The Ringer NFL Show - Betting on Chiefs-Ravens, Player Props, and Week 3 Lines | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: September 25, 2020

This week on 'The Ringer NFL Show,' Warren Sharp and Joe House are back to get your betting skills in check. The duo discusses what effect a record number of injuries has on betting the over on game totals (21:41). House hits 16 teaser options (25:35) and gives tips on how to look for opportunities when betting player props (35:06). They talk about how Sharp is betting Chiefs-Ravens (50:54), Patriots-Raiders, and more Week 3 lines. Hosts: Warren Sharp and Joe House Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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State Farm is there. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm Warren Sharp. We just watched Thursday Night Football Joe House. I'm joined by you to discuss what we just saw and then break down week three action here all about how you did last week, what you're going to do this week and talk through a lot of things in the NFL. Super incredible weekend ahead of us.

But we just saw Gardner Minshu not even come close to doing anything in this game. And there's a lot of takes that I have on this game right here, Joe House. But what was your thought about watching this Thursday night battle? Sharpie, I don't want to start with the glass half empty. The Minshue was the empty glass. We had Fitzmagic. And here is the most important question that I'll pose to you this evening. Chan Galey, great offensive coordinator or the greatest offensive coordinator?

Neither. Neither. I open up with three straight touchdowns with a mix of run and pass that had the Jaguars on their heels the entire first half of this football game. What do you make of that nonsense, Warren Sharp? Well, I make that Ryan Fitzpatrick absolutely. Let's talk some positives here. Was a brilliant magician with the football, perfect timing, knew when to run, leave the pocket. They were hitting guys underneath. They were hitting guys mid-range, very balanced early on. And I thought a great script and a great execution by him. So, of course, you know, what do you start?

11 for 11 with two touchdowns, 123 yards passing before he threw his first interception. So out of the gates, great job. And I was on Miami plus three. And so I was obviously very happy about that. And I was on Miami plus three as my larger position in this game. However, I was also on the over at 46. We'll talk about the line movement of this total, Joe House. But this was a game where you make some positive comments about,

Chang Galey and I appreciate the sentiment of how he started, but have you ever seen a guy get just turtle up and run between the tackles in the red zone over and over and over and over? We are lucky that Ryan Fitzpatrick actually ran that one touchdown in in the second half because Chang Galey was just insistent on running between the tackles, gaining three yards, every single play inside of the red zone. You know, there's a reason why the dolphin ceiling is going to be somewhat capped this year. And one of the reasons I think is they even made a comment on the broadcast, Joe. They were talking about the fact that this guy was sitting and playing with his grandkids

for three years before he gets involved calling plays again. Well, remember, I am a fan of the Washington might be professional football team. And what you're describing is the offense that I've watched here in Washington for the last half decades. So I'm very familiar with this, actually. Actually, you have a close relative there across the sidelines with the Jacksonville Jaguars. That was Jay Gruden. And what a disastrous play call he had.

He called a toss on third and five in Dolphins Territory as they're driving. Chris Thompson, another former Washington football team member, loses a yard. Now it sits up third and six and Minshue gets sacked and it's the Dolphins ball. I mean, I was a little bit confused by the play calling from Jay Gruden as well here, but Gardner Minchu just did not look comfortable. Everything from him was underneath checkdowns to the running backs. Conley just kept dropping balls down the field. I think the bigger point here is, I don't know if it was the dolphins confusing Minchu or if it was Minchu missing Shark that much that he just could not handle the pressure. But normally a guy who seemed to do pretty well in these types of games

just played terribly. The Dolphins defensive line got push and got pressure. They owned that line of scrimmage for a good portion of the game. They asserted their will, and you're absolutely right. I don't know what to attribute the discomfort that Fu-Minshu was experiencing, but he was uncomfortable for quite a bit of certainly the first half and some combination of play calling and lack of preparation. I don't know what else to attribute it to.

This, my friend, is the Jacksonville Jaguars. I was anticipating through the first three weeks of the season. They overachieved in the first two games. And I don't know, you know, what exactly to attribute that to. They were not ready tonight and Miami handed it to them. You're absolutely right. This was more like the Jacksonville Jaguars that we expected this season, right? This was supposed to be the team that had the worst record.

in the NFL. The Miami Dolphins were supposed to be bad, but not quite as bad as Jacksonville. And we got a little bit of overachieving in the first couple of weeks from the Jaguar. Somehow they beat the Colts, even though the Colts never punted the ball in that game. And they got very close. They rallied back. They were down. They rallied back to do well and make the game respectable against the Tennessee Titans ended up dropping that game. And of course, they got the Barn Doors blown off of them here with the Miami Dolphins, started out fast and furious. just picking apart this defense. And offensively, you're right, there was push.

It couldn't get it going. I thought both of these run games, initially there were some beneficial runs from Miles Gaskin. But overall, this guy delivered minus EPA per play. He totaled minus 3.8 EPA per play. Basically, that means is every single time they handed him the ball, in general, they ended up totally losing almost four points throughout the game, just by plays that they handed it to Miles Gaskin, and they handed him the ball 22 times.

So he was beneficial early, but the plays that they were running to him late, especially on some of these third downs down in the red zone, really bleeds into your EPA and causes you trouble. And that is relevant for people who I'm afraid are in the same predicament as you who bet the over in this game. And the over, let's just do a quick run through. of what happened with that over number because we're in this third week of the NFL season

and we're seeing some really crazy line swings here. This over under, this total at the beginning of the week was around 44, right? Yes, this total opened at 44 at a couple spots, 45 at others. And it started to take action immediately. I actually jumped on this thing early. Normally, I'm not going on a Monday. I actually went on a Monday for this Thursday game. We went on Monday and bet over at 46.

And this thing continued to rise 46.5, 47, 47 and a half, 48. We're sitting here on game day, I think it's 48.5 earlier today. And it continues to take money towards the over. Now, when a line typically moves from 44, some spots 45, all the way up to 48, and it got up to 49. Okay. Normally in that time we're talking about a four point middle. The people that bet the over initially are going to get off some of that money on the under

because there's such a big opportunity. The line has moved so much. This is really, it's very rare for a total to move that many points in the NFL. And so normally some of those people are going to get off. There's another group of betters, syndicate group, that will be waiting. they like the under in this game, and they're going to be waiting until they think the market has reached its peak. So oftentimes if a total is getting bet to the over and then the public gets involved,

typically the public gets involved on game days. So that money's not going to come until then. About three hours before kick, two hours before kick at the minimum, the groups are going to start betting the under and getting down as much money as they can on the under here. And a line that was at 48 and a half or 49 is going to drop back down to, 48 and a half or 48. We saw none of that under money come in on this game. And in fact, the line moved from 49 to 49 and a half in the hour before the kickoff. So we had some unprecedented one-way action here towards the over. Obviously, this is a massive win for the books to have this game

die out because how's the way that I look at games and try to evaluate whether I was on the right side or the wrong side, there's a couple different barometers that you want to use. You can't just look at the final score. A lot of people do that, but that's obviously the wrong barometer. What you first want to look at is, what is this thing trading at in-game betting? Like in live betting after the first quarter, into the second quarter, towards the end of the second quarter, what is the adjusted in-game total that you could bet? Because if it's much higher than the total was when the line closed, that means you probably made a good bet if you bet the over and vice versa. And this game was trading up in the mid to upper 50s.

