 This is covering the spread here are your hosts Jim Saunas and Dr. Ed Fang What is going on everybody welcome on into covering the spread? That's right here on the fan dual podcast network and number fire.com where today We're getting you set by taking a look at big takeaways from the NBA's bubble thus far and also talking a little bit NFL With Drew Dinsick find him on Twitter at whale underscore capper Yes, whale capper back in our wheelhouse for this week into talking both NBA and NFL My name is Jim Saunas. I am a senior writer and analyst for a number fire.com joined here as always by Ed Fang you can find his work over at the power rank dot-com and find Ed on Twitter at the power rank Ed We come solemnly today I guess yeah in remembrance of the big 10 football season in the Pac-12 football season that was and was not in 2020 so how are you doing in this dark dark week? Yeah, it's been a it's been a rough week of you know check in ESPN every Five minutes. It's the which sport has dropped most recently Which which bomb has been dropped on which part of your sporting world today It's it's been an interesting week and it's really not over So the big 10 in the Pac-12 made their announcements. These are decisions that are very difficult You know, I think they could have tried but given the uncertainty in what's going on with this country I certainly don't blame them for not trying and You kind of thought that all the rest of the power five conferences was going line but they haven't and the big 12 has actually doubled down on their their plan and The ACC and the SEC have not said anything yet definitively So the drama is going to continue. We might have we might even have to talk about it next week Yeah, I mean it's gonna change You know whether it's changing schedules for for like the big 12. I think it's starting like late September now You could be scheduled changes to the SEC. It could be other Conferences pushing towards the spring It could be the big 10 announcing when they'll start in the spring like they're still a lot of moving parts here And I think that like like you said I kind of understand both sides because you know You can find ways to make this work But there are advantages to pushing it to the to the spring when you're buying yourself additional time to increase rapid testing increase I mean like the odds that there is a distributed vaccine by then are pretty low But like you never know. I mean a lot of weird things have certainly happened So I think that buying time during a pandemic is not a bad thing ever essentially Yeah, I don't think it's a bad thing either. I think they could have given it a try. I think The likelihood that they finish a season was not good with college kids I mean, I still have a little worry about the NFL as well And how that's gonna play out because it's just more of a contact sport than baseball and we've already seen baseball have issues Yeah, so, you know, we're all we're all hoping for the best. We all need at least the NFL to happen this fall There's no doubt about that Um, but you know and also the spring season, like I said, like you can get those out of conference games again Hopefully yeah, and and I think there's there's I think there's probably a little bit higher of a chance that there's a vaccine Than than what you think. I think there will be a vaccine that has been approved by then That doesn't mean everyone in college football gets it by whatever the Saturday is after the Super Bowl Uh, which is my which is kind of my Likely time for the college football season to start Um, but Yeah, a lot of things to figure out. Can you imagine like wednesday night maxion in february? Like That'd be really fun. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what they would do They obviously have a lot of things to figure out with the schedule But my favorite part of the week was bill connelly yelling on twitter about how the big 20 big 10 finally started thinking about spring football two days ago Yeah 10th It was a rumor that it's somewhat reported that was the first time that they had like discussed The possibility or like any of the details according to that like really it was wild and like I I guess like my assumption had always been that they were Discussing all these options, but yeah, I read the same report or read the same tweet that like this was the first time They were talking about the logistics of it. I'm like Wait a minute because like I tend to have to a fault. I have faith in uh people to be competent and to Talk through these things apparently that faith was misfounded when it comes to them. But hey, it's a a Uh an undefeated fall for northwestern undefeated fall for stanford too. What more can we ask for here at least, you know And michigan as well. Yeah, and arbor's feeling good. You know, we're all set Yeah, but it's interesting. It's it's like putting five teenagers in a room and telling them that they all work together You can get billions of dollars Yeah, but if you know work together, you might not get as much money Yep, so we shall see and like I said, it's still things are still moving But hopefully things the situation has improved at least a bit by by the the spring we can get Everyone in here because I personally want that data for nfl stuff too. Like I want the data on trevor lorence I want the data on justin fields Uh tray lance at north dakota state like there are a lot of dudes that I I need to see play football So hopefully they eventually work this out in a safe manner And we can talk about all that in the not so distant future as mentioned We got drew dinzik coming on today. Uh find him on twitter at whale underscore kappa We're going to talk to drew about his initial takeaways from the nba bubble What trends he has noticed, uh, which teams have Perked his interests whether it a good way or a bad way and try to get his takeaways there and all Stuck some nfl because of course we got to get uh, both these in here with whale kappa when we have him on So make sure you follow drew on twitter at whale underscore kappa and check out his podcast the deep dive podcast And we're back into our regular schedule here as always with covering the spread So as along with that make sure you are subscribed to covering the spread Wherever you get your podcast will still have of course nfl coverage here in the fall And if if they have college football, we'll certainly be talking about it too So make sure you are subscribed to covering the spread wherever you get your podcasts And if you like what you hear leave us a rating and review as well before we take a look at What drew's takeaways are from the bubble want to go back to last week talk to some pga championship with victor hovland started off Okay, didn't quite finish so hot, but uh still an interesting event for sure with the pga championship Covering the past All right last week here on covering the future I talked about some golf again And I talked about wanting victor hovland to win the pga championship at 45 to 1 and we were talking about victor hovland I said that I was certain the ball striking was going to be good The concern was would he putt well and I the reason that I was okay Going with hovland at 45 to 1 is that his small sample numbers on bentgrass weren't that bad He's been a bentgrass putting surface for the pga championship So I thought okay, I know the ball striking will be good and if he can just putt well He'll put himself in contention It was the opposite of that the putting was very good He gained 4.9 strokes putting he gained 1.1 around the green But he actually lost 1.3 on approach and 0.5 off the tee So he finished 33rd had a pretty good opening round on thursday So got me feeling okay about where victor hovland was at But for some