 This is covering the spread here are your hosts Jim Sonnes and Dr. Ed Fang What is going on everybody welcome on into covering the spread that's right here on the fan dual podcast networking at number fire dot com We're today. We're talking more NFL draft this time with Dr. Eric eager a pro football focus getting his thoughts on the number three pick And other things were regarding the NFL draft and betting it for this year. My name is Jim Sonnes I am a senior writer and analyst for number fire dot com joined here as always by dr. Ed Fang You can find his work over at the power rank calm and Ed I'm glad that we're talking today because I know nothing about soccer and there was this whole Super League discussion this week I had to text my high school friend who knows soccer and like I descend the Michael the Michael Scott gif of explain this to Me like I'm five years old. Luckily. I've got you Ed Explain to me what the heck this the Super League thing is please for a layman So so first of all, let's talk about European soccer, right? Right now each All the top clubs in a country play in their own league, right? So the Premier League in Britain the Bundesliga in Germany And then there's a European-wide competition called Champions League that puts the best of those leagues and you have to qualify in order to make it to Champions League So the Super League was this idea that some of the top clubs were gonna make Instead of doing the Champions League, they were gonna still play in the domestic league But instead of Champions League, they were gonna form this own Super League where they would play midweek I think it was either the idea was there would be 20 teams and 15 of them would be permanent members so they couldn't be relegated out of the league and The response was really interesting to me because the biggest argument against this was that it was a big money grab To which I say yes, you're absolutely right. It is a big money grab but you have to think like why is it a big money grab and It is because a lot of people would watch it would be some incredible soccer every week watching these top clubs play against each other and It's interesting from my perspective because I feel like I'm just this capitalist pig That's the only person in America or the entire world that actually thought this was a good idea I thought this would be great soccer and I think it would have generated more interest from everyone in Watching more European soccer. It's something that I really enjoy watching, but I don't really get much time to do it And when more people are watching European soccer, they're gonna want to bet on it So it would have been really a boom for for sports betting as well Everything kind of fell apart when the the people on in Great Britain decided they uniformly hated this And and it kind of fell apart. So it was like it was kind of an incredible 48 hours but I Just think you know the sports is not about fans, right? Sports is a business Yeah, and it's kind of interesting for me to think about how much of a capital is pig. I am I actually really don't think I am in real life But right the same thing could happen in college football, right? Okay, there's been a ton of articles this week It's the same idea Michigan, Ohio State, Oregon USC the top 16 teams form a super league At the exclusion of all other teams and that would be different because that would kind of you know They would they would actually have to leave their conferences because they're not gonna play that many extra games I Mean the meteorites would be incredible right? I mean they would they would be sickening how big Well, if you make the the college football playoff be every week. Yes, it would be sickening numbers basically. Yeah So you know, I mean you hear people say like oh, I don't want to play good teams every week You know like some of these soccer fans are like, but you watch the NFL So so yeah, it's been interesting for me to think about and I'm yeah So see this is the perspective of someone who roots for a bad team. This is me I'm thinking huh. I can get rid of Ohio State in Michigan Open things up a little bit the big 10 Yeah, yeah, okay, we'll get rid of them Honestly Get rid of everyone else who's good. If we just make it like Northwestern, Illinois Rutgers Like cool sign me up Iowa. Yeah, I was good. I don't know if I want to keep Iowa. You could probably take Iowa Like we need to put the bar real low here at if Northwestern like if they if they do what you wait for Whatever was saying like okay, we're gonna ban you and we ban all those other teams like if we can ban those other ones and make it Just be Northwestern versus Rutgers sick sign me up if Northwestern's ever gonna win a national championship It's probably gonna have to be as a result of this college football super league. I'm desperate ed. I'm not opposed Like great deaths. I think that's an interesting perspective from you. Um, yeah, it would be easier I mean, let's let it be noted that Northwestern has won a big 10 West championship within the last two years twice Well, yeah, they've won two big 10 West championships with right in the past couple years. It's it's not it's not, you know It's not they were never gonna win the championship game because they were gonna get just run through Sure, I'd like to not have that part happen at least at least you made it to the championship game true All those other teams had zero probability of winning winning that championship game Until we ban Michigan in Ohio State and we make it Northwestern versus Rutgers 15 times per year. They just play scrimmages against each other. I'm in man. Let's let's sign me up So just a couple thoughts about that like the idea that you wave is gonna ban these top clubs from their competition is a joke they need those top clubs that that's completely not happening and As much as I kind of like these super league ideas like the thing in America would be that that would Probably destroy the NCAA tournament. Yeah because of the the structure of of you know, those Those big programs kind of leaving the NCAA and I mean, I mean, maybe there's a way they can fix it Then maybe there's a way they can just make football leave and then everything else could stay the same. So Anyways, I thought it was a great. I thought it