The Ringer NFL Show - Brady vs. Brees Part 2, Russ vs. Buffalo, and More Week 9 Bets | Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: November 6, 2020

We recap the Packers-49ers 'Thursday Night Football' game (2:00), discuss how to consider injuries when betting early lines (23:00), and dive into the top Week 9 games to wager on (36:00). Hosts: Warren Sharp and Joe House Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, my wagering wizards, my gambling gurus, my podcast pals, on today's episode of the Friday Ringer NFL show, Warren Sharp and I break down the underdog trends. There are underdogs out there barking. We're also taking a look at how to factor injuries into betting early lines. We're analyzing the top games from week nine to wager on. Little bit of Saints, Bucks, little bit of Seahawks, bills, maybe a teaser, maybe some over, stick around. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I am Warren Sharp. It is Friday, and that means I am joined by the one and only Joe House. Joe, we just watched the Packers. I utterly destroy the San Francisco 49ers. It was not much of a game, but what did you think? There were two very dramatic moments at the end of this football game, Warren Sharp.

Yes, there were. One was whether or not there would be a score to get over the total. I think it ended up around 48 and a half. And then the second most dramatic moment was whether or not Joe Buck and Troy Aikman were going to say anything about it because it was really the only reason to watch was to see whether or not that over was going to come through. It did come out, come through. and Joe Buck mentioned it in the roundabout way that they are accustomed to.

But that was really the only drama of the evening, my friend. The only other drama that I would throw in there is the fact that Matt LaFleur, and we're going to say some really nice things about him in a moment, but he left a lot of his starters in there way too long. And so what I was watching is is Aaron Jones going to get hurt here? I mean, he enters the game, injured, questionable that he's going to play. They say they're going to put him on a snap count.

And I understand that you only have one, other running back, but you're up by a massive margin in this game. Stick a fullback back there. Who the hell even cares? What you're just trying to do is eat the clock and gain a couple of yards. Like, you don't need Aaron Jones taking this hits. And it's not just taking the hits. It's the risk that one of the hits is going to actually cause injury to what was already

hurt or something else. I had the same concern for Aaron Rogers, to be honest with you. I was surprised either one of those guys walked onto the field in the fourth quarter. Like I, you know, with all the compliments that you are going to properly lay at the feet of the floor, um, there was nothing about this football game in the first three quarters that suggested that there was any possibility whatsoever that San Francisco had a chance to win the game. So we're in week nine now. Week nine feeling fine. We don't need reps out of Aaron Jones and out of, you know, I had this conversation before he came online with, with,

uh, C Money, Craig, the producer. I mean, Aaron Rogers is top three, uh, in the MVP count right now. He doesn't need reps, right? We, we, we use it 300 yards, uh, four touchdowns and the, uh, quarterback rating of a 147 point whatever, an outstanding evening for him. He didn't need additional yards, didn't need additional, uh, scores at the end. The outcome was decided. Let's be careful out there.

That's what I want to see at this stage of the season. Yeah. And look, I know some Packers fans were jumping in the mentions a little bit. Like, oh, let them go. Look, this team, I realize they're going to be, they've got extra rest heading into the Jacksonville game and they're 13 and a half point are probably now going to be over two touchdown favorites over the Jacksonville Jaguars. They probably house in all honesty are not going to be underdogs.

maybe but more than one of their time this year. And that's week 11 in Indianapolis to the Colts. And I'm not even sure where that line is going to fall. It was the Colts minus one before the season started. We may see the Packers after they dispel or dispatch of the Jaguars next Sunday in short order, be the favorites entering that game. We'll have to see. But at any rate, this is a team that you just need to keep these guys healthy,

They keep winning games. And when you got a game locked up in the bag, you move to the next game. And one of the things I think that is interesting about this game and just about the Packers here, because we've got the opportunity to discuss them on this show after this primetime game is the fact that a lot of people thought this team was destined for regression house. A lot of people in the offseason pointed to the fact that they played nine games last year that were decided by one score. And they went eight and one in those games.

And that type of thing is something that. is very unlikely to repeat itself year over year. They also were, I believe, plus 12 in turnover margin. They had a lot of things go their way. All of it pointed towards the fact that they would regress this year. This was a 13 win team last year, and their win total entering this year was only nine. It is very rare. It wasn't just the betters and the talking heads that thought this team was going to regress house. This was the linesmakers, too. The linesmakers set a team that had 13 wins last year to only have nine this year, expecting that this team would take a big step back. And so far, this team has not taken a step back whatsoever. Well, I'm knocking

on wood a little bit because I like, I like it when Green Bay is good. I like it when Aaron Rogers is good. This is the best Aaron Rogers we've seen in, I don't know, four years, at least three years. And all of this emphasizes especially the point you just made about the forecast for their number of wins how curious their draft was because there are skill there there are skill players out there there right this second playing uh at a very high level and i'm talking about rookie wide receivers that the packers passed on to draft uh the their their quarterback for the future that might be sitting on the bench for another two two to three years yeah i i thought that that was really peculiar as well. I thought it wasn't well done. As you sort of alluded to, this is one of the best

years we've seen out of Aaron Rogers. And we have seen guys play well for several years that are older than Aaron Rogers is. So the fact that you go out and draft his replacement right now, it's not just the fact that you're drafting his replacement, right? Maybe the third round, maybe something like, but you go and you trade up to draft his replacement. Then you go and get it backup running back. A lot of things very peculiar. We won't lay, we won't belabor that point because it was sort of foolish in my opinion. This is a team that needed to be taking the next step and adding the last couple of pieces to what could be a championship team. And they go and they play the 49ers in that NFC championship game last season and they get their butts kicked and they got their butts kicked back to

back years by this 49ers team. But guess what? This 49ers. team isn't the same 49ers team now. You didn't know that entering this season, but this 49ers team is taking a few steps back. And you know what? The NFC is wide open right now. And if they have been adding those pieces. But nevertheless, let's talk about something a little bit more rosy. And that is, let's make fun of somebody else. Instead of the Ryan Gunnkeist or whatever's name is the GM for the Packers, let's make fun of Mike McCarthy a little bit. Mike McCarthy coach of the Green Bay Packers, coach of Aaron Rogers, more importantly, because the Packers build themselves, they got talent there, you got Aaron Rogers.

And Aaron Rogers played a lot of good years in Green Bay. And yet, this team that was led by Mike McCarthy in 13 seasons only started out six and two or better three times out of 13 years. And Matt LaFleur was able to do it in back-to-back years as the head coach in 2008, in 2019 and not 2020. So I think we see a little bit like Mike McCarthy struggled with. We've seen that now down in Dallas. And we saw he just wasn't able to do enough with this Packers team when he had Aaron Rogers. When you got a great quarterback, you really just have to do enough.

