The Patriots Are Pathetic, Detroit Crushes Minnesota, Plus Wild-Card Guess the Lines With Cousin Sal
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Coming up, a whole lot of Week 18 NFL stuff happened and the Patriots blew it. And I'm really upset and I almost didn't want to host the podcast. That's next. This episode is brought to you by Nissan. When you're younger, you're more spontaneous. You say, screw it, I'm just going to drive cross country with my buddy and we'll stop at a bunch of places and take pictures. You get older, you would never do something like that.

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This episode is brought to you by Unstoppable. If you're a fan of classic sports films, you're going to love this new one. It's called Unstoppable. It tells the true story of Anthony Robles, who overcame so much in his life to become a national wrestling champion. Directed by William Goldenberg and from Amazon MGM Studios, you've got a star-studded ensemble cast here, including Jarrell Jerome, my guy Don Cheadle, Michael Pena, Bobby Cannavale.

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That's the only hint I will give you. But it's coming on Monday night. You'll be able to listen to it on any podcast platform. You'll be able to watch it on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel, where you can also find on YouTube the Bill Simmons channel, which has all the videos and clips from this podcast. It's where we go live every Sunday night. Cousin Sal is going to join me in one second. Thank God I'm in a better mood than I was five hours ago. But we're going to get this rolling. First, our friends from Pearl Jam.

All right. Well, it's a bad sign, Sal, that we're starting a podcast before Sunday night game ends. I had so high hopes for Lions Vikings. I know. Mike, I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened, Mike.

Oh, Bill, you know, this game, these two teams saved the NFL because it was a shitty beyond shit slate for us in week 18. And then one team forgot to show up. Football's funny.

So many things to get to. Yeah. Hey, we won, man. We're winners. That's the big thing. We had the Lions. One seed. It's great. One seed. Well, and then hedged at least some of it with the Vikings. All right, we're idiots. That didn't work out too great. Yeah, always. So, big takeaway from this game. Do you want to go, we shouldn't have been sleeping on the Lions this whole time? Or do we want to go...

Are we ready to write off the Vikings after that game as a real contender? Cause I am not, I actually think they just had a bad game where a bunch of shit went wrong and I'm not ready to be like, Nope, that's who they are. Like, I just think it was one of those games. And I, and if anything, I want to buy in on them in the playoffs now, because now I think, I think everybody's off now. It's like, Oh, Sam Darnold. There is, Oh, the lions kicked their ass. Oh, you just have to rush them. And, and I've watched them all year.

That was a really good team. I just think they suck tonight. I'm with you. But, you know, it was a really good team. That Detroit defense like that was fucking phenomenal. That is the wild card. You didn't expect that to show up, right? Like nothing. All right. So they you can go both ways, right? Like Donald missed a lot of throws in the first half open guys. I know you thought they should have run the ball down low instead of turning it over to seven straight pass plays.

Yeah. So in a way, that was the difference. But man, that Lions defense and Anzalone being in there and just stuff in that middle. I mean, that was just a great physical game. Every third and three call was met with hard hits and lots of good coaching decisions, like high level QB play mixed in with some curious throws. But it makes me think both these teams are going to be good in the playoffs, especially the Lions, obviously.

Well, we didn't know even this morning, I don't think officially that Anzalone was coming back. Right. And he had a big impact. Some of the play calls had a big impact. Darnold just reverted into pre-Minnesota Darnold, which I think the Lions defense had a lot to do with. But that, the thing I love, we talked about this last week. The thing I liked about the Vikings and the Bengals was their ability to play pitch and catch with their receivers when they really needed to. Where was that tonight?

They couldn't do it at all. Where was that on third and seven? Where was that around the end zone? Even Jefferson had some one characteristic drops. They never got like the 30 yard pass interference. They never got the Addison just busting loose for 40 yard play. Acres was the only one that had like the monster play, but I'm torn because, you know, one of my best friends, Jeff Gallo, huge Vikings fan. He's texted me in the second quarter. He's like, this is classic. Here we go. This is the Vikings that I've had in my life for 50 years. Yeah.

You know, turning it over on downs inside the five. They're going to play all the hits. And he was right. It was when they kicked it out of bounds right before the end of the first half. It's like, here we go. Classic Vikings. This is what we do. That was bad. But the thing is, I didn't feel like this was a classic Vikings. This is what we do team. They were the opposite of that.

So I'm still, I'm not ready to sell on them yet. I think they just suck tonight. I'm not going to either. And let's, I think both of us thought that the Lions needed this more, right?

like I felt like the Lions defense wasn't going to be able to travel on the road. I don't even know about that first game. We'll get to that when we guess the Lions and stuff. But I thought they had to be a one seed, right? So they needed it more. They went in there and they bullied them. And Campbell really bullied KOC, I thought, too. Like he had some great, like really like,

like mischievous shit going on. Like fourth and two definitely should have kicked the field goal to go up three scores, went to draw him off sides. And you kind of have to bite because he actually could go. He's like the one guy who could go on fourth and two. So I think they were kind of bullied on all, in all facets. And that crowd was great and everything else, but I'm not going to,

Look, we were two in on Sam Donald. We're going to look like hypocrites. I still think he's a big contract guy. I don't think it's the pumpkin Cinderella thing, whatever they want to say there. But I think they're all right with Sam Donald, Minnesota fans. Yeah, and the Minnesota fans for three, four hours are just going to be in funk and all the PTSD is going to come back. Eventually, they're going to look at this game and be like, probably was an intentional grounding in the end zone on Goff. We dropped a pick six.

You know, we dropped multiple plays that would have either extended drives or Jefferson uncharacteristically. It seemed like he should add a touchdown. He dropped that. You just go through and it's like, actually, we were right there with those guys. And Goff was putting the ball up for grabs just as many times as Donald did in this game. Gibbs was the best guy in the field. Not shitting on anybody. But I do. I feel like both these teams could do pretty well and they could meet in two weeks. So we could see a totally different game.

At halftime, there was no scenario in my head that somebody was winning by 20 plus. I know. That's why. And that's what I was telling my buddy. I was like, you're going to have the lead in the third quarter. It's fine. Then they start driving. Akers has that big run. They're down four. Is he still your buddy? Have you checked? He's fine. You can't make proclamations like that. I've been doing this with him for 40 years. Akers, it seems like he's just going to score. They catch him.

And then they have to, you know, it's just, they never got the lead. It felt like as soon as they got the lead, I wanted to see what that Lions team, the other thing that the, I mean, to the positive stuff of the Lions defense looked way better. The home field advantage there. It's just, you know, they were talking about it before the game, how,

Tony Dungy. I think he says this every year, no matter where they are on location. He's like, guys, I've never heard a place louder than this in my entire career. I think he just does it every year, wherever they are. But that place was super loud. Now you have to go through there to win. Their defense is getting better. Maybe they get Hutchinson back by round three. The thing that I was the most surprised by was without Montgomery,

I was worried, could they hold leads? Could they keep leads? You know, would they be able to get these third and three? Would they be able to just keep drives going? And, uh, didn't feel like they missed them that much. He's so quick Gibbs, right? They also look faster than everybody too. So, uh, once he turns a corner, it's a, he's in no man's land. You're just not going to catch him. Are you comfortable with them being the Superbowl favorite right now? Three to one odds. Is that what it is? I was going to actually look that up. So they're, they're the favorites.

They're the favorites. Chiefs plus 350. Ravens and Bills 6-1. And then the Eagles 7-1. And the Vikings bounce all the way down to 14-1. So if you want your value, 14-1, it's right there. Except they have to win four games now. So I guess that could make sense. You know, them and the Ravens, same situation, right? Where we, this season's so long, we have all these advanced metrics we can look at.

And you just kind of talk yourself out of anybody's defense being able to do a turnaround. And both of those defenses are playing better. That's probably who I would pick at this point. As much as I hate going against KC, I think that Baltimore-Detroit would be the life on the line pick. But the wise pick would be KC-Detroit, which was, I think, what our Super Bowl...

That was the one we bet on, right? Or you bet on the seeds? I bet on the Super Bowl. You bet on the seeds. God bless. I collected 26-1 odds on the one seeds. Unbelievable. But my Super Bowl was Buffalo. I know, I know. Well, we did our futures draft. You won the futures draft single-handedly with 26-1. Yeah, but how about you? Then we'll stop jerking each other off here. But what were you, 27-5 with the preseason picks? Houston and Arizona both hit today. So 27-5.

And all five were like giant losses. That's ridiculous. It was like, I didn't come remotely close to the five. It was like Jacksonville, Minnesota. It was all like, but everything else I hit. Yeah. You should probably get minus six for the Jets, betting the Jets over, but no, 27 and five. It all counts. The crazy thing is I really almost took Buffalo. I, it was a seesaw for me that whole summer. And, and,

I just got sucked in with the Rodgers. We have to seek therapy and figure out why we want to bounce Buffalo from the AFC East spot every August. The top spot. Because we do. We look forward. And it's just never there. All right, so here's what we got for playoffs. Well, first of all,

We do this every year. And one of the things is I was trying to figure out the league before the year and I was trying to figure out, well, we have to have six new playoff teams. That's just the rule. And I couldn't get there. And I think I only picked four or five. Well, there's six. No, there was, there's four new playoff teams. Yeah. So we lost Cleveland. We lost Miami. We lost San Francisco and we lost Dallas. Oh shit. We gained Denver, the chargers, Washington and Minnesota.

