Hello Cleveland, Week 4 NFL Picks, NBA Award Leans, Raiders Realities, and Boston Despair With Joe House, Tom Pelissero, and Bill’s dad

The Bill Simmons Podcast

Bill Simmons and Joe House analyze the Browns' recent victory over the Steelers, focusing on Deshaun Watson's improved play under Todd Monke

Key takeaways

• Deshaun Watson is showing signs of resurgence due to Todd Monken's offensive scheme in Cleveland.
• A'ja Wilson's dominance was the deciding factor in the Aces' victory over the Fever.

Main topics

• NFL Thursday Night Recap
• WNBA Finals Analysis

Notable quotes

He's in his bag.

Conclusion

A high-density episode for sports bettors and fans of divisional rival

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:05) This is the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Make every NFL week more rewarding with FanDuel Rewards Club. You heard me. Just bet like you normally would. Earn points in eligible settled bets, win or lose. Keep collecting points, level up, and unlock bigger rewards. So keep an eye on your Rewards Club progress and see what you can unlock. This is your most rewarding season ever, and it's with FanDuel. 21 plus select states are 18 plus DC or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. Speaker 4 (1:07) All right. I was just doing a tweet house. It's the Bill Simmons podcast. We're live on Netflix. Very good sports night. Joe house is here. You can also listen to him on ringer wise guys and fairway rolling. Uh, I have a new rewatchables coming on Monday house. We're doing Texas chainsaw massacre. Wow. Yeah. G from the seventies, the OG from 1974. It's on every streaming service right now, including Netflix. So see, I are going to break all of it down. Wow. Very fun movie to research all that stuff. Okay. So we had a pivotal best of three baseball game, which we're not going to talk about. We have... Well, Speaker 3 (1:46) it was over in one inning, so it's fine. Yeah, it was Speaker 4 (1:48) over in one inning. Philly shot the road with their pitching. We have Fever Aces, which we will talk about in a little bit. And then we had an incredible, for a Thursday night, Brown-Steelers game. The Browns win in the end, 56-yard field goal. They almost blow it. They kick the ball right at the end zone. They learned nothing from the Cowboys four days ago. But then Rodgers throws a pick. That's it. The Browns are 3-1 and looked really competent. And they were underdogs in this game. I stayed away. If we had done Ringer 107 and included the Thursday night, I would have thought about them because I didn't think they should be underdogs. I was impressed. I don't think it's going to be a one seed or a two seed, but I do think they have a chance to make the playoffs. Speaker 3 (2:32) Yeah, I feel kind of bad. I'll confess. I have two apologies. One to you, but the first one I want to... Why are Speaker 4 (2:41) you apologizing to me? Because you and I had a conversation about the Browns, and you were like... You soured me on them. I'm not sure that I really want to... to, and yeah, I tried to talk you out of it, but I Speaker 3 (2:52) also, oh. Because their Speaker 4 (2:54) over was five and a half. Yeah. Yeah, I know. Speaker 3 (2:58) I owe Anthony Jeselnik an apology because on this program last week, you made mention of Anthony and his new podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. Jeselnik Book Speaker 4 (3:11) Club. Speaker 3 (3:11) Yeah, and you tried to get some enthusiasm out of me in support of this. And I had been on a business trip. I was unaware of the arrival of the Jeselnik Book Club. I was barely aware that you had interviewed him last week. And I thought it was a bit, I thought you were setting me up for something. So I was kind of dismissive. I'm a big fan. I'm a fan of Jell's Nick. I'm a fan of the book club. I'm a fan of the pod. So apologies to AJ. Speaker 4 (3:40) So, so you want to be invited to the, uh, on the AJ book pod now? That was your, that was your official resume. No, I think, listen, you're eligible. People go on the pod. I mean, I volunteer Speaker 3 (3:51) for every ringer pod. So that goes without saying. Speaker 4 (3:54) What do we do with this Deshaun Watson resurgence? Because this is now two and a half games in a row that he's a little confident. And it started with that Tampa game that cost both of us money. We're in the second half over and over again. He was just completing passes and doing things. Today, there were moments when he was moving around like Houston Deshaun. Speaker 3 (4:12) Yeah. It Speaker 4 (4:13) was kind of shocking. I didn't even know he had that in him anymore. You know, and he made a couple of dumb throws and it wasn't like he was perfect, but he's certainly. So far ahead of where we were a couple weeks ago when we were doing the countdown to last games ever to bet against Deshaun Watson. I think he's kind of shoved that whole thing away, right? The true credit, I think, goes Speaker 3 (4:36) to Todd Munkin. I think the combination of just