You don't have to do everything because that quarterback's going to elevate this team so much. And Mike McCarthy didn't really do them many favors. Well, it's all time historically great start for LaFleur. I think the Packers are now 20 and 6 with him. as the head coach, including the playoff game last year. I think that's pretty good. 20 and six,

I mean, I didn't haven't had a chance to do the historical predecessors, but that has to have them in top 10 company, I would think, maybe even top five. Yeah, and look, I think the Packers,

they are not without their problem areas, their defense. We just saw this team, it's fun to talk about them now as they whipped the tape, the tails of the 49ers who were starting all these backups. But this is a team that lost outright at home as a almost a touchdown favorite that got bet down to the Minnesota Vikings last week by a score of 28 to 22.

And they were actually trailing that game 28 to 14. This is a team whose defense will allow points. They allowed 38 points to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. This is a team that is far from perfect. But when Aaron Rogers is on and when Devante Adams is healthy, this is a team that is difficult to beat unless you have the weaponry on the defensive side of the ball to minimize those two players to match up well with them or you can outscore them offensively. And that's really the only two ways that you're going to have a shot at the Green Bay Packers. You either have to have the offense that's good enough to keep pace and hope to outscore them or you've got to find matchup edges to try to help neutralize Aaron Rogers and DeVos. Yvante Adams. Yeah, and, you know, the run defense is the same big question mark for the Packers

that it's been for it feels like, you know, a couple years now. We didn't get any kind of indication out of tonight's game on, you know, whether that vulnerability is going to continue. But Dalvin Cook certainly was was happy to have that Packers defense in front of him on Sunday. it is worth noting you know they show this in the broadcast the 49ers did not have a single offensive player who touched the ball in last year's playoff

game before they went to the Super Bowl and they have the you know 81 million dollars worth of folks on the injured reserve or COVID reserve side I will say this I thought Richie James was kind of

sensational. I don't know he was good there was problems in that secondary, right? There were guys that were just wide open in that secondary. He was getting himself open, but I don't know. I saw some place where they replayed it. I don't know if this was the touchdown that he scored late or not, but two guys, two Packers guys, they've got guys lined up to cover this player and both guys run with a guy

who's running this lane across the field and completely leave this guy wide open just on the go route down the sideline. pretty ridiculous defensive coverage, but these are backups in some cases because the game was a blow. And right now, I think what is clear from this game, it is fun to talk about the Packers. Look, we're going to see the Packers win next week. They got this game against the Colts that they may or may not be underdogs. Then they got the Bears and the Eagles in back-to-back home games. They have to make a trip to Detroit to play the Lions. And they get back-to-back home games against the Panthers and the Titans. This is a Packers team that's going to have a very good

record come the postseason. And what this basically means is you, if you're the Seattle Seahawks, you only have one loss on the season. And some of these other teams like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, we're going to talk about them momentarily house playing the Saints on Sunday night football who have two losses already. You've got to rack up wins because you do not want to lose out on home field advantage. And the Packers' rest of the season schedule is doable. I don't say, I don't think they're going to run the table, but it is doable to see this team. team sitting at no worse than 12 and 4 potentially as they enter the week 17, as they conclude week 17 and enter the playoffs. And for the 49ers, it's sad, but it's a fact this team is now

5 and 23 without Jimmy G. They're 24 and 7 with Jimmy G. It's going to be very unlikely that they're doing anything this season. It's just the way that it goes. Injuries happen. That's the tough breaks. You're without kiddle. You're without Jimmy G. You're I don't foresee this team being anything that we should be discussing anymore in terms of potentially contending with anything. No, and they're, they might have had a chance if they were in the NFC East. You know, they could have this team and be going through these trouble. Not in the NFC West.

They ain't going nowhere fast. And that Super Bowl hangover, it catches one team every single year. It seems like it caught the Niners, but that doesn't mean they can't bounce back next season. No, and look, a lot of things. this also speaks to just what the Super Bowl is. People call it a hangover, but what I think that happens when you go on this run towards the Super Bowl

and you get there and you get close, some of it is a very small percentage is like, oh, well, you played a few extra games, you didn't have as much time to rest or prepare. The majority of it is that that team really isn't as good as what that team looked. They had the health. They had everything break their way.

That's how they got a good enough seed to be able to get to the, the spot in the playoffs that they did. They won a couple games, got to the Super Bowl, absolutely not knocking the team at all, but everything, if you're going to the Super Bowl, most everything is breaking your way, whether you win the Super Bowl or you don't. And it's very unlikely that that type of thing repeats itself the next year. So it is tough for them, but that's the breaks.

And I do think that Kyle Shanahan is a great coach, and he's going to have a team next season that's going to be good. It will be interesting to talk later this season, House. as to what they should do with the quarterback position. Should they be looking for another quarterback? There's actually not a whole lot of dead cap where they want, if they wanted to get rid of Jimmy G, what type of moves are they going to make?

And we know that their GM has been very aggressive in the past. But that's enough talking about Thursday night football. Let's go ahead and dig into stats from week eight. And give me the rundown on where we stand season to date. All right, Sharpie. Week eight was great. I'm counting on week nine being fine. Let's go ahead and see what happened with week eight.

We have been riding this little bit of a trend with underdogs. That has not subsided. Underdogs went 10 and 4 against the spread this week, and we're 7 and 7 straight up. And that brings underdogs to the season, depending on your measurement. either they are 68, 49, and 2, or they're 68 and 51. And that's either a little north of 58% or in the like the 57% range.

That's a meaningful stat, right? Like the dogs, we've been talking about dogs for three weeks now. Now your colleague, T.A. Cleveland, pointed out a couple finer points here. Dogs getting less than three points this season are 17 and 7 against the spread. and have won 16 of those 17 games outright. I like that kind of action. There's also a little bit of a sub-trend that I want to get your thoughts on. We're going to,

we've been talking about dogs for three weeks because there's just something going on here. There is a particular class of dog that I'm interested in seeing how it lines up historically. A breed, perhaps? Yeah, a breed. Yes, how about that? I think this dog is an attractive dog, like a greyhound, this particular class of dog. This is, well, actually, you know what? I used the wrong metaphor, because this would be a dog that some people think is ugly, but is actually beautiful.

So what's that? Is that a pug, a Sharpay? What fits that? I don't know. I've got the first dog I've ever owned in my life about a year and a half ago, so I'm known next to nothing about dogs. I've got a couple dogs, but my dogs are a little bit cuties. Anyways, for the purposes of this conversation, we're talking about road dogs off a loss.

In 2020, on the stats that I have here, that play is coming in at 24, 13, 24 and 13 against the spread in 2020. That's like a 64% hit rate. Now, in terms of opportunities for this coming week, the teams that fit that category, the Bears getting six at Tennessee, the Panthers getting 10.5 at Kansas City and the Giants getting two and a half here in the DMV. How does this road dogs off a loss subclass line up with what you have on kind of historical trends?

