The Herd with Colin Cowherd - The Favorites - Guest Chris Fallica & Chicago Event Recap

Episode Date: April 1, 2025

After a wild, rowdy and successful Chicago live event, Action Network hosts Chad Millman and Simon Hunter begin today's show recapping all the Windy City festivities with producer Matt Mitchell. But more importantly, they also welcome very special guest Chris "The Bear" Fallica, formerly an ESPN producer and GameDay personality and today the biggest sports betting personality on Fox Sports. Chad and Chris reminiscence about their time together on the Behind The Bets podcast more than a decade earlier, before discussing the state of NFL quarterback play, the ever-changing American sports betting marketplace, Fallica's Bear Bets podcast and so much more. #Volume #herdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey guys, it's us The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it.

We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it. But, you know, tired and sick. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it.

Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform?

We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is Saigon, the story of my family and of the country that shaped us. From IHeart Podcasts, Saigon. You don't think I'm serious about a free Vietnam? One city, a divided country, and the war that tore America apart.

This is for Vietnam. They're pouring patriots all over here. Freedom for Vietnam! There's a fire coming to this country and it's going to burn out everything. Listen to Saigon on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, it's Edwin Castro, also known as Castro 1021. And I'm Kunky, his best friend, and business manager. And we've got a new show called The 1021 podcast.

I'm taking you behind the scenes on how I became one of Twitch's most popular streamers. We also love sports. And with the World Cup right around the corner, we'll be breaking down the biggest storylines ahead of the big tournament here in the USA. Listen to the 1021 podcast on the IHeart Radio. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the favorites, the podcast presented by Bet365. We are part of the Volume Podcast Network.

I am Chad Milman of the Action Network. Today, I'm joined as always by my co-host, my companion, my compadre, my BFF professional better. Simon Hunter. Hello, Simon. Chad, how we doing, brother? Brother, we got a lot to unpack. Later in the episode, we're going to be joined.

by one of the most beloved people in all of sports media, Chris the Bear Felica, my former colleague at ESPN, now the betting analyst at Fox Sports, host of Bear Betts, the podcast, very excited that he's coming on the show. But listen, brother, before we get to Chris, we got to get one of the other most beloved people in all of sports media. And maybe right now in all of Chicago.

because we need to recap our amazing Chicago live show for this audience. We can't talk about it to promote it for a month and a half and not let everyone know how it went. Quickly, as a reminder of the favorites podcast is presented by Bet365, who also sponsored a live show. New Bet365 customers get $150 in bonus bets when you bet $5. Sign up using promo code favorites, deposit $10, place a bet for $5 to get $150 in bonus bets.

those bonus bets can be used on spreads, totals, player, props, futures, and more. Whatever the moment, it's never ordinary at bet 365. Must be 21 or older and present in Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Louisiana, North Carolina, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, or 18 and older in Kentucky gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or 1-800 bets off in Iowa.

Terms, conditions, restrictions apply. All right. Matt Mitchell. Great to see you, buddy. By the way, Simon, do we not owe Matt Mitchell a huge bouquet of flowers? He organized the event. He was in charge of the details. He was the MC of the event.

He puts on an amazing show when we are there because it's part you and me talking. In this case, we had Stucky and Jim Rood join us for college basketball. But it's really Matt Mitchell taking what people love about the show. and incorporating it into trivia and games and giveaways with him acting as the PT Barnum and keeping people occupied. So Matt Mitchell, welcome to the show. Great job in Chicago.

Chad, it's like those old Vidal Sassoon commercials where he would end it by saying, if you don't look good, I don't look good. And that's how it feels. I would just want to make sure... Come from a man with no hair. That's right. I can appreciate the reference.

Like all of the... the best hairstylists. Yes. I'm bald as the dickens. But yes, I had a great time. You guys were fabulous. I want you guys in the correct head space to go in glad hand, which is definitely what you guys do best.

That's who they want to see. And they don't want you worried about, you know, handicapping a Texas tech basketball game. That's not what they're there for. So I thought you guys were marvelous, but our fans were, I mean, people drove from like 300 miles away from like Columbus and Southern Indiana. It was insane.

I'm always surprised by this, pleasantly surprised and thrilled. I met a listener who drove five hours from outside Detroit, who like goes deep into the archives and said to me, you guys never really bring up the Blackjack years, which is like the year and a half, two years where Blackjack Fletcher was a co-host of the show, who was a great guy, just like we morphed into something different and then Simon joined the show. But he was like deep, deep, deep. into the weeds on action content, going back to ESPN content, loved that.

There was a whole group of buddies who traveled from Columbus. You mentioned there was a couple that drove from south of Bloomington, Indiana. This was their date night away from their kids. Five or six couples on date nights. And that's always my favorite at these events. Everyone knows I love love. So when we see couples coming to the show together, which happens at every event we've had, there's always a half dozen that I meet, it's just the best. Half the time it's the couple listens to the show together.

Half the time like the kid I met who's a grad student at Northwestern who dragged his girlfriend to the show, she ended up talking to me and my dad's 15 minutes. I'm like, oh, please put a ring on that, brother, because that is just next level commitment that she's coming to this Godforsaken show. with two guys she's never seen and she ends up talking to my nearly 80 year old dad. I didn't even mention the real trooper was the guy who made his girlfriend come that had the torn ACL. Oh my God. And she couldn't have been more of a love. She was so sweet, so kind.

The fact that she came with that leg into that bar surrounded by just hooligans. I mean, people were absolutely out of their minds. And I was like, man, I had to go say hi to her. So that was really cool talk of her and her husband. Chad, that couple that came from Southern Indiana was Kent and Emily Summers. and I remember their name, one, because they're just lovely, and I hope to see them in Milwaukee, but also because when the event concluded, Emily and my wife became the very best of friends for many reasons. But one of those was that Emily shared that it had been very tough because

she had had her daughter the week sports were canceled in 2020, and so did my wife, had our youngest Maxine Danger Mitchell that same week. So bonding over that was a lot of fun. they were a delight. And yet the lady with the tour d' ACL, I forgot about that. She was like she couldn't move at all. She was like, they got her in. She sat on a bar stool with her leg on another barstool. And that's what she had to stay around, yeah, complete hooliganism.

I also want to shout out, Chad's father. So if you're at home, I want you to close your eyes. Barry Milman. Yeah, just picture Chad Milman in an even smaller, older body, just as big of a mench. and he looks like Stan Cronkey, the owner of the Rams. It was an absolute pleasure. He said the nicest things. What a sweet fellow your dad is.

