 This is covering the spread. Here are your hosts, Jim Sonnis and Dr. Ed Fang. What is going on, everybody? Welcome on into covering the spread. That's right here on the FanDual Podcast, a network in numberfire.com as we are taking a look at the betting impact of NFL free agency with Kevin Cole, a pro football focus. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for numberfire.com, joined here as always by Ed Fang of ThePowerEight.com. And Ed, we talked nine days ago. We talked about immense college basketball conference tournaments, a couple things have changed since then. It has been a wild week. How are you doing? I mean, it feels like it's been a month since that conversation, right? And in terms of how our society has changed, like, I mean, that could have been a, those are the same types of changes that happened over years or decades. So it's completely surreal, obviously very sad to not be sitting and watching basketball today. So, but yeah, you know, it was an amazing, it was an amazing week. One of us sent to each other a message about like, oh yeah, we'll probably still have the tournament. And I think this was like, perfect stay. So, okay, the order of events was you said on Wednesday? It was Wednesday, I think. So Wednesday you sent me a message saying, or I said, no, I said I had lined up Keith Goldner to do our NCAA tournament podcast and the timing and stuff. And I said, yeah, we'll do this. And he said, if we have a tournament and I was like, ha ha, good joke, that'll happen. It was that night that Rudy Gobert tested positive and it was literally four hours later. And I was like, oh, it's not gonna happen. It was wild. Yeah, no, no. But I think it was until the next morning that they actually said that they weren't gonna do it. But yeah, the Rudy Gobert thing like just, you know, tripped everything obviously. And then, you know, I mean, everything changed. And it's the right thing to do. You know, I probably didn't take this seriously enough nine days ago, 10 days ago. But when you understand that how this thing is growing, essentially it's growing exponentially. And you can go check out a great video by, he goes by three blue, one brown, he does math videos on YouTube. But he did one on the data on the coronavirus and it's very good. And then what, I mean, this is why you study math, right, to study things. Like to understand like what exponential growth means and how to stamp it out and how to prevent it. And so anyways, last week was very interesting for me because about that same time, like Wednesday, I felt like awful, I felt really bad and I went in to the doctor on Wednesday to figure out what I had because, you know, one of my sons has some asthma issues and I didn't want to exacerbate that in any way. So I go on Wednesday night and I was like, and I was like, you know, I want to be tested to see if I flew. So they did, came back negative. And then you have the conversations like, oh, well, should I be tested whether I have coronavirus? And they're like, no, you don't really meet the criteria. And I was like, I just got off a plane from Boston. There's a lot of cases in the state of Massachusetts. It's like, I don't want to do that. I was interacting with so many people at Sloan. Like that's a lot of people who could be carrying it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So anyways, I mean, I wasn't really pushy about it because I know there's a lack of tests, which is a whole other story that we probably don't want to get into. But the testing capacity in case you haven't heard is not adequate in the United States of America. Now where it should be. So anyways, like now we're not going to do that. So then the next morning I get a call. It's like, well, the protocol changed. So now you're eligible to get the test. I was like, oh, okay, well, that's good. I want to know. So I, you know, I drive back to the clinic and they say, you know, you don't need to come in. We'll come out to you in the car. It's like, okay, you know, that makes sense. Yeah, I understand that you don't want me to come in. I understand the hysteria about all this stuff. So I kind of drive around to the back and I see the physicians. This isn't that I had talked with the day before and she's like, hold on. And so I have to wait a couple of minutes while she puts on like one of those hazmat suits. Oh wow. She stepped into this white hazmat suit, zip the thing all the way up and has like the full face mask. Yeah. She's like, oh yeah, we got to do this in the car. So she comes into my car and, you know, we're just chatting about stuff. And then, you know, they do like a throw a swab and then two no swabs. And the flu no swab is kind of like a device that looks like cotton candy. The Chrono ones are like more like spears. They don't feel quite as good. So anyways, I got that testing Thursday. And so, and yeah, make a long story. They do one test and then if that comes out negative then they do the coronavirus test of which they still need to call the CDC in order to get that approved because that's basically where we're at in this country. So on Saturday morning, I finally found out that I tested negative for Corona. So great. And that was a really interesting social phenomenon too because I was by far the least relieved person that I didn't have it. And my thinking is like, look, if I have it, I'm not too worried about it. I mean, the probability that I die is very small as a healthy adult. But, you know, the widespread relief amongst everyone I know was kind of interesting as well. And it just kind of shows you, you know, just the fear about this. Like, I mean, my concern is about everyone else in society, right? And, you know, pretty God that we can have a football season this fall. Right. When all the snow passes. But, yeah, so that was interesting. Unfortunately, the story does not end there because on Monday I found out that someone that I had been hanging out with in Boston had tested positive. Oh. And so now we're in this spot where like, you know, and there's some data out there that suggests that like these tests aren't particularly accurate if you have, if it's negative. So, so, you know, I didn't go get retested or anything, but