The Ringer NFL Show - Betting on an Unpredictable Week 17

Episode Date: December 30, 2020

We take a look at the teams fighting for their playoff lives and others with less clear intentions in week 17 through the lens of the sports bettor. Later, we go more in depth on Sunday matchups with playoff implications like Rams-Cardinals, Bears-Packers, and more (48:00). Hosts: Warren Sharp and Joe House Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everybody on today's special episode of the Ringer NFL show, Warren Sharp and I are talking about betting on an unpredictable week 17, loaded with teams fighting for their playoff lives, other teams with less clear intentions. There are a couple of angles out there, but please proceed cautiously. Stick around. Podcast, pass. Today's episode of the Ringer NFL show.

The Ringer podcast Network is brought to you by State Farm. Getting great car and home insurance from Straight Farm at a surprisingly great rate. Why that is like drafting a football player that becomes an all-pro, the real deal. State Farm agents provide personalized service so you can customize your insurance to fit your needs like a GM putting together their very own roster. Maybe that will work here in Washington someday. You need a team that supports you and State Farm has got a great one.

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I am joined by Joe House. We're live on the ringer NFL show, talking all things, NFL, and we're getting ready for the postseason, Joe. And before that, though, we're coming to you. We're still on the holiday schedule here. We had Christmas last week. We got New Year's this week.

So the schedule is, off a little bit. We're coming to you a couple days earlier than you may normally be accustomed to us in the ringer NFL feed, but you got a special announcement that we want to get out there at the top about the schedule for the upcoming postseason games. Yes, podcast pals. I am very pleased to announce that you can't stop us, you won't stop us. This ringer NFL show will be continuing on into the playoffs. Sharpie and I will be getting together midweek for both the wild card game and games plural, all those wildcard games and the divisional games as well, the shows for those weeks will be up Thursday morning. So each of the wildcard week and the divisional

week, this feed will have all of the insights you want from Warren Sharp and all of my square action on those insights right on into the playoffs. We cannot wait. And it's always fun to break down games. that are in the postseason house because there are many factors that go into handicapping these games and the lines are typically set very tight from like what the value should be. The odds makers rarely get these games completely mislined. But that's not to say that there isn't value in some underutilized factors that the odds makers typically don't build into what they are utilizing to come up with the spreads. So there's definitely opportunities for value in the postseason and it's always

fun breaking down those matchups when there are only a handful, although this week, you know, next week rather we're going to get six games instead of four for Wildcar Ground. But that's for next week's show, Joe. Talk to me a little bit about what you're looking forward to for this week and maybe like a little bit of recap of last week. Obviously, you know, there were some teams that could have locked up things for the postseason but weren't able to last week. That just makes the games this weekend that much more meaningful. And the one thing that I will say before I kick it to you is I really have felt this way all along. We've mentioned it many times on the show. This post season will be the most incredible postseason in recent memory because there are seven teams that

get in. So we have an extra team here. We're still getting teams left out that maybe have good records. But we've got a lot of good teams that are getting in. And I really think it's going to be a very matchup based postseason. We're going to have a lot of great things to discuss this playoffs. I think it's going to be one of the best ones we've seen. But talk to me a little bit about last week. Well, it really sets us up for an insane week 17 Sharpie because last week we had five teams that could have clinched their playoff berths. And they went 0 and 5.

And we had another week where both the New York Jets and the Cincinnati Bengals won outright as gigantic underdogs. And, you know, this whole season, has been a season of unexpected outcomes. You know, we've had at the top of each conference in the form of the Green Bay Packers in the NFC and the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC, those two have separated themselves a little bit. The Chiefs maybe more so than the Packers. But once you get past that tippy top tier, everybody can beat everybody.

and it happens with, you know, some frequency. And, you know, we have, at least from my perspective, and a gambling perspective, had a really hard time getting a read on who's playing great at any given moment, with the exception of the Buffalo Bills. And we are taping this on the Tuesday after the Buffalo Bills absolutely laid the wood on the New England Patriots, served notice that the...

The Bills are here to stay. And the Bills have an interesting game coming up this week 17 because they are home against the Miami Dolphins. And for the Bills, there are some incentive for the bills to go out and handle their business. They would clinch the two seed if they win and Pittsburgh loses. The dolphins are playing for their playoff life. So we have a really great rundown of a whole bunch of teams that are playing for their playoff lives. And some of these lines are kind of crazy. And I want to just give a quick shout out.

We've been talking about your boy, T.A. Cleveland all season long. We've been looking at the Cleveland Coral area. We've been looking for some opportunities with some trends and some things that he's captured. One of the things that he mentioned in one of his recent ride-ups is, you know, at this time of season, When we're looking at must-win situations, the public loves to jump on inflated lines. They bet heavily on the team that needs to win to make it into the playoffs. And there is some opportunity because of the public interest in those games and those lines. And there are some gigantic lines out there.

Indianapolis is favored by 14 at home against Jacksonville. Baltimore's favored by 12 going on the road at Cincinnati. and the Browns are right now favored by nine and a half. This is midweek over Pittsburgh. And that Browns line is heavily influenced by the fact that Pittsburgh has announced Mason Rudolph is starting at quarterback once again. So we have the rematch against Miles Garrett with the Browns and their playoff life on the line.

But that's just kind of the setup. I want to get your reaction. I think you like this. There are 16 games, all of which are. going to be played on Sunday. We have seven games at 1 o'clock, eight games at the late game, four o'clock, and then the Washington football team against Philadelphia Eagles Sunday night. How do you feel about that split? Do you like it? I don't hate it at all. I mean, it's going to be a busy day of NFL action. It's going to be hard to really, at least for me,

interact much on Twitter, I think, because there's so much that we have to study and look forward to. I think the interesting thing is we're going to see lines begin to go up on Sunday evening during this Washington game against the Eagles for the postseason, you know, for the wild card games because that game is literally only deciding one game, you know, whether or not Washington gets in, who wins the NFC East. We already know that's going to be the number four seed in the NFC. So the other two games in the NFC will already have been decided all three wild card games in the AFC. F.C. will have been decided. So even during that game, there's work to do getting ready to cap these games and get early action down on the wild card games on Sunday night. So it is going to, I mean, get your rest. Get your rest on Saturday if you can because you're going to need it for this football slate on Sunday. But I love the split. I think it's great. Yeah. So I want to,

speaking of the split, try and introduce a little bit of order into the chaos that are all the possibilities of all the teams that have a chance of making the playoffs and some of the seating, although the seating is beyond me. But for the purposes of the teams that can win and get in and the teams that will play early in the day

and influence the likelihood of teams playing later in the day, what kind of impact that that has, So in the AFC, there are, let me count it up. One, two, three, four, five games that implicate playoff positioning. And three of those games are early. The Bills hosting the Dolphins is on the early side. The Browns hosting the Steelers is on the early side. And Baltimore at Cincinnati, that's also in the one o'clock slot.

