 This is covering the spread here are your hosts Jim sawness and dr. Ed Fang What is going on everybody? Welcome on into covering the spread right here on the fan duel podcast network My name is Jim sawness. I am a senior writer and analyst for number fire.com joined here as always by dr Ed Fang of the power rank.com you can find them on Twitter at the power rank Ed Glad to have you in here NFL training camps are opening right now Do you have a favorite NFL team that I should know of I feel like if we're running podcast co-hosts It's something I should probably know here Kind of not really I grew up in Philly was the Eagles fan for a long time Dishonem when they got rid of Andy Reid. I understand why it happened, you know, both both sides needed a new start It's not like, you know not mad at it, but I was just like, you know, I'm kind of done with this team I live in near Detroit now Of course, you know you goes go win the Super Bowl and now I mean if you ask me I guess I would say I'm a Lions fan, which is you know, there's no there's no pressure in being a Lions fan Yeah, that's true Although honestly, Ed like as an NFL analytics guy you disowning the Eagles for firing Andy Reid is like poetic Like is that that's the word that would come to my mind here for hearing that reasoning Well, yeah, and you could definitely say, you know, Ed, you're an analyst guy They're, you know outwardly the most forward in terms of analytics now and I definitely appreciate that You know like I mean especially NFL is such a part of the business that like it's almost good to kind of be agnostic and not have like Rooting interest in some ways Same with college football though, obviously with like Stanford educational background and being here in Ann Arbor There's there's clear rooting interest there. So, you know that NFL I can kind of take a step back Yeah, joke around about how I'm a Lions fan and yeah, it's all good See it's easier for me, too Because like I grew up a Jets fan for some reason and it's very easy to disconnect yourself being a Jets fan So like I've had no issues with that and I can just appreciate the NFL as well College football same thing. I'm not I'm always going to be Inclined towards Northwestern and I can never bet on them as a result I know that it would be very stupid for me to do so I can never I can never remove my my heart out of that So NFL training camps opening will be talking NFL later this week with Evan Silva of establish the run calm Breaking down his process for NFL win totals and all that today. We're talking with whale capper You can find him on Twitter at whale underscore capper topping talking NBA futures NBA Championship futures based on free agency and all the trades that have gone down and it should be a great show So looking forward to talking with whale for sure That will be coming up in just one second quick reminder that if you were not with us last week We had JJ Zachary Sonon to talk about Projections how he builds those for the NFL which player props he likes for 2019 and also just generically How he goes about betting player props based on his process and how his process of building projections informs that we also In covering the future Ed talked about the Minnesota Vikings their Super Bowl futures I went through Alex Bregman's MVP odds Then bet Alex break or Alex bowman to win the cup series championship And he proceeded to wreck two different cars in two days in New Hampshire this past weekend had to drive his teammates back up car So we're off to a blaze and start here with Alex bowman to win the cup series You can find that podcast on spotify Apple podcast and Stitcher as well Just by searching for cover covering the spread and as a new podcast any ratings and reviews you leave are So deeply appreciated and also they help us out a ton So if you like we heard from JJ or you like we hear late today from whale capper Let us know on Apple podcast by leaving a review and we'll get into whale capper in just one second But Ed NBA futures the topic for today any dabbling for you yet into that market for 2019 2020 Well when I woke up this morning I mean I was just so excited to talk about the future's odds for Oklahoma City that I just couldn't contain myself We'll get into that a little bit later Yeah, definitely some stuff. I like and yeah, probably gonna dabble on it pretty soon. Yeah, cuz I think we're gonna get some good numbers All right, well, let's pause here for just one second We'll bring in whale capper to talk about that again follow him on Twitter at whale underscore capper He is a a handicapper for the NFL NBA and tennis as well. So let's bring him in here with his thoughts on the NBA Covering the present Let's welcome whale capper here to the show for covering the presence and whale It's been just this crazy NBA offseason summers of you know in full swing, but I'm sure it's been a busy one for you How are you doing today? I'm fantastic man, and you nailed it. This has been the most interesting exciting enthralling NBA offseason that we've had in the years I've been covering league from a betting perspective and as we look across the landscape You're entering kind of a complete new realm this season where a lot more teams have a chance than the last handful of years So it's gonna be a super fun year to bet the NBA And how hard is that for you as a better having all this ambiguity because there's some level of certainty when you know