Apex Josh Allen, the Goofy NFC North, Week 2 Picks, and Bill’s Breakup Letter to the Clippers | With Tom Pelissero and Joe House

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We are live on Netflix Thursday night on the tail end of Lions Bills. Tom Palacero is here. He joined the Ringer very recently. He's back in the United States. He launched a new newsletter called The Sweep and you can find him on Ringer NFL Show as well. So Thursday night, impossible schedule spot for the Lions. They're coming off an overtime game against New Orleans. 70 minutes, basically. Then they have to go here. They have to. They have to open the Buffalo Stadium. They have secondary injuries. And everybody who follows shit like this is like, this game's going over. This game's going over. The over's climbing. The over goes low 50s. We're in the mid 50s by the time the game starts. We end up 41-31. I wish it was always this easy with gambling, Tom. I guess would be my starter here. I wish we could just look at these games and go, this is definitely what's going to happen. But what was your big takeaway watching this one tonight? Man, I think I texted you before the game, Bills score 40 plus. It's one of those games. You nailed it. It's one of those games that you just looked at it. They're totally decimated in the secondary. Branch and Joseph are on pop. DJ Reed's banged up. Obviously, Terry on Arnold's long gone. I thought it was going to be DJ Moore running circles around those guys. He gets hurt and they still put up 41 points. Just throw the ball to Dalton Kincaid and run it with James Cook. They look like an absolute force right out of the gate here. I'm going to start with Josh Allen. You might have heard of him. Realize this. I mean, he's, so he had another, I talked about this. I did a mailbag this week. Somebody sent in a question about people who have had two running touchdowns and two throwing touchdowns in the same game. And this tonight was his 10th. And the next guy on the list had like four. So he's like, can we just, yeah. Can we name this after Josh Allen and just call it? Oh, he got a Josh Allen and he's done it in both games. He is the most fantasy points scored in the first two weeks of a season since 2000. He's over 80. Um, he's done it in both games. He's done it in both games. Um, he's halfway to Emmett Smith's career rushing touchdowns record. He's I think at 83 Emmett at 164 is only, only 30 years old. Um, and it looks like he's on a mission. And the thing that might take away watching him Sunday and then today, and I've always felt like I felt like he was the best quarterback in the league. I feel like he's clearly the best player in the league now. And do you think that's like, if there's an argument against that, who is the argument that it's somebody else? Because it just feels like. He's peaking even for him. And I don't know who's in his class anymore. I mean, there's some unique athletes, but nobody plays the game like Josh Allen and nobody does it consistently as productive as Josh Allen. Like, I mean, Lamar's won two MVPs and in those seasons, he's done like totally ridiculous stuff, both running and passing the football. I'm just always struck watching Josh play because there's no other quarterback who you're just that afraid is going to run you over. And also then can pull the ball and throw what he, it was early in the game. And he's scrambling. I think it was on a third down tonight. And he gives like the really hard pump fake while running to his right. And you see the linebackers DBs just stop. And then they're like, oh crap. Now we got to try to chase the guy. We have no prayer. He just, he can hurt you in so many different ways. There's a lot of good quarterbacks right now. But like, if you see Joe Burrow barreling down on you inside the five yard line, like you like your chances. Yeah. Again, it's Joe Burrow. Josh Allen. It's like, do I even bother trying to get in his way? Or should I just become shrapnel here? Yeah. Cause he's the only offensive player who you could say as a one man show. So then if you're comparing the defensive players, Garrett would have been the one people would have compared him to until this year. Like, oh, Garrett's like that on defense. Like you need two guys to block him out of that. But Garrett's hurt right now. He's going to, you know, he might have a bum knee for all we know. So when I look at him compared to all the other guys, we just watch week to week. It just feels like everything is lined up for him. And I was thinking last week, you know, they Houston drops the game winning interception in that game, right? Near the end, second down, he just throws a pick Lassiter drops it next play touchdown. But maybe it's just, that's the kind of stuff that happens when it's your year. You know, you, these things start lining up. Then you catch Detroit in week two coming off an overtime game with the rabbit and you just like these things start adding up and it just. That's how it becomes your year. The schedule is still tough upcoming bills if you look at it, but I was sitting there watching that game and they've scored 77 points through two games. They put 36 on the Texans who, if you polled people about who's the number one defense would have gotten a lot of votes and they were the number one defense last year. First play of the game tonight and the lions again, like, I mean, Kelvin Shepard's in a really tough spot cause he's trying to scheme up. I got no DBS. I've got one pass rusher. Like how in the world am I doing? Yeah. This first play of the game, what do they do? They have the corner blitz, Josh boots right into it. 90% of quarterbacks like that gets batted down. Josh just sits there and like changes his arm angle and throws it underneath them for a quick completion. It's just all the different ways that he can beat you with, with Joe Brady taking over and, and you heard Alan Kirk talking about it on the broadcast extensively tonight. Is it, you know, it's like when Tony Dungy was, you know, building in Tampa and then John Gruden came in and won. Is it just that there was one? I think it's more, I think it's simpler than that. I think it's Joe Brady being an offensive guy. Sean McDermott's a really, really good football coach and he'll be coaching somewhere in 2027, but maybe Joe, just from his standpoint, it feels like their answer to gosh, well, our defense hold up is fuck it. Don't let the defense on the field. We're going to keep throwing it late in the game. We're going to keep scoring points on you. We're going to do whatever it takes just to win this game ourselves, which when you have maybe the best player on the planet. Yeah. That's probably the way you should play. Yeah. They gave up 31 points in 26 first downs last week. This week they gave up 31 points, 24 first downs. Maybe that's just what they're going to be. It's not like Houston is a lights out offense, so they'll just try to outscore everybody. I don't know. I, I think if you're talking about AFC favorites, I need to see a lot more Kansas city and I didn't think my homes played that well last week and I just have questions, but they certainly are a little. A little more interesting than maybe I thought they would be a week ago. Um, Baltimore already has had two pretty major wide receiver injuries. One is going to last longer than the other one, but it was basically the two guys they were counting on to be explosive. I'm not sold on the Bengals yet. The Patriots own one with a suddenly weirdly big game against Pittsburgh this weekend. So you'd probably feel the best about Buffalo in the, if, if you, you know, it's two weeks, but if you were betting on anyone, you'd bet on them. Well, I mean, it's hard. based on what we just saw the past two weeks. I mean, these are two teams that you talk about as, you know, their least playoff contenders, if not Super Bowl contenders. And you put it on them at least offensively. I mean, I give Detroit credit for not just completely folding when they're down three touchdowns right away and the crowd's going nuts. Like, they're a good team and they got Dan Campbell's personality and they're going to fight back and be physical. It was just that three and out they had after they cut it and they got the ball back that took like 12 seconds. It was like, okay, that was your one window to try to get after these guys. To the point about the AFC, I thought going into the season, the AFC was just wide open, more so than it has been in past years, just because you didn't have that one team you're like, they're totally complete, like the Chiefs were, you know, for a good stretch there where they went to three straight Super Bowls. I don't know if what Kansas City did last week is replicable over a 17-game season plus playoffs. Kenneth Walker in his career has never been that high volume of a guy and they didn't pass the ball well. They didn't get the ball to Rasheed Rice. I think Travis Kelsey didn't have it. Travis Kelsey didn't have a target till the second quarter. So we'll see what they end up being. The Bengals got off to a good start, but they weren't perfect in that game. Jamar Chase didn't play well last week. Now they're going down to Houston. Joe Burrow's got a, you know, a little bit of a back issue, but I fully anticipate him playing. I still feel like it's open, but the Bills made a statement two times in five days and they looked virtually unstoppable offensively. Plus 380 on FanDuel. They're the favorite. Baltimore's plus 430. Chiefs plus 650 third. Texans and Bengals nine to one, the Texans to me, seem to be the that's the overreaction in the wrong direction because I feel like they have to be people. People got a little freaked out by Sunday and them giving up all the points they gave up. But it's week one. What the people you talk to in the league, what are they saying about this whole how we don't have a preseason anymore and we're not allowed to hit anymore? And it's just seems like a crapshoot for who's going to have their shit together or not in week one. Tomlin talked about it on the Sunday night halftime. And that was the first time I really started thinking like, yeah, it's impossible to figure out who's going to be ready and who's not like you look, the Chiefs looked like they'd been practicing for three months, Denver and the and the Chargers looked like they had just put on pads for the first time. So what do people in the league say about this? Because it seems like a bigger deal that maybe we realize. Well, like Tom was a great example of it. You can go back through his history and his record. October, through December was way better than it was in September. Belichick, same thing. Mike McCarthy, same thing. It's just been exacerbated by the lack of those preseason reps. And so, yeah, when you talk to coaches and front office people, what everybody says is the first month of the season, you're just trying to figure out who you are. You're trying to figure out what's the identity of the team. I mean, the Texans did it last year, like they went 0-3 and then Tobiko handed over play calling duties to Matt Burke on defense. The offense kind of found their way. And all of a sudden, you know, they made it to the end of the season. And then, you know, they made it to the playoffs. You don't want to live there. Houston losing two games to the Bills and the Bengals, both at home to start the season is not the start you want to get off to when the question is, can you compete with the big dogs? But that's, you know, the good coaches are going to get better. They're going to experiment with different things, try to figure it out. And then, you know, once you get into October, that's when you start to really understand who you are as a football team and you hope you can build on it. Yeah. Buffalo knows who they are as a football team because they have gone. So that's going to, that's what's going to happen. The Rams are still favored in the NFC, which I thought was crazy. Um, McDermott versus Joe Brady. So you, I mean, though people thought McDermott was an above average to good coach. I don't think people would ever have put him in like the top five, but I think most people thought he was good coach. Um, you said he gets hired next year. I believe I watch, I watch what's happening with Buffalo. Now. And I'm like, would this be happening if he was still the coach again? I think it's hard for a change. I think that some, there's something to be said for change for the sake of change. Like the only two positions in the organization you can make like a, a C change or quarterback and head coach. Well, they're not firing Josh Allen. So you fire Sean McDermott and give everybody that vibe. I mean, the story, Terry, so you think it was time for him though? The time, the story, Terry Pagula told after the playoff game in Denver, which ended, you know, the weird catch non-catch and he said that he saw Josh, like with his head in his hands, totally dejected and decided it's time in Terry's mind. That was just, we've gone as far as we can with Sean. We got to do something different. And they, and they ran a real search. I know everybody thinks the fix was in for Joe Brady. Like they, they really did, you know, want to look around, but Joe, Joe's grown a lot. Like I met Joe when he was in Carolina and like, he's, he's matured a lot. He's got a lot of swag to him now that he really didn't have. Um, in those days, Sean, you had a lot of he had made the playoffs since I think 1999 when he takes over in 2017 and immediately gets into the playoffs. Then 2018, they ate all the dead cap and were not good. But then 2019 on, they get the right quarterback in Josh and, and they're rolling. Like he played a big role in that cycle through different offensive coordinators had replaced guys when they left, did a good job of that. I mean, we're in the