 This is covering the spread part of the Fandall podcast network At long last the 2023 NFL season gets underway tonight with the chiefs and the Lions Which means that Sunday Sundays just around the corner We're here to break down the biggest games on the Sunday slay talking to you about our favorite bets over at Fandall Sports look by talking to Dr. Ed Feng of the power rank getting his read on the biggest games this week and his favorite bets over at Fandall. This is covering the spread right here on the Fandall podcast network and on Fandall research My name is Jim Sonnis I am a managing editor of digital media for Fandall research joined here as mentioned by Dr. Ed Feng You can find his work at the power rank comm and check him out on Twitter at the power rank Ed is back with us every Thursday for this year along with his typical Wednesday spot for college football and Ed the NFL is back How you doing today? I'm doing great really looking forward to some football tonight to see if Offensive coordinator Ben Johnson can keep that hype train going like he has all off season and Yeah, we'll see what Kansas City does Last I checked that we didn't have any news whether Kelsey was gonna be able to play So is that is that still up in the air? Yeah, he's up in the air right now It's the shifter was on I think the Pat McPhee show and he said that he wants to play and we'll try to play so Will he be a hundred percent Travis Kelsey at that point? I would guess not because they a knee Issue with a bone bruise does not sound super fun So probably not a hundred percent, but it does sound like maybe gives it a go and like I feel like Kind of need him out there Just feel like from a fun perspective because we get the chiefs without Christian with that Travis Kelsey It doesn't kind of diminish the hype a bit around what is a really really fun game Yeah, for sure, it'll be it'll be interesting. I think I think it's a pretty good game. I think I saw some tweets kind of Lamenting the fact that it was Detroit in this game. I think it's good that it's Detroit I mean in the season with a lot of hype. Let's see. Let's see how it works out. I think the Lions are a blast I'm excited to see what they can do this year. They were a very profitable team for me last year I have nothing on this game, which feels great So I can just sit back and enjoy see how it goes If you do want some action on this game check out Tom Vecchio's preview prime time Tom our first episode of that Went up last night breaking down Tom's favorite props for the Lions and the cheese find that right here I'll be covering the spread podcast feed along with every other Thursday as well That'll also be up on Vanduul TV plus you can find that by going to Amazon fire Apple TV Aroku or just go to fanduul.com slash watch to check that out covering the spread is also on the Fanduul YouTube page if you want to view a video version of the show We're gonna dive on in to this week one slate here in just one second But first the NFL is back in the best place to celebrate is on Fanduul because right now all customers Get a no sweat bed for week one just place a bet on any week one NFL game You'll get bonus bets back if you don't win bet on spreads player props over unders and more So visit the Fanduul sportsbook app and kick off the NFL season with America's number one sportsbook Must be 21 plus and president select states refund issued is not with trouble bonus bets that expire seven days after a seat Max refund $5 unless otherwise specified Restricted applies the terms at sportsbook. 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Now Ed we've had you on talk culture ball already so far this year we are familiar with your model there and we were talking about that you said that your preseason college football model takes wind totals and Factors that in with strength the schedule and stuff like that to derive a market-based power ranking before the year Is that the same logic you use on the NFL side of things or how do things work from an NFL perspective before the year begins? Yeah, it is I do the market rankings for the NFL as well a Rank in a rating for every single team and you know, that's what I've had up for most of the off season I mean we get those wind totals pretty early and so I first started doing it in July and it gives you a sense for what the market thinks of these teams and You know, I think I took the last one like Monday and did those rankings you see a lot of kind of late movement But Recently, I've actually added a wisdom of crowds model and this comes from kind of the first insight was when you know Nate Silver talked about how he was using the preseason AP poll in his college basketball NCAA tournament Predictions and I thought that was pretty interesting and there was a lot of interesting analytics to back that up So after I read that I was like, yeah, well, we should do the same thing for the NFL and so I take 20 subjective power rankings and 20 seems to be a good number a good balance between ones that I kind of trust and I try to strive for big media outlets where there's kind of some meat to the article You know some kind of evidence that someone is paying this man to have his opinion out there This he heard they actually put some effort into coming up with these rankings I try to avoid smaller sites that just put out a list because that seems kind