NBA One Guy (the West!), an Eagles Mess, MLB and WNBA Playoffs, a Mini-Mailbag and Ringer 107 Picks | With Rob Mahoney, Tom Pelissero, and Joe House

This episode is brought to you by Carhartt. We spend a lot of time talking about football, the players, the coaches, the big plays, but there's a whole other team we rarely think about, the people who make the game possible, the workers building stadiums, paving parking lots, growing the grass, welding the goalposts, even making the footballs. They're committed to their craft and they're doing the work long before kickoff. Carhartt is proud to outfit those crews. So next time you're watching a game, take a second to appreciate the people behind it. Learn more at carhartt.com slash join the trades. Today's episode of the Bill Simmons podcast brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new episode of the Rewatchables. On Monday, we did Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Yeah, we have another horror movie coming on Monday. We did Friday the 13th, the original, the first one, because we've not done a Friday the 13th yet. So we figured we'd do the first one to set up the ones we really want to do, which is part four. And Jason, we're going to do the first one. Jason goes to Manhattan, which is one of the funniest movies of the 1980s. So you can go check all those out. You can check out a couple of our new podcasts, including Jessalyn at Book Club and What Chaos, our NHL podcast. Crazy NHL season already. A lot of stuff going on. Brian Curtis launched a new newsletter this week as well. His version of the press box in print. It's called Now They Tell Us. He's written two pieces this week. They're both fantastic. That's what we got going here at the Ringer. I have a really, really, really stacked podcast. It's about as good as I can do. First off, we have Rob Mahoney, because I had to play NBA One Guy for the West. And we talked about 15 players in the West. Went right to Tom Pellicero. He gave us the six pack of NFL information and all kinds of storylines going on right now. And then last but not least, House and I talked about the MLB playoffs. I forced him to talk about WNBA again. It was actually pretty fun. And then we did. Ringer 107 picks. And we also did Mailbag. Yeah. That's why this podcast is almost three hours long. It's all coming up next. We're going to take a break. Pearl Jam. And then Rob Mahoney. This is the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Make every NFL week more rewarding with FanDuel Rewards Club. You heard me. Just bet like you normally would. Earn points in eligible settled bets. Win or lose. Keep collecting points. Level up and unlock bigger rewards. So, keep an eye on your Rewards Club progress and see what you can unlock. This is your most rewarding season ever. And it's with FanDuel. 21 plus select states are 18 plus DC or Wyoming. Game problem call 1-800-GAMBLER. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat Connecticut. We'll see you next time. Bye. Bye. Bye. I think the emotions look. We're going to be riding high coming into opening night, but I hope I can get there by then. I didn't think I was ready and it felt really soon because football feels like it started a little late this year. Baseball playoffs are going. WNBA playoffs have been fun. I have a college football team. And then three things happened. One was I saw a two minute montage of Darren Peterson just cooking in some preseason game and making all these different shots in the half court offense that felt looked like he was 20. He was 28 years old. And I was like, Oh, okay. So that happened. Then there was a two and a half minute montage of Darius Acuff using DeMontis Sabonis picks and either faking like he was going to use the pick or not. Yeah. And getting all these good shots. Did you see this montage? I did not see that montage. Should I make time for it? I think you should make time for it. I was delighted and excited about it. And he looked like the guy that I thought he might be in college. So that was the second thing. And then the third thing was we're still, less than three weeks away from the season. And we've already had a Philadelphia controversy about whether or not Joel Embiid was late for practice. Yes. Involving Mike Breen having to basically recant something that he said. And then Nick Nurse seemed like he was kind of admitting it was true. I'm all in. I can't wait for the Philadelphia rollercoaster, Rob. Should we get the Believe Mike Breen shirts printed up? What do you think? How do we want to stoke this? I'm trying to think, are there five more honest Americans than Mike Breen? That's the thing. That you would just trust with all information? At all times? Our nation turns its only eyes to Mike Breen on many occasions. And I would trust him with my life. I am shocked that that's the list, though. I thought you were going to say you saw Digger and you were just going through like a what does it all mean kind of phase. No. Have you seen Digger? I have not. But that's the impression I've been left with from everyone who has. Van Lathan saw it and talked about it on my pod on Tuesday and was doing the Van Zag. So I didn't know how much of it was true and not true, but really did like it. And then got a text from Wesley Morris saying, to me and Van, saying, I'm so glad somebody is defending Digger. I'm so glad these movies exist. So I already feel like the Zag is in full Zoom. So I got to decide where I'm going to land on that. I'm really not sure yet. In a world where the Zags are already zagging, like, do you now zig? What is your move? Is there a Zog? There might be a third. We might have to create a new one. What's the biggest NBA Zag this season before we get into our little gimmick that we have? Well, how do you mean? What is the thing where the consensus seems to be going one way and you're just looking at it going, I really want to go the other way. Do you have one yet? I'm trying to figure out where the consensus is because the West does feel a little cut and dry up top, but I feel like it probably will be a little cut and dry up top. And so I feel like if there's a place to zag, it's going to be in the East. I'm inclined to say the Pacers. I'm inclined to say, I see the Pacers consistently underrated in terms of over-unders, in terms of place in the Eastern Conference pecking order. I would make this pick, but I would be very surprised by the end of this year if they're not one of the best teams in the conference. See, I thought you were going to zag on that because it feels like the zag is already a lot of people going how much they like the Pacers wise. And that's a 50-win team. But you asked me for a zag and not a zag. Well, maybe the zag is actually the Pacers are going to have a lot of trouble this year because Hal Burton, but I'm with you. I'm with you on the Pacers. I think there's, I like this zag we just came up with two minutes ago. I think there's a really interesting zag with the Orlando Magic. Okay. Because I think even in the preseason, they've been running actual plays and offense that has delighted, basically everybody like, wow, you're using your players in a way where they compliment each other and don't just stand around. And now there's a lot of Sean Sweeney. This is what they needed. There's some coach of the year buzz with him now. So we should learn with Orlando to never trust Orlando at all times. Should be the move. So Tuesday, I had your group chat co-host Kyle Mann on and we played a game of NBA one guy for the East. And I made him the same offer that I made you. I said, I made a list. I want to talk about one guy from each team that I'm fascinated by for some way. Do you want to see the list or not? Rob Pony said, no, no, I'm a professional. I've been potting for years and years. I don't need to see your list. I'm ready to, ready to bounce off whatever you have. So we're going an alphabetical order in the West. And the first team is Dallas. And my one guy is Kyrie Irving, who turns 35 years old in March. Rob, does that make you feel old or young? It makes me feel quite old, but I, I suspect his knees feel a little older than I do. Well, he's 39.5 this year, player option for 42.4 next year. You're 15. He has missed 305 games since the 2020 season, including all of last year. He's played 61 plus games twice since 2015. And yet these stats are last 10 seasons. He's 26 and six, almost a 50, 40, 90 guy. I don't know what team he's going to be on. I don't know what's left. I don't know how many games we should expect from him. If there is a team to trade for him. I don't know who it is. I don't know why Dallas wouldn't keep him. I don't know what Dallas's game plan is. I just have all questions and no answers with Kyrie Irving. Do you have any answers at all? I think the best thing we have, but the closest thing we have to an answer is that he's going to be really good. Like I fully expect coming off of the ACL. Kyrie has the game, has the mechanics, has the, like the efficiency of movement to come off of an injury like that, even at that age and be a really, really formidable score as we would expect. But again, like where he ends up, I'm with you that a lot of teams could talk themselves into it. And so forecasting Kyrie season is basically impossible. I do think it will serve the Mavericks to trade him though. And we'll probably serve Kyrie to move on despite the fact that he's done very well there. It seems like his relationship with the franchise has been pretty strong overall for most of that time, you know, barring a Luca trade here or there. And so, but he's so useful in so many contexts. And like, if you're a contender that's even closer, the borderline, and these are two conferences where the East is going to be so dense in the middle and the second tier in the West is going to be so competitive. I think one of those teams should absolutely talk themselves into trading for Kyrie. Yeah. I mean, he signed up for Luca and Nico Harrison and Jason kid and contending and trying to rebuild his career in his life, which he did. And I think he's the last two years or so. He's been as normal as he's been since his early years in Cleveland. I think teams would not be afraid to trade for him. I just, I don't know. the team I wrote down Houston question mark Toronto question mark Denver question mark Golden State three question mark Golden State I think is in that move where it's like can we just get one more guy who can do basically anything who is it where is that person how do we find them and I do think now that Curry's locked in they'll be rolling the dice but yeah I mean the problem with Kyrie there's some other guys in the league that are like this too you basically are hoping he's healthy April May June or there's no reason to trade for him yeah he's gonna play 50 to 60 games that's just who he is he's another guy like Embiid who it's almost better if he's once a week or if he's used like some WWE uses some wrestlers were like he only wrestles pay-per-views and is it better to have Kyrie like that I don't know and I don't know whether he wants to stay or go he's been pretty pretty elusive about he seems like he wouldn't be opposed to it but he hasn't come out and said I'd like to go he's had that like politician polish when he's been asked you know a little too rehearsed a little too like buttoned up in terms of his responses about his place with the organization so I think it'll make sense for everybody though I mean one team that you didn't mention that I think could be on the board is Detroit depending on how their season goes that's another one where it's like you see who Cade is when he has any ball handling help at all like a Dennis Jenkins level ball handler makes a world of difference for him good lord if you put someone like Kyrie out there if you could swing that trade where you're giving Dallas pieces for its future without compromising Detroit's president too much if that's even achievable I don't know but I would I would be looking into it if I were the Pistons Toronto was the one I was thinking like a team that could be close that has contracts not a lot of picks left yeah but things to basically make a move on but more importantly would set us up for Kawhi and Kyrie being on the same team which would basically just ruin my podcast I would get that wrong all the time I would be just calling them by each other's names I can't even get Zoe in bed and my two kids I called them by the wrong name so Kawhi and Kyrie would just be a disaster Denver who do you think I have for Denver I think you have DeMar DeRozan no interesting choice though DeMar DeRozan as sixth man I did think about it I have Aaron Gordon I just think this the sun rises and falls with Ashley Judd and Heat and Aaron Gordon in Denver and they're just not even a contender if he's not 100% healthy but I'm not even sure if they can swim in that deeper pool with San Antonio and OKC this year even if he is healthy but they'll drown without him being healthy 31 years old 13th season three years 103 million left which is not a disaster last two years 51 games 36 games and he was hurt in the playoffs last year and you know the more I look at big picture NBA and the career longevity and all this stuff it really once we get into the thirties with these guys now it just seems like there's so much wear and tear guys have longer careers but I think from a durability standpoint way worse bets especially when there's been recent injury history and that I just really am concerned that he's going to ever be the guy that you know in our head we think yes right I think we have that conversation about where your prime is these days a lot more around stars right it's like how long can you really carry a team can you do it even at 32 anymore or do you need to be in that more like 26 to 30 window Aaron Gordon's a different case and I think he's a different case in part because the Nuggets found themselves in a position where they relied on him for literally everything they're like oh you're our best perimeter defender and you're our best backup center and your best spot up shooter and your best dunker spot finisher and you're our best connecting passer who isn't Nikola Jokic I guess just do all of that stuff all the time until your body breaks down and they tried versions of that even trying to moderate his usage over the course of the year but he's too important to everything they do to use him in any kind of minimal way and so I'm with you he's one of the best kind of supporting role players in the league if you want to if that's not too much of an insult to lump at Aaron Gordon one of the most important players in the league for that reason I just I think Denver has too many ifs stacked on top of each other you know if Gordon is healthy if Christian Brown bounces back if Cam Johnson continues to play well as he did at the very tail end of last year's playoffs there's there's just a lot of writing on a lot of different factors that makes me pretty nervous so you're telling me you don't want a condo on Whitmore Island because we do have electricity and running water again so nothing for you yet I I sold out hard when the Washington Wizards said you're not fit to be a Washington Wizard no interest in Whitmore Island no so if you've unsubscribed to our billing list okay I respectfully you know I've been in there for a long time they did good work question mark I guess but that ship has sailed for me I can't quit every I saw some of the highlights one one dunk one I was like I was like oh what if he could just carry the offense for five minutes yeah DeRozan as an overqualified six man to carry an offense for six seven minutes we I went on group chat for a couple teams with you guys for the previews we talked about New Orleans and we talked about Memphis and we talked about Zion as like maybe that's just what his destiny is to be the most overqualified six man of all time who comes in for eight minutes a half and you run all the offense room and the other team is actually like oh fuck this is now the Zion stretch of the game we don't really and that's just kind of who he is way too over the Rosen is not as overqualified as that but it is a good I think think for this point of his career I would say I think it was a great thing for two seasons ago probably like if you think about DeMar coming off of his Chicago Bulls run and he would have gone straight into a six man role with a contending team that would have been perfect he's still very good he's still look he's still very qualified to do all of the DeMar stuff as far as like one-on-one moves manufacturing tough shots in space you're going to be hard-pressed to find any bench player who's as good at that stuff as he is but is he going to be able to fit into the movement of Denver's offense do they even want him to fit into the den movement of Denver's offense and is he is he going to be capable of you know say like Jamal Murray misses a significant amount of time which he last season accepted is ought to do he probably will like is that a good second pillar to counterbalance this stuff off of Jokic like that's a good second pillar to counterbalance that might be too much to ask of him at this point maybe they should maybe we got to figure out a name for this type of player because the season is so long and guys miss so many chunks that you need these extra guys who can carry the offense basically the best version of what Peyton Watson did last year for them when they had all those injuries he's like all right I'll drive the car 20 a game did a really good job for two weeks but there's a lot of guys in the league who can do that now Golden State I hate doing this but it's got to be poor Zingas just because it would have been such a weird contract to begin with bizarre and this was a team that did not have a lot of bullets in the holster for summer movement for I don't think anybody knows what they want to be they're over under win totals in the high 30s Curry's basically made it clear I'm never leaving which gets tough because now now you're the spouse in a bad marriage who's like well I'm never leaving we're never getting divorced it's like okay I don't know what happens now but they gave him 20 million this year 20 million next year but only three is guaranteed a who are they bidding against no idea B he's 31 years old he's played 60 games once since 2017 he's only played 28 playoff games total how many total minutes do you think he's played in his career oh my god yes it's really not that many it's a brain buster what what sorry what is his total career length how many years total career minutes and total career length is I think 2015 draft oh my god something like that I have no even bearing for how to guess it because he's missed full seasons or most of them I think he's god I don't even have a benchmark for it where is he 16k Andrew Wiggins has almost as many points as Chris Stapp's Porzingis minutes wow it's an actual stat and he has this mystery illness again yeah that he's now had for the third straight year that I don't they went through this last year with them but I just don't think they could afford to do that again I don't think they could afford to waste a bullet on this and they did and now it's like day-to-day like they were with usual they're spending 122 million dollars this season on Porzingis Draymond who just looks like he's out of shape Moody who's hurt and Jimmy Butler is hurt 122 million and the caps like 180 so I don't want to cross this team off or as a playoff team but I don't see a roadmap or they're a playoff team do you I think they're gonna have a really hard time getting through the regular season in one piece and getting through all of those injuries without overturning them and taxing Steph in the process and so whatever you think of Chris that's Porzingis and I think the Warriors are pretty guilty of over indexing on like the best version of the healthy guy that they think they're signing right like the good version of KP is a player who really helps Golden State they did this with Horford too by the way that's the thing it's like once a week great and and Horford again Horford his salary level is one thing KP at his is another signing Porzingis under these circumstances when you knew Butler was out and you knew Moody was going to be out probably not going to be out for the rest of probably until January and you still decided to do this I just it's inexplicable and then it's even more inexplicable for Mike Dunleavy to sit up there at media day and in some of these availabilities and talk about you know waiting for the right opportunities and the conservatism of not using all their bullets at this point in time like if not now when especially when you're using one of your bullets one of your salary slots some of the investment of this roster and its resources in a guy who we just literally do not know and I mean this in no way to disparage Chris that's Porzingis if he is going to be healthy enough to contribute to the team. And on top of that, But I, you know, Quentin Post doesn't go to the Hall of Fame, but Memphis squeezed them with this RFA for Quentin Post. They had to let him go. It was only like seven, 8 million. I can't remember what the exact number is, but it was less than 10. So let him go because they'd already committed this money to Porzingis. I can't remember what their mid-level situation was, but when you think that somebody like Mitchell Robinson got 15 million, you know, and Porzingis is just 20 million is a lot of money in the second apron NBA. That's what IO got per year. That's what Peyton Watson got. That's the range you're swimming in. And those guys are much better bets to get minutes. Houston, Reed Shepard, and Houston, by the way, could add eight guys. Yeah. I think Fred has to be in this conversation too. Yeah. But Fred, I had him and I was like, this is so obvious. It's too clear. It's like, can he come back from an ACL? Reed Shepard, he's 22. They're almost on the Jonathan Kamingo Warriors timeline with him where there's two different teams and you could trade him. And maybe get the asset that helps this veteran team with Durant, Marcus Smart, all these guys. Or you bank on, you're trying to build his value up. But like in the playoffs last year, he was 29%, took nine a game from three. 