The Bears Go All In, the Brew Wrecking Crew, Yaxel-Mania, a Mega-Mailbag, and Week 8 NFL Picks With Tom Pelissero, Joe House, and Anthony Dabbundo

This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You know how at the end of the season, your team goes to Cancun, sometimes earlier than expected, sometimes after blowing a 3-1 series lead. But what if you went to Cancun? With Expedia, save up to 30% when you bundle and save. You can book the flight or the hotel now, then book the rest later. In all fairness, though, hopefully your team doesn't go to Cancun. One, two, three, Cancun. Or if they do, you go with them. Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Sign in to save. Savings vary. The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new Rewatchables on Monday. We did A Nightmare on Elm Street to finish. Horror month, October, my favorite month. Halloween's coming. I've been enjoying. My algorithm is just feeding me stuff from the 1978 movie, Halloween. One of my five or six favorite movies of all time. I saw some, they had 20 pictures. From the set. That was on my algorithm. I went through all of them. The picture of the guy who was dressed as Michael Myers, holding the mask next to him and stuff like that. Jamie Lee Curtis trying the mask on. I love Halloween. Always great to have it back. And then my son's birthday the next day. What a run. What a run for me. I wish AJ Brown was healthy. Hey, we're going to talk football with Tom Palacero at the top. He broke the Jeffrey Simmons trade today, and he's going to tell us what else we can expect for the trade deadline and what's going on with Lamar. And then Anthony Dibundo, came on with me and Joe House to recap a pretty strange end to the baseball season as the Brewers just annihilated everybody and beat Tampa in five. And we're going to talk about lessons learned and whether baseball is going to come back. And we're also going to talk about the beef stew debacle with Dibundo. That comes up too. House and I did a long mailbag. Lines were crossed. And then last but not least, House and I have Ringer 107 picks for week eight. It's all next. We're going to take a break. Pearl Jam. And then Palacero next. This is the, Phil 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 888-722-4255. 789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat Connecticut. All right, we're recording late afternoon Thursday before the Thursday night game. Tom Palacero is here. You can read his newsletter, The Sweep. You can hear him and watch him on The Ringer NFL show. Once again, he had a big scoop today. Big trade. The Bears go and they get my brother, Jeffrey Simmons. I don't know if you know, we're related. Two first-round picks and a fourth. For a team that I really liked as a Super Bowl contender before the trade, I was really impressed. I was really impressed by them in the Pats game. Was that too much? Is that the right going rate for a 29-year-old defensive stud? Were you surprised when you heard the terms? I was, well, first of all, I was a little bit caught off guard by the trade because I'd gotten the sense in the past few days that the Titans, who had really been in a, were not trading Jeff Simmons mode for years, right? Through every year, they're kind of the shits and like people call. But this year was like, all right, it would have to be a big package. And so like, I knew different teams had called. They were being told it's at least two first-round picks and that, you know, scared some other teams off. The 49ers checked in before they traded for DeForest Buckner. The Colts were waiting for an offer from the Bears. And then it turns out they're starting to turn their attention to Jeff Simmons. There's just, there's not a lot of trades like this. Defensive players for two first-round picks and more. If you're the Titans, like this is a great haul. It really is. It really is because not only do you get the two ones and the fourth rounder in exchange, they said the fifth round pick in 2028 back, but also he's due $57 million guaranteed over the 2027 and 2028 years. So that's a huge chunk. It's about like eight to 10% of your salary cap was tied up in one guy who's going to be 30 and 31 these next two years. He's still a really good player. And you're going nowhere. You're probably far enough away that one defensive tackle who's at minimum, at his peak, he's not an ascending player. He might be descending at this point. He's not going to get you there. So you get all the picks. You kind of reframe the season as, all right, we're rebuilding at least on, you know, in terms of like the big picture of the team, we want Cam Ward to keep getting better. We want the offense to keep getting better. If you're the Bears, remember they traded. Can we stay on the Titans for a second? Yeah, go for it. To me, this is a, it's not going to happen with Cam Ward. We're going to be rebooting all of this. And let's just start now because from everything we've seen from, from Cam Ward, I don't see it. I don't see anything to be excited about. And I don't think, I just don't see the franchise QB thing with them. So you do this partly because you realize, even if we hit our draft picks, even if we hit a couple more free agency stuff, are we going to be any good next year? Probably not with this quarterback situation. Cause I don't think he's playable. I would say they're more positive in the building than externally, just because like they're seeing like the small steps of Cam Ward getting better. And he is like, he's a guy who nobody, including in the pre-draft process, like no one questions how hard this dude works, how, how much he wants to be great, how he applies it. It's just, they've been a mess. He's had three different play callers in a year and a half in the NFL. Like they've done everything wrong in Tennessee in terms of like getting this guy on track. But now you feel like you're starting to see it a little bit with Brian Dable calling the offense. It's why they haven't traded Tony Pollard or Calvin Ridley or some of the other guys. Cause they're like, we want to give them a chance. I think that again, gives them flexibility. There's no doubt about that. And maybe that involves somewhere down the line. You're bundling some of those picks and going up and get a quarterback. But I don't, I don't think they're at a crisis point on that. At this point, they're just looking and going realistically. Like, how do you turn that down from the bears right now? It was not a surprise. Can I be at a crisis point with Cam Ward? Cause I think I'm there. I did like, I just don't see it. I don't think he's good enough bears. So they're like, fuck it. Let's go. We have a QB and a rookie. This is the unique opportunity. We have good players. We've made, we've hit on most of our draft picks. Our defense is gimmicky, but it's not terrible, right? We're doing discount Flores and now we can throw this guy in there. And who knows the league's wide open. It's not like there's a team you would point to and say, Oh, that we got to pass that team. I feel like there's like five or six teams that feel like they're in the mix, but nobody's stood out to me yet. Do you agree with that? It's kind of an arms race too, in the NFC with the, with the deals, the 49ers and the Seahawks made earlier this week. And now this deal, I was going to say that the bears traded another defensive tackle, Gervin Dexter to the Falcons right before the season. Now, Jeff Simmons is coming back in and kind of fill in that same spot, but he is a, he's a difference maker. He's a really good culture and locker room guy too. That's one of the reasons Tennessee through all the stuff they went through. He was kind of the one untouchable guy on the roster. So they get a really good football player. They pay a really high price. The one thing I kept hearing from G, GM's today was yes, they're in that rookie contract window, but they're at the end of it. Caleb is extension eligible after this season. So now you just committed $57 million cash and cap in the next two years to, to a guy who was 30, 31 years old and gave up your next two first round picks. Like it's a pretty big bet. Ryan poles has never been afraid to, you know, make big trades, but this is very much a weird Superbowl caliber. And this guy's going to be a, you know, the guy who potentially puts us over the top. I mean, he's one of the five different, he's one of the best defense maker defensive linemen, right? He's got five or six. He's on some sort of list. Yeah. Yeah. If you take the edge guys out of it, I'd put Jeff Simmons up there. I mean, Jalen Carter, when he wants to be that guy is certainly capable of being that guy. You know, Aaron Donald before the retirement, it's hard to tell what he is right now, but he would have been in that category. Yeah. Yeah. Jeff Simmons is up there. And again, when you have a guy like that, who's also like the best guy in your locker room that everybody kind of gravitates toward, that means something. Sometimes these big swing, trades go South because like the dude you bring in is not the player who's going to positively influence everybody else. Like Jeff Simmons, his whole reputation is he is that guy. And I love the Ben Johnson, like everything about Ben Johnson, the way that he calls a game, the way that he approaches, you know, his team press conferences, like everything is we're going big. We don't give a fuck what you think about us. We are going to try to kick your ass in every way possible. This absolutely has been Johnson written all over. Like we'll figure it out with the first round picks. Give me Jeff Simmons. Right now let's go win some games. And it sets up an incredible Monday night game now, because I think Seattle and Chicago would be the two teams that I still believe they are my bet. My life teams in the NFC to get there. Cause I didn't the San Francisco, how many injuries can they take? And then the Rams just seem like you're from hell and I don't really like anybody else, but that, and then they, then the, the other team gets Quentin Nelson, right? The Seahawks, which you just throw him in there with, I mean, when they are getting running backs back and I don't know, it's literally could be blocking Jeff Simmons on Monday night after these trades this week. Wouldn't you say that's the game of the year now? Have we had a better like playoff preview? You know that now we've had enough of a sample size with all the games. It's week eight kind of have a feeling for who's, who's going to make a run or not. And I really, those are the two teams I'm watching because Seattle, as good as they looked on Sunday night, I didn't know how much of that was the chiefs, which I guess could be the next thing we talk about. The chiefs kind of, I have them coming later and ringer one Oh seven and I'm going to be going the other way. I just don't see it. I don't think they have the firepower and now what Seattle did last week, but just like, all right, we'll take out Walker. What else do you got? And they didn't have anything not to mention the offensive line. What is their offensive line going to be on the road? Like we saw last week. What, what are people in the league saying? About the chiefs these days? Do they think they're going to make moves or what? They do think they're going to make moves. I talked specifically about that, that game last Sunday night. I talked to one GM today would watch the tape and I'm like, it was just a matter of like, they put everything into to stop me. Kenneth Walker. He's like, no, they were playing quarters. They weren't like playing eight in the box the whole time. They just, they did what Seattle does and they absolutely kicked the chief's ass. Right. If you're the chiefs, that's concerning because I mean, look at the defenses that they've faced this season. It hasn't exactly been murderers row. It's like, is, is this the real chiefs where Kenneth Walker can't put up 200 yards every week? And then we have no weapons. I mean, it's Xavier worthy. And then you're throwing to Jalen Royals. Like that's, that's what you're working with. To me, that was the takeaway from the game, which was the chiefs. And I've reported this this week. Like they've been calling around for like a month and trying to find receiver help. They could get Rashid back. Rashid Rice. He was practicing again this week, but you still don't have like that dominant type of receiver that they haven't had since Tyreek Hill. They need to acquire one. I think that they might. Actually, it'd be Tyreek Hill. If he can run, if he can walk. I mean, at this point, I don't know that Tyreek's ready to play at all in 2026, but they'll, they'll do it. Whatever it takes to try to fix that spot. I believe that they'll go out. They'll trade for one. I don't know if it'll be next week or the week after trade deadlines, 12 days away. So it's gotta be soon, but between, you know, whether it's Brian Thomas jr. Is it Josh downs? Like they'll get somebody in that'll help mitigate it because you can't go to into a game. And it's like, well, if the run game is not working, we're throwing a hundred year old Travis, Kelsey or Xavier worthy. You can't catch like that's a bad combination. And that's kind of what they're stuck with right now. There's no Garrett Wilson possibility. Is there? I don't believe so. I, after the whole, the exchange on the sideline and Gino's there and everything last week, like that, what I was told was absolutely not, absolutely not trading. The jets aren't in the phase like they were last year when they traded sauce and Quinn and Williams, they're not in, we're tearing it apart. I don't think the jets are going to be particularly active. I can see them trading some down, the line guy, but I don't, I just don't see it being Garrett Wilson. I do like that. The NFL is becoming more like the NBA. We're just getting these monster trades. Now it feels like every couple of months, something's happening where I don't know what I usually, these teams were so much more careful, especially during the season of trading for impact guys and trading picks. And I don't know, it's kind of fits into the analytic revolution and how coaches are approaching these games. Everybody's like, fuck it, let's go. Let's go fourth and five from my own 30. Ah, fuck it. And now it's kind of drifted into the trades, which I think is more fun. Cause if, if some of these teams, like why wouldn't Tennessee trade Jeffrey Simmons? Like I completely agree with the logic behind it. By the time they're good again, he's going to be 32. That's what you're trying to get to is like your inner, you're out. That's what generates more trade interest. Remember? I mean the, the trade deadline was week six, like 12 years ago. It was so early in the season. Then they pushed it back two weeks to week eight. Then a couple of years ago, they pushed it to week nine. There are some aggressive GMs who would love it to be even later than that. The NFL has always been worried that it ends up like the NBA. And you've got like the 70 win team playing the 13 win team at the end of the season in a game that means something to somebody. And it's just like not competitive. They've never wanted that. But what happened, you mentioned analytics. It was really like, I go back to the Brock Osweiler trade. That's what changed everything. Because if you remember 2017, the Texans had signed Brock Osweiler, to an ill-fated contract. He's got, I think it was $16 million fully guaranteed left on the second year of his deal. The Texans have no use for him. The Browns trade for Brock Osweiler and a second round pick. Yeah. And it was solely a true salary dump. They bought a second round pick for like $16 million. And after that, there hasn't been anything to that scale, but it's the number of times that's happening now where there's teams using money actively to go buy picks. You know, some of the, some of the flagrant examples were the dolphins traded for a key to leave one time when he was on injured reserve, just to pay him the $5 million and they got a draft pick. They did it with Ryan Tannehill. The Broncos did it with Vaughn Miller a few years ago where Vaughn helped the Rams win the Superbowl, but they got second and third round picks because they paid him like $9 million to get the picks. Like that's become part of the equation. It's not just, all right, we're going