The Ringer NFL Show - We Finally Bet Unders? The Browns Overreaction and More Week 5 Bets | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: October 9, 2020

Warren Sharp and Joe House react to the Buccaneers-Bears game that ended with a seemingly confused Brady and a Bears win (2:00). Then they discuss last week’s betting results and whether or not betting the overs should come to an end (14:15). Then they get into how to bet games with double-digit spreads in another edition of Sharp Points (29:35) and lay out their favorite bets for Week 5 (1:14:20).  Hosts: Warren Sharp and Joe House Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, my gambling gurus by wagering wizards on today's show, Warren Sharp and I recap the Bears Bucks game. We try to figure out when betting the overs will stop making money. I ask Warren whether or not the preseason is officially over now that we're four games in. We get into our, my favorite bets for week five, and Warren tries to talk me out of some of them. Stick around. It's another great ringer NFL show. All right, my gambling gurus, today's episode of the Friday Ringer NFL show on the Ringer podcast network is brought to you by State Farm. Getting great car and home insurance from State Farm at a surprisingly great rate. Why that is like drafting a player that becomes an all pro, the real deal, something you might do with your fantasy team or hope your GM could do.

for you. State Farm agents provide personalized service so you can customize your insurance to fit your needs like a GM putting together their very own roster. Think about Bill O'Brien and do the opposite. You need a team that supports you in State Farm's got a great one. In addition to agents, the award-winning mobile app helps manage coverage, pay bills, file claims, and more with a great price and even greater service, State Farm goes from strength to strength. Choose insurance. It always brings its A-game.

When you want the real deal, like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Everyone, welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm Warren Sharp. It is Friday, and that means I'm joined by the one and only Joe House. Joe, we just got done watching the Nick Foles

versus Tom Brady rematch. Obviously, we know who came away the victor yet again, but what did you make of that game? Nick Foles owns Tom Brady's. I mean, I actually enjoyed that. That was a defensive battle between two good defensive teams and both defenses. The pass rush made the opposing quarterbacks uncomfortable. and I enjoy that brand of football. I can see both of these teams in the playoffs.

I can see both of these teams maybe even winning a game in the playoffs. I love that foals at the end of the day, vanquished Brady again, and all that anybody's going to talk about tomorrow, the first part of tomorrow is Brady losing track of what down it was the last drive of the game. Spectacular. Well, it's always good.

a guy's on top for so long and then he has something like that that you would maybe expect from Kirk Cousins, right? Like Kirk, Kirk kneeling on the ball at the, you know, instead of getting the points there with your team in Washington. So yeah, that's definitely a Kirk Cousins-esque mistake. Now, who knows, in the heat of the moment, did he really think that? He didn't look like he was too adamant about it. It almost looked like he was making an excuse. But either way, look, let's talk about the positives first in this game. And for me, you have a short week. And what we've seen actually is a couple of coaches this season off of a poor performance

heading into a Thursday game where you don't think they're going to be able to make enough changes because there's not enough time. Make those changes. And the first one that comes to mind for me house was Kevin Stefanski, after getting the doors blown off of them week one to the Baltimore Ravens, made enough changes on Thursday night to come away and win that game week two Thursday night football. And then here with the way that the Chicago Bears looked everything about them, the passing attack would look broken, the way that they were so conservative and running the ball and going super slow tempo. And these were things that I

identified beforehand. And I actually put a threat out on Twitter about my disdain for this slow tempo and not getting Nick Foles into any type of rhythm and just running the ball when it's not productive. And so I went ahead and charted out what this team was doing on early downs in the first half of the game. And what I came away with was 18 passes and only seven rushing attempts. So that's a 72% pass rate way up from the 50-50 more or less split that they had last week's week first half game. And they also had much better tempo. And their passes averaged almost eight yards per attempt in the first half, except for a couple there at the goal line at the very end, the score touchdown to take that 14 to 13 lead into the locker room.

And interestingly, the bears in total had 243 yards on offense. They rushed the ball for 35 yards on 14 rushing attempts and 208 yards passing with 42 attempts. So it wasn't like they were, you know, blowing the lights out. But as you described, they kept Tampa Bay sufficiently off balance. And Foles did make the couple of plays that the Bears needed. And the Bears defense, I mean, the entire game changed on the turnover with a minute and a half left in the second quarter.

at the two minute warning, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were up 13 to nothing. When we went into halftime, the Bears were up 14, 13. And that turnover was it. I mean, the Bears scored on offense 13 points, but they won the game because their defense produced a turnover at the end of the second half. And that really at the end of the day was the deciding factor, I think. Yeah, and look, they even didn't even think that that was going to be a turnover. It was right inside the two minute warning.

right, so they could review it. And actually, you know, was that the one where they threw, they did throw the challenge flag? I can't remember. But I think they cut the commercial and then came back and they actually determined, yeah, that was actually an interception by Brady. And they got the ball. But looking down at Tom Brady in this offense,

I mean, they definitely were not super productive. Early on, they kept throwing the ball to their tight end Hudson. And those passes just were not efficient whatsoever. But it was interesting. watching both of these quarterbacks, you know, struggle at times with who they were targeting and how they were going to hit them. I mean, Nick Foles went all the way from on point dropping dimes in there to just throwing lame ducks completely missing nowhere close. It was really incredible the variance in some of his passing attempts down the field. Obviously, when the time came for him to hit what he needed to,

he was making those throws late in the game. But he was credit to Nagy and Bill Laser, the offense coordinator there, they were dialing up the right types of plays to get Nick Foles into a rhythm. I mean, he had 42 pass attempts in this game. So high number of pass attempts. This is not something that you would really feel comfortable with Mitchell Trabiski operating an offense like this. But with Nick Foles, you definitely have a lot more confidence.

And this is the style of attack that you need. have against Tampa Bay, who has such a good run defense. We knew going into the game they did, and they held the Chicago Bears to only 2.5 yards per carry on the ground. So they needed Nick Foles to pass the ball. They did enough with the play designs. Nick left some plays out there on the field, clearly, but in 42 attempts, he was able to do what needed to be done to basically win a field goal battle. This was a lot of field goals back and forth here, House. That's right. And that's the other takeaway for me is Tampa Bay doing a little bit of self-harm here. I mean, they ended up with four field goals. They only had one touchdown in the red zone. And, you know,

they were doing a lot of self-defeat with penalties, with mistakes, with bad throws by Tom. and there was points out there for Tampa that they were not able to go execute and we saw Brady lose his shit on the sidelines when Jensen you know with the headbutt penalty the personal foul that was a 15 yard penalty that took them out of a field goal range that really deflated a drive in the in the in the first half and Brady went to the sidelines and berated Jensen you know it's a different walk of life with this Tampa Bay team. There isn't exactly that New England Patriot discipline, I don't think. No, and look at the, look at the penalties all season long for them.

Week one, nine penalties for 103 yards. Week two, five for 37. Week three, nine for 71. Week four, eight for 90s. And week five tonight, 11 for 109. I mean, this is absolutely not a winning formula to have this many penalties. It helps keep the opposing offense out. on the field, on some critical junctures in the game, where you could have had them stopped, could be forcing a punt. And instead, you're allowing them to keep drives alive. And this is part of the reason why you look at Tampa Bay and you say they've got a really good defense and we like their defense coordinator.

I think he's very good. But the opponents are scoring points. How are they getting these points? Well, part of the big reason is you're having these dumb penalties on defense. And they absolutely need to clean that up because it's going to be the, the bane of their existence, and it's definitely going to hold them back a little bit. Yeah, I agree with you. So I, you know, good game, good week five kickoff game. This is one of the rare games on the docket between two teams with winning records.

