 This is covering the spread here are your hosts Jim Saunas and Dr. Ed Fang What is going on everybody welcome on into covering the spread that's right here on the fan dual podcast network and number fire Dot-com where today we are previewing the day tone of 500 from a betting perspective with Dr. Nick Giffen of the action network and fantasy lads getting his thoughts on this year's fields plus some championship odds as Well, my name is Jim Saunas 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 ink dot-com and Ed you were all over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers We talked to me 15 from a an NFC perspective you were on them against the Packers You were on them against the cheese now the Super Bowl champs got to make you feel pretty good about your numbers Yeah, I mean I was pretty excited I think in terms of the Super Bowl like you know predicting Kansas City with nine points That wasn't anywhere near my expectation of how that was gonna go down But the numbers definitely saw some strength in in Tampa Bay's defense that I'm not sure a lot of I Don't know if other models did but but I yeah I think there was strength in in in the defensive side of the ball There was upside with them on the offensive side of the ball So, yeah, very happy with all that turned out So you talked about the upside when we talked in week 15 and why you like the Bucks to win the NFC is That's something you can quantify within your model or is that something that you were looking at the the odds and saying okay I think this this team has room for up or growth and doing it based on that Yeah, I think So everything for me is based on what my model says, right? But then you acknowledge that there's some error in that and I think when you want to say well Is my model too low or too high on this team and I think from watching them play from knowing, you know Seeing Brady's PFF pass grades, you know And I was at a point in the season where I hadn't really seen him enough to make my own Estimate for how he was playing knowing the talent of Mike Evans and Chris Godwin and the receiving core You have to guess that, you know, they're they're offensive You know, especially the past office is probably a little bit better than what their numbers were I think they ended up like seventh In the NFL actually I didn't check it after the after the Super Bowl But I think it's just it's just taking other information both from, you know Various sources, especially watching the game and saying okay My model is probably a little bit low on this and and you know, no model is perfect We all know that and so we can just kind of guess where which which way it's wrong in Yeah, and you guessed well, so Kudos on that we'll talk more about Super Bowl bets here in just one second the first today our guest is dr. Nick Giffen He is on Twitter at roto doc. He does NASCAR DFS stuff for fantasy labs also does betting content for the action network We're gonna talk about the date tone of 500 with Nick get his thoughts on that's not right He likes some other markets is looking at also talking driver changes and new teams for bubble Wallace and Daniel Suarez in Seeing Nick's thoughts on them. That's coming up here in just one second But first we're now in the all season of covering the spread so make sure you are subscribed to get our podcast right as they go live because Scheduling will solve one per week. Maybe a different time though potentially based on not having the same schedule with no NFL So make sure you are subscribed to covering the spread wherever you get your podcast and while you're there Leave us a rating and review because that does help us out a ton now before we get to Nick and talk about the date Tona 500 gotta go back to this past week and talk about Super Bowl 55 and a pretty good week for the guests We had on here for covering the spread Covering the past Let's bring Nick Giffen into covering the spread to preview the day tone of 500 coming up on Sunday Nick, it's the best time of the year the actual Super Bowl coming up on Sunday. How you doing? Yeah, yeah, I mean you nailed it. That's what I tweeted out this past Sunday was the real the real Super Bowl is in A week, so I'm doing great You know, we got a little clash action under our belt already So what did the appetite I'm ready for Sunday? Absolutely, and it's a different format this year because in the past we've had qualifying on Sunday followed by the clash and this year It's different because we don't have that that weekend ahead of time But the the reason that I think it's kind of fun And I want to get your take on this is that we actually have on-track activity Tuesday through Sunday as opposed to having these weird off days in between so personally I Kind of like this schedule a little bit more am I just being like reactive to you know The reasons he bias here or are you on board with this this 2021 schedule as well? Totally totally on board and I mean obviously I think given the current times we're living and I think it's it's very appropriate But I think it's actually better that it's so much more compact I look at something like the Indy 500 which was like a month-long event I prefer the week-long compact event and here for NASCAR, you know They've compacted it to like Tuesday through Sunday now and there's no off time You're not like oh this guy won the poll now. We have to wait three days for something to happen Right, so it's I like it. Yeah, I do too I think that last night was a lot of fun looking forward to the next couple of days as well and Plenty of betting opportunities too and we're going to talk about betting here in just a second But nick one thing you're doing this year for fantasy labs You're building out their DFS model building our projections and stuff like that for the site There's a big overlap between building that and building out a betting model So what data forms the main components of that model not asking you to like give away your secrets or anything here But you know, what data are you leaning on to build that model for fantasy labs? Sure. Well, I think there's some things that aren't really a big secret You know NASCAR provides loop data for every single race They have been since 2005 and that loop data is very important because it'll Tell you things like a driver's average running position or how many the quality pass percentage or the driver rating They've also in more recent years begun to pull average green