 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 fangirl podcast network and number fire Com we're today. We're getting you set for Super Bowl 56 our first look at the Rams versus the Bengals We talking to Edward e-gross with more ways to win getting his read on the Rams offense the Bengals offense the traditional markets and some fun props as always and Edward will dig up. My name is Jim Saunas. I am a senior writer and analyst for number fire calm Joined here as always by dr. Ed Fang you can find his work over at the power rank calm Ed Two more really fun games this past weekend. We had the Bengals winning overtime big comeback there Branson a big comeback of their own. We got to see the full Jimmy Garoppolo experience on display. How you doing today? I'm doing pretty well. We're getting dumped on with snow So we're expecting over a foot here. My kids are home on a snow day already. It's piling up I expect that maybe the snowstorm will reach you guys. Well a couple days you guys ready probably by the weekend, right? We get rain tonight with transitions to freezing rain and then become snow We're supposed to go to an Airbnb on Friday. It's like a hey We started to survive football season thing and we're probably still gonna be able to go But like met delayed to Saturday if things are if things turn out the way they look so far Can you have you survive football season without getting through the Super Bowl close enough Super Bowl is just just fun Like I have sure I have the podcast with you next week. We'll talk about that in a second I have a one DFS podcast, but like when I'm researching for one game. It's very fast Like we know these teams. I mean exactly much like it's kind of nice I kind of wish every week were one game. That's what I'm saying here Yeah, but our income would be a lot smaller if every game were one week accurate. I retract my statement That would be a bummer. Yeah, I thought we saw some pretty incredible games. I think Kansas City had kind of an epic collapse You know, it's interesting. They did have about a 56% passing success rate over the course of the game It just seemed I didn't actually go back and and do the exact calculation But it seemed very lopsided between the first half and the second half I mean, they were essentially unstoppable until the fourth down on their fourth drive when they got stoned and Let the clock run out and not go up 28 2810 I guess that would have been right before the half, but yeah So that was kind of disappointing when you when you had KC minus seven there So that was that was a bummer something that looked almost certain Heading down to that last drive in the first half and then and then didn't quite work out and then you know, I thought the The Rams game was kind of interesting. It kind of played out how I thought I think the Rams were gonna win that game because they had the better passing offense and I think a lot of that same logic I'll be talking about later when we when we look at the Super Bowl Yeah, and that second game it was basically Jimmy Garoppolo constantly trying to give the Rams the lead trying to give them, you know the football and just like the Rams kept dropping it but like Regression happens. It doesn't always happen in games sometimes like, you know You your pick report shows that you don't always see regression occur even across a full 16 game or 17 game season Yeah, but it happened on that last drive We saw the ball finally go into the hands of a guy who was right there and like it just seemed like it was Inevitable like it was gonna happen And eventually it did because he just kept putting himself in bad situations Right, exactly. And you know, I think we saw that the the Rams offense is pretty good and That that tends to be the most predictable part of the NFL Yeah, certainly So we'll see we're gonna talk plenty about that game with Edward E. Gross. He of course is a professor at SMUN at Pepperdine We're gonna talk to him today about his thoughts on Super Bowl 56 Get his rundown of the traditional markets, prod markets and much more Of course, you can find Edward on more ways to win Valley sports NBC sports edge. He is everywhere Including here. We'll talk to him later on but this is not our only show For Super Bowl 56 as you recall last year. We did a live show on, uh, I think it was Wednesday Talking about props doing a full hour long in-depth prop show We're doing that again this year live on the Fandall youtube page our only live show I believe the entire year, uh, but he live on the Fandall youtube page 6 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday We've not Cranked out all the guests yet, but JJ Zacharyson of late round fantasy. I can say that now Although he's no longer with Fandall number five He's still gonna be on the show. So congrats to JJ on the new venture. He will still be with us He'll still be with us for a lot of different stuff So to get to hear JJ's voice here talking some props next week should be a lot of fun That is next week on the Fandall youtube page 6 p.m. And it will go up on the podcast after that too So hit subscribe on the covering the spread podcast feed hit subscribe on the Fandall youtube page To get all those to get you set for simple 56 We'll talk to edward to get you set uh his thoughts on that first But before we do that go to go back to last week and recap the conference champions just made that in perspective covering the past Last week our guest here on the show was cool, right? You can find him on twitter at cool, right? He of course is edwards collie got more ways to win You can also find him on marquis sports network for bangles versus cheese call one of the over It was a 54 and a half and we talked and it did close there He also had joe mixon over 57 and a half rushing yards and the total didn't get there They were at 48 at the end of regulation finished with 51 points mixon Did go over easily. He had 88 yards on 21 carries So one and one for coal and that game on the nsc side He had matthew stafford over 277 and a half passing yards another one that went over pretty easily Stafford finished with 337 the script definitely helped getting behind but Cole said he thought that game would be competitive and it was and that factored into Stafford going over his number. So nice week by coal going two and one in the week there again Find him on twitter at coal, right and check him out on more waste win and marquis sports network My bet was on brandon iyuk over 49 and a half receiving yards This is another one they hit pretty early on. He had 56 yards in the first half That led the team at that point he finished with 69 That was second behind debo samuel who had 72 So overall a good week for the show in general and ed your numbers had ram's minus 2.9 That 0.1 points man. I'm pretty disappointed. You didn't quite uh, you couldn't play 0.1, you know gotta work a little harder next year That's right, but you know, I think that your numbers and you talking about it Like verbally had a good read on the way that game went and it just it just seemed like it was kind of The way we we could have thought things would go Yeah, it definitely went the way I thought it would go in terms of the rams finally being able to pull it out I think a lot of the narrative was around That san francisco to beat them twice and edward and I actually for seven nuggets saturday We dug up some work by chase stewart who had looked at you know, I think the 22 times That a team had beaten another team twice in the regular season and 14 had actually won the third game so I would actually really like to do that study with college basketball because that's more likely You know, usually if you beat a team twice, you're the better team And that's why you're