 This is covering the spread. Here are your hosts, Jim Sonnis and Dr. Ed Feng. What is going on everybody? Welcome on into covering the spread. That's right here in the FanDuel Podcast Network and numberfire.com where today, we are getting you set for week number three, including a detailed breakdown of the Cheese versus the Ravens. We're talking with Teddy Sv'Ransky of WagerTalk, Sports Memo and Covers to get his thoughts on week three's games. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for numberfire.com. Joined here as always by Ed Feng of thepowerrank.com. Ed, you're all masked up. What's going on here? The Bundesliga is back. Oh, already? Yeah, the Bundesliga is back. Had to wear my Dortmund mask. Dortmund had a pretty impressive three nothing win over Munchen Gladbach and more importantly, Geo Reina, the young American, 17 years old, scored his first goal and actually got fouled that game in penalty kick that led to the second goal. So win-win and it's a soccer club. Like they call it the beautiful game and if you really want to understand why, like flip on ESPN plus and a Dortmund game and you'll see why it's the beautiful game. But how are you gonna keep up with Bundesliga once we have SEC football this weekend? We have the NFL now. We're gonna have big 10 next month. Like how are you gonna keep up with everything all at once? I mean, I try to catch up with a little bit of it live. You know, I mean, without any big 10 football so far, it's been, you know, a lot of my attention's been on NFL and I've actually been, you know, going to a sports bar for the one o'clock games and I've actually really never done that consistently. And it's been, you know, I mean, it's kind of like March Madness every week, you know, and when you get that last half hour and like a bunch of your results, ATS are changing as you go. Yeah, so that's been fun. So how am I gonna keep it all? I don't know. I mean, I'm gonna, I don't know. I'm gonna put on replays while I eat lunch during the week, I guess, of Dormin. Right, nice. I like it. Well, it's gonna be, the good thing this weekend is that the big game of the week is on Monday nights. You don't need to have any divided attention. You can just focus on cheese versus Ravens and this game is gonna be awesome. We've seen the Ravens live up to the pre-season expectations so far because they're defense, they're rebuilt defense. Like, I guess, like rebuilt is usually used in a negative term. Like the Vikings defense is rebuilt, but like they didn't add in guys like Klaas Campbell as part of their rebuilding. And like these two teams had all this hype coming into the year. We were talking about how much uncertainty there was, but like, we thought they'd be good. They've been even better than that. So this game is gonna be really fun. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I don't know who doesn't have these as the top two teams in the NFL right now. I think you'd be a little insane not to. And yeah, it should be fantastic. And the only thing that adds to that, Jim, is that my nine-year-old has become a Chiefs fan because he likes to root for KFC. So I might try to give him like, I don't know, like a KFC with a little arrowhead. And he's like, yeah, I watched KFC with you Monday night. See, my thought process was because it's you, I thought he was like, oh yeah, Andy Reed throws a lot in early downs. That's why I want to back the Chiefs. Cause I just have like, like because I know you, I assumed that your kids think exactly like you. And I was like, oh, okay. He's just an Andy Reed guy. It was, but it was actually KFC. Well remember, this is the same nine-year-old that was like, oh, Marcus Smart just hit five threes in a row. He must be the best three-point shooter in the league. And he was ignoring the fact that he was below average shooting three-pointers. So we're working on him. Yeah, exactly. I'll send him the, I'll send him the charts and really down pass rates from sharp football. And we'll, we'll get him to be even, even deeper ingrained in being a Chiefs fan. I think that, that can only end well. We're going to break down that game with Teddy Sovranski. You can find him on Twitter at Teddy underscore covers. You can find his work everywhere. He's a wager talk, sports memo coverage. You can find Teddy all those places to get his thoughts and find all this pics of the NFL. We're talking about a success rate. When it comes to that later on, we're also going to preview week three, talk about Teddy's process with regards to Betty, because it's nice to have guys like Teddy on Ed, because we think one way and it's good to find people who think other ways. And Teddy, we talked about this last year pretty extensively and we were talking with him before the season about how Teddy likes to go against data because data is so, so much influencing spreads. If you're going to find an edge, you've got to find a ways to find things that data doesn't encapsulate. So I find talking to guys like Teddy to be really valuable for me personally. Yeah, absolutely. And it's not like Teddy doesn't understand math or anything. Oh no, you said that his origins were in data stuff, but then once the spread started to account for it, you had to find a new way. Yeah, yeah. So he, you know, he chooses to kind of go out and dig information wherever he can find it and that's found an edge for him. And so that's great. But it's not like he doesn't get it, right? No, no. It's just that he chooses to find an edge elsewhere. And the other thing too is data can also be information. Like every, every piece of news that you read is also data, just different kind of data. And I think that that, it's another way to look at it. So we're going to talk to Teddy in just a second. You're to preview week number three, but first make sure you are subscribed to covering the spread wherever you get your podcasts. We have this NFL podcast every weekend. Might be adding in some college football once again, not too far down the line. So to get a notification once our podcast go up each and every week, make sure you are subscribed to covering the spread. And if you like what you hear, leave us a rating and review as well. Now before we get to Teddy, we got to go back to week number two. Pretty exciting week, a lot of tight gains and a lot of tight spreads. We're going to go back to what we saw on week number two and then dive into week number three. Covering the past. Last week here on Covering the Spread, we had Edward Egros on to preview week number two and Edward had himself a nice little week. You can find Edward on Twitter at Edwithsports. He wanted the Ravens minus seven in their matchup with the Texans and that line closed seven and a half to get some, a half point of value there. And the Ravens covered that one pretty easily. Edward was on the Cowboys as four and a half point favorites against the Falcons. Now we recorded that Wednesday. Tyron Smith got hurt on Thursday. So that one did close at the Cowboys by three. The Smith injury likely played a role in the movement and also in the fact that the Cowboys had to scramble to come back. They lost three fumbles in like the first quarter, but they did fall back to get the win. Just did not cover in that spot. The Tyron Smith injury, bad timing there for sure. Both Edward and I had action on the Rams Eagles. Edward had the Rams minus two and a half or he bought the Rams at two and a half. I wanted the over on 47. Now Edward did buy the points with the Ravens minus two and