The Josh Innes Show - Saquon Should Be The NFL MVP

Episode Date: December 10, 2024

First off, I have a random story about my grandma. Why not? We have the latest Heisman Trophy and NFL MVP odds to discuss. I get that Travis Hunter is more than likely going to win. He's the overwhelming favorite. People are obsessed with him playing both sides of the ball and he plays for Deion. I get it. But, how is Dillon Gabriel so far below him? It's absurd. It is believed that Josh Allen has now pulled away in the NFL MVP race. Explain how losing a game to the Rams has elevated this guy? Saquon is +550 and I feel compelled to take him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All righty, friends. So the NFL Week 14 donezo after last night's game with Cincinnati, who's just so much freaking fun to bet on. You got Burrow, and you got Chase, and they're freaks, and it's fun, and the prop bets are great. I didn't really hit a ton last night because I got in on 600 combined passing yards in that game, and homeboy just fell apart in the second half did Cooper Rush so I didn't hit my 600 combined yards but I had

a couple of parlays or a couple of bets going with yards for Jamar Chase some Joe Burrow quarter stats that hit so I did okay it wasn't like a windfall for me but I didn't lose anything last night so there was that. But week 14 is in the books. What does that say about where the NFL is right now? Well, Cincinnati is somehow still alive, but barely. And now the Cowboys are done. So and I got players crying after the game.

I mean, look, they neither one of these teams were in it going into that. They're technically still in it, but they're not. A couple of things I want to get into here, though, because we had the Heisman finalists announced, so we have the odds for the Heisman, and we have the odds for the NFL MVP, which have been updated now after week 14. And as you know, one of my favorite things to talk about is odds. I enjoy the, look, I enjoy sports betting.

I enjoy every aspect of it. It's something I'm into. I enjoy the, look, I enjoy sports betting. I enjoy every aspect of it. I just, it's something I'm into. I look forward to moving to a place where I don't have to drive to another state to put in my bets like I do every day. So I want to be able to sit here and just sit in my bed and do it. Now, maybe that'll be bad for me. Probably will because the last time I had that opportunity, I got myself into a whole heap of debt. But point being is I enjoy doing it. It's fun. Now I sound like my grandma. Holy shit. I have become my grandma. My grandma would go play bingo every night at like the VFW or the Knights of Columbus or wherever she'd go play bingo. Every day she'd go by lottery and scratch offs and everything else. And she'd never win. And I'd

say, grandma, why do you keep doing this if you never win? And she says, oh, shit, son, it's fun. And now here I am, in debt, out of work, betting on props in Illinois. And when someone says, well, why do you do it? Shit, son, it's fun. I've become my grandma. They say that you become your parents eventually, that we all become our parents. As it turns out, that's not the case. In my case, I have become my grandma Edna. And I would like, it was the thing about grandma that was so fun is I would come visit. Like my

dad would send me down there for the summer. And maybe I'd spend two weeks in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, whatever it is. And the first place I go is my grandma's because that's where I stayed most of the time the second I'd get in the house my grandma would give me a hug you know she'd probably be outside smoking a cigarette she always sat on her porch and now like this house that she lived in at 815 Cole Avenue in Poplar Bluff Missouri I mean I think that it was like $30,000 you could buy this house for me. It's a dumpy little house. But she'd sit outside and she'd be playing her handheld video game. She had two handheld games she liked. She had a Yahtzee handheld game, which I thought it was pretty impressive that this 60, 70-year-old woman was able to figure out how to use a

handheld game like this. But she would play Yahtzee or she would play bowling. Those were the two games she had. She and I would compete against each other all the time in these games. Somehow grandma is the only person that ever rolled a 300 on the handheld bowling game or of the belief that she cheated because everybody knows that she was a known cheater in Yahtzee. She would never admit it, but we all know that she was a cheater at real Yahtzee. It's hard to cheat on the game itself, but she could cheat. You turn your head for one second, oh, grandma's got a Yahtzee because that's grandma. Everybody believes she was a cheater in Yahtzee or she'd write down the wrong score. Grandma was a known Yahtzee cheater, but she knew how to play two handheld games. She would play the Yahtzee game and the bowling game.

So she'd sit out and she had these awful chairs that were made of PVC pipe. They were like PVC, like you would just connect the tubes and a really uncomfortable padding in the chair, yellow. And I got to find these chairs online maybe, but they were made of PVC pipe. You would connect them and she'd sit there. She had a little shitty table next to her that had her ashtray and her red cup that had her tea in it. She would make her own tea like by the glass. So she didn't make like a pitcher of tea. She would make each glass individually.

