 This is covering the spread, part of the FanDuel Podcast Network. A lot of good teams struggled across week one in the NFL and unfortunately for them, they've got some tough matchups once again on tap. For week number two, we're gonna preview those big matchups for week two and talk to Dr. Ed Fang about trying to predict bounce backs, when to worry, when not to, and get you ready for week two across the NFL. This is covering the spread right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network and FanDuel Research. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a managing editor of digital media for FanDuel Research. Joined here as mentioned by Dr. Ed Fang. You can find his work at thepowerrank.com and check him out on Twitter at thepowerrank. Ed, we are on week number two in the NFL. How are you doing today? I'm doing fantastic. It's really good to have both college football and NFL in full swing and everything feels right with the world. It really does. And I think the good thing with the NFL is we've got data to look at now, which I like because I love data. I love having, you know, back in my spreadsheets, which is enjoyable, but also there's still a lot of room for overreactions. The sample is small enough where we can find some over or under reactions as well across the NFL. And I think that's always a good chance for us as betters, as people who are tuned in and try to pay attention to hopefully take advantage of that. We'll talk about the spots where maybe there are over or under reactions heading into week two, how to judge that stuff and much more throughout the show for today. But first, a quick reminder, two shows already up here for this weekend coming up across college football and the NFL. Talked to Eddie yesterday about college football week number three, broke down Colorado versus Colorado State. Other key games in week three and Ed Sayer bets at FanDuel Sports Book. Also, for Thursday night, Tom Becchio broke down Eagles versus Vikings on Primetime. Tom, that is right here in the Cover In The Spread podcast feed talking about the player props in that game and much more. You can also find Primetime. Tom up on FanDuel TV Plus. You can find this show on the FanDuel YouTube page as well. So if you wanna watch FanDuel TV Plus to get up and Adams watching that live, just log into your FanDuel Sports Book or FanDuel Sports Book or FanDuel Fantasy account by going to fanduel.com slash watch or checking it out on Amazon Fire, Apple TV or Roku devices. Get ready for the NFL season with incredible offers from FanDuel, America's number one sports book right now. New customers could bet $5 and get $200 in bonus bets, guaranteed plus all customers who've had $5 will get $100 off NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. Now is the best time to join FanDuel. The app is easy to use and you can bet on everything from spreads to player props and more. 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Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 or 24-Stone Support in Massachusetts. Call 1-877-8hopenwire-text-openwire in New York. NFL Sunday ticket offer ends on Monday, 9-18-23, no refunds, terms and embargoes apply. $100 off NFL Sunday ticket, not YouTube TV. YouTube TV base plan required to watch YouTube TV. Redemption requires a Google account and current form of payment. Commercial use is excluded. Let's dig in now to week number two in the NFL ad and start things off by talking about those high-powered teams that struggled in week number one, talking the Chiefs, the Bills, Bengals, to a certain extent the Ravens. I know they won that game pretty handily, but the offense not clicking on all cylinders. And I wanna ask you, Ed, what process do you go through when trying to determine whether there is a legitimate cause for concern when teams like that struggle out the gate? I think every team's probably a little bit different. Look, everyone really did struggle last year. The passing success rate in the NFL was 42.8%. It was 39.5 in week one. Ouch, thank you, Joe Burrow. So yeah, it was not good. You mentioned Kansas City. I don't really have any issues with Kansas City. The receivers had the drop-sies. I thought Mahomes was pretty good. And Kansas City could potentially cover if Kaderious Tony doesn't let a pick six go right through his hands, right? So I don't think there's anything to worry about there. Let's see, who else? Joe Burrow was terrible. Yeah, he'll probably be fine. Daniel Jones was terrible. Might not be that fine. We'll see how that goes. I don't particularly trust Daniel Jones and the Giants probably were on the good side of fortune last year, and the markets suggest they're not gonna be particularly great, and they weren't, they were actually pretty terrible. The Baltimore game was pretty interesting too, because I think