 This is covering the spread part of the Fandall podcast network We are just eight days away from the first round of the 2024 NFL draft and Props are going up across various books right now the offerings getting more expansive We're gonna break down the NFL draft the Connor Allen of bets birds and four for four today Getting his read on the first round talking about his most recent mock draft where he's seen valued Fandall sports book And much more to get you ready for next week's opening round This is covering the spread right here on the Fandall podcast network and Fandall research My name is Jim Sonnis I am a managing editor of digital media for Fandall research Joined here as mentioned by Connor Allen check him out on Twitter at collar Connor Allen NFL you can find his work at bets birds and four for four and of course on the move the line Podcast as well Connor. It is a pleasure to have you on the show for today. How you doing? I'm great Jim. Yeah, it's awesome come on the show. You know, we've hung out I think once or twice now in real life always fun good to chat, you know Some people and meets of people you know online in real life. So that's always super fun. And then Yeah, I mean it's draft season. I think no better time and no better events about yeah selfishly I was like, oh, like cool. I get to meet Connor like in real life But also I can like ask Connor to come on covering the spread now Because like, you know, once you've met it's like I feel like it's harder to say no So like there was like they're like, oh cool I get to meet Connor but also I'm gonna be selfish and like use him for my show now, too So it actually worked both ways for me. Oh, it was perfect. Yeah, of course Yeah, it's an easy out to be like, yeah, come on the show. You know hang out for a little bit Right now now you live in the Chicago area. Are you a Bears fan? I assume Honestly, not really like I saw you still live in Colorado when I was growing up for a couple years in my during my You know formative sports year. I was years. I would say I saw that in Marius Thomas jersey behind yours. Okay Yeah, yeah And so that was like my initial fandom But now at this point like I just bet on everything that makes me money I you know, like I'm so removed like fantasy when you play in like 15 fantasy leagues, which I used to I don't anymore like you're just like rooting for players and not teams and so like I just kind of lost my fandom So I don't know. I'm excited for the city of Chicago. Chicago's a better place when their sports teams are good And so I'm very excited for the Bears this year. Um, just for the city mostly though, not for my fandom The lack of fandom is so relatable because I grew up a Jets fan. I'm like no reason to root for that anymore So like it's just whatever can win me money. I will happily root for so I am fully on board of that But if I get to watch Kayla Williams and the town I now live in I'll take that too for sure We're gonna talk to Connor about the first round of this nfl draft Where he's seen valued fandom sports book and much more in just one second But first a reminder to make sure you're subscribed to covering the spread Wherever you get your podcast tomorrow epl thoughts formula one and nascar here on the show NHL Stanley Cup playoff preview coming up on Friday as well with Tom Vecchio So get those as they are posted by making sure you're subscribed to covering the spread Wherever you get your podcast you can also find us on the fan dual youtube page and on fan dual tv Plus the nba play and tournament gives teams a chance to play their way into the post season So it only seems right now that right now new customers on fan dual can play their way into 150 bucks as well just place any five dollar bet You'll get 150 dollars in bonus bets win or 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gambling helpline ma.org or call 100 327 50 50 for 24 seven support in massachusetts or call 1877 8 hope and y or text open y in new york now connor we'll talk about this year's draft here in just one second but first i want to know about your overall process for betting the draft because there are a lot of ways to play this uh you can grind the box as much as you want you can try to listen to podcasty with shifty saying stuff like that and there are a lot of things you have to do to be on top of things here for the draft so what does your overall draft betting process look like yeah so i would say that it's probably consuming as much information from reliable sources as possible and i think when i look to make bets on the nfl draft specifically it's way it has nothing to do with what i would do personally and almost everything to do with what i think general managers will do and so it's you know very much not like oh i think you know jane daniel's the second best quarterback so i'm going to bet him number two like to me that type of analysis generally has not been fruitful in uh draft betting so that's something that i tried not to pay attention to whereas you know uh things that are like general managers view this player is this or scouts view this player is this so that's the type of stuff that i'd like to put stock into i create a big google sheet for my own make basically great notes of like what i think are viable notes throughout the process for each pick um and then i look at uh you know vagus refund is a great job of like compiling different sharp mock drafters so that like aggregates a lot of different stuff and then from there it's basically like early on in the process with betting the draft i like to take a lot of long shots and kind of embrace him with volatility because things change fast and so it's one of those things where like you know wil levis was favored to go second overall last year but if you were taking alt overs or you know finding ways to like you know basically take the extremes there you were able to get make a ton of money and same with ethyl richardson under it's a number four and see just draw number two so like i think kind of embracing some of that volatility there early in the process and then trying to hammer some like i guess you know heavy favorites late um is generally my strategy now the one thing you said that i want to dig into is you're relying on reliable people and that's difficult