Episode Transcript
NFL week three market outlook. Thursday Night Football. Steelers at Browns. This is definitely no Chargers verse Chiefs. This is Mitch Trubisky verse Jacoby Brissett ,who looked pretty decent. Had one of the best statistical profiles of any quarterback last week.
In fact, vs the Jets defense, but nonetheless, it was certainly surprising since many people were writing him off. We didn't speak positively about him. This line has been waffling. I think it opened three, three and a half. Got all the way up as much as five and a half. Now it's back to four. I was reading that one of the impetus for it to shoot up was, I believe it was Right Angle Sports came out and gave the Browns as one of their picks. And that was a market moving view.
I always loved to fade those, we faded them on whether you knew it or not. In fact, Right Angle Sports was one of the catalyst that pushed that Cardinals line from three all the way up to six, and then we came in and bought that six. And then you even had the alt lines, as you of talked about in your NFL reflections piece this week, that was a really nice cash. Yes.
But so Steelers Browns, any view on this one.
No it's tough because, I'm not ready to buy, Jacoby Brissett. Certainly not like a quarterback where I have conviction. Like he could pop up for a good week here or there. But it's not someone I have confidence and conviction that Brissett's gonna, play well. With that said, it's impossible to make argument for the Steelers.
I think right now I think they were bad before TJ Watt hurt. You're not gonna learn anything from a game vs the Patriots. I don't think their offense is capable, especially early in the season where the offensive coordinators have really had no time to install a new system.
What that looks like in week 13, I have no idea. That right now, at least the Patriots offense is not good. So I'm not taking away anything from how the Steelers played last week. Defensively. I think they're a disaster and offensively. They haven't been able to get anything going.
The Browns, feels a little icky, but I think four and half probably a little too shallow.
What happened to George Pickens?
He's played a lot. He said, quote, that he's open on 90% of the routes, but he's just not being thrown the ball.
Their offense is a train wreck right now.
This is one of the things we were just talking about offline that, week three can be tricky, potentially even more tricky than week two, because there's a lot of week one performances maybe you're not necessarily buying into, and then you get this week two performance that maybe is not a follow through performance of what you saw in week one. And now you don't know, is this team more like week one? Is it more like week two? And Jacoby Brissett is a great example of a very underwhelming performance week one versus the Panthers, and then comes back with a lightning performance versus the Jets. For all intents and purposes, the Browns won that game versus the Jets and, as we all know, they ended up losing outright and not covering of course. But I think you make a good point in that Jacoby Brissett can show up from time to time. He's got enough skillset to do that, but is no corner turning. One of those top discussions between week one and week two was Geno Smith, that didn't follow through.
Yeah. What is it about the Steelers that Jacoby Brissett has an angle, for instance to you? We can talk about this later. Lamar Jackson is really good against the blitz or really good against man coverage.
We know the Patriots are gonna play man coverage. That's particular angle. Why this quarterback can shine. Granted Lamar Jackson, you can expect to play well more often than not, but for a player like Jacoby Brissett, you need some particular angle, which says, this is why he's gonna show up.
Cause they're else what are you betting on? I'm picky when I'm betting. I really want to have conviction in the bets that I make because I can choose unlike the book, what, where I put my money. And this is just not a spot where, I'm willing to, bet on Jacoby Brissett, because who knows who's gonna show up.
The other thing is, the Steelers while they have not looked good, they've certainly been pesky. In past seasons, we've seen the same from Mike Tomlin coached teams is even if the talent is underwhelming, they just keep themselves in games, end up squeezing out wins that they shouldn't have won or ended up covering games that you thought they had no business even being competitive in.
I think this could definitely be one of those games. A very short turnaround time off a heartbreaking loss where the Browns justifiably beat the Jets.
That was a win that they really needed to have. Yeah. And how long are they obsessing about that before? Moving on to the Steelers?
The Browns are not a team that I have a ton of confidence in to cover big numbers.
Ravens at Patriots. This was three and a half when we were previewing it Sunday night. Move down to three.
Now down to two and a half. Ravens are dealing with like defensive injuries. Secondary injuries got destroyed by Miami, particularly in that fourth quarter in New England.
This is basically saying that the Patriots are gonna be viable to win this game straight up.
Yeah. It got through three. Yeah. Yeah. This is shocking to me. I know where it's coming from. There. There are some sharp people on The Patriot side here which I think has moved the number.
But I, I don't get this line at all. I really don't. We discussed last week, the dolphin ends were almost the perfect matchup to take advantage of where the Ravens are weakest, which is their secondary. It was banged up first off, it's going to get healthier. Marcus Peters and Marlon Humphrey are to be healthier than they were last week coming off injuries.
But or even for Marcus Peter's case, just like getting off some rust for his first game action in two years. But the Patriots don't have any capability to separate quickly like the dolphins did, or the dolphins were winning because waddle and hill were open on every play beating.
These cornerbacks. Jacoby Myers is probably the Patriot's best receiver. He's hurt, very uncertain to play. I don't see how they're gonna take advantage of where the Ravens are weak. On the other side of the ball, all the things that the, Patriots defense does well, Lamar Jackson's good at right.
