The Ringer NFL Show - Urban Meyer to Jacksonville and Robert Saleh to the Jets Plus, Divisional-Round Bets

Episode Date: January 15, 2021

Warren Sharp and Joe House react to the news that Urban Meyer will be the next head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars. They discuss the biggest questions remaining for the Jaguars (02:30) and former 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh signing with Jets, (59:42) and then they dive into this weekend’s divisional round (28:30). Hosts: Warren Sharp and Joe House Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everybody on today's episode of the ringer NFL show, Warren Sharp and I are here to break down each and every glorious game on this upcoming divisional round schedule. We want to help you allocate a little of the hard-earned capital. Maybe we can make a little bit back from what we lost on Pittsburgh last week. Plus, we react to all this new news. We have breaking news across the NFL with new coaching hires all around the league please stick around welcome to the ringer NFL show i am warren sharp i am joined as i always

am by joe house we are getting ready for divisional round playoff action the most wonderful time of the year continues with this weekend's action i'm interested to hear your thoughts on the six game wild card slate the super wild card weekend house but first of all we got some breaking news why don't you tell the listeners what we've just learned yeah it it's not often that when we take these shows. We, we are a little bit, we're night owls here on the ringer NFL show that, that features, you know, gambling for the weekend. So we're usually taping these on like random Thursday nights, Wednesday nights. Lo and behold, it worked out perfect for us. Breaking news, Urban Meyer, the new head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguar Sharpie. Pretty exciting stuff. You and I

will go ahead and talk about that in a second before we would get going in. in earnest, though. I want to remind all the podcast people's out there that we, the ringer NFL show, is coming back again this weekend with live broadcasts immediately following the final games Saturday night and Sunday night. Live on Saturday, you can watch Kevin Clark and Ryan Rissillo. And then on Sunday, it's Kevin Clark and Nora Panchati. Breaking down all the playoff matchups, make sure you are subscribed to the ringer's YouTube channel at YouTube.com slash the ringer. And if you're following at ringer NFL on Twitter, you know you'll be able to catch these peeps and get the immediate breakdown. But speaking

of breakdown, let's break down Urban Meyer, Sharpie. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of questions. There's more question marks than there are answers. How is this going to work? We know that he's had successful collegiate programs at multiple locations, but how will it, how will what he brings to the table work in the NFL with, with paid professionals as opposed to students and student athletes? And now that you can't just pay people, you have to, and recruit them, you actually have to draft them and build up talent a totally different way. Will he have the types of guys that he wants? How will it, how difficult will it be for him to acquire those pieces and then what type of offense are they going to run and and we just are hearing news that

it might actually be Scott Linnehan as a as his offensive coordinator and I don't know to me that's just a giant fart noise like if you can play audio insert in a big old fart noise there you go I'll just do it there we go there you go I'm not a fan I'm not a fan but I've interested to hear your take before we talk about Scott what did you think about urban Well, it makes all the sense in the world, right? He is a beloved figure in the Jacksonville area. There is a lot of romanticizing of his time as the head coach of Florida with good reason. And what he and Tim Tebow had there in Florida was magical.

And so they'll be able to tap into all of that goodwill, all of those good sentiments with him as the head coach in Jacksonville. The really interesting thing to me is, you know, they're in a prime position, brand new coach, name brand coach, able to build some excitement. Number one pick overall in the draft, does he do the obvious thing? Does the franchise do the obvious thing and take Trevor Lawrence, or does he have a perspective on Justin Fields because of the Ohio State connection is there a reason for Jacksonville to think about trading down in the first round and get a guy that maybe Urban has a unique perspective on and a reason to believe could be successful for Urban in a way that Trevor Lawrence may not be successful for them. I don't know.

Yeah, there's a lot of questions. I would be shocked. I mean, we've talked for so long about Trevor Lawrence and being the number one overall pick. And obviously Justin Fields, he was injured. But, right, if he showed out a little bit better in that national championship game, perhaps, maybe it would build a little bit more of momentum. I think Urban's going to do what he wants to do, right? If he gets his shot, he gets this shot, you know Khan has given him a blank check to just kind of do his thing. I get to, there's already been a number of NFL teams that have tried to lure Urban Meyer to the NFL ranks and haven't had success.

and Khan decided to pay him enough and give him enough authority to get in the door. And he's going to be going with who he wants. I can guarantee you that. He's not going to acquiesce to anybody on the number one overall draft pick if he's going with a quarterback. So that will be interesting with Scott Linehan. You know, why I was calling for the fart sound effect earlier is this guy, he's the guy that Dallas got, obviously Jason Garrett, the client.

That's the big story about the Dallas Cowboys and why everybody thinks that the Dallas Cowboys were this crappy offense because of Jason Garrett. And a lot of that is true. Jason Garrett was so bad. They ended up giving up play call duties to Scott Linehan. And Scott Linehan called a terrible offense. And Scott Linnehan, he was the offense coordinator, 2015, 16, 17, and 18. Look at these numbers.

The first three quarters of games on first. down by year. I'll start in 2016. 2016, Dallas is 57% run on first downs. That is the fourth highest in the NFL. 2017, they are 63% run on these first down plays. That's the third highest in the NFL. And then 2018, which was his last year there, they go to 55% run, which was like the sixth highest in the NFL. So overall, I mean, clearly, the NFL average, by the way, is down around like 50-50 split, first downs in the first three quarters of games. Way skewed run heavy guy wants to protect a young quarterback by running the football. Doesn't understand that if you pass the football

on early downs, that's when the defense is playing the run. And so you could give a little bit better advantage to your quarterback, getting better looks, throwing at defenses that aren't having their ears pinned back to chase you down. Maybe you're bypassing those third downs because passes pick up more yards than do run plays. So it's the whole notion that can I protect a rookie young quarterback, whether it's fields or whether it's Lawrence by passing the ball on early downs and getting him into an offense that he could get comfortable with in a rhythm or am I going to protect him by running the football? And I think we know what Scott Lenehan would tend to lean towards. So I think that a lot of what Dak Prescott was able to do as a young QB in Dallas. Some of the impressive things

came kind of out of the offense. They came on third downs, kind of like what Justin Herbert had to deal with the Chargers. He threw for a lot of yardage on third downs or when the team was trailing and they had to turn to the pass. He was getting a lot of out of sequence production. and I just don't love the way that that melds with a young quarterback, but he knows Urban Meyer, so he's going to get the gig. We'll see. It's not confirmed that he's got the gig. It's confirmed that Urban does, but he's a leading candidate, as they say.

Yeah, well, I don't want to belabor this discussion much further because I think we're in agreement that for the franchise where it sits on balance, it's a good hire. It makes perfect sense for Jacksonville to try and get some butts in seats and to build some positive momentum for the franchise. The question I have for you before we move on, why do you think it is that the college coach is coming up with their first NFL job, overwhelmingly not a good track record? Since 2010, the only coach with a really good, strong winning record in that position is Harbaugh in San Francisco, who landed with, you know,

a pretty nice framework, good infrastructure in terms of the talent that was there, but also like in terms of decision making. And to me, in lots of these instances, the biggest open question is, you know, what's the franchise decision making structure look like? Who are the professionals there that the coach is going to be working with? And how does that factor into likelihood of success? And for all of the ones where you don't see a lot of success, it's because of, I think, that sort of business factor. But what's your sense as to why a guy coming in from college without any pro experience tends to not be successful right away?

I think a lot of it is what you're saying. I mean, you have guys that get power. They're used to having all the power at college. And then they want to transition that to the NFL. And instead of just being able to go out and recruit and, and out recruit your competitors or like different geographic locations, areas that you're from, and get a lot of the guys that live around there to convince them to come to your program. In the NFL, it's totally different.

So, you know, you could go to Cleveland or where some guys may not want to play as much. And you have got a salary cap that you got to deal with. And so it's a lot more difficult. There are a lot more factors on the business side of things to try to manage the business of a finite salary cap and trying to deal with those things. And then I think, you know, offense is difficult. Offense is difficult. It's defensive very reactive.

Offense is difficult. And when you take a guy, there are some guys that should be able to transition fairly well. But when you first come to the league, you're coming somewhere because a coach was fired because the team wasn't winning enough games. In many cases, that's because the team doesn't have a lot of talent on the roster. So you have to figure out, you can't just go, oh, yeah, I'm going to get this whole new class of players to come in. In another year, we're going to be great. It's hard to establish that.

And some of these guys, you know, they're not, they're very, it's very foreign to them. They're not used to not being able to have resources at their disposal. Well, it could be a good starting position for him. James Robinson's awesome. They have good ride wide receiver talent. And if it's Trevor Lawrence that they decide to go with, which seems like kind of the no-brainer move, at least in terms of talent on the offensive side of the ball, they'll have options and then they'll have to design a game plan

for that team to win more than one game next year. And, you know, best of luck. That team, the good news is like, it can go nowhere but up. It's been a disaster for years. I'm shocked that, you know, their GM has lasted as long as he did. And, yeah, it's just been a bad team for so long now that it'll be interesting to see what they're able to do and how quickly they're able to turn things around because, I mean, the class to me of that division is what they're building in Indy. And I have a lot of

confidence in Chris Ballard there. We will see, we don't even have a coach for Houston. We don't know what they're going to be doing yet. We've got controversy with their quarterback, Deshaun Watson and ownership there. So who knows what's happening there. And obviously, Tennessee, their defense sucks. We'll talk of a little bit about it. Their defense is garbage and they're led by a defensive head coach. So that's kind of ironic Mike Grable, but his defense sucks. And then their offense coordinator, Arthur Smith, who's been able to make a little bit of magic there, you know, he may be leaving.

So I think I see his name everywhere. Yeah. So everywhere is right. So Indy is the class of that division, but the rest of it's pretty up for grabs. to be honest with you. Well, this is the thing. And you didn't ask me to do this. Nobody said to me,

Hey, House, you know, try and say something nice about Sharp. Here's what this sets me up for. I cannot wait for your book. I know how this, because we have all these things in front of us now. It's January.