29%. He was just terrible. One of the reasons they lost series. Last year, he made 227 threes and Houston was still 25th and made threes. So they actually need his shooting, but they have Van Vliet back. They got Marcus Smart. Is he even going to play that much? Like, I liked what I saw in stretches from Reed Shepard last year. And I think he's kind of what they need in some ways. But then in other ways, was one of the reasons they got in the mess there in the first place. So I just don't know what happens with this guy this season. I'm hoping that needing him less makes him play a little better, right? Like if he was feeling a little pressurized in that role of like, this is my one year when Fred is hurt and the team is desperately looking at me to hit shots. So few guys on this roster can. Maybe something about that, that mix just like did not bode well for him or led to some of the inconsistency. But the things we saw in the playoffs were decision-making issues as much as anything. It was, it was inexperience. He was not ready for those moments for a team that I get like to the year two timeline point. There's, there are lots of young elements of this Houston roster. There are a lot of guys who are still coming into their own. And then there's your 38 year old best player who has to be leading a team that's good enough to compete now. And Reed Shepard was not good enough to compete now. Yeah. And I, the way college sports says now, I wonder like, would he have just stayed in college for a couple more years? Made some NIL money. He ended up being a top three pick. So the rule is you have to come out in your top three pick. But I look at somebody like Pritchard who was in college for a while and came in, then was on the bench for a while and turned into who he turned into. And it was a slow bake. It took forever. Reed's the other way. He just gets thrown in, but I think has some of the same kind of skills that would succeed with like Pritchard did. And I don't know. And it's also. I went through, I was like, there's got to be some awesome trade match for him. It's really hard to find a team that would want a young point guard in that 11 to 14 million range. That's got a big extension coming up that isn't already messing around with a point guard. Sure. You know, and it's like Memphis, Golden State. I don't know. Do we really think Houston should be doing that? Like, why wouldn't they just hold on to him and see if he can pull it together? Like, it's not like he was a disaster in the regular season. He was a really important part of their offense. Some because of deficiencies elsewhere. But his shooting and the impact of it is pretty unique. And I think there's going to be it's going to ebb and flow. It's going to come and go. The question is, is he going to have the rest of the game to sort of stabilize his contributions on the floor? Is he ever going to hold up defensively? Is he going to be able to run a team of his own? Is he going to turn into enough of a threat as a movement shooter where teams start freaking out when he's flying around the floor? To me, those are the bigger questions. And if you can get two out of three, that would be gold. If you can get one out of three, that would still be pretty good. I'd love to see him be. I'd love to see Pritchard for them. Like where Pritchard was in 2024 range. You know, come in instant offense. You're not counting on him. But when he when he does well, it's a bonus. And that's probably where he should be. But the problem is, the reason I mentioned Kaminga is this is kind of the Kaminga thing. But you end up losing your value because you're in a situation that doesn't fit you. And two years later, all of a sudden, nobody knows what to do. Well, and a coach who doesn't fit you most of the time. Right. Clippers. I had Garland for the Clippers. And we can we can zip through this. He's, you know, he averaged a 24 and eight for the 2025 cabs and shot 40 percent for three. This is a really good basketball player. First time he's really ever had his own team. The team's not going to be that good. But everything I'm seeing, hearing, watching, even like his reaction to when Max Drew Scott hurt in preseason. Like this is his team. I'm excited for him. I want to see what's there because I've always been a huge fan. But it feels like a career. Rear year on a bad team would be would be my guess. And then how do you fit in with Wagler would be the thing to look at. If you can, can those two guys play together? And if they can't, what do you do? Offensively, I have very few doubts. Defensively, just a world of them. A tsunami of doubts. Too small and too slow is a really tough combination to put out there on the wing. But yeah, I think with with Garland, I've been a believer in him as a playmaker for a long time. And some of what he was asked to do in Cleveland was, you know, find really elaborate solutions. Out of like, tough spacing problems, possession after possession of the possession, working off Donovan Mitchell. Great to draft off of the attention that he draws, but also kind of difficult for another ball handler, especially if you are a more traditional point guard type like Garland is, I think he is an elite elite shooter who has only kind of shown that in flashes so far. And so if if he kind of pulls it together there, and most importantly, can stay healthy, that's the part that I think makes all of us pretty apprehensive is like he just hasn't played many full seasons at all, if any, at this point. And so how do you build around a guy like that? How do you let him be the leader of your franchise and your team? I know the Clippers are short for alternatives, but it's just it's tough when you have that kind of baked in unpredictability of how much time is this guy going to miss between 10 and 30 games this season? Yeah, it's the Garland defenders would say some of the injuries were bad luck. Yeah, they were like getting hit in the face, like things like that. Absolutely. They're not. It's not like a Zach Eadie situation where you're worried about. You know, this guy sprained his ankle, had stress fractures, like what he said, foot four. Actually, we'll skip ahead because Zach Eadie was on my list for that as my Memphis guy. We talked about him on group chat. Yep. 11 games last year, 77 total, seven foot four, 300 pounds. And I don't know what happened with going from a high ankle sprain to basically a year of injuries and surgeries trying to fix it. But the history of that, when we go basically seven, three and up with centers over the last 50 years in the league. We start operating on ankles and feet. Yeah, I get super nervous. And yet, as we talked about in group chat, because we all like Memphis this year. The ideal situation for Zach Eadie next to Boozer with those guys just pounding the glass and then athletic swings jumping around. And it's a team I'm really bullish on as like a better than a 29 win team, which is what they're being predicted to. What are you expecting from Eadie though? I think when he's on the floor, he changes almost everything. That happens sometimes good, sometimes bad rally. You have to work around the fact that he's not the most mobile center. But when you think about their group and kind of what their guards can and can't do, having a giant center who everyone has to pay attention to because he's, I mean, less a lob threat than like an over the top pass into a tasteful layup threat. But like having that guy where you have to pay attention to how he's positioned, you have to take away those passing angles as much as possible. I just think that makes Ty Jerome's job that much easier and makes Scottie Pippen's juniors. Job that much easier guys who are like really good scores and high effort players, but not visionaries as far as like running an offense goes. And so Memphis is at that stage where they're trying to cobble together talent. They're trying to figure out who the pillars of this franchise are going to be. And what they're lacking is that sort of like all eyes on me talent. And I'm not saying Zach Eadie is that in terms of the production or is going to be a future MVP or anything like that. But he demands your full attention. He demands a place in the scouting report. And that's something that's really valuable. For them, even for as great as Cam Boozer is going to come in. And I think we expect him to be right off the bat. He's a different kind of player. So you're all eyes on me guy isn't Quentin Post. Somehow not. I think you may be the foremost Quentin Post supporter. I always like stealing guys from other teams. And I just wish the NBA was way more cutthroat with that stuff. As I've talked about many times, I never understand why everybody's so helpful with everybody else. To me, if I was in the NBA, it would be a zero sum game. I'm just trying to drive up contracts and make my competitors. But if you're stealing guys from like the 10th best team in the Western Conference and they're like, I don't know, you know, it's like 88 billion. Whoa, Quentin Post is fine. I really I mean, he's honestly more important to Golden State than he is to Memphis because Memphis has so many bodies. Golden State has nearly enough of them. But Zach Eadie forces you to be a little bit more cautious in terms of your second and third bigs. I'm excited to watch him. All right, quick break. Then we'll finish the Bill Simmons podcast. This podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Here's something to look forward to between kickoffs this Sunday. With Sunday Spectacular, FanDuel Rewards Club members can unlock exclusive rewards throughout the day with offers tailored to their Rewards Club level. Depending on your level, you can unlock things like profit boosts, reward boxes, points boosts, challenges. Choose your reward offers. Those are really cool, by the way, and much more. The best part, new rewards drop throughout Sunday games. So there's always something new to discover as the day unfolds. Check out Sunday Spectacular in the Fando app only on Netflix. And Fando Awards Club, make this your most rewarding season ever on Fando. 21 plus select states are 18 plus D.C. or Wyoming. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fando.com. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLE or call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. And whether it's a flea flicker or a tush push, you need a plan that fits your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and for your budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. All right, coming back. I told you if you had any back pocket guys to bring them to the pod. I don't know if you want to do that at the midway point here or at the end. Your call. Well, how deep do you want to go with these cuts? You know, I think we. Listen, this is just Rob Mahoney's list. Okay. You can have. I have no parameters. It's two or three guys that you're just looking at. Edie was on my list as well. Okay. Jaron Jackson Jr. on my list. Another former Grizzly. I have him on my list as well. Should we save him for when we get to Utah or you just want to go to it now? Yeah, let's save him. Okay. Keep the alphabetical thing in place. A lot of thoughts about Jaron. Jaron Fox on my list. I think we talk all the time about when is Dylan Harper going to straight up take his job and maybe not enough about how does a veteran off of his first significant playoff run deal with the failure of blowing it in crucial moments? And is he a guy who can put it back together on the fly and maybe stave off Dylan Harper at least for one more season? I'm eager to see. So he's on my list as well. And Denny Avdi is on my list as a guy who had all of the control, all of the reigns last season, all of the opportunity to drive to his heart's content. And now we'll probably be asked to, you know, clean up after two guards who can't really defend anybody and also kind of go back into his box. I'm sure. He'll still drive and be plenty involved, but a much more complicated pecking order in Portland this season, to say the least. We'll be discussing that in a second. Minnesota. Oh, no. Lakers. Yeah. Skip. I just said Kessler. We don't have to dive into this, but, you know, he played five games last season. He had torn labrum. Probably could have come back for the end of the year. To me, this is why stars shouldn't be GMs. Because Luca was basically like, I wanted this guy because he was crushing jazz tape. Like the five. The five games and the previous seasons, Luca was like, I'm locked in a Walker Kessler. He must have liked him on NBA 2K. I guess my question is, would you rather have Kessler for 30 plus million a year for the next four with your fingers crossed on his health? Yeah. Or you just keep DeAndre Ayton, sign Mitchell Robinson. They're making less than Kessler. Yeah. And you keep both firsts and both swaps. I get to keep both of all four picks, basically. Is that enough of an upgrade to make me, am I trying to win the title with this? Like what? It just felt a little Hail Mary-ish and the kind of thing you do when you're trying to appease your star who has decided, I like somebody, get this guy here. So I don't know that Walker Kessler is like 100% worth the full extent of that contract and most importantly, the draft consideration that went on. The draft collateral. That's a lot. That's a lot for Walker Kessler, who I quite like as a player, but it's putting a lot on him. That said, I think appeasing your star is probably the single most important thing you can do as a franchise. And so DeAndre Ayton is. Not a good basketball player. Does not give you really anything of note in games that legitimately matter. Maybe in like a regular season matchup that's on TNT, sure, but an actual playoff series. Not a guy I want in my particular foxhole. And Mitchell Robinson, for as much as I love him and as much as he just showed in terms of the Knicks run, like you kind of want him in that sort of supporting role. You want to, you know, ride the incredible highs of the surges of his offensive rebounding and the energy and live out the lows where he's not available because of his own injury. And so I get wanting to bet on Kessler, who's younger, who has a much higher ceiling than any of the guys we're talking about. And most importantly, if he makes Luka happy, even like 5%, I think that's genuinely the most important thing the Lakers can do. See, this was the same logic of the Paul George trade. That's the part that was. It's like, you got to make Kawhi happy. Sure. This is what he wants. Oh, I thought you were talking about the Celtics, Paul George. Oh, no, no, no. I was like, who's being appeased here? No, no, no, the Kawhi one. Sure. Yeah. Because if I was running. And the Lakers and Luka was like. And they would let you, I'm sure. Yeah. Maybe new ownership, I might have a chance. I just would have been like, look, dude, we're not going to win the title this year. Our goal is to sign Reeves to put you in the best possible situation to win and try to strike for a third star. And we don't really love the summer market right now. So we can do this Kessler thing. But once we do this, we have no assets left. Yeah. It's going to be really hard for us to make. Make another move after this. So once we do this, this is our team. So just so you know, we think that's a mistake. We can patch together center. Let's keep the picks. And let's wait. There's going to be a lot of unhappy teams in January and February. And let's wait. And let's strike for a star. We have some expirings. We have some trade stuff. Let's do that. That's what I would have said. But what do I know? Who knows? Kessler might be awesome. I think the third star would be great. Look, there is a legitimate chance that Kessler becomes an all-defense level, or at least fringe all-defense level. guy for a good chunk of his career. That he turns into that sort of force of nature, holding down the middle in the exact way that they need. And those guys don't come cheap. They don't come easy. Teams fight for them. And so that chance might be worth it, especially when. I don't want to pretend like Luka is 22 years old. He is in it now. We were just talking about what is the contending prime for a superstar. Luka's in it. And so you need someone who's right here, who's able to contribute in a way that a pick swap simply can't. And this was not. It's not a great market to go hunting for that, but it's the market that the Lakers had. I guess we'll see. Minnesota. We can go quick. I have Io for this. Lomelo would be the easy choice, but Lomelo's also averaged 50 games a year for his career. Yeah. Two things with Io. One, he's Lomelo insurance, because Lomelo's not going to play 82 games and play 2,400 minutes. And if anything, you want to do what Charlotte did with him. Ease him in 28, 29 minutes a game. Please don't get hurt. You're on. A little bit of eggshells with Lomelo trying to get him to the spring. And Io really helps with that. Also probably Kaminga insurance too, because he lets you kind of slide Kaminga out if you have to put Jaden at the fore and then play a bunch of guards out there together. So I don't know if you can get Kaminga insurance. I haven't called, but I think it's impossible. But you don't think they're offering rates? I don't think they're offering rates for Kaminga insurance. I had written down what you just said. The biggest question for me, and Io's so important in this, can they play Melo and. Io, McDaniels, and Rudy as their crunch time five? Can that work? How do you guard the Tatum tight? I guess you use McDaniels to guard all the bigger forwards. But if