The Weirdo NFC West, an NBA Over/Unders Check-in, and Million Dollar Picks With Danny Kelly and Joe House
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We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I put up a new Rewatchables on Monday. We did Halloween 4. You can check it out on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. We also put up the original Halloween episode that Chris Ryan and I did. That is on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. We have a narrative podcast at the Ringer called Truthless. It's a storytelling show hosted by Brian Phillips about the lies that people tell.

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With my Boston teams, I really wanted to just roll around like a pig in shit in the Yankees World Series. Let's call it a collapse because they had a 5-0 lead at home in a must-win game and they completely blew it in the fifth inning, which I watched on Twitter today multiple times because Fox was kind enough to put a little montage of

First, you have Judge just botching a fly ball, which was, you know, when you have Aaron Judge in center field, it's the kind of thing that happens. Then you have Volpe just whipping the force out against the runner's legs. That was when I was like, this is, I'm having a great time, even though I don't have a team in the World Series. Then last but not least,

grounded to first base and Gary Cole just decides not to run over and cover it. And all of a sudden it's five, five. And you kind of knew how the game was going to play out after that. But, um, look, man, I know it's spiteful. I hate the Yankees. I've hated them my whole life. They were the bane of every Red Sox fans existence for the first 35 years of my life. I wrote a book about this once called now I can die in peace. I wrote, um,

dozens of columns about this on my old website when I was at ESPN's page too. And you're not really truly a sports fan unless you hate a couple teams. And it's not real hate, right? It's sports hate. I wrote a column about that once too. I sports hate the living hell out of the Yankees and watching them collapse in game five was honestly like, it wasn't like the Red Sox winning a World Series.

but it was like second level. It was very close. I didn't bet a nickel on this series. I didn't need to. I really wanted the Dodgers to win. I was actually very happy for our guy Mookie Betts and Dave Roberts as well. But watching the Yankees lose, this was my dream. My dream was for the Yankees to make the World Series against some dubious opponents, get to the World Series, raise their fans' hopes up,

And then kick everybody in the nuts as hard as they could. That was exactly what happened. And I'm just deliriously happy today. Today's a great day. It's Halloween. One of my favorite days of the year. As you know, my favorite horror movie is Halloween.

My son was almost born on Halloween. He missed it by three and a half hours. I was so fired up for him to be born on Halloween night, and he just didn't deliver. But now he became a November 1st kid, which was great in its own right because it became like a little, almost like a two-day birthday for him. But I love Halloween. Celebrating Halloween today with wiping the tears of the Yankee fans off my body was just beautiful. And the best part is Soto's gonna leave tomorrow.

And you had your one chance and judges hit his mid thirties and you missed your window. And we're 15 years and counting with no Yankees world series.

Oh my God. It's so great. I can't tell you what dicks the Yankee fans were for the first 35 years of my life. And then it all changed in 2004 and it all flipped. And you've only won one world series this, this, uh, century. And it was with A-Rod who was such a crazy cheater that he got suspended for a year. And now he's trying to buy the Timberwolves and probably he's cheating to do that. Uh, listen,

I'm trying not to gloat, but I really loved all of this. And thank you to the Dodgers. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for beating that team. It was great. I had a great time. It was almost like having the Red Sox in the World Series, which, by the way, the Mookie Betts trade, I've never been the same and I'll probably never care about the Red Sox quite as much ever again because, as you saw, it's really fucking stupid to trade Mookie Betts. Just pay the dude. When you have a top seven market, I've talked about that a million times, but I was happy for him. I don't think he ever wanted to leave Boston.

And, uh, and, uh, that was the only bittersweet thing about last night. It's like, man, that guy should have been drafted by the Red Sox, played his whole career with the Red Sox and retired with the Red Sox. And instead our owners got super smart because they, they just thought they would outwit everybody. No, no, no. We're selling high. We're selling high. He's going to hit his thirties. This is the history of baseball. Your thirties, you're not the same guys, like a generational crazy, great athlete. One of the great baseball players of the last 50 years.

And we traded them for a bag of peanuts and it still pisses me off. But I wasn't going to let that bring me down last night because the Dodgers beat the Yankees and the drought continues 15 years, no World Series. It's so beautiful.

Anyway, here's what we have for the podcast today. We're going to bring in Danny Kelly and Joe House. We're going to talk about the goofy NFC West. We're going to talk about MVP odds and some other award stuff. And then we're, then House and I are going to do million dollar picks and then House stuck around and we ended up doing like 25 minutes about NBA over unders after 10 days, how things have shifted, why they shifted and, uh, and who's in trouble.

And we might've made fun of the Sixers. So that's all next. First, our friends from Pearl Jam.

All right, taping this on Thursday afternoon before we know what happens with the terrible Jets and whatever happened on their Thursday night game. Danny Kelly is here, the second gentleman himself. Oh no, that was who we had on the Fantasy Football Podcast. Danny Kelly here. Joe House is here. We're going to be doing million dollar picks later. And I know he loves the NFC West, so I invited him to join us as well. What's up, House? How are you? I'm fantastic. I, uh...

Not to take the conversation in the wrong direction, went and watched the Washington Wizards sweep the Atlanta Hawks this week. So what a time to be alive in the Washington sports scene, fellas. Yeah, there's some Jordan Poole buzz. I don't know why he had to bring up the NBA when Danny lost his NBA team in Seattle. It felt like a dig for an adversarial to start. Danny, we brought you on, well, to talk football, but really...

The NFC West, which is confounding. It's confusing. It's annoying. I don't know what to make of it. You could make a case for all four teams to win the division. Right. House and I like a specific team that we'll get into. But for the division, the Niners are minus 110. So basically, even if you'd said before the year.

You get the Niners at minus 110 heading into week nine. You would have guessed something horrible had happened and something horrible has happened. They've had a lot of injuries. Arizona plus 290, Seattle five to one, Rams five to one, and Seattle and the Rams are playing each other this Sunday. So when you hear those numbers for the division, A, what's the best value of those odds? And B, where's your lean just in general?

I think my first thought was I was a little surprised the Cardinals are second, even though they are technically in first place right now. The best value to me right now feels like the Rams, probably. I think the Rams are that team in this division where if they catch fire, they've got the veteran leadership, they've got the offense, they've got a couple of good pass rushers that really come on. They've had the pieces to...

Just be one of those teams that like makes life hard for everybody. So the Rams to me kind of scare me and they're playing my CX this week. So I'm kind of I've kind of got bad feeling about that one.

House, he said the magic word, the Rams. Both of us have been staring at all week five to one to win the division plus three 10 for the playoffs and a team that three weeks ago looked like maybe they were just going to toss the season away. Maybe there were Cooper cup trade rumors, which I never believed. But now there's some Rams buzz house. Where do you stand?

Oh, they're buzzing, baby. And the funny thing is, just in the course of one week, these L.A. Rams, they were plus 410 on the FanDuel Sportsbook to make the playoffs all the way down. And I think it's because of people like you. You're on the pod with Cousin Sal. You observed that the Rams might be frisky. I think that's picking up some momentum over the course of this week. And it also kind of fits our minds better.

eye a little bit right there. Forecasted win total was around eight and a half coming into the season and nine wins would have had them very much in the conversation for the playoffs. We got thrown off the scent because they got decimated by injuries. They were obliterated by injuries, especially on defense. So their defensive numbers are abysmal right now, but they're not reflective of what I think they're capable of on defense, which to me would be worrying if

If I was on the Seattle Seahawks side of things with their, without abysmal offensive line that the Seahawks possess, I'd be worried about this Rams pass rush. Yeah. Danny and I, we talked a lot about the Seahawks before the year, because it felt like this division was live. Yeah. And it felt like the odds were out of whack and the Niners were too highly priced, especially with McCaffrey's injury status and just in general Superbowl hangover. But it was really hard to figure out who the team was.

I'd like Seattle as the team that's Danny's team. So before we hit all these other teams, what happened with Seattle? Why wasn't this better? What, what went wrong? I know they can't block. I know they had a couple injuries to the defensive line at bad times. Metcalf was hurt last week. Um, but, but why isn't this defense better? Why isn't the team better?

I think that they... Well, there's just a lot of variables. You mentioned it. There's been a couple of injuries. I think their offensive line has been really bad. Like, maybe even worse than people were expecting. The pressure rate's always just through the roof every single game, and it kind of makes Geno Smith have to do heroic-type stuff, and he hasn't really... He's had the ball bounce the wrong way, like, a few too many times this year. I feel like he's been playing pretty well, but, like, not well enough kind of deal. And...

I still think the defense is just learning the system and learning this coach and they're still just trying to put it together. It's kind of one of those seasons where it just didn't all click like

I had hoped it would click. You saw a couple games in the beginning of the year when they played crappy quarterbacks. They looked pretty good. But as they've gotten further along into the schedule, and they also had a bunch of injuries on their defensive line, they've just kind of fallen apart a little bit. I think the vibes are pretty bad right now with the Seahawks' defense in particular. But there's still, I'd say, a plucky team that could probably get a weird win or two the rest of the season, but maybe lose some games. They probably should win. That kind of team where

you know, it just depends on the week if they click or not. But I'm definitely less confident than I was at the beginning of the season than these guys. I think I have them fourth right now in my head. And what is it? FPI? What's the one that does the playoff like possibilities of percentages? And FPI is like way down on them. It was like 17% for them to make it. I think I would have them fourth.

I'd have Arizona third, but you know, house, there's a slight case for Arizona to me. They're on the DNB. Don't bet. Do not bet list. Uh, been burned on both sides with them a couple of times, but they have played the toughest schedule in the league so far. They have shown the ability to kind of steal some games. They have the 30s. He has scheduled the rest of the way. I think I know what their identity is and I want to talk identity with all four of these teams, but, um,

I don't know. Like, what if they go five and four this week? Like, could you see a world where they're the NFC West champs house? No. Okay, good. I cannot and do not. I do want to finish the thought with Danny. I want him to help us. BS, you have a nice ticket on Seattle getting to eight wins, right? That was one of my biggest outlays in the preseason. I still feel like eight wins fits your description, Danny.

of a plucky sort of, you know, couple unexpected wins just to get us across the goal. It feels like the playoffs are probably kind of out of the picture, especially because I think the rant, what I expect out of the Rams this week, but can we get to eight wins, Danny? I still think so. You know, they, they've got, they've got the Cardinals twice. They've got the jets. They have the bears and the Rams twice.

So if they split with the Rams, beat the Cardinals both times, which of course is, you know, that's projecting. Who knows if that will happen? And then if they can beat the Jets. Well, but that's the case for them, right? They've only played one NFC West game.

So you got five left. Let's say you go four and one in the NFC West. All of a sudden. Yeah. All of a sudden that's possible. I'm not playing Arizona twice is great. When you asked me BS of what I think about the Cardinals, who the hell knows? There are three game winning streak where they won games by one point, two points and one point.

And, you know, if they were winning games where like people are fumbling the ball into the end zone and their touchbacks, we start when that shit starts happening. I don't know whether you're lucky or whether that's a sign. You're just destined to go 10 and seven and have us bet against you in round one, which is what we'll be doing. If Arizona makes round one, I'm already excited about that house. I mean, the, the,

The crazy thing is I think their defense is significantly worse than the Seattle defense, sort of talent-wise and scheme-wise, except Gannon's a pretty effing good coach, and they have remained competitive over the stretch. Well, from a DVOA standpoint, Niners are ninth, Seattle's 11th, Arizona's 20th, and the Rams are 22nd. But that's not entirely fair because there's a couple weeks there where they...