So the outcome of those three games will dramatically impact the positioning of Indianapolis, who is probably in the best position here hosting Jacksonville. And by the way, quick, quick side tangent. Look at where we've come to with this Jacksonville, Indianapolis. We started off the season on this very podcast with me asking you Warren Sharp, what if I just bet against Jacksonville every single week, just bet the money line every week against Jacksonville. But lo and behold, they've only won one game.

All season long, we anticipated that Jets were going to be the worst. The Jets looked the worst. And Jacksonville has been occasionally competitive. But we started off the season with Jacksonville upsetting Indianapolis down in Jacksonville. Their only win of the entire season, there might be some kind of weird cosmic, carmic 20-20 angle here for Jacksonville to go into indie and beat them again, right? I mean, it doesn't feel like it's going to happen, but it's 2020. It is 2020. I don't see that happening, obviously, with so much on the line here. And there's no incentive, although I do think

Jacksonville holds the number one seed regardless of what happens in this game due to other records. I'm certainly happy that the Jets have won a couple of games because I bet a nice, I think it was like plus 250 size future on the Jacksonville Jaguars to have the fewest wins of 2020. So I'm obviously happy that they are going to do that. But no, I mean, I think it's interesting to walk through some of these games that have the playoff implications and the biggest one that helps set the deck for a lot of others, to me at least, is what happens in this Miami Buffalo game. And the Miami Buffalo game, as people know, this is meaningful for the number

two seed with the lone exception of what happens in the Pittsburgh Cleveland game. Because if Pittsburgh loses that game, there's no incentive for Buffalo to win this game if they only care about getting the number two seed because Miami will be locked into the number two seed if Pittsburgh loses that game. So here is how things like let's talk through this from a chronological standpoint with regard to the lines. So the lines come out and Cleveland is favored here by six and a half points over the Pittsburgh Steelers. That should set off immediate alarm bells that somebody with some information knows that Pittsburgh is likely to rest guys. You are not going to see that line. Otherwise, the game is in Cleveland. I get it, but there's no chance that Cleveland is favored in this game by anywhere close to this amount

if Pittsburgh is playing out all their guys in trying to win this game. So the one thing, that I'll say that's kind of pervasive across all of the rest of the discussion on this pod is that in week 17, guys get information on my side of the room faster than gets out publicly. And guys will make moves on that information and bet these games, and you may see it in a line on the screen after the fact that they've bet it. And it's based upon information. So in this, this case, they were betting Cleveland minus six and a half here before the Mason Rudolph news was announced that Mason was going to be the starter. So not only was the odds maker line, Cleveland is a favorite, but then Mason gets announced out, well, before even that happens, this line's

getting skyrocketed up because now this line sits as the Cleveland Browns minus 10 points across the board practically. Some spots have 10 and a half. So we know that Pittsburgh is probably resting some guys here. They haven't had a buy, right? This is infamous. They haven't had to buy. They need to get their guys some rest. This is the only chance that they have to do that. So they're probably resting. The fact that they are resting factors into what Buffalo wants to do. Buffalo is wins that game in blowout fashion and is heading to the airport trying to think about what they're going to do next week. And one of the things I think that helps set the table a little bit, There's no doubt, ideally, they would want to win next week, beat Miami head on like a big winning streak entering the playoffs.

But one of the things house that happened was in the fourth quarter, Cole Beasley hurt his leg and had to leave the game. That's a massive injury for the Buffalo Bills wide receiver core. He's their slot receiver, very dependable. Obviously, Diggs has been out of this world. But Beasley does a lot of things for that team as a vital piece to the puzzle for them. Beasley gets injured. Sean McDermott comes out today and just describes it very generally as he's quote unquote week to week with a quote unquote leg injury.

And this is like hockey talk, right? We're just going to be very vague. We don't want to say really what it is and we're not giving any type of time table. Day to day is one thing. He might miss a week is one thing. Week to week does not sound ideal for a guy. But let's just put that off to the side. I think that the fact that Beasley got injured there really does help sway.

of Buffalo's decision-making. This line on the Buffalo Miami game was the Miami Dolphins plus three and a half to four everywhere across the board earlier this morning. Buffalo has meetings internally, obviously trying to decide what they're going to do, and we know that they did after the fact because Sean McDermott came out and said that they had meetings internally this morning. But no news is anywhere. You're looking at Twitter.

You're seeing no announcements. and all the sudden, the Miami Dolphins show up in some of the accounts that we're looking at, at plus three and a half and at plus four. And then on the screen, the three and a half goes to two and a half, goes to one half, it gets taken off the board at other spots. And if you're just looking at Twitter and you're just reading the news and you're not noticing anything. If you're just a casual guy who bets on sports on Sundays, you're not noticing anything different,

Nothing has changed for you. The bills haven't announced anything. You don't know what's going on. But for us, for me and the guys that I work with, I'm actually on the phone with one of the guys while this is happening. And the immediate comment that we had was, well, I guess their meeting is over. They must have been meeting. And this is before we even knew that they were actually meeting. I guess the meeting is over because somebody found out that this is probably what they're going to do and started betting on the Miami Dolphins because Buffalo may not end up playing their guys. Nobody knows that for certain. Buffalo has not announced anything publicly. They have made zero comments except for the fact that Sean McDermott said, quote, we had a meeting earlier today. We are keeping the results of that meeting internal. We have a plan as to how we're going to handle week 17, but we are not announcing the plan publicly.

We have not told our players what the plan is going to be. We will reveal the plan later when it benefits us to do so. So we don't know what's going to happen with the Buffalo plant, but what we can tell you is that the line plummeted, and now the bills are only favored by one and a half points, and in some spots it's down to a pick-em. Hey, hey, my gambling gurus, add a little excitement to your sports watching experience by betting on all the action on Fandul's sports book this football season.