So she'd put the tea in. She'd put like a pound of sugar in, stir that shit up, and one cup would last my grandma all fucking day. It was wild. And God forbid you took a drink of that like it it would cause you to go into some sort of like cardiac arrest if you thought that doing cocaine or drinking surge or something was going to cause you to die just drink the tea that my grandma prepared in her on her own i mean it was nothing but sugar it was sugar water like men men in black like sugar water like that's all it was was water and sugar and she'd sit there outside she'd smoke her cigarette and she would play these games so i'd pull up you know and my grandma to give her a hug within two minutes it was son, did daddy send you with any money?

Like, yeah, I got like $100. She's like, how about you and grandma go get a hamburger? And I'm like, okay, sounds good to me. So we go to the little drive-in, and we get a hamburger and fries, and she'd say, son, how about you let grandma go in there and get some lottery tickets? You want to do some scratch-offs? I'm like, hell yeah, grandma, let's do some scratch-offs. So then she'd go to the JD. No, what quick stop did she go to? I forgot what it was called. But she'd go to the quick stop. She'd go in and buy a bunch of scratch-offs and lottery tickets with this money

that my dad sent me with to live off of for the next couple of weeks. And she'd get the scratch-offs and then she'd make me sit in the floorboard of her car because, you know, the cops, we couldn't let the cops see us. And then I would scratch off all the scratch off tickets. And that was that. So all that to tell you that I come from a degenerate gambler. And then I would have to go find her sometimes. Like if I couldn't find her. One of the first times me and Jilly ever did anything together, we were in Poplar Bluff early in our relationship.

We'd gone to St. Louis for some ball games. Like, let's drive to my old hometown and see if we can find my grandma. At the time, I didn't know where she lived because she bounced from house to house because from what my dad tells me, she would just never pay for where she lives. So she'd go from place to place. And she'd always have a new phone number. She had burner phones. Once that phone was done, new phone, right? so um anyway so we went looking for and I went searching for it all the bingos that were going on that night and I couldn't find her and I didn't have her phone number because her phone number changed all the time is it weird that I still have voicemails from my grandma on my phone um from uh let's see, February 25th, 2016.

Now, keep in mind, my grandma died, I think, in April of 2016. Let me see. Hold on a second. Is this still a... Let me see. Let's see. Hold on. Let me put this on. Hold on. Let me see here. Hey, Josh. You see the grandma, huh? on hold on let me see here that sounds like my grandma was watching fox news in the background but uh so i still have. That's like the last voicemail I have from my grandma. But I don't know. These numbers would pop up and I'd be like,

who is this person? Because they were all just random phone numbers from this 573 area code. Now I got one from a different phone number in 2015. That's my grandma. But anyway, it doesn't really matter. I tell you all that to

tell you this, uh, that I clearly am a degenerate gambler because my grandmother was a degenerate gambler and I blame her for all of my ills. All right, let's play some commercials and we will return in just a moment. All right. If you're ready to win some real cash during the basketball playoffs you got to check out pick six from draft kings when it comes to basketball payouts draft kings pick six posterizes the competition including price picks it's a very simple concept hit all your picks and score higher minimum payouts on pick six plus even more cash if you outscore the competition. Pick six is available in most states, including Missouri, California, Texas, Georgia, and more. And I absolutely love it.

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It is non-withdrawable pick six credits that expire in 14 days limited time offer see terms at pick six dot draft kings dot com slash promos all right so about the odds let's talk about the heisman trophy first if you see these like it's pretty ridiculous how unanimously travis hunter is the favorite. He's minus 4,000 as Travis Hunter. First of all, we tell you the finalists are Travis Hunter, Ashton Gentry of Boise State, Dylan Gabriel of Oregon, and Cam Ward of Miami. Okay, fine.

Minus 4,000 as Travis Hunter. The next closest is Ashton Gentry at plus 1,100. So Travis Hunter is a great player. I think what's happened is people have decided that since he plays both sides of the ball, it's just a lock that he is the best player in college football. It's also important to note that he's got to have a quarterback to get him the ball, and his quarterback is Shador Sanders. Shador Sanders, who is not a finalist for the Heisman, but Travis Hunter is. Hunter, I think, is somewhere around seventh or eighth in the

country, maybe a little bit higher than that in total receiving yards. He's made big plays defensively, so I have nothing against the guy. However, and if he wins the Heisman, win the Heisman. I'm not against the idea of Travis Hunter winning the Heisman. I think it's kind of cool that you've got a guy that plays both sides of the ball. Although I do think that Deion is a guy that hunts statistics for his guys. That would explain why his son still throws the ball in, like, huge blowouts late in games. Because he wants his son's stats to be padded. And I think he wants Travis Hunter's stats to be padded.