And so we have, you know, seven months of all the twist in terms, in terms of the draft, in terms of where personnel ultimately land, in terms of who, all the teams across, the board higher. And so look at the AFC South. There are going to be some delicious future

opportunities, I believe, Warren Sharp. And I know that your book is going to have a perspective on these things. When do you start the book, by the way? Again, I know that we're down a rabbit hole, but I don't care. To keep it quick before we dive back into these divisional games, I start the book, usually late February. Sometimes it gets pushed to early March because my schedule historically the past couple of years at least has been I go to the Super Bowl, I come back, decompressed from the season, go to the NFL combine, meet with some guys out there, come home or in some cases fly directly to Boston to go speak at the Sloan Analytics panel on the NFL panel. So that takes me to the beginning of March. Well, now I'm not going to be

going to the combine. I don't even know what they're doing with that yet. I'm not going to the Super Bowl. I'm not going to the Combine. And I don't know what they're doing for the Sloan Analytics panel. I'm thinking that's probably like remote people speaking. So it's going to open up the opportunity for me to start researching it far earlier. But I can't wait to get back into that. It's so much fun. And it definitely last year's version was extremely, extremely successful and predictive. And looking forward to continuing that in 2021.

Yeah. Let's go make some good money in 2021. Speaking of making good money, super wild card weekend was absolutely super. Warren Sharp, we can't ever go back. I don't ever want to have a wild card weekend that's less than six games. Have we not had this our whole lives? I agree. I will tell you, though. It's like you get a nice cake and you tell your wife like, oh, I want all this icing on. Like I want, I want to do this cake up right. And then you have a big piece. And then you're like, man, I don't, I don't know when I'm going to be able to eat the rest of this. I don't feel like I can really get through. the rest of this. That's what it almost felt like after the first three games on that first day, each game is so intense and so jacked up, got through it. But then after that first Baltimore indie game, I'm sorry, the Baltimore Tennessee game on Sunday, I don't know,

maybe it was just the opponents, but the Bears Saints game kind of dragged. And then the, the Brown's game was shocking. Like, it woke me up out of my coma, so to speak. But it definitely got long in the tooth towards the end of it. I'm really looking forward to this weekend because you go back to two and two. And it's interesting because all the games are late. So the first one doesn't start until 4.30 East Coast time on Saturday, three o'clock East Coast time on Sunday. So we have all morning and early afternoon. But I'm going to like the two games here, but I agree. I think we'll get used to the six on Super Wildcard weekend. I hope they don't change it. I thought it was a ton of fun. It was it was a wild

success, I think. And look, the thing about the game Sunday afternoon, which we forecasted was going to be a dead game. That was, that's like the dead hole. That's the nap time game. And then we said this is like, so let's just look for as going forward. God bless the NFL.

They should know the Sunday afternoon game. That's the nap time game. So you have something exciting to start the day and make sure you got something marquee at night and let everybody take the afternoon. to reconnect with their families. Actually, that's perfect. Not to reconnect with the families, because what they ended up doing is they stuck the Nickelodeon

game at that hour. So you go up and reconvene with the family, but you fall asleep on the couch while the kids watch Nickelodeon on the game and you kind of doze in and out and keep up with everything. And actually, that's not a bad strategy, Mr. House. There we go. There we go. We've got success already forecast for ourselves for 2022.

Well, let's talk about this slate that we have in front of us this, this division of weekend. I mean, because now we're down. This is legit, you know, the best teams, the best games. We've been waiting all year for this moment. Wildcard weekend is awesome because it's legitimately wild. And we had two straight up upsets. Now, the Rams over the Seahawks wasn't an enormous upset because those two teams. teams played each other close in the regular season.

And we know, we know all about the Rams defense. So that didn't feel like a gigantic upset. What the Browns did the Steelers was an upset and was upsetting to lots of people's gambling sheets to Steelers Nation, all the terrible towels across America. You know, those Steelers fans like to think of themselves as taking the mantle of America's

team from Dallas and going around and they get the terrible towels everywhere. Well, now they're just playing all terrible because they had to fire their offensive coordinator. You and Verdo covered this on the NFL show this week, extremely enjoyable. Take down poor Randy Fickner. And, you know, they have some things to figure out. I wouldn't be surprised if it was Big Ben's last game ever. So far they're saying no, but, you know, we'll see how this, this summer plays out. but you know look the right team won the game the browns you know played better than the

Steelers so I love these matchups that we have this week let's really quick recap we I wanted to go 13 and no guess what it ain't happening and I told you it wasn't you did tell me you did tell me that's right so we went three and three it's acceptable the ones that hit the Buffalo Tampa teaser that I think all of America was on You know, we tease Buffalo down and Tampa down. And both of those worked out. Tampa over 13 and a half. That was one that you gave out in the first half.

Tampa over 13 and a half in the first half against the Washington football team. And I will go down a very quick rabbit hole. Kudos to the Washington football team. I couldn't be happier. I believe that Washington is the class of the NFC East as we sit here today in January 2021. I like Washington's prospects better than any other team in the entire NFC East. We had to figure out quarterback.

But God bless Taylor Heineke. I'm so glad that he had time. You could take some time away from his math finals at Old Dominion to come join the franchise. He put on an absolute masterclass in an underdog, gutsy, fighter kind of performance. I couldn't have admired it anymore. and it was a stunning thing to see with my own two eyes, a Washington quarterback that can run. I mean, the last quarterback in Washington that could run was RG3,

and that lasted all of one season. So anyway, I'll come back to reality now. Tampa over 13 and a half in the first half was a big fat winner. A lot of people like that. I got a lot of nice kudos in the timeline on that one for you. New Orleans minus 10, the nap time game. That was a boring cover. Although it, if you got a 10 and a half for 11, which was the Sunday number,

there was some intrigue around that last gas touchdown by the bears and the fact that they didn't kick the extra point, which is hilarious. Losers were, I had the under and the Ram Seahawks game. That was a weird game. We had, you know, defensive scores, special teams, miscues, and that's how you lose on and under. I had Tennessee Money Line and over. I parlayed that just thinking, you know, on a, this would be fun to see kind of basis.

But God bless Baltimore. Exciting. We're going to talk about Baltimore. And then Pittsburgh minus four ruined everybody's money line parlayers across America. And that's fine. That's why it's wild card weekend, right? Well, I hated the last result because I was on the Steelers as well at a really good number. And that one was the one that really made the week.

It put a damper for me on the weekend because it finished the weekend with that game at the end there. And I obviously went off on Randy Fickner and we know what happened. He got fired. So I don't know that you could say I was right, but he did not. He shouldn't have been calling the plays that he was to start the game. Shouldn't have had that game plan. And kudos to the Cleveland Browns. I definitely did.

And we'll talk about the Browns when we get to their game. We'll do it in chronological order, I guess. But just foreshadowing, like that. Kevin Safansky put on a show in how to coach up guys and get them prepared for things because he wasn't even there calling the plays. And I know it's a little bit different when you're up 28 nothing at the end of the first quarter. It gets easier to call plays. But I was really impressed by how they handled themselves in the fourth quarter. They stayed somewhat aggressive.

They still threw the ball when they needed to to win. They pulled out some plays that they knew would work against Pittsburgh, attacked some of the issues that Keith Butler, their defense coordinator has, was covering slot wide receivers with linebackers. And they were able to keep on the hold of that game and advance to play the Kansas City Chiefs, which throws everything off right, because the thought was Buffalo is going to play Pittsburgh, because Pittsburgh was a big favorite over Cleveland. And then we were going to get the rematch Lamar going down.

and taking on Patrick Mahomes. And now that's not going to be to the AFC championship game unless either the Buffalo Bills or the Cleveland Browns have anything to say about it. So I'm excited to break these games down with you this weekend house. Podcast people's. It's the NFL playoffs. My absolute favorite time of the year cannot wait to bet all the glorious action this weekend on the Fandul Sportsbook. If you've never tried Fandul before, the playoffs are the perfect time to give it a shot. They are hooking it up.

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And yet, the team that I am selecting for this 25 to 1 odds boost is the Green Bay Packers. I don't trust Jared golf. It's going to be freezing cold in Green Bay. He's from California, and he's got a busted thumb. Green Bay Packers, 25 to 1, go out there and earn yourself a little hard-earned our return on investment. Do not miss out on this exclusive offer. The FanduSportsbook has a ton of betting options, player props, futures, totals, live betting, odds boosts, multi-game parlay. just download the Fandual Sportsbook app and use promo code sharp.

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The max bonus is $125. You can see full terms at sportsbook. com. If you have a gambling problem, please call 1-800 gambler, G-A-M-B-L-E-R. Yeah, it's going to be fun. Let's just go ahead and do it

in chronological order. order. I want to make sure everything's good. You know, we talked at the end of the show last week. Everything's good at home. You survive the weekend. Your wife's happy with you. Your family's happy with you? No different than normal. Okay, good. So we're doing well. I mean, the kids, I was showing them some of the Nickelodeon stuff, you know, they thought that was interesting. But other than that, you know, I'm just working my ass off. It is interesting. You know, know a lot of work Mondays and Tuesdays, late, late nights, trying to get game plans together and help guys out. And it's a ton of fun because I love doing it. It's just a lot of hours.

You've got teams in these playoffs and there's a lot. It's everything's at stake now. I'm super nervous about some of these games. So let's talk. Let's talk them because I don't think, Are you nervous about the Packers and the Rams? The Packers are favored by six and a half at home. This is the first game of the weekend in Green Bay. There are all kinds of stats out there that reflect the fact that Aaron Rogers at home in the playoffs is a great situation to go ahead and lay the number. I having seen all of these injuries to the Rams and from my square perspective, think I'm kind of comfortable going ahead and laying the number with the Packers.

One thing that your colleague T.A. Cleveland, my homie, pointed out is that it's going to be cold in Green Bay. And Jared Gough doesn't have a ton of experience playing in cold weather. two games in 2018. And the temperatures forecast to be in the 20s, I think, at Lambo. And his stats in those 2018 games are horrific. I think his single worst passer rating was against Chicago in a Sunday night game where he had a passer rating of 19.1. He had 180 yards and four interceptions.

