The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - UNDERDOGS - An NFL Three (Turkey) Leg Parlay

Episode Date: November 23, 2023

It’s Thanksgiving week and “Underdogs” co-hosts Jordan Brenner and Peter Keating are here to help you sound like the smartest sports fan at your holiday table. The guys have done the research for you on a three-leg Thanksgiving Day NFL parlay that could help you win big. Plus, they’re giving some insight on other ways to cash in on Turkey Day. Then, they draft their best underrated side dishes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on a very special Thanksgiving episode of Underdogs, we're going to give you a menu of NFL betting options to click on while you are watching football with your family. And they will keep the feast going with a draft of Thanksgiving Day side dishes. With cringos up up far and near for Underdog. Underdog. Help now going on right now. I guess there's only one thing left to do. It's the underdogs. Happy to be here with you. I'm Jordan Brenner.

Join us always by my co-host, Peter Keating and Peter, let me be the first to wish you a very happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving, Jordan. A great day, a day of family, a feasting, a football, a reconciliation, Thanksgiving's the best. And also, it's also the biggest sports betting week

of the year in America. Well, because Thanksgiving is the best, we're going to give you a little special episode today. We're going to take a break from the underdogs, underdogs contest, and there's nothing to do with the fact that Sarah had her best week picking like games last week. We just got a chock full of excitement episode to bring you later on. We're going to have a very special draft. I'll give you a clue. It're going to have a very special draft.

I'll give you a clue. It's going to get tasty. But first, you might even say it's, you might even say it's stuff. That's right. It's good, good, good, good. But speaking of stuffing, we've got three Thanksgiving day football games to get you ready for, to get you excited about and to give you a little stake in. So what we're going to do, Peter, if it's okay with you, is we're going to go through the three games that we're going to build a parlay. And this parlay will

be available on draft games and we'll tweet it out. And we will all root together. I'll bet it our audience can bet it if they like. I'm a little fun. We'll spice up. This is like the madden turduckin. We're going to build it one leg at a time. That's right. We'll spice up our thanksgiving a little bit. So first up, we've got the Detroit Lions hosting the Green Bay Packers. I think the Lions are currently favored by seven and a half points. The over under right now is sitting at 47 and a half. But Peter, I think we're going away from the total and the spread for our first leg of this fabulous Thanksgiving parlay. I think we

both kind of gravitated toward the same prop. Am I right? I think, I think you're right. Like your table on Thanksgiving, this is a big spread, Jordan. And so I prefer to look at some of the matchups and tendencies. And Jordan, I think it's safe to say, you know, we try to catch as many NFL games as we can, but a lot of times you and I are both trapped this year into watching the New York teams play. And there is, I'm telling you, there is no bigger contrast. And if you watch a Jetser Giants game and then you watch a Detroit Lions game, Detroit Lions run blocking is a thing of beauty. I mean, I don't know if the Jets know what a stunt is. I don't

know if the Giants are playing five guys on the line half the time because it looks like it looks like it's just a porous tip, but you have Detroit. It's like a little symphony of these big guys right on the line moving in and out and clearing these lanes and Gibbs. I mean, Jameer Gibbs is look great the last couple of weeks, but David Montgomery's look great. All season long and green Bayes, Green Bay's run defense has left a lot to be desired. Yes, much like a green bean. You can slice right through them. To your point, Peter, David Montgomery has a touchdown in every full game he's played this year, at least one touchdown. Okay. So you can get right now as a bet on its own,

a Montgomery anytime touchdown. I believe it's currently minus 140, but what we're going to do is take Montgomery anytime touchdown and make it the first leg of this parlay. Now look, normally I'd like something with a little bit better odds in that. You know, touchdowns, there's some variance. It requires a lot of things to happen. The ball to be in a certain position on the field necessarily to have it to have a scoring opportunity. But look, in the last two seasons, Lions running backs have 41 total touchdowns in 27 games. They've got 14 this year. They get lots of opportunities. The biggest question is, is my gum re-sharing a role with Jermir Gibbs? It's a little concerning that Gibbs actually got some carries inside the 10 last week, which had been my gummri's

sort of unquestioned role early in the season, but it is telling that with the game online and the ball at the one-yard line, who got the who got the carry to win the game last week? David, my gummri. Yeah. I mean, look, I mean, you look green Bay giving up the fifth most rushing attempt, which is interesting. Teams love to run on green Bay, seventh most yards, ninth most yards per attempt. I was a lot more concerned, mostly because I had gives on my fantasy team about the sharing earlier in the season.

