Episode Transcript
Welcome Kings, to the NFL Week four market outlook. We didn't do our NFL Sunday tilt this past week. So we wanna a recap what our picks were for week three, how we performed, and do a little bit of a rehash of what we saw from week three and also introduce a few of our drive quality scores. Then we'll look at the consensus market ranking, see how adjustments have been made following week three.
And then we'll get into the week four slate. Our week three circuit picks, we went three and two. Last week we went three and two, we opened with four and one. So now we're sitting at 10 and five through three weeks. Not bad. But I was left with a little bit of a bad taste cuz we were three and one. Yeah. Going into that Sunday night game, we had the Niners versus the Broncos and the Niners were winning the entire game. And then Russell Wilson and Denver of put together one last final drive, but it was an ugly game. One of the things we were talking about offline is Ravens was one of your highest conviction plays last week, and we didn't have that in our five because there's a lot of noise on it.
We ultimately just ended up leaving it out.
So we had the Falcons which was a winner. We had the bills, which was a loser. We had the lions at plus six, they were winning pretty much the whole game until the fourth quarter, really unw.
Our drive quality score does show the Vikings justifiably winning that game by a full touchdown. So something that we want to keep in mind moving forward.
I was just gonna add your ghost to show the what time weighted the time weighted average, right?
That the lines were comfortably winning the game. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we should be discounting the Viking's fourth quarter, like they earned those points and those fourth quarter points count just as much as the first, second, and third quarter points, even if the lines were winning for most of.
When we are doing our live stream, live betting in the games, we're trying to source some Vikings exposure late in that fourth quarter. Yeah. Because that's always been a criticism. Something that a lot of people were worried about is Can they close games? We know they can come back and put in some backdoor covers, but can they then close it out? Do they have the maturity to do that? Do they have the talent and the execution to do that?
We had Rams. Rams. That was a nice one. Ended up being a little bit closer than. We would have wanted for comfort, but our, drive quality score here 26 to 14. So justifiably covering it. Rams were clearly the better team.
And then our last pick was the Niners. One of the things that I do wanna be careful about around the narrative, around the Niners moving forward is I feel like there's a lot of people now, Oh, let's upgrade the Niners because they have Jimmy g.
Oh, I forgot Jimmy G sucks. Yeah.
People have also seem to forget that Jimmy G does this every two or three games, right? This is perfectly in the range of outcomes.
That doesn't mean that this is going to be his new norm and this is gonna be his new average. No, he is always been this way and he's gonna fall somewhere along the distribution and this one happens to be on the left tail.
This isn't a new normal, this is the old normal. Exactly. . Yeah, and we got bad Jimmy G still early in the campaign.
These are the types of things that can happen with him. And there were certainly other mistakes throughout that game where the Niners shot themselves in their own foot. It wasn't certainly just falling all on Jimmy G's shoulders. But let's grade our handicaps here.
So starting at the top, Falcons. We had 'em at the plus one. Came close in the end with a final drive by the Seahawks.
But I think the Falcons are as good as we thought they were. Yeah.
Their offense is legitimately good. They're like second or third and success rate on early downs. Their third and success rate and second and early down success rate. They have a legitimate offense. I don't know how good Arthur Smith is as a coach, but he's a brilliant play designer. Things are getting open, like they have weapons.
Drake, London's good. Kyle Pits is good. Mayor Yoda's ability to run the ball opens up just a whole new dimension for the offense.
One of the things that I'm really enjoying so far through three weeks of football is so many of our off season evaluations and things that we were talked about in our pre-season previews are really coming to fruition. Oh yeah. And there's a lot of kind of commentators out there now, even on the Raiders, like scratching their heads Oh man, like we knew that they were gonna regress, but man they look really bad.
Oh man, the Falcons they got some weapons here. They could potentially be a pretty explosive team. This was all there. So it's really good to see a lot of that off season due diligence, paying off, helping our bank rolls, putting us in a strong position here.
So I would grade this pick the Falcons as like a b plus one because it was still a little bit coin flippy in the end. Yeah. Time weighted average margin, one point, the time weighted average wind probability, 52% are adjusted, drive quality score winning by less than a point.
And it really did come down to the final drive by the Seahawks. Ended up not scoring, but they easily could have, cause the Falcons defense is trash.
We also like to talk about two sided bets here. is, I think we know the Falcon side. I think we just maybe a little bit underestimated the sea.
Like they're a disaster. And Atlanta's just gonna roll over them. . But I don't think that part of the take was right.
I wanna hear yours on Buffalo. So we really liked Bills. I was rewatching a our game trade live stream to see how we were assessing the game as it was going on.
Yeah. And the conviction and the love for the bills to roll in that game only was picking up strength as that game was going on. Yeah. And then kinda just fell on their faces. Yeah.
It's somewhere it's gonna be a B minus. Every time, red zone pan to that game, it was another bill being parted off of an injury or being helped off the field.
Number one, we didn't have, when we made the circuit pick, we didn't have information about the bill
Secondary. Yes. Exactly. In fact, one of the headline images.
I had put together was highlighting the bills and how we thought the bills were likely gonna probably crush the dolphins. But yeah, that was way before a lot of all that news started to really pick up.
That's an important part in, great in this handicap.
But also even still with the dolphins, 21 points by our drive cloud automat. It's not like they lit the world on fire, it was just that the Bill's offense didn't really move the ball as well as we thought they would. The bills today a good job, marching five yards at a time. But that's not the offense they're trying to run. They're trying to, have an explosive offense hitting digs and Davis deep. I still like the bet, but I think there were better options.
