Baltimore Blows It, Jayden Daniels Grabs It, and More From the NFL's Divisional Round With Cousin Sal

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Alright, coming up. Cousin Sal and I,

we went live on YouTube

which you can watch with us on Sundays.

We only have two left. We'll have next week

and then post Super Bowl, but you can go to

the Bill Simmons YouTube channel and watch us

which is also where you get all the clips and videos

but the cousin and I

reacting right after the Ravens

blew it against Buffalo.

That's next.

First,

our friends from Pro Jam.

These are the faces of two guys who just lost a decent amount of money. Cousin Sal is here.
It is Sunday night. We just watched the Ravens barely lose to the Buffalo Bills, which I guess is going to be remembered, sadly, as the Mark Andrews game.
Right? It's got to be. That would be what we call it.
It was going to be, and then it maybe wasn't going to be, right? And then he solidified it. He's like, no, no, no, this is all me.
No, no, we're going to name this after me. Really good tight end, had a great career and unfortunately, big fumble fourth quarter.
Big drop. Two-pointer.
Lamar, 330 left. the whole legacy drive coming.
You know, like whatever happens is going to set the discourse. And where it lands is he actually comes through.
They have a touchdown drive, but then they lose anyway. So I don't know what we do with the Lamar thing.
I was thinking about it, though, as we were younger, when we would watch sports, we'd watch people like Karl Malone and A-RRod and pre-2006 Peyton Manning and people like that. And it was like really fun to call people chokers and, oh, this guy chokes.
Oh, and this guy, when it matters, he can't show up. And it was like this really fun pre-internet thing that we would do.
Being at the game, you could do it. There was nothing better than putting your hands around your neck, your own neck.
Yeah. You either came through or you didn't.
You were either in this group or this group. And that's just kind of the way we talked about sports before the discourse got smarter.
But now as I get older, I feel like I'm rooting for people not to fall in that bucket, to not be the Carl Malone, Greg Norman, A-Rod, Chris Weber. And I'm watching Lamar and I'm like, after the first two turnovers, I'm like, God damn, if he loses this game, it's really hard.
You're on letdown mountain now and it's really hard to get off. Weren't you thinking about that? I was, but I also thought the Ravens were unfairly favored in this game, right? I thought the Bills should have gone into this game when we did this last Sunday night.
I was like, the Bills should be, they're a better team. They were treated like they were the seven seed.
They had just won the NFC South. They're getting a point and a half or whatever at home.
I know it flipped from Sunday night. I thought this is as much a problem for Josh Allen and his legacy as Lamar.
You're right, except for one thing. The discourse is not smarter.
The discourse is garbage lately. It's terrible.
It's awful. People don't know how to watch games anymore.
But I did feel bad for him, for sure. But again, it wasn't his fault.
So in a way, he gets a pass, right? Except for the turnovers. Well, he was the reason they could never get in front in the first place.
He sailed the pick. They score on the first drive.
Buffalo comes back and scores. Baltimore is the ballgame.
They just like they're in control. The running game hasn't even gotten going yet.
And then he sails a pick 20 yards over somebody said to the safety. And they come back from commercial and Romo's saying how this is Matt Milano.
He forced that pressure. And I'm watching.
I'm like, I don't think so. I think Lamar just like gacked the play and just sailed the play.
And then later that fumble he had when they're driving and it was a bad snap, picks it up and ends up getting stripped. But that was like, you know, that was like a Mac Jones fumble.
That was like a Dorian Thompson Robinson fumble. That's like, these are the shitty quarterbacks we watched during the season.
They make stupid plays like that. You're not supposed to make a play like that in this game when it's like the best quarterback in the league versus the best quarterback in the league.
Neither guy is Patrick Mahomes, but it was this big showdown and just two crappy plays. And it just felt like the whole game was off after that.
Can I just, I know it's more exciting to be outraged, but can I defend him and some of the others we saw turn the ball over today? Yeah, it was 12 degrees. It's fucking cold.
It's fucking cold out. It is.
So we're on text chains with people like, what happened to the Eagles defense down the stretch? Why did they, why they didn't look like that at all? Well, it's cold and they're exhausted. Like that's why they gave up the touchdown for the backdoor cover and almost the touchdown to go ahead.
Why isn't Henry in there every play when he's running so well?

Well, it's cold,

so maybe they need a break.

So I think we forget about the human element.

It's cold.

The ball is so shiny,

it's easier to fumble.

That was a great hit by Bernard

on Andrews to force the fumble,

but that would be my excuse for Lamar.

But it doesn't really help Ravens fans right now.

I know.

I thought they were a better team. You did.
That's a great win for Buffalo. Three turnovers to none.
Baltimore misses both two-point conversions. Two plays that I didn't like.
The first one felt a little rushed. Neither one of them was just, we're going to ram the ball down your throats and score.
The second one, you're rolling Lamar out. It felt like the entire defense was going.
He did have Andrews open, but that's not an easy play. It's 10 degrees outside.
It's freezing. He's already fumbled a play before.
He's falling backwards. We've seen guys drop that.
It wasn't like an absolute, you know, he should have caught it, but it wasn't a layup. But I just felt.
Also, his ass was hanging out too, kind of. It really was.
He's almost naked. I don't know what happened there.
How about this? How many times did the Ravens punt today? Did they not punt? I know it either ended on a turnover or a score. Zero punts.
Three turnovers. They missed two two-points.
And yet, it felt like if it got to overtime, I thought they were going to win. And I thought they did a good job against Buffalo in the second half too.
Like, you know, Allen had a chance to put the game away in that last drive when they're up. What was that? They were up five.
Right. And they ran that same QB draw.
It was like when I played Madden against Ben and he's just running the same play. And I'm like, by the fourth card, I'm like, oh, you're going to run the play where you do this and just put two guys there.
He ran the QB draw seven times and they finally were ready for it. They had to kick the field goal and it felt like they just left the door open a tiny bit.
Plus, there was a great, I mean, it was a great weekend for weird gambling shit. Baltimore minus one and a half is lingering the whole time.
The moment they missed the two point, it's like, of course, they're going to win 25-24. Right when they tried the two-point conversion to tie it up, there's no freaking way they're going to get it.
Otherwise, the spread wouldn't have been one and a half. I wish I could live bet the two-point conversion, but yeah.
Yeah, that was bad. And then Jake Elliott in the game before, just a random missed PAT out of nowhere.
Now they're up 13 instead of 14. They're favored by six and a half.
It's like, of course the Rams are going to score. This is preordained now.
And then the Casey one was the worst one. The absolute worst.
Yeah. Yeah.
I don't know where to go with it. I'll say this, though.
I feel like the game could change no matter what. It could change what it catches you could change replay what it can cover what it doesn't you could add stick them to gloves but the one thing's a constant and especially in the playoffs if you have more turnovers than the other team yeah it's it's it's unforgiving it really is I mean Allen had what 125 yards passing Hertz had about the same if I would have told you in the beginning of the game, hey, beginning of the day, those two guys are not even combined for 260 yards.
How much money would we have put on the other sides? I guess we would have covered with the Rams, but it is unbelievable, tried and true. You turn the ball over, especially on the road in the playoffs, you're going to lose a game.
Allen, 127

yards passing.

Cook, 67 yards.

Allen was 10 for

20 rushing.

Shakir was their best receiver at

67 yards. The next guy had 15.

And they won.

Ravens finished with

416 yards.

Buffalo at 273.

And they won.

But that's the thing. I lost both

the that Ravens finished with 416 yards, Buffalo 273, and they won. But that's the thing.
I lost both of my, I lost the Lions because the big tease. I had the Lions with the other three favorites.
I had a bet today with the Chiefs and the, I had the Chiefs and the Eagles combined. I had the Eagles and Ravens.
So I scrambled back in real life a little. But the two games that I had wrong were the Lions and the Ravens.
I'm not even positive I had them wrong because they're just what you said. It's like turnovers.
We always talk about like nine out of 10 times you can kind of have a feel for a football game. And then that 10th time is the wonk game.
And this game felt wonky, but that's the thing. It's 12 degrees and it's in Buffalo.
And that's why so many people pick Buffalo. It's like Josh Allen home.
They're used to this weather. And that was it.
But man, I thought the Ravens were the best team in the league. I really did.
I thought they were the best. I felt no one was picking Buffalo.
Yeah. I mean, Derek Henry's great.
He was the steal of free agency, but I was looking at this line and I was like, he has just as many games under 100 yards than he has over. They're a little bit fraudulent in the four teams they beat over the last month, the offenses they played, like Pittsburgh twice, who was it, the Browns, and the Texans on that dumb Christmas game where they scored two.
So I don't know. I was like, maybe they could figure Henry out, and they didn't.
I know he had those big drives, and he'll end up with decent numbers, but they held him to like 26 yards, I think, in the first half,

and that was good enough to have that lead.

It was 21-10.

They held on to that.

That was huge.

And getting the ball at the top of the third quarter.

Henry and Hill combined were 22 for 134.

Lamar was 6 for 39 just for rushing.