reason the ball striking was not there and the putting was so a very strange week from victor hovland It was another guy of like a similar archetype getting the win colin moracawa another young guy great ball striker questionable short game, but uh colin moracawa seems like pretty fun guy So despite the fact my hovland bed did not pull through so happy to see uh moracawa Pull through with that one Ed I was gonna feel good with hovland if like the ball striking had worked out and the putting just didn't work It's just it's weird to have it not work out But for a totally different reason than what you were expecting Yeah, I mean randomness can kind of pop its head up anywhere. So Um, you know, especially when you're betting these like odds to win, you know, it's like So much stuff can happen. Yeah, absolutely. So we'll see if we can bounce back Later today, we're gonna talk some nascar later. It is a back on that train for what should be a fun race But before we get to that we got to talk to drew dinzik of the deep dive podcast Get his early takeaways from the nba bubble and talk some nfl as well So let's bring on drew now and get his thoughts Covering the present Let's bring drew dinzik into covering the spread as mentioned you probably know him as whale cap or as well Drew it's cool to call you by your real name here on the podcast. How you doing today? I'm doing super well. It's great to reconnect with you guys. I hope you guys have had a nice summer Everybody's happy and healthy and uh enjoying the return of sports Oh man, it's been it's been wild to have no sports But even worse to have no drew in our lives to the past couple of months So what did you do? I know you like your real job But like what did you do to fill the void when everything was on hiatus? Oh, man I was I I didn't get into ping pong. I didn't get into sims I uh, actually it worked out I had probably one of the more successful like impossibly high roi and win wind clips because I was just kind of sitting back and You know have a pretty deep social network of people who are kind of tracking down advantage information And somebody would be like hey, uh tis the law is uh, you know Five to one to win the bell mine and that's a ridiculous price because bob baffer's horses just got scratched You know and it's like okay. I'll bet that you know and like somebody big Hey, you know and the nfl draft props were huge obviously. So that was that was nice and uh caught a lot caught a little wind of some advantage stuff and uh the mba2k which was fun And uh, yeah, so it was a really successful little uh couple months And really more than anything. I just kind of used the time to reset and uh, you know Work on mental health issues and kind of reflect on uh, the journey that has gotten me here At least from a sports betting perspective and that was it was a nice break Yeah, it's always nice to have just like the because it is a lot of mental energy to always be You know sweating things always be worrying about things It's nice to have a little gap from that for sure just to let your mind breathe for a couple of months Absolutely true and realistic, you know The mba uh restart like when the scrimmages were going on I was betting those every day and uh, like it got to the point where I was like I couldn't really like I was having the anxiety and couldn't sleep at night. I was like, man I'm out of shape like there's a grind that goes along with like doing this for you know at a high level And uh, it really impacts you kind of physically and emotionally So it took me a little while to get back into the swing of things, but I'm there now and enjoying this again So uh ready to go. Well, I was gonna ask you Yeah, I was gonna ask you like if you were betting right away in the bubble But it sounds like you were betting before the bubble even officially began Yeah, the scrimmages were great. Uh, I you know I I went into this uh in a bunch of different sports like same with like golf like, you know, you think Oh, well golf's back. Cool. Maybe I'll bet it. Uh, you know, I'll take it easy You know start out here Well, we'll work our way into this and then you start doing a little reading and you're like Holy crap. Like this line is way off. They don't know this guy is sitting today, right? Or like the first the first Lakers scrimmage I caught some media that Frank Vogel was like, yeah, I'm gonna pull my guys at halftime against the Mavericks And I'm like, okay So they're probably gonna put up a second half line that reflects that and it was like Lakers minus five and a half in the second Half and I was like, okay, they clearly don't know that LeBron and ad are coming out of this game And so the next thing, you know, like day one of the scrimmages, I have like five six bets fired and I was like, okay Well, I guess we're doing this and that was that Excellent so, um You you have been uh, what what have you been since the NBA bubble started? Like what have you been your observations if you had to change your model? Or are we pretty much going with what the models that you've been telling us about? So, uh, I basically Put everything that I was working on during the regular season on the shelf I took the numbers that we had from the all-star break until the until the suspension and Basically just came up with market power numbers for You know first teams and totals And applied those for the first couple games thinking like yeah, they're not gonna You know, there's some gravity that comes along with where the market was at that time You know, obviously there are some players who aren't going to be participating Some teams need some small adjustments here or there, but I'm fine Just kind of using the market consensus and just seeing if the you know, if they make any mistakes here hanging these numbers And a couple of things were pretty apparent right out of the gate You know, they opened a lot of totals across the NBA That reflected about a five or six percent decrease in scoring either Based on presumably because they thought offensive efficiency was going to be low because it was an unfamiliar setting and there could be rust Or they thought the pace was going to be down because it was going to have a playoff type atmosphere Well either way, that's a huge chunk of the scoring, you know games We would normally see in the 20s 230s were in the two teams for that first, you know first weekend So I was firing on overs like crazy Just basically thinking like this I had kind of the opposite expectation where it was like These guys are going to want to get into some rhythm some shape You know, there's a potential paces up And there's a potential defensive Intensity is down because you know, what's the You know, what's the expectation here that these guys really are playing, you know, lots of meaningless games in the restart So it was pretty that was a pretty fruitful strategy that first week the first Friday of NBA games I think it overs went six and over and they covered by 10 points on average So it wasn't even like anywhere sweats And then they adjusted pretty quickly. I thought on Sunday Monday And so basically just sticking to kind of a basic power rating standpoint Market numbers has been very very very effective So yeah, sure Tell me a little bit more about that. I mean, you're just you're just taking what the market did all start break to the lockdown Adjusting for you know guys who are sitting And backing out what it should be in the next game great great example would be The Raptors against actually let me think with the best one. Yeah Raptors Celtics last Friday night big game Right, right. Every both teams were starting full strengths And they opened that line Celtics plus three And you go back to the ratings that we had at the at the end