Yeah. One of the variables that did come out that really impacted the game, which I feel like we didn't really discuss, we knew about it but never really brought attention to it, was the weather. Early in September in Miami in the sun, like that could just introduce additional uncertainty.
Yeah. That should mitigate some of your conviction. Yeah. And so I think that should have probably would've added even more ammunition to be like, we like the bills, we're comfortable with the six. We know it's a lot, but where is there other opportunity in the slate and where that other opportunity could potentially could have been is we didn't make the Ravens a pick.
But you really like the Ravens. You talked about the Ravens, you liked Ravens alt line and a couple other derivative bets in that game. All of which ended up cashing. Yeah. That was one that we ultimately left off the board because, there was some fishy line movement.
We knew that there was like some generally sharper smart money taking the other side of the bet. But nonetheless, we think that we're just as sharp or just as smart as anyone else out there, so we can't discount our own handicaps. And I think that was something that you were even talking about.
I don't care what anyone else really thinks. Yeah. I like the Ravens. Especially at two and a half.
I'm like, the Raven have gotta be a pick here. Like they were my highest conviction play of the weekend. Yeah. The reverse line of anything was a signal to buy.
Like I, I knew where the the Patriots love was coming from and it was a fundamental difference that I disagreed with. Oh, the Ravens are like, reliant on explosive plays. Like the Patriots the be check defensive wizardry is gonna step up here. No, I'm fading those angles, right? And it was a real missed opportunity.
One of the things I really like that you called out though, was when we were on the live stream, live, be in the game. We talking about how the game was closer than the final score.
Yeah. Cause Patriots are moving the ball and if Mac Jones doesn't throw a few interceptions, and this could be like much closer, but then you called me out. Yeah. And totally justifiably, which is that was part of the handicap Yeah. Was that Mac Jones was going to make those mistakes.
And that was one of the reasons why you were comfortable with the Raven. And then that played out. Can't say if he didn't do that well, I was pricing that in. That was part of what I wanted to see.
Yeah. No, that's exactly right. The Raymond's aggression is exactly what would cause Mac Jones's trouble without coaching staff, like that was the handicap.
Lions, I'll give lions an A minus. One of the things that gave us more conviction was our drive quality money was telling us that the lions were number one. Offense in the league and that there was a lot of love out there for the lions.
And I think if you just took a market perspective, you might say maybe there's too much love for the lions. Lions still aren't necessarily a good team and maybe this is something that we want to avoid. But at the six, they played the Vikings tough last year. And seeing that from our model, which I don't think even the people that love the lions weren't pricing them as having the number one offense.
Yeah. And a lot of that came and played itself out on the field, especially over the first three and a half quarters. Were up by two touch sounds for a lot of that game time weighted average margin, almost a full touchdown time. Weighted win probability, almost 65%. So in control.
But just simply didn't have the maturity to close that game.
I'm with you there. only because I'm like, happy. We really trusted the numbers here, right? That didn't feel good. It didn't feel good backing the lions.
But no, this offense is legit.
And then we got Rams. I would give Rams another a minus. This was another line that was moving against our handicap. It was like five then four and a half and four three. But even on our Sunday night tilt last week, we were betting the Rams right off the bat. Seemed like a screaming by. I wish I would've seen the Rams maybe execute a little bit better than they ultimately did, but I think this was another strong two sided handicap and that yeah, the Rams are better than we think that maybe the Marcus pricing and maybe at this stage at least the Cardinals are still worse than the market is pricing.
And our drive quality here. Has the Rams still winning the game comfortably 26 to 14? Yeah,
Two sided handicap is precisely why I give this one a day.
I think it played out almost exactly as we anticipated. These is not a three and a half point spread separating these two teams. The Rams are a lot better than their week one showing against the bills. They're still a solid team. Are they the same Superbowl team?
Probably not. But they're still really good. And the Colonel's defense is just hapless and their offense without Hopkins and their weapons is really nothing special.
I love that we avoided Eagles, Washington. Yep. That was, again, that we talked about last week, didn't have really a super strong handicap on it. Yeah. You might be tempted by the Washington plus six and a half at home division game. Wanting to fade a little bit of the extreme hype on the Eagles.
Yeah. But that was a nice layoff.
And then that Niners Broncos game, That was another really ugly one. Again, but certainly within the broader potential outcomes that you should be expecting by, betting on Jimmy G and the 49ers.
But I would say being on the road, taking him as the favorite. We bet the Niners at the plus one and a half early on the Sunday night tilt last week, which that did cast. But taking at the minus one and a half for circa, I'm gonna say c plus.
C
plus.
I don't I don't think it wasn't a great pick.
I'm actually higher on this one. I think it's a BB plus. Only because I think we nailed the Bronco. They're still being priced as like an off team, but they really have shown nothing. And I think like deniers, like we gotta recognize that like these golo stinkers are built in and like a news possibility.
But I still think deniers, like they were terrible. There's nothing like more to say on that. But I think the like fundamental process behind it was perfectly sound. Although I do recognize bur, like I also was definitely selling the Broncos defense.
perhaps they're better than I thought, in which case maybe it was a little bit worse of a grade. But I actually think the process was perfectly sound here.
Let's look at the market power rankings. Have you looked at this yet? No. In detail. Okay. Who do you think is the worst team right now, the worst team in the nfl according to market perception?
Bears, No, they're two. One
Jets. Downgraded, four spots. I'm not taking anything away from the Jets.
I'm ready to back him against the Steelers. I'm excited.
