Bay Packers had Lynn Dickey, a quarterback, and their best player was John Brockington. He was the running back. And I'll never forget this game. It was a playoff game. It was an RFK stadium and George Allen put five defensive linemen on the field. It was the first time anybody ever done it. He put five down and he said to John Brockington, you run the ball. He had 13 carries for nine yards in the game. And so, but that's what great coaches do. They say, okay, I know this is what you're going to, this is the only way you can win the game. I'm going to take that

away from you. That's what I would do. If I was at Indy, I would say, okay, only way you can win the game. I'm going to take that away from you. That's what I would do if I was at Indy. I would say, okay, I dare you to run the ball. But these guys are scheme-related. When you watch the Jets play 49ers, Kyle got in a formation where it's unbelievable. The Jets had a guy lined up in the A-gap of the guard. And the next player was out at the outside shoulder of the tackle there's a bubble that's as big as anybody to run through like but of course the 34 winning

percentage coach of the jets robert sala he made no adjustments to it he was watching the game like i was so i think to me we give so much credit for these guys making adjustments when these coaches are getting younger and younger and less and less about in-game adjustments and more about more scheme. What can we do? Like, they're not watching the game. Well, I mean, Salah does have eight kids. So it's not like he's not prolific.

I mean, he's got that going for him. Yeah, I heard he's got a great golf game too. The Green Bay-Philly game, because love gets hurt at the end, it throws the Green Bay situation in flux, and that's all anyone talked about after. But it was also a really interesting game. It was on a ship field that's in Brazil.

Both teams alternately look good for stretches. What did you see from Green Bay in that game before Love got hurt to make you think either they're a contender or they aren't? Because I was going into the season thinking they were either the second or the third best team in the NFC. And I left the game

even before Love got hurt going, I don't know, maybe they're below San Francisco and Philly and Detroit. Maybe they're in the four to six range. I left that game thinking that maybe I've over-evaluated their talent on defense because I've always felt like they were better on defense than they really were.

And they didn't look good on defense to me. They look slow. They didn't look explosive. I mean, they've got some good edge rushers, but I thought Philly, who I don't think Philly's offensive line is the same as they were in the past, but I thought, you know, torching your best corner for an 80-yard touchdown or 60-yard touchdown i mean you can't allow that to happen i think green bay i think green bay was overvalued i i initially thought the way you did but as the summer went on and i went back and watched the tape you know this is a team that lost to tommy devito right this is a team that came home against tampa and lost to baker mayfield the next week so i I think they've got, and Love is inconsistent at times. He will miss the strike zone.

So I kind of felt like they would be a wild card. I never thought they could challenge Detroit for the North. I really didn't. At the end of the day, I thought they weren't good enough. And they're young. I mean, this is the other problem. They're so young that it's hard to, you know, they go, I mean, they probably spent the least amount of cap money of any team in the league because they did this, spent a lot this year because

they signed love, but they're so young now they've got great receivers. Don't get me wrong. The Eagles. I think the other issue is if it's a better field, you know, I don't know what happens. The Eagles can't don't, don't leave Brazil thinking the Eagles defense is better than it was last year. Like, I'm not sure that's right. Yeah. And the Packers receivers, I didn't think had a very good game compared to what their talent is. But I,

I look at these house that I talked about this last week. Sometimes I wonder what these overseas games, if you just throw them out, they're almost like the Thursday games where it's just like, it's too weird. It's, I mean, that game was 10 hours away.

The field was shit. It was a Friday night. Everything about it was weird and maybe you throw it away, but then love gets hurt anyway. I think the one thing that jumped out from the Eagles side is just, oh yeah, Saquon Barkley's really good. Like, why were we overthinking this? This guy's better than DeAndre Swift. Stop. Poor John Mara. I mean, don't you, now, how about poor John Mara's weekend, this weekend, the owner of the Giants? He's got to go take the train down to Washington and hope he can beat that shitty team in Washington.

I don't know what House thinks of them, but they're terrible. They have no secondary. But their defense is atrocious. It's atrocious, right? So now he's got to go down there and he's got to pray he wins. So then he's going to take the train back home

and then Monday night, he's going to sit in his nice, cozy, comfy chair in his living room and have to watch another Saquon Barkley parade. I mean, he saw it coming. He saw this coming. At least he has the clip, which we talked about

on Sunday night. It was like Vito Corleone in the conference room with all the people. I'm going to hold some people responsible in this room. If he gets hit by a lightning bolt, if he hangs himself in his jail cell, that's basically what he was saying. I'm going to blame some

of these people in here. I'm going to blame some people in this room. You're going to be fucking out. But he, you know, that was probably the best player in their team. So, yeah, I mean, look, he ran the ball effectively. You know, I didn't think Hertz. I mean, look, he ran the ball effectively. I didn't think

Hurts... I mean, Hurts throws two interceptions. I worry about the Eagles' defense because if Detroit... If you can block Philly, you're going to throw the ball on Philly. And you can't get away with Zach Braun and Nige Dean at linebacker. They're going to have to make some moves. To me, now, I agree. Don't

panic on it. Those games you got throughout, that field was so shitty. I don't understand why we went to Brazil and there was only like 48,000 people in the stands. I think if we're going to go somewhere like that, shouldn't there be 100,000 in the joint? Totally agree. They didn't even know. They're cheering like kickoffs. They didn't know what was going on.

If you were the Giants... Go to Germany. Go somewhere that's also not that far away. If you're the Giants, when do you start thinking about what can we get for Dexter Lawrence? Oh, boy. I think if you're the Giants, you paid him.

Do you want to give the Giants more draft picks after they picked Evan Neal? Well, I just assume everyone's gone now. I mean, that's like giving Sam Hankey draft picks.

It's like giving Sam draft picks. I mean, like, shit. You want to give him, but he had all these picks. He couldn't pick anybody. Yeah,

but I just assume everyone's gone. I mean, everyone, maybe not Dayball, but everybody else will be gone after this year,

right? Well, I think to me, you've got to entice whoever they hire if they hire a next coach. Look, they're a 36% win percentage team since Tom Coffin walked out the building. And John Mara is a really nice person, and I think they do a horrible job of evaluating themselves. I think one of the things I think we have to learn in sports, and I learned this when

I was in the league, I think you know it too. When you let hard knocks in your building, when you let them in your building, you better be really good at your job. Because if you're not, and the fans see that you're not, and you start losing, you're going to lose your job. I'm trying to think of a

single scenario where it would make sense to do that. The only time, like, Belichick did those do your job, those documentaries where they followed the team for a year. But at that point he'd won Superbowls. He really cares about the history of the NFL. And I think he wanted people to document, like he also let people write books about them and things like that.

If you're, if you're at six and 10 team, six and 11 team, or you're the giants or you're like the bears who you haven't done anything yet, and you've got a rookie QB, why the fuck do I want cameras around? Why do I want people to videotape stuff? Why do I want sound bites, especially in social media era? Because you think you're good. The answer to the question is you think you're good.

You think what you're doing is good. I think it exposed the Giants for incompetence. They had no plan. They had no model. That's not how you run a team. I'm insulted as a personnel guy who spent my life in the NFL thinking that Joe Shane did what most people do. That's not how you run an NFL team. That's if a guy was in a bar at Biggie's in North Jersey. That's how he would run the team, not how a professional would run the team. So when you let them in, right? Do you remember the one where, I love this scene, when Herm Edwards was sitting there,

they had the camera on him, Dick Curl, his confidant, who was his game manager who could screw up everything for him, you know, Dick Curl was like, you know, throw it here. And when he shouldn't throw it, it was like, and so he's sitting there in his office and he's pondering whether he should shot Damon Hurd or Brady Coyle. And like, You know that neither one's any good, so it doesn't matter who

you should start. But to me, once the Kansas City fans saw that there, they lost all confidence in their team. And that's what happens to the Giants. You think those fans in the Meadowlands believe what they saw from Shane and they saw from their front office that they had any confidence? Then their

best player comes, Lawrence, the best player in the history of the franchise comes out and says, I can get 22 guys and beat this team. I think Card Knocks, the risk reward, the seesaw is like 95% risk, 5% reward. I still remember the first one ever. It was the Ravens one. It was after they'd won and Brian Billick was the coach. And I remember I wrote about it for ESPN way back when. And they took out like 10 of my best jokes. But it was Brian Billick just blowharding it out of his mind. And at one point, he was on a hammock. And he's reading some success book and just blowharding. And you're watching going, does this guy realize they're filming

this? Does this guy realize this is going to be on television? This conversation. I would never do it. I don't understand the upside, especially if you're a team that hasn't really proven anything. But when you're the Giants, it's not like you're getting the fans more fired up. It's not like

you're selling more tickets. You're not selling more merchandise. There's no upside. Right. And this week, week two of the season, I mean, if Dave Ball goes down there and loses this game, they already have no fan base. I mean, Daniel Jones looks like David Carr now. He's just afraid to get hit. He's just gotten hit so much

he can't do it. I feel like that was almost insulting to David Carr, though. It probably is. I mean, look, I think they should win. I mean, if I had any guts and if I had to pick five games, I would probably take the Giants plus the points because, you know, you got to take five. But I can understand why you can't.