was a great 48 hours of drama I mean like it's fun to think about you never happen It is fun to think about the idea of having Alabama Ohio State on a random Saturday. I mean, are you sure it's not gonna happen? I'm sure there's somebody at Google thinking about how many billions of dollars they can throw at that right now Oh my goodness. Yeah, the streaming wars heating up by totally disbanding college football conferences. That is next level. I love I mean Someone someone at Amazon and Google are thinking about this that that is And they'll drop 16 billion dollars on the media rights deal and it'll be like One 190th of their annual income and it'll be just fine We're gonna talk about the actual college football guys coming into this year's NFL draft the doctor Eric eager a pro football Focus he has a data scientist over there. What are the hosts of the pff forecast podcast? We're talking about betting on the NFL draft trying to Balance your own evaluation these players with what you're reading from a reporting perspective and how that leads to edges in betting We'll talk to with dr. Eger about that in just a little bit But first a quick reminder to make sure you are subscribed to covering the spread wherever you get your podcast Kentucky Derby Podcasts coming up next week. We're gonna talk about that So make sure you subscribe for that to get it right as it goes up and all of our other stuff here on covering the spread If you like what you hear if you win some money based on the bets make sure you leave us a rating and review as well What's going on sports fans? Vandal sportsbook has a special offer for you this spring season Same-game parlays allow viewers to bet on any NBA MLB or soccer game place a four-plus leg Parley on any game across those three sports and if exactly one leg loses You will receive a refund credit on the site up to 25 dollars Come get involved in the action in place a same-game parlay on fan dual sportsbook must be 21 plus and present in new in Colorado Iowa, Illinois Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia or West Virginia Refund issued as a non-withdrawable site credit that expires in seven days max refund 25 dollars terms apply gambling problem Call 1-800 gambler in Colorado call 1-800-5-2-2-4700 in Iowa 1-800 bets off in India Indiana 1-800-9 with it for confidential help in Michigan call 1-800-2-7-0-7-1-1-7 in Tennessee call the red line 1-800-889-9789 or in West Virginia visit 1-800 gambler net Let's bring on dr. Eric eager now find his work over a pro football focus pff.com And also on the pff forecast podcast and get his thoughts on the number three overall pick in this year's draft and betting the draft for 2021 covering the present Let's bring dr. Eric eager into covering the spread to talk about this year's NFL draft And I've been listening to you guys a lot over on the pff forecast podcast So I feel like I know a lot of your thinking which is refreshing. It's been fun to listen to and I appreciate the info How are things going for you Eric so far? Things are going well. It's fun to talk to you guys again We haven't had games in a while other than FCS, which I think would take a true degenerate to bet But yeah, the draft has been you know, really fun sort of whirlwind of trying to understand what the markets mean and sort of where Everybody's thinking. Have you gotten down the depths enough to actually bet FCS yet or not quite there? I have a little bit. Okay. We've been collecting data. This is like the first year. We've collected all of FCS And I think that that'll end up being the the reality moving forward here Which is interesting and to sort of see You know and watch some games on the weekends You know now that soccer started again and stuff why I might not watch quite as much But it's been okay. It's been a nice diversion a little bit so When you had trey lance back in 2019 when he was at North Dakota state Would pro football focused specifically watch just those games in order to get like the top end product because it wasn't just him Was that just to get him or if you always had FCS data just expanding it this year Yeah, that's a great question. Usually what we'll do is we will take on requests from NFL teams to to You know, basically collect certain conferences. So Um, for example, there was one year where we collected Um, you know for dallas goddard. Uh, there was one year we collected for trey lance Um, the the kyle dugger played for lonore ryan. We collected his conference that year We've never collected all of fcs at once, but we will collect for players who are considered, you know Highly like i've been barge last year was a from st. Thomas or yeah No, st. John's uh in minnesota division three school. We collected all of the myac that year Just so we could give uh, you know our team clients the the data Nice, that's uh, nice to have that next looking forward to next year too. It should be a lot of fun But I just want to talk to you about this draft betting process in general If you feel like you've had more interests this year because I feel like last year was unique in that There was nothing else going on. So we had our ability to Dump all of our energy and our focus into the draft if you felt that carrying over into this year as well If you feel like an increased interest on from you personally Well, I think for me personally for sure. I've really enjoyed, you know, we we my my colleague george and I do the You know the analytics mock where you use our projections But I've also dived in a little bit more into I would call the the market implied mock Which is looking at sort of how the markets would pick You know and the the interesting thing I've noticed from this year and I you guys are probably very privy to this as well Is last season there were a lot more markets available and a lot more markets available early I think this year. I mean you guys led the way a little bit at fan duel draft kings Opened up. I think it was mac jones 18 and a half That was like the only overunder that they had on the site for about a month there And you know some other places bet online, you know, uh, you know Offshores and things like that like there were there was not necessarily as many outs available to people who wanted to bet the draft As last year which makes sense. I