We're basically holding a team by Band-Aids and scotch tape. Danny, talk identities with us. What is Seattle's identity right now? Just flinging the ball and hoping Kenneth Walker's healthy, and then you're just going to give up points on defense and that's it? Yeah, I think they want to be like the Seahawks of old, a smash-mouth team that plays defense and can run the ball control, but they've sort of been forced into being...

a super heavy super pass heavy team that relies on their offense to make plays and their defense hasn't been all that good um it's it's comes down to their offensive line like they can't block they're really terrible this year on early downs uh running the ball early downs and in the first half and then they they tend to get into these game scripts where they're throwing a lot um either because they're coming from behind or just the run game isn't really working and so um

Yeah, I think it just their identity. They don't really have one. And that's probably kind of the problem here this year is they don't really have the identity. I'm disappointed. I felt like their identity would be McDonald's and then chucking the ball. Yeah. And then maybe a little Kenneth Walker if he was healthy. But it seems like through eight weeks, they're not sure.

House Arizona, their identity is do not bet for or against them in any game. Stay away. I mean, other than figuring out ways to get teams that they're going against a double-digit score. Like, you can put them in teaser pieces, whoever they're playing against, because they're not going to win by margin. That's not who this Arizona team is. So if you can get whoever they're playing against up over a touchdown, by all means, do that. But otherwise...

Stay away. I mean, part of the challenge also, you know, we know the history with Kyler. We're coming right up about to the point in the season, right, Danny? Yeah. Where, you know, that poor little guy, he is crazy talented, but the wear and tear starts to take its toll, and there are dramatic splits over the entirety of his career between the first eight games and the remaining now nine games. Well, so you have that.

I can't, I can't back them in good faith. The Rams, they've only played seven games. They're three and four. They're not even 500. So to me, like if you'd like the Rams, you could do those long shot bets, but really you should just play them this week against the Seahawks. Right. And, and the, the feeling should be, they should be able to run the ball down Seattle's throat. They should be able to throw the ball to cup and Nakua, um,

and they should take care of business. Now, if they lose that game, all of a sudden, I would say their playoff odds would be like 12 to 1. What have been the matchups with Rams, Seahawks over the years, Danny, that you remember? So, like, if you're...

If you go back, this is not necessarily like the last couple of years, but for a long time, the NFC West is, I think you put it, it's like rock, paper, scissors. The Seahawks used to dominate the 49ers. The 49ers would dominate the Rams. The Rams would dominate the Seahawks. And then the Cardinals were kind of just all over the place. And it's not been quite as clear the last few years. The 49ers have started to dominate the Seahawks over the last few years. But the Rams have always kind of seemed to have the Seahawks number higher.

for whatever reason, it's just like even going back to the days when the Rams were like a two or three or four win team, the Seahawks would always drop one to the Rams every year. This is a team. These two teams like hate each other. It's a rivalry that goes back and went like none of the same players are still around, but they still like hate each other. Um,

And so, yeah, every time I... If you talk to any Seahawks fans, I think they're just like, oh, God, we have to play the Rams. Hate playing the Rams. Well, McVay owned Carroll, and it seemed like that might have been... I know the respect is there, but it did feel like it might be personal in the sense that McVay used those games against Carroll as a referendum, as a measuring stick. Like, I respect you, Pete Carroll, but I'm going to come in here and innovate your ass to death. And I feel like that's the way the Rams have done it. And you could make an argument that...

But Carroll's inability to compete against McVay and Shanahan the last like three or four years killed them was the reason he was. He's gone now. It's just like he just couldn't really keep up. It's like they were playing like a different era of football for some reason. You know, these two offenses just the Seahawks could never really stop them in the last few years. That's a really good point. Well, and that's one of the reasons like when we talk about identities to me, the Rams identity now that they have their guys back is McVay.

that they're always going to be super well coached in any type game. I always feel like they're going to get third and seven, third and six, third and eight. Like they're just going to keep the chains moving. And they look a lot like where they were last year when they started to come on. Right? And the problem is you have to approach it almost game to game, which is like I like betting them game to game more than some of those future odds because I don't know how many games in a row Cubs are going to play.

I don't trust Puka. Like even yesterday, you looked at our last week when you looked at the way they're using Puka, like he's like the lead blocker for them. Like that dude, that dude's in 20 collisions a game. He gets the absolute.

kicked out of himself every game. I swear to God. It's amazing. He's like, there's at least one shot every game where it like pans to Puka on the ground and he's like slowly like doing like a push up off the ground. Like, oh God, that really hurt. He's like peeling himself off the field. Yeah. I mean, he's a tough, tough guy, but like he just takes some shots. Oh,

Because he plays wide receiver like he's a linebacker. Totally. He is seeking contact. He looks to impose his physicality with the football. That's what makes him such a unicorn. One other thing with the Rams that really will sort of tilt their fate is the health of that offensive line because they have restored some health. B.S., guess how many sacks...

the sack happy, the blitz happy Minnesota Vikings had against Matthew Stafford and the Rams last Thursday night. It was a low number, right?

If you think zero is a low number, you are correct. No sacks for that offensive line against that Flores defense. That's getting the job done. And if Matthew Stafford, he doesn't need very much time when he has those two boys. The other aspect will be Karen Williams remaining healthy. I said his name right, right? Kyron.

It's Kyron. I've got house. I've gotten it wrong for, you know, for two years. I think it's like Kyrie, but Kyron. Okay. Kyron. I got it. Kyron Williams. I really like him. Me too. Yeah. I think he likes touchdowns. He'll give me touchdowns. Yeah. He scores. He's one of those guys that just swings a fantasy league and you don't totally realize it until the champ. You realize that that guy's on the team. Um, Ram schedule.

They have some stinkers left, which I know is one of the reasons people, people like them as a sleeper. They still are playing everyone in the AFC. So you have the Buffalo game, but then you also get the three stooges in there as well. They're playing new Orleans, um,

They still have Arizona at home and they still have Seattle at home. And their only road game in the division is San Francisco. So, you know, I, I, and we're going to talk about the Niners in a second, but a big question to me is, is it going to be nine, nine wins for this division or 10?

Because 10 means they have to go seven and three down the stretch. But if you look at the schedule, seven and three seems realistic to me if they're healthy. If it's nine, now it's six and four. That seems way better and we don't know. All right, San Francisco. So they're four and four. I officially gave them year from hell status two weeks ago. Iuke just out of nowhere, he's out. Greenlaw, Fanga, Hargrave,

Jennings is now out for a couple of weeks. They're claiming McCaffrey might be back soon. McCaffrey was on a foreign, I think he was in Germany. I think he went to Iceland. I think he went to Mexico. I think he went to Argentina. God only knows just to get his Achilles fix. I don't trust him at all. Jordan Mason lasted a couple of weeks. He got hurt. Is it more realistic for you that they write the ship or that this is the year from hell, Danny? If you had, if I only gave you those two options that,

In mid-December, they'll be fine. And we're like, oh man, remember when we counted out the Niners? Or in mid-December, we're going, why didn't we know this was going to happen? Everybody in the team's injured. Which scenario would you pick? I would pick they'll right the ship, probably. Okay, why? I just think they're still too talented on both sides of the ball. I know they've been hurt a bunch. But even with the skeleton crew that they're running, they're still really good. They're still... I think I saw they're sixth in DVOA right now. Like,

Yeah. That's despite all the injuries. That's despite missing McCaffrey. I think Shanahan can still call a hell of an offense. Um,

And, you know, Purdy's actually been playing better than I would have expected, given all the injuries and given the fact that they're like basically putting it on his shoulders. I think last year they led the NFL in yards after the catch. It was basically like Purdy just give the ball to your guys and let them do the work. And this year he's doing like the heavy lifting for the offense. And so, you know, he's not going to be like perfect by any means. But I've actually been more impressed with him this year than I was last year just because

He just doesn't have as much help. By the way, I feel the same way. The three pick game was really bad. I thought that was the worst game he's played. Now he's missing a lot of weapons, but

I was really all in on like him even as like maybe a sleeper MVP candidate if he could keep them around 11 wins, but I think that game knocked him out probably right I think but but generally speaking they still have like all the pieces to dominate this division I think and Despite the injuries they've got guys coming up like Ricky Pearsall looked pretty good in this last game. He did coming back from getting shot like rats wild and

And, you know, Debo, he's in and out, but he gives them a different element when he's healthy and he can line up in the backfield. And obviously when McCaffrey comes back, like he just makes it so hard to defend that offense. Like anytime they're in third and medium, like it's McCaffrey just getting them first downs. You know, like Kittle is playing like the best tight end in NFL right now. And, you know, I just think they still have all the, they still have enough pieces to be the best team in this division pretty easily.

All right, so what he just laid out, House...

Are we going to feel stupid if McCaffrey comes back in week 11 and looks awesome and we had this one week window to buy the Niners on a bye week at minus 110 to win the division? We won't feel stupid because we'll just buy them. Why not go ahead and do it? It's a cheap price. It's not going to get any better than this. And I do think on the defensive side, especially they still have Fred Warner. Fred F. Warner, he should be in the defensive player of the year conversation as long as he's upright. And

And Bosa. Yeah, and Bosa. And Greenlaw is supposed to come back still this season, right? Isn't that still on the cards, Danny? No? No.

It's one of those. Yeah, we could see him again. But, you know, what about who Fong is supposed to be back? He's not done for the season, is he? They're concerned about it. I was researching that today. He's definitely gone for a while, but he could be back for January. But it's not going to help them for the season. I want to ask this question because it was curious to me. Why weren't the Niners in January?

the bidding for Deontay Johnson from Carolina? Why did he go so cheaply to the Ravens? And why wouldn't a team like the Niners, who is... They're always around the hoop in terms of strategically grabbing assets when they come available. Where were they on this? And why weren't they in the mix? My guess would probably be that he's kind of a knucklehead. And he's probably not...

the best blocker. The 49ers ask a lot of their running backs. You know, they really ask them to like stick their face in the fan in the run game and really get up there. The receivers, I mean, yeah. Sorry, the receivers. Yeah, we know they're like out there blocking and clearing lanes and doing the dirty work. And, you know, we saw Ayuk was in the doghouse for like a full year early on in his career because he wasn't like working hard enough in the run game and doing the things that he the little things. And I think that generally speaking, like

When you see a guy go for peanuts like that, there's probably, you know, off the field stuff that's happening. I'm just guessing. But like, I don't understand because he's doing enough production to like you'd think it would warrant a bigger price than that. But like House, I have a I have a less diplomatic answer. He sucks. I don't think he sucks. But I do think that that it has to be like we would rather not have him.

and roll the dice with Isaac Austin and these other random dudes on our team other than have this guy again. So I stand with Mike Tomlin at all times. I think that's, that means he's a knucklehead or his experience in Pittsburgh. Uh, there's still a growing up element that needs to occur. And it didn't happen to Carolina. That trade you, you get a comp compensatory pick and,

In the offseason, if you sign somewhere else, it's like Baltimore literally didn't give up anything. But they were like, all right, we'll roll the dice. Why not? They literally gave him. They gave Deontay Johnson to the Ravens. Like, yeah, you can't find like a smaller trade package than trade up from the sixth to the fifth or whatever. It's like 15 spots.

Yeah. And by the way, Panthers, you didn't need to like make a tank trade. You're already like one of the worst teams of the last five years. Danny, is this though, is this the worst team since you've been working for us, the Carolina Panthers? Cause house we're doing million dollar picks later and house wants to put the saints in a tease against the Panthers and doesn't even care who the saints quarterback is. And I'm like, yeah, hold on. Like I actually, I can't put Spencer Radler in a tease just to add a principle because

But the theory is just like Raheem said, his model had them 16 points behind every other team in the league. Are they that bad? Yeah, I think they are. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. They make every quarterback look like his future Hall of Famer. I mean, they made Caleb Williams look incredible. And then I think the next week or whatever, he really, really struggled. Or maybe it was a two-week stretch. But yeah, I mean, every time a quarterback, Bo Nix looks like his future Hall of Famer going up against this team. So...

