True Super Bowl Contenders, RIP Niners, Savior Penix, and the End for Rodgers (But Not for Russ) with Cousin Sal

coming up Thanksgiving weekend football. Always fun.
Cousin Sal next. This episode is brought to you by Paramount+.
Your next family crime saga obsession is coming this March to Paramount+. Mobland, an explosive new series from the underworld of Guy Ritchie.
It stars Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, and Helen Mirren. Go inside the Harrigan crime family who will stop at nothing to ensure they come out on top in a war that threatens to topple empires and destroy lives.
Don't miss new episodes of Mobland, now streaming on Paramount+. This episode is brought to you by the Wells Fargo Active Cash Credit Card.
This is an ad for the Active Cash Credit Card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in.
Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game with your mom or grabbing a coffee with your dog, earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases made with it.
Say it with me. The active cash credit card from Wells Fargo.
Learn more at wellsfargo.com forward slash active cash. Terms apply.
We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. You can watch all the clips and videos from the Bill Simmons podcast on my YouTube channel.
It's called the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. So I'm not sure we're going to have a rewatchables podcast this week.
I know. I know.
We've had a pretty good streak. It was just a variety of things that happened over the last eight, nine days.
And it just, like, we lost our studio. Thanksgiving week.
I have a bunch of stuff at the beginning this week, and it just doesn't look like we're going to be able to tape a podcast. So we might take the week off.
But here's the thing. We've done, I think, 365 movies.
A bunch of them are on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel. We have seven years worth of podcasts to listen to.
And I would just encourage you to go back if you miss us on the rewatchables, just go back and listen to one of the old ones. Or you can watch Yacht Rock, a documentary on Max

because that documentary premiered on

Friday and people loved it. I was

fired up. People really

liked it and it's doing well.

And you can just go, instead of listening

to the Rewatchables, just go

watch our Yacht Rock documentary.

But I apologize. We'll be back

next week. I'm also going to be in Denver with

Brasillo this week. We were doing a live show.
It's already sold out but really look forward to going. I think we're going to the Nuggets game on Tuesday night as well to see Jokic in his own domain in Denver.
So that's going to be super fun. Coming up on this podcast, Cousin Sal and I are going to break down everything that happened today and across the week.
Always a strange three Thursday games,

a Friday game, all the Sunday games.

So we're going to try to remember everything that happened,

see where it stands and where it's headed.

It's all next.

First, our friends from Pro Jam. We are live on YouTube.
We are live on the BS Podcast. Cousin Sal is here.
It is 8.15 p.m. Feels a little early for us on a Sunday night, right? Yeah, they did a nice job of just running and running and running the ball so that we can get out early and talk about the sloppy, sloppy game.
But, Bill, forget Hallie Steinfeld. I'm going to marry Josh Allen right now.
He threw a pass and he caught it for a TD, Mike, say play. I've never seen that.
I don't care if my son Jack is freezing his balls off on the field. I'm going to marry that Josh out.
You watch. My son Jack is like Jack Torrance freezing to death in a chair.
Yeah, Snow, second time in a week and a half for us. It felt a little less special after Brown Steelers, still really fun do you like it you like the game i don't i don't know it's i mean after we watched football for 10 hours it was fun to have a wrinkle of a game that actually looked a little bit different and the big thing was this mccaffrey them playing him in those conditions and yeah we don't know we're we're taping this and we don't know how badly he got hurt, but he limped off.
It didn't look great. There were injury doctors.
Yeah, there were injury doctors studying, did his calf jiggle and all this stuff. But I don't know why they played him.
It wasn't a game. I thought they really had a lot of a chance to win.
Buffalo was like a touchdown favorite.

It wasn't a game that necessarily made or broke their season because they have a bunch of stuff later.

And it just felt like even watching it,

I was surprised they didn't talk about it more in the lead up to the game

than the first quarter, right?

Because he didn't seem healthy the last couple of weeks.

I think the problem with these games,

well, first of all, with these snow games, it's like

it's either going to be

6-3, right?

Which is kind of disappointing

or it's going to be like we just saw where everybody

is sliding for nine yards.

This is backyard football

right now. So I think they put him

in there because they know, I mean, who's better

at quick stepping through holes

than McCaffrey if that's going to be the game.

If he's healthy. Yeah.
I mean, he was looking good

early on, but yeah, they got

Thank you. him in there because they know, I mean, who's better at quick stepping through holes than McCaffrey if that's going to be the game.

If he's healthy. Yeah.
I mean, he was looking good early on, but yeah, they got

smoked. I mean, Josh Allen's just

perfect for that one.

Tough fantasy thing

if you had him. You're counting

on him for a Sunday night. Tough

for the Niners fans. The year from hell is

officially happening, but I was thinking

playing McCaffrey in that kind of weather. It would have did you have for Thanksgiving? 20.
So if you said, hey, all the relatives over 70, let's all start doing shots. Somebody would have said, bad idea.
Yeah, but we did it anyway. It was Zappel Snyder.
McCaffrey and the Snow, same thing. Yeah.
I was trying to think, if Achilles is trending on Twitter, which it was today, would he have been the minus 400 for Achilles trending on a Sunday? I would add him, a couple other suspects, people who have already had Achilles injuries like Rodgers, Kevin Durant, but I think he would have been the favorite. That's a really good...
We bet on that, something like that, like trending topics, like if sucking the life out of a team is, all right, Aaron Rodgers, minus 3,500, or is it Bryce Young? No, he was actually good today. Well, they just have the word.
Sometimes it'll just be like Rogers and you just know something bad happened. This one, Achilles, not great.
My wife waited. My wife came in and watched some of the games.
She thought the weather was unfair. She thought it was an advantage for Buffalo and she doesn't understand why they would want to have advantages in the games.
And I was like, well, that's why we have the phrase home field advantage. She's like, but why wouldn't they build, it snows in Buffalo every year.
She went to school in upstate New York. She's like, it's the weather's terrible.
Why wouldn't they have like a stadium with a roof? I was like, no, you don't get it. That's, they actually want this.
This is great for them. Like they have this team from Northern California coming in and playing in shitty conditions.
That's what you want if you're a Bills fan, right? Absolutely. No doubt about it.
You went to college up there. I mean, you saw some of this.
The second place team is the Dolphins. We saw enough, you know, they were learning Buffalo this week, but we know that strategically, that's of course how you do it.
Yeah. I went up that lake effect snow is a real goddamn thing.
They'll have the advantage for as long as I mean, they've never sucked in the snow, right? So that's all you need to know. It just feels like Allen, snow, home, night game.
I put Buffalo, I had them in a couple teases. It just seemed like I'd be shocked if this didn't somehow work out for them.
I, I'm starting to see from your demeanor, something bad might have happened today. No.
Are you sure? What do you mean? Did you see me trending? Everything go okay? No, they were fine. I had a battle back.
I mean, I know this is not the way to do it, but Ohio State just crushed me. I thought that I had a four-team Moneyline parlay.
But I'm thankful because had the Lions blown it like they should have, maybe. Had the Chiefs blown it like they should have, I would have doubled and tripled up on an Ohio State Moneyline parlay with something else.
My only loser was the Ravens and I know we'll get to that, but that was such a bummer of a game. That was my only loser, too.
I did well today. Got a little luck.
I felt like some of the 50-50 games swung my way. Really glad I didn't have any money in that Tampa game because that seemed like a nightmare, even though they covered.
Buffalo going 10-2 now. They're still in the two seed.
Pittsburgh now 9-3. Two up in the loss column over Baltimore and yet the odds for

that division are

kind of weirdly close

for where I thought that was going to be.

Steelers are only like

plus 125 and Baltimore

is plus 155.

Oh yeah, Pittsburgh is minus 155.

Baltimore is plus 125.

They play each other again and they both

have that weird Saturday-Wednesday-Saturday Christmas game combo combo and I don't think they know how to do the odds for that no I think you're right but looking and you look at the same games I do I think the Steelers home for the Browns next week is the last time they're going to be favored right so that's why I think it's so tight but I don't even know what with the Ravens. Well, save that because I want to talk to Ravens.
So Pittsburgh has Cleveland home, then at Philly, at Baltimore on a Saturday. Underdog, yeah.
Casey home Christmas, and then home Cincinnati week 18. Baltimore is a bye.
They have the Giants away, Pittsburgh home, Houston home on Christmas, Cleveland home. So they finished with three in a row.
The reason I bring this up in the context of Buffalo is because I really want that two seed if I'm in the AFC. And Buffalo right now is the game advantage.
And it feels like Pittsburgh, Baltimore, however this plays out, I don't think either of those teams catches Buffalo the way this is going.

Buffalo, they put a pass to race.

You're saying you want the two.

I want the two seed. I want to play Denver

or whoever as the seventh seed

in that first game.

I want a home game.

I want the 2-3 in the

second round, potentially. The two

seed sounds great if I'm Buffalo.

Absolutely. We saw what Buffalo did to

Pittsburgh at home last year.

They canceled the game 14 times

I'm Buffalo. Absolutely.
And we saw what Buffalo did to Pittsburgh at home last year, right? They canceled the game 14 times and then finally played it and they won by two touchdowns. It'd be similar to, maybe not similar to what we saw today.
But yeah, you definitely want home field if you're an outdoor team like that. Well, yeah, and especially this year with that seven seed.
But they're also a game behind KC, who, you know, that Black Friday game feels like it happened five weeks ago. But KC, just yet another pulling it out of their assholes game.
They're somehow 11-1. Nobody feels good about it.
This last one really feels like of all the... Isaiah likely is a 10 on a scale of 1-10 of I Can't Believe You won that game.
The foot on the line. Black Friday was probably like an 8.
It was the Raiders. It was Antonio Pierce.
It was Aiden O'Connell. There were things I didn't love about it if you're scared for them losing, but they somehow steal it.
I have no idea how they're 11-1. They were doing these stats about how it's happened four times

ever where a team has won this many

games by seven points

or less. They're already making history

and there's four weeks left. Yeah, their point

differential should be about

plus 330 and I think it's plus

54. But I have a

bigger statement to make. I think, Kyle, can you

turn on the MySpace camera right now? I feel... did he turn it on? It's always hard to tell.
The Chiefs will be the first great team whose legacy is affected by their impact on gambling. I feel like no one back in the day would care if the 70s Steelers or the 80s 49ers covered the spread, but it's a big deal now.
And even though they won on Friday, games like that leave a bad taste in your mouth that I feel like they're a great team, but they're not going to be remembered like your Patriots are, even if they get to that many Super Bowls. Like, damn it, I just couldn't win money off of them.
I could never do it. I don't know why.
So many people bet on them. That's just how it is these days.
It's a great point. I looked it up because in our picks pool that we have, I would never bet on the Raiders.
That line was so high. It was 12 and a half.
And I was like, man, it just doesn't seem like the Chiefs are reliable double figures over anybody. What have they been like the last couple of years? You go back this year and last year and it's just, they don't have a lot of blowout wins.
It's not like the typical, like a game like today where Buffalo just beats hell out of somebody. But they have a way of hanging around and just figuring it out.
We've been talking about it for months and months. It was somebody who texted.
I'm blowing this. Some friend texted me.
Probably Hanch. Just say Hanch.
I'm sure it was. No, because this is a wrestling thing.
He wouldn't know. Oh, yeah.
It's the Chiefs that become a wrestling finish team. Oh.
Where it's like, remember Hogan in the mid 80s? And every Hogan match was the same for five years where the guy would beat him up, beat him up. Then he would hulk up and the guy would beat him up again.
Then he'd'd hulk up again and be like, oh, maybe this is the time he's not going to win. And then suddenly he'd flip it, he'd do the leg drop, and he'd win.
That's kind of what the Chiefs have been doing for two years now. Interesting.
See, I'd compare it to a weird finish, like a roll-up from behind when the referee's not looking or when the manager distracts the guy. It's like, oh, crap.
Oh, like a Mr. Fuji salt in the face kind of finish? Oh, how did they pull that out? That's ridiculous.
The crowd was pumped. It was heat.
Yeah, something like that. Yeah, salt to the eyes.
You've been doing a lot of media. You were up today.
What were we doing our Sunday pregame? 11 o'clock? You were on there, yeah. I came on at 9 o'clock.
I had like

an hour, but you've been doing a lot

of media today. We have been

doing really well on the pregame show

and John Jastrzemski is just

becoming the weak link. I don't know what we do.

