Apex Josh Allen, the Goofy NFC North, Week 2 Picks, and Bill’s Breakup Letter to the Clippers | With Tom Pelissero and Joe House

Bill Simmons (0:00)

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Bill Simmons Podcast. We are live on Netflix Thursday night on the tail end of Lions Bills. Tom Pelissero is here. He joined the Ringer very recently. He's back in the United States. He launched a new newsletter called The Sweep, and you can find him on Ringer NFL Show as well. So Thursday night, impossible schedule spot for the Lions. They're coming off an overtime game against New Orleans, 70 minutes, basically. Then they have to go here. They have to open the Buffalo Stadium. They have secondary injuries, and everybody who follows shit like this is like, this game's going over, this game's going over. The over is climbing. The over goes low 50s. We're in the mid 50s by the time the game starts. We end up 41-31.

I wish it was always this easy with gambling, Tom. I guess would be my starter here. I wish we could just look at these games and go, this is definitely what's going to happen. But what was your big takeaway watching this one tonight?

Tom Pelissero (2:55)

I think I texted you before the game, Bill score 40 plus. You nailed this. It's one of those games that you just looked at it. They're totally decimated in the secondary. Branch and Jennifer on pop. DJ Reed's banged up. Obviously, Terry on Arnold's long gone. I thought it was going to be DJ Moore running circles around those guys. He gets hurt and they still put up 41 points. Just throw the ball to Dalton Kincaid and run it with James Cook. They look like an absolute force right out of the gate here.

Bill Simmons (3:26)

I'm going to start with Josh Allen. You might have heard of him.

Realize this. I mean, he's so he had another. I talked about this. I did a mailbag this week. Somebody is sending a question about people who have had two running touchdowns and two throwing touchdowns in the same game. Tonight was his 10th and the next guy in the list had like four. So he's like, can we name this after Josh Allen and just call it, oh, we got a Josh Allen. He's done it in both games. He is the most fantasy points scored in the first two weeks of his season since 2000 He's over 80

He's halfway to Emmett Smith's career rushing touchdowns record. He's, I think, at 83 Emmett at 164 He's only 30 years old. And looks like he's on a mission. And the thing that might take away watching him Sunday and then today, and I've always felt like he was the best quarterback in the league. I feel like he's clearly the best player in the league now. And do you think that's, like, if there's an argument against that, who is the argument that it's somebody else? Because it just feels like he's peaking even for him. And I don't know who's in his class anymore.

Tom Pelissero (4:32)

I mean, there's some unique athletes, but nobody plays the game like Josh Allen. And nobody does it consistently as productive as Josh Allen. Like, I mean, Lamar's won two MVPs. And in those seasons, he's done, like, totally ridiculous stuff, both running and passing the football. I'm just always struck watching Josh play because there's no other quarterback who you're just that afraid is going to run you over and also then can pull the ball and throw. When he, it was early in the game and he's scrambling, I think it was on a third down tonight, and he gives, like, the really hard pump fake while running to his right. And you see the linebackers, DBs just stop. And then they're like, oh crap, now we gotta try to chase the guy. We have no prayer.