But they were doing most of the stuff they wanted to do on offense. The first Lamar pick was egregious.
The fumble was stupid. And then the Andrews fumble, they were driving.
It felt like they had at least I should have written this down, but it felt like they had at least four 25-yard pass plays. They had at least I'm going to say four or five runs of 10 to 20 yards between Hill and Henry.
A couple big ones to Andrews. I'm like, holy shit, we're the Bills.
We never win games like this. It's a fucking miracle.
Usually if you bring in the Buffalo Bills history, it's, you know, Andrews fumbles that two point, but then he holds on to it. OT, coin flip, Baltimore wins it.
They go down, they win the game. You need a missed field goal in there for Buffalo.
Yeah, they win an OT. It's like, oh my God.
I mean, when Tyler Bass hit that long field goal, even then I was like, oh, that's unusual for Buffalo. So maybe the vibes are shifting for them.
This was your Super Bowl pick. Yeah, well, I had them with the Lions, so I feel like it's already a bust.
But yeah, I mean, like I said, I thought they were undervalued in this game, and maybe they weren't the better team. But the Ravens took too long to get going, and those turnovers absolutely killed them.
So they had that first great TD drive. They had the pick, they had the fumble.
They had the first and goal from the two when they, just for whatever reason, just went backwards and ended up getting a field goal instead of a touchdown. They had that third and 12 from Buffalo 29 in the third quarter when they were down 11.
And they just get a delay a game. Now it's third and 17.
They get five, they kick a field goal instead. But it was a lot of like little Ravens stuff that usually if they lose a game like this, it's the stuff that happens.
It's the reason they had the five losses during this season when you could look at all five and be like, oh, I'm not sure they should have lost that game. But that's who they are.
I felt like with the two tight ends, with the way they could run the ball and with the way Lamar could just kind of take off and scramble, they seemed kind of unstoppable and they could just kind of never keep it going for more than five minutes. Yeah.
You didn't see that Lamar gigantic scramble in the second half or like the fourth quarter. Right.
I mean, that was, that was there for them in the first half when Henry wasn't really doing it on the ground. So yeah, they just, even like that big kick return at the end, they get it to the 35, 33 holding penalty.
Now they're starting at the 12th. Right.
You know, but I don't know. Obviously, we've never played football at the highest possible level in 12 degree weather.
Speak for yourself. I don't know.
I don't know how to factor that in. I know.
Like I said, it's not fun and it's not highbrow Warren Sharp type analysis saying it's too cold for these guys. But I think a lot of it is that.
It made for great viewing, right? That was fun. We watched the Rams, Eagles together in the snow.
We've got two back-to-back snow games. All four games were excellent.
Yeah, I even thought Chiefs-Texans was pretty good. So the Ravens heading into this game since 2018, including the playoffs, were 0-9 when they were trailing by 10-plus points at halftime.
And now they're 0-10. And the only other team that is winless during that span is the Oakland, LA, Vegas Raiders 0-26.
Wow. So no comebacks, 10 plus.
And I guess that's the Lamar era, right? 2018 on. And yet I thought they were going to win.
And I felt like it was going to happen. And especially when he made that improv play on the final drive to Wallace, when he ran out, bought some time, hit him over the middle.
I was like, okay, Lamar, here we go. Yeah.
I forgot he was on the tip. Wow.
That's the biggest catch of the game. But yeah, I think you're right.
And I thought you were going to go after Harbaugh a little there. That is a little weird

for coaches held in such high regard

to now beat double digits

losses with down

10 at the break. Their last Super Bowl

win was Deer Antler-Ray

Lewis season.

That was

9 years ago. 11 years ago? 10 years ago?

11? New Orleans? The blackout.

Yeah. 14, 15.
I was at Grantland, you and you were working for doing stuff for Grantland. So yeah, it was 10, 11 years ago.
Yeah. House and I are doing the anniversary of a house seats three.
That's when it was, right? It was in new Orleans. What do you mean you're doing the anniversary of house seats three? You're going to try to throw up a house again? I'm going to try.
It's happening. It's happening this time.
Well, so I don't know where Lamar ends up now because he's definitely not on that Carl Malone level, but he also really needs one of these games. And it felt like he was finally going to get it.
And there's this whole alternate universe where Mark Andrews just holds on to that one. And we've moved into this whole other sliding door as a warm Buffalo pain.
Oh my God. And now we have this Bill's Chiefs game, which we'll talk about when we do Guess the Lines.
But the Chiefs, this all somehow worked out. I feel the best for them out of anybody, right? Son of a bitch.
There's four teams left. I feel the best about the Chiefs, the team that we kind of looked at side-eyed for 12 weeks, wondering what the hell was going on with them.
And now I like them the most. And we still will.
We'll spend the next six days trying to convince ourselves, all right, the Bills can win this. Yeah, the Bills are going to win this going away.
But yeah, it's, they are just too hard to beat. And I know everyone wants to take the refs.
And I don't know. I don't know what to say.
Like I, you know, I have a friend, Harry, you know, and he is just so ridiculous with these refs. And he'll like bring a petition in front of Arrowhead Stadium because he thinks it's so fixed for the Chiefs.
I was like, just shut up already. And then I watched this game.
I'm like, those are some bad calls. I still don't think the Texans played well enough to win.
Yeah. I was like, my God, that's three or four bad calls and they need to do something.
They're these keep a drive alive calls, which is like that Will Anderson allegedly hitting Mahomes in the head or whatever that play was when he didn't. Which feels like if we're going to review everything in the NBA and not nearly enough in the NFL, it feels like there's some sort of middle ground where they could look at that again and go, oh yeah, he didn't hit Mahomes.
Listen, they review touchdowns, right? They review turnovers. A 15-yard penalty, the way these guys are kicking the ball from 55, 58 yards, it almost always puts you in field goal range.
So it is a scoring play, essentially. I'll say that.
And the other thing I'll say is Mahomes, he's such a master of taking a late hit or maybe not a late hit. First of all, when he turns into the hash mark and takes a hit, that looked like a Madden glitch there.
So if he's getting away with that, that's terrible. But the sideline crap where he's just falling over, it's like, remember like Seagal, Stephen Seagal, like 15 years ago, they'd show these highlights of him doing the bullshit Aikido or whatever it is.
And he's barely touching people. With the painted goatee.
Yeah. And they're doing cartwheels like they were hit by a snowplow.
Like that's what Matt Holmes is doing on the sideline. Like they got to, I think they need to call flopping too now.
Like they do in the NBA in soccer. I can't believe I'm about to say this because I hate it in basketball and I hate it in soccer, but I really hate it in basketball, especially during the glory days of this with Harden and Trey Young and some of these people.
I just hated it. I kind of enjoy when Mahomes does it because he's turned it into some art form that we didn't know existed.
That one play when he was running out of bounds and he had the guy behind him and he slowed down like he was trying to get a call on a three-point shot. I've never seen a quarterback do that before.
Like the fact that he is so locked in on the situations at all times or when he does the quick slides as the guy's starting to dive hoping to get a hit to the head. He's exploited these rules that were intended to protect all quarterbacks, including him.
And he's taken it and he's turned it against the defense in this really creative way. I got to respect it.
I guess so. I respect it.
Like I respect the art form. There are people who like diarrhea on a canvas and like, hey, 300 grand for this.
Like, I don't know. It's kind of shit.
It's like those people that do the clear magic marker on their license plate so that the speeding cameras can't catch it. It's like, I got to respect it.
It's pretty ingenious. He has like five tricks like that.
But here's the thing. And I was on multiple texts this weekend.
And I go nuts when people say this. We were together for the

first game and somebody said it

when we were all together. This whole thing that

he's inherited, the Tom

Brady, Patriots, Getty, and Recall thing.

I know you don't like that. This drives me crazy.

This drives me crazy.

I'm going to keep saying it. I was there for all those

Patriot games. Sure, the tuck roll, which

was, by the way, interpreted correctly, but

we are the only team where the team was... We had a deflate gate, fake controversy as we were trying to win a Super Bowl, and then we won the Super Bowl, and then they suspended our quarterback way later anyway, and there's still no evidence.
Everything has been debunked. We had a four-game suspension.
It's like, I'm positive that hasn't happened to Patrick Mahomes yet. So, everybody settled down.
That part's right. Can both be right that he was, like, babied as a quarterback on some of these late hits? So was Peyton Manning.
So was Aaron Rodgers. What star quarterback wasn't babied? I'm mostly with you because I don't think these teams have beaten the Chiefs anymore.
He just was, Brady was whining. I will fully admit that he would get whiny and he would turn and he would yell at the rest, but Peyton Manning did too.
Both of them did. It wasn't like Brady was the only one.
Well, maybe Lamar Jackson should, maybe they should teach a course and Lamar Jackson should pick it up. And Jared Goff should pick up the same thing.
I don't know. I'm in a defending Brady mode because even like his announcing, which has not been great.
I'll be the first one to admit. And I know we've talked about it.

But he does have moments of insight during the game.

We should hope so.

For 37 million a year.

But there are moments like he caught the 12 men on the field.

I've never seen an announcer catch that before.

That was nice.

He had, I thought, when Goff threw that interception on the post pass,

the deep one, and Brady was explaining like, it actually was the right throw, but he should have led him right to left because he threw it straight. The cornerbacks love cutting that pass.
And I was like, okay, here we go, Tom Brady. Don't throw a terrible ball.
And then it's five more minutes of him just talking about, big play, got to get this. And, you know, like, oh, God damn it.
But I blame Burkhardt as much as Brady because I don't think Burkhardt sets him up enough. Oh, I think he was helping doing all he could in the beginning, but I don't know.
It's fine. It's fine.
I was like, he's no Collinsworth. He's no Collinsworth.
Bill, how are you going to be as good as me? There's just no way. Hey, they were going to go through the back door, Mike, and now they're going through the front door.
The Rams might take this, Mike. My balls are so frostbitten.
I don't think I'm going to feel them until March, to be honest. Mike, I lost consciousness five minutes ago, Mike.
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Chiefs Texans, we'll go backwards.

I'd like kudos to ESPN.

First network ever to play In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins before a sporting event. Nobody ever thought of it.
They should try Pressure by David Bowie the next time or Queen. That would be good.
Or Billy Joel's Pressure. Yeah.
Or Billy Joel's Pressure. Yeah.
There's songs I'm just good with now. Songs that we like that we've grown up with that should just be banned from sports now and I feel like I've been doing this for 10 years but we're really at a crisis point in the air tonight pressure there's a couple anything from pre-89 just get it out let's go let's move to music from the last 35 years we can do it I'm positive let's go there's been a lot.
It makes me feel good. I just, if I have to pretend to be bopping along the Jay-Z while they show highlights going into halftime.
Jay-Z would be great. That's the last 35 years.
It's fine. It's not pressure.
It's not any of the pressures. In the air tonight.
I honestly cannot believe we're still playing that first 40 minutes. The drum solo.
Just do the drum solo after every play.

So that Chiefs-Texans game starts with a long special teams play,

followed by the Texans guy, has like a meltdown,

throws his helmet down, shoves his coach,

and the game has barely started.

And the Chiefs go three and out.

It's three nothing.