Then you want to look at what the halftime adjusted number is. So in this case, they opened the second half number at 26.5. Now, the game had 28 points at halftime. So we're talking about an adjusted total on the game at halftime of 54 and a half. So anybody, even if you were terrible, even if you had zero read on the game and you're like, I can't bet with my local guy until Thursday and the total is at 48. and you bet the over at that point, even you are still in a position to win this game.

You're the strong favorite at that point to win this game because of what the game was currently being traded at started at the second half. But, of course, we saw the game just completely died out there in the second half, and we still could have won it late except for Gardner-Mintry throws an interception, what, at the three-yard line or something like that? Yeah, I mean, that's a genuine bad beat.

I mean, we, we, SVP and his show, we love them. God bless SVP. But they run a segment called Bad Beats that's really, they should just call it bad bets. Because in most instances, you know, it is an outcome that's not that big of an aberration from what the game trend is kind of suggested. And then I understand the entertainment aspect of it. And I'm entertained by it. But it's not real bad beat. I mean, a bad beat, you know, not to get all gambling nerd about it,

it's like something truly aberrational happens to swing the outcome. This game, the Miami Dolphins held Jacksonville to seven points until about halfway through the fourth quarter. So that was unanticipated. And you had 28 points in the first half, as you observed. So my question is, when you're sitting there in the position that you're in, and you have your play on that over. You see the adjusted 26 and a half or whatever it was for the second half.

Do you jump on any under for that to protect your position? So there's two schools of thought. The one school of thought is you've got a big middle opportunity here. And that's something you can't take lightly. Another school of thought is don't dilute your position if you really like it. Right. Like if you really are a massive favorite to win this game, don't try to get too cute by doing something else late.

Unless you think it's really plus EV, like you really don't like you really don't like the over anymore. And I will tell you that I did reach out to my guys and we discussed the second half under. So I didn't actually take it myself, but we definitely discussed it as a potential. And obviously hindsight to 2020, that would have been a way to ensure that we didn't lose that side. So I absolutely was paying attention to that second half number and we almost did something there. Well, I will say this as a kind of big takeaway.

This kind of validated the way that I thought Miami was going to fare this season. And it kind of validated the storyline I had in mind for Jacksonville for this season. And, you know, Miami looks like it could be a six or seven win team. you know, if they get a hot streak and Fitzmagic stays healthy. And Jacksonville could yet be the worst team in the NFL, depending on, you know, a couple things going and then whatever happens with the New York Jets. Yeah, it was, look, this game, DJ Shark not playing was a little bit of a surprise because he was sort of anticipated that he was trending in the right direction.

Those were the reports as of Wednesday. And then all of a sudden, you know, obviously today, he did not play. But I do not think that you can write off the Jaguars and just, say, well, they're complete and utter trash. Number one, you had that guy there starting tackle, get ejected from the game, which I thought was a really strange call. I don't know quite why the two officials were sort of like continuing to kneel there and have their hands over top of him when it didn't look like they were going after the football.

I don't know what your take on that play was. They were participating in the scrum, like they're on all fours covering the man. And he, the play was finished. possession had been established and he wanted to get up off the football field. Like him bumping into those, you can't like get down into the scrum and then act like you're untouchable. You're not untouchable anymore at that point as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, you're an active participant. So I could see their perspective, but I could also really see his perspective and I don't

know if it warranted an ejection, but that hurts their O line, right? James Rob's hit that hurts their O line. And then also to consider that the Jagger's, Maguire's made trips to the Dolphins, 22-yard line, 26-yard line, 35-yard line, and 45-yard line. Zero points combined. So we're not talking a team. Yes, they only scored 13 points in this game, but they easily could have had more points than that. Of course, you had the pick the interception late.

I think he was throwing the ball from his 22-yard line when it was intercepted. But you had ample opportunities to score points on any one of those drives. And of course, the total would have gone over, but let's forget about that. Let's think more so about Jacksonville for the rest of their season. They were better than what the final score indicated in this game. But I got to say, I mean, the play calling on both sides was a little bit suspect, in my opinion. You had the bizarre play, too, where the dolphins had a third and five, and they called a run play to set up a fourth and one. I believe it was on the Jaguars 39-yard line.

So they were in plus territory. they were up on the scoreboard, and then they just stood at the line of scrimmage and waited for the play clock to expire and took a five-yard delay. This is like in the first half, I believe, or the start of the third quarter. It was absurd. I mean, why wouldn't you continue to stay somewhat aggressive there? I did not understand the run play. And if you're going to call a run, you think that you're going to go for it on fourth down, and then you don't even do that. Totally bizarre, punting from the opponent's other 39-yard line. This shows you why some of these teams, They're not used to winning. They don't understand the consistent principles of plus EV play calling and decision making. And they play too conservative. They don't know how to be in the driver's seat and really just emphatically win. Like, look, my opinion, obviously part of, I was happy. I won more money on the dolphins winning with this game going under than I would have if the situation was reversed, if the Jags won.

But it went over. So I was happy with the result. I wanted the 2-0 night. I went one and one, but plus money. But my issue is that a team like the dolphins, you need to practice habits that makes your players want to come out and ball. And I know you could say getting the win is good. But when I'm down there inside the Reds and what were they on like the 12 yard line late

in the game, they just ran three times between the tackles and then, you know, kick the field goal. Like if I'm Brian Flores, I want to reward my guys. It is fun to score touchdowns. It helps their stats. It helps their psychology. I want to let these guys score. So I don't want to just, you know, we'll kick the field goal if we can't get the first down, obviously, but at least try to get the first down with some creative play calls to give your team that opportunity to score touchdowns

and feel that much better about yourself. Look, Sharpie, you're asking a lot of the granddad. Chang Gale likes being a granddad. He's enjoying the time with the, he might have had a Zoom call with the grandkids at halftime. And that's what made him take the foot off the penalty. a little bit. I mean, don't be so harsh on the Granddad. That's the first time in 39 games. The

Miami Dolphins have won by 10 points or more. They have righted the ship. Things are headed in the right direction in South Beach. All right, Sharp, you think we've done enough here on Dolphins Jags? I'm not even sure Dolphins and Jags fans need this much time on this game. I think we're good.

Let's let the granddad play with his grandkids. All right, House, we saw a really exciting week two this past week. Before we dive into week why don't you recap a little bit of how teams fared in week two? Yeah, so NFL week two betting results. Favorites went seven and nine against the spread, home team seven and nine against the spread.

Underdogs, two and 14 straight up. So if you had money line action out there on favorites, that was a good week for you. And then we saw a little result in terms of the totals with the overrunners. Overs went 11 and 5. So now season to date, the. the overtotal is now at 20 and 12 for the season. Favorites are 15, 16, and 1 against the spread, home team 16, 15, and 1 against the spread.

That stuff's not that interesting because there's no real aberrational stuff in there. The over-under thing, though, is a big deal, and it fits the thesis that you advanced when we kicked off this show at the very outset of the NFL season two weeks ago, that overs could be an opportunity. They're hitting at over 62% right now. Is that sustainable Warren Sharp? So it is not sustainable long term,

but the question is, are we seeing anything right now with the way that these games are being played or called that leads us to believe that this will not continue, at least for the near-term future? And that's how you should be betting, in my opinion.