Well, so it was interesting because I don't normally study these types of things when I'm looking to bet. I'm betting, you know, matchups and spots and individual teams as opposed to looking at these types of trends. But I guess years ago when I was getting into this, I was more in tune with this. And so I had to do a little research real quick to find these numbers. And what I'm seeing is that, you know, 68% cover rate in 2019 for these road dogs off of a loss through the first eight weeks of the season. And 65% cover rate in. in 2017. Now, 2018 was way down from that. It was only a 46% cover rate. And prior to 2017, if you want to look at like the four or five years prior to that, it was not a profitable trend

whatsoever. So for whatever reason, three of the last four years, including this year, it has been a profitable spot to date in the first half of the season to take road dogs off of a loss. Yeah, and I saw some speculation. I love the hummies over at Action Network. One of the riders over there sort of mused aloud, is it possible that one of the things that's sort of propping up favorite numbers is the sort of inclusion? The market is getting bigger because more states are coming online in terms of legalizing betting. And you have new entrance, people that are new to the wagering arts, especially with NFL football, and maybe that's having an impact on preserving, you know, favorite numbers and creating some value for these underdogs.

Do you like that theory? It's possible. You know, I haven't dug into it enough to see how much new money is in the marketplace. Realistically, you would also expect that as new states legalized, that there are some sharper people out there that start to get a little bit more heavily involved in this as a way to make money. And so you're still going to have some type of a percentage balance of total action that comes from sharp money. So I don't know that like every single dollar that's new that gets entered into the market would be square. And the other thing that I would say to tamp down the belief that this is just a new rampant trend that we should be betting for the future is that,

like I said before, I think a lot of the newer betters that are getting into this may look at very basic trends like this and say, oh, well, road dogs off a loss, they're doing pretty good. Let me just play those. So you may have some of the square money that's actually betting on these things, even though in general square money tends to lean towards favorites. So I always say with some of these trends, it's great that you're bringing this up. It's great for people to be aware of it. and there may be a little bit of water that you can carry in this trend moving forward. You should factor it into what you're doing if you want to, but don't rely solely on this. Never bet a team put your harder money up on something just because they fall into a singular

trend or even three or four trends, some of which, not this one in particular, but some other trends are a little bit more data-mined and you back into things and they're not well thought out. kind of put together to give you some really high percentage winners based on what they've done historically, but won't really help as a predictive measure. So it's a piece of the puzzle, and it's definitely something interesting. And let's see, hopefully it carries forward. But as you go through your card house and we're going over some of your bets, let us know, let me know, if they fall into this trend. Yeah, I don't have any place on any of these particular teams that fit. I do like the bears generally, but I don't have them on my card. And I'm going to put

the Giants in a teaser. I like the Giants in a tease play more than I like them just getting the two and a half that they're currently sitting at. But let's go ahead and jump over to sharp points. We are at that point in the show where it is time for I reach and the podcast pals out there. We're all reaching out and we want Brother Warren to go ahead and do some teaching for us the email address my wagering wizards. It's sharp points NFL at gmail.com. That's S-H-A-R-P-P-O-I-N-T-S-N-F-N-S-N-F-L at Gmail. This week we have a really interesting question from homie, Michael, in centennial Colorado. And Colorado,

why can't I say Colorado? My father's from Colorado and I can't pronounce it. I don't, I mean, anyway, sorry Colorado. I'll do better next time. Michael wants to know, can Warren please talk about how he factors potential injuries

into decisions on early lines? Because we've been emphasizing, you in particular have been emphasizing there's value and trying to get on something earlier in the week before the line starts jumping around. And Michael's saying specifically the potential of a player to not play. He says he's losing value on some opening lines

by not betting aside that he likes because of injury concerns. And by the time the final injury reports come out, the lines have moved and that early value is gone. So he wants to know, I want to know, how are we supposed to factor in injury impact as we evaluate value in early lines. Well, it's absolutely vital, especially as you get to taking this more seriously, you have to be aware of who may play and who may not. And we're going to talk momentarily about COVID and all this late breaking injury stuff and how you're going to

deal with that. But with regard to the early line moves and the early injury analysis, I mean, we have up at sharp football analysis. I have somebody who writes and focuses just on injuries. And he actually writes, we discuss injury information offline, but he also shares some injury information publicly on the website a report. Every single Monday starts compiling all the injuries from the game on Sunday. And you have to be aware of that. There are betting groups out there that have guys that are called readers. And these readers are solely doing just that. They are scouring the internet, reading information about different teams, injury, situations, and health and that's their full-time job. They have a couple of guys that are paid just to read and

acquire information to look for hidden edges. Now, there are some situations where you actually know somebody inside the building, so to speak, that you can get even better injury information. But for the audience as listening to this, you know, while some betting groups are able to acquire that information, it's not realistic to think that you guys are going to be able to acquire that information. So it's relatively irrelevant. But I will say, some of the early line moves that predict where a line is going to go. Some of that is based on kind of intel on some key figures. The thing that you need to be aware of is twofold.

Number one, don't worry about a random middle linebacker. Don't worry about a random defensive tackle. Don't worry about a random slot receiver. What you want to be focusing on is the real positions that matter that factor in a lot, and those are pretty obvious. It's the quarterback, number one. Sometimes it's the left tackle. Sometimes it's the center.

Then on the other side, it's going to be, number two, you want to be looking at cluster injuries. This team's already down two players at this position, like their two safeties. And now this week they're just going to be down their starting cornerback as well. So now you've got three guys in the secondary cluster injuries. So cluster injuries along the offensive line, cluster injuries in the secondary level,

cluster injuries at the wide receiver position. Those are the types of positions that clusters that you're going to be wanting to focus on as well. So it's good to have an idea. You can kind of track this. I mean, anybody can do this. The stuff that we're posting up on our website goes through and looks at all the injury statuses, all the practice reports. But like Michael is saying, those come out later in the week. So at the end of the week, you should know. But what you can do is you could take that injury information and move it forward to the beginning of the next week. So you could say, okay, they were without, you know, these players. And so we know heading in that they were without those guys last week. Are any of these guys going

to be healthy to be able to come back? And you can start reading writers and reading information early on Monday to hear some of that stuff. You can hear coaches talk about injuries in the post-game press conferences to really get a good understanding as to whether this guy is dealing with a multi-week or he could come back. So it is hard. It's very difficult on Monday and Tuesday to get a good handle before you get the first practice report that comes out on Wednesday that details whether a guy practiced in limited full or not at all capacity. But it's something that you got to factor in and spend a little time digging into. Well, let's just make this as complicated as possible here in 2020, the year from, you know, I don't know where it's from.

Hell feels like an understatement. The most unprecedented of years. We have all kinds of COVID impacts on this week 9 slate. You know what? We're sitting here taping this Thursday evening going up, you know, Friday. As we sit here at this very moment, there are at least four games and eight teams affected, perhaps more. We have games going off the board and then.

coming back on. By my count right now, the bears are affected by a COVID situation. Obviously, Detroit with Matthew Stafford. The chiefs just announced something and I saw the Texans as well. And then in addition, we've got the Broncos, the Cowboys, the Eagles, and the Ravens. So by my count, that's eight teams, which means, you know, that's eight games, 16 teams, but like not. all of the games are off the board right now. Some of many of those games are still on the board. So what do how are we supposed to sort through this mess? Yeah. So it's getting very complicated as more of this is happening and we're going to have to be capable of adapting to this as the season progresses because I don't think it's going to get any less widespread. So the issue is this sports

books really more than ever are trying to just take action on these games. So in the past we would have seen like if if a random issue happened in 2019 or 2018 and a QB had something happened to him and couldn't practice for days and we're not sure if he's going to play or not, that game would not be posted anywhere, right? That game would, every line would be down and it would never come back up until the guy is officially upgraded. But in this case, there are some books out there that went ahead and reposted the line on the Detroit Lions and they actually lined the Lions catching five and a half points,

which is now moved back down to four and a half. Now, this line was four and some three and a half when it was announced that Matthew Stafford was in the COVID protocol. Since that point in time, we have since learned from his wife, Kelly, who was pissed off about this whole thing, that she reported that Matthew doesn't have it. He was near somebody. I think it was like a family friend. They don't think he's got it.