a half. And first we both got bad line movement there because the Eagles closed as two point favorites. The total closed at 46, but both got wins there despite the bad line movement. The over hitting this one pretty easily finished at 56 even though Carson Wentz, the pick report through a pick in the end zone. The Rams won by 18th. Edward and I both got wins there and the pick report gets a win with Carson Wentz as well. The final one was the Seahawks at the Patriots or Seahawks against the Patriots where the two of you went head to head. Edward was laying the points with Seattle. You had doing this plus four and it wound up coming down to the final play of the game and Ed, you were a yard away from covering there because Cam Newton got stuffed at the one yard line. I was pulling for you. Not that I want to root against Edward ever obviously but like it was a fun game. It was an awesome game and just a yard away but that was a good one there. I appreciate it. And it was definitely weird. It was on five points because they had stuff cam on a two point conversion earlier in the game. So that was another opportunity where most likely New England covers if they just convert that two point conversion. We've obviously seen a lot from Seattle's offense but we've seen some surprising things from New England's offense as well. Cam threw for 6.7 yards past the 10th week one against Miami 8.8 against Seattle. A defense that, a secondary that I thought was better. When you had Jamal Adams, you look at the year that Griffin had last year. It was pretty decent in coverage. And then Quinn Dunbar actually had some pretty good PFF grades last year in Washington. So maybe a unit that will come back but a unit that's not really looking good right now and suggests that maybe you want to go over on these Seattle games. Yeah and Cam played really well Monday night or Sunday night. And like I think watching them in week one you could tell that they'd be a fun offense but like they didn't have to open it up with the passing game. On Sunday they did. Like they needed to keep up with Seattle and they had to throw and when they did like Cam was like hitting Julian Edelman downfield. I didn't know Edelman was allowed to go downfield anymore but like he hit him downfield. Despite the fact the receivers there I don't think are good at all. Cam looked awesome. So I thought that was very interesting. I had my lingering skepticism after week one. I've pulled back on that for week number two after what we saw week two from Cam as a passer. I agree that Seattle's, I mean I think Seattle's defense might not be good but Cam doing what he did in that spot was impressive to me. Even if their defense isn't that good I was still impressed with that. But a fun game for sure. Absolutely. And Jim you actually mentioned Rams minus two and a half against the Eagles. I think it was Rams plus two and a half. Was it? Okay. Because the Eagles were favorite at home. No when we talked on Wednesday it was actually Rams minus one and a half and Edward bought it to two and a half. Oh was it? Yeah. It went all the way to Eagles. So it opened Eagles like minus two and a half. It went to Rams minus one and a half and then it closed to Eagles minus two. It was, it's the exact same thing. Like we're gonna talk about the Rams game this week with the Bills. It's been the same thing there. So whatever reason the Rams were just a very popular betting team this year on both sides. And we're gonna talk more about that too but that was one of the weirder movements I've seen in a while with that game. Yeah. And then we also gotta talk about Carson Wentz real quick because yes. Okay. So wait a minute before you talk I need to give you kudos. I was listening to the athletic football show today with Robert Mays and they were breaking down week number two. They were talking about Carson Wentz with one of the Eagles reporters for the athletic and they gave you the pick and the pick reporter shout out on the air because you predicted Carson Wentz would throw more picks this year and voila Carson Wentz would throw more picks. So you're getting depth from the athletic. You're getting depth from me. The pick report's looking pretty snazzy through two weeks. Yeah, man, thanks. I definitely appreciate it. It should be noted that I did not predict that Carson Wentz was gonna become James Winston. So Carson Wentz is at a 4.7 or 4.8% pick rate this year which is famously what Winston had last year as the Tampa Bay quarterback. So he's kind of gone to the other side a little bit with his picks. I don't expect him to be near 5% for the season. I don't know, maybe he will but they actually did talk in the podcast which I appreciate you're sending me. They talked about how it's not gonna be that bad and I don't think it's gonna be that bad. Right. But yeah, I do feel comfortable in saying Wentz was probably pretty lucky over a three-year stretch with picks and we're seeing that come back a little bit four picks early this season. And I was kind of against the Eagles trying to pick them against on the side and things like that, but now maybe it's gone the other way. My numbers actually kind of like them against SINCY this week. So yeah, things regressed one way, they go back the other way and now I'm regression would predict that Carson Wentz is probably gonna get better in the interception department. So that's how it goes with a small sample size of two games. It's weird how that works. It's weird how a public sentiment works because the sentiment on Wentz has been yo-yoing the exact same way. Like you talked to an Eagles fan one week Carson Wentz is a 10-time MVP. He talked to him next week. He should be benched for Jalen Hertz. It just depends on the way the wind blows, but they're a very interesting team for sure. But Kudos to the Pick Report for being on top of that. Also Kudos to Edward Egros. We've been three-in-one last week. Make sure you follow Edward on Twitter at edwithsports. We're gonna get to Teddy Savranski in just one second, but first, Fandal is always giving users a chance at glory in a big payday and the Ringers mega contest is the latest way they're giving you more ways to win. It is easy. Just make five picks against the spread, including one double down every week. The top of 100 users at the end of the season will compete for $25,000 in prizes during the playoffs. The best part is it's free to enter. The first two weeks are already in the books, so what are you waiting for? To enter for free, visit playfree.fandual.com slash the ringer. That's playfree.fandual.com slash the ringer. To get yourself entered, you can also go to the Fandual Lobby, and it is up there. Eligibility restrictions apply. Let's dive into week number three now with Teddy Savranski. Follow Teddy on Twitter at teddy underscore covers. We're gonna talk cheese Ravens. We're gonna talk Cowboy Seahawks and get you all set for week number three. Covering the present. Let's bring Teddy Savranski into covering the spread. Teddy, we are heading into week number three of the NFL. How are you doing so far? I got no complaints. I got a couple of them. I feel like I should have bet more. When you talk about the first couple of weeks of this season where there was no preseason, I was a little bit reluctant to bet every opinion I had. I wish I would have, because if you're digging for information right now, the information is giving you more of an edge than any opinions that you'll have about the teams. And if you've been digging, the