And I am not seeing anything that leads me to believe that this pattern is going to get reversed suddenly. And so for that perspective, I think that they're still inherently, and we're seeing this with some of the totals this week. We saw it last week. Normally, I'll just tell you in a normal season house, like in week two, let's pretend a game opens at 45 and it gets bet. It's like a lot of people, really sharp people, maybe myself included, like the over. and this thing gets bet three points. It goes up to 48, maybe even 48 and a half. I mean, it's rare that a total is going to move three, four points. Okay, but let's pretend it got the 48 and a half, 49. Normally, we will always see close to kickoff, under money come in, buyback, shoot for middle opportunities or people who disagreed with the line initially going up and they're betting the under because they like it more there. And we see a little bit of two-way action, a little bit of the line dropping back down. We are not. seeing that right now. We are not seeing the market really coming back down on some of these totals, even those that get bet several points towards the over. So it will eventually happen,

but I don't anticipate it happening week three. Okay. Well, we know I've seen across the board that scoring is up, and we just had a whole spate of injuries, unfortunately. Again, something that you forecasted when we kicked off the show two weeks ago. It sucks to be right on those two couple of predictions. Yeah. Does that injury wave affect, you know, the scoring remaining up? Does it have any impact at all? It absolutely has an impact.

It depends on who is actually getting hurt. So every game is a little bit of its own little environment, trying to figure out who's hurt and who's active. But unfortunately, we are seeing record. numbers of injuries in week two. You know, year to date, we may have fewer ACL tears compared to prior off seasons, but we are definitely seeing in season more guys go down, more guys popping up on the injury report.

And absolutely, if you've got quarterbacks down or wide receiver ones that are down, it is going to impact things from a scoring perspective. So let's go ahead and use as an example, one of the games that I've kind of been, you know, sizing up and thinking about. And I just wanted to make this injury. point that you're describing in the context of a real live game on week three slate, and that is the Giants getting four at home against the San Francisco 49ers. San Francisco's offense is decimated, and the Giants, you know, through two weeks have shown

a little bit of life on the defensive side of the ball. I like their run defense, you know, I think it's pretty good. The two angles that I'm considering for that game are the under and the giant. with the four points. In the context of these injuries that we're talking about, do you have a view on that game? Not a strong view. This is the type of game that I just don't want to have anything to do with when we're talking about there's betting opportunities in the marketplace and some of the information is more known and digestible than others. And here, you got so many moving pieces on both sides of the ball that I really don't know how strategies are going to be impacted from a coaching

perspective, right? Like, is the coach going to try new techniques or new strategies because of these injuries that we can't anticipate and predict? And if that's the case, then there's a higher risk inherent with betting on either side or the total of this game. I mean, clearly we can see that you can see from the screen and I could tell you from the fact that Sharp Money has bet the under. and if you did happen to like the under here, 41 is somewhat of a key number. So getting under 41 and a half would be the way to look there. If you wanted to take the under, you're still on the right side of a key number. But I personally don't have any interest in betting any part of this game.

I know that there are also some big question marks about this playing surface that contributed to some of the injuries from the San Francisco 49ers last game. And they're playing back in the same exact stadium on the same exact field that Kyle Shanahan absolutely hated. and went after, and that could be a factor in like the psychology even of some of the players and how often he's using guys if they've got the game in hand at all. So there's a lot of things here, a lot of moving parts. I will say that, yes, the Giants run defense has been very good. It's ranked number sixth in terms of efficiency, but they have played the 30s, the schedule of rushing

offenses year to date. So that is something to factor in. I will keep sharing some of the strength of schedule information as the season goes on to take that into context as we're talking about how different units are ranking and things of that nature. That's great and that's very, very helpful. Well, I will share with you, I went myself eight and eight against a spread last week. I bet every single game against a spread. I make a play. I don't necessarily bet. Eight and eight, so I'm 21 and 12 overall against the spread for the season, and I helped my bank rollout. I hit a six team teaser last week. Whoa. I know. I mean, so we talked last week about the, what were the odds. What were the odds of you getting on that? Do you remember? I got nine to one,

I think. Okay. Is that right? No, no, I got six to one. I got six to one on that. Okay. So talk to me about some of the legs you put in there. Well, it was, it was this move to comfort because week one, I tried this strategy of coming up with an anchor, this idea of picking one game where I felt very strong. I had strong conviction about one team, one side, and that was the Indianapolis Colts at Jacksonville. And because I had spread the Indianapolis Colts into virtually every wager that I made, I had a losing week. And you helped last week on the show point out maybe some of the frailty of that strategy. Maybe not. Maybe you want to do a little round robin. And in fact, this week, week two on the, on the dance card was more of a round robin kind of thing. It was all favorites.

I was looking for comfort from favorites for the for the most part. The teams that I liked were Tampa that I liked Dallas. I like Kansas City and I liked Baltimore. And so I kind of spread out some combination of money line plays and teasers amongst those teams. And I didn't hit. How much were you sweating at that Dallas game and then the Chiefs game. I mean, to put both of those things in the Moneyline Parleyes and teasers, I mean, you must be living right house because you got those are ones where you just say, I lost. I mean, when I was looking at it, it wanted at 2.30 in the afternoon, I was like, I'm going to turn off football and watch the U.S. Open. I got to, I had a lot of action on golf also head to head and golf, by the way. Some day we

to do a podcast on that because there's a lot of opportunities in professional golf. But yeah, so I hit the 16 teaser was Tampa minus three, Pittsburgh minus one, Dallas getting one and a half teased through with the Falcons, the Niners minus one, the Ravens minus one. And then the chiefs were on there also, but that was a push because I didn't get it early enough. So it ended up paying out as a five team, even though I played it as a six team. If the cheese had lost and not pushed, I would have lost it. But it paid out four and a half to one, covered up all of the ugly warts from both week one and week two.

So happy with that result. Yeah. And I could tell you, you know, the sports books were not happy with that result. Again, the goal here for us is to not care about what the sports books have to say. But what we will see is the favorites tend to get a little bit more inflated. after weeks like that, maybe not across the board and maybe not by a substantial amount, but the books are certainly not happy that guys like you were able to hit all these long shot money line parleys and teasers just throwing favorites together.

Right, yeah. So we can anticipate when a week like that, now the favorites only went seven to nine against a spread, but they were popular favorites, right? I haven't sat down to do the analysis. And this is something we can talk about over the course of the season. season, like how much of the betting tickets, like the quantity of money that went into the favorites that hit, right? And on parleyes and money and teasers, the popular teams like the chiefs, like Baltimore, like Tampa, that's where the books have more exposure, right? Right, exactly.

All the favorites that the public tends to love will get teased more, especially when it just seems like it's a can't miss. And we got a can't miss, actually, I can't miss underdog later on this card that we're going to talk about. But no, I'm glad that you got that hit. This is not something that you should be expecting every time, but it did help your week one situation with the anchor. So it is, like I said, it is not the squares thing in the world to roll in several of these things, but I will tell you, I have not seen in any of these accounts guys parlaying or sorry, teasing, like, over three teams together. Over that is just rolling the dice a little bit too much.