And that's it. So usually it's six, sometimes seven. There might be the occasion where there's five. Four is like a crazy non-turnover year. Four is fine. Yeah. Let's get the Cowboys back in, but then we'll stick to four the rest of the way. There was some...

you know, like the fact that Pittsburgh made it back in and stuff like that. Like some of the weaker teams somehow ran it back. But anyway, we have, they can't be flexed out Pittsburgh, right? We checked on that. They just, after their performance, 500 plus yards against Cincinnati, uh,

To not being able to get a first down four weeks later with all the same guys on your team. And all the same guys since then. I didn't get that. So our one seeds are KC and Detroit. We have Denver at Buffalo in the 2-7. Pittsburgh, Baltimore 3-6. Chargers at Houston 4-5. The Shakey's game. This was on Twitter. This is the eighth time Houston has been in the Shakey's game since 2011.

Is that playoff purgatory? They're eight for eight in those... We just call it the Schaub Classic now, right? The shaky Schaub Classic. Yeah, shaky Schaub. I like it. Yeah, shaky Schaub. And then Green Bay at Philly, Washington and Tampa, Minnesota at the Rams is the 4-5. And that's going to be...

Is that the Sunday nighter or a Monday nighter? Many at the Rams. We sent each other what we thought the schedules would be. You made an amateur mistake. The Monday has to be a 4-5 because they have to know before then where they're sending the winner of that game. Minnesota at the Rams, it's 0-5, is Monday. Amazon is the big winner because they get Pittsburgh-Baltimore on Saturday night, which is a great game. The two best games are Green Bay-Philly-

Are you surprised that NBC didn't get Green Bay at Philly Sunday night? That was like my big, I was like, wow, they're going with Tampa Bay and Washington. It's interesting. I think Fox big boyed it. They must have. They must have been able to protect it. I think CBS and Fox each get to protect one of them, right? So if you're, although it is interesting that

CBS probably would have wanted Pittsburgh Baltimore, right? I can't, I guess Buffalo is the most public around one team because of Josh Allen and the fans and you get to go there and people are jumping through tables. So maybe, maybe they wanted that. I don't know. Yeah. It hurts less to jump through tables on the morning game than it would at night, I guess. So the biggest surprises for me, just big picture today, other than that,

I really thought Minnesota was at least going to show up. I thought that was going to come down to the last five minutes game. Detroit was great. The Cougars was awesome. The biggest surprise for me today was that the Rams didn't care if they were the three-seed or the four-seed. And it was explained to me multiple ways. I get it. They haven't had a bye week since week six. They wanted a rest. They didn't really care where they played. They're going to play everyone anyway. Right. I just...

I don't know. I just would much rather be in the three seed that now they have to play Minnesota next week versus playing Washington. It's no contest. I would much rather play Minnesota than Washington. So I don't know. I get it. Isn't it so weird? Like the different philosophies, like McVay is like, you know what? We're injured. I've seen what this team looks like injured. We want to make sure we're in good shape next week, whoever we play. And Dan Campbell's like,

screw it, this game means nothing. We're starting everyone against the 49ers. I don't care if we have 20 guys on IR. It is so bizarre that everybody is so different and you can't go too crazy about one philosophy over another. But even with that, they almost won that game, the Rams. They were winning. Jimmy G wasn't bad. No, he wasn't. They'd sent guys after him and then eventually it caught up, but they were right there in that game.

Yeah, I thought if they had won, he would have looked like a genius. And he was really involved on the sidelines. Oh, yeah. McVay is like the number one

Does the, I'm doing a fist pump for people listening. He just, he's doing around. He's got the one move and he just goes through it. He's like, he's like a fist with like a, like a overbite face. Right. It's like the guy, what movie is that? Where the guy's like the one guy in the dance floor, his one move is to roll in the dice when he's on the dance floor. And all he can do is the dice move. Oh no, he's going to do the dice move. That's McVeigh's fist. Well,

Well, he was really into it. He was supposed to hold him back. Didn't he have a get back guy for so many years? Yeah, then he got married. He didn't need to get back guy anymore. So yeah, so now they're playing Minnesota in the 4-5, which I think is just brutal because you could make a case that that game we just knocked up. Cerruti says that's the dice move. Oh, yeah, yeah, right. You could make the case the game that we just watched. Those were the two best teams in the league.

I don't know if you'd make it after watching Darnold for four quarters, but especially the first hour of that game, the hitting, how people flying around. It was like, Jesus, we've been watching shit football all day.

And these guys are like, it looks like they're on the all Madden level watching this. Yeah. And then you got Tomlin who was thinking like you were thinking like, oh, maybe we don't want to play the Ravens. It's much easier to go against the Texans in the shaky game. And they just couldn't get it done. But now 177 yards offense before that last drive. We're bouncing around. Obviously, I had that coming later, but I'm happy to talk about it now. I really felt like there was a fields play in that game.

That just to shake it up, try something different, just to throw the game out of whack a little, considering that Wilson wasn't doing much anyway. And Pickens, I don't know what's happened to that dude the last month, but it felt like, hey, just bring Fields in for one series and just show them this. Let's see what it looks like. And I don't know. It just seems like they've completely punted on Fields. And it's like Russ...

this is it. But I felt like they really could have run the ball on Cincinnati and they just couldn't. They just chose not to. Yeah. Hustle and bustle taking bad sacks and everything. And you're right. They did drop a lot of balls. I think Pickens was like

at 900, a hundred yards away from a thousand yard season and ended up with 899. Like it was ridiculous. What kind of day he put forward, he was dropping everything that was thrown to him. But I don't know, man, I go back and forth with Tom one. I'm like this guy, I don't know, you know, all right. He's just going to be around nine wins every year, 10 wins, one round and out in the playoffs. And then I'm like, holy shit. I haven't liked his quarterback in a decade.

Right. Big Ben's last few years. How is he even doing this? Getting it going. But you're right. Yeah. Why can't we see Fields on a gadget play somewhere in there? It felt like the first half of the season, they were way more experimental with that stuff. And then as the season went along. Yeah. Tom, when you sometimes you wonder, like, if he just...

He's like the guy at work who once he hits his bonus, he just say, yeah, I'm not going to go in today. I got my bonus. Like Tom would say, I got the 10 wins. I'm good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's an arrogant organization too. Let's face it. Like they, they bragged about spending less than $3 million on these two quarterbacks, right? Denver still played, paid most of Russ's salary. And it's like, no, eventually you got to do it. I think like they looked at their division, like we can go out and sign a Lamar or try to get like someone like Lamar or look at Joe Burrow, but they were terrified of what happened with Watson. So they looked, they took the bad example in their division and ran away from it and eventually catches up to you.

I don't mind. I'd love to know what happened to Pickens because he was such a key part of everything that was working for them. And to just lose him completely in your offense, it's pretty easy to stop. What a cover. That was one of the ridiculous covers of the year, too. Steelers getting two and a half. I loved it. The other big thing that happened today was this NFC South battle, which I'm proud to say I had no dollars on.

It just seemed like a complete stay away. And I was just living vicariously through the text of you and some others who had fallen into the friendly fire of those two games. And it ends up with the Bucs squeezing it out. There was like 14 points during both games where you thought the other team was going to win or something bad was going to happen. It was the best moment of Bryce Young's NFL career. He was super fun to watch.

And, um, it really seemed like new Orleans was going to be Tampa Bay. And then Baker who Sal, I gotta say, I think he's number three for me for MVP behind Josh on the Mar. I'd put him over Burroughs. He won 10 games. He threw 41 touchdowns. He, he over and over again made plays with his legs. There was a whole month where he just had no weapons at all. He had a rookie running back.

I don't really love his coaching staff. I just felt like he dragged that team to 10 wins and over and over again came through for them. So he was great and he did it again.

Definitely top three fun to watch. And our friend Hench points out, like, when does a guy get legs in his seventh season? If you look at his rushing yards this year, compared to the first six, whatever it was, just spectacular. But I wasn't able to enjoy it. I had so much money on Tampa Bay to win the division and all sorts of money line parlays with Tampa Bay on them. I really felt like Pesci being led to the basement, like halfway through the second quarter when the Saints were up two scores. I looked down to see if the floor was covered in plastic, and I was like, oh, no. Okay.

But Baker fought for me. It was beautiful. Really, really, really did. And then the game's over and they're like, wait, we got to get Mike Evans this bonus. It's like, what are you guys doing? It's not like it was week 14. It's like you're trying to get to the playoffs. I'm all, I like Mike Evans. I like records, but that was...

And it really seemed like they're clearly throwing it to him. Yeah. I don't know why New Orleans, like the moment the ball wasn't snapped, why aren't you just running a straight line? Why don't you have two guys on Mike Evans? Like you actually have a chance to get the ball back. How about eight guys? That's the only reason they're snapping the ball and not taking a knee is to throw it to Evans. Come on, clogger. The crowd's cheering. They're chanting for Mike Evans. It's like, what?

