 This is covering the spread part of the Fandall podcast network Week one of the NFL preseason a full slate of games coming up this weekend with games beginning on Thursday So it's time to talk some NFL preseason betting and get you set for those games by talking to Joe Ostrowski at back QL daily at 670 the score getting his read on out of the preseason games and what Betsy likes for this week My name is Jim Sonis. I am a senior writer and analyst for number fire.com joined here by my host every Wednesday Dr. Ed Feng you of course know Ed from all our time here at covering the spread and we with us every Wednesday here talking NFL College football World Cup whatever it may be Ed. It is a delight to have you back on the show for today. How you doing? I'm doing really well excited to to to be more of the college football guy on this podcast a little bit of a change from the past couple seasons not really but but And then yeah, I'm looking forward to talking some NFL day. Absolutely. We're into exactly that with Joe Ostrowski You can find him on Twitter at Joe Ostrowski Joe. I'm still adjusting to your new Twitter handle So apologies on that but at Joe Ostrowski Joe is Joe 0 670 is gone gone forever But he lives on forever in our hearts You can find Joe on Twitter at Joe Ostrowski check him out of Beck UL daily and 670 the score Joe happy NFL season. I think I can say that to you now. How you doing today? I thought I simplified things for you just by going to my actual name But I was 670 it was a long process I had to go I was going back and forth with Twitter forever and Yeah, I finally got the job done there But now you're telling me you're calling me for a loop. It's more challenging for a Jim Sonis But like I could just call you Joe Oh, like it was so easy like I know there was more to the Twitter handle But you were just Joe. Oh, and now you're you're professional. You've gone big league on us. Yes. I'm Irish as well. You can still call me Joe Oh, it's okay. You could still okay. That's reassuring to me I appreciate that for sure and we're gonna do today is talk about some NFL pre-season because Joe I'm not good at it. And so I gotta get some expertise from someone else about how to bet NFL pre-season games because It's not a it's not a strength for me. I would like to be better at it So we're gonna pick your brain about betting NFL pre-season games and talk about the week one games But I think more importantly Let's talk about this from a broad perspective We can you know try to apply this to not just week one week two and week three as well. It seems as though Betting pre-season is very much an information-based game. You know, you want to have the Intel you want to have as Much info as possible So I want to ask you when you're betting pre-season games What resources are you using to track down the information you need to not be a bad better? It is Information-based and the information in the Hall of Fame game was Josh McDonald's is going home So you just bet on Josh McDonald's right? He's at his high school stadium You've got a bet Josh McDonald's and they actually they look the Raiders look pretty good in that game It is and people say that it's information-based and I get what they're saying You should actually pay attention to the beat right if that you should always be doing a lot of that I think what you what you can actually do, which would I which is something I would suggest not doing throughout the regular season Is listening to the head coaches because they lie for a living during the regular season But the majority of the time they're actually being straight up with you on which guys are going to get playing time So you can figure out the quarterback rotations How many series a veteran quarterback if at all is going to be on the field so that that's legitimate But you can also pick up things like the the new head coach down to Miami Mike McDaniel The other day he mentioned he's like yeah, there's not much value to the preseason So what is his approach going to be but he backed that up by saying we're gonna try and figure things out with the Back end of the roster. It's not information-based like draft I feel like that's become a big buzzword because over the last year no matter what draft you're talking about If you are paying attention at all if you have a pulse if you're searching Twitter like You've been cashing some monster tickets Trayvon Walker was 30 to 1 Two weeks before the NFL draft Palo Bancaro the weekend before the NBA draft He was 22 to 1 to be the number one overall pick Yeah, during during the Stanley Cup final on big QL daily We had an NHL guest and we had a couple minutes at the end and I and I noticed in his bio I'm like, oh this guy does NHL draft stuff and the only market you could find was The number one overall pick. I'm like, oh so this is done, huh? Because it says the favorites minus 5,000 He was like, no, I'm here in Slavkovsky is gonna be the pick and he was 15 to 1 at that time And he ends up being the number one pick the MLB draft one hour before Before it started. I was hearing that Matt holiday was telling people his son's going number one overall And he was 10 to 1 an hour before the draft and he ends up being no So it's not information based like the drafts that have been quite profitable all of them But it is information that you know Hey, we can get some intel on which players are going to be out there and how much they're going to be out there For sure Joe. I mean, I feel like with the drafts. It's it's the information leads it directly to a result, right? So if you if you knew I mean a lot of people knew trail walker was gonna be the first pick a week ahead of time And I was fortunate enough to to get on on that But I just feel like with these preseason games is like you have information But then you got you got to throw on, you know The entire randomness that comes with playing a football game, right? So it's kind of I don't