of the You know at the end of the reason at the end of the at the time that Play was suspended and it would have told you that game should have been a pick-up, right? And so it's like, okay. Well, like is there something this was you know, what's what's influencing this You know this big shift and you look at it's like, okay well the Raptors they beat the Lakers they beat up on a couple other teams that were undermanned and you know Like there was all this you know perception like, you know, bandwagoning going on with You know the Raptors are this hot team now and they're playing such amazing defense And they're going to stifle the Celtics who really hadn't given us a very Effective win to that point and so there was you know three points of value there on the Celtics and it was like well You got to take that and there's been quite a few examples like that and and even beyond that You know staying on top of the information cycles because it does feel like in general Especially with the if you're betting into opening numbers right now If you can be a step ahead in terms of who's going to be available and who's not Which is an entirely an information game You can find you know two three point advantages and all all over the place like Last night. I know for sure the They opened up okc today minus four against Miami and it was like man So many guys on okc were questionable, you know tons of you know specifically meaningful players You know are not going to be in this game. Miami's at full strength. This should be a pick-up or you know, Miami's small favorite So you get down on that at Miami money line was plus 144 wake up this morning And the line had flipped entirely and now they're like minus 144 So, you know those type of examples if you can be a step ahead from an information standpoint have been extremely extremely fruitful And if this is you know, this is an efficient market MBA is a tough market to beat if you can pad your you know Your winning percentage with a quarter to you know freebies because you happen to Be a step ahead information wise you can really make a big difference in you know in terms of overall performance So the two kind of the two key lessons I've gotten are the market is overreacting You know like initially that there's been massive overreactions And so kind of going to more stable numbers have been effective and then staying on top of information has been probably paramount in terms of You know staying away from bad bets and finding some advantage spots Have there been more information spots that have been overlooked since the bubble began in your eyes Like do you think that books are missing things more often right now? Well, it's taken them Six games to catch up on the fact that the Suns took a meaningful step forward You know the Suns Uh, you know when they they won their game one it was against another team that was you know not again Like I if we had done this preview two weeks ago And you'd said what do you think of the you know the bubble? I've been like who in the hell invited the Suns Right like what are they doing here? They have no chance, right? Um, and yet, uh, you know by the time you saw them play two games And particularly their second game where they were up against a full strength clippers team and they played them to the Nails and that they came away with the victory in that one and it's like okay If this team can beat the clippers and if they can play that effectively against that tough defense Like they are something they have has changed like they've taken a meaningful step forward And I think you can say this for a lot of uh, you know, you can probably you can find examples that You know that go along with this narrative all across the NBA But these are like these are professional athletes. Some of them are are relatively young a lot of the Suns are young And they've given up an enormous amount of their life and their freedom in order to be in the bubble playing this You know playing this restart and so with that, you know, you really have You know, you if you're sacrificing that, you know, you're not just here for you know For the fun of it to catch fish at disney world like you're here trying to win trying to make an impact You know trying to secure future contracts trying to you know trying to achieve status among your peers here in the league and it feels like You know the concentrated bubble environment has been phenomenally valuable to the Suns A number of their young players have taken meaningful steps steps forward Deandre Aitens defense has been out of this world Um, you know, they're getting contributions from players who you know really did not expect much from this season like campaign and camp johnson Um, mckayl bridges has taken a huge step forward and devin booker is proving to be a leader on this team when you know a year ago I would have said like a shoot, you know a shoot first You know small guard and this mba like, you know, he might be a complimentary piece on some team someday But he's clearly leading this crew. Um, and they're doing some pretty cool things and it's taken it took You know game three for the suns game four for the suns game five for the suns. They were two or three points off um, you know underdogs to the Pacers for instance, that was another classic overreaction You know tj warn has a couple of nice games the pacers beat up on a couple of teams that are you know have nothing to play for And are there for uh, you know just to to run out the season and all of a sudden the pacers are considered to be this force Suns, you know completely handled the pacers in that game as a as a plus money underdog so there's there's been a lot of You know examples like that where you can you know point to either market overreacting underreacting And really kind of capitalizing on some some soft numbers Have you have you adding a confirmation that like these suns, you know Might have been getting distracted when we weren't in the bubble and then yeah They're just in the hotel rooms if you if you Uh, the only confirmation I've got is eight in in his own words on wojpa on wojpa's podcast Basically, it was like, you know, hey, uh, you know, this experience has taught me a lot and you know credit to monnie williams Coach of the bubble for sure like getting the most out of these guys Like he is absolutely unlocked some of the potential of these players Um and and yeah again in eighton's own words, uh, you know, he's he's more focused and more committed to You know being a professional basketball player and really, you know achieving his potential Then at any point during his professional career to this point Yeah, it's really interesting. We've got a sample on these different teams now We've kind of seen them in this environment So maybe this is a time to jump back into the futures market anything that you want to Pounce on with where things stand right now from a futures perspective. Yeah, so it's wednesday We haven't tipped off any of today's games yet And there are three more days of regular season Right and then we have a plan Uh, for sure the western conference plan eight nine matchup is going to be sunday Potentially if the nine seed wins you'll have game two on monday, right? Um, something like that. I think that's how it works out. Um, the Other seven matchups aside from the one eight in the west to me look very unlikely to swing Okay, so you're almost surely gonna you you are surely gonna get milwaukee orlando and toronto brooklyn very likely going to get boston philly and um, uh, miami indiana, right? The path for the milwaukee bucks Not having to go through philadelphia at full strength only having to face one of toronto boston and philly That is a humongous advantage for them. They are priced like they