Dallas is Done, the Rams Are Lurking, a Two-Win Stinker Logjam, and Guess the Lines With Cousin Sal
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Coming up, week nine NFL was super weird. Cousin Sal and I are breaking it down next. This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses. Built with Meta AI, Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses react to what you see so you can learn more about the world around you. You can also take hands-free photos, videos, send messages, make video calls, even play music and podcasts.

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classic. This podcast went off the rails. This might be the last episode because it might get taken off of Spotify and all the other platforms because lines were crossed. But that's fine. I had a great time. It was me and Chris Ryan and Sean Fantasy. So stay tuned for that on Monday night. You'll also be able to watch it

on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. Thanks to everybody who bought tickets for our live show in Denver. It's sold out December 4th. Look forward to seeing everybody out there. If you like this podcast, go check out the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. Go check out theringer.com, a great website as well. And on this podcast, Cousin Sal is here and we're going to talk about a legitimately goofy week nine. Plus we're going to guess the lines for week 10. We're going to talk Halloween,

and a whole bunch of other stuff. First, our friends from ProJet. Hello. Happy Daylight Savings. Cousin Sal. I don't know what time it is. It's like, I feel like it's like almost midnight.

It's like I've been up for a hundred hours. We lost an hour of our lives, but I think we won money. I mean, when the favorites are 13 and one straight up, we had to have won money, right? Is that what happened? Okay. We didn't. Well, we did lose an hour of my life. The Colts kind of hurt my feelings. Oh. We just watched a Sunday night Flacco versus Darnold battle. Did the Colts cross the 20th?

Did he say that near the end? They never crossed the 20? He said they didn't take a snap inside the 20. Right. So the Colts were also on daylight savings time. This was a messed up day. All the favorites won straight up, except for the New Orleans Saints, who lost by a point. So any conceivable tease you have that didn't have the Saints in it basically covered. We saw some bad coaching. We saw some pretty awful quarterback play.

Um, I can't really think of a well-played both teams playing really well game that we saw. Can you?

Um, no, I don't think so. I mean, even, yeah, like the, uh, you're going to point to the Rams Seahawks, right. Which was an entertaining game, but neither team deserves to win. I don't think, I mean, the Rams, the Seahawks out Seahawked everybody, but yeah. Well played game. Interesting. No, we had a lot of, we had a lot of clusterfuck games. Yeah. We had a lot of rollercoaster games. We had a lot of, why did they do that? Games.

Um, and I can't wait to go into all of them. I guess the big thing for me, Sal, 28% of the NFL right now is either two and six or two and seven. Wow. Is that right? Yeah. These are the two in teams, New England, Miami, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Tennessee, Jacksonville, Carolina, New Orleans, and the New York giants.

And I thought this seemed super unusual, but I went back and I looked at some previous years and like in 2005, 13 teams won six games or less. That seems like a lot. 2003, 10 teams went either four and 12 or five and 11. So I guess it's not that unusual, but new England, Miami, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Tennessee, Jacksonville, Carolina, new Orleans, and the giants, all of those teams suck except for maybe Miami.

Miami might be sneaky. I'm not, I know they're a cross off, but, uh, I think that last two weeks they've actually been okay. You think like they, they lost at the end to Arizona and then today they hung with Buffalo the whole game. So they might be a step up with Tua, but everybody else is terrible.

I'm with you. Maybe glass half full. The number one pick usually has two wins, right? Like two or three wins. Yeah. To have two through nine games is pretty good. I mean, I feel like these teams will end up with four, five wins. I don't know. I'm trying to be nice. They

They all suck. You're right. Jacksonville. No, listen, Miami will screw you. You'll take them against the spread. They'll, they'll, they'll screw you like they did today. Jacksonville will do the same. They'll do just enough to stay in it. And if you have a favorite, you're going to lose. But other than that, don't look for any entertainment value from a lot of these teams.

Well, they did the rankings for the number one pick, which is based on strength of schedule when you have a long tie. New England is number one as the number one pick right now, two and seven, but strength of schedule of 471. New Orleans second, Carolina third, Cleveland fourth, Vegas fifth, and the Giants are somehow sixth.

even though they have the same terrible record as everybody else. I watched the Pats today with Kyle. It was the perfect Patriots game.

It was Drake made heroics, sent it to OT, tough loss at the end. It's fine. We don't need to win those games. Drake is great. We love Drake. Just all we care about is Drake. The team's going to be bad and that's how it goes. But when you're bad, you want to have one thing to root for and ultimately a loss is great.

That's exactly right. And, you know, that's a tough pivot for you and Kyle, right? Because your team wins 12, 13, 14 games every year. That's what you're used to the last decade. And now you have to root for it through this different weird lens. The 2020s.

That's what it is. Yeah, right. And that Hail Mary he threw from the seven-yard line, I mean, really, it was just like a short Hail Mary. He extended the play. He probably would still be back there running around because I don't feel like Tennessee rushed anybody or did anything. But yeah, definitely fun to watch. Much more fun than my quarterback or a lot of these others. Oh, I can't wait to talk about your team. Did you see, so they've only been keeping track of this since 2016, the ESPN Next Gen, whatever it's called? Yeah.

the Daniels here in the Hail Mary last week and the Drake may touchdown to send the game and OT today were the longest. The quarterback has held the ball on a touchdown pass. Yeah. Drake may held it for, I think like 12 seconds and Jada Daniels yesterday was also like, or last week was also 12 seconds. Um, it was unbelievable to watch. I thought they probably should have gone for two. The numbers might've been against it, especially cause Drake was getting the crap kicked out of it. But I feel like on the road,

Go for two, decide it. It goes to our theory of if you're the other team, what do you not want them to do? And I think Tennessee is probably more scared if we're just going for two there, right?

Yeah, I think so. And you know what? You're leaving it to a coin toss. I know nobody scored six and that's how it was, but your defense has to be spent by then. So you're, you're really, that's the other part of it, right? Don't you want to be fresh and okay, we have this play. And like you said, you don't really care if you're winning these games anyway. I just thought that would be a good thing for Mayo, right? To like win the locker room back over with a win. And if you lose, they lost anyway. So it didn't matter. But what you brought up before, maybe it would be fun for,

Cool new wrinkle that quarterbacks can't be touched for the first 12 seconds. Oh, think of the touchdowns we were throwing in the offense. Yeah, that's it. It's so funny. He almost ran for 100 yards today. He almost had a 200-100. And our coaching staff is so bad. They run no players where he just kind of rolls out. He's so good rolling out. He can either use his legs or throw on the run. We never do it.

I tweeted today about the, uh, when it's first and 10, it's always second and 13 after first and 10, we managed to go backwards with a three yard play, whether it's a bad screen or run, get stuffed something that like we it's, it's coaching malpractice with this team. So I'm 99.9% sure this happened. We lose the coin toss in overtime.

But then after the green, Drake may said he threw that past 60 yards that got intercepted. It seemed like he under threw it, but he chucked it from his own 30. The guy caught it at the 10.

And he said he misjudged the wind because the wind was against him. Oh, which means we lost the coin toss, but somehow didn't take the side that had the window. That's 2024. How dumb is that? This is, we, do we penalties? It's like, it's shocking when this team gets the first down and they don't have like, Oh, flags down flag on the play. Yeah.

So do we call it the Music City Meteorology Report? I don't know what we call this. It's interesting. I don't know what you call it. I was trying to think who has the most hopeless situation out of those nine teams. Like even if you're Carolina at two and seven, Bryce wasn't awful today.

Right. He orchestrated a game winning drive. He was smiling at the end of the game. I don't know if that people were, there was a, all the trade deadline stuff the last few days. And people are like, teams are calling on Bryce young. It's like, what are they calling for to see if they can get them for a seventh round pick? Why would Carolina give up Bryce young? He's been there two years. Like I wouldn't write that dude off. I think the bleakest situation is still Cleveland. Yeah. They scored 10 points today. They, they haven't had picks for three years. Um,

That's probably the team I would not want to be out of all those. How about you? Yeah, I think that's it. And all the cash restraints, right? They're screwed with this pick, with this Watson. And, you know, we try to convince ourselves that the rookies are great and the Flacos and the Winstons are good.

And then we get smacked in the face in a week like week nine. And Flacco wasn't very good. Winston was very, very bad. You know, everybody who thought Winston was going to turn the Browns around, including me, I'll have a little egg on their face. But yeah, Cleveland's in the worst spot, I think. He was just bad. I mean, Tennessee is no great shakes, I'll tell you that. Their defense was pretty good, but

Uh, they're also, I wouldn't say the best coach team. I didn't see a lot of, uh, a lot of building blocks. They're starting center without today. I mean, out of all those teams, you could talk me into a couple of them never winning again this season. The crazy one to me is new Orleans. So being two and seven, they started, yeah, they've lost seven straight. And I w I was, I should, I should have prepped you on this one, but if a coach gets fired tomorrow, yeah. Which one would you pick? Who is it? Dennis Allen's gotta be the favorite, right?

I've now I'm hearing McCarthy from people who are normally level headed and the Cowboys camp and everything, but we're in the, also in the know. So, all right. So it's Dennis Allen. It's not going to be the Raiders. It's a, so day ball, who am I? Choices day ball. Can't be counted out ever. Nick Sirianni. Has anyone ever been fired after a win? Does that take him out too? Yeah, that'd be interesting. I,

I would say Dennis Allen, Derek Carr got Dennis Allen fired twice. I think he could do it again. And I think it could be soon. It really could. Because we talk about the outlier game, like which was the one that's weird. Like you might say it was the Raiders beating the Ravens. Or I think the other one you would say Patriots beating the Bengals.

it might've been the saints beating the Panthers 47, 10, because those teams are a lot closer than 47, 10 back in week one. So yeah, if he's not gone this week, it's going to be when we had, we did a whole segment before week three about the saints versus the 99 Rams deciding like, is this real? We didn't think it was real with the 99 Rams for a few weeks. Right. That's in the archives. People can go listen to that. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, Derek Carr, he almost killed Chris Alave. I mean, for real. He did the classic...

