Cousins the Savior, Sleeper Teams, a Mega-Mega-Mailbag and NFL Picks With Tom Pelissero, Danny Kelly, and Joe House

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. The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network, where I have a new episode of The Rewatchables coming on Monday. We did nine to five, me and Amy Poehler. It's a great one. We went longer than the movie. So that is coming on Monday. You can check out that movie on Netflix this week. We did Air Force One last week, if you missed it. Coming up on this pod, I have Tom Palacero and Danny Kelly together with me in Los Angeles talking about, Tom had some, we did a pick three instead of a pick six about- The trade deadline, cousins to Minnesota. And then him, Danny and I talked about second half surge teams. Who do we think can make a run that's 500 or worse heading into the second half of the season? Then House came on and Joe House and I, we did a mailbag that was rollicking. We talked about Jensen Huang. We talked about basketball, Steph Curry, football, all kinds of questions. We're all over the place. And then we did Ringer 101. We did Ringer 101. We're going to take a break. Pearl Jam and then Palacero next. This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is presented by State Farm. Every football player brings something different to the field. Maybe they have a cannon arm, speed, power. Maybe they have their own podcast. That being said, I'm going to take a break. We'll be right back. That being said, no two players are exactly alike. And the same is true off the field. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. All right. We're doing this live. It is Thursday afternoon. Normally I see this guy on Zoom, Tom Palacero. Danny Cowell is going to be joining us in one second, but he's still doing his fantasy pod. So I thought we could just talk Kirk Cousins quick. I was begging you for this trade two weeks ago. You broke it on Tuesday. I had a question. I'm going to start with a mailbag question. From Lee in Vegas, who says every, ever since girls, it feels as if every new Adam driver movie comes with the same pitch. He's a great actor. This movie is the role that will bring him to the next level. It's going to be huge. Then it comes out. Few people tell you he's really good in it. And then six months later, you hear the same thing. Isn't that essentially Kirk Cousins Orlovsky screaming head on ESPN segment. Every time he changes teams, they got D they got the weapons cousins in them. Steady QB play by the time they go to commercial. It sounds like he's on the new Superbowl team yet 12 years in, he's had four playoff starts in one win. And we're once again at the next trailer for cousins with the, here he comes moment. This is the best chance he's had of all the situations, right? But that is true that we were always like Kirk cousins, and then he goes 500 or they lose in round one. What's going to be different this time? Because Adam driver tends to get sort of typecast. You would need a very tall sullen guy with a super deep voice. There's only so much range that you have. And with Kirk, he has to play in a certain style of office that allows him to win with his brain and his processing ability. Like he's not going to run. He's not going to move around that much. If the rush is there, if he can't shimmy out of it, he'll just kind of turtle and go down. But he in this system can be really effective. I think you go back to 2023, the year that he tore his Achilles, like halfway through the year, it was like right around the same time of year. He was playing at an MVP level, like go back and look at his numbers. That's the best he ever played. As much as we talk about, you know, he's going to be the best he's ever played. He's going to be the best he's ever played. You know, Sam Darnold and what that was about. Obviously you had eight other quarterbacks or whatever it's been that have started for Minnesota. Nobody's operated this offense under Kevin O'Connell as consistently. And it is at a high level as Kirk Cousins. So we now draw us back in with a better defense than he ever had when he was in Minnesota before he's got as good a weapons as he's ever had questions about the running backs. I don't love the running. This is a pretty good situation for him to come in. And by the way, what he left in 2024 and signed that Falcons guy live in Minnesota. Everyone was like, huh? It wasn't like, oh man, how'd we lose the guy? It was kind of like, all right, it was enough. It was six years and whatever. We won one playoff game. Now he's coming back. And because the bar was set so low, like you saw what it's like without him on Monday night, he's coming back now as the conquering hero and all starts at the same building where he suffered that injury. Did you agree with my theory that O'Connell tanked that game and kept Wentz in the whole time to basically force their hand because he didn't want Brosman to come in and be half decent? I think it was. Well, he put Brosman in at the end, but I think it was more, I'm saying, but didn't bring him in at halftime just to make sure. I think it was awesome. Well, it's also like, could anybody thought Carson Wentz would be that bad? I mean, we've seen bad Carson Wentz games. Like this was one of the worst games last 25 years that a quarterback has played in the position. It was so bad that it was almost like, does he have a broken vertebrae in his back? Does he have a torn rotator cuff? Like how can you miss guys by 10 yards every time? And then the receivers, I think when you're a receiver, at some point you're a little terrified going over the middle, right? That that ball is going to bring you up and you're going to be up in the air. Which is what every pass was from Kyler the week before in a trail. Like two weeks ago, we were talking about this. Like I didn't anticipate the Vikings didn't anticipate it, but you have Kyler who gets hurt and plays a poor game overall. And then Carson Wentz replaced him and somehow is much worse than Kyler was. The plus of it was it gave them clarity. Like even going into that game, if Carson had been good, it might've been like, we're not going to over- extend ourselves for Cousins. They knew they had to do it. They were the only team that needed a quarterback. We were talking about this back in like week one. They're like, if any quarterback was going to get trained, traded, it was Kirk for exactly this. Baltimore was the only other one, right? And then they made the Brissette move. Yeah. And that was a, you know, with Brissette, that was like a four or five pick swap. They weren't willing to give up much. The Vikings give up their own third round pick, which is lower than the other third they have from Philadelphia. 97. Exactly. It's a top one under pick. If you're the Raiders, it's top one under pick. You get out from under a 10-round pick. You get out from under a 10-round million dollar bonus and you play a guy you think is ready and Fernando Mendoza and use the rest of this year as like the on-ramp for 2027. It's great for them. For the Vikings, there was no other option. Right. We can talk about Daniel Jones. Like they were never trading Daniel Jones. People kept saying they weren't trading. They just weren't. Plus also, why do you want Daniel Jones from what we've seen this right now of Cousins? Even though Cousins was bad on Sunday, but he's been better than Daniel Jones. Exactly. Daniel Jones wasn't getting traded and he hasn't played well. Justin Herbert, they've never discussed it and it wasn't going to happen in season. And he's playing terrible. He's playing terrible. You could say Mac Jones, he hasn't played this year, but they wanted, they'd want an astronomical amount, especially to trade it to another NFC contender. Geno Smith was another possibility, but like the Jets weren't trading him. So you had a one-on-one. There's one buyer, one seller. I heard you say that on the Excellent Ringer NFL show. Why are the Jets not trading Geno Smith? What's going on there? It's about. You're going nowhere, Jets. But could you, if they could have gotten a third for Geno Smith, why wouldn't they have done that? They weren't doing it. And they were absolutely vehement. The Ravens called him too. They just, they weren't trading him. It's twofold. One is the season is frankly about, you know, evaluating Aaron Glenn. So you want to give him every opportunity. Can I weigh in with my evaluation? He's terrible. I'm pretty sure that he stinks. There's plenty of people who share that opinion, but they want to see like the whole year because he's good in the room, like with the players and stuff like that. Everybody says like in meetings, like Aaron Glenn's great. And then you get into the game and there's some type of shit show somewhere along the line where there's a game management thing. They want to see it the whole year. Game management thing or whatever it is. He's been by far the worst. There's rules. Every time we get to the end of the second quarter, it turns into like a diehard movie. You don't know what's going to happen. It's like, oh, here come the terrorists. And that's part of it. It's unbelievable. He keeps topping himself. The stuff they did last week was against Kansas City where it felt like they're going to take the lead and Mahomes was hurt. And all of a sudden, it's like, oh, my God, they're going to take the lead. And then they're going to take the lead. Yeah. You don't want to roll them out there week one. So maybe it's all right. Gino, you're continuing to build the chemistry with the teammates. Maybe you're back in 2027 where we re-sign you while we're developing this quarterback. And then whether it's week four, week eight, week 12, you put them up. You know what? Ironically, Cousins was the right move because of the guy off the field, which you have some experience because you, you got to cover him a little bit. I thought that stuff Mendoza said about him after the trade was incredible, but it seems like that's the recurring theme with Cousins. Everywhere he goes, people are just like, this is like the greatest teammate, best guy leader. And you watch how disoriented and disheveled that Minnesota team was, especially Monday night. Now it's just like, yeah, you're changing the personality. You're taking somebody like Jefferson who looked like he just wanted to get in his car and start driving away. Now he's invigorated again. And I don't know, from a vibe standpoint, that's worth the third rounder. If he can even be a C plus or B minus, that's the bonus. And even outside the locker room or outside the team, it's like, it's the fans, you know, like they were booing the whole game on Monday. It wasn't a team. It was six and one going in and they're getting booed from the first quarter on. Like, that's how edgy it had become. I give. It was also a weird one where you knew in the first quarter where the game was going. It wasn't like, oh, I wonder if Wentz will turn it around. It was like, wow, how bad can this, are they going to have to run trick plays? Are they going to have to wide receivers throwing passes? What are they going to do? When Wentz on, I think it was the first play of the second drive and he air mails a tunnel screen to Jefferson that turns into the fumble on review. It's like, that's a, hey, this is a long handoff. Just get the ball to our playmaker. Designing this. Yeah, because we know you can't throw it down there. Let's just, can you hand it off to him? And you can't even do that. But you're right. I mean, it's, I give Nolan Teasley credit for reading the room. He's a new GM. He didn't even run the draft. He was hired in like late May, early June. He didn't, doesn't want to go up a third round pick, but it's like he said it himself in the press conference, like this team, this defense deserves a shot and they didn't have a shot. Especially you think the Rams that more injuries, Puka's now out, right? And they're behind them anyway. Seattle locks. I mean, this week he's hurt. Donald's hurt. They've been underwhelming anyway. And then you look at the NFC North teams like Detroit, who knows what them green base coming on, Chicago's coming on. And then everybody else that's going to be one NFC East team, one NFC South team. Right. So if they can just go 10 and seven, they're probably in. And then who knows what their defense, their defense is terrifying. The Buffalo can do anything in that game for that. And that's the plus that they had the ball. I can't remember what the number was, but it was like 42 minutes or something, but it was like a ton of plays. It was like. Three yards of play. Yeah. They had like 300 something yards. And so it's like, you saw that affected maybe the best offense in the entire league. Like they compete with anyone. I think Sunday in green Bay, that is a massive turning point game for the whole division because great. Okay. Kirk could go out and play well and they could still lose. That's possible, but you wouldn't think it with the way the defense is playing, but that Packers offense and defense have been unbelievable of late. Like this feels like one of those games where it's like, okay, which way is this going to tip? Is it going to be the Packers? And like you, you. Shut it down. Or is this the Vikings getting that little bit of juice by that guy coming into the locker room? I think it's a huge, huge game. Every sport has one position that can just single handedly suck the life out of the team, right? Like in soccer, it's the goalie hockey. It's the goalie baseball at your closer. And if you just know like this anvil is coming for your team at all times, like obviously everybody's going to get affected. And now at least cousins, we know he can be a C plus. Maybe he can be a B, maybe it could be a B minus, but top 10 in every league. He just can't move anywhere. Yeah. He can't move. Yeah. He can, again, there's going to be a couple of games when people are just going to come at him and he, but he makes the throws. He can complete the ball in the flat. He's going to do the basic things well. He can be a leader and obviously can connect with Jefferson who loves him. And that's like the most important thing of all this stuff. Yeah. And Justin, by the way, you got to re-engage him. Justin Jefferson, any other superstar receiver would have tapped out like a year ago with all the bullshit. Going on and all the injuries and the quarterback stuff, like anyone would have gotten Justin Jefferson is one of the best people in that position. Like receivers in general. Fitzgerald was like that too. He, he had, if we're going down with the ship, I guess I'm here and I guess I'll go down with another shitty quarterback. Yeah. But you were, yeah. You're approaching like Justin didn't talk to the media, you know, but it was two weeks ago after the Detroit game. Like you're getting overthrown. You're open. Yeah. It's so do you think McCarthy or do they regret that now? Or no? Okay. No. So that just had to end. I don't, exactly. I don't think JJ McCarthy can play that well if he's still in Minnesota. I really don't. But he played better than Carson Wentz on Monday night. I mean, maybe for the game. Cause we saw him have those blips. Like last week's Giants game was like, it was the perfect JJ McCarthy game. He makes some throws. He has some really weird misses. Then he gets hurt. He collapses on the sideline, trying to warm up. He goes and gets a shot, comes back in and the win the game. Like that's, that's your JJ McCarthy rollercoaster game. It's a classic, like need a fresh start. They got it. Fifth round pick for him. They just traded a third for Kirk Cousins. So if you want to look at it as a, you know, a third round pick for Cousins and a fifth. I like that. Not a bad trade. By the miracle of editing, Danny Kelly has just shown up. Look at this. Yeah. This is what happens when we're not on live TV. You could never do this on a podcast. You could just come in. Normally Tom does a pick six. He's going to do pick three. And then we have a bigger topic. Here's, you can please play off this. Jaguars, why did they pay 200 cents in the dollar for all the guys that got, what's going on with their trading strategy dating back to Travis Hunter? It's why do they just overpay for everybody? What's going on with them? It's been part of their MO, like James Gladstone trade under trained under Lesney. And like, the idea is like when you are in your window, you are foot on the gas go mode from the start. And so in their minds, like picks don't matter to them. Well, all the stuff when it was like, I think it. I'm going to trade Brian Thomas was like, for what? Like you get a third, second round pick. Like, well, how does that help us? Like their mentality is we're in the window. We don't need picks. We need players. So when he goes to buy a house, they're like, the house is 1.5 million. He's like, here's three, just wants to get it done. And they're like, what? It's only one. And that's also, here's three take it. But this is also how you get premium players. Like Gladstone called on a bunch of guys that like clearly not available that he was not going to get, you know, he's going to call it like Derek Brown. From the Panthers called on Jeff Simmons to try to get that done in the division. And they were like, no, we're not doing that in the division. That's what I would do if I was a GM. I'd be like, yeah, I'm calling on the best address shirt in the league. Is he available? Nicky Manuri. Yeah, there's way more of that happening now than there's ever been. Why not? What do you do all day? If you're a GM, just make calls. Some GM is just like, well, you know, they're in it. Like, I'm not going to call on that guy. Other ones. Gladstone was just like, well, I'm going to pay whatever it takes to get them. Like Jesse Bates. Jesse Bates. He'd been calling about for a while. And then him and Ian Cunningham like reconnected on the Saturday night before they were playing in wherever the Europe game was last week. I lose track. Munich, maybe. Yeah. Munich, Madrid. Madrid. That's it. One of the M's. And then so and then so like he lets him think about it on the like the long plane ride home to call Monday and the deal is done. It's like it's a second round pick and another pick like a fifth for a 30 year old safety in a contract year. Like that doesn't happen. And then the, you know, the Jordan Davis one, like that is a negative asset to the Eagles at this point because of the amount of money that he's due, even though they just paid them back in March. But like they needed to give themselves the maximum amount of capital. So there was another team. So they traded for a nose tackle that plays 52% of the snaps and doesn't pressure the quarterback at all. The reason they wanted the reason why Jordan Davis, because remember, they also traded for Devon Gottschalk the same day, a different defensive tackle. The Jaguars thought they were done, but Howie and Gladstone kept talking. They already had, there was another team involved in it. And so the Jaguars had their first round pick. Do we really think there was another team? And I know for a fact there was another team involved 2027 first. And then the way it got done was he threw in the 2029 third round pick on top of it, which most people, if you were sitting back, would have gone, what do you get for Jordan Davis in a trade? Maybe a three. They got a first and a third form. What would you have said? Jordan Davis on the open market. What's it worth? A second, second, probably like a low second, not even a high second. Yeah. And you have to take it. But part of it, part of the Eagle strategy is they use this option bonus structure that drops down. The cap hits super low. Yeah. Like every rather than just having like big bases, what most teams doing like year two and three, they do it in an option bonus. So you get like 17 or 18 million next year as an option bonus. I mean, your cap number is like 4 million. So the Jaguars didn't pay the