Where you want to be doing it is some round robins with two teamers and then maybe throwing all three into like one. But I would not really advise in the future a bunch of six teamers because it's going to be very difficult to hit those with any type of regularity. But that's why they set the odds at plus 500 or whatever you were able to guess. Right. Let me be extremely clear. I only do that once a week at most, and it's after I've built what I think is a more disciplined, sensible kind of approach this past week.

I mean, you know, it was just one thing. Like, if this hits, it's great. If it doesn't hit, I can live with the outcome. Let me just ask you this. How crazy were you going in your house at House's house when that did hit? How psychotic were you acting when the chiefs ended, when Bucker, hit that 58-yarder. Was that the final leg that you had?

It was the final leg. It was insane. I have to stop watching. When it got into overtime, when the Chiefs back came all the way back, we got into overtime, I can't keep watching the game. I can't handle it.

And especially as it came down in overtime, the next team to score, it got to be that sudden death kind of position in that Kansas City, San Diego game. I went and did errands in the backyard and then came back in like every 10 minutes just to see how things were changing. But I did. I was present for all three of Butker's field goal attempts at the very end of that game, which is, you know, insane.

And it's more relief than anything else. It wasn't like a wild, I'm running around high-fiving myself because I certainly can't get too excited in front of my wife and kid to let them, I can't convey what's on the line. Well, let me ask you this. So is it, is it, and I just want to get into your psychology. I know we got to move on. They're probably telling us keep it going, guys. But, you know, I'm curious because I don't really interact with too many betters like yourself. So I want to, I want to, I want to get the psychology here. Do you walk away from the TV because your heart can't take it or because, like, because you're going crazy inside your brain and you just don't want to, like, are you less stressed when you're not watching it outside? Or are you just the same stressed, but it's just something else that you're doing? I am less stressed if I'm not sitting, watching it, living through the pain and agony of it. And, you know, my emotions tied to every single call, every single outcome. I can't, in my advanced age, Warren Sharp, that is no way to live. So I've learned this about myself, though. I know that I can get worked up.

I know that it's like I become slightly irrational. And so I separate myself from the situation. I got it. Well, you got to do whatever is healthiest for you. You know, betting, obviously, as we know, is not the healthiest thing. doing it professionally for a long time, you grow numb to the wins and losses. Like, you're obviously happy when you get a win, but you never get too high. And losses, you're just you just keep looking for edges the following week. You never really let it impact you too much.

And I can tell you most of my losses end up being of the ridiculous, obscene variety where it's unlikely that this were going to happen, but it ends up happening. Like those, it's not just the fact You mean like the Atlanta Falcons losing on a on side's kick on Sunday? That kind of ridiculous obscene outcome? Exactly. Exactly. If I was on that game, which I was not, I would, that would be the type of game that you would just, this is like the type of game that we would typically lose. Right.

Like, so at any rate, let's move along here to the next subject, which I know you wanted to ask some questions, house, about some other advantage plays that you could be making or that you. you're thinking of now that we're doing this betting podcast, and one of which is player props. So talk to me a little bit about what some of your questions are regarding player props. Yeah, Sharpie. So look, over the first two pods that we've had here together, there's been a couple moments here where you have done something that I would say you're the teacher and I am the pupil. You know, I am reaching and you are teaching. And so we put it. it out to the listeners last week. He said, maybe we come up with a name for this segment.

And somebody sent along, I think on Instagram, the sharp points. Do you like that? Sharp points? Yeah, sure. I like that. All right. Maybe we can get a little sound thing with that. Maybe see money. Producer Craig can come up

with something to really denote when we're jumping into the sharp points. So one of the things that I know that you traffic in heavily with your service and and what you do with the folks that are subscribers. Traffic. I like that word. You make it sound, you know, like under the table.

Well, no, it's available. Any person who's willing to make the investment can try and get returned by getting the service. But I know from as a subscriber that you and your guys look for opportunities with player props. And now that we are two weeks into the season, I'm wondering if you are starting to see some opportunities in terms of player performance, some trends out of teams and individual guys that make you excited about, you know, week three going forward. Yeah. So a couple things about player props. It's just like the betting, the regular betting market. And that is that generally speaking, obviously this year is a little bit unique and different. but generally speaking, favorites and overs get a little bit inflated if you're talking about the regular betting market. And the same is true with the prop market in terms of betting on overs. It's just like House, I mean, I'm sure you're in a fantasy football league. This was the first year that I decided

not to participate so I could invest all of my efforts into what I'm doing inside the league and not just little fantasy opportunities for myself. But I used to do fantasy all the time. And in fantasy, what you're looking to do is you're trying to find when you're drafting players, like, who's the best guy who's going to do well for me this season, right? So that's what you're looking at. You're not looking at all the shitty guys who you don't think are going to do well. You're looking like which guy is going to be the best of the rest of the bunch that's available. And when you're looking to figure out who you're going to start, you're looking for the positives of these guys. Like, who's going to do the best for me? Oh, I think this guy has upside. Look at this matchup. He's going to do well for

me. So that's how you're loading up guys into your lineup. Well, from the prop perspective, like that positive mindset is what a lot of people have when they enter the prop market. So their eyes really gravitate to who are the players that I think are going to do well. And then let me find a way that I can bet them over their numbers in the props, whether it's like receptions or receiving yards or carries or, you know, rushing yards, things of that nature. And so a lot of people are looking to bet over in some of those numbers. But the reality is the true value in the prop market is on betting unders. They're more likely to hit the odds makers inflate these totals. And so some of the sharpest action out there is betting unders in the prop market, whether it's rushing yards, whether it's

receiving yards, whether it's rushing plus receiving yards, whether it's number of receptions or passing yards, or betting the nose on various different things. Like, no, this guy won't score touchdown. No, this guy won't pass for over one and a half touchdowns. Like a lot of different things are going to be more plus EV just by betting against things to happen. But our brains are trained to look for the positives in players specifically because we're so used to playing fantasy football. And so we're looking for reasons why we should be starting certain guys and we're looking for the positive as opposed to the negatives. All right, one quick break. We're going to hear from a couple of our sponsors. Gambling gurus, the ringer NFL show, also brought to you by Fandul

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Bacardi, USA, Coral Gables, Florida, rum with natural flavors and spices, 35% alcohol by volume. So you just use plus EV. That means plus expected value. And you're saying that expected value resides in the unders and knows on balance because the books, the market has anticipated the psychology of people like me and our desire for only good things to happen in our football lives along with the rest of our lives and wanting to bet the overs.

So there's no value in betting overs. The real value is in betting the unders. Is that the proper way to synthesize what you just said? It's a great way to synthesize it. The only loan expectation is that it's not all overs are bad and never bet any over. Certainly, we're finding spots where we think that there's value because we're doing our own projections. And so there are spots where there's going to be value.