of easy to do usually end up with about 20 and And then I map Every subjective ranking onto a ranking by just looking at a kind of on average Based on my team rankings of 10 years. How you know, how good is the first team? How good is the second team so on and so forth on average so actually cleaned up some of the data this offseason and Found that it was so it's not quite as accurate as by my My full model, but for the first six weeks is actually very good at us It's 55% when the prediction differs from the closing line by by more than the point and I found that to be quite shocking and quite well quite pleasantly shocking I think what it's saying is that you know the market moves on teams and But you probably shouldn't move too much at least not in those first five games because it doesn't seem like that's necessarily enough of Watching these teams to really make opinion you have all kinds of issues with small sample size You have a league like the NFL where regression is a very strong thing When you look at the preseason rankings that ATS accuracy definitely goes down in the second and third parts of the season But overall it's it's it's 52 and a half percent. So and you know a lot of that's obviously in the first for six weeks, right? So I blend that in as well It turns out that when you look at the market aspect of the rankings, that's not as good ATS I think it's actually more accurate when you look at some error metrics, but it's not as good ATS, right? and I have some I have some ideas of why that's true, but There yeah, I think you can make a strong case that you should be looking at these You know kind of strange Not really numbers based metrics, but they're pretty powerful in the early part of the NFL But you've been using wisdom of the crowds type Logic for a long time and it applies to a bunch of different aspects to your to your To your projection building process and stuff like that. So you know the power of That kind of thinking so I think it makes sense that they'd apply to NFL You said to kind of find a creative way to do so given there is no AP poll for the NFL. I Actually technically think there is an AP poll for That's actually not what I use. I just kind of pull the the the 1 through 32 rankings myself and I go from there. Cool. I love it. Well, that's fun I love more wisdom of the crowds talk on the show as always and we'll see how things do early on this year Let's get talking about some games here on Sunday. Let's start things off for the game I think it's pretty fun that is the Bengals and the Browns where right now We've got the Bengals as to an ad point here It's that Fandals sportsbook total in this game has inflated to 40 and a half So it's moving towards the over in this one now. I think looking back to last year I would say to Sean Watson was awful honestly in the short time he had but he was playing in a lot of heavy-wind games It was the first time he had played in a very long time So I'm curious for you Ed when you look at a situation like Watson where it's a guy who in the past has had very high Levels of efficiency, but the most recent sample on him is wretched How do you handle a guy like that when trying to model out expectations for his team? I let the wisdom of crowds do it when I look at some of the models that I have when Based on market wind totals Cleveland is 13th Wisdom of crowds that I just told you about their 15th So they're a little bit better than NFL average and I I think the defense is going to be better than NFL average It's one of the few defenses that I that I do have some faith in That means the offense is going to be slightly below NFL average. That's kind of the mean expectation right now Can Cleveland be a lot better than that? Yeah, of course, I think they can but right now I think you know your safe projection is that the team is roughly average and and let's go from there. So I Think it's tough, you know, like I mean if you're gonna make this projection I mean, what do you do? I mean, it's hard to make a numerical Metrics-based look at this, right? Especially because he hasn't played that long You don't really have comparable players that have had that kind of break in the prime of their career So I think that's really tough you know, I mean, I Would definitely trust people who watch the tape in the preseason, but you know, we're gonna get a lot of data pretty soon And so I think it's a tough one I think it's a tough one. Clearly it's a tough one to do based on the data and I think it's even tough Even if you're not, you know, even if you're watching tape. Yeah, I don't know if there's really a Perfect way to do this me personally It is kind of a blend of what we saw last year not just from Watson But also from Jacobi Berset in this offense because I trust Kevin Sifansky He does some things that I don't agree with from a play calling perspective But like I think his overall thesis of running an offense is Largely pretty good good play designer and stuff like that So like putting trust in him and when I do that I actually do wind up liking the Browns a decent amount Now not maybe not specifically in this game But like my wind total project for them is pretty high In large part due to just kind of trusting Sifansky now that could wind up going poorly Which is why I'm okay not being super in on this game for week one, but I don't know It's tough for me