flag speed Obviously practice data when we do have practices matters a lot now This year, of course, we're only gonna have eight races with practice So it's gonna be interesting, you know to build the model without practice event did a lot of that last year as well But it definitely reduces some of the predictability by not having practice data However, you know, there's there's all this data. We got the loop data We've got some some other data like like I said the average green flag speed and practice when we do have it and that kind of all goes into I build what's called a a Random forest model. It's a type of machine learning statistical model that basically pulls from The data itself and figures out what are the actual best components to use in the model and You know, what is the best predictability that it can give and I actually do lots of different random forests And I blend them all together in a weighted average to kind of give the highest predictability so it's like really technical stuff, but Um Point is looking at the loop data. I'm looking the same thing. All of you are looking at probably driver ratings average green flag speed I'm just letting the machine do it instead of my own biases do it Oh, that's really cool. So Um, random forest, that's those are decision trees, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's like a lot of different decision trees so, you know and decision trees, I if Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's where you make a decision. You split it based on the data at different points and then Um, and then you're averaging over a bunch of those Exactly, you're sub-sampling your data. Is that yep exactly. So I have, you know, um A prediction or a training set and then a test set and I kind of randomly Divide the test set so that I'm um, you know, just making sure we're making the best predictions possible on unseen data That way we get, you know, because the next race is going to be unseen as well So we want to make sure we're just kind of just training and testing the model appropriately So the last time I thought about these types of models is a long time ago. So please correct me if I'm wrong, but It's more of a black boxy type model where where it doesn't necessarily you don't know exactly why The forest is spitting out what it is that you does that worry you at all or no, it doesn't worry me too much Um, the couple of the things I do of course is I try to make sure Um, I don't have a lot of correlated inputs going in so I do a lot of things to reduce What we call multi-colinearity big statistical term. But anyway, um, I'm not too worried about that because what I'm worried about Is the accuracy of the predictions. Uh, I don't necessarily care as much. Why I don't know if it's Average green flag speed correlated with this factor correlated with that factor in different changing ways it's it's all a black box and and I think people who Think they know are relying on their intuition and there's nothing wrong with relying on your intuition but Your intuition can be wrong or we may misinterpret data I'm just letting the machine decide to interpret the data for me now That said there are times I may need to like pick and choose one thing or the other just for specific reasons But it's pretty rare that I have to uh go in and add something or take something out myself All right, so it's rare that You're looking at you know, something that you see from watching a race and adjusting your model like you're you're Predominantly going with the model. Yeah, predominantly That's the issue with having uh With this show is we don't have a lot of time because I could nerd out with you about nascar for a while And ed could nerd out with you about math because you you're a math phd nicks So like, you know, you guys I'm sure could go for days Talking about this stuff where I just want to talk to you about nascar because yeah I'm not a phd person which makes me the lone wolf here for sure But um, I'm glad that I have ed there to ask the the pertinent questions when it comes to that And let's talk to you a little bit nick about This season because you were talking about potentially needing to tweak the model in one area where You may need to do some manual tweaking is with drivers on new teams I'm sure you can utilize priors and stuff like that to try to get approximations for speeds But we truly don't know what to expect out of some of these teams because it's at least for like bubble wallis and daniel Suarez we don't have Actual data on their teams in the past their brand new teams the next gen car coming next year Has led to some new ownership. You know pitbull michael jordan in nascar now We don't have prior data on these teams. That's tough. So How are you viewing specifically those two guys entering this year given we have literally no data on their teams for past years Yeah, so a couple things you can do that are kind of data driven are You can look at how do new teams perform in general? um And then how do bubble wallis and daniel suarez perform specifically in relation to maybe their equipment um And so those are things you can say. Well, this is kind of like the baseline for new teams And maybe this driver's a little bit above average relative to his equipment and this driver's a little below average relative to his equipment You can kind of start there with a baseline But it is very tough because you don't know where these teams are going to come in You know, I think we all have a little bit more of a hunch that bubble wallis with Denny hamlin and michael jordan's gonna have a little bit more funding than daniel suarez coming in uh, but you know, it's it's it's a guessing game and uh, you know that relationship I think with jgr will pay Dividends, but I do see people saying like bubble wallis is going to win a race this year bubble wall is going to you know contend for win I'm like I still don't think so outside of super speedway races that it's or some crazy fluke You know strategy thing That he's going to be contending for wins with a new team even though they're affiliated with jgr and You know, I would love for him to I think it's a great story But I think it's going to take a little bit of time with a new team And it's tough too because like It is like it's a new company effectively like you're trying to get this groundwork done and it's hard to do that In a couple of months because 2311 racing wasn't announced until I think like