 This is covering the spread, part of the Fandall podcast network. After a solid two weeks off, the NFL is once again back in the sporting spotlight because this time they're heading to the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis. And as you know, the combine is primarily there to facilitate workouts for incoming prospects and stuff like that. But it's also a point in the year where we get a lot of info from reporters as they talk to teams, as teams talk to each other and the outlook of the overall law season gets crystallized. Now obviously that has a lot of impact on betting. We're getting better ideas of who may go first overall, what the bears may do with that first overall pick, what they may do with Justin Fields, landing spots of key quarterbacks and other free agents. And it's gonna play a major factor in our path trying to determine who are going to be the key contenders for the 2024 NFL season. Our job for today is to go through a couple of key questions that are going to impact what we could find out across the next couple of weeks. We're gonna talk about the plans of some key teams across the NFL off season and what we wanna keep an eye on for the next couple of weeks and maybe try to identify spots where we wanna buy now, spots we may wanna buy later or some teams we may wanna look to fade in the betting markets as well. So I'm gonna go through five key questions that I'm trying to answer throughout the NFL season that will impact how I view various teams that are in contention at the top end of the NFL betting market for next year. So we're gonna dive into those for today and outline what it all means over at Fandall Sportsbook. Welcome on into covering the spread. That's right here on the Fandall Podcast Network and Fandall Research. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a managing editor of digital media for Fandall Research. Here to dig into the key questions around this NFL off season and outline what they could mean for the betting markets for this year. We'll dive into all that here in just one second. A first day reminder to make sure you're subscribed to covering the spread wherever you get your podcast. We were here every Monday through Friday breaking down the NFL. We got some F1 talk coming up tomorrow. We're gonna talk betting on the combine on Wednesday as well. I'll be talking to NASCAR later on this week, of course, all right here in the seat. As a reminder as well, we do have the Daily ISO with Tom Becchio now talking both NBA betting and daily fantasy. That's over on the Fandall Research podcast. If you get that search your Fandall Research podcast wherever you get your podcasts that is also over on Fandall TV Plus. So go to fandall.com slash watch or download the Fandall TV Plus app on your Amazon Fire Apple TV or Roku devices. 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So our key talking points will evolve around teams that are gonna be in play to win the Super Bowl and in play to win their respective conference, which does win things down, but we'll focus on the other teams later on for win totals, divisional bets, et cetera, et cetera. And I think that makes the number one question at least for me this off season, revolve around the Buffalo Bills because the Bills are a team that are always going to have an open Super Bowl window because their quarterback is phenomenal and Josh Allen. When you have a quarterback as good as that, the window is always open to win the Super Bowl. But they're in a really weird spot right now because if you look at overthecath.com, the Bills are projected at $41 million over the salary cap at this time. That means they're gonna have to make some key moves. And that's scary because this defense is pretty old right now with several key free agents. We don't really know what they'll do with Stefan Diggs. Everything Diggs has said sounds like he wants me back, but you know, there's been rumblings that maybe that's not the case or maybe the Bills, maybe they don't wanna deal with it anymore. So Diggs is a question mark and that impacts passing efficiency and passing efficiency is the most important predictor of who will be successful in the NFL. So those are really big question marks around this team. The question is whether the Bills can retool on the fly and be competitive once again next year. And honestly, there were flaws this year with this team as well. There was a reason they had to make a sprint down the stretch to make the postseason. But again, with Josh Allen, the Super Bowl window is always open. Taking a look at the betting markets right now over at Fandall Sports Book, the Bills are currently 12 to one to win Super Bowl 59. And they are also one of the favorites who in the AFC, they are plus 650 there. So if you wanted to buy low on the Bills, not really a good time to do so. They're still viewed very favorably. And rather than thinking, okay, is it too low? Do the question marks around the Bills and where their situation is right now, my question is