more likely to win the third time Especially if you're going to be at home in that in that playoff game That really wasn't the case here because san francisco wasn't the better team And san francisco had you know, I had the good fortune of you know, having better passing numbers than the rams in those previous two games When I look at success rate, I didn't think that was going to happen again. It didn't happen again and That ended up being the difference certainly and uh Cooper cup is good With that and cooper cup is good Little bit just a little bit good very frustrating when you're not as high in him on dfs as you should have been But uh still very good. So uh shocker at the cooper cup Excelling there. We're talking about cooper cup and more with edward egros Find him on twitter at edwards sports and check him out on more ways to win We'll talk to edward in just one second But first fandal now offering an exciting twist the beloved same game parley Now introducing the same game parley plus which allows you to combine the same game parley as across multiple games All you have to do is head over to the fandal sports book and navigate to the same game parley tab of the first game You're interested in select multiple bets in the first game and then plus it up Now you can add more bets from the other same game parley labeled games Head over to the fandal sports book day and opt in to the same game parley plus must be 21 plus And present arizona colorado connecticut iowa illinois indiana michigan new jersey new york pennsylvania tennessee virginia or west virginia Restricts and applies see terms at sportsbook.fandal.com same game parley plus available for all sports or multiple sports in all states on mobile and web gambling problem call 1 800 gambler is at fandal.com slash rg in new york call 18778 hope and why or text hope and why in connecticut call 8879777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat Uh in indiana 1809 with it for confidential help in michigan 1802707117 in tennessee call the red line at 1809 979 in west virginia 1800 gambler.net Or in arizona call 100 next step or text next step to five three three four two Covering the present Let's bring edward e ross into covering the spread to take our first look at super bowl 56 edward We appreciate the time. How are you doing today? I am doing well. How's this your first look already? I mean we we've got two weeks to do this stuff. I mean there's no pacing You got to you know get right into it and talk about you know third string Offensive tackles here. There were a couple other things in the news yesterday. I think that's uh big party. Oh, yeah, that's yeah Tuesday slightly eventful uh across the board. It's like, oh, we got to redo all of our sappy tom brady tributes and then it's like, oh, wow, wow This is a massive massive massive story across the entire nfl. Yeah, jim. I was definitely a massive sure. Yeah, that was exactly Exactly what I was going for there But like you know a couple of things distracting us here edwards So, uh, I feel like we gotta we gotta catch up now at this point You know what we need to do is we all need to collectively thank adam shifter and jeff darlington for breaking the news over the weekend Because the the truth of the matter is had we found out on tuesday concerning tom brady's retirement It would have been clouded by what I would argue is more important news And I don't think it's fair to brady to be honest I mean, this is someone who's given his life to to the league for a very long time And I feel like he deserves, you know, his just due respect and he got that on saturday You know, but at least on twitter and you know friends i've spoken to Tuesday it would have been clouded with other things and you can't always help that obviously whenever you're making a A big announcement like such but at least we were able to give him his space, which I think was important So that on tuesday we could focus on again more important issues Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think uh, I think tom brady is going to get his due over the course of uh, the rest of football history So i'm not too concerned Unless you're in new york, I mean he did get his due on on saturday yeah Yeah, I feel like that thing was kind of just miscommunication because I know adam shifter in the past has spoken publicly about like Sitting on john elway's retirement news because elway asked him to like he's talked about that and then people are like Oh, we should let people announce and they want you i'm like i'm pretty sure brady had asked me He probably had done that like adam cheff is a pretty like outstanding dude in that regard like he's talked about this before so i'm pretty sure it was just a miscommunication in a situation where Miscommunications can be pretty high stakes unfortunately, but like, you know, it happens It certainly can I think though at the same time when you have so many different ways to validate a story like that Or confirm a story like that that at some point. It's not just okay I'm gonna sit on this retirement news because i'm literally the only person who knows us I mean think think of the media landscape when john elway was retiring compared with today So many more voices so many more people can come out and say something to where You really can't afford that to someone nearly as much as you could say 15 20 years ago Yeah, certainly and it was also weird to like see people like question like oh chefter sources because it's like You realize that he and jeff garlandton were the guys who like first hinted brady would leave, right? Like that that was a thing too so It led to a lot of weird discourse throughout the weekend But like you said, i'm glad that tom brady at least got a bit more time in the time of the sun before the Wild afternoon that was tuesday now. We're talking about super with you in just second year edward But i do want to go back and look at the playoffs first because it was a pretty interesting playoffs. I thought in terms of the way things broke A lot of tight games and stuff like that We saw different kinds of teams excel Were there any specific takeaways you had from this year's playoffs that you want to make sure? You keep in your mind when the playoffs roll around next year Yeah, absolutely and To answer that question I think it's really important that we make a distinction that I don't feel like we discuss enough In terms of the difference between analytics and game theory Analytics you're taking in data. You're looking at data trends. You're trying to find something actionable something that's forecastable And that's great. Obviously we all do that for a living and we get paid for it Game theory. I think is also really important in the grand scheme of things. It's who is able to adjust You know, it's it's the prisoner's dilemma. It's all that stuff that we learned, uh, you know An economics class and things like that But it's it's game theory where you're talking about, okay This is happening So how are you going to adjust and then how does the adjustee become the adjuster? All that fun stuff and it's sort of the essence of the matchups that we see in football that I think we might talk about on an individual level But I don't know if we discussed it enough on a coaching level And I think we saw it in the conference championship games You know in full overdrive and I really think it's worth taking a step back And looking at what these coaches were able to do to stymie What had been good offenses up to that point for the most part So when you look at the rams defense a team that was You know having the toughest time against the 49ers for one reason or another What did they do in that game a lot more single high safety than they