And then the Texans go back, and it's tied at three. And it's just like, what? This is the weirdest game I've ever watched.
But the Texans hung around. I don't know if they actually should have won the game, but the game was, I think closer than all of us thought their defense was good.
Ultimately, I was never in real fear for the Chiefs. Were you? No, I wasn't at all.
And CJ Stroud was better than I thought. Like, I thought, remember his second playoff game last year, he went to Baltimore and got destroyed.
And he was making plays with his legs. That's not really his game, what he was doing.
And, you know, he was hitting his receivers. I don't know.
They stuck around. And, you know, there was like a 10-minute drive, that touchdown from Mixon.
Yeah. That was huge.
Receivers that we'd never heard of all year were making, actually. We're like, that's his first pass attempt that's ever been thrown to him.
It's round two. Yeah.
Yeah. So I don't even know where we are with C.J.
Stroud anymore, to be honest. I feel like that's just a guy you and I are going to flip-flop over over the next seven a dozen times.
But he did an admirable job about as much as the lines makers thought because it came down to that very half a point. But, I mean, shit.
Are the Chiefs just playing a joke? Is it just like a clubhouse joke? Like, hey, we had 212 total yards. Can we win with 100 total yards? Spags, map it out.
Let's see. You got us?

We're good? Okay. I just

feel like it's just a challenge for them to do

so little and win.

I know, but it's like what we were talking about earlier

with that Baltimore-Buffalo game.

They don't beat themselves.

Houston had that play. It was a fourth and

ten in the second half.

They kind of rushed it to the line.

Who was the announcer? It was Aikman. He's like, I don't like this.
They should call timeout. If they were just going too fast, fourth and 10, I think he got sacked.
It's like the, it's the little things you just can't do against the chiefs. And then the other thing is January, Kelsey, who's just a different human being than regular season, Kelsey, who they put in the garage with that car tarp over him, you him.
And they're just like, maybe take it out for a spin on Sundays for 10 minutes. But in the playoffs, they actually use him and their offense just felt a little more.
And yet it looks like he's attending an old timers game. He looks so slow compared to everyone else out there.
He looks like it's a snowy field, even though it's not. It looks like he's got the snow field cleats on.
He's so open. He's got like 20 yards around him.
Aikman's good because I really feel like he's, I don't know, we give awards for like comeback announcer of the year. Comeback of the decade.
It's been the last really since Romo got attention. Aikman took it up a notch.
And it's because he's angry. He and Buck do a good job going after the refs.
Obviously, they had the perfect game to do it for this. But angry Aikman is just terrific.
I mean, they must have... I don't remember a comeback like this.
I don't know what they do before the game to get him so ornery. But good job.
That was the best team this year, I think, right? That was my favorite. Yeah.
Yeah, they're very good. Yeah, they're very good.
I do like Greg Olson, though, I will say. I don't even want to say he's underrated because I think he's getting a good pop lately.
Houston special teams, that was another thing. It was a three-hour murder for them.
That was another reason they lost. Missed field goals, missed extra point, kick return, all kinds of shit.
They just weren't ready to win that game in KC. We got a lot of Taylor Swift shots.
Shout out to Tommy Alter in the background. I don't know if you saw him a couple of times.
Oh, nice. Caitlin Clark, all the greats.
Yeah, when you have Taylor, Caitlin, and the freaking Rizsler there and the refs, forget it. Game over.
Rizsler. And then the safety.
So this had one of the great gambling moments, I think of the decade. Yeah.
And this has been a cottage industry now because the Instagram reels and TikTok. I don't know how long we've been talking about these stupid.
This was beyond a bad beat. This was 14 seconds left.
I still don't know what the point of the safety was, I guess to chew off. So basically he runs, or as a one runs backwards, runs around, it really feels like he's going to get like stripped or it's going to be like a touchdown in the end zone or something.
Haribo that then he gets out and then they punt again. So I guess it saves seven seconds.
So I guess my question is, was that worth it? All the things

that could go wrong with your punter running around

backwards in cold weather?

I'm positive I would just rather

punt it and get rid of the ball and you can have

the extra seven seconds. Depends

who you bet. So I feel like

nobody deserved to win this bet against

the spread, right? Because they're up

what were they up? They were up

11, the Chiefs, and Fairbairn

tries a gimme field goal

and misses. So now if you have the Texans,

Thank you. spread, right? Because they're up what were they up? They were up 11, the Chiefs, and Fairbairn tries a gimme field goal and misses.
So now if you have the Texans you're like, that sucks. They should have lost by 8, right? But then, alright so now, depending on what you got at 8.5 or 9, I think the reason they did that is because the only thing that would have killed them is a block punt.
And they wouldn't, and it wouldn't have killed them because they still need to score twice. How many points are you? If you're actually like trying not to get your pump block, I don't know.
It felt like an overthink. It was a little much.
So the other thing was the line was eight and a half all week. When we were doing ringer Sunday pregame show on Saturday, it was eight and a half before you guys started the show.
And then as the game got closer, it jumped to 9.5.

So people got that

Chiefs line somewhere around

those two numbers, and then it ended at 9.

I feel like I should get an emergency

alert on my phone if it moves

to 9.5 during the show.

That should be a Twitter account.

We've

gotten so many of them lately. What the hell? So that was ultimately good for FanDuel? That was bad for the books because you could have gotten eight and a half with the Chiefs during the week.
So if you're betting Casey up, you win. And if you bet Texans nine and a half, you...
I never understand how that goes. They got screwed by that point.
So everybody was saying, oh, it's rigged for the books and everything. No, that's not the example you want to use.
They lost both ways. But I'm trying to think in general if they lost money.
Like you and I are idiots because we have the money. The Washington.
They cleaned up. That Washington game made their playoffs.
You think it did? Oh my God, yeah. It wasn't just the game.
It was all the Lions bets. It was the Lions to win the NFC.
It was the Lions Super Bowl bets. They were really badly exposed with the Lions.
And then on top of it, everybody and their brother, including us, had some sort of tease with the Lions, the Eagles, the Chiefs, Ohio State, whatever. The Lions were in a lot of them.
But the kids loved the same game parlays. and you couldn't miss with a same game parlay or a game that had how many points? 76? I don't know.
It's just all overs all over the place. The kids really do love the same game parlays.
Does Harrison like the same game parlays? Is he old enough yet? I think he's too young. I got scared when you said that.
Six months from now. When he turns 11, maybe he can do that.
By the spring. No, I think Washington made Fando a lot of money.
All right. I think there were a lot of futures that could have been pretty bad because there was a moment, and we had some Lions bets.
They were somehow undervalued, even though they were clearly the best team on paper in the NFC. I doubled up.
They were even to win the conference before Saturday. I was like, that's ridiculous.
They'll take care of the commanders and then they'll beat up whoever, especially if the Eagles come to town, but not meant to be. I'm going to go on the record.
I just blanket hate the safety running around to kill time to send it from 13 to 11 or whatever.

11 to 9.

I'm just out.

I don't like that play.

I don't trust safeties.

I don't trust kickers.

I don't trust any special teams. Like guys running around and all of a sudden he gets,

and all of a sudden the ball's rolling around the end zone.

I'm not taking the risk.

I'm with you.

And this is where we should have bed insurance,

betters insurance, right?

Yeah, that's true.

But yeah, also, yeah, if you're receiving the punt in the end zone, maybe. But don't run back a quarter of a mile.
Right. Run out of the end zone.
Stupid. Yeah, there's a couple of things.
Maybe I've just been watching football too much for too many weeks in a row, but I can't watch another fair catch in the five-yard line. I just can't.
Or the fair catch in the seven. I can't watch the guy punting on the other team's 40, somehow punting it out of bounds anyway.
It just seems like anyone we know should be able to just punt like a little dribbler 25 yards that rolls out on the 10. It just doesn't seem that hard.
The holding on the kickoff, I just like, I would tell everyone on my team, like that guy today on the Ravens who gets the hold where he's just bear hugging the dude from behind it's just an automatic you're waived if you hold on a kickoff you're waived I'm with you I'm taking your job most of those guys that's all they do is they're on the kick return or the punt return team you have one job don't hold anyone that's it don't hold anybody on the other team with the punt return team. Just don't hold.
You have one job. Don't hold anyone.
That's it. Don't hold anybody on the other team.
With the punt return, that was like forever when we were growing up. It was like, all right, stand at the seven.
If you have to take one step back, let it go over your head. That seemed to work out.
I don't know why they changed that. What's the new edict? I don't get it either.
Well, this was a great weekend for the Chiefs because I think the Ravens would have been a much tougher opponent for them than the Bills. I also think they'll probably not say this publicly, but I think there's a lot more animosity with Buffalo than maybe Baltimore.
I think that Buffalo Chiefs thing is a real thing. And I just like the Chiefs.
I can't wait to do Guess the Last for that one. The Chiefs, they big brother the Bills, I think.
They're like, yeah, we didn't even care that you beat us in the regular season. Come on, let's play again.
We get it when it counts. It's very similar to the Pats-Colts dynamic that didn't really totally shift until the 2006 AFC title game.
Right. So maybe that'll be the Bills version of that.
Maybe they will be the Indy, but the problem is the games in KC. Alright, next one.
We'll go Eagles-Rams. We'll save the Lions game for last because that's going to be really fun to talk about.
I was thinking with Eagles-Rams, this is like the perfect Eagles win for the Eagles fans that we know in our lives. Right.
Kind of ugly. They had the game.
They kind of fucked it up in the last four minutes. Sirianning hurts.
Still a lot of question marks. It was a win, but it also was kind of like you escape by the skin of your teeth.
And then the only thing everyone can agree on is that Saquon Barkley is like the greatest Eagle of all time. And they all love Saquon Barkley.
And he had another like magical game. It was basically like an AI spitting out an Eagles win in round two of the playoffs was how I felt.
That's excellent. And I think you're right because the most important thing for Eagles fans is that they get their angry at their team.
And because they let up the last touchdown and almost another one that would have lost the game, they could still be angry at the team, but they get to watch them play another game. They get another one, but they get to say, oh, I forgot Jake Elliott.
That's another one. Jake Elliott missed the two extra points, but made some big field goals, but they could be mad at him.
They could be mad at some of the strategy. It was perfect.
Hurts. Strange one.
He had the long touchdown drive. He ends up, he throws for 128 yards.
Last week, he threw for 131. So he's still 41 yards away from a 300-yard game.
That's going to have to take him three games. Yeah.
He has four playoff wins. Let me just add to that while I have it here.
Four playoff wins, career high passing in those games, 156. So weird.
I don't completely trust him when I watch him. We both had the Eagles in a tease, but they were also six and a half.
They somehow not cover, but I never feel 100% comfortable with him. And then the A.J.
Brown is another one. He had another huge drop.
Right. In the end, he had a touchdown and screwed it up.
They've been getting nothing out of him. I don't remember how many things Devonta Smith did in that game.
Goddard seemed like he was the most reliable receiver. I felt the tight end in every game should have been hit more, except for maybe Andrews at the end.
But Goddard, Ertz did an amazing job. We'll talk about that in a minute.
But yeah, and then the big moment for me with Hertz is like, what the hell are you not getting rid of that ball? Another safety that didn't make any sense. Oh my God.
Well, and they fucked up the end of the second quarter too. That was another one.
They're up three, driving. All of a sudden they're going backwards.
Then they're just letting the clock run out because he took a sack. He took another bad sack for that safety.
Yeah. So, Washington's a live dog to me.
Like, they're the classic playing with house money, a lot of momentum. They're really good on offense.
They're definitely not afraid of the Eagles. They beat them last year when they sucked.
Yeah. You know? Beat them this year, beat them last year.
That's going to be a fun one. All of a sudden, it's okay rooting for the Cowboys.
We were easily in the best division in football. If you had to repower rank everybody, Cowboys would be like fifth or something in football, in the NFL.
I was going to say, if I told you in late August, two NFC East teams will be playing to make the Super Bowl on the third weekend in January, you'd have been so pumped. Yeah, that's not as fun.
This is amazing. I can't believe we're one way away from the Super Bowl.
We're playing the Giants? How did this work out? It was two teams, and then the other two choices were the commanders or the Giants. Right.
You wouldn't have ever thought, we both like the commanders. We went over on them.
I mean, they have 14 wins. I had them to make the playoffs, but I did not think they'd have 14 wins.
But it is interesting how that became the division, right? And the NFC North was, I keep comparing it to the SEC, who has no participants in tomorrow night's game. Just off.
I think they were 29 and 4 outside of division and then just got murdered in the playoffs. Yeah, I think we did a podcast segment probably four weeks ago where we were wondering if they had the three best teams.
Yeah. Well, they didn't.
They don't. We don't have to worry anymore.
Fast forward to the end of the movie. They did not.
There was a cold weather element to the Seagulls game too. Yes.
With the toughness, the Rams. Nakua had a huge drop.
Kyron Williams had the fumble. Stafford had the fumble.
And we live in LA. We talk about this the pod about how, um, we're both from the East coast.
I was a guy that was always like, you, I wouldn't throw a coat on when it was 20 degrees outside unless I really had to, the windshield was bad. Lived out here for three years.
Then when I go back East, I'm fucking freezing every time. And I get it when the Rams go to Philly, it's like, I get why Nakua probably, you know, passed us through his hands.
It's hard to get used to. Yeah, there was one indoor game.
The other three, I would say this clearly gave one of the teams, the home team, the advantage, the weather, right? The cold weather and the slipping all over. And you just knew Barkley was going to break one of every three or four runs.
It's just crazy. I don't know if he was going to slide short of a touchdown, which he likes to do.