Yeah, I'd say they're pretty bad. If you had to pick... So every year between week eight, week nine, there's some team that looks like they're dead in the water, right? Last year was Green Bay, I think. They were like three and six after nine games. This happens all the time. It's a two and six team. It's a three and six team. It's a three and five team. And...

people would just look at it this year and go, Oh, it's gotta be the Bengals. Oh, that's the team. They're three and five. When T Higgins is actually playing their offense can move the ball on anybody. Like don't, don't, don't count them out yet. They had that dumb loss to the chiefs. Like it's not really a three and five team. That's the team. Is there another team you would point to that's under 500 that you think has a little bit of a sleeper vibe?

Um, that's a great question. How we feel about the Browns with this new, like the Browns Renaissance. Let's fucking have the conversation. Hey, you beat me to it. That is the answer. The answer is the Browns. The vibes, the vibes of the Browns. I don't think you could find like the Panthers vibes were better than the Browns vibes for like the first, however many weeks that Sean Watson was starting. Like it was like, this can't get worse.

Every stat you looked at it, we make the joke on our on our fantasy show that like Austin Gale is is taking down the power grid, running these searches, trying to figure out like how bad Deshaun Watson is compared to every other quarterback in history. Like the stats were incredible.

And Jameis Winston is like the polar opposite in terms of vibes. Like he's lifting everybody up. Like, I don't know. I think he just gives them an opportunity. Kind of like what we saw last year with Flacco, where it just gives them an opportunity to play defense and have more energy and kind of do the things that they're, they want to do on offense. And not have your soul sucked out of your body as you watch him play offense. Yeah. Like no one wanted to play with that guy. He didn't want to play like,

This just completely changes everything for the Browns. I don't know if they're in too big of a hole now to get out of it. Can I counter this? Because I was right there with you, and then I was doing the research this morning. Denzel Ward had another fucking concussion. I know. That's such a bummer. He had one in the preseason, and it was like I think his fifth reported one, but it might have even, God only knows how many he's actually had. And when he had one in the preseason, I was like, is he going to retire? That seems like too many. Now he has another one.

So he's out and I, you know, he's obviously incredibly important to them. And then they lost J okay too. He's out for this chargers game. So I, I wonder like defensively, cause I like the Browns at home and house and I, the last, especially last year, like that Browns defense at home, we were, we were riding them a few weeks, but if they don't have those two guys,

I'm a little more nervous. House, you're bullish on the Browns. I can tell. On a week-to-week basis. And part of the thesis here is...

is they finally have restored health on their offensive line. And their offensive line in the preseason forecast was part of the rationale for why they could, you know, kind of threaten once again. I mean, they were always the third team at best in the AFC North, but still an eight to nine win team potentially because

because of that offensive line, because at some point Chubb will come back, and because the forecast was that Watson would just be league average. Well, he wasn't league average. But that restored health to that offensive line, timing-wise occurring simultaneously with the return of Nick Chubb, who's still getting his legs back under him. And then you layer on top of that the immeasurable impact of Jameis,

which is going to cut both ways. Let there be no doubt. He will throw them into some losses a thousand percent. So the right way to play the Browns is not any futures about them making the playoffs. Yeah, you just look for opportunities to play them game by game. The other problem with them, they have five road games left at New Orleans, which might be a little tougher than it seems right now if Carr's back. But then they're at Denver on a Monday night, at Pittsburgh, at Cincy, at Baltimore.

But then they also have a home games against Pitt and Kansas City in the Miami Week 17, who might actually be a little better than they are now. So it feels like there's been too much damage with them. I think if they had their defense, I'd be a little more excited. I'll tell you the other team I was looking at, and then they traded their left tackle, was Jacksonville. The freaking team that keeps sucking you in. But...

You know, like they had a couple of dumb losses. The schedule gets a little easier second half, but when they traded their starting left tackle, I was like, oh, they're done. This is, this is a wrap. Minnesota's like, we need a left tackle. And Jacksonville's like, would you like our starter? And once they did that, I thought I was out. Does Indy count for this conversation? I know they're four and four, but I thought about them.

It's almost the exact same situation. It's like Flacco did this last year with the with the Browns. Yeah. Rejuvenate an offense that's been stagnant because of the either the struggling rookie or struggling second year guy or, you know, obviously last year was Deshaun for a while. How about can we go with floundering instead of struggling?

When you're completing 44% of your passes, I need floundering as my adjective. That works a little bit better. But yeah, I mean, I think, you know, they've got a ton of talent on offense. And if Flacco can do the thing where he's just like distributing the football, Jonathan Taylor looked awesome.

awesome last game. Like they could, they could marry the run game with the past game. Uh, Josh Downs, I think has been a revelation. Michael Pittman hasn't done anything this year, but he could maybe, you know, do a lot better with, with Flacco feeding him the football. Um, and you know, I think they're the, they're the type of team that could scratch their way to nine wins. Probably. I don't know. What do you think? Well,

I wish they weren't playing Minnesota this week because I keep getting flashbacks to that Browns playoff game when Flacco was just under siege and completely fell apart. House is nodding. Did you were you thinking the same thing? Yeah, I really wanted to take them this week and I just couldn't get that game out of my head. It's literally the reason that has me tapping the brakes entirely on my forecast for them for the rest of the season because

Because if Joe Flacco gets beat up, gets beat to all hell in this next game against Minnesota, who is going to blitz the daylights out of it. And the Colts all have a great offensive line. But this is a different animal what Minnesota is going to bring to bear. And we just watched, you know, Houston did a good job of applying some pressure. Joe Flacco can't move. Anthony Richardson, at least, was able to evade some pressure. Maybe not great decision making, but...

but for sure able to work his way. Flacco is immobile, as immobile as they get. If he gets dinged up one time, what if we're back with Anthony Richardson against our will? That is not a ticket that I want to have in my hand. I do like the Colts' talent. Me too. I like their receivers. I think they can really run the ball. Even their backup running backs can run the ball. Their defense has gotten much better the last few weeks. I've watched them in these games feeling like they should be

Win in the games and Richardson was just so atrocious last week. I mean he just that was it They had to bench him their schedule is tough this it makes it tough like it you can kind of like look at their schedule and say like oh I kind of see why they bench Richardson at this point because they have the Vikings next week They have the bills after that the Jets Defense which you know, it's been as good as I think we expected where they can still play and then the Lions the week after that so they got they got a tough month ahead here that

against some really good opponents that could make, like maybe they're just like trying to, trying to preserve Richardson's sanity a little bit here as well. Well, cause especially with some of the Houston injuries and Houston's a huge favorite, at least on FanDuel to win the division. I was like, ah, I don't know. Um, Danny stick around. Cause I want to go over MVP odds with you in house, but we're gonna take a quick break.

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Goes through 7-1-25. Visit micklobeultra.com slash courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, and official rules. Void where prohibited. All right, MVP odds. So Dibundo and Raheem talked about this on the Wednesday episode of The Hook on the Ringer Gambling Show. Good title, by the way. I love when we have good titles for our shows.

We were talking about MVPs a week ago, and I thought Lamar was in the driver's seat. And then they blew that stupid game on Sunday. And I think that knocked him out.

And yet I don't know who the MVP is. And Vandal doesn't really seem to know either. Josh Allen's plus 270. Lamar's plus 310 with a harder schedule coming. Mahomes is 5-1, having probably the worst season of his career, even though the Chiefs are winning. Goff's 6-1. Daniels is 9-1. CJ Stroud is 13-1. Dibundo made a really interesting case for Hurts.

At 20 to one, because the next six defenses he's playing are all terrible and he might be able to actually cook the next six weeks. And if the Eagles go on a little run, maybe Brock Purdy's 22 to one goes on down the line. We, as you know, defensive players aren't allowed to win this award, but we don't really have somebody I would go, Oh, that guy's probably going to win. Is there anybody you're looking at at this point?

I mean, yeah. The one guy I think that I kind of just like circled there is Jayden Daniels, just because of all the narratives around him, you know, like, I don't know. I don't think he'll actually... Hold on, Hal's just ejaculated. We have to take another break. I mean, I don't think he will win, but...

It's like they feel like they're the team of destiny this year, almost. That wild game-winning throw the other day, just the way that they're playing, the way that they're executing on third and fourth down, at truly historic rates. It's probably not going to last, but right now, just narrative-wise and excitement-wise and all that, he kind of was the one that stood out there. I think the obvious one.

You know, thanks for sucking up the house, by the way. That was yeah. I'm so mad. I don't have them to win the division. I stared at it all summer. And you asked me, I asked you, you know what I said? I can't name more than two players on our defense. I mean, I could name them and I would say they suck. I mean, I could have named them. I told you the defense isn't any good. You can't invest in the team in that preseason.

Yeah, I started off this show talking about the Wizards as a joke because I am still coming down from the high of the miracle in Maryland. What are we talking about? It's the C words all day, baby. But in these betting markets, BS knows this. It's a house tradition to have tickets, multiple tickets. And I absolutely must have some Josh Allen because...

that's the best, that's the most likely, that's the narrative. He has deserved it in the past. That makes it easy for everybody. I also think Jared Goff, if Detroit ends up at 14-3 and lands the one seed, I think there's a decent case. And he reels off a couple more of these games where he's nearly 100%.

percent completion. Now we have to get indoors this week outdoors. Yeah. No, sorry, but we will get back indoors for golf. And then I love the Hertz case. I think that, that the Eagles are super live. It's a great price and I have them.

I'm a bum. I bought them at 16 to one in the summer, 20 to one might as well double up. Look at that secondary for the Eagles. That's the thing for them. That's going to turn. That is slowly coming together. They are understanding a little bit of what Mr. Fangio wants out of them. And I think that Eagles defense is going to be a propulsive kind of a force for them down, down the stretch.

Danny seems disgusted by this. No, no, no. I think that's fine. I have a question about 30 to 1 Jordan Love. Has he missed too much time already to win it? Because isn't this typically...

Kind of a how you do down the stretch award. He'd have to win. He'd have to have a huge game this week against the Lions at home and beat the Lions and throw for 340 yards. I just think that now get it going. The way that he plays the kind of like he's like effort. He's down there somewhere, you know, type of attitude he has. It wouldn't be all that surprising to see him go on kind of like a tear down the stretch. Do you feel like he's been playing that well, though? Because I don't.

No, not particularly, but I think he could put up stats. I think he's in such a good system with so many good weapons around him. And I think he's been really banged up. And if he gets healthy and then starts to put it all together down the stretch again, it's kind of like how you finish, I think, a lot of the time kind of influences this. And I think the Packers are really good. I think they have one of the best play callers in the NFL, and they have weapons. Yeah.

It's such a good point. Yeah, it's such a good point because literally last season, the MVP was decided on Christmas when the Ravens went in and beat the hell out of the Niners. Remember, we changed our opinion every week for like five weeks in a row. Right, right. I have a... Kyle, turn the camera on, even though it's already on. What is Kansas City's record? How high does it go before Mahomes just has to be the MVP? Like, what if they go 17-0?

Yeah. 16 and one. Like what if there's 16 and one, does he just automatically have to get it? What if they have a four win advantage over every other team in the league? And then we look at their actual scope position players and we're like, Oh, they have 45 year old Kelsey.