Not only did he lead him into somebody who is about to pop him, but he put the ball high. So he's jumping up and you can't alligator arms there because then you look like a wuss. So he's completely extended and helpless as somebody is coming in to crush him. And a second concussion this year for him. I don't think we'll see Chris Alave again. No, I think you got to, I think you got to keep them out. And I think this is three overall in the last, I don't know.

two years or something. But what was the worst Derek Carr moment? Like when you almost killed your teammate after the game, when you realize you lost the pathetic Panthers, or when you go back to the locker room, pick up your phone and see that Michael Thomas has waged war on you. Five straight tweets on you. Just going crazy. Just an NFC version of Antonio Brown, just laying it out there for him. And then you have to, at the press conference, you have to address it.

bad, bad day for Derek Carr. Well, it got worse than that because there were, there was all these info tweets. There was one about how he'd now lost to every team in the league except the Raiders. So they played them in December. That's, um,

they had one where he now has the most losses of he's tied with Archie Manning for most losses after by any QB in their 11th season. He's got like a hundred and something losses. So yeah, not great. It was after it was most losses after three, four, five, six, seven years. And it was like David, David, David, Derek, Derek car, all cars. And then he's got to pass Manning, but you're right with that 31. I mean, that is pretty spectacular losing the 31 teams. And he has a chance to break that, get to 32.

I think it's Raiders week 17, I believe. I was surprised that nobody had done that before. I would have thought one of these QBs that played for 20 years would have just randomly lost to every team. Like even if it was Tom Brady, I might've, I know he didn't lose that many games, but I even would have maybe believed that.

But who would have been? Or like Brett Favre or like Warren Moon or Phil Rivers. You could have told me Phil Rivers did that. Drew Brees. Anyone who played like 10 or 12 years. Yeah. Flacco even. Yeah, I guess it would be tough because if you're in the same conference the whole time and you're only playing like other divisions. Yeah, once every four years. Right. Well, maybe your guy Dak can do it. I don't know if he's going to be around long enough. I really don't. You want to do this now? Sure. Yeah. Get it out of the way.

What do I have to do? Do I have to apologize? I guess I do. Because I don't see a path now. I know I did. I had a neatly paved way to go. And I just, we're bad. And Dak is now, I'm not sure what he's saying on the sideline. He would say we fucking suck or the refs suck. It could be both. He'd be right in any point. But I don't know where to start because I was wrong about the running backs. Right?

I just didn't think this would be the year from hell. And yet, Kellen Moore is thriving, and Dan Quinn is thriving with Washington, and Tony Pollard, who had the softest 1,000 yards you'll ever witness last year for the Cowboys, is second in the AFC in rushing. And now we have injuries all over the place. Yeah. Just disgusting. I'm out on them completely. Fake punt, no tackling. Not completely. We're not even week 10 yet.

I just still in single digits. Well, the problem is other teams are winning, you know, like the Eagles. I can't, I can't give it. And Washington has got seven. They're going to have 10 wins at least. And then you're chasing Minnesota, uh, green Bay. They'll probably one or two teams from the NFC West. Come on right now. The lions are seven and one Washington, seven and two Philly and Minnesota are six and two Atlanta and green bears, six and three.

And that's not counting any NFC West team because Arizona is five and four. So those are your seven right now. So they are a full three wins behind basically everybody they have to catch. Yeah, not good. With half a season left. Well, and Eagles and Texans next. That's before Thanksgiving. They have the Giants. I don't even know if they'd win Thanksgiving. I'm really, really so down on it. It feels like this was Jerry's kind of pseudo plan this whole time to...

Not spend too much money on this year's roster. Just kind of get through it. Do the smoke and mirrors thing. But ultimately, they kind of made their own bed, right? You went into the season without any running backs. You took the DAC contract to the tail end of the preseason. Took the CD thing, same thing. I don't know. I think he kind of knew what kind of hand he had, it felt like. He brought McCarthy back for no reason.

That was insane in January that McCarty, we, when we did the pod after the Cowboys last, we were like, who's the next coach going to be? There's no chance it was going to be him. But, and this is me apologizing, but I don't,

I mean, why did you think it was going to be the year from hell after three straight 12 win season? Was it the running back? Was it because their linebackers on paper got better? You know, they were going to have digs. He was going to be healthy. And so the defense should have been better. But was it just the running back? I mean, I sure was more than that. I thought I thought it was a little smoke and mirrors last year.

When we did the over-unders, I think you went over and I went under and I just didn't like the look of the team. And, you know, neither did the betting public. I mean, the wind shifted by an entire wind, which we never see. Right. Started out at 10 and a half. It finished at nine and a half. And there was juice on the under. It just felt like the things that made the Cowboys special. It always started with like, you have an awesome offensive line.

Like, let's start there. Awesome offensive line. You could always kind of rush the passer. You could always score points who needed it, but it was always like the O-line was the foundation of the team and it doesn't seem like it's the same anymore.

So I don't know what's the big strength now other than CeeDee Lamb being the top seven receiver. There's nothing. There's nothing. You're right. And it is a different team when Micah Parsons isn't double and triple teamed and all he's doing is sitting out and ranking quarterbacks and he doesn't put his own in the top eight. You know, and all the Cowboys news, the Zeke Elliott stuff, everything's such a big deal and terrible. And then it ends up being a big deal and terrible. Well, we had, we pegged this as the hardest part of your schedule. Yeah.

before the season. Yeah. Because you're at San Francisco, at Atlanta, lost those, got Philly next week, Houston at home on a Sunday night. And then, you know, it gets a little easier the second half. So I could see you talking yourself into this team one more time. No, I'm just saying. No, you're talking me into them. Four and six heading into the final stretch of the season when you have like the Giants, Cincinnati, Carolina.

You got Cincinnati at home. You got Tampa at home. You play Washington twice. Yeah. All right. So win that first one at Washington. I don't see it, though. It doesn't seem. Oh, man. You had me. You had me. And then you bailed. Well, I'm just trying to think. I'm trying to plan out.

the rest of the year in the pod. And I know how, I know you love to fool yourself into thinking the Cowboys might have it. I'll be fine. I'll, you know what? I'm going to be talking Mavericks a lot. Um, I don't know. No, but you're right. I just, the other problem really sounds stupid, but the other teams keep winning. So then we're chasing a number, like you said, we're three games behind and we're not even that good.

My biggest regret of the summer is not picking Washington to win the division. And I blame house. That's just where I've landed. I blame house because I called house and I asked them and he talked me out of it, but they just keep, this is what happens every year. It doesn't have to make sense, right? They just like, they didn't, Washington didn't play that well today. The giants kind of ran all over them and they didn't made enough plays to win. They won by five. They just keep putting the winds up.

Keep advancing the next week. They believe in their QB. There's always a video of them in the locker room celebrating after that, this crazy hail Mary win. And it just seems like they have it. And then you have Philly who I want to talk about after the break. But, um, I'll tell you what Dallas did for me. Million dollar picks. We had, uh, Dallas to seven and a half and the over, I think 45 and a half had to go over and coup. Yeah.

is kicking an extra point to go up, I think 15 and misses it. And it becomes a 14 point game. So now I get the Cowboys cheap touchdown to cut it to seven and I'm going to cover everything at once, right? Cowboys score with like two minutes left. They're down eight. They go for two. There's like three minutes left. When did this become a thing that you go for two down eight

With under three minutes left. I've seen teams do this now three, four times. Like what's the point of this? Yeah. I don't know. It now puts pressure on the other team because they're down. You're up six instead of seven. You're going to act like more skittish. I don't get it.

You could stick it in front of me, the numbers that indicate it makes sense. I'll just sit there with my arms folded. I'm like, I don't want to see it. This doesn't make sense. You're saying our two-point attempt is better than anybody else's, and it just isn't. I don't go for it. They end up getting it, and they lose by six, and I hit my bet. So now I feel like I'm square from losing the Hail Mary game last week. Yeah. Because I lost the Hail Mary. I don't think I've won a Hail Mary game ever. I've been on the losing side of like five of them. Yeah.

But yeah, no one's ever won a Hail Mary game. But I am happy you mentioned Koo missing and everything. I feel like we're at a good place in the season where

The offenses were down and kicking. Everybody was making a 59-yarder. Now the kicking's off a little bit. And the offenses are good. Those early afternoon games, you know, Dallas, that was 48 points. And, you know, Baltimore put up 41. Buffalo, Miami was 57 points. So I'm enjoying it a little more. I agree with you. We're going to take a break for the podcast.

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for free entry, entry deadlines and official rules void where prohibited. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. It's football season and Uber Eats is dropping undefeated deals on all your game day favorites. This week's score, buy one, get one free Crunchwrap Supremes from Taco Bell only on Uber Eats. And if you're craving even more, we've got you covered with game day deals on pizza, burgers, tacos, and more.

All season long. Uber Eats, official on-demand food delivery partner of the NFL. Order Taco Bell for game day now. Through 11-17-24, second item of equal or less in value. Terms apply. See app for details. Okay. Eagles, Jaguars, where we had Nick Sirianni trying to out-dumb coach, coach middle seat. It wasn't an out-coach. It was an out-dumb coach. What's the right verb for this? Uncoach?

D coach. Yeah. This coach dumbass. I don't know what the curve would be. I guess the opposite out coach would be in coach. Yeah. So Syrian is trying to in coach coach middle seat. What a battle. I mean, I don't know how many times the Eagles didn't get it on fourth down. I don't know. They were over three on two points.

They're up five near the end after they had almost blown a 22 point lead and tried a 58 yard field goal to go up eight. Didn't get it. All of a sudden the Jaguars are basically at midfield with a chance to win the game. My friend Mike Tolan was there and a lifelong Eagles fan who I shared Clipper tickets with.

And I'm texting him through the game and I'm like, I can't believe you're there for us. And he's like, I can't either. And then as Jaguars get the ball, he texts me. It's really happening. No way we stopped them on this drive. My three friends I'm with have all vowed they're not coming back if we lose this game like ever. And then what they didn't count on was Trevor Lawrence was like, look, I

I suck. There's no way. I'm pulling this off. Trevor Lawrence was so bad in this game. Anyway, this was the Spider-Man meme of terribly coached, dumb, stupidly played games. It really was. And if there were eight opportunities to figure out fourth and one or a two-point conversion, Sirianni wasn't there for any of them. He just wasn't. I feel like Saquon

As great as he was, 159 yards rushing. And what do you have? Like 40 receiving? He almost had 200 yards total. I feel like he was on some kind of weird drug. They might want to investigate this because he was doing stuff. It's like the limitless drug?

