The Ringer NFL Show - Power Ranking Our Biggest Week 1 Under-Reactions

Episode Date: September 11, 2024

The guys react to Christian McCaffrey getting ruled out right before 'Monday Night Football,' the banged-up Dolphins backfield, and the fantasy impact of their injuries (2:12). Next, POWER HOUR! They discuss the biggest under-reactions after the first week of NFL action, including Justin Fields as the Steelers' QB1, the rookies who got off to a slow start, the age of the kicker, and much more (11:33). Plus, Fantasy Court and emails (40:52)! Check out our 2024 Ringer Fantasy Football Rankings here! Joe Burrow and the Bengals will be fine (13:12) The old guys are … old (15:48) Are the Jets [whispers] good? (18:17) The Falcons are all buy lows (20:36) Field goals are participation trophies now. Change my mind. (26:18) The new illegal formation rule stinks (30:11) Who needs to pass when you can run like Jayden Daniels, amirite? (33:49) The rookies will bounce back in Week 2 (36:00) Isaiah Likely might have peaked early (38:35) Email us! [e-mail] The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Social: Kiera Givens Producer: Kai Grady and Carlos Chiriboga Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up everybody? Syriot Sohey from The Ringer here. And I wanted to let you know about a new show that I'm hosting, the Ringer WNBA show. We're breaking down and analyzing the latest happenings in the W, the personalities, the people who make the league as fascinating as it is. And we're going to be featuring some of the best guests and experts from around the league. Tap in with us every Friday through the end of the season over on the Ringer NBA show feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Fantasy football live on YouTube show. I don't think I got the six. to that, right? But you know what it's the first one? I am joined by Danny Kelly and Craig Horlebeck and today it is power hour. Every week we power rank something. And today we are power ranking our biggest

underreactions to week one, right? Craig, we're underreacting to everything. Yeah, you know, this town is built on hyperbole and recency bias, not us. We are built on pragmatism and saying, eh, it'll be fine.

Everybody, calm, down. That is like basically the focus of today. That includes my cat who's meowing up a storm. Someone let me know if you can hear that. But yeah, so we're going to go. And again, we're live on YouTube right now. Put a dollar in the cat jar. Yeah. Craig is a warrior's drawer. Every time Craig mentions the Warriors will put a dollar in the jar. We'll buy something pretty with it. Okay. So we're live on YouTube right now. Even though it's Tuesday night, we're recording this. And we're going to be live on YouTube every Tuesday during this NFL season. And this episode is going to be coming to you wherever we get your podcasts on Wednesdays. Apple. and also YouTube.

All our podcasts are going to be on the ringer NFL YouTube now. So check out wherever you get your shows. And a reminder, we're doing Sunday recaps. We got Monday waivers and trivia. We got Friday previews, but most importantly, Wednesday power hour babies, which actually on YouTube is Tuesday power hour. So we got that all season. Yeah.

And we're going to get to power at a moment. But first, we have to do some news. So Christian McCaffrey, as you may have heard, missed week one. And Jordan Mason said after the game, the running back to replace Christian McCaffrey that he had found out on Friday. And the Kyle Shannon said, I didn't tell him that. I didn't know he wasn't going to play until Sunday.

Whatever happened, we didn't find out until like, can't prove it. Yeah, can't prove that. Can't prove that. Can't prove that. Yeah. And so now, so Adam Schaefter said before Monday at football that McCaffrey not only wasn't playing

on week one, McCaffrey might not play versus the Vikings in week two and mention that Minnesota has artificial turf and that McCaffrey might not go out there and play in week two. And then Kyle Shanahan said today, Christian Caffrey says, Achilles tendonitis. one, wow.

Two, D-K, now that you've had 24 hours and some new information, what questions does this all raise for you? I mean, is this what we're going to do all year is like the first question I have about this situation. Because the way that Kyle Shanahan was explaining it was like, it comes and goes, it kind of can flare up at times, and then they've got to be extra careful about it. This is what Kyle Shannon was saying. So it worries me that this is going to be a thing that he has to deal with the entire year, which again, you guys were on the cutting edge of this whole thing.

thing. You guys had him ranked quite a bit lower than I did. So, man, kudos to you for being so nervous about this because it turns out to be actually a pretty big deal. And yeah, like you said, he might not even play week two. Hopefully you got Jordan Mason in your life right now. Power Hour technically hasn't started yet, right? We can overreact to this. Yes. And we're in underreactions, but I can overreact to this. That's allowed. For sure. Because I'm, it terrifies me. I don't know. I don't know where you guys are, we're in the era of the Twitter doctor. Like all over my four you based on Twitter now. That was these doctors.

Like 100,000 followers. All they tweet about is like NFL injuries. But the stuff about McCaffrey's scary. It's like this acute tendinitis. And they're talking about this is not going to go away. He could come back sooner rather than later. But this is going to wax and weigh in all season. Great.

This is not my, this is DefCon. What's the bad one? One or five? One. DefCon. Five is like, it's everything's fine. It's the opposite. Yeah.

It's the opposite of like, yeah, one's really high. Yeah. DefCon. But DefCon. sounds. They need to redo that. Is that why they did that? What do you mean?

Defcon 5 least severe. I just looked at up. DefConn, yeah. DefCon 1 is like the missiles are on the way. The missiles are in the air. Stefania Bell, who does a lot of injury analysis at ESPN and does a fantastic job

and unlike some of the Twitter doctors is the best in the space. And Stefania also was like a physical therapist and so she has a lot of expertise. And a point that she made about this was with a soft tissue injury, there's no test that's like, you're good to go.

And so it's not like other injuries where, hey, there's a timeline and all this. There's no way, nobody in Christian McCaffrey's life can tell him, all right, we ran this test. You're good to go, Christian. And here's thing, there's no way for Christian McCaffrey to know you're 100% healed. There's no way for him to know

except going on the field and playing and being like, uh-oh. And you're re-injured. That's the only way to know in retrospect. you were not 100% healed. And so with that said, if I'm Kyle Shanhan, I don't think I'd play McCaffrey for like a month.

I'm not saying they'll do that. But if you're thinking about the Niners, guess what? They don't need McCaffrey in the regular season. You don't need McAfree till Halloween. You need to win a Super Bowl. The Niners are going to make the playoffs whether or not McCaffrey plays in the regular season.

And I'm not, again, my nervous Jewish grandmother energy got me this far with the McAfry thing. If I was the Niners, I would pull Kyle Shanahan aside and be like, I need you to chill. pretend we have Christian McCaffrey out for like six weeks and make sure that we are like as cautious as possible. Because the alternative is if he comes back and has an actual Achilles rupture, his career is like, you know, it's maybe going to be over. I had a take last night, guys, and I want to run it by you.

Oh. The 49ers are more fun without Christian McCaffrey. What do you think? I just feel like he's such a ball hog. I like seeing Devo get the run. They gave Jordan Mason 28 carries. I know, but like, you know, he's not getting 15 targets too. I just feel like it's more fun to see like Devo Samuel in the backfield and taking runs.

And they're throwing it to Iuk. They're throwing it to Kittle letting him do his thing. It's like when McAfri's in there, it's just like, oh, this is the McCaffrey show. I just feel like it's a little more fun. But that's also just me being a heater. Are you dropping passes after we got $30 million is really fun? Yeah, that was tough. That was real tough.

Do you think this is ground zero for the resting players in the NFL? Load management? It's in the NBA. Are we going to start seeing guys be like, you know what? Travis Kelsey, every three weeks, you're just going to take a game off? because we want to keep him fresh for the playoffs. No, because nobody gets to the NFL that way. It's just, it's the, no way.

The mentality is different. It's the bare quote from, it's the bare quote. It's like, I'm not like this because I'm in Van Halen. I'm in Van Halen because I'm like this. It's like McCaffrey plays 98% of snaps. That's why he's in the NFL. You can't take that out of him. But I think for, for fantasy purposes, again,

nothing to be done. Jordan Mason's on your team or not at this point. We're going to get some funny fantasy courts after Power Hour about just this whole situation how insane it is. Jordan Mason obviously played really well. every week McCaffrey plays. But to answer your question, D.K., yes, this isn't going to go away.

