The Ringer NFL Show - Five Key Questions for the Super Bowl

Episode Date: February 3, 2021

Chris Vernon and Warren Sharp break down Warren’s extensive Super Bowl report and ask the five biggest questions heading into the game, including what Tom Brady needs to do to win the game (8:00), how the offensive line will play a factor (21:00), whether Tampa Bay will need to alter its typical game plan (36:00), and who will be this game's secret weapon. Hosts: Chris Vernon and Warren Sharp Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's episode of The Ringer NFL show, we break down my 50-page Super Bowl report and ask ourselves the five biggest questions as we head into Super Bowl Sunday. Stick around. Welcome to The Ringer NFL show. I'm Chris Vernon. Join a B.C. does every week is Warren Sharp. Warren. Chris, you're going to have to hold me back, buddy. I am so jacked up right now. Let's go. I'm hopped up like a spider monkey, a mountain dew. I can't believe you are so hopped up. I guess it's just the adrenaline running. through you. I would figure you might be a little exhausted after putting together a 55-page Super Bowl report. Now, look, I know you are the beacon of preparedness, but 55 pages on one game, Warren? Yeah, it's pretty unnecessary. It's pretty sick. I was told by a buddy of mine, he said, what size font did you use? I said, I used size 10. Why? He said, you know,

of the standard is size 12. I'm having trouble reading this. I was like, oh, shit, well, if I use 12, then it would have been 70 pages. So, but, but no, I mean, like I, it's melancholy for me because you, you could tell if you read through this thing that this is my passion, like, this is what I live for. This is why I love helping coaches and working with them and trying to come up with strategies for beating opponents and game plans and ideas. And, and this is really what I enjoy doing. And for this your Super Bowl. I'm not, I don't work with either of these two teams. So, and, and I was working up until the last round of the, of the, of the playoffs, the conference championships. So I kind of had all this, like, my mind was geared towards one thing. And then it just kind of disappeared all of a sudden.

So I wanted to put one last effort, really strong effort into, into writing this report. And we'll see now, now that we can't be at the Super Bowl, now I'm focusing all my energy on firing the board on bets and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, props mostly and uh and you know normally i'm down at fucking warm weather hopefully super bowl whining and dining going on different shows and talking to people meet new people and can't do any of that this year so what else to do but but bet on shit okay so before we get into takeaways from doing this report i want to ask you about like you're the only guy in the world that does a 55-page report on the game.

So you know the two teams going in. You've obviously done an amount of research on both of these teams. I've been talking about these teams, paying attention to these teams all throughout the season. If you can't, just kind of like take me through your process of how you put this thing together. So I first try to think in my mind, what are the most, what are the quickest paths to victory for each of these teams? If I'm the chiefs, what am I going to try to do here to try to take advantage of this defense?

And if I'm the Bucks, what am I going to try to do to take advantage of the Chief's defense? So I need to first know what are the things that my own offense does? What are my tendencies? What do I like to do? How much do I adapt to the opposing defense? I think the chiefs adapt a lot to the opposing defense. I think the Bucks adapt a little less in certain areas. do adapt some more in other areas once I, once I uncovered kind of like some of their,

doing some research on their offense. And the reason I start with the offenses is because that's what dictates the game. I mean, the way that the defense responds and the way that they're playing you forces you to adjust and adapt to take advantage. But the defense has to match up with you. You can put whatever personnel grouping out there on the field you want. And you can run whatever motions you want. And it's on them to be prepared to defeat that. So it's always offense first. What is this offense trying to do? So I approach it from that perspective.

I have a lot of questions in my mind. Like, well, will this work? Well, will that work? What will we try to do here? And then I try to research and figure out, does this offense inherently have an edge over what this defense is weak at? And if not, what is this offense going to try to do to attack some of those weaknesses? Will they try to attack?

And so that's pretty much how I approach it. Does it make it harder or easier to analyze, given that the two teams did meet during the regular season? That's a great question. It sort of is a little bit of both because we know that there's going to be changes from that first meeting. I think a big change, a big, big change is going to be how the Bucks defense with Todd Bowles changes up to try to minimize some of things that the chiefs were doing well, particularly Tyree Kale, particularly. the bigger explosive pass plays down the football field. So you got to eliminate that. You can't fall behind in a hole like this.

So there's going to be some big time changes from that perspective. And so you got to think, well, some of this stuff worked well, the first meeting, but it may work less well this meeting. But what are some of things that did work but weren't used much that could be used a lot more here if the teams were paying attention? And so some of that was researched a lot. And I think it helped a little bit, especially the way that the Bucks changed their offensive philosophy midgame to attack a little bit more of the weak points of the Chief's defense. I think that's going to be, you know, Tony Romo made this point.

He announced the last game and he's announcing this game. And he made an interesting point, you know, at the very end. We talked about this. You brought this up on the show last week, how he was like, you know, it wouldn't surprise me if the Bucks were. able to get to the Super Bowl against the Chiefs because of what I saw from them in the second half. Yeah, he said they found something. So what I noticed is I found the same thing looking through the data is they were attacking the chief's defense the way that they normally attack opponents in the first half. And they made a couple of adjustments in that second half and saw a lot

more success. It wasn't their offense is still going to have to figure out, or sorry, their defense, the buck's defense is still going to have to figure out a way to slow down patch of Mahomes. But the chief's defense had a weak point that the buck started to take advantage of more in the second half. And I was able to uncover some of those things. And so I think we're going to see a little bit more success from them. But absolutely, I think it helps. But if you read just like, oh, well, this is the way the first game went.