And he has a busted thumb. So a tough situation, it looks like for the Rams. How are you thinking about this game? Well, let me ask you first. What is your, if you're doing one play a game, one bet a game, what is your initial read on this one? So the thing that I like the best, probably my favorite bet of the entire weekend, is a teaser of the Packers taking them from six and a half down to a half point.

and putting that with Baltimore and teasing Baltimore up to eight and a half points. That's my A number one best, most favorite bet by far of the entire weekend, that teaser. But I need, you know, if my lean on this particular game is Packers minus six and a half. Okay, okay. So I don't mind the teaser. I don't mind the teaser. The interesting element to, well, for me personally, and you know because you're part of my group, but I sent out and we bet the Rams to win the Super Bowl at 11 to 1, like literally the week before Goff breaks his thumb, right? And so Goff breaks his thumb and odds plummet. You know, I think it was like down to 30 to 1 and it's looking like we should flush this bet down the drain because there's no there's no hope. And then they get into the playoffs. They were able to make their way into the playoffs despite that. And I decided, I decided.

I wasn't going to hedge it the first game against the Seahawks because I thought that there was a good chance that the Rams were going to win that game. So I didn't bet the game at all from a from a side perspective. I didn't take the Seahawks. I didn't add more to the Rams because I was already on the Rams with this futures ticket. Now I got this futures ticket and we got a line of six and a half. It was seven. It got bet down. There certainly is very sharp money taking the who took the Rams at plus seven.

drop the line back down. And if you look at the game itself, I mean, the line shouldn't quite be this high. But there's a lot of questions swirling around Jared Goff and what he's going to do in this game. And did the team actually even want him to play last week? Where the team hoping that he wouldn't have to play. So for this game, there is the reasoning logic that I probably will end up hedging something back. And that teaser that you pointed out is certainly a positive teaser. It's the primary teaser that I would look to do this weekend, those two exact legs that you mentioned. You don't get to move the Packers through the seven is the only downside to it, but I still think it offers the most value. The interesting thing about this game house is the strength of

the Rams defense is with Jalen Ramsey from a coverage perspective and with Aaron Donald from a pass rush and disruption overall perspective. The issue, though, like they have a big advantage against most teams because nobody has a wide receiver that's going to give Jalen Ramsey as much trouble. I mean, some teams have good wide receivers, but Devante is like just off the out of this world. And then most teams don't have a starting center like Corey Linsley. And Corey Linsley is the number one graded out center this entire season. So Aaron Donald is number one in pass rush win rate, but he's going up against the best center in the NFL in terms of production this year, I still give the edge to Aaron Donald, but it's not like he's going up

against the 15th or the 25th center. It's going to be a little bit less production because of who is lined up across from him. Similarly for Jalen Ramsey. Even if you look at the numbers, Jalen Ramsey would only, I mean, even if he travels a little bit, he's not going to go in a slot as much, would only cover Devante Adams rate, maybe like 65, 70% of the time. That's still given Aaron Rogers like 30% of the time when Jalen's not on him, I could target him on all those plays and still give him almost as many targets as he has in a normal game. But there probably will be times when they still challenge Jailen Ramsey, I would guess, maybe a couple of times here or there.

And Devante Adams is one of the best wide receivers in the NFL. And what he does is he beat you with his legs off the line. His releases are some of the best in the NFL off the line of scrimmage. And what Jalen Ramsey loves is if you're trying to be physical with him, get your hands on him. he'll get his hands on you and really lock you up and limit what you're able to do. But Devante doesn't like to play physically with his hands. He likes to use his legs.

Almost like a, it's hard to say, like a basketball player with the ball, like jukeing you out. Like you're not like pushing the defender down in the post. You're up top trying to create space with fakes before you even start driving down the field. And that's exactly what he's really good at doing. I think those matchups are going to be phenomenal to watch. But the bigger matchup to me, the overall game matchup, like those are like individual, like chess pieces, you know, who's going to have the advantage. It's Brandon Staley on the defensive side of the football from a coaching perspective and

a game plan perspective versus Matt LaFleur. Brandon Staley, the Rams defensive coordinator, has one of the best defenses in the NFL at second half adjustments. They were allowing less than a touchdown on average over the second half. in the second half of games over the entire season. Less than one touchdown scored in the second half. The problem is that the Rams, sorry, the problem is that the Packers are the NFL's number one scoring offense in the first half.

So the Packers get out really quick on you. Staley's great at making adjustments at halftime, slowing you down in the second half. Staley's got to bring all those adjustments. He's got to be right with his game plan to start the game because you cannot afford to have Aaron Rogers taking a big lead against you. even if it's like a 13 point lead into the second quarter against a quarterback like Jared Goff with a broken finger with a hobbled Cooper Cup and you want to just primarily run the football. That's not going to work if the Packers start creating margin and pulling away from you.

So it's very important the first 10 minutes of this game are going to be vital for the Rams to keep it super close. And it's going to be very important that Brandon Staley has a great game plan at the onset rather than adjustments at halftime to slow down this offense of the Green Bay Packers. So this is, I'm disappointed, honestly, because this could have been such a delightful matchup. It's just unfortunate that the Rams have the injuries that that they have. It's not often that you get the number one defense in the NFL against the number one offense in the NFL at this stage with this matchup. And it's just a bummer that the Rams have the injury.

that they have because we don't get the full benefit of what all all the intrigue that that matchup should carry. I am by orientation, old school, a defense guy, and defense wins playoff games. So my inclination always, always, always is to take the team with the superior defense when it's going up against what's supposed to be a high-powered offense. I'm not doing that here because I cannot in any way, shape, or form think about looking myself in the mirror and saying, Joe House, you bet on Jared Gough with his busted-ass thumb in 25-degree weather at Lambeau Field to cover a bet. I just can't look at myself in the mirror and do that. Well, just realize that most everybody else, your next door neighbor, the guy who lives across the street from you,

the guy who walks his dog in front of your house and it shits and then you don't and he doesn't pick it up and you try to come out and yell at him all those guys have that same thought process like why would I bet on Jared Goff with a broken thumb against Aaron Rogers and the best offense in the NFL playing at home and it's interesting like obviously Aaron Rogers based everything that he's done this season on getting home field advantage throughout the playoffs he can't he can't lose this game he can't because everything that he's been building for is home field path to the Super Bowl. It's cold here. We want to bring teams in.

There's not many home field advantage. There's not a home field advantage in Tennessee. There's not a home field advantage in L.A. There's a home field advantage in Green Bay. And so it is difficult. There's obviously a lot of public action that's on that. The line dropped. I explained why it did.

I leaned initially towards the right. Rams. I haven't done anything on this game. And it'll be to be determined whether or not I end up doing anything. I want to see some some additional injury related information here as we get closer to getting the final injury reports. Yeah. Well, we're going to, I'll have four bets at the end of the show. But let everybody know for 100% certain one of the four bets this weekend will be that teaser. Green Bay down to a half and the Braven's up to eight and a half. Let's go ahead and talk about that Ravens, Bill's, Saturday. I got Saturday night fever already, Sharpie. This to me is the best game of the weekend. This is the one that carries the kind of intrigue that I was, you know, we might have gotten out of the Rams and the Packers. This is two really, really interesting offenses, offensive strategies.

the matchups are everything. I'm extremely excited for this Baltimore Buffalo competition. And here's my initial reaction as I look at this. The bills have not been good against the run. They haven't been good against the run for several, several, several weeks. They were not good against the run against the Colts.

In fact, that game last week against the Colts, and we, It's part of why I was inclined to tease that game. And, you know, there was a lot of analytics out there suggesting caution in terms of laying all those points that the bills were favored by against the Colts. Notwithstanding, we expressed some pessimism about Philip Rivers in the cold up in Buffalo. Well, the bills didn't touch Philip Rivers. I don't think the only time he might have touched anybody having to do with the bills is when he shook Josh Allen's hands.

at the end of the game. Because otherwise, no Buffalo Bill touched Philip Rivers in that entire football game. And the cult established the run and the cult self-defeated, as has been kind of the way for the cults in this 2020, 2021 season. The Colts had every opportunity to win that football game. And it began an end to me with their ability to create sustained drives built off of the rush. and Baltimore is a superior rushing team, not just superior, the best rushing team in football.

And so I just look at that matchup, and that to me suggests there's some value in the Ravens getting points and perhaps some value in the Ravens money line, which is where I'm leaning on this game. How are you sizing this one up, my friend? Well, let me ask you another question. So you broke down kind of the bills and the Colts game and you thought the bills probably should have lost that game to the Colts and the Colts really

shot themselves in the foot with the field position and they probably should have done a lot better. They had success running the football. Talk to me a little bit about your takeaways from Baltimore's game against Tennessee. So that was, you know, a really impressive adjustment game by the Ravens, I thought. I was really impressed by Tennessee's defensive presence at the beginning of that football game. Tennessee did something out of character for the Titans this year, which is, you know, a contained kind of defense. And I, you know, you're the analytics fellow,

so I'm not going to be able to speak of it in the proper kind of. It sounds so prestigious terminology. But look, they. really created some unexpected looks for the Ravens. And the Ravens couldn't really do anything, but the Ravens adjusted in the final three quarters, they were able to start having their way with some Ravens rushing football. And, you know, I'll tip of the hat to Tennessee for really changing the character

and identity of that team. And by the way, that's another example of Tennessee under Vrable. They did the exact same thing in the playoffs. last year. They gave us looks in those playoffs in 2019 into 2020. There were looks that that we really hadn't seen during the year. They're really smart about taking the individual matchups and breaking down and looking for the advantage that they can get. I think they did that effectively against Baltimore. Baltimore was able to adjust and Baltimore's will ultimately carry the day. Brayble, punning from the 40-yard line, he didn't need to aid and abet the effort.