The Patriots have perennial played man at a top five rate every single year on Laura. Jackson's one of the best quarterbacks against man coverage. Cause he's so good running the ball. Just from a fundamental value perspective, these seems, I do not think are in the same tier, especially if Lamar Jackson is playing to his potential as he has in the first two weeks.
I'm looking at our consensus market rankings right now, Baltimore six. New England 18. The market broadly agrees that there is a tier separation here. We've had two weeks now, third week could be tricky, especially for those games where you've seen teams play two different styles, two different performances that make you say, look well, how are they now gonna show up in this third week?
And if I think if the Ravens play like they did verse the Jets, then the Patriots are definitely live here to certainly win straight up.
We even discussed this last week, which is and we almost got the answer to our question of did Lamar Jackson now run on week one because it was the Jets or because it's gonna be a feature of their game plan.
And he did run last week and get the dolphins, which leads me to believe that no, they were just holding back against the Jets. Also just another angle of this game is, the Ravens are a particular team who could take advantage of kind of the whatever's going on in the offensive room of Patriots.
I don't trust Mac Jones under pressure. I don't trust Mac Jones against the blitz, right? He doesn't have Josh McDaniels helping him out, making pre-snap adjustments. I don't think he's gonna be particularly good against aggressive defenses and the Ravens are extremely aggressive.
They're always blitzing at an extremely high rate. I think they take advantage of that. Mac Jones is horrible against the blitz and he's without his key helper from last year and Josh McDaniels, I just don't trust this coaching staff. I don't trust his offense to get anything really going.
So this is a very questionable line move, against kind of the fundamental evaluation of this matchup. It's very hard to find really any yellow flags about this. Are you willing to ignore the market movement.
I'm willing to capitalize on it.
I'm glad they gave my alternate line more juices.
I'll say, but also three plus 103 sell the half point.
The other thing about the Ravens in particular is that when they win big, right? Something like 63% of the games in Lamar Jackson era or 63% wins.
Excuse me, they've won by 10 or more points. So I love either, either they're losing or it's gonna be a real close one or they're blowing 'em out, gave the nine and a half. Love the nine and a half this week. I
I think will be a little bit more fun to bet live.
Oh yeah. All right. Bills at Dolphins. This line's moved. I didn't think that it would move this sharply. Given what we saw from the dolphins. I understand the Bills blew out the Titans. We had the Bills in Circa close the week three and two sitting at seven and three feels very nice.
But now, so there's six Sunday night. It was four and a half. Given you know, six is almost as much as a key number as seven these days. Do you still like it here at six?
Is there any other kinda ways that you might wanna express a position on this game?
I think this is a great contest play. We talk about like week three being hard because to know which team in week one, or we two is gonna show up. I think we have a pretty decent sense that the dolphins offense will look more like week one than they would week two.
Why for all the same reasons we've been saying the dolphins are not our team. That's gonna take advantage of. We cover units right. Of, of week defensive coaching. That's not the Bills. I posted a graph today of the Bills using our drive quality metric. And they're basically breaking the graph at the top right corner.
They are absolutely dominant. I don't even know if you can grasp the Delta between them and the next best. And I don't see any reason why they won't be able to move the ball against the dolphins who just yeah. Got shredded by the Ravens. And I'm selling the Patriots.
I don't think they're gonna get anything going. So they're week one. Their inability to score means nothing to me, but I just, I don't see, I don't see the dolphins competing with the Bill's defense here. Yep.
The other thing is I'm not impressed with super late rallies in games. Because that can happen. You catch a team off guard or you change something. Or defensive injuries started piling up and a team exploits it. And the other team just can. Stop. It doesn't have the time doesn't have the resources doesn't have the health necessary to recover in that game.
And also teams play softer. They don't play the same defense. Not to mention that, tyre hill scored a 65 yard touchdown lining up one-on-one with no safety help on a rookie. I,
I assure and then the other one was underthrown which probably with those bill safeties gets picked.
Yeah. You trust Leslie Frazier and Sean McDermott among the best defensive coaches in the league. That's not happening. You're not gonna get that same lapse. You're not gonna get the same gifts that kind of allowed for the Miami comeback.
Another reason why I like Bills here is so far right now on our market consensus rankings, Miami is up to 10th, so a sharp move higher off that performance versus the Ravens pretty much just in the fourth quarter.
That seems a little bit too high. I'm willing to fade that.
Bengals on the road, minus five at the Jets, this was four and a half is moved up to five everyone's butt hurt on the Bengals I'm butt hurt on the Bengals. You said you liked Bengals alt line on Sunday night. you're willing to ignore the first two performances acknowledge that the explosive play is gonna show up some point in time, maybe in this game.
I think that's right. There's also, I was just, as I was doing my Twitter scrolling noticing that like Robert Saleh plays a ton of cover one and cover three, which our defenses that Joe Burrow has destroyed.
And almost we with did two high structures. We know Joe Burrow of struggled with decision making. That's evident by his, sack totals and the fact that even after revamped blind, save it too well about the chemistry and getting better. It's still definitely better than they were last year.
He's still taking a lot of sacks, which points to something in his decision making. Written his ability to read defenses. And I think there's some signal for a quarterback like Joe Burrow in his outcomes, depending on which coverage he's playing and the Jets play a ton of cover one and cover three.