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Okay, Sharpie, well, look, let's do a quick, sharp point. I mean, you kind of just walk through it. This week, Sharp Point comes from House from D.C. There you go. Shout out DC. Shout out DC. Shout out the Washington professional football team. I want to know how it is that a better like me is able to keep real-time track of how the balance of this week plays out because we're going to keep getting news like this throughout this week.

And it will be both indications of what teams are doing in terms of their game plan for competing Sunday. and also news about COVID impacts. We already have Cooper Cup out for the Rams. He was announced earlier today. Last week, we gave out to America a wonderful holiday seven-point teaser. It was a four-legged and three of those legs hit. One leg that did not hit because we gave it out on Wednesday of last week was the Cleveland Fing Browns. And that's because all of their wide receivers got sick last week and we were already stuck with our play.

We gave it out. I had actually already bet it. It was in the book. And then the news came out that Cleveland had to leave its entire receiving core in Cleveland and not, you know, compete against the Jets. So how are regular bettors like me? What's the best source of information for the balance of this week? How are we supposed to keep track of this? it's very challenging.

Week 17 is going to be very challenging because there's a lot of information out there and bigger and more important than anything else this week is just obtaining that information, doing as much reading, listening as possible. You can follow things on Twitter.

You can look at the line moves. If you're not keeping track of the lines, I highly suggest you take a screenshot or capture write down what the lines are today, what the lines are tomorrow. I mean, like for guys like, For guys like me, I've got an odd screen that sits above me on one of my monitors. I'm looking at it right now.

You could see it through your earphones. And I'm studying this thing every single second of the day that I'm sitting at my desk. Just I'm aware, anytime something moves, it pops up and it catches my eye because it's right in my field of sight in the periphery. So for regular guys, you don't have that. I would be just writing the numbers down, tracking the movement. but the key is the information. When you see the information come across, you got to act immediately

because chances are somebody else probably had that information before you and the lines are moving. But if you're able to jump on board with them, some of these games might win with ease. Like you could, let's pretend you couldn't get Miami plus three and a half or four, but you see that that line is starting to move.

Even though there's no information on Twitter, you're just looking at your odd screen. You could have bet Miami plus three, Miami might win this game by 17 points if Buffalo doesn't play anybody, right? So some of these games might not be close. I'm not suggesting Buffalo is not playing anybody. I'm just saying these are things that could happen and some of these games aren't close. Getting the exact perfect number in week 17 is not the most paramount focus. It's always important. But the focus should be on information and getting ahead of things because lines will

move very quickly this particular week a lot earlier in the week than they will any other week of the season. So that's interesting. What that sounds like to me is I'm trying to translate your guidance here is if you get a feeling for, you know, what a team plans to do, like what we're observing with Buffalo here in real time. And the same thing with Pittsburgh, maybe the thing to do is to just play money lines. And it's expensive to just play money lines. In fact, you know, I have a wonderful money line parlay set up here for for later that I want to bounce off of you. But, you know, maybe the Miami money line, maybe the Cleveland money line. If you feel strongly about both, go ahead and parlay them. I mean, right now, neither one of those

games is on the board. Do you have numbers for those money lines at this point? Um, yeah. Yeah, so the money line on Buffalo, sorry, on Miami right now would be minus 10, the spots that I'm seeing it up. Some spots are actually plus 100, but others are minus 10. And the money line that is on, so I'll give you the worst number house so that you can punch it in as conservatively as possible. The worst number that I see on the Cleveland Browns right now is minus 500. Okay, well, that parlay that you just described, we play Miami at minus 110 and play Cleveland at minus 500. It looks like that is a plus 129 bet. So that's better than even odds bet.

But, you know, you have to have confidence that Cleveland will show up with its full array. And, you know, you want to also have confidence that Buffalo doesn't change course over the course of the week. and dramatically alter how this would play up, because we both agree even up, you know, I like Buffalo in this spot and I like Pittsburgh in this spot, right? Yeah, I think in general, what you have to do, week 17,

betting is difficult. There's no easy answers. In general, when there's less certainty, you want to reduce risk. So you want to reduce the amount that you're betting in week 17. I am telling you that the best way to bet Week 17 is a few select spots based on information that you are able to get and you're able to get on it before the market completely over-adjusts.

Betting on teams in must-win spots like you're talking about doing here is typically not the most sound advice to give unless you know that the opponent is completely folding up the tent and doesn't give a crap. But stranger things happen. You might think, oh, there's no chance that Mason Rudolph is going to beat the Cleveland Browns. But the Cleveland Browns just lost to the Jets. And you really don't know. I realize that they had a bunch of COVID issues. But I think that they still are dealing with some COVID issues.

I'm pretty sure that tight end Harrison Bryant, who caught a bunch of passes for them last week because they had no wide receivers, just got added to the COVID list. So in a season like this where you've got COVID going around, do not lock up a large percentage of your bank roll on some of these things that you think are this teams must win, that teams must win. Let's do it because you really never know what could end up happening. And if you want to bet it because you think it sounds good or because you think there's a good shot to take, go ahead. I mean, people like to bet. People like to risk their money to win some. So I'm fine with that. But just do it conservative. There are really good spots where you don't need to rely on all this secretive information and coaches game plans that are going to come in one week in the wild card round. We're going to have much stronger takes here than we will this week where we're relying on a lot of information. Well, just to drive your point home, Cleveland last week lost to the Jets because of their defense. Now, they were not able to move the ball. Baker fumbled the ball twice.

But Cleveland 30th in DVOA against deep passes. They have, you know, a problem at deep safeties. The Jets took advantage. Their 25th in defensive pass DVOA through week 15. Like this is from your colleague, Dan Pizzuta, who, you know, raises eyebrows. Like Cleveland should have beat the Jets last week if they're the class and caliber of team that we have come to believe. The public's at least come to believe. And they've looked pretty impressive throughout the season.