I think that this is really valuable when you're looking at these consensus market power rankings, which, is a model that equal weights, the power rankings from ESPN pf F 5 38 Football Outsiders and In Predict and we got bills still at number one, even after the loss. In fact, even a two spot upgrade, which is we shouldn't think that the market is has a more negative view. Yeah. Of the bills. I think everyone realizes, man, this team is beat up.
They play still, pretty well, and it was just a head scratcher of a loss. Yeah. They put up like 90 offensive plays. They probably should have won the game. Our drive quality says they should have won the game and the market's not downgrading them according.
Yeah. What's surprising here is I would think that the market would fill in the gap by saying, Oh, the defense's gotten a lot better.
And that's what's a little surprising to me is that actually there's been no change. Yeah.
Yeah, those two things actually match up well in the sense of most people are coming away from that game saying, Bill should have won. Yeah. Yeah. The Bengals were fourth last week, so still very elevated, even coming off to ugly games.
Gonna have to do some reverse attribution analysis here and I want to continue to update and improve this chart so it has more detail around what's driving some of this, how are the changes being made across these inputs and seeing who's much higher than others. I also wanna introduce like a standard deviation factor to really see how across our different inputs, Is there broad, consistent consensus views on these team?
Or is there an average but that average is built and inputted through a bunch volatile numbers in fact and there's actually not a lot of agreement Yeah. Across the board on it. And there's
also a weird interplay of models that are Yes, strictly low based and prior based which just adds a little bit of weird numbers early into season.
So we got Bills, bucks, Packers, Eagles, Chiefs in the top five, and then we got Ravens, Rams, Bengals, Niners still Top 10 team, and then the Dolphins route out that top 10. Yeah. Then as arguing pointed out, chargers still do seem very high. They fell four spots but are still at 11.
Yeah. Brown seems way too high at 12. Really moved up 10. Yes. I don't think 12. 12 move up. I don't think so.
Look at the teams right below them.
. Okay. Jaguars, I agree with. What other teams are you putting ahead of the brands? Just from 13, 14, 15, 16?
These I disagree with a lot of these. Specifically the Broncos Raiders
in our head. What constitutes a top 15 team from the previous five years is not true of this year.
There's a ton of uncertainty. I think part of it, it has to do with like quarterback play. And that there are fewer good quarterbacks and like we're really seeing the decline of Brady and Rogers before our very eyes. Yeah. And also like the game is changing a little bit.
But I was thinking about over the weekend, just perhaps recycling through, passing back to rushing a bit this season. This is the beauty of football.
The things we thought were true and definitively true three years ago, two years ago last year are extremely fluid and can really change. And I think we like really need to build in a level of uncertainty of okay, we worked in 2020 and like we thought we were into this. Great, we'll lead quarterbacks for all that matters.
I think there's starting to be the first sign of a hole in that argument. And that like the teams and the style, the brands, this is why I think it ties into the brands, which is like their style of football might be perfect for 2022 of just teams are it's lower scoring, protect the ball, run the ball effectively and that's
a recipe for success.
I do think over the course of time, scoring's going to go up. Not just cuz like defensive adjustments, but because of refs and just the broader underlying league pressure to make maybe some of these games higher scoring.
These are just the kinda like some of the practical considerations of the NFL being a business and 13 to 10 games. are not exciting. Doesn't drive ratings. But going back to the Browns, who, the Browns played three of, probably some of the worst teams
in the leaders leaderships, Panthers.
Yeah. So I
Don't know that there's like a ton to take away from that. That's, and they didn't blow any of those teams out. They didn't even win convincingly verse any of them. Yeah, no, that's a good point.
That's the point well taken. I just I don't see the fact that the Raiders are 15 for me is crazy.
That's why I just love to keep selling the Raiders. know. And the fact that even you were willing to potentially lean into them last week is suggestive that there's people out there still trying to buy the dip on the Raiders when I think the Raiders are legitimately probably a bottom team.
Yeah, they are. Especially if they keep getting injured. Panther's another team really high. Yeah. Really high.
Like you see a major discrepancy or their 30th and ff. Ff the third
column ff Yeah, ff is the outlier here, whereas mostly everyone else has them as that middle of the road team.
Here's
where their, I think their ranking comes from. Their defense has been amazing. And if you're
that's how they started off last season too.
Yeah. And like even last year, they didn't get a lot of turnovers. But like they're gonna be top 10 in yards play aloud as they were last year.
The defense is legitimately really good. But I think that actually helps explain why they're 18th is cause if you're like, equal waiting offense and defense, then you might end up with a, an 18th.
Cuz their offense might be 29th, but their defense is seventh or whatever. It's .
Yeah.
Honestly, the teams that are too low to me are the Falcons and Alliance.
I'm conflicted with the Falcons as the market starts to buy into the Falcons, .
I just wanna articulate our off season take here, which is like no shot for upside, but real shot at six wins.
Oh yeah. That was the take.
There's no really shit bucket teams.
Yeah. There has been in the last couple years where there was like two, three teams, like you can't bet on them. They're just gonna put in a stinker, almost weaken and week out, totally incompetent. And then usually even those incompetent teams get beat up and then they become even worse. Yeah. And then you got like Glennon at quarterback.
Yeah. Those types of giant teams that just look absolutely pictured. But I don't think, Yeah, there's not a lot of good teams either though. Yeah. And like everyone's just middle of the pack. No one's really surprised into the upside meaningfully. No one's really surprised to the downside meaningfully.
And that's a lot of parody this year and gonna make for a lot of really good betting opportunities.
