Believe in Darnold, Burrow’s Playoff Shadow, Week 18 Madness and Guess the Lines With Cousin Sal

Summary

The Bill Simmons Podcast – Episode Summary
Episode Title: Believe in Darnold, Burrow’s Playoff Shadow, Week 18 Madness and Guess the Lines With Cousin Sal
Release Date: December 30, 2024
Host: Bill Simmons
Guests: Cousin Sal

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Week 17 Recap and Week 18 Preview

[02:51] Bill Simmons:
Bill kicks off the episode by recapping the dramatic Week 17 game between Washington and Atlanta. He highlights Cousin Sal’s close wager on the under with Atlanta having a handicap of 24 and a half points. The discussion centers around Raheem Morris’s controversial decision to use two timeouts late in the game, which ultimately led to Atlanta’s downfall and Washington making the playoffs.

[03:18] Cousin Sal:
Sal expresses his frustration with Morris’s timeout strategy, emphasizing the importance of managing timeouts effectively, especially in close games. He supports Washington's win while simultaneously hoping Atlanta can hinder Washington’s playoff aspirations.

Notable Quote:
"When Raheem Morris is on the field, it feels like he's going to make some inexplicable decision that could cost the team the game." – Cousin Sal at [05:45]

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Playoff Scenarios and Seeds

[06:23] Cousin Sal:
Sal delves into the broader playoff picture, discussing how Week 17 results have influenced seeding. He points out that Week 17 saw an impressive 14-1 record for favorites, defying expectations as underdogs struggled to perform.

[07:39] Bill Simmons:
Bill analyzes Atlanta’s strategies, criticizing their hefty investment in Kirk Cousins, which he believes has hampered their defensive capabilities. He speculates on alternative strategies that could have bolstered Atlanta’s defense without overextending their salary cap.

Notable Quote:
"Investing heavily in a quarterback like Cousins without balancing the roster can lead to critical weaknesses down the line." – Bill Simmons at [07:39]

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Key Player Analyses

Sam Darnold and the Vikings

[09:13] Cousin Sal:
Sal shifts focus to Sam Darnold and the Minnesota Vikings, discussing Darnold’s emotional return to the locker room and his potential impact on the team’s playoff chances.

[21:47] Bill Simmons:
Bill defends the Vikings, arguing that their consistent performance in close games is a testament to their strength rather than mere luck. He credits coach Kevin O’Connell for revitalizing the team’s strategy.

Notable Quote:
"The Vikings aren’t just lucky; they’re a legitimately strong contender who manage to stay composed in one-score games." – Bill Simmons at [21:47]

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Guess the Lines with Cousin Sal

In a segment dedicated to betting enthusiasts, Bill and Cousin Sal engage in “Guess the Lines,” predicting point spreads for Week 18 NFL games. They analyze various matchups, considering team performances, injuries, and playoff implications.

Highlighted Predictions:

• Detroit Lions vs. Minnesota Vikings:
  Bill: Lions -1.5
  Sal: Lions -2.5
  Outcome: Adjustments were made as the game approached, reflecting the dynamic nature of betting lines.

• Tampa Bay vs. Atlanta Falcons:
  Bill: Falcons -7.5
  Sal: Falcons -8.0
  Both predict a decisive win for the Falcons, considering their offensive strengths and Tampa’s current form.

• Green Bay Packers vs. Minnesota Vikings:
  Bill: Packers -11.5
  Sal: Packers -10.0
  Anticipating a strong performance from the Packers to secure their playoff position.

Notable Quote:
"Week 18 shouldn’t count as much as it does in fantasy or betting, but it’s crucial for playoff placements and tiebreakers." – Cousin Sal at [58:45]

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Fantasy Football Insights

[38:37] Bill Simmons:
Bill discusses the fantasy football landscape, emphasizing the significance of quarterbacks like Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, and Josh Allen in championship runs. He highlights the difficulty of winning leagues without top-tier QBs, reflecting on his own experience with Burrow’s impact on his fantasy team.

Notable Quote:
"Winning a fantasy league this year felt impossible without having one of the elite quarterbacks like Burrow, Jackson, or Allen." – Bill Simmons at [38:37]

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Parent Corner

In the heartfelt “Parent Corner,” both hosts share proud moments about their children:

• Cousin Sal:
  Sal highlights his son Archie’s initiative in organizing a family portrait, showcasing maturity and thoughtfulness. He also shares a humorous anecdote about his middle child Jack’s audio clip of a friend’s exaggerated screaming.

• Bill Simmons:
  Bill recounts taking his daughter Zoe to a Clippers game, discussing the vibrant atmosphere and a memorable encounter with a fellow fan who mistook his daughter for his wife, leading to an amusing yet awkward situation.

Notable Quote:
"Watching your kids grow and seeing them handle their own little triumphs and challenges is truly rewarding, even when it comes with unexpected moments." – Bill Simmons at [81:03]

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Final Thoughts and Playoff Predictions

As the podcast wraps up, Bill and Sal reflect on the complexities of Week 18 and the impending playoffs. They express excitement for the upcoming college football picks and acknowledge the emotional rollercoaster that both fans and bettors experience during this pivotal week.

[89:05] Cousin Sal:
Sal mentions the anticipation surrounding the Minnesota-Detroit game and the subsequent playoff matchups, highlighting the strategic importance of each Week 18 outcome.

[90:27] Bill Simmons:
Bill wraps up by commending Cousin Sal’s timely wagers and reflecting on the unpredictability of the NFL season’s final stretch.

Notable Quote:
"Week 18 is where it all comes down to, and navigating it requires both strategy and a bit of luck. It’s been a wild ride, but we’re gearing up for the next challenge." – Bill Simmons at [90:21]

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Conclusion

In this episode, Bill Simmons and Cousin Sal provide an in-depth analysis of the NFL’s Week 17 and upcoming Week 18, dissecting game strategies, player performances, and playoff implications. Their “Guess the Lines” segment offers insightful predictions for bettors, while the “Parent Corner” adds a personal and relatable touch. Overall, the episode is a comprehensive guide for sports enthusiasts navigating the final stretch of the NFL season.

Key Takeaways:

• Strategic Timeout Management: Crucial in close games, as seen in the Washington vs. Atlanta matchup.
• Playoff Seeding Dynamics: Week 17 results significantly impact Week 18 scenarios, emphasizing the importance of each game's outcome.
• Player Impact in Fantasy Football: Elite quarterbacks remain pivotal for fantasy league success.
• Betting Insights: Dynamic and fluid betting lines reflect the high stakes and unpredictability of NFL Week 18.
• Personal Touch: Sharing family moments enhances the podcast’s relatability and depth.

Notable Mentioned Players:

• Sam Darnold (Vikings)
• Joe Burrow (Bengals)
• Lamar Jackson (Ravens)
• Josh Allen (Bills)
• Kirk Cousins (Atlanta)

Playoff Teams Highlighted:

• Washington Football Team
• Minnesota Vikings
• Green Bay Packers
• Atlanta Falcons
• Cincinnati Bengals
• Pittsburgh Steelers
• Buffalo Bills
• Baltimore Ravens

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For listeners seeking a blend of strategic sports analysis, betting insights, and personal anecdotes, this episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast delivers a comprehensive and engaging experience.

Transcript

[Bill Simmons]

It's the Bill Simmons Podcast. We're going live on a Sunday night with Cousin Sal. Week 17 was a little crazy. Not too crazy. Week 18 is going to be crazy. And it's all coming up next. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Wherever you like to watch the game at the arena, the bar, home, wherever. Enjoy every moment of the NBA season with an ice cold Michelob Ultra. And you know, we've done some stuff with them, so they'll send me the Michelob Ultra. I'll put it in the fridge. It's really interesting what happens. People come over, they want a beer, they go, oh, Michelob Ultra. Or oh, I've never tried one of these. I've heard you talked about it. 100% approval rating every single time. Keep it nice and cold. It's delicious. There's only one way to watch your favorite teams drop buckets and that's with a bucket of Michelob Ultra. Stock up on Michelob Ultra for the NBA season. Michelobotra. A superior light beer. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2024 Anheuser Busch Michelob Ultra Registered Light Beer, St. Louis, Missouri. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. It's football season and Uber Eats is dropping undefeated deals on all your game day favorites this week. Score. Buy one, get one free six piece boneless wings from Buffalo Wild Wings. Now on Uber Eats. And if you're craving even more, we've got you covered with game dame deals on pizza, burgers, tacos and more all season long. Uber Eats official on demand food delivery partner of the NFL. Order now for game day terms, taxes and fees apply. See app for details. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast network where I put up a brand new episode of the Rewatchables every Monday night including tomorrow night we are doing Friday Night Lights, the movie. I tweeted about this from the Rewatchables account because it's on Netflix actually for the next couple days. But 20 year anniversary of this movie in 2024 and it's in the running for one of the best football movies ever. Some people think it might be first. We're going to talk about that and a lot more on the podcast that's going up Monday night. You can watch that on The Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. You can watch all the clips and videos from this podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. Coming up, Cousin Sal and I live Sunday night. We're doing it. Let's bring in Pro Jam. We just watched Washington, Atlanta and You lost your wise wager, which was you were 13 and two for the season. You had Washington 24 and a half under.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Which seemed like when Atlanta was about to score in the last minute, you were going to win it. And then Raheem Morris is like, how many timeouts can I take into overtime? Turned out he had the wrong answer and Atlanta blows it. Roller coaster, round of the game, Washington makes the playoffs. Atlanta is now in a lot of trouble. This is one of my favorite podcasts to do the heading into week 18. We have our playoff scenarios. Trying to guess the lines, but Atlanta is going to be kicking themselves all week.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah, I was all, well, first of all, I, I, I have too much shit going on.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Cousin Sal]

I had the under 24 and a half, but I also have Tampa Bay to win the South. So I'm rooting against Atlanta, but rooting for Atlanta to stop Washington and rooting for Raheem Morris to get his brain out of his ass. Like those Tech, those skip timeouts. It's just, of course you want 22 seconds with one timeout is better than seven seconds and two timeouts. And then he takes one before and then like you have a tired defense, except for one drive, they were on the field the entire second half. Start calling your timeouts then too. Like get them a little fresh so that Jaden Daniels isn't running for seven yards. But yeah, it was. Congratulations. We have a lot of Washington fans, friends in our club here, but I don't know, not, not a weird win. A weird win for sure.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, our favorite Washington fan is Chang. Cause we were on a text with him and Chang gets so mad during these games that I told him I would, I would do a Patreon subscription for Chang's like text during every Washington game. He was so bad. It was a lot of fuck this team. Hope the guy makes the field goal. We're loser.

[Cousin Sal]

He's out of control. I think he's going to send like poison noodles over to Dan Quinn or something. I don't know what he's up to. He's capable of.

[Bill Simmons]

So the timeout. So they get, they get basically to midfield. There's 40 seconds left and, or 35 seconds left, whatever it was. They had two timeouts left. And it was interesting because Brady, who I thought was good today during the Vikings Green Bay game, he was talking about this timeout, the exact timeout scenario at the end of the first half. And he was saying how when he liked to do it, if he had two timeouts left with under two minutes left. He always thought of it as take one timeout in that one minute to two minute mark, take the second one somewhere between 30 and a minute and then save that third one for the kicker. And I was thinking about that as I was watching. Atlanta just completely mangled the same situation and just basically take two timeouts into 12 seconds left in the game. They didn't do that at all. I think if they called timeout, I think they would have kicked a field goal and scored.