But they could be on the outside looking in as a, you know, a 10-win team here. The interesting thing is the way this sets up. So the bills against the dolphins, the Browns against Pittsburgh and Baltimore and Cintsey are all. early games. And if the dolphins, the Browns, and the Ravens all win, then that means that one of Indianapolis or Tennessee is going to stay home, I believe. The AFC, the bottom of the AFC, teams like 6, 7, 8 are all significantly better and stronger than the bottom of the NFC. So we're going to absolutely have a team from the AFC get left out here. The interesting thing about this Bill's game that I will add looking through some of the scenarios is that if Buffalo were to

win this game against Miami, there is approximately a 50% chance. Let's assume that the Colts as minus 14 point favorites win. And let's assume that the Browns as minus 10 point favorites win. So like the biggest favorites here that are playing teams that have zero incentive and or are resting quarterbacks win those games, then there's like a. a 50% chance, there's four scenarios, and two of the four scenarios, have the Buffalo Bills playing the Miami Dolphins again in the wild card round. So they would be going up against the dolphins twice in two weeks. Whereas if Buffalo loses this game, there's zero chance that they would play Miami in the first game of the postseason. You also want to weigh in the consideration

that you want to get that number two seed so that you don't have to face the Chiefs until the AFC championship game. Because as you mentioned at the top, the Chiefs obviously the class of the AFC, you don't want to have to play those guys until you absolutely need to, particularly if you're dealing with a guy like Cole Beasley

who is banged up right now and you don't know exactly when you're going to get him back. Yeah, you're not going to play the Chiefs the first game in the playoffs because they have a buy. But you don't want to have to play. play them the next game either. So the fact is it's going to be very nice that the, and actually at the three seed, I don't think they would have to play them in either case. But the fact is, it's going to be interesting if the Buffalo Bills decide not to win this game intentionally so

they don't have to play the dolphins twice in two weeks because who knows, Brian Flores studies what you're doing. You go out and beat Brian Flores week 17, but he still is able to get into the postseason. He's taken notes, comes up with a bunch of adjustments for his defense, the very next week. That's not necessarily the most ideal position that you would want to be in as a Buffalo Bills fan. I want to make one quick clarification. If both, if the scenario I described, which is dolphins, Browns, Ravens, all win on the early side. And both Indian Tennessee win in the late game, Tennessee is in because Tennessee has tiebreaker through the division over Indianapolis. Now, that would be an interesting scenario. Indy would end up at 11 and 5 and on the outside, and that would be because they could not hold the lead last week against the Pittsburgh Steelers. They had the Pittsburgh Steelers dead to right. They were up 24 to 7 with three minutes left in the third quarter, and Pittsburgh came roaring back, scored 21 unanswered points and won that game. I want to focus on that. That, that

turn of events with Pittsburgh for just one second because it was one of the things. Speaking of your Twitter over the weekend, this was possibly, there were many interesting and funny and curious things out of your Twitter this weekend. But this little nugget where Juju Smith Schuster gave an interview and seemed to suggest that Ben Rothesberger started calling his own play, started calling the plays from the huddle and that the Steelers went away in the second half against the Indianapolis Colts from the Fickner game plan, the Randy Fickner game plan, and Ben started getting the ball down the field. We've been begging for Big Ben to throw the ball down the field and folks were reaching the conclusion that he just must not be capable of it because we hadn't seen it in five weeks. Well, lo and behold, he starts chucking it down the field. they come roaring back and they look like, you know,

damn near unstoppable on offense, now having had a little bit of time to digest. What happened there with Pittsburgh? Well, what happened was you got Randy Fickner, who is way too predictable, a play caller. Very frustrating. I think Ben average only 5.3 yards per attempt on early on passes in the first half of the game.

Obviously, the thing that's different here is Ben is not yet like Drew Brees, right? where there's questions about Drew's arm and can you actually throw the ball down the field? Maybe that's why they're throwing short. Like, Ben has been capable of throwing some balls down the field. The problem is the routes that they're calling have not had any success. They're too predictable. All these like sideline routes with very narrow margins,

some of them on the first play of the game that are extremely predictable. All the rest of this stuff's very short. What Ben does is he goes back according to Juju. So this is not Ben saying it. This is not like, okay, well, should we believe, Ben because he's trying to make himself look good. Ben sometimes does that, right? But this is not Ben. This is Juju. Juju is saying that Ben at halftime decides to call a lot of plays in the second half that weren't part of the game plan that were not part of what Rainey Fickner had designed

for this. And they were having success actually throwing the ball down the field because the Colts were calling out the stuff that was predictable from Randy Fickner at the beginning of the game. So I absolutely would lean towards thinking that is Randy Fickner calling predictable plays at the beginning of the game that the Colts would be calling out? Yes. And defensive coordinator Matt Iber Fluse of the Colts came out and said something similar. He said, we expected what they were calling in the first half of that game. He went out there in his press conference today and said something similar like that. So I absolutely tend to lean towards believing this story. Certainly the way that they were throwing the football. And also, in addition to what I said, in the first half of the game, I think there was like two wide receivers that they were targeting. And in the second half of the game, they were spreading the field to all types of guys. Chase, Claypool finally got involved in the offense, and they were just spreading it around to everybody. The funny part about it was that the hit on the Pittsburgh Steelers is that they can't run the football. And so you got a team that

in the first half of this game is already passing on 76% of their early down plays because they can't really run the ball and you're down 21 to 7 on the scoreboard, what else are you going to do in the second half? I mean, you can't really pass the ball that much more than that. And the Steelers didn't. They only passed the ball 77% of the time. So very close to what they were doing in the first half. The key is they were passing differently. They were calling different plays that the defense wasn't able to predict and game playing for. This all speaks house to the fact that it is very important that teams do not get predictable in games. That is literally the only way that opposing defenses have a shot at slowing you down is if you're calling plays that are unsuccessful,

like you're running in the worst situations possible, or you are calling plays that are too predictable. And the Steelers, unfortunately, I've been calling a lot of plays that are very predictable. I'm glad that they learned this lesson, and I hope that they apply it to the future weeks, because if they have any shot in the postseason with their defense being as banged up as it is, it's going to be because their offense isn't super predictable. And so they absolutely need to be trying things. I mean, look as, I don't know if you saw this,