playoffs, we're in it every year that they didn't deliver at the end, but there's plenty of coaches. Who have had a lot of success in terms of winning games. I mean, Andy Reed, who Sean trained under that, that's a great example of it. Andy was the guy who always got close and never could do it in Philly. And now he's got a, you know, an entire trunk full of rings in Kansas city. Yeah. You have the, your best case scenario is it's the Mark Jackson, Steve Kerr scenario in the, uh, with the warriors in the NBA, where somebody took you as far as they could go. And then here comes the next guy to push over the top. The biggest thing I've noticed with them other than, um, it just feels like sometimes you just feel it. When somebody is going to have the best year of their career. And it just feels like this is lining up for Josh, but this Deani Walker, you know, I was looking when I, when I do my prep and I ranked the rosters and the players and I have this whole dumb system. And one of the things that was holding me back with the bills was, I don't know if they have any blue chippers on, on defense. I don't know if they have a difference maker, but Walker has really stood out in these games and maybe that's who that's going to be. I don't know. What's he listed at like six, seven, three, six, seven, three 60 or something. I he's like a small forward, like a thick, small forward. When I was doing sideline for the senior bowl, he was in it a couple of years ago and it was like a site gag where the producers were in my ear going, Hey, stand behind Deani Walker. We just want to get the shot. And all you could see in the background was like the shot on me. And then like back here, you saw like the middle of the numbers on his Jersey were behind my head. Like they played with that without Ed Oliver. He hurt his hip and pregame warmups tonight. So Walker probably played more also in part because of that. Um, you know, so they, that's one of their best players, which probably helps explain some of the issues they had when Gibbs was running between the tackles. But yeah, I mean, they, they do have dudes on defense. They just, you know, they're still an offensive football teams where a lot of their resources went in the off season, other than bringing in Bradley Chubb, who was a difference maker again tonight. Um, we'll see if they achieve a little bit more balance because you don't want to live in a world where you're, you know, knowing you get, you're going to give up 30 plus every week, but they've done it twice so far. And Kincaid so far has been a good one too. So a couple of Detroit storylines Gibbs 34 touches last week. He had 20, I think 21, unless he had a couple more since I looked at this tonight. I mean, look at this really quick to make sure I got it right. 16, 22. So in the span of five days, he had 56 touches so he's on pace for, I don't know, four 50, whatever, whatever. Like I just don't see him holding up. And I thought, especially when they went down 21, nothing today, I, I kind of would have been like, I think we're good with Gibbs. Maybe let's, let's, uh, let's, let's check out the backups. Can you name, can you name the backup running back on the lines? It's Pacheco. Who's total over two games. I would, I don't know this for sure, but I would give you an educated guest bill that by the time the lions are back on the practice field Monday, they'll have another veteran back on the roster that they had Kareem hunt in for a visit recently. Who's available. John Dorsey who drafted him in Kansas city is now in Detroit. That would be a logical guy that would fit in. There's, there's some other veteran running backs out there. I, I would be willing to bet you they, they know as well as anybody. That's not sustainable. I mean, 17 game season average 30 touches a game that that's hard to do, which is also why, like I said, Kenneth Walker, I don't know that you want to do that, especially early in the season at quite that clip. I'm positive. You don't, I looked up his first four years. I don't think he'd ever had no more than like 255 touches, something like that. The other, the other storyline, I have some lions fans in my life where they, the Ben Johnson keeping Dan Campbell and Ben Johnson, leaving, which by the way, what are they going to do? Fire Dan Campbell after they went like 14 and three to give like this, nobody would ever do that in a million years. So it's a, it's fundamentally a stupid argument, but I do think there's a real shadow with Ben Johnson where you have, you had this guy who's like clearly like a really special, special, special coach, you know, and offensively it's just completely different. And, you know, I think the lions fans that I know are like, we're going to end up like, we'll fire Campbell in a year from now. And Ben Johnson's basically going to be the new McVay. And we just got stuck with the wrong guy. I don't know if that's fair, but have you, have you heard that in the circles at all? Like, ah, they, they backed the wrong dude here. Well, not back the wrong dude, because Dan Campbell has a lot of respect within the league and everybody knows, you know, the, the Ford family loves Dan Campbell. Remember Sheila came out midway through his second year during the buy when they were like four and two, 25 or something at that point was like, Dan's our guy. Like, we're not backing off this. Just, just put it all to bed. Dan's our guy. Like she, she believed in the culture so much and it proved to be correct with Ben. I can tell you, they would have much rather he not be in the division. Right. That would have been nice if he had just left, but the bears job was the one job that he wanted. So listen, they've got a capable offensive coordinator there and drew Petsing. And this is Dan Campbell's offense. Ben is the play caller. Ben did a lot of the design. And in terms of like all those little things, like he was a driving force because you see him doing it in Chicago, but it's still at its core. It's the offense that Dan, along with Ben put in when they relieved Anthony Lynn of his play calling duties back in Dan's first year. So like the bones of it hasn't changed. Yeah. There's probably some, some rhythm that goes into it that you need to find. If Jameson Williams didn't have a good game in week one, that doesn't help you. Again, you're relying a ton on Gibbs. You're relying on Laporta. You're relying on Amon Ross, St. Brown. - Important to stay healthy. - And the offensive line, by the way, lest we forget was down two starters tonight and it looked like it for the whole first half yeah i mean there's there's always going to be a piece of that there's no doubt about it and if ben johnson wins the super bowl before dan campbell does you're gonna have you know those questions but there was never a thought i guarantee you that of like what if we just hold on to ben they felt fortunate to ben two years in a row before that turned down head coaching jobs to come back like they had what was the one he turned down the year before was it washington he turned down carolina two years before he went to chicago they had the plane essentially yeah i i mean this metaphorically but i think it's literally true they had the plane waiting for him and he didn't get on the plane the year after the commander's people were flying into detroit yeah and he was trying frankly to call them and text them while they're on the plane to say don't come they're already up there they don't have starlink or whatever and so they land and it's like he's not coming so yeah he had two different times he was on the plane and he was on the plane and he was on Yeah, he had two different jobs, went back to Detroit twice, took the swing. They got knocked out in the playoffs in that last year. And he was on to Chicago within two days. These NFC North defenses. So we have Detroit, which looks like they're going to be in trouble for at least until their two D-backs come back. We have Chicago. They gave up 37 points last week to Bryce Young, and it actually probably could have been worse. And then you have Green Bay, who got lit up by Carson Wentz and themselves on Sunday. I don't know what to make of them. Who knows what they're going to do with the Jets. And then you have Minnesota, who's just going to blitz the living hell out of everybody. And some teams will be able to handle it. Some teams won't. I can't tell who the best NFC North team is, is my point. My instinct is maybe Chicago's offense is better than anybody else. Is anything in that division. But for the most part, like, could nine and eight win the NFC North? I don't think so. Ten and seven. Like, what's the floor for first place wins in this division? They're going to beat each other up. There's no doubt about it. But, you know, the Vikings have a case. I mean, the best, most intriguing matchup in terms of X's nose this week is Ben Johnson versus Brian Flores at Soldier Field. Like, that's fun. Like, does Flo keep just blitzing the hell out of him? Does he all of a sudden just play coverage? For the day? And, you know, what's the back and forth like there? Green Bay is waiting for Micah Parsons to get back. If you go back to, like, this string of everyone keeps saying the string of losses, it's literally since the game where Micah tore his ACL in Denver. And ever since then, like, they have leads in all these games and they can't close it because they don't have the guy to get after the passer. Plus, they traded Rashawn Gary in the offseason, too. And the Jacobs thing is no small thing either, because I just don't think their running backs are good right now. You know, I don't think they're gonna be able to run the ball with what they have. Fourth and one. They won last week in Minnesota. I know everybody, you know, breaking down the floor, pulling the field goal off the off the board and going for it on fourth and one. Mathematically, correct decision to make based on all the game management people I talked to this week. But also, if you have Josh Jacobs, it's probably a run to Josh Jacobs and not Jordan Love trying to move the pile. Like, they got Chris Brooks and Marshawn Lloyd and Caleb Johnson as a committee behind an offensive line that never practiced together in camp because everybody was hurt. They've got their challenges. I don't know that there's a. A clear favorite. I guess you'd say the Bears, until proven otherwise. But they also, you know, while scoring 59 points, they also made Bryce Young look like he might be headed to Canton in that game last week, too. And Jalen Coker. Well, the Lions were better favorites. Now in Fando, they're basically the Bears and Lions are pretty even. And who knows with the Bears? All right. Couple. Put your reporter hat on. Let's do it. Anyone on the hot seat yet? I know it's not even week two. Is the seat warming up for anybody? Are we feeling it yet? Not yet. But I would say this. I've had this conversation a bunch today. When teams fall to 0-2, that's when panic mode takes over. At that point, just within the building, it starts to be, we're either screwed or like, we got to trade for a guy and like shake things up. That's when you start to really feel it. I think that some of the, you know, some of the coaches. that probably came into this year feeling like they had a lot on the line, got wins, you know, in week one. You saw, I mean, the Jets came out and got a win. Let's see what happens when the Packers go out there this week. It's a big week. They haven't started 2-0 in forever in New York. You know, I thought the most disappointing game last week, the most disappointing team was the Chargers. And I'm not saying. By far. I'm not saying Jim Harbaugh is on the hot seat, but. Why not? I've made this point before. You don't pay a guy that much money and bring him in with that much fanfare to expect, to go one and done in the playoffs every year. Like, you're bringing him in because you think you're winning a Super Bowl. They just look flat against a Cardinals team that if you. I think we talked about this, Bill. The first appearance, it's like, name the teams that might have the number one pick. Like, the Cardinals are on the short list of, like, five teams. They came out last week and looked totally competent on both sides of the football, and the Chargers just looked dead. That's what I'm watching, not because I think Jim Harbaugh gets fired, but more so, like, we all want to believe Mike McDaniel and, like, you know, the unique personality, and he's a genius, and he is. And Jim, but, like, those two, in terms of how they see football, much less their personalities, like, they don't exactly mesh on paper. So, let's see what they do this week. You know, what is it actually going to look like? Is it going to be Mike McDaniel's offense? Is it going to be elements of Jim's offense? And, oh, yeah, they're probably doing it without Lab McConkie, too. House and I talk about that game because they're playing the Raiders, right? And it's in LA. Seems like a good spot to get back, and maybe they blow out the Raiders. We're like, ah, the Chargers are fine. I watched, there was only four games on the late window, and so I really was carefully watching everything. It wasn't just that they look flat. I thought they looked legitimately slow. I didn't feel like they were that athletic. And I don't, maybe they were so flat it made them look slow, but I just thought they didn't have speed on defense at all. The middle of their line, the two tackles are great. The middle of the line, it was just collapsing. Herbert was a mess. He lost McConkie in the game because he threw him a hospital ball. And, you know, I watched that game thinking, like, I think Arizona is, like, right there. I think they have more talent. Arizona had, like, six long drives on them. It wasn't like, you know, like when they, what was the game when the