Do we whack him?

Do we do it like Pesci

style? Hey, JJ,

you're getting made. You're in the ringer.

You're getting made. He just walks in a room.

There's just plastic on the floor. He ruined

everybody hit the same game. Touchdown bed today.
Anytime touchdown. Three for four.
Nope. JJ and Kenneth Walker.
What do we do? Do we pull him for a week? Do we bench him? Do we bring in another host? What do we do? I'm going to laugh extra hard because you have no idea how seriously he's going to take this. I know.
Yo, bro, was he serious? He's not going to have a great sense of humor about this. And I love him.
But yeah, I don't know. JJ, we're kidding.
I mean, Bill's not kidding, but I'm kidding. No, it is good.
It's good to have a common barometer for the normal betting as we ascend above with all of our griffiths. No, I feel like he'll turn around.
In general, I said it when I was on the show today, the gravitating toward the bad teams, especially this time of year, unless it's like a straight money line play like the Panthers. I just like House was saying, should we throw the Tennessee in the T's? It's like, I don't want to put Tennessee.
I had never put them in the T's. I don't trust Will Levis.
That would have been over before. There's certain teams that are just like, I don't trust.
I get it, but there is some value. Like, my best bet was your Patriots over 20 and a half.
Like, I don't want to have to worry if they won or something. I know, but for God's sakes, we should have had that in the second quarter, right? Yeah.
But the two touchdowns called back and missed field goals and everything else. So, there's a little bit of value.
It's scary because most of the time you're rooting for bad quarterbacks,

but your quarterback is damn good.

I'm sure you've set aside 20 minutes for this.

No, I didn't.

We're not going to talk about it today.

I will say I was happy that you were rooting for the Pats to get to 20 points

and got to see what we've seen all year with that Pats team,

with the coaching and the strategy.

And like Drake, man, every time we went back to pass, it was just a 9 to 15-yard completion of somebody. Or he would just run for 40 yards.
And then they're like, you know what, we're just going to hand the ball off now for another 10 minutes. Well, he saw a soft zone and I'm sure he would love to see that every week, and he got the ball out of his hand quickly, like two and a half seconds or less the whole time.
But I do want to ask you, I know you root against him at this point because you want a better draft pick. A 68-yard field goal would have been pretty cool.
It was moronic. It was some 30 degrees outside.
Where are the odds going to make that? It almost made it. He missed it by seven yards.
He did? Yeah. I's close.
I would rather do the Hail Mary. 85%.

It landed seven yards in front of the goalpost,

which means to actually clear it.

I must have seen it when it bounced.

Nobody's making that.

There's not a kicker in the league that can make that.

Saruti texted us during this that Shanahan said McCaffrey

has probably a season-ending PCL injury,

so it's a knee injury.

Oh, no.

Ah, Jesus.

Tough one.

That's really good. The official year from hell for the Niners, and somehow they are not out of it.
One more Bill's Niners topic is this now feels like Allen's MVP to lose. And I feel like we've used the MVP to lose, dot, dot, dot, with different players this year, but now there's only five weeks left in the season.
He's going to be a one or a two seed, which is one of the things that usually has it. It just seems like the way Lamar played today and the Ravens played today, and they have five losses, he's got two.
I don't know who's taking that from him. Goff's not going to get it.
Well, here's what's interesting. The odds are out, and I think you're right.
Lamar kind of played himself out of it today. Goff had that five interception game.
And even though he's been good since, he doesn't seem to be able to crawl back in. Mahomes is too far behind.
Barkley, this is going to be the narrative right now. He's plus 500.
He's second to Josh Allen, who's minus 230. You know, I know we talked about it last week and I read some good pieces just in general about how MVP works, and then I forget who made the point, and I was just like, shit, I wish I'd said so this week ago.
I know Barkley's having a great year, but we can't say he's the MVP of the league. If you just removed him and put an average running back in the Eagles attack, I still think they're a playoff team.
If you removed Josh Allen and let's give them, I don't know who's, who's like the 20th QB. Let's give them Tyrod Taylor.
Are they a 500 team? Probably not. No.
I think the Eagles would be a playoff team no matter who their running back was as good as Barkley's been so I think to me it's more of an offensive player of the year and I hate the MVP conversation where it's always like QB has to win QB has to win but we just have too much evidence how crazy valuable the QB is and everything Allen does I don't know how he is an MVP. He touches the ball every snap.
He has more opportunity to screw up. Obviously, he has more opportunity to produce numbers too.
But yeah, I think you're right. But two things working against Barkley.
He's a running back and two, he's part of a team that has the best most effective play in all of sports, which is the tush push. And he's not a part of it.
Yeah, he's not a factor in it. So what are you going to do? That said, if he breaks the record, maybe he should be considered.
If he gets the 600 yards, whatever he needs, next four games. Who's your craziest, I know this guy can't win the MVP, but he deserves, there should be some sort of separate award for what he's doing this year, God.
Because mine is Baker Mayfield, who is 201 to an MVP and just feels like week after week, you know, there was that month-long stretch when he just had no weapons. He couldn't name a single receiver that he had.
You know, rookie running back. Their line is,, the guys are hurt.
Their left tackle's out. It just feels like he's running for his life every three plays.
Even today against Carolina, I have no idea how they won that game. But it feels like week to week, he's just dragging that team to whatever the potential of the team is, which isn't high.
It's a good one. And I feel like he should be higher than 201 to 1.
Absolutely. Great energy he brings.
Now, he got hurt for a minute and then came in and threw a bad interception, but he fought them back into the game. I would say if I have to pick someone from that, Joe Burrow, because he's losing games at it.
Just statistically, like if you look at Brady's numbers when he put up those numbers versus Burrow, Brady was like 22-1, and Burrow was like 3-9 or something. I don't know what's going on.
Probably can't give him MVP. Burrow's been saddled with the worst defense in either conference.
It's incredible. It's just over and over again, it feels like they're down 17 points.
All right, break for the podcast. This episode is brought to you by Intuit TurboTax.
Taxes was waiting and wondering and worrying. It's almost like how in the old days of fantasy football, we used to have to tally the scores on a Monday and then the commissioner would just mail them out to everybody and you'd wait three days to see if you won.
Those were the old ways of doing it. Now taxes is matching with a TurboTax live full service expert who gives your taxes their undivided attention.
They can file your taxes as soon as today. And while they do, you get real time updates on their progress, meaning you can get back to what's important, the game.
Now this is taxes into a TurboTax. Get an expert now on TurboTax.com.
This episode is brought to you by Mint Mobile. While you can always dream about winning big with the lotto, there's stuff you can do right now to get more money in your pocket.
Who doesn't love more money? I remember in the late 90s, I had my own website. I was making money from that.
I was also bartending. I was waitering.
And I still was scrambling. And I started writing for some wrestling magazines for a few months.

That's the thing.

You got to keep the side hustles going.

You got to make extra money any way you can.

Another great way to save money, switch your wireless carrier to Mint Mobile.

Premium wireless plans starting $15 a month.

All their plans come with unlimited talk and text on the nation's largest 5G network. You can even bring your own phone.
If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans at mintmobile.com slash bill.
That's mintmobile.com slash bill. Upfront payment of $45 for a three-month, five-gigabyte plan required, equivalent to $50 a month.
New customer offer for first three months only. Then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra.
See Mint Mobile for details. Next topic.
I wanted to play some, I had some questions. Speaking of the Ravens, same old Ravens or brand new Eagles if you had to pick one? Because something felt a little different about that that Eagles game especially defensively that was the most excited I've been about their defense in two years on the flip side Ravens you know 9-0 missing PAT lose momentum for whatever reason fall behind and it's a team that sometimes when they're behind, I just feel like the game's

over and they can't move the ball.

All of a sudden, it feels like they only have one receiver.

Lamar is just

running around.

You just watch it going, I feel like

I've seen this game and bet on it

20 times, and now I'm here again.

So which one would you go? Same old Ravens

or brand new Eagles?

I don't want to give the Eagles any credit. I gave them enough just saying they have the most effective play in sports.
But I'm going to say, I'm a cynic, I'm going to say same old Ravens. But for different reasons.
Like, it doesn't make any sense. Like, they got the best free agent of the offseason, right? Henry and Barkley are 1A and 1B.
And now, with Henry, they can close out games. They have leads.
And it's all negated because the greatest kicker of our generation thinks it's funny to bang every boot into the upright. It doesn't really make any sense, does it? How are they going to lose because of this kicker? Well, that was part of it.
But I felt like he was getting an unfair... Really? He cost them seven points.
Yeah. They couldn't cover A.J.
Brown during a huge swath of that game where it just felt like he was tearing them up. I don't know what they were doing offensively with some of the play calling.
As usual, they only had one receiver. Aguilar had his typical huge drop at a really pivotal moment.
I just didn't think the whole team played well. And if Tucker had made all those points, well, except for them.
Am I looking at that? They gave up 252 total yards. Because the offense had the ball a lot, but didn't seem to ever be really doing anything with it.
Right. Yeah, I know.
I know. But it felt like when they're up 9-0, 10-0, it felt like they were just going to...
That's when they should be putting teams away and it went the opposite way on them. Yeah.
Four loss team, up 9-0 at home. Got the fans on their side.
I still don't understand the kicking because it all led to everything else. Then they had to go for it on fourth and eight because he missed those field goals and gave the Eagles good field position, whatever.

