The Ringer NFL Show - Early Betting the Super Bowl

Episode Date: January 29, 2021

Joe House and Warren Sharp discuss how a sharp better typically approaches the Super Bowl with two weeks to prepare, break down the early lines and totals, where we expect them to end up, and how injuries play a factor in the game. Hosts: Joe House and Warren Sharp Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, hey, everybody on today's episode of the Ringer NFL show, Warren Sharp and I discuss the early Super Bowl lines where we think they might end up and how a Sharp better typically approaches the Super Bowl with a couple weeks to prepare. Stick around. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm Warren Sharp. I'm joined by Joe House. And we are almost at Super Bowl. week, Mr. House. The culmination of a fantastic 2020 season here at the Ringer doing these pods with you every single Friday. How are you feeling heading into what is about to be

a very action-packed Super Bowl week, my friend? I'm psyched. I'm scared. I'm psyched. I have all the emotions across the entire board. I will tell you this, Warren Sharp. I am very excited. this is like the luckiest moment of my entire life because it's the first time in all my years on the planet that I have the undivided attention of a sharp better that I can interrogate not just once this week but next week as well for the process for the angles how does a smart person think about the correct way to win some money betting on the Super Bowl you are a smart person and I'm going to ask you for 45 minutes or an hour or two hours on this pot and then another two hours next week how you go about making some money for yourself and let's try and make some money for all our betting buddies out there. Hell yes. It's a great time. It's not a time if you think like, oh my God, these lines, I'm going to find so much value in the one biggest game of the year where the sports book,

have had a while to know and understand these teams. You know, you're probably, on occasion, you'll get an outcome that's way off of what the lines are. But you're not often going to find a Super Bowl where it's like, okay, this line just doesn't make any sense at all. It definitely should be, you know, you're not really going to find that very often, but what you are going to find still are betting angles for the game and a lot of value in the prop market, which is going to be extensive this Super Bowl.

Certainly, we're going to be breaking the game down at a high level today, walking through the two weeks leading into Super Bowl Sunday. But next week, we're going to be diving real deep into outcomes, predictions, all those types of great things. So that show is going to be outstanding as well. But this one should be a good primer, let's say, for that show. Yeah. So speaking of primer, I'd like to begin the interrogation with this. it's 926 Sunday night and the chiefs have just vanquished the bills. We know the two teams that are competing in the Super Bowl.

What are you doing? What's the first thing that you do, Warren Sharp? Well, I actually took part of the second half of the game, the NFC, sorry, the AFC championship game to run my model, to update everything so that I had the outcome, as soon as they open up the lines, I could see how my lines compared to what Vegas was thinking on these games. And in the fourth quarter, I then get on the phone and I'm talking to some guys on the phone that I work with from a betting perspective. And then immediately after the game, there's still conversations being had deep into the night trying to understand what we want to do

from a side from a total perspective where we see the line going oftentimes there's a uh the desire is to bet to predict where the line is going rather than what your ultimate position is going to be once the limits rise you can get down on what your ultimate position is going to be but if you have a hunch that the line's going to go a certain direction you want to get a little bit of exposure to that right away especially if you don't necessarily disagree with that position. So there's like the second half of that a FC championship game is not incredibly enjoyable. It's actually a working second half of the game. Oh, because you're getting ready. So you're

you're you're on the hustle. Okay. So let's go forward then. The lines opened at three and a half and 57 and a half, I believe, uh, Sunday night. And almost within hours, um, both of those numbers, um, both of those numbers, went down. I'm going to ask you for an explanation as to why that happened, but I want to start with another kind of process question. So you see what they open at. You're formulating opinions. You're talking to your guys. You might get in on a little bit and your strategy is to forecast a little bit with these early bets where you think the lines might ultimately move. What are you doing on Monday? What are you doing on Tuesday?

Yeah, so we'll come back to talking about what we did with the action on Sunday night. But what we did Monday, Tuesday, we are then firming up some of where we've seen the line move. And if there's any breather to be had, just this is me personally. I don't know if this is the way that everybody does it. But if there's any breather to be had after getting all our ducks in a row for championship Sunday, obviously it's very busy with the prop market. We had a really good weekend of NFL props for those two championship games. You did.

Thank you for that. Yeah, that was, I mean, that was a good week. And then you take a little bit of break. At least I did on Monday. Truthfully, my kids were off the school. I have no idea why. I mean, they were off two days the prior week. They're NFL fans.

That's why. They knew you're up all night. Actually, actually, the Sunday, The Monday after the Super Bowl should absolutely be a holiday. That's a fact. I mean, what are we doing in this country? But with regard to Monday, they had off. So I actually went on a little bit of a hike in the afternoon.

I took an hour and a half and got out of the house, get some fresh air in. And then Tuesday, here we are Thursday night getting ready to record it. But we start diving back into I'm updating my models. All the play-by-play data is being filtered in from the Sunday championship games. So I'm getting all the, not just a play by play, but all the deep charting information, you know, when the defenses were in this type of coverage, in the down and distances and all the different elements from a charting perspective that I got and I'm updating all of my models so that I can then break down this game. And I'll tell you that it's very different than most games because typically, and this is a benefit because, I mean, it's it hurts, but it helps me in this game. I obviously work for a number of different. different teams and number of different coordinators around the NFL and the last of my teams left in the championship round. So I don't work for either of the two teams that are in the Super Bowl. So I don't have like hardcore reports. If I was working for one of these teams,