He is a fantastic guy. I love him to death. True, Mench. That's a great way to describe him. So many people in my life who have said to me, oh, Barry Millman, class act. Menchie guy. Speaking of hooligans, you had a group of buddies that came, Chad?

I had high school buddies that came, and this was one of my favorites. Andy, Josh, Dave. I got to hang out with them, which was fantastic. And at one point, they were talking to a bunch of, there were, you know, a lot of fans there who listened to the show, and then a lot of fans who just brought friends with them, right, who don't listen to this show.

And that included, this is one of my favorite moments, this kid who graduated from Indiana. Simon, he grew up until he was 10 years old in Liverpool, moved to the United States. I told him your family's from Burnley, and he's like, well, like, even Liverpool looks down on Burnley. That's how bad Burnley is. And he ended up playing soccer at Indiana.

Indiana has a great soccer program. Always does for generations. So we were talking about Indiana soccer, and they went to the final four, like two of the three or three of the four years he was there. I went to Indiana. I had been on stage with you no less than 15 minutes earlier. And he looks at me and we're talking in Andy or Josh or Dave,

of one of my buddies had said something to me about the show. He goes, oh, you're a part of the show? Had no idea. Yeah, I would say that was another cool part of the, I have so many cool things, me and all the fans, was how many people there weren't actually gamblers? They were just football fans and just fans of me and Chad, which was shocking because I thought everyone there would be big-time gamblers.

I talked to a lot of people that just, they love hearing our football opinions, they love following the season, and they love the offseason when we do all the interviews. So that was great. And yeah, piggyback off that Matt Mitchell said, meeting Chad's dad and Chad's buddies from kindergarten, probably one of my favorite parts.

Like seeing pictures of young Chad was really, really funny, especially in your like 80s outfit, got the high socks, the really short shorts, the t-shirts. And then, yeah, Matt Mitchell's wife and the old saying behind every good man is a great woman, great woman, just so cool, so down. And you can tell like, even talking about gambling, And it's like, fuck, I love women that love to gamble.

So Matt Mitchell obviously hit a home run. It was just great too. Just running to everybody true that we work with, right? Stucky coming down, having drinks with him. It was a really good time. Well, dude, you've just transitioned to my favorite part of the night. And I will say also that the pictures of me and Simon and my dad are just treasures. because Simon is twice as tall as me and my dad.

I don't think if my dad was standing on my shoulders, we would be as tall as Simon. My friends loved Simon. They felt like they had been friends with Simon for longer than he's been alive. So I'm invited to the vacation? You can come on the vacation. And I forgot that my buddy Dave broke out pictures of me

from overnight camp when I was about 11 years. But here's my first. favorite part of the night, and then we'll get to the show. It's the second half of the Duke game. It's about to start. Simon, you had Irish goodbyed, Irish exited. God only knows when. Like, I could not find you anywhere. I was surprised that I was still hanging on. At this point, Stucky is alone in the green room lamenting all the Texas tech futures that he had that had blown up in the final five minutes of that game. Matt's wife, Corinne is having the time of her life at the bar, which she would pay for the next day.

Meanwhile, Matt, who likes to go out and drink all night with Stucky more than anybody I've ever met in his entire life, in my entire life, like this dude, if he's with Stucky, he wants to be out until the sunrise. He has to be somewhat responsible for the entire event still. And I'm talking to a few listeners, including my favorite email pen pal, member of Chicago Land's bravest, huge lifelong, long-suffering Bears fan, Matt O'Donnell, came to the event. One of the three fans that I'm talking to asks about Mitchell and I pulled him out at the bar and the guy says to me, he goes, man, that guy eats wings with rubber gloves. That is serious, serial killer vibes.

So smart man. I'll note that he didn't approach me or talk to me. So that's a good move on his part. He didn't. Corinne has having too good of a time. I think she has taken over that part of the bar and nobody was coming in. Yep. Want to run through.

So I make sure that listeners who did not participate hear about quickly, one, I will say, the pictures of you, your dad and Simon look like one of those nesting dolls, but it's missing several of the intermediary dolls. You just open up the big one and it's two little ones in the middle. I loved that. I wanted to pander to your friends directly, Chad, in my show intro. So I started your intro onto the stage with, he's made a lifelong commitment to eating like a small Amazonian bird.

And two of your buddies, I thought they're going to have a heart attack. And like, that's it. Those are the only two guys that left at that. I thought they were going to pass out. So I appreciate that. The security guard, that Joe's on weed, shout out Joe's on weed, elite venue could treat this place. are at unbelievable hospitality.

Go there anytime, watch any game there, can't recommend them enough. They gave us a security guard to make sure no one goes upstairs to the private area where all of our stuff is. It looks like Ving Rhames. Couldn't have been a nicer guy. I also had a ton of features on Texas Tech

making the final four. While me and Stucky are having our souls, leave our bodies. It's a Florida bar, and he kind of leans over it sees I'm not having a great time. And he goes, who are you rooting for? and I realized he was a Florida fan. He a little Florida pin on.

And I go, oh, Florida. And he goes, all right, fix your face. So for that guy, I pretended to be a Florida fan for the rest of the evening. So shout out to him, loved him. And I did have to load the four recliners that we used. It was too expensive to rent. So we just said, oh, let's just buy the recliners that the four stars will sit down on the stage. But obviously, one of those is getting loaded into my car and driven home.

because hell, we bought them. So if anyone in Milwaukee wants a recliner, it's only had an ass on it for like 55 total minutes. You just reach out to me. I'll put it right out front. You can drive it away. And then last but not least, shout out to an old, dear friend of mine

from the University of Missouri 900 years ago when I was there. Ad agency creative, Dudd Lawson, who was one of my favorite people who loves the show. And I hadn't seen it in a very long time. I'll note that I said, Hey, didn't you have an insane business card when we were undergrads, 20 years ago? Do you have a picture of it?

He goes, yeah, here it is. And he used this card to get a job when he was 22. The front is just mania with his information. But the back, this is what it reads. There's never anything interesting written on the back of business cards, so I'm going to tell you the best story I know. Once there was this old man who found a bug in a yellow rock, He used that bug to make some dinosaurs, and he put those dinosaurs on an island.