october And like making those hires trying to get those cars I know that jgr is giving them the cars, but like there's still a lot of work these to be done So I think expecting success from from the jump is probably just a bit too optimistic Not because of the driver not because the equipment long term But just because it's such a short turnaround to craft a new team from the ground floor Yeah, and I think also if we look at at these affiliated teams, you know how levine family racing was affiliated with joe gibbs or in the past furniture row or we have Different affiliates with different teams The only one that's really had major success was furniture row after a few years with jgr The rest have kind of just been uh, you know Even even the wood brothers racing car hasn't been like a championship contender affiliated with team penske there So, um, I'm not expecting bubble wallets to necessarily contend for wins and daniel suarez I think, uh, you know, this is really a new team that that doesn't have any Major major affiliations not certainly not as close as as uh, you know, denny hamlin with jgr So, um, I'm not expecting a whole lot from these guys, but I do think it'll be a building process and I do think bubble walls will have some good runs Excellent. So another person that has a new ride is kyle arson going to hendrick motorsports. Uh, what do you see about the This new team and and partnership I think I think it's a really good match. Um, you know, if you look at kyle arson and what he did with Chip ganassi racing, they had a lot of ups and downs. Um, they were Pretty inconsistent if you look kyle arson had one win in his last 86 races with ganassi prior to that though He had three in his previous 12 races or four in his previous 22 or five in his previous 39 That's basically five wins in a season there. Uh, 30 36 races being a season. He had it in 39 races so like he had the potential with ganassi, but You know, hendrick motorsports is a different beast. They've got a four car team. They've been, um, you know, one of the best teams in nascar for Over two decades, uh, three decades even and they had seven wins last year, including four of the last 11 Three from chase elliott and one with william byron. Uh, so I do think he is upgrading his team. Um, Just a little bit, you know, I mean, you can even look at secondary drivers like on ganassi like kurt busch or jamie McMurray in the past and they they've want to combine two races in that same span of 86 races with with larson winning one so um, you know three wins and 86 races is not Four in the last 11 or seven in the all of last year So I think hendrick motorsports is definitely an upgrade for kyle arson and I look for him to Compete for a championship. Um, you know, again, maybe there's this newness of a new team a new crew chief, etc Maybe there's a slow start, but kyle arson's a dang good racer And I think he's gonna, you know, buy mid season pick it up, uh, even if not right away And I think that with the the number you're talking about with hendrick at the end of the year I think that like watching it kind of matched that because you look at chase elliott's data over and the entire playoffs Just like disgusting You're talking about loop data his loop data was like it was beautiful It was magical for those final 10 races alex bowman had a lot of good runs during the playoffs as well So I think that we saw I know that they were a talking point early on But it seemed like the strength for them was towards the end of the year Which is encouraging for this year now kyle arson enters 10 to 1 to win the championship His teammate chase elliott plus 550 trying to repeat after winning the championship last year I guess my issue nick is that it's tough for me to tie up bankroll From now through november When I know it comes down to a one-raised sample at the end So are you seeing any value in the championship market? Is is it a market you tend to avoid for that same reason any thoughts on that right now? You know, I I loved the the outright, you know championship season market coming into The 2019 season where we kind of had these big rules overhaul because I had some angles where certain drivers would Benefit from it or certain drivers wouldn't and it I did really well I did very well, but now we're three years into this rules kind of You know, there's little changes here and there on like which track should get 550 or 750 horsepower, etc but By and large, we've kind of stabilized and the market's getting much more efficient I think it's pretty tough to tie up bankroll for the whole year If I were to pick one and I haven't made any bets yet on this, but if I were to pick one I'm torn between either kyle bush or martin truex jr. At eight to one just because they're both former winners championship winners And one of the things I really like for martin truex jr. Is the addition of all of these road courses We know chase elliott martin truex jr. Are the two road course aces They're far and away the best two over the past like nine or ten road course races The only other winner being blaney over the past nine regular season races outside of truex or elliott, so I do like truex at eight to one the problem is there's only one road course in the final 10 There's also martinsville, which he's great at but there's only one in the final 10 And then kyle bush. I think he's just he's kyle bush You know he had a down year these things happen to every driver new crew chief now Maybe some changes are being made. I just find he's he's arguably the most talented driver still currently in the cup series And he's you know going at the same price as tricks keselowski and legano here I have to I you know possibly go with him as well. I think it's going to take a For me, maybe a couple races in the season before I go with the championship bets But if you know if I had to pick one now it either probably be kyle bush or martin tricks jr So nick what's your approach with the daytona 500? Are you are you running these random forests? Or are you kind of talking about the Since it's the first race of the season. Are you just taking the more simple numbers that you were telling us about? Uh, what what's your approach? Yeah, so daytona 500 whole different beast obviously so much randomness, uh that occurs in these races Even with the you know and again going to 2019 with the new rules package change after the daytona 500 They even shifted the super speedway package. It's