We've seen if we've seen the Warriors play together with the same cast for several years You kind of know what to expect but this year I think there's been so much change. How hard is that for you when you're building out your algorithms to kind of know What to expect for each individual team? well for certain, I think you have to kind of Be be prepared to scrap your priors earlier than you would otherwise, right like I mean I'm going in with this with a perspective That's informed based on player strengths and you know and movement and how you know how the landscape is changing and It's my best guess, but I certainly this year. I'm not going to be you know dying on any given hill I'm gonna be prepared to to pivot pretty quickly once we start to see how these you know how these teams play together So well, how do you come up with the priors? Is this a computational method or is it more subjective in nature? Yeah, so I lately at you know Throughout my career. I mostly look at team level stuff as my starting point because I like to kind of have something that's you know more Stable year-over-year that you can incorporate player level kind of predictions and Combine those into a team level Expectation but you know, you're gonna get pretty close to back to the same place that way in my experience And so I think going for Going for player level stuff is good and helpful and it you know for establishing priors It's kind of the key because you know, we have a you know player like you know, I guess best best example would be the nets What do you do with the nets? They're losing you know a player like Yeah, you know D Lo and they're getting Kyrie Irving and you know, you want some sort of Quantification on you know what that change is going to do in terms of their offensive a defensive efficiency And the best way to do that is a player level approach So let's go here broadly from a process perspective for you from an NBA futures perspective It's still July of 2019 And if you're betting the NBA title right now, that's gonna tie up some of your bankroll for almost an entire year So how good of a value does it have to be for you to actually bet an NBA future at this point in the year? Yeah, this is a really good jumping off point for all kind of preseason action in all sports Because you have to be you know, you can have an absolute guaranteed ROI On you know on some sort of position be it, you know NBA college football NFL It doesn't matter, but you know, you can corner the market by you know By getting ahead of a number that's gonna move for instance and then watch it move You know four or five wins and then come back on the other side You know so that you have this nice little five-win win, you know middle The problem is you know that tying up that bankroll over the course of you know the regular season impacts You know how much you're gonna be able to get down on game by game and so you need to have probably in the ballpark of 15 to 20 percent ROI type of target on those kind of plays To make it worthwhile locking up that bankroll because if you consider like okay over a four month sample size Or a six month sample size however long you however long you intend to bet the NBA day by day It's pretty easy to turn over enough Plays that you only need you know like about a half a percent or so ROI on any given play on average In order to make up the difference of what it would mean to lock up that bankroll for the course of you know for six months so it's it's a it's a pretty straightforward math problem and You know you can kind of you know figure out for yourself like okay This has to have an expected value target of blank in order for it to make sense to lock up this bankroll for that many that many months and and in general the answer is it's not worth it but But but for sure You know for sure. I still get involved in the futures market for sure There are opportunities where you say okay like you know this number is going to get a Substantially shorter throughout the season So it's important to have this ticket now in order to give me flexibility because I know I'm going to be entering Entering the futures market taking other positions on other teams over the course of the season as we learn and understand more and you know, you know There may be some team that you see a number out there now and you're like man when people see this team you know go out on you know start out the season, you know at the you know 15 to 5 15 and 5 record or something like after the first month, you know They're all that that that that price is going to be substantially shorter and I'll have that ticket in my pocket So you know there there are pluses and minuses to do in it But but in general you need to have a pretty high expectation of how valuable the ticket is before you lock up that bankroll So well like especially this year. I want to ask you more about your process Are you looking for teams? Like do you think there's gonna be more value in teams that have made a lot of changes? Obviously with like the Lakers and the Clippers being those teams Or are you looking for teams that have been more static in the off-season and are kind of flying under the radar? Ooh the Way that the market has kind of priced in the expectation that the likes of the Clippers and the Lakers are gonna be these old world all world teams Without having them see see them play a minute of basketball together I think presents value on