Like, I think it's a general rule, I think something we don't talk about enough, when a player pops up with like a knee injury in week two, and then two weeks later, it's not listed. The injury didn't go away. No one gets healthier during the NFL season. Injuries don't heal during the NFL season. They get managed.

But, like, think about how hard it is to heal your own stuff. Like, I'm Craig's 30 now. I'm about to staring down the barrens. a little 30. How long does it take you tweak your back at the gym? Like, you know what? How long do do you need? These guys are playing five days later. Nobody used to have a bad back. Yeah, exactly. It's, yeah, it's, I was in the gym the other day and I felt a part of my knee I didn't know existed. Yeah, flex. I didn't know I had this part of my knee on my knee. It was like the outside left part. High fit 75% of adulthood is like figuring out where the pain is coming from. It's probably

connected to the fact that my quads are a little tight. Yeah. Yeah. It all comes down to like stretching, Literally. You need to stretch your hamstrings and your quads and your legs will hurt less. That is what I'm. Shout out Connor Evans who told everyone who would listen here at the ringer who's like anyone who turns 30, he slacks them and it's like, happy birthday stretch. Yeah. Drink water. All right. So that's the McAfry thing. It's unbelievable. We'll, you know, we'll check this. I'm sure, you know, the story will just be a lovely thing we talk about literally all the time. Other injury stuff, unfortunately, we didn't get to get to this till right now, but Rahim Mostert and Y Chan. And everyone's listening to this on Wednesday. They probably maybe haven't been added, but go check waivers just in case. Rahim Moster and Devani Chan for the Miami Dolphins are both questionable as of Tuesday.

You never know how the injury reports go because Wednesdays is when they actually start practicing. But Moster has a chest injury and Devani Chan is an ankle injury. And so if those guys are available, I would look at Jeff Wilson, who's the backup and then Jalen Wright, who's the backup, completely different players. Jeff Wilson is Craig and I's age, which derogatory. And then Jalen Wright is a rookie who has barely played football. And so Jalen Wright's the sexier one. and honestly probably rostered in a lot of leagues. But Jeff Wilson is probably the one who's actually going to play this week

if Achan or Mostert missed time. So if Jeff Wilson's available, I would go and check on him. And again, maybe Mostert and Aachen don't miss any time. But like, are you concerned? And again, it's Tuesday. We don't know the status. But basically are you, how fast are you running to the waiver wire to get Jeff Wilson? I probably would have, I already would draft Jalen Wright if I had Devon H.

In my league. This stuff always scares me. I'm such a handcuff guy. I would way rather have a dude sit on my roster the entire season and never play once, just in case your guy goes down. And I think you should have 100% done that with somebody like Rahim Moster and Devon H. DK, do you think it's fair to say that while stylistically Jalen Wright, as a prospect is more in common with Rahim Mostert than H.N.

But considering he is a rookie who barely plays, do you think it's fair to say that if Mosterts out, Jeff Wilson will probably get the Mostert role just because they're the veterans who do more, like, you know, they understand the offense blocking all the important stuff. They're right, you know, not small. Whereas H.N. Jalen Wright would probably pick up H.N's rushing work. And then I almost feel like A.N.'s passing work will not be picked up by anybody. It's like Braxton Berrios or something like that.

Yeah. Yeah. Like H.N.'s passing work is designed for him and that won't just go to someone. It's for the freakazoid. Maybe Malik Washington, the other rookie, but he didn't practice either. He's been injured. So, yeah, I would say, I don't know, it's tough because I think with Jalen right, there's much more upside. he's much more explosive, dynamic, all that stuff. But Jeff Wilson just strikes me as the coach's favorite player.

You know what I mean? Like he came over to Miami from San Francisco with Mike McDonnell, sorry. Look at that right by like the time one of them is fired. Maybe, maybe. I'm not making any promises. But yeah, you know what I mean? Like he's the guy that they trust. He was playing on Sunday.

You know, so it's clear right now that he's in front of Jalen Wright. but obviously things could change. Jalen Wright ran like a 4-3. He's super explosive. You know, big play potential in this offense is really alluring. So I don't know. I would probably prioritize Wilson just a little bit, especially if these injuries aren't long term.

All right. Well, glad that it's week one and we only have the two most important running backs to our show injured for probably the rest of the season. So that's fine. Love fantasy football. All right. Let's get to Power Hour. For those who don't know, here's the way it's going to work.

DK and Craig sent me their favorite underreactions for week. one. I power rank them all. If you don't like the order, blame me. We're going to do this power hour style, which means after every two minutes, you're going to hear this song. It's a great song. It is. It really is. It's a phenomenal. Man, that's good. Just hits. Yeah. I wake up every morning to that song. I don't. What is your iPhone alarm? It's your ringtone. Yeah. I don't, I don't wake up to an iPhone alarm. Well, you have like one of those special, like, light alarms that slowly makes it brighter in your room? Yeah, my wife and I have something called a hatch, which is like her favorite thing in the

world. It's an alarm clock slash light, so it slowly gets warmer as you wake up. Like the light slowly gets brighter and brighter. And then it's like nice, soft, like nature sounds. It's like birds chirping. You wake up like you. The big circle one? I think we have that too. It's a half circle.

Yeah. It sits on your dresser. Oh, it's a full. Ours is a full circle. Oh, wow. You paid for the expensive one. Flex. You know?

Yeah, that's a flex. All right. So we're going to do power our style. Wait, are you ranking these based on, did you rank these based on the takes you agree with the most or the takes you, the underreactions you respect the most? It's a great question. Yeah. Respect.

Okay. So the later we go, the less I respect your thoughts. Like I respect that take. Yeah. Yeah. Like because it's so bold? Like this, I like this out of you. Like this is first.

Ask me and I'll tell you why I disrespected it or respected it. Let's just get into it. All right. So there you go. Okay. But two minutes. on the clock, baby. All right. Number one, underreaction from week one that I respected. D.K. You sent me Joe Burrow and the Bengals will be fine. I respected it because I've been on the

Bengals all year and it was a challenge to my authority. That means you're qualified for leadership. Yeah, everybody needs to chill out a little bit. First of all, the Patriots defense, very good. And the Bengals offense, I mean, even coming into this, you had to expect that they would be a little bit off. Jamar Chase has been holding in all preseason. T. Higgins was hurt. You know, their offensive line is still in disarray of Marius Mims' miss week one. And the fact that T. Higgins was out kind of hurt Jamar Chase because then Christian Gonzalez could shadow Jamar Chase. There was just a lot of variables that make me not worry too much about the Bengals as they're currently set up. And the biggest among them,

which I'm getting to a little bit late, is that I thought Joe Burrow looked fine. I thought he looked good. Like he was throwing tight spirals. He was accurate with the football. There was a couple of plays where, you know, he hit Mike Kosicki in the corner of the end zone on a fade pass. It should have been a touchdown on the next play. They reversed it. The ball hit the ground. They reversed it.

And then the next play on 3 and 11, Bro hit the other tight end, Tanner Hudson on like a slant route. He took it to the one yard line fumbled and gave the ball away to the Patriots. Basically, the Bengals just shot themselves on the foot over and over in this game. They fumbled four times. they lost three of them. They could not stop the run. So the Patriots end up holding the ball for like an incredible amount of time in this game. The Bengals only had eight total drives in this game because the Patriots just held on to football.

So I don't know. I just wouldn't overreact to this game. I thought Burrow looked solid is the main thing here. And I'm not too worried about them based on what happened in week one. Did you see the videos of him like doing this with his wrist? Yeah, but he's been doing that all preseason. I think it's just a tick at this point. You know what I mean?

Like I don't, if he gets. If he re-injures his wrist, that's a different story. But I thought he looked fine throwing the football. I'm not worried about his ability to throw football. Nobody has been more down on the Bengals than me. Nobody. And I'm not like victory lapting after week one. The Bengals have never been good in week one.

And my concerns weren't, will Joe Burrow be good in week one when Jamar Chase is warming up? And everyone's like, is it going to play? It's about the time the Bengals make it through the whole season. I doubt it. Burrow now, 6, 9, and 1 in September. I mean, they haven't had a first half touchdown in Cincinnati in the week one in three years. So that's fun.