It could be the limitless drug. Like he hurtled somebody backwards. Right. Spinning around, hurtled someone backwards, but then like took a, like dove, like a slid on what he thought I think was third and one, but it was like third and six. Yeah. I thought he was trying to stay in balance, keep the clock going, but it just also felt like he could have gotten the first down and then the game. Yeah. I don't think he counted the false start penalty that had just happened, but yeah, that was, yeah.

Yeah, that was Sirianni. I don't know how he escapes these. Bizarre. I'll tell you. So here was one of my many questions for you about this game. Who is the most entertaining fan base with a frustrating NFL team? Because I think it might be the Eagles. I thought the shots of the fans during the game as weird shit was happening was like unparalleled. Because when they cut to like the Browns,

The Browns fans, you feel bad for them. Like they're sad. They look like they're, you know, they've just been,

released from prison or they've just found out something terrible about a relative. You actually feel bad. Same thing for Buffalo fans and some of the other torture ones. I was going to say, Bill's fans. I think they seem happy no matter what. I know in general they're tortured because they haven't won. But yeah, you're right. So far, I'm looking through, but so far, you're right. It's got to be the Eagles. It's Eagles and Jets in the finals. Right. Because they're all wearing...

the goofy green jerseys. It's cold out. They kind of can't believe they spent their Sunday going to a game like this, but they, they had some of the funniest, I would have watched a whole separate, uh, TV of just like, just,

The camera painting around just showing the Eagles fans. They couldn't believe what was happening because this game was 22, nothing. They kick a PAT and I think there was a penalty or, or maybe there's a penalty on the touchdown and it moves to the one yard line. So Sirianni is like, Oh, tush push. Let's go up 24, nothing. And they fucking stopped the tush push. Yeah. And I was like, Oh, then Jacksonville scores. Somehow they pull off a two point, which was a miracle.

And then we have this Saquon fumble and all of a sudden it's 22-16 in like five seconds. It's like, what just happened?

And then you just kind of knew what you were in for. But man, this Eagles team, once A.J. Brown comes out. That was it. That's all I was going to say. Yeah, they just seem like a pretty ordinary team. Two for 36. He has a knee injury now. So that was rough. But yeah, you're right. Ultimately, it was Trevor Lawrence saying, all right, I got to get some of these fantasy owners some points for me. But I have no intention of winning this game. Well, I looked this up. So Trevor Lawrence is his fifth year.

Do you know how many times Trevor Lawrence has fallen behind by 20 plus points in an NFL game? Oh, fifth year. So 64 games. 16.

That's too many. 325 times. Wow. Yeah. I was way off. Yeah. My math might be off, but I did. That's what the research said. Now it's like, is, is any quarterback down 20 more than this dude? Yeah. It feels like it happens six times a season. And it, and it's like, it's almost like he wants to be down 20. Cause that's when he can finally, uh, finally cook. But these two teams, you have the Eagles, uh,

who literally can't taste their own blood unless they're up 22 blowing a lead. And then you have the Jaguars who are in a coma until they're down 22. So it was just the perfect matchup. Plus, middle-seed Doug out there. Would you say the Eagles are the second-best team in the NFC? Or you put the Vikings ahead of them?

You know, I had that question for you with Packers-Lions because I think the Packers lost their number two spot today because they were really bad. I think they lost it to the Eagles, unfortunately, as bad as they were. And this team's going to be around for a while. Flip the question around. If you're the Lions, what team is on your radar the most in the NFC?

But that might just be because we don't want to play the Packers. They're a division. They're going to be a little hungrier. That might not mean that the Packers are better, but until the 49ers heat up with McCaffrey, I would say the Eagles are second. I think you're right because on paper, they do all the things you would want to be able to do in January, right? They can run the ball. They can make some big plays down the sidelines or deep.

Their quarterback can make plays in third and seven. It feels like they can rush the passer most of the time. On paper, sure. I don't trust them at all, and I think they're poor of a coach. I'm with you. I think more times than not, they'll figure out the third and short, which is also a huge, huge advantage in January, right? I mean, they get to third and three now with Barkley.

and tush push. We talk as heterosexual men, we talk about tush push way too much on a Sunday. I really don't know. I don't get it. You know what I don't understand about the tush push? People are like, it's not as good anymore because Kelsey's not the center. It's like, what does he have? Like the strength that moms get when their child is trapped under a car and they get the strength to like lift the car up. Is he superhuman?

So he's just that much stronger than a center that he could just collapse a defensive line forward? This is the difference, one guy? He would take two defensive tackles and push them through the goalpost, and everybody else would be like, what's going on with this one guy? I don't know. Well, apparently he's super strong. He can break a phone like no one's business. I'll tell you that. Incredible Jaguar season.

Like really an all timer. I, and I feel like I've watched probably too much of their season or I've had money today. I had an Eagles tease. I had a tease in real life and a million dollar picks to sweat that fucking thing out. Eagles down to a one and a half. Didn't, didn't know that would be a, right. A sweat fest. So this might be your set a record. I'm sorry to interrupt for years from hell.

Like how many year from hell teams are there? You know, you mentioned the 17, whatever with two wins, but yeah, just, you wouldn't have pinned this on the Jaguars or the Cowboy, you know, like you don't think the Cowboys were going to end up with six wins, did you? And now it's, it's looking like something like that. Well, you had, what was the year near the end of Romo? You went like four and 12. Oh yeah. That was a bad one. Yeah.

Sometimes in the NFL, when it goes wrong, all of a sudden you're like, wow, we just went five and 11. What happened? It's like the anchorman fight scene. It's like, oh my God, brick killed the guy. Uh, I'll say this about Lawrence. He's just really unimpressive. He's really inaccurate. Um, I don't think he knows where the ball's going. Sometimes he makes boneheaded decisions. Like

I was so nervous I was going to lose that tease. And on the other hand, I felt like pretty comfortable that Lawrence was the guy ready to foil it because I didn't think he was going to do it. And his last drive was awful. Like his passes were spraying all over the place. I think like maybe...

I'm looking now. All right. He took off five times. Like a lot of these guys, and it drives me crazy with Dak, but hey, we gave you all this money. You plan on running the ball at all? What if it's like third and six and you see nothing open except you have a big, big lane up the middle? Are you going to run or are you going to tuck? Are you going to throw it into the sideline? I would love some honesty out of these guys. I feel like we used to see Trevor Lawrence run and scramble for 15 yards more than, you know, and now maybe because it's year four or five, he just doesn't want to do it anymore.

Yeah, it seems like when he gets ahead of steam, it's pretty great. Kyle and I are having a lot of trouble adjusting to Drake May taking off because there hasn't been a Patriots quarterback that's run like this since I was a kid when it was Steve Grogan before he blew out his knee. But...

he sometimes he'll run up the middle of the line, which is like Josh Allen can do that. Lamar can obviously do that, but he'll go back and if it's not there, he just goes up and all of a sudden he's a running back. I'm just not used to it. Like, well, my God, what's he doing? Oh, don't get hurt. You're nervous the whole time. But his, he really did look like Josh Allen in some different moments today. Like he's not quite as big as Allen is, but it's a lot of the same thing.

Now, he had a couple of terrible throws, but, you know, it's his first start ever. No, when your quarterback's running for first downs, it's exciting. And he's young and just always... I thought he carried them. Like, his offensive line was abysmal. His receivers are awful. Like, just awful. The running game was non-existent. I think the other running backs were like 10 for 12. Other NFC game, because we talked about the Eagles, was Packers-Lions, which...

I was glad I didn't take a million dollar picks because House and I talked about it for a while. We didn't know where we're getting from love. And even to the end, the tease with the Packers felt good. It was like, how healthy is love? Then the sloppy conditions, bad weather. But it felt like the Lions checked off another box, Sal, where all these reasons not to think they're going to win the Super Bowl. And then you start getting to the, well, outdoors, bad weather. What are they going to look like? What's golf going to look like?

They were fine. They dominated the game. They didn't even do that much offensively, but defensively they were really good and Love was terrible. I thought it was a weirdly good win for them because it wasn't like an explosive Lions win. It was kind of like a tough guy December-January game that they pulled off.

Absolutely. And I don't know what happened with house between Friday and Sunday, but everybody was on the Packers on the ring or pregame show today. Like, no, no, this is their downfall. But I think we do this probably because we've gotten bit in the ass before, but we do this with super good teams like Detroit, you know, and Buffalo, maybe like, all right, they have to,

They have to come down to earth. They're now 40 and 15 against the spread in their last 55 games. Wow. It's crazy. It's 73%. What a crazy number. Jesus. 40 and 15 cover. And, you know, because then it's raining a little. Not that Goff had an amazing game, but yeah, they did shut them down. The defense, you're right, is the most surprising without Hutchinson, right? They're not getting that rush, but they're still holding these, you know, still making teams punt.

And I'm surprised without a Jamison Williams. I thought their offense, their offense wasn't great today, but they've made a couple of big fourth down plays and they always get just enough done to pull it off. It was a bad Jordan love game and I don't know how hurt he is, but he's, this is another weird side. A couple stinkers this year.

I'm not ready to do like, are we sure Jordan Love's good or any of that stuff. But I just don't think he's been nearly as good as I thought he was going to be. When you think like the promise of the playoffs last year, what he looked like, what he looked like down the stretch last year. I just don't think he's... He's been really erratic. He's also hurt. I mean, you saw him. They had the opportunity to snap the ball with the time elapsing, right? And he just couldn't even make it up the field. Yeah, couldn't. He was like kind of waddling. Yeah, so that's why...

I don't want to overreact to it, but he was bad today. And that was one of the reasons they lost. They needed him to be. There was also some classic wet weather stuff, you know, like some drops. So the Lions, I mean, this is what happens when you're well built and well coached, right? You win games like this. It doesn't really matter. I mean, they had 24 points and you would never, you know, you would never thought they were going to lose that game.