some of the more established teams that have you know They have deep rosters that have known Advantages like teams like your your nuggets in your jazz this year are probably good examples They didn't get a lot of buzz during free agency They didn't get a lot of you know people talking about there You know there there are chances, but guess what we know those teams have a built-in Outstanding home court advantage because they play at altitude we know those teams have you know solid cores that have been playing together Year-over-year everyone knows their roles. They've tweaked some pieces on both squads So they should be more competitive or they're getting you know in the case of the nuggets They're getting some some youth to inject into their lineup so they should improve And you know in general they're they're young teams that are on kind of an arc of improvement anyway, so you know I do think that You know of teams that as we enter the season You know the likes of the jazz and the nuggets probably hold more value, especially in kind of game-by-game betting once we get into October and November Then the teams better expected to be these super teams Let's talk about those super teams right now and talk about both the LA teams starting off with the Clippers Paul George and Kawhi Leonard are in town and they're not a favorites to win at Fandall Sportsbook win the NBA championship next year They're plus 320 right now, and I think based on your previous answer We kind of know your thoughts on them at that number Are they the favorites for you personally entering the year or are you shying away from them? Given the height that's starting that team right now Man that is an awfully short number for a team that has a lot of questions I'm gonna I guess you know I'm a long-term buyer in what they're doing with the Clippers the fact that the fact that that Jerry West pulled off this deal in the first place is kind of all you need to know about you know What trajectory this team is on in general? I have a ton of respect for their coach Doc Rivers And Kawhi Leonard bonafide super star bonafide super duper duper star He will 100% win you a series You know when when the going gets tough we saw it against Philly we saw it against the Warriors So it's it's not it's not against the Bucks too I mean he was the defining you know defining player and kind of you know closing the gap and in late in games five and six for them So you know it's it's it's pretty obvious that you know He is on the tier of players that can win you a title You know and you if I'm back if I'm backing anyone in the futures market to win the NBA championship They better have a player like that a player like LeBron a player like Kevin Durant You know you can pretty much count on one hand the players who are capable of single-handedly winning you a playoff series in the NBA And Kawhi is one of those guys. So yes, clearly they should be kind of in the conversation for favorites But Paul George coming off two shoulder surgeries You're telling me he's going to be able to carry any kind of offensive load over the first half of the season I am very skeptical of that. We know that Kawhi Leonard is going to enforce kind of a load management scheme on this Clippers team And you know they have they have depth. They have some nice pieces They have defense all that portends well to being competitive once comes playoff time But guess what if you like the Clippers if you like Kawhi wait until like December January You're gonna see a much better number when they're sick because they could very reasonably be in like six seven Standing in the Western Conference, you know come around, you know Christmas in New Year's and at that time Maybe they start to put together a little chemistry a little bit of a run But this the idea that this team is gonna be the favorite to in the NBA title from wire to wire is lunacy So buying in now at the bottom of the market. I mean at the top of the market is is not You know not a worthy play in my book Yeah, I mean, I think we you're absolutely right What we saw with Kawhi and his playoffs that he can put a team on his shoulders But I think what also we saw in this playoffs was that he felt kind of alone out there in Toronto And and you know, he made the decision to go to LA bring Paul George with him which I think for him is is definitely the long-term play and Yeah, I think their their future is looking bright Well, I want to ask you about the other LA team the Lakers. They got Anthony Davis Did you think they gave up too much for him? What do you think their prospects are? There's obviously a guy named LeBron also on that team break break them down for us Yeah, so in the moment of you know after that trade was announced I felt like it was a lose-lose deal for both teams and part of the reason is I feel like They they the pelicans I didn't think got more than they could have gotten if they made this deal last year after the all-star break I feel like they got a little less And you know, they granted they knew that they were getting the fourth overall pick in this draft and granted They did some very clever things in terms of how they put together their you know Their approach to the draft this year and they got a player in Hayes who looks Unbelievably good. So, you know, it's it's a little bit You know a little bit hindsight bias to kind of pat the pelicans on the back so much for kind of what they got for