Anyway, sorry. It's kind of more than just burrow, too. I feel like it's just their offense tends to evolve as the season goes on to for whatever reason. They just like start out really generic and basic. Speaking of bad offenses week one, DK,

I'm also giving you the number two splout here because your other other reaction from week one was the old quarterbacks coming off Achilles injuries are just rusty and we should have probably expected that they would be rusty. Yeah, I don't have a lot of analysis here. These are two old men who are coming off very serious. injuries and we expected them to look awesome in week one. Like we need to relax a little bit. I think Rogers, you know, there was some flashes here and there. He didn't end up playing nearly as poorly as

Kirk Cousins. But with both of these guys and Rogers, by the way, had way more time to heal, I feel like than Kirk Cousins did. So I don't know, Rogers, cousins, they were really rusty in week one. They didn't look great. But I think as the season goes on, they're going to get a little bit better. They're going to like shake off some of the rest. And ultimately, they'll end up being fine. So we just need to like relax. I don't think we need to talk about Michael Pennock starting immediately. But we didn't start. Falcons fans were the ones who started talking about it. They brought it up.

Yeah. I mean, look, maybe they'll do it. But I think right now just the point is, if you expected Kirk Cousins to come in and be really, really sharp, like I think you were missing the plot a little bit here. I mean, Rogers was healthy by the time Kirk Cousins injured his Achilles. I mean, Rogers was ready to come back week

night last year. Based on Rogers. Yeah, yeah. So he's had plenty of time healthy. So, you know, I don't know. I don't what actually I shouldn't say that because my next thing is about the Jets. Is this something that we should track of? I feel like we really need to laser in next year when we do like fantasy drafts on if you don't see it in week one, how nervous will you be? Yeah.

You know what I mean? Where a player like it was, let's be real, it was really nice to see Devani and like immediately be good in week one. Yeah. And it was pretty terrifying to see the Falcons offense have one more passing yard than the Arthur Smith, Justin Fields offense. I feel like we need to track this next year. Do you think the Achilles is more important to a quarterback or a running back?

A running back. It's weird, though, because I feel like a lot of running backs. I mean, look at JK Dobbins, bounce back, look good. Cam Acres has done it twice, looked good in the preseason, and these quarterbacks are struggling. Yeah, but that was a long time ago. Craig, here's the difference. Those running backs are early 20s, and Kirk Cousins and Aaron Rogers are late 30s. So I think, like, based on our earlier conversation.

It's a big difference. To your point, though, hitting their back foot and planting on the foot and throwing, I think that all definitely matters a lot for a quarterback. So on that note, Craig, the next one you had similarly. You just had the underreaction from week one. The Jets are good. I think everything's going to be all right.

And I think we have to treat this as a small win for Jets fans. The bar is on the ground for Jets. Like, we really got to think about that. Rogers had played, what, four snaps in 18 months? And they played the best team in the league on the road, and they lost. But you know what? You got out alive. That was the goal.

Like you said, DK., the touchdown drive in the first quarter, they look great. That alone is like, you got to win. Proof a concept. Yes, that's what you take away. Like, Rogers looked good in moments. He had that beautiful touchdown to Lazard. Everybody got out relatively healthy. You have Garrett Wilson and Rogers look like they have a great connection already.

Rogers is changing stuff up at the line. Like, you know, the defense. is Rusty. It's week one. You play the best team in the league. Like, it's all right. The next four games the Jets play. Will Levis, Jacoby Brissette, Bo Nix, and Sam Darnel are the next four quarterbacks the Jets play. Like, everybody should relax. It's all right. I totally

agree with this. I totally agree with this. One, Rogers has never frankly, the Packers very rarely played well in week one with Rogers. In 2021 or 20, I forget, the Packers lost 38 to 3 to the Saints in week one. Oh, yeah. And then Rogers like won the MVP.

So much of Rogers' games. is just improvisation, making switches at the line, getting on the same page with his receivers. This is why it's been like a narrative forever that he hates playing with rookie receivers. This is why Alan Lazard had two touchdowns in this game. Wide receiver three on the week, Alan Luzard. By the way, I don't want to sidetrack this entire conversation,

but can we talk about Garrett Wilson's jersey last night? What was going on with his jersey choice here? It was like he was wearing like an antique jersey with the really long, like, mudflap, like, sleeves. I don't get it. What's happening here? Kind of loved it. I know.

I can't tell you. It's like a zoomer fashion thing. Well, you know how, like, dads in the 90s were champion, and it was not cool back then. It was just, like, tactical and normal. And dad's shoes A6. And then now it's like, it's cool to wear champion in A6. Yes. It's like, when Eli Manning had the flaps, it was lame.

But when Garrett Wilson has the flaps, kind of cool. Yeah. He looks like Sam Bradford. right out there. Craig's other excellent, again, on the same note here. Craig, you had underreaction from week one, number four, you had, the Falcons will be fine. Yeah, it's like, we

all got to chill a little bit, all right? They played the Steelers, their defense was incredible. T.J. Watt, game record. Single-handedly won that game. He was probably the best player in the league in week one. Cousins got pressured like crazy, six highest pressure rate in week one. I just think all the Falcons are by-lows, nobody should panic. Look,

they had a new coaching staff, new offense, week one. I think Bijon's a by-law. like London's Abilow. Kyle Pitts caught a goddamn touchdown. Like we, again, and we all got out healthy. We got to be, I think the only goal of week one, honestly, is like, get out alive. Don't get hurt. Yeah.

I kind of like that with everybody slipping all weekend and it's like, that's why Kirk Couss didn't move. That's why Kirk Cousins couldn't move at all. He was like everyone slipping. Cousins was paralyzed. He had deer in headlights the whole game. But it's like, look, you made it. He's his first game back since Taryn and Achilles and nobody got hurt.

Yeah. You lost by eight. It's all right. Yeah. How many field goals do they have? Six. Yeah, you'll be fine. That's so demoralizing.

And then Moody on Monday night had six. And again, well, my God, don't even get me started on the kicking. Go ahead. Please do. I have a whole one on this. Oh, do you? Let me figure the Falcons. And I'll talk to you about the kick.

Okay. All right. So the Falcons, just to stick on this for a moment, to your point, I think the Steelers' defense could be incredible. And I agree. And also, it reminds me when Joe Burrow was really limited, last season with the calf injury in week one. And by, and it was still week two. But like by week three, week four,

he was moving more and there was no more park and bark. And I think the same thing's going to happen with Kirk. I think you made a good point earlier, Craig, about Rogers. Rogers is a month ahead of Kirk, even though it feels like by Rogers' estimation, he's like light years ahead or whatever. I didn't think he's more. I think he's two months.

Wasn't Kirk week five? I think Kirk was week eight. Could be wrong. If only we have some internet machine. No, it's there. The comments, they'll tell us. It's fine. I'm looking it up.

How many games did he play last year? He played eight games in 2023. There you go. Craig was right. There we go. All right. So two months. He's two months behind Rogers.

And again, Rogers, they tested out some new surgery on him, his fancy doctor who performs on all these athletes. So he was ready to go by like playoffs. Did you think Rogers looked like he was moving around all right? There was one part where he was like escaping out of the pocket. And I was like, ooh. I thought he looked a little. He's running a little tentatively.

Yeah, he looked a little frenetic, a little nervous. I think, I can't. like this is, it's probably insane. Like the feeling of tearing your Achilles and then going back to play NFL football has to be the most terrifying thing in the world. So I'm giving these guys a ton of benefit of the doubt. I just don't want that. Like, I think your point of not getting hurt in week one is so true.

Like, just don't ruin everything in week one. Like, look at what the rant, like the Pukukukukukuk. Going on IR, week one. And now we're like, they're like, F, so they have to like change their whole plan. I even feel that way in fantasy. Like, even if I lose week one, I'm like, if I get through my whole week and no one gets hurt and I lose, like I'll take it. While we're on this, just to disrespect Tom Tom, while we're on this,

I know that I say this and it's not cool and I feel like somehow my brand has become like, injuries are bad. Worrying. But like I feel like we don't, this doesn't get talked about enough. It was like, oh, here's my Super Bowl pick. There's like eight teams every year that could win the Super Bowl. And almost always, the team at the end is one of the two or three healthiest in the league. Almost always.