But that tush push is really like, do you know of anything else like in sports?

Like if a bunt down the first baseline worked every single time or if like a corner kick

in soccer or like if you deflected a wrist shot in hockey that went in the net every

time.

I don't know.

I don't think that we've seen anything like it.

I'm trying to think. It's almost like Kareem Skyhook is the only thing I could think of.
Yeah, maybe. And even that wasn't nearly as reliable.
They false start and fumble and still got it and scored. Right.
Forget it. It's over.
Tucker cost them seven points. It was his first three-miss game ever.
Yeah. For the season, though, not as bad as I thought.
It feels like they're all loud misses. He's 19 for 27 as a kicker.
It's pretty run-of-the-mill average. I don't think Koo in Atlanta is better than that.
I like that when you said a loud miss. Do you mean literally loud? It feels like every miss really resonated.
It wasn't just like, oh, it's a random miss. They're up 16 in the fourth quarter.
It's like every miss felt like it was this pivotal momentum swing in a game. But it's also actually loud.
He's 42 for 44 in PATs. It's not like he's missed a million.
Right. So he's missed 10 kicks total.
And yet I think I remember nine of them. You know, it's been one of those seasons.
So I didn't like how they played though. I feel like if you're up, give that kind of lead at home.
Sure. Against a team, Hurts finishes 11 for 19 for 118 yards, nine for 29 rushing.
You just told me those stats. I'm like, oh, the Ravens won.
The explosiveness, other than Zay Flowers or a big Lamar scramble, just doesn't seem to be there unless Henry can bust through. But I really thought the Eagles' defense was excellent.
And their D-backs that they drafted, Jalen Carter, the fact that he fell to them going back two years ago when all those teams passed on him. They didn't have Brandon Graham today.
They still looked like they didn't miss him. But I thought from what we saw, what are their

NFC odds? Because we talked about this

on the Sunday pregame today.

Oh, shit. So they were plus 750

after...

I remember looking at that at Thanksgiving

after Detroit, who I want to talk about

in a second. And I was like,

man, Detroit feels vulnerable.

I wonder who the... And it's like Philly.
They weren't 750. Packers were plus 750.
Now they're 7-1. And Philly, I think, was plus 350.
Now they're plus 250. That's what it was.
That makes sense. Yeah, yeah.
So Philly's now plus 250. And only a game back still from Detroit.
I know. And you know what? I know everyone wants them, but while they have to get the home field, I just think if that running game is working, they'll win anywhere.
I hate to say it. In spite of this coach, it's really everything is working out perfectly for them.
The coach, it seemed... I remember making a joke on Twitter in September about being ready to try to bring him in for the ringer, toast the ringer Philly special after he got fired.
It seemed like it was going to be a wrap. Was it on the chain with you? We were talking about has a coach like this made a comeback before? Yeah, I'm sure it's happened.
Well, they've won eight straight and now you look at their last five. Carolina home, Pittsburgh home, Washington on the road, Dallas home, Giants home.
Pittsburgh's probably the toughest of those five. But they have a chance that it'd be 13 in a row heading into the playoffs as a two-seed or a one-seed.
I was not expecting that in September. Yeah, they're over on their 13 and a half, and the over's minus 245.
So they're going to have two or three losses. Ravens had the ball for 34 minutes.

They had 24 first downs. They outgained

the Eagles by 120 yards. Although a lot of those, that last

drive, they had the cheap drive at the end where they went like 80 yards

or whatever.

And they have five losses somehow, the Ravens.

Would you keep them in your Super Bowl circle

at this point if I gave you seven teams?

Yeah, I think you have to because I think we talked ourselves

and that's what I'm pretty sure they could win on the road. What would be their if they went to Buffalo

you would feel least confident? You could argue for them

if you're going to be a three seed.

Yeah. You could also

just be the five seed and go in and beat the hell

out of Houston in the four or five game.

Right. Right.
And then

hope a two seed or

a three seed loses. If they

don't, just go into KC in round

two when they haven't played a meaningful game in

like a month. Yeah.
Lose by one

Thank you. And hope a two-seater or a three-seater loses.
If they don't, just go into KC in round two when they haven't played a meaningful game in like a month.

Yeah, just try to win.

One score or win.

Okay, you know that's what it's going to be.

Well, our friends at FanDuel still have them with the best odds.

Detroit plus 290.

Buffalo 5-1.

KC plus 550. Eagles plus 550.
Ravens 10-1 KC plus 550 Eagles plus 550 Ravens 10-1 Packers 14-1 I think are the intriguing long shots. So that's it.
It's those six right? With a month left, would you say it's those I would put the Steelers in there. I think the Steelers with the coaching and the defense and the field goal kicker who's been the best guy in the league this year and the fact that they always seem to make two or three big plays.
There's always like a 40-yard play somewhere. I would have those seven and then I can't really make a case for any other team.
Nah, that's it. That's it, right? Yeah.
Chargers? You start looking at it and you're like, eh. I don't think that's it.
Yeah. That's it, right? Yeah.
Like chargers.

I,

you start looking at it and you're like,

eh,

I don't think that's it.

They were,

uh,

they were not good today.

I mean, you had the right side and everything,

but I think I told you,

I think I told you that game's going to be 15,

13,

the fourth quarter,

but it was actually 17,

13.

It was a little more conventional,

but same kind of stuff out of them.

Next topic. Next question.
Speaking of the Steelers, what were the Russell Wilson comeback part of the year odds? Because I feel like he already has it wrapped. Who is even in the mix? Who else would get it? Well, the odds are up.
Burrow has been favored for the last month, and he's even odds. And Kyla Murray just jumped ahead of Kirk Cousins now, plus 650.
How is Wilson Wilson not come back player of the year? He was dead last year. Denver paid $50 million in their cap to not have him play anymore.
And he didn't even start the season, and everybody thought Fields was going to be the starter. This guy, 414 yards, three touchdowns.
He threw a pick six because Pickens got interfered with. They didn't call it.
That was a red flag. Since he goes up 7-0, it's like that was PI.
He didn't call it. But I got to say, I thought he was done.
Didn't seem like he wanted to get hit last year. And he's kind of rejuvenated himself.
I mean, he's not awesome. I'm not saying he's Russ from 10 years ago, but for whatever they were expecting from him versus what he's delivering, it has to have surpassed it.
I'm all confused now with this. He played the full boat last year, right? Yeah, he was terrible.
I mean, he got benched for whoever. His career was over.
See, there's a whole discrepancy here whether you could win the award just because you sucked last year. I think you have to come back from an injury or some weird circumstantial.
But they still have odds on them. If you asked 100 football fans what's been the most surprising comeback in 2024, Russell Wilson wins the vote.
Yeah. Nobody was like, oh, you know who's going to be awesome in Pittsburgh? Russell Wilson.
I have a good feeling about this guy. I think he's going to be great.
He seemed like he was done. Wouldn't even think he'd start.
Yeah. Well, you know, I realize this, Sal.
The 2-7 could be Steelers-Broncos. Oh, wow.
Right. That's in play.
It would involve Buffalo would have to mess something up. Or Denver would somehow jump to six.
So maybe it could be a 3-6. But Steelers Broncos round one would be super fun.
Yeah. Wilson going against a team that paid him to leave.
And then he has to play him in the playoffs. So Tomlin coach of the year.
Do they have the odds for that? Yeah, so I was going to make a case for that. I don't know that we need to see.
Although we just went over their schedule and how tough it is the rest of the way. But I think he's the guy.
I mean, he's the favorite. They don't have odds up right now.
He would be my pick right now. I mean, the guy, the fact that he's got nine already, he refuses to go under 500.
He's so good after a loss. Just doesn't F up.
He really doesn't. Who else would it be? I think you could make a kiss for Sean McDermott, considering all the change that they had on that team with the coaching staff and some of the injuries.
O'Connell's up there. Yeah, O'Connell's done rejuvenating.
same. Yeah, he's definitely in there.
Maybe Dave Canales turning Carolina into a watchable team over the last five weeks. The kneecap fighter too, Dan Campbell.
I think he was first last week. No, that's a good one.
So, Wilson is 15-1 to win comeback part of the year. And Kirk Cousins is 7-1.

Yeah.

Is that true?

Yeah.

Kirk Cousins, who leads the league in interceptions,

is probably going to get benched at some point soon.

So Baltimore somehow still plus 125,

two wins behind the Steelers or two losses behind the Steelers. They have the game at home, right?

When they match up again, they play home. You mentioned the Bengals.
Is that the most disappointing team for you now? I think so. Their over-under was 10.5 wins, and they're 4-8.
Yes. I mean, the Niners aren't going to get to their over-under.
My team, of course, personally, I'm most disappointed in my team, I guess. But yeah, the fact that the Bengals and Ravens had 13 combined losses and the calendar just turned to December.
Jesus. It's rough, man.
It's rough. I don't know.
Lou Anaruma, everybody loved him, but I don't know if he's scheming the wrong way. But as much as we like Russ, you can't give up 414 to that guy.
You can't.

Last three games, they gave up

389 yards, 435,

510 today. Jesus.

They've given up 35, 34,

44 last three

games.

And they give up big plays.

I think Wilson had nine

10-plus yard passes.

Yeah.

It just felt like they were moving the ball downfield. But I don't know.
The Burrow thing's strange because he's, you know, he's one of the five or six best QBs by any calculation. He seems like if you were going to just draft QBs to try to win a Super Bowl, he'd be one of the first ones that went.
And usually when that happens, the team is at least, he pulls the team to nine wins, ten wins, no matter who's on the team. This is about as bad as you can do with a quarterback like that.
Yeah, how about six and six? I mean, just from a betting perspective, like if you back this team, you just get used to the idea that you're almost definitely going to have the better quarterback and they're going to lose because the defense is so bad. Well, I said that when I came on my picks today when I went on Ringer Sunday pregame.
I really feel like this Thanksgiving week is the week that teams have been trying to tell us who they are. And we're choosing just not to believe them, right? The Niners were like that.
The Bengals were like that. The Falcons were definitely like that for me.

But there's just, you hit this point,

and it's like there's no,

oh, maybe this will be the week.

Like we have a three-month track record

of behavior at this point.

Right.

You know?

The Saints were a team that I thought,

and we talked about it,

but it really feels like as soon as Taysom Hill is hurt,

injured, whatever, that team just completely

falls. Maybe he should have been an MVP candidate.

They hung around that Rams game.

They were winning, even near the

end, but that was the only...

I was trying to figure out, could there be like a 4-8,

3-6, 3-7

type team, but all of them got wiped out

this week. The Saints, Miami,

the Bengals.