[Cousin Sal]

Well, here's the thing. Everything's situational, right? So Brady's theory is right. Add to it, you got a rookie quarterback there on the road, might want to just get them a couple plays, stop the clock. Anyway, if you're not sure and you have a kicker who can't make it from 35, so you want to get it closer than, than you even got it. So what? Everything points to calling a timeout with like 35 seconds left. And they didn't do it.

[Bill Simmons]

For some reason, I was thinking about you during this whole like fourth quarter because you, you've been so hot and you've had some luck with these wise wagers. And I've been hot at million dollar picks. Like, we're doing great. And I, and this had gotten to the point where I was like, Atlanta's going to somehow win this game 27, 24, and we're going to be like, how did Sal do it again? How did he pull this out? And Atlanta's driving down and see what's going to happen. Then it then the other way. Washington had the ball and they're driving down. They're driving down. And it felt like they were setting up for the, well, they were going to go for to win the game on 4th and 1 and not get it. And then Atlanta would either play for the tie or do whatever.

[Cousin Sal]

But I think the, if I could speak broadly and I think you had Atlanta plus four and a half on something you were saying before the podcast was upset. There's favorites winning and covering, and then there's favorites winning and covering like Cincinnati did and like Washington did today. Like when you're, well, how about, how.

[Bill Simmons]

About everyone in week 17?

[Cousin Sal]

That's what I'm saying. Like there's all of that and then there's crazy covers like this where neither Cincinnati or Washington deserved it, except for some craziness that happened in overtime and some brain farts from coaches.

[Bill Simmons]

Bigger picture, the favorites were 14 and one in week 17, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday.

[Cousin Sal]

And that's why we're not too upset that's why we're, that's why we have our chin up there.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, yeah, there were some very good, some very good money line parlays, all kinds of plays, 14 and one near the, @ this point of the season for favorites. If you had, if I had said to you heading into this week, somebody's going 141 favorites or underdogs, I just would have assumed underdogs. Right. This is right around the time of the year when weird shit happens left and right. But that, that's not what happened. So Atlanta, who's somehow kind of still alive, it feels like they went to Pennix, what, three weeks too late, four weeks too late. Even though he's up and down, he's still way better than Cousins is.

[Cousin Sal]

I was going to send this to you and I'm like, maybe this is an overreaction. But when he was like flying in the first half, I was like, man, if they had put him in like a month ago, they might be fighting for the one seed. Maybe that's a little, little strong because of their schedule. Yeah, yeah. But for sure might have had this NFC south locked up.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, they would have. They would be at 10 wins already, I think, I think it's fair to say Cousins probably cost them three to four wins by being unable to move. What's weird, though, we're in this weird situation where Atlanta panicks, I think, is the starting quarterback. I don't know if he's ever going to be an All Pro or anything, but he's clearly pretty good. You know, he's, he's at least on that, I think has a chance to be on that Bonix level maybe one notch higher. He's older. But you also can't praise Atlanta for this because they spent a hundred million dollars on Kirk Cousin and destroyed their salary cap. So like, if you're, if you're talking to GM Terry Fontenot, who Lombardi always used to make fun of me, like, Terry, great Pennix pick. You almost can't say that because the pick was so illogical when he did it. And I was thinking today, like, imagine if they had taken, if, if they had spent that free agent Cousins money on like one other defensive player, two defensive players, whatever, and instead they put all that. And this is what happens. You end up losing this game in OT because your defense can't do anything. This is what we were saying in April when they took Pennocks. If you're going to spend all that money on Cousins, use the eighth pick on a defensive player. Or if you know you're going to take Pennx, use the free agent money and offensive player and they didn't do either.

[Cousin Sal]

It's a little different what I'm about to bring up, but it's kind of what San Francisco like. You really want to praise everything they did. They after what they spent on Trey Lance. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't money but draft capital and might have won the super bowl if you had some position plugged in on defense against Kansas City. And now you're paying the price. But yeah, it's there's some odd stuff going on. I mean I know you like your quarterback. I feel like you need to see two or three years out of these guys. In Sam Donald's case, seven years. But at least two or three Sam.

[Bill Simmons]

Darnold the most emotional Twitter video during the season we've seen all year. Sam Darnold coming back late to the Vikings locker room and it turned into like a sports movie scene. I was waiting for explosions in the sky to play in the background. Playoff picture and we'll talk about there's so much shit to go through but.

[Cousin Sal]

I feel naked not knowing the you and I love we love the playoff schedule, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Well, I want to guess this.

[Cousin Sal]

We love the week 18 and we're like seven year olds waiting for Santa to come down the chimney. We just I keep refreshing. I don't see anything. I see the Jimmy Carter Jake Paul fight is rescheduled, but I don't see anything on week 18 yet. This is terrible.

[Bill Simmons]

Every time we're on this text thread with our cousin and a whole bunch of people and anytime a super old celebrity dies it's always like what was the cause of death? And we do Jimmy Carter, my favorite president by the way. But anytime it's 100 like what was the cause of death? Anyway, NFC playoff picture Washington is at least the seventh seed, right? Possibility they can sneak into six seed but green Bay would have to lose to Chicago. But we're looking at two seed Philly versus seven seed Washington, which I'm not happy about if I'm Washington. Three six is Rams Green Bay. I'm super happy if I'm Green Bay playing the Rams. The way their offenses look, four or five would be Tampa, Minnesota, which is an awesome game or at Atlanta, Minnesota if something funky happens a week 18 AFC it looks like we're going to have Buffalo vs Denver unless Denver completely chokes the big kids, Carson Wentz and we'll go into all those scenarios in a second. Baltimore against the Chargers and Then Houston, Pittsburgh. And I didn't tell you I was going to do this. You're going to be mad, but I already made guesses for the round one schedule and I'm going to throw this at you.

[Cousin Sal]

Oh, don't do that yet.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, no, I'm doing it.

[Cousin Sal]

Well, I think not even Shaky's game. There's a lot of shaky quarterbacks that belong in the Shakey's game. But I think we were on the same page with that.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, we texted about the Shakey's game, which if you haven't seen or listen to our pod before, it's the first game on the Saturday round one our. Our knockout league that we're in. The loser used to have to buy pizza for everybody else for the first game and we would do it at Shaky's in Santa Monica, which we made plenty jokes about. Is it still open or.

[Cousin Sal]

No, I think they closed it after we stopped going. I think we were probably the only.

[Bill Simmons]

That was. We were like the last thing.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

So anyway, Pittsburgh, Houston is the most. I would say that's like a minus 1200 favorite to be the Shakey's game. With the way Houston's look with Russell Wilson, I don't see how it's not the Shaky's game.

[Cousin Sal]

I'm trying to think who else it would be. All right, you're going to give me all of them. Go ahead.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, well, these are my guesses and you tell me. I'll rip through them and you tell.

[Cousin Sal]

Me, I mean there's a Monday game in there. You got them all.

[Bill Simmons]

You're right.

[Cousin Sal]

Good.

[Bill Simmons]

So Saturday night is going to be Amazon and I think that's Green Bay Rams and they keep it in LA. Al Michaels is super happy. It's like a 35 minute drive for him. Amazon in LA. Amazon is in LA. So I was going Green Bay Rams for that and then Sunday, Denver, Buffalo, the Chargers vs. Baltimore and then Washington Philly as the Sunday night game. But you could flip that and you could make Washington, Philly, the Fox game with Brady and then Chargers, Ravens Sunday night and then my last prediction, Bucks versus the Vikings in Tampa Bay Monday night.

[Cousin Sal]

Monday Night Football on Monday. Yeah, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

What are your thoughts?

[Cousin Sal]

Only thing with that is I'm not ready. I really, I'm not. I'm. I feel like I know.

[Bill Simmons]

That's why I didn't prepare. I tell you to prep. I wanted to throw this at you.

[Cousin Sal]

Well, here's what could throw it off. I really think the Chargers want that five seed now. I think they're going to fight for it. They're in a good spot if they get that five seed. Of course, you want to go to Houston now, by the way, if they get by that. I know the Chiefs, we're going to have to praise them. We have to. But that's not a bad, you know, deal for Harbaugh. They. They played him twice. They lost by two. They lost by seven. What a. What a thing that would be for Harbaugh to go into Kansas City and win. I think that's the ideal spot for the Chargers. So I think that would throw off a little. The only thing I would say about a Saturday night, I think they like an outdoor game there. They had the Chiefs, Dolphins, so I'm not sure what that would. I know that doesn't agree with Al's, you know, habits, but what would it be?

[Bill Simmons]

We got to look out for Al. So Chargers to get the five seed, the Chargers would have to beat the Raiders and Pittsburgh would have to lose to Joe Burrow in Cincinnati. Yeah, and that's the path I wanted to. I was going to do this later, but I'd rather just throw this at you right now. And I know the Ravens aren't going to tank week 18, but if you're the Ravens, just fundamentally looking at this big picture, we're trying to make the Super Bowl. If you're the Ravens, would you rather be the five seed or the three seed? Because if I'm the three seed, I have a home game against almost definitely the Chargers. It's either the Chargers or Pittsburgh home game and then round two, I'm going to Buffalo. If I'm the three seed, I'm going to Buffalo. Unless Buffalo shockingly loses from the five seed. I play Houston, which. And I'll be favored and I should beat Houston. And then unless there's an upset, I'm going to KC for round two. Who hasn't played a meaningful game in a month. And if your goal is to make the Super Bowl, I'd rather. We always talk about this. I'd rather catch KC in that Round two game when they're a little rusty. So I know Baltimore's going to try to win. I know it's better to be at home, but you could argue it's a better path for them to be the five seed.

[Cousin Sal]

Well, first of all, we'll go over the lines in a second, but maybe this will clear it up. And there's so much speculation. The Saturday games are out and there's two of them.

[Bill Simmons]

Were you right? You had guesses on this.

[Cousin Sal]

I had one. Right. It's Browns, Ravens and Bengals Steelers. So the Ravens go. The Ravens are first. The Ravens are 1:30. I don't know why they're doing this, actually. It doesn't. It doesn't benefit that. So The Ravens are 1:30. The Bengal Steelers are 5. These are Pacific times. If the Ravens win, and they should, then the Steelers could lose and the Chargers do get that five. And we're talking all different things here.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, you have for the Steelers, Bengals game. Bengals trying to keep their playoff hopes alive.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Steelers trying to either be five or six, but you want to be five. So that game actually becomes meaningful. So that's probably why they.

[Cousin Sal]

Oh, I guess so, right. Yes. They would still try. Yeah. All right. Yeah. I mean, is it so meaningful that you would want to not rest your starters for the following week? That's always a thing with. I don't know. When we think it's meaningful, it usually isn't.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, who to me, who is the worst playoff team to you other than the AFC 7 seed? Because I think you could make a case it's the Rams. And the Rams are going to be the three seed. But if I'm Green Bay, I'm 100% delighted to play the Rams in round one. The Rams can't score 20 points anymore. And they got, I thought, dominated by the Cardinals on Saturday night. I can't believe we had to sweat out that lala parlay like that. That was it ended up coming down to Kyler Murray whipping a 130 mile an hour pass off his tight end. Said that bounced up in the air for an interception. But the Rams did nothing offensively to win that game. And I would. I would want to play them over anyone except the AFC 7 seed.