And I don't think they're like as adaptable, Robert Saleh strikes me as the guy. Who's I'm gonna run my defense. We're gonna, put our best against our best. And I don't think that's gonna work against Joe Burrow. He's going to destroy cover one and cover three as he always does.
What worries me about this line is this is still assuming the Bengals are last year's Bengals.
Because this was seven last year with Mike White at quarterback. And so now there's a difference between five and seven, for sure. But it's still a lot of benefit of the doubt that the Bengals are going to comfortably win the game. If the Bengals aren't who we think they are and the Jets also aren't who we thought they are.
Remember how, I was voicing concern. About that potentially that Jets Ravens matchup, maybe Joe Flacco can show a little flash.
Maybe he can take advantage of those receivers. It didn't happen in week one, but I was talking about how I still saw them move the ball. Like it didn't necessarily show up in the score. They turned the ball over out. They made a lot of kind of typical Jets, bonehead mistakes.
But basically what happened verse the Browns is what I was warning about. Could potentially happen, like in that Ravens game where it's yeah, Joe flak, he's under pressure. He's just gonna like class and turn to sh*t. But like he has enough in him to make some of those game changing plays that he did verse Cleveland.
And do we have confidence in the Bengals defense? To get the same type of pressure that you need to get on Joe Flacco to really disrupt that offense. Mike LeFluer is a great OC. Absolutely. I feel like a lot of people ignore cause it's the Jets, but they got some great offensive play calling got some great weapons at their disposal now.
And if you give Flacco time, he's more than capable of carving you up.
I hear that case. I do. And even just add some data points, they're like forcing, coverage mistakes at the highest rate in the NFL, which I think is a combination of offensive scheme and by receiver ability.
The kind of issue with the argument that I have is that it's almost, you need a bunch of steps for that to happen. It's if a then B then C then D right. If the offensive line holds up, if the receivers get open, like a lot of things need to go, in order for the bull case to happen.
There's certainly decent likelihood of that happening, but I would almost rather bet on what's to me more certain that no Jamarr Chase and Tee Higgins will get open for Joe Burrow to throw deep. With all that said, I really don't hate eyeing a Jet's live be early.
If the Bengals do hit on the explosive place, banking on the Jets can very welcome back in this game. And I also don't mind hitting the alt line for the Bengals and even betting like a Jet's money line. Yeah.
Trying to create a middle. This is what I wanna see. I wanna see if the Jets are able to protect Joe Flacco.
That is one singular trigger point for me. Yeah. To want to start taking Jet's exposure.
Saints minus three, plus 100 at the Panthers. I think this is like still two and a half. Most other places, saints dealing with a bunch of injuries. Panthers have looked bad for no worries.
The giants and looked bad for pretty much three quarters versus the Browns. I really liked the Panthers versus the giants. And one of the things I think I was in my tiltiness. On late Sunday was just like betting on bad teams versus bad teams thinking that the one bad team's gonna be a little bit less bad than the other bad team.
So I love the less bad team. Yeah. Like just find another opportunity, dude. Yeah. It's like the bad coaching can just compromise everything. Yeah.
Like you attack the Panthers on the ground. That's how you attack Panthers. That's how he's been doing it for a couple years.
It conveys out I don't know if mark Ingram's gonna be the engine of the This hates offense. And I don't, I need to see it with the Panthers before I back them.
You've also been very good at basically just saying this is a crappy match up. There's a lot of questions or these are just too bad teams, so I don't really have too much insight to offer and I'm not gonna be betting this game. So pass. Is this one of those? Yep. Okay.
Lions. At the Vikings Lions plus five and a half, this was seven and a half when we are previewing it on Sunday night, come down at a full two points, crossing two key numbers through seven through six.
There's a lot of Lions love and the consensus market ranking still only 25th, but we know there's a lot of positive bubbling sentiment on the lines, especially from a betting perspective since they're been covering machines and now they're winning up outright
But even in our drive quality metrics, they're the number one offense right now. And I don't think that the equals are a train wreck on defense. I think that's what the Viking scheme, semi suggests.
I don't know what to make of the lines. I really don't like why this year are they succeeding so much more than last year? That's a little bit taking me off, jumping on board here. This could very easily be a two game blip and like they're hitting on a bunch of explosive plays and relying on that past two weeks, but that could continue.
Like I was all on board. The Kevin Ocon O'Connell train after week one. I probably overreacted. But look, if this offense is, leading in our drive quality metric, if they're producing at a great rate.
I don't think the Vikings of the defense to stop them. Who knows?
Yeah. And the Vikings are a great example, actually right now of the difficulty of having two games, worth of film and just general performance, because there's a lot of sky high sentiment on Vikings after one game.
And now it's fallen just as fast, if not harder, after a truly miserable game on prime time with a lot of eyeballs. We're also again, feeding into a very strong preexisting narrative of primetime, Kurt cousins, again, falling flat on his face.
I'm pulling up our power rankings from week two. Only because I think the Vikings went from like seventh to 20th.
Yeah. 20th.
I got 'em 20th.