the confidence that Munkin has plus Munkin is, we now are having this experience where we're seeing superlative offensive coordinators. And when you see it, you're like, oh my God, he's in his bag. This guy is calling a game where he understands where his advantages are. And the amplifying effect that it has on quarterbacks, we just watched an out-of-body experience out of Case Keenum on Monday night. And then that same kind of concept reinforced here. Tonight with Deshaun Watson, we haven't seen in five years, six years. How long has it been since you see him playing with confidence, with instinct, right? He's not thinking anymore. No, he Speaker 4 (5:24) had a couple that create a play when there was nothing in the play place that he used to do when he was at Houston. Right. Haven't seen that in forever. Well, it really helps that they nailed two drafts Speaker 3 (5:35) in Speaker 4 (5:35) a row, which was. One of the cases I had for trying to figure out if they were going to go over or not. And the quarterback situation looks so bleak in the preseason. It just wasn't a responsible pick, but Concepcion in Boston, they nailed both of those picks. Right. And they're, and they're two different types of receivers that compliment each other perfectly. And it's like, all right, they were two top 40 pegs, like congratulations. But listen, the Patriots have been drafting second round receivers and end of the first round receivers. For this entire century and haven't nailed any of them. And they nailed both of them. Like you're lucky to go one of two in those situations. And then I thought Judkins had some life too. They lost Mason Graham in the first half, which didn't seem like a good omen. And they let Pittsburgh hang around. Yeah. And it was the kind of game that I feel like the Browns would have blown. Browned away. In years past. And when I say years past. I mean, the entire existence of this Browns expansion franchise. Last Speaker 3 (6:36) year, earlier this season. Speaker 4 (6:38) The 2010s, pick a year. They probably would have blown this game, but they did not. Speaker 3 (6:43) The interesting thing to me is also speaking of Monk and I'm just going to do this whole Monk and dance. I like, um, they have, uh, a, a completely revamped offensive line, which is to say, you know, nobody will have any particular acclaim or vintage, but scheme wise, because of what they're trying to accomplish with, with their, their run scheme, especially. you see Judkins getting loose, and it creates an advantage for the pass offense. Yeah. And again, that's... And Speaker 4 (7:20) then the Speaker 3 (7:20) fan Speaker 4 (7:20) in, too. That's right. Speaker 3 (7:21) This Speaker 4 (7:22) place is... Judy, I forgot, was on the team, and then all of a sudden, he had a couple catches. Important ones. So Speaker 3 (7:27) they Speaker 4 (7:27) go... House, they go at the Jets next week. Mm-hmm. Ravens home, at Titans, at Steelers. I'm just looking for easy games on the schedule for them other than at Titans. They have Texans, Raiders, Bengals, Falcons at home. They're at the Giants, which the Giants might be tanking at that point. And they're home Colts and at Bengals. There might be like nine wins in there. I don't know if that's, I don't know if there's 10. Speaker 3 (7:54) Yeah, Speaker 4 (7:55) that's a, Speaker 3 (7:55) I mean, the challenge now is like the Raiders, that's not a pushover team. The Jets, I don't think are a pushover team. Like where you would go through and say, okay. Two Bengals games Speaker 4 (8:07) left, two Ravens games left. Basically, they do have two first round picks and they could potentially do one of them. The better they are, the stranger these broadcasts are going to be when they have to, they force themselves to have the obligatory Deshaun conversation too. where it's like, ah, we kind of got to do it. And then they want to do it, but they don't want to spend too much time on it. And they got to kind of rip through it. And I guess that we're just going to be doing that forever too. Speaker 3 (8:34) Well, I mean, four games in, let's see how this week plays out. But he's in the top half of the league of quarterbacks. Is he in the top 10? This is crazy. Where's Sean Speaker 4 (8:46) Watson? He was so bad in that first game that it felt like, it almost felt like Monken was... throwing him to the wolves in those first two games so that he could start Shador in week three at home and just be out of this and be good. And I don't know what's going to happen on the, on the Pittsburgh side. They're two and two. Another competent Aaron Rogers game. Yeah. You know, he Speaker 3 (9:13) had Speaker 4 (9:13) 300 yards. Yeah. He had a couple across the body throws. I thought he took some hits. I didn't get the feeling from him that. You know, he was just trying to get rid of the ball and not get hit at all like you do sometimes when you watch them. And I thought he was good last week, too. They figured out something with the tight ends. Metcalf, who I think