That guy's catching a screen. Of course it is. So yeah, those incentives. I played Madden with Ben this weekend and he was Miami and he just kept trying to throw to Tyreek Hill. So eventually I just brought another guy over and I was just, I was like, I know you're throwing to Tyreek Hill, but now I'm going to put this guy here. The Saints should have had four of those guys.

Just trying to, you know, maybe they get a tip or something. So they win. And at the same time, Atlanta is about to go into overtime with Carolina, but then realizes that the dream is dead and Carolina wins an OT. But it was a rollercoaster ride. You know who didn't deserve to be in the playoffs though? Atlanta. Yeah. Some of these teams that worked out like Miami didn't make the playoffs. You know who should have made the playoffs? Miami. You know who deserved to make the playoffs? Cincinnati.

So I feel like we landed in the right place with... I think you're right. Who's the worst playoff team for you? Well, right now, just the way they're playing, it's Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh? Yeah. Or Houston? Just the way they're playing. But I know that's going to be a close game probably in the fourth quarter. Oh, yeah, Houston, I don't trust too much either. One of those AFC teams, I think. Yeah, Atlanta. Roger Goodell must hate Atlanta because we didn't realize it, I don't think, because we did the podcast right after that Atlanta-Washington game.

They fucked up four games this week. There would have been four games that meant something, including the Rams game, including their game, you know, Carolina, and the Washington game would have mattered too against Dallas. Like, Goodell must have a Raheem Morris voodoo doll. No one's happier that Atlanta's not in than Roger Goodell. Well, I don't understand how they picked the games yesterday. I don't understand how Baltimore or Cleveland was one of the games. Baltimore ended up where they were like a 21-point favorite. Yeah, right. There was no world where

I'm like my stupid team that we'll talk about later. There was no world in Cleveland is ever threatening to ever win that game for one second. So you have, you have these two Saturday games and the first game is just abysmal. You know, it's like Bailey's happy. What does he got going? Um, and I don't know, I would have put, I think I would have put Pittsburgh Cincinnati and Miami jets as the two Saturday games.

And then both of those teams are still alive technically. And then you go into Sunday and then Denver has to take care of business either way. But I think that was the way to do it. Sometimes maybe I think they screw with the fans and like, let's see, this is a meaningless spread. It's going to be the biggest of the year. Let's see how many eyeballs we get on this game. Oh, good. Football still works. Everybody watched. So you think it's like a test tube situation or like it's just mad at

Who had the game yesterday? It was ESPN. Yeah. He's like, you're putting Orlovsky and Riddick in this game? Oh, my God. I'm giving you Baltimore Cleveland. Right. We're going to serve a three-day-old meatloaf at the school lunch. See if people still buy it. Oh, wow. They're hungry around noon? Interesting. That was nuts. Well, anyway, today, it seemed like the early games were going to be the least amount of fun possible. And then all of a sudden, complete chaos. And unfortunately, my team...

One of the most devastating days in the history of the franchise. Come on.

Come on. Maybe it wasn't. No, but it was when I think of like the dark, dumb days in the history of the team since I became a Patriots fan with Jim Plunkett and Mac Heron and everybody when I was like four years old. This has to be in the top eight or nine. It's just a complete organizational collapse, disgrace. It made no sense. Made no sense as it was happening. Every other team, the fucking Chiefs knew how to tank.

Right. The chiefs are like, here's, here's Carson Wentz just handing the ball off. And then we're going to bring in our third string quarterback. I don't know what to tell you. So I don't know what, I don't, I, we had the first pick and now we have the fourth pick. We've moved back three spots every single round. Right. And one of my friends texted me, it was like, we traded the first pick for the fourth pick and got nothing in the trade. Right.

And we moved back three spots every round. It was one. And we gave up all these potential assets that came with the pick.

And the thing that kills me is they fire the coach right after the game. They knew they were going to do that for at least a week. So you're letting this guy make the, basically he's trying to win and the offensive coordinator, they're trying to win because they don't know if they're going to be there. They're trying to coach for their jobs. You got to get rid of those guys. If you know you're going to get rid of them after the game, why not get rid of them before the game? Why not put this decision in the hands of people who care about the big long-term picture of the franchise instead of trying to win the game?

All right. I mean, I'll give you that. Maybe they should have fired him before the game. But I just I know people who root for bad teams and then they just never end up rooting for their team. They just end up rooting for draft picks year after year and they just never get to root for their team. This is three hours. It's three hours of my life. I never have to think about this game again. The whole last month you were thinking about it.

Yeah. Well, what was the year Lovie Smith did this? What was it? Two years ago? Yeah. I think it was two. And he was just like, yeah, fuck it. And he ends up. And he was gone. Yeah. Yeah. And he was gone. And he left the team with a nice shining turd on the sidelines. Well, I mean, let's put a pin in this already. Like tanking kind of just doesn't exist in the NFL because like,

First of all, three teams were in line for the number one pick in the last three weeks. They all won. The Raiders, the Giants, and the Patriots. No, but in the last three weeks, all those teams have won. I don't know, but Tennessee knew the job today. Cleveland knew the job yesterday. It's three hours. I don't think it happens. Once Joe Milton looked good for a quarter, it's like, all right, you got to go. Joe Milton's your guy. How many quarterbacks do you think you have? Joe Milton's your best quarterback. Kyle already won at the Jersey. Joe Milton was fantastic. I would have started both rookie receivers, the guys who have had no catches all year.

Drake May, they at least figured that out, but that took five days for them to figure out. But here's how I would explain it to somebody who didn't know anything about this. If you owned a company,

And you had, I don't know, hundreds of people that worked for the company. And you had the single biggest decision of the year for that company that had the most financial and business implications possible. And you gave it to, I don't know, let's say your friend Harry is the president. And you're like, I know I'm firing Harry next week. It's getting good. Yeah. I know I'm going to fire him on Sunday night. And this decision is going to be Sunday morning.

Should I just let Harry make this decision for the company right before I fire him? Or should I...

try to figure out with other people who are going to be here next year, what the best decision is. You know what? I'll let Harry do it and then I'll fire him right after. It makes no sense. No normal business operates this way. You don't turn over the biggest decision of your year. It's not a normal business. It's not. This was normal. You just have to lose the game. You shouldn't have hired Harry in the first place is what I would say to you. Well, that's true. But it's like, and you got people paying to watch this business on a given day. All they were rooting for them to lose. I don't know.

know. I don't know. Not Kyle. He's got the Joe Milton jersey. Kyle is devastated. Kyle was the most upset of anyone I was texting with during the game other than my dad. You have to trade Drake May. Of course, he's devastated. Yeah.

I don't know. They were in the catbird seat. They already have a franchise QB. They're going to have the number one pick. But within two hours, we're like, wow, the two QBs, nobody even likes them that much in this draft. Maybe we couldn't have gotten that much for them anyway. It just speaks to what this whole season was like, which was...

Owners who don't know what they're doing, a front office that don't know what they're doing, and a coach who had no idea what he was doing and contradicted himself over and over again, starting in August when he was like, it's going to be a competition for this job. Then starts for set, even though May was better. And then four weeks in, he's like, well, May was playing better. So he's got to start. It's like, well, wait, you actually said that wasn't what we were, but now we're like, and it was just contradictions left and right. And he deserved to be fired. Listen.

That's fine. But now you have three coaches in the last three years. You're like the Panthers with the one and dones. Congrats. You root for the New England Panthers. And now it's like you can't talk about Patriot lore. And, well, we have we have grit. We're going to go. We have the staying power and all that. I love Brady, unfortunately. I know we're like everybody else, but we had a chance to have a franchise could be in the number one pick in the draft. Mm hmm.

You got, it's three hours out of your life. Like we do this all the time in basketball. It's like, oh, these two weeks are going to suck, but it's all going to be worth it because we'll be in this spot after it's done. This was three hours. I think it's very difficult to get tanking to work in the NFL. You have to have the coaching staff, the players and the front office on the same page. Maybe the Giants did it today. They didn't do it in the last two weeks. In the NBA, it's as easy as checking in at the scorer's table. This is different. It's just different.

It just is. But you just, you just laid out exactly what the problem was. You need to have the players, the coaching staff in the front up. Well, the players are going to do whatever they're always going to play. They're always going to try. Yeah. You need the coach, the front office and the owners all to be on the same page. And when they're not on the same page, dumb shit like today happens because you have coaches who have different motivations for what's best for those three hours than the front office and the owners. And my,

So some people were like, do you think he fired Mayo because they were supposed to lose that game and they didn't? I think they knew they were firing him the whole week. They had like this long statement ready, you know, an hour and a half after the game. But this is just, this is what the whole...

Really, the whole year has been like dating back to the Apple doc, dating back to this process of hiring a coach that was never a coordinator before, not really hiring a GM, not spending money. And this was the worst team in the league that somehow doesn't have the worst pick.