had ever played all season they loaded the box a good bit more than they ever needed to and Obviously you do that to stop the run and you force jimmy garoppolo to beat you through the air Now throughout the regular season for the most part he was able to do that You know with debo samuel and even you know with george kittle earlier in the year But in that particular game he wasn't able to perform He wasn't able to pull through and the rams won that game Then you look at the a of c championship and you saw the bangles drop eight back in coverage Twice as often in the second half as they did in the first half And it ultimately confused pat mahomes to where he wasn't comfortable With so many defenders having to you know sort of try and look them off Get a receiver open lead them, you know in a particular direction whatever it might be And the bangles wound up winning that game and then the chiefs only scored You know a few points in the second half and I think it's partially why we're all saying that the chiefs collapsed in the second half As opposed to the bangles winning that game But I do believe that the defensive game theory matters a good bit If you're looking at an at an nfl head coach and saying okay Who has the most ability to adjust given a specific matchup if something is not working How easily can you transition to a plan b if there is a way to quantify this if there is a way to Look at this without dealing with too small a sample size But if you're able to figure out which coaches can best adjust and can use a key personnel To adjust offensively and defensively if you're able to quantify that and use that in a situation where they can handle Just about any matchup thrown their way or any wrinkle thrown their way on the other side of the ball Then I really think you have something how you do that I think is a real challenge but in conference championship weekend We saw to me the two best coaches You know in those particular matchups be able to adjust a good bit more than their counterparts And I think that's largely why we have them the matchup that we do in a couple weeks Let's say you're you're starting off this process try to decide how we can quantify this Are you starting with head coaches because like anecdotally? We know we're writing Morris is a smart defensive guy like we know that anecdotally Are you looking to quantify it based on the coaching staff defensive coordinators head coaches? Where are you kind of starting that process? I know I'm putting you like on the spot You're like, what is your first step in trying to quantify that? I think actually, you know, do you start ahead coaches or coordinators? I think it largely depends on who's calling the shots if that makes sense And so say for instance, uh, you know prior to Sean Payton retiring if you're trying to rank Offensive flexibility So, you know when say when they had Drew Brees and there's a lot of short throws to Michael Thomas For instance if that's taken away from you in some way shape or form how easily can Sean Payton and Drew Brees adjust so in that situation you're starting with your head coach But when it comes to say other teams, maybe the defensive coordinators is where you start as far as overall flexibility is concerned I think part of it may simply be okay. How much does a Defense rely on single high versus too high And is there ability to sort of look at that flexibility and determine, okay What is the proportion of going in one direction versus another direction? And if you're looking at specific opponents, do they always go to that other direction and do they have success doing that? It is a complicated thing where again, I'd always be mindful of not, you know thinning off my Sample size to the point of absurdity But I do think there's something there as far as looking at overall flexibility and starting with Okay, who are the real decision makers on a specific side of the ball? What have they shown historically speaking as far as flexibility and then working your way from there to determine Who has the overall flexibility? I know it's my key word here But who has the overall flexibility to be able to handle a variety of matchups and that to me is how you do it Tough part here for me is that like I tried to do this the similar kind of approach with Thinking about the NFL this year. It was like, okay Which teams have multiple ways to beat you? Like if you try to take away one thing, what's their counter punch and that led me to Betting the Dallas Cowboys when the Super Bowl back in like week five. Whoops did not work out. So like I feel like it's like scar tissue there for me where I'm like, I I kind of did this and it didn't work out But I do think that like having that flexibility is so important if it did lead me Down a poor path in that specific instance And it's funny you bring up specifically week five with the Cowboys because I think Z got heard the running game got bad Yeah before the running game got bad and also too I think especially when it comes to kellen moore of these last few years The ceiling is super duper high as far as his play calling creativity But boy, it does get stale at times. Yeah, you look at the the game against Denver I'm not sure what they were doing there even the game against the 49ers in the playoffs There was not the creativity that I would have expected in large part because I did feel like that They were really forcing it to their key playmakers Instead of using you know the overall You know breadth and depth of that receiving core, which is actually quite deep It's it's so fascinating when You know, certain teams do kind of fall back on certain options You know, whether they you know, whatever the reason is ultimately they start doing it And it's why like I always had a certain level of skepticism with the cowboys even though I loved watching that offense. I loved ag Prescott and what he can do But also look at the other side of it the Kansas City Chiefs. What was our biggest complaint about them all season long? Who are the tertiary receivers? Do you trust Byron Pringle in a key situation? Do you trust mccole hardman? You know, even travis kelsey was a little bit inconsistent for part of the season before he was able to step up You know toward the tail end and so yeah pat my homes as a beast. That's fine But you know, do you trust a third and fourth option? And I think that was one of the big reasons why they lost the a of c championship game Yeah, no, it's interesting. I mean you think about that in terms of the packers too that are very top heavy in their receiving core Uh as well and they were pretty good until that last game where they they just Absolutely didn't show up after the first two drives I didn't want to mention that, uh, you know, dr. Eric you go over at pff has kind of looked at uh predictability of defenses So he was looking at whether When you face a strong rushing attack whether that said anything about how predictable you are On defense the idea being that you become more predictable because you're putting eight guys in the box and yada yada yada He didn't find anything It's shocking. I know um, but But I think some of the tools are there. So he has some of these kind of uh information theory type tools to kind of look at I think they would be applicable to say, you know, how does this coordinator? Have his schemes in the first half versus the second half those types of things I think those are their ways of looking at overlap. How much do you change from game to game? Things like that. So we'll just send them over a copy of this podcast and Right have them be inspired by this no, but I you know I wonder too and and this is always this kind of goes back to one of my sort of hallmark ideas as far as you know