But that is incredible what he put himself

through and everybody else.

Schrieger asked me during the game, he texted me,

do you think

is this a good way to decide

a playoff matchup

where the weather comes in and you have

a situation like that Eagles-Rams game

today? And to me, 100% yes.

It's such a huge part of

football. I even think back to like

Thank you. where the weather comes in and you have a situation like that Eagles Rams game today.
And to me, a hundred percent. Yes.
Yeah. It's such a huge part of football.
I even think back to like that Chargers Bengals game when we were kids in 1980 and that I love that Chargers team. And then they go to Cincy and it was like minus 230 degrees and the Bengals just beat them.
But it's like, that's why you play for home field advantage. Like you want, you know, you want people to come to your house.
And especially if it's like a team like Miami last year playing in, um, or they Buffalo or Casey, Kansas City. Yeah.
Um, it's, it's just part of football. I love it.
So you like it too, right? I love it too. I have some buddies that you know, like, you're just like, nah, this is just, we're not seeing the best of every team if they're playing with a shiny K-ball that they can't hold on to.

I do like the home field advantage.

Am I a hypocrite to say

I don't like it in the Super Bowl?

I didn't like it

when Denver played Seattle

and it just looked like,

oh,

this is going to be

a shit fest.

But,

put those in a warm weather climate,

but I like everything leading up.

Yeah,

I think that's the right take.

Yeah,

because I remember

one of the years when we beat the Colts, I say we, talk right take. Yeah, because I remember one of the years

when we beat the Colts, I say we, talk about

the Patriots like I was on the team.

There was one super

it was the one when

the fans were chaining, cut that

meat at Peyton Manning because

he had to cut that meat commercial.

And it was just freezing. They scored three

points and it was like a combo of

our defense plus just how cold it was. And it was like, that's why we won.
It was really, that was it. The cold weather has been a big advantage for the Pats over the years.
I think Buffalo's won a couple of the Chiefs, definitely. But I like it.
I personally am a fan player. I guess John Jastrzemski would have a different answer.
It depends who you root for, right? If you're a Dolphins fan. Right, true.
Right, Yeah. Or a Dome team.
To me, if you're a historian and you love NFL films and you love watching that and just like there's nothing better than guys grinding it out. Well, because sometimes it'll be two cold weather teams and bad weather and those are usually great too.
Like the Packers, what was that? Packers-Giants 08? Packers-Giants, yep. Freezing.
It was like one degree

and, you know, but at least the Giants

were used to it. I didn't, did not

feel like the Rams were that used to it today. Really good

Rams here. Definitely.

You know, not only did they make the final eight,

it felt like

they were pretty close

in that game and it

was very similar to the Baltimore thing where it's just

they made some dumb turnovers. Philly had a couple

dumb plays on

their own end, but not as dumb as... We almost

Thank you. In that game.
And it was very similar to the Baltimore thing where it's just they made some dumb turnovers. Philly had a couple of dumb plays on their own end, but not as dumb as the Rams.
We almost had a seven versus six in the NFC Championship, right? Like the Rams almost had a home game. It would have been nuts to think a month ago.
But yeah, I'm proud of that team. And they did a nice job.
Can I give a shout out to Jack Wilson, the producer of the Ringer Sunday pregame show? Okay. Text from Jack Wilson, 1230 Pacific time.
This is when the Rams are looking good in the Eagles game. It's like first quarter the Rams are moving the ball.
Text me, if the Rams win and House comes to LA next weekend, do we want to bring JJ out too? Since Raheem is in Vegas, that's easy because then we can all do the show in LA. Great.
It wasn't even the end of the first quarter yet. So I just sent him back.
Jinx text. Yeah.
And then Jack, Jack texts me back. Shit.
Sorry. Don't tell House.
Well, House is finding out right now. House is all right.
House is going to play either way next week. It's the Rams fans.
He's good. You know what? Let's give Jack Wilson's phone number on here so people could.
Let's give it to the Rams fans. We'll give it at the end of the show.
No, House is happy because he just, now that's a short ride to Philly. I talked to House today, actually, before the Philly game.
He's, you know, obviously out of his mind. But we were talking about how crazy it would be if it was a Baltimore-Washington Super Bowl have two teams located closer to each other ever played in a Super Bowl.
And we were like, this has to, it's never been a New York, New York Jets versus like, no, that's never happened. And it was almost like too weird.
So the gods decided, yeah, this isn't happening. Yeah.
Wait, there is no answer, right? The answer that's, I don't think so. You'll have some Midwest.
Wait, I'm going to try Tampa. I don't think it's ever.
I don't think it's ever happened. All right.
Um, yeah. House is, uh, he's, he's not going to Philly, is he? Oh, yeah.
He's going. He's going to go? Oh, yeah.
They have to be on their best behavior now, the Eagles fans, because they're all recorded and they're going to lose their jobs if they curse or do anything. I feel like they're going to keep...
It's all fine now. Let's take another break for the pod and then we will talk about Washington and the Lions.
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Washington Lions, game of the weekend. Possible game of the year.
Certainly the most dramatic. I was at

I went to UFC last night

and I was just like I'm going to watch this game when I get home. But I was kind of checking my phone and every time I checked my phone, the score was different.
It was one of those games. But this will be my first question for you.
Is this it for the Lions? Was this their window these two years? Can they get back? Is it ever going to get better than this for them? That's like seven questions. My God.
Yes. Well, it's all the same question.
They'll get back. Yeah.
No. I know what you're saying.
I think Campbell's good. I think their offense is excellent.
I think that defense was decimated. I think after a while, you just can't.
They lose three more defensive players during the game. The cornerback goes out immediately.
You just can't put bodies in eventually. I don't want to take anything away from Jaden Daniels because I want to make a case for him being the best rookie postseason quarterback we've ever seen.
But that said, for God's sakes, how many guys have to go down? Right? And I don't know. I don't know that the division is so tough after all, I don't think he's going to see Minnesota with 14 wins again.
So I think they can come back. Go ahead, counter.
I don't think their defense was why they lost the game. No.
I'll just read you some plays. 45 is a lot of points, but you don't think so? Third and one.
They're up 7-3 in the Washington 25. They're passing for some reason, and Goff gets strip-sacked.
Over and over again. Remember the first month of the season when the Lions didn't start out well? Yeah.
And they were throwing the ball a ton. And we were talking about them in the pot, and I was saying, I'm still in on the Lions.
I just think they're a running team that for some reason is trying to air it out. I think they need to flip the seesaw and become like a pound-the-ball running team.
They went back to the old first month of the season lines. Again, they threw the ball over 40 times.
Gibbs touched it 20 times total. Every time he touched a ball, it was 10 yards.
It barely seemed like he had it. So that play was terrible.
That play, he wasn't even in on that play. It's an empty backfield on third and one.
I think at the time he was averaging 19 yards a touch. Keep him in the game.
He should be in the game on every third and shirt. Yeah, as a decoy.
That's awful. I hate that.
You have Goff sailing the pick six and if you freeze it, his receiver is in the middle of four guys. He's surrounded by a gang of players.

It would have had to have been the all-time perfect throw.

He sails it, picks six, almost gets concussed.

He throws that end of the pick at the end of the second quarter

on the post-play where the guy's open.

He throws it to the wrong spot.

The good Brady call.