I guess maybe Indianapolis would be

the only one that a team with a losing record that's still hanging around, but that's it. Anybody else? I'm with you.
No, I'm trying to think. Tampa Bay.
The Bears were another one. They're like, oh, maybe the Bears.
No. Yeah, everyone else is like six or six, and it makes sense that they are.
I mean, I guess San Francisco, oh, they were five. What were they, five and six or are they five and six now? Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know. No, I think you're right.
Nobody's coming from the depths. But New Orleans, I feel like with the coach, you have to see what the clogger did in the office, what he did earlier.
Like you don't have to see a picture, but I want to know before I bet on the Saints what kind of damage he did. Maybe he should tweet that out.
Yeah. He should.
Maybe he should do Mexican food the night before or something. A player is walking into the stadium like Cam Newton.
Oh, he's dialed in. He's got the fedora and the multicolored ascot.
It's the same thing for the clogger. So Michael Penix was trending on Twitter today.
Speaking of seeing things trending on Twitter and kind of being able to guess what the result was Kirk Cousins zero TDs, four picks including a pick six he was one away from the full DeLome he is now our interception leader at 13 I think your Darnold bets in jeopardy. And he can't move.

And they're 6-6

and it feels like they should be 2-10 or 3-9.

Here's my question.

So they

signed Cousins on March 11th

and the draft was like six weeks later.

Do you think they saw something in that

six weeks that made them think they had to draft a QB? What did they say? I don't know. They spent all that money on Cousins and then they got some sort of word between March 11th and near the end of the draft that, I know you paid for this guy, but did you know blank? Or they're working out with him.
I don't know. Because now I feel like Penix, if you put Penix on the team that we've been watching the last couple weeks and he's moving around, I actually think they'd have a better chance to win.
Well, I'll tell you what they may have seen. And it's a good point.
Because at that point in March, they're really just throwing the ball around and stuff if they're even doing that. But out of all the terrible quarterback metrics you just read, the one that you didn't was one that was kind of just invented.
The next-gen stat. That miles per hour one? The miles per hour.
Kirk Cousins must be like, what the fuck? There's another thing now? He did not throw over 36 miles an hour.

Minimum 20 attempts.

No one's ever done that in a freaking dome.

No one's ever done that before.

Yeah, I was trying to think.

36 miles an hour.

You couldn't throw a baseball pitch 36 miles an hour.

It's basically impossible.

No, it'd be hard.

Almost two. Yeah.

If I'm going 36 miles an hour on a 35 mile an hour street, I'm probably getting tailgated. Right.
You get a ticket for going slow. If I'm going 35 on the highway, I'm getting pulled over.
Yeah. Not one time did he unleash it.
So he's clearly not healthy. And he's been terrible for three straight games.

He has done a touchdown in three games.

Touchdown pass.

He's been sacked like seven times.

He has six picks.

It's the easiest pick six in the league

if you're throwing 30 miles an hour.

I mean, the charge is at 100, 187 yards.

Yeah.

With the three guys where he kind of like,

he lobbed it up like he was trying to

throw something on top of a Christmas tree. And like it was like him a contest for who's going to intercept it.
He was so bad in that game. Like that, honestly, they had no business losing that game and he single-handedly lost the game.
That was my takeaway from that game. They had no business winning.
The Chargers had 187 total yards on offense. And I commented that Cousins is throwing the ball like he's having a soft toss catch with his seven-year-old on Turkey Day, like a Turkey Day game in the backyard.
Like he's coming back from rotator cuff surgery. Right.
Chargers had 10 touchdowns. I'm sorry, 10 first downs.
10 touchdowns have been a lot. 10 first downs, 187 yards total.
But McConkie had 117 yards receiving.

So go figure that.

Number 29, I didn't have sound for that game.

I had that on the TV on the bottom left in my house.

I don't know who number 29 is, but he picked off.

He was all over the place.

Who was number 29?

Just some fan with a jersey.

Some guy?

Yeah. Just threw him a jersey?

Yeah.

But yeah, Atlanta had the ball for 36 minutes and somehow didn't win. I think they should start Penix next week.
To me, that's not even an overreaction. It's like they're 6-6.
They still, because they beat Tampa twice, they still have the division in their destiny. And there's no way you can think Cousins is going to turn this around at this point.
Why not play Penix? Just got to do it. You got to suck it up.
To me, it's like the Russell Wilson thing. Oh, no.
Hold on. They're at Minnesota.
This is an old team. That makes it worse.
I know. That's why we have to see it.
We have to see it. Next question.
Will you ever trust the old starting QB coming off a torn Achilles ever again after this season with Cousins and Rodgers?

Yes.

Can we now never trust that again now?

I'm trying to think if there's an age, right?

How about 35 and up?

Yeah, for sure.

Sounds good.

Yeah, 35 and up is good.

I'm out.

I'm out on it for sure.

You know what I was thinking about?

Remember Rodgers when he tore his Achilles in week one last year and then there was that stuff about how he might be able to come back? That year. Yeah, last year.
We were making fun of it on the pod and I was trying to think of some crazy thing to do if he actually came back because it was so ridiculous. He still hasn't been able to come back.
It's 15 months later. It still sucks.

He can't move.

He should have come back last year.

Yeah.

Just come back last year.

He would have been just as good.

He has not had a three.

We're almost at the three-year anniversary of his last 300-yard game.

I love it.

It's a week from Friday.

Hasn't won a playoff game in four years.

Turns 41 tomorrow.

Can I do a couple here?

Yeah, please. The Jets are the first

team to be favored in nine in the first 12

and end up three and nine or worse.

Wow. Rodgers has had

a chance to tie or take the lead five

times in the fourth quarter. 0 for 5.

I want them to re-sign.

I know we all had Seattle, so this wouldn't have been the game

to do it. I kind of want the Jets to have

a little bit of a one-two game resurgence

just so they sign them again.

I want to see this again.

So they're 3-9 against the spread?

3-9 on the year, right?

Are they 3-9 against the spread too or like 2-10?

Oh, I don't know.

Yeah, I think they're also 3-9.

They've only won one game on a Sunday.

Right. So the 3-9 against the spread, JJ's taken them all nine times.
Bro. Bro, enough.
Enough. You made your jokes earlier on.
That's enough. Jets today, 12 penalties and a pick six.
Yeah. And the pick six was especially great because for people who didn't see the game,

Rodgers had Wilson wide open on the play before

in the end zone and missed him

and then threw the pick six on the next play.

And probably should have been pulled at that point

if they're actually trying to win the game,

but they're so scared of him for whatever reason.

But Seattle wins a game where in the first half,

they gave up a kick touchdown. They fumbled on a kickoff twice.
They missed the PAT. And their punter was so hurt that they just kept cutting to him.
And he just kept doing that thing where he just had his hand on his back. And the announcer's like, well, that doesn't seem good.
It's like, yeah, it definitely doesn't. This guy's supposed to be the funner.
Definitely not good that he's like me playing pickup at age 55. And Seattle wins anyway.
It was a ridiculous win. Their fans are like kind of miserable, even though they won because it was such a bad game for them.
Right. And the Jets were just somehow worse.
And that was the legacy of that game. Why are trying to think of why I know people hate whatever me with the Roger stuff, but why would he even...
Who hates it? I love it. He's on McAfee every week.
And what's the point of even asking him about what he thinks about the future? What's your future going to be like? What kind of old actor? It's like you having an old actor on every week.

Who's not been in movies for like 25 years?

I feel like whoever you say is going to be probably super insulted.

Is Sean Connery still alive?

I don't know.

That's good.

Sean Connery.

Let's use him.

Sean Connery.

You have him on.

How about Alec Baldwin?

We could use him.

That's a good one. Yeah, Alec.

Would you do Gladiator 3?

And he's like, well, you know, it's really up to the directors and the studio and stuff

like that.

Yeah, no shit.

Thank you. Baldwin.
We could use him. That's a good one.
Yeah, Alec, would you do Gladiator 3? And he's like, well, you know, it's really up to the directors and the studio and stuff like that. Yeah, no shit.
Yeah, it's not your call because you don't have it anymore. I think his only chance, Belichick loves him.
And I think his only chance is if Belichick got the Vegas job. And it was like Belichick and Aaron Rodgers went to Vegas for a year.
Some team like that where they didn't have a quarterback and Belichick just liked them and then they would turn on each other in like eight weeks. That's how that happened.
That'd be fun. Alright.
He's done though. It happens.
We've watched. You and I are old enough now that we've seen a lot of quarterbacks hit the end and I'll never forget one of my first ones to break my cherry with this was Dan Marino, who I was terrified of for the entire 80s and for the first part of the 90s.
And then by the time we got to the late 90s and he had had like a torn Achilles and his arm was fucked up and he just wasn't good anymore. And I remember betting against him and being like, holy shit, I'm betting against Dan Marino.
This is like fucking touching the third rail on the subway. You're not supposed to...
I'm just doing it and winning and being like, oh my god, I want to bet against Dan Marino, but this is what happens to old quarterbacks. Dan Marino and Jimmy Johnson was the pair, right? When Jimmy Johnson was coaching.
It was scary, but yeah, this happens with pitchers too. I don't want to make excuses, but Rodgers is just, now he's just looking out for a way to get out gracefully.
It's fake injury time. It's fake injury time.
But I was thinking if they did win this game, how annoying the Tuesday interview would have been where it's like, we were just out there having fun.

Football's fun. And what we were doing out there, you got all this

tension, all this

pressure, and we just went out there and we played

like we were when we were kids.

He might still say that.

It was like, yeah, that happened, but also

Seattle made 45 mistakes

in special teams. That was also

super fun. I got to shout out Sean Fantasy, who tweeted on September 9th, 2024.
So I have this on the record. I think this Jet season will be an epic disappointment.
Everyone will be fired at its conclusion, and Aaron Rodgers will retire. Wow.
September 9th.

Pretty good.

Fantasy.

Yeah.

He was adamant.

I got to say the whole summer

he was adamant

that this was going to

end badly.

All right.

We're going to take

one more break for the pod.

This episode is brought to you

by LinkedIn.

During the season,

every baseball team

plays 162 games.

It's a true test of endurance.

It's not enough to have a hot month or two.

You need sustained dominance throughout.

While the same is true for your small business,

it's not enough to have a great Q2 or even a great year.

You want year over year growth that starts with better hires

that'll be there for the long haul.

