 This is Covering the Spread. Here are your hosts, Jim Sonnis and Dr. Ed Fang. What is going on everybody? Welcome on into Covering the Spread. That's right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network and NumberFire.com as we are getting you set for week 12 of the NFL From a Betting Perspective talking to Donnie Seymour of RightWager.com getting his favorite plays in the board for week 12. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for NumberFire.com joined here as always by Ed Fang. You can find his work over at thepowerrank.com and you can find him on Twitter at thepowerrank as well. Ed, greetings to you. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. Looking forward to another interesting week of NFL football, some big games, honestly some great matchups. And I think that it's an exciting time. It's an interesting week from a betting perspective too because I feel like the lines are getting better. And it's been weird. I've had like a couple of leans on things and the problem is things have been more reactive it feels like if you haven't been pouncing quickly things have been moving to alleviate those. So it's an interesting week to try to find value and I think that it's pushing me towards away from spreads and totals and more towards different bets that may not be getting as much attention but it's been a very interesting week I think from a betting perspective. Yeah, for sure. I mean I looked at the number of games, I looked at the games this week on Monday or Tuesday or whenever and not a lot of things that stuck out to me and I'll talk about that and cover in the future. Absolutely and we'll get through those with Donnie as well. Follow Donnie on Twitter at right side of VP. He is the CEO of rightwager.com. You can also find him over at Sportsbook review we preview in week 12 of NFL with him. We also had Ian Cameron on yesterday's show. You can find him on Twitter at Bobano. You can find his NHL picks on his Patreon. The Ice Guides is an NHL Patreon. He's also on Sportsbook review and on Vecen. We previewed week 13 of college football with Ian and talked some college basketball. We got a great cut breakdown from Ian as well. If you want to find that episode make sure you search for Covering the Spread wherever you get your podcasts and find what Ian had to say. Search for Covering the Spread while you're there please rate and review the podcast and subscribe so you can get these podcasts right as they are posted. Before we bring in Donnie though we gotta take a look back at last week and we kinda took it on the chin a little bit last week so we'll go back through what went down on Covering the Spread last week and see if we can figure out what we can learn from that. Covering the Past. Our last week here on Covering the Spread we had Edward Egross on to break down week 11 of the NFL. You can follow Edward on Twitter at EdwithSports and the first one was mine and I was actually on the same page as Edward this one or Edward. We had the Bears plus six and a half and I had mentioned in my segment that if you didn't want to bank on Mitchell Trabisky to cover a spread for you you could have bet the under on the Rams team total. I should have listened to myself there because I messed up. They did go under the total at 23 points. Like watching that game and I kinda knew right away that like if the Rams could score 10 points I was gonna lose that bet. It was just, it was a mistake I think on my part. Well, and then Trabisky gets benched or slash has an injury towards the end of the game too which was interesting as well. Yeah, that's, it was one of those games where my model's a combination of preseason and markets and data from the current season and the data from the current season like the Rams but the total number was kinda on the other side. Not a game I liked but yeah, it's just a tough one. I should have bet the under on the 23 team total. So we had that one, the Bears plus six and a half. Also, I would mention part of the reason that I liked the Rams or liked the Bears was I thought the Rams offense line played terribly. They were actually really good. So shout out to the Rams offensive line. They played, I think their best football game of the year in that game. Both you and Edward had the Texans plus five and a half against the Ravens. Edward had the over on 51 and a half there. What happened with the Texans, man? Like I thought that was a good bet because I was like, oh man, to Sean Watson as an under, it just got south. Yeah, I mean, Lamar Jackson's having a time. He is playing his best football and he, I mean, it's one thing to do against the Bengals. It's a different thing to do against the Texans. So props to him and he got out of control and you look back at it. You know, it's still, you know, one of the things I mentioned last week was that looking forward and I still think this, I think the offense is gonna come back to earth a little bit. I mean, Lamar Jackson can't possibly keep what he's done in the last two games up, right? Right, I mean, like it's not sustainable when you only have two good pass catchers in the office. It's not even like a commentary on Lamar Jackson for me at least. It's a commentary on your only two pass catchers are Marquise Brown and Mark Andrews. And I feel like defenses can figure that portion out eventually. Like Willie Snead's not gonna beat you. So I guess for me it's less about Lamar Jackson than it is about the supporting cast to the pass catchers, teams eventually catching up to that. So I still think they'll be a very good and above average offense. Lamar Jackson gives them a floor, but I think eventually the lack of, you know, threats in the pass catching department, I think that's going to catch up to them eventually. For sure. And you're seeing similar things with New England. But I mean, I do think their defense is better than what the numbers have said. And part of why I think that is from PFF grades, the grades for their cornerbacks are actually really good. And we saw a little bit of that in the game against Houston. So, you know, I think their defense is gonna get better. I think their offense is gonna get a little worse. And I think they're gonna be a, at least a fascinating team to watch going into the future. And we'll talk about that with Donnie too. Talk about how you assess teams like the Ravens, getting better in season. I think that things like PFF grades can help you make that decision for sure. Yeah, and I talked to Michael Salfino on my podcast this week and he had an article about how the Chargers played seven defensive backs against them in their playoff game last year. And I thought that was pretty interesting too. So the idea, usually when you have a really good rushing offense, you don't really wanna put more defensive backs on the field. But the idea was that, you know, you just want speed