Ram Seahawks was probably the game of the day. Yeah. So every year I feel like I get irrationally attached to a team and I think it's the Rams this year. Yeah. Uh, I just like them. I like Stafford. I like that. I like how, uh, resilient they are. I really like McVay. I think they're overachieving with what they have. I like some of their young guys. Like they really hit a home run with Jared verse. He's all over the place in every one of these games. But, um,

Um, they, they had this ridiculous Puka ejection today that I still don't understand. There were some weird calls today. The Bryant branch, that call was weird. The lion safety that got knocked out. Yeah. Right. Um, there was other ones where it seemed like the guys should, it should have been a penalty and it wasn't, I don't think they figured out that.

defensive back hitting the receiver penalty at all. Oh, that's bad too. But the Puka thing, can we talk about that real quick? Like they, and I know you don't want an all out brawl on the field, but some of these guys that are barely punching another guy in the helmet, first of all, punching a guy in a helmet, the referee should just point at you and laugh if you're going to punch at someone's helmet, because you're going to break your hand. Like if I, if I lost a bet and put a hole in my wall,

in my own wall, I wouldn't expect the police to show up and be like, hey, we're carting you out of here. It's like, yeah, it's my wall. I'm an idiot. I'm going to have to do... Yeah, my knuckle. I'm going to urgent care in a minute. Leave me alone. But that's a dumb way to get thrown out. It's a dumb thing to get thrown out for, I think. I didn't like it. This was... If I'm a Seahawks fan, this was an absolute crusher. Yeah. Geno had some awful, awful, awful throws. They...

Seemed like they were going to pull it out when it got to 2020 near the end. Mm-hmm. JSN was going nuts. I mean, he seemed like he was wide open the entire game. Crazy game. Just making plays everywhere. That shit called back, and then the very next play, he'd catch something big. And then they win the toss.

Yeah. And then they're going down and it's like, oh, here we go. Like, are they going to score? Are they going to feel what's going to happen? And then all of a sudden they get stuffed on fourth and one and Stafford just jumped all over it. But I think this Rams team, they're four and four. It felt like their season was over a month ago. And House and I did this on Thursday. They were five to one, I think, to win the division. They were plus three ten to make the playoffs.

Yeah. I, to me, they're a playoff team. I think they know how to pull these games out. I trust them. I trust their infrastructure more than some of these other teams. Also Kyron Williams gets really good yards. Like he, it's not like he's wide open on some of these runs. He's just kind of in the middle. Like he's, he always gets like seven yards when it seems like he's going to get three.

He's very shifty. And he didn't score today, though, did he? This is like the first time in a while. Yeah, they're good. I got to say, I thought McVay screwed that up on fourth and two at the end of regulation. It was like 37 seconds left. First of all, I would have run on third down. And then I would have gone for it because, again, in overtime, Seattle got the ball. They have the 12th man.

Defense is a tie. They kind of got lucky, the Rams, to get that ball back and win 26-20. But you're right. They just should be plus 380 now, right, to win the division? Yeah. So they're still not bad. So they got Miami at home on a Monday night, which we're doing Guess the Lines later, which seems like, oh, well, then they'll go five and four. They'll beat Miami. But Miami has been better. I would watch out for that game. Then they're at the Pats.

Then they're home Philly. And then they're at New Orleans. And that feels like they could go three and one in those next four. If they go three and one, that would put them at like a seven and five range. I like them on the road. I feel like they get to 10 wins. More than anything. They really do. Which one? I like them on the road. I think that's a good betting spot for them when they're on the road like this. And plus the one and a half.

We got to talk about the one and a half lines. Like this was like a weird one. Like, oh, why the Rams favored at Seattle? They're going to really lose four in a row at home. Seattle, Houston was a one and a half. The Jets were one and a half. We got to figure out the one and a half. So we'll be all right. Well, did Arizona change your opinion of them? Cause they killed the bears today. And that was really one sided the whole game.

Yeah. I think that was going to be a game where I wasn't going to give credit to anyone who won. I didn't bet on it. House and I said, but Arizona is just on my do not bet list. Yeah. I'm not getting sucked in either way. I don't trust them, but they look good. And Kyler wasn't good in the game. And I thought,

They still dominated. Caleb was under attack. Yeah, he couldn't get out of his own. To be fair, Gino was under attack too. I know he threw some bad plays, but they had seven sacks. But yeah, Caleb was rough. I mean, that team was one play away from being five and two, right? And now, what, four and four? I was going to ask you, did the Hail Mary kill their season? Because they looked like kind of dead men walking a little bit today.

Yeah. And they don't have a good coach. That's another problem. And they don't have an offensive line. They missed this window where they could have been Washington. You would have thought Arizona was a winnable game. And now it's like, I just don't think that's a playoff team. They can't block. We're screwed. I mean, we had that first to fourth in the NFC North. And it was right before that Hail Mary. It was looking solid or doable at least. And now I haven't even looked at their schedule. I guess they have a home.

They're home against your team this week. All right. But then Green Bay, Minnesota, and Detroit right in a row. Oh, Cerruti reports there has been a coach firing, but it was an assistant. The Raiders fired their offensive coordinator. Oh, what did that guy do?

I apparently it was his fault that their quarterbacks were Gardner Minshew and Aiden O'Connell. And then today Desmond Ritter. Did we come up with a Desmond Ritter nickname? I can't remember. No, we try to remember if we had a last, uh, didn't Dickie have a song with Desmond in it? What was that? Desmond Decker. Yeah. He was the ska, um, legend, I guess. Yeah. That's Decker. Well, anyway, I, Arizona, I wouldn't bet on them. I'm never betting on any of their games, but,

you know, they're five and four.

They stole that Miami game last week in a good way. They stole that game against the Chargers, who looked awesome today. Their schedule was a lot easier down the stretch, and they're going to have at least a half-game lead heading into next week because San Francisco's on a bye. Well, here's the thing. We can't take every team in the NFC West, right? So we think Seattle's flawed. I think Seattle's out. I think they've missed their window. Yeah, they're 4-5, and I think they had to be...

six and three or five and four at this stretch with what's coming. Right. Yeah, they missed the window. They might have the worst offensive line of anybody. Really bad. Really bad. In Geno's lap every play. Yeah, they missed the window. They should find it and jump out. So I think it's either 49ers or Rams. Just the 49ers, if I look at today's game, you know, they're on a buy. I'd look like, guys, we got to get our shit together. This is this division. We could win it half trying here. And McCaffrey comes back. They're right in it.

You have McCaffrey. So they have by this week at Tampa next week, home Seattle at Green Bay at Buffalo. Not easy. That's interesting stretch. Yeah. And then Arizona has the, uh, the jets at home by week at Seattle at Minnesota. And they got the Patriots in Carolina a little bit later. So, um, Arizona and the, I'm trying to think who would be the most fun to bet against most fun.

Yeah. As, as like either a four seed, the NFC West is going to be a four seed. Right. Or somebody sneaking into a seven seed in the wild card. I just feel like, uh, so that's, we got, yeah, we got a playoff would be, that would be pretty tasty. It would have been the bears, but it is Arizona. So yeah. And, uh, we don't want to say Washington, but I don't, who knows what they're going to look like in January. Forgot to mention, I'm looking at my notes.

Your team turned the ball over four times on downs today. What? And they said it was a record, but I couldn't tell if it was a record for the national football league or just for the Cowboys was on queer from the graphic. It's gotta be. It's just some sort of record. How'd you just spend for the Cowboys? Right. Is that, uh, really fours the most? I feel like we do it three times on a normal week. Four's a lot. I mean, that's like one a quarter. You're just bombing on fourth down.

Yeah. I liked McCarthy's expressions. Like he never knows. He's, he's like a, like a police Sergeant in those eighties movies that can't believe one of the detectives went rogue. He's like, what, where did Axel go? Oh my God, what happened? He's always seems completely taken aback that they like decided to run a reverse with CD lamb on fourth and one. He had no idea. Like he's finding out with us that that was stupid. Yeah. We take Axel in a heartbeat as running back. Well,

Line up. Go ahead. Put the jacket on, Eddie Murphy. What was the fake punt today where... It's terrible. A play that seems like it should work all the time where the punter, he's just got a wide receiver one-on-one on the side with a D-back.

Who's going to be blocking the gun or has no idea a pass plays coming. And yet the guy threw it and the play had no chance whatsoever. But, and listen, after I've watched three hours of a quarterback throwing to an open receiver. So I was used to that, but shouldn't that play be, if you're going to fool somebody, isn't it easier to throw that a tight end? Shouldn't they have a tight end release over the middle six yards instead of a guy who hasn't thrown in a professional game in forever?

going all the way across field. Yeah. Or like the, or the up back, like the saints ran a fake punt today and it was, it was just like they snapped it directly to the big fullback burly guy who just like ran for eight yards. I'm off for fake punts. Let's take one more break for the pod.

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Do more with the bank that asks, what would you like the power to do? Explore tips and more at bankofamerica.com slash yes and. Okay. Only other things to mention, the Chargers-Browns game today, I don't know how much you caught of that, but the Browns ran 76 plays and the Chargers ran 56. The Browns had 21 first downs. The Chargers had 13.

The Browns had multiple times they were like inside the 10 and just bad shit happened for them. And yet I still felt like the Chargers like kind of handled their bit. I was never worried about that game. It was 13-3, 20-3. They were always in control. The thing that jumped out today was, and I don't know if the stats totally reflected, but Herbert was just, Herbert really seems like he's blossoming. Now the nerds would say he's always been this way. It's just the team's better, but

you look at the receivers, like everyone's worried about these receivers they had. And, you know, the offensive line has been a little up and down, but he just, I just thought he was really good in that game today. They're,

They're good. Their offense is decent. I just, I feel like we are used to them scoring 44 points and losing, you know, with all the terrible coaches they've had. And now they're in the 20s and winning. Like, oh, that's not, that's boring. Let's go back to the old team where they'd score, you know, 50 and we laugh at them because they crapped out on the last possession. But yeah, Joshua Palmer's fine. And I just, they- Remember, they thought Johnston was a bust. He's definitely not a bust. He makes plays every week.

And Dobbins runs the ball. So and they play defense. They're like they're in on everything. I don't know that we've looked at it. Then we text each other this week. They were minus 150 to make the playoffs. I think they're there by default. I think like, you know, now that we could wrap the Colts up pretty much. Now you're looking at four AFC North teams pretty much have to make it in order for the Chargers to not make it.

So right now they're minus 310. So those are on FanDuel. So those odds jump tremendously. Thanks to FanDuel, by the way, for giving us our own little ringer specials page. Yeah, that was nice. I hope people made money. You were prominently mentioned. I was thinking about how proud you were. I really am. 22 years ago, if I had said to you, you're going to be on, there's this thing called a gambling app.

When we were working together on Kimmel Show in the office, like 22 years from now, we'll have this whole page of bets that we came up with. It's going to be on the site. People are going to point to me and they're going to say, why aren't you upset? Our candidate didn't win. I'm like, why? Because I'm featured on the freaking FanDuel site. That's why. I don't care about the next four years. I don't care about week 10. The Jaguars are plus 630 to make the playoffs. Yeah.