I mean, like, but I think to me they should beat them. Now, Malik Nabors, before we came on, it's rumored he might have hurt himself in practice today. I don't know how bad that is so uh but look i i think when you let them in your building you better be damn sure you control i said you know i'm up at nfl films every tuesday with belichick doing his pod and i asked ken rogers the guy who does the hard knock stuff i said ken if that's what they showed us what do you have on the floor? What did you cut out? And he just laughed. I mean, I guess they didn't cut anything out, Bill. They must not cut anything out. If that's what they're showing us, how bad could the other stuff be? If I was the GM,

I would have definitely cut out the Saquon Barkley conversation with my owner, basically. You're fucking fucked if this doesn't work out. Let's take a break. I want to talk about the two New York football coaches. Football's back and you know, there's no better place to get in on the NFL action than FanDuel, America's number one sports book. Right now, all customers can bet $5 to get a three week free trial of NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. And then you'll be able to watch every regular season, Sunday afternoon, out of market game. Plus with FanDuel, you don't even have to leave the app to access real-time stats and data to help you make even more winning bets. All you have to do is visit FanDuel.com slash BS, and you can download America's number one

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YouTube TV-based plan required to watch YouTube TV. Redemption requires a Google account in current form of payment. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day, all the gang's here. You're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the

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who have coached over 50 games. So you have him on the jet side going into Tennessee in the all-time trap game. It's even got the three and a half point trap line. There's just caution flags and the lanes are moving to one lane. There's construction workers on the road. Like nobody wants you to keep going down this road with the Jets.

They had all kinds of buzz before the year. I fell for it. I picked them against San Francisco. I bet on them. I bet I'm going to win the division. And they just got outcoached and run over. And now they're playing Tennessee. So you have that.

And then you have Dayball and the Giants where it's scapegoat time, which we've seen this over and over. We see it. The Lakers do it every year or two years. Palenka's out. I don't know what Darvin Ham's doing. It's like you picked the fucking players. So it's Darvin Ham's fault. It's Frank Vogel's fault two years ago. It was Luke Walton's fault six years ago, but somehow you're still here. So it's always the coach what's going on. So the Giants, so day ball will be the scapegoat. I know you're friends with them. But how early can you fire a coach during an NFL season? Like what is, what's crazy?

Is it crazy to do it in the first five games? Like you've just gone through preseason, training camp, everything? Well, we mentioned George Allen earlier. He got fired in preseason. You know, Don, Carl Rosenblum fired him in preseason one year. Look, I think you have to give it some time, right? I mean, because 0-2 can turn around. You know, I think to me, it's when the coach loses the locker room.

And I think to me that hard knocks has made it very challenging. Now, you know, just if the Giants win this week, does it make them a good team? Let's be clear. They're not getting, I don't think they get to their five win total. Because when Sam Darnold goes 99 yards on you and you've got $8 billion in your defensive line

and you can't get close to him, you've got deeper problems than just Brian Dayball, right? You know, look, Tom Coughlin left. Do you remember the scene when Coughlin left? I mean, he walked right by John Mauer after the press conference. He was shaking his hand. He was pissed. Do you remember the scene when Coughlin left? I mean, he walked right by John Maurer after the press conference. He was shaking his hand. He was pissed. Do you remember that?

And so they fire Coughlin for Ben McAdoo. McAdoo for Pat Shermer, right? Pat Shermer for Joe Judge. Joe Judge for Dayball. That's four in a row. You know, what happens to me when they're- By the way, three doozies before Dayball. I mean, that was really the trifecta.

Three guys that had no business being a head coach. I mean, no business being a head coach. And never got a head coach job again after that, and never will. I mean, Pat Shermer's calling plays at Colorado. He's the offense coordinator. Joe Judge is at Ole Miss. But, I mean, like, I have no idea. But somebody, what happens in teams when desperation comes in is when exactly the scenario that you said with Polinka, when there's no more buffer between somebody, there's no more, I can't blame this guy, or we need this coach to come in.

Dave all got hired to save Daniel Jones, right? Well, that's not working. As I've said on my pod, I mean, i love brian he's a great guy but brian was in miami they were terrible quarterback when they were terrible at quarterback at the jets brian was there when they were terrible at quarterback in cleveland brian i mean you can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit like you got to have a good player and when he went to buffalo he kind of got his career back and that's how he became a head coach so i think the giants i mean this is to me this is where you have to have an honest conversation with yourself are we really

good are we set up to win i don't think i've been saying this now bill for five years the giants have been set up to win it since kaufman left they have no identity they just they just they look like the giants when i was growing up in the 70ies where no, where I was at Hofstra and the only game you could watch for the giants and the jets talk about a troubled childhood, you know? So I think it's hard on them. And then my man, Bobby Sala, I mean, look, I think they still have, by the way, you can take big shot, Bob, if you want to take that one, take it, take big shot, Bob, if you want to take that one. Big shot, Bob. Take big shot, Bob. You can have it. I mean, my Lord. I don't understand how you can be part of a Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical world and think that this guy is going to lead your team in the promised land.

Meanwhile, you know, I mean, we could say this about everybody, but he can't make it. He just stands on the sideline now. He doesn't even make adjustments. But he came out this week and told everybody that being 0-1 with Aaron is a lot better than being 1-0 without him. Okay, great. And he's going to fix the defense.

But here's what I think happens. Here's what happens with people. They don't pay attention. Take a guess how many games Big Shot Bob's defense gave up over 130 yards rushing last year. Five? Try eight. Eight. defense gave up over 130 yards rushing last year uh five try eight eight oh now if you're the if you're the greatest defense since the history of the 2000 ravens you may give up 200 yard games right you're not giving up any yeah but of course naturally they gave up eight people have run the ball on new england the second third game of the year ran the ball up and down the field and they when they beat them like i don't want to hear that

this is they've got some talented players but this isn't a defense that just doesn't stone everybody like they're going to have a hard time and they're and you know what's gotten lost in all this is nobody talks about how bad the jets offense is in terms of how basic it is it's day one west Coast install. I mean, it's not complicated at all. I mean, the first third down was why stick? Like they run that over here at Ocean City High School. I thought one of the reasons I thought that might be better

is because Rodgers can do so much on the offensive side. Well, Sal, the one thing we know he can do is coach a defense and then their defense looks like complete crap. He's like Gus Bradley though. They don't have anything on their call sheet. In that game, the way that Kyle attacked him, the way Kyle attacked him, if you listen to what Belichick was

saying on the Manning podcast, it was interesting. There were two things going on there. The Manning podcast was talking about, Bill was talking about the C-gap runs. But then when you went to Troy Aikman, Troy was saying, well, they're running inside and they had these stats well that's because the guy collecting the data doesn't understand that just because the ball gets run inside it's a it's a b-gap play like these all these runs were attacking the edges of the jet's defense their c-gap runs and if you don't if you're not sturdy on the c-gap but what kyle did

such a good job was he got angles on everybody. So instead of having to power somebody off the line, he just had to turn somebody. And it's brilliant. Walsh used to say this all the time. You know, all these coaches want to draw pass plays, but the great coaches know how to run the ball. Kyle knows how to run the ball.

And when you know how to run the ball against Big Shot Bob, you can do some things. That's why eight teams were able to go over 130, big shot Bob, you can do some things. That's why eight teams were able to go over 130, not over a hundred, over 130. So there is a scenario if they lost to Will Levis and God help them if they lose to Will Levis on Sunday, they play Thursday night against the Patriots in New Jersey and the Patriots who I, and I want to talk about them in a second. I have no idea if they're good or not, but on paper, the type of team that they can try to run the ball down the Jets throat four days rest from the last game, um, maybe try to just out hustle them out,

coach them. And somehow the Jets are down 10, nothing, The crowd's booing. 0-3 is looming. And there's a 10 days before the next game stretch coming up. And I don't know. If I'm a Jets fan, I'm like, man, if we lose to Tennessee, this could go sideways fast. You got Rodgers, who's not shy about, you know, throwing a little gasoline on the fire sometimes. I don't know.

It's must win in New York. I couldn't agree with you more about, look, on paper, turning the Jets card in and laying three and a half to Will Levis, who his head coach admitted last week if they would have punted the ball on first down,

they would have won the game. Right? I mean, that's a very toxic statement. I have no confidence in Will. I never did. Like, I do Russo every Friday afternoon and we make three ticks. And I, and I was talking about how Chicago was way overvalued at four and a half and three. And, and he, and he, and then I didn't take it in one

of my three and he, and he took it. And I said, he said, I can't believe you didn't take it. You were talking to someone. I said, cause I don't trust Will Levis. I knew Chicago wasn't worth that number, but you got to play the Will Levis factor in there. Let's go through it. How does Tennessee get open against the Jets? I mean, the receivers in Tennessee aren't going to get...

Hopkins isn't getting open. They don't even have to put Sauce Garner on them. They'll put Garner on Ridley. How do they move the ball on the Jets? How do they make plays? It's a game the Jets should win, and yet I'm never taking them ever. They should win by 14.

They should win by three and a half. They should win by 14. One of my favorite Lombardi things, and this is the difference between somebody like you and somebody like me because you work for a bunch of teams and you really understand this. You always had that thing about, if I don't do this now,

I lose the locker room and the season's over. Once you lose the locker room, that's it. There's no going back. It feels like we're there with Cleveland, with Deshaun. Yeah. He was,

he was, he's been so bad. He was so bad against Dallas. I don't know what he's good at anymore when I watch. Like he used to be, you know, he'd scramble around. He used to be dangerous. He used to be explosive. He got perfect blocking and he just decided to veer out to the right, Zach Wilson style. And you could just see three Browns linemen just kind of watching him going, we just fucking block for you. Where the fuck are you going?

And he just to run away. It just seems like he's a lost cause. Is Stefanski at the point where if he does, like let's say they're awful this week and I think they're going to be like, how do you just keep starting this accelerator, you can't cut him. Like, this is worse. This is going to make George Payton feel happy about having the worst contests ever given

to Russell Wilson. This is going to give, this is going to make George happy. But why can't you just bench him? Why can't he just be the backup? Well, I, because I think the owner

who gave him the deal, now you got to go walk up to the, because the owner's blamed everybody else. You fired Alex Van Telt. I mean, think about this.