to get more aggressive with using future picks. Cause unlike the NBA, you can only trade picks three years down the line. It's also, all right, what if we also, if we also pay it, then what would you be willing to give up? There's not many trades like what the Colts did the other day where they made two significant trades and they paid $0 for Buckner or Nelson going away. You watch some of the trades that happened these next couple of weeks. You'll get the final details to be like, hang on there. They're paying how much money to make this guy go away. Right. And it's all, it's part of the broader thinking, which is like, if you can buy picks and we've already allocated that cash and cap to the player anyway, why would we not do it? Yeah. You did a good job of explaining that on the, on the sweep about what are they paying Nelson? Like $900,000 a game, basically. Yeah. So you get rid of them now. Yeah. It's like, why didn't they wait two weeks? It's like, well, that would have cost him to keep Buckner Nelson or $4 million. And they could have gotten hurt and you could have been left with nothing. And you know, or it's just like the complex that like, Oh, you would have gotten a third round comp pick for Quentin Nelson. Maybe not. That would require Quentin Nelson to be healthy, to sign a contract for you to not sign any free agents that offset that pick. And you don't even know who your GM is going to be. So like you take the picks now. I thought the Colts got good value. Also like it's Quentin Nelson. Like somebody falls into the back of his leg on a run play and now he's gone and you're getting jack shit. 30, 31 years old. Like there's, there's so many things that can happen. Like take the, take the good deal. If you think it's the right value, take the deal. One thing that I've noticed with football that I think is, cause this, I guess happens in basketball too. You know, it's like, Oh, DeForest Buckner, Niners got him. And it's like, he's not really DeForest Buckner anymore. He hasn't been DeForest Buckner for four years. Like I watched the Colts this year. People are doing whatever they wanted against him. So you're getting a different version of the guy, but it's a name guy. Right. And that's where a lot of these trades are. Cause when the Niners got him, it was like, where were the bears? They needed to defend. Obviously they thought they could do a lot better than Buckner, but I don't know. I just feel my fear is that, uh, that's going to be AJ Brown and the Patriots. When I just, when I just said about Buckner, um, you have, you have to look at your texts at some point. Cause I had, we did, you sent me a rundown of, did you get anything yet? It didn't know not yet, but it didn't have an, yeah, you did. I did not have AJ Brown on the list. Well, this is, I was telling you that the Pats fans are freaking out about, uh, AJ. Uh, let's go to the next one, which is, I'll just say this with AJ Brown. Okay. We, he had the known ankle issue. We know that when you hear like the knee is ballooning up, like that's happened to him his whole career. A big part of the reason Tennessee traded AJ Brown to Philly four years ago was because they didn't think his knee was going to hold up and he wasn't practicing. He gets the Philly. He barely practiced. He was still a pretty good player. Like, does this cause him? I don't have all the details yet. Is this causing him to miss a game or two or four? I don't know yet, but like him popping up, it's like, Oh, an issue with his knee. It's like, yeah, the guy's got a knee that he's had to manage basically his whole career. I thought the Thursday bears game, I was alarmed by how, how unfast he looked and how it looked like, Oh, we talked about this after the game you came on. I said about how it looked like he was running on hot cement or something. Like he wasn't like pushing off. So we'll see what happens. Hopefully you get a text before the end. Next one, Lamar Jackson. So ringer one Oh seven. He, they, he's going to come up in a pick. I think he plays this week. I do think it's weird that they never seem to know how healthy is, or when he's going to play, no matter who the coach is. Cause now we have different coach. What's going on with the organization and Lamar and just the communication stuff with them. Because it seems like every year, it seems like the weirdest situation in the league. Part of it is Lamar doesn't have an agent. He has nobody that speaks for him or like corrects the record. So like the external stuff, and this goes all the way back to when he was in the pre-draft process and people were trying to say he should go play wide receiver, whether it was in, his contract negotiations and how he handled those. Like his only real advisors, his mother, like nothing's just like the way it is with every other player. And so you get into these situations where like, all right, you get hurt, right? Every agent has a protocol. It's all right. We're going to get these scans. Now we're going to send them to these three doctors, get it out. We're going to get second opinions. We're going to gather. We're going to come up with a plan, be in concert with the team. Like I'm sure there's some level of that with Lamar, but like, it's not the normal process. Then there's just the reality that Lamar, you know, wants to be 100% if he's on the field last year he was out there with the hamstring and wasn't himself i didn't think it was the same lamar the whole rest of the season i agree after he had the hamstring in october he never looked like it was like saquon the other night where you're like is he but what's he doing like he doesn't look like he can open it up like he's slowing down that was lamar to me last year now he's got the ankle but where you get into what you're talking about was so third last thursday he's taking scout team reps right and that's because like he's just it's part of his return to play protocol he does enough that friday it's like all right he's gonna take first team reps so he takes the first team reps on friday and i don't know exactly how they structure their practices but that's probably like your red zone day and lamar's taking the majority of the snaps and then by saturday it's he's not playing so you took all those reps right the only practice you did for the week from tyler huntley you wouldn't do that if you didn't think lamar is playing they thought he was close he's taken all the first team reps the past two days so i'm with you i think he plays against the bills i just there's always a level of uncertainty because he doesn't have the same support system and advice system around him that other players do i don't think it has to do with he's not put himself out there because he doesn't have a contract like the ravens have been trying to do a contract with lamar for two years he's making 52 million dollars he's doing another 52 next year i think it's more so just he's a player who is wants to make sure that he's 100 that probably isn't having the same advice around him and he's not going to be able to do that because he's not going to be able to do that because he's not going to be able to do that and it just leads to some of these situations where things seem weird even if internally they've got a better handle on exactly where he stands so you don't think there's any scenario where they go not we don't want to do this anymore if it happened it would be after the season yeah that's what i meant but like they've always been farewell run with lamar i mean you never know but all what i do know is they've been staunch in wanting lamar to be the guy and trying to do a contract extension with him okay so i think that's a good thing i think that's a good thing he's going to be at a banana's number you wouldn't be doing that if you wanted to trade him if we get to after this year and he's got one year left on his contract and you can't get something done then i think you start to explore your options but i mean there's like cap cap considerations if you if you were to cut them loose or if you don't do the extension all this stuff would accelerate like there's all kinds of issues it creates i'd say we're getting ahead of ourselves on that let's see how he plays but this is it's been part of the lamar experience whether it's in october or december and january there's just periods where you'd love him to be available and the biggest question on him coming out it wasn't just is he a quarterback or not it was also like how's he gonna hold up like he's not the biggest dude he's gotten bigger and more rocked up but how healthy is he gonna stay that's been kind of part of the story of lamar's career you know when he's on the field he remains one of the most electric players out there well spoiler alert i picked ravens plus three in buffalo and ringer 107 coming up and i think when he's playing he's still one of the best four quarterbacks in the league and i just feel like he should be able to go up and down the field on buffalo but what do i know uh they get they got a lot of weapons around him too like when he's been out there with declan doyle they've been pretty dangerous how about flowers has been flowers was always good and they paid him and people are like whoa that much money flowers has been incredible i mean he's been one of the best five receivers in the league i think i probably watched more boston college football than any of your listeners um as a bc guy yeah like i got to meet zay while he was there like he broke every record he was unbelievable yeah he is still like when he's on and getting like the catch and run opportunities like he is absolutely incredible he's had a few you know catching or ball security issues over the year and then he'll have if you're a fancy player he'll have those flat games where you're like how did zay flowers get 0.9 points yesterday he'll have those but like there's some games that he absolutely takes over just because he's such a unique he's not a big guy he's very fast he's very quick in small areas and he can you know he can make you miss and give you problems all day it's weird because they're different but he does remind me of like afc jsn basically where they get him the ball in space and then you're like oh they're gonna tackle him and then he's just still going and then all of a sudden he's cut it the other way and i don't know he's terrifying uh all right we're going quickie on the uh on the pick six here quick questions jonathan taylor yes or no is he getting moved i would say as of now no it's it's gonna take a lot to get him you know in terms of the trade package it's gonna take a lot of time and it's gonna take a lot of time and it's gonna take a lot of time and it's gonna have to be up there and it's also teams like he's do enough money that some of the teams that have other considerations it's hard for them to do those deals like people keep bringing up the vikings i don't see the vikings making that type of splash they gotta line out the door the dallas turners the world waiting for extensions all of a sudden you you trade your future for jonathan taylor when your new gm hasn't even run a draft yet i just i don't see it it's always injuries happen something comes up i don't think right now jonathan taylor gets traded you know it would be a fun trade ironically because they just traded together but if jedarian price was in the trade for taylor right somebody else spent a first round pick for him that that would be the basketball version of a trade like this right we had this young up-and-coming guy in a cheap contract who was pedigree top 30 pick we'll give you him for jonathan taylor and a fifth rounder let's call it a day pretty sure seattle was looking at jonathan taylor when they saw how quentin nelson was mauling people and decided let's go ahead and trade for nelson he's gonna make the difference they get they get charbonnet back he should play this week price is probably gonna play this week so like they're in a pretty good spot yeah at least give it a week or two uh next quickie eagles trades no trades what do they do are they done i would just say they're two and five they're on a five game losing streak most teams you'd go like okay they're gonna do like what the colts just did i don't knowing how how he works i'd be very excited to see how he trades the core dudes like the saquons devontae smith both those guys are banged up too like zach bond i don't see him trading any of those players he takes so much pride like he did with jason kelsey and fletcher cox and and guys like that of like brandon graham they're one uniform players lane johnson too like they they were here and they were like the glue through multiple eras of eagles football like that's how those guys are yeah and they made the last nine years like i i wouldn't be surprised look at their schedule they got washington this week we all get to watch that game on sunday night and then they got the giants the following week the eagles win those two games they'll be like maybe a half game out of the division lead and at that point if i'm howie i'm like i might trade for some people i might just take a run at this like my defense is plenty good my offense can get healthy maybe there's even a quarterback out there that can help me if if tanner mckee's kind of scuffling like i don't put anything past him the guy i don't see how he doing he loves the trade he probably makes some trades but i just i don't see him giving guys away just because they're in a contract here and i really don't see saquon davante bond those poor guys i don't see him getting traded j.j mccarthy who is now the uh the hero of the giants fans so that qb trade worked is there going to be another qb that could be moved or what do we think the one that i and i think you and i have talked about this cousins the one guy i still want to know what happens is kirk cousins yeah 12 days away the raiders are in a four game losing streak one of the factors and the fact that we haven't talked about you know like mac jones and guys like that's like no one's gotten hurt guys have had outside of jackson dart and obviously the jalen hurts situation with blood clots in his lungs every other quarterback's gotten hurt but cousins is the one half the league runs a derivative of the offense that he plays in he's playing at a really high level and he's got a 10 million dollar guaranteed roster bonus next march that if the raiders have the opportunity to offload that money to get a pick for a guy who they're probably gonna end up cutting in march and play the number one pick it's hard because you're in the playoff chase they win these next two maybe you're five and four and you're like you know what let's just ride this out with kirk it's going great but even like the eagles if you're sitting there and you're like his former backup quarterback sean manning his good buddy who he kept in the league as a player for several years is our offensive coordinator we can bring in kirk and just go play that offense like maybe we got something here like i just i would not take that off the table um until we get all the way to november 10 i can't say he's moving great he's playing okay yeah but i i would say he's moving as the worst he's ever been uh so the eagles at washington home giants bi-week yeah right before the uh trade deadline and then they go home pittsburgh at dallas at arizona home indianapolis and probably they need to get to i would say nine wins it's completely doable yeah yeah they don't have a tie right yeah giants are four two and one atop the division it's completely doable so they got nine wins seven and what's that seven and three yeah yeah seven and three the rest of the way and then if you get in the playoffs so they win those next two it's five and three you're five yeah so you're sitting there and now all of a sudden it's like all right we can get this and is there a possibility our quarterback can come back if we make the playoffs my counter is the eagles look terrible and it feels like they're getting worse every week i mean the defense looks so good in the jacksonville game yeah and then the air night against the cowboys it was just like what happened to cooper dejan like that guy was like a like in the running to be discussed as like an all-pro candidate that's the way you cover anyone anymore they also lost reed blankenship they had some moving parts on