Like the Chiefs, the Bengals Rams, the Super Bowl, each team at 21 healthy starters. With the Chiefs beat the Eagles, both teams had 21 of their 22 starters in week one. Last year, like every, like the injured teams get eliminated. And so you look at a team like the Rams, and totally great. I think Sean McVeigh actually has actually become even better as a coach than when he started. But then you look, three left tackles, two right tackles, two left guards, switch left guard in center. Every lineman's out of position except the right guard. Pooka to Kua hurt.

And you're like, teams like that don't make the final four in the NFL. Like they don't, that's not how it goes. And I know that's simplistic. but if you look back, the Eagles won that Super Bowl without Carson Wentz and they were all hurt. And other than that, hurt teams don't make it far in the playoffs,

like, period. That's like the most base. And it's every sport too, right? Like every sport, everyone's like, oh, they got hurt. I'm like, yeah, that's how it goes. NBA, NHL, like every sport, you're like, all right,

like the healthy teams make it, which is the least possible sexy thing to say, life is meaningless, nihilism, eat Arbys. Load management, baby, sit your players. Yeah. Why was Bruce Holland after they pulled Aaron Rogers. Explain that to me. Insane. I was sweet about that, Craig.

Let's just slam him into the 49ers defensive line. Let's just send him over there. Shanahan, you see the same shit with the cavalry last year. They're up 30. McAfri's in the fourth, grinding out first down. You took out your quarterback and leave in your like all pro running back. At least it was 30th carry. At least it was possible that Kyle Shanan had been like, you know, I'm going to put money on McCaffrey. He really got to score this anytime touchdown, bro. But like the Breece Hall thing, Craig, you brought this up that they just had Breast Hall, what? How many carries? 37.

Week 18. All right. They had to coach for their jobs and stuff, whatever. This one, I'm like, pulling Rogers without pulling Breece Hall. I can't stress this enough. Rogers only through to three, only completed passes to three people in Monday Net football. Breast Hall, Garrett Wilson, Alan Lazzard. Fewest of his, fewest in like

12 years for Rogers. To leave one of those guys in, it reminds me of when I'm in NCAA football and I'm like up 60 points against Rice. And I'm just like, I'll pull the quarterbacks to get her. I'm like, I'm going to pull all these guys. I got it's like, oh, that seems like so much work and I just play it out.

Insane to do that. What a drive-by of rice. They're fine. Owls. Pick a harder one. If anyone went to Rice listening to us, email us. Yeah, email us to ring your fantasy football at gmail.com. Okay. I mentioned I would do the field goals thing.

Next up. Yeah. Underreaction from week one. This isn't me underreacting. I think everyone's underreacting. Field goals are now participation trophies. Field goals, like back in my day, when I was growing up, you had to go 50 yards to get points. Now it's 25.

You need 25 yards because it used to be the touchbacks at the 20. Field goal range started at the other 35. Now you get the ball at the 30 and you need to make it to the 45. Or if you're the Cowboys and Brandon Aubrey, Brandon Aubrey can now make field goals from the 50 yard line. I don't think we've really thought about what that means in terms of the touchback. We've heard all about the kickoff roll. We haven't thought about the touchback at the 30 combined with how kickers are getting better.

Like we haven't thought about this. And football, it's really different now. Like if you get, think about it this way. If you're an offense, you get a first down. Congratulations, you didn't go three and out. Another first down. Congratulations, you can have three points. I think it's also extremely interesting from a end of game strategy point of view because,

you know, you're tied or up one or two points or even three really, obviously. And it just changes the strategy. Like you have to kick to them to the, to the landing zone or whatever, so they don't get too far out. They complete like two passes and teams a lot of times are playing like really soft defense. You know what I mean?

Like it's just so easy to get into field goal range now, especially with this new kicking rule, that it's going to really change, I think, the late game strategy. Like the zero to three point leads are not safe or not nearly as safe as they used to be. You know what I mean?

Like you don't have to go very far. It's crazy. What do you think? Why are these guys so much better? Like, why is Brandon Aubrey so good now? Do they discover a new workout to strengthen your leg? Why are they better now? Everybody's better at everything.

Yeah, everyone gets better at everything. It's the Steve Kerr thing when Steve Kerr for the Warriors gets annoyed. Care. Care. Put it, care. Shit, how do I say it? Steve Kerr. Kerr.

Kerr. You know that. Steve Kerr. What did I say, Steve Kerr? I think you just slipped up because you were speaking quickly. You know it's Steve Kerr. Yeah, yeah. I've never.

What? Save by the bell. No, Craig's right. I slipped up. I've never said. Come on. Come on. What are we doing here? You know it's Steve Kerr. Yeah. You're right. Thank you, friend.

Craig. We got to come back to this. There's no way in hell you think it's Steve Care. Nope. None. So speaking of the Warriors, I know it just blatantly disrespecting Tom Tom. Craig, I have a stat that'll blow your mind. Okay. Just to give you an idea of how much better kickers are.

Week one, more field goals were made than any week, than all but one week in NFL history. second most field goals ever made. Okay. From any distance. 68 field goals are made. That's the second most ever. From 50 plus more than any week one ever.

But here's the point. Kickers last week made 50-yard field goals at a better rate than Steph Curry makes free throws. Wow. They hit 91.3%. 21 for 23 on 50-yard field goals last week in the NFL. 21 for 23. To give you a night, so 23 attempts, they missed. two. To give you context, 11 years ago in week one, teams tried four 50-yard field goals,

and they made two. This correlates nicely with week one, two, and three of the NFL. I mean, you should be betting all the field goal overs for weeks one, two, and three, because all these offenses are terrible or cold, and the kickers are the only thing you can rely on. Yeah. And so I'll say, we officially have to bring, if you're in a league that cut kickers from fantasy, you have to bring it back. Because kickers are going to be a larger part of the game than ever. Like, I mean, it's like, kickers were a larger share of the points in week one than any time in the 21st century at week one. That's terrible. That's not what we want.

Well, that's what I'm saying because we are either two things. We're entering either into the age of the kicker or field goals or participation trophies. And everyone's going to have to pick aside. So that's where we're at. Next up, DK, number seven, underreaction from week one. You have, I don't, you said me, I don't like the league's new illegal formation rule. Correct. Are you saying other people do?

No, no, no, no. This is me underreacting to the situation. If I was going to overreact, I would be screaming and swearing and hollering and hooting and all that stuff. I'm going to try and just like very calmly explain why these rules are absolutely horrific and ruining our sport. Get referees out of our sport. So you agree with the overreactors. You're just communicating it in a calm manner. Yes.

I just wanted to sneak this in basically. I like that. No, you're like an anarchist. I'm filled with white hot rage about these new rules and I'm just trying to underreact a little bit to it and just be calm about it. So here's the deal. There were 59 illegal formation calls last year in 17 weeks.

That's 289 games. There were 15 in week one alone. And that's like a 5x rate. This is absolutely ridiculous. No one wants this. No one asks for this. No one cares about this. do you ever notice if like a guard is slightly off the ball a little bit like who gives a crap

look you know what are we doing here you got to crack down dk it's week one you got to crack a couple eggs to make an omelet all right you got to make an example out of people it's like a power trip by the referee association or whatever it's no honestly what it is it's the beginning of pirates of the caribbean where you're selling in and they just they hang the guys in the in the cove and it's like pirates you be warned that's exactly what it is it's a public execution of being like hey everyone watch that game right it's going to happen to you it's so So dumb. It's so dumb. Why do they pick this as their emphasis?

You know what they should do? After the week one of the NFL season, they should say, gotcha, this was still preseason, and then just start in week two. Honestly, it would be really funny to look at what the playoff standings would change if we just deleted week one. Yeah. That was a preseason week what we just watched. And that's the reason we do all this. It's like you look at like Week Wellness year, Lamar Jackson, quarterback 28 and Fantasy, Mac Jones, second best quarterback.