no longer restrictor plates, right? It's tapered spacers and other aerodynamic stuff to make this draft but um Still a lot of randomness the model Some of the most accurate models I can build period Predict about 10 to 15 percent of the variance in finishing position in these races That's how hard it is to predict super speedway racing So what I like to do is I like to simulate all of these and just figure out what's the percentage of time You know a driver will will end up in the top 10 or the top five or the top three or what's the percentage time? He'll dnf, right? Um, so I can run all these simulations as well. You know do 50 000 Simulations and just kind of get percentages of these different things So that's kind of how I approach the daytona 500 from a betting perspective is is using Monte Carlo simulation from my model to Um, you know kind of figure out what is the likely range of outcomes for each driver And how does it impact your betting strategy? Are you just chomping away because it's the first race of the year Hard to you know, hold yourself back because of that. Do you scale back? You know, do you have self restraint? Which most of us don't Because of that variance we're talking about are you going different markets because it's super speedway How does it alter you like as a better in your approach to that? Yeah, well, I personally have always actually been a very cautious better. I I try to find big edges And I know a lot of people will play every edge they can get that's totally fine I like big edges And in the daytona 500 you can find big edges it it because the season is so new And markets, you know, sports books don't necessarily adjust appropriately or or over adjust in some cases I think there can be a lot of value I especially look for team changes if the driver changes teams Does the book either under adjust or over adjust for those things? Especially for the daytona 500 where equipment Kind of gets thrown out of the window by and large. I mean unless you're talking like the rick weirs or whatever you know everything from front row to You know, hendrick or joe gibbs has a chance to win this race Yeah, absolutely. I think that makes it a lot of fun And it justifies betting some long shots every now and then so let's talk about those outrides first Let's start there with the daytona 500. We've got uh denny hamlin You know just the best of daytonies at the top of the board chase elliott has been bet down quite a bit at fandall He opened at 12 he's now Plus 950 so it seems like a lot of interest in chase elliott. They're the two favorites right now Which drivers do you like based on their current odds to win the daytona 500 on sunday? Yeah, um, I think For me, I always have a hard time betting favorites at the dates on a 500 because it's just so hard Every single one of them can win right? Uh, so betting denny hamlin eight to one, you know, it's yeah, he's amazing But it's just so hard to say he's gonna win one out of every eight dates on a 500 if we ran this eight times You know and even my model doesn't necessarily think that's a good bet either But the ones my model does like uh, is ricky stenhouse jr. 24 to 1 Again take equipment out of the situation here. It doesn't matter that he's you know, no longer with roush fenway racing Which again even then wasn't a top team um at the time, you know the A couple decades back they were but uh at the time ricky stenhouse got his two wins They were in a top team. He almost won last year With his current team jtg authority racing and he just always seems to you know Be upfront at some point in the race even if he wrecks out. I don't care All we care about is first place second doesn't matter right second doesn't matter So we're looking at somebody that can win ricky stenhouse jr. Always seems to be at the front and my model likes him one other driver Um, and I don't go crazy on the long shots at daytona I do like them my favorite long shot that was eric almerola 60 to 1 when he moved from petty to Stuart haas racing They didn't adjust him well enough and he was 60 to 1 and I thought I was gonna get the win there and austin dillan Austin dillan had other ideas. Yeah that one hurt but uh A driver that I think has been over adjusted in the negative direction So in other words his odds are longer because I think they're they're they're discounting his team now is eric jones at 55 to 1 eric jones has Three top three finishes at super speedway races in the last three years and another fifth place finish Um, so if we're looking at the last three years 12 races of super speedways, he's got four top fives In three top threes and a win One of those of course being in the the summer daytona race So he's won at this track. He also won the clash last year which was on the super speedway in the most beat up car I've ever seen possibly but uh Eric jones 55 to 1 He's of course dropping down in terms of equipment, you know for from joe gibbs to richard petty motorsports But we've seen bubble wallace almost pull off a win in the same daytona 500 that eric almerola almost won so You know, I think and we've seen bubble wallace leading that car multiple other times on his own merit So, you know, they they they have that chevy alliance and everything and I should say this I'm really intrigued by the chevy alliance in general this year where Hendrick and children are now partnering in the engine department But overall, I think eric jones at 55 to 1 is super value to win. So those are my two ricky stenhouse and eric jones I mean bubble was leading with two laps to go in august last year You know when you know legano passed him and then hamlin, you know bump in the back room and the cause that big wreck but like he was leading then uh Eric almerola won with petty at daytona as well So like yeah, I think that it is an equipment downgrade But we potentially could be seeing an overreaction as a result of that for eric jones All right, so there aren't a lot of non outright markets posted so far as we're talking here on wednesday And I'm assuming after the duels on thursday, we'll get more of those But anything you're seeing right now in race props head to heads that you like Based on what you see or anything you're looking out for once the more markets are posted Yeah, so a lot of it is what i'm looking out for right now Um, I don't have a whole lot in terms of of things that interest me immediately I will say eric jones top 10 plus 250 uh is More