Um, a rookie worthy, the wide rice was out the whole year. Here's Hopkins. He can't get open, but it'll catch stuff in traffic. Uh, Juju Smith Schuster waved by the pats, a bunch of random running backs that were either on the waiver wire or not drafted. Like maybe it should be my homes. No, he has eight touchdowns and nine picks this year. I mean, he's going to end up much better. I'm sure. But it would be funny. It would be funny if that was the case.

It's annoying. It's too stupid. The MVP for the Chiefs is the defense. Spag should win MVP. Give it to Chris Jones as a player in Spags. Just call the award the MVO. There's no P. It's not for the most valuable player. The most valuable players for the Chiefs are on the defensive side of the ball. They've been effing dominant. And as long as they have health, and I'm going to knock on wood, they're for sure going to be, you know...

absolutely fine. It's how they won the Super Bowl. I mean, that plus the seven fumbles. Well, can we go through their schedule here? Because I didn't realize this until I was doing the research last night and today. So they're playing Tampa Monday night. Big favorites. Denver home. They're at Buffalo week 11. So that's a red flagger. That's a possible one. But then they're at Carolina. Home Vegas. Home Chargers. At Cleveland.

home Houston, and then at Pittsburgh four days later, I would say would be the other really dangerous one. And then home Denver week 18. But we haven't had one of these in a while where the team, I remember in the 2000s, it felt like this was happening every year. Like we would have these Colts years where they were like 12 and 0, the 07 Pats. I don't remember us having one of these in a while. And I don't really know the reasons for that other than maybe there's just more variance with the games now. But

This Chiefs team, I don't know. I could see them being like 13-0 and us kind of looking at each other going, wait, what does this mean? Does this mean he reads the coach of the year now and Mahomes is MVP? I don't know. I don't know the answer. What's the stat that you really like where it's like when he's down 10 points, he's like undefeated or something like that in the fourth quarter? Mahomes is like that magic about him that you just can't really figure out. Well, the underdog stat's the best stat where he's...

It's only not covered once when he's been an underdog since he's been in the league. Brady used to have the same shit. It's like, don't make these guys underdogs. It's stupid. How's that what you're going to say? The league ruined this. The league ruined the possibility of any team going undefeated because of the stupid Wednesday Christmas game. There's no chance. In fact, if I was involved with the Chiefs,

and we were coming into that game undefeated, I might seriously consider resting everybody on Christmas. I might seriously consider taking the starters, letting them have Christmas with their effing families, grab 10 guys from the practice squad, and tell the NFL to suck it. The point is not to win on Christmas. The point is to win the Super Bowl. The point is to be successful in the playoffs. And coming off of...

What is it, Saturday to Wednesday? It's goddamn preposterous. It's terrible for the players. Remember the dialogue about this? I remember writing multiple columns about this in the late 2000s because the Pats played it one way, they went for it, and then they really wore down over the end of the season in the playoffs. And then the Colts did it the other way.

And they were like, we're throwing it away. We don't care. And then that backfired too. And it's like, there's basically no way you're basically best off losing in like week 11 is the way to play it. So maybe they just have to throw the Buffalo game. But yeah, I think the schedule for some reason, isn't that hard, especially when you have, you're in the same division as Vegas and the chargers and Denver, you know, not to mention all the other stuff. So coach of the year is another one.

where it just seems like it has to go to the team that are like the Dan Quinn. It's like, oh, they won five games last year. They've won 11 this year. He's the coach of the year. But that's another one where it's like, well, why shouldn't Andy Reid win this if they go 15 and two or 16 and one? I would make a case for Tomlin though if they're in the 12s.

I mean, his quarterbacks are Justin Fields and Russell Wilson. They're paying two and a half million dollars combined for their quarterbacks. Nobody else in the league is doing that. So they would be in there too. Who else would you have, Danny? Give me like the favorites right now. So it's like Dan Quinn, KOC for the Vikings. Yeah, you gotta have KOC up there. The real KOC. Yeah.

How do we feel about like the Chargers? Fandle doesn't have it right now. Oh, there it is. Dan Quinn's favorite plus 195. Sean Payton plus 650. Tomlin's plus 750. Campbell, 9-1. O'Connell is 9-1, but he's dropping. And Andy Reid is 9-1, even though he doesn't have a loss yet.

So the floor at the floor at a 15 to one is intriguing to be, if they beat Detroit and they're, you know, seven and two that with some, the Malik Willis games. I think he's done a great job this year.

Yeah, I think he might have been who I picked in the preseason to win this, I think, because I've been saying this for a few years. He kind of got ignored for a long time because he had Rodgers. And I think right now, only Jim Harbaugh has a better winning record among active head coaches in the NFL. And he's just been incredible since he was named the head coach there. And people kind of just overlook him for a number of reasons. But I think he's proven to be...

on par with like the McVay in terms of just coaching excellence scheme getting the most out of your players having like all these sort of random guys and getting the most out of them on offense like not not to say that they haven't like invested as receivers but it's like second third fourth round fifth round guys and they're all really good and they're they're all getting production out of those guys and so um you know they're kind of talent man that's the game of the week on Sunday that that really could be the NFC title game in a couple weeks um

fantasy MVP for you for the year? Right now it's Henry, Derek Henry, I think. Interesting. I mean, it's either Lamar or Henry. I would have said, I would have said Lamar, but I see the Henry case too. Cause so you got Henry, you're paying. Why? Where's Saquon? What happened to Saquon? I mean, Saquon's up there as well. Henry's got a thousand yards and 14 TDs already. Yeah. Henry could break a thousand, I think this week. Um,

But he's also just like lapping the field at the running back position in terms of points. He's only had, I think his worst game this week or the season has been 10 points. He's not giving you any bad weeks. Yeah. And he's given you a bunch of spike weeks. So, you know, right now he has 30, almost 30 more points than Alvin Kamara total in total points. Then that's the second number two running back. And I think just that value, that value over

you know, the general replacement running back is, is so high. I think Lamar would be another good one. And then I think you could throw Jane Daniels in there if he can stay healthy for the rest of the year. Right now, right now he's not probably cause he missed a game. Um, but you know, he, he, uh,

He's in terms of value because you got him relatively late and he's just been incredible He was like kind of an afterthought in a big in the in the preseason because people weren't really sure like what he would do passing He's been incredible passer in addition to you know running almost as much as any quarterback this year So right, but I was I would pick Henry just based on the consistency and the spike weeks that you get from him well, and also

I don't think he was a top eight, like spending running back, but heading into an auction, right? Yeah. I think he was kind of in that second level. Yeah. Yeah. Because people were a little uncertain about number one, the age. Number two, he's going to a new team, new office. And also like podcasts like ours, where you guys are all blowing Devin HN. Well, Craig, Craig, to his credit, Craig Horvath was all in on Henry this year. And that's like, yeah, that's really age. Well,

Henry's turned into like, just, just keep taking them until the year when he doesn't have it anymore. Cause this usually happens with the receivers, but not, not a running backs. He's the extreme outlier in every sense. House. I didn't even tell you my knockout league. The one I'm in, not the league you're in, but the league with Sal, which no, no, this is the knockout league with my team's a disaster. I had Kirk cousins as one of my quarterbacks.

And after week one, when he looked like a mannequin in an apartment store window, I cut him.

I had to pick somebody else up. Now I'm two and six. Basically, I'm probably at the playoffs anyway, but it's like nobody's finished me off yet. And now I'm going against Kirk Cousin. It's the rare fantasy revenge angle. The guy I never shared a wave. So I fully expect him to have four touchdowns and 700 yards. You missed out on his 900 yards and 15 touchdowns against Tampa. It's amazing. Danny, who has provided the most content on

on the fantasy show this year? What single player? Oh, that's a great question. If you had to do a usage rate for players on the show that you've spent the most time talking about, who is it?

That's a really good question. I mean, it's always Kyle Pitts pretty much every year. For some reason, we just can't... This guy, he just... He's the third-half tight end right now. I know. He's been back. He's been playing well. We have a whole category dedicated to him. Usually, it's two tight ends and a lie. Basically, two tight ends that outscored Kyle Pitts and a lie. And it's always just these random guys that outscore Kyle Pitts. But we retired the category because he's back. He's actually good now. And I think we're actually kind of in on this. I would say...

One more thing on Pitts. Not only is he really good, he's had a couple long plays called back. Yeah. Which I don't know. Is there a website that keeps track of that? I know because I have him in my guillotine league and one other league. But he's had two long ones where he was celebrating and they're like, ah, flagging the play. Yeah, the king of that is George Pickens. Yeah, no question. Kyle Pitts is probably second. Kyle Pitts, I think that play last week,

where he caught a pass. He like did the reverse stiff arm, you know, the Larry Fitzgerald style reverse stiff arm. Kept the ball out and almost fumbled it. And then he almost fumbled it going over the... Right up to the point where he almost dropped the ball too early. Or maybe he did actually. He definitely did. Yeah. I was like, that was the first time in like years. I'm like, oh, there's the Kyle Pitts that like we thought he was going to be. That's the guy that, you know, the Falcons took before Jamar Chase. And so...

Yeah, it's good to see him back. He finally starts to look a little healthy, but you know, he's still kind of his target rate isn't really where you want it to be. He's still kind of like a tertiary option in this Falcons offense. Like Darnell Mooney is probably, I think, outscoring him still. So can't get too excited about it.

How's are you excited for Brock Bowers to be a $35 tight end next year? He deserves it. He's incredible. I want to ask Danny a question as we formulate strategies for next year and what we're seeing over this season in terms of running back performance, are we going to go back to where we were maybe a decade ago where receivers, uh, you know, cause we're in this era now where there's three receivers going in the first round of, of all drafts and, and,

There are no receivers now. Who's the top, like, fans? Like, you know, it would have been Nico, and Nico was incredible what he was doing all season, but this is the issue now. The receivers get hurt. I mean, running backs do too, but are we going to go back? Is it just going to be 10 running backs, and then everybody's going to scrap from there? Yeah, maybe. I mean, I want to say, I don't have this down in front of me, but I think...

And receiver production across the NFL is down dramatically this year compared to most years. And I think it's just like, there's a lot of these variables. Quarterbacks are not playing as well, not nearly as efficient. Like all these passes are so much shorter. Basically teams are,

you know, using these little swing passes and short passes to replace the run game more or less. Now, the problem is on the other side, running backs are not being used at a high rate as they used to. Like, you know what I mean? There's like every team almost now has a pretty strong rotation. There's a handful of guys that are, you know, the quote unquote workhorse type players. But, you know, it's give and take. I would say next year we're probably going to see because of all this, we're probably going to see like

a running back pack first round. It's just going to be those guys that are going to get like 20 carries a game. And those are, they're so scarce. You have to go get them. How about this? Maybe Lamar should just be the first pick in the draft. I know. Right. Um, like if you're just trying to, if you were calling people and asking to try to trade for guys on their team, I think Lamar is the quickest hangup. Yeah. Like, fuck you. I'm not trading Lamar.

Guys, guys are amazing. When he spent all that or when he lost all that weight this offseason, I think that should have been like the biggest sign to be like, OK, he's back. He's going to be doing his thing, running around like making guys look stupid. I think when he gained a little bit of weight, he wasn't quite as elusive as a runner. Yeah. But but yeah, he's he's been absolutely incredible. How's this guy might be up there, too. And I'll tell you this.

My guy, Drake may, I hope he plays this week, but I think he's going to put a big fantasy stats because his running, like he, he scoots out and, and also like, isn't afraid to like run down the middle of the field and take a hit or two, which unfortunately backfired on him last week. But, um, I think he may, he's a big game Hunter. Um, and also is going to run the ball 30 to 50 yards, but it seems like,

We might have nailed all three of those quarterbacks. I don't know if... Dean, if you had to rank the quarterbacks right now for who you'd want, would Drake May versus Caleb in the two spot, who would you pick? Probably still Caleb. Maybe that's just take lock from my draft analysis or whatever. But I don't know. Drake looks really good, man. He's like...

