The Ringer NFL Show - Week 3 NFL Picks, Props, and Predictions!

Episode Date: September 22, 2023

Sheil and Ben discuss their Week 3 picks and which story lines must be paid attention to. Could this week prove to be rock bottom for the Chicago Bears with all the news that’s been surrounding the franchise and them facing the defending Super Bowl champ Kansas City Chiefs? Plus, they predict Monday morning headlines and give their long shots of the week The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more, or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia and Ben Solak Producer: Cliff Augustin Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Musical Elements: Devon Renaldo Social: Eduardo Ocampo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everyone. This is Craig Horlebeck from the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. Join me, Danny Hifitz and Danny Kelly every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to help you win your draft, win your league, and most importantly, avoid that last place punishment. Follow the ringer fantasy football show on Spotify. Welcome to Extra Point Take and Shield Kapadia here, joined by Ben Solac. It's the Friday show where we talk about what we're watching. We make some picks. We pick some props. We make some predictions that are sure to go wrong. Benny Soles, you look ready. You look like your overflowing with prop bets that you just want to give to our audience today. It's been a good year for props so far. It's been a bad year for spreads, but that's all right. We ride the waves. I don't know about how are you doing in the column so far? You're two weeks in. Good, bad, where you at?

Well, after my sticking jime, actually exactly at 500 through two weeks in one game. Yeah. It has been for like most sharps on like size and totals, not a great start of the year. Like, just the average sharp bet is like missed for whatever reason. It's been a little bit of a mess. season. So size-wise, yeah, I'm nowhere right now. Props has been fun. Keys to Victor have been doing great on Twitter. We love what we're seeing. Week three is the absolute nasty fest of football games. So we're going to get through it. It's going to be a good time. Yeah, it's, listen, it's early.

It's week too. It's a long season here. We got 18 weeks. We got playoffs. We got a lot of games to get through. So you should know the drill by now. But if you're a first time Friday show listener, we're going to go through some headliners. We're going to make some predictions about what everyone's going to be talking about on Monday morning, and then we're going to get to the props, the long shots, and all of that, the locks of the week for week three. All right, many souls start us off with the headliner. What do you have your eye on this weekend in week three? Headline for me is, Chiefs panic, relax, Chiefs panic abate, Chiefs panic fine. The number one thing that I'm watching for on this Sunday is this Chief's offense, which like, I don't know about you,

People are trying to get me to freak out about this, right? They talk to my buddies and they're like, my homes, it's bad year for my homes now, down here. Like, you guys can keep hoping for this. It's not coming. It's not real. You know, you talk to your editors. Your editors are like, got to get ready in case, you know, the Chiefs,

like, if this is a real problem for the Chief's offense, like that'll be a big story. It's like, guys, I don't think it's going to happen. They face a lion's defense in week one that was very ready for them, right? The Lions were like the most man-cover heavy team in the league last season, and they walked out in week one and just had like a curated zone game plan for the chiefs, right? They 100% came out with like a change-up

that you wouldn't be able to throw unless you had three months to prepare for a team. And then in week two, they faced a Jaguars defense that, again, like, lions and Jaguars, they're not known as like the best defenses, but the Lions had a really good curated game plan. I think the Jaguars have overperformed defensive expectations over the first two weeks, and they're playing pretty well.

So I'm able to explain away some bad Chiefs' offense against the lions and against the jaguars. The Chiefs play this Sunday, Jeal, the Chicago Bears, all right? If we can't move the football against the current state of the Chicago Bears defense,

gave up 30 plus to the Packers and gave up 24 plus to Baker Mayfield and the Bucks, I'll start to maybe a little bit get there on like, all right, maybe having no wide receivers is actually bad. Maybe this does. matter a little bit. So in terms of things I'm watching for this upcoming week, there's no game

that I think is like, oh, two real contenders head to head. There's a lot of like, all right, like, you know, it's a bad slate. Yeah. It's not the most exciting slate of games here. I think there's, I think there's a lot of games where like Titans Browns is going to help us figure out some stuff about those two teams, both of whom look like they can be good this year. Falcons Lions is the same thing, Saints Packers. There's a lot of like, all right, tell me something. Like, this is a good test between some teams and the teens. Can I'll be riddle out my power. rankings a little bit, but there's not a lot of like, wow, the clash, you know, but I'm, I'm, you know, right now I've got a corner of my eye on this chief's offense. And if we're not good

against the bears, they're going to get half of one eye. And we're going to keep updating that, that, that, that, uh, measuring stick as we go. So chief's offense, uh, let's just drop 35 on the bears and calm down all of the, the discourse. Yeah, it's, I feel like it has to be, you know, obviously a nuanced conversation with the chief's offense. Like, if you, have Mahomes healthy in Andy Reid, your floor is only so low. Like, I don't, I mean, I don't know what your buddies are texting you. I don't think anyone's arguing this is going to be a bad offense, but it's in terms of the offenses that the Chiefs have produced under those two guys. Where is it going to rank there? And it's early. It's two weeks in. The most likely scenario,

chiefs figure it out. Chiefs have a top five offense by the end of the season. Nothing to see here. Remember when people were worried after week two. Sure. However, I do think it's fair to point out that the offense hasn't played well, like, just to their standard in the first two weeks. I mean, they've had 96 games under as Patrick Mahomes as the starter. Last week's game ranked 96 out of 96 in success rate. Further off, it was literally their least efficient game under Patrick Mahomes. By the way, week one ranked 92nd out of 96. So it's a two-game sample.

This is why I really should have been like a baseball. I like large samples. Large samples, I wouldn't have as much far. Yeah, it makes me feel better, but this is more fun because we get to guess and it can be week 17 and you can still be like, hey, that's a small sample. They only play 17 games. But these have been, you know, two of the five worst offensive performances in terms of success rate under Patrick Bahams and Andy Reid.

Like, that's not nothing. I mean, you can say, yeah, the Lions and did a good job and the Jags did a good job. And I agree with you at the same time. Like, those aren't the best defenses that they're going to face this season. And so I think you're right to say, let's keep an eye on it. I mean, there's a chance that the Chiefs win this game, 62 to nothing. And Patrick Mahomes throws eight touchdowns. And we're saying, all right, they're fine.

It was just a little hiccup early in the season. At the same time, they're really testing the limits of what, like, what position you're putting those two guys in. With this wide receiver core and those offensive tackles, like, I don't know that you needed to make it. You should have made it this hard for, you know, I might have built it to make some different decisions along the way. So I've got my eye on it for sure, but I think you're probably right that it will be much ado about nothing. I'm sticking to that game. So I'll act, but I'm looking on the other side. What's rock bottom for the Chicago Bears?

I mean, this is a team. I know Nora and Stephen talked about it this week, but just think of the week and the season they've had so far. I'm sure most people know about it, but a quick recap. Justin Fields holds a press conference. He says he's playing a little too robotic. he's got to play more freely. They say, well, why do you think you're playing robotic? He says coaching and he expands on it.

I actually thought when you go back and watch it, he's being honest, thoughtful. It's like everything I want from an athlete. You know what I mean? Yeah, I agree. Such a good answer because it's like Brandon Staley with the angry pressers. You can't hop on the mic and be like, it's cool how great everything is. Like, we can all see you. So you have to acknowledge.

Like, if Fields had not mentioned that there's a good, like if you'd been like me and the coaching staff are in total lockstep is what I'm supposed to do, that would be alarm bells because like either A, you have no idea what's going on or B, you have no interest in getting better. You're just going to try to get through this media session. So I loved it. I couldn't agree more. Yeah, you know, when you watch it, he's explaining what the issues are. And I thought it was great. Like I said, as a, as someone who has sat in on hundreds of those midweek press conferences with coaches and quarterbacks, like that's the kind of insight that you want when you're covering a team. At the same time, it is unusual to hear a quarterback say that part of the reason for some of the issues is coaching.

You just typically will not hear that. So he has that. Then he holds a media session later in the locker room, tries to clarify his comments. Then the next day, him and Luke Gettsy, the offensive coordinator, they wave to the cameras and they hug so that everyone can see that they're fine. So that's one side of the ball. This is only one thing that's happening in Chicago this week. Then Alan Williams, the defensive coordinator resigns. There was a mystery with Matt Eberfluse was like, well, I don't know if he's going to be back. The next thing you know, he resigns. There's all these weird rumors online. And then Pat McAfee goes on his show and says, there was an FBI. His sources say there was an FBI raid on Allen Williams's house. I don't know anything more about this. No one is on ESPN, by the way.

