 This is covering the spread here are your hosts Jim sawness and dr. Ed Feng What is going on everybody welcome on into covering the spread here on the fan dual podcast network? My name is Jim sawness. I am a senior writer and analyst for number fire calm joined here as always by Ed Feng of the power rank calm you can follow Ed on Twitter at the power rank Ed We are one leak week closer to football. We've got NFL talk coming up a whale capper talking about Super Bowl future So I'm pumped to get some more NFL talk on here. How are you doing today? I'm doing great You know Jim This is the first show that we're recording in August and August is game time for people like you and me right like I don't know if the fans really like people who would just listen to this realize it but like our lives are really really busy in August and even more so than you know during the season just because there's so much crap and getting ready for the season and Again, it's the first show that we're recording in August. I'm just excited to talk football NFL I got a little college stuff at the end of the show and in covering the future So yeah, just just excited that August has come. Yeah, and I had a family reunion the past week in South Dakota, so I was totally out of the news loop for about four days as I was out there and the mad Scramble that occurred while driving back from South Dakota trying to like digest all this news that it happened was like One of the more stressful things that's ever happened. So that's kind of how that's the zone We're in for right now, but you know, it's not tell the family not to do reunions. No, it's too much fun We get go-kart racing. I got yelled at for bumping on the go-karts So we got a little got a little edgy. Isn't that the point go-kart racing? That's what I thought They disagreed I also was erroneously accused and I will stand by that until my dying day, but they Disagreed coming up later on we're talking with whale capper about NFL Super Bowl futures. Of course, you heard whale capper earlier on talking to NBA also covers tennis So make sure you check him out on Twitter at whale underscore capper He is the host of the deep dive podcast. You can find him there. We're talking about Super Bowl odds some matchouts for 2019 Who he likes to emerge from both the ASC and the NSE the couple of teams Maybe he's not as interested and last week college football week here on covering the spread We talked Heismanon's of Edward e-gross and also our college football preview with Ed looking through his numbers What they say at the power rank for? 2019 if you did not hear those podcasts make sure you search for covering the spread on Spotify Apple podcasts SoundCloud Stitcher the Google Play Store wherever you get your podcast You can find covering the spread and while you are there, please rate and review the podcast It's such a huge help for us. We've had a lot of you do so already. So a huge. Thank you to those Yeah, I've left reviews have left ratings that helps out a ton So thank you to those of you who have done so already But another little slight request if you're like a whale capper has to say later on today But at first we had a debut one of our segments We're gonna be doing a lot during the year because you know during college football season and a fellow season We're gonna make some picks, you know, we're gonna say hey I like this is something that I like and the following week We're gonna go back through those and try to investigate what went wrong and why it went wrong That's called covering the past and we have our first covering the past this week because last week I talked NASCAR and we have some results to investigate from that Covering the past So last week during covering the future I talked up Kyle Larson and Eric Jones as Win picks for the NASCAR Cup Series race in Watkins Glen and At the time when we were talking there were no odds posted yet But the kind of thought process was these guys are going to close at A better number or a lower number than where they open and that's exactly what happened with both guys Eric Jones opened at 28 to 1 at Fandalsports book He was at 24 to 1 when the green flag dropped on Sunday Despite not having great practice times on Saturday, which I thought was pretty interesting But I think people realized that his current form is really good Jones another good race there seventh place average running position Well, I'm finishing fourth. That's his fourth straight top five finish his best career finish on a road course Didn't get the win, but I felt good about that one Kyle Larson actually finished worse than Jones He finished eighth, but his movement during the week was much grander He opened at 40 to 1 and closed at 15 to 1 and that was because he was fast in practice He qualified well the same reasons we gave for liking Larson prior to the race He led six laps in the race because he's on a different strategy Which actually may have come back to bite him a bit, but I think that With both Jones and Larson, you know, even though they didn't win I feel good about the process because they both dropped quite a bit from where they opened especially Larson going from 40 to 1 to 15 to 1 I didn't like Larson at 15 to 1 because I thought that there were a tier of three drivers who All seem to be at an elite level and Larson was not in that top tier But I think having him at 40 was super advantageous and I still think Jones will be a good bet going forward too So in this specific instance, I don't really want to evaluate my process too much I don't want to reevaluate because I think that it actually worked out pretty well But Ed, I want to talk to you about Revaluating your processes in general because that's something we'll talk about here on covering the past How often do you go back and say, huh? Maybe this is why I missed on this bet or are you hesitant to do so because you may just be chasing results when you do that Yeah, I mean, I'm often hesitant to do so just because of small sample size You're going to take losses. You're gonna look silly I mean, there are great bets in which the team that you thought was going to do great just has a bad game This happens all the time whether you're talking NFL College football or otherwise So so in some sense like I'm reluctant to kind of change my process a lot of a lot of it is because like You know, I trust my numbers and obviously numbers go through a process as well I've been introducing ideas like success rate into my predictive analytics and that's something that's slowly happening over 2018-2019 and stuff. I'll talk about on the show over the next half year. I guess so the analytics are always improving and So that is a change in my process But you know, like if a quarterback is throwing the ball with some accuracy if he's leading receivers And these are the type of subjective adjustments We're gonna talk about KJ Castel a little bit later the Stanford quarterback if I see things like that I mean that those