But before anybody was allowed to go see the dinosaurs on the island, a couple scientists and Jeff Goldblum had to say it was safe. It was not. Newman tried to steal some of the dinosaurs in a can of shaving cream, and a guy got eaten by a T-Rex while sitting on a toilet. Samuel L. Jackson was there, too. He smoked a lot of cigarettes and said, hold on to your butts twice. That got him a job because that's the rantings of a madman. So if you are anywhere in America and you need an outstanding ad agency creative, his name is dud Lawson,

dudlosson.com. He would hate that I'm doing this right now, but he is terrific. One of my oldest and dearest. And I thank you for coming out and thanks for being a fan of the show. And maybe Matt most important, our boosted parlay on bet three six five that day was Florida on the money line, Duke under USC women, it cashed. So congrass to everybody who played the boosted bet 365 parlay. We're going to get to Felica. Want to make extra money daily from your sports betting? Simon knows I'm always trying to find ways to take sports betting to the next level. That's why I'm excited to tell you about Edge Boost, the financial platform that pays you

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you'll receive a $25 deposit $25 deposit match plus tier two status for faster bank deposits and more cashback. That's edgeboost. Dot bet promo code favorites. Hey, it's us to Jonas Brothers and guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, name? Huge news. We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We just consider it to us. First people to do podcasts.

Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special. So how do we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band. Before Jonas Brothers was... This is how you guys remember it going down?

Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast. we could call in and say, hey Jonas, and then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest,

NL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking. Tripp Fontaine, Ryan Clark.

Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing and we're still chasing it and we don't know when we've done enough because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross,

because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth? Are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Kear Gaines, is we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, learn the hard way. Open your free iHeartRadio app. Search Learn the hard way and listen now.

Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. Timbo, every episode we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real.

From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports slice brings you closer to the action, with stories told by the people. who live them. Listen to SportsSlic. On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slicelife 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. And now on the heels of our interview with Stanford Steve last month, we are delighted to finally welcome into the Favorites Lounge, another towering figure in modern sports

betting media. someone our very, very long-time listeners will know from his original appearances on the Behind the Betts podcast over a decade ago. His solo spinoff with Stanford Steve on Behind the Betts, the college years, former ESPN producer now and college game day maestro, by the way, now the most popular sports betting figure across all of Fox sports, maybe in America. host of the Bear Bats podcast, Handicapper of everything from the Rose Bowl and the Breeders Cup to the Valero Cup and the battle for Atlantis. It's Chris, the Bear, Felica, my brother.

Great to see you. And don't forget the college basketball crown, which is currently... That's right. That's a huge event. I mean, that was something where, like, weeks ago when the NCAA tournament started and the people knew this was constantly,

I mean, it was one of those where, like, guys that I know were like, we are just going to blindly bet the overs in these games because people are, there's going to be no defense. People are going to want to play them and boost NIL and score and just go out and have fun. And we saw four games on Monday just completely sore over the total with relative. And these games were moving 7, 8 points and they were still going over easily. So, yeah, we added the college basketball crown to our arsenal. What's going on, man?

Hey, listen, that's what I love. love about you, there is nothing. This is a little bit, you and Simon are sort of kindred spirits in this way. Stanford a little bit too. You guys will fire away on anything. You will find a way to handicap, examine the games to discover the edge no matter the event. The amount of conversations I've had with you going deep in the weeds on horse racing, let alone like sports people actually pay attention to over the course of your life is phenomenal. I love the fact that you even went deep on the college basketball crown Simon. You can relate to that.

For me, Chad, the action is the juice. That's right. There we go. Polika, tell people how you even got into betting. Oh, God. I was, I mean, I was kind of like everyone else. A kid from Long Island who grew up around it. Dad brings home the parlay car.

from wherever the hell he got him from work, all card, prepare shop or whatever, who the hell knows? But, yeah, I was just one of those. And, you know, then put your allowance on a three or 14 parlay on one of those little parlay cards, however young I was, and I kind of knew to follow it then.

But my dad's godfather used to write for a racing publication in New York. We had a little, a quarter horse track, Suffolk Meadows, near where I grew up, we were always going to the track and we had basically season tickets or partial season tickets for jets, islanders, Yankees for forever. So, I mean, I was always around sports and I always kind of knew the numbers and knew what was going on. So I was just kind of, kind of, kind of grew up about it and then going to school in Miami and being around football and horse racing down there, it was just kind of a natural deal.

But yeah, now it's always numbers and betting have always been a part of my life. And it's turned into kind of a career as well. So kind of cool. I do feel like Miami accelerates the process. You think? I do. I really do. I think, you know, there is so much.

It's a sneaky betting capital. Oh, yeah. And there's a great story. Miami in the 30s and 40s, there was this tug and pull in the 50s, really, about the betting community. And everybody knew in local government all the way up to the governor that the people who visited Miami in the winter wanted to be able to bet. And so they relaxed all the gaming laws in Miami. in the winter. And then as soon as everybody left, sort of around March, there was a literally a one-man betting vice squad who would go around busting up all the bookies and putting them in jail,

finding them, they'd try to make money off the fines, whatever. And then as soon as the winter came back around, everybody was free to do whatever they wanted to do again. Miami has always had that edge for betting that would make people want to bet even more. Yeah. And certainly you got things like Highlie and dog racing down there when I was in school there that kind of a lot of that fix. And yeah, you had the plenty of on-campus bookies that were willing to appease that I never got paid by one of them. Kind of disappointing.

We used to have a little bit of a routine where me and my buddies, as soon as we were done, I would get out of, we'd get out of our last class. We'd get together, apartment 33. We would get together and kind of come up with our plan for the evening. And at the time, we used to love, we used to love like the reverses. And we, we didn't have a ton of money. So we're betting like $25 reverses. And it was 92, 93 around there.

So it was like the jazz and the sonics were like great. So it seemed like for like every night we were doing like a $25 reverse jazz and sonics. And they were, it was winning like every night. And then, uh, then our boy. from the pike house never paid us so it was kind of kind of shitty why do you not have muscle i had i had no muscle back then it was always oh yeah there's an envelope coming that i'm getting an envelope today and then the envelope the envelope the envelope never came and then it was like okay we need to we need to stop wasting our time and disappointing ourselves dude you know it was freaky we never

even talked about this when i was starting at sports illustrated this is like right out of college. There was a Super Bowl in Miami. It might have been 94. I can't remember exactly when. Yeah, that would have been Chargers, Chargers dinners. Yes, exactly. I don't know if you were in school then or not. I graduated in May and 94. All right. So I was in Miami for Sports Illustrated. We had decided to do a, like Simon wasn't even born at this point, but we had decided to do a gambling issue. And because I was one of the most recent graduates and can still connect with students at the magazine, I was in Miami and asked me to start reporting and like talk to kids at U of M. Oh, wow.

I ended up doing an entire, what's called a sidebar about bookies at the U of M campus. Really? Yeah. Wow. I spent a whole afternoon with a group of kids who were in a fraternity at U of M who were booking the Super Bowl. I wonder, I wonder if it was the same one of the one of the same guy. It could have been.