only had five catches, but they were over 100 yards with the catches. And Jalen Warren just turning the running game over to him seems like it's okay. They're fine. They're going to be in that 8-9, 9-8, somewhere around there, too. Of course. The Speaker 3 (9:45) defense is good. The defense turned the game with the two, generated the two turnovers that you expect out of Pittsburgh. That's what put the game in, you know, within arm's reach of them winning. Do you think they could have used Joey Speaker 4 (9:59) Porter in that game? Speaker 3 (10:00) End of game possession. Maybe. Maybe they could have used him. Couple plays, Boston going deep. Speaker 4 (10:09) Good Thursday night game, though. Speaker 3 (10:10) Really good. Like good spirited divisional game. Well played. I'm interested in looking at where the EPA and success numbers come in because it felt like it was pretty efficient. I didn't feel like I was watching a lot of bullshit tonight. Speaker 4 (10:25) Yeah, and Bill's Lions was good in week one. At least fun to watch. Last week, Green Bay didn't show up, but Atlanta, they were kind of fun to watch. So maybe Thursday night's a wrap. Thursday night. Who knows? Fingers crossed. We're going to do a lot more NFL in a second because we have Ringer 107. We got to talk fever aces. How much, how closely did you watch what was going on in this game? I watched like the entirety of the second Speaker 3 (10:52) quarter. And to me, that was the sort of difference in the game. It was that stretch where towards the end of that quarter, the fever couldn't score. And every possession looked like it was hard. They were laboring on offense. There were step back three attempts. They weren't getting offensive rebounds. And that was the margin the aces needed because the aces were getting buckets when they needed to throughout the game. And you knew for sure after the first quarter went 31-31, like a giant Speaker 4 (11:21) scoring Speaker 3 (11:22) quarter in an elimination game, you knew it was going to ratchet down. And then, you know, you're looking at for the balance of the game. quarters where the highest scoring quarter was, was the highest scoring team was the aces in the fourth quarter. And that's just because they're getting the fouls at the end. championship Speaker 4 (11:39) game. Yeah. This is a team that's won three out of four years. They have the best player of all time in the league who put up 36 today. It was 12 for 15 free throw line. Watching it and thinking the Caitlin side too. Caitlin goes another year now without winning anything. It felt a little 2005, 2007 range Nash versus Duncan to me. Watching it. Because I think, I thought the Fever were really fun to watch this year. I love the way they played. But the worst habits of them were when they weren't running as much, things slowed down, and they would just start jacking up threes. And I think the two guards today for them, Clark and Mitchell, were six for 23 from Speaker 3 (12:22) three. There you go. Right? But here's Speaker 4 (12:24) the Speaker 3 (12:24) thing. Speaker 4 (12:25) In the last five minutes, they had the ball with a chance to tie twice. Right? Mitchell missed a little bunny one of the times. Then the other time, Caitlin threw her the ball and... And it just kind of ricocheted off of her out of bounds. And then you go on the flip side, those, uh, those two Vegas guards and, and Asia are just, I don't know how he's the Asia. Like, I guess you got to double her. Maybe we'll see somebody do that in the next, I would never have her have the ball alone at the top of the key ever. I haven't seen anybody Speaker 1 (12:56) stop it. I know it's just send a second person. Let Speaker 4 (12:59) everyone else beat me. I don't. And then Chelsea Gray had a couple hand-in-the-face crazy shots. But this game came down to like five plays, and they just made all the plays because they're the champs. And if I'm the Fever, I'm like, all right, it's a little differences. But that was what that Nash-Duncan era was like, where it was like the Suns were right there. And it was just a couple different plays. There was some style stuff, and then there was Duncan and Asia. Speaker 3 (13:27) If the Fever could figure out... offensive rebounding. Speaker 4 (13:33) Yeah. What was the final they got? Yeah. Mitchell was seven for 23, by the way. They just, they just didn't play well. You know, the smartest thing Asia did was not playing the FIBA thing. Speaker 3 (13:46) Uh, yeah. Speaker 4 (13:46) Rest of the legs. She, I think she needed the rest. Leave it at that. So Caitlin, the narrative now will be, Hey, she's never won anything. Congrats on your shoe selling out. Speaker 4 (13:59) I think she's incredibly fun to watch. There's going to be no jabs in Caitlyn coming from my side. But it is true that she is never won anything. Today she was 6 for 18 and had six turnovers. 