are going to have a very very difficult round two test But as we saw in their one match up against the miami heat, uh, like they are Completely able to overpower them in the paint And if they in any way defend well around the perimeter, that should be a relatively short series So the milwaukee bucks have a very very straightforward path to get to the eastern conference Or to get to the eastern commons finals and then even beyond in my opinion to the finals Without really firing all their bullets without really playing many games and being relatively well rested western conference In the other hand is extremely difficult. Uh, you have a plenty of teams that are going to be able to extend series I do not think you're going to see lots of 4041 type of series outcomes here Even in the 1227 matchup, you're going to have very highly contested series But it's very very very clear There has been a huge swing In terms of path between the lakers having the easiest path by far and now the clippers having the easiest path by far Before we started playing games when you were looking at potential seedings and everything I thought to myself man, you know the lakers could draw Memphis and then You know okc or utah And then and then have to play the clippers and they'll be at full strength and had a couple of soft playoff series To get them one like that could be very very favorable for them Now it looks like they might get portland with dame lillard who is absolutely unconscious Followed by houston who can score with effortlessly effortlessly in this bubble And meanwhile the lakers are shooting very very poorly offense looks completely out of sync and it's been all vanilla We haven't seen their best stuff. That's true Um, but you know you can entirely find yourself down, you know double digit deficits in games against blakes of portland and uh And you know and houston so those are going to be very tough series for them meanwhile the clippers They draw The mavericks in round one as a two seven mavericks have absolutely no ability to defend the perimeter Very very limited ability to defend in the paint Outside of porzingus and whose porzingus offensive dynamo, but a fouling machine on defense So, uh, you know that that is a series that the clippers should be able to sleepwalk through And then they get the winner potentially of denver utah Both teams that are extremely flawed and and or have, you know, major injury limitations and questions So the clippers all of a sudden are looking at about a 90 to 95 chance to be in the western conference finals When if things had shaken up a little bit differently, it would have been a much much tougher road for them to get there Um, and so you could potentially get down on clippers at plus 175 right now I'm looking at a fandal which to me, uh is quite short I would make the clippers closer to plus 125 for given this path situation um, and You know, especially considering that at some point they'll get back A fully healthy sham it in mantra as herald. That's a huge benefit to them They will lose Morris at some point who will leave the bubble to be with the birth of his child That's worth keeping an eye on because he's kind of been an important part to their overall team chemistry since the restart But you know top to bottom This is you know, your your deepest team your most effective second unit across all of these Uh, you know contenders in the western conference and uh, I like their chances Quite a lot to be in the western conference finals And I don't mind plus 175 because worst case scenario the lakers get there after having taken some damage against the likes of the Rockets and the and the blazers Right and you're probably looking at series prices that are close to a pick them there. Maybe lakers minus 115 Uh, you know, uh plus 105 on the on the clippers something along those lines But all it takes then is clippers to get a 1-0 or 2-1 series lead there And you're going to have an enormous advantage to come back if you want to on the lakers to win that series And cover up some of the liability if you you know, if you don't feel like the clippers have match-up advantages Even though I think they they do So it's uh, it's a nice nice position to take at this point in my opinion And Assuming they get to the finals, which I think is a high likelihood You know outcome, uh, you know given their path They don't match up super well against the bucks They're kind of their Achilles heel really for the clippers is their ability to defend the rim And the bucks have you know, they have that in spades and can really make them pay a price there Meanwhile, the bucks Achilles heel defensively has been their ability to chase shooters off the three-point line And you're not you know other than poll george. You're not really You know looking in in at this clippers lineup with a special fear about their ability to fill it up from three So I think this sets up quite well for the bucks to get their first NBA title Um, I don't have a huge value on the number that's currently posted But given that they have the easiest path to the finals and that say let's say you get a bucks clippers NBA finals you're probably going to see series prices along the lines of clippers maybe minus 125 minus 115 So if you want bucks at a bigger number and have the same level of confidence that they're going to get there that I do Then it does make sense to take them for the finals right now Yeah, we've heard on the show a lot. Um, well partially by me but Bucks having a nice path to the finals, which I which I completely agree with we had another guest Adam stanko that really likes the talent level of the clippers And I've been doing some similar market analysis. It just shows the west is just such a harder path I mean, I honestly I think for both teams I mean, I'd rather the bucks path in the east than even the clippers path that you talked about Here, so, um, I think a lot of opinions are converging there. Yeah. Yeah, I know without a doubt in bucks Uh, you know, you can make a case is a Weakish case That the raptors had things figured out to a degree with how to limit yannis last year in the eastern conference finals But he's taken such a meaningful step forward It's very very tough for me to see that happening again I think you have to acknowledge some of the randomness in that. Yeah, they did an Unbelievable job getting in front of yannis But if you're really going to expect Marcus all to pull that trick off twice two years in a row Another year of advanced age Um, I just don't see it. Yeah, he's been limited from an injury standpoint even in the restart too So I don't know if you're going to be seeing 100 healthy Marcus all out there and you know, let's just say that they do play the bucks close Right, let's just say that those games do come down to last shot. All right the the Raptors do not have what they had last year, which was Kauai Leonard being able to manufacture whatever he wanted Whatever look he felt like was the biggest advantage He you know, he was playing their defense masterfully last year and they don't have that piece this year His Pascal Siakam is not that offensive producer in terms of creating his own shot And if I'm the bucks and I'm you know, and you know granted budenholzer not my coach He's not my guy Like I wouldn't uh, I wouldn't go to war with budenholzer as my my general Because I don't love his ability to adjust in series But that doesn't change the fact that from a talent standpoint They are light years better than the raptors and in an end of game situation. You can basically say, okay Kyle Lowry, Fred Van Vleet give one of them the ball We are going to defend you as close as we can at the perimeter and give you a free path to the hoop And play honest defense and