 This is covering the spread here are your hosts Jim Saunas and Dr. Ed Fang What is going on everybody? Welcome on in to covering the spread That's right here on the fan dual podcast network and number fire comm as we are getting you set for week nine of NFL May betting perspective joined by dr. Eric eager a pro football focus to get his favorite bets for week number nine My name is Jim Saunas. I am a senior writer and analyst for a number fire dot com joined here As always by Ed Fang you can find his work over at the power Inc.com and find him on Twitter at the power Inc. Ed Happy Halloween to you. How are you doing? I'm doing great excited to talk another NFL and to You know go trick-or-treating in the rain with my boys or maybe snow. Yeah I saw I follow a lot of people who live in Chicago still and I woke up this morning Opened my Twitter and saw snow and I was like, okay, so we're there now. That's great I'm excited for this. We're there. Yeah So do you dress up to go trick-or-treating personally? Yeah, I'm not going to you know, like there's some years that I have I usually like to use Halloween as a chance to do some kind of art. There was one year. I painted a Stormtrooper helmet as a globe, which is pretty awesome. Definitely one of the things I've ever done But you know, it's kind of been a busy year You know, no, thanks to you Jim So so no costume this year, which which is fine. I'll take the mad copo there for sure Are you an art guy generally? Kind of I mean, I feel like like I like to do art just to get my mind away from work You know, it's like it's a good creative outlet. Am I good at it? Probably not But I like to go to art museums, which yeah, it's you know, which is fun for me still trying to drag my kids there, which is which is a battle but I Don't know. I don't know if I'm an art guy. That's that's too much Yeah, I don't think I have the patience like I like looking at art, but I get I I am very Scatterbrained and I don't think I generally have the patience. I appreciate art and enjoy looking at it, but I I'm a little too Like I just can't pay attention I think is what I'm trying to say So definitely not on my alley, but I think that I always appreciate people who appreciate art There's many kinds of art like every one of your daily shots when you're on your that's true and scripting it That's that's the work of art in my mind. So okay, so we all do art. It's just how you view it I'm an artist. So whenever I had to explain my job at parties, which is the weirdest thing to try to explain on the planet Oh, I can never explain it because I'm like you probably don't know what daily fantasy is. So it's like Oh, I don't know how I explain this to you And I just assumed that they will like talk about weird things with me So I try to just say I'm a sports writer and podcaster if you're in like the non-DFS kind of that would work out pretty well Yeah, I usually try the whole data science thing and I might need I mean I really should try the sports writer and podcaster thing But I try to get into like I'm a data scientist that you know makes football predictions I'm a nerdy sits in front of my computer and read spreadsheets all day I think that works out pretty well to speaking of people and spreadsheets and data science We're gonna talk to dr. Eric eager a pro football focus to get his thoughts on week 9 of the NFL You can find Eric's work on PFF green line and also use the host of the PFF forecast podcast You can follow Eric on Twitter at PFF underscore Eric yesterday We ran through week 10 of college football with Ed and we talked about his numbers his adjusted success rate numbers Why they're helpful for betting and for more because I think success rate numbers are pretty widely applicable to find that episode And get our thoughts in week 10 of college football Make sure you find covering the spread and subscribe wherever you get your podcast with the Paffle podcast Spotify stitcher You can find us there and while you're there, please leave a rating and review as well I also forgot we had the world series last night, which is Pretty while were you able to stay up until the end because I get it was it wasn't the shortest game Went pretty fast initially, but it slowed down at the end. Yeah, you know, it was a long day And I was kind of like ash really go to bed. Yeah do some more prep for some stuff But then I thought back to like years when I was a kid and like my parents made me go to bed Yeah, during World Series game seven. I was like screw it man. I'm staying up. I'm rebelling And then make me go to bed. Yeah, no one can make me go to bed I I mean I'd like to because I'm old, but like no Damn it. I'm doing it and then the national score. There's six run. I was like, all right, you know, right? I'm gonna hit the sack I wanted to watch just for Max Scherzer because I have like a folder on my computer dedicated to Max Scherzer gifts Yeah, so you posted some of that. That's so good I have one gift where he is just swearing up a storm on the Mount is he's about to throw a pitch and I have a Subtitled version, which is the NSFF or NSFW version But I also have one like if I'm put posting it in slack at work I can't