NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - Week 14 Picks with Cynthia Frelund

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

Gregg Rosenthal and Cynthia Frelund are back with another Man vs. Model head-to-head pick battle! Our duo deliver their picks for week 14 of the NFL regular season, including an AFC North battle of familiar foes, Kirk Cousins' return to Minnesota, and a matchup that could very well decide the NFC West: Seahawks-Cardinals.NFL Daily YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nflpodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Hey, everybody. Daniel Jeremiah here. And I'm Bucky Brooks. On Move the 6th, we take you inside the game from breaking down college prospects and NFL rookies to evaluating team building philosophies, coaching trends, and how front offices construct winning rosters. We study the tape, talk to decision makers, and give you a perspective you won't find anywhere else.

It's everything you need to understand the why behind what happens on Sunday. Don't miss it. Listen to the Move the Sticks podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Marcus Grant. And I'm Michael Florio, and together we host the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast. Ready to dominate your fantasy league this season? Then you need the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast, your ultimate source for player news, draft tips, and winning strategies. Whether you're a rookie manager or a fantasy vet. We've got the insight to help you crush your opponents.

Listen to the NFL Fantasy Football podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Toyota, the official automotive partner of the NFL. Visit Toyota.com slash NFL now to learn more. Welcome to NFL Daily, where Fraudwatch never ends. It's a way of life. I'm Greg Rosenthal here in the Chris Wesleying podcast studio with my friend, Cynthia Freeland. And yes, we will get to one of the main characters of Fraudwatch all season long

a little later with my picks. How are you? I'm good. How are you? It is great to see you, as always. You know, the studio feels a little emptier this week because, you know, we don't have my son, but he is part of the standings where if you're watching on the YouTube show, we can look at our records.

Last week, Cynthia and I, you know, struggle a little bit, one and two. Walker's in first place now with an undefeated record on the season. Is he also like a crypto investor? This is what happens if you have a child and they take your phone and they just start messing around with your phone and they take selfies.

Doesn't matter. We're going to bounce back this week, Cynthia. What a lovely photo of you, by the way. Thank you. We have like a smug one of you on Game Day View where you're like looking like like but this is a, this actually a very nice This is much better. And yeah, we went one and two

last week. But we're up on the season still. I'm a couple games ahead of you. Fine. You better be trying extra hard to make correct picks this week. All right. I will start the picks off this week. A little different than what I normally do. Let's hear it. It's a big spread.

It's going against a team I like. You don't know where I'm going. Yeah, I do. I'm going Steelers minus six and a half. Did you know? I thought so, yeah. Well, really? Okay. Only because. I love I love me some Jamis. Yeah. And it's tough to go against them.

Obviously, the Browns just won this game a couple weeks ago. But when two teams play in the span of a few weeks, I definitely like one of those teams to even it up. Division game. Alex Highsmith is back. This pass rush is like the Avengers. I don't think people understand how good Nick Herbig is. Like, he is one of the best pass rushers in the league right now. And he's on the same team as T.J. Watt.

Now you add in Alex Highsmith and Hayward is playing like an all-pro and that matchup on a short week for Cleveland. I always pay attention to the extra rest and then the back-to-back road games for Cleveland. So you're coming from Denver, you go back to Cleveland, you're back on the road again. The Steelers obviously need this game and it's a big number. The number to me, Cynthia, it's almost begging everyone to take the Browns. I have a feeling I could be wrong, but that the public is going to be on the Browns. in this game with that big a number at six and a half. And I'm not taking the bait here.

I think the Brown's defense is meh. The numbers don't lie. It's an average defense. Everyone thinks it's a great defense. It's an average defense. And you're going to be dropping James back to pass probably 40 to 50 times in this game against the best pass rush, I believe, in the NFL, because the Browns have no running game at all.

I could even see the Browns winning this, like leading this game in the second quarter. And I'm sweating it out. But the turnovers will pile up. and I like like a nice 34 to 19 type of win for the Steelers minus six and a half. Okay. Okay. I'm going to do something that feels a little mean, but I don't care about mean. I want to be right.

Yes. I'm going to take Chicago in the points. Oh, I like that. That's one of my picks. We're going to join forces. Okay, good. I feel like it's a little mean because like so many bad things have happened to the Niners this season. So I kind of feel like I'm like piling it on them.

But I don't care. You're being nice to the Bears fans. I mean, so many things. It's happened to them for a decade straight. Fair. Fair. But I mean, NFC North,

blah, blah. But yeah, no, I think that number one, we've seen Caleb Williams be a lot better against the Blitz since week 11, which is when Thomas Brown took over.