How a game unfolds in general and I think this is also important in terms of live betting I wonder Had the bingles only been down say seven or three If they would not have been compelled to completely change up their defensive game plan in the second half And that would have ultimately led to their demise I genuinely believe that there are teams that need to be down significantly Late in the first quarter halftime whatever it is for them to do something completely different And it sounds counterintuitive But to me it makes sense where if you are down by a greater deficit You are likelier to do something completely different and ultimately that's better for you than saying You know what we're only down three. We're only down seven Let's just stick with what we're doing and then we're likely to win the game. No I think that's that's the wrong way to approach it I think if you do something completely different then that may actually increase your overall win probability and so Bigger gaps bigger deficits. I think in some strange way can be more beneficial for good teams Yeah, that reminds me of carolina and ron revera and when His uh, his rear end was on the hot seat. Then he started going for fourth downs That increases that's when he became riverboat ron He's never quite reached the same level since Especially with the football team or or the commanders. Are we calling them the commanders now? Let's do it. I hated the football team So let's go command It's just so corny like just call washington or the commanders now. Let's just do that. I mean, it's just, you know it's just Kind of rolls off the tongue if you guys remember a home star runner and the commandos the cheat commandos I can't stop thinking about that and I know it's just the most like directors deep cut pop culture reference, but Now I can't stop, you know singing to myself commandos in the classroom And now you get that indefinitely you get that uh, you get that for the rest of time So, uh, thank you washington this true gift now you're talking about adaptability talking about, you know The way they adapt during the championship game Let's spin that forward to talking about super bowl 56 year between the rams and the bangles right now rams Four and a half point favorites over at fan dual sports book total is 48 and a half Let's talk about the bangles offense here first because We saw that game in the division around Joe burrow takes nine sacks and they win Probably not sustainable to do that again. The problems are facing vaughn miller erin donald not ideal So Do you think with two weeks to prepare the bangles offensive line can formulate a game plan to hold up or are they in deep duty here Can I say a little bit of both? Sure Yeah, in a large part because I think it's important that we look at pressures first instead of sacks and then sort of Figure out where we need to go from here if you look at Well backtrack for a little bit in terms of looking at defensive line and pass rush win rate Uh, you know the good folks at espn, you know really strong stuff there titans for this season were 21st in pass rush win rate Kansas city was seventh and so the chiefs should have actually been better As far as taking burrow to the ground uh than the titans were now you go back to that divisional game The titans were only rushing for for the most part. Uh, they weren't blitzing that much It was really I would argue secondary sacks that had joe burrow flummoxed Kansas city really wasn't able to do that for the most part and I think part of that in terms of you know The injuries in the secondary uh, certainly had something to do with that But if the titans were to have nine sacks then kansas city probably should have come pretty close to that But if you look at quarterback pressures, basically when a defenders within a couple of yards of the quarterback Kansas city was almost the same as far as the titans were as far as that was concerned Titans had 15 pressures in that divisional game. Kansas city had 11 Joe burrow was still for the most part either running for his life or having to to ad lib or something of the sort He was more successful doing that against kansas city Is it sustainable against la probably not but there's probably some sort of happy medium between the nine sacks that The bangles gave up and just the one that they did against against kansas city to me also I think it because of la's reputation with erin donald and company I think this is a situation where joe burrow is going to you know, even though he doesn't have a whole lot of rollout plays In that playbook at least we haven't seen too many of them this season I think this is going to be something where burrow is going to try and do a little bit more from outside the pocket In a large part because of defensive reputation And I think for the most part that should be a good bit more successful either that or Shorter throws where defenders just don't have the time to create a pressure But this is definitely a situation where You know nine sacks. I don't think it's going to happen But if burrow is staying in the pocket too long then I do think la can come close to it Yeah, no, that's interesting. I didn't I would not have guessed that The the the sack to hurry was so close Or I mean they were basically the same in the tennessee game um, and then That what I mean you only took one sack against kansas city, right? Yeah one one sack and if you look at uh pressure rate It was a 33 or pressure rate for drop backs 33 for tennessee 28 for kansas city. So wasn't that different? Yeah, it wasn't that different I mean he certainly had two plays in the second half where he was able to escape and and run for some yards Uh, I'm pretty sure at least one of those was a pretty critical conversion on those drives. Definitely, um Helped with that comeback. So, um, yeah any any thoughts we uh, we have rams minus four and a half At most sports book. It's now total 48 and a half any any, uh Any any bets for you on this So as far as the side is concerned, I I still want to wait a little bit and I know, uh You know when it was three and a half, I think it was an obvious ram side and then you're done there Uh, but now that's at four and a half I'm probably going to wait a little bit if for some reason it gets to five and I don't think it will But if for any reason it gets to five Then I think I'm probably going to lean bangles there because this is you know, relatively lopsided line as far as a super bowl is concerned and I I don't know how much stock or people people are giving in to say the ram's home field advantage I actually do think you should give a little a little stock to it. Uh, but also to You know the bingles. Yeah, they are a little bit fortunate to be You know in this particular spot, but the rams, you know, those games are fairly close as well I don't necessarily think that, uh, you know, the rams are, you know, drastically better I think that's in large part because We look at our priors at the start of the season and the rams were way better than the bangles Zach Taylor was on the hot seat as far as uh, keeping his job Joe burrow was coming off of an injury and you know, could he be comeback player of the year? You know, what's he gonna do without a great offensive line? I think those had a ton of questions coming into the season and now they're in the super bowl Whereas the rams made enormous investments and you expected them Even if they weren't going to win the nfc west because the cardinals were on fire At least they were going to make the playoffs and probably cause a lot of trouble for whichever teams they were facing So are you willing to abandon your priors and admit that the bangles are a really good football team? Or You know, is the volatility in an afc that we could not to discern to save our lives That's why they're in the super bowl. So I understand the rationale there I'm going to wait Just to see if this line does anything If it gets to four, then I'll be really upset But right now I think if if it gets to five for any reason that I'm siding with the bangles But you know until that happens, then I'm just gonna hang tight I was looking at my preseason rankings this week and uh, Cincinnati was the fifth worst team And and remember this is you know, this is this is a big reason why my numbers are are pretty good throughout the year I really trust my preseason prior. So I wanted to ask you a little bit about home field My understanding is that the super bowl is a very corporate affair There's you know, even though Tampa Bay kind of had a home field advantage I didn't really give him much of anything last Wow, that was a different situation with COVID as well and the restricted tickets. Um I wasn't a full stadium. Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't a full stadium. I feel with this, you know You know, there's this kind of idea that the Rams don't have any fans down there You can see all the red that was uh at the nfc conference championship nfc championship game last week. So what what what's uh I mean, why do you think there's going to be do you just think there's going to be some extra rams fans? simply due to the proximity perhaps, uh, you know, I wonder too in terms of uh, you know physical You know biological components in terms of the rams not having to go anywhere Whereas the bangles are having to travel. I wonder if there's something to that I think also too. Yeah, the the super bowl can be a little bit corporate But I think also too familiarity helps a little bit I believe the rams are going to be using their own locker room. You know, they're technically the road team In this matchup. I I think those things, you know, may have, you know, the slightest Advantage there. I mean, it's it's not a major one But I do believe that when all the settings are relatively the same and everything is very much familiar You know, how much does officiating matter in terms of, you know, being at the rams home ballpark I I feel like eventually these things add up to where ultimately it becomes pretty close to a home field advantage of roughly two two and a half And there's really nothing that leads me to believe that the bangles are going to You know, do something really out of the ordinary in terms of having a lot of additional fans there or You know, some sort of inspiring pregame speech. That's all of a sudden going to make them, uh, you know Nullify the home field advantage. I I do think it is fair to keep something in there. Is it, you know, it's certainly not three I mean, that's silly, but is it something where it is close to around two? I I think there are enough things that you can point to to say yes Interesting. Yeah, I think that uh It's something I've thought about I haven't arrived at a proper conclusion yet I have nothing in there right now because the bangles start traveling so far ahead of time because that's the main reason I have home field in there now is not fans But because of travel whereas that's not a factory here because they're traveling so far ahead of time But like I don't I don't know the right answer. I have no idea But edward we had you on in the summer to talk about like weird props for the euro 2020 Kind of want to talk to you about the Super Bowl too because we got some weird props to Super Bowl We can do some traditional props too if you want. Yeah, the king of the non-traditional markets here Where are you seeing us some fun ones you like here for Super Bowl 56 So I'm looking at the tight end position And trying to sort of discern what's going to happen there because it looks like cj uzama You know will play in this game, which is is great for the bangles and You know, how much do you really put stock in a tight end who you know, doesn't have just a ton of receiving yards Um At the same time in terms of the game plan that I think the bangles need to have to win that game I feel like he is a critical piece So that you know sort of splitting the difference as far as what I would normally adjust for with a starting tight end versus How impactful he should be in terms of potential But anytime touchdown scores for the tight ends that's that's where I'm beginning My overall prop search process Uzama anytime touchdown score that's going to be interesting But if for some reason, you know, he's limited in any way shape or form Drew sample is the backup And so I think there's some value in terms of looking at him and then you look at the la side and Tyler higby is very much a question mark as far as playing this game at all And so now you're going to kindle blanton and bryce and hopkins bryce and hopkins I I he may have like one catch all season. He was an active last week. Yeah Yeah, he was an active last week And so if he plays then that would make perfect sense as far as the rams doing something really really kooky And having someone catch a touchdown who's done just about nothing all season long Makes for a great feel good story all that good stuff And you're getting some great value as far as in any time touchdown is concerned with him Candle blanton also too if you don't just trust hopkins in that spot I think that matters as well And then another one that I I will talk about on the show more ways to win on the fandall Oh, hey, there we go. Yeah Joe burrow over 10 and a half rushing yards is one that I really really love because again I do feel like that rollouts are going to be the way to nullify this great rams defense And I wouldn't be surprised if instead of a rollout burrow just takes off It wouldn't be that much to get to 10 and a half today Well, too, like we saw him do that against cheats like you would do that Chris Jones rush where he was under pressure ran away from that And burrow when he was in college ran a bit more, especially like the higher leverage games Not as much since his knee injury, but like if you're gonna run Probably gonna be here and he's probably not gonna be super comfortable in that pocket right now Given where things go the good thing with you're talking about the the tight end stuff You can bet cju zama now He's an active I think it's refunded like that's the way things work over at fandall So, um, I think that's a luxury if you want to bet on higby or yuzama yuzama's plus 360 for any time touchdown Like that is a safety valve you have With these with these player prompts and stuff like that. So I think that that definitely does help as well Well, definitely and I wanted to look something up real fast as I try and talk slowly because you were talking about joe burrow rushing in college Yeah, so the one game that joe burrow had At lsu when he won the national championship that was the the biggest question mark was at home against auburn Auburn had a phenomenal defense that year and lsu still hung 23 burrows 13 carries for 31 yards in that game Now granted i'm with you that lsu Wanted to run joe burrow a little bit more but when your defense is playing that well, which you know The rams obviously have you know a great front and a great interior Is that a situation where joe burrow will be required to run a good bit more? We've seen him do it in college I do believe that they have the offensive flexibility to have things in there for him to take off on the outsides 31 yards in that game. I think he can easily hit over 10 and a half this game Yeah, I think he definitely could too. I think it's uh a good way to look at it like in general quarterbacks run more on high leverage games when they are capable and burrows capable