Steelers beat the Pats last year and the Pats had, like, five turnovers. It was like your classic stupid September game. This was like Arizona kind of kicked the Chargers' ass. And the stuff Harbaugh said after the game about, like, ah, maybe, we should have taken preseason more seriously. And I thought it was alarming. That was the team I had in the playoffs. And that would be my one do-over from what I saw in week one. I don't think that's a playoff team. There's this strange thing happening, too, with the Chargers. And it's gone on the entire time Jim Harbaugh has been there, but, like, accelerated with the whole Justin Herbert will go down as the greatest quarterback to ever play the game quote. Yeah. Jim has brought in, in part, to turn Justin Herbert into that player. And yet, here we are. Justin Herbert's a really, really good football player. But you're entering year seven, I believe, for Herbert. You have no playoff wins. They just looked not good around him. It wasn't all Herbert, but, like, the whole offense just looked bad in that game. And I don't know Jim's a unique guy. Like, I don't know if there's a strategy behind that to try to, like, pull it out of Herbert or why you keep making those remarks. But, like, and I'm sure he didn't expect to get the crap kicked out of him by Arizona in week one. But just to, like, set that as, like, the baseline. This guy's the greatest ever. And then you watch the game, and it's like, the Cardinals are beating the shit out of him. Yeah, it's absurd. He also was absurd with J.J. McCarthy. There's stuff he said about him as well. It's like he wants to praise you to build you up, but it ends up, you know, being stupid. I did a thing on my pod this week about Justin Herbert used to be the nerd king. All the football nerds loved Justin Herbert, and they would defend him. He's better than you realize. And now that's kind of drifted to, like, Jordan Love and Herbert. You know, it's not year three. It's not year four. Like, I think by year seven, you kind of are who you are as a quarterback with really rare exceptions. So I don't, that Raiders game, if they lose that game, I think that's hot seat time. You got to look at this and go, what's going on? You guys haven't had a real impact. You haven't had a playoff win. You paid Harbaugh all this money. Like, what are we doing? And my concern is, McConkie's out, and I expect him to be out for the game. Who are you moving around? Like, Mike McDaniels' offense is, you know, I know he got away from the motions a little bit as last year in Miami. But, like, it's all about creating these mismatches around the field. Like, they have Quentin Johnston. But Quentin Johnston's a vertical, you know, stretch receiver. He's not bouncing around all these different spots. Like, Ladd is, to me, that's the main chess piece. That's the guy who moves the entire board. You know, with him not out there, it just, it puts so much more pressure on you to just kind of win one-on-one at different spots. I'll be interesting. I'll be interested to see how Mike approaches this game and what he tries to throw at the Raiders. But, you know, the Raiders, Bowers still hasn't practiced. Seems unlikely that he plays this week. But, like, they found ways to function last week. Jenty got himself going. And he was good. I think they got a chance to score some points in this game if the Chargers' offense doesn't show up. And you know it's a Raiders' home game, by the way, in that building. Like, the Raiders' fans come out for it. This is not like a gimme right now in my mind. I think it's a pretty big game. Yeah. I think it was over seven and it's dropped and it's charger's by six and a half, but I think it's going to keep dropping because the tough thing with the Raiders is they put Miami who might go on 17. Like we, we know they're bad. We're kind of going to know after the San Francisco game this week, how bad they are. So it's tough to kind of know what's happened with the Raiders. Tell me what's going on with the Minnesota QB situation. So Kyler's in the, in the concussion protocol, but he's progressed, been progressing through it this week. They've not ruled him out. I don't think he plays on Sunday for a variety of different reasons, but he may be cleared in time to play in that game. You know, with Carson Wentz, he steps in Wentz at this stage in his career. I think there are times where he's at his best when there's no pressure on him, come off the bench. He had no reps in practice, just like go out there and play. Don't even think about it. It's like an amnesia game. You just kind of come in. Don't know what happened through three touchdowns. No picks in that game. And he was kind of awesome. He really was. He took some big hits too. I mean, it was, you know, he's, he's not moving around like he used to, but it was shades of 27, 2017 Carson Wentz would just in terms of how he distributed the football. So, you know, if Wentz goes in this week, I don't think this is at all a situation where, Hey, if Wentz plays well again, then Kyler, you're going to the bench and Wentz is staying in like Wentz gets hurt every year, quite frankly, like you hope he doesn't, but that's just his track record is he's going to get banged up. Kyler. Also gets hurt a lot. JJ has not been able to stay on the field. Like that's why they got three of these guys was Kevin O'Connell's going. I've used three or four quarterbacks in two of my four seasons. I better have three guys who can play sort of be Wentz is the one JJ backing him up. And I anticipate if Kyler doesn't play, which again, I can't a hundred percent rule out Kyler playing this week against the bears based on where he is in the protocol. But I fully anticipate he's back in the lineup, probably week three, regardless how Wentz does this week. What are you hearing about? Really? In terms of just the way that they're playing. I mean, it was, it was kind of an ugly win against the commanders. They did enough. I thought Hertz looked more comfortable than I expected running that offense that he really hadn't been exposed to before. Um, you know, that division man, like I know everybody wanted to talk about Dallas going into the season and they may well week one might be the outlier. I think there'll be better on defense. They had more blown coverages and missed assignments and stuff. Yeah. Like I never bought, like they're, they're a Superbowl favorite right now. Like their step is just get in the playoffs. So this, you know, this to me sets up as like another perfect season where everyone bitches about the Eagles the entire season. And then we get to the end and they're 11 and six and they're playing in the playoffs. Like, I don't know if the giants came out, like they looked better. John Arbaugh is a good coach. We'll see commanders like Jaden looked good. That was one takeaway I had was like, he actually is moving like himself. Yeah. Like it looks more like it, but I, I still like the Eagles are still the team to beat. They're just based on the market they play in and all the stuff that comes with the Eagles. You know, they're the team that we're going to complain about no matter how many games they're winning because of the fashion in which they win them. I said on, on the Sunday night pod, I was saying every game they play, both fan bases are bummed out at the end of the game. It doesn't matter who they're playing. Both sides are like, man, that sucked. What's wrong with us. And it's always disjointed and you, you just never feel great. Um, the Bob, Kraft stuff. Were you following that this week? I was. What is the NFL's role when they have owners involved in stuff? That's not football, but are they just hands off with that? What do they do? They give them counsel or they just hope it goes away. I mean, they're always available to give counsel, but I mean, the owners run the league, you know, the 32 owners are really Roger Goodell's boss in a lot of ways. I mean, Kraft just is the chair of the compensation committee that just awarded him a new contract. So, when it comes to what's happening in your building, there's very few occasions where they start to coordinate, you know, the, the social justice protests were a time where they kind of got together. Like, how do we handle this? And if you remember, every team did it differently. I mean, he had Dan Snyder out there locking arms with his players on the field, like images that make no sense in any context other than it was 2020 and shit got weird. But like things like this, no, I mean, Robert's his, his work for, you know, a variety of different, uh, foundations and whatnot, his work in Israel is pretty well documented. This is an odd situation. I saw Ed Sheeran, by the way, like three weeks ago, had no idea I was seeing him before he became a, uh, a sociopolitical lightning rod, the volleyball, the most inoffensive music and inoffensive guy you can possibly think of. Now, suddenly he's thrust into the limelight. No, it's like Michael Buble being involved. It's not a, uh, yeah, it's not a, not a league issue. Um, you know, in terms of anything that, that I've heard, though, obviously, you know, you got people playing stadiums and things happen. It's going to impact more than one owner. What do you think is the biggest league issue right now that they're kind of hoping doesn't become bigger? Do we have one or is it just smooth sailing this year? I'd say it's a quiet time for the NFL in advance of a really wild time. The NFL, based on everyone's expectations is going to opt out of their TV deals in 2029. That's three years away. Like it's coming up. They're trying to open some of them early. And, and do new deals, but like, that's the prelude, those TV deals that are the prelude to the CBA being up in 31. There's a new executive director in, in JC Treader, who's just taking over. They worked out a deal on the fines thing. If you saw that where, you know, players now like the way the fines work and suspensions, basically three strikes and you're out on certain types of fouls. Like they worked that out, which is a good sign that like the sides can actually work together. There's not like, yeah, there's not that overarching thing. You get three guys in the exempt list, you know, that's never, that's never, that's never going to happen. It's never ideal, but that's, you know, that'll play itself out. It's not totally uncommon. Business is good, man. The, the salary cap is over $300 million. It's gone up. It's like tripled in a decade. Like that's crazy, but it's because the revenue sharing agreement and they're making money hand over fist. Like it's a great time to be the NFL, but just with the, the changing media landscape and the, so there's a, something's coming, but we're not, we're not near yet. I mean, the big thing is the young quarterback stars that they've been able to regenerate. They almost have these two separate age groups of like the mid twenties to 30, but then like the Caleb Drake, you know, that, that territory of Mendoza come in, they just, this is a league that's always as interesting as all the quarterbacks they have. And it feels like there's just a lot of interesting quarterbacks right now. Everybody complains about officiating, but like we're a week in a game in, and we have basically no officiating controversies. Uh, they, you know, staved out a new replacement. Don't tell the green Bay fans that, I mean, or, or the saints fans after the play with, uh, with golf last week, but like, you don't have like the, you know what I mean? Like the off the charts, wild thing. Like it's business is good right now. You know, it's a wild card right now. I think there's so much money out there that wants to buy sports teams that I wonder if there's some Godfather offers coming for some of these NFL teams, because it's, yeah, we really haven't had that much turnover with the NFL. What do we have? Like basically like maybe a new team, new owner every 18 months. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. But there's some, there's some pretty big franchises like Liverpool just went and soccer, right? The Celtics and the Lakers just sold a basketball. Um, I do wonder if there's a couple of the, the big ones, like the bears, could the bears be available? Could the, could the jets be available? You know, like some, some pretty big cities with big football teams. The, the question would be the, the big money would come in if some of the family owned teams begin to sell. And I know there's been a lot of speculation about the bears. Cause you got all these various McCaskey family members with different interests and how they're trying to get a stadium built, whether that's in Indiana, potentially in Arlington Heights, but they've, they've said repeatedly, they're not selling the team. If those types of teams, there's really two classes of owners. You can say three, you got the, the really rich guys who bought the teams for not that much, the Jerry Jones, Robert crafts of the world. You've got the new money type of owners, like Shad Khan. When he came in, um, the, the costalers who just bought the Seahawks for over 9 billion dollars, like that's kind of the new money. And then you've got these ones that are still what I'd call the, the commercial flight teams. They're the ones who like, they don't have it yet. They don't have the crazy practice facilities. They're still running their organization kind of the way that they always have, right? The Bengals still, they, they built a bubble. Finally it's down the street and you gotta walk outside and the rain to get to it. But they do finally have a practice bubble. They don't have to go to the Cincinnati gym anymore, but like they're an organization they've, they started selling their naming rights to the stadium. They've changed their guarantee structure to get some of their big contracts done. They traded the number 10 pick for Dexter Lawrence, even they're like evolving. But if those teams ever start to sell, if the money gets so crazy that those teams sell the, the whole reason is inventory. Like that's, that's the biggest reason you don't have turnovers because nobody ever goes up for sale unless you get run off like Dan Snyder, or it's in a trust like Jody Allen after Paul Allen died that the Seahawks had to be sold at some point. You don't have like the, Hey, this team that's been in business with one family for 50 years or a hundred years now gets sold. That stuff hasn't happened. If we ever get to that point and you're seeing chunks of it sold to private companies already, if you start to see some of those teams tap out, that's where the real money comes in because like the average network. of the owners will skyrocket at that point with the new media deal coming to anything else, anything else from your notebook, you have your big, uh, the newsletter coming this weekend, but any, any, any last tidbits before we go here? I do have, I've got some good stuff coming, uh, in the notebook. Uh, I mean, we're, we're live. What are we midnight on Netflix? I'll, I'll share a little bit. I got working on some things with the, uh, the Deshaun Watson trade from four years ago. It's Watson and the Browns against Baker Mayfield and the bucks for the first time since the trade, the first time they have faced each other. And so I've been doing a lot of digging around how exactly that entire thing went down the trade that also triggered Baker being traded. It is it's still, and everybody's said everything. I don't even need to talk about, you know, the trade and how, what it's done to the Browns, but like all the various stakeholders and the butterfly effect are bananas. And so I'm hoping there's no word count on sub stack. So I'm just going to do the whole thing and lay it out and it, it should be pretty interesting. Oh my God. I can't wait. So when's that Saturday morning, Saturday morning, it should be out file tomorrow night. And, uh, yeah, get up, read it with your coffee on Saturday. It's going to be wild. All right. And you're going to be on ringer NFL tomorrow, ringer NFL, uh, taping tomorrow as well. And then I think we're doing a, a chat Sunday pregame on a sub stack as well. So for the paid subscribers to the new news, we're going to be doing a chat Sunday pregame on a sub stack as well. So for the newsletter, appreciate everybody who has, uh, jumped on board that already come in, ask me all your questions. Uh, know that I suck at fantasy football, but other than that, happy to help on anything I possibly can. The sweep. Um, all right, we're going to take a break, bring in, uh, Joe house and do a little ringer one Oh seven and some gambling talk. Tom Palacero pleasure as always. Good to see you. Thanks Bill. You too. The bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by fan duel. You know how NFL Sundays work. We have the early slate and you jump into the late slate and then Sunday night football is the cherry on the Sunday. Fando has something for you every step of the way with the Sunday spectacular. We're talking rewards throughout the day from the first games kicking off all the way through Sunday night. You can hear four of my picks that I did with Joe house on, uh, on my Thursday podcast. Um, check out our teasers by the way, cause we have a nice little special teaser section for ringer one Oh seven. And you can jump on those for minus one 10 will be the final two $50 bets wherever the NFL Sunday takes you. Keep an eye on the fan to app to see what's waiting for you. It's a full day of football, more ways to get rewarded along the way. Download the app to check out the Sunday spectacular. Make this your most rewarding season ever. The Fando 21 plus select States are 18 plus DC, Kentucky, Wyoming restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fando.com game problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by Fando.com. You can find us on Facebook to you by State Farm. Joe House is here, my friend, since 1988. We thought we were going to do really well last week with all of our picks and stuff. And then a couple of teams had some other ideas. We'll get to them later. I wanted to do some mailbag stuff with you. I wanted to go through the week two slate. I wanted to ask you this because I turned on ESPN today to put on NFL Live, but NBA Today was on. And they were showing Kawhi Leonard. They were showing footage of him in Toronto, like greeting the coach and looking at his locker and just being really happy to be home. And I'm a Celtic fan. I'm not a Clipper fan, but I do know a bunch of Clipper fans. And I don't remember another situation where somebody has left this much wreckage behind. And then it's like, it's great to be here in Toronto. I just think it's so weird. And I don't feel like it's been covered the way maybe it should be covered. What are your thoughts having no dog in this race at all? It is incredibly weird. The one thing that pops immediately to mind is let's find on the schedule when Toronto is supposed to arrive at the Clippers. And let's see if we can get a line on whether or not Kawhi actually plays in that basketball game. He's skipping that one. There is no chance in the history of load management. That is an absolute lock of the century. Kawhi Leonard won't play in that basketball game. I was thinking how funny it would be if he did come back and play and they do the tribute video. And the tribute video is just him in street clothes and all these different outfits. And it's like, two and a half minutes of just him on the bench applauding teammates, him and Mike wearing sweatpants and a hoodie. The internet is better than that. The internet will be giant envelopes. It'll be Daktronics logos. It'll be a spy. It'll be trees with Uncle Dennis, you know, money trees with Uncle Dennis as the trees grow up. I mean, let the internet just cook with a tribute video. He had some quote where he was like, my kid has been asking me, When we get to go back to Toronto, now we're here. I never heard him mention Toronto for six years. This whole thing is just nuts. It's a farce. I mean, I'm very torn because we, the North, they deserve the positive momentum that they built last season. They deserve to build on that. And it is this unrequited love that they had for Kawhi because he delivered that championship to them. This is the culmination of that. But he's coming in so filthy dirty. Who's dirtier than Kawhi? How can you feel good about this? He needs like a soap one shower, like the Meryl Streep shower where they had to get the toxic reactor off her. That's how dirty he is. I really don't think that I should go in this direction. But when we were younger. Whatever you're going to say now, I'm nervous. You know, there were situations. I'm not saying that I was. I don't even know. I don't even know where you're going with this. Yeah, I should probably stop. That's good. Let the listeners wonder where you're going. I liked women with mixed backgrounds. I'll just leave it at that. And I'm talking about, you know, their judgment, you know, the circumstances under which. I didn't mind that. I liked women that were a little bit on the wild side. I sent a long email to the Clippers on Wednesday asking them to release us from our season tickets. Why not? Seems appropriate. Can I read the letter to you? I would love it. Let's hear it. Did you really do this? I did. Two days ago. Oh, this is incredible. This is Bill Simmons. I am emailing you along with my friend, Mike Tolan. I first bought a pair of season tickets for the 2004-05 Clippers season. Almost gave them up in 2010 because the team sucked to the point that it wasn't remotely fun to go unless you enjoyed the sounds of dead silence or fans yelling at their own players and coaches. The Lakers had just won back-to-back titles and the Clippers had just drafted Blake Griffin who proceeded to immediately tear his patella and miss his first season because that's what always happened with Clippers. I wanted out. Mike convinced me to keep the tickets and we've been sharing the tickets ever since. It's been mostly a waste of time and money with very few fond memories. But we both loved the NBA and kept talking ourselves into renewing every year. Mike's a 76ers fan. I'm a Celtic fan. We really kept the tickets to see the other 2019 teams while always hoping the Clippers would be confident enough to give us playoff games. Even in the 2020s, after the Clippers traded a future MVP and almost a decade of first-round picks for a monosyllabic grifter who barely played and eventually torpedoed their future, we kept renewing. Obviously because we were stupid. When the Clippers moved to the Intuit Dome two years ago, our ticket reps talked us into a five-year commitment for our season tickets. We were offered 20% off for the five-year commitment. And regretfully, we decided to take the plunge. In retrospect, I'm surprised they didn't offer us some complimentary aspiration stock. And yeah, we agreed well before we learned that the Clippers had been flagrantly breaking the rules with their star player and his rule-breaking uncle. We had no idea the Clippers were about to be handed the NBA version of a death penalty. Last season, our connections within the organization kept assuring us that Pablo's reporting was bullshit and nothing bad would happen to the Clippers. Sure. Now we're looking at three more years of a non-playoff team with the bleakest future in the NBA. Not just that, but a six-row mid-court view of the single dumbest franchise in the history of the league. Anyway, we want no part of our season tickets. We're officially requesting to A, be let out of the last three years of our commitment and B, refunded whatever installments we've already paid for year three, if any. When we agreed to a half-decade of non-inexpensive season tickets, we were under the impression that the franchise would have a realistic chance to compete and that the team wasn't flagrantly breaking rules to the degree that it would soon receive the biggest punishment in the 80-year history of the league. The Clippers broke their contracts with fans and season ticket holders, so we would like to break ours. We want out of our tickets and we expect you to let us out. We didn't sign up for this. Thanks in advance. Bill Simmons and Mike Tolan. Incredible. Standing ovation. I'm sitting, but. Thank you. I think it was the first time this thing I've written in five years. What a performance. You were clearly motivated. No response yet from the Clippers. You didn't even have to go to legal AI to do it. You just wrote it. It just came right out of your heart. Came right out of my fingers. Yeah. I will say this. Yeah. There really is genuine legal ramifications to this situation, especially for people in your predicament, you and Tolan. I think there's a good- Like doing a multi-year contract under a certain set of assumptions that was immediately broken. There are a bunch of legal theories, fraudulent inducement, where you are induced based on a certain understanding of how competitive the team might be, and instead it was an abject fraud because they were routinely breaking the rules during the entire tenure of Kawhi Leonard, and they were warned not to do so by the league when they broke the same rules with DeAndre Jordan. Right. So I don't know. You might hear from some lawyers. You might, you know, you might want to- Get your, you're going to have some incoming emails, some incoming calls. I wouldn't be surprised if there's already something under a foot in terms of class action. I'm sure we're not the only ones. Right. Look, I don't know. I certainly wouldn't expect anyone to feel bad for us. Doesn't really matter, ultimately. I just don't want to go to the games, and I don't want to go to Clipper games anymore, and I don't think we should have to. So anyway. I'm bummed. I want to see that stadium at some point when I come out. I still, it's still desirable to try. They're going to need to fumigate the Kauai aspiration stink out of it. It's going to be like when you have like a flood in the basement and you get that like musty smell. You have to- This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. It's football season. Uber Eats is delivering deals every game day. This week, get 10 free boneless wings from Wingstop on qualifying orders. Game on. Flavor on. Wingstop is here. So if your fantasy league is coming over for some in-person smack talk, order Wingstop on Uber Eats and get 10 boneless wings free. It's the perfect way to keep everyone fed tonight so you can focus on the game. No matter who scores big tonight, you'll score a great deal. Order now and get 10 boneless wings free from Wingstop only on Uber Eats. Offer valid from September 14th to September 27th and from November 2nd to November 16th. Order minimum before taxes and fees is required. See retailer storefront for details. Taxes, fees, and terms apply. Product availability varies by region. Exclusions may apply. See app for details. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. We've seen some legendary athletes don the number four jersey. Now, I can't name names, but you guys know who I'm talking about. In fact, if you look at my studio, there's a framed picture of one of my favorite number fours. He played hockey. Anyway, you know what else is game-changing for? PayPal pay in four. No fees, no interest, no impact on your credit score. Just a plus. Flexibility. Pay the way that works for you. And it's available at millions of online stores. Pay in four with PayPal. Subject to approval. Learn more at paypal.com slash pay in four. PayPal Inc. NMLS 910-457. Do whatever. All right. Some mailbag emails. Taylor from Denver. He talked about how I always have the year from hell to him, right? He wants to know why. Why it's not New England this year. He gave some ingredients, including lost the Super Bowl to Seattle, then had to play them again in week one, lost again. AJ Brown out for six weeks. Drake May is regressing, he says. Your coach was mired in an affair that was made public. And your owner is kicking Matt Glamour off the Ed Sheeran tour. Ladies and gentlemen, your 2026 year from hell team, the New England Patriots. I mean, it is adding up a little bit. They are on one. What happens if they lose to Pittsburgh the year from hell thing? On top of all the shit that happened this week, I wonder, who are the other candidates? The Rams? The Chargers are certainly a candidate. I mean, they might just suck. I don't even know if that's a year from hell thing. Like, it's not like anything's happened to them. They just might not be good at football. Okay. Like the Rams traded for Miles Garrett. They traded three first round picks and Jared Burse, and he has a bum knee, apparently. So they're right. Yeah, they're in the mix. I don't really know who else would be in there. Miami's deliberately. Yeah, everyone else is deliberately doing it. So they're not. Yeah, I'm worried doing it. It's not on purpose for them. San Francisco is always a candidate because they seem to have terrible stuff left, right? Griffin H said Gronk went on Kay Adams today and revealed that no one contacted him about Romeo Dobbs wearing 87 this year. Is this a big deal or a nothing burger? Do you think if Travis Kelsey retired, they would have let anyone wear his number a couple years later? So I got to be honest, I watched that whole Pat Seattle game. I'm always bad with Jersey numbers, but for some reason, it never dawned on me that he was wearing Gronk's number. So I'm belatedly outraged about this. I think this is an outrage. This is the best tight end of all time. Why is anyone wearing his number? It's an outrage because it's a desecration. I mean, Romeo Dobbs should just be shitting inside that Jersey the way he did with his play. You know, that's the problem with it. It's not that somebody is wearing the number. It's that it's dishonorable. It's a dishonorable. Yeah, that makes it worse. It's like, it's like when we started giving like Fred Lynn's number away in the, I don't know, the nineties and it was always to like players that had no business, not that they were going to retire Fred Lynn's number, but it was a little sacred for the kids of the seventies and early eighties. Um, I don't know. Uh, I don't think they should have given him 87 and I don't think anyone should wear that. And I think he's the, you know, I think he was the second best player of the entire Belichick Brady dynasty. Other than Brady, they could have at least given him a little heads up. Let him say his piece, right? Typical. Couldn't have done that. The franchise, not a good month for Bob craft. I'll tell you that much. Um, Noah M asks the mini cast seems to be bombing 700,000 viewers in week one. This was a story this week, but I was not one of them, but I still feel like there's something there. Is it fixable? Is it a Monday night problem or a Manning problem? What would the sports are do? Well, there's two issues here. One. As they went Nate splurge for Joe Buck and Trey Aikman. I just feel like if you pulled, I don't know, a hundred actual football fans and you're like, how would you like to watch this game? I like Buck and Aikman. I want to watch it with those guys. That's it's probably my favorite announcing crew. So why would I then want to watch the many casts, which by the way, I should mention, I bet on, and I think, I think the Manning cast is good. I just don't understand why, why you would. You and I wouldn't watch Buck and Aikman. Yeah, I I'm already there. I don't have any interest in, uh, Manning cast. I liked it when it arrived. It was a good curiosity. Um, the most predictable thing ever. They, they, they drove it into the ground. They overdid it. It should have been a special thing. Three times a year would have been incredible. That would have been fine. Yes. Yes. And their guests are, are always very good. I always enjoy the guests. It's always a little awkward because the connections know they're not in real time. So you don't, you're, they're not reading each other's body language. Is they have to wait up a pause? Um, but yeah, the, the, the ultimate point is the one you just made those Monday night football games have been on balance bangers, and we just want to hear the best guys, you know, handle the game. Yeah. Even if, if Troy is talking about, you know, what was this phrase? Uh, you know, one of the, one of the, the best guys in all of football. Oh, they're all football coaches. All of football. See, I don't, I don't think Manny cash should have guests, even though it's interesting to have the guests. Hmm. I think it, the way to stand out would be just those two guys chopping it up for three hours. Maybe they feel like they're in different places. So maybe they feel like they can't do that. You're bringing the guests in now. It's like the feed isn't, it's like delayed and I don't know. I'm going to be a dick. I, I, unless Eli has the green light to just let his F flag fly, we'll just go full freak and he's clearly got that in him. Um, he, he gets dull. Eli's dull unless he's letting this drink that I'm into that. Sign me up for that. Yes. Whatever it is. We're in, he's in the mode where he's doing double middle fingers that I'm in. Okay. Now, now, but he's lots of times he's not in that frame of mind. I think my bigger thing is it feels like a waste of the opportunity to have these guys do football games. Hmm. Cause it's not. Let's be honest. We're not overflowing with awesome color guys for these football games. We're watching, you know, and I get Peyton doesn't want to travel and he's making a shitload of money, but I just don't, I don't know if the solution is to have those guys going head to head against Buck and Aikman when we maybe have four broadcast teams total that I'm excited to hear from, I'm just never watching it unless it's a shitty game. And there's a guest that I'm interested in. Ken from Oakdale love the bit from cousin Sally. He's a big fan of the Browns. got another Browns thing about I mentioned how the Browns stadium might get knocked down. I did a mailbag thing about this Tuesday. It might have a three-decade life and get knocked down without ever hosting a playoff game, which seems impossible, but it's actually going to happen. Rob from Brooklyn reminds us that MetLife Stadium opened in 2010, and the only time they've ever hosted a playoff game with either team was the 9-7 Giants had a four-seed home playoff game that I think they won. They beat Minnesota? They did. They did beat Minnesota. And he said between two franchises occupying that building, it's the only home playoff game that's been held. So this is 1632 years, and they've only had one playoff game. That's almost as amazing as the Cleveland thing, but maybe that'll change this year. I talked about with Rob Mahoney about Justin Herbert being the old nerd king in the NFL, but now Jordan Love has taken the mantle. Yes. From him as the nerd king. And we talked about basketball and whether LaMelo was the nerd king. Got some interesting emails about this. A guy named Adam wrote in and said, it has to be Rudy Gobert. Minnesota traded five firsts for him. He's played off the court repeatedly in the playoffs, but the nerds maintain he's worth every penny. He's one of the great rim protectors of all time. He's had the belt for years. It's got to continue to be his. And then Matt M suggested both Thompson twins with the joint belt. Okay. But Kirk Goldsberry, our friend, KG texted in and said, it's clearly Chet Holmgren. Whoa. Okay. Interesting. And I thought if you're looking at the case of the Justin Herbert nerd king of like basically the stat people, the nerds making excuses for a player pointing the stats, but not having the results Chet in the playoffs last year, combined with like the, the advanced defensive stats are awesome for him and everybody likes him, but the people are also making excuses. It's an interesting one. I still, I think, I think Gobert is better, but I think Chet's like the guy in waiting now. Gobert is in a different class altogether. I would put Holmgren and the, the Thompson twins in the same category, basically like it's a TBD, but certainly trending, certainly trending for both of them, all three of them. By the way, as I watched NBA Today for like five minutes today, watching the Kawhi stuff and disbelief, they ran on the ticker that Anthony Davis and the Wizards have delayed their extension talks. Fine. Great. It's a prove it year and he's ready to prove it. You know how he's been spending his time with this young group? He went to Vegas with them. He went to L.A. with them. Anthony Davis is all in for this Wizards team and the extension will take care of itself in not a dissimilar way from the way that the extension took care of itself with Trey Young. I think that they had an idea. It took care of itself in a fuck job way. You call it that, but wait till we see Trey Young play some basketball and let him be the leader of this young team. We're in our mid-50s now. Do you really want to do this for five more years with a 43 and 39 Wizards team that's overpaying their best two guys? I'm going to be nothing but positive until there's a reason to not be positive about this Wizards team. So you're not going to write a letter like I wrote to the Clippers? I just don't have a lot of winning basketball in my life. Matthew T. wrote, with Kawhi Leonard off the hook, I thought of a fairly easy punishment for him, forcing him to consistently answer increasingly specific questions about the Rhode Island Football Club. I didn't even know he was going to be a part of that. I was just going to be a part of that. for who can contact them, and time management tools like daily time limits. In sleep mode, teens are automatically placed in the teen accounts. Teens under 16 will need a parent's permission to change any of these settings to be less strict. Instagram will continue adding built-in safety features to help create age-appropriate experiences. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com slash teen accounts. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, NFL Sunday Ticket. Kick-off's coming, and with NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, you get every game, every Sunday, all in one place. New users can get NFL Sunday Ticket for eight payments of just $30 a month. New users pay $240 or eight non-cancelable payments of $30 a month. First charge at purchase. Availability varies. With NFL Sunday Ticket for out-of-market games and YouTube TV for local and national games. YouTube TV required. Terms, restrictions, and embargoes apply. Commercial use excluded. No refunds. Today's Ringer 107 is brought to you by our friends at FanDuel. Make this your most rewarding season. Download the FanDuel app to check out all of our 107 picks and our boosted teaser every week this season. Did you hit your teaser last week? I sure did. I sure did as well. My bets, yes. One of my successful wagers. Yeah. I liked last week a lot more than this week, which kind of sucks because I went two and three last week. If we're talking. If we're talking about bet regrets. Yes, let's hear it. I don't regret the Dallas bet. That Giants thing was one of those. You had to show me you were going to do that. They showed us. I'll take it. Take the L. Denver game, I regretted that day as I was watching the lead-up to the game and Arrowhead and the excitement. I was like, oh, fuck. It just. Well, I stayed away. I ultimately did not play. Denver because I sat Sunday morning pondering what you're describing. They experienced like. Yeah, see, I didn't ponder enough. You know, the way that this Chiefs. The way the league wants these Chiefs to return, you know, I was like. The holding penalties were unbelievable. Now, granted, I don't know why Denver didn't have the ability to tackle. And this other thing, we need a Twitter account just that tells us what teams didn't care about preseason and hitting anyone. I don't feel like I have enough of a handle on that because it felt like there were multiple teams that were just like, yeah, probably should have. Probably should have played our guys more. It's like, oh, thanks. Really? And we can call it fake Mike Tomlin because Tomlin made that great point on the Sunday night halftime. Was I with you when you. No, it was you and Cousin Sal. Yeah, I was telling Sal about it. I could not agree more. He was a goddamn revelation. Let him have 10 minutes. They gave him five minutes, Maria. It was so compelling to hear him. He's outstanding on television. And all of his points were like, wow, I'm learning something. This is so good. Yeah, and he feels. It feels like as he gets more comfortable, he'll have some, I don't give a shit as it keeps going. He definitely didn't give a shit about what he was wearing because I got so many texts from people like, why is he dressed that way? He'll improve. He'll improve. Some trends heading into week two. Week two is Michael Conrad Memorial. Let's be careful out there. There's overreactions every which way. There's road teams off a double-digit loss. You got to watch out for them. Spread's very favorable to them. Dogs under seven. After a loss. 0-1 teams against each other. Favorable stuff for the dogs. Dogs in week two in general have been really good. But last year, they were 7-9. The week two teams with three plus days rest, like AKA the Patriots or Seattle. Super favorable with that. And then the three best coaches after a loss, basically this century, were Peyton and McVay and Belichick, who is now going down in flames with North