Yeah, I think, I think the only one. I think the only one, you know, because the game between the, what, the Buffalo Bills and the Tennessee Titans. That's going to be on Tuesday, correct? So that's going to be, assuming there's no more positive tests, that's going to be Tuesday night. So we have Sunday night, obviously, Minnesota versus Seattle, Monday night, L.A. Chargers versus the Saints. And then Tuesday night, we've got two more teams, both with winning records going at one another in terms of the Buffalo Bills taking on the Tennessee Titans, which will be interesting to see

who's even available for Tennessee at that moment. So I don't think we can speculate too much right now. I've seen the list of guys that are on the COVID list for them. It's pretty extensive. But I don't know, you know, there's different regulations and stipulations as to how long you have to sit out depending upon whether you're exhibiting symptoms. So I have no idea how long some of those guys will have to stay on it versus how long others who have double negative tests are able to come off of it.

But certainly I think it's, I'm a little bit frustrated. for the Buffalo Bills to have to adjust their schedule and play that game. But I think they'd rather play it then than have to just be given a buy and have it move to their buy. We can not have a real buy. And I think they were supposed to actually play that Thursday night very next Thursday against the Kansas City Chiefs. So now if they play Tuesday, they won't be playing Thursday.

They'll be playing, I believe it's on a Sunday night. They'll pushing that Chief's game to the Sunday night slate. and that actually in a sense, house helps the Kansas City Chiefs out a little bit because they no longer have to play on the road on a short week. I mean, that was going to be difficult for them to travel on the road for the short week game in Buffalo.

Now they don't have to play that short week game. Yeah, the Chiefs were staring at three games in 11 days. And this breather, you know, ironically, the Tennessee Titans can't keep it in their pants and it's going to work out to the benefit of the Kansas City Chiefs. But look, I'm making a joke. I'm knocking on wood. We want to get these games in. Come on, Titans.

Tighten it up for Christ's sakes. Everybody, you know, do the best you can to stay healthy and, you know, maintain discipline for Christ's sakes. We're trying to get a season in here, Warren Sharp. I hear you. Well, that's I mean, this game was absolutely

exactly what you said. A great way to start things off. Definitely an exciting close game. As we saw from the line movement, the line movement was deadly accurate. We talked about it. We knew it ahead of time that the Chicago Bears were definitely taking sharp money here. The line opened higher, dropped from upwards to five and a half all the way down to three, three and a half. And the total likewise took under money down from 45 and a half to 44. So they got this one correct. I mean, they were banging, they were banging the under very close to

kickoff, moved it down to 43 and a half at some spots. So they really like the under here. And as you mentioned, they were a little bit fortunate because this is 14 to 13 at half. It went over the first half total. But in the second half, we just saw a lot of field goals, you know, a lot of field goals and some punts. And it wasn't all that entertaining on the field in that second half from that perspective. But close games are entertaining. Tom Brady thinking there's an extra down is entertaining. And we walk away enjoying the night.

Big Dick, Nick, does it again. All right, House, let's talk now about week four. But before we do that, let's hit back on what we've done this season so far. Give me a recap on last weekend, how things went, and then how we're looking on year-to-date trends here from some of the favorites, dogs, overs, and unders. Yeah, this is the way we jump into these things. We look back at the previous week. So week four, favorites went 7-7-1 against the spread.

Nothing noteworthy there. home teams 4, 10, and 1 against the spread. Underdogs, 5 and 10 straight up. And the over, under, depending on how the line closed, I have it at 8, 6, and 1. So season to date, favorites 29, 32, and 2 against the spread. Home teams, and here's two takeaways. Takeaway number one for me, home teams 2833 and 1 against the spread. Can we officially declare the home field advantage dead?

Can we just cross that off the list now, please? I'll let you come back. I'm going to go to these numbers, but that's my first request. Underdogs 20, 42, and one straight up. And then we have here the season total for overs and unders. And the number out of the database that you use, we have them at 36, 22, and 5, which clicks in at 62%, making it the most overs in this database in the history of it, covering 30 years.

So I know you have some thoughts on the overs, but please, indulge me on this home team against the spread thing? Well, definitely we know home field is way lower than what it's been in the past. And we probably are getting smarter about what it should be moving forward. But I still think the lines makers are trying to figure that out. They're trying to figure out, do we wait certain stadiums a little bit more? Do we remove that entirely? Is everybody the same based on home field?

And so I think, honestly, House, you know, at the risk of like, saying too much. I don't know that it's necessarily about the home as much as it is about the road travel and what the team that's on the road has to do here. And you've got an interesting example with the Washington football team this week hosting the L.A. Rams and the Rams have been back and forth across the East Coast multiple times in the early part of this season. So I think a little bit more so it's what the road team has had to do from a travel perspective more so than how much the home team should be favored. Okay, that's fine. I accept that. Now, let's jump in to this over-under thing. And, you know, we know two things. 2020 has seen the highest average combined score through the

first four weeks going back 25 years. We're averaging over 51 points a game. It's incredible. And according to the database that you use, we have 2020 as the all-time. number one overrate through the first four weeks going again all the way back 30 years. My question to you is that's the, you know, there's a, there is this interesting parallel between the first four weeks of this NFL season and what would traditionally be the first four weeks of any NFL season, which would be preseason games. So where are we in terms of? the preseason concept and this over, the relationship between the frequency of overs and how

the point we are in this season, is this overnumber sustainable? So the over number is not sustainable and the odds makers will make adjustments. I think I'll go back and discuss a little anecdote from last week, which we talked about a little bit on the show, but just to paint a picture of how those of us in the professional betting world work on these different things and get value out of the line. So last week, I ended up, as you know, because you're a client of mine, but you know that I moved on 10, sorry, I moved on five games starting at 10 a.m. on Monday morning, which is very early compared to what I normally do. Got out the gates really quickly on five games that I thought the market was

short on. And we ended up getting positive line value of over 2.1 points per game on average by the time these things closed, which is pretty unheard of in the NFL. We were correct on the line movement. We got the best number in four out of those five. In one of them, we were incorrect. The market moved against us. And we ended up going four and one on those totals. We got the four right where the market moved with us when we moved the market. But when the market ultimately moved against us, we lost that game. Now, after we bet those games on Monday morning, okay, we were quick to the punch. The entire rest of last week, what was the main thing that we were hearing from anybody in the sports betting space and all the TV shows that cover sports betting now and even at the ESPN and all

the other mainstream networks. It's about points are up, totals are up, teams are going over the spread. And we've seen so much discussion about that all throughout last week that the odds makers when it came to Sunday night and they're setting the numbers for these games on week five made massive corrections across the market to the totals because I know that because I have my own model and I know where my model saw value last week and how mispriced some of those games were. And I know that this week there is nothing close to that level of value currently existing such to the point that I have not bet on as the time of this recording any total. right now because the market made some massive corrections. It's not that I don't see any value this

week in the card. I absolutely do and plan to hit a couple of things. But the sports books and the lines makers saw the opportunity to prevent themselves from getting buried by these overs and knowing that the public and everybody now in the mainstream is talking about it, they overadjusted, knowing that you, Mr. House and many of your compadres and other people around the world don't have their own accurate models to know what the number should be on the totals, you're just betting some overs where you think two teams have good offenses against bad defenses. And so to you, it doesn't necessarily matter if the total is 47 or 48 and a half or 49. Like you still will probably bet the over there.