NFL's been good the first couple of weeks. And again, I made a profit. I feel like I should have made more. I'm not gonna complain when you're winning, but there's been some really good opportunities the last couple of weeks. And I think there are this week as well. I think the information discussion is important too, because if it's harder for us to find information with no preseason games, it's harder for books to find information too. So as long as like you're saying you're doing the work, you can still have a really good edge and potentially even a better edge, potentially, because that information is harder to come by. So one of the advantages I have living in Vegas, and I do a bunch of shows, and I talk with bookmakers all week long, and literally to a man, every bookmaker I've talked to here in Las Vegas, from the start of when the NFL was gonna be announced through this week even, they're like, yeah, we're making adjustments on the fly. We don't know a whole lot more than you do. And I like to hear that lack of confidence on the other side of the counter. And I like to hear that bookmaker, and again, you don't want it too bad that a book closed, but I like that the betters won last week. They kicked the books up and down the card, the betters won last week. Maybe not Monday night football with the Raiders upset, but by and large, it was a good week for betters and a rough week for bookmakers. And I wouldn't be surprised if that's the only one we see like that, because the bookmaker, the edge of the bookmakers is only the minus 110 right now. It's not like they've got info that we don't have. We're all playing on an even playing field here in that regard. So, Teddy, you talked about that lack of information for the bookmakers for the NFL. Do you feel like that's the same in college and how's that been for you? The college has been real good, because again, if you're digging in college football, you have to dig, all right, the student newspapers have been real good. All right, and normally I don't do a lot with student newspapers, but when it comes to COVID info that you're not finding out in mainstream media, you know, the daily sooner broke the story on the Oklahoma COVID outbreak. I mean, the information is there. And people say, how do you do it? It's real simple. Google News is a powerful tool. Okay, you type in one team name and the opposing coach name and you see what comes up. You type the other coach's name and the other team name and you see what comes up. And if you sit and read through the articles and take the time, and don't, you know, I'm not a quant-based capper. I'm not a stat-based capper. And that's why I like doing this show with you, because I know you guys take a different approach in a lot of regards to that. I'm an information guy. I'm a local news guy. I'm a current form guy. And in college football, most assuredly, that's what matters the most right now in NCAA. It has nothing to do with how good the thought the teams were gonna be or what their statistical profile looks like. It's about information on what teams are healthy, what teams are focused, what teams have distractions, et cetera, et cetera. That's been paying off very well through the first three weeks of the season. That's very interesting. And you were talking about the student newspapers, and I think that's, I mean, as a supporter of student newspapers, I'm glad to hear that. I'm glad they're paying off for you for sure. So we've got two weeks in the books here, Teddy. And like you said, you had some priors coming in and you wished you had reacted more to those. What are some league-wide things you've seen so far that may have altered any priors or even confirmed priors you have coming in so far? So are we talking lead-wide or- Yeah, league-wide. Yeah, what is league-wide? There's only one thing that stands out. Two things that stands out. One is there's not much of a home field edge and we're still debating how much the home field is worth. You know, bookmaker by bookmaker, better by better, everyone's got a different number. I'm trying to make different numbers for different teams, but my adjustments are modest. You know, I'm moving a half point here, a half point there. But the home field is no sure thing and we're still learning about how much that is worth. And of course, scoring's way up. And I mean, way up, which is not what we expected coming into the season. Normally the first two weeks we see the defenses ahead of the offenses. And with the lack of pre-season, we thought that would even be more of the case this year. And it's not. The offense have come out, clicking the quarterback plays been there. And I think that's the hidden part of that equation. Right now, you're an NFL GM. There's 32 teams. Who needs a quarterback? Denver needs one, that's about it. I mean, after- Yeah, it's like nobody. Yeah, Denver only needs one because their QB got hurt. Right. We're not seeing the dismal QB play that you often see from some teams. There hasn't been one team that's been, that you're like, oh my God, they have no quarterback whatsoever. We've got 31 starting quarterbacks. And then whatever the Broncos are gonna do, I was gonna Denver in one of my notes to the team that I've made big powering adjustments to, obviously, since the start of the season. But part of that increase in scoring is just in general, we're not seeing bottom feeder offenses. That's at least a piece of the equation. And that's different this year, certainly, than in years past. Yeah, we'll see how that evolves. JJ Zachary recently definitely came on before week one and talked about how the last time there was no preseason, there was a bump in scoring for the first couple of weeks. So we've certainly seen that so far. And yeah, be interested to see what happens going forward. Teddy, how about team specific adjustments? Like who's moving off your preseason prior the most? What can you tell us about that? All right, so I wrote down a handful of teams that I've moved significantly. Biggest non-injury downgrades are pretty easy. The Vikings are at the top of my head. Right, yeah. And I'm kicking myself for not betting Minnesota under their season win total. They were literally my last cut. And I'm like, you know, I just, I hate everyone in that division. And that was part of the reason why, I mean, I didn't like the Packers, I didn't like the Lions, I didn't like the Bears, I'm like that was, and I left it on the cutting room floor. And after week two, I mean, it's not a lock, but it's a, the Vikings do not look like a, and the injuries they've had, obviously you lose your best pass rusher, you lose your best linebacker. Steph Diggs getting more receiving yards in the entire team last week. You know, it's a Vikings team that, that deservedly has, that plummeted in my power ranking. So is Philadelphia, another team. And with the Eagles, it's certainly injury related. On the other hand, Phillies, you know, maybe it's all, they were lined as a nine-win team. I thought they would be right in that range. And the injury bug has certainly hit them hard, but the issues with Philadelphia, I think transcend just the injuries. And they've been a team that I've plummeted my ratings. And of course, the Lions, who I weren't very high on to begin with. I know those are here in Vegas. There was all this love for, oh, Matthew Stafford, oh, this is the year. And Detroit, oh my God, look at this division. Detroit's gonna win in the day at NFC West. You know, I'm like, this is a