And then the Jamison Williams, that option pass with the receiver,

it's the biggest series of the game it's 38

28 you have to score

you still have the whole fourth quarter basically

you have to get three or seven

and they

put the entire game in the hands of a

receiver who never throws and of

course he makes a dumb decision it's not that

it's like oh he shouldn't have thrown it

you shouldn't put him in the position to throw it

that was a classic Ben Johnson just like look

at me hey look at me

watch these cool plays.

It's like,

you know,

Thank you. It's like, oh, he shouldn't have thrown it.
You shouldn't put him in the position to throw it. That was a classic Ben Johnson.
Just like, look at me. Hey, look at me.
Watch these cool plays. It's like, you know what works? Fucking Jameer Gibbs.
Just give him the ball. Why are you running wide receiver pass plays? Do you think that was a directive to Jameis and William to just throw it no matter what? We don't care if the guy's triple teamed or, hey, you're the fastest guy on the field.
Let's take it outside.

And unless, only if he's wide open, will you throw it?

I think it's somewhere in between.

But the Ben Johnson thing is interesting, right?

Like all these coordinators get jobs.

Unless they're on the Super Bowl winning team,

their last game is almost always terrible, right?

Like Shane Steichen.

We've seen it.

It just almost has to be.

And you're right.

He had like four or five really curious calls,

but 45 points is a lot for the other team.

If you give Harrison a giant package

and you park across the street from FedEx,

you're like, now cross the street and deliver it.

And I want you to...

And he fucks it up.

Is that your fault or Harrison's?

My wife would probably say it was my fault. Yeah.
Because it's like, here's Jamison Williams. He's rolling out to the right and the guy's not open.
He's not a quarterback. It's like, oh my God, I can't believe he made a terrible decision and threw the ball at him.
This happens every week in football. If I told Harrison don't cross the street unless there's not a car visible for a quarter of a mile on your left or right, I think it's a different thing.
I don't know what he said. You're right.
It's dumb. They should have handed off and they should have run more.
Because if they go up 14-3, that third and one play, they're up 7-3. They go up 14-3.
That building's bananas. It's a whole different story.
It was already loud. And then maybe, I don't know, maybe they don't come back, Washington.
Their defense had two fuck-ups. The McLaurin, the RPO touchdown.
And both guys, it was comical how bad the tackling was. Right.
So that was bad. The fourth and two inside the five, they're down three.
It's 31-28, and they have 12 men on the field. Inexcusable.
But for the most part, I thought Daniels was incredible. And to just say, oh the Lions defense, the Lions came up big a couple of times.
Like they came up the first quarter. They were really good.
The beginning of the third quarter, they stopped them on the first drive to get the ball back. Daniels that like that throw he made to Deami Brown, that 50 yard Russell Wilson moon ball where he's covered by two guys and just catches it in stride.
On fourth and two,

some of the RPO stuff,

nobody's stopping that. He was

great. But what's going to be your

bottom line here? If they give up 60, is that a

bad outing? 45 is still a lot. I just think

if they don't turn the ball over, they outscore

the commanders and they win. Daniels was great.

Daniels was great.

Didn't turn the ball over once. They're zero blitzing the shit out of him.

And I bet him the throw interception.

I'm like, nothing against Jaden Daniels. This is just

such a tough spot and such a loud

Thank you. great.
Danis was great. Didn't turn the ball over once.
There's zero blitzing the shit out of him. And I bet him the throw interception.
I'm like, nothing against Jaden Daniels. This is just such a tough spot and such a loud place.
And if he drops back 35 times, one of them's going to end up in a Lions defender's hands. But he was getting blitzed.
He was like, wait and waiting. And there was always a guy open.
He was so smart. And yeah, that 12-man on the field was disastrous.
But I mean, the fourth quarter yardage, the game was up. Once they, once it's 38-28 and Williams throws that pick, the game's over.
I'll say this with Daniels. I said this to House today.
And we should have the Daniels House special he is combo. He's just, he was so good in that game.
And he had a couple highlight plays, but for the most part, he's just,

he's always doing the right thing.

He's always calm.

He never turns the ball over.

Like if you compare him to Lamar today,

you know,

I think it's a real conversation is where he ranks on like,

what playoff QBs would you trust the most?

Because he's,

what he did last week against Tampa,

what he did in that Detroit game

on the road, in a dome where it's super loud, and he didn't fuck up once for three hours. That's fucking surreal.
You can't break him at all. Like mentally, he's just on a different level altogether.
He's smiling. He's just having a great time.
He's just like, ah, look at this. He's smarter than Vince Young with all the physical comparisons.
And I'm trying to think what you do because you can't compare him to any of the other rookie quarterback playoff performances. He's better than Flacco was.
We never thought Flacco would like. No, I did.
I did this on Thursday. All the guys were pretty.
What is it? Flacco, Purdy, and Sean King, Sanchez, Sanchez, Sanchez won a game, but only three got to the championship game, I think. I think it was Sanchez, Purdy, and Flacco.
Yeah. No, not the championship game.
He did? Yeah, there was five. I had it.
Hold on. Really? Oh, was it Big Ben too? Yeah, Big Ben was the other one.
All right. No, I think the comparison to me, I think Mahomes is the comparison.
Even though Mahomes, he had like a gap year, his first year on on the Chiefs but you think like Daniels was in college for five years Mahomes was in college for three and then had the gap year so they're around the same age and then Mahomes goes in that first full year as a starter and he's incredible and he almost beats the Pats and he almost beats Brady I think that's the level it's at and we saw like when we were kids, like Marino as a rookie, he was awesome that first year and then that second year made the Super Bowl. Or did he make the Super Bowl? No, the second one he made.
That's when he had like 47. 47 touchdowns? But it's on that level already.
And it's a weird one because the Pats... I love Drake May and I'm fine with how it turned out, but it was a big one of, there was two months leading up to that draft last year.
It was like, is Washington going to take Drake May or Daniels and who do we want? And every Pats fan, we're all talking about the same thing and it came down. Daniels was three years older.
He was in college for five years. He's going to get hurt.
He's so skinny. And he got hurt during the middle of the year.
House and I were talking about this today. They kind of threw us off their scent because they played really well for the first six weeks.
He got hurt. And then it was pretty rocky.
And he was clearly hurt for four or five weeks. Then Echor got hurt.
And they didn't really start to become the team they were in the first month, I don't feel like until that Tampa game. Right.
Or maybe like week 18. It's a weird trajectory.
Right. So you don't want to peak at the wrong time because it's very hard to play great football for 17 weeks, 18 weeks.
So there was those weeks two to six or whatever, where he didn't throw an incomplete pass or some shit. It was really weird.
Right. It was just dominant.
Then you're right. I think I had the rib injury and whatever.
They weren't as good, but he picked up perfectly. That Atlanta game, that was only a couple weeks ago on Sunday night.
If they lose that, that's a whole different... This whole shakes up differently, the seedings and everything.
Or Tampa, second and one, they have a chance to potentially go up four. Second and one, good stuff.
Third and one, they screw up. It's the snap at the wrong time.
All of a sudden, they're kicking a field goal. And they never get the ball.
I'm sure Tampa is like, we should have beaten these guys. Now they're in the fucking NFC title game.
This sucks. But the last piece with Daniels, I don't want to say...
I really wanted to ask you who would you rather have and have Daniels versus all these veteran quarterbacks we have.

But we need to see him win a cold-weather game

before we have a full feel for, you know, like this.

Detroit was a dome.

He's going to be going to Philly next week.

It's going to be cold.

The field's going to be, you know, of fucking concrete.

He's going to have this big defensive line.

And if, like, he's as good as he was in Detroit in that scenario, I don't know what the ceiling is at that point. No question about it.
Yeah. The Eagles are praying for weather conditions like today, right? They even have the game moved to somewhere like Anchorage, Alaska or something.
Because, yeah, that's the only key. That's the only thing we're missing.
And their coaching staff, they did a great job. They did a great job drafting and the GM, and they got the terrible owner out of there, Snyder.
I feel like Dan Quinn, if you don't ruin his life with the 28-3 game, is Dan Quinn like a top two or three coach in the league? It's why it was a good hire, even though we all kind of were like, oh, my God, really, Dan Quinn? You could add Ben Johnson. but when somebody's had real success the first time they were a coach where you can go back and watch that Super Bowl and 13 plays in a row have to go well for the Pats for the Falcons not to win the Super Bowl.
Yeah. Maybe not entirely his fault.
Yeah. Some of it was his fault, but he's clearly a good coach.
He was great for you on Dallas.

He was, but that's another example of a guy who his last game was bad

and they still hired him away, right?

The Packers game was just miserable.

So it's funny how it works out.

I mean, I'm not ashamed to admit I'm on some Pats threads

where Washington has now become the North Star for the Pats,

where it's like they sucked last year. They got the second pick.
They had nothing. They get the franchise QB.
They get a good coach. They get a good coaching staff.
They make some smart signings. They have a good draft.
Some of the guys that were already in the team, they coached up so that they're actually better assets than we were a year ago. They had an easy schedule.
All these things where it's like, why can't that be the Pats? So thank you, Washington. You've given us hope here with the...
Because my football is great. New England, yeah.
You never know. We don't need six new playoff teams every year, but if we get three and one of them is like Washington has a real run at this and almost plays the Rams in the championship game, it's dynamite stuff.
I'm going to miss it. Well, we talk every year about the circle of teams that have a chance to win the Super Bowl.

And then it comes down to these goofy plays,

like Mark Andrews dropping the two-point,

like Tampa not getting a first down when it's second and one.

And for the, like, what level are you at?

How close can you be to winning a Super Bowl?

I did not have Washington in the circle. Even heading into this Detroit game, I thought the line was too high.
I never would have played Detroit 9.5. I kind of like some of the alternate Washington lines.
They were plus 3.5. They were plus 190.
And yet, their defense seemed like it was such an overmatch in that Lions game. I couldn't figure out how their defense was going to stop them.
And the answer was Jared Goff has to completely suck. Yeah.
That was the one factor I didn't factor in. It's like, what if Jared Goff is just terrible? And he was.
What if they forget that Gibbs is on the team, despite the fact that he has 19 yards of carry every time he touches? What if they have an option pass with their receiver on their biggest drive of the game? And then we also had that Teddy Bridgewater has come into the game moment, which was pretty exciting. Teddy Bridgewater was coaching high school, and all of a sudden it seems like Goff's concussed, and anyone who had the Lions in a tease is like, oh my God, I can't even imagine.
I can't imagine what that game was like. Like talk about the extremes of like, if you're a Lions fan and you're like, you're in there with the Bills and the Vikings and all these tortured franchises, but you also don't really have any terrible playoff losses because you've just been terrible.
You know what I mean? I have losses to point to. Right, right.
And now you have one of the worst losses we've had this decade where you can go back and just drive yourself crazy with 20 plays.