And where'd you have 'em last week. Yeah. It was like seventh. Yeah. That's huge. No one knows what to make the Vikings. No one knows what to make the
lines. The Lions played the Vikings tough twice. Last year
at this point in time, I don't think it makes any sense to try to get in front of this Lions's train.
I don't think you necessarily have to ride it, but yeah. Do you wanna try to get in front of it? Try to get clever and then get run over potentially.
I'm not, I don't think I'm betting this spot. I think this is an incredibly intrigued game. And the only thing I know is that I don't think this launch should be five and a half.
All right. Chiefs on the road at the Colts. This is another interesting move down to five. So this was six on Sunday night, and all I've heard is I've been trying to absorb market intelligence scrolling through Twitter, listening to podcasts and its uniformally.
Chiefs love. It's Chiefs and Gus Bradley this dichotomy. How can ma. Not take advantage of Gus Bradley's defense. Oh, the Colts weren't nearly as good as we thought that they were. And I'm saying they, because we certainly didn't. Yeah, we never were buying the Colts they're bad. They may be worse even than I thought so far.
Cuz they put in two clunker for sure. Verse not even a elite
team. That's the key part though, right? You don't just stumble upon ties and law, like bad loss to the like Jaguars in Texas.
Even if the Jaguars aren't improved, even if the Texans aren't as bad as people assume they are. Yes. Especially in a game with no real variance.
Certainly. And then also if you're priced to win the division, you lose two division games versus the ostensibly the bottom two seller teams.
That's certainly true.
This doesn't happen by accident. Would it be shocking if the Colts went five and 12 this year? No, to mean four and no.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Colts eventually abandoned the Matt Ryan experiment.
Yeah.
One of the things that I was pounding the table on, and I know you agreed during the off season previews was the Colts problems were not just about Carson Wentz yeah.
The quarterback problem looks like the same quarterback problem. Yeah. Again may be worse. Yeah. Given that... since you always have the latest injury news on Shaq Leonard
Do you know what his, if he's gonna play this week or full
participation, but that's the same thing, but
yeah, he was full participation last week, too. Yeah. There's
no, we're not gonna get word. I don't think until what about Pittman? Pittman? I haven't seen anything yet. In practice today,
back at practice.
See, this is just one where I wanna be cautious about the Chiefs. Okay. Because the Chiefs destroyed the Cardinal secondary, like we expected them to, and then they should have lost. I wanna say should have our drive quality says they lost versus Chargers at home. You only put up 20 points,
20 earned points.
Yeah. That the Chargers are a legitimately really good defense.
Okay. So you played a legitimately bad defense in torch them, and then you played legitimately good defense and you scored 20 or the Colts
Middle of the road, probably.
Okay. I think they're a lot closer to the Cardinals than they are the Chargers.
Maybe, but the point that you make a lot of times too, is there's a big difference between the 30th ranked defense in the 32nd ranked.
Certainly. I like, if you go back to the week one, preview I was talking about now the Cardinals are just not gonna stop the Chiefs. They're gonna score on all their drives. Yeah. I'd be shocked if they don't score 30 points. And I
guess I would say they don't score 30 points.
You'd say they don't score 30 points. They don't score 30 points. It's What's the argument to sell the Chiefs here. It's not to sell. What makes you say that they're gonna play at
expectation? The concerns that I express. About the Chiefs in the off season. I feel like have not been ameliorated by them destroying the cards.
Okay. Whereas there again, there, but there was a lot of people out there basically saying, see, told you didn't need Tyreek Hill. This offense is just as good. If not better. Now maybe they have even more weapons. I don't think that's true. And they just played maybe one of the best defenses. So I'm not saying it's dispositive.
I'm not saying the Chargers game is dispositive either. I'm not saying look, they didn't, they only earned 20 points versus the Chargers that's a good defense. So it's not to say that they're necessarily bad or they're not as good either. Yeah. But I'm still questioning whether or not this offense might be. Like the offense that we saw, like the first half of the season last year? No, maybe not that bad. Not saying like three, they're gonna score three points versus Titans. Tight, bad. Yeah.
But I'm saying this reverse, this counterintuitive line movement makes a little bit more sense to like the Ravens Patriots move. I'm willing to go with you and be like, know what I understand. There's obviously influential money backing the Patriots to move this because everything suggests to scream Ravens.
I would be willing to overlook the market movement and say, let's do it. In fact, I just did. I did it on stream. Yeah. I'm not willing to do that in this instance, because I think we've seen the worst of the Colts.
Especially if Pittman plays, that will certainly make them look better.
Yeah. I think they can cover if this gets back to six, why? I don't know if I wanna take the six to seven was definitely more attractive, but I think I will not be betting the Chiefs here.
I think the market angles are right. I would just like either a fundamental value angle or a game angle.
No. No. Okay. When we're talking about what's sufficient to happening and I think the chief floor is so much higher than everyone. Else's I have a lot of conviction. They're going to score at least in the twenties and they're just starting at a huge advantage over the Colts.
And I like am not willing. I'm willing to bet that. There's a decent likelihood that the cults really suck. Their offense is just bad. In which case this game's not gonna be close.