team that comes into the season with a nine-game losing streak and Matthew Stafford has never won anything anywhere. So the Lions have been an easy team for me to downgrade. Injury-wise, I mean, the, you talked about the Broncos and it's certainly the 49, I don't think any team's been hit worse than the 49ers. You know, San Fran went from a top five team in my initial preseason power rating to a below average team in my current power rating based solely on injuries. And Denver is a team that actually bet over their season win total at seven and a half. The day I bet it over was the day that Von Miller ruptured his ACL. It sits then, literally, there's been one injury after an X for that team. It's been a disaster. So the Broncos two and a half against the spread, but that over seven and a half win total looks pretty dismal for me right about now. So Ted, can I just stop you real quick? Cause you talked a little bit about Niners have gone from top five to league average. Give us a sense. Like I know you're not a numbers guy, but like how do you say Richard Sherman, he's so many points, Nick Bosa, he's so many points. Like how do you do that? I don't do that. I do clusters. All right. They've got cluster injuries. I don't get one player is not worth anything. Nick Bosa's out, it doesn't matter. When you got through, I shouldn't say it doesn't matter. It doesn't, it's not going to break the, have me all of a sudden to downgrade the 49ers four points. But when you have cluster injuries like San Fran does, they have cluster injuries on the offensive line, on the defensive line, in the secondary. And obviously they were without, they may be without their quarterback this week. But, and wide receivers, they have cluster injury receiver as well. Garoppolo doesn't know whether it's Garoppolo or not. There aren't weapons to throw to. So cluster injuries to me are the much bigger factor than any one individual star sitting a game. When you have three or four guys out of a unit, it makes a huge difference. And San Fran is the three or four guys out of three or four different units, hence the downgrade week by week. I think that's interesting too with the Eagles because it's kind of a cluster along their offensive line. Yet Andre Diller go down, you had Brandon Brooks go down before the season. And you know, Lane Johnson, this week's week number one, Isaac Siamalu is now banged up for them as well. Are they going to fall in the same category or as the 49ers or are you just off them even once they start to return to health? So let's see Philly play a good game before we start upgrading the Eagles. You know what I mean? David, Doug Peterson got a lot of credit for everything that Frank Reich did, doing that Super Bowl, you know? And let's see what adjustments Peterson makes. He has not impressed me last year or this in his ability to make week to week adjustments or in game adjustments. I'm not in any rush to start up in my Eagles powering. Let's see him beat sincey this week before we get excited about Philadelphia. Yeah, it's interesting. Two weeks in a row that a team has had a must win game against the Cincinnati Bengals, which is somewhat comical. Teddy, we'd love to ask you about some games in particular. Texans at the Steelers, Texans are 0-2, a four point dog in this game with a total of 44 and a half. Of course, Texans have played a tough schedule. What are you thinking about this game? They haven't played a tough schedule. They played an impossible schedule. And it doesn't get a whole lot less than possible this week. But I mean, I don't know about you guys. I've got both Kansas City and Baltimore more than four points ahead of my number three team in the NFL. So to play those two teams week one, it doesn't get any tougher. And then the Texans did not fare well, no surprise at all with Houston's early struggles, but it doesn't get a whole lot easier here. This is where you do want to do some database research. And the database research shows very clearly that the 0-2 teams are better on in week three. The 0-2 teams, when they face an opponent with a win, at least one win, again, you look at a five-year sample size, a 10-year sample size, you're seeing well over 60% covers for these 0-2 teams. I think the 10-year sample size is at 67% or 66%. It's been pretty good. So knowing that with the database history and knowing that the Texans have been up against the toughest of competition, I can only look at the Houston side in this ballgame, okay? And the Steelers, again, we saw last week, not that what we saw week one was a mirage, because I do think the Steelers' defense is better than what we saw against Denver. But then again, any time you take out the starting quarterback who the defense has prepped for all week, and then put in the backup QB, who the defense has not prepped for and not watched film for and is not familiar with their tendencies, you'll oftentimes see a spark. And that's how, you know, I think the nugget spark in the second half last week with Jeff Griscoll is not an indictment of the Steelers' defense. I am absolutely a believer that Pittsburgh will continue to give teams trouble on the defense side of the football. That is an elite stop unit. But number one, we like the Sean Watson catching points. Number two, we like a desperate to Sean Watson catching points. Number three, I'm not sold on the Steelers' offensively yet at all, all right? Their playmakers would make a place. And I'll give them credit. You know, Claypool had a, you know, the big touchdown last week. Don't think Johnson's been making plays. But when you watch Big Ben, and his comment last week really stood out to me. He's like, yeah, I feel like I got hit by a truck. I'm hoping tomorrow it only gets, feels like I got hit by a car. You know, Big Ben doesn't have the mobility that he did. His game plan now is similar. He reminds me of Ryan Fitzpatrick. The way he, the way he's chucking, you know, he chucks the ball off and lets his receiver make plays. There's vulnerability in an offense like that. Rossberger used to be the most accurate guy. He's not doing that. Now, now it's about, Litta, if you watch the velocity of his throws, he's throwing air, you know, he's chucking them up and letting all the big plays for Pittsburgh that have come with that strategy. So I'm not sold on Big Ben being back. Pittsburgh's got issues on the offensive line right now. It's a must win desperation spot for the Texans. And the O and two teams have shown a propensity in your database research to be bet on. So the only way you can look to here is Houston. That said, have I gotten in the window with it? No. Is it, has the line already moved against me? You know, against the, yes. The wise guys all over it, yes. So it's not anything in my pocket. I think Pittsburgh's a good notch too better than the Texans. And I'm not in a rush to bet on Houston just cause they're O and two and desperate. They're O and two, cause they're not that good. And we've seen some clear weaknesses in this team compared to last year, even against the upper echelon competition. So bottom line, lean Houston, haven't bet it and probably won't. All right, let's move on here to the Cowboys at the Seahawks, really fun game on a Sunday afternoon. Seahawks, five point favorites here. The total is 55 and a half, which is massive. The Seahawks are a team that are changing things up, you know, they're throwing more often early downs, early in games, which is nothing they've done in the past, but unfortunately