mean because there was nothing to bet on last year except for like madden sims And you know brady versus paid man in golf So like the I get that but then that was kind of interesting in terms of forming opinions Like you really didn't have the richness of the marketplace. Um, you know a month ago that you do today Is that tough too? Because with the markets opening up now, we've had more time to collect data Which means you're not going to find as many inefficiencies Has that that been difficult trying to spot the inefficiencies when there are just fewer spots to find them? Yeah, well, I think that the you know the books that that hang lines up there that aren't copying other books Like obviously they're taking a risk the longer that they wait to get into the marketplace The the more that the consensus has been pounded into place now, you know all these books I think with with props like this have lower limits. So there's still going to be inefficiencies I mean for example today when the when mac jones eclipsed just in fields as the as the favorite to be the third pick There was another you know on draft kings. There was another book that sort of had it flipped So you could have had an arbitrage opportunity for a for a small amount of time Um, you know limits notwithstanding. So there it is like less efficient But it's obviously as we approach the draft and things, you know, sort of coalesce They'll become, you know, less and less of more and more efficient less and less opportunity And and you know having those markets open for like a month earlier last year I think just drove us to that consensus more quickly So Eric, I'm really excited to talk to you about the NFL draft Chris Andrews was on visa in this week talking about how they've never made a dollar Putting up this market, which which gives me kind of excited about things What are you parsing through reporting? Are you doing analytics or what are the tools? Are you just listening to people in the league? Well, there there are a lot of great resources I mean benjamin robinson as you guys know does the grinding the mox. That's a great tool or ifa song with the Athletic does a great great job with his consensus board. We have context within the league now You know, they're tight lipped, but you can sort of get an idea of you know from what people are asking us and things like that And a lot of it is just, you know, we also have our mock draft simulator Which by the way made it to nfl.com this week where you can parse through that data and see what fans are doing And again, like the wisdom of the crowds is really an effective tool and you know as long as There are enough independent pieces of information. I think that that information is extremely valuable And again just following the markets like, you know We had an idea that zack wilson might my betting partner and I, you know, bet it at minus 167 that he would be the second overall pick Now it's you know, now it's trending towards, you know minus 5,000 You could almost assume that that's a lock, but there are other situations as we'll talk about with justin fields mac jones And tray lance with that third pick You know, I think is anyone's guess at this point and then you're you're sort of looking and you're sort of logically going Through it and saying well, if this is the number for justin fields, what does that imply? You know, what would my intuition and prior say? Okay, does that make that a good bet or not? That's kind of where where it's going and sort of thinking through, you know, what teams need what teams have done historically All those things are I think Valuable once you sort of get a baseline prior set from the the marketplace itself Now I do want to talk mac jones, but I also you mentioned zack wilson I think that's an interesting point here because I know pro football focus has zack wilson very high In their player rankings for this year Did that inform your decision to take zack wilson at number two overall? Or was it kind of reading the tea leaves in the reporting or was it the the confidence you had based on your numbers at pff? Uh, all the above. I mean for me, you know, I wrote a piece about just or about uh, zack wilson right during his bowl game Against ucf and you know, it was one of those where With respect to justin fields, I thought fields is that You know statistical profile going into 20 20 was a little bit better than trevor lorenz's and you know, even though he had A long haul to go to overcome the prior that we all had that lorenz was going to be the first pick Two years after he beat alabama in the in the in the title game Um, you know, what ended up happening was that zack wilson even after you adjusted for the week schedule that byu had After you adjusted for kind of the week supporting cast at byu gave him and the circumstances He ended up having like literally the best statistical profile in the whole class And so even though I think it was he still didn't eclipse what we needed to see to have him overcome lorenz Right in the prior that we had on him and that you know the some of the things he had to overcome And he was kind of graded on a curve because of cobit and all that kind of stuff It was a fairly solid move for me to say well He's probably the it has the potential to be the most special quarterback in this class and as such Like he's probably the number two pick If you add it all up and then the question is is how close is fields to him? When you look at two versus three or you know, one a one b and one c Yeah, for sure Let's get on to matt jones. Um, so, you know, you the third pick is going to be kind of a coin flip You know, you you've written about how you like justin fields there Right now over at fandall sports books. Matt jones has jumped back into lead at minus 125 Justin fields is plus 130 trail lance is uh plus 290 Uh break this down for us Yeah, I mean so this is how interesting and you guys know this having you know producing betting content I start my article when it's 250 and then by the time I file it it's 175 and you know, I still think 175 is a good bet Um, obviously 250, you know, my my logic was always, you know, 250 is a You know 30 break even if you assume lance fields and Uh and uh matt jones are all equally likely to be the third pick. Well, that's a 