But we're talking about if you literally bet blindly everything across the board, you would stand to make money if you bet on nose and unders as opposed to you would lose money if you bet every single prop, yes and over. And here's one final thing, final point to make on this. You know, sports books, especially when they're hanging spreads at times, and we covered this a little bit on the Wednesday show, they will take positions. They will take stances. We'll be talking about a game in one second where the books are hanging a hook out there and they know the public is buying that hook and they're taking this underdog plus three and a half. And the books are still keeping that number up there. It's sometimes the books want to take a position. They

want to be a little bit lopsided on a game because they think they've got the right side and they want you to bet on the wrong side. With player props, they cannot afford to do any of that. There's too many players. There's too many numbers out there. They have to adjust the spreads and the lines and the juice based upon the action that they're taking in. So they're not really going to take stances. Well, we're going to hang a low number. Maybe in the Super Bowl, they might be able to do a little bit of that when they got enough time to work on these things. But regular throughout the course of the week, 17 weeks during the season, they're just trying to balance their action as close as possible. So they're trying to hang what they think could be the real number on all of these things.

And then they're going to, they know that the professionals aren't betting every single one of these props. Most of the time, the public is ones who are betting a lot of these various props. So they're going to inflate the numbers a little bit knowing that it's mostly going to be public action on some of these props. And that's why you see across the board, generally speaking, value towards unders and nose. Okay. I mean, that all makes sense. So I still will sit with my computer, my phone, very close to my body on Sunday as you and your shop start pushing some of the stuff out. I absolutely loved the Cam Newton over rushing yards on Sunday. That hit, right? That hit. It was a thriller, came down towards, you know, I think the final drive we got it,

or the drive before that. But some of these are closer than others. Like we did take the over in like a Jerry Judy receiving yards prop when he played on Monday night. And he had the big catch right before the end of the first half. It was like garbage time production. But it went a long way to smashing the over there. But a lot of the stuff that we end up taking are unders and nose, especially closer to kickoff. And why would you want to do that closer to kickoff?

Is because a lot of the money has come in on the overs and the yeses. The odds maker has been forced. to adjust these lines a little bit more in the favor of those plays. And so you're going to get better numbers or better juice, betting the under is late. This is why I just said. I have to have the computer and the phone very nearby,

almost on my body. Yes, sir. Well, speaking of On My Body, we have week three games coming up here, and I want to keep my kneecaps intact. There is some opportunity I have seen, and I want to shout out to the dudes at Action Network, been a big fan, they know that.

I've talked about them on a whole variety of podcasts over the years, but they have a nice angle that I saw here where you're looking at betting teams that are 0 and 2 against the spread in week three. And I have a few stats for you that I want to share because there's one game that just stinks to high heaven, but I kind of like it. So teams that don't cover in weeks,

one and two, in week three, they go, they hit the number 58% of the time. If they didn't cover in the first two weeks and they lost both games, you move up to 61%. Teams that come into week three as underdogs of a touchdown or more, this is where it gets juicy. And this is all in like the last 16, 17 years, 78% against the spread. So there's only one team coming into week three as an underdog of a touchdown or more. And unfortunately, it is the New York Jets at Indy, currently sitting, I saw it go all the way up to 12. It was at 11 during the week. It's now up to 12 on the book I'm looking at. And I don't like the idea of touching that because that's only two scores and the Jets as you and Chris Vernon so thoroughly covered on.

Wednesday's Ringer NFL show. They are a hot effing mess, and it begins and ends with bug eyes himself, Adam Gase. But I am considering teasing the Jets up to 17 or 18 because then you're talking about a three score kind of difference, as opposed to 11 points is only, you know, two scores. 17 or 18, now we're up into three score territory.

Can I hold my nose and play the Jets this week? Well, you could. Yes, absolutely, because you know the public is not going to be doing that. I will tell you that the Colts were very sharp at nine and a half and ten points. That's what was being laid on the Colts at that point. So you're going to want to wait, right, until you can get the highest of the high before you would want to do something like that, number one. Number two, there's injury concerns on both sides of the ball here, obviously, but I know

that Adam Gase has gone on record saying that as long as you're not a corpse, if you have any type of pulse, you're going to be playing in this game because they just don't have the bodies. Their wide receiver core is completely depleted. They're down their starting center as well. It's just not looking good for the New York Jets this week from a health perspective. And somehow, some way house, he is going to find a way to trot out 11 personnel on 80% of his passing plays. He's going to find some receiver. on the practice squad, elevate him, and he's going to take a bunch of snaps. He's going to keep the best option on offense that they've got, Chris Hernd, the tight end.

They're going to keep him into block. They're not going to let him run route, so they're just going to use these 11 personnel out there 80% of the time. I don't know what the Jets are doing, quite frankly, but I do think they've got their defense better buttoned up than the Vikings do. I will just say that. And so there is a better chance that they are able to slow down the Colts a little bit more from that perspective. The Colts are a slow-tempoed offense. And, you know, I would not advocate the

T's personally, but I could see the strategy in sometimes you just got to pinch your nose and say, this line is too high. I'm going to take the ugliest, stinkiest dog in here, and I'm just going to put it on my card. And that's one of the games where do not even check the score. Do not, like, I watch every game. So I can't say this, like, this is not advice I'm going to take for myself. for you, because I know you already just don't even look at it. Don't even care about it. Do not tie it into a million other things. Just let it play out and hope to cash your ticket at the end of the game.

That's right. That's exactly what we do with the stinky of stinky dogs. That's enough talk on sticky dogs. We have an incredible game this week, the marquee game of the season, although it will be tough to top that Seattle, New England game. That was an incredible football game. I could not have enjoyed that anymore. But we have on the slate for week three Monday night football.

The Kansas City Chiefs are in Baltimore against the Ravens. And right now, you can get the Kansas City Chiefs at three and a half points. And my question to you as a square better is this, if I can get more than a field goal with one of the two best teams in the league. And to me, you know, one A, one B, chiefs might be. be the best. Don't you take the hook? Don't you love the hook? Don't I play the Chiefs at three and a half? Well, especially in a season, right, where there's no home field or the home field is significantly reduced, right? It seems too good to be true. It seems like why would the books give you this hook on a three? We already know plus three sounds great to the average

better, right? Like, I can lose by a field goal. Now I got the best quarterback in the game catching points. Here's the four things that I think the public cares most about. out in this game. And it's why two out of every three tickets is being written up on the Chiefs and why I think that goes up to three out of every four by the time this thing starts in terms of the action that comes in between after Thursday night football through Sunday afternoon and into Monday night. Number one, Mahomes catching points, absolute no-brainer. Number two, the Chiefs are defending Super Bowl champs. Number three, Lamar and the Ravens choke. and number four, Mahomes is 2 and O against Lamar Jackson.

So you put those four nuggets in front of anybody in the public, and there's no doubt they're running to plug down their money on the Kansas City Chiefs plus three and a half. Now, I know that much of the pandemonium over Lamar Jackson is real, but I feel in a small part responsible for some of that. I mean, like I was flown to L.A. to talk about it. I was driven up to Baltimore to talk about it. I get crab cake sent to me every single year, but because I talked about it, being at the forefront of predicting that Lamar Jackson is going to be really good. But I will tell you, driving that bandwagon, there's a lot of haters that got involved when they lose their playoff games, right? And when they lost to the Titans, I can't tell you how many people are like, I told you Lamar Jackson's not very good. Lamar's not as good as you thought, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the vast majority of the public kind of seems to agree with that a little bit.