it seems like the market is accounting for that pretty fully here. Do you think the market is overreacted with this total being a 55 and a half? Or is that around where you would put it, given what you've seen out of Seattle the first two weeks? Yeah, I don't know the market adjusted enough. Yeah. I mean, so were you find the real quote unquote value? On totals, it's on the margins, you know? When a game's lined at 39 and a half, maybe it should be lined at 33 and a half, but the market doesn't go to 33 and a half. When a game's lined at 55 and a half, maybe it should be a 60 point five, but the market doesn't go to 60 point five. On the margins, were you getting, and make no mistake about it, all right? Seahawks defense, yardage-wise is the worst in the NFL, yards per play-wise has been a little bit better than that. Dallas defense, I think they're 26th in yards per game, allowed there a little bit better yards per play, but neither defense is trustworthy in the slightest, all right? And oh, we'll see adjustments. Yeah, maybe we'll see adjustments. Seattle has no pass rush, Dallas has no pass rush. You know, when teams aren't getting sacks and don't have a pass rush, opposing quarterbacks who are good are gonna be able to take advantage of that. And these are two opposing quarterbacks who are really good. Two teams that are very willing to chuck the football around early in the game and often in the game. Two teams that are very comfortable playing in a shootout style. So you say, oh, the market's overreacting? No, the markets aren't overreacting and you're not gonna catch me betting an under on this game. It's over a pass. Okay, I like it. What about the spread here? The Cowboys have a little bit of that cluster injury thing along the offensive line. Sounds like Tyron Smith might be back this week though, which would definitely help things. And as you said, the Seattle pass rush is nothing to write home about. So any read on the spread for you with Seattle minus five? Sure, I mean, if I'm playing, I can only take Dallas plus. Okay. All right. I mean, you talk about simple NFL rules that make sense and make money. Don't lay more than a field goal with teams that don't play defense. So it's a priori. I want no part of Seattle in this price range. Seattle was, how should we say it? Fortuitous to get the point spread cover last week. I made a great play at the goal line. We give them credit for that, but it wasn't like the Seahawks defense dominated against a team that is in complete rebuild mode in a lot of ways offensively. You talk about what the Patriots are doing with Cam Newton and a new offensive line coach and a new skill position talent around. I mean, there's been an enormous amount of change and Seattle has shut them down. I'm not convinced that they shut Dallas down either. So it'd be Cowboys slash over if I'm gonna get involved in that game. Excellent. So we talked about these two best teams in the NFL, which you have four points better than anyone else. Kansas City is at Baltimore, Monday night. Ravens, Jim tells me he's a three point favorite. Even though I think I saw a two and a half earlier. Total at 53 and a half. Everyone's gonna be watching. What are your thoughts on this game? Yeah. I mean, this number's moved. I moved from two and a half up to three and a half, right? Basically at the get-go, I'm seeing mostly three and a half on my live-on screen right now. So, and I agree with the move. Okay. This isn't just a game for Baltimore. It's not even just a Monday night football game. This is a statement game for the Ravens on national TV, on Monday night football. And I think they're gonna put on a show. Baltimore wasn't in the Super Bowl last year. They got the defending Super Bowl champs coming to their building. And obviously we look at Kansas City and I'm disappointed by the disparate result last week where we saw, and again, Baltimore kills these non-division foes and Casey had a tough division opponent and a tough game. And unfortunately the markets reacted a lot to that. So we're looking at three and a half now, instead of two and a half. That being said, it's warranted. All right, this isn't a knee-jerk move. This is a much bigger game for the home team than it is for the road team. I know Casey, catch-and-point sounds attractive and Casey, you know, with Tavon Young, the injury for the Ravens, that's a meaningful injury in a game like this. We lose your slot cornerback for Baltimore. I understand all those factors. And Patrick Mahomes is not a QB. I'm ever in a rush to bet against. But one, I believe Baltimore is every bit as good as Kansas City. And two, I believe this game is a play like your hairs on by your game for the Ravens. And I don't get that sense from Casey. Casey had this tough barn burner game last week in a divisional matchup. They got to fly across country and bring it again on Monday night. I like the Ravens. I could only like the Ravens. And I continue to believe in Jim Harbaugh as long as it's not a playoff statement game. Right? You see the statement game? You know, a playoff game, you're like catching points on the road. Harbaugh's great. And you don't want to lay points in them at home. Teddy, you got the wrong Harbaugh. It's John Harbaugh. Yeah. Oh, did I say Jim? Yeah. It's all right, man. Yeah. My apologies. I know that there's two Harbaugh brothers. I know you're thinking about that in Michigan and coming back on October 24th. So we'll understand that. Yeah, it's interesting to me, you know, Kansas City is built around that offense. The defense has never been, I guess, a priority for Andy Reid and that team. Still have doubts about the secondary and they haven't looked good in some of my success rate numbers. So, and Baltimore, you know, is built pretty strong from the secondary. So we'll see what happens in that Monday night game. Yeah, if I'm playing, I'm laying on Monday night. And it's still at minus three at Fandall Sportsbook. If you can find a three, would you take that? Yes, I would do that this minute. All right, perfect. Any other bets stand out to you on the board for week number three right now, Teddy? Well, yeah, we got to talk about this Rams-Bills game with, I mean, it's still sitting two and a half. You know, you're two and two and a half. But I thought I saw one and a half there. It was one and a half earlier today and right now it is two and a half. So it did move. It is two and a half bills by two and a half. Yeah, and that's, we've seen kind of two-way action on that game so far. There was an initial move towards LA and now we're seeing a little bit of buyback. On the Buffalo side, I hate this spot for the Rams. Hate it. All right, again, they were planning on staying east. All right, back-to-back east coast games. The original plan was they're gonna stay east. The 49ers figured out how to do it. LA didn't. They're flying and flying back and flying back and flying back. And I know they've been really good in these early start road games. They've covered their last seven in this role. Okay, that's all rear view mirror. Okay, what have we seen from the Rams over the first two weeks? Well, we saw them take advantage of a Dallas team that hasn't covered a spread. Some take advantage of a Philadelphia team that hasn't covered a spread. And everyone's like, I've seen Rams in people's top five power ratings right now. It's like, what are you watching? Buffalo's in my top five power ratings, all right. Nothing I've seen out of the bills so far has changed my