Episode Transcript
The AFC West has four playoff contenders and everyone got better, except for the Chiefs. Are -they still the crown jewel of the best division in football? The Broncos haven't made the playoffs in six years. The second longest drought in the league. Is Russell Wilson the missing piece, or is the near 34 year old washed?
And the Chargers are stacked, but is it all sizzle and no steak? We'll discuss all of this and more on tonight's betting market outlook for the AFC West. Let's hit the opening bell.
Welcome everyone to this edition of the Not Your Daddy's Sports Betting podcast and stream. We're live from Las Vegas here in Circa.
Win total futures for this division. We could see the Chiefs are at the top at 10 and a half juiced to the over. Chargers, also at 10 and a half, Broncos at 10, and then the Raiders and the caboose at eight and a half. I think it's very well documented that this is the best division in football.
I think you could find a betting contingency that supports each one of these teams as potentially being much better than the market is currently pricing. Chargers got better. Broncos got better Raiders got better, and who's that gonna come at a cost to?
And my view has to be the Chiefs, of course, and this is actually one of the lowest win totals that we've seen from the Chiefs for a couple years. So it was more in that 12, 12 and a half range from last year and they certainly didn't get that much worse. But the broader market just got that much better specifically this division.
And one of the things we'll talk a little bit more about when we get into the chief's preview is I have a few things to say about how I think the Chiefs are probably in terminal decline. But we'll get to that. Judah, anything stick out to you here as being attractive, any high conviction bets from you?
Yeah, I think this might actually be my, highest conviction bet, which is a dangerous thing to say. I actually disagree with you. I don't think the Raiders got better. I think the Raiders under seven and a half is my favorite bet of the off season. I think they were fundamentally a seven win team last year.
And their big name acquisitions do not outpace their question marks. And as you said, just this division getting better and the AFC getting better. The team relied defensively on Max Crosby having an absolute elite year. He generated like .25 WAR higher than the next edge player.
That's not gonna repeat itself. Even if Max Crosby is a terrific player. I think Devonte Adams means more with Aaron Rogers than the opposite, and the team lost all of its depth at wide receiver. They got good production last year from guys like Zay Jones. Guys like Deshaun Jackson, even Bryan Edwards, they're now trotting out Mac Hollins.
Who's a well below average receiver. What happens if one guy goes down, what happens if you have you're going up against secondary players who can cover, they can double teams, Devante Adams they can double team Darren Waller. They can take care of the the Raider's offense on defensively in, the coverage unit.
Casey Hayden was one of the best corners last year in the league. He's gone in Atlanta. They just traded Trayvon Mullen. This team's really lacking talent, basically everywhere, except for quarterback and a very, thin receiving.
Great points. I would say that first of all, I agree with you. I didn't know, going into my research that by the end of it, I would like the Raiders under in fact, I thought that I was gonna come away with basically no bet, really no high conviction view from this division, assuming that these are just four playoff worthy teams.
And that it's really just gonna be a war of attrition in this division.
But by the end of my research, I saw an opportunity to bet the Raiders under, and again, my initial impression was wow, eight and a half, man. That seems low. I probably am gonna lean towards the over. And then the more I dug into the data, realized that yeah, They went 10, seven last year.
That was a Mirage for sure. But nonetheless, I would still say that I think the Raider, the Raiders got better this off season. I wouldn't say that. That means that they're gonna win more than 10 games because they should have won 10 games.
They should have won probably seven games. And so are they better than that? Seven win 2021 team seven justified wins from that 2021 team. I think they're, better in that they had a bad office line last year. Now they, have another bad office line. I definitely do take your point that they have less depth at wide receiver, so that could potentially hurt.
I think the fragility angle is probably a better way of putting it. It's a much more fragile team than it was last year. And yes, if everyone stays healthy, they're probably fundamentally better. But honestly who cares, cuz it's all about the context and market in which they're currently in and that's a market which everyone else
has gotten better.
Which puts even more pressure on the downside. What do you think, Dan?
I think
you
two are spot on this offensive line is bottom five . On top of Judah's point of the health. What about Darren Waller? He has the hamstring issue, and I know he is gonna have a couple weeks off here, but if you're already having soft tissue injuries and the season hasn't started, that's another key piece.