3 for 12 from 3. Not getting it done. And got nailed in the mouth Speaker 2 (14:17) at one point. One Speaker 4 (14:19) of the things I noticed when I watched, I mean, this is probably one of the biggest non-finals game in the history of the league, right? Sure. And the officiating was bad yet again. Speaker 4 (14:31) I just, I'm always like, what's, what was that? How was that? Are they going to challenge that? You're just kind of constantly asking. But I think the way Asia plays is just kind of perfect for that chaotic. The refs kind of don't know what to do. I don't know how you call anything one way or the other on her. She's creating contact all the time. And they're the best team and they're probably going to win the title. She went 12 for 15 from the free throw line. We're going to get Aces Liberty again. That's what's going to happen. That's fine. Yeah. I'm disappointed in the links. I wanted the links. And then Miles got hurt, though. Yeah. Yeah, she wasn't remotely the same. Do you follow the controversy at all? The guy pointing at Asia and Asia kind of leaving the court, walking toward him. I saw Speaker 3 (15:13) it. Don't think she needed to leave the court. It was a weird one. Don't mind her yelling at the guy. Understand, you know, from her perspective, why that felt the way it felt. But to leave it. Yeah. I Speaker 4 (15:28) don't know what the buildup was in those Indiana games with the fans. Yeah. And if it's other stuff and that was the culmination, but just as an isolated incident, that was ridiculous. And I didn't think that was a great thing. This league over and over again, every time they're. circling a great moment or a great game, they have to have some dumb shit happen. They just got, it's like the league can't help stepping in it every single time with some dumb event like that. And this is Asia, the best player in the league coming off a crazy game one, crazy in game three. And then tomorrow the dialogue will probably be more about her and that fan 24 hours of, you know. Why didn't the W.A. Benny punish her and all that stuff. It's just, the league can't stay out of it, house. They'll figure it out. Or they won't. Did you lose money in this game? You seem kind of low energy. I just Speaker 3 (16:20) want to be very careful. I feel like it's a scared house. This whole thing, the whole kit and caboodle. I admire the aces handle their business. The funny thing is Speaker 4 (16:33) five minutes from now, you're going to be telling somebody to eat a big dick in the NFL. But WNBA, we're going to be careful. Yeah, we are. You've been betting Speaker 3 (16:44) on WNBA this year. I did. I did. I had a nice run with the Mystics. The Mystics were very good. They made a push to get to the playoffs. It was absolutely the worst possible matchup for them going against the Dream. The Dream have their number. It was Speaker 4 (17:00) sad. Yeah. We're going to do Ringer 107. It's brought to you by FanDuel. Make this your most rewarding season. Download the FanDuel app to check all our Ringer 107 picks and boosted teasers every week this season. The biggest question I got for the past week was, did we find a sponsor for Eat a Fat Dick yet? And are there going to be t-shirts was another question. Speaker 3 (17:25) Oh, that's... Somebody's got to do that. T-shirts about Speaker 4 (17:29) my colonoscopy. That's true. So now people are wondering, are there going to be Eat a Fat Dick t-shirts? Would House be on the shirt? What are the shirts going to look like? Is there a logo? Seems like there's some interest. And the sponsor stuff, we did get some approaches for some sponsors. I Speaker 1 (17:47) wouldn't say Speaker 4 (17:48) they were any mainstream sponsors. There was one that seemed like it might have been a sex toy company. Speaker 3 (17:56) That Speaker 4 (17:56) feels right. A couple sausage places. Sure. Yeah. But nothing that really caught my eye yet. I'll keep you posted. Okay, thanks. But I don't know if you need me to set you up later for somebody to eat a fat dick. Tell me. Speaker 3 (18:12) We'll see how this all plays out when we start talking about these games. What's your record in Ringer 107? Speaker 4 (18:17) Mine is 7-8. I'm 8-7. I'm 7-8, but if you just remove Tampa Bay, I'm 7-5. Speaker 4 (18:26) What a Speaker 3 (18:27) fun way to do it. Sure. Just remove whoever the biggest loser is. Last week's strategy of Tampa Speaker 4 (18:34) can't possibly break the record for most times not covering the spread. This would be the week. Didn't work and Baker Mayfield broke his thumb. Speaker 3 (18:42) Wasn't awesome. This is their week. Speaker 4 (18:45) Yeah. Before we get to Ring 107, I do have a couple mailbag things just really quickly. Great. I got a bunch of people sent Drake Maynames. Oh, um, that I didn't really appreciate including Drake Bortles, Drake Mayday, Drake Madoff and Drake. Maybe Mac Jones seemed to be the more, the most competent ones. Um, Walker from Georgia is a Pacers fan who thinks you should give the eat a fat dick award to the NBA scheduler who scheduled Halliburton's first game to be against the Pelicans on league pass. Oh, wow. He said all the Pacer