They very easily could have been. We'll have to share, share. I'll have to go back and look it up. We'll have to talk about that off the air. I don't want to reveal the names, but. We'll be any trade secrets. But yeah, the name would be recognizable to some people. That's too funny.

The surname would be recognizable. Simon, doesn't it make you nostalgic for the opportunity to go book on a college campus? Oh, God. But if we knew, if we knew now, it's slime and what we knew, we could have known then. I said, I screwed that up. Chris is going to have the worst part of it, though, that that work, booking with college kids and then having a track down when you actually win to get your money was the worst. I think everyone went through that, right?

Everyone had that guy that disappeared after you got into a huge hole with a bunch of different people. And it's like, oh, that guy just left our school because you had so many people money. So I'm with Chris. It's like the glory days, but it was also, man, dealing with that headache of chasing people. and running from people was definitely a thing of the past. Well, Felica, like, you're in OG. You've been doing this forever. You know, we're now legal.

We're seven years into being legal. We're coming up on the seven-year anniversary of PASPA, the Professional Amateur Sports Protection Act, being overturned. Like, what do you see the difference between pre-legalization and today, even three years ago and today? You see, I mean, obviously you see that. the market flooded a lot more with just a lot more people trying to get their share of it from whether it's pick sellers, social media influencers, just kind of creating that crossover between

like just, okay, I hear I know what I'm talking about and you should pick this. Is it more of an information-based thing? Is it more of an entertainment-based thing depending on who the people on social media that you follow. But yeah, I just know, I almost wonder if we're to a point of, or maybe we've reached the point as well. I'd like to ask if we reached a point of like saturation in the market where there's so much information and so many people out there that are we kind of at the point where we're going to start to eat ourselves and maybe we're going to see a little bit of a pullback on. So you're going to see a lot of people maybe getting out of it falling by the wayside and it's going to

kind of get back to just maybe not moderation, but fewer people, fewer, I don't want to say Towers, fewer pick sellers, fewer accounts out there, or are we going to continue with this level? Because it seems like we're at a point where there's just a lot of bullshit out there. Well, look, I feel like in 18, 19, 20, everybody was trying to figure out how to be a sports betting media analyst because that was their way to get on TV. And I think very quickly, there was recognition of where there was authenticity and fluency with the language. It's not easy to talk about these things and sound like you know what you're talking about, right?

you know, Felica, when I used to go on SportsCenter, back in the day before we started action, and even a little bit after, the conversation was always, who's the anchor who can talk about totals, who can talk about spreads, who can talk about bookmakers. Outside Scott Van Pelt.

Right. Like, how are you going to have that conversation? Because the anchors aren't that comfortable with it. And to their credit, they don't want to be put in the position where they are uncomfortable with it. So it's hard to find, the people who can even communicate the language, I think that's a huge issue. Simon, you've been

sort of growing up in this space the past five or six years. You probably see a huge difference between the people who look and sound legit and the people who you can tell are just sort of doing it for the fame. Yeah, but it's always been this way. I think it's worse because it's so much more in our faces right with social media. But you guys grew up in the same thing where I did with the 800 number. I mean, there was always guys in the radio, selling picks selling their bullshit and you'd call up right they do that we got three free plays this weekend and went three no call this number for the one play that isn't free well it's a guaranteed winner like that that is instill into gambling the folklore and now it's a little different because

it's these faceless people right to see guys we make these Twitter accounts or social media accounts they'll sell picks people figure out quickly these guys are frauds and they'll delete the account and then make a new account and then hit one of their parlays post a ticket get get people sucked in again. So I do think it's, we're in the weird stage of these people need to go through these frauds and realize this is not a get rich scheme. Like you're not gonna win millions of dollars on parley's in your first year of gambling. And you know, that's the toughest part to watch it because, you know, what are we supposed to do?

All we can do, I'm saying Chris has the same idea. I can only focus on myself and try to be as best as I can put out the best info I can put out that I know is legit rather than waste time just bad mouthing all these people all all the time because there's no point. Like that's why I love what we do is because eventually you're gonna get figured out. Like people, if they're gonna track you and follow your picks, they're gonna eventually figure out,

okay, this dude's are fraud. So I'm with Chris, like I hate that side of it, but luckily I think we're kind of on the back end of it. I think eventually people are getting kind of wiser to it. And, you know, me and chat, we talk about this all the time. The news shift is definitely the parlay is right. That's the new thing in the sports media stuff where you know, me and chat like to give out our straight bets.

we're now in a position of, you know, maybe we should give out one or two parlias a week because that's what people like the bet. So that's, that to me is the adjustment we're trying to make, right, chat? We're trying to adjust to what the people like the bet in the market where as professionals, we advise against it, but if it's for fun, right,

if there's a difference between betting $5 on a game and betting $100 on a parlay, right? So that's what we're trying to really get into now. And I'm with Chris though, like there's some stuff that makes my blood boil, boil that I see online and I just, I bite my tongue because I know There's no point, right? It's that crab mentality.

They'll just pull you down with you into the bucket. So there's no point of view jumping in. They're just going to pull you down. So it is tough. You know, you know what? Just let them, let them, you don't interact with them. You just let them do their thing. And it's kind of out of sight, out of mind.

But you did bring up something funny. And I do have to just say it now. And now a message from the world famous Johnny DeMarco. The ex-coe, Dr. Ron Bash, has a five-star winning. Those are the days. That used to be Saturday morning ritual on a prior to college game day 7 a.m. We would get to the site and Fowler was like Fowler was like leading the charge because he just loved the laughable entertainment value.

We'd throw on the sports advisors and you'd have Stu Feiner and Ron Bash and whoever the hell. maybe Kelso Sturgeon, all of the Jim Feist, all the, the, the, the, the, the TV cappers. And we used to just, you'd have,

you'd have Stu Feiter in front of a green screen of Arrowhead Stadium behind them. And you'd literally see his face in just 900 numbers and 800 numbers, just flashing stars. We, watching the sports advisors on Saturday morning used to be the, the way we would get fired up for college games. day. We just instant laughs. It was great. Well, I do think there's, you know, it's Felica. We just had this event in Chicago over the

weekend. We had, you know, a few, several hundred people that came to. Thanks for inviting me. Yeah, listen, it was available. It was free, it was free for the public. You could have come out. But next time you can be a special guest. That would be a fun one. Get Felica to come be a special guest. I was talking to a bunch of kids who just graduated from Indiana. It's the son of a buddy of and all of his friends, all these really smart guys, really smart guys, not sort of the sort of Indiana kids who don't major in business. These were the top of the top at Indiana. And they want to be betting heroes.