people who have not done this before because hard to know who is reliable and who is not um you know i'm not going to ask you to list who is not reliable but who are some of the people you put the most stock into when you're trying to discern what matters and what does not yeah i think it's important to know i guess where these people get their information from so generally adam shefter is obviously one of the best i think that he generally has good information but it's not like he's not you know the gospel like it's not a hundred percent um as we've seen in previous years he's you know gotten the mac jones thing wrong maybe they changed their minds from those there peter schrager does a good job generally he's good friends with shon mcvay and cliff kingsbury so like he generally has done a really good job with wherever they are with his final mock draft that's very important because they don't tell him like who they're picking you know two weeks out a week about they just kind of think of him hints along the way and then closer to the draft and they're a little more comfortable telling them daniel jeremiah with the jets and i think the ray ravens chargers i think he's been involved with in some some aspects whether it's being their broadcaster like knowing people on the team so like some of those are some of the connections that i think are the most important so not even like oh this guy is the most accurate mock drafter i should pay attention to everything it's like specific team fits within certain mock drafters that i think are the most useful yeah for sure and it's the same list i would have given to as far as guys i truly trust another mac jones thing happened with shefter but like his track record goes beyond just that one that one thing for sure so um knowing who to trust is definitely a key here the problem is that people know that too we're not catching anybody napping by saying hey trust shefty stuff like that and the betting markets have evolved a lot i know in 2020 it kind of boom because we're all bored of covid and stuff like that but it's changed a lot since then so what have you noticed as being different within the markets this year and how has it impacted your approach to betting the draft yeah it's really interesting because so in 2021 sports books took like an absolute bath on the draft i mean they really they got hit there was multiple stories on it i think you know david perdom talked about it talked to a different bunch of sports books they're like this is terrible so in 2022 uh sports books were very reluctant to post and you know i think that that's something that i noticed you know across the industry and was not just one specific sports book they were just very hesitant to post because again it's like a you know a lost leader for the month they're they're really struggling um but then you know things got a little crazy in last year's draft with the Texan straighting back up to pick will anderson cj straggler number two we already talked about all the craziness there will let us go and weigh over even though he was you know quote unquote a lock to go forward to the Colts um like the sports books cleaned up you know by all accounts they cleaned up last year so then this year they've been a little bit more generous there are more props out um and the menu this year is fantastic i mean we are seeing tons of overunders that were just posted at vandal there are you know great long shot markets so like for me it's kind of ebbing and flowing with with the markets essentially so you know in 2021 i thought there was a pretty big edge i mean traven walker opened like 30 to one to go number one overall um and so that was pretty wild and again probably one of the reasons the sports books didn't do well and then whereas now like we're seeing a lot of markets again so it's exciting times and for me personally it's like long shots early and then laying juice late absolutely and i think that the expansion the menu has been slow this year but now that it's here and we've got a lot of stuff out there it opens up a lot of chances to you can find some middles uh there's like you don't get this amount of discrepancy between books for any other market basically sometimes future stuff like that but like it's definitely a good time to shop around try to identify the best number because you can find given there is no consensus it's good for us as sports betters in general now connor you do your own mock drafts over at uh four from four in bet spurts and you put one up earlier on this week and in that one you had drake may going second overall since then peter schreger did drop a mock draft obviously not his last one you mentioned that's kind of the one we put the most stock in but in that one schreger did have daniel's going second overall you mentioned uh schreger's ties to some people in the commander's organization his track record very good so now at fandals sportsbook drake may is plus 220 jj mccarthy is 21 does that tempt you or does the drum beat around daniel's via schreger via shifter etc push you away from this market yeah so it's one of two things are happening right now this is either going to be like the cj stroud bryce young kind of steam towards the second half of the the draft where everyone publicly started saying hey i think it's bryce young not cj stroud who was originally the favorite and he just kind of kept steaming and steaming steaming for its daniel's now my hesitancy here is that there's a couple of pieces here so adam schrefter has been pretty public about saying that he thinks it's jade daniel's but on every if you listen to every single show he did like a world podcast tour last week where he went on like seven different uh it's like on those people question him we're like well why do you think that you know which is not a question that adam schrefter normally gets asked because because but the answer was it's not like anyone from washington has told me it's just who other people think they're picking which in my mind actually means like he doesn't really know he's just putting the pieces together and he's been pretty vocal about that and then in schreger's first mock he said like as of today i think it's jade daniel's he also again on his podcast was like i you know cliff kingsbury has not told me