And if given the choice of Lamar Jackson or Patrick Mahomes, nobody says anything negative about Mahomes. Whether you're Sharp, Square, the biggest Joe public, everybody will think that Lamar is worse than Patrick Mahomes and he's the better quarterback. So this is a massive public underdog. and you're catching three and a half points. So that's why I know that you like it, House. I mean, I am Joe Public. I'm literally Joe Public. So give me the rationale for Baltimore covering that number.

So that's the first thing that you want to look at. Anytime that you see a bet that seems too good to be true, you've got to figure out, how could the other side actually cover this game? How could my position lose? So there's two things that concern me about this game for the Chiefs. It's their defense first, and then secondly, it's their offense. So let's break it down.

We're basically going to cover both sides of the football for Kansas City. I'm going to start with their run defense. Okay. Now, week one, they allowed runs from the Houston Texans to gain 5.4 yards per carry. And David Johnson himself averaged seven yards per carry. We watched that game, and we're like, like, shit, is this guy good again? Like, what's going on with David Johnson? And then the very next week, he goes back down to his normal self, averaging only 3.1

yards per carry against the Baltimore Ravens run defense. So was this an aberration? How was he doing this against Kansas City? So then we think, okay, let's let's just put it on hold. We're not sure about this run defense yet. Let's not make any rash decisions or judgments right now. Let's see what happens week two. Week two, they go up against the Chargers. Now, the LA Chargers, I mean, bizarrely, the team doc punctures the starting quarterbacks long seconds before the game starts. All of a sudden, your rookie quarterback who apparently, I mean, I'm going based upon what I've been told, was practicing with the ones in that game. All of a sudden, the split second before kickoff, he's being told, you're going to be the starter.

Go out there. Good luck to you, buddy. Pat them on the butt. And now you're starting against the Kansas City Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes. They get the ball, the first drive, and they drive all the way down the field and score a touchdown. Now, in part, this actually was a benefit to the chargers because the, this is a The Chiefs had no freaking idea what this quarterback was going to do. They never prepared for him a lick.

The whole defense was out on the field planning the whole week to go up against Tyrod Taylor. So just because he's a rookie does not mean that it's going to be simple, easy to prepare for, and they went down the field and scored right away. But let me tell you the bigger concern that I have about the Chief's defense having watched that performance. You would think that a Chargers offense putting a rookie quarterback out there with no experience so far would have been running the ball a lot on early downs. And because that's their only way, I mean, you don't want this guy dropping back at passing all

the time. You would also think that the chiefs know that too. So they might not know that the very first series, but Spagnolo should be on the sideline after that first series or the next year being like, let's stop the run here and force this guy to beat us. Like we're not going to let the run game beat us. Okay. Now, the Chargers ran the ball 39 times on early downs.

no other team so far this season in any game has run the ball more than 39 times on early downs in a game. They ran the ball 61% of their plays on early downs. The average is only 48%. Yet somehow on these runs being extremely predictable running the highest rate of any team, they gained 64% success and 4.5 yards per carry. Both of those are above the NFL average for early down, production. Not only is it crazy, but the Chargers rushing attack the week before. Do you remember the week before House when the Chargers with Tyrod Taylor went to Cincinnati and tried to beat the Cincinnati Bengals? They ultimately did win that game. They recorded just a 42% success rate in 3.8 yards per carry on the ground. Do you remember what happened the very next week on Thursday night

football where the Cleveland Browns ran all over the field against this Browns defense, Bengals defense? Yeah, I had Bill Simmons on the other side of a fantasy football matchup and the son of a bitchhead Nick Chubb. Yes, I'm acutely aware of what the Browns did to the Bengals run defense, you know, how they control that game. Yes, sir. So the Chargers couldn't run for a lick against that terrible Bengals run defense that got destroyed by Chubb and you lost your league to Bill. However, the Chargers go and run all over the place the very next week on a Chiefs defense that should have been planning just to stop the run. This is the biggest edge that this team could have with this rookie quarterback. So that is a major concern for me because now you're going up against the most diverse

and complex rushing attack that there is that can run the ball all over the place from a bunch of different players. The second thing is the Chief's passing offense is just not the same right now as it was, particularly in the first half of games. So let's flash back to last season. Last year in the first half of games, this team. in the first half, average 9.1 yards per attempt plus 0.37 EPA per attempt. That's expected points added per attempt. This season in the first half of games, only 4.8 yards per attempt with 0.06 EPA per attempt.

Way down, way down compared to what they were last season in the first half. They're getting started off in these games much, much slower. And the question becomes, are they going to get started off faster this week? against the Baltimore Ravens? I don't know. I don't know. I'm a little bit worried that they will, but I know that with the strong rushing attack that the Ravens have, I feel pretty confident that they're going to get started off pretty well on the ground running the football. And I know the square betters out there are going to say, well, yeah, but the chiefs beat these guys twice. The chiefs were crushing them last year until they came back. That game last year was in week three of the 2019 season. This game this year is in week three of the 2020 season. Yes.

It's been a full calendar year of Lamar Jackson developing as a passer and gets better weapons out there to throw the football to. I think that Lamar Jackson, in that game against the Chiefs last year in week three, Lamar completed only 22 of 43 passes, only averaged 6.2 yards per attempt at 35% success rate. I expect Lamar to play much better in this game. I expect the Ravens to be able to run the football. So if you're going to say, well, wow, this seems like a. slam dunk, three and a half points should be pretty easy because I'm taking the better quarterback.

And I love my coach, Andy Reid, and they've beaten them twice before. I think they'll be able to at least cover three and a half. I'm showcasing and sharing with you guys a number of reasons why you may want to pump the brakes and say, well, at least here's a different perspective on this game. All right, Warren, I need to take a break. We want to listen to this trailer from the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. those guys have been killing it with advice, recommendations, and guidance all season long. Let's get some good lineups going.

Fantasy football is back, and you don't want your team to suck. My favorite fantasy football punishment I've ever heard is the last place guy had to spend 24 hours in a waffle house, and every waffle he ate was one hour off of his count. I want numbers. How many did he end up eating? 12 waffles and 12 hours. I'm Danny Hyattitz. I'm Danny Kelly. And I'm Craig Horlebeck.

We host the Ringer Fantasy Fantasy. football show on the Ringer podcast network. To avoid eating 12 waffles in a Waffle house, follow the Ringer Fantasy Football Show on Spotify. Well, I am convinced I'm not playing this game. I'm not touching it because one of the things that I recall

from the first couple of shows that we've done here is you raising your eyebrow slightly at the Chief's yards per passing attempt. And we both recapped after the Houston game how they played a real dink and dunk game. They really didn't try

and stretch the field, and it looked like the same kind of thing against San Diego last week. Now, San Diego has had success. Kudos to Anthony Lynn at keeping Mahomes under wraps. His passing yards against the Chargers, I call him San Diego. I'm going to keep doing that. I don't care. I'm going to call him San Diego until they move back. But the passing yards from Mahomes against the Chargers has been under 300 yards a bunch of times.

This one feels to me like a layoff, and let's just see what happens, right? I need to see more from the Chief's offense. That's the side of it that's more concerning than the defense. That defense is the same defense as what feels like the Chief's defense in the last handful of years, which is it takes them a while before they really start stopping the run. I mean, I feel like we've been saying that for a couple of years now. Yeah, and the Ravens were able to crush them. Mark Ingram himself averaged 6.4 yards per carry and an 88% success rate.