somebody has two post-up players, now that gets a little interesting. But can those five guys play together successfully for eight months? I'm not ruling it out. I like those five guys together. It makes sense for me. They're shooting. They're spacing. There's some defense. Rudy can clean some stuff up. Yep. And that would be, if you're talking about the Minnesota, upside, that and the threes would be. Or you say, like, I like that crunch time lineup. I like the threes would be the case. I'm still not there. I think that lineup will be a frequent part of their crunch time rotation and should be for all the reasons you laid out. And plus, I trust Ant's ability to guard up, especially in those spots where, yeah, you're going to have Jaden chasing around really whoever the top perimeter threat is, regardless of position, or if they play the four. And then if you need Ant to pick up a stockier forward, it's almost one of his. of his better defensive, like, utilities at this point. Like, if something's going to be hyper-focused on, like, stop this guy, this go-to scorer, he's actually pretty good at that. He's less good at the, like, lock and trail, a Steph Curry type as they run around the floor. Chase people around picks, yeah. Not his strongest suit, but I think that kind of focus, he could be really well used. And what I like about that lineup, too, is it gives them a good opportunity to have a really productive sort of chaos, where if Rudy can't hold down the defensive boards, which is a big if for this team in general, and a big if with, that lineup especially, then you think about the transition possibilities of, like, these playoff games that are decided by one long rebound that a team is able to convert into a crucial basket. And you have LaMelo Ball, Ayo Dusumu shooting, like, a rocket out in transition, Anthony Edwards, one of the most explosive athletes in modern NBA history, and Jaden McDaniels. Like, I just think there's a good chance for that Wolves team to pick up a lot of the low-hanging fruit that will make the rest of their stuff feel, like, feel a little more free and easy. I like the point you made about Ant. Marcus Smart was like that. You wanted him guarding the 6'9 score guys. He was always better, like, playing up with those guys. Do you have Minnesota third? I think they are probably the third best team in the West. I will be revealing my choices on Tuesday. It's. It could make a case for a bunch of different teams for three in the West. It's pretty difficult. Who do you believe in least of that group? Right. Who's the safest pick? Like, Minnesota, Denver, Houston, Lakers. That might be. Yeah, there may be one more team in there that sneaks in. Knowing me, I'll talk myself into Jokic by Monday. I'll just be like, what am I doing? This is generational. Generational superstar. He's not going to be the third three seed. New Orleans, Zion. We talked about it a bunch on group chat, including playoff game zero, average 39 games a year, career averages 24 and 6, 5.7 rebounds last year. You're just not getting rebounds with him. The only thing I'd add, the Zion zone, think we could name this. What is the Zion zone? you're too talented for me to want to trade you, but you're not reliable enough to get a good trade offer. You're just in the Zion zone. There's not even like, if you're doing trade calls, nobody even knows how to start like, well, you're going to have to blow me away. And then the other team's like, I mean, honestly, you're going to have to blow us away. And it's just, it's just like going back and forth, trying to figure out what his trade value is, which I don't think he has any. I thought there were a lot of like league conversations. I would want to be a fly on the wall for, or a bug on the phone call for, you know, starting with, you know, the Clippers under investigation, you know, the failed Chris Paul trade to the Lakers. There are many moments in NBA history, but honestly, the exact sort of like awkward foot dragging, small talk that would lead into the Zion zone negotiation might be worth it alone. That might be a contender for me. It would be, I think my favorite part of being a GM, like I'm the GM, you're the assistant GM. You're in my office. It was like, Hey, Joe Dumars is on the line. Like, Oh, okay. And then it's like, Hey, what's up? Hey, how's it going in new Orleans? Oh, it's good. How's the family? Oh, it's great. And then he goes, so I just want to talk Zion for a second. And we look at each other like, Oh, put them on mute. Oh, here we go. Let's do it. Okay. I think my, the guy on my list, I'm most excited to talk about. Okay. See, who do you think it is? Oh my God. Who could it be? Well, we've talked about so many options. We talked about a lot of injury guys. So, I mean, J J dub is right there, but I'm going to guess you did not pick him. I'm based on the way you've been talking about your preseason consumption so far. I think you might've snuck a die Mara into this list. Did you do that? I did check out his, his, what is he? 15 for 15. I mean, just all lobs. I mean, if that's real, that's going to be terrifying. I have no, I have no bearing to know, whether it is or not, or that's the thing that thunder actually going to call on. But even the fact that we have to talk about it is ridiculous. At least he's not going to be a bus just when the preseason, like he's moving around nice. And I'm sure he'll play. No, my guy's case on Wallace. Sure. I think I have the most, the most floors in the case on Wallace building between ceiling and floor for where I think this season could go for him. Okay. Hold on. What does that metaphor mean? It means I'm prepared for this. Okay. And I'm prepared for, Oh, we're in this same exact spot. We're in last year. I thought we would have gone higher. I think he's like a 22 story building, 23, November contract extension looming. If things go well, this season, the door it's gone. Isaiah Joe's gone. They're low on wings that can defend. It's really just J dub and Caruso. I mean, but those are two of the best in the world. I'm just saying like, you're talking about a series and 48 minute games. Yeah. So I think they're going to need him a little more. Uh, will he finish games over Mitchell and McCain? Is there more offense there? Is this somebody who should be playing 35 minutes a game? How are they going to use the minutes around? And if he was at 25 minutes a game last year with dork gone, could he be at 32 to 34 this year? And is he one of their four best players? I just, I have no answers for any of those questions. Do you, I think he probably is their fourth best player, but I think, that's where I landed as well. And I think a lot of that is just to do with Caruso's body and what you can reasonably expect of him. I think, I think Wallace is probably just a little further along in terms of comprehensive impact than AJ Mitchell is, who I also quite like. Uh, but I'm with you about the offense. That's kind of the one I'm looking at. Cause clearly they trust him defensively. They should, he's a first team caliber perimeter defender. And, and to go off of last season and say, you know what, Lou Dort, we actually feel pretty solid here with case and taking this job. Thanks for everything. An incredible vote of confidence and, and a deserved one offensively. He will have games when like Shay is out or Shay is just kind of like, you know, on the bench because the thunder kind of blowing somebody out and he'll just rattle off like eight assists in a game. Like it's nothing. And remember that month he took over or three weeks or whatever. That's what I'm talking about. Looked like a, like a legitimately high end offensive guard for two weeks. He makes you dream of a time where he could be like the, the lead point guard on the Sacramento Kings or whatever, before you realize that's a horrible thing to wish on anybody. But can he show any like capacity to, to walk the middle ground? Like what is the zone of offense he gets to participate in? That's between Shay over here and J Dub there and AJ Mitchell here. And it's like operating out of the corners because you need the spacing, but also just a little more dynamic than he's shown so far in that kind of role. And is this team going to play three guard a lot? Yeah. I'm such a huge fan. I really, really want, I want to see more from him. And we've seen guys in the eighties, eighties being situations like this. Like McHale was in a situation like this. James Worthy was in a situation like this. Rodman was in a situation like this. I'm not saying he's on that level, but guys where you watch them and they were on such a good team with so many players and they're playing half the game. And you know that they would be starting on a lot of different teams. And the irony is Harper's in this situation too, where there's just so much more there. So I don't, I don't know how it plays. And it's interesting because they've already won and he's already sacrificed and there's money coming and they've already paid. Three guys. And I do wonder, are they going to pay him? So next one, Phoenix, just really quickly, Devin Booker, who has four years and $250 million left on his deal. This is his 12th season. And, uh, he was first team all NBA in 22 and 13 and 24. And he's been 26 a game for the last nine years. Three point shooting got worse last four years for some reason. It's so strange. The number one guy that you just assume in your head is shooting like 44% from three. And it's 34%. Last four years. But is this just it? This is just what the rest of his career is going to be like. He's just going to be on mid-level teams averaging 26 a game. And then later in his career, he'll go chase a ring somewhere. Like, do you kind of feel like we're mapping this out the way it's going to go? Or do you, is there a surprise in here for you? I, I wondered if there might be a surprise. And then to be honest, like the, the scale of that contract might've sealed it just because like, I think it's every guy's right to chase after it. And want to be overpaid, right? Like get as much money as you possibly can. Devin Booker, like get it at the same time. It's going to be really hard to build a contending team around him because I think it's, he's kind of on that cusp of if he's your number one offensive player, the ceiling feels pretty, pretty strict. Like you could maybe build an elite defense around him with just enough like supplementary playmaking. And then he's the killer who's sort of like Allen Iverson style. We as you to the finals. I just think that's a really tough life. It's maybe a recipe for like, a one-off run, but maybe Phoenix already had its one-off run, you know, like maybe him and Chris Paul and Mikael Bridges, that was it. And from here on out, it's just going to be pretty good. That's where I landed as well. He kind of had his run. He proved that he could be on the biggest stage and came really close to winning the title. Yep. Two games away. That's a little different than ring chasing. There's so many guys who were just never even on that stage playing in those games. And he was, you know, one of the best five players in the league. He was number four in MVP one year. So the chops are there and he obviously likes being in Phoenix. So that's that. We could skip over Portland, but John Moran is my guy for Portland. I just, he's seven years, 327 games. Yeah. Genuinely. Who is he as a basketball player in 2026? I really don't know. Last three years, 79 games, 29% from three. He's saying how he doesn't want to attack the rim in the same way. Cause he wants to protect his body. It's like, well, that was the whole point of John Moran. No idea. Sacramento mentioned Darius Acuff earlier. Not a lot of guys to be intrigued by. Not a lot of guys by Sacramento, although I know you're a big Maxine Renaud guy. Acuff and Sabonis. I want to see that, how that goes. I feel like that's going to suck me in on random, like Monday nights at nine o'clock at night. And my hottest take of the season is just keeps a bonus. I want to see these two guys together. Yeah. I know his pricey at 45 this year, 48 next year, but perfect, perfect guy for Acuff for going nowhere. Anyway, let's let the young kid cook with somebody who knows how to pick and roll. I think, look, as far as training wheels go for a young point guard, especially a young scoring point guard, playing with DeMata Sabonis seems super fun. Sounds great. Perfect. If the King's front office also gets pulled in, in the way that you have, I think you just have to wonder about where it goes, right? Like cool for a year, maybe for two, but you're kind of idling in place so long as that is the case. And when do you want to move on? Like I, I'm kind of ready for that to be over and not just from like a person who watches and talks about the NBA. We kind of get, I'm kind of bored of things. I just think it's run its course emotionally as much as anything for like him in that city with that team. Like speaking of teams that kind of had their moment and had their time, they had it, they blew it and everything fell apart. I mean a real blip and it's hard to find a good suitor for him and like a great landing spot. But I, I just don't know that much good is going to happen. So long as DeMata Sabonis for no real fault of his own is a member of this team. Sounds like these, the, the Kings don't really let your, your beam anymore. Oh, sorry. Had to, um, Hey, Sabonis next year is an expiring. This year is a bonus. Use them as the security banker for a year. He's it's a sub bonus. Next year expiring San Antonio, Dylan Harper. We could talk about this for 10 hours or, or one minute. Just what, what, what month will he be the second best spur in your opinion? What month of this season? And will it be this season? I mean, you think, you think he's that far along? I could see by April. We're just like, shit is the second best spur. I guess this. just happened i could see it but stefan castle is great yeah i know maybe dylan harper to your point like climbs that far that quickly i think with him i'm still kind of waiting to see it may be a long time before we get real comprehensive answers to this but like how who is dylan harper when he has to kind of manage the reads and the variables of a game and he doesn't just get to be the off-speed pitch guy who comes in and looks like one of the best drivers in basketball but that's kind of his only job right like yeah he's very focused he's very precise in the way he operates all that stuff is super valuable to them but he doesn't have to make the hard decisions that castle or fox or wemby do and until that's the case i don't know how comfortable i am calling him their second best player i wonder if it's got young kobe potential so kobe his first year is basically harper's college year second year for kobe when he got voted into the all-star game was was last year and then the third year with kobe that was when they traded it out and then the third year with kobe that was when they traded it out and then the third year with kobe that was when they traded it out and then the third year with kobe that was when they traded eddie jones halfway through the year they're like oh shit this is happening yeah gotta we gotta get rid of eddie jones we gotta just this is kobe and shack is our destiny will that happen this year next we're with harper but it will happen last guy we were both excited to talk about jaron jackson yeah all four years and 205 billion dollars of them and he has to play the center for the first month for the utah jazz without nurkic which means he's gonna have to grab some rebounds which have been a problem since he grabs less than a rebound and a half a quarter uh for the last three years of his career what intrigues you about jaron jackson i think just looking at his last three seasons obviously had the trade last year also for a grizzlies team that just was kind of a mess a kind of blip intermediate season in between and then the weird like absolutely lost season for the grizzlies the year before with jaw and everything else yeah it's just been it's been a minute since we've gotten to see him be in a stable competitive context and it's weird to think that the jazz are going to be that but he's a huge reason why like i think the glimpses of who he could be within very interesting this is a coach and a style where i think if you're a ball handling big in any way it just really suits you it really locks into the way you can kind of tap into so many different actions so many different movements like jaron jackson jr as like a stretch big is one thing jaron jackson jr as a stretch big who's also running dribble handoff who's also attacking the basket off the dribble who has like the funky intermediate game that guy's an awesome player and that's his worst side of the ball and so i i hope we get a real spotlight on that and i think we're going to especially with nurkic's injury which is a huge reason why i think he has to be the pick here peterson it's there's so many league past themes this year i'm just like i just want to watch these guys for a couple games see what the fuck's going on do you think i mean with the with the lottery odds shifting how do you think that's going to change our league past diet like obviously later in the year things could be dramatically different i think it's going to make february and march a completely different sport do you think it'll make december and jane like at what point do you think we'll see the payoff of that i guess is what i'm asking i think it'll be yeah december january ranch get the model for me would be what happened with new orleans last year where they had nothing to play for you know from a tanking standpoint because their pick was gone yeah and they kept playing hard and they actually started gaining momentum that's what we're losing or that's what we lost with the tanking stuff you weren't building momentum near the end of the season because you were trying to bench all your guys come up with fake injuries for them and you weren't having that like late charge and i think that's going to happen when we get to the end of the season i think that's going to happen when we get to the end of the season i think that's going to happen when we get to the end of the season this year when and utah i mean utah could be the team to watch in that regard like they've been on the brakes for so long and we'll see what they're capable of favorite tv show right now i mean we're still finishing up slow horses so i think it's still got to be that for me okay say hi to joanna say hi to the group chat guys we'll do what what are you watching though what are you locked in on i just finished last scene because as you know i watch every kidnap show yeah uh there's a dramatic season finale um and uh and that was the one and then i really liked war i thought war was good and i've heard amazing things about war honestly anytime you guys do it on prestige i'm available okay just send the bad signal i'm ready to go we got you rob mahoney thanks we're gonna come back with uh tom pelissero after this for adults with crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms every choice matters trim fire offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start trim fire is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks if your doctor decides that you can self-inject trim fire proper training is required trim fire is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis serious allergic reactions increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them and 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 explore what's possible ask your doctor about trim fire today call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit trimfire radio.com this episode is brought to you by state farm football has a play for just about everything and whether it's a flea flicker or a tush push you need a plan that fits your unique situation that's why state farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and for your budget now that's a solid game plan like a good neighbor state farm farm is there this nfl segment brought to you by uber eats tom palacero is here you can hear him on the ringer nfl show you can read his fantastic newsletter the sweep uh i got an email question i was going to throw at you sure before you do the six-pack for us it's from rob in plymouth massachusetts wants to know why the vikings don't get enough credit for their horrible quarterback situation since 2010 and since you're in the heart of the beast there in minnesota he'd listed all the quarterbacks since brett farve do you want me to try to web you want to try hold on you want me to try to get them i can go down all right it's it's 18 guys can you do this all right yeah all right joe webb you said one donovan mcnabb christian ponder first round pick christian we're talking only guys who play you've done this out you've done this in order now so who's next yeah they had to have played they had to have played they have started a game for the vikings right uh matt castle still in a row that's five teddy bridgewater there's six another first round pick although his leg did explode correct which then begat sam bradford oh you missed one well hold on let me go let me get through the starters then we got to cycle back bradford and then uh case keenum yep let him walk and that brings us to 2018 which was kirk cousins yeah kirk was mostly healthy then when he got hurt we got hurt we saw um this is really impressive uh jared hall yep there's a couple others you missed um uh sean manion i don't see sean manion on this list but this was a list from a mailbag listener i think sean manion i want to say sean manion started one game in like week 18 we'll double check it okay uh all right let's get through the modern day ones obviously uh kyler murray carson wentz uh max brosmer yeah you also had uh obviously sam darnold jj mccarthy yeah how many am i at there that's like 13 you're 15 you're missing three i'm missing three you're missing the guy between teddy bridgewater and sam bradford bridgewater and bradford so this had to have been like you're missing three you're missing the guy between teddy bridgewater and sam bradford who was the backup in his name is nine letters total first and last and it's not jaron hall that came no it was the great sean hill sean hill that's right he started the game in between that was after they traded for bradford but before he was ready and then so sean hill started cup of coffee with sean hill and then the other two you missed were the uh one and only josh dobbs oh of course and nick mullins and nick mullins so robin plymouth wants to know why does minnesota not have better pr with the terrible quarterbacks they've had and cleveland gets all the pr for this i mean he's only saying the one since far far lasted like a year and a half until he broke down prior to that it was uh turvaris jackson was a primary starting quarterback uh spurgeon win was a starting quarterback at one point but you can honestly go back to basically since dante cold pepper dante had a good five-year run and then suffered that random back to back yeah randall cunningham who took over for an injured brad johnson early in 98 and didn't give it back the vikings best runs have always been when the guy they thought was the guy got hurt and was replaced you had a long run with cunningham through 98 and into 99 then he got hurt jeff george took over uh 2009 i guess 2009 was far of all the way but 17 was case keenum taking over for bradford so more often than not yeah they've taken over for bradford it's been a long run and they've taken over for bradford they've taken over for bradford they've taken over for bradford they've taken over for bradford they've taken over for bradford which is not happening with kyler murray kyler murray so far which brings us to the six pack you had six things you want to talk about it on the vikings are four no they are headed for the classic they'll go 12 and five and be underdogs in round one and nobody will believe in them the entire time and there will be 14 000 advanced stats saying why they shouldn't have the record they have um how do they make this team better is there anything in the works do they believe in kyler murray like what what what are the next steps here because you're four and oh with a really good chance to go 5-0 this week. So how seriously do you take this? I take the Vikings seriously because they do play really good defense. Now, some aspects of the schedule or even the weather in Chicago kind of timed up really well for them. But I do anticipate that they'll be selectively aggressive in terms of pursuing at other positions. I think there's some obvious needs on the team. Setting aside the quarterback where I think that at this point it's Kyler and Carson unless something just plops in their lap. Running back, it's Aaron Jones and then a bunch of guys that nobody's ever heard of, DeMond Claiborne, but he's young. Offensive line, they've gotten banged up there. Quarterback's bottom five. I would say the running back situation is also bottom five and their only impactful receiver, their superstar, has been hurt. There's a lot of ancillary factors to why this hasn't been good. If you go back, you watch the end of that game last week. That was the first time that Kyler kind of started to get in a rhythm, especially with TJ Hawkinson. He made some good throws. He made some good reads. That's what you're betting on is this guy's only played like three, two and a half games, right? As the starting quarterback of the Vikings. You're hoping that gets better, but look at what they did this week, bringing in Odell Beckham Jr. in the wide receiver room. I think that that's a fascinating thing because this isn't like a favor to Odell. It's not like, ah, it's a flyer and he'll be on the practice squad for a week and then get us through. To make sure everyone's healthy and then we'll move on. I think there's a real chance Odell Beckham Jr. is playing actual snaps for the Vikings. Oh my God. This Sunday against the Saints. People have watched the tape say he still moves pretty good. He's 33 years old, but he still can run. He knows the system because he was with Kevin and Sean McVay out in LA where he was the best player on the field in the Super Bowl until he blew out his knee in that game. He's a guy who can step in potentially as a veteran. I'm not saying he's going to go for 10 for 100 this week, but he's going back to it. He's going back to his hometown at just a real chance depending if all the numbers work and how you put together the roster. Is Addison ready? Because he had a hamstring, didn't practice yesterday. Is Jefferson ready? I think Odell may be up. And Hawkinson's not exactly Cal Ripken Jr. from a durability standpoint. He was all over the place last week. Like 14 catches or something last week. I mean, he took that helmet to the knee a couple of years ago and that sufficiently derailed him. He's a good player though, you know, out in space. I love when the, after four weeks, I was devouring all the advanced metrics this week and you always get, because you now have enough to look at for like havoc rate, DVOA, stuff like that. The Vikings had one of my favorites, 31st offense in DVOA and second in defense, which sums it up. They have the second best defense and the second worst offense. And guess what? If you're watching the games, that's how it feels. Which is also hilarious if you go back to week one, Carson Wentz comes off the bench cold and throws three touchdowns. I don't think they've got three passing touchdowns total since. It's been an interesting year. Speaking of broken offenses, Sean Payton, if you bet on FanDuel that Sean Payton would be taking over the play calling reins before Halloween, you won handily. So I guess he's doing it. I've watched a lot of Broncos and I've been shocked by how bad their offense is for, I don't know, I kind of like some of the guys in the offense. And there was this passing chart that got sent around last week of Bowman. And it was like, you know, all the dots all over the field. And every dot, it was just these two clusters on the left and right side of the line of scrimmage going back and nothing at all over the middle of the field. And I was thinking like, I know this is the hardest professional league we have and there's all this science and all this thought and strategy put into how you stop. But if I'm a defense going against the Broncos, it's like, well, he only does throws to these two spots. This is going to be pretty easy. So how do they fix it? You know, you have a confluence of things happening there too around him because Jalen Waddell, they tried a first round pick for him and like he's had the drops. He hasn't made the impact they were anticipating making. Corlin Sutton's been kind of invisible. Evan Ingram, they're not really running him downfield, which is what he does best. These are all reasons that you would think Sean, who from, you know, the halftime interview in week one, you could tell was biting his tongue to say what he would have done in those situations. Like, you're right. I had so many people. I mean, honestly, all the way back since the combine, probably 50 people in the league have been like, how long is that going to last with Sean not calling the plays in Denver? Like everybody knows Sean. He controls everything. He's involved in everything. And I think it's a misnomer to say that he hasn't been involved at all. Yes, he'll be calling the plays this week, but he's been in the meetings. Davis Webb had the hardest job in the entire league for the past four weeks of knowing that guy is standing there. If you have one of the best to ever do your job, standing 20 feet to your right at all times, how good are you going to be able to do your job? I'm not making excuses in any way for Davis Webb, but like everyone could see where this was probably going to go. Do you want to spin it positive for Davis Webb? You had to call plays for four weeks. He got that experience. And next year, if he's calling plays somewhere else, or he's in the head coaching circuit again, he can say at least now, you know, I've done it, but is it a surprise? No, I thought it would last longer. I did. I did think Sean would give him more runway, but when they're, I mean, I think they're 27th in yards this season. You said 31st DVO a like that's the type of stuff that makes you go, you know what? We can't go on like this. Yeah, they are. Well, weirdly, they're 15th in offense for DVO a, which I don't really fully understand. But I think a lot of it has been red zone stuff. And the game last week, you know, that was a three, three game. Guy blows the punt return. Right. All of a sudden it's 10, three and it felt like an insurmountable. It was like, Oh no, the Broncos are down seven points. I don't know if they could get this back. I see. This is, this is why I like having you on because sometimes conspiracy bill and, and a hot take bill comes in and you're just a nuts and bolts, you know, you black and white kind of information, you know, talk to a bunch of, we're a good balance. The Machiavellian Sean Payton being like, I don't want this guy to leave. So I'm going to, I'm going to pretend he's going to call plays, but I'll just take it back in October. It did cross my mind. Yeah, yeah, no, no. You're going to call the plays. It'll be great. You should stay. But he just didn't want him to leave and then zagged on him in a month. Like, I can't say I'm shocked. Well, I think that we talked about too, like this was the organization wanted to do this. I don't think that Sean just came and said like, Hey, I got a great idea. Right. I'm not going to call it plays anymore. It was much more. All right. David's web has head coach interview. He's got OC opportunities. He's a really bright young coach. Who's he's really close with Bo Nix. We don't want to let this guy out of the building. Like Sean's what 62 years old at this point, like not going to be around forever, but then after, all right, we agree. We're going to name him the OC. We're going to give him play calling, but then they signed Sean to an extension a few months later. So anybody who thought this was like the coach in waiting, and this was Sean kind of shaking the hand and moving into the distance. Like it was never going to be the case. He's, he's still a really good football coach and part of, his, you know, superpower for lack of a better term is he does have his hands in everything, every aspect of the program, every trade, he is involved with all of it. And that's why it worked for as long as it did with the saints. That's why he was a Perry with a, you know, a Mickey Loomis, George Payton. It took a little time, but those guys have forged a really good relationship. You know, I, I'm always skeptical, honestly, of when, if you're, if your superpower more than anything is calling place, the thing you do best is called place, giving that up. It hamstrings you, you know, like there's some cases. Sure. You get to a certain point in your career and you want to pass it off, but Sean's tried it twice. He did it once with Pete Carmichael. He did it now with Davis Webb. Shouldn't surprise anybody that he wants to get his hands back in it. Well, that's a good segue to the chargers because the bigger concept, which some people have talked about on different shows is Harbaugh is the CEO coach, but I don't actually, I'm not actually involved in one or the other, but I, I set the culture and I do all these things and that's, and does the. See CEO coach even work anymore in 2026 is football too complicated. Like, cause we saw D'Amico Ryan's, he's taken the defense back this week. Peyton's taken back the offense. If you're the head coach, do you have to have a specialty or can you just be like, I'm just here to run the ship and shit and set the culture. Does that work anymore? Well, one point that's been made to me is that financially it's a lot harder. The top coordinators are getting paid so much money that if you come in and your pitch is. I'm just the, the figurehead, I'm going to set the culture. We're going to hire a bunch of really good people that costs money. If you, and then they leave, if they get a job, they leave, if they get a job and you've got to replace them. I mean, there's coordinators now making four or five, $6 million a year. So that's one more coach that you're having to give a big contract to, and you can't control it and now you have turnover. I mean, John Harbaugh got a job last year. He's very much a CEO coach at this point. I think the challenge, I mean, there's many challenges that Jim Harbaugh has right now, but Yeah. One of them is you brought in this offense that you don't know at all. You have no foundation in the, you know, the Shanahan style, the Mike McDaniel scheme. And when, so, so when shit goes wrong, it's not like Jim can step in and go, I got this, here's what we're going to do. And we're going to fix it the way they, the play style. Isn't what Jim has done in the past. They've been a like big guys. We're going to mash you both sides of the football. Mike is very much like a finesse. We're going to outrun you. We're going to have tons of motion, all these things going on. Like, philosophically, they never really, and personality-wise, never really. seemed like a match so now you're sitting there at oh and four i just don't know i think we've talked about this like what what you do there's not a simple solution if you fire mike mcdaniel now who you know is adam gaze taking over the play calling starting a new offense you're basically like trying to start a new offense in the middle of the season you could go back to running your old concepts but that's that's so hard to do it like a global scale shane day the quarterback's coach has been there a long time he's close with herbert so maybe you could try that well you know what fucked them up is they're down 21 in that last game i watched it yeah game's over and all of a sudden they started moving it yeah seattle just is like we just don't want to get beat by a big play so they're just taking everything short they're going six yards eight yards seven yards nine yards and they have this super long drive just to cut it to 14 and got a little momentum but seattle was never nervous and they lost by seven and then i knew it i knew it was going to be a big game and i knew it was going to be a big game and i knew it was going to be a big game and i knew it was going to be a big game and i knew it was going to be a big game and i knew it was going to be the dialogue the next two days well the chargers might have found something that second half it's like they found nothing seattle was was basically just trying to get through the game without having an injury you know so i think i think they're a mess i don't think it gets better i've talked to people who know like that offense you know mike really well who say like they don't recognize some of the plays that are being run in the games that's not to say mike has totally changed his offense it's more yeah everything is so disjointed you were there before who maybe didn't have that same background in the offense so you know whether it's a guy getting hit running by on a shotgun snap or it's guys not you know hitting their landmarks and they're receiving it's a precision offense and they are super imprecise right now um they're owing four they very well could be owing six at the buy and then so the next step for the chargers if you get there and i'm sure that they're thinking jim's saying we're going to work harder and we're going to more effort and all the you know usual things that he says but if you're owing defense like half their defense is older veterans who are all in contract years so whether you're talking about khalil mac bud dupree denzel perryman dante jackson like these are the guys you're gonna be getting calls on all of them and the trade machine team who's time exactly the chargers who never with a coach you're paying as much as jim harbaugh that won 11 games each the last two years you're gonna have to sit there and go we probably need to do whatever deals make sense here and because we got to rebuild this thing and then at that point does it even matter if you fire mike mcdaniel like at that point ride it out which i think is the default position you're just go through it maybe you're playing better by the end of the season right now they're not right you didn't even mention keaton mitchell because that's the guy that i think would be interesting i think a bunch of pretty good teams to good teams need running backs and like a keaton mitchell kenny gainwell guys like that i think those are guys that are going to be you know looked at by some of the some of the teams that actually i look at them and i think they're going to be you know looked at by some of the some of the teams look at houston who was that were they on your six-pack list well no i don't think so certainly but i look at houston oh and four but with a chance they could be four and four and four weeks but i don't really like the running backs anyway um i don't know what happens to chargers i don't know how they fix it but i do if i had to bet on mike mcdaniel making it to christmas my bet is no you agree two two big weeks ahead i just i don't know what you do like what the point would be of firing him you could well it's one of the only moves you can make it's bad for him like he wants to be a head coach again at some point in his life this is not a good situation for him uh the eagles were in the news a lot lane johnson retires i don't know if you watch that go through the espn cycle but it was a doozy even for them um then they trade jurgens to the ravens for a second round pick which was just unbelievable i don't know if it was a good situation for them i don't know if it was a good because they were playing