upfront money, which wasn't much. It was like 6 million. But now they get him on a super favorable contract. It's part of like how, how he had the same thing with Cam Juergens in the trade with the Ravens. So between those two, it's like, oh, I don't know. Between those two trades and AJ Brown, they now have 10, five first round picks and five second round picks over the next three drafts. It's like, it's close. Makes you mad. It's, it's good. It's good business for the Eagles. That's for sure. It's as close to the Oklahoma city thunder as you can get because you're not allowed to trade picks more than three years out. They won the title two years ago. It was the best part. If you're an Eagles fan, they didn't have it anymore and they recognized it immediately and they moved, which I think a lot of teams don't do. And they did it without trading their core players. Yeah. Like they now have 10 first or second round picks in the next three drafts. It's like, well, who'd you trade? Uh, the receiver who didn't want to be here, the guard and the fucking defensive tackle. The receiver who didn't want to be here, the degenerative knee issue that you knew about the first time that we did a podcast together. He's had that forever, right? I know. I didn't know about it. I was excited for AJ Brown. They kept their better defensive tackle too. Cause I'm sure like a lot of people have thought, you know, um, now I'm blanking on his name. The other Jalen Carter was going to be the guy that people try and go get, but yeah. We got Danny right after he just did an hour and a half with the fantasy guys. He's groggy. Yeah. It's just like when I get CR for rewatchables and he's done the watch and the big picture. He's just classy. I, um, I think the Jags are good now. Part of why I think the Jags are good. they're good is because they seem to house all these bad teams which they were doing in second half last year that's what you're supposed to do the question is when you have a game like the playoff game against buffalo last year when you actually have to take care of the little things so it's almost like these two teams right the the team that's going to blow out all the bad teams but what is this team over here but they have a lot of talent man it's part of why you do even after getting godshell who's like a he's like a rotational type of guy backhand rotational guy yeah you still go get jordan davis and it's because like what happens if you have an injury or two and now you're getting ready to face james cook in the playoffs it's like you're basically fortifying yourself and say we're going to overspend to make sure we can withstand a hit or two at a position that like there's nobody on the street you can't find defensive tackle like you need a guard like there's probably a guard somewhere on someone's practice squad you can sound like nobody has defensive tackles just sitting there so now they have a bunch of different guys after the devon hamilton injury that they can rotate in there who do you like the most in the afc is it the jags the jags i was just pointing out some stats uh earlier and you mentioned it's like they're just blowing teams out it's always a good sign trevor lawrence has the fewest pass attempts in the fourth quarter in the nfl he's like not even playing the fourth quarter so they're taking care of business in three quarters they can sit there starters in the fourth quarter they shorten the game but they don't play very many plays they're actually one of the slowest operating offenses in the nfl and they just kind of they just dominate so i like them and i think and tootin was like the big it was almost like what you had in seattle with yeah are we going to be able to make it with these running backs and the answer so far has been no but tootin and jacksonville the answer has been yes right and i the both of their running backs are solid i think tootin has been really this is good too tootin's been a really big like positive surprise i think there was a lot of uncertainty about what he didn't play a ton last year and he's been explosive he's been physical he breaks tackles yeah i was pretty dubious too i didn't really know what to make of it because he was one of those fantasy guys where it's like oh it's kind of like you have to went 24 hours on tootin is he even going to have the ball it's like a leap of faith and yeah he's really paid off and remember they they tried to sign jk dobbins like they had a deal done with jk dobbins and then sean payton the broncos talked him out of it so they almost kind of fell into basial tootin being the primary back that's worked out pretty good yeah they're my thing is can you throw the ball when you're behind which they can do can you protect the lead if you have it they've shown they can do that right and then the defense stuff i mean i think hunter as watching the ball the second half of the year like what the ceiling is for him just as like a guy that five times a game seems to be basically what we were hoping christian gonzalez would be before he apparently died and got replaced by his alter ego who got torched in the green bay game all game yeah but yeah we you want your franchise cornerback to actually just be super impactful and all over the place which has been hunted he looks like one of the best players on the field and in a couple of different games this year i agree showing up multiple times he's certain ish yeah like kind of in that range and and he's partly played on the offensive side like part of their strategy with hunter and everybody else was don't overtax them early in the year like you saw with hunter last year he was playing a ton of snaps he was playing part-time on on defense but then like sort of full time but not quite on offense like then he gets hurt with a weird injury in practice like this year that this was part of their theory was like we were going to play 2021 games in our mind like we need to watch everybody's snap count and that's where you've seen kind of the rotation stuff like smart when we get into december and january i wouldn't be surprised at all if all of a sudden like the what is he averaging like three snaps on offense it's not much yeah if that becomes like 10 to 15 but they're just like especially if they have a buy in round one they could basically game those three games i like their team it's funny the con family not afraid to roll the dice and take some swings right so this gm's like hey man i'm just going for it i don't care about picks and they're probably like that sounds great that's what tony does in the aew sign every single big name yeah i don't care he operates like a fantasy manager that's what i think yeah stone does it's fun all right so that was one we're doing a pick three instead of a pick six okay lamar jackson what's the deal because we're going to talk about second half surge teams after the break and baltimore is going to be a team we've discussed but what do we actually what are you hearing when is he coming back he doesn't has a chance to get back this year but it's dependent on how does his recovery go which with lamar you never know because you know like the ankle he had earlier this year was like there was a legit ankle injury but like something like this coming off surgery on your thumb you just don't entirely know you know baker mayfield was like a weekend and like the moment the stitches were almost like i can go and it was like all right hold on hold on with lamar he's it's a different type of injury and he's gonna want to make sure he's 100 but it sounds like lamar intends to get back and the ravens are keeping the door open but it's going to depend on how jacoby brissett plays if they're in mid late december and they're like whatever six and eight he's not coming back if brissett can win some games here and they have like relevant football at the end of the year lamar has a chance as long as the rehab goes well to get back on the field so at that point you could potentially rewrite it his legs will obviously be fresh because he won't play football basically for the whole season with the time that he missed earlier you know he could be in good shape it's really about can brissett just kind of steady the ship because what are your thoughts on that danny i i can't say i love the way he's been steering the ships this year i know it's not it's been a long time since he's been steering the ships this year and some rocky cruises not a great sign that he got benched in arizona yeah is that what you mean with brissett he got benched against the dallas cowboys and then his backup exactly the 85 bears who then got torched by his backup right yeah that's not a great sign that minshu came in and like threw three touchdowns his best game was the chargers game when they looked incredible well we thought they were gonna be good yeah they just they deceived all of us because we had no idea the chargers were bad yeah that was the weird game of this year last year was raiders where you just throw it out yeah it's like that game i was at that game yeah it was like rainy this year was cards chargers it was like oh the cards there's something here it's like no there's actually nothing here yeah right the chargers are just awful and then we kept talking ourselves into it for a few weeks after that like well that was week one it was weird it was like no then they were terrible the following week against the raiders but at least he's better than uh i think he's better than hunley i think he's better than finiano i think he gives them an opportunity and it's all about keeping things alive for zay flowers who is their best offensive player i guess you could say that derrick henry has been the best offensive player in the world i guess you could super exciting right here zay flowers looks incredible yeah he's been like top seven or eight this year i mean he's been one of the most open players yeah they've been they've done a great job deck and doyle's done a great job of getting him open letting him you know score these big touchdowns and derrick henry we got to get him going i think reset gives them a better option in terms of getting that offense going and i think it gives them an opportunity the problem is we'll get to this but they have a very tough schedule if you look at like what deckland doyle's done they were still i haven't looked at it this week but going into the finiano game they were still top 10 in epa yeah like they were still unbelievable with like snoop huntley and all the other moving parts that they had like if they can actually get healthy who knows jacoby is this like he's not obviously a move threat he doesn't like lamar or even snoop like jacoby's a pocket passer yeah but he has played a lot of football and you think you can put it on his plate just get the ball to our playmakers which you know with finiano just who by the way was like on a bad ankle like what a complete disaster the first 20 minutes of that first start um all right i'm going off off the menu time for the last one bring it on three yeah what do you got do you think the rams put any real thought into maybe we just punt on this season i don't get that sense okay they're they had been the lowest cash spend team for five years this is like how they do it they keep their costs low and then when you get into that mode it's now we're going for it it's a we're going to draft everybody the youngest team in the nfl like three years ago so at this point you're so leveraged into this season like what would you have even traded like matthew stafford i don't think that was gonna happen i don't know like on the roster can i can i make the case for trading matthew stafford please well could capitalize how what would the implications have been not not that significant nothing they couldn't do hasn't looked that good the last few weeks his body is clearly breaking down a little bit they drafted somebody number 13 last year and they have stats and bennett and could you have done like the double timeline of yeah we got out of the stafford business we're giving him a chance to win but then you're secretly hoping you still have a chance to win they also have a bunch of players on their team young guys yeah they had a great draft in 2023 they haven't resigned any of those dudes puka um kobe turner was part of that group byron young was part of that group two of their offensive linemen they haven't resigned any of them and that was part of their offensive linemen they haven't resigned any of them and that was part of like we're giving ourselves the optionality after the season like hey like to move on from staff is stafford is stafford playing great are some of these older davante adams like are these guys playing great we bring them back if so we're probably gonna lose some of the young guys if this whole thing collapses well now maybe we move on from the old guys we devote that money to the young guys like that's where they've been really good about giving themselves those opportunities he traded stafford now it would kind of be like a half measure it wouldn't fit into either side of is that a first or second i mean at his age i i think that it's pro i just don't know why they would do it so i would think it would have to be at least a second i don't know why they took a quarterback 13th when they were also in win now let's trade for miles garrett we got to go for it because they figured we're never going to have that high of a pick again that was what they were thinking was like we are going to be for as long as long as we can see the timeline here with this group like we're going to be drafted at the bottom of the round and you don't get quarterbacks with pick 31 or 30 - Were you ready for that pick at the time? - I think it was a C minus. or D I can't remember mine was a solid F minus yeah if I'm trying to win the Super Bowl next year I don't understand how that's my pick especially that draft was there were some good guys around that range right I totally agree and it was it was not it's not hindsight now to say and we were talking about this on the day of the draft that okay Pukunukua he gets the crap beat out of him every game and Devante Adams is getting pretty old and also has a lot of injury history or at least recent injury history they're both out yeah they're both out now Wittington's on IR now too look at their receiver core it is the worst in the NFL it's so bad I picked up Kanata Mumpfield in fantasy I already had him and waved him two weeks ago they went and got Tutu Atwell back just to get the band back together but like they sent Xavier Smith off the 49ers practice squad like it's they're down to spare parts honestly they're stupid because I watched that game I was with you yeah and they were in that third and eleven where Puka just got lit up the game they're up seven there's a minute running the clock out he had like 15 touches and it's like let's ram this guy into seven guys again one more time and he got hurt I think that's stupid but I mean if you look at yeah and with all that said look at the receivers that were still on the board at the time when they took Simpson it's like some of them are doing great this year like who? I mean Makai Lemon was on there on the board at that time he's been coming on a little like Jeremy Bernard who has looked really good he's been good Denzel Boston Casey Concepcion I believe was still on the board they would have taken those guys 13 though maybe I mean I was shocked that Boston fell out of the first round so I don't know they had options they had and we said this at the time this is not like hindsight like you are really hoping that Devontae and Puka can stay healthy now they have to kind of revamp their whole offense it's going to be run the ball as much as they can and pass to the tight end I mean honestly I like their run game and I don't I don't understand why that's not their style I think both of those running backs are really good it might be now yeah because the way I really think they're tough to play when they're just like pounding the ball which they're obviously going to do this weekend but can they play from behind if they get they cannot get behind in a game and yeah it's going to be interesting plus Stafford has not been playing as well as he did last year he looks like well if you don't have Devontae and now you don't have Puka like that's going to impact anybody yeah like you know I was at the Australia game he wasn't quite himself and they pulled him early because it was just like the game's over so just roll roll stats and bend it out there but he still is capable of playing at that level like if you look at again the stats like they're top 10 offense and defense right now yeah like there's still a good team yes they can coach around like if you're the Rams what you're betting is we're going to get those guys back at the end of the year we're going to be we just got to hang around be alive and then Devontae should be back after the bye Puka they're hoping toward the end of the season is able to get back obviously Miles is back and finally actually looks like himself which he didn't in week one that's big which is a massive part of it so they just they are the team like we talk so much about the 49ers like the Rams have gotten shelled they lost Jalen Watson to a season ending injury now it's one of their starting corners they put a bunch of money into it's just like you're very much sort of at a difficult point because when you spend that much money and that many resources on your front line guys it does have an impact on your depth and you know you may be seeing a little bit of that right now I wonder why they didn't try to trade Stetson Bennett not that there would have been much of a market you don't think so knowing the history with Stetson he's won a lot but no special physical traits and there's just a lot of other stuff that people would have to do the research on like Whitey Fault I think the team in the seventh right like why was he a guy who won that much at Georgia like why was he available and all the other what are you getting in the guy and he was away from the team for a year some of the quarterbacks that we watched in the last three weeks I would have been calling on all these guys over Finiano and we're good to that I mean the quarterbacks that are starting this week we have some real doozies we're going to take a break we're going to come back and we're going to talk about second half surge teams one of my favorite gimmicks next this episode is brought to you by PayPal you know that thing you've had your eye on for a while maybe it's for your mom your friend or hey maybe you're like me like to buy yourself gifts I'm an only child what do you want go on and add it to your cart because PayPal gives you the flexibility to buy what you love now and pay later shop your favorite brands like Dick's Sporting Goods eBay the Home Depot then check out with PayPal or pay later with Pay & For no late fees no interest just savvy holiday shopping shop now with PayPal subject to approval learn more at paypal.com slash pay & for PayPal Inc NMLS 910457 all right so when I was back when my fingers worked when I was writing my ESPN column on Fridays in the 2000s I would always try to figure out around week 8 week 9 there was always a team that was 500 or worse right 2 and 7 3 and 6 4 and 4 and the second half of the season would come and the team would would go on a run right and then we get to the end of the season and then we get to the end of the season and then we get to the end of the season and then we get to like week 17 and it'd be on some pregame show or whatever like who could have seen this coming the Jets were 2 and 7 and now they're in a 7 game so this happens every year we know it right just like we know before the year this year there's always a worse to first team that wins the division I knew it I stared at the Giants for the entire month of August and I'm like you know what there's not going to be one this year and I planted