Joe Flacco throws for 1,616 yards in five games. Watson throws for 1,106 games. It wasn't the offense that was broken. It wasn't, you know, our job is to figure out players, coaches, or scheme. In any

sport, that's, to me, that's how you do an autopsy on a team. Is it the players? Is it the coaches? Is it the scheme? Okay, it's easier in the NBA because it's usually relative to the players, but sometimes the schemes don't work. But to me, that's where they made the biggest mistake. They're saying the scheme was wrong for Deshaun. So we have to run a different scheme. Well, look now what you get. I mean, Dallas didn't even play for the other day. What's he good at? What scheme is right for him? I don't know what his skills are anymore. I will fully confess.

I was a Deshaun Watson fan coming out of college. He was good in Houston. When he had Will Fuller, he threw the deep ball as well as anybody in the league. But I think, which we don't ever talk about, but I think money can spoil your appetite. He's a very wealthy man. I don't care how many more lawsuits he gets against him. He's made so much money. I don't know if he has the same hunger and the same desire to prove that he can come back from it. You listen to his press conference, but there's no energy in the guy. There's nothing.

And now he's got this other suit, he's got a video attached to it. And if he has another one after he's been suspended, how do they not suspend him for another year? Well, I see. So there's a few things going on, but you made the key point. But just going backwards, his arm doesn't seem as explosive. He doesn't seem as fearless anymore.

I don't think he seems as fast as he was four years ago. So those are three things. But then the other piece that you just mentioned, the quarterback's the leader of the team. They have to be the coolest guy in the huddle. They have to be the guy that galvanizes everybody up, that lifts you up, that, you know, they're the pilot with the plane going like this. And they're the guys making you feel safe. And I'm only watching on my TV, but when I watch him, he just doesn't seem like he gives a shit. And I can only judge what I see from the replays and how he's interacting with people.

But to me, he just doesn't seem like he really cares. And when your quarterback's bad and also doesn't seem like he really cares, I don't know how that's sustainable. Well, I thought the same thing with Zach Wilson. I didn't think he cared last year. I think he thought it was, you know, it never felt important to me with Zach Wilson. Like it was just too hard. It was too hard to do the homework. It was too hard. Look, I think the first quarter down in Jacksonville might be the biggest quarter for the Cleveland Browns football ever, because I agree with you. I mean, Kevin Stefanski will not be able to have any authority within that team if he lets this guy continue to play shitty. and those guys on defense are playing really good. Now we know this about Cleveland's defense.

The numbers are staggering. The difference between what they did at home and what they did on the road. I mean, they gave up 3000 yards on the road. They gave up like 1100 at home. I mean, it's just like ridiculous, but you know,

and of course they've got Doug on the other sideline, which can help them as he was in Miami the other day. Fourth down, Doug, let's go for it. What the hell? For what reason? I've got Doug on the other sideline, which can help them, as he was helping Miami the other day. Fourth down, Doug. Let's go for it. What the hell? For what reason? For what reason could you possibly explain that?

But not to lose track here, but I think that first quarter is so damn important because if he doesn't come out and play good, and he comes out and throws like he's been nosedive balls into the dirt, they have no run game. I mean, their offensive line's a mess because of the injuries, but they have no run game. And you think Amari Cooper's going to be happy? You think, you know, Jerry Judy's going to be happy?

When their offensive line's banged up? I mean, it's still not 100%. Look, the owner runs the team, right? I've worked there. He made the trade. He took responsibility for it. Can't fire himself, but this is a hole

that's hard to dig out of. It's really a hole that's hard to dig out of. And Stefanski, I don't think he's one of the four best coaches in the league, but I think he's in the top 10. I think he's done

the stuff he's done. Yeah, the stuff he's done compared to the talent he's had and the situation he's been in. I think him and Kevin O'Connell, the two Kevins have been good. Right. And look, I mean, he didn't want to fire Alex Van Pelt. He didn't want to make

all these changes on his offensive staff. I don't know if it was Jimmy or Dee Haslam or if it was Paul DePodesto, but somebody else is running it. Look, they've got a lot of people trying to run the team that may not really understand football because they're so based on analytics.

And this is where you get caught is what your question was. If you don't understand football and you don't understand the locker room and you don't understand the impact of a guy who can't lead, then you don't understand how you're going to win. That's really the issue. You can't figure out how to win. And somehow we talked about Deshaun and all the football stuff, didn't even talk about all the lawsuits and the off the field stuff, which is yet another reason this is such a disaster. You mentioned the Jaguars. So I had six week one

teams. I mentioned earlier about week one, it could go either way in week two, but then after week two, you look back and you go, oh, now that makes sense from week one. I had the Jaguars. I bet on the Jaguars. They actually covered the three and a half. I thought they played really well for three quarters. And I actually think they might be good. And I think the result of that game was stupid. Now, we're taping this for Miami Buffalo tonight.

But if ETN just runs in the end zone, they're up 24-7, the game's over. I thought their defense was good. I think they have a lot of talent. And I'm not willing to basically admit I was wrong on the Jaguars because I thought they'd be a 10-win team.

This line has been basically two and a half and now it's at three. It was at three and a half for a second, now it's Jaguars three. Are the Jaguars good? I think they are. I mean, you know, I think they really are. No, Lawrence was really good in the first half.

They threw it down the field better than he ever had. You know, they turned it over. Doug makes some wonderful, questionable decisions. But I think Ryan Nielsen, the new defensive coordinator, was good in Atlanta. Think about Atlanta, right? Last year, Atlanta had no pass rush whatsoever. Couldn't create turnovers.

But he was third in the league in third down defense. That's really good with no pass rush. He was fourth in the league in red zone defense. So he kept you out of the end zone, and he got off the field on third down. I think he did a really good job. I know he gave up a lot of yards to him, and he gave up the big play to Tyreek Hill,

but I thought they played him really well. Who else scores on that Tyreek touchdown? I mean, that was a fucking miracle. He does a 90-degree angle down the sideline. It's impossible. He's unbelievable. He's the best receiver in football and he's the scariest

one. So I think to me, there's something fish. This line at three and that Jet Tennessee line are the two ones that look too easy. They just look too easy. I think a lot of people still like Cleveland. I don't think they see the Deshaun Watson thing. I think there's people out there that are just going to assume that, oh, he had a bad game. He'll play better this week. And I think his career's over. I really do. I like Dallas last week. I like Dallas last week for this reason. Everybody was talking about all the problems in Dallas, but they were all contract issues, right? That's, that's, that doesn't really

affect the problems were in the Cleveland, you know, they got new offensive coordinator. They got a defense that doesn't play well on the road, right? They got a quarterback who can't make a throw. I mean, there were more issues with them and it proved to be the road, right? They got a quarterback who can't make a throw. I mean, there were more issues with them and it proved to be the truth, right? It's the same thing. Cleveland's defense, this is the anomaly you'll never really understand. Cleveland's defense was the number one defense

in the National Football League on third down. They were 32nd in the red zone. So if you got the ball in the red zone on them, you scored. And so how does those two things come together? I think to me, i thought i was never buying in on cleveland i think to me there was going to be a regression to the mean especially defensively the way they played on the road and i thought dallas was you're getting the line moved

all dallas is the favorite end up being the dog in the game i think i think jacksonville should be you know i think it should be a three and a half game. That's what I think it should be. But if you get it at three, I think if you get it at three, you got to take Jacksonville. I had more to do on these week one, week two teams, but I forgot

to ask you, why don't the Jets just sign Hassan Redick? What's the point of this? I was told last week he was going to go in by a lot of people that know him. And he's due to make 14 million. It's the dumbest holdout since Le'Veon Bell. And then he didn't show up. I think this is one of those where his agency, whoever they are, and they're not getting along. They can't talk sense into the kid. Because anybody, if you represented them, you would be able to say, look, you're giving away money.

You have one year left on a contract. Go in, get 12 sacks and we'll get to the market next year and you'll make 70 million dollars. Like, why are we giving money back to them? And now, you know, he's not coming in unless he gets money. Now it's a principal thing for him. It's the dumbest holdout since Le'Veon Bell. So it wasn't actually business. It's the dumbest holdout since Le'Veon Bell. So it wasn't actually business, it became personal. He forgot one of the biggest rules of the Godfather. What's he doing?

That's right. I mean, Joe Douglas trades for this guy and doesn't have the contract worked out. One thing, give Riddick credit. I think it's the dumbest holdout of all time. But one thing, give Riddick credit, is he was very clear with what he wanted. You know? Now, nothing says I'm sorry better than money.

We know this. But the Jets don't want to say they're sorry. They're not giving him money. See, I think Le'Veon Bell's contract was dumber

because the running back shelf life we already knew at that point was pretty short to begin with. And it's like, you have this many years

to make money. We're going to take one more break and then I want to talk about some of the week one, week two Zags. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Superbowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health,

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Discover a world of possibilities with or without milk. Visit Nespresso.ca to learn more or an espresso boutique near you. Okay, so I talked about that week one, week two conundrum. The number one game for this is New England Cincinnati week one. Because there's a version of that game that Cincinnati just sucked. Right? They didn't play well.