Anthony Davis they did think but they did get a lot. They got a haul The problem is I think the Lakers They would have been better off as a team and as a franchise that they had had Davis for last year's Stretch run if they could have gotten some playoff minutes with Davis and then LeBron on the floor together So they can start figuring out each other's roles how they work best You know wealth with each other in the over the course of a playoff series because playoff series basketball It's so different than the regular season and the idea that in year one These two guys are going to be able to figure it out on the fly in a very competitive Western conference Is a tough tough bill to swallow, you know, it's and you know date the LeBron kind of arc is Clearly his offensive contributions are coming down Year over year here, which is concerning because we already know he's more or less taking defense off in the regular season And if his offensive trajectory continues to tail off then I'm not sure how this team Realistically competes for a title over the next couple years, but it's it I think they dodged a bullet probably and not picking up a third Superstar. I know that was kind of the entire You know plan here. We're gonna get Davis. We're gonna bring in another max guy But I think the way it worked out where they ended up with a deeper roster overall gives them a heck of a lot more Flexibility going into this season than they would have if they had picked up the third superstar that they were going after So I think you know, I'm a little bit more bullish on the Lakers chances of being competitive in the West than I was a couple of months ago when you know And it was looking like they were gonna be a complete barbell sort of team top-heavy in the most extreme way you could imagine Especially with a couple fragile players who are you know known to go out with injury at least in the especially in the case of Davis But more recently in the case LeBron, so it's it's going to be a fascinating season to see how it plays out Lakers coach is enormous question mark. It seems like LeBron clearly wanted Jason Kidd and somehow He's the assistant coach that has trouble written all over it So, you know again the Lakers kind of fall in the same category as the Clippers where they've been over bet Substantially in the market and you know, yes, they can contend for a title But you're gonna get a much better crack at them at some point in season than you will at this time So the Clippers and Lakers are two favorites right now, but now maybe not the time to bet them We're talking here once again with whale capper host of the deep dive podcast and well Let's move to the other team here making big moves during the offseason in the Houston Rockets because they've got Russell Westbrook in town Reuniting him with James Harden They are third in futures are actually fourth in futures I was behind the Clippers Lakers and Bucks one of the more Static teams during this offseason in a positive sense the Rockets at eight to one What's your view on them right now with Westbrook in town and joining up with James Harden? I'm going to be cautiously optimistic that this is a partnership that can work in the 2019-2020 season It's you know James Harden clearly Needed some help over the last two seasons carrying the offensive load in the regular season I feel like his underperformance year-over-year in the playoffs is in large part due to how much of the load He carries during the regular season the the Rockets at one point last season were legitimately a bubble team To make the playoffs they were playing so poorly they were dealing with so many injuries and James Harden single-handedly carried that team into a position where they could even compete for a title last year Injecting a guy like Westbrook who plays a little bit differently. He's not going to shoot the ball necessarily well So on its face value. It doesn't necessarily make sense as a fit But he does things a little differently. He attacks the basket and you know in one of the more effective ways across the league The idea that they're going to be able to create space with a bunch of shooters on the floor and give Westbrook an opportunity To really get after it near the hoops is appealing to me I like that they were able to hold on to Clint Capel Although he's not shown himself to be effective necessarily in the playoffs, but I like him especially as a regular season player So, you know, I think overall There's a lot to look forward to here with the Rockets and if if Harden can concede some of the Responsibilities of carrying the offensive load here to Westbrook I think that sets them up to be more dangerous in the playoffs than we've seen from them the last couple years Excellent so well cabra, I can't look at a futures chart without golden state at 15-1 Jumping out and just taking up my entire screen. Obviously Clay Thompson is gonna be hurt for a while But they still have this core that won 73 games a couple years ago Don't have Kevin Duran anymore. What's your take on the Golden State Wars? Yeah, I'm with you on this. This is one of the more head-scratching numbers out there because not long after We kind of I mean, you know all throughout the offseason. It was pretty obvious I mean all throughout the kind of the late part of the regular season in the playoffs It was pretty obvious Kevin Duran was headed to New York We didn't know if he was going nicks