opinion about them whatsoever. I think they're actually better than I thought they were gonna be. Offensively, Josh Allen, again, there are people that don't like Josh Allen because he's not the most accurate QB. And he misses throws, he does. But Josh Allen stretches the field on every play. Josh Allen is capable of chucking it 50 yards down. The bills are keeping opposing defenses honest by taking deep shots and connecting on those. And Josh Allen is a beast as a runner. He's a Dante Culpepper when he tries to run the flow. I mean, it's really hard to bring him down and he's getting big chunks of yards in every game moving on the ground. So offensively, I'm a believer in this bill squad. And defensively, no, they didn't have a good game in Miami last week. That said, I don't look at that game as the, oh my God, the bill's defense is terrible. They're in the heat and humidity. There was a long thunderstorm delay and fits through a bunch of passes that maybe they get picked and maybe the guy catches it and the guy caught a bunch of them. That's what the Miami offense does. LA's offense doesn't do that. All right, Goff is not chucking balls up. And of course, Goff last week had probably the best road game of his career. When he completed his first 13 passes, every quote after the game was how good. He's like, I felt good today right from the get go. Not, oh, I'm this kind of quarterback forever. And Goff off a good game on the road. I don't trust it twice. I like the bill's defense to make a statement. I think Buffalo wins this one going away. I think it's the single weakest point spread on the board this week. And I think that it's interesting too to look at this bill's team because actually, going back, I think the Dante Culpeper comparison is awesome because like we always hear Cam Newton. I see a lot of Cam and Josh Allen, but Dante Culpeper, like from a deep ball perspective, I can see that. I think that's, that's not what I've heard, but I like that one a lot. That's fun. Yeah. I mean, that's the skill set that reminds me of because Culpeper, I mean, Allen, he made me crazy last week. He missed a couple of easy third down throws, you know, and he'll do that. His accuracy is not perfect. And it ended up like him missing one or two of those throws ended up being the difference between covering and not covering them besides the, you know, the late TV, you know, and the bills out game. And again, the bills didn't cover. They gained 8.9 yards per play and out gained the Dolphins by 3.2 yards per play. And again, you go back and look at a 20 year sample size and teams in that role, they're 11, they cover 11 out of 12, I think it was. You know, it was like, so even though Buffalo didn't do that and doesn't have the betting bandwagon because of that, the statistical profile says this team was supposed to cover last week. They're supposed to cover week one and they're a freaking juggernaut. So I'm a Bill's believer, Ed, you're not. I'm not. I do not believe in Josh Jalen. The NFL game is all about getting those passes, moving the chains, we know that explosive plays tend to be pretty random. And you know what? I like what they've done with the wide receiver, bringing in Stefan Diggs, definitely get that. I know the kid makes plays with his legs, definitely give you that. But he is not a guy that is gonna lead a team consistently to playoffs year after year. And I'm not a believer in Josh Jalen. I've been amazed by what I've seen, given what I saw with him sometimes in college. Actually, you know, he's pretty good as junior year. His stock went up, was awful, his senior year. If you remember that senior year, they graduated four offensive linemen. You remember that, right? Yeah, that doesn't mean you throw, you consistently throw the ball at your receiver's ankles. Sometimes it does. Maybe it does. I've never played quarterback at that level. So maybe that doesn't mean you throw, you throw at your receiver's ankles. But it does help though that Stefan Diggs can catch that ball at the ankles. That helps a lot. Which is why, like, I mean, I feel like they've, you know, I mean, Buffalo's a really interesting team to me, right? Because like they've done everything they can do to put around, you know, a quarterback that is never gonna be that accurate. You know, yeah, I mean, it's kinda, I guess it's a little bit like Wenz too, right? Because you have a guy who's an athlete, not the most accurate quarterback. I mean, I, anyways, I'm speaking off the cuff now. But, you know, you have defense. I think the bill's defense, like, probably is gonna grade out slightly better than the Rams defense by the time the season is over. But, I mean, I think these two teams are evenly matched. But like, I'm taking Sean McVeigh and Jared Goff over Josh Allen any day. I think this should be a tight game. But yeah, I'm definitely not a believer in Josh Allen. So you'll take, so moving forward, you'll take Goff over Allen? Cause I'll put- I'll take Goff and McVeigh over Allen. I don't want Goff over, I don't want McVeigh because I'm pretty sure the Rams are gonna get rid of Goff sooner or later. Well, well, I mean, they signed him to a pretty big deal. So I don't know if that was guaranteed, but- There was a lot of guaranteed money. Goff is the top five quarterback by any stretch. I think he's somewhere in that like- He's in the Kirk Cousins zone, where he can do well if he has good things around him and he can do poorly if he doesn't have that. And like, when I say that he's in the Cousins zone, that's true of every quarterback except for like four, like Russell Wilson, Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Deshaun Watson, maybe Dak, but we haven't seen Dak in a bad situation, so- Aaron Rodgers? Yeah, I mean, maybe Aaron Rodgers. Yeah, I think that's a fair inclusion too. Like it's not a big list of guys who are not dependent on their situation. Though Kirk Cousins, I mean, I don't put Goff, Goff is a lot better than Kirk Cousins. Right. I think that Goff's ceiling with a good offense around him is better than Kirk Cousins, but I think they're kind of in that blob, where, which is where I put most quarterbacks, where they go as their situation goes. Yeah, I don't disagree with that, but Cousins, you know, what's this record against teams with a winning record, it's like seven and 29 and they're something like that. Goff's better than that. They're great. But when Cousins had all the pieces, whatever that year was in Washington, like that pass offense was better than anything we've seen from Goff and McVeigh. Goff was top five in 2018 in 20 points per drop back. So I don't know. I remember them saying, Goff got his team to Super Bowl. Yeah. And I don't think you remember Cousins ever doing that. And I don't remember. Yeah, well, that's probably because they do. And I also remember the Washington football team saying, should we pay this guy or should we let him go? And not that their organization's good. Fair. But they made the decision. We've seen him, we know him and we don't want him. And after his contract is done in Minnesota, the Vikings are going to make that same decision. Yeah. So I'm not sure the Washington football team's better off. Cousins is a bottom tier NFL quarterback. The Vikings fans are very loud and taking for Trevor at this point already, which is shocking after two games, but they are very vocal about it, I will say for sure. That is Teddy Savranski. Make sure you check him out on Twitter at Teddy underscore covers. Teddy, we