Houston had about the same, or if not more, total yards, but they ended up going one for four on fourth down, which will certainly help swing the outcome of the game, particularly when you have a rookie quarterback and CJ Stroud, which we'll get back to in a little bit later, in a weird part of the show, but, and then who else, who else? Oh, Josh Allen. Yeah. Ian, like, did he kind of have that gunslinger mentality last year? Like, was there like a shift from 2021 with Dable to like 2022 with Dorsey last year? So they were like very efficient last year, but he like, he had like short circuit moments, I guess is what I would say. And I chalked it up to like, you know, Gabe Davis was kind of banged up and they didn't know a lot of playmakers, so he kind of went into like hero ball mode. And like for him, that can be okay at times, but there are moments where it doesn't go well. And like, I feel like he's a, so like my dog, she's a psycho. She's three years old and like, she's a great dog, but when she sees another dog, she likes, she blacks out. And like, she like doesn't listen, you know, she's like trying to like jump on the dog, jump on the person. I think that Josh Allen has those blackout moments, like where he just kind of like, like his brain goes off. And the general baseline is high and that's great, but like the floor is scary when he has those blackout moments. And I think that that's kind of what we saw more last week than we saw anytime in any game last year. It happened a couple, like it happened, I saw the playoff game against kids. There was some playoff game where he like had a bunch of weird mistakes. I'm not, it's like, it's occasionally creeps back in. So like, I guess for me, when I see that from Josh Allen, I can kind of write it off because I know he like does that, but like it also means that it could come back at any moment too. Yeah, for sure. That's pretty interesting. I think that, yeah, I don't know. It was a little bit disheartening to see him like go for home runs instead of like just settle for the doubles that they can certainly get with that offense. And yeah, so I've talked before on the show about bad ball rate and how I look at the sum of interceptions plus passes defended to gauge how likely interceptions are to happen in the future. And usually a three year sample is pretty good because we can get that with NFL quarterbacks. Josh Allen was worse last year. So I'm trying to figure out whether that's a trend that's gonna continue, whether a young coordinator like Ken Dorsey has the command to be like, hey, can you hit some doubles instead of like chucking home runs? Like you were trying to do against the Jets and essentially gifting them that game. So yeah, anyways, lots to figure out there. I think that's probably the most interesting one. I mean, I do think they will be fine in general. I'm not, you know, I still think the bills are a Super Bowl contender. We'll get back to that in a little bit. Yeah, I agree that they'll be fine because Josh Allen has shown enough times to me at least that he can snap out of those weird spurts where he just becomes a turnover machine to like get back to being psychomode in a good way, Josh Allen. So I think he can turn it around because I've seen this happen before. So maybe this is the time where he doesn't, but I doubt that. I think that they will be fine broadly. Let's take a look at a couple of offenses that we discussed there with the Ravens and the Bengals going head to head here in week number two right now. This is actually a three point game. It was three and a half earlier on back down to three with the Bengals as three point favorites at home. Total is 46 and a half. And I had a hard time this entire off season that trying to pin down the Ravens because it's the Marjaks. We know how good he can be, but also we haven't seen that version of Lamar in a while. Todd Monkin is now in town, which is a change there at OC. And they brought in these pass catchers but Mark Andrews has banged up. They've already lost the left tackle in center potentially for week number two as well. So what do your numbers say about the Ravens entering week two? Yeah, I mean, this game is really hard to handicap. I mean, you look at the numbers. You know, I have this at Cincinnati minus, I have Cincinnati winning by about 2.7 points. So pretty close to the markets. Before last week, I would have made Cincinnati more than a four point favorite in this game. So clearly, you know, adjustment on Cincinnati based on how awful they were last week. Don't necessarily put that too much stock into that as we have already discussed. With Baltimore, yeah, I mean, you mentioned the injuries. Like it's kind of hard to figure out if the market is reacting to Cincinnati and saying they're not as good or just, you know, with all the injuries