are the types of things That kind of persists, right? I mean, you know, I watch I try to watch the games and So I guess what I'm saying is is Yeah, I don't try I try that you have to be mindful of small sample size and don't change your process too quickly Obviously if you're losing over the course of years and then you can make the decision to change how you're thinking about these games But you know, I think especially if you're making your kind of subjective Judgments based on, you know, good analytics regression to the meat type ideas I think you're a pretty solid company and don't be dissuaded by by a couple losses And the other thing too is changing your evaluation of a team is different than changing your process And I think that changing your evaluation of a team if you see a legitimate concern That's very different, right? And I think that that's a bit more legitimate, too Well, but that's also really but that's also really hard especially in football, right? So It's a little bit easier if a guy gets hurt, right? But it's a lot harder if a team is just not playing well Right, because that's not you can't assume that's going to pert you can't assume that's going to be their new baseline Right exactly. So I mean if you look even for I mean even you get a half season in college football six games A team just doesn't look that good You know, obviously injury is not withstanding but right but that's a small sample size and teams can Often start playing like the talent level that we thought in the preseason after a rough six games Absolutely, if you want to get in on the action and get Kyle Larson while the odds are still long check out the Fandall sportsbook and Place your first bet today if you lose Fandall will give you a refund up to $500 in site credit visit sportsbook.fandall.com for more details terms and conditions apply must be 21 plus and present in New Jersey or Pennsylvania to enter gambling problem call 1-800 Gambler coming up next. We're gonna talk with whale capper once again. His Twitter handle is at whale underscore capper He is the host of the deep dive podcast and NFL NBA and tennis handy cap We're talking Super Bowl futures that is up next here on covering the present Covering the present Let's welcome whale capper back into the show here on covering the spread and whale you do a lot of stuff We had you on to talk NBA before you also do NFL obviously, which we're discussing today You do tennis which we'll talk about later this month Do you have a preferred sport or a sport where your ROI is a bit better? Do you lean one way or another just enjoy all three of them? Yeah, so NFL's you know has my Special spot in my heart without a doubt it is the the sports that I have sort of the deepest reservoir of tools and and Handicapping angles and you know, I've been following NFL and betting the NFL for by far the longest Surprisingly NBA at tennis I happen to have higher ROIs But I think that's just a factor of the fact that you know that the season in tennis and season in the NBA provides you so Many more opportunities that you can pick and pick and choose your spots a little bit more carefully when it comes to the NFL and season You know game by game betting You know, you're just subject to a lot more Good luck bad luck type of decisions and and there's just fewer overall games to try to you know find your your sweet spot So, you know that that's that's the the labor of love of being an NFL better though I think and I think you know broadly people who have been betting NFL for a long time would feel the same way and Volatility is a key when betting NFL futures to we're talking about Super Bowl futures for today And that volatility is big and it can create a lot of weirdness when it comes to you betting Super Bowl favorites So when you factor in how volatile the sport is do you tend to find yourself betting on? Favorites often to win the Super Bowl or do you tend to stick with teams with more mid-range or longer odds to account for that volatility? Yeah, so almost certainly I'm not betting many favorites to win the Super Bowl And in fact my my general approach is to try to put together a Portfolio of a number of different teams so that you have some flexibility you have some options I'm not trying to just pick one ticket with an especially great payout and ride that lottery ticket for the duration of the season I'm much more interested in looking at sort of the lay of the land when you look at the schedule and Trying to identify. Okay. I think before the season starts I reasonably think there are about four or five teams in each conference that have a realistic chance of Getting a one or two seat and that's an enormously important aspect when it comes to having a future Or just basically predicting the the ultimate, you know, Super Bowl champion You really want an inside track to get that extra by week and that home game and in the divisional round That's huge. And so what I like to try to do is is try to identify Okay Well, the here are the teams that I think have a reasonable chance before the season starts And then I like to try to time my market entry so that I'm buying low on those teams as opposed to just Taking them all now And then, you know, hoping that their odds all get shorter because, you know, this is a dynamic market It's gonna, you know, the odds are gonna change week in week out as, you know As wins and losses pile up and you know, there will be clearly there will be some games where You know a team that is expected to do Great things in the playoffs looks for any given week against any given opponent And if you can pick the right time to to grab a future on those teams at those times by the end of the year You can have a portfolio where you have You have nice odds on a number of different opportunities and that makes, you know That makes hedging decisions easier and and that that can help you, you know, help you walk in some Some profit without without having to sweat it too hard Yeah, well, I completely agree with you there. I mean that that buy week is so crucial I think I did play out Super Bowl odds after the the start of the play before the start of the playoff last year And it's it's clear who has the best Super Bowl odds then right the four teams with the vice and So from your perspective, like do you prefer betting teams that are going to win the Super Bowl or perhaps the matchup Uh in the final Super Bowl Well, without a doubt if you are simply playing this as a means of like Lottery tickets sort of approach as opposed to trying to build like an investment portfolio, I guess The lottery ticket payouts on Exact matchup for the Super Bowl is is much greater. Like, you know, there's there's really no No, no competition there, you know, the the You know the the idea of getting a 40 or 50 to one payout by calling the matchup Exactly before the season starts is is enticing But I mostly I'm looking to Have you know to win the conference or to win the Super Bowl at