The Josh Innes Show - Preseason Betting and Jeanty

Episode Date: August 8, 2025

I had a successful little evening betting on preseason football. My biggest issue is that I'm not disciplined. If I were, I'd be a stud. Tanner McKee is the new preseason God. I have a hot Ashton Jeanty take. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, everybody. Welcome in, Josh and a show. How are you? How's everybody doing on this Friday? I spent my night watching preseason football because football is back and that is exciting. Now, if I weren't betting on it, would I really care to watch preseason football? Probably not. But maybe at least, at least it'd be something, you know. It's not baseball. and so it's football, you know, that's what I want to watch. That's what I'm into. You know, we are a country addicted to the football. That's what we're into.

The NFL, college, we love it. That's what we dig. So last night, I told you I was going to make some bets. And as far as football went, I hit all of them except for one. And the one I lost, I was just bored. Like, that's a key in life when it comes to gambling. And I think this is where they can really get you on some of these apps and stuff, is they throw things out and you're like, well, I got nothing else going on.

So I might as well throw in a little something on this. And it's a long shot bet to begin with. So you take it and you're like, maybe it'll work. And then you just throw away 50 bucks. So like I did that on the last game. If I would have been more disciplined last night, and this is what's important to know. First of, let me play a couple commercials and we'll continue. If I were a disciplined sports better, if I could get my mind wrapped around the idea of

being disciplined in the way I go about betting, how much I bet, you know, give myself a budget each night and say, I cannot bet more than this. And if I fall below this amount, like, if I say, Josh, you've got $200 to bet tonight. Once you're down $200, you know, you're settle up and you say, you know what, we're going to just call it a loss and we're going to come back at it tomorrow, ready to fight. But I'm not good at that. That's just not what I'm programmed to do. And so if I could just sit there and not jump in on certain things, I could be really solid of this stuff. So last night, I built a parlay, and the parlay had, I want to say it was the Eagles to throw for 175 yards.

Technically, it was the Eagles to have 175 receiving yards, which they had easily because Tanner McKee is a beast. He's like my new favorite pre-season quarterback. Some dudes are just ballers. He is one of them. So when you're building these kind of bets, you obviously want to look for teams who have dudes who have a lot of experience playing. Now, it's not like Tanner McKee has a ton of NFL.

experience. But Tanner McKee is somebody that has done some stuff. And by done some stuff, I mean, he's hit some plays for me in preseason before, so I know what he can do. But then there are other guys who are just like, if this guy's going to play a half, I feel pretty good about him torching some second and third string guys. Like Drew Locke is one of those kind of guys, right? Aidan O'Connell is one of those kind of guys. Just a lot of the guys that played last night kind of fit into that category, right? So I built a parlay last night that had the, it was the receiving yards for the Eagles. It was the receiving yards for the Colts, which, by the way, hit damn near in the first half.

I took 175. I bet it down. Like, they gave you options. So, like, for 175 receiving yards, the value wasn't great. 200, it got better. 225. It got better. I went the lowest I could go.

I'm like, I'm going to go 175. put three teams. Again, you could say it's not, you know, real betting. You could say whatever you want about it, but it wins me money when it works, right? And it's fine. And I'm not out here to try to win some sort of award. You know, I'm not trying to win an award for, you know, best bets won. I'm out here just trying to win. I don't care that it's not the spread and it's not the overrunner. I don't even like betting spreads or overrunners. I don't really like betting money lines all that much. I like prop bets. I'm a prop bet guy. That's what I'm into. I like college props. And I don't know if they have college props in Michigan, which concerns me.