We've seen the run game improve. We've seen a lot of great things there. And on the other side of things, things just like aren't getting better for the Niners. I mean, Christian McCaffrey now on IR. Same with Jordan Mason. Sure.

Of course, pull, like, a rabbit out of his hat in terms of the run game. But, like, what about all the other parts? Right. Isaac Garando comes in there and maybe he'll be fine. But who's he running behind? Trent Williams isn't practicing. To be fair, Isaac Arendo could be, like, in by-mageddon for fantasy.

You could probably consider playing him. But other than that, I think it's fade. Fade, fade away. Yeah, they are at a point in the season where the numbers are still part of the 49ers team that used to be. And that team doesn't exist anymore. And you didn't mention the reason. I'm going for him.

And this is first time in a couple weeks that we are joining forces because this was my number two pick on the day, the Bears. It's the fired coach principal. I mean, I know we already had it happen once this season. Yeah, but like that was a last week was like, that was bad. What? When the coach said that he kind of doubled down on everybody makes mistakes in life. Yes.

But like doubling down being like, it was the right decision. Like that's a wild thing to say. Right. Like, it was clear. I thought CBS made a mistake in the broadcast because I'm like, there's no way or like, you know, the graphics thing didn't hit and, you know, there's a lot of technology involved. No, no, no, no, CBS was on top of it. I retract my statement about the broadcasters.

It was the coach. But to double down on that and the press are after, that just shows you. I mean, if that's what he's willing to say publicly, what was it like in the actual building? Well, we have reporting that Jalen Johnson, they're the cornerback for the Bears after Iber flus in the locker room. was trying to say, we appreciate how hard you guys are going. He started yelling at Iber Fluss. So we've already seen a tangible difference

since Thomas Brown took over. And so that's one fired. They have played their best three games of the season on offense in a row. They outgained the Green Bay Packers. That's a nine-win team. They got to overtime against the Vikings. That's a 10-win team.

They were in that game against the lions. I will take the win. I will take the win. Happy to take the win. But oh, my goodness. not great. Right. So I'm all about the fired coach principle. It's worked already twice this season. We saw it work for the Saints last time around with Rizzi. And I do think you want to check some injury situations for the Bears, but it does sound like all their players that are key.

DJ Moore have a chance to play. DJ Moore and DeAndre Swift are if they were both out, then maybe that. Right. So keep an eye on that, but just the vibes are that probably, I think they're playing. Why are the Niners getting so many points? That's the thing that's crazy. At this point in the season, you just cannot give this 49ers team four points. Here's the thing. I wouldn't be shocked if the 49ers find a way to win this game at the end somehow because that's just who the bears are at this point. But it'll be by one point. It'll be by two points. You'll cover that number and we'll come out on top. I like it. I like it. I feel really good about that. And yeah, Fred Warner's playing through a broken foot. We don't know. Why is he playing with a broken foot?

It is getting to that point in the season, too, that the 49ers, I think, are going to start, like, shutting some of these guys down that are healthy. Please shut them down. They're not quite there yet. But, man, Koshananen just looks angry and he looks miserable. So that's my second pick. We're already back to you for your second pick since that's my second pick. Minnesota. I want Minnesota at five points.

Okay. I don't really like five points. There's a lot of weird, like, four, five points spreads this week, which, blah. But I think Minnesota, it's a good one against Atlanta. they're hosting Atlanta it's at home Atlanta yeah sure they had a third of their season long sack total last week with five I don't think that that's a real true indication of what's going on but even so we saw sam darnald have like a 130.3 passer rating against pressure last week against the cardals am i saying minnesota's perfect no am i saying Atlanta's bad kind of I'm saying that they're turnover prone

this has been a weird skid for them I mean Kirk cousin hasn't throwed a touchdown pass in like three weeks. 10 turnovers. That's not a good, that's a bad ratio. I, without even realizing this is the Kirk Cousins return to Minnesota game without thinking about that, I just started wondering, is this potentially the last start for Kirk Cousins this year? If he threw like three interceptions in this game against a great Brian Flores defense

that mixes you up, you would think they would think about going to Pennix. And it would, I am not rooting for that. I want your pick to be right. I want them to cover, but I think it would be heartbreaking for Kirk Cousins' career as a starting quarterback to end in Minnesota getting bench. So what I am hoping for in this situation is that the Falcons defense reverts back to who they've been all year and that it's 37 to 26. And you cover your spread and Kirk is fine enough and it's not that depressing of a loss, at least for Kirk. You know what I mean? I don't know. He can cry all the way to the bank.