I would be like insane. I probably wouldn't have slept for three days from Sunday night on. We're just preparing stuff day after day for these guys and heading into the championship game. it was literally and the playoff game before that it's literally reports every single night that I'm filing at like 3 a.m. So that the guys are waking up at like 5.5.30 and like we're almost two ships crossing in the night. They then get the information. But I've been working much of the night to prepare it. And that happens like Monday night and Tuesday night and Wednesday night and Wednesday night. And then there's phone calls and everything. But this time there's none of that. So I actually have a lot of time to think about this game of because we get early positions down on Sunday night

after the championship games. And we probably, I mean, unless the line does something too crazy, are going to see what the market is doing, but wait a little bit to come back with some of our heavier positions. We do have a little bit of time, but we have to get all our ducks in a row because props get rolled out and they get rolled out earlier and earlier as the years go by. Yeah. So let's talk about that. You mentioned a as we were preparing for the show that traditionally historically, this Thursday night, the Thursday night of the first week, you know, the buy week essentially, was a high water event, a gigantic celebration in Las Vegas because this Thursday of the buy week is props night,

right? It's when all of the books traditionally open up the props market. And, you know, if you're in Las Vegas, you could go around to the various books and get your, your positions down on whatever you like. You mentioned that now, you know, with the entrance of online gambling that the prop markets have opened a little bit earlier, have you been monitoring some of that prop action? Definitely have been. You know, some of the books off in the, I keep referring to them as offshores, but they're online books in the different states that are now legalized. And these guys are trying to put up props earlier and earlier.

Now, some of them are just throwing up, like even some of the local Las Vegas books are throwing up all the standard, you know, standard props, like which quarter is going to be the highest scoring. And it's a lot of general team-based and score-based props that are computational once you know what the side and the total is going to be on a game. Those are very easy to generate. You don't have to do a lot of deep research or analysis to come up with those props or to bet those props.

So they do spend a few days coming up with the numbers for the player props. And some books like they slowly started, I forget the exact day. It might have been Wednesday. They rolled out, it's either Wednesday or Tuesday night or Wednesday during the day. Some of these local books in the various different states, rolled out like passing props for the quarterbacks. But that's all they had. They didn't have any rushing props.

And then the next day they started rolling out, and I'm talking about this year only, started rolling out, you know, rushing yards props or receiving yards props. And so we're starting to see them kind of as they get them. They're filling them in. What it used to be exactly right, there was a couple of different books out in Las Vegas.

It used to be just one primarily. They would say, okay, at 5 p.m. on Friday or someone slowly got to like Thursday, We're going to be rolling out all our props. So everybody would go there who was in town. Some people would fly in specifically for that and just limit bet as many props as they saw that were off based on what they had. They get the sheets. They're looking at the board.

They're comparing it to their numbers. And they're just getting in line, betting it, getting to the back of the line, betting it again. You know, now the props are going to be a little bit more interesting. They're still rolling out props in that manner. But there's now a couple different shops that are putting out props. and so they race to see who can get theirs up first out in Las Vegas. But the foot traffic is going to be down tremendously this year,

probably down significantly on Super Bowl Sunday for a couple of different reasons. Number one, it's obviously in the middle of a pandemic. Number two, you don't have as many people coming from out of town to go to Las Vegas because now you can go to AC and have a ton of different sports betting options or you can bet in your own states, like four or five legal books just on your computer from your house now in the various states that sports betting is legal. So there's less of a need to get your buddies, call them up, pack up shop, head out to Las Vegas, rent some rooms, get on a plane, all the different type of stuff, things that used to be required to have a fun, a few days of betting on the games

and watching the game. Like, you don't have to do that anymore. So there's less visit coming to town. And then thirdly is just apps. The betting apps are now taking more of them are taking limit bets. Before it used to be, well, we're not going to give you the full limits unless you come in. Now with the pandemic and everything, most of the betting apps that are tied to the local casinos are giving you full limits on all the bets. So you can actually limit bet from your house and you can bet a variety of different shops. The key is making sure you're fully funded. And that's the biggest challenge with the professionals and the guys that I'm associated with is just making sure we've got enough funds in all of our different sources because you literally, I mean, this is not wise for the people

that are just random Joe's out there, but you're tying up typically a substantial portion of your bankroll, like an absurd portion of your bankroll on the Super Bowl because there's so many opportunities with the prop markets. And it's not even necessarily that you're taking strong positions everywhere. In some cases, you're getting over 85 yards and under 94 yards. And you've got an opportunity to middle both, but you've got a bunch of money on the line with both of those spots. So you're finding a good number here or a bad number there and you're just trying to fade what you can or take arbitrage opportunities. So yeah, it becomes a big event, but it's going to be less foot traffic this year. So the point in sharing that story is simply

that some of these books, some of the operators out in Las Vegas with the sharp action that typically hits these player props right away, like as soon as they're released, these guys are going to be more quick to over adjust to the sharp action and shift the lines quicker because they're probably less likely to get as much square action on game day, which is very predictable. The square action on game day is typically always betting yeses and. overs and good things to happen. And so they know, okay, well, we're exposed a little bit because a lot of the sharp guys are betting, you know, for bad things to happen on this particular prop. But we know this type of prop is what the public loves and they're going to come in and pound

it on Sunday. So we're not going to move it too far. Now you don't know how much of the public is actually going to come to Las Vegas in the middle of the pandemic and bet in your specific book. So you don't have the opportunity to take as much square. money on game day potentially. So you have to, these books are going to be a little bit more scared of the sharp money as my prediction when they start opening these numbers. So I want to pick your brain a little bit on the props market because I barely like scratched the surface with it this season.

I prior to this year, prior to this podcast, was not a very big NFL better. I would bet, you know, maybe one or two games a week and, and, typically sides and totals, not heavy into props. And then when Super Bowl would roll around, I would play on some props, but mainly for entertainment purposes. Through the course of this season and working with you and with your service and seeing the opportunities out there,

one of the things that I've been curious about all season long, and it was really apparent in conference championship weekend, there can be giant swings in the, prop market between, you know, like yardage shows. Like Chris Godwin was available midweek last week at like 63 and a half yards. And when I looked at it on Sunday morning, it was 74 and a half. I mean, that's an enormous swing. That's a jik.