that's kind of what the testing situation is. Like, even if you tested negative, it's not, it's in no way guarantees that you don't have it. That's wild. How? It is wild. I understand that tests can be incorrect. So like, this is not necessarily like entirely uncommon, but like, that means that people could test negative and have like this false sense of security and be, you know, not self-orientating. Yep. Well, I mean, hopefully everyone's being smart enough and just only going out for exercise and to get to food. Right. And like, crucial supplies. I mean, that's essentially what we're doing in our home. Yeah. But, but yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's just, it's kind of, it's kind of in this weird spot, you know, in our situation, I just feel like, you know, if you're out there like, and you're not sick, that certainly doesn't mean that you don't have this, right? Right. Kevin Durant and Idris Elba both were asymptomatic and they both had it. Like, I mean, like the fact that they were able to get tested whereas others haven't is a different subject, but like, you know, you might have it and just not know it. So you should be quarantined in regardless of how you feel. Exactly. Like you should assume you have it and not try to get to other people. You should assume everyone else has it and try not to get it again from them. I mean, that's kind of where we're at. That's kind of what we need to do to hopefully beat this as a society. And anyways, that's my story with the testing. It's kind of just a mess. I'm glad that they did it in your car because like you don't want to spread germs elsewhere, but like also like the visual of that in my mind is wild. And I can't imagine like actually going through that, having someone in your car in a hazmat suit to test you. Yeah. She was nice. So I mean, it wasn't like. That's good. You know, like, but, you know, it wasn't like having some creepy old dude or what not. Right. Sure. I mean, that's just, that's absolutely wild. I mentioned, like, I feel fine now. I feel like I'm like 99, almost 100% now. Sure. And, you know, I would say like, it feels a little bit different than a cold. Like it usually takes me about a week to get over a cold. It's been about the same amount of time. Yeah. But yet it feels kind of different in the same way as well. So it's, it's tough to, it's tough to say. And it's like, you know, even with modern science, like, I don't know. I have no idea what's in my body. Yeah. It's nuts. So we're at in where it's nuts, the, the testing numbers as low as they are and all that stuff, you know, tests per capita and all that. Yeah. It's weird that we're in this position. I wish we weren't in this position. I would avoid it being this position. But, you know, I think that hopefully people will do the best with it, with that they can. And in order to help you from quarantine, we'll have a little discussion about, we mean to do a book corner at some point. Maybe we'll get some suggestions on things you can do for your self isolation during covering the future later on. So we'll circle back to that then. How about that? Sounds good. All right, perfect. Before then though, let's get to Kevin Cole. You can find his work at pro football focus. You can find Kevin on Twitter at Kevin Cole PFF. We're going to discuss the betting fallout of free agency thus far. We're going to go through Tom Brady to the Buccaneers, what the Patriots outlook is with no Tom Brady there as well and get all of his thoughts on who was improved or potentially worse than through free agency as well. A first days podcast is brought to you by FanDuel Racing. FanDuel is doing its part to continue to bring sports fans excitement by offering users the chance to bet on horse racing. Use your existing FanDuel DFS login credentials to gain access to tutorials and to learn more about the sport, including understanding how the odds work, the various types of bets, and most importantly, how to win your bets. Watch all the races live across over 300 tracks and fill the void left in your sports fandom today. For more details, visit racing.fanDuel.com or download the FanDuel app today. Eligibility restrictions apply. We'll talk more horse racing next week with John Sheeran of FanDuel Sportsbook to get his thoughts on that and get a little intro to sports betting because I don't know anything. So maybe John can teach us how to do that. But first let's get to Kevin Cole of pro football focus to get his thoughts on the winners and losers of free agency thus far. Covering the present. Let's bring Kevin Cole into covering the spread. Kevin, we appreciate you taking time from your bunker as you have barricaded yourself. How are you doing so far today? I'm doing good, doing good. Yeah, so I'm normally in New York City. As most people probably know, not so great there, what's going on, but throughout the country, I'm sure everyone's dealing with this. So I'm trying to practicing extreme social distancing right now, extreme. But I think that it's also like smart because we all get cabin fever and you were kind of proactive in that, getting away from one of the hotspots of coronavirus and also like not driving yourself mad by being in an apartment. So like, I think it's a lot of force out in your part to find Airbnb and relocate there for a bit. That's smart, I like it. Yeah, hopefully there aren't, hopefully it's like a waste, right? Being that things actually end up being good, but it's one of those things they talk about, what do you wanna talk about? Black swan, tail risk, all those sorts of things. You think to yourself, do I really wanna do this or not? But then again, this could be the biggest event in a lot of our lifetime. So why not take a little extra caution there? Yeah, the hope I think is that we overreact. Like if we overreact, that's a great thing. Like if that's the worst thing that comes from this, awesome. Right, I'm not gonna be doing like fist pumps if everything goes down the drain and I'm not there. So yeah, so that's how I look at it. Absolutely. So let's dive into some football here, Kevin. And because there's been a lot of stuff going on, you've been doing some great work over a pro football focus. A lot of