I mean, I'll never forgive that. For a guy that I think is smart, him ponting from the 40-yard line, I'll never get over it. But we all make mistakes. So I guess I'll hold my nose. Okay. So, no, I think your belief on the reaction to both of those games is what a lot of people hold. I think a lot of people watch both those games and came away with those same takeaways. My takeaways are as follows from the games last week that then have,

helped drive my research towards understanding what I think is going to happen in this game, and I'll share some of that. When I saw the Buffalo game against the Colts, the very first thing to me, that was a massive difference that nobody was really talking about was the average starting field position, not for the Colts and the potential points that they squandered, but for the Buffalo Bills. As much as I like to hope that offense coordinators will just call what they think is best in every situation like the most plus EV play, no matter where they are on the field, I know now that it's difficult to call plays when you're backed up at your end zone. It's difficult to run an offense.

It's difficult to figure out what the call because you know any type of mistake is going to give the opponent great field position or points in a snap of a finger. Buffalo had five drives in the first half against the Colts. Here's where they started from. Mind you, a kid. A kid. kickoff that's a touchback, you get it at the 25-yard line. They started at their own three-yard line, their own four-yard line, their own six-yard line, their own 11-yard line, and their own 15-yard line. That was it. They still drove two of those. I think they had an 85-yard drive, which was the one they started at their 15. They drove the length of the field, 85-yard scored a touchdown, and a 96-yard drive, I believe, which was the one they started at their four-yard line,

all the way the length of the field to score touchdown. but it is difficult to call plays when you're backed up like that. The average field position per snap. So look at all the snaps that one team played. What was the average field position they were on the field? Look at the average field position for the other team per snap in that first half. This is crazy. Buffalo's average field position was their own 40-yard line.

The Colts average field position was the Bill's 40-yard line. Both teams were at the Bill's 40-yard line on average from a. field position perspective. On the other side of the other game, when I'm looking at Baltimore, you know, for me, I care a lot about offensive efficiency, being efficient. And I see the Tennessee Titans and I see Arthur Smith and you've heard me talk about this often. If they're stacking the box to stop the run and they're trying to take Derek Henry away

from you, which every single good defense coordinator in the NFL is trying to do, you cannot fall into that trap and just run the ball. to loaded boxes. We talked about that before this game. It was one of the reasons that I was like Baltimore here. Baltimore is going to figure it out how to play these guys defensively and how to attack them offensively. But 10 first downs in the first half, Arthur Smith runs Derek Henry on 80% of them and gains like 2.7 yards per carry on those plays just derails the Titans ability to be productive. The only touchdown that they got that half was, was when they move and he always does it his second drive to a pass heavy tempo and throws the

football down the field. So enough about last week, the bottom line is I thought the Titans were the ones through their own play calling who hurt themselves a ton in this game. Credit to Baltimore's defense for playing great. They still played great. It doesn't diminish what Baltimore's defense did. But Tennessee's offense, you're not going to win games like that against a good defense. And then I'm looking at Baltimore and I'm like, I know the Titans have these guys number.

they play them a little bit uniquely. But my God, this is the worst defense in the NFL. And if you take away that pass that Lamar was going to throw when he was close to midfield and he drops back and then he starts scrambling because the pocket is collapsing and he goes, I think, 54 yards and scores out just absolutely remarkable touchdown that only Lamar Jackson could ever do in the NFL, I believe right now from a quarterback perspective. What else did they do the entire game, right? against literally the worst defense in the NFL that was still alive in the playoffs.

So I left that game thinking, eh, Baltimore, I don't know. But I still entered this game looking at the matchups and saying, man, I agree with you, House. Baltimore is going to be able to run the ball in Buffalo struggles to stop the run. But then what I did is I looked back at last year's meeting when these two teams played one another. And if you remember, what was Baltimore last year? They were a damn juggernaut, right?

This team went on a major run and was dominating. And they played the bills in Buffalo in week 14. And they had won, I want to say it's like eight games in a row, something crazy on their way to what was going to be the best record in the NFL last year. And they go into Buffalo. And yeah, Buffalo's defense was a little bit better last year, fully admitted. But Baltimore runs the ball in total for three points. yards per carry. Lamar Jackson runs the ball himself for 3.6 yards per carry. Mark Ingram was their lead back. He averaged 3.3 yards per carry. And Lamar Jackson finishes with only 40 yards on 11

attempts. So I be a little bit worried that maybe there's something that Sean McDermott, the coach of the Buffalo Bills, who's also heavily from the defensive side of football, has. figured out to do against Lamar Jackson and this creative Baltimore rushing attack that maybe doesn't work so well when you're scared a quarterback's going to drop back to pass and you don't really know what's going on. But when you got a team like this that wants to run the football a lot, it may work a little bit better. The other thing that Buffalo's got defensively is, I mean, how was how was Baltimore crushing Tennessee last week? It was basically with Marquise Brown. I mean, number 15. He was crushing him. Well, you got number one. You, you,

sorry, you got your own guy, your number one cover corner, Tradavius White. He could cover a lot of the sins that otherwise Brown could cause against you. And now you're talking about we're going to have to crush you with Mark Andrews in the past game or just run the football. So they might be able to take away to some extent number 15 from this game. The thing when Buffalo has the football, the two points that I'll make here is two things that got to focus on. Number one, keep the pressure off of Josh Allen. Easier said than done. But Josh Allen has been great against the Blitz this year,

but there is a massive difference between blitz and pressure. The Baltimore Ravens blitz the quarterback at the number one highest rate of any team in the NFL. But Josh Allen has already played eight teams that rank in the top 10 in Blitz rate this season. And he's done very well against the Blitz. What he's done very poorly against his pressure. If pressure gets to him, he does not perform well. So you got to get, you got to understand where the blitz is coming from. You got to be very mentally dialed in a lot of smelling salts, Josh Allen, a lot of smelling salts.

Keep your brain engaged and use personal day ball needs to use the personnel groupings that are going to best suit the offense to minimize pressure against Josh Allen. What are the ones at Baltimore doesn't you do get a lot of pressure from that's use those personal groupings a little bit more? The second thing is, race as fast as you can to a halftime lead. Lamar Jackson is 28 and 2 when his team is tied or leading at halftime. He is 1 and 7 when his team is down at halftime by any margin. If you're Buffalo, you absolutely have to start quickly. You have to put points on the board. You have to play them defensively well enough so that you go to halftime

and the Ravens go into their locker room and say, you know what, obviously we're not have as much success as we need to. Let's dial up the dropback game. Let's dial up the more 11 personnel game. We're going to have to throw the football more here. Those are the words that you dream to hear if you are the Buffalo Bills coming out of the Ravens locker room at half time. Got to figure out how to get a lead. I can't believe that.

So the only game in Lamar Jackson's career that the Ravens, With the him of the starting quarterback, the Ravens have come back at halftime and won. Was that Colts game? What was that? Four weeks ago? Because they were down, you know, the Colts were kicking their ass all up and down the football field. And then the Ravens came out.

And is that right? Was it the Colts game? It was the Colts game week nine against the, it was week nine in Indianapolis against the Colts. Every single other game he's lost. I can't believe that. That's, that's, well, I mean, I guess there's a handful of factors that go into that, but we don't need to go all the way through that. I'm processing it.

This game, the bills are favored by two and a half, which means that Vegas has priced this as though these two teams are even in a traditional setting that over, under the number I'm seeing right now is 49 and a half. and on the money line, the Ravens are plus 125. My play for this game, in addition to the teaser that I absolutely love, is the Ravens Money Line. I think that the Ravens are,

I think there's decent value in the plus 125. I think they're going to be able to assert their will by virtue of this rushing attack. And I think their defense is flexible, enough and they're all everybody's healthy again and they're going to be able to put some pressure on on allen um and i feel like it's a close game and i can see um the ravens you know like kicking a it's a justin tucker 48 yard field goal you know with with uh 45 seconds left so three things to hit hopefully quickly the first one relates to the coach and some of the stuff that

came out of Baltimore. The second one relates to the weather and the third one relates to line movement. I was very shocked to hear after that game against Baltimore, after Baltimore's game against the Titans. John Harbaugh came out. Did you hear what he said? He said, this was the best win in my football coaching career. He did say that. You're right. He came out and said, and it's like, And it sounded like it wasn't just him. It sounded like this was the most meaningful win for the guys in the locker room. It was massive. You saw them.

They got a chance to go stomp on the logo to get revenge. I think they took it really personally that the Titans were 2 and 0 against them, had stomped on their logo at midfield. And they needed Lamar needed to get a win. And to me, Baltimore's on a short week. And look, John Harbaugh, he's won AFC championship games. He's won a Super Bowl. Like, for this wild card win, they are a favorite in this game against Tennessee.

And they're playing one of the worst defenses in the entire NFL. And that is the best win of your coaching career. I don't know. I just feel like that there's a lot of relaxation that occurs when you really achieve something that you've worked really hard for. and it might be a little bit difficult to get jacked up to that level that it takes. You know, the Buffalo Bills were certainly relieved and happy that they got the win, but I didn't hear anything coming out of that.

Oh, thank God, that was the greatest. I'm so proud of us. Like, this was amazing, the best feeling in the world. I've never done anything better than this. Like, their sights are set on winning this game and going to the AFC championship game. So from that perspective, I didn't necessarily love that. From the weather perspective, the other interesting thing is, there could be some weather here.

We got cold temperatures, we got the potential for rain, sleet maybe. I don't even know. I guess there could be some lake effect snow. Who knows what ends up could be occurring in this game that you would think that that should favor the road team, the team that runs the football, right? The Buffalo just lost their number one running back. The weather should favor the team that runs the football a lot. However, that being said, you know, Lamar Jackson already came out, said, I don't want to

play in the snow. I hope it's not snowing. I really don't want to play the first game in the snow. You know, if he's saying it, he's thought it for a little while. It's in his mind. It's going to be on his mind until he steps out on the football field and hopes that there's actually no snow there. And that's not the best status for your quarterback.