There are so many of these midling teams and it's gonna be hard to make a really bullish case unless something really changes for any of these.
Even from the Niners, downward. It's an important inflection point to. The good teams, we should have conviction that they're a lot better than the average ones. And that matters a lot more. And you're like this because the Broncos could be seven and four and the market can react a certain way, but like that seven and four record can be extremely misleading.
Cause the market, if it's inputs are win wins and losses or even like the same analytical stuff that we all cite if as being propped up by, by easy matchups, like by the best teams. , they're gonna be the exceptions to the rule of this parody in the nfl.
Okay, let's go into week four. Start at Thursday. Dolphins. Bengals. This was like four and a half. Move down to four. Now sitting at three and a half. The narrative around this game is the dolphins, coming off a total grinder versus the bills and then to a status, I think is still up in the air.
I'm seeing a lot of Bengals love out there. Despite the line actually moving against that, what are you seeing and how do you see this game? It really all depends
on the two I think. Does it? Yeah. I think we even talked about this on the live stream, I think there is a noticeable difference
between Teddy, Bridgewater and Toyota. Which is that this offense is based off timing and accuracy leading to yards after the cash. And I don't think Bridgewater is as decisive in his decisions which throws off the entire rhythm of the offense.
Plus a short week of prep for a potential new quarterback. And then it's like
short week of prep, historically Thursday night first, or coaches on Thursday night football are disaster. But like Zach Taylor. Yeah, that's mitigated on the the coaching front. Look I think three and a half's probably about right. But I still, just because of the way the Bengals are built, and I don't think the dolphins have the secondary to stop.
The Bengals, their alt line is still gonna be attractive to me only because they have such a propensity to generate explosive plays. And we haven't even seen Jamar Chase's break off a big plays and those are gonna come.
And I don't think the dolphins have the talent to stop him. And kudos the sauce garner last week for shutting down Mar Chase.
I don't think the dolphins can do the
same thing. Yeah. I don't think the Bengals were nearly as explosive as they probably should have been or as projected verse the Jets. Yeah. I know you were really disappointed that over the last 18 minutes of that game Yeah.
Basically went scoreless.
That was a, Yeah. That was a tough feat for sure.
The Bengals did not feel the need to push the needle. They stopped playing after the first half bro had 200 yards on the first half. But they only had 150 yards in total offense in the second half and like 90 passing yards or something like that.
Dolphins everyone's been seduced by that Raven's performance, which again, was particularly like that fourth quarter. Up until that point they had stole only 14. They didn't do anything versus Patriots and they didn't really do anything versus depleted bill's defense.
That's
kind why I almost wanted the market to overreact to their win against the against the bills. But they didn't, Yeah. The parents didn't move.
I think this Bengals are
pass for sure. Yeah. And I don't think You bet three and a half here.
If they're winning on the backs of big place.
So leaning into Bengals online? Yeah. Leaning
into the males online. That's the only play here.
Vikings at Saints or in London? Viking Saints, Vikings minus two and a half. Currently I think this was three, three and a half, maybe even four.
It's come down again in London. Such a crazy X factor that could be really difficult to handicap how these teams will necessarily adjust to it. Saints are banged up. The Saints offense had one or two explosive plays verse.
The Panthers last week, but otherwise couldn't do anything. Coming off the back of, not doing anything first to Bucks.
I thought I liked the Vikings. I don't like the between the London element, this just feels like a real fluky game. I can't back, I can't back either side here.
I think that reflects the broader bedding community as well. I think there was this overshoot of elevated expectations for the Vikings coming off that game versus the Packers where they still only scored like what, 23 points?
20 points, Yeah. Yeah. And then a stinker versus the Eagles. And then in a game where they were getting beat by double digits, by the lions for most of that game .
Yeah. We've learned a lot about a bunch of teams through three weeks. These are not two of them. , I think we need more time to see what these teams are.
Titans at Colts. Titans plus three and a half, the Colts look miserable, even though they beat the Chiefs. I'm certainly not changing my evaluation of them. They are gifted a touchdown right off the bat to start that game.
That changes the entire course of the game. When you have a flu touchdown like that it just like alters it throws it into a strange game script. It's not the same as like a fumble in the second quarter.
So what did you see from the Titans in the Raiders? I know you, cuz obviously you didn't want to touch Titans. Yeah. The offense was clicking, They did it even beyond the scripted plays now it trailed off Yeah. Near the end of the game.
But it was beyond the scripted plays. At least
I'm willing to accept that the Titans are gonna be fine. I don't think they're gonna be great. I don't, But they're not a bottom five offense. Like they get trail and burs going they run with Henry, like Tana Hill, still somewhat of the quarterback. He was running somewhat of the same offense. That was like generally successful. I think it's a major step back from what they were.
Yes, but I don't think it's this bottom five offense that I thought was possible.
I don't want you to actually back off too strongly.
I'm not backing off. Okay. So I should clarify. I'm not backing cause that's First or Raiders still. I'm not backing off too strong.
I've seen the case for they can be competent.
Okay. So does three and a is three and a half or sculpts track here? No.
I think we have our off season thesis right? On both of these teams, but I don't think we know the extent of it yet.
This is another one where a lot of the markets I feel like is, Man, the cols look bad.
Maybe Matt, maybe Wence wasn't their problem man. Matt Ryan looks like when's 2.0 Yeah. It's Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. Bears at the Giants, this is an. This isn't even uglier. Bears plus three plus 100. Currently. I can't imagine touching this game. Bad team versus bad team. Fluke shit can happen and you just end up losing cuz someone makes its bone head display. I could certainly see the giants are in command. Yeah. Up by four fumble sack. Where's
exactly the back? Where's the fumble happening and where's the Jones fumble happening?