the work you've been doing has been centering around a wins above replacement metric. We know about wins above replacement from baseball, but we haven't really seen a lot of this on the football side. So what led to the development of this war metric and what are some of the biggest factors that go into calculating the actual numbers behind it? Sure, yeah, I mean, I have to give some credit to a couple of fellows in our research and development department. Eric Eger and George Shahrie before me who developed this metric. And well, first we have data at PFF that a lot of people don't. So I think they were brought in and they were able to use it. And one of the issues is there are some other value metrics like approximate value that they do at pro football reference. But ours, we have grades on every single play for every single player, which is something you really need to try to build out that value. So essentially what it's doing is it's a grade based metric. So it's translating these grades into what we would expect when you're simulating with and without these players and you're plugging in a replacement level player instead. And then from there, it's figuring out on average when those sorts of situations happen, how big of a difference are we looking at points and wins and things like that. And then we're able to get a number for every single player in the NFL by simulating the team's results with and without them. And that's kind of like I said, like you said, the basis of what I'm looking at here when I'm looking at new players being added to teams and free agency. And how much does that take into account positional value? Like what role does that play in calculating out these numbers? I mean, it's a lot. So we have an amplifier essentially for each facet of the game. So it's not really like positional value is derived because of the activities that you're doing. So it's like, so a quarterback could pass or they could run. So those are two different things. Those are gonna have different weights with them. A running back who can either be a receiver or it can be a runner or it can be a pass blocker. So each of these have different weightings to them. And what we find is at least by our metric, passing is much more important than what people may think even though people are kind of hip to that at this point receiving is much more important. So you'll see someone like Austin Eckler being a very valuable back versus someone like Derek Henry which people may not suspect that to be the case. And then on the defense side of the ball what we've been, the big discovery if you want to call that what we've had is that coverage is a lot more valuable than we see versus pass rush. But at the same point in time, it's very, it's not as stable as pass rush. Like a good pass rusher you kind of know they're gonna continue to be a good pass rusher. We don't know that as much in coverage but if you have great coverage, like you see someone like the Baltimore Ravens or the Patriots have been able to do, you can build a much better defense and get better results by that. Excellent. So you've been using this war to track changes in teams in the off season. What teams have stood out? Obviously some that we'll talk about later but what teams have stood out either in the positive or negative sense? Well, we're wrapping everything into this. So what I'm doing is I'm taking a snapshot of the end of season roster and the projecting 2020 based upon that and then comparing that now to as all these different changes have happened since then and then projecting that out and looking at the differences. So trades are going into it it's not just free agent signings if someone's cut sometimes rosters can improve if someone's what's cut on different teams. So all that's wrapping into it. So number one team right now by a hair is the Arizona Cardinals and we all know about the Deandre Hopkins trade and for this exercise, I'm not really penalizing teams for giving up draft picks or rewarding teams that much for receiving draft picks because rookies are normally not that valuable year one and I'm only looking at 2020. So the Cardinals are number one and the second is the Indianapolis Colts mainly on the addition of Phillip Rivers but as you know, they've made a bunch of other moves like getting DeForest Buckner which is another big move. What about the flip side? Are there any teams that have had extremely negative impacts so far in free agency? Yeah, I mean, go back to Deandre Hopkins. The Texans have been one of the worst teams largely based upon that but then in other moves they're really not moving the needle too much. I mean the Patriots because as of now I'm assuming that it's either going to be Cody Kessler or Sidham who are gonna come in and I mean likely they're gonna bring someone else in but just for now I'm not making any assumptions so the loss of Tom Brady is pretty huge there and there are some others that are near the end of the list and I think this is something where I wouldn't necessarily say like the teams at the top are gonna be gray and the teams at the bottom are not gonna do well. It's one of those things where you're kind of penalized by your success. You're gonna lose free agents if you've done well over time and you're gonna be very active in free agency if you have a lot of cap space because you're not resigning your own stars meaning you haven't drafted well or you haven't picked up guys on the cheap in the past. So the winners and losers, like they say that the Browns are near the top and they win every single off season, right? So it doesn't necessarily translate into results it's more about how much you're improving yourself based upon a lower baseline for teams like the Browns. So it's important to keep the baseline in mind for sure there, which is a good note as well. So let's talk about Tom Brady. He talked about the Patriots potentially getting worse there depending on what they do outside of him. But let's talk with the Bucs side first because Brady going to the Bucs generate a lot of hype around this team. What does Brady joining this team do for their outlook? And we've seen a lot of hype around them from a betting perspective. They are 18 to