That's gonna be kind and questionable week to week. This team has no depth. The schedule is back and forth, depending on what your perception of some of these teams are. They do get that early buy though.
And I do think it will come back to haunt them later in the year.
I think there's a big question mark too. Yeah. Around Josh Daniels. I think I like his upside, but it doesn't mean that it has to materialize here in year one.
Especially given the strength of this division again in this year specifically. Does anyone have any views on the Chiefs at 10 and a half? Again, it was 12, 12 and a half last year.
This is basically saying in this division too, that the Chiefs are gonna potentially struggle to make the playoffs. We know that they're gonna have a very tough, schedule, something we'll get into, but is there any opportunity here?
If you're like backing the Chiefs. And you think that they're immune to this. It probably means that Patrick Mahomes is going to have an incredible year. I bet him to an MVP at plus 900, right? It means they're probably they're winning the division. He's probably having a great year. They're winning 12, 13 games.
He's in prime position to win an MVP. I think the chargers, similar case Justin Herbert, I'd rather re betting his MVP odds. If he's already in the position where they're winning the division, he's probably at the forefront of the MVP conversation. You could even say the same thing about Russell Wilson.
If the Bronco was start winning the division Russell, Wilson's probably at the forefront of the MVP
conversation.
Yeah. And this was something again, when I came into my research where I more bearish on the Broncos came out of it slightly less bearish. This was the team that I was targeting that I would probably wanna bet the under on pre-research and then post, then the Raiders were just like a screaming cell by far the best opportunity.
So I think that's where you want a position.
So let's look at the offensive line, consensus market rankings for this division. We can see Chiefs top five offensive line unit there chargers also meaningfully moved up over the off season.
Also a top 10 unit, at least that's the way the market is pricing them. Broncos kind of middle of the road. And then as we mentioned, we can see the Raiders there right near the bottom third, fourth, worst in the league.
The biggest thing I think we're missing with Kansas city is they returned all five starters from last year. If you remember, they started three and four, the offense looked genuinely terrible. But you get five guys.
Now they had all last year to jail and once they got going about week eight, they spent nine and one down the stretch after that dominating some teams. So to me, with that offensive line ranking, I think the chief's gotta be tied for number one or two worst case scenario, just because they have five guys coming back and you rarely see that in the NFL anymore.
That's a good call out. I forgot too that yeah. The Chiefs had so much turnover on that offensive line last year.
Especially coming off that just getting their faces ripped off in the super bowl versus the books. So there's a lot of turnover on that and it was still highly rated. So it had the expectation that these guys were gonna come in and they were gonna fill their spots and play well. But there was skepticism that it would all come together early on in the season.
And we did see that they did struggle. But then it all started to gel down the stretch. That's really good point. And now they're in year two together having that level of continuity and you could make the argument then too, that potentially the Chiefs have the best offensive line
yeah. One thing that I think is, curious here too, is the market is pretty high on the chargers.
I think Rashaan slate has turned into one of the best tackles in the league and there's certainly some projection that he'll continue to get better. Corey Lindsay's one of the best centers and Zion Johnson was a, top the top pick of theirs.
So I think there's almost some baked in optimism that each player can take leaps, that Zion Johnson will live up to his expectation. Rashaan Slater will take the next step. I think this 12th is, about right.
And this only just seems to, be consistent with how the market is really ranking and rating. The chargers across the board. Yeah. Is you're paying a premium to bet anything chargers right now. And it looks like even the market is overrating the offensive line. I think
there's also just an important point about the offensive lines in general for this division.
I think they actually tend to matter less than most other teams in so far as quarterbacks actually determine kind of offensive line outcomes. Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert doesn't really matter if they're pressured or not. They're almost as good. They're aliens in that way, where they dictate the pace of the offensive line, Russell Wilson, at least as he was in Seattle, holds the ball for so long.
It's a different ball game for his offensive line, cuz he's looking down the field and I'm sure he's gonna try and do that with Judy and suton as his receivers. I think car fits more of the mold of a quarterback who's reliant on this offensive line, but at least for the Chiefs in charges, it almost, it doesn't matter that much like the quarterbacks dictate the offensive line, cuz it doesn't matter if they're under pressure or they're not under pressure.
They play the same way.
