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The Bill Simmons Podcast
Green Bay’s Statement, Drake’s Hot Streak, NFL Blowout Day, Flash Sales, and Guess the Lines With Cousin Sal
01:48:46
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- [00:00]
Bill Simmons
This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra, the official beer partner of the NBA. With the start of basketball season, there is so much to look forward to. But you know the best moments are served cold. Like dunking on a player or swatting a shot. Or like cracking open a Michelob Ultra, the official beer partner of the NBA. Plus, they're getting fans closer to the game with a chance to win some amazing courtside seats, a trip to All Star Weekend, custom merch and much more. Michelob Ultra Superior is worth playing for. Michelob Ultra Courtside 25 to 26. No purchase necessary. Open to US residents 21/plus begins on October 1, 2025 and ends on June 30, 2026. Multiple entry period. See official rules@michelobalcher.com courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes and details. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. We are also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network where it is Halloween week, My favorite week of the year. I've always loved Halloween, really, since the movies, but obviously as a little kid. But then Michael Myers, basketball, football just felt like when everything was happening. And then of course, my son was born. We thought it was gonna be on Halloween, but it ended up being on November 1st. Would we have called him Michael Myers Simmons? You'll never know because he was born on November 1st. We're doing Halloween, too, for the Rewatchables. We've done Halloween 1, we've done Halloween 4 and 2, which I think is probably now a comedy, but we're going to tackle it and it's coming at some point late Monday night. So stay tuned for that one. You can get it wherever you get your podcasts coming up on this podcast. Cousin Sal and I went live on YouTube right after Packers, Steelers. An entertaining game that wasn't as much of a thriller as we thought it was going to be. That didn't stop us. We dedicated the podcast to Chauncey Billups and Terry Rozier and David Jones and Pookie and Black Tony and Albanian Bruce and who else?
- [02:00]
Cousin Sal
The whole crew.
- [02:01]
Bill Simmons
Shout out to those guys. It's all coming up. We're going to take a break and then we're going to bring in Pearl Jim and then Cousin Sal. Sunday Night Football next. This is the Bill Simmons podcast, presented by FanDuel. If you're betting on the NFL, come on, FanDuel is the place to do it. They've got everything. Same game parlays, quick bets for when you want to jump in live your way so you can set your own lines on just about anything. The app's fast, it's easy to use, and best of all, when you win, you get paid instantly. I've been in Boston, Massachusetts recently. Guess what I did use FanDuel super fun. Download the FanDuel app or go to FanDuel.com BS to get started. Must be 21 + President select states 18 + in D.C. kentucky and Wyoming get promical win 100 gambler visit rg-help.com call 888-78-9777 or visit ccpg.org chat in Conn. We are here. I forgot to start recording. It is Sunday night. Cousin Sal is here. We're live on the youtubes following Packers Steelers A game that I thought would be a little more thrilling because it looked like the Steelers were going to do all the stuff they normally do. They were somehow plus 18 in field goals with their four and then the Green Bay misses two. I was waiting for the fourth quarter fumble right when the packers had momentum that all of a sudden the guy was just going to bobble it. Steelers recovery, Steelers going. But it didn't happen. The packers actually took care of business and and that was that. Who'd you have in that game?
- [03:55]
Cousin Sal
I had Green Bay. I had them all over the place. I had the -13 and a half so that would have been fun if they didn't give up that last touchdown. But I can't get greedy. What a nice week for favorites. Idiots like you and I put Moneyline parlays all over the place. I hope you don't have too much attached to Kansas City because that's where they're going to get us right tomorrow. But anyway, I, I do have some.
- [04:14]
Bill Simmons
Stuff with Kansas City. I was, I was smart enough to not attach anything to Kirk Cousins. Once we found out we got bait and switch with the Panic's Cousins thing. We can talk about that later. Do you want to start with Steelers or Packers? Because I thought this game said a lot about both.
- [04:30]
Cousin Sal
I mean we could talk about either. You know, I mean the, the only way to escape the shadow, Bill, is by beating the shadow. And that's what Jordan Love did tonight.
- [04:41]
Bill Simmons
Was do people even really link Jordan Love and Aaron Rodgers together? I felt like the Rogers Far thing was a way bigger deal than Jordan Love and Rogers. Right?
- [04:49]
Cousin Sal
I didn't think so. And especially then they went on and talk about how all they've, they've maintained the relationship throughout and watch for them to switch jerseys after the game. It's like, all right, well that's no fun. What do I care about that, you know?
- [04:59]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, I'd rather have them eyeballing each other.
- [05:01]
Cousin Sal
Yeah.
- [05:02]
Bill Simmons
So Steelers, we've been saying this for a while. We thought they were a little fraudulent. Right. And they lose that Thursday night game to the Bengals. And then this game, I thought they got overpowered. I thought Collins earth had a good point in the fourth quarter when he was, he was saying, one of the coaches was saying, watch the pile. If the pile is moving, you know, our way toward them and they're moving backwards, that's what we think's going to happen in this game. And that's actually what happened. I thought the Steelers got a little overpowered. Their defense got torched and you know, they've been duct tape and scotch tape for a few weeks here. But I think this is who they are. I think they're like a 9 and 8 team. And by the way, that might be good enough to win the AFC North.
- [05:42]
Cousin Sal
That could be. Yeah, we'll look at those odds. But yeah, you're right. And I think, I think the key is like you said, this Steelers defense is garbage. It really is like 31st in the league against the pass. I think people don't want to admit it because they have T.J. watt. It's like, no, no, no. Rough and tough Steelers. But they, you know, it just took a matter of time for Jordan Love to heat up. And by the way, the way he heated up was kind of weird. Like these under thrown passes to Tucker Craft and then another one, so. But whatever got him going. Then he put a string, I don't know how many in a row he threw complete. And yeah, they just, they're not, they don't show up. The Steelers defense. And we talk about them against the Ravens. The Ravens were the bad defense. Right. They're going to give up 40 a game. We might see that with the Steelers.
- [06:24]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, there was a moment. So if I'm a Steelers fan, I'm looking at that play where it looked like the Steelers were offsides. I mean, I'm sorry, the Packers.
- [06:32]
Cousin Sal
Packers, yeah.
- [06:32]
Bill Simmons
And Rogers whipped one off incomplete. But it seemed like he, he took a little bit of a chance. Cause he thought it was an offsides and it seemed like an offside. They didn't call it. And then the packers come right back down. They get that crazy Jordan love blue pass to Craft that easily could have been a pick too, but ended up being a great play. And, and it felt like the game flipped from that point on. But if I was a Steelers fan, I'd be looking at. Oh, man. If they'd called that offsides, we had momentum, the Packer. But you know, the Packers, I've noticed this a few times. They remind me a little of the Eagles where the pace of whatever they're doing, it takes a while for them to get going. And it's, you know, it's a three now and it's slow and it's methodical and you're like, you have all these weapons. Why aren't you guys just going, going, going? And then the second half, they kind of did that. I think they're pretty scary. Like, I, I, House and I, we took them in Ringer 107, partly because we thought they haven't really played an awesome game in a while, and we think it hasn't in them. I don't know if this was an awesome game, but it was a really good game. But I think they have the most pieces of anyone in the NFC other than the Eagles.
- [07:33]
Cousin Sal
Right. I thought offensively, yeah, I mean, well, first of all, both. I mean, Micah Parsons again in everyone's grill. Gary. Gary's right there. Rashawn Gary. And you know, and even like the one completion there, that pass interference, like Rogers, like, had to let it go. And that, that was a long pass downfield. But that's what the packers do. That's exciting. They throw downfield, right?
- [07:55]
Bill Simmons
Yes.
- [07:55]
Cousin Sal
They're always going to be in it. They have eight or nine talented pass catchers now. Now that Christian Watson's back, it's kind of ridiculous. I don't even know how Jordan Love knows who to throw to. But, yeah, they throw downfield. They get big plays. Tucker Craft is insane. And yeah, they're, they're. That looked more like the week one team we saw against the Lions for sure.
- [08:14]
Bill Simmons
And they can run the ball, they can rush the passer. Like you said, they can defend the pass enough. Special teams is good, although even the field goal kicker cost them tonight. Yeah, but, you know, I, I always keep tally of like wins, losses, and then either or games. That was a legitimate win. So they have four legitimate wins. Three either or games. They. They don't have a loss yet. Where it was like, oh, man, they got their. They lost. They got their butt kicked for three hours or they were never in that game. They don't have one of those yet. They're playing the Panthers.
- [08:45]
Cousin Sal
Cowboys tie should count as a loss. More we see of Dallas, but Western ballots.
- [08:53]
Bill Simmons
They play the Panthers next week at home. Eagles home on A Monday night, they play the Giants, who lost, scattered Beau and have nobody left. Vikings, week 12, who. They're a mess. And really, their next tough game is Week 13 at Lions for Thanksgiving. So they could go on a little. Little run here. And if you're them, I think you think you might have a legitimate chance at. Could you get a one or a two seed? I think would be the goal.
- [09:23]
Cousin Sal
Yeah. At this point, it has to be. It's funny, I look at these schedules, I remember thinking, oh, the Steelers have a really tough November. And now you look at it, like, three weeks later. It's like, oh, man. Oh, Viking. Yeah, they could beat the Bears. Like, this is. No one's that good. Right. So no one really stands out. And therefore, like, kind of everyone's in it. But those odds for the AFC north are just insane. What? It's Baltimore. Baltimore's minus 110. Baltimore's 2 and 5. And they're minus 110. To win that division, the Steelers are plus 175. That was with like, three minutes left. Maybe that changed.
- [09:55]
Bill Simmons
I don't know. Well, one of the. One of the things I wrote down in the second half was, if. So Baltimore plays Miami Thursday night, they could be one win behind Pittsburgh. After Thursday night, Pittsburgh was feeling like everything was going in their favor. I. You know, I still don't know what. I didn't really fully understand that Lamar Jackson story and why it was a big deal. Why do you think that was a big deal?
- [10:17]
Cousin Sal
Why do I think that people are making a big deal of it? Well, there's a lot of money on the line to say what we have firsthand, why it was a big deal. Like, everybody bet them at six and a half thinking Lamar Jackson was playing. Everyone had fantasy implication. I don't know. Other than that you should just be honest with your injury report. Right. Did he practice or did he not?
- [10:36]
Bill Simmons
They. Well, but they never said he was officially playing yet on Sunday. It was a little leap of faith.
- [10:42]
Cousin Sal
Ish. Right.
- [10:43]
Bill Simmons
I think it was Thursday, Friday.
- [10:45]
Cousin Sal
Range, did he practice or not? I think was the question.
- [10:49]
Bill Simmons
So the cause. I didn't follow this because there was so many stuff happening today. So is the theory that. Is the theory that they just blatantly lied about him practicing when he didn't, and that's affecting all this different stuff. And this is like the one. No, no. For the league.
- [11:07]
Cousin Sal
So that's. That's a conclusion you could jump to. And then people, of course, because they're crazy, have to jump to the next conclusion, that they wanted people to bet the Ravens and then I don't know, fanduel split the money with the league because. Not that it mattered because they covered. I was like everyone.
- [11:24]
Bill Simmons
So this is the conspiracy corner. Yeah.
- [11:26]
Cousin Sal
I mean for me this is always the same thing. It's like okay, what's to be gained and what happens if they find out you actually did this? Right? Oh, what's to be gained? Nothing compared to the trillions of dollars that the, you know, the, the league makes. And what's to be lost? Well, you're already being accused of it. Like that's terrible. And if you're found guilty like this, you know, it's good. Players like Rozier, it's going to happen to one off players every now and then. Organizations and leagues are not going to cheat to get gambling money. People betting and I just don't.
- [11:56]
Bill Simmons
But that's why, that's why I was asking why this was a big deal. It's so absurd that the Ravens, you know this is a franchise worth $7 billion. They're going to be like yo, we might be able to make a couple hundred thousand here if we can deceive the public and get some bets both ways. It's ludicrous. To me the bigger disgrace was the Falcons. All week, whatever that number was, everyone thought Penix was playing. And then they bring in the Kirk Cousins corpse for today and it was like you knew within what, 25 minutes. I had House and I had the Falcons Ringer 107. We thought Penix was playing by 10:35 Pacific Time. I was like this has no chance. My cousin's just is, is done as a. It was so funny that he was in trade rumors this year. Who's trading for him?
- [12:42]
Cousin Sal
I. Nobody could. I mean maybe it's just a joke. I mean because he, they open the bag from wherever he goes. But I just, yeah, the Atlanta games I think we have to learn. I think we have to put a block on our YouTube 4 box to not let us put Atlanta in it. We have to put a parental control.
- [12:58]
Bill Simmons
All parts of them. Can we block gambling flag.
- [13:02]
Cousin Sal
I mean you should be able to put a parental control like I'm not betting it. Don't let me bet Atlanta, don't let me bet Atlanta games because that's it. But yeah, Cousins was bad but I don't know, I find myself trying to defend these bad especially the 1pm window quarterbacks and they just didn't have the ball at all in the first half. Like it was like a 20 to 10 time of possession. I think they had like 16 plays or something crazy Atlanta. But yeah, let's just stay away from them.
- [13:27]
Bill Simmons
When Cousins does the thing where he holds his head like a little kid who has sensory disorder and there's like a loud alarm going off and he starts hitting his head.
- [13:36]
Cousin Sal
Mary yeah.
- [13:37]
Bill Simmons
You don't want the quarterback who's just hitting their head and doing this. That's usually a sign that something is going horribly wrong.
- [13:44]
Cousin Sal
Yeah. When you have to send the quarterback to the blue tent because he's trying to hear.
- [13:49]
Bill Simmons
He's trying to concuss.
- [13:50]
Cousin Sal
Jostled his brain too much because he's trying to hear the play. Not good.
- [13:54]
Bill Simmons
So Jordan Love today in that to put a bow in that Steelers game. He finished with 363 touchdowns, no picks. Completed 20 straight at one point. Thought he needed it. Thought it had been kind of an underwhelming Jordan Love year. And then on the flip side, I think this has been a gravy season for Rogers. I thought he was pretty good today. He was under duress the whole time. I thought he was pretty creative and it's certainly a little better than we ever could have expected with him. I just don't think that's a very good team.