whether or not they're graded too highly. If they are graded too highly, that could mean there's value elsewhere in the AFC, outright odds, the Super Bowl outright odds and stuff like that. So it'll be important to track the Bills this off season. They ranked seventh in the past defense this past year and seventh overall defensively. And they did that despite a lot of big key defensive injuries. They're gonna get those injured guys back. But it's hard to see dominance on that defensive side of the football. So if they find a way to keep key players, like a hide, if they can keep Stefan Diggs, that's awesome. And I will be willing to have my view of the Bills at that time. I'm just not totally, totally 100% sure that happens as of right now. And that makes me lower on the Bills entering this year, but we'll see how things play out. So the number one question for me in this off season is what the Bills do to get cap compliant and try to retool this off season. As of right now, I'm not super high on them in the markets. And I'm not gonna look into buying futures on them, but I will change that tune if they're able to keep digs and get that defense, get some of those key contributors back because those guys are important pieces of this offense. One of the benefactors of question marks around the Bills would be the Bengals. And the Bengals big question mark is one that's already effectively been answered. That's whether or not they'll be able to keep T Higgins. They were reporting over the weekend that Higgins will be franchise tag, which means he should be back next year. Right now the Bengals are projected for $52 million in cat space. So they should be able to bring him back and be good to go. And I think that makes them pretty dangerous. This Bengals offense last year finished 14th in overall offensive efficiency. And that was with a healthy Joe Burrow for basically only a couple of weeks. Now they did lose Brian Callahan, their OC, but Zach Taylor is their play caller and he is back. So they were able to grind out an efficient offense despite the fact that they had Burrow either not healthy or out for most of last year. If you look back to 2022, the Bengals averaged 0.18, passing net expected points per dropback. That ranked sixth in the NFL that year and would have ranked seventh this year. And that is good enough to put you in contention. Now this defense for the Bengals did fall off a cliff this past year. They ranked 26th there overall, but again, they've got a lot of salary cap space to maneuver and potentially improve things there. So the Bengal situation right now is if they reassigned to Higgins, which it sounds like again, they'll be able to keep at least for next year, they should be projected for one of the most efficient offenses in the entire league. And they have the resources to make that defense better. We've seen the retool of this defense on the fly in the past and add free agents there and get market improvements. When you've got those components, that's a team that has quite a bit of upside. Looking at the Bengals right now, they're currently seven to one to win the AFC and they are 15 to one to win the Super Bowl. I prefer them in that market because if they can get through my homes and get their way to Super Bowl, I want some action on them at that point. And 15 to one is a pretty long number for a team with a quarterback this good who can be this efficient. They're one of the lower ranked teams in the quarterback we can feel really, really good about. So as I look at futures markets right now, my favorite bet is the Bengals to win the Super Bowl at 15 to one, given that they should have T Higgins back, Borough should be back and fully healthy and we know what this team can do when that's in place. So the Bengals to me, the most interesting team in the futures market right now and a team I'll be watching closely and a team that has a lot of upside, especially if they can get that defense back to where it was back in 2022, if they can get to just that level, they could be a team that's very feisty once January and February do roll around. So that's number two for me is what the Bengals do to improve that defense assuming they can keep T Higgins around, see what they can do with those resources they do have that the bills conversely do not have this all season. Question number three for me, sticking in the AFC revolves around Jim Harbaugh because one of the teams below the Bengals that could get efficient quarterback play is the Chargers. They are 30 to one to win the Super Bowl and they are 16 to one to win the AFC. That is actually longer than the Dolphins and it makes sense because they're in a tough division. The Chargers are, they had a pretty rough year this past year and this defense was terrible. The offense was not great either even before the Justin Herbert injury and there are fundamental issues with this team. And that's my question is, can Jim Harbaugh fix those fundamental issues with this Chargers team in just one off season? The