And you have people like me and you saying, is that it? Is the window closed on this team that won like 15 games? Well, think about it. They might lose both their coordinators.
I know. They're never going to be, you can never trust Goff in the same way again.
I don't think. you know I think that you get

this far

for the next couple of years

but yeah

it's

this should definitely

have been one they rolled. They might have taken him lightly too.
Well, Laporta's catch was dynamite. There were so many turning points.
When the 76 points scored, you could point to 30 plays. Like, oh, that's gone different.
But when Laporta catches the ball and doesn't make use of one of his hands, arms, it's like, oh, shit. All right, that's it.
They're toying with him now. But it wasn't the case.
Really tough loss. Tough loss for us.
We had Lions Super Bowl bets that I somehow didn't properly hedge with Washington.

You know what happened?

I think the gambling god said to, all right, Sal, Bill, you had a good year.

You bet all these Moneyline favorites.

You got to keep your money.

Yeah.

New year, not so fast.

We were due for a kick in the teeth.

We're not letting you win with another big favorite.

Your wager warranty has expired.

Pay the fuck up.

So if those teams play 10 times, how many times do the commanders win? Would you say three? Maybe four, though. Maybe four? Okay.
I'm still saying the Lions had a ton of yards. I wish they had two defenders back.
Two. Just two out of the 20.
Cause I watched the whole game this morning, knowing what happened. And I thought it was going to be way more one-sided toward Washington.
And I'm watching it. I'm like, the fuck did the Lions lose this game? Every time they give the ball to Gibbs, he rushes for 12 yards or it's like a 15 yard screen pass.
It's like, what, what happened in this game? Stupid. I don't know why.
Dana's was great. And by the way, they hit those fourth downs.
You feel like every fourth and two, fourth and three, that's the situation where I always feel like they're going to get it. There's other teams that are not as sure.
Well, you got the kicker massaging his scalp in all different OCD directions on the sideline. You're like, yeah, he's not ready.
You're going to have to take a snap here. Yeah, his fingers are embedded.
Jada Daniels, we have a lot of Washington fans in our life. This is just one of the most unbelievable turnarounds I can remember.
We had, even when this happened to the Pats fans with Brady, we were still immersed in that whole Brady or Bledsoe, who's the starter. And then we had this crazy, you know, Cinderwell run to the Super Bowl, which you lost a lot of money on.
Right. And even at the end, we were like, okay, Brady, I guess, like, he's good.
But this Jaden Daniels thing, this is, like, if you're just talking about the elite QBs that you feel the best about, he just has to be in the first sentence now with all these other guys. It's one of the best rookie years I can remember.
And I'm with you with that. We went over the others.
He's on that Mahomes 2018 level of like, this guy's here now and he's going to be here for 20 years. Okay, but if Joe House was just getting really loud and obnoxious with us, could we throw the, hey, remember RG3 card at him? Would we be able to do that? Or is this completely different? I mean, they were excited about him for over a year.
I know, but we were there for the RG3 thing. It was really fun to watch.
Yeah. This is different.
First of all, this guy's pulling out huge wins. He's this double threat.
He's incredibly accurate. I have a lot of regrets.
Like I really wish, I know we say this after the fact, but I really wish I had, had, uh, put more thought at the nobody believes in us part with Washington. Cause you could feel it in the game.
And especially the quotes after like that team's got a chip on its shoulder. And I, I don't know.
I like, looking back, a team that has a shitty defense or a mediocre defense, whatever you want to call the Lions defense, favored by a big spread against a team that's clearly good offensively that completes a lot of passes and can run the ball. I'm never doing that again.
I'm taking the underdog the next time. You got to write that down.
We're not going to remember that. I'm going to add that to the playoff manifesto.
It's like bad defense, team that completes 70% of its passes and doesn't turn the ball over. The other thing that happened, which I don't know if that's going to get momentum this week or not, but Kingsbury, the Washington OC, grew up in Texas.
Yeah. Could that be the Cowboys coach? And when you watch what he's done with Daniels and with Washington's offense, is that a better option than some of the options I've seen, which you showed me? Yes, it's a better, of course.
Robert Sala. Yeah.
That list I showed you was the shakies of coaches list. It was.
It's really, yeah, it was Robert Sala. It was, well, I mean, Flores was in there.
Kellen Moore. I really, Deion Sanders, of course.
Jason Witten. I guess we're just going to keep trying Jason's until one of them works.
Like, I don't freaking know. Yeah, bring Kingsbury in.
And people didn't want to interview him, right? Like the Steelers passed on him last year for defensive coordinator. Three teams didn't even want to hear from him this year.

It's a little strange.

It went awful for him in Arizona.

And there's a chance it went awful because maybe there was stuff.

Maybe that's a weird organization, weird quarterback.

Kyler's tough.

Yeah, Kyler's a tough one to navigate. I can't really 100% hang on him for that.

All right, we're going to take one more break for the pod,

and we're going to do Guess the Lines.

This is the first time I was going to take, we're going to take one more break for the pod and we're going to do guess the lines. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra.
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So before we do Guess the Lines, we were all together. Yeah.
We went to Shakey's today. The original Shakey's, we used to go to Shakey's Pizza, which we've joked about for years and years in this pod, was on Santa Monica in a not awesome area of Hollywood.
And we used to go there and it was pretty grim. Well, that's gone.
It did not survive COVID. And there's a chance it could have started COVID.
We're not sure. It either started in Wuhan or at Shakey's in Santa Monica.
So we had to go to Shakey's on Sunset Boulevard past the 10, past where Netflix is, a little down further going toward the Scientology place. And we all went.
And it was like a really nice time. They had a lot of TVs.
it was pretty clean and it wasn't as shaky as I was accustomed to. I pulled into the parking lot.
There were some models, cars that seemed like they were made after 1979. They might be able to be driven of more than 20 minutes.
Right. And it was clean.
The bathroom, I clenched my fist but it was good

and you know

food still

whatever

but it's fine

we'll post

we'll post on Instagram

we took a Shakey's

Shakey's team photo

I wasn't gonna go

and then if Jon Hamm's like

you're going right

I'm like

this is kinda weird

if this guy

who's in like

700 movies currently

is going

and it just died

in Landman

it felt like we had to go

pay our respects to him

oh you son of a bitch

I'm behind

why would you do that

it was a week ago. Is it a spoiler? A little bit.
A little bit. I don't know.
I mean, it's the first time I'm hearing it. Alright, that's fine.
I mean, he looked good today. I don't know.
You're saying he died? Is that a spoiler? Kyle, is that... Did I just spoil Landman? It came out a week ago.
It's on Sunday? How long do I have to wait? It was a week ago. Kyle? Well, at least eight days, it turns out.
I think you could call it a spoiler. I think you could definitely call it a spoiler.
Really? Can we find out in the chat? Do people... Are they in the YouTube chat? Whatever our chat...
I'm with you. Two years is...
If you're telling people The Sopranos... I'm going on a YouTube chat.
What are they saying? Nothing really. Give them Jack Wilson's number.
Let them find out if this is a spoiler. Tom says, yes, that is a spoiler.
One week is not enough. Matt Smith says, massive spoiler.
Two weeks is the window. Did we decide that? Was that one of President Biden's last verdicts? Before he fell into the cement? He's not going to pardon you, I hope, in his last few hours here.
Two weeks notice. You get two weeks notice, right? God damn.
I guess I'd spoiled. Sorry.
YouTube got to grade. My bad.
My bad, everybody. I just Jared Goff the podcast.
Did he die at Shanky's? What happened? Did he eat something bad? Well, I was saying to him. Mojo potatoes? I wasn't positive he died, which means that they could always bring him back next season.
All right. Good.
Nice thing. Ham seemed in good spirits, though.
I think he had a good time. It's fun.
And Brad went after you about your documentary. We don't have to go into the details.
He had thoughts of the R-Rock. He gave you a very honest opinion.
Shakey's, where you go for C-minus pizza and to get berated by... It was great.
There was a moment where it felt like an LA sports bar. There were people rooting for the Rams.
It's true. There was a basketball game on on one side.
I was like, all right, Shakey's. Yeah.
Yeah. I walked to and from to Shakey's.
That's dangerous. A couple of interesting moments in the way.
Yeah. Well, and especially since you didn't even know what kind of Shakey's you were walking into.
Although I guess you knew the neighborhood. So it wasn't as scary.
Yeah. I did this yesterday too.
I was walking, watching the game on YouTube TV, which I

love YouTube TV. I'm so mad I didn't have it,

but I'm not just saying that because we've done stuff

with them. I really like it.
You heard the

hack there where you could turn off the

15-second delay? Yeah.

That's amazing. How do we not know

about that? Why didn't they tell us? They should let people

know. I mean, that wouldn't count as

a spoiler. That would actually be something good for

everyone. But I was thinking

because eventually I'm going to die by

getting hit by a car in LA somewhere when I'm walking because I'm going to be looking at my phone and somebody's just going to pancake me. But it will probably 50% chance it's during a football game that I'm watching on my phone and I'm just walking across the street.
And it's like, what happened to Bill? Yeah, that was it. It finally happened.
It's either that or me not wearing a seatbelt somewhere are going to be the two ways I go.

I can't imagine the idea of burning calories while watching a football game.

I have to take a bite of something every play.

I got to say, every time Collinsworth talked, I was walking faster.

I was like, Collinsworth is giving me energy.

It was like a Gatorade.

Interesting. He was having a great time.
He wanted to dive into traffic. I didn't walk during the Brady thing.
Oh, okay. But yeah, because that was going to UFC yesterday, which I want to talk about after we do Guest Alliance.
Guest Alliance. So what set up the drama for Guest Alliance? You haven't beaten me since 1932, right before World War II.