my flag on that corner I was wrong it actually was the Giants so we know there's going to be a second half search team so I'm going to go through the candidates and then we're going to decide we'll start with the AFC the Baltimore Ravens are 4 and 5 and seem like their season's over I don't trust it I don't trust them I'm not counting them out I wouldn't cross them off they have the Chargers this week I don't know if you've seen them but they're basically dead they're covered in formaldehyde at Carolina at Houston by Tampa at Pittsburgh home Cleveland at Cincinnati home Pittsburgh and you figure if they can just have one loss get Lamar back head to those last three games December 27th Lamar and they would be 8 and 6 with Cleveland at Cincinnati and Pittsburgh left is that interesting at all Tom? it definitely does we have to see if they can actually put that type of team together like Brissette just got there that is part of it he's played a lot of football but like doesn't have a lot of framework in that system like he's got a lot of they do have enough talent and if Derrick Henry when he gets going and holds on to the football he is still a load to deal with you mentioned Zay's playing really good right now the biggest issue for the Ravens right now is the defense like that's been the calling card you got a defensive head coach and just seems like in the big moments like they're not stopping people they figure that out you got a chance what do you think Danny? I think there is a chance that Brissette stabilizes that offense and gives them an opportunity but I'm just looking at their schedule according to DVOA their future schedule is fifth hardest according to Warren Sharpe it's second hardest that's the efficiency stat there and to me it's just yeah getting through the next few weeks seeing how they look I do think they have the talent but like as you said the defense hasn't really been as good as we thought it would be it's confounding yeah it's not better there's two things that's confounding about that team one is the defense I thought you guys would be flying around more Jesse Mitter style all that stuff and then I don't understand how they use Henry Henry seems like he's a starter on a 75 pitch count in baseball where it's like oh top of the fifth Derek's gotta come out it's like it just seems like he's 11 carries 12 carries I never feel like he's overpowering the other team he doesn't seem as scary but then he'll have a good run you're like he still seems like Derek Henry he can do it still he's one of the most confounding players but they don't want to put the load on him I do think if you look at the history of his career second half of the season and second half of games is where he starts to really wear on defenses he's really good so maybe this is maybe we'll look back on this conversation and be like oh remember when Derek Henry turned the corner and he had a great second half they need to stay healthy on offense I mean I'm sorry home chargers at Carolina you should be able to win both of those games even with Jacoby Brissett the biggest issue with getting Henry going and like the stats bear this out is like with him without Lamar he's not as effective if Lamar is not out there and part of that is because Lamar every time on a handoff he can pull it and go around the edge you're constantly accounting for the quarterback when he's not out there like no one's afraid of Jacoby Brissett pulling it on like a zone read or a play action you know whatever you're constantly you're not worried about Jacoby going out the back door so if I'm a team I'm just going we're going to crush and stop Derek Henry like we're just going to worry about him beating us between the tackles and like you beat us with something else great go for it Danny if you were the Ravens GM would this be it for you and Lamar would you just be looking to exit playing or you'd be talking yourself into 2027 I would be talking myself into 2027 I think obviously there are red flags not saying that but it's very hard to find a good quarterback in the NFL he's won two MVPs I worry about the athletic quarterback when they hit their 30s just in general I don't worry so much about him up and down list he's been so good as a pocket passer too though is the thing and I don't worry about him aging quite as much as the other guys I do worry about things like injuries and compounding injuries and it's kind of been an issue the last couple of years it hurt a lot yeah and just he's a different guy like you know he's a he has his own representation he just kind of like I don't know he's just unpredictable I think from that point of view these injuries were where you're down after eight years right that's the thing is I don't know even right now at the thumb like how much do they talk to them every day about the thumb how much how involved are they in the recovery what I'd say is like they still love Lamar like they want him to be there they want to get an extension done they've been trying to do it for two years and they'll take another run at it I believe after the season here as we get you know closer to free agency and potentially beyond if you were to trade him or cut him which you're not going to cut him but if you did that like you'd also have a bunch of bonus acceleration that would come and would crush cap in 2027, which is at least one factor, one more reason that there's There has to be a lot of emphasis on trying to get a deal done after this season. Plus, you have a no tag and no trade clause, so you can't keep him in 2028. If he wants to hit the open market, he can. Trading him, in my mind, doesn't make a whole lot of sense going into it because, number one, there really wasn't a market for him when he was on the franchise tag a few years ago and anybody could have tried to sign him and give up two first round picks for him. Yeah, Atlanta was the famous one for that. But also, if you're the Ravens, why sell low? Unless somebody's like, you know, Broncos on Russell Wilson, like, all right, we know there's reasons the guy's available, but screw it. We need the quarterback. We'll give up two firsts and whatever it was, two additional picks and three players. Like, just do it. If you don't have that team that's motivated, like, are you taking a first and a third for Lamar Jackson? I'd also be nervous why the Ravens were getting off him. That's what I mean. It's like when you're buying a car from somebody and they're like, hey, you should take my car. It's like, why? Why are you trying to get? Give me your car. Why was Russell Wilson available? Right. In hindsight, it was because he kind of slowed down and he wanted to be a certain style of quarterback that he was not. Baltimore DVOA, 19th, 22nd offense, 14th defense. That is not the team I would pick for the AFC second half search team. Just got to mention Cleveland quickly, just because of the schedule. If they somehow beat Houston this week, bye week, home Vegas. I mean. What are they? Five and four now? Mm-hmm. So they could literally be seven and four in two weeks. And they would still have at that point in the Indianapolis game and at Giants game. I just, I have no idea how they have as many wins as that. I can't put them in this. But the biggest thing that makes me nervous is. They've had four end of the game wins and that's just stupid. It's been kind of fluky. All their wins have been two minute drives at the end with Deshaun Watson, which it's, it's a credit to Todd Monken and his staff that time and again, they're in those situations and they find a way. It's credit to Deshaun Watson too. But like, you know what? To live like that, you know, the best team never feels dominating inferior opponents with the Browns. It's like they're in it and Hey, they're finding ways to win. But how sustainable is that? That's, that's really the concern. 25th DVOA too. So we're crossing them off. Did want to just, can we get in the car with Vegas for a split second? 22nd and DVOA 15th offense, 31st defense, but they're terrible on defense. This Mendoza piece coming in. I'd like it a lot more if they weren't playing Danny Seahawks this week. It seems like a tough first game. At least it's a home. That's the one thing they got going for them in Seattle would be, you know, a lot tougher. I admit, I kind of like them for ringer 107 a little bit. Really? I do. What's the line? It's, it's high. 10 and a half or something. Yeah. Yeah. It's high. No, it's not that high. Wait, hold on. I'll find it. It's high. I thought it was six and a half. The best thing, the best thing to say for Fernando's story is six and a half, six and a half. It's a home dog, six and a half that can move the ball against a team that has an injured backup quarterback playing. And everything I heard going back to camp when there was, you know, Clint was just playing some games, just kept saying like, I'm not, not ready to name the starter. That was just him like, Hey, let's keep people working hard and like whatever. But it changed a couple of weeks ago. All of a sudden it was, no, Fernando's ready. Like we know he's ready. It's a matter of when he's going to get his opportunity. So this is a guy who we've never seen him play this style of offense. He can, yeah. He's like a better athlete than everybody thinks. I mean, like the run in the national championship game, like he can get out and move. Yeah. I think the offense. I think the offense will be pretty similar and they think they're going to get similar type of production. So I don't have some energy. I think the offense is scared of this game. Just admit it. Danny Kubiak. He knows, he knows, he knows the engine. I do think the Kubiak element of this is really interesting. He's, you know, he coached obviously with the McDonald last year. He kind of knows, maybe he knows the rules of, or at least some of them to help break the defense that it's like a chess game because McDonald breaks the offense's rules. And then maybe Kubiak is aware of ways to kind of beat that. And then obviously the Seahawks. Have a backup quarterback. I think Fernando is going to have some really tough sledding against the Seahawks defense this week. It's just, that's just going to happen. But it doesn't. Their schedule is too hard, I think, for a comeback. And then you can be able to run it with a rookie quarterback. Like their run game hasn't been good, even though Mike Washington looks good. And you have Ashton Gentry, who was a top 10 pick last year. And it's like, how do you. Below average third down back. He's like their pass schedule. That's what Clint should be good at. Like based on that system, like you should be able to run the football effectively. Like the line's not great, but it's not awful. This is not the team. They need to improve in that. And maybe, by the way, Fernando with some of the movement skills, like might open up some other things that like. Like the boot game. You're never, yeah, you're never running, like you're never getting Kirk out on the perimeter. You're never in a zone read with them. Like Fernando in that offense in Indiana, that was a big part of it was like, it was all kind of in that, you know, pistol shotgun area. And it was just like dudes running wide open all day. He can get out and move when he needs to. And maybe there's a little bit something extra that you can unlock there. You know what I don't love for a rookie quarterback? Home Seattle at Denver at Cleveland. Yeah, that's tough. That doesn't sound fun. No. Oh, and you have no receivers. You have Brock Bowers. You got a third round pick. You have Mayer. Third round pick and $10 million to throw him to the Wolves for the Easter games. Yeah, exactly. Because if Kirk is still there, it's probably right after that. Exactly, yeah. You're putting him out. I still like him. They probably feel confident. I do like the Kubiak thing. I love when the offensive coordinator, the defense coordinator, goes against the old team. They know, he knows literally everything wrong with the Seattle offense because he had to try to make it work for a year. Mm-hmm. And, you know, it'd be like if you left. If you left the fantasy show and you're like, here are Heifetz's weaknesses. I already know what he's going to say. I already know what Heifetz, I know how to get to him. Right. Or if an insider left and suddenly figured out how to get certain skills. Oh, shit. He's killing the trade deadline. We love it. Here's, I think, the team we agree on for second half search, the Houston Texans, who are 3-5. Yep. Who are 13th at DVOA, who are 8th in offense and 12th in defense. Yep. I wouldn't believe they were 3-5 unless I watched all the games. And bet on half of them, which I did. They play at Cleveland this week. Home Indy. That sounds great. We're set in Baltimore at home. At Pittsburgh. At Washington. Home Jacksonville. At Philly, which looked really hard. Now not. Mm-hmm. At Green Bay. Home Tennessee. They need to get to 10 wins. Did you see seven in there? I think so. Pretty good year to play the NFC East. I mean, yeah. So it's seven and two, basically. But if they're at Cleveland at Indy, I mean, at Cleveland. Cleveland home Indy. Now I'm five and five. Now I just need to go five and two. Right. And, I mean, the offense has exceeded every logical expectation the entire season, especially when Nico Collins has been healthy. They've been unbelievable. Well, how about our guy Tank Dell? Tank? He's back. He's back. It looks good. That's CJ's guy. All of a sudden, they seem explosive. Yeah. They have, even Booty got going last week, but they have like five receivers now. I don't know how hard the Chargers were trying to chase down Booty on that play. But they at least are explosive. Right. Which I don't think we could have said about the Texans. We'll see. Stroud's better than he was at any point last year. He's been great. That's been a day. The defense has been worse than it was at any point last year. It's like, so if you're just playing like the regression to the mean game here, it's like, I think the Texans defense, whatever offense may slip a little bit, like the defense should get a lot better based on who they are. Yeah. You can easily sort of write the narrative that the Texans defense will figure it out as the year goes on, start to look more like what we thought they would be, which was one of the top two defenses in the NFL last year. I think there's a chance that happens. And then Stroud playing well has been one of the, one of the big stories. It's kind of under discussed because of how the Texans started the season. Yeah. But he's been incredible. I mean, he's top five in passer rating. He's averaged eight yards of attempt, 16 touchdowns, two picks. He's looking like he did as a rookie. And he's looking better. He passes the eye test. He's confident. Yeah. I think he's better. Yeah. Like if you're doing a deal right now, if the season ended today and you were doing a CJ Stroud contract, it's fucking 65 million a year. And it's not like the two a deal where you're like, I don't like doing this, but I know we have to. Like Stroud, I'd be like, I want to. Yeah. You've been really good. If he can be that guy all the time and not, because remember he played pretty well down the stretch last year. And then like the playoffs were an abomination of not being able to handle the football. But if he just finishes like this. Yeah. I don't know how you don't make him the highest paid quarterback based on where he is on his contract. My fear with this team as the second half surge team is they just do dumb shit. We didn't, we, they, D'Amico Ryan's was probably upset. We didn't include him in the game management conversation earlier. It just feels like they've snatched defeat out of the hands of victory three times. This year. So that would be like, I could see them having the lead in all of these games, but maybe not winning three of them. We'll see. D'Amico hasn't been terrible all the time. He's had some weird timeout usage stuff this year. There's been the end of the game stuff. We talked about on Sunday nights. They had a pick against the bills and then they dropped it. And then the next play they came back. The next play they gave up an explosive touchdown. Yeah. It was like, it's just a crap like that. That happened all season. Or what was the game when they, they took the lead with like a minute and a half left. And then the other team went down and got a field goal. And then they lost to them. Like Indianapolis. Yeah. That's right. They finished that game. They lost to the Colts. Yeah. I mean, that's on a one minute drive. They're 0-4 at home. And I don't think that'll happen. They lost to the Giants at home right before the bye. And that loss was awful. It was a very weird game. But they got their ass kicked in that game too. Yeah. But the Giants did run the ball down their throats. And if you look at who's on their schedule left, not one team is going to be able to do that. So, all right. Houston for the NFC. And then quickly we'll do for AFC. And then we'll do NFC. Does NFC sound like a good game? Does the South count for the second half surge? Or do we just assume all of these teams are going 7-10? It's a race to six wins. Yeah. We don't think any of these teams will get quote-unquote hot, right? I think I could make an argument for one. Tampa? Yeah. Yeah. That was the one I had. That would be the only one I feel good about. Are you seeing Tampa's? The lowest rate to schedule. They're number one in defensive EPA. Yep. Seventh in DBOA overall. First in defense. 