They were excited about the same game parlay that they cashed for $1,500. And I looked at the guy and he thought I was going to be. be like, oh my God, that's amazing. I'm like, yeah, you and every other fuck are on the internet. And it's like, all anybody will talk about is cashing their $5 for $1,500 ticket. Yeah, it's funny because you look at, like, your thumb across your draft kings and fan duels, that's all I have really access to in Connecticut here. And it's just like same game parley, 30% same game.

I'm looking for like a nice deposit bonus or like a 50% boost. on a single game or an underdog. Same game parlay. Same game parlay. Same game parlay. I'm like, come on. I'm not going to happen. I know.

So that's impactful for you because you transitioned from sort of back of the house, sometimes on camera, but mostly producing, supporting, researching, to now being fully on camera as a straight down the barrel sports betting talent is it what you expected yes yeah it's been great and it's something that when we when we were at ESPN and when when paps and first got overturned like the guys involved on game day new for it and that was people always ask me like what were you like maybe they'll ask me or i'll just volunteer and say like The thing I was most proud of in my time at college game day, my time it was like being at the forefront of getting wagering type information out there, whether it was a reaction to a spread or a historical note that might find a game interesting. We didn't beat around the bush.

We knew people were betting on games and we were just going to be in the forefront. But the challenge for us before it was free and least. and it wasn't the Wild Wild West was just a way to phrase it and get it out there where it is and just like like we're laying eight and a half with Ohio State today. It was like, okay, they're the odds makers expect Michigan State to lose today against number one Ohio State. They're a 10 point underdog, but keep in my, the 15 games at Michigan State where Mark Antonio's team has been a double-digit underdog, they've won nine of them outright and cover that. So it's like a way to make it informative,

the average fan who isn't going to bet on a game still might find that interesting. But the fact that we were able to do that made me very happy at Game Day. And I think not only myself, but Lee Fitting, who was the producer for the time for a long time, Fowler, Herbstreet, they always saw this. And it's the same thing that you saw when you met me and ran into me. Just the passion and the knowledge and the getting animated and getting the New York hands and voice going loud. and they like, we need to capture this on television. And then finally, they were like, okay, game day expanded to like three hours.

And it was like, we're, you've got no more say in the matter. I was always worried. I don't want to look like an idiot and start rambling and get going. And I didn't necessarily worry about like freezing or being scared of doing it. I was just like, I don't know. And then finally, nope, we're doing it. And I'm glad, I'm glad we did. We were able to figure out a way with the board.

and just kind of interacting and throwing some historical nuggets in there at times. And it worked out while. And that's one of the things that I don't want to say it's pushback or bows and arrows, but it's just a little bit of depending on your viewpoint of things. Like one of the things right now where I don't struggle with it because I'm free, I'm fully transparent. I say I'm a researcher at heart. That's how I got started in sports and numbers and math.

and history and studying and digging through media guides for a note in the middle of the night. Like, although I'll come up with a historical, like a bunch of historical notes about the NCAA tournament. And what does this have to do with this year? And I'll be like, potentially nothing. I'm a historian. I'm a researcher at heart. And I'm just throwing some information. Not everything that I put out there has to be gambling really.

But I will say this, a lot of like the specific things that I'll tweet out during football season about maybe an unranked team favored by a certain number over a top 15 team or whatever. Like the teams may be different, but the types of teams and the situations remain the same. So I do think there is some value in some of those situational type deals where you've got things that fit a system even like I say. A game in 2004 between Miami and Florida State might not have anything to do with it between a game between Ohio State and Michigan in 2024. But if the situation works, then it's still something I think that's interesting and maybe follow away in the back of the mind.

You know, it's funny you bring that up. We have Evan Abrams, who I'm sure you remember from. Where is he, by the way? I don't know where he is right now, Matt Mitchell. I saw him on the invite. Yeah. Oh, he's busy doing March Madness videos for me. Oh, he's doing something else.

But, you know, he'll come on the show every week during the football season. And he will always come on. And oh, he's in there. He's in the chat. He says hello. And he will always come on and he will give this incredible information, similar to what you were just talking about. And I think the hardest part, Simon, I want you to weigh in on this,

because I think this is important for people listening, is trying to decide how much to let historical trends and precedents influence what we are looking at in the moment. For me, it's always a little bit of a mind fuck. It's hard to determine when to lean into that and when to not. Yeah, but we say all the time, Chad, it's just another tool in the toolbox. Like, it's just something else you can use, try to find an edge. And I love it because I am a big believer that history just always repeats itself.

Like you're always going to have the outliers, right? Like, Lesser City winning the Premier League, never going to happen again the rest of our lives, right? This team that was 5,000 to 1 to win the Premier League, never going to happen. You know, Villanova, that was 85 having that crazy run, probably never going to see something like that ever again in the rest of our lives. Those are outliers. But a lot of other stuff, like you really dive into, you break it down.

It's great info and something you should really listen to and take serious. Like Evan came on and literally told us if a team's greater than what was it, 18 to 1 or 15 to 1 to win March badness, they're not going to win. Like historical data shows us the top favorites, even when it's a crazy year in George Mason's making a final four, the chalk team still is probably going to win the end. And here we're sitting now with four teams in the final four. And it's like, okay, this is why Evan gives us those type of stats where it's like, this might not ring true, but I'm trying to give you guys an edge on the fact that mathematically,

if you're betting these long shot odds on these March badness, it's a dumb bet. go with the chalk long term the future market that's going to pay out and i mean like we just said here we are and it's like that's why evan gives out that info it's it's good info but he's not telling you to do it he's just showing you a path of the way that it could go that's why i love that stuff it's like another great tool to use and that's one of the things too like i i was like when you when you fill out your bracket the odds are you're only going to want to use at most two number one seats because people are going to think the old and all the number ones are going to get through and it just happen to be an outlier?

That's going to be a great question moving forward. Is this year an outlier? We're all four, is it just a situation where these four or five teams were just better than everyone else? Or is this going to be the norm moving forward where we're going to get three or four number one C? But that's one of the, oh, we're going to get all four this year. But I'm just thinking of like a historical play on like game theory.

Like if you're filling out your bracket, like you want to differentiate your bracket and not have awful, but hey, this year. But you know what? As a fan, that's the thing that a lot of people struggle sometimes as separating better and fan. Like as a fan, having these four teams, the best four teams that we've set all year long and watching them play is great. As a better, not having a single money line upset in the elite in the elite eight or the sweet 16 and the fewest historical upsets ever in terms of points. It hasn't been great as a better. I mean, maybe it's a year where the public is doing the NFL, public did great in the NFL. I'm sure public's done great in college basketball, no underdogs of one.