or nets But he made it pretty clear at the all-star break PC did with Ramona Shelbur and hey, I'm moving my entire team to New York We are going to the Big Apple and so you would have thought at that time that some of the early odds We saw pop would have reflected no Durant on the Warriors yet They were still kind of in the conversation at the top of the West You know as you know more or less the favorites to win the West Before we knew Anthony Davis was gonna go to the Lakers before we knew Kauai was gonna go to the Clippers So the fact that it swung so violently Simply on news that we were expecting anyway is surprising And then you know the you know Clay Thompson being out with an ACL is obviously somewhat concerning But he you know there's plenty of time for him To get back into the mix and be a contributor once they get to the playoffs So when you're evaluating the Warriors, it's there. They are for the first time in many many years They are a value bet which is crazy to say but here we are And you know, I think you have to talk to yourself into okay. Well is Steph Curry capable of carrying the offensive load effectively on his own without clay Thompson over the course of the regular season this year And you know if he's if if you know, it's the the x-factor and all this really is you know as D'Angelo Russell Dilo is Capable of doing a lot of interesting things on offense not necessarily a great fit with Steph Curry But pretty obviously and clearly like a trade piece come You know come December January I got a funny feeling that we'll see you know a D. Lo for kind of a guy in the you know in the Sort of swingman type of role You know good good good a good swap would be sent D. Lo to the Minnesota Timberwolves and try to get back Robert Covington and another offensive piece You know that that would immediately I think improve my my Expected wins and expected performance for the for the Warriors over the season and I feel like a deal like that is imminent And at that point you're just hoping that the Warriors medical staff Pulls themselves together and gets clay Thompson healthy and back on the court And then you probably have pretty nice ticket come come April that you'll be sitting on with a number that no one would Believe you actually got if you have 15 to 1 so that that that does make sense to me as a bet right now And the Wolves obviously very interested in D. Angelo Russell. So that's not a shock See a big shot Bob at West would be a lot of fun. So I'm on board Idea could be a lot of fun. I don't know big shot Bob still applies, but we'll go with it Anyway, you touched on the warrior him. Can I just jump in real quick? I just wanted to jump in because because web was talking so much about how those odds have moved I feel like the first time I saw a golden state. I saw him somewhere at 10 to 1. Yeah After we had all the news. So like this number is getting longer. Yeah I feel like it's going the wrong way But yeah, just a little bit more history on where it is. Also. I like Kevin Looney as well I think he's gonna be a good piece of that next year. They're obviously gonna miss a good dollar, but But yeah, I think we're in agreement on that. Yep strong agree Kevin Looney. Nice player So you mentioned the Warriors of 15 to 1 you touched briefly on the jazz and the nuggets the jazz are 12 to 1 the nuggets 23 to 1 at Fandals sportsbook If you had to settle on one team that you view as being like a value You're willing to bet right now and lock up that bankroll for such a long time as we had discussed Which team stands out most to you based on the ads at Fandals sportsbook? Yeah, it's the nuggets for me I went back and forth between the jazz and nuggets because the jazz the jazz From a metric standpoint just scream at you a team that is better than the market things Right like you look at their numbers and they were like clearly a top four or five team for most of the season last year And they've not done nothing but addressed some of their key weaknesses. So there's there is value on the jazz I think but but what we saw in the playoffs out of out of Jokic was Incredible he is the real deal. He has the tools to make an absolute difference in any playoff series that he's in I Was shocked that they lost that game seven to the Timberwolves that was wild But that's but spoke to their any experience, you know It was a team that was almost all of those players first-ever playoff run yet They beat Popovich in a series which was pretty damn impressive and now they head into a you know Take presumably take another step forward And I think are going to be a very very tough out in the playoffs on top of a team that you could concede conceivably See pile up a lot of regular seized wins again I mean this is the nuggets I think are kind of because of the potential star super duper star power of a player like Jokic and what he can do from You know both the shooting outside and getting to the rim you know with his size is Potentially the deciding factor in a playoff series against you know equal opponents So so I'm I'm a bigger buyer in the nuggets probably than Than any other team in the West right now Yeah, 23 to 1 for a team that does have one of those Kawhi guys you mentioned who can make a difference in a series I think is certainly very tempting. That's all we got. Well, I want to thank you for hopping on here I think it was a fun discussion about kind of how you do your NBA futures