that Baltimore has, Marlon Humphrey didn't play the quarterback for Baltimore. So he was also out as well. Yeah, I really don't know. I have no interest in spreading this game. I thought it was interesting that Zay Flowers had, was their leading receiver at 78 yards, which is, you know, not probably a good thing for Baltimore's offense. I think we expect a little bit more for them against a team like Houston. So yeah, I mean, it's a game that I'm not interested in betting, I mean, not only because my numbers don't have anything here, but I think there is more to figure out about Baltimore. There is, you know, since he started the season pretty slowly last year too, they weren't particularly good in the first couple of weeks. They figured it out. They were pretty good after that. So yeah, probably not a lot of value here. The market's definitely moving towards my number, which I like, and I'll stay away from it. I think this is one of the games that where I like sighed with relief when I saw there was no value in my numbers. I've got a 2.55, the Bengals by 2.55. And it's like, okay, cool. I don't have to worry about this. I don't have to like try to diagnose like, oh, am I too worried about the Ravens offensive line injuries to bet them? Or am I too worried about Joe Burrough's like lingering calf thing to like bet them? I can just ignore it and watch this game. And hopefully it'll be a fun one and just kind of sit back and enjoy cause we're both in line with market here. I've got Bengals by 2.55, you have 2.7. So we can happily disregard that one. Let's move now to talk about the Chiefs and the Jaguars. Pretty excited for this game. Where right now the Chiefs are three and a half point favorites that was three, I believe yesterday. Total is 51 and a half. And obviously the Chiefs pass catcher said, nightmare showing in week number one. Now that could go two ways. You could say, okay, the pass catchers beyond Travis Kelsey are bad, but you could also say they didn't have Travis Kelsey and the ball hit them in the hands. And like from a regression perspective, you don't expect eight drops from NFL professional wide receiver. So does it set off any alarm bells for you? Or can we just kind of diagnose this game pretty straight up? No, I mean, it doesn't set off any alarm bells for me. What I thought was interesting about this game. I mean, I have it by Kansas City by two, but I actually only have it Kansas City by about three in the preseason. I would kind of thought it would be more. That's a lot of respect for Jacksonville, what they're doing, Doug Peterson, Trevor Lawrence. So, you know, and they got things done week one against Indiana, sorry, probably a really bad Indian, probably a bad Indianapolis team, but they were able to pull away towards the end there. I haven't bet it yet. I mean, I don't like betting against the Chiefs, but it does seem like maybe there's some value a plus three and a half for this team that's at home. Kelsey is questionable. Looks like, you know, I mean, I think the Chiefs have zero incentive to rush them back if there's any question at all. Lageria Snead, the cornerback, probably their best cover corner played last week, but was questionable, is questionable again. So yeah, I'm keeping an eye on things here. I probably will decide to stay away from this game, but there is a little bit of interest in Jacksonville plus three and a half. I took the three and a half once it got there, because when it was a three, it was close enough where I wasn't super enticed, but once it got to three and a half, I decided to actually bite on the Jags. And I bet the Jags a lot last year, which worked out well. It was not always great for like my heart health, but like it worked out well. And then in week one, you mentioned the matchup with Indianapolis, but like, I think it was encouraging to see Calvin Ridley actually make a difference on this team right away, because if you put a difference making wide receiver who has proven, I think once again, he actually is a difference maker and pair him with an ascending quarterback and Trevor Lawrence. Even if we assume Lawrence himself from a skill level is the exact same as last year, giving him better pass catchers should elevate his efficiency numbers, even if he himself is the exact same. So not even like baking an upward movement for Lawrence. I am assuming Kelsey plays in my numbers right now, Chris Jones, I think will be good to go. Now that he has his redone one year deal in there too. Even with that though, I think the Jags are a valued three and a half and it's not enjoyable to bet against Patrick Mahomes. I used to have a rule where I didn't wanna ever root against him, but I think three and a half with this game being in Jacksonville is enough where we should be willing to pull the trigger due to all the factors