The Colts are still plus 146. Oh, wow. Now, we didn't really talk about that game, the piece of benching Richardson, which we predicted last week on the pod because he was awful last week. And bringing Flacco as like this sacrificial lamb against the Minnesota defense. Do you think the league got involved, by the way? Do you think the league said, hey, we're flexing Jacksonville Philly out, which turned out to be a mistake, I think, for the Colts. Do you think they're like, you got to sit Richardson? What do you think?

the nation needs to see Flacco. I think it would have been more fun if Richardson played. He's way more erratic. I think they made a huge mistake flexing out Jacksonville Philly from a comedy standpoint. Like what's what would have been more fun than Collinsworth with that game?

Hey, Mike, I just saw Trevor Lawrence sometimes. I just, this guy can wing it, Mike. He can wing it. And go to middle seed. We have yet to see the Indianapolis special, but you know what's coming, Mike. Denver is plus 210 to make the playoffs. Oh yeah, Denver, yeah. And then Cincinnati is just even odds every week to make the playoffs. It never changes. They're four and five.

I don't know. Quietly is on pace for 40 touchdown passes. I don't know if you noticed that. And like 4,500 yards passing. Yeah. He still looks bored. He still looks like he's going through the motions, right? Yeah. And Chase wasn't even really involved. Yeah, that was a good outing for them. He's just waiting for T. Higgins to come back. And then the Bills sneak by Miami, which we didn't talk about, where Tua had a couple scrambles that were just plain terrifying. Yeah, right. When he's scrambling, it's now...

Like when you have like an 18 month old kid watching them like run toward a wide open front door or something, it's the same kind of, Oh no. Oh God.

When you're watching, you're a Dolphins fan. You got to be on like a swivel chair. You got to be like on the voice because you have to be able to turn. I guess you can just cover your face. Just like turn away, yeah. Yeah, you really just have to do a 180 and spin backwards. But yeah, we're approaching Harlem Globetrotters, Washington Generals territory with the Bills Dolphins. I mean, Allen's 8-1 against Tua, 13-2. They are with Allen against Miami. They're 8-0 in Buffalo. It's kind of gross.

It had the feeling of like this game might be rigged in the first half. Cause I know like everybody had Buffalo and a tease and money on Buffalo. And there was one, Alan had this touchdown run of like 20 plus yards and they're like, ah, flag on the play. It was a holding it's Buffalo. And then they're like, there's the hold right there. They showed the replay. There's no hold. And the announcers was like, they did the thing where they go,

I didn't see it. You know, you can hear somebody in there like, just keep moving. Keep moving. Don't mention the hold again. But it was like super shady. But there was a couple of moments like that in the first half where I was like, ah, did they rig this for Miami? But then Buffalo went anyway. Well, Coleman might've rigged it because he had an easy touchdown on that slant play. Went an interception. Yeah. So Miami with two wins.

Really nuts. Uh, just a couple of things I wrote down. I have no idea what a catch is anymore. Garrett Wilson's touchdown Thursday night. I would have, I would have bet my life that that wasn't a touchdown. Then there are none of his shin was in. I was like, all right, I give up. Cause I, I don't know. Then we had another one today. What was the one today with the, uh, the guy had his feet in or his,

In the back of the end zone. What game was that? He had two feet, but the knee didn't... I know what you're talking about. The knee was barely in. Yeah, but it is kind of stupid that little ball on the end of your ankle can count as a point, but you have to get two feet down otherwise. But we're seeing some great catches. I think we should appreciate the athleticism. Just spectacular. The one-handed end of the Rams game was fucking nuts. Robinson? Oh, man.

It was really like he thought, all right, this is not going to count unless I catch it with one hand. So I'm not even going to use the other one to get free. Really great. Jameis crossed the 100 interception mark. I just want to congratulate him. Oh, he did. He's at 102. Yeah. Nice. You know, he's so great in the interviews. They should have presented him with a cake afterwards. Do you think? What would he have done? Crab leg cake. Have at it.

I wonder, I mean, he'd be a really good announcer after he retires. I don't know if he'll actually get hired to be an announcer. Another thing I wrote down, I think we've just run out of fourth down plays. They don't seem to work anymore. And the two yards and in every variation and everybody's trying to basically do the next level of what you think the play is that they're going to run. The Eagles, they don't use Saquon Barkley around the goal line.

For reasons that remain unclear. Cause I actually think he's pretty good around the goal line, right? He's small and strong and should be able to dive two yards. But we just see all these like weird reverses like that. Denver ran a Philly special today that actually worked where Drake may have to catch the ball in traffic.

It's like whatever happened and just like lining up and blowing a team and having like a, you're like your big Mike Allstott type guy, just ramming into the line and scoring those days gone. Yeah. CD lamb at an end around, which I think he was officially tackled before he was even handed the ball. So that was, that was weird, but you're right. Like Jonathan Taylor just a half hour ago. Wasn't in the package on fourth and fourth and two. Yeah. You got to at least pretend. Right. I don't get it.

And then, uh, I thought Brady was just bad today. Yeah. That Lions Packers, which I thought was a really good game. And, and I found myself, uh, I just really wanted better announcers for it. He just doesn't tell me enough. And, you know, he, he was talking about the weather and sometimes it's hard to catch a pass, but, uh, I did.

I just felt like what was going on with love, like Brady's obviously played hurt. I really wanted, that would have been the perfect Romo would have dove into that and be like, I can tell love's hurt. And here's why watch this throw, watch this plant leg, like just teach me something. Brady's not teaching us anything. I feel like he's getting advised in the wrong way. I think he's over, over, over preparing for these. And then those, um, you know, Friday they interview each coach and everything. And I think he's,

overemphasizing what's going on there where he should just sit back and do what you're saying. That's what we want to hear. You're the quarterback. You're the general of the field. He should do a blind game and not even know who's on either team and just fucking watch the game and tell us what he sees. See, I don't think he's doing that at all. See, now it's going to be Sportsbook Post. Simmons and Sal eviscerate Tom Brady. I think he's being poorly produced is where I landed because I think whatever they're telling him to do, it's not working.

And I don't feel like I'm watching the game with him. He comes in the beginning. He's got this like fake energy where he's going, Oh, I'm so excited for this one, Kevin. And it's just like, I, none of it feels genuine to me. And then on top of it, he owns a piece of the Vegas and it feels like he can't be as critical maybe as he wants to be in certain spots. But I thought that game today, I wanted him to dive into golf and

Like what, what did you see with golf? You went against him in a Superbowl. How has he evolved over the last six years? There's this guy's like one of the greatest resources in football that we have and they don't tap into any of it. And he's been, it's not even that he's so accomplished as a player. We've heard him in interviews. We know he could do exactly what you want him to do there. Right. We know he can analyze from that perspective. So that's why, that's why I fall short. But

Well, and also we're watching all these other games and he's getting dusted by other announcers. Yeah, that's true. And they're just like you, like Romo doing the other game today. Like he's just what he was doing. The Baltimore game is way better.

Greg Olson gives us a better quarterback's perspective than Brady does. A tight end, you know? Yeah. I know it's in there and I just, they have not unlocked it. And I think they really have to figure it out. And he seems super over-prepared to me. This could be it. Is it a one and done? You think he could be out? I don't think he's good at it. Yeah. And now we've had nine weeks and I feel like he's gotten worse than he was yesterday.

Four or five weeks ago. Now he's gotten like too many notes, but it's, it's when we get to the playoffs and this is like, there's only one game on, it's going to be pretty glaring when we're watching all these other playoff games and these guys are doing, you know, he's competing against people that are watching games that instantly can be like, Oh, watch this, watch this over here.

And when he has a good point, he's so excited to tell you the point because he's like, oh, I know this is good. And it's almost like he's, none of it feels natural to me. It's like hitting a buzzer as a game, playing a game show. I got one about that Sam Laporta pass. It's just, it's just everything about it feels off and weird.

and not genuine to me. Yeah. I mean, we had the first couple of weeks where he didn't say a word. He wasn't filling the dead space and that was rough. And then I think he had two or three where he was getting the hang of it and you got excited and now you're right. Now he's like just super, super hyper tense about every play. It's weird. It's been great for Aikman. It's been great for Collinsworth. It's been great for Romo because he's not even remotely on the level of those dudes. Are you done eviscerating? There's got to be more. Was that an evisceration or an obliteration? Oh my God.

It was, it was a, how about this? Obliseration. I think. How about this? Who are the people watching these games going? Brady was awesome. Yeah. Oh my God. I learned so much from Brady. Like he's just not doing a good enough job. I really think they need to hit the reset button, clear the cache.

Start over and just be like, we overloaded you with too much stuff. Let's get back to the basics. Just watch the game with Burkhart. Tell us what you see. Come into the game with like five, six little things that you know you want to hit. Like Jared Goff, I played against him. Boom, boom, boom. Jordan Love, he's hurt. I had a strain groin in 2013. Here's what I learned. I learned that I had to like get rid of the ball fat. Like that's the kind of shit we want. And they're not giving us any of it.

You know what? I just had a good idea. And I don't think they'll do this, but they should replace Brady and Fox should pay Deshaun Watson $350 million. But then you hear the quarterback's perspective from one that sucked, couldn't get out of his own way for the last two and a half years or more.

Just paying that money. Oh, people go apeshit. I thought you were going another direction. As you know, I hate the three-man booth, but I actually think he needs the three-man booth. I think he needs like a curious third person who can kind of set him up. I always felt like Kornheiser when he did Monday Night Football and it didn't work out, but the potential of it was a curious person in the booth.

He was like asking Jaws questions, right? And Tariq got hated it, which is why it didn't work. You know what? Try one week with Gronk in there. They can make fun of each other. I would actually do Edelman. I think if you put Edelman in there, he needs something to loosen himself up. Right. But they're not going to do it because they don't want to admit defeat. And he's hosting the Super Bowl and they're paying him this crazy number. But it's just not good. That was a really cool game today that needed better announcers. Mm-hmm.

Okay. Guess the lines. Ravens-Bengals. What's the record, by the way? 5-3-1. You're ahead, heading into Week 10. But I'd be shocked. I think I put myself as a plus 1,400 today. Ravens at Cincinnati is the Thursday night game. And that's an awesome... No, it's the other way, right? Cincinnati at Baltimore? Oh, did I write that down wrong? Yeah, they already played in Cincinnati. It was 41-38. Yeah, my bad.

