The Ringer NFL Show - Week 4 NFL Picks, Props, and Predictions! | Extra Point Taken

Episode Date: September 29, 2023

Sheil and Ben break down the biggest matchups of the week, including the AFC East showdown between the Dolphins and the Bills. Will Tua and his crew put up another 70 points or will Josh Allen put the Bills on his back and carry them to victory? Plus, Monday morning story lines, bold predictions, and long shots of the week! The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more, or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia and Ben Solak Producer: Cliff Augustin Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Musical Elements: Devon Renaldo Social: Eduardo Ocampo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everyone. This is Craig Horlebeck from the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. Join me, Danny Hifitz and Danny Kelly every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to help you win your draft, win your league, and most importantly, avoid that last place punishment. Follow the Ringer Fantasy Football Show on Spotify. Welcome to Extra Point Take and Shield Kapati here, joined by Ben Solac. It's the Friday show where we're talking about what we're watching, who we're picking, what we're predicting, all the good stuff. Benny Souls is looking fresh on this Friday morning. How are we doing for week four? We have reached that point where I was like, it's week four, four, four, we're getting to the stage where I'm not going to know which number it is.

There's games happening on Thursdays and Mondays and in London and I'm going to be totally lost at all the time. I made it three weeks this year before I wasn't positive what week was when we logged onto the pod. It's a new record for me. We've already, week four, we watched the Detroit Lions, take it to the Green Bay Packers, Ben Solek on Thursday night, just take control of that game in the first half. Their defense flying around, capitalizing on turnovers.

Every week, you know, you're going to get some good, like, offensive stuff from the Detroit Lions, honestly. Like, if you had to say, like, who are the five teams who you know, they're going to give you something good offensively? It might be a little uneven. Like, they're absolutely on that list, I think, for me. I agree. The story for me, though, through a month of Lions football is the defense.

I was an Aaron Glenn believer when they brought. him in and year one I was like I see what they're trying to do and I was an erin glen believer coming into year two and year two I was like this ain't it we're in trouble this is bad and I was still an erin glen believer in year three but I was a little quieter about it and I probably should been a little bit louder uh 20 points that they gave up uh to the chiefs they held the falcons the single digits the Seahawks game they gave up 37 pick six led to the the overtime game like that one wasn't their prettiest one I think the Seahawks offense is legit but then I mean that first half against the Packers was suffocating. Packers were they only started getting the ball rolling

on like penalty drives and injury drives. They have four of the five starters out in the secondary for the for the second half there against the Packers. Very impressed with what the Lions are doing defensively. I think the Lions might just be good. Like we've done a lot of couching for the Lions. I think the Lions might just be good. I'm not saying they're like, oh, the NFC goes on notice. I think the Lions are just good football team period. I think they got it. Now, when I see Jared Goff play a road game in November in weather under 50 degrees, I'm going to wish I never said that. But right now, I think the lions might just be good. Poor Jared Gough. He's like, you know, I just come off a win at Lambo. I'm listening to my favorite NFL podcast.

They're saying nice things about the Lions. And then Benny Soul just has to hit me with that for no nice reason. Did you see him on the post game show? He threw him back at Ryan Fitzpatrick. Apparently, Fitz called him a poor man's Matt Ryan. And Jared Gough, Derek Gough said to Fitz. Like, Fitz said some time previously, and Goff was on the desk for postgame was like, I don't know, I was a poor man's anything. Oh, I didn't see that. I like it. I love it.

I feel great, but the problem is Jared Goff saying it in Jared's voice and then like chuckling afterward and he doesn't come off as hard as I think maybe you wanted it to. I would never call Jared Goff a poor man's Matt Ryan. Now you never catch me saying that. That's too nice.

You just can't call Jared Goff a poor man. Jared Goff has made a lot of money in his career. Jared Goff is just a Jared Goff. That's all he is. He is by no metric, a poor man. All right. Lions, three and one, Packers fall to two and two. I'm with you.

Lines have looked good. If you're a Lions fan and you were like, oh, this first month of the season, I hope they live up to the hype. I think they've lived up to the hype. One loss, and that was an overtime loss to the Seattle Seahawks. So nice job by them. All right, we're looking ahead.

We look ahead on the Friday show to week four, but I thought, you know, lines deserved a little bit of credit there at the top. Let's start it off, Ben. We're going to start with our. headliners, what are you watching? Could be a matchup, could be a game, could be a player, could be anything you want. What's on your mind as we look ahead to the week four slate?

If anyone has the capacity to legally stream the Dolphins Bills game at 1 o'clock on Sunday morning, 1 p.m. Eastern, and is not doing so. They are outside of their mind. I think this is probably the best. I think you circle some matchups early in the season as like, oh, these are really good. based off of our preseason stuff. This is the first matchup where it's like, all right, now that I've, like, seen the teams,

there we go. I got a team I'm for sure positive is good. Against the team, I'm for sure positive is good. I've got divisional rivalries involved here. I've got the history of how these teams played each other last season. I'm very, very interested in this game. A lot of attention is on, okay, the Dolphins offense just scored 70 points.

Obviously, there's going to be a lot of attention on that. But it's okay. What will they do against this bill's defense? Honestly, like, I know what they're going to do. They're going to score somewhere around 30. 30 points. They might score somewhere around 40 if they have a good day. Like I, I don't think you hold this. I don't think you beat this team defensively. I think if you slow them down enough to win. But I'm not like, oh, there's a chance the bills hold them to 17. I'd be flabbergasted.

I'd just be stunned at this point if the dolphins have that sort of a game. So to me, I'm much more interested in Josh Allen because when we were, when we had that week one game of Allen against the Jets, I was very critical of him for not just sitting down. and being mature and being a game manager and a game that only required him to do so. When I was going to walk into a Dolphins game where he's going to know entering the game, we're in for a little bit of a firefight here, right? This is going to be a potentially high scoring one. It's going to be going to be going back and forth a lot.

But you can't walk in and decide you're just going to be a fire breathing dragon for four quarters. Like you still like, if you are like, all right, like, I got to go toe for toe, I got to score a ton of points, it's all on me. And you make two mistakes in the first half and you're walking to the halftime locker room down multiple scores. You cannot make those mistakes. So I'm very interested to see how Josh responds to this game, already down one game in the division, knowing it's going to be a quality opponent.

It's a total of 53 and a half points going to be a high scoring game. I'm interested in seeing how Josh Allen modulates his game based off the last time we saw him in an environment where I think there was like a lot, he put a lot of pressure on himself to be the guy to score the points to win the game and he performed very poorly.

You're smirking at me. You smirk to me the whole time. How hard it is to do this? when I get to see you just everything behind the mic we put a TikTok up of me doing all that talking and just you there be like

I'm going to say something clever they'll smirk the whole time I'm not going to say anything clever I'm just I know what I know what's gonna Josh Allen modulation Josh Allen going into this game not wanting to be a fire

no that's not how the guy that's not how the guy's wired he's going into this game saying oh they put up 70 listen we're still really good guess what? The bill, even with that 70-burger, that 50-point win, the dolphins are plus 59 through three games. The bills are plus 56. They're right behind them. The bills have been an amazingly competitive team under Josh Allen, week in and week out. They've played 40 games

in the last three years. They've been beaten by more than a field goal twice, twice in 40 games. That is like a relentless streak of competitiveness. And I don't think there's going to be any modulation. I don't think there's going to be any like, oh, I can't turn the ball over. Oh, I don't have to do too much. I have to play within the gate. No, he's going to go into this game and he's going to say, I'm going to put the team on my back. They put up 70 last week. We're going to match them. Possession for possession. We'll see what our defense does. But we're not taking a back seat to that team. And if I have to throw for 370 and run for 95, guess what? That's what it's going to take. And if I throw an interception, I don't care. The next possession, I'm going to come back and I'm going to do the same thing. So that's the only reason I was smirking is because I don't see, you know, any type of different style of Josh Allen, specifically in this game. I know we've talked about before defenses played them differently. You had to take the underneath stuff and he was doing that, really the first half of last season. To me, this isn't that type of game. I mean,

that Dolphins defense has not been great to me through the first three weeks of the season. They've, you know, created some turnovers and been good in that sense. I think they're 31st in defensive success rate. Now, listen, there's some. garbage time in there, I understand. But I think they're still sort of finding themselves figuring out what they want to be under Vic Fangio. So I actually think that Dolphins defense is getable. And I think Josh Allen is going to view that Dolphins defense is getable. And I think he's going to go into this game saying, I'm going to put this team on my back and we're going to go beat the Dolphins and we're going to recapture control of the AFC East.

I, so yeah, like I agree that Allen's still going to come out shooting because Alan's going to come out shooting. Like that that's, I've no issue. with that. If I were in the Bill's offensive game planning room, I'd be watching that Chargers game in week one where the Chargers put up historical success rates running the football against this Dolphins offense. And I thought Nate Tice, who right, who's, he's on the athletic pot. He writes for Yahoo Sports. He has a weekly column comes out Thursdays. They're a very good column. He had a big section this week dedicated to the Bill's running game. And I thought he did a great job detailing how right now the Bill's handoff game, just offensive line game, James Cook game, is really better than it's

been for the last several years in Josh Allen's tenure with the bills. I would want in Buffalo to come out and say, we're going to run the football. We're going to minimize the number of possessions they're going to get. We're not going to let them have 11 cracks at this. We're going to make them have eight cracks at this. We're going to be able to work methodically down the field against this defense. It's a big fanjo defense that lets you run on it if you can be successful. And accordingly, we're going to put together some nice long ball control drives. We're not going to say Josh Allen is suddenly Davis Mills, but we're going to be oriented on being balanced.

That means now like Josh, like we can't go seven, eight plays down the field and then on third and four, you decide that a 45-yard javelin to the back post, Stefan takes and double coverage, it's like a fun thing to do. If we're going to do this,

we've got to do this. And I think they can. You saw them do it against the Raiders and they did it against the commanders as well. Just now do it against the dolphins. You're not playing Tuaua. You're playing big fan geo. You're playing these guys,

like if this is our game, this is our game plan. So I think they're going to be a little bit run heavy. And I think accordingly, like, you just have to make sure your quarterback is okay with the fact that he's not on Terminator Killshot mode every single down. And he can be.