out there. You want speed to deal with Lamar Jackson. And that ended up working for the Chargers. No one's really tried that yet this year. Not even the Patriots who have done things like that in the past to players, Peyton Manning. So, but we'll see how defenses adjust. I do think teams are gonna start using more defensive backs. You know, naturally like teams like the Patriots and the Chiefs are already using more defensive backs. So definitely gonna see more of that in the playoffs and we'll see what Baltimore can do to respond to that. And they faced the Rams on Monday. And I'm interested to see what happens when Jalen Ramsey is locked up with Marquis Brown. Because again, I think that's the biggest weakness in that Ravens offense is a lack of good pass catchers. And facing a guy like Jalen Ramsey can have an effect there for sure. Edward mentioned he wanted Kansas City minus four and they did hold on to get a win there in Mexico City. They covered as well. So props to Edward for that one. Had the Dolphins plus six and a half against the Bills. And the Bills played a good football game. We did not get the catastrophic Josh Allen mistake which tends to happen. So the Bills did cover there. Final one was Edward wanted to buy the Patriots two minus two and a half. And you actually would have got them at the normal spread as they won by seven there. So they did win in cover but Edward had them a minus two and a half. So regardless, the Patriots won there. And I think with the Eagles issues offensively that one made sense as well for Edward. We'll talk more about the Eagles too with Donnie in just one second. But first, if you want to get in on the action check out the FanDuel Sportsbook and place your first bet today. If you lose, FanDuel will give you a refund of up to $500 in site credit. Visit sportsbook.fanDuel.com for more details, terms and conditions apply, must be 21 plus and physically present in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia or Indiana. A gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER. Let's bring in Donnie Seymour now. He is the CEO of RightWager.com. You can find Donnie on Twitter at Right Side VP. Get his thoughts on week 12 of the NFL and where Donnie's leaning this weekend. Let's bring Donnie Seymour back into covering the spread for a second time. Donnie, it is a pleasure to have you back on the show for today. How are you doing? Doing good, man. It was so much fun being on last time. I love to talk NFL football with you guys. So looking forward to hopefully you can break down some games, have some fun and give some insight, right? Exactly. And we appreciate having you on because the setup behind you is tight. I like it. If you're watching on the YouTube channel, you know, it's looking good behind you. So prepared as always and we appreciate that. And I think it's a good time to have you on. We're gonna talk about an Eagles game later on. But obviously, you know a lot about this Eagles team. We'll talk about them against the Seahawks. But just in general, what has it been like watching such a talented team have these struggles they've had recently? Jim, it's so hard because when you take a look at the Eagle season as a totality, you opened up and we got the glimpse game one. Like you struggle a little bit out of the gate, but the Sean Jackson's running wild. Alshon Jeffries out there. Oh my God, look at the tight ends. The offensive line, Carson Wentz is gonna be an MVP candidate. Nobody is gonna stop this team except injuries. And that's exactly what took place. There's a lot of layers there, Jim, that go into the Eagles, but it can't just be, hey, we're missing the Sean Jackson and nothing else works. It's crazy. Right, Sean Jackson wasn't there last year. So, you know, like I'm very curious how this is kind of been the one thing that sinks the ship. And I think that the Eagles are actually a pretty relevant discussion because during the NFL season, we see a lot of teams improve. We saw the Eagles obviously be awesome. Week one, things have progressed since then. Recently it's been the Ravens defense getting better, the Falcons defense suddenly turning everything around. And it's hard for me to decide when I wanna buy into those small samples and when I want to ignore them and maybe even as being variants. So how do you handle that, Donnie, where teams change drastically in season? Yep, Jim, and it's one of the great arguments that we have because when we're gamblers and we're betters, especially in the NFL, you really see teams, what, one time a week. So you try to differentiate what actually makes sense and what doesn't make sense. You bring up a good point because there's some teams I do wanna look at because whether it's Drew Brees coming back after an extended layoff and how's he gonna fit back into the offense, we saw last week, Nick Foles coming back with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Didn't go all that well as planned. So they say, okay, they're gonna work themselves back, but in team type of environments, the Baltimore Ravens that we bring up all the time, just adding a cornerback, but also getting cornerbacks healthy and then the offensive burges. They say, man, that is unbelievable what they're doing on both sides. But there's a couple points that I do wanna make because the one team that's really interesting and intriguing to me right now is the Atlanta, what do you make of the Atlanta Falcons? A team dead and buried, Jim. We're talking about the coach gonna get fired over the bye week. There's no way he comes back and all of a sudden they come back and knock around the Saints. And this wasn't a shootout. Like, oh, that's just one of those games where it's 45 to 41. They really beat them up and then you flipped it over to the next week and they went on the road outside of the dome into division again and did the same thing on defense. But now you go from, let's just say, a 14 point favorite to a, excuse me, a 14 point dog to a six point dog. Now you play that favorite role. So now the perception is gonna change is how do you carry that mic throughout the rest of the season? You say, all right, you might be a formidable opponent. I don't buy in in these short synopsis because sooner or later, you can't tell me because Raheem Moore switched from, you know, coaching a different part now he's the secondary and they're a really good secondary. That's gonna catch up to him here. Yeah, absolutely. Donnie, another thing that we're getting into at this point in the year is weather. We also have to deal with injuries. That's something obviously all teams deal with throughout the course of the year. How do you make adjustments for these types of things right now? It's amazing because when you start in the football season, let's just say, you know, late August, college football, September and October, you're not really looking