33 percent Do you have a three percent edge on that? Um, if you if you assume that lance is a little bit weaker than both of them Then that edge grows um, and if you You know Again, and if you even if you assume that that matt jones has a little bit of a lead It's it's it's going to require quite a bit Uh to overcome, you know the 250 as as being a negative ev bet So that that was kind of my my logic now and as I said on the pfa forecast this week now You know when once those guys start getting into that plus 125 to minus 125 range I'm probably not betting it just because like I do think anything can happen there And even though I wouldn't trade three first round picks for matt jones With with respect to the draft you can't coach your bet I mean you you have to bet what you think is going to happen. Um, and you know, it's very likely There's a very good chance that the 49ers do something that we don't necessarily agree with Right and what's it like for you because you've had this field's Position for a while now and you're seeing people like adam shefter daniel jeremiah who are super plugged in talking about matt jones How does like how does that factor into things for you when you're looking at that bet? You already have in hand. Are you like I don't want to say like regret because I think obviously we've seen good movement It's hard to regret when you get great movement But what were your feelings on that once you saw those plugged in people talking about the pick the way they were Well, I mean, I think you have to respect the information You also I think you have to weigh the information by history and sort of with with respect to the 49ers you've You've seen You know john lynch get hired without much of a peep at all And in fact, I believe the the report was that he was testing whether or not they could keep the information in house Before he would take the job You know the groplow trade happened without much of a lead up the buckner trade happened without much of a lead up And then this past trade with The miami dolphins happened without much of a lead up So in my opinion, I don't know if this would be the time where we're really going to say well, you know Back then was different now is now is what we're really, you know Back then was different now that the 49ers are a leaky franchise. Like I just don't see that happening So Again that like pushes me back not not necessarily away from mac jones like the opposite of what they're reporting but just back towards the prior of possibly even outcomes for all those all those Picks maybe lance a little lower given, you know, sort of his pedigree having just one season starting an fcs But when you look at fields and mac jones, like if you view them as equally likely to be the pick Then then, you know that that you're still sitting on a really good number at plus 250 even out to like I would say plus 150, you know might have value Um, and again, I'm not disregarding the information. I think the information You know sort of gives credence to the idea that jones could go at three which none of us were considering But I don't think it pushes him out to the 305 favorite that he was just about a week and a half ago Yeah, for sure. Let's go under the past catchers in this draft. We have call pits and jamar chase Uh, that have over unders at five and a half and uh, davonta smith and jalen waddle the two Alabama guys at 11 and a half How do you stack these guys up and do you see any value? Yeah, I mean chase was always considered to be the best from the beginning. Um, there were numbers available for him Like I think he was even even with uh, smith when the thing when the whole thing started It was like maybe plus 125 each guy or or something like that and I got it on the way up at minus 140 149 or something like that Um, and now obviously, I don't think there's any value in betting him. I think on fan dual It's minus 900 or so minus 925 You know at that point you're you're sort of you can sprinkle some I think on jalen waddle the the thing You know as I talked to people within the league like davonta smith is a great football player But I think and played the best of all of them in college But um, you know, there are people within the league and maybe they don't matter vis a vis the the first wide receiver taken But they probably matter as far as the second wide receiver taken Who think jalen waddle is the better of the two players and the best wide receiver? In that class so to me and these numbers have moved I think since we talked about it on the forecast But if you can look at and you can find a market where you're looking at waddle versus smith I think waddle is the pick there And maybe even smith on an over 11 and a half draft position prop I think those are all You know when you're looking at the wide receiver marketplace in addition to you know And this number is moved as well over four and a half wide receivers taken in round one I think those are great value. Yeah davonta smith was initially minus 140 I believe to go under 11 and a half. It's now minus 110 So it does seem like sentiment drifting away from davonta smith and potentially toward jalen waddle as well The under frame is actually now minus 122 on 11 and a half So fan duel as well viewing jalen waddle ahead of davonta smith He mentioned jamar chase the prohibitive favorite to be the first wide receiver taken But there are some you know other positions where we could get them at you know, the favorites at lower numbers potentially Anyone standing out to you as being the first Person drafted their position is being undervalued right now. Yep. And this is one You guys had I think have the best number at at fan duel I like javante williams at five to one to be the first running back I know that has opened and you know, some of us got it at seven I think it went all the way down to three to one for a while and now Yonaji harris I think is is growing as the favorite there But there are some issues with with him as the first running back for one Running back is just that position where some team randomly takes Clyde inwards a layer at the back half of the first round or some team You know the the 2018 draft barkley went first, which is a lock But then you know the next running back taken were guys that people didn't like