not value like we dare you to finish over our length Like that is a terrible terrible terrible position to be and if that's what they decide to give you And and on the flip side, they have so many ways they could hurt you offensively Even against the tremendous defense that the raptors, you know can play That I just have a tough time seeing how the raptors pull off full four victories against this team In a playoff setting Yeah, uh, so some good takeaways from the bubble so far talking about avoiding over reactions and potentially some value On the bucks and the clip. Let's move to the nfl side now because we got you here Might as well take advantage of all your knowledge here and talk about the nfl less than a month away from the opening game of the season So what's your thought process going to the nfl? Are you going to be going at things playing things pretty straight as you did with the nba or How do you want to view things initially when the nfl kicks off? Oof man nfl is a very very Tough tough beast this year because we have absolutely no information from the preseason to inform Uh, you know progress of young player development, right? And so if you can Uh, if you can glean from what we're getting and we're getting so so so so little out of camp Like it is really really really really tough to glean useful information out of what is going on right now in training camps Injuries in camp which is usually way better. Even that's been tough It is really really really tough Which means, you know, you either have You know a very clear kind of development curve for a given player and you just stick to that curve and say, okay Well, this guy's going to make this leap forward Or you know, you entirely steer clear of teams that are going to be relying on young players And I would even go farther and say overall the offseason felt like the rich got richer in the nfl Like the you know the teams like the chiefs and the ravens not only do they retain all of their coordinators And they keep all of their, you know principle players But they added depth that you know at low kai at some of their weaknesses Which is pretty you know pretty advantageous place to be And you know that goes for the likes of the san francisco and you know the saints as well in the in the nfc And so, you know overall this idea that sort of these established Contenders and franchises are going to be sharp and have their act together Early in the season, I think is a reasonable assumption Meanwhile teams like the panthers teams like The vikings who you know are going to be lining lining up a ton of rookies Early, you know, what kind of what kind of performance are you expecting to really see out of these guys is a huge question mark You know the There are and there are a couple of there will be a couple of obvious places to take advantage of this early in the season I think You know where you can find, you know relatively intact coaching staffs and key players Going up against Teams that are leaning heavily into the youth movement. So there'll be some good advantages in that regard Raiders week one, maybe only that's one of my favorite week one plays I already locked in Because I just can't make any sense of what you're going to get out of that Those rookies that are going to be out there on defense and You know, there's there's a number of of Matchups like that that I think will manifest over the first four weeks of the season Nice So Drew last season you talked about how you essentially chucked home field from your model At some point during this season because of the data that we were seeing in the current model It turned out that road teams scored more points than home teams last year in the nfl And even though we're not going to have fans or not as many fans Depending on the stadium this year, uh, I predict that there's going to be more home field than there was last year That's not crazy What uh, what are you thinking in terms of whole field? How are you going to account for that? Well, I think it's a good bet that there's going to be more home field than there was last year Just because there was there was none. And so there's There'll be some regression back towards that I would guess Um, and for sure Uh, there's going to be a very difficult, you know, there will be unknown Challenges with travel Especially like kind of what were easy trips for teams where you maybe go saturday It's a short flight. You check into the hotel. Everybody's having a good time They're prepped. They're ready to get up sunday morning ready to go like now all of a sudden You know, you're potentially crunching that down into same-day travel Um, don't I don't like that at all. I you know, I do not love, uh, you know teams kind of Leaning into this. Oh, well, we may go, you know, same day same day travel. That's potentially problematic big time And you know, I think uh, without question, uh, you know the the Uh, the home field advantages that manifest from crowd noise were often over a little overstated. I thought Um, I didn't you know, there were there were really only a couple of stadiums in the nfl Where I think you can account for even a point worth of advantage when it comes to uh to stadium crowd noise Um, and it has to be the right team too I mean like crowd noise only helps you in so far as you have say a pass rush that can gain a half a second You know, uh, you know or or a little bit of uh, of an advantage over your offensive line who can't communicate as well Right. Like there's there's a very specific, uh, you know way that that manifests and it's not like, you know, there's not like A clear line in my mind of oh well louder the crowd the better you play Um, there may be a connection between crowd noise and defensive aggressiveness. I could buy that argument Um, and we may see defenses aren't as willing to kind of you know, play specific players aren't as willing to kind of You know put themselves on the line In terms of just the physical risks that come with playing football like i'm i'm prepared to To make adjustments based on that depending on what we see the first couple of weeks But overall I do think home field advantage Will likely still be in the two two and a halfish point range On average this season And even in the absence of uh of crowds Yeah, I think the travel components and it's still still matters a lot Especially because like when we've been looking at like the boondestliga and the epl Like the travel there is much more compact versus the nfl where you are I mean, I know that like you're not not a lot of you know cross-country trips necessarily But like it's still travel and that still does matter from like an effectiveness perspective Yeah without a doubt and just being outside of your norms and uh, you know Just your body clock changing things like that out that absolutely all matters It's also worth keeping an eye on. I think there were seven teams this year That specifically requested with their travel that they got back-to-back opposite coast road games Which was that manifest as a meaningful advantage for the road team last year And I would have just kind of attribute that to the sort of the same concept We were talking about with the bubble and sort of the concentrated like preparation like You know, hey, we're going on the road for a week here We're gonna have you know, everybody's gonna be together and you know for these You know these constantly on these very concentrated practices where you know, we're gonna get to really You know lean into development and you know assignments and roles and responsibilities and things like that Less distractions that you would have just kind of conducting yourself in your normal daily life at home And in the handful of examples we had from last season notably the