at those weather reports so much because you know what you're gonna get. Hey, you live in the Northeast, 70 degrees, light breeze or if you live in the South, you know Tampa Bay or Miami, it's gonna be hot and humid. But now we start getting into that season where it's like, you know what, maybe that 45 yard field goal, we can't try because there's 14 or 15 mile an hour winds and it's 37 degrees where back a couple months ago you could make that. So that might turn into a punt as opposed to a scoring position. This week, again, you're gonna take a look at some shots because when you look at games, let's just say in the Meadowlands this weekend, you're gonna talk about late November, typically 35, 36, 37 degrees, swirling winds. Maybe we get a game between the Jets and the Oakland Raiders this week, 50 degrees and maybe five or six mile an hour winds. You can really pick up on some key indicators early in the week trying to anticipate what those weather conditions are gonna be. And how early are you looking? Because we know that weather can change a lot. That's something that I struggle with a lot is because you wanna beat the market because eventually the market will react to weather but you wanna react before they do that. So how do you balance trying to not buy into soon but also still beat the market to the punt? It's such a great question, Jim, because I've had times where like, and now you see in college football when we're related to the NFL where it's like the hurricane's coming in. Oh my God, this game is a 58. It's gonna drop to a 48. Then they change the day of the game or they even change it a couple hours earlier which avoids the weather conditions that you tried to bet. But in the NFL, I'm looking on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, because how many times have you bet a game where you say, all right, Sunday? Oh, look at this, 45 degrees, 21 mile an hour winds and some rain. You hit the under because you're saying, sometimes more importantly, it's getting the better number. We'll see where it lands at the end of the week but if it's a 46, I think this game might go to 44 less, I'm gonna take it now. And then you see the weather improve after you bet it. You say, you know what, why did I do that to myself? It's always a cat and mouse game. I look early in the week to see maybe a tendency but as later in the week goes, once we rally into like Thursdays and Fridays, you get a better indicator but I've been on both sides. Jumped it and felt great. Jumped it and said, I thought there was gonna be snow. There's no snow in the field now. So it's a tough thing for us handicappers for sure. Yeah, it really is. I think that with the extremes, it's easier to react. You know, I think, you know, look at this Cleveland game this week. It's at 15 miles per hour. That at least has my attention. Maybe not gonna react quite yet but I think just getting the red flags out there and knowing which games you need to monitor at least is beneficial. One game that doesn't seem too bad right now is the Seahawks against the Eagles. It's about 11 miles per hour for the win there. So nothing too noteworthy. The spread here is the Eagles minus one and a half and the total is down to 47 and a half. I think that opened at 49. So it has come down and you've got good insight on the Eagles. So do you think that they can turn these issues offensively around or is it just simply that they lack the personnel to make those improvements in season? It's kind of interesting that you talk about it because when we say look at this week's Seattle game, it has a lot of the feel to me, Jim, of last week's filled up the Eagles game versus the New England Patriots. Not so much from a way that each team is going to attack each other, but from an actual betting perspective, eight out of 10 tickets probably coming in still on the Seattle side. And you're looking at the first indication that the betting pub is going to see is when it opens, you know, plus three Seahawks. I got to bet that immediately right away. This is outrageous. So now you're seeing like one and a half and twos on the board, but not a huge line move because last week when we take a look at the Patriots game and the Eagles playing, I'm scratching my head going. The Eagles are getting hurt by the day after the buy and this line isn't really going under. Threes maybe to three and a half where you finally saw a breakthrough to the fours on game day. But looking at this game overall, if you're going to tell me like offensive perspective for the Eagles, they didn't look that good last week. They don't have very many playmakers. Alstron Jeffery comes back to practice, he's questionable. Whether or not he can actually suit up, we'll see what happens. Nelson Aguilore, one of the worst wide receivers in football he has in the injury. So when you're lining up with rookies that don't make any 50-50 plays, it's hard for your offense to improve on a week-to-week basis because I was telling people a couple of weeks ago, Jim, the Eagles are going to be a buy-on football team after the buy because you're going to get healthy. This was before Deshaun Jackson comes back for three plays and hurts himself. This was before like Nigel Bradham's supposed to come back and the entire secondary is supposed to come back. So now you come out of the break and you might be down laying Johnson this game, Alstron Jeffery in this game. I mean, Boston Scott was your running back last week. First in New England Patriots. It's unbelievable this happens. I don't have a good feeling about the Eagles. Ken, they went short, they're at home. They play well at home. But you need playmakers and I know one side on Russell Wilson, he's a playmaker. You don't have that for the Eagles this week. I know, but it's interesting because you get to play the Seahawks defense. And as long as you block Clowney, everything gets pretty easy there. So that's got to make you feel a little bit better about the Eagles offense when you're at home. You're right, that would be a great, and they say, well, wait a second, why was it they lined Clowney up over Lane Johnson but Lane Johnson isn't there? Like he was amazing versus the 49ers last time that was his pass for us. If he gives any sort of that effort, you have to get guys open off the line of scrimmage. The one thing we know about the Eagles wide receivers, they can't beat man-to-man press coverage. And if you give an extra second for Clowney to get ready and come after you without your all-world right tackle, that's going to be a problem in the football game. And that's what I worry about most. Is the line at Eagles minus one and a half? Do you think that where it is settled is efficient or do you have a lean one way or another there or do you have a lean on the total? I think I actually, to be honest, I really agree with the line total dropping. When I