Right.

Before that, yeah.

You are up one week.

I'm up one week.

So I can still win.

I have to win this week

and I have to hit the Super Bowl

and beat you both weeks basically to win.

You could clinch.

You could beat me this week.

And I honestly don't remember the last time you've won.

I don't either. And it's going to be liberating when I can smack you with a Subway sandwich.
Although I'm almost positive you're going to guess these two. Exactly right.
Look at you. You can't even hide it.
No, I forgot to make a guess for the other one. I have the Eagles-Washington.
All right. So that's your old game.
That's 3 Eastern. Three Eastern.
Fox. Mm-hmm.
Right?

Yep. All right.
So I'll just give you my thought process. It's in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia was favored by six and a half against the Rams. Mm-hmm.
Now they're playing Washington, a team that's done pretty well against them. I think the line has to be less than six and a half.
and I'm going to say

Eagles

by five

Vegas I think the line has to be less than six and a half. And I'm going to say Eagles by five Vegas zone.
You're going to be mad at me because it did an hour ago was four and a half. And I had guessed five and a half.
And I swear on my kids. I like at least two of them.
It's five and a half. It's five and a half right now.
It's five and a half right now. God damn it.
So I get that. So you have to get this one to push.
So now you basically clinched at least a tie for the season. Clinched a tie.
Yeah. And what's tiebreaker? I think I have better common opponents, so I think I'm going to win anyway.
Better schedule. Yeah.
A sadder last 10 years. I'll tell you this.
I was off by a full point here. No, I was off by a half a point, but you could get this.
Kansas City hosting the Buffalo Bills. Mm-hmm.
I thought about putting this in the tick-tock zone, and I'm not going to. I'm going to say Chiefs by two and a half.
Oh, yes. Champion, baby.
What is it? Two. It's one and a half.
You should have put that motherfucker in the Tic Tac Zone. Is it two and a half right now? Now I'm looking.
Hold on. It's one and a half.
I don't trust you. Yeah.
I don't trust you. I'm looking right now.
I'm FanDuel. Go ahead.
America's number one sports book. Spoiler alert.

I win.

One and a half.

Oh, this is nice.

I feel good.

My heart's like pumping a little bit for the first time all day.

Wow.

So, Washington to 11 and a half.

Chiefs to plus four and a half.

Be careful.

Yeah.

I'm just spitballing.

Yeah, that's probably right.

Why do we have to tease it? We can pick two winners. Put Ohio State on it.
I felt that way about the Ravens. It turned out it wasn't a winner.
It was a big L loser. Well, congratulations.
Thanks, buddy. Nobody's happier for you than Dave Jacoby.
Yeah, we did it, Jacobs. Listen, I'll trade knowing the ending of Landman for my first title in three decades.
So spoiler alert is two weeks. I would think so.
I think that's a fair place to start. Is this President Trump has weighed in on this? Our new president started tomorrow? Can that be one of his first rulings as the spoiler alert ruling? Yeah.
Yeah, it is funny with this stuff with like you and I trying to figure out Lamar Jackson over props and some 15-year-old makes like $35 million overnight buying a freaking coin. The Hawk Tua.
The Hawk Tua has to disappear after a crypto thing. I got my wife the Hawk to a coin for Christmas.
I haven't checked on it. I imagine it's not, it's not doing well.
What? It's not. It's going badly.
Another spoiler out of Bill. Thanks.
Not it's, it's in bad shape. This edition of parent corners brought to you by hookah and bondi nine, their new daily trainer.
So you go first and then I'll go. Alright, so my 11-year-old Harrison, we've talked about him a couple times already.
So, he and his class have what's called puberty night, where all the fifth grade boys go through puberty in the same night. No, where they get together and...
I was really scared for a second. No, no, I know.
It's something like that. No, they, but some instructor comes in every Friday for six weeks and talks to them about, you know, lectures them about like the body and the biological growth and the birds and the bees and everything like that.
And it rotates at different houses and it's going to be at our house next week. I think it's next week is our Friday.
And I'm not invited to any of these. Like last Friday or the Friday before there was football, it was college football.
So I wasn't there and last Friday I was off. But I'm not invited.
My wife has prohibited me from going because she thinks I'm going to make a mockery out of it. She's like, no, you're too immature.
I was like, well, what are you talking about? She's like, well, you know, like- What are you talking about? Here's 178 examples. She said, well, I had to know.
She's like, well, some of the fathers, I'm like the father, the fathers are there. It's like, yeah, they'll stand up and talk about like, you know, the first time they had a boner in class or something.
I'm like, why? That seems fine. I could do something like that.
They're like, next time Jimmy Kimmel live. I'm like, you're going to go over the top.
You're going to be too over the top. You're going to embarrass him in front of his friends.
And that's going to be that. They're like, you're going to go over the top.
You're going to be too over the top. You're going to embarrass him in front of his friends.
And that's going to be that it's not good. So I don't know.
Of course she's right. Of course they're right.
But I want to see this because I want, when it's at our house, I want to make hot dogs. I want to serve hot dogs.
I think that'll be appropriate. But I think like, I don't know, am I too immature for this? Yes.
I watch you during Jimmy's wedding, you tried to shove Dixon into the wedding cake and knock over a $25,000 wedding cake. Oh, that was one of the more mature things I ever did.
No, that wasn't good. I think I should do this.
Have we, we've told that story before. I don't think, like Dixon, if he, he was almost like, he was like, no, you tried.
It was like a Jedi mind trick. He was Jaden Daniels on the RPO, like, just reading the defense.
He saw you out of the corner of his eye, and he jumped out of the way. And I don't know.
If it was Mahomes, the referees would have called it, me for a while. Yeah, he would have flopped right into the cake.
Even though I didn't talk. Yeah, he knew the cake was coming.
No, but like Harrison, like, he asked my wife,

he said, like, after all

this, he asked her, when was your first wet dream?

Like, the kid's obviously

confused. She's like,

no. She answered, it was

1996, which is bad news for me.

No, so anyway, these kids have a lot of

questions. I don't know if I could help out, but

I'm not allowed. Wait, how old is Harrison now? He just turned 11.
This feels early. What's going on in Manhattan beach? Oh, I don't know.
Is that early? Yeah. Oh, just, I remember I was reading a Judy Blume book when I was a kid.
Remember Judy Blume? Yeah, sure. And there was a wet dream reference in the book and my dad was driving and I was reading the book and the pastor scene i was like dad what's a wet dream like i didn't know and he was like i was like steering traffic i think that's what aj brown was reading on the sideline it's inner excellence how did you find out i mean to friends and everything else but was there like i do remember going to like a parent i think it was fifth grade like a where somebody stood in the next one? I mean, to friends and everything else, but was there like, I do remember going to like a parent night.
I think it was fifth grade,

like a,

where somebody said,

I don't remember.

I just don't remember school talking about this.

Just health class.

Not until middle school.

Yeah.

I remember like eighth grade was when,

uh,

when that dialogue started.

So anyway,

you're banned from this parent night so far.

I don't know what I have to do to prove myself,

but what are people on the chat? This YouTube chat's kind of fun. Yeah.
Somebody said it's called Embarrassing the Children 101. My parent corner, I took Ben to UFC last night.
Nice. It was at the Intuit Dome where the Clippers play, which is my favorite arena.
I sound like I'm a show for it. Oh, you love it was at the Intuit Dome where the Clippers play which is my favorite arena I sound like I'm a show fan I've loved it the whole time I'm in I love it and running a Corolla and Corolla's all excited and I'm with Ben and see Corolla and Corolla's like I got a special special guest.
It is a special guest. You're going to be surprised.
I'm like, is it Joe Biden? He's like, not as high as Joe Biden, but high. Almost as high.
I'm like, all right. And it was Kevin Costner.
We're in this row and Carolla is sitting between Kevin Costner and Mel Gibson. A couple seats down is Anthony Kiedis, the Red Hot Chili Peppers lead singer.
And sitting next to him is my son, Ben, because we were in this row of seats. And he's just like talking to the Red Hot Chili Peppers guy, watching UFC.
And it's like the greatest, greatest night of his life. Like, because he's been waiting for this UFC card forever.
And I was like, this is pretty cool. Like, I'm glad, um, you know, we, we spend a lot of time together, obviously, but I was like, I'm glad we could do this.
And he's really pumped. It's nice.
So just when I think it had, we've peaked Pereira's there, uh, like our favorite guy sitting over to the left. So now he's like staring him down and he's like, how do we get the picture? How do we like, we're just trying to figure out the prayer picture, but he's sitting and there's like a barrier in front of him.
There's people. And now I'm like, what happens if we go over? Do we do like get Ben in the selfie? Like, like how do we do it? And also the guy doesn't speak English.
There's no way he knows who I am. am like and ended up bailing on it and not being able to do it but like for the last two hours just trying to figure out can we get the prayer picture like this sort of that so then we found out after that frank ocean was there who is like one of ben's favorite artists who never leaves his house he's like that like a recluse And it was like, he was there too.
So Ben's like,

maybe it's not true because he saw it on like

freaking Snapchat or wherever.

So we're leaving after

and we're in the bottom

where all the cars are.

And O'Malley's coming out

and he's dressed like a crazy person

in a good way.

Ben's like,

this is it.

We got to get in.