We've seen him do it before. Just chill! And we'll be fine. I don't want to see it. Just chill, Josh Allen, in this game. I hear what you... This was my headliner, too, and I think this is good.

We can have an extended conversation about this game because, like you said, I mean, this could end up being the best game of the season. Now, sometimes you put expectations on a game like that and it doesn't live up to it, but it's certainly the game I'm most excited about so far this season. I think your point about kind of the game script and the strategy from Sean McDermott

is a really interesting one because McDermott is a defensive-minded head coach. He's coached against great quarterbacks throughout his career. He's coached against great offenses throughout his career. And typically those types of coaches would not go into a game being like, well, you know, I don't think we're going to stop the Dolphins offense. let's shrink the number of possessions. But he has had some moments where he's done, you know, kind of gone that route. Like I think they play the Chiefs a few years ago, not that playoff game, but another game

where it was a little bit of that where it's, hey, we can't waste possessions on offense. I'd be aggressive going for it on fourth down. And the shrinking the number of possessions thing, it's always, it's not time of possession and it's not just an offensive thing. It has to be an offensive and a defensive thing. Because if you're stringing together, you know, nine play drives and then they score in three plays, well, like, they're still going to have a lot of possessions, but the overall theory is good. It's that, hey, the more possessions the dolphins get, the more they're going to, you know,

go towards the average of what they're going to be, which is a great offense. So if you only have to stop them eight times and you force two punts, like that's easier than if they get 11 or 12 possessions and eventually you're only going to be able to hold them for so long. So yeah, I am interested to see. I think you're right. I think they'll try to string together long, efficient drives. again, that's only going to matter if you can stop them from being as explosive as they've been so far

and make the dolphins string together long drive. So this is going to be a fun one. Yeah, I can't wait. They played right now, Ben, have you looked at the AFC East Division odds recently? Or do you want to guess? Who's the favorite and what the numbers are? I looked for recently. Okay. The dolphins are going to be the favorite, but it's not going to be big. They're just so plus money, right? They're going to be like plus 135. Nope. Are they minus one? Whoa, that's a lot.

That's too much. What are they? Minus 115? The dolphins are minus 135 right now. Chee. To win the division. The bills are plus 145 right now to win the division. Oh, they're just taking so much equity out of Jets Patriots.

Minus 135, minus plus 145 is like the whole market right there. Yeah, well, it should be. I mean, who's picking the Jets or the Patriots? I mean, they shouldn't even have numbers up there right now. So to me, it's, yeah, we're going to, like, either this game, we're going to come out of it saying the Dolphins are the team to beat in the AFC East and are a legit Super Bowl contender. I mean, you might already be there with what you've seen from three games so far this season. That's entirely possible. I mean, a two-game lead.

It's only week four, so I don't want to go overboard, but it would be a two-game lead over the bills after four weeks. Or we're going to say, no, no, no, no, no, like the bills have owned this division. the bills are still going to be the team to beat. Sean McDermott's put it, you know, some type of defensive game plan that Ben Solax breaking down on the play sheet next week, say, oh, baby, look at Willa what McDermott is here.

I am interested in that. Like, I know I wait that away. Yeah, he's a great defensive coach. Yeah, and also, like, you fired Leslie, not fired Leslie Fraser. Leslie Frazier stepped down of his own volition, but then also tried to stay in coaching and wants to go to coach, whatever, whatever terminology they use.

Lesz Prasier's gone. So now you have Sean McDermott running the defense and they had an entire year to be like, we know we're going to see this Dolphins offense twice. I'm very curious to see what they come out with because Belichick rolled out with like the Iowa State defense. You know, they were running like three safeties deep. And they, that was not great, but it was what they had to do. I'll be curious to see what McDermott and the bills do. I don't think it's going to, again, fully stop this offense, but it is interesting to see.

Yeah, I can't, I can't wait for this game. They played twice last year. one was kind of with Tua. They played three times overall. They had the kind of the snow game later in the season, and then they had the one early in the season where Tua left the game, came back and had the head injury, which they didn't say was a head injury,

which I guess I should say allegedly, whatever looked like a head injury, but they said it wasn't a head injury. Bridgewater came in. Then Tua came back in, and the Dolphins ended up winning that game. And then again, 32, 29 bills later in the season, where both offenses went off for like over 400 yards.

So this is going to be a fun month with Allen. Last thing from me on this is just like, is it going to be the I'm still the man game or is it going to be the, I tried to do too much game to bring it back full circle from what you said at the beginning. It's going to be one or the other. Like it's either going to be, holy cow, did you see that performance from Josh Allen or holy cow, did you see that performance?

Like it's going to be one extreme or the other. I don't think there's going to be a middle ground for Josh Allen in this game. think these are two teams that can win the Super Bowl. Like if we had to make a list of, let's say, six teams, eight teams, whatever at this point in the season, who can win the Super Bowl? Both these teams are on there. So it's fun to get this match up early in this season. All right, Monday morning, storyline, Benjamin Solek. What are we talking about on Monday morning after week four? What do you got? I have Sean Payton can't even hack it, bring him back some of the hack-it puns from last year. We love to hack it on anybody who was that.

anybody who was a listener of the preview show last year on Friday with me, Hypertson Ruiz, knows that the hackett puns were very big for the headline section. You got a guy's last name like that. You might as well. I think the Broncos are going to lose to the bears. I have no analysis. I have no analysis on it at all.

It's just current vibe. It's 100% gut feeling at this point. But every time I look at that game, firstly, like a rancid smell emanates from somewhere near me. I feel like my gag reflex triggered immediately. By the way, Broncos are playing the bear. I should have clarified on Sunday. Winless Broncos, winless bears, two worst teams in football.

Bears, the Broncos lost a game 70 to 20 and are now favored on the road, which no team had really ever lost a game 70 to 20, but then certainly no team had ever lost a game 70 to 20 and then been favored the next week. I look at it and I like both teams are in total dissolution. I start to figure out, okay, like how does how does the winner of this game win the game? and I just like, you know, the things that pop up in my head of the 2022 Fields games, or he just, like, kind of felt unstoppable. I don't have any memory of like a Broncos player doing that.

So, like, it, I start my, my animal instinct, my gut instinct starts to say, oh, the bears are winning this game. I don't, I, I've, I've no way to fully back that up. It's, there's no way to talk yourself into either team. I'm not betting this game. Like, there's, both teams are so incomplete. Both teams have so many systemic issues that, like, this is a very difficult game to predict. But in that world in which my gut is right

And the Bears do breathe the Broncos at home Sean Payton is now 0 and 4 To start his Broncos career This after Hackett started the season last year I think 2 and 2 I think he was 2 in 1 if everybody serves But he ended up being 2 and 2 And I just if he loses to the like the bears

The bears whose media is like actively attacking them With like grades in the newspaper The Bears who's like What do you mean by that Actively attacking them with grades in the newspaper? Did you see some? I can't remember who it was. Oh, I did see this.

Everybody got an F. Everybody got an F. That's good. That's not attacking. That's honest, good reporting. It's the best thing to do. Right. The bears who just have been in new cycle,

the new cycle, the bears who have just received such overt criticism. To lose to that team, I think is going to create some, like, unbelievable Sean Payton presser moments, but then also some, like, insane urgency there for, like, something to change. I'm very,

if, I'll put it to you this way. I don't think, The Broncos have as good a shot to beat the Bears, the Bears, you'd be the Broncos. In the world of which the Broncos beat the Bears, egg ho-hum, same as always, bears are lame. The world of which the Bears beat the Broncos is a lot more fun for you and I.

A lot more stuff happens that I'm interested in seeing. So go Bears, bear down, get their first win at home against the Broncos. Yeah, I would agree with that last point about what's more fun for team content. It would definitely be a Bears win over the Broncos. Yeah, the Broncos last year started at this point in the season under Hackett were two and one.

Now, the reason they were two and one is because the official defensive coordinator of extra point taken, Jiro Everro was just cooking. I mean, they won 16-9 in week two. They won 11-10. And that third game, they beat the Niners. They beat the Niners. They beat the Niners. 11 to 10. 11 to 10.

When to the NFC championship game. Oh, my goodness. I have no recollection of that game. It was like a prime time game. And it was 11 to 10. It was revolting. So guess what the Broncos do not have now? A good defense.

In fact, they might have the worst defense in the NFL. I mean, I had them in the top half of the league when we did our rankings before the season. They have stunk. It's not just that Dolphins game. I mean, you look at them through three weeks of the season. They have been an absolute disaster. I mean, remember, this team lost 3533 to the Washington commanders and Sam Howell in week two after a 20 have been holding a 21 to 3 lead.

So, you know, it's, yes, has it been Russell Wilson shot? Like that, there's a, there's like a scenario where if they have last year's defense and this year's offense, they're much more competitive this season. But that defense has just looked so different, has fallen off so drastically here through three weeks that that has been the major difference. So I know you said you're not, you know, betting on this game. Some of us have to make picks on every game for a column. I took the rinker.com. I took the Broncos. I took the Broncos minus three and a half. I say anytime, you know, you can take a team as a road favorite coming off a 50 point loss. You have to do it. Like, I don't know what the trend is. It's going to got to be undefeated in that spot.

But yeah, I don't know. I'm not going to feel good about it. I think it's going to be kind of fun to watch. Like I will have some eyes on this game where I will catch up on this game Monday morning to see what actually happened. Yeah, you got to. You got to. Two winless teams. Now the Broncos point is a good one because like, If they lose, if they go 0 and 4, I mean, I don't know how many players on that team are tradable or other teams would want. But at some point, they just have to look at it and be like, all right, anybody who we don't see as being part of our future with Sean Payton, let's get them out of here. And if we lose a bunch of games, we lose a bunch of games. Guess what? That might be the best thing for our franchise.

