Cousins the Savior, Sleeper Teams, a Mega-Mega-Mailbag and NFL Picks With Tom Pelissero, Danny Kelly, and Joe House

Bill Simmons (0:00)

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The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network, where I have a new episode of The Rewatchables coming on Monday. We did 9 to 5, Me and Amy Poehler. It's a great one. We went longer than the movie. So that is coming on Monday. You can check out that movie on Netflix this week. We did Air Force One last week, if you missed it. Coming up on this pod, I have Tom Pelissero and Danny Kelly together with me in Los Angeles talking about Tom Edson. We did a pick three instead of a pick six about the trade deadline, Cousins to Minnesota. And then him, Danny and I talked about second half surge teams. Who do we think can make a run? That's 500 or worse, heading into the second half of the season. Then House came on, and Joe House and I, we did a mailbag that was rollicking. We talked about Jensen Huang. We talked about basketball, Steph Curry, football, all kinds of questions. We're all over the place. And then we did Ringer 107 picks. And I'm going three and two this week because it's been an even week, gone three and two in every even week, two and three in every odd week. So I will be three and two. We had a lot of disagreements as well. So that is all coming up next. We're going to take a break.

Pearl Jam and then Pelissero next.

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All right. We're doing this live. It is Thursday afternoon. Normally, I see this guy on Zoom, Tom Pelissero. Danny Kelly is going to be joining us in one second, but he's still doing his fantasy pod. So I thought we could just talk to Kirk Cousins quick. Yeah, let's do it. I was begging you for this trade two weeks ago. You broke it on Tuesday. I had a question. I'm going to start with a mailbag question from Lee in Vegas, who says, ever since Girls, it feels as if every new Adam Driver movie comes with the same pitch. He's a great actor. This movie is the role that will bring him to the next level. It's going to be huge. When it comes out, a few people tell you he's really good at it, and then six months later, you hear the same thing. Isn't that essentially Kirk Cousins?

Orlovsky's screaming had an ESPN segment. Every time he changed his teams, they got D, they got the weapons, Cousins, and then steady QB play. By the time they go to commercial, it sounds like he's the missing piece to a Super Bowl team. He had 12 years in, he's had four playoff starts and one win. And we're once again at the next trailer for Cousins with the Here He Comes moment.

This is the best chance he's had of all the situations, right? But that is true that we're always like, Kirk Cousins, and then he goes 500 or they lose in round one. What's going to be different this time?

Tom Pelissero (4:05)

Because Adam Driver tends to get sort of typecast. You would need a very tall, sullen guy with a super deep voice. There's only so much range that you have. And with Kirk, he has to play in a certain style of offense.

Bill Simmons (4:19)

So he is like Adam Driver.

Tom Pelissero (4:20)

Allows him to win with his brain and his processing ability. Like he's not going to run. He's not going to move around that much. If the rush is there, if he can't shimmy out of it, he'll just kind of turtle and go down. But he, in this system, can be really effective. I think you go back to 2023, the year that he tore his Achilles, like halfway through the year. It was like right around the same time of year. He was playing at an MVP level. Like go back and look at his numbers. That's the best he ever played. As much as we talk about Sam Darnold and what that was about, obviously he had eight other quarterbacks or whatever it's been that have started from Minnesota. Nobody's operated this offense under Kevin O'Connell as consistently and it is at a high level as Kirk Cousins. So we now draw us back in with a better defense than he ever had when he was in Minnesota before. He's got as good a weapons as he's ever had. Questions about the running backs. I don't love the running backs. This is a pretty good situation for him to come in. And by the way, when he left in 2024 and signed that deal with the Falcons, the guy lived in Minnesota.