to not Have some sort of hope like if Sifansky can have an efficient offense, which could be reset and break Baker Mayfield I feel like I kind of want to lean toward at least giving him the benefit of the doubt here Yeah, I mean, I think that makes sense. I mean, I I I mean I Probably lean towards more than I think the Sean Watson can be At least significantly above NFL not significant. I think he'd be above NFL average Yeah At one point he was one of the top two quarterbacks in the league When he was playing so I Think you can be better than NFL average. So yeah, I mean there's certainly more of a ceiling there And that ceiling obviously translates for the long run of the season, but they're facing a team That also has a very high ceiling in the Bengals. So when you look at this game specifically Ed What does your model say here? Right. So my model actually has Cincinnati by more than three and a half points in this game Joe Borough had the thigh issue or some kind of leg leg or knee issue doesn't seem to be a problem anymore He's ready to go. They have those high-powered receivers and the reason I actually really Like the reason that I bet this game is because Denzel war the cornerback for Cleveland Has a concussion he's questionable for this game I think with just the way concussions are these days They're going to be extra cautious and just actually a note overall like I feel like we're in mid-season and NFL injury list It's kind of crazy, you know with the Kelsey injury and I was looking at it today And there's all kinds of high-profile players that are on the injury list. It's like guys We've only been practicing like what what is going on like why are we in mid-season injury form, right? You know, you would expect injuries and absence is not I mean absences can play a big deal Obviously of a player like Chris Jones is in sign, but we shouldn't be having this many injuries when a lot of these players Are just practicing over the past month So maybe it's just a sign for what's going on in these camps and and they're you know, they're really using that to figure it ready Yeah, I like Cincinnati minus two and a half in this game And and mostly my numbers like it and the ward situation definitely pushes me over the top Yeah, it's not ideal but not have your top corners against tomorrow chase and T Higgins exactly, you know Yeah, it's like the worst possible game to not have your top corner the minus two and a half on the Bengals is Minus one ten right now vandal sportsbook for their game against the Cleveland Brown second game We're gonna discuss for today is the 49ers at the Steelers were right now We've got the 49ers as two and a half point favorites in at this game in the total right now Vandal sportsbook is 41 and a half now similar to the Watson discussion. We don't have a lot of data on Brock party. He was very efficient in a small sample last year, but he's also a seventh round pick and Most seventh round picks do not play much less play well So are you kind of taking the same approach with Purdy and the 49ers where you want to let wisdom of the crowds answer? expectations for them entering this year Right, I mean, I think with party, you know, Edwardie Gross was on my Podcasts and he he is down on the Niners for exactly what you said we have a pretty small sample size on Brock Purdy He's not necessarily buying it. I went through a pretty deep look for the Niners and I Don't know I decided between the small sample size. Yes, that's certainly a concern and that he might Not be as good, but I think with all the weapons that they have With the equality of their defense With with the past rush tools that they have I'm not ready to fade the Niners yet So in this game, you know, I have San Francisco by 2.2 points by my preseason model I trust a lot really not seen any value here a Team that while I will watch to see what's going on with Purdy. I feel like he almost I Don't really expect him to be as good as he was in seven games last year The only person when so this offseason I started not doing Passing success rate not by team but by quarterback and when I did that the only person that had a better adjusted success rate Then Brock Purdy was Patrick Mahomes. I don't think we're gonna see that same level of efficiency I think that's just that's just too tall in order to ask for any quarterback really that's that's not Patrick Mahomes But is he still gonna be good and are the Niners still gonna be good? Probably so I'm not ready to fade them. I didn't fade them in the wind totals And you know, I think this this line is pretty efficient Yeah, two and a half again the number right now for the Steelers and 49ers Steelers have been a pretty trendy sleeper pick for a lot of people and I'm not sure they can count as a sleeper if everyone has them as their sleeper for the year But I think they're a respectable team entering 2023 given they've got TJ one make if it's Patrick healthy So I think that it's a lot of things that add up to this game winding up being a bit of a stay away But Steelers plus 112 at home in the situation and like I do want to you know I got a bone to pick with Edward because I feel like we had him on our show Way back in the day and and I'm pretty sure we talked about Brock Purdy for Heisman This would have been like after his like true freshman year at Iowa State And I think Edward and I were on