Caleb Beats Drake, a Mega-Mailbag, Eagles Drama, NBA Surprises, and NFL Week 7 With Tom Pelissero and Joe House

Bill Simmons (0:00)

Hey, I was lucky enough to get a son and a daughter through their early teens and their mid-teens in the social media era. And even though we were constantly monitoring it, there's still a whole bunch of stuff that can go wrong. And that's why Instagram teen accounts have automatic protections on by default. Built-in content settings for the content teens can see, contact limits for who can contact them and time management tools like daily time limits, and sleep mode. Teens are automatically placed in the teen accounts, teens under 16 will need a parents permission to change any of these settings to be less strict. Instagram will continue adding built-in safety features to help create age-appropriate experiences. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com or on facebook.com.

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The Bill Simmons Podcast. We're live on Netflix after Pats Bears. It's a somber Bill Simmons. Wanted to mention rewatchables went up on Monday. It follows. And we have a live rewatchables on Netflix Monday at 5 p.m. ET, Nightmare on Elm Street.

You a Nightmare on Elm Street guy, Tom Pelissero, or no?

Tom Pelissero (2:15)

I've never seen it.

Bill Simmons (2:16)

Okay. Well, it was a nightmare in Chicago today for Patriots fans.

A very winnable game, but a very, very fun entertaining game. What is up with the Thursday night games this year? Why are they entertaining? What's happened?

Tom Pelissero (2:30)

It helps to have good teams. I think that that's a huge part of it. You know, this game had been a couple of weeks ago and you'd been watching like Tyson Bajin against Drake May.

Maybe not quite as compelling. I think that Ben Johnson, anytime like the big games, the national TV games especially, cause he's very aware environmentally of what's going on. And Ben's like on, he's on the very short list of coaches. But even when he or his team does something stupid, like the handoff to Joe Tooney that gets flagged as being illegal, you're still like, that was the coolest illegal play I've ever seen. Knowing Ben, he knows the rules, like something got messed up on that play. But I was like, I've never seen anybody attempt that before. So even with the flag, still impressive.

Bill Simmons (3:22)

Well, the biggest attempt he made was this 58-yard field goal, 27-21. Caleb takes the Matt Ryan Memorial Falcons-Pats Super Bowl. We have the game won and I just knocked us out of a field goal position. Good play by the Pats defense, but becomes a 58-yard field goal in Chicago.

It's 11 at night. There's no win, but it's still 11 at night. Santos, his career was 56, and I thought they were trying to draw the Pats off sides.

They snap it, and I'm like, oh, this is a fucking miracle. They're kicking this, and then he nailed it, and the game ended. It was basically over at that point. But could you believe that they actually kicked that?

Tom Pelissero (4:05)

I thought that entire ending sequence was really weird. From Frable clearly taking the intentional off sides rather than trying to get the stop on third down.

Bill Simmons (4:17)

Herstridge had no idea.

Tom Pelissero (4:18)

To work the clock. And then, yeah, you get into that third down. I don't mind throwing there, but that play, here's the thing with Caleb, is you never know.

Is Ben designing it for it to be a longer drop back and wait for things to develop, or is it Caleb going, I'm gonna go Superman here? Well, he gets caught and running around in the backfield, and all of a sudden he goes down, Barmore tackles him and somehow hurts himself on the play. You're just going, there's so many different things that could have happened there, and that was outside of a fumble, the worst potential outcome. And good for Carlos Santos coming back and hitting a field goal after he'd knocked the previous one off the upright.

Bill Simmons (4:58)

And it hit the over as well. That was the other. There was a lot of excitement in the gambling universe, for some reason, a 58-year field goal out of nowhere, because it seemed like they were gonna run out the clock. All right, big storylines here. Number one, super fun QB. I'm licking my wounds as a Pats fan, but super fun QB battle. I mean, these are two of the best young QBs, and probably two of the best QBs we have, period. But they went back and forth. I guess Drake made the one huge mistake when he throws the pick in the end zone.