And by the way, the overhit on both those numbers because Godwin had a spectacular game. The thing that you and I talked about was exactly. And when I say you and I talked about it, you told everybody, pay attention to Godwin. He's in that sweet spot of, you know, that mid-level kind of a receiver. And that's where Brady feels most comfortable look for Godwin. And so, but I knew I wanted to bet Godwin. I, for whatever reason, hadn't been jumping on props midweek last week. When I opened up and I saw that there was like a, you know, a 10-yard difference between

what was available midweek and then that game. What drives that? Like, where does that come from? Yeah, that's all. Typically, that's going to happen when you've got sharp guys and the public are both on the same side. And we knew, I mean, that's why for clients, we released the Godwin over early. I forget what day it was, but it was the first one that we sent out a couple of days,

at least ahead of the game, because we knew that that exact thing was. going to happen, that this game, this guy was going to be bet on and people, including sharp guys, were going to see the same types of things that we were seeing there. So we got out in front of that. And that's exactly the way that you have to operate when you're betting on these props right now is you obviously want to find, you may not have broken the game down enough to get true, strong positions on every single player. You don't know exactly how healthy this guy is or will this guy be practicing. So those will factor into certain elements of the prop bedding. But you want to find the more egregious ones where you're like, okay, this one's definitely light or this one's definitely

too high. And this line is not going to be here in two or three days. So we just got to take it now. Let's just quickly take it now. We haven't dotted the eyes across all the T's with our research, but we know this number is not going to last. And so you have to get on those early. Some of the ones, I mean, I'll tell you, we haven't yet gotten to the timeline for like Sunday for Super Bowl Sunday, but I mean, it is a one busy as shit day going through and betting lists and lists of props. It's insane. So you, but you said on, on Super Bowl Sunday is, I mean, my experience with you is virtually all of your stuff is done by the time Sunday football rolls around. Why are you betting on Super Bowl Sunday?

So Super Bowl Sunday is when we would come in and bet under on the Godwin number that moved 10 yards north, right? We would be looking at the numbers that either we already got a really great number on. Now, we typically don't, my guys don't typically hedge a lot, like on props, look for these middle opportunities. Because typically the way we look at is if we got a really good number and we like this bet, why are we lowering our plus EV expectation on this bet by going the other side and hoping that it lands somewhere in the middle? That's what somebody who's got like a, is trying to grow their bankroll. Maybe they just don't want to risk a whole lot. But for us, we're looking at it like, we don't want to dilute our position. We have a really strong position. Clearly, the bet's really good

because the numbers moved a lot. So we're going to, we're going to ride with it knowing that this is a bet that's going to hit 58 to 60% of the time. And if it happens to miss, it does, but we're not going to dilute it. But we will come in on guys that we like unders on. Now, in some cases, you got to run to get the under early. But in many cases, and there's going to be a couple instances I have a feeling this week where there's, there's already props that I've circled that, let me say, there's already players in situations that I've circled that I like unders on props that I have not bet yet, but it's probably going to be some of the first bets that I make because I'm obviously going to see what the number is and see if it makes sense to me. But I think that the lines are going

to get worse on those bets later on. And so I got to get down early. But Sunday is just super busy because it's a lot of stuff. The limits are higher. There's more spots, have more props up on Sunday. And I mean, I've done this. One year I was out in Vegas doing it and we were getting profiled. me and the guy that I worked with were getting profiled for an article that was written in some big publication and it was like following us and what our day was like and what we were doing

and it's it's hectic as shit like you end up posting up in like the VIP of one of the spots but you're and you're getting the food shipped up to you but you're just like sitting there working and on your phone constantly getting information getting fed different things and you're

trying to bet it at as many spots as you possibly can just like you're running through you're getting down and you have no idea by the time when the game actually kicks off what really you're exposed to. You don't at the end. Like you don't really know 100% true. In some cases like for me and like they're like my service and stuff. Yeah, we're focusing on specific things.

But in general, like the betters that I'm working with, there's so much that they're getting down on. Like there's certain players, right, that you know. Like, okay, we're fading Antonio Brown in this game. We're riding on Mike Evans in this game. yards, receptions, longest reception, like whatever it is. Like, we like Mike Evans. So you kind of know, okay, we're big on Mike Evans.

We want him to have a good game. We bet all of his shit at as many spots as we could get down on it, let's say. And in other cases, we're betting under to uncertain guys. But there's all types of things that you're, well, this book has this number and it's a little off. So we're going to max bet that. But we're not going to bet it at these other eight books because their numbers aren't good enough to bet.

And then, you know, you're and you're bouncing around and literally like it requires hours the next day looking at everything to figure out did you even win on the game. Like you're kind of trying to go through all your shit to figure out how much up or down was I in the game. And so we'll, we would go out to like dinner afterwards and we knew that like if the side that we had bet covered, then we were in good shape. like the pro we we feel like we're going to win on props every single year so uh sometimes you lose a little bit on props but we're rarely taking a bath on props so if usually we're on the right side of the game like we know we came out a winner for that game um even without going through the props but um yeah we don't know your final number until you tally everything up uh at the very end but sunday even when i'm not out there even when i'm back here it's just it's just very busy because you're

trying to, it's, for me at least, it's, it's an information game. It's, it's a relationship game and it's an information game. So you're talking to all the people that you got relationships with. You're getting whatever information that you can and you're betting as many spots as you can as as good as information as you can get. And that you're anticipating doing this. You're planning for this this year, 10 days from now, your Sunday, it starts at whatever time. What is it start six in the morning? What time are you up? No, not that good, not quite that early. it's definitely later than that. The game's not until 630.

More civilized, yes. I'm typically like one of the guys who's getting up the latest because I'm up at night, the latest, just based upon my schedule. And other guys are cranking even before me. But it's a reasonable time, but you're still, you know, putting out the feelers, talking to people, getting information. And then it becomes like a mad dash the last like, I don't know, from like 12, 30, 2 o'clock onward, it just becomes insanity for several hours.