I think it was the Saturday game, where Kyle Shanahan, the coach of the 49ers, has his quarterback, it was a fourth and one, I believe, has his quarterback in shotgun. And motions Kyle Eusecheck out and then back in, he gets right under the, center first contact with the center's ass the ball is snapped and Kyle sorry Kyle Eusecheck runs forward two yards first down on fourth and one he uses his fullback to QB sneak motions in behind the center

because the QB's in shotgun and the fullback is the one getting the snap if you don't want to sneak Ben Rothesberger for whatever reason fine but do something else to get advantages here Kyle's doing that Randy Fickner doesn't know how to do do it. It's really sad, but I love to see a little bit of a change of game playing in the second half. Well, it's an incredible distinction that you just drew there

because one of the things we were reminded last week, and I made this mistake, is you never put Cliff Kingsbury up against a coach like Kyle Shanahan and feel like you have an advantage. They were out,

outclass, outmatched, out scheme the entire game. I'm talking about the Arizona Cardinals in a must-win game. Absolutely, their playoff fortune dependent on winning that game against a depleted, beleaguered, beat-up San Francisco 49er team. And by golly, Shanahan just outclassed Kingsbury and won that game. But the reason I wanted to take us down that Pittsburgh rabbit hole is because I just want everybody to get the benefit of hearing, you know,

what advantages Pittsburgh obtained by way of that change in direction with the play calling and think about how to apply that for the wild card weekend? Because we're going to see Pittsburgh and it's going to be absolutely fascinating, whoever it is they end up match up with in either the two seed or the three seed. And there's a decent chance that it's going to be against a defense that's vulnerable to the deep pass just because of the way that the AFC's bearing out this year. And I'm just, I wanted to make sure that I got,

you know, your thoughts on, on that Pittsburgh changing direction this week because I'm just filing it away. So everybody file away some of that Pittsburgh insight as we think about what's going to happen. You know, we'll see whatever happens with week 17, but with Wild Car weekend, we're going to take a real hard, deep, analytical look at what Pittsburgh

brings to the table. Now, we've talked a whole bunch about the AFC. Let's go ahead and get into some of these NFC scenarios as well. I want to start with the one that I think is maybe kind of the easiest, which is Tampa minus six up against Atlanta. And Bruce Ariens has already said that they have a chance at the five seed and that they're going to play to win because they want the five seed. and boy, that makes a lot of sense

that he would want the five seat because that means that they get to play whoever wins the NFC East, which is just a terrific place to spot to be in. They want the highest seed possible. That would get them to 11 wins, which would be kind of a real

achievement for Tampa. I don't know the last time they've hit 11 in the win column. So that one to me, you know, six feels like the right number. Falcons have been decent. The Falcons covered against Tampa two weeks ago,

and the Falcons covered again last week against the chiefs. So frisky Falcons in terms of against the spread, but, you know, if you're looking for a money line leg, it looks like Tampa is a money line parley leg. Tampa is going to bring out its full suite. And boy, I know that they were playing against, you know, I don't know what, I don't want to disrespect Canada. I don't want to disrespect the ex.

But whatever Detroit put on the field last week, it was of that caliber and not NFL caliber. No, you're absolutely right. That Detroit defense, especially once Matthew Stafford got out, was announced out with his ankle injury that I think he twisted literally on the first series. That game just became a cakewalk. Not that it wouldn't have been otherwise. Interestingly enough, in this game, you have the Atlanta Falcons who just played the Bucks two weeks ago. right? They will have played this team twice in the span of 14 days. They played the Bucks on December 20th. They led at halftime in that game, 17 to nothing in Atlanta. I remember because I bet the Atlanta

Falcons plus seven in that game. It was six and a half. I bought it up to seven and was feeling great. And then they end up losing the game by five points. And I was very concerned at the end of the game that it was going to cost me a cover. We ended up getting it, but you're up 17 to nothing, and you've got seven points in your pocket, and you almost lose that game. Looking back at underdogs in the same division that played their opponent two weeks prior,

which is this case, a week in between, the team that lost that first game is 51 and 31-80s, that 62% cover rate over the last 30 years, and it's actually significantly stronger over the last 10 to 15 years. So you would be wanting to bet on the Atlanta Falcons in this spot. Tampa is in a must-win situation.

Atlanta has nothing really to play for whatsoever. Atlanta lost to these guys, the last go-around. Everybody's going to just be coming in on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers here. The problem that I have with that, there's a couple of things that give me a slight hesitation. Number one, I just bet Atlanta at six and a half and took them to seven two weeks ago when they were playing at home. Now the line is still six and a half, but it's in Tampa. Now, I know normally you would swing a game six points, right?

They were playing in Atlanta. Now they're playing in Tampa, take away the three points, give them to the bucks. This line should have swung six points. It swung zero. But we know that this is COVID and there's no home field advantage, at least not. much at all, but there's still something, right? There's still a tiny little bit of something there that now this game's in Tampa and there are fans in Tampa and the line is exactly the same. So I don't necessarily love that. I also have questions as to what the bucks learned from the Falcons in that game because we know they put up nothing in the first half and they come out and put 31 points up in the second half of that game. What did they uncover that might work that they

could get started off faster in this rematch game. And of course, the Atlanta Falcons, right, they had their hearts broken against the Kansas City Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes just last week. How will they rebound for a completely meaningless game, back-to-back road games now in Tampa Bay, week 17? You know, can they get back up off of that loss where they almost upset what was the defending Super Bowl champions?

And now they're having to go and play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on the road. So there's a lot of questions about this game, but if this line was a little bit higher, like I would 100% be leaning towards the Atlanta Falcons here to throw something into the works for the bucks. But I just don't love it. That's the only thing that's giving me a little bit of pause is that it's the exact same line as it was the prior go around two weeks ago. But that certainly is a very strong trend for the underdogs in this spot. Well, you've said enough to even talk me out of because I was only considering playing Tampa as a as a money as a on the on the money line as a potential leg in a parlay um i'm not

if you remember if you remember this was the game two weeks ago that you are we're going to do the same thing and bill and you and i were texting during the game about Atlanta and how we tried to talk you about throw some water on the fire your loins were ablaze wanting to do go all in on Tampa, but thankfully, you won because you just teased them. And I won because I bet Atlanta and they covered the spread. But you certainly were a little bit nervous at half time of that game. I know you had confidence that Maddie Ice would flame out in the second half. And he absolutely did. But it definitely wasn't easy for you. You know, I could see why you want to go back to the well the second time because Tampa's at home. You did it last time. They were able to get the job done in Atlanta. Why not this