So they all of a sudden become, you know, unlike a team like the Panthers, the Broncos have their first round pick in 2024. So if things go really poorly for them, it might not be the worst thing, even though I think they expected to be competitive this year. So that is a good one. All right, let's take a quick break. I'll come back and give you my Monday morning storyline. Snap into action this NFL season with Fandle, America's number one sports book. Right now, new customers get $200 in bonus bets guaranteed when you place a $5 bet. That's $200 in bonus bets, win or lose. Sheel and I are going to give our picks later in the show. My locks of the week, spoiler alert, Cowboys minus six and a half against the Patriots,

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terms at sportsbook.fandal.com. All right, we are back on extra point taken. See, I don't have the good puns like you. Mine are not like actual headlines. It's just like here's kind of what we're going to talk about on Monday morning. And this is a low-hanging fruit one. I mean, just who's to blame in Dallas? I think this could be like a very, you could say, you could say, please, they're talking about that on, you know, on the morning talk shows every week. Regardless than that is true, but Cowboys host the Patriots. They're coming off an embarrassing loss to the Cardinals where they were, I think, 12.5-point favorites.

There's six and a half point favorites in this game. There's going to be a lot of eyes on this game. Again, Ben, we only have three late afternoon games in the window. I don't understand why, but it's Cowboys Patriots, it's Raiders Chargers, and it's Cardinals 49ers. So I think a lot of people are going to be watching this game. Cowboys last week didn't have three offensive linemen. We'll see who they get back this week.

Zach Martin, Tyler Beaudish, were limited practice participants on Thursday. Tyron Smith did not practice for two straight days, so you would think he is probably going to be out. This is a banged-up offensive line going up against a very physical Patriots front, a very physical Patriots defense. I mean, remember week one, the Patriots defense really got after the Eagles. I mean, held them to 97 yards rushing. I don't remember a game in the last two years where the Eagles offensive line just they weren't able to push around the opposing defensive front, you know, the way they weren't able to do that in that game. Think of the last two games since. The Eagles have run for 200 in each of the past two games. They ran for 97 in that game and average like under four yards per carry. So I think the Cowboys offensive line could have a tough time in this game. I don't think they're going to be able to run the ball. And so we'll see. I mean, listen, it's possible that the Patriots just can't score enough.

to win this game. But I think this is going to be a competitive game. And as we know, anytime the Cowboys lose, if the Cowboys lose and are two and two with losses to the Cardinals and the Patriots where they're pretty big favorites, all of a sudden we start having these conversations. Mike McCarthy is just a terrible coach. Mike McCarthy shouldn't have taken over the play call it. And then you have the other faction. Well, why does Dak Prescott get a free pass from everyone all the time? The guy hasn't won anything in his career. So I think those conversations will be even more prominent if you're listening to this. And you're like, I'm not a Cowboys fan.

I have no interest in listening to those conversations. I hear you. Those conversations happen all the time, even when they shouldn't. But I think they could come to a head a little bit in this game, Patriots Cowboys. What do you think? So off of what you're saying there, you're feeling a Patriots cover in this one. You're feeling this to be close. It's not going to be one of my three.

I don't love it. But yes, I did pick the Patriots plus six and a half in this game. I am on the opposite side. I'm on Cowboys minus six and a half. I think that yes, that's a narrative. It's something that I talked about on the, on Ashport Taken earlier this week. I also think it is extremely challenging from a statistical perspective to be as bad as those cowboys have been in the Red Zone last couple weeks and then to just keep doing it.

Right? Like, this is already like, whoa, how are you pulling this off, dude? If they just go and continue to have this, like eventually you accidentally score. Like, even if your offensive lines banged up and like you're not running the right routes, Eventually, like Michael Gallup makes a play. Tony Pollard makes a play and you score a touchdown. I think that offensively, that Dallas is still in a largely fine spot moving the football, and then I think you're just going to get some noise, some statistical regression.

They're going to be able to score. I'm happy to bet into that defensively. It's a bit of a weird matchup because Mack Jones right now is a low time to throw player, right? They're an RPO player. They're a quick game player, so on and so forth. But this Cowboys run defense has been successful against the sort of Russian. attacks that the Patriots have. The Patriots don't do a good job getting to the boundary in the running game. And that's what the Cowboys are weak right now. They're very good on the interior because they're such

a good penetration player. That's where Ramadre Stevenson runs the football. They're going to be able to get the Patriots into long and late. And again, long and late, this is going to be a nightmare for the Patriots. They do not have the skill position guys at receiver to take advantage of the injuries that the Cowboys have, take advantage of the problems. And then they do not. They do not have the pass protection. Patriots pass protection has been a concerning thing through three weeks against this Cowboys sprint. So I don't think it's going to be the cleanest Cowboys game, but under a touchdown, I think, is too much of a discount for an offense and a defense that are still largely working exactly how you want them to work.

They're just having some noise, having some bad problems over the last couple of weeks. So I'm buying low on Dallas at six and a half. I could see that. I was going back and forth on that game. Like I said, I didn't feel strongly about it. And then at the end, I'm like, oh, Belichick, McCarthy, offensive line injuries. Let's go ahead and take the Patriots and the points. So we'll see what happens there.

right. Let's get to the good stuff, Benjamin. Let's get a little scoring update from our boy, Luke, who's updating this spreadsheet. You got to tweet out the spreadsheet with all the results. I was thinking about doing it, but you did it nicely with like different screen grabs and stuff. I'm like, I can't make it as pretty. I didn't know. I don't know the people really want to see it. I didn't know the people don't want to see as much as they do. Oh, yeah. I mean, come on. This is the expats. There might only be like five of them, but they want to see, uh, they want to see this. Speaking of which, the expats, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's bring some skeletons out of the closet here.

Okay, what do we got? The number of people who have reached out to me to say that your score agami take is bad. Shield, in the tens, all right, double digits. I'm not embellishing that, like, friends who listen to the pod who are on, on Twitter, DMs your people on Twitter, like, like, shield, why does she'll dislike scorerami? I don't know, he's old, he's crotchety, he's lame, and, like, fun stuff. don't get it. He just doesn't. This is, this is, I don't know if it's been good for podcasting, so it's been engagement or I don't know if it's been bad for the podcast because you're turning

all these people off with this old man get off my lawn take. But the scorogami thing got the people fired up, Sheel. I would agree with that. I've heard from people too who were like, how could you even have an opinion, like a negative opinion on this meaningless thing? And I, listen, I'm not telling others to not enjoy the scuragami. Like in my younger days, I would have done that. I would have, you know, I would have yelled at you. Why do you care about scoregami? It's stupid. Now I'm old. I say everyone like what they want. I don't care what you like. I just have no interest in a score. It doesn't. When I see it on the timeline, my head goes to who cares. I do not care. I'm moving on. So that's just me. Now, there were a couple old heads, you know, who were like, I like the take.

I'm with you. Who cares about score of Gama? Not in the tens, you know, might just been like one person. But still, there was somebody else who agreed with me with me there. I like this. We should do a little, before we get to the bets every week, we should do a little housekeeping. Because I've got a question for you. Uh-oh. During the Monday show, you had this, like, drawn out family guy analogy. And so somebody tweeted at us and we're like,

Solax still using this family guy analogy, like three years later. I love it. And you revealed that you've never even seen the show or the episode that you're using this, like, great 90-second analogy. you for that's got to be some kind of violation have you at least seen the scene on like YouTube or no? Yeah I've seen it from there's a gift

there's a giff of So you've just seen a gif and you're using the whole thing based on a gif It's not very complex scene if we're being honest all right There's a lot of character set up you know conflict of like multiple seasons worth of relationships here

it's a mystery box it's a boat the mystery box could be a boat It's a very helpful analogy for football and especially like draft season. So I use it a lot. I don't need to know what happened four minutes previous in the episode in order to pull it off. I mean, I don't know. I think that might be a violation. Expatts.

I mean, Ben should at least just, I mean, at the minimum, he should have to watch the scene. I think he should probably have to watch the full episode if he wants to continue using this analogy. So,

I don't have one that's coming to mind right now. But there are absolutely analogies that come from. from like pop culture, come from literature, come from TV shows that people that people use generally, that not everybody has seen them. Not everybody. The people who use them, I think you've just, I've never, I don't think I've ever used one where I have not actually seen the thing. Oh, so people will say like, oh, like they have like a Ross and Rachel relationship, right,

to like typify a certain sort of relationship that's like on again, off again from friends, having not seen enough of friends to like use that terminology. I disagree. I think they've watched friends. I think those people have watched friends. I would disagree with that. Because that's a niche one. But still, as an example.

All right. I disagree. We disagree. Expat's chime in on whether Ben should be forced to just take like 24 minutes out of his day and at least watch that one family guy episode if he wants to continue to use that analogy. All right. Give us the updates for our extra point taking competition for the season. And then Ben will tweet out all the updated spreadsheet at some point after this episode so everyone can see it.

Go ahead. Yeah. Second week in a row that I was the victor here. Not a marquee week for the boys. The first week collectively we scored eight. Second week collectively we scored seven. Third week collectively we scored five. Not the right direction. On a down swing. You and I both missed on our prop of the week. Sheel, you had under 178 or no. No, I got that one. That was the one thing. Yeah. You went back to the well and Zach Wilson under passing yards very well done. I'm sorry, Zach. I had to. I was over 49.5 receiving yards for Nico Collins. You had told me before the game that the Texas were going to score 37

and C.J. Strave was going to have over 250. I would have felt great. Turns out we didn't get home. Tank Dell game. Yeah. Long shot of the week, 90 plus rushing yards for Bijon Robinson. I liked that bet a lot. I was with you on the standard line. Tough game for the Falcons.

Lines beat him up. And then long shot for me, I had the under in the Steelers Raiders and Under and Panther Seahawks together. Steelers Raiders got home. We had the two-point conversion shenanigans and field goals and it was getting unnecessarily tight there, but that got home. Panther Seahawks did not.

We had a lot of very efficient field goal drives in that game. There's pouring three points on me. It was death by 1,000 paper cuts. And then for locks of the week, Sheila, you were on the Titans on the road against the Browns, the Patriots on the road against the Jets, and the Cowboys on the road against the Cardinals, one for two for you.