To find those hires, use LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has strong hiring data and insights

that you won't find anywhere else to help pair you with the best candidates from unique skills and interests to the connections you have in common. Based on LinkedIn data, 72% of small businesses say that LinkedIn helps them find high quality talent.
LinkedIn also lets you go beyond people who are actively applying in a given week. 171 million LinkedIn members aren't actively seeking jobs, but they are open to new opportunities.
That's a big pool to miss out on if you're not hiring with LinkedIn. Find your next great hire on LinkedIn.
Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash Simmons. That's linkedin.com slash Simmons to post your job for free.
Terms and conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra.
Michelob Ultra, a superior light beer and the ultimate trophy, win or lose, you're bound to enjoy the ride with a good beer in hand. Michelob Ultra, crisp, refreshing, only 95 calories, a superior light beer, no matter the game, sport, or season, superior is worth playing for.
So sign up for Ultra Quartzside

at Michelobultra.com slash Quartzside,

and you can enjoy some of these games with a nice beer in your hand. Enjoy responsibly.
Copyright 2025 Anheuser-Busch Michelob Ultra. Registered light beer.
St. Louis, Missouri.
Must be 21 plus to order alcohol. Alcohol available only in select markets.
So Iberflus got fired after that Thursday game. And the reason I bring this up off the Jets, who's the worst coach now? Because I said that Eberflus was my favorite bad coach.
I really enjoyed him. I really enjoyed the Thursday game knowing that they'd probably fuck up that last minute, which they did.
Watching things you don't get to normally see. Who's the guy now? Because I haven't narrowed down an Antonio Pierce coach middle seat.
Middle seat's got to be in there. Or the Jets guy, who's pretty terrible.
He's been one of the worst interim coaches we've had. The team's definitely worse.
There's no way they'd be this bad with Salah. Yeah, we can't count.
I don't know if we can count him. Can you count him? Can you count him? Yeah, they have to have the job more than four weeks, five weeks or so.
Okay. Well, he's bad.
Yeah. Did you put anyone else in there? Can't even say Sirianni anymore.
I mean, Mayo's pretty close. You got to see him firsthand today against the Colts.
My guy's not lighting the world on fire. Your guy's coming back.
That's for sure. Is my guy, I don't know, where do you put him ahead of Miami? That's getting close too.
McDaniel? Yeah. At least, yeah, maybe.
I know we want to blame Tua, and it's fun to blame Tua and but he's got to try to figure out a way to win some of these games he's got talent on that roster the disc Jackie yeah I would have said Pierce before this week but I actually thought the Raiders played pretty well against the Chiefs and at least they're smart enough to realize that Brock Bowers is like this generational tight end. It's like, let's just throw him the ball every time.
It's like Kelsey crossed with Gronk. Yeah, so Coach Middlecy is probably still the worst.
Yeah, although I found myself feeling bad for him with that late hit, which was insane. I'm glad you brought that up.
That was worst quarterback hit since when?

Theismann?

No.

I don't know, man.

There was a really bad strength green one a while ago,

I remember.

Oh, right, right, right.

There's a bad Flacco one.

Yeah.

What do we mean bad?

Like,

like,

dirty?

Or,

like,

because two of them got rocked.

Dirty cross with,

oh my God, is he still alive? Yeah. Because that was the first, like, oh my God.
Right. But the penalties offset, you understand.
Yeah. They got to figure that out.
I've always made this joke when Warren Sapp, horse collar Jerry Rice, and blew out every knee leg of it. That should have just yard penalty.
You just get, you get a touchdown. Yeah.
Or people say that guy can't play until Lawrence plays again. But, but to hit the guy that retaliates just shoves the player over.
Like what is, what is he supposed to do? Either he's a pussy for not defending his quarterback or he suffers the same punishment as the head hunter. It's like, if you shot my dog and then I slapped you in the face and we both

shared a jail cell.

It's offsetting.

Yeah, that makes sense.

I would never shoot your dog.

Thank you.

You know what it did lead to other than a really scary,

scary moment, a great brawl, a rare,

like we are immediately fighting NFL moment where it was just like,

it was, it really felt like that was going to keep going and going. It led to one of my favorite sentences in NFL discourse.
No love lost. There's no place in the game for that.
So. Oh yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
There's no place, no place in the game for that. Where are the places for that? Just do we have places? Can I go on Google Earth or where, where can I just hit a guy when he's not looking and knock him out in my forearm? Are there places? The octagon, I guess, but not with pads.
Pads and a helmet would be weird. I don't even think there's a place.
There's no place. It happens every three weeks in the NFL, but there's no place for it.
It's not what we teach here. No place for that.
That's a cousin of you. Hate see that.
Right. Hate to see that.
Hate to see that. Let's go to break.
So Jacksonville is two and 10. So is Vegas and so are the Giants.
You know college football way more than me. Is there a franchise quarterback that you feel like could be on that at least borough Drake May level? I don't love him this year.
I really don't. I mean, it's fun to say you have Shador Sanders, but I don't really think, I think this is not the year to go 2-15.
Who would you take, Hunter? Yeah, but I think they're going to have to make a decision on him if he's a defensive or offensive player. I think whoever drafts him is not going to have it in mind that he's playing both ways, right? If I'm him, I'd want to go to which position, if I was one of the best in the league at, where do I make more money? And I think the answer is receiver, right? Sure.
If you're a good receiver, you're making $30 to $35 million a year. And he could also just play defense.
He could be the nickelback on third downs if they wanted to use him that way.

Can I say this?

He's excellent.

And believe me, I go nuts when Otani's people are like,

oh, he's not MVP.

I'm like, when he's pitching, when he's playing both ways,

are you kidding me?

There's nothing to compare it to.

For sure, Hunter should be the Heisman winner.

But I've never seen a coach try to win an award

for a player more than Deion Sanders is.

Like, they're throwing to him on fourth and 31 when they're up 21 points. Just to pad stats? Oh, yeah.
It's crazy. He's going to get it done.
Like LeBron going 29 and 16 in Utah tonight? Something like that, yeah. Utah's like, we just want to get Cooper flagged.
Knock yourself out, buddy. Next question.
Could Bryce Young win Comeback Player of the Year

just from what he came back from in the same season?

Oh.

Well, again, we'd have to get the stipulations.

It wasn't an injury?

Well, I suggest a new award.

And maybe Russell Wilson could have qualified for this too.

The Austin Powers, I found my mojo award.

And the nominees would basically be

Russell Wilson and Bryce Young, right? Maybe Baker Mayfield. Although he was good last year.
Bryce Young looked like he was being bullied in school and he lost his dog and his parents got divorced in like week five. Even when they cut him, he just looked so sad like your heart broke for him.
It was like man this guy's like a bust and now today he was really good in that tampa game you know it's not like he has a shitload to work with uh and i thought his demeanor was all it was the guy from alabama walking around his chest out making plays creating stuff i i'm glad that he's not a bust because we need more quarterbacks. I'm with you.
I'm torn, and I think you are too if you will be honest, because it's nice to have a team to bet against every week safely. But yeah, I want him to be good, right? But the bad teams always figure out an effed up way to lose, don't they? Today was one of the worst, how did you lose that

game losses? Basically, if Hubbard

doesn't fumble, they'd probably win.

Tampa handed it to them by getting that field goal

and then they came down, but I really,

they're like, alright, you're not giving me

much, Tampa, but we're still gonna,

it's like when your mom comes over,

right, and she, like all you have in the

cupboard is like goldfish crackers and Nutella

and she somehow whips up a veal

parmesan. Yeah, it's like, wait, how'd

you do that? It's like the bad team's fine.

Thank you. of her, right? And she, like all you have in the cupboard is like goldfish crackers and Nutella and she somehow whips up a veal parmesan.
Yeah. It's like, wait,

how'd you do that? It's like the bad team.

That sounds delicious. Yeah, it's pretty good.

Did your mom do that?

It's more fluff than Nutella,

but yeah, she does. I'll tell you this

where Carolina reached. I looked at Tampa

all week. I thought about putting them

in parlays and teases or just

doing Carolina straight up first half game. I mean, I'm sorry, Tampa first half game.
Yep. Stayed away.
All right. Because I was like, Carolina's been good for four straight weeks here.
And they make me nervous. I'm not going against them.
And rightfully so, they were good again. We crapped on Atlanta for good reason, but that is really tight now.
Minus 145, Tampa plus 120 for that division. You know what else is really tight? You almost won the South Steelers special again.
Oh, man. Bengals just need to take care of business.
They had to put up 20 points in the second quarter. It looked like you were going to get a 21 to 20 type situation.
Yeah, something in there. And then take it in the second half.
That didn't work. Next week.
It's always going to happen eventually. Well, do you want to do this NFC South? Do you even want to waste time on this? I feel good about Tampa.
I know they'll probably blow it, but you're going to look at Atlanta's schedule and tell me it's easy, right? Giants. Tampa's 4-2 on the road, and their two losses were fourth quarter losses to KC and Atlanta.
In the Atlanta game, they should have won. I just like the way they're playing way more.
And if you have that Tampa bet, which I backed out of, 5-1, they have to beat Atlanta by a game to win the division. Right, because they lost both.
Your fear would be Penix starting this week. Yeah, I think so.
If you got the news like Michael Penix will start this week, You'd be like, fuck. Right.

Tampa's good.

They beat Detroit and they beat Philly.

They're not going to make the playoffs in that garbage division.

Tampa's got Vegas at home, Chargers-Dallas on the road,

Carolina at home, New Orleans at home.

Feels like they could get to nine or ten wins.

Yeah, three or four.

Atlanta's at Minnesota at Vegas, home Giants, at Washington, home Carolina. The question for me is, could we get eight, nine, like an eight, nine tie for that division? Is that in play? Yeah, sure.
Yeah, I mean, no one's going to go four and one the rest of the way. I'll take four-0.
But somehow... That'll be the first time a division has ever been won three years in a row with a losing record.
Ever. Relegation.
Maybe we got to start thinking about it. Right.
And yet somehow the NFC West is weirder and more annoying. Arizona just completely choked at Minnesota.
And I can't believe we didn't talk about that yet. I had them.
They still covered. I didn't expect to sweat it out when it was 19-6.
They had the ball for 36 minutes. They had 406 yards.
They had 25 first downs. Minnesota's 1-8 on third down.
Sam Darnold had to orchestrate two touchdown drives to not even win the game because they also needed a field goal Arizona 10 penalties for 96 yards that was one reason they lost, the other reason and you and I vacillate on when teams should do this or not but watching in the moment, fourth and four, Arizona's up three it's like three and a half minutes left, whatever it is. They're inside the 10.
Yeah. And they kicked the field goal to go up six.
And it felt like the wrong move because Minnesota had been going up and down the field on them. And watching it, hoping Arizona was going to at least lose by three and still cover my bet.
I just wanted them to go for it because I felt like they could have closed the game out because I liked the way they were moving the ball. The nerd stats actually supported going for it on fourth and four.
It was like 88% you win the game if you do it, 80% kick the field goal. So they kicked the field goal, they go up six.
There's been other times where I'm like, just take the points, go up six. They're not going to come down and beat you.
But you were watching. Did you feel like Minnesota was going to come down and score on them? Because I did.
Yeah, I thought it would be close. They're going to get to like the 30 or something and then it's going to be luck.
But I almost think you ask the defense in that situation, right? Like, hey, how tired are you guys? Because I know you've been at it for almost three hours. Are you going to let Sam Darnold go up and down the field here? Yeah.
It's Sam Darnold.