like sony michelle and Rishad penny where which were worse players than nick chubb. So like, you know You know the the fact is is like I think a running back gets taken in round one And I think it surprises us a little bit. Williams is I think the best running back in the in the class So I like him there. I you know the the other one and this is this is you know This number I can I've seen it anywhere from eight to one and you guys have it at five to one at fan duel christian barmore being the first defensive lineman taken This is where you can exploit the fact that defensive lineman includes more than one position because You know quitty pays the favorite You know jailen philips. I think is is closely behind both those guys benefited from gregory or so doing terribly You know the previous favorite gregory or so doing terribly in his You know workout But if a team is going to prefer an interior defensive lineman over an edge player barmore Is the only guy in that class worthy of a first round pick And so he could ran if one of those edges falls or both of the edges fall And a team prefers an interior defensive lineman You get a nice, you know five to one pop there if you go with barmore And it's also interesting too because like we have not seen NFL teams go away from interior guys like quinnan. Williams. We saw derrick brown. So There are still NFL teams that are looking for that. I think that that leads itself to what you were talking about Where there are still teams that will value that over an edge guy Yeah, and the edge class is about as bad You know last year wasn't great other than chase young but this year It's about as bad and they don't even have a top-end guy like a chase young. So Yeah, you're right. I mean you even go back to like christian wilkins was a 13th by miami Uh, you know teams will take defensive lineman on the on the interior, you know, uh The guy jivan kinlaw was taken I believe 14th last year by san francisco teams value that position and I think You know, there's some statistical evidence that if you get one of those big guys You know, it does help you in coverage weirdly because you can play More players deep because a guy can you know, eat up more blocker So there is some validity to being to taking those guys and if that's the only one and we'll talk about kyle Pitz I think if it's the only guy worthy of a first round pick that adds to their value due to scarcity Yeah, interesting. So, uh, you can also look at how many players at each Position are going to go in the first round over at fandal. Are there any numbers there that that stand out to you? Yeah, you guys have I think the the best price here if i'm if i'm not mistaken So running back over a half as minus 225. I think you know, pittsburgh's a clear one there I think you you're even hearing buffalo who that would surprise me given how smart they can be Um, but you're hearing buffalo, you know talk about taking a running back high Tampa Bay could be another one. Although they just got Giovanni Bernhard I you know, I've seen this other places at minus 300 minus 325 But if you can get that, you know at 220 225 or less I think that's a pretty good one wider see where the market has moved drastically. So I think I got over four and a half wide receivers at minus 160 You know, it's my anywhere from minus 200 to minus 310 now I think that price is actually pretty fair if you look at you know the top three guys And then you have rachad bateman. All you need is one of terence marshal elijah more Cadarius tony or rondell more to get over that number and that seems pretty fair to me Um, the last one that I that I do like Um is over six and a half offensive lineman Um, you were able to get a plot that opened at minus 150 And it went to about plus 110 now it's minus 118. I think minus 118 Is still a bad able number there. Yeah six and a half is a big number historically for offensive lineman But when over last year it sounds like the sentiment on this year's class is similar the testing numbers for lollies guys has been very good I mean shocker, you know, they're all pro days like and you wrote a piece about pro days versus the combine and stuff like that but It does make sense and actually what we have you here I did want to ask you about panacea well because And we got him jamar chase up there kyle pits all in conversation for those fourth and fifth picks I mean like I I don't want to ask you for betting stuff I didn't ask you to prepare stuff like this, but like if you're the bangles at five What are you doing there? Are you going with suell? Are you going with jamar chase kyle pits? If he's there, how do you view that from their perspective? Uh, that's a tremendous question because I think it change like so If I'm the bangles I have riley reef. I have jonah williams a player. I invested a top 15 pick in But who hasn't played much more than 10 games in two years? Um, my quarterback is just coming off an acl has not proven himself yet to be like a mom And I had this conversation actually with somebody who you asked me this very question And I said if you have them at homes, I would take chase or pits because My quarterback can my quarterback can do fine with the second round lineman And a and the first round receiver offers such a great benefit But you know, let's assume pits is off the board at four I would take suell over chase if I was Cincinnati because I think I can get A receiver in the top half of the second round that can complement tea higgins As well as uh, tyler boyd, um better than I can get an offensive lineman there That would help me protect burrow if if my three receivers were chase Um, you know chase higgins and and tyler boyd that that is a little bit like that's a variance versus mean argument Like I think the mean outcome for a wide receiver is probably higher But the variance is higher too and and right now with burrow you already have two really pretty good receivers If you decrease the variance associated with injury risk and all that kind of stuff by going with suell Uh, I I think that that's where you want to go Yeah, okay. I think that makes a lot of sense for sure any other bets standing out to you based on Where the currents are market or markets are currently Yeah, it could be any book based on wherever you see the best