Yeah, this is an easy business, Chad and Simon. Moneyline parley, all the favorites all the time, right? Yeah, sure. What has surprised you about this tournament that has these four number one Cs? Do you think that there is a sea change? We're always trying to figure out get ahead of the market, right? in any respect. And I want to ask you about the NFL too.

Last year was a really hard year for NFL underdogs. This year has been a really hard year for college basketball underdogs. Is this an anomaly? Is this a sea change? I don't want to overreact certainly in college basketball because people, the knee-jerk reaction, and maybe it's going to prove to not be a knee-jerk reaction. It's that, oh, NIL has destroyed it, all these mid-majors and low-major, their best play. players are going to go to all of these teams and they're going to dominate and you're not going

to get these seat upsets in the tournament anymore or they were just the points for the upsets. But I don't know if I want to just, I'm not there yet. You look at the last, like you look at the last four years, the seeds in the final four, you had two number ones last year, but you had a San Diego state who was an eighth seed and a Yukon who was a bad, badly seeded team. They were a four seed. but you had Miami get to the final four. You had NC standards in 11.

You've had all these low seats make the final four. So I don't know. And you had, I think the last, I went back and looked yesterday. I tweeted it out, but I think off the top of my head, it was like the previous four years, you had like 18, 18, 20, and 19 upsets in the tournament to this point where you had 11 this year. So like, I'm not willing to say this is going to be a year in, year out type deal. So I hope I'm wrong.

I think we can get, this is a happy medium here. There's a happy medium of getting the upsets early in the tournament, but having your higher seats win in the elite elite, in the elite in the suite 16, and you get a final four with two ones, a two, and a three. And you get that maybe you get an 11 seat in the sweet 16 or you get a 10th seat or whatever. But getting back, it was funny.

I was thinking too, what Simon was saying about some of the stuff that Evan and I have put out there, like, how history tends to repeat itself. And I think one of the, the interesting things was it's something that Evan might have been even involved in looking it up initially when I was at ESPN, and with Keith Lipscomb as well,

when we put together the NCAA tournament pack, it was just this kind of, and I don't know if it was with West Virginia one year. I don't know if it was with Iowa State. I don't know who the team was, but like these unranked teams at the start of the year, year that wind up getting a two seed. And you had two of them this year in Michigan State and St. John's where they were unranked at the start of the year. You have this completely off the

charts, great regular season. And the previous 39 teams to do it, none of them reached the Final Four. And the theory is these teams that weren't necessarily thought to be good before the year, magical runs to the Final Four in the National Title Games just typically don't come from nowhere in that sense. And it wind up, did hold and true again this year with both St. John's in Michigan State coming up just short,

Spartans made a good run. See, that's what's great about. We can all complain, all the ex-ESPN heads complain, can complain about a lot of things at ESPN. ESPN freaking love sports. Yes.

And the research, to me, the research group, whether it was, you know, SIG or any other part of it, those are diehards. What you and Evan would do in that entire team that was involved in research

in any way would do with research and come up with those stats. It's freaking glorious. It was. And part of it too is just having the financial backing

and the creative backing of being able to say Evan, bear, go go. build an NCAA tournament database, go build an AP poll database with all the historical spread. Like being able to just given free reign to be able to do that and knowing that you're going to get a payoff off of that was just incredible. And I still use it today. Update him and have my own stuff and do it.

It's great. True story in 2017 when I had gotten the call from the Chernin Group, who was the, the company and the private equity business that wanted to launch what would become action. It wasn't anything yet. They called and said, do you want to come found this sports media betting business with us? And I was debating. Am I going to leave a very comfortable life overseeing ESPN digital and living in Central Connecticut bear? and like a kid who was a freshman in high school

and, you know, a little bit, another kid who was a little bit younger and they've got a great life. Am I going to dump that to go to this startup, make half as much money on the hope that it will all get paid back if we sell it one day? I'm sitting with John Skipper,

who was the president of ESPN at the time. And one of the things he offered me to stay was to take over stats and information, which is called SIG, which is like a two to 300 person group that is the heartbeat of every stat, every bit of research you see across every show at ESPN. I think it is an amazing group.

Wasn't enough, though. I was going to say that. That's a scoop. You know that? Those are good times. Bear, I want to ask you a little bit about the NFL because you had a tweet the other day. Simon, read the tweet that he had because I feel like you and I, um, you and I, um, you and I and Chris all have difference of opinion on this particular topic.

Yeah, bear, I thought it was really interesting. You tweeted out four or five days ago that you would love to know how the QB position in depth and development got so bad in the NFL. Is it a college thing? Is it a guy's been cited of agency that makes zero sense? What's your view on that? You just think we have really shitty QB player? You're just talking about the back end, like the back 25 to 32 guy?

It just amazes me that we are at a point. in 2025 had the season that, like, there is a demand that Russell Wilson and Aaron Rogers and Justin Fields are, like, considered starting quarterbacks. Like, like, I don't know where, where is the, and I think someone who replied back, like, it's not that different. There's always been really bad quarterback play at the end, but is someone who watched the Jets? last year. Like, I, look, I love, I, I rooted for Aaron.

I was excited when he came to the Jets. And it sucked that he ruptured his Achilles when he did. But you're looking at a guy now that, once again, 41 start of the year coming off of an Achilles injury. Like, is the market that bad that you're really looking to run out there and have this guy who at times last year looked like he was done? Like, if you're Mike Tomlin and the Steelers, are you, is that really your, your end game. And I guess part of the problem, too, is maybe it's just a league-wide pandemic

where so much of the league maybe is in the middle. But look at what the, look at what the, the bear, like, Justin Fields, like, left and like what he was able to, what the bear is, like, got for him. There was no mark of him. And now he's making whatever it is. Like, it's insane what the jets are paying him compared to what the market really, really, really. was for him than just a year prior, but I lost my train of thought there. But, oh, yeah, the Steelers, I think are a perfect example. They're a team that needs a quarterback. But like so much of the league now with the parody and everyone's in the middle,

it's the worst place to be in the NFL. And like you kind of think, okay, we're a quarterback away. We need that with one piece. And maybe it's lightning in a bottle with Russell Wilson. Maybe we get one year out of Aaron Rogers and it's magic. But like you're never good enough to like make the Super Bowl, but you're never bottoming out where you're in a position to draft a quarterback who's ultimately going to be a team,

a team changer and get you on court. You're, you're nine and eight. You're making the playoffs with a wild card. You're picking 18th every year. And it's like the worst place to be in this. So maybe that's part of it as well, but maybe the college part of it as well with the RPO and the, in some of these spread offenses.

maybe the, maybe with the portal now in college football where guys staying in the league earlier, they're older. I don't know what the answer is. I'm curious to get your guys takes up. But it's just fascinating to me that we're just kind of recycling these same guys over and over again. And maybe I don't claim I know everything about the position. But it's amazing the sport that I watch every Saturday like and see some of the guys that are

there. I'm like, why can't these guys be quarterback? in the NFL. Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers, and guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, name? Huge news. We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas.