who they're taking and so maybe they're saying that because they can't tip the pick maybe they're saying that because they legitimately don't know i think that adam peters who was in the san francisco front office when they picked trey lands when there was a whole mac jones trey lands you know kerfluffle there i think it's one of those things that it's like i don't think anyone knows i don't think anyone's going to know until the day of so for me i had drake may going second in my mock i think that it could be him jaden or to some extent j j mcarthy by the book percentages it'd be like 45 45 10 um but like me putting drake may was more of a statement that i think that the market is wrong uh right now and not and like not quite as uh confident that it's going to be jade daniel so that's why i put drake may and there's a difference between thinking the market is being over confident and thinking that we must bet drake may like you can think that the market is over confident in jane daniels because he's a minus 300 right now if annual sports book and still not want to bet drake may at plus 220 is that where you're sitting right now where it's kind of a stay away market for you yeah totally and i think that so they just said their visits uh on wednesday was the last day all of them together uh over the for the commanders yeah that's another thing too like why they it's they have the number two pick the number one pick is caleb Williams we already know that number two pick we there's no mystery i mean we know they're picking a quarterback so they could very easily just be like have their guide for a visit do what the panthers did last year where they put stroud and levis having a you know kind of bs visit the last day where they were all together but no they had jade daniels they had drake may jade mcarthy all go play top golf together and like hang out that's what they're saying so i don't know what they're doing they're a new regime they're just figuring it out um very unique process so yeah for me it's not a must bet on drake may or jade mcarthy but like if you are itching to make a bet like you know that's where i would lean is maybe a little sprinkle on both yeah right now for me i have a daniels ticket at plus 265 to go second overall and i've been trying to get a good enough number to like i hate hedging i think it's the stupid like i don't want to like we're talking before i don't want to neuter my good bets by hedging um i've been waiting to take a number on may at a certain point but i've not gotten a good enough number to actually get me to do that and that's in large part because i am anti-hedge in general um but keeping close eyes on that that second overall pick market because i would like a chance to potentially add it but i want a more generous number on may or more reputable drafters saying may will go second overall that's kind of what i'm looking for right now right there the other interesting i was going to say there's going to be a great opportunity here too like if it's not jade daniels there these are my opinion are the best opportunities like if you if in the next few days we start hearing like hey maybe they're not locked in on jade daniels you should start betting like drake lane jade mcarthy because like these things change very fast and we'll start to hear that drum beat publicly here pretty quickly or it's going to be they're locked in on jade daniels and then it's just over like yes that's it so i think pay attention to that right now like in the next week we'll get the best information that won't add you know by far this is around the point in the mac jones year where it started to shift towards trey lands it was around a week before the draft when it really became public that they had changed their mind effectively um so this is a good time as far as keeping your nose to the ground other interesting pick in your mock draft connor was you had liatu lotu being the first defensive player picked going ahead of dalas turner right now if andal sports speaking bet on who'll be the first defensive limiter edge drafted and turners minus 110 and there been some movement against him recently in that market lotu is plus 240 as is jared verse who is plus 240 as well now if lotu does that plus 240 number tempt you at all or what's your read on this market here yeah it's kind of interesting because from the sourcing that i've done like dalas turner to the falcons like a super popular picking mock drafts i think we're talking like 85 90 percent um you know from the sourcing that i've done like it's it's not that falcons don't really view it like that like i think that they view lotu as someone who's you know as good if not better than turner jimmy lake their current defensive coordinator was actually lotu's coach before at washington as well um and lotu's a guy where there's obviously obviously some medical red flags but if he's cleared on those medical red flags which seems to be pretty universal like teams of that's kind of died off at this point in terms of like a red flag i mean he could very easily be the first defensive player taken so yeah i think that lotu here in this market is interesting whether the question is whether the falcon stay at eight because if they don't stay at eight then you know we don't know who's taking the first defender and i think that opens the door for a guy like jared verse who you know i had nine or i think it could be interesting at nine as well to the bear so like there's i think multiple doors here of what happens and i'm not sure it's my favorite market is first offensive player drafted with this but i think finding a way to fade dallas turner the falcons is probably the best way i'd go about it and one way you could do so i know uh the positional markets or the overunders were just posted if andrew's forcing but i believe that the positional number uh for him was pretty actually i don't see him up here um any more but i thought at one point that there was a dallas turner prop that was right around nine and a half so that could have been another route to potentially fading him if you're looking at lotu and verse because both these guys are pretty much dead even with turner right now preference for you between lotu and verse if you're trying to find a way to fade turner or you're