I can't wait. So I can't wait. I will not text you in that time, I promise, because all I do is try and send stuff that I think is going to make you laugh. Anyway, speaking of setting out stuff, though, that will not make you laugh. It'll make you happy. It should put a smile on your face. You have some positions already coming into this super.

Super Bowl, some bets that you've made previously. I know for sure that you have the Chiefs at 4 to 1. I know that you have an Open Tees that's available to you. Okay, so the, the chief, the open teas was part of a hedge on using Buffalo. In the championship game, we, we had the 4 to 1 ticket, which we still have on the Chiefs. and the hedge was just getting some positions down on Buffalo so that we could have a little bit of opportunity in case Buffalo were to pull out the miracle. So now instead of the potential of winning four positions on the Chiefs, we're only going to win three positions on the Chiefs. So we took about 25% off of that.

So we're still in good shape if the Chiefs win with a four to one future there. And then what I did just personally, just personally, and I advise this. I mean, this is good advice for anybody out there when these sports books open up shop in your state. A lot of them give you opportunities to have no risk wagers. I look up to a $1,000, no risk wager. And you can pretty much use it on anything. So for me, I didn't want to use it.

And I explained this on the Wednesday show, but for those that didn't listen, I'll do it real quick. I didn't want to use it just on like the chiefs to win this game. I was already invested on them. I didn't want to use it just on Tampa Bay to beat Green Bay because I wanted a little bit of bigger payout, especially when it's when it's no risk. Like if it loses, I get my money back. So why would I just do like a minus 110 or or a plus one 30 or 40? So what I did was I wanted to find that sweet spot where I felt it was a little bit of a

long shot, but still something I had a lot of confidence in. So I did Super Bowl matchup, a Super Bowl exact result. And I took Tampa Bay to beat Kansas City. So this was before last week's game, right before the kickoff, actually like an hour before, this was paying 7.5 to 1. So I put the full $1,000 free play on that particular outcome. So since both of those teams won, Now it carries over to the actual game. So more or less, I have Tampa Bay Money Line. And right now,

Tampa Bay Money Line is plus 150. I have it at plus 750. So I've got that as like a hedge on the KC bet personally. So I don't have to do a whole lot more. If anything, it would be like taking a little bit more chiefs if I really wanted to try to just maximize like not having to sweat the game at all and just sitting back and knowing that I'm going to come out a big winner regardless of how this game actually unfolds. But you know, Mehouse, that's not really my style, just sit back and do nothing for days. So I'm going to be digging into this game looking for tons of different edges here. But those are the two positions that I have that carry forward. And I know a lot of people out there, they like to bet a shitload of futures, right? They bet like all

these different futures, Super Bowl futures and all the type of stuff. And you know from being with me before the season started, we were doing these pods, but also like you got some of my futures. At the beginning of the year, I was abetting Super Bowl futures. And I know a lot of people do that. And then they'll brag about like the one or two that they have that's actually alive, but they lost a bunch of money on these other ones that they're not going to talk about. For me, the only futures that I actually bet during the season was one on Kansas City to win the Super Bowl when I could get at 4 to 1, when the number dropped enough for me to get at 4 to 1, one. One on the Rams to win the Super Bowl, which obviously lost. They upset the Seahawks, but then they lost to the

Packers. And then this future that I took on the exact outcome of the Super Bowl prior to the championship games. So two of the three are still alive. So I feel pretty fortunate to have timed it the right way to not be a loser on the futures and have a really good offseason where I'm betting futures, but they're like season win totals or odds to make the playoffs or things of that nature. They're not like the single event Super Bowl champion ones. Yeah, we're going to jump into some of the interesting aspects of how the lines moved, what they opened at and that sort of thing in a second here. But I am curious. We talked over the last couple weeks about Super Bowl MVP odds and using those as a potential proxy for a side, a way to get in a game.

enhanced value. And one in particular we talked about was Tom Brady as MVP. And this was before the conference championship. And I think he was available at like plus 450 or something, four and a half to one, five to one odds. And you didn't do that. Is there a reason that you wouldn't go that direction? Well, frankly, I almost did it. Oh, okay.

Well, I actually, so I actually, the book that I, specific book that I had the $1,000 free play at, I was going to bet Tom Brady to win the MVP. And at some spots, I saw it at plus 625. I know there was others that added up plus 450. But at this particular book, I didn't see that listed anywhere. But they had the exact result of the Super Bowl, which was Tampa Bay over the Chiefs. Obviously, in order for Brady to win, I'm thinking, in order for Brady to win it, Tampa's got to beat somebody. So Tampa side is the way I want to go there. This was a different way to attack that same.

And of course, the chiefs are favored over the bills. And I thought that they probably were going to outclass them. At the end of day, I like the bills. But I thought the chiefs would probably outclass them and win the game. So at the end of the day, I thought that was a pretty likely chance for the Super Bowl matchup at those numbers. And I ended up rolling with the better odds. So I was actually fortunate that otherwise I would have definitely taken Tom Brady MVP, but I found a better number so I didn't.

Oh, great. Okay. Well, that makes me feel better. I was taking some lessons. I was taking notes. So I try and listen when you try and give out some of these sharp lessons to us, holy. Hey, hey, betting buddies. Celebrate the 55th edition of the big game with exclusive 55 to one odds.