involved. So it's uncomfortable, but I think that the three and a half, I agree with what your numbers say where three and a half is likely a good enough value to buy into. Absolutely. All right, let's move on to our third featured game here. For Sunday, we got the 49ers taking on the Rams. Lot of movement in this game too. Total stayed pretty steady at 45, but it was 49ers minus eight. It is now 49ers minus seven. And I think the big reason for that is because Matthew Stafford looked healthy and we won the Rams played very well there. And Ed, I think we've talked a lot about the Rams ever since Stafford got there as being like this kind of fragile team because they have very few difference makers, but those difference makers are healthy right now. So how much do your expectations for them shift having seen Stafford look pretty good in week one? Yeah, I really didn't expect that mid-September, I'd be talking about Tutu Atwell and Nakuwa. These guys both had 119 receiving yards, week one for Matthew Stafford for this Los Angeles Rams offense. And I think a lot of people kind of like Seattle coming into the season and then kind of got slapped in the face week one for Rams teams that didn't have a superstar, Cooper Cup out there at the wide receiver position. I started looking into these wide receivers, I'm definitely looking more into props this year and this Nakuwa guy, seems like a pretty big time fade candidate. And I'm not saying that he's not, but this was a kid that was at BYU last year and I looked up his numbers. He had 3.53 yards per out run last year at BYU. Marvin Harrison Jr. had 3.18 last year and he had CJ Stroud throwing to him. So this guy produced, he was in excess of three yards per out run. Anything in excess of three yards in college is a pretty phenomenal, pretty phenomenal number. And so this guy produced big time at the college level. That doesn't mean you're gonna produce at the NFL level, but 14 targets, 119 yards, holy cow. Doesn't mean you're not necessarily gonna fade them in the future, but yeah, just like an insane surprise to kind of look at this box score to look at what happened there. Obviously on the other hand, San Francisco looked pretty good, really took care of Pittsburgh Steelers, Brock Purdy, looked good. And so I have this at San Francisco minus seven and a half. That's my prediction for the game pretty close to the market. What I find interesting is my preseason wisdom of crowds model, which I found to be pretty good against the spread the first six weeks of the season. Not surprisingly, they have San Francisco by 10 in this game. So again, I think this is a perfect example of where that model is potentially pretty good. If I'm gonna lean anyway, I'm gonna lean towards the Niners. We all thought the Rams were gonna be terrible. We thought the Rams would be even worse without Cooper Cup. Are you really ready to go against that after one game? Probably not. Yeah, I did take the Rams plus eight here when it was a plus eight. And that was largely because the offense looked healthy. And I think that's a big thing for them beyond Cooper Cup. The other, the downside of that is that they played well defensively in that game and there's not a lot of talent on the defensive side for the Rams. Like it's a lot of young guys you're hoping make a leap. And I think that if I'm going to lose that plus eight bet, it's going to be because of the youth on defense. You're putting that up against Kyle Shanahan, Devo Samuel, Christian McCaffrey, positionless football against guys who may not have a lot of experience is a little scary. So I do the Rams plus eight from earlier this week. I'm glad I've gotten movement, but it's a lot of times when you get movement, Ed, I don't know if you feel the same way, but like you kind of like feel this like sense of relief. Like you could feel like you can exhale a bit like, okay, at least I was on the right side from a movement perspective, you knew that the bet doesn't pay off. I've gotten movement here, but I have not had that sigh of relief yet because I'm still worried about that defense specifically. For sure. And I wouldn't be surprised that this gets back to eight. Yeah, I think we can see that too. Okay, Ed, let's open up the board for you before this week and week number two. Where else you see in value at Fandall Sportsbook this week? Yeah, we talked about the Buffalo Bills and I talked about my concerns about Josh Allen and I'm certainly not backing down on that. But look, Buffalo is still a Super Bowl contender, they're still a really good team. Oh, is that back down to eight and a half? Yeah, awesome. That was at nine and a half this morning. Awesome. Anyways, I like Buffalo this week. I feel like we're getting a discount on Buffalo after a performance against the New York Jets. Obviously it wasn't good for