So they're giving themselves this wiggle room by overinflating a couple of these. So are there any examples this week where you see, you know, know, the books building in some cushion because there are still some crazy high. You always expect, for instance, the Chiefs to be, you know, in the 50s. And the Chiefs Raiders right now is out there at 55. But there are some other ones that like are eyebrow raisers to me, the Jaguars Texans at 54, the Dolphins 49ers at 51 and a half, the Giants Cowboys at 54, the Giants Cowboys at 54. four. Some of those feel like, you know, just trying to grab a public better, a square like me,

who's seeing all these high scores, especially like, you know, the Dallas one. That one in particular sort of like leaps out at me as a place where they're just, they know it's the Sunday afternoon game. They know everybody's fired up for it. You got New York and in Dallas. Everybody's jumping in. And that number looks high to me. Notwithstanding the complete ineptitude of Mike Nolan and the Dallas defense, I just can't figure out how the Giants are going to score 20 points. And so, you know, 30 to 18 is Dallas winning that game and kicking the Giants ass and not getting anywhere near 54 points. Do you get what I'm saying? Oh, I get what you're saying, House. And I can tell you that if there is one game on the board that people watch, we're going to,

the result last week and said, never again will I ever bet for the rest of the season, Dallas Cowboys Under. Now, I wasn't on the Under last week, but anybody who possibly would have bet that under last week, I've seen so many people discuss and I don't even follow things, but I'm hearing people tell me, hey, by the way, people on Twitter are saying, because I'm just so busy working early part of the week, I'm not actually on Twitter all that much, people are telling me that the mood is you can't bet an under on the Dallas Cowboys right now. Like the only way to look is it's either over or past because there's no defense there. They've got a great offense.

And so, no, you're absolutely right. We saw the same thing against for this Las Vegas Raiders game and the Kansas City Chiefs where the over is is really high. I mean, it's really high. And so yes, to the simple point, there are a number of games that I'm not going to mention the specific ones because I haven't grabbed any of them yet. Okay, okay, okay. There are some totals that the odds maker is multiple points too high on, way over adjusting

than what they were last week. And they know that they're going to take people's money on the over regardless. Yeah. Well, I am going to go ahead and just go extend myself, put myself out there. I am betting the under on that Dallas, New York. Giants game. We'll just see where it all works out. I mean, I'm going to wait till Sunday. I think, well, you know what? Maybe I won't. I might bet it, you know, this is up Friday. I think I might grab the number now because I'm worried smart people like you jump in and all

a sudden that number's down to 51 and a half or 52 and I miss my opportunity at the 54. So I think that's more. I'll just say this. I'll just say this about numbers in general, right? So much of this is market timing. And you've heard me discuss this before. but not, I'm not fighting the sports books because it's on them to set a number, right? So you take your best shot at setting a number. I'll tell you if you're right or not, and I'll bet whichever way I think that I've, wherever I've got the advantage. Because you got to line every single one of these games, you've got to put a number up,

and you're not going to be dead on with my number on all of them. And I will bet where I see value. So I'm not fighting you. Who I'm fighting is not the public either, because the public is not going to come in. and bet the under on this Giants game. And even if they bet the over, they're hardly going to move it at all. Who I'm fighting are these other betting groups that try to get in line. Because like I said, when I release these games to clients and we bet them on Monday at 10 a.m.,

these lines move two points. We're talking about moving from like a 51 to a 53. We're talking about in some games moving from a 49 and a half all the way up to a 52 and half going through the key number of 51. And that's just depleting the value of this game. Like nobody even sharp guys are going to come in, even if they liked the over at one point and bet over 52 and a half when the game was sitting at 49 and a half just a couple of hours ago. So, you know, they're not going to be happy with us doing that, but we didn't do it this week. So we're all good there. But yeah, they're the ones I'm fighting for. So if there's a total,

like, let's just put it this way. Your initial. comment was correct. If there is a sharp group who likes the under in any of these games, whether it's the Raiders games or it's the Giants game or it's the Carolina Atlanta game, any of these games that the guys like the under in, that's who you got to be scared for. Because I can tell you this, there is nobody in the public who's going to be betting these things under and moving the marketplace whatsoever from doing so. So you don't have to worry about those guys, worry about guys like me. I'm always worried about guys like you. Okay.

All right. Let's take a quick break before we move on. Hey, hey, gambling gurus. Got to tell you about my new favorite bet concept this season. The 2020 season is underway. And Fanduil Sportsbook has this awesome opportunity. You can play same game parlays. It's the most fun you're going to have betting.

It's pretty simple. All you have to do is, look at a game that you like and you can combine multiple bets from that one single game into a single parlay. As you know, my waging wizards, the payouts are even bigger when you win that way. What's cool is that Fandu will refund the first same game parlay that you lose on any NFL game each week up to 10 bucks. That means you can bet a different parlay risk-free every NFL week all season long. And by the way, when you put a whole bunch of legs together,

$10 can buy you. It is a force multiplier. $10 can buy you $60 or $70 or $120 or $120. If you put a whole bunch of legs together with different odds, I, my own self, since it is the game of the week, the Stinky New York Giants and the stinky Dallas Cowboys together, I'm going to layer, up the Dallas Cowboys to cover the Dallas Cowboys money line. The under in that game, because I don't

think the Giants are going to be able to score enough. And whatever Dak Prescott's prop is for passing yards, we take that over. I know that's a little bit of a weird one, but that's how I'm playing it. If you like the picks, then you go ahead and bet them with your first NFL single game parlay of the week. You get 10 bucks back if we don't win. There is one catch. Fandul is the only sports book that has these same game parlays. So if you don't already have a Fandul account, just use promo code sharp when you sign up so you know that me and Warren sent you. That's Fandual Sportsbook. Promo code sharp. Disclaimer for all, y'all. You must be 21. You got to be present in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, West Virginia, Indiana, Colorado, or Iowa. The refund is issued

is non-wistrawable site credit that expires in seven days. The max refund is $10. Terms apply. If you have a gambling problem, you call 1-800 gambler. If you're in West Virginia, you jump on the website www. www.1-800 gambler.net. If you're in Indiana, you call 1-800-9 with it. In Colorado, you call 1-800 522-4-7-00. In Iowa, you call 1-800-B-E-T-S-O-F-F. That's bets off. Well, that's a good segue into Sharp Points. So at the recommendation and inspiration of our listening audience, Warren Sharp,

we now have an email for Sharp points. It is sharp point NFL at gmail.com. If you have something out there, my wagering wizards, my gambling gurus, that you would like to take up with Warren Sharp, pick his brain, and I'll chime in a little bit as well. Hit us up on the emails. We would like to hear from you. And my appreciation to Maddie P. for this week's outstanding topic. This week I have a question from a listener.

We have Matt P from Winston-Salem. He wants to know. He asked me. We are starting finally to see Warren some games with double-digit favorites. NFL week four last week the first time of the season that we ended up with three games. Now, two of them, the Ravens and the Rams, were in double digits all week. And then there was a late-breaking edition of the Chiefs over the Pats because of Cam Newton's COVID tests. But the Ravens were favored by 14 over my Washington, almost professionals.

The Rams were favored by 13 over the Giants. And then the Chiefs ended up favored 10 and a half over the Pats. And they went two and one. And now double-digit favorites are three in one on the season. The only other one that was out there was Indianapolis against the Jets in week three. and the Colts beat the crap out of the Jets because that's what everybody does to the Jets. This week we have coming up,

we have the Chiefs over the Raiders at minus 13 and the Ravens over the Bengals at minus 13 and a half. And I, my own self, I'm not going to be surprised if that Dallas game bumps into 10, although maybe that's just my silly conjecture. Maybe you won't get to 10. Is there anything in terms of value as you look at this?

any rule of thumb with lines of this size, or is it purely situational? Do you purely look at this on a case-by-case basis? Well, nothing I do is totally situational. Everything I do, every bet that I'm making when we're putting our hard-earned money on the table, you have to go beyond just a simple trend. I mean, forget even one trend, even if you had like five trends that lined up on something. you have to be accounting for a lot of other variables and a lot of other factors in here. Unless, like you said, you know, you're just plunking down $25 and you decide you're not getting

a pizza tonight and the chicken wings on the side and the two-liter soda that comes with it. You want to put your money on this thing instead. And next week you can splurge with the multi-pisa, multi-wing, multi-two-liter deal. So understanding that caveat, okay, there is something to be learned and to be taught. pot about double-digit favorites. For a while, so let's just look back at two different decades. Let's look at the decade starting 2001 to and through the season of 2010. And then let's look since 2010.