him at guard and he wasn't even doing that well but he's better at a center but they're out of a center and somehow how he turns that into a second from the ravens who needed a center and now it feels like they might maybe be a tank team i can't tell um but there's some jalen hurt stuff here too i thought chris long friend of the ringer was uh on a philadelphia radio station talking about hey jalen hurts they gave him like the best offensive line and two awesome receivers and an all-world running back and maybe he's gonna have to start doing some stuff where do you see all the pressure points going with the eagles the next couple weeks here well jalen hurts he does have those things but last week he had no saquon because he got hurt he had no davante smith lane johnson retired basically hours before kickoff right there were a lot of things i don't think jalen hurts has been the has been the issue so far he's played okay for a guy but this is why you pay a guy 50 million bucks though because you're hoping through thick or thin he can carry but he's also on paper not a fit for the offense that they're running like sean manion's running that lefleur shanahan style of offense and like that's never been jalen's game and so you know from adaptability like you want him under center a lot in that offense well they're kind of piecemealing it where he's on in shotgun more than you would normally be like they're trying to find that balance i think under the circumstances hurts has played okay in the macro with the eagles howie roseman other than you know maybe getting into the final game of the season and you decide you really need to see now howie roseman is going to be the most important player in the draft order because you can move up a few spots in the draft order like they've never punted on a season they've never gone ar this year we're taking a step back like he's always going for it he's now got two extra high picks in 2028 a first and a second that could be because you're thinking you're going to draft a quarterback sometime in the next couple of years also knowing how it could be he still thinks if they can figure some things out here you got the opportunity to go make a big splash and bring in a player jerry jones at some point he's done it jerry jones zigzag back and forth and he's going to be the most important player in the draft order because you can move forth with the trade asset give it for a different player jerry did it to an extreme degree yeah but it opens up a lot of flexibility like the jurgens trade which by the way eric dacosta called howie they have a good relationship called him after the game on sunday this wasn't like some like master plan thing happening here i think it was coincidental that it happened at the same time uh as lane johnson deciding to retire but interior offensive lineman never get traded for high draft picks it just it doesn't happen right and so you don't get drafted as high draft picks either you can find them unless it's like a home run pick right a lot of those guys because you figure like we can find a serviceable guard or center in the fourth fifth sixth round unless you're yeah an all pro future all pro and maybe you go in the first or the second everybody else goes later but you had the perfect thing line up for this trade to happen which was the eagles are going this is basically for them it was a negative asset he's owed 16 million dollars through the end of next season he's playing out of position at guard because they really like to play out of position at guard like drew kendall who's on the minimum playing at center he's not very good or comfortable at guard he's got an injury history with his you know he had the back surgery back in 2025 um and so it was like for them you're gonna give us a future second round pick once it got to that it made a lot of sense for him but on the flip side of that the ravens had lost three centers in five weeks so they are down to nothing they worked out every able-bodied center last week there's just nobody out there on the street they think they've got to do something about it they've got to do something championship caliber team right now with lamar you need to have somebody in front of them to help they think they've got a really good roster and so they went in they did the physical they passed him on the physical um and they think like for them the way the contract structure too he's got really low cap numbers this year and next year so even though they got to pay him 16 million he counts like a few million on the cap so they think cam jurgens is a long-term solution for them it's a huge positive asset but for how he reminded me of back in 2016 when how he retook the throne after chip kelly was gone and one of his first moves was he traded byron maxwell who was owed all this guaranteed money because maxwell was a guy that chip wanted in there he bundled him and kiko alonso and sent him to the dolphins two guys they just wanted to be done with sent to the dolphins and got to flip i think they moved to five spots in the draft to number eight it's one of the great how he turning something you that is absolutely negative for him into a positive like it it lined up here and again for the ravens they feel like they've got to solution not just for the rest of this year but filling a problem spot that's been a problem since tyler linderbaum got all that money from the raiders and free agency or they could have just signed tyler linderbaum but not not been in this situation 23 million for a center 28 what was the number raiders seem pretty happy with them 27 i think it was i like how he runs the eagles the way i run my uh al keeper fantasy team with my buddy hench we'll trade assets but then we'll also take the assets and go the other way nobody knows what we're doing we're just we're like one of those people who are like oh we're going to do this we're going to do this we're going to do this those boxers that you don't know if we're a southpaw or right hander every time how it could be like he might be diving back in trying to get people in a week every time that a trade gets gets done and i always try to have like the you know go back and talk to other teams like who else was in it like kind of how they come together and so it's like well did anyone else call and the answer is always well how he called but how he always calls like he is in on every single deal and then like if somebody gets traded they might get a call back being like i would have done that why didn't you call me back it's like how we we never got there with you but that's that's part of his gift is he always explores everything and so what you got to do that's the point of the job and zagging but it's you know for him it's like you may find opportunities where nobody else thinks which is trading a right guard or whatever it is a guard who's actually a center that you don't want he's making a bunch of money and getting a second round pick it's amazing he got a second i know nothing about the trade charts and stuff but that just seems like that should be a third rounder like seconds are you know premium guys usually that's that one really surprised me and some but i think the ravens must have felt like their season was going to fall apart if they didn't do get anybody well yeah because they were down to they were playing Ione out of out of position and they were having to move people I mean three center injuries is is brutal the one thing is like a lot of teams and GMs historically have considered if you trade a pick that's still a year out you downgrade it by a round so some people would look at this and go oh that's really a third because in 2028 not in 2027 but this is the second time in this offseason that Howie has essentially said like a pick's a pick I got a one for AJ Brown and a two for Cam Juergens and now we got all this ammo to keep building Belichick used to do that uh quickly D'Amico Ryan's taking over the Texans defense that I read a bunch of texts I have that was one of my big picks I picked them for the Super Bowl I might have a couple wagers in them um and everybody who who the smart football people will talk about them talk about how much talent they have and then how predictable their defense is and why like oh man can you imagine if so-and-so wasn't had all of those tools that they have and this was kind of his his bones this is how he got the job so you talked earlier about Peyton like when Peyton wasn't in charge of the offense but kind of was but what was missing when what made him have to be like all right fuck it I got to grab the steering wheel why why didn't he do that sooner well last year he handed over play calling duties when they were 0-3 to Matt Burke the same guy that he just took the play calling duties from so there was every reason to think based on how much they improved after that and I think that's the thing that's the thing that's the thing that's the thing that's the thing that's the thing that's the thing that's the thing that's that they would turn this thing around what what probably triggered as much as anything is if you look at their losses three of those four losses they have a two-minute drive to put the last minute choke job and they blew all three of them and that's really what it was now D'Amico is also like he's he is hands-on he trained under Kyle Shanahan so Kyle has a ton of influence and is listening in on every meeting it's the same thing with D'Amico in terms of like how involved he is so it's not like he's coming in cold and it was just you know he's like he's like he's like he's this is all on Matt Burke this is one of those to me a change for the sake of change you're 0-4 the owner's asking questions last time the Texans started 0-4 Bill O'Brien got fired on the Monday after D'Amico is still in the job and you're trusting all right you pulled out 0-3 last year you pulled out 0-4 this year well what are you going to do differently the offense is actually playing decently especially when Nico Collins is out there they're completely different teams Stroud's played I think overall pretty well Stroud's been good like point by point blank yeah Stroud's been really I think he's made really good throws and it's not like his offensive line is incredible but I think he's been really good all right so what do you do but the only thing is all right I'm taking the play calling duties back but it's just hilarious to me that the solution for the bad start is the exact 180 opposite of what it was last year last year was Matt Burke save the season this year all right we're Matt we're we're well you left out the even funnier part you're doing it when they're about to play the Titans well it's like let me ride in let me ride into my horse and save the day against Cam Ward and Sean Payton's calling plays this week against the Chargers right yeah in both cases maybe a good a good soft landing for that first time out all right it's time Drake May we got to do it the last piece of the six-pack I have a I do have an email for you and it is from Nico and Andover total interceptions and fumbles through 38 games Tom Brady 61 Drake May 61 I'm just saying was added to that I will fully admit I was completely panicked about Drake May the last time we talked Mike Vrabel spent the week being super aggro and building him up and being aggressive with the play calling in general and it seemed like the entire theme of the week was let's let's go back let's let's we got to make you a gunslinger again how do we do this and it worked but is it going to keep working it was really just hey we're close it wasn't like everything is wrong that was that was the theme that I took away and when I was reporting for the sweep was just nobody was like oh my god this guy's you know it's it's just it's gone so far field it was like that week before they had five explosive pass plays and they narrowly missed one goes off Mac Holland's hands you know like they had opportunities and there's bad luck like when the ball's covered in blood you know like that's just a weird thing that happens like that's not going to happen on a week-in-week-out basis now I was a little worried out of the gate when there's a couple of times he gets loose with the football but it's just all those near misses kind of started to hit he just seemed like he was in a better rhythm you know a big issue with him just early on scrambling was there too yeah he just felt like he was aggressive and going forward and he was scrambling at the right time like that was a huge part of it early on was just all the times where the plays they're in structure and he's either getting sped up because he's pressing so hard or he's throwing to a guy who's not even supposed to be an option on the play it's like dude you can do less you don't have to do this all yourself well you know last week like drops had been an issue in the early going as well like that stuff got cleaned up it was a it was a better overall team performance I did like especially after the whole you know the local radio thing of like Mike Vrabel and Drake hate each other and that's the issue and the postgame the postgame locker room is uh Vrabel saying to Drake like hey we don't take any more fucking shit like that's right that's basically it was like this was the this was the bleep you game for everybody involved you know they got another you know interesting matchup this week but it just it felt like it flipped that they responded to all the negativity with positivity in the building because there's still a lot of good there he's not a turnover guy I know he had been through the playoffs last year but that's not his history now let's see if he can you know build on that build back that confidence because really the only way you rebuild your confidence in the season is go out and actually see it working. I said this Sunday night it I felt Vrabel in the offseason training camp and all that seemed like a guy because of all the stuff that happened with him that had lost his mojo a little bit and this team the first three weeks just didn't seem like the Patriots from last year it wasn't about the talent it was something about the dynamic of the team and that Buffalo game and all the shit Drake took locally and nationally but really locally I think was a galvanizing thing like all right we got to go to Buffalo like we got to save our season and I think Vrabel kind of found his voice again you can see it from the videos you can see it from how the sideline was reacting the other thing was subtle this is a super dorky Patriot fan thing but they they didn't really use motion at all the first three weeks and I think they were at 74 75 percent motion in uh in Buffalo partly because they wanted to confuse Buffalo but also I think they didn't want Drake to like be checking down at the line or anything like they just kind of wanted people moving around and him having to just do what the play said and not being oh should I do this should I do that I think they felt like he was becoming too indecisive about what to do and they were trying to take that away from him so I'll be interested to see McDaniels will switch around every week so who knows but I'll be interested to see with Vegas are people going to be moving around because the first three weeks they were very predictable you could sit from your couch and be like up second and three here comes the run and they didn't do that they didn't do that they were zagging the whole game in Buffalo and I thought it was really good the other thing that motion does for you is it moves more of your thought process from post snap to pre-snap because you're you're making them declare what coverage they're in and are they playing man or zone I don't know I haven't talked to anyone about that but that would be one you know potential reason for that strategy is all right let's let him do all his thinking before the ball is snapped and then just go to the right spot right well I think it worked out we'll see every I'm in Boston this week the uh the mood is a lot better I would imagine that it was uh a week and a half ago uh we'll see what happens where you are in Minnesota the Vikings going for an improbable 5-0 uh we'll we'll watch and listen to you on ringer NFL tomorrow yeah and then the sweeps come in Saturday morning but sneak peek of anything or no we got a few things going I just missed back-to-back calls from two different GMs so hopefully they did they're not making a trade as we speak um but listen it's that time of year man we're getting really close to uh season being upon us November 10th but round week five six month out that's when teams because they start to know are we good are we bad can we make a move should we sell everybody this is about the time they start to figure it out and so the phone calls including to me apparently uh ramp up a lot we've never been in the breaking news business before I gotta say it's a complete rush I feel like I'm a new man it's like I'm glad it's like driving on the highway to convertible be like yeah tell Sarah broke one uh good to see you I'll see you next Thursday yep can't wait Bill thanks this episode is brought to you by TikTok when you watch a football game you follow the ball right well there's a video on TikTok where this guy says to watch the players without the ball watch the routes and the action away from the play I'll change how you see the game and guess what he's not wrong that's the thing about discovery on TikTok one video can change the way you see the game you can learn something new or see things in a completely different way your next discovery is waiting on TikTok visit TikTok.com slash discover more this episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra excitement is in the air that's right it's the start of NBA season I can't wait to get together with friends share some Michelob Ultras and watch tip off plus as the official beer sponsor of the NBA Michelob Ultra is getting you closer to the action with experiences that make you feel like you're courtside to actual courtside tickets enter now for a chance to win at courtside Michelob Ultra courtside 26 to 27 no purchase necessary opening U.S. residents 21 plus begins on October 1st 2026 and on june 30th 2027 multiple entry periods see official rules at micklobelcher.com courtside for free entry entry deadlines prizes and details all right my buddy joe house is here we are recording well before bucks cowboys on thursday we decided not to stay up late for that one and um we're dedicating this segment to eduardo our beloved producer social media um guy who um between the chargers and the padres he's just gone we don't know where he is that padre is that was just gone that was tough we don't know his family doesn't know where he is we don't know where he is he's just driving somewhere and hopefully he'll come back over the next couple weeks a dark place yeah i think the machado home run that wasn't a home run might have been the final nail in the coffin after watching um justin herbert get hit 370 times so we our thoughts are with him and his family as we hope he's okay that are weren't home runs unbelievable how much baseball playoffs have you been watching decent amount i've been betting here and there i had a great uh tuesday what they say yeah a great tuesday i think they've been really fun i loved what the rays did to the yankees it was exactly what i thought the rays were gonna do the yankees and they did it i bet you did it yeah and then they really did it and then they swept them and the fans booed and cam and arrow did the broom thing and then did the the yankees lose after the game in an interview and i was just like look my red sox decade has not gone great and it's sad i have to take these little victories like spite rooting its other teams but i had a great time you better get you got to get jacko on you got to get jacko on the pod jack has been in hiding state of the yankees we need to stay to the yankees jacko is always