than double his top 10 rate at restrictor play or sorry supers. I still have a hard time saying supers And and triple like his his top 10 rate is like triple if you remove his his rookie year So, you know under the current package especially so I do like eric jones again for a top 10 I love betting top 3s 5s and 10s at superspeed ray races because winning so hard and then like You know half the field is probably going to wreck out anyway That leaves like a 50 50 shot for most drivers to make the top 10 And so if you can just find value in top 10s, I really like hitting those so eric jones is what i'm looking at Um William byron, uh has had a lot of top 5s at these races and he won last year So william byron's a guy that i'm intrigued by for top 5 value um And then finally there's there's one other driver, uh that I think we should keep an eye on I was looking Uh and in certain books, anthony alfredo is 501 to win now. I don't like the win value but if you Turn that into top 10 value He's in front row motorsport the same equipment as michael mcdowell or david reagan's been in the past and david reagan is uh Is trying to race this year as well. So, um, he's got teammates to work with I don't think he's necessarily a great super speedway racer, but they're pricing him in the same range as cody where or bj mclod or or you know all these other guys that are Are just like in the worst possible equipment and anthony alfredo's in equipment That can definitely top 10 and and we've seen michael mcdowell take the lead in races or david reagan Take the lead in races in front row motorsports equipment. So I don't love it, but you know I think for a top 10 if he's something like uh seven to one I think I I don't mind that at all, but uh, i'm still keeping an eye on it head to heads I'm a i'm an underdog head to head better at super speedway races. So anything that's uh on the plus side I will probably be betting. Um, I do tend to go a little crazy at super speedway races with with plus head to head vets I love it anthony alfredo watch now I mean probably the only time we'll hear that name this entire year from a betting perspective quite possibly Yeah, quite possibly. So we'll see how that goes, but uh Keep an eye out for that and keep an eye out for all the work of nick gifford Over at the action network and on fantasy lads make sure you follow him on twitter as well at roto doc. Nick We appreciate the time. Thank you so much and good luck to you thursday. Good luck to you Friday saturday sunday We appreciate it. That's right. Hey looking forward to a great season. Thank you for having me on appreciate. Thank you Covering the present So we had a couple of shows adding to Super Bowl 55 We had the one with george charuri and then the one with jjzak recent erin dolin talking props I could find george on twitter at pff underscore george jj is late round qb and erin is erin k dolin and between all of us You ed You ed and erin both were on the bucks and you wanted the bucks plus three Erin had the bucks money line, which at the time was about plus 144 george had the chiefs minus three and I had the bucks under 26 and a half points and the money line did move In the bucks favor specifically sunday. There was a lot of tampa bay money coming in um The spread stayed the same steady at three But the money line movement was pretty noteworthy and helpful for erin and the bucks dominated that game a good call by all of you there and I think that Obviously you don't expect the chiefs to score nine points. Like you said But there were a lot of data reasons to expect it to at least be a competitive game So getting the three points getting the plus money on the money line. I think both those from a process perspective did make a lot of sense yeah, I think so and uh You know, it's it's one of these things like You know, it was kind of like the karson wendt's thing earlier of the year We're saying he's going to go back to nfl average and instead he goes all the way the other way, right? So we were just kind of saying oh, it's going to be a close game, which it wasn't so But at least the number landed on the right side of where the market was and and I do feel I do feel there was a little bit of over-exuberance On kansas city just because of how they played against the buffalo game and a little bit how they they played against cleveland Although that defense is such trash that I don't know how anyone can really right We talked about on the show too. We said there was a mahomes tax effectively In like we talked about that with brady a lot, but I think now It's more so in effect on mahomes and I think we saw that with the the numbers not just with The spread in the money line, but also the total the total was 56 and a half george wanted the over 56 and a half jj wanted under 55 and a half because that was what where it was when we talked and It bounced back and forth between 50 56 and a half and 55 and a half And just finished with 40 points in this game the chiefs again Didn't show up at all But the under was the right way the right play here good call by jj on that one I forget did you mention anything about the total on the thursday show last week? I I mean my numbers out under I I didn't edit So, I mean I would have leaned that way, but clearly didn't have enough faith in it to pull the trigger Yeah, okay, so we had that from the traditional markets from a props perspective George and I were both heavy on lender for net george had him as an anytime touchdown score plus 125 We talked on thursday that number. It's led to plus 165 So I had that I also the over on for nets rushing yards at 48 and a half and To score any time at 165 and then ronald jones under 35 and a half yards The markets did not move in my favor because jones's prop went up for nets went down I think he closed at 46 and a half jones closed at 37 and a half and It also moved against where george got for nets number, but george was correct for net did score He was awesome in the game got the touchdown 89 rushing yards 46 receiving yards So george got his touchdown prop I did not get my same game parley though because jones went over 35 and a half. He had a super long run I had also didn't mention this the show, but I had ceh against uh jones rushing yards for plus money And he got that big run and ceh was down like 30 yards and I was like, uh, jeez This is gonna be a rough one, but then Ceh been at 64 jones at 61 So didn't get the same game parley, but did