fans would love for that guy to munch on one. Um, Well, I don't Speaker 3 (19:25) understand. What's that mean? Speaker 4 (19:27) It just felt like the guy made the finals two years ago. He's one of the league's best young stars and his first game back from a really traumatic injury. And it's like, eh, go find it on league pass. They get to, they get to play the Pelicans. Yeah. But maybe, maybe they should be playing like, I don't know, somebody good. Speaker 3 (19:45) I guess, I guess I Speaker 4 (19:47) get it. Sam from Nashville, um, heard me. me and Brian Curtis talking about Mike Tomlin and how he's been the first real football media star we've had since Romo broke out that year. And he mentioned that it was a day before we found out about this Minecraft thing that Tomlin had. when he spelled out the city that he built in Minecraft for 12 years and how he really got into the Jack and Jill bathrooms. And he doesn't think this is a guy that's getting back into coaching. We're going to have him announce him for a while. I don't understand Minecraft. Do you? I don't. Like, I didn't really know what was going on there. My kid plays Speaker 3 (20:27) it and he plays it with other kids. And there is like this concept of building things, but I don't know to what end. Speaker 4 (20:36) Well, I guess you build whatever you're building and then what do you do? Show people? I don't know. That's what I mean. That's exactly what Speaker 3 (20:43) I'm saying. Speaker 4 (20:43) Do I Speaker 3 (20:43) compete against other people? I don't know. I have no idea. I haven't gotten engaged in it. Just see him doing it. It feels like it's productive. It's more... Neither of Speaker 4 (20:55) us are going to judge what somebody does in their dumb spare time. No. We've certainly done a bunch of dumb stuff, but the Minecraft, I just don't... I don't understand what it Speaker 3 (21:04) is. With the video game stuff that's out there, this feels wholesome to me, Minecraft. Although, no, I don't think I should reference Speaker 4 (21:12) it. Great. Karen in Manhattan Beach asked if I'm worried that the Seahawks Super Bowl was Drake May's version of the Atlanta Hawks game seven that Ben Simmons had when he spiraled the wrong way. That's a tough one. Karen, didn't appreciate the email. Patrick in Canada was one of many to point out that... Speaker 4 (21:35) That Jim Harbaugh theorized that if this Chargers season goes badly, he'll be looking for the exit door to go back to college. Yes. Well, he can't because he's suspended for multiple NCAA things. So he actually, he can't go back to college. Wow. And he can't go back to college for a while. So it's either get fired, go into TV, or I guess resign. Speaker 4 (22:03) Or, you know, battle it out like a man. I think the point is, I think Jim Harbaugh is sticking around. All right. Ring of 107. I have first pick this week. You do. It's week four. It's week four. Speaker 4 (22:21) You know, there's a couple of lines that are at minus three. And I was kind of wondering if they might drop to minus two and a half for Sunday and be my fifth Sunday pick because we picked three today and then teaser. Yeah. And then we have a fifth pick on Sunday. Speaker 4 (22:38) I'm just going to roll the dice with this first one because I don't think the line's going to go down. Texans minus three against the Cowboys. Texans home. It seems like Nico Collins is back. Yes. I assume he's back. He's practiced today. We won't know officially until tomorrow. I was going to wait until Sunday to make sure he was back, but I think if people know he's back, I think this goes up. Houston's 0-3. I think I've had them at least two of those three weeks in Ringer 107. I thought they should have won last week, and they just kind of gacked the game. Dallas is coming off that weird Brazil game. Dallas's defense, they traded for Joey Porter this week and might actually throw him out there. Why not? It's an all-time must-win for Houston, whose season ostensibly could be over anyway because they've been 0-3 back-to-back seasons. Nobody's ever made the playoffs after two 0-3s in a row and made the playoffs both times. But I, you know, looking back at those three games house. Oh my God. I'm not saying they could be three, you know, but Speaker 3 (23:43) I'm saying Speaker 4 (23:43) they could be three. And now it's one of those like either three, either were games. And, uh, and I just don't see how they go on for, I like the matchup with them too. Cause they have that secondary that they can throw on the, uh, Dallas receivers. Um, and Nico is. Speaker 4 (24:02) if Nico wasn't playing, I think this line would be minus two. I think he's worth more than a point. So anyway, Texans minus three is my first one. Speaker 3 (24:09) Yeah, I like it. I couldn't get myself there just because I had to get out of the Texans business that I lost the first couple of weeks the same way you did. But Nico, I was trying to be stubborn and say, oh, they could still have success without Nico. My real