23rd in offense. But they've had a backup quarterback for three of those games. And Baker, like, even last week. Like, he was like, I don't know. He was throwing the ball more normally. Now he doesn't have the glove with the plate and all that. But, like, he still isn't the same guy. Like, I want to see as they're coming off the box. Hit that one really nice throw, though. Where it's like, oh! Yeah, it's in there. You can still do it. Why has it been such a rollercoaster? I don't see new coordinators every year. Zach Robinson was his guy. He wanted him to be the OC this year. Like, the whole thing just hasn't worked, and Baker hasn't looked great. Like, I would like to think another two weeks, the thumb's fully healed, he can play consistently. Like, if he gets hot, he is a streaky quarterback. If he gets hot, everything else about the Bucs screams they're the team to beat in the NFC. Well, one thing I really like about them, I really like their running backs. I think Irving's, like, legit good. So they have this, I think, a really good defense, and then you have the ability to run the ball, and a quarterback who can make, like, two explosive plays. Like, they do have the recipe for November, December. And they're in a shitty division. They go bye week at Detroit, Carolina Chargers. There could be two wins. They play New Orleans. They're at Baltimore. That could be a win. At Atlanta, Rams late in the season might be, their season might be over by them. It's easy to schedule the rest of the way. Yeah. Three and six. I don't think they'll be a second-half surge team because I think eight wins probably wins that division. And I wouldn't put any other NFC South. That's still a surge relative to the start. So Dallas, who is four and five, has the sixth-best offense by DVO, and they've been 29th defense. And they're playing San Francisco this week. They're four-and-a-half-point underdogs at home, which is a little insulting. But then after that, Tennessee-Philly, they have on their schedule, they have the Giants, and they have out Washington on their schedule. So they have four wins plus an upset. My question with Dallas is, are they one of those teams that they play a shit team, they're going to play like shit, and if they're playing a good team, they might actually play well? It's going to just rise and fall depending on the caliber? Because I feel like they're going to play well against San Francisco this week. So do you see any surge potential with them? I think it's certainly possible because of their offense. Their defense has been extremely disappointing. I mean, one of the most frustrating units to watch in the NFL this year, like there's times it looks, like they just give up. There's been like three separate games where I was just genuinely confused as to what they were doing. I mean, remember week one against the Giants, they just couldn't defend the flats. I think that was week one against Jackson Dart. But there's been like three games this year that I'm just confounded as to why they can't adapt to anything. And so the defense really makes me nervous. So you're saying they're not well coached with one of the cheapest coaching staffs in the league? Correct. The issue with the defense too is like, it has gotten better. You haven't seen like those, like blatant coverage. Right. Like you saw the first month of the season, like they're at least playing it now, but it just seems like there's individual players do dumb shit late in games. Like they dominated the first three quarters of the game last week. And then all of a sudden fall apart in the fourth quarter. They were dominating against Jacoby Brissett. And all of a sudden Gardner Minshew comes in and just absolutely wrecks them the rest of the game. It's like, it's a bunch of little things. It doesn't help that if you think of all the capital they used on that defense, all the different trades, Joey Porter, didn't play last week. He says his entire foot and ankle is messed up. Like who knows what, if anything they get from him, he's dropped out of basically every game he's played since they trade a second round pick and another pick for him. So you don't like the trade. I mean, everybody, people were like killing the Steelers. Like why would you trade Joey Porter? It's like, it's a corner in his contract here. He's refusing to play. He keeps saying he's got a back issue. He's got multiple injuries. And then he goes and he immediately. Seems like a good guy to trade. And it, what happens when you don't practice because you're saying you got an issue, you're not in shape, like your conditioning's, oh, you go out and you play and you get hurt. So they're getting nothing from Joey Porter yet on that trade. Rashawn Gary, outside of like one game, I feel like he's been completely invisible for him. He's famous for something else right now. Yeah. The pooping of the pants. Did you guys see this? This has been a huge year for pooping in the pants. It's been more than one, which is more than I can remember. We've had multiple poop in the pants this year. People have, yeah, I've seen some of the players firing back. Like I absolutely did not. I'm sure he didn't. You have to make a public statement saying, I absolutely did not shit my pants. It's probably not a great sign. I do feel like in the AI era, we're getting more of these too, because it would be so easy to just doctor the video. I don't trust any shit in the pants. I'm not saying he did. It just looked like he did. So I guess two games then, Rashawn Gary's been noticeable this season. Quinny Williams has been like up and down. You know, he's come on recently, but like it's not a consistently impactful guy. Like all those things that they acquired with, in part, the Micah Parsons assets, like I know Mike is not playing right now, but like who of all those guys is making a Micah Parsons-like impact? As a collective, they were supposed to. Kenny Clark, that was the player in the trade. Yeah. As you heard, Kenny Clark's name, I'm not trying to rip guys individually, but it's just like, they're not getting the impact from any of these guys that they invested so heavily in. Even, you know, the rookies on that side, the past Russian, Brandon Aubrey's been human. Brandon Aubrey's been human. Now Kyle Lawrence is on IR now, and Caleb Downs has been up and downs. Yeah. Well, they, he would seem like they had started to unleash him a little bit. Yeah. Like they're trying to use it more like Kyle, Hamilton-ish. We'll see if that continues. He'll be fine. I think he'll be good. But right now, like you said, they're just not. It's just the whole thing. It's disjointed. You just made the case why this actually would be a second half search. If they figure it out. Because we kind of like the defense, but we don't know why they're not playing well. Right. We know they have the offense. Yeah. Yeah. I thought about that one when you texted earlier about this. Like my issue with it is just, they have usually one game every year. The Cowboys have like one of those games at home where they play someone terrible and they just don't show up. Yeah, the stupidest loss possible. They've already had two because they lost to the Bucs who are winless and then they lose to the Cardinals. Like these are inexplicable types of games and whether that's just like the culture around the team, whether that's just like bad luck. Like they just at home, they seem to just flounder on how many home games they got left or who it is. But like, you just don't know. There's no game you go into with the Cowboys and you say, well, they're going to win this one. They're going to take care of us. And you're like, we don't know. Totally. Every single game. I do like that. The Zed. The Zed. The Zed bag though is if the defense has all these good players and they figure it out, then I mean the offense, I do trust the offense. Can they be a league average defense? Could they win a couple games because of special teams and could their offense take off? I have no idea what happened to Pickens. I have him on a fantasy team. He's just had the red flag next to him on CBS for a month and a half. He's legit hurt right now. Yeah. He had the shoulder for a while and then he's got a hamstring now too. So he's actually hurt. Okay. Well, that was one of the things I liked about that. Oh, it's just they had two good receivers and now it seems like they have one. So Tampa is like begrudgingly the pick, I guess. Yeah. There's one other team I just want to mention really quickly. Only because that Cleveland game we watched with Jordan Tyson, who seemed kind of scary a couple of times. Where New Orleans has now these receivers, Olave, they have Jordan Tyson. There's always a rookie receiver in the second half of the season who takes off. Yeah. And I don't know whether that's him. It might be Concepcion. It might be Denzel Boston. Who knows? Could be Lemon on the Eagles. But those three receivers, I thought they should have dominated that Cleveland game. And Cleveland's, they're not good, but they're also not bad. And they're moving ball up and down. Tyson fumbled on the goal line at one point. I just feel like there's some explosiveness with that offense. A-chain's coming back soon. Yeah, they'll get the running back back. Yeah. And they got their left tackle back. So I just wonder, is there something there? The problem is, so if they beat Carolina this week at Chicago, next week, at Cincinnati the week after that, they have Green Bay, they have at Tampa. They played Tampa twice. But that's the only other one I was thinking. Yeah, they're capable. Like, the defense has been better, I think, than everybody thinks. Like, they've, for all their various issues, like, they've continued to swing and they're keeping them in games. If the offense can get better, yeah, no A-chan, no Jordan Tyson. Like, those are maybe the two most, those are your two biggest acquisitions. And no left tackle for a month. Those two guys. And they didn't have Kelvin Banks, for a month, too. Shuck's played good football. Like, every coach I've talked to on the other team against the Saints has been like, Shuck was good against us. Like, he's playing well. Now you get the weapons back. Like, let's see. Like, there's pressure on Kelvin now to, like, turn the corner. The owners talked publicly about it, which was kind of, you know, playing to the fans a little bit. But, like, it's real. You were supposed to get better. They were the sexy team at the end of last year. I do think something has to be said for your biggest additions. Both of them were basically a wash for half the year with Tyson and A. So, get him back. That's a good point. Tyson had a couple plays last week where it was like, ooh. He just moves differently. Ah. I mean, he was the best receiver in the draft. The question was, he had a hamstring in the offseason. And then he tweaks it in August and misses three months. I would call Carolina-New Orleans this Sunday a loser-leaves-town match. Except the losers have already left town in the NFC South. You can't count anyone out at any time. It's just going to be leapfrogging. And whoever gets to eight wins, I think, is going to win the division. You would have a legit, like, I don't know if you'd pull up, like, the top seven in the conference right now. You are going to have, quite possibly, a sub-500, depending on the Giants, a sub-500 NFC East winner and a sub-500 NFC South winner. One will be the three, one will be the four. And they'll be hosting, like, the Packers and the Lions in week one, in the wildcard weekend of the playoffs. It's going to be awful. The Giants are plus 10 right now and they're 5-2-1. The NFC South, Carolina's technically leading. They're minus 20. Like, usually we have one bad division, but not two. It's just we had this two good, two good divisions and two horrible ones. It's part of why we didn't have even more trade action than we did. Because if you look at the standings, both, there's only one team in the NFC, the Eagles, that's, like, really out of it at two and seven. And they took it, you know, traded some guys. And then in the AFC, there's, like, five teams. You know, it's like, it's the Colts and the Dolphins and some of those others at the bottom, the Jets. But, like, nobody else is out of it. So you only had six teams that, like, know they're out. There's 26 teams that are hovering. A big part of that is how bad some of these divisions are. We have to go, Danny's about to kill over, he needs some coffee. about to do another podcast i'm 15 minutes late so our final verdict is houston for me it would be yeah yep anyone in nfc you're not even willing to put a stamp on anybody i'll say tampa i think yeah the buccaneers are fun so tampa like a half half tampa like they go it's the easiest schedule in football if tampa goes nine and eight that's almost counts as a second half search i think you can count it so we're not gonna i think if mayfield starts playing we're standing away from dallas yeah just it makes me nervous they got all the talent but i would if pickens was healthy i would talk myself into dallas but with one and he'll be back it's i don't think it's a long-term thing he could be back soon it's just cardinals and bucks at home man at those times for those teams it's rough you can watch listen to tom on the ringer nfl show you can watch listen to danny kelly on the ringer fantasy football show how many years for us with the fantasy football show seven started in like 2019 yeah used to be called the danacy because it was two dannys it's a very good pun craig was the producer you and we called the danacy football show and then somebody well the problem was if you googled dantasy somebody would just be like did you mean fantasy yeah yeah so no one's like why don't you just put fantasy in the name and then people know it's a fantasy football the dantasy fantasy show another one of my classic uh leadership moments it's like oh yeah that's probably a good idea we should put fantasy in the fantasy thing but anyway uh great to see you guys thank you you too you too we're gonna come back with a house after this mailbag our friends at fando have hardwood hero coming back on friday and it's really fun opt-in use a 50 pbt on any nba bet minus 200 or longer and if anyone that evening scores 40 plus points you win another pbt so you can go easy wimpy's the logical guy to go with for this that will get us 40 points on a friday because he only gets golden state um you know no curry maybe he'll just it's probably a televised game he'll go nuts on them um one that i like that i thought was kind of a dark horse yannis playing cleveland now cleveland could have had a chance to maybe go after yannis last uh last summer in the maybe give up mobi for him and demurred and i wonder if maybe he will um have a little extra for them so we'll see that and then daris garland against okc because i don't know who else is going to score against okc would be another one anyway remember you don't have to bet a 40 piece to be eligible all you have to do is place a minus 200 or longer wager on the nba slate and then you hope you get lucky if a player scores 40 plus points any player everyone wins so make sure you check this out this episode of the bill simmons podcast is presented by state farm every football player brings something different to the field maybe they have a cannon arm speed power maybe they have their own podcast that being said no two players are exactly alike and the same is true off the field that's why state farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalized coverage for your life and your life and your life and your life and your life and your budget like a good neighbor state farm is there this episode is brought to you by viore viore meet the sunday performance jogger from viore part of the sunday collection they're ideal for running training and any workout but stylish and comfortable enough to wear all day whether you're running errands heading to the office or meeting up with friends soft lightweight four-way performance stretch means they move with you with no restriction designed to work out in but they don't look or feel like it honestly they're comfortable with you and they're comfortable with you and they're comfier than whatever you're wearing right now this holiday season viore makes gifting simple whether it's the sunday collection or the strato collection their best-selling styles are easy go-to gifts for everyone on your list including yourself get 20 off your first purchase at viore dot com slash simmons and discover the versatility of viore clothing that is v-u-o-r-i dot com slash simmons exclusions apply visit the website for full terms and conditions this episode is brought to you by pnc bank in today's sports everyone is constantly trying to outdo each other trick formations infield shifts constant rotation changes yet it's proven time and time again that strong fundamentals are the thing that will lead you to victory banking no different while everyone else tries to outdo each other pnc bank just keeps going right down the middle with steady calculated money moves and the financial wins just keep coming pnc bank brilliantly boring since 1865 brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the pnc financial services group incorporated pnc bank national association member fdic all right joe house is here every thursday we do mailbag questions we make ringer 107 picks your three games above 500 i am one game below the good news is i'm going to go three and two this week because every week in the odd weeks i've gone two and three in the even weeks i've gone three and two and week 10 is coming up so we're going to talk about that in a little bit about that later um i'm gonna do some mailbag questions story as usual i didn't send any of these to you that's right i will tell you i'll take three and two right now by the way in 107 i hate this week i don't like it either take it right now go ahead let's by the way we but in the segment before you came on danny kelly and tom palisaro and i talked about second half surge teams okay which is basically 500 or below right now who will make a run and go seven and two six and two six and one seven and one down the stretch we landed on houston for the afc and begrudgingly tampa in the nfc did you have anybody else i don't think why begrudging with tampa tampa's good because they're in the nfc south and seven and ten is probably going to win the nfc south that's the only reason you're right about that that's a good point no i i don't have anybody else your stupid team can't be the second half surge team right all of the nfc north is surging that's the craziest thing it's green bay surging detroit surging minnesota poised to surge maybe it's a good point i don't know i don't know i don't know maybe cousin sal will be surging hey apparently they got the rest of the kidney stones out today just the word in the street so his penis might be surging his penis might be surging again we'll say god thank god that's the second half i'm after mailbag questions as always sent into bspodcast33 at gmail.com adam in texas had a question about the kirk cousins trade he thinks the vikings had to do this because gta6 releases on november 19th and even if kyler murray had come back it would have wiped him out and uh and he said is kirk's favorite video game you think it's we bowling what do you think it is i like this theory that they knew that they had basically a deadline with kyler murray i think this is partly what happened i think they knew that they had a deadline with kyler murray and it was about four weeks ago they were like holy shit he sucks yeah the deadline expired well the kyler murray detractors weren't kidding yeah we it was an experiment and and it failed and now it's time did you bet on the monday game or have any action on the vikings bills the carson wins debacle carson wins i did what did i do oh i teased no i parlayed i parlayed the bills money line yeah with the under under 45 and a half what a wonderful bet that was it was a good one yes michael from nashville so i just did the air force one rewatchables oh awesome and air force one at the end when they take over they get everybody in the other plane and somebody says this is now air force one and every the control room explodes michael from nashville said any room i'm podcasting in bill should be referred to as bs1 so when i walk into the ringer nfl show studio and shiel capadia yells the ringer nfl studio is now bs1 i'm gonna start doing this i think it's a great suggestion right now i'm in bs1 but earlier when i was taping with tom and danny i was in the sycamore studio it became bs1 i'm just gonna wherever i am as bs1 so i like this who's gonna stop the podfather let's go diego and socal now now we're going he wants to know from conspiracy bill is there any chance that tatum and brown beef is a manufactured feud to get people talking about both of them and that they're both in on it conspiracy bill did consider this for a split second my answer is no but i had to ask what your thoughts are i mean i don't hate it in the same way that i don't think there's genuine animosity between those guys uh i do think that um jalen brown is is you know the he's carrying the laboring ore on this he's really stirring the pot as hard as he can to keep it uh as a thing i'm not sure exactly what the motivation is other than staying sort of top of headlines um from a basketball perspective like it's like an influencer strategy almost how do i how do i get the how do i get the dialogue going in my comments yeah and it's fine top of mind for him he's still there's still an extension out there for him that that he wants and he's gonna have to play better basketball yeah he's gonna have to play better basketball for that but it was phenomenal this week to see his harpist did you see his harpist i did i love the harpist a plus work by by jalen brown he dropped the nugget that he has a weekly harpist and then she made him a harpist and he made him a harpist and he made him a harpist and she made an appearance in his uh whatever social media feeds and i'm a fan i really like jalen brown i talked about this on tuesday night it it was clear that he just has nobody in his life to bounce ideas off of good or bad because his strategy for handling the the tatum handshake was just such a bad strategy yes it wouldn't have been one of my top 20 choices for how to