I think he kind of, for whatever reason, people overlooked how good of a runner he was. He was, he put up stats in college as a runner. Um, and he was like scrambling around a bunch. He was really dangerous in the red zone. He's almost got like, uh, you know, like a little bit of a Josh Allen to him where he, he's almost a little too reckless too, which is a little nervous, nervous, makes me nervous. But, um,

But yeah, I mean, he looks really good out there. And obviously with a little more experience and get some weapons around him, he has like no weapons right now. So that doesn't help. But yeah, he could definitely have like an elite upside in the league. I still just, I don't know. I still love Caleb for just the special plays he can make out of structure, I think. And he'll start to figure it out a little bit more in structure. I think that offensive system is, you know, a work in progress for them. Just do your Bears rant. Just unleash for 20 seconds. Just do it.

I can't. I mean, they're literally the dumbest football team next to the Jets. It's an incredible slew of Mensa geniuses in charge on both sides of the football plus special teams. But the thing I wanted to share, and I know it's obviously insane.

I think that if you grab Caleb or you grab Drake May and you put them with Cliff Kingsbury this season with this offensive line and the way that they have schemed up, that any of those guys might look effing incredible this year in Washington, which is an...

a bananas thing to say i know it sounds insane but the only thing with daniels uh he's so accurate it's just outrageous like to to have him on one tv and anthony richardson on another tv it was like watching two different sports you know like his passes are just always in the perfect spot whether it's a deep ball whether it's a little quick out like i and i knew that was the you know that was part of the appeal for him coming out of college but it's really true like

So there's accuracy and then there's like pinpoint pinpoint accuracy, which he seems to really have, but really seems like we might've gotten three good ones. I still, I was thinking how with Pennix, how unfair it is that Pennix isn't playing this year. Yeah. That the NFL should have a rule where you can rent out your quarterback, almost like an Airbnb. Right. Like, like they could have just rented Pennix to the Steelers for like 10 weeks or for the season. But if cousins got hurt, they got to immediately get them back.

Don't they do that in soccer? He's just not playing.

Yeah, totally. Don't they do that in soccer? I mean, I'm going to sound like an idiot. I don't know international soccer. Oh, like little quickie transfer fees or something? Yeah. No, 100%. It does suck for him because there's a world in which he's like carving up teams too. You know, it'd be really fun to see. You could have put him on House's Washington team. Well, House is the happiest I've ever seen him. All right, Danny Kelly, you can hear him on the Ringer fantasy football show. You can read him on the ringer.com and...

Um, you can text them during games. If you have his number to wonder what the F is going on with the Seahawks. Good to see you. You too. Thanks. This episode is brought to you by Uber reserve. You know, it's a game changer for travel booking my ride in advance to the airport with Uber reserve. Uber reserve makes it easy to plan my whole trip. I just did this.

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All right, house is still here. We're going to talk about some million dollar picks. You weren't on the last two weeks, but only because we did four and a half hours of basketball content together two weeks ago. So we gave you a break that one week. Last week I was in town with all the LA dudes. Now we're back. We held the fort. We're only somehow only won $15,000 last week, even though I thought I nailed the week up 178 for the year. Bang.

I think this week's really hard. There's only a couple that I liked, but give me your favorite coming out of the gate. I want to talk about a bunch of games. What was your favorite game of all of them? It's a tease. I mean, this week has incredible tease legs. I should set that up properly. This is tease week. There's teases. There's Bills minus six, Eagles minus seven and a half, Bengals minus eight and a half, Chiefs minus eight and a half.

there's some going the other way teases. So yeah, anyway, go ahead. Yeah. I mean, I absolutely love, um, the chiefs, you know, tease them down to two and a half home against Tampa on a Monday night. I love Philly. I really think that Philly is, is, is going to be coming on here, uh, teasing them from seven and a half down to, uh, one and a half. I think it's very viable to tease, um, uh,

uh cleveland up from from one and a half to seven and a half because like are the chargers going to win by margin um in cleveland i don't think so and then the saints we'll see what the answer is at quarterback i wouldn't recommend doing anything with them if rattler is the quarterback but all of the signs seem to be pointing at their car and if their car is the quarterback then we can't continue to miss out on this opportunity of winning money at carolina's expense like we're

We can figure out how to do it. It could be a tease. It could be team total stuff. It could be first halves. I did this last week where I crossed my fingers that Marcus Mariota was going to be the D.C. quarterback. And then I was like, Jada Daniels is going to play. All of a sudden, I didn't have Mariota against that Bears defense. So you mentioned the Eagles.

And they beat the Bengals pretty handily last week. And for me, part of it was I actually took the Bengals in that game, but I thought I was getting T. Higgins and I thought they'd be able to throw on them all game with Jason Higgins and Higgins doesn't play. But that Eagles game might have been more impressive than maybe...

Maybe I gave it credit for in the moment. Cause I was so mad about the Higgins thing. Like maybe the Eagles are pretty good. I feel like we've also been down this road before where it's like time to trust the Eagles. And then they completely kick you in the nuts. But as we talked about with Danny, it just feels like this Jag season's over.

That trade they made, traded their left tackle. I know he wasn't playing that great, but that was just really weird. They're like, ah, we got some other guys. Like nobody has other guys sitting on the bench to play left tackle. That's crazy. Brian Thomas is hurt. Might not be able to play. ETN's been hurt the whole season. Kirk is out. Yeah, Kirk's done for the year. It just feels like the Eagles and a tease at home.

Feels pretty safe to me. They're going to be able to run. Maybe Peterson coming back there. This would be like the nail in the coffin for that. So I'm with you on that. And then Chiefs Bucks was the other one that it's like that number is nine is eight and a half still. So you can get it to two and a half. The Bucks with no with no Godwin, no Evans last week. Mayfield was still moving the ball because he was playing, but the receivers aren't the same. Their defense is awful. And I just don't see are they this is going to be the team that ends Casey's unbeaten season.

On a Monday night, I don't see it. No. And remember, the difference between Baker under pressure and Baker not under pressure. Atlanta has the worst pass rush in the entire NFL. And so Baker was, you know, trying to wheel and deal as best he could. They were competitive for as long as he could keep them in there. This Chiefs thing is a radically different animal.

Yeah, I agree. And their defense is bad. Tampa's D you can move the ball and you can do whatever all the, all the advanced stats on them are bad. All right. So we have two, I don't trust the Bengals against the Raiders. That was another one I really wanted to put in, but I don't know what's going to happen with Higgins. The Raiders feel like they're good for one stupid, weird out of nowhere. When every eight weeks they're going against Baltimore, they're kind of do. I think that's a stay away.

the bills against the dolphins as a possible tease. So they, they killed them in week two, even before two, it got hurt. They have a much better team. Dolphins have had a bunch of injuries already, especially on defense. And yet something's holding me back on it.

Is this a kitchen sink game for the Dolphins? They're not kind of out of the playoffs yet. Somebody's going to make the playoffs at nine and eight in the AFC. Like they're not done yet. It probably is a kitchen sink game for the Dolphins. But if Dopey McDaniel, the disc jockey is standing at the sink, I don't want any part of it. The Bills own the Dolphins. JJ said so on our East Coast bias program. Tua is one in seven against the Dolphins.

The Bills just scheme against the Dolphins wonderfully. The Dolphins don't have any answer for it. We'll see. They had no pass rush whatsoever, the Dolphins. They were up 10 points against the Cardinals at home and could not get that across the goal line. That's diabolical how bad that is that you can't hold on. But they couldn't get any pass rush because the – what's his name? Seilert?

is hurt and I don't know if he's going to be back this week. That's the wrong set of circumstances to go up to Buffalo and try and the line has gone from six and a half down to five and a half. So some folks are interested in Miami. I am not. I am not one of the people interested in Miami and I'm just fine with, you know, Buffalo as a money line leg. I don't want to tease, you know, through the zero really. There's no value there, but, you know, I think

the Bills are going to handle their business. So if we're looking at teases, it's Eagles. Maybe it's just Eagles and Chiefs and that's it. That'd be fine. I'd be perfectly satisfied with that. Some maybe bets. The Colts we talked about earlier plus five and a half against the Vikings. And that feels like that should be a three point game. But I also, as I said earlier, like the Flacco going against Flores and that Vikings D. I saw the Vikings two losses in a row, 10 days rest.

And people seem to think, oh, now that Flacco's in there with the Colts, everything's going to be fine. But something's telling me to stay away from this. But I just want to make sure you felt the same way. Yeah, the back door is open. And that's the reason to be nervous. And so, you know, some smart people I've seen and heard folks making a good argument, a compelling argument for taking Minnesota on the first half line, which I kind of like. It's like around three or so.

for them to cover, whatever, three and a half maybe. I'm totally fine with that idea. Like Minnesota coming in after that loss against the Rams with that extra time against this Colts team that, you know, is trying to save its season. But Minnesota showing again, like we're class. We're a class team in the first half. And then in the second half, Flacco does some of the stuff that Flacco does. So that would be a reason to stay away from the whole game. Yeah.

The bears are plus one and a half in Arizona. And I know they're on, they might be on your DMV list, but they are. I was really impressed by their defense. The defensive stats with them are great. Like they're, they're, they're a top six or seven defense by any calculation at this point. And Arizona as a favorite, just in general, Arizona with any hint of prosperity makes me nervous. Arizona is four and four and you go through it. And, uh,

They barely beat the chargers that, that one time. Right. Yeah. That, I mean, they, the chargers really should have won that game. Right. So that just immediately makes them three and five. They had that weird comeback against Miami that they somehow won the game. I had taken that off of TV. So I'm just not sure they feel like a four and four team to me. So, so,

just staring at it going, ah, trying to talk myself into the bears, but I think you're right. I think they're a DMV. Yeah. They're, they're, they're wins. They have three, three wins in their last four games or three in one. Again, they beat the 49ers by one point. They beat the chargers by two points and they beat the dolphins by one point. And they got smacked by, by the Packers. They got smashed by, uh, the, the, uh, the bills. Well, the bills actually, uh,

um, did it in the second half, but in any event, they're, they're too inconsistent. Um, I just can't under any circumstances have anything to do with that bears coaching staff because they have shown us without any, uh, uh, hesitation or reservation, they will snatch the feet, right? The F out of the jaws of victory. I heard that. I heard that Eberfluss was, um,

was working a little background for the Yankees during the World Series. Base running and defense. It's amazing. Giving them some tips. He was an unpaid consultant. I took a picture of all of the errors and the base running miscues and all of that. And I thought long and hard about sending it to the group text to JJ last night. And I didn't do it because I love JJ. I'm going to save it for this weekend. I'm definitely going to send it.

The Yankee fans moved in a weird thing where they, they immediately were like, I knew this was going to happen. And just that they did the finger pointing thing. And it's like, you definitely didn't know it was going to happen when judge Homer did the first inning and you're up to nothing. And you were like, yeah, that's right, man. Our house. We're not going down here. Browns chargers Browns plus one and a half at home.

against the chargers and i like the browns a lot more before the defensive injuries i think i'm i've landed as a stay away on this one i'm with you on it it'll be fun i'm gonna root for the browns um it will be a good uh measuring tape game for the chargers because if we if the chargers are legit then they better go they should be able to move the ball in this game even though the brads are on yeah i'm with you lions packers packers are plus two and a half at home oh two and a half

Plus two and a half. Looks like Jordan Love's playing. So that, yeah, because it was three and a half yesterday. So the line is moving in the direction of like we're feeling stronger about the idea that Jordan Love's going to play. I think he's going to play. That's my take. Knowing nothing and having no contacts in the Packers organization. And, you know, all the teams lie now. They wait until they try and get advantages, as they should. But we really don't know who's playing in any games until 1255 on Sunday. I will say this.