Yep. No. That could definitely be true. Remember it was even a couple years ago when the Chiefs, maybe it was 2018 when the Chiefs were like really ripping and they went and played the Colts and put in a really weird, bizarre game.
They only scored like 13 points. I think they ended up squeaking the game out, but it was super low scoring. And that was like the first time where it was like, wow, the Chiefs aren't gonna score 30 points every single game.
If there is a difference too, if it's sharp money collectively again, like generally sharper betters or some singular loud mouth.
Yeah. And the singular loud mouth. I certainly like to fade, that's just gives you value.
Yeah, I think that's what's happening here. And I think that's what's happening in the Raven spot.
Okay. That makes more sense.
Raiders one and a half at the Titans. I like the Titans here. Definitively like the Titans plus one and a half. This might move a little bit extra. So I'm gonna wait a little bit, but the Raiders, what put up essentially zero points on the Cardinals for a whole half a depleted secondary.
Devonte I'm caught the ball twice. We're very bearish on the Raiders. Now they're on the road for still a good head coach team. And the Titans have now put in two bad performances in a row, a loss to the giants and a, and then a complete demolition by the best team in the NFL on Monday night football with everyone to see. I'm willing to buy that dip. And I don't think the Raiders should be favorites on the road versus a respectable team. Like the Titans.
That's fair. What changes in this game script? What are the Titans gonna do differently than, the previous two games?
Where's their offense coming from? Take me through the game and like how it plays out Titans win.
I don't think it's more about that. The Titans offense is all of a sudden gonna score a bunch of points. It's just that the Raiders aren't gonna score points. Okay.
That's fair either.
Okay. That's fine. In which case I think we could, make a case to bet the team total under,
There's other things as well, which is, again, this is one of the things that I criticize a lot of generally good sports betters, people who have good feel.
Cause also this happens in traditional financial markets as well is sometimes you don't have a super strong, fundamental thesis, cuz if there is, that's usually known. Other people can visibly discern what that fundamental thesis is. Sometimes it's just about feel. And one of the times, like a lot of sports betters who turn media betters, then they shy away from those moves because they can't wrap a convenient, compelling narrative around it.
Yeah. So no one wants to buy it. So now they only make bets that have that neat narrative around it. Yeah. And those are not the bets that usually win. So this is the type of bet where I would say, as explain to me how, what changes what's different from these teams. I would say, I don't know exactly, but this just feels right.
This feels like the time you buy the dip on the Titans who are not a terrible, they're not a bottom three team.
I completely agree with you on the field part. That's absolutely true in every way you've described it. But the point I'm pressing on is you're making the assumption. The Titans are not a bottom three team and I'm not so sure that's true. Okay. That's fair.
This team can really be in contention for the number and overall pick
what would gimme concern is if the Titans actually are the 32nd best team in the league, AKA worst team in the league because this is more driven off Raiders right now.
And our market consensus rankings is 12. That is common. Crazy.
Yeah. So I would bet the alternate line last week.
One of the reasons why, again, we were was our strongest preseason fade and the Raiders are minus one and a half favorites on the road. What would keep me more causes if you really do think that the Titans could be a 31st, 32nd team that's a different story then.
Yeah. If they're actually that bad, I don't think they're necessarily that bad, but I certainly allow for that to be true because basically I've also outed myself in the sense of, I can't necessarily come up with, I can't articulate a very strong handicap on this
game for sure does not mean that your reasoning and what's behind, your thought process is not legitimate.
But that's where I stand here. If just like the Titans could be just so dreadful.
Field trades too work well, when there isn't a strong counterpoint, as well.
Eagles minus six and a half at Washington. Everyone loves the Eagles. Now eighth right now in our market, consensus ratings
this is a fuel game, which for me is not having me bet the Commanders, but it's having me off the Eagles.
Like when Jalen Hurts, it's being priced in as the third best quarterback for the MVP conversation, I need eight weeks to believe that. Not to, yeah. I'm not willing to back the other side, but I'm not willing to jump all on the trend.
On Washington, we've had two games now where they've gone quiet.
They came out a little bit hot vs the Jags but let the Jags come back, get the lead. And then they squeaked it out in the end and then vice versa started off super quiet, then came roaring back and then just couldn't fully stop the lines, but almost got right back to within one score there coming outta halftime.
And that's not necessarily the type of team. I probably wanna bet versus the Eagles, which at this point in time have shown no slowing.
Texans at the bears currently, minus three, I've seen some minus two and a halfs out there. Two bad teams. Chicago's ranked 31st and the consensus market rankings, Houston 29th, Houston has put into. Decent competitive performances was beating Denver for half that game getting very ugly, but still they covered the 10 and that was never in doubt pretty much.
And of course, beat up on, on the Colts and ended up giving it away, ended up tying, maybe some bonehead coaching decisions and not a ton of talent, but this isn't like maybe last year or even the year before that, where there was like the Jags and the Texans, and there was maybe the Lions where there was just like some, like really bad teams, like in the Jets too.
Like you like could not bet on them. Yeah. Bad where I don't think the Texans are necessarily in that league this year.
No, we did bet on them.
But yeah. Yeah, which I wish we actually would've bet on. I know it's ah, maybe we're getting too cute. Getting the text two weeks in a row.