So this is the way this game's going to go. You're going to be totally wrong, especially with these defense coordinators. both are very creative. Steve Spagnolo, Todd Bowles, two of the best we have in the NFL at scheming up for a particular opponent. I think we're going to see a lot of creativity from both of those guys. Okay. Let's start with the Bucks and kind of when doing that research and you talk about the second half of that Chiefs game. What is most important for Brady and the Bucs in this game against the Chiefs? The number one thing is they were attacking the perimeter wide receivers. ton in the first meeting. And that's in the first half of that game. And they were having no success in doing so. And once they started to change their approach a little bit, and in the second half, I think they had 14 wide receiver targets.

So in the first half, when they were targeting wide receivers, very split, they had, let's say they were 10 targets. They had four that were targeted to the perimeter. they had four that were targeted to the slot, and then they had two that were targeted to wide receivers that lined up pre-snap in the backfield as running backs. Those did not fucking work at all. That was just garbage.

They didn't use that at all in the second half. They had zero success throwing the ball to the perimeter wide receivers in the first half, but they had a lot of success throwing it to the slot wide receiver. So in the second half, when they had 14 wide receiver targets, 11 of the 14 went to the slot and only three went to the perimeter. And that's what I think we're going to see a lot more of here is more targets to the slot. This is where Chris Godwin lines up a lot. And I think we're going to see a lot more success from that perspective.

The other thing that I noticed was the Chief's defense is very poor against running back passes. one of the worst in the NFL. Like we're literally talking bottom five against running back passes. They're all so bad against tight end passes. And that was like the best game of the whole year for Rob Gruncowski. Now, Gronk's role has changed over the course of the season. And he's now being used more as a blocker. He's not going on as many routes. However, in this game, it's going to be really curious to see how they use him because the chiefs are really good against tight ends. I know we just talked about wide receivers in the slot are good. Tight ends in the slot are bad against this Chief's defense. They match up really well with tight ends

in the slot when they split a tight end out. But tight ends that are lined up in line. So like standing on the edge of the line of scrimmage, bent over in their three point stance, acting like a inline blocker next to your tackle, your left or right tackle. They struggle to cover those guys when they go out in routes. When they release and don't actually block but go out on routes, they struggle tremendously against inline tight ends. And they're also just all tight ends,

the worst defense inside the red zone this whole year defending tight ends. Wow. So I think we're going to see some increased success for tight ends in this game. We're going to see Bucks attack using more slot-wide receiver targets, which naturally favors Godwin

because he lines up a little bit more there. I mean, some guys I've not done this yet. We bet a lot of props. This is not one that we've actually bet, but are going even under four and a half receptions for Mike Evans. That seems like a super short number, a super ridiculously low number for a game like this because the bucks are the number one highest passing offense in the NFL on second and third downs. They aren't close to number one on first down. We've talked about this many times over, Chris. They love to run the ball on first down. but regardless of what happens, whether they run or they pass on first down, they're like 80% pass on second and third down.

They're ridiculously just predictable, pass heavy. And so there can be a lot of targets. And some are going to go to the perimeter and some are going to go to Mike Evans. But some of these guys, not me, but some of these guys are still betting under four and a half receptions from Mike Evans. The gronk thing is super fascinating because you know there is a level of comfort and a level of trust that Brady already has with him. And when you were talking about not necessarily,

lining up in the slot, but lining up as a blocker and then going out for a route. That's how Grant got his one huge gain against the saint, right? Because he showed up out of nowhere, right? It was like, you hadn't heard his name the entire game. Next thing you know, he's gaining 20-something yards down the sideline where they kind of, you know, they hit him as a blocker, and then he went out for his route. Brady found him, and it was like old school Patriot stuff. And so I remember a couple of years ago when, you know, everybody had already, you know, put Gronk in the grave.

And then they got there to the end of the season. And it was Edelman and Granc. Like even even then, it was Edelman and Grom. That's who Brady was going to in the biggest moments, in the biggest case. If you could go back and look, that was like at the end of the year in the playoffs, Gronk had not done much during that season. Like I said, everybody had already buried him and said, ah, he's done.

He's not what he once was. But then when it got to the highest stakes, Brady still, you know, found him and trusted him. And so I need to go look at those props. I bet Grunx got nothing for props on this game, right? Like in terms of receptions and receiving yards, I bet they're low, right? I haven't looked. So Gronk's receptions are at two and a half. his receiving yards are at 29 and a half.

So I have not bet either of those because I'm still, as crazy as it may sound, I'm still researching some of the usages. Like what we do, you know, what we do this week is, as I said, normally I'm fucking having a good time. I should have been down in Tampa. It was down in Miami last year. That's why I'm wearing my Miami Super Bowl hat because I'm trying to get in the like, mood, South Beach, Florida weather type mood here. But now we're not doing that.

So literally all I'm doing besides just the ringer stuff and other commitments, which are not as many as they should be during a normal Super Bowl, fucking betting props, betting information. And so I'm still researching more. It's hard because in this instance, you're betting in some of these things for a team to do something that they haven't been doing lately the last few weeks. and so I've got to research a little bit more.

Will the coach try to do that? So I'm not on the gronk stuff yet. It makes a ton of sense, though, but that's not. I've got a number of props that I've already bet. I've got a number that we're waiting on for the market to be bet towards the overs, and we're going to compound the unders closer to game day. And I've got a few others that I'll probably be getting on over the next 24 to 48 hours. I can tell you're distraught about not being there.

It sucks, right? because of the situation. It is what it is. I mean, everybody can't do their normal stuff. So I'm not going to. So what are you going to do? What do you mean? How are you watching the game?

Oh, I'm watching the game here at my house. I've got the theater room with the projector and multiple other TVs. So there's only one game. So we'll have it on a few different screens. In the past, when I have had Super Bowl parties here, there's like couches in this room that you can't see on this camera and different TVs. So what I would always do is like, no matter where you're sitting, you can see, you've got a great angle to like watch any of the, any of the TVs and the game. And then you leave the room that I'm in right now.