You can't control the weather. The bills have Josh Frickin Allen. Josh Freakin Allen went to Wyoming. He's lived in these conditions. He played. I watched his games in college playing in snowstorms. He's a big. with a big arm and a big gun,

and he could throw the football in these types of conditions. I know the bills haven't had a lot of success in games with rain and weather this season so far and some of their opponents in games. But, I mean, that to me at least takes the benefit of, oh, yeah, weather definitely favors the Ravens. And now I'm like, yeah, probably a little bit, but not as much as I was initially thinking. From the lines perspective, the cool thing about this game house,

if you're a little bit torn, it sounds like you really like the Ravens. So you're not a little bit torn. But for some people that are a little bit torn on this point spread, you're not alone because there are two very sophisticated, strong betting groups out there. One's a little bit more new school. One's much more old school. Both are very successful, have been for a while now.

One group came in and took the Ravens at plus three, dropped the line all the way down to like one and a half. The other group came in and bet the bills at minus one and a half. And that's why the line right now is sitting at two and a half. If it gets back up to three, they're going to be buying the Ravens again and dropping it back down. If it gets too low, the other group's going to come in and bet the bills at a low number. So there's a lot of battling on this game from the side's perspective. And you can see the total has dropped a little bit as news of weather exists and we're getting closer.

And the weather still looks like it may impact the game. That's why the total is starting to trickle down. It's now down to 49 and a half. Well, let me ask you this question. And then we'll move on to the next game. we've talked throughout this season that you almost never want to buy into a number. You want to buy there are limited circumstances, is the better way to put it. Based on what we've talked through and the way that the line has moved here,

would this be an instance if you're a person like me who likes what the Ravens look like coming into this game, buying off the two and a half up to the three if it's still sitting at two and a half Saturday afternoon. 100%. No doubt. And like no doubt about it. You don't want to buy off numbers, but you want to buy on two numbers.

And right now it's a juice two and a half in favor of Buffalo. So that's a very cheap buy to get to the three for Baltimore. There's no doubt about it. That's exactly what you want to do. You also want to tease them like you said. I mean, like it sounds like you're loading up. So if you're loading up and you really feel good about this,

I don't know if you do or not. So don't go crazy if you don't. But if you do, you're going to be teasing them. we've talked about like different ways to play teams like this, right? So you, you tease them up through the three and the seven. That's a great teaser like. It captures a lot of value there. You're buying up to three. You're spending a tiny bit of money, but it's not an expensive buy. And you're taking them on the money line. Or you can actually sell points, right?

You could you could take Baltimore at an alt line to be the favorite, to win the game by at least three points or something like that. If you feel confident about what the Ravens are going to be capable of doing here and see the weather conditions and that sort of thing. Yeah, that's great. Okay, I don't have super strong conviction on the Ravens. I'm mostly excited for the game. Like, I can't wait for Saturday night and seeing this game. I think this has so much potential for intrigue, but I am going to bet a few of those things that we're talking about. It's like I said, the teaser is my favorite bet of the weekend. And I'll put a tiny bit on some of the other things we're talking about. But I'm glad to hear you

confirm that buying into the three is an okay move here because I am going to do that. Yeah, me personally, before I really dug into it when I first looked at this game and the lines were posted and I saw, I was at first obviously surprised that Buffalo is going to have to play the Ravens because I thought Buffalo is going to play the Steelers and the Steelers lose and now Buffalo is suddenly

playing the Ravens. I'm like, oh shit, this is really bad matchup for Buffalo. They can't stop the run quite as well. and the weather might be bad and they're not going to have as much success passing the football and how will Josh do against the pressure and the bliss? As I've researched and as I dug more into it, I've completely cooled on that. I haven't done anything with the game from the side's perspective. But yeah, that's kind of where I stand. I shared a lot of the interesting research.

I'm trying to share the nuggets that I think are below the surface that not everybody is considering that you may want to factor in. Well, we're going to do Sunday now, Sharpie, but holy moly, we have a more breaking news. Another, another nugget. We just got an indication. The new head coach of the New York JETS, JETS, Jets, Jets, just. Wait, let me, let me ask you, who do you think it is? I'll ask.

I mean, based on what I was seeing and thinking would be perfect fits, I was thinking that Arthur Smith to the Lions and Robert Sala to the Jets for some reason just seemed like a good fit. But I don't know. You son of a gun. I wish I'd ask you before I went and put a little bit of a couple unit, you know, tasty nugget down on Sala to Detroit. Because, you know, I love those hometown stories. I'm such a sucker for him. It is indeed Robert Sala to the New York Jets.

What do you think about that fit? I think he is kind of the, he's totally opposite of Adam Gase, right? The Jets wanted to get somebody who's high energy, who is personable, who is going to be like a strong face. And that's exactly what he is. You know, Adam Gase is keeping the hat down because he's looking all over the place and the flying tacos around his head and all that type of stuff. So Robert Tala is completely opposite of that. Somebody was going to go defense, right? Somebody was going to go out there and hire a defensive-minded coach. And obviously, your fear is that whoever you hire as an offensive coordinator may end up leaving. It sounds

like they're hiring 49ers passing game coordinator, Mike LaFleur, as his offensive coordinator. So he's going to somebody who he's quite familiar with. Mike LaFleur, obviously, obviously has designed the offense that Kyle Shanis. He's going to run the similar offense probably did what Kyle Shanahan was using. And Robert Salah's defense was creative and adapted pretty well to a lot of injuries. So it'll be interesting to see how he fares in the Big Apple. Well, we're, the lingering taste in my mouth is what that 49ers defense did against the bills. And I watch and these jets now have to play the bills twice.

and what the Buffalo Bills did, the humiliation. And if it just felt like it was personal to Sala, I mean, they pants the guy on national television. It was really an embarrassment. I mean, it was an absolute, they had no clue how to stop that bills. And I, you know, look, the bills have been a juggernaut all season long. And like you said, the 49ers have injuries across the board on defense. But that's the takeaway for me.

Because, I mean, of the, of the guys who have gone out there, the guys in this class, I think to me, what Brian Dayball has been able to do to some of those defenses or when he's gone up head to head against some other offensive guys who are getting jobs, like, or who may get jobs who are being in the conversation for him, because this is the first one that really is landed. I think Dayball is like his resume is the game, the results of the games, right? Like he, he needs to say no more. But I actually think it's a better fit.

This is why I like the fit. Like, Dayball going to the Jets, I didn't necessarily love that. and Sala going there, I think it's more the city and I think that it's going to, he's going to be a boisterous guy there. I'm not totally a fan of like my head coach jumping up and down, stopping all over the place and doing all that type of stuff. I'm a little bit more of like the quiet demeanored thoughtful guy, like the Andy Reid style, you know, like the thoughtful guy who's creating things. Even even even the floor with the rant, I'm sorry, the floor with the pack. or McVeigh with the Rams, who does get a little bit animated,

but is absolutely nowhere near the level of, of Robert Sala. You know, those are the guys that I kind of, I kind of go for a little bit more. But I think he's going to be interesting for the city. I think it's a good hire for them. I don't know if it's going to work,

but I think it's a good hire for them. Okay. Well, I mean, let's see if we can get through the rest of the show without any more breaking news. I mean, it's all happening in real time here on the ringer. NFL show, which is very exciting.

Speaking of exciting, we have a couple of unbelievable matchups for Sunday, start Sunday afternoon, 3 o'clock. This really does feel like a delicious appetizer before we get to the main course. And it's Kansas City laying 10 at home against the really nobody believes in us, Cleveland Browns. I mean, that was absolutely wonderful if you didn't have any. money on the Pittsburgh Steelers. What the Browns did.

I mean, and it really is a testament to the NFL and to, you know, the, the balance, the parody and to that organization in particular, Stefansky, his entire coaching staff, all of the decision makers there get so much credit, deserve so much credit for being prepared to play in that game under the circumstances that they were dealing with. And they just, you know, they, they, they, had the Steelers come in and going. Now, the Steelers also self-defeated, but, you know, the Browns absolutely put the hammer down, had their foot on the throat at every opportunity. They, they did, they left no points on the field with all the good fortune that they had in front

of them. And that's the testament, I mean, the hallmark of a good team. I think it all ends this weekend. I mean, I think, you know, the thing that I'm looking forward to, my play, I'll just get it out of the way. I, it's the numbers, the total sitting at 57. I'm just taking over 57. I want to sit back, watch these offenses, get going. Um, this is Kansas City coming off of, of a buy week. There are all these stats about Andy Reed coming off a buy week. They're, four and two against the spread with the first round by two and one straight up against the spread, um, two and one, uh, straight up and against a spread in this spot. Um, you know, there isn't really much more to say about the chiefs in this position.

The only thing, you know, in terms of aside, the chiefs haven't covered a game since week eight, right? They've been winning games by one score for the balance of this, this season. Some of it is, you know, they're playing, you know, just enough, just enough for the win, it looks like, strategy wise. and kind of, you know, energy wise. But I admire the Browns. I appreciate what they've done.

I want a high scoring game to start off my Sunday football viewing. How are you sizing this game up? Super sizing it, baby. Super sizing it. I think this game is going to be pretty exciting. Let's, let's, we're going to dive into the matchups here, but let's just talk philosophically first, because you can't control what the other offense does,

but you can control what your own offense does. You're reacting to what they do defensively, but you can control what you do. And so there's a school of thought out there of how do we beat the chiefs? Is it to shorten the game where a big underdog run the ball, play more conservative, try to finish your drives in seven, but keep this game really tight? Or do you just let it all hang out, right?

Flaping in the breeze and try to, call your best plays, whatever you think you should do against that defense. Don't worry about who the other quarterback is. I want to call my best stuff when I can to move the football most efficiently as possible to score points. I don't want to call a play that I think is less efficient just because I'm more interested in the split second. It comes across my mind, well, let's burn a little clock with this play. Here's my thought process on this.

If I'm the Browns and I'm Kemmins-Sufansky. my offense is rolling from last week. My energy is high. My dudes are jacked. And I'm playing a Kansas City team that hasn't played its offensive starters in three weeks. And the prior game that they played, they started slow. And there's been a couple games this year that they've started very slow. I'm fucking starting aggressive.