appreciate it. Thank you so much for coming on. Good luck to you in week three and with your college stuff this week. Hey, thanks so much. I'll take all the luck that I can get. Best of luck to you. Enjoy the games and thanks for having me on. Yeah, thanks Teddy. Tell everyone real quick about your NFL record since the last couple of years. Yeah, I mean, so dating back to week one, 2015, I'm 57% in the NFL. I know I'm 57% so far this season. So remarkably consistent. And that counts every play regular season and playoffs. There's no, I took out this or I took out, it doesn't count pre-season, but nobody, there wasn't a pre-season here. That's like a couple hundred games or? Oh, I got the numbers right here if you want me to pull them up real quick. I thought you had them there. I did, I closed the site. Just, you know, I mean, we're a math type podcast. So we want to, I don't want to give any, I want to be very accurate with anything I do because I know you guys, if I'm not, I'm gonna take you. So, of course it's not gonna give you this, sorry. I apologize. No worries. No, sorry, I put you on the spot. I've got 192 and 146. Okay. That counts every playoff since the start of the 2000, week one of 2015. I had a bad year in 2014 and I was pissed off about it. And I'm like, the next year, I came with a little bit of a motive, perhaps a little extra motivation and I tweaked some things and since then it's been real good. The angry Teddy narrative. I like this, this is good. All right, thank you Teddy so much. Let's, hopefully that number goes up in week number three. I'll take it. I appreciate it guys. Best of luck. Thank you. You too. Covering the future. Big thank you once again to Teddy Savaransky for joining us here today to preview week number three again. Follow Teddy on Twitter. At Teddy underscore covers. Make sure you check out his work, whether it be at WagerTalk, Sports Memo Recovers. Just check out Teddy. Find all that at Teddy underscore covers. There's a fun discussion about debating Jared Goff versus Josh Allen because I understand the arguments on both sides and like I have been a, I will pick Jared Goff. I wanna be totally clear in that. I'm a huge Jared Goff guy but I am way more open to the idea of Josh Allen now because I put a lot of value in teams telling us what they think and the bills are telling me that they have a lot of faith in Josh Allen right now because their early down pass rate has shot through the roof. Like they are being very aggressive in early downs this year and that to me says they have confidence in Josh Allen. That is not confidence Wyoming had in Josh Allen has seen a year. Like their early down pass rate in Wyoming is final year. They ran a lot early downs and like if you have an elite quarterback you would think they would air it out. They didn't there but the bills are. So I have been very resistant to buying to Josh Allen. I'm not gonna buy into him because of games against the Jets and then against the Dolphins who lost Byron Jones in the middle of that game. I'm not gonna buy in based on those games but I am more open to him with what I've seen in the past two games and what I've seen anytime before this. So I'm not there yet but I'm open to it. So I mean I don't like Allen. We've talked about that. I'm not a believer. I understand that he does things with his legs but like you have to throw the ball with accuracy in the NFL. At least more than we've seen from him and I wanna reiterate that my statement is I will take Jared Goff and Sean McVeigh over Josh Allen. So I think when we're looking at this game the Rams at the Bills I think you gotta kind of take a step back, right? So the Rams made the Super Bowl in 2018 lost to the Patriots, slipped to nine and seven last year in 2019 and didn't make the playoffs but the underlying metrics like the Rams. So they were ninth when you looked at my adjusted success rate on both offense and defense. So that suggested that they could have been better and then they lost a lot of guys on the defense side of the ball and I think we talked about that on this program. They lost Dante Fowler, Marcus Peters, the cornerback, linebacker Corey Littleton and we had our doubts on this show. I think we talked about whether McVeigh's whether people have figured out Sean McVeigh and whether what was gonna happen with that offense. And when I looked at the wisdom of crowds model when I do some of my preseason NFL stuff that I found to be predictive like the Rams were as low as 19th. So the sports writers were definitely saying that they didn't think the Rams were that good. So now you come into the first season and this yo-yoing of the lines on Rams games has happened in week one too. So Dallas was definitely a two and a half point favorite on the road at one point. I'm almost certain that I saw it go to the Rams being favored by at least one. And then when I checked it- When an actress came out it did, you're right. Yeah, and then when I checked it this morning I basically take the median closing line from Don Best and it was a push in the game. So the same thing that we saw last week what you just talked about with Philadelphia. You know, in that first week the Rams, they won. 20 to 17 and they held a pretty potent Dallas offense to 5.8 yards per pass attempt and a 45% success rate on passing plays. And that's below the NFL average of 47% this year. So I just think like, you know, you've seen glimmers that they're gonna be decent on defense. I mentioned when we were talking to Teddy, I still like think that Buffalo's defense are probably grayed out a little bit higher by seasons end and obviously injuries can definitely impact that. Again, we've beaten this dead horse that I like Jared Goff and Sean McVeigh on that offense. I do think this is really close. I think this is a very 50-50 game but definitely give me the points on this with the Rams on the road. I think for me, I want no part of this game but it's not because of the Rams offense. I want no part of this game because I want more data on the Rams defense because we talk about how like we have priors going into the year and like we have to react to what we see in the year and eventually divorce ourselves from our priors if we have reason to do so. My prior going in was that the Rams defense was going to suck and we haven't. Like you said, that Dallas game was really good. I know that Dallas had the injuries on the offensive line. I know Carson Wentz seems kind of broken right now so you could discount that but like it's very hard for me to ignore the preseason conception I had of this defense that they were gonna be really bad. Like I got a bunch of Rams in my best ball contest for fitness football because like I was like, okay they're gonna have to, they're gonna need a lot of shootouts they're gonna have to score points, they're gonna have to pass. So I liked the offense but the defense is very surprising to me and like I don't know if I should divorce myself of that prior based on these two games. Like it's very hard for me to just ignore you know they have two really good players defensively but I'm really skeptical of it still. So I'm just confused about how to see that defense right now still. Sure and it's interesting when I was talking to that Dr. Eric Eager on my podcast he was talking about how some of his work suggested like you shouldn't build a team around like defensive superstars. Like you'd rather be kind of solid across three or four players on the defensive line solid across your