If they score and make it 7-7 in the second quarter, they probably end up winning. New England was able to run the ball really well. They blocked for some reason, which nobody expected, most of all me. They England was able to run the ball really well. They blocked for some reason, which nobody expected. Most of all, me, you know, they replaced their left tackle in the first quarter. And all of a sudden the right side of the line looked like the early nineties Cowboys. And they only scored 16 points and they won anyway, but it felt convincing. And it's like,

you know what? We'll look back at that and be like, man, that was a dumb game. There's another scenario where the, where the, where the Pats might actually be pretty frisky and a little discount 2001 Patriots ish, where just a defense where now that they actually do have a pass rush, which I don't think either of us thought they were going to have without Barmore and Judon, but it seemed like they had one, um, combined with the back seven, which is really good in the strength of the team. Combined with the back seven, which is really good in the strength of the team and an ability to run the ball, which nobody was expecting. And everybody seems to be playing hard for Mayo, which you can feel it from the quotes and you

could feel it from the postgame stuff. And maybe they're decent, which makes me think maybe the Bengals are okay. But there's another scenario where Seattle waxes the Pats this week, and then we're like, oh, the Bengals aren't okay because Seattle just killed the Patriots. So where do you stand? How's it going to play out? I think the Patriots have one way to play. And the way they played on Sunday was exactly the

only way they can play. They've got to play from the front, they've got to run the ball, and they've got to hope their defense can hold up. Now they've got a big break. Cincinnati's offensive line, our Trent Brown guy at right tackle was a disaster. He did not play well. Joe, look, Zach Taylor, I don't understand it, but the guy's now he's 0-5 in the first two weeks of the season, the last two years. I mean, he never gets his team ready to play. I mean, and I thought he was better this summer in terms of playing people, but they're never ready. Like that game was all about the first quarter. If you don't play for, if you're Cincinnati and you don't score on the first drive and make the, make the, make the Patriots have to go put the ball in for sets hands for 40 times, you get, they're going to keep them in the game and then they're going to build some confidence and momentum and then you're going to be in trouble. They didn't get a first down in the first quarter. They didn't get a first down in the first quarter. Forget

about scoring. So I agree. If they would have scored on that play, it probably would have given them some life. But look, I think every game will be a struggle for the Patriots. I think Seattle, their offensive line is not very good. They lost their tackle. The one thing there is good is New England's got a powerful defensive front. They can push people back. They'll create a problem for Seattle. If Kenneth Walker's not healthy, which it sounds like he's not, that's an issue too. So I think they're going to be frisky in games.

I don't think they're going to be 10-point dogs at the time. Now they're three-and-a-half-point dogs. They're three-point dogs here. I think they're frisky enough to where they'll play because they're good enough to play on defense. And if you don't understand how you have to play them, like if I'm Seattle, I'm saying everything, we got to score. We got to score early. We got to get in front of these guys.

Make Brissette beat us. But if you don't do that, like Zach Taylor obviously didn't do it. Then they ran the ball. See, to me, Cincinnati, they couldn't stop the run. They missed DJ Reader badly. I agree with that. And I also, the Chase thing, the holdout and Burrow with his hand.

All the vibes are off on that team. They offer Chase, according to the reports today, which I think is true. And I've heard this to be true. They offered him 35 a year with like 90 guaranteed. And he turned it down

because he said he wants way more than Jefferson. Well, now you're being unreasonable. Like the market is the market. And if the Brown family is willing to pay you the market, that's why the Brown family said enough of this shit.

You're out. We're done. We're not doing anymore. We've offered you the best deal we can. You turn that down, you go on your own. We still own you. We have your rights for four more years.

We have this year, we have the 50 year option, and we have two franchise years. So the Pats and the Chargers look very similar to me in week one. And the Chargers have a more proven coach, but same kind of recipe, right? Let's try to get the lead. Let's try to establish the run and keep running and keep running. And then we can throw out a position of strength. Let's fly around on defense. I thought that Chargers defense, especially in the second half of that game, was pretty

good. We also have no idea how bad the Raiders are. I guess we're going to find that out. Minshew did have his complete. He completed like 80% of his passes, so it's not like they weren't moving the ball. They're in the game. I mean, Antonio Pierce goes for it. If he goes for it on fourth down, maybe they,

and doesn't call like an inside zone play and get stuffed. Maybe he would have been in it. I don't think the Chargers look very good. I thought Herbert was probably the most disappointing player of week one that I've seen. Yeah.

Well, they only scored 22 points. It was a little similar to the Pats. Like they did just enough to win. But that was another game where I'm like, I think the Raiders are bad, but maybe the Chargers are also better than people think. But yeah. I mean, who's he

throwing to? Palmer is questionable for this week. Scott McConkie, the rookie, but the last year's rookie seems like he was a bust. Yeah. They have no skill. They don't have a tight end that can make a play. I think, look, if you had any guts, you'd take Carolina and the six at home. I don't have enough guts to do that.

I mean, that's what separates me from the betting world because I look at that strictly as like there's, you know, but the number is the number. Like, I think Carolina is so shitty. And Bryce Young, he's played 18 18 games now and he hasn't shown that he's got any ability to come out of it. And Mack and Rush and they've got the defensive front.

You know, so I don't trust the Chargers because they didn't have any stake. Wow, Harbaugh's your guy. I'm surprised you don't trust them. I love Harbaugh. I think to me he's got to play a certain way. You nailed it. He's got to play like the Patriots.

But their skill is terrible. I was disappointed with Herbert. He didn't make any throws. Every score they had was off a big run. I wonder how many teams this year are the, if we can just take a lead heading into halftime, we can probably win. But if we fall behind by 10, we're dead.

Yeah. It seems like we have more teams than usual this year. That's the league though. Why was Dallas so good last year? They had a plus 124 point differential. They went into halftime with 124 point lead. Any team, look, when we do this podcast in January, the teams that are first half point differential and the advantage, who are the top four teams in that category are going to be the winners. It's style of play, right? Most of the teams are somewhat even. There's obviously better teams, but if you can play a certain style, this is why basketball, you learn so much watching basketball for NFL because if you listen to the college basketball coaches, they'll say, if we play this game in the 60s, we have a chance. If we play it in the 80s, we can't win. College coaches understand style of play.

Some of the NFL coaches, Zach Taylor, you know, some of these guys, they just run their stuff. They just run their stuff. They don't understand that it's a three-dimensional game and you've got to play a certain style. If New England doesn't play a style, say Seattle gets the opening kick, scores a touchdown. Say New England fumbles.

They pick it up. They scoop and score. Now they're down 14-0. Now it's a different game. You can't be as patient. Did the Bears defense change your mind at all about the ceiling of that team? Because you and I are both laughing during the summer about that over

under was 8.5. Heavy, heavy action on the 8.5. People go nuts about Caleb, them putting together this pass-first three-receiver offense that as soon as he gets cold is going to make no sense at all. And yet, their defense looked good.

Well, they played Will Levis. I mean, he missed two guys. They had a guy wide open in the end zone for a touchdown. I mean, the guy sitting there like he was going to fair catch the ball. It took forever for him to get it to him. That's a touchdown there. He had other guys wide open. They ran the ball on the Bears defense. I mean, look, the Bears are soft. You're not running that offense that the Bears are trying to run in Chicago when it gets cold. I mean, Tennessee kicked their ass up front. If you and I sat down and watched the all 22 of that game, Tennessee kicked

their ass up front. I have a problem. I think the Bears would be good on defense. I mean, they're play smart, all that. Alright, so you think that was Levis-related? I think everything. Look, Tennessee ran the ball. When he took Levis away from it, and he could hand the ball off, Tennessee's offense was

actually better. The guy couldn't even complete a screen half the time. My last one would, and we don't know the answer to the Buffalo side of this because we're taping before the Thursday night game, but I thought the Cards offense looked good and people were making a big deal after about how Kyler wasn't throwing it long. But I just thought he had control of the game. Harrison had a shit game and they barely went to him.

When they went to him, he dropped a pretty big pass, but they were moving the ball that whole game. And, uh, and if Buffalo is actually a playoff team and I'm still not sure, but I was impressed. I actually thought they were going to come down. I thought the guy got interfered with on the last play. Um, and I thought they had a chance to steal it. So they're playing this Rams team this weekend that, you know, has already had just a shitload of injuries. I'm afraid to go against McVay, but when your offensive line's decimated, you don't have Aaron Donald anymore. The puka's already gone.

And you're just like, what's the point of no return for injuries? They're kind of almost there. And I feel like the cards could steal it. But yet, everyone's like, well, McVay owns Arizona. Do you believe in the coach owns franchise blank theory? Yeah, and I think when you have all these injuries that he has, he can game plan around it. Now he's got four offensive linemen.

He had to bring guys in. I thought Stafford was really good last week. I think he took a beat and he made throws. I mean, look, if you're going to give me a point and to keep Sean McVay from going 0-2, I'll take the point. I believe in game plan. I think that Arizona defense is atrocious.

You know, I know, I think to me and Stafford will make enough plays. Cooper Cup could still make plays. So look, I don't know. To me, I think Buffalo is an average team with a great quarterback. And I don't think you should ever, ever deviate from that. I think they're a very average team with a great quarterback. And I don't think you should ever, ever deviate from that. I think they're a very average team with a great quarterback. I think Miami will do a lot of tonight. Here's where I think the advantage is for Miami tonight, Jordan Poyer.

So Miami has Jordan Poyer on their team. He knows everything about Buffalo's defense from chapter to verse. He's going to help them. I mean, they're going to run some stuff that Buffalo's not used to seeing that's going to attack Buffalo. If Miami doesn't win going to run some stuff that Buffalo is not used to seeing. That's going to attack Buffalo. If Miami doesn't win this game, they're never going to be the good team. And I'm not sure Buffalo is a good team.