saints the week before they played this The seahawks in seattle the niners did it twice The week before they played the bangles and the week before they played the saints You know those and back in the day the patriots used to do this a couple of times As well when they were going west coast back to back And I feel like you get a very very complete effort out of these teams When you get a full week of concentrated preparation And this relies of course entirely on you have a coaching staff that is doing a good job Of telling these guys what to do right like if you have a poor coaching Yeah, if you have a if you have a 30th best staff in the league and you spend a week over You know on the other side of the coast trying to teach you guys what to do But they don't that given them the right assignments that obviously doesn't help But but for sure And that'll be worth keeping an eye on because a bunch of the back to back travel is is early in the season Especially the west coast teams traveling east. So that'll be fun to watch and evaluate the the impact of that Yeah, 49ers did it like weeks one and two like right off the bat last year And it was kind of a signal that they might be an interesting team to keep track of that year Let's talk about the futures market because you alluded to teams that have a lot of continuity And you mentioned the chiefs and the ravens as teams with not only player continuity, but also coaching continuity They're the two favorites right now the chiefs plus 650 the ravens plus 700 Do you find value in those numbers or is there anyone else who stands out to you as potentially benefiting from the weird off season we've had? Yeah, the um, those are fair prices. Um, and I think you're going to be able to do better Uh, well for sure, you're going to be able to do better with the ravens in season Um, the ravens have a middle stretch of the season that is extremely difficult It is going to be late in this season before we even know that they are going to win the a ofc north Both the Steelers and the browns are legit You know, they're not like, you know, they're not super bowl winning contenders in my opinion, but they for sure have easier schedules than the ravens and You know and complete teams So they should absolutely be in the conversation So we're not going to know that the ravens win the uh, the a ofc north until quite late in the season And they actually also have kind of the easiest home stretch the last three weeks for them are You know, just very winnable games So, um, I'm going to be looking for a buy opportunity on the ravens sometime in november And I think you're going to be able to do a lot better than plus six fifth Which say plus 750 for the seven to one for them. Yep Yeah, I I'm looking for a buy price closer to say 10 to 15 to 1 when it's unclear if they're even going to win the a ofc north And I like their chances to win it all this year just based on the fact that you now have two Two playoff games under his belt for lemar jackson likelihood that you see, uh, you know another Relative stinker at least from him. I think is low I like that, uh, you know, he has another year to develop chemistry with some of his wide receiving weapons as well And you know, I like the addition of jk dobbins on the ravens. I think overall my i'm going to You know be I know this winter i'm gonna end up, you know back on the ravens bandwagon and you know, uh, in some way shape or fashion I just needed time to entry a little bit, uh a little bit better than pre season. Um And in pre and in pre season betting. I'm not looking anywhere in the afc at all Um, I think the afc is reasonably fairly priced in terms of where it will land I think an afc championship game if it's not Kc baltimore would be a shock shocking upset There's there's a relatively high likelihood that one of those two teams gets there And I can't really make a case that there's any other team in the afc that can reasonably steal the number one overall seed You're gonna need to win 13 ish games. That would be a huge surprise for a team like tennessee or indy or Or you know, or even you know, the the stealers or or browns for that matter. And so I think One of those two will get the the number one overall seed and that'll be your You know, your presumptive favorite at the time the playoffs kick off But so basically it comes down to looking in the nfc Trying to find the right entry point trying to figure out who's gonna go You know, who's who's gonna get shorter as the season goes on versus You know, who could potentially come on later in the year And i'm a little cooler on the sains likelihood of winning the nfc south this year Not just because You know, they are they are one of the teams that does benefit from crowd noise Like the superdome is a rocking environment And they you know, they take a little bit of a bite out of their home field advantage this season That's notable on top of the fact that they have a brutal stretch after their first Five six seven games that could see them be six and one seven and oh that wouldn't shock me at all But then they go absolutely to schedule hell After that and it's going to be an extreme You know like a six game stretch where I can entirely see them go three and three people start to dismiss them They may be a decent buy-in spot at that point if they have any chance of catching the bucks to win the nfc south And I so I guess I've kind of talked to myself really into The niners being the only team in the nfc that I see meaningful value on now They're in the toughest division in my opinion in the nfc west All of those divisional battles that they have will be extremely difficult Seahawks always play them tough rams always play them tough But they they did a nice job in my opinion of backfilling some of the potential losses that would contribute to a Super Bowl hangover Notably getting Trent Williams to replace the retirement of joe staley was huge You know giving you know some of their draft picks getting kin law To replace buckner was pretty nice call by them And they so they still have the strength and the depth that makes that should Help this defense perform relatively well, especially against teams that have weak offensive lines Notably the rams in the seahawks And then the Cardinals for that matter So I do tip them as the advantage across all of their divisional matchups And I like the way their schedule is set up in terms of kind of a soft start to get some of their players back and healthy And back into rhythm and kind of build into their season and clinch the number one seat in the nfc So I think the niners are only going to get shorter from here And I don't mind betting them to win the nfc at this point. And I'm going to look for opportunities to get Get down because I think realistically I don't hold the dallas cowboys as true contenders because their defense is just way way way way too poor You know they if they're winning a game it's because they scored 35 or 42 It's not because they've held your opponent to 15. So it's it's going to be All about the offense with dallas and at some point that presents problems You know come playoff time similarly filled filled off his injuries and and and some of their their thin Thin positional groups are concerning for me And the nfc north is just a Mess, I don't think there's a true contender in that division. I don't like the off season The off season they kind of had competingly poor off season so I felt like between the packers and the bears The vikings are going to war with a number of rookies that spell trouble for me on the defense So the lions could potentially steal the nfc north. I don't I don't know if i'm going to put a ton of stake into that but You know whoever emerges from that division is going to be