He can say he doesn't, but he does. Like, they'll be up by multiple scores late in games and still throwing the ball, putting his kid out there to get his ass kicked potentially just to put up bigger numbers. That's what he's doing. I have nothing against the idea of Travis Hunter winning the Heisman. I mean, it's fucking cool that a guy plays both sides of the ball in an era where dudes are basically specialists now, right? My problem is how far ahead he is in terms of everybody else. Now, maybe that's because the whole world knows he's going to win. He probably is. But like, if you look at Ashton Genting, who I don't really give a shit about either, because you're putting

up a bunch of rushing stats against the schedule Boise State plays. So like, cool. You go out there, you carry the ball 40 times a game. You put up a bunch of yards, you rush against whoever the hell Boise State plays against, good for you. Genty, like, whatever. Dylan Gabriel's the interesting one to me because Dylan Gabriel's plus $40,000. Obviously, he's not going to win. But that means if you bet $100, Dylan Gabriel wins, you win $40,000. It's not going to happen.

But how is the guy that is the quarterback of the number one team in the country, a team that has not lost a game, a team that is the number one seed in the college football playoff, a guy that seemingly has done very little wrong offensively, hasn't turned the ball over a ton, he's thrown for a lot of touchdowns, he can run and pass he plays in the second toughest conference in america and just went out and dominated in the big 10 championship game yet somehow that guy is plus 40 000 to win the heisman compared to travis hunter who's played in very few big games and basically they're blowing travis hunter because

he plays both sides of the ball which again again is cool. That's an accomplishment. And if he wins the Heisman trophy, I'm not going to look at you and tell you that the awards of farce. However, Dylan Gabriel is the best quarterback on the best team in college football. And he's not one of these schlubs that just goes out and puts up dinky numbers and rides a great defense or a running game. He's the reason the offense is fucking good. Dude's a beast.

And somehow that guy's plus 40,000 to win the Heisman because Travis Hunter also plays defense like that's a farce and Cam Ward is plus 50,000 uh Cam Ward is a guy who puts up what I call Matt Schaub statistics his team gets down like 17 to teams they shouldn't be down 17 to, and then he just throws for a fuck ton of yards. Maybe Cam Ward will be the greatest quarterback ever at the next level, but Miami is an overrated team, and that's why Miami's not in the college football playoff. They've lost games they shouldn't lose, and really, they should have lost two or three others. They're kind of like Bama in that way. They escaped against a couple shitty teams, or their record could be a whole lot worse.

Miami could, should, would have lost two or three three other games and Cam Ward throws for 450 a game because Cam Ward's down 17 and just spends the whole second half throwing bombs to his dudes he's got great playmakers so like Cam Ward is truly just there because of statistics and maybe they felt they didn't have anybody else to throw in there but like cool he's a fine list he throws for a bunch of yards he plays for a mediocre team they're down by a ton all the time so he pads his stats but really Dylan Gabriel is the one that I look at and go what the fuck are we doing Dylan Gabriel the starting quarterback for the best team in college football the best team in the college football playoff they did not lose a game his statistics are comparable to any of the best players in the country. Generally speaking, the only people

that have more passing yards than him are on bad teams like Garrett Nussmeier on 8-4 LSU, or Kyle McCord, who plays for mediocre Syracuse. These guys who just throw up a bunch of stats. The fact that Dylan Gabriel isn't the favorite is kind of a farce. Again, I'm fine with Travis Hunter winning it. He's going to win it. People have decided that for the last month and a half, that Travis Hunter's going to win the Heisman because they're infatuated with Deion. They're infatuated with the fact that he plays on both sides of the ball. That's fine.

But Dylan Gabriel's a fucking monster for Oregon, and the fact that he's plus 40,000, it's farcical to me. I just don't get how the starting quarterback of the best team in college football who's legitimately putting up baller ass numbers is that far behind and he's behind fucking Ashton Genting and Boise who cares what kind of numbers you put up at Boise against the schedule they play like they just decided that like Boise decided we're just gonna run this motherfucker until he breaks. Great, he put up a bunch of rushing stats.