- [14:25]
Cousin Sal
This game was not his fault. The defense is going to be a problem. I give. I. I don't know if he would have taken this gig if he knew the defense was going to be so lackluster. Right. Give up between 35 and 40 a game. I will say though, Rogers mouthing, effing, losing his mind, you know, in the first half, like while wearing the Bumblebee half. Bumblebee half of traffic sign costume is kind of pretty funny. So kick out of that.
- [14:51]
Bill Simmons
He does have the mid-40s dad golf luck now. Like, you know the passes, like somebody should have caught the interception. They drop it. It's like the dad hitting the ball down the. The hits the tree and bounces in the fairway. Basically all the breaks. Dixon gets Ravens. Bears was the other AFC north game. That's not fair, baby. I'm killing the ball right now. So Ravens had their first win in six weeks. This was a tough Caleb game and I don't feel like the stats properly reflected was one of those. You actually had to watch the game. Like some of the red zone stuff, the intentional grounding he took, the way he was missing some guys and there's just a general lack of craftsmanship slash something with him. And I, I theorize I had the fantasy guys on my podcast on Tuesday, we did one crazy prediction at the end of the pod, like, the craziest thing you could think of. And I was like, tyson Bagen's the Bears quarterback in Week 13. And we're like, whoa. But I was watching this game thinking, like, if they had a better quarterback performance, I think they could have beaten Baltimore today, and he wasn't good enough.
- [16:05]
Cousin Sal
You just got that from today? Because I think he's been.
- [16:07]
Bill Simmons
No, it's been every week.
- [16:09]
Cousin Sal
Yeah. And he's benefited because Chicago's pulled more turnovers this year than they have through seven weeks, and they had, like, all last year or something. So maybe mask the fact that, you know, Caleb Williams is not performing with some good receivers and a good running back and a good tight end and everything else that they set him up with. So I don't know. I would say if you gave Ben Johnson some truth serum right now, like, he'd be like, I don't know, Bill. Bill, you're right. What'd you say? Week 13, I think that's a good over on.
- [16:38]
Bill Simmons
The case I had for on Tuesday was just that they love. They love Bajan. They signed him to an extension during the off season, and they went out of their way to talk about how great he is and what a. What an incredible teammate and all this stuff. And I don't think it would be a benching, but I just. I wonder, like, if he got dinged up or something. And I'm just in the back of my head, I have this scenario where Bajan comes in and you just feel that flip with the new guy. But that Caleb, you know, it was Jada Daniels last year. It's Drake made this year from that draft, and Caleb's never really had his moment. And this was the guy that was supposed to be the franchise dude out of all these guys. But I thought I, you know, this is a game. I know it was a kitchen sink game for the Ravens. I like the Ravens today. But they, you know, they did have Huntley, and it's a game the Bears, I think, could have stolen. I thought they were pretty close in that game. They end up losing by 14.
- [17:29]
Cousin Sal
We saw. We saw Captain Kirk. We saw Snoop Huntley. We saw the Red Rifle with all the greats really lined up. Yeah, I don't know.
- [17:37]
Bill Simmons
And then there's.
- [17:38]
Cousin Sal
Well, listen, the league had to fix it, right, Bill? So that the Ravens covered that original Thursday spread that they had. Otherwise, it'd be too many complaints. 30, 16.
- [17:47]
Bill Simmons
We had a big controversy in our Ringer 107 that you guys talked about in the Sunday pregame. The Ringer 107. One of the teams is the fantasy show. And Craig wanted to redo the Ravens pick without Lamar, and we had to explain to him that picks lock in and that's it. And. And we just basically ridiculed him for about an hour straight.
- [18:07]
Cousin Sal
Yeah, exactly. But yeah, it was, it was kind of adorable. Is that a millennial thing? I don't know.
- [18:12]
Bill Simmons
It was kind of adorable that he just thought he got a redo. And then of course, they win the bet anyway, because the Bears, how many times were they inside like the 10 yard line in that game where they didn't get anything? It was at three different times.
- [18:23]
Cousin Sal
Looked like a bunch. And that last one was crazy where the offensive lineman was looking for an. Like they, they wouldn't snap the ball. They just wouldn't snap it. And then they had to fire it through the end zone. But.
- [18:32]
Bill Simmons
Right. Yeah, I think they had like first and goal. It was, it felt like it was like at the 2 or 3 and they somehow didn't go, didn't score to, to get it. So do we have, do you think our seven and NFC playoff teams already? If I gave you Philadelphia, Tampa, Seattle and the Rams and then Detroit and San Francisco and then Green Bay as the seven.
- [18:59]
Cousin Sal
Wait, say it again. Philly is the only team in the east, right? Philly, Tampa, Green Bay, in the Rams.
- [19:05]
Bill Simmons
Let's give those to the divisions. We'll do three NFC west teams. San Francisco, Seattle and the Rams. And two in the NFC North, Detroit and Green Bay. And that's just going to be the playoffs.
- [19:16]
Cousin Sal
So you're saying Minnesota and Atlanta have sufficiently fallen off. Like they don't.
- [19:21]
Bill Simmons
They're not getting like, if you had to bet that right now and I gave you door A, these are the seven. Door B, anybody else could crash the party. I think I would pick those seven.
- [19:30]
Cousin Sal
Interesting. I've been watching a lot of prices, right. AI? Things with Bob Barker giving. Ridiculous. I think you're right. I'll send you 100 of them and then you'll.
- [19:40]
Bill Simmons
There's AI prices. Right.
- [19:41]
Cousin Sal
You'll do nothing else.
- [19:42]
Bill Simmons
Like, I don't even understand what that.
- [19:44]
Cousin Sal
Is with a fat guy. Yeah. Because I think you could take advantage of dead people more if you're AI. I don't know what they think now, but. Yeah, like a, a fat guy getting like an all you can eat buffet and going nuts. But anyway, I think that's the, I would say that's the seven Washington not sneaking in. My terrible team's not sneaking in. I don't like Minnesota at all. We don't like Chicago. I mean, we just. You just run out of teams and now watch Atlanta screw us.
- [20:10]
Bill Simmons
So Green Bay, Tampa, Philly, Detroit, they don't have all the teams up yet. I was going to try to figure out a good fanduel if that was a parlay. I think that's better than even odds. So. So if you had to pick a party crasher, who would you pick?
- [20:23]
Cousin Sal
I can't think. I don't like Washington. I don't like my team.
- [20:27]
Bill Simmons
I think the. There's a slight Chicago case. If they could fit. Because I feel like they're hanging around these games. Yeah, Minnesota. No, I think that too much has happened for them.
- [20:39]
Cousin Sal
It would have to be Chicago. It's not going to be Arizona in the West.
- [20:42]
Bill Simmons
Right.
- [20:42]
Cousin Sal
It's not going to be any of the south teams. I think it's maybe Atlanta. Maybe Chicago or Atlanta just eats us up again like they always do. But I like the seven. I would take the seven. I would take that prize. The seven you picked out well.
- [20:56]
Bill Simmons
And then the 49ers lost to the Texans today. And I felt this was one of the ones I liked the most this week. Cause I thought the Niners really smoking mares that last week. And then you could do that for a week when you don't have any guys on defense. But then you can just look at the tape and see what they did and go, oh, they're doing this okay. Stroud looked really good. Wasn't getting pressured at all. Didn't have Nico Collins. There was a lot of Woody Marks. He had his young receivers, but he just looked like the Stroud from two years ago again. And San Francisco's defense, I did not.
- [21:31]
Cousin Sal
Look salvageable to me.
- [21:32]
Bill Simmons
And yet I still think they're going to make the playoffs. They're 5 and 3, and I think they can get probably four more wins, maybe five. But they'll. They'll be in the 9 or 10 range.
- [21:42]
Cousin Sal
But. Well, how many more injuries do they suffer?
- [21:45]
Bill Simmons
Right.
- [21:45]
Cousin Sal
Like, I guess, like if McCaffrey went out, who. Who's, like, who's bulletproof at this point? Is it as long as McCaffrey doesn't go out? What. What are we looking at here with San Francisco?
- [21:57]
Bill Simmons
McCaffrey's the only one. Yeah, yeah. Maybe defense with Hobby, maybe somebody in the offensive line.
- [22:03]
Cousin Sal
I mean, they allow 475 yards and they gained 223. McCaffrey did almost nothing I still would say they're a playoff team because the NFC is. But you're right. I mean, Stroud through to nine guys. And that really did look like rookie CJ Stroud.
- [22:17]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, the. The Jaylen Noel I like. I think he's. I think they might have something with them. And I've liked Woody Marks. I've had him on all my fantasy teams for a couple weeks. Kind of waiting for the moment. It feels like there's five or six guys with the exact same body on different teams and I have most of them. But it's Kamani Vidal, RJ Harvey, Woody Marks, Trayvon Henderson. There's just a certain prototype running back.
- [22:44]
Cousin Sal
But you're looking at their bodies.
- [22:46]
Bill Simmons
5, 9, 5, 10. Like power, speed, like can catch the ball out of the backfield. There's just all over the place now in the league. I think Harvey might be my favorite out of all of them. And Denver unleashed them a little bit.
- [22:59]
Cousin Sal
Today, but it just seemed that much today. But yeah, I could see why you might be a fan.
- [23:03]
Bill Simmons
I'm sorry about that. That was tough for you. Yeah. Anyway, Houston got back into it. Kitchen sink game for them. They're. They're not going to catch Indianapolis because I don't think anybody is, but I think they could still, you know.
- [23:16]
Cousin Sal
Well, I wonder what they are. They were minus 400 to make the playoffs.
- [23:21]
Bill Simmons
Houston was before the year.
- [23:23]
Cousin Sal
No, no, before. Before this week. And now they are. Wait, I'm sorry. Now they're.
- [23:32]
Bill Simmons
Houston was not make it to not make.
- [23:34]
Cousin Sal
To not make the playoffs. Sorry.
- [23:35]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. Yeah.
- [23:36]
Cousin Sal
And now I can't even find them. Did they take. Why would they take him off? Is there an injury?
- [23:40]
Bill Simmons
Probably because.
- [23:41]
Cousin Sal
260 plus 260 to make it. I don't know about that.
- [23:47]
Bill Simmons
So who are your seven in the AFC then? If you give me Buffalo and the Pats one AFC north team. Indianapolis, Denver and kc that's five. So then you'd have. The Chargers would be lurking.
- [24:01]
Cousin Sal
You don't want to give three to the West.
- [24:06]
Bill Simmons
That's. That would be. The Chargers would be probably the number one pick.
- [24:09]
Cousin Sal
I think.
- [24:09]
Bill Simmons
So maybe there's going to be a bad AFC team. Is. Is what's actually how it's going to play out? I think. Right. It'll be like Jacksonville or if it's.
- [24:22]
Cousin Sal
Three in the west and you get two in the east, then you just have the division champs from the north and.
- [24:28]
Bill Simmons
Oh yeah, you're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're. You're always better at this thing.
- [24:31]
Cousin Sal
Oh, man.
- [24:32]
Bill Simmons
So The Chargers would be the seventh then.
- [24:34]
Cousin Sal
Yeah, I would think so. I mean, you should start thinking about who you want to play here. I tried to get you going last week, but you're like, no, we're getting a buy. I'm like, all right, whatever. But if you don't get a buy, you'd rather have the Chargers come to Foxborough than than like Denver, right?
- [24:54]
Bill Simmons
I can't wait to talk about this. Let's take a break and then we're going to talk about Blowout Day. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Basketball's back. FanDuel's putting you in control right from tip off every day to start the season. Choose your reward. Play it safe, go for it. Feeling bold, that's your move. Whatever your style, you're in control. What kind of better are you? I like to basically ride teams that look way better than I thought they're going to be or way worse in the first few weeks of the season. I'm all in on this spurs team being a 50 win team if they can stay healthy. Conversely, very concerned about the Celtics and they're in New Orleans on Monday night and it turns out not having Jayson Tatum and not having centers and not being able to rebound is a bigger obstacle than I thought. So I would look at buying San Antonio, selling the Celtics anyway. However you play, Fando is giving you the power to choose your reward. Own your game every single day. To start the NBA season, head to fando.com BS to make your choice. Must be 21/president select states or 18/president in D.C. kentucky or Wyoming. Opt in Required rewards are non withdrawable. Restrictions apply including bonus and token expiration, leg requirements and max wager amount. See terms@supportsbook.fandl.com, get them problem. Call 1-800- Gamble or visit rg-help.com, call 1-888-789777 or visit ccpg.org Chattinconenetic this episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra, the official beer partner of the NBA. So the NBA season is starting. I'm excited about a bunch of different things. We have a lot of a lot of teams up in the air. Boston, Milwaukee, Indiana. What are we getting from these teams? The Lakers? Can they hang on and still be a top six team? I think I'm most excited for the Texas teams. I want to see Durant in Houston, Cooper Flagg in Dallas and Wemby and Dylan Harper in San Antonio. I feel like I'm going to be spending a lot of time in the state of Texas with my basketball choices. There are a lot of moments worth playing for. The ones that taste best are served cold, unlike in Texas, where it's usually hot. Whatever happens this season, catch every moment with Mick Lobotra, the official beer partner of the NBA, getting fans closer to the game with a chance to win courtside seats. You heard me correctly, a trip to all Star weekend, custom merch and much more. Michelob Ultra Superior is worth playing for. Enter now Michelob ultra.com courtside Michelob Ultra Courtside 2025-2026 no purchase necessary open to US residents 21/plus begins on October 1, 2025 ends on June 30, 2026 multiple entry periods. See official rules@michelobaltra.com courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes and details. Blowout day today. What were the favorites? What did the favorites end up today? 10 and 10, including Thursday night. 10 and two include Thursday.
- [27:42]
Cousin Sal
Yeah.
- [27:42]
Bill Simmons
10 and two and didn't last week the favorites crushed.
- [27:46]
Cousin Sal
It was the same. It was nine and two. I don't know what we're talking about. What's going on?
- [27:49]
Bill Simmons
This. What is happening?
- [27:51]
Cousin Sal
What's going on? We're making money. Why are we.
- [27:53]
Bill Simmons
I know, but I don't question it. I don't trust this. Now the favorites are basically 20 and four and Thursdays and Sundays.
- [28:01]
Cousin Sal
Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to say anything because they. They've. They've fixed it a little bit as I guess the lines prematurely. Not. Not good. But yeah, it looks like. Looks like everyone's supposed to win this winning. And yet I don't know. It's just probably because there's like nine bad quarterbacks out there.