[Cousin Sal]

I think they are a bizarre team. They score. I mean, it was four weeks ago. They scored 44 against Buffalo, and in the next three weeks, they score 44 combined. And Cooper caught.

[Bill Simmons]

Feels like they ran out of gas.

[Cousin Sal]

Cup commits mass murder on fantasy owners all over the nation. Like so. Yeah. Yeah, I think they did kind of run out of gas. I don't know. McVeigh, that was some questionable calls by him, but you're right, like, Kyler just. He did his thing. He got too excited. He's now 13 and 29 straight up in November December games and 1 in 17 in the division.

[Bill Simmons]

Jesus. So Rudy just texted us that and you know what? I did a shitload of research for this podcast. I really thought I was prepared. Somehow I missed this. Green Bay is not Guaranteed to be the sixth seed. It could actually be Washington because Washington wins a tiebreaker. So if both of them win, Washington is going to be the sixth seed.

[Cousin Sal]

Oh yes, they win. Oh yeah. Because they have the win now. Right. They're the same record.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Cousin Sal]

All right, so who's going to try?

[Bill Simmons]

Well, if you're Washington, I mean, first of all, they're going to have a lot of fans at that Rams game if it's Washington Rams. But if you're Green Bay, that's a disaster. You go from, you know, so people didn't know how much that Minnesota game meant today. It actually meant a shitload because it's difference between potentially playing the Rams or playing Philly, who's the 2 seed and.

[Cousin Sal]

You'Re going to have a 13 win team as a wild card. I don't think it's ever happened before. Right.

[Bill Simmons]

The Vikings. Let's talk about that Vikings, packers game.

[Cousin Sal]

Good one.

[Bill Simmons]

A lot of people love the Packers.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

It turned into an everybody believes in us, nobody believes in us situation, which I didn't fully know on Thursday. But by the time we got to Sunday, I was betting on the Vikings and that line was moving. That line was the most erratic line of the year. Was minus one and a half, plus one and a half even back to minus one and a half. By game time it was even, which is I think what, three times this year we've had an even line at game time.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah. So now we know now that I guess they have something to play for with the six seed, five seed. But really compared to Minnesota, they didn't have as much to play for. Right. And Minnesota's fighting for the one seed. They have the better record. They were a one and a half point favorite when we did guess the lines. Then it moved to Green Bay, like you said, is favored. Then Minnesota settled in. I'm like I, I'm staying away. They gave us six free moneyline wins going into Sunday, which was insane. But why is this, why is everybody taking the packers here? And you know, I, I, I, I can't do a lap cause I won by two points. But I think they did, it was perfect what they did because I think all these NFC north teams are able to catch up. They're eventually going to get to 25, 28, 30 points. But the defense played great for three quarters. They really did. Like Flores had them like Cashman, Shaq Griffin, Van Ginkel, they're all locked in step. And Koc did a great job with 2:20 left bleeding the clock. We'll talk about it. He did it better than anybody's done it. Really?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. He's coach of the year. He has to be. It's crazy that Harbaugh completely rejuvenated. Rejuvenated. The Chargers made chicken salad. Chicken. Hold on, I'm going to get this right. Made chicken salad out of chicken shit.

[Cousin Sal]

Good.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I did it. I nailed it. And he's not going to win coach of the year. You think like where that team was last year, all the stuff he did for them, they had some injuries too. It wasn't like it was like the easiest season. And he has.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah. J.J. mcCarthy was supposed to be a guy. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, so Koc I think he gets it. The packers, you know, their five losses, two against the Lions, two against the Vikings, one against the Eagles. And this was everybody's super bowl sleeper. Be nice if they beat one of the top three teams in their division or conference once. I'm also not positive. I really like Jordan Love and I think he's good in spurts. And I've watched the game that they played today. I feel like six times in the last year and a half where they kind of suck. He misses a couple throws. They're a little erratic. All of a sudden they're behind. And then they do this furious rally with like a quarter left or half a quarter left. And then the score that they played, this, this exact Minnesota game happened already in the first month of the season where they were way behind, rallied back in the final score. They lost by two. This was not a two point loss. Minnesota dominated the game. Field goal kicker, missed two field goals.

[Cousin Sal]

Yep.

[Bill Simmons]

I just felt like that they. This was a double figures win. That it will say they won by two.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Then they pressured him the whole game and Green Bay couldn't really pressure Darnold. Right. So that seemed like the difference. The one thing I'll say is I wonder if Watson really makes a big difference for this offense.

[Bill Simmons]

I think he does.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah. Like him not being there. I don't know. Some nice spots in there. Jaden Reed's a fun player, but he'll. He'll disappear for like quarters at a time, right? Yeah. I mean he had a one reception, five yard game a couple of weeks ago and today it took him a, a while to get going, but I.

[Bill Simmons]

Thought it might be a double tight end game for them, like just being more physical. They were like Brady was really bullish on them riding Jacobs and he's comparing McCoy, Dillon and all these different running backs. But the Vikes played great and darn, they've been underestimated all year. I really regret on Thursday not going all in on them because I think they're really good. I like, I think they could absolutely beat Detroit. I could absolutely see them in the Super Bowl. Watching them today, I was thinking. Cause I felt that same way watching that Cincinnati game. And I had Denver + seven and a half in that one. So I actually ended up hitting it. But since he's so scary when they have the ball and they just need eight yards or it's third and eight, it's third and six, it's second and 10 and they have those two receivers and it just feels like anytime Burrow wants, he can hit somebody for eight yards on and out or he can hit them down the sidelines or cross or whatever. I think Minnesota has the same thing. Those two receivers, when they really, really need to complete a pass, they can find one of those guys.

[Cousin Sal]

It seems like Sam Darnold doesn't seem like he's going to blow a game. The coach doesn't seem like he's going to blow a game. The defense seems like it's going to play good enough for long enough. I don't think like going forward, are they, are they going to be an underdog at any point by more than two points or three points? I don't think you can make it. Who would be up there?

[Bill Simmons]

Not in the NFL.

[Cousin Sal]

Detroit. No, no, no way.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, we'll see. You should have said today they should have been at least like a one and a half or two point favorite. And the market said otherwise. I just think people. Sam Darnold, three years in the jets, two in Carolina. He was on the Niners last year and I just think people are slow to come around on this. But he's been making, he's been doing this all year, really consistently. And I said last week to you, I felt like when I really needed to make a play and that come from behind game last week, I was like, I think he's going to do it. Like I believe, I believe he's going to make the play. I felt the same way in this game today. I just felt like he was going to come through. He has one shaky throw a game, but I think you could say that about literally any quarterback in the league.

[Cousin Sal]

I don't think it's fluky at this point. I think like we can move on to the next argument. Like with, oh, J.J. mcCarthy, keep him or trade him like this guy. You're not going to have results Like Sam Arnold put out there. And it's not. It just feels different from the team two, three years ago, whatever it was, where Cousins won every game by one score. It's just something about it like, yeah, this guy fits in this offense and it's going to work for a little bit.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, Raheem, not Raheem Morris, guy who took two timeouts into the overtime. Our friend Raheem who's on the ringer Sunday pregame. He had a good tweet about this one score win loss record, which has become a really fun way when we talk about teams after the fact or during the season, is this real? Is this not real? And the theory is like if you're 8 and 1, 9 and 1, 10 and 1 and 1 score games, there's something fluky about that. We've talked about this a lot for years and there was that Cousins Vikings year a couple years ago when they just had crazy luck at one score games, but we knew they weren't good. I don't feel that way at all about this Vikings team. I think they're legitimately good and I actually think they shouldn't have been in as many one score games as they were because they just had these dumb games that all of a sudden in the last five minutes, the other team scored. Whatever. So to me they're not like, to me they're a legitimate awesome contender and I, I think you could make the case. I think I would bet against them in any, against any NFC team.

[Cousin Sal]

Wait, say that again.

[Bill Simmons]

You would do. I think. I'm sorry. No, I screwed up. I think I would bet on them against any NFC team. I like them the most.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah, I think so too. It's really tough. That coach just showed me so much when. 2 minutes, 20 seconds. Green Bay has three timeouts. Almost anybody just runs it into the line three times and you have to treat it like you're losing the game at that point. That's exactly what he did. The next four plays, three of them were throws, none really like to Jefferson or Addison or like Hawkinson, like it was like all just like nice plays, but they made it nice and easy and Darnold's just so comfortable in that situation.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, and the second down, it was like second and nine. Jefferson was cutting across and Darnold just whipped it. And it was, it was a great throw, but it was probably four receivers in the league can get that extra like split second of a step and also make the catch in traffic. And then the game ender. They ran the classic Fake. Everybody runs to the left. Oh, the quarterback circles around to the right, lofts over the screen, pass. I. It's one of the best plays. I almost turned into Collinsworth when I watched that, but I was like, oh, yeah, I just love that. I just love when teams do that, Bill.

[Cousin Sal]

You know, there's only one Lamar Jackson, but there's another one here with Michael Penix and maybe even a third one with Jaden Daniels. And the referees are Lamar Jackson. Everyone's Lamar Jackson.

[Bill Simmons]

I can't believe the JJ McCarthy thing is even a question at this point. There's no way Darnold's their quarterback now. This is, this is done. It's a wrap. It's like this is Brady Bledsoe multiplied by 17. Brady Bledsoe, even heading into the playoffs was still an argument. There's no argument anymore whether they keep McCarthy for a year and just, you know, keep them as a backup and then figure out what to do. But considering the quarterback class is pretty shaky beyond the top two, I feel like they could get like a mid first round pick for him or a late first rounder or high second rounder. That's somewhere in like the 15 to 35 range right for him.

[Cousin Sal]

Well, the best part is there's teams like the Giants dropping out of the top two cornerback slot, right? Yeah. And can't wait to talk about that. Who may have to to get like a J.J. mcCarthy.

[Bill Simmons]

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[Cousin Sal]

I'm trying to.

[Bill Simmons]

So then it comes down to Carson Wentz.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah. So that obviously they. They put all these games together. Chiefs, Broncos, Chargers, Raiders, Dolphins, Jets.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Cousin Sal]

Those are the late afternoon games. Yeah. So I think you're right. I have no idea. With Tua, you and I were like, what the hell's going on? J.J. johns or Shkam, big Dolphins fan. Give us a heads up about Tua. We don't find out until Thursday. He may not play again. So you might. You might end up with a garbage match like that. But it was so fun watching Tyrod being better than a rod. Really, really great. Unbelievable.

[Bill Simmons]

Rogers was just. Just horrible. I had. I did a 13 pointer, which I think I lost three legs of. It was my one losing bet today, other than this last one at the end. Rogers was so bad, and it was so hopeless from the moment. It was like, I don't know, 12, nothing, 19. It was just that you just knew. Knew it was over. Doesn't seem like the teammates like him that much. Wilson. There was stuff about like, if Rogers is back next year, please trade me. That stuff starting to float around, and it'd be really funny if Taylor came in and the jets were awesome. Next week, Miami is.