But take me through it. What's involved in losing today? Like the Bills play Josh Allen one play, right? Or one series, whatever. So the Bills bring in Trubisky. Trubisky is like actually pretty good. And they're like, all right, got to get. The Bills wanted us to win. They bring in Mike Waite and they're just eating the ball up.

over the middle so they could give the ball back to us. So it's a staring contest. So like, maybe, I don't know, you know, it wasn't like you started everybody. You were throwing bombs every play. It was just a weird, weird game. We're both. Joe Milton was great. And by the way, kudos to Joe Milton. He was awesome. This was his one chance to shine. Yeah, he's your guy. And he was really good. But this is really why you need a fourth quarterback. This is where you need a Bailey Zappi.

You need a knee. You could take a knee every play, but whatever. But this is when the offensive coordinator is not on the same page. And it's like, just can you just keep hitting the ball off and have guys run at the middle line? Can we just keep doing that for a while? Week 18 sucks. Let's just say that.

We could just agree to that. And every year I'm like, I'm never betting on this again. And then I bet on it. I had Buffalo. I also had Houston because I loved Houston. You lost your wise wager. Yeah. I sat my starters. I bet Tennessee. I was like, they're two and 14 against the spread. And that's why I got to warm up for the playoffs. So I'm not starting anyone good. But I felt like today was like a little bit of an outer body experience. We're used to the 1 p.m. slate being kind of shit, right? But we saw so many backups today. It reminded me like of a high school reunion.

where you're like in the corner of the room, like you're sipping cheap wine and staring at name tags. Like, oh, there's Marcus Mariota. I know Trey Lance. Oh, wow. Jimmy G. What's he up to? I'm going to go over and talk to him. Yeah. Jimmy, you still living in Los Angeles? Yeah. What's up with the divorce? And then like Davis Mills corners you and spends like 20 minutes showing you pictures of his vintage Chevy. And you're like, all right, I'm good. I'm good. Let's get to the playoffs already. This sucks.

Who was that? Bailey Zappi? Yeah. Zappi and DTR. This is great. Schefter's reported there's a trade. The Pats have traded down from the first to the fourth pick, and they've dropped three spots in every round after that.

in return for jack shit. Got nothing. Got zero to do that. I haven't seen the specs on jack shit. Is he a linebacker from the 40s? He's a quarterback. Undersized. All right. There's your quarterback. Kyle, should I get you a jack shit jersey? That's what we traded the first pick for.

Oh, man. One thing I was thinking, I mean, at least they realized that they don't have the coach and they got rid of poor Mayo, who, you know, was put in an impossible spot. He didn't know how to be a head coach. But I was looking at the coaches who made the playoffs. Andy Reid, Kevin O'Connell, Tomlin, both Harbaugh's, Payton, McDermott, Dan Campbell, Matt LaFleur, D'Amico Ryans.

And then Dan Quinn, Todd Bowles, and Sirianni as the last three. Those are probably the shakiest three out of all the playoff coaches. It's a pretty good batch. Not bad. Just makes me think like coaches and QBs. If you could just figure out those two things, you're probably good. Yeah, that's a good starting point. I'm hoping Love is 100%. I'm hoping Hertz is 100% so we don't waste a couple games in there. But yeah, it seems like all the quarterbacks, most of them will be solid.

So the Pats, I think Vrabel is probably the favorite because he was Patriots Hall of Famer. And I think he wants a job and he has a relationship with Kraft and he's a fucking awesome coach. And I can't believe nobody, I can't believe he's available.

I don't know why somebody hasn't already hired him, but. You think he used the Jets to nudge the Patriots to get that firing today? No question. Well, that's probably the bigger reason they fired Mayo then today. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause he's five teams are going to want him. Flores would be interesting too, because he has Patriots DNA was with the team. Really good coach, um, coach somewhere else. So would it be his first job?

Those would be my top two. But Vrabel, I always thought, I just always thought Vrabel was a top seven, top eight coach. You'll be in good shape if you get him. Jack Schitt's high school coach, his name is in the hat. Well, that's the thing. Once you have Jack Schitt, do you get Jack Schitt's college coach? It doesn't matter who coaches. Bring him on.

So Denver edged out Miami and Cincinnati. That was another thing. Thanks partly to the chiefs who wanted to make it clear from the first minute where you have no interest in competing in this game. I actually kind of like the chiefs plus 11 and a half. I think I put them in a tease. Um,

Once that went north of 10, I'm like, oh, the books know more than we do here. They know more because it becomes more about more than Carson Wentz wants to try out for his next team. It's like Carson Wentz is with the third string everything. You know, Carson Wentz isn't throwing, you know, all these studs. So it doesn't matter. He's throwing away receivers. Right.

Steelers-Bengals the day before and we all got to get excited about the Bengals one last time. I realized the Bengals just existed for

And that's about it. Fun to talk about, get a borough MVP conversation out of it. Talk about T Higgins. Is he going to be back? Could replay the montage of all the games. They almost won. You'd be like, you don't want to see them in the playoffs, but ultimately they had no chance because the chiefs had no real reason to compete in that Denver game. So we just got free content for a week for nothing. Right. You talk to your kids about the fantasy studs and everything, but yeah,

Although I will think as Burrow, as great as he is, I was looking at their eight losses. I think Mahomes and Allen win a couple of those. I think that's kind of the difference. He almost lost the one Saturday. Yeah, I know. It would have been a perfect Bengals game and a perfect Steelers game, if not for the end. Well, he definitely seemed like he got concussed during that Steelers game. They get really loosey-goosey about some of these when a guy lands face down

there's a giant thing of turf. He stays down for a while and then they show him on the sidelines after the commercial and it looks like he thinks he's in like Antarctica. Yeah. I'm pretty sure something made the, something happened that maybe the blue tent didn't accurately capture. Yeah. Good. Dell is fired. The director who took the shot him on the sideline and like, let's not, that's one too many. We don't need to show this guy's lingering on him like that. Eyes are rolling the back of his head. Show some terrible towels. Uh, people chewing on terrible towels enough. Yeah.

Yeah, so big picture with the Bengals, you know, they're going to be in the same spot some of these other teams are in. If they bring back T. Higgins, you're paying 40% of your salary cap for a QB and two receivers. We just watched Miami do this. I don't think it works. I don't think it's sustainable. Miami completely fell off a cliff this week. Now, they started to realize during that Jets game, I think that that ship had sailed for them. The Tyreek Hill stuff was super weird after the game.

And has been kind of weird all season. He's a little bit of the NFL's Jimmy Butler in some ways where it never seems like he's happy for more than two months. And there's weird press conferences and sometimes all of a sudden he's not playing. But then after the game, he just seems like he's out of there.

So it seems like no one goes off like he did. Right. Like I want, I want out of the, didn't he say I want out of this place? Like this is, um, yeah, he had a weird year. It would have been nice. How about Miami? I know they knew their season was over. How about when a game in cold weather? So people could shut up about it for a second. Yeah. It wasn't just to, uh, like it's a whole team, like just, um, melts ironically, but, oh, I'm saying this chef there said the Pats traded a second round pick for Mike McDaniel. That's pretty good.

That's not bad. That's not bad. Why are you torturing me? I don't understand how upset all the Pats fans are. A little bit. I thought, is Mike McDaniel, has he coached Jack shit or no? Yeah. The Tyreek thing's weird because they gave him that extension, which makes him harder to trade. He's in his thirties now. I don't know if he's the easiest guy year to year.

And I don't know what his market would be. And we've watched receivers over and over again. They hit this stage of their career and it's like, whoa, Tyreek Hill's available. But it's like, okay.

What does that mean? It's like, ah, Devontae Adams is available. Okay, cool. Yeah. Nothing against Tyreek Hill. One of the best there's been in the last five years, whatever. One of the best of the last 10 years. You watch college football, you're like, wow, there's studs all over the place that anyone could grab in the third round. And look at the backlog for Hall of Fame. There's a ton of really good wide receivers who aren't going to get in the Hall of Fame. So that might not be the position to stage a protest. I think the difference with him was...

We left last year and I think he was the guy at receiver. And really for the last, for probably the last two or three years, like Lombardi always used to call him the tilt the field guy. He was like the number one tilt the field guy. I think that's gone now. And it's partly not his fault because of what happened with Tua and the QBs. But it feels like Chase kind of took that spot this year. And Chase's stats, I was looking at some of the league leader stuff.

Chase was over 1,700 yards. He had 17 TDs. Yeah. And you just felt him in every game. And that's where Tyreek was. The league leader stuff is interesting. Nobody threw for 5,000 yards, even though we had 17 game seasons. Burrow came the closest, 49-18. Saquon was the only 2,000-yard rusher. Henry and Cook both had 16 rushing TDs. Chase had 17 passing TDs.

And then interceptions, we had a tie. What happens with the bets with ties? Oh, it's a dead heat. I think you just split the loot. Like half your bet wins and half of it loses. So Cousins and Mayfield, ironically, my number three MVP, 16 interceptions for him. Boswell had 41 field goals.