And there's, there's a little bar area and there's a TV right there. And then you go upstairs to the mainland. And there's TV. I mean, so there's TV. We usually have parties. Here's the big question. Will you allow the family in the room? Or you, you've got to, will they know? The problem is, I got a couple of kids, right? So they don't really care all that much. Usually it's fun when we would be able to have parties if we did it. And then like the adults that are focusing, the other guys that are here that have money on the games, we're watching, we're having some drinks. And then the kids are off playing by themselves and, you know, but and the wives are in here too. Like whoever just watching the games having fun, everybody's enjoying it. But now that it's just like the four of us, the kids are

probably going to be off doing their own thing, hopefully not distracting me too much. But I'll definitely let them in. I mean, if they want to watch the game and they want to, I'll try to figure out a way to make the game interesting for them, like have a fill out a prop sheet or something, Super Bowl prop sheet, Super Bowl Square, something like that to get them a little bit interesting. We need a Nickelodeon broadcast. There you go. There you go.

If the kids enjoyed that a little bit, it was a bad. One last personal question. Does your wife care about football? Oh, yeah, I mean. She does? She knows I'm checked. She knows I'm checked out, but. No, but does she know?

Does she care? My wife doesn't care. Like, I mean, that I'm doing this? No, no, no, no, no. I'm saying about the game. Like my wife. Oh, she does. She likes the game.

Yeah, she likes the Super Bowl. Will she root for one of these teams? Probably. I don't know who she's rooting for yet. She's going to hopefully root for whoever I tell her to root for, but, you know, whatever stands to benefit us the most financially. I know the feeling, right? Because if she was a fan of one of these teams, then of course she's rooting for whoever she wants.

But if there's a couple of teams and she doesn't really care from that perspective, then we'll root for whatever like we want to root for, like based upon financial interest. You're going to root for money. So your wife's going to be sitting there. We're going to be pulling for props. We'll load the props. When she freaks out over Mike Evans dropping a pass, it's going to be hilarious. All right.

Oh, Leonard Fernette. Leonard Fernett better catch those balls, baby. Lenny. Playoff Lenny. Yes, we want Leonard Fernett to catch a million receptions. That's what we want to happen in this game. Today's Ringer NFL shows brought you by FanDuel. Celebrate the 55th edition of the big game with exclusive 55 to 1 odds on FanDual Sportsbook. If you've never tried FanDuel before, new users can bet on either team and get 55 to 1 odds when Kansas City plays Tampa Bay. That's right. You can bet five bucks and win $275 if you pick the winner of the big game on February 7th. They've got all kinds of props. They've got, you name it, they've got it on the Fandual Sportsbook, like anything you want to bet on this big game. They've got it at Fandual Sportsbook. We talk about a lot of the betting angles here with Warren.

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amount of pressure on Aaron Rogers. Their defensive line was outstanding. Now, we've got to somehow handicap into this that there's two tackles down for the Chiefs. How do you go about that in terms of trying to figure out? I mean, is it just a guessing game? Because clearly, Mahomes is great throwing on the run. He is also a guy that when he gets out in space can run for the yard.

Sometimes it's better than getting a 12-yard completion because he may run for 20 yards once he gets outside the pocket. But in terms of the pressure that Tampa Bay is able to get on him, do you expect that to be much greater considering the injuries on that offensive line? And how big are those injuries in terms of handicapping this? So it's an interesting talking point because the whole week, right, everybody's already talking about so everybody already knows this. but they're without both their starting tackles. Well, they've been without one of the guys for weeks now, months now, Mitchell Schwartz, right? So it's fun to say they're without both, but they've been without that guy for a while. So they've already made adjustments to that.

The problem is the cluster nature of the other injuries, losing your left tackle now, Eric Fisher, now like your number one backup who might take his spot. Well, he's already a starter for you because you've lost all these other guys over the course of the season. Their whole line is virtually banged up. So it is a problem for them. And I am a little bit concerned about Patrick Mahomes being able to hold up under all of that pressure because I do think they're going to generate pressure. You know, the chief's got a shitload of pressure on Josh Allen last week, especially on third downs. 80% of his dropbacks, they got pressure on.

I mean, that's ridiculous. You're not going to put complete passes when you're being pressure. 80% of the time. And he, I think he was two of nine. They converted two of nine third downs when he was passing the ball because of all of this pressure. Now, we have an article up on sharp football analysis written by this guy, Dan Pizzuto, a great researcher and author up at the site, who just looked at where you could pressure past from the homes and what works the best. And the bottom line is not much works good against this guy because he moves around so much in the pocket. You see it all the time in the games.

Like, not only does he throw from the left side of the field or the right side of the field or close to line of scrimmage or backed up, he can be running backwards like five yards, like backpedaling from when he takes a shotgun snap and still throw the ball 20 yards down the field with accuracy. So, like, you could be getting your pressure and he's backing up. So I think we're going to see that a lot in this game where pressure is coming. He's already in the shotgun. He's taking a deep drop. And as he's dropping, he's throwing the ball. because he's going to need to keep moving backwards away from the line to avoid this pass rush. Yeah, it feels like the two different guys.

It's just from watching these teams and the way they handle the pressure, Warren, is like, the best pressure on Brady is always up the middle. Always. It is always collapsing that pocket from the middle. Because otherwise, if it's from the outside, he just steps up and he's able to, you know, that's his comfort zone. He steps up and he makes that pass. Whereas Mahomes, when you rush him up the middle, he just takes off to the sideline.