invited and anytime he wants to invite himself on he's ready to go uh dodgers brewers is an awesome series and the brewers like you you know when you see it they have that little magic to them they have it just feel like they're gonna get the hits the crowd's been great so we'll see and it's fun to root against the dodgers who just ruined baseball it's fucking outrageous like the fact that we could have a tampa dodgers world series hench and a couple of the guys at my red we were looking at the tampa rays spot track all their salaries it's like you can't even believe it would have been the most expensive ray well there is i saw some of this in the uh the twitter sphere the teams that are remaining in the playoffs most of them are like in the bottom 10 in terms of payroll the rays are 26 yeah so there is an argument that you know we really need the salary cap thing but it's i don't know well they'll raise one of the things they you know like they have junior caminero who's awesome who as an american league fan he's one of the scariest guys in the league the red sox got roman anthony he's good for two months they're like here's 110 million dollars whatever they gave him they gave same thing christian campbell he hadn't even played a game yet the rays are like junior caminero you're great you're gonna stay at 780 000 this year good luck play for your next contract but they whatever they do they have this secret voodoo contract sauce with it um i have some mailbag stuff for you oh my favorite i thought you'd be more excited to talk baseball playoffs but apparently not i faded chris sale i made a bunch of money fading chris sale smart you know it's not not available anymore mailbag question first one says i love house i miss house seats oh i miss house seats too and you can't see it because a little after i left espn for some reason because they were vindictive fucking shithead assholes they liquidated our grantland youtube channel i still can't believe they did it there's four years of videos that we did that were a lot of them were ahead of their time they were just like fuck it we'll just uh uh liquidate all of it so uh they can go eat a big fat dick hey anyway jack port from portland oregon said question why does joe house look like a make-a-wish kid whenever he wears a hat i'm sure he has enough money in his pockets to find a hat that fits his head is this a shtick um i have some joe house photos from college um i have some joe house photos from college you see that one look at that hat i know that you're doing this in the you're doing this this is freshman year remember this one of course how could i forget is that my gonzaga cross-country hat this is us together i can't see that hat what's that hat that was i don't know what that was but you were wearing it relatively correctly so i don't i don't know what's the answer your house um my head is is funky it's a little bit big but there's a shape issue with it i'm constantly finding the same issue we're in the same support group where my it goes like this or that it gets askew and i i'm not aware of it but it it has over the years my brain believes that when it's askew that it's in the right place it looks like a bit but you just have had dyslexia you prove to america that i've been doing this for more than 35 years going on 40 years and so it's one of the reasons we're friends i barely know how to wear a hat either meanwhile chris ryan put any hat on you're not wearing a hat you're not wearing a hat you're wearing a hat on that dude oh he looks phenomenal perfect looks spectacular yeah we just don't have heads that fit hats that well my wife always says this to me she's like why do you wear hats in a bucket hat and that's the thing that i'm gonna do behind the scenes you don't know this yet but your christmas present for for this year is going to be ringer bucket hats i'm getting them made ringer bucket hats that sounds great i know because a bucket hat really works for me i think in the early 1910s when people would go to the baseball games and they would have the those cool hats that would have been a great era for us yeah we would have been able to find these hats that that fit our weird heads here's another house question house said he was hoping the pats this is preseason would be one and three after four weeks so he could get a good number on pats plus 10 wins well they're two and two without aj brown no gonzo and buffalo other injuries schedule is easier people want to know did house load up on the pats not yet but there's still time there is thinking about it i'm taking a look yes over nine and a half there's a little division interest that i have as well oh i do think what are their vision odds yeah why don't you look them up on the fanduel sports book i'm gonna look them up as you look them up yeah we'll both look them up so you didn't do it you didn't do what you said you were gonna do it's not too late we that that bet was supposed to be through four games and we are now officially through four games that the line arrived um you know early well the team future i'm on team futures i'm on team futures also on the fanduel so over so you're plus 200 for the division now plus 200 for over the division and over 10 wins over nine and a half wins is minus 125 so that that price didn't really so you're so fanduel knew your plan and they and they always do we i mean we do talk about it on this program one more house question can you make it a regular thursday segment where you force a clearly terrified house to discuss the wmba no could you get it sponsored nope no chance under no circumstances did you get a few people who wondered why you were so scared to talk about the wmba do you want to explain yourself tell america i'll tell america immediately after that segment was done i said to you please no more wmba i can't take it i don't mind talking through the dialogue about the wma is is a hornet's nest for you you're afraid to step you're afraid to step into the nest i'm afraid to step into the nest i don't want any part of it that it's a you don't want to talk about caitlin clark's press conference today and i don't want to talk about caitlin i don't want to talk about sophie i don't want to talk about asia i don't want to talk about the indiana fans watch the basketball bet on it how about this great choke job by the aces this was all set up for this ace's dream and they are choking the thing away um i had a pal reach out and who had a pre-season ticket on the on the valx no on the liberty to to um make the finals and so he's he's got a tremendous hedge opportunity that's a great hedge no i understand but he's like how should i hedge this and i said one of the ways to hedge it i would think is to put together and this was um last week an aces atlanta uh final that was available at plus 145 but that's not gonna happen because the aces have choked that shit away you could the proper hedge was just play the dream at the price that that it opened up which was like minus 125. i watched that game yesterday with with zoe who was on her phone the whole time not watching and hank her boyfriend who actually genuinely likes the wmba yeah we're riveted by it's sound basketball we were riveted by ace about aces valkyrie also how stupid the league is like veronica burton who's been you know one of the reasons golden state's been such an upset team and you know cinderella team basically um she was like the seventh pick and the only reason i know this is because her dad was steve burton like she's from his broadcaster here her grandfather's ron burton who played for the patriots so there was always interest in her she was the seventh pick in the draft and dallas just waved her after two years like this league because i think a lot of the teams didn't have the resources to really have proper front offices they just make these massive mistakes well i mean and this is one of them dallas had this player who's clearly an awesome playoff player just got rid of her after two years because they're idiots it might be the dallas front office and it might be something in the water like all dallas front offices have the same issue because they Ozzie Fudd over Olivia. Right. Dallas. Dallas did that. Tough one. Because Ozzie and Paige were girlfriends. So Hank and I are saying the Aces are going to come back. Game two. It's a must-win game for them. They're down, you know, 1-0 in the series. Asia's kind of looming in the game like she does. And then she has one of those Asia plays. They take the lead. And it was like, oh, here we go. Yeah. And Golden State just fought it off. And they have, easily they have the best. See, now we're talking WNBA. I know. We're doing a 10-minute stretch on it because we're talking about basketball. They, they, they. Well, Golden State has, they have the best, loudest fan base. I do feel like they affect the games. But Burton makes this 26-footer that they needed that basically swung the game in the last minute. And then Vegas. Yeah. Vegas just. You know what? Here's the thing. If you have Asia Wilson on your team, I kind of need her to have more than one shot in the last four minutes. Guys. She has to have all the touches. That's it. No offense, but this is the best WNBA player of all time. Yeah. Actually, I was arguing about this with a basketball friend of mine who likes NBA and WNBA. Is she the greatest first overall pick since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? Oh, my goodness. So, and listen. So, the counter would be, well, obviously, LeBron. Obviously, Kareem, who is Lew Alcindor. she has now five MVPs and she won, you know, I think three, three out of four titles. You're, this is outrageous. I just want you to understand. This is like saying from a credential standpoint, she's been, this is her eighth year in the league. There are 12 teams in the league, bro. But look at her resume. Who cares? But the answer is Bill Russell. Okay. I mean, you can't compare, but he wasn't the first. Oh, Bill Russell wasn't the first pick of the league. So the answer is Kareem, but Kareem only won one title his first like eight, nine years. There's, this is not, I won't tolerate this. This is not appropriate. Is she the best WNBA player of all time? Yes. Sure. That's fine. I don't mind that. I think she's the best number one pick of all time. I stand by it. You're wrong. That was, that was one WNBA take. And then my other one, I'm not going to apologize either. I really enjoy watching Angel Reese. I know she's a polarizing WNBA player, but I would love to, if I was a player, I'd love to play with her. She rebounds. She defends her ass off. She's charismatic. She's competitive. I genuinely enjoy it. I am in whatever the Angel Reese, whatever the bandwagon is, I'm on it. I didn't tell anybody, but I've been on it all year. Well, the unintentional comedy of all the misses from up close is also can't be underrated. Listen, not all basketball players are perfect. It is not. It's never not funny when somebody, you and I are old enough to remember Moses. You're I know, but you and I are old enough to remember Moses Malone. Yeah. Who is one of the 15 or 16 best parts ever. He was a bullet for a while. He was an unbelievable rebounder. And I wrote this thing in my book about how he would go under the basket and then back up and just ram his ass into these guys and knock them backwards and just was around the rim. She re she's like an, literally an unbelievable rebounder. I just like, I like her. I've been rooting for them. If she could master the Moses, which is to intentionally miss, uh, an up close one. So you get the offense. So you get the offensive rebounds, but he would control the ball that way. It was intentional for Moses because it was like, it's a tip to himself so that he can control it enough to make the, the, the layup. This goes back to my theory about how stupid the WNBA is. And this will be the great inefficiency as these teams get smarter. They traded her last year for two first round picks. She's one, one of like the 10, 12 best players in the league. Yeah. She has just like, yeah. Oh, we got two first round picks. Oh, cool. Maybe you could draft somebody as good as Angel Reese. You fucking dumb asses. Can you imagine that? We'll be the basketball. Now that there might've been like, we've traded Cooper flag. How about this? We traded Luca Donchic. How about that? How about that? Does that, does that work for you? That was great. That was talking WNBA with Joe house. It was brought to you by deer. The headlights cologne. I didn't even get to make a strap season joke. This email is from, I'm Andres from Austin. Do you think every time an NBA superstar changes a team, they should have to take on a new nickname? Should Giannis now be known as the heat freak? Not against it. Not against it either. I guess that does that mean Anthony Davis is a DMV. That's pretty good. Did you do that? That's pretty good. By that website for as long as he's going to be here. Tom, Tom. So do you agree or disagree? Change new nickname. Change. If you change times, I don't mind it. I don't even know what the bronze would be. Tom H from Western Australia. Perth. Love Perth. It's been listening to the pod since 2022. Great job. He's found myself vicariously following the NFL news through yourself and house and cell. And this year I'm ready to commit to a lifetime contract of following a team. If you were starting fresh in 2026, who would you sign with? This is great. I should have prepped you for this. Yeah. This is a great question. Who do I, I really truly enjoy. So it would have to be a fun team stable. And if you're coming from Australia, a fun place to visit, I think would be the three things. So I was thinking West coast. Um, I don't think you want a team that's won titles because then you become a bandwagon jumper. Let me ask you, well, I don't know. I'm not sure that I, I subscribed to that because nearly all of the West coast teams have won. I mean, San Francisco hasn't won in recent memory, but they were just Seattle just one Seattle. Just one, the ramps one within the last five years. I would say the chargers, but Eduardo still missing. I just, I just checked. He's still, nobody knows where he is. We liked Tom. If we didn't like Tom, we would say the chargers. I was thinking the Denver Broncos would be a good one. Yeah, they, they have good ownership. They haven't won since there's a lot of stability there. Mid 2010s when they went for Denver, Denver is cool. Good place to visit. It's 300 of their son. They're 320 days a year or something like that. Some crazy stat of how often flying from Australia for a game, probably land in LA, then go to Denver. Yeah. I'm not dismissing Seattle. Seattle is like a very different place. I think geographically, the way it feels, the way it looks than anything in Australia. I don't think there's anything that rivals it. Like the Pacific Northwest compared to the giant continent of Australia. I do think there would be some appeal to being someplace that isn't, doesn't feel like like home. Denver wouldn't feel like home either necessarily, but Washington too far away. Yeah. And I wouldn't tell anybody Washington's got another couple of years here to sort of figure some stuff out. Not sure. We've got to figure it out. Tell him to become a Patriot fan. Why not? Real roots against us. Tired of the haters, the haters. They don't want us to win. Just got to have to stop cheating and then it'll be fine. This is a phenomenal email from Joe O Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Kudos to him. I just watched Lane Johnson as the Terminator get lowered into a vat of molten steel by Jalen Hurts and Nick Ceriani for the 10th time, which got me thinking because it was an AI video. Yeah. In 2026, what's more socially acceptable admitting you enjoy watching AI generated videos or admitting you enjoy watching porn between the two, which admission carries less social stigma. I think clearly AI. What if you watch AI porn? I just want to ask it. Theoretically, you blend the world theoretically. Theoretically, I'm wondering how loud I was wondering. Um, AI is, is less stigma and clearly this did inspire me to go find that video and it was phenomenal. And I think it's always funny when anyone, whenever they imitate the Terminator two with the Schwarzenegger going down with anything. I hope people do it for me when I'm finally, uh, finally retired in three months. I'm going to put you in the sauna in that thing. The sauna. Uh, another AI email from Alex in Charlottesville. I sent this one to you. I think the future of AI is AI bookies that will generate odds for off book parlays. The model should be called FanDuel Fantuan. Hey Fantuan. What can I get for Travis Kelsey, TD three Taylor Swift sightings and two Collins worth Patrick, my home's turtles processing requests. Plus 21 59. Add to that slip question. Mark FanDuel Fantuan is one of the best ideas I've ever heard. Phenomenal. There's no reason we can't do this. They give us, give us the FanTuan bed of the week. FanDuel FanDuel can do that for us. They can write odds for us for this. Recently played golf with the FanDuel CEO in the last 24 hours. I really did. You bring up FanDuel Fantuan. I did not know. I'm saving it. We both need, we need to double team him. Did you, did you beat him or did you let him beat you? No, we were on the same team. It was a team event. We, that's great. That's like in real life. How we're rooting for each other. It's just the way the world. Wants us wants us to be speaking of Washington and things that have happened there. This email came from Dallin D a L L I N. He wants us to come up with a nickname or support his nickname for the lions defense called the overreaction. Whoever places truly awful defense gets to lead the next week of sports overreaction segments. Week one, Tyler shuck is a problem. We two Josh out is clearly the MVP week three Gino Smith and the jets. Frisky week for wait is Ted McMillan, Julio Jones. They get the card. knows next. My overreaction prediction is Marvin Harrison Jr. He was good all along. That's a great email. That's a great one. It is true. Whoever plays the Lions, massive overreaction right afterwards. There's some buzz out there for Arizona as an underdog to win outright. Just wait till we get to Ringer 107. Yeah. All right. We talked about what should the Las Vegas NBA team be named. The only good email I got was from Adam Schwartz on this. He thinks they should be called the Las Vegas Sharps. Oh, that's a great name. What's wrong with that? It's really good. They won't do it, but it's really fucking good. I'd defy anybody to top the Las Vegas Sharps. Damn. We talked about this. There were some good ones out there. I can't remember. What would the logo be? We put a deck of cards, whatever. Something that picks up on that casino theme. The dealers? Did somebody say the dealers? I didn't hate that. I can't remember. Las Vegas dealers? Yeah. There's some good ones. Oh, that's pretty good. I like that. There's some good ones that people are putting out there. Owen from D.C. Another Washington email. He said, Sirianni's seat is heating up, and with them playing in London this week, I'm wondering if he has a chance to take the left in London title. We joked about this last year. This is great. They just leave. We talked about, I think it was Doug Peterson was the first one. Sal and I were talking about it. They're going to fire him and fly him back in the middle seat. We had the middle seat, right? Middle seat Doug. If Jacksonville kicks Philly's ass this week, will he become. Middle seat Nick. Pretty good. That's pretty good. Hemet from Vancouver. He said, on Sunday's pod, I talked about there should be a name for when a player goes down right before the end zone to avoid scoring to protect the lead. Yeah. Like TJ Hawkinson did. He thinks it should be called the Michael Douglas because it involves somebody purposely going down instead of scoring. Hey, now. Hey, now. That's