Do you know, does the season 2010, it probably doesn't ring any bells in your head about anything crazy that happened during that season or the 2011 season. Does it? Well, the 2011 season was. the lockout by the owners. But I don't recall anything particular or peculiar about 2010. So in that season, we're getting a lot of these vicious hits. And James Harrison is laying dudes out over the middle of the field. We're seeing a lot of concussions. And what the league does is it starts midseason implementing these rules changes whereby we're going to find you.

We're going to eject you if you hit guys coming across the middle. We've got to get these hits out of the game. This is around about the time when they start going and cracking down hardcore on this. We're going to protect our quarterbacks. You can't dive low on the quarterback's legs or you're going to get 15-yard penalties and you can't hit them in the head or you're going to get penalties to possibly find and possibly thrown out of the game. And so these things are occurring around about this time. Now, in the decade leading up to and through that season, we saw double-digit favorites only cover the spread 47.8% of the time. Now, they won their games 84% of the time, but they only covered 47.8%. Now, if we are protecting, and I'm going to ask you this question,

then I'll continue, but if we are protecting quarterbacks and receivers running over the middle and receivers in general from taking these hits, if we're legislating those things out of the game, what do you think is going to happen to double-digit favorites? There should be an increase, I would expect, because you anticipate scoring is up. Offense is sort of getting an advantage. And it seems like that's been the prevailing dynamic of the last 10 years since 2010 is the starting point, you just told me.

Exactly. So when we see teams, teams that tend to be double-digit favorites are teams that have better offenses most of the time and better quarterbacks. And then you're giving those guys an extra leg up on their weaker opponents. You're not going to, it's rare that you're going to have, I mean, Cam Newton versus Patrick Mahomes as a double-digit favorite, right? Two decent quarterbacks going up against one another. Even if the teams are different, it's rare that you're going to have like the better quarterback, even if he's playing a really good or a decent quarterback. Like normally you're going to have a great quarterback versus a terrible quarterback and an offense.

that's when you're going to see these double-digit teams. So the bad quarterbacks aren't really passing the ball enough to gain the edges that the rules now imply, but the good teams with the good quarterbacks are passing the ball more. So they are getting more of an edge. And what we end up seeing is that over the last 10 years, since those rules began to be implemented, double-digit favorites moved massively. And actually, this is somewhat ironic that you are asking this or this listener or asked this question because I didn't even do this, you know, playing to talk about this thing, but it just so came up.

It's really good question to be discussing this week, I think. Move from 40, covering only 47.8% of games. Now they're covering 57.9. We are talking about 10%, 10 percentage points more over the last decade. We're talking about moving from, you are making a lot of money betting against double digit favorites on the spread. in those prior 10 years to now you are printing money betting on these teams over the last 10 years. So once again, I just want to throw out the caveat as soon as I say printing money, it is not

across the board. Every single team doesn't cover it. We're talking about roughly 58% against the spread. But in my world, in the sports betting world, moving from 48% to 58% is about the same as moving from here to, you know, the tip of South America. I mean, it's just completely different worlds. And so it's, it's massive. It is absolutely massive what has happened to the ability of these double-digit favorites with better passing attacks and better quarterbacks to be able to cover the spreads. Yeah. And I know that the tiny sample size that we have so far this season, even though it's following along with the trend line, you know, the double-digit favorites so far are three and one. And you can look at the individual circumstances of the individual teams and the

games that occurred and, you know, make your own judgment about how lucky it is that, that for instance, the chiefs covered their 10 and a half point spread against the Patriots. I do have to go on this very quick tangent. I can't help myself. I'm sorry, Warren Sharp. What in God's name was going on with Bill Belichick? Why did it take him three mother effing quarters to figure out that Brian Hoorer is the second coming of Nick Mullins. I mean, he's supposed to be the smartest, the true genius, and they really had a great game plan, and they really were containing the chiefs,

and yet he let one player derail and sabotage their ultimate chances at winning the game. Can you help me understand that? No. Quite simply, look, I think it was a lot about the familiarity with the system. And he obviously wasn't sticking this guy in there thinking that he's going to have brain farts down inside of the red zone, right? Like, he's capable of moving the offense up to that point. And then you get in this super pressure type situation and he just completely locked up mentally.

I mean, all of us at home, the announcers, the people, watching even on mute could have seen you cannot afford for you cannot afford to take a sack here you cannot make this dumb play but he can you cannot turn a ball over you know strip ball and it was absolutely absurd so i totally share your pain i was thinking the same thing on on from the one side to not criticize belichick too much is that he did prepare a good enough game plan for a guy like Brian Hoyer, who may be that mental to be able to get him into the position to do well. But obviously, the failures of this guy in those key positions. And, you know, it's too bad that they were not able to do better in that spot.

But yeah. Well, and, you know, one of the themes of this week that I put to you when we were talking about like the season tally is, you know, is the preseason finally over, right? We're four weeks into the to the schedule. We've had teams, you know, a lot of personnel changes. We have seen some experimentation. Do you think now as we approach week five that some of this experimentation, you know, teams have a better handle on their identity because of a better understanding of the capacity of their personnel and the things that the teams want to do, do you think? think, and this, this I think ties to the double-digit favorite concept, is there going to be a

little bit more, you know, aggression out of some teams? Are we going to see, you know, game plans where some teams have been keeping things under wraps? Do you think, like, you know, the defenses are going to be able to adjust? What do you think about this idea that, that, you know, is the preseason finally over? I think for, for anybody who is, for anybody who is, playing like the preseason was still underway, those teams are definitely looking at the preseason being over at this point in time. So the question becomes, how much of a ramp up are we going to see from teams across the league or certain teams that suddenly start to play a little bit better, a little bit more aggressively, things are coming together for them. We absolutely saw,

I mean, this is no secret because it's already happened. The chiefs look like they were sleepwalking for the first couple of weeks. And then, of course, they still look not the full chiefs on week four against the Patriots and that's Monday night game. But we absolutely saw them ramp everything up and open all the bag of tricks for that game against the Ravens. So they were clearly a team that was kind of playing it close to the vest the first couple weeks and then opened up that bag of tricks.

I think that there are some other teams around the league who were doing the same type of thing. And I'm not going to get into any first. they're detailed than that. But that's what's hard about forecasting these games and predicting what we're going to see, specifically this week, because there may be some teams who looked at those first four weeks as like, let's just try to get the best record we can. But we don't want to send our number one wide receiver on all these routes down the field and hurt himself. And we don't want our quarterback flinging the ball a ton of times of taking all these dropbacks when we got to

get our offensive line time to gel and communicate, which they weren't able to. to do during the off season and we need to get these guys on track and then we can start passing the ball more. So there certainly have been some curious play calls from around the league in terms of some teams that are running the ball more than what we expected. And I'll be interested to see and I'll certainly be tracking and commenting on those teams that decide to stick with this run, even though it's not in their best interest versus the other teams that clearly opened the passing game up a little bit more. Well, I love that observation because one of the games that you you see a lot of folks expressing a strong sentiment around is the Ravens at home against the Bengals.

The Ravens are favored by 13 and a half and people are all over the Bengals. Everywhere I look, people want to jump on the Joey Covers bandwagon right this second. Everybody wants to be along for the ride with Joey Covers. I understand that sentiment. Three straight games over 300 yards. And by contra distinction, the Ravens are giving up passing yards. so far this season. And the Ravens against by Washington almost might be,

could be professional football team. You know, they made Dwayne Haskins look passable, notwithstanding the fact that he's not ready to play professional level QB1 football, which is why coach Ron Rivera in whom I trust benched Wayne Haskins. But the Ravens did cover against the Washington almost. professionals last week. I like the Bengals in this spot getting the 13 and a half. And Joey

covers this in the house. Do you have any thoughts about how this matchup might play out? The hard part is we actually, most of the books that I am seeing, this game, unfortunately, is off the board. And the reason why is because Lamar Jackson hasn't practiced in back-to-back days. And that's actually the first time in his career. And he's dealing with, I believe, a tweak to his knee. Now, Jason Lockham, Forer came out. and reported that Lamar Jackson is planning on playing. And so these are precautionary rest days for him, but they are planning on playing him.