I'm going fast. My goal is to build a lot. lead here. I know they may come back on me, but my goal is to put up points early and make Kansas City, who's been sitting back, watching other teams play, feel like, oh, crap. This is, this is the playoffs again. And now there's more pressure on Kansas City. They are no longer hunting. They are the hunted. And there is a mantle that is different when you are the guys that are defending that Super Bowl title. And you're like, oh, crap, I can't let these guys knock us off. We want to repeat. And what they've been talking about since before the season,

we want to repeat. And you get a team that comes out. Think about from this way, House, this is what I always tell coaches and I always share with you guys. What do you think, you're Kevin Sifansky, what do you think the chiefs would want you to do? They would absolutely love the Browns to start slow, right? Yes. Absolutely. They would want, they would want the chiefs haven't played their starters since week 16 they're probably hoping the browns don't get out quick they're hoping the browns don't score because that's going to put pressure on their own offense oh shit we got to go zero to 60 right we got to ramp up Ferrari pat as quickly as possible now because we're in a deficit they don't want you to start fast they want you to start slow so you don't

do what they want you to do now in terms of the x's and o's the biggest thing i'm looking at here is it kind of goes along with what you're suggesting from a total points perspective. Both defenses struggle to stop what the other team wants to do. The chiefs are the number one most pass heavy offense in the NFL. The Browns rank bottom 10 against the pass, and they have played one of the easiest schedules of passing offenses in the NFL. In fact, it was the number one easiest schedule of overall offenses, the number two easiest schedule of passing offenses and pass blocking offensive lines.

So their defense hasn't been tested against the pass, easy schedule, but they've been bad at stopping the past. They rank 25 against the pass on the year. How do you rank 25 against the pass playing the second easiest schedule of passing offenses? It means you must be really bad. And now you got the chiefs who are the number one most pass heavy team and are one of the best passing offenses in the NFL.

Flip the script. Go to the other side of the. football. You've got a Cleveland Browns team. We'll talk in a second how they've shifted a little bit more aggressively towards the pass down the stretch. But the Browns are a very good running team. They like to get a lot of efficiency. They like to build their offense off of the run. They like to use some play action. The chiefs have the number 29 ranked run defense. So that's fourth worst. And they have played the number one easiest schedule of run offenses on the year. The easiest schedule. How do you rank again? You must be.

pretty darn bad. If you play the easiest schedule that any team is faced and you rank fourth worst in the NFL. And now you got a Cleveland Browns team that of their guys, they got the running backs healthy. They've got Kareem Hunt who says he wants revenge, whatever. I don't think that means anything in this game. But you've got a healthy run game that can also use play action. We know that the play action game has caused the chiefs a lot of problems. So I think that you've got two offenses that are going to be able to move the ball, open up their playbooks, call really whatever they want against two defenses is that struggle to stop them. I want to throw up.

Yeah. No, I like it. I was just going to share a couple square guy observations on the points that you're making. In the first place, you know, you're talking about the chiefs and how they want this game to open up. I mean, I'll remind you that the Houston Texans last year opened up against the chiefs. chiefs 24-0. The chiefs in that situation were 10-point favorites.

I mean, it's really a nice comparison to what we're seeing this week. And boy, the chiefs came all the way back. It took care of business. That was a 51-31. And then I love what you're talking about in terms of, you know, Cleveland against the past. We just watched an awesome example of how bad they are against the past because it was not until Nick Chubb, you know, scored a touchdown to take the Browns up to 45 points on Sunday

that I think Cleveland Brown fans could start breathing a tiny sigh of relief. I mean, the Pittsburgh mounted a furious comeback through the air. And there was nothing about that Brown's defense in the second half that made me think that they were going to be able to stop Ben. It was just Ben stopping himself with another bad interception towards the end of the game and a punt choice by Tomlin, another unbelievable punch choice. But keep going. I just wanted to share some of the square observations for you. No, that's good. Andy Reid is not making the mistake that got Randy Fickner fired, right? Andy Reid is not coming out and saying, hey, we're the most past heavy team in the NFL. Let's just come out and start running the football against the

Browns because, golly, gee, you know, the Browns run defense is better than their past defense, but we just want to run the football to get settled into this game. There's no chance. Andy Reed's going come out, passing the football, having success. And then if we talk about the Browns defense, they've played 17 games this year. 17 games. It's hard to throw four touchdowns in the NFL, right? It's pretty hard to throw four touchdowns. Most quarterbacks don't even have a single game in the season that they throw four

touchdowns. Some of them maybe have one, maybe two, I don't know. Listen to the list of quarterbacks. These are the, of 17 games, these are the only quarterbacks. that didn't throw for at least four touchdowns versus the Cleveland Browns defense or play in terrible weather. There was a couple of games where scoring was completely muted against this defense, three straight games where they played in like almost hurricane force winds and monsoon like weather and rain. So here's the quarterbacks. Mason Rudolph,

Dwayne Haskins, Colt McCoy, Mike Glennon, Sam Darnold, and Philip Rivers. That's it. That's it. Every other quarterback, the Browns face this year, threw for at least four touchdowns against them. Now, a couple games, obviously Lamar Jackson,

he combined to throw for more than four in multiple games. But listen to some of these quarterbacks that they've played in their division, right? The guys that know them the best, and Andy Reid's had weeks to prepare for get his offense ready to play in this game. The teams that know the Cleveland Brown's the best or the teams in their division. The AFC North has a huge diversity of quarterbacks, as you know how.

So you've got Joe Burrow. He's a baby. He just started. He literally played, I remember this game quite clearly. It was week two of the NFL season. It was a Thursday night game. We're like, dude, this guy just played, he just played week one against Tyrod Taylor. And then he comes back week two.

It's a Thursday short rest game. He's got to go up against the Cleveland Browns. We like the Cleveland Browns this season. And we thought it was. going to be very difficult for him. You know, he puts up 30 points in that game. But then you got Lamar Jackson, better runner than he is a passer. A lot of varying opinions around the league on what Lamar Jackson is. And you got Ben Rosasperger, right? Story career should be a Hall of Famer. One multiple Super Bowls could be on the twilight, obviously, of his career. Look at what those

teams did and those quarterbacks did against this Cleveland Brown's defense in both the games that they played. Joe Burroughs team put up 34 points and 30 points. Lamar Jackson's team put up 47 points and 38 points and 38 points and 37 points. Now we're talking about Ferrari Pat Mahomes and we're talking about the Chiefs and their game planning to go again. I mean, I don't know. It just seems like the Chiefs, unless they do it to themselves, I really don't see the

personnel matchup edges and the opportunities. that the Browns defense has to slow the chiefs down if the chiefs don't intentionally go run heavy or intentionally make mistakes themselves that are like their own choosing with some good fortune for the Browns. I just don't see how they're not putting up some points here. Yeah. Well, that makes me feel good. I began the introduction to this game saying my angle on this is over 57. It's what I want to root for for that Sunday afternoon game as an appetite game. I just want to see him run all up and down. If it's 51, 31

in this game, that's great. I am thrilled to see it. And if it starts off with the Browns 24 to nothing against the Chiefs, then we have to see Mahomes and read, you know, dig deep. Like, oh, you know, the punch in the mouth that wakes him up and reminds him that they're in the NFL playoffs. Great.

I love all of it. That's a great narrative for me. It's really interesting because you take the Kansas City Chiefs. We know what they are. They've played two games. against the Tennessee Titans. They played the Titans in the 2019 playoffs as well. And they played two games against the Raiders this year.

And the Raiders and the Titans are sort of similar. The Browns and the Titans are like the Spider-Man meme right up against each other. The difference is Arthur Smith of the Titans wants to run the football a lot more than Kevin Savansky would. Kevin Savansky is using play action a lot earlier, throwing the football earlier in the game. But they both have like quarterbacks that like to work off a play action and that type of thing. Both have defenses that aren't that great.

Look at the scores. these teams played four times, right? The Titans twice against the Chiefs and the Raiders twice this year against the Chiefs. The scores were 35 to 25, 35 to 32, 35 to 31, and 40 to 32. I mean, both teams are going to probably be putting up points. The Chiefs have been allowing points themselves, and it's going to be a fun game. I really, more than anything, I talked about the first 10 minutes of that Rams Packers, game and how the Rams really need to keep that game close, I want to see what Kevin Sifansky does to start this game. I will be on Twitter commenting about the first five minutes of their opening possession, whether they receive or whether they defer and have the second possession of the game.

I want to see how aggressive and up-tempo maybe, but more so just trying to score points, the fastest manner possible, which is what the Raider. did a couple times against the Kansas City Chiefs and which won them a game once against the Kansas City Chiefs by getting that lead rather than let's just play slow and hope that Mahomes starts slow too and then we'll just sling it with them in the fourth quarter. I really am intrigued to see how Stifansky starts this game. Well, we have this really nice setup storyline-wise. This is this Chiefs Brown's game is kind of your future. future's game, right? It's the future of the NFL right in front of you, you know, all the things

that go along with the Holmes and Baker, the breakthrough of the Browns and the chief sitting atop the throne. And then at night, we have the legends game. I mean, the guys that really did usher in this era and make it possible for, for, you know, the ball flying all over the football field the last 20 years. And that is Drew Brees and Tom Brady, Tampa. getting three at New Orleans. The total as I see it on the board is 52. This game is the one that I have the

least strong feeling for or about. I actually want to just talk this through with you and see if I can come up with a play that I'm comfortable with. On the one hand, I'm slightly inclined towards the over because

it's what I want to root for. it is, you know, the dome thing. You know, the Saints have that, that sort of legendary history of overs inside their own dome. On the other hand, you know, we've seen some tightening scoring wise. And I just, I don't have a feel for this. The only couple of weird stats that jump out of me, Sean Peyton now is 4 and O against Bruce Ariens.