I think we have a better sense now on the Thursday, Friday with the practice and what's released on what feels doable and not doable. Like even the Daniels thing last week on Thursday, it was like, all right, he's not written off yet. And they're not saying he's out, which makes me think he's probably going to play. You just have to, you're basically turning into Matlock trying to figure it out. It's true. But like who had Puka and Cooper playing, right? Right. That's true.

So lions on grass is the lions on grass outdoors would be the fear. The counter would be you're getting the lions under a field goal and they're the best team in the league. And why wouldn't you just take that? They're going to run the ball all over green Bay and do some play action stuff. And the counter to that would be more, no Jamison Williams, no,

you know, take out St. Brown Packers have a good secondary to me. It's a stay away. I want to watch it. I don't, I don't think I need money on it or I can go Packers and a tease. Yeah. I'm playing Packers money line Packers in a tease. Look at the weather forecast precipitation right now. High of 52 degrees winds, 15 miles an hour or more precipitation likelihood, 60% or higher precipitation.

At game time, you know who doesn't like playing in those weather conditions? Jared effing Goff. You know whose first outdoor game of the NFL season is this coming Sunday, Bill Simmons? Jared effing Goff. You know what the numbers show about Jared Goff in outdoor games? That's one thing.

I think he's around a 500 quarterback. All of his numbers are dramatically lower in terms of completion percentages, accuracy, all that kind of advanced stuff. Put some precipitation in the mix. Put some adverse weather conditions into the mix. Add that filter to the Jared Goff scenario and then see. Now, look, you can, one could make a very compelling case, I would listen to it, of DeJuan

Detroit trying to run the ball because they have a multi-headed rush attack and they have an extraordinary offensive line. And if you want to make that case, I'll listen and not dismiss it out of hand. But the Lions are not going to be able to put pressure on Jordan Love and the Packers. The Hutchinson thing is really going to be felt this week in my humble opinion. You're going bad weather,

Golf outdoors with some things going against them. Lambeau. Crazy crowd. Crazy crowd. Maybe they shut the Lions run a little bit. Lack of a second receiver. All right. I'm just talking it. I just want to make sure the considerations are out there. I hate going against the Lions, but. I understand. They have the best against the spread record of any team in the last three years. We got the. Tease could be the way. Tease the pack up.

Packers minus two and a half is plus one 48. Wait, what Packers minus two and a half is plus one 48. Yeah. I want it to be more than that. I want a better price for that street money line is plus one 24. Yeah. Okay.

To me, if the weather's going to be super weird and wonky, the over-under is out for me. Sure, sure, yeah. I'm not in here trying to argue for a total one way or the other. I think the Packers tease two and a half up to eight and a half, even though we know that Detroit's capable of winning by margin, not in these kind of matchups, not in this matchup. It all depends on love. Obviously, things can change, but if love is a go, I like the Packers.

Well, we don't know if love is a go. It should be a reason to maybe not do anything with this game. What if they decide on Sunday that he's not playing and Malik Willis is somehow in our lives? Then we lose money. That's what happens. Although Malik Willis, you know, in his limited sample size, LaFleur is incredible. Let's just give him some flowers so that he hears it. Broncos are plus eight and a half in Baltimore.

Baltimore is still having some cornerback health issues. Sean Payton, there's back doors are always open in Baltimore. Lord have mercy. The back door is always open. Kind of like the Broncos. Here's the issue. I do think Marlon Humphrey's back. I do think the backup for him that also missed last week is back as well. And even with the issues that, that Baltimore has on defense, um,

The idea of Bo Nix going into Baltimore and, you know, the thing that Denver has done with great success is,

is throw the ball. That kid in his last six games has at least four games over 200 yards passing. And, you know, against the Panthers now again, the Panthers are D-League. That's not a legit measuring stick. But they went away from the run. Neither one of their running backs, I think, got to even 50 yards against the Panthers.

They're going to have to try and establish the run against Baltimore, except for Baltimore is the best run defense in the league. And then I do think that even with what we've seen out of Baltimore in terms of its secondary, the vulnerabilities there, I don't know, man. I don't know.

Under any circumstances, advocating laying eight and a half because we just can't trust Baltimore to keep that door shut in the fourth quarter. But that's another great teaser. Eight and a half down to two and a half for Baltimore. You don't like that? What if I gave you Denver up to 11 and a half with the over adjusted at 38 and a half? And that was plus 103. I love the over. The over part of it is not an issue for me.

Baltimore can win by margin. Baltimore, that's the best offense. I think their offense is better this year than last year. And that offense last year made Lamar an MVP. And it's better this year because they have Derrick Henry. We disagree and I'm crossing it off. I think both of us could be right. I do like Sean Payton against that Ravens team. I also could see the Ravens just running all over them. And the Broncos have had an easy schedule. And you'd be like, God damn it. Why didn't I realize this was going to happen?

All right. My two favorites. And I'm probably the Falcons Cowboys game, which now is Falcons minus three. Oh, it's moving. Yeah. Move from minus two and a half to minus three. And I love the Falcons because I think Dallas sucks. Wow. I think they stink. Wow. And yet this is the perfect team for them to play.

Because Atlanta doesn't have a pass rush. Exactly. And Dak can just throw the ball basically every down. He can. And hang in the game. He can. I still think the Falcons are going to win. Okay. But I also think we're going to have a lot of points. And my question is...

Could you do some chicanery with this one? Where do you stand on the game, first of all? I agree with the latter half of your thesis. I do think that the Cowboys are going to move the ball. And there is, with Dakota, with Dak as quarterback coming off of a loss, they're very good as underdogs. And they're good as road underdogs. His record as a dog coming off of a loss is...

is like in the 60% range under some of these sort of circumstances that we're measuring and are relevant to this.

The fact that Atlanta can't get home with a pass rush at all. And here's the concern I would have if you wagered on Atlanta. We watched Dallas go into Pittsburgh on a Sunday night game and Pittsburgh really couldn't get home at all. And they had some injuries. They did. They picked that defense apart.

And it was with a bunch of dudes that coming into that game, you know, Tolbert had the game winning touchdown with incredible finger strength. Like, you know, Turpin factored into that, uh, the second string, uh, tight end, you know, I, I just think that, that it's, uh, it's a susceptible spot. I do like the idea of points in this game though, because cousins, um, and, and these weapons really have been, um, meshing. Well, what if I gave you what, what adjusted over under would excite you?

What do you mean in terms of a total? Yeah. Like what if I was able to get this to 45 and a half? I mean, I'm fine with that over. I don't have any issue with that over.

Because you could do a little adjusted Dallas plus seven and a half with the over of 45 and a half. Okay. Okay. And that's basically even odds. Minus one. Okay. Yeah. Good. And then we root for points. Right. And Dallas to hang around. Love it. That's a good one. The thing that worries me is Atlanta running the ball on them. Okay. And just like just running the fucking shit out of the ball. Yeah. And Dallas never has the ball because Atlanta always has the ball. Fair enough. But I think Dallas is going to throw it. I had that Pittsburgh game in my head too. If you give Dak time.

He just moves the, but he moves the chains. He finds dudes. And that's kind of what you have to do against Atlanta. That's what everybody that's beaten them is just throwing the ball on them and move the ball down the field on them. All right. So Dallas plus seven and a half. Maybe I can get that over under to wonder if I could. I mean, you could do a basic tease again. You're not supposed to tease totals, but if you tease Dallas up to nine and that total down to 46 and a half, I mean, uh, 45 and a half. Yeah. Yeah.

Dallas plus nine. That's a minus 120 tees. It's not the same price as the price that you have. At seven and a half, that's even odds. That's a better price. Yeah, so we'll do that. Okay. So Dallas seven and a half. And then we get to root for Dallas and get mad if they fuck us. Who will send mad texts to Cuz and to Raheem. With the over of 45 and a half. And that's minus 108. Great.

That's a good one. Yeah. And then we love the Rams against the Seahawks. We need to talk that one out. I don't know. I mean, it's, it's, it's Cooper cup, these nuts on the field, like an amazing opportunity for this Rams team with their offensive line. Uh, and Seattle's down. The vibes are bad. You heard Danny. Um, yeah, you can see they've lost for their last five. Their defense is 29th against the run. And, uh,

This feels very Ramsey to me. Puka and, and, and cup these nuts. I love that combo. I also like Stafford as a road QB. As do I not giving a shit about not, not. All right. And we're staying away from the bears.

That's my humble opinion. Dream is one of his favorite bets. I understand the thesis. I just can't be in the situation of needing the Bears to close out a game and watching those dunderheads. I mean, it like took miraculous moronic, miraculous moronics for Chicago to give that game away.

The handoff to the offensive lineman. Seriously, one of the dumbest plays of the decade. I want Chicago to lose for the rest of the season so that I can buy them to win the Super Bowl next year when Mike Rabel is the quarterback. I mean, the coach. When Mike Rabel comes in with his coaching staff, with the talent that the Bears have on both sides of the ball, that team is talented. But those big dummies, and you know the players' hearts

hold their coaches in contempt. It was hilarious. One of my favorite undercurrents of hard knocks this season was the dumb, dumb Eberfluss making Caleb Williams go sit with him in his office and act like they're having one-on-one conversations. And Caleb Williams could

barely hide his disdain for dummy Eberflus. I mean, I just enjoyed it so much, but here we are. Those chickens have come home to roost. He'll be a fine defensive coordinator somewhere, by the way. Good defense. So we only have $3 million picks this week. Oh.

I think that's fine. Okay. I'm fine. If you're fine, I'm fine. Yeah. I don't really love the week. And I think you get in mistakes with some of this stuff when, uh, when, when you start overcompensating and grabbing stuff. Yeah. We disagreed on, on a bunch of stuff, which I think is usually a bad sign. Um, I do, I do wish the Tennessee line was like two and a half cause I would take them against the pets. Ah, I can't imagine the past would win two games in a row. I kind of like the pads.

Well, we'll see if Drake may plays or not. All right. Right. It's time. The million dollar picks for week nine. We won $15,000 last week and now we are up for the season. $178,000. Not bad after a great job. Great job. We're scaling back a little this week. We're not going to get to a million dollars. We, we are betting $200,000 on the following games.

The Rams plus one and a half in Seattle. We're bullish on the Rams in a whole bunch of different ways. The Rams for the division five to one intriguing little flyer. If you want to take it ramps for the playoffs, plus three, 10, uh, the cup Puka Stafford, uh,

Kyron Williams, not Kieran. No, Kyron Williams. Kyrie, like Kyron. Kyron. The line is minus one and a half. Speech dyslexia. The line is minus one and a half. You said plus one and a half. The Rams are minus one and a half. That's what I mean. Right. Yeah. Rams minus one and a half against the Seahawks in Seattle. We're taking them 200,000 on that.

It is tease week. We're going to scale it back a tiny bit and just take two games that we love. The Eagles minus seven half against the Jags. You know, it's really fun betting against coach middle seat. How many more chances are we going to have to get? Eagles with six crappy defenses coming up here. Shout out to the bundle for that one. But Jalen hurts 20 to one MVP. We're looking at that one. Anyway, Eagles minus seven and a half tease them down.