know I don't know if you can quantify whether it's like 50% information and 50% randomness of football But that's probably the big difference that you're talking about, right? Yeah, 100% like okay I can tell you which players are gonna be on the field, but we also have a turnover luck we talk about all the times and Short fields and totals in the low 30s and guys that are gonna be fighting for jobs and and some Quarterbacks perform well on the script I watched that with Mitchell Trubisky and his time in Chicago and apparently he's having a horrible training camp in Pittsburgh Or is that just going against one of the top defenses every single day? They did there are all sorts of variables that are thrown in the wash with that and There are different approaches by a number of head coaches so Sometimes you hear information based yes a little bit you have an idea of what's going to happen but I don't think we quite know and Trends that people refer to time and time again They will flip on the dime and I don't I'm not sure that it's lazy But it is and I know you guys want to talk about this that it is talked about More than anything and and that's the head coaches, right Jim. Yes, let's talk about that I mean, I think that you were talking about the trends being flipped I think that one example of that is you look at preseason like betting trends in the past couple years Unders were correct crashing the crazy crazy rate So everyone on Twitter is like oh man Unders always cash in the preseason, but then you look at the totals for this year and they're like two or three points lower Then they were and like you got to account for that stuff But I think the coaching part I am more receptive to that because that's an actual philosophical thing So we hear about you know about Harbaugh. We hear about Pete Carroll I think is a guy who like it's it gets labels of being someone who cares about the preseason Do you care about those numbers Joe or is that just something that books account for and we have to Navigate around that Something else that's been in the news the last couple of days and I just started to think about this with these low totals And in that Hall of Fame game It was it's in the high 20s at one point and and it goes over I believe the final possession of the game so this is this is something I mean man are some of these really low totals and There are some that have dipped a field goal three and a half and there are some that have spiked a little bit I something I find very amusing and I know nobody Plan this out, but the the coaches that get talked up. You mentioned Pete Carroll. He's one of them Mike Tomlin's another one. So Pete Carroll. He's 64 percent against the spread in his career in the preseason my Tomlin Last four pre-seasons. He's 12 and four three and one every year They're facing each other this week The Colts and the bills Frank Reich seven and four straight up seven three and one against the spread Sean McDermott Seven and oh straight up seven and oh against the spread last two pre-season's they're facing each other this week So I know this was not planned, but I find it quite amusing Everybody is going to bet on the Ravens, but you've got to pay the piper We'll talk about some value there But when you're laying north of a field goal in these totals around thirty one thirty two I'm not one that's going to sign up for that Sometimes I think there are some lazy narratives that are out there that people just don't take a few minutes to research Because another betting angle that I constantly here is well We've got ten new head coaches in the NFL this year and they want to set a winning culture So what you need to do is you need to back these new head coaches because they want to start off on the right foot They want to show some who's boss. They want to get things rolling before the season gets going for real Okay There are a few examples a Stefansky in his first year. He was three and oh in the preseason right I just referenced him. He was three and one, but in recent seasons. I started going over these younger head coaches there are many more examples of Brand-new head coaches that have been off the terrible starts Arthur Smith own three last year Dan Campbell own three last year Nick Siriani winless Mike Vrabel in his first year. He was winless Cliff Kingsbury one and three John Harbaugh was one and three in his first year McDermott was one and three before he turned things around the pre-season McDaniels nobody talked about those But I there are many more examples of Ricky had coaches that have had failings as far as the result of the game straight up In the preseason so be careful with some of the stuff that you're following Well, I remember in Sean McVeigh's first preseason everyone is outraged that he didn't want to play Jared Goff It's like oh, he was terrible during his rookie year. Don't you want to see him out there in they McVeigh's like no I don't want guys to get hurt and You see that kind of proliferating throughout the league So I don't think it's an accident that you see you've seen some younger coaches not do so well in the preseason Because they're probably just trying to rest. They're good players. So we're fading these narratives Or not maybe not actually fading but not seeking them out Are there things you do buy into Joe in terms of things you look at in terms of when from a broader perspective with preseason games Yeah, absolutely and and the spreads that are north of a field goal They make a lot of sense to me and you're gonna have to lay a price if you want to bet on John Harbaugh Winning his 21st consecutive preseason game. They have not lost since 2015 But is he gonna cover like there have been a couple instances over that that stretch where they have not covered the spread So I understand why it's more the chargers north of a field goal. Okay. We've got these Stafford issues that are lingering One minute McVeigh saying this is