handle that i agree i agree the spinning the basketball was so lame and i just i think i think he was i think these were a bunch of slights over the last five six years in boston yeah leading to then the trade which obviously hurt his feelings and i think he's just carrying it on instead of just being like you know what i'm in philly i have a chance to win the title i'm playing for an extension i'm not going to think about these boston guys anymore but he obviously can't let it go and i think it's gonna i think it's gonna taint the reception of when he goes back to boston now yeah no i'm telling you i i think i think it's gonna taint it a tiny bit they have to play the video right oh i know but he when the trade happened he had a hundred percent approval rating in boston for what he did with the city and the fact that we won a title with him all that stuff and he's just kind of acting like a dink like just he just stopped being a dink he was kind of acting like a dink in advance of the trade i know it felt kind of defensible um because they did try and trade him and he has been on the trading block multiple times over the last you know half decade and well but it goes back to what i said to you when it happened when he said this is yes my favorite year of my career my favorite year of my career that started the slide from that moment on you can't say that if like you disappeared from my podcast for a year because you had like health issues or something and then as you're a month away from coming back where it's like house is gonna be in the pot again i was like that was my favorite podcasting year of my career you'd be like what the fuck i'm right here here why did you say that i would have enjoyed it i would have laughed i mean it'd been funny it is funny uh it's just so strange it let let's though call it fairly the the the mass whole media industrial complex certainly got in full effing rev they did you know scalabrini well these he demanded all these things for oh really brian he those were his trade demands come on buddy come on you know what it was though almost famous as the movie that did this the best from a fictional standpoint of the relationship between billy crudup's character russell hammond and jason lee's character the uh jeff bb the lead singer yes and russell was just a little higher than jeff in the pecking order he was more popular the girls liked him more and then it all culminates with the t-shirt when russell hammond's in the front of the t-shirt and they had that big fight in the in the uh dressing room and russell hammond's trying to say it's not a big deal and jeff bb's saying it is a big deal this t-shirt says everything and the t-shirt made all that shit come out right yeah but it was basically this underlying thing of jeff bb feeling like we're equals but the outside world doesn't see it this way you get little perks that i don't get and it was just festering and then it blows up on the plane right when the plane's about to crash they're screaming at each other yes yes jaylen was the he was that the t-shirt says everything because tatum was always getting little perks and it was little stupid shit like deuce getting a sick courtside why does he get the courtside tickets you know why does he get announced last and that's sadly this is what this was that's fine he felt like they were equals and nobody else did everybody else felt like tatum was slightly better and and by the way he got four straight first team all mbas and after they won the title he just unraveled it and it's too bad it makes me sad the resumes um and i do think that that those perceived indignities were helpful fuel for quite a bit of jaylen brown's success especially last year yeah yes yes i mean joe mizula and i i have no reason to think that he doesn't you know should be sending kiss emojis to jaylen brown for what jaylen brown did for that team like yeah he was so vital to that 56 wins out of that that particular roster um it was remarkable and it was proof of concept that mizula's ideas for effective regular season basketball are valid it was an amazing job it was regular season basketball yeah we'll see your turn my turn stuff didn't work as well everybody on the celtics side is happier i think the real problem is i'm not sure jaylen's in the perfect situation yet philly situation's weird you've been beat over here it's gonna take time lebron is you know one of the three most famous players we've ever had in the history of the league maxi is the beloved sixer like he just has to figure out where he's gonna fit in he was discombobulated on tuesday i talked about it tuesday night he was trying too hard he was overwhelmed he didn't let the game come to him he tried he did not it was bad um i don't like that it got to the point of the greeting on tuesday night what do you mean he's not happy with it he's not happy with it he's not happy with it i feel like when you've had real success with somebody like those guys did that shouldn't be the outcome it just it just bums me out they'll get there the true conspiracy theory angle and this is you know me tying everything to golf is that those two guys have like a deal with a manufacturer and tay we've seen tatum play tatum's got a decent swing that they're both like they're gonna both appear in some kind of video together where they're playing golf they've broken it all buddies and they're playing whatever the manufacturer is and you know because all the nba guys all they want to do is be youtube golfers now i mean you know you see uh uh austin reeves out there obviously lebron and and everybody the one who's gonna be the guy's gonna be bronnie bronnie is gonna be the one who's gonna be the lebron of youtube golf a great athlete do you see that bronnie throwing uh baseballs he was throwing like 96 shocker yeah i'm excited for bronnie's next four years i don't think it's gonna be as good as sports yeah he's breaking uh max has a question about he said uh he's an okc fan i think he said king's thunder is sunday and he thought cool sga is gonna kill these guys i can skip that but then he thought about how many shots acuff's been taking and he thought to himself oh wow it's sga versus fga field goal attempts and then he wonders should that be acuff's new nickname fga that's very strong it's strong i i'm gonna read this next email though before i respond okay it's from gregory in san antonio he'd like to order a tall glass of shut the fuck up juice for all the acuff detractors good handle difficult shots he makes looks for the open man his best teammates the bonus is basically stop shooting his best offensive outlet zach blaine his first team on bay i forgot you were out there doing everything he can in a year to audition for the shanghai sharks um young teammates who will likely have for years or they're injured or being totally mismanaged doug christie is a basketball terrorist with the minutes rotations the lack of anything resembling an offensive or defensive philosophy if he was on the jazz or nets would he being evaluated the same way so i watched the entire sacramento game the other night after uh after the sultan game they lost at home and they were one in ten and acuff was visibly dismayed near the end i think he had like 29 i really like acuff i can't say this strongly enough i think he's in the worst possible situation other than being on new orleans which is the worst possible situation you look at the guys he's playing with he's got nothing nobody that can really help him sabona seems completely checked out but i think acuff's gonna be really good i haven't seen anything that makes me think otherwise i just think he's in a bad situation so i vote no on fga i don't like that idea yeah so that i was gonna ask you um if you want to vote no on fga i don't like that idea you felt like that was a intended as a slight um because i will say this i think that he is in kind of an extraordinary situation just to get some shots off yeah he gets to play against every other team in the nba get a feel for how they're going to defend him he has carte blanche to find his offensive game he is the focal point of the offense and there's no pressure whatsoever and everybody said this king's team is a goddamn catastrophe yeah no expectation so he just gets to go do his thing into his career and right right yeah i don't think that it's a that bad of a situation for him it's not winning basketball and there's no signs of winning basketball in his i know but i i worry about the if you could see it on the court with him the other night where he seemed really really bummed not in like a i'm bummed how i'm playing or anything like that like oh man and he said after the game he's like i hate losing i've never lost like this before i don't i didn't even know what this felt like so i hope they don't welcome to the league kid well i hope he doesn't get tainted by this you know like you can this can really break you to just get your ass kicked especially like you're him you've been good your whole life right moment like he there's videos of him from age 12 age 13 just lighting up like seventh grade aau so he's at every point of his life he's succeeded now he's on this dumbass team yeah but that's true of nearly all the guys in the nba they've all been my point is i think he cares there's some guys who are like i'm glad i'm here i hope i get my stats i actually don't think he's like that i don't think he's i hope i get my stats guy i think he's like how can we and then he's looking at zach levine sabonis is on red finn looking at the red finn and memphis and wherever all right house get ready for this question from ben from chapel hill Uh-oh. can you ask house is how this question starts out. Oh, it's exciting because you really don't know where it's going to go. And somebody says, can you ask house? Can you ask house on the next mailbag? What his order from Bojangles is. Oh, wow. As an NC native, it hurts me to hear him mention Popeye's and all of these great fast food chicken restaurants without giving Bojangles the proper love. If he tries the Supreme tenders dipped in a side cup of Bojangles sausage gravy, he won't think about Popeye's again. And the ice cold sheer wine brings it all together. That's from Ben. Now, first of all, for Ben to think that you don't know about Bojangles and you don't have a favorite Bojangles order, obviously is a bad scouting report from Ben, but I will give you the floor. Yeah. And I will say, I think that I've been prolific with my praise for Bojangles. My high. In fact, there was a tweet by our beloved Tate Frazier recently that I participated. And I either responded to it. I chimed in. It's a Bojangles text thread. Yeah. Bojangles affinity. I think it was in social media. I'm pretty sure it was like a tweet or an X or an IG or something. I don't remember where. Yeah. But yes, my relationship with Bojangles goes back to the, to the nineties. I mean, the problem with, you know, uh, having it play as prominent a place in my life is that it's not here in the DMV in the way that Popeye's is. I, but there's a, but here either four and a half. Now there, there, there is a Bojangles at the train station. There's a Bojangles in Prince George's County. I know where they are. There's one in Virginia. I know where all the Bojangles road trip. Yes. You have to road trip for it. So what's your order? Give us your, well, I mean, it's my OG. It's, it's, it's the breakfast biscuit with the, with the chicken. I mean, and, and it's because I really cut my teeth on Bojangles. Uh, when I was traveling up to New York quite a bit at that union station, uh, get, go to Bojangles. Get my breakfast order, jump on the train and off I go. So, I mean, you know, there's always a four piece dark meat in my life as well. When it comes to Bojangles, it's gotta be dark meat, but this, this is the Supreme tenders and the sausage gravy. Great. And then innovation. Uh, what's the young man's name from Chapel Hill. I just want to thank him from Chapel Hill. Thank you, Ben. I'll, I'll do it. That's all. That's that. That'll be this weekend. I'll take a picture of it and I'll put it, uh, somewhere prominent. Do they have Bojangles in Augusta, Georgia? Definitely. Yes. A thousand percent. Will that be one of our 19 bad eating decisions when we're at the masters this year? Sounds like a great idea. Let's get to Bojangles. Let's let, let that be our first meal. In fact, Dave Chang served Bojangles two years ago with caviar. True story. Bojangles. I remember that. It was delicious. Yeah. I'm incredible. I'm having a tough time with Chang. What do you mean? What's wrong with Chang? I was Chang's friend first. And all of these people in my life have now stolen Chang's friendship. That's untrue. And I don't even get like a friendship tip. This is untrue. First it was Kimmel. Kimmel didn't even know Chang. And now Kimmel, they like go fucking fish together. And then now he's playing golf with Nathan. They have pastimes that are not your pastimes. He's my friend. And by the way, you know, Jimmy is nothing if not a chef sniff. He is. He's a chef sniffer. He's a chef sniffer. He's been doing that for a long time. He comes by it honestly. I introduced him to Chang. I understand. It's outrageous. I don't like it. I don't like when my friends hang out without me. I don't like when I have two separate friends hanging out without me. It always hurts my feelings. You were invited to that thing. I just like to be invited. You were invited to the thing. Nathan says you were invited. It's hurtful. Dave Chang swung a right-handed golf club with a left-handed golf club with right-handed and broke it. Accidentally. Yeah. Yeah, that was a good story. I wish I'd seen video. I knew that. I'd like to know what he was under the influence of when that happened. Brennan from Barrie, Ontario says, when a player has such an awful game that leads to a terrible loss, should they actually be treated like a mini serial murderer? Maybe Christian Gonzalez will recover this Sunday, but for this week, he should be Christian Emilio Gonzalez. So when you say the serial killer's name with all three parts of their name. I did this with Bernard Carmel Pollard after he injured Tom Brady. I do like the three-name thing. If somebody's completely murdered a team, I'm not against it. Calling him Christian Emilio Gonzalez this week. After he got torched by Watson and Golden for three hours. And we have an extension that hasn't kicked in. He said it was just a bad week. We'll see. I mean, he's allowed to have a bad week. Randy Morphy from Vancouver reminds me once upon a time, I created the term warm, W-A-R-M. To describe a team's jump from a terrible coach to a decent coach. And I used it for Rod Marinelli in the mid-2000s. That's when it was wins above Rod Marinelli. Oh, very good. Outstanding. Whoever replaced him, it was like a plus five warm. And then Raheem Morris showed up. And I was like, well, he's an RM too. This is great. Now I have Rod Marinelli and Raheem Morris. He wants to know, can we now change warm to wag, W-A-A-G and honor Baron Glenn? For the next Jets coach next year. And I say, no, I don't feel like warm. We already have it with warm. Well, not only that, what assurance is there that whoever replaces Aaron Glenn is going to be any better? It's the fucking Jets. All they do is hire terrible coaches, like terrible coach after terrible coach. The best coach was Rex Ryan, who just ran over somebody's feet unnecessarily. A lot of feet stuff. The guy in his feet, always feet with him, this guy. Does that mean we don't have to watch Rex Ryan on TV anymore? Because I'm praying that's what it means. I asked this question, honestly, on our thread. Is he still on TV? Is he on my question? I don't watch ESPN Sunday morning. I have so many other better things to do than watch pregame NFL football. I don't know who these shows are for. I mean, who knows? I don't know who this show is for, but I don't know who these. Great point. I don't know who these pregame shows are for. I don't know who those interviews are for when they sit down with the whoever for five minutes. I don't know who the audience is for. I literally don't. Ask your dad. I'll ask my dad. I'll ask Dick House. My dad definitely doesn't like that. My dad is not watching ESPN before the football games either. I had ESPN on the background when I was working yesterday and the NBA show was on. Yeah. And Malika Andrews interviewed Jalen Brunson and Carl Anthony Towns together. Okay. And she, at one point, goes, give me one word for the following teams. And she's like, Detroit. And it was like resilient. And I was just like, what's going on? What is this, the match game? And then they do quick. She asked Cleveland and neither of them. I guess it was kind of interesting because neither of them could come up with a word for Cleveland, which was telling in itself because you knew Jalen Brunson would be like shitty. Yeah. Underachieving. Yeah. But can't wait to play them. Is that four words? Analytical winners. I just don't understand. Real life losers. I don't understand anything anymore. Peyton from OKC. This is, I'll have to correct him in the first sentence here. He said, recently, you've given the Larry Holmes moniker to athletes who are now believed to be washed. That wasn't me. That was our guy Raheem. That's Raheem. Larry Holmes status. It's from a rap rap song. Yeah. It's Raheem. He wonders the opposite. Should we start giving? I'm giving players like Paul George, the George Foreman moniker. Oh, wow. When they're revived, a player who everyone, including myself, was out on now having a career resurgence, somewhere to George Foreman, knocking out Michael Moore is Paul George. Has he reached George Foreman status? I like this. It's a positive spin. The guys who, who, you know, revive resuscitate back to the, the juvenation machine. Yeah. The rejuvenation. Rejuvenated. I like that. George Foreman status. Paul George, George Foreman status. Yeah. It's not terrible. George has been great. I can't believe how good he's been. Yeah, I know. I know. 11 games in. Sure. Our guys, Steph Curry. Can I have the floor for a Steph Curry monologue for a second? You, you got it. I'm so sad. I almost did an Instagram video about this today in the car. I just don't understand why we can't have nice things. This was, he's my favorite non Boston. Athlete, right? He's won jokers too. He was rejuvenated on this worst team. The ceiling had been removed, especially if there is a trade. And now they have this Houston game yesterday. And it's like, fuck Houston's going to be a tough matchup. They have all these guys. So he gets hurt in five minutes and now they're like, he's out for two weeks. Could be as much as a month. And it's like, what the fuck? Like, I just talked myself into, we're going to go another round with Steph. I thought this was over. We have now we've. Pulled him back out of storage and he's Steph again, and now he's hurt. Yeah. I don't want to be an asshole, but he's 39. This was baked into how we thought this season was going to play out. I mean, this is why there's some number of games he's going to miss because he's the age that he is and you know, the emphasis is all on him. It's a one man wrecking ball. I mean, it was tremendous. to have the emergence of the axle because it gave them another Another interesting dynamic playmaker kind of thing. With him and Pods, they might be able to steal two games out of the next five and hang around a tiny bit. Okay. Good luck. I also don't like abdominal. We see this. It sucks. Happens in golf sometimes. It sucks. Hockey guys will get it sometime. It always feels like this is a six-week injury. For the movement that's required. I mean, he's especially pissed because it means he can't even play golf. He might be able to chip and putt a little bit, but you can't take a swing with an abdominal issue. It's a terrible Steph Curry day yesterday because not only that, but he had to go on social media to defend his wife from Gilbert Arenas and Nick Young. Well, see, now that I thought was an A+++++. Oh, it was great by him. I just like. Why did he have to do it? I get that part. It's like, why is anybody talking about Steph Curry. His wife? Any of that shit. It's Steph Curry. He should be hands-off. We all love Steph Curry. Leave Steph Curry alone. Yeah. I don't want him to have to go on social media and defend himself. Man, I was right. So now I'm pivoting to Joker while Steph's gone. Okay. They won the other night. Barely. Cam Johnson was good. Okay. There might be a revival. The problem is Aaron Gordon looks like he might be heading toward. Maybe not happening anymore for him. You know, somebody asked us last week to update. We thought about, you know, the Jizz Room All-Star Room. And I sat down and started. And then. Oh, yeah. I don't. Who'd you have in there? I mean, Luca is in there for me. But Steph Curry was in there for me, right? Now he's not playing basketball. I mean, I don't know if I can get to five guys. I really like the way Luca's playing lately. And I don't feel like he's. Getting caught up in the stupid ref shit as much. Okay. It feels like he's. You said something different a week ago on. No, it was two weeks ago. All right. Two weeks ago. I feel like he's. I feel like. Especially on defense, like, he's getting steals and stuff. Yeah. I still don't know what the ceiling of that team is. Because they have three guys I like. And then 11, 10th man. Yeah. We'll see what kind of trade they make. I still feel like they screwed up the. But it's been impressive. And it's like a team that if they're hanging around with five minutes left, you feel like they're going to win because they have Luca. I bet at the beginning of the week, a parlay of JJ Redick to win coach of the year. Oh. Along with the Vegas Raiders to miss the playoffs. Just because I wanted to get it north of 10 to 1. And I got that bet north of 10 to 1. I like that one. Beginning of the week. Before the trade deadline. So who else would be the NBA coach of the year? I mean, I feel like Mike Inori, if Portland can win 45 games. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll win because the media would be like, this guy got fucked by El Cheapo. Yeah. Go ahead. Andrew from North Idaho. Let's send another Justin Herbert email. He wants to know when we can stop riding the potential train and start living in reality with Justin Herbert. He said he's fully in Derek Carr territory. Plenty of talent. No real results. A lot of apologists. He's a lifelong Raiders fan. A lot of excuses for Carr for years and years. New coach. Offensive coordinator. Bottom 10. Defense. Josh McDaniels, et cetera, et cetera. Reminds us Carr was an MVP candidate in 2016. Then broke his ankle. And eventually we all decided, oh, it's Derek Carr. And we gave up. And why aren't we there yet with Herbert? It's a good question. So Raheem this week called him Jeff George, which I quite loved. Is Derek Carr was better than Jeff George or the same as Jeff George? I don't know. so there's, I always make that joke about so-and-so is a problem when they run the bat, like white chocolate was a problem is the best one. 50 years from now, people think white chocolate was among the greatest point guards, like basically him and Oscar Robertson. Um, but don't lie. Jeff George is the ultimate Jeff George is the number one. Jeff George was a problem of all. There's one clip of like his just 10 Jeff George throws. Well, you can't believe how good his arm was. I still think he might've had the best arm I've ever seen. You know, who agrees with you and who watched that? You, the, the shithead moron, Dan Snyder. Good fucking riddance to that guy. Yeah. Yeah. Who watched those, watch those, those, those 10 passes. It was like, I need to get this guy and ran Brad Johnson out of town. Right. To bring in Jeff George, a bunch of teams got seduced by the arm, but he couldn't figure out any other, part of being quarterback. He was fun to write about because it's a charisma position. We're seeing this now with, uh, with my beloved UCLA football team undefeated about this. Then Bob, your beloved. It's unbelievable. I've watched every minute of UCLA football this year. Um, the starting quarterback got hurt. Nico. Yeah. And the third stringer comes in. Ty Ty Dyson back. You're on, you're on a first name basis with these kids. So this kid, uh, he's like six, six and he throws a good deep ball and he can move around a little bit, but really he's, he's got like charisma and he carries himself. Like he's probably even better than he is, but he, but his teammates, you can see, they respond to him. They'll make a play and he's like this. And it's just a reminder that that's the position. This guy was the third string quarterback heading in this season. They're nine and oh, and the team feels like they can win with them. I don't know if they can win with them. When we get to like the playoffs and stuff like that, but he feels like they can win with them. And that's like 90% of being the quarterback. I agree with that. Am I following you? Am I going to believe you? Am I going to believe you in the huddle? Do I believe you're scared? And this kid, we, you know, sometimes the balls will go, you know, he'll sail a pass over somebody's head. It'll fuck up a screen pass, but he believes in himself. Yes. And Jeff George was the opposite. Yeah. Well, I think Jeff George, Jeff George had a kind of swag for a minute. He had a swag. Like I don't really care what happens, but check out, I'm going to uncork a couple of awesome passes today. That's the way it ended up. He was kind of like the dude as the quarterback, you know, the dude from what? Yeah, he was the movie. Yeah. He looked like he just came out of somebody's attic. That's right. Yeah. You know, who, who is the opposite of that? The diametric opposite. Oh, you beat me to it. You know, the punchline already. God damn it. You and me, we're always on the same wavelength. One drive in the opposite of what I described, but, I'm stunned. He's still in the league. He was so horrific for Washington. I know that should have been the end right then and there. Jeremy Alva wants to know if Madison beer is the real life memo Paris from the natural, the Kim Basinger character and, um, whether if, if they break up, whether he would get revived. I don't think that's the issue. No, here's a good one. Eli wants to know what athlete in the history of your life. Would you like to give a do over for their career? Oh man. He dominates Bill Walton. Okay. It's definitely on my list. Crazy. Who's your number one do over guy, Brandon Roy. I know it's crazy. I mean, I just, I think of him, him and Derek Rose are kind of like, you know, Rose is a good one too. Tied right, right away. Like always on the tip of my tongue. God, you just, if, if, if we could have seen 18 years of uninterrupted play out of what those guys, what would the ceilings have been? I mean, I, I, I, I, I, I would have been, yeah, Brandon Roy is 15 years. I feel like his knees were semi shot when he came into the NBA, but when he arrived, he had such a nice, I just, that has like a Hesi crossover. I feel like he almost like invented it. Yeah. Um, Bill Walton's probably in my top three for this. Sure. It makes a ton of sense. Honestly, I think Bo Jackson's my number one. Okay. Very fair. Cause, I just think that the circumstances for him just to get injured, it's almost like LeBron where there's certain guys that were like, that guy's never getting injured. I actually feel like he was like that. And the way that he got injured was the dumbest possible way, right? He's running, he's breaking away. Somebody is pulling him from behind. Everyone else goes down and Bo Jackson was superhuman and is trying to fight it off. And his leg basically goes backwards and blows his hip out. But I feel like there's this alternate universe where he plays football and baseball for like, 10 years. The only gentle pushback is that his highs were so high. Yeah. He made such an impression on us in both sports, um, that it's forever legend. He created a, a legend that, that will never be diminished. We, I mean, yes, there is a, what if, but the, the highs were so incredibly high. Yeah. Uh, that, you know, I, I'm fine with living. I've had proper career in both sports, but we got to see it. We got to see, we got a glimpse. We got to see it. Walton was a tough one because Walton would have been the best player in the league for 10 years. Mm. Basically until bird, magic, MJ, the, all those guys like, you know, from basically late seventies, early eighties, he just would have been the best guy in the league. And we, we only got it for half a year, basically. Greg Oden count or not? No. Cause I think body wise, I don't, it wasn't good enough. I mean, that never gets mentioned is David Thompson because he was basically MJ before for MJ, but the cocaine thing happened. There's some cocaine guys like Bernard King was another one. Wonderful. There's some dudes out there that man, you know, you go, my dumbest, most obscure one is Dee Brown. What? Yeah. What's the what if with Dee Brown? I just think we played the, it was the worst sequence of events for the start of a career and then he couldn't bounce back from it. Like he had the wrong coach. He was being used incorrectly and he got hurt in his first and second seasons. And I still think there's this alternate universe where he would have been fucking awesome. I'm just telling you from going to the games. I feel like we got the most out of Dee Brown. I've never seen a guard jump like him ever. He won the dunk contest. He got to be part of the marketing campaign with Reebok where you press the pump down. Listen, I'm not, I'm not saying I'm going to fight to the death on this one. I'm just saying it's my dumbest, most obscure one or I'm like, man, I just wish we could have done that career over again. I think there was more there. All right. You must have had a guy like that where it's like, oh, there must have been more with this. I mean, hot plate Williams for sure. That's a good one. Hot plate Williams was good. He was really good. Bernard's one. Bernard probably would have had, Bernard probably would have been Kevin Durant for that era. If we didn't have the cocaine stuff combined with all the science and, you know, I heard his knee, everything went wrong. This is a good one from Jason. He's a lifelong Dolphins fan. He wants to know if the fish are going to break the record for most games. Bill puts them in the poopfecta category in the guest alliance. Can you get someone on your team to figure this out? We love our perfect season of 17 and 0 in 1972, but maybe we can also be 17 and 0 in the poopfecta. So I looked this up all nine weeks, all 10 weeks so far, they've been poopfecta. They had a bye week, but they've been poopfecta every week. I didn't even realize I was putting them in there. I looked at the schedule. I think it's going to happen. Yeah. So I was wondering is like Malik Willis going to be popping champagne every year when somebody's somebody lose their poopfecta streak? No, he can't pop champagne. He gets to pop dude wipes. If it's the poopfecta, you don't get champagne for that. He pops revenge water. Yeah, you get the enema juice. Great job. Congrats Dolphins. Really interesting one from Brian B. Everyone's trying to figure out why injuries are all up all over the NBA. Why is nobody talking about the tiny bench chairs? NBA teams obsess over every single detail of player health and load management. And then they put these gigantic superhumans and Todd their size chairs in the bench. They sit in these chairs, cram shoulder shoulder for 20 minutes straight, occasionally doing the fake little jog to get loose during TV timeouts. Then they come in and play an insane pace. Of course, they're pulling their hamstrings. I have noticed this during these games. These guys are all like because we have too many assistant coaches and too many players. So gentle pushback. Okay. It's tight. There's no question that the seats are up against each other. But now there are two rows. Most of the assistant coaches are in the second row. I think it's universal that there's two rows. There are a couple assistants in the main row, though. Yes, for sure. Second, if you physically lay eyes on the seats without human beings in them, they are properly sized for the guys. They have giant cushion things. They are not the seats that you sit in. If you get to a game early enough and you get down there low enough to see courtside, you will see. Well, no, no, no. I'm saying and you didn't just sit courtside. I did. That's true. Cuban innovated this right. Cuban was the one that was way ahead of the curve with the league. Like, why are these guys sitting in these tiny seats? I think across the league, the seats are properly sized. They are jammed in all up against one another, but they also do. You see guys going around the corner to the baseline with they need to stretch up. They need extra time to lay down. Yeah, they are doing that. So there is it's not as like, oh, this is a complete disagree with brand B. It's just not as inefficient as you might. I mean, there's no doubt that sitting tight like that for some period of time has to have some kind of role. So over time, you think Cuban innovated the bigger chairs on the bench, nicer locker rooms. Yes, and he definitely did and selling your team to somebody from Las Vegas who claimed that you're going to continue to run it with the promise through and then immediately took it from you. Those are the innovations and yeah, you're still going to run it. Yeah. Wait, can you sign here? No, you're still going to run it. It's going to be great. Well, it led to the league fixing the draft for Dallas. So it all worked out for Dallas Turner from rally disagreed. I had Aaron Glenn on the Mount Rushmore of terrible 21st century coaches and he said, well, he hasn't had open altercations with any of his players yet, which is cannot be said about Bobby Petrino Urban Meyer, Josh McDaniels or buddy Ryan. And while he's laughably incompetent, how can you top Bill Callahan? Yep. His son, the other Callahan, Adam Gase, Mike Singletary, Brandon Staley, Nate Hackett, or even Matt Eberflus. I guess we'll see how long Glenn stays on. He can certainly climb his way up. These are good points. Yeah, that's sometimes we forget how many really truly horrible I already forgot about Nate Hackett. Somebody brought him up to you. That guy coached a team. You and Cousin Salah, he came up in a conversation. I've heard his name out of your mouth recently. Mike Singletary was incredible. I love that one was great. The older Callahan doesn't include doesn't doesn't deserve to be lumped in with the younger Callahan. Younger Callahan under no circumstances. Yeah, the younger Callahan had no business. The art shell comeback season was great on the Raiders in 06 or 07. That was one of my favorites betting. I mean, it was the money line parlays that we made money on betting against that really was wonderful. Brandon from Lynchburg. He said, I'm 43 years old. The ridiculous movie eight millimeter has been in my life since it's been released. In 1999. Now for some reason on Tubi, it's spelled out as eight mm and eight millimeter, all the letters and all caps right next to each other as if no one on the planet could possibly figure out what the original eight mm actually meant. Did the entirety of eight millimeter need to be completely spelled out? Will this bring new viewers? More importantly, I hope the potential of new viewers will recognize the machine. Love your work. It had me thinking, could we use this anywhere else? Could you say, Hey, Jerry Jones, I love your work. Thanks for being so consistent for 30 years. Uh, he's just glad to have eight millimeter back in his life. I read this question because I just want to remind people eight millimeters on Tubi. One of the great movies of the last 30 years for cable great define great. There's a 40 minute stretch of eight millimeter that might be the best 40 minutes of my life. It's very uncomfortable when he, right when he meets Joaquin Phoenix, we're just off on a ride for 40 minutes. It is very uncomfortable. That movie. It's really good. It's not a great airplane movie. It's not a family movie, not a family movie, not one to watch with your girlfriend's dad having an, I'm not, I mean, what age do I let my, I have the 16 year old. We're not there yet. You might be close. Patrick from San Antonio just basically wants to know if he's going to be the first player. Never get his number retired. Who's like a top 40 player by any team. Phenomenal. People made this case with KD to who's going to be the KD team. He's already paving the way for okay. See the way we're back. You can feel it. This is, I do want to do the forensics on this. Has Shaq's number been retired anywhere? I thought the Lakers retired it. I don't, if they haven't, they should. It's a genuine question. Yeah. I when top 40 is a lot of guys. Yeah. Has every one of those guys had their number retired? That's a lot of numbers. Oscar Robertson, I don't know. Is Shaq Slaker jersey retired? Yes. Okay. Oscar Robertson, I'm not sure because he played for Cincinnati and then they moved to Sacramento and I don't know if that's up there. And the crazy thing to me is the Clippers have no retired numbers. Like not one. Like going back to Buffalo in the 70s. Even if you said, you know what? We've retired Bob McAdoo's number. It would be Bob McAdoo. It's either Bob McAdoo or Chris Paul. Those are your choices. Oh. Gahal says Lakers Heat and Magic have retired Shaq. Beloved. Look at that. Shaq's beloved. Magic's a tough one. He played there four years. They pushed him out. I don't know if that's a retired number situation. But yeah, I think it'll be Toronto for Kawhi. Okay. Because he won the title there and he played a game and a half there this year. That's it. That's all. That'll be enough. But KD will be interesting. Sonny did some research on Joe Burrow versus Dan Marino. Okay. Through 85 games, 23,196 yards for Burrow, 23,257 for Marino. Awesome. 