I don't know what to make of that. I don't know whether or not there's anything to be made of the fact that these two teams played earlier this year. And, you know, neither game felt particularly closer or competitive. I mean, the Bucks self-defeated at the game the beginning of the season and they were just completely outclassed the second time they played. So I just don't have a vibe for this. help us figure out a way to make this game in the first place, you know, profitable, but also, you know, where's the intrigue in this one? Well, I want to ask you a question first.

Like, what do you think, what stock do you put into those first couple of games versus what stock do you put into the way the bucks seem to be playing right now? You know, like the current trending team direction versus what we saw, earlier in the season. Those were meetings in week one and week nine. Well, I know from the stats that I'm looking at, the bucks are throwing the ball more on first down. It looks like Tampa has finally gotten a game plan. Ariens and Brady are seeing the world the same way. They're playing from the same song sheet kind of finally. And they had a nice opportunity over the last quarter of the season to play some horrendous football team.

and and you know, Brady's stats were inflated incredibly. He got himself 40 touchdowns and 4,700 yards. Pretty effing good, but a lot of that, he had a thousand yards in the last two games the season. So, you know, I'm happy for him. I'm glad, but like, I really don't think it's indicative of what this team, you know, when put under pressure, you know, what, what it looks like when you start to squeeze it a little bit because

I don't, once it, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the footballers, uh, from my hometown. And the footballers did put good, good, good pressure on Brady, but Brady was not uncomfortable. He was able, they, they, they, they had a nice, uh, um, you know, dead, downfield attack. I think I saw one of your guys did, did, did a ride up. They, for, they, they, they, they were successful in completing passes of 10 yards or more. Brady had through for like 280 yards and two touchdowns in attempts that traveled more than 10 yards. And he had a good, uh, completion rate in, in that realm. So Washington, even with the pressure

they put on him, did not make him uncomfortable. And the thing that we saw this season with Brady is, you know, he he doesn't like to be touched. He doesn't like pressure. And Washington couldn't really bring that pressure. Can the saints do it? So that's sort of my sentiment based on what you ask me, which is, you know, the trending of the bucks and what do I put into it. Okay.

And let me ask you one final question. Tom Brady underdog catching points. versus Drew Brees with an arm that doesn't look with doesn't look too chipper. Let's put it that way. You're so polite. What do you, what do you, what do you make out of that? I mean, are you, you've got to be leaning some direction here. You can't just be looking at the three and saying, I don't, I don't want to lay it.

I don't want to grab it. I have no inclination at all. Like, where are you really leaning? And I think I'm going to get to the bottom of it when we start talking about these quarterbacks and actually name them and you think about them in your mind. I'm going to, and then, you know, I was going to sit on it until we talked it all the way through. I'm going to parlay Tampa plus three and over 52. That's how I'm going to play this game. That's the wage I'm putting on this game. It's a parlay. It's a Sunday night parlay.

Let's put a cherry on top. Tom Brady in the conference, the NFC championship game, came, you know, after his successful dominance of the AFC, that's what I want to see. I think it's, you know, there's a lot of good stories along along with that. So I'm parlaying Tampa Plus 3 in the over 52. Man, see, it didn't take that much work, not much questioning for me to tease that out of you. You would be terrible under the heat lamp of the hot room. Don't get in trouble, Joe, because you're going to. I like you.

See, this is the thing. I mean, if we weren't pals, I would have a bullshit. I would have been bullshitted for another three hours. But we're trying to help the people here. We're trying to help the people, Sharpie. So, so let's first talk about last week's game, the Bucks game against the Washington's. And I think that the Bucks got lucky that the Washington's were bad against the run in that game.

Because one of the things we've made a point on here and I've talked about it before is, why did you bring Tom Brady here? I mean, it's not to let Byron. left which tell him what to do. It's to let Tom Brady and all his knowledge and all his expertise and experience when you guys a Super Bowl. So when I see that on first downs in the first three quarters, after going 67% pass the prior three games to close the season, they went back to running the ball 58% of the time in this game against Washington. I didn't like it. on early downs in the first three quarters, Brady didn't have a particularly great day passing the ball.

So you could say, okay, well, it's a good thing they were having success running the ball. But to me, that's way too high of a run rate. And then you look at where they actually were being productive offensively. It came on third downs. That's when Brady really was great. They went 100% pass in the first three quarters. He converted 60% of his passes for first downs, averaging 10%. point six yards per attempt, throwing the ball down the field, converting and moving the chains.

He was great on those plays. But the way I say that they were fortunate that they were running the ball, well, is on early downs, not just first downs, on early downs in the first three quarters, we're talking about 75% of this game here, early downs. They called 19 runs to only 23 passes. I mean, that's a lot of runs. And they got good production. They ran for 5.2 yards per carry for a 53% success rate.

I could be wrong. Maybe I'm wrong because they ran a lot, but they had decent production out of it. So that's a good thing. Why would we criticize them for that? We shouldn't criticize them for that if they're going to change their stripes against the Saints. But if they feel like, oh, man, this was the way. This was the way. Let's keep this up. And they use the same game plan. The Saints have the number two ranked run defense. I don't know if the bucks are going to have that level of production on early. down run plays against the Saints as they did against Washington. And if they don't and they run the ball at that rate, they're going to be in a lot more third downs. And I also do not think that Tom Brady is going to have that level of success on third downs

in this game. But I'll tell you what, House, this is a very tricky game for me because I am trying to understand the matchup on that side of the football. I feel like on the Saints side of the football, I feel like the Saints have success offensively here. I feel like they can move the ball. They've done it the first couple of games. I think they know the matchups that they have edges in.

They got all their guys healthy. They got Kamara. They got Emmanuel Sanders up. They got Michael Thomas up. They got Drew Breeze. I think that they can be successful moving the ball on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense. And after all, you got the 4-0. stretch, Sean Payton's done well, calling plays against this defense of Todd Bowles.

What I'm not sure of is on the other side of the football. I am not sure of the Saints defense. Is this defense for real? Do they just match up well against the bucks? When you look at the metrics season long data, the New Orleans Saints are great. They're one of the top five defenses. But when you match them up against any above average offense, they're allowing points. Let's run through the offenses that they played that are average to above average.

The lions, they gave up 29 points. The Chargers, they give up 27. The Raiders, they give up 34. The Panthers, they give up 24. The Vikings, they give up 33 and the chiefs, they give up 32. This is one of the best defenses in the NFL, a top five defense. And against any average offense or better, they're giving up to. 24 plus points averaging, you know, 29 points allowed. So that's a little concerning. But then I look at

what they're doing against this Tampa Bay Bucks and I'm like, hmm, the Bucks have a top five offense. They're really good offensively. Why aren't they having success? So the analysis I did, it was actually fun. I don't normally sit here. This is stuff I used to do like a decade ago and I loved it, a decade, two decades ago when I was dicking around and I had time to do stuff like this. I went through every single playoff game and I went through the rematch games where a team has played the divisional opponent in the postseason and I isolated just the games where a team swept the team in the first two games during the regular season. Now let me back up first and tell you that it is very difficult to beat a team two times in the same season and we talked about that. The

team that loses makes adjustments, they come back a little bit better. And so what I did is I looked at, I first looked at the past 30 years and those have some good numbers. Numbers aren't that different from the last 10 years. But I wanted to parse the last 10 years a little bit more, looked at the divisional games that didn't have two plus turnover advantage, right? Like a team might win the first game because they had a bunch of turnovers go in their favor. So I wanted to get rid of those teams that were able to do that. Since 2010, in the first meeting of a season, divisional game, there has been 302 teams that fall into this where they've won the first game of the divisional battle against an opponent without a two plus turnover advantage.

Those teams win the game by an average of 9.3 points. So then they have a rematch game. They've already won the first game. They're playing this team in the same season, not playoffs. We're talking about regular season. The second meeting. in the division for the second time. You know how often the team that wins the first game wins the second? It's less than 55% of the time. Again, it's hard to beat a team twice. However, there's a lesson to be taken, in my opinion,

from the teams that are able to win the second game. The teams that win the second game, it happens 55% of the time just under, they win the game by almost 14 points a game, substantially more than the first go-around. And there's a takeaway here that, yes, it's hard to win twice, but the teams that are able to do it might just have an edge, whether it's a personnel matchup edge, whether it's a coaching edge, some type of edge over that team where it's just a good matchup for the team that is able to sweep these games. Just like what the Saints did against the Bucks. They win the first game, 34 to 23. How many points is that? 11. They go out in the second game and they win it in a much more lopsided fashion, 38 to 3.

They win by a larger margin falling into this analysis. But that's only half the story. The real story is what happens in the playoffs if these two teams meet, having swept them in the first go round. The team that swept the season series went 13 and 4 in the third meeting, which is in the playoffs. That's a 76% win rate. And if that game occurs in the wild card, like after the wild card round, they're five and one, 83% win rate. That's a very, very small sample size. And you shouldn't be placing any bets based upon such a small sample size.

But it's notable, like the fact that these are so lopsided battles when you are able to sweep the team, maybe it's just that you match up really well. And among the teams that were able to pull off those upsets house, the four times, that the other team that lost both regular season games like the Bucks were able to win in the playoffs, here's how three of those four went. The O and two team gets a plus four turnover margin and is able to win the playoff game. Another game, the O and two team is able to win because the two and O team had four turnovers, 11 penalties, and allowed a defensive touchdown. And in one time, the O and two team is losing entering the fourth quarter, has a fourth quarter comeback to win the game late. So it's not as if like even those four were like

dramatic dominant fashion, the team that lost the first couple of games, won the second with ease. Like they had to have a lot of things that went their way. So I thought that was interesting. I think this game is very, very tough. But what do you think of that analysis? You know, I was looking for the same kind of thing because I like, you know, historical context. I like to, you know, I'm not a pure trends better, but it definitely influences my thinking. I think it can be revealing. And I had seen something that kind of tracks. I don't think it's out of order with what you have.