And now it's a free-for-all. Kelsey's getting open. Watkins getting open. I mean, everybody's getting open because you can't guard those guys for eight to ten seconds, right? And so it feels like Tampa somehow has to be able to get pressure from the sides, like from the ends, rather than up the middle. It's odd that both these quarterbacks can be a little susceptible. obviously Brady more so than Mahomes, two pressure,

but it's a different kind that you have to get against either of them, right? No doubt. I mean, if you look in this article that he wrote, there's scatter plots which show the exact spot

in the pocket where each quarterback releases the ball. And Tom Brady's scatter plot is basically like condensed a yard behind the line of scrimmage to like six yards behind the line of scrimmage and between the hashes and every single dot is like,

It's like your NBA shot charts that you're probably very familiar with. The guy's scatter plots are like all, he's taking all these like jumpers at the free throw line, right? Whereas Patrick Mahomes is spread out all the three point lines all the way around the whole court like this dude is just shooting threes from everywhere on the court. Whereas Tom Brady is like every single thing is like a foul line jumper for him. And so you know where to find him and you know where to get the pressure. It's right up the middle.

So big point in this game is absolutely what you said, the containment on Patrick Mahones, keeping him in the pocket, forcing him to throw quickly. So what I'm really interested to see in this game, Chris, is how Andy Reid comes out and designs the passing offense in the first quarter and what his script looks like. Does he sack up and go, I don't give a crap what this defense is doing, we're going to take some shots early in this game? or does he come out and say, look, I want to see how my tackles are holding up in pass pro. I want to see how my lines holding up at pass pro. I don't want to drop Mahomes back on these deep drops to ask him to throw the ball 25, 30 yards down the field right away. I want to first start out with conservative short passes, see all the lines holding up, see what types of pressure schemes that Todd Bowles is bringing.

And then once we feel comfortable, we'll drop Mahomes back a little bit. deeper. So pay attention while you're watching this game to see if Mahomes takes any deep drops and deeper shots in the first couple series, or if they're playing a lot more conservative, get the ball out quickly. That's going to be fascinating. Okay. So one of the things that I took away from your report was the Bucks have this great run defense and that they went past on these early downs a ton when they played against the when they played against the bucks and also when they played against other teams and they had clearly great success. Mahomes is unbelievable. The question is, you know, they had gotten a lair back for that last game. They've got Levy and Bell. Do you think

they run the ball at all? I think that they should not. I really think that they should not. And the chiefs right now are very different from a passing perspective. Everybody, if you step back and just say, oh, yeah, the chiefs, well, chiefs pass the ball a lot, number one in pass rate last year, number one in pass rate this year. There's very big differences between last year and this year with how they're passing the ball and when they're passing the ball. I break it down in the report. And by the way, I just want to say, if anybody's listening to this and wants a copy of this report,

you know, it's up at sharp football analysis. I'm giving in a way to the media, but obviously if you're listening, you're not in the media. If you enter the code, ringer 25, you can get $25 off the report. So just to help you out if you do want it. But we're covering a lot of this stuff here. I want to give the best stuff, obviously, on the pod here. And then the pod that we record tomorrow that goes out on Friday, the gambling pod. That's going to be amazing.

We're going to go through a lot of prop bets and other shit like that. But that's how you could get this report that we keep talking about. with regard to them running the ball, they ran the ball very little to start the 2019 season. They were a very pass-heavy offense to first like six to seven weeks of the 2019 season. They reverted a little bit more towards the run down the stretch and into the playoffs. By that, I mean, they were like 61, 62 percent pass on early downs in the first three quarters of the game, which was still the highest in the NFL, but the first three, the first like six weeks of the season, they were up at like 75%. Okay, much higher. They started off

the season this year much more conservative, like the ended last year, with a much lower pass rate. It was still high compared to other teams, but it was right in line with what they ended last season with. And it was the New York Jets game. If you remember back to that New York Jets game, I think they won like 38 to 3. They started going much more pass heavy, like an 80% pass rate. on these early downs in the first three quarters. And that is exactly what they continued to do the rest of the season. They had a lot of success with that, and they kept it up. It was almost as if they went more run heavy to start the year because there was no

off season. They don't want Tyreek pulling a muscle. They want their guys staying healthy. So they were relying a little bit more on Clyde Edwards-Alaire and that type of thing. Here they weren't doing that whatsoever. They've been passing the ball against the bucks in week 12. They passed the ball a ton, like an 80% pass rate on early downs in the first three quarters. It was their highest pass rate of any game this season.

And I absolutely think that this is a way to attack these guys. My mentality, when I'm calling a game that's as big as a Super Bowl, I don't want to waste plays. You got to waste a couple, but I don't want to waste a lot of plays. And if I know that they've got like the best run defense that I faced all year and I want to pass the ball anyways, why would I try to be balanced offensively? Right. And one of the interesting arguments to be made, and I don't know if Tony Romo is going to end up discussing this during the game or not, is the argument that a lot of passing against a good pass rush will wear those guys down over the course of the game. So you could try to say, oh, we're scared of this pass rush. We have backup

offensive linemen, let's run the ball more. And then you're gaining nothing. And then when you do drop back, those guys are fresh, they can rest the pass. But what happened in last year's Super Bowl was the Chiefs ended up passing a fair amount by the fourth quarter that pass rush was exhausted and Mahomes had more time in the pocket. It wasn't considerably more, but it was enough for him to be able to get the ball down the field a little bit more effectively. And I'm curious to see if they approached the game the same exact way and say, we're going to pass the ball a lot.

It may not be all that effective. go shorter passes to start with the pass rush is fresh. But as the pass rush gets weaker, we will have more success throwing the ball a little bit further down the field. And by the fourth quarter, we'll be at our peak and they'll be on E. Their tanks will be on E. I wonder how instructive that Super Bowl, last year's Super Bowl is in terms of projecting forward and seeing how Andy Reid treated the biggest game. I mean, remember, Damia Williams led that team in rush. He ended up having over 100 yards, but he had 17 carries in the game last year did Damien Williams. And their second leading rusher was Mahomes, who ended up carrying it nine times.