The thing is there are plus double digits. Yeah. Denver and we already had questions though on Denver. Yeah. So yeah,
that's it, that's a fair point. Intense. A lot of points.
So what about this one? Any strong views on this one? My take it's
too bad teams. Yeah. Too bad teams is fine. This is what I'm talking about earlier.
I betting on them. Yeah, no, literally.
Yeah. Lovie Smith revenge game?
Yeah.
For what it's worth. I definitely lean the three on Houston. But I think the bears will continue to get better over time.
Even looking at some of our own metrics, drive quality stuff. They're like 24th and 25th right next to each other. Our model like predicting this game has them basically at the same point, total.
All right. Jaguars plus seven at the LA Chargers, Jags at that full touchdown again on Sunday night, we were talking about how, the Chargers might be the play Jaguar's put in two good performances, but this is a completely different class of team than what they've played so far.
I've had maybe a little bit of second thoughts on that in the sense of, I don't know if the Chargers, a type of team to pull away and comfortably cover a number like this, even if. They're demonstrably, the better team. Yeah. And I think the Jags are gonna be that type of team that always hangs around.
Maybe they're down by three touchdowns and then boom. In the fourth quarter. And they cover these types of numbers.
A perfect case of something I like to talk about of how the seven represents two things. Number one, it's a fundamental value, who's the better team. And number two, it also represents real points in real games.
And I think you make a great point that like, and ultimately the only thing that matters is the real points in the real games.
The market obviously is pricing and Justin Herbert is playing, but there's a chance he doesn't play. Even if it's small.
Even if he does play. And I know there's this talk about, oh, it's like this particular type of injury. It can't get worse. I don't know what that means. I've never even heard of an injury like that. But in any case, is, does that give them even extra incentive for a coaching staff that's already inclined to maybe get conservative with a lead down the end of the stretch of the game. Why put your quarterback in drop back position to get nailed in the ribs anymore than he potentially has to?
True. But they did put him out against the Chiefs in a in garbage time last week. They left him at the draw right after the injury down by 10, with 45 seconds left.
Yeah. But I feel like. it's a good point, but it's like a, I don't know if there's there's more of a statement to be made there as well.
And it's also something that was like, happening in the moment. So like they don't know exactly the extent of the injury. Yeah. Maybe like now they know what's up. Yeah. They have a full week to contemplate and also their game planning around the fact that this is a known variable.
There's more uncertainty then. Yeah. And also short term thinking. I think this probably closes under the seven. I feel like this is the type of thinking that could capture the minds of more betters as we head into the weekend. And then also, if there is any uncertainty increasing around Herbert, maybe not even playing.
well, then this is gonna obviously crash. Yeah, who's the backup. Do you know? Chase Daniel. It's not terrible. He's certainly sufficient for one off games to win games. Especially with the weaponry that they have. But in any case, I actually think I like Jags, especially in the contest.
If it's seven,
I like them in the contest.
And who knows if you get like one of those weird, like just again, high variance, Chargers type games where they just, what is going on here, Jack? Just win. And then that's when the Jags party really gets started. Yeah.
Packers at Tampa. This one was three on Sunday night. We talked about liking the Packers at that three. I already bet Packers plus three.
Now this is all the way down to one. The total also crashed. The total opened around 48 crashed full touchdown down to 41 and a half. I saw all the way down to 41. I bet the over at the 41, a full seven point adjustment.
I don't care. What kind of uncertainties is going on. Maybe it's 13 to 10 and it goes way under, but I'm willing to roll the dice on 41 with these two teams. Bucs at one, I know you talked about you like the Packers on Sunday night, certainly at the three, but what about at the one?
I don't like
it at one as much. I wish they weren't playing each other this week cuz I think there's a little bit of certainty that like, oh, this Bucs defense is really good and like the Packers offense is taking a step back.
I'm not really sure though. I think the Packers defense is really good. They were lit up by Justin Jefferson. But I think that's as you said earlier, a one time thing of a, refusal to like actually just line up J Alexander on Justin Jefferson, the Bucs don't have the person who can do that.
I don't know, the three represented teams that I think are pretty much even.
I think there's still questions. On Green Bay, as well as we saw a miserable performance from them. I'm not talking about ignore the whole Justin Jefferson aspect offensively. They're terrible. And then we just saw, all right how good are the Vikings? Maybe the Vikings defense is good and like this is gonna be an unstoppable offense.
Then we saw in Philadelphia that is not the case, at least at this point in the season, that was a little bit of Mirage. So how was it a Mirage? The Packers created the Mirage, and now the Packers beat up on the bears in Lambo where they've historically done that. And the bears are a bottom three team.
But now at one, especially if we get one in the contest, I, this is too far sold because we just don't know who the Packers are yet.
I don't think we know the Bucs are.
At one I feel like I'm willing to bet on just Tom Brady as opposed to Aaron
Rodgers. Yes.
I don't know about that. To me, those are the same,
They both can be cry babies, but Aaron Rodgers cry babyness like is a pouting way of whoa. It doesn't energize anyone. It weighs on everyone. Whereas Tom Brady's anger ignites passion. And that's why, like we were even talking about on the live stream, like when 'em saw oh, like someone talking like, oh, Brady's like breaking stuff and yelling at oh, that I feel like that's like a buy signal.