Yeah. So it's almost like the rich get richer and the poor get poorer here because you got the Chiefs in charges with some of the best officers lie on the division. You're saying they don't even need the best offensive lines. No. And then the Raiders need a good offensive line, but they have one of the worst offensive lines.
Exactly. Which really goes to who knows, cuz maybe you could start to make the argument to that. There's this market perception that this is an, a division that is very tight and actually maybe there is more separation here between there's chargers and Chiefs on one side and then there's Broncos and Raiders on the other.
That's certainly how I would bucket it. One, because I think. Russell Wilson is washed. And and, we'll get, more into that.
I think the positioning of the Raiders in Broncos is telling where last year, the sense that I left the season with at least was like the Broncos were exactly league average.
The Raiders were like fringe playoff team. And they were like a tier worse. They were noticeably worse in the Broncos. And we don't look at the Broncos and say, okay, this was like a playoff team which is obviously not really the, fairest way of looking at it, but it's an important point than seeing what the Raiders were last year.
Yeah. Cause the Raiders made the playoffs, the Broncos didn't exactly. Alright.
Let's get into the Raiders. 2021 came into the season with the win expectation of eight. They sailed past it, but perhaps unjustifiably. So they went 10 and seven. So went two games over.
PIAG had 'em at 6.9. Our PIAG 2.0 had 'em slightly better, but in that seven win range went eight, nine ATS. But nonetheless did win a 100 unit a hundred dollars unit, better $876 betting the spread and money line over the course of the season.
And certainly that's not coming from the spread side, go going eight and nine more. So coming from Moneyline wins, kinda winning some, key games some big upsets. Certainly one of them was there right off the bat. In week one verse the Ravens on Monday night football came back and then
even coming off that Ravens win. Everyone really dismissed the Raiders were almost a touchdown underdog on the road, verse Pittsburgh. And then I think this is, and then we can see here is I don't even need to think, but after this win was really when the market then started to buy in to the Raiders and we can see that was essentially where they peaked.
They tested it once more kind of mid season, but even as they kind got a little bit stronger into the end of the season, at least from winning perspective winning forward ode end the season and getting into the playoffs. In fact, they were at their lowest point from ELO model, again, power ranking perspective again, so quite, volatile, but even though they got again, ostensibly better in the second half of the season, this would say, in fact, they were a worse team in the second half of the season.
I love this chart for two reasons. Number one, each of the first three weeks that the Raiders, their first three opponents, the Ravens, the Steelers, the dolphins, right? The Ravens being powering sixth, the Steelers being powering ninth dolphins, 17th retrospectively look absurd because we know the Ravens didn't turn out to be the six best team.
The Steeler's not the ninth, et cetera which I think makes a broader point of kind of the dangers of projecting too much about schedule. Especially early on in the season, we don't really know who's gonna be that great. The second thing is just the Raiders didn't really have the quality wins.
We thought they did. The first three wins were like Ravens and Steelers didn't turn out to be much and they got absolutely trance by their opponents. They get lost to the Chiefs 41, 14 48, 9, and some awful losses to, to the football team, to the giants, to the bears. Theo models at least were, convinced this team was nothing going into the playoffs.
Keep in
mind for that Ravens tees game too. The Ravens came into the game, banged up in the secondary to start with the Ravens grew up.
I wanna say about 10 to 14 points mid to early fourth quarter, from what I remember. And then they won an overtime Steelers game. That was a nice win. But when he dive deeper, TJ wa got hurt mid game, and there was another defensive lineman who got hurt mid game too. And the Steelers had no pass rush at all.
So I know it looks good on paper. Looking back when Noah steels weren't very good. But even in the game, I thought they were still somewhat lucky to lose two top pass rushers on the steel's defense. And then when you look at the box score or the final score Raiders, pretty much either got blown out or came very close to losing the games, but they won a lot of those close games.
So they went 10 and seven. I just think they were so overrated last year because they didn't beat anybody good. Or they got completely blown out for the most part.
And that's our pie fact, 2.0 again, having it around seven wins definitely quantifies that observation. And you make a really good point too, in that week.
One is they were a, the Raiders in fact were a very popular contest picture. They're the third, the top a top three pick. So going into that week one, yeah, there I, there were a lot of question marks around that Ravens team. And that's one of the reasons why they got a bump after beating the Ravens, but it wasn't too, meaningful, but then kind like after they crushed the Steelers, which the market were, was still high on Steelers in Steelers, just beaten the bills also.