And then it was just kind of scattered from there. So they did run the ball and they actually ran the ball with great success with the ways. I mean, he averaged six, six yards of carry last year. And so I've kind of wondered, you know, is it, is it that kind of interspersed? And did you, how much do you look Is that relevant at all, the game plan that they used against the 49ers in the Super Bowl last year? Or do you look at that and say, this is a completely different opponent with a completely different set of circumstances and in some cases different personnel? And so that's a different game in a different year. That doesn't matter to me, which is. No, it's fun to think about because that was.

how this same coaching staff within a calendar year approach the biggest game of their careers, right? Andy Reid had it won a Super Bowl, biggest game of his career with Patrick Mahomes, what's he going to do? We should be using that as much as possible to take instruction from, but we also should know that Andy Reid game plans for his opponents specifically. And so we take some whatever we can out of that. And then we also look at this matchup and how this defense does and how we think that they should best attack them. And we know that they're going to attack them from the best possible method for this year. But we can't forget what they were doing in last year's meeting. And I will add to this, this whole discussion, is weather, because this is

not in a dome. And there is the possibility that there's rain in the forecast, which I hope we don't get. I hope we see both teams at full strength and we get to see what these guys do. And let's let it be decided on the field. I think if there is rain, and if the rain is somewhat heavy, that definitely, definitely favors the Tampa Bay Buccaneers here. Well, and it is fascinating. Look, we got to remember if we are taking last year's Super Bowl at a consideration, 49ers were up 20 to 10 in that game. You know, the Chiefs scored 21 points in the fourth quarter. So for three quarters and a little bit more of that game, the 49ers really had bottled up that chief's offense. And so you wonder how much of that Tampa can replicate.

Tampa does not have as good of a defense, in my opinion, as did the 49ers last season. So they've got, Tampa's got a really good defensive line. Also interesting, let's study what is going on with Levante David. I mean, he, I saw a quote from him yesterday. I mean, dude did not sound all that confident. Like his quote, and I'm not reading it verbatim here, but in my mind, his quote was something along the lines of, I'm trying to stay optimistic. I'm putting my trust in the trainers.

We're aiming to be ready for Super Bowl Sunday and we'll see how it goes. Like, that to me does not sound like this dude is like, oh, man, I'm going to be at 100%. I'm fine. And Levante, David, he's dealing with. a hamstring injury. It's not like something like minor. A hamstring is major for a guy who has to cover the whole field like he does at linebacker. So we'll have to see how he ends up faring. But that San Francisco 49ers defense was really, really special last year. I like this Bucks defense.

I love their coach. I think he's really good at what he does. But I think that there are more holes in this defense than San Francisco had. All right. You have been critical of the Bucks. Despite the have won. You haven't been a huge fan of their game plan and especially the amount that they have run on early downs. You know, we talked about Fournette and his ability to catch the ball out of the backfield. Fournets, you know, he's gotten that name playoff Lenny and he's had some big games. Arians and in this game and trying to figure out how he goes about it with Tom Brady against this Chiefs team. You talked about how they kind of caught on to something in the second half of that game that they played against the Chiefs earlier this year,

the question becomes, is that the game plan that they start with this time around? Do they start with the game plan that had the success against the Chiefs? Or is this a, you can't teach an old dog new tricks? He's going to come out and try to establish the run, hell or high water. What do you think? I think they're going to come out and they're going to run the football to start. this game. I think that they do it because of two reasons. Number one, they have an insane confidence level in Tom Brady on third downs. They think that he's just going to be able to get him out of jams.

He's going to be able to complete passes. They also do it to stay to maintain a little bit of balance because they love putting the ball on Brady's hands on second and third down. So for whatever reason, like this team doesn't love running on third and short. Like third and short is one of the easiest downs to run on and convert, especially if you run from spread, like make the office. offense think that you could be passing the ball. They have the number one highest pass rate on third and short in the NFL. That's going to be interesting. I think the third down battle here when Tampa has the ball is going to be just a massive deciding factor. Can they convert against a very, very good third and long pass defense of the chiefs? They're the number three in the NFL

defending passes on third and long. So you got to try to stay out of those situations. But I do believe that they're going to come out because it's no different than what they've done in these other games and run the ball. And the reason I was getting to as to why I think that they do that a little bit more often is in their mind, it's helping keep the opposing team on the sideline. It's helping keep Aaron Rogers last week on the sideline. It's helping keep Drew Brees the week before on the sideline. It's going to help keep Patrick Mahomes on the sideline. They're going to chew up a little bit of clock with that, drain the game clock down a little bit. And then they feel confident that Brady's still going to get him a first down.

And so they're going to be able to march the ball down the field. They're going to make you stay balanced. If I'm Tampa, I'm coming out here with Ronald Jones on the first play of the game, not Leonard Fernette, Ronald Jones, because I have a much higher run rate when he's out on the football field, and do a play action and throwing the damn ball. Like, you can use a lot of play action on first down because I think Steve Spagnolo is anticipating what he is seen from these guys all year long that they're going to run the ball a ton. We talked about it on the last pod against the Packers, their very last playoff game.

I think they run the ball on five of six first downs in the first quarter. These runs gained 2.9 yards per carry, a 29% success rate. This is terrible. It sets them up into third down every single series. They never bypassed the third down once because of their play calling in first down. And Tom Brady converts five as six third down passes and scores a touchdown to Mike Evans on one of those third down passes. I mean, they were converting third downs left and right

on that very first drive of the game because they were running the ball so much. I do not anticipate them doing anything differently here. The big question is, will those first down runs be successful or not? And how often will Brady be forced into these third and long situations and will he perform against a defense that is much, much better on these third and longs against the pass

than the Packers were, The Chiefs, again, number three in the NFL. Packer is definitely not number three in the NFL. How will they do on these third and longs? That's where Tom Brady can really, I mean, his legacy is already cemented, but really win this game and win himself the MVP if he's converting on these third downs. Well, and that's a huge question. And it's something that you can't find in statistics or play calls or numbers.