He's on ESPN. That's why. That's why. That's why. I was like, when I was first prepping, I'm like, all right, this isn't worth mentioning. It's all. rumors. And then I'm like, wait, Pat McAfee said this on ESPN. I guess we should mention it. It's a play by the worldwide leader. Like, ah! Yeah. Yeah. Now, so you have that. Their left tackle goes on injured reserve. So all these things have happened within a span of like three days in Chicago, not to mention. And I didn't realize this. So like, they've lost 12 straight games going back to last season. I didn't realize that this was like a losing streak. Twelve straight games in the NFL? Like, think about that since week eight of last season. They're 0 and 12.

with an NFL worst minus 159 point differential. So minus 159 in 12 games is tough. That's double digits. That's tough. That's tough. And like Zolak alluded to, now they go to Arrowhead against an offense that's trying to kind of get right here in week three. What do we see here? Do we see Justin Fields playing more freely when you and I had shows in the middle of last season?

And we said, okay, there's something to him. This isn't excited. We don't know if they're going to be great. But man, he's exciting. They can do some things out of structure. That hasn't been there. Do we see some of that this weekend? Do they show some fight, some resolve, some, hey, let's all kind of band together and be a little bit competitive here.

Or do they lose 56 to nothing? I mean, anything is possible. And if they get blown out in this game, I mean, I don't know what you do as a franchise. I forgot to mention Ryan Poles the GM. You never see this, but you rarely see this with an NFL team in. season, the GM calling an impromptu press conference to kind of calm the waters. And not just an impromptu press conference. A, it's cool how fine we are press conference. Right. Yeah. Ryan Paul, like, Johnson Fields is like, hey, coaching is tough. Ryan Paul's press conference was like,

no one's panicking. Isn't that great? Right. It's week two. That you shouldn't be doing it. We're not panicking for a thing week two. That means it's bad. It's unprecedented. It's honestly unprecedented. It's bad. So I'm going to have my eye on that game. Like you're looking at, what are you talking about? It's a 12 and a half. point spread, bears don't have a chance, and you're probably right about that, but it's funny, So like, I don't go over these as we talked about last week before we come on the show, but we're both going to have our eyes on the same game there for different reasons. So like you wrote about the bears this week, anything to add there. Yeah, so Matt Aberfus, like you said, I own 12, last 12 games

with the bears. I went and I looked back at like every stretch of at least 12 straight losses over the last like 20, 30 years. It's really tough to find a guy that we look back on and we're like, he was a good coach. Like he just got it together. Yeah. Makes sense. Like there are teams that turn around,

turn it around quickly. The current Jaguars are one of them. The Jaguars had a stretch. It was more than 12. Like, end of, was it, yeah,

was end of Marone into Urban Wire and to Bradley. I can't remember who they had before Urban Meyer. I think it was Doug Maron. Maron. Yeah, it was Maron and then. Which like, Maron was about as good of a name of a coach.

as you kind of like found on this list. And it's like they the Jagu's turned around right away. Like Doug Peterson, Trevor Lawrence Bang. Like there's a way to like be a team that loses 12, 14, 16 games in a row and then recovers. It's usually with a different guy running the team. And that's the tough reality for Iber Flues where it's like, all right, you're only 20 games into your tenure at this point, right? Like you've 18 weeks last season, two weeks this season.

It's like too small of a sample. We should be writing about baseball. But what have you done for the team? is a hard question right now to answer for Iber Fluse. Like there's so much attention on this offensive fields. This defense is a nightmare, man. And like, yeah. The Iber Flues' whole thing also is supposed to be like the culture, like young players,

development, intensity and who's developed? Who are the young, who are the young cornerstones of this team? Like, Jaquan Brisker might be an above average safety. Like that's where we're at in terms of young players. It's very hard to find silver linings right now, rays of sunbeams with the bears, which sucks. Yeah, no doubt about it. We'll see what happens in Kansas City this weekend. All right, Monday morning storyline is the next category, Benjamin. What are we? What is somebody? What are you going to be talking about on Monday morning after week three? What do you got? So it is Monday morning storylines, which means that at 8.50 this morning, 10 minutes before we were recorded, when I realized that my storyline was about the Philadelphia Eagles who play on Monday night. You can do that. I think Tuesday is fine.

Yeah, no, I was actually thinking about something. Yeah, I think that's fine. It can be Tuesday morning. Yeah, no, I think that's fine. Yeah, go ahead. This is very surprising to me because you like to be like, you'll be like very persnicky as to like the parameters of one certain game that we've made up. And then for the next one, you won't care at all.

And I never know which one it's going to be. First of all, I'm not a stickler and I resent that that description. I think you're seeing a difference. You saw 1am shield earlier this week, a little bit order. couldn't really speak in coherent sentences. Now you're getting 9 a.m. Sheal, I've been up for three hours. I got nice, I caught up on some sleep last night.

I'm feeling good. We can go for three hours today. I'll be good. Got the girls to school, got a workout. Yeah. Sunny outside. Nice cry. I have the, this is a nice move in the fall.

You got the windows open and you throw the hoodie on. I like the nice crisp ballness coming into my right here. I feel great. See, okay. So I'm very envious. of this, my window in the room I podcast with is faces the road. And so I never like having it open because sometimes there's a big noise. And so I just sit in this little stuffy room. I got to start just opening it and just hoping there's going to be no, no rough. Mike's not going to

pick that up. Yeah. No ruffians on the sidewalk. No, no, no, you know, young ragamuffins out there making a ruckus. Okay. Important things. So, all right, if we're doing a Monday morning headline, it's actually a Tuesday morning headline. The Philadelphia Eagles are playing the Tampa Buccaneers this upcoming Monday. I think that your headline is going to be like, Jalen Hertz, question mark. Eagles, offensive concern, question mark. I think that to this point in the season,

the Eagles have not been the team that we expected them to be coming off of the Super Bowl year. They haven't been as dominant as they were in 2022. Still 2-0, right? They come out with a win against the Patriots, come with a win against the Vikings. But in neither game were they emphatically it. And to this point in the season,

two weeks in, no team has been, benefited from opposing turnovers more than the Philadelphia Eagles. Like they have just been riding takeaways, which is fine. It's just something that you have to understand. Tends not to stay sticky over the course of a season. And big hills and low valleys can come when you're a turnover-oriented defense. They get like the weirdly two and oh buccaneers, which the buccaneers have beaten the bears and the Vikings.

So like, yeah. Yep. I'm not here with two and oh bucks acting like the world's been reorganized and Baker Mayfield's the top 10 quarterback. What I do know is that we have kind of mapped Jalen Hertz's career over his game logs against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and against Todd Bowles, right? There was the 2021 season where how they played against the Buccaneers kind of defined that season.

They were good against a lot of other offenses. But when they ran into Tampa Bay in that postseason, the blitzing and the Todd Bulls game plan. It really took advantage of what Hertz did well and didn't do well. Hurts against the Blitz since the start of last season. This is taking 2021 out of it. Is the 22nd ranked quarterback by EPA per dropback? Blitzing is something that really can can hassle Hertz. And you saw that be successful last week against the Vikings on Thursday night football where Brian Flores walked out with what I thought was a really, really remarkable game plan. He either sent six or sent three. It was as polarized of a defensive game plan in next gen's database that we've seen in six, seven plus seasons,

where it was, I'm always going to confuse you. I'm always setting something unique. Now we get a guy in Todd Bowles, who's one of the few other defensive coordinators in the league who's capable of doing this, who's capable of lining a bunch of guys up and playing a really blitz-heavy approach and then dropping a lot of guys into zone and really pitching you a lot of change-ups. I think that the Eagles offense is going to struggle against the Buccaneers. I wouldn't be surprised if their 3-0, wouldn't be surprised if the defense can hassle Baker, Mayfield and they come out with a win. But I think we're going to start to get to the point now

three weeks into the season where it hurts has played Bill Belichick, Brian Flores and Todd Bowles. He's played some pretty legitimate defensive names. But after three weeks, I think we're going to start to sit down and say, okay, what's going on with this Eagles passing offense? Because this is really not the unit we saw last season. Critically, I don't think the Eagles are going to be able to do the, hey, D'Andre Swift, get us 175 yards thing. Yeah. One thing to run against Harrison Phillips. There's a young man named Vita Veya in the middle of box defense makes it a little bit trickier. And so I think that you're you're going to see a little bit more visibility on Hertz's play. Again, not total panic.