And where's the field interception happening? That's what, Like
this?
Okay, so Bill's on the road minus three versus Ravens. I saw it was three and a half. I think it was four and a half maybe to open.
You love the bills. I know, but you also like the Ravens and now you're getting the Ravens plus three at home. Yeah. Or is the separation between these teams two still too much to even justify buying the Ravens at home plus three?
I think it depends on the Bill's injuries. The Bills and Raven Offenses right now are about similar.
Take a quick check out our drive quality stuff. Yeah. 32 for the bills are a 32 points, earn points, and the Raven 31. . But the defenses are on totally different levels, right? Like the Bill's defense is one of the few that will consistently slow down in defense. And the Ravens are just like bleeding in explosive place right now.
Doesn't matter who the quarterback is, they're just bleeding them. Mac Jones was tearing 'em to shreds. But I'm, I don't think the bills are gonna be healthy. And I'm not sure what's making the defense and if this game turns into a shootout and it's like each offense play their game.
I think these are about equal.
will also say, if you take the raven in the spot, I think you almost have to take the over also, right?
I like the Ravens are playing more aggressive certainly after that week one game versus the jets.
Yeah. But the bills just came off and they beat the dolphins. And the bills are three and o and the bills are just as good. We thought, And the Ravens played a close game versus the Patriots. Using our drive quality as a state of reality.
Yeah.
But like the way this game plays out, it's really a matter of can the Bill's defense slow down the Raven's offense? , that's the matchup, right? I see a lot of game scripts.
Even though you're speaking a lot of uncertainty and kind of playing both sides, in fact, as I hear you speak, like I like the bills more.
Okay. I
like the minus three.
Yeah.
Chargers minus five at Texans. Obviously it's very well documented. Chargers are just injured across the board. Just tons of negative sentiment. But still five point road favorites at a bottom three or bottom four team. Now. They're not terrible like they were a couple of years ago. Yeah, but can they cover this five? They beat the Chargers last year convincingly. In Houston pulled away. Think ended up winning that game by 20.
Can you bet the Texans?
We need to pump the brakes. Big pump the brakes on the Chargers selling. Yes. Joey Boa hurts. Yes. Rashaan Slater hurts. They still have an elite
quarterback. I. Who's banged up.
Okay. Like they had a clunker of a game again, like this happens every year. Just like you can't get caught in the variance of an NFL season and just like single game results. This is all built in, like the Chargers are gonna have games like this. And it was like, The is Herbert playing?
Is Herbert not playing? Like these are the distractions that cause these types of games. And it just like in, it spirals when your players get hurt and it's ah, it's all coming down. And then they bounce back and Herbert does a great game and they win 31 17. Keen and Allen like leading me back this week, Practice today.
What we said about in our NFC West preview. Just in her's. Still really good under pressure, not under pressure. The quality of your offensive line matters less when you have Justin in Herbert.
You can overcome it when you have a Justin in Herbert and. , I think it's important not to just pounce on the cell train.
My concern about the five would be that, to your point, one thing that you have to price in with the Chargers, that is they're just gonna put in some really questionable performances from time to time. And one of the things we talked about why we liked Jas last week was this was a good two-sided handicap in the sense of, it wasn't just about the JAS plus seven, but it's about not, you can't take really the Chargers minus seven because even if they are the better team, and even if they are winning, In relatively dominant fashion, are they gonna still be able to close the game?
Are they gonna continue to be aggressive? I agree with you. The market has been very aggressive in selling the Chargers. And from a sentiment perspective, I think it's maybe overshooting. I feel like there's a lot of people like ripping up their AFC West and Super Bowl tickets. Yeah. And that's premature. Yeah. But I don't think the market's sold off enough. Maybe in the betting market on a micro perspective, I wish this was less than five.
I think
the flash was seven.
Seahawks plus four at the Lions. Think this opened up closer to that touchdown. Yeah. Six and a half. Injuries. Injuries. Injuries and lions injuries have certainly pushed this lower. This still seems like too high of a number for the Lions given their current stage of maturation.
Can the Lions cover a number like this?
Half to win and convincing fashion. Can they prevent the back door type covers?
Yeah, it seems unwise until we see it.
I'm willing to accept no, this could be a legitimately great offense. There are two main concerns here. The first is that the sea are not the train wreck that I anticipated. I think like they're gonna show up in spots.
And the second is like I, the lion have played so well, but their production has also really flowed through. Only a couple guys, or like Deandre Swift and I and Ross Saint Brown have been absolutely integral pieces to the lion's offense. If both of those guys are out,
Another thing is when the Seahawks are playing at home, they could potentially be a different team.
And so far that's the split that we've seen.
I wouldn't be surprised if Detroit beats 'em Handly, but I'm also not willing to there's too much uncertainty.
Jets at Steelers currently plus three, I think this was plus four and a half four. I already put in a couple bets for this week. I bet. Jets four, four and a half. Yeah. Zach Wilson might play. He's playing. He is playing. Yeah. So that creates potentially a higher ceiling.
I'm not as down on the Steelers, I feel as the broader market is. I feel like they're not that bad. They just hang around and they're not good enough to maybe close out games. But I definitely like the Jets at the four and a half, four.
Now it's down to three.
I like the Jet here a. . The power ranking seven is 32nd best. I don't think that's close to true. And I think there are certain times when you can take upside like betting on a long term thesis in one game.