Yeah. And, everyone loved the Steelers. Cause you see the Raiders with the 28th pick in week two. It, seemed like the, buy on the Raiders week one, what really wasn't a buy on the Raiders. It was more of a sell of the Ravens. And then they wanted to come right back and sell the Raiders.
And I think this is the main reason why, when you're trying to talk about market perception and why you can get some really stark over reactions is because what this demonstrates is the market did not believe in the Raiders in week two, and then they were proven wrong. So now they're butt hurt.
And now they're saying, oh, we need to adjust. Maybe we didn't give 'em enough credit for that ratings win. Now they just crushed the Steelers on the road as a touchdown under rock. This team's way mispriced. We need to adjust fast. And that's why I think the next week, top three pick again, I love the Raiders now.
And then they squeak one out. I think this is like Thursday night football, maybe versus the dolphins coming percent. And don't cover us three and a half.
And this is where the crack started to form so the market gets super hot on a team. Then they can't cover the three and a half versus a subpar team then struggle versus chargers. And this was the really big kind of yellow flag is when they were at home versus Justin Fields.
And they just were not. Really that competitive in that game. Win probability around 33% T wham, the total weighted average margin, Maya six. They were justifiably beat.
The other pink red flag from the Raiders is look at these max deficits. They were losing sizeably in almost every single game. So they were losing in 15 games. This season, their average deficit when losing was 10 points, their average time weighted average margin for a 10 and 17 was negative at negative one and a half points, which is just another attribute to suggest that on average, this team is losing.
They're losing the game on average yet they were 10 and seven. So just another statistic to go out and say people could say yeah the, Raiders were overrated last year. This is like a statistic that actually demonstrates that is the case.
Even some of their wins. Jacob Burett Nick Mullins, they got against the Brownley in the season, drew lock, not Teddy Bridgewater, Carson Wence when he was falling apart. In their wins. They just beat bad quarterbacks or, had these lucky early season wins.
And then you had that super bizarre finale verse the chargers.
So off season changes, I guess we disagree on if the char, if the Raiders actually got better over the off season, of course, side to Bonte Adams, everyone knows that also about Chandler Jones. But yeah, there's still a lot of, holes on, this team.
Also just the continu. I think that's the, yeah. The most players we've seen move on in one season.
So basically a half new offense, half new defense, and I'll basically a whole new coaching staff as well. Yep.
How
long do you think this team takes to Joe of O do stuff? At some point, it's gonna have to show up the win loss column early on. If you look at the schedule you got chargers week one, week two, I believe it is the Cardinals Titans, Broncos Chiefs.
Three of those five teams are not teams gonna be playing early on with new guys and new coaching staff. So at what point do these coaching staff actually start the, her thumb because the players just don't know the system
yet.
Yeah. That's a nasty first five weeks. We can see strength of schedule from a future's kind of implied perspective. Third hardest net rest minus six days, mean spread around flat kind of suggestive of an eight and a half win total expectation to win the division plus six 50, certainly at the bottom to make the playoffs plus one 50 to win the super bowl plus four thousands.
But I can see this team starting off own five. No problem. And yeah is this a type of team that has a lot of turnover? It's new coaching staff? Are they gonna really be in position to really recover from that type of. That's a big question. The good point is to when you you mentioned Dan that they have an early buy probably after those first five games, you're probably gonna need a buy.
Come out of that buy with a relatively easier schedule them certainly that they can't started the season with. So come out of the, by verse the Texans play on the road, verse the saints which that is a very generous spread at this point in time.
Then the Jags Colts Broncos Seahawks. So you got another, the next five games there though, where you have three relatively easier games where you could start to pick up some wins. But then you close again almost versus a schedule that's maybe even tougher than what you started with.
So closing chargers, Rams Patriots Niners Chiefs, and you throw in a Steelers there on the road in Pittsburgh during the cold, which can still always be tough traveling across country, being California team or in desert team. If you look
at that Niners
game, if I'm playing the Niners this year, I want them early.
A lot of people have mixed reviews on Trey, Lance, is he good? Is he not good? But regardless if he's good or not good end of the year, I much try to play him early.