They haven't been a total mess. A.J. Brown, Devonday Smith, solved a lot of problems for you. But this Eagles offense has struggled in 2023. They've struggled with the coordinator change. I think on Monday night football, that'll be really apparent. Yeah, the drop eight was very interesting last week. I mean, the Vikings did that on 14 pass plays against Hertz. Like you said, they'd line everybody up at the line of scrimmage. And it's either, hey, we're rushing six or we're rushing three. and it took the Eagles a while to figure it out, and then they eventually started running the ball. But if you just look at efficiency against drop eight,

like that was one of the worst games for a quarterback, really in the last five, 10 years. And it doesn't happen that often where a defense is doing that double digits. But, you know, you can really paint a picture that Eagles fans should be more panicked than they are. Two and all, I'm talking to you so long. Jalen Hertz is 32nd in dropback success rate.

He's worse than can he pick? I mean, can he pick it? you know, Bryce Young, Deshawn Watson, Josh Dobbs, Zach Wilson. He has been the worst starting quarterback and dropback success rate through two games this season, way lower than it was last season. Their defense is bottom three in success rate ahead of only the Raiders and the dolphins. You mentioned it. They have been a high leverage, take the ball away, Zach the quarterback type defense,

which actually might be fine. I actually think on film, I actually really have liked what I've seen from their defense. and I think it's been really encouraging. But again, statistically, you look at it and say, oh, man, they've played the Patriots and the Vikings and their 30th in success rate. That's not great. So those are some things to point to. I actually have a different read on this game than you do.

When you said earlier, like, it's not a great slate of games, but we're going to learn things. I think that's true about this Eagles passing. This is one that falls in that for sure. This is one, absolutely, because the first five games of the season, the first five days of the season, they face Belichick and they face Florida. as two guys who did a great job against them, unscouted looks, stuff you weren't expecting, you had to adjust. Well, now you've had this long layout. Remember, they played on Thursday night in week, to Thursday night to Monday night in week three. So mini buy, you look at all of it.

All right, what's going wrong? Why do our numbers look like this in the passing game through the first two weeks? What can we do to fix it? I actually think they're, I like them quite a bit minus four and a half in this game. I'm not saying they're going to score 35 or 40. I'm with you. Buck's defense has legit players. I said it coming into the season. I think we both agreed. I think I had him 10th. And you were like, yeah, I can see that. Like, they still have a lot of good players. Look at their Super Bowl roster. It's a lot of the same players on defense. And they still have Todd Bowles as their defensive coordinator. So I don't think they're going to light them up. But I do think their passing game is going to look a lot better, have more rhythm this game now that they've had some time to

kind of take a deep breath. So that's going to be an interesting game on Monday night. I'm with you. If they don't, if the pass the game looks bad in that game Monday night, I think there's going to be real cause for concern about, well, we know this is a good team. They're still going to win a lot of games, but what's their ceiling if they can't get this figured out? Because I really thought Hertz was going to play well this season. It's not just on Hertz, but it hasn't happened so far. Yeah, I'm, um, you said like, you like that four and a half. I'm a nowhere on this game. This is one of those games where it's on a Monday night and I'm going to want to have action on it. I'm going to want to be room for something. And I'm going to have to make sure Monday,

5 p.m. 6 p.m. Get busy. Go do something with your hands. Right. Okay. This is this is, this line is a stinky line. I don't trust it in either direction. One thing about the Eagles past the game when I was poking around that really stands out to me through two weeks. Devante Smith right now, fourth in the league among receivers who actually have like 10 plus targets, like receivers who have done something. A fourth in a league right now in air yards per target, 14.87. A.J. Brown's ninth. They have two receivers in the top 10 of air yards per target, and they have no other receivers, right? They only, like in terms of wide receivers, they only throw to these two cats. That's not good. You don't want your two star, you have you two unbelievable receivers. And

one of the things that makes them unbelievable is that they can get down the field, but those are low percentage throws, right? When you're going to funnel passing game through two players, because they really haven't gotten Dallas Goddard super activated yet, they tried to do it again in week two. They had a lot of like intentional targets to him early, but he didn't have like a huge game, right? If you have two targets you're living through, you gotta get those guys some underneath looks. You have to, let's develop a rhythm. Let's get the guys moving. Let's get them running. AJ Brown, frustration on the sideline in week two. He's running wind sprints. He's putting a lot of mileage on those legs for not a lot of juice. I get it. They have to figure out how to get

a more moderate passing game, a more three level control passing game and stop relying, like you said, hurts a success rate so low. One of the reasons why is because they're hocking that thing. Let's let's work all three levels of the field. Yeah, we'll see what happens in that game Monday night. All right, let's take a quick break. We'll come back. I will give my Monday morning storyline. Snap into action this NFL season with Fandle, America's number one sportsbook.

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Bonus issued as non-wistrable bonus bets that expire seven days after receipt, restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fandle.com. All right, we are back on extra point. taking my Monday morning storyline. The Saints are this year's version of the 2022 Vikings. I've heard people already make this case and I wish I could give you credit, but I feel like it's been multiple people. So if you are one of the people who said it, let me know and I will give you credit. I think that's spot on. I think this is a team that's going to beat up on a bad

schedule that's going to pile up wins that no one's really going to take seriously this year. You know, they had what I would describe as unimpressive wins, week one and week two against the Titans and the Panthers. Now they go to Green Bay against the Packers. They're one and a half point underdogs. I think they can win this game. I mean, their defense is legit going up against an inexperienced starter against the Dennis Allen defense. That's not going to be easy. The Packers are not as healthy as the Saints in this game.

They've got some injuries on the offensive line. We'll see if Bakhtiari plays or not. We'll see if Christian Watson plays or not. in Jones. Elkin Jenkins is out for the Packers for a while here. So I kind of like the Saints in this game. I think they're going to improve to 3 and O here. And I don't think anyone is going to take them seriously or consider them in the same class as the Cowboys 49ers or Eagles in the NFC. So I just think that like early signs, that's how I'm feeling about the Saints team. Like I think they're the favorites to win, the NFC South. I think they're going to pile up wins. I don't

think they're a great team. I don't think anyone's going to take them seriously. So, uh, I, that, that's a storyline that's already been mentioned. As I read it out loud, I'm like, shield, this doesn't have a lot of juice. You should have gone with something else. But you know what? We all can't bat a thousand. So there you go. That's my Monday morning storyline. I, uh, I will say, Saints fan, like, you're like, no, no one's going to take this team seriously. Saints fans are taking the team seriously. Are they feeling themselves? Okay. Oh, yeah. I, um, I tweeted during the Titans game, uh,

Wow, it turns out Derek Carr is exactly the same quarterback as he was with the Raiders. Who could have seen this coming? And then they won 16 to 15, all right? And it was a big old, let's quote tweet Ben Day. It was big old, whoa, whoa, look, and Derek Carr want to know. And then that Panthers game, Derek Carr should send Bryce Young a check and a bouquet of flowers with the way that Bryce Young and that Panthers offense made the Saints' offense look halfway decent in relief. Holy smokes.

They're getting cooked. Giro Averill was on him. This is, I, I am, I'm glad that Michael Thomas is back healthy. I love me of Rashid Shaheed. And you know, I love me of Rashid Jihad. Chris Oliva is great. Like, this wide receiver room is awesome. And I think that Carr is better than the alternatives, better than Dalton, better than

James in terms of distributing to that team. But I don't, I don't view this offense as having legitimate teeth. They're good at scoring more than 20 points. And the Saints defense is really good at making the opposing steep. team score less than 20 points. They've done it like 10 games in a row now or something. Yeah. This game is the number one game for me, Saints Packers, of Let's Learn Something.

Like, I, that Packers offense beat up on the Bears in week one. And then that Falcons game, I had Packers plus one and a half for my picks. And we covered, but it was close. And I thought that the Packers would have more success against the Falcons defense that I don't particularly rate very highly. I like them schematically. They worried me from like a talent perspective. Ryan Nielsen came from the Saints defensive staff, right?

He was the Saints defensive line coach, left to come Atlanta's defensive coordinator. So now you get this same defense again, but the big boy version. Now you get like they actually have the horses for this. Yeah. And the fact that the Packers struggled to find a good running game, obviously no Aaron Jones against the Falcons, struggled to find a good running game.