looking in over under markets as the best route for fading turner yeah i think it's kind of tough so yeah definitely the over under markets on turner if you can find it but i also think that like you can play a little bit of lotu inverse regardless because if the falcons stick at eight i think that they would prefer lotu over turner if the bears stick at nine from my understanding they love romadounza so they'll pick romadounza if he's there but again as i mentioned with the falcons like i think they are a very ripe trade down spot for a team like maybe the jets the colts i don't know the saints maybe even someone that's what someone suggests another mock to trade up and get a romadounza ahead of the bears so now if that happens the bears are left with who will be the first defender and again from my understanding they really like jared verse so um you know jared verse very much also seems like the darnell right of this year's draft kind of just like on a little bit off the board mid-teens mox guy a little bit older but you know is good polished you know has some some interesting skill sets so it makes a ton of sense and from everything i've heard they like him so i think both of those two bats are pretty interesting okay so you could consider lots you reverse a plus 240 but then also keep your eyes open in case fandal does post those over unders um for dalis turner as well now we do have top 10 markets of fandal sportsbook uh there i don't believe there was a no market uh for these to be a top 10 pick uh that's up right now but we do have yes markets on those when you look at those connor any standout to you as being good values right now yeah so my favorite thing about this market actually is that you can like parlay them so you can parlay multiple of them because i guess the thing about the draft too is in why it's so much different than a regular sporting market like i think a great example is uh you know steve asik tweets out perdu minus 416 c one seed being 16 seed the game still has to be played like basketball still has to be played crazy stuff can happen in the draft like roma dunza is going top 10 you know if i want to like if i had him you know a million dollars and fandal will take a million dollars i would just put it on roma dunza going top 10 i know that you know again not financial advice but you know i think that's uh you know like i it's one of those things where it's it's whatever it is but it should be like minus you know infinity in my my mind so that being said combining like a dunza jj mcarthy um i think is interesting um so yeah like i think that that's interesting potentially and then like if you want to get a little wild you can add in like a jared burst or you know uh even fought fatanu the office of lineman i think you could go to the jets at 10 potentially over brock bowers especially if joe alt's gone so you get thrown like alt uh there as well so it's one of those things where i like to kind of just parlay them and like kind of get better odds which i know is normally fishy but in the draft i don't think it's that fishy and again they're like i think that it's it's it could be fishy in some markets uh because if one player is a top 10 pick then there are fewer spots in the top 10 for other players that's part of why i think they allow you to parlay those but like there are also some other markets so like you could go with the top three overall picks exact order where there is obviously a correlation there jade and daniel's go second overall that increases the odds that drake may goes third overall and things like that so you can be creative if you're allowed to parlay things kind of dive into that and see ways you can find those correlations to try to find things like that um to get an edge there with some potentially correlated markets now it's not just top 10 we've also got um top five markets first round pick markets anything in those markets connor you're looking at right here yeah i think i i played around with the other with the yesterday the top five parlay of like jj jaden and may i think was minus 143 when you added it together um you know i think anything less than minus 150 minus 136 at this point i think that's fantastic odds for jay jen mccarthy to go essentially just jay j mccarthy to go top five or all three quarter x to go top five because we look we're looking at it right now there's one of cardinals sitting number four and the los angeles chargers sitting in number five i think the cardinals could trade out you know we saw montios and for last year trade out trade back trade back up um i think that if they get a good enough offer from someone like the vikings giants um you know raiders broncos that they would be interested in it but to say they want to take marvin arson junior that's fine the chargers have been linked to like offensive lineman and some defenders like right i don't think that they're going to take an offensive lineman at fifth overall like they already have rachon slater on the left side of left tackle so taking joe alt like one of them would have to move over to the right side so it's a little bit messy so like i think they're heavily heavily incentivized to trade down and so i think a team could even get like a you know cheaper offer to get up to five and then potentially take again jay j mccarthy quarterback where there seems like there's three to four teams betting on it so i really like jay j mccarthy to go in the top five even if i don't personally believe that he's that good at the prospect which i mean i don't i think he's a little bit raw but again that stuff doesn't really matter i think he's going to go top five and you get that again minus 136 to parley jayden daniel's drake may and jay j mccarthy all to be uh top five picks we don't have a lot of history of four quarterbacks going within the top five but this is kind of an unprecedented draft where there are a lot of it's a pretty deep class where there are a lot of guys who are pretty legit and i think that that makes a lot of sense so i don't mind that either minus 136 for that as mentioned you have positional over unders as well a lot of other markets so conor and open up the full board to you what other markets do you like for this year's nfl draft yeah there's two over unders that i thought were