Wow. 40 plus field goals. That's nuts. It's like two and a half a game. And then Hendrickson led the league in sacks with 17 and a half. My Hutchinson bet died. Hendrickson leads in sacks, triple crown for Chase at receiver and Burrow has the most yards. Terrific. And Chase Brown got hurt. Otherwise, you know, whatever. I'm looking at your Tyree Kilt.

In terms of, you figure like he always had a long of 45, at least if not every game, every other game. He had an 80-yard catch in September 8th, game one. After that, his long was 30. Really? And he did it twice. Yep. I'm looking at these. Wow. Unbelievable. Do you think defenses started to figure him out a little bit better? It must be. I don't know. I mean, it's not like he got a lot of pass interference calls for him. It was a weird year for him.

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Yeah. And I've seen it. I feel like there's a lot of crap there. I don't think he pushed off. You think that was a push off? Watch it again. I don't know. I think everyone was assaulting each other back then. So it's hard to say. Pretty physical. I remember it was definitely one of the first ones I saw. I'm trying to think the synergy with the two players that played for my team was Moss and Brady that one year.

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Only five teams were within a half game of their actual over-under. Usually I always feel like Vegas has like half of them nailed exactly. It wasn't that case this year. The biggest under-unders were Cleveland and San Francisco were both five and a half wins under their under. Jets and Jacksonville were four and a half and the Bears were three and a half. So whatever Vegas thought, three and a half worse.

For the overs, Minnesota ended up six and a half wins over. Yeah. Washington five and a half, Denver four and a half, and Casey and Philly three and a half. And so what about the biggest outlier game of the year? It has to be the Raiders beating the Ravens.

Yeah, or the Pats beating the Bengals in week one. Some of those September ones. Yeah. I think we have to make a mental note next year. Just first two weeks, just put a giant salt shaker on your shoulder. Don't overthink it too much. How could you say salt shaker on your shoulder so easily? And Collinsworth still can't say pass rush. And I can't say Collinsworth. Yeah. How is that possible?

He's got some shawl shakers on his shoulder. I made an end of the year rock bottom rankings for you. Franchise is rock bottom. Who's the deepest rock bottom right now? I think it's the Browns, number one. They, three and 14. They lost their last five. They lost eight more games than they lost last year. Right. Their last three games, they scored 16 points. They have two more years of Deshaun Watson. Mm-hmm.

And they have a top two pick, which they kind of stumbled into and didn't seem conceivable. But now they have the second pick in this draft that everybody's already like, I don't know about these quarterbacks. And they're going to have to take one.

Right. Or you have to trade it. Yeah. They have to keep trading picks. They have to say, sorry, fans, we fucked up. We're going to be bad for the next three years. It's our fault. That's not yours. You'll still have to pay top dollar to get into these games, but we're going to have to do some maneuvering to, to get these draft picks back, to get some capital back. I really feel that's the way to do it. They're not a quarterback away from winning and they're already paying a ton to keep the terrible one. So,

So how many teams would actually trade into this draft? And do you like some of the stuff I was reading in the last week as I was trying to figure out what the past could get for number one before we traded down to take Jack shit. Um, the like Diana Rossini had a thing about the quarterback saying how, yeah, if Sanders and cam ward were in last year's draft, they would kind of been in that Penn X Drake may range. So if that's the case,

That makes me think they're probably not going one and two because usually we see teams reach for QBs, but not if people, not if the grade for them is like mid first round, early second round. I'm so glad we have Todd McShay this year, plus our ringer draft guys. I'm sure this is a huge topic. But I just, we, we rarely see teams reach like that for quarterbacks that people aren't even positive are going to be above average starters.

I don't think there's going to, I don't think the buzz is going to grow for Shador Sanders. In fact, there are some experts who think he's like mid second round at this point, but I think like whatever personal momentum he has is carried. That's it's going to plateau.

And so by that regard, I don't know if that's, you know, Travis Hunter's a nice player. Cam Ward, again, a little bit shaky, but as far as if you're going to go for a quarterback, but I don't know who I'm looking like Kelvin Banks. They talk about the Patriots taking an offensive lineman. Nobody's climbing these guys. Yeah. It's fine. I'm sure these guys are good players and everything, but it's not like it's been in years past. Like, like,

When the Cowboys started winning and I was like, all right, I don't know what the difference between 10 and 17 is at this point. Still got to get lucky. Yeah, sometimes there's this draft where you get the number one pick. Like we had at the year we took Ken Sims. It was like for the 1981 draft. We sucked the whole year and it just turned out to be a year where Ken Sims was the number one pick. Needless to say, not a lot of Ken Sims jerseys still around. Then you end up with another year like last year.

where he goes Daniels and May and Caleb Williams in the top three and it's like, holy shit. You know, and then you go through that. I mean, that's going to end up being an iconic draft. Sure. You look at the first round of that draft, there's like 15 potential all pros in it. Yeah.

Yeah. It could be a lull. This could be the year. Could be a lull draft. Jack shit will go. I hope Jack shit is his girlfriend. Like if she's looking at her cell phone when he's drafted, he's not going to elbow her unnecessarily. So we both think Browns are one. I was thinking for a rock for true rock bottom, not having a coach or a quarterback, I think is that that's when you're really rock bottom me. So Tennessee, I think has to be second. Yeah.

Um, three and 14. I don't know what they saw from their coach this year, which makes me think he's the coach. Levis is so bad that they started him because they knew he would give them their best chance to lose. I wish we had had Levis today. Joe Milton's like a hundred times better than Levis. Um, so they're two, but at least they have the first pick in the draft. But as we said, it's a down draft, um, giants. I would have three. They're in the same boat, except they're bringing back day ball and then Shane. Yep.

Would you put New England, Jacksonville, Indianapolis, and the Jets? Who would you put next? I think the Jets have to show me something before I think about it. A coach or a quarterback? Yeah. Until then, they're a joke of the franchise that everybody claims they are. And the win today over Miami is not showing me something. Sorry. It's just not there. Yeah, so then...

I mean, I honestly think Indianapolis would probably be fifth and then you would have Jacksonville and New England right after that. Because Indianapolis, I don't think they have a quarterback and I don't think they have a coach. But the season, would they finish like eight, nine or seven, eight, nine, I think seven and 10. There's somewhere in there, seven or eight wins.

Which fools you into thinking, oh, maybe we're not that far away. But I actually think they are far away. Well, I mean, far away from what I mean, that's the division you want to be in if you need to grow. Right. Yeah. Indianapolis was eight, nine. So they ended up like two games behind the division winner. Yeah. But you and I, I think, are both a little hesitant on backing that quarterback. Is there anybody you would throw anybody else you would throw in that for rock bottom?

Cause like the bears have Caleb Williams, the pats have Drake May. Like there's at least things you can grab onto. The only reason I put the bears in there is because I think the Packers, Vikes and lions are going to be good for a little while here. Don't you like, you kind of have to look where they reside. And, um,

I don't know. They murdered our exact order pick. I know. We should have just gone under eight and a half and to not make the playoffs. That was easy. It was plus 150. Yeah, shit. So stupid. A couple of my friends were asking because we were talking about how we did so well in the over-unders. Like, was there juice on those?

when we picked them. For the most part, they were always like minus 150, minus 120. If there was crazy juice, we probably mentioned it on the podcast. I remember Pittsburgh under had a lot of juice. The Bears under had a lot of juice. The Cowboys under had a lot of juice.

going the other way because they didn't want you to bet it. So there's probably like 10. But for the most part, they were around even. We didn't cherry pick the minus 180s. I don't think there were that many. I don't think there was. Yeah. And there was some cases where we probably went the other way. Speaking of the rock bottom rankings, Fantasy, who's been on fire all year, there's Jets tweets. He tweeted...

During the Jets win today, an unlikable Jets team winning a pointless final game of the season, weakening draft position before a vast regime change. Well, an arch rival prepares to hire the coveted coach that never had a chance at a tale as old this time. They might be bottom five. I'm telling you.

You'll have Giant and Jet fans. You could have like a three-hour podcast of Giant and Jet fans just arguing who's in the worst spot. Who's angry about their situation? Where's the point of pride? Well, that was the worst possible ending for Jet's fans where they're basically dancing on Miami's grave. Miami checks out and Rodgers all of a sudden is like firing touchdowns and moving around and, you know, he's back but against this team that had checked out and

Um, I guess that's the highlight tape he would send this, this spring. He's trying to get hired. Hey, did you see my week 18 game? Right. Right. Four touchdowns. Yeah. Let's add an episode of Enigma. That's going great. We, we, we, we beat Miami. They're trying to make the playoffs. I threw four touchdowns on him. He does think that he does think like that. I might throw the Raiders. Did you mention the Raiders?

Oh, did I not have the Raiders in there? Oh, my apologies. The Raiders are definitely top four. Yeah, they have to be. I thought I had the Raiders. I must have copy pasted them and accidentally taken them out. Yeah, they're a double four, three double digit win teams in their division. And, you know, I don't know. I mean, I know Tyreek Hill went nuts after the game. I feel like Brock Bowers is about to waste a bunch of years in that offense.