And you're like, all right, well, you know, it's why you do all this stuff. Anyway, that was me underreacting. That was the five out of ten on the calm scale. I mean, I just wanted to, I just wanted to scream, you know, especially that first game, the Ravens Chiefs. They called it like six times in the first minute of the game. Like, what are we doing? This is a professional football game.

What are we doing? This isn't like youth sports. We're not teaching them how to play. Tell your tackles to stop cheating, then. It's so dumb. All right, Ronnie Staley, stop cheating. Pretty simple. Kick off this NFL season

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Call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-help.com. Next up here, D.K., you had it. Jaden Daniels is good in fantasy, but honestly, same pre-draft concerns. Oh, now you're worried. No, no, no. I'm not worried. I'm basically like, we get to do our, you know, victory laps about how he's so awesome in fantasy.

But like basically every single thing that we were worried about in the pre-draft process, which Jane Daniels showed up a lot in week one as, as, as what, in terms of just what he was doing as a pastor. He had 16 rush attempts, just from a fantasy point of view. 16 rush attempts. All-time record for a rookie quarterback in their first. start by six. The previous high was Anthony Richardson and Steve Young with 10.

And so he scored over 20 points as a rusher alone. That's only happened 16 times ever. So obviously this was an amazing job for Jay and Daniels. People that were like talking about him being a fantasy cheat coat. He absolutely was. However, as a passer, he was very bad against pressure. One for four on his 12 pressure dropbacks. He scrambled six times out of those 12 pressure dropbacks, which was what we talked about.

He doesn't like check it down. He doesn't like go through his reads. He just takes off and runs. He took two sacks and one throw away. He was 29th in passing grade among 32 quarterbacks, according to PFF. 30th in passing grade when he was kept clean. And weirdly, and this is like something that I wasn't really expecting. He refused to push the ball downfield.

And when he did, he was inaccurate. So super exciting from a fantasy point of view. I'm so bullish on him from a fantasy point of view. But boy, there was a lot of concerns with what he did in Week 1 as a passer. Basically all the rookies were like this. But all the things that we were worried about pre-draft really manifested for Jay and Dale's week one.

Also just terrifying to watch as a runner. I'm so scared for him. His helmet came off. His helmet flew off. All right. Our pets. Heads are falling off. It's like, all right.

Maybe tighten the jadstrap a little bit. Nobody needs a helmet more than that guy. Yeah. He's too skinny for a helmet. Like, it just seems like the pads don't fit on him. He's so, he's so slender. under. They had to get a custom

custom pads made for him. Sound their to-do list. Get you in Daniel's Island. Anyway, all the rookies were bad. Let's be honest. On that note, honestly, my, I'm throwing the ball to myself here. My underreaction for week one.

All the rookies who were bad in week one will be good in week two. Oh, thank God. Like, it's... That's a relief. Because you're right. The top rookies were bad, but they're going to be fine. I mean, it's hard to get worse.

And Marvin Harrison, would have to have zero catches to be worse. Oh, God, the Marvin Harrison stuff. We should have brought that up. I forgot about that. The underlying stats are bad. Scott Barrett was tweeting about the separation score of these receivers, like how open they're getting. It's like the worst of all the rookies.

It's really bad. It was so insane, though. Like, honestly, this is also like the Achilles quarterbacks were like, oh, yeah, it'll be it's like, oh, yeah, rookie receiver. He'll be my number one guy in week one. Like, that's an insane thing to expect. Also, Kyler Murray missed Marvin Harrison for a touchdown. We would not even be talking about Martin Harrison if Kyler

Murray had just thrown the wide open touch set of Marvin Harrison. Martin Harris was waving. And that's another like the HR meme. Does that play out the separation score thing? Because he was like 50 yards away from anybody. No, it doesn't. And here's the thing. It's the HR meme of just like, if Daniel Jones had missed Malik neighbors that wide

open, everyone would be destroying Daniel Jones. Kyler Murray checks down to freaking Greg Dorch while Marvin Harrison's waving with two hands. No one talks about it. Marvin Harrison Jr. is going to be fine. Also, so will Caleb Williams. He was nervous. look nervous. He's not going to be nervous. He did look nervous. Yeah, he looks

really nervous. He's got Sunday night now. He's playing Sunday night against the Texans. He's bright lights. Also, like, the Titans defensive tackles actually are just like way better than what Houston has. So like, the bear's weakness is the interior offensive line. I think it'll be okay. He was under a lot of pressure. I think it'll be way better. And then yeah, Malik Nabris is the only good part of the

Giants offense. And they're playing Washington. His defense sucks. All these guys are going to be way better, including Jade and Daniels playing against the Giants' instead of playing against the Buccaneers defense. Whose week one rookie performance, DK, was the most worrisome to you? That's a great question. Probably, I would say like Knicks, just because everything was just so short and like dump-offs. And every time he threw over the middle field, it was extremely inaccurate.

And I wasn't particularly high on him to start with. So I think that was like, you know, validating some of my concerns. But also, I don't know if he's going to get any better, whereas I think Caleb Williams and Jane Daniels, they're going to get better. They have the tools and, you know, the history of that to get better. But I just, I do worry that like, this is what we're getting. This is what we're going to get with Nix. I feel like, yeah, it's like the Bo Jackson. You don't know Bo.

We think we know Bo. We know Bo. We're familiar with Bo's work. I'm sure I'm forgetting some pretty horrific rookie performances, but that one did come to mind. All right. Number 10 under reaction, Craig. You said, Isaiah likely, the Ravens's Thud End will not top what he did in week one. Yeah, I think we've already seen his best game in the season.

I think I think this is the definition of an I hate this but it's true look he had 21 points he had 111 yards

nine catches he should have had a second touchdown peaked early yeah he broke his shoulder somehow miraculously recovered 60 seconds later I don't know

I look I should caveat this by saying if you have a crappy tied in in your fantasy league you should definitely add Isaiah likely like I'm not saying

don't do that maybe if you have if you have Dalton Kincaid though don't freak out and feel like you have to spend $80 of your auction budget on Isaiah, likely, because I don't, I think this was a bit of a perfect storm on Thursday night.

Likely got a ton of work. No QB threw to their tight end more than Lamar did to likely in week one. He got like a third of the team's targets. But if you look at all the underlying numbers, Mark Andrews still ran more routes than likely. He was just covered more. The Chiefs doubled Mark Andrews the entire game. This is what they've done, Craig.

There's a history of doing this in the past, too. Yeah, since Steve Spagnolo has been the defensive coordinator for the Chief. Mark Andrews, they played five times, the Chiefs and the Ravens, when Spaggs was calling defensive play for the Chiefs. In those five games, Mark Andrews has averaged 24 yards per game. Wow. He was double-teamed more on Thursday night than he had been in three years. And, you know, the Chiefs better than anyone understand how important it is

when you take, like, that number one tight end away from the team. 100%. So this is, this combines really well with like a Mark Andrews will be fine, take two. I think so. And look, I still think a promising sign is that, The Ravens ran like a ton of two tight-end sets. They had two tight ends out there for 50% of their plays. Last year, the lead league was 42% by the Falcons.

So obviously, if they keep that up, there is a shot that you have like a Gronk Aaron Hernandez. Both these guys can be starting. But that doesn't happen much. Mark Angers is really talented. And again, this chief situation was very unique. It was kind of a perfect storm for likely, I think. I still think, look, if you have Pat Friermuth, I would go add,

Isaiah, like, right? But if you have Trey McBrugh, who had a bad game or all these other tight ends who had bad games. I think it's okay. That's our power hour. Those are our underreactions to week one. We got some fantasy court.

We're going to do right now. We've got some emails. It's been a while. It's been a while. Back in session, baby. All right. If you got fantasy court problems, call us, baby.

Email us at ringer fantasy football at gmail. We will represent you. We need a billboard. Like a cheesy lawyer billboard. We're representing them. I thought we were judging. Well, we are judges, but it's, I don't know. We'll represent you if we could be influenced with money.