Whereas if I hear like Aaron Rodgers pouting, that's not a buy signal,
This is this is an emotional take. This is I don't like
Aaron, it's totally anecdotal. Like
just, this is like anecdotal emotional.
I don't like Aaron Rodgers.
First of all, I, don't not like Aaron Rodgers. I, in fact, I kind, I actually, I like Aaron Rodgers because he's made me a lot of money because actually I always bet on the Packers against the bears. Yeah. And he just always beats the bear. So
I'm just saying I'm not buying it.
But in any case we both agree at one at plus one.
You can't bet the package. No. Yeah.
Falcons. Wow. Down to pick. At Seattle. So this was two, maybe two and a half on Sunday night when we were talking about it, we talked about, we liked the Falcons. I didn't think it would move this much. That's tough. I thought it should be pick, but I didn't know. It would actually move down to pick still like the Falcons.
My DFS lineup is going to have Marcus Mariota. It's going to have Drake London and it's going to have Kyle Pitts. And I think that's a good point. Pitts
breakout finally. Yeah. I'm looking bad with my bullish Kyle Pitts call right now. Cause as good as the Falcons have looked, they're not even exploiting their best
weapon.
No, but I think they're playing the matchups here and like they, the tight end position is not the way to beat the saints. It's not the way to beat ramps. I think the Falcons offense has a great game and I just, I'm not buying Seattle's
offense.
So do you like the over? Yeah, I,
I do
and maybe you get a little bit of flash from gen again, the other thing is what I wanna look more into again, is like what some of the play calling was between the two, because it seemed like from an arms length view that the Seahawks went back to that very traditional classic Pete Carroll, conservative offense.
Yeah. Running the ball, Kenneth Walker with's back. And they really tried to lean on him, which obviously didn't work. We've seen Pete Carroll as well, literally like Russell Wilson goes off and he'll abandon it. Yeah. Like a good game from your quarterback by no meets, incentivizes him to lean away from running the ball. In fact, it almost empower him to say that gives us the ability to run
more.
Yeah. I like the Falcons here.
Rams at Cardinals, Rams down to three, like this is the one on Sunday night I was like, yeah, like I could see I don't feel strongly.
But this was four and a half now down to four now down to three. And what am I missing is there's some news out there.
Dan, do you have anything?
Yeah, Dan's our news guy here.
Dan's
the news guy. He feels us. But yeah. I'm with you here. I'm good. Look, I was just on the Cardinals, right? It's not like I,
Versus team. We hate
too there's team. We hate, but that's what tells you all, you need to know. Okay. The Cardinals got bulldozed by the Chiefs.
We thought that was gonna happen. Oh, Rondale Moore is coming back, maybe. He's
worth a point and a half .
Through a key number. Doing a lot there. But. Look LA at least showed last week that they're not, a trainer on offense, they had an off week. Fine. They're gonna
score. If anyone plays bad versus the Bills, it doesn't matter. That's what I'm saying.
That's what that's the story. That's starting to emerge. But I just like the Cardinals or a good long term be I think they are, but they're not there yet.
They're missing pieces on, they're starting Greg Dorech is their wide receiver two. The Rams are still in a different class, at least for now. And the three is just far too little. Yeah.
This is another alt line spot for me only, cuz this can get out of hands. Like the, it would not be shocking for me to see the Rams split of 40. Yeah. Cardinals defense is really bad right now.
I'll take some minus five plus 107 and I took the minus three at the minus 130. You
said minus 5, 107. Yeah. Okay. The DraftKings price minus five is 114.
Hey, every dollar helps.
Every dollar helps.
I can see the Rams doing what the Chiefs did to the Cardinals.
All right. Niners at Broncos, this one's done a full three point flip since Sunday night. On Sunday night, we bet the Niners at that plus one and a half. Denver was a small home favorite. We thought that was unjustified. And now the Niners here are the road favorite at minus one and a half.
Do you still like it at minus one and a half? I think so.
I think that Jimmy Garo is a massive upgrade over what trail right now.
Also, I feel like the market is not appreciating this from my market intelligence gathering.
There's all this like very Luke warm oh, I wanted to see what Lance his, name's already out of my memory now, Vic. Yeah.
Lance to
me, Lance Trey. Lance. Yeah. Yeah.
As a football fan, you wanted to see it,
like the way that people are talking about too is they're not even upgrading, like it's uncertain, whether you would upgrade them.
Maybe the variance now has decreased of what the expectations might be, but it's moved up. It's skewed more to more positive outcome.
What's stressing to me. I'm not sure the Denver defense is as good as the market's pressing it in right now.
I don't think they've really been tested in games against Seattle and Houston. Two featured offenses terrible offenses.
Would you say the two bottom three or four offenses? Yeah, I think right now, so we think Seattle
could be the worst offense. I think Seattle be the worst.
And like they put their ceiling game together against the Broncos and it was still 17 points. If you're pricing in a Vic Fangio defense, when Vic Fangio's not there, and I don't think the market properly adjusts to loss of coordinator, that also seems like a big market in efficiency.