week. Why not when the Bucks are playing with the playoffs right there in sight? So I can't hate you for wanting to do that and I can't hate the tease itself. I'm not going to call for an outright victory for the Falcons. I still need to look at this game more. And it's really, really in the week compared to when we normally record this thing. Well, let's talk about some of these games that have playoff, genuine playoff implications. That is to say, teams that will be in or out, depending on on how they do. The number one game that fits this category is the Rams,

who at the moment are laying one at home against the Cardinals. The total for this game is 39 and a half. And we have the news of both the Rams starting quarterback will not be Jared golf. Instead, it will be a gentleman name. named John Wolford, who's never taken a snap in the NFL, and compounding that, the Rams, as I mentioned earlier, Cooper Cup is on the COVID list. The Rams are in the midst of the only two-game losing streak that they have had this

entire season, and yet their playoff fortune comes down to this game. If they lose this game, then Arizona is going to go in and the Rams are out. Yeah, they are. And look, it's hard when you sustain injuries. They should have never been in this situation. You know, if they beat the Jets, as you mentioned earlier, they're not in this situation. If they can just score on a, I don't know if it was like a first and goal from the one, they were down there at the goal line against the Ciox.

That final score of 20 to 9 that they lost last week was not at all indicative of the reality of how close that game was. and actually in my mind how I believe that the Rams probably could have won that game. The game was tied at halftime, and they just caught the wrong end of variance. Obviously, lost the turnover battle, one did nothing, did not convert a single time down inside the red zone, allowed the Ciox to score twice. So they put themselves in this situation. Of course, Jared Goff can't really do anything at the very tail end of that game

with a dislocated slash broken finger that's going to cause him to miss this game. I'm off of these teams. Like, just in general, I'm not a believer. I never have been a believer in the Arizona Cardinals for much of the season. I don't know how many times I've even bet on this team this year, if at all. I bet I know for a fact, week one against the 49ers as a seven-point underdog, absolutely was pounding the table to take the Cardinals in that game. But since that game, I don't think I've bet them once if my memory serves correct.

And, you know, the Rams obviously, you don't know what you're going to get. And Kyler won't even be healthy. And part of what Kyler's best at is running the football. And so we may not get a healthy Kyler if we see him at all. We're not going to see Jared Goff. Too many questions here. And so it's and this game's off the board at most of the spots out there. The spots that it is up, I'm seeing a total of 39, which is just,

absolutely ridiculously low for the 2020 NFL football season for a total to be down at 39. But, I mean, that's what you could be getting when you're talking about two quarterbacks that could show up here. One's either completely injured and one is a complete unknown or we could have two complete unknowns taking snaps under center. Yeah. I mean, if you have to take a side, my recommendation would be just take McVeigh.

It's McVeigh against Kingsbury. You have no idea what the Rams are going to. do with a quarterback that's never seen an NFL field. But, you know, if you have to pick a side here, that that's the way that I would lean. I want to clarify one aspect. Arizona, they're not automatically in if they beat the Rams. They also need the Bears to lose. So let's go ahead and talk about that Packers' Bears game.

The Packers, curiously, are incented, seem to be incented to try and win this game so that they secure the buy. They have the best record in the NFC right now at this moment. If they beat the Bears, they will clinch the number one seed and get that week off. They are five point favorites over the Bears, according to the number I saw earlier today. Mitchell Chubisky and the Bears have been on a tear. They're scoring 30 points every week all of a sudden. Their vertical deep game is looking pretty good.

They're establishing the run because they're able to get some deep balls. going, but I have absolutely no confidence whatsoever in Mitchell Trabisky or the Bears, but Packers laying five. Do you have a feel for this one? Well, I can tell you that the Bears obviously have come along strong since Bill Laser took over play calling him Mitchell Trabisky has come back on their center. It's also coincided with the easiest one-month stretch of opposing defenses in the NFL, So which came first, the chicken or the egg, right? What is responsible for this?

You're playing the Lions defense, the Texans defense, the Vikings defense, and the Jaguars defense. So you're scoring 30 plus points against those teams, but those teams have terrible defenses. So I have to dig a little bit deeper to get an understanding of what has laser done a little bit differently. And one of the things that they have done is inserted a lot more tight ends into the mix. They are now using tight ends on 21%. of their pass plays in the first three quarters of games. That's a significant increase over what it was previously. And it's something I've been asking the bears, begging the bears, stop throwing these three wide receiver sets out there, use a couple more tight ends in some of these packages, go some 12,

go some 13. Alan Robinson, another wide receiver and get some of your tight ends out there to give some mismatches, helping run blocking, give confusion as to what the play call might be. Is it going to be a or is it going to be a run? They've started doing that more and it's definitely benefited them. I will throw out this trivia and since we're talking about this game, you're already going to know the answer,

but pretend you know nothing about this game. What team do you think has scored the most first half points in the NFL over the last month? You've got teams like the Ravens or the Colts or the Buffalo Bills. You also have the Browns, the Packers, of course, up in that mix, the bucks?

I mean, if in the absence of you tipping off the answer, my guess would have been the Packers because the Packers have been coming out really strong. And what really sticks out to me is their performance a couple weeks ago on that Saturday night against the Panthers where they went up immediately with three, three touchdowns and then took their foot off the pedal and let the Panthers come in for a backdoor cover, which I liked because I had the Panthers there. But my guess would have been the Packers. And that's clearly wrong.

And that would have been a great guess. But the fact is, these Chicago Bears have scored 20 more first half points than the Green Bay Packers. No team in the NFL has scored more points than the Chicago Bears over the last four games of the season in the first half. Absolutely insane the way that this team is putting together their offense. I know you've been going up against bad defense, but what do we say? You got your strength of opponent. We'll factor that in later. still have to put up results. You can't win barely against some of these teams, and they haven't.

They've, no pun intended, you can't win barely. You got to win convincingly. And they've been doing that. So 86 points scored in the first half of their last four games. The Packers have done excellent. The Packers are scoring a lot of points as well. And those two teams play each other. And the first half total here was 24, emphasis on was. The game total has now been bet up to 51.5. there's a lot of excitement that's possible in this game. We know that the Packers like to get out strong and be productive early in games. And we know that the Chicago Bears have been doing that the last four games with Laser. How much will that offense drop off now that they aren't playing the dregs of the defenses in the NFL and go up against a good team?

That's to be determined. But I'm expecting an exciting game in this one because, you do have two teams that have equal motivation. Both of their needles are full throttle all the way 10 out of 10. The Bears need to win. The Packers want home field. They want to win for different reasons. Each of them has a different objective.