put that version in there because like there are some bad words in that in that little thing so I have a clean version as well and thankfully Max was He's very nice. Let us add to the the Max Scherzer gift collection last night. I think it's The the the Mount Rushmore of sports gifts is Philip Rivers one. That's not questioned Doc Rivers is probably two. I think Max Scherzer is three and the fourth spot is to be determined Maybe Nick Young. I don't know we can we can figure this out But I think that those three have to be on there. So it was it was a lot of fun. I was rooting for the Nats Just combination various things. Yeah, I still am monitoring the MVP race because we talked about Alex Bregman for MVP Back in like August. He was the one he might get it. I think it should be trout, but But people don't always vote rationally So we might be able to talk about bats uncovering the past in just a bit But first we had to go back to week eight and talk about some NFL bets with dr. Bob Bob stole Covered week eight of the NFL with us. We'll go back through those and then get set for week number nine Covering the past Last week here on covering the spread. We had dr. Bob Bob stole you can find him on Twitter at Dr. Bob sports on to preview week eight of the NFL and one of the games we discussed was Carolina plus five and a half against the 49ers and the 49ers I think just kind of proved that they're pretty legit a really impressive win there for them And they did cover there. He had a lean on the chiefs plus three and a half against the Packers We're gonna talk more about the game with dr. Eric eager as well in his segment because it was a pretty tight game But the Packers did cover there too, but Eric was on The chiefs plus three and a half there also mentioned the bills minus two and a half The Eagles won that game outright bit of a statement game for them and a big victory for them, too So impressive win there for Philadelphia as they covered and both you and dr. Bob had the Chargers plus three and a half And that one worked out and if they would have covered even if the Bears had made their field goal at the end And of course they didn't because it's the Bears But I still feel like I have no grasp on the Chargers, but you did get that one right there Well, I mean like I said last week it's one of those games that you kind of want to throw up in your mouth as you're telling it on the podcast and I forget where I was but I was kind of checking it on my phone and Chicago's coming down they're clearly not going to cover which is right. It's like phew. You know like great But then, you know, I mean I still have like Chicago under nine wins that I sent to my members Yep Before the season started and like, you know, I mean there's a couple wins they have especially that demmer game that they had no right winning Probably should have won this game, but you know, then they blow the field goal So now they're sitting at three and four nine wins is looking further away So and now, you know, they're I think they're at Philly this week pretty big dog so The regression that we that we thought for the Bears is definitely happening and so it was a double win on sunday absolutely and They it's tough when you have an under and on a team like that and you get a cheap win That goes in their favor that makes it It makes things a lot more aggravating. So thankfully things reverted back it was self-inflicted that they lost that game because partially coaching partially trebisky being trebisky which was the thought process behind I'm sure betting the under there. Uh, so good call by you there I wanted the under or sorry the over on jets jaguars the total is 41 and a half and it actually did go down So I did I got negative line movement, but it actually did go over 29 to 15 the final score there So that one did still go over and a lot of it was because injuries to the jets defense injuries to The jaguars defense jets didn't play all that well But it did still go over and the pace was a big part of it too The jets did slow down a bit more in that game, which is disappointing but That one did go over so overs totals going pretty well So far this year we're gonna talk about a couple more totals with dr. Eric eager a pro football focus in just one second But first if you want to get in on the action check out the fandom sports book and place your first bet today If you lose fandom will give you a refund up to 500 dollars in psych credit Visit sportsbook dot fandom dot com for more details terms and conditions apply Must be 21 plus in physically present in new jersey pennsylvania west virginia or andyanna gambling problem call 1 800 gambler Let's bring on dr. Eric eager a pro football focus You can find him on twitter at pff underscore eric will have a couple of dueling phd's on this podcast between ed and eric And eric is of course a data scientist who writes up their weekly nfl picks for pff green line and hosts the pff forecast podcast Let's break down number nine week number nine of the nfl with dr. Eric eager covering the present Let's bring dr. Eric eager into covering the spread talking a little bit nfl this time We had eric on to talk college football