Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - Best Bets for NFL Week 4

Episode Date: September 29, 2022

Geoff and Matt are back to give you their five Best Bets for the fourth week of the NFL season. There are plenty of great lines to choose from this week, putting the boys in a good spot to improve on their 8-7 start to the year. Plus, Geoff reveals the stories behind his two favorite movies. There's a lot. of ground covered in this one, so be sure to rate the pod and leave a comment with your thoughts.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

it's thursday september 29th i'm jeff schwartz alongside matt for this is jeff schwartz a smart you're powered by the varsity podcast network and off the top immediate gripe hank continues to get our record wrong in the rundown we are eight and seven off a three and two week um matt we've had two winning weeks one losing week we're getting back in the flow of things this is our thursday wagering podcast episode. We go through all the games, most all the games. If there's a bad one, we might in 45 minutes say, we're going to skip that one, but we're going to get to most of them.

We're going to talk about the spreads, the totals, things we like, some stats. We'll throw in our thoughts, and we'll pick five winners by the end of this. As we have done this over the years, we've adjusted the way we do it. I think now we're more aligned with, we're going to go with Matt's favorite and my favorite and find three others in the middle of that. Matt, buddy, how was your week of watching football? It was nice.

It was really nice. It's nice to have a winning week and come on here. And even though Hank is not going to give us credit for it, to Hank's credit, though, he didn't set up the Zoom. He put nothing in the rundown informationally. He missed that there was a London game. So the games are out of order. But other than that, he's doing an awesome job. Hank's dad, maybe give Hank a call and just say like, hey, buddy, let's put a little bit more effort into that podcast that you're the star of. is the star of this podcast uh very quickly before we get going here if you like our podcast as you should because you're

listening right now uh please give us a rating it'd be very nice five-star rating would be great um better than a one-star rating so i'd very much appreciate that um you know leave a review if you would like we read the comments we. We see everything possibly there. And let's get going. I will say, though, one wager I made in my personal life, I mean, I make these wagers anyways, is after the Giants lost Monday night, first of all, rewind. I was hoping to get the Giants under nine and a half wins

if they beat the Cowboys because their total was rising each week. And when they lost the Cowboys because they're not very good i took them to not make the playoffs at minus 250 which is much better than it was like minus 400 600 to start the season i'm fine with minus 250 it's still available guys they're not making the playoffs just take take the easy money just do it yeah i wonder if the new york market like the like now that you could bet in new york and new jersey like that inflates the expectations like i do wonder sometimes like i've noticed that it seems like the raiders are always undervalued by vegas in the last couple of years which i always find kind of strange like i assume there'd be like a little bit of a bump because like the locals

would want to come out and bet on their team you would think but i wonder if it's changed like if if there's some sort of correlation between like a new market opens up and then like the expectations get high it's something for a smarter person than us but i do wonder yeah i mean that that could happen but i mean isn't most of the market is just what vegas is telling us right i mean that's what ends up being anyways yeah but they like this is actually a good point for if you're sort of new to betting. The goal of the bookmakers is to split the money, right? So 50% of the money in a perfect world comes in on one side versus the other. And if you get a half point, even better, then they come out on top no matter what.

Right, exactly. Yeah, their goal is not to get you in. But they will end up rooting for certain teams. And I feel like we've been on a lot of these teams this year. It's worked some, it hasn't worked other times. A lot of bad teams are covering at a high rate this weekend. We'll see if they continue to do that. But, Matt, I feel like this will be the first week where we seriously consider a Thursday night football game

to be one of our five. Yeah, I think so. Although the number is not my favorite. The Cincinnati Bengals in their all white uniforms, by the way, are going to be hosting the Dolphins. The Bengals are laying four. We had chatted about this one in the week. I'm curious what the number did for your point of view here.

Well, I mean, it sounds so silly, but four feels better than three and a half. You know, like, it's just – yeah, I'm really big on the Bengals here for a couple reasons. One is the physical wear and tear of Sunday's game on the Dolphins. So the Dolphins had 90 plays on defense, 90 plays on defense against Buffalo. It's pretty miraculous they won that game. They got 500 yards, and they were like 53 plays second half, and the Bills scored three points.

It wasn't like a big turnover fest. It just was like it just didn't happen. If you watch that game through the fourth quarter of that game, man, everyone was so tired. The Bills were tired. The Dolphins were tired. And now you turn around four days later, and that defense has to go back on the field now against Joe Burrow, Jamar Chase, T. Higgins, Boyd.

Like, you know, the offensive line has issues. They play better against the Jets. Jets aren't very good, but that's a quick turnaround. Most of us don't feel good until Wednesday after a normal game, and that's about 70 plays at the max. Now you're adding 20 more plays in the heat to me that's going to wear on them offensively to uh okay i think he got concussed he might have passed a concussion test so be it but at the minimum he has back spasms a hurt ankle maybe concussed maybe not again four days later now, the Bengals' defense,

for as bad as their offense has been, their Bengals' defense is in the top 10 right now in DVOA. Like, they played good football. And what's kind of interesting about – and I think this number is reflective of the fact that the Bengals are better than their 1-2 record, and the Dolphins are not as good as their 3-0 record, right? The Dolphins need a 21 point comeback against Baltimore.

And again, as I mentioned against Buffalo, they need a lot to go right to win that game. One more thing too, the Dolphins do what we call zero pressure, right? They blitz a lot with no safeties and the bills made him pay. And typically bad quarterbacks don't,

don't make them pay. Joe Burrow's not bad. When blitzed to start of 2021 season, Joe Burrow's not bad. When blitzed to the start of the 2021 season, Joe Burrow's third in passing grade, third in passer rating, fourth in completion percentage, and fifth in big-time throws. The Dolphins try to heat up the

Bengals, man, and that ball gets out to Jamar Chase. This is going to be a long game for the Dolphins. I'll take the four here. I feel good about it. Also, unders in primetime games have hit like eight times in a row now. So if you want to go in that direction as well, the unders can play. Yeah, I think that's a really good case.