You guys realize it's Sam Darnold, right?

Right.

Yeah.

So, I don't know.

Is Minnesota the most boring,

good team out there?

I should have been through to that Arizona-Minnesota game.

That's 75 yards at half, Minnesota.

I'm like, oh,

they're probably going to win.

It's really unimpressive.

I can't wait to bet against them

in the playoffs.

Yeah.

So, Arizona loses

two incredibly winnable games in a row

against good teams.

Seattle last week.

Minnesota this week.

They're in a tie.

The Rams had their fourth,

I think their season is dead,

moment of the season.

They're down in the Saints game,

and it's just like,

oh, of course, this is a 5-12 team.

Why were we fooling ourselves?

And then they pull that out.

Do you ever feel like we inspire a team through our texts?

Because we were on the Ring of Pregame text about how bad Stafford is,

and each one of us is sending one stat worse than the other for Stafford

for third down conversions and how many this and that. And then just like that, their offense came alive for like two drives and it was enough.
It doesn't seem like they can block even remotely where they were last year. That's one problem.
But I don't know. I looked at all the schedules.
San Francisco's at Chicago, home Rams at Miami, home Detroit at Arizona.

And those Detroit games

in week 17, week 18,

there's a chance they weren't lines.

We're going to have anything to play for.

But now we know they will.

I think they're a cross off.

That comes to week 18.

Oh, the Niners are a cross off?

I think Niners are a cross off to me.

Yeah, I agree.

I don't see it.

I think this is the only division

that comes down to the final week.

But in fact, this is,

we have the rematch.

Thank you. are a cross-off? I think Niners are a cross-off to me.
Yeah, I agree. I think this is the only division that comes down to the final week.
But in fact,

we have the rematch

Seattle and Arizona from two weeks ago.

So that's as important as any other game.

Seattle's plus 145.

Arizona's plus

180. Rams

plus 290. And Niners

14-1 now. So Fandu agrees with us.

Yep.

At plus 290, and Niners 14-1 now, so Fandu agrees with us. Yep.
At,

at gunpoint,

I kind of like,

I kind of like Arizona's last five the most

for opponents.

Yeah.

Home,

they're at Seattle,

home Pats,

at Carolina,

at the Rams,

home San Francisco,

who might have packed it in by that point.

Feels like at least three more wins.

But it's probably 9-8, right?

I don't think anyone gets the 10.

It's not bad.

Seattle's have 7?

Oh yeah, Seattle's 7-5.

Seattle's got 7.

But that's the game, right?

They play this week.

So that, I don't know if Arizona, you might as well just bet them this week, I think, if you're going to take them to win a division and then if they need a game in like three weeks or so. Oh, that game's in Arizona.
I fucked up. Arizona's got Seattle home, New England home next to you.
Listen, it pays to come in last every year. Eventually, it pays off when you get a schedule like this where this where the last month is Cape.
Well, Seattle has Arizona, at Arizona, home Green Bay, home Minnesota, at Chicago, at the Rams. I don't know whether Seattle's roping me in and I'm going to regret it, but I do think they can move the ball when they need to.
Like, if they really need to go 75 yards, I think they can do it. And I wouldn't say that about a lot of teams, but it's just really painful to watch

them get to that point.

Their offense is different,

it seems, every week, right? It should be

that Metcalf is around 100 yards

and Kenneth Walker is either

going to get two touchdowns or three, you know?

But it's, oh no, Charbonnet?

Oh, what? He can't, oh, the tight end's involved,

but Metcalf's not open. It's

very strange the way they do it. Well, they definitely can't block.
No. Or whatever games, Texans, Jags, Washington, Tennessee, and then Pats Indy, which I have no idea how the Pats didn't score 30 points.
Right. Did you see the clip of the two-point conversion that the Pats were blindsided by Richardson QB draws

in big moments and no idea that the Colts might try that?

How would there be any evidence they would do that

in the biggest play of the game?

But Barmar got tackled by the guard and pulled backwards.

Richardson went right over him.

There's a great end zone angle of just the most obvious

holding call of all time, and they didn't call it. The false starts must drive you nuts because that was not even close to being a thing under Belichick regime, right? You just never saw it.
You'd see one every three weeks. Yeah, like I was watching the Bosco versus...
What was the championship game? Oh, the..., Matter Day. Yeah, Matter Day.

And even in high school

at that level,

there's not false starts

at holding

every five plays.

And somehow,

the Patriots

are a professional team.

Like,

they were saying,

my dad was complaining after.

My dad was upset

that they lost.

And he was saying

the Colts have

this offensive line

where like,

four guys are new

and like backups.

They've had a whole bunch of injuries. The Colts, nobody jumped off the whole game for them.
It didn't feel like. The Pats just holding left and right, but it's a shame.
I think the Pats would kill Bosco. They'd win by at least 10, I think.
They played Bosco. I swear the Pats could have four more wins.
They could totally be in this Denver. If they were actually well-coached, I really feel like they could be in the seventh seed, but maybe it's working out for the best.
All right. It's time to guest alliance.
It's brought to you by Workday. Get the whole band together with Workday.
Pair finance and HR on one platform for an epic performance. With Workday AI at the core, you'll make confident decisions faster than ever, and you'll drive flawless business and finance operations with an agile platform that constantly evolves

to future-proof your organization.

Do you finance an HR rock star with Workday?

Visit Workday.com to learn more.

What are the records?

Seven, five, and one.

You have the lead.

You have a two-game lead.

Hey, you're kind of lingering this year.

Yeah, I'm not going.

I think I did all right today. We'll see.
We'll see. Obviously, you cheated.
You steal these by half a point every time. Well, this is an interesting week because it's week 14.
It's the last fantasy week for any normal fantasy league, I would think. And we have all these crazy buys.
Yeah, didn't they used to get rid of the buys by Thanksgiving? Or am I imagining that? This feels late, but I think they had to do it because of this Christmas game. I think they wanted those teams fresh because it's Baltimore, Houston.
I guess Pittsburgh's not one of them. Baltimore, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, New England, Washington.
I mention that because there's some big starting QBs in that. A couple good running backs, a couple good receivers, and it's like weird fantasy implications to lose that many teams.
Anyway, Thursday night is an awesome game. Really good.
Lions-Packers, it's in Detroit. And I meant to talk about this earlier, but I guess we can talk about it now.
I really do feel like it's sitting there for the Packers now

with all these injuries the Lions have had on defense.

You could feel it in the second half of that Bears game.

Like, they're just...

We always talk about passing the point and no return.

And it feels like that Dallas defense

is right on the edge of maybe too many injuries.

Dallas? Oh, Detroit.

Detroit.

Yeah. Dallas defense, too.

Yeah, yeah. Dallas, definitely.
I think they passed the point, but if I'm the Packers, I'm feeling really good. Yeah.
I actually think Ibra Floos gave it to that. I think he was like, it was a sympathetic move.
He was like, this will destroy too many Moneyline parlays before the first helping of Cranberry stuffing. He's trying to heal America.
Exactly. I can't.
You know what? Sirliness at the tables. We're not calling a timeout.
I'm going to take this timeout right in the locker room. You're right, though.
I mean, they get Jair Alexander and Romeo Dobbs back, right? Like, Jordan Love was left for dead in Brazil. Like, they were going to dump his body in the rainforest, in the Amazon.
But Tucker Craft, all of a sudden, like a top option to tie it in. Jacobs forced like 15 missed tackles the other

day, the other night. I think they're

really good. This is going to be a fun game.

I've been on them the last couple weeks with

million-dollar picks and just on the pod

because I felt like people

were sleeping on them or looking for

reasons not to think they were good. And even

like, you know, a couple weeks ago, well, they

only won because of this. And then

last week against me, it was cold weather.

It seems like there's always an excuse for them.

I just think they're pretty talented.

They have a ceiling

that I'm not sure they've scratched yet,

but they can run the

ball. They can throw the ball.
They can do explosive

plays. They can create plays on defense.

They're pretty well coached. They have a home field advantage.
This would be a nice test. They're catching this Lions team.
They can definitely come in with some swagger. They've played them well.
I like it. I have Lions by four and a half.
I put this in the Vegas zone. All right.
I get it. I said four.
It's three and a half. Wow.
I think they feel the same way about this Lions defense as you do. Yeah, it's tough because we know they don't get carried away one way or the other with these Thursday games.
Right. Well, they beat them on Thanksgiving last year.
Whatever happens, don't assume that that means that's going to happen in round two, round three, but it'll mean something. They beat them in, what was that?

It was beginning of November, right?

Yeah.

24-14.

I feel like they're much different now.

Yeah, but I think they're better.

Jordan Love's one of the best quarterbacks.

I think he's the best quarterback getting blitzed.

They're really kind of in sync.

Sunday Marquee.

I could give you Bills at Rams or Card Seahawks. What do you is the Marquee out of those two I guess Bills Rams okay I had that too Bills at the Rams I have the Bills favored by two and a half let me find this because they had it higher I said three it's.
It's four and a half. Oh, wow.
Yeah, you are going to beat me this way. Fucking A.
Well, now you know how it's going, though. Four and a half.
That seems a whiff too high. Maybe a little bit.
I mean, how much? The Rams were so unimpressive, but the Bills have such a lead now on their division.

I know they're chasing the one,

but you got to think that they can't get up for all these games.

Watchables.

Cards home for the Seahawks.

Rematch.

We saw this two weeks ago.

This feels like a 1.5 or if I've ever seen it.

Cards by one and a half.

That's what I said,

because that's what it was a couple weeks ago.

It's two and a half. This is the one that flipped.
It was Seattle one and a half, then it was Arizona, then it flipped again. They really like Arizona.
Fairly watchable. It's got four.
Vikings home for the Falcons. This immediately becomes a watchable if it's Michael Penix.
You could argue it should be a watchable anyway.

I had to put the .5 on this. Vikings

by 3.5.

I get this one too. I said 5.
It's

4.5. Oh, come on.

That's too high.

Cousins ball. This is a fun

one.

That's stupid.

How about this?

J.J. McCarthy against Penix and then it's a national championship from last year.
McCarthy can get off his ass. Supposedly he got hurt again.
Yeah, I know. I think that was a setback.
So let me ask you this. If Penix becomes the starter on Tuesday, does this line move?

Oh, man.

No, I think it's already high.

You don't think it moves toward the Falcons?

No, no.

You got to see. Are you sure?

Get in there. I'm not sure.
I'm never sure about this.

I'm 5-7-1. I think it moves

a point toward the Falcons.

Really? A point? I think that's how bad Pussins was today.