He's tested negative multiple times. And then Adam Schaefter came out and reported that. as long as he passes his protocols, he'll be back by Sunday. Like he's not going to, he won't miss that game, assuming he passes everything. But with all these other teams, right, like you got it running through the Baltimore Ravens. I say running through, it's really the wrong way to say one of the players, a key player, Marlon Humphrey, who's one, he just got a new contract, one of the best DBs in the NFL. He is going to be out because he came down with it.

due to contract tracing, I guess, in distance based upon these bracelets and crap, a bunch of the other players on the Ravens secondary, specifically and some of the linebackers, were not allowed to practice this week because they have to take five days and take tests every day and test negative. But many of these guys are going to come back. And what I have learned, at least early on in doing this, is that most of the guys that are being held out like what happened to the, Raiders, offensive line ahead of the game against Tampa Bay. Most of the guys that are being held out from practice end up testing negative and come back and they play.

It's the guys that are positive and they're doing this out of abundance of caution, don't want it to run through the locker room so they isolate the guys who, you know, were near this other person. But most of the time, it's not as easy to spread, I guess, in an athletic atmosphere, perhaps. I don't know. And so these guys are coming back. So a lot still to be learned about this. the one thing that you have to be willing to do from a betting perspective is to a pay close attention

to the news cycles be be very flexible about what you're doing and see don't be afraid to either buy off of something if you don't like it anymore you in most years you don't want to do that oh my god like i i took a dog here and now i'm getting less on that dog but should i go out and take the favorite instead and like buying off of things is something perfectly acceptable to do in 2020. And in addition, trying to take free rolls on different things. And by that, I mean, you got a situation where the chiefs, okay, let's talk about the Chiefs and the Raiders game from a few weeks ago, where Patrick Mahomes was nearby, I think it was McCordy on the Patriots. And so they isolated Patrick Mahomes for a little while because they were scared or is he going

to get sick or something. His girlfriend, I think wife now or maybe they're engaged, she's pregnant. and so he wasn't living at the house with her to make sure that she didn't get it. So there's a lot of questions like, is Patrick Mahomes going to get this thing? And what a lot of the Sharp guys started doing is they just started betting the Oakland Raiders as a big double-digit underdog in this spot, thinking that if the game's canceled, you get your money back. Like if that game gets rescheduled because a bunch of the chiefs end up getting COVID, they get their money back.

But if it's not, then they like the fact that this quarterback hasn't been practicing and maybe some of the other teammates could come. down with it. And so there's value on taking the Raiders in that spot. So these things like that are free rolls where bet the team that doesn't have the COVID issue and maybe the game gets canceled. And so you've lost nothing because your bet gets refunded if they change the date of the game. But if the game goes on and a bunch of these guys just couldn't play, then you stand to have a better number. We're looking at a perfect example in tonight's game with the Packers where some guys with the issues that happen with all the injuries and stuff that happen with San Francisco

and some COVID stuff where you've got a number of players on San Francisco who can't play because they were close to somebody else. The one guy had a false positive, but Brandon Ayyuk, they think that he may actually have it and some of the guys that were near him can't play in this game. Like, people are just grabbing the Green Bay Packers minus six, minus six and a half and thinking the line would go up. Now, I don't really even like that side. necessarily. So I didn't bet that. But I'm just saying there's some free role opportunities out there that people are going to take advantage of as well. Well, I like that observation very much. There are a couple names on my dance card where I can I can play it in a favorable way. It's not going to be

a 100% free role because the players as you identified are not super crucial, important players, but still impacting sides that I like and maybe going to juice up the teaser card a little bit, especially. Speaking of juicing up the teaser card, we have a couple of marquee games. Now, we chose the Saints and the Bucks. We're going to jump right into the week nine slate. It is a great slate.

I love this time of year. We're getting all these divisional games, these very juicy matchups. Saints Bucks is one potential marquee game and the Seahawks Bills was the other. I know we both like both those games

and we're calling Saints Bucks Marquis because it is a divisional rival. It's a rematch of the game from the first week of the season. And I have to tell you, I am just flat out confused by this line. is New Orleans getting four at Tampa Bay.

We just watched Tampa with, I don't know the right way to characterize it. It didn't look like a lack of effort necessarily, but they were flat against the Giants, so much so that the Giants damn near tied that game at the very end and put the outcome in real jeopardy for Tampa. The Saints have won four straight. Michael Thomas is coming back.

It's a short week for the bucks. That game against the Giants was physical. Why is New Orleans getting four here? Well, I think that this is an issue of a couple of things. Number one, that game on Monday was a very flat spot for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were off of a couple of big 20 plus point victories in a row. They had beat the Green Bay Packers in an easy game. Then they go to the Raiders.

they beat those guys in an easy game. And you're going up to New York to take on the Giants in the second straight road game on a Monday night. And on deck is this game against the Saints Sunday night football at home. And there's just some games on the NFL schedule where you kind of like start thinking ahead. And they had just added Antonio Brown. And they're probably thinking about how they're going to incorporate this guy.

They find out they can't have Chris Godwin still. And so it could have just been a flat spot for them. The Giants obviously was a very solid bet if you were taking the Giants in that game. But in this game, there are some interesting elements here. And I'll just go ahead and break down some of those elements. The first one is Drew Breeze and his arm strength. Now, we know that this has been a question. And the big issue here is, is he getting Michael Thomas back?

But Michael Thomas, today's Thursday, practiced again in a limited fashion. And I will just tell you this house, you do not take a guy like Michael Thomas. who is like your franchise receiver basically for the Saints. And he misses multiple weeks. I mean, the guy basically hasn't played much at all this season. But he's dealing with a multi-week injury. If he does not practice in full on Friday, I would make a strong wager that he is not playing in this game.

I would be shocked. I know this is a big game for them, but you don't take a guy who can't even practice in full for one day and bring him back from a multi-week injury. I just, you don't see that very often. So betting on past history, I don't think he would actually play this game. But they do get Emmanuel Sanders back. But if I'm looking at what the Saints have been doing offensively here, they played in a somewhat

windy environment in Chicago last week. And Drew Breeze in that windy environment had an average depth of target of only 4.7 yards, the lowest of the week for any quarterback in the NFL. He looked good based on the stat sheet, like he had a fairly respectable completion rate and total yards. But so much of this was yards after the catch, shorter passes that gained bigger yards. And that's the problem against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers because week one, we weren't talking about noodle arm Drew Brees. But keep in mind that there are supposed to be, and this is one of the few games of the week. We had a lot last week.