bets because for a lot of people They may not know you know the the opportunity cost with betting a future at this time But sounds like the nuggets worthy of that bankroll burn for a little bit of time So I want to thank you for coming on again. Enjoy the weather in SoCal Hopefully you have a good couple of weeks and hopefully you're getting sent for NBA and NFL season. Thank you again for coming on We'll talk to you again soon for some tennis talk in August. Oh, I can't wait guys bucks to win the East Covering the future One a final big Thank you to whale capper for hopping on and talking about NBA futures again Follow him on Twitter at whale underscore capper to get his thoughts on the NBA NFL and tennis will have whale back on pretty soon. You're talks about FL and of course tennis prior to the US open as well Once you get in on the action check out the Fandal sportsbook and place your first bet today If you lose Fandal will give you a refund of up to $500 in site credit visit sportsbook that fandal.com for more details terms and conditions apply must be 21 plus and Physically present in New Jersey gambling problem. Call 1-800-gambler. Let's move now into covering the future and Ed as we look forward to this week I know you mentioned you were doing your college football numbers up on the power bank com for this week Any big takeaways for you based on going through that process and looking at what they say for 2019 Yeah, you know, I kind of mentioned Texas Longhorns last week coming into the season There's a ton of hype and went 10 and 4 last year huge wins over Oklahoma and Georgia But the one thing I want to say about Texas for this year is They're overrated. So I kind of warned Texas fans about, you know, getting my report I've offered them a refund on the free report that they can get on my site But you know, the numbers just don't like Texas this year. They're ranked 42nd by my numbers That's gonna be way lower than they end up in in the polls that are gonna come out Later in August and you can really argue that 42nd is You know, the numbers have them a little bit high at 42nd and let me get into this first, you know They're obviously propelled by what they did last year that big win over Georgia Georgia was missing their two of their best defensive players in that game It wasn't something that knew about beforehand But when they kicked they didn't have two of their best players getting ready for the draft And then the other thing that you know, when I do my preseason model like one of the most important factors is how they performed last year and What I do what I put in is my team rankings and these are the algorithms. I developed based on my research It takes margin of victory in games and adjust restraint the schedule a simple yet still powerful predictor and Texas was 14th By those numbers and that's what's you know, and despite that they're still 42nd You could also evaluate this Texas team in a different way from last season. You can take yards per play offense defense adjust restraint the schedule put them back together and rank them as a team They were as low as 30th last year when you look at adjusted yards per play so So they might not even as been as good last year based on the Georgia game big Georgia win When you look at some Efficiency metrics they might not have been as good as even we thought them I definitely don't think they were as good as the 10 win season They might have been even worse and then the numbers are also seeing a lack of returning stars This isn't such a big deal on offense. They get quarterback Sam Elinger back They got a study Collin Johnson at wide receiver. They should be good. I'm not super high on Elinger as a quarterback I think he's got limited upside, you know How much better are they gonna do than the 59th in adjusted yards per play that I had him ranked last year? We'll see but where this really comes in is on the defensive side of the ball They are gutted of their top performers from last year They lose defensive end Charles and men who big 10 defensive player in the year quarterback Chris Boyd Another key piece that got drafted in the NFL So this unit was 24th last year and it's gonna require a Myron miracle to stay at that level a top 25 level So I'm I think Texas is gonna be seriously overrated this year Nine and a half win seems a lot of very high at the fan dual sports book and and just let me close with one other thing You know, you're gonna see a lot this year about how Tom Herman Is great as an underdog and it's terrible as a favorite I could quote numbers, but this is a kind of trend that just screams small sample size to me Like please don't make any of your bets based on what Tom Herman has done over four years of coaching And I know you can you know, you can kind of make up these stories about why this is true And I'm sure some of those are are true, but it's small sample size. It's screaming regression to mean to me You know, if that's you know bet against Texas if you think they're not a good team And you agree with me bet for Texas if you think Ellinger is gonna be a first-round draft pick next year But just don't put too much weight in in these in these kind of trends of what Tom Herman teams have done It's just a very different context for 2019 Than what the context was with where he was previously and I think that that's a key thing that is lost in those numbers also Losing a guy with the name as glorious as