Cool, but I don't know, man. To me, Dylan Gabriel is getting kind of hosed in this whole thing. All right, now, we look at the NFL MVP odds after week 14. And currently, Josh Allen is minus 450. He is the current heavy favorite to win the NFL MVP, minus 450, which means you'd have to bet $450 for Josh Allen to win you $100 on the MVP. The next closest is Saquon, and then there's a big gap. So it's Saquon at plus 550, and then you've got Lamar at plus 1,400, Jared Goff at 1,700, Mahomes at 3,300, Sam Darnold plus 4,000. Here's my problem with

Josh Allen winning the MVP. I'd like to know what Josh Allen is doing differently this year than any other year he's played. There's nothing that we're seeing out of Josh Allen that's extraordinary. He's just doing what Josh Allen does. So essentially what you're saying is that because Patrick Mahomes is having kind of a middling season for Patrick Mahomes, that Patrick Mahomes isn't going to win it. So if Mahomes isn't going to win it, then we just got to give it to Josh Allen. Because that's kind of what Buffalo is. The Bills are kind of like the Chiefs scraps. Like, oh, maybe the Chiefs won't win in the playoffs this year,

but Buffalo is the next in line, or Patrick Mahomes isn't the MVP. Josh Allen's the next in line. I also think people are way overstating the significance of losing, what's his name, Diggs. Like, oh, my God, he lost Stephon Diggs, and he's doing what he's doing. Well, in fairness, they play in a really shitty division. And congrats, you're putting up your stats. But I'm not seeing anything out of Josh Allen that's any different than any other year Josh Allen.

So all those other years, Josh Allen wasn't the MVP. But now Josh Allen is the MVP, just doing the same shit that Josh Allen always does. So again, this isn't a statement about Josh Allen. This is truly just a statement about Patrick Mahomes not putting up big numbers this year. That's essentially what this is. But to say Quan Barkley, this is the part that bothers me. Look at the Philadelphia Eagles, right? They're a low key mess. Yesterday, we have Brandon Graham, injured Brandon Graham on his radio show, kind of dishing the dirty laundry on the team about how one guy, and this was about A.J. Brown, who's a mental case.

A.J. Brown and Jalen Hurts and their relationship, and he's airing dirty laundry to the point that since Philly's a madhouse, the guy had to come out and apologize about that. The coach still seems like a real doofus. I know they're winning games, so it's easier to ignore that when they've won nine in a row, but the coach still seems like a doofus. You've got a quarterback who seemingly cannot throw. Your star wide receiver seems to hate the quarterback because the quarterback can't throw, therefore he can't throw to him. You've got the quarterback whose only real skill is stealing touchdowns at the goal line in this stupid tush push where he has stolen I think 13 touchdowns or whatever the

number is from the one yard line if not for that Saquon Barkley who I think has 12 touchdowns right now would be close to breaking the single season touchdowns record and he's about 500 a little less than 500 yards away from breaking the single season rushing record. Yet somehow we're looking at Josh Allen and we're like the stone cold lead pipe lock to win the MVP. Look at, I mean, look, there's no dysfunction in the Buffalo Bills organization. Saquon Barkley, there's no one stealing touchdowns from Josh Allen. But Saquon Barkley is over here in this dysfunctional Eagles situation with a quarterback who's not very good, and he just goes out every week and gets 120 on the ground in good weeks. He'll get you three, four catches for 40 yards.

Obviously, that didn't happen last week, and that cost me the bet with him, but he still ran for 125. Late in games when you need big plays, he's making every single fucking big play you need to make. Every time the game is too close for comfort. You need a dude to bust a 40 yarder. They're Saquon Barkley. Yet we're looking at Josh Allen.

Like to me, Saquon Barkley is the MVP of the league. I don't think he's going to win it. So you'd basically be setting your money on fire because Josh Allen is a heavy favorite to win it. But if you were to go right now to FanDuel or DraftKings and it's plus 550 to win the MVP bet 100 bucks you win 550 bucks let me see uh if FanDuel let me take a look at FanDuel and see if they've got that like I do Saquon Barkley what he's done this year is just stupid it's dumb like Josh Allen is doing exactly what Josh Allen always does Saquon Barkley has been

otherworldly this year and has an outside shot considering that they can't throw. He's got an outside shot of having the greatest single rushing season yardage wise ever. And it's not one of those cheap ones where one game you run for like 400 yards and then every other game, it's like, here's 75. This dude on a week in week out basis is giving you a buck 10 buck 15 buck 20. He would have multiple touchdowns a game if they weren't stolen by Jalen Hurts uh but let's see here NFL let's go look at the season awards so the same thing so Josh Allen is minus 450 Saquon Barkley is plus 550 so if you put a hundred bucks on Saquon Barkley right now you'd win 550 like this guy should be the MVP this guy