We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts. We're starting a trend. But this one's extra special. So how do we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys?

I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. And, well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers. This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast.

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learn the hard way. Open your free, our heart radio app. Search, learn the hard way and listen now. We've definitely seen a switch to where, you know, we had that lost generation, right? With that Andrew Luck, RG3, like, the only guys that felt like survived it was Stafford and Rogers, right? That little, like, two guys out of that whole group, that 10-year run. We just, even when Cam Newton came in, he had a year or two, like really incredible, but was sustainable. And we've seen now, I think just because athleticism now has moved to be such a crucial part of the quarterback position.

Like, you know, like Tom Brady, as much as I like. love Tom, we all know he's the goat, he wouldn't be in the league now. Like you go back and look at his tape from back of the day. That's crazy. He had led in his shoes, Chad. He could not move. He could not run. You can't be a drop back stand in the pocket passing than a phone anymore. If you are, you're going to be Derek Carr. Do you want Derek Carr in your team, Chad? No. You don't want a guy who just stands back there and you don't want that anymore. It's evolved, right? You need a mobile guy who can move just because the athleticism is just off the charts now. And it's funny going back, even like I, I, before he came on, I went back and looked in, you know,

what were we working with in 2005? Like, who were the bottom guys? Because I just want to look at what Chris was talking about here. And I looked at the passing leaders, right? Not even looking at rushing, just the passing leaders in 2005, the bottom of the list. The worst quarterback in football, Chris Sims, not a shocker. Leftwich was right above him. Trent Dilfer, right above him. David Carr, right above him. So it's like Aaron Brooks, right above them. So we've always had just the shit at the bottom. Yeah.

I agree with you now. It feels like it's more so because everyone wants to lie to themselves. We'd be like, well, the 49ers got there with Jimmy Garapolo, right? Or you could say that Eli Manning got to two Super Bowls and won two Super Bowls. Like Joe Flacco got to a Super Bowl and won a Super Bowl. Everyone thinks they can get away with having a bad quarterback. But I feel like Chris kind of nailed it there that we've entered this stage of, it feels like it's impossible now unless you have just one of the best teams ever.

put together where it used to be you kind of hide the bad quarterback now to me it's there's no hiding it like if he's not a great athlete if he's not a great passer defense are going to figure out they're going to take away whatever you're good at they're going to take it away and make you look like what we just talked about a below bottom 25 quarterback so yeah it's interesting hearing your view on it i just think that we're just in a weird stage of we had a dead period there we had these lost years where we didn't have any quarterbacks really coming out because it was a transition of that pocket passer to being mobile athlete. Like it's, you look at the position now,

Josh Allen, if you dropped him back, I mean, think how crazy we were about Mike Vick, you drop Josh Allen back to that time period. Holy shit, people's heads would be exploding. It's like, wait, this 6-5 white dude who weighs 250 can bulldoze a linebacker. And then the same move, like shift off the cornerback and throw a deep ball.

It's just crazy how much it's just grown in the last 20 years, like especially going, back and watching film from 2005. It just feels like a totally different sport. I don't think you have the same view, Chris, but to me, it's just, we're in different worlds now. Yeah, it is. And one thing that I was thinking of is, well, while you were, I was going to say before

Chad jumps in, I wonder if this overreaching and like taking some of these quarterbacks too high in the draft and guys just absolutely flopping, like, whether it be a Mac Jones or Zach Wilson or a field or a. or a who met when in name the quarter you can go down the list is endless of guys that wind up going in the top 10 top 12 that absolutely flopped and uh i wonder if that's maybe part of it as well where like teams take these guys who really shouldn't go this high and they predictably fail like do we just have this negative kind of oh he he he stinks he stinks so yeah why would they want him he stinks so it's like whatever it's kind of like this self-fulfilling

prophecy on our end to just kind of be negative. I don't know. Guys, this is all contextual. There are no absolutes here. There are always going to be bad quarterbacks. There are always going to be great quarterbacks. They're always going to be quarterbacks who come out of nowhere and surprise you to become great quarterbacks.

And there's always going to be quarterbacks taking the top of the draft who absolutely flail and we're like, this dude sucks. I will say this about Tom Brady. you don't become Tom Brady because you don't adjust. And what Tom Brady did, and I think what a lot of quarterbacks don't do, they don't spend the time to self-scout. They don't spend the time to be intellectually honest. You cannot succeed in anything unless you are intellectually honest about what's in front of you,

whether it's what your tape says, what your numbers say, et cetera, so you can actively improve. for any better. Simon, what are we spending this whole offseason doing? Self-scouting, trying to figure out where do things go right? Where do things go wrong? In the 2025 season, do we need to make adjustments because of previous rules changes, how do new rules changes impact what we might want to be doing?

Our favorites going to regress to where they were before. Tom Brady was a master of self-scouting. Bill Belichick was a master of self-scouting. That is a gift that so many teams and so many, coaches are not accepting as a part of their responsibility. They work out thinking they need to improve their body. They need to improve certain elements of their game, but they don't actually work on the elements as in depth as they need to. They can actually make them better because they were terrible at it. That's what Tom Brady did. He would have adjusted. He did adjust. And I

would also argue it's not like Joe Burrow or Matthew Stafford are the most mobile quarterbacks. There is. Joe Bro. Chad would burn you. No, no. Let me finish. Let me finish. They're great in the pocket. Their mobility is defined to the space that they are supposed to stay in and then ability to be creative when they need to be creative within a, you know, 10-yard radius in front of them, behind them, to the left of them, to the right of them. Tom Brady was great at that, too. Only he did that within a two-yard radius, right? It's just the little bit of footwork to me that is the different. He was a goat. I mean, we're not taking that way. I'm just saying that if you took him and he was a six-round pick at that time because he was good in the pocket, he was a good pocket passer. No one would even throw his tape on now because it's like you need a guy that can run outside the pocket. Like that's what I'm trying to get to is that I look at the NFL now. Stafford's been grandfathered in, right? He's of that last group like Aaron Rogers. That past, Aaron Rogers was a great athlete too when he was younger. So was Stafford. But we've had a point now of when I look at this draft class, like there's no one just stand in the pocket type of guy. that goes high in the draft anymore. Like even when I go through all these previous jobs, like we joked about Mack Jones, you know, he was kind of a guy that was probably would have been all right in the early 2000s.