- [28:19]
Bill Simmons
Well, we had seven blowouts and the only one where the underdog blew out somebody was the Dolphins over the Falcons. Where we thought we did the pod last week. We thought McDaniel was done. Right. He wasn't. They came back. They actually ran the ball. Tua was dying. It's another one. You had to see it like at 1.2, a pass gets tipped in the air and it's up. It's like a. It's almost like a jump ball. Two Falcons defenders, they're like arguing over who should intercept it and they crash into each other and they drop it. But it was just like one of those games. Then there was another one where B. John Robinson's basically running the ball. Was it either into the end zone or inside the five and his knee hits the ball as he's running and he causes his own fumble. So you had that one. It was just one of those games. But it does did seem like McDaniel's going to keep his job. Tua still looks, you know, like Tua.
- [29:18]
Cousin Sal
But anyway should keep his job past Halloween. I mean, it's his favorite. It's got to be his favorite holiday, right? But so that's a poetic glasses alone.
- [29:26]
Bill Simmons
He could try different glasses every day.
- [29:28]
Cousin Sal
Fake glasses.
- [29:29]
Bill Simmons
So blowout day. The Broncos killed your team. Bo Nix, who threw for four touchdowns, but also had his typical two overthrows of wide open guys on bombs. I don't know what he's batting on those bombs, but he's got to be like 2 for 55 this year. Your defense just looked awful. But what was interesting, Dak wasn't good. That was the first kind of Rocky Dak game of the year. Right. You've watched all of them.
- [29:54]
Cousin Sal
He was kind of due for that. Something like that. Every, every facet of this team was bad. Like the defense, the play calling Schottenheimer. Who's that? Big John Stud.
- [30:04]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, Big John Stud.
- [30:05]
Cousin Sal
Rest in peace.
- [30:07]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. Legend.
- [30:08]
Cousin Sal
Would you slam it? Could you slam him? Would you take that $15,000 check?
- [30:11]
Bill Simmons
I could say Small John Stud. Yeah. Not Big John Stud.
- [30:14]
Cousin Sal
Okay.
- [30:15]
Bill Simmons
But yeah, Dax sucked.
- [30:17]
Cousin Sal
It was bad. And I don't know why. A few of my cowboy fan friends, like love them this week. I was like, guys, you know how this goes, right? Raheem was one of them. I had some other buddies that I was like, they're like, no, we're going to win this. Plus three and a half. That's a steal. I was like, have you seen our defense? Did you see it two weeks ago against the, against the Panthers? And I think like people misinterpreted that Denver game against the Giants. Like, to me, I came out of that like, well, Denver was lucky, but also they scored 33 fucking points in the fourth quarter, right? And now they have to go up against my defense, right? So whether Bonix figures it out in the first quarter, second or third, and then they just ran over everything. I mean, you saw your RJ Harvey guy. So when you don't have a run defense, that's always fun. But yeah, they were, they were bad.
- [31:02]
Bill Simmons
I had a lot of Denver stuff, as you know, for the futures with overs and number one seed stuff and alt overs and to win the division. Today was the first day I thought they might actually get to like 12 wins, right? When like they're 6 and 2, which is kind of hard to believe because I, I, I don't even think they've been really that ha. That happy with how consistent they've been, especially on defense. But right now I have them with four legitimate wins, zero legitimate losses, and four either or games. And they're going at Texans home, Raiders home, Chiefs at Commanders on a Sunday night. Which might be like a shit game now. Right. Cause we, the Washington might be thrown away this season by then. At the raiders in week 14. Home packers home, Jags at Chiefs home, Chargers. A schedule that just looked a lot harder than I think it does now. You know, they're at the Texans next week. Maybe no Nico Collins, maybe he comes back, that's not going to be an easy game. But, but Yeah, I think 12 wins is conceivable for them. Like a 12 and 5.
- [32:08]
Cousin Sal
I mean I'd be very surprised if they didn't make the play. I'd be much more surprised if they didn't make it than if the Chargers didn't make it. Both teams blew out their opponents this week, so I think we could compare them equally. But they're minus 355 to make the playoffs. They're too good. I think that defense is one of, I don't know if there's a scarier defense. Right. Like people were against them. They had 15 sacks in three games before today.
- [32:31]
Bill Simmons
Right.
- [32:31]
Cousin Sal
They constantly pressure the quarterback.
- [32:33]
Bill Simmons
Right.
- [32:33]
Cousin Sal
And that's why Dak was rattled and had to take off more than he needed to. And that's going to, that's going to screw with some of the bad quarterbacks they have coming up. And everybody does, everybody's going to play like between three your team play like all 18 bad quarterbacks. But, but yeah, everybody knew that before.
- [32:50]
Bill Simmons
The season that was the case for them.
- [32:52]
Cousin Sal
I know, I know.
- [32:54]
Bill Simmons
You know, the Pats, we've played, we have seven crossoff teams. If you include Cleveland, which I think is the new crossoff team.
- [33:01]
Cousin Sal
Yeah.
- [33:02]
Bill Simmons
So the crossoff teams are the Jets, Browns, Tennessee, Miami, New Orleans, Vegas and Cleveland. None of those teams are making the playoffs.
- [33:08]
Cousin Sal
Oh, we didn't have Cleveland last week.
- [33:09]
Bill Simmons
No, we're at, we added them right now. That's seven.
- [33:12]
Cousin Sal
Yeah, that's fine.
- [33:13]
Bill Simmons
The Pats have played six of the seven and we're five and one against, against the seven cross off teams. I just, I was thinking about it.
- [33:21]
Cousin Sal
Today, like, would you trade the PAT schedule if someone else could play the PAT schedule, would somebody trade it for a second round pick like coming into this thing, like, and I know people like What? The schedules are made years in advance.
- [33:35]
Bill Simmons
Like.
- [33:36]
Cousin Sal
Yes. Except for seven games. Like you don't know if you're playing the fourth place team and you know, in, in the three AFC divisions or the. To the NFC outside of it. So they, but they're good. I'll. I'll give you everything. I kick started maybe again today by tweeting something stupid.
- [33:54]
Bill Simmons
What did you tweet?
- [33:55]
Cousin Sal
I missed it when he threw the interception. I posted the video and wrote the B is back B E. And then, then he made me pay big time.
- [34:06]
Bill Simmons
He. That Browns defense is good and he was under siege. And it was a really impressive Drake May game, especially in third quarter. Garrett was running them out. Garrett had five sacks. I know May had the worst pass he's had since probably week three when he got picked early and just, he just went into that mode. I've never seen a quarterback throw the deep ball better than this. He doesn't miss ever. He hit like Buddha today. He had a step on the guy. But when we have a guy down the field and he's got a step like May hits him in stride, it feels like 90% of the time. Not to mention all the other stuff, not to mention the running. And he's been so smart about not taking hits anymore and sliding and sliding two yards too early. Now instead of putting his head down, he's just trying to stay on the field and making plays. And I think I watch all the social media stuff after the game. As you know, I like to have the. This has been the best part of the season. They show Frable stands in the Runway and he, and he high fives and hugs every guy coming off and they show all of it. And for some reason it's riveting. Then the post game speech stuff and then the press conference stuff. They really believe in Drake as like a special guy. Like they're starting to talk about it pretty openly. Like they're like, this guy's the mvp. This guy's amazing. If we have him, we got a chance. So I don't know. I don't know where this goes.
- [35:30]
Cousin Sal
I don't know what to say either. You're right about all of it. When they show the stats where he has like more 20 plus yard passes in a game than the other team has points, like it's, it's depressing.
- [35:39]
Bill Simmons
This shouldn't be happening for you.
- [35:41]
Cousin Sal
You should have a Cleveland Brown situation.
- [35:42]
Bill Simmons
Where you served our six year penance.
- [35:44]
Cousin Sal
Worse than middling quarterbacks for like 25 years. Crazy. You get right back on the horse like this.
- [35:50]
Bill Simmons
I think it's crazier that there was such, like, adamant debate about him heading into that draft. Yeah.
- [35:56]
Cousin Sal
So now. Yeah, I know. Redrafting.
- [35:59]
Bill Simmons
No, but some people heading into that draft, some people are like, this guy's going to be a bust. This guy's like Mitch Trubisky. He has the tools. He's not going to be able to put it together. And I, I was all in. I really, I was all in on him. But he's way better than I thought. To be this good at this age with this few games and to be this dramatically better than you were a year ago when you had no coach, no weapons, no blocking, you know, they don't have the greatest blocking, but it's okay. The weapons are better and he's just way smarter about everything.
- [36:31]
Cousin Sal
What could I say? He would have had 700 yards against the.
- [36:34]
Bill Simmons
Well, I hope you won money on him today at least.
- [36:35]
Cousin Sal
No, I did because they were the second half bet. They were definitely that. That was the way to play it, I thought. And yeah, they were. They were rock solid. And he's great. I don't even know, you know, the fact that you moved on from Mac Jones, like other teams would have stayed with him another seven years and he's fine. But that's what you would have had.
- [36:51]
Bill Simmons
You would, you would have had.
- [36:52]
Cousin Sal
Fine.
- [36:53]
Bill Simmons
He had. He was sacked six times and he had a bad pick and it just didn't matter. He's third for MVP now. It's like a three man race for mvp. There's no Jonathan Taylor momentum. Although I think this week it'll be the talking point because it was a pretty boring week for the most part. So the next 48 hours will be about why can't Jonathan Taylor be the mvp? I'm telling you guys, Jonathan Taylor and it's just not happening. Running backs don't win the mvp and he's not going to win the mvp. And he could have two touchdowns every game, which is basically what he's doing. It's not going to happen. He's not winning mvp.
- [37:31]
Cousin Sal
He's got the Barkley buzz from last year. Right. In terms of like the running back that's.
- [37:35]
Bill Simmons
And some years you and I have fallen for it and we've done the segment, but I'm not doing it anymore. They don't win.
- [37:40]
Cousin Sal
No, I don't think quarterbacks win. I will say this. When they kept showing that stat like this is the first time a running back has had three consecutive games with three plus touchdowns against the same team, I would be like, shut up. I don't want people to know that I'm just beating up on the Titans here. Right. I'm doing good things otherwise. But to. To your point about Drake May, could this be like a Russell Westbrook year where they give it to not a top two seed? I mean, we're kind of due for that, aren't we? And the same guys win over and over. We saw Mahomes at 15 wins last year and didn't. Didn't get any votes. You know, I know his stats weren't good, but I think we could do. I think the Bills can win the division and Drake May can win mvp. I really do. I think that's in the cards right now.
- [38:26]
Bill Simmons
Well, the question for me is why couldn't they be a one or a two seed with their schedule and yeah, they're six and two, so could they go seven and two the rest of the way or six and three gets them to 12? Five.
- [38:40]
Cousin Sal
Yeah.
- [38:40]
Bill Simmons
With that. Yeah, sure. It's conceivable I'll be interested. When's the trade deadline? It's coming up, right?
- [38:46]
Cousin Sal
Yeah, I think it's. Was it the week after Halloween or is that that. Yeah, it's right around there.
- [38:50]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. I don't. I'll be interested to see if they mess with the team because I think the chemistry is great. All of them are talking about, like, they play for each other, we love each other. It's one of those teams and I think it's legit. A lot of it has to do with the guys Ray Bull went after in the off season. He went after like all these character dudes like Spillane and Matt Collins and just these guys that. And they draft Will Campbell, all these like, just teammate guys. And I don't know if they're going to mess with that, but I still feel like that I like the offensive line. That would be the thing that I think sinks them ultimately because they. They just have these stretches where they just feel like they're under siege. And May has been so good. He's been hiding some of it, but that would be my biggest.
- [39:33]
Cousin Sal
Well, if you get a veteran lineman in there, I don't think it's going to crush team chemistry.
- [39:37]
Bill Simmons
I think you'll.
- [39:37]
Cousin Sal
You'll be fine. Can we talk about somebody else now?
- [39:40]
Bill Simmons
Let's talk about your team.
- [39:42]
Cousin Sal
Well, hey, we did. What are you talking about?
- [39:43]
Bill Simmons
We did not blow out. Number three was. Eagles. Giants.
- [39:48]
Cousin Sal
Okay, Good.
- [39:50]
Bill Simmons
Poor scoutaboo. Can't the Giants fans have nice things do they have to pay for the sins of the two Super Bowls? They never should have won for the rest of their lives. This is just how it goes for them now. It's not their fault that their team won one super bowl because of a helmet catch and the other because of an intentional grounding in the end zone that's never been called before since. And 19 other terrible calls. And then Eli makes his one throw to Manningham that's somehow going to get him in the hall of Fame. And we had Gronk playing with, you know, whatever his injury was and yeah, I don't even. I feel bad for the Giants fans now.
- [40:25]
Cousin Sal
Yeah, I don't. Do we have them as a cross off, do we? We didn't have them last week, did we?
- [40:30]
Bill Simmons
They're a cross off. We have seven cross offs. We have jets, both New York teams.
- [40:35]
Cousin Sal
Yeah.
- [40:36]
Bill Simmons
Oh, I don't have them as a cross.
- [40:38]
Cousin Sal
We did. We didn't have them because what's happened, they, we thought they had some juice. Yeah.
- [40:43]
Bill Simmons
And it's not their fault no more.
- [40:44]
Cousin Sal
Like things would be different. They'll be good next year.
- [40:47]
Bill Simmons
Right.
- [40:47]
Cousin Sal
But Scatterboat Neighbors, if, you know, Jackson Dart doesn't kill himself, I think they'll be good. But you know, they. I'm not going to complain about the tush push. There was 180 yard difference in the game and Eagles had 10 more first downs. But for God's sakes, are they just going to wait until everyone outside of Philly throws a remote through their television to get rid of this dumb thing? It's. It's not policeable. What are they doing? It's got to go. It's got to go.
- [41:15]
Bill Simmons
I hate it.
- [41:15]
Cousin Sal
No one can win the division otherwise.
- [41:17]
Bill Simmons
I got to push back on your Giants thing a little bit.
- [41:19]
Cousin Sal
What is it?
- [41:20]
Bill Simmons
Because I think it's been a fun story. People like darp, people like Scatterboo Neighbors comes back next year. They have a good pass rush. They have one of the worst run defenses in the recent history of the league. They were giving up 5, 2 a game before the game today. And today they gave up, I don't know, like seven. But for all this money and capital and draft pick stuff that they've spent on this front four, you can just ram it down their throats. Now their linebackers are terrible. And I was thinking like, it's almost like you hire the best chef ever for your restaurant and then you just get cheap with the waiters and the busboys and that's kind of what they've done with the linebackers and the D backs. It's like, cool. You have an awesome chef. Your. Your servers are just dropping the food every time they bring the food out to the table. So congrats.