Later
in the year. Yeah, I think in either case it could it's downside just it's either you have a more experienced trade land or you have a Jimmy G it could say the same thing about the the Jas as too playing the Jags in week nine.
I would much rather play the Jags early on when they're still trying to figure things out. Trevor Lawrence has fewer games under his belt as well. Some of these bad teams that have a lot of roster turnover have a new board of as things like that, you wanna play them earlier.
Same thing with Patriots, same thing with Patriots. Yeah.
Yeah. And our PIAG 2.0 model also likes the under, so it's like fifth bet. Yeah. Five for five for five, I think. Yeah. And hopefully it goes five for five.
That's right. We'll I certainly hope so.
What's the bullish
case for the
Raiders.
I can't get the nine wins on this one. I wanna be generous in giving them seven and 10 in this schedule, but I am having trouble finding nine wins. In the division, you're clearly the fourth best team and you were lucky last year.
So I came even make an argument for the both side
of this team either. Dan, I'm actually glad you asked us and I have all these talking points now about how thereish I am on the Raiders, but here's, I think the bullish case that Devonte Adams unlocks a Derek car that we haven't actually seen like Amari Cooper did, I'm forgetting if it's 2017 or 2016 and the car had his second best year.
And Patrick Graham is a defensive wizard who turned the giants who had no talent last year into a mediocre defense. And that's all they need and chips fall, right? As they did last year everyone stays healthy and you've got car throwing to Waller Adams, Renfro. The offensive line doesn't really matter because these guys are getting open so quickly.
And the Raiders win 10, 11 games.
I think the upside is, the offensive line is a, is much better than we're pricing it currently. So right now it's 29th. And if they can play like a 15th ranked offensive line I think that is gonna be meaningful towards having them win more games than expected.
If I had to
give this team a win number, I'd say seven to eight, if they're really lucky and they do pay out .
At some point, all those close wins last year, just have to catch. If we're just constantly saying you're gonna stay healthy. That is something I can't bet on.
I don't actually even see eight.
I'm being generous with the eight on this one. I think it's seven and 10, probably closer to six.
Yeah. Yeah. I think there's already some very generous lines priced right currently. At this point in time being a pick on the road at new Orleans seems dumb on the road at Seattle being a favorite.
And I understand Seattle's a good, any good, but still that's pretty aggressive to be a two point or three point favorite on the road, a very short favorite on the road again at Pittsburgh. I think none of those lines will be what they're expected to be here early in the season.
So I think that in itself is ex is saying that the market is still pretty high on the Raiders.
Okay, so Broncos 2021 came in with a win total expectation of eight went under, went seven and 10, 8, 9 ATS lost betters almost 500 bucks on the spread and money line PI pack had 'em around nine wins. So underperformed our 2.0 also had around eight and a half nine wins. We can see like with the Raiders, this team was quite volatile starting off, and this is something, again, we almost saw like a broken record.
Juah start off as a particular position, kinda, oh, the market freaks out thinks we needs to reprice 'em rapidly because we are wrong. And then there's this slow drip lower back to where you started. And that, that preseason prior was actually quite strong. And that, yeah, you always wanna adjust on a week to week basis based on the matchup and all the other variables at play given in that particular moment.
But this is the type of demonstration of where maybe you don't really want to abandon your preseason priors over the course of the season. In fact, maybe it should strengthen in the second half of the. Particularly if you have high conviction in that preseason prior and to not abandon it so quickly.
Now we know the Broncos got hurt and there was other things at play. But I think that the Broncos never really materialized into, I think what many people thought that this team could be. That Teddy Bridgewater, the same argument is really what with Russell Wilson coming to town this year was when Teddy Bridgewater was coming to town last year, he's the missing piece he's gonna provide stability to this offense, he's gonna be able to let the team rely on the strength of the defense.
And the all offense is just not gonna create turnovers, not gonna put the defense in a vulnerable position, and they're gonna be able to win a lot of games that way we know Bridgewater got hurt as well, but he did not perform the way the market was pricing him to perform. And even though they started off hot, I'm very surprised the fact that the market reacted so strongly, cuz this is one of the most pathetic first three wins that you could possibly imagine.