saw that at 49, my first indicator was, all right, well, what do you need to make this game go over? You know what's going to be an NFC battle. Both teams playing for the playoffs. The Eagles without a lot of firepower and offense, you figure they would run the football more. And Russell Wilson, if Tyler Lockett's down, maybe they're not as explosive if they need to be. And as long as you're getting first downs, yeah, you might be scoring points, but that clock's going to be moving without any real big explosive plays. I agree with the under, but for the Eagles market movement also, I still agree with Seattle because it's one of those things you have to show me with the Eagles. I know the Eagles are going to probably play pretty good defense against Russell Wilson, but I know he's going to make plays. I can't say that. Jordan Howard hasn't even been cleared to practice, or, excuse me, cleared to practice, but not play in this football game yet. If he doesn't go, you're looking at a banged up Miles Sanders again, and Boston Scott is your running back. I just don't see a pathway where the Eagles and Carson Wentz can make enough plays, whereas I think Russell Wilson's going to make some plays. Yeah, both these offenses ranked outside the top 20 in situation neutral pace according to football outsiders. They both liked to run the football. It does not, the 49 total I thought was egregious. So I think I agree with you on that number coming down. Let's move down to the Cowboys at the Patriots this game in Foxpro. Patriots, six and a half point favorites. The total here is 46, and going back to that game last week, they struggled. And they have struggled the full year against non-terrible defenses. So I don't think it was just the weather there. They've had some concerns all year, but now they get Isaiah Wynne back and left tackle. The problem is it comes with losses to Mohamed Sanu and potentially to Philip Dorsett too. So do you think there's a legit cause for concern with his Patriots offense or is this just every year we get the Patriots midseason blip when the games don't matter as well? It's a great question because when you look at the Patriots overall, you figure we were going to be rounding in the form, right? Coming out of the bar, Mohamed Sanu's going to have an extra couple of weeks in this. Philip Dorsett, as you said, might not play this week and he's trending to play, but let's just say he does and he takes away Sanu and Philip Dorsett. You're back to what you were trying to avoid for the Patriots with making all the moves with the Josh Gordon's of the world, the Antonio Browns. They knew they were deficient at the wide receiver position. They made changes, but now getting a little bit back. Look, Mohamed Sanu might be after a couple of weeks. That's huge because he was just starting to find his way and then added playmaker down the field. What did they rely on last year, Jim? An unbelievable running game, multiple running backs and when you can lean on it, you have the best blocking Titan combo with one of the best pass catching Titans in Rob Gronkowski that disappears and you no longer have that deep threat and let's talk about it. You can't chase time all over with Tom Brady. Sooner or later he's going to get old and he's not playing at that elite level quarterback. So compound that with an injured offensive line, which it is key that win is going to be coming back for this weekend left tackle. But if you can't run the ball, which was always their stall where you worked off a play action, when that's not there, you're seeing an aging Tom Brady. I'm not so sure if it comes back, maybe if they get healthy again at wide receiver, but they're all out of sorts here, Jim. Yeah, they really are. I think that it's a legit concern because they do get win back, but David Andrews are center. He's been out all year. Their full back's been out too and Sony Michelle hasn't played all that well. So it's forced them to go with this past heavy attack. And when you have the lack of weapons that they have at wide receiver, maybe Nikhil Harry pops up and does something, but it's just a personnel issue, I feel like. And that makes me feel like it's more than just a blip here. It's absolutely, you're absolutely correct because when you're looking at the game, but we used to talk about the Patriots and how they evolved during the season, right? When it gets a cold weather time, we're ready to run the football. If your offensive line isn't producing, you can't just force the running game because you know as well as I do, just because you're running the football doesn't open up the pace. Hey, try it. Second and eight, we're gonna run it for a yard. That'll open up in the pass game. That doesn't work. When you're gashing defenses, that's when the play action works. And if that doesn't come to fruition, they're gonna be in some trouble because again, they've tried tight end after tight end. Wide receiver after wide receiver, it's a continuity issue at this point. And I don't know if it's gonna get markedly better for him here. So Danny, what about the other side of the ball? Dallas has been throwing the ball really well this year with Dak Prescott, Mara Cooper, but it's strength on strength because Patriots' pass defenses has been incredible. What do you see with that matchup? Yeah, you know, it's a really good matchup here because even on Fandal early this week, I jumped on it right away, got the over-19 team total, was a little bit juiced at 115-112 area. And when I look and I say, all right, Patriots have a really good defense. We understand that. They're sensational on the back end, but I still don't think, I don't know if it's a Dak Prescott issue where he didn't get his contract and people still was like, oh, you know, he's an average, okay, quarterback. They are playing at an elite level and have everything you need, a unbelievable offensive line, a very good running back that's who's actually not even performing all that well and the offense is still moving. Wide receivers that work, tight ends that work. Dak is playing at an all-pro level. So I did check, you know, we talked about weather earlier, not too bad of weather conditions. Some rain was popping up early in the week, not so much at this point now. I think Dallas is gonna be able to move the football. If you tell me right now, which I did take the wager already, that Dallas is gonna be held to 14 or 17 points. That doesn't mesh, because even when you're looking at road games this year, guys, 31 points, the 110-point sneaker, they had 22, 37 and 35, 27 points per game. The Cowboys are averaging on the road. That team is gonna travel well and I think they're gonna score some points in this game. And I think that's important too, because last year, even when they had Amari Cooper, they struggled on the road. They went to Indy and it was this game where