the back end. I think all that stuff kind of plays into it. I mean, Dejean's still a good player. Jalen Carter's a really good player, but Jalen Carter wasn't very good in the game against Dallas. It was just one of those strange games. They were awful. I thought they were terrible in that game. The defense was bad. Saquon, I mean, Saquon breaks that first run and you're like, oh, here we go. And then he's like parallel with the guy and it's like, nope, not going to do that and just kind of like wanders out of bounds and is like, this is going to be a battle for him. I mean, credit to Saquon for trying to go. You know, he's close enough, but like you saw all the stuff where he's being like, I'm being smart. It's like, if you can't open it up, you know, that's the home run play that a team with Tanner McKee, a quarterback kind of needs. It's just unfortunate. All right. Last one. Last quickie one. Steelers Browns, five and two versus five and two this weekend. The winner of this game, do they start getting ideas? They start looking at the trade deadline and being like, huh? I would say both teams have already been looking. I could see the Browns adding, you know, maybe an edge player. There's been so much talk about like trading away Jerry Judy. That's possible, but right now he's like making big plays. Like one big play a game Jerry Judy's making because they're worried about Denzel Boston and Casey Concepcion. Like I could see the Browns adding at the deadline. Absolutely. And then the Steelers, like they've been making calls, especially on receivers for weeks. Now they should, they should get Michael Pittman back relatively soon. Roman Wilson also should be back in a couple of weeks once his, his window opens. So like, it's not as significant of an issue, but you can imagine if you can go out and add one of these receivers that's available with the way Aaron Rodgers is playing, which is better than I think almost anyone on the planet would have thought 42 year old Aaron Rodgers was playing. Get the six and two this week. It's a fun story, man. Like Aaron Rodgers, the final ride back with Mike McCarthy. And it's, it's like a, it's a Disney movie where you don't know if his arm's going to just fall off at the end or if he's actually going to, you know, win it all. Like it'll be like the sad fun ending or the actual good, but I think they're fun to watch. The Pittsburgh Steelers in 2026 with Aaron Rodgers as quarterback are fun to watch. They have some games that seem much harder when you looked at their schedule in August than now. Like at Philadelphia week 11, that seemed like a terrifying game in August. Now I don't know if that's terrifying. Home for Houston. Oh no, here comes Houston's defense. Well, Houston's defense sucks. They have Carolina at home in week 16 and then they have Tennessee week 17. You can kind of pretty easily patch together 10 wins for them even if they don't do anything. And you have the Ravens twice in the last four weeks, which is totally dependent on how is Lamar at that point. If he's out there, yeah, it's a tough game. If he's not, not so much. And then Cleveland, who had, I think had one of the three easiest schedules in the league even before we knew what some of these teams are going to be. I didn't have the balls to take them as a playoff team because they're Cleveland. But it's a week of great, great matchups. Like where we're, like there's some fork in the road moments. Like you look at Atlanta in the box, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, like some of these. And then we get Seattle and Chicago as a possible title preview. Okay. So you never got an A.J. Brown answer for me. No. Other than later, I think Callie Roseman already won the trade somehow. Even though it's not even week eight yet. Not feeling good about it. We'll find out when he uses that first round pick in 2028 or bundles it to go up and get somebody this year. Tom Palacero, you did it again. You did it again today. You scooped everybody. Live from the random Thursday morning out of nowhere. You did it. Yeah. Do you want, do you want the very brief story of how that happened? Yeah, let's hear it. I was riding the stationary bike. I don't know what, what if we're sponsored by any company, but a stationary bike with an instructor finished the ride, like, you know, telling myself off, like literally, literally getting off the bike still with the stupid shoes on, you know, with like the little things on the bottom. I get a text about Simmons to Chicago and my brain is going, there's only one Simmons this can be. It was sort of on my radar. You were like, Bill Simmons? I knew. I'm just like, Justin, is there a different one? Cause it was just like, I thought I didn't, those trades don't happen on Thursdays. Yeah. They just don't. And then sure enough, it was real and it was, and I got another follow up text, two ones and a four. I was like, oh my God. But it's just like, you don't know. Like I would have thought I literally was on the phone with a GM last night being like, oh, well, that was probably it for this week. So we'll get going again and then right after that trade, he's like, guess not Thursday morning trades. We're back, baby. Yeah. Cause you did the, you did the mailbag with the trade candidates and you had Tennessee and it didn't even seem like you thought Simmons was in play. Well, I was asked about Pollard and Ridley. No, I know, but it was, I was saving that for Saturday and then he got traded on Thursday. Oh, so you thought it was in play. It was in play. The price was going to be high, but the fact that there was a price when teams come back going, yeah, it's going to take two ones. What that means is they trade, they'll trade them for two ones. Oh, that's interesting. So if the, if the price is floated, that means I'm receptive. If a price is clear from the seller team, that usually means they're open to selling them at that price. Otherwise it's no. If it's no, then it's take your best shot. Maybe. So the stages are like, I'm hanging up. Fuck you. I can't believe you asked me. Correct. Oh my God. That you, it would, it would, you'd be a crazy price. We're, we're not even considering it, but then the third level is, it, it has to be two ones. It has to be two ones and more. So when you're teams, so when you're distinct about what it is, that's a wink wink. That is the sign. I mean, if you put a, you know, stale sale sticker on an item in a store changes a lot versus like it being on this, you know, being like in someone's cart, you know, like it's their child that they brought to the store. The child's not for sale. You put a sticker on it. Maybe it is. So if I call it, if I call the Jetson, I want Garrett Wilson. Absolutely not. Fuck you, Bill. They hang up. Okay. I believe that would be a fuck you. Yes. Like you call Atlanta, you ask for Bijan Robinson and they're like, fuck off. Right. And there's only like 50 of those guys in the entire league. Right. Like everybody else, like you call, you call Miami right now. I mean, you call Tennessee, like everyone. It's like, well, we'll listen. How, how he'll listen on anything. If you call him at the Eagles, but like, I don't think he's getting two first, strong picks for Saquon Barkley right now. I don't think that he wants to, you know, he's got his, his core guys, but outside of like, you know, the Josh Allen's of the world, Justin Jefferson, like anybody else in this league is available. If you're willing to pay enough. If I, if I got the Garrett Wilson call, I'd be like, Oh, there's no way. But like two firsts in a second, we'd have a meeting. Well, and then if you're the GM who called and you get the fuck you, you could go back and then just go, all right. I know you said, I know you said that, but what about two ones? No one thinks they're going to get that for Garrett Wilson, which is part of why you're saying, no, I find it hard to believe that the jets would turn down two first round picks from the chiefs for Garrett. Well, they're not going to get off. They're not going to get offered. That is the point. Yeah. Now, if you call, you could try, but right now the answer is absolutely not. They're not looking to trade. I mean, sauce Gardner last year, two ones, but they also kind of were thinking about it at that point, which now seems like one of the worst trades of the decade. They now have the Colts first round pick, which is for a team that's blowing itself up. And the Cowboys first round pick that could end up being significantly higher and their own first round pick. They get to have three top 10 picks. The only problem is there's no quarterbacks to draft because all of them have flamed out. You got to, you just got to pray that some of these guys, please, that it doesn't get turned into Trinidad. Jamblas has to come out unless you can get a seventh year or whatever it is. Uh, congrats on another scoop. Good to see you listen to Tom on ringer NFL and read the sweep on Saturday. Can't wait to find out more. Good to see you. Thanks, man. We'll be back with a house of the bundle after this, the bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Who's going to be FanDuel's hardwood hero. All it takes is one player having a huge scoring night to unlock another reward on FanDuel. Here's how it works. Use your 50% profit boost on any eligible NBA bet. And if any player across the NBA drops 40 or more points that night, you, we'll get another 50% profit boost. Here's the fun part. Doesn't have to be a player you bet on. Check it out in the FanDuel app to get started. Make this your most rewarding season ever with FanDuel. 21 plus select states are 18 plus DC or Wyoming restrictions. Apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com game problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat Connecticut. All right. Recording this two 30 PT. It's about seven hours after game six of the WCG. WBA finals ended. Joe house is here as always on Thursdays. We have Anthony to bundle joining us because it's the end of the baseball season. And also it's only fair that you defend yourself after, um, two and a half weeks of just beef stew rhetoric allegations. I get an email every day about it. I got an email recently from somebody who said Chang should have to make you, um, a bull penis stew that you have to eat. I thought that, but actually like really try to make it delicious. Uh, what's your life been like since the, uh, stew debacle? Honestly, I can't believe how much it broke containment. Uh, you know, it was more of a pocket veto than an outright veto. I think people are coming to me like Dave Chang walked up and said, would you please try my stew or would you like to try stew? And I said, no. Yeah. You know, it was more of a pocket veto. Now I'm not defending my honor here. I regret not trying the stew. Um, you just never got up to try it is it was never offered to you, but you also never went. And the, kitchen and said, I'm going to have this. house went in six times that's not a distinction the fucking chef was there he carried the fucking stew in through the front door with this like you know lumbering like oh he didn't give you a personal invitation he didn't give anybody a personal invitation it was assumed walked in he's just a top five chef on planet earth who walked in with a giant thing of food that he had made lovingly you know days before that that was your invitation when this chef walked in with the food with carrying pots of food you were invited to eat it was i gotta take a break is that it wasn't like i went to the house anticipating a meal and i'm not you know throwing shade at bill here but oh the text from you said come over to watch football i have a seat for you yeah now i was like i know house is there but do i bring my own do i eat before so i ate before a full breakfast sandwich and a banana bread muffin yeah to the point where i was full so again i regret not trying a small piece of it for sure but this wasn't like i went over to dave chang's house to have a meal and then said i'm good it was i didn't even know dave chang was gonna be there he walked in i was like oh dave chang nice to meet you in real life but i will say this too i won a bet with tate last week we bet on the uh syracuse unc game tough beat for him and he owes me a dinner now should we go to major domo yeah i think i think that's a must or the or the place in century city mall one of those two places my only piece of advice if you go to major domo bring your credit card and don't talk no freebies you're not getting any freebies you might get some freebies but you are not buying so it's on him he lost the bet get the spit roast um debundo baseball ended baseball may never come back so we thought we'd spend this first segment talking about the world series the baseball playoffs lessons we learned and uh and and when we're gonna see baseball again i don't know you take the floor uh my current prediction is memorial day and that's with zero inside knowledge or awareness of anything that's going on but i have enough friends around baseball who think generally memorial day is the expected because you have to remember they have to sign the agreement eventually and then there has to be some type of muted or shortened spring training to get these players ready so they don't all get hurt right away so yeah memorial day we would lose about a month and a half hundred games like 110 game season something that's pretty good by the way not a bad idea house doesn't mind this because april has the nba playoffs nhl playoffs nfl draft the masters the masters yeah that'd be fine that's a great start to the baseball season i want that baseball masters with one-handed gymnasium losers biggest losers are the spring training sites i mean florida and arizona so many of those you know localities probably wouldn't get spring training they'd probably just do it at their local uh stadiums and like local practice fields once the weather's good enough up north in april and may but i mean we're all hoping they can come to the agreement i don't think anybody's optimistic though all right so what do you guys give as a grade for this entire major league baseball season i'm gonna give it a b plus i'll start i really liked abs i like that the dodgers lost i thought that was super important i like that big teams were in there i like that we had some wild cards like mizurowski out of nowhere um i like that we had some wild cards like mizurowski um i like that we had some wild cards like mizurowski out of nowhere um i like that we had some wild cards like mizurowski out of nowhere um i like that we had some wild cards um that the pete crow armstrong was really fun um the world series i just kind of wish we had a big market versus a small market when it's the two small markets it's tough i don't really know who to root for and i don't really have a vested interest but if the brewers had gone against like the yankees i would have actually like genuinely cared so but that might just be me did you care to bunda i did i was excited to see the quality of you know the run for the ball and the run for the ball and the run for which we'll get into the themes of the baseball season but just these two teams who have been at the forefront of winning despite their low payrolls for the last five to ten years they've been the two teams that have kind of bucked the trend of small market teams generally not being as competitive as big market teams they're them along with cleveland are kind of the exception that proves the rule but they played baseball in a very different brand than a lot of the critics have complained right so so many people and this is my problem with the people who complain about the size of the markets oh we want to have small market teams compete we don't want to just see the big teams and then it's the same people who complain about oh you know everybody just hits home runs now that's all baseball is home runs strikeouts and walks well you have these two small market teams who aren't reliant on the long ball who hit you know bunt for hits and who play great defense and who run the bases and steal all that and then people complained about the world series anyway so you really can't win with with that but it was not a particularly overwhelmingly competitive series where you felt like the series was swinging one way or the other on one pitch that that