the best possible price picked up You know either preseason or during the season depending on how I think the uh, you know a team We know the price will change over the course of the season. So let's talk to you about the Patriots So go ahead Oh, this is gonna say I was just gonna reiterate. It's all about the price for you and catching that Price getting the best price and looking for that every week of the season really not just in the preseason Yeah, for sure. And you know, two two two seasons ago, I can give you a couple great examples Um, you know before the season started, uh, it would be on the Patriots were so clearly Head and shoulders the best team in the a of c that you you know that that uh, and they had You know by far and away the easiest schedule They had a clear path to a division title and a bi-week and you know, there was Greater than a 50 50 chance that the Patriots were going to be hosting the a of c championship game And before the season started you could have got Patriots to win the a of c for about plus 300 And that was a no-brainer because you're you know when you're making that bet that over, you know That the season is you know, the Patriots may have some ups and downs here But that price is only going to get shorter and if they are hosting a home playoff game for the a of c title You know, they're going to be touchdown favorites and lo and behold there until I think they ended up being about five and a half Or six point favorites to the Jags that season Um, but you know, you you saw a pretty clear opportunity there preseason to kind of corner Uh a part of the market where you knew even if things went poorly The Patriots, you know had the inside track to get to the a of c title game if not host the a of c title game And uh, and so that was a you know, a pretty clear opportunity to uh to grab some value there. Um Not not so sure that that same opportunity exists this year, however Well, let's talk about those Patriots then because they are currently the favorites at vandal sportsbook They are seven to one and we know how dominant they have been the past couple of years But there's been a lot of turnover on the team this all season and tom brady's another year older stuff like that Where do you sit on the Patriots relative to that number and are you tempted to buy them While they're seven to one right now or if you like the Patriots, are you holding off there? Yeah, uh clear and obvious our chance to hold off this year and and try to scoop the Patriots at a better price later Um, you know, you look at people who have kind of done a decent job of evaluating schedules And no matter how you look at it the Patriots have a pretty clearly bottom five If not the easiest schedule in the league, which is wild Um, but again, you know, they don't have to play the Patriots. So right, um, but you know, they they they get uh, You know, the a of c east opponents are not necessarily, you know, considered to be contenders Certainly not the dolphins. I think uh people You know, I think people are going to be surprised if if not impressed by the play of the bills in the jets this year But uh, you know the Patriots a pretty clear pattern has emerged over the last several seasons where they effectively treat The first four weeks of the season as an extended preseason And they have a couple of tough moments in that stretch They have a spot at miami where they traditionally underperform in the heat early in the season on the road Um, you know, even their home opener against Pittsburgh Steelers is a game that I think people should not necessarily be counting as an easy and obvious w Uh, so, you know, you could very well see the Patriots at two and two or, you know, uh, you know, three and two I guess after the first four or five weeks of the season And at that point if you wanted to try to scratch some value out of the Patriots I think you're going to get a lot better number than we have currently because somebody in the a of c The a of c is much deeper this year than it has been in years past much deeper. There's clearly About five teams, uh, that have realistic shots at getting a top two seed Uh, and the Patriots are one of them Sure, but um, you know, I don't think that they're going to be wire to wire favorites in the a of c Like we've seen in years past and so you're going to be able to probably scoop a little bit of value in them over the course of the season As opposed to betting them now Yeah, I always find it interesting about, you know, these big teams like Patriots like Alabama and college football How their odds changed and when I ran the Super Bowl odds before the start of the playoffs last year The only team that had value were the Patriots and you have to remember like it was the year of Kansas City It was the year, you know, Drew Brees had such a great season The Rams were looking so good heading into the playoffs. So it's really interesting to see them Flip back and forth and I completely agree with you well in terms of like, yeah Let's let's see what they do and and they're going to lose some games, right? I mean, they're not good enough to get, you know Catch them at a good price. Um, when things change Progresses, yeah So the top matchup on the board for the Super Bowl is Patriots and the Saints The Saints have been a really good team since they fixed their defense a couple years ago You have to account for Drew Brees entering his 40s. What do you think about this team coming out of the NFC? Yeah, I mean This has been a slowly growing position of mine over the course of this preseason And we need to obviously see the how things flesh out when they actually start to play the games But uh, I'm very very cold on the Saints this year Um, you know the the way that we've seen Drew Brees's play drop off over the course of the season The last several seasons as he's effectively More wear and tear on his shoulder and his relatively small frame compared to some of the other You know quarterbacks across the league. I think you see it show up in november december and in especially in january Where he's just not nearly as effective a downfield passer as he is earlier in the season That has huge implications for the Saints this year The Saints have a very very very tough schedule this year. Um, I think that the NFC south is extremely competitive Both the Falcons and the Panthers who have easier schedules and have kind of better setups I think will be you know, we'll be very very Interesting to keep an eye on especially early in the season, you know among the teams that I think You know, I think people are sleeping a little bit on the Panthers And you know, they're kind of waking up a little bit on the Falcons here But you know, you're talking about teams that have you know, pretty dynamic offensive weapons and offensive ways they can attack you In the Saints, you know that they've they've lost Ingram They have you know, a relatively thin receiving core after you get by, you know, one of the top