Indy's defense wasn't that good. Cooper had been playing really well and they put up a pretty massive bomb there. And I think that that Saints game kind of threw people off, you know, where they're struggling on the road. Is that enough though to get you to bet the Cowboys plus six and a half because it's like a mental block to bet against the Patriots in Foxboro. Do you see enough in this Cowboys offense though where you have a lean on that or the total? I do because you can't take one games like a microcosm to say, you know, if that's gonna work the whole way. But just last week, looking at the Eagles, comparable defenses, one or another between the Dallas Cowboys and the filled up Eagles on what they can do. But the one thing on offense that you saw, if the Eagles had any playmakers, Jim, last week, they win that football game. They're up 10 to nothing. And then the bottom fell out because nobody can make a play on that team. Dallas has a lot of levels on offense that can certainly get after a very good defense in the New England Patriots. And let's not also forget when we take a look at, you know, the New England Patriots and who they played. Listen, take a look at the last five games. Rookie quarterback with absolutely zero weapons when they played the New York Giants. When, you know, Evan Ingram was out, St. Juan Barclay was out. Then they played the Jets on offense when they're still trying to work things out. Their quarterback is seeing ghosts in that game. You flip it over to Cleveland. Why? I actually thought it was a decent play in that football game, getting those points. It's pouring rain. They're dropping the football over the place. And then when they played a fully functional offense, they gave up 37 points. Then you go back to the field of the Eagles last week where they only scored 10. If you have a functional offense, quarterback playing at a high level, offensive line that can block their pass rush, wide receivers that win 50-50 routes and a good running back, I think they're going to move the football this weekend against the New England Patriots. Excellent, Donnie. One more big game. Packers at 49ers, big NFC matchup. 49ers are minus three at Fandall right now. Total of 46. 49ers got off to a great start. Defenses looked awesome. Offense, eh, not as much. What's your take on this game? I actually, I like the football game. And it's a shame because I wish I was getting the 49ers full go here because I love the defensive output that they give. But D-Ford looks like he's going to miss this game. And that's a key component because when you had a really good quarterback, getting the pass rushers from both edges is certainly key. But I did like Jimmy Garoppolo. Even though he's not really on point, he's showing signs of life saying, you know what, I can throw us to Victor, which is a pretty big deal. Shanihan, one of the best play callers in the business. The one thing I'm trying to weigh, like which is going to make the most sense in this game is, I love teams that come off buys. I love teams that are rested and ready, which you know the Green Bay Packers will be. They're going to have to run the football in this game, which they can and have shown the ability to do with their two running backs that they use primarily. Last seven games, I believe, over 100 yards gained on the ground against San Francisco's defense. But here's the key that I like. And the reason why I'm going to stick with the 49ers in this player. I like home field advantage, that should work out well. But the teams over the past week say, boy, you know what? San Francisco 49ers really struggling on offense, especially the past three weeks. I would agree. But look at the three quarterbacks that they played. Technically, it's three games and two quarterbacks. Russell Wilson and two times Kyler Murray. Teams and with players that can actually elude the pass rush where it doesn't matter if they're blocked or not. That's not going to be the case this week. Aaron Rodgers is a great pocket manipulator. We can all agree on that. But when you're talking about getting away from a dominant pass rush, they're going to have some problems this game. Every other game where they played a quarterback that wasn't all that mobile could run away, they dominated on defense. I'm going to stick with that tune. Three points I think is a fair number at this point. I'll stick with the San Francisco 49ers on this one. I want to go back to Jimmy Garoppolo. You mentioned him and I think that we can look at, he's made some bad plays recently. And when we had Evan Silva on in the preseason, he talked about having negative highlight bias. And we see these bad plays, they stick in our head. Garoppolo's had those bad plays, but overall the overall body of work has gotten better as the season has gone along. Even with George Kittle and Manny Sanders not playing, we've seen, at least I think Garoppolo getting better. It could be getting further removed from the ACL, whatever it's been. I feel like I agree with you where we've seen him play better even when his weapons have gotten, Joe Staley is out again. He missed last week. They haven't had Mike McGlinche at right tackle. The weapons around him have gotten worse, but Garoppolo's play I think has gotten better, which has I think been very encouraging if you are someone who wants to back to 49ers. Absolutely, because you wanted adversity. You want to see how he's going to perform. And anytime you take away, because we talked about the Philadelphia Eagles earlier, how about if I told you like, we're going to be down George Kittle and Manny Sanders is going to be 50% and your offensive line is going to be banged up. Well, the last two games, 60 combined points in that. So averaging 30 points, because the motive here is like, oh my gosh, I can't wait till they get Kittle back. Well, the score is 30 points a game without Kittle at this point. So they're doing fairly well. Yeah, not against the two best defenses. True, now you took a point, yeah. Donnie, any other games, best that you like for this week? Yeah, what, I already said, I love the Dallas Cowboys game. There's no reason to believe for me that Dallas doesn't at least tip to that 20-point mark up in New England as long as you don't get crazy weather, which it doesn't look like. It's for this time of year, if you're going to tell me mid-40s and wins under 10 miles an hour in Foxboro on turf, I'm going to take that each and every time with the Dallas Cowboys. I do like two totals this week, one a little bit more than the other. I like the Jets. I couldn't believe that it opened up in that like 46 dip to 45 and a half in that range at Fandall. I think we get some points in the Meadowlands. Again, talking about weather conditions here, typical in the Meadowlands, 20 miles an hour in swirling in late November, not going to be the case. I think both