Yeah, Josh Allen threw 63 times against this defense last week. And I agree. I think the Bengals, you know, this is that time of the year where we need to, like, reset. We went through week one. You're like, oh, okay, I understand it. is that time of the year where we need to like reset. We've, we went through week one. You're like, oh, okay. I understand it. Then every year in week two, we get murdered. We went one and four this year in week two, week three, then everyone's like, okay, now

I understand. It's like, no, you have to kind of wipe the slate clean. Now, as you get into that, like end of the sort of first quarter of the season. And you're right. Like the Bengals that week one, they should have won against the Steelers. That crazy blocked extra point. Like a few crazy things went wrong. They had their dud against Dallas, which by the way, that week one they should have won against the steelers that crazy blocked extra point like a few crazy things went wrong they had their dud against dallas which by the way it was one score game like and it's you know maybe cooper rush is actually not as bad as people thought i just it would defy every piece of like conventional wisdom that you could think of if a

rookie head coach can go on the road with an injured quarterback after playing 90 defensive snaps the week before they had the weird travel schedule because of the hurricane in the south this week i just everything sort of points bangles the only problem is the four but like it's not six it's four i think the bangles take care of business i'm very comfortable with this one yeah i am too so we'll put this one as a maybe the first night football is always tough for us i feel like you never want to start out with a loss there's yeah i think we both feel good about this one though so we'll uh we'll see this plays out and we have an early game on sunday this weekend we do we have a london game um the vikings versus the saints uh the vikings are favored by

three on the neutral field not sure what's going on with Jameis Winston at the time of this recording. He took a rest day. He's in London, so he's there. I assume that we think he's playing. Same with Dalvin Cook. I don't know what the deal is there. He's questionable. Do you have a feel for this one?

I don't really because I don't really know what the Vikings, you know, we saw last week their big comeback against the Lions. More than anything else, the Saints right now, with their injuries, I think it's hard to determine what they are. If Winston plays, this is a different number. If he doesn't play, if he does play, it's a different number. So the Vikings, I think, are probably better than the game against the Eagles. Just generally speaking, I think they're just a better team than that.

They are 11th in DVOA right now. New Orleans is, I don't think, than that. They are 11th in DVOA right now. New Orleans is, I don't think, terribly good. They're 26th in DVOA. But I don't know, man. I get weird vibes from this game. Me too. I feel like every year I end up wanting to bet this London game, and I always miss.

Like, it's just a game where weird things always tend to happen. I think that one thing I would like to play in this these props aren't out yet i think this is like the tasem hill weird game like i just feel like with winston being hurt even if he plays they're gonna do some of that weirdo like wildcat stuff with hill um so i would be interested if his props were out there of like score touchdown over his rushing yards like i just feel like they're going to have to throw every, you know, the kitchen sink at this game,

given Winston's health and the fact that Camara and Thomas are both banged up. So I could see something weird happening there, which is even more reason to stay away. Yeah. These, you know, these games,

it's always fun on Sunday. Like you wake up and you're like, Oh, Oh, there's football on for you. It's at six 30 in the morning now. I know it's going to be a big adjustment, especially if I own Dalvin Cook and Madison. So it's like if one of them's out, like I got to wake up.

You own Dalvin Cook, and I think we wagered against him in our future bets. I mean, at the 10th pick, you can't pass up Dalvin Cook. I mean, maybe I should have. I'm only three in that league. But, you know, you got to do what you got to do there jeff or by the way our um our wagers are looking they're looking good looking good buddy we're in a good we're we're in a good especially like our almond raw st brown i think he's gonna be out maybe a week or two but like even with that i think we're like we're right where we need to be that you know that's the one we wager the most on that's awesome i love that hopefully that

ankle ground over 8 850.5 uh is it i mean does he have already 850 was the line yes man that was a really good that was a really good call he is he might have had it already before me i'm trying to look at 253 we are feeling we're right in the driver's seat. If he can just stay healthy. Yeah, he's averaging. Wow. That's awesome. He's at, yeah. So far, he's at eight.

What was the other one I liked, too? For plus 600, one of the Bills, Packers, Bucks, and Chiefs, over 10 and a half wins. Did we take that one? Yes. Oh, nice. Yeah, that was good. That's very good. All right. Let's get to our next game. All right, so that's a pass on the London one? Yes. Oh, nice. Yeah, that was good. That's very good.

Let's get to our next game. All right, so that's a pass on the London game. Yes. We're going to the Doug Peterson Bowl next. The Jags at the Eagles. We're seeing this at six and a half for Philly. Man, it feels like everyone's got an opinion on this one. I'm curious what side you're on.

I took this myself at seven and a look ahead. I feel like the Jacksonville, Jacksonville and Philly are kind of built similarly, right? Really good offensive, defensive. The Jacksonville's offense line is better than expected. They're not really good. They're better than expected. They're winning at the line of scrimmage,

both in the offensive and defensive lines. They're running the ball well. Trevor Lawrence is doing the right things, making the right reads, making big plays. And on the flip side, that's what Eagles are doing, right? Winning the trenches. Dylan Hurch is doing a good job defensively, suffocating teams. However, they just can't score in the second half.

They haven't scored, I think, a single second-half point now in two straight weeks. I don't know why that is. They shut it down or teams just figure it out. But six and a half points. I think Jacksonville is a real team at like a real team. It's a lot of points for real team right now in DVO way. They're they're four and five.

I, I would take Jacksonville plus six and a half. Obviously seven is a better number, but I really do think Jacksonville is a real full. I don't think it's a fake team that got off to a fat, to a fast start. I think they're a real team because they do really well in the trenches yeah it's funny i feel like um i couldn't tell what the overreaction was here because you would think that the big public side would be jacksonville after they beat the chargers last

week but it feels like everyone's like really hot on the eagles still um philly's thing i mean i watched more of the philly game last week than i care to admit the thing about philly they end up starting like really smoking hot every single week yeah and then the second half i think in the last two weeks they haven't scored so like what happens is like they come out scorching and if you can just sort of like withstand that they don't seem to make a ton of adjustments. I think Jacksonville's a pretty damn good team. I think seven I would love, six and a half I'm open to. I just think they're still a young team.

This is back-to-back road games. Trevor Lawrence, he just got his first road win. Let's see if he performs well coming back. This is another one the whole like sort of mid-atlantic northeast southeast is all going to have this weird weather so you would think that this that would probably benefit the eagles with their run first kind of style um so i don't know but with that said that would theoretically mean the game's going to be close and you know probably go under in the total right so i I could see it. I'm open to it.