Even if Miami wins, I'm like, I'm not going to acquiesce and say, Oh, finally they beat a good team. So do you believe in the coach owns franchise blank? Cause I never believed it until I felt like the Patriots were going to beat Buffalo,

no matter who was on Buffalo's team for the entire time we had Brady. It was just like, we're never losing to Buffalo ever. Yeah, they would have lost to Buffalo. I mean, look, they got Josh Allen, so that changes the dynamic. But I think for 20 years, I was just like, mark those two wins down. We own Buffalo. I think to me, Sean understands certain games. They're comfortable playing.

There is a comfort level of play playing there. I think Sean's really good coach. And you give him a week to game plan when he knows he doesn't have this player or that player. It's hard when you do it on the game. That left tackle that they put in against Detroit was so bad. That poor kid had no chance to play.

It's like a third stringer, right? Right. And still they got the game in overtime. Are you with me on the Steelers just in general? I think if you like ugly football and you like Mike Tomlin, like I do. Yeah. I mean, I regretted not, I didn't take them on the Russo contest, but to me, they did exactly what they had to do to win the game. They ran the football. I said this on my, I said this on Monday and Arthur Smith confirmed it today. But here's, here's when you know, you've got a good coach. Arthur Smith was not going to let Justin Fields throw the ball in the middle of the field. He was never going to let him throw it. He threw it all outside the numbers. And so,

because he didn't want Jesse Bates making a play. So they took away their plus best player. Meanwhile, for some reason, the Super Bowl winning champion Atlanta Falcons decided that T.J. Watt wasn't going to play in the game, so they didn't worry about him. And he just destroyed the game. I mean, look, I'm worried about Cousins. I don't know what you thought, but I was worried about Cousins.

What do you mean, what did I thought? I thought he was a statue. He could move. I mean, that offensive line's not any good in Atlanta. They're not. They can't pass protect. McCreary got his ass kicked. This week against Philly, they'll be challenged. I think all those people that bought tickets

for Atlanta to win the Super Bowl, you might want to think about selling them if you can. It would be hilarious if Penix turned out to be a great pick because Cousins wasn't healthy. The Cousins signing was bad, but Pennix, like, all right, we at least salvage it with the Pennix trade. If it's a hundred million in the hole, you're a hundred million in the hole.

Well, that was just like, what, 25% of the teams are just, they're playing with like 80% of a salary cap. All right. That's it for football. We have two other topics for you. One, have you talked yourself into the new big three of Joel Embiid, Paul George, and Tyrese Maxey yet? I'm not going down. I'm not getting talked into that. It'll be February before I'm ever going to be convinced of that. I'm just not going there. I'm not. What part scares you the most? Is it the injury factor? Is it the sacrificing?

They have no mental toughness as a team. You can't be a championship team without mental toughness. If your best player has zero mental toughness, how are you going to be a championship team? He's a gold medalist. Yeah, thanks to

the guy who put his team on his back and said, fellas, just get the fuck out of the way. Great players play great when greatness is needed. That's what he was. I'm not going, look, I know I've been down this road and they pulled me back in. I'm not going down the road. I can't. I'm not. I know the outcome of this. I've seen it. There's no toughness. I believe in toughness. I believe in championship character. I believe in hard work. All those things that Brady echoed in his Hall of Fame speech, I believe in. And that hasn't changed since time immemorial. So I don't understand how they're going to win. I don't care, you know, what pieces, you know, I mean, I appreciate them signing that French guy because he was tough, but the team's not tough. You know what's funny? You always complain about your friend Big Daddy, the Packers fan, who's just always glass half. To say he's glass half full would be an understatement. He's glass

5% full. You're kind of the Big Daddy of the Sixers. That's who you've turned into. Only because I don't like the star player. That's who you turned into. Only because I don't like the star player. I just don't buy into him. If he were gone and they had other people, I would be more enthusiastic.

It's why Belichick and I got along so good. I'm usually Mr. Positive and he was Mr. Negative. And so we kind of met in the middle a little bit. I'm typically really, I'm the happy scout. I'm not the miserable scout. You know, like some scouts, oh, this guy's no good. Well, he's going to the Hall of Fame.

Oh, he's no fucking good. But this guy has destroyed me forever because of the media perception about him. And nobody's willing to say he's not in shape. Nobody's willing to say he could be great if he would get in shape. Nobody's willing to criticize. They all buy his, you know, oh, yeah,. Win a championship. Show me that you really care. How about make round three? How about make round three? How about care?

I really like Embiid. I just want to say, I really like Embiid, the person, and I don't understand why he doesn't understand the get in shape piece of this, which makes me almost think his body is breaking down and he's holding on for dear life. All right, let me ask you this question. What are the chances that he's healthy April 1st of next year? I would honestly say 50-50. Yeah, I think that's right. I think there's a 50% chance. All right. And what's the chances that he's in shape in May 1st of next year? But you and I, we're both old like we know

what happens with centers as they get older and they put weight on them guess what happens they get hurt that's how it goes you hit your 30s put a little weight here a little weight there now all of a sudden my knee I got tendinitis and oh my back so this was the last 4 or 5

years of Shaq's career and people will be like oh no Shaq's career he just put out he by and people be like oh no Shaq made the all-star team in 08 like Shaq was a completely different guy the last five six seven years of his career than you know where he started so you asked me am I negative I just see the future I know where this train's coming there's another train you know what's funny though you didn't even mention the Paul George piece of a month in where the first the first story

like sources say Paul George is unhappy he's standing in the corner so much on offense for Philly wish he had the ball more because Maxie's great everyone loves Maxie

I love Maxie I'm all in on Maxie but here's where I think this to me if I were prosecuting the Embiid love affair in a court I would call the dream team as my witnesses because as great as that team was, he really couldn't even play with that team.

So all this conversation about, well, he just needs the right pieces around him is bullshit because he was playing on the greatest semblance of basketball players in the world, and he still couldn't play on that team. I guess I have two more things. You're doing a pod with Belichick, who is, I mean, he's on like seven shows. He went from one word answers in a press conference to, if you just put a mic in front of him, he's talking. But it just seems like he's getting a complete kick out of this whole thing. Like it's like he's had all this stuff bottled up forever. Yeah, I think what he really loves,

we're doing this thing called the Encyclopedia on YouTube too, where we're going to do a weekly pod. He and I are going to look back on this week. I think Matt, Patricia, and him are going to look ahead. But the one thing we're all doing is we're doing what we call the library, the Encyclopedia. So we're doing a bunch of different things on, you know, the Hall of Fame. We're doing things on evaluation, the process of building a team, all that stuff. And then we're going to put that in

the library on the YouTube. And that he really, I mean, that's where his, he loves that. I mean, that's where he kind of comes throughout and he enjoys it. And I think to me, the way he's approached it, he's, you know, he's working as hard as ever. He's in NFL films for three days. He's watching tape, you know, and I can't believe somebody wouldn't call him next offseason. But I think he's preparing as if because of his age and maybe nobody would call. I got to have a career after this. I think the complete opposite. I think this is a six month sprint until February and he's getting a job. I think so too. Nine jobs open as always and he'll be ready. And he stayed in the limelight and he's, this was all really smart. But Bill, when you finished third in the Atlanta Falcons selection, you weren't even in their top three in the selection committee. I mean, you know, it's hard. It's, you know, it's hard, but I do think that there's there's going to be some there is definitely a gap

between like i did today i wrote i'm writing a column for tomorrow i borrowed one of your great things was what like what team has no chance and there's like eight teams right now that have no chance like you could eliminate eight teams from ever thinking about their going to the playoffs. Eight right now. That's a lot of teams. In week one, I don't think I'm wrong on any of them. Do you think Arizona has a chance?

Do you think the Raiders have a chance? Do you think Washington has a chance? The Giants have a chance? Do you think Tennessee has a chance? Do you think Carolina? That's six. Denver's seven. You know, do you think Tennessee has a chance? You know, do you think Carolina? That's six. So you're talking about cross-off teams. Yeah, there's...

Sal and I always try to do one a week. And we, for after week one, we did two. We were like, Carolina and the Giants, cross-offs. Done. I'm going to give you eight. Now, I don't know if I put Denver in there because Denver has no chance to win the Super Bowl, but Denver's going to improve.

But I'm talking about teams that have no chance at all. Like, Tennessee has no chance to win the Super Bowl, but Denver's going to improve. But I'm talking about teams that have no chance at all. Like Tennessee has no chance. They're kidding themselves a little. Just like the Giants are kidding themselves. Washington's got a young quarterback, but their team sucks.

I mean, there's all different scenarios, but has there ever been a time where eight teams you could just eliminate and say they got no chance? Not after week one. And I honestly, I would throw in Cleveland. I think the Deshaun thing is a single-handled league

and it killed their season. I think Belichick's back in February. That's my prediction. What happens first? Belichick is coaching again or Bob Kraft is in the Hall of Fame? I know you read that piece. I read that word for word. I mean, I've seen that.

I mean, to try to deny that he had word for word. I mean, I've seen that. I mean, you know, to try to deny that he had nothing to do with that documentary. Come on now. That's not fair. Well, I was waiting. Yeah, I worked with Alex Gibney and he's a great guy. We did a... Isn't Alex doing the Sopranos thing? Oh, it's up.

That was my last thing I had for you. I saw one episode last night. That's the same guy who did the documentary on the Patriots he's one of the great documentarians of all time and I had heard that he was involved because it was in the press release they did a press release or it came out that he was and then all of a sudden by the time the doc came out

he wasn't involved and I was like oh I guarantee because that guy doesn't he did the Enron doc like he doesn't fuck around with this stuff so if it was like this has to be a puff piece with Kraft with final editorial control, that guy must've been like, I'm out. I don't know the story yet. You're going to find this hard to believe, but I truly believe because Kraft hired the

greatest coach of all time. He belongs in the whole thing. I believe that whole heart. If Jerry Jones is in, Kraft should be in. But I think he's pushing for it too hard. That's my problem. It's like, just why are you trying to take credit for shit you didn't do?