five in the game and Michael Thomas And so, you know, there will be opportunities to you know, kind of single out and take Thomas out of the game And we haven't seen Alvin Camaro really be able to handle the load beyond you know, 18 to 20 touches a game So it's it's going to be A little bit of a growing pains. I think for the Saints this year I I really really think they bungled their draft two years ago where they gave away so many future assets to Move up and take one pass rusher who we don't really have really seen That this guy is a game changing talent And so they you know that the last couple seasons where they've had this injection of youth that is has really kind of lifted their potential They're not going to have that this year and and so you're going to need, you know, all of your pieces to To, you know conveniently take a step forward in terms of production and play In order to kind of improve your you know, your chances this year and you know for for Saints fans and for the Saints You know the the Drew Brees and Sean Payton You know your your best two chances were probably your last two seasons and and I think the market is is way way way Overpriced their their potential this year and of all the teams across the NFL the Saints are probably the team I'm most Excited to fade based on how the market is pricing them Yeah, you think back to last year's playoffs I think it was a a deep ball to tag in that breeze under through pretty dramatically I don't remember that sticks out pretty much and also I don't know if it was in the playoffs But it was late in the season sometime They ran a gadget play with Taysum Hill and had him throw a deep ball instead of breeze and I you know It's partly a gadget play But I don't think it was entirely just because of that honestly, so I think that I think your pessimisms You know pretty well founded I would say there It does that push you towards the under on the Saints here you talked about their schedule You talked about how good the Falcons could be with that defense healthy again And how good their offense could be with those two new offensive linemen Are you betting the under on the Saints for this year? Yeah, that's probably actually of all the bets I've placed across the preseason markets to this point The Saints team total under and in fact, they're alternate unders like I would go as low as under Under nine to be honest with you. This this is looks like the type of season where just nothing goes right for them and you know that the the handful of games that That you would expect, you know are the handful of games that are coin flips there and disadvantage schedule spots Like they just they were really dealt a very very difficult hand Are coming off thereby they're playing the Falcons who are also coming off of thereby So they've kind of neutralized the one spot on your schedule where you'd like to you look to have an advantage You know that and and then down the stretch The Saints have a number of road games. They're going to have to finish the season back to back weeks on the road week 16 and week 17 This is a huge thing that I look for before investing in any futures For the Super Bowl if you have a team that has back to back road games week 16 and week 17 They better be winning their division if they have any shadow of a Super Bowl because there is no way that a team Goes on the road at this point from the wild card after two weeks in a row on the road at the end of the year And then wins three road games. It's just completely unheard of in today's NFL to have that much success That many weeks in a row we saw last year teams that looked so good in the wild card round like the Colts And the chargers travel for a second straight week in the playoffs and just get absolutely brutalized in the playoffs And you go back and you look at teams in the past where wild card teams have made a run Almost always they are coming off of soft home schedules at the end of the regular season before they go on that road run So it's it's just it's much more more difficult To come out of the wild card if your last couple weeks in the in the regular season are on the road And that's where the Saints find themselves this year So they're they're in deep trouble with the competitive NFC south and the end the way that their schedule has been Been set up We're talking here with whale capper You can find them on twitter at whale underscore capper and two teams that have gotten a lot of buzz this all season And plenty of interest at sportsbooks too are the browns and the bears and both teams made big leaps forward last year The bear is the full season and the browns late in the year after Hugh Jackson was fired But that buzz is good But it also has made the browns 16 to 1 a fandal sportsbook and the bears are 18 to 1 Are you interested in either of those teams of those respective numbers? Yeah, so these are fun to talk about because it's always it's always interesting to see okay Well, where's the book's biggest liability? You know, what are what are they worried about and then clearly this year It's set up with the browns and the bears and you know and granted if you if you got in early You know if you bet the you know the browns at 30 to 1 or you bet the bears that whatever You know they opened at probably I think 25 or 20 to 1, you know if you if you got in early You made a good bet you've already captured some value Like that's the whole point of getting involved in the futures market is you want a number That that gets shorter Uh, so that you know, you are buying in at you know 2 5 10 percent win probability And then you look up and you have 20 25 30 based on what the market tells you like that's the whole name of the game And so yes, if you bet into the browns on the opener well done, you've made a great bet If you bet into the browns now you are Number one, you're you know at the losing end of the offseason price There's there's really nothing that could happen short of say a catastrophic injury to Ben Roethlisberger That would drastically change the browns price now You know, yes, they have you know the most You know probably a top a clear top five roster across the nfl in terms of talent They have talent at the positions you need talent to be successful in today's nfl And yes, they likely will be in the mix when it comes to playoff time So, you know, it does make sense to try to get a browns position at some point But I think you're going to be able to do better than a number at that you're seeing currently at 16 to 1 because You know the the browns again, you know, they have a rookie head coach They have a second year quarterback. They have a very very very significant lack of depth when it comes to experience And that tends to matter come January You know, we've you know, one of the most tried and true angles in betting it playoff nfl football is what you fade the You know the fade the the quarterback who's making his very first ever playoff appearance There are very few