We talked about the windy conditions and just be aware that there's some wind out there. And that's why some of these totals are dropping. This is a game where they're forecasting like 16 to 18 mile per hour wind with gusts in the upper 20s. And that's one of the reasons why this total has dropped from 54 and a half down to 51. You got a defense, though, that's very good against short passes. And Drew Brees not only had the shortest depth of target in last week's game, but he also had the furthest distance away from the first down marker when he threw the ball. So it's just even on third downs, it's these shorter passes that require yak.

And if you don't have Michael Thomas out there and you're relying on Alvin Kamara and Tyquins Smith and Emmanuel Sanders, you just, there's not a lot of horses there to get the job done. So that's my only concern for them in addition to the fact that last time they played the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who have the number three ranked run defense, they held Alvin Kamar to just 1.3 yards per carry on the ground. So how is the Saints offense going to move the ball against a defense that's good against short passes and great against the run? And, you know, I don't know that we can just expect them the Saints to put up these numbers like the Giants did last week on them. I think the bucks were like looking ahead in some respects. Yeah, that was exactly the question. You anticipated

just what I was going to ask with that last bit. If the Giants can have the kind of success that they had moving the ball, do we say that that's because of Tampa's defense perhaps looking ahead? Like Tampa's secondary looked absolutely useless against Darius Slayton.

If Danny Dimes could have got him the ball in a couple of accurate spots, like that game was really a toss-up because they just had no answer for it. But your point is, They will be up for this New Orleans team. They have revenge on their mind. They understand how important this division game is. And scheme-wise, they'll be prepared for Drew Breeze and his short passes. I believe so. And I could be wrong. And clearly, the Saints are aside. There's a couple

groups that are disagreeing on this game. But the Saints have been a side that some people have been taking. Now, you also got this issue where Drew Breeze, and this is another case where you got to pay attention to the injury reports because Drew Breeze is dealing with a shoulder issue. And he says it's fine and it's no big deal, but he was off to the side working at practice. You know, is this going to be eat your W's week with James Winston? I doubt it. But you never know if Drew Breeze, he's dealing with a noodle arm to begin with. And then he plays up in windy Chicago throwing a lot of short passes.

Now he has to play in windy Tampa, assuming he practices Friday, I'm guessing he's going to play, but how good a condition is that aren't going to be in. On the other side of the ball, though, I have some questions about what the Bucks offense is doing. So I've got a criticism for Bruce Ariens, and then I've got a compliment for what I think is going to be potentially a good game for Tom Brady when he chooses to throw the ball. So I'll get to the criticism first, and that is, I really don't know what the hell Bruce Ariens is doing on first downs in the first half the last month.

because if you watch the game against the Giants, you probably saw a lot of first down runs that weren't being very productive over the last month. So the first month of the season, the bucks were a little bit more run heavy. The NFL average is about 50-50 run on first downs in the first half. He was 48% pass. So he was 2% above average with his running. However, those runs were terrible. They were averaged only 2.3 yards per carry in a 47% success rate well below the NFL average in both cases. Okay. That should signal to the coach that these first, and we're not talking to second half,

don't worry about the teams up. They're doing this to run up. No, this is the first half of a game. Okay. So none of that should signal to the coach. Well, let's run the ball more, right? We're doing, no, we're not doing good. We're doing terrible.

We don't want to run the ball more. But what do they do? Since week five, they've gone 64% run on these first down plays. the third highest run rate in the NFL, and they are still averaging below the NFL average production in both yards per carry and success rate. If they continue with that run-first approach against the Saints, they're going to be running into a brick wall because the Saints on first downs in the first half of games are only allowing two yards per carry, 2.0 and a 33% success rate, two first down runs in the first half of gain. Meanwhile, they're allowing 7.7 yards per pass attempt with a 52%

success rate when you attack them through the air. So when you're watching at home, pay close attention to whether or not Bruce Ariens chooses to attack the weakness of the Saints defense, which happens to be the strength of his own offense and throw the ball on these first downs, or does he just keep doing what he's been doing and run the ball into a brick wall on first down, putting Tom Brady behind the chains on second and long. So that's the criticism house of Bruce Ariens. Now, the one thing I think that we'll see positive for the Tampa Bay Bucks offense is the fact that the New Orleans Saints play a ton of man coverage. They play man coverage at the fourth highest rate in the NFL. They haven't really faced a great slew

of quarterbacks. Like, just look at the last month. Nick Foles, Teddy Bridgewater, Justin Herbert, and Matthew Stafford. Now, I love Justin Herbert as a prospect, and he's playing above his head right now, but he's not in the conversation of like one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL right now. And those quarterbacks, when the Saints played zone, they held them in check more or less, but when the Saints played man, they allowed those guys to throw for 7.9 yards per attempt and a 54% success rate. Tom Brady has done really well against man with this Buck's offense. Against man coverage, 58% success. That drops to 46% when he goes up against zone.

Against man, he's averaging 8.7 yards per attempt. That drops down to 6.5 against zone. And the EPA, it's almost plus. 0.5 EPA against man. It's about plus 0.2 EPA against zone. So he's significantly better against man. And most of the teams that he's been playing, you talk about look at the recent schedule for the bucks,

the giants, the Raiders, the Packers, the Packers, the Bears, all these guys play more zone than the NFL average. Now he's finally getting a team that's playing more man than the NFL average. And he's done really well against man. So as long as it's not too windy and if he can get a couple of pieces back, I think he'll have some success throwing the ball on this Saints defense. So I think it'll be interesting what Bruce Ariens decides to do on those first downs in the first half and we need to pay attention to that.

Well, Sharpie, if we're talking about man, I mean, it's starting to get a little bit exciting. I just from a pure football perspective, is Antonio Brown playing this week? Is that one of the toys in the toy shed? I think he is playing, but they've indicated that they might work them in and their goal is to have him, you know, at top performance by the end of the season, worked into the offense. But I'm going to play a little devil's advocate with you, House, and just say, what would be the harm with the, I'm, I watch that Monday night game, right?

Who in the world are these guys that Tom Brady is throwing the ball to? Right. Like who are these guys? They're guys that don't hold a candle to what Antonio Brown's capable of doing. Now, if you're telling me that, like, let's say, Anthony Lynn wants to bring in Antonio Brown and you got Justin Herbert as the quarterback, are you going to just stick Antonio Brown out there into your offense and potentially like take the rhythm out from what he's been getting with Keenan Allen, Mike Williams, and those guys, I don't think so. But with Tom Brady,

Tom Brady's worked with Antonio Brown before. And Bruce Ariens worked with Antonio Brown before. And you don't have great wide receivers on the road. Like, we don't know if Chris Godwin is definitely playing. He's dealing with a broken finger in his hand. That's hard to deal with for a receiver. We don't know how good he's going to be out there. I don't know what's going on with Mike Evans, but he certainly looks like a little bit of a shell of himself. You got all these targets to these guys that don't hold a candle to AB, couldn't this week in a big game be interesting to just throw AB out there for a bunch of pass routes

and see what happens? What's the worst that could happen? He pulls his hammy or something. Obviously, that wouldn't be what we want to have happened. But if we think he's in physical shape to do that, I'm not adverse to letting him just get a lot of run out there, considering the strength of the rest of your receiving core is not that great. You see me shaking my head vigorously over this Zoom, Sharpie.