I'm not totally convinced, but I am open to it. By the way, yeah, if anyone's in the path to that hurricane, please stay safe. Weather channel's on in my office right now. Jim Cantore is in a freaking helmet in the middle of Fort Myers holding on to... What are we doing with ourselves? Why are we...

It's wild to me, man. He's in a legit baseball helmet right now. I don't know if you're able to put on what is insane to me so hope everyone stays safe we're getting some of that weather um on saturday and sunday but shouldn't be as bad as it is in florida right now uh yeah the games i i'm curious we'll get to town bay kansas city that might get moved some college games get moved miami we had to leave a little bit early to play cincinnati to get out of there on time yeah Yeah. Yeah. So this is, this is a, a maybe for me right here. A good note that Hank put in here.

Eagles are four 11 and one gets to spread their last 16 games following and against the spread win that two of those wins have been in the last two weeks. Right? Yeah, that's true. Yeah. So something to note, let's get to the next game.

I feel like we might be, uh, in agreement here. Okay. Let's see, uh, Buffalo three point favorites in Baltimore. Um,

we mentioned the weather potentially being a pretty big factor here, but this total is still at 51 and a half. So people are still betting this one as if it's going to be a shootout. Um, what do you think? I like Baltimore here. Um, so here's

a couple things. We've been talking about this for weeks now. Buffalo does two things, okay? They either win by 15 or lose. Those are the two options. They don't win close games. They're having a long time. And I don't know why that is, but they just don't execute as well down the stretch in a close

game. And Baltimore's not going away in this game. They're not doing it. Lamar Jackson has looked really good, obviously. We know that. Even with the weapons around him that aren't great, I think he's making them look really good. He torched a Bill Belichick defense last weekend.

And now you have a Bills defense that's beat up, that is still hurting, trying to get guys back on the field. You seem to worry about the 90 plays for the Dolphins defense. 90 plays for the Bills offense is a hurting, trying to get guys back on the field. You see him as I worry about the 90 plays for the Dolphins defense. 90 plays for the Bills offense is a lot too. And now they play a Baltimore defense. It has not been as good as they have in the past though. There's a possibility, I think, that we see a little bit of scoring basically for Buffalo here in this spot. But man, I am all in on Baltimore plus three here.

Yeah, I am too. One of the reasons, again, going back to this weather thing, is the Bills don't run the football ever. And if this does turn out to be like a pretty dicey weather situation the leading rusher is josh allen with 113 yards for the season um i don't think that they're gonna like suddenly unlock devin singletary here like i this if anything the weather would really favor the raven style of play anyway um plus lamar jackson is a dog. He's 8-2 against the spread. Baltimore 5-0 in their last five against the spread as home dogs. Baltimore also just built for

they've obviously got some injuries on both sides of the line, but they're in the trenches type of team. Buffalo starting 2-2 also just kind of feels right after their scorching hot start, right? It just feels like everyone was way too high on them. So I love Baltimore in a spot here, which, you know, Lamar Jackson and his start to the season, like after this, oh, boy, that is going to be the talk of the sports media world for the next month

if they win this game. A couple other things to note here. Baltimore, special teams, no surprise, number one in DVLAva always something to look at in a close game like this um and actually your number one estimated wins they should have three wins obviously because of what happened against uh the dolphins didn't happen obviously didn't win that game so three points here man it's gone from three and a half to three i'll take a three before this might get to under two and a half i i'd probably not i think i may probably say it's a three but at plus three i'll take it i'm in man i this for the three and a half i saw earlier in the week and i was like oh i should probably hit that but i wasn't wasn't sure if i wanted it but

now i am so we missed that one but if you can get a three and a half somewhere i would definitely advise taking that one um okay moving on to the next game here i just closed out my tab where did we go we are oh man we're going to my commanders against the cowboys the cowboys coming off a prime time victory laying three and a half do we dare do we dare with who i mean you is anyone on earth comfortable laying three and a half with cooper rush like i don't want this game as anyone earth uncomfortable grabbing three and a half points with carson wentz and that dumpster fire of a performance we saw last weekend they couldn't even they couldn't even come back in like uh in like a game where the eagles quit in the second half essentially right and now you have a cowboys pass rush that's almost better with Parsons and Demarcus Lawrence.

Yeah. Oh, it's insane. The commanders are going to get their asses kicked, but I'm not sure that we play the Cowboys here either at 3.5. It's a terrible number. Cooper Rush could turn into a pumpkin again, and Dak might be back. And then in that situation, who knows kind of what the Cowboys are with Dak.

The quarterback controversy is so Jerry Jones, right? Just like drumming up for no reason. This is Dak Prescott's team. We know that. Oh, the commies, man. I can't believe I had to play against that game on Sunday. It was such a disaster. It was.

And I kept thinking like, oh, they're going to – I mentioned to you, we're going to be sitting there at the last drive of the game open for a backdoor cover. I kept waiting for that to happen, and Washington just couldn't move the ball. Yeah, it wasn't great. It really wasn't. I do feel like this is, to me – we should not put this in. I do feel like this is the ultimate, like, hey,

there's a professional coach on the other side of this. Let's all calm down on Cooper Rush winning a game in primetime. Trust me, if I was a non-Commanders fan, I would probably be making this argument more strongly. I don't want to include this. But here's a little bit of a hint. This opens at minus six. There's 77% of the bets are on Dallasallas and the line has moved closer to the commanders so clearly that vegas thinks um that this is going to be a closer game than people think so

i do think if you're in a pick and pull hold your nose and take washington but i would not bet on this or put it in uh the contest i'm with you on this yeah um speaking of gross games uh afc south clash between the titans and the Colts. We are getting, you're seeing three or three and a half. I can't believe that I actually have an opinion on this. I'm curious what your opinion is because I watched the Colts play the Chiefs and basically play as bad as possible to win a game. And I just don't think they're very good.

But then again, I don't know if the Titans are that great either. But just to my naked eye, I don't know, obviously, what I can look up with the DVOA is, I think Tennessee is probably a better football team than the Colts. Yeah, I like the Titans here a lot. The Colts, as you mentioned, I think that last week was a little bit of a red herring. It was a game that, you know, it just stunk to us.

We called it out as like, hey, you can't really take the Chiefs here, even though it just seems like you have to. They were back against the wall. They were home. They had to win that one. But they didn't even play that well. No, they didn't. Muff the punt, missed two field goals.