one now at Vandal Sportsbook. Is that hype justified with this move? I mean, he's a definite improvement. I mean, the Bucs are near the top of our improvement index. I think the question with them is a couple of different things. You know, Winston for all of his flaws he had a lot of positives also. So I think people may view him as being a very negative player, but net of the negatives he still had a lot of positive. So I think that the upgrade to Brady is something that at least I'm projecting will be more like in a one win sort of category. I've seen some projections out there recently talking about three and a half wins and I just don't see how that could be humanly possible. I saw that number and I was kind of curious if it was like with Ryan Griffin as a projected quarterback because it kind of it got my attention, I would say that. Yeah, I mean, well, here's a not to get too nerdy here but a quick way to think about these wins and translate them into something that your audience would understand is a win is roughly about 32 ish points of a point differential. So each win you're talking about here if you moved up a win that would be like moving up like two points in the point spread. Let's say so I'm saying it's about a two point difference let's say between someone like Tom Brady and Winston whereas if you're saying three and a half it's like a seven point difference which seems a little bit high to me. So anyway, so they're going to improve upon this but the other thing you have to look at with them is they had a much improved defense last year and whether or not that will continue defense is a little bit less stable than offense. So they were very poor defense which then Todd Bowles came in they did really well, will that continue or not? I think it's also a question mark that people may be assuming Tom Brady great defense but that great defense part we'll see if that actually happens. Yeah, again like that regression for some of the coverage statistics could hit them pretty well. Let's talk about the Patriots obviously lost Tom Brady a quarterback they've dropped 20 to one to win the Super Bowl. What do you think about that number and the team in general and how they're going to move on? I mean, I think that's an intriguing number I would say if I was going to want to look at something I'd be much more willing to bet that than to bet the Buccaneers on the other side of the equation and it really depends on how they're going to fill that quarterback hole as you said but this is a unique year where there are options out there. I mean, Nick Foles is off of the table now. Andy Dalton is going to be available I assume at some point and he's another guy where you wouldn't think that he's a great option but we used to be our measure of a mediocre average quarterback and an average quarterback is worth a lot more than a backup or replacement level quarterback. So I feel like a guy like him, I don't know if Cam Newton, the health issues but we'll see what ends up having there or if they end up training for someone else who may become available if a team draft someone like Justin Herbert and then a Derek Carr or someone like that becomes available. I think there are options out there and I think the rest of the team is built in a way where they should be looking to compete this year. I mean, talk of them tanking and getting Trevor Lawrence. It just seems like total nonsense to me other than the fact that we have to attach every single great player to the Patriots in some sort of way. So I think they're ready to compete and that division still doesn't have a lot of great talent in there. I mean, everyone's looking at Buffalo but I think Josh Allen is a huge question mark and they could bring in someone better than Josh Allen if they bring in someone like an Andy Dalton, I feel like just for next year. Yeah, the Trevor Lawrence thing seems to be just Patriots paranoia at this point. Like every time, oh my gosh, they're gonna get Trevor Lawrence and we're gonna go through this all again. Don't, not looking forward to that but it seems like the Josh Allen thing has a lot of parallels. Mitchell Trabisky the year before where the PFF grades were super low. Maybe people getting a little bit too excited. So I think that potentially being inclined to buy the Patriots does make a lot of sense. Let's go back to the team you discussed before with the Arizona Cardinals because they're heading the year two with Kyler Murray and Cliff Kingsbury. They showed some flashes last year but definitely an interesting team and now they've got Deandre Hopkins in the fold. How big of an addition is someone as good as Deandre Hopkins to that offense? And we can actually quantify that now because of this warm metric at PFF. I mean, it's a big addition. We see wide receiver at the top end as being the second most valuable position two quarterback. So someone like Deandre Hopkins in his best years is over a win for us. I mean, the best quarterbacks could be something like three wins over replacement, I'm talking about here. Not being added to a team of above replacement level players. So it's a big deal. He's been one of the most valuable players in the NFL. I think he's been the second most valuable player to Michael Thomas over the last few years as far as non-quarterbacks. So it really is a big deal. As far as what they can do, I would be higher on them if they weren't in arguably the toughest division in all of football. And they have a lot of issues on the offensive line and on the defensive line but I feel like a second year leap for Kyler could put them in a decent position to surprise some people this year. Is that something you are inclined to believe in? Is a leap from Kyler Murray based on what you saw from him as a rookie? I think so. I mean, he did not have much to work with. If you look at the fact that they wanted to, at the beginning of the year, run these four wide sets and they kind of had to get rid of that when they didn't really have the talent to do so. They're gonna draft, I think it was 11th or 13th or something like that. So they're gonna draft right in that range where they're gonna have to decide are they gonna go for another wide receiver at that point