I swept. I went three and no. How about that? That's our first sweep of the season. That's hard to do. First season for locks. I had Steelers plus two and a half, Patriots minus two and a half and then Chargers plus one and a half. And oh, baby, did those chargers make me sweat?

Whoa, what a dumb game. You would think that I would have learned something about betting the Chargers. But spoiler alert, I have not. There you go. Official scores on the season, I have 11. You have nine. Still very tight. 11 to 9 through three weeks.

I mean, this spreadsheet's got it all on it. I mean, like locks of the week when Ben and I have had the same lock of the week, we're one for two, when Ben's locks, this is a good one, when Ben's locks of the week overlap with the same sides as Shield's weekly picks against the spread column, Ben, 67% on the season, six for nine. So maybe there's something. You take Solex picks if I have those picks in my column.

Maybe there's something there. Listen, maybe there's nothing there. When Ben or She'll bet the under. a.k.a. the grouch bet. Three for four. We got to be leaning into these unders. All right, small sample. He also has now a super grouch bet, which is where the entirety of a parlay is just unders, because that's what I did last week.

Oh, for one, but now that Luke's named it, I'm 100% going to try to hit a super grouch at some point this season. There you go. And then we're doing our, you know, we're trying to combine to hit, what did we say, 57% against the spread between our locks. we're at 56.25%. You're carrying us there, Benjamin, so far. So I've got to do my part, but that's pretty good through three weeks. All right, what a spreadsheet.

Like, I'm not even capable of putting something like this together. Luke, good looking spreadsheet. Thank you. You're doing a great job. All right, let's get to the good stuff. As always, we start with the prop of the week. This is Ben Solex wheelhouse. What does he got for us this week?

Yeah, I brought it up earlier talking Bill's Dolphins. I do like James Cook to get over 57 and a half rushing yards. This is minus 114. Over 12 and a half attempts is minus 130, which is our limit for this. I looked at that for a long time. The only thing you're worried about with 12 and a half is extremely quick negative game script,

where the bills feel like they have to get off running the ball right away. Even then, I'd be surprised if they did it. I think honestly 12 and a half might objectively be the smarter bet, but I'm going to give myself a little bit of the chunk plays and put 57 and a half on the official score. sheet. James Cook so far this season, he had 46 rushing yards against the Jets, really tough defense around the football against. Other than that, 123 yards against the Raiders and 98 yards against the commanders. Obviously, a little bit of garbage time in both games for the

bills. It's going to jack those numbers up, but he was still averaging seven and six yards per carry in each contest. They've just been a really effective team running the football. That's not going to go away because they've shown commitment to it. The bills are not calling RPO's. They're calling runs. It's a wild concept, new concept in the NFL. No one's ever seen it before. You just call a running play without tagging a pass to it. It's bananas. And that's been hugely beneficial to their offensive line getting off the football. That, like I said, is not going to go away against the Dolphins team that's going to play light boxes. The Dolphins are still swirling around their linebacking court. They have an Andrew Van Ginkle game and then a David

long game. They've yet to really establish what they want to be in that unit. I think they're susceptible against the run and they will be all season. So I like overfingleckle. 57 and a half for Cook. Also, you like over 12 and a half rushing attempts as well. I think that you just expect this to be a balanced game for the bills. Cook's going to get the volume necessary to get home. Yeah, James Cook. I remember coming into the seat, I'm like, wait, they're really like leaning on James Cook. He hasn't done much. Like, is this good enough to make? And he's been sort of an underrated story through the first three weeks of the season. Not, not probably with the fantasy. You want to rip the fantasy community for anything with James Cook here? Take a couple

minutes. I rip the fantasy community, maybe like slightly more than you rip the football hipsters community and you act like, it's like, it's a whole thing. Oh, no, I lean into it. I actively rip the football hipster community. Yeah, no, I don't shy away from that. No, Cook, Cook's a talented guy. I don't think he's what you, I believe the fantasy community has more a problem with Cook than I think you or I do because Cook doesn't get any touchdowns. He doesn't get any ball and carries. It's just cooked all the way down the field, three down back and they get to the 10. It's like, Latavius Murray time. And that sucks for a board James. It doesn't get to or pay off all these long drives, but there you go. All right. I'm going with a grouch bet.

One that I don't feel great about, but you know what? I thought it was good for content. I'm taking Travis Kelsey under 71.5 receiving yards. Wow. I am stunned. Walk me through it. Well, so much attention on Travis Kelsey. I think the swifties have probably bet this number up quite a bit. I still believe in this Jets defense. I know statistically it probably hasn't been as impressive as maybe some people expect it. I think there's still a very good defense, even if they haven't been a shutdown defense. I mean, you look at that game last week. They forced six straight puns to end the game versus the Patriots.

I don't think they want to get embarrassed on national TV here. I think you're going to see some of like what you saw in week one against the bills where they're playing a home game. The defense is fired up for that. They'll hit you by the way in the middle of the field. You're talking about teams that will hit you in the middle of the field with those linebackers. The Jets are absolutely on the.

short list there. So, listen, it's a pretty big number, 71.5 for Travis Kelsey. I'm not convinced that the chiefs are going to kind of go up and down the field on this, on this Jets defense. And so I'm taking the under Kelsey, 71 and a half receiving ours. I did think, Ben, to just, I was like, should I just go Zach Wilson under passing yards again? I mean, this is the only bet I'm consistently winning. I probably should have done that. I actually thought about going under Patrick Mahomes. passing your team. But like the inside something feels very stupid, but something feels very stupid about this too. But listen, that's my brand for some of these bets. Can I get, so did you just do a whole thing on Travis Kelsey without like doing the obligatory Taylor Swift bit?

No, so you were tweeting or doing something. I led with a Swifty comment, but you were paying attention. Okay, firstly, I was setting up to make sure I had my stats in front of me for a long out of the week, so you can relax. They are cheap. I'm preparing for a podcast over here. Secondly, I apologize. I missed it. It must not have been a good enough

Taylor Smith reference. You can't take Travis Kelsey with Taylor in the building. If I know anything, you can't take the under on Taylor Swift. The Swifties are betting this number up, I said. This is probably 68 to half. But all of a sudden, you have hundreds of thousands of people saying, you know what, I'm going to watch that game.

I'm taking the over, opening up a little fan dual account, a little fan dual app. promo code Swift. All right, that's not a real thing, but who knows? Maybe it could be eventually. I mean, Fandle has Taylor Swift themed, like, odds boost and parlays for this Chiefs game, which is a decision. But why not?

Live your dreams. Go for it. Try to ride the wave. I, um, I, I, I don't understand anything that's happening at all, but I know not to be betting Travis Kelsey Anders right now. I find this to be very bold. Yeah. It's bold, stupid.

however you want to describe it, whatever, that's my prop of the week. All right, long shot of the week. Now, when I get to mine, I have two here, and I might need, you know, you gave me a little advice last week saying, yeah, roll with the Zach Wilson under. I might call on your, you know what, I'll just start us on this one now that I started it. All right, long shot of the week. So I'm debating between two. This is kind of a, my head and my heart.

Okay, so I've got two quarterbacks to throw 300 plus yards, both with odds that are plus 150 or better. That's our stipulation for the long shot of the week. It's got to be plus 150 or better. You look like you want to guess which two quarterbacks I'm going to say. I always do. I was very much looking at Matthew Stafford, 275, 300 plus for the Colts games. I don't know. That's not it, but I wouldn't be opposed to that one. All right. Who's got a weak secondary and they're banged up? 300's a big number. Is Herbert? Is Herbert plus 150? I don't know. It's not Herbert. I don't think that's a little bit too high. Um, two?

No. All right, hit me. Who we got? Okay. Uh, one is from that game. I've got Josh Allen going Superman mode there, uh, to throw for 300 or more plus 194. He threw for over 300 in both games versus the dolphins last year.

I understand different scheme, different coordinator, but a lot of the same players, actually, uh, as last year, Buffalo's going to have to score in this game. Now, you made a good point. Maybe they're trying to run the ball, do ball control. At some point, they're going to run. going to have to keep up, even if Josh Allen has some turnovers, even if they're losing by a lot, you still feel okay about this because they're going to have to throw the football there. So I kind of like that one. Josh Allen to throw 300 or more at plus 194. And the other one,

we're going kind of way down the board in a game that would otherwise never be discussed on a week four preview podcast. Kirk Cousins to throw for 300 plus 164 against the Carolina Panthers. He's thrown for over 340 Ben in each game this season. Cousins is not opposed to doing some stat padding. We know that. You know, end of the game, all of a sudden, whatever. He throws the football. He gets you over 300.

I actually think this Vikings offense has played pretty well. I know they haven't in a game yet. Yeah, they have played better than last year. And they've got Justin Jefferson and they've got Jordan Addison. Those guys are capable of big plays. I do not trust the Panthers offense to move the ball. first of all, so I think Vikings will have plenty of possessions, and then defensively, the Panthers are banged up there. So you know what? I just, I don't even need you to get,

I feel like just as I was talking it out, the one I felt more into was, was, no, this is my head, Kirk Cousins. My heart, I just want to see Josh Allen go off and throw for like $3.90, but I think the smart move, the more analytical, analytically sound move is to go with Kurt Cousins for the reasons I laid out. So there you go. That's mine. Kurt Cousins throws for 300 plus yards, plus 164. That's a three-pointer for those of you who are new to the contest. Every other bet is worth one point.

The long shot of the week, you get three points if you hit it. It's the money ball. I definitely would have endorsed Kirk because Josh Allen over 300 passing hours and James Cook over 54 rushing hours. It's tough to get to. Yeah, I don't want to go against you on that.

I'm going to be the Kirk side. No, uh, Ejiro Averro fear. That's the, uh, that's the boy. That's your guy. I know. He just, does he have the guys?