was not the case and in fact the single play that's that flipped the brewers championship odds more than any other happened in the second playoff game it was game two against the padres when churio hit the game-winning single right off of mason miller that was their turning point their biggest play of the playoffs by championship win probability yeah you know house i don't know we i don't know if we're going to be able to tell you how into the world series you were but it felt like there was so much interest in the first week of the nba season and i personally was so interested in it combined with all the nfl and the fact that sunday nfl is now a 15 hour day and then we have the thursday and it just felt like the world series was thrown into all this other stuff um but that might just be me because i love the nba where you like the nba as much as me where did you stand yeah i invested in the series because you know i was a fan of the nba i was a fan of the nba so i was a fan of the nba i was a fan of the nba i was a fan of the nba i was a fan of the nba i was a fan of the nba i was a fan of the nba i was a fan of the nba i was a fan of the nba i was a fan of the nba i was a fan of the nba i was a fan of the nba i was a fan of the nba i was a fan of the nba i was a fan of the nba i was a fan of the nba um when i tuned in to watch chunks of games there was a lot of no scoring there was a lot of uh you know i just watched three innings and nothing happened sections of my life that i wouldn't mind getting back um but i i did bet the brewers at the outset i bet the brewers both to sweep the series and at 4-1 well you almost had the sweep i mean they the guys no they last inning when they were trying to clinch it the third baseman grounded the throw and you kind of yeah had the feeling i didn't like joey i didn't like that there were so many brewer fans in tampa for that i mean that had to have been the record for most fans of the other team descending on a world series location i didn't think that was great for tampa but well that's the history of it right these milwaukee people want to be there for history and the milwaukee it's it's awesome now they have two this decade in two different sports somehow neither of them are the packers and i thought they were you know they killed the dodgers that was when it was like oh shit you know because it seemed that padre series was probably the most fun of all the series right was that the best series to bundle yeah i think so that or maybe if you go all the way back to the wild card philly atlanta was really compelling for three games but it was just a wild card round i think the the one issue you know with this playoffs is that a lot of the individual games were compelling in themselves but because milwaukee just won all of them because tampa just won all of them you ended up with kind of not competitive series i mean to only have two decisive games atlanta philadelphia wild card game three and chicago cleveland game five neither of which were that interesting either because they were kind of blowouts you never had that tension whereas you know i think a lot of people look back at last year's playoffs it's one of the best playoffs of my lifetime certainly yeah where you had that crazy mariners uh game a game five against the tigers you had a tiger's guardians game three then you had both rounds in the uh in the cs with the mariners and the blue jays having a crazy game seven philly's dodgers was awesome in that four game series and then of course the world series topped it off so there were so many swings back and forth this year the two best teams kind of just bullied everybody and then the best team bullied the second best team yeah and the world series last year just had big famous people in it and this one had people that aren't famous yet but probably you know became more famous or will be more famous down the road but it was cool i always love when the franchise that has either never won or hasn't won forever or when they win it always feels a little more special and if the dodgers had won three in a row people would have been so pissed off that was probably the biggest win all around right if the dodgers went three in a row then everybody's going ah fuck go ahead have a lockout this is the sports broken fuck this they broke the game the game's over why bother yeah i mean they were pre-ordained but milwaukee was better all year right people just chose to overlook that and i get why i mean milwaukee go back to last year they had all these great numbers and then scored four runs in four games but they're better offensively they're better bullpen better defense younger which another theory we'll get into but oh then the other thing is that make them great really special front office which you and billy gill were talking about on this podcast before the uh before the season this is basically the first season of the season of the season of the season of the season the sam prestey baseball team the you know thinking outside the box even watching somebody like dustin may who the red sox had last year for a month and just punted to the side and now all of a sudden he's in these big playoff spots um any other big subplots that stood out for you before we move on to the to basketball football for baseball the bundo i mean i think there's two there's two big things one is abs and how which was a thumbs up thumbs up right well here's my question and this is going to be a big one i'm going to ask you a question and this is going to be the next big question if we have the technology do you want it to go the way of tennis where they just automatically do it or do you like the strategy of the catcher and the hitters implementing it. Because we did see over the course of the season that the usage went up more times per game. Teams got more aggressive with challenges. Catchers were the players that were challenging more because they realized hitters are pretty bad at it, but catchers are really good at it. They have a better sense of the zone. So they saved them for catchers. They used it more. I think we're going to see more and more usage of this ABS. And I think that's just going to prompt the eventual conversation, which is why don't we just automatically have robots do this all the time and get it right all the time? House has been for that first since we were in college. You signed up for that house. No, I actually quite enjoy what they landed upon. I really love the human element. I really love the drama of it. I like it when the umps are right now. I think that they stumbled into a system where there's genuine moments of like dramatic tension. And. And the way that they use the screen and all the rest of it is just magnificent. It understands. Baseball understands how to capture, you know, the fancy of this modern sports viewer. I thought it was magnificent. I wouldn't want to change it in any way, shape, or form. So did you see the video of Yandy Diaz and William Contreras in game four? When Yandy challenged, there was a pitch on the inside corner and Contreras taps his helmet to challenge. Yandy and William could stare at each other. They have this little stare, and then they both look up at the screen at the same exact time. The broadcast cuts the half image of the zone. It's in, it's just inside by like a half inch. And then they both stare at each other again and they smile. And this video went viral. It became the, one of the viral moments of the playoffs. That is exactly what House is talking about. I don't want full robot takeover because there still is that moment. And I miss it. I go to, you know, the US Open every year. I miss the rhythmic clapping into like the, does the ball in or out? Now we just know all the time. And there is an element of like, okay, I mean, I guess it's more right, but you know, the, I'm sorry, that bad. It is fun when there's a terrible lump that just gets the, he's just getting destroyed by the ABS is, is super fun. All right. So no baseball till Memorial Day. Give us a, before you go to Bono, give us your biggest football thing you're watching over the next couple of weeks from a gambling standpoint. Probably how Jeffrey Simmons changes the Bears defense. I mean, that unit, is not super bowl ready. They're not even, you know, I think ready to compete at the top of the NFC without him, but with him, I think they're, they're going to be much better against the run, which has been something that's hold, held them back this season and last season. So I think that that group is one that maybe could make the leap into that top NFC tier with, you know, for me, I still have San Francisco, Seattle, and LA rated as the three best teams in the NFC going into the, into November here. You know, I broke the news to house of that trade. We've got a woe from house. We were texting two first rounder. It seems like a lot for a 29 year old guy, but Caleb on the rookie contract, I just feel like you have to operate differently in house. I, I said this to you this week. I, I already have the bears at 14 to one to win the, win the super bowl, just because I was so impressed by how they played in the pats game. Cause I actually thought the pats played well in that game and the bears, um, the combo of just Caleb being able to pull plays out of his ass. They can get explosives. I think their defense, even though I know it's funky and I know some of the advanced metrics don't love some of the things with it, it's kind of a pain in the ass when they're, they're doing the Flores rip off stuff. Like I'm going to be really interested to see how Darnold handles it this weekend. They it's something like, I feel like they have an identity. And I think by week eight, I want to know the identities of these teams, right? What do you do? What are you good at? What, what are you hanging your hat on? And with the bears, like I kind of get what they are and who they are, right. They're built around Ben Johnson and Caleb. They have like this really tenacious defense. They're going to get explosive plays. And now they have to figure out that could run the ball better. But, um, I, to me, I would put them in the class with the NFC west. So the bundle, you wouldn't not with the way their defense looks. No. Okay. Would you house, but I'm willing to change that. If their defense looks better. Um, I'm just going to sit tight. I want to see it against Seattle because it's a great opportunity. Seattle just got healthy in terms of the running back position and they got finally got a hundred yard rusher and they were able to establish a little play action. And we saw that offense finally showing a tiny bit of the rhythm that they, um, fell into last year with Kubiak as the office of coordinator. That's where that offense is supposed to look like. Not Darnold standing back there. One and a half, two and a half, right. Get rid of the effing ball or panic. Sam Darnold. No, they need to be play action. He needs to get the ball out of his hands. They were able to do that. Um, and the addition of Quentin Nelson to that offensive line. Did I say his name? Right. Quentin Nelson. Yeah, that's, that's how he's, that's how he's pronounced that off. Incredible. Yeah. Good job. Um, but like if they, they, and they get both Charbonnet and price back this week, apparently, no, but Charbonnet is coming off a torn ACL. I don't go nuts for him in fantasy leagues and stuff. And it's like, is he going to get six carries? The point is, you know, if. If they, if they establish anything run wise with the bike committee, I get it. Yeah, that's all. That's all. So I, I, I already, I told you when you told me about the Superbowl future that you bought that I had gotten in on the bears by way of Caleb, um, for MVP bet at 20 to one. And I, I prefer to kind of the Superbowl is super hard. Um, I would just rather bet the Superbowl than the conference. Cause I think at that point you might as well just take the bigger ads. The bundle. Do you feel weird that we put you on this? Yeah. I mean, I think it's a good thing. and you have Sal who's just completely falling apart. And now House who fell apart this week. We just put you with these old guys that, honestly, I don't know who's going to make it to the finish line. House, tell America what happened to you this week. Yeah, I've been nursing a toothache really since we were together in Los Angeles. I kind of hid it for some of the incredible meals that we enjoyed together, but I could only really eat with the right half of my mouth. It turns out that I'm what they call a grinder. That apparently, you know, when I'm sleeping, I'm doing the thing where I'm granted and I have a molar on the lower side and I ground that and it cracked. And it finally maybe you were hungry. Maybe maybe you thought you were eating. I'm sleeping, dreaming of Dave Chang stew, obviously. But the thing cracked and it was a very unpleasant 72 hours. I couldn't sleep for two straight nights. And on top of that, I finally went in. I had scheduled an appointment with the dentist for the end of this week. I couldn't wait. I had to get some emergency care. They gave me the drugs. The drugs messed me up immediately. So I had to bail on the Tuesday pod. I couldn't do it. But I'm going to get this thing popped out on Monday and we'll see how it goes. You know, it's interesting because I was on a text where I sent you and I think Sal or somebody a text like late night, like 11 o'clock my time. And you responded. and i was like why is house up at 2 15 eastern time i don't know what was going on he was grinding i figured he was grinding i thought maybe he was in pain coming out of a massage yeah i didn't know i felt bad complaining um considering cousin sal's penis uh but the mouth pain is is unrivaled it's so bad you like it's like it's you get so into your head like it's uncomfortable the whole time. If it's like throbbing, vibrating, like, God damn it, give me the pain meds right now. Yeah, I'm still going with penis pain. Over under one and a half members of the Ringer Wise guys will be on some type of drug for the show tomorrow between Sal and House. It sounds amazing. Should I take some for fun? God only knows with Raheem. Raheem's on a natural high at all times. That's a great point. Are we doing Halloween costumes tomorrow? Oh, nobody said that to me. I will not. All right. I was thinking about surprising you. Dabundo, what was your favorite pick this week? I actually haven't decided yet for the wise guys. I got to think about it. But I'm between the Bucs and the under in the Chiefs game. So we'll see. Two good ones. All right. The Bucs are still going to win the South. I'm putting that out there now. That's great. I just want to plant the seed. Plus 350, I think. Listen, I have a lot of futures from August. That would be wonderful if they somehow rallied. You can read Dabundo on TheRinger.com. You can listen to him on RingerWise, guys, and he pops around in all the pods. Good to see you, Dabundo. Thanks for having me. See you tomorrow, AD. This episode is brought to you by Sony Pictures Classics. A perfect crime film, says the Daily Beast. John Turturro gives a career-best performance. Don't miss the acclaimed new thriller, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Turturro stars as an aging master pickpocket whose latest score puts him in the crosshairs of a ruthless crime family. It's also starring Giancarlo Esposito, Tatiana Maslany, Will Price, and our guy, Steve Buscemi. See the film that the LA Times calls instantly classic, the only living pickpocket in New York, now playing in theaters nationwide. 