An easy out in the playoff. So I think you're reasonably only looking at About four contenders in the nfc this year, which is I would say in order The niners the saints the bucks Nc ox All right, that is drew dinzik make sure you give him a follow on twitter at whale underscore capper Make sure you check out the podcast as well the deep dive podcast search that wherever you get your podcast true I appreciate you spending this time with us today talk to both nba and nfl as always It was a pleasure and good luck with the rest of your bubble bets as well. Hey, thanks again for having me Best of luck man. Appreciate it. Thank you covering the future Big thank you once again to drew dinzik for swinging by and breaking down the nba and talking some nfl as well and Ed I feel like this we had to be the official podcast of the milwaukee bucks at this point I know we're not alone in liking the bucks, but you were on them stanko was on them now We got we got drew on them too. So I think that although we're not in the minority This is now the official podcast of the milwaukee bucks fan club. Yeah, I think adam stanko really liked the clippers I think there was more more words of praise there, but I think That drew mentioned the same things that I was really high on about the books basically the path to the finals I mean, you can't can't emphasize that enough, right? The east is not the same conference as the west I think we're gonna see that play out um, you know like Uh, I think questioning the lakers like getting through a couple series to even get to the west western conference finals is Is not out of the question right now Even though in a lot of places they're the betting favorite to win a title Yeah, absolutely. So a fun conversation With drew as always makes you give drew a follow on twitter at whale underscore capra and check out the deep dive podcast for years Number fire's premium subscription service has provided our users with expert analysis survivor pool tools and most importantly the fantasy football draft kit all for up to 49 99 a month Now as a way of saying thank you to our community for years of support Number fire is rolling out a new premium package for just 9 99 a month That will provide you with all the sports betting and daily fantasy tools You need year-round the best part is that expert analysis those survivor tools And yes, even the draft kit are now free also includes my rankings and those of jj zak recent brand in kadula for This year's nfl season head to number fire.com and check out the new and improved site and take advantage of the new Premium package let's move into covering the future for today Ed last week was a big week in the nfl because the opt-out deadline hit and There were a lot of teams that were impacted in a in a decently major way by the opt-outs What you did is you want to look at the market change on those teams What did you see in the markets after all the opt-outs hit? Yeah, I mean I kind of want to filter through the noise There were 60 some players that decided to opt out not all of them matter You know, I don't know if we're care about the backup fullback for any of the 32 teams So let's see how the markets moved give it a couple days And uh, and what I look at is how the prices on a wind total have changed So I'm going to take the wind totals I'm going to take the prices for teams to go over and under and I'm going to back out of rating So I use fan duals numbers and just for example, you know, seattle was at nine and a half winds And about a month ago. They were plus 120 to go over nine and a half winds Well, that's gotten a little shorter. They're plus 105 now to go over nine and a half winds And so when I back out of rating for seattle I have to move it up a little bit, right? Because they have to have a higher chance to go over 9.5 to match what the markets are saying So how much did I have to bump up seattle? We'll get there in a sec Most of the teams didn't change but a couple of teams did move pretty big and not unexpectedly the biggest mover was new england Danta high tower and patrick chung two stars on the defense Decided to opt out for the season Marcus cannon Starting offensive tackle also decided to go out as well So they actually moved down an entire point in my preseason market rankings. So that's a lot That's more than they moved up when they saw him cam newton So it's been a little bit of roller coaster in terms of what the markets are thinking about the new england patriots Personally, I think this is a little bit of an overreaction They still have a ton of talent on that defense Chung's grades on pff weren't stellar last year Um, so I think they uh, I don't know. I feel like I've said that a lot overreaction on on on patriots. So other big mover when I looked at the most recent recent numbers on fan duel was the new york jets So part of this was the opt out cj mostly decided to sit the linebacker, but You can argue how much that had in effect because he barely put it last year because of an injury So the real reason for the movement with the jets is that they traded away safety jamal adams to the seahawks So he's a difference maker So when you looked at how the markets moved on the new york jets They were down about a half a point when I did my calculation for my preseason numbers So is that symmetric? You know, I talked about how the seattle markets had moved. They had moved up Did the seahawks rise a half a point? No, they rise about a quarter point. So Things might be a little bit off if you loved them all adams. You think russia wilson is the Um, the best quarterback in the league, uh, you might want to give seattle a look there It was also interesting, you know, there was a lot more teams that moved up Then moved down. So the market was uh, up highest on the vikings the bills and the bangles So they all made moves bigger than seattle I don't know if there's anything that's Probably not an opt-out situation. It's probably just the markets liking those teams So and uh, you can get the full numbers over on my site at the power rank.com If you sign up for my free email newsletter, you'll get it Almost immediately after you sign up What's wild about the bills moving and like this makes sense because like, you know, you mentioned the patriots dropping a full point The jets down half a point the bills are now minus 178 to make the playoffs which is really Really short for a team that has josh allen as its quarterback I get it. But and I know that there's an initial team this year, but like I feel like we might be getting a little bit too high on the bills. Um, Are you in a similar boat there? I've I've never like josh allen as a quarterback when I watched the kid play I was absolutely stunned that he could possibly do what he did in the nfl last year I mean like what he did wasn't even like that great. I think I know like But it's all relative to expectations. That's true. That's right Like this guy was the quarterback on like one of the least efficient teams in fbs His last year at wyoming This guy was like if you asked an average nfl fan who had better efficiency marks last year between josh allen and jared golf How many would pick josh allen a decent number, right? Probably it wasn't close So like I think that you want to try to take advantage of situations where the sentiment is divergent from reality And I think right like the bills again I get it like you said like people are down the patriots all the opt outs marcus cannon actually That's a legitimate one didn't mention dany vitally. They're starting fullback opting out go cats. Uh, but like Uh, it's I get it But minus 178 to make the playoffs is so so heavy on them Yeah, and and the more You know the more I think about how I want to do my preseason process for