[Cousin Sal]

Let me. Let me read a couple Rogers things. First of all, he goes in there, he's supposed to go for his 500 touchdown pass. I'm like, oh, this is going to suck. Not that they'd stop the game in Buffalo, but he's going to get 500. Devonte Adams is like, I'm playing. I want to be there. I want to catch the 500. I'm like, shit. Instead, he sets the sack record. He's the most sacked quarterback of all time and my favorite of all. It was early in the first quarter, maybe middle of first quarter, third and one, driving right to left. He rolls right and he's got nothing but daylight. And Romo even is like, run it. And Romo doesn't do that. He does a lot of what people might think are annoying things, but he wouldn't like. He definitely blurted it out when he didn't mean to. He had 15 yards of daylight, maybe too scared or whatever to take off. He fires the ball at his receiver's shins and then yells at the receiver like the receiver's like, oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention. Me and the other receivers are watching. Thought you'd walk the ball into the end zone here, but a 1.2 QBR today, the lowest QBR in a game since Davis Mills 0.8 in 2021. Good job by you, Aaron Rodgers.

[Bill Simmons]

You ruined Peter Schrager season.

[Cousin Sal]

I didn't do it.

[Bill Simmons]

Our guy shrakes. He. There was a tweet that had over 3 million views at the time of this taping by somebody on Twitter named Steak Friend. He said jets getting Aaron Rodgers is like finally banging your high school Crush when she's 40 and has four kids.

[Cousin Sal]

That's great.

[Bill Simmons]

It's over 3 million views at this point. Lost in how bad Rodgers has been is how bad Jeff Ulbricht's been as the jets interim coach.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Today they had 16 penalties for 120 yards. That's like that makes the Patriots look like well behaved by contract. He's horrible. One thing we've learned this year is that the interim coach isn't necessarily this magic elixir because the Bears are way worse. Right. The the Jets. I, I think if they had had Salah they'd. They at least with Salah their defense was better.

[Cousin Sal]

We had the clogger. We were enabored with the clogger for a minute and then that went to rather ironic.

[Bill Simmons]

Hard to say with the clogger.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

But yeah. Rough jets season. I feel bad for the jets fans. One thing with the Bengals, I think.

[Cousin Sal]

They'Re about 16 to 1 if you put those three possibilities together to make the playoffs.

[Bill Simmons]

If you're, if you're kc do you lose intentionally to Denver? Is the question somebody texted me today that I thought was intriguing. I don't, I don't think teams lose intentionally in the NFL. I guess you could play like your third string QB and not give a shit, but they're just much better off if Denver is the seventh seed than Cincinnati, I think.

[Cousin Sal]

Well, all right, let's think about this. Wouldn't they want Cincinnati to play Buffalo? I mean, I think they want Buffalo out. Right. They're not going to both those teams.

[Bill Simmons]

So you're saying. So that so beat Denver to try to get Cincinnati into the 17?

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah, I think so. You don't have to. You're not going against Cincinnati in the first round. So you're going against one of those two teams. I think they'll slap Cincinnati around if they get. If they have to go to Arrowhead. I mean, that's a flawed team. We like rooting for them. I think you could have it both ways. Like we said, like you, we could talk about how bad they are now. They can't get out of their own way and also not want to meet them in the first round.

[Bill Simmons]

So, yeah, their defense is pretty awful. It was interesting because that game feels like it happened a hundred years ago and it was yesterday. But I don't think Sean Payton covered himself in glory yesterday with some of the calls.

[Cousin Sal]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

Some of the clock management, just in general. And that's something I've noticed over and over again with him where people seem to think he's this, you know, like, he's this like kind of what we were talking about with Kevin O'Connell earlier. But instead it just feels like. I don't know. Were you happy with how he coached yesterday?

[Cousin Sal]

No. I don't know. I was a little confused. Right. But I think he. People wanted him to go for the two point conversion at the end of regulation.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, he needed the tie, right?

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah. So they needed the tie. As good as a win.

[Bill Simmons]

Tie was as good as a win. So it didn't make sense to go for the win because Nova time, a tie would have won it.

[Cousin Sal]

And also Bengals kicker sucks. He was probably factoring that in that in that too. So we'll go. Chase Brown got hurt and Chase Brown got hurt. And also they went three and out Cincinnati. So they had the ball. Denver with a chance to win with a field goal.

[Bill Simmons]

They had a twice. They had two series in overtime and they were just. They had that second and nine or it was like second and seven. They ran the wide receiver screen. The guy got tackled for two in the first series. Bo Nicks tried to throw it deep for some reason, didn't get it. It was weird. I just felt like they could have run the ball on Cincy all day. They ran the ball for five yards a carry. It was a bad loss.

[Cousin Sal]

I did too. I mean, I felt the same with. It was a very similar game to tonight's. Right. Like, you know, B John Robinson could have run the ball and they could have done that. And I thought it was like one of the luckiest covers of 2024. Maybe tonight changed that. But I don't know. Cincinnati is a weird team. Like Burrow's great and like you said, like they have that pitch and Catch thing going for seven yards like no one's going to like, you know, Higgins is going to get Juan Soto money next year. Good for him.

[Bill Simmons]

Hopefully from the Patriots.

[Cousin Sal]

There you go.

[Bill Simmons]

MVP race. At least when I checked at this couple hours ago, Allen was minus 300, Lamar was plus 250, and Burrow and Barkley were 50 to 1. And the thinking was if Burrow somehow got the seventh seed for the Bengals, he has to be in the MVP consideration. I just don't agree.

[Cousin Sal]

Burrows. I don't think you can win now. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, he's 31. I don't think he's 38. You can't lose eight times in a season to be the MVP. That's absurd.

[Cousin Sal]

It's dead money. Yeah, that's. That's a waste. I, I think it's gotta be Josh Allen. I think it's fair to say. All right, whoever gets the seed, the two seed, it could be the. I mean, it's Campy Mahomes. His numbers don't support it. Right. So it's gotta be the Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson and give it to whoever has a two seat at this point.

[Bill Simmons]

It's tough. There's some stat stuff that's a little more favorable for Lamar. I test was a little more favorable for Josh. I would say the. The infrastructure of the roster is you'd probably want. Baltimore's a little bit more. Buffalo had a lot more uncertainty heading into the season. I don't really know.

[Cousin Sal]

Crack your brain when you hear like, Josh Allen broke Thurman Thomas's record for like the Bills touchdown rushes. For someone who watched football and loved it and got in college in the 90s, like what the. Really. He really did already. That's spectacular.

[Bill Simmons]

I mean, right now. And I don't know if there's a 100% right answer. I like when people get so upset about it. It was like when we've had some NBA MVP things like this too. Right now. I think it could really come down to something as stupid as Baltimore's five losses and Buffalo's three because it's really close. And it's just like Buffalo's had a better. They've had a better team. I've been a little more impressed with their season. I think both guys are equally important. He doesn't have anything like Derek Henry. He doesn't have the coaching infrastructure that the Ravens had. Even though McDermott is a top seven or eight coach, the Ravens have been doing this forever. I would just have slight edge to Josh Serenity's asking The head. Does the head to head matter? Well, Baltimore beat him 35 to 10 in week four. So that's, that's a case for Lamar. I don't know. I don't know the answer, so.

[Cousin Sal]

Rudy, shut up. We've been doing this for like 37 years. We don't need your help. No, here I. No, it's a good question, but I think here's what matters more. You. They beat the one seed, right? Baltimore didn't.

[Bill Simmons]

They were a toe away from the only KC win.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah, they have, they have more wins and they beat the one seed. And you're not giving it to Mahomes.

[Bill Simmons]

Another thing off this, off Josh Allen. I won our keeper fantasy league today.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah, congratulations. I saw that easily. Right.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, it was an emotional time for me and my fans because we had Joe Burrow. We've had this league four years. I had Joe Burrow year one. We had this rule where you could keep him for a maximum of four years. So he's been with my team the whole time. And then he really came through in the last game and it meant a lot to me and my fans to watch him do that for my fake fantasy team and his fake teammates. 41.1 points. The question, though, about fantasy, Is it possible to win a league if you didn't have Alan, Lamar Burrow or Baker this year? Kind of feels like you had to have one of those four guys. Who did Tony have in there?

[Cousin Sal]

Well, he said Barkley. Right. Did you mention Barkley?

[Bill Simmons]

No, I'm, I'm saying one of those quarterbacks.

[Cousin Sal]

Oh, I see. Yeah. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Did you have. It's because it was unusual because normally we talk, we always talk about our quarterbacks. Don't matter that much in fantasy. And then this year. Yeah. Who did Tony have in our knockout league? He had Lamar Jackson.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah, I was just.

[Bill Simmons]

I would love to know, like, percentage of leagues won by one by those four quarterbacks has to be like 80%.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah. It's off topic, but I did see 50% of all leagues that had teams that had. Barkley made the finals. At least I did see some kind of ESPN stat. But. But that's Barkley. I know you're talking quarterbacks there. You're going to bid for. How much will you bid? So I know now Burrow.

[Bill Simmons]

I need Burrow. Well, I'm in.

[Cousin Sal]

I got him back.

[Bill Simmons]

I can see Joe.

[Cousin Sal]

I know.

[Bill Simmons]

Four more years, Joe. I asked Craig Horbeck from the, from the Ringer fantasy show about, like, who were the guys you had to have this year that seemed to be around the most titles. And he said the guys that tripled your odds of making the finals were J.J. jefferson, Chase, Amon Ross, St. Brown, Saquon Gibbs, Lamar James Conner and Brock Bowers, who was wasted on my shitty team in our other league. But just like whatever you paid for them or wherever you drafted them, whatever the return motives was way higher than what you got. But Brock Bowers was a good example. Like if you had him, like he's going to be the number one tight end next year.

[Cousin Sal]

Speaking of. Forget that I'm looking for him for. Well, they don't have him, but he should maybe win mvp. I mean that junk squad of quarterbacks have been thrown to him. He's setting records.

[Bill Simmons]

He's made Aiden Okada look like a possible keeper. Maybe they don't need a qb.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, that's a, that's a good pivot. The Giants. So we have the Raiders who win two games in a row and completely knock themselves out of a possible Sanders or Cam Ward. I gotta say, I didn't like Cam Ward leaving the bowl game at halftime.

[Cousin Sal]

No, no, I didn't like it. Nobody's gonna care. Nobody's gonna care.

[Bill Simmons]

I didn't like it. I just don't think Drake May would have done that in North Carolina. I think he would have stayed. I think he would have played both halves.

[Cousin Sal]

I think. All right. I mean, no, the Giants, but go ahead.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, we had the Drew Lock game today. You can feel it immediately. The Colts were in a coma. I don't know what happened to them. This murdered, I think 80% of the teases and parlays that people made today because they'd already, like, they made all their bets that they'd already won. It's like, what do I do on Sunday? Ah, all right, I'll throw the Colts in something and the Giants in my win. So now the Giants are four, Pats are one, Tennessee's two, Cleveland's three, and most important, the Pats are one. I was going nuts.

[Cousin Sal]

I was going nuts. Why?

[Bill Simmons]

I was going nuts.

[Cousin Sal]

What are you going to do with it?

[Bill Simmons]

We're going to trade down. We're going to get a fucking haul. I want to make that Carolina Bears trade. Let's do that. Let's get like, move back seven spots, get somebody else's first. Get a player, get a second. Like let's, let's fucking cash that thing in. I'm so excited.

[Cousin Sal]

All right.