get the ceh versus jones and did uh, you know If you bet the for net stuff individually that would have gone. Well, but um The chief's inability and I get a lack of interest in stopping the run Something we had talked about on the show I just didn't think the bucks would be good enough to exploit it personally I thought that the for net number wasn't efficient because it worked I didn't think they'd be as good as they were though Right and the bucks weren't good enough on fourth and goal from the one, right, which was a huge play, right? Like I mean if you're watching that game You're thinking that's the play that really gets canza city back in the game and you know, they can cover it and whatever um But yeah later they were able to soften them up a little bit and I think like you know when when you When you look at that canza city run defense over enough plays You know Tampa Bay's got a little bit of theirs and um, Yeah, I mean I I don't think I did mention it on the show But I probably should have mentioned that you know, they're the worst rush defense by adjusted success rate And that's not the first year in a row that they've done that so um Yeah, I mean it's just the way they play It's probably the right move overall and obviously like definitely the great game script didn't help them Right because they're meant to get up and then you know play against the pass where that run defense doesn't matter as much And you know your their best interior lineman chris jones can can rush the passer and and because he would led their team in sex So yeah, I mean everything kind of worked against them. Um, and Tampa Bay was really good Yeah, they certainly were uh other no other props we had we were both on interception props You had that brady would not throw a pick. I think it was plus 132 when we talked I had mahomes to throw a pick. He was plus 150 when I bet it. I think it closes at plus 124 uh and like You can say hey brady had one overturned by penalty, but you can't cheat like yeah, they cheated That's why there's a penalty called so like, you know, you won that bet tom brady did not throw a pick Mahomes did throw two actually so should have bet the alternate market and gotten two there But I'll take my one for sure and I think that it's a good lesson that like just think about the way these games can play Out and you can get plus money either way, you know, that's gonna be interesting for sure Yeah, I think with the brady pick, uh, you know, it went off the receiver's hand So there's some bad luck there to get picked but then you get some good luck In the penalty, which I don't think was the greatest penalty call in the world But you know, I'll take it and then the only thing the only thing I kind of regret about it is like I was looking at mahomes to throw a pick at plus money. I think it was plus 120 Before brady and I never ended up pulling the trigger just thinking my home's never throws picks Right, but he got in a situation where they were down had to come back and and that that led to those interceptions and um, yeah, he was on the run all game, you know, I mean When that happens, that's when you put yourself in position to throw picks when you are Forced to scramble forced to improvise. He's obviously very good in those scenarios But that those are also higher variance plays. We talked about that with uh, dr Dr. Eger about how like that's a high variance play that can lead to negative outcomes. That's what we saw In sunday's game. Yeah, and and you have to give credit to tamp base secondary I mean, they're even early in the game There was a lot of plays where like my home's had a little bit of time to throw But didn't really go downfield with it and I think they played really well They were there and all those scramble kind of scramble plays where my home's like had to make a play downfield They were there. Um, so I mean, I personally felt Todd bowl should have been the MVP They don't they don't really do it. They don't really do it like that, but But yeah, what an incredible plan that they they executed as a former jets fan As someone who retroactively very much appreciates Todd bowls not his like punt decision-making But overall head coaching abilities. I agree Todd bowl should have been MVP of that game He was tremendous But because Aaron had Tom Brady's MVP All gives them some leeway and be okay with it. Yeah from that perspective as well I mean, this is why I really don't like betting on MVP Yeah So, I mean, this was the perfect game where you could have made a case for a number of people Right and it's like, you know, no one is going to be that upset about The fact that uh, Devin white didn't get the MVP because oh no people were very upset Exactly if there's no money on that People aren't going to be upset about that, right? So exactly But anyways, yeah, I I I It's not a not a particular market that I'm I'm I really like Yeah, in new york, you can't bet on the MVP markets. I'm just going to stay in new york The two the two weeks between the super bowl and or the super bowl in the the conference championships next year Lesson learned also chris godwin did not play well. So two lessons learned Chris godwin didn't get thrown to I think he had five yards He got I think he got two targets on the first play and I don't remember I saw rufus had like He profited big time. I will say from chris godwin not doing anything So rufus b body had a very good day because of chris god. Did he talk about that on your show? He talked about that on my show, you know, and rufus is the kind of guy that I can't be like, hey rufus give me a pick Right, you know, I talked around it and he's like, yeah, I like godwin under receptions and under yards and he got that um Yeah, so anyways, I had a great super bowl never I I think like honestly We're gonna talk about fading some of my stuff next next super bowl. Just like we did with jj this year Well probably jj did well here because he had the under so like we can't even like even fading jj didn't work Maybe that means that you won't regress next year either. Maybe that means that we're just good at what you do Yeah, hopefully so so anyways, it was quite good. Um, you know, like the I felt pretty good about my homes under 329 yards In the first quarter when he had like nine passing yards Um, and then everyone that were that was on my show So rufus came on gave godwin under those unders and then I had matt freedman on as well And you know, he came on it