At the end of day, both of them are intent on winning this game, and that's why this game could be very fun to watch. Well, I'm worried for a couple of our pals, our homies out there that are deep Chicago heads, our Chicago pals. Robert Mays, Dan Katz, Big Cat. I mean, this really feels like a heartbreak moment. However, it turns out, whether it's the Bears coming in and looking impressive and beating the Packers in this week 17, which has the knock-on effect of Mitchell Tribisky potentially being extended because he's up for an extension,

and possibly saving, not possibly, it will definitely save Nagy's job. I don't know if the future of the Chicago Bears should be in the hands of the Nagy-Tribitsky combo. And I don't know deep down if Bears fans want that. But on the other hand, with this Chicago Bears team and the kind of season that it's had, early in the season, I thought they had one of the best defenses I saw, you know, through the first five or six weeks. And I think the metrics all bear it out pretty well. And, and, you know, then we wrote them off because they went on a five game losing streak.

And yet here we are, week 17, on the brink of a potential playoff berth with their, it's apparently a storied rivalry between the Bears and the Packers in the history of the NFL, the annals with the NFL. It doesn't really feel like much of a storied rivalry to me. But I'm an NFC guy. So, I mean, I'm an NFC East guy. So, you know, I'm willing to acknowledge it. But, yeah, I'm with you. I don't have a feel. I'm not going to play this game.

I don't have a feel for either side. You know, the only play that I might contemplate based on what you just said, and it'll be a checking on the weather Sunday morning is the over. Because 51 feels a tiny bit low if that's where it's sitting at, you know, come Sunday morning. Yeah, and the trick is you have to try to figure out how much do we want to wait what the bear's offense is looking like now. with what it really will look like against a normal defense. You know, I don't want to get into all the details about that last game that the Packers played at home with the snow.

And my concern that we heaped upon that game of when the total was sitting at 56, like there could be weather here, pay close attention to it. And that total plummets all the way to 52. We were looking at the possibility of getting on the over at that point. And the total ends up landing 54. So if you bet it Monday through Sunday morning, you lost. If you bet it within the last hour or two before kickoff, you won. So it's all about timing the market and figuring out how to get into games.

But I will tell you, looking at some of the weather forecasts across the nation this week, at least from, you know, Denver, Colorado east, there's only at this moment a tiny storm up in the New York region that may impact the Dallas New York Giants game. But at this moment on Tuesday, winds do not look to be a problem. And there's 0% precipitation in most parts of the country, including Chicago. So it's not windy. It's not expected to be snow.

It is going to be cold. But that's nothing new for Chicago in January. Well, I hope we get snow up in that New York region because we save the best for last year. And that is the NFC East. we are going to come Sunday night, somebody is going to win that division. It doesn't seem possible. No team in that division seems very interested in winning it. But by golly, come midnight Sunday, 159 Sunday night, we're going to have a champion

of the NFC East, assuming that the Washington football team and the Eagles aren't in an interminable tie situation. Let's talk about the Giants and cowboys first. They need Washington to lose. but their game goes first. So Dallas is favored by three at the New York Giants. It seems like Daniel Jones is going to be playing quarterback for the Giants. Dallas has been looking pretty good these last three weeks.

Three consecutive weeks of over 30 points on offense. Andy Dalton, somebody reminded him that he has a pretty good receiving core. And those wide receivers are all of a sudden catching balls. Marie Cooper is alive. if C.D. Lamb is out there catching balls. Michael Gallup looks like a world beater. If I was going to bet aside here, I actually don't mind laying the points with Dallas. How are you sizing this one up?

Yeah, this is an ugly one. What else can we expect? Do I really want to get involved in betting the finale of the NFC East in a game that may not even be for the division, right? the Washington, your Washington football team, plays for the division. If they're upset, then this game is for the division. But we don't know that yet. Look, the Giants came close against the Ravens last week to covering that spread.

I actually had them in that game to cover the spread. They were not able to do so. You know, the Giants have not looked good ever since Daniel Jones got injured. They get blown out by the Cardinals. They get blown out by the Browns. They stick Daniel Jones in there again. They lose by, what was it, 14 points against the Ravens. I mean, we're talking about three straight losses by 14 plus points.

And obviously, you've got the Cowboys here charging along with a three-game win streak, the Giants, a three-game losing streak. This line is artificially inflated, of course, in favor of the Cowboys, right? Yes. Laying three here is what the books are putting because they know people are going to bet that because they saw the Cowboys beat the Eagles in a nationally televised game. They saw the Cowboys beat the 49ers. You know, the Bengals game, probably not that impressive,

but beating the 49ers and beating the Eagles in consecutive weeks. Those are pedigree teams that people are aware of. And meanwhile, the Giants are getting blown out in three straight losses. I don't have any interest at this number of taking the Cowboys, even if they are able to win this game by more than three points. I just don't feel like there's enough value. you there in a game that the Giants are going to be playing tough. But man, if the giant, if Daniel Jones isn't comfortable enough moving around in the pocket and doing some things,

then he's not good enough at this stage in his career. We talked about this on the pod, I think, last week to stick him out there. And I'd almost rather just go with Colt McCoy in that situation. So I don't know how healthy Daniel Jones is right now. But if you are betting on the Giants, you better hope that he's healthy enough to move around a little bit. Yeah, that one is a stayaway, honestly. And I'm not betting. I hate both those teams. I wish they finished in a zero-zero tie.

That's what I would root for. That's what I'm rooting for in that game. And I'll take the under. The under should be good. There we go. That's what I'll root for. It sets up for this incredible Sunday night finale to the 2020 regular season. Of course, NBC and its infinite wisdom.

put the Washington football team up against the Philadelphia Eagles the same week that Washington releases its quarterback, its starting quarterback from the most recent game played against Carolina. And you and I talked about Dwayne Haskins last week, you know, best of luck to Dwayne. I hope it gets things figured out. He doesn't strike me as a guy incapable of making good judgments. He just hasn't made many good judgments. But he's very, very young and thinking, may ultimately work out for him. I don't know as we sit here right now, Sharpie, whether Alex Smith's calf has the Washington coaching staff

feeling comfortable enough to say affirmatively, yes, Alex Smith will be starting 100% no matter what come Sunday night. Taylor Heineke. Heineke? Am I saying it, right? Yeah. Me, Simmons started calling him Heineken, which feels disrespectful to me.