He gained 103 yards and only 16 carries that game. And the team as a whole, factoring in Lamar and a couple of the backup running backs, average 6.3 yards per carry in a 72% success rate on 32 plays. So they were able to run on them last year, and it looks like the run defense is actually a little bit worse by my eyes. And especially when we look at what a team did against them versus another opponent this year. So I think there's the opportunity for us to see a lot of rushing from the Ravens and for them

to do well. We cannot end this conversation about this game without. just noting that this game is so massive to earn that number one overall seed because there is only one seed and there's very likely like whoever wins this game basically has a game and a half advantage over the opponent moving forward these clearly are two of the best teams in the NFL right now both of their Super Bowl odds are plus 500 right now so like if you like Kansas City and you think Kansas City can get this game pulled out I strongly would also recommend you might as well just put KC plus 500 to win the Super Bowl on your betting card this weekend. Because if they win this game,

their strength of schedule the rest of the way is easier than Baltimore's. And there's a good chance that Baltimore is not going to win too more barring like an injury, which we can't forecast right now, that they're going to have a better record and have that number one seat home field advantage. Of course, you still have to win their games in the playoffs and defend home field and maybe beat the Ravens once again in Kansas City this time. But there's definitely some advantage to do that. And conversely, if you like the Ravens here and you think that they are three and a half points better and should win this game, then you might want to do the same exact type of thing. And also take a little bit of that positive payout on Baltimore, which is also, they are also

right now plus 500 to win the Super Bowl. Oh, wow. Great, great, great angle. That's right. So because the advantage for whoever wins the has the best record of the conference is the week one by and only one team is getting a week one by in each conference this year because of the playoff revamp, right? Exactly. Exactly. Incredible. All right. Well, look, I'm going to stay away from this game because I want to see more. Now, I say that we're taping on a Thursday. This is a go up on a Friday. I say that now, come Monday. I don't know. I might have a change your heart. But right now, I want to stay away from this. I just think I will enjoy the game more if I don't have anything on it and just sort of take it in to see which of these various advantages and disadvantages we're

talking about become the prevailing dynamic. And that's a fun part too, House. I'll just at last point. You could also bet some props. Like if you're like, man, I'm so mentally unprepared to figure out and really defend a position here one way or another. I don't want to time up my money on that. You could always turn to the player prop market as well.

We discussed that earlier. It could be a lot of player props. that you can bet on for this game, and you could try to just root for a particular player on a particular team. How inflated will Lamar Jackson's rushing total number be? That's the one I like the best. Yeah, well, I can maybe look it up.

Some spots may have posted it already. I don't know if it'll be out this early, but... Okay, so I'm going to keep an eye out for that Lamar number. Just out of interest. We'll see. I love it when you put something else in front of me. It's not a main course. Appetizers can be delicious.

too. Oh, yeah. Sometimes meals just with appetizers are a way to go. I don't know if you ever just have those appetizer meals. All apps. Every app on the menu. Absolutely right. This next game I want to ask you about also fits kind of that appetizer portion of the menu. We have been, and by we, I mean you, very, very strong with your conviction and belief that the Minnesota Vikings suck. And they suck particularly on defense. They had to because of injury and guys who opted out of the season really revamp on the fly. And they have through two games thus far the NFL season not done anything to convince us that that defense is coming around. To compound matters, Kirk Cousins was horrendous last week against the Indianapolis Colts. You were very strong.

and advocating for the Colts over the Vikings. I think the Vikings were favorites last week, which was absurd. This week, the Tennessee Titans are laying two and a half points. They're at Minnesota. We have successfully faded Minnesota through the first two weeks. Is there any value in pursuing that strategy in week three? I still feel like the odds maker doesn't really know what to make the Vikings home field. We've talked about that ad nauseum earlier, just league.

but also in Minnesota with that stadium. So that is a real issue why I think that this line is not already at three because they don't really know what to make the number, but certainly they're getting more tickets, more action on the Tennessee Titans. Ordinarily, if you look at this game house, you would probably say the Vikings make a perfect teaser like. And they do going through those key numbers. But until I see more from this team, this is a game that I'm probably, as of this, moment just laying off of. Because I've had success fading the Vikings, like you said, two weeks in a row, and it looks too easy to just fade them right here. There are major concerns, though, I will say, if you look at like the run defense, for example, the run defense of the Minnesota Vikings

is obviously the big problem that we anticipated heading into this game, heading into this season with all the moving pieces and players lost and opt-outs and that sort of thing. And they do rank poorly against the run. They right now rank 10th worst in the NFL from an efficiency perspective. They have, however, faced the fourth toughest schedule of opposing rushing offenses, particularly when you look at the Green Bay Packers. Now, the Tennessee Titans have not looked good on the ground, but Tennessee, the rushing attack, has played the fifth toughest schedule of opposing run defenses. And now they get to go up against a play two basically top 10 run defenses. Jacksonville is top 10 right now from an efficiency perspective. And Denver is 11th best.

Now they get to face the 10th worst. So like from a fantasy perspective, like this could be the game. Derek Henry finally gets going here and can deliver touchdowns with rushing yards associated with those two combined. Thank God. As a day. But I will I will say, I will say that I'm concerned about some of the comments that I've heard coming out of this Vikings camp. You know, I made a comment about this on Twitter. But Gary Kubiak, their new offensive coordinator after, you know, obviously Kevin Savansky left and went to Cleveland, Kubiak says that their yards per carry average on the ground when they run the football has been pretty good.

We're just not running the football enough. So like his solution is just because we've had good yards per carry, we should run the ball more. So, I mean, we're not going to, we don't have like 20 minutes to talk about this and why there's a bunch of different reasons why this is wrong. But let me just throw out there that when your team is not in a close game and you're getting blown out, the opposing defense is playing past because they know that's what you're going to have to do to get back into the game quickly. So they're going to give up yards on the ground. Just because you're averaging a good yards per carry when you're down by 20 points in the second half of a game does not mean that running the ball more on first down and

second down in the first quarter is the answer to cure all of your problems. So I'm just going to throw that out there. I'm not sure if he's ever thought about that angle before, but, you know, I'm not saying I'm smarter than Gary Kubiak. I'm just saying I think that that was a ridiculous comment to make. And I have some continued concerns about this Vikings team. And when I heard that, I actually smiled a little bit because that just bodes better for my underwin total ticket. Yeah, right. I somehow missed out on the under for Minnesota. I did get it on Denver. Well, look, I want to move to my favorite game of the week.

And we can wrap up with this one. I absolutely love the situation of New England at home after that Sunday night game against the Las Vegas Raiders who are coming to New England on a short week. And this is so weird. I saw this number at the beginning of the week. New England was favored by six and a half. Right now, New England is favored by five. And that has to be because some sharp money is coming in on the Raiders. There are a couple stats that bode well to my mind support the idea of New England.