[Bill Simmons]

I mean this weekend went great.

[Cousin Sal]

If you're, you have your quarterback or you well, you're not out on May, right? You, you have your quarterback I love. Trade it and you're going to get, you'll get something. I don't know. I feel like I say good for the Giants. I really do. Like, I don't, I don't love the tanking talk. I think it's a bad word. It should only be used for the NBA. This is one of the reasons, many reasons the NFL is infinitely better. But like, you know, half these guys are playing hard because they don't know if they're going to be on the team next year. Like league neighbors is the only one safe and Drew Locke gave him probably his best game of the year so far. So good for the Giants. Earn your paycheck. I know it's easy to burn down the fledgling local tavern and collect on the insurance, but guys out there trying, I'd go for that every time.

[Bill Simmons]

Counter. This giant season was so depressing that it was kind of hilarious that it was like, all right, we're, we're the number one pick. Just two more games and then all of a sudden they have a fun three hours and completely ruin it. But you're right, this is the difference to football and basketball is you can't really tank when in a sport with like non guaranteed contracts where they change half the roster every year.

[Cousin Sal]

I'm not saying like the GMs, the front office and the players are on a different wavelength. I think.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Cousin Sal]

Like it's not like that in any other sport. And I think it's because of what I said. Like half these guys aren't going to be Giants next year. So they're just like trying to put together, you know. You think Tracy Jr. Is definitely going to be resigned by the Giants? Like, no, I'm going to try their asses off.

[Bill Simmons]

If the Pats beat the Bills next week, I'm going to lose my mind. I just want you to know right now they better. First of all, go. Gonzalez has a concussion. So don't play him. He's the best defensive player. Like put him on the side. I would not play Drake May sit him down for week 18. Play Joe Milton, the third string guy. Like they have to lose this Buffalo game. And if you're Buffalo, I would, I would want the Pat. I don't want that. They're in our division. I wouldn't want the Pats to have the number one pick and trade back and get Mike Vrabel as the coach. This was a huge week for Pats. Manzo, because there's Real momentum now for like, hey, maybe we need an actual coach in a gm.

[Cousin Sal]

Maybe getting worse will be gone.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, getting worse in every part of football over the course of four months. Maybe that was a bad sign. Maybe that we fucked up the draft and free agency and did basically everything wrong. Maybe all that was a bad sign. Now we hit the ladder of this Drake May guy.

[Cousin Sal]

I just don't like the losing and going crazy for the 1 pick and it just, it's stinking thinking Simmons is what it is.

[Bill Simmons]

No, I feel dirty, but I'm going to do it anyway. Speaking of dirty, the Colts, four straight years of absolutely horrible, indefensible end of the year losses or choke jobs or like even last year where they had a chance to make the playoffs and they blow it on the fourth down. They had that 20, 21 they lost to Jacksonville when Jim Ursay's like, get Carson Wentz off the team. I don't ever want to see him again. So it's four straight years of that. I think Shane Steichen's a secret. Might get fired after the year guy.

[Cousin Sal]

Interesting.

[Bill Simmons]

No inside info. I just think that teams look pretty ratchet the whole year. Like I don't, I don't think they're well coached. I think they've underachieved. And, and he's. We always have that one surprise firing after week 18. He would be my leading suspect.

[Cousin Sal]

Did he, did he get an extension? I mean. Cause that's the key. That's, that's the tell. Tell all that he's going to get fired if he got extension.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't think so. He's only in a two year. He's year two. Right. He was a first year coach last year.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah, I guess you're right. Yeah. This is second. I'm thinking of someone else. Yeah. It might be the case that there just aren't enough new good coaches out there. He might have been on the bubble and saved himself. But yeah, you're right, they're pitiful.

[Bill Simmons]

It's absolutely ludicrous that Mike Vrabel wouldn't be getting hounded by like five teams.

[Cousin Sal]

Right?

[Bill Simmons]

Mike Vrabel, I think in 21 he went 12 and five with this banged up Tennessee team. Ryan Tannehill, who I don't think ever started a full season again as a quarterback. A.J. brown, who got traded after the year, I just always felt like that team was, was supremely extraordinarily well coached. They always overachieved. I never really understood how they were doing it and I don't understand, like, if you're the jets, the Bears people are like, the Bears need an offensive coach. The Bears need a coach. It doesn't have to be an offensive coach, just somebody that will give them some sort of culture. Which is what? The pass.

[Cousin Sal]

He's number one. I mean, I. I think he gets to pick his spot. So if you're him, where do you, where do you go? Like, where do you. I mean, he could probably coach at UNC now and steal that job from Belichick if he wants.

[Bill Simmons]

My dream would be he was in the Patriots hall of Fame. And you think like, you got Drake May, you've all this cav space and you have the number one pick, like that seems like the best job. I don't know. You go to the Bears and your ownership's a complete mess and you're doing everything wrong and you've built this team that's, you know, this run and gun team to play in Chicago in 10 degree weather. I don't know. I wouldn't want that job. The jets job's mildly intriguing. They do have a lot of talent. I just said a Woody Johnson thing. I'm not sure I'd want to work for him.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah, that's the whole thing.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, who would you want?

[Cousin Sal]

Well, if I'm him, I. I think you stay out of the NFC North. That's a disaster when you have 13 win teams making.

[Bill Simmons]

That's a great point. Yeah. Why do you want to be in Detroit and Minnesota, Green Bay and battle those teams six times?

[Cousin Sal]

Too long. Yeah, it's too long. So it's not a sexy team. And you can't be happy with Anthony Richardson at this point, but I think you'd stay in any AFC south job that you could get. I mean, the bad divisions are still the bad divisions. Maybe so. Jacksonville. Yeah, somewhere like that.

[Bill Simmons]

So, Matt, a couple other short things I had for you. Mac Jones has as many wins this year as Trevor Lawrence. Just pointing that out. I am 25 and 5.

[Cousin Sal]

You did a great job.

[Bill Simmons]

Season future over unders. Thanks to the Atlanta loss today. I need a Houston win and an Arizona win next week. And I would go 27. 5.

[Cousin Sal]

Wow.

[Bill Simmons]

Which we always. We have all these media accounts where everybody shits on anyone with a podcast or a column or a feature or whatever. And it's like this cottage industry. There's no benevolent version of it where it's like, hey, this person did a really good job. Hey. Cousin Sal is 13 and two on wisest wagers. Good luck to him this week. We need happy version of those terrible media accounts.

[Cousin Sal]

I'm with you. So get, get the ringer people to plug it.

[Bill Simmons]

25 and 5 over unders. Put that on some.

[Cousin Sal]

Make a freaking billboard outside your house. You got my. Do it. It's fun. 25 and 5. We did great on the. On the other futures, right? Yeah, we hit me in that. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I have two locks. I had Carolina under, New England under three and Green Bay over all those hit.

[Cousin Sal]

So maybe we should tell people what to stay away from because we, we. I mean we hit the mother load if the lions get the one seed and I specifically do because I got 26 to one on Chiefs Lions one seed. And so we again, after how many years still don't know how to hedge this? We got 5 to 1 odds, right?

[Bill Simmons]

When we get. When we get to lines, let's talk about the hedge.

[Cousin Sal]

For that you got.

[Bill Simmons]

Dorian Thompson. Robinson threw a pick today. No touchdown career. One touchdown, 10 picks. I was like, I wonder who else has done that. I wonder what other players in NBA in NFL history have one touchdown or less and 10 interceptions or more. So you have that stat head on the pro football reference. So I went up. How many other people do you think have done that? History?

[Cousin Sal]

3.

[Bill Simmons]

History of football. 5.

[Cousin Sal]

5.

[Bill Simmons]

Nobody's been in the last 40 years. We had Stan Heath, one touchdown, 14 interceptions. Len Barnum. Oh for 10. Randy Hedberg in 1977, 0 for 10.

[Cousin Sal]

It's like an accounting firm. Who are these people?

[Bill Simmons]

Wayne Clark, zero touchdowns, 14 picks in the early part of the 70s.

[Cousin Sal]

Nice.

[Bill Simmons]

And then Rusty Lish, one touchdown, 11 picks. So he's done in 40 years.

[Cousin Sal]

Name that. I mean you deserve what you get if you're drafting a Rusty Lish. I mean that's not. That's Collinsworth.

[Bill Simmons]

Have trouble with that one. Oh, Rusty or passion?

[Cousin Sal]

Passion Rush. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The dtr. Did he didn't see. Did he seem right to you? I felt like something was off.

[Bill Simmons]

No, he seemed hurt. And.

[Cousin Sal]

And I don't think I'm making a joke. That's what we say about good. The good quarterbacks. Like are we gonna find out he was injured?

[Bill Simmons]

No, I think he. I think he actually was hurt. Well, he's not that good, but he was.

[Cousin Sal]

He had one interception. He had one fumble. He had three intentional ground. Three intentional groundings and a 20qbr. And plus whatever you're saying.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, they. Now that's a team that is tanking. They want to get a top three pick. They have a chance to get one or two. If one of those teams, if Tennessee or the Pats. So they're like, we're not playing Jameis again. Jameis is too unreliable. He might actually win this game. He might actually beat Miami. We can't play him last year.

[Cousin Sal]

I don't know what their plan is. I mean, they're going to. They basically announced this week they're going to keep Watson for two more years. I mean, that deal just gets worse and worse.

[Bill Simmons]

Last thing before Ghost Lions, Greg Gumbel passed away, and they were talking about him on all the games the last couple days. I was really bummed out. I feel like, especially people who grew up with the 80s ESPN. And he was one of the five or six people, right? It was him, it was Gail Gardner, it was Chris Berman, it was Tom Lee. We had. It was the same six people for an entire decade. And then he went on. He kind of graduated, did all this stuff. He became a studio host.

[Cousin Sal]

He original WFAN guy, too, in New York, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Going way back, and then has a really important. He did the Tuck Roll game, AKA the Snow Game. Bats fans. He announced that one but beloved guy by all accounts and feels like he's been in our lives ever since. We like sports. I was bummed.

[Cousin Sal]

And yet like a dozen years older than I would have thought. Like 78. Right? I mean, I know he helped him. He looked young and. But yeah, man, I would get very excited. I'm a big Selection Sunday guy. I write it down. Even though they have the bracket right on the tv. And when you know the Duke Blue Devils are the number one seed in the east region, it's just like something cool and you could rely on and, yeah, he'll be missed. Another great voice passed through a lot.

[Bill Simmons]

Of great sports and sports moments. I was thinking about that whole ESPN crew in the 80s. That was like our lifeline to all this highlights and information back then, right? And you had these people and it was like the same way like the local news anchors mean the most in your dad's house in the 70s, we had these six, seven, eight people that were just the people. We found out what happened, and you really felt like you had relationships with all of them. You know, Berman was like the funny one. Tom Lee was the serious one, and Bob Lee was he. He was like the Professor. And then Charlie Steiner showed it and it's just like, I don't know, Gumbo was in those. And when he graduated out of that, I was like, whoa, somebody hired one of the ESPN guys. It felt like we all kind of made it. Anyway, this Message is a paid partnership with Apple Card. If you want to take control of your finances, Apple Card is where it starts. A credit card that can give you up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase. I have one. I can tell you this is true. I know and love Apple Card. So many places I can use it, especially during a busy time here with football, basketball, the holidays all at once. I can use my Apple Card on tickets to a game, a gift from my dad, or even tickets as a gift for my dad. Plus, anytime there's a new Apple product, it's a lot easier. Apply for an Apple Card today. It's easy. Just go to the wallet app on your iPhone again. That easy? Subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City branch terms and [e-mail] all right, guess the lines. Week 18 we're going to go in order of.