abnormal. We're trying all sorts of stuff a staffer. Oh, it's fine. We're good We're good to go Also Vegas look good in that first game and then you look at the backup situation in Minnesota That's not all that appealing so Vegas is north of a field goal those grab my eye But I'm not gonna lay more than a field goal with these short totals the ones that did Grab my attention. Let's see. We've got the chiefs is three and a half point underdogs at the Chicago Bears now Chicago Bears Even flu says he's playing his guys. He says Justin Fields is gonna be out there. Okay, great Here's the problem One's on the Bears are threes on other teams, you know, I mean like that's what you have to pay attention to We might get a Nathan Peterman signing So, I mean we've seen Henny forced into forced into action in the past and he's been just fine One of those narratives. Are we not getting touchdown Trevor? Is it back up here? What happened? I just skipped your guy with the wow. How do we can do that? We can it's fine. It's a whole coming He's back whatever. Yeah, he better get some time because hopefully it's his only time on the field Wow, I mean, I agree that part. I won't watch the field but yeah, I'm just I'm just saying Yes, I know You with the Northwestern. It's fair. It's fair Real quick with the Bears like the idea is that fields is gonna play because he needs the reps and the homes isn't or is only getting Whatever the coaches whatever Andy Reed saying That why it's minus three and a half. Yeah. Yeah, what the perception is that Andy Reed doesn't care about the preseason heat Like I don't know that it's quite McVay, but that that's I guess I mean, I wouldn't set it at three and a half the Bears But I guess that's what it is that Eberfluss is out there saying we're gonna play our guys Okay, we got Roquan Smith demanding a trade this morning, too Like he's probably the best player on the team I don't know that they're setting the best culture right now. So, yeah, I I would back the chiefs in that one Another an angle that I am looking at if we're not if we don't want to go too crazy with the head coaches is Like we're kind of referencing now You certainly want to look at these quarterback depth charts like with Denver as As a two and a half point favorite against Dallas Well, how much is Russell Wilson gonna be playing and I look at that one of those like Cincinnati too with Joe borough Like if borough goes down just just the drop-off. I mean, it's minimum a touchdown What once you go to QB to and QB three the guys that are gonna get the majority of run So Cincinnati is favored by two and a half against Arizona as we're gonna Arizona as a dog Dallas as a dog at Denver, they're getting two and a half in Kansas City But again, I can't lay a big number here As far as these quarterback situations Lamar's not gonna play for Baltimore But you're not that concerned if Huntley is gonna get some run or Huntley Don't get don't get too confused because we know with Baltimore You're you're probably gonna be just fine and they have depth and that's the biggest reason that they've been so successful Over the years in the preseason, but yeah, Cincinnati Denver, Tennessee Woodside and I guess Malik Willis is gonna get some run. I think they're set up for a poor season I don't know how much they're gonna end up playing Tannehill Not a guy. I'm looking to back and if the Rams are starting with Wolford. Oh boy I I understand why they're three and a half point dogs right now With the head coach, it doesn't seem to care about the preseason in McVeigh Very interesting So actually I do want to ask you Joe Before we get on the preseason. What was your outlook on your Bears for the season bad? That was that was not a beat miss real bad Yeah, we just had a and I think you would you'd get this response if you talk to any of the traders at the legal life sports books, it's It's funny if you if you look at some of the reports and now I don't go too far with this Because it is different at every sports book But every book that I see that that puts the action out there on wind totals the most popular bets Typically, we all know that it's going to be unoversed people are looking at Predictions and they're gonna look at things in the positive sense that team is going to be good this year They're gonna they're gonna beat things like the Lions are very popular And once everybody starts watching hard knocks and Dan Campbell's against the spread record last year It's probably only going to continue But the most popular wind total bet that I keep hearing is bears under Six and a half with a very soft schedule and the trader we were talking to the other days. He said not only are people just Piling on the bears under which makes all the sense in the world to me typically I would be like, okay What are we missing here? What are they missing because a lot of times that steam is is directed in the wrong way I've lived it before with bears hype. We saw it with Browns a few years ago But not only are they betting bears under wind totals. They're finding other ways to bet against the bears They're betting under two and a half division wins They're betting number one overall pick belonging to the bears worst NFL record Fourth place they will definitely finish in the NFC north people are getting creative with it And I'm trying to find a way to go against that But I just don't see it on this team if you just look at the offensive line and the wide receivers or average NFL fan is gonna say Who are these people and how did they get a vacation from the gas station? They were working out to take time out to work to play for the Chicago Bears It's it's going to be rough. The one thing I would say in the positive sense I mentioned the soft schedule is if you go down the list They are playing a lot of poor quarterbacks The problem is a lot of these teams are are going to be salivating when it comes to to play in the Bears They're looking to to