They've shown this season as they did last year, there's enough touchdowns to go around. So let's plug in Montgomery is the first line of this parlay. I will say if you're watching this game and you're looking for other bet, a couple other stats have popped out to me. First of all, watch the line. If this gets to seven or below, I think it might be worth a play on the lines. They've just been great against the spread.

They're 19 and eight against the spread. The past two seasons, including 10 and four at home. That this team continues to surprise people. Green Bay is not a very good team. Also, I think the over could be in play, especially if it dips below 47. 13 and 9 at home to the over and Campbell's three years of the Lions. This is one of those weird stats that I like to look up, but it might be worth something. It might not. Thanksgiving home unders with totals of 46 are greater.

Our 14 and 9 nine the past 20 years. So it's been profitable. So pay attention to that. I think if you can get below 47, like it's like a 27 to 20 game, it's worth it and below a touchdown. But we'll be back on another line's bet in a little bit. Let's move on to the Cowboys against the commanders, Peter. The second leg of this three course meal of all. Oh, Jordan, I hate to have to say this, but come on. The dislike of Dallas has gotten a little too intense. Dallas is a little bit better than people realize. Much as it pains me to say it, they're capable of blowing out teams.

I mean, they beat the spread routinely. I think there's a few reasons you can rattle them off by people going to appreciate just how good Dallas is. One is the Dallas fans. Just don't want to give Deck Press got a break anytime, but he's playing great. Another one is Mike McCarthy. Well, what are you going to do? But I think Dallas gets a hard time from fans and analysts and pundits.

I think their record is not actually as good as it should be. I mean, again, what are you going to do? That happens a lot with them. It seems except it really doesn't. Well, the last couple of years, they played just about as well as they should have with the exception of horrendous playoff losses. I think Dallas has put it in all together and is playing at a very high level. And this is a huge spread, but Dallas is capable of covering the spread.

Well, the spread is, so we, which we haven't mentioned yet, the spread is, the cowboys are favored by 11 points. These total right now is sitting at 48 and a half. 11 is a lot. It's a lot to 11 on an NFL game, you know, the league tends to play toward closer games. You've got that's a maybe maybe not on Thanksgiving, though, Jordan, favorites do extraordinarily well on Thanksgiving. Well, you got two really interesting trends going up against each other. On the one hand, the commanders have been really feisty as an underdog.

There's either five one and one as a dog. So so a lot to be said for them. But the Cowboys are as much of a front running team as I've seen in a while. They're seven and one is a favorite this year. They're 23 and nine over the past three seasons. Here are the margin of victory of their seven wins, okay? 40, 20, 35. They won by three against the chargers, then 23, 32 and 23. So six of their seven victories have come by six points or more, and while some of those teams are just dreadful, including the Giants is twice in the Jets,

you can see the recipe that works there. They have a potent offense, and if they get up early, especially the way they're passing attack is playing now, they have the best pass rush in the league. So when they can pin their ears back and come after the quarterback, and by the way, we know Sam Howe is prone to taking sacks. These things can snowball very

quickly. Good pass rush, forces turnovers, 14, nothing becomes 28, nothing. So as much as it goes against everything we stand for at the underdogs podcast, and normally we are required to take underdogs, Peter, I think the second leg of this parlay has to be Cowboys minus 11. What do you think? You can talk about all you want, the, the moxie that the commanders have shown, but their chief weakness, leaving aside the turnovers, okay? Let's attribute part of the turnovers in the dreadful game last week to terrible luck. Anybody can have a one bad game or a couple of bad games, but their chief weakness is Dallas's key strength, which is that pass rush and protecting howl and howl spends an awful lot of time in the pocket and

Dallas steam rolls bad teams and this team is not a good team. Yeah, I look I worry that we're gonna react over react a little bit to how pathetic Washington looked against the worst team in football than York Giants last week. But, and I'm not still bitter about losing my survival pick at all. That has nothing to do with this analysis. Right, but the key there, the key there Jordan is, Washington doesn't have to throw the ball away to be susceptible to what Dallas can do to dismantle them.

Right. You can, you can, you can wash away or control for whatever, whatever you want from last week's performance. They're still extraordinarily vulnerable to what Dallas does best. Right. Look, again, I just a little wary because they've shown themselves to be vivals underdogs this year, especially against the Eagles, but that may just be a question of matchups, right?