Yeah, I do. No one's ever seen him throw

in the pro game. No one's ever seen him, but I know it's

better than what I watched today.

Cousins will be so pissed if they take

this game away from him.

Fairly watchables.

Can't believe it. The Panthers have

crawled out of the poopfecta.

Wow. Through 500

yards of shit-smelling foulness.

The legs they couldn't imagine.

Panthers at Eagles. And I have the Eagles favored by 12 and a half.
Oh, you nailed it. Wait a minute.
This doesn't make sense. How do you make this a fairly watchable and make the line 12 and a half, which is right.
You know how it's a fairly watchable? You know why? Because this Bryce Young thing is really fun. I like comeback stories.
It looked like he was dead. And this seems like a classic Eagles take a dump and their fans freaking out game.
And it's at least a fairly watchable for an hour. I want to see where it goes.
I'm there for it. That'll be fun.
Steelers-Browns in Pittsburgh. We saw this game 10 days ago.
And they'll make this just high enough that I have to sweat it out when I'm teasing it. But not too high that I can't tease it.
Steelers by eight and a half. Oh, good.
I get it. I said seven.
It's only six and a half. Oh, come on.
They're really about all these division games.

This is a teaser game for me,

and I'll be pissed if Donovan doesn't come through.

Can't get swept by the Browns. Well, what happens tomorrow if Denver beats the hell out of Cleveland?

This goes up.

Oh, it'll go up, yeah.

Yeah.

A short week going to Pittsburgh,

an angry team that you beat 10 days ago,

they can't.

They're not sweeping anyone, the Browns.

49ers home for the Bears. Fairly watchable for a variety of reasons.
Not the least of which is the new coach bump. One of my favorite things to bet on.
Thomas Brown, very well-liked in the Chicago locker room. Respected.
Eberflus, lost the locker room. They always tell us after the guy gets fired, yeah, he lost the locker room last week.
Where was that? We looked at him that two weeks ago for gambling. 49ers minus three over the Bears.
Oh, no. I said five, and it's five and a half.
Oh, that's idiotic. But McCaffrey might be out.
I don't know. I mean, I think people, I don't know.
You're betting Chicago here. You're not going to bet Chicago.
That line's three points too high. Why can't you? The 49ers are better than the Bears.
The 49ers, you just watched them. They stink.
Yeah. They're five and seven.
They keep telling us that they're not a good team. Everybody's like, I don't know, 49ers.
Unless you're right about this new coach. I haven't seen the craps he's taken in the toilet situation.
But other than that, I just feel like they blow every game. They don't care.
Yeah, I need some Thomas Brown info. I want to find out more about him, his bathroom habits, drinking habits.
What did Brown do for us? Yeah. Bears look like a great underdog pick.
Is that line out for the underdog yet or for the money lines? They don't have the money lines yet, right? I didn't see it. No.
No, they don't have it for that one. Damn.
Okay. Poop Vecta.
Speaking of the clogger. Saints at Giants.
Clogging it up. I think this is in the Vegas zone.
I have Saints by four and a half at the Giants. Yeah, you nailed it.
I don't know why I said two. It's exactly four and a half.
Derek Carr is just miserable. I always forget.
Always forget. And then it happens.
At the moment you pressure him for like three plays in a row, he just turns into a different human being. Right.
I think some people, hopefully not on the Ringer Sunday pregame show, will be talking themselves into the Giants money line on Sunday. No, not this one.
Does it feel like a JJ kind of pick to you? I don't know, bro. Yeah, maybe.
Bro, I'm listening to talk. Derek Carr in Giant Stadium.
You listen to these fans talking in a local radio, they're dialed in. They're dialed in for the Saints.
The case for the Giants would be they always win one dumb game when there's four or five left that screws up their draft pick by like three or four picks. Right.
And this is definitely a candidate for that. Titans, Jags in Tennessee.
I'm going to try not to watch one second in this game. I don't want this on a multi-view.
I don't want this anywhere. I don't want to see it on the red zone.
Titans minus three over the Jags.

You get it. I don't know why I said one and a half.
It's

four and a half.

They lost by

23 today.

It's so high,

that number. Although

your boy,

Mac Jones, missed

some very, very easy throws. Like, they could have won that game for sure.
The Jags. I saw some of the clips on the internets.
I swear the first three months of his career, Mac Jones was good. I swear.
I will go to my grave saying that. I don't know what happened to him that he can no longer come even close to hitting wide open guys.
But for three months, he could. That should scare you in the jersey you're wearing.
No? It's different? Yeah, I'm wearing the jersey. Had this on for good luck today.
Why is it different? What would Kyle say is different? No, he's, you can't. Jake May is like, he's, he's the best, he's the best rookie quarterback we've ever had.
It's not even close. Oh.
He can do everything.

Okay.

Yeah, he's unbelievable.

The best rookie quarterback?

That we've ever had, yeah.

Brady didn't play as a rookie.

Yeah, all right.

Dolphins, Jets in Miami.

Bro, we are going to take care of business in this game, bro.

He's going. That's right, JJ is going.
He's going to be there. Dolphins minus four and a half.
Does that sound right? No, I hit this exactly. Six and a half.
Oh. Can you, if JJ has to be in the building when Aaron Rodgers beats the Dolphins.
Good night. What would you put on the announcement tomorrow, Tuesday, Aaron Rodgers has been waived by the New York Jets? Oh, waived.
Released. Yeah, but there's no consequence, right? Like, I mean, there's a little bit of a hit, right? They're just like, we're out.
We're out of the Aaron Rodgers business. Good luck.
Yeah. Tuesday? What are the odds? Would you say like five to one? You think they time it to happen during the McAfee interview? Oh, that would be something else.
Like 20 minutes before the McAfee interview. They're just like, you know what? You're released.
Yeah. I like it.
I'd bet it. I'd bet it just for fun.
No, but what are the odds? What do you think the odds are though? Because I don't think it's like 10 to 1. I think it's in the 4 to 1 to 6 to 1 range.
If you're booking the bet and you had to put odds down for people to bet, what would you put down for the odds? 10 to 1 is too high, but I always imagine him walking away from it. I don't know why.
Knowing you, like, you would, you know when you have a friend...

Like just the retirement, like right

before the Netflix thing comes out? Yeah.

Like you have a couple, like, oh man, he cheats

on her all the time. Like, wait a minute, she left

him and she didn't even know that he cheated?

Wow. I kind of feel like that's what

it would be. What couple do you know that

does that? That sounds like a fun couple.

Buck's

home for the Raiders is our last poop facta. Baker Mayfield could be 7-6.
MVP candidate. Put that 200-1 odds down now.
I have the Bucks by 6.5 over the Raiders. I hit this exactly.
I swear on our friendship. 7.
Okay. Well, you were confident heading into this.

They got to win that.

Aren't there some teasers

staring us in the face here?

Some nice...

We don't even have to do

three-teamers.

I'm scared to put the Bucs

in anything.

Really?

I have to watch them today.

He's your MVP.

How are you going to...

How's he going to lose to...

We just...

O'Connell, whatever.

We have to talk JJ out of

not taking the Giants

or the Jets

as his underdog man's best bet, whatever he was. Whatever he called.
bet, whatever we call it. We just can't allow him to do it.
Can't allow him to do it. Sunday night, Chiefs Chargers in Kansas City.
It's a Vegas zone if I've ever seen it. I'm going to say Chiefs by five and a half.
Oh, you went too high. I said three.
It's three and a half. Oh, wow.
So everyone's just done with the Chiefs as a high favorite now. Okay.
Yeah. Yeah, they're on to it.
All right. We're all done.
Does Mahomes now? He doesn't know. They don't tell him.
They don't tell him until the last minute. Well, the Chargers have eight wins, right?

Yeah.

They could play like a stifling defense.

I don't know.

I mean, at this point, the Chiefs are good for 22 points.

So what's the other team that score?

I have some Chargers action for the season

that I'm excited to cash in on.

They're one away from their over.

Eight and a half was their over.

That was good.

Playoffs was,

I think pretty,

I think it was at least

plus 120,

something like that.

Yep.

And I have Harbaugh

coach of the year,

which is probably not going to win now.

What do you have to do?

Yeah, you just...

He has to go like

at least 12 and five

to win that, right?

That's tough.

It's tough.

You got too many other

division winners like that.

No, there are guys.

Monday night.

Thank you. He has to go at least 12-5 to win that, right? That's tough.
It's tough. You got too many other division winners like that.
Other guys. Monday night.
What a hilarious game this is. Cincinnati at the Dallas Cowboys.
Unflexed because it's on a Monday night. I don't know what team's been more disappointing.
I have the Bengals' favorite, Bengals minus one and a half. Oh, wow.
I thought this one you could have stolen. Wouldn't have mattered.
I said three and a half. Six and a half is the number.
Come on. Well, this is a teaser, darling, right? Borrow against Rush.
This is the season. Tis the season, Simmons, for the Bengals.
It's over anyway. Even your crappy team could move the ball on them, though.
I know. It's going to be fun.
You could win this game. Somebody will take.
That's an underdog money line bet. 7-6-1 on the year.
Here we go. Man, you're almost tied.
Jacoby's got to be fired up. Oh, yeah.
Thanks again. Thanks again to Workday for sponsoring this segment.
Be a finance and HR rock star with Workday. To learn more, visit workday.com.
One more break and then we're going to do Parent Corner. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market.
As the weather gets warmer, it's time for lighter meals, right? You know that Whole Foods Market has just what you're looking for. Great everyday prices.
The yellow low price signs help you save money every day without compromising the quality you expect at Whole Foods Market, like low price responsibly farmed Atlantic salmon or no antibiotics ever ground beef or boneless skinless chicken breast, plus much more throughout the store. Wherever you see yellow at Whole Foods Market, you know you're saving money.
Save on the best of spring with great everyday prices at Whole Foods Market. This episode is brought to you by Loom by Atlassian.
Feeling stuck is the worst. We were all feeling it during COVID, right? Just staring at the same walls every day and the same people, unable to really go anywhere, just being in a funk.
Well, if you're feeling stuck at work right now, too many meetings and hunting down teammates to get approvals, there's an easy fix. Get unstuck with video messaging from Loom by Atlassian.
With Loom, you can record your screen, your camera, and your voice to share video messages easily. Using video helps you and your team save time and stay connected, even when you're working across time zones.
So now you can delete that novel-length email you're writing instead, record your screen, share your message faster with Loom. It also has editing and AI features to help you record once and get back to the work that counts.
Unstuck your process, projects, and teams with video communication from Loom. Try Loom today at loom.com.
That is L-O-O-M.com. Parent Corner coming off Thanksgiving, always a lively addition.
What do you got? You could do your own kids. You could do your parents.

I don't know.

Yeah.

They all drive me so nuts.

Really.

You know what? I'll do my kids.

Here's what I was going to go with.