[Cousin Sal]

Do you care what. So you know what the Saturdays are, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. I didn't do it that way though. I'm just going to follow this schedule I had because the biggest game, the NFC 1 seed on the line. That's going to be Sunday night, right?

[Cousin Sal]

That's Sunday night.

[Bill Simmons]

How can that not be?

[Cousin Sal]

I mean, it's. They saved it. I mean, honestly, if the Vikings lose that game, I'm not sure what. What NBC does and the league does with that game. I think they maybe have to stop with the. Everyone plays a division the last week. I think maybe just go with like the preseason, the playoffs from last year and try to mix them up and try to get lucky. Because now we see that like only one out of eight divisions or two in the, in the AFC North's case, barely matter. But most of these are settled by week 18.

[Bill Simmons]

I called Tom, Tom Meads, Tom Lee, by the way.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah, that's good.

[Bill Simmons]

I didn't mean to.

[Cousin Sal]

Rest in peace. Lions.

[Bill Simmons]

Vikings. It's in Detroit. I'm giving this to Tic TAC. So Lions -1 1/2 against Minnesota for the one seed. I think this is a dead even game. You could even talk me into Minnesota being favoring this, but I don't think it'll start that way. So I'm going Lions minus one and a half.

[Cousin Sal]

All right. I have to now adjust because some of these have moved. I said minus three. It's minus two and a half for the Detroit Lions.

[Bill Simmons]

Interesting.

[Cousin Sal]

I get that. And I'm telling you right now, I might get two more and that's it. We almost shouldn't count this week. Much like they don't count week 18 in fantasy. Almost. I think we shouldn't count this for guess the lines. And I'm not just saying that because I'm off by four points every game.

[Bill Simmons]

Detroit does not need to beat San Francisco tomorrow.

[Cousin Sal]

Right.

[Bill Simmons]

The game somehow doesn't matter. Even though Week 18 matters the most, which is just weird.

[Cousin Sal]

Kornacki was a little, little. He threw me a little bit. I feel like he made it. Like they did need that. This game did matter. And then like, no, no. 49ers doesn't matter at all.

[Bill Simmons]

It 100% does not matter. Dan Campbell's doing the whole. We're playing anyone anyway. I think that would be crazy to do that. But week six, Detroit won 3,129.

[Cousin Sal]

Yep.

[Bill Simmons]

Somehow we had three two point games that the Vikings were involved with against the Lions and Green Bay, which is just weird.

[Cousin Sal]

Right? Right. That's where the Tic Tac comes into play. The one and a half. Got to get it the right way.

[Bill Simmons]

NFC south on the line. Not really. Falcons win, they get the four seed. They're playing the Panthers in Atlanta. I'm sorry, the. Yeah, I screwed this up. Tampa wins. They get the four seed, right? Yes.

[Cousin Sal]

Tampa's up a game. They lose the tiebreaker if they lose a game.

[Bill Simmons]

So Tampa wins. They get it. Tampa loses. Atlanta wins. Atlanta gets it. Because they beat Tampa Bay twice. Tampa is home for the Saints, who stink. And Tampa's offense is really good. And as we discussed earlier, Baker Mayfield, fantasy MVP, at least one of them. I have the Bucks minus 10 and a half.

[Cousin Sal]

Oh, I'm going to beat you here. I had 11 and a half. It's 13 and a half.

[Bill Simmons]

Wow. Think about that.

[Cousin Sal]

We're going to have to. We're going to have to.

[Bill Simmons]

Can you imagine if I told you in Mid August, Week 18, the Bucks are going to be favored by 13 and a half against the Saints. What would you have thought happened?

[Cousin Sal]

I would have thought the Saints named Spencer Rattler their starter, had the clogger as their coach. Yeah. God, they're so bad.

[Bill Simmons]

This would have been so much more fun if Atlanta won today because we would have had all kinds of scenarios. Washington would have to win. There was all different tiebreaker shit. We won our NFC south bet, by the way. So kudos to us.

[Cousin Sal]

Oh, good. With the under. Nice.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah. Because they can only have two more.

[Cousin Sal]

Two more. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

The highest that it could get to 28. So we made it by two.

[Cousin Sal]

It wasn't even scary. When was it? It's scariest. I'm Trying to think, I guess. When New Orleans beat up on Dallas a week ago, A week ago, Carolina.

[Bill Simmons]

Started upsetting people and it was like, holy shit. Like if Carolina won today and Atlanta, I guess Carolina was playing NFC South.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah, they're still. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

But if Atlanta had won. Yeah, it got a little closer than I wanted. Falcons against the Panthers. I have Falcons. This is in Atlanta. I have Falcons by seven and a half against Panthers.

[Cousin Sal]

You got it. Exactly. I had eight, but it's not going to matter.

[Bill Simmons]

Teaser.

[Cousin Sal]

Well, I just worry that Baker does like he did today and has like 40 points up there and Atlanta calls off the Dogs. You know what I mean? They're playing the same time, obviously, Right. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm going to put the Washington game in this category, too. No, I can't do that now because they lost. I need to put them in a different category. Hold on. Doing this on the fly here.

[Cousin Sal]

Okay.

[Bill Simmons]

Put them later.

[Cousin Sal]

The problem with this is, and I'm going to show my hand here, is a lot of these lines don't reflect when. Thursday. The coach says, we're sitting everybody, and then the lines fly another five points. So just be careful, everyone.

[Bill Simmons]

NFC west on the line. Sort of. The Rams are minus two and a half against the Seahawks. Oh, no. That was my guess. I screwed that up. The game is in LA and I have the Rams minus two and a half over the Seahawks. I should have let you guess first.

[Cousin Sal]

I had Seattle by one and it's Seattle by two and a half. The Rams are in. Right?

[Bill Simmons]

The Rams are not necessarily 100% in yet.

[Cousin Sal]

No. They needed like one more team to win. Like 12 things had to happen.

[Bill Simmons]

No, I'm going to go through it.

[Cousin Sal]

Oh, it's crazy. What needs to happen for Seattle to win for this game to matter.

[Bill Simmons]

They need. Oh, no, they're out. You're right. Because they needed Atlanta to beat Washington. Yeah, Washington.

[Cousin Sal]

I think that was the last one.

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, man. I'm keeping at it.

[Cousin Sal]

I don't care. I'm taking that win.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, take it.

[Cousin Sal]

Go. What else we got?

[Bill Simmons]

I did all the work for Washington winning, and then when Atlanta came back, I changed all the work. And then changed all the work.

[Cousin Sal]

Raheem screwed everything up.

[Bill Simmons]

I was so excited to go through all the things that needed to happen in Week 18 for season.

[Cousin Sal]

That's like two things.

[Bill Simmons]

It was actually pretty conceivable. They needed Arizona to beat San Francisco, Denver to beat kc, Atlanta to beat Carolina. All three of those things could happen. Miami to beat the Jets. Still conceivable. Chicago to Beat Green Bay. Not playing for anything. Not inconceivable. Chargers, Vegas, Tampa beats New Orleans Saints or something.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Now, the weird one was the Pats would have had to be Buffalo. That's where the wheels kind of got.

[Cousin Sal]

That's going to happen. Get ready. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

All right. Playoff spot on the line. Three teams, one spot. Broncos against the Chiefs. It's in Denver. Wow. I did Broncos minus seven and a half.

[Cousin Sal]

You know, I said four and a half, and it was seven and a half. It went to eight and a half. So you get it.

[Bill Simmons]

Wow.

[Cousin Sal]

Man, that's high. I mean. I mean, I guess if Carson Wentz just plays with all second string, like the whole first string sits, then it's going to be tough. But that's a lot of points for Denver. It's a lot.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't know.

[Cousin Sal]

I like.

[Bill Simmons]

I like. I kind of like the Chiefs at that game. Yeah, I like the Chiefs. And I don't know if I mind the Chiefs money line either. I could see them being like, fuck it, we're not playing for two weeks after this. We'll play Carson Wentz. Let's run all our stuff. I don't know. I'd be terrible about that game because Denver's not that good.

[Cousin Sal]

How many favorites have FanDuel and Vegas gotten walloped on in the last year? I don't know. Four months.

[Bill Simmons]

Colts today.

[Cousin Sal]

There's a team. There's a team that's going to blow it for everybody as a team. Could be them.

[Bill Simmons]

Dolphins are home for the Jets. I'm sorry? Jets are home for the Dolphins, but Dolphins need a win and they need a Denver loss. And Tua might not play. Stu Puntley was, like, passable today and people are excited about it.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

I don't see how this can be less than Dolphins by four and a half.

[Cousin Sal]

All right, I got it. Exactly. It's two and a half.

[Bill Simmons]

Wow.

[Cousin Sal]

But I was getting a headache thinking of these. They really were.

[Bill Simmons]

Who in the God's name would bet the Jets? Well, now, if they had Tyrod Taylor, I might bet that might be a whole spite game.

[Cousin Sal]

Snoop against Taylor. I love it.

[Bill Simmons]

By the teammates.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Steelers. Bengals in Pittsburgh. Cincy needs a win plus Denver, Miami losses. Pittsburgh gets the three seed with a win and a Baltimore loss. Pittsburgh could drop to six if they lose and the Chargers win. I did. Steelers minus one and a half.

[Cousin Sal]

Wow. I did. Cincy minus three. And it's Cincy minus two and a half.

[Bill Simmons]

What? That's. Honestly, that's stupid. I'm going to bet the Steelers.

[Cousin Sal]

No, don't bet the Steelers.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm 100% betting the Steelers. The Bengals aren't good. The Bengals are eight.

[Cousin Sal]

Eight. Listen, you. You curse the Steelers three weeks ago. When you name them, you name them the best team. You curse the Steelers and you curse Drake May. I cursed everybody else in the league, but you curse the Steelers and Drake May.

[Bill Simmons]

I said three weeks. I said, what four weeks ago. I said I thought the Steelers were playing the best of anyone in the afc. Pickens immediately got hurt. That bunch of their guys on defense got hurt. And Russell Wilson turned into Denver. Russell Wilson? Yeah. Like, I. My words were hanging in the air. And all of a sudden you go the other way, though, and you could say they just played three really tough teams at 11 days and maybe they're still pretty good.

[Cousin Sal]

Pickens played last week on Christmas. They. It didn't matter. Russell Wilson. The defense is just average right now for whatever reason.

[Bill Simmons]

And if defense hasn't been good for like a month, Hustle and bustle isn't.

[Cousin Sal]

Playing out of his mind. Might as well be anyone. The Steelers team.

[Bill Simmons]

Steelers are home dogs and they need the game. And playing a team that doesn't have a good defense and has a pretty shaky coach, let's be honest. I know he made a Super Bowl.

[Cousin Sal]

I don't think they start anyone. Honestly, I don't think they care. I don't think.

[Bill Simmons]

I think they don't care if they're two or three.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah. I think he's like, give us. Give us the Ravens again. It's fine because they play at the same time. The Ravens are going to be up 30 to nothing on the Browns. That'll be. Oh, no. They played the same day, but later in that day.