a deep reference, but the people that get it. Michael Douglas. The people. The people that get it will get it and will enjoy it. It's a deep cut. A lot of people have asked if the Eagles are the year from hell team now. Matt Gallagher. I'll give him the credit, but all the things that have happened, all the injuries, Lane Johnson retires. Lane Johnson's retirement sparks a 24-hour ESPN-led news cycle. That was one of the dumbest things of all time. Completely unnecessary, as usual. They blew a couple wins. Everyone's ordering about Jalen Hurts. Have they supplanted? Because it seemed like the Pats were headed for year from hell a week from now, but I think in the year from hell rankings, unless you think the Chargers just locked it up already. Yeah, the Chargers are kind of the front runners. They haven't won a game yet. At least the Patriots have beaten the Bills, and the Eagles have beaten who? Washington? The Patriots have shed it. There's hope in the Patriot Nation now. There's no hope with the Chargers. And the Eagles, I think there was hope. I think it's worse when there was hope, and then you get kicked in the gonads. The reminder with the Eagles is that defense can always come around. Jonathan Greenard hasn't really played for them yet. I mean, he came into one game and then went right back out. If that defense comes around, that will be an identity. They can just, by virtue of the personnel there, get to nine wins or so. That's what Palacero said in the previous segment. Hey! Even though they traded Cam Juergens. Well, even though they traded him, Howie could zag two weeks from now and use the pick that they got to trade for somebody else. You just don't know what's going to happen. Sure. Mike from Arkansas had a reaction as CR did a book report for us about Manchester City and that scandal on Tuesday's pod. He did a little segment with me and Van. I need to listen to that. So we talked about all these different punishments, and Mike from Arkansas wonders, why can't they just start every game down zero to two for like three years? It's like, fine, we're not, you don't have to lose any players. You're just down 0-2 for three years. That's a fun one. That's not bad. I don't hate it. I mean, because you can't undo all of the injustice that was done. I had somebody explain it to me last, in fact, one of the people involved with the new ownership of Liverpool. This gentleman was really encouraging me. Should I name drop? I'm not going to name drop. No, you can absolutely name drop Will McDonough. Of course, it's our boy Willie. That's who else I was playing golf with. Yeah, me, Willie, Christian, my buddy Nick from the Latham and Watkins law firm. Great foursome. Now that was a name drop. Dropping a law firm. But Willie was walking me through this Manchester situation and all of the success they've had, which is now you know, it's shit success. But you can't go back and undo it. It's like with the NCAA where we took away the title. So you, okay. Who cares? It's the Clippers with Kawhi winning four NBA titles. Right, right. And then us figuring out what to do with that. How do you deal with that? There's no real proper way to punish them. It has to be something enormous in terms of salary ramifications and, you know, changing an ownership of that franchise. C.R. said everybody should be murdered. That was his, because he's a Liverpool fan. My goodness. He thinks that everyone should die. Well, that game is at 1130 in the morning East Coast time on Sunday. And the silly thing is that you can't be watching it together. Yeah, we are along with the Jags Eagles. So that'll be 830 in the morning Pacific Coast time. Our first my first buddy, Mary the day. Um, but you, you, the fans will be the Liverpool fans will be out for blood, but it's not like the players for Manchester are responsible. It's like that. That's the players are the innocent. They didn't do anything. They just, I don't know what's going to happen with you on Sunday, but Chang's making beef stew for us. You're not on my podcast that night because I have Sal. So you can drink and have Bloody Marys and pass out and wake up and do the full house thing and wear your hat sideways. Yeah. All day. Chet wants to know, what are we to conclude regarding Steve Ballmer's actual business acumen now that his franchise has suffered the death penalty because he lost a negotiation with Uncle Dennis? And what I it does go on your resume. What I think about negotiation with Uncle Dennis. It's a great one. What I think about specifically in terms of the business acumen is whatever the instinct is that produced that franchise going to ESPN. They basically had a deal in place. This is now, I think, been reported across enough sources that we can say you and I know this because we've been told this. The Clippers and the league had a deal. They had a framework for the framework of the deal. Yes. For something that was going to be a kind of punishment that met sort of the way that the climate and temperature was going, which is to say some kind of slap on the wrist, the kind of punishment, not anything approaching this, but the dumbass Clippers, somebody in that organization and you have to blame Ballmer because he sits on top of it just like, you know what? We're not going to wait around. We're going to go take our victory. Victory lap right now. Let's go talk to our good pals at ESPN and have them trot out our victory lap as we sit here. What do we do? What are they doing? Then their victory lap got carpet bombed by Adam Silver. Worse than that. I mean, they're the worst catastrophe you can imagine. Incredibly important email from Steve Horowitz. He has a question about the breakfast appetizer. Oh, breakfast appetizer. After everyone orders, you say to the waitress, I'd like an order of blintzes, waffles, corned beef hash, whatever, as a starter for the table. And the server will think it's weird, but by the time it arrives, everyone at the table will be excited. Think of a change in sports, replay assist, pitch clock, etc. That when it came about, you thought, that makes sense. Why haven't we been doing this sooner? That's the breakfast appetizer. Why hasn't the diner industry pushed this? More importantly, why hasn't Joe House pushed this? Well, you have a short memory. I have pushed this. This is exactly the experience we had at the Waffle House in Augusta, Georgia when we were assembled there for the Masters a couple years ago. We went for an evening meal. We got the waffle for the table. We got more than one waffle for the table. Everybody wanted their own. But we got all the food at once. This is. The waitress comes over and you say, we're not ready to order yet, but can we order the banana pancakes? That's something like that for the table. Obviously it makes a ton of sense. I don't care about the cadence of it, but you want something that everybody will enjoy. Pancakes for the table is a classic, I think. Like a side of bacon would be fun. Well, everybody. I liked his idea for the corned beef hash. Just like, hey, can we just get a big plate of corned beef hash? Yeah. Everybody dive in. I just don't want to wait. I don't need courses for breakfast. I want to just come when it's ready. And the first. Because the pancakes might take too long. But we had waffles for the table. Breakfast appetizer. It is a great idea. I'm not dismissing it. I just think it's a. We don't have to call it an appetizer. It's a shared plate for the table. Mary Beth. Not Chip Cain's wife, Mary Beth. Different Mary Beth. She's a great Mary Beth, though. The best Mary Beth. Yeah. She says, Bill, I'm a huge longtime female fan. I used to print out your page two mailbags back in the day, if that tells you how old I am. How have you not thought of a sponsor for House's Edith Dixit segment. It's the easiest match in the world. Dick's last resort. Oh, I don't know. They never reached out. We're open for negotiation. We're sitting right here. Um, Dick's sporting goods. Does that still exist or they go bankrupt? Dick's sporting goods should be the, I don't know if maybe that fits in with their family atmosphere at Dick's sporting goods, but eat a fat Dick doesn't work for them. Patrick in Ohio wants to, wants us to either talk him in or out of a Bengals last place division bet. It's plus five 50 right now. Um, Steelers and Browns are plus one 30 plus one 15. His case is they have the worst coach in the division. It's not a debate. He's like one in one 50 and one score games. He's brutal. They don't ever play solid all around games. The offense always saves bad defense or vice versa. Everything seems off with Burrow. He sent this before Jason Higgins got hurt. Bengals plus five 50 to finish fourth. If they lose to Miami this week, and I am not dismissing it out of hand. I think there's a case to be made. That price will be so far long gone. Yeah. That'd be like a plus one 40. If they lose to Miami, buy it now, go get that ticket. Don't you guys a fantastic Friday show that you're on when you double dip your content, like Jerry Seinfeld going on two different talk shows. It's great. Um, you guys do a man's best bet. Yeah. Underdog pick money line only. Yes. Will somebody take the dolphins money line tomorrow, which is like plus 300 against the Bengals. It's the most to Bundo either the Bundo or cousin Sal. Those would be my, Oh no. You know what? Dream would do it too. Everybody, everybody goes for the law. Somebody will, somebody will do that. I do believe so. Yes. Josh from Fort Wayne heard our Mike Tomlin, Mike Minecraft combo. And he said house nailed it. When he used the word wholesome, it's been around for nearly 20 years. I think of it almost like virtual Legos. Yes. And all things done against the background are really relaxing. Worldless piano music. That's about it. Very easy to get sucked in people who were like Tom when they spend years building entire cities. That's from Josh and Fort Wayne. So virtual Legos makes sense to me. I now understand what Minecraft is. We got a ton of feedback that, that, that the two clips from, from last week's show for, for whatever reason, me objecting to Cooper flag as rookie of the year. I got a lot on that. I got a lot of feedback on that one. Uh, it was really for the purpose of setting up the idea of Washington being incented to make, you know, to put AJ DeBonse's best foot forward. If their season goes in a certain direction, I, all of that was just a setup, but I must've come out a little too hot on the, I did say it was a fucking abomination. So I guess maybe I overstated it a tiny bit. The Cooper flag people got what the Dallas fans got upset. They were not happy. Oh, they didn't like it. They didn't like that. Those fans are mad at me too. Cause I keep joking about Cooper flag going to Boston, but they told me, they told me to eat a fat dick. They definitely did. But the clips from last week that, that Minecraft, Minecraft one, that one got a lot of traction out there. I will say one thing where people upset that we didn't know what Minecraft was or what they were calling us, you know, old, which is old people. Yeah. That's totally fine. The, um, the one thing, Oh, that's so insulting. We're in college. 1988 together. One element of that, that we probably slept on, um, was Antonio Brown. Either he threatened to do this or he actually did it. He went, you can go in other people who are participating. TNT is an element of this. You can blow shit up. And, and he either threatened to do this or actually did it to go into Mike Tomlin's Minecraft world and blow up a hospital with TNT Antonio Brown. He, he joined the stream and either threatened to do it or actually did it. And Mike Tomlin banned him. He banned AB 84. That's it. You're out. You can't be in here blowing my hospitals up. Incredible. They called them Minecraft Mike on the NBC show on Sunday. I think this is just the great name. Last email from Maurice in Los Angeles. I love the eat a fat dick segment. And the discussion about how to commemorate each week's winners sparks some ideas. I propose a Stanley cup style trophy where each winner's name gets added to honor their initiation. You need a fat dick. I'll leave you to decide what the trophy should look like. But the only non-negotiable is the trophy should be called the Stanley cock. Who was that? That was Maurice Los Angeles. Maurice sent his address so I could send him a ringer bucket hat. I have a Stanley cock. Good. As soon as I make a bucket hat, I'm sending one to Maurice, the Stanley cock done. Say less. I would tell Eduardo to do a social video of the Stanley cock, but Eduardo's missing. He's somewhere in the Pacific Northwest now. Would it be like an image of Nick Foles or something? I don't know. What would it be? Stanley cock would definitely be offensive. All right. Today's Ringer 107 is brought to you by FanDuel. 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 I am a 500 for the year. Great job by you. 10 and 10. What's your record? Two games under 500. I thought that I was, I was prepared to lose my teaser last week and I didn't do the indeed lose it. I told America that I didn't, you know, don't mess around with Washington. That was done as soon as Mariota went out. Washington was quite competitive. That was, yeah, Washington was going to cover that game. They were kicking the Colts ass. Yeah, you were going to cover. Until the dopey guy who's about to no longer be the head coach. Of Washington decided to go for it on a fourth down with a minute left in the half unnecessary. Um, but I, I tried to just invest in the teams that I believed in based on my priors. And Cincinnati was one of those teams, Cincinnati laying two and a half at home against the Jags. Um, that did not work out. Are you giving us a recap of your bets? The worst podcast content possible? Well, I'm just saying I went one and two games under 500 and you would get uncomfortable when you talk about the WNBA. That's all we need to know. That's two facts. I do love the Stanley cock. Week five. So you go first. Oh, I go first. We're going to make three picks and we have a tease. And I want to mention, even though we brought back teasers this year on FanDuel and the minus one, 10 juice, $50 max bets. I was so excited about it. And I'm usually great at teases and I'm one in three this year with my teases. Um, and lost the one last week because of my beloved New England Patriots. Well, that was, but it was worth it. But I'd like to apologize for being one in three on teases. And I'm going to bring that back this week. Cousin Sal was three and I wonder how cousin Sal did last week. He was, he and I were both three and now cousin Sal lost because we had the same tease. Oh, so we're both three in one. Your first pick is what? Taking the Pittsburgh Steelers, laying the two and a half. That was my first pick. Great. Done. So we've got two picks under our belts already. Is it one and a half? What was the official line? One and a half. I thought it was two and a half. One and a half would be fine. All right. Keep going. Give your case and I'll give you the line. Um, a lot of folks have pointed this out. Uh, good pal. Cleve, yay. Um, we didn't the charge here. It's situationally Pittsburgh is coming in on extended rest from their Thursday night loss to the Browns there. We have the Colts coming off of international travel. That kind of mismatch situation doesn't happen very often in the NFL. It's international travel followed by a road game followed by like every what? Four years. Exactly. Right. Yes. Um, inside the exit. So that's a terrible spot for the Colts. Yeah. In general, Daniel Jones and the Colts have not been great outdoors on grass. They have, uh, a losing record. They have all the same notes. They don't cover pass rush. Yep. I don't. Yeah. Right. So Daniel Jones against zone defense so far this season is very bad. And I think a function of that is because he still can't really run and he doesn't run and he doesn't run. Because he tore his Achilles less than a year ago. So taking that element away, let's teams just set up and sit in zone and they don't have the receivers. They have one, you know, receiver and downs who is an underneath, you know, kind of receiver. No, nothing, nothing vertical. Um, and you know, there's a bunch of numbers out there that show that the Steelers off of a loss. Very good. Both straight up and against the spread, but I just like the idea that the rest advantage that the Steelers have going alongside with, you know, the Steelers team is going to be eight and nine. We can all see it coming right down the pike. This is them in a home game situation. So Steelers laying less than a field goal. Yes, please. I think I have it as well. I'm going to piggyback your pick. I thought it was a miracle that this line was under three by the time our lines locked. I'm grabbing it now. Cause I think by Sunday it goes up. Um, I don't love betting on Aaron Rogers, Pittman's out now, um, but I definitely out. Pittman's out. Okay. So we don't have the Pittman revenge game. No, but I do believe in their front seven and it's weird. The weaknesses of the Steelers I think are fine for this. Yes, I agree. I think you could throw on them, but not, I don't think the Colts are going to be able to me either the Colts. So they, they really burned me week three. The, when they upset Houston, Houston took the lead and then Indy went down and got a field goal. And it was a classic, like Texans just rolling over in the last three minutes. But. Yeah. It was a classic. I don't know. It was a classic. I don't know. I don't know. It was a classic. that I didn't wake up in time to remember to do anything. And then all of a sudden your QB went out and the game, and then the fourth down, and all of a sudden Indianapolis is up by 10. The only thing you didn't mention, it just makes sense the Steelers would win from a record standpoint because are the Colts really going to be 3-2? And the Steelers, you know, are headed to 9-8. So they kind of need this game. And I just feel like these teams are around even. Yeah, back-to-back road games for the Colts. The Colts are going to come in and Pittsburgh. Doesn't make sense. I think this line's a point too low. As a petty better, I also think it's highly unlikely, highly unlikely that the goddamn Colts have the first penalty of the game called on them with nine and a half minutes left in the fucking fourth quarter. You know who can eat a fat dick? The referee crew that supervised, that the penalties in Washington and Indianapolis going along with all of the penalties for the week. All of the NFL referees from week four, please enjoy it. Have a fat dick. I didn't realize I was doing my, my Cali Ursa imitation, writing down notes or your segment, not realizing that was an eat a fat dick segment. Oh, it's an eat a fat dick. We had four games. So the refs get the, get the eat a fat one this week. Horrendous, horrendous job last week. 25 penalties. And the Seahawks chargers game, who the fuck is paying for that? Who was watching that? Do you understand the product? Nobody is there to watch you. And we're going to see it this week. Well, what was the game that had 30 penalties? That was the chargers game, right? Oh, did they have, I thought it was 25. Okay. It was 30. Okay, great. I got it wrong. I can't say there were more touchdowns called back in the first four games this year than all that shit. Yes. Oh, every, every single thing. But the, the, it was 10 to one Washington committed 10 penalties. The Colts. Only one. And their first one and only one was with nine and a half minutes left in the fourth quarter. Fuck off. Well, we both have Steelers minus two and a half. What's your next pick? Oh, I have to go again. You're back up. Let's go. Um, I'm on the Rams. I don't mind laying the three and a half. I don't love laying the three and a half. It was great when it was three. I think it did. It might've opened at two and a half. I can't recall now. I've been betting the Rams all