Styles make fights, and I'm with you. I think this could snowball. So let's go Cowboys minus 11 is the second leg of the parlay Which takes us to the night cap? We've got the San Francisco 40 Niners traveling to the Seattle Seahawks Currently the Niners are favored by six and a half points on the road the total sits at 43 it has moved down from I think 44 or even 44.5 when it opened. Looks like Geno Smith will play, but Peter, I know you've done some research on this front.

Is there an area where you're leaning for our final leg? Well, Jordan, when's the last time that you, you know, loosened your belt buckle and you're sitting there after a huge Thanksgiving feast? Sat down and watch the Thanksgiving night game And you got an amazing shootout of 41 30 a game. That does not happen. Thanks. Here's here's a cool stat. Thanks giving night unders are 11 and five all time. And I think you want to credit Brandon Anderson. Brandon Anderson from the actual network who says his favorite thing is to take the under on Thanksgiving night and it's part of a couple of broader trends. Prime time unders are 26 and eight after last week this this season after the Minnesota Broncos game that we just saw and home underdogs over the last two years. I've gone 62% to the under.

These two teams haven't played yet this year, but last year they played to two low scoring games. Seattle lost 27 to seven and 21 to 13. They had played hard, they got a good defense, they keep things tight, but neither team ran up the score. Do you have a little concern that San Francisco is so good right now at this exact moment

that they'll just start piling on points and drag the game over, basically all by themselves. But I mean, come on, we're concerned about Geno Smith's health, we're concerned that Kenneth Walker has hurt. This is all trends, say, under to me on this one. Yeah, I mean, you're 100% right. The only concern is that the Niners can score 30 in their sleep. So, but maybe they score 30 in the in the and the Seahawk score 10. I like the trends. I like everything what it's pointing to. It's a divisional matchup. You know, who knows what the weather will be like and see at all that night.

There's certainly a case for the under a strong enough one. And it's, otherwise, have you ever, have you, have you bet a lot of under his Peter, it's really fun to root for nothing to happen to root for puns. It's a very different way to watch football. It's a, it's, it's, it's a, it's a little tense for me. I mean, because something might, you know, something might always happen, but it's kind of a, it's kind of a reverse psychology fun. I'll tell you something else, Jordan, as I've explained this to you, this is very technical analysis.

I'll explain to you that in most cases with a parlay, you have to win all three legs of the parlay when the parlay. On, on, in this case, right, where we have, where do we have Montgomery scoring a touchdown, right? We have Dallas. Yeah. Dallas. That's a lot of it.

Yep. Minus 70,000 points, whatever. And we have Seattle San Francisco taking the under right now at 43, right? People, we have to win one of those. Why? Why is that? Because first of all, if you're blabbing about these picks to your family and you hit on one of them, just don't talk about the others.

Say, hey, I listened to these two goofballs and this one smart woman on this underdog's podcast, right? I took their advice, you know, market it to the whole family. I hit on this one. Just just don't even mention the other the other reason is because once you hit one, Jordan, all the rest is gravy. There it is. The way you see, if you're listening to this instead of watching our YouTube feed and and be thankful for that, by the way, catching this on our forces radio network. That's right. You're not, you're not seeing Peter hold up a jar of gravy. He's also wearing a turkey tie. But if you can't conclude, if you can't separate dad jokes from actual betting advice, no, you actually have to

hit all three legs of a parlay to win, but that won't stop you from making a ridiculous crap. But you can still separate gravy. All right, so to reiterate, three legs of our parlay, you'll find it on DraftKings, go check it out. David Montgomery anytime, touchdown, Cowboys minus 11, Seahops 49ers under, right now under 43. Before we move on to the next exciting part of our menu,

I wanna give you one other option for some added betting on Thanksgiving. I've been into teasers this year. If you don't know what teasers are, essentially the most standard form is a two team teaser. And what you're doing is you're buying points, but you have to win both bets. So for instance, let's say you want to do two of the Thanksgiving games, okay? And you want to take the Cowboys or minus 11 and let's say the lines were minus 7 and a half. What you do is you tease it and you get six points added to your total. So suddenly the Lions line moves from 7 and a half to 1 and a half and the Cowboys

line moves from 11 to 5. And the only difference is you have to win both to win. Normally, these are offered, I think draft Kings typically offers them at about minus 120. If you add a third leg, which I think you can do here, you get plus odds. I really like all of these three favorites. Again, this is the underdogs podcast, but it's the one week of the year we're allowed to take favorites. I love all three of these teams as part of a teaser. First of all, generally you want us to be able to tease down below seven and three when you can. Those are key numbers, stucky over at the action network has written some great stuff about this over the years.