Like, why not? If he would have gotten in, if he would have given credit. What do you mean? If it wasn't for him, Belichick and Brady wouldn't have been able to coexist for that long because Kraft was just brokering the peace between them at all times. It was that acrimonious. Just take, Just enjoy the six Super Bowls. Like, why? Like, I think he deserves to get in.

I've said it before, but this egocentric drive to take credit for it. Like, you're the owner. Why do you need credit? You own the team. You own the Super Bowl trophies. You saved the team. They were going to move. You saved them.

You kept them in New England. I mean, Art Rooney, he went through all those years being banned at Pittsburgh. He didn't try to take credit for the Super Bowls. He was generous and giving, whereas this guy's trying

to take everything from him. To me, that's why he's not getting in. He's trying too hard. Well, we're going to wrap up, but I'm stunned you haven't watched both episodes of The Sopranos Doc yet. I know it's first week of football season, but it's an absolute outrage.

I've already done a podcast two days ago with Fantasy and Van Lathan about how great it was. I thought you were the number one Sopranos fan. I didn't listen to that yet. I'll listen to that. Every rule you have is from The Sopranos and The Godfather. You haven't watched The Sopranos, Doc?

Well, I saw the one last night. I thought it was fabulous last night. In fact, going through the auditions were tremendous, right? They were just tremendous. I didn't see an Uncle Junior audition, which was very disappointing. I would have loved to have seen that. But, I mean. You talk about me being miserable. David Chase just

lives a miserable life. Wait until you get to part two. Part two, it really dives into that. Basically, him and Gandolfini and Soprano just merge into one miserable entity. They get into it. I'm excited for you to watch the rest of it. It's great.

Lombardi, we can hear you all over the place, but especially the GM Shuffle podcast. GM Shuffle. Coach on Belichick. Find that on YouTube. And Beeson Morning Show. You're working hard. I always enjoy the content.

Great to see you, my friend. Thank you, Bill. Appreciate you. Now it's time for a special part of today's episode sponsored by NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. My friend. NFL Sunday Ticket has awesome features to help you stay on top of all the action,

like multi-view, another friend of mine, where you can watch up to four games at once or layer on stats and fantasy views to track your favorite teams and players. I only have one favorite team. Some people have more than that. But when you bundle NFL Sunday Ticket in YouTube TV, you get access to every game, every Sunday. That is the most live NFL games all in one place. I don't know who they're competing against. Local and national games on YouTube TV, NFL Sunday Ticket for out-of-market games. It excludes digital-only games. Device and

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excludes digital only games device and content restrictions apply. best part. It's topped with a sauce made from ghost peppers and on show chilies. If that doesn't send a chill of anticipation down your spine, nothing will. Get your ghost pepper sandwich today at Popeye's before it ghosts you for another year. All right, Joe House is here. We're about to do million dollar picks. We almost had an awesome week last week and then the Jets let us down. But we finished four and two last week. We won $364,000 of fake money. We were four and one on the straight ups. We lost our tees. And most importantly, I won our argue pick, which was Chargers Raiders. So we're going to do an

argue pick. We too is always scary. Overreactions, a false sense of security or a false sense of this team is way worse. And then it turns out they're not that bad. So we've been talking a lot about bets we like this week. And unfortunately, there's been more disagreeance than usual. Thank God it's my podcast and I can overrule us. The thing we seem the most excited about is the Chargers just to beat the absolutely terrible Carolina Panthers. And there's a bet on FanDuel where it's Chargers first half.

Chargers for the game is minus 130, but we were looking at that. But I'm going to go through some of the games that I like. And you could either poo-poo them, throw in, I'll do two, then you do one, and we can just go back and forth. Okay.

I'm just happy to be back, so. Yeah, you earned another week because we won money. Thank God. Thank God. So Steelers-Broncos. Steelers minus two and a half at Denver. And I love the Steelers.

I'm continuing to back the Steelers. I love their defense. Now it's like, well, Kirk Cousins couldn't move. That's why I thought their defense was awesome in that game. Denver last week in Seattle, 67 plays for 231 yards. Bonitz was awful. Yes. Why wouldn't Pittsburgh's defense just eat him up this week? Explain it to me. It's not Pittsburgh's defense that I'm worried about because I do think that they'll travel, they'll be ferocious. It's the offense, right?

No touchdowns. So we're still trying to find a touchdown with Pittsburgh. And it's just situationally a hard thing. A second consecutive road game at the beginning of the season, flying out to the high altitude. And Denver started off last year 0-2. Denver lost to Washington in their started off last year 0-2. Denver lost to Washington

in their home opener last year. So I think Sean Payton is like, you know, point of emphasis. Let's try and not do that again. And the reason that I'm feeling not incredible about Pittsburgh is I thought that Denver defense was something

against Seattle. I mean, they opened the game with a sack and an interception and two effing safeties in the first half. And Denver was winning at halftime. So for me, I'm not that inclined to jump back in. There's a big difference between Tomlin as a dog and Tomlin as a road favorite. So I'm just kind of like feeling squeamish about it.

So the only thing with Denver's defense, for some reason, Seattle just couldn't block. Well, they have one of the worst offensive lines. Yeah. I was texting with Mina and Danny Kelly and they were just having a heart attack in the first half about how bad the blocking was. So Denver's defense might actually not even be that good. It might've just been in a Seattle. We'll know what the Seattle offensive line against the Pats this week. To me, this is an only fields can screw this up at Lombardi made the key point before you came on. Yeah, I know. I know.

You don't have to get, but Lombardi was like, watch how they used fields in that first game. He never threw the ball over the middle. They never wanted to put him. Everything was to the sides or deep or him scrambling. I actually think the Steelers are pretty well coached and have kind of figured out what they can do and not do with him. I still like it. Steelers minus two and a half. I have it marked down. I'll talk you into it. Jaguars-Browns is a bet

against Deshaun Watson and a bet on Jacksonville's defense that maybe actually is good. They were good for two and a half quarters, gave up one long Tyreek play, one Waddle play, but for the most part, I thought they were pretty good. I mean, they only gave up 20 points. No Njoku for Cleveland.

Cleveland's offensive line is still banged up. My question is, if ETN doesn't fumble and Jacksonville goes up 24-7, they're about to win, is this line like five and a half? Well, that would be crazy. The look ahead was Jacksonville by one. But I'm saying Jacksonville kills Miami and Deshaun gets killed by Dallas. I understand. This line's Jacksonville by one. But I'm saying Jacksonville kills Miami.

I know. And Deshaun gets killed by Dallas. I understand. This line's Jacksonville by six. I don't, I mean, that would be crazy talk. I went through all of the lines and looked for the discrepancies between the lookahead for week two.

Because, you know, just in general, week two, you don't play favorites, right? Favorites hit like 40-some percent of the time in week two. So stay away from favorites. And the other thing is, you know, you're looking for teams that were outright favorites in week one who are now in week two. You know, there is a nice bounce back angle in terms of against the spread. Those hit at about a 60% clip. But I don't like, you know, I didn't see anything from Jacksonville that warranted the

inflation on the line. That is a purely a function of inflation. That's exactly it. It's a Deshaun premium. You got to pay a Deshaun premium. How about this? I'm happy to pay it. I think his career's over. I don't think he's a functional starting quarterback anymore. It may be, and I'm not going to make the argument supporting him. What I will say is that there was a big difference between the first half and second half of that game in terms of, you know, him looking

mildly functional. He did hit Amari Cooper in the hands with a 40-yard pass for a touchdown that Amari Cooper did drop. The Browns did have four drops. He was probably so shocked he got hit in the hands with a pass. He probably didn't know how to react. No argument.

But, I mean, I'm still invested in the Cleveland defense. And I do think, you know, the Jacksonville offensive line has a little bit of a rotating cast of characters. And if Cleveland puts defense on Trevor Lawrence, you know, the splits for him under duress and not under duress are not good. So I just don't love like all the extra, the two extra points. How about the splits of Cleveland's defense on the road versus Cleveland's defense at home? Then the other question is, you know, Cleveland, it's a must win, but it's also, if they lose,

then it probably gives them an excuse to dump Deshaun and, you know, put him on the bench and try one of the other guys. Jacksonville, if they lose this game, they'd be 0-2 going into at Buffalo on a Monday night at Houston. It's weirdly a must win, even though it's Deshaun Watson. Like this is a, hey, if we're good, we got to take care of business.

So for me, I thought Jacksonville was a playoff team. I still think they have the talent to be there. And if they can't win a game like this, then I was dead wrong. And I'm just not willing to think I'm wrong. So this ties into the third game, Colts-Packers.

Colts minus three in Green Bay with Malik Willis. And we're going to argue about Malik Willis in a second. These three bets, I get the best defense in either league against Bo Nix. I get a Jaguars defense at home that seems pretty good in hot weather against Deshaun Watson, whose career is about to be over. And then I get to bet against Malik Willis. And I'm just like,

just strip all this stuff away. And it's like, I get to do those three things. What are the odds I can't go at least two and one with those three thoughts in my head? I just want to urge caution because what you've done after you admirably presented me with a full slate of week one underdogs, you've now shown up for week two, the week where you don't play favorites and immediately put three favorites on the table, including one where the look ahead line was, you know.