Well, muff the punt, missed a field goal, had a terrible fake field goal, missed the extra point, had that Chris Jones penalty. It just – in all of that – Kelsey drop. In all of that, the Chiefs had the ball like 12 yards away from a field goal to go to overtime. And I think that was the first drop of Travis Kelsey's career was the game-winning touchdown.

Like I was watching that. I was like, that seems kind of weird. This could maybe come back and fight them. So like the Colts, I think the Colts, everyone's now like, okay,

cool. The Colts are back. Like the Colts suck. Matt Ryan still sucks. The Titans. Meanwhile, I think our team talk about sort of like resetting their team. I feel like everyone wrote off,

right? Like they could have won that week one game that week. One's always kind of a mess. The Titans, I feel like always start kind of shaky anyway they lost that weird game to the giants they got blown out by buffalo okay but then they got back on track last week like traylon burks is starting to gel as a receiver derrick henry like looked a little bit more like derrick henry and when these two teams play um the titans have won four out of five so

traditionally they match up pretty well here we still don't know what's going on with shaq leonard who in my opinion like when that guy's on the field the team goes from like not interesting at all to like oh wow this colts defense is actually something yeah um so i just think the titans are as good or better and i think everyone you this is a chance to sell high on the colts so i i like Tennessee here. I'm not sure why I like this one so much, but I do think that this is a pretty good play. I agree with you in the sense that, you know, the Colts I think we saw this weekend aren't terribly good.

They won despite all the errors that the Chiefs made. And Tennessee is steady, right? I think their defense is better than we've always given them credit for. And offensively, they're still trying to kind of find their way offensively with Tannehill, who's getting more limited in age. But they can run the football, and they're going to do that to Indianapolis this weekend. Of his last eight games as a home favorite,

Matt Ryan won in seven against the spread. That's 12%. Mike Vrabel straight up has won 20 out of 35 as an underdog. They're very comfortable in this spot. I don't know. I just feel like this is a solid

sneaky play on the team that's going to suddenly start to look good. They always seem to kick up around this time of year. Gross. We don't have to watch it, Jeff. I know. Colts dead last in offensive efficiency so far over three weeks. They're so bad.

I can't wait. I'm actually really excited. We're betting against them. They suck. Okay. Speaking of sucks, the Seattle Seahawks. Hey, nice transition there. They go to Detroit.

The undefeated against the spread Detroit Lions are laying four and a half. What do you think? Guys, I'm telling you right now, don't do it. Do not put on the Lions this weekend. Don't do it. Do not do it. So far this week, Dan Campbell has said, this is offense. There's no Jackson, left guard, Ragnow, center, Hawkinson, tight end, Swift, running back,

St. Brown, Shark, or Josh Reynolds at practice on Wednesday. That's a lot of guys out on offense. Okay? Don't do it. Do not get sucked into this, guys. Everyone's going to be on, oh, my God, the Lions. They're 3-0. That's a spread.

They're a team. It's four and a half points at home. Just Seattle's not good. I get it. But this is not the spot, in my opinion, that you want to put your money on the Lions with all those injuries on offense. And everyone can expect them to continue to cover this game.

That means they're winning this game by five or more points. Like, it feels unlikely to happen that the Lions of these injuries have an easy seven point win yeah i totally agree uh with that said we're not laying anything on geno smith ever right absolutely not no yeah i considered that actually this was interesting you can sort of watch this one like this open at minus six yeah and everybody jumped on it and it moved down um but now it's sort of it might level off so if you if you do like seattle if you do like being a contrarian i think you could probably wait i'm feeling it'll just end up going back up because

no one likes betting seattle but yeah that's a pass for us um all right what is next here the jets are at the steelers we assume that this is the return of Zach Wilson. I don't know if that's good or bad, quite frankly. I have no idea what to do in this game. Do you have any feel whatsoever? Pittsburgh's leading three. I mean, I don't want to just say that I like the Steelers again, but they're off the extra rest.

If Wilson is playing, he's going to have to adjust to a pretty difficult pass rush to go against I just think Pittsburgh is a pretty good team and this is a pretty light number for a team that has hung around in a bunch of games I don't think Mitch Drisky is as bad as he's looked. Cleveland has a really good defense. Cincinnati has a really difficult defense to play. I don't know. You're buying low on Pittsburgh,

but I feel like I'm on Pittsburgh every single week, so I feel like you have to fade me on the Steelers. Well, I feel like there's a couple other games that I want to get to that I think we're going to have in that we're not going to have the Steelers in. Yeah, I'm fine passing on them. It might be the next game that we have um really quick i'm in a super contest uh yes picks league with with another buddy yes you're cheating me no i it's that's it's how we started this actually it was because of how much fun that is to have

similar conversations but um we decided to i i am a big last week you and i were really on the panthers and every week i have suggested to both you and my other buddy that we bet the panthers and he was like we have to stop this we have to make a rule it's called the rule roll that rule rule where if you bet on the same team every week and always lose you have to at some point question your own methodology so i think that's what i need to do with the steelers i need to lay off them this week which means that they're going to cover and then i'll be back at next weekend this whole thing is a stupid idea anyway but exactly we're going to pass on the deals um the chargers are at the texans the texans are plus five and a half at home this isn't i don't know much better like, but guys, right now the Chargers are out.

They're left tackle, right? They're best pass rusher. Bosa just went on injured reserves as we're recording this. They're out their best corner, right? They're out multiple wide receivers as of recording. Keenan Allen might come back this week. Who knows? Their quarterback right now has a rib injury. learn they're just floundering like they're not playing very well

um and the texans have disappointed as far as covering the record right i mean they haven't covered they covered one game that was week one right and then they know yeah they didn't cover last weekend right because they were i think the spread was two and a half last weekend for them. So they haven't been, to my opinion, covering quite the same way I thought they would. Oh, no, no. They've covered three games in a row. Sorry.

Yeah. Sorry, three in a row. I kind of want to make it four in a row. Like, I think Houston plus five and a half here is the play. Not my favorite, but I'm just kind of wagering on the idea that Chargers are just kind of in a bum spot right now. And I'm not sure that,

that this is a kind of a get right situation for them. Like they're choosing a really spot on control in this game. And Houston needs to win Valley. They're 0-3. And I think I saw the number this weekend that 0-3 teams against the spread in week three or over 60 in week four over 60%. Yeah. Well, they're 0-2-1.