last time Of course, eric is a data scientist at pro football focus You can find his work on the pff forecast podcast and also on pff green line eric happy halloween. How you doing today? I'm doing really well. I getting to work the second half of the day from home So you can't complain about that. No, absolutely. Do you have any big plans for halloween tonight? Uh, I normally go where they send me uh as far as my my two daughters and my wife, uh, so i'm very much the uh Supplementary complimentary player tonight. Is it raining raining down there? It has been raining most of the day, uh, but it has stopped. So we'll see how that goes So our rain out here in an arbor is supposed to turn into snow, which i'm very excited about And I yeah This is not, you know, jim knows this but you know, this is not minnesota So we don't we don't get snow this time until probably probably uh, thanksgivings the next holiday Well, we'll probably have snow. Yep. I remember last year we kept track of the snow days we had here in syracuse And we had I think like 60 days with snow And there were like 11 in november and november is tomorrow. So I am already Prepared for it in minnesota. It was like cold enough where like it wouldn't snow all that often Which was weird, but in syracuse the snow is literally every day That's like weird to explain to people that it's too cold of snow sometimes, but like yeah, it's funny It's very weird. Uh, do you have like a halloween costume you wear when you're going around with your kids? No, and in fact like You know, my parents stopped letting me go to halloween when I was in like sixth grade So I really wasn't a halloween person. However, my first year of graduate school One of my good friends went is colt mccoy And I went as a head coach and we went as the difference between the vikings and a super bowl So that was like the one the one time I did a halloween costume You know since uh, you know very young Oh my goodness, that's did you go to grad school in nebraska? I did but like I was the you know the resident vikings fan there at the time And uh, he ran him and I the joke was always the vikings were a head coach in a quarterback away And so we figured out we'd make that into a costume I was gonna say uh colt mccoy Dressed as her dressing as colt mccoy and lincoln might be kind of dangerous Well, there was that one play where he threw the ball out of bounds in the big 12 Back when they were the big 12 And there was the one second that they gave back to the longhorns and it ended up being the the death now And I don't think the brass was really ever recovered No And like again, we talked about the four in the podcast people and lincoln are the nicest humans in the planet But colt mccoy might get them to change that so definitely uh, testing the waters there for sure Eric let's dive in here and talk a little bit about pff green line and we talked about it from a college perspective last time But when you look at the the pro side Every team has an elo rating and that is listed in the page on pff green line And i'm not asking you to like devolve like state secrets here But like what are some of the key factors that go into Developing that elo rating. Yeah, I mean the elo algorithm is pretty public. I mean we use kind of a A version of what 538 does which is basically the scores of the game Adjusted for what was expected in the game Whether the game was played a neutral sider or in a home stadium And then sort of like what the margin of victory means and then you update the elo rating in such a way that the teams Come out with basically An average of zero change every week The the thing that's different about us is we go through and we change what we think the score of the game is Going to be and I know that you know folks You know folks in the betting space do this all the time with game grades and everything and we just simply use the pff grades to do that so For example, if you have a game where One team just outperforms the other our grades for their pass protection our grades for their coverage our grades for their quarterback play Are just substantially more than the than the uh than the team on the other side They're probably going to win the game by a margin bigger than what the actual score the game was And then conversely there are going to be some games where a team's elo rating is going to go down even though They won because they were outplayed by the other team. Um, you know, this is a sunday We have a game in london I remember a season ago when the titans lost to the chargers in london We actually graded the the titans as a better team that day than the than the chargers So actually their elo rating went up and the chargers went down for that one So that's just an example and and you know, it's basically just us taking Historical data and saying okay a team that grades this way generally scores this many points A team that grades that that way generally you'll score that many points and then what whether that ends up being And and that's sort of worked for us so far Yeah, that's awesome So eric last time you were on the show you were telling us about the pff grades and and you kind of blew my mind