biggest issue is me and the Chargers their ground game is pitiful, it's pathetic. And I know passing efficiency is more efficient than rushing efficiency but rushing efficiency does matter. If you don't have any ground game at all you're not gonna be able to be a top flight NFL team. Now there are a lot of routes to being an efficient rushing offense. It could be because you got a good quarterback who loosens things up there. It could be because you got a good scheme. Could be because you have a good running back, good offense line. There are a lot of routes to a good run game whereas there are not a lot of routes to a good passing game but I do still think it's important to have a good efficient rushing offense. They don't have that. Other thing is they have a, they have no vertical element to their passing game despite the fact they've got a guy with a very strong arm or quarterback. The question is whether or not those two issues are fixable in one off season. The Chargers do draft fifth overall which means they could definitely address some of those issues right there. And they also have all their original draft picks as well. So they're gonna be able to make some moves. The question is whether it's enough to help them compete in such a tough conference. Currently, my lean is to say no to that. Like I don't think the Chargers are a team but I'm looking to bet when it comes to betting the AFC or betting the Super Bowl because I know their path is very tough to get through my homes to overcome Allen, Burrow, Jackson, all these really good AFC quarterbacks. So as of right now, I'm not buying the Chargers but I do wanna keep a close eye on them because they've got a very good quarterback. Now the other important part of their quarterback situation is we're probably not gonna see massive fluctuations in the Chargers betting odds in the very near future. Whereas like if you see a team signing her cousins their betting odds may move quite a bit. With the Chargers, we're not gonna see that as much. So we can afford to take a wait and see the approach with this and kind of see how things play out with this Chargers offense. Do they get a field stretcher at wide receiver who can actually allow Justin Herbert to use that big arbitrage? If they do, I'm gonna have a lot of interest. Can they address their ground game one way or another? I think that adding Greg Roman, despite his flaws as a passing in coordinator I think that does help them get better rushing efficiency. So I think they can become a team that I'm interested in but they're not there yet. And I wanna see it first before I decide to buy in especially because I may not miss out on a lot if I don't buy into them right away. So the Chargers are not currently a team that I wanna buy into in the futures markets but I'm open to it. I'm receptive to it if they can fix those fundamental issues with the vertical passing game and the ground game but I do wanna see it before I buy in because those issues are legitimate and very real and they're not fixed yet. So I wanna see it first before I decide whether or not I wanna buy into this team. That's primarily on the AFC side of things. That's where you gotta get through my homes. You gotta get through the boogeyman at the end of the show and that's very scary. Let's talk about the NFC though. The NFC is a bit more wide open and that's what I wanna talk about Kirk Cousins because this one is more marginal obviously. Kirk Cousins is not Joe Burrow. He's not Justin Herbert. He's not Josh Allen but most teams looking at quarterback are not in the hunt for their conference. The exception is the two teams that I think are most likely to land Kirk Cousins and those are the Vikings and the Falcons. Both those teams had really good defenses last year or at least good enough. Falcons were 11th overall by number fire schedule adjustment metrics. Vikings very good against the run just trying 20th overall defensively but they seem better than that. A lot of the time they've got Brian Flores back as well and that does help. But both these teams, the Falcons and the Vikings had very key issues at quarterback. The Falcons had times where they looked okay offensively. They were able to move the football, get the ball in the red zone but then it seemed like every time they got there doesn't matter if throw this like back breaking pick and that can be overvalued. Turnover luck can be crazy and it can work against you in a lot of ways. Especially when it's a lot of high leverage turnovers which is what the Falcons seem to have every single time they moved the football this past year. So the Falcons have pieces to be efficient. The Vikings have Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, TJ Hawkinson might not be back for week one after Terriga's ACL but like he'll be in play eventually. So both these offenses have the pieces you need to be efficient and they're also in the NFC which I think is an advantage because you have fewer S tier quarterbacks you have to fight through in