should 100% be the MVP of the league because if Josh Allen wasn't the MVP in any of these other years why like it's almost like you're giving it to Josh Allen because you feel like you owe Josh Allen the MVP award Josh Allen's had a great career and Josh Allen's had a great season and then what I saw was after that epic performance on Sunday he's really entrenched himself in the MVP race oh the game that they were down 31 to 14 so he had to spend the entire second half padding his numbers throwing for a bunch of yards like it's funny that that's what put you ahead it's not the fact that you're down 31 to 14 and are forced to throw the ball for the entire second half because you didn't do much in the first half it's look out he had a monster second half and they came back and they almost defeated the rams

great give that damn thing to saquon barkley so the implied probability is that alan has an 81.82 chance of winning the award saquon barkleyley would be the first running back to win the award since AP won it in 2012. And reading this, he's only, okay, here's the actual number, 482 yards away from rushing for 2105, which would be the all-time record. So he would break Eric Dickerson's record, which I would argue is something to behold because this is not the era of running backs back when Eric Dickerson's running for 2100 yards wide receivers were damn near null and void that's all you did was gave it to your star running back 35 40 times a game and you built those numbers like I'd like to see what Eric Dickerson's yards per carry was the year that he had 2105 yards and yards per game was and compare that to uh

to what you've gotten out of Saquon who's been a fucking monster let's do the math on this so Saquon is at needs 482 yards in the last four games that's clearly oh was it like 120 yards per game he's gonna need 482 divided by four he's gonna need 120.5 yards per game will say Kwon Barkley to win the uh to win the all-time rushing leader and if he's going to be the all-time rushing leader for a single season there's no way you could look at that and be like ah he's not the MVP and it's not totally impossible for this to happen either because the guy has been pretty consistent in what he's done in terms of rushing yards per game now he's had a couple of huge ones,

but it's not like they were a couple of huge games and then everything else was a dud. The guy's just consistently over 100 yards. I mean, look at it. Let's see, 109, 95, 147, 84. Think about this. This guy still has a legitimate chance of breaking the all-time single-season rushing record.

He's got a game with 47 yards record he's got a game with 47 yards he's got a game with 66 yards 176 108 159 66 146 also important to note that he had 66 yards against the cowboys in a game that was 34 to 6 he didn't touch the ball in the fourth quarter he had 176 yards against the giants and only carried the ball 17 times. The dude's averaging six yards a carry. He is averaging nine yards a catch. Show me Eric. Okay, I want to see Eric Dickerson,

the year that Eric Dickerson... Look, I got to know this. So remember that number, 6.1 yards a carry and over 9 yards a catch. Let's see what Eric Dickerson did the year that he had 2,100 yards. Let's see. Eric Dickerson rushed for 2,100 yards in 1984, 2,105 in 16 games. Now, it's important to note that there'd be a little asterisk because this would be a 17-game situation, kind of like a a babe ruth roger mares thing so there'd be one more game

so maybe that's not totally fair but in that season 2105 yards his yards per carry was 5.6 so you're talking over half a yard more for saquon barkley out of the backfield that year dickerson had 139 receiving yards he averaged six yards a catch he was also the mvp um yeah i think he was the runner-up for mvp that year so what is what the fuck is ap1 anyway point being in all of this is that uh eric dickerson's year now again he played one fewer game than barkley is going to play but and he averaged 131 yards per game what is saquon averaging 131 yards per game for him versus how many yards per game for saquon uh saquon is averaging what is that average it's got 1,623 yards divided by what 13 so 1 6 2 3 1 6 2 let's see 1 6 2 3 divided by 13 or let's see that's 124 so his yards per game is slightly less

but he could break the all-time single-season rushing record. He'd have to have four beast games, but it's not unrealistic to think that Barkley could go out and have a 200-yard rushing game in these last four games considering that they cannot throw the ball. And I hope he does. And I hope he wins the MVP. I might go

over to Illinois today and put $100 on him to win the MVP. Why the fuck not? He should win the MVP. And then maybe you catch a break or something happens and Josh Allen falls off a cliff the last four games or something happens or he gets hit by a bus or something. And then boom, Saquon Barkley is the MVP.

It's a risk, but it's a risk I'm willing to take. All right. Be good.