little Jordan Humphrey like name values matters a lot in my algorithms And that's a big that's a big loss for Texas. So I agree You know, it's tough loss. Yeah My cover in the future back for this week is gonna go to the NFL because I haven't got to talk NFL yet And when I look at the MVP odds on Fandals sportsbook, there's one name that stands out to me I didn't go Marcus Mariota despite the fact that I always for some reason gravitate towards Marcus Mariota But you look at the odds for MVP you see can Newton at 50 to 1. I think that's Much longer than it should be those are the same odds as Matthew Stafford who may throw the ball five times in total in 2019 Dak Prescott's there and Prescott I can understand more but Can's odds are also longer than Jimmy Garoppolo and Mitchell Trabisky cams MVP odds tied for 16th among all quarterbacks and I think a lot of this is due to the shoulder injury, but Let's play the assumption game here So we talk a lot about on the DFS podcast where if you assume Cam Newton is healthy I don't think he's longer than 25 to one or so at most He's actually not even the shortest guy on his team Christian McCaffrey is 34 to 1 to win MVP at Fandals sportsbook and given how rarely running backs win especially in this analytics age It seems odd that can is not at least shorter than Christian McCaffrey last year before that shoulder injury got really bad I think it was that game against Tampa Bay where it really got pretty bad He had 7.9 adjusted yards per attempt at that point That would have been the second best mark of his entire career trailing only the year that he won MVP And he also had just four rushing touchdowns last year, which is the fewest that Newton has had his entire career So if we get some more variance along the goal line where cam Newton is not deferring to Christian McCaffrey, you know Healthier taking that rock himself. We could see some pretty gaudy numbers in the rushing category in addition to Potentially getting back to where he was last year as a passer this offensive line is I believe 12th in my offensive line rankings Now up on number fire. They've got good playmakers and DJ more and Curtis Samuel They'll win every track meet every single week and that has a lot of value So I think that there's definitely some risk here with cam Newton in that shoulder injury But I like to play the assumption game And if cam Newton comes out during training camp as it starts now and looks healthy He's not going to be 50 to 1 for very long So I think that it makes a lot of sense to get in on cam now before we get those reports about his health If he's not healthy, you know, then that's going to be a loss and you're gonna take that L for sure But 50 to 1 given the odds that thing moves pretty soon I'm gonna take that for sure add any thoughts for you on the Panthers as we get set for 2019 Yeah, absolutely. I mean as far as cam goes to me like what I don't like about cam is his accuracy He's not one of the most accurate quarterbacks and you want to kind of you know Tend towards those guys for success both team and MVP level But you're absolutely right that I think there's a ton of value in his MVP odds for all the reasons that you mentioned And you know, you actually shouldn't take my opinion on it You should take Evan Silva's opinion on it because this was the future bet that he talked about on my show Oh, my podcast the football analytics show And that was I mean he was gushing about this for all the same reasons that you mentioned Evan's gonna also be our guest later this week as well But yeah, I think there's a lot of reasons to think that 50 to 1 is is is a pretty good one To is a pretty good futures bet to tuck away in your account and that one is queued up for me that podcast is I have to listen before Thursday clearly I hadn't listened yet So I'm excited to dive into that as Ed mentioned Evan will be on here on for Friday morning talking about His win total bets for 2019 so make sure you subscribe to covering the spread on Spotify Apple podcast SoundCloud Stitcher wherever you get your podcasts and once again ratings reviews help us a ton So we thank you if you liked what whalecappers said earlier leave us a review leave us a rating and leave one for Evan Silva Later in the week as well at any big things popping over at the power rank for this week prior to Friday Yeah, I mean we're still got the college football win totals report You can get my win total for Texas. I should give it to you right now It's significantly lower than nine and a half. So let me just let me just put that out there But there's a win total for 130 teams based on my preseason model The model has been successful of predicting the game winner straight up in 70% of games over the last five years It's something that I use as is objective baseline to start the season and I think you should as well So check it out at the power rank calm. All right. Thank you, Ed. I appreciate that. We'll talk to you again on Friday Awesome. All right, that is yeah, absolutely. That is Ed Fang to follow him on Twitter at the power rank I am at Jim Sonnis J. I am S a n n e s you can also follow the fan dual podcast network at Fan dual podcasts on Twitter. We'll talk to you once again on Friday to break down NFL win totals with Evan Silva Until then good luck with your bets and we'll talk to you once again later this week This has been covering the spread here on the fan dual podcast network