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If you have a gambling problem, please don't hesitate to get yourself some help and call 1-800 gambler. That's 1-800 G-A-M-B-L-E-R. So let's talk about the game. The lines opened, you know, at 927 Eastern Time Sunday night, 57 and a half was the total, three and a half Kansas City favored by three and a half. And within two hours, both those numbers were down. What happened? Yeah, so the sharp money for weeks has been coming in on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And they've been right. They've been they covered to spread against the Saints and against the Packers. And even before that, guys were lining up to bet Tom Brady and the Buccaneers. And this team was doing pretty well against the spread. I mean, I think they finished

on the season like 61% overall. So they were. having a very good season covering spreads in general, even with Tom Brady being there, but they obviously turned it up, tuned it up a little bit down the stretch as they made a couple of tweaks and adjustments to their offense. So these guys have been betting them as an underdog and winning outright for several weeks now. And they continue to do that in this particular game. The money on the under was one that I did dabble slightly on. That was literally, like Sunday night, I don't, I don't recall the time. I did not get the 57 and a half, but I did get a 57. And we took a little bit on the under there, simply a little bit of a number grab and a

little bit of the fact that my computer model didn't have this total as high as 57. Now, using a computer model, like mine's been great for me for years. So I trust it. But there's even some games in the postseason where matchups are going to convince you that like maybe the computer model could be undervaluing the upside of these teams scoring some points. And so I don't ever just go, well, this is what the computer says. So I don't have to do anything. I'm just betting the computer all the time. I am putting in a little bit of a human handicapping element from a matchups perspective and from a perspective that my computer model doesn't, some elements my computer model doesn't incorporate. Let's just put it that way. So,

in this particular case, the model thought that this line was a little bit too high. So I dabbled a little bit on the 57. I will tell you that there are a couple of key numbers out there in totals. They're definitely not anywhere close to betting the three or the seven on sides. But once you get north of 51, the most key number is 55 and the second most key number is 57. So above the 51, there are a number. that land a little bit more often. And the first one is 55 and the next one is 57.

And then that's it. There's no other numbers in that range that are going to hit at a higher rate than once you're past the 51. So having a little piece of the 57 was important because of the fact that that number hits a little bit more frequently. And then the other part we mentioned at the top was like I kind of felt like this total would get bet down a little bit, even though the public is all over the over in this game and thinks that there's going to be a lot of points and who's going to stop either

of these teams. Like, I think that the, I figured that the sharper money was going to come in and bet the under. And that's absolutely what's happening. And right now, the total at many spots is all the way down to 56. And in some spots, it's juiced a little bit even to the under. Now, there's still some 56 and a half out there. My final position on the total, I'm going to be on different elements. are looking at different markets for the total.

I'm not just going to take the 57 that I took a small little bite of on Sunday night, and that's my final position on the game total. I won't add to it in any capacity. There are definitely going to be derivative markets that I'm going to be getting involved in from a total perspective. And we'll probably talk about some of those next week, but I haven't done anything other than that small bite on the under 57 so far. well if that's your sort of opening lean is there anything that would cause you to to bet an over

like how far down does this number have to go to catch your attention as a potential overplay well to answer that i'd have to give away too much probably from what my actual number on the game was but what i will say to me i pay for it yeah so so i'll keep that i'll keep that um off these airwaves. But what I will say is that some Super Bowls end up starting off a little bit slower. And there are going to be some opportunities, whether it's in game. Obviously, you can't do anything. Your limits are a little bit lower in game. And you obviously can't help other people with in game stuff. Right. Like I like to give my stuff to help other people before the game starts so they can actually bet it. So in game, I can help myself. But you can't really help other people

as much doing that. So like on the pod next week, we'll talk a little bit about some things that we can that we can try to take advantage of. But yes, there would be situations where I would be looking at backing the potential for some teams to exceed the scoring expectations that the books may end up posting, but I don't really want to get into that just yet. Yeah, sure. That's fine. I mean, the trends out there, and there's plenty of this information, if anybody you want to do the research, the trends argue in favor of an under. I mean, you know, in games that opened up at 50 points or higher, that's happened six times, I think, since 2001, and the trend there is five and one for the under. And the only one that went over was New England,

Atlanta. And it went over because they went to overtime. I mean, that was an under all the way until it was no longer an under. And that was because of, you know, the miracle of Tom Brady and the aiding and abetting that Atlanta, um, accomplished in, in helping,

uh, New England win that game. Um, but yeah, so there, there's, it's, it's not that,

um, surprising. The 57 and a half opening point total, I believe is the highest opener for a Super Bowl ever. Is that, is that right? Yes. Yeah.

So that's, that's like, you know, um, the book sizing up, you know, what the public believes about these two quarterbacks more than anything, right? I mean, these offenses also have been clicking along. Yes.

And I will tell you for that other Super Bowl, the one you mentioned, the Atlanta, New England one, that was a Super Bowl that we got on Sunday night early and bet the over in that one. The number was not where it was. And that line moved totally dead. differently than this line's doing. That line took over money. That game was in a dome. That took over money. We got out ahead of the curve. The line got bed up. It got bed up pretty high, but then it ended up coming back down. And by game day, what was funny is like we were on an over position. All of the

the sharp syndicate guys were on the under position. They waited and just took some under positions on the game. And so we were head to head against them. And like me and like, like, me and like, my my my guy that I work with closely you know he was getting all this heckling from you know his his uh compadres at his cohorts like hey what are you doing why are you listening to this what well the under was the and and so it was he and i were both so uh you know thankful that the game ended up going over the way that it did uh because our obvious uh bet hit on that one but that move that line moved totally differently than this one. This one, you could see, it opened a 57, 57 and a half and has done nothing but come down slightly. It's not as if this line is dropped down to 54 and is completely wrong.

It's taken a little bit of a trickle down. It's leaked down just a little bit. I don't anticipate it going down south of 55. I mean, if this line went south of 55 at this point in time, with all the initial sharp money having already made market entry and then public money is what's going to be coming out here. And if this line still goes down south of 55 at some point, I'm not saying it's definitely going to win, but you have everything that you need to know about this game. That under would be super sharp if this thing got down like to 54, 54 and a half at this, you know, since it hasn't moved there and we're still sitting 56, 56 and a half. Well, let's talk about the side. I have seen some speculation from some of the analysts and analytics out there that the three that it's currently sitting at, Kansas City minus three, folks have an expectation that's going to go up to Kansas City minus three and a half.