I am very, very excited by that. prospect and what that Tampa offense is capable of. I'm not going to bet this game. Minus four doesn't feel like value to me on either side. It's like right in what Simmons and Cousin Sal like to call the Vegasone. It was four and a half. It was five at one point. That's just, you know, a place that I don't have any good feel for it. So it's a layoff. But I do have a strong feel for the next barquee game that I love on the card this week. And that is the Seattle Seahawks at Buffalo. Now, the Seahawks are laying three points on the road, a West Coast team going to the East Coast. And we know there is all that historical stuff that works against

it. And on the surface, these two teams appear to be somewhat comparable, six and two, the bill seven and one for the Seahawks plus leading their their divisions and you know some early season kind of reflection on each other both teams made the decision to let their quarterbacks cook a little bit and you know Russell's been incredible with it. Josh Allen's fallen off a little bit. He had four incredible games to kick off the season and then kind of went cold and they didn't score 20 points for three straight weeks. But I don't think the Buffalo Bills are in the same class as the Seattle Seahawks. And I think that I'm getting a little bit of value here.

The Seattle has the third best passing offense based on DVOA. And the instances so far this season that the Bill's defense has been up against a top eight passing offense in those games. Again, this is a shout out to your boy, TA. The bills have allowed an average of 30 points a game, and those quarterbacks are completing 76% of their passes for seven and a half yards and attempts. Seven touchdowns and no picks. Let's let Russell cook, Sharpie.

No, and they are. And I think that he's going to be cooking here in this game as well. I definitely think that. Now, the interesting thing you mentioned, to me that the first thing that jumps to my mind is the discussion on the bill's offense and Josh Allen and specifically the fact that in three consecutive games, this team has scored 16, 17, and 18 points. And that seems very strange from a team that was scoring up in the 30s for three straight weeks in a row. Now they're at 16, 17 and 18. And you're talking about games

against the Titans, the games against the Jets, what the hell is going on here with the Buffalo Bills. There is some context that needs to be taken with the Buffalo Bills offense and what I think we may see out on the field. Now, the caveat is that the Seahawks have a couple new players on their roster, right? Carlos Dunlop is up and he's a defensive end and he's going to be able to rush the pass. He's got long arms. He's a very good player, a little bit older, but has had a lot of good seasons in his career. And then you have Adams back for the Seahawks. as a safety. And they've liked the play that they've gotten from their safeties there. And maybe they'll be able to do some interesting things defensively with that secondary to help

improve some things. So those are question marks that Brian Daible and Josh Allen are going to have to figure out on the fly because we don't really know how those guys are going to be reincorporated back into the offense. But if we just look at the Bill's offense for a second, the game against the Patriots last week, which they won 24 to 21, had high wins and rain. The game against the chiefs two weeks before that week six of the season had a little bit of wind and rain slash missed and all this muck the whole game long and that was that weird game i think it was on a tuesday night or something um it was is a weird night game i think that was the tuesday night game then you're playing you also have the game against the tennessee titans the tennessee titans game was a game that the

bills literally midweek started preparing for the game against the chiefs because they didn't know if the game against the Titans was going to be canceled because COVID was running rampant through the team and the team was holding illegal practices at high schools in neighboring states or counties or wherever they were going to get in these illegal practices. And so the bills literally stopped game planning for them to game plan for the chiefs and messed everything up for their process there. And that final score was not indicative of the overall offense that they put up on the Tennessee Titans. And then if you look at the game against the Jets, Week 7, they didn't punt once in that game.

They drove down, they missed some field goals. They were settling for field goals. They had turnovers on downs. They didn't punt once in that game. They only scored 18 points. So it sounds like I'm making excuses for the Buffalo Bills. I'm not. What I'm doing is providing some context for which this offense, I think, is better than what they've looked over the last month of the season.

And I think they're going to be more productive. The other thing that this bill's office, was doing for whatever reason, House, that maybe they'll start to change, we'll see, is we know this team can't really run the football well. Now, against the Patriots last week, they turned to a ground heavy attack with Zach Moss and Singletary, and they had a lot of success on the ground. But generally speaking, this is not a very strong rushing team. And yet, inside of the red zone, the last two weeks, they've had 10 first downs. You don't know how many of those have been run plays? Zero.

So nine of 10, nine run plays out of 10 have been run. Nine plays on first downs in the red zone have been run plays. And those run plays basically were flip the coin, 50% success and a slightly negative EPA, whereas passes were much more successful. On the season, passing in the red zone on first down has average 59% success for the bills plus 0.2 EPA, rushes have averaged only 37% success and a negative 0.2 EPA. And what did the Seahawks do really well? They do really well at stopping the run.

They're very good there. They're much worse stopping the pass. First down passes against the Seahawks defense inside the red zone are recording 69% success and plus 0.5 EPA, much better when teams are running the ball against them, but they're much worse when teams are passing the ball. if the bills change some of their red zone play calling because you know the bills the last three weeks while they've been failing to score a lot they have average i want to say it's like 40 something or 50 something percent inside the red zone which is the fifth worst in the NFL 45 percent trips into the red zone

that's one of the worst in the NFL they were much better than that to start the season so if they could just call plays call some more passes inside the red zone surprisingly enough house you may want to take a little trip north to Buffalo this weekend. It's going to be beautiful up there. I think the temperature is going to be warm. There's going to be hardly any wind, very different from what it was last week in Buffalo. And I think there's a reason why this game has seen its total go from 51 all the way up to 55. Now, I don't necessarily think it closes at 55, but we are forecasting points to be scored in this game between these two teams. Oh, I like it a lot. Well, I have one. I have one. one little closing thought, and I alluded to it at the outset, Seattle's record on the East Coast.

They have 10 straight wins on the East Coast, and they're 8-1-1 against the spread in those 10 games. I'm not worried about Seattle coming across the country here and arriving in beautiful sunny Baltimore. I love the sound of that. That lets Russell Cook for sure. That's one of the games that's going on my dance card, I can promise you. Yeah, you're right. I don't know what it is. I don't know how he does it, but Russ always comes to play on these one o'clock games on the East Coast. He does it really well. And it certainly happened enough times that you could say this is not going to be a detriment to them early on in this game. Yeah. So let's let's keep clocking through the card. Now, one of the games that I have on here, and I'm not sure, I have it kind of down as a potential overplay. But the numbers move throughout the week. And that is, is the Las Vegas Raiders against the Los Angeles Chargers. And I put this on the card just because I wanted to make sure that we talked about these two teams this week.