First of all, Bill Belichick after a loss, his against the, spread mark after a straight up loss is 34 and 13. That's better than 72%. And there's also this situation with Oakland on a short week, one less day of preparation. They are an underdog of six points or more. Now, this was the case earlier in the week. Now, now this doesn't apply because the line dropped all the way down. But, but, you know, the hit rate, the success against the spread of teams that fit that radar profile 16, 27 and 1, 37%. So,

and that's just, you know, some of the trend lines. Based on my own, you know, observational stuff, I thought New England looked incredible Sunday night against Seattle. And it came down to the very last play of the entire football game. Help me understand why it is that that line

has moved a point in a half in 48 hours. Well, you're absolutely right. Very, very sharp betting group likes the Raiders here. And they took them at plus six. And that's why the line dropped down to five. And, you know, a lot of people probably anticipated that this line was going to go in the Patriots because Bill Belichick off of a loss, we're going to bet on the New England Patriots. This is a really good spot for New England, not just because they're off of a loss, but because the Raiders are off of this short road week where They played a highly emotional game on Monday night. They were underdogs. They were losing. They rallied to beat the New Orleans Saints with Sean Payton and Drew Brees. Derek Carr signing the locker room walls of the stadium because this is such a huge win.

They wanted to get this win for their team, their franchise, their owner, and a lot gets expended in a win like that. And meanwhile, you see Bill Belichick showing up like a disheveled bum to his press conferences. you know this guy has not left the lab and has been cranking on what he can do to stop this team. Now, kudos to the Raiders for coming up with the game plan that we're just going to throw it to Darren Waller until you stop us and the Saints weren't able to do that. But I think that there are some matchup edges that do favor the Patriots. And a couple of which are, if you look at the way that this Raiders defense has been beat, they have been beat badly in two personnel groupings on the ground.

They've been beat badly when teams run on them from 11 personnel, where they're allowing 5.7 yards per carry with a 70% success rate. And they've been bad when you run on them with 21 personnel, where they're allowing 6.8 yards per carry and a 75% success rate. Well, guess what the Patriots use the most. They use a lot of 21 personnel. That's a fullback out there on the football field, and they use a lot of 11 personnel runs.

and they're very good in both, but the Raiders are really bad in both. And in addition, the Raiders are terrible through the air on those two personnel groupings as well. And Cam Newton has been absolutely phenomenal. I really have liked the way that I've watched him develop as a passer up in New England, even more so than when he was with Carolina. They were commenting on the broadcast. I don't know if you caught this house about a little bit of a different thing, a couple of different motions, like some different things they were buttoning up there with his delivery of the football that they made in New England. And it looked different.

Now, maybe it was just the juxtaposition of Russell Wilson throwing these raindrops out of the sky down and Cam's more of a straight line thrower with less arc on his balls. But I was really impressed by the way that Cam has been playing as a passer. And I think this is a super tough matchup for the Raiders. in a super bad spot for them as well. That point you just made about the throwing motion of Cam Newton, and they did talk about it on the telecast. And I, you know, it wasn't until they spoke of it that I, you know,

it sort of put the one and one together for it to make two. It really does look much more concise. And he's throwing, I don't know, what the football word is, there is insane zip on the ball. Like he's throwing darts, it looks like. I thought when I watched him in week one and then, you know, through that game, week two, that a lot of that was just attributable to the fact that I haven't seen Cam Newton throw a football in what feels like two years, right? So, but, you know, if indeed it's the case that they've been working with him,

his throwing motion's excellent. The ball's coming out fast. I mean, I'm not using the stopwatch, but it sure does look like it's coming out fast. And his accuracy has been outstanding, it feels like, to. me. Is that all borne out by the stats? It is borne out by the stats. I will also say another thing. What do we know about Bill Belichick? We know that Bill Belichick is really good at taking away, scheming up, to take away one thing that matters most to you offensively. And no team has targeted their wide receivers at a lower rate this year than the Raiders. So they relying so much on

Darren Waller at tight end. And when so much of your offense is built around, this one single guy, you could guarantee Bill Belichick is going to say, you're going to have a really tough time of having this guy beat me this game. You're going to have to start using your other weapons, which Derek Carr is less accustomed to throwing to. I'm not saying you can't be successful. Week one against the Carolina Panthers, they did have some success moving the ball around the field. However, that's a terrible trash defense in Carolina, very different story up in New England. And I'll just say this. Obviously, the Raiders sitting at 2 and O is something that not a lot of people anticipated.

I'll be really shocked if they're able to go to 3 and O here. I really think that this is the opportunity for Bill Belichick to take away Darren Waller. Carr's not used to throwing to other guys other than Darren Waller, beat me with those guys, and then have this defense which struggles against the run, struggles against the pass, has really dealt with very immobile. I mean, Teddy Bridgewater is not really much of a scrambler running the ball down the field, dealt with a couple of immobile quarterbacks because we know Drew Brees just sits back there and throws the ball and there's questions about his arm strength, etc., etc.

And now you're dealing with Cam, who's very multidimensional, completely different style of quarterback on a short week that after a huge win, I just think it is going to be a very big challenge for the Raiders here. Well, I have two sort of concluding thoughts for you. First of all, one of the things that you advised everybody listening to this podcast is one of the very first points you made the first week, which is coaching matters. You have to look at coaching matchups. That's where you can identify some value. This is a coaching matters situation.

Who do you feel more comfortable with where there's four minutes left in the game and it's a one score game? Would you prefer Bill Belichick or John Gruden? The other thing, so that's, you know, that big point, you know, being validated here, at least in terms of our thesis on this game. Secondly, I absolutely adore the point you just made about Belichick reminding everybody that the one thing that the Patriots have done in his 20-year run here is take away the thing that you want to do. And we are going to hammer the Darren Waller under.

undercatches, under yards, under everything. I want to get in Darren Waller's underwear, Sharpie. We are playing that under. As soon as those props come out, we're jumping on it. In terms of that, I don't know about getting his underwear, right? But everything else you said may not be a bad strategy. I'll pass on that other strategy. But what I will say is this.

The key is John Gruden is definitely a better X's and O's coach than he is a personnel guy. He sometimes makes questionable personnel decisions, but they are going to have a good game plan, I think, against this Patriots defense. He does not typically show up and be completely unprepared. So I don't think that he's a pushover. Like, he's funny to look at it on the sidelines

and some of the faces that he makes, but he is a very good strategist from a game planning perspective, like an offensive creative mind. I do think that Derek Carr underwhelms too often on big moments. and we'll see if we have those big moments. Kudos to him for having a great game last week, and we'll see if he could follow it up with another great game this week. But I think the coaching matchup is definitely something to pay attention to.

And can this Raiders defense get as prepared as they need to to deal with this creative offense of the Carolina Panthers with less time to prep for it? It'll be an interesting thing that we'll find out Sunday afternoon. We're going to find out. It's going to be very exciting. Warren Sharp, we've done it. That's week three in the books.

I think we've given out a handful of nuggets. There's a couple guys that we're going to play some unders on, some overs, maybe. And then we like the Patriots and, you know, everything else might be kind of a stayaway. I don't know. The Patriots are going to be my play this week. The Patriots and the Jets. That's where I'm going this week, Sharpie. You're going to love taking the Jets, I think.

You're going to get a lot of – let me just put it this way. You're going to get a lot of gardening done or whatever you're going to. doing outside your house when the jets are playing. That's for sure. It's the gardening teaser of the wig. There we go. There you go, house. Good times.