Drake Mayday, a Raiders Revival, Bleakest 0-3 Teams, MLB Playoffs, and Guess the Lines With Cousin Sal

Key takeaways

• Drake Maye has fallen apart badly: after being the toast of the league last season, he's thrown 10 interceptions and lost 9 fumbles over his last seven games, and the Patriots offense has scored just 29 points on 30 drives this year, the fewest through three games by any team since the 2021 Jets. Simmons relays real-time reactions from watching with his dad, including "It's like I'm watching Mac Jones again."
• The Raiders are 3-0 behind Kirk Cousins throwing three-plus touchdown passes in three straight games (joining Derek Carr, Rich Gannon and Jeff George as the only Raiders QBs to do that) and a resurgent Brock Bowers, but Simmons and Sal agree the ceiling is low given a brutal upcoming schedule against Chiefs, Bills, Rams, Jets, 49ers, Seahawks, Broncos and Browns.
• Four teams are now cross-off candidates for the season: Dolphins and Titans are already dismissed, with Bucs (0-3, 12 games in a row without covering a spread) and Chargers (0-3 despite outgaining Buffalo, done in by five turnovers) joining them; the hosts debate whether Jim Harbaugh eventually bolts for a college job if the Chargers situation sours further.
• The Cowboys' loss to Baltimore encapsulated their season: Dak Prescott sailed a wide-open George Pickens into the stands on what should have been a clinching first down, and Baltimore hit back-to-back field goals in the final 10 seconds after a special teams and clock-management breakdown, a sequence Simmons says had never happened before in NFL history.
• Brock Purdy is being floated as the league's most dangerous quarterback right now, making a jumping, off-platform throw against Arizona that impressed both hosts, while Joe Burrow's Bengals somehow lost to Pittsburgh despite Burrow reportedly being 1-in-34 when trailing in the final eight minutes of games—a stat both hosts find hard to believe on its face.
• In the weekly Guess the Lines segment, Sal wins comfortably by nailing several spreads almost exactly (including Texans-Cowboys, Raiders-Chiefs and Seahawks-Chargers), while Simmons admits to being groggy and possibly "cheating" late at night; both flag Bills-Patriots as the week's most fascinating matchup given the spotlight now on Maye.

Notable moments

• Simmons recounts his dad's real-time quotes during the Jaguars-Patriots game, ending with: "You know, it was so exciting to have a franchise quarterback, even if it was only for one year."
• A referee reportedly told the broadcast booth he didn't think a controversial Rams pass-interference call against Denver was correct; an admission Simmons says he's never heard before.
• Sal describes watching the Cowboys' loss with rowdy Dallas fans in Long Island after his planned Brooklyn bar closed due to flooding, saying it let him "experience actual, real, genuine sadness with some of your oldest friends."
• Simmons on Skip Bayless adopting Cousin Sal's "Drake Maybe" nickname for Maye without credit: "I can feel the shoe polish from his head just dripping off that theft."
• The Chiefs get an absurd roughing-the-passer call on a clean hit on Mahomes in the end zone, prompting Simmons to joke referees are essentially told "Whoa, Eddie, I got this" whenever Mahomes is involved.
• Sal details a Fenway Park outing for his birthday where the Red Sox lineup looked so thin he and his wife narrated at-bats hoping simply to avoid a double play, capped by Roman Anthony and a finally-productive Alex Bregman.
• Simmons recaps a fantasy-baseball gut punch: his ace prospect gets hit by a line drive and leaves the game 10 outs from clinching the league, prompting his co-owner to text simply "I'm dead."
• Sal shares a parenting story about his son developing "Little Leaguer's elbow" mid-tournament, joking that a real major leaguer like Andres Muñoz would've stayed in the game because "you need strikeouts."

Note: the transcript provided cuts off mid-sentence during the closing college football betting segment, so any picks or commentary after that point aren't reflected here.

Time saved: 1 hour, 41 minutes.