I'm not going to tolerate that for my quarterback. but I do like how close the sound is to it and I will be enjoying some enjoying some Heinikins during this game it's impossible to handicap this game

there's a lot of indication that Philly is going to rest a bunch of its like classy defensive start like Deerius Slay might not play Fletcher I think has already said he's going to be out what's the incentive for Philly

other than playing spoiler against Washington and beating NFC East rival, and maybe that's sufficient incentive, but obviously goes without saying how I want this to turn out. Right. Well, you've got the Philadelphia Eagles, and they're in a unique situation, and I don't know what their thought process is going to be here, but usually if you're fighting, you know, last week, you're fighting for the division title. If you win that game, you could win the next one and you will win the NFC East. You're not also going to have,

a 4 and 10 record, right? And so the fact that you have a 4 and 10 record means, guess what, you're in line to get a really good draft pick this season. You know, so as other years, yeah, let's spoil their fun and let's try to win this game for what? What does it do to help us? It's going to hurt our draft stock. That is a thought that I think will cross the minds of that team and that facility and what they decide to do with players if everybody is on the same page in that thought process. Looking at this game and breaking down the game from as an objective process as possible here, I think it is funny and not ironic.

There were some people giving Ron Rivera some grief about sticking with Dwayne Haskins and not punishing him more for that stripper incident. And they obviously stripped him of being a captain and dealt with him internally. But he benched Cam Newton for not wearing a tie. on a trip someplace to bench him for one play. And on that play, ironically, his backup came in and threw an interception. But some people were like, well, why isn't he doing something more here? Why is he any sending this message?

And I felt like part of it was like if this was a, what were they, five and nine team or whatever they were at the time and they had no shot at winning the NFC East, I think they probably would have done something a little bit differently. But because that was a game where they could have clinched the playoffs, they were trying to start their best quarterback. Ironically enough, had they benched Dwayne Haskins and just played Heineke the whole game, they might actually win against Carolina. So who knows?

That's right. I mean, they were six and eight going into that game. So, you know, going into the game against Carolina, I still harbored a teeny sliver of hope that they would end up at a respectable eight and eight for this football season. But, you know, take care of business against Carolina. Secure your position in the conferences. then go ahead and, you know, just have a fun game with the second tier guys against Philadelphia and maybe finish eight and eight very respectable.

That's not what happened. But this game, you know, the thing ultimately is will, the game against Carolina went south immediately when Sims muffed the punt and gave Carolina a special team's touchdown. And with Haskins at quarterback, the thing that Washington has been. utterly unable to do is mount any kind of if you if they're down there they lose that's what happens that that's the history of haskins through the early part of his career um so you know but jalen hurts though they'll want him to go ahead and get out there and and play uh you know with with that offense at philadelphia offense and and you know get a little bit of a continued benefit of

a game live game experience right philadelphia well here's my here's my here's I thought on this game that I can leave you with discussing this one. And that is that Washington since week six has allowed a grand total of 44 points in the second half. And it's not always great like using just simply points scored as a barometer as a measure because it doesn't adjust for a lot of things and there's a lot of variance there. But it's just an interesting thing to mention because that's the best in the NFL. The next closest team, the next, closest team to them are the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense. You know how many points of Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense has allowed compared to Washington's 30 more points. Washington's held teams to 44

points in the second half since week six. Tampa is there at 74, New Orleans, 77, Miami, 79, and the Rams at 84. So Washington, they make tremendous halftime adjustments. And one of the interesting notes is that if you look at Jalen Hertz and the games that he has played, the three starts that he's made, They scored 17 in the first half, 17 in the first half, and 20 in the first half. In the second half of those games, 7, 6, and 0. So already teams are able to make halftime adjustments against Hertz. And I think the Eagles need to pull something else out, figure out something else to do in the second half that's different because defenses are making halftime adjustments and slowing down the Eagles offense. And at the same time, now you got this Washington team that is the best.

in the NFL at making these halftime adjustments. They literally, in terms of early downs in the second half, rank number one against the run, number three against the pass, and number one against both explosive passing and rushing. All of those numbers are substantially worse in the first half. I mean, they're below average in passing success in the first half. They number 30th in rushing success in the first half and explosiveness right around league average. So the fact that they improve on all those areas tells me they make a ton of of halftime adjustments. The bottom line here is if the football team is able to come in and hang with them in the first half, you can look to this angle and think, well, maybe I should

take a second half line on Washington here if the game is somewhat close. I like that. The second half line. Sharpie, I know you got to go, but we have to squeeze in one last square play for the regular season. This is the square play of the season. It's the must win money line parlay blowout of the year. You don't have to give a reaction. You can just laugh. I'm playing, and this is a fact. I'm playing all three of these teams. Baltimore right now in my book, minus 750 at Cincinnati. That's the money line. Indy, 10 to 1 you have to lay minus 1,000 at home against Jacksonville. Cleveland, you mentioned it, minus 500 home against Pittsburgh. That parlay, you have to lay almost 200 bucks to win 100 bucks.

It's Baltimore, it's Indy, it's Cleveland. The Money Line Parley blowout of the year. You tell me who blows it, and then I'll let you go. I really can't envision the Colts losing in a must-win spot to the Jaguars. If anything, it's not having faith in Baker Mayfield. If somehow the Pittsburgh defense is starting its guys and able to get pressure on him, We know that's where Baker struggles. That would be one of the ones that I'd be concerned with since he's been playing better,

but we're talking about Baltimore who's trending in a really strong direction right now. So I would have to probably go with the Cleveland Browns. Yeah. Well, so that would mean that the Cleveland Browns fucked us two weeks in a row, and that feels about right for 2020. Sharpie, we did it. Week 17 is in the books. Thank you, as always, my friend.

That was some outstanding insights. I cannot wait to join you for the Playoff Pod's house because there's so many good angles, nuggets, and depth that we can dive into these games each week. Wildcard is going to be crazy this year because we've got six games. We usually only have four. And some of these games are going to be really great because of the fact that there's only one by and some better teams are in it this year. Then you got the divisional round, which is superb because that's my.

favorite round of the season. I think this is going to just be absolutely incredible. I cannot believe. Football. All right, Sharp, we talk to you next week.