Six points with the Chiefs on Monday night against a terrible Tampa defense and poor Baker Mayfield, who doesn't have Godwin or Mike Evans, teasing them for minus eight and a half, six points. Eagles, Chiefs, both have to win 200 on that. And then last but not least, we can't lose either way because this is fake money. And if the Cowboys F us, then we just get to send angry texts to Cousin Sal. Cowboys, plus seven and a half, parlayed with the over defense.

With the over 45 and a half in Atlanta, we expect a lot of points in this game. That is minus 108. Do you want to do an anytime touchdown score, Betu? Is there anybody you like? I mean, Derrick Henry, every week, what is it? Minus 300 for him to score a touchdown this week against Denver? It's probably some preposterous number, but... Well, we'll throw... We won't put money on that, but that'll be our recommendation, Derrick Henry. Those are the million-dollar picks.

for week nine. House, before you go, we gotta go quickly through some NBA stuff, so we're gonna take one more break. This episode is brought to you by Origin. Y'all know how much I love my guy Murph, my dog.

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Feed your dog good food. Visit Origin. It's spelled O-R-I-J-E-N, petfoods.com to learn more. 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 of value. Terms apply. See app for details. All right, House, we wanted to just quickly dive into over-unders with the NBA again. It's been, we're in day 10. We don't know what's going to happen tonight, but there's already been some movement. There's been some regrets. There's been some self-congratulations.

Um, one of the things that's really moved Memphis, the over under for them has dropped from, I think it was 47 and a half when we did the podcast with Versillo a month ago, it's now 44 and a half. Oh, wow.

And it's not looking great for them. And we were wondering in that West carousel, who is going to be good? Who's not going to be good? Was somebody going to get nudged out that we weren't expecting? And Memphis has had some injuries already. Verno's making just a ton of excuses. He's bringing up things that happened two years ago, three years ago. Poor Verno. Poor Verno. 45 wins seems ambitious for this team. But that one jumped out at me. What'd you think? Um,

I still... We all took the under, I think. Didn't we all take the under on Memphis? Yeah, nobody locked it, though, because there's just too much variance. We haven't really seen Ja get going. He hasn't been up to his level yet. We've seen it in fits and starts. But when is the team going to be healthy? That's the thing.

We keep saying, well, you know, let's see this team when they have all their guys. When is that going to be? When is, you know, Triple J's back? Is he good? Like, how good is he going to be? Kennard still, you know, dinged. Like, when are we going to see that team with all of its strength where they're able to get on a stretch and run it on out? I mean, I'd play the under.

Do they seem as special as they did three years ago just because the league's so much more talented? Like their nucleus, which seemed really cool three years ago, now I look around League Pass and it feels like 15 teams have a cool nucleus. And I just don't see them from a talent standpoint swimming in the pool of some of these other teams. So that was one. We both had Atlanta...

Over 36 and a half. That's dropped to 35 and a half. You just watched them twice against your Wizards. What were your thoughts?

I don't know what's going on. If the idea is they're experimenting with lineups, if there are injuries that I'm unaware of on Atlanta, like I need, I haven't gone deep into the Hawks hive to see you at it. Yeah. I don't know what's going on, but David Roddy played 32 minutes last night and had the green light. You had the green light from, from coach, coach Snyder. Uh,

They can't defend anyone. Jonas Valanciutas, what a guy. He already, I'm ready to crown him. You gotta trade him now. When can you trade him? He's an amazing stabilizing force. He was openly coaching on the floor. The young guy. So Washington played all three of the guys that they drafted in the first round in this most recent draft. I mean, Sar...

actually looked pretty good. Sar had a couple of moves. He knocked down a couple of threes, uh, Bob Carrington. Pretty good. Like he was able to run in a straight line back and forth or he actually, he made a couple of shots. No, he made it. He looked, he looked, you know, decent, but this is the Hawks defense. Washington scored 133 points last night. Okay. Without really breaking, uh,

I don't know what the, they had no answer for Valanchunas and the Wizards, you know, cut them to death. I'm worried about the Hawks. I'm worried. I'm a little worried too, because you shouldn't be losing to the Wizards. Not back-to-back games. Yeah, that's pretty rough. We like Brooklyn. It was 18 and a half when we did it.

It's now up to 20 and a half. Sure. And it makes sense from what I'm watching. They're super competitive in these games. Cam Thomas. So we made fun of a week ago, the guys scoring, the guys scoring, you know, defenses are like now gearing to stop him and he's still getting points. So Schroeder, um, I don't know what they're going to do because they're, the team's almost a little too confident, whether they're going to try to figure out how to sabotage that. But they've jumped out at me as like,

They were in the running for worst team in the league. I don't think they are.

They play hard. They do. And easily could have beaten Denver, by the way, too. Oh, yeah. They could have a winning record right now. Absolutely. No, they're alive. If they keep playing this hard and their guys are committed, they're on the same page. They're playing hard for Jordy. I think that Jordy, at some point, management might step in and say, look, look, look, we need to take it. And we'll start taking some rotations out of them. Jordy, here's some Alibaba stock. Can you just play Ben Simmons in crunch time?

And hope the other team fouls him. But right now, they're live. It's a weird team. They bring Claxton off the bench. The Cam Thomas stuff, some of the possessions with him, he looks like a 30-point scorer.

And, you know, we made fun of him on the over-under pod about how he's a good stats bad team guy. But he was making, I might have to usher an apology soon. Let's just let it play out a little bit. We're still in a weird season right now.

The Bulls are up to 30 and a half, which matches the eye test. Yeah. It was, I think, 28 and a half when we did it. But you know that it's a team that has a lot of professional basketball players on offense and they're kind of a pain in the ass to play. I've actually been pretty impressed by them.

That's another team that's playing hard. They're not playing to tank. I don't even know that they're necessarily auditioning assets for the purposes of trading them. I think they're going to try and play, and I think they're going to try and make the play in. That's what we've seen so far. And they do have talent. I mean, part of the case that we discussed with Russillo at the Over-Under pod was like, what's the rebound for Giddey? What's good Giddey look like? He's got the keys to the car. He looks pretty good to me.

Yeah, they, you know, conversely, like when, like when you're watching Atlanta and I still like that, I'm not ready to give up on the Hawks yet, but they look like kind of a mess. The Bulls do not look like a mess. Yeah, right. The interior defense for Atlanta is an abomination. Literally, if they should trade for Jonas Valanciunas, that they might win, you know, 45. Well, I don't know if you know their defense. They just don't have a body. The Cavs.

One of our great ones. Yeah. What do we have them before the year? That was like 48 and a half. It was the high forties. Yeah. It was like 48 and a half. That is up to 52 and a half on FanDuel. And then if you go to the division, which I am proud to say, I am a Cavs division ticket holder. Cause I was in Boston, um, betting, making FanDuel bets like a month ago. The Cavs are now minus one 40 for the central. The bucks are plus two 70. The Pacers are plus three 40. Um,

And I got to be honest, I don't think those Cavs odds are, I actually think those are pretty good odds. I think they should be like two to one favorites, right? Sure. Sure. The way, the way that was the thing, this was the idea coming in and why we were so bullish on them. We were like, you know, let's see Kenny Atkinson with this team. Remember how Kenny Atkinson had wings, how he nurtured wings. Let's see Kenny Atkinson with like a healthy Garland and a Mitchell who knows he's going to be there and a team that's been together for three years. It looks great.

Mobley and Jared and him empowering Mobley, especially like you, we, we, we, you can't, um, over state how impactful his assertiveness has been thus far.

What do you think a division parlay of OKC, Cleveland, and the Celtics is? All three of those to win their revisions. What would your guess be for that? OKC, Cleveland, Boston. Can you get it to even odds? A tiny bit better than even odds? What if I told you it was plus 268? Oh, wow. What am I misunderstanding about this? Uh...

The Celtics odds, they're still only minus 210 for the Atlantic because people still believe in the Knicks. And then OKC because of Minnesota's in there, they're only minus 220. And those odds seem crazy to me. I agree with this. What would have to happen for OKC not to have the best record in that division? I had both of those teams winning their divisions in the minus 400 fight. Like we've seen enough. We've only seen five games, but that's enough for me. Totally. I was really surprised by that. All right.

All right. A couple more over-unders because this is really fun. And we haven't even gotten to the super fun one yet. And I can't wait to discuss it. Denver, still holding tight at 49 and a half. Oh, under. It was 51 and a half when we did the pod. Under.

That seems they're going to win 50 games. I don't see that at all. You're allowed to curse on the Bill Simmons podcast. Fuck no, they're not winning 50 games. What do you have to happen? You have to have like a complete career resurgence. There is they they have one of the worst benches in the NBA. They walked in like this is disrespectful. Honestly, it's disrespectful to Joker for this tension between, you know, in the in the

The GM and the coach. Yes, and the personnel decisions that have been made. You can't use up the Joker. Three-time MVP, and we're going to just waste away their opportunity to really compete because they gave Michael Porter Jr. a giant goddamn contract, and this is the thing that kills teams in the NBA. You cannot...

pay shitty role good players like super effing stars and that's what they did and now they're going to pay the price for it it almost sounds like you have personal experience as a fan with the team doing that 15 years worth longer 40 the most recent 15 years though of of uh you know arenas who immediately include andre blatch i mean that's my favorite

You guys amnestying Andre Blatch before his extension kicked in was my favorite NBA moment of the century. But that was only a three-year contract. That wasn't even the worst one. It was still the best. What was better than that ever in the history of front offices? I mean, Jan Mahinmy got a four-year $50 million deal. Oh, my God. Go back and look. It's amazing. Washington's the best. What was the trade when you traded the Steph Curry pick?

It was for Randy Foy and Mike Miller. Yeah, that's what, that's what it was. That was the trade because you could have had your choice of Ricky Rubio pre ACL or Steph Curry. True. That's true. Those were the choices. Yes. Correct. That's right. Unbelievable. See, people don't know the NBA history. They think the NBA started when Kobe won his last title on the Lakers in 2010 and LeBron went to Miami.

That was the start of the NBA. Other shit happened, including that. Clippers over under one of my locks was Clippers under 37 and a half. Now they did lose to Portland last night. Yes. But they're over has jumped to 38 and a half.

And I still feel okay with my position. I got to be honest. Yeah, I look, they, they play hard and they play defense. That's the thing that, that has impressed me the most with the Clippers. Well, I mean, you know, they're, you're going to get, have bad spots schedule wise throughout the NBA season. And who knows what kind of,

mischief folks might have got into. And there are always sub stories about losses, but I was so impressed by the way that the Clippers played. They had a state. Yeah, that was, that was for some reason, the Clippers have always played golden state. Well, there's certain teams, Indiana always, always looks really good against Boston or really horrible. Like there's certain matchups that just seem to, for whatever reason, the Clippers do well against them. Lakers are up to 44 and a half.

which looked a lot more enticing until they lost by 30 against Cleveland. It's like, yeah, this is what happens when you play young athletic teams. I still feel like they're going to be around that number. I'm glad I don't have that as a lock either way. And I guess it would depend on the AD health. Here's one though. Miami, when we did it, I think it was 44 and a half. Now it's 43 and a half. They feel very trade-ish to me. I am on Jimmy Butler trade watch now. Like I'm just ready.

Didn't they basically announce, didn't Pat Riley basically say when he publicly called out Butler as the summer arrived that he's essentially available? Golden State or Houston if you had to pick a team for him. Oh, wow. Just for being a basketball fan with no dog in the race. Well, who can Golden State give Miami that helps Miami's situation in any way, shape, or form? It's probably like, it's like Kamingo, Wiggins,

One more contract and a couple of picks. I mean, those like, oh, we want golden States, you know, uh, afterthoughts. I don't know. Houston is much more viable to me because they have like a bunch of young talent. Um, dying to do a three for one too. Yeah. I hit that last week. Uh, okay. The Milwaukee bucks. Oh, poor doc. They're over under is down to 46 and a half. It's still too high.