and they're gonna go for defense. We'll end up seeing what happening but they just have a lot of holes to fill but he has the mobility that people are looking for you as the accuracy, he has the arm talent. He was definitely our number one guy well before he moved up boards last year so I think he could really surprise some people this year despite the fact that people are pretty high on him going into this season. Excellent. Yeah, let's talk about the Colts. So this is another team that we thought of as Super Bowl contender before Andrew Luck retired. They're bringing in Phillip Rivers on a one year deal. Trader Ford to Forrest Bruckner. What is your, what do you see about their Super Bowl odds? Actually 24-1 at Fandle right now. I mean, I think those are pretty interesting. I would put that as one of the ones that I'd be most interested in. I mean, if you think about Phillip Rivers he's not getting nearly the sort of hype of Tom Brady yet he was, you know, he was off last year but it was only two years ago that he was probably in the top five as far as quarterbacks are concerned. He was really playing at a level that was, you know not MVP level, especially not versus someone like Patrick Mahomes that year but it's kind of adjacent to that sort of level. He's had down years in the past. I think it was 2012 or 13 where he had a very off year and then he was able to come back for that. So I think he raises the ceiling quite a bit from them and what you've seen as far as their strategy has been concerned the last few years they've been doing everything that we want smart teams to do, which is, you know accumulate draft picks, trade back get a lot of young, cheap talent have a lot of cap space. I mean, they have more cap space than anyone and now they're starting to deploy that and it looks like Ballard is starting to push some of those chips in and I feel like that really raises the ceiling for them in a division where you've had the Texans who have been, you know the division champ multiple times there and they're in a little bit of flux. We'll see what ends up happening with them and the rest of the division does not look that strong. So I think they're a very interesting candidate to have a leap this year especially because they're playing in this weaker division. Now you wrote a piece about quarterback aging and this, you know this aged class of guys we have, you know like Drew Brees, Tom Brady and Philip Rivers was in there and I thought that your analysis of Rivers was super interesting because you kind of we're talking about what you were just saying where his falloff wasn't necessarily as big as perception may have been because we see the 20 picks and people just kind of, you know they're like, whatever, he's done he's toast. Is that the, is that analysis what's making you be a little bit more bullish on this Colts team now that Rivers is in the fold and Rivers in general? Yeah, I think there are a couple of different things. What you mentioned, it was kind of dividing the positives and the negatives of what quarterbacks do. So we would think maybe intuitively if someone's throwing a lot of interceptions that's when they're cooked and they're done but it's really the opposite. It's when they're not making the positive plays in the same way that they used to be able to make avoiding negatives is something that quarterbacks can do if they really want to them. You can always get rid of the ball quicker. You can always just throw more incompletions. You could always kind of do an Alex Smith or a Derek Carr sort of way of playing quarterback. Sorry guys, sorry to step on you guys there. But you know, but the upside is what is what you really are looking for in those quarterbacks. So I think that's part of it. I also think that what we know about age curves we probably know less than we think we do about age curves because we see a falloff and then we see a guy go away. But the fact that they're all may just mean that they don't have an opportunity to show us that they can come back again like they do. And like I mentioned about rivers, he had this what would be if he was seven years older at the time back in 2012, we would have said, oh, that's a age curve. He's done, he's cooked. But then he came right back after having a very tough year with low end type of plays with interceptions that he struggled with last year. So he's come back from this before in the past. He was just younger then than he is now. So his ability to do it now we probably are underestimating. All right. Any other teams that have made moods so far this year that stand out to you from a betting perspective whether it be in the positive or a negative sense they just put a windtills, they have fan of those sports books. So probably not looking at those but anything else stand out to you based on what we've seen so far this fall season? Yeah, I mean, again, going to the Buffalo Bills like I said, I'm not very high on Josh Allen but I really like the way that they changed their offense last year to make it a little bit more of a short passing game not rely on the deep passes that much. Stefan Diggs is a great addition, of course they're bringing in core players on defense. Sean McDermott looks to be one of the better coaches in the NFL. And as much as I think that with decent quarterback play the Patriots could be right back in the mix again. Again, you're looking in that division, you're saying well, what if that doesn't happen? What if whoever, it's just an unknown right now. So I think that there's probably some value in the fact that they can at least win that division and then we'll end up seeing what's happening there. I'm kind of looking at some other ones it's a little bit tougher to pick out here I think the Chargers another one if you want to just bet on uncertainty again at the quarterback position can they bring in someone to do well because they've built out this defense in free agency bringing in a lot of guys and I feel like they have a pretty complete roster and they've also improved the offensive line now with bringing in Brian Beluga and then also Trey Turner. They have all the pieces other than the quarterback are they really gonna stick with Tyrod Taylor? I don't