And, you know, the line is going to adjust massively if this goes to RG3. So the books are not going to post anything on this game. And my frustration, I can already anticipate, I've already talked to some of my guys about this. I am absolutely calling the way that this game is going to reopen. What's going to happen is that this game, game, Lamar is going to be reported that he's at practice on Friday and he's, hopefully he's a full participant, right? And so we're going to see three main books put the number up there and they're

going to start taking action on it. And everybody else is going to sit out on the sidelines for a couple of hours, preventing a guy like me or guys like me to bet anything on this game that we want to because the way that it is is like all these people want to bet on like the look ahead. numbers like days in advance or like this line that might be in a red game that's circled on the screen. The limits are way lower on these games. So people like pumping their chest that they got these great lines on a look ahead. Like you're not getting any money down. So like I'm glad if you're winning doing that and you don't have a big bank roll. And so that's what you want to do. Congratulations. At the end of the day, this is only about winning and making money. But lobbying,

then pumping your fist that you got like this great line value on lookhead numbers that have super low limits anyways, really not very meaningful at all. And the same, but what's going to happen here is unless the full market opens up really quickly, we may miss some numbers on this game. And it is going to be interesting to see where this thing opens up. But I can tell you that if you got a team that you need to cover the back door, what do we know about a team that likes to pass the ball a lot, which is what the Cincinnati Bengals are doing?

They are accustomed to passing the ball a lot. So they are used to being down and having to keep passing to stay in a game. It's just like why I love what the Kansas City Chiefs do, forget that they have Patrick Mahomes. When a team that's passing the ball a lot ends up falling behind, they're very much used to passing the ball and getting back into the games. Whereas a team like the Ravens or like the Titans or some of these other teams that don't pass the ball nearly as much, the Minnesota Vikings, it's very difficult for them to like rally to get back into a game. So all of the Bengals receivers are healthy and good. Obviously, they lost their tight end earlier in the season. But I went back and I have now watched that Bengals Jaguars game three different times.

Don't ask me why. But I've watched that game three different times. And the Bengals should have beat those guys by even more than what they did. They had a turnover in the end zone ripped away from them. I mean, there should have been more points on the scoreboard in that game. But bottom line is, the Benchols, Bengals can score and I just want to see where this line's posted and see what the numbers are when it opens up at enough spots to allow us to actually do something in the market. All right. Well, this is a nice segue because I don't think we have a marquee game this week. I mean, I'm interested in this Bengals Ravens game because I like both sides. I love Joey covers and the Ravens, you know, are a compelling story.

I know America will be interested in the Cowboys and Giants. I guess I'll hold my nose and watch some of that game. I just can't stand watching Daniel Jones. I just have, you know, I'm at this, I'm at my advanced age. I need to preserve my eyesight. And then maybe Raiders Chiefs is interesting as well. But the two games that I'm kind of interested in, I'm calling it the Ohio overreaction. I love the Colts minus one and a half.

at Cleveland. And I like, you know, the Bengals getting whatever they're going to get in that Ravens game, depending on what shakes out with the quarterback. When is the last time Cincinnati and Cleveland were both interesting in the same NFL season? Right? I mean, there is all this buzz for Cleveland. And it's deserved buzz because they're scoring a ton of points. They went and kicked Dallas's ass on national television last week.

Everybody that dislikes Dallas enjoyed it, me included. And, you know, the Bengals are a feel-good story. We have Joey covers in the house. When's the last time Cincinnati and Cleveland were both interesting? Well, that's a great point. I think it's been some time. And absolutely the fact that the Colts have this opportunity, what is home field worth? They're only laying a point in a half here.

But I think that there are some interesting arguments to be made in favor of both of these teams. Okay. So let's start first with the Indianapolis Colts, which I didn't quite get some of what they were doing last week in their game. Because this is a team, they're playing the Chicago Bears. And they're number two and number three wide receivers are out. Yet they have three tight ends. They have Jack Doyle. They have our boy, Moe Allie Cox.

I think House, we have figured out a way to weave Moe Alley Cox into every single one of these episodes. Let's hope that we continue every single week. I love it. He actually caught the only touchdown of that game, I believe, or the only Colts touchdown, at least, of that game. And it was the first score of the game. Actually, we took plus 300 for him to score a touchdown, and he was able to deliver there.

But they had all these tight ends. You have Jack Doyle, Moe, Alley, and they had the return of Trey Burton. And instead of using these tight ends and multi-tight end sets, they still went 11 personnel on the vast majority of their dropbacks in all passes in the first three quarters out of, I want to say it was 24, 25 to 6, about like 27 dropbacks, over 21 or 22 were from 11 personnel.

And these passes were terrible. They averaged zero EPA, 33% success, 6.3 yards per attempt. But when they use 12, which is two tight ends, 13 yards per attempt, 2.3 EPA, when they used 13 personnel, 10.3 yards per attempt, 67% success, 0.61 EPA. When they used 02 personnel, which still has three wide receivers, but still multi-tight ends, they were recorded a 12-yard completion.

So they were having success using these multi-tight-end sets against the bears. They just weren't using nearly enough of them. I also didn't get inside the opposing 40-yard line. When they had the ball inside the 40-yard line, they had 10 plays on first down, and they called 10 runs. So that's absolutely something that has to change because those runs were not successful or efficient whatsoever. And it's part of the reason why they kept settling for field goals

or giving the ball up after failing to convert on fourth down. So I think the Colt offense needs to ratchet itself up here. And it can make some minor adjustments. These aren't things that take a lot of work to change. Just use a little bit less 11 personnel when you don't have good wide receivers. and pass the ball a little bit more on first down. Simple. Like, that should be an easy fix.

When you look at the Browns, who are the Browns, right? Are the Browns the team that lost 38 to 6 in week one against the Baltimore Ravens? Are they the team that scored at least 30 points in their last three games against Washington, Cincinnati, and Dallas? I think it's somewhere in between, but I think they're trending in a very positive direction here. I think that week one, Kevin Stefansky and a lot of new pieces, what did we like about

the Browns heading into this year? Why were we betting on overs for the Browns in terms of their win total and season-long props was because we liked all the new pieces and the elements that they were bringing to the table, but it's really hard to make those work week one in the off-season, you know, after an off-season like we had. So that doesn't actually shock us that they lost that badly. But the fact that they got a little bit better against the bank, and they got a little bit better against Washington, even though they were losing in the fourth quarter there, I think the Browns actually are legitimately a good team. They need to get healthier defensively, but I think they're a good team. I don't think they're scoring over 30 points in this

game, but I do think that the Indianapolis Colts defense is not as good as what they've looked. And that's one of things that we have to factor in here as well. They've played the third easiest schedule of opposing passing offenses. They're playing the, I mean, just walk through the list. The Jaguars Week 1, and we know the Jaguars are not all of a sudden this juggernaut team. They're actually more along lines of what we thought they were to start the season. The Vikings week two, where the Vikings weren't for whatever reason using Justin Jefferson, hardly at all.