Yeah, that's the thing. What if we had like a called Jacob cheesy billboard for a fantasy court? Yeah, we just sit there like, what is it? Like law tigers and we just sit there. There's a lot of billboards in L.A., Craig. Maybe you could get on that. One of them is Jacobi Myers. Yeah.

Kobe Myers, the injury lawyers. I still think the funniest thing with Jaden Daniels was that his first NIL deal was for a personal injury attorney. And I'm like, could there be a redder flag? Dude, imagine if we had our own fantasy court billboard? I don't know how much that costs. Can we get the powdered wigs? Like the old school British things, you know?

Oh, yeah, I like that. Listening or watching on YouTube, if anyone A, is a lawyer who has a billboard or B, on the supply side of anyone involved in the selling of billboards, please either comment on this YouTube channel or email at us at Ringar Fantasy Football and Google.com. And you want to donate a billboard. Come on, please.

Let's just get in touch. Tell us about the billboard process. Larry H. Parker, that's a classic one. We'll fight for you. Yeah, exactly. We could do it. Saul Goodman, baby. It's all accident.

It's basically fantasy accident? Do you draft Christian McCaffrey? It's like Darlington. We're talking. We're being eligible. We're just an ambulance chasing. Oh, man. Oh, my God.

Anyway, so we got a court here. What's going on? Okay, yeah, yeah. So for the record, remember, we're the judges, Craig. We're not the lawyers. But we're also going to accept at some point of class action lawsuit from McCaffer's bat. I feel like though by the end of this,

we will represent usually one side and we will follow up with an email to help support somebody. Yeah, we're judges. We're arbitraised. I don't know, man. We're not lawyers. I don't know. Anyway, fantasy court's in session.

We're the judges. This plaintiff here is Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac writes, my team is up eight points going into Monday, and football. I have Christian McCaffrey. everyone on my bench is locked except Jordan and Mason.

I checked my team at 6 o'clock Eastern, and I see basically 100% chance Christian McCaffrey's playing. Cool. I left him in. Turns out, I lost. And if I had subbed in Jordan Mason, off my bench, I would have won. What is the ruling on a next day substitute here?

Because I get that it's on the manager to check lineups before every game. But in this case, there's no doubt who the sub would be. And just because I couldn't check my phone in the 90-minute window before kickoff when this changed. I'm screwed. I don't always have that timer mental bandwidth. I'm 35.

I have three kids. He continues. I don't actually have three kids, but what if I do? He said, I have three kids. He lied? That's hilarious.

He's trying to bait us into... He doesn't have any kids. Empathizing with him. Come on. Sorry, buddy. This is Darwinism. All right? This is survival of the fittest.

It's Monday Night Football. You're down eight points. You need to be locked in. That is the point of the thing. You got to be watching that game. This is like the Happy Goalber thing. It's like, you got a dog, or not Happy Gomore, Billy Madison. You got a dog, you got a responsibility.

You can't go look for that thing for an hour and give up. You get off your ass and find that fucking dog. Also like, look, set alerts on your phone, man. Like you need the second Schefter tweets, Christian McCaffrey is out. You got to act on that. You need to have that set. I don't care how many kids you're playing with. It's a bummer for you.

You have my sympathy, but we're not going to rule in favor you because he did everything right except for actually pay attention to what's happening in the game. Stuff. Because we did hear, I don't know, like 45 minutes, an hour before the game. Yeah, a good hour before. Yeah. And again, you can have notifications for injuries for your players and your team, Schaefter. That's annoying.

Be on your phone more. That's what we're saying. No one's other phone enough. Neglect your three children to make sure that you're running back. That's why he didn't have children. It needs to play. What was he doing? What's this man doing?

That's why you shouldn't have kids. What do people with no kids do? I don't understand this. Was he eating dinner on a Monday night? Like, come on. I would love D.K., that would be a great bit if just every down and then. You're like, what do you guys? you guys do with all your time?

Seriously, what do you do? People can, like, just text you and be like, hey, let's go hang out and you can say, okay, I'll do that. Yeah, yeah. Like, you can do this. Yeah, yeah. Honestly, yeah, sometimes. I feel that way about Sundays.

Like, during the middle of the season, I'm like, what do I do on Sundays in, like, March? I have no memory of that. It's like a day. All right, next fantasy court case here. We got a more complicated one. This from Corbyn. Yeah, that was a warm up. That was a layup you gave us.

Thank you. That didn't even make you the docket. All right. Like everyone else, our league was surprised. to learn about Christian McCaffrey being inactive before Monday night football. I happen to be playing against the guy who drafted Christian McCaffer first overall. We all had a great time

clowning him in the group chat until he responded. We all had a good time. Yeah, clouded him. Until he responded back, check out my team. Turns out he was able to drop a player from his bench that had played yesterday. Kyler Murray, he dropped Kyler Murray and replaced Kyler Murray with Jordan Mason,

put Jordan Mason in his lineup on Monday football and played him. I and most of our league were under the impression that you can't drop a player that's already played and replace him with someone who has not and still play him that same week. And we're looking for a ruling on whether the Jordan Mason points should be allowed,

as well as what should be done for scenarios like this moving forward. I look, I think this is commissioner negligence. This is on the commissioner. You should know the rules of your league. And if those are the rules, he has every right to act on them. I think this is fair play. And he, dude, he dropped Kyler Murray. Like, sure, he got a win this week,

but now he doesn't have Kyler Murray. So we'll see if that even was worth it. There's a legal principle. It's a Latin term, so I'm going to totally butcher this. But it's ignorantia jurist non-excucat, which means ignorance of the law is not an excuse. Nice, D.K. Wow. I'm sure I'm sure I butchered my Latin.

That's like the smartest thing I've ever heard you say. Well, you know what? It really, I think, comes into effect here because I personally believe, like, if you kind of know a loophole in your league's rules, you should absolutely exploit that to the fullest. extent. You know what I mean? Like, if your rule is, if your league's rule is like, I have a player who's doubtful, but I can put him on IR if he's doubtful or out or whatever. Like, I'm using that. I'm using every single rule

that I can. As long as it's not cheap, like, you're not, you know, working with someone else on something like that. That's collusion. But like, yeah, this is one of the rules and he knew about it. And so he used it. And the difference is very simple. ESPN does not allow you to do this, but Yahoo does. And I agree, it's

if you want future examples to not be like that, you can change the rule. But I agree. Do you really want to incentivize people to not try really hard? Like this guy did that and was like that was ingenuity and he got it done. You're going to take it away. It's such a sick comeback. They're all making fun of them in the chat.

And he's just like, like, tapping away at his computer. You know, like, hacking into the mainframe. The Antonio Banderas like. Yeah.

Like he lads Jordan Mason while they're all talking shit. Oh my God. All right. Yeah. I think he gets the win. I think the guy gets. the dub and you guys can decide if that should be allowed going forward. Yeah, that's on the, that's on the commissioner.

That's on commission. Also, he owned all of you. Like, you got to give them props. Like, he, that's, he got, he got, that's, look, super annoying. I get it. If you're the other nine or 11 people in that league, like, that sucks, but also good on that. Also, when they look, there's a little plus icon. How did you, I don't know.

I feel like people are going to stop writing us about fantasy court. We just make fun of others for us. We're just like, idiot. We're just like, in favor of all the people that were just dicks. Yeah, we're like, denied. All right. We got a bunch of emails here. Emails at ringer fantasy football at Gmail.com.

We emails for fantasy core questions, emails, trivia questions for Mondays, emails, all the stuff. We got a bunch of emails this week. We asked for botched small talk. Oh, yes. Botch small. It's always said botched it. Like we just wanted any small talk, any situation.

Everyone delivered. Thank you. Emails for your fantasy football at Gmail.com. I want to start with Nathan. Nate. Neat. Neat the great. I like that we always give everybody Nick, Nick,

names. Maybe they hate that. But I like, we can't hear them, so it's fine. Yeah, exactly. That's why they're ghosts. Again, if you don't know, we call people, if people don't let, we call people ghost because someone emailed us once and said, listening to a podcast and trying to talk to them, like, yell that they're wrong about something, but like they can't hear you is the closest you'll ever come to feeling like a ghost. It's McConaughey behind the bookshelf and interstellar.