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. This episode is brought to you by Core Power Protein Shakes. You know how we always talk about the little things that separate great athletes? Post-workout recovery is a big factor. Core Power Protein Shakes help you keep going after your workout with high-quality protein to build muscle and electrolytes to help hydrate. It's all you need for your recovery in one bottle. Available in 26 and 42 gram protein options to pick what works best for you. Visit corepower.com to learn more. All right, time for a mailbag house. People love the mailbags. Let's go. Are you getting good feedback or are people scolding you? What's happening? Oh, no. Well, both, obviously. I just want to say at the top, I am on drugs. So if I'm slower than usual, everybody already knows that I'm a little slow. Somehow, everyone I'm doing podcasts with lately is on some sort of medication. First one is from Colin in Portland, Oregon. He said, this idea feels like a good topic for a house, which is always a buckle up. With the Brewers' recent World Series win, the Packers have moved into the cup chair for Wisconsin Professional Sports, because they have watched both the Bucks and Brewers celebrate championships since their last Super Bowl victory. So he's saying this is like a championship cup chair. I like this. He said there are other strong cup chair examples. For instance, the 49ers, a vaunted franchise, have watched the Giants and Warriors win seven titles, and they haven't won anything. Wow. He wants to know how you rank the cup situations. Is it a pure championship cup situation? Or like in the case of the Seattle Mariners, who were in the cup chair, after the Sonics won in 79, but then the Seahawks finally won, but the Sonics had left. So are the Sonics fans in the cup chair? Or did the Mariners stay in the cup chair? I don't really know how to answer that, but I did. This did prompt me to go through all the cities and who the cup chair team was. And you know who it is for Washington. It's your Wizards. Yes, of course, because Redskins have three Super Bowls since, uh, since 1978. Well, it's one in 78. Yup. Even the baseball team, the nationals, the hockey team finally won the capitals and the mystics all have chips. Boston. It's the Bruins, New York city. It's the jets. They haven't won since 1969. Everyone's cleaned out since then. LA is the Clippers have never won Niners for, uh, San Francisco, Philadelphia. It's the flyers. They haven't won since 1975. Everybody else. Wow. Denver's the Rockies Houston's. The Texans Chicago is the bears, which is amazing to me because they won when we were in high school. Uh, two crazy ones. Miami is the dolphins. You'd have thought there's no way. How are the, they were so good when we were growing up, but it's the dolphins. And then Dallas is the Cowboys. Yeah. The Cowboys are the cup chair. That's right. Yes, they are right. We right where he belongs. He's comfortable with that. He's okay with it. He's good. But my favorite is Phoenix has the sons and Cardinals double. Yeah. It's like a cup chair. It's like a loveseat sofa. Do you have to wait? Did, did the hockey team, the hockey team, well, the hockey team, it never won, but it's gone. It doesn't exist. It never happened, but it's Diamondbacks one. So Diamondbacks one, the Luis Gonzalez year. So we have a double cup chair situation in Phoenix. That feels like it makes sense as a retirement community. You can imagine weird shit going down there in Arizona, ask Bianco. I bet Bianco, it makes sense to him. There's a double cup chair there. John. In Washington Heights said he's been listening since 08, when he used my stuff to avoid actually working in college. Thank you for that. Great job. I want to thank you in house for the mustard pre-cum talk. I was about to ruin my sad, exhausted father of an infant dinner. When the words mustard come popped in my head, stopping me in my tracks. I would have just starved instead of eating it. So we're doing public service house. Okay. Good. Mustard juice, a lot of mustard juice conversation in the last week. Some people are wondering how mustard juice is even a real. Issue why, like basically like you guys are idiots. When you have a mustard, you, you just shake it. It's that's true. You should know how to do it, but sometimes people don't do that. Yeah. Sometimes you forget or assume, oh, this is a new bottle. I assume the mustard is going to come out anyway. Yeah. I was right about Utah being the mustard juice team, Utah jazz. They're mustard juicing all over the place. A couple more else since, I mean, that's a close competition. Though with him, you think it's Utah, um, versus the heat. I mean, the heater, that's an abomination. What's going on there in Miami. I know, but patient, let it work out. Okay. I watched them. I watched a lot of basketball last night, including, um, those games around. There were some really good early games on Wednesday night and they, they kind of bullied Atlanta. Okay. See the potential. First of all, the number one thing, this is why I was hesitant to ding them too much, right? To my power pole Tuesday. Yeah. Cause they had moves to make before you could really officially panic. And the first one was send clay Thompson out to pasture, which they did. They started playing Larson way more. So you knew that was coming. And then I think the next thing will be bigger lineups, but the they can run the offense through bam. Bam knows what to do. Right. Let, let the honest get downhill. Don't put the ball in his hands until he's ready to come downhill. I just think the honest is really hard to play with. I said this last year and you know, it's, it's this one on five stuff where he has the ball at the. Top and he's kind of the point forward, but not really. Cause he just wants to get to the rim and you can, you need to have certain guys around him. But I think the thing that surprised me is that they're, they just haven't been good defensively. Yeah. That was when we were arguing about them over unders, that was what I thought would be the secret sauce for them would be the defense and the defense is bad. But yeah, yesterday it didn't matter. Uh, Steve from Eggmanville, Ontario wants to propose a Cal Hockley award for the coward of the week. That we could do in the middle bag based on Cal Hockley in the Titanic, cowardly using a child to save himself from the Titanic. I guess that's the Billy Zane character. I don't know who got, I haven't seen them. That's a deep cut. I would not, I don't remember Cal, but he said this week's winner should be Kawhi Leonard conveniently after two games, his knee swelled, and it will be re re-evaluated right after the Raptors play the Clippers in Los Angeles. I was thinking this would, it would be great if FanDuel just gave us a goofy, bet of the month, because that would have been a great goofy bet of the month. Will Kawhi come up with an injury to get out of this Clipper game? I would have like, what would the odds of that have been minus three 50? I'm 98% sure you and I on this podcast had a conversation about whether or not he would play because we, we, the, the joke included, um, what the, you know, welcome back video would look like. I think it was in that conversation. You're right. Yes. We did. It was in the pods for five hours, so we probably forgot it, but yeah, you're right. Yeah. And so no, he's missing the game. Shocker. Shocker. Do you think they, do you think they acknowledge him in any, no, no chance they acknowledge him. I mean, the highlight of the Clipper season would be them doing a Kawhi video. Like just nothing would be funnier. They would own the internet for 24 hours. They might have to start trying stuff like that. I kept my seats by the way. I forgot to tell you. Good job by you. Yeah. I knew you would. I worked it out. It's the NBA. You know what it is? You like to see the NBA. It's three people that fuck this whole thing up, but they have a lot of really nice people that work for the team. And I felt bad. I didn't feel bad for writing the letter and I thought it was funny, but there's a lot of really nice people that work for the team. And it's like, why do they, why do they have to suffer? It's not like they were the ones funneling money through aspiration. One of the very funny bits that the inside the NBA guys have been doing. Yeah. I mean, shout out to Ernie. What amazing by Ernie. Unbelievable. What a, I wasn't surprised, but it's still got a, Oh, it was Scott. One of those for me. It was touching. I felt the emotion. Um, I enjoyed both the way that he did it and the way that they handled it on the show. And the show has been, I mean, an 11 out of 10 all season. It's been really good. But one of Chuck's funniest bits is like, but Balmer, the, uh, unintended winner of the entire thing. He doesn't have to go watch that basketball team. Amazing. Amazing bit by Chuck. Apparently he can run the building. Okay. So he can, it's his money. He can go to, I think he can go and be involved in things. It just can't be the basketball. So it is. All right. Ernie Johnson. What a run, man. I remember TNT when they started showing the games, what was that in the early nineties or whatever. And it was Ernie and they would have either a current player or just retired player would do that. No, they could never. Figure it out. And then the moment Barkley retired, everything fell into place. Yeah. And then Kenny turned out to be in tremendous third wheel for that. Kenny's great. Hold things. It's a weird one. It didn't make me feel old though. It's like, wow, we're going to lose Ernie. Yeah. It's the first, like the, the two big ones were like that inside the NBA crew together and the PTI guys. Those are like the two, we lost Buck and Aikman. They're getting divorced. Like we're losing people left and right. I can live with that. Maybe people appreciate us. Carl F writes, the Vikings are undefeated. They are plus four 30 to miss the playoffs. Look at the schedule. I really think they could miss. They could go nine and eight, go check it out. So I looked at this. They play the lions this week. They are not favored. They play the bills on Monday night football at home. Okay. That could be six and two next two weeks. At Packers. And then they play the 49ers in Mexico. They can be six and four. in four weeks. Sure. Home Falcons, home Panthers at the Patriots on Thursday night football. Home Lions, commanders at Jets, home Bears. And I bolded all the games I thought they would lose and I got to seven. And seven would be a 10 and seven. So that means if they lose Falcons, Panthers, commanders are at Jets, that would be nine and eight. 10 and seven makes the playoffs. 10 and seven, I think, makes it. Yeah, I agree. Nine and eight, I don't think makes it. I get to 10 as well. So we, but it would have to be like a stupid loss, something, but we've seen this too many times. This team, I know, and I've gotten emails from Viking fans wondering why we're not giving them more credit and all that stuff. But I, I just think their offense is terrible. And the J.J. McCarthy thing's embarrassing and they shouldn't have won in week one. And their defense has covered up a lot of warts. And I just, I'm not a believer. I'm just not. So we'll see. We'll see what happens this week. I did not have that in my ringer 107 that we have coming up later. Mitch from Illinois wants to know, contracts aside, all three of these guys are roughly the same age. Who would you rather have on your team for the rest of their careers? Evan Mobley, Shengun, or Yaxel Lindenborg? Oh my God. Contracts aside? I don't think you do contracts aside. So I think we have to include contracts. Well, if you include contracts, then it's, I think it's Yaxel. So if I did a trade value list right now, is Yaxel ahead of those two guys? I think he is. Because of the contract. Shengun's so good. And he's in exactly the right place. This is what Houston was missing last season. Shengun's really good. You know, the complaining all season long that people heard from us. We were like wondering aloud what the F is going on in Houston. Why haven't they done something at the point guard position? Why are they running end of game possessions through Shengun? They have Kevin Durant. He's not, not bad at end of game. Yeah. But this setup where they have the size, they have the point guard and letting him be the best. He really does a great job of bully ball. So it's probably Shengun. Yaxel, we need to see another month. Yeah. But what a, I bet him rookie of the year. I went ahead and did it. I don't care. I mean, I saw, I saw enough. What is it now? It was, it was, it was still three to one when I got it. His second best odds now. Yeah. Three to one. I'm Fando plus two, 10 for Boozer. The Rockets. When I did my power pole Tuesday morning, they were 19 to one and I had them first and I was like, this is a legitimate contender. Like we have to take this team seriously. I think they had the eighth best odds. That's dropped to 16 to one. They waxed somebody else again last night. I'm taking them completely seriously, but I, I cannot believe how good Yaxel is. Like, did you see Curry last night? Curry went from like, he was walking dead. Like, oh my God, what did I, like, I, he's like the, the husband who's staying in the, in the worst marriage possible to all of a sudden, he's like, oh my God, like we can get Jimmy back. We may be able to trade Porzingis. Like you can see like the spirit of this, this Yaxel thing has unleashed them and he's big. I want to be respectful. He's way, I knew he was big coming out of college, but when you see him with the other players, he's a legitimate 6'10". You know what's so funny? Why did Dallas take Moraes over Yaxel? Because, because of the coach and because Moraes, by the way, it was defensible because Moraes is, I think, three and a half years younger. So, and you have Flag who's 19. I don't go with any of that. Maybe they were worried about the personality of Yaxel with Flag. I mean, they basically are the same position. So, it was a better complimentary pick, but yeah, in retrospect, doesn't look awesome. It's interesting. It's interesting. And also, if Yaxel went to Sacramento at seven, would, would he have been Sacramento proof? No, could he have lit the beam? No, no, definitely not. No, I mean, this is at least a reason because we're stuck with all of the Golden State primetime games because it could be Steph's last. See, thank God. Thank God. I thought I would have sent him a present. I want to send him a thanking him for arriving in the league with the mindset, the attitude, the competitive fire. The moment he gave shit to Luca, I was like, Oh, what are we doing? A plus. Yeah, that was great. They play again on Friday. So we have the top four rookies and then we also have Yaxel and I would say out of the top four plus Yaxel, I think Peterson's like the fifth best, but even your guy last night, you just see it. That's like, Oh, welcome to the league. Holy shit. What an exciting night for you with super exciting. Yeah. Washington scored almost 70 points in the first half. It was the most beautiful offensive basketball. The Washington Wizards have, have played in a decade. It was magnificent. I couldn't believe it. Now they went, off of that game plan in the second half and the Cavs changed their defense. You got a little, you got a little taste of Trey Young in the last four minutes of the game. Yeah. Yeah. The grenade passes the three pointers with 20 seconds left in the shot clock teams hunting him. You got, you got the full package. We've got the full package. I would, I said this Tuesday, I'm going to say it again. I would trade Anthony Davis today now because he looks healthy and athletic right now. I would trade him before he gets hurt. Golden State. I don't hate it. Any interest? I seriously don't hate it. I've, I've loved what I've seen out of him thus far. It's clear that he made a commitment to, to himself and to the team in the off season, right? The stuff they run through him is very successful and he's like out there balling because he wants the league to be put on notice and he's, he's done a great job. I think you're right. His value is not going to be any higher than right now. I have absolutely no problem at all with the idea of moving on. Adam from Waterloo, Ontario. He's listened to me and the cuz on Sunday night brainstorming names for the return PAT when the defense returns it. What that should be called. I was saying it should be the DeRozan because somebody sent that. He wants to know why it's not the two point reversion. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Now, I did have a deja vu of like, I feel like I've done bits on this before, but I couldn't remember. David writes in on one of your very first ringer podcasts, October 2015. I wrote in to suggest you call the blown extra point that's returned for two failed attempt returned for two acronym fart. Yeah. Okay. No one has come up with anything better in the last 11 years. I thought I'd run it back. So we just call it a fart. Fine with that. The two point reversion, AKA the fart. That's very good. Yeah. Michael Stein writes in, at the risk of dating myself is Ahmed Thompson's block of Wemby from Friday night. Like when Lex Luger body slammed Yokozuna. Wemby's a freak. I wish him well, but he's now lost that aura of invincibility. I don't know if I agree. The body slam of Andre the Giant was much more consequential to me. That was the true. When Andre, who picked, Hulkster picked him up and body slammed him, right? Yeah. WrestleMania three. That ended the Hulkster. I think Wemby's fine. Wemby's gonna, that team, they'll get Tobias Harris back and they'll probably rip off 21 of 22 wins and Wemby will be the MVP favorite and that's where it's going. Nick from Long Island actually has a question about Cousin Sal. He said he's won back-to-back weeks and gets the line and went 5-0 in his ringer 107 picks last week. It's reminding me of Kurt Angle in TNA Wrestling when he was doing backflips on 15 foot cages on Percocets and we were calling him Perk Angle. My question is, do we call Cousin Sal Cousin Perk or Perkin Sal? Love to hear your thoughts. He's obviously the Oxy Cousin Sal. Perk Angle is phenomenal by the way. It just kills me. That's so good. But yeah, Sal's not taking Percocet so we can't work Percocet into it. He's taking Oxycontin and he's talking about it. Yeah. You know, he's copying to it. It's his only way, means of survival. I did side text with Jimmy about it and Jimmy's not worried about it so I'm not gonna worry about it. What did you say? Oxy, what did you call him? Oxy Cousin Sal. Oxy Cousin. The Oxy Cousin. Yeah. It would be funny if like his pics, if he was just on fire and then he felt like it was like the limitless drug he had to keep taking it. He has to stay on it. He's like 20 and 0 and ringer 107. Then he, then that's it. That's the answer. He would do it. He would do it. There's no question about it. He would sacrifice everything to have good pics. He would write that. It would be in his second book or whatever the, you know, the updated version of his book. I wondered about Cotton Sal not Cousin Sal, Cotton Sal. Cotton Sal? We'll let him pick. I'll bring it. I'll mention it to him on Sunday night. Dr. Don wrote in. This was, I don't know who Dr. Don is, but he's a real doctor. Apparently he's starting to get over his Luca trade dysphoria. He's a Mavs fan. Well, watching Cooper flag ascend Cooper flag. Wow. Did it again last night. It's great. He asks, is any other franchises top three players all time in the NBA? Ben White. And he points out Dirk, Luca and flag. That is true. Those, those probably are going to be their three best players ever. Three white guys. What were the odds of this? I can't even think of one that would have two white guys as their, as their best players of all time. If you do the top three for every franchise, I'm speechless. Even the Celtics just burned. Who's even in the running? Nobody. I mean, this is, I mean, for, for Dallas, like the top 10 Dallas Mavericks of all time, Mark Aguirre, yeah um i mean that that's really it we're at a loss kairi i know i was thinking kairi amazing stuff ahead of luca see dallas the luca trade by the way would you rather have luca for the next 10 years or cooper flag from what i mean it's it's terrific it's terrific who would you rather have easy cooper yeah i think it worked out for the maps maybe it's not as easy as i'm making it but i love luca cooper is one of the best young players i've ever seen in my life and i cannot believe he's 19 like i i just don't understand it this guy's a freak this is this is starting to look like when not to compare him to tiger woods but when tiger just showed up and was just giving it to everybody when he how old was he that year 97 now he came in in 96 but he's 97 he's probably like 20 or 21 he was 21 i think yeah and we were like he's not just gonna kick these guys asses all right and then he just started kicking everybody's asses my the only thing that i want to tap the brakes on is um we need him to be healthy like he right his 19 year old body playing style is not conducive to eight months a year i agree it is not it is not david from bentonville he said he's a colts fan watching in pain as his team stripped for parts but at least i know you that football terrorist chris ballard is gone i no longer have to endure football nerds telling me how brilliant he is as a gm we can officially deem him the justin herbert of gms someone that football nerds and writers constantly tell us is good even though he has no accomplishments whatsoever who else would win the herbert award for their positions oh my god i wrote something down qb justin herbert fine wide receiver jaylen waddle we always hear a great jaylen waddle is has he ever been on a good team i don't know you went to denver nothing's happened since he got there in that miami offense you know who's a better candidate who well it's probably not fair who i mean he did he was on a super bowl winning team you're gonna say aj brown i was gonna say aj brown too soon i think it's jaylen waddle breeze hall for running back yeah you can't put any jets on that list who would you put for running there that's a hard one who like i don't know running backs that that got drafted highly and never i mean the ballsy picker would be derrick henry but i'm not going to do it he does fumble his way into i don't remember changing outcomes game changing outcomes i put laporta for the tight end and i have sauce gardener cornerback and i think trey hendrickson is at defensive end oh that's all i have sorry who's the coach though who's the justin herbert chris boward of coaches is it matt lafleur i i love that that's a great call okay i think it is matt lafleur good this comes from dj in miami every week pat mcafee gets upset about something and then a bunch of media people immediately do posts and podcast segments to suck oxygen from whatever happened this appears to be espn's sole reason to have the mcafee show unless i'm missing something you never talk about mcafee have you seen his espn show do you care hopefully you'll answer this question with house and i'll see you next time and then a couple of blogs will aggregate your response to fulfill the their daily mcafee content fix these people need to eat as an aside i live in miami and getting content out of mcafee has been a miracle for dan levitard who literally stopped watching sports 12 years ago when lebron left maybe he can get a clip out of this too you're helping other people here simmons that's from dj in miami i don't have a comment on pat mcafee but i did want to start a new segment called aggregate me where i say something specifically to get aggregated and here's today's segment on aggregate me the lakers guy doesn't have the money yet what's that mean that 12.5 billion that he has to pay to uh yeah mark walter yeah he's still searching for about five six billion of it doesn't have it yet wait who are you talking about you're i'm talking about josh kushner yeah kushner and eiger yeah and guess here's the other thing guess who's not putting in really any money bob eiger you're talking about josh kushner yeah you're talking about josh kushner yeah you're talking about he's putting in the minimum the minimum is like 63 uh million dollars that's what he's putting in so kushner has to find all this other money but this is a lot of money and the deadline's coming and i think they're using the bus family as scapegoats for why the deal's dragging along but he can't find the money i i can find the money i he needs to find like four or five billion dollar guys that will come in and buy whatever you know who could find the money who will mcdonough call will our guy willie that's it you know who could find the money who will mcdonough call will our guy willie that's it yeah put him on the case well he's looking for the he's looking for a percentage he's looking for the thing it's it's people think this deal is going to be done i don't know if i don't know i'm just um interesting it's interesting the celtics hit a spot where it became a little nerve-wracking with the money and then the mattel family came in with like a billion dollars and that was like the final thing this one they need like five mattel so we'll see what happens canel in ridgewood new jersey which was where the simmons family lived my dad's family for a while great golf course he says i'm a nets fan for almost 30 years about 90 of the nets fans i know or the nets fans i talk to online are from new jersey we'd love to have them back they need to move back and lean into the jersey identity something they never did during the decades they played here iconic new jersey celebs like bon jovi john stewart and ann hathaway they're all celebrity knicks fans they could play a prudential they no longer have to play in a swamp near the highlands they're all celebrity knicks fans they could play a prudential we have netflix and paramount studios we held a world cup final and the population's been growing it's time to get the nets back i fully support this i don't hate it i really like it because it's not like the brooklyn arena is a new arena now it's been around for 15 years they can have the liberty play there they can have concerts whatever but bring the nets back to jersey is i support that pretty good and bring that to jersey without sean marks would be my other my other advice don't bring sean yeah adam are from vancouver parentheses always home to the grizzlies he said our fine host bs i guess that's me has noted that he bucks all research and knowledge of the safety of seatbelts in exchange for enjoying the feeling of being unencumbered in the driver's seat i've been wearing my seatbelt for the last few months just for the record good job yeah i'm used to it i get in the car i put it on that's what you're supposed to do he says we should recognize the reward the eschewing of common wisdom for a joyous feeling with the bill simmons seatbelt award every nfl season this year can go to sean mcveigh for shunning any attention to special teams it's the bill simmons seatbelt award it is true sean mcveigh is like i'm i'm not buckling up let's just go with another weird kicker and let's not know how to return kickoffs or defend them he's he's basically just talking about unprotected sex which i certainly endorse house in most instances the medication's kicking in that house uh oh i had the cousin sal special and somebody suggested baltimore last week would be the reverse cousin sal special you bet on that for the first time to lose the game amazing maxim who's apparently a bulgarian nba sicko he thinks that should be called the stringer bell stringer bell looked unstoppable for the first half of the wire through about two and a half seasons great and by the end of season three spoiler alert getting shot by oh i like that the stringer bell bet it's very good i mean you don't want to take the shine away from cousin sal no the cousin sal special is still pretty important joe otis and cherry hill says i'm lucky enough to have a job where i can listen to podcasts so thank you for nearly ruining that arrangement when you suggested freddy krueger whacked epstein on the nightmare on elm street's rewatchables i had to explain to co-workers why i was laughing uncontrollably long overdue episode of delivered sorry about that cr no sold my epstein freddy krueger joke i'll forgive him like a week from now anyway he says my question which says more about where you are in life an algorithm full of fight videos or an algorithm full of ai generated videos of obese people getting kicked out of all you can eat buffets and absolutely losing their mind and if you're never seen the buffet videos i have a lot of fight videos i'm just getting served nhl fights and fights in austin texas for some reason i'm i'm pretty happy with what i get served especially on instagram there is a ton of uh like nostalgic hardcore punk from my 80s era and i just they just i can't get enough i always stop and listen to it i like the freestyle rap guy harry mack i think he's a he's phenomenal i feel like if you studied that guy you know who harry mack is yeah yeah if you you know in the way that they said that shakespeare had a vocabulary of something that was like two exponents larger than the rest of of humanity there's something going on in that guy's brain i'd love to get to the bottom of so i get harry mack uh-huh shout out to harry mack yeah shout out harry mack he deserves it brian c wants to know if we should start calling the pittsburgh stealers the zombie stealers because we don't have the zombie heat anymore i think they win the browns this week i beat the browns this week i think there's a case for that brian k new jersey wants to know if vspn should actually be leaning more into the Buck-Troy Aikman dispute. Like, instead of pretending it's not happening, lean into it in the broadcast. He suggests Laurel Rutledge with the post-game player interview. Dak, that was a great win. What went through your mind when you first heard about the Buck-Aikman feud? It is pretty funny. Is it a feud? Has it risen to the level of a feud? You get people analyzing the body language of them in the booth and stuff. It's endlessly fascinating. Doesn't seem like Aikman's coming back. Doesn't seem like it. So, Sal and I talked about, I talked about Deshaun Watson and how we needed a dessert-type nickname for him because he's like a terrible meal where the appetizers and the entrees are terrible and then he comes in with like the most amazing dessert and that's kind of how he's played football this year. Right? Yeah. I can't tell you how many people emailed and said, how did you miss the happy ending joke with Deshaun? And I wasn't going to mention it in the pod, but after 430 emails of people making the same joke, I just wanted to acknowledge that those emails were coming in. It's an acknowledgement. Thank you to the internet. Derek from Eugene, Oregon said he's closely been following the El Cheapo saga, just moved to Oregon. And it led to him, if they relocated, he had two questions. First one is, if the U.S. wanted a new four-sport city, a city that has no sports at all, where four teams could be relocated tomorrow with no tear shed by any of the cities that lost the teams, what would the city be? And who would the teams be? And he said he came up with the Anaheim Angels, the Pelicans, the Los Angeles Chargers, and the Columbus Blue Jackets as the four teams. I'm going to push back on one of those in a second, but he asked us to come up with an answer. I think it's, I wouldn't have the Anaheim Angels because they, Orange County is a big, like they should have a good team. They've had a bad owner. They get 36,000 people at every goddamn game. They're like always 10th, 11th, 12th in attendance. They get incredible numbers. I've long wondered how, why is there a team in Anaheim? Because there's a million people who just want to go to games. They love to go to games. I'm replacing them with the Marlins. Okay. Who I think were second to last in attendance and nobody's understood why they've had a baseball team. I'm sorry, Billy. I apologize in advance. Respectfully. Pelicans, I think are the team in the NBA. Great. Chargers are 1000% the team in the NFL. Yeah. And the Blue Jackets, their highlight of the last 10 years was when I made fun of them in a mailbag last year and they got all mad about it. So those would be my four. I'll offer you the following three markets house. Hartford, Austin, or Columbus. We could move all four of those teams to one of those cities you pick. What do you think? So Columbus I kept because then they would just keep, they would get the Blue Jackets back and maybe just rename them. Just start over. Like it's a brand new franchise. I mean, the answer is Austin. Like the only problem with Austin is they can't build those roads. They're the infrastructure. I was down there a year ago between that, that basically Austin to San Antonio. You have to have KG on. You have to have Kirk on. So he can explain like, you know, he's actually living it. I honestly don't think they can handle it. I think the traffic would be horrific. It's one metropolitan area almost now from Austin to San Antonio. Yeah. So you would have to like, you know, have the stadiums and stuff in places where, yeah, because it's crazy now. So it's an amazing city though. I love, I love Austin so