I bet there's no stat for that. I do think that – Winless through three weeks. Put it like that. Winless through three weeks. Fair enough. I think that this is one of those that's staring at you and you're like, well, I guess I have to do this.

But you mentioned all the injuries uh cory lindsley i don't know if you mentioned him he's not no he's not looking i think he might be out already um this opened at seven and people actually the sharps actually i feel like kind of like the chargers and it's moved down i it's not like houston has some fearsome pass rush or home field advantage um or that this is some huge number. But obviously, like, you do kind of have to take it. It's just gross. To me, it's in the maybe.

Like, so far, we have Cincinnati, Baltimore, Tennessee that I think we three are in agreement on. Yeah. This is a maybe, right? This is one of those where we kind of get to the end and figure out because there's a couple other ones that I would feel comfortable putting in here. But to me, the Chargers and texans are the play here like that if you're playing this game you're you're playing the texans in the spot yeah there's no world where you should actually

the only reason you bet on the chargers is you're like herbert makes a statement like he's he's going to come out there and be a hero and that's you know hope isn't a strategy um but it does mean that i'm a little bit afraid of that happening and slaying money on the texans um but i do think it's i don't think it's a terrible play if we're out of ideas i would hate having that on the list just because of the number in the spot yeah um all right a game that i can't imagine we're going to play is the bears at the giants just just one of these teams will be three and one it's fucking incredible it's insane it's the bears have completed 23 passes in three games look i think i think for sure you would take the bears plus the three points here but that's like not something that i'm willing to do yeah i don't know i i actually kind of feel like the giants

might be a sneaky decent play here because everyone's going to be off of them, and the Bears absolutely suck. They're really bad against the spread at home. Yeah, they're terrible. Let's just not even talk about this. We have better things to do with everyone's life than talk about this game. Moving to the late window on Sunday, the Cardinals are at the Panthers, the home of the Matt Rule rule.

We have bet them every single week. Do you have an opinion on this one so it's going to be raining sunday in charlotte um we're going to get some of the hurricane friday saturday sunday arizona's gonna have to play that kind of their offense in the rain most likely um matt rule is uh three and ten against the spread as a favorite. Mayfield is 33% against the spread as a favorite. Cliff Kingsbury, the coach of the Cardinals, is 82% against the spread as an underdog. And I still like the Panthers in this game.

Oh, no. No. The Cardinals are also great going west to east they're like unbelievable that are not good they're 31st in dvoa right now they're not good football team like i get the trends are what they are but it's to me do you like arizona in this game um i do actually for the reasons you just mentioned but go on okay the trends are great and all and i'm i'm for that and i get those but like the to just blindly be like yeah i'm gonna bet this team because of the trend when the cardinals are not good right now man i'm not saying carolina is that great either right i mean arizona's 31st in DVOA. They're 31st on defense. They're 27th in special

teams. Carolina's a little bit better. They're 18th overall, so they're kind of a more efficient team. They just have moments where I think they stall out. But Arizona is just not good, in my opinion. And so the trends are great, but that's when Arizona, especially at the beginning of the season,

is an underdog in Los Angeles and they're kind of more fired. They're just not good right now, Matt. I'm not sure the Panthers are either. I think I would That's when Arizona, especially at the beginning of the season, is an underdog in Los Angeles. They're just not good right now, Matt. I'm not sure the Panthers are either. At the games we had, maybe you stay away from this one. But Arizona, to me, on the road, in the rain, gross. Road underdogs have had an awesome year. When you look at just like the performance every week. Well, let's take Jacksonville then.

Yeah. No, I'm fine with that. I'm fine with passing on the Cardinals, but I'm not fine with taking the Panthers. That's fine. Yeah. It's not one of my favorites. It's not one of my favorites,

but I would take Carolina in this spot. That's a definite pass then, because I do think, I just feel like Arizona, like, they haven't played well, but when they have sort of. They're just not good. Yeah, it could be. It could be.

They really need Hopkins back. All right. Moving to the biggest line of the week. The Packers are laying nine and a half to what we presume are Brian Hoyer's Patriots. Yeah. As of the time we're recording this one. What do you think? Is this worth laying the 10 on?

Yes. I don't want to. I really don't want to, though. I think it is, but I'd rather like Rupert Houston to cover. I don't know. brian hor is playing the answer is absolutely yes you take the packers right and i think he's gonna play me mac jones i'll be sure mac jones is not playing this week put it like that the line tells you that right nine and a half um you can make the case i guess the patriots defense can make up the slack and

we've often seen these games that that does make the difference, right? Sometimes where you're like, you know, back against the wall, but their defense has not been that good this season. If the Packers get in Bucs, you already played a little bit. And just remember too, they always struggle against the Bucs. Like that should not be the barometer by which we judge this offense. I mean, 20 to 10 covers this game. 21-10 covers this game, right?

I mean, right? 24-13 covers this game. I think Green Bay has to be the play here, but I don't know if I feel the best of my five picks on this one. Yeah, same. I feel like everyone who's making the argument for the Patriots is talking about trends. It's like they're talking about bill belichick 15 years ago with tom brady where they're you know big underdogs like this is not that um everyone also is big on like well look at the packers

rusty is 32nd and dvoa against the rush like yeah but they're gonna have 11 guys in the box and leave who are they gonna get burned by like jacoby myers might not even play like oh like nelson aguilar and brian hoyer that's going to kill us like i i don't think that's going to be a big concern um i actually think like we're looking at nine and a half like that's that's much tastier than 10 or 10 and a half like some people have hit it at 10 and a half i don't mind that if you're backing the Patriots. But, I mean, I don't love this one either, but I do think that if we are picking a side, it's the Packers minus 9.5. It's a very friendly line.