It's fair. You're doing a great conciliary job. Yeah, that's what I'm here for. Malik Wilson. Malik Willis. Maybe you should change his name to Malik Wilson. Doesn't matter. Three starts, 48 points, 11 passing first downs,

got sacked 10 times, 276 total pass yards, zero touchdowns, three picks. Just got given away for a seventh-round pick. I don't know what they're doing. The only thing that worries me about this is if they think Jordan Love can actually play and they're rope-a-doping us. Because they haven't said he's out.

He's doubtful, questionable. And are we allowed to do a million-dollar picks if Jordan Love plays, the bet's scratched? I guess it's my gimmick. I guess I can do what I want. It's your bet. I just am prepared to talk you out of it either way. Why? Talk me out of it. Let's hear it.

Well, because either we believe in LaFleur, who starts off the season on fire. His record against the spread and straight up in the first three weeks since he's been the head coach is stellar. You could say,

well, this is because the guys had he went from Aaron Rogers to Jordan Love. And yeah, like, you know, two pretty great quarterback situations. And we're going to put that all to the test. But the thing to me is, I like the way that Green Bay established the run against Philadelphia. And I think that Philadelphia's run defense is superior to the Colts because Joe Mixon,

who hasn't run for 160 yards since what high school came out with Houston and ran for 160 yards against this Colts defense. Can I give you a counter on that? Please go ahead. Because I said this to Lombardi. Is it possible Houston's offense is really well-rounded and awesome? And Indianapolis was like, we have to give up something. We don't want to give up deep passes and have Stroud just annihilate us all over the field.

Let's see if Joe Mixon can run for 160 yards. Because I think that was the philosophy. I also don't think Indianapolis' defense is that good, but Houston's offense might be awesome. Here's an element to it, right? The Colts' defense was on the football field for more than 35 minutes. I mean, right around 35 minutes. 76 plays to 43, I think.

Yeah, yeah. Because the other time, the Colts got the ball and they were just checking. Richardson had 350-yard plays, so the drives were faster. Yep, yep, drives were faster. So you have a tired defense on the road. Are you really telling me you don't want me to bet against Malik Willis?

That's honestly what you're telling me? When we were comparing notes, you thought they brought him out to throw Hail Mary and he didn't even get the Hail Mary off. It was the best thing ever. There's no scenario under which I'm going to sit here and advocate for Malik Willis.

I honestly think that LaFleur is going to keep the ball out of his hands. He is going to be standing in the quarterback position. You know why the Packers ran the ball well against Philly? Because Jordan Love was their quarterback and they had to play with all the receivers and worry about them and they had to give up something. Now they have to worry about anybody. Well, I mean... Listen, you're not taking

Malik Willis' week away from me. I won a bet against Malik Willis and I'm doing it. All I'm telling you is this is a miracle line. It's Colts minus three. No, I don't like it. It's a field goal.

It's too much. I would be fine with it. How much lower do you want it? What if it's one? It's like, oh, now that's a fair price. One and a half or two would be fine. Six. How much lower do you want it? What if it's one? It's like, oh, now that's a fair price. One and a half or two would be fine. Six points. A six point difference for love.

That's all. Not doing three. You're just being a puss. That's really what you're being. I'm here to be your consigliere. I just want to urge caution. It's the most obvious game on the table. Like the most obvious game on the table

last week. And we saw how that went. What is the case for supporting Green Bay and Malik Willis? Nobody can make it. You just made the case. You said Green Bay is going to, that Indies run defense is bad. Green Bay is going to run the ball. The floor is a good coach.

Lambeau Field, Anthony Richardson and Green Bay. There's a case. I'm trying. I just don't think people remember how bad Malik Willis was. It's like, oh, they have a backup. It'll be fine. It's like, no, this is way worse than a backup. He also won't be

blown away by seeing the Colts because while he was on the Titans, he saw the Colts a couple few times, right? It's not like, oh, this is not going to be the, you know, it's still a Gus Bradley defense cover three all day long. Chargers, Panthers, it's still a Gus Bradley defense. Cover three all day long. Chargers, Panthers. There's a bet on Fando we like with that minus 130 first half game that I just want to mark.

Carolina lost Brown for the year. Their best guy on the defensive line. Bryce Young's in absolute shambles. Harbaugh against Dave Canales. Palmer's hurt for the Chargers, which worries me a little. Lombardi was pointing out how Herbert just didn't look good in game one.

Chargers next, too, is at Pittsburgh, home KC. So this is a little bit of a must-win. But the Carolina thing, it's almost bad to play at home if you're Carolina when the fans are this upset about the Bryce Young trade, how bad Bryce Young's looked, the owner, just the vibes. I would rather be on the road if I was them,

but this just feels like a Harbaugh figures it out game. Yeah, I'm glad we're talking about this game in the manner we're talking about it because if we were talking about the points, I wouldn't want to do it. I try, I mean, you can't make a compelling case for Carolina. All you can do is say, historically, teams that get blown out and lose by the number of points that they

lose in Game 1 come into Game 2 and cover at an incredible rate. I mean, there's nothing in the X's and O's to commend Carolina. The thing, I was so blown away by how tough that Chargers defense was. Magically, I was so blown away by how tough that Chargers defense was. Like, magically

you flip a switch. Like my guy, look at my guy, Joey Bofa. Joey Bofa, dominant. Dominant. He's on the injury report. Oh, no. No, it's just he's questionable now for week two, but it's

Joey Bosa. Like, just you have to factor that in with him. He's questionable Joey Bosa. Forced fumble, led the team in tackle, had a sack. He's the Riddler. He's questionable at all times. Both of these nuts is not missing this game. Both of these nuts is here. He's going to show up for this game.

So we like first half in the game, minus 130, have that markdown. Cards, Rams, Fitzgerald, this looks too easy case where it's cards, minus one and a half in Arizona, but McVay owns the Cardinals. They have a bad defense,

but McVay has all these offensive line issues already. Pook is out. I like the way the cards played last week. We're taping this before Miami Buffalo, so it's hard to say how impressive the cards, putting up 28 and driving for a game-winning touchdown at the end and not getting it.

Is this a stay-away to you, or should we consider it? It's a stay-away. I mean, if I was going to do anything, I would tease the Rams up from the one and a half and get them up to seven and a half. There's no reason. We're not compelled to play it. There's a ton of teaser legs that I like this week.

I'm going to talk about them right now. Watch out for that teaser. Chiefs just seem too easy and just super fun to throw in. I gotta say, I don't want to have a bet for against the Bengals this week because I don't know what's going on with them. It just seems like a classic.

Everyone likes the Chiefs, and then the Bengals actually look like the Bengals again. They're like, oh my god, I can't believe I fell for the Bengals suck thing. They do this every year. I just want no part of that game. I'm with you. Can we cross that one off? Cross off.

Houston home for the Bears is the Sunday night game, I think. Right? Yeah. This is the chaser tease where if you did do well on Sunday, you guys talked about this on the ringer gambling show. Then that Sunday night, it's it's like, I'm down. Houston tees with Philly on Monday night and I'll

rally back. Something scares me about this game and I love Houston. I have AFC South Houston bets. I have Houston for the one seed. I have Houston in the Super Bowl but I don't know why it looks too easy. It just looks too easy. That's it.

I don't have a rational reason. Oh, see, I feel a little more confident about this one. And I'm not saying let's walk in and lay the points. I prefer to play it as a teaser leg. I think on that national stage, that Sunday night, I think they intend to come out and embarrass the Bears. And I don't think it's going to take very much effort because speaking of Mike Lombardi,

did he talk about the Bears' offensive line and the atrocious play and their inability last week against Tennessee? Now, Tennessee has a much improved defense for sure, but Caleb was running for his life, and that definitely played a role in how inaccurate he was and how lackluster average passing yards. What we did have was we had the conversation of, did the Bears defense look good or is Will Levis terrible? And the answer is Will Levis might be terrible and the Bears might be slightly good.

All right. So you talked me into it. Texans minus six and a half, teaser. Ravens minus eight and a half. I think that line bumps up higher than that against Las Vegas. I just think Las Vegas, I just

want to keep betting against them. They'll rally back. They'll win their state. They'll beat Casey somehow. They'll have a couple of dumb wins down the road, but right now I want to bet against them. So with a tease, you could take the Ravens under three to two and a half. You could take the Texans down to a half point.

And then I also like the Eagles against Atlanta. And I think all three of those should go together. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the Eagles against Atlanta is going to end up like all over my card in so many different ways with like alt spreads and all kinds of stuff. That's Philly at home too, by the way.

Well, and her cousins can't move. They didn't run a single play action play. The whole world knows it and is talking about it. What are they possibly? And part of the thing with Atlanta, like how can you be this unprepared? How can you show up against, you know, you're playing Pittsburgh in week one

and you can't put this guy under center and run play action. Well, they didn't do it because he can't move. He can't move. Right. So how is that like a responsible to him to cousins and how is it fair to the rest of his teammates to put that dude in that position pittsburgh knew every play that atlanta was going to run based on the formation

so we can uh put those three together that's plus 140 on FanDuel for our six point tees what could go wrong? we could use our hammer because they have a double your winnings on any money line bet and we could use our hammer I think on that or we could use our

hammer on that Chargers bet I'd rather use it on the Chargers bet because the script for me with the Chargers bet? I'd rather use it on the Chargers bet because the script for me with the Chargers is a low scoring Chargers just come in and take care of business. They're up 17 to 6. Carolina

gets two field goals over the course of the game. Chargers just they're still keeping the training wheels on Herbert because whatever that plantar fasciitis or whatever his issue is with his foot, he didn't look great. They're not trying to push the ball down the field. They just want to control the ball, let their defense do its thing.