Yeah, what did Brock Bowers' friends and family tell him? Can he hold out now? Has anyone ever held out after year one? That'd be great. All right, so final rock bottom. Browns 1, Tennessee 2, Giants 3, Raiders 4. That's fine. As long as you have the Browns number one. I don't care where anything else is. Yeah. All right. That's enough foreplay. Guess the lines. Round one. Saturday. What's the records, by the way? Are we tied? Oh, no. We're tied, right?

Nine, eight, one. You're up. Nine weeks for you, eight weeks for me, one week tied. The Shakey's-Shob game. Saturday. Only two games on Saturday. The Chargers are traveling to Houston to play the Texans. I feel like there's probably some AFL version of this game when, what was Houston? The Titans? The Oilers? What do you mean?

No, somebody was the Titans. Oh, well the jets were the Titans, right? Oh, the jets were the Titans. Was he? Yeah. So Houston Oilers. And what were the chart? I guess they were the San Diego chargers. Yeah. Yeah. They must've had some sort of AFL playoff game in the sixties, but that was some iconic game that was shaky. It was shaky. He's around. It was probably a piece of pizza that tastes now as like it came from 1960s. Right. Um,

I guess the Chargers minus two and a half in Houston. We both did. And it's three. It's pretty fair, I guess. A compelling start. No, it's down to two and a half. So we got it. We got it. Exactly. Oh, we got it. Exactly. Wonderful. Yep. So I'm trying to figure out who's the fuck job game out of these six games where everybody's just on one side. Chargers are a candidate. Definitely.

Who was the game last year? What was the Cleveland-Houston game last year? It might have been Cleveland-Houston. Might have been the very same one, but we loved Stroud then. We're a little down on that offense right now, right? Yeah. And maybe a little, oh, Harbaugh's going to want to win and keep it going. They'll go to Kansas City. Well, it depends what the other teams do, but we might fall in love too much with Harbaugh and Herbert over the week and forget about that detection to the home team and how they screwed us last year.

I'm trying to think how much of a home field advantage Houston would be. That's a crowd that's probably getting nervous pretty immediately. Yeah. No Tank Del, no Stephon Diggs. I guess they could try to run on them. I like the Chargers team, though. I think they're pretty talented. When did the Texans, when was that last game like you were like, oh, wow, all right, this team's got it. Oh, my God. It's been since like September, right? It's a ton, right? Yeah. Didn't they have a good account? They beat the Dolphins 20 to 12, the Jaguars.

Oh, they beat the Cowboys 34-10. That was it. That's how you know they're good. We didn't talk about the Cowboys. Jerry Jones had a cameo in Landman in episode nine, the newest episode. I'm not going up. Yeah. He pops in and it's like one of the better three, four minute cameos I can ever remember.

from a sports person on a TV movie thing. Oh, you were being serious? I'm being 100% dead serious. I didn't know that. Yeah. I texted you about it last night and I was like... I thought you were fucking around. I was not fucking around. He's really good. He gives a whole speech to one of the characters and it's fucking good. It's like shockingly good. I couldn't believe it.

Oh, I got to catch up now. No, it's, it's great. Like, you're kind of like, Whoa, are you an actual actor? No, there was some editing. He's the best actor in sports. If you add it all up, right. He added to, he's at least as good of an actor as like, uh, he's a Pesci and De Niro and those guys, like he's easily could have been the Irishman. He acts really good. Teams could win a Superbowl in his lifetime. I swear he gets choked up during it for real. As he's given the speech. Really? Yeah. It's crazy. He's really good to watch. Yeah.

Sunday, three games. First one, Buffalo. No, it's Saturday night. Oh, I'm sorry. We didn't do Saturday night. Saturday night, Amazon. You knew they'd get a good one. Ravens Steelers in Baltimore. Third time we've had this game. Mm-hmm.

I sent you my guess and I think it's too low, but I'll stick with it just out of honor system. I had a Ravens minus six and a half. Good for you. You're an honorable man and a loser in this case. I said seven. Yeah. And it's nine and a half. Oh, Jesus. I was going to, I would have changed it to seven and a half. I don't know why I went low, but all right. I feel like I'm going to get smoked on this game. Like I'm going to be so mad at myself a minute in.

So seven point teaser takes the Chargers to plus four and a half. The Ravens under three. And then we just need a third team and we're good to go. Yeah, sure. I mean, but I don't look, you'd think this is going to be, I mean, every time they play it's 18, 16, but you don't see it. Listen, can we, so you, you, you'd want a 10 point teaser, your money parlay. I might be going the other way.

And you know how bad I've been in the playoffs, but the Steelers could stay in this maybe. Maybe we'll buy low on the Steelers. It feels like their defense has a good hour in it where they look like the Steelers from the first two months, but it doesn't seem like they can sustain it anymore. And I'm not really entirely sure what happened. I know they killed the Browns. They covered a 20-point spread, which is admirable in 2024. The Ravens did.

But there was a whiff of, oh, shit, the calendar turned to January and Henry early on wasn't breaking, busting out for 15 yards. And it's still going to have to be Lamar on third and seven trying to scramble for a first down. Hmm. Bill, I don't know.

I mean, we have been in this situation with Lamar as a big favorite. Yeah. And then about 40 minutes into the game, be like, oh no, I feel like I've bet on this game before. Well, I just don't. Yeah. Unless the Steelers have just been playing possum for a month. That's the only thing I can think of that would make me think that they could hang in this game because it just doesn't seem like they can.

score more than 20 points anymore. So what you laid out with 18-16, that would have to be the game. It has to be 18-16, 16-13, 17-16. That's it. So I think it's always a Ravens team that averages 30 points but can't score more than 17 against the Steelers. It's kind of always that, right?

Yeah. Or it's the other way where they blow them out 38, 10. Cause, and I got to go through the playoff manifesto again and go through all the rules and try to figure out what might apply. But this, this has all the makings of Ravens blow out round one. All right. It's finally it they've got it. And then round two, they scored 13 points. Right. Listen, we'll go out. We'll have them on a money line parlay. I'm sure I'm not that stupid yet. I'll tell you this. If Lamar loses this game,

Go ahead. He now enters Marty Schottenheimer territory for, I don't know if I can trust you anymore, laying points in the playoff game. Was he a bad quarterback, Marty Schottenheimer? The Marty Schottenheimer teams. Remember how many times, how many teases and parlays his teams blew over the years? Yeah. You're probably right. They probably have this win in them. And then it's the following week. What are they now? Three seed? So it's Buffalo. For the Steelers, it just feels like Friar Muth over the middle for 12. Mm-hmm.

Pickens no longer makes any plays for whatever reason. Najee Harris breaking seven tackles and getting 12 yards. Maybe Austin over the middle one time for like 22 yards, but the explosive plays are just gone. So they might have to go back to the flack OPI offense, just try to get past interference. This could be the other way to do it. Turn Lamar over a couple times too. That would have to be in the equation.

Yeah, the move might be to stay away. I have a nice nest egg still for a million dollar picks. And I don't, I just so afraid of Lamar in the playoffs. He's really got to win me back. Well, it's fake money. So you don't have to worry. Oh, it is. You're right. Yeah, don't be so. Wild real money too. Sunday, three games. Bills, Broncos is the first game. And these guys have gotten here early and they're going there, jumping through town. Yeah.

Broncos, good, bad team for you or somebody that's a little lively for this game? I don't know. I think their defense is just good enough that maybe they can't. Couldn't they force a game like the Patriots played? Not today, but a couple of weeks ago, the other game, like that was literally a couple of long drives. That was a nice game plan. Yeah. Nothing.

I'm sure your manifesto doesn't say great things about rookie quarterbacks on the road in the playoffs. Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. So rookie quarterback against the MVP of the league. Also, probably not a scenario I would love. Right. I guess bills by 10 and a half over the Broncos. All right. I swear I hit this exactly eight and a half, eight and a half. I think it's low, huh? Yeah. Only because there, I mean, that's like an easy tease. I'm going to tease that tonight.

Their defense is pretty good. Like the Bills, I'd be surprised if they scored 40 on them. So if they score 30, then Denver has to get to 22. Just feels like anytime they need a play, they get the play. Yeah. The Bills. Probably. They had that week four game. They got their asses kicked against Baltimore. They've had some shaky hour-long stretches. But for the most part, I like their offense at home in the playoffs. I just trust it.

You trust their offense at home or the Ravens' offense at home? Yeah, let's see that game, right? Don't we want to see Baltimore-Buffalo? How about neither of you guys screw up? Don't mess this up. Get past these junk teams. Sorry, Denver. And see you in the divisional round. Well, that's the thing. If we can just kind of push everybody to round two, we could potentially have... Great week. Casey against the Chargers, Buffalo-Baltimore, Detroit-Minnesota rematch,

And then Philly versus Washington or Tampa, two teams that love playing Philly. It's too good to be true. Tampa beat them. Those are four great games. I like all those games. Let's do it. Okay. Next game in Philadelphia, Eagles-Packers. And I can't imagine the Packers are psyched that it played out this way when they could have potentially not played the Eagles. No.