They had to work them in, I guess. So let's not roast them too much for that. But they didn't have the same offensive strategies. They weren't as explosive with their passing attack to start the games in those in week one or two. Then you take on the Jets and we've seen what the Jets are. They're terrible. Their offensive coordinator. Their play callers are horrible. And then you got the Bears where they're using unsustainable, inefficient offensive strategies with calling too many runs when they're not successful against a good run defense that the Colts do have. And they're turning to Nick Foles,

you know, just injecting him into this offense without much time in his first game there. So long story short, N-plus is very easy, I think at least, for a fine backup quarterback to come in when a team is losing and just start throwing dimes all over the field because you've got nothing to lose rather than start a game and be expected from start to finish to go out there and win this game. You're going to be a little bit more tentative. You're not going to want to make mistakes, all these other things that happen when you're the starter of this game and expected to go out and try to win. So I think the cults have been fortunate with the opposing offenses that they face so far this year. I do think they're going to limit the

Browns a little bit from an offensive perspective compared to what they've been able to get. But I think this game is lined. Like you're seeing value right now. You're saying in the Indianapolis Colts, like you think they'll win by probably a field goal or more is what you're expecting. Yeah. Yeah. That would have been, if it had opened Colts minus three, I would just would have left it alone

probably. I said, oh, that's probably a fun game to watch. But Colts minus one and a half, I kind of love. Yeah. So it opened around like two and a half and has been taking a little bit of Browns money. The Browns, I think that we're going to be talking about them. later possibly as another option to go the other way. They make a good teaser leg, let's say, at this number. But I don't really have anything strong on the side on this game. And I think

this is one of the few games of the day that we actually have two teams with a winning record because the Bill's Titans looks like it's probably going to get canceled. And that was the other game where we've got two teams with winning record. So this is actually the only game of the day. I'm absolutely going to be tuning into this one. I think it's going to be fun and interesting to see how these two creative offensive coaches, Kevin Sifansky on one side, Frank Reich on the other. How do they figure out how to attack their opponent's weakness? How do they go about it?

It's going to be a great chess match. Yes, yes, a great chess match. That's what we're all about here. So a couple other games I'm just interested in your thoughts on. I can't let the opportunity to talk about my hometown team. pass, I really admire Ron Rivera. And I mean that both from what I've seen of him coaching-wise and just the overall discipline of Washington and the inventiveness of what Washington's bringing to the table

to compete in these games, but also what he's going through in his own personal life and the fortitude and conviction with which he's facing that and the success of it. And I'm knocking on wood for continued success for him and his family with that. But, you know, I really am kind of falling in love with the Washington could be almost professional football team. And I absolutely positively believe in the quarterback change that he has made. He has himself reached the conclusion that he has a competitive football team. He likes his personnel. He sees Antonio Gibson out there, you know, line up in the same.

slot in a receiver kind of role and catching screens and wheels and all kinds of stuff. He sees how good his defense is and what they're capable of in terms of pass rush. And he just said, look, I want to see what this team can do. We have four winnable games coming up. I want to put this team in its very best position just to see what I have. and the one position that's been holding us back is quarterback, notwithstanding the fact that Dwayne had a good game by the numbers against the Ravens. There's still a decision-making element that has been holding Dwayne back through his short career.

And Rivera's made the determination that Haskins would be better served, continuing to learn the game from the bench and in practice. And he's putting in somebody who he's comfortable with in, in Kyle Allen. And, you know, this week, the Rams are coming here. Now, the Rams have a great record on the road under Sean McBay, and they're totally comfortable playing in the Eastern Time Zone. But you made the point about them going back and forth across the country a whole bunch of times.

I think the number is exactly right at the Rams minus seven in this game. But I just wanted to get your thoughts on the quarterback change and how you see Washington's prospects going forward. Well, I agree with your sentiments on Ron. I think all thoughts and prayers go to him as he's battling this thing. It can't be easy, especially as you're trying to coach a team that is somewhat frustrating like this team is. And you're trying to get over the hump and you're trying to, you know, obviously you've won week one, but you haven't done well the last few weeks. So let's move on to some bigger, brighter things. Let's talk about this particular game.

Look, I think you look at Chase Young. He didn't practice Wednesday, but guess what? You got upgraded, limited practice on Thursday. You look at McLaurin, Terry McLaurin. He didn't practice Wednesday, but he got upgraded, got in a limited practice today on Thursday as we're recording this. So maybe they're going to be able to get those guys back. So that's a positive. Then you look at the travel for the Rams.

And you're absolutely right. Their plan all along this season was, we got to go to the east. East Coast multiple times. Let's try to figure out a way to go to the East Coast. Because look, they have a trip to Philly. They have a trip to Buffalo. They have a trip to Washington. They have a trip to Miami. They have a trip to Tampa. Right. They have all these trips to the East Coast. Those are brutal trips. Those aren't like short trips. We're talking about all the way to the East Coast here, with the exception of Buffalo, but it's close enough. That this is not an ideal a situation for a team to have to take. So what they said is we want to take two of these games

back to back. We want to take Buffalo and the Giants. We want to go East Coast, put these league, please put these games back to back for us. We'll just stay out there. And they weren't able to do that. The league put those together, but because of COVID issues, they were not able to, I'm sorry, I said the Giants. I meant the trip to Philly and then down to Buffalo. And the league was not able to do that. They had to go to Philly, come back home, go to Buffalo. Not an ideal situation for them. And we saw they got the doors blown off of them to start the game against the Buffalo bills. They were able to rally back. Luckily, actually gained a lead there. But they ended up losing the game. But they started off really badly. Now they have to, they went home to play the Giants.

Now they have to come all the way back to take on Washington at 1 o'clock on the East Coast. very difficult to make anybody who's just traveling, you know, going west coast to east coast three times in four weeks is going to experience some fatigue. But when it's not about just where your mind is, but it's also where your body is and everything needs to be functioning perfectly or you might lose or you might not cover the spread. Like that is going to take a toll on these guys. So it's not an ideal situation and I can tell you how, that the sharp money absolutely came in and took the Washington football team, took them for the full game. That's why the line has dropped down from where it opened up at nine and a half all the way down to seven and a half.

There's a lot of spots that are hanging sevens right now. So this line was heavily bet by the sharp groups. They also took some first half for Washington here. And they're betting on the travel. They're betting on the upgrade of the quarterback because there's multiple schools of thought here as to why Dwayne Haskins was actually benched. But one school of thought is that he was not responding to the coaching whatsoever. They were asking him, okay, you got to get better at making these progressions. We want you to go here to there.

We need you to be able to make these reads based upon the defense doing this. We need you to go there with the ball. And it wasn't just like that he was misfiring on his accuracy. It was that he wasn't actually doing what they're asking him to do. And it came to a point that the offense couldn't function using him as their question. using him as their quarterback because, yeah, they can call some plays that end up hitting, but there's too many plays that are missing, not because it's a bad play, but because Dwayne Haskins doesn't know how to execute that play as it's supposed to be executed. And that is my belief

as to what was happening there. And the hope is that Kyle Allen, who has a lot of familiarity with the system, will not make those same mistakes. He may not have the same ceiling as if Dwayne is perfect and Kyle is perfect. Who's going to be the best passer? It's probably Dwayne. But the hope is that Kyle will be able to execute and run the offense a little bit better. And you'll take that over what Dwayne was giving you. And you roll those two factors to travel plus that, plus it looks like Chase and Terry are going to be playing all into one. And you could see why there would be people buying the Washington football team. Yeah. And I like this one data. point that that's like a carryover. It's still been the, it's been the case. It feels like in all of

Jared Golf's career, which is he has a huge discrepancy between his effectiveness, getting the ball down the field when he's in a clean pocket versus when he's under pressure. And, you know, when he's, when he's, when he's, when he's, when he, when it, when it's all mucked up and things start to break down around him, 3.9 yards per attempt, the largest discrepancy amongst all quarterbacks through the first four weeks of this NFL season. So, and that's something that we knew about golf last season also. He just doesn't like pressure, and that's one of the Washington professional football team's strengths.