Carolina, sadly. So those are some tidbits to be afraid of. What's your, so I went, you went first last week. I'm going first this week. Awesome. My favorite game. I am not scared off by the Nico Collins hamstring, whatever. I just assume he's probably even not going to play that much. Joe Burrows got some sort of weird back situation. He's been, he made it one week before he was banged up. Um, I just feel like before the season, I would have taken the Texans if this was below three. Um, kudos to the Bengals. They're definitely, the defense is better. Like we sound, I talked about a Sunday. It's definitely a little improved. Yeah. I think that the, the turnovers, the bucks out in that game were all unforced errors. All of them, all of them are stupid bucks. Just being dumb asses. Stupid Baker. Really? And the Texans defense, which, you know, if you're, if you're subscribed to the Tomlin thing, how defenses take a couple of weeks to catch up. Um, that's fine. But Buffalo, um, was going to lose Josh Allen through them. The interception and Lassiter, who's one of the best D backs in the league just dropped it. But if he catches it, they're one to know. And we're talking about the Texans. They also had a fumble in that last drive that they recovered inside of, you know, their, their own 25 yard line. There was two turnover worthy plays on that last drive. And the God damn Texans that got to the nine yard line with enough time left to score. Touchdown and win the game. It was the definition of an either or game. Yes. Um, and I just like, I liked the spot. I liked their defense. And if I'm wrong about SITC, I'm wrong. I might be, but under three, I'm taking Houston minus two and a half. So that's my first pick. Great. Uh, what's the thing where we piggyback your piggyback? Oh my God. Are you kidding me? This is your second piggyback. It's two piggybacks. Well, here's the problem though. Uh, you and I in agreement, let's, let's, let's try and, and reverse. That trend piggyback on the Cowboys for sure. Last week, were there any other piggybacks by us? I don't think so. No, you, cause you definitely didn't take the Colts like my dumb ass. You know what I forgot? Well, yeah, the Colts. I didn't like it. Christmas. The one thing I thought that I wish I'd put more thought in with the giants. Because that like for the season, I didn't like their chances. Cause I didn't think dart and scatter bow would stay healthy. Yeah. But they're healthy. week one and you know, I was putting too much faith in the Cowboys have fixed their defense with all these new guys. But I, I, I really regret not taking Arizona. I loved Arizona the whole week and I ended up, I ended up being a fucking coward about it. I didn't, I didn't think they're going to win, but I just thought that game was going to be close and I choked. Um, all right. So you, so you're piggybacking my Houston pick. Sure. Am. That's one of the ones I have here. You can count on it. Nothing's moved me off my priors with Houston. That was a 50, 50 game. It was an awesome game. I quite enjoyed it. It was unexpected. I loved the innovation by the bill. So like, you know what we're going to do? We're just going to go deep. We're going to go deep. We're going to keep going deep. We'll go deep. We're not going to run the ball. We're just going to throw it the F down the field with Josh Allen. I loved it. It was great. I like Houston at home. Me too. I like the fact that their own one and not want to know, I think is good for this. They need the game more. And, uh, and I like their special teams. I just, I think they went by three at least me too. All right. So now I'm up. I have my second pick heavy rain for jets Packers looks like a 95% chance of heavy rain. I just thought green Bay losing that Minnesota. I think green Bay is not going to be good this year. I watched that whole game. I don't think they can run the ball at all. Um, the offensive line is people are going to blame the Flores and the 78% blitz, but I also don't think the offensive line is good. It's not, I don't think they have a pass rush Carson Wentz who looked broken down and looked like he might not finish the game with some somehow zinging it around the floor thing. Him going, Oh, and two feels right to me. I actually liked the money line too, for the jets, for the, I think they can win the game. I don't understand the line house. It's plus three and a half jets at home. I don't understand the line. I don't understand how you forget about jets killing the Titans because the Titans might be terrible. And that's an overreaction game. I don't understand how people after watching Packers, Minnesota would think the Packers are better than the jets. I know Fitzpatrick's out. I know there's some secondary stuff with the jets, but I just, to me, this is a pick them. So why wouldn't I take three and a half? The look ahead for this game. Um, cause I wanted to see, some line movement based on week one results was Packers by five and a half. And I guess the market is like the most we can move this by is just the two points that it's down to now, the three and a half. Yeah. But I wouldn't be surprised, man. If, if as the weekend comes in and, and, and jets nation really gets going, you're, you're making a lot of good. I, I was skeptical of two teams and one of my, uh, strongest positions coming into this season. When we talked about the NFC North, I had green Bay finishing fourth in that division. I made a bet on that. I had green Bay way under their wind total. I have green Bay to miss the playoffs. I had them under and to miss the playoffs as well. I feel pretty good. I feel pretty validated. And I won't talk about the Kansas city chiefs. Who was the other team that I was skeptical of, but, uh, this, this chargers, I mean, this Packers team is in rough straights. So here's the thing, heavy rain. You're going to have to run the ball at least a little bit. This Jacobs thing is a massive deal that they don't have him. They're running backs that they have Lloyd and the other guy, like, come on. And you have a bad offensive line to begin with. You um the one place they have that an advantage is the explosives on on in the receiver room and they use those to to great effect against minnesota when they were 22 to 10 i mean uh watson looked awesome it was such an awful loss and it does feel like this lafleur thing is now in the air yeah and i just feel like on sunday night they're going to be oh and two and sal and i are going to be like what happens now this team's oh and two they just lost to carson wentz and geno smith now what that's bad so i am going to take jets plus three and a half and i i wanted to grab it now instead of waiting till sunday because i think that line's going to go down and the under will go down i like the under in that game too but um that's where i'm going for my second one what do you got i am just going right back to the well with the denver broncos there they're laying less than a field goal at home against the jacksonville jaguars the jags are entering this game on a nine and oh runs both straight up and against the spread in regular season games yeah um nothing but uh immense respect for liam cohen and duval um they did exactly what they were supposed to do against the browns they kicked ass they didn't have to really reveal anything they barely blitzed at all against uh uh the browns um but this is just going to back to you mentioned it sean payton coming off of a loss the broncos if they are to achieve anything that's similar to now i only had them winning you know 10 11 games most but their win total was nine and a half the market was accurate about that um if they're going to do that then it needs to be this defense who set a record if if i'm if i'm understanding it correctly the action network guys had this they had 248 missed tackle yards the yards i saw this i saw this on social media yeah it felt worse it felt like it was 500 well the most in nfl history that's that's that's kind of important yeah and they were dominant in terms of defending mahomes but that was the wrong guy to defend it didn't matter if you can't tackle kenneth walker he his yards after contact were incredible they couldn't knock him off of of his center in any way shape or form the duos that the it was a reminder and this is what i regret with the chiefs andy reed was in his bag and eric andy reed and and b enemy like those guys were ready for week one football yeah they were like we have now reinvented ourselves and here's what we did yeah well there was a ton of talk this week stuff written people talking about podcasts about the quarterbacks being under center more play action more running bigger teams this is stuff mcveigh did a year ago and some of the smarter teams are already doing it and um i wonder like can you keep taking teams by surprise with that like if i'm playing from the rams i'm playing the giants this week now i know what's coming if i'm playing the chiefs same thing i it felt like the broncos didn't know we're kind of like taking it back like i agree this is you're playing this way what's going on and then walker was great he was fantastic but it was amazing yeah they set him up for explosives he was fantastic but it was amazing yeah they set him up for explosives he was fantastic but it was amazing so you're taking you're taking broncos minus two and a half i'm taking i'm laying the two and a half with the broncos at home against jacksonville just an early season altitude game for the jags just that that tough that tough that tough situation and you know at some point regression in terms of these regular season games situation and you know at some point regression in terms of these regular season games and i think the true identity of denver situation and you know at some point regression in terms of these regular season games and i think the true identity of denver comes out this week and and they get over comes out this week and and they get over comes out this week and and they get over quickly the stench of of the week one one quickly the stench of of the week one one quickly the stench of of the week one one bad performance so i have two fares with bad performance so i have two fares with bad performance so i have two fares with the broncos the broncos the broncos um one is um one is um one is i didn't like their run game at all and it i didn't like their run game at all and it i didn't like their run game at all and it doesn't feel like they've settled on anybody doesn't feel like they've settled on anybody doesn't feel like they've settled on anybody and it was just this rotating group of dude and it was just this rotating group of dude and it was just this rotating group of dude almost felt almost felt almost felt chiefs like to me um that wasn't great chiefs like to me um that wasn't great chiefs like to me um that wasn't great here's why i stayed away from this from here's why i stayed away from this from here's why i stayed away from this from a bronco standpoint a bronco standpoint a bronco standpoint what was it early december late november what was it early december late november what was it early december late november last year the jags went in there and they last year the jags went in there and they last year the jags went in there and they they did curb stomped them they did and they did curb stomped them they did and they did curb stomped them they did and i do i do really feel like there's i do i do really feel like there's i do i do really feel like there's something about that when you go back to something about that when you go back to something about that when you go back to a place where you kicked ass a place where you kicked ass a place where you kicked ass that you get this added little bit of a that you get this added little bit of a that you get this added little bit of a hop in your step swagger and i hop in your step swagger and i hop in your step swagger and i it's funny i have this game in my t's it's funny i have this game in my t's it's funny i have this game in my t's but i have it the opposite way i get it but i have it the opposite way i get it Sure. The plus two and a half up to plus eight and a half. That makes sense. I had the Jags up to eight and a half because I think they could win. And even if they can't win, there's cheap touchdown potential. The third thing I didn't like about that game, and I didn't really get a good answer for one way or the other, the Chiefs-Broncos game, I thought Bo Nix looked terrible. He looked awful. And I don't know if he's healthy. And I actually thought it could have been worse than what the damage was. And this is something Sal's been talking about the whole offseason. We talk about Mahomes coming back. Why don't we talk about Bo Nix? I thought Bo Nix looked awful. And I don't know. The Jags defense obviously isn't great. He's had another week. But I think there's a chance he might just not be good for the first month of the season. And this Jags team, I know they're on a hot streak. And if you go through it, it's pretty shaky. Except for the time they went into Denver and fucking housed them. Kicked their ass, yes. So I'm going with them as half of my teaser link. That makes sense. And I don't have a strong counter for the Bo Nix. Proposition. It's just there was quite a bit of this Jekyll and Hyde performance out of Bo Nix last season. And he, in unexpected places against very good teams, came through with some outstanding performances. And then looked like shit the very next week. I'll never forget the international game against the Jets where it looked like he couldn't throw the ball four yards down the field. But he did go into Philadelphia and come back against them. And beat them in the fourth quarter. He did go into Houston and beat them in the fourth quarter. Do you know what the other leg of my tease is? It's got a box down to two and a half. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes, sir. You have to. Listen, we talked about this a week ago. We said, almost getting emotional, running out of time to bet against Deshaun Watson, an NFL football game. He came out of the gates. He was just abjectly horrific. They were down 24, nothing in five minutes. He padded his stats late. He had a great throw to Denzel Boston for a touchdown where it was like, whoa. And then you look at the bottom and it was 34 to three. They're down when he hit Denzel Boston. This is it. This is our last chance to bet against this guy. And if he's going to beat my tease of bucks down to minus two and a half with Jags plus eight and a half, God bless him. I don't think he will. And I don't think we'll ever see him quarterback another team after this week. And I have to figure out the money line parlays that I'm going to put the bucks into because it's going to be several. I mean, I just have to, you have to be careful. I guess it's going to be, you know, something like the Niners and the bucks. And I don't know, there are 13 point teases for you. So probably UCLA in there, probably. So my fears with the bucks, their defense. I'm not going to lie to you. And the weapons they have and they, and multiple good running backs or do the charges just suck, right? After week two, I'm going to have an answer for that. So for this one, I'm a little scared of the Bucks defense, but what am I going to be scared with the, with the Browns? Like they can't block and they have a terrible quarterback. If you're looking for the silver lining, remember the Bengals had four field goals that he had right. Multiple 50 yard. They got a pick six McPherson and they had, right, exactly. So. So defensive touchdown plus four field goals. That's 19 of their 33 points. Yeah. So if you're looking for, there was bad pressure rate stuff with the, with the Bucks. Yes, there was. I think they were like seven for 40 or something. Yes. This, where do you stand on this havoc stat? I like it. I think it's, it's informative. Yeah. So the, they released the top week one NFL defenses in havoc. Who do you think the number one defense was? You would think the Vikings, right? Cause they were second. They were not first. Oh, I, I, I, I might guess the jets. It was the Las Vegas Raiders at 56%. Okay. Now they're playing Miami and that was why, uh, yes, the Cardinals were third, which is either a good sign for them or a terrible, terrible sign for the chargers. Uh, coming up last was the Titans at 16%. And Cardinals were third, which is either a good sign for them or a terrible, terrible sign for the chargers. Uh, coming up, last was the Titans at 16%. And Cardinals were third, which is either a good sign for them or a terrible, terrible jags what do you have for your third pick uh i i'll i'll just share my tease um before i get to my fourth let's um i'm going into nashville because i feel like that situation with uh sala and and dayball and they have a quarterback problem i mean i don't know how much more we we need to see if you go into the the the numbers um the the second tier numbers for cam ward he is missing open receivers he's missing them badly this happened last year too he's not like even when he has time he he's he's bad they don't give him time they can't establish the run and the defense was an an abomination against a jets team with you know a middle of the road offensive line maybe it's better than than we're giving it credit for priest hall had a day well there was some good there was some good offensive line highlights for the jets a couple jets fans because they also they have all these tight ends so they have a couple good linemen but then they could also bring these different tight ends in and um they were kind of beating the shit out of the titans but that might say more about the titans i don't know i think it does uh i don't trust the eagles at all i watched the entirety of that eagles washington game um washington absolutely positively um had many many chances to win that game outright and you kind of took it to their o-line too so when i talked about that sunday i i felt like that was the worst and eagles offensive line has looked to me and and and dickerson's out now i mean he's just he couldn't he he tried to go he played he played poorly yeah and washington's new defense got in there and got after their ass so the way i'm playing this eagles titans game it's an in-game tease oh i am combining let me pull up the the make sure i get the is this are you cheating oh you're doing both sides okay yeah i'm allowed to do it yeah you're allowed to tease and i'm allowed to do it and i'm allowed to tease and i'm allowed to tease the eagles from seven down to one yeah that's six points and then i'm teasing the total in that game from 39 and a half up to 45 and a half so that is so under 45 you win under 45 and a half and eagles basically to win outright i don't i can't come up with points in this game i i have i can't have i don't have a scenario under which a defense that feels a little bit you know embarrassed by the the two touchdowns they gave up in the fourth quarter yeah to jane daniels and and washington coming in ready to pin their ears back against an offensive line in tennessee that's not very good and that can't establish the run and certainly can't throw the ball downfield and i feel the same way in terms of that offense that offense really wants to get moving uh they were not thrilled with you know the sean manion experiment in in week one so i like the eagles to come in and kick ass but i am not laying points with this eagle team until further notice so eagles just basically went out right minus one and under 45 and a half i don't see the titans getting to 17 points in this game i think i'll be lucky to get to 14 points and i'm fine with like i win this bet if it's 30 to 14 eagles we should mention we're doing this thing with fandu all season they're doing minus 110 for the teasers they're going to put all of our teasers which they did last week was very cool and you can just bet on our teaser up to 50 bucks if you like one of them uh and you get it at the minus 110 juice here's why this tease worries me house i'm listening it's going to be like 130 degrees and i saw that yes it is um that's that's one thing i don't think that gives the titans an advantage but go ahead i just hate the road team and the superhuman um it maybe it doesn't give anyone an advantage it helps your under it makes me like it helps the exactly but um i thought the eagles look terrible like i and you know i i really my number one regret of all of the whole off season was being too anti-harbaugh and not being more kind of thoughtful about the giants and just the fact that every single year we have a worse to first team in a division and i've been do betting on that year after year and this was the era i was like you know what we're not going to have one this year you look at the division now philly's minus 110 dallas is plus 320 the giants are down to plus 350 for that division seems fair you could argue that's still an incredible price and i don't know if they have less talent than philly at this point philly has just bled out some talent um their defenses wait till they get jonathan green i know that i know i'm talking about right now where part of the part of the appeal of philly was like this incredible offensive line they just don't have it anymore no i agree so that's not incredible and they have a lot of talent they just don't have it anymore so that's not incredible and they have a lot of roster rankings they were one of the top four for talent but when you watched it against washington it's like where is it no yeah they couldn't establish the run kick i i one of the my my pride moments for the week was saquon over 75 and a half rushing yards and he got there because he had 142 yard run otherwise yards per carry was under three yards the eagles couldn't establish the run so if you're looking at philly dallas and the giants they're not going to have the giants do you think those odds for those three teams should be closer than minus 110 plus 320 plus 350 and do you think the giants should be higher than dallas for odds or is that just a weak one overreaction no i don't think that's a an overreaction at all i they should at least be equal it's crazy that that i mean the giants beat dallas so for they've already gotten a leg up if they can keep dart healthy and the division outcome yeah and maybe do what the pats did maybe they could do it there's some other giants have a tough schedule but that's part of the reason why i'm skeptical yeah they almost have to win this week to get you excited about it but some other division winners by the way the bills but we're taping this before the thursday game but the bills are minus 185 um ravens minus 130 cincinnati's plus 175 for the afc north houston's plus 125 jags are plus 160 any of these excite you i already have exposure to boston to win their division in cincinnati to win the afc north um and i'll stick with the price i have i have better prices than those this is on fando casey is minus 115 now denver's plus 290 and the chargers are plus 370 and by the way the chargers are i would completely stay away from that the only thing to bet the chargers is to miss the playoffs you have to hold those in a second the juice yeah detroit's plus 160 for their division the bears are plus 200 tampa still plus 270 for the nfc south which to me seems like a steal and then in the nfc west rams plus 170 niners plus 170 seattle plus 220 that's probably the liveliest of all of them but if you had to bet any of those which one would you bet uh right now with those odds i'm trying to think because i already had yeah with those odds let me think about this now i have the niners already close to three to one so i know that doesn't help me any i have the niners i have houston uh it's got 150 i'll just keep throwing money at tampa i think they're going to be that price is better after this cleveland game yeah i think bears a two to one is fun just interesting they might have their offense might be the best thing anyone has in that division um i think giants at plus 350 is a good price still i think but i think you i think you wait a week they lose probably lose to the rams right you wait a week and then you do it yeah you would think that they they're gonna lose to the rams and if they don't lose to the rams then the price is going to drop and you miss because they're going to go on a run after that rams game they play tennessee at home they play arizona at home now arizona might be you know we might be talking about the 20 arizona then they come to washington and then they're home against the saints so the first chunk of the giant schedule super favorable but then it ramps up they travel to houston they travel to philly they get washington again home against jackson but there's a san francisco's on the schedule seattle's on the schedule there's a bunch of teams a lot of flying that lat the latter half of it it gets really you know challenging for them and if you don't believe that that scatabo and dart could stay healthy then you know i looked at that when i did all my prep in august and that scared me the most that second half like if they didn't have those guys right playoffs jets are plus 385 if you think they can sneak in the back door and go 10 and 7 i'm not saying they can't sneak in the back door and go 10 and 7 i'm not saying they will but i just 4-1 odds and they might be 2-0 after this weekend dallas is still plus 146 pittsburgh's plus 148 the giants are plus 162 to make the playoffs but here was the one that jumped out to me arizona 901 oh wow it's really high but man they were really impressive on sunday i like i really didn't feel like it was a fluke on paper they have the hardest schedule yeah i get it i get it that's why i signed one the no playoffs bets were more interesting to me green bay's minus 180 chargers are minus 156 minnesota's minus 120 denver's minus 106 jags plus 130 philly plus 176 since he plus 235 and then the rams plus 245 but i thought that chargers if you parlay the chargers minus 156 with green bay minus 180 okay okay i'm in the plus with that that's like a plus fan duel let you do that that's a nice parlay i like that one that's a good one our green bay are the chargers making the playoffs like right now i would say no no i mean we're we're overreacting of course it's it's a requirement of this week like those teams that much to begin with especially i knew i i have all that i had so much money against green bay like i said um the one thing i i did immediately after monday was bet the chiefs every which way i bet them over 10 and a half wins i bet them to win the division at i mean these are all shitty prices um but i bet them to win the division i bet them to get to 11 wins and i bet them to make the playoffs um because that was a an absolute like what a reminder of of what reed and bnm are capable of and spags with that defense especially the second you had bnm you couldn't stand him he he was a not not good here he was terrible you made fun of him all the time yeah he wasn't good here it didn't work it works with andy reed my last pick so we have uh we each have done three yeah but we have don't do it four don't do it what do you think i'm gonna do tell me i don't know actually i really i genuinely don't know but i i i'm fearful were we allowed to double piggyback yeah there's only one game that on the entire slate i hate this slate i i mean i didn't really like it either i'm not i'm not laying points with with drew lock on the road i'm not laying you know grabbing points with with stupid danny dimes in it's like there's so many bad quarterbacks i'll talk about the three that i almost