I thought was really concerning. And they're doing a good job running the great. greatest hits for Jordan Love in terms of like this offense. But they haven't really like the passing game is still very Shanahan water wings. It's still very much like run the stuff that the quarterback can't screw up. And at some point it's like kind of like let the Bronco buck a little bit. And they haven't necessarily done that yet with with with love. And if they don't do that against the Saints, they're not going to score enough points to

outscore like a average Derek Carr Saints performance. And if they do, they're one and two. And then this Packers team, the extra point taking team of the of the year, we have to start having some questions. about like, hey, like, when are you going to kind of open this offense up at Bakes? You can't waste time losing to the Falcons into the Saints and what's going to be like a tough NFC North. Like, we're going to have to let Jordan Love throw the football a little more aggressively.

But again, like, no, Christian Watson, like they've had injuries that it does make it tough. I get where they're coming from. Yeah, it's not a great place to, it's a little like, to me, the Bryce Young thing. I mean, you look around and you're like, all right, well, is this person in great position to succeed? Now, the Packers are in a much better spot than the Panthers are. But I agree with you. I think Jordan Love has been fine.

I think he's had some moments. For the most part, I think their good moments have kind of been schemed up offensively from Matt LaFleur. They've scored on 83 touchdowns on 83% of their red zone trips. Like if that comes down to league average or a little closer to league average, it's not going to look as good. You know, they got some penalties, some DPI's last week where their total yardage wasn't exactly indicative of where they were. But I think you make a good point that they're facing a similar scheme as last week, but better player. So we'll see what happens with the Packers. We'll see what happens

with the Saints this week. All right, prop of the week. Benjamin, wait, let's get to our, do you have the spreadsheet open? All right, give our guys some credit. Shout out to Luke. We appreciate Luke. You don't warn me about this. I forgot to reread the pronunciation of his last name. Lahan, I'm pretty sure. I took the lead over you this week, five-point week for your boy. You had a two-point week there, Sheel. Sheel and I both, locks of the week, went one for three this week. Like I said, I won exclusively on the Packers covering one and a half. They lost by one.

Which I lost in my picks column because when I filed it, they were one and a half point favorites. Come on, you're killing me. All right, sorry. I had to get that out there. And then I had Broncos at home against the commanders, minus three and a half. Felt great about that one for a bit. Big comeback there. And then I had Giants minus four.

four and a half against the Cardinals felt terrible about that one for a bit. Big comeback there. Nobody's paying me off. Those two games were happening concurrently, and I was just staring at him like, there's no way you're going to do this to me, right? We're going to have the Giants win by four and the Broncos loses. And the Hail Mary, the Broncos almost got overtime.

Oh, it was terrible. For you lost of the week, you also have the Broncos. You had the Titans win, plus three versus the Chargers. Congrats on the overtime dub for you on that one. You had Jaguars plus three and a half against the Chiefs as well. I mean, I don't think we've talked about, my gosh, how many wasted opportunities. Jaguars, what do you doing? That was the right call by me.

Your defense plays well. Can a receiver just keep their feet in balance on one of these? Solex, I agree. He's throwing his water bottle all over the place. I almost dropped this, this thing. We were so on the right side of things last week. Giants minus four and a half was very clearly the right side. This is gambling, rationalizing.

The right side. Jagger's three and a half is very clearly the right side. And we were not rewarded. Like I said, it's been a tough year for spread betting. We had unders on passing yards. You were under on Zach Wilson for a dub against the Cowboys. I was under on Anthony Richardson, which was probably going to be shaky there against the Texans. Richardson leads the game with a concussion.

And then your long shot of the week, 50 rushing yards for Josh Allen. He had like two. They just ate the Raiders alive throwing the football. It honestly might have been his career low. I'm checking the box score going, oh my God, I got no shot. He was managing the pocket. Great Josh Allen pocket game. And then Daniel Jones touchdown score for me.

a long shot of the week gave me three points. That was like plus 2-10 on the actual market. He had a run to score and bring the Giants back into it. So that was nice to see. I'm at eight points. You're at seven, very tight. It's a big week two for me. Evens the scales up.

My prop of the week. And just a reminder real quick on these scoring system. So you get one point. If your prop of the week hits, it's got to be minus 130 or better. You get one point for each of your locks of the week. Those are just picks against the spread. And then you were able to get three points on the long shot. shot, long shot of the way. Why don't I have an issue saying long shot? Like it's, it should not be a

hard word. I'm a lang shot. No, long shot. All right. That has to be plus 150 or better. That can be anything. That's worth three points. So you have a total of seven points you can earn every week. And Luke really is updating that spreadsheet beautifully. We'll share that again after the podcast. He is tracking. If Solek and I pick the same side on a pick against the spread. How does that do? Ben, we're 0 and 1 so far. We both had the Broncos last week against the commanders. All right, go ahead. What do you got for your pro?

We were discussing in the preseason a little bit of this Houston Texans offense. And I said, this Texan's passing game can actually be decently good. The wide receiver core is all right. And you acted like I had suggested the sun rose in the West and San Diego. I'm a lot of you, dragon, bottom five unit.

And I said someone's not been watching the Nico Collins film. Great start to the season for our boy. Nico Collins, a healthy receiver out of Michigan. He's big, he's fast, as visible. Hold on, hold on, hold on. You'll learn with more experience like me. You don't spike the football after two weeks

on your preseason takes, okay? So settle down, talk to me in week 13. I will great, and I'll let you continue. Nico Collins looks great last thing. Now, I'll say this. The reason why we're spiking the football is because I don't know if Nico Collins is going to be able to keep his per game average

at the current level it's at of like six and a half catches and 113 yards a game. So we've got to spike it while we're in the end zone. We might not be in the end zone sometime soon. But Nico Collins is a very clear and emphatic starter and the number one receiver of CJ Stroud in a passing offense, Bobby Slovak, OC from San Francisco.

It just works, right? Like their offensive line is super banged up. Stroud is taken hit after head after hit. But guess what? They get Nico Collins. Like I said, it's a big fast target over the middle of the field, 12 yards deep. and they hit him in stride.

And like, that's been the way those offenses work since Kingdom come, right? Some numbers for you on Nico Collins. He's among receivers in the league, eighth in explosive play rate, eighth in yards per route run with 11 and 9 targets respectively, right? This is a high-volume player who's a high-explosive player and a high-efficiency player through two weeks, right? It's really, really good offense from Nico Collins. The Texans are eight and a half point underdogs to the Jaguars.

I love Jaguars passing props in this game as well. There's no Derek Stingley. There's no Jimmy Ward. There's no Jalen Petrie. Like the Texan's secondary is very banged up. I think Houston's going to find themselves in a negative pass script early. And they showed against the Colts. They'll keep throwing themselves into a game,

even if they have no chance to win. Like, they're just trying to get some reps out here. They're not going to bench starters or anything like that. Nico Collins over under receiving a guy set up 49 and a half. He could have zero yards. He could have zero yards in the first half. He could have zero yards in the first half. And I'd be like, he might get this, man.

Like, they hate him catch him run. They hate him on explosive play. He's a chunk receiver at this point. I like Nico Collins over quite a bit. He was breaking some tackles last week, running through guys after catching the ball. By the way, C.J. Stroud, that was not a game we talked about on extra point taken, and I rewatched after that. Early returns are positive on a C.J. Stroud playing with, what, three backup,

offensive linemen and your boy, Nico Collins, as his number one target. And he threw for, like, 380. And these were, I mean, I know there was some garbage time, but these were like some nice throws deep down the middle of the field, in breakers where he's just ripping them in there. So early returns positive for CJ Stroud. Those who have watched the play sheet from this week know that I started with the CJ Stroud play

that had nothing to do with the topic. I just wanted to watch it. It's, I mean, ripping it, seeing it, gripping it and ripping it, right? Like, rookies aren't supposed to do this where it's just back foot on time, chuck it. Like we are, I could not be more impressive what I've seen from CJ Stroud.

I think that I love Stroud coming out. I liked them more than young. I thought this is the Ohio State quarterback to do it. And I'm very, very happy with what I'm seeing through two weeks. I am so quietly during these offensive line injuries and these secondary injuries, just buying Texan stock. I like the pass rush. I like the way DeBie goes running out defense.