bottom out with the new head coach and the GM And it certainly seems like they're gonna be able to accomplish that this season. Oh So Joe actually remember the other thing I wanted to ask you about preseason games So like take Baltimore for example like are you digging in because Like the third or the fourth stringer is probably finishing that game, right? So how much do you? Does your analysis stretch that far? Yeah, I I would prefer to bet on first halves and First quarters in the preseason as opposed to the full games I I see a lot of the analysis that I see out there is people reference What's gonna happen early on it and that is certainly fair But then what your bet is just it's a complete coin toss as far as how it's going to be Decided later on in the second half. So I would tell people to just click click on the game and and take a look at the Differences that we have there the first quarter in the first half One of the question I wanted to ask you about is those totals we talked about how low they are For this year as a reaction to the trends we discussed, you know with pre-seasons Pre-season pre-season undershitting we've seen totals react and come down Do you think they've come down too much or are they pretty much about where they should be? What are your thoughts on the totals given how low they are for this year? Yeah, the So we've seen the Rams and the Commanders go up by a full field goal as I checked that one was was up to 37 Seahawks and Steelers that that was an interesting move and but my thought on that one is it actually made a little bit of sense moving up two and a half points of 36 at last check because While the QB won we're not talking about top 10 12 quarterbacks here There's actually some depth in both spots and Seattle's trying to figure things out Early on Gino Smith was getting run with the ones. I know on friday drew lock was getting some run We may laugh at those situations, but Later in games they're those are better quarterbacks than what we're used to In the second half same thing with Pittsburgh. We think we think right now They have picket as their QB 3 which means that the rookie is probably going to be finishing up that game Which would make a lot of sense. So that one actually I understand why why it was bumped up a little bit there up to 36 Arizona Cincinnati the move down That's that seems like a burrow reaction that oh, yeah He's he's nowhere close and I believe that that's one of the lowest totals of the week And same thing with the rams and the chargers that one moved down. I believe three and a half points And uh, that's a Stafford situation. So it it's just like during the regular season It seems to be a reaction to quarterback situations Trace mix solely not getting respect from the betting public. Yeah, I what how rude Well, something that's been in the news the last couple of days that I just started to consider is Are we going to see a legal contact? Yeah, I'm thinking about that for week one. Yeah, and I'm not sure what Yeah, I Do you recall like in past years when they had that spike in holding calls and they had the spike in like Defensive, uh, you know Passive appearance and stuff like that did that occur during the preseason too because I don't remember I know it happened early on the regular season, but I can't recall preseason. Yeah, I don't know about that But I would think that they're going to be prepared to call that or some of those costs It's going to be on their minds So they're going to end up calling it a lot more and we did see those spikes in one of those years when it was a point of emphasis It three x'd from the previous season And I wonder just the NFL's thought process on this I think it was a way to increase the scoring because as we talk about it being a quarterbacks league Most people don't know that scoring across the league dipped per game by two full Almost two full points. I think it was 1.8 to be exact Last year and in the covid season it went up two full points So I believe that set a record as well So they they clearly want to get back back to that level as uh, there are some old school people out there Will complain that every rule is against the defense and they're they're right I mean like I personally It's better than them calling offensive holding because that was the worst Like nothing was worse than the spike in offensive holding calls. It was miserable like second and 20 I want no business with that. So as long as it's not bad, I don't care like, you know, I'll react to it But I don't care. I'm not going to get mad about it or anything as long as it's not offensive holding I will be okay. That is Joe Ostrowski checking out on twitter again It's simple at Joe Ostrowski. Check him out at betql daily and 670 the score as well Joe, we appreciate the time. Good luck to you and week one of the preseason Good luck to you with the only parts the nfl season two and we'll talk to you again soon. Hopefully Thank you guys same to you jim. Uh, love to see the five days a week They're they're working your heart over there. They certainly are but it's uh, it's a fun time to talk We appreciate it Joe. We'll talk to you later So that's again, Joe Ostrowski. You can find him I put a link to the betql daily podcast version in these show notes up on number fire dot com As well. So feel free to check that out wherever you get your podcast to find Joe Joe and Aaron to get all their thoughts there and then I like I wish I could bet preseason because it seems like it's kind of fun to get that sweat And just so tough when I'm like Joe was talking about we're doing five days a week If I'm focused on baseball focused on golf nasty or stuff like that It's hard to find time to get the information. So for me. I think that's my My biggest row block is finding time to get the necessary information to be good Because I don't want to bet if I'm gonna eat that like I don't I'm not trying to lose money here Of course, I have