the same page and I know it's you know five years a lot has changed or whatever But like I feel a little bit trade that he's jumped off the Purdy hype train Jim those five years ago, and it didn't go well I should note that too because Brock Purdy got worse every year. It seemed like an Iowa State I'm not sure he got worse, but he certainly didn't get better He was fantastic as a freshman and everyone thought the world of him and he really never kind of took the leap Yeah, and then he gets the NFL and all of a sudden, you know He's beating Tom Brady and screwing up my spread bets in Tampa Bay versus San Francisco So Yeah, we'll see. I mean, you know football is fun because we're allowed to change our mind after four years Not at a different side. Not Edward. I'll bring this up with him eventually to Let him know that I've taken umbrage with his betrayal of our boy Brock Purdy Let's talk here and now about an afternoon game Ed where I have honestly no idea what to expect That is between the Chargers and the Dolphins where right now the Chargers are three-point favorites I fandal sports book total this game is 50 and a half and a big part of the reason why I have no reason No idea what to expect that is because the Chargers Consistently get hype sometimes from me and then they consistently failed to live up to said hype So I want to ask you because I've got no idea. Where are you on the Chargers entering this year? Yeah, I mean, I feel like there's there's there's always a reason I feel like there's always a good reason why the Chargers don't live up to it You know, Herbert had the that rib issues last year that he was playing with they've always I mean, it seems like their receivers are always hurt Injuries on the defense there was issues with both the last year So, you know, I mean they made the playoffs had that massive failure, I mean, I'm not I guess I'm not ready to write off the potential of this team when I look at my metrics They're seventh based on market win totals eighth based on wisdom of crowds I can't dock them lower than, you know, being out of a top 10 team Given that the talent they have given that Herbert is young quarterback With with a lot of assets. I think, you know, I have this game as the Chargers You know minus two point two points on the road not seen a ton of value here I will note that I had I'm turn off right angle sports on my podcast And he actually had this as one of two legs in a teaser He was teasing the dolphins here up up to up to I guess nine and six point teaser He he likes Miami. He likes what the defense is going to have with the tangio He thinks this Miami is going to be able to keep this close And I have no opinion on side Honestly, like I feel like I cast ambiguity on this game as a result of the Chargers side But I feel like the dolphin side also it makes it tough to analyze because They had that white hot start last year with to a tongue of Iloha He gets hurt and then they they slide off obvious Which makes sense because they were using backup in third string and fourth string quarterbacks But even when two was healthy towards the end of the year There were times where it was a bit of a struggle And now I feel like turn up Toronto probably play because he always plays their injuries But like they got injuries they'll have tackle already injuries to their to Jeff Wilson, so he won't be out there I honestly feel like questionable. Yeah, and so like You've got two teams that confound me at and like that's the beauty of betting is I don't have to bet this game I can just stay away and let things develop and I feel like That's the route I want to take given these two teams are so confusing to me Right for sure and and I appreciate of course that you you know put the most difficult games to analyze But you know, I feel pretty good that I you know, I feel pretty confident about Cincinnati So at least I have a pretty strong opinion on one. Well, we we had to you know Toss you fully back into the fire with nfl. Exactly. So welcome back for sure What about else we're on the board at where else is seeing value across week one at vandal sportsbook? Yeah, for sure. I mean I actually have a pretty strong opinion tonight I I really like Kansas City By four and a half. I bet it at four and a half And you oh, hey, you guys came down I mean vandal was sitting at five and half for For a while there yesterday after the news that that kelsey had hurt his knee. He might not play Look, I have this game in excess of eight. I think that is the right projection Um, I think that Detroit is uh is riding the hype of offensive coordinator ben johnson and We're just kind of forgetting that you know, he's been played He's been the play caller for a single year and sure that year went really well Uh, but he is uh, he's been dealt the hand of jared golf who was fantastic last year I'm on raw same brown who is an emerging superstar and honestly not much else Uh that you want to write home about on that side of the ball I honestly think that detroit should have a lot of optimism on the defense I really like some of the additions that they made in the secondary This is a secondary that I've looked at for the past Two years and and been like this is one of the worst units In the nfl and they've done nothing. They finally changed that this season They bring in some help and of course the manual mostly is out