San Francisco's a much better team. I think this seems like a weird spot. I'm not sure why the lines wide and a half. Is there something we're missing on the Broncos?
Our drive quality has them at, 17 each of the first two weeks on offense. If Jerry Judy's not playing by the way, time out. I, if Jerry Judy's not playing that's a huge loss. And there's some weird stuff going on where the Broncos receivers are getting open extremely high.
And by the way, Jared, Judy's one of the best in the league at that yet, like Wilson is not, is throwing like the highest rate of contested balls, even though it's receivers are generally the most separat. Just to keep on adding data points here, you talk about bad coaching.
The thing hack it's been a disaster. Yeah.
Clearly not ready to be a head coach.
His decision making so far has been as bad as can possibly be. And it wasn't like he corrected it, the next
week. What I've heard, that his excuses for some of those bad decisions is that they weren't necessarily well thought out definitive decisions that they're almost actually reflective of.
You've seen some delay of games and lot of Plays running the clock all the way down is because they're not coming to a decision fast enough. So they're not prepared. Who's making the call, who's signing off, got a bunch of people in his ear and this, that, and the other.
That is a reflection of, you're not ready for the main stage. And you're seeing a bunch of bonehead decisions get played out on the field. And Shanahan can definitely take advantage of those of this coaching
mismatch.
Yeah. I just checked my Lee Sharpe prediction game. The market has it at 53% San Francisco. I now I put it at,
at. 64. Yes.
I'm with you Dallas at New York. This is another line that's plummeted. The last couple days. This was three on Sunday night, which seemed way too high. Even with Cooper rush. Didn't be it. But thought that there had to be some pressure moving down.
Not necessarily a play on Dallas, but the giants. Shouldn't be field goal favorites versus anybody. We bet him week one won the game outright, won the ATS bet 'em on the money line, but we didn't necessarily feel. Like we're changing our view on the giants.
Another thing that I want us to do, on our Sunday night tilts, is give our Circa picks because it's like a well defined five picks is for us to grade those handicaps. So it's different than just winning the game.
Oh, we won, but actually was it a good pick? Was it a sound rationale? Did we win it for the reasons why we thought we'd win it? Yeah. That's, like Bills for instance would be like an, a plus I guess it literally played out. Exactly. Yeah. The way that we thought that it could play out.
Yeah. And giants week ones, B minus like got the Titan, the cell perfectly. Totally. We sell the giants being a like strong team outta the
gate. That's another good point is we should really lean in when we're trying to think about what picks we should make for Circa is, do we have a two-sided handicap or is it just one?
We just illustrated
a two-sided handicap with the Niners . Yes,
exactly. Also reinforces and re underwrites. What I was talking about earlier is not betting the bad, the less bad team versus the bad team. Cuz but it's not a strong buy and a strong sell. Yep. That are then matched , it's kind like a one sided handicap.
Barely if that sometimes. Yeah.
So Cowboys are now at one. Giants is like mildly more palatable at one, but maybe this is just again, bad team with a backup quarterback versus another bad team that hasn't shown any sort of growth.
Distribution of outcomes in this game is... endless. Who knows? We don't know anything here.
On prime time too. So we're not going to express any views on this in any meaningful way, but given that it's Monday night football again, there's a lot of NFL degens out there. They're gonna watch any football on a standalone spot. So what do you think is a way that you could express some sort of first off view on
the, yeah.
If you like wanna express some angle, they had a same game parlay. We talked about this last episode about, oh, same game parlays or sports book's best friend da, no. Utility of the same game. Parlay is for this exact market. Have fun. If you're watching a football game, go tell a unique story, right?
You could get 40 to one for one of these outcomes, go play it out. Here's the outcome. The giants get absolutely, gashed on the ground. Go make a fun parlay with this sequel equal Elliot and Tony Pollard. Giants lean to take one barley and a low scoring game.
Go be, barley, touchdown, barley over rushing guards game total under play. Have some fun recognize it's fun. And it's not going to be the same sort of bidding process where you're really trying to profit and analyze and be on the right side of games. Recognize it for what it's.
Well said. And I also do leaning into a barky type play, cuz that was something that we thought that might really be hammered home. And that Panthers game didn't really necessarily turn out that way. But I don't think they're necessarily dissuaded from trying to lean on Barkley this year specifically if like Micha Parson's gonna be in like Daniel Jones's face.
Yeah. Like left and right. Yeah. Could get a lot of like dump offs too. Yeah. That Barclay breaks for sure. A long cost. Sure.
If I can get that micro Parson sack at plus money. Woo. I'll be on it.
I wanna Daniel Jones, fumble sack fumble six from the Cowboys in a vet.
yeah.
Okay. I think I've got my five. So what's
your, we'll see what lines are
obviously today. Yeah. I'm on San Francisco, Atlanta, LA, Baltimore, Buffalo,
Jacksonville, and sixth.
I like that.
So that's road road, road, road.
wonderful.
Maybe something to think about. All right. Good stuff. Went through the slate. We're prepared for week three circle lines come out tomorrow. So some changes that we could still make, but we'll again, release all those picks in our NFL opening bell newsletter that comes out every Sunday morning. Thanks, Judah. And that's the closing bell.