All right. So I get that one. I'm up on nothing. Good. That's an automatic forfeit. I don't know why I capitalized the Bengals. Well, this is an awesome Thursday night game. Very good. Dare I say a must watch. And I said this to Kyle today. And I've said this probably five of the nine weeks we've done a pod, but Lamar,

Lamar and the multi-view is still the MVP by far. I don't know if he's going to win the MVP of the league, but he's so much fucking fun. We made the mistake 1710 in that Bengals game. I mean, the Broncos game, which I changed. I took them off the four.

Not realizing that, of course, Lamar was going to figure out how to score like a 60 yard touchdown in the last 30 seconds of the game. What was I thinking? I was glued to it at 41, 10. Cause I needed Denver to win the fourth quarter. I was like, I'm so smart. Baltimore has given up 82 points in the fourth quarter. The last six weeks I'm betting Denver blindly. And they couldn't, they went on fourth and go from the seven twice and they couldn't make it. But well, I finally, I send in the 13 point teas to you guys and I finally lost it. I, I,

One of the legs was the Broncos plus 22. And it was the first loss I've had all year. Even so, you had a shot. You had a little bit of a shot. I did. Bo Nix had other ideas. All right. So if it's Ravens, I'm going to forfeit my pick for this because I had the wrong team. It's okay. Just guess it. I was actually somewhat close on this, but good. Well, I would say Ravens by six. All right. Now you get it. I said five and a half. It's six and a half.

That's a terrible way for me to lose that one. But yeah, six and a half. I'm happy to forfeit that one. No, it's not going to matter. I promise it's not. Okay. I was so off. That's probably too many points, right? I feel like the Bengals will be completely unafraid to go into Baltimore. Yeah.

Just trying to think what they're... Trying to think if they'll ever have any chance of stopping Derrick Henry. Well, I mean, is that... For three hours? Yeah. On a Thursday night for four days after they just played? I kind of don't trust either defense. And there was 79 points scored in the first game. And I almost think the defense has got a little bit worse since then. Well, I have a new category. I've never done this before for the next one. Yeah. We've had the Poopfecta.

We've never had a poop FECTA game in Germany as bad as this. So I looked up the German word for poop. Oh, good. And it's Kake. This is the Kake FECTA game. C-A, I'm sorry, K-A-C-K-E FECTA. It's the Kake FECTA. Giants Panthers. Yeah. An outright travesty that can only take place in the Vegas zone. And I went Giants by four and a half. Yeah, you get it. I said four and it's five and a half. Mm-hmm.

They can't make it big enough. I'm still surprised at this. Sal, I got to be honest, might not get up for this one. I was just going to ask you, what time are you up for? Probably a halftime and somebody will be up 17-0 and I'm not sure which team. Do you have any fantasy players? Because games are consumed differently now, right? Any fantasy players? None of the Giants. Definitely none of the Panthers. So none. None across the board.

Can I read you something? You played our friend Brad in fantasy. He sent me a note. How bad my team is? Well, I mean, you decide how you want to take this. He says, Simmons, good dude, excellent friend, wonderful father, dog shit at fantasy football.

How can he say that? And he says, I'm great. Did you tell him how great I am in the other league? All of these descriptions are very much understatements. He writes. Sorry. Have a talk with him. I spent $120 on Garrett Wilson, Cooper cup and DJ Moore. DJ Moore had the opposite of a breakout year. 3.3 points today.

Yeah, he had a measles breakout, basically. Travis Etienne for $36? Another mistake. Yeah. Yeah, not great. Sometimes it's not your fantasy. I mean, Brad did take nine running backs. Yeah, I know. He was making fun of you. I had to stop him because he was talking about how many quarterbacks you took. I was like, wait, slow down. You got a lot of running backs. The problem is all my quarterbacks suck. I have Dak, who left the game early today. I mean, how did I get 13 points out of Dak?

against the Falcons. That should have been like a 30 point game. Oh yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I can't stand it. Sunday marquee. So initially when I, I wrote all these down on Thursday, I had Eagles Cowboys as the Sunday marquee. Yeah. I'm going to keep it there, but I don't think it's the marquee game, but it's probably the most interesting game because it might be a different coach for you guys. You might have new coach after the game.

You have the Eagles who are just an unintentional comedy all over the place every game. And I'm going to say Eagles by three in Dallas. Oh, wow. I said four and a half. It's six and a half. Yeah, we're pretty bad. Wow. You're six and a half point underdogs at home. At home, yeah. Wow. Well, I don't know. I mean, CeeDee Lamb has like the shoulder contusion, right? Dak, I mean, I could just see these guys battling, right? We could have a Cooper Rush game here.

I wish Cooper Rush had been a little better when he came in. Yeah. Maybe he stepped up. Oh, could have a quarterback controversy. Those words were not uttered during the Cooper Rush half hour that he played. No. Take the Cowboys plus 12 and a half. They'll cover that. Take them on a teaser. Definitely 100% not putting them on a teaser. I do want to give you credit, though, for your Thursday teaser. This is the way to play a teaser, right? The Jets were a one and a half point favorite. Ridiculous. Ridiculous.

They went to two and a half and you're like, oh, I'm over the touchdown. You took the Texans plus eight and a half, right? Beautiful. A little lucky at the end, but that's the way to do it. A little lucky. Yeah. You know what I found out? Seven and a half used to be the number for me, but now like I lost on the Colts today at seven and a half. I think it has to get to eight and a half on these teases when you're going the other way now. The seven and a half isn't good enough. There's 28, 20s all over the place. I feel like you're right. Yeah.

Watchables. I got four. First one is Bills at Indianapolis for a couple reasons. Bills, I think, have just been a really fun multi-view team all year. Yeah. Colts, I don't know who the quarterback's going to be. They just go back to Richardson next week. What do they do? It's also like if the Colts lose this game, their season's probably over. I'm guessing.

Yeah. And, uh, and I feel like these teams play good games. So bills, I think it's Flacco. I think it's Flacco again, but I'm going to say bills by three. Uh, I get this. Oh, we split it. I said six. It's four and a half. Well, Vegas. Yeah. So the bills, are we just the whole year? I'm just never going to feel that great about them. And they're going to go like 15 and two. Yeah, I think so. Okay.

I don't know. Do you watch them and go, oh, man, look out for these guys? No, I don't. But I'll tell you what just resonates with me. The way they, if they ever have to win, they just get it done. The way they won the last five last year. If they need three points, they'll get the three points. Or if they need to put together a streak. So their over on the wins is 12 and a half. I still like it over. It's a plus 142. I still like it over. Is that on Fando? Yeah. I'm seeing they only have like nine teams listed.

12 and a half plus 142. Yeah, they'll get it. So they'd have to go 13 and four. The problem is they're going to have the division clinched and probably the two seed with like two weeks to go. Right. So they'd have to go six and two. Yeah. Why was it? But the one seed won't be clinched though. Right. Casey's getting the one seed. Casey's going to go 16 and one or 15 and two. Right.

They play KC, 49ers, Rams. Actually, they do have a tough slate. They end twice in three weeks against the Patriots. Chiefs are home for the Broncos. I floated this out a couple weeks ago, and I think it's official after the Baltimore game. I think Denver is the good-bad team in either conference. Good-bad team. I think they're officially 2024 is good-bad team. Oh, yeah. They play the other bad teams. They're going to win. You raise the level of competition on them, they're losing.

I thought you were saying bad, good team, but you're right. Yeah, they're the good, bad team. Who else could it be? Who's in contention for that title? I mean, you could say anyone in the NFC South. Arizona. Well, Arizona's had a couple of good wins though. Yeah, they're very close games. Their margin of victory, except for today, is in those games, very low. No shots fired at our friends from Washington and I couldn't be happier for them, but I wouldn't rule out Washington for the good, bad team either.

Well, it's funny. You asked me, did the Hail Mary kill the Bears? Just eviscerate them, I think is the word to use. But I feel like the Hail Mary, and they won today, so it's a little less of a great point. But I feel like it didn't give them momentum. That game showed me that they've leveled off, right? Washington. They're not the team that punted twice in three weeks, right? So they're going to have to pull one out and a close one against the Giants every week. So maybe they're the good bad.

Niners bucks in Tampa. And I, I really had trouble with this one because I think Vegas is going to respect the Niners a little more than maybe they deserve. So I'm going to say Niners by three and a half at Tampa. That's exactly what I said. And we were a whole field goal off six and a half. Oh my God. So they're just jacking these lines now. Yeah.

They are. So now you have that in mind. Well, McCaffrey's coming back, right? And Tampa's on a short week. I don't do you. Would you bet your life McCaffrey's coming back? No, I don't know. I just kept hearing. I don't trust that. Right. But they had the buy and now Tampa's on a short week and they still don't have those receivers. I guess we'll know better tomorrow.

The last one might be, this was the other choice for the marquee game and probably should have been the marquee game since the records are so good, but we put your stupid team there. No, Washington at home for the Steelers. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a solid game. I'm going to say Washington by two and a half. Wow, you nailed that. I said Pittsburgh by one. Tell me why they're their favorite Washington. Like if you did power rankings for these teams, wouldn't Pittsburgh be ahead of them?

It's the offense on Pittsburgh. I still don't think people trust it on the road. Yeah. That would be it. So you think these two teams are probably even and maybe a slight edge to Washington because they can score more points. I think this would be a team that Washington would have trouble moving the ball on. Right? More than anybody. I'll tell you, two and a half, that becomes a tease candidate pretty quickly. Yeah. Right? For sure. Well, they have seven point teasers, if you will. Let's take a break for the podcast.

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I don't know about you, but I am ready for all the spooks and scares this year. I'm a ghost guy. I believe in ghosts. I've talked about it on the podcast many times. If you've had an experience interacting with one of them, you understand what I mean. But that's the fun of Halloween.

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All right. We're at the fairly watchables. Vikings Jaguars in Jacksonville. Will coach middle C be at this game? Oh, yeah. Yeah, he will. Great. I think that guy just goes a lot longer than he's supposed to. He's the guy that we might still be making fun of next year. I think that's the bell. I think Belichick is either Jacksonville or Vegas. I don't think he'd mess with your team because your team's a losing hand.

Belichick is having fun, man. He's taking, he's not into this coaching thing anymore. He's become like Jim Carrey. He's dressing up funny. He's like a physical comedian. He's doing pose, you know, posing with his mermaid girlfriend for Halloween. He's loving it. This is a year long plan by Bill Belichick to prove that he's not like the grumpy curmudgeon that couldn't take over your football team because that's probably why he didn't get a job because he was bad mouthing him.