problem with the Texans is. Going back to week three in Indianapolis, they just needed a stop, and they couldn't get the stop. They just needed to keep the Colts from getting the ball and going down the field to get into the field goal range, and they couldn't do it. And the defense has been giving up explosives, and the one thing that Dallas can do, it's in a dome, it's a fast track. I like the Texans here, but I'm just not willing to go the extra mile with it. I think that they're going to win. And I think they're going to win by, you know, three or more. Speaker 4 (25:02) To me, this is a big picture pick where it's almost, and I know we're not supposed to think this way going game to game, but is this Texans team really going to go on for. with the amount of talent that they have. And just because Nico Collins got hurt for two games, I can't buy it. So I'm going to have to lay the points and just do it. What's your first pick? Speaker 3 (25:22) I was worried that you were going to take this one when you started off with the idea of laying the three. I have no problem whatsoever laying the three with the LA Rams going into Philadelphia and taking on this Philadelphia team where something inside seems rotten. Speaker 3 (25:41) I know that we've learned over the years to not overreact when it comes to Philadelphia, but their defense is not elite. Their defense was supposed to be elite. It is not elite. They are not getting pressure. They let Case Keenum get whatever he wanted. They got out-schemed, and this is a must-win for the Rams. Puka is back. Speaker 4 (26:10) Um, it's the one thing that worried me about this game is he's back, but am I, would I bet my life he's playing on Sunday? I don't know. They're like, it's looking like he's going to be back, but it feels like he's got like a hip hernia type. See, Speaker 3 (26:24) I wondered if they're doing a rope-a-dope with that a little bit so that Philly can't easily game plan for him. But there's some indication that Devontae Smith is possibly going to miss. He's definitely banged up. And as a general proposition, that receiving core and Hurts still in search of. Goddard's injury is a big deal. Hurts got a catch. Zach Hurts, welcome back to the NFL. He Speaker 4 (26:53) had Speaker 3 (26:53) a Speaker 4 (26:53) great week. He was on Schrager's show, I thought, the first week. Oh, amazing. Schrager renamed the show. He's calling it Get Back Up. Is he? No. Okay. I don't think that's true. It was a link to Get Up. It was in the afternoon. Get Back Up. Get Back Up. Exclamation point. Get back up. Shags. I'm with you on the Rams. That was my next pick. Speaker 3 (27:20) Oh, good. Speaker 4 (27:21) Okay. Yeah. So I'm piggybacking you. Cool. I think it's 2-1 on piggybacks. Look at us. Rams coming off a loss. I like it. Yeah. Speaker 4 (27:32) Puka, I hope you're right on the rope-a-dope. Rams would be one and three if they lost this game. That seems inconceivable. But the biggest thing to me is I just don't think, there's a couple of teams I went against this week or I'm thinking of going against that I just don't think are good. Yep. And I don't think the Eagles are good. I don't think the Case Keenum thing was an accident. I don't think he took anybody by surprise. I don't think this was, oh my God, Ben Johnson was in his bag. I just don't think they're that good. They have one receiver. Barkley has clearly not the same guy that he was a couple years ago. Their offensive line is not even remotely close to what they've had in years past. Speaker 2 (28:09) They're Speaker 4 (28:09) one of those teams where it's like, what is your major strength that stands out? Because in the old days, you'd be like, the Lions, they own the trenches. Defensive line, offensive line. Carter, he has an injury too, but Carter hasn't been the same guy. And I thought the... I thought they could have easily lost in week one to your team. Right. Um, and then week two wasn't impressive either. And then last week was embarrassing. Speaker 3 (28:37) Could have and should have lost to the Titans. I mean, it was a pretty extraordinary drive that Jalen Hurts led them on to beat the Titans at the very end of that game. Speaker 4 (28:46) Yeah. And you could excuse it because there's humidity and some other stuff, but last week. I just, I wasn't surprised. I liked the bears in that game. Yeah. Eagles Speaker 3 (28:57) through three weeks, 24th in the NFL in defensive pressure rate. Speaker 4 (29:03) That doesn't sound like them. Nope. And when you watch the lines, sometimes I just, when I watch the TV, I just like to see what, which way the lines are going when the ball gets snapped and the Eagles line always used to go forward. And now it kind of doesn't. Speaker 3 (29:16) Yeah. So that Speaker 4 (29:17) was my second pick Rams minus three. I thought about, that was the other one I thought about waiting until Sunday. Speaker 3 (29:22) Yeah. But Speaker 4 (29:23) I don't think that goes down. No, I'm worried. Especially if Puka's going to play. I think