I think when we did it, it was 50 and a half or 51 and a half. It was right around that 51, 50. It might have been high 49s even. It was close.

It was up for it. Where do you stand on the 46 and a half? I would still take the under. I'm not hesitating. There's no reservations about it whatsoever. You know, every other day, it turns out it's once a week day. And I named him that last week. Everybody or last year, everyone made fun of me. He's good once a week. And then he plays two other games.

It's too much. And honestly, you know, I kept giving you a hard time when we were doing the over under pod about talking about the idea of Giannis maybe, you know, looking to take us somewhere else. That's what you did. You made me feel like a prick.

I, they have continued to invest in him. They've given him every extension he's been eligible for. Yeah. But that's not a, that's not a competitive team. They, they have no answers. Their answers are to trade all of those guys. They need to start trading guys. Now they can't wait. Like who wants their guys? If there's any Brooke Lopez. Well, I mean, Brooke,

like Brooke Lopez as a veteran, like a three point stabilizing like to New Orleans. Yeah, right, right, right, right. Do it now. Don't wait. You have no chance. That team is dead. That is a dead on arrival team. Well, it was 50 and a half when we did the pot. So it's dropped four wins, which is a lot. Yeah. That tells you all you need to know. The Oklahoma City's around the same. Orlando is still the same at 47 and a half, which I was really surprised by. Why?

Cause they look like a 50 win team to me. I thought that would have bumped up like a win. We locked in on them with blocks for over 47 and a half. So feeling good. Okay. This is another classic. So before the year, the Philadelphia 76ers over under 50 and a half.

What do you think it is now? 47 and a half. 46 and a half. God damn it. So the Bucks and the Sixers have both dropped four wins in 10 days since the start of the season. And by the way, I think I'd like the under. I understand. I went back to look at the sheet and I couldn't believe that I took their over. I don't know what I was...

You weren't scared of the Embiid thing. And I was telling you that there was stuff, there were rumors about his knee in September. Well, I, part of the, for me, I'm sure, um, was the fact that I thought that Paul George and Maxie were going to be enough. I thought Paul George would be playing basketball by now. He's not.

He had the bruise knee when we did the podcast, to be clear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a three-week injury. And that had just happened. It happened in the 24 hours before we sat down and taped that pod. Listen, stop making excuses. You fucked up. It was a fuck-up. I did. It is a fuck-up. I'm just saying, you know, I imagine... You know what else was a fuck-up? Pretending that Embiid was on a rest program when he's fucking hurt. Also a mistake. It's so weird. Why did they do that? Why say anything? Because they didn't want to be embarrassed because they gave him an extension and he's fucking hurt.

That's what was their choice. How about this? That they let them play in the Olympics. And it's like, well, that's not their job. It's a player. It's free will. The players get to do. And being in Kauai going to the Olympics is one of the biggest jokes of this decade that either of those guys thought that was a good idea and that their teams had to pretend publicly that it was a good idea to go along with it. Yeah, no, it'll be good. It'll be good for you. It's good for your brand. And beat should have been in a fucking hyperbaric chamber for six months.

Literally getting himself back healthy. Or training at altitude. Like, what were we doing? And then the quiet thing is ridiculous. It's bad for Embiid in the sense of performing for the team that pays him and performing in the league that is, you know, the true way to...

that he's going to be compensated. But for his, he played great in some of those games. Yeah, he did. And there were some genuine Embiid moments. And he has that medal now. And I do think that there was...

You know, we've talked about this in the past with these international competitions. Some of that winning dust might have rubbed off on him, being around those guys and watching how they did it. Like, he hasn't been around very much winning dust in his career. And seeing him, you know, he's on the floor when Steph goes off. He's on the floor with LeBron. That all could...

ultimately pay off because really it won't matter until April. But for the purposes of over under, this is a dead under and I'm going to lose my money. You and I have been following basketball a long time, a long time, too long. We remember too many things. I don't know what to do with a lot of the information in my brain at this point. It's he's had so many injuries that we've just seen this before. Yeah.

When we saw it with Blake Griffin a few years ago, it's like you just start counting all the injuries and it's like, oh man, this isn't going to go great. There's been too many now. And I just wonder if he's at that point. And they wouldn't even tell us what the knee injury is now. We don't even know what it is. But he's had problems with both knees and he's gigantic, right? And at some point,

you pass the point of no return, which is why it's so nuts that a, they gave him the extension and B it made a ton of sense why he would have wanted the extension. Cause maybe he knew he wasn't a hundred percent. It's like, fine.

I'll take one more giant, you know, couple extra years. Him wanting the extension makes perfect sense. I just don't understand enough about the dynamics for them to say one word about like what his health situation is or when he's going to come out. I told you they were embarrassed. I really feel like they thought they could kind of slide around this and have nobody notice and be like, do-do-do, rest management, and have...

People go, oh yeah, they're doing risk management and people getting mad at that instead of getting mad at the fact that Embiid is fucking injured. It's so stupid. I hold the brain trust for the Sixers perhaps in too high a regard. That's maybe the thing. Sacramento is down 44 and a half. Actually, that might be where it was. I don't have an opinion on that. San Antonio, who we went under on, is the same at 35 and a half. No. Utah. I still like the under.

which I went under on and you,

I went under. I definitely went under. I think we all may have gone under. That poor kid Hendricks, what happened to his leg? No, you went over. Oh, no. For Utah? 27 and a half. It's now 24 and a half. Shit. That poor kid Hendricks. I hope he gets back. I hope that his leg. That was awful. I've never seen that. I've never seen that injury before the way he did it. Yeah. Yeah. Because it wasn't contact. He didn't come down on somebody's foot. That's what you expect to see in basketball.

It was almost like when you're watching, yeah, when you're watching Instagram reels and somebody's going to get their mail and it's icy out and their leg goes the wrong way. I've never seen just a basketball player. It was just so such a fluke. Yeah. I'm rooting for it. I'm rooting for it. Last but not least, your Washington Wizards over 20 and a half. You know, I'm so pissed.

Here's the thing. This is the team that I thought they might have last season. This is like some professionals mixed with kids. The professionals set sort of the expectation. They lead the kids into the possibility of just compete, just compete. And the number was low last season. They added in the form of – Added adults.

Yeah, Valanchunas, I'm telling you, he was on the floor coaching Bub Carrington and coaching Keontae George. And it was amazing to see he's pushing Saar where he needs to go. Now, Saar and Valanchunas weren't on the floor very much at the same time. But, like, you could see him. It was such a beautiful thing to see. See, the year he retires number.

I'm ready to, I look, if you, when you put him next to the biggie and Bobby Dandridge, he bought all in on, they said, we're going to pay you come, come be this guy for this team. And he bought all in on it. And I just was now I'll tell you, it was very quiet in the stadium and I was sitting, you know, thank, thank big thanks to, uh, our good friends at FanDuel for the seats. Oh, close enough to hear some of the, the actual dialogue. Um,

But man, I was so impressed by that guy. So you're thinking I went under as a lock at 20 and a half. They could win 21 games. They're still going to be one of the three worst teams if they win 21 games. Yeah, but it's irresponsible if they don't trade Valanchunas before the trade deadline because playoff teams actually need that dude. I can think of four teams right now that could use him. You know who could use him? The Pelicans. Holy shit. What is going on? They're probably not allowed to trade for him.

You know, last thing, Celtics Pacers last night, you know, the South say no poor Zingas, like you can get to the rim on them. Right. So they started playing Kata in the second half to try to change some of that. And the Pacers are playing great. Celtics couldn't hit a three. And it just seemed like one of those games where,

And Joe Maz, who I don't think I've done a harder 180 on out of any coach or manager I've ever had. Like, I fucking love Joe Maz. Did you see his thing about Katie Banks and Beck wrote about it today for The Ringer that he thinks they should have basketball fighting? Oh, yeah. I mean, Joe Maz is the best. I agree with him. But Joe Maz was feeling out the game the same way I was watching it, where I was like, I know we're down 18, but I feel like we can come back.

And just kind of stuck with this lineup, stuck with Kata. And the Celts came back. And all of a sudden they had a little, you know, we're the fucking champs. Last three minutes, huge comeback. Tatum hit a big three. Send it to OT. And then the Pacers just made a couple. I mean, it came down to like Siakam at a 29-footer at the top of the key. Yeah. Which I will give him 100 times out of 100. Sure. And he made it. Sometimes you'll lose those. We got a wide open shot from Jalen who sucked the whole night. And he missed it.

But it was weirdly a great loss. It was like a let's defend our turf kind of loss. And the fact that they look this good without Porzingis, I just, I like everything I'm seeing from them. It's really like this team is good.

Like, really, really, really good as a defending champ. The sub story that I like also, though, is the Pacers as a potential thorn in the side for Boston. Because that playoff series was closer than what history is going to show. They were competitive. And their style of offense does give Boston. They're a rare team that can give Boston a little bit of trouble because of how Carlisle schemes up. You know what's interesting about them?

And it's been the whole year. Like they didn't have Mather in the playoffs last year. Mather. And if you watch them knowing nothing, like if you woke up from a coma after five years and you just watched the Pacers game, you would think Mather and was like their alpha. Sure. Sometimes he's like clear out. I'm going to fucking score here. Right. The Pacers are good, man. I good. I think you could make a case. Orlando, Cleveland and the Pacers.

you know, over Milwaukee and Philly. I think I would take all three of those as regular season teams. I don't think there's any question, but it was a really good game. Yeah. They're all going to finish ahead of Philly. I'm super happy with the Celtics season. Then you watch OKC, same thing. Like just, they have depth, they're athletic, they're fucking competitive as hell. Like Chet just loves going against Wemby. That game was awesome. It was awesome.

It was awesome. I love, I love so far what we've seen out of Oklahoma city in terms of a tiny click of maturity. I see a patience in them that I don't know that I saw last year. James is a little bit better. I, he might be. Yeah. Wiggins is a little bit better. And while a second year and then Chet,

you know, he made a little bit of a leap, like not, not quite the same leap that Paolo has been hinting at. I saw some of the bench with Hartenstein talking to Chet. They clearly have a nice rapport. I wonder if those guys in their, you know, training camp before Hartenstein got hurt, like if there's like a mentor thing going on there, because, because Hartenstein, he's a big mother effer, a big physical guy. I wonder if, if he's imparting some stuff to Chet. That's going to be an absolute bitch of a team to play in the playoffs. Yeah.

I think I've seen nothing. We like them as the one seed division champ, best record, like I've seen nothing that makes me think we were off on that. I also like when they do the post games and the whole team is in the post game interview. It's great. It's a little 2001, 2001 passage, but yeah, from everything I've seen, the Celtics and the thunder just seem like they're up here. It's a drop night to night. It could be five, six, seven other, other teams. And that's it. Yeah. Yeah.

All right, house. Great to see you. Thanks for sticking around for the whole pod. Happy Halloween. Shout out to Michael Myers. Shout out to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti for producing. Thanks to Danny Kelly for joining us as well. You can watch clips and videos from this podcast on the Bill Simmons podcast. And we can see you on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. We could see house on Sunday on the ringer Sunday pregame show.

with Raheem and Sal and probably despondent JJ. No, JJ will bounce back. He knew. He knew what was coming. I think he knew when you just can't win the World Series when your team screws up that many little things during the course of a series. That's right. That's it. All right. Good to see you, House. Good times, BS. I don't have feelings with you. I'm a bruised soul.

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