It's a good strategy, right? So what I love is like when you have a team that's plus eight and a half, or sorry, minus eight and a half, and you can tease them down to two and a half and you get through the touchdown and the field goal. Or the other way, right? You have a team getting two and a half and you can tease them down to two and a half and you get through the touchdown and the field goal or the other way, right? You have a team getting two and a half and get it up to eight and a half. That's a nice way. Well, you're close with that on the Lions game and the Seahawks game. So you can take the Lions down to minus one and a half. I feel very strong that they will win and they will do so by more than a point and a half. And the same thing with the the

Niners. I like them to win on the road. Teased them from six and a half to half a point and a half and the same thing with the the Niners. I like them to win on the road Teas them from six and a half to half a point and then finally you can do it with the Cowboys to get it under a touchdown Get it down from 11 to five. So I think Definitely include the Lions if you want to do a two team teaser I think either of the other teams is acceptable But have some fun do a three team teaser get plus, give you something else to watch for. Peter, have you done teasers? And what do you think of this approach? I have not done teasers. I am marginally confused. I am relying on your advice. This is one of those times where, you know, you know what we're talking about. I get what you're saying about the touchdown and field goal

numbers. Let me ask you one quick question. Yeah, yeah. What leads you to prefer teasers over just doing a couple of money line bets? If what you're really saying is, you just really think Dallas is gonna win by some margin. Well, because the money line bet, I'm not getting as good odds in this case. Dallas is minus 600 on the money line. So if I parlayed them on the money line with Detroit,

I'm not getting minus 120 odds. You know, so yes been talking to you about the money line that you're paying for. I've been talking to you about the money line that you're paying for. I've been talking to you about the money line that you're paying for. I've been talking to you about the money line that you're paying for. I've been talking to you about the money line

that you're paying for. I've been talking to you about the money line that you're paying for. I've been talking to you about the money line that you're paying for. odds. So yes, if you have any questions, you can tweet us at Jordan Brenner at Peter Keating and Jay. And we're going to ask you for some more Twitter opinions coming up because we've got quite a draft to unveil. And we're back with the underdogs, Peter. Our producer, Sarah McCrory, had a delicious idea for this segment. We're all excited for Thanksgiving, for the feast. Yes, the turkey is the supposed star, but we all know that the real fun comes from the side dishes.

So what we're going to do is we are going to draft underdog side dishes. Sarah has removed the five most popular side dishes from our options. And Sarah, if you would read those off please, so we know what not to take. Okay, the top five most popular side dishes for Thanksgiving are mashed potatoes, stuffing, back and cheese, sweet potatoes, slash yams, because I think those are the same thing, and green bean casserole. Green bean casserole, once the underdog of side dishes, now an overdog, as Peter would

say, it's made it up there. It became classic out of nowhere. So, okay. So here's what we're going to do then. Those are off the board. Peter, you can construct a team any way you like. Maybe you're just going to go for talent. Don't care if they play the same position.

Maybe you want to build a balanced plate that incorporates different components. This is up to us. However, we want to do it, Peter, I'm giving you the first pick. I will have the next two. Then you do two in a row and I have the last pick. So Peter, would the first pick in the inaugural Thanksgiving underdog side dish draft? What are you taking? With the number one pick I'm taking turnips. Now, first of all, we often say our bets are a play on this or a play on that. This is a play against squash. Squash is aptly named. It's hard on the outside and it's squashy and squishy and you know, seeds are shooting out on your face when you bite into a piece of squash from the inside. Nobody wants squash, but you do want root vegetables.

You do want something that nobody's going to cook the entire rest of the year. Turnips are extremely tasty, great with pepper, but when the hell else are you going to get them? Only one day. Thanksgiving, give me the turnips with the potatoes and the stuffing and the gravy, harkening back the days when European settlers met Native Americans. I believe turnips is one of the things they actually shared. It's an original Thanksgiving dish. Give me the turnips. You're aware that people are going to be voting on which plate is more delicious

and you led with turnips. Turnips are tasty and they make the plate more colorful and complete. I'm off to a considerable lead, and I haven't even made a pick yet, but as we mentioned, we're gonna ask you either on our comment section of our YouTube video or on Twitter, we're gonna ask you to comment on who produced the better plate.