- [42:07]
Cousin Sal
Well, congrats on this great chef. We saw the hard knocks or whatever that was called, the inner workings of the GM and stuff. So, yeah, they kind of maybe even locked into how good or talented they are right now. But right now, the. It's the only thing, Giants fans, the only saving grace is you could watch Brian Dayball, who's just hilarious on the sidelines. I mean, he is. Every time they go to him, he's pulling a Costanza, just getting freaked out, pissed off, like, they can't fire me. Look how mad I am. And it gets better and better and better. Hiding the headset.
- [42:38]
Bill Simmons
He should start stress eating during the games. They just cut to him and he's just like fucking eating French fries and bright red. Go nuts. The Saquon roller coaster for fantasy owners breaks off the long touchdown. You feel like he's headed for the 300 yard game. Then gets the groin injury in the third quarter. So that happened. But anyway, you, I mean, they played two weeks ago. The Giants improbably beat them in a dumb. Another dumb Thursday night game, which we've just had a slew of. So seemed pretty, pretty realistic that the Eagles were going to get their revenge.
- [43:10]
Cousin Sal
Yeah, a lot of people like taking the seven and a half today, but I'm like, all right, you believe in the revenge factor for Aaron Rodgers, for, you know, leaving a team he threatened to leave 25 times. But you don't, you don't believe in Philadelphia two weeks later, the better team. But I think the thing is Philly, if we want to talk about Philly for a second, like, they, their differential is plus five going in, right? And now they're six and two. Like, so that's as far as the six and two and five and three teams. I don't put them at the top of the list of teams. I trust I'll say that. Yeah.
- [43:41]
Bill Simmons
So we have Indy 7 and 1. We have new England, Denver, Philly, Tampa, Seattle and the Rams as our six and two teams.
- [43:54]
Cousin Sal
What's Green Bay? You said Green Bay or the Rams.
- [43:56]
Bill Simmons
Are, I guess are 5 and 2. I think I screwed that up. Oh, and then Green Bay is 51 and 1 because they tied your stupid team. So it's interesting. Denver, Seattle and New England are my three favorite overs.
- [44:11]
Cousin Sal
You're going to get there.
- [44:12]
Bill Simmons
I could get there.
- [44:13]
Cousin Sal
With all of them get there by.
- [44:14]
Bill Simmons
Chris and you mentioned the defenses before. Seattle I think has a defense that stands out. Houston, Denver, Cleveland at home. I don't think they can do it on the road. Is there any other defense you like? It's kind of it, right? Houston's defense is really good. I thought they were good Monday night. I thought they were really good today.
- [44:36]
Cousin Sal
Cowboys are pretty good. No, that's it. I mean Jacksonville, it might have been a lot of bells and whistles, right? I mean another team that just forced turnovers but it might be catching up to them now.
- [44:47]
Bill Simmons
Maybe the Chiefs. We'll see when they get as the season goes along. They always go Another blowout. Bills, Panthers. Look, Buffalo hadn't kicked anyone's ass in seven weeks and this was Dave. I actually like the Panthers for Ringer 107. House talked me out of it. Pointed out how that Buffalo was coming off two losses in a bye week. We talked it out. It was good conciliary stuff from House. The legacy of this game. Somehow Andy Dalton was worse than Kirk Cousins and Kirk Cousins was bad. Andy Dalton was worse. That might have been it. I could see him. That could be the last star for him.
- [45:25]
Cousin Sal
The only thing he can't do here.
- [45:27]
Bill Simmons
Is take a sack.
- [45:28]
Cousin Sal
Oh, and he takes a sack. Yeah, that's it.
- [45:30]
Bill Simmons
Two fumbles. He had a really bad pick. He just was bad. They were hanging around in this game for about an hour and it just wasn't going to happen.
- [45:39]
Cousin Sal
But yeah, this was a. We should have made all our money off this game.
- [45:42]
Bill Simmons
Right?
- [45:43]
Cousin Sal
Like, you know there's not a better spot for a playoff team having lost twice coming off a buy. And here's Andy Dalton for them Buck.
- [45:52]
Bill Simmons
Saints was a blowout because of nothing that the Bucks offense did. Baker finally had a bad fantasy game. I think his MVP run, it's not dead, it's in a coma. But some other 6 and 2 of the buy coming. Rattler. So he was awful again. Six turnovers in his final three halves as Saints QB and they finally turned.
- [46:13]
Cousin Sal
It over to shuck who's a final three half. That's probably his final three halves.
- [46:19]
Bill Simmons
Final three halves. I don't think we see him again unless there's an injury but. But yeah, that was another one. Like just stay away. Don't bet this game.
- [46:27]
Cousin Sal
I was hoping Tywa Shock would have do something there. Throw a touchdown at the end. There's just so we could like just have something with New Orleans. Have some fun with their name. Who like who's the Group that roots for Tyler Shuck. Is it the Shuck Heads or the the Mother Shuckers or the the Shuckers? Yeah, yeah.
- [46:45]
Bill Simmons
But I like the Shuck Heads Shuck.
- [46:47]
Cousin Sal
We'll see if he's even around.
- [46:49]
Bill Simmons
It was a really awful early slate because.
- [46:53]
Cousin Sal
Late afternoon, right?
- [46:54]
Bill Simmons
Well yeah, yeah, I'm saying but there was a really awful early slate and it was like well maybe the late slate would be better. And then the late slate was bad too. Early slate I had. There were seven games I had the six the multi view and two other TVs. So I had sex. I didn't want to. I didn't care about Jets, Bengals. I'm like that's a sacrifice. And that turned out to be the.
- [47:15]
Cousin Sal
Best game you had to get it back on.
- [47:17]
Bill Simmons
Right. That was the best one.
- [47:19]
Cousin Sal
And then Indy Tennessee somehow ended up as a 4 o' clock game. Like they that snuck in should have been a London game. Not even London worthy. Like what's a terrible city and like.
- [47:31]
Bill Simmons
Coventry or something like the first Scotland game ever.
- [47:34]
Cousin Sal
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Scotland terrible.
- [47:37]
Bill Simmons
Let's talk about that Colts game because that's their fifth blowout win. Like real blowouts like where the game is like done in the third quarter kind of blowouts and it just feels like they. They're answering every challenge you would have for can you actually be the one seed every they have the long balls. I didn't even think Jones played that well for the first part of the game today. But Taylor was great. Pierce had his one long play. Right. Pierce. Pierce is the most interesting deep threat we talk about today. Watching the games where it's almost like in basketball when like a basket, like a point guard gets into the paint has somebody in their hip and then they lean in and they use their body. They use that step they have on the guy to kind of to keep the momentum and they'll either get a foul on an end one, Pierce will. Will do that on a 45 yard pass. He'll get a step on a guy, he'll veer into the guy's path. He'll slow up a little bit. He'll also make the catch. But he's kind of the most unconventional deep threat in the league. I they said and then Warren, on top of everything else, they just have a lot of weapons. I'm sold on them as a one seed.
- [48:45]
Cousin Sal
Yeah, I like them a lot too.
- [48:47]
Bill Simmons
There's not.
- [48:47]
Cousin Sal
And you know what? We shouldn't put too much praise on any team that just beat up on the Titans. But they took care of very good. No, they did. And Jonathan Taylor should have been minus 600 to score today. He's just excellent. I want to say something about the, the Titans, coach. They're down 17 7.
- [49:03]
Bill Simmons
Oh my God.
- [49:04]
Cousin Sal
And they punt on fourth and four from the 44, Mike McCoy. Now even if you want to punt there, what is the downside of going forward if you want to keep this job? Don't you want like a three or four plays where you. Yeah. Converted the fourth to four. They show them on the sideline. So what if you don't convert? You're not going to be there and getting, you know, calling plays next year. Take a chance. It's not even a chance. Fourth and four from the 44 drum off sides. It was awful.
- [49:33]
Bill Simmons
Kim Ward was mad about it.
- [49:34]
Cousin Sal
Yep.
- [49:35]
Bill Simmons
So they play at the Steelers next week home Falcons. This is the Colts home Falcons bye week at the Chiefs. Home Texans. And that Falcons game is in Berlin. Just FYI. I like the Steelers game as a test for them at Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh doing all their dumb tricks. Pittsburgh needs the game. You know, you figure Baltimore is going to win. There's going to be a little pressure finally on Pittsburgh. They're going to be playing all the hits. Bosmore will be hitting his 59 yard field goals. There'll be some stupid Aaron Rodgers tip pass that'll go for 40 yards. Taylor or somebody will have some sort of fumble and it'll be all the check marks you need. And I want to see how they respond. I want to see what Daniel Jones looks like in that game.
- [50:19]
Cousin Sal
I think so too. But I won't count them out even if they lose this. Right. Like you, you read their schedule.
- [50:24]
Bill Simmons
It's a nice test.
- [50:24]
Cousin Sal
There's not one team they should be scared of at this point.
- [50:27]
Bill Simmons
Well, are they favored every game the rest of the year except for at Chiefs Week 12?
- [50:32]
Cousin Sal
Well, I'm not going to give you a freebie. I'm not going to give you a freebie this week and tell you if they're favored or not.
- [50:37]
Bill Simmons
All right, that's fair.
- [50:38]
Cousin Sal
You tell me.
- [50:39]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, that's fine. I think they could be favored. By the way, they could even be favored in that Chiefs game. Stranger things have happened. So anyway, they took care of business and then we talked about Dolphin. Oh, and then the last one was Jets Bengals. Just a lot had probably the most storylines of all the games. The jets owner takes a shot at Justin Fields. He played pretty well from what I read because I refused to watch this until the last four minutes. Aaron Glenn got off the schneid.
- [51:08]
Cousin Sal
Yeah.
- [51:09]
Bill Simmons
Zach Taylor maybe threw in his hat and the next coach fired ring.
- [51:15]
Cousin Sal
I mean, that was as bad a call as any. With 38 seconds left, they still need what, 18, 20 yards to get in field goal range at the end and first down calls right up the middle for a no gain. And I think they didn't have three touch. They had two timeouts. I think so. Yeah. He's always in the ring. I just think like Burrow kind of saves this guy every time.
- [51:35]
Bill Simmons
That one run they had, I think people just look back and point to right, which I don't know how long he gets to ride on that one. But yeah, look, we say this all the time. That could have been one where if you're a Jets fan, maybe, maybe you wish you didn't win that game. January, you're like, why are we three and 14 and we don't have the number one pick? Oh, well, that's. You gotta get Bengals game.
- [52:01]
Cousin Sal
You gotta get it for Aaron Glenn. You gotta have to get a win before Thanksgiving. It's crazy. And the fact that he went for it down, what was. It was like 38. It was 38, 24. And he went for two. Right. And he got it to get it there and barely got it, by the way. Like, I still haven't seen a replay where he definitively got it. But that was a great fields play. And even like fields like very emotional after the. In the press conference afterwards. So good for the jets now they could go back to being the Jets.
- [52:31]
Bill Simmons
Really good post game speech from a comedy standpoint by Glenn, which of course I watched. He started out and he's like, first of all, how about that defense? It was like with that big stop, but it's like, well, he gave up 38 points. 39, 38. And then he's like, in our offense, 500 yards. They're like, yeah. And he's like, like, this is who we are. This is our identity. What you saw today. And it's like, I don't know, maybe. Maybe you also should have lost by 10. I really, I really like those. How about our defense? Yeah, you did get a stop. You got one. One stop.
- [53:10]
Cousin Sal
I mean, what's the converse? He goes in there. I was like, man, we are so lucky. We should be owing 15. How do we pull this one out?
- [53:17]
Bill Simmons
We're so terrible. I think he should have to. It should be like when you have a. You're on a bad AYSO team or a bad little league team. It's like everyone's getting ice cream. He's got 11 year olds.
- [53:29]
Cousin Sal
You know, a poker tournament when like you're beat 98 to 2% but you like pull a flush on the last three cards and the guy who wins is like, sorry, you know, like, sorry about that. Like. Like that. Yeah. Like apologizes for the win. A tennis player, like, it hits the net and barely goes over.
- [53:48]
Bill Simmons
Like, yeah, they hit the racke.
- [53:50]
Cousin Sal
We're good. We're good. Yeah.
- [53:52]
Bill Simmons
What'd you learn from that Chargers, Vikings, Thursday night game?
- [53:54]
Cousin Sal
Anything I like, I love the Chargers in that spot. I don't know. I learned that the Vikings, so I think they're plus 770 to make the playoffs now and they really have nowhere to go because now you're looking at JJ McCarthy and you covered it last week. What kind of injury is this anyway? And you don't have anything to look forward to after Wentz, really. Right.
- [54:16]
Bill Simmons
Pretty tough.
- [54:17]
Cousin Sal
Yeah.
- [54:18]
Bill Simmons
Regular season MVP, Mahomes plus 150. Allen plus 350. Drake may now plus 450. Everybody else is 12 to 1 or higher. And then super bowl odds. Chiefs still the favorites. Lions, Bills, Packers, Eagles, colts down to 111 but still have not gone into single digits yet, which I thought was strange from a value standpoint. I mean, The Pats are 33 to 1 and really have a chance to be a 2 seed. It just that. That seems too high. I don't think they're going to win the super bowl. But I think if you can get anybody who can possibly be a 2 seed, right, at 33 to 1, it has to be considered. And then Seattle at 25 to 1 was the other one that jumped out to me.
- [55:03]
Cousin Sal
What's Baltimore also seemed to 22, 25. They're 22 now after the, after the win. That's interesting too. Maybe if they're actually favored to win the division, get their shit together. But I think as far as far as those odds and mvp, your guy, your team and your guy is the only ones that are going to shrink considerably.
- [55:24]
Bill Simmons
Because the case for it is, and I don't want to jinx it, I'm obeying all jinxing laws.
- [55:29]
Cousin Sal
The case is people haven't looked at your fricking schedule and now and then they're just going to see the wins rack up.
- [55:35]
Bill Simmons
It's the schedule, but it's also the history of the league with the young QBs where we've seen this happen. Right. And if he's really special, like if there's something really really special there. We've seen that translate into, oh, my God, I can't believe they're here this fast. It happened with Burrow. It happened with Mahomes recently. And if he's on that level, it's realistic that they could at least get to the AFC title game. Because he's that good. I don't know if he's that good, but he certainly checked every box.