Giants, Jas and jets. You've proven nothing. You've proven that you're you yourself are also not one of the worst teams in the NFL, that's it?
Yeah.
I,
disagree with you on the Teddy Bridgewater take. I think the question last off season was. Teddy Bridgewater's a game manager, right?
Can we go 10 and seven, nine and eight, make the playoffs on the backs of our elite defense with Vic VAO as our defensive coordinator. I don't think they were expecting Teddy Bridgewater to be the savior. And I think Teddy Bridgewater actually, I performed his expectation. Certainly from like in EPA perspective, he was like 15 best quarterback, which is exactly what you'd hope for.
I think the question this off season is not about can we win with our defense, but can Russell Wilson unlock our offense. But as we've got a lot of very talented receivers, who've shown promise, but haven't actually produced very much, cortland SU and Jerry Judy KJ Hamer. And when they had Tim Patrick a bunch of guys who had a lot of promise, but hadn't actually produced on the field.
And the question now is Ken Russell Wilson unlock that. It's a question of the offense rather than the defense.
And the defense also isn't necessarily the same defense and they're already bleeding players on offense.
That's, certainly true. There are a lot of question marks and I think the, defensive point is actually very important. I happen to think defensive coordinators are the most important asset, if you want to call them of anyone on defense.
I think they play a pivotal role, especially when it comes to coverage. I think the, Vic fan loss really should not go overstated as a, brilliant defensive mind to almost created his own way of. Which we'll talk about with Brandon Staley as well.
But losing that should we have a push and pull here, which is like Russell, Wilson's probably going to make this offense better. But is that going to is the Delta of that going to overcome the defensive losses? Not only from their personnel, but also from losing Fania.
Did anyone
bet the Ravens in week four? I bet the
Broncos the Broncos, I didn't the Broncos. I stacked them in DFS against the Ravens and it was my highest, it was like, I was so excited for it and it was a disaster.
A, this is actually, I think this, chart reminds me of an interesting question of like how you almost deal with teams who like blow out bad opponents. I think the Broncos are a good example and a good reminder that it probably doesn't really mean much, even if you're winning by enormous margins.
No, in fact, I think that's always a great opportunity to capitalize on the market's over reaction function when teams are dominating bad teams. Beating the giants, Jas and jets who were three of literally the three worst teams in the NFL, not just at the beginning of the season, but even by the end of the season it demonstrates that you're not in their class.
So all you're saying is you're not one of the worst teams in the NFL as well. You're a class above that for sure. Which one is still T B D you don't know if you're one class or two class, or if you're an elite class. And as we can see here this was a dramatic incorrect pricing. And then the next four weeks really underperform.
But I think you make a good point too.
Dan is there's not really too much that we can really take away from last season's Broncos to try to frame the issue for 2022, because you have huge turnover at the most important position on the team. And while I think Russell Wilson's best days are behind him. There's an argument out there that his injury was the primary reason why he performed as poorly as he did.
Before I disagree with you, Brett, like people were saying Russell Wilson was Washington. I end of the 2020, that was a whole discussion. It was a very commonly held belief that Russell Wilson was done after 2020, well before the finger injury.
So it's a longer term trend. In fact, not even just it's yeah, this
is, this has been going on for years
and they're right. Cause they didn't play well on 2021. And is it all driven from his injury? It definitely could be. Could be, but I'm gonna say it's not. I'm not gonna say he's a bottom five quarterback by any means, but he's not a top 10 quarterback.
Russell Wilson has been wanting out for a while, whether or not he admits it is a different question. But Jay Glazer now for two years in a row before he got traded, he mentioned Russell Wilson. Wasn't happy with the team. He wasn't happy with Pete and he won out.
Don't be surprised if he gets traded. So how much was it? Russell Wilson being hurt. And how much was it? He really just didn't wanna be there. It's something I can answer, but he definitely didn't look right after
I think that's fair.
I think the question with Russell Wilson is almost is his context, right? Is the Delta between how much worse he got bigger than the upgrades and context, which is like getting away from a peak cattle offense. Just like being in an offense where you're not strapped, cuz you're never going forward on fourth down, which I think will change.
Never went forward on fourth end in Seattle. He also knew that he had to play a conservative game cuz that's what was being asked of him. And Russell Wilson loves to throw the ball deep. He loves that.