You don't have to do anything against Carolina. Carolina certainly isn't going to put any pressure on the Chargers to just run the ball, run the ball, run the ball. 27 runs for 176 yards against the vaunted Raiders and their vaunted defensive line. They went in there. No Tyree Wilson this week for the Raiders. Yeah. Yeah. So I like it. So Fando, we get to use this on our million dollar picks with fake money, but they have a double year winnings profit boost. We used it last week with the Lions money line, which was minus 198.

And then we won and we won $204,000. Yeah, yeah, we did. Basically, we won our money back and then a little bit more on that. So we have that one to play. Just quickly going through the stay aways. Lions Bucks, Lions are another tease candidate. I want to see the Bucks for another week

because they had a little nobody believes in us last week and I know they're banged up in the secondary and I get it. Yeah. I have them in. I kind of want to see them.

It's a tease-a-leg. And they're very comfortable playing in Detroit. We've already seen it. All right, I get it. Jets-Titans is a complete stay away from me. Stay away.

Jets minus three and a half. Seahawks-Pats, I just want to see the Pats again. Yeah, for sure. I actually, I went minus three and a half. Seahawks-Pats, I just want to see the Pats again. Yeah, for sure. I actually, I went from, I had three different futures going against the Pats to kind of liking their underdog money line in week two, but I think it's stay away. Cowboys-Saints, I get it.

I just don't trust the Cowboys. Why? I think the Saints, I just don't. I just don't trust them. What more do you want to see? Because you killed Cleveland. Cowboys. I think the Saints. I just don't. I just don't trust them. You're not roping me in because you killed Cleveland. I had them under all spring and all summer. I did not believe in them. I didn't think there'd be a playoff team and I'm not going to overreact because they beat Deshaun Watson. Well, it's not an overreaction. The number is exactly where the look ahead was six.

I get it. I'm not overreacting to what I saw last week. I still don't believe in the Dallas team. I don't want to put money in them. Okay. You can put it. You put your money in them. I will. I will. It might be my best bet on Wise Guys on Sunday.

What? It might be. Are we still doing that show after everyone lost their Wise Guy best bet? Did anyone win? Did you win? I did not win my... Of course I lost by the half point. No, I didn't.

I had Pittsburgh on the money line. So that was win. I was plus for the't. I had Pittsburgh on the money line, so that was a win. I was plus for the week because I hit Pittsburgh on the money line. Did Raheem retire after he had Carolina as his best bet in week one or no? He's going to come back? Every smart guy on earth with all summer long touting Carolina. Oh, they added these weapons on offense and the progression with second-year quarterbacks. Nobody could explain how trading their very best defensive players was going to help them

win football games. How about not having a first-round pick? That always helps, too. Just not having one. They'll have one this coming year. Yeah, though. It's going to be coming up.

Probably number one. 49ers at Vikings. I'm staying away. I don't know why, but I don't know what's going on with Sam Darnold, but I want to watch another week. Minnesota did beat San Francisco

last year. And then the last one, Washington Giants. I have a new category called the both of these teams can fuck off. I just want no part of this. The FO. Both of these teams can fuck off. It's the FO line. We should come up with a name for that.

I'm not going to feel stupid if the team that I pick in going to feel stupid if the team that I pick in our picks pool, the other team wins. Oh, I should have known. There's no I should have known with Giants. This is a thousand percent a teaser leg for me. The only team that Danny Dimes

has any success whatsoever against is Washington. He's 5-1-1 against Washington with 1,500 passing yards, 10 touchdowns, three picks. All he does is torture Washington.

And the Giants have a good pass rush. So I'm concerned for my guy, JD. So we're bumping Cardinals. It looks like we have four games, which we disagree. We don't even, do we even have an argue pick? I guess one of these can double as the argue pick.

Well, I'm just telling you for million dollar picks, we're doing the Steelers, the Jaguars, the Colts, and then we're doing that tease and we're doing Chargers. So we got five bets. Steelers, Jaguars, make the Colts our argue pick. So that will double pick so we can double if Love plays, I'll let you

back off of it, we won't call it the argue pick you know what, I'm not afraid of him in his MCL he shouldn't play, but even if he plays once again, I did win the argue pick last week Chargers Raiders, when you backed Antonio Pierce Antonio Pierce he Great job.

Antonio Pierce. He punted from the 40-yard line right in your face. Yeah. I loved it. Down to the eight, and then he promptly, his vaunted defense, this brilliant defensive guru, let the Chargers run right down their effing throat on a 92-yard drive. Congratulations, Antonio. Way to go. I was just excited to watch somebody punt from the 40-yard

line. I mean, we hadn't seen that since, like, we were in college. Do you think that every stadium that he goes to, he's going and grabbing a little bit of turf so that it can go into his memento case? Because this is it. This is a one-and-done. And he'll be lucky if he gets all the way through 17.

We're already looking at him if we have to replace Raheem, if Raheem does a Carolina best bet this week. I don't think we're going to do it. Or if JJ just keeps taking the Dolphins, maybe he could host Wiseguy. I don't know. JJ does love the Dolphins tonight. We're taping this before the Dolphins game.

Okay. The million dollar picks for week two. We are up $364,000 and it should have been more, but the Jets and big shot Bob Sala would not cooperate. We have a little disagreeance on these picks, but we're going to plow ahead anyway. You're going to be happy that we took the Steelers minus two and a half in Denver against Bo Nix. This is a straight, hey, Steelers defense, just take us home.

That's it. Justin Fields, just don't throw the ball over the middle. Run around a little. Throw to Friar Moose. Throw deep down the sidelines to Pickens twice. And then let your defense

do the rest. My job is just to be a consigliere to give you the other side and considerations. We're putting $200,000 on that. Hopefully Justin Fields does not screw it up for us. Next game, Jaguars minus three at home for the Browns. This is a personal one for me.

I still believe in the Jaguars. They didn't throw me off their scent. No Njoku for Cleveland. Banged up offensive line for Cleveland. Cleveland on the road. And most important, this might be Deshaun Watson's last start ever. And I want to have money against him one last time.

I'm really looking forward to it. Not arguing you out of it. I also think Jacksonville's D might be legit good. Jaguars minus three. Maybe it'll be a push, whatever. 200,000 on that. Here we go. Our argue pick as well.

I'm 1-0 on the argue pick. Colts minus three Packers. I overruled House. House was trying to convince me not to bet against Malik Willis. And we had an argument about it. And I won the argument because we're betting against Malik Willis. This feels like Christmas in mid-September. I understand.

I just want to urge caution. It's Malik Willis. I'm just urging caution. I'm going to be texting you the whole game as he's throwing the ball. It's hitting guys in the face mask. He's throwing it to the other team. He's hitting the guy holding the first down chain. All kidding aside, here's a preview of Wise Guys.

Whatever the pass attempt total is for Malik Willis, it's an auto bet under. There is no auto bet under. Whatever the number of pass attempts that the books have put out there for Malik Willis, under, under, under. The floor won't tolerate it. Can we bet that? Oh, you definitely can.

You can definitely. Is that a bet we can do right now? Now you got, now you screwed up million dollar picks. I don't see that on the, I'm sure they'll have that this weekend no they'll have it this weekend

they don't put those up until over the weekend good point good point good point speaking of FanDuel FanDuel is still doing their double your winnings bet

where whatever the money line on the bet they'll double it with their little profit boost token we did this last week we went on the Lions money line

we're going to do it again this week. We're going to bet 200K on, oh, is it 200? Maybe we should bet 150. The Chargers first half Chargers game is minus 130. Yeah, yeah. So we're going to bet 130,000 on that. And if it wins, Fando's going to double our money and we'll win $200,000 back.

Chargers win the first half. Chargers win the game. Did some research on the Panthers. I think they only won the first half last year three times in 2023. They did not win the first half this week as well. In Jim Harbaugh, we trust. I'm going to try to overlook the part that Herbert looks terrible.

Yeah, Chargers, they look great. They're going to run the ball. And I'm not afraid of Bryce Young. Last but not least, a teaser. Ravens, minus eight and a half against Vegas. The Eagles on Monday night, minus six and a half

against the statue of Kirk Cousins. The Tex on Monday night, minus six and a half against the statue of Kirk Cousins. The Texans, who I think we both believe in, minus six and a half against Chicago. We're going to bring all those lines down by six points. That is plus 140 on FanDuel. Lamar is 32 and 11 at home. Vegas has four road wins in 2022 and 2023 in this year. They haven't played on the road yet. Raiders D gave up 176 yards rushing last week. Ravens, just run it down their throats. Just run it. I don't need to make the case

to bet against the statute, Kirk Cousins. And then we both believe in this Houston team. We do. We're going to put a special 200K on that plus 140 let's go I love that one you know I do

and those are the million dollar picks for week two you can see house this weekend on the Ringer Sunday pregame show your audio actually worked

oh it's a miracle we got a new mic you know we're making we're learning along the way here it was a great show I thoroughly enjoyed it it's on YouTube TV it's a miracle. We got a new mic. You know, we're making, we're learning along the way here. It was a great show. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's on YouTube TV.

It's on FanDuel, on their channel. But when you go to YouTube TV at 11 o'clock Eastern time, there it is. I'm not coming on this week, but I think that young whippersnapper, Dabundo, is going to come in for the last 20 minutes to fill my spot. Yeah, the white AD.

So those are the Million Dollar Picks. That's our segment. House, I hope you're back in week three and I hope I win our Argue Pick. See you on Sunday on YouTube TV. Can't wait! See them on the wayside I don't have

a few years with him. On the wayside, I'm a person I never was. I don't have a few years with him. Must be 21 plus and president in select states. For Kansas, an affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and president in D.C. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit

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