And I wonder, because I know that you appreciate the things that can't be on paper also. And that is the deal with Tom Brady, right? Like I've talked about this before where I think that there are many people that sit there and they say, look, if I bet on Tom Brady and I lose, I can sleep at night. But if I bet against Tom Brady in a huge spot and I lose, I'm going to spend all night going, what is wrong with me? Like, why am I?

What does this guy have to do? It's kind of like the whole, it doesn't matter if Michael Jordan is shooting 38% from the field in games one through six. He's winning game seven, right? Like, and Brady has moved in. That's how I talked about it last week with the whole kicking the ball back to Tom Brady. Like, what do you expect, bro? Like, I don't care what the numbers are. I don't care.

It's two minutes and 10 seconds. Now you're putting the ball back into his hands to go get a. first down and to bury you. He's going to do it. We've watched it for 20 years. In handicapping this, how much of that do you bake in? You know, where you know that it's like, all right, I know what all the numbers are. I know what this says. But I have to take into consideration that this is Tom Brady and this is a massive game.

and what has happened before may not necessarily be indicative of what's going to happen when it matters most. Well, it's definitely that clutch gene is very difficult to bake into numbers, as you indicated. The problem with this Super Bowl, though, is you've got two guys who have it, right? It's not as if we're Tom Brady against Jared Gough. It's not as if we're Patrick Mahomes against, you know, I don't know, name it. name of Mitchell Trubisky, right? Even, even Josh Allen last week. I think people looked at that and they say, Mahomes has proven it, you know, in the huge spot. Josh Allen, he had a great season, but he still has to do it. Right. Yeah. And that was one of my biggest concerns. When I went,

I so badly wanted to just bet the bills plus three. And I ultimately, like, if I was trying to make an investment, I hedged a little bit on the KC future on some bills stuff, but I never, I didn't go high, on the bills or waste a lot of the future. I didn't actually think that the bills would cover the three primarily because of that reason. Just stepping back, Mahomes has been to the mountaintop and he conquered. And anything short of doing the same thing this year is going to be a colossal failure. Josh Allen getting to that point he did in the season last year was a massive achievement for himself personally, for the Buffalo Bills organization. They can go to bed, sleep very well, knowing that they exceeded expectations last year.

And those two QBs on the same stage, expecting like Josh Allen to ascend from where he was in 2019 to like going to the Super Bowl and having a Super Bowl winning performance was a little bit hard for me to think that he's going to be able to achieve that against Patrick Mahomes, playing at home and wants to get back to the Super Bowl so badly and is extremely competitive. And we already know how great he is. So the interesting part about this game, as you said, you've got Brady, but on the other side you got Mahomes, and he hasn't proven it nearly as much as Brady has over the years.

But he still is that guy that you are scared as crap about, even if you're up by seven to 10 points at the start of the fourth quarter, that dude, like, we can't give the ball to Patrick Mahomes. He's crazy. But the interesting part is what the betting public is thinking is, I mean, I don't know. I don't really know. It's a little bit surprising to me, but I saw yesterday. So this was Tuesday, okay, Tuesday that 86% of the money at a prominent sports book, at a prominent casino out in Las Vegas is coming in on the Kansas City Chiefs.

86%, only 14% is on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I also saw that at an offshore, well, actually, no, they're legal in a number of states, but another sports book that isn't necessarily one of the biggest in the U.S., you know, some of the biggest ones. but another book, 78% of their bet count and 92% of their handle, not their ticket count, their handle, the actual dollars is coming in on the Kansas City Chiefs. So, I mean, those numbers of, hey, you always say this. It's enough to freak you out, right? They don't have all those buildings and lights and spas and clubs because 86% of the people win. And, but like, I can't even believe that.

You're right. But I can't, part of me doesn't even believe that. Like, how are these many people? betting money against Tom Brady. It doesn't catching points. It doesn't make any sense to me that it would be that split. I anticipated, I mean, obviously the way that this game is getting billed, and the way that the public, I think, has perceived the bucks and the chiefs is like two great

teams with two of the best quarterbacks, potentially of all time, are playing in this game, certainly two of the best in the modern NFL. This should be somewhat even. I could see a little bit more money coming in on the defending champs or a little bit higher. ticket count. This seems like so unbelievable lopsided to me that I'm going to, I need to see what these numbers are closer to game time. It does not compute to me that that many people would be betting against Tom Brady. But yeah, I think it's tough. Both these dudes have the clutch gene. It's going to be fun to watch whoever is down in the fourth quarter with the ball in their hands and watch those guys perform.

Well, and the number hasn't moved, right? It's been going down. It's been the juice. So it was, three and a half. There's still only a couple of shops now that I have three and a half. It's down to three. The juice at one of the sharpest offshore books in the world is all the way down to three minus oh nine, which the standard around like every book should be minus 10. Some books are like a 12 cent straddle. So three minus 12 lay, catch three points, but you have to lay minus 12. That's BS. Try not to bet at places that do straddles that are 12 cents on both sides. You want to get minus 10. Some shops are reduced Vig, so they're less than that.

But for one of the sharpest books to now be below the minus 10 cent lay price, I mean, some of the sharp money is coming in on Tampa and all these high bet ticket counts at some of these shops that take a lot of square action is like completely lopsided on the chiefs right now. Let's just say there's somebody out there and they haven't decided. They are going to bet on the Super Bowl because there's millions of, millions of people that are going to bet on the Super Bowl. They're going to bet on it.