much. I love San Antonio. Well, if you tweet the question, maybe you would say every city that, that has no teams, maybe you say they have one team and then you could say Austin, San Antonio as like a place that would have for, I just can't imagine anyone going to hockey games in Texas. I want to make the case for Hartford for a second. Go ahead. I'll listen. I don't understand why people in Texas wouldn't go to hockey. Just for Jacko. Hockey's fun. Yeah. Hartford for Jacko. Let's do it. Dead center, just far enough away from Boston and New York, right? So not it's competitive, but not really. And then you have the whole middle, Connecticut area, but then you also have the outskirts of Western mass. You have the, the Western Connecticut where like Stanford Greenwich, all those places are. And you also have a proof of concept with Yukon basketball. That's pretty good. You have ESPN there. You have a lot of nice places all the way around. There's some businesses. I think it would, I don't think it's as good as a lot for teams is a lot. Well, the real answer is no. I don't think it's as good as a lot. So I don't know. And then James from Australia wanted to know if Tampa has a chance to be the defining team of the 2020s, the defining sports city of the 2020s. Here's how he said, if you look at championships by decades, 1960s, Boston, 70s, Pittsburgh, 80s, Los Angeles, 90s, Chicago, 2000s, Boston, 2010s, Boston, and 2020s, LA and Tampa are in the lead right now. Tampa has three titles. They almost just won a fourth. They won two Stanley Cups and a Super Bowl. We're halfway through the decade, House. I was like, how many Stanley Cups? They won two. They went back to back with the. Yeah, they did. Freaking. What's their team's name? The Lightning? There's no way for me to expound upon this without being disrespectful to hockey. So I'm just going to. I'll just be quiet. Last questions for Brad H. from Pittsburgh. How is Dickhouse not the sponsor of Eat a Big Dick segment? he thinks your dad should record a little outro for this segment where he says I'm Dick House I'd like to cordially invite you to eat me he'd probably do that oh he would definitely do that he wouldn't it would require very little did you have did you have anybody queued up for this week for this week's no invitation okay no because my molar I'd like my molar to eat a fat dick and that's why it's about to come out of my mouth and I'm going to send it away to where it deserves to go that's fair This episode is brought to you by The Home Depot. The Home Depot has everything you need to launch your holiday season in style. Upgrade your yard with this year's hottest holiday decor, including the show-stopping towering Santa. Oh, I like that one. And his impressive reindeer, both 8.5 feet and both designed with incredible detail that stands out day or night. When you want decor that delivers impact, The Home Depot has it. Make your home Santa's favorite stop with the holiday decor you want, all waiting for you at The Home Depot. This episode is brought to you by Boar's Head. You know what I love about football season? It's the football, but also the football-watching food. And nothing hits like a Boar's Head sandwich when I'm watching a game, really. Any game day sandwich better with Boar's Head. Philly cheesesteak, layer up buttery slider rolls with Boar's Head London broiled roast beef, American white cheese, and picante provolone. Delicious. Then add roasted onions, peppers, and Boar's Head pub-style horseradish sauce. I love horseradish. And you've got the ultimate game day cheesesteak. They've also got a whole lineup of premium meats, cheeses, hummus, and dips, condiments, and more to serve up on game day. Head to your local Boar's Head deli counter to shop now. For game day sandwich inspiration and more, visit boar'shead.com. Boar's Head, committed to craft since 1905. Okay. Ringer 107. It's brought to you by Fando, our friends. Make this your most rewarding season ever. Download the Fando app to check out all of our 107 picks and boosted teasers every week this season. I go first this week. Good. By the way, I read that email last week about how I was the Billsburg Steelers. I was 3-2 or 2-3 every week. Yeah. And I was due to go 2-3, and I went 2-3. Oh, son of a bitch. So now I'm going to go 3-2. Apparently, this is just what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. Yeah. I went 4-1, my best week of the season. And Sal went 5-0. Yeah, great job by Sal. It's the Contins. Um, I'm taking the Ravens first Ravens plus three. I'm rolling the dice. Lamar's practice twice in a row. It was three and a half for a long time. I don't, I think this number might even go down. Yep. If he's confirmed, it'll be two and a half. He's full practice two weeks in a row. So I'm grabbing the number, but I like it. Buffalo's defense stinks. These games are always awesome. Yes. I think Baltimore it's, it's not a kitchen sink game cause they're four and three, but they are in fourth place in the AFC North with two teams above them playing each other. And, you know, they've had a weird season with Lamar with some, some injuries on both sides of the ball, some Henry fumbles. They've blown a couple of games. They shouldn't have lost. And most importantly, these games are just, Oh, this game's going to be awesome. I'm positive. This game is going to be awesome. And it'd be back and forth and somebody's going to win by three points. And I have less. Yeah. So I mean, they're going to push or it's a one point or two point. I win. I think the Ravens are actually going to win. I don't believe in the bills at all, but it's in Baltimore. So who knows, but I just, I like the spot for them and I'm going to take Ravens plus three. No argument. Um, I like the number. I definitely think that Lamar is playing. So the number will be under three by the time Sunday rolls around, they'll confirm it on Saturday. Uh, no notes they're always close games between these two what do you have for your first i had a hard time with this week to say right off the top um i'm gonna go ahead and lay it with tampa i think that um you know anytime you get a defense that's you know top five in both rush and pass success yeah you have an identity um the only thing that undermines that identity is the head coach and it's it's a perpetual uh you know state of fear at end of game situations especially but i like the idea of atlanta like they've have a couple statement games now the falcons but they always follow it up with some kind of you know just inexplicable disastrous showing like no showing they're a no-show team i like the idea of this tampa defense getting pressure on penix numbers against um pressure aren't great but it's really the run game of tampa that impressed me so much last week and i don't think it's a fluke um it looks like tampa is going to be healthy on um all those skill positions offensively and i think they can establish the run and i'm just going to go ahead and trust their um defense they are still this is a must-have this is really their entire season they are in the mix for their division still keep saying that with them they are in the mix for their division because they they they won their only division game thus far if they go ahead and beat um the falcons this week they will be two and oh in their division even though they'll be three and five on their season um i'm going to go ahead and lay the points with tampa i'm sad to report i have them as well and i think it's too obvious and a lot of people have them but the the the issue for me is this is it's minus two and a half right now and i think i think it's two and a half but the stats with the bucks defense like they're they're top five in dboa yes they've held the bundle had this in his column today they held carolina pittsburgh dallas and green bay to under 20 points in regulation you're not going to be able to run the ball on them that's been the one thing they've shut down like bucca comes back and i'm with you i you know i had carolina last week and tampa ran all over them and i thought they found something just in general like it was like they remembered that bucky earp was their best player on offense they didn't ask baker to do a lot and um they're gonna be home it's the falcons outside and uh and i think the bucks need the game more and it's just this is the nfc south in a nutshell now shame on us for betting on the nfc south but i think this line goes up and i want to grab it yeah well uh well it's at minus two and a half and i think the only reason it's not three or three and a half is because baker mayfield might have a fucked up thumb he threw 11 times last week didn't need to throw yeah didn't matter a whole nother week for that hand to get healthy but i'm fully prepared i i'm already this is an ankle grabber am i ready to get screwed on this one as am i i'm right there uh what do you have for your third one it's my second or your second uh because you've given two this is the most obvious play of the week and this is the squarest play of the week and i'm definitely here for it i'm gonna go ahead and lay the nine and a half with the jaguars you know to to the to the well last week with the moron texans and finally we can just cross them off i don't have to to fiddle with those morons any longer um the lack of preparedness the lack of execution i don't want to do the entire litany of disaster areas that the tech houston texans this season occupy let's talk about i have actual hatred for the houston texans yep none of the human beings on the team but just them as a whole they've hurt my feelings they've cost me money they made me feel stupid they made me feel embarrassed for myself um that i trusted them again like i like sports shouldn't make you feel this way they just make me angry is there one person in america that can advance a defense of demico ryan's can is there one anyone no i i'm here to listen who who what's the case for him keeping his job i don't understand with all the players they have why they're not a scarier defense you watch a defense like the bears and it's like the bears have at least figured out how to be like a little intimidating how is this houston team you just roll over them whenever you want pushed around you can run right down their throat the giants out physical then they kicked their ass it was awful they blew them off the line of scrimmage it's hard to take houston seriously after that they've wanted front four but you know i only go on that side tangent for the purpose of observing that that was a pretty obvious point last week and he took it right in the teeth um because it was like look at jj mccarthy against this defense well jj mccarthy was up to it um i can't make a case for the colts as soon as the the jags get up by um the two scores i expect them to the game's over uh dimes can't move it was the handicap coming into the season for taking colts unders um just being skeptical i i was confused confounded in the entire run-up to the season the colts kept saying jones is going to be ready he's going to be our quarterback jones is ready he's our quarterback well he arrived and he's playing quarterback but he's a third less effective because he can't run right so if he can't run then the the playbook has to change now they do have the injuries in terms in the receiver room um it wasn't it doesn't qualify as a year from hell but nothing went right for them and it was a poorly constructed team to begin with unfortunately and i'll go ahead and take them on the sell-off week i'll go ahead and fade them in the week you know like oh let's go play for um nelson yeah let's go play for buckner no let's let's let's let the jag if the jags are legit and serious and we think that they are then they should win this game by 10 points and and i don't have a problem with them covering margin that's fair they're home that also helps the colts haven't won down there in 13 you figure the jags will have three games this year where they win by like 27 points and i think they've already had two of them all right i'm doing a tease for this next one okay and the first side is easy it's patriots minus seven in miami now there's a tortured history of the pats in miami they're under 500 even in the last 25 years i think um for for for uh i think dating back to whenever they built that stadium a lot of tough memories though gronk failing to tackle the guy on the on the trick play brady blowing the 10 point when everybody and their brother had the three team tees with the pats on monday night we've had a lot of bad ones there growing up i don't feel like we ever won there when i was a kid so i'm going to mention all that it's going to be humid it checks some boxes which i think is why this line has is at minus seven miami won last week miami's terrible miami probably won the one game they're going to win this season and this pats team is a perfect matchup for them they're just going to throw the ball all over them this is drake may lights up shitty teams this is one of the one of the great things about having drake may and i just am expecting us to beat miami by one point so i'm going to lower it to minus one i feel like we're going to be prepared for malik willis it's because you've lived your whole life with this these miami games being i get it i don't like that in the miami game i don't i don't why wouldn't you just lay the seven fair question um because that because they're in miami and i just think they okay they need they'll win by three and it'll be a stupid nightmare of a game okay because i i came i'm not going to say anything i am i had two choices for who i was going to tease them with and i think it's going to be the broncos plus one and a half against the chiefs i'm going to take the broncos to seven and a half which okay reduces my bow nicks risk factor i did really think about broncos plus seven and a half with the under of 46 and a half following cases for the broncos here revenge game because they were humiliated in week one their defense their fifth dvoa now even though um counting week one when they got shellacked by the chiefs they're still a top five defense jonah coleman's back who i think's their running back but now now they're backfields in place where they have him they have harvey as a third down guy a little dobbins i think they'll be able to run the ball in the chiefs chiefs receivers stink bad offensive line on the road always a good one that's the chiefs the homes honestly has looked like a c plus for most of the year nobody wants to say it but it's fact casey after week one they beat indie by three they beat miami in that late game where it felt like miami was not only going to uncover but maybe even set it over time and then they made a stupid play they beat vegas by three and then they whooped the chargers in week six yeah i just think the broncos um when you throw in the revenge piece and then they can cheat the bow next thing and just try to take a lead and then not fuck it up and i think that the receivers and the chiefs are just awful like really horrible like i don't know they have injuries and stuff but at some point you need guys who can get open and i don't think they have guys that can get open, so bringing them up to seven and a half. And I think that'll either be Bronco. is winning or it would be a close loss they're supposed to get Sertan back right yep isn't that and and Hufanga is still 50 50 Sertan's definitely back yeah yeah okay good all right yeah I like it I mean there's a good case the spot is is supposed you're supposed to play Denver and a bunch of your observations I mean I faded the Chiefs and and you know probably paid a price for it at the outset of the season because I was skeptical about how effective Mahomes was going to be well he hasn't been that effective um and if you look at all of the advanced metrics what they've been able to do is run the ball and so the Kenneth Walker and then Seattle's like you you won't be running the ball today yeah what's your plan B who can replicate that well Denver would be a team that I think is capable of of you know matching that same kind of blueprint so I understand the idea I don't know if this is going to help the running game as a backup for Walker but the the Chiefs signed OJ Simpson today I'm gonna not comment on that he's gonna back up Kenneth Walker not gonna comment on that what do