And I don't remember, I would give credit to whoever I saw this. It might have been one of your guys since the merger in 1970. What I'd seen was 21 instances between divisional rivals where one team swept the other. And this is since 1970. So we're going back, you know, 20, 50 years. God, I can, the math, it's scary. And the team that swept the regular season, according to this sample size, went 14 and 7 in, you know, the third matchup.

And that home teams, in particular, 12 and 5 over the same period. And this Saints team in particular was in this spot up against the Carolina Panthers in 2017 and they beat the Panthers a third time. So, you know, that does, that did cause me, you know, to tap the brakes. It's why I thought I ought to listen to you a little bit, do a little breakdown of this game before I, I bit down hard on my Tampa plus three. You have, you haven't bit down on. That's where you, that's where you want to go. You're free to, you're free to change it up. But the one thing that I will say about this game, nothing to do with trends. I'm just looking at the betting board. And this is one thing that, you know, sports books

obviously no and sports books obviously do. You can look at who is popular among the underdogs. And the only underdog garnering more betting tickets than the favorite is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Everybody is sitting at home. They're like, damn, Tom Brady? You see the way this dude is playing? He is tanned. He's eating his avocado toast. He is just in shape looking like a god.

and Drew Breeze, the freaking guy who almost broke all his ribs, collapses long, is going to be limping out onto the field. This dude has a noodle arm. He can't throw the ball down the field. And you're giving me three points. I can get a full field goal with Tom Brady in the playoffs. How often do I get Tom Brady's an underdog in the playoffs? And I got grok.

And I got A.B. And I got Mike Evans. And I got Chris Godwin. I mean, and then the thing that makes this game so intriguing to me, beyond that, beyond the allure of the Greek god Tom Brady riding his stallion into battle is the fact that this is the last game of the entire weekend. And I'm just picturing everybody's moneyline parley is rolling up. They're getting multiplied by taking an underdog Tampa Bay Money Line.

They're putting all these Tampa Bay Money Lines to multiply their earnings on these earlier games. And then when one of their earlier games loses, maybe they lose the, they bet the Ravens or who knows, maybe they bit the bills, the bills lose. And they up, I can't, my money line parley is dead. But now I'm going to get another one going. I'm going to bet on the bucks to stand alone. I'm going to bet the bucks money line. And I'm going to bet the bucks money line to the chief's money line. And I'm going to all these different things that are going to add up and give a lot of ROI for them in their minds.

It all comes down to this last game, this standalone game at 640 on Sunday. there's no other game. It's going to be the chase game, whatever you lost, bet on Tom Brady. And that's the one thing that you could be right. You could be wrong, right? You could, you could, who knows what happens. There could be turnovers that determine the outcome or the game could be decided on the field and maybe the bucks smashed the shit out of the Saints or maybe the same thing happens that happened in the first two games. We don't yet know what's going to happen. But the fact that you've got a heavy public underdog already that in my mind between Friday and Sunday is going to attract even more action from the public betters to bet on Tom Brady catching these points should cause

a little pause for you before you run to the window and ask to place your earnings on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers here. See, I love this. This is because what you just did was a very, very gentle and gracious eviseration of the square mind. This is the psychology of the square mind, which is why it's been a joy doing this podcast with you this season. Here's what I'm going to do. That parley I described is unwittingly, I came up with the square parley of the weekend, Tampa and the over.

There's nothing more square than the over in the final game because of the Saints' reputation for points over the last 15 years. And, and, you know, the beloved Tommy touchdown on Sunday night prime time. By the way, another bedtime game for Tommy. We, we shouldn't forget that angle. He was successful enough. They didn't cover. Again, you know, another failed against the spread cover at nighttime, but they did win outright. Where I am ending up on this now, having discussed this, it's going to be a tiny money. line play on New Orleans. That's it. It's just a tiny, just a tiny winner on New Orleans. There's nothing wrong with a New Orleans, uh, Green Bay NFC championship. It's pure chalk.

It's what everybody back in August looking at the schedule like, well, there's a lot of reasons why New Orleans might play, uh, Green Bay, you know, in the NFC championship game. Um, probably one of the, the, the favorite matchups for the NFC championship that all I have, it's minus one 65 is what I see right now. That looks a little bit expensive. But I think that's what I'm going to end up doing. Well, I'll tell you, look, at this stage in the playoffs, right, all these teams are good. All these teams have have some flaws, but they're all good too. And it's hard when they set a good number like this one is that's attracting equal action to say, oh, my God, this line's completely wrong. There's a ton of value here. There's so much value here. So you have to dig deeper than like

beyond the value and start looking at other things. things. And there's reasons to like the bucks here. I mean, I'm painting the picture in one direction a little bit to show the caution, but the bucks certainly are playing well. And the Saints defense, although they're ranked really well, hasn't done well against most decent offenses from a point production standpoint. So could the bucks come out here and put up some points and force Drew Brees to put up points to and match them? And that's when you're bucks and over parlay cashes a ticket for you. Yeah, it definitely could happen. I see a variety of different outcomes in this game that wouldn't be shocking, right? The Cleveland Browns putting up 28 points in the first quarter

against the Pittsburgh Steelers, that is shocking. I don't think there's an outcome in this game that would be so shocking to me, right? Like, we've already seen the Saints dominate these guys before. That wouldn't be shocking because we've seen it. I would be shocked if the Saints put up three points at home and lost at home like the Bucks did 38 to 3. That's probably the only shocking thing. But I don't really think that that happens. But I could see the Bucks winning this game in a low scoring manner or a high scoring manner. So this is one I haven't done anything with yet. I would give you more an indication if I had. I haven't done anything yet. But in the interest of being thorough and sharing the perspective of somebody who's been doing this for a while,

thinking about the spread and then looking at, you know, what is the reality? Is it series history and something like this that weighs more than like specific other things that we're looking at on the surface? Just a little deep dive into some of the things that I've uncovered here. Well, I don't want any of the leverage that you talked about, right? I don't want to be sitting there needing this a Tampa leg to finish off, you know, a parlay or, you know, a parlay or, you know, or really even maybe a tiny teaser. But there's no value really in the teaser. It's already sitting at three.

Maybe you tease Tampa up to nine. Maybe that's something. Since they're sitting on the three right now, if it drops down to two and a half, you could tease through the three and the nine. And maybe that's what I'll keep an eye on. But I don't, what would the circumstances be for Tampa to get down to two and a half?

I'll just tell you this. if Tampa gets down to two and a half, then you should start feeling a lot better about Tampa. Okay. Then you should start, if Tampa, like, if you're just trying to read the screen and try to get a sense as to who's doing what with the big money, right now we're sitting here. It's late Thursday. You guys are all going to listen to this when you wake up on Friday morning or sometime on Friday. And the line's probably still going to be three. And that means a lot of money has come in.

Sharp, strong, heavy money has come in over the weekend that's joined the podcast. public money and drop this number down. And if that does happen, then you could start feeling better about potentially teasing Tampa through the three and the seven and using that as a leg. But as it stands right now, I mean, I'll just tell you, a lot of other people out there are probably going to be teasing the bucks. And that's why it's not out of the realm of possibility if all that shit gets flushed down the toilet, all the money line parlays, all the ATS on Tampa, all the teaser stuff gets flushed down the drain. If you see an indication this thing is getting stronger towards the Saints, if the juice to lay the Saints is going higher and higher

as we approach game time and moving up to like even some spots maybe on the verge of going to three and a half, that's when you should be very scared about getting involved with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But we'll see. We'll see. And here's the other thing, just so everybody at home knows. We're reading the markets. I'm trying to share some information about the sharper betting groups and that sort of thing. These guys are still only winning at like 55%, 58%. They don't win every game. So just because the sharp money is lined up here and the public money might be lined up there,

if that's what in fact happens on this game, it's to be determined yet. But if that's what in fact happens here, does not mean that the sharp guys are going to win 90% of the time and you should get the hell off of your bet. If you really feel convicted about it, look, it's your money. Don't let somebody else tell you what to do. If you really are head over heels, you think it's the right thing, and you've done well with your betting this year, then don't let somebody talk you out of that.

Just don't bet anything that you can't afford to lose, is all I'll say. That's the most important lesson of them all, Warren Sharp. It is divisional weekend. These are the true class of the NFL lined up for us. I love spending. I really enjoyed having all day spoken for last weekend, super wild card weekend. That could be super wild card weekend for the rest of my life and I will enjoy it. But this is the old school 430, 3 o'clock nighttime, prime time.

This is the NFL playoffs. These are the eight best teams. Let's go get it on. All right. Just to recap, Sharpie, here's how I am playing this weekend. I'm going to touch each of the four games. I'm playing Green Bay in a teaser, teasing them from six and a half down to a half point and Baltimore up to eight and a half. That's one of the plays for the weekend.

Another play for the weekend is I'm going to go ahead and lay the points with the Packers, minus six and a half for Green Bay at home. So the only, I know that that's the Packers kind of twice here, but for the. Ravens, all I'm doing is teasing them up through to the eight and a half number. So the teaser, then the Packers minus six and a half. I'm going to do over 57 in the Kansas City Cleveland game. We went through probably three dozen reasons why there's going to be a lot of scoring in that game. And then a tiny money line play on the Norlein Saints. And I may yet end up doing the squares parlay in America, which is Tampa plus three.

and over 52. I can't say I won't do it. But for the purposes of the pod, it's going to be the New Orleans money line, just a tiny contrary play for this weekend. We only have three more games after these house. And we're going to get our monies worth this weekend. I'm very confident of it.

I wish you good luck in your action. Everybody's listening at home. But just cherish this weekend. We almost, I mean, there is looking more likely than not that we would not be able to get this, the season in, and this weekend to me is always the best weekend of the season. I'm so happy it's here.

Let's cherish all these games. There's only three after this. And hopefully we see some good football and pay close attention to some of things that we pointed out on the show. And raise your hand if you see some of things that we talked about because it's going to be fun to watch the chess match from a coaching perspective and the execution from a player's perspective. I can't wait. I can't wait either. I'm going to have all my screens, the computer, the other screen. your Twitter will be up.

I'll have two TV screens going. I can't wait.