And with that in mind, with my first pick, I'm gonna go with creamed spinach. Now look, now look, my wife of vegetarian will tell me there's nothing better than having all cheesy components on your plate. Now, I was a little worried that this would keep me from being able to take like a cream corn. I don't care. I love cream spinach. I love spinach. I love cream. I love the taste, I love the look. Every aspect of it, I need the cream spinach. So I'm starting off there.

Now I'm not, I can't go overboard on the dairy. So I need something that sort of compliments it a little bit. I need a starch without the mashed potatoes, at the am's. So with my second pick, I'm going to go with crispy potatoes. I saw a beautiful recipe for this crispy potatoes with bay and scallions, sounds delicious. Wait, crispy potatoes on top of the mashed potatoes. No, you can't have mashed potatoes. It's off the board. You're creating a plate.

I mean, but on your dinner at your dinner, no, those five are already good. Those five aren't going to be there. No, they're not. They've been ruled out of this contest because they're already going to be on your banquet table. No, no, they're not. So this is why I'm asking. I want to be clear. You're serving crispy potatoes in stead. Because there is no, correct.

Yes. All right. Yes. So they had a crunch, a different texture. They're not as terrible for you as a match. So we're going with my first two picks, cream spinach and crispy potatoes, Peter, you now have the next two picks to complete your plate. I'm going to go with something else you might not like Jordan, but which is a fine addition to this feast

onions. That's right. Usually talking about, well, small onions. No, no, no, no, no, small pearl onions, either hooked by themselves or in a cream sauce. Traditionally, they can find them in a cream sauce. If you don't want to go this heavy on the cream, you got onions. You got the acidity and the bite of the onions,

cutting against all the rest of this blobby beige creamy food. The fantastic with mashed potatoes with stuffing. All right, you got onions and turnips. So far. You're really in pearl onions. Oh, oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. Yes, we do have pearl onions. Nothing better to serve them in than an onion-shaped dish. See, the onion is crying here because you cry when you cook onions. It's labeled onions. There you go. I make a third pick before the onion serving dish before we get the hook here. Let's go. And I'm going to go back to creamy sweet and tasty. And with my final dish, we're going to go with corn pudding. That's right. Not just nibblets, not corn on the cob. Look it up online. All you have to

do is shave some cobs down, throw some milk in, throw some sugar and stuff. You make that outstanding corn pudding, easy recipe, almost as easy as green bean casserole. So that's going to wrap it up for me. So I had strongly considered for my final pick potato zogratten, but I really have a potato and I have a cheesy component. Just eating a potato dinner. I thought about some cornbread or biscuits, maybe mushroom and leek red pudding that my wife makes and is delicious. But with my third option, I want to compliment this, you know, I'm going to go with colored greens, preferably a garlic and parmesan green recipe that I, that I read about online,

adds a little bite, compliments the cream spinach and the potatoes. It's a beautiful look on the plate. So my plate again, the collard greens, the crispy potatoes and cream spinach, Peter, we got the turnips, onions, little pearl onions and corn pudding. All right, so we want you to do is to go on, again, Peter's got a, wearing a turkey hat right now. We want you to do is to go on again, Peter's got a wearing a turkey hat right now.

We want you to go on YouTube in our comments. I think the turkey is going to stay on. Who has the better plate or go on Twitter at Jordan Brenner at Peter Keating and Jay. We may even post an AI rendered image of our plates. We want to know who created the more delicious plate. Sarah, do you have an early favorite right now before we go? Honestly, I wish I could combine some from both. Let's just say you guys aren't making my Thanksgiving dinner. So I'm I'm feeling thankful for that. Well on that note, well the current thing is that Thanksgiving you can combine everything from all the plates.

You know, you just have to do Jordan. You just have to wing it. Well on that note, I'm thankful for you Peter. I'm thankful for Sarah. I'm thankful for our executive producer, Neely Lohman, who told us about something called pineapple cheese casserole that appears to originate from Alabama and supposedly is delicious. Thank you all for joining us. We'll be back with you next week. Have a very happy Thanksgiving with your families and we'll see you soon. Happy Thanksgiving.