I think Sloics got the generally got the goods. Nico's playing well. Strau's playing well. I am collecting my Texan stock for the seasons to come. Yeah, oh and two. But like if you're a Texans fan, you're like, okay, we have a, something like you want to sit down and watch the game on Sunday where it had that has not been the case uh for a while I'm debating between two how how can we decide this do you want to do a quick

rock paper scissors do you want to just pick the number one or two do you want me to like flip a coin what should we do I'm up like 16 units on props so far this year you give me the two I'll tell you which one I'll let you know I actually all right I actually but you're incentivized to pick a wrong one for me so I need you to do it blindly this is no teamwork this is help this I'm teamwork you're trying to beat me in this competition. What are you talking about? I know how you operate. Right. I go like, can I do a Monday headline? You're like, yeah, that's fine. And I'm like, can I like just like help you for the problem? It's be fun for the listeners. So like debate two things. You're like, no, it's a trick. He's trying to fool me for a point. All right. I actually do like this,

because now if it doesn't hit, it'll make for good pod fodder and I can yell at you for picking the wrong thing. All right. So one of them is mean. It's Zach Wilson under 170.8. Passing yards. 178.5 went to it last week. One. Now he's going up against the New England Patriots. He's averaged 173 passing yards in four games against Bill Belichick. He's had a 51-yard game and a 77-yard game. I think this Patriots defense has looked really good through two weeks. So I like the under on Wilson there. And then you got Cowboys total points over Benjamin, 27 and a half. Now, I know that's a healthy number. you have watched Dak Prescott play against Jonathan Gannon defenses, have you not? Yes.

Dak Prescott's numbers against Jonathan Gannon defenses, okay, completing 78% of his passes, averaging 10 yards per attempt with 11 touchdowns and one interception in three games. The Cowboys scored at least 40 in each of those three games. Now, granted, one of them was against Eagles backups in a week 18. You still had two other examples of that. They scored 40 in all three of those games. So 27 and a half as the Cowboys total, where I feel like even if some fluky stuff is happening on special teams,

maybe they turn the ball over, I feel like they're still going to go over that number. All right, I'm letting you decide with the right to yell at you if you pick the wrong one. Which one do I go with? So a team total is not a prop. That's not a prop? No.

You can argue it's a team prop, but that's generally. I thought that's what it's under a team prop. Oh, yeah, is it under team props or under totals? Then let's just, then let's just go. We can just go Zach Wilson then. I don't dabble in the prop market as much as you do, obviously. No one does that I know of.

Team total is typically considered like a total, right? Like that's where it's listed in on Fandle, which I've also seen on team props before. There you go. So it's an easy decision. Yeah, I'm inclined to say Zach Wilson. Now, I took a long, hard look at Prescott over. completions and it's probably something that I'll have in my portfolio for Sunday. That wasn't

honestly, none of those were on a Fanduel as of this recording. I didn't see any, I was ready to go any Dak Prescott over bet, but I didn't see him on there yet. So maybe that will change by the time kickoff rolls around on Sunday. So back to the Zach Wilson well? Yeah.

Yeah. Under 178.5. I feel good about that. I mean, listen, if he goes over, I'll take that loss. I feel good about that one. I actually had another one that I liked, but I'm saving it from my long shot and doing one of your fancy alternate things that gets me plus 150. So let's go to that. All right.

So I've got under Zach Wilson. You've got over Nico Collins. All right. Long shot of the week. This is the big boy. This is the money ball. This can get you three points. You can mess up every other bet and still have a nice week with a three-pointer here.

What do you got? First parlay of the year for extra point taken. Let's get a couple, let's get a couple of bets together. Let's link them up. Wow. Parlay. Okay, yeah, we haven't had one yet. So there are two unders that by themselves, I like quite a bit this week.

That's the under 42 and a half points. You can get it at 42 now still for Panther Seahawks. Even with Bryce Young not playing and Andy Dalton playing, like, there's a little bit of like, oh, like the offense will be more competent. And I think it will be. I also think Adam Thielen is Adam Thielen. Jonathan Mingo's Jonathan Mingo. Injured guards are injured guards.

There's only so much that Dalton does for you over Bryce Young. And so I like under 42 in that game. Steelers, Raiders, I like under 43 in that game. Steelers' defense, I think, has been a threshing machine through two weeks. We know what Jimmy Groplo is against pressure. And we also know that the Matt Canada offense isn't going to score that many points, even if they have a good day against the Raiders offense, because the Matt Canada offense doesn't do that.

It doesn't score points. It doesn't pick up yardage. So I like both those unders individually. Now, both of those numbers, 42 and 43, come in under the number 44. And 44 is a key number in NFL total betting. 44 is a score of 24 to 20, right? It's like a pretty common, you know, 27 to 17. You have a lot of lines that will end on 44.

So if you get both of those totals over that number, go under 44.5 Panthers Seahawks, which is minus 166 by itself, under 45 and a half points for Steelers Raiders, minus 170 by itself, and Parlay, you get plus 154. So again, I like parlay together, the under 44.5 Panther Seahawks,

the under 45 and a half in Steelers Raiders to get the 44 on both. I mean, this guy was just warming up in weeks one and two. Now, now the season, it's like when they say the teams, the first couple of weeks are actually their preseason since they don't play in the preseason. I feel like that's you. Now you're hitting us with two unders parlay to just get over it. Our qualification at plus 154. So firstly, Luke is tracking our grouch bets, right?

When do we take an under? Right now, we've taken under three times, and we're two for three. We're 66%, right? Okay. This is a super grouch. This is, we're parlaying two unders. This is full on Grinch right here, baby, before the heart got expanded. But I, like, last week, I took Daniel Jones to swear that touchdown.

And that was, like, what, like plus 180 when I took it, which is like very negative expected value. If I can get plus 150, I should be doing that. And so for me, it was very important. If you had done that, I would have made fun of you. So for me, I had to make sure, okay, get as close to 150 as possible. That's the smart way to go. about it. Listen, I am actually doing that because you know what? I'm team content and I looked at two and one of them was plus 160 and one was plus 194. And I said, shield, to win this, you should

really just go. You got to get close to the 150. That's smarter. You don't get more points. But I said, you know what? You're committed to the pod. You want to grow the pod. Don't be a baby. Just go for it. So I'm going with your boy. Bejan, by the way, it's pronounced. I don't know if you saw that then. Bejohn Robinson, 90 plus rushing yards plus 194. By the way, if you just want to do a prop, his over under is like 66 and a half in this game. I was like, oh my, should I should probably, I should just pocket that easy one, but I said, no, go for the home run. Go for the money ball. Don't play scared. Gillesjean Robinson, as we talked about on Monday night, when Solac tried to wrote me into a running back value argument at one in the morning, and I did not take the faith there.

And you definitely sidesteped me. Has been awesome this year, averaging 6.2 yards per carry through two games, has seven runs of 10 plus yards, second to only Christian McCaffrey, who obviously played a third game last night. Falcons against the Lions, I think this is going to be a competitive game. I think the Falcons are going to need him. I don't think Arthur Smith is going to want to put this game in Desmond Ritter's hands. Lions run defense has been fine, but I would say unspectacular. Like, I'm not worried about the lions shutting down the Falcons run game and Bejan Robinson.

And of course, I've got Bejon and Fantasy. So now I'm just like all lit, like Solex trying to be the Bezhan guy on extra point taken. I'm just one up and in and I'm taking him and I'm putting on my Bejan. I don't wear jerseys anymore. Maybe if there's like a cool Bejan Robinson T-shirt, you know, one of those like old schools caricature with the big head. Like I would definitely wear one of those on an extra point taken if anyone has recommendations. I've got Bajan Robinson 90 plus Russian yards, as Solac alerted me to last week.

If he gets 90 exactly, I win the bet plus 194. The Capadeo don't play scared in this. What are we calling this, by the way? Does this have a name this competition we're doing? I think Luke named it on his opening, let's say. Oh, you did? I don't know. Actually, taking 2023 props competition,

but it's not always props. It's also bad. We have come up with the name. We need something else. The listeners, help us out. Well, you've just stumbled on, by the way, is called a ladder, all right? So you looked at Bajon 66.5. He said, that's a good bet.

Over 6.5. He's going to get there. And then you opened up the alts and you saw it, wait, like, 90 plus is 194? Like, he'd probably get there too. So what you do here is you place a unit on over 66.5. And then you place like half of a unit on 70 plus and a quarter of a unit on 80 plus and a 10th of a unit on 90 plus. And you ride the ladder.