think so, but they're gonna say that now until they know what they're gonna do. Yeah, definitely an interesting team because the offensive line was like this major issue for them but getting Trey Turner and Brian Beluga immediately cleanses that quite a bit and then they have that high end pick to potentially get a left tackle as well to replace Russell O'Koon. So a lot of interesting pieces in place there for sure. That is Kevin Cole make sure you find all of his work over a pro football focus and follow him on Twitter at KevinColePFF to find all those charts we're talking about about teams improving through free agency and trades. Kevin, we appreciate the time. Good luck with you. Good luck to you dealing with kids at home throughout all this craziness. Godspeed to you on that for sure and we appreciate the time. Thank you. Okay, thanks, Jim. Thanks, Ed and everybody stay healthy. Yeah, thank you very much. It's good. Covering the future. One big thank you once again to Kevin Cole for swinging by and talking about free agency. We're going to keep the free agency discussion flowing right here, Ed. With covering the future, you want to talk about the New England Patriots. I'm going to talk about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. So more Tom Brady discussion. What are your thoughts on New England now with their kind of uncertain future right now? Yeah, you know, I mean, I think it's kind of time to throw up in your mouth a little bit and buy low on Bill Belichick. So clearly lost his quarterback and I don't think Brady is replaceable at that level. I personally thought he was pretty decent last year. I didn't think the problems with that offense were, they certainly weren't all on him. I mean, they did have some other issues on that side of the ball. But I think what you need to remember is that this was a historically good defense and especially the secondary. And they're going to be bringing back Stephon Gilmore, Jonathan Jones, J.C. Jackson at the quarterback position. All of them graded out really well on pro football focus last year. They've invested where the analytics say that it matters most, which is coverage. Kevin Cole talked a little bit about that, about how coverage is more important than pass rush. Coverage does tend to be volatile from season to season as well. So last year, New England was second in terms of past events. When I look at adjusted success rate, they were a hair behind San Francisco and that department. And that volatility means like, you don't necessarily expect them to be first or second next year, right? So you expect some regression in the mean. But it's not reasonable. I mean, it's not unreasonable to think that this is again going to be a top five unit in terms of past defense. So I definitely see them set on that side of the ball. And on offense, we'll see. I see no world in which they start the season with Cody Kessler or Jared Stidham as they're starting quarterback. I think Andy Dalton makes a ton of sense as Kevin Cole mentioned before, obviously that they need to make that work with Cincinnati and things like that. But I think the thing that you want to remember is just the Belichick factor. You can check out a lot of things that he did in a book called A Grid Iron Janus by Michael Lombardi, who is an NFL executive that also coached with Belichick for one year. So there's a lot of interesting chapters in there about just the effort that a Belichick coaching staff puts into special teams and things like that. I just wanted to point out one stat that I think is just kind of mind blowing. You would think a stat like broken tackles would tend to be pretty random from year to year. Not something that one defense could be particularly good at consistently. But I mentioned this on the show heading into the preseason, but football outsiders looks at broken tackle rate on defense, obviously the lower rate is better. And before this previous season, New England had been in the top five, five out of the past six years. And it's just, I think it's the kind of number that I think is probably indicative of coaching in the meticulous preparation that these guys put into the game. And I think these guys are, I feel pretty good about them, at least on one side of the ball. And you put even an average quarterback like Andy Dalton on the other side. I don't think their Super Bowl odds are gonna get lower than 20 to one, which they are right now. AFC championship odds are a 10 to one. And I think those might be even more interesting because clearly Kansas City's ahead of them, clearly Baltimore's ahead of them, or at least we would expect that they would be ahead of them. But I don't know about any other team in the AFC that I would, I definitely would not put Buffalo ahead of them right now. Indy's an interesting team, obviously depending on how the river's thing works out. So, if you are thinking about buying low on New England, I think now is the chance to do it because I don't think that price is gonna get any better for you. Yeah, win totals at Fandall Sportsbook just went up literally this morning. Their total is nine and a half right now. It's plus 100 on the over, minus 116 on the under. So, still a little bit in on there, but I think that the analysis of, it's probably not gonna get worse, is accurate from a betting perspective. Like their numbers probably not gonna get any better or any shorter, I should say. Because I think that right now, they're making the, or sorry, it's not gonna get any longer is the way I'd phrase that. Because right now, there's a possibility that we're at Sydom's a quarterback. No, there's no. The odds of that, the odds, no. So, you cited Michael Lombardi, he said on his podcast, which I mean, I like Lombardi to any, he's a very smart guy, I was reading that same bullet. He was saying that they actually liked Sydom and he thinks there's a chance they could go into the year with him. I don't know if I believe that, but he was also the guy who said the bear is trying to trade for Nick Foles. So, he's still connected, he's a sharp guy, especially connected to New England. So, I think that's a shot. I mean, you kind of think about it. You know, you think just about the small