Yeah. Like, that's, you're a ghost. If you're listening to this, we're wrong. You're trying to correct this. Sorry. Anyway, Nathan. Nathan writes, back in 2011,

I was living in Nashville. And my roommate told me that Mumford and Sons was going to be playing a secret show in the basement of one of our friends' houses. And that sounds insane,

but our friends were in a band that had been opening for Mumford and Sons on their tour. So we went to the house and saw the concert and there ended up being some celebrities at the show. Carrie Mulligan,

the guys from the old Crowe Medicine show, Matt, Kearney, I actually don't know if that is, but there were a bunch. Oh yeah, I know Mac. I know Mac here. He's an amount of people. After the show, everyone went from the basement to the upstairs of the house to hang out,

and the house was pretty packed. And at one point, I'm trying to make my way to the bathroom, and I'm sliding past several people. And my butt graze his butts with another person. And so I turn around to apologize, and then I realize it is Jake Gyllenhol. And I am several PBR's in, and I have no idea what to say. So after some awkward silence, I just kind of stared at Jake Gyllenhall and said, I really liked Sodiak.

Nice. And he replied, that's cool, man, and then walked away. I don't, look, I don't even know if you have to apologize for the accidental butt grace. The butt on butt gray's, I think is,

there's no other combo that's better. It's like Winston Churchill said, democracy is not the best form of government. It's just like it's the least bad we have. That's the butt to butt. If it was hand to butt, it's a whole different situation. No,

but to butt, I'm not even sure you needed, to address Jake Gyllenhaal. What are you supposed to do other than butt to butt? Anything else doesn't... Right. You're not going to turn the other way and go crotch to butt. That's not the move.

Definitely not crotch to crotch. Not, well, I think Jillen Hall was turned around. You're not going to turn him around. No, you're not going to spin Jillen Hall around. You grab his shoulders. I really like Zodiac. I think also you could have done worse than I really like Zodiac. If you would have said a movie he wasn't in, that would have been better.

Yeah, he's like, I really like. he was like, it was Chris Pine. And you're like, ah. Dark noise. Like, that's my sister. Craig, I feel like, or actually, Hyfitz has probably had one of these scenarios. Hyfitz runs into famous people all the time for some reason.

He's just blessed in that way. Have you ever run into a movie star, Hyfitz? And we mean physically run into them because I feel like you would have ran into a movie star. No, I've never physically bumped into, no, I don't think so. Too bad. Kira Washington's kids almost ran into me. Okay. Well, actually, they did, but it was with their little,

electric trucks on the Sunset Gower lot and it was cool and it was fine. They like ran into you with a car? Because the old ringer office looked right into the White House set for scandal. So Kerry Washington's kids were always right outside the door. And then one day and they had this like sick. You know those like really cool electric car toys that are like hundreds of dollars that like you really can like drive the car?

Yeah, yeah. Those are the best. Wipping those around and just ran over my foot. And I was like, it's all good. What am I going to do? Sue her. Make her pay you. Then help me now. Yeah.

All right. Next up here, we got botch small talk. We got an email from Josh. Joshua. A member of our church passed away and I attended the funeral. I already hate this. I don't know what happens, but I already hate it. Yeah, the funerals, it's never good.

I attended the funeral with my mom. My mom is notoriously socially awkward. And so we go up in the line. And when we greet the grieving daughter, my mom was so nervous. she goes up and says, congratulations. Oh. Maybe just this person shouldn't go to funerals.

That's why we invented cringe, which is the app to trade lives with people and you have to pack up. It's witness protection for embarrassing moments. Start a new life. You can never come back. Oh, that's tough. I would love to know.

She was thinking condolences. Yeah. Yeah. That's a nightmare. Yeah. Absolute nightmare. I would love, did he, is there anything else? Like, how did she respond? How did the grieving daughter respond?

Did Josh say? He said that he didn't, he was so flabbergasted that he just sat there and said nothing and they just moved on. Oh my God. They just moved away. Oh. That's like a curb moment. Yeah, that is. That's tough.

Godolences. Congratulations. Oh, we got an email from Alec. Alex. One year I was delivering pizzas on Christmas Eve, and I took a big order out for delivery, 10 pizzas. And I'm assuming it's for a family celebrating Christmas.

Get to the house. Just one guy. It comes to the door. It's one guy. And this guy's wearing a long-ass trench coat like the kind of people wear when they're also trying to sell drugs while staying warm.

Okay. And this guy's t-shirt is a diagram photo of the moth that the killer from the movie Silence of the Lamb stuffs in the victim's mouths when he murders them. Oh, my dear. Alex's a little on edge.

Yeah, yeah. There's some red flags happening here. And I'm watching him sign their seat and he's not writing a tip down. And I'm like, this is $100 of food. Like, fuck this guy. And so I get all nervous. And I wanted to very confidently be like, thank you. Merry Christmas.

But what actually came out was thank you. Happy birthday. See, I actually, that's even better because now he, Now Alex is psychologically messing with this pizza guy. You know, now he's kind of on his same level. Now that guy's like, wait a minute. What's the delivery guy's deal? Wait, what was he doing with those 10 pizzas though?

Dude, I don't know. I was kind of wondering that. Feeding the people in his basement? Yeah, I mean, that's where my mind went. Oh, shit. Life is just figuring it out. Fuck. Yeah.

All the people in his basement. Or maybe he was taking them. his family's house. Or, you know, he had friends. Yeah. Or yeah. One of the two. They were coming over in an hour.

They were just in the other room, standing right there. He was getting ready for a party. Yo, put out the silence of the lamb shirt for the pizza guy. I know, I need more details. What time was it? Were there lights on the house? That's a good, yeah, where their lights? Yeah, that's a good one.

All right. We got one more funny encounter here from Sam. Happy birthday's funny. Sammy. Sam. This is not a botched encounter, but this is very relevant. into our last episode. My best friend, this is from Sam,

my best friend of 48 years is a professional musician. Yes, I'm the same age as Bill Simmons. My friend plays drums for a band that was very popular in the 70s and 80s, and my friend replaced the original drummer. So years ago, years ago, I was living outside Denver

and met my friend in town, and because my friend and I in the band, they were playing a show in Denver. So we go to lunch near the venue and we're waiting to order, and my friend flags down a couple who was also at this restaurant. And he doesn't live in Denver.

And so he introduced me to this petite brunette woman with a pixie haircut. She's named Pat. Husband is named Anil. And we exchanged pleasantries and they proceeded to their table. And then I asked my friend, you don't live in Denver? Like, how do you know this couple? And he looked at me blankly and said, Sam, you idiot. That's Pat Benatar and her husband.

And they're opening for us tonight. Hey, we just talked about Pat Benetton. That's why that's the other reason why I thought about it. I love that. We got Fat Benatar. Wow. There you go. See, it's not just me.

It's not just me. He doesn't know what Pat Benettois is. And I guess, I mean, and she was even more relevant, because he didn't say what year this was, right? No. I mean, she was more relevant than years ago than she was now. So that's even worse. Yeah.

Yes. So there you go. He says years ago. Yeah. Yeah. I want to know what band. This dude's friend was a drummer. I feel like it's big.

Because he really hasn't played. He said very popular in the 70s and 80s. It's opening. Leonard Skinnerd. Journey. Jericho. He's going to name bands. Yeah.

Let's just keep guessing. Yeah. You never know. Yeah. It would be Mick Fleetwood. That would be nuts. He's listening to our pod. Well, no, it would be Mick Fleetwood's friend.

Oh, still, that's good. I'll take it, Craig. We'll probably play him as part of the show. Sam, if you're friends with Mick Fleetwood, hit me up. Hit us up. Wait, hold on. Wait, wait. Or if you're Mick Fleetwood.

No. my moment. Okay. If this guy is friends with the drummer, Fleetwood back. Oh yeah, give you your pitch. Hell, okay. This is my billion dollar idea. I'm giving it away for free. I don't know if you should be doing this, but yeah. No, it's not for the money. We're live. Cut this out later. No, it's for the love of the game.