examples of quarterbacks who have never been in that moment before You know outdoing their expectation They're almost always underachieving that spot and that likely would be what we would expect out of baker mayfield this year In his first ever playoff experience same with freddy kitchens We have no idea if he knows how to correctly prepare his team for a playoff game And you know, you have a lot of volatile personalities in the locker room all all of this together spells if you're Hard core browns fan, you know, hang on for about a year. Let them kind of work through some of their issues Let them get a little bit better. But this year I think is a year too early to really be Expecting them to cash of an nfl championship future for you So well, you talked about the saints and how you're not high on them earlier in the show What kind of underdog are you looking at in the nfc to to make a run to the Super Bowl? Oh, so across the market right now. I see value in the eagles. Uh, I make them closer to Um closer to Five or six to one to win the nfc and they're currently priced around seven to one I also see value in the falcons and uh, you know, it's and Although my gut's telling me that this is a bad play There is a little bit of value in the panthers the panthers have done it before Cam Newton clearly a heck of a lot healthier than we were led to believe throughout most of the off season So there is a little bit of value in the panthers and you know, and again I'm kind of looking specifically at schedules at this point and trying to buy into nfc teams that I think are gonna have a kind of a Soft opening spot. You know, you want to see you want it You want to bet on a team now that you look up week five in there four and one or five and oh Like that's your that's the best bet possible because the market is gonna drastically overreact across the first four weeks To what we see, you know from you know from some of these teams and the schedules across the first four weeks Are completely out of balance, you know, some teams have way way easier schedules You know, I'll point to the packers and kind of use them as a key example here You know, if you like the packers Then it makes sense to bet them pre season Because they have three home games in a row weeks two three and four advantageous spots in all of those home games as well Some of their tougher games they get a little bit of extra rest to prepare for and so even though that even though They have a rookie head coach. I still think you're you know, you're probably gonna see You know the public kind of pick up on you know a little bit of momentum if they can put together some wins early in the season Especially if they beat the Bears in week one, I mean if they pick up a win there You know that the people will kind of be falling all over themselves to jump on to the packers bandwagon And then they go from that game in soldier field and have three in a row at home Like very very reasonable to look up and expect them to be three and one or four and oh after four weeks At which point you would have some value on that NFC ticket. I would I would believe That goes without saying that I don't necessarily love the packers but In terms of kind of this approach of trying to find soft opening spots The packers and the panthers are the two that very obviously stand out as I look at the schedules You know, aside from them though, I do feel that the that the falcons and the eagles are underpriced Let me stop right there real quick. I mean, what do you think about the falcons defense? They were not good last year didn't really make any big additions. Obviously they're they had guys hurt in the secondary So do you think they can get it done on that side of the ball? Yeah, and that's you know two two two points on this number one Defense in my opinion matters less for winning regular season games You're gonna need that defense to be pretty cohesive to make a run in the playoffs, I would say But for sure they can win double digit wins even if their defense doesn't take us Especially significant step forward number two, even though that they didn't make any clear obvious free agent additions They're getting back two of the most dynamic players in past defense that that exist in the nfc And the you know two without these two players you could see last year They had virtually no chance of stopping anyone through the air And they gave up, you know 30 points a game as a result of that and that the two players I'm referring to are keanu neal and dian jones These are kind of the prototypical players you need to stop dynamic air attacks in today's nfl And you know, they don't have great covered cover corners aside from these two players And and those guys were exposed when they didn't have the help of these two In the middle of the field and and so I would say just getting back Jones and neal is going to be huge for the falcons if they can stay healthy on the defense side of the ball They should be significantly improved as a unit The fact that they retained grady jarrett was nice. I like that. They gave him You know a nice nice Contract to keep him sort of the anchor of the you know the front seven So, you know, I would just say just based on who they're getting back from injury The falcons defense is going to be substantially improved this year And they lost jones and neal right away too, which makes even worse. Oh, yeah Both guys were done by week two and they were done for the season And so yeah, they're the wheels came off so fast for the falcons last year and you know, it was You know that they also you know on the other side of the ball, they've they've got addition by subtraction and moving on from Steve sarkisian That's uh, you know, that's you know, even dirt cutter may not be the greatest offensive coordinator we've ever seen But he certainly is going to have more impressive Play calling in the red zone especially And you know the falcons if you look at their schedule their indoors on fast surfaces for the first 11 weeks of the season This is a team that is specifically built for those types of conditions to play on there super fast You know turf that they have in that the mercedes-benz dome And so the fact that they really don't have to play outside Until the very tail end of the season and then the outdoor games that they have are against Tampa Bay San Francisco, Tennessee. These aren't you know, especially You know problematic spots as far as winded weather goes So that you know, they got a very soft schedule as far as travel as far as location where they're playing games And they they are going to be the kind of offense that puts up just astronomical stats yards points and good luck Good luck keeping up with them from a scoring standpoint And you know all all this kind of mixes together to a team that looks pretty clearly You know set up for double-digit winds And if they can secure, you know, home field advantage at all in the playoffs like we saw two years ago You