And it was like, this guy's a pain in the ass. He sucks to be around. He's so bad. This has been Belichick proving that there's actually a personality there, which is what everybody who knows him has said.

So you think the next interview, he pulls up that picture, the mermaid girlfriend. It's like, ah, I think he's going to keep on Thanksgiving. I think he's going to be wearing an apron going on Chang show, making Turkey with Chang. Like I'm prepared. He's on a quest to prove that there's a personality there. Wow. I like it. All right. I don't like it. I like, I like it better when he was a stiff and I can make fun of him. Vikings at Jags. I have Vikings by two and a half.

I get this one. I said four and it is four and a half square in the Vegas. So that's if you're betting on Sam Darnold in Florida laying points on the road. Good luck. Good luck. We just shit on Jacksonville for like an hour and a half. I'm not there. Anyone who bets on this game is a lunatic. I'm with you. Are you worried about Raheem, by the way?

Yeah, always. Yeah. Well, I mean, we're always worried about Raheem, but Raheem, Raheem did well this week and he, you know, he starts tweeting how his wins and his demeanor and the text changes. I always get nervous. It's like watching the first 30 minutes of a movie where the main character is doing really well. And you're like, Oh no, slow, slow down, dude.

He's going to move to Vegas. So, yes, this is a whole different... Well, he lived in Vegas last year. No, I know. I think he said he made a mistake of ever moving away from it. I mean, he could probably just on comps

Lived there for like two and a half years. Did he win character of the year for you? I think it's really... Ringer character of the year? I don't know what would have to happen in the next two months, right? He's just got a massive lead. Yeah. So Rudy would have to rack up like 14 DUIs in the next eight weeks. Otherwise, I don't know how. I remember when you were coming back to the Ringer to do all this stuff with us, and I was like...

I can't wait to bring Raheem into your life. This is like one of the great gifts I've ever given you. And it's exceeded all expectations. It's so good. It's a beautiful gift. Do you think he's in a sports book right now betting on like cricket and archery?

Argentina? I congratulated him. Like, look at you. I mean, you're in Vegas. You probably woke up 14 minutes ago and you're hitting this with 35 trends and stats that no one's ever heard of. God bless you. And you can't wait to get out of that seat and do it again. We need like a ringer award ceremony where we can give him some sort of award. Just an epic performance by him. But yeah, he's on a little bit of a tear. Yeah. Raheem. Yeah, he is hitting them. Not bad.

Speaking of tears, the Cardinals, home in Arizona, playing the New York Jets. We did not talk about this game, the stupid game the Jets won on Halloween night with a Texans team that just didn't have enough horses. I don't ever want C.J. Stroud. C.J. Stroud, I don't like when he has bad games or par games. I'm like, no, I want that guy to be good every single time. But if you look at him on the road,

And he got killed by the Jets last year. Yeah. It's weird. I don't like that shit. That whole game flipped on that crazy Wilson touchdown. I feel like the Jets were going to lose the game and then all of a sudden they were winning and it was very strange.

Cards, home for the Jets, and I'm going to say Cardinals by two and a half. All right. So you got to talk me through this one too. I said Jets by two, but you're right. It's the Cardinals by one and a half. So we're fully in. Jets aren't good. But the Jets were favored. So why were they favored against the Texans then? That's what I'm asking. Thursday night game, only one receiver for the Texans. Texans offensive line is banged up.

I don't know, man. I don't get this gambling thing. Maybe I never did. Poop Fecta. Bears are home for the Patriots. And you know what? It's officially would you rather have Drake May or Caleb Williams week? And I know where I stand. Uh-oh. And I know where I stand. Don't say anything you're going to regret. I stand with Drake May. Oh, wow. You know who else does? Kyle. Kyle, who would you rather have? Say it, Kyle.

That's a loaded question. We love Drake May. Listen, everyone's happy with their quarterback, but we love Drake May. Good. You should. And if they beat the Bears this week, I would be excited. I think 10 football fan bases are happy with their quarterback. I know. This might be a record. I know. Even the Vikings are like, hey, we got J.J. McCarthy next year. Right. And the Raiders are going, well, we're not in that group.

I have the Bears favored by five and a half over the Patriots. You edged me out. All right. I said five. It's six and a half. Five, seven. You're up seven to four. I really needed that one. It's a field goal game. Yeah? Yeah. Falcons at the Saints. I can't imagine this not being in the Vegas zone. So I'm going to say Falcons by four and a half.

I get this. I said three and a half. It's only three. Wait, let me see if they updated it. If it's anything different. Yeah. Only three, three point favorite. They played week four when New Orleans was a real team. Still 26, 24 final. I'll tell you this. Dennis Allen gets fired and we get a new saints coach. I'll be taking the saints for a million dollar picks on Thursday. Cause you know, I love the new coach theory.

Yeah. You don't even know. Sight unseen. I didn't know. It could be anybody. It could be Zion Williamson as the new coach. I'm taking this safe. Interesting. Sight unseen. Blind. It's like when you do the blind soup. It's like soup du jour on Postmates. In. Good. Taking it. I liked it. Chargers at the Titans. I'm sorry. Chargers home for the Titans. And I think this line has to be Chargers by seven.

Man, you beat me by the half point. I said six and a half and it's eight and a half. You get it. That's a tease. We trust the Chargers. Isn't it something? We trust the Chargers to tease them now? I guess we do. Yeah. Good coach and a good QB solves a lot of issues. Titans defense is like top three in a lot of the metrics. It's very weird. Yeah.

Somehow, even though they gave up 52 points to Buffalo, but even in that one, the metrics for the defense is pretty good. Sunday night, Lions-Texans, and it's going to be in Houston, Texas, in a dome. Well, you missed one, I think. What did I miss? Denver-Casey. Did we do Denver-Casey? I literally missed... Oh, I had that in the watchables. Fuck, I just skipped over it. That is a watchable. I'll put it in the fairly watchable. I have...

Chiefs home against the Broncos. I have the Chiefs by nine. Of course you win this one. I should have let you forget it. I said eight. It's nine and a half. It just feels like the Chiefs are, they're just making it nine, nine and a half now because they don't want you to tease the Chiefs. Even this game tomorrow night has been between eight and a half and nine constantly. Yeah. Well, Denver, that's going to be a tough defense for Knicks to look good in the first three quarters, I think. I'll tell you this, though. They were in that game today.

Against Baltimore for almost the entire first half.

Okay. Yeah. Nick's missed a wide open guy for a touchdown on, I think the first or second drive. He had a guy in the fourth and two and in the play where, and it was there and he missed it. It was a 30 yard touchdown. Then he missed another guy for a touchdown, but it didn't matter because then I'm scoring anyway, but it was, it was going to be 17, 10 at halftime. If they just get off the field and they were hanging around and then that touchdown ended the game, it was 24. You're not winning after that.

24-10 with Bo Nix, it's a wrap. But 17-10, they were hanging around. No, that was a game they had to make the most of every opportunity. Yeah. Sunday night Lions at Houston, and I have Lions by three. Wow. You set a record for nudging me by half a point of my guess. I said two and a half. It's three and a half. That's fair, too. I wonder where that lands. Because there won't be Nico Collins, I don't think. Diggs is out for the year.

Right. There's going to be a lot of Lions talk about how they are clearly the best team now in the NFC. And are we getting Lions Chiefs? I have a lot of Lions Chiefs stuff for the futures. Yeah, I have Lions Bills. That's what I'm on. Like Lions Chiefs was 36 to 1 in August. Because I bet it when I was in Boston on FanDuel. Looking real good. I think the Lions are better. And I think this is a fair line. But you think it'll settle at 3? Yeah.

I think it goes to four. I think they're going to make people going to force people to bet Houston. Pretty good rest advantage. And plus, yeah, second, second road game for the Lions. Monday night, Rams, Dolphins. It's in L.A. Maybe we just go to this. Oh, yeah. Monday. We don't know. No competing game here. We just go to this.

Oh, we can't. I don't think we can. The trailblazers are playing the Hawks. You're going to want to watch that. Oh, shit. All right. I'll look at the NBA schedule. I might go to this. We could go to this. Why not? It'd be nice if the Rams should roll out the Ram carpet for us. Veterans Day? I went to the Clippers game yesterday. Oh, tell me. First one, the arena. I'll guess the line first. Rams, I'm going to say Rams home.

Rams by four and a half over the Dolphins. Oh, I'm glad I won the last one. I said three and it's two and a half. Ooh, wow. They don't believe. Are they thinking there's going to be a lot of Dolphins fans? Well, they'll be right about that, but it doesn't mean they're going to play well. All right, so I won the week. Good for you. 10 to six and you're up six, three, one. So new Clipper Arena. Yeah. They did a great job. They built it for basketball, which you knew.

So it doesn't have to be kind of wide on the sides, which you have to do for hockey. So they, it's very much like the Indiana arena. So the corner seats are good. Everything feels like tight. It feels like compact. It feels like the fans are almost on top of each other in a good way. Uh, leg room and the seats, uh,

Just the moving around, it's just like a state-of-the-art arena. And then they have this whole video screen that goes all the way around. The suites are higher. They have these bunker suites. They just, everything they did a great job in. What's interesting though is Balmer didn't want the food to be that good.

So in the clubs and even in the food upstairs, like really, he has this whole thing. He wants people in their seats. So the food's like fine, but not great because he doesn't want people to be, there's no TVs. Like when you walk around in the concourse, the games aren't on all different TVs. He doesn't want people, wants them in their seats cheering for the Clippers. And it's noticeable when you're there.

Everything is built toward like, get back to your seat, get back to your seat. That's where the action are. There's a, you can plug in on your phone. You can bring a cord and plug in and they just want you in your seat. Yeah. It's like the, the hotels that purposely give you a shitty buffet, right? Cause they want you out there. They want to get you like a 26 inch TV in your room because they want you on the floor. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's good. So that's a, that's a plus or a minus. Yeah.

I thought the food would be a little better, but I honestly don't care because I'm going for the basketball. The team's bad. It's built around James Harden, which is a problem when you're playing Oklahoma City and they have 17 guys to throw at him. Second score is Norm Powell. And then after that, you're keeping your fingers crossed. So I don't, I don't, they're going to be like a 35 win team, probably worse.