some mixed feelings about it too when I was in Las Vegas last week Chris angers of the the sportsbook director at south point was like I hate the NFL preseason Week one come as fast as as you possibly can right so that will certainly suggest that there there's value on these games But on the other hand like august is kind of my busiest month in terms of work and getting everything ready for the site and working on the podcast And everything like that I think it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of what you can get obsessed about right Is definitely information is part of the game and I over the last few years I mean, I I found that I really like that aspect of betting in terms of NFL draft Yeah, because you've been gone pretty hard at the draft both the last few years I mean, it's fun. I mean at first it was just like, all right This is a good way to keep up with what's going on during that time of year And now it's kind of like, oh, this is this is pretty fun And to the point where like I'm I'm just sick to myself that I decided not to bet the NBA draft Yeah, this year because I was on vacation and like the whole you know, like Whenever there's question on that or whenever there's question about a pick just Take take the long odds on on whoever like is in contention, which would have worked out so wonderfully for banchero and Like the entire narrative that that he's like a low ceiling player that was coming out the week before the draft just Was so mind the mind that numbingly dumb, right? Like you could have really taken advantage of that So anyways, yeah, I mean I think You know, you got you got to bet what you are passionate about You know getting the information for and you know, I mean for some people that might you know If you're if if you're listening to this and and you don't bet baseball or golf exactly and you really need something and and and august is a little slow otherwise and You want to get away from your family on the beach vacation a little bit then and it felt preseason sounds great Just doesn't kind of work with my life as well and it sounds like it's the same for you Oh, I think goes back to what you said, you know You talked about chris andrew's not liking preseason and that's the same justification you used for betting the draft was because you knew That bookmakers were miserable and that's an indicator to us that we can have an edge Yeah So like if you like I said like you said ed are not betting baseball are not doing these other things you got time Do it like go for it like there's there's money to be had if they are not having a good time with it That means you probably can so i'm glad we have joe on today because joe is very plugged into this stuff He knows what he's doing. He understands he's been doing this for a very long time So he knows What's bull and what's not I think that's why it's fun to talk to guys like joe to get their perspective and kind of pick his brain on things like that but Appreciate joe as always and looking forward to having him on once again in the future ed You've been hard at work over at the power rank getting ready I think we're gonna have some college football talking the show next week. It sounds like we're on track for that, right? Absolutely. I've spent a bunch of my week getting all my college football stuff together and It's only tuesday and i'm i guess i'm happy to report the things are going well And uh that side of things definitely a bunch of that will appear in seven no get saturday So check out my newsletter at thepowerrank.com and then also working on uh starting a patreon for the football analytics show my podcast So that's something i've been working on this week as well Yeah, so if you never checked out the football analytics show i put a lot of work into it I'm proud of what it's become so uh go check that out the most recent episode as of right now Was jj. Zachary sin uh someone you guys have all heard of. Oh, yeah Expert in terms of nfl player projections and fantasy football So yeah between those two things it's been a busy week Yeah, and the patreon is not up yet But when it is up where can people find details on that will it just be on the power rank Will it be a link to the patreon there or on your twitter? What do you recommend as far as people who may be interested in the patreon? Where can they go once it is available? Yeah, for sure. I mean if you've never listened to my podcast, I don't really think that you're gonna be Too interested in supporting me quite yet, but hopefully you'll come on and listen to a couple episodes Um, basically it's gonna go down this weekend on sunday I'm gonna open up round sunday at noon eastern and the idea is To to give the first 20 people who sign up a special bonus. Um, so Yeah catching episode i'll talk about that on the episode. Uh, well, I mean i'm talking about it now Yeah, so it'll launch on sunday Perfect and uh, yeah, we'll go from there. See how it goes fantastic We'll check out the podcast and get a sneak peek at it by searching for the football analytics show Wherever you get your podcast you can find add on twitter at the power rank and at the power rank.com as well I'm on twitter at shim sonnis j i m s a n n e s We are back once again tomorrow breaking down mlb for the thursday slates If you want to hear some money lines some strikeout props and potentially some home run talk as well Just uh, subscribe to you covering this spread wherever you get your podcast and check out the fandal youtube page Where all these podcasts are going up daily if you want to see it in video version as well big Thank you once again to joe ostrowski for breaking down nfl week one preseason. It's always a light talk to him It's always a light talk to all of you. Good luck with your preseason best Good luck with your baseball best for today too. We'll talk to you once again tomorrow This has been covering the spread right here on the fan dual podcast network