know, they were kind of the best example of value play late in the season They were set up where they had just one out at home. They were going to get the two seed And it's a team that's set up to be substantially better at home than on the road So, you know, that that's the kind of thing that you want to look out for us The season goes along as opportunities to grab grab value on teams like that And you know, the falcons, I think Are going to impress some people this year, especially early in the season So it makes sense in my opinion getting on board now Yeah, and as long as dirt cutters not calling jet sweeps on fourth and one on the goal line He's an improvement and we're not setting the bar very high there So I think we're going to see some good things there for the falcons. That was the most maddening thing I've seen in my title all season last year. Oh my gosh. That's precious So hopefully that we're just setting the bar very low here, but hopefully they can prove in that So that's the NFC any teams you see as being undervalued by the markets right now in the afc Yeah, so this is a this is a heck of a lot tougher Because pretty clearly, you know the patriots have been the you know The class of the afc for so long they have by far by far the best coaching quarterback combo It's not even close and you know anytime you have an advantage in the head coaching space and and you know, you got a guy who is as experienced and and as you know as Master of the game as bellichick, then you can't be discounted But all that said I really feel like the pit, you know, the rain is coming to an end here The turnover on you know the turnover on their roster has just been so huge You know guys like you know gronk and flowers aren't coming back and you know, they really are going to be counting heavily on their coverage To keep them in games and you know, they're they're great players step on gilmore all-time player And you know the nfl probably the best cover corner that we got going right now and that's huge But on the other side of the ball, I'm not sure how they're scoring points I don't like what I've seen so far out of their receiving core I don't understand really why they've you know invested so much in their you know And they're running back position through the draft so the pages look likely to Take a you take a step back, which I think opens the door for teams like the colts teams like the chiefs And the chargers as well And you know, it's tough for me to pick out a team in the nf afc north that has a realistic shot at getting a One or two seed that looks like a very they'll have to to they'll that that looks like a black and blue division through and through You know ravens browns and stealers are going to trade blows all season And and I wouldn't be surprised if the winner comes out with a three or four seed So it's you know, I'm looking primarily at the afc west and the afc south for my one and two seats in the afc And pretty easy obvious choice in the south is the colts Best coach best quarterback in their division clear class Um of all of the bets that I see at the fandals, you know board right now I have the most value on them to win the super bowl I think they're at about 14 to one or so and I'm making them current price wise at 11 to 1 So that's a nice little two two percent, you know value on them at this current current price Their schedule doesn't necessarily play into them coming out of the gates white hot on fire They have some tough contests early. So I'm you know, it's not like You know must rush bet this right now type of situation I think you'll probably have an opportunity week five week six to get on board the colts bandwagon But but they're the clear class in the in the afc south in my opinion And they they look likely to win double digit games and and probably have a very legitimate shot at the one seed Chiefs are going to be right there as well I was looking for an opportunity to come against them and you know be all in on the chargers But with tyree kill likely starting 16 games this season that offense is so dynamic And I really can't make a legitimate case that you're going to see any regression from pat mahomes Which means you know good luck scoring 35 points and beating the chiefs this year And so, you know, it's it's probably going to be those two in the one and two seeds But the chargers with an outside chance to to steal that That two seed as far as I could tell you So let's uh that wraps up the afc the nsc Let's say you're forgetting the odds just for one second here because we can have some fun You know just uh go from this straight up if you had to pick straight up Who would you have playing in and winning the super bowl this year? Just like you know just from a If you had to pick two teams no odds, where would you go? Yeah, um I'm gonna go colts over the eagles Based on the rosters and the coaching coaching structure of these teams You mentioned that you like the eagles your numbers like the eagles And I think there are a lot of reasons too. Uh, what what's the big draw for you with them? So The eagles have a head start In the nfl it in general in my opinion on the basis of they're embracing Sort of the plus cv nature of game calling The way that they approach a series the way that they approach a drive In terms of being aggressive on fourth down in certain portions of the field Like if they get past their 40 yard line like they're going to score points on you because they're going to construct a drive in a way that they are You know, they are throwing early on on downs and they are You know, they are going they're they're taking what you give them on third down Knowing that they're going to come back and go for on fourth down Especially, you know with a guy like wence who's so capable, you know of converting the short yarded situations with those quarterback Sneaks in the offensive line, you know that they have especially in the middle there It's it's a team that, you know, it's just it's just operating on another level as far as how they're They're game planning and they're deciding, uh, you know to call the game So on top of that they have, you know, they have Invested in talent at the receiver positions and at the tight end positions And they have past catching running backs that make them a very very dynamic threat through the air And uh, you know, it's it was impressive to me. Uh, what they did on the defensive side of the ball last year They had, you know cluster injury at cornerback, which normally would pretty much turn you into the Atlanta Falcons Which virtually can't cover anyone. Um, but they coached up some below replacement level guys Uh enough that they were able to win games down the stretch and get the six seed and they went on the road They wanted the playoffs on the road. So it's it's it's a team that you cannot discount under, you know, no matter what and I would say you know, I would say that As price they they look to be the class of the nfc All