Like, I've seen conflicting reports on whether or not Michigan offers college prop bets, but I love prop bets. I don't really get into who's going to win the game or if it's going to be an over and under. I'll bet those. But I really love prop bets. And particularly, I love live betting and live prop bets. Because I think you get a better idea of what's going on in the game. And you get to see the trend of the game. then you put in a live bet. And I couldn't really live bet in Missouri because I had to drive across the river every time. And that's why I ran our car into the ground because I would tell Jilly, all right,

we're going over there once today and we're going to put in our bets that we're going to come home. Then, like, my bet would start to fail early and I'd say, fuck this, Jilly. I'm going back to Illinois. And I'm putting in more bets at halftime of this game because I'm a degenerate. But now sitting in Michigan, I can sit here in live bet. And Draft Kings last night was offering like live bets that included. the updated lines on these passing yardage totals and the receiving yardage totals and everything. But my parlay, the initial parlay I put in was Colts receiving yards,

Raiders receiving yards, and Eagles receiving yards. And that hit pretty easily. And that would have been a nice hit for the night, right? Because I think I put in 50 bucks. I know, was that $100 bet? I think it was $100 bet to win. I think it would have won like $300 or something like that. that. Pretty solid, right? The problem is, while those were going on, while those games were being played,

I said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to put 50 bucks on Ashton Genty to score the first touchdown of the game, which they didn't even, or to score on their first possession. They punted on the first possession, and he had like two yards. So that was a loss. So boom, that cuts into my winnings there. Oh, you know what? I'm going to throw in a WNBA live bet, which didn't hit, and then boom, I'm 100 down there. So instead of winning 300-something bucks, I want 200-something. bucks, and that's where I kill myself and I need to be more disciplined. That said, I was over on Draft Kings, and on Draft Kings, they were doing live bets on the team passing yards, the team receiving yards, whatever.

So I jumped in on the live number for the, it was the Seahawks, because the Seahawks were out there just slinging, and they got there easy. Drew Locke was slinging, whoever the hell came in for Drew Locke was slinging. They put up the yards easily, and I hit that. So that would be my advice to you. If you're in an area where you can bet and you can use Fandul or Draft Kings or whatever, they both offer these. And that would be my advice as in the preseason, I wouldn't bet on the spread.

I wouldn't take over-unders. I wouldn't take money lines. I wouldn't do any of that shit because there's a lot of different factors. I mean, the game last night ended in a tie. So I'm not going to fuck with that. But what I am going to do is I'm going to take the lowest total. Like, this would be my suggestion. Pick a team.

You can't do both of them in a game. You can only pick one team. Like, you can't use two legs of that or build two legs in a parlay out of that. So here's what I would do. If I were you and I'm in an area where you can bet and you say, Josh, what's a way I can do things? I would look at the over, I would look at the passing yardage totals. Like, let me look at this right now. I'll look at, let's look at draft kings for this for the sake of what we're doing here.

Let's look at draft kings. So tonight you got a handful of games Let's go to preseason You got the Lions and the Falcons The Browns, the Panthers, commanders, Patriots Those are the three games we got tonight Shudur Sanders is going to start So keep that, I believe he's going to start

So keep that in mind And I don't even know if these are available yet They may not have them up So we can't use draft kings as our example They're not up yet Let's see if Fanduels got theirs up Just to kind of give you an idea of what I would consider doing here So we look at football

and we go to the preseason here, and let's just take the Browns and the Panthers. And those aren't up. Oh, there they are, team props. So let's say we took Cleveland Browns. The least you can take is 225 receiving yards for the Browns. And for Carolina, the least you can take is 175. Like, look at those numbers. Or if you like rushing yards, better take rushing yards.

It doesn't matter, whichever when you think is more realistic. There's three games. Build a three-leg parlay out of that. Some of these sites are going to give you a boost. and go with it from there. They'll just have a cool little three-leggar, put a couple bucks on it, and watch the dudes throw in the preseason. Speaking of dudes playing in the preseason, I have a hot take.

And I don't know how you can call it a hot take. I don't think Ashton Genty is going to be a good pro. And I didn't think that going into the draft, I've always felt that this guy put up these huge video game numbers against lesser opponents, got drafted really high because of that, Heisman contender, all that shit. And I'm not basing this just on one preseason game where the guy couldn't find anywhere to run, but that helped in me having this opinion.

