PMT DB
PMT DB
Football is back, and PMT immediately treated the first Wednesday night game like a national holiday, a banner ceremony, and an excuse to eat clam chowder while yelling about travel schedules. The Seahawks are raising a championship banner, Hank is trying to emotionally prepare for the Patriots, and Big Cat is already suspicious that the NFL is spreading itself too thin across every available night of the week.
Everybody Has A Super Bowl
The annual season-pick ritual became a full-blown exercise in roster delusion. Memes took the Jets to win the AFC East and then sent the Bengals through a Rams rematch in Los Angeles. Max countered with the Chiefs reclaiming the AFC West and the Eagles winning the whole thing. Zac also picked Cincinnati, which means Joe Burrow has somehow become the official quarterback of PMT's preseason imagination.
Then Hank arrived with the take that could make the entire office unbearable by November: New England is going back-to-back-to-back, with Drake May winning MVP. He described a future where the world reluctantly accepts the Patriots as a powerhouse again, much to the podcast's collective despair.
HankThe Patriots will three-peat by beating the Rams
Super Bowl threepeat: Patriots versus Rams. Patriots win again. ... By week 12, week 13, much to the chagrin of the world and especially this podcast, the Patriots will ... once again be a powerhouse.
PFT had the Bills beating the Lions in overtime, while Big Cat picked Buffalo over Philadelphia and also squeezed the Giants into the playoffs after abandoning his previous Cowboys lean. The most Big Cat sentence of the segment was admitting he wanted one truly ridiculous playoff team, then selecting the Giants as if he had discovered them in a locked drawer.
Big CatThe Giants will make the playoffs
In the NFC I have ... the Rams. And then my wild card teams are the Seahawks, the Lions and Cowboys, the New York Giants.
The Deshaun Watson prediction was even less charitable. Big Cat does not merely expect Watson to struggle. He expects the decline to become “comically bad,” which is a remarkably high bar for a quarterback who has already inspired years of miserable football discourse.
Big CatDeshaun Watson will get even worse
I think Deshaun Watson's gonna get worse. I think he's gonna get even worse. I think it's gonna be comically bad.
Hot Seat, Cool Throne, And A Very Loud Umpire
Hank put Brian Windhorst's least favorite reporting habits, Chef Schefter, on the Hot Seat after the Christian Gonzalez contract saga. His evidence was devastatingly specific: Schefter had apparently reported Michigan won, a result Hank suggested was still under dispute. Hank's Cool Throne was rugby footage of Miles Garrett learning to hit even harder, a sentence nobody should ever have to hear about any human being.
PFT's Hot Seat was the power outage in Tallahassee, where a car hit a transformer and turned college football into a genuinely chaotic production. That led to the important question of whether Mike Norvell is the most pre-fired coach in history. Big Cat's answer was essentially yes, while Max and Hank conducted a silent staring contest that required the verbal equivalent of a zoo divider.
Big Cat later praised the old-school umpire power trip after Doug Eddings demanded a pitcher's hat be worn correctly, then ejected the Cardinals manager during a pitching change. His position was complicated but clear: the umpire was being a “douche bag asshole,” yet there is still something beautiful about an official deciding, “This is my game now.”
Schrager Sees A Giants Breakout
Peter Schrager joined with a new ESPN show, a deep archive of old SportsCenter clips, and a surprisingly aggressive belief in the 2026 Giants. He said the team felt completely different after spending two weeks together in West Virginia, praised Jackson Dart, and predicted New York could reach double-digit wins. Big Cat, who had just made the Giants his sneaky playoff pick, suddenly had an expert witness.
Peter SchragerThe Giants could be a double-digit-win team
I think the Giants are gonna be very good. ... I think they could be a double-digit team this season.
Schrager also sees Cleveland as a team capable of ruining somebody's Sunday. He is not calling the Browns a Super Bowl team, but he likes the defense, the drafts, and the general difficulty of tanking when every player and coach is fighting for a job.
Peter SchragerThe Browns will win roughly seven or eight games
I think Cleveland's gonna be a pain in the ass. I think they might be pretty good. I'm talking like seven, eight wins, better than they've been in the past.