the nfl Thinking about win totals thinking about odds to win division so on and so forth The more it really does There's a lot of random factors that can affect the entire team But like the quarterback is probably one of the most predictable things And you know josh allen doesn't inspire a ton of confidence Later this month we'll get into another quarterback that is not also not inspiring a ton of confidence in me as well, which makes me You know potentially want to go the under on that team on the flip side, you know I really really like seattle uh under last year even though they had russell wilson Yeah, it didn't work out so well so it really You know It's kind of like a broken record to say how important the quarterback is right, but the more you can dig into that And and that's informing more What i'm thinking preseason the true takeaway here is The dolphins are plus 4 10 to make the playoffs. Let it ride baby to a time. Let's go. Let's just do that What could go wrong right ed? Let's move into my cover in the future here because we can't talk more too I'll get myself into trouble But we'll keep it in florida because there is an ascar ace down in Daytona this weekend But it's not the Daytona, you know, it's the Daytona road course. Uh, they're running that for the first time That's that's one thing and it's a none known But because of their covet 19 protocols, they're not going to have any practice either So basically what that means is the first time These drivers ever run this track in these cars is going to be under green flag conditions on sunday It's gonna get wild so that should make us want to look for a longer shot who could pull through With so much uncertainty, but I actually like one of the favorites here That's martin truex jr. Who is six to one over on fan dual sports book If you look over the past three seasons the cup series has run eight separate road course races Truex has won three of those eight and he's been in contention seven of those eight races One of the losses for truex was in sonoma in 2017 He actually won the opening stage of that race, but then uh during the caution after the stage He had electrical issues like his car caught on fire, which seems sub optimal didn't finish the race Another non win for truex was in charlotte in 2018 the first race at that track So we know he can do well on this, you know the first time at a new track in that race He was leading entering the final turn But jimmy johnson had the super aggressive move tried to pass him Wrecked himself and then took truex out too with him So truex in these eight races three wins two runner-up finishes and two races He could have won if not for issues outside of his own control Chase elliot won both the races where truex finished second So i get why elliot is a favorite for this weekend, but truex ranks just ahead of chase elliot in my model He has longer odds and He will be starting higher in the order because he will start third while chase elliot is starting seventh So i think if you want to take a swipe at a long shot matty benedetto is 31 to 1 Starting ninth good uh track history on road courses so you could go there But to me It's all about truex even at six to one in a race with plenty of uncertainty And i can't imagine the the fear of having to drive a track with literally no practice on them We're going you know 140 or whatever though we go into the corners like it seems like not fun But it will be fun at least as a viewer to see the calamity that indefinite Indoubtably will ensue in this one Yeah, I guess that's the hazards of the job Yeah, I do have to ask you though. What is your model did your model soften on ryan blaney or where's where's our guy this week? So he's nine to one, uh, which is annoying. Um, so Well, your model is a nine to one or the market was at nine to one He's a nine to one uh in the market. Uh, my model says closer to like 12, but um, I was cooking on sunday during the race And so I had the tv on in the other room And I was listening to it and I heard dale randhart jr. Say in the fence And blaney was leading. I was like he wrecked didn't he I all I heard were the words in the fence I didn't have to go to the tv. I knew that he had wrecked he wrecked because his teammate Lost control beneath him and took it took blaney out with him. That's that's the way things have gone I didn't even need to see it. I knew immediately hearing dale jr. Say in the fence that ryan blaney had wrecked So he he did win in charlotte uh back in 2018 so that race where truex got taken out blaney won that one So maybe we could still go there, but i'm taking a one week hiatus from my guy It potentially two weeks because dover's not uh a great track either. So a one week hiatus off of ryan blaney All right, sounds good And again, if I hear the words in the fence, I'm just not turning the tv off right away I want no part of it at that point that is all that we have for this week here on covering the spread Big thank you once again to drew dinzik for swinging by breaking down his takeaways in the nba's bubble and talking some NFL as well Follow him on twitter at whale underscore capper make sure you check out the deep dive podcast too Ed what is going on for you this week over at the power rank? Yeah, I mean I just updated uh the nfl preseason market rankings These are taking fandoms numbers and backing out a rating which I use essentially all season to uh for my nfl predictions So you can get that at the power rank dot com slash predictions while you're there You can check out some of the baseball predictions And most importantly, I had a guy. I think you know jim uh on the podcast His name is jj. Zacharyson. Oh, okay. I've heard I've heard of him somehow. Yeah, he's uh, he he crunches fantasy football numbers He writes about it uh extraordinary fellow And um, yeah, it was a great conversation. Um, I It was interesting because I don't I mean we talked about players on the way, but it was never a podcast where I'm like, who should I draft? Yeah, you know like who should I draft in this round? It was all about His models his thinking about stuff We also got into why he continues to do season long fantasy football when there's so much dfs and sports betting Going on uh got into some more of his favorite books. So uh really a lot of fun to talk to jj um If the the episode will be on the football analytics show, uh, it might not be up by the time, uh, But by the time you hear it is gonna it'll probably be a little bit after this pod goes up But it will be there. So subscribe and it will show up in your feed I've asked myself countless times why I still play season long So I'm looking forward to that portion of the conversation as well. It's it's a burden I that's that's what I will say there. Uh, so make sure you check out the football analytics show To check out what jj has to say and follow ed on twitter at the power rank and check out his work at the power rank.com I am at jimsonus j i m s a n n e s You can also follow the fan dual podcast network at fan dual podcast a lot of dfs podcast So we're in the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed for nba nhl mlb pga and nascar and I think there's a usc podcast coming this week too So uh, make sure you are subscribed to the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed as well to get all that goodness big Thank you to calvin theobald our video producer for on the video side of things here today Thank you cal as always and thank you to everyone for tuning in good luck with your nba your nfl Hopefully your college football bets. I don't know how that'll work out But regardless good luck to you and we'll talk to you again next week This has been covering the spread right here on the fan dual podcast network Thank you