order to get to the conference championship. So looking at the conference odds right now the Vikings and the Falcons are both 20 to one to win the NFC. And that's appropriate because we have to remember that neither team is allowed to have cousins on the roster so we can just assume that he's there whichever team does have cousins will likely be at least in play to win the division. The key downside for the Vikings is that their division is very tough. Detroit will be good again. I like Jordan Love a lot in Green Bay and the Bears potentially getting Caleb Williams another solid player at pick nine their defense played pretty well down the stretch last year too so they're a friskier team than they've been in years past. The Falcons don't have that issue. They're the NFC South team with the shortest odds to win the NFC right now. They're at 20 to one the Buccaneers a bit behind them at 30 to one and then the Saints are at 32 to one. So it's a gettable division and a gettable conference and if the Falcons were to get Kirk Cousins I'd be tempted to bet them to win the NFC. Again, you can win this conference. They have quality pieces on offense. I know that there are jokes about Drake London Bijan Robinson Kyle Pitts but like I think that London and Robinson are legitimately very good players. The defense is workable as well. So the Falcons have upside and that to me is the important thing here. I don't wanna pull the trigger before it happens because again, I don't think I'm gonna miss out on a lot. Like I don't think we're gonna see the Falcons be shorter than like the Rams or the Packers necessarily even if they do sign Kirk Cousins because the possibility of cousins is in parts like 50%, 40% odds baked into this number at 20 to one. So I still think cousins is slightly more likely to wind up back in Minnesota than heading down to Atlanta but if we do see cousins sign the Falcons I would not be shocked if I wound up betting the Falcons to win the NFC. Again, I'm not gonna get ahead of this one personally because I don't know what the odds are the cousins actually goes. I can't know that because I'm not a reporter I'm not the Falcons, I'm not the Vikings but I have interest in them should they wind up getting Kirk Cousins. So Kirk Cousins, what he does, how it impacts the Vikings and Falcons specifically the Falcons, the key thing I'll be keeping an eye on there as well. Now the final question is one that seems kind of wrapped up at least to me and that's what the Bears do with Justin Fields. And I think that it's going to wind up where Justin Fields does wind up being traded from the Bears at some point the probably very near future potentially even as recent as this week. And it makes sense because it's a great quarterback class my numbers like this quarterback class a lot. They get to reset the rookie contract timing and although Justin Fields is fun it is a fact that he has not been an efficient passer yet in the NFL across three NFL seasons. Is that all his fault? No, like there are other factors at play for sure but the fact is we have not seen Justin Fields be an efficient passer yet. His fifth year option is due to be picked up or declined this year. So I think it makes a lot of sense to the Bears to move on all signs points at least they're my eyes to a trade. I don't care a ton about where Fields goes I don't think he's going to be a guy is going to entice me to bet a team to win the NFC or the ASC. And the Bears aren't in my eyes yet a true contender to win the conferences or the Super Bowl. Yes, but you actually can bet on in a way the route the Bears decide to take with this dilemma, the quote unquote dilemma that they've got right now. If you go to Fandall Sportsbook in certain states you can bet on which team will select first overall and currently the Bears are minus 650 to make that first overall pick at Fandall Sportsbook. That's 87% implied odds. If the Bears trade Fields I think that implied probability is going to jump above 90%. And I don't think it's super super likely they trade that pick either because NFL teams seem to be pretty on board with Caleb Williams being the top guy in this class. The Bears, you know, passed over Patrick Mahomes once. I don't think Williams is Mahomes because nobody is. Nobody is a three time Super Bowl winning quarterback multiple time MVP. Nobody is that yet. But you can understand the comps. You can see a lot of similarities between the two guys. I don't see a scenario in which the team picking first overall passes them up and I don't see a situation where the Bears trade back and miss out on potentially getting a redo on the Patrick Mahomes situation. So yeah, minus 650 is a pretty boring bet but 87% implied odds, I think undersells how likely it is that this happens. So maybe you don't feel the need to bet this one. I'm of the mindset that value is value in minus 650. If I think it's, you know if they think the odds that happens are above 87% that to me is an okay bet. So personally, I'm okay looking at