number Where are you seeing value still lingerie here as one week left? Oh, that's that's a great that's a great question. I you know right now, um, Ah man, uh, and now you have You know the one that the one that might be a nice Uh, it's Yeah, I'm gonna I'm just gonna go like I think I think tray lance under six and a half draft position is is where to go that the thing that the The the people sort of I don't know if they really saw this coming But when miami went from three to 12 to six I think everybody looked at them at that sixth position and said Well, they're gonna get the best of pit suell Or chase there and that's why that pick is so valuable Whereas when I see it, I think to myself, okay They're going to have that because the Bengals are sort of locked in they're sort of old school. They're not trading the pick They're gonna probably take suell or chase there If if if I look at I say well, they're gonna dangle that pick over denver's head Denver having a bunch of young players on on rookie deals in the skill position spots If it goes, you know If if fields lands there or lands lands there They're going to be able to I think move from three to let's say nine for a huge haul You know by by doing that pivot there and as such I think lance goes before pick seven as a result of that Yeah, I think the getting back in front of detroit given the fact that detroit very much could be in the quarterback market Makes a lot of sense if you can get two trade downs in one draft, I guess, you know, three trades total Why not do it for sure Miami a sharp organization? So Definitely would make a lot of sense that is dr. Eric eager make sure you follow him at On twitter at pff underscore Eric check out the pff forecast podcast as well Eric good luck with the justin fields and every other bet you've got going on and hopefully we'll talk to you again here soon Hey, thanks for having me on guys. This was fun Covering the future Big thank you once again to dr. Eric eager a pro football focus for swinging by and breaking down Betting on this year's draft makes you check out the pff forecast podcast a link to that is in the show notes over on number fire Dot com and we talked a lot of mac jones and justin fields and ed We haven't gotten to talk to zack wilson yet And I thought that what eric was saying was fascinating because I actually agree with him on most things with zack wilson I've used zack wilson and justin fields as being Like the 2a and 2b in this draft behind trevor lorence. I like zack wilson a lot and I feel like Because we've grown so fond of justin fields. It's led to a lot of Negativity around zack wilson and I'm like I want to be protective of a zack wilson. I'm like, yes We should pump up justin fields, but let's not have any, you know dry buys of zack wilson in the process What are your thoughts on zack wilson? Yeah, I don't know. I mean personally like from what I've seen him play and from other stuff I've read i'm not particularly high on him as an nfo quarterback But honestly that doesn't matter in this discussion, right because it's all about Where he's actually going to go and I think that's really important, right? Like what you think a team should pick should have nothing to do with your analysis of trying to bet this draft, right? You just just put that away and despite my relative skepticism about wilson like he's going to be the second pick and At this point, like I think I saw a minus 3000 somewhere And was wondering if that's still valuable, you know You can go over to grinding the mocks and out of the hundreds of mocks that the benjamin's collected There might be two in the last month that don't have them as a second pick So, uh, I don't know. I don't know. What do you think about minus 3000? I think I saw that yesterday somewhere. It's not a fan duel, but but somewhere else Well, the implied odds that are 96.77 percent Yeah, and if we're seeing every mock except for two saying zack wilson That would imply that there is value in Minus 3000 it's minus 5000 now the implied odds on that I can't do it in my head yet 98.04 um That's still probably Valuable right 98.04 implied probability But that's a lot to lay for a very little amount of money, right? So like especially because limits are low like, you know, you're not going to profit a whole lot there But yeah, yeah, exactly. So, I mean, I'm pretty sure he's going to be the second pick, right? I mean, there's right, you know, unless he Unless we get some videos of him smoking a joint like the night Draft or something like that. So yeah, you know, it's something You know, it's something that I haven't pulled the trigger on yet. I probably won't but Yeah, um, yeah, it's definitely gonna be it's it's definitely going to be interesting I mean, I definitely I do think he goes there and then all the drama happens at pick number three um, but Maybe something to profit on it makes me feel a lot better about my My being high on zack wilson that the people at pro football focus also like him too It makes me feel better about myself. It is, uh, you know confirmation bias, but sometimes I'm okay with that Let's move into cover in the future for today and ed you want to talk about the nfl draft and betting that Where are you seeing value in the markets right now? Yeah, for sure. I mean, and I think just as a general note, you know, I talked about how christ angers was saying They've never made a dollar putting up markets for the nfl draft, which I I just I just think is hilarious Uh, there's uh, you can go check it's on twitter of vison. You can kind of look in in my profile if you want to find it but um But just kind of as an example of you know, why you should be betting the nfl draft Um, you know, there was an article over on pff that noted how in the market for the first corner back patrick sirtan was kind of opened as the favorite a plus 110 which is about a break even probability of 48 percent Right now he's minus 300. So break even probability about 75 percent and You would never see that kind of market movement on a money line for an nfl game, right? So that just shows you like when markets move that much like Bookmakers are struggling with with those with with putting out those numbers, right? And I and I and I do think there is value there and you know, these lines