of these teams, especially with the Jets, even though they played bad football teams, getting that good feel back on offense. And again, let's see, we can all agree the Oakland defense isn't all that much that it's cracked up to be at this point. They should score in that game. But also taking a look, I think Cleveland breaks out this week. I think the Cleveland Browns, not looking at the extra game itself with a side, 10 and a half or 11, I like the total in this game. And I also like the Cleveland Browns team total. It seems expensive at 27 and a half, but now you're talking about a Miami Dolphins team down another two starters in the secondary. You have guys that you've never even heard of playing on the football team. And if we take a look at the Cleveland Browns over the past, what, six to seven weeks of who they played on defense, the Rams, the Ravens, the 49ers, got a little bit of a breather with the Seahawks, the Patriots, the Broncos, the Bills, the Steelers. Now you get the Dolphins, OBJ is going to have some room, Jarvis Landry is going to have some room. We're not going to be talking Cleats or swinging helmets at other teams. We're going to be talking about points in this game and another key factor when I like the over, other teams saw us to participate, right? If you're down maybe three starters on your defensive line, Olivier Verne and obviously Garrett suspended Ogan Joby, that gives the gunslinger over there, Fitzmatrick a little bit of room. If he can get 14 to 17 points in this game, you can get that 44 and a half. I like that game to go over. And Morgan Burnett's out too. You see that, yes, there you go, yes. That's 20 of their 30 sacks. May not play on Sunday. So I like that too. As far as the Browns go, they have played only one pass defense ranked outside the top 20 all year long based on number of fires metrics. The Dolphins are dead last. That's good for Baker. And if you adjust for schedule, the Browns have the 16th ranked pass office. I know it's not great, but given the perception, it's a lot better than it seems. Now, I mean, look, Baker may feel say what you want. He's a gunslinger. When you want points, you want the guy forcing the ball sometimes in the one-on-one coverage or double coverage. That's how some big plays can go for you as well. With two really good wide receivers. Let's also not forget, Dolphins don't do much against stopping the run as well. You have two all pro caliber running backs. I think you get some good feelings in Cleveland. And also a key point, you get the game last Thursday night. You get extra time to prepare and get ready. I think Cleveland shows out on offense this weekend. We'll see what happens. I hope they do the exact same. That is Donnie Seymour. Make sure you follow him on Twitter at Right Side VP. Donnie, thank you so much for joining us here today. Really appreciate the insights and the fun conversation. Good luck with your bets in week 12. And hopefully we can get you on here again soon. Jim and Ed always a lot of fun to talk NFL football. You guys have a great podcast. I enjoy coming on. Let's win some money this weekend. Have some fun. And yes, go Cleveland Browns. Wow. Let's do it, man. Thanks, Donnie. You got it. Thank you, Donnie. Appreciate it so much. All right, one final thank you to Donnie Seymour for swinging on by today and breaking down week 12 of the NFL. And Ed, I wanted to get your thoughts on this too because we're talking about the Falcons defense and their improvements this year and broadly, how do you handle teams like that? We got Donnie's thoughts, trying to buy in to see if there was a reason for it. And it seems like he's willing to bet on a regression. And that's where I'm generally inclined to go as well. What do you do with a team when they deviate so heavily from what they were doing before but it is in a hyper small sample? Yeah, I mean, I tend to ignore small sample sizes. We know overall that it's just better to take a season's worth of data. And I think that's particularly appropriate with Atlanta's defense because they were so atrocious before and now they're having a couple of good games. Does that mean they're a good defense? No, probably not. It's probably going to be more indicative of, their season long average is going to be more indicative of how they played. Similar thing with Michigan's offense and college football, right? I mean, they've had a couple of good games. I'm still leaning towards the season average as to where that team is. Are they a top 10 unit? Probably not. So, and like I mentioned with the Ravens earlier, the offense can't keep up what they've done over the last two weeks. So, we got to remember small sample size is an issue. I mean, there are obviously situations in which you do want to look at a restricted set of games. And I do do that if there's a quarterback injury. I like to look at market data to try to make an adjustment there. But in general, I try to take a little bit of a bigger picture of things. Yeah, we talked about how defense isn't sticky year over year. Is defense sticky two weeks? Yeah. Probably not. So, I think that that would push us towards betting on regression going forward. Well, and I want to, I mean, this is something I actually want to ask Eric Yeager. I mean, he's talked about how particularly cover grades tend to be pretty random from year to year, whereas pass rush tends to be more sticky from year to year. But what I really want to know is in season, right? So, if a quarterback's having a good season, can we trust that guy to continue to have a good season or at least more so than if he had a good season last year? And this is particularly important with just how well like New England's past defense has played. San Francisco's past defense has played. So, yeah, actually, you know what? I'm going to message him after the show. I like it. That's what I'm going to do, Jim, so honest. All right, we need a follow-up next week from what Dr. Eric Yeager asked to say. Follow him on Twitter at pff underscore Eric. Ed and I always preached searching for the best value in betting on games. Well, look no further than the new odds comparison our engineers have developed over at odds, or at numberfire.com. That's oddsfire. It's the premier odds comparison experience across major bookmakers in the regulated U.S. market. Compare odds. Quickly identify the best value and even examine first-party fan dual data all in one place. Never settle, always get the best odds. Check out the experience for free now on numberfire or at oddsfire.com. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER. Let's dive in now to covering the future and go back to that Patriots versus Cowboys game. I think probably the premier game of the week, I would say. Ed, you want to talk more about this game. What do you see here between the Cowboys and the Patriots? Yeah, the Packers and the Niners fans would disagree with that, but... That's very true. Yes, so we have to talk about this game because my numbers have New England by 4.7 points, about five. My numbers have been really good this year. And it suggests value on Dallas plus six and a half. But I really feel like you got to look at things beyond just what the numbers say and in particular the coaching situation. I mean, do you really want to bet Jason Garrett versus Bill Belichick? And let me give you a small example of why. Just one thing that I found in the numbers. So one of the things that analytics say is that you should throw one first down in the first half. Teams tend to stack the box and they're looking to stop the run. It's a little bit easier to throw on first down in the first half and this is something... This is a way that you can use analytics to get an edge. So let's look at what the rates are for these two teams. So New England, kind of the narrative is Brady's getting old, he's not as good as he has been in the past. I actually don't think that's true and that requires a more thorough explanation. But let's just look at their play calling. First down in the first half, they're throwing on 54% of plays. So that's seventh most in the NFL. This is exactly what you should do. Even if you have a good ground game, you should take these opportunities to throw on first down in the first half, whether that's play action or whatever. Dallas, Dallas has had the best pass offense in the NFL. Doesn't matter if you look at success rate, adjusted for schedule, yards for pass attempt, adjusted for schedule, Dallas has been the best. But they're play calling, they're throwing on 43% of first downs in the first half. So that's the fifth lowest in the NFL. And that begs the question, like how much better would that pass offense be if they just made their life a little bit easier and threw on early downs instead of handing off to whatever they're running back, they just... So anyways, that's just a small example of why I don't want to take Jason Garrett versus Bill Belichick. And look, this is still a matchup of elite units. Dallas's pass offense has been great. Dak Prescott and Mark Cooper, New England's pass defense has been phenomenal. First, an adjusted success rate. Second, in my adjusted yards per play. And they're getting a lot of pressure as well. They're fifth when I look at sack rate for their defense. So it's really strength, you know, Belichick's probably gonna try to come up with a way of taking, coming up with a plan to take away Mark Cooper. Can he do it? I don't know. Donnie seems to think the Dallas is gonna do pretty well. I have my doubts and I think, you know, we're gonna have to see who can make the place. Just one more coaching thing for New England that I found this week. And the football outsiders, Almanac, they have data about how broken tackle rate. Okay, so if you're a defense, you don't want to have a lot of tackles that are broken. New England has been in the top five in that rate in the NFL five of the past six years. And I think that's coaching. I think that's Belichick. Like somehow he's repping that in a way or maybe he's just, whatever he's doing, like that is exactly the kind of thing that you want for your defense, right? And just another reason why I, in general, I don't like going against Bill Belichick. In general, that's why I like it when New England has a bad few games like they did, you know, late in the season last year and you actually found some value with them in playoff games and in Super Bowl odds heading into the playoffs. So yeah, it's a stay away even though the numbers like it for me. Yeah, I think that's, I also liked a number in this game but the reason that I stayed away from it was because of coaching. The number I liked was actually the over on the total here because these teams are first and third in situation neutral pace, corner football outsiders. So it's two fast teams and the two decent offenses. I think especially the Cowboys. And the total was at 46. The reason I decided not to make that my cover in the future was because if you think about the way Bill Belichick thinks, I don't think he's gonna try to take away Mario Cooper. I think he's gonna try to take away the passing game in general by encouraging the Cowboys to run and Kellan Moore and Jason Garrett have shown they're gonna take that bait. And if we're going to get a rush heavy script out of the Cowboys, it's harder for that game to go over the total. So in theory, my process is back fast teams. The problem is I think that Bill Belichick is going to encourage this game to be slower via forcing the Cowboys to run. So I think that what you're saying factoring in coaches and it's hard to predict coaching, but I think I generally give Bill Belichick the benefit of the doubt and assume that he will play things in a smart way. And the smart way to face the Cowboys is make them run. And they're gonna do that. Didn't you tell a story about Bill Belichick, like wanting- Let them and Thomas run, rush for the yards in the Super Bowl. They're gonna let Zeke go for a buck 50. Like that's gonna happen. But like if they do that, they're just fucking away. Play six defensive backs or what exactly their strategy is. I don't think they need to go quite that crazy. I think Dallas is gonna play into their hands a little bit. So it'd be interesting to see. They actually have played, three of their cornerbacks have played the vast majority of their snaps. Their fourth cornerback has played about two thirds of the snaps. So they're already playing a lot of defensive backs to begin with. I don't think that's gonna change much in this game. And we'll see. Yeah, we'll see how it unfolds. I think it's a really interesting game. And I wanna see how it plays out because my lean is that Bill Belichick just says, run Zeke 150 times and see what happens. But we'll see if that's how it plays out. I wanna go back to that Eagles game because I wanna talk about the Eagles under 24 points. And I was tempted to just bet the under here, but I had like violent flashbacks to betting the under on a Russell Wilson game previously. And I don't wanna bet against Russell Wilson scoring points. So I'm just gonna go under the point total for the Eagles at 24 points. And I think that it could definitely hit the under for the full game. If Tatalaka can't go because he was limited in practice on Wednesday. But I think the Eagles under 24 points makes a lot of sense because we know they're banged up and it's not just that they're banged up. It's not that they just have a lot of names on the injury report. It's impactful in injuries. Lane Johnson did not practice Wednesday because he is in concussion protocol and he is one of the best tackles in all football. Now the Eagles, I would say are better equipped to handle that than any other team. Looks