The biggest surprise came when Schrager finally made his Super Bowl pick. After years of success with championship predictions, he went Rams over Ravens, trusting Sean McVay's machine while admitting that the Aaron Donald return and Matthew Stafford's health are the two giant questions looming over Los Angeles.
Peter SchragerThe Rams will beat the Ravens in the Super Bowl
I'm going with Rams versus Ravens. And when it's all said and done, I've got the Rams winning at home again in the Super Bowl.
He also downgraded the Chiefs from his usual “Chiefs Super Bowl, let's go” position to something closer to “probably a wild card, I guess.” Patrick Mahomes' recovery, the offensive line, and a rebuilt secondary have Schrager unusually cautious. PFT then wondered whether Tyreek Hill's increasingly cryptic tweets were the first signs of a Kansas City reunion, because no NFL rumor is allowed to remain a normal NFL rumor.
Peter SchragerThe Chiefs are more likely a wild-card team than a Super Bowl team
I've learned in all these years to not doubt Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes. So I would say I'm leaning more towards wild card team than out of the playoffs. ... I'm usually like, Chiefs Super Bowl, let's go. I can't do that this year.
The Draft Lottery That Would Ruin Tanking
Asked what he would do as commissioner, Schrager proposed an NFL draft lottery with weighted odds for the worst teams. Big Cat hated the idea on the grounds that a two-win team deserves the first pick after suffering through two wins, while Schrager countered that the league could turn the lottery into a massive television event.
Peter SchragerThe NFL should use a weighted draft lottery
The first thing I would do is I would institute an NFL draft lottery. ... You have to go out and try to do everything. You might as well.
The argument eventually drifted into the NFL's global expansion, flag football, brain health, and whether putting games on every possible day will eventually damage the scarcity that makes Sundays feel different. Big Cat's proposed first rule as commissioner remains much simpler: no more international games.
Cam Skattebo Is Back
Cam Skattebo brought the exact energy expected from a running back who once puked on national television after carrying the ball seven straight times. He talked through the ankle injury, rehab, his habit of causing trouble while staying technically out of trouble, and the infamous childhood story about running into telephone poles wearing his brother's pads. His own verdict: if his mother says it happened, it happened.
Skattebo is healthy, comfortable in Brian Daboll's physical Giants environment, and ready to resume violently introducing himself to defenders. He also confirmed that the 2,000-yard goal is still alive, especially now that New York is committed to running the ball and Najee Harris is in the room.
I am still chasing 2,000 rushing yards
That's the goal. I mean, it's a hard goal, but if you have put something out in reach that you can possibly not reach or possibly can reach, there's always a chance. I'm gonna continue to push. We got a new sign, we got Najee back, so we've got Najee over here. So we're gonna really run the ball this year. I'm excited for it.
For the crucial philosophical question, lower the shoulder or deliver the stiff-arm, Skattebo chose the stiff-arm. “Sending somebody out the club” apparently beats almost every other feeling available to a professional running back.
A perfectly timed stiff-arm feels better than running through someone's chest
I think a perfectly timed stiff-arm. Sending somebody out the club is like the best feeling.
He also defended the blue-tent incident where he checked on Jackson Dart, described the Giants' headbutt-based greetings, and explained that Dart believes he could beat him in a cage fight. PFT and Big Cat immediately ruled that an absolute impossibility. Skattebo did not back down, which is probably why the Giants keep him around.
Pardon Your Takes
The listener takes featured Baker Mayfield trade fantasies, a possible Joe Burrow-to-the-Rams future, and an Eagles fan's dream of realizing halfway through the season that Jalen Hurts is not good enough. The most tortured submission came from someone who had spent ten years wondering why a college football holder can keep a knee down during a kick. Big Cat Googled it on air, discovered it is explicitly written into the rulebook, and accidentally gave this listener permission to begin the rest of his life.
The show closed with numbers, birthdays, 69 requests for Kolten, and the shocking news that LIV Golf filed for bankruptcy. Hank's analysis was that successful companies do this all the time, citing America being trillions of dollars in debt as proof that everything is fine. Football is back, financial literacy is not, and the Patriots are apparently winning the Super Bowl again.