195 touchdowns to 194. One Super Bowl appearance, five and two postseason for Burrow, three and three for Marino. But the numbers were close. - That's awesome. - I enjoyed it. We were there. for both. Marino was one of the best quarterbacks I've ever seen. I have Marino above Burrow. Sure, that's fine. You agree with that? Who did you have? Marino Elway. Oh, well, my whole life would have been Marino, but then Elway, because he got the back-to-backs. It's tough. I always thought that was a tough one because Elway had a bunch of years in a row where they just weren't good, but same kind of for Marino. I always thought going against them, I was just terrified of Marino. Elway though, the running the football, you forget what a horse he was. Patrick from Rockford wants to point out that the image Fox uses in their broadcast for Daniel Jones looks like a picture of a serial killer with a woman tied to his table in a basement. I'm going to check that out next time. I didn't notice. What's his middle name? Daniel Michael Jones? I mean, I just made that up. Derek from Brooklyn, New York summoned conspiracy bill. He thinks the NFL paid OJ Simpson's family estate a massive amount of money to not donate his brain to science to see if it had CTE. That's his number one conspiracy theory. And if that was true and it became public, would that be a scandal? Is his next question. I don't think it would be as big of a scandal as Jensen Huang having an affair with the Chinese spy and then multiple other people. I didn't get a chance to put it into any of the threads yet. So the Paramore is married. Yes. And the guy, her husband. Yeah, that was the Wall Street Journal reported that. What a cuck. Incredible cuck work. Financial cuck. Amazing. Yeah. Great job by that guy. And by the way, wait till you see the picture. Yeah. It's the cuckiest of all cucks. What? I mean, what a story. I gotta say, there's some. Yeah, go ahead. Think about doing a segment on it on the pod. It's not usually what we do here on the BS pod, but I gotta be honest. I've read like hours and hours of the material on it. It's incredible. It's an incredible story. It's the first story in a while that's so clearly a movie. Yes. Right. I just know this will be a movie. I'm sure it'll be a shitty eight episode series too, but it's clearly a movie. I'm in. I'm ready now. Don't wait. Rush. It's a true crime. It's ready. Somebody get going. Have you heard the theory that maybe he knew all along and he was actually doing this because he was giving the Chinese like bad information or like trying. It's also. It's a conspiracy theory. Yeah, he's like he's he's re-agenting the agent thing. He's a patriot. Yeah. He was. He's an all-time American patriot. That would be my defense. Be like, I knew the whole time. I was just trying to fuck them up. I sent them shitty technology. Yeah. To hold them back. It's one of the craziest stories of all time. That would be great. I'm rooting for that. I want that angle. Ben Thompson has done a good job writing about it, but he had a piece on Monday where he's like, hey, this guy's done a lot of good. We can't like push him out yet. And then Tuesday it was like some more stories came out. Yeah. I'm sure there'll be more stories from the more stories. No doubt. I just was so blown away by the cook. These guys hit a certain point where they're just like, yeah, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna get it on. I'm just gonna have my black car. You meet in your black car. My security guard will escort you five minutes after me and let's get down to business. Well, unless they're Bob Kraft, who goes to a type to a strip mall. Bob Kraft has joint. You know, he likes he likes Bob more normal experience. Can never forgive that. The only thing with with with the NVIDIA guy is just don't be married. It's fine. Like do with an amicable parting. Yeah. With your beloved spouse and the mother of your children. Have it be and then live whatever life you want. Try not to go to fall for a spy. Try to avoid that. But otherwise that would be part of my advice would be don't fall for a spy. Try not to fall for a spy and try not to fuck your employees. Those are the two. Those would be my guardrails. You know, that might be my suggestion. And also maybe watch more more dramas on streaming channels because this is the first episode of 14 different shows I've seen over the last five years. It's like, oh, wow, this guy, this lady she's sleeping with is actually waiting for him to fall asleep and then put her put his phone and got the FaceTime and then went in and started sending stuff. It's like literally the first episode of the Americans, isn't it? Yeah. I think there's 14 different shows that have done this. Jetson Wong, which just went right in. Great job. I mean, terrible job, but great job. Terrible and great job. Well, we'll see where this goes. It could it could end society as we know it could be the end game for this. I'm rooting against that. I'm knocking on wood. I have a generator in my podcast studio that when AI kills all the power in all of our houses, we'll still be able to pod. That sounds BS1. Yeah, BS1. I gotta get you a generator too so we can still pod. Give it a name. Let's give the generator a name. Some sad news from Heath in Portland. He regrets to inform us the sea has reclaimed Scoot Henderson Island. He got out on the last lifeboat. It's completely underwater and insurance is not supporting any claims. They're not stepping up. And it's just, there's no sign of it. You can't even see it on Google Earth anymore. It's a hurricane. I'm still not giving up. I don't care. He can say what he wants. Have you given up? No, no, it's way too early in his career. He's what, what are we? There's a whole George Foreman chapter out there for him. The thing is, he's on the right team, even if he's coming up the bench, because all they want to do is go downhill, downhill, downhill with their perimeter guys. Downhill, downhill, downhill, which he can do. The other part of it. And again, I'm not rooting for any injuries to anybody, but at some point it will make sense for Portland, even if Dame you know, just has some kind of two weeks off. Yeah. Take some time off because this, this Portland team looks legit. Justin and a few other readers or listeners actually have, have corrected me for some reason. I thought flag in year two is a year younger than LeBron in year two. And because I'm an idiot, I got it wrong. They were the same age, same age, right? Yeah. Yeah. I don't remember you getting that wrong, but well, I did. Okay. You got it wrong. And LeBron in year two was really, really impressive. Incredible. And I was talking to somebody about comparing flag year two versus LeBron year two. And we'll see with flag if he can last the whole season, you know, but LeBron stats were good and LeBron passed the eye test. I remember writing about him in my MVP column. It felt like him and Wade. It felt like we really had something special with those two guys. I think he's a lot more raw than flag. He was a lot more raw in year two than what I'm seeing from flag. And I think that's the difference. The stats are around the same. What's been shocking about flag is he just seems like he's 27 already. We were watching LeBron in year two and we were like, man, when this guy knew it was like four years from now when he's stronger and we were, oh, we were talking about the ceiling. I watched flag flag has like seven spots on the floor already that he's like, I'm going to go get a basket over here. I'm going to, I'm going to go to my Tim Duncan post up spot. I'm just going to beat this guy off the dribble and go this way. I'm going to just shoot a pull up. He just has an older game already. I don't really understand it. Well, I don't disagree with any aspect of that. The one thing for sure that we were convinced of with LeBron in that second year was a such a unique basketball IQ. He was seeing the floor and I think that's what you're observing with flag. The thing with flag that is an eye opener of like, you know, giant cartoon eyeballs popping out of the head is a mid range game that just appeared out of nowhere. It feels like how about when he goes to the left block and they clear space for him and he can either shoot that little face up or he can bang off the guy or he can just beat him off the dribble. Like, I don't understand how he has all these moves already. These are like year four, year five, year six. You're right on LeBron, but that we were always when we're watching LeBron, we're like, there's going to be a moment when he's when he puts all this together in a playoff game and we're going to know what happens. And then it happened with the Detroit game when he had the 48. Yes. It was like, oh, he figured it out. But you're right with the hoops IQ. By the way, Doc, Doc was on my pod last week talking about Giannis. Yeah, it started like a three day news cycle. Sure did. But he said that one thing he was, he mentioned the the IQ part with Giannis's basketball game. And anytime you use the word IQ, it sounds like you're saying somebody's dumb. That wasn't when he, he didn't mean that. And I know he apologized to Giannis about it, but he's talking more about what we saw with LeBron in year two, where it was like, Jesus Christ, this guy sees the court like a chessboard already. And I don't think anyone would ever say Giannis is like that when he plays basketball. Giannis is brute force speed. He's a better passer than I think maybe we ever thought he was going to be in the younger part of his career. But he you're talking real hoops IQ, like you're talking LeBron. And I think flag might have it too. Could be. Could be. a couple more really fast then we'll do picks james france from phoenix i'm a sons and cardinals fan so i've been depressing eating all of my kids candy you've done this i almost sent you a picture last night and he says you know what the candy tastes like shit i think regular size non-halloween store candy tastes the same as it always has but i think they're this conspiracy bill think they're mass producing shittier candy for halloween so they have like their a-game candy and their b-game candy and when they know we need to buy halloween candy they make worse candy i don't i can't do that he also says if we trade booker i'm killing myself don't kill yourself james france i don't think that i think the candy tastes shitty because he's eating it for shitty reasons while he's watching his shitty teams it's all shitty teams it's a better mood yeah and felt better so last night i almost took a picture because i was watching the clueless washington wizards against the indiana pacers a pacers team with you know two legit starters nba starters right and in washington rotation after rotation not getting to the open guy on on on defense open shots for the pacers in the fourth quarter and i'm eating the halloween fucking candy and i will tell you i mean the reason is peter buttercup is still phenomenal like you know a plus the twix are still outstanding uh i'm worried about this this guy might not be eating the right candy right now you know what i've been eating because my wife brought the big bars i've been eating the hershey's with the almonds like the it's the smaller big bar candy bar i think it might be number one for me right now well i mean that's simple yeah i get it that's right yeah just i mean nobody would say oh put it in the rankings no no i'm just saying for me right now you're on a nice run with it yeah you know what i had a couple of and then i went back and had a couple more i really should have taken a picture butterfinger butterfinger is not always in my life yeah it's it's a it's a once a year thing but i appreciated it it hit the mark as washington went down by 14 points to the pacers it's not great what's going on and the trey young contract which i hated when like you were in a hostage negotiation and he's just i didn't like they're paying him 50 million a year i don't think he's worth 30 i mean you have the john temer in new orleans who isn't worth i would say 10 million dollars at this point but the trey thing it's a bummer i don't know how you get out of it the if i do poorly in ringer 107 picks tonight it's because i spent six and a half years on the ringer 107 picks i don't know how you get out of it seven hours doing nba salary cap maneuverability to try to see how to trade them it the price for anthony davis is you have to take trey young if you want anthony davis at that point already you have to take trey young wow well i i mean there's no other way out of it now there is there's new orleans or sacramento no there's new orleans you you'd have to take the john temer back but at least it's a shorter contract take back one of their other things and just done say less and then we could see trey young play with fears that'll be fun for fears i just the problem with trey young i've been saying this for three years he's he thinks he's steph curry in the mid-2010s and none of his shots go in you know on top of getting hunted on defense but his shots don't go in no one in his life says to him if you ever shoot a one-legged three-pointer again you're never you can't play basketball anymore right you have to retire from the sport the people in my life crazier and i'm telling you my phone lights the fuck up every time he tries a one-legged three-pointer it's just like so would you say the consensus with your friend group who loves wizards basketball is that trey young has not been a popular wizard so far would that be the uh he's still got a ways to go it's it's early it's early 12 games in would you like 20 let's get to 20 games let's get to 20 and then we can take stock so he doesn't have to is there anybody that has to eat a big fat dick today it's not the trey young trade no no no no no i'm not i'm that's not that's not appropriate van tried to take your corner van van lathan van lathan on the college football tailgate told the levitard crew to suck it to suck a dick and it was like a cousin of your thing he did why did he tell them to suck a dick because they they did some video from they ran they talked about some video on the show that they manipulated and then took a couple shots and ben didn't like it he doesn't play with that well i mean billy gill beloved billy gill i know formerly a very popular ringer employee formerly of that show did call out you know miami people so that's his thing he's always been doing though he doesn't like the university of miami right suck a now he didn't say suck a fat dick just suck a dick he just gave us suck a dick well you know and guess what it's i here's my statement on behalf of the ringer we fully support van's comments please give it a big slurp those guys it was it was i wouldn't get on the wrong side and zazloff who's the other guy zazloff no idea there's some other guys they don't have stu gotts anymore they're falling out with stu gotts so zazloff you're making names up it doesn't matter yeah and this other i would not get on van's wrong side under any circumstances i fully recommend against that last question from dove we're four years into the nba mid-season cup and i still don't know how the rules work i don't know who i'm supposed to care about who wins i don't know who's going to win i don't know who's going to be able to catch the games with the garish colored courts because they're hard on my eyes what is all this accomplishing anyway nice job dave silver call them dave we have to call this they're calling him dave silver that was very nice the greens character at 90210 when we intend to slur adam silver we just call him dave silver dave so he thought his name was dave silver it's very funny those are my listeners it's very good all right and now it's time for who's delivering brought to you by oolacast now it's time for who's delivering brought to you by oolacast now it's time for who's delivering brought to you by oolacast you know who's delivering on game day that's right the rookie having a breakout veteran turning back the clock the player out of nowhere suddenly having a moment uber eats delivers more than just wings for the watch party a bluetooth speaker for the pregame sure beer beers and seltzers for the tailgate yeah cleaning supplies when someone spills salsa in the second quarter sure you can get almost almost anything for game day on uber eats you know who's delivering on game day that's right the rookie having a breakout veteran turning back the clock the player out of nowhere suddenly having a moment uber eats delivers more than just wings for the watch party a bluetooth speaker for the pregame sure beer beers and seltzers for the tailgate yeah cleaning supplies when someone spills salsa in the second quarter sure you can get almost almost anything for game day on uber eats on sundays this season so who's been showing up well nobody on the chargers but we've had some some good people showing up like i don't know brock purdy everyone on the niners has been injured all season and it just seems like over and over again he's been the one constant i'll throw him in there i'm throwing the vikings defense who's been somewhat heroic even though the offense hasn't shown up behind them jordan love coming through uh and his two receivers to christian watson and matthew golden where they traded uh they traded one receiver they let a couple others go and uh and rolled behind those two guys and all of them have been great so uh those are some good names my homes we'll see if he joins the list maybe lamar jackson can he come back in time belatedly join the list we'll see but the players i mentioned they had in the bag as soon as they stepped on the field and with uber eats you can have almost almost anything this week at 10 free bonus wings from wing stop on qualifying orders enjoy game day deals every week all season long for alcohol you must be of legal drinking age please enjoy responsibly product availability varies by region see app for details this episode is brought to you by expedia you know how at the end of the season your team goes to cancun sometimes earlier than expected sometimes after blowing a 3-1 series lead but what if you went to cancun with expedia save up to 30 when you bundle and save you can book the flight or the hotel now then book the rest later in all fairness though hopefully your team doesn't go to cancun one two three cancun or if they do you go with them expedia the one place you go to go places sign in to save savings vary this episode is brought to you by mcdonald's if you're building an all-star breakfast lineup you need a few key players a sausage mcmuffin with egg sure crispy hash browns absolutely a small coffee to wash it all down no question and right now you can get all three for just five bucks that's a pretty stacked breakfast roster get a sausage mcmuffin with egg plus hash browns and a small coffee for just five dollars only at mcdonald's for a limited time price and participation may vary promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing prices may be higher for delivery let's go to ringer ringer uh 107 is brought to you as always by fanduel a great place that we we uh we love and respect and they've been nice to us yeah make this your most rewarding season ever download the fanduel app to check out all of our 107 picks and boosted teasers every week this season And, um, it's already a known fact that I'm going to go three and two. Yeah. Cause that's what I do on even weeks. I hope to tie you three. I have the first pick this week. Yes. I just have to find my, uh, I think. Okay. So the favorites can, you've been talking about this sun ringer wise guys, the favorites have kicked ass. Yeah. Last week, they basically, we only had the Packers were the only underdog that won. And then I think the favorites are 11 and three. I'm going with a group plan for what I'm doing this week. Okay. Home dogs. Yeah. I'm just going across the board. Those are going to be all my picks. Okay. And my first one is going to be the Cowboys plus four and a half at home against the 49ers. We talked about them earlier in the show. I feel like there's a little more there with the Cowboys. I know. I can't believe it. Well, I know that, I know, uh, Pellicero said earlier that he, you know, the Cowboys are better than the Cowboys. I think the Cowboys are better than the Cowboys, but the Cowboys are better than the Cowboys. I think the Cowboys are better than the Cowboys. And my case that I made earlier. And when I was talking to those guys was, I think Dallas just rises and falls to the level of whoever they're playing. Okay. So you're playing Arizona with, with Brissette and Gardner Minshew. You fall to that level. You're playing the shitty Colts. Now I'm playing the Niners in a game with good announcers. I'm going to rise up to the Niners level. I think they're going to be able to move the ball on them. I love the plus four and a half is magical because even if I'm down 10 with two minutes left, I might get a cheap touchdown. I also think they can win the game outright. I don't think the 49ers defense has been, um, that impressive the last few weeks still feels like there's injuries. The 49ers traded for Keenan Allen because they're so worried about their receivers. And, uh, I just feel like the Cowboys are just when I thought I was out, you pulled me back in team for their fan base. And right. Now the fan base is like bordering on being out. They'll get back in. This feels like a three point game to me. I'm taking the points. Cowboys plus four and a half. You like this. That's very courageous of you. I absolutely hate it. It's Dallas. I can't under any circumstances endorse getting involved with a, with a Dallas game. Okay. They're there. That's a clown operation. They, they invent ways to, to not cover. Well, they're one of