with The things that you're telling me about dwayne haskins I kind of thought of them as a great quarterback Very productive in the college level and you were kind of like no no no no It's kind of the the types of passes that he threw in college They tended to be easy passes these wheel routes these these crossing routes And we've seen that it's been difficult for him to get off the bench in in washington a team That's not exactly like in the world on fire I also wanted to ask you what did the pff grade say about daniel jones At duke and and now that he's going to the new york giants Yeah, and in most of the ways in which we evaluated the situation We liked haskins more than jones But with all the reservations that were accorded to haskins It was you know the the issue with jones is it's always hard to answer the entanglement problem when A quarterback does not play with any nfl caliber players The opportunity space for him is smaller than when somebody like haskins I mean we look at terry mclauren right now. He's one of the best rookie receivers in the nfl If not the best and he wasn't necessarily even the most highly regarded person that haskins was throwing to last year So that that's the tricky part But yeah, we liked jones last season was our 21st graded quarterback in terms of passing grade Whereas haskins was 11th Haskins was graded right below garter minshew right below brett rippin right below ryan finley Three guys who will probably be starting relatively soon And then uh, obviously trevor lorenz's fifth to otago value of fourth and somebody who was also struggled at the nfl level At least in the preseason will greer was third for us and then murray was first so You know, we we did certainly not give him the a plus grade for those tap passes that ended up being touchdowns Some of the yards after the catch that they were getting on the crossers to guys like paris cambell were not upgraded But but some of the stuff that daniel jones was doing was that was significantly getting downgraded And so we ended up with a lower grade on jones than haskins But both guys we were not necessarily, you know pounding the table for to be top 10 picks Yeah, that's fascinating. And i'm looking at some of duke's numbers You know, my argument against him was always, you know, he didn't get it done at the college football level Duke's offense and adjusted yards per play was very near fbs average in the 60s. Well, duke's offense is 109th right now Yes, so You know, maybe maybe he had, you know, maybe there was a lot of things that he was doing well That should have been appreciated Yeah, and that being said though, he at the nfl level has not been terrible Like he obviously looks like he can survive, but he's producing a lot of turnover worthy plays He's he's being negatively graded quite a bit on a lot of his throws So while I think he looks like a young quarterback should look it's not like he's lighting the world on fire But also the same thing can be said. I mean kyler murray looks like an nfl quarterback, but he's not necessarily You know playing as well as baker mayfield did in the last stretch of the season last year Or a guy like the shan watson did during his first seven games. So Um Whereas haskins when he's played as so far looked like he doesn't belong in the nfl So it's just a really interesting I think for all of these players and ed you had uh kevin coal and your podcast this week It's sort of one of those where we say, okay, where was the guy drafted? Let's add some uncertainty to it and then as the time space evolves Let's see how this goes and I think for every single one of these guys It's a wait and see and we may get to see drew lock as well at some point Drew lock another pretty polarizing guy. So what we've got you here You don't need to like I don't want to put you on the spot Because we did not prepare you to talk about drew lock But we'll probably see him probably within the next three or four weeks sounds like the plan is starting to be active in week 11 What did pff have to say about drew lock coming out? He graded 12th. So he's right behind haskins The the issue with lock is really what at the core of some of the modeling decisions You have to make when projecting college to pro because haskins you have no choice You have one season's worth of play and that's basically what you have to build off of With lock which you have is four years of play two of which were bad Like legitimately bad quarterback play at the at the college level And then the last two were increasingly better to the point where I would say drew lock was a decent college quarterback last season All things told but do you disregard like do you do you disregard what lock did in those three years? What do you do for the? The counterfactual with haskins if you would have played over jt barrett would he have you've done as poorly or as well as lock? So, you know, I know football outsiders qb base just ignore seasons I believe with a with a below a certain threshold in terms of yards per play. I believe Whereas, you know, we I think Would take into account way, you know weigh those seasons Somewhat in our projection model. It's just a really