sample size of quarterbacks, right? Like, Stidham was supposed to be the stud, transferring from Baylor over to Auburn, was pretty good, I think, his first year. It was good his second to last year at Auburn. He was terrible this final year. Yeah, he was not good. I think there were some issues, as there tends to be in that program every once in a while. But I mean, that is a small sample size. Like, I mean, I think we all thought this guy had the arm talent. So, I mean, maybe there is some, you know, maybe there is some truth to that that they like Stidham. And just also like, you know, I mean, I'm probably gonna talk about this a lot. As good as Joe Burrow looked this past year, it's a small sample size, right? And it's gonna be different when he goes to Cincinnati, if that ends up being his final resting spot. So, yeah, just, I mean, it makes it, it makes it interesting to predict, right? Because we see so little of these guys, right? Yeah, now I did mention Jared Stidham and Michael and Barty saying there's a chance. I don't think that's, I agree with you that that's probably not gonna happen because he literally got benched in a game where they were trying to ice it against the Jets because he threw a pick six. They then signed Cody Kessler. So, like, the actions of the front office say they don't trust him as much as the hype may be saying as of right now. So, let's continue this discussion here about Tom Brady and his current and former team because Fandle Sportsbook has some props posted for Brady's first year at the Bucks and you can bet his yardage total, touchdown total, interception props and I looked at JJ Zacharyson's projections. We've had him on the show. He's been killing player projections and player props and if you look at his projections for Brady on the Bucks, the under on Brady's interceptions is the best bet, I think, by a pretty wide margin and there's also some value in the over on the yardage but Fandle Sportsbook is also offering which team will win more games this year between the Bucks and the Patriots and I agree with you and Kevin where the Patriots are interesting but I'm getting the Bucks at plus 130 to win more games here than the Patriots and I like that number quite a lot because the Brady aspect of this discussion is interesting because I agree with your assessment. I thought he looked fine last year. There was just a clear lack of talent around him whether it be the wide receivers, Isaiah win this a lot of the year, David Andrews their center missed the entire year and now he gets to throw the ball to Mike Evans and Chris Godwin that helps quite a bit and this defense is pretty good too. We've alluded to this, you know, Kevin alluded to this where I think the perception broadly is that their defense is terrible and it was two years ago but it wasn't last year. They actually ranked fourth in number fires schedule adjusted metrics overall. They were seventh against the pass. They were elite against the rush and the two big catalysts of that pass defense mark were their pass rushers, Shaq Barrett and Jason Pierre Paul. Now coverage is more important than pass rush but as both you and Kevin mentioned, pass rush is stickier. So I think we could see the bucks regress but I don't think they go back to being the defense they were in 2018. And then there's also the same ambiguity around the Patriots at quarterback. You know, it could be James Winston. I think that'd be really fun to watch. It'd probably have to be fun. It'd be great to watch him interact with Bill Belichick. I want it, let me have it. Could be Dalton, could be Cam but it could also be Jared Stidham. And like if they do start sitting I think the bucks win this one pretty easily. And with how much Brady struggled with those skill guys last year and how little the Patriots have done to address the skill guys so far in this office and there's still a lot of time but I wouldn't expect anybody to make this offense a top level offense for next year. So the only big edge the Pats have over the bucks for next year is defense and the bucks are, I would say underrated there. So I don't think this number will be at plus 130 for long. So I'd hop on while you still can. I agree with you that it's smart to buy low on the Patriots but I think this bucks team is really interesting. Their Super Bowl odds have come down way too much for me to buy into that one. Looking at their win total right now at Fandville Sports Book. It's eight and a half, that's fine. It's minus 142 on the over. That's more okay than their Super Bowl odds but I think when I can get them at plus 130 versus the Patriots, I'll take it. Yeah and don't forget like Tampa Bay's defense was one of the most injured two years ago. That's correct. Huge amount of injuries on that side of the ball. So you expected some improvement, not as much as necessarily we saw in the numbers but yeah, definitely some promise. Yeah man, they added Shaq Barrett between 2018 and 2019 too and he was tremendous so reasons to be optimistic there but I think both teams will be discussing plenty as the off season progresses. Now let's do quarantine corner. That's what I'm gonna call this here. Just decided to have the fly. Love it. I wanna get your thoughts and things you've been doing while you've been self isolated and get people ideas because I know it's tough to like think of what to do while you're quarantined. So what have you been doing to pass a time while you're trying to self isolate and prevent the further spread of COVID-19? I mean it's not too much different what I normally do but I mean I find a lot of, I find a lot of solace in books. We had a trip planned to Portugal at the end of the month for the kid's spring break. And so I picked up Night Train to Lisbon which is just this beautiful read. So it was this kind of this nerdy classics professor in Germany that all of a sudden realizes that life sucks and picks up this book from this Portuguese doctor who's kind of mysterious and writes these beautiful words and he gets intrigued and takes the Night Train to Lisbon to learn about this guy. And really it's a story about finding yourself through the words and the stories of others. Just finished it, it's a great read. If