I mean, they don't have the guys right now. No J.C. Horn. I think C.J. Henderson is still banged up for this game. Frankie Louvo is injured. Yeah, Xavier Woods, I think. Wait, is Xavier... Is he still on the Panthers or not? Xavier was. Yeah, yeah. You're right. All right. They have several teams. I got confused. They got a lot of guys in safety. That's Giro for you. So, yeah, I mean, I, listen, I mean, like I said, it could be some garbage time. It could be they just get like 12 possessions in this game and they hit on a couple big plays. So this is not an anti-Igero Evereaux take. This is, uh, you know,

sort of game script, who he's working with, what the Vikings like to do take. All right. I like it. I have, for mine, the other game that would be the marquee game, if not for Dolphins bills, that's Brown's Ravens. Really interesting game. Yeah. Yeah, meaningful game.

Now, your issue here is your injury reports. We're recording this on Thursday, so we don't know precisely what we're getting out of Baltimore in terms of Friday practices. But Rashad Bateman was do not do not. participate, miss practice on both Wednesday and Thursday. Never a good sign to play on a Sunday. The same is true of O'Dell Beckham Jr. So potentially to the starting three wide receivers out for this game. David Ojojo, starting pass rusher, out for both practices. Odafay Owe, other starting pass rusher on the opposite side, out for both practices. They're hoping to get Kyle Hamilton,

who is a did not practice and eliminated on Thursday, hoping to get Justice Hill, who they need because they have no J.K. Dobbins, who is a dinner practice and unlimited. But they are banged up. Now, Ronnie Stanley might play, been limited in practice this week. And Tyler Linderbaum might play, been limited to practice this week. So the help might be coming along the offensive line. But if we have hampered offensive linemen and bad receiver play, right? If we're starting Zay Flowers, Nelson Aguhrin, Devin Duvernay. I think we are in for a big.

Lamar Jackson runs around and scrambles for his life game. Lamar to rush for more than 60 yards is plus 154 on Fandul. Now, when you look at Lamar's, it's tricky. When you look at Lamar's game log history, and you go and find the games in which he's been under a lot of pressure where he's been pressure on a ton of his dropbacks, typically you don't see a scramble heavy game. But that was also in the Greg Roman era,

where when they were going up against a really dominant pass rush, they would just become super condensed and run the football a lot. And they would not necessarily give Lamar the license to make guys miss the space and go. He would just end up doing that of his own volition outside of structure. That's a little bit more baked into the structure of this offense. it inherently has to be. I also think that in order to take the teeth out of that pass rush, take some of the speed out of it,

you do want to introduce the option running game, which they have. They do run it. It's not like they don't have it. It was a bigger part of the Greg Roman offense that was the Todd Monkhan offense, but you want to say, okay, what's the best way to beat Miles Garrett? Leave him unblocked and read them, right?

Make him the wrong guy and then tell Obolankarunco to beat you or Jeremiah Wissu Kornmo to beat you. Miles will still get you on a couple of those, he will, but it's a good way to neutralize the star pass rusher. I think you're going to see Lamar tuck the full. football a lot more in this game than he has over the first few games of the season for him where he's been a little bit more of a disciplined pocket passer. Lamar so far this season running the football as I scroll on Stadhead and discover that I don't have that on the game log. I got it. I was

just looking at it. Thank you. Yeah, he's average because I was curious when you brought that up. I'm like, has he been running as much this year? He's averaging 64 rushing yards per game, 64.3, almost exactly what his average has been each of the past two seasons. He's averaging 10.7 rushing attempts per game. Of course, you've got, you know, we might have some kneel downs, other stuff in there. But again, that's almost exactly on his career average. So he actually is running the football pretty much at his career averages so far this season in Munkin's offense through three games. Yeah. So even though it's not the Greg Roman offense and it feels like Lamar's operating from the pocket more, he's throwing the football more, they're still getting his carries in for him.

And like you said, averaging 64 yards per game, I do like Lamar to get over 60 against this, this Brown's defense. I love the fact that we can get it in game script. If it's neutral, if it's a close game, this is a two and a half point line. And I love the fact that we can get it outside of game script. If they end up being really far behind, Lamar stills the potential to scramble and get to this number. So Lamar 60 plus rushing yards plus 154, my long shot of the week. Are you taking, are you talking about this game in your locks of the week or now? I am not. You're not. Okay, me neither. So I went back to close about a million times. I would love, if we recorded this pod on Fridays after we had more injury clarity, like maybe,

but usually like Wednesday and Thursday is the best you're going to go off of and I don't know, I'm worried about this Ravens Injury Report, man. It's crazy what they're already dealing with. Yeah, it's like you said, Browns are favored by two and a half. I pick the Ravens in my column plus two and a half. I'm with you. I'm nervous, especially, I mean, yeah, if you're going into that without OBJ and Rashad Bateman against this defense that's literally put up the three best single game performances so far this season in terms of success rate in the Browns. I'm nervous about that. At the same time, I really, anytime the Ravens are underdogs, I'm basically like, I kind

of like them in this spot. The infrastructure and Lamar starting with John Harbaugh, I mean, you know they're going to have a special team's edge with Justin Tucker there. They might be able to scheme something else on that end. Their defense against the Brown's offense, like, I don't know, they could certainly force some turnovers and I think give that Brown's offense. certainly played better last week, but they're not in the category of offenses I trust so far. And I do like that Ravens defense.

Lamar Jackson, the Ravens with Lamar Jackson, 12 and two against the spread as underdogs, which is a wild number now. Yeah. It doesn't mean they're going to cover this week. But I kind of looked at it a little bit the way you were just describing that like, all right, if things aren't working, can Lamar Jackson just go Lamar Jackson mode, get you a couple of drives, a couple of big plays, a couple touchdowns, your defense plays well. your special teams play well.

This has been the week where everyone's like, Browns, Browns, oh my God, their defense there. And I'm like, I still, I like their defense a lot. I like their defense a lot going into the season. I'm not in fully like I trust the Browns and think they're going to win the AFC North category quite yet. I need to see a little bit more.

So I don't know if they're ready for this spot to be favored against the Ravens in a spot like this. So yeah, I went with Baltimore, knowing fully well that I could look foolish and the Browns just hold them to like 112 yards. on Sunday and win by two touchdowns. Yeah, it's the team that wins this, I'll be ready to say that their defense is impactful enough to take them the rest of the way.

It's just, I got to wait to find out who that is. I don't know yet. It was playing, yeah. Yeah, this total right now is at 40 and a half. It was like, I want to say the look headline was like 44, 45. Like, markets are still getting acclimated to the fact that this Brown's defense can just sit on you. And then obviously this Ravens defense has some teeth to it as well.

Really weird game Ravens Colts. Like a lot of people are like, oh, they lost to Gardner Minschio. Matt Gay hit like 9, 58-yard field goals. Like it was just as a sloppy, messy game. Lamar's ball security is horrible. Like, they have stuff to clean up, but still. I was really looking forward to this, this checking with the Brown's defense because you were huge on the Browns

defense coming into the season. It was an excellent call by you. You tweeted this out after week three. The three best individual games this season by accessory for a defense, all belong to the Cleveland Browns, baby. I mean, they are lights out. The caveat is they've played what we now know to be a very hampered Joe Burrow, Kenny Pickett and the Steelers, and then Ryan Tannanhill and the Titans. I mean, in terms of offensive line play, I think Steelers and Titans are two of the bottom five in terms of pass protection. And then in terms

of, like, actually how well you're playing quarterback right now, I don't think they face like a top 15 guy. Joe Burrow usually is, but like this version of Burrow is just like. And it was raining. Yeah, it was horrible weather. It's not tenable. So I was so ready to be like, all right, like this Ravens team, such a good heat check. Like, I was so interested to see. And then you just have wide receiver injuries. And like, they might get the full offensive lineback, but like, is Linderbom fully healthy, whatever? Like, there's just mitigating factors that mean if the, if the Browns really dominate against the Ravens, like, all right, let's take a look at the film. And you might go to the film and just see, well, okay, Nelson Aguilar can't get open. And so the, the rain is just too

limited. So I'm still waiting and trying to hope and find that really good litmus test for this Brown's defense. I agree with that. I'm actually in the- They're definitely good. They're for sure good. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like how good are you? I agree to see you, you know, go up against some heavy weights here. I, I 100% agree. Like pump the brakes a little bit. It's been three games. One weird game, two bad offenses. Let's see them for a little bit longer before we crown them. All right. Let's take a break. We'll come back. We'll get to our nonsense predictions and our locks of the week. All right, we are back on extra point taken.

This is, I don't even know, is nonsense prediction there. This is just predict anything. Predict anything. Week four, what do you got, Benjamin Solek? Yeah, I feel like we need to start getting a little bit zanier with these. Okay. Because we've had opportunities to predict the bears have their field robbed. Taylor Swift shows up to a bear's game.

We've got an opportunity to predict a lot of insane things and we haven't. So, Falcons Jaguars, 9.30 a.m. baby, Eastern time in London. Very excited to, now this is the game that's got the Toy Story broadcast, right? I don't understand what's happening as per usual. Have you looked into this Toy Story broadcast at all? I don't understand it. You're probably like Sheel should know this because my kids never got really into Toy Story. So I know like nothing about Toy Story.

I don't know what the broadcast. All I know is Troy Aikman when I'm going to know. I was watching the Monday night football broadcast. He said he was excited about this. And then they kind of just left it alone. I don't know what it is. What is it? Do you know?

So they are doing a ESPN Disney crossover broadcast, live simulcast during the game. So all surrounding aspects of the game will embrace the toy story theme. The game is occurring in Andy's room. And like the players will be like live cartoons that are like moving. Like that's what's blow in my mind. They have cartoon players. But it's like they're using trash. It's like making them like the dots and they like move in real time.