Now he's not athletic enough. Like he's not mobile enough. You can't get outside the pocket and throw on the run. His career is over and it's just, I look at our list now where all of our top 10 guys we talk every year coming in, they're all incredibly great athletes. Like it's just the way it is where back in the day, like one of my favorite errors was that, you know,

you know, Payton Manning was a statue in the pocket. Tom Brady was a statue in the pocket. Drew Brees was a statue in the pocket. It was like, these guys were so grifted mentally. They didn't need to run and scramble, right? They knew exactly where the defender was going to be. And I think what we're talking a little bit about here is that you need that smarts in the pocket, but you need the athleticism now.

And that, to me, has been the biggest shift of, you know, people bitch every day. They're like, oh, we don't have the 5,000 yard passing in the 60 touchdowns. It's like, that was the one year anomaly we saw. That's never going to happen again. Those are the farest outliers ever. It's just a new age of, you know, these guys are going to throw for maybe 4,000 yards. But like Josh Allen, you'll see maybe a thousand yards rushing and him rush for 15 freaking touchdowns. It's like it's just so different now that, you know, we try to compare it to the old age.

And I just look at it. It's like we've evolved so quickly that these new kids coming in like we just talked about, you know, Bo Nix and what world is here first round pick? But in the new NFL, he is now, right? And it worked. Like, Matt Mitchell's losing his fucking mind about it. And it's like, you know, because he saw him in college for what, five, six years. And now he comes in and it works out. So it's just crazy that's shifted now where the studs in college who are just dropped back passers,

they just don't make it to the league like they used to. You have to be able to move in the pocket and scramble outside the pocket. So that was just why I went to push on was just that, you know, I get where Chris is coming from. But like you just said, Chad, there's always just been dog shit from that 25 to 32. It's just always been that way. So, I mean, you said the magic two words there, draft props. Have you guys seen anything out? Like, in Connecticut, I mean, we can't play them on draft kings and Fandula or wherever else.

But like, do they exist anywhere? Like, I know there's spot where. Who will be the number one pick? Yeah, who wants to, yeah, Cam Ward minus 16. But like, in terms of like, who are the second quarterback's going to be, a number of quarterbacks in the first round, like, like stuff like that. Does this exist anywhere outside of the little. bubble that I'm in in the state of Connecticut?

So the bookmakers I've talked to, Bear, they got crushed so bad these last three years in the draft. They don't want to put it out until maybe two weeks beforehand, maybe even a week beforehand, just because it's not worth it for them. Like they just, they can't beat the rumor mill,

right? They're just behind on the info. So I'm with you. It's been really interesting where I remember even last year, I was able to get bets down after the combine on the draft on things like that. And now, I think the bookmakers know that they can't leave themselves open to it. So I'm with you on.

It's brutal. It's just been waiting for these props to come out. Chad, wouldn't you, I'm going to put you as the book of Chad, wouldn't you want to post these things? Get people in the door. And you know what?

You lose a little bit, and the player wins. You know what the player's going to do? Players are going to come back and players going to bet that money that they just won right back at your shop. Yeah, I'm a little surprised that they wouldn't be more aggressive, even for really small limits, right?

Because you're capping it at 50 bucks. You're still sort of letting people continue to play and put their money into the book. So, yeah, it is a little bit surprising to me. I'm actually looking for at Bet365 to see what kind of. kind of draft props I can find. It's hard for me to find them quickly right now. It's the thing. I always never know if I'm looking under college football,

if I'm looking under NFL. Right. You're a special NFL draft tab. Simon's right. There were years. Like just go back to the Mac Jones year. Was he going to go number three? Was he not going to go number three?

and books got crushed on that because people like Simon, you know, they're connected to the league, they were hearing things. And all of a sudden they're putting down six figures that he's not going to go number three. And that's a huge risk. And I do think that the books generally are looking to, it's a lot of jockeying. It's a challenging time to be a sportsbook operator, right? Everyone is trying to acquire customers not to get into the weeds of the business. as efficiently they can and then drive revenue as high as they can because those are the expectations

and there are a lot of challenges and things are slower during the non-football season than they are during the football season. It's going to be harder to make up that money on a quarterly basis for all these publicly traded companies. If they have to go out and report, they had huge losses in the NFL draft and they didn't make it up with the beginning of Major League Baseball or March Madness or NBA just gets harder and harder. It's so funny, Simon mentioned Bo Nix. I'm sitting here thinking, and I was like him. I'm like, and Matt, like, what the hell have we seen in Bo Nix playing six years of college football that he's going to be a first?

And I remember seeing the yes, no, and will Bo Nix be a first round pick? And you immediately bet the no. And then all the, the prices. And then about a week maybe before the draft last, maybe it's a week, maybe. Maybe he'll have a little bit a long ago before. Like I get a call from someone who's, he's like, Bo Nix is going in the first round. And I'm like, no. It's like, Bo Nix is going in the first round.

I'm telling you right now, Bo Nix is going in the first round. So fortunately, I was able to actually make a profit because the yes price was longer than the no that I bet. But yeah, I was stunned. And you're right, it's the information and just being kind of privy to things that not everybody can get it. can get ahead on. So, yeah, I'd love to, just for a book to just to kind of put themselves out there and throw a, will Jackson Dart be the second quarterback taken in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, I think we're, I think we're definitely going to get three. And, and I, and I wonder, like, I know McShay talking about Tyler Shuck, like could, I don't know if we'll get four, but I think we're definitely going to get three quarterbacks in the first round. So I'm curious. I'm sure it'll be over two and a half juice to the moon is what they'll wind up

posted once they do post this stuff. We'll get there as we get closer for sure. And Jackson Dart is the guy, you know, we're going to dig deep into the draft of the next few weeks. He's the guy who's going to be on everyone's board for sure. Yeah, and then I'll throw on his Florida tape and the Florida game where he was absolutely terrible and cost all him as a playoff spot. And that'll be the, that'll be the detractors tape where it's a, you want to take this guy

with the number or whatever pick on the draft. Look at this game. And he was terrible against the Gators. Well, then we get into the space of you can make anyone look good or bad at any time. Bear, it's great catching up with you, brother. Absolutely. Awesome to see you. As a reminder, the favorites podcast is presented by Bet365.

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