move fast If you like something you should bet it like don't wait um You know, I'm actually now coming to think about I think I think uh, wilson was minus 3000 at vandal yesterday Yeah, he's 5000 now. So yeah, he's 5000 now. So that right, right? So um So anyways, yeah, let's let's talk about like the tools I use You know grinding the mox is is the tool that that dr. Yeager talked about and it's benjamin robinson Who uh, does this hard work of putting together all these mock drafts and it uses the wisdom of crowds, right? You know one mock draft is not going to be is not necessarily perfect by any stretch But when you put together enough of them Um, uh, you get a pretty powerful predictor and so one of the things that uh, his tool likes is nagi Harris So he's projected to be about the 22nd pick Um, so I definitely like his under, uh, I I got at draft kings at 30 and a half Uh, the number was lower at fan duel. So and and one of the things about benjamin's tool that he's shown is that, um Um The total the total mock draft tool tends to be better for later picks Um, the expert picks tend to be better for the first, uh, the the first picks the first 10 picks in the draft The way he's done is analysis So I tend to lean more towards his tool when i'm looking at late first round picks or or anything that is in that range Um, I am working on putting together kind of an experts, uh, type wisdom of crowds estimators This is definitely inspired by Matthew Friedman last week Um, I'm not going to talk about it today because that was kind of a frustrating experience this week Um, so for example a glance their line of nfl.com hasn't posted a mock draft since uh, march 29th So i'm going to wait for some of these, uh top experts to to post more updated information Over the next week and then uh, we'll probably talk about it next week Okay, I like it the nagi Harris number at draft kings is interesting because 30 and a half gets you the bills Whereas the fan dual number does not get you the bills and the bills I agree with dr. Eager where they're a very smart organization Where your prior going in is that they're probably not going to take a first round running back But like there is a need there and in theory if you can get the bills involved in the under for nagi Harris I think that makes a lot of sense because the Steelers are 24th They're in the market for running back, uh, so I think that if you can get both the bills and the Steelers encompassed in there That's pretty advantage. And I think that also goes back to the point where because these markets are a lot less Sharp, I guess I don't know. It was right to phrase it, but like they're a lot less, uh, drilled down Yeah, the The value of line shopping is so much higher Like uh, matty freeman's been tweeting about a bunch of different like arbitrage, uh, possibilities, um, and like those are available to us Most of the situations so it's not just the fact you can get Tremendous closing line value. It's also that you can get bad numbers if you're comparing one book to another So multiple reasons to be super in tuned to the nfl draft next week is going to be a lot of fun Looking forward to it for sure But before then we have to have fun this week on sunday because the nascar cup series is in talladega Super high variance track which means that there are a large handful of teams that can win Which means you have more leeway to bet long shots here If you want if you want to look at your then you would other tracks I'm looking at a long shot for this weekend, but not as a guy to win I think that cascara is a massive massive value for a top 10 at plus 550 You can find that at draft kings right now the other drivers around grahla are in absolute like lemon equipment like On the nascar entry list it lists the year the car was made These dudes are driving cars that were not made in 2021 whereas cascara is we've seen collag racing A couple times this year. They've been competitive There are very good xfinity series team that seems like they have plans to transition to the cup series next year Also be their fourth time racing in the cup series And they've already got a top 10 in the that span that came this year With aj allmendinger at the Daytona row course and part of that's because allmendinger is tremendous on row courses But you're not going to finish top 10 there if you're driving a lemon and they're not right now grahla Was in this car for the Daytona 500. We saw jason haley in it last year at Daytona He finished 13th grahla finished 28th at Daytona this year, but he was competitive He seemed to be running pretty well. He's running 16th when the race got delayed by rain He was running competitive lap times and that to me says They have the equipment to get the job done if grahla can run a clean race And he's done that plenty of times in other series before he has run Three Daytona races in the Xfinity series and in the truck series He has a win in those three races other two are both top five finishes So the talent's there. He finished ninth in talladega and a truck last year Talladega's not a place you can run. Well, if you're in bad equipment It is more equipment heavy than Daytona is but I don't think that grahla is in bad equipment based on what collig has done so far given the funding that they have And I know that he has a talent based on what he's done in the other series So getting him at plus 550 to finish top 10 is Too good for me to pass up. So I like that one quite a bit if you're looking for outrights You want to bet to win uh talladega my model does like kyle bush a lot of 16 to 1 He's at 7.6 to win in my simulations compared to 5.9 Implied I think that's the biggest edge uh from an outrides perspective over there Other guy that seems like is chris busher not as big of an edge there He's a 2.7 percent implied or 2.7 percent overall versus 2.0 Percent implied. So those are lower probability ones, but they do present good value So if you're looking for value, I think that bush and busher make a lot of sense in the outright market But I think if you're looking for a bet that is just Miss priced cast rala is your best route at plus 550 to finish inside the top 10 And I thinking back to when I was a kid I remember how much fun these couple of weekends always were like there was