Really? You would like legit watch the game on Toy Story if you wanted to. Anyway My take is this the toy story broadcast ends up glitching in such a way that it gets meme to death, right? Do you remember we first saw the Nickelodeon slime on the Nickelodeon playoff games and we were just like this is unbelievable. They scored touchdowns and there's just slime all over the field. The broadcast is going to do something graphically either for unintentional sexual imagery or inexplicable like you know like when the Monday night football graphics

just like make no sense it's like the weirdest like They don't look like something like yeah right exactly like they're gonna go like put like a buzz light year in he's gonna look nothing like Buzz Lightyear or something it's gonna be like absolutely perplexing there's gonna be like a cameo from like Wally or some other Disney IP that I don't understand is Pixar Disney

I don't really get that something's gonna happen that's gonna be just like this is the only game on at 930. Everyone's going to be having their coffee watching this game. They're going to have the Toy Story broadcast up. And something is going to happen that's going to dominate the world of internet screenshots and memes for the next like four weeks. And all we're going to do is think about imagine this to talk of my low of 500 yard four touchdown performance on the Toy Story broadcast. I'm very excited for the Toy Story broadcast.

Great job by you. Great one. I love it. I am like this isn't part of our actual predictions contest. I do like the idea of like, you know, Luke in our spreadsheet being like Solac predicts unintentional sexual imagery on Toy Story. It's got to be. Just like some accidental nonsense. Yeah, I can see that.

Alignment of people. It's going to occur. Yeah. All right. Good one. And you're right. I do think, yeah, we should get a little, little zanier on these. All right.

I'm stealing this one, kind of, from our wonderful colleague, Lindsay Jones. You asked for a little more Taylor Swift content earlier. in the in the show and i thought uh lindsay made a great point where they announced that taylor swift is going to be there and she said she's already cringing at what chris collinsworth is going to say about taylor swift during the sunday night football broadcast i think she's like absolutely right i'll take it a step further i think he's going to say something so cringeworthy that it turns into like collinsworth is an enemy of the swifties like they're just like oh my god this guy i don't know what it's going to be i don't even want to like try to offer any specific details but i'm

I will say this. When Collins, Collinsworth has had a long, successful broadcast career, but when he's asked to kind of step outside his area of expertise, his comfort zone when something else is happening in the league, in the world, and they kind of try to touch on it during the broadcast, ooh, it generally leads to some, it's unflattering the right word? Is that I don't, I'm trying to, I'm trying to tiptoe around this a little bit. Unbecoming, yeah, we see, listen, if you watch football, You know what I'm talking about. If you've seen examples of this in the past, it has not been pretty.

So the Chiefs are nine and a half point favorites in this game. It could be like last week's Chief Spares game, where it's over at halftime. There's going to be a lot of space to fill. There are going to be a lot of shots of Taylor Swift in the box there at MetLife Stadium. And I will just say this. If we have any NBC people listening to the show, just be careful. Okay, let's make sure we go over this extensively in the pre-show meeting. let's maybe, you know, maybe an extended delay on this broadcast.

Let's assign a person in the truck. Just kind of have your finger on that button, the dump button, in case of emergency, like a code read. And we cannot let America the world hear what Chris Collinsworth just said. Someone be ready to do that. I'm already nervous for Collinsworth in this spot. Hopefully it's nothing over the top. I don't want him to become an enemy of the Swifties.

But when I saw Lindsay's tweet, I'm like, oh, my God, she's absolutely right. I'm already nervous for him in this. I like how we both individually separately were like, let's go the cancelable route. Like we haven't predicted enough people doing things to get them very highly criticized online. It's good. It's good.

I like that. We should just switch the category to that. Yeah. I agree. I did check in Google. Collinsworth does have daughters, which means we are 100% getting a like, well, my daughter explained to me Taylor Swift,

as if the only people in the entire world who can explain Taylor Swift are like anywhere from like, anywhere from like 13 to 33 year old white women. Regardless, I 100% agree. He's gonna have a line in like the pre-show and the preamble where it like, okay, that was zippy, cool,

you prepared that. But then there's going to be like a, right, like a quarter or two, like Travis Kelsey. Yeah. Moving pretty swift out there. Oh, okay.

Chris, enough. No need. Don't do it. I'm, I forgot that this was Sunday night. I thought we were going to get like the C-Team. Fox broadcast and it was going to be like all Taylor Swift stuff. No, we get the national coverage for this.

We're living right now. This is going to be a good time. I really wish we had, I really wish Dolphins bills. I know it's too late to flex it, but man, that would be a little juicier Sunday night matchup, but that's okay. We'll be able to watch that. All right. Locks of the week.

Benny Sol's coming off a 3 and 0 week last week. Very impressive, not easy to do. What do you have? Start us off with your locks of the week. Yeah, listen. That's not the confidence. start of a man coming off a three in a week. Yeah, listen and a big sigh. Let me tell you, let me tell you the situation here, Shail. I watched Vikings chargers and I said, man, those are

two teams I want to bet on both of them next week. That was my opinion. That was how I thought about things. I'm on Vikings minus four on the road against the Panthers. The Panthers are getting Bryce Young back this week after one week of Andy Dalton. And that makes me feel great about betting against the team batting against the Panthers for the team that's playing against them Oh, settle down

with all the Bryce's bare Bryce Young has barely played this year he's got nobody Everyone calm down with your Bryce Young takes No I Not you generally As someone who

So I was pretty anti-Brice Young I'm out in the draft I was pretty worried about How a player of his height was going to translate And I think all of the issues That I thought Were couldn't come to pass

Will come to pass These had multiple offensive of line injuries And the wide receiver room Is not great He absolutely deserves long-term benefit of the doubt, investment, belief, whatever. Right now, Young does not have the tools to solve the problems that are presented on the Panthers' offense outside of it. He just doesn't.

That's fair. I think that's fair. If he could move like Anthony Richardson, that he could generate more explosives. If he could throw like CJ Shriver in the middle of the field, then he could just kind of sit in there, trigger the offense. He can do neither. And so he doesn't have the requisite tools to solve the problems. Hopefully he'll develop them over time, but I'm willing to fade that until. I see it. The Vikings defense is not the staunchest defense that

the Panthers have faced too. This is going to be a little bit of an easier matcher from a talent perspective. But Brian Flores is out of his mind this season blitzing. Brian Flores is living. All right? Bad unit, no talent. We just said crazy.

The Eagles film into the Chargers film. It's been some of the most fun. He blitzed Justin Herbert on like 80% of his dropbacks. Like legitimately like I would I would never have predicted that. In nonsense predictions, if you had said Flores blitzes Herber on 80% of his dropbacks, I would have been like, shield, that's too much.

Nobody would ever do that. And he just did. He is going to throw the kitchen sink at Young. And I think that that's going to hamper this panthers offense enough to let the Vikings hit that four point mark, like we noted in the Kirk Cousin section. Vikings' office actually playing pretty well, and they're getting a banged up Panthers defense. I do like Vikings minus four. I like the Vikings minus four quite a bit too. It's not one of my three picks. It is, I have my

leftover section where I go through my picks and I write down which are all the ones I kind of like and then let's pick three from here. It was in that leftover section. Yeah, I just think, I think their offense is pretty good. And I think they're going to be able to move the football effectively, like I said, with the cousins prop. And yet defensively, they don't have the guys, but they can create chaos or try to create chaos. And I just don't think the Panthers have the people on offense to make them pay for that blitzing for creating that chaos. So yeah, it feels weird. I'm like, wait, am I really taking a winless team on the road minus four here and feeling good about it? And I was like, yeah, actually I'm doing that. So there you go. I like that one.

All right, my first lock. By the way, some, I had a hard, I had such a hard time. This was the hard. I couldn't find three games that I really felt confident about. I had four. I liked a lot. Okay. Between the four was stuff. Listen, sometimes like even when I turn in my column, Sometimes I'm like, oh, I feel great about this week. And then I go six and ten. And then I feel terrible about it. And I go nine and seven. So I never really know.

It's kind of like some of these teams and their personnel. You don't know until you see what happens there. So my first one, I just wanted to get the pain out of the way early. Let's go Jaguars minus three against the Falcons in London. Benny Souls wrote about the Jaguars this week. I thought you did a good job. And I agreed with you. You watch that game and I'm not panicking about the Jaguars after last week.

I mean, they had 404 yards of offense. They punted twice and they still only managed 17 points. Like that's hard to do. They had a missed field goal against the Texans. They had a blocked field goal. They had two turnovers. They had a failed fourth down conversion. They had drops.

They had penalties. They gave up a kickoff return touchdown to a full back in that game. Like these are not things that you say, all right. These are things that are going to happen every week. So Trevor Lawrence had the one interception. I thought other than that, he played really well in that game and didn't get a lot of help. So I still think they have the pieces on offense. I think this Falcons defense is mediocre.

I thought they were getting carved up pretty good in the first half last week against Detroit. And then they actually started to play a little bit better. But I think they're a getable defense. I have concerns with the Falcons passing game. I mean, Desmond Ritter last week was spraying the ball everywhere. I mean, he's getting his receivers killed. with some of these decisions, some of these throws that he's making. So I don't like the Jaguars defense.

Don't get me wrong. If you tell me, Sheel, this is going to be wrong because the Falcons are going to run for 200 and they're going to win this game. I would say, you know what? I could actually see that happening. But I just see a pretty big disparity between the passing games of these two teams that at minus three, I like the Jaguars to kind of balance. And they kind of need this game.

I mean, I was bullish on the Jaguars coming into the season. And now they're one and two. So I think this is a spot where they really need the game. They're healthy enough on offense. I like them minus three. I looked at the Jaguars quite a bit. I lean minus three. The big thing for me in this game, which I'll be curious to see how this plays out and

like the London of it all conflates it. And you know, you have to handle rest and you have to handle preparation. That's tricky. The Falcons offense has gone against the Panthers, the Packers and the Lions. Those are three of the better pass rushes. I would say three like the top 10 pass rushes that I think we've seen so far this season. in the Panthers. Brian Burns,

intercourse Sean Gary into Ada Hutchinson with the way that those three players are playing right now is a tough run. If this Jaguar's pass rush

can't wake up against the Falcons, I'm going to start being like, okay, what are we doing? Wait, I thought the Falcons had like a great,

wasn't the whole story? The Falcons had this great offensive line coming into the season? I'm asking genuinely, you're giving me a look like you want to punch me in the face. No, no,

no, because this is, this is my, this is my, this is my frustration. Okay. The Falcons do have a great offensive line. I like the way they invest in their offensive line.