week. No, it was. It was two and a half all week. And then by the time we got to today, all of a sudden it was three and a half. Cause I had them at two and a half. Okay. I have, I definitely have them at two and a half. It was a Monday morning bet for me when I go through the card. Um, this, this Rams team is slowly coming together under the radar because of the, the two losses that they had, but, um, it's a very tough spot for Buffalo. The cross country bit is hard. There's a whole. I don't know. It's a tough spot for the Rams. It's a tough spot for the Rams, but it's a tough spot for the Rams. I don't know what to say. I don't know. I don't want to mess with the hook in Jacksonville. What I do want to mess with is a game that I like both straight up, but also I think the money line is enticing. This Cardinals line, the Cardinals line is moving away from the Cardinals. I don't understand it at all. It was four and a half all week. Now it's five and a half. They're home for the Detroit lions and their terrible defense and their coach who thought it was a good idea to go, uh, go for it on fourth and 20 down 13 in the fourth quarter, which was the, one of the five dumbest things I've seen. He's a moron. Yeah. Arizona's offense 12th and DBO a, um, and that's including a game in week two when they got their absolute asses kicked because they were playing a far better team. It's only their second home game. They battled San Francisco. They, they demolished the chargers in week one. They covered against San Francisco. They should have beaten the giants. That's the one inside the five yard line. That's that's the one percent throws a pick six, six, right in the nuts. I like their offense. I know loves hurt, but, um, and I know Paris Johnson's out, I get it, but I think they're going to be able to move the ball against one of the worst defenses I've ever seen in my life. We did the mailbag thing earlier about the overreaction. I like that. I think they can win the game outright, but also get the cheap touchdown at the end if they're down 10. Sure. Um, it, that golf and a dome does worry me a little bit. Gibbs and you know, but Gibbs had less touches last week and I do think they overused them. The first couple weeks. Um, and I just liked the spot for the cards again, this is only their second home game and it's mid October. It's going to sound silly, um, to point out that, you know, Detroit is leaving points on the board when they scored 31, 31, 31, 26, but they did cost me money last week. They should have sailed over the 27 and a half. That was the team total. So they can eat a, a small fat Dick for sure. Not covering that. Um, skin. They can eat a skinny Dick. Yeah. Skinny Dick. But they had every opportunity, even with the ball at the end of that game last week to just go get down the field, you know, just, just be calm, cool and collected about it. And, and golf just isn't that dude, I don't know why, but you know, it was the moment called for poise the end of that game. I think, you know, the line changes on Sunday. Yeah. Cause the sharps come in late. I think this game's going to go to the sharps are early in late. I think this goes back down to like three and a half by Sunday. It could be, but now's the time to grab it. Right? Yeah. And I, I think the cards can move the ball, right? They, they played Seattle and we too, they didn't move the ball. Seattle kicked their ass. Was that who they lost to now? Now I'm second guessing myself. They got their ass kicked by somebody in week two. I'm not going to make a how edit this because I want people to know that I'm a human being. Yeah. It was Seattle. They lost 31 to seven. Yes. But they, they couldn't move the ball at all. And that's fine. I'm not saying they're world beaters, but I think they're gonna be able to move the ball against Detroit shit defense. Now Detroit's going to start getting some guys back soon and this might be better when we get to mid season, but it's not better yet. So Cardinals plus five and a half is my second pick. What do you got? Well, I've already given two picks. So this is my third pick three left and you have a teaser. Yeah. I'll, I'll do the pick and then I'll, I'll save the teaser. I'm going to go ahead and ride with your new England Patriots. Going to do it. Pretty good case. Lay in the three and a half at home. The Raiders have had a very impressive run. It's been impressive that they've come out from the franchise that they were just 10 months ago to the franchise that they are at the moment. And you have to give it up to Kubiak and you have to give it up to the front office. You have to give it up to Kirk Cousins, who pulled the backdoor cover out of his rear end. He shut down America. Moving around in the pocket. Big pass rush. Great job by him. Great job by him. And that Chiefs team put us on notice that they can't really be trusted with that defense. I did take note. I do really, really like the rookie cornerback, though. Yeah, sure. He's been jumping out of the TV every week. They seem like they hit that. They did a great job with him. Delane Mansour. Is that? Delane. Yeah. I'm on notice with the Chiefs. I'm going to keep an eye on. I mean, I had to bet them after week one with the way Kenneth Walker exploded onto the scene. I had to get out of all of my under positions with them and hedge with some overs and some division. But the Raiders, that was a very tough division game. They got to the benefit of being at home. They've really sowed their oats against, you know, the Dolphins and the Saints and the Chargers. They showed it to us. That was good. I just like the idea of the Patriots at home getting reset. There's some great numbers that support the idea of Vrabel, especially after losing to a team the previous year. Yeah, it's a funky stat, but he doesn't tend to lose to the same team. It's funny because I always feel the opposite. I hate playing the team that felt really comfortable beating us in our house the year before. And somehow it's happening again. Yeah. Makes me nervous. Vrabel 10 and four straight up. 11 and three. Three against the spread. That's the Action Network pals. Also, this was a shocking stat to me. Drake May as a favorite of three or more points. Guess what his record is against the spread. It's really, really, really good. Yeah. Yeah. 14 and 0. 14 and 0. I looked at it for a long time and I couldn't get there for two reasons. I was scared of the hook. Okay. Well, three reasons. I don't like that they won in New England the year before because they'll just be like, we won in New England last year. But the biggest thing. This is hardcore, deep Patriot shit. But I really don't think we're going to be able to cover their tight ends. Yeah. It's the weakness of this defense is speedy running backs, like in the flat, basically, which is one of the many reasons that was so crazy. Buffalo only barely used James Cook in that game. I thought he was the guy that was going to kill us. But the tight ends and they didn't throw to Kincaid that much either. I just don't think our linebackers are good enough. Over the middle. And I'm worried the tight ends are going to feast. So I think of that hook, even if they're up 10. And I feel like the Raiders are going to move the ball. So that's why I stayed away. Fair. We have this guy, by the way, Yakis, the second round pick. Okay. He's he's a edge rusher. He's fucking lights out. Like they might have actually really nailed this pick. Go look at the advanced stats where they have like the best. Like he's in all of that. He bull rushed Dawkins on the pills last week. This ass. Yeah. This guy's like a legit dude. I'm interested to see if you can keep pressures. I'll look for him. Yeah. I'm going to do a tease. It's the most chalk tease of all time. Let's see it. And I thought about long and hard about whether I wanted to go chalk. Cause last week's tease was pretty chalk too, with the bills and the Seahawks. And I didn't, I didn't have a good betting week last week in real life. To say the least. Trying to stick with the process. You have. You can have a bad week every once in a while. You can't overreact. You just gotta. It's like golf. You can have a bad hole. Just go back. Try to birdie the next hole. The Jags going down to 0.5 against the Eagles in London. This breaks my rule of don't touch the London game. Oh no. You don't get it at 0.5. That line is seven and a half. It's 1.5. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. 1.5 for the Jags. I just, I had the Jags. I had the Jags last week. I just believe in the Jags. I don't think the market has corrected itself on the Jags yet. I think they're really good. So combined with the fact that Philly has their offensive line seemingly is in shambles. Barkley. I don't know how much they're getting out of Devonta Smith this week. And I'm fully prepared to wake up with you at 630, 645 in the morning and the Eagles will be up 10-0. It's fine. Not worried. Jags is one side. And then the other side is the obvious. The Texans at 0. And four with Ryan's taking back the defense. That's right. Going against this mess of a Titans team. And, and I don't have to worry about the Texans looking ahead or not caring or, oh my God, we can't, we got to keep stuff in the bag for the Jags. Cause this is like a season is over if they don't cover this. And I think the Titans are terrible. So they're Jags Texans. This is the easiest tease of the year, which makes me super nervous. Well, you're violating, you know, number one rule. I get it. I get it. No international games. Stay away from me. You yelled at me about that last week. I'm violating a couple of rules. I'm going in with eyes wide open. Okay. My clothes on. It's the most obvious tease in America. I just think one of these is going to hit it. We haven't had the, the obvious teases have not been doing well and I get it. It's chalk and you got it, but I just think this one, we're overthinking this and this is just going to hit Jags. Texans is my tease. What do you have for a tease? Well, I have a Texan. Texans also because that, that one and a half, they, they, um, have been in, in this situation before where they, I think it, where they were Oh, and three last season and then beat the pants off of the, uh, off of Tennessee, which is what they, they do. I mean, their second game, they had Davis mills last season. They still won Houston did, but the, uh, I just, so Texans Jags would both be down to 1.5 just to be clear. So the way to get screwed here is missed extra point in the first half. Oh, Oh my God. Um, something else where it happens and you end up winning by one, but you don't cover the tease. That would be, that would be classic Jags. It could totally say it could definitely happen. What's your other side. So you have the Texans and what's the other side. I'm, I'm taking the saints. There's a lot of interest out there. I see people taking the saints. Um, now it had been two and a half all week, but for some reason, FanDuel has it at one and a half. And it must be because people are plowing. And to the saints, um, I'm just taking them north of a touchdown. They are a backdoor cover waiting to happen. This, the saints team, um, especially after they were humiliated by Atlanta on a national platform. Um, I think the Minnesota side of this is what's compelling to me the way that they let the fact that they have no receivers, Kyler Murray and terrible running backs, and then a depleted offensive line. You like all those things that dolphins game, the dolphins really could have won that game out. Oh yeah. And we know what, what that thought. And that was in Minnesota. The dolphins were carrying themselves in the second half. Like they thought they were about to win the game. They sure were. They had their chances. Yep. I mean, we didn't need the Hockinson going down. That hurt me. I, I played that in the rear one Oh seven. Of course, when that line went from, you know, under, under 10 on Sunday morning, of course, I went and played. I played that Minnesota minus nine because you can't really say the Vikings. They couldn't even score a touchdown against Miami there. They could have scored a touchdown. The guy just went down, but they didn't, they didn't score a touchdown against Miami. So this saints pick, I was alarmed by how bad the saints were on Monday night. I didn't think that that went beyond just a stink bomb. They couldn't block their defense was, was the defense was just awful. Um, there's. It felt like they had no chance to stop the run and the Falcons pass rush, which I guess might be good. I have no idea why, but the Falcons pass rush was in their asshole game. They're missing their left tackle banks who they, you know, it was a top 10 pick. Yes. And I wonder if they've had too many injuries to me, they're a stay away, but I appreciate your, uh, yeah, I understand your balls in this, throwing them in there. Just John. I mean, this is just trying to take advantage of Minnesota that, you know, they're, they're, they're just trying to take advantage of Minnesota that, you know, they're, they're just, they're, they're just trying to take advantage of Minnesota. They're just trying to take advantage of Minnesota. I think the Packers are just bad. Yeah. I almost took the Packers. I did. They look like such a great zag pick. They've shown nothing over the first four weeks to make you trust them at all against Ben Johnson, who's on a fucking heater, by the way. And yet I couldn't do it. That leaves me with a minus three, which I hate doing because of the tie potential. And it leaves me going against the San Francisco 49ers, who I'm terrified of. During October, Halloween, they're the Michael Myers team. Every time they're dead, they fucking get back up. Well, they're not dead. They jam a wire hanger in their eye. They just get up. They're not dead. They just keep getting up. It's like, oh, we lost more guys? Okay, we're fine. We lost our fullback this week, who we have all our good stuff for. Nah, we're fine. We'll just put somebody else in. Come on. It's Seattle minus three. This is like too much fear of the 49ers halo effect. And by the way, they don't really need the game. Right? That's right. They're totally banged up. Seattle actually does need the game because they still have to play in San Francisco. It's only minus three. And I'll tell you another thing with Seattle. They really found something with Wilson. I thought Wilson, and I have them on both of my fantasy teams because I had Jadarian Price and I had to get the backup. I thought Wilson was genuinely good last week. Like, really? Like, hitting holes, creating space. They're throwing the ball in the backfield to him. He's a viable NFL running back, unlike the rookie. And there's some really shaky stats with the Niners that make you wonder how. I mean, the DBOA is good, right? They're first in offense, five in defense. It's a little schedule dominant. But, like, for Havoc, that Havoc stat that Dibundo loves? Yes. 28th in Havoc. Mm-hmm. The only teams worse are the Saints, Titans, Colts, and Giants. Seahawks pass-rush win rate through week four. Seahawks, number one, 69%. Win rate. Win rate. Win rate. Win rate. We've been podcasting for three hours. I don't know. I think Seattle's good, too, for, like, an ass-kicking against a good team. We're like, oh, shit, Seattle. They're here, and I don't think the Niners need the game. So that's going to be my last pick. That's a good pick. Shanahan doesn't have a great record. Um, against McDonald. I'm curious about the three. What do you think, in this modern era, Seattle's home field advantage is? Isn't it two and a half? I mean, the standard home field advantage now is one and a half. Right. So you think it's like two, two and a half. Okay. So they're only. I think people are afraid of San Francisco, just point blank. Okay. I really wanted to take the Falcons, but the extra point killed me. The whole. You can't lay the hook. Yeah, I really thought if it was minus two and a half. I was so impressed by them last week. You can't lay the hook against Snoop Huntley? You can't do that. Also, some energy in Atlanta right now with the Dream, my girl Angel Reese. Right. The Hawks season about to start. They're thinking about trying to be a top 16. We're going to do our win totals. I mean, spoiler, I am bullish on this Hawks team. Oh, interesting. I am bullish on this Hawks team. Okay. That was today's Ringer 107. It was. Oh, I got to do. I got to tell you who we actually picked. We both have the Steelers. Yes. Minus two and a half. Good one. You have the Rams. Minus three and a half against Buffalo. You're not afraid of the hook against Josh Allen. I have the Cardinals plus five and a half at home against the Lions. I think they can win that game outright. I also have Seattle minus three against the Niners. You have my Patriots minus three and a half. Not afraid of the hook against Kirk Cousins either, even though he did it last week. You have a tease. You have a tease of the Texans and the Saints. True. Saints up to seven and a half. Texans down to one and a half. I had the Texans as well in my tease, but I put the Jaguars with them. I broke the rule of don't tease or parlay the London game. I did it. You did it. We'll be watching it together on Sunday. Hopefully, the Jaguars won't be down 10-0 when I wake up. And then Fando said you'll be asleep by 3.30 p.m. They're wrong. That's wrong. They said there's going to be Bloody Marys and beef stew and you'll be passed out during the. Second half of these games. If I'm going to invite them to eat a fat dick, I will be wide awake. I'll be enjoying all the sports of the day. Well, today's Ringer 107 was brought to you by Fando. Download the app now to find all of our 107 picks. Fando player game, odd subject to change. House, I'll see you on Sunday. I can't wait. I can't wait. I can't wait to show up with the Stanley cock. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Mahoney. Thanks to House. Thanks to Palacero. Thanks to Gahal. And thanks to Jack Wilson and Chris. And thanks to Eduardo, wherever he is. We don't know where he is. Hopefully he turns up at some point. I'm going to be back Sunday night. We're going to be live on Netflix with Cousin Sal. And hopefully I'm not in a food coma, but we'll be live right after. Atlanta, Baltimore, come find us on Netflix or just listen to us or watch us after on Spotify. Enjoy the weekend. Don't forget to place a wager on UCLA because they're going to beat Oregon this weekend. Right there. UCLA 5-0. It's about to happen. See you on Sunday. Must be 21 plus and president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas star casino or 18 plus. And president DC or Wyoming opt-in required bonus issued as non-withdrawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration, max wager amount. See terms at sportsbook.fandler.com. Gave him a problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLE or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 888-79-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24 seven. Support Massachusetts or call 877-8-HOPE-NY or text hope NY in New York for Louisiana. Call 877-770-7867. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tramphia, proper training is required. Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and 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. Explore what's going on. Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit TramphiaRadio.com. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. Fall is here and Whole Foods Market has everything you need for cozy meals, seasonal treats, and easy entertaining. Elevate your hearty dishes with tasty bone-in beef short ribs or New York strip steaks with no added growth hormones or antibiotics. And as the fall evenings draw in, why not get ahead of cold season with immunity shots, herbal teasers, and more? Make sure you look for sales throughout the month. Shop fall flavors with higher standards at Whole Foods Market.