you have for your next pick I'm gonna take oh gosh I'm gonna go ahead and lay the seven with the Pats oh look at you I just like Drake May when he plays shit teams his track record's tremendous yeah over his career 12 and 4 against the spread anytime the line is three or more um and it's the case that you made about you know they're gonna throw the ball all over the ball field and when you you give Rabel the challenge you you have to stop the mobile quarterback okay I think Rabel as opposed to Aaron Glenn I think Rabel will have a game plan for that yeah the reason that I'm I'm especially kind of uh bullish on this is like the the fins were holding on for dear life at the end of that game i mean notwithstanding all of the buffoonery out of the the jets masterminds the jets were right there um if they'd used their timeouts properly around the two minute um time frame they might have even gotten the ball back um they gave up a fourth and one but i think coming off of the high of their first victory they got to pour water on the coach and celebrate everything it's back to reality uh seven or less for me is fine i'm gonna go ahead and lay it with the pets i left out something in my tease analysis of the game that vrabel used to coach malik willis good point interesting how's the perspective yeah i think he liked him as a guy but so for my last pick i had a couple that i liked including the jets minus one and a half at home against the raiders and i've decided i just don't want to take the jets i cannot do the aaron glenn thing i just can't can't i looked hard at browns plus three and a half in pittsburgh but they've already beaten pittsburgh granted it was on thursday night the stats going around about how the last two seasons teams are oh and eight coming back from europe the next week yeah yeah yeah that's that's been too omnipresent and i just couldn't get around dessert to sean and in pittsburgh um i just couldn't get there yeah good good job by you bears bears seahawks what the browns have it won in in pittsburgh in 22 seasons yeah it's just too much good there is that bear seahawks other than the playoffs i'm talking about regular season bear seahawks monday night bears plus three yeah i'm gonna wait on this this might be my sunday pick i want to see if this nudges up to three and a half i don't think it's gonna go down yeah i think the bears can absolutely win this game i'm not scared of the three to me these are playoff rules i think this is an nfc title matchup potentially and uh i keep looking at this game thinking bears with that crazy flores ripoff defense against arnold who only has one receiver to throw to they're not gonna They haven't proven yet that they can run the ball and control it. I thought even that KC game, KC, their defense just won the game. They got a lead and the game was over. The Bears are going to be able to come back on that. I was looking at them as a tease plus three, but I think I'm going to wait on it. So I promised I would do this two weeks ago. If the pick one, I did the Stymonds pick my friend that bet with Jeff. We did it two weeks ago. It was like, oh, the classic Stymonds pick would be this. And if this wins, I'll start doing it. Then I forgot to do it last week. And if I had done it last week, I would have taken the Dolphins plus four and a half against the Jets, which one? So good. So I got to do it. The worst pick on the board. I can't imagine how anyone would feel good about taking them. And yet I love the zag chargers plus six and a half in LA against the Rams chargers. If you're making the case, throw out week one against Arizona, whatever caught them by surprise. We do Vegas. Not great. Can't really defend it. Week three, Buffalo blew the game. Could have won. Should have won. Could have not should have could have week four lost in Seattle and got killed, but then came back near the end. Denver blew it in the fourth quarter and then Casey week six got killed. They've had a bye week, two weeks off. Why isn't this line higher? God, that's a great point. Why isn't this line eight and a half? Why is this line six and a half? Yep. It's a great point. Chargers coming off the buy. Yep. They, they're still alive technically for the season. Um, but they're also in job preservation, job safe mode. They have not engaged in the trade market. According to Tom Palacero. Okay. They're in LA. There's no crowd. There's been no crowd for either team. It's just gonna be like a neutral site and the Rams like, all right, the Rams caught people by surprise last week. Cause they just had their night. They had 19 white tight ends and they ran the ball and did the whole thing. But the Chargers defense has been pretty good. Chargers defense. Decent. Yep. And then from a ramp, there's a lot of injuries on the Ram side. Like McDuffie might not play. It's it's Devante's out. It's like a shell of a Rams team. And this, to me, this feels like I'm sure somebody will take this tomorrow on the Friday. Wise guys pod, uh, as a money line, this is an obvious money line pick too. I think cousin Sal's taking the chargers every week that they've played. I'm in six plus six and a half. I'm gonna wait till Sunday to see if it went to seven, but I think it's gonna go the other way. I think it's gonna go down. Wow. So, uh, chargers six and a half. That is my Steinman's pick for this week. What was the email from the reader or the listener about McVay ignoring special teams? What's what's that called? Doesn't that have a name? Oh, the, the, uh, seatbelt seatbelt award. Me not wearing a seatbelt. Yeah. The bill not putting a seatbelt on a word. McVay. Ignoring this. Yeah. That's the thing. Chargers might get a special teams thing. Who knows? Who knows? Anything's possible. Who knows? I don't hate it. What's your last pick? You're buying into it. It's a teaser cuz I gave out. Yeah. Tampa minus two and a half Jacksonville minus nine and a half. The Pat's minus seven playing all favorites. I mean, that's exactly how you're supposed to do this. Yeah. Not at all. Um, for my teaser, I am gonna go ahead and grab the Raiders plus seven and a half. Mm. Um, against the jets. Couldn't figure out which side I wanted. Right. I don't want the Raiders traveling cross country, um, to take on the jets. I just know that at the end of the day, I'd like to be on the side of Clint Kubiak and Kirk Cousins when I need a co a cover at the end of the game for straight losses. Yeah. Kirk Cousins, maybe playing for his job a tiny bit, spent some or, or, or continued auditions, right? Like there are still some teams that could use a quarterback. Right. Uh, Minnesota is one of them. I mean the continued audition of, of Kirk Cousins, he hasn't looked terrible. He is what he is. He's limited. Um, but like I say, when I know that I need a cover, I need a backdoor, um, just winning by margin. I'm perfectly fine with living with that risk. Uh, even though they are getting healthy, Brees halls back, um, 80 Mitchell is back. Um, and they, they, the, the jets are occasionally functional, you know, Gino Smith revenge game doesn't scare you at all. I I'll, I'll live with that risk. Okay. I'm going to live with that. So who are you putting them with? Raiders are plus seven half. Now I had the Broncos sitting here, but I'm not going to, um, do it copy you know, I'm going to go ahead and grab the Vikings. Now I, I know that the Vikings, you know, there, there's been appropriate skepticism around them as their last remaining undefeated team. Um, but this is more a factor of my skepticism surrounding Detroit. Yeah. Like what exactly has Detroit done? They have a couple of, of wins. They, they're, they're, they have four wins. Uh, they won by one, seven and three. And then they had to blow out in, in Arizona. Congratulations. And also they put a sound I talked about at Sunday, they'd put a shitload on Jameer Gibbs already. Yeah. He's headed for 500 touches. It's going to get the shit kicked out of him by the Vikings this weekend. They're going to be blitzing and knocking them over and trying to take them out all the time. Sun. God tweak ankle. Like, you know, these, these, um, Detroit games that they didn't, you know, if they're all of their home games up until this Packers game. Yeah. The Packers game was, uh, you know, 31 points at home, but the Packers vaunted defense took them out. I don't, I mean, it's a back to back divisional games. Now Detroit having the benefit of being home, that's helpful, but I'll go ahead and just take that up to nine and a half. Give me. make a case for minnesota's offense i won't even bother trying it's just the idea of um flores and and you know minnesota swept detroit last year in fact minnesota was the reason they knocked detroit out of the playoffs so maybe detroit will be revenge-minded and golf has been outstanding against the blitz so far this season i think he's number one in epa against the blitz that's good i'm glad to have that walking into flores doesn't blitz like other teams blitz his you know the the blitz rate is one thing where it's 40 points higher than like flores over here yeah yeah but the style the way that they they bring their blitz um the disguises that they use i like it uh the idea of minnesota inside of of two scores um well you took kyler murray in a tease with the qb whisperer kevin o'connell what is he whispering he's whispering a different language he's like that's something the whisperer i don't know he's the qb whisperer except for three quarterbacks who sucked in minnesota i think that minnesota loses this football game but not by 10. so i'm going to go ahead and put um the vikings plus nine and a half into my teeth as always i wish you the best of luck with kyler murray all right so our picks i took ravens plus three in buffalo bucks minus two and a half which house had as well chargers plus six and a half the stymonds pick and then a pats kansas city tees pats down and basically minus one and i'm sorry not kansas city uh denver denver up to plus seven and a half and then house not only does he have the bucks he has jags minus nine and a half to blow out chris bowers indianapolis colts pats minus seven in miami a lot of favorites house and then a raiders vikings tees raiders plus seven half vikings plus nine and a half that is today's ringer 107 brought to you by fandle download the app now to find our 107 picks make this your most rewarding season ever fandle player game odds subject to change so when it when are you getting your thing removed monday monday afternoon my only hope is no this isn't a getting old thing i don't think i mean i've had you know the teeth thing shows up once every three or four years right yeah at all stages of life um well if you're grinding them pretending they're they're a piece of parmesan or a giant veal chop um i i need the internet to help me root for me because i'm going to have this procedure monday four o'clock and then i want to go to wizards hawks on wednesday i feel like that's enough time yeah that's that will be my introduction to aj de bonza yeah i'm going to be in good seats for it i'm going with our buddy um johnny o johnny o ran oh nice yeah it's going to be a great time but i need to be healthy by then so i need i need positive vibes do you have a take on jalen brown versus jason tatum before we go i do not it the whole thing exhausts me i think i i appreciate jalen brown's flair for the dramatic he really is he's the one driving this he does yeah he's got some some petty in him i mean he's got some very strong petty vibes i i kind of enjoy it but i i don't i mean who cares he's gonna keep it going until the november 10th celtics sixers game he's smart yeah he's an entertainer yeah i want to tell you i still like um i went ahead and did a nba future i don't i can't i don't i can't i'll have to look at the ticket to look at the price i did rocket sixers as a as an nba finals matchup pocket sixers i've seen enough of the sixers now it's a bet on who's gonna you know how healthy will they be yeah but they can definitely beat every team in the east there's no i've seen enough show me no more i've seen enough already if maxi's healthy and those guys arrive you know and bead and lebron show up more healthy than not i think they can beat every team in the east this makes me really happy it's not even november yet you've talked yourself into imbeed and 42 year old lebron i love it no i talked myself into maxi who should be all nba first team this year he scored you know 10 points in the last 90 seconds of a game that they were messing around in last night i've done no futures and somehow avoided disaster when uh i ended up not not putting a bunch of stuff when i was in boston on okc 65 plus wins with the words not to make the playoffs thank god and since i held back on on really pulling the trigger on that okc's team completely fell apart really sadly fell apart i mean it's a bummer and then uh and then yaxal rejuvenated the warriors it was just it was like a 180 from where i felt on saturday i'm still not i i think okc will be okay i think they need to shake the hangover of okc will be okay i think they need to shake the hangover of oh my god i can't believe all that happened a catastrophe they'll figure it out they have too much time oh one last thing the revelation this week was that portland laker game oh my god did you stay up for that i saw enough of it yeah i i couldn't stay up till the end although that was that one of the nights i couldn't sleep i wasn't watching we did the when we did the over-unders we talked about how portland was the best team in the world we don't know what the is gonna happen with this team and that you could have told me anything what i didn't expect was how good dame was gonna look and i think he looks legitimately good and then with ja who they at least have his head on straight for now he's not the same guy from five years ago they just have all these ways to attack the basket and the coach has figured out like he just wants everybody going downhill and toward the hoop and nobody's better i mean yeah so i think that's us there are players that are better but you get what i'm saying that's a six or a seven seed though yeah yeah i'll totally agree especially in minnesota you know if edwards is out for two months not a lot of chirping at me the last couple days about me being wrong about the lamello trade just fyi i don't know if you've seen his box scores really haven't had a lot of noise this week um or you you probably haven't heard a lot either but i'm on record but portland could climb into the top six if one of those teams fall back or it's like i'm a believer i think whatever they have it's it's something so we've been super harsh on el cheapo and el cheapo agreed to you know acquire ja yeah and all of a sudden this team i mean they are multi-faceted they can definitely play defense klingon's been very good to me like a luxury like although scoot i know scoot was horrible the other night but if maybe could have played those minutes and given them something close but i'd rather have ja because the difference with ja was he's bringing so much swagger that the team the team had like a little oomph to them yeah i don't know i like that i know it's one game there it's the lakers whatever but um but i it was it was the most eye-opening everything else i'm not surprised by that we've seen this season but that was the one thing where i was like huh kind of a all these guys that can just get in the paint go downhill that's right house good luck on monday good luck with your bed thank you uh we'll see you on ringer wise guy tomorrow thanks for coming on yeah all right that's it for the podcast thanks to tom and house and debundo and gahal and eduardo and jack and chris from spotify as well don't forget i am going to be live with cousin sal on sunday night after the uh nbc game i can't even remember what the game is but we're going to be live right afterwards and we'll be doing guest alliance for week nine enjoy the weekend go emerson please be babson for the love of god on saturday and uh i will be back on sunday night enjoy the weekend and enjoy halloween it's a great day i don't have on the wayside 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-drawable profit boost tokens restrictions apply including any token expiration max wager amount see 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