But, uh, but the arena is cool and it would have been nice if they had a good team. And I don't know when the next time they're going to have a good team is because they're saving a lot of money on food. So they'll, they'll, they'll be able to recoup. Yeah. Um, the drive wasn't that bad. It's closer for you, I think. Yeah. Oh yeah.

It's probably 35 minutes for me. Getting home was a little bit easier. Parking was not as easy as I thought it was going to be. Really? I thought people said you could park anywhere. You could park at SoFi. Easier, but it's not...

you know, it's not, it's not as seamless as I thought. Still LA. Right. Um, I also wasn't going when there was nine other events. So that was the other piece of it. But I was trying to remember like a Clippers Saturday night game. Cause they would never, the Lakers always got the Saturday night games or all the good. Oh, right. You know, like you didn't even have that many Clippers Saturday night games. So, um, but yeah, thumbs up. They did a great job. That's good. How many were you in this new era of arenas that, uh,

they actually put real thought into where it's like, Oh, if I'm in the corner, it's actually a good seat. Cause I'm facing the court, the court, like in the right direction. And the t-shirt stuff is fun too. Like coming out of the scoreboard and, and the, yeah, that was all right. Yeah. It was all right. Cooper fans are pretty bummed about the team though. Yeah. I mean, Kawhi's they, they should probably, I know Kawhi probably feels like he has to go now. Cause he's, but it's, it's kind of a bummer to see him. Cause it's like,

This is kind of the reason this team sucks is because they went all in on your extension and traded all the shit for you and Paul George. And now Paul George is gone. And you're just kind of here as this grim Reaper shadow to remind everybody that you're not playing anymore.

Does Ballmer know that people get bummed out seeing him? Because maybe he put TVs at the concourse. Otherwise, something Netflix or something. The TVs in the concourse should just show Kawhi highlights from like seven years ago. Right. What do you have for parent corner? All right. So it was Halloween, as you know, this past week. And, you know,

So my kid's 10 turning 11. And so everybody comes here. The whole family comes here, a bunch of kids. So now it's like 10 kids. And we walk over to what's called the walk streets where there's no drive-through traffic. So it's just streets where everybody is giving candy, one house after another. And usually you hit two streets and it takes about an hour. And it is a million kids there. There's a ton of kids there. And it's great but terrible at the same time because...

First of all, you run the risk of losing the kids you're with. And my cousin Mickey used to make them all wear lit-up balloons on their wrists. And then they're walking around with balloons in addition to their costume. But then they revolted. So she...

She now is dressed like the Statue of Liberty, but all lit up and puts her arm up in the middle of the place to let everybody know where she is. And she leads the pack. But anyway, the whole night is me. First of all, I have my phone. I have Amazon. I'm watching the game, the football game. It's a good game. Good game. Again, I bet both quarterbacks would throw an interception, figuring one would. Neither of them did.

50 passes that could have been intercepted. All right. So I'm screaming, I'm screaming in my phone and screaming at my kid for not saying thank you over and over when someone gives him candy. So, um, a couple of things, inflatable costumes, terrible. My kid went as a copy bar. You know what that is? It's like a weird, some kind of weird animal in Texas. He went as an inflated capybara and electric bikes.

And they fill the street. I'm like, what are these people doing with electric bikes? Between that and the costumes, I was like, I'm ripping what's left of my hair out. I got to get out of there. So people are trick-or-treating with electric bikes? Yeah. And just going from house to house because they don't want to walk? Yeah. These electric bikes, are they big by you? It's disgusting. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You can't go anywhere. So between that and the inflated car. So anyway, we're back.

There's no real story to this other than that they come back and the kids are all trading candy and they're trading and eating candy at 10:30 at night. And like people say, oh, the next day should be off for Halloween, you know, kids should be off. I don't think so 'cause I don't wanna have to deal with these kids, but it is really awful what we do to teachers, sending these little dirt bags to school

There are 25 Reese's peanut butter cups in. And so I don't know. I just want to apologize to teachers for Friday, sending these kids to you. I know they're jacked up on sugar or they're just done. Or they're coming down. Right, exactly. It's like coming off drugs. Yes. So next year I'm sending the teachers a letter of apology and a stun gun that they could use on my kid.

What did Harrison dress as? He was a capybara. It's like a, I don't even know what kind of animal it is. I've never heard of that. Okay. So he's wearing an inflatable costume. Yeah, that's it. He's inflatable costume. Why didn't he go as like Shohei Itani or something? No, we're Mets fans. No, there's a lot of Dodger costumes this year. A lot of, a lot of bandwagoners, I have to say. Um,

My son turned 17. Oh, the world's largest rodents, Rudy says. Yeah. My son turned 17 the day after Halloween. So our Halloween, he had a friend come over and then they just left. He didn't dress up as really anything. He put like a hat on. We didn't see him again the rest of the night. And, you know, my daughter's in college and just...

It's kind of a bummer. It's like Halloween's kind of over for us. It made me nostalgic. Like I have some friends who were like going out trick or treating, like our friend, Jeff Chow, who was taking his kids out. And it's like, we went three blocks and you hear the stories and you're like, Oh man, I, I was appreciating it as it was happening. But now I'm, I'm like,

You're still in the middle of it a little bit because at least you have a 10-year-old. Yeah. Look, I was overplaying the inflatable costumes and electric bikes, but it is awesome trick-or-treating with you. No. I miss it because I was going back. I'm like sitting there.

at, uh, like 1230 that night, I'm going through Halloween, 2014 with the kids dressed as I'm going through the pictures. I'm like, I'm like Clark Griswold, like on Christmas vacation, the movie, like getting sad, looking at the old photos. But, um, the fact that our kids basically Halloween doesn't matter. So my wife invited some friends over, including her, uh, your wife must have a couple of insane friends, right?

A couple. Yeah. I would kill if it was down to a couple. Yeah. Yeah. Well, same for my wife, but a couple of her friends came over. Krista and Heather were over and it was just all bets were off as soon as I heard they're coming over. You're not supposed to call them out as insane. I don't think by name. Well, I love them though, but they came dressed as the, uh, the shining girls. All right.

in the, in the blue dresses. So that's how we started. There was Rose and then, then they all went out and I stayed in cause I wanted to, uh, just in case we got trick or treaters, but I also really wanted to watch the Texans game and they went out and they came back and my wife was in rough shape on a Thursday night. And eventually my son came back and, and, uh, and my wife had been a little over-served cause she was out with the shining girls and, and

And my son was now like, whoa, what's up with mom? And I was like, we've really come full circle. Now my wife is the one who's the complete best. My son is the one being judgmental. And I have to worry if I'm sending my wife to school the next day. So yeah, Halloween, full circle in my house. Thanks to the Shining Girls for getting my wife like just blotto on Thursday night. Sounds like they were the moon Shining Girls. Yeah, that's great.

And then my son was, my son's birthday was the next day of it. I was thinking like 17 years before that we were in the hospital as I'm pushing, I'm yelling at him in the belly to come out so he can be born on Halloween. And he just choked. He came three in the morning, three hours late.

Could have been the Michael Myers baby. You should have asked Ben. You'd be like, listen, I miss going out with you on Halloween. Can I hang with you and your friends? Can I tag along? What would he say? He doesn't want to hang out with us. He doesn't want to? That's sad. No. He's in that... Listen, I was in that stage. I totally get it. He'll go back to the copy bearer stage. You'll see.

I'll be fine. I'll say it again. I'm jealous that you have the third kid. It's a big hole in my resume. I wish we had one more. Could always adopt. They're right there for you. That's it for Parent Corner. How's the basketball gambling going? Not bad. I don't know. I'm doing player props because I feel like I get angrier when teams blow 14-point leads. I can lose. What about you? I've stayed away. I've been really enjoying all the futures I have. The one thing is I really think the Bucs might be screwed.

Yeah. And like even the other night they were, I think minus two against Cleveland. I just don't think the bucks are good. And this happens in the NBA sometimes where they keep waiting for the team to write the ship. And I don't think it's going to happen with them. So at least until Chris Middleton comes back. So it seems like an opportunity to keep going against them. But yeah,

All right. All right, cuz. What do you got to plug? What do I have? I have, oh, against all odds, we're going to recap the Monday night football game. We got our college hoops preview and through the ringer. Speaking of college hoops, I do it with Tate every week. It's a lot of fun. Ring a pregame show on Sunday. Going for eight and two with my wisest wager, Simmons. Never been this good. What did you hit this week? I did the over in the Cincinnati game.

Oh, the Cincinnati Raiders game. That was easy. That did okay. And Tony Gonzalez on Cousin Sal's winning weekend this Friday. So that'll be fun. So I have one for you to mention to Tate. Go ahead. I saw, I can't, I guess FanDuel doesn't have it, but I saw it on Twitter. I can give you his number if you want. No, which one? No, they don't have it yet.

There was a Cooper flag for the Wooden Award bet. He was like five to one. He was the favorite. Yeah, I think I saw six. Yeah. He's definitely winning the Wooden Award. But like lock it in unless it gets hurt. I want to put money on that. Are we allowed to bet? We're allowed to bet on college basketball players, right? Here's the crazy thing. You can't bet on it until he turns... How old is he going to turn? 18? Yeah.

18, he turns 18 in January, I think. I might have the month wrong. You're not allowed to bet on it until he's 18. So we're not allowed to bet on people who aren't 18 yet. I believe that's what actually Tate told me the other day. What if it's a tennis player?

Who the hell cares? What if it's like Boris Becker in the 1986 Wimbledon where you just can't bet on him? Jennifer Capriotti. I don't know. Some league restrictions. I'm in on him. As soon as we can bet on Cooper Flag, I'm in. As long as it's plus odds. Really? Okay. He's going to be awesome. Yeah. I'm in on him. You should have your own... There should be a tank podcast, right? It should just be all about tanking for Cooper Flag. Well, this year we're going to have...

There's seven or eight teams. Utah's already committed to it. I mean, Utah's... This is what I mean. Eight teams. When are you ever going to have that again? Yeah. There's a few of them. There you go. I'll see you next Sunday. Sorry about the Cowboys. Good job by you. I am too. Congratulations on Drake May. Good job by you. Thanks.

to Steve Cerruti and Kyle Creighton. As always, you can watch all the clips and episodes on our YouTube channel. And I'm going to be back with a podcast probably earlier on Tuesday, Election Day, so in the morning. So see you then. I'm going to see them on a way so safe. I'm going to see them on the first time.

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