them to lose to the Jets. They were terrible. Yeah, they weren't good. I think it's important to note in that game that also Zach Wilson wasn't good either, right? They won that game because of a kick return in overtime. So let's not like Pat Zach Wilson on the back and think the Jets are doing anything too much this season. But in Las Vegas, they won last week, but they're still a little bit of a mess, not a ton of talent there. And both Jimmy Garacolo and Jacoby Myers are listed as questionable. It seems like they play, but I just feel like we're getting a discount because of what happened on Monday night. I have this number closer to 11 and a half. I think there's a lot of value this morning. But DraftKings was the only book that was eight and a half. Everyone else was at nine and a half. Looks like it's come back a little bit towards Buffalo. Not really sure why, but I think there's a lot of value here in the Super Bowl contender bills to cover here. Yeah, it was nine and a half. I think it was nine and a half before Monday night. It went down to eight and a half after Monday night. And it kind of stayed there for a while, went back to nine and a half and then overnight went back to eight and a half again. So it's been hovering back and forth between those two. I don't think Myers will play. He got a really rough-looking concussion this past week. So I think he's actually gonna sit, which means it'll be Devon, it'll basically be the past catches they had last year minus Darren Waller, although he wasn't there anyway, a whole lot last year, but it's like Devonte Adams, Hunter Renfrow, guys like that. So they're gonna be down some key bodies. They're also Chandler Jones. Seems like he's protesting the entire front office. So don't think he'll play either on the defensive side. So they're definitely down some bodies. And it's concerning for their side for sure. So Ed likes the bills minus eight and a half. He mentioned Stroud earlier on. Any interest for you in that Colts Texans game? Cause I think this game is actually like sneakily kind of fun because it's Richardson versus Stroud. I think it's at least gonna be entertaining if nothing else. Yeah. I mean, we think Richardson's playing, even though we got that knock towards the end of the game. I think it's a bruise on his knee. So he should be okay to play. I think that game is really interesting. Dr. Eric Giger came on my podcast and talked about how he thinks there's a lot more talent on that Houston team than people are giving him credit for. That secondary might be pretty good. Obviously there's a lot of questions on the offensive side of the ball. I think Stroud threw it what like 45 times or something last week. But yeah, that could be interesting as well. I don't really have an opinion on the side or anything, but I will be with you and being interested in watching that game. That one has also moved. I got a 106 in the money line for Houston plus 106 is now minus 116. So feeling better about the movement there as they have shifted to now be favored against Indianapolis at home. That is all that we have here for today. And this week on covering the spread as far as NFL stuff goes with Ed, we're gonna be backing in tomorrow talking. Player props to JJ Zacharyston. Also have Rob Freeman on talk some strikeout props. I will talk NASCAR in Bristol as well. So a lot of good stuff here still coming up on the covering the spread podcast feed Fandall YouTube and Fandall TV plus. Ed, you mentioned the discussion with Dr. Eric Eager where people find that and the rest of your work. Yeah, you can find my podcast of the football analytics show. I try to talk to smart analytics and betting people like Craig of right angle sports joined me this week. There's a recent conversation with Dr. Eric Eager as well where you can get a lot of his thoughts on the NFL and I will try to continue doing that. And then I'm also writing my newsletter over at thepowerrank.com. Definitely check out five nugget Saturday every 10 a.m. Eastern on Saturday. Try to put some analytics and some bets in there in case you're looking for some action any given weekend check that out at thepowerrank.com. I was heathing praise on Mike Craig yesterday talking about how sharp he is and then you brought on Dr. Eric Eager as a follow up like that's a banger couple episodes there for the football analytics show. So I'll have to go check those out later on today. You can find Ed on Twitter at thepowerrank. I am on Twitter at Jimsonus, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow FanDuel Research at FanDuel Research. Good luck to you if you're betting Thursday night football for the Eagles and the Vikings. Back again tomorrow, talk some props here on the show. This has been covering the spread right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network.