Sometimes the obvious plays you just – we took the obvious play about the Packers and Bears a couple weeks ago. We're like, yeah, 9.5. They're going to win that game. We know they're going to win by a lot. The only question I have is that if Brian Hoyer is in the game, is he just more efficient in the offense? But, again, it's mcgango's offense it's matt patricio yeah yeah there's that so um i'm kind of talking myself more into the packers now but um all right let's go to the next week uh this will be the next game here because i feel

like the next couple of them we might not have much of a strong take and we're going to come back and we're going to have to come up with a package or nine and a half. Yeah, interesting. Okay, Broncos at Raiders is the next spot in the late window. The Raiders are laying two and a half despite being winless. What do you think? You see that cringy subway ad for Russell Wilson? Let's talk about it. let's talk about it let's talk about it is is it possible he's like is doing a bit like there's no way that

he saw that and was like i nailed it like i do you feel like he might be like conning us because there's something it's a long it's a Maybe. It just was like, it was so uncomfortable that I can't imagine all of the people involved were like, yeah, great job, Russ. I think they wanted it to be uncomfortable. They wanted that to be uncomfortable. Yeah, I think they did too. I couldn't believe what I was watching. Somebody put him in the Dark Knight scene. Did you see that?

Yes. Where he was like, as the Dark Knight. The PFT commenter doing what night it was it was very alarming i don't know what the fuck is happening in denver man i don't know either i mean what the fuck's happening in vegas and they're not playing well either i to me this is a stay away man like i could see this going many directions the broncos laying an egg do you see their coach blamed a decision a fourth and one decision on the new analytics guy they hired publicly came out i was like yeah that was bob's decision not mine like screw you coach that's so awesome like way to be a leader

and the guy you hire because you can't coach came in and gave you a recommendation that then you're gonna bury him for awesome. What a piece of shit that guy is. Right? Like it's great. It's right here. Actually coach said from three days ago, coach Hackett said he wanted to go for it on fourth and inches at their own 34,

but Jerry Rosberg talked him out of it. Rosberg. Happy new year. Happy new year, everybody. That's right. It's the most, the most Jewish

football podcast there is we're big fans of Coach Rosberg by the way did you see this is not football related did you see the tweet

from John Heyman today it was from last night no Marlins pitcher and I think three balks on the same batter it was unbelievable

I never he never had a balk in 300 career innings and he got three in the same bat yesterday. So John Heyman tweeted out, note out of the Marlins clubhouse, Richard Blyer is believed to be the first Jewish

player to be called for three balks in one inning on Rosh Hashanah. People were like, hey, John, the holiday was over. He's like, yeah, John, the holiday was over. He's like, yeah, I often wish people a happy New Year on January 2nd too. That's right.

Yeah. And then people were like, my favorite part is people saying this is anti-Semitic. What is that about that comment? It's just a dumb tweet. It's anti-Balk. I was like, they were bad too. Oh, my God. The second and third one weren't even close.

I mean, how do you do that as umpire? Like one, okay, fine. One Balk, you're good. But two and three, really? Really? Yeah. You know, I'm racking my brain, Jeff. I'm not positive I remember what a Balk is anymore.

I haven't, you know how bad that is? Like I used to watch baseball every day and I don't even remember what a bulk is it's like when you it's like a false start right basically yeah so they they said the pitcher wasn't coming set before he delivered um the guy was on first base they called a balk and then he did it like the two or three warnings i mean he's set and even the announcers were like yeah yeah, probably not a balk. And the Mets guys are great because they're honest. They're like, yep, not a balk. It was against the Mets, man.

It was, oh, man. Okay, so let's move on to Chiefs and Buccaneers here. So there's no, I can't possibly talk you into the Raiders, right? Because there's no chance that they're going to go 0-3 and they're not going to lose a game at home. 0-4. 0-4, excuse me. They're not going to go 0-4 and they're not going to go 0-4 to a team that can't move the ball

and is lucky to have played three bad teams and snuck out at two of those games. There's no way I can talk you into that, right? Because here's the tough part for me with this one is that the Broncos could be good, but they could just figure it out, right? And they would smoke the Raiders. 77% of the money on the Raiders here.

It's amazing. On the Raiders. Yeah, fuck that. We're not doing that. No. I'm not thinking of public Raiders favorite at home. I'm not doing it. This opened at one and a half.

We have better games too. Interesting. I think. Yeah. at home not doing it just opened at one and a half we have better games too interesting i think yeah reminder that the uh the broncos last week won 11 to 10 oh i know i fell asleep i woke up and was like oh 11 to 10 the difference in that game was uh was jimmy garoppolo going down our loft ski on us yeah that was really funny dan's tweets were really funny afterwards i did a nice job i think i think the the andy defrain tweet was up there yeah coming through all the shit and getting out the other side um what a movie that was like it's been i think i saw this week like the anniversary of shawshank redemption you know that that's my favorite movie first of all the reason why i had it i yeah i had an offensive

line coach in high school his name name was Kelly Loftus. I, one of my favorite coaches ever. Um, he's still at the high school and he was our like life studies teachers. I have something like whatever. And when I was my freshman year, I had his class life studies.

And one of our assignments or one of our things was like, we watched Shawshank Redemption as a class, and we stopped every time there was a metaphor and talked about what the metaphor was. There's like 75 of them. So it's like a whole week to watch Shawshank Redemption. And I was like, oh, it's a pretty good movie. And so I now love that.

That movie, Devorah's Prada, that's very conflicting. But Devorah's Prada 2, stuck like, that's, that's very conflicting, but there was Prada too. Stuck on it. Stuck up, Matt. How about this? How about this? I know where you guys are here for our gambling.

I have so many things I want to follow up on here. No, here's, here's, here's everywhere. Okay. Here's Denver was Prada story. We're playing.

We played Washington state in 2006. Okay. And Pullman where they're at, you have to drive to Lewiston to fly out like two hours away. Like there's no airport in Pullman, where they're at, you have to drive to Lewiston to fly out, like two hours away. Like there's no airport in Pullman. So we go to Lewiston, and it's like 4 p.m. We got our asses kicked. It was a day game.

We're all just upset. It's a 45-minute flight back to Eugene. We're back home, and just pity party and jerk ourselves away. So we get loaded up. We start rolling off the tarmac and the plane stops. And what it feels like the plane goes in reverse, which is like, I didn't think it was even possible.