- [56:01]
Cousin Sal
You put him number five. You put him number five right now, best quarterback, then you don't even want to put Burrow ahead of him at this point.
- [56:11]
Bill Simmons
I think he's playing the best of anyone at that position right now. I don't know if that means he's the best quarterback, but I've just watched it for five straight weeks. He completes 75 to 80% of his passes. He runs for first downs, whatever he wants, and he completes every deep ball. I don't know what else you can do as the quarterback. Like, he. He doesn't miss throws really, Ever. When he misses a throw, you're surprised his teammates love him. I don't know. I. I don't know what's going on. I. It doesn't make a lot of sense because even week one, that Vegas game, he was not good. And it was like, fuck, did we go backwards? What's going on here? And now in week eight, he looks like this is like. He looks like a finished product. And I know he's not. He's 23, 22.
- [56:55]
Cousin Sal
Discounting the past, right? Yeah. Would you rather have Daniel Jones or Drake May forget about what you know about Daniel Jones before that, before this year before. If you forget about it.
- [57:05]
Bill Simmons
What? What?
- [57:06]
Cousin Sal
You knew the Giants, Daniel Jones. Because you can make the same case. Or everything you said about Drake, May. Daniel Jones is doing it, too. Maybe not as great. Deep throat.
- [57:14]
Bill Simmons
Daniel Jones looks great.
- [57:15]
Cousin Sal
Yeah.
- [57:16]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, May. It just. It looks a lot like some of those other great guys when that. When it just happens early. I mean, going way back to when we were kids, la. Like, what was that, Year three or year four? All of a sudden they were in the AFC title game and it was like, jesus, we're here already. Marino got there as a rookie in Miami. Like, if a really great quarterback, if it happens early, it's not unusual. That would be the case.
- [57:43]
Cousin Sal
Take a look at Elway's stats this first few years. Even though. Even when everyone thought he was great, it's always like. It was like 22 touchdowns, 17 interceptions. You know, you're not going to see that as at a Drake. I Shouldn't have engaged you in this. This is my.
- [57:55]
Bill Simmons
But here's the thing about those stats, because I've looked at those. It's so unfair to compare them versus now because you could beat the shit out of those guys. Well, you beat their shit, the receivers, but you could also. You could kill the quarterback after they threw it. You could dive at their legs like they're like navigating their livelihood at the same time as they're trying to win games. And now these guys even saw today there was. What was that time? Who got hit? Love was in the Sunday night game. Like, Love got kind of hit a little bit on the head as he threw and he was like looking at the ref like this, like that. Oh, right, right.
- [58:28]
Cousin Sal
Yeah.
- [58:28]
Bill Simmons
The football we grew up with, these guys were getting annihilated.
- [58:31]
Cousin Sal
Yeah. You couldn't come. You. You can't come near the head anymore.
- [58:34]
Bill Simmons
You couldn't throw over the middle. You had to fear for your life. Guys were trying to pile drive you into the ground. I just. So I look at those O way stats, I'm like, that's amazing that he even was able to play 16 games a year or whatever it was. Yeah.
- [58:49]
Cousin Sal
Can we. Before we go on. Because you mentioned love and it made me think of this, the replay assist thing. I don't buy it. I don't think it's even a real thing. I don't think it's a real thing. I think the refs get together and they be like, we fucked up this call. Let's pretend some ominous voice came in and told us that they don't even have to go to replay. And. And then that doesn't make us look bad. It doesn't make us look good. We'll just move on immediately. I think that's what it is. Doesn't exist. They just call it something interesting.
- [59:22]
Bill Simmons
It's just. It's like they're just doing a little mini podcast.
- [59:26]
Cousin Sal
Yeah. One of the refs rolled his eyes to the other ref and he was like, okay, that's all right.
- [59:30]
Bill Simmons
You're right.
- [59:30]
Cousin Sal
That wasn't bad.
- [59:31]
Bill Simmons
When they. That offsides play, when they gather together after that.
- [59:34]
Cousin Sal
Yeah, that would have been bad. Yeah.
- [59:35]
Bill Simmons
And who is it? Pereira was like, yeah, I've never seen this before. If they call belated offsides, there's no way. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra, the official beer partner of the NBA. With the start of basketball season, there is so much to look forward to. But you know, the best moments are served cold, like dunking on a player or swatting a shot or like cracking open a Michelob Ultra, the official beer partner of the NBA. Plus, they're getting fans closer to the game with a chance to win some amazing courtside seats, a trip to All Star Weekend, custom merch, and much more. Michelob Ultra Superior is worth playing for. Michelob Ultra Courtside 25 to 26. No purchase necessary. Open to US residents 21/ begins on October 1, 2025 and ends on June 30, 2026. Multiple entry periods. See official rules@michelobulture.com courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes and details. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Having insurance isn't the same as having State Farm. It's like expecting the leadership of a team captain on the football field, but getting a sea captain. Sure, they're both captains, but who's going to run your offense? You wouldn't settle for just anything for your team, so don't settle for just any insurance. When it comes to getting the help you need, State Farm is the real deal. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Guess the Lions. Week eight. I am up four to three.
- [61:01]
Cousin Sal
Don't worry about it. Five, three. It's week nine.
- [61:04]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. Oh, week nine. Five three. Thursday night, Ravens at Miami.
- [61:10]
Cousin Sal
Hey, can I say something? You did that. Well, people were complaining, like important people that listen to this show that you're not saying who, where. Who the home team is and who the road team is that time you did it.
- [61:22]
Bill Simmons
Good job.
- [61:23]
Cousin Sal
By that's.
- [61:24]
Bill Simmons
I say it all the time. People can off. Yeah.
- [61:26]
Cousin Sal
Oh, my God. Yeah. If I would have told you who is former President Obama actually put in the complaint and you're telling him to fuck off.
- [61:33]
Bill Simmons
No, it wasn't.
- [61:34]
Cousin Sal
It's not him. It's not him. But okay, you know, you did good there. That's it. That's how you do it.
- [61:39]
Bill Simmons
If it was Gavin Newsom, he could fuck off again. Ravens. Miami at Miami. Yeah, I couldn't have crammed this harder. More violently into the Vegas zone.
- [61:54]
Cousin Sal
I have Ray.
- [61:55]
Bill Simmons
Ravens minus five and a half.
- [61:58]
Cousin Sal
All right, you're going to get. You're going to win this week. I'm telling you right now. I was so off on these. I said five at seven and a half.
- [62:05]
Bill Simmons
Oh, that's too high.
- [62:07]
Cousin Sal
Well, too many favorites are covering, so they have to.
- [62:10]
Bill Simmons
It's a Thursday night game, though.
- [62:11]
Cousin Sal
They have to cover themselves. Yeah, that's true.
- [62:13]
Bill Simmons
That's too high for a Thursday night. Lamar is just going to waltz back in after. During A whole whatever scandal. Injury report scandal. I still don't understand the scandal. Sunday marquee. We finally have a Sunday marquee game. Bills, Chiefs. It's in Buffalo. Good one. Tic tac. Bills minus one and a half. How's that sound?
- [62:35]
Cousin Sal
Sounded good to me. It's exactly what I said. It's Chiefs minus one and a half.
- [62:40]
Bill Simmons
Oh, wow.
- [62:42]
Cousin Sal
It's Tic tac.
- [62:43]
Bill Simmons
All right.
- [62:43]
Cousin Sal
But that's going to flip, right? Six times between now and when we next talk.
- [62:48]
Bill Simmons
The Bills had their D linemen all back finally and they were actually having an impact against the Panthers running backs. And then Ed Oliver got hurt. It lasted like an hour and a half and then Ed Oliver got hurt. I'm trying to think what would be the best overreactions coming out of this Chiefs Bills game. Chiefs win. Overreaction is Mahomes is back. It's been Mahomes league all along. Anyone who said Allen was the best qb, you must feel fucking stupid, right? Why did we doubt the Chiefs ever? Let's never do that again.
- [63:21]
Cousin Sal
Yep.
- [63:23]
Bill Simmons
Bills, Bills win. This is Josh Allen's league. He's outplayed Mahomes for the last two years. This rivalry is flipping. It's like the Patriots colts in the mid-2000s when all of a sudden the Colts started being the Patriots. What else?
- [63:41]
Cousin Sal
Chiefs have trouble scoring. I imagine if they lost, it would be like 23, 20 or something. Take too long to score. All that shit. These receivers didn't pan out. That the ones that came back.
- [63:51]
Bill Simmons
Everything. Chris Jones getting old. Yeah, he's not the impact guy that he was two years ago. Yeah, this would be good. There'd be some good overreactions.
- [63:58]
Cousin Sal
Taylor bad voodoo. Yeah, all of it.
- [64:00]
Bill Simmons
The watchables. Would you put Pats in New England against the Falcons? A watchable or a fairly watchable?
- [64:07]
Cousin Sal
Are we done with. See, I would have put Indy Pittsburgh as what's before fairly watchable. I think that's.
- [64:14]
Bill Simmons
No. I had three watchables, including Pat's Falcons, but I don't know if that was a watchable just for me.
- [64:19]
Cousin Sal
I think just for you. You could. You could watch it if you want. You know what?
- [64:23]
Bill Simmons
I'm going to move it to fairly watchables. Trying to obey. You know, it is watchable. Colts at Pittsburgh, which would have been the Sunday marquee game and a lot of other weeks.
- [64:35]
Cousin Sal
Yeah, it's in. It's in the early slate too.
- [64:38]
Bill Simmons
So Packers. Packers were favored by three in Pittsburgh this week. I think the Colts are a point better than the Packers. I'm going to go Colts minus four.
- [64:46]
Cousin Sal
Oh, wow. I thought they were a point worse. Power rating wise. I said two and it's two and a half. Let me see if that's changed. Oh, it's three now. I can't.
- [64:59]
Bill Simmons
I can't catch a break.
- [65:01]
Cousin Sal
So we pushed. We pushed. Yeah, I could have lied there. I think that's fair.
- [65:09]
Bill Simmons
That's right, because I like the coats. Unless we haven't had it yet. The Daniel Jones oh, no game, it's lurking in there, you know, it's deep down in the recesses of his cells and his DNA, you know, it's somewhere in there.
- [65:30]
Cousin Sal
Well, I'll tell you what the Steelers need. They need some weather and they kind.
- [65:33]
Bill Simmons
Of need it fast.
- [65:34]
Cousin Sal
Right. If it's going to be like clean pockets and just brisk air the end of October, I don't know if they could. Daniel Jones should have a good game. They need some of those 18, 16 games to come back.
- [65:47]
Bill Simmons
Broncos home. Oh, no. Broncos at Houston. And as we said, probably two of the three best defenses, two of the best four defenses and I have the Broncos favored and I think it's in the tick sack zone. I'm going to go Broncos minus one and a half.
- [66:09]
Cousin Sal
I said Broncos minus two. It is Broncos minus one and a half.
- [66:14]
Bill Simmons
I thought that was a pretty easy one.
- [66:15]
Cousin Sal
Good call.
- [66:17]
Bill Simmons
Does that go to two and a half by Sunday?
- [66:19]
Cousin Sal
I think if anything moves it to the over under, which is 39 and a half, which is this day and age. Yeah, I think it's one of the few that'll go down after. By the way, a lot of the overs hit today too, right? What was that also nine. Nine and two.
- [66:31]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. That's a really good game. I mean that's. That could be the 27 shaky's game.
- [66:41]
Cousin Sal
27 Denver.
- [66:43]
Bill Simmons
27 Denver if Houston for Houston. Yeah, right, right.
- [66:48]
Cousin Sal
Let's just see a good version of Houston. Can we do that? Can we see that? Two weeks in a row.
- [66:53]
Bill Simmons
Fairly watchables. Patriots home for the Falcons and no idea if Pennix is playing. I think this has to go past the minus four into the Vegas zone. And I have Pat's minus four and a half.
- [67:07]
Cousin Sal
All right. That's what I had. And it's five and a half.
- [67:10]
Bill Simmons
Oh, still in the Vegas zone. Okay.
- [67:14]
Cousin Sal
You should be a seven point favorite probably. Really, if you think about it, kicking.
- [67:19]
Bill Simmons
The crap out of everyone. Pat's money line was something in the 7 range. Call it a day.
- [67:26]
Cousin Sal
Yeah. You know, you could use the Chiefs again just because It's Monday. Just because it's a different week technically. Oh, do the lookout. Yeah. Who. So who were the teaser teams that killed people today? It was the.
- [67:39]
Bill Simmons
Just the Falcons and the.
- [67:41]
Cousin Sal
And the Bengals. Right. If you had the. That was like six.
- [67:44]
Bill Simmons
Putting the Bengals in a tease. You need your head examined. Insane behavior.
- [67:48]
Cousin Sal
Didn't have a lot of wins before today.
- [67:50]
Bill Simmons
I know, but you can't put the Bengals in a tease.
- [67:52]
Cousin Sal
But those are the only two, I think. Yeah.
- [67:57]
Bill Simmons
So there's a really interesting Pat stat. Their run defense hasn't given up over 50 yards rushing yet in the first eight weeks and it hasn't happened since 1950.
- [68:10]
Cousin Sal
Wait a minute.
- [68:11]
Bill Simmons
Nobody can run on them.
- [68:12]
Cousin Sal
A 50 yard rusher, you're saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [68:15]
Bill Simmons
Okay. Since 1950.
- [68:17]
Cousin Sal
Wow.
- [68:18]
Bill Simmons
And I mentioned that because Bijan's coming in week nine, coming off a bad game that he was pissed off about. And the quotes after were like, that one's on me. Right. I gotta do better. So it's just. It'll be an interesting rock and a hard place kind of battle because the Pats defense has been awesome against the run. The way to beat them is to throw in their linebackers, put Spain in open space, try to get running backs or tight ends over the middle or running backs leaking out of the back. That's been the weakness. But you can't run on them. No.
- [68:49]
Cousin Sal
You just jinxed the bejesus out of him. The be Johnnis out of him. I think so I'm going over here what we have. Well, I wonder what his total will be.
- [68:58]
Bill Simmons
Any wheel route with him. One on one against Spillane is going to end badly. And I'll just tell you our crazy friend hench. Eight weeks, probably 135 texts about Robert Spillane and past coverage. Yeah, basically anytime he's in pass coverage, it's three. It's a three text barrage from Hench. It's hard when you have a bodybuilder trying to guard third down running back.