was like, uh The the number one rule is to usually bet unders and we talked about the psychology behind that and me, you know He gave out just like jj. He gave out darrow williams under 29 Which hit, um, he had two carries So so the process there was like ceh is coming back darrow williams isn't getting a lot of carries That definitely worked out and then the one over he did give was kelsey Yeah, so like it was an unbelievable week on my show Um and and for me so Subscribe to the football analytics show make sure you do that Make sure we get that out of the way too. So as numbers doing well as bets doing well as guests doing well A good week all around and hopefully it was profitable for you as well as listeners for super bowl 55 Looking forward to having a similar show next year because it was a blast on thursday having a live show On having erin and jj on uh follow jg on twitter at layaround qb erin is at erin k dolin and george charlie is at pff Underscore george We're going to talk daytona 500 here in just one second with dr Nick giffen but first racing season Finally here and there's no better place to bet Than on fendall fendall is offering a special promotion for the big race Place a pre race wager on a driver and even if he loses If he comes to the top five Fendall will refund your bet bet on your favorite racer to win and placing the top five is just a bonus The daytona 500 is sunday february 14th got denny hamlin joe iligano Brad keselowski and sunday is only a few days away So go download the fendall sportsbook app and bet today must be 21 plus and present new jersey pennsylvania illinois west virginia indiana colorado tennessee iowa virginia or michigan refund is usually not on the drop of site credit max refund $50 terms apply gambling problem call 1 800 gambler in west virginia visit 1 800 gambler.net in indiana call 1 800 9 with it in colorado call 1 800 9 5 2 2 4700 in iowa call 1 800 bets off Let's bring on dr. Nick giffen now to preview the daytona 500 get you some uh thoughts on that bet that she won over at Fendall sportsbook again He does content for the action network and fantasy labs and also does the nascar dfs models for fantasy labs Let's get his thoughts here on sunday's race Covering the future Big thank you once again to dr. Nick giffen for swinging by and breaking down the daytona 500 again Follow him on twitter at roto doc and ed i like having these mathy people like dr. Nick giffen Dr. Eric you're on because again like i said i can let you do the heavy lifting with the math stuff Which i'm sure several of our listeners understand but i don't so i'm glad that i have you to ask the smart questions And i can ask the dumber ones i appreciate that well jim i have you to add all that for all the nascar questions Because guess what i don't know much about nascar so coming into this interview is kind of like okay Uh, what race is it okay daytona 500? Got it But then he started talking about random forces like oh That rings the bell so my last non-sports job was at sandia national lab out in california and i looked into You know did a little bit work with some of these Decision trees and and worked with some people that did that type of predictive modeling. So Yeah, it was fun. And you know, I could have spent another 20 minutes asking about what went into that money carlo Method that he was talking about at the end. So, uh, you might have to save that for for an appearance on the football Analytics show. Yeah, I'd recommend nick. He also does football stuff. Um, so it's not just nascar He's uh, very talented dude has a lot of different stuff Dfs focused, uh, but also betting so would recommend for the football analytics show get the longer form discussion out there For nick and I would listen to that as well. Yeah Well, you know anytime anytime you find a phd that can speak that well, you know, you gotta I know, right? And jump it because that's not I we're three for three between you eric and nick. So like I'm good That that like slants my view of phd's So, uh, you're just those are three I mean, yeah in terms of the speaking that that's not that's not how it usually goes Right, but I like it. So, uh, it's definitely been a good experience for me making me smarter So thank you to nick and uh, thank you to you as well for asking the good questions Let's dive into covering the future for this week and add you're taking this week off because You've done a lot of work the past couple of months and we got college basketball Are that what is that your next focus college basketball coming up now that nfl is over? Yeah, definitely Okay, perfect. So we'll get into that in the coming weeks But I did want to get my thoughts and Daytona out there and I'm not going to do a ton of nascar stuff throughout the year now because it didn't last year a lot because there was nothing else going on But it's the Daytona 500. I gotta talk about my stuff here. I'm excited for it for sure. So In addition to nick, I'm also building out some wind sims for nascar using the model that I created two years ago And we talked about here on the show And that means rather than looking at guys with various ratings in my model and seeing how guys in those ranges have done I can actually sim it out And see who shows value and there is some value near the top of the board this week with a couple of penske drivers Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney They're both 12 to 1 at fangirl sportsbook. I know shocker back on Ryan Blaney But my wind sims have Logano winning 10.1 percent of the time It's the highest in the field Blaney is third at 9.8 percent. They're implied odds Based on the odds of fangirl sportsbook are 7.7 percent. So value there Lower in the chain. You heard nick talk about william Byron. He is 20 to 1 But my wind sims actually have him winning 7 percent of the time So 2.24 percentage points of value there for the longer shots The options for me are Christopher bell and Tyler retic. They're both 40 to 1 the wind sims show value in them And that's what the wind sims say and I think that they're all in play But i'm not going to give out five dudes for outrides in the show. That's kind of cheating So i'm going to narrow things down to top two I'm going to go with Joey Logano at the top and Tyler retic as the longer option for the recommendations here Logano almost won at Daytona last year mentioned this with nick. He had taken the lead with two laps to go Got a bad bump draft