right, that is whalecapper. We got you on here to talk the nba before nfl is now done Tennis just around the corner us open coming up. So I gotta thank you now Well, this will not be your last appearance here. I'll jack you talk some tennis down the road But thanks for talking nfl today and uh, we'll talk to you again soon. Appreciate it. Oh always a pleasure Thank you so much for having me and uh, yeah, if you're if you're getting into tennis You got the us open run up here with a couple of really important hardcore tournaments toronto This toronto in montreal this week, uh, and then since natty next week You're gonna get a get a sense of some of these players form in north america before the us open tips off All righty. Thank you so much. We'll talk to you again soon All right. Take care guys covering the future One final thank you to whalecapper for stopping by and dropping some really good knowledge I think on the nfl and you know just process based stuff And I think he talked about that with the nba too where if you want to bet the clippers don't bet them now Wait until that all season hype wears off and stuff like that. So really good takeaways there. I think from a process perspective Let's move now into covering the future taking a look at some future bets that we like and ed You're going to talk about a place that you know a thing or two about and stanford And we didn't talk too much about stanford during the fuller preview last week But when you look at them entering this year, I think they're a super interesting team. What do your numbers say about them? Yeah, I mean The numbers don't particularly like them and and I'll get into that but just just kind of covering this program over the past decade Uh, you know, it's been a good decade under david shaw. He took over from jim harbaugh in 2011 They've won 94 games this decade. So that would be starting in 2010 That's five more than orgin for for best in the pack 12 You got three conference titles during that stretch as well. So things are good, right? Well, maybe not so much when you look at the advanced analytics So if you look at team strength or essentially how this team is performed And the way I do that is I take margin of victory and adjust for strength schedule You actually see a steady decline over the decade not a steep decline But a slow kind of gradual decline and you know, it's been up and down over the seasons But when you plot out how they performed over the last nine years, that's what you see So what does that mean for 2019? Well, it means my regression model doesn't really like them that much. So this is based Primarily on how a team has performed over the last four years. It also considers turnovers and returning stars Well stanford hasn't been their best over the last four years and they only return nine stars So the model hasn't met 47th. Okay, so that's not particularly good But you have to look at who these returning starters are And it starts and I'm very high on who these returning starters are Uh, it starts with quarterback kj costello. He's accurate. He's got a big arm. He's going to get a look at the nfl The nfl is going to give him a look after this season When he's done, there's a lot of other talent coming back on offense You have offensive tackle walter little who's projected to be a top nfl pick He's the only retarding starter on the line, but at least you have a solid anchor there Uh, they have other highly touted guys five star named fosters sarah. Well At tackle, uh, if he can live up to the hype, uh, the offensive line could be pretty good You have, uh, tie in colby wilkinson as well The past offense was seventh when I look at adjusted yards per attempt last year and that's that's obviously very good I think they can be as good again with costello leading that offense The defense was pretty blah last year Not only they were 50th when I look at yards per play, uh, just for competition And I really say blah about this defense because there wasn't a single player that registered double digit tackles for loss And tackles for losses is a way of assessing talent. Like who are those athletes that can go out and just get it done behind the line of scrimmage They do have some talent on the side of the ball. They have cornerback paulson adabo Who has a freshman was first team all pack 12, uh, but they're going to need other guys to step up So in offense, I really like the talent that returns. I think this is kind of a high upside team And my model says that they're going to win 6.3 games Which is not very exciting in terms of betting wind total because markets have it at six and a half right now Um, my model also right now. I'm having serious regrets of giving you the points jim On our bet with north western. I gave you six and a half points. I don't know why I did that I really wanted to bet that straight up Because stanford was six and a half point favorite, but you talked me into the point somehow That was a big mistake. My number is actually like northwestern on the side there But what I do like in terms of the stanford team is the division odds So since last week since we last talked jim fan duals posted Uh division odds, so who's going to play in the conference championship game And I think those odds are a little bit too high on washington and oregon Obviously two teams that should be ranked ahead of stanford right now But when I run the numbers I have stanford about 14 percent to win the pack 12 north And that suggests value at 10 to 1 odds so And it was also interesting too because we've had the conference odds up for a while And the number suggests no value for stanford to win the pack 12 So it's just in this division odds right now There should be there the numbers see some value and and I like You know, I kind of like the long shot bet on stanford just because you know They're probably not going to be great But if some of these guys really perform at the nfl level that people expect them to they get a really good season They could knock off the oregon They could knock off the washington and win that pack 12 north And I think it's important to recognize volatility where it exists because volatility can make a win total But very risky and you may not want to go there But volatility is a positive in a lot of ways and I think that you know When you're getting a team in a situation where you're betting them to win the division rather than top their total I think that's a better spot to go And if you like if it's a super boring team that doesn't change like Iowa comes to mind I don't I don't know what their division odds for this year But like if if they're a team in the mold of Iowa And they're super boring and the range of outcomes is a little bit smaller That's a little bit different. Maybe not for this year. The quarterback is pretty good But like just in that mold of boring maybe you don't want to bet a division odd But for stanford where they do have a talented quarterback and they're volatile in the positive