The man has like the most guaranteed money ever. So I'm not like crying for him. Okay. He's had a great career. People say that all the time, though, about like, hey, he's got a lot of money. I don't feel bad for them as a human. There's still people. They bleed. They have emotions.

Wow. Are we going there? Listen, everyone needs a moment of empathy, Greg. But I will say another quarterback would not have been given this leash of three games with this many turnovers before something would have been. I mean, even Aaron Rogers, they were like, are you going to go with him for the rest of these? No one's even asked that question about her cousin. They're asking.

Not really. Rahim's pushing back. He's staying strong. We'll see if he stays strong after Cynthia delivers another winner and they cover this thing. I'm finishing up with another spread in that point range and I'm going with another favorite. I love this one. Miami minus five and a half. For a second, I thought you were going to say the Saints.

I'm like, what? No, I don't want to do the Saints. Yeah, no, stay away from that one for me. I don't like that one at all. In fact, I kind of like the Saints. the Giants, but I agree. Why bother? I'm not, I'm not bothered.

I'm not bothered with either one. I just hate it. Love me some dolphins. Mine is five and a half. We've been telling you about fraud watch all season long when it comes to the Jets. They are three and nine on the season, Cynthia. I saw a stat that they have been favored in nine of those games. And they've only won three of them.

They are the first team ever to accomplish that feat. Congratulations. That was actually courtesy of my friend Danny Hyphitz at the ringer, fantasy football show. I want to give him credit for that. That's a crazy stat. Finally, the numbers have adjusted. Five and a half seems like a normal number to me. They're going up on the road against a road team.

But I do think there's a lot of reasons to believe this is a blowout. The last Jets offensive game over 300 yards was October 27. They are a bad offense. That was against the Patriots, by the way, and they lost that game in the division on the road, like they're going to lose this one. Last week, the only reason they were in the game against Seattle was special teams. They got about 14 points worth of value from their special teams. That's the only reason they were even in it.

The dolphins have extra rest. Love that. They're coming off a Thursday night game. They're at home. And then the injury situation is very problematic for the Jets. No Soss Gardner at practice early in the week. No Breece Hall at practice early in the week. And no Elijah Vera Tucker early in the week.

and Morgan Moses, another tackle on their team, is very questionable. The dolphins have been hearing all this talk about, oh, you're soft, you're soft. I think this is a good team. I think they're going to respond to a bad loss. And they've had two very similar matchups in my mind at home in very recent memory. Their last two home games were against the Raiders and against the Patriots, two of the other worst teams, the league along with the Jets. And what do they do in those games?

They won comfortably. 68 points they put on the board on offense and those two games only give up 34. I think their defense is good enough that the Jets just aren't going to go crazy on anyone. The Dolphins defense is okay, but the Dolphins' offense is going to go up and down the field.

I'm putting their over, under, of their points for me, it's about 35. They're going to put about 35 on the board. Do you think Aaron Rogers can keep up? No way. I like a little 34 or 35 to like 14. This thing's a blowout. Fraud watch is on. It's been on

all year for the Jets. I mean, Aaron Rogers turned 41, so, I mean, if he was a pumpkin at 40, he's a rotten pumpkin at 41, right? I mean, obviously in a whole week, it's, anyways. No, I'm with you on that. I think that I have a really comfortable win for them. Are you ready for my last one? Yes. This is the

break Greg Hart's special. Oh, it's the Cardinals? Yeah, I know I'm taking the Seahawks. Oh, you're taking the Seahawks. Yeah, well, that doesn't break my heart. I like that. You think the Cardinals are going to win, though. You told me that. I did, but I'm rooting for that. to be wrong. Sometimes the head and the heart

are pretty off. And when you look at the spread, the Cardinals are favored in this game right by three right now. Oh, it went up to three? I thought it was two and a half. Five by me. I'll get even better with that. It depends on what sports you're looking at. I'm looking at draft kings. Okay. It's a great place. It's minus three. That's what

we've been going off all season long on this show. So that's where they're at. And I love it. It just happened a couple weeks ago. They beat him 16 to 6. It's going to be a defensive game, I think. What do you think? I have 20, oh, sorry, excuse me. I have 23 to 21. Okay.

So 45 total points, which is slightly over. I think it's 44.5 where the line is right now. In this game, I'm very interested to see if they can figure out how to stop Jackson, Smith, and Jigba. He runs exactly where they have huge vulnerabilities. I don't think of two weeks that they've shored those up. And now, you even have Kyler Murray throwing turnovers. Why are you turning the ball over? In two games, he had the same number of turnovers as the,

the 10 before, thereby. A little bit of grace. I mean, just not, just not an easy way. That's a really hard way to win. I know their defense looks a little bit better last week. I understand. I'm not saying they're not capable of doing it. This is, I'm picking an underdog here for a reason, but, you know, it's, it's, I just think there are too many ways for Seattle, especially post by they've really, on defense, they're getting healthier. They're getting UChina Wosu back.