- [69:27]
Cousin Sal
Just enjoy it, Hench. For God's sakes. This is as good as it gets. For it's about.
- [69:31]
Bill Simmons
This is about as zen like as he's been. Like we went from not having a QB or a coach to having a QB and a coach. The only two things that matter in the NFL is having a QB and a coach. You can find everything else.
- [69:42]
Cousin Sal
Does this move at Cousins? If Cousins plays, could this go to seven?
- [69:48]
Bill Simmons
I mean, it should chance.
- [69:50]
Cousin Sal
They don't have a chance.
- [69:51]
Bill Simmons
No Drake London today, but I bet he plays next week.
- [69:54]
Cousin Sal
Right yeah, that's true.
- [69:56]
Bill Simmons
Lions home, Detroit against the Minnesota Vikings. Either Carson Wentz, who's been pounded like a piece of veal the last couple weeks, or the immortal J.J. mcCarthy, who's recovering from the longest high ankle sprain in recorded history. I. This could be our teaser game with the Pats. I have Lions minus eight.
- [70:19]
Cousin Sal
Yeah, well, they went. They're not going to let us tease it the way we want to do it. I said seven and a half. It's nine and a half.
- [70:26]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, that's dumb.
- [70:27]
Cousin Sal
You win that one, too. You're up six.
- [70:28]
Bill Simmons
Three. That's too high. I wouldn't take Minnesota.
- [70:33]
Cousin Sal
No, I know. But first of all, this is the only division game. Isn't that weird? Like, when was the last time we had one division game in a week? In a whole week? Four teams off. But anyway, and for that reason, I thought they give him the division discount. Like where everybody plays everybody else well.
- [70:49]
Bill Simmons
So this is.
- [70:50]
Cousin Sal
This is pretty damn high. Vandals giving up on Minnesota here.
- [70:54]
Bill Simmons
You know, House and I, we did Ringer1 07 last week or Thursday, and we're talking about that jets line, the Jets Bengals line, which was just stupid. It was. The Bengals should have been favored by three and a half. And it was six and a half because it was the Jets. Right. It was a year. So if you take the jets, you're just getting three free points. And I was thinking that's a good just concept in general. What's the. What's the three free points bet where they're just like, just. This is on a discount today. It's a flash sale. The vikings normally at six and a half. We're giving them today at plus nine and a half for the next 24 hours.
- [71:28]
Cousin Sal
First hundred customers. Damn. I was.
- [71:31]
Bill Simmons
Three free points.
- [71:32]
Cousin Sal
I gotta take a different line.
- [71:33]
Bill Simmons
Vikings plus nine and a half is a three free points bet. That's a flash sale. Like, they shouldn't be getting that many points.
- [71:41]
Cousin Sal
So the problem with the three free points thing is. I get what you're saying, but now you're back in a shitty quarterback every single time. That's where the free points are going to be.
- [71:49]
Bill Simmons
But that's why we have the flash sale. It's like when the Criterion collection, it's like 50% off our entire collection right now.
- [71:56]
Cousin Sal
Carson Lance is in the clearance bin right now. You want to grab him now?
- [72:00]
Bill Simmons
It's Robert Altman's unknown movie. Packers, Panthers in Green Bay. Oh, I'm going to change my pick on this. I had minus nine. I'M going to bump this because they look today good at Sunday night. Came to nine and a half.
- [72:15]
Cousin Sal
Packers, no bumping.
- [72:17]
Bill Simmons
I bumped it by a half point. Packers nine and a half.
- [72:19]
Cousin Sal
You win anyway. I had eight and a half. It's ten and a half. There's a good old fashioned. Bill and Sal go to college. 3 teamer.
- [72:29]
Bill Simmons
I was thinking about that.
- [72:30]
Cousin Sal
Yeah, there's some. There's one.
- [72:31]
Bill Simmons
I was trying to think who would screw up. Lions. Packers. With the third team. The glory years of 2004.
- [72:38]
Cousin Sal
Oh, so nice.
- [72:40]
Bill Simmons
The best 12 weeks of our lives.
- [72:42]
Cousin Sal
We'll get them back.
- [72:43]
Bill Simmons
You, me, Pookie, Black Tony, Albanian, Bruce. We were just all cleaning up.
- [72:51]
Cousin Sal
We had our game Jones.
- [72:53]
Bill Simmons
Oh, yeah. We were just going nuts.
- [72:55]
Cousin Sal
By the way, I want to congratulate us, you and I, for really not falling into just not becoming true degenerates.
- [73:02]
Bill Simmons
Right.
- [73:03]
Cousin Sal
Like we.
- [73:03]
Bill Simmons
To be like in one of those things. Yeah, yeah.
- [73:05]
Cousin Sal
And we bet and it hurts when we lose. We have enough money on it where it sucks, where we lose and we come on and we're distraught and everything, but we never fell down that hole. And you know, we. We had opportunities to align ourselves with some interesting people. And I'm sure Pablo Torre will reveal this, like Wednesday. That we fixed a preseason Clippers game or something. But good job by us for keeping our heads above water.
- [73:29]
Bill Simmons
Well, Thursday, 7:40am Text from my mom. I hope you and Sal aren't involved in this NBA betting scheme, exclamation point.
- [73:39]
Cousin Sal
Did you screw with her a little bit. Say we need bail money?
- [73:42]
Bill Simmons
I should have texted her back. I can't talk about this right now. Or just something obvious. Mom, we have to take this to a phone.
- [73:50]
Cousin Sal
Right. Call my friend Pookie right now at this number.
- [73:55]
Bill Simmons
Mom get back to you. Albanian is gonna drive me over.
- [74:00]
Cousin Sal
There were two. Bruce's, right? It was Albanian.
- [74:03]
Bill Simmons
Bruce.
- [74:03]
Cousin Sal
There was another. What was the other?
- [74:04]
Bill Simmons
I couldn't get enough of it. Yeah, there were two, but there was a flappy yeah. That I just couldn't get enough of the name.
- [74:10]
Cousin Sal
The week the Bruce Springsteen movie comes out. What a week for Bruce's.
- [74:14]
Bill Simmons
It really, really cleaned up. He couldn't just be Bruce. 49ers Giants in New York.
- [74:23]
Cousin Sal
Okay.
- [74:24]
Bill Simmons
Yikes. Maybe Brock Purdy for this.
- [74:29]
Cousin Sal
Yeah, you would think at some point.
- [74:32]
Bill Simmons
I don't. I don't. I don't think I hit this. 49ers. I had minus three and a half.
- [74:37]
Cousin Sal
I get this. I said three. It is two and a half.
- [74:40]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. I couldn't figure that one out.
- [74:43]
Cousin Sal
Tough one.
- [74:47]
Bill Simmons
Boy. The Giants just aren't very good. I. I probably am leaning toward Niners in that one.
- [74:53]
Cousin Sal
Well, we crossed them off. So whenever we have a playoff team, we thought we think the Niners are making the playoffs. Right. And we crossed the Giants off. So just based on that, 49ers can't keep losing.
- [75:05]
Bill Simmons
Last one is Ram Saints. I think this is going to be another flash sale.
- [75:10]
Cousin Sal
Oh, all right.
- [75:10]
Bill Simmons
I think this is a seven and a half, but I think we get three free points. I think it's Rams minus ten and a half. Flash sale.
- [75:16]
Cousin Sal
Oh, it is a sale even beyond your wildest dreams.
- [75:19]
Bill Simmons
Oh, what is it?
- [75:21]
Cousin Sal
So wait, so what's your official thing?
- [75:22]
Bill Simmons
Minus ten and a half.
- [75:24]
Cousin Sal
Okay, so you get. I said nine and a half. Thirteen and a half.
- [75:27]
Bill Simmons
Oh, wow.
- [75:28]
Cousin Sal
Fifty percent off. You can't keep it on the shelves.
- [75:34]
Bill Simmons
This is great. Do you want to. Want to combine that with a blu Ray? Wow, 13 and a half.
- [75:42]
Cousin Sal
The shuck wagon's coming to town. What are you going to do? Coming to SoFi.
- [75:46]
Bill Simmons
Do you think there'll be Saints fans there? There's some New Orleans transfers, right?
- [75:51]
Cousin Sal
Yeah, yeah. I think the ramp. You might get a rare reprieve here in LA when the Rams have more fans poop fecta.
- [76:02]
Bill Simmons
Three games. First one is Bears at Cincinnati, which is lining up as Joe Flacco against the embattled Caleb Williams. And I. Somebody's favored by one and a half. I went with the Bears. It might be the Bengals. It's a one and a half for somebody.
- [76:21]
Cousin Sal
Well, I'm not gonna let you do that.
- [76:24]
Bill Simmons
I have Bears minus one and a half.
- [76:25]
Cousin Sal
Oh, Bears minus one half. Okay, I had Cincinnati minus one. You're going to get it. It's Bears minus two and a half.
- [76:31]
Bill Simmons
Oh, I don't agree with that. What were the Bears today plus? Six and a half in Baltimore. No, it was plus two and a half.
- [76:44]
Cousin Sal
Plus two and a half. This is a similar thing, I guess. Right, but they're plus. I don't know. This is tough. I'm. I'm out on the Bears, I think, for a while.
- [76:54]
Bill Simmons
Chargers at Tennessee. It has to be a touchdown. I think the Pats were minus six in Tennessee. Chargers have to be minus seven. That's my pick. Chargers minus seven in Tennessee.
- [77:08]
Cousin Sal
Another flash sale here.
- [77:09]
Bill Simmons
I get this.
- [77:10]
Cousin Sal
I said nine. It's ten and a half.
- [77:12]
Bill Simmons
Oh, wow. You can get a free fl. Free. Free. What's. What are those little cards you put?
- [77:20]
Cousin Sal
What do we. I don't know.
- [77:21]
Bill Simmons
What do we. What are the cards, we put.
- [77:22]
Cousin Sal
Flash card.
- [77:24]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, the flashcards.
- [77:25]
Cousin Sal
Yeah.
- [77:25]
Bill Simmons
With this thing, I could have landed that joke a lot better.
- [77:28]
Cousin Sal
That's all right. So. Oh, shit, we're live now. We're live.
- [77:31]
Bill Simmons
Fucking A.
- [77:31]
Cousin Sal
Hey, why don't. Who screws that up then? Green Bay over Carolina, Chargers over Tennessee. Oh, come on. If Harbaugh loses to this, I don't.
- [77:40]
Bill Simmons
Like those double digits on the road.
- [77:42]
Cousin Sal
No, it's fine. Double digits. We're taking 10 points off. We're good.
- [77:46]
Bill Simmons
I went to the Lakers game on Friday against Minnesota. Herbert was there sitting under the basket with Madison beer.
- [77:54]
Cousin Sal
Oh, nice.
- [77:55]
Bill Simmons
And it was the day after they beat the Vikings. They showed him on the Jumbotron like mild applause. I just don't think the Chargers are resonating in LA at. This guy's the star quarterback. He's one of the 10 best quarterbacks in the league and he plays for an LA team. They're like, there's Justin Herbert.
- [78:15]
Cousin Sal
People are like, they still think he's a college quarterback, but yeah, if they.
- [78:18]
Bill Simmons
If they had showed like Flea, the place would have gone nuts. Right? It's just, you know, it's just interesting.
- [78:22]
Cousin Sal
Did you see his Halloween photo?
- [78:25]
Bill Simmons
Who?
- [78:28]
Cousin Sal
I don't know, it's like a. It's like a photo booth thing. Look it up. Justin Herbert, Halloween. And I forget who the receiver is that he's with. And he's with a woman. It's interesting. Take a look. You'll get a nice little laugh.
- [78:39]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, can't wait.
- [78:40]
Cousin Sal
Yeah.
- [78:41]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. One more game in the poop facta. Jags at Vegas. And I think the Jags are going to be favored in this one, which would give us all three home underdogs in the poop factor. I have Jags minus two and a half.
- [78:58]
Cousin Sal
Yeah, good call. I said five. Why was anyone giving the Raven Raiders two and a half? But it's, it's three. You're closer. Man, you smoked me. Smoked me this week.
- [79:09]
Bill Simmons
Raiders coming off a buy Bowers back a little bit of a kitchen sink game for Vegas. Yeah, that's all I can think of. I mean, if that.
- [79:19]
Cousin Sal
If the only thing Jacksonville does right is force turnovers, should be an easy one.
- [79:25]
Bill Simmons
Sunday night is Seattle at Washington. No Jaden Daniels house very bleak on the ringer Sunday pregame today. Talking about how very upset. First of all, he's. He's. He's quit our bet. He's. He's already conceded the Patriots. Washington bet. He was saying the. Washington's three and what was he? Three and four. We're going to be three and seven in three weeks. They should think about trading people bench sit Daniels for a year, get him healthy. They shot their wild big time under.
- [79:55]
Cousin Sal
Six and a half just today he bet him under six and a half. Yeah.
- [79:59]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, it was tough. It was tough to hear him just bailing.
- [80:01]
Cousin Sal
You should have just listened to us pretty preseason when we went against Washington with everything.
- [80:06]
Bill Simmons
He did listen to us and he bet me on Washington versus the Pats.
- [80:09]
Cousin Sal
That's true.
- [80:10]
Bill Simmons
I have Seattle minus four at Washington.
- [80:14]
Cousin Sal
Let me see if this moved. It is still three and I had three and a half. So we split it. Oh no, no.
- [80:19]
Bill Simmons
You win it.
- [80:19]
Cousin Sal
I get it.
- [80:19]
Bill Simmons
Okay.
- [80:20]
Cousin Sal
Yeah. I got to take the ones I actually get. You're up 10 to 6. Doesn't matter.
- [80:25]
Bill Simmons
Monday night Dallas home for Arizona. The Rod Tidwell Bowl. I love when Dallas and Arizona plays great times. Another Tic Tac. I went with Dallas favorite in this one. Minus one and a half.
- [80:40]
Cousin Sal
Wow. You know, I hate my team but I also think they deserve a little more praise than one and a half. I said four and a half and it's three so we split it, right? Yeah.
- [80:53]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. Okay.
- [80:54]
Cousin Sal
And you're going to hear all week about how Kyler Murray has never lost at AT&T Stadium. He played like Denton College there. He played. I don't know, he snuck on there as like a six year old and won some kind of game. He's never lost there.