top three cover guys. You know, we'll see how it shakes out with the Rams. You know, I mean the early returns on the defense is good. Again, this is a small sample size and yeah, we got a lot of football to play. Yeah, I'm excited to, I usually I'm not super excited to be in the Syracuse area cause it means I get all the Buffalo games. I'm pretty excited to watch Sunday's game. I think this should be a good one. So Ed has the Rams plus two and a half. We'll see how that one goes on Sunday but I just want to watch that game and not have any personal sweat tied to it in any way. My cover in the future, we've got a lot of high totals on the board after the first two weeks, which makes sense because the point scoring has been nuts through the first two weeks. But I do want to hit an under here and that's with the Patriots and the Raiders. That's at 47 and a half with minus one 10 on the under at Fandall Sportsbook and I'm expecting this game to go under. I do expect the Patriots to be efficient in this game. I think they're going to move the ball. I just don't expect there to be much play volume here which is why I sighed at the under. That's because both teams tend to be super rush heavy through the first two games of Patriots have the lowest pass rate in the league in the first half and early downs. The Raiders are 28th. That is according to sharp football stats. So it's two bottom five teams in pass rate. The Patriots especially are like hyper efficient with those rushes. So it's totally okay that they do this with the way the cans running, with the way their offense in general is going. So I expect them to move the ball but when you run it keeps the clock rolling and that plays well for unders. The Patriots rank 23rd in situation neutral pace. That's according to football outsiders. The Raiders are 22nd. And I'd expect the Patriots defense to play a whole heck of a lot better at home against Derek Carr than they did on the road against Russell Wilson. 60% of the money here is on the under. That's according to odds fire. So I would expect this one to come down even a bit more before Sunday. It was 48 originally. It's now 47 and a half. So I think that it may come down more. So I would try to get this one while you can. I try to get it. And I do think that if you think the unders in play I would bet that now rather than waiting. In general I have been skewing towards overs this year. Overs have been very kind to me but in this specific game with how much these two teams love to run I think the total has gone up just a bit more than it should. So give me the under on 47 and a half for the Patriots against the Raiders. And we were talking about Cam Newton and getting good read on him on Sunday. I do not expect to get a good read on him in this game because I think they're gonna run a lot. And I think the Raiders defense stinks. So I don't think we'll learn a whole lot more about this Patriots offense in week number three, unfortunately. What do you think about this one? Yeah, I mean, I think we've learned a lot about the Raiders offense on Monday night though. Yeah, that's true. Because they were very good against the New Orleans defense that we thought was not gonna be... Sorry, a New Orleans defense that we thought was gonna be pretty good. Like a Super Bowl worthy type defense. So they had a 58% success rate on passing plays 59, 58.5. And maybe that shouldn't be a surprise because when I look at adjusted success rate on pass plays last year, the same team was fourth in the NFL. So yeah, I'm kind of keep... I was surprised with what I saw Monday night. And I don't think... No one seems to kind of acknowledge that Derek Carr is maybe a good quarterback, but I think with what he's done, with this short passing game, with what he's done under Gruden, his numbers look pretty good. His bad ball numbers that I've been tracking look pretty good as well in terms of reducing interceptions. So yeah, so it'll be... It's definitely a game I'm looking at. And we were talking about there passing success earlier, like in the off season. And we expected that to either stay steady or get better just because Henry Ruggs is good at football. That definitely helps things. They added Brian Edwards. They added some other like role player type guys like Zay Jones and Nelson Aguilore. Like that can help too. Another year Josh Jacobs potentially getting work in the passing game, intriguing too. So I'm not as low on the Raiders offense as everyone. I just think the Patriots defense is good. And I think this game is gonna be pretty low scoring. If the two teams have played the game they want to, which is running the ball a lot, I think we'll see it under here. But overall, I'm pretty pumped about this week three slate between Seahawks Cowboys. Again, I think Bill's Rams is pretty fun. That might just be me as like a Jared Goff truther. And then of course we have Chiefs Ravens. This is gonna be a fun league of football head. Yeah, I think every week is fun. I mean, when you have a league that is built on regression to the mean, you're gonna get a lot of close, exciting games. I mean, Jacksonville is a favorite. I mean, this was definitively the worst team in the NFL going into this season. And they are favored on Thursday night. That game will be fun too. That's kind of fun just in and of itself. Yeah, that'll be fun. I mean, like, again, I'm slow to buy into Gardner-Minshew, but like, you know, he's fun. Like it's kind of like the Josh Allen thing. Like I can be skeptical, but still enjoy watching them play because they are erratic and fun. And like Gardner-Minshew is not erratic. He's more the Derek Hart type where he keeps things pretty tight to the line of scrimmage. But that can be fun to watch too if there's a little bit extra swag to it. So it should be a fun slate of football looking forward to diving on in. That is all that we have for this week here on Covering the Spread. But as mentioned, make sure you are subscribed because minus next retreats come in your way next week. So make sure you're subscribed to Covering the Spread wherever you get your podcasts. Ed, what's going on for you this week over at the Power Rank? What's going on? I'm writing newsletters. I'm writing content for members. So yeah, please sign up for my free email newsletter. Get a sample of my best predictions, usually saved for paying members of the site. And then also I got my Covering the Future up to my members a little bit earlier this week. So I'm gonna try to do that every week because there's really no reason not to unless I'm just disorganized. So members of my site get access to all my stuff and thepowerrank.net is a URL that'll take you to a place where you can check that out. All right, thepowerrank.net makes you check out the football analytics show as well to get all of Ed's thoughts in audio form and also follow Ed on Twitter at the Power Rank. I am at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the Fanduel Podcast Network at Fanduel Podcast. Big thank you to Teddy Zivranski for swinging by and breaking down week number three. Give Teddy a follow on Twitter at Teddy underscore covers. Thank you to Calvin Theobald, our video producer from the video side of things here today. Thank you, Cal, as always. And of course, thank you to all of you for tuning in once again for week number three. Good luck with all of your bets. Enjoy the fun football. We'll talk to you again next week. This has been covering the spread right here on the Fanduel Podcast Network.