one weekend in In the n april where you had the nfl draft you had the kentucky derby I'm pretty sure there was a big Like it might have been a maniwether uh fight at some points on a saturday as well But like this is for me as someone who is a nascar nfl draft nerd who does enjoy the kentucky derby Like this is one of the best two week stretches in the sports calendar Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's uh, I mean I think everything, you know, my attention gets taken so much by the draft It's good to talk to you about other things that are they're going on during this time Yeah, and nascar chief among them obviously nfl draft very secondary to nascar at all times for sure That is the only time that we have for today here on covering the spread Want to give a big thank you one more time to dr Eric eager for swinging by and breaking down the nfl draft Make sure you follow him on twitter at pff underscore eric if you want a link to the pff forecast podcast or search for it Uh, wherever you get your podcast, but also I do have a link there in the show notes over on number fire dot com Ed What is going on for you this week over at the power rank? Yeah, i've been writing about the nfl draft and uh, my free email newsletter You can check that out at the power rank dot com there will at least be one more Before the start of uh, the nfl draft next thursday Oh, also, I wanted to bring up quarantine corner. Yes one more time. So the Hemingway documentary Uh by ken burns is is awesome. I've been completely enthralled by the entire thing and um, you know, i'm a fan of hemingway I've read some of his stuff and it's kind of you know, he's he's like a macho kind of guy Like if you like football and you like to bet You're probably gonna like some of his books because that's the kind of that's the kind of duty was back then Um, but his life is so much more interesting than I knew so I kind of known that he was he was Within the first, uh allied forces that liberated paris at the end of world war two Really? So as yeah as a journalist, he somehow got himself to you know Be with the troops that that liberated paris. And so there's a story about how how earnus hemingway liberated paris Um And that was the kind of guy he was he's like, hey are people shooting at each other over there? I'm gonna head that in that direction But the whole truth about that whole world war two thing is so much more interesting than the fact that he just showed up at paris When it was liberated, uh, there's just so much more going on including a couple concussions and And a lot of drama with the the women that he was with so The whole thing is is so interesting like any little snippet. It's just so well done Yeah, that any little snippet of it is just a fascinating detail about a man who lived a crazy life So are you a big documentary guy? I mean, I am um You know, I mean, I definitely love us can 30 for 30 Yeah, I was thinking about that when I was thinking about talking about this like the two eskibars and and some of the other ones The myrnavich project. Yeah, man. That is one of the best Documentaries I've ever seen at least for me personally. I'm not sure if everyone would like it But in terms of like father son type bonding Uh father son type story It was pretty amazing. So I do like documentaries. I mean, I don't like documentaries as much as I like novels Sure, but um, well, I was going to bring back if we're bringing back quarantine corner I was going to give a recommendation to you for another documentary to watch All right, when you were in boston, do you ever go to the isabella steward gardener museum? Oh, yeah, yeah, the the netflix thing about the robber. Yeah, it was amazing My wife and I were watching part of that. We got it. We got it. We haven't finished it yet You should finish it. It's worth it. I think it's like three or four episodes, but it's so fun Um, like what's it called just so everyone knows Oof This is a robbery. I believe I think it's called. This is a robbery if you search isabella steward gardener museum It's like it's a story about The robbery of the isabella steward gardener museum in boston, which is an awesome museum My wife and I went there when we lived in boston and really cool place Uh, but I didn't know the story at the time. What they do is they have these These frames hanging up in the museum Of where the art was stolen like they just kept the frames up of the stolen art pieces And so I was like, what what is this and I remembered that happening But I didn't remember the story behind it because I didn't I know I wasn't paying super close attention But like they have a whole documentary about it. It brings the mob into it They try to track down where stuff is and it's pretty fun So I'd recommend it if you if you are someone who enjoys documentaries but good stories They actually talked about that robbery on drunk history So I would say do a twofer you watch the The documentary then you watch the drunk history about it And I think you just kind of double dose on your isabella steward gardener museum history there So that's your next recommendation. Yeah, that sounds good. I mean that was like the biggest art heist ever Yeah, like 500 million dollars worth of art was stolen. I think so it was it was I'm not a big art person Like I I appreciate art, but I'm not it's not my biggest interest, but the documentary was fantastic So quarantine corner back Uh for your uncovering the spread make sure you check out add on twitter at the power rank and check out the football analytics show As well, uh, wherever you get your podcast We are covering the spread wherever you get your podcast there again, kentucky derby podcast Coming up for you next week. So make sure you are subscribed and as always if you like what you hear Leave us a rating and review. I am on twitter at jim sonnis j i m s a n n e s You can also follow the fan dual podcast network at fan dual podcast big Thank you to calvin theobald our video producer for running the video side of things here today Thank you cal as always and thank you to everyone for tuning in Good luck to you with your nfl draft betting. We'll talk to you once again next week to get to set for the kentucky derby This has been covering the spread right here on the fan dual podcast network