tonight So Again part of this just insane injury list You know, like I usually wait a couple weeks before like the injury thing is one of the first things I checked before looking to make a bet. It's just you you just got to go there first So mostly it's for sure out um I like Kansas City minus four and a half tonight. I sent it out to my newsletter yesterday um, I I think um Yeah, I I kind of hesitate to uh, you know send out stuff to my email list and my people For a market that's been up for a couple months and it's you know 36 hours before kickoff like I really try not to do that Yeah, but but I really do think and actually honestly think that Kelsey and you're opened up more value in that because they're They're saying it's the market is essentially saying it's two points when he's still questionable and it may play Tonight, I I think that adds more value. Honestly. Um, you know, I would bet this a minus six and a half with Kelsey But uh, I like it better at minus four and a half So looking at my numbers here, I've got uh, same things last year I'm running two separate models this year the older one performed better So that's my primary one But also an alternate model that I think is better logic behind it It didn't perform as well last year, but I still like the logic behind it Uh, so I do want to keep running it the traditional one the one that performs better Uh, if I take chris jones out but keep Kelsey in now Um, I have the chiefs by six point two So, you know, that's a downgrade with chris jones being out, but it's still better than four and a half alternate model with no chris jones has the Chiefs by nine point one So if you take the average of my two models, I'm pretty much in line with you We have it around eight points. Obviously Kelsey would downgrade it, but it's not going to downgrade at three points or whatever so I feel like I agree with you where this is a bit of an overreaction now Was part of the move because it became Reality that chris jones wouldn't play potentially and that is a big impact for this defense But it's not like the lions are like You know clicking at a hundred percent because who's their deep threat with no james and williams for these first six games I don't know. Is it caliph ramond? That's not ideal. Is it marvin jones in 2023? That's not ideal either so I like the lions a lot and I have high expectations for them I just think that we're underselling how good andy reid is how good patrick mahomes is in a spot where I know that there's no travis kelsey, but they've still got those two guys and those two guys I feel like at least give them a high floor even with no kelsey and no chris jones So, I mean, have I talked to you into pulling the trigger on this one? Probably not because I don't want to I don't want to have to sweat a bit. I kind of want to just enjoy this game I've got enough stuff going for sunday and monday. I guess with the jets game too. So I'm probably not going to all some dfs lineups. I can sweat but If it if kelsey gets ruled out and it goes to four then I might at that way So I think that's where I'll wind up on this one personally I feel like the market was at minus seven and then there was more news that Chris jones wasn't going to play I feel like the move to six and half was in response to that Which I think is legitimate. He is obviously a key part of that defense Um, but uh I don't know. I feel pretty strongly about kc in this game. Yeah, I think it'll be I hope it's a high scoring game I hope it's a fun game. I want to see my guy jared golf ball out But I think that the chiefs are the right side of this one as well That is all that we have here for today on covering the spread, but we are back with you once again tomorrow We're gonna jj. Zacharyson back on once again this year talking some player props every friday But also rob freeman pitching ninja will still be with us talking about his here at strikeout props across friday night In major league baseball to get that to get tom becky as preview of thursday football to get our college football preview week two Find all that in the cover in the spread podcast feed and the regular shows can be up on a fan dual youtube and on fan dual tv Plus ad you mentioned your the newsletter you have from members where people sign up for that if they want to get involved with that Yeah, check it out at the powerink.com and five nugget saturday. I'm always It's usually a combination of stuff My plan well, I mean what I've been doing for the past couple months is putting one of my I've been doing a prop bet every week and I plan to continue that in During football season and then you know, I try to curate Bets from other people that I think you should be paying attention to Um, so if you're looking for some action on a give weekend you like analytics This is definitely a service for you. Check it out at the powerink.com You can also find ed on twitter at the powerink check out his work the powerink.com and the football analytics show Is ed's other podcast as well. I am on twitter at jim sonnis j i m s a n n e s You can follow fan dual research at fan dual research enjoy the football For tonight everybody. Good luck to you if you decide to bet into this game We'll talk to you once again tomorrow for some player props for sunday and monday This has been covering the spread right here on the fan dual podcast network