, here's the jets take to me, I think they're like, secondary has been tremendous. Like Arsen just did some cool stuff. But like their cornerback trio has been great. They're generating pressure off the D-line. We've talked over and over about the weapons being really good.
We love the of offense. Michael Forrest on a great job as the offensive coordinator. All of the right buttons are place. If Zack Wilson can be anything, if he's just like marginally Okay. That Jess will be good. And like your room for error playing against Mr. Bisky. And the Steelers is so high, like it's so high.
Thing is Zach Wilson can introduce a lot of those errors, especially in the first game, especially verse a Steeler team that has historically been like very opportunistic.
But this is exactly the spot where I'm willing to buy the variance because the margin for is so high.
Jaguars plus six and a half verse The Eagles. These are two obviously red hot teams, not just on the field, but in the market.
Everyone's buying every type of exposure you can on Jas and Eagles. Right now, this is still a very high line, so this open seven, that was the one bet that I already put, three units on jas at the seven as that came out. Yeah. But I'm surprised that it's actually still hanging around at this six and a half.
. I thought this would continue to drip lower over the course of the week. So still Wednesday night limits are gonna go up, across the board generally tomorrow. So we'll maybe we'll see some of these lines start to tighten up a little bit. But I would expect this to continue to move lower even despite all the love on the Eagles.
This is a pretty hefty number. Yeah.
This is a tough one. First, everything we said about Jalen hearts earlier, I think still applies, still true. Yeah, still true. I think six and a half is zero
points in the second half is Washington.
Doug Peterson revenge game too. That's the thing.
why not? But the, you, to finish off the Hertz point, like the six and a half fundamental value aside, like if the Eagles offense is firing on all cylinders and they're scoring 37 points, the six doesn't mean anything.
And that's certainly the case of jailing Herz mvp. But I don't think that's the local case. And I think the Jaguars are bitter than people think. We talked about this like tier thing and it's like tier three to tier two, but they're like, Oh, the worst of the AFC South. I don't think people are ready to move them into tier two.
And I think they're probably there. Everything we said in the off season about like the environment being horrible last year, blah, blah, blah. Everyone said that. But no, you can sometimes project leaps from quarterbacks, especially someone like Trevor Lawrence, who was a generational prospect, right?
Like not the general prospect and comes around every two years, but like the best quarterback prospect since Andrew Luck, Pitton Manning, we all knew who was going number one overall from the first time he took a college snap at Clemson. Yes, he's going to get better. That's what's gonna happen. And it shouldn't be too crazy to think Oh, maybe Trevor one's gonna be a top five quarterback.
That was always in the realm of possibilities.
One of the things that I talked about as well, and I think. Playing out very nicely. Here is a lot of these wins too, and not the Jas are scoring points. Sure. But there's no like highlight real performances thus far from the offense or even Trevor Lawrence.
And this is really being driven by the defense. The defense has been playing fabulous. Yeah.
They're generating pressure at a, I saw a a cool tweet. I don't remember who it was from, is Ben Brown. I think that like on non blitz, the Jaguars are generating the fifth most pressure meaning like excluding plays specifically designed to generate pressure like they're winning format rushes.
That means a lot. You can cover up weaknesses in the secondary if you're generating pressure with just your four guys. And that's, that I think is a great point that the market's not pricing it .
think this is a good demonstration too, of the market's actually hotter on the Eagles than they are on the Jaguars not fully ready to trust the Jaguars.
Yeah. Or even a decent team yet. More so than just they're not bad. We know for sure they're not bad, but they're just average and the Eagles are elite. Yeah,
Cause the Jags crushing the chargers got a little bit of it lost some of its luster because of all the things that are going on around the Chargers.
One of the things that I talked about last week was like, if the Jaguars can somehow squeeze out this victory, that's when the Jas party's really gonna get started. And in fact it hasn't. Yeah. Cause then destroying the chargers on both sides of the ball has an asterisk next to it.
Yeah. And that I think creates opportunity here. Oh, I love it.
Okay. Commanders, Washington football team, the red. Am I gonna have to bleep that out? Plus three and a half at Dallas. How bad is Washington? How bad is Carson wins? I Like s five, six times the first, 20 minutes of the game.
Yep. I mean we talk about this, we talk about this every week. It's
just a win adventure. But now you got Micah Par is this defense of line and this cowboys pressure. This
is exactly the spot where he hits turn McLaren for a 60 yard touchdown in Johan Dotson for 45 yard touchdown in the commander's win 24 20.
It's was it's plus three and a half, right? Still division game verse two. I had the pressure. The Cowboys are gonna get on once I feel like has to be, is the dominant narrative in this game.
There is no positive sentiment on Washington. They put in two miserable performance. It's unwatchable betting
performances. So I completely agree with that. I wish there was a way to counter that exact argument, but there isn't. Like I'm not sure that we're necessarily capitalizing on it by betting the spread or the money line here.
But that's the thing is if you're trying to play this. Rhythmic performance of Wence. Maybe this isn't quite the right time yet and I'm certainly not, I'm willing to also not try to catch a falling knife on this Washington offense.
Yeah. Who are now back to back performances. Hasn't done anything. I wanna see at least one more decent performance from Wence to be able to say, All right let's try to catch that rhythmic performance from him at another time, but not necessarily have to try to do it here.
Brown's.
At the Falcons Browns minus one. I was looking, listening to Taja RJs podcast is like one of their best bets of the week, and I think I really strongly agree with their handicap on this as well. You got the Falcons miserable defense, certainly against the run, and the Browns are certainly one of the best running teams.