like they're gonna have Andre Diller, their first round pick, work at right tackle. He was not at right tackle in their game against the Patriots last week after Johnson went down. He has a full week now to transition. They're gonna be better equipped to be without Lane Johnson they were last week and better equipped than they were when Carson Wentz was a rookie and Lane Johnson was suspended. So I don't care about Wentz's splits then with and without Johnson. Things are a lot different now but we should still expect a down tick from one of the best right tackles in football to a very good rookie, but a rookie nonetheless. Alshon Jeffery was limited in practice on Wednesday. Nelson Aglor couldn't go at all in practice to yesterday or today and we can joke about Aglor. I agree, there's a, you know, not great but there's also a reason. He's playing 89% of the snaps and that's because their alternatives are all so bad. So the Eagles are banged up and that's one part of it. But the Seahawks defense is also, I think, interesting because they've been getting pieces. Usually we talk about teams losing pieces, they're gaining pieces. They got Jaren Reid back in week seven. Quandre Diggs made his debut at the team in week 10. Their defense right now, if you look at number fires metrics ranks 17th against the pass and 18th overall. I would bet that those numbers get better as the season goes along because of those two guys. They're not a top 10 defense. They won't be a top 10 defense, but they're getting better. And I think that's interesting because most teams are gonna get worse due to injuries. They're trending the other way. Again, I am tempted to just go with the under here. Both teams like to run a lot, as mentioned with Donnie. They're 22nd and 25th in situation neutral pace per football outsider. So I think the under is an option of 47 and a half but I think I feel better about going with the under on the Eagles team total at 24 points. And we didn't get your read on this game. So what are your thoughts here on the Seahawks against the Eagles? Yeah, I mean, I just don't think the Seahawks defense is that good. Obviously getting Jaren Reid back is pretty big but it was interesting talking to Ben Baldwin of the athletic who covers the team. He actually thinks they're worse than what he expected at the beginning of the season which is probably not the best sign. So they are clearly doing it on the other side of the ball. Yeah, I mean, I think it's, I don't have a lot of faith in that unit. Yeah. We'll leave it at that. The question is do you have more faith or, for whom is your lack of faith larger? I guess in the Seahawks defense or the Eagles offense? For me, it's the Eagles offense. I have less faith in them right now. I think I have less faith in Seattle's defense. Okay, I think that makes sense. So we'll see how things play out here. Yeah, you know, it'll be interesting to see if the receivers can get separation from these cornerbacks. I think their odds of doing so are higher than they were last week. I would put it that way at least. All right. Cause the Patriots are pretty good. I think we can say that definitively by this point. Before we wrap up for this week, do you want to go through our schedule for next week? Because of course it is Thanksgiving. So what we're going to do is we're going to combine the college football and the NFL podcast into one podcast, just Ed and me going back and forth, talking a little college, talking a little NFL. We'll put that up on Tuesday afternoon. We'll probably record I would guess around three o'clock Eastern time and then that will go up. So hopefully up around drive time on Tuesday. So if you're commuting Wednesday or going to work or if you're going somewhere else, we can have it up for you then. So just one podcast next week should be up Tuesday around five o'clock or so. And to make sure you get that podcast, make sure you subscribe to Covering the Spread wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there, please leave a rating and review as well because those do help us out a ton. Thank you to those of you who have already done so because that has been a major help to us. Ed, do you have any big plans for this weekend? Watching some football, hanging out with the family. They're actually taking off for a vacation next week and I'm not going with them. Nice. So hang out with them a little bit so I'll have a little time next week. But yeah, nothing big. Nice. I always like, I regret being home alone but I also like, it's kind of nice to have like five minutes of quiet during NFL season. Just like it is, it's chaotic. And I guess I'm assuming with kids it's not different. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty insane. All right. Make sure you check out all of that stuff over at thepowerrank.com. Sign up for his email newsletter. Also check out the football analytics show you had Michael Salfino on, you said, right? Yeah. Yeah. Michael Salfino with 538 and the athletic and the Wall Street Journal does a lot of interesting things, talked about how he initiated the Massey Peabody football rankings, which was an interesting story. He also talked about how to get a newspaper column syndicated in 2004. So he used to write a fantasy sports column that was a syndicated newspaper column. And I'm pretty sure I've never talked to anyone else who's had a syndicated newspaper column. That's true. I mean, basically just the timing thing, you know, when I kind of got it swirled and stuff like that. Well, yeah, it was a fantastic conversation. We did the typical books and food and movies at the end, which was super fun as well. I am actually in a fantasy football league with Michael Salfino. I forgot about that when we talked about this yesterday. I will not disclose my record is in that league. It's a Scott Fishbowl run through my fantasy league. My team is not that good, so we'll disregard. But check that out by searching for the football analytics show and follow Ed on Twitter as well at thepowerrank. I am at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the FanDuel Podcast Network at FanDuel Podcasts and find our DFS podcast there as well by searching for the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed. Big thank you to Calvin Theobald, our video producer, for keeping us on the air from a video perspective and chopping up those clips to the atFanDuel Twitter account as well. Thank you, Cal, as always. And a thank you to everyone for tuning in this week, both for the college football and for the NFL version. Thank you to Ian Cameron and Donnie Seymour for spreading their knowledge also. Good luck with your bets across college football and the NFL this week. And we'll talk to you again on Tuesday to get you set for Thanksgiving. This has been covering the spread right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network.