sense That's not a bad thing Yeah, and volatility is the perfect word For this team Yeah So sometimes I would think of maybe northwestern as as the boring team gym But not this year with the four star quarterback coming in I think it's a different story there. Yeah Punt to win Can we change it back to the straight up bet for uh I would need some sort of incentive if you can We're gonna give you odds. No, no, no, no, you made a good bet. We're gonna keep it We're gonna keep it I'm probably gonna be wearing a northwestern shirt when stanford kicks a field goal to win that game in final minutes I mean, it's like it's a lose lose, right? Right. No one's happy at that point It's definitely gonna be stanford by four and it's gonna be miserable for everyone involved That's exactly what my numbers say stanford by four Absolutely So that will be coming up actually at the end of this month. So looking forward to that for sure My cover the future for this week is a new sport We have not discussed yet not a new sport but a new sport for us That's golf and I do a pgadfs podcast with my Co-worker brand in gadulla, which gets me involved in a lot of golf data Looking at that pretty extensively in when I was looking at the initial numbers for this week at the northern trust Matt kutcher popped up as being A pretty intriguing value bet. He is 42 to 1 right now to win at fandall sports book This event is at liberty national golf club in new jersey and it's not a golf course They go to very often. They played the president's cup there in 2017 Kutcher was there for that. He also played it in 2009 and 2013 So I don't value course history in looking at golf stuff But I do value course knowledge and kutcher has more course knowledge here than a lot of guys in this field in 2013 and 2009 what I like to do is look at The golfers who finished well in that event and see where they ranked in different statistical categories to the full season the average ranking For the top 20 golfers at liberty national in 2013 in good drive rate for the full season was 59th That was their average ranking. They are drinking in driving distance with 69th And they're out drinking in accuracy was 84th. So very much skewed towards good drive rate 2009 exact same thing average ranking for in good drive rates for the top 20 there was 68th compared to 93rd for distance and 79th for accuracy and what that says to me is that I want to target golfers Who fare better at courses that you know favor good drive rate rather than just raw distance or just raw accuracy And kutcher is one of those guys. He ranks eighth in this field in strokeskiing approach over the past 50 rounds That is according to fantasy national. He is also 23rd in the field in good drive rate in that time He is 46th in strokeskiing around the green. So a really good all-around statistical profile and He's a good putter on bed grass. He ranks 19th in strokeskiing putting on bed grass over the past 100 rounds Which is interesting because kutcher has had kind of a cold putter recently And that's led to two bad finishes not bad, but outside the top 40 in the past two events But he didn't putt well and kutcher overall is a plus putter especially on bed grass We've seen him win. He has that upside that potentially good volatility He won the maya koba golf classic last fall won the sony open in january He was also runner up at the wgc match play and the rbc heritage So he can convert those stats that he has into good finishes, which means that he can win So kutcher 42 to 1 it's a good field because it is a fedex cut playoffs now But I think that kutcher is still a good value bet for this week in a 42 to 1 I don't know how much he will move before open But I would not be surprised before t times on thursday But I would not be shocked if he gets down at least beneath 40 But I think that kutcher overall Intriguing guy to monitor for this week and any golf interest for you whether it be just physically golfing or Watching your bedding golf. I like listening to you talk about golf. Okay It's a data heavy sport. That's why I like it Well, and there's a lot of people that have been kind of getting into golf analytics I mean, I would suggest that number was maybe zero four years ago. Right, but people are getting into it with the shot data Uh rufus p body has been crunching some numbers and talking about it on a show Where opazola is uh a sports better that we're gonna have on the show eventually He's been doing a bunch of golf and then a friend of mine jo pita who cut his teeth doing baseball analytics and wrote a book called trading bases He's been doing some golf data too. Had a really nice preview of the masters I had tony finnau Winning and you know, he made the final group So, uh, so anyways a lot of interesting data things going on just like you said And uh rufus actually tweets out some of the like live odds too, which I appreciate. I think it's very interesting So, uh, definitely it's fun when smart people talk about sports that I'm interested in and I definitely appreciate Guys like rufus and rob talking about golf on twitter. Anything big happening for you this week over at the power rank yet? Yeah, you can get my college football wind totals report. Uh Get a wind hole for 130 FBS teams go to the power rank dot com And then my most recent episode of the football analytics show Had jim sanasan had a great conversation about nfl offensive lines tennessee titans and uh, how he puts together a daily podcast on baseball every day We are making sure my marcus mariotta propaganda gets on as many platforms as humanly possible I'm sure I will discuss them at some points here on covering this spread as well We haven't done it on this platform. What's going on jim? I'm biting my time because I think we might be talking tennessee pretty early in the season I think that they're gonna be undervalued. It's hard for me to bet them like Season long because mariotta's injury volatility is so high But I think in individual games where he's healthy going in I think that's the time where I get most excited about them. So I gotta pick my spots basically is what I'm saying All right, sounds good All right, you can find ed on twitter at the power rank You can also subscribe rate and review covering the spread wherever you get your podcast and again Ratings and reviews help us out a ton So if you've liked what you heard from ed in covering the future or what you heard from wellcapper earlier Make sure you check that out ratings and reviews so helpful and just search for covering the spread wherever you get your podcast You have questions for me. I am on twitter at jim sonnis j i m s a n n e s and you can also follow the fan dual podcast network at fan dual podcast That is all we have for today But another covering the spread coming up thursday afternoon should be posted by the time you're making your evening commutes We'll talk to you once again Then this has been covering the spread here on the fan dual podcast network