This line opened, I think it was three, I certainly saw it was two and a half, and this has been coming all the way down now to pick 'em. The betting market right now is saying they're really buying into this Falcon's office, is what this is saying.
Yeah, and I'm certainly willing to fade that. I do really like the Browns at one. I already bet Browns.
I'm excited to listen to, to take the points tomorrow, but, and our turn was pitching me on the Browns as well, but like you said, even if the Browns are propped up by the weak components, that isn't changing this week.
. Not like the Falcons are particularly strong team. And again, this is where, this is like our biggest point of disagreement as better. Is it like you're willing to make the bet specifically countering what the market says and I'm a little less comfortable but I think you're spot on here.
Plus just from a manager selection perspective. Okay. You're not even talking about anything relevant to the game. Okay. I'm just talking about, I'm listening to other sharp evaluators who make predictions looking at their broader betting performance. And one of the things that, Taja r June, were lamenting on their pod is that they're I think, oh and three to start the season on their best bets.
, I'm ready to buy the dip. I know that they're sharp, they're smart, they know what they're doing, and I've of gotten some bad luck. I'm ready to buy the dip for that reason alone. Plus there's the on field broader fundamental handicap.
Look,
If we're riding TA origin that I have to have to draw and ship. But I think on the field stuff also supports Yeah. The Browns being able to run their offense and controlling this game.
All right. Cardinals plus one and a half at Carolina. The market, I feel like, keeps wobbling back and forth on Arizona.
Oh, they're good or they're bad, or, I love Kyle Merley, or He sucks. It's either Tyler Murray's so good, he can overcome everything bad on that team. Or Cliff Kingsbury is such a bad coach that he mitigates all the positives. It's a constant back and forth swinging of this narrative. I think the market's still too high on the Panthers.
I like Cardinals at plus one and a half. Just Baker Mayfield gonna be able to take advantage of some of these. That's secondary weaknesses.
That's essential question is is the Cardinal's defense just so bad?
And quarterback can take advantage, right? Where it's like, Bear Mayfield's gonna have his best season game because he is playing the Cardinals. Which side is the operative force here. Is it the Panther's offense being so bad, or is it the Cardinal's offense being so bad that the Panther's offense will be able to have their breast off offensive game of the season?
Arizona shut down Raiders in the second half of that game. And also they didn't get their doors blown off by the Rams. Our,
was this certain, our drive quality stuff?
The Rams. Cardinal's final score was closer than our drive quality model suggested it was. But I the market is also seeing that, and maybe it was just such an ugly performance. Again, no touchdowns, no sparkly place from Tyler Murray. I just haven't seen anything to buy from the Panthers. McCaffery is banged up. He didn't practice today.
This is one where the matchup trumps the fundamentals for me because the matchup itself introduces a lot of uncertainty.
, which like I agree with you s are a lot better team of the Panthers, but the way this game plays out, get him a little bit of pause.
Okay. Barcos plus two and a half at Las Vegas. Raiders, this is not the market abandoning ship on the Raiders still. And our, market consensus ratings also demonstrate that fact still they've been downgraded, but marginally but still in middle of the road team at 15.
And if we think that this team should be ranked 25th or worse. Maybe at the time you could still potentially lean into the Broncos here. I
I'm not sure what make the Bronco defense like, are they, Was that aji stinker, like they, they hadn't plead anyone.
They didn't give up any points to text. They give up 17 points to the Seahawks. There's nothing to suggest they're gonna be bad.
Broncos plus two and a half reduced juice right now. So this might move to three. It's even more, I think at three that might be the clincher. Yeah, I'd
take that for the Broncos. . And just from the way this mantra plays like Bronco's defense, Slow sound, Raider's offense.
Raiders defense is a train wreck. If there's any spot for Wilson to, take advantage, this one and as AR was saying, their entire secondary is hurt, or Nate Pops was their only good corner and he's down. Yeah.
And I've seen, again, it was just literally one drive.
There's also, but verse, the Niners, that could be a sneaky buy signal to say, cuz that was like a vintage Russell Wilson Drive verse the Niners at the end of that game, moving around in the pocket, having the right pocket awareness, having the right touch on the ball, finding the receiver down the field, The types of things that he hasn't been doing so far this season.
But I think there's also a lot of negative sentiment around the Brown Coast. The things that I was talking about off season, I feel like it's starting to catch up now. Yeah. Just through first three weeks of the season. And I don't think that our negative narrative on the Raiders, that hasn't caught up yet.
Yeah.
I'm also even thinking towards the off season, what we said about the Broncos, which is it's gonna take, it's gonna take time. Yes. For Wilson. Yeah. . That's one thing. And the second is I really think Jerry Judy is the key to this offense. Like he's the secondary weapon that is like so essential to the Broncos playing well.
And he missed basically all of week two. And played only half the snaps in week three coming back from injury. Yeah. Like he should be healthier. I think this is the spot where the Broncos offense comes alive.
Yeah, I think this is definitely one of my favorite pick.
Patriots nine and a half, plus nine and a half at Green Bay. I think it opened 10 and a half. Brian Hoyer is probably gonna be, I think he's quarterback Mac Jones's injury gonna be out for the next couple weeks at minimum. I don't get this. Is there something else that I'm missing here? Because this seems way too high.
The Packer's offense has not looked good at all. Obviously played a great defense versus the Bucks, but they did looked terrible versus the Vikings then had a decent bounce back versus the Bears.