- [81:07]
Bill Simmons
I want to flag something. So we talked about all the favorites winning covering this week and last week favorites are on a heater. I am counting home underdogs this week. Dolphins, Bills, Steelers, Texans, Giants, Bengals, Titans, Raiders, Washington nine home dogs. I think this is an official let's be careful week.
- [81:29]
Cousin Sal
Oh really?
- [81:30]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. Favorites just crushing. Everybody's confidence is up. All these home dogs, all stuff like Chargers -10 and a half at Tennessee. Yeah. Throw them in a three teamer like right. I don't know. My shit detector's going off.
- [81:45]
Cousin Sal
Well, you were better than me today but even you were light on everything. Like they're, they're juicing everything up so it would make sense that it would.
- [81:54]
Bill Simmons
Come back for Halloween.
- [81:56]
Cousin Sal
So many. Yeah. Halloween havoc.
- [81:59]
Bill Simmons
How many people brought up, brought up the big NBA scandal to you over the last 72 hours?
- [82:05]
Cousin Sal
Everyone I know like needed it explained to me. I had explained it to them.
- [82:09]
Bill Simmons
It really did pass the. How many people are texting me that don't normally text me about sports? Right. It really did cross the threshold. It was pretty funny.
- [82:19]
Cousin Sal
I, I feel bad for you because you and House did like a seven hour, you know, preseason over under podcast, and the season didn't even last that long. Now they have to cancel the season and it's all over. Luca scores a billion points in two games and here you are. But, yeah, I don't. Obviously this is bigger than anything we've dealt with in the past, but what are the ramifications? Like, get rid of all props.
- [82:43]
Bill Simmons
I feel like it's not as big as it felt like in the moment. The way it was presented where they combine these two different stor. I think it's just starting dialogue that probably should have been happening anyway. Like, some of the stuff House and I talked about Thursday night was the just how careful these players have to be with information about themselves, of their teams, giving it to the people around them and just people making stupid decisions that are attached peripherally to these guys. And I don't know how you police that necessarily, but we certainly hear stuff all the time from all kinds of people. Right. And you can act on it, you can not act on it, whatever. But when you're directly tied to a player and you're using information and selling it and leveraging that, I think this is a real issue for the league. I was talking to people over the weekend about it and it's, you know, it's going to take years to kind of play out. But the thing that is fascinating is how quickly all the books can. Can sniff it out.
- [83:44]
Cousin Sal
Yeah.
- [83:44]
Bill Simmons
Where they know. Oh, what, wait, what's going on with this under. Like, they just know almost immediately that something's wrong, which I think is a good thing.
- [83:52]
Cousin Sal
I think so, too. Hopefully it acts as a deterrent and people like, no, the books have us. Whether they're using AI or whatever, they're going to be able to snuff this out in a minute. But I also, and I think you've said this before, like, this has probably been going on for a while. Right. But we just test for it now. It's like anything else. Like, more kids probably had ADHD 30 years ago, too. But now we're all over that stuff. We're all over, like, taking out and looking for player props. But the problem is, like, there's always going to be one or two or five guys who are going to do it. Like, gambling's a real addiction. It might be guys like, I get it. Do scratch off tickets even though they've made $40 million. You know, just because they have the itch the other.
- [84:34]
Bill Simmons
They competitively want to game the System.
- [84:37]
Cousin Sal
That's all right. The other part is guys get in trouble with some bad dudes, right? So if you made $40 or 40 million, if you're a billion in the hole and you, you owe the wrong guys and all your money's in like cars and houses and jewelry and you can't come up with like a million liquid, they're going to ask you to, you know, play it under. They're going to ask you to miss some shots. It just, it's kind of how it is and it sucks and you might see some props go away as a result. And if that's what it is, so be it. I don't know.
- [85:07]
Bill Simmons
Yeah, we, we talked about that Thursday night. How many of these unders we need? Like, do you need to have the under for longest? Matthew golden catch, right? Matthew golden longest catch under 15 and a half yards. Like maybe those just go away, right. And maybe it steers more toward the overs and Jordan love passing yards and you know, the big, the big players in each game, whether it's football, basketball, whatever. I've never understood the pitch by pitch baseball stuff.
- [85:37]
Cousin Sal
Oh, that's insanity.
- [85:38]
Bill Simmons
Right? Even you don't do that.
- [85:41]
Cousin Sal
No.
- [85:41]
Bill Simmons
Even you're not like, oh, the top of the eighth, I'm going to bet on a ball. Like, that's like the height of insanity. I can't think of a single scenario where I would do that.
- [85:49]
Cousin Sal
I would do it. If there was no way I was going to get caught. And I knew my buddy was going to bounce the first pitch into the dirt, that's when I would do it.
- [85:57]
Bill Simmons
But brother Brian was on the mount for the Dodgers. He's like, I'm going to fall top of the eighth.
- [86:03]
Cousin Sal
This one's hitting the backstop. But I don't. But you have to be smart about. I'm not going to tell people, criminals how to do their job. Don't not bet anything else and then just bet $7,000 at the first pitch is going to be a ball in the third inning. You know you're going to get busted.
- [86:17]
Bill Simmons
Well, what you said about people being able to have pressure put on them because of losses I think is something that's happened since the 50s and 60s and it's. This is why the illegal poker game thing to me is going to be a much bigger story than a couple of this betting. The couple betting things versus like how deep the poker stuff. Because we both heard so many stories about these games and they have athletes and actors and musicians, hall of Famers now billionaires and they're all competitive. The games are all arranged. They always try to have the one person who's got money, who's famous, who thinks he can beat these guys and the game's rigged against them. And that's where I think things go sideways. And there's no way to police that. But I promise you, this has been going on since the 90s with some of these games. And this is, by the way, how Jordan got in trouble in the 90s with some of the golf betting, when he fell behind by millions with allegedly with that Richard Eskiness, whatever his name was, who wrote the book. And you know, this is just. These guys are super competitive, no doubt about it.
- [87:24]
Cousin Sal
And then, so what did. Terry Rogier should be forced to play baseball? I mean, what's the. That's what they did to Jordan. I don't know. Send them out. I don't know.
- [87:31]
Bill Simmons
I still don't know what happened with that one because. Because to me, like, they like the league checked the MRI and he, he was hurt. Mm. Right. And. And yet all. There was so much action on that under. And he just left the game after nine minutes and there's that video of him grabbing his foot and like, could you rig that? I guess you could. He's making $26 million a year, though. Like, I, I just don't understand the upside of that.
- [87:58]
Cousin Sal
Yeah, it was just a one, two punch. That and knowing that LeBron was going to be out and it was like, you know, that was just, just so much to hit everybody with and release right when the season starts too.
- [88:10]
Bill Simmons
Well, the bummer. And a lot of people have made this point. But it was an awesome first week for the NBA. It was, you know, the, the Wemby storyline was, was awesome that some of the games were great. All the televised games, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday were really good. And then I thought Amazon on Friday, like that. I thought it was really cool. You know, it's going to be work in progress. You have a five man show that's going to be tough for basketball. But the set, the fact that they were going a little more hardcore basketball and it was more celebrated in the game, which is what I think people want between NBC and Amazon. The way they're presenting the game is what people have been asking for for 10 years. Like, we don't want the hot take shit like teach us about basketball, give us guys we like and try to be a little more positive. So I don't know. I thought it was a really good week. It was a really good week. Except for the story that became the story that dominated everything.
- [89:02]
Cousin Sal
Did you see this though? That just came in.
- [89:04]
Bill Simmons
What? You're making this up?
- [89:06]
Cousin Sal
No. Now they're saying Wemby is one of the guys who robbed the Louvre. So I don't know, he probably has to sit like two weeks or something.
- [89:14]
Bill Simmons
They didn't use a crane. It was just Wemby.
- [89:16]
Cousin Sal
It was him. Dunk. Grab Out.
- [89:22]
Bill Simmons
This episode is brought to you by UberEats. Every time I sit down and watch the game, I find myself getting a little hungry. Football and food, they just go together. Luckily, Uber Eats has game day deals all season long on the food you love. Like right now, you can score a Bogo KFC three piece chicken big box. Whether you're ordering from your favorite restaurant or getting snacks from the grocery store, Uber Eats has you covered for game day. Order now on Uber Eats. Promotion available until November 9th. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Terms apply. This episode is brought to you by Paramount. Now streaming on Paramount since an all new season of Mayor of Kingstowne. Academy Award nominee Jeremy Renner. My guy returns as Mike McCluskey, an ex con fighting to keep peace both inside and outside the prison walls of Kingstowne as he faces off with the new warden played by Emmy award winner Edie Falco. Wow. Now streaming on Paramount + it's an all new season of Mare of Kingstowne. Today's Parent Corner is brought to you by Scout Motors. Every team has an mvp and for parents, that's not your fantasy qb, it's your ride. The all new Scout Terra and Scout Travel are engineered with four wheel drive available locking differentials, optional 35 inch tires, plus room for kids coolers and a tailgate spread that'll turn heads. Iconic in the 70s, reimagined for today. Join the waitlist at Scout Motors. What do you got?
- [90:48]
Cousin Sal
All right, so wrestling season. Even though it's not really here, it's here. We had. Yes, we had a preseason tournament in Cerritos. By the way, you remember Super Dave in the Cerritos commercials? I don't know if you were here yet, but Super Dave would do. Cerritos Auto Square. Come to Cerritos Auto Square. We're giving these cars away. It was kind of like your. Your discount. So we had to go to Cerritos. We drive there. The weigh ins are Friday night at a satellite location and then the wrestling is Saturday. It starts from like 12:30 and goes till double elimination. So I take Jack out there. We're driving to Cerritos not to the auto square, but to the college. And so, and he's starting in the drive. He is breathing very heavily. Like he's like, yeah, he's like starting it, but he won't say like anything's wrong. So I try to ignore it. I like make the, the, the radio louder and like, finally I like, listen to this.
- [91:40]
Bill Simmons
I'm like, he's getting nervous breathing.
- [91:42]
Cousin Sal
Getting nervous breathing.
- [91:43]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [91:43]
Cousin Sal
And I feel bad for him and I'm like, this sucks. This is really, you know, and wrestling is like, it's, it's so much harder now. They have like four, four hour practices a week and it's not even wrestling season yet. Wrestling season starts like mid November anyway, so this is a preseason tournament. He's breathing heavy. And I've been there before. I've had all like the anxiety and I don't know what to say to him because I know like if no one, nothing anyone said to me would work. And so I'm like, hey man, I know you're probably nervous, but, you know, in a few hours we're going to be in this car, I'm going to go back and your life's going to be the same no matter what happens on the mat. And that didn't seem to faze him. The breathing kept consistently. It was constant and it kept going.
- [92:24]
Bill Simmons
I should have said, last year you threw up on the mat. They cleaned it up and you got the win, and you got the win. Yeah, this will be fine.
- [92:31]
Cousin Sal
I ran through everything I could in my head, like, try to calm this poor boy down. And then I thought, like, the day before, Harrison, my youngest, had a flag football game and my father came and I walk up like I'm, you know, I'm keeping score actually on the game changer. And then I left my father for a minute and I come back like 20 minutes later and his entire ass crack is exposed. I don't know what happened. Like, he's sitting down but his pants though, so I have to tell him about it. But first I have to take a picture of him talking to the coaches with his ass out and then talking to like a grandmother of one of the players with his ass out. And I send this to Archie and Jack and I'm like, well, you guys are really missing out today, you know, and, and so I say to Jack, I'm like, hey, listen, before you go on the mat, you can't bring your phone to the mat, but before you get ready to go on the mat to be on deck, on double deck, just look at that picture, you know, loosen you up a little bit, you know? And he said, oh, well. But, yeah, but isn't that gonna just like, make me laugh? Like, aren't I supposed to be serious going into these things? I'm like, yeah, I mean, I'd rather you listen to ACDC to get pumped for this, but I also don't want you getting a heart attack, like, you know, worrying about it.
- [93:42]
Bill Simmons
Right.
- [93:42]
Cousin Sal
So he did it. So, like, I'm sitting on the other side of bleachers, I see him.
- [93:46]
Bill Simmons
He takes it.
- [93:46]
Cousin Sal
He looks at the phone like, kind of laughs. This is. Now he's going onto the mat. He gets on there and he loses 16 to 1. And so I think it really worked, you know, Like, I think tech fall first period, but it got rid of the butterflies. And that's what coaches look for.
- [94:04]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [94:04]
Cousin Sal
Not to clean up vomit on the mat.
- [94:06]
Bill Simmons
So no. So no ass crack next time.
- [94:09]
Cousin Sal
No ass crack. No, I'm have to step it up. But he did better in the second match. But anyway, I don't know what that says about me as a father, but wrestling, wow, the worst.
- [94:24]
Bill Simmons
We were talking about parent corner this week, and my wife's like, what's the parent corner going to be this week? And Ben said, I haven't been in a parent corner all year. I used to carry parent corner. Now I'm never in it. And I'm like, well, I don't know, you're pretty mellow kid. Like, you got a girlfriend, you're just applying to college. And he's like, why don't you do a thing about how I've been working on all my college stuff and I've just been a complete asshole to you and mom all the time. And I'm like, I mean, I could relay the message. He's like, yeah, I mean, I don't know, there's gotta be some story in there, right? And I'm like, about how you're a huge asshole and you leave the house every day and your mom says stuff like, I can't believe I spent all that time passing him out of my body. And then he just grunts as he leaves in the morning and doesn't say goodbye and then goes up to his room and barely talks to us. He's like, yeah, you could do something like that.
- [95:18]
Cousin Sal
Well, don't do that. You're not going to do that.
- [95:19]
Bill Simmons
I don't know. I'm still workshopping. Yeah, I'm still workshopping it. He's been occasionally friendly lately. More friendly. But anyway, that was his suggestion. I wanted to actually steer this to friend corner for my side. Our friend Daniel.
- [95:37]
Cousin Sal
Oh no.
- [95:40]
Bill Simmons
Who was in Boston last week and texted. We have a group text that we really enjoy with a bunch of us. And sends a text, bill, I'm at an Italian restaurant in Boston called El Bano. Now do you know it? And I said, I do not. And he said, my buddy said it was Brady's favorite. It was pretty good. So then James Baby Doll Dixon chimes in, Elbagno means the bathroom in Italian. And Daniel texts back, haha, you're right. The restaurant is Lamora. It said Albano in the door as I walked out. I thought that was the name of the restaurant. He thought the name of the restaurant was Albano, the bathroom. And I think we got two straight days of jokes about this.