Yeah, yeah. If anyone knows Stevie Nicks, anyone who can get in contact with Stephen Nix. Stevie Nix wrote a song. She came across the Twilight movie and was so taken with the Twilight movie that Stevie Nix wrote a song called Moonlight of Vampires Dream. That's an entire song about Edward, Cullen, and Bella from Twilight.

She loves Twilight. Jackie went to a concert of hers, and she gave this whole speech about how much she loved Twilight. Anyway, like Mama Mia is a jukebox musical for Abba. Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nix should do a jukebox musical of all the Fleetwood Mac Stevie Nix catalog

for Twilight. Put it on Broadway. It will sell out for 20 years. Vampires are back. Fleetwood Mac is back. Spookiness is back. This would sell it out. Someone get in touch with Stevie Nix, make it happen.

It's a great idea, but what I, Hyvitz doesn't agree with me, but I'm like, this was 100% 100% suggested to her and her agents and her team. And she said no. Who do you think thought of this? There's no way. Dude, if Stevie Nix is giving speeches about how much she loves Twilight, like I don't think this is some secret idea here. Like every agent manager, producer, all they do every day is think of ways to exploit IP for money.

Sure, sure, but I'm going to ask you something else. Yeah. Go play the hit. Their job is to, like, extract as much money out of IP as possible every day. As Craig likes to say, squeeze water out of a rock. Yeah, like, I think that's an awesome idea. Maybe no one's ever thought of it. Who knows?

My, my, dude, there's this seed from the American Dad with a goldfish in American Dad gives this, like, thing. He's like, oh, are you, oh, you're dating a girl and you're going to move in, and then you will get to golden doodle for practice with your boat shoes and your button-down shirt. Your life's been lived a thousand times. That's, that's, that's, I think, I think because of you, I always say, our lives have been lived a thousand times. Yeah, that's, yeah, it's, it's true. Yeah, it actually makes me feel better.

It does, yeah, your life, every time you are upset about anything, your life has been lived a thousand times. Why stress about anything at the time? Yeah, it's nothing, nothing you've ever felt is original to you. Eat Arby's. All right. I have one incredibly raunchy, one of these, not incredibly raunchy, but I'm, you know what, it's our first live YouTube. Should we, did we like this? I could read it and we could get fired and like not do these anymore or we could

keep it off. This is up to your discretion here. I don't know. This is your call. You know what? We'll back pocket it. We'll see. All right.

Quit while we're ahead here, pal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just quit while we're less behind than we will be if we keep going. Okay. Correct. That's all it's going to be. Thank you, D.K., thank you, Craig. Thank you.

A lot of people doing live stuff. Thank you, Jack. Thank you, John. Thank you, Kyle. Thank you, Carlos. Thank you, everyone, behind the scenes. Thank you everyone for watching. Thank you everyone for emailing us.

Ring your Fantasy Football at Gmail.com. Email us fantasy courts when you're mad at your friends. We'll make fun of them. If you can get us that billboard, that would be awesome. Any emails her in your fantasy football atcom. Anyone who's put an ad up on a bill? I don't know anything about billboards right now. If you know Mick Fleetwood and or are McFleetwood.

We'll settle for one of those benches. You know those bench advertisements? We'll settle for that. Oh, dude. Give me one of those. That can't possibly cost that much. Right. One bench.

We can just go to a bench and put something up. What's a banana cost? $7? What's a bench ad cost? $100? Come on. You just tape a piece of paper to a bench. It's not the same thing.

Thank you, Lord. Lord. Thank you, Mumford and Sons. Nice. They were really of a time, you know? Yeah, I was trying to remember. I can't picture their famous songs at this. Oh, my God.

Isn't it? I will wait. I will wait. How are you? And Lover of the Light. This is where I feel like, You guys know way more about music than me, but the single whitest thing about me is I love Mumford and Sons.

Oh, really? It's I love Mumford and Sons. I think that whatever pop folk. Yeah, exactly. The English pop folk, yeah, the babble and like the cave. Are you a Luminers guy? Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. It's just so basic. Yeah. So basic. And also, there's also something very white about like the Venn diagram of like, I love the Luminers and Mumford and Sons. And also I know a lot of the Carter things.

and Kendrick Lamar. It's like, it somehow makes you even whiter. Like, that's me. I'm the most basic. Again, my life's been lived a thousand times.

I like Mumford and Sons. You're overcompensating. But yeah, broken crown. Great stuff. Sure. I don't have a problem. Oh,

what was the other one? There was another band that sounds like Mumford and Sons that was also folk of monsters and men. That sounds familiar. What's up with these names?

And so, because they took all the good names. Cars and Eagles got taken like 50 years ago when no one had any band. The doors. It took all the best names. Like the doors. You just point.

All the inanimate objects are taken, all right? It's kind of like Apple, where the first guy was like, Red Delicious, and then they came to Granny Smith, and they're sad of ideas. Yeah, now we have to be like really vague, literary references. Oh, yeah. Of Monsters and Men does that song, Little Talks.

Remember that song? Yeah. Yeah. I think I skipped that era of music. It came out in 2011, that song. I do love Mumford, though. And his sons? You know, I never actually.

Are they brothers? I haven't actually looked to do it. I don't know. I feel like you would know that. Come to think of it, I have no idea why they're named that. Okay.

Do you know he did the Ted Lassow intro? Oh. Yeah. The one that everyone is like, oh, God, we got to turn this off. Skip the intro. Ripping that headphones off.

Really? Oh, God. Yeah, it's like, the funny cold open and then the song goes. And everyone's like, oh, God. Yeah, what's the worst?

What's the worst TV intro ever where you're like, this is so goddamn annoying. I think it's Ted Lassow. It's definitely. Really? I love the Ted Lassau intro. Oh, it's no.

Why? Why do you hate it? I can't remember it. I got to look at it. Because I don't like the sound of it. I don't know. Why do you hate any song? Because it doesn't hit me right, all right?

I don't like it. I'm going to listen to it right now. It's too like, it's too much, too quick. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's too earnest. It's a real reaction. It's a show, yeah.

Yeah, it's an Ernish song. It's an Erdisch. All right. I'm struggling to think of a terrible, another terrible intro. There's some that were ahead of their time. Scrubs was ahead of its time because it's 15 seconds, and it actually, it's not even worse skipping. So you watch Scrubs, it's like 15 seconds,

and you're like in and out, you're like, okay, they knew that no one wanted to stick with these things. And then there's ones like the wire, which I love, but they're like, it's like a whole song. It's like three minutes. But then they switched, didn't they switch the song? They changed, though. It's an incredible intro.

But it hasn't aged well in the skip intro song era. Like some are, some are, I love the wire, but it's, it's just like long. A good intro, a good intro to a show really can stick with you. Sopranos is super long, but it's an awesome song. Thrones is the best. Madman. Mad Men's is like iconic. Mad Men's is amazing.

Yeah. Thrones was sick. Thrones intro cost more than many shows that were made. Right. Plus it like tells you a story too, which is like really cool. The Dragon Show one is actually like very helpful. The Dragon Show. Sorry, House of the Dragon.

Two buildings. The Lord of the Rings, the two buildings. Dragon Show. Love the Dragon Show. Yeah, Dragon House. That one's good. I wonder if Valerie Rubin's watching right now. The Home?

Dragon Home. Oh, dude, you know what one is awesome? Is succession. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's great tune. The True Detective has a very like iconic. Oh, yeah.

Also. The dusty mason. Yeah. Go back even further. Weeds. Do you remember weeds? Oh, I didn't watch. Little boxes.

Bub, bu, bu. I don't know the whole song, but yeah. I liked new girls, the little song. Maybe people got annoyed by that one, but I liked it.

Who's that girl? It's Jess. That was nice. Office things. Office. Offices. Just takes you back to a moment in time in your life. Yeah.

Man, they really know how to nail them. Good job. All the intro package people out there, all these studios production companies. Good job. Well, our intro songs been used in porn, so, you know.

Let's just wait until the office gets used in porn. And like, you know, then they can catch up to our insurance. I bet it has. What is it? What is it? Like Rule 32? Yeah, Rule 32. Everything that exists is, yeah. What a great way to end this lifestyle.

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