that could bump up to Rams 3.5. If Speaker 3 (29:28) there's news of anything, like if Devontae Smith misses, that might move a half point in the other direction. Might be 3.5 by Speaker 4 (29:34) game time. The other thing, when you talk about home field advantages. Speaker 4 (29:40) And obviously if things are going well, Philly's got one, but I think Philly's one of those NFL cities where if it's not going well, you can really feel it. Yeah. And those fans do not like it. I could see this being one of them where you can just kind of feel the vibe through the TV of the fans. The, you know, the Phillies lost today. They're out. Um, and the Eagles, if they blow this game, you could feel the whole city kind of mentally shifting toward. The Sixers. The Sixers. They're getting ready Speaker 3 (30:05) for the Sixers. They're getting ready for LeBron time. Speaker 4 (30:08) If the Rams are up 27-10 early in the fourth quarter, it's like LeBron time, baby. Embiid said LeBron came to Philly to help him win a title. That was his number one reason. I love that Embiid. He's so sweet that he believes that. Speaker 3 (30:23) Your best bit this whole week was Embiid just play once a week. Amazing. Let's do that. Yeah. Why not? Why has he got to play more than 30 games? Speaker 4 (30:33) Before the playoffs. It should be like a TV show where one of the stars just isn't on every episode. It's great. It's a 22-episode season and they're just on 10 episodes, but they still get to be in the opening credits. Yeah. All right, so I have Texans minus three and Rams minus three. You have Rams minus three. What's your second pick? Speaker 3 (30:53) Um, this one's Speaker 4 (30:55) a Speaker 3 (30:55) great 50 50 game and I'm fascinated to see how it plays out. I'm going to go ahead and take Cincinnati at home laying only the two and a half against Jacksonville. And it's, there's two, two pieces to it. The first piece is, um, I feel like Joe Burrow and his weapons haven't gotten entirely on the same page yet. They're not completely firing. on all cylinders. But I think that this Jacksonville, they have a pass funnel defense, which is, you know, part of their thing. They're very good against the rush, but they're okay with teams throwing. And I think that this is a spot where Cincinnati comes in and we start to see those guys on the same page. The other thing about Cincinnati that I like. is their ability to generate some pressure. And the numbers are pretty dramatic when you're looking at the beautiful one under pressure. Lawrence, his splits under pressure versus clean. Just call him the beautiful one? I mean, with the luscious locks and everything. I didn't realize they were luscious. They're not? You don't think they are? He looks like a professional wrestler from the 80s. So we haven't really seen him against pressure. Lawrence. You know, Cleveland didn't really get to him. New England blitzed, but they didn't get any pressure out of the blitzes. Defense was a little banged up too. And then Denver in that second half especially, they got to him and he was four for 13 on dropbacks when under pressure and much better when he was clean. So I'm sort of part of this wager is on the idea that the Bengals defense is going to be able to You know, they run, they just rush four man. They put them down, but they generate their top 10 in pressure with that four man front. So I like the idea of Cincy getting some pressure on Lawrence. And I like the idea of the offense getting going and I'm fine. Two and a half seems like a fair number. Speaker 4 (32:59) It's funny. I had the Jags as one of my almost picks and I didn't like the plus two and a half. If it was three, I would have really thought about it. Sure. I watched that entire Bengals-Stewards game last week. I think you can throw in the Bengals. And they had a lot of trouble over the middle with tight ends and running backs coming out of the backfield. They got beaten deep a couple times. And it feels like, to me, the Jags have the perfect personnel to attack them. Yeah, Speaker 3 (33:26) they do. Speaker 4 (33:27) Three very Speaker 3 (33:28) good receivers and a very good Speaker 4 (33:30) tight end. It's a classic. If you like the Jags, they're coming off a big, awesome win. The Bengals are coming off a loss. You never want to take the team coming off the awesome win against the team coming after the annoying loss. But I do like the matchup for them. And Cincinnati's defense, they gave up 27 to Baker and they gave up 30 to Aaron Rodgers. Speaker 2 (33:54) So it's a little bit of Speaker 4 (33:55) a, are we sure they have a good defense? I know some of the stats have been favorable, especially against the run. But anyway, I stayed away from that. My next one's going to be a tease. And it's the most chalk tease imaginable. And I just got to do it because I think maybe twice a month, there's going to be one where it's just like, I just feel really good about this. First part, Seattle is minus seven. Speaker 4 (34:23) against Herbert and