And I feel like I'm thankful that they all have a piece of me and it's not a

great piece of me,

but it's,

I see me and all of them.

Like my oldest son,

I told you last week was leaving early Friday to go to the Oregon game. So, yes, sports over everything.
He's gone Friday after the meal. Good job.
The wife's upset. The youngest kid, we go around the table on Thanksgiving, and it's a torturous process.
It lasts like 20 minutes, but we all say what we're thankful for. And my mother goes for like eight minutes, and it's crazy.
But when we got to my little, my littlest one, Harriso, he thanked the Mets. He thanked the Mets for an exciting September.
And I liked that. I was like, you know, and only when he was prompted by my mother, did he come around and say he was thankful for anyone in the family.
So there's that. I love that.
And then my middle son, Jack, gets such a kick out of our friend, Brad, our crazy friend, Brad, who stayed with me. I said, Brad, you can come to Thanksgiving.
It might be too much for you. There's going to be 20 people, or you could stay with me the rest of the weekend, or you could do both, whatever.
He's like, I'll be there Friday. So he comes out and my son, Jack, just loves it.
I you know, Brad, he's like every noise Brad makes, he loves it. Like if I let the dog out, I have to close the door quickly because Brad is usually screaming.
If there's like a play on TV or if there's like hip hurts or something, like I don't want the neighbors to think there's a murder going on in the living room. So I'm like, come on.
I'm like waving the dog in and my, my, my son loves it. My My son loves it.
Brad is like double fisting mountain dudes at 9am. Like he just, he's, he's all over it.
And like, this is the, this is when I knew like, that's my boy. Like we ordered ribs Saturday night after watching football and the order came and it was like a little light, like it just like, you could tell like, damn it.
I'm mad. And Jack gave up his ribs just so he could watch Brad eat.

Just so he could watch it.

Wow, that's true love and affection.

Yes, it's love and affection.

But it's also like, he's like sneaking pictures too,

because you could have like a 12 pack of Brillo pads

and not get the barbecue sauce out of his beard for like 10% of it.

It's a real spectacle.

And that's my boy.

They all have terrible qualities in mine, but it adds up. No family dysfunction? No shouty matches? Nothing? Not too much.
My father started getting into politics and he was shouted down, so luckily that was good. How did that go for him? Yeah, that was great.
They're like, no, no, no, nobody wants to hear it. My sister announced that she and my mother are in therapy to 20 strangers.
So that was fun. But that's it.
It was pretty light. So my daughter went back to school today, but she was here for a while.
And, you know, it's just you fall back into the old habits. But on Friday, day off, my wife wanted to go for like a big, long walk and we'll just go and maybe we'll stop and get a drink somewhere.
So we walk, we walk and we walk and we walk and we end up all the way in Beverly Hills. We decided to get like a Bloody Mary.
We're with her friend Krista. And then that leads to we go by and we we stop by my mom's house, who of course has wine going.
So there's some wine there. And then we're walking back.
We're talking about the French fries at the Four Seasons, which has spawned David Chang to do his BS fries at Major Domo. Like, you never had the French fries? So we go there, two more drinks.
So now we're like, I haven't had this many,, but my wife and Chris are definitely going for it. There might've been a couple.
This is all on a walk. This is on a 25,000 step walk.
This is what they drink and they walk it up. Um, but you know, getting a little tipsy and little, little, little, so they're, my wife's trying to get my daughter to come out my way and my daughter doesn't want to come out.
It's like, come meet us. No, we're going to be here.
Still doesn't want to come out. So then at four o'clock, we're walking back.
And it's like, let's go to the Grove. So we're walking through the Grove.
Text my daughter again, meet us now. Then a half hour later, she texts both of us like, where is everybody? I've been alone all day.
Sets my wife off.

And she's just like,

we've invited her this whole day.

And now she's mad that we're not home.

I'm coming home and I'm going to talk to her.

I'm like,

so we get home at like six.

My wife goes upstairs and all of a sudden they're just yelling at each other for 10 minutes.

And,

and I'm just,

I'm sitting down.

I'm like,

Oh my God,

really?

We're going to do this.

And, uh, and then my wife comes back down. She's like, I'm leaving.
I'm going down. I'm like, oh my God, really? We're going to do this? And then my wife comes back down.

She's like, I'm leaving.

I'm going out.

I'm like, where are you going?

She's like, no, I'm going to watch.

There's this party over there.

Friends leaves and goes, walks to somebody else's house.

And she's just mad.

And next morning they wake up.

Everything's fine.

She goes in.

Hey, sorry about yesterday. But I was like, oh yeah, it's fine.
And I'm like, this is, we're back. How did we run this back so quickly? You guys played all the hits.
You crammed them all together. Mother, daughter, the mother, you see, you never had it because you had the three sons.
The mother-daughter energy is like nothing else. What was the fight? Honestly, I don't even really know what the fight was.
My wife didn't really know the next day either. And what I realized is with moms and daughters, it's like in hockey when it's like game four of a series and it's like 5-2.
It's like 10 minutes left. And all of a sudden, the enforcers are skating around and they're like, all right.
And they just kind of drop the gloves and start going. That was what it was like.
They just needed to kind of drop the gloves and go get some punches in, hold each other, have the guy, have the teammates. So I was basically the teammate in the, uh, you know, in the, in the, where do you, where do you call all the hockey players? The bench.
Yeah. The bench.
I don't know why I was blanking. I'm on the bench, like tapping my stick, like good brawl guys, good brawl.
And then, you know, they hang out the rest of the weekend. We went to dinner last night.
My wife drove to the airport today. It's like, couldn't be better.
They just had to drop the gloves. And then, yeah, because like hockey at the end of the playoff series, everybody lines up and shakes hands, right? So it's the same.
That's what it is. Yeah.
So, and I was saying to my wife, like, it's just weird that you guys have to do that. And she's like, you know, if we didn't do that, I think that would be, that would make me nervous.
Interesting. And I'm like, okay, I guess that makes sense.
And whatever weird world you're in, you know, it just means we're communicating. All right.
Sure. I guess that's what it means.
That the 25,000 step walk leads to a 12 step program. I don't know.
There's something in there. I'm not sure.
25,000 steps, seven drinks, and then 12 steps. Step one, denial.
Step 24,998, admittance. Yeah.
I want to have the Sopranos intervention for her and Krista. Just have Pauly and Silvio and Tony.
Pauly going, you make me sick. Chrissy, you make me sick.
Mr. Type A personality.
This is not about my personality. Anyway, that's parent quarter.
It's great. Great to have the family back.
What do you got? What do you got to plug? What do I got? I got a lot through the ringer with the great Tate Frazier against the lots. We're going to go over the conference finals for college football.
Bring a pregame show, which you were on.

I'm 11-2 with my best bet, Simmons.

I'm trying to make it a game

here, but nobody wants to catch me.

What are you going to do?

Cutting Sal's winning weekend. Boomer Esiason

is a guest, and I have a

documentary that I produced on

Yacht Rock. It's on Max.
Oh, I heard that was

really good. No, no, it wasn't me.
That was you

and Daniel Kelsen produced that, and I loved it. It was on Max.
Oh, I heard that was really good. No, no, it wasn't me.
That was you and Daniel Kelsen produced that and I loved it. It was his idea apparently in some form.
I loved it. I really did.
I'll tell you, my favorite is the Michael McDonald collaboration stuff with Kenny Loggins. By the way, the documentary says that Michael McDonald, not the same Michael McDonald that coaches the Seahawks.
So I didn't know that. A whole different guy.
But no, that they did what a fool believes, which I know. And then talking about that they knew their next, well, they thought their next project would fail.
And that was, this is it. And that was not a failure.
Yeah, they just wanted to bang out a song quickly so they could write something else. And then Heart to Heart.
I loved it. I really, really did.
Oh, thanks, buddy. And Total, one thing I'll say, though, and I feel like this could be like is Die Hard a Christmas movie debacle.
Total would definitely influence other yacht rockers, but I don't consider Total Yacht Rock. Interesting.
Is that weird? I think they're an essential because of Rosanna and Africa. Yeah.
You think those are... I mean, I don't know.
I think Rosanna rocks too much. I think Africa is known as a yacht rock staple, right? Really? I don't know.
You wouldn't put Georgie Porgy in there as a staple? Maybe,

maybe,

maybe.

I mean,

a lot of bands have one maybe song,

but I just,

and it was done so well,

like where people like,

you can't put your finger on what is,

you just know,

you just know when you hear it.

But yeah,

like my Lambert said,

it was like pornography where you just know that it's porn.

Yeah,

exactly.

The weird ones for me are Hall and Oates,

who I don't consider yacht rock. No, but I do think they have a couple Yacht Rock songs that just...
And the Eagles are the same way. I don't think they're a Yacht Rock band.
I would never say they did Yacht Rock. But I think one of these nights is a Yacht Rock song.
So it's like just... There's a Venn diagram where when it crosses you kind of know and you just grab the song.
Michael Jackson, Human Nature and Rock With You are yacht rock songs, but he's obviously not a yacht rock artist. Right.
Lionel Richie, The Commodores, those guys had... They're more pop artists, but they definitely had songs that if you didn't know sang them, they're yacht rock songs.
Did you find that most of them were... I know that was definitely...
I don't want to ruin it, but people were annoyed to be put in that category too, right?

For a while, yeah, because it became, it's like, are you making fun of me?

Are you on my side?

I think that existed for a while, but now I think it's such a popular genre.

Now I think the artists kind of get it, that it's good for them.

It's good for their music.

It's good for the Spotify.

It's also like, you know, for playlists, it's got its own serious station.

Yeah. So it's become like its own genre.
Right. Which is like disco that happened.
You know, like West Coast rap. There's certain genres that you kind of know it when you hear it.
It's right up my alley. I recommend it to anyone going on a 25,000-step walk.

Just pop in max.

25,000, 12-step walk.

Cuz, pleasure as always.

Good job by you.

Good job by you by LinkedIn. During the season, every baseball team plays 162 games.
It's a true test of endurance. It's not enough to have a hot month or two.
You need sustained dominance throughout. While the same is true for your small business, it's not enough to have a great Q2 or even a great year.
You want year over year growth that starts with better hires that'll be there for the long haul. To find those hires, use LinkedIn.
LinkedIn has strong hiring data and insights that you won't find anywhere else to help pair you with the best candidates from unique skills and interests to the connections you have in common. Based on LinkedIn data, 72% of small businesses say that LinkedIn helps them find high quality talent.
LinkedIn also lets you go beyond people who are actively applying in a given week. 171 million LinkedIn members aren't actively seeking jobs, but they are open to new opportunities.

That's a big pool to miss out on if you're not hiring with LinkedIn.

Find your next great hire on LinkedIn.

Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash Simmons.

That's linkedin.com slash Simmons to post your job for free.

Terms and conditions apply.