Because I just, they've both been really interesting. And I think there might be some angles here in terms of potential value to play a tiny bit of money on both the Raiders and the Chargers to actually make the playoffs. I think the Raiders right now have slightly better than even odds to make the playoffs. And the Chargers are a little bit of a long shot kind of play. It's like plus, I don't know, 200, 300, something in that range, two to one to three to one, I thought I saw. But in any event, the Chargers offense with Justin Herbert has been really impressive. They outgained the Broncos last.

week 485 yards to 350. They had 28 first downs. Their third down efficiency was bonkers. They're the first team in NFL history to blow leads of 16 points or more in four straight games. They had leads of a touchdown or more over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the New Orleans and the Kansas City Chiefs this season, the Chargers are good. They're like bad good or good bad. And Herbert properly, I think, is leading the way in the rookie of the year battle right now.

I think this could be potentially a high scoring game. The number that I see right now is 51 and a half. I've seen it at 52. I've seen it at 51 also. I feel like there is an opportunity here. We played the Raiders last week in Cleveland. This is the Raiders' second street road game, and they're going to be without Trent Brown for another week.

Maybe. Maybe. That's another maybe. Oh, good. All right. Well, I'm happy to hear that then. Well, in any event, what's your thought on some points getting scored in this Raiders' Chargers matchup? Okay. So normally, normally when we do this show, house, you know I've got my private clients, right, at Sharp Football Analysis. So I'm not really going to give out, like, specifics on every game that we're taking on this show because that wouldn't do them justice. But this is an interesting game because of one reason. And that is because we actually

took the over on this game, but the line has moved against us. And that's happened only one other time this season. And so it's a good point to talk about to the people out there just to give them a sense as to what's going on in this game, provide a little bit more color. So in this particular game, we took the over and it's moved back down. It got, I believe, as high as 54 and is dropped back down, as you mentioned, to 51 and a half. So there's somebody clearly who disagrees with us. Now, 95% of the time that I've played totals this season, I have gotten closing line value, which is just absurd. I'm hitting 70% of these games. Like, we are winning 70% of these games, which is also absurd and it's going to come back

down to earth. There's no way that I'll be able to hit 70% over the course of the season. But through the first half of the season, that's what we're doing. In this game, though, somebody clearly has a strong disagreement with where I'm at. and there's this decision that one would make in my shoes as to, like, am I going to get super nervous about this game? What don't I know that they know? That's the second question that you ask. And then the third question is, if I still really like it, maybe I say, thank you very much and I'll take another bunch of the over. Like, I'll come back and take more over. So,

we'll have to see. But here are some things that I know about this game that maybe these other people aren't factoring in enough to their analysis. The first thing is that the charters are very different. We talked about this on the show before. Over the first six weeks of the season, before they're by with Justin Herbert now getting incorporated into that offense, this team on early downs in the first half of games was the second most run heavy team in the NFL. They ran the ball 54% of the time, way skewed to what most teams were doing. Since the buy, they have moved from 46% pass, right, 54% run. That means you're 46% pass, from 46% pass up to 64% pass.

We've flipped the numbers. We're now 64% past the last two weeks. Now, House, I will tell you that the number one most pass heavy team over the course of the entire season is the Seattle Seahawks. That won't surprise you. We know they made a total sea change shift with the way that they're calling plays. offensively. They're the most pass-heavy team. You know what percentage of passes that they're throwing on these early downs in the first half of games? 63%. The chargers, the last two weeks,

are at 64%. They've gone more pass-heavy than any team in the NFL to date over those last two weeks. So if they were playing like this, they would be the most pass-heavy team over the course of the season. They've done great things offensively. They've been able to rely upon these passes and get Justin Herbert, opportunity to throw the ball. And we've seen the leads that they've been able to generate with this passing. They were able to beat the Jacksonville Jaguars, but they fell short against the Denver Broncos. But we went over that with Chris Vernon on the Wednesday show. Why did they fall short in Denver? They fell short on Denver because they got to the fourth quarter with a 24 to 10 lead. And any time they got into scoring zone and had a first down, they ran the ball. And then they got into

second and long and they ran the ball again. And then on third in obvious passing situations, they're either throwing interceptions or they're throwing in completions. So they're either turning the ball over or kicking field goals. And then their defense isn't good enough to prevent Denver from driving the length of the field and scoring touchdowns. And that's exactly what happened. And that's exactly how they lost the game was Denver, this monumental comeback because they weren't the, the chargers got too conservative in the fourth quarter on early downs when they were one of the most past heavy teams in the NFL on early downs in the first half. Now, the other element on the other. side of the ball that I really like here is Derek Carr and the defense that the Chargers play.

The Chargers play a massive amount of zone coverage. They're one of the most zone coverage teams. I think only six defenses play more zone than do the LA Chargers defense. And Derek Carr has huge splits, man versus zone. Against zone, he averages 9.2 yards per attempt against Man 7.3. Against Zone 55% success against Man 42%. Against zone. Against zone. Fifty five percent. Against Man, against Man 42%. against zone plus 2.5 EPA against man, basically it's zero. So that's what he's been doing against defenses like the bucks and the chiefs and the bills, defenses that are better against the pass than are this, then is this Charter's defense. But clearly something is going on here to make somebody want to bet the under in a Raiders game

because if you look house at these Raiders games, they're not even close to going under the total. They had the game last week in the massive wind that went under the total. But otherwise, they've been an over team. There's a couple theories that I have. One could be there's an undisclosed injury for the Chargers offense, which is why money would come in on the Raiders, which it has. It was at three.

It's down to one or some spots of pick them even and the under, right? So an office of injury for the Chargers would make this shift that way. Or the Raiders saying, hey, look, we ran the ball really. well last week. We're going to run the ball again this week and see if we can lower the variance in this game and go in there and beat the chargers by relying on our ground game. If one of those two things happens, then sure, you know, this game's going to probably go under the total. But if those things don't happen, it won't. But this is an interesting story because we've got definite differences of opinion on this total. Yeah, I love it. I'm going to play it just

because I like having action involving the Chargers. What a thrill ride, Warren Sharp. Not a great big, giant amount of money, right? I'm not putting the whole bank roll on it, but it's fun. Now, look, we've been going along here. We're for and getting close to where we got to wrap up. I have two more plays for you, one of which I don't need any commentary. I'm playing the square play of the week, which is against the New York Jets. The New York Jets are hosting the New England Patriots this week. They are getting seven points. I am playing the New England Patriots and you cannot talk me out of it. Would you talk me out of it anyway? I won't even, I won't even try. There's not enough good things. Adam Gase is still the coach. But in this game, I literally have no

opinion formulated as of this time on Thursday. Okay, that's fine. Last kind of serious play of the week. And this is one of my favorite bets on the card. I am teasing the Indianapolis. Colts from two points up to eight points, according to the book that I have right now. And I'm pairing that. The Colter are hosting the Ravens. And then the New York football giants are playing. The Washington almost might be professional football team. And the Washington's are favored by two and a half.

I'm teasing the Giants up to eight and a half. So my teaser is the Colts plus eight with the Giants plus eight and a half. here's very quickly the rationale for each. First, the Colts. And really this is just the Ravens. Teams that have played the Steelers this season haven't been good in their next game because those Steelers games are physical as a mother effort. They come out beat up.