I want to be really clear about something with Haskins. I think the jury is still out as to whether, what kind of quarterback he might all. ultimately be. He entered the league under exactly the very worst possible circumstances for a franchise and complete disarray with a dunderhead coach and a whole dunderhead full of coaching staff and was put into, we talked about this in maybe in week one of this show, the most unfair position possible. And, you know, this season, no preseason whatsoever. He's in a brand new system with brand new coaches. And to everybody's credit, they tried. Everybody tried and he's just not ready.

And that's fine. He may yet ultimately be good when there is some return to normalcy. Maybe if he gets some OTAs, maybe if we have a full summer, maybe if he gets to work with some guys and learns the offense that Sean Turner has in mind, he could be a hell of a quarterback. He definitely has some decent touch down the field that we've seen. Anyway, that's far more on the Washington professional football team than most people want to hear in any given week.

I have one more game I want to get your thoughts on before we get to my betting card. And it is the nation's team. Anytime you put the Giants and the Cowboys together, you're going to catch a lot of eyes. It's very exciting. It has an old school feel to it, a story to NFC's history. And boy, oh boy, do these teams suck? I mean, the NFC least.

I tweeted out on Sunday that 6 and 10 might win this division. Now, I was kidding. I don't think that's true. But 8 and 8 is definitely a possibility. Or if you're an Eagles fan, 7, 9 and 1, I mean, 7, 8 and 1, you're rooting for. You know, there are historical things here. The Cowboys have been beating the crap out of the Giants the last three years. Six and those straight up and against the spread.

but you know who knows what the hell's going on with this season we have this incredible Jekyll and Hyde version of the Dallas Cowboys where they look like the worst defense in the NFL in the first half of football games and it's because they're the worst defense in the NFL in the first half of football games the line right now is nine and a half I've been I don't know why you know, two impressive performances out of the Giants against pretty good defenses. The Rams have a pretty good defense. The Bears have a pretty good defense. And the Giants were kind of like in those games. I don't know what to attribute them not showing up against the 49ers to. Maybe it was the Sequin Barclay injury shock. I just don't have a clue. But I don't think the Giants are just flat out horrendous. They're not Jets bad.

How can we trust Dallas in late nine and a half? Well, that's a good question. I think we have to start with asking yourself this house. The Giants were down 17 to nothing against the Bears, and they rallied from behind to put up 13 points. The Giants were down. Obviously, they got the doors blown off of them. They only scored nine points against the 49ers.

They only scored nine points against the Rams. Do we really believe that the Giants defense is going to be good enough to hold the Cowboys down to less than 20 points here. If we're talking about the Giants hanging in here, what do we really think the Giants' offense is going to give us that is going to help you cover the game if the Cowboys, their strength is their offense. They're going to score something here. I don't think the Cowboys defense is holding them down to 13 points to allow them

to narrowly lose this game, 12. to 13 type thing. So what are you expecting out of the Giants offense is my bigger question here? Are they going to exploit this Cowboys defense just like the Browns were able to do last week? I don't think so. And I already, I'm on the record. I don't like Daniel Jones. Less than 10% of his past attempts have gone over 15 yards downfield. The one thing I can count on, you know what? It's going to go over 20. We're going to get 20 claps out of Jason Garrett. The Clapper is going to clap at least 20 times this week. I know it was offensive game plan.

Now, we mentioned earlier this notion of teams using these first four games to figure out their identities and so forth. Jason Garrett is on the record saying I'm still trying to figure out how to optimize my personnel. And just to be fair, like, you know, if you create a game plan that's based on having Seekoine Barkley all season and then having to adjust around that isn't great. but I take your point. I mean, if Dallas scores 30 points, how do they not cover this game? It's a good question because what do we know? Here's the one thing that we know.

The Dallas Cowboys defense has been roasted all week long in the media. And the one thing as a player you never want to get roasted for is your effort. And that is one of the biggest things that they were getting roasted for because a lot of commentators were putting up on Twitter clips of clear lack of effort on their case.

And I think Jalen Smith was coming out saying we must improve our effort. That's one of our focuses. We're going to be faster. We're going to be stronger on the defensive side of the ball. And that's my responsibility as a team captain to make sure that we are there. And they may not have the talent. And their scheme may not be great. And it may not ever be great enough for them to be a good defense.

But if they play with a lot more effort and now they're playing an offense that is not a Baker Mayfield, Kevin Stavansky offense, it's not a Russell Wilson, Brian, Schottenheimer offense. It's not a Sean McVeigh, Jared Gough offense. And it's not Matt Ryan with Julio Jones and all the other guys that they've got in Atlanta. But it's this giant's offense with Daniel Jones, who you're talking about. And I don't know anybody who's actually winning one-on-one matchups for that offense. that they have right now. There's nobody out there that you're really fearing and saying, oh, God, we got to really defend against this because this could be the thing that breaks the

game open for them multiple times. Like, they don't really have any player like that on this giant's offensive roster. So it should be easier for Dallas to scheme up and figure out how to make our defense look a little bit better against this offense that we've been dealing with. They have played, Dallas's defense has played the number two most difficult schedule of opposing offenses, including offenses that are the number one strongest running the football. And what does that do? It allows teams who have a lead to grow the lead, correct? If you have a lead and you decide to run the ball a little bit more, but you're the best running offenses in the NFL, like you can get a lot accomplished on the ground, then you're going to be

able to keep growing your lead. What do the giants have? They have the NFL's worst rushing offense. So, I mean, they're 10-point underdogs. Could they win this game? Anything is possible. But if the Giants don't have a lead here, they're not going to be able to run the ball like has been happening against this Cowboys defense. They're going to be turning to a one-dimensional type offense. The one-dimensional offense of the New York Giants with the 30th ranked passing attack,

albeit it's gone up against some strong defenses. But that is what is going to be brought forth to the table here to try to. to get back and keep up with the Dallas Cowboys offense. And it does seem very difficult. So I have looked at this game like I do many games. And I think it's wise for most people out there to look at things from the non-public opinion. Try to find a reason to be contrarian. If you find reasons to be contrarian when you approach games, generally speaking, if you've got sound logic behind that and you got enough of those reasons, you're probably going to be winning as a sports better. And so I've tried to look at this Giants team figuring out contrarian ways for

them to compete and to hang in this game. And there are some things that I've come up with. But, you know, one thing that's definitely helpful is Tyron Smith, the left tackle for the Dallas Cowboys is not practicing today. And there's rumors that he may be done. They may be shutting it down for the season. You also have your starting center who's going to be out this week for certain. in Looney. So he's not going to be there either. And this is why the point spread on the Dallas Cowboys has opened at 11 and a half, but it was down to nine and a half 10 and then continue to take today another tick of money when news came out that Tyron Smith may not be playing and may be shutting it down for this season. And now the line is all the way down to between eight and nine

at some spots. So there's eights and eight and a halfs there. And you're losing a lot of value if you liked the Giants and decided to wait until this news broke. And now you're trying to get in on the game when it's down at eight. Well, I don't want anything to do with either side because I don't trust either team. But I really might have to request that we put this podcast on pause because I need to go bet 10 pizzas, Warren Sharp. This is a 10 pizza under. It's still sitting at 54 right this second. Everything that you just said makes me, I don't want to describe.

all the feelings that I'm having, but all of my senses are alert. I am at high alert for under 54 for that game. The house betting card is leading. It's a 10 pizza bet on the under in Dallas and the New York Giants. Please don't leave me hungry, Cowboys and Giants. Just do what you do. And that number feels good. I have one other play for you for the week on my card.

I'm not doing an extensive card this week. We talked through a bunch of the games. I'm going to put a tiny bit on the Colts, maybe a half pizza on the Colts minus the one and a half because I just feel like there's a little value there. And then, you know, until Dan Quinn gets fired, I'm betting against them every week. And I don't mean to sound like a moron, but I kind of don't care what the number is. I don't understand why Atlanta is favored in this game. I love going against Dan Quinn.