They haven't necessarily decided yet, but now they are, that line stays at three. Where do you come in on the, if you like the Chiefs, buy it to two and a half. If you like the bucks, buy it to three and a half. Where do you come in on? I come on never do that. Never freaking do that. I come in on, do not buy this down to two and a half if you like the Chiefs. I come in on, do not buy this up to three.

three and a half if you like the bucks, unless the price is like cheap, unless you can get there for cheap, then I am, I do not want to buy down off of this thing to two and a half. In fact, what my suggestion would be, and I know some people are going to have difficult time thinking this way because you have to lay more money to do this, but you're laying a bunch of money to buy to two and a half is the alternative, is take the chief's money line. The chief's money line is going to be skewed. You can take the chief's money line at a lower number. I actually have to figure out myself. I haven't done anything yet because I know that money's coming in on Tampa. I will get a better number on the chiefs later on. But me personally, I'm going to need to, at a particular

shop, lay off a little bit and take a little bit more chiefs because I stand to gain a lot on a future bet that I placed if the bucks win this game. So I stand to gain a lot at this shop if the bucks win this game. So I want to make sure that I make a little bit too if the chiefs are going to win this game. And so there's a possibility that I'm doing a split where I'm taking a little chief's money line because I know that that's reduced from what it should be because so many people are going to bet the dog on the money line that taking the favorite on the money line is inherently going to have a little bit of value. And also probably a little bit on Patrick Mahomes to win the MVP. Now, you don't want to, if you're hedging because you got big futures tickets on the

bucks to win, you could hedge on Patrick Mahomes to win the Super Bowl MVP at, you know, plus money, but you could lose that hedge because the Super Bowl MVP goes to Mikul Hardman or something else. So that's not a pure hedge, but I will have a little bit exposure probably to Mahomes just to offset that. Now, if you don't have anything on this game yet, if you don't have any head futures you need to hedge, then I'm not going to suggest go bet Patrick Mahomes to win the MVP. But I'll just simply say that I am not buying this. To answer your question, I am never buying this thing down to two and a half. The smarter bet probably than laying the three is waiting closer to kickoff and laying the

money line on the Kansas City Chiefs. If you like the Chiefs, I'm not saying I like the Chiefs. I'm just saying if you like the Chiefs, take the money line 10 out of 10 times rather than freaking buying this thing to two and a half. It's always fascinating to see all the reporting that goes on into the bets that do come in. You talk about 86% at one of the prominent books being on the chief so far. We saw earlier this week somebody put like $2.3 million on the bucks. So that report came out.

Did you see the report about the guy in New Jersey that went in and put thousands of dollars on all these Sammy Watkins props? Sammy Watkins? What did you make of that? And through your 55 pages of research, now is it? Who knows who's doing this? But these are what, this is one of the, you know, this is some of the fun of Super Bowl week is seeing stuff like that. Like I remember seeing that and thinking, man, this game goes on.

It's going to be really hilarious if Sammy Watkins scores the first touchdown of this game. Because this guy, like, he went in and bet thousands of dollars, but it was like all these bets were going to pay off like over a hundred grand each. It was like Sammy Watkins' first KC touchdown. Sammy Watkins' first touchdown of the game. Sammy Watkins scores a touchdown in the game. And I was like, what on earth is going on?

Was there something in your research that led you to believe that Sammy Watkins props could turn us into a thousandaires, as it were? I wish the cameras weren't there to see me placing all these bets on Sammy Watkins. That definitely wasn't me. But I think two things, two things to note. on the betting and the volume size. Number one, keep in mind, books have high limits for the Super Bowl. Just because a dude is betting thousands of dollars does not mean that he's sharp, it very well could mean that this guy's got money to burn.

Like, there's a lot of rich people in the country who will go places and bet on sports and bet on long shots and try to cash in on those. Does not necessarily mean he's sharp or he's got inside information. or what he's doing should be replicated by other people. Also keep another factor in mind, though, which I see, there's so many other like sports podcasts that pop up and people out there trying to talk about betting, but they really don't know much about betting or historical information about betting.

But, you know, you look at these, oh, yeah, this guy placed a $2 million, $2.3 million bet here at this book or this guy placed a bet of $2 million at that book. And we're going to see more reports about this as the week goes on. Keep in mind, yes, you may have certain sports betters that get limited at some books. And so some books want to take more square money. And so they'll say like, oh, if a super sharp guy walks up and wants to bet $2 million on this game, they're not going to take his bet because they don't want that. They respect that guy too much. They've limited him. They don't want to do it. Does not mean that the guy who's actually placing the $2 million bet who works with the sports book

manager and is able to get approval to be able to do. I mean, you don't just walk to the counter and get that amount of limit. You have to like talk to these guys ahead of time. You have to coordinate it. You sometimes call in. You, you work it all out. It's a fucking negotiation here. Sometimes you're negotiating on juice and all these other types of factors that the regular public just walking to the counter aren't going to get those types of things, but you're betting a lot of money. My point here is that that does not mean that that $2.3 million bet came from that square dude who just has money to burn. There are a lot of sports book, like gambling groups, sports betting groups, syndicates that will get other guys to go place bets for them because

the limits have been cut on the regular guys in the group being able to place those bets. So you have runners that go and those runners are known, oh, well, this guy works for this group we're limiting him here. But you can get fucking Dick Johnson off the street to go in and bet the money and the syndicate is giving him the money and he's betting it on behalf of the syndicate. So don't just sit there and assume, oh, well, this guy's got to be square because this sports book would never take this level of action from a sharp guy. Don't say that. You don't know.