[Bill Simmons]

Would you rather play the Ravens or the Bills? If you're the Steelers.

[Cousin Sal]

I think the Ravens. Isn't that always like an 1816 game? For the most part, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

And they've beaten them a few times. They beat them earlier this year.

[Cousin Sal]

They'll figure it out.

[Bill Simmons]

Still lose, but AFC seating kind of sort of on the line. Chargers at the Raiders. Raiders are red hot. Chargers could get the five seed with a win. Or Pittsburgh lost.

[Cousin Sal]

Stupid team.

[Bill Simmons]

I have the Chargers favored by eight.

[Cousin Sal]

I gotta find this now. I had seven. Let's see where it is. I gotta find it because they're all moving around five and a half, so I get it. Wow.

[Bill Simmons]

Vegas owned us. Are you gonna beat me this week? Feels like you're beat me.

[Cousin Sal]

This is crazy. I mean, I have some bad ones coming up.

[Bill Simmons]

I always suck in week 18, my fans were prepared for I take it easy. Like the Chiefs.

[Cousin Sal]

You could do this. Jacoby. Hang in there.

[Bill Simmons]

Ravens are home against the Browns. They get the three seed with a win. Cleveland clinches a top three pick with a loss. You can kind of guess where this game's going. I'm going ravens by 13 and a half.

[Cousin Sal]

Okay, I said 15. 17 and a half.

[Bill Simmons]

Wow.

[Cousin Sal]

It's the biggest of the year, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Jesus. I mean, I can't even put that in of 13 pointees. What am I going to do?

[Cousin Sal]

You can. It's fine. The Brown. Like you said, the Browns aren't going to put up a fight.

[Bill Simmons]

NFC succeed on the line. Technically, Washington is has the edge. Right now they're at Dallas and the packers are home for the Bears. Washington, I have minus three and a half over your Cowboys.

[Cousin Sal]

Son of a bitch. You got it. Exactly. I thought it would be five. It's three and a half.

[Bill Simmons]

I had a small bet on the Cowboys with the over in that game. Tease. Cooper Rush was awful. I mean, your team was awful, but Rush, like, why didn't they. Why don't they. They just don't want to see what Trey, Lance, what's there. They've given up on him.

[Cousin Sal]

I think it's an absolute mystery. I think maybe they want to trade him and they don't want to show how bad he is kind of thing, you know?

[Bill Simmons]

Oh, interesting. Like, they're hiding him.

[Cousin Sal]

I don't have enough makeup, but did you see what the fans did to Jerry Jones today? I'll send you that clip. Like, I don't know why he ever goes to Philly, but the fans within earshot, they're like, keep doing what you're doing, Jerry. You're doing great. You're doing great for the organization. He's like, yeah, man.

[Bill Simmons]

They're like, sarcastic, praising him.

[Cousin Sal]

Oh, yeah. And he's. I don't know if he gets it or not, but he's like, I try not to disappoint. And he's like, oh, my God, just get out. Why are you ever going there?

[Bill Simmons]

These old owners. I mean, how old is Jerry? Like, he's in his 80s now, right?

[Cousin Sal]

He's there. I think. Yep.

[Bill Simmons]

I think we have. Bob Kraft is 83. That's what that's part of. What, like with the Pats. Like, I just feel like these guys are old. How many years left do they have? Like, why do they want to mess around? Like, we have the wrong coach and the wrong GM. Just like, why you'd be 84 next year. I know other one for the six seed packers. Bears. The Bears coming off, I think probably the worst televised national TV game of the year. The Seahawks Bears game. Just a complete atrocity. Packers can lock down the succeed and I'm going to say packers by 11 and a half.

[Cousin Sal]

You get it. I was way. See this is one of the ones I was way off on. I said seven and a half. It's 10. But again, this is another one like Jordan Love can rest or he could play this game and stay at the 6.

[Bill Simmons]

What's the score?

[Cousin Sal]

I don't know. 1, 2, 3, 4. 2 3. 6 to 4 me might still get this. I think you are going to get it. Bunch of garbage coming.

[Bill Simmons]

We only have five games left.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah. All right.

[Bill Simmons]

So we tied them all right. Next category is top three draft pick on the line. The Bills are at the Patriots. The Pats clinch the first pick with a loss. Buffalo has clinched everything already. And yet I think Buffalo is still going to be favored by five and a half even with Mitch Trubisky.

[Cousin Sal]

I went higher than that. It's amazing that you're going to win this and be off by so much. I went Bills by six. It's Bills by one and a half.

[Bill Simmons]

Wow. So you get it, Mitch Trubisky.

[Cousin Sal]

This has got to make nervous one and a half in a game that you think for sure you're laying down in.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm. I don't know for sure. We don't have a smart franchise. I don't know what to expect but.

[Cousin Sal]

One and a half. Well, I mean what you and I thought five and six.

[Bill Simmons]

We ran a play. I mean the Chargers game was one of the lowest moments in recent Pat's history and brought me back to, you know, the mid-70s when before, before things turned around. Brought me back to like the late 80s. It was. There was a play though. First of all, it looked like Drake May got concussed like five minutes in the game and then he came back. Then Gonzalez got concussed. But there was a play when Drake May, he turned and it was like Douglas was coming around in reverse. And it seemed like he was pitching to the running back, but he was pitching it to the wide receiver instead. But the wide receiver wasn't there yet.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah. And the ball he was pitching. Cause I was wondering for not like I'm not being.

[Bill Simmons]

I thought it was a play to the wide receiver.

[Cousin Sal]

Interesting. All right. I feel like it was just like whoever's there, just take it.

[Bill Simmons]

I think Douglas started. Started going in motion Too late. And it was supposed to be turned, flipped to wide receiver, but he was three feet back. And that was awful. I mean, it was an awful game. The crowd was booing. It was really depressing.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. You love. I mean, he has three wins. Like, you could be excited about him, but he's been just bad enough that you're in the spot to get the number one pick. So something.

[Bill Simmons]

I love Drake, man. The only thing that makes me worried is when he starts doing things like tiptoeing down the sidelines, spinning into like a guy going 30 miles an hour. It's like, please don't get hit anymore. Trick me. Eagles. Giants in Philly. Giants clinch. A top four pick with a loss. Maybe even a little bit better. Philly, Nothing to play for. I'm going to say Eagles by nine.

[Cousin Sal]

Oh, all right. I get this. I said five and a half. It's three and a half.

[Bill Simmons]

See, I'm always bad in week 18.

[Cousin Sal]

Look out for the Giants. Eight, two, five and how many left?

[Bill Simmons]

One, two, three games left.

[Cousin Sal]

Okay, good. You got to sweep them. You could do this. You could pull it off.

[Bill Simmons]

Texans are at Tennessee. Tennessee clinches the second pick in the draft with the loss.

[Cousin Sal]

Did they not cover again? I honestly don't know that the Jaguars win that game.

[Bill Simmons]

They won by seven and they covered.

[Cousin Sal]

So they're like 2 and 14 now.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, 2 and 14 against the sprint.

[Cousin Sal]

Beautiful. Great job.

[Bill Simmons]

I have Texans by three and a half at Tennessee.

[Cousin Sal]

All right. I had Texans by one and a half. And it is. Let me see. Because these things change.

[Bill Simmons]

No, I love how you have to check. Because I'm.

[Cousin Sal]

I do have to check. Is the. All these have changed. Tennessee by four and a half.

[Bill Simmons]

Tennessee by four and a half.

[Cousin Sal]

Tennessee by four and a half. So I get that.

[Bill Simmons]

Over Tennessee, over Houston by four and a half.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah. See, this is a. This is why this week shouldn't count. We are going to count it. Damn right we're going to count it. But it shouldn't count.

[Bill Simmons]

What in the hell? Why would Tennessee want to win this game? Right? They don't have a quarterback. Their quarterbacks are Will Levis and Mason Rudolph. There's two quarterbacks in the draft. Why would they want to win the game?

[Cousin Sal]

They're not going to sit back in the draft. Everyone, Right? The Texans are going to sit everyone. They're going to be calling guys off.

[Bill Simmons]

Why won't they Titans do that.

[Cousin Sal]

Houston barbecues and stuff. I don't know.

[Bill Simmons]

Two more games. These are in the Category absolutely irrelevant. Colts home for the Jaguars. I did. Colts minus seven and a half.

[Cousin Sal]

You're going to get it. It's five and a half.

[Bill Simmons]

What did you guess?

[Cousin Sal]

I said two and then Cardinals at.

[Bill Simmons]

Home for the 49ers. I need this one for, for my over unders. I need Houston to win with their underdogs and I need the Cardinals to win. And I could go 27 and 5 with my NFL over unders, which pretty good delight me to no end. Cardinals, I'm going to guess minus three and a half.

[Cousin Sal]

I said Cardinals by two and the Niners are favored by one and a half. So I get that. What, What a win. Wow, what a great week.

[Bill Simmons]

You win this every year. You win week 18, I swear you've won for like 11 straight years.

[Cousin Sal]

All right, so now going into the playoffs.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm winning by one.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah. Nine to eight to one. One tie. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

It's the closest you've been in a while.

[Cousin Sal]

Very exciting. Well, you know what I do in the playoffs? I just completely crap the bed. So.

[Bill Simmons]

So who do you. Have you thought about that Minnesota Detroit game yet?

[Cousin Sal]

Well, we have, we have too much. We're too interested in actually trying to figure out who wins. We have to hedge. We have to hedge.

[Bill Simmons]

We have to hedge. We have significant.

[Cousin Sal]

And we may not have the benefits on Detroit. Yeah. And plus we have a little. We. I mean Detroit can win by two. You talked about all the games the Vikings were in that one by two. We could take the points here. We should probably do it now.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm really proud of us.

[Cousin Sal]

I like it.

[Bill Simmons]

It's a great bet. Yeah, we did, we did it. I did more when I was in Boston on FanDuel just making weird FanDuel bets. That was one of them. Um, had some losers though on the old fan. I had some flyers on Houston to be the one seed. I had a Green Bay to be the one seed flyer. The teams the. So the five over unders I got wrong. The two that I got wrong. The worst other than the jets was Minnesota was one of them. I had the under six and a half for them. And then we both had Jacksonville over. I think that was like what, seven and a half, eight.

[Cousin Sal]

Something like that.

[Bill Simmons]

They were awful. And the jets, those were the three that I was the most off.

[Cousin Sal]

Jets.

[Bill Simmons]

Tampa. I didn't hit right.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah, you just feel like some of these teams are going to hit a wall. I'm stupid. I passed like I had the Browns over, I had the Raiders over all these dumb, dumb ass teams that don't even try.

[Bill Simmons]

What did you think of this whole gauntlet we just went through with football? Because I actually got conditioned to it by today. Just with all the games. We had two Wednesday, one Thursday, three Saturday, and then a bunch today. And it was nice cause there was only two late games today. I kind of liked it. I did a little power walk. Really had the game on my phone. I just had Brady and Burkhart just walking around LA watching on my phone.