interesting question So for me, I don't I didn't like lock as a first round pick just because of his accuracy issues Even last season in his good year. He completed less than 63 of his passes Despite having, you know playing in the sec and all that kind of stuff But, you know, I where he was picked. I thought it was a good pick because you know a second round picks in the nfl Especially there was their second of two You know, they're they're much more of the, you know, let's shoot for the shoot for the high variance there And so at that position, I hate I didn't like to pick at all Yeah, I didn't I didn't hate to pick at all. Sorry. Yeah, and it's kind of like in my mind It's kind of like getting josh allen at 40 picks later basically because he's athletic Got a big arm. He might suck, but he might not So I thought I thought that it was interesting where he was taken as well And and you right and you can do a lot So like I take like dalton reiser was picked right ahead of drew lock And dalton reiser at his best is probably going to generate during the course of his career If he's a very good guard for denver probably a win above replacement And as bad as andy dalton has been at times for the bangles He was worth about half a win above replacement this season And so like just the quarterback position just being there and being a player that plays You generate a ton of value, right? And so with a pick in that in that part of the draft They could have done a lot worse than drew lock So eric, you just have to go get kevin coal to do his basing analysis on college quarterbacks Giving your guys his grades and then your prior can be the the recruiting rankings. So we'll get him on that, right? That's right. That's right. We could start with like high school stats even if we want to Well, you guys got a grade. I mean you guys got a grade the high school. So I don't know if you guys are at that level Eric also wanted to ask you about um the qb situation in kansas city Pat mahomes is injured. He may play this week. He may not we had matt more last week who who looked pretty good. Um How does your system account for that when you're looking at that in green line? Uh, so when I when I saw this question I put well, we had kansas city plus four. So obviously not good enough but You know, I think anybody that watched that game would know that like, you know, that probably plus four was a fair price I would say um for that game. Um, but the way that it was constructed was really interesting So we had Mahomes last season as about a 3.7 wins above replacement player, which is the highest in the nfl And so if you translate that into points per game Over replacement quarterback, he would be worth about eight points against the spread and that's exactly what we saw We saw that game open about three and a half four Uh on a look ahead all the way to five is where it closed And so that's right in the ballpark there. The interesting thing though was that matt more was not a replacement level quarterback On Sunday, you know, and and at his best, uh, you know, 2011 miami dolphins He was worth about 1.5 wins above replacement in a in a stint in in the stead of another chief's back of quarterback chat any And alex smith during his worst years in kansas city was roughly that number And so if you think about okay, what's the coach's influence on a quarterback? That might be what more could be worth for the chiefs if he were to be able to play for an extended amount of time In which case the he should be, you know, worth about maybe two and a half points And the downgrade from the homes to more should be more like five and a half points And that was really, you know, that wasn't necessarily our calculus going in I mean, we don't explicitly put how many points a quarterback's worth when we fold in this stuff into our model But that's what it ended up shaking out as we had we our number on kansas He was more like two and a half on sunday night and that's why we, you know Thought kansas city plus four was a good play didn't end up working out But it was still sort of I think process wise made a lot of sense Yeah, we had dr. Bob on last week and he also said kansas city It was plus three and a half at the time and he liked that number too because he thought that the look ahead line It is kind of over corrected for that and a lot of it was based on the system and that andy reed runs Giving us a different map more than what we saw in miami and it sounds like you were along the same line of thought there Yeah, we we do a coaching metric and you know Andy reed is traditionally our highest graded coach on a play-for-play basis So he just gets more what we do is we take the grades and we say okay How many expected points should this play have netted and then how many do they get and you know You aggregate that over the course of a season you throw out You know a noisy type of plays and andy reed always seems to be out on top The issue with reed has always been clock management and determining when to kick or or not kick on fourth down Which is really what what was his? You know death nail on sunday night, but on a play-for-play basis. It didn't surprise me that the chiefs