You do not know where that money is actually coming from. And so to assume that that's a square bet is a total wrong assumption. Yeah, right. then, hey, Billy Walters just got pardoned, right? Yep. I mean, but this was the thing, right? It wasn't like Billy Walters could walk into, and anybody can go look him up. But Billy Walters couldn't just walk into the MGM and put $2 million on something.

They're not taking the bet, right? You remember seeing the old 60 minutes about him. Like, you have to find somebody to go do that. It is, it was rather intricate to try to even get bets down. I plead the fifth. I plead the fifth. You're not wrong. Yeah.

I mean, it's just a hard deal to get that down. But it is fascinating. And we'll see more of those as the week goes on. After you got done with your 55-page manifesto on the Super Bowl, did you have a strong opinion on side and total? Like, I kind of feel like you want to bang a bunch of these props. in this Super Bowl, and I know you have a few, you have futures on these teams. And so you're not going to lose either way. Can we say that? Like, you're not losing on this. You told us the first

podcast we did together, Warren, you said the chief's future is low. So anybody that's holding on to that ticket, which I'd assume if you advised people to go get one, you already had it, and you've talked about having it before, like, you can just bet bucks money line, and you're losing either way in the game. And so that's why you're most excited about the props. That being said, when you got done looking over the game, did you end up with a strong opinion about either of the two numbers put on this game? Or do you think those numbers are sharp numbers this time around? I think the numbers are pretty sharp. What I can say is this. As the line sits here at three and it's probably not going to move off of three, and we talked about it

on last week's show that we didn't really, like I didn't really think the number should move that far off of the three. I thought this was, I think I literally said the perfect number for this game, um, that you have time now and I will just advise people who are like getting itchy fingers to go ahead and bet this thing. Attack the prop market.

Watch the weather for the way that this game is going to go because I'm telling you if it rains and if it rains and if it. rains a lot and you can see like the forecast. And fortunately from last night to this morning, the rain seemed to lighten up a little bit like the forecast of the rain. And again, I've stated, I don't care who the rain benefits. I know it's going to benefit Tampa Bay, but I don't really care. I want the game to be played in as pristine conditions as possible so that the winner loser has decided, because on these teams and these coaches and what they do in execution on the field. I don't want to see Mother Nature get involved here. But the weather will absolutely

play a factor here. And if you're trying to think, oh, man, I love, I love Tyree Kill over receiving yards. I love the game to go over and all this type of stuff. All I could say is, you know, you may just want to wait and make sure that the rain does not play a factor here. So specifically from the total, I mean, I said, I think the last show that we did, it was either yours or the one with House, that I do have a small ticket for under 57. It's not a big play. It was a number that I didn't think we would get back again. So I took the under 57, but that it's very likely possibly not going to be my final position on this game.

I am still looking at a number of different ways to bet what I think is going to happen from this total perspective. So I am probably not doing anything full game total. And on the side, like I said, if there's rain here, it is absolutely benefiting the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. This is their home field, their home grass, the turf. They know it better than anybody else in the NFL. I don't know if they're going to let the grass grow a little bit longer. You know, I don't know if they're going to instruct their crew. Hey, don't necessarily trim it down as sharp as you want.

Like make it, I don't know if the NFL has control over that. Like they do the cannon fire and all that whole argument is that who can launch the cannons or not. But I would be doing whatever I could to slow the surface down. And rain definitely helps damp surface. Tyree Kill might slip on some of his crazy cuts. Like, it wouldn't be a bad thing probably for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I got to tell you, I love this Super Bowl. I do.

I love this Super Bowl. I love the storylines. Like everything about the matchup, everything about it. I really do. Like, there's not, I don't feel this way every year about the Super Bowl, but I really legitimately cannot wait. That being said, if people want to go get that we've talked about this PDF and this this amount of work that you put into this 55-page document on the Super Bowl that's got a bunch

of prop recommendations, et cetera, in it. They just go to your website? It's up at sharp football analysis.com and, you know, like I said, use that coupon code ringer 25. I want to try to save people a little bit of money if they are interested in purchasing it. But I'm trying to give you guys as much good stuff on here for free as possible because like you, I love this game. This is, this game is going to be incredible. I don't want Mother Nature to ruin it, but this game stands to be an instant classic. Hopefully, it's going to be a chess match all the way through. All I can say for the lovely listeners out there, try to limit your alcohol intake so you're paying close enough attention to what's happening because these two coaches and these quarterbacks, it's going to be a chess match the whole way through.

And so, you know, it could be a fun game. If you're enjoying it, you're having a little bit to drink. and you're not paying as close of attention, go back and rewatch it. Just try to rewatch it the next day once your hangover wears off. To see what these guys actually did because it is going to be an absolute chess match, watching the decision making and the execution. And I think it's going to be, it has the potential to be absolutely incredible. And I can't wait.

And from now until start of the game, it's looking for value in prop markets and trying to get down on some of these bets. and we're going to make the best of it sticking here around the home front with everybody else doing the same. All right, well, I'll be listening to you in-house and try to get some more recommendations from you guys before the Super Bowl. We'll have some on there. We'll have some on that show. I like that, too. I'll be honest with you. Like, I'll have my own opinions on stuff.

But I like when you guys, like, when I'll hear the picks. And there's a communal experience that, you know what I miss? communal experiences, there is a communal experience in betting on the same thing as your buddies, you know what I mean, and people, like feeling like you're all rooting for the same thing. And so in the absence of being able to be in these big groups or be down there in Tampa, I love the idea that at least we could all bet on the same stuff and root for that. We'll have a couple that I think I feel pretty strongly about that we'll share with everybody on the show. So make sure you're tuning into that show

and we can all root them home together and that'll be fun. Hopefully we'll be able to cash a few of them. All right. We'll get to talk about the way it all plays out next week. Warren, I will talk to you then. Thanks, brother. Sounds good, buddy.

Enjoy the game.