And probably, according to some folks, it will land at Kansas City minus four on Sunday. Does that square with how you're kind of anticipating the way this thing's going to behave? You know, we really would have to get a lot of public money for it to get up to four and close it for on game day and a little bit of sharp money would have to join that party. I kind of don't think that it's going to close it four. I obviously could be completely wrong. But I think that this number, I almost think this is the perfect number for the line to be it. I think you're going to have enough people that if they really, want to take Tampa Bay, they can get Tampa Bay plus three and a half pretty cheap.

You're going to have people that want to lay KC at this number. So I think the books will shift to three and a half when they want to attract a little bit more Tampa Bay money. And when they get as much Tampa Bay money as they need at that point in time to keep their ledger balanced enough, then they're going to drop back down to three. And they're going to get somewhat even action. But if they take a big bet on Kansas City or a few, then they'll move back to three and a to try to play the game to get a little bit.

Like, I think this is the perfect spot. Juice 3 is exactly where it should be. If massive, probably sharp money comes in, it could go to 4 on Kansas City. It could come down to like a low 3, like a flat 3 if a lot of money is coming in on Tampa Bay. But I kind of think this number, these books are smart to keep this number where it is right now. And we also mentioned this since this is like. like a sports betting pod and the other one was not. I'll just add that what a lot of people end up doing is they end up on the Super Bowl itself.

If they like the underdog, they want the payout, man. They want plus one $1.50. They want the money line stuff. And so they're betting the favorite by laying the points minus three. Yeah, KC minus three. That's good. I, 100 to win 100. That's good.

Do I want to lay? What's the money line right now? Do I want to lay minus 165 minus 170 to win 100? No, I don't want to do that. I just want to lay the three at minus 115, right? So that's what they're going to do if they want to lay it on with KC. If they want to take it with Tampa, they don't want to just take the three. They want the money line.

They want that payday. So what it does is creates an inefficiency in the marketplace whereby you'll get a inefficient number on the favorite money line. In this case, Kansas City on the money line where if it was a week, eight Sunday afternoon game at 1 p.m. or 4 p.m. where there's a bunch of games on at that same time, you're going to have to pay five to 10 cents, perhaps more to lay the money line with the favorite than you will on Sunday of this game.

And so that's why the smart strategy, if you do like Kansas City, my suggestion almost unequivocally, regardless of where this number goes, does it go to three, three and a half, four. The smart play for you is to wait until Sunday, and get the cheapest money line possible to time it right to try to find the cheapest money line and take kansas city on the money line that would be my my suggestion now maybe you would

have to go saturday i don't know you could see kind of i would be tracking let's just put it this way track the line as it moves over the course of once a day you know just noon i'm getting my sandwich for lunch what's the money line on kansas city and write it down each day and just kind of track where it goes over the course of the next, what, nine days until Super Bowl Sunday? What is your guess as to where that money line might end up? Is it going to get all the way down to minus 160, minus 150, 155? It really depends on where the spread goes and how many, you know, how much of the sharp action is coming in on Kansas City.

Yeah, I get it. So it's hard, it's hard to really say. Kansas City ends up coming the side and the public's on Kansas City and the sharp money is on Kansas City, then it's not going to come down to like 150 or 155, right? But the point in general is just that you are going to pay less for it regardless of what it is. You're paying less for it than you would during the regular season. So if you like Kansas City, don't lay it, don't lay the points, lay the money line. And you just want to try to figure. out what the right time to enter the market would be for that. And typically, if you're hoping that

there's going to be a bunch of Tampa money, all I can tell you is this. Every single Sunday, well, did they play Sunday the division around? I'm not sure. But every single game day for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, game day morning money has come in. Heavy money has come in on Tampa Bay on game day. So that would mean that you're going to have money. entering the market on Sunday, which would mean that theoretically, the best time to grab the Kansas City money line would be after that money has reared its head on Tampa Bay. Yeah, we saw that this past Sunday. There were six bets of $500,000 or more that we were aware of Sunday morning that came in on Tampa. And it took the line down from what was Green Bay favored by?

it moved it by a full half of point just in the handful of hours. Yeah. Yeah, that's what they've been doing. So we wondered if one of those, we wondered if one of those $500,000 bets was Tom Brady because he had a $500,000 bonus upon winning that game. So maybe did Tom bet on himself? Maybe it was just now.

I could have been I could tell you. I could tell, well, it could have been Jezelle, yeah. I could just tell you that the NFL doesn't really mess around with that stuff. and they've got their gambling, gambling policies. I've, I've read them. I've been, I've been showing them. So, um, no doubt. Yeah, there's, they don't really mess around with that.

So it's definitely not him, but. Well, I, I, I know it's still early, um, in your research and your, um, busy sort of gobbling up what the props market, um, looks like now, how it's going to develop. But let's talk a little bit about some of the elements of the game. And I'm particularly interested in the injuries, um, uh, information because, you know, we have a very prominent injury that affects Kansas City. And then we have what looks like guys coming back from injury for Tampa. Eric Fisher is out for Kansas City,

Torres Achilles in the second half. I think it was second half. Very disappointing because, you know, he ranked inside the top 20 as a tackle based on all the, you know, measurements that the analytics folks use. crucial, you know, element of protecting Mahomi, is that piece of information in its own discrete way impacting how you're sizing this thing up? 100%.

There's a few keys early on in my research that I think will shape the game itself. Some of those are going to be decisions that the offense will make. based upon game plan and strategy. For example, how often will the chiefs pass the ball? How often will Tampa run the ball on first down? So those things are trying to understand what we think they're going to do from a strategy perspective completely swings how you're going to perceive the game to go. And of course, then props and everything else kind of snowballs after that.