And the pilot gets on the intercom and goes, we drove off the runway and we're stuck in the mud. So we're going to be here for a while. Oh my God. Yeah. So we were there seven fucking hours seven hours i guess one of those podcasts that i ever have in the past seven hours excuse my language hey you can bleep all those for me i don't care

seven hours okay and mind you we weren't supposed to be there but 45 minutes 45 minutes that's it so we had barely any food on the plane and we had two movies okay what's the one with jennifer aniston and vince vaughn breakup breakup the breakup and devil wears prada those forced to watch both those movies devil wears prada slaps dude it's a great movie oh my god it's a great go watch devil wears prada great i've seen it i can't i'm so happy that you've told me this before that it's one of your favorite movies but never the this the peter parker spider-man origin story every time that every time that it's on it's on the tv i'm putting it's on right now i'm taking off jim uh jim cantori and putting this on it's just done

all right problem the problem here isn't that you like Devil Wears Prada. The problem is that you've seen five movies. That's the problem. We just need you to see more movies. And then you'll learn the error of your ways. I'm not a movie person. Yeah, I've always watched the same four movies. When I fly now, I just put on Saving Private Ryan on the American, and I just watch

it for four hours. How patriotic. Saving Private Ryan on American Airlines. I was at a... Last thing. was at a trivial at last night with uh producer gabe and uh someone answered uh what was phoebe's last name on friends and they guessed dufresne which sounds kind of like buffet everyone was like dufresne from chauchat yeah Yeah. So I just imagined Lisa Kudrow crawling through the shit in the tunnel. Dude, I'd be very bad.

Anything outside in the rain. I'd be very bad at trivia. It would not be good. And Hank puts in here, if I've seen The Prestige, I have seen The Prestige. My brother told me to see it. Good movie as well. So nonetheless, let's get done with my movie reviews. Man, we went from Box to Meryl Streep.

We covered the whole thing. We had a little Lisa Kudrow in there. Look, I think people come from the gambling state for the story about why I like Debra Worth's product. So most of these last two games, we're not going to wager on. We'll talk about them. Go ahead. Okay, interesting. So you're not going to try to talk me into your Kansas City Chiefs

laying one on the road against Tampa? No. The Chiefs offense, I think we're finally seeing the effects of no Tyreek Hill a little bit. There just is not a guy that Mahomes trusts, and I think the offense was better than it showed on Sunday. The fault of Andy Reid, in my opinion, is sometimes he just looks like they didn't game plan very much

for this game. Like, it just didn't look like they tried very hard. Their offense looked what it had been last year, like boring, shotgun, just like blah. The first two weeks, under center, a little more creative. And so I think they'll get back to that this week. And Tampa's defense is really good. And then with Tampa Bay, though, partly is like they're so beat up we don't know we're gonna

we're gonna regret in my opinion writing tampa off this time of year and i tried not to do that on the earlier podcast this week because they're gonna get back ryan jenton at some point they're gonna get back chris godwin and mike evans and julio jones and maybe grong shows up in week 13 like they're gonna be a better football team but right now they're so beat up the chief's defense and Mike Evans, and Julio Jones, and maybe Gronk shows up in week 13. They're going to be a better football team, but right now they're so beat up. The Chiefs defense is doing really well, Matt. Their defense is much better and much improved than it has been in any previous year.

To me, the under is the play here now. It's at 44.5. It opened at 48, I want to say, so you're not getting the greatest numbers, but to me, this is an under game all the way. Yeah. I think this is probably a pass. I will say this opens minus two and a half for the Bucs,

and it's been bet up. Now it's up to about one and a half for the Chiefs. It's going to keep moving. So if you like Tampa, I think you can probably wait a little bit more. I will say, though, getting the Chiefs under a field goal was like a blessing like you just don't ever get this same with the bucks i know the bucks is a tom brady is a home dog off a loss in prime time it's like that's that's a jackpot but the difference is again like they don't have those guys like it'd be different if they had mike evans is coming back

obviously but they had more options like he everyone just hurt yeah that's a problem for me with tampa bay so that's why to stay away from me um but uh the under for me is if you're playing this game i would almost just tease tampa to seven and take the under up to 40 was it 51 and a half and play it that way interesting i figured you'd probably be on the Chiefs and I was very worried about it, but I'm fine to pass this one. I'm getting smarter, man. We're just staying off. I don't bet the Ducks.

I don't bet the Chiefs, man. We're staying off of it. Yeah. All right. Let's pass that one. NFC West battle on Monday night. The Rams are at the 49ers. This line has moved all over the place.

No one knows what to do here. We're seeing this at the 49ers. This line has moved all over the place. Uh, no one knows what to do here. Um, we're seeing this at the 49ers lane too. Um, I don't know. I don't know what to do with this. What do you think? I gladly take the Niners here, but I'm not sure it's my favorite of the week. They won six of seven. Uh, the one they lost was the answer championship game.

And so I won six in a row before that Shanahan just kind of has the number of the Rams. And the Rams aren't playing terribly great. The Niners really aren't either. I was just feeling pretty interesting today that the Niners offense, they prepared this whole offseason for an offense with Trey Lance as far as how they're using their weapons, like Debo Samuel and other things. with Trey Lance as far as how they're using their weapons, like Debo Samuel and other things.

And now, because of Trey Lance being out, kind of the offense is not really in rhythm with what they want it to be, and that's why it's struggling a little bit right now. It completely makes sense. The 49ers, I mean, as always, they're going to have to adjust to more injuries. Every year, they're one of the most injured teams in the league, and we're always surprised.

I did not really have a strong opinion on this game, but I think I would probably lean Rams. Oh, Rams, okay. Yeah, just given the fact that the Niners are just adjusting to so much. No Trent Williams, no Jeff Wilson, we'll see. The Rams just haven't looked completely themselves yet. I think they're going to eventually come into form. But the 49ers looked so bad last week, you don't want to fade them off of that.

I don't know. This is another pass, and I feel like we're going to learn a lot from this game, but I just don't feel strongly about it. We also, we did miss one game. I don't know how it ended up not being on our, well, maybe it got deleted on the rundown. I don't know. I pressed something one time and maybe deleted it.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, so. Browns Falcons? Browns Falcons. Falcons are 3-0 against the spread here, but I would happily take the Browns. Interesting. This was actually one of my favorites, too.

I also like Cleveland here. Go ahead. The Falcons aren't really good. I don't know what you want from me. I mean, they're, they're just not, um, the Browns are better on offense or better on defense or better on special teams. Atlanta's feisty. Marcus Marta is feisty. Don't get me wrong. If miles Garrett is out, does that change your opinion about this it does for me a little bit it does and we don't know his status yet how about miles garrett by the way i'm glad he's he's fine but how much of a freak do you have to be like a mutant of a person to have your car roll over all the times that he did and be like yeah

a little i'll spray my bicep a little bit, a couple of Nixon. And those, those portions, at least, at least I don't understand is they have the roll cage in them. Right? Like they have protection in there, but we would be mincemeat if that happened to both of us.