They almost sold the boner of the decade with love getting hurt today coming out. And then it's like, chapter's like, he's questionable to return. I'm like questionable. Why would he ever return? If his grandmother's on fire at midfield, he shouldn't return. Like this is nuts. What's the point? So the bears win. Who cares?

Well, we forgot to talk about this at the top, which was my fault, but it seemed like Washington was just ready to lose that game 17 times. And once again, they have a cardiac kids win, but, um,

But now they get to play at Tampa. Anyway. Speaking of Jerry, I thought that was going to backfire. The talk is that Cooper Rush was about to hit his incentive at 55% of the snaps. He was at 52%. Yeah. And that's why they put Trey Lance in. I'm like, watch this MF throw for four touchdowns and then Jerry's going to have to pay him $60 million next year. That did not happen. Nope. Not even close. So.

He had a couple plays when he runs around and creates time where you can see it. And then he throws the ball and it's just two yards short of a guy or it's sailing over somebody. So he's just not accurate. Perfect. That's it. Preseason week three quarterback. We'll keep him there. It's crazy how many picks and stuff the Niners gave up for him when, I guess, just on pure potential and how he looked in a couple...

really nuts. They almost seems like they don't take enough shit for that. And they stumble into Purdy with the seventh round pick, but right. Wow. Eagles. I have minus four over the Packers. You're going to get this one. I had three. It's four and a half. So I'm up three, two with two left. It's a nice spot for the Eagles. Yeah, I guess, you know, is it weird that what's now it's been a few weeks for Hertz, right?

This is kind of like a fighter that we haven't seen fight like a year and a half now. Right. I don't know. Yeah, they get to a two seed. They get to play this Green Bay team that feels like they peaked four weeks ago. If they win it, there's a really good chance they could get the bucks in round two, which is nuts. A team that we weren't even sure was going to make the playoffs at 1255 p.m. today. So they could basically...

I don't know. They should move it to Brazil. This is where it all started. Go back. Can we get that grass back? Yeah. Next one. Washington against the Bucs in Tampa. I have Washington. It's funny. I had the Bucs favorite in this as when I was doing Guess the Lines, and then I just switched it. I was like, you know what? They're going to have Washington favorite. So Washington minus one and a half. Shouldn't have switched it. Shouldn't have switched it. I had Tampa minus one.

Mostly by default. Tampa by three and a half. Oh my, wow. So how many points off? That's pretty rare for me for the playoffs. That's makes me want to bet the Bucs. I think, I mean, that makes me want to bet. Yeah. Right. With the rookie quarterback on the road, although they didn't, they didn't kill a Knicks as much. Yeah. But I would argue, I'm going to look at the Bucs. It's tough. The Bucs played so poorly for 40 minutes today and a must win.

It's hard to like them. But Washington didn't play great either, let's face it. So Tampa, they lost to your team. I guess their best win is the Chargers. Is that it? And they beat Philly in week four, Detroit in week two. So their best win since September is the Chargers. Those two wins in September are really good. Yeah, they beat the one and two seeds. Since the bye week, they beat the Giants, Carolina, Vegas, the Chargers, lost to Dallas, beat Carolina, beat the Saints. Yeah.

I don't know. You think it's a little steep? So you would want to lay points with Tampa? At this point, they have playoff experience, right? They're kind of a playoff veteran team, right? Where Washington, I'm not going to say they're just happy to be there, but there might be an element of that. I don't mind taking the points with that. Biggest over-under, too, 49.5. I think being up by five points is some sort of sign. If I was seeing it that way, I should probably trust my gut. Monday night, Vikings at the Rams, and I had the Vikings by...

One and a half in LA. All right. You crushed me here. It doesn't matter because I'm going to beat you overall. I had four and a half. It's two and a half. Minnesota minus two and a half. You had Minnesota by four and a half? Yeah. Stupid. So you get it. But I went four three. Oh, man. So we're tied now. We are tied. Now, what do you think the look ahead line would be for this? Like I was probably closer if like last night, if we would have guessed the line for this, right?

Which one? The Minnesota? Yeah. We guessed it 24 hours ago. Yeah, because, I mean, there is a chance that Sam Darnold's a little iffy against a tough-nosed defense, you know? Yeah. I don't know. What do you think it would have been? There was such a streak of scoring 30-plus points, right? So I thought it would have been four and a half. I should have moved it based on today. Fandle has...

Odds for the number one draft pick. Cam Ward is minus 125. Sanders is plus 105. Hunter is 10 to 1. And then everybody else is long shot. Your guy, Kelvin Banks right there, 50 to 1. He's not going to be the first pick though, right? I don't see Jack shit. I don't see odds on Jack anywhere. What about that Abdul Carter at 60 to 1?

If somebody just wanted to go defense. Yeah, I mean, these guys could move around. So what do we see? We see a pro day. We see Wanderlix. I don't know. I guess these could move, but some of those guys I don't think will. It's weird that everybody's so heavy. All right. Anything else you want to hit?

Little NBA? On this? Jimmy Butler traits? Oh, Mike McCarthy to the Pats. Come on. Shafter. This is interesting. I do in this. This is such a traumatic day for me. I'm like a shell of myself today. So spend the whole year watching this fucking team and they somehow they're the worst team in the league and they don't get the worst pick. You finally have a great quarterback and Joe Milton. I'm proud of you. It's good. You think, would you take Joe Milton?

How many teams would actually take Joe Milton over what they have right now? Where did he get? Who was it? Would you rather him than anyone on Cleveland? Oh, at this point, I think so. What did you draft him?

He's like a fifth, sixth rounder. What's weird is he sucked in the preseason, I thought, because he was one of those guys who was throwing everything 140 miles an hour. But he had like real touch today. He was good. He was moving around. He evaded some sacks. You hated it. Well, I was happy for him because everybody says he's a great guy. But at the same time, it was ripping my intestines out of my body. I just couldn't believe it.

You don't even know who you were going to trade for in this draft. It's fine. Get some wins. It's nice. It's nice for the team. Well, we already traded it. We got Jack shit. Yeah.

The Butler trade's going to happen this week. I was telling you with the NBA, I was telling you about... Houston, right? Yeah, and then Houston beat the Lakers tonight. Although it was a good game. It was tight. But I still feel like... But I think I said, well, let's wait a few games, right? I think... Oh, no, you said their January's hard. I said their January was about to get hard. Right, right, right. Yeah. Because I was looking at... I really think there's a chance San Antonio can make the playoffs. And House and I talked about it on Thursday. Yeah.

So now they're plus 350. So it's right around what we talked about. They don't have the odds for Houston today, but San Antonio would have to jump either the Lakers or Houston basically. And the thinking is, Wemby's now a top seven guy and maybe they make a trade. Right. So we were looking at that for future odds. Well, don't we want to wait a little bit? Like they have, I think they have like,

tough games coming up. I think we'd get better odds. They have the Lakers twice. They're at the Bucks. Yeah. They're at the Bulls. Yeah, we can win. I'm monitoring it. What do you got for parent corner? Uh, all right. So my oldest was here, right? Yeah. Um, big Oregon fan ducks went to the Rose Bowl, saw his team get destroyed. And, uh,

Like people like you going, why aren't you going? I'm like, I don't know. It's for the kids at this point. It's for the kids. I'm not going to be one of these idiot fathers. Cause I paid tuition. Like I sent my kid. And so now I'm the big, I'll root for them. I'll root for him. And,

And I was trying to convince him that getting blown out is so much better. He just didn't want to hear it when he got home. Like he's very much into this is the big cause he's taken on, like that the Big Ten is better than the SEC is like FDFCC. I can't stand it. It's like and I guess as a parent, this is a little less stressful than if it's cause involved, like protesting for or against.

causes in the Middle East. So, all right. Yeah, good. Hate the SEC all you want. But anyway, he was really bummed they lost and he's gone now. He went back to school, but he went back on Friday and his mother was furious and despondent. He went back a day early and none of his friends were going to be there. And it made her feel bad. He just kind of wanted to get away from everybody? I think so. And he just wanted to get back to no one. And I was like, listen, I try to put myself in that position. I was like,

I think I would have liked this. Like, right. If you could have gone back to college and had like a day to shop or whatever, just lay around and do nothing with no one there. Like, I think I would have liked that. That's fine. And the other thing I was thinking is, you know, we spent the entire weekend and entire holidays complaining about our parents, like Melissa and I, like the gift card. They lost these gift cards and they're arguing about who got more or less and hospital visits and getting them to and from like, maybe that's not smart.

Maybe we have to have like a poker face. Because then I think they feed off this, right? Like he doesn't want to be, it's like, oh, all right. It's all right to hate your parents. Good. You gave me the okay. And now I'm going to do that. Now I'm going to leave early for school. So there's not really a story attached to it. But I just think like, I think you have to be careful when you think you're being cool, making fun of your parents. I think it kind of,

sets a different tone with your kids, potentially. Know what I'm saying? Well, you made me think of how they talk about inside the NBA is too critical about the NBA product, this theory. And that makes people more critical because they're just following the leader. So it's a similar type of thing. Yeah. Whereas in the NFL, everybody's like...