[Cousin Sal]

Well, you could do that with the two in the late afternoon.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, cause that in Miami, Cleveland, I was like, I don't care, I'm out.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah, who cares? But we had six games before Sunday. I think it's a little too many. I don't think you need a Thursday night game if there are two. Totally agree games I win. Right?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Cousin Sal]

And maybe you don't need three on Saturday because honestly it ended up being okay. But we had Rattler, O'Connell, Rudolph, Mack Rush, Pickett, Flacco, Lock. Those are four of the six games. Like Aaron Rodgers was going into the morning games, you know, early afternoon. He was like the third best quarterback going into them.

[Bill Simmons]

Right.

[Cousin Sal]

Like it was like Baker and, and obviously Josh Allen. And then like Aaron Rodgers was third. So I don't know.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, it led to a funny ringer Sunday pregame show where the half the games are games nobody would have wanted to bet on a million years. And you just kind of had to come up with stuff. All right. Want to do Parent Corner?

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah, let's do it. Go ahead. How's this go again? We say terrible things about our kids. Yeah. Now you know what I'm going to say? I'm going to say a good thing. It's like the last one of the year. Right. And we're usually trashing on em but I'm proud of my kids for all different reasons. Everyone's home, right. You have Zoe's home from school, Archie's home from school. They each did something that made me proud this week. Archie, for instance, the oldest, took his younger brothers out for a family portrait and they all wore like ties and button down shirts and they went to Sears or wherever the hell you go now and they paid for it. And they got, he got like wallet sizes for his grandparents and all different options.

[Bill Simmons]

It was like three kids.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah. And like all different fun poses. Like a real Brady Bunch moment. I mean he made his mother cry like which is a big plus. Different from the way I make her cry.

[Bill Simmons]

You know, making Melissa cry is not an achievement. That's true. It's good that he made her cry happily.

[Cousin Sal]

Exactly. It's a different kind of tears. Middle guy Jack made an audio clip of our friend Brad screaming and he plays it on a loop and has driven everyone nuts. So I'm proud of him for that. Like, he replaced it. Replaced Mariah Carey song on the Spotify top 100. So good job by you, Jack. And perhaps the winner. Yeah, my little one, Harrison. We went to Florida for a couple days. We had to visit Melissa's father. When you go through TSA and the grownups have TSA check and the grownups show their id and then the little guys, what they do is in a very stern way, they ask, what is your full name? And you have to say it. Like they'll point to the kid and he's put on the spot. And I swear, Harrison, without meeting a beat, missing a beat. How's it go? Without missing a beat, the guy says, what is your full name? And he says in a very as deep a Voice as an 11 year old could do, he says, Creed Humphrey, Alabama. And I was like, you're my fucking guy. I love it. That's the best. Now, it sidelined us for a couple minutes. Alyssa was not happy at all. And the guy is not a football fan, as you can imagine. He's like, I need your real name right now. He's like, it's Harrison. It's Harrison. It's Harrison. Icono. That's my name. So we got through it, but I.

[Bill Simmons]

Was like, that's pretty, Humphrey.

[Cousin Sal]

I don't know, it might be something he and his friends say because, you know, it's like the Monday Night Football thing, but good job by the three of them.

[Bill Simmons]

Wow. So how many times for tears from Melissa in 2024. Do we have a final count? Is it on wifereference.com lot?

[Cousin Sal]

Man, it's the age. I don't know. You going through it too?

[Bill Simmons]

No more tantrums?

[Cousin Sal]

Oh, tantrums. Oh, I wouldn't mind a tantrum every now and then.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, it's the Zoe and my wife just being in the same house. It's great.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah, right?

[Bill Simmons]

Well, it's. Yeah, it's like.

[Cousin Sal]

I mean, there's a lot of tears since this Brad recording has gone viral in the house, but other than that.

[Bill Simmons]

Can you put the Brad recording like on Instagram or something?

[Cousin Sal]

I think I will. I think I will. It's pretty good. It's going to be a little out of context for people don't know him, but it's good.

[Bill Simmons]

My parent corner. So I had. I had Zoe on the last 40 minutes of my podcast on Thursday, and she did her Teen Culture Awards for the last time because she turns 20. Both of our kids turn 20 next year, and they're not teenagers anymore. Have you really thought about that?

[Cousin Sal]

No, I haven't. Shit. Is that true? Come on. You're still a teen at 20. No.

[Bill Simmons]

No. You are 100% not a teenager. I don't know what you are.

[Cousin Sal]

It's not 20.

[Bill Simmons]

No. 20 is that limbo year before you turn 21, where you're just kind of like, ah, I'm not a teenager anymore, but I can't legally drink either. What am I?

[Cousin Sal]

Oh, man.

[Bill Simmons]

So anyway, we went to the Clipper game on Friday. We saw the Clippers against the Warriors. She wanted to see Steph Curry. It was great. And then Friday morning, Steph Curry's not playing tonight. The NBA just. It's like, I wonder what's wrong with the league. Well, it's. Cause shit like this. Cause Steph Curry's in town and then he's not playing. And we don't need to litigate that for the hundredth time, but it was just kind of funny. And she. It's funny with your kids to go through the stages of the stuff that we've all, like, kind of litigated as sports fans for years and years, where she's like, I don't understand. I thought we were seeing Steph Curry. Why isn't he playing? Like, how hurt is he? And it's like, wow, they're playing Phoenix tomorrow night. They played on Christmas. Yeah, but still, I don't. But he should play.

[Cousin Sal]

I love. These people are coming.

[Bill Simmons]

All these people are coming to the arena to see Steph Curry, and he's not going to be there. What if he got it for a Christmas game? Like a conversation for 10 years. This is one of the many reasons why the schedule should be 60 games. So Steph Curry would actually play in all the arenas.

[Cousin Sal]

Right. Anyway, he wouldn't, but you're right. Yeah, I know what you're saying. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

So I really love the Clippers arena. They did a great job, and my daughter had a great time. And the places, they really did it. They figured out how to create this arena where they have good fans. It's loud. You feel like you're on top of the court. The fans feel like they're affecting the game.

[Cousin Sal]

There's, like, real energy going on in between everything.

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah, it's fun. It's just cool. And when you go to get a drink or food or anything. There's no TVs anywhere.

[Cousin Sal]

Swipe it.

[Bill Simmons]

He wants people in the stadium. So anyway, third quarter timeout, and Zoe runs off to get a candy. And the guy behind me taps my shoulder. He's like, hey, anyone ever tell you you look like Bill Simmons? And he starts laughing. He's like, hey, how are you? He's like, I'm a fan of the pod. It's like, I didn't want to say no.

[Cousin Sal]

It could have been, oh, that would've been exciting.

[Bill Simmons]

So he goes, I didn't want to say anything until your wife went. But when your wife went to the bathroom, and I was like, that's not my wife. That's my daughter. She's 19. And I was just completely. For the rest of the game, first time somebody has thought my daughter was my wife. So I really wanted to kill myself.

[Cousin Sal]

That's all right. Let's think about this. Yeah, that's a huge compliment for you. Right?

[Bill Simmons]

I. I think there is no compliment to be taken from any aspect of this. It was. It was a dark moment.

[Cousin Sal]

Well, if she. If he had said. If he had said granddaughter, that would have sucked. Right?

[Bill Simmons]

Granddaughter would have been tough.

[Cousin Sal]

Okay, so granddaughter would have been not as bad. Not as bad. Wow.

[Bill Simmons]

Did you try to think of this? Of course. Yeah. I was thinking girlfriend would have been even more logical. Waif is like, what. What is this? Like a child bride? Like, when she turned 18, her family commit to this.

[Cousin Sal]

Not soon to be. Not teen right now. Wow. Oh, that's good.

[Bill Simmons]

I could see. I could see Z looking like she's like 22, 23 to somebody.

[Cousin Sal]

But.

[Bill Simmons]

But just like, I'm old. I don't know. It threw me.

[Cousin Sal]

But you're in LA also. You're. It's not.

[Bill Simmons]

Well, that's the thing, right? It's an indictment of la. Right.

[Cousin Sal]

She had a Thunder game, Oklahoma City. Like, they would have gotten it right, I think, you know?

[Bill Simmons]

Yeah.

[Cousin Sal]

Good for you. Congratulations. Was she. Did she laugh?

[Bill Simmons]

Did she laugh about it? She was horrified. Just flat out, flat out horrified. Anyway, thanks to that guy.

[Cousin Sal]

What did he say? Did he apologize or did you.

[Bill Simmons]

He's like, oh, my bad, my bad. He did one of those. Nice guy. But.

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

Anyway, that's it for Parent Corner. What. What else do we have to hit? What do you want to plug?

[Cousin Sal]

What do we got? Against all odds, we'll be. The fellows and I will be doing the college football picks Monday night for the Tuesday and Wednesday games. It's fun. Four big playoff games and ring of what's your favorite playoff Sunday? You know what? I'm taking Boise to upset Penn State. I think that's it. I think that, like the running back, I like Jonathe. I think there's going to be a fu. Moment for the committee who has been told they've screwed this up. And God damn it, of course they have screwed it up. But I think they're going to be like, aha. Told you. This is going to be a good matchup. And so at least take the points.

[Bill Simmons]

I'm excited for it. Casual, casual, casual. College football fan. Bill likes the playoffs. I like that there's more teams, even though the first round of games suck.

[Cousin Sal]

And Archie's going to the Rose bowl because Oregon's playing Ohio State there, so it's nice and convenient.

[Bill Simmons]

So he's gone. Oh, no. It's Rose Bowl. It's here. Yeah.

[Cousin Sal]

Rose Bowl. Yeah. Yeah. Couldn't have worked out better.

[Bill Simmons]

How so how long did he stay for the break?

[Cousin Sal]

He's here until the day after he leaves the second. I don't know. When Zoe. When does your wife Zoe go back?

[Bill Simmons]

My wife Zoe is going to Miami to see the boyfriend.

[Cousin Sal]

Oh, yeah.

[Bill Simmons]

On. On the like, 5th of January, 6th of January. Somewhere in there. Because this is another thing. Her boyfriend's turning 21.

[Cousin Sal]

Oh, really? Okay. Interesting.

[Bill Simmons]

Just. We're getting old, Sal. I don't know. I don't know how to stop it. I know Saruti's one of the producers. He's got this tiny kid, her whole life in front of her, barely. And meanwhile, we went through all these stages.

[Cousin Sal]

Oh, it sucks.

[Bill Simmons]

Just sad how fast it goes.

[Cousin Sal]

I almost missed my flattest sprint. I don't think I've ever run this fast. I made it. One of those things where they're about to close the door. I had to sprint to the. And I think. I think I sprained like, both my hamstrings. I just sat in my seat and cried for the five hour flight.

[Bill Simmons]

He blew out your Achilles?

[Cousin Sal]

Yeah. I was like, fuck, how do you get this back? It's over.

[Bill Simmons]

So you didn't have any wrestling tournaments or anything over the break?

[Cousin Sal]

No, not yet. No, we're good. We're good till next week.

[Bill Simmons]

All right, that's it for the pod. Thanks to Ceruti and Kyle and Gahao. Cuz, good job by you.

[Cousin Sal]

Good job by you, buddy.

[Bill Simmons]

Thanks, everybody. Be back on Tuesday. Side must be 21 plus in President select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18/plus in President D.C. gambling problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com, call 1-887-89-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp. Org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema. Org or call 800-32750 for 24. 7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-87-7-8, HOPE NY or text HOPE NY in New York.