And dude's like, dude just like walks away from it. So I'm glad he's healthy. I was, I mean, that just tells you, I think he's a mutant man. He's not,

I saw him in Dallas this summer working out, too. Dude. But if he doesn't play, I feel different about this game. So I really do like the Browns, though. Yeah, I do, too. One of the reasons why is the Browns, under Stefanski, for whatever reason, they suck in the division. They finally got a nice cover last week

against in that crazy miracle ending against the steelers um but against the spread out of the divisions to fancy is unbelievable actually he's i think sixth in the league since he entered uh with a 58 percent cover rate wow against the spread um and he's like i think three and 11 against the spread uh in the a in the afc, 3-11 against the spread in the AFC North. So you're getting a good number there. I think Atlanta is one of those teams. It just seems like every year the pros like Atlanta a little bit more

than Ispere. And I think this is basically them saying, yeah, their offense is kind of good. They hang around in these close games. Atlanta's not good. They're 27th in rush defense. Nick Chubb with extra time to prep for this like i agree miles garrett is a huge factor of course but like it's not like

mario to sit back there looking to pass all game it's just this is just like really good run offense against a really bad run defense no disrespect to the atlanta fans but not like a huge home crowd advantage there this isn isn't a big number. I think Cleveland's like a really smart play here. I'm definitely in favor of this, and we're getting a pretty good number here, right? This number opened with the Browns favored by three and down to one and a

half. Yeah, let's absolutely put this in. I'm glad you flagged it. Okay, yeah, because I knew I was looking through this and I was like, oh, there's one game I actually did like that we didn't talk about. Yeah, me too. I was like, yeah, we're late. We have four that we like so far. I think we're in with the Bengals minus four tomorrow night, our first Thursday game.

Actually, tonight, if you're listening to this. Tennessee plus three, even though – let's see if we get three. We probably might be able to get three and a half. Let's look and see if we have a three and a half somewhere. If not, I'm buying with three. But Tennessee plus three. Yeah, with threes across the board.

So threes across the board. Actually, talk about it. FanDuel's got three and a half plus three and a half minus 114. Yep. All right. I'm fine with that. Yep. I'll take a little plus three and a half.

All right. Yep. Don't twist my arm. Yeah. So Tennessee plus three and a half. All right. Don't twist my arm. Yeah. So Tennessee plus three and a half. Then we have Baltimore plus three hosting the Bills. I do wonder if this gets to two and a half, though. I think a lot of people in Baltimore smartly this weekend.

We'll take the three. What? We'll take the three. We'll take the three for sure. I'm actually kind of curious. Let me see more. Yeah, it's threes. Everyone has threes right now.

Cleveland minus one and a half, we really do like. So that's four. The question is the last one. So here are the options. Ready? The obvious Green Bay minus nine and a half. Just set it and forget it. Just give the better team healthier team backup quarterback against

aaron rogers okay that's one option jacksonville plus six and a half in philly houston plus five and a half hosting the chargers i mean set and forget it is very square, but also sleeping much better at night with Aaron Rodgers instead of begging for points in these games. Yeah. What are you thinking? I think, I mean, the Houston thing is they're just such a gross team that it's such a hard one to play. But the Chargers are so

compromised that that is like like getting five points at home with you know two starters on the offensive line out and your quarterback hurt and keenan allen probably hurt like probably seems like that's the smartest play yes to me um you know bill belichick like they could they could lose by eight and still you know or nine and still cover that obviously um i don't know i think i would maybe lean houston just because it's like it's just one of those you don't really think about the matchup too much you just sort of play the number i feel like i'm i'm with you i would i feel comfortable playing houston here a lot of sharp money on houston and this is one of the ones that I liked heading into the week. So we ended up getting – the Packers was not on my radar

as like what I really wanted to have. We got the ones in, in my opinion. I wanted Jacksonville, but I'm okay with passing on that. I'm okay with putting Jacksonville in if you feel strong. Yeah, but we don't have really a spot for them though. Who are we taking out? Yeah, I mean, I think this is the debate. I would rather do Jacksonville or the Tex texans than um the packers i think i would rather take houston knowing that

the charges are that beat up than just jacksonville i mean the eagles could be that good yeah they could be that good yeah all right let's put houston in there all right so we have bangles minus four which the game is tonight if you're listening to this on a thursday baltimore plus three tennessee plus three and a half houston plus five and a half and cleveland minus one and a half the one that's gonna screw us is cleveland i already know it i'm gonna be so upset you're gonna get some anger text messages on sunday when the browns just are bsing against the falcons in this game um but i like where we're at i I love where we're at. I love these. These are like smart. And we're getting nice numbers.

You said five and a half. You're right. There are a lot of five and a halfs for that Houston line out there. So yeah, I think we're taking advantage of doing this early in the week rather than being behind the eight ball. I like our plays. I'm curious.

Have you looked, we used to do this on Wednesday nights after the Super Contest lines came out. I'm curious what ends up being, the lines have to be pretty close. Yeah. Yeah, I think they'll all move in the direction that we would like that will show that we're on the right side of it. I bet the Ravens are 2.5.

I bet the Titans are 3. I bet the Browns are 2. The Ravens at 2.5 is the one I'm curious about. Cause then I think at that point people hit Buffalo pretty heavy. So I'm curious if they do that. They might do it for a second. Then it's sharp comes in and hammers that and it goes, pops the other way.

We'll find out. Yeah, guys, we appreciate all your comments. So please rate, review, subscribe, leave us a comment.

We'll be back next week. Hopefully another winning week out here. By the way, Pac-12 plays a little bit slow. 6-10 this year so far. What's funny is we do them on the radio. We give them all. 27-15 on the radio. But we've just given out, I guess, the bad ones. 6-10 so far. If you'd like to follow along, I like

USC first half. I like Utah this weekend. I like Oregon's team total over. I like Washington State. There you go for those Pac-12 plays. We'll talk to you guys next week. Have a great week, everyone. Take care.