But there's a bunch of reactionary things as well. And one of which is, of course, the offensive long. line injury. And for me, it's how strongly will this pass rush of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers get after Patrick Mahomes without both of the tackles that he had planned on having entering the season. That's going to be one of the most important critical matchups that will decide the way that this game goes. Now, you know, Dan Pizzuta over at Sharp Football Analysis wrote this article about how Patrick Mahomes is very difficult to sack, difficult to get pressure on, because of all the different places that he can run around in the pocket.

He's quick. He's nimble. And he can throw from all different levels. He could throw falling backwards. Like he's just so good delivering the football when he is being pressured. And actually his, his QBR when pressured, is stronger than any other quarterback's QBR just for the whole season, like including pressures or non-pressures.

Like that's how good he has been throwing the football when he's been under pressure. But if you look, I mean, he's going to be dealing with an offensive line that consists of. Now, some of these guys have obviously been starting for the team this season due to injuries and other things. But Remmers at left tackle who hasn't played left tackle since 2016. A couple of seventh rounders playing left guard and center. Wisniewski is going to be the right guard, I believe. And he hasn't played or sorry, he was cut by the Pittsburgh Steelers in November. So then he joined up with the Kansas City Chiefs.

They acquired him. And Wiley, the right tackle, he's a guard. He's an undrafted free agent guard. So, you know, this is going to be a makeshift offensive line that is going to be very well coached and well prepared. But it's just not the A team, right? It's not the typical team that they wanted to have out there. It's what they're working with. And Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid are going to have to try to figure out a way to

keep the strong, you know, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are really good against the run, and they're also really good at getting after the quarterback. And so you're picking your poison. Do we choose to run the football because we're scared our tackles aren't going to be able to protect Patrick Mahomes, but we're going to be running into this great run defense, or do we pass the ball a lot, even though we've got backup tackles and different linemen up there that aren't our A team? So that's a dilemma.

I already know kind of what I, what I think's going to happen there, in terms of the past versus rush decision for Mandy Reid. But that is absolutely the key injury that you hit on. It's not insignificant at all, I think was your question with, with the left tackle there and Eric Fisher being out. How about the Tampa defense getting healthier? It looks like Antoine Winfield, They're counting on, he didn't play on Sunday.

He had an ankle problem last week. He's expected to play in the Super Bowl. And Jordan Whitehead forced two fumbles, but hurt his shoulder. I mean, he'd had the shoulder injury preceding. He has a labrum issue. And so he came out of that game. And I guess he's kind of an open question. Green Bay, it didn't seem, was able to take very much advantage of those absences,

at least inside the red zone. What is your sense? How about those guys and their potential impacts on how you're sizing it up? Yeah, I think the other one is Vita Vaya, their nose tackle. Who's back? Who's back? Before the last week's game, Bruce Aaron said, maybe we'll get 20 snaps, maybe 25. that's what we're shooting for out of him, like top level.

And he played 33 snaps. And now he's got two extra weeks, like a little bit of decompression, time to heal up. And then a little bit of, okay, measure you where are you at? Okay, you're going to be able to give us like 75% snaps this week, 80% snaps. You know, what have you. Obviously, you're a nose tackle, right? So already you're not playing on, you know, certain situations. but I think him being healthy is going to be vital for their ability to get pressure with fewer men against Patrick Mahomes.

And yeah, obviously the safety is important to have him up healthy in terms of Winfield Jr. He's, yeah, he's obviously very young, but he's a ball hawk. He's good at trying to get after the football and create turnover. so somebody like that would be very beneficial for them in the secondary to have. I don't think he's really moving the number much in terms of moving the needle. And anybody's like, oh, well, now I definitely want to bet the bucks because Winfield's going to be back. But it's obviously going to help the bottom line for sure for them.

Yeah. Well, I want to see if I can pull out of you from the early prop market, maybe sort of one thing for everybody listening to pay attention to as these numbers become available. Because I know next week is the deep dive. I mean, you know, you and I have had this tendency and our producers absolutely love it of getting going and doing podcasts that we imagine might go about an hour and then there are two hours. We just warn everybody right now.

Next week's podcast, the Super Bowl preview, you don't have to listen to it all at once. Just listen to the portions. We'll have time stamps. Is there something you're interested in? That'll be fine. But this week was just like an appetizer. We just want to get, you know, everybody attuned to how Sharpie's thinking about it, some ways to size this up, some opportunities to look for. And let's just wet the whistle a little bit. What's a prop or two that are out there that folks might just eyeball? You're not going to, I'm not telling you those give out of advice or anything like that. But what are some props? couple out there that that you are interested in. Well, let's just say this because, yes, I haven't actually bet anything, so I'm not going to take the hand on stuff.

But what I will say is this, a key component to this game, in my opinion, is simply trying to get a handle on the run games of both teams. And we know the way that Tampa has been running the football. We'll talk about it next week. We already know how often they like to run the football on these first downs. And they've been winning games. And so they're certainly going to try to do it again in this game. The question is going to come, is it a strategy that helps them get the lead or is it actually a strategy that puts them in a hole?

Because Tom Brady in the first quarter against the Green Bay Packers, they had six first downs. they ran it on five of them, gained 2.2 yards per carry, found themselves in third down every single situation. But because Brady was a beast on third down against the Packer's secondary, he was able to still move the ball down the field. They didn't punt the ball back. They kept the drives going and they scored a touchdown actually to Mike Evans in the back of the end zone on a third down. So that is going to be interesting going up against Kansas City's past defense, which is number three in the NFL defending third and six to ten yards to go. basically third and long situations.

They're a top five defense. Steve Spagnolo puts in a lot of work. I mean, those guys, if you went back and watched that game against the Buffalo Bills, his wide receivers were running the routes that the wide receivers were running. I mean, they were all over those guys with coverage. So, you know, that's what's probably going to happen in this game as well. It's going to be very difficult for Brady to convert these potentially. If that ends up happening and they fall behind, you're not going to see as much running.

in the second half by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers offense. And then on the other side of the ball, and this is just like, this is the way you have to think about at House when you're, somebody out there might handicap this game differently than me. Somebody might say, oh, yeah,

you know, yeah, they've been passing them, they've been running the ball a lot on first down, but I think they're going to pass the ball a lot on first down. So that's going to result in these scenarios down, you know, downhill from here.