Would I have given Caleb McGerry that much money? Caleb's a good run defender. It should be good run blocker. Good road mover. Drew Dolman, who is a fourth round pick for them who starts at center. Is he better than a fourth round pick? Is he overachieving and he's a starting caliber player? Yes.

But you run into the Garrett, Bradbury, Alice Mack and Jason Kelsey, early career problem where this guy's not that big. And so when they get to fire a lot, off the line, it's nice. But that's the thing about whenever we try to capture offensive line play, there's always this, this, um, earth like this, you know, people want to say, oh, this is a good offensive line. You really have to divide and say, are they, are they good to run?

Are they good at pass? Are they good at both? Because a line can legitimately be very good at one thing and actually bad at the other thing. And like, those, those ideas are divorced enough that you can have that level of disparity. I don't think the Falcons are like terrible against the, and pass blocking, but there's reason why this team is this play action heavy as they are multiple tight ends. It helps the running game, certainly, but it also hides some of their issues in past

protection. And that was always the thing when I, when I would talk about the Falcons offensive line, I would always make, it's a good offensive line, but you try to get in there. Also, it can have problems in pass protection, which sounds like a weird thing to say, but that's because the offensive line play has kind of two faces to it. Yeah, Doug Peterson was to get to your point about the Jaguars pass rush. He was asked about, did you see that clip this week? It was in my piece. I linked it. Oh, right. That's probably why I saw it. Yeah, when I was reading it. I hadn't seen it until I read your piece.

I mean, he's asked about how they had zero sacks, right? Last week. He was asked just like, why is the pass rush struggle so much? They have no sacks. They had two players with more than two pressures, only one player with one and two pressures in the game. And Doug Peterson will do my best dog impersonation. He said this.

He said, uh, you have to, I'm not embellishing. That was that was the first 15 seconds. I've never seen anything like that. And it was just painful, man. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and they've invested resource. The Trayvon Walker thing is obviously in the spotlight right now.

When you talk about how Aidan Hutchinson played in that game Thursday night and how he's just played over a year and three games compared to Trayvon Walker. I don't believe in this Jaguar's defense. I don't think they're very good. They weren't very good last year. They barely added anything and they had the same coordinator. Like I just didn't see a reason to believe in them. Now, they played well.

I thought against the Chiefs in that game this season, well enough for them to win. The offense didn't show up. But overall, I have concerns. So this is the minus three is. more betting on Trevor Lawrence and the Jags offense. All right. What do you have for your next pick? Yeah.

So, yeah, it's like I said, Vikings. Then I'm also taking the Chargers minus five and a half against the Raiders. Ooh, baby. Listen, by my, like, Power Ready Kings, by my model, I have the Chargers is like an eight-point favorite in this game. Obviously, it's like early and like you're still trying to wait preseason numbers with postseason number or with current season numbers. Week four is when a lot of that starts to transition.

But I have the Chargers as just a remarkably better team because of the offensive firepower. Like, they've just been lights out moving the football through three weeks. Huge, huge, huge injury for the Raiders that is like not getting as much visibility because of Jimmy Garoppolo, who's had the concussion but was limited in practice, is going through the protocol and a nice timing to play on Sunday. It's Max Crosby, who's the whole defense, all right, is Max Crosby. He was limited in Wednesday practice and then missed Thursday practice, which is never a good

arc. If he misses this game, I think the Chargers score 48, like I think they scored 96. I think they score 112. I almost had Chargers like all lines and then kind of team total points as my as my long shot of the week. I think it should be very challenging for this Raiders defense to hang with the Chargers offense in general. And so now you're putting the Raiders in a past happy circumstance and a healthy Jimmy, they should be able to get some movement there. This Chargers defense is certainly one of the worst ones in the league. And they're dealing with some injury, right? Derwin James potentially out,

Joey Bosa potentially out, but it's not like they were good when those players were in, so I don't remember anything we're losing too much off the bone there. I think that the charges are just able to out firepower at the Raiders. Raiders are not built a play in a shootout,

win in a shootout. We talked a lot about McDaniel on the Monday pod. I know you've sworn off all McDaniels discourse. McDaniels, McDaniels discourse. I was thinking earlier, like I was going to make a Mike McDonald's comment

on the Ravens, and then I was calling him Mike McDaniel and now you got Josh McDaniel. this is getting very confusing for me. Get better names. I couldn't agree more. So yeah, so Chargers minus five and a half based off the fact that I think there's a top five unit in this game in the Chargers offense.

And then I don't think there's any other units that have any teeth. So you expect that top unit to just dominate control the game. So this is five and a half as we record this. Is that reflecting Jimmy Garapolo playing? Yes, right? Yes. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. But if we were to find out no Jimmy, it's going to be. Aiden O'Connell or who's there, is there backup Hoyer? Brian Hoyer. Yeah, Brian Hoyer. Oh my goodness. What year is it? I think you would see this jump to six and a half real quick.

I would probably dance around the seven point line, go over and then come back down. But to me, like Crosby is the one where when I see this charge's offense struggle, I see them struggle because of past protection. Like I said, I think that they have a right tackle issue at times and trade Pifkins. If there's no Crosby, and obviously Chandler Jones not playing for this team currently, like their best defensive player is divine Diablo. Like this charge's offense has been putting 30 on everybody. I just don't see how they don't run them across the field.

This is a good game theory won by you too because we go by the lines at times of at the time of broadcast. So now if Garapalo doesn't play, you're getting like a free point, point and a half, two points. So see, I got to- CLV, baby, closing line value. That's what we do over here. Kind of learn from the little whippersnapper over here

with these smart moves. I took the Raiders in my column, felt terrible about it. I'm just, I'm not going to trust the choice. It's in a spot where you should absolutely trust the Chargers. Am I going to trust the Chargers? No, I'm going to go to the other side. And I do think if Garapolo plays, I actually think they can, like, move the football pretty efficiently. This Chargers defense has been one of the worst defenses in the NFL.

And like you mentioned, now they could be without their two best players in Joey Bosa and Derwin-James. So, like, I don't know, McDaniels, if you're the offensive guru, you are, are supposed to be, then you should at least be able to move the football against this Chargers defense. But like you said, the Chargers offense should just have a monster day against the Raiders who continue to have one of the worst defenses. You know the, um, I can't believe you're taking, I hate my picks, but you're taking the Chargers and Vikings after that game. You must like pay. You just want the rush of a Sunday where you literally have no idea what's going to happen. I, these two teams are both very good at offense. And the teams that are good at offense,

win games, they win them by a lot, right? That's how best out of football, yeah? You know the old like when you're going through hell keep going thing? That's me bad in the Chargers. That's me believing in the Chargers. Like I reached my absolute low point with this Chargers team

in that Titans game. And then what do you do when you're going through hell? Keep going. Keep going, baby. Chargers minus five and a half. All right. I really don't like my next two. But you know what?

Who cares? I'm taking the Rams plus one and a half at the Colts. This was the one. This was my fourth one. This is the one I left on the cutting room floor. I like this one. There you go. Colts, nice win last week against the Ravens,

but as you alluded to, I mean, they had, what, four 50 plus yard field goals? They get the no pass interference penalty. They're late. They get the Lamar Jackson ball secure. Like, I'm not taking anything away from them. The Colts have overachieved.

They've looked well coached. Good job. Shane Steichen. They play hard, Gus Bratt, all those things. At the same time, do I trust them to be favored in this spot? Do I think they're a great team?

No. and for the most part, I've liked what I've seen from this Rams passing game. I mean, you look at that game Monday night. They have offensive line injuries. They have no solutions to them. And you can rip them for that, sure. But Louana Rumo just killed them once that happened. I mean, one for 11 on third down.

You know, those guys went out and they had no answers. But if I'm zooming out, this Rams passing game has been better than I was anticipating coming into the season. I mean, you look at it, they beat the Seahawks in week one, Matthew Stafford on fire. week two against the Niners, a Niners team that has looked like a juggernaut. That game was tied at halftime, and the Rams end up losing by seven points there. I know it was that fluky backdoor cover, but still, they were in that game really until they started turning the ball over there late in the second half, and then they lose by a field goal to the Bengals in large part because of those in-game injuries.

So with injuries, I think there's such a huge difference between when you lose a guy in the middle of the game and you're scrambling to replace him, and when you know you're not going to have a guy and you have that whole week to come up with a plan to how are we going to account for a potential potential weakness. So I think Joe Noteboom was practicing for them. He had been playing guard, but he's played left tackle in the past. That could be one potential solution for them. So I just think Stafford is going to be able to move the football in the air through the air in this game. And I like the Rams to win this game outright as one and a half point dogs in Indy. Yeah, I agree. I think that that Colts Ravens game was a great performance by an impassioned Colts team and they're

two and one and they believe in themselves and Shane Steichen's got the goods man. I love, love, love everything that Shane Steichen does. I was like they're outmaned against the Rams, right? I think it's, we saw with this offense would look like last season when they didn't have a true playmaker at quarterback because like I always have to hesitate whenever I say something about Michael Pittman because Colts fans get very mad about me, but Michael Pittman is just like a fine player and Alex Pierce and Josh Downs and Zach Moss They have functional guys But they don't have a ton of juice

And so if you don't introduce a Richardson Who is like a table shifter, right? He's a gravity changer in and of his own I think that this offense is just pretty dramatically limited And even if you can pressure the Rams and throw off Stafford And take advantage of where they're weak Eventually Stafford's going to get a couple on you Right? They're going to put enough points on that

I think it's going to be tough for the Colts to keep pace So yeah, Rams plus one and a half I liked a lot. This line's moved over the money line over the course of the week, which has been weird. That kind of skewed me out a little bit. It's Colts team defensively, I think has been better than I expected. Shout out Gus Bradley, who's still just doing the thing, man.