took i'm taking the patriots minus four and a half at home against the stars yeah okay i don't mind this at all i couldn't talk myself there's incredible numbers for the teams that have three plus day rest in week two yeah um i think they were they kind of threw people off the scent in week one because of drew lock and then they fell apart in the fourth quarter and aj got hurt um i think they had a terrible game plan against the rams i mean i against seahawks i didn't understand it at all um henderson is back this week which ain't nothing that's huge they lost this team a year ago in a game where they turned the ball over five times it wasn't like pittsburgh wasn't like jacksonville going into denver and just housing denver like red zone turnovers the dumbest fucking loss of the of the year um and i i just they're not going on too they have too much talent and watching that steelers falcons game closely it was funny because sal and i were talking about how you know kind of gross the steelers offense was and there's some steeler fans that were going yo what game what were you watching rogers was airing it out because rogers was throwing like almost nine yards per attempt but he was trying to get pis most of the time and he doesn't have the receivers and his running backs are terrible like for for whatever they're offensive line ed like the team just looks slow to me i kind of like rico dowdo but i i just didn't think dowdo or warren looked good in that game um and i think the pats are going to swallow up the run i think they're going to go after rogers i think this is a must win for the patriots so we'll see if they lose this game it's officially the year from hell i'm not scared of the minus four and a half i feel like it should probably be a little bit higher um and i just think they win by seven plus it might not surprise anybody i might join you sunday morning with with the fifth pick because i i just don't love this slate and i just want to let a couple more days uh i don't love it either and i don't i honestly don't love that pick that much but it was that it was the one that made me feel the safest i'll go through the other choices after but that was the one that i was like yeah i i'm gonna be mad if i didn't do this well i i kind of landed on a similar one and i'm gonna take a quick drink of water here we've been talking for an hour straight um same sentiment it's san francisco laying less than two touchdowns at home against miami and it might be the case that they should be favored by 17 or something right right we just don't the market doesn't have its arms around how terrible this this miami team is and so i'm just gonna go ahead and grab it they have an incredible rest situation except for the fact that they were on the other side of the world i'm scared and they spent a whole week on that other side of the world now they did come home promptly um but you know every which way a a two touchdown and san francisco under shanahan has been good as a double digit favorite not incredible but good a winning record as a double digit favorite but this is really i don't know how many more opportunities when miami is playing a good team that it's going to be less than two touchdowns and that's really what i'm jumping into with both feet chop robinson looks like he's going to be out i mean you're you worried about the miami pass rush anyway like no uh and i just love their defense is awful it's like really awful i actually thought oh i thought vegas could have had more stuff and eventually they were just trying to shut down genti and there was so much open for them passing wise but they had cousins and terrible receivers that and i mean if shanahan wants to run the same kind of offense that they just did against the rams i don't see why they can't repeat what they were doing very fast tempo short short yardage i looked at it because it's almost like if you're using college football logic you just have to treat this like this is ohio state at home against some shitty team and they should be favored by 28 miami is awful and there's a real chance miami doesn't win a game for a while um i just was freaked out by the australian trip so no i don't know if they're going to be zombies for that entire game yeah i'm not worried about a backdoor cover famous last words but that's the one thing i felt best about so the ones i looked at really closely i can't believe neither of us have the panthers i'm a little scared of penix playing in that game because oh i don't love penix yeah but at least he's not to her cooper rush or whoever the other guy is and you know i he's not good i'm not saying he's good no you have dueling trends though with that game you have uh the panthers who are oh and nine in their last nine games against the spread as a favorite yeah versus nine and oh in their last nine games coming off of a loss well but then you have which is it you have more trends because you have the two zero and one teams take the dogs you have the home dog in a divisional game yeah um you have i honestly didn't think atlanta looked that terrible i was very nervous watching that pittsburgh game that yeah might have changed things a bit their offense definitely moved the ball their defense is bad and the panthers put up 37 uh they did 37 points against the bears and it could have even been more than that but anyway i i just couldn't do it because the panthers defense was so bad what's worse than you take the panthers minus two and a half and it's like oh bj robinson is third touchdown day stay away so the second one is also nfc south saints plus eight and a half against baltimore you know flowers is out the rookies lane lands out yeah this whole off explosive crazy offense is gonna be a little different i couldn't get over the ot game with the saints and and the fact that they were down 20 nothing even before or 24 nothing whatever it was yeah 21 nothing i was gonna get it right if i kept mentioning scores um and they kind of rallied back late i love the cheap touchdown potential here yeah i'm this might end up being my fifth pick when we get to sunday but i didn't want to do it now and i want to see you know who's healthy for this one the crazy thing is if harbaugh was still the ravens coach i would like this a lot more right i would really like the back door the week two soft spot for the ravens after coming out we've seen them lose this game and we've seen them i think it's a stay away the raiders i the problem i have with this game is this is by a long shot by quite a bit the best that tyler shuck will have played against in his entire nfl career he's never seen a defense as talented as this defense and he might not even be okay is supposed to be playing in this game and okay so i mean that's why i didn't do anything with it but i understand the instinct in terms of grabbing the same and we also have a we might have an nfc south situation where when they actually play good teams they just get their asses kicked the third one i really wanted to do and if it was seven and a half i would have done as raiders against the chargers raiders plus six and a half in la i think there's gonna be a lot of raiders fans there and i don't think the chargers are good but i i was really trying not to do the double overreaction pick in week two see the chargers who couldn't have looked worse and the raiders who played the dolphins who actually looked okay better than we thought and i couldn't get there i wish this was eight and a half but there's a reason it's six and a half because the chargers look terrible so i end up staying away i might end up talking myself into it on sunday if it gets to six and a half i don't know i don't know seven i don't want to have anything to do with it i do think that if uh mixtape mikey and this uh chargers offense are going to get right it will come under these circumstances even even with mcconkey he's out out right he's definitely out it seems like he's out cards seahawks was another one because cards are four and a half underdogs at home yeah but the seahawks have 10 days rest i'm just cards do it again and i'll back you up - Thank you. - Yeah, Drew Locke on the road. I test drove it I couldn't get there and then the last one Rams 7.5 against the Giants interesting I thought long and hard about the Rams and the Tees thinking like are they really going to go 0-2 and it's weird I couldn't get there because I kept playing the game out in my head and there was this scenario where the Giants just bullied their front 7 without Miles Garrett and without Donald because I don't think if Donald plays, he plays 25 snaps I don't think we're going to see him and I just kind of want to watch the game and not have anything on it I like that, I'm glad that you landed there I'm not going to bet on this game I will not be talking myself into the Giants even though that's the direction I would head the question is can they play the same kind of ball control that they played against Dallas they just didn't let Dallas possess the ball Dallas' efficiency numbers idiotic too it's dumb ass shit same old Cowboys I'm thrilled as a Washington fan I'm thrilled to see Dallas be as dumb as ever and incapable of responding to basic NFL defensive adjustments so funny chef's kiss, immaculate performance but the problem with the Giants is their secondary is really bad and we might see Matthew Stafford just get going so the one you're leaning toward because we're going to do Sunday picks that we put on social about two hours for the game the one you're leaning toward is what? it's a decent chance it's the Pats I don't like taking all these home favorites but I look at the dogs and I can't bet on Carson Wentz I can't bet on Daniel Jones I can't bet on Drew Locke as a road favorite we're already into this shit sandwich in terms of these quarterbacks I can't have anything to do with the Carolina game I don't want to have anything to do with it it's not crazy that I would land on Bucs I might get myself to there with the Buccaneers 8.5 a farewell to Deshaun I might get there I looked at the Chiefs minus 6.5 for a little bit because I thought Jones looked so bad last week he's immobile he can't move and he can't put weight on the foot and throw the ball down the field shocker he's coming off an Achilles you know who else didn't look good Patrick Mahomes that's why I stayed away Patrick Mahomes was bad last week for actually throwing the ball like he had some good scrambles but he was not good and got bailed out by a lot of the yards after the catch stuff alright so you're leaning Pats for your 5th pick yeah oh man I'm probably leaning toward the Panthers I'll talk myself out of it oh god you know what I might be leaning toward the Raiders can that line get to 7 for me? that would be wonderful and then I'll be leaning I'm going to I'm going to UCLA UCLA-Purdue on Saturday forgot to tell you super fun can't wait lay some points with that I feel like they should bring me out like in a like a chariot they could bring you out like Hannibal Lecter they could bring me out however you want that sounds great play the Silence of the Lambs music alright so our final picks for Ringer 107 Ringer 107 week 2 what did you go for what did you go in week 1? 2 and 3 me as well let's hope it's not a pattern we both have the Texans minus 2 and a half at home against the Bengals you have the Broncos minus 2 and a half against the Jags I have the Jags and the Tees up to 8 and a half with the Bucks down to minus 2 and a half against Deshaun Watson because it's our last weekend of bet against Deshaun Watson you have the Niners minus 13 and a half absolutely blowing out the Miami Dolphins probably a good pick I have the Jets in a rainstorm plus 3 and a half at home against the Packers trying to go 2 and 0 you have a tease Eagles minus 1 with the under in that same game 45 and it's going to be 145 degrees at that game and then last but not least I have the Patriots in kind of a must win at home against the Steelers with 10 day rest and a lot of good trends for extra rest Patriots minus 4 and a half against the Steelers and that is the Ringer 107 it was brought to you by FanDuel download the app now to find all of our Ringer 107 picks make this your most rewarding season it's really cool you click on it all of our teases are there some of our favorite picks FanDuel player game odds subject to change we are a month away from NBA season I'm getting ready just pointing out you ready for prep I sure am Zach's claiming that he's not flying out to do the over-unders with us but he's I think he's going to be on the TV so it'll be the two of us together and then Zach on a TV like he's Dr. Evil we'll make it work he was Dr. Evil against the Sacramento Kings he really pissed him off last year let's see who he picks for his Dr. Evil I mean that clip lives on I actually in retrospect he probably wasn't harsh enough he could have he could have dialed it up a little extra alright House we can watch you on RingerWire.com RingerWire's guys a fantastic show on Friday 11 a.m. live on Twitch the full breakdown of the entire NFL slate yeah what are we doing come on with Sal and Dibundo and Raheem say hi to those fellows for us thanks to House thanks to Tom Palacero as well thanks to Gahal and Eduardo and Chris from behind the scenes for us new rewatchables coming on Monday and we did Law Abiding Citizen oh Jamie Fox Gerard Butler an action movie that's really gained some steam a few laughs yeah a few laughs it's really this movie's really something so stay tuned for that it's on Netflix if you haven't seen it that's it for the pod good to see you House good times buddy I wanna see them on a way so I can say I don't have a few years with them I don't have a few years with them I don't have a few years with them I don't have a few years with them I don't have a few years with them