So everybody handicaps things in different ways. and you try to build your prop arsenal based upon how you're handicapping the game. But we'll talk about that more later. On the other side of the ball, you've got the chiefs and Patrick Mahomes. And you got this offense that's without their tackles. And they're going up against a strong pass rush and a defense that's good against the run. Will they turn to run the football more? Will they turn to run the football less?

I've broken it down already. That's what I've been working on for a while now. And I kind of think that they're going to be extremely pass. heavy in this game. So, you know, these are all things that then you can play into some of the props and try to look at team props, player props. Like, there's a lot of things that are possible. So that gives enough, that wets the whistle. Enough kind of is where I'm coming from. But what I will say is that we are doing up at chart football analysis every single day. We're going to be sending off free articles, like multiple articles each day. Some are going to die.

deep into certain player props, certain team props, those types of things. So if you're interested in that, we have a mailing list up at Sharp Football Analysis that you can sign up for and you'll just get these in your inbox every single day, midday, and you'll be able to read like multiple articles. We're going to update where the ticket count and the public tickets and the money is coming in on these games. So we're going to update that in the emails as well. So I mean, it's free sign up if you want to get those emails and keep up with all the content that we're putting out there you can you can easily do that well and we made the point at the beginning of the show if you think you're a wagering wizard now is the time to start building out your your game plan get your

menu pulled together look for these opportunities as the prop market um it starts to open up and with the free stuff coming from warren sharp try and make something delicious for yourself I mean, build out this menu and let's get cooking. We're going to get cooking next week, Warren Sharp. I've already blocked off the latter half of Thursday. I'm going to be, I'll have pushups and sit up by all of my cardio done the first part of the day. Then I have my caffeine scheduled so that I'm, all the fuel. I'm going to be on pure protein heading into us sitting down to knock out the Super Bowl podcast.

Because gosh darn it, we want some strong ROI for all our friends out there. The interesting thing about this Super Bowl, which adds just another level of complexity to handicap, is what happens because you got one team that's actually hosting the Super Bowl, which is very unique, sleeps in their own beds, all that type of stuff. We already know Bruce Ariens thinks it's a massive advantage. you've got another team that instead of going to the site of the Super Bowl on Monday or Tuesday the week before, Kansas City isn't going down to Tampa until Saturday. You got the pandemic. There's no festivities, but all of the interviews and media day and all the type of shit that was occurring down at the site and the venue, the host city, is now being done remotely. And so they don't have to leave. So you get guys like Patrick Mahomes who can get rehab done on his toe at his home base all the way through till Saturday.

I mean, it's a normal departure for them like any other road game would be that helps massively if one of the players were to, I mean, thank God we haven't heard about COVID. But if one of the guys was up, some guy got COVID on the coaching staff, now we have to do five days or whatever where we can't be around. Like that would be a pain in the ass if you were down, you know, where you, but now you're at home. You can shut down the facility. You can do everything. So it's just going to be so much nicer for Kansas City. So it is an advantage. It is an advantage for Tampa Bay, but it's also a nice advantage for Kansas City.

So by the time we talk next, right, which will be next Thursday night. We'll come out next Friday. All of that, all those benefits and whatnot will have already been enjoyed by these teams. going to be interesting to see how it ultimately impacts the game itself. Like, I tend to think that there's a lot of distractions. Like having, having been to a couple Super Bowls the last several years before this one, I mean, there's shitloads of distractions at all those venues. You know it. Distractions. Yes. Distractions. Yeah, I used to, Bill Simmons and I, well, that's a silly way to say it. Bill Simmons went to every Super Bowl

for a number of years and I invited myself. I tagged the law. So for some like six or seven or eight years, we traveled around and went to the venues. And I can confirm there's some distractions. And so those players being at home, sleeping at their houses, right, with their families, don't have to deal with all those distractions, which should theoretically keep them more focused. I wonder how that's going to impact the start of the game, let's say, if there's a little bit more focus.

Like, you know, just a lot of different factors and elements here that are unique just to this Super Bowl that adds in the complexity of handicapping, but are certainly interesting things to discuss. And we will be loaded for bear, my friend, next week on this pod to talk all different types of angles. It's going to be a blast. I can't wait. As always, have a good weekend. Try and get some rest. You know, there's no football this weekend. Well, you know, we're sad, but on the other hand, you know, good, good time to rest up. There's golf. You can watch, I'll be watching golf. I mean, you're not a big golf guy, but, you know. First, I got to, I got to get through the Super Bowl. I got to get my report. I'll be working my ass off on this report. And I was

joking. Actually, I was talking to one of the offensive coordinators tonight. And he was like, so you get some, you get some rest now. And I said, actually, no, I start, I work my ass off on this report. You know, it's like a 25 to 35 page report on all these elements. He's like, what's wrong with you? You literally, you have something wrong with you. I said, I know I do. That's right. It's in your blood. You got to do it. You just got to. It's got to. let it out. That's fantastic. But after the report's done, then comes the fun part. Then it's just media stuff and talking about what I think's going to happen. I've already put in the work. It becomes very easy to share my opinions on things. And then it's like bets and timing and all

these types of things. Once you put the work in, it becomes it's a total different rush. It's not easy work, but it's a different type of work. And that's what it turns into. But Yeah, we'll catch up on the R&R probably like the week after the Super Bowl. That's when I set zero alarms. I sleep to whenever I want to and it'll be nice. Well, we're all going to be the beneficiaries of this hard work of yours next week when we get down with the Super Bowl preview pod. Until then, our wagering wizards, try and rest up.