That's the ladder. And that way, if he goes over 60. he should, but once he gets to 70, a little more. Once he gets to 80, a little bit more. And you'd be right to, because guess what? And I'm on Bejan this week. Arthur Smith has shown us if he is leading a game, he's going to run the football late.

He's also shown us if he's trailing a game late, guess what he's going to do? Run the football. Right? So we don't get outside a script for Bejohn, which is great for an overall rushing total. This Falcons Alliance game, we've said it all bottles,

keep saying it. This is a learn something game. This is about as big of a learning. some of the game as there is this week. I am not yet there on the spite of the football on the Falcons preseason take. We got Lions this week. We got Jaguars next week. If this defense can hang on enough to get this offense in range to win these games, right?

Like, I don't even need wins. But on paper, like last year, this would be like 40 points for the Lions, 40 points for the Jaguars, no question. This is a big defensive check for me for the Falcons. If they can keep these games close enough that the script does stay neutral, yeah, Falcons have the horses to run over the Lions for four quarters, run over the Jaguars for four quarters, and they can win this game similar to how they want it with the Packers, where they were never in control, but they were never too far out to get knocked off a script, and then the body blow

started to accumulate. I'm very interested. Falcons Lions at 1 o'clock. It's going to be a cool game. I mean, Spike the football, listen, I'm obviously feel terrible about my Panthers preseason prediction, but I feel good about fading you on the Falcons here. You can talk about a bobo two and oh. I like the lion.

Lions are banged up on their offensive line. That makes me nervous in this game, but I actually like the lions in this game. Golf through that picked six last week, man, the rest of that game, they're passing game, and they got the flea flicker going and Ben Johnson is scheming things up. Like that offense looked very good for most of that game last week against Seattle. If you remember, it was my game I was looking at in week two where I was interested to see what happens. And it was everything I hoped it would be, right? It's a fun game.

During the game, you know, 50 plus points total, six. plus points total in all their last meetings. And it's 37, 31. And like you said, pick six kind of decides it. The overtime touchdown, eight and Hutchinson holding, like all this nonsense. The moral of the story is the Seahawks and the Lions passing games are what we thought they were. And that's all I care about. It's just those teams are always going to be fun to watch and they're always going to be in games. They can throw the ball around the yard a little bit. I do think the Lions stunk on the Falcons. I think that's my expectation.

I won't be taking this game spread. But this is a heat check game for the Falcons for sure. You've been 2 and O. You've played within yourselves. This is your have this challenge yet. I'm curious to see what it's like. All right, let's take one more break. We'll come back. We'll do our nonsense predictions and then we will deliver our locks of the week. All right. We are back on extra point taken. We take a little break from the actual bets and predictions and we do a little nonsense prediction. So, like, what do you think? What's your nonsense prediction for week three? What do you got? The Dallas Cowboys defeated the New York Giants in week one, 40 to nothing.

In week two, the Dallas Cowboys defeated the New York Jets 30 to 10, plus 60 point differential through two weeks. They have the Arizona Cardinals in week three. I think the Dallas Cowboys become the first team in NFL history to get to a plus 100 point differential three weeks into the season. There's an NFL record for the biggest point differential after three weeks. First team NFL history to win two games 40 to nothing in the month of September. You brought this up earlier and I thought you were going to do a potential Prescott bet.

We were going to get into it then, but get into it now. This, Dak Prescott's playing outside of his mind, right? This is as good of a star as the Cowboys could have hoped for. I've seen some like, it's time to give Mike McCarthy his due content. I disagree with this. Far too early to be giving my friend. The Mike McCarthy thing is the month of January. I'm curious about the post season.

In season, I'm perfectly fine. Mike McCarthy has the best PR team in the history of the world, certainly the country. And so that's going to come earlier than you would expect. Like, I would like to hire his PR team for extra point taken. I think you could just take the show to another level. Dave, just you see articles read in sports media business journals. just like the analytics that are executed by Ben and Sheel on their podcast, extra point taken.

They spent time in the PFF office. They took a trip to, yeah. We can't do PFF. We'd have to do another, like, sumer sports or something. True media, as we always were big true media guys. True media. I love true media. That's right.

We've been in the true media offices grinding away at the data. The moral story is this. This Cardinals' defense has faced Sam Howell and Daniel Jones. And I think accordingly there's been some like, hey, and not too shabby. Dennis Gardex played some nice ball. Is it a good pass pressure? Okay, we've got some stuff here.

I think, I think this this reads to me like the sort of defense that Dak Prescott goes 32 for 34 against. Like he just does not miss a pass and the Cowboys just walk it down the field even when they're not trying to. We also have a Cardinals offense that base the commanders and the Giants, Josh Dobbs. Dobbs actually was low-key kind of shredding. It was fun to say. Josh Dobbs was out there slinging it. But I think the Cowboys are going to generate some sense. some turnovers in this game. This is not a game where you really are able to gauge the impact

of the Trayvon Diggs injury just yet. But I think that as big of an injury as that is, it's a devastating and disappointing injury. It's a really, really, really tough one. This pass for us still has the ability to win series for you, to win drives for you, to generate turnovers. I think it's going to be an uproarious game. It's a huge blowout Cowboys Cardinals. So yeah, Cowboys, just plus 100 in the differential call through three weeks. All right. So I just looked in True Media's database. I did look up for my column. You can look at all my picks against the spread on the ringer.com through two weeks, that plus 60 point differential is tied for second best among any team since 2000. How did you find that that fast? It takes me nine minutes to search anything. I have no idea

how to search for things. That's incredible that's all. I can show you. That's easy. Now, 2019 Patriots were better. And now I'm looking through week three. The 2019 Patriots were plus 89 through three weeks of the season. So the Cowboys would have to go win by 29 to tie that, win by 30. If they win by 30, they have the highest point differential of any team through three weeks of the season since at least 2000. So yeah, something to keep an eye out there. Ben says they win by 40 and they get to 100. So that would be a lot of fun. I like that one quite a bit. All right. My non-tense prediction, I'm revisiting one of my preseason predictions. I think the leaks are going to start out of Cleveland after this

game against the Titans. The Browns lose on Monday night. Deshawn Watson did not play well again. The guy is trying to have two personal foul face masks. It's not all his fault, but certainly he does not look anywhere close to the player that Browns thought they were trading for. How about this number?

Since the start of 2022, 34 quarterbacks have had at least 250 dropbacks among those 34. Deshawn Watson ranks last. last 34th in EPA per pass play. And if you're saying, all right, there's some flukiness there. It is still a relatively small sample. Twenty-nine in success rate. So it's not just the turnovers. It's not just the negative plays. He has not looked comfortable in that Kevin Stefansky offense. You thought going into this season, all right, he's had a full training camp.

They've got their stuff together. They've worked out what they want to do that Watson likes, what they want to do that Stofansky likes. And guess what? It hasn't looked good in the first two weeks of this season. So I think whether it's, hey, you know, you're hearing that Deshawn Watson, Kevin Stefansky isn't making the adjustments that Deshaun Watson wants him to make for this offense. Or you're hearing, hey, Deshawn Watson isn't comfortable in Kevin Stafansky's offense or he's not, you know, doing the things that's DeFansky was, I don't know what side it's going to come from. I think there's going to be some controversy in Cleveland maybe earlier than Brown's fans expected as they face the Tennessee Titans in week three.

There you go. I generally agree. I'm this Titan secondary. Is it too early? This Titan's secondary is banged up. I think that this is about for the Browns. Like if you had to pick a game where like Nick Chubbs injured, or we don't know what the running game is going to look like.

It's, I think the Titans are a good opponent where it's like, hey, you should just never try to run on the Titans anyway. And also, Amani Hooker is hurt and Christian Fulton is hurt. And you can throw on this team pretty successful. I took Titans plus three and a half at Open immediately after the Chub injury. Because I thought this line was going to move pretty substantially. That plus three, didn't move as much as I thought. And I think a big part of the reason why is because even if Watson's not good,

this Brown's passing offense should have an advantage against the Titans passing defense, the same way that the Chargers did. Now, we know the end of the Chargers story. Titans are covered. Titans won, right? And so Titans are able to put 30 plus on the on the on the on the on the on the charges. I don't think they can do that on Jim Schwartz's defense. And so I think this might be a good enough game for the Browns where you don't start to hear it just yet.