high leverage game Doesn't get any more high leverage than this one The others who want to have you on here today Edward is talk some men's college basketball because we have not done that yet We're going to a full show next week on props for Super Bowl 2 so plenty more discussion around that then But I want to talk to you about men's college basketball because I've been checked out It is already february and that's scary if we're trying to get set for march as these seasons wind down So I want to ask you what have been your key takeaways from the first few months of the men's college basketball season this year Isn't it amazing how we add a week to the nfl season and all of a sudden that affects our college basketball I know everything like NASCAR starts sunday and I'd like got sent like Like I'm trying to like scramble to do a dfs podcast Friday. I'm like, I forgot that I had to do this and it's it's wednesday And I'm very behind let's let's keep this about you jim. Yeah, exactly. Thank you. I appreciate you because that's That's really about me. Yes. That's why we listen to covering the spread is for for jim sanis Uh, I jim complaining about NASCAR scheduling is the why people tune in leave those ratings reviews right now That's that's the headline for this episode, right? Uh, and the and the races at the coliseum too, so exactly. Uh, no as far as college basketball is concerned What are my takeaways? Well, first of all, it's funny that yes We have just turned the calendar page to february and I still feel like strength of schedule doesn't get talked enough I feel like that there is this reputation in college basketball that there's some point in january and february to where we know what we have because Everyone has played enough games to where there are enough data points where we can feel comfortable as far as Ranking our teams determining who has a good offense who has good paces things like that And the truth is I don't think we have that yet I still feel like that we are Doing a little bit of guesswork as far as not not necessarily the best teams in the country and who they are But who are legitimate contenders? I look at lsu as an obvious example here Look at lsu's schedule year after year after year It's not usually a team that's that's making a lot of in-season tournaments or a team that's facing You know the absolute best competition, you know, non-conference game after non-conference game They were off to a phenomenal start and now they're what one in five in their last six games They've they've been exposed and I think that we can conclude And there are other teams like that who have gotten off to these incredibly hot starts or these slow starts But because of what happens in conference play all of a sudden we realize who they really are And so, you know lsu's one example where finally they get to sec play and they're not as strong as we thought they were I mean they lost to old miss You know on tuesday night, so I think that's significant at the same time look at a team like auburn And that's a team that yeah, they're they're off to this incredibly dynamite start And the one loss was very very close But I still have some questions about them. I I'm not exactly sure how much I trust them sort of you know in general They haven't they haven't broken a sweat very much in conference play fine The block rate is great. So the highlight reel is truly spectacular with auburn But they're not a great jump shooting team and eventually You need to have your offense manufacture points in a variety of ways for me to feel comfortable having them far in the tournament And yeah auburn's got a great front line and I am splitting hairs here like as auburn a top 10 team Yeah, they are but are they the best team in the country? Are they my pick to win the national championship with the second lowest odds? No, there's no value there at all if you Really liked auburn you should have bet them a long time ago all the value has gone as far as that's concerned So i'm still looking at the tigers a little suspiciously as perhaps I am for the majority of the sec with maybe the exception of kentucky I still feel like kentucky has room for growth But on the other hand As far as you know, what what else we've learned from this college basketball season the big 12 is still absolutely legitimate Baylor is still a very good team that I would argue is probably playing better defense this season than the national championship season Yeah, they lost a lot of offensive playmakers But baylor is still a scary team to me. Kansas still looks very good depth is a bit of a concern But I like them a lot and texas tech is another one that I think can make a deep run in this tournament This could very well be the year where the big 12 Yeah, they've always had a team that that's made a run or you know gotten a lot of headlines Kansas for several years Baylor winning the championship texas tech making it to the final This may be a year where the big 12 does even more in the nc double a tournament because there are so many contenders So we're skeptical here of auburn Despite the fact that they are minus 1500 to win the sec, which you know is very different than talking about them long term Any value for you in the futures market anywhere edward, uh, or are we staying away from that right now? Yeah, so as far as the futures are concerned I I do feel like the texas tech has a real good shot at winning the big 12 Obviously some big wins on their ledger the questionable loss or two I think is largely in part because of scheduling because they've had some pretty grueling road trips But also too the health was a real concern at the start of january. I think they're starting to get a little bit healthier They always had a great defense no matter who is out there on the floor credit coaching there I think that matters a good bit. I think texas tech can make a real run In terms of winning the conference another conference winner. I like a lot is illinois out of the big 10 Big game against michigan state obvious play in terms of you know Prepping for that game was to slow down trend frazier because you know, he's the guy who was in that contest But illinois has some real depth that I don't think gets discussed enough I know illinois was a disappointment last year in terms of an early out in the nc double a tournament But you cannot read too much into that and I still feel like that there is a small contention of the betting public That still does and doesn't look at illinois Like we thought of them as being you know One of the dynamite front runners won the national championship last year I do feel like illinois with that top 40 effective field goal percentage offensively top 10 offensive rebounding rate That they can win the big 10 and make a serious run Yeah texas tech right now plus 440 a fan dual sportsbook illinois plus 240 over in the big 10 You can check those out right now You can check out edward egros on more ways to win you can check them out valley sports mvc sports edge And check them out on twitter at edward sports ed. We appreciate the time Good luck to you with your super bowl bets. Are you missing me? You're not going right? We're figuring things out. Oh, okay Possibility It's a tba. I like it. We'll take the tba if you do go. Good luck in the traffic have fun Enjoy that, but enjoy the game. We'll talk to you again. He can take the transit no way, right? The metro is available, but I would still have to wake up extra extra early and do a lot of hiking and things like I mean, how long would it take for me to walk from the valley to Sofi that's the question. I only know the valley because of pulp fiction. I have no idea where it actually is Yeah, the lion's share of the listening public here wouldn't but That's a very la thing to say like how long would it take me to to walk through the Santa Monica mountains? We'll see Well, good luck either way. We appreciate the time. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks Covering the future Big thank you once again to edward e-gross for swinging by and breaking down his thoughts on super bowl 56 We talked men's college basketball Tried to see if he would talk olympics winter olympics before the show, but unfortunately no no stuff there for edward I've got nothing obviously, but um tried to squeeze it out of him and I like I asked that Half expecting him to say here. I've got simulations run for Bob sledding right figure skating and everything else because kind of edward e-gross does Yeah, yeah, no exactly and and he's been writing a seven no get saturday for for the newsletter at the power rank and it's actually been I mean, there's more opens on that than than some of the stuff that I I just write and it's been really awesome. Um, just just You know, I wanted to engage him on that project so that I could just learn about more stuff that he's doing, right? so for example, um If there was some this is before I ever started playing mortal, but he actually had like two or three links to wortell analytics So this was like a couple weeks ago. So it's probably way out of date and someone's done something better by now Um, but he's also been doing a bunch of college basketball stuff. I think for mbc sports I think they're having them write like a weekly thing on college basketball So he's been digging into that and you know, they're now in last week seven nuggets. He pulled out There's this guy evan maya who seems like a young young student that actually I don't even know if he's a student But whatever he's doing some basing methods to figure out the contribution of a player on offense and defense and college basketball, which is Not easy. I mean, it's not I mean in the mba like you can't just look at like raw plus minus because It's just very noisy. You need seasons upon seasons of data to get some some insight out of that, but um, so yeah, I mean a wealth of knowledge there and I've been benefiting um by working with him on on some stuff at the power ink and uh, yeah, you can check it out too At the power ink.com. All right. So seven nuggets saturday comes out every saturday at 10 a.m. Eastern Yeah, and we just Confirm that we're gonna keep doing it the entire year. So oh, okay. I like that So you could benefit from edwards wide wide wide and net of knowledge as well Uh, seven nuggets saturday get that over the power ink.com. Let's talk now about super bowl 56 ed Let's hear what your numbers are saying here about rams versus bangles next week Yeah, the more I was talking about rams at uh rams against san francisco last week The more I think we're kind of seeing something a little bit similar So I think the thing to remember here is that pass offense is the most predictable part of The nfl. So when you look at, you know passing success rate from early part of the season to the later part of the season That's the stickiest thing that I found period It's it's more than like even uh passing epa per drop back. It's more than certainly things like rushing um any kind of rushing stat that I found And not on defense but on offense in particular And that's in particular why why I just thought the rams we get it done last week against the niners as I already talked about And that's again why I think that that's why again why i'm leaning towards the rams Here in this game. So they uh, you know, the rams are the second best, uh, offense when I look at adjusted success rate We know they're very good And they're just better than the bangles on offense. I mean the bangles are ranked 11th when I look at adjusted success rate We know that they have a high upside with joe burrow and jamar chase and tea higgins And and that's just maybe the most promising young core In the nfl But you know, they're 11th because burrow does take a lot of sacks I mean he didn't against kansas city but throughout the course of the season his sack rate has been been really bad and sack is by definition an unsuccessful play and Again passing success rate tends to be sticky the rams are just better at it And I think both of these defenses are essentially league average Cincinnati is almost exactly at league average The rams started the season started the postseason bloke league average and then had two pretty good performances And so now they're up to 11th, but i'm not exactly going to say that They're in the same category as the bills and I just think When you think about this game, it's you're better off thinking that the rams are going to continue to throw the ball Well, then to think that Cincinnati's average defense is going to come out and play like they did in the second half against Kansas city and shut down a really good offense. Could it happen? Of course, of course it could happen but defense just doesn't tend to be as predictable and My numbers like the rams by five I was flipping around during a A slow moment during the nfc championship game and spanky was like If you want to get closing line value on the super bowl, you better bet as soon as this game is over So I took the words the heart I got rams minus three and a half It's it's not it's not getting back to three and a half. No So, um, I like the rams. I think they're going to win. I think they can actually run away with it if if burrow And company don't come to play But um, but yeah, I like where I stand with that Yeah, so regarding the stickiness discussion, I actually have like my The comparison the correlation in my preseason priors and the actual data for teams this year on like different Efficiency numbers and it's not success rate, but like looking at their epa numbers The highest correlation was overall offense second highest correlation passing offense third highest correlation russian offense Then you get to the first defense and metric that is that was next up it was overall defense then pass defense then rush defense And there's a pretty big gap between the offensive stickiness versus the defensive here. That are my defense numbers just sucked. You choose, uh, but like That the numbers back up what you're saying, uh, where It's easier to predict offense performance and like with the rams talking about their passing offense Their passing offense is good even when you count account for matthew staffer Backbreaking interceptions even when you include those the most negative interpretation those which is epa epa does not do as good of a job of Canceling those out as success rate does even if you look at the most negative interpretation of him in what he does It still views this team as being a very good passing offense And I think that that's important to note that like sure he does he does some dumb stuff But overall they're very very good even when you account for that Yeah, for sure. I mean they he had the pick sixes in three straight games And then he had another one against the ravens Part of the part of what I looked up and in writing up this game on the site But you know, those plays are kind of fluky, right? I was sitting During the san francisco green bay game with some friends and they're like, yeah, jimmy garoppolo is gonna throw a pick six And I was like, dude, I'll give you guys 21 odds that they Do He's like, yeah, I'll take that and my other friends like well, I don't want you to be in the whole 40 bucks And I was like, no, I'm good, buddy. It's all right So he took it too And this is jimmy garoppolo, right? I mean we all saw how he was trying to give the ball away Yeah, uh in that game and and a lot of things have to go right for An