interesting right now so brock bowers over 12 and a half i think it's really interesting now again i like brock bowers the player but he's coming off of an injury that we thought was season ending he came back you know at the end of the season didn't do any of the testing of the combine didn't do any of the testing at the pro day some teams don't really like that um and obviously he's connected to the jets a lot i'm not really buying the hype to the jets here i think that they're going to go with an offensive linemen or try and trade up to potentially get one of the wider receivers so if you operate under that assumption you're looking at basically just pick 11 which could be the vikings could be the cardinals could be the chargers you know trading down in that scenario um i don't think any of them are really in play for brock bowers and then it's just the broncos basically who are kind of a mess in a lot of different ways but like i don't know could they go bow nicks could they go defender could they go you know like i just don't think brock bowers that a tight end there is going to be exactly what they're looking for i think it's probably a trade downer or you know maybe a defender in this spot for the broncos so for me it's just basically fading the broncos uh in my mind so like i don't really have as much insight there but i still think it's kind of unlikely there so i think over 12 and a half is pretty interesting for bowers all right that again is over 12 and a half for brock bowers minus 114 right now at vandal sportsbook for that one i did want to ask you quickly why have you here uh we got bow nicks uh his positional number 32 and a half over is plus or 35 and a half i should say over is plus 102 under minus 136 and then michael penix is sitting at uh 33 and a half over plus 106 under his minus 140 the quarterback market is all over the place like you'll see minus 200 minus 180 somewhere in that range for over four and a half quarterbacks i got that even money so i'm kind of nervous watching these numbers on penix and nicks sitting here because if they fall past the broncos like they're tumbling baby and i don't know where they're gonna stop so i'm curious what you read is on those two guys specifically are you trying to i mean alt overs i don't think they've been posted yet are you looking for alt overs alt unders if they eventually do get posted which we can't guarantee they will right how are you handling those two guys right now yeah it's it's really tough because every year there's those like quarterbacks that get pushed up in the first round conversation last year there was headed hooker um and you know like you i mean we could say we'll love us too but i thought that he was you know still pretty squarely in the first round like top 10 conversation malik willis yeah malik willis geno smith i mean there's like all these different guys um you know every year even i think garden room issue too like there was like you know previous years like there's all these guys just keep keep getting pushed up in the first round conversation they end up never being first round picks i'm skeptical with penix i think bonix is interesting i think that a team maybe could like him just because he's such a high floor and like you know executes what's needed to happen i would be very happy in your situation having an over four and a half ticket but penix i just i just can't buy penix i mean it's like maybe it's my personal bias getting in the way this one but i tweet out a poll of like him versus hendon hooker blindfolded you know like player a versus player b i mean michael pennick says four season ending injuries he's 24 years old he like i mean he says that the very similar hype to hendon hooker was like highs and non-anonymity was good and like we're seeing teams be like oh well maybe this team could like him but the sharpest mock drafters i think are say basically saying like i'm not buying it like i'm not buying the penix around one hype so i took the over on michael pennick's and a plus money at 33 and a half i think is interesting but bonix says it scares me a little bit i'm not gonna lie i'm not chan peyton does some crazy stuff and so like i feel like him being he's minus 120 with the broncos like that could very easily happen in some way shape or form i would be again i'd be surprised it doesn't make sense in my mind but like chan peyton does some wild stuff and they need a quarterback that i think i saw like minus 165 on next to go to the broncos in part because it's like a a marker where you can hide the hold pretty effectively so you can see those numbers get outrageous but like i don't see that yet like in like again i have over four and a half so i want that to happen but i don't i can't get there it's like that one makes me super uncomfortable too yeah that's it's just really tough with these quarterbacks because like there's legitimate people saying like oh they're going to go in the first round or like they're putting them in the first round of their mock drafts but then of course like in hindsight day one goes by the thing you picked day two goes by and they're like oh okay like of course they're going to go in the fifties because they're yeah why would you pick a 24 with two bad knees and a bad shoulder you know like of course yeah it's like the most obvious hindsight moment like ever right yeah i don't know we'll see how it goes but that is connor allen makes you check him out on twitter at connor allen nfl check out the move the line podcast as well it's a lot of fun i was checking that out from i think that went up this morning i listened to it this morning but either way talking somewhere nfl draft over there check out his work at bed spurts and four for four connor appreciate the time and uh looking forward to talking to you again soon and enjoy the draft if i don't talk to you before then yeah absolutely appreciate you having me on jim all righty and again find connor on twitter at connor allen nfl i am on twitter at jim sonnis can find fan dual research on twitter at fan dual research want to thank you all for tuning in for today back tomorrow talking epl formula one and nascar and hl coming up on friday we'll talk to all of you then this has been covering the spread right here on the fan dual podcast network