Carolina is getting two points last time I checked the board. It's just the Dan Quinn rule. And the way that I'm going to play this game, I have a juicy teaser cooked up for you that I want to bounce off of you. You've taught me a little bit here as we've been going through.

It's week five, and I'm finally starting to catch on. I can tease Carolina from the two up to eight, and I can grab the Saints who are currently favored by seven and a half over the chargers and bring them down to one and a half. I cross the seven and the three, those key numbers on both sides of that teaser Warren Sharp. I think I'm going to get the Warren Sharp seal of approval on this one.

There is good value in both of those. I will say this for the people out there that there's a few different ways in schools of thought from betting games. So let's talk about this Carolina-Atlanta game. one school of thought is that you want to get the best number and you want to always be aware and cognizant of what it is. So in your case where you say, I don't really care with the numbers, I know that's a square opinion, but why are these guys even favored? I understand that line of thinking from a lot of people. This line opened at Carolina catching three and a half points.

Now it's down to one and a half at a lot of spots. Oh, no, I didn't move fast enough. Yeah. So it's down, it's down. No, you're still going to be fine in a teaser. Okay. But my point is is my point is that some people would say, well, I liked Carolina. I didn't move fast enough, just like you said. And now the line is down below a three, so I'm not going to do anything with this game because I missed the value of this game. And there's a lot of professionals that think like that. There's another group that might think from the perspective of, but I actually have the Carolina Panthers rated higher than the Atlanta Falcons. And I think that you got two teams, their ships passing in the night. One is on the,

the twilight of Dan Quinn's career. The guys aren't healthy offensively. Their D.Bs aren't healthy. They're all banged up. You got injuries on both sides of the ball and this team is not getting their act together. Meanwhile, another team has a new coach, a new system and they're ascending. They weren't great, you know, at the very beginning, but they're going to be better and better as they get more in tune with this system.

And so I want to be on that ship that's ascending, not the one that's drifting off into the twilight and about to run into an iceberg. So that I understand too. Now, I don't think you could possibly have the Carolina Panthers power rated ahead of the Atlanta Falcons right now. But that's not to say that in this game with these two different trajectories that the Carolina Panthers won't just win this game outright. So your thought process is, why don't I just get the value of this teaser? I can move through the three and the seven. And I like them to win the game outright, but these are nice insurance points for me to have.

I can't disagree with that thought process. I think it could be a good teaser like for you. I'll just put it that way. Okay, thank you. Well, there's one other that I like, one other teaser, and hopefully this is a cherry on the top. I like very much the situation of the Pittsburgh Steelers returning to competitive football with an unexpected extra week break,

catching the Philadelphia Eagles on a short week and the Eagles with the myriad injury issues that they continue to deal with. And Pittsburgh as a top-rated defense through the three games that they've played, I just feel like they're sitting there licking their chops. So I feel like I can get, again, this is a tease that I'm looking at.

I'd like to tease the Steelers who are sitting right the second as I pull this up at minus seven. I like to tease them down to minus one. And I want to pair that alongside the Arizona Cardinals, because I believe that there has been a little bit of, you know, the blowback. Now, Arizona looks like the bloom is off the rose a little bit. But I can grab the Arizona Cardinals at minus seven right this moment against the putrid,

basically barely competitive New York Jets and drag them down to minus one and put those two together. The Cardinals at minus one teased up with the the Steelers down to minus one. And that feels like, you know, a nice way

of creating a tiny bit of value where the money lines for those games, you know, the Cardinals are minus 350. I don't want to put all that money out there. And the same thing. Pittsburgh is minus 325. I don't want to have to lay all that just to get, you know, the win that I think those two teams are going to have.

Any thoughts on this cherry on the top teaser? Well, I don't really have any thoughts on the Arizona jet side of things. That is one game, even though it looks like we're probably only have seven one o'clock games. That is probably a game that I will try not even to divert much of my attention to. because I just cannot stand watching Adam Gase and his 11 personnel, regardless of who he goes up against him, regardless of how bad it is for him to use 11, to just continue to trot it out at these ridiculous 85% clips. But so that is just like the worst thing for me to be watching for my health

is to be watching Adam Gase do these types of things. But in terms of the Steelers, look, last week we discussed, I believe, that when you're looking at the Philadelphia Eagles, if you were trying to bet against them and on the 49ers, like laying the seven points, which actually did show up late as the side in this game, like some people were, some groups were definitely betting on the 49ers here and laying the points,

you are selling the Eagles at the lowest point of the market. And this is not a habit that ends up winning long term for you, selling the worst team in the league after they look the worst drawing to a tie against the Bengals. This looks absolutely terrible. And now they have to go and play the 49ers who just blew out, blew the doors off the Jets. What was it, 37 to 9 or something like that. But now the Eagles, I don't want to say the shoes on the other foot, but they get the outright win. And it's their second straight road game.

They're coming back east. It's not a far trip for them this time. But you're right, there's a little bit of travel involved in returning from a Sunday night game. And my only concern with this one is I don't know if the Steelers are actually that good. I really don't. I think that the Steelers offense ranks 18th in the NFL and they've played about a middle-of-the-road schedule. Their run offense is below average against a below-a-a-law. average schedule of opposing teams. They are not an explosive passing offense. They rank 26th in

the NFL and explosive passing efficiency. Their strength has been their defense, but they've been fortunate to play the third easiest schedule of opposing offenses. We're talking the giants who are led by Jason Garrett, the Denver Broncos, the Houston Texans, you just fired their coach, and that's all they've played so far this season, right, because they didn't play a team. last week. So I don't necessarily know how good the Steelers' offense is, but if you're saying they just have to win the game, obviously they're going to be big favorites just to win the game. But I think it's going to be interesting to see how this Steelers offense develops and kind of like their long-term view. They do have a little bit of new influence from a play calling perspective,

but they didn't really know officially that they weren't going to have to play the Titans until partway through the week when they've already been preparing. So it's not as if they had the full benefit of like their bodies may have gotten the rest, but they're actually in there preparing to take on the Titans. Then all of a sudden, no, you don't have to play them. Now start game planning for the Eagles. Yeah, sure, you don't have to play an actual game. But now you're never going to have that by week that you should have had in week eight where you literally could just rest. You're never going to have that now. I think that's ridiculous. Personally, I think the Titans should have to forfeit both of those games.

And until they return to full health, because of all the violations that they've been accused of, then you can start playing games. But until they're cleared to start playing games, they should have to forfeit everything. I don't think other teams should be forced to change their schedules and all this type of stuff for those guys who clearly had issues. But that's a totally different subject altogether. Yeah, I'm going to let you and Chris Vernon get to the bottom of that. I will say as a man of integrity, it does hurt me to see a team violate the base.

basic integrity and spirit of what the rest of the entire NFL is trying to accomplish. And other teams, you know, basically trying their very best to maintain discipline and protect themselves and the other teams. And for the Titans to be so far out of bounds with that, I'm with you. That's fine. I don't give a, I didn't bet on them win total wise so they could suck it. I'm fine with them forfeiting those games. but I am curious.

I am going to go ahead. You didn't really talk me out of betting on the, on the Steelers. And I'm going to, maybe I, I just can't in good, good conscience, leave the jets alone. I'm going to pick on the jets and I'm going to pick on Atlanta until they tell me to pick my nose or pick my butt. And that's, you know, could be this week. But, Lawrence Sharp, I don't think we're going to do any better than that with week five, my friend. Thanks for all the dimes as usual. Yeah.

It's kind of a gross card top to bottom. I mean, there's not really, we talked about there's not really a great game with two great teams playing one another, other than the fact that we've got these two teams with winning records battling the Cleveland Browns and the Indianapolis Colts and one of those two teams been the talk of the week. So, yeah, there's not as much value on the card this week. There's not as much exciting to discuss, but we are thankful that we get to watch football and we're absolutely going to be betting on it. Good luck to you, House and to everybody who's following along at home. That's it. Let's go Anders.