You know, praising everybody at all times of those studio shows. We're doing like long interviews, but everything's like positive and pushing the product. We have to be less Barkley and more Lapsky. But how would you push the product of your own parents? I think it's just like, you know what?

They raised me well, and I'm glad I'm in a position I'm in to help them. So glad they're still healthy. Things like that. They're still healthy. So lucky to have them around. I would never leave a day early to be away from them. I don't know. Something like that. I definitely did that in college. I remember my junior year, I just went back and stayed because we had an apartment. I was like, you know what? You know what's great? The apartment. Nobody's going to be there. It went back. So I see it.

Yeah. Kudos. What about now? Don't you like being like in an office, like getting away from everything for a few hours or something? It's nice. Yeah. Well, Zoe left. She left today. She went to go hang out with her boyfriend who lives in Florida. Does she have school tomorrow? No, she doesn't have school for another week. So we were kind of like, you're leaving now? And she's like, well, I've been here for two weeks. It's like, yeah. Yeah.

I don't know. You complain about your parents. So what do you think they're going to complain about with us? Well, that's the scary thing. 15, 20 years from now. Like I'm already, you know, there's a commercial where you're training people not to ask people about the weather and stuff. I forget. It's a, it's, I won't say it's another insurance. I know we have our good friends. But yeah, I don't know. I'm already writing shit down. Like what to avoid. Like just,

Dad's going nuts about week 18. Yeah, right. All the playoff scenarios. What a fucking lunatic. He's 93 years old. Yeah, yeah. Oh, my dad's rooting for the Patriots to lose for 35 straight years now. What the hell? Get over it. Just once, he wants the first pick again. My parent corner. So we hooked up. My son has a PS5 and we hooked up a PS4.

on a different TV so I could play Fortnite duos with them. Nice. Which led to me making a Madden comeback and playing some Madden with him and

realizing how much worse I am now at video games than I used to be. Right. Especially Fortnite, which I was okay in Fortnite at the end of the 2010s when we were playing. And I actually won a couple of times, but I was always like strategic and trying not to get into many gunfights. Now when I'm playing these video games, they're coming so fast. It's the number one thing I've done that's made me feel old in probably this whole decade. Yeah.

I'm like, I'm doing plays at Madden and the clock's ticking down. I'm like, wait, I'm still trying to figure out what play I'm going to call in single back. There's like seven seconds left. So I realized like, I need to start playing video games too. I need the speed of it. I want to get the hang of it.

So I'm going to play more video games. But I was driving down. I had a good drive to Madden. That's your resolution? To play more video games? No. Well, I was bonding with my son who never wants to hang out with me. And I was like, I guess this is what it's going to have to be. I'm going to have to play some video games. So we'll hang out. But my son was like, you know, you're pretty good. You should stream some of this. And I'm like, what do you mean? And he's like, you should stream some of the games. So people can see like,

I'm like, I'm definitely not doing that. But it's just his generation now just wants to show everybody's

everything at all times. Uh, I wouldn't do it mostly because I'd be so embarrassed. But, um, the reason I'm telling you this, cause Sam Darnold, when he was running around and he was under pressure the whole time and he was running to the right and chucking it up, that's basically my Madden offense now. And, um, you know what? I'm not gonna, I feel like I have another run in me. I think I can come back. Really? I just need some practice. Yeah. So I'm going to start, I'm going to play one game, one game at least every night. And, uh,

Anyway, I told this to my wife and she was really, really horrified. Oh, she's not happy with it? Not happy at all. Not happy at all. She's like, what? I thought you were just going to do that over the break. But then I said, no, I might start playing a little more again. It's good for my brain. It's good for my reflexes. I'm older. And it was kind of one of those, oh, and I could tell.

This is like right going into the memo for the divorce lawyer. Yeah. She's talking to her friends about it right now. Retained an attorney. You know, Bill's playing video games, but then I have some people my age, like my friend David Nyman plays Fortnite. I think he like a lot, like he plays like competitively. So there's some people that just, this is how they like unwind. Well, could you get to a spot where you would actually stream it? Like if you got good again, would you consider streaming it or no?

I mean, as you know, once upon a time, I was one of the great video football game players ever. I mean, I don't want to brag, but that's what everyone was saying. It's okay. No, I want to get to the point where I can play my buddy Gus. Because Gus still plays all the time. And we were playing in television in the 80s. So I want to see if I can get my mojo back. But I got to say, like...

So many plays now. We almost made these games too complicated. Like, do I need a 1200 play playbook? Yeah.

I don't think, I don't know that NFL coaches, I know that most of them would be terrible with the time management at the end, the video games. I just absolutely know it. But as far as, yeah, you're right. I wonder if it is too many plays for them. I wonder if they'd call the same. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe I'm, I feel like Gerard Mayo. Well, another reason I brought this up. So I started a franchise season and I had the Patriots and I immediately traded for T Higgins.

Oh. Put him with Drake May. And then it's... When you're the owner, it gives you the option to fire your coach. So I'm going to fire Gerard Mayo at the end of the year. I want to get through the first season. And then I'm going to fire him and try to hire somebody else. That's good. Yeah, you should fire him every game. That's the Patriots way now. This is another thing with Madden. They made...

They made it way more complicated to be the owner. I've got to hire and fire scouts. Yeah, right. And I got to decide about renovations for the stadium and all this shit. I'm like, can I just...

You can spend 40 minutes before you kick off. Yeah. Just going in and out of that stuff. It's like, oh, you have a chance to upgrade the cover skills of your fifth cornerback. Right. I don't know. They definitely overthought this. I think video games were at their peak 20 years ago. College game apparently has passed it. It's even worse, though, with that. With scouting and recruiting and NIL and shit like that. It's like real... It's really... Like Lombardi is...

Lombardi would be like, this is too hard. I think this is harder than actual real life. I'm going to go sell insurance. The other thing with Fortnite, do you know anything about Fortnite? Not too much. I know the kids play it. Because you can build stuff and the better that people are, you can build like little stairs to climb up wherever. You can build a little house around yourself to protect yourself. So the people that got really good at it

they're just maniacs. Like they're just building stuff and people like us that go in, they're just, we have no chance. So my son was like, you should play no build for an end. I'm like, what's that? It's like, well, nobody it's same game, but you can't build anything. So you can't do any of that stuff. And I was like, so it's kind of like the, it's like the G league for Fortnite. It's like, yeah,

I was like, put me in there. Put me in there with Brownie James. Oh, right there. You're the Brawny of Fortnite. That's great. So anyway, 2025. We'll see how long video games last, but I hope it gets- Do you have Jack Shit as your tailback? I'm going to create Jack Shit. Do it. If you're randomly playing me on Madden and you see a running back, that's Jack Shit. That's me. That's you. So we'll see if it brings me and my son closer together. I love it.

We'll find out. I love it. I am taking him to Rotterdam. So we are father son bonding. Oh, you are? Nice. Yeah. Okay. That'll be good. First raw after 32 years changing networks. Can you play Fortnite on your phone while watching raw?

No. We'll find out. We'll see. It doesn't matter. All right. That's it for Parent Corner. We got to plug. We're all going to be hanging out this week a little bit. We're going to be hanging out. We got the crew coming in, right? The Ringer pregame show. Everybody's flying in. House from Washington. JJ from New York. And Raheem has like 17 homes. I don't know exactly where his flight's going to originate. Probably Vegas, but they'll be out here. We'll be watching the games together. And Cousins Al's winning weekend against the odds through the Ringer.

all on the Ringer Podcast Network and Fandle TV. Also, I should announce I'm holding a press conference tomorrow to address the rumors that while working at Fox, I had sex with Jason Whitlock. And I did not. I did not, in fact, do that. Was I attracted to the men? Of course. Of course I was. But what's being alleged is that it did not take place. I promise you that. I'm not doing it.

Raheem texted me asking if I had a burner guest room. I didn't know what that meant. Well, he has one. There was a lot of talk about when he goes to Vegas. No, I'm kidding. Oh, I see. I got you. All right.

It should be great. I'm sad Miami's not in the playoffs, though. We're not going to have the J.J. Chuck. I know. I was saying that today. I was like, all our teams suck. How is it that everybody, even Dabundo was on? I was like, he's a Colts fan. House is the only one who has a team now. He was really hoping that he could see a game at SoFi. But somebody didn't do their job. Well, I guess the Rams didn't do their job. Otherwise, he might have had

No chance. All right. This was produced by Saruti and Gahal and Kyle. You can follow everything we do on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. I'll be back on Tuesday with a pod of new rewatchables coming on Monday. And you can catch Sal at all the places he saw. We will be back next Sunday live. We'll see. How much fatter will it be next week?

Oh, yeah. I think let's go over four and a half pounds gained, I would say. That's good. Hey, we do two pods next week, right? I think we did it last year like that. Well, because there's a Monday game.

We can't guess one of the lines. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You do like a 25-minute appearance on the Tuesday pod. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right, right. Oh, that's good. You know what? I just liked when it was three and three. I know. Yeah, they get stupid with this. I don't understand why they did it that way. Anyway, all right, Sal. Good job by you. Good job by you, buddy. I'm a bruised soul.

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