my home dogs. Crazy shit. I, what you're doing is very sound. And, and across the board, it's a sharp play to grab the four and a half with Dallas. I just can't have anything to do with Dallas. Like that means you have to watch some of that game and have a rooting interest in it. They do the dumbest shit possible. I can't wait to be mad at them on Sunday. I'm going to have a great time. Wait till they get to 15 penalties. Wait till the 15th penalty. I mean, part of the thing for me that, that also, um, gives me tiny pause is if, if San Francisco can. Get any kind of pressure up front. Um, then that, that, that's, you know, Dak's not great under pressure. Dallas had 500 plus yards last week against the Colts and barely one. And at one point it seemed like they might lose. It's, it's impossible what they're doing. I just think this is the point of the season where dumb shit starts happening. It's fine. And there's going to be a couple of teams that are at a, are we in this or not moment? And I think the Cowboys will throw a couple of haymakers at the 49ers. The 49ers. The 49ers are kind of due for a dumb game. Yeah. I don't know when that happens for them. I don't have the guts. Well, it happened. They lost to Atlanta in Atlanta. That was a few weeks ago though. Right? Yeah. Within with right before they're by. Yeah. I mean, I mean, they can lose to Dallas. Oh yeah. There's no question about it. That was three weeks ago. I thought the Seattle one was a little suspect. Well, it was a road game in Seattle. Yes. It was suspect. It's just, you have to beat Seattle. It's a fucking hard game. They killed Vegas last week. But Vegas turned. They turned the ball over five times in some of the stupidest ways possible. Twice inside the five yard, like twice in the red zone. I think the Cowboys can hang. That's my first pick. What do you got? I'm not, I'm not against it. You are against it. Well, I'm just against the idea of betting, having a bet involving Dallas. I just wouldn't recommend it. They're one of my home dogs. I'm riding the home dogs. I understand. What do you got? I get it. It is hilarious. I am taking road favorites. Great. Exactly the way that you're taking. We're diametrically opposed. Sounds awesome. I love it. It's very hilarious. I am taking the Houston Texans, of course. Laying the four and a half in Cleveland. And this is entirely based on the idea that Deshaun Watson is playing this week. He's going to play quarterback and he is a train wreck under pressure. The way that they have, you know, survived on offense is by him escaping pressure and pulling shit out of his butt and, you know, into these games where they remain somewhat close. Are you talking about the dumb sacks he takes every game? Wait till you see how many we're talking about a Texans defense. They came out of there by and immediately laid eight sacks on Justin Herbert with a highly suspect offensive line. Well, this offensive line for the Browns is better. Okay. It's better than what the Chargers have. But the Browns have only played two defenses that are in the top third of the league in pressure rate. And they lost both of those games. They lost to the. Jets and they lost to the Jaguars. Both of those teams were able to bring some pressure up against this Cleveland line and against Deshaun Watson and make them uncomfortable. And they won those games. I mean, the Jags beat the crap out of them and the Jets beat the Cleveland by five. So I just think that the Texans, if you believe what we think, and you talked about it with Danny Kelly and Pellicero, we already have the Texans circled. This is there are no more games that they can, you know, go for. Fuck around and find out they need to go win the other side of the ball. If the weather is OK, I just, you know, there is some weather forecasted with. That's why I stayed away from this and rain kind of stuff. It might be windy and shitty, which really makes me nervous for a team that can't run the ball. Stroud under those circumstances has historically been bad. Also, Cleveland has won dumb games over and over and over again this season. That's why I stayed away. Yeah. So I but look at the way that that receiver room. For. For Houston, so many receiver rooms in the entire NFL are absolutely bereft of anything. They have too many guys. Yeah, I mean, Hutchinson and Booty are like your fourth and fifth choices because Tank Dell is out catching touchdowns again. And Stroud's playing great. We talked about this earlier. It's a great case. I worry about the weather. It scared me. Understood. I get it. My next one. Falcons Chiefs. My next home dog. Falcons are. Plus three and a half. I just like the Falcons in Atlanta in general. Yep. Falcons beat San Francisco. As you mentioned a couple weeks ago, they haven't had a lot of home games. I'm looking this up now because they played a game. They played a overseas game. They beat San Francisco at home in week seven. Last week or two weeks ago, last week, they lost to Cincinnati. That was the international. That was the international game. Yeah, right. That was, that was the one that was in Madrid or one of those, right? One of those. So coming back from that, which makes me nervous, but in general, like they played Chicago tough at home, played Baltimore tough at home. Um, but they, I don't, I don't know. I would say they played Chicago tough at home. Chicago was up 21, nothing before like five minutes or whatever. Um, yeah, sure. But then you throw away Carolina week two. Cause that was two. Uh, but I don't know. I just liked them at home a couple of times a year where Bijan gets going. Drake London gets going. Penix, who's the ultimate hit or miss guy, but inside, I don't have to worry about weather with him. And man, I thought Casey got so lucky in that Jets game. They were dying to lose that Jets game for two hours. They were dying. Dying to lose it. I don't know. Dying to lose it. And all of a sudden they had the lead and then I got, all right, fine. You're going to give this to us. They take it. Uh, but I think Atlanta can hang around them. I like that. Three and a half. I like the hook. I like the hook too. I like it. I don't, I don't, I'm not going to play it cause I, that's another team. I just don't want to have anything to do with like which version of Atlanta, you know, has decided to show up. The defense is so bad. It's such a bad defense. What's weird is their DVOA, their 10th, but that has something to do with some of the people they've played. Yeah. But by the way, is my home's going to be healthy for this? That's there. There you go. I mean, that, that's part of the handicap. You know, they'll make, you know, the chiefs will miss one field goal, right? That's happening. Yes, that's right. Butker, it's in his contract now. And for sure, my home state, they're not throwing the ball down the field. His average depth of target is, uh, by far the lowest in his career. And also seems by design, Kenneth Walker should have a good rushing day though. And yeah, but that might help the idea of keeping this, you know, sort of close because the clock gets eaten up and then the hook becomes really valuable three and a half. So also NFC South. Oh, that team's done cross them up. Oh, they're back. This is an up there back week. Yeah. All right. Your second one. Have to lay the nine and a half with the Rams at Arizona. Okay. Have to do it. Don't have a choice. Carson. It's Carson Beck. It's miles Garrett and, and Errol Donald playing against, uh, an Arizona offensive line that is already like two third stringers and, and guy practice squad and whatever. It's just not, we don't need to spend a ton of time. I know how hurt the Rams. are in their own receiver rooms, kind of run the ball they'll be fine i'm putting them in a parlay yeah they're quorum and and williams they'll have 290 yards combined rushing yeah and and that's plenty i mean this is a very simple game 20 to 6 like also i like that the cardinals beat them a couple weeks ago so now that's like are the cardinals going to beat the rams twice no and and the rams another team like the texans no more fucking around have to win all the games because so you just want them you're up 13-3 and you're good the cardinals aren't scoring after that yes yeah you just got to get the 10-point lead you're you're taking it home and we basically saw a version of this with seattle last week seattle uh was able to just sort of choke the life out of them i thought i was going to lose that bet seattle was laying i can't remember what it was um it was 17-6 and i thought that they might get the cardinals got all the way down to inside the five-yard line but couldn't punch it in i like it my next one is a tease okay it's a home favorite but i'm teasing them through the zero fuck off for him and and somehow crazy business somehow i'm back with the ufc with the uh nfc south again i almost called them the ufc south maybe that's a better name is there is there a difference i'm taking the saints from minus two and a half to plus three and a half and i'm going to use the same game and go over 42 and a half saints plus three and a half over 42 i need 43 points with the saints and the panthers which i'm going to get because both of these teams are going to move the ball i watched every play in that saints browns game and i think the saints have a good offense again at least for for nfc south purposes their left tackles back jordan tyson was known we talked about him earlier with okay he was noticeable and impactful yes daily shuck i just think they're gonna be able to move the ball up and down on the panthers this will be a three-point game i'm getting the plus three and a half points will be scored and i'm covering this tease saints plus three and a half over 42 and a half that's hilarious did you have saints in 107 or no i did yeah they stuck it to me that was it for me i i will not bet on the saints i don't care what you know it's a market right they would have seven in overtime that that's a clown operation that is a clown show so you don't like we had 15 chances to close that game out and that defense is like hold my no chance no we're not going to make a single play against your door well they're going to cover my points with the with the over 42 and a half well this is 30th dboa it's going to go back and forth and the saints are either going to win or lose by three that's good because they're going to win and they're going to lose by three and they're here's my teaser i'll do my teaser now let's say i'm taking the panthers plus eight and a half great they're two and a half point underdogs we're going to push them up to eight and a half okay i endorse virtually everything that you laid out except for the idea of the saints being successful okay um but i do like in this epic nfc south tilt i do think that the panthers are going to be able to move the ball the panthers quietly move the ball very nicely against denver last week they just you know it sounds like you're you're daring me to change my pick to saints plus three and a half panthers plus eight and a half the rare both sides of the t's game do it do it one score do it is that legal i don't you could try i don't know let's try it on the fanduel sportsbook no i don't need to i'm gonna root for the saints and points but yeah i think it is i think it is a legal bet it's a legal bet i'm pretty sure it is um the other leg for me is the steelers i'm taking the steelers from uh uh plus three and a half up the plus three and a half up the plus three and a half up the plus nine and a half and it's not because of anything other than the uh cincinnati bengals are coming back from an international game no rest and the and the steelers are coming off of a buy and the numbers are are terrific for um the the situation for steelers with extra rest going up against the team yeah in a international situation coming back i don't love the the three and a half right as a side but i will definitely take them in a t so that's my teaser this week steelers panthers i'm trying to figure out if it's funnier if i take panthers plus eight and a half it's the other side of that tease or not think about it somewhere oh god it's really funny so for my last one one more home dog i can either go the jets at home plus seven and a half against the bills or i could take the raiders with mendoza plus six and a half against the seahawks and i am going to go back to the well with the new york jets wow and aaron glenn against the bills i'm doing it i have no regrets at all they're gonna have garrett wilson this week i my goal was to not have the picks that everybody else had well because last week pretty good last week all six of us had the saints and it was just preordained that they somehow weren't going to cover that of course jets plus seven half against the bills here's the case what's going on with the bill's defense they barely beat carson wentz who was just trying to throw them the ball the entire game right i wouldn't say that they barely beat them they beat the shit out of them yeah but if i they had that i was watching the game waiting for them to come in waiting waiting for them to put the game away for three hours yeah that's how long it takes against the minnesota defense it's a great fucking defense it's better than great it's an incredible defense i wasn't impressed they had to do they had to follow week after week i'm not impressed by the bill's defense and just in general what i'm watching from them yeah i don't mind that and the jets yeah now with wilson back i think we'll be able to move the ball on them i'm still not sold in that defense at all plus seven half i like getting the hook yeah it's in new york jets doesn't seem like they've given up on the season they didn't trade away any guys the deadline i still think they feel like they might be half decent and i've watched the bills fuck around with games like this yeah would be my that's right especially in the road there you go so this game to me is very similar to the bills coming off of that victory against the rams that was an overtime game but yeah physical big big boy game that's the other thing coming into the next week yes exactly they got their shit kicked out of them by minnesota's defense they're on the field a ton yeah now they're now they're going back to jersey giant stadium bad turf the the offense was on the field a ton because the offense yeah because the vikings went through a ton yes yes they were on the field for you know north of 75 plays that i think the jets can hang i i swear i don't think the jets are bad they were beating the chiefs and then they just sunk themselves and you could see them kind of giving up but i almost put the jets into the tees i almost now you can't you can't you gotta do straight up only with the jets you can't pick up with other teams they are the correct side here i i endorse it and i also um you know think the idea of this is a good spot for them um considering what the bills just went through yeah i endorse all of that the problem now is your your card is aaron glenn brian schottenheimer yeah and and kellen doofus moore and don't forget kevin stephanski do we know if he's good either oh right because the saints were part of your tees right yeah honestly it doesn't matter because i'm gonna go three and two and it's preordained what's your last pick i'm torn i i'm having a really hard time i came into the show with with you know firm belief in in in a couple of the games um i'm i'm i'll just say it out loud it i i kind of want to play the packers but i feel like um you know we've maybe seen too much and maybe the right thing to do is just sit tight and let cousins riding high come in and then just let's let's just you know ease it's a riding high game i think that game's a stay away the problem is that you know um green bay already lost to minnesota they can't lose to minnesota again they're in fourth in their division so you know it's it's crazy to talk about the run that they've been on and this is a it is a must win for them so who you taking i'm taking detroit i'm gonna go ahead and it's i'm only laying two and a half you're fucking with the with the europe game yeah the pats are unstoppable i didn't put it on in in uh a tease and i'll remind you i know you're just taking favorites minus two and a half yeah that's it minus it's fat if it if it was three i wouldn't mess with it and i know exactly the harms way i'm putting myself in with rabel you know the patriots don't lose consecutive games they they lose and then they bounce back i think it's a really it's a really smart pick we have cory connor as our running back we have offensive line injuries we have a defense that just got shredded last week and um and we don't have our top two receivers and it's starting to become a problem it's overseas it's after a terrible loss there's a million reasons to do it lions getting better on both sides of the ball getting healthier healthier that's part of it the jameer gibbs in space against robert spillane is completely terrifying i just didn't want to take it i didn't want to read against the pats i i do feel like the the thing with the pats is this is now a fork in the road for the season game sadly happening in Munich. I could see them getting wiped out in this game and basically this season. season is going to head to a dark place or what happened in Buffalo when all of a sudden they fought for the season. They were so bad last week. I don't know what to expect anymore. The lines are the right side. Yeah. So I agree with the idea of the lines being the right side and that's, and that two and a half, I probably would have stayed away if it was three. I probably just, but, um, I'll tell you this. I think Drake can light the lines up. That was the one thing I gave pause to. I really think Drake could be awesome in this game. So the, the, the counter to that and the reason that I went ahead and did it is the lions have been very good at pressure and it's, it's, it's Hutchinson and McNeil and Drake under pressure just hasn't, has not looked comfortable. He just is just, you know, all these, all the picks people. Yeah, I know. All right. House's ringer, one or seven picks Houston minus four and a half Rams minus nine and a half lions minus two and a half and a Panther. Steelers tease. I have the home dogs, Cowboys plus four and a half Falcons plus three and a half jets plus seven and a half. Any teas of the saints plus three and a half with the over of 42 and a half, a same game tease. That is the ringer one Oh seven. And it was brought to you by our friends at FanDuel. Download the app now to find all our one Oh seven picks. Make this your most rewarding season. FanDuel player game odds subject to change. You can catch house on ringer wise guys tomorrow. Make sure you tell Raheem about George Foreman, the reverse of Larry Holmes. He'll be thrilled. Great to see you as always. Always. Yes, sir. I'll see you next Thursday. Can't wait. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Tom, Danny house. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. Thanks to Chris and Jack, everybody at Spotify and the ringer. It's great to have everybody in a Sycamore this week. Really fun to, to see an actual studio podcast, popping people flying around. Good times. Have a great weekend. Go UCLA. And I will see you on Sunday night live on Netflix with the cuts. I want to see them on a way. So I don't have must be 21 plus and president selects. It's for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas star casino or 18 plus and president DC or Wyoming gave him a problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLE or 1-800-MY-RESET call 888-79-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24 seven support in Massachusetts or call 877-8-HOPE-NY or text hope NY in New York. For Louisiana call 877-770-7867. or lower ability to fight them in liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. 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