So we get the O'Malley picture. So it was a level B.
It was great. It was one of the best pictures he's gotten.
But we didn't get Pereira. How should we have attacked the Pereira picture, in your opinion? Well, how far away was he? He was like, we were on one thing.
So he was like probably 90. We were sitting at six o'clock.
He was at nine o'clock, basically. I think you just got to ambush him.
I hate to say it. You got to just be that fanboy.
He had a huge guy next to him. Like huge, scary guy next to him.
And that guy wouldn't recognize you. And he was really into it because Hill and Yuri were fighting.
So he was like locked in like a motherfucker for that fight because he's beaten both those guys. Yeah.
Maybe you corralled Mel Gibson to put them in some kind of chokehold, like the weapon two or something that the, the bodyguard and then we should go real quick. Well, then he came over to take a picture with Mel.
So that was another thing where, so he was like 15 feet away, but there was like 10. So we just couldn't pull it off.
Yeah. But that was the most, that was the single most exciting celebrity that I've seen been from an excitement standpoint that we've That we've been in the same room with.
And we went to a lot of cool wrestling events. You were with us for a couple of months.
Yeah, he had a Bella girl twerking about... We had Nikki Bella twerking.
Eight feet from him. Two feet from us.
Where does it... So one to 10, what's wrestling? What's UFC for him? Live.
UFC is a 10 right now. Right.
Wrestling was a 10 when he was like from age six to age 10. Yeah, now it's like a five.
UFC is like a full complete 10. But the funny thing with Pereira, because part of it was, you know, if it's like an actor, right? If it was like whoever, you'd be like, all right, we go over like, you know, they'll do it.
But Pereira is just as intimidating when you're just watching him just exist as when he's in the ring. He was just motionless staring at the two guys.
And he doesn't move. It's like watching Michael Myers.
So it's not like the number one guy you just want to be like, hey, buddy, can I get a picture? Because it looks like he's just about to kill somebody at all times. I was riveted by him.
Yeah, like Nick Diaz has that look too, Nate Diaz, but he's also a little more approachable. I know it's just saying.
Pereira's locked in. The two best fights were Yuri and Hill.
That was just a savage. Light heavyweight is such a great weight class.
The guys just beat the shit out of each other other every punch or kick seems like it could end it and then Merab came out and just from the moment he came out he stole the show he had the crowd and the crowd was was for at least a couple of matches incredibly loud and really into it they were in with Merab like he had they were just like living and dying with every time he did it. It was great.
I had a great time. I'm glad the crowd was good.
The main event sucked. That wasn't their fault.
Well, they had to move it around. Yeah, that was good.
I mean, that was supposed to be, he was supposed to be minus 450. Did anyone there, including you, after the Lions lost, put Talbot on a big Moneyline parlay with minus 1100.
Oh yeah. And he lost.
Oh, you did that? Yeah. Yes.
Yes. Yes.
He lost. He got killed.
But anyway. No, but that's great.
That's fun. And Adam, and he's a member of QAnon now, Ben? Adam, he came over a few times and he was progressively less sober each time and having a great time.
One of the funny things about UFC is after the fight, a guy loses. You know, in the crowd they'll cheer one guy or the other guy but then they lose and sometimes they'll interview the loser and the crowd is still booing the guy.
It's bad enough. lost.
He's like re-evaluating his career and it's like, let's bring him in and they're fucking booing him. Everyone becomes an Eagles fan all of a sudden.
Yeah. It's really, UFC is great.
It's like one of the best in-person things. The crowd's hilarious.
Everything about it is really good. I'm glad it worked there and I'm glad they kept it there.
I know they were talking about switching it because of what's happened in LA, but I'm glad they showed that it could work, and I'm glad it was a good day. It sounds a lot better than puberty night, that's for sure.
They properly did the whole, you know, they paid tribute and all that stuff. All right.
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Well, you're going to have to say peak plushness again. That came out like Collinsworth doing the pass rush.
Multiple people texted me today that he slowed down on pass rush. Yeah, he really enunciated it.
And kind of paused between the two words. Yeah, so you think somebody talked to him? Yeah, but then he was right back to pronouncing it incorrectly.
So there is good in the world. Well, that's it for the podcast.
That's it, man. That's it.
Next time I talk to you, yeah, guess the lines. We're just going to

play it out of pride, I guess. We'll still do it.

It'll be like the Pro Bowl.

Whatever. It's fun.
Hey,

you tried, kid. You really did.
I'm going to go on

a nice little run. What a win for you.

I'm very excited. I don't have to sweat out the

Super Bowl. It's funny you're wearing the Mets

hat. Yeah, you don't have to sweat out the Super Bowl,

the Cowboys, and neither of us

have to sweat out baseball because the Dodgers are just, I guess, going the next five World Series trying to figure it out and like we used to like the Dodgers, you know, we talked about the Yankees of the, you know, the whatever, the Jeter team and everything yeah, the 90s, early 2000s the Giambi, Kevin Brown and Randy Johnson. Yeah, hated it, you know, Pettit, all those guys, mostly and Jeter came through the farm system and like you respected that.
And now you just sign any free agent and you're like, alright, yep, tax us, whatever it is, we'll bring it back because Japanese players, Japan will take care of us. Which is printing money over in Japan.
They're going to spend money. Yeah.
So we're trying to figure out what the equivalent of that is, like with Dubai. If the Red Sox signed three players from Dubai...
Right, like a lefty reliever from Dubai who becomes the most popular person in Dubai. Yeah, who cares if they're any good? You got all Dubai watching and spending money on them.
Well, the other thing we thought of was how the Seattle Mariners really missed this because they had Ichiro. They were way ahead of the game.
They knew how much this stuff's worth and they should have just been like, we're the Japanese-American team. They screwed up.
Everyone in that country will root for the Mariners. They will associate their best guys with us and we'll just overpay for every guy.
And instead, they just gave that to the Dodgers. Yeah, you're right.
And that's a good spot for, you know, Asian Americans, like, they'll flourish there. That would have been a good spot.
Yeah, they lost their basketball team, but that might have been the second worst decision, not capitalizing on that. They had it.
Each row was huge. Yeah.
Well, anyway, so we're not going to have to care about baseball. I'm on the fence.
I might drop out of League of Dorks. No.
I haven't been talking about it. No way.
Yeah, it's just, it's too hard. It's just too old.
What do you mean? What, do you have to change your lineup multiple times a week? No, it's just that we haven't won in a few years. It makes me feel bad about myself.
I really want to reevaluate some of my fantasy league stuff. I've been too many fantasy football leagues.
You love the guillotine though, right? The guillotine's good. Guillotine was good.
That's tight. Yeah.
Guillotine was good. I think we have to figure out our version of that, but have you gotten sad about no football yet? Yeah.
I'm starting to get like, you know, no, no three team teasers anymore. Right.
Unless you use Ohio State or something. Oh yeah.
It must be like Yeah, that's another milestone part of my year where it gets very sad. What are you going to do? We'll be back.
I was thinking about it. Yeah, we are going.
If FanDuel comes through, we're going to the Masters. That's a challenge.
I think they will. I think they're going to come through.
I think they will. Well, the thing we're having, we have a very special guest coming with us this year potentially is it Kevin Costner? no it's going to be James Babydoll Dixon I love it now you said he wasn't as excited as when he got the invitation as you thought he should be it's a weird one he always clears it with the wife he won't just say yes he'll say it's a it it's a hesitant.
Yes. I will let you know for sure tonight because he's, he's, and he's very happily married.
I think this is one of the reasons he never makes decisions where I'm going away for a week without making it a collaborative effort. It's something to aspire to, or you can just call him a giant wuss.
Like, I don't know which side you want to be on that you want to be on I think the reason he does it more than anything is because he knows you and I can maybe talk about it on the podcast and then he can maybe play it back to her like you see sweetheart, you see what I did it's all for you it's going to be fun I'm going to push him into a cake if I see one. I can't wait.
Well, it's watching him in the Masters on Augusta without a cell phone is going to single-handedly bring me out of the funk of that we started out here in January, where it just seems like this is going to be the worst year ever. But now it's like giving me hope and strength.
Because you have to give your cell phone at the front, but I know he's going to bring like three cell phones. He'll have one in his shoe.
He'll have almost like when people in prison movies put a shank in their shoe. He'll have an iPhone in his shoe somehow.
There's no way he's not going to have a phone for eight hours. That's where I'll pounce.
I'll blow the whistle on him right there. I'm like, hey, he's got his phone in his shoe.
Check him on my tire. Keep checking him.
Yeah, he does do that because we've been to movie premieres and not movie premieres, but like concerts or something where you have to check your phone in that pouch and you go through it and everything and then like 20 minutes away, he's like, baby, I'm not going to let them fucking take that, you fucking kid. I'm like, what are you talking about? You're in the same line as me.

How did you just pull that off?

So if he does check the phone, but he'll have a pack of cigarettes.

Yeah, that was my next question for you.

One pack or two?

He'll just have one, right?

They let you do that?

You could blow smoke as Scotty Scheffler's doing his back swing.

Yeah, you're outdoors.

Yeah.

Yeah, Nephi Kyle, he smoked. He smoked in the Masters.
Yeah, he was very excitedly. He loved it.
Yeah, because you're not holding a phone. I might start smoking too.
There's so many great possible variables. It's really giving me strength.
Like him getting super golf analyst-y as we watch guys in the sixth hole and him repeatedly telling us how hard the shot is and doing all that stuff. It's going to be great.
You shoving him into the gallery. It's going to be good.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's got this nine.
Yeah, look at Rory's losing that nine iron. Now, he could probably make my my nine iron better.
It's a higher quality.

He might be able to use his

more skillfully, but mine's better.

Mine's

made in Prague.

We're going to have fun.

We'll be good. He might leave early.

He might actually leave early.

What do you mean?

I might drive him so crazy that he's just

on a plane. It foregoes the last couple of days.
When was the last time you were in a house with him? It was one of the bachelor parties. Might've even been James.
Like a while. We're talking like 10, 12 years ago.
Yeah, exactly. So he's going to have to demand he stays in a house that has a lock on the bedroom door that he's in.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because otherwise, horrible things are going to probably

happen to him. I have a fun video where I

threw water on him when he was taking a nap. Remember

that one? It was like at a bachelor party,

and I'm like, baby, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

He's like, what the fuck you mean? You're kidding.

I'm soaking wet.

Oh, man. All right.
Cuz, congrats

on the Guess the Line's title this year.

Thank you, buddy. Good job by you.
Come by next year. You'll be right there with me.
Good job by you, bud. That's it for the podcast.
Thanks to Kyle and Sarutin Gahal for producing. Remember, you can watch all the stuff we do on this podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel.
And we'll also be, I think, starting in February, officially, we'll be a video podcast on Spotify, so only a couple weeks left until that happens new rewatchables, rewatchables mailbag going Monday night so stay tuned for that, that will also be on the Ring of Movies YouTube channel as well and as for the schedule for this podcast probably not a podcast on Tuesday night, but definitely two more podcasts over the course

of the, uh, of the week. So that's the schedule.
You will hear from me at some point midweek.

Stay safe. I never want to say I don't have feelings with them.
On the wayside, I'm a bruised son. Never want to say I don't have feelings with them.
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