And that happened to the Ravens. So teams that have played the Steelers are one in four straight up and two and three against the spread the next week. And the Ravens have injuries. Ronnie Stanley broke his ankle and the right guard Tyree Phillips had an ankle injury of his own. I'm not sure what the status for him is, but Ronnie is obviously out. The Colts defense is formidable. Fourth and defensive efficiency.

Fourth against the past, fifth against the run. I just like the idea. The over under for this is around 47, 47 and a half I've seen. And I just like in a really. relatively lower scoring game, getting all the way up to eight points with the cult in this spot. The Giants is kind of a similar thing. So in the first place, divisional underdogs, 25 and 14 against the spread. The Washington almost professional football team, the total of this game is like 43, 44 points. So getting eight and a half points for the Giants. And the Giants,

yes, they beat Washington a couple of weeks ago. They looked really, they looked like they're coming together. And there's been a couple stories that have come out about Joe Judge and his relationship with his players. It just looks like that whole situation with the Giants is coming together. Obviously, I don't love going against my team, but an eight and a half point tease, I'm willing to go ahead and lay out there because my team can still win the game. And by a touchdown would be plenty.

New York has beat the pants off Washington. They beat them four straight times. Danny Jones has won two of the last three. So that's the rationale for this teaser. What do you think about it? I don't dislike it. You're right. The Giants have a very good historical track record against Washington.

I will say in that game against Washington earlier in the season, the Giants lose that game but for that defensive score that they get. And of course, Ron Rivera decides to go. go for too late instead of tying it up and playing for what would have been overtime at that point. He just decides to go for the win there, Washington off of a buy. You had Ron Rivera, I guess, finish his final treatment for his cancer. And that happened during the buy. I think this is a team that has some good vibes and likes where they are at right now and kind of where they could be headed. And you also have the factor with Kyle Allen. Just keep in mind that Kyle Allen was not getting the reps

before the season and in camp. They were trying to, a new coaching staff was trying to get Dwayne Haskins ready to be the starter. So this is really the first time that Kyle Allen is taking significant reps and doing significant work with the new pieces that this team has.

So those are like my fears and I'm not trying to be that jerk, right? I don't know, House, if some of your friends like that you gamble and discuss games with, but like there's some guys that always want to just like, say the negatives about your,

bet. Like, they never want to, they're never really on the same side as you. They like to be on the opposite side or talk trash about your bet before the game even starts. But for me, the few guys that I talk to, like, I love it when we agree on things. But I also like it when, like I'm frustrated by it, but I also like hearing their alternative perspective because it might be factoring in things that I didn't think of. So I don't necessarily think there has been some massive money on the giants here, moving this game from plus three and a half for the giants all the way down to plus two and a half. So from off the hook down through the three, that's some big money early on in the week here. And so you're riding with that money and the fact that the Giants play these guys well

and you like where they're headed and you like how tough they're playing. And I can't really disagree with you on any of that. It does seem difficult to believe this game would end by, you know, more than nine plus points here in favor of Washington unless Daniel Jones implodes. So there's that element to it. And I don't disagree. On the other side of the ball, I think that game is going to be absolutely fascinating. We know that the Baltimore Ravens are dealing with COVID. We talked about it before with Marlon Humphrey. He can't play, but all these other defensive players, they couldn't practice all week, right?

They can't be in the building or doing anything with the team. So they're going to have to just get injected into the game. They've got the gameplay and downloaded. They understand they've been on Zoom meetings and that sort of thing, but they haven't been out there on the field working through things with the team. So how much does that hurt them? Because there's a number of starters that are on the defensive side of the ball that are on that list. The other interesting thing here that I'm really fascinated to see is Lamar Jackson has massive splits versus zone and versus man this year.

Versus zone, he's averaging 8.6 yards per attempt with a positive EPA. Against man, he's only averaging 4.3 yards per attempt with a negative EPA. we know that the Colts play a lot more zone than man. So theoretically, that's good for Lamar Jackson. And we had that funny quote, I don't know if you caught at House, where I think Brown was saying, Marquise Brown was saying, what's the point in having soldiers if you're not going to use them? Oh, boy. Oh, Marquise.

He's taken up his arms. He's a soldier. He wants to be utilized by his general. He wants to get out on that battlefield and contribute. But if the Colts do something weird, which I've seen Matt Abramphaloose do and just switch to go to a lot of man in this game for whatever reason, I think we should pay close attention to whether he's got to trick up his sleeve because using a lot of man in this game when they've gotten so much his own on the season would really mess with the passing attack of the Ravens even more. And the other thing, too, is Baltimore still isn't in this great stage where they're getting out of plays. the defense is stacking the box. And keep in mind, Darius Leonard is back for the Colts. I'm saying a lot here that is kind of siding with your opinion. I will say if you just looked

at like pure power ratings from some people, they might think that the Baltimore Ravens are in a good spot. Like this line is more than fair for the Ravens here. But I'm kind of on the fence. And when you're on the fence and you think this line might be approximately fair, that's a good time to use a teaser, right? Because if you think the line is bad, if you think, oh my God, this line is terrible, then just bet the side. You don't need to tease it. Bet the side. But if you think that this line is approximately fair and you can go through the three and the seven, that's a perfect time to use a teaser in my opinion. So I don't have anything. I've contemplated using the Colts as a leg on teasers myself. And it could be definitely something that's on my

card as well. I love it when you talk dirty to me, Warren Sharp. When we're on the same side of a leg of a teaser. That is warm feelings inside my fat belly. I did that, by the way, I learned. You taught early in the season, get through three and seven. Both legs of this teaser are through the three and the seven, both the giants and the cult at least at the minute. So if you can get these numbers,

when you're listening to this on Friday, go ahead and do it. Sharpie, it's a great card. Hopefully we get football games this weekend and we're not all COVID. laid, but some, some really good ones at Sunday Night Football game is great. Whereas we're a little overloaded on one o'clock games. I know that upsets you, but it's a pretty tasty slate anyhow. I'm okay as long as there's eight or less. So I don't have to throw on on my auxiliary TVs. I want to watch multiple angles, multiple, you know, I pause both the games

on the side. I've got multiple other TVs. And then I look at it so I can get instant replays of everything. I'm good with that. You stick nine. games at one, we have problems. The NFL only stuck eight, so I'm okay with that. And I agree. From a betting perspective, it is a little bit more of a difficult card to navigate, in my opinion. There aren't as much spots where there's all these shit. This game is definitely wrong. I'm going to capitalize on that. There's a couple of those. But for the most part, I don't see as many of them, but what I am seeing is some pretty competitive games and some very meaningful games of some of these teams. And as you said, it could be messy with COVID and guys in and out.

It's not a clean week, but it should be a good entertaining week of games. And I like the slate of the one and the four and the nightcap of the Saints and Bucks should be a good game as well. I'm looking forward to this weekend house. That makes two of us Warren Sharp. Let's go out there and try and return a little bit of capital into our wallets. I'm in need of it. I've had a little bit of a dry spell. I'm ready to hit a couple of these.

Let's roll.