you're 43 years old and trying to find yourself and wondering about trying to figure out what the meaning of life is and where your role is in the world. It's a book that will definitely make you think about make you think about that at least a little bit and think about your own life. That is so Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier. Okay, perfect. Mine is less academic. Good all, man. No, no, no, I know, but it's not reading basically. So I've talked about this before on the podcast. I spend way too much time playing this game called 2048 where- Oh yeah. Do you remember this? It was a fad like six years ago. Basically what you do is like you have these blocks and it's actually quite relevant when we're talking about exponential growth with regards to like the spread of viruses but you have blocks and every time you move the arrow keys another block comes into the fold but if you get a two block next to a two block they combine for a four block and you combine similar numbered blocks together and then they double. So you put two, four blocks together, you get an eight, two eight blocks, you get a 16, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So exponential growth, it actually is pretty pertinent for this type of thing. And the goal is to get a 2048 block and set a new personal high last night. Not here to brag, but I tweeted about that and I was so happy about this because like I had nothing else going on honestly and I was playing it a lot and I was excited about this maybe 15 seconds later after I post that tweet my sister direct messages me on Twitter and she's like, what's your high score? And I'm like, you nerd, this is like it was 16 seconds after I posted this she messaged me because she said that she hadn't played it in a while and wanted to make sure my high score was not higher than hers because like we don't like escape the room type things over like Christmas time and stuff. She is the most competitive person I've ever been around in my entire life. She won an adult spelling bee like a couple weeks ago. I should not be surprised that she direct messaged me this quickly, but I was. So it makes you competitive. It has numbers involved. You can do it while watching Netflix. I've been watching Ozark I guess, I don't know. But like I would say 2048 if you are okay with like if you don't have an addictive like personality if you have an addictive personality I would avoid it because it's very addicting but as long as we're okay with that it's pretty good. You should avoid most of our modern world if you have an addictive personality. I absolutely like that. My Twitter habits would agree with you. Like it's not good. So yeah, I'm taking a break from my Twitter timeline. I don't blame you man, it's bad. It's just like, yeah. It's a lot of bad attempts at content by like sites and I say this knowing full well that I'm contributing to bad content. So like I get it. But like bad attempts at content it's a lot of people minimizing things. They shouldn't be minimizing and it's very frustrating but there's also like periodic entertainment and football news and I can't quit it because of that. Yeah, I feel like, I mean it's not like I'm quitting Twitter. Yeah. I'm just quitting the timeline because whenever I go on the timeline you kind of get sucked in and then you're wasting time and I basically don't have any time to waste right now and then you get like sucked into the trending topics and so those are the things I'm trying to cut out. Okay, that makes sense. I can buy into that. I can buy into anything honestly with cutting down Twitter usage knowing full well that I should be doing it myself but I think that that does make a lot of sense. We'll bring back quarantine corner next week too. Yeah, that sounds good. More ways to fill the time. I got a bunch of other very large books that will help people pass. Okay, good. Night Train to Liz Briggs. You can tweet at the bottom if you want to see them. Do you know this? I'm still using Twitter. Yeah, I put out a thread this afternoon but we can talk about them on the show. And I would read them but I am too busy playing 2048. So what's wrong with that? It's gonna last another week before I get incredibly bored and move on to something else. That is all that we have for today here on Covering the Spread. Once again, a big thank you to Kevin Cole, a pro football focus for swinging by and breaking down the fallout of free agency. Follow him on Twitter at KevinColePFF. He is a data scientist over at Pro Football Focus. Ed, what is going on for you? I know March, this is kind of interrupted plans but what's going on for you over at the PowerRank? Well, so I wanted to just plug my newsletter real quick, my email newsletter because it is the one newsletter in the entire world which will not send out an email about coronavirus. I'm not sending out an email to my list about how I'm dealing with coronavirus because even if that were interesting, no one would care. So when sports comes back, there'll be a lot of content about NFL, college football and just about everything else. So thepowerrank.com as usual. All right, thepowerrank.com to find that and make sure you check out Ed's podcast too, the football analytics show. I am on Twitter at JimSana's, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S you can also follow the Fandal Podcast Network at Fandal Podcast. I've been doing some evergreen daily fantasy content over on our other podcasts, the heat check fantasy podcast. You can find that by searching for the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed. I had been meaning to do that for a long time. I guess I have time to do so now. So I've been doing that and find those over on the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed. Big thank you to our producer, Calvin Theobalds, from the video side of things here today. Thank you, Cal as always and thank you to everyone for tuning in again back next week to talk with John Sheeran about some horse racing for those of you who are not familiar like me. Hopefully you can learn a lot from John of Fandal Sportsbook. We'll talk to you then. This has been covering the spread right here on the Fandal Podcast Network.