But like, Camoco Touré was a good signing for them. They're generating better pressure than I thought. They're dealing with the loss of Bobby O'Caricay very successfully. The corners are hanging in there, right? I thought the corner was going to be a massive liability for this team. Certainly not like the strongest unit in the world, but there's Colts defense is hanging around well enough. like they scared me a little bit off of locking in Rams plus one and a half, but that's

still where I lean. Yeah, I say give me, give me a larger sample with that Colts, uh, cool. I agree with you through three games. Uh, let me see a little. Sometimes it just comes down to all your players good enough and I'm still skeptical of that. All right, hit me with your third lock of the week. What do you got? Uh, yeah, so I alluded to this one earlier as well. There did a lot of foreshadowing in this podcast. That's just good podcasting. Uh, the, uh, the, uh, the Cowboys, minus six and a half against the Patriots. I like the fact that I get the hook here quite a bit. I have the ability to win if this game ends up a seven point game. Like I said, Cowboys like before the Cardinals game, team of the century, Cowboys are never going to die.

And then they lose to the Cardinals. And it's like, all right, they have all these issues. And I was right there, right? I was absolutely on the, you know, this red zone stuff is bad. Like, you know, this is the sort of thing that we thought Mike McCarthy was going to affect them on. This is what we were worried about. With that said, they're still on pace for an historic DAC season. They're still on pace to be one of the top 10 offenses by DVA and one of the top 10. defense by DVOW. A historic DAC season, how? In what regard? In terms of efficiency, right? He's completion percentage. Oh, I don't know. I have no idea. That's why I'm asking you. I looked at it like two days ago. It's okay. I'll take your word for it. Believe me.

By some stat, yeah. Yes. So the stone pace have a very good DAC season. The still on pace to be a top 10 offense, top 10 defense by DVOA, which is a very challenging thing to do. This is still a really well-rounded and dynamic team. You brought up the injury in-game versus out-of-game. Yeah, another a week to prepare for, I think, life without Trayvon Diggs starts to make things look a little bit easier, look a little bit better. I'd like for Stefan Gilmore to just look a little bit better, period, but I'm not sure if we're going to get that or not.

They're going to experiment with Ron Bland on the outside, and we're going to kind of go from there. But the Patriots are not the sort of team that you kind of fear when you have porn issues. You feel like you can get up there. You feel like you can press and you feel like you can be successful. Like I said, Mac Jones, low time to throw is the thing that's worrying me here. I think you're going to try to neutralize this pass rush by being super underneath and

super yeah, super after the catch. But this Cowboys defense still just flies around They're so fast. They're such good tacklers. They're well built to respond to that sort of an approach for saying, okay, we can't win with our pass rush in this game, but we can win by tackling over the middle of the field and bringing guys down.

If Ramandre Stevenson has a James Connor-esque game where he's successfully ripping off these large runs and he's breaking tackles in the second level, I can see it with the Patriots offense hanging around. But again, Connor and the colonels get him to the boundary. They get him along the outside. And that's where you can get this Cowboys defense. Through the middle,

Jonathan Hankins comes in from the Raiders, Mazzie Smith, first round pick, Layton Van der Recher at linebacker. The Cowboys run defenses, it was a liability, I think, like a year and a half ago, two years ago, and I think they're settling in more and more, and that's not the problem that it used to be.

So I think they're going to be well built to handle this Patriot's rushing attack, well built to handle this Patriot's offensive line, and then offensively, you know, Christian Gonzalez, he's great, you know, good young player, Kyle Duggers, stepped forward, Mad Judon, like the Patriots always have teeth,

but this Cowboys' offense is, can be in a lot of different ways. running the football, throwing the football to CD Lamb or otherwise. Prescott's playing very well. I think they have enough in them to win this thing by seven. Yeah, I think if the Patriots win, they got to ugly it up a little bit. They have to dominate up front defensively. They have to feast on some turnovers, not lose the ball themselves.

Kind of an old school. Hey, let the other team shoot itself in the foot type game, which I think they're capable of. I mean, you're right, the run scheme is different. They did get run all over last week. That was different. That was with a running quarterback in Josh Dobbs, but I don't think anyone, one expected. I think the Cardinals had 180 rushing yards in the first half in that game, a bunch of runs over 20 plus yards. So we'll see. I could see that one playing out. Either way,

I'm on the other side. I like the Patriots in that game, but I don't like them enough to make them one of my three picks. My last one, I can't believe I'm, this is just asking for pain. I'm taking Steelers minus three at the Texans. Texans have been a fun, plucky team so far. CJ Stroud, if you're a Texas fan, you're like, this is amazing. We have a quarterback. He looks terrific. So far this season at the same time, you look at that game last week against the Jaguars, and we went over at the Jaguars, did a lot of stuff to lose that game as much as the Texans did to win that game. Houston is still banged up on its offensive line, going up against T.J. Watt and company for Pittsburgh. Houston lost by 27 points total in the first two weeks. So again, I like Stroud, but going up against Watt, Minka Fitzpatrick, veteran defensive coaches in Pittsburgh. I think that Steelers defense can bait them into some mistakes there.

So I'm not even going to talk about the Steelers offense because I don't think they're going to. I mean, the Steelers game plan is basically win with defense, don't make mistakes, hit on a couple big plays offensively. They don't have a sustaining offense, although, you know, I guess they took a step in the right direction last week. but I think the Texans still have kind of a talent deficit here, and I'm going with Pittsburgh minus three on the road. I'm not going to feel good about it. My Prescott's, that was inaccurate pass rate. It was a completion percentage.

He was since they started tracking it, 9.1%, 9.5%, 9.7%, 9.1%. He's at 6.9% right now. Yacquized, he's at 58% versus an average of like 43% over the course the last four season. He's thrown shorter, quicker, faster, more accurately, and they're only offense work. Thank you. Steelers Texans

I really really really wanted to take the Texans in this one I'm still like I said I said last week that I'm still quietly accumulating my Texan stock and then they have this this big win over the Jags they have this division a win their touchdown underdog and it's a great thing and we're having a party I did see Jay Stroud for the play sheet this week he's playing out of his mind

this Steelers team is a cold bucket of water man when you've been like just barely living on the edge Stroud's getting pressure, but he's getting rid of the football and he's hanging in there and you're surviving. Yeah, this Steelers team, like, Stroud's going to rip a middle of the field throw that he's hit seven times already in his NFL career with T.J. Watt bearing down on him. It's going to hit Nico Collins right in the hands for a 25-yard catch and run, but Minka Fitzpatrick's just going to be sitting right there. Like this, this Steelers team is the sort of team that says, we're pretty good at defensive game planning over here. And you guys do about two or three things and really

just try to live on that and that alone. And I think that I could see Houston still pulling it off. I could see it. Yeah. They've got teeth. They have a good pass rush. I like Houston, but they're banged up. And you have the crash down after a big high emotional win, first win for CJ. Like, yeah, I think I'm still slowly and quietly accumulating my Texan stock, but this is not the weak to be pushing it out there for me. Absolutely. And encouraging, I mean, if you're a Texans fan, you're over the moon regardless of record at what's happened so far this season. So I think you're right about that. All right, let's just, neither of us pick dolphins bills.

So let's just go on the record. Who do you like? Bills are minus three in that game at home. I picked the dolphins. Listen, it's just, I see, I think they're pretty evenly matched teams. But until I see someone slow down that dolphin's offense, if I'm getting three points there, I'm going to go ahead and take it. So I've got dolphins plus three, which side, if you had to,

to pick one do you like in that game. Yeah. I'm on, I'll be personally on Dolphins Plus 3 and on Dolphins 1. Oh, okay. All right. I think the dolphins win it.

I think that the dolphins win every game for the rest of time. I don't, I don't, I'll put it to this way. I don't think we're going to get to bet the dolphins as an underdog again this season. Hmm. They play the Eagles. No,

they play the Eagles on the road. There'll be dogs in that game. I don't think we get to bet the dolphins as underdogs again. I disagree. All right. We'll see when that game happens. I disagree. about that. All right. So my picks, my locks of the week, are Jaguars minus three against the

Falcons in London, Rams plus one and a half at the Colts and Steelers minus three at the Texans. Boy, I'm really picking some juggernauts here with my picks there. My long shot of the week is Kirk Cousins to throw for 300 plus yards. That's plus 164. My prop of the week is Travis Kelsey under 71 and a half receiving yards. So far, the stupidest bet anyone has made on this podcast. So far, This season, we'll see if I can one up that later this season. Solek, hit us with yours. The dolphins also play the Chiefs on the road this year. But it's in London.

It's not actually like on the road. So what? They're not going to be favored in that game if Patrick Bahomes is healthy. Chill. All right. I don't think the dolphins are underdogs can't. Lost the league for me. Vikings minus four against the Panthers.

Chargers minus five and a half at home against the Raiders. Patriots, excuse me, Cowboys, minus six and a half at home against the Patriots. my prop of the week, James Cook, to rush for over 57 and a half yards at minus 114. And my long shot of the week, Lamar Jackson to rush for at least 60 yards plus 154. All right, there you go. Ben's up 11.9. Will he have another third straight week over me or will I come back against Benny Souls this week? We will see.

Of course, you could find all those lines, all those bets on a fan duel. Ben alluded to it earlier. You got to find some way to watch Bill's Dolphins. Listen, YouTube, TV, NFL site, it's been amazing. First time I've ever had it. I got all the screens going. It's amazing. We like to keep our sponsors happy, but we legitimately like these sponsors.

Honestly, it's the best. It's very good. It's amazing. So go ahead and splurge for that and watch that game this weekend. All right. Thank you to Ben Solek. Thank you to Cliff Augustine for producing. Thanks to Eduardo Ocampa.

Wake it up early West Coast time to get us those videos, which you can check out on the Ringer NFL feeds on Benny Solz's TikTok on my Instagram. Additional production supervision. by Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ram Gopal. Next up on the feed, you will hear Nora and Stephen on dual threat Sunday night. They'll be recapping Bill's Dolphins and all the other fun action from Sunday. Be sure to check that out.

Thanks to everyone for listening. Ben and I will be back Monday night. Have a great weekend and we'll talk to you next week. Must be 21 plus and present in select states. Fandwell is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambling problem? Call 100 gambler or visit fandul.com slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, and Virginia.

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