interception go back for a touchdown and it's just unlikely to happen. So um Yeah, you know, that's part of the reason like I mean even with it you said it didn't really affect staffords epa stuff as much I think that's you know, that's good in the sense that like, you know EPA can be a little more trustworthy there, but you know, that's an unsuccessful play, right? Yeah when I look at success rate and right um Yeah, I mean I I I don't have any reason to think that I mean, of course, I mean, you know stafford could have a terrible game and bro could have a good game Yeah, it could have but I don't think that's the more likely scenario So your numbers have rams minus five mine have rams minus 4.2 So I am staying away from the total or the spread in this game and looking at the prop market We'll talk again about props next week on the live stream 6 p.m. On wednesday But i'm going to go towards the prop market here as well and typically my favorite props are yardage props because with those You have multiple paths to winning you get there via volume or get there via a couple big plays But for Super Bowl 56, I think my favorite prop is actually a touchdown prop and that is Joe mixon to score a plus 115 Over at vandal sportsbook I'm going to go here because of mixon's immense role inside the red zone Mixon has played 18 full games this year between the the post season and regular season In those 18 games He has 44 percent of the team's red zone carries or targets That is like an upper echelon type number I think darryl kenner is at like 48 or 47 percent when he was healthy this year for the titans So like mixon gets a lot of work in close It led to 17 total touchdowns He had at least one touchdown in 11 out of 18 full games He did have a touchdown in like a what I deemed to be a non full game. So just toss that one out so 12 out of 19 total but 11 of 18 the games that I cared about Which 61% of the games he played in So typically guys with mixon's red zone role hover from like minus 130 to minus 110 the end of time touchdown market mixons at plus 115 Part of that is a game situation because the bengal's team total is 21 and a half. So Few were touchdowns and he would expect that they were seven point favorites versus the browns or something, you know Weird like that But he has longer odds than jamar chase and I don't think he really should right now In the playoffs mixon is average 17.3 carries five targets per game He's getting tons of chances and plenty of those have been close to the goal line I did look at his rushing plus receiving prop that is typically my favorite market But it is at 95 and a half for context. He was at 83 and a half in that market or 81 and a half like two games ago He's it's too high like I i'm not going to take it under yet But like i'm thinking about it. Uh, it's too high of a number Can makers under will probably come up on the show next Wednesday But I think that my favorite way to get exposure to mixon's really good role Is taking his any time touchdown market at plus 114 And to take advantage of what is a very good role for joe mixon And when I was looking at the numbers, uh, the the prop market's over at fan dual I feel like when we talk next week and we've i'm going to be very boring Because every like yardage prop that I like is it under it was similar to last week too And like I typically Like people talk about, you know, oh, you should always been under just because like things can happen I do go with a lot of overs, but like the past two weeks they've juiced things up so much that I think I think we just got to go a lot of unders as boring as that may be. I think that's the way to go for next week Hey boring makes money so, uh Yeah, so I wanted to talk again about the mixon thing, right because we saw samajib here on a bunch of times in that game Third down. Yep. It looks like he was getting, you know, a lot of the passing situations so You know, it seems like are you not ready to pull the trigger on like passing and rushing yards under 95 that sounds like a I don't know. He's at 98.8 For his average Yeah, it is a lot. What's the average it over the year? I can't 98.8 98.8 Yeah I think acres under 83 and a half is great. Like I would take that right now Because his role is very shaky based on even before he got hurt last week. It was very shaky And like sony michelle is coming in for pass blocking and stuff like that like I'll take an acres under I would not take mixon yet But I I can't go the over. I know that for sure. He's at 98.8 for I think for full games this year He's at that number. So I think that one's appropriate, but I'm definitely not going over I could see an under there acres. I would take the under now honestly at 83 and a half With with the role that he has that's way too. I have a number. I just I don't know why it's up there, but Okay, I think that that's Kind of where I'm viewing things for right now. P run was in there, but it was mostly third downs Nixon's role is still pretty good. Uh, so I think that being high on it is still the wise way to go But if you're I was getting in there that that's just Maybe one two receptions that mixon doesn't have that puts them under, you know One two chances that he doesn't have of breaking a 30 yard At 95 and a half that matters a lot. Yes Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so it's something to keep in mind I think that that will be relevant for acres and I think we'll be talking a lot of unders next week And that is next week Wednesday at 6 p.m. Eastern on the fandal youtube page and up on the covering the spread podcast feed after that should be a Lot of fun Me at njj and a fourth guest to be announced later. It'll be a blast then so we'll talk to all of you then But first a big thank you once again to edward egros for singing by and breaking down his thoughts On superbowl 56 and some men's college basketball find edward on twitter at edward sports and check them out On more ways to win this week and next week to get you set for the superbowl as well Ed what is going on for you this week over at the power rank? Yeah, I'm wearing my free me email newsletter Uh, it has seven nugget saturday, which will have some props and all kinds of good stuff It's actually I guess our first nugget list of nuggets without a game. So that'll be kind of interesting Um, but I think we can do it. I think we can do a good job with this one I think maybe even a world thing in there. You never know But yeah, you can check that out at the power rank dot com and we're sitting here on wednesday I'm about to talk to call Davey. He's uh, he's doing some really interesting things with a betscope project Which is a way of uh, I guess kind of betting your hunches. So if you think something's going to happen in an NBA game um His tool gives you a way of looking at A wide range of possible bets that that may interest you. So check that out at the football analytic show That'll be up later this week. Yeah, uh, I am signing for collins newsletter two For the website, uh, it's been helpful so far I got the first one that I had after I had signed up this week So uh, check out ed stuff at the power rank dot com and check out the Interview with collin later on at the football analytic show and check out at on twitter at the power rank I'm at jim sonnis j i m s a n n e s You can also follow the fan dual podcast network at fan dual podcast big Thank you to everyone for tuning in for this week. We'll talk to you once again next week for our prop show Live wednesday at 6 p.m. We'll talk to you then this has been covering the spread right here on the fan dual podcast network What's up guys? This is jordan spieth if you're watching this video Please like and subscribe to the fan dual youtube channel