One of the worst teams in the league and maybe said, people say, Okay, the Packers are back and I know you liked the Packers last week versus the books, but again, they put in two good drives in those scripted plays and that was it. Yeah. And it was turned out to be enough. When's the last time that pages were plus double digits?
Yeah.
There's a team that like the packer, so I didn't think is scary. No. Is Brian Hoyer that bad?
Yeah, I think that's the question with
Matt.
Mike Glennon bad. This is
what, Matt, Patricia has his offensive coordinator and Joe Judge. The market, going back to our power rankings. Has the Bucks and Packers still at the same teams from last year?
Ah, okay. They're not playing well in the season. Whatever. Like they're gonna, they're gonna come back and I think no, Brady and Rogers are declining and the pieces around them are starting to fall apart. I'm with you, the Packers are not so scary, but
I have no idea what the Patriot's offense is gonna be. And like the Packer's offense doesn't need to be great.
but at almost 10 points. Alright. Allows you a lot of uncertainty. You can budget for uncertainty with 10. Unless it's gonna be 21 to 0, 21 to three, the pagers can't do anything.
That's a legitimate possibility for me. And I think backer's defense is good.
If that's the case, the, I feel like the under is a slam dunk at 40 because basically Brian Weres gonna be so bad that they don't score points.
Yeah. The owner's attractive. And we're talking about a big spread with a low total.
I think I still like the Patriots and maybe I get my face ripped off, but yeah, I'm not trying to do it on
the Patriots.
How many points do you need to take the Patriots in this match up? 14. 14 and a half. Oh my God. And you really hate the Patriots. Yeah. Maybe I, I'll take that into consideration because when you have visceral reactions too. I never saw you push back so hard as when I bet the Saints life.
And it turned out to be a terrible trade and I should have listened more.
Alright, so Chiefs on the road bucks minus one. This was that three, two and a half range. So a lot of buck support coming in on the early part of this week at one. Is this timed by the chiefs or as we talked about earlier, the chief's offense is not humming at minimum, and now they're about to play potentially the best defense in the NFL on the road.
Can the buck score enough points to beat the chiefs? I
I love the Chiefs here. Love the Chiefs. Love the Chiefs. Wrote it up. Ready? Ah, if you wrote it up then
That's my
I don't love, I don't like the box enough to overcome a written piece.
Books are bad. They're living off like reputation,
From past years. Okay, what did we say in the off season?
We were potential trouble. We got bucks under, we got, had books under. Okay. What was Potential Signs of Trouble? Offensive line. Been terrible. Okay. Like you wanna take ff grades, you wanna take like perfectly 31st and pass perfectly blocks. There's like 23rd and grade whatever, receivers not getting open 17th and.
Separation before it catch. Okay. Product of injury, fine. Doesn't matter. Okay. Offensive coordinator. Okay. Bruce area's gone. Okay. Bad. Tom Brady. Another year in Father Time. Stuff adds up. If you just look at their like, efficiency metrics, Okay.
Explosive plays 28th, early on success, 23rd yards play 25th. They stink.
they're just bad.
We've had three games in a row from the Bucks offense that it looks absolutely terrible. Potentially one of the worst in the nfl. Yes, they've been bad, but mashed up with the best defense Okay.
In the
NFL as well. Okay, But here's, okay, so here's the take for the defense. First off, are we so sure the defense is greater? They've played a bunch of bad opponents. . Like the Saint's offense hasn't done anything. They had a couple good quarters in garbage time against the the Falcons.
The Packers have done nothing. Yeah,
that's true.
And the Cowboys were nothing special and have nothing special. Their offense is bad. It's legitimately bad. If the best case for the D Bucks is to, oh, their defense is gonna be good enough to stop Patrick Mahomes, Mahomes is match up independent. And this is like what I say in the article that like get pressure on him. He's the best in the league against pressure.
You have played good coverage. He's the best in the league against perfect coverage. He's match independent in that sense. Yes, they certainly played a good, yeah, their best game against the Cardinals. And they were terrible last week against the goals.
But even if you just look at all their efficiency metrics, they're still top five in everything. They're going to be a good offense, even if they're like the d who cares if the defense, We don't even know if the box defense is so good.
And like the market is pricing and the box team of old, and in week four, at least before everyone gets healthy, this team is bad, legitimately bad.
You said you're writing about the Chiefs? It's written writing. Okay. That's the clincher. Cuz if we take all your written pieces, then we're like three and Oh and we have the RAs last week.
Okay. Closer Rams at the Niners.
Rams plus one and a half. I really like the Niners at minus one and a half. I think this opened close to three, then two and a half. And I'm like, Yeah, this gets under two. I'm gonna bet the Niners. And this is minus one and a half. Looks like it's trending to one right now. Niners minus one and a half reduced juice.
I haven't seen anything from the Rams that would make me upgrade them over the course of the first three weeks. If anything, they look at even a little bit more pedestrian then even I thought and . We have rams under already as is.
There are a couple things. Give a little bit of hesitation. Number one division game between these two are always fluky. Number two, I'm starting to get the sense that maybe part of Shanahan's offensive design was really also.
Mike McDaniel had a big role in that. The third is, where's Debo Samuel been? . . . He's done nothing. They haven't shown any of the explosiveness. Yes, you can make all the excuses.
Ultimately this hasn't produced at all.
Okay, so that wraps up a long slate. One of the things that's gonna be really interesting, life trading those early games next weeks, is there's nine games. On the early slate.
Thanks everyone for listening.
And that wraps up our NFL week four market outlook. That's closing bail.