the Chargers. Yep. I love this because Seattle's coming off a loss. If Seattle had won last week, I think I'd be more nervous about this because the Chargers about to go on four. But man, Seattle coming off a loss. Darnold, who we all made the mistake last week of forgetting that he just hadn't played football and that was being thrown. I kind of wish Locke had played last week. I would have felt much better about the bet. I Speaker 3 (34:53) handicapped. um, this game as though lock was going to play last Speaker 4 (34:58) week. Speaker 3 (34:58) Yeah. Last week on, on our ringer wise guys program on Friday, my wise wager was Seattle to win the first quarter. And when Darnold came out, I was like, Oh, I'm, I'm, I'm dead. And then I was Speaker 4 (35:11) especially dead because today and price put the ball right Speaker 3 (35:15) on the floor on the 20 yard line and Washington got a touchdown off of that. Um, and that bet was, was dead. which I was kind of fine to live with because Washington. Speaker 4 (35:24) Yeah. Cause your team had a great win. Your team might be alive for the season. Yes. But I like that they're coming off a loss. They know that they have real running back issues now, which means that they spent the week trying to figure out an actual plan for the running back issues. Charbonnet is not coming back yet. Um, I mean, Wilson Speaker 3 (35:41) touches are fine. Speaker 4 (35:42) Yeah. And I'm sure they have some, some wrinkles for that. So you have Herbert on the road. You have an exceptionally loud crowd going against an offense that doesn't seem like it knows what it's doing yet. That feels like it's still learning all the signals, all the movement, everything. Herbert's a mess. They have a bad offensive line and just a weird offense in general. And the big thing to me is Seattle is really going to lose back-to-back games to Washington, a game that they probably should have won. And then they're going to blow a Chargers game at home. I don't see it. So I'm bringing them down to minus one. Speaker 3 (36:19) And Speaker 4 (36:20) sadly, I am teasing them with the Buffalo Bills down to minus one against the New England Patriots. I think this game will be rock bottom for the Pats. As you know, I took the Jags last week. I did not think the Patriots were going to win last week. I think they're even in worse shape this week with... A ton of pressure on May, who's been the talk of the town, him and the Red Sox. What's wrong with him has been all week, all anyone's talking about. A.J. Brown's not back yet. Their offensive line, they're on their third right guard. The backup for Unwenu got hurt last year. He's out now. I think the middle of the offensive line is really rough. I don't think they're going to be able to run the ball, even against the Bills. They really don't have a deep threat at all. They don't have anybody that I think may trust. The two tight end offense with Henry and Raritan, the rookie, Raritan got hurt, so they can't do that. And I just don't, I don't think they're going to be able to match points with Buffalo. And that's before going in all the defensive issues, injuries. I don't, to me, this isn't like our season's over if we lose this game, because I think they're supposed to lose this game. And I think they will. And I think next week is when you start figuring out, it'd be one in three. You get A.J. Brown back. Where are we? Okay, time to kick ourselves in the ass and get going. I just don't think they can match points with Josh Allen, a guy who has owned them over the years. So Seahawks minus one, Bills minus one. Both of them have to win six-point tees, which is minus 110 on FanDuel, and that's what I'm going with. Speaker 3 (37:53) I'll go ahead and do my tees as well because I also have Seattle as one of my legs. Okay. My second leg, I've been really going back and forth. I kind of want to do the Falcons because it sets up properly for the plus eight and a half. You get through all of the key numbers that way. Don't do the Falcons. I don't, but right. It's the Katrina Speaker 4 (38:17) thing. It's the Katrina Speaker 3 (38:19) game. It's a stay away. Right. That's where I'm going to end up landing on it. So I'm going to violate the teaser rules a tiny bit. in terms of the math that supports the play. Are you going Speaker 4 (38:32) through the zero? Speaker 3 (38:33) No, I'm going to back Washington getting nine and a half and take Washington from three and a half and go all the way up to nine and a half. I don't think Washington is going to lose by 10 to the Colts. Speaker 4 (38:45) So this is the London game. You are breaking a cardinal rule of teases. I'm breaking Speaker 3 (38:49) a lot of rules. Which Speaker 4 (38:50) is Speaker 3 (38:50) putting Speaker 4 (38:50) Europe slash London in a tease. I'm breaking Speaker 3 (38:55) every rule. Speaker 4 (38:56) If you'd put that with Kyler Murray, I think you would get electrocuted. Speaker 3 (39:01) You'd get hit by Speaker 4 (39:02) a lightning bolt. Speaker 3 (39:03)