In fact, you might get some like without Nick Chubb, Deshaun Watson leads Browns to victory. Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever in the aggregate though. Yeah. Deshaun Watson has looked bad through two weeks and that's not going away anytime soon. It's certainly not going away with with Chub gone. Like we talked about on on Tuesday the episode. This is not an offense that's equipped for long-term success without Chub. They don't have the stable enough passing game, stable enough pass protection to get that done.

So I think long term you're going to be right. All right. I have to get to my first lock of the week. So I want to get to it before the line changes because you just mentioned it. It's actually still plus it's plus three and a half on Fanduel as of the time I'm saying this sentence. So I'm getting this picking before the line changes. I don't want to get stuck with plus three. I've got the Titans for the third week in a row plus three and a half.

Mike Rable, I don't doubt you as an underdog. you've come through the first two weeks, even if you lose here, I'll be okay. I'll say, you know what, you got me two out of three. I love taking the Titans and Mike Rable as underdogs specifically against teams that I don't really believe in and the Browns fall in that category. I mean, you mention it. Yeah, maybe there's a path to Watson having a big game here. Is he going to be able to prevent those negative plays? I mean, he commits so many negative plays that even if there are some nice plays mixed in there, it doesn't feel sustainable to me against the front, by the way, that is still very good for the Tennessee Titans.

Simmons playing awesome through the first two weeks of the season. So I think they're going to be able to get after him quite a bit. I think they're going to be able to muddy up this game. I do have concerns about the Titans offense against the Brown's defense. Like if you told me Ryan Tannenhill gets sacked like 11 times in this game and they lose by 21, that would not shock me. But you know what? We're making the picks on Friday. We don't know what's going to happen. So we got to do it with the information we have. So I've got Titans plus three and a half at Cleveland as my first lock of the week. All right, what do you got sold?

As I said, yeah, I'm on Titans plus three and a half. I don't know if I'll try to get out of it yet or not. I still kind of like it because the Rable is a small underdog. But that's a tricky one. First one for me, I love Steelers plus two and a half on the road against the Raiders this week. I think that's such a nice spot for Pittsburgh. I know that I saw it on my timeline yesterday, Rahim Palmer, other than our gambling show in East Coast Bias. Who's another one of our gambling guys here.

Everybody should, by the way, listen to those shows if you want to actually get good betting advice. Reim kills it. Reim's also big on the Steelers, which always makes you feel good when someone who's smarter than you at this likes a team. Pittsburgh's offense is bad. Raiders defense is bad.

We have a nice spot where like, okay, the Steelers' offense, definitely disappointing. Definitely worse than we thought. It wasn't the easiest start of the season for the Steelers in terms of opponents, and I think that the Raiders are a nice little pallet cleanser in that regard, right?

Brown's defense in Week 2 obviously played them extremely well and then it was San Francisco in week one. Like those are two top five defenses. Those two top three defenses and Shields preseason rankings. I think that the Steelers offense is bad. The problems are legitimate. Canada has an issue.

Things against the Raiders are just going to look a little bit rosier. And the Raiders have played, I think, a little bit better than expected, but still I don't particularly rank this defense. And then offensively, the ability to generate pressure against Jimmy Gropola, I think has always been a recipe for a couple of turnovers. Steelers have shown their, they've benefited from takeaway. but they've also been good on non-takeaway drives. They've just generally been stingy.

The fact that their land points, even on the road to me, is very surprising. They're underdog in this. And so, Steelers plus two and a half, I like quite a bit. Do you think they can break my favorite streak in sports? Let me give an update for the listeners. Steelers fans cover your ears. Steelers, 37 straight games under your boy, Matt Canada, without gaining at least 400 yards.

The other 31 teams during that span have done it. 277 times. This is the spot, Ben. That Raiders defense stings. Can the Steelers gain 400 yards in this? I was going to make this my nonsense prediction of the week that they break the street. I feel kind of mean about it, but like now I'm just obsessed with it. It's all I, when I watch the Steelers, it's all I think about.

You're just a newsman at this point. You're just providing updates. It's not on you. It's on them. I would say no because I don't think they're, I think it already had 400. You have to be in a shootout where you have to get points for four quarters. I'm not sure that's necessarily going to be the case for this game. I think it's going to be a little bit more low scoring than that.

Obviously, I'm on the under, as I said. Next week, Steelers Texans, we might get there. Okay, all right. There you go. Pocketed for next week. All right. So I'm there for that one. My second one.

I've got Steelers, by the way. I don't have it as one of my picks, but I do have them plus two and a half. I like that quite a bit in my column. All right, go ahead. My second one. And these are the two spreads this week that I like quite a bit. Like I said, it's a bit of an ugly week, but the two that I like are Steelers. And then Patriots minus two and a half.

Bill Belichick against Zach Wilson. Yeah. We have a duplicate, my friends. I got the Patriots minus two and a half. This stinks of a shield line. I get Bill Belichick against Zach Wilson. I know what to do. I don't overthink things.

I understand how the league works. We keep it simple. I think the Patriots are in a position to control this game. Now, we saw a Patriots, Jets, you know, Bill Belich. Al-Chick versus Zach Wilson game last season were the only way the Patriots won was on a Marcus Jones spot return. Marcus Jones may not be healthy for this game, right? And so it is important that the offensive improvements that the Patriots made in the offseason,

which are legitimate. Like the Patriots are 0 and 2, but have been better on offense than they were last year. Those need to show up against Robert Salah in this defense. I don't, as always, I walk in not understanding who the winner is going to be, Vonti Parker, Hunter Henry, Kendrick Boren. like who's going to be the dude that does this for us, but presumably they are going to have an easier time moving the football than Zach Wilson the other side, who you just do not think is going to in any way, shape, or form succeed against a Bill Belichick defense.

The only thing that has me a little bit worried about this is that obviously Belichick, who's always historically been so oriented on size and big bodies on defense of being able to defend the run has obviously been moving into a more modern direction, a little bit lighter boxes, a little bit lighter players in the box in recent years. maybe the Jets can dominate in the running game. Even then, I think it's a thin outcome. I like Patriots minus two and a half. Yeah, that week one game, though, against the Eagles,

I haven't seen a front not be bullied by the Eagles offensive line like that and actually kind of take it to them like the Patriots did in week one. Because I was thinking the same thing. All right, you know, what's the Jets scenario for winning this game? They run the ball. Maybe a special teams play. Their defense plays well. I don't think they're going to be able to run the ball in this game against that Patriots

front. I think they've been pretty impressive here so far. I know they gave up the big run to Moster last week, but I think they're going to have success here. So yeah, I've got the Patriots minus two and a half as well. You're right. I don't like that whenever I look at one, I say, wait a minute, that seems too easy.

I generally take the other side or stay away. And this one sort of falls into that category where I'm like, wait a minute, we've all watched Zach Wilson now for a while. We've watched Zach Wilson four times against the Patriots. are why are the Patriots only minus two and a half? I actually thought they would maybe get to three or even three and a half here. So I guess it's a, you know, it's kind of an argument for the Patriots offense being bad and the Jets defense being really good, which they might be. But to your point, Ben, the Patriots offense is fourth in offensive success rate through the first two weeks of the

season. They have no explosive element to their offense. I think they have two plays at 20 plus yard so it doesn't take that into account. I think that's the fewest in the NFL. But in terms of down to down, snap to snap, are they producing positive plays? It's actually way different than it was last year. So I'm kind of like, you like, they don't have to score 30 in this game. You know, you score 17. You score 20. The totals at 36 and a half, which is about as low as a total gets. They don't need to score 30. They need to score 13 and they'll be fine. Yeah. All right. There you go. So I've got the Patriots minus two and a half as well. So we're 0 in one on the duplicate picks. Let's see if we can get to one and one with that one. All right. What's your third one?

Oh, I just asked you. I feel like I've been going first on all of these. All right, I'll go. I've got a game you already mentioned. I already know you like this one. I don't know if it's one your fix or not. I've got the Cowboys minus 12 and a half at Arizona. I almost never would take a line this big for a road team. But I'm sorry. Maybe it's just my, uh, you know, Eagles focused brain for the ringers Philly special having watched Dak Prescott against Jonathan Gannon. I'm just like, he's going to complete 75% of his passes. They're going to move up and down the field.