Like, it's pretty good. It's pretty good stuff for you. I love it. Look, you have them winning straight up. I do. If people like a little value, you could also look at the money line there. Yeah, it's even more valuable there. I'm just saying, like, I'll just take the points because we, why not? Right?

Absolutely. And our little standings, I don't get extra points for picking them straight up. No, you don't. So why wouldn't I give myself a little insurance? You should. We're going to come back, Cynthia. You're over 500. Not worried.

We're doing well. Not worried. We got five things. We hit a little bit of a speed bump. Hey, we might be doing this in the playoffs. You know, this has been a hit. Obviously. The YouTube numbers are cranking up.

The podcast numbers are cranking up. A couple other games I kind of like. I'll put some extra picks out there. I forgot to last week. I kind of do like the Giants plus four and a half. I'm with you. I kind of like the Cowboys, actually. When I saw the injury report and Orlando Brown is not going to play for the Bengals.

Demar Chase is now on that injury report as well. That would change my mind. But five and a half points. That would also probably change the line, to be fair. That maybe I take that back. Cowboys, it doesn't give me a good feeling. but my gut says that's too many points to give the Bengals. But what I do feel good about as an extra one is just the Chargers plus four.

I just think that's a field goal game one way or another. Their defense is actually better than the Chiefs defense right now. So I like that to put back to the end. How do you feel about that 12 point spread in? Stay away. Eagles. Yeah. Day away.

I think Bryce Young, it sounds crazy, but he's playing too well. And the Eagles have been playing these big time games. Maybe just a little bit of a letdown spot. Maybe Bryce just hits a touchdown at the end to cut it from. 17 to 10, you know what I mean? It's not really close, but that's a stay away for me. Also, the Eagles, how, like, crazy is this, though? Like, four of their next last five games are home. I love this Eagles team.

They get to sleep in their own bed. They're comfortable in Philadelphia. It's crazy how good this Eagles team is right now. I'm feeling good about my Super Bowl pick. It's a little scary. Well, don't feel good about that. Why? Because I know in your heart you want something very different. I'm not saying what I want.

I'm just saying I'm happy that I, like, I'm, like, I'm, I'm, I'm, good with being right too. So Cynthia's picks, to recap, she finished up with a golden Seattle Seahawks plus three on the road in Arizona. She's got the Minnesota Vikings favored by five and a half at home against the Falcons. And then we are joining forces on the Bears plus four in Santa Clara. My other two picks on top of the Bears plus four are Steelers minus six and a half. I feel like I'm zagging a little bit

where people will be zinging. I like this pick, and I also like the dolphins covering the five and a half at home against the Jets. That's it, Cynthia. We did it. You're moving on to one of your million other jobs.

Check us out on NFL game day view. That show also goes up on YouTube as just week 14 picks. I've been noticed. A lot of people are watching it on YouTube, too. Game day views on YouTube? It is, and they don't call it game day view, but people were complaining in my comments

that it wasn't. up on Thanksgiving week. And then I went and looked and, yeah, we're getting a lot of views. Shut up. But also check out Cynthia's YouTube channel, numbers game. And, of course, check out NFL daily and subscribe to the YouTube and like us, you know, on your Apple phone or Spotify, whatever it's going to be.

One of my favorite people in the world. I'm looking forward to spending the rest of the season with it. I will tell him and I will let him watch this show where, yes, he is in first place at least for one week. I don't know if I can. I didn't let that boy just stay there again. Yes. When you're getting outshined by your own progeny,

you know football is back. We'll see you on Sunday. Hey, everybody. Daniel Jeremiah here. And I'm Bucky Brooks. On Move to Six, we take you inside the game from breaking down college prospects and NFL rookies to evaluating team-building philosophies,

coaching trends, and how front offices construct winning rosters. We study the tape, talk to decision makers, and give you a perspective you won't find anywhere else. It's everything you need to understand the why behind what happens on Sundays. Don't miss it. Listen to the Move the Sticks podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Marcus Grant.

And I'm Michael Florio, and together we host the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast. Ready to dominate your fantasy league? this season? Then you need the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast, your ultimate source for player news, draft tips, and winning strategies. Whether you're a rookie manager or a fantasy vet, we've got the insight to help

you crush your opponents. Listen to the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Toyota, the official automotive partner of the NFL. Visit Toyota.com slash NFL now to learn more. This is an IHeart podcast.

Thank you.