I watched this guy, and I just don't believe he's going to go into the league. First of all, it's a league that doesn't super value running backs. And yes, there have been guys that have had huge years recently, and you can look at Derek Henry and guys like that that just put up huge, you know, and Sequin Barclay. I'm not telling you that running backs don't matter, and I'm not telling you that guys that are big-time running backs are totally irrelevant. But what I am telling you is in this era, the running back has been devalued and everybody knows that. And there are a handful of guys who are just rock stars that transcend that. The two biggest being Derek Henry and Sequin Barclay right now.

But you could also throw in Jonathan Taylor when he was cooking with the cult. But for the most part, this is not a league where teams are running the ball that much. This is not a league where teams are seeing Sequin Barclays and Derek Henry's and Jonathan Taylor's doing what they do. For the most part, you're throwing it 45 times a game, and your running backs are lesser paid dudes. Your running backs are dudes that are by committee, very few bell cow guys anymore. It just doesn't work that way. And I don't know that that's what they want out of Ashton Gentie, but they did use a high draft pick on Ashton Genty, so we'll see. I just, for whatever reason, I don't know what it is.

I don't know why I feel this way. And I think that the Boise State thing plays a factor. It's the super hype that this guy got, putting up numbers against really bad teams. And then also padding his stats, which I know a lot of people do, but I feel like they had a lot of games where this guy's numbers were inflated by stat padding. I'm watching him last night. And I get that it's the preseason. I get that, you know, that, you know, it's the first time the guy's ever played in the league. But I'm watching him last night before I passed out, and maybe he stayed in the game and bald.

I don't know. He didn't. He carried the ball. I saw all three of his carries, and he had negative one yard. That's what you got out of Ashton Genty last night. Again, first preseason game. Who knows how many starters you're playing with? All that shit factors in, right?

So I'm not using last night as my true barometer as to whether or not this guy is going to be good or not. I just have a feeling. Call it a hunch, call it a gut feeling, call it a, this is the NFL and running backs. Outside of a couple of rock stars, nobody really gives a shit about running backs anymore. Whatever. I don't think that Genty is going to be very good. Maybe that's not fair. Maybe it is.

I don't know how you guys feel when you watch it or when you see the guy drafted it. Do you see what he did in college and where he did it and who he did it against? but I watch him and I don't believe he's going to be a star and I believe they're going to look back on that and go, okay, that was a wasted pick. Could be wrong. I'm not telling you I'm locked into being accurate on this. But when I watch him play and when I watch what he did,

like there's just a feeling. You know how sometimes you just get a feeling about certain things and you don't know why you have this feeling, but you have this feeling? I don't think Ashton Gentie is going to become a great pro. I think they're going to look back on that and go, Okay, we fucked up. Now, freezing cold takes me if I'm wrong and the guy becomes Saquan Barclay or something.

But this is not a league that cares that much about Premier running back that's going to tote the ball 35 times a game. There are very few scenarios where, like, really, Sequin Barclay is truly the outlier. Like, not even Derek Henry. Derek Henry is not that guy either because he's got a quarterback. Well, both of those guys in those situations have quarterbacks that can also run. But Jalen Hertz, a lot of his running comes on busted play. and a lot of his running comes on the tush push, whereas Lamar's a guy that's going to go out

and they're going to design a lot of runs for him and he's going to carry the ball 10, 15 times a game designed, and he's also going to scramble for runs. So those are obviously two scenarios where the quarterback can run too. But rarely are you going to see situations like, you know, Sequin, Barclay, and Derek Henry, and I would never invest that high of a pick and a running back. I think as long as you have the quarterback,

as long as you have the other weapons, it doesn't matter. So anyway, I don't believe that's going to be a big success in Vegas, but we'll see. All right, more to come.