And the talent disparity between the Cowboys defense and the Cardinals' offense is probably one of the biggest you will see in the NFL this year. So Cardinals 0, but 2 and 0 against the spread, Benny Souls, so far through the first two weeks of the season. I think they take the L here. I think the Cowboys win big like Ben, predicting a 40 point victory. So I just need 13.

I'm not even being greedy here. Covered by win by 13 and you get the win. Obviously, when it spreads this big, there are so many things that come into play, a special team's mishap, a deflected pass, a garbage time touchdown when you're up by two. You know, they could be up 30 to 10. And, you know, all of a sudden, the Cardinals come down and they score and they go for two. Something weird happens like Sean McVeigh did me dirty last week. So that always makes me nervous.

I like the Cowboys minus 12 and a half here is my third pick. Yeah. How does it feel to have consigned yourself to caring about the fourth quarter of the Cowboys Cardinals game? I mean, good. That's a four o'clock game, right? And there's only, I think, three four o'clock games. So I'll be able to turn my full attention to this game, even if it's a blowout and no one else is paying attention. Listen, that's why the gambling company stay in business for stuff like this.

Yeah, it is a only four or only three four o'clock games. And the three are as follows. Bears Chiefs, 12 and a half point line, Cowboys Cardinals, 12 and a half point line, Panther Seahawks, which is featuring Andy Dalton, six point line. Wow.

As the man responsible for watching all of the games in writing the Sunday column, not super stoked, Sheal, about the 4 o'clock slate, not super into it. Why do they do that? I don't understand. How is this a thing? Why are there only 3, 4 o'clock games

and 9 1 o'clock games? How does this make sense? So that you can get national eyes on Josh Dobbs. It's got to be done. Andy Dalton, man. These are the league's moneymakers. These are the bringers. You're right.

Normally when it's like this, there's like a big spotlight. It's like Chiefs Bill's or something at 4 o'clock. Like we want everyone to watch this game. Not the case this week. Very strange. All right. Go ahead. Okay.

My last one is not the Cowboys. I don't feel good about this. You don't feel good about it? You already know what I'm picking, don't you? I don't. I just love that you pick the Cowboys to win by 40. yeah, minus 12 and a half is not your pick. It's the nonsense prediction.

I understand. I understand. I'm just joking. All right. Are you picking the Bears plus 12 and a half? No. I was, hold on.

Let me guess it. Let me guess it. You're not feeling good. So let me say, all right, you're not, he's not feeling good about it. It's not going to be, no, Cardinals, no, not Bears chief. Panthers. Panthers, no. Oh, is it?

Are you taking the Broncos plus six and a half at Miami? Thought about it. It's, uh, Broncos, Broncos looking good on the advanced. metrics. Going to be honest. I thought about it. Okay. What? What? I don't know. I don't know what it Oh, oh, you're taking the chargers. You're taking the chargers in Minnesota. I don't feel good about it. There's no reason to feel good about it. Nothing about this is righteous. Nothing about this is justice on there. There's no beauty. There is nothing that is holy in this selection. Okay. The charges are a cursed and disgusting franchise

for whom no faith should be placed in whom no good and righteous man should put his heart. With that said, they are so clearly better than the Vikings. They are so obviously a better football team and they are one halfway underdogs. The remitist out of Vikings! Now, this total was like 49 and a half a week ago.

It's 53 and a half right now. Like I said, is a key number, so is 54. There are going to be a lot of points in this game. Chargers right now dead last in defensive success rate. Brian Flores, right, coming for Justin Herbert and then Kellynne Moore, it's going to be a great matchup on that side of the ball. But the Vikings do not have horses defensively.

I do not think they have the way to fluster Herbert the way that they flustered hurts. I think that you're going to see the Chargers absolutely poor points on this Vikings team. And for whatever, Godforsaken reason, I still think the Chargers have enough in them defensively to get a couple of stops in this one. The Chargers are a more talented, more successful team than this Vikings team, and they absolutely unequivocally should beat them with their season on the line. Right. Like if this were like week one and it were one and a half, I would look at it and be like,

this is so obviously a trap and they're going to lose this game. They're O and two. And Brandon Staley's pissed. Like there is a clear understanding in the Chargers room. Like they have to get a win. They have an opportunity here against the Vikings. The Chargers are going to cover one and a half. They're going to do it.

They have to do it. There's no way they're not going to do it. The Chargers are going to cover. The chargers are going to cover. The charges are going to cover. Listen, I wrote down three additional, like, as I'm going through this, and I just make a list of what are the games I like, and then I pick three for the segment. Chargers plus one and a half or one of the leftovers.

But I placed a moratorium on myself from talking about the Chargers, because I feel like they get way too much air time for a team that is 0.2 and just disappointing everybody. But I do like that side. I pick the charges. They were actually, I don't know what happened. they were minus one and a half when I wrote my column that went up Thursday morning and now it's plus one and a half.

Bosa, I guess, but that's not going to flip the line three points. So I don't know if there was just a lot of action on one side or the other. Yeah, the reason the line gets flipped is because you're not going to put up plus a half minus a half because that's just the money line, right? And so when the favorite transitions like, oh, we think the charge is going to win to oh, the Vikings are going to win, the line will jump from one and a half to one and a half in the other direction, which feels like a big jump. Okay.

But it's just because the money line represents that point half that it would otherwise move. You'll sometimes see like plus one minus one, right? You haven't really seen that from Fandall this season, which they've done that in previous years. I don't know if that's a change in their bookmaking process. Sometimes you see plus one minus one. Listen, plus one and a half did great for me last week. It kept me from getting skunked. So I can even get a Vikings one point win and I still still sneak this cover.

So I appreciate Fandle leaving the hook out there for us, leaving the point five there. But yeah, it's, it's, I don't think. The Bosa injury is it. I think that if you watch Bosa play, you would not know he was the top five pick who once had a history of being very productive. That a letter with that take. Boses, it's injuries. It's not like Bosa's like not trying or anything.

I think it's just injuries, but Bosa, I watched Nick Bosa play on Thursday night against the Giants. I was like, oh, that's right. Like, that's how Bosa's move. I forgot because I've been watching the Chargers defensive film and just Joey is just clearly like not what he was physically. Add in Khalil Mack being long in the tooth and the Chargers have so much money invested at pass rusher, all for Chenna Nowuoso to be dominating with the Seahawks. Tough luck. Yeah, Khalil Mack also not really a factor for that Chargers team either.

All right. There you go. Should we recap them? All right. So we've both got Patriots minus two and a half at the Jets. I've got Cowboys minus 12 and a half at Arizona. I've got Titans plus three and a half at Cleveland. And for my prop, I've got Zach Wilson under.

178.5 passing yards. And for my long shot, there you go, I said it correctly. I've got Bejan Robinson 90 plus rushing yards, which is plus 194. I'm going to have to hop on that, how about that long shot with you. I love that. What do you got? Long shot for me, under 44.5 Panther Seahawks and under 45 and a half Steelers Raiders, both have to hit for my long shot to hit.

My property week is Nico Collins, over 49.5 receiving yards. And my locks, paths minus two and a half that I share with Shield, fade. the double fade the consensus, its own one. Steel is plus two and a half at the Raiders, road dog and road dog, the Los Angeles Chargers.

Why am I doing this? Plus one and a half against the Vikings. There you go. Those are the picks. Thank you to Cliff Augustine for producing. Thank you to Benjamin Sola. Thanks to Eddie Ocampo for his video production. The man's waking up early

on the West Coast this Friday morning podcast. He's getting these videos. We're posting them on Ben's TikTok on my Instagram, on Ringer NFL, all social media channels. Again, Ben's got a nice ringer hat on. I would tune into the videos just to see that.

That's because Ben didn't get his hair done this morning. That's because Ben got out of bed about 30 minutes before a pod. Additional production supervision by Connor and Evans and Arjuna, Ramgapal. Next episode, Lauren Steven, Sunday night, they will recap all the action from week three. All right. Thanks to everybody for listening. have a great weekend. Let's go. Let's crush all these bets. We've got to do a better job this week than I did, at least last week.

All right. We'll talk to you next week on Extra Point two. Plus 221 Plus and present in select states. Fandall is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambling problem? Call 100 gambler or visit fandle.com slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, and Virginia. Call 100 Next Step or text next step. Next step, do 533442 in Arizona. 1-88-7-8-8-8-9-9-org slash chat in Connecticut, 1-8009 with-it in Indiana, 1-8-2-2-470-7-0 or visit KSgamblinghelp.com in Kansas,

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