this. The Bears picked first overall minus 650 under the assumption they wind up trading Justin Fields in the very near future and that could lead to movement in this market and I do think that they will wind up making that first overall pick likely taking a quarterback there and taking advantage of the advantages of a rookie contract in the NFL. So those are my five key questions entering this NFL off season. We'll have a lot of more NFL talk throughout the time. We're actually talking NFL Combine on Wednesday. Actually the markets for the Combine just went up at Fandall Sportsbook this morning so you can bet on 40 yard dash times and stuff like that. So we're gonna break down some of those markets on Wednesday to hopefully get you to have some fun on the scouting Combine for this year. So more discussion around the Combine to come in the coming days. Before we wrap up for today gotta go back through recommendations here from last week on the show. Pretty brief segment here because we only had two forward looking or two week long things that we had in the show. The first one is Austin Cass. Check him out on Twitter at Austin Cass. He is a senior editor for Fandall Research at Austin on to break down the EP on match week 26. Now there is still one bet pending here that is Brentford plus 170 to win it. That game is today. So that one's still pending. Other recommendations were a double chance bet of Burnley and draw at minus 135 and Bokeo Saka to score or assist at minus 135. Burnley got a red card pretty early on their match with Crystal Palace and they lost that one three nil. So Crystal Palace won. That means you don't get the win on Burnley and draw. So a loss in that one with Burnley and draw. Did get a win though with Saka. Arsenal won that game or that match, I believe four to one Saka had a goal in that one. So Bokeo Saka to score or assist in minus 134 was a hit. So one to one so far for Austin with the Brentford money line still pending at plus 170. I had some NASCAR in Atlanta on the Saturday race had Riley Herbst to win in that one. He was 12 to one if Andrew will support but he ran well the entire day. Herbst was basically, I thought the second best car behind Jesse Love didn't get the job done but Herbst ran really well. So I felt good about the process behind that bet. Thought that it could have won. Didn't wind up happening cause Austin Hill won yet again. Maybe he's the extended series boogeyman like Patrick Mahones, but felt good about the process for betting Herbst to win even though the results were not there. On the cup serious side of things had three bets. Those went one and two. The win was on Ryan Blaney to help Kyle Larson at minus 112. Larson crashed as happens in super speedways. It happens a lot with him. Blaney was 0.003 seconds from winning. So process was good there. Results were good. Thought that made a lot of sense. The 0.003 seconds though did hurt because I had forward to win at plus 180. And of course, Blaney drives a forward. Daniel Suarez drives a Chevrolet. And he beat out Blaney by 0.003 seconds. The third closest finish in NASCAR Cup Series history doesn't get any better than that. Would have been better had Blaney won. So I guess maybe it does get better. But Suarez getting the win over Blaney and Kyle Bush. Really fun finish there. Really fun race overall. Other bet was Bubba Wallace to win at 21. Wallace finished fifth. He was right behind Blaney on that final lap. Gave him a little bump and then got loose. Washed with the track, finished fifth. But again, like the Herps one, I felt good about the process here. Didn't get the results. Felt good about the forward bet too. So, you know, not the best results this weekend, but I felt good about the process. Almost got there with the results too. And happy to no longer be super speedway betting as they head to Las Vegas this upcoming week. We'll talk about that later on this week here on the show. That is all that we have here for today though on Covering the Spread. Want to give a big thank you to everyone for tuning in for today. Tomorrow we are back with you. We're going to talk some F1. I know that there is a lot of bad rapper on F1 because Max Verstappen is probably going to win, but there are a lot of other markets you can bet as well. We're going to talk to Sam Hoppin to get his read on F1 betting, modeling, and his expectations coming into this year. To get that show as it goes live, make sure you're subscribed to Covering the Spread wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find us on the Fandall YouTube page and Fandall TV Plus. If you've got any questions for me, I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis. You can check me out on threads at Jim.Sonnis and find Fandall Research on Twitter at Fandall Research. Want to thank you all for tuning in for today. Get lucky with your bets across Monday. We'll talk to you once again tomorrow to break down the F1 season opener. This has been Covering the Spread right here on the Fandall Podcast Network.