- [96:20]
Cousin Sal
Yeah, we did.
- [96:21]
Bill Simmons
About Albano. My dad got a reservation at Albano today, so I told him to cancel. It just went on and on. When you're in trouble, when you're ordering a Caesar salad for the bathroom attendant, it just never. It never ended. And it made me wonder, like we're hitting that age where our friends are going to just start having moments like this. And I think it's going to be great for all of us.
- [96:45]
Cousin Sal
It was. We should read some of these. Like I think Rob Mill said, why is this bathroom attendant handing me Lifesavers? Give me the lasagna already. What are we doing? Did I order too much shit on a shingle? What is Step trying to offer me?
- [97:00]
Bill Simmons
A bit?
- [97:01]
Cousin Sal
Yeah, that's it.
- [97:02]
Bill Simmons
It just kept going and going and so anyway, Daniel said El Mora, not El Bano. I think we might have to change parent quarter to. Daniel Corner.
- [97:11]
Cousin Sal
Daniel Corner would be great.
- [97:12]
Bill Simmons
Daniel Corner. There's one every week. Has he been on the Red Sox for the 26 World Series yet or.
- [97:17]
Cousin Sal
No, not just yet. I mean, there must be somebody you're looking to get that he's waiting to. To jump on yet. Oh, that would be great if it had gotten out that Brady's favorite restaurant is called El Banya in Boston. It created some kind of.
- [97:30]
Bill Simmons
We should leak that you can't get a reservation at this place because it's a bathroom in the north end.
- [97:37]
Cousin Sal
Don't bother washing your hands.
- [97:39]
Bill Simmons
Once again, today's Parent Corner, brought to you by Scout Motors. Join the waitlist for the Scout Taren Scout Traveler@ScoutMotors.com, concept vehicles not available for sale. Features performance specifications are preliminary, subject to change. Joining the wait list does not guarantee purchase. Visit scoutmotors.com for details. How much NBA have you been betting?
- [97:58]
Cousin Sal
A lot. I'm.
- [97:59]
Bill Simmons
I'm.
- [97:59]
Cousin Sal
I'm doing it. You know I'm going Moneyline favorites for now. It hasn't. Hasn't killed me except for that first night. Was that what house with the Wizards. That sucked But I bout bounce back. How about you?
- [98:11]
Bill Simmons
I pretty careful just a couple, couple teams that I liked heading into the season like the spurs and the Bucks. But the only betting revelation. It's a weird one cause it's my team but I my team just I don't think is good. The Celtics.
- [98:27]
Cousin Sal
Right.
- [98:29]
Bill Simmons
Like I actually thought they were going to be a little. Oh people are discounting them. They still have some good players. They have an infrastructure. They're going to shoot a ton of threes. It turns out rebounding and defense is also important. Oh that's one of the things we're learning through these games. Yeah they, they. The trick killed them on the boards today. They don't get stops in the last couple minutes. They're just. And it's, it's not just all the guys they lost. It's really Tatum and Cornett have been the two major losses because those are big rebound guys for them and I'm starting to wonder if they're just not going to be good like are they going to throw away the season I think is in play. I don't know what they're over under is now it was 42 and a half before this season and right now it is off. They don't even have it.
- [99:18]
Cousin Sal
That means zero. They're not going to win a game after this.
- [99:21]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. For the division they're nine to one but I, I think I. This team's in a lot of trouble.
- [99:28]
Cousin Sal
So are they. It's a three point thing at least. True. Is that what you thought would happen where they're going to be spiteful with.
- [99:32]
Bill Simmons
The three or they're not. I mean they're shooting about where they were last year but so they're owing three right now they're playing at New Orleans fourth game in five nights tomorrow home for Cleveland on Wednesday and then at Philly on Halloween and then they play Houston the day after at home on November 1st. Like Owen, Seven's legitimately in play for them.
- [99:59]
Cousin Sal
Well that'd be fun.
- [100:00]
Bill Simmons
And as you know I'm usually more glass half full on my teams. I'm very concerned I think and there's been some Celtic fans who are like this is how we knew this was going to happen. We knew they weren't going to be good. We lost to many guys, but I think. I don't know why, but I just thought. I thought they would be able to patch it together, and I don't think it's going to happen. There's a very interesting moment right now for this team because they have their own first round pick. Whether they just. Do you just toss away the season. Like Philly tossed away last season. They got VJ Edgecombe, who's fucking awesome, you know, and they might. If Tatum's not coming back till February, March. So I just wonder, like, that's a team I would probably bet against these next couple games if that wasn't my.
- [100:43]
Cousin Sal
What does that mean, toss away the season? You're not going to. You're not going to be the bottom three or four, right? Are you just like banking on, like, what Dallas did, like Miracle in the lottery and.
- [100:52]
Bill Simmons
No, I think this is. I think this might be a bottom five team in the East.
- [100:56]
Cousin Sal
Really?
- [100:57]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [100:59]
Cousin Sal
Okay.
- [100:59]
Bill Simmons
They really. They don't know who to play at the end of these games. They don't know, like, Detroit just destroyed them on the boards tonight. Like, they couldn't get a rebound. And in the Philly game, they couldn't. They just couldn't get a stop. So I. I'm concerned because, like, Jalen played. Jalen had 41 today and they still lost in Detroit. They couldn't get a stop. I think I just. I misread this one. I had some good ones with the Overrunners. I think I missed on the Celtics. And then Indiana is the other one. They lost Nemhard. I think Indiana actually was the right play to think they were still going to be pretty good. But no Nemhard, now it's like, I think they're in major trouble, too. Yeah. So I think those two are going to be in real trouble.
- [101:40]
Cousin Sal
Can I make you feel better about your team? We could talk about this off air, but Pookie and Albanian Bruce told me about a Peyton Pritchard player prop that is just out of this world.
- [101:52]
Bill Simmons
Under. Is it an under?
- [101:53]
Cousin Sal
I don't want to say it in front of everybody because then we'll get. Pablo will get us.
- [101:58]
Bill Simmons
Yeah. We can't. We can't have Pablo come after us. The. The other one was Dallas. I've been watching just because of the. I've watched all the Dallas stuff, including tonight because of flag and seeing how they're using him with the point guard.
- [102:13]
Cousin Sal
Is a pretty good dunker.
- [102:15]
Bill Simmons
The flag's really good. But I thought maybe there was Going to be a chance to kind of zag against them because this flag point guard thing is. Is kind of a disaster. But today they looked a lot better. So they're. I think they have a lot of talent.
- [102:27]
Cousin Sal
I listen to you a lot on that. So I hope they make the playoffs. They get over 44, you know, all that stuff. Well, I hope they gotta listen to.
- [102:35]
Bill Simmons
Me on San Antonio, because that's the one that. If I did, I did. If. If Wemby's going to be healthy, that's going to be a monster team, I think. And then I really like Milwaukee. I think Milwaukee is legitimately good. They had a tough loss today to Cleveland, but they were in that game and came down in the last minute. But I think Milwaukee's for real and they can shoot.
- [102:53]
Cousin Sal
Is there. Oh, you can't talk awards, really. But I wonder if they can talk awards. Yeah. I'm trying to think if anyone moved a lot.
- [103:02]
Bill Simmons
Wemby. Wemby was 12 to 1 before the season. He's 360 now.
- [103:06]
Cousin Sal
Yeah. Right. So are we still with the top two, top three seed thing or. We think they can get there for him?
- [103:13]
Bill Simmons
Well, Wemby could have the. This season was so spectacular.
- [103:16]
Cousin Sal
Doesn't matter.
- [103:17]
Bill Simmons
We have to commemorate it.
- [103:18]
Cousin Sal
Yeah.
- [103:19]
Bill Simmons
I just think Jokic is 4 to 1 now, and anytime he's like Mahomes, where there's some sort of early season over. I don't know if you've seen him, but he looks like he's playing himself into shape this year. Yeah, yeah, he's definitely the chunkiest he's been in a while. Um, but. But yeah, the Wemby, I think, was the biggest flip. And there's the Luka. Luka's 6 to 1. What's his seat? The points per game leader, Lucas plus 340 to be the points per game leader this year. I don't know how he's not going to lead the league in points.
- [103:52]
Cousin Sal
What's the threshold for that? It's different from, like, how to qualify for MVP points per game.
- [103:57]
Bill Simmons
And I think it's like 60 games.
- [103:59]
Cousin Sal
So 65 for awards, 60 for these things?
- [104:02]
Bill Simmons
Something like that.
- [104:02]
Cousin Sal
Yeah. All right. Yeah. Three, four.
- [104:05]
Bill Simmons
I would bet Luca. I can actually bet on that one, but I would bet Luca +3.40.
- [104:08]
Cousin Sal
I'm doing that. As long as we don't hear he's out like three weeks and stuff like this is.
- [104:12]
Bill Simmons
That would be the issue. You know, it was interesting going to the game on Friday. First of all, he's. He's in good shape. Like, it was the best shape I've seen in a couple years. But the Laker crowd just loves him. They really do. They really. I. It's. They're just really into it. And he's has such disdain for his opponents. He's talking shit the whole time. He's mad at the refs. Like, it's a whole. It really feels like a performance, and it just kind of makes sense in la. So, you know, they're not going to win the title or anything this year, but I think long term, it's a great fit for him.
- [104:45]
Cousin Sal
Well, they love him because he's their Ozempic dealer. Half these fans or they have to.
- [104:50]
Bill Simmons
Well, it was weird because LeBron is on the bench and it's like he's the second best player of all time, one of the most famous basketball players ever, and it's kind of not his team anymore. Right. And he's sitting there and he's very polite and he, you know, he had good energy. It seemed like her. Okay energy, but it's just some weird situation. I don't remember anything like this.
- [105:10]
Cousin Sal
Yeah.
- [105:10]
Bill Simmons
I can't imagine Kobe just being on the bench as this became somebody else's team, you know? Right, right.
- [105:16]
Cousin Sal
Well, that was a big issue, but that's why one of them had to go. Hey, we. Real quick, before I go, big, big disparity in opinion here. Bronny and LeBron, plus Giannis and his two brothers. They're the starters. You get an average bench, right? Let's say an average. Whatever the 16th best bench is. How many games does that team win?
- [105:41]
Bill Simmons
So I'm starting Bronnie and the two Giannis brothers, but I have Giannis and LeBron. How many minutes do I have to play the three. The. The two brothers in the sun, like.
- [105:52]
Cousin Sal
You know, most like whatever. A starting lineup would mostly play.
- [105:55]
Bill Simmons
So, like 30 to 35 minutes.
- [105:57]
Cousin Sal
Right. And the bench is average.
- [106:01]
Bill Simmons
But I have giannis, Giannis and LeBron.
- [106:03]
Cousin Sal
Yeah.
- [106:04]
Bill Simmons
But I don't have any shooting with those five other than LeBron. I think that's like a 20 win team.
- [106:10]
Cousin Sal
That's what I think. Yeah.
- [106:11]
Bill Simmons
Yeah.
- [106:11]
Cousin Sal
Tate said 45. House said like 37, 38. Now it's. We got to see this to believe it.
- [106:19]
Bill Simmons
I mean, Tate, it's probably not going to happen. Come on, Tate, he's positive.
- [106:24]
Cousin Sal
He's very, very positive guy.
- [106:26]
Bill Simmons
I actually like, though, that they signed the other brother. The Bucks.
- [106:30]
Cousin Sal
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [106:31]
Bill Simmons
I think they should sign more family members because you really only play 10 guys, right? Like what, what would be. How shady could you get with it? Like, if you just signed his cousin who's like, never. Let's say he had like a 5, 9 cousin who was like a wrestler who never played basketball. And he's like, he's our 15th man.
- [106:50]
Cousin Sal
Yeah.
- [106:50]
Bill Simmons
And he just never played. But he was one of the 15th guys. Like, technically that's legal, right?
- [106:56]
Cousin Sal
Yeah. If you're signing Albanian, Bruce and Pookie to 10 day contracts, like, yeah, I think that's, that's when you have to. Maybe it's a red flag.
- [107:04]
Bill Simmons
I can't get enough. Albania, Bruce and everybody, let's have them on my favorites.
- [107:09]
Cousin Sal
He's gonna be fine. Let's have him on next week.
- [107:12]
Bill Simmons
All right, cuz we're gonna be back next Sunday. What's the Sunday night game next week? It's a good one, right?
- [107:19]
Cousin Sal
Seattle at Washington.
- [107:21]
Bill Simmons
Oh, not a good one.
- [107:22]
Cousin Sal
Nope.
- [107:22]
Bill Simmons
We're probably not going live after that one next week.
- [107:24]
Cousin Sal
I never know why or when we go live, but you'll be surprised.
- [107:28]
Bill Simmons
We'll see. It's usually when it's a good game, we want to go live. We'll see if the Pats. The Pats play next week. Yeah, they're playing Atlanta. Okay. We'll see if the Pat's going to be 7 and 2. Cuz, as always, a pleasure. Good job by you. Good job by you, buddy. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Sal, thanks to Gehau, thanks to Eduardo. I will be back on this feed on Tuesday. And don't forget about Rewatch Balls late Monday night Halloween 2. So now I've done 1, 2, and 4. I guess H2O would be the only one left that would. Who knows if we'll ever do H2 oh, H2O might be in the. In the tail end maybe around when we're. When we've done like 750 movies. Anyway, I will see you on this feed on Tuesday. Must be 21 plus on President select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 + on President D.C. kentucky or Wyoming gambling problem. Call 100 Gamble or visit rg-help.com call 888-797-7777 or visit ccpg.org Chattinconenetic or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24. 7 support in Massachusetts or call 877-8-HOPE NY or text Hopeny in New York. Whoever you're repping this season.
- [108:57]
Cousin Sal
Carry the team like a pro with.
- [108:59]
Bill Simmons
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Cousin Sal
Drinkware in all your favorite team colors.
- [109:10]
Bill Simmons
So if you're a serious fan, now's the time to get serious about your gear with officially licensed Yeti drinkware.
- [109:16]
Cousin Sal
Built for the long haul, Find all.
- [109:18]
Bill Simmons
The teams you root for@yeti.com or a Yeti store near you.
- [109:25]
Cousin Sal
You know the words that dominate our news cycle?
- [109:27]
Bill Simmons
Private equity keeps investing. But do you truly understand how they impact your world and your wallet? In a world that skims the what, Understand the why. Because context changes everything. Subscribe to Learn more@Bloomberg.com the global benchmark for business news.