from behind wounder brecking Didn't win there, but he's a four-time winner on the pack tracks. He has not won at Daytona since 2015 but he is consistently at the front consistently leading laps and That puts you in position to win races and I think that is good for legano the fords Work really well together. So if i'm picking you at the top I will go with legano as my favorite guy relative to Dodds at fangirl sportsbook The reason I like Tyler retic is his track record in the lower series He has three wins on the super speedways between the Xfinity series and the truck series Two of those wins were in Daytona one in the truck series one in the Xfinity series So he's a good proven racer on these tracks That just didn't show up for him During his rookie season, that's a four race sample and I think the odds here are selling him a bit short His teammate austin dillon won here back in 2018 We talked about that too when he wrecked eric amarola Austin dillon 20 to 1 retic is 40 to 1 So we know the equipment can get the job done getting that discount on retic to me is enticing for sure So I think that he is a great option. So my sim c value on legano blaney byron ballon retic So if you like any of those guys, I think that's all them very defensible bets But my official recommendations for covering the future will be joey legano at 12 to 1 Tyler retic at 40 to 1 and I'm sure the listeners are relieved to know that blaney was not an official recommendation Although I did have to mention at least that he was uh, still in there This was uh, the the race we were talking about last night was the bush clash And it was at daytona, but the road course Ryan blaney was leading with uh, like two turns left His best friend is behind him chase elliott and he wrecks him So I thankfully did not bet ryan blaney this time because if I had I think my brain would have exploded so many bad beats with him last year I am glad I was not on that train for once last night Well, that's good. That's good. So when you're thinking about these races, like how many like if you're just looking at overall, uh The market for the winner like how many different bets are you putting in? Like I try to cap it at three. Um, it also depends on what the numbers are because like let's say it's Fontana, they're not racing at fontana this year But that was second race last year if they were going to fontana Uh for the next race it's harder to bet long shots and if I'm going to bet Three guys with odds that you know 20 to 1 or shorter That's not going to net me a big profit even if I'm right So I think that it depends on the track for daytona I'm okay throwing out more because I can bet guys like reddick who are 40 to 1 and feel pretty good about that But like if it's a track where equipment matters a lot and the pool of drivers who can realistically win It's smaller Like I'm just capping myself if I if I decide to go too hard at it Which is why I want to narrow it down to two for the show here today for this year's daytona 500 I have outrides on four guys um That is mostly because I got itchy Not what I'd recommend in practice, but I thought there were good numbers on a couple of guys Uh, so I didn't go up to four But like that is that's more than I realistically want to do interesting and so I mean if you're betting three Guys every race so you're expecting to win depending on the odds obviously, but like you're expecting to Win one of those every few races or something. That's actually yeah, and it depends on the odds like uh because like uh was it I don't remember what race it was last year was legano won in los vegas I had him But he was like I think 10 to 1 at the time like that's why I don't want to go With too many outrides It's not obviously like the the amount you're betting on the outrides does vary as well like I'm okay Putting more down on a favor to win to try to increase the profit of that but It does depend on the track depends on the race depends on The outright numbers of the guys that I'm betting But to me I really do want to cap it to make sure I'm not overextending myself because you can't win Multiple of those bets So I think it's a good question to ask because people may be getting the nascar for the first time But make sure you're not getting too hard in a market where you can't win Multiple ways good question though. I think that's a good way to look at it Yeah for sure Alrighty that is all that we have for today here on covering the spread as mentioned back again next week with another show talking about Maybe some mba these in college basketball. Maybe nhl. Who knows but regardless We'll be back here next week on covering the spread So make sure you are subscribed to covering the spread wherever you get your podcast and again Like I said while you're there leave us a rating and review add What is going on for you this week over at the power rank and the football analytics show? Yeah, not much actually but uh as we head into march madness. Definitely, uh, when you sign up for my free email newsletter The day before the tournament or two days before the tournament. Uh, I'll send you my My cheat sheet that makes it drop that easy to fill out your bracket. These are based on my public point space numbers and um Probably going to put a together video of how well they've done over the last 11 12 years. It's it's It's pretty good. So um, yeah the free newsletter is over at the power rank dot com I'll get my testimonial in there too for uh winning the number fire brackets That is great. Make sure you check it out again. Uh, the power rank dot com and check out ed on twitter at the power rank I am at jim sonnis j i m s a n n e s You can help follow the fan dual podcast network at fan dual podcast if you want more thoughts on nascar We have our daily fantasy podcast the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed We'll have one for the uh duals at daytona Which are thursday night and one for the daytona 500 going up on friday as well on the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed Big thank you to dr. Nick giffin for swinging by and breaking down his thoughts on the daytona 500 Follow nick on twitter at roto doc and check out his work at the action network and fantasy labs Big thank you to calvin thea bald 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 bets for the daytona 500. We'll talk to you once again next week This has been covering the spread right here on the fan dual podcast network