were effective offensively I mean honestly the the difference in the game was that shady mccoy still holds the ball like a loaf of bread in between the tackles so Well, and that was the what killed the chiefs against the packers Well, and they couldn't tackle erin jones on a pretty simple screen route so Well, and one of the things that we'll probably talk about when we talk about the packers game is What was what's been most impressive about green bay has been their ability to script plays So the first 15 plays of the game. They're one of the most efficient teams the nfl What was awesome to see about the floor as a head coach was Kansas City had figured out their offense in the second quarter And they made a secondary adjustment to target the chiefs linebackers, which is really an impressive thing You know in the second half and they really just I mean it was something like 11 for 11 for 180 yards throwing on those three linebackers So it was really a great adjustment by the rookie head coach So before we move into texan's jags Do you have any thoughts on vikings chiefs two teams? You know a lot about obviously Do you have you don't have to give a pick here? But just an overall thought in that game right now the vikings are favored by two and a half We won't hold you to this just curious for your thoughts given how much you know about the two teams For me, I think it's vikings or nothing Just because the vikings offensively offer a lot of the same things that the packers do They have a dynamic running back who can catch the ball at the backfield Um, you know, even the packers frankly didn't have their best receiver on sunday night football And still were able to to throw effectively the vikings might not have their most effective receiver on sunday But they will have stefan digs Even if they're without feeling so I think on that side of the ball the vikings will probably have some success And the vikings defense I think is still a better unit than than green bays And his historically done really well against non-elite quarterbacks under mike zimmer. So It's really hard. I think, you know, there's always a chance of mohomes plays And frankly, we thought that he there was a non-trivial chance he would have played last week And one of the reasons we picked the game So Mostly for me if map more plays, I think you lay you lay the points of minnesota if if mohomes plays As kind of injured it'd be it'd be interesting to see where the line ends up ends up going Probably more towards a pickum even to can't see minus one or so All right, let's move on here to the texans at the jaguars. This game is uh, one of the ones you mentioned over london Texans are one point favorites here. The total is down to 46 and we've got a pretty good sample on gardener minchew Now as a jaguar's quarterback keeping with the rookie quarterback trend here What's been your read on minchew through those first day games? Minchew has been the most valuable rookie in the nfl this year according to war, which is Cool, he's a quarterback. So he's only going to be going up against a few other quarterbacks But he's generated more value than kyler murray, which is kind of cool You know in terms of you know, you almost always you almost always need to be a first-round pick to have value at the quarterback position However, I think weirdly he's still being I think he's still being overvalued right now And so when they played in week two jacks, we like jacksonville plus nine enclosed at plus seven seven and a half um So on a neutral field, that's about four and a half Um, I people think that jacksonville has this huge home field advantage in london It's really only been about a point over the course of that that history so The game's about three in that regard if you don't adjust minchew for the last, you know, two months or so But i'm going to argue that I think deshaun watson's a far better has moved in the in a direction more speedily than uh Then minchew has and here's the reason I think the first two weeks of the season And last season deshaun watson was the most pressured quarterback in the nfl And and we know that pressure rate is is hugely dependent upon who the quarterback is Since week two he's only been the 22nd highest pressured quarterback in the nfl and since week five. It's more like 27 28 So whatever's happening in that offense Deshaun watson is fundamentally protecting himself to a point where I think it's elevated his play and From a clean pocket. He's suffered 12 drops this year from his receivers So I think like in a weird way the undervalued quarterback of this game is deshaun watson How did that happen? Right. I you know and the the texans do this weird thing where they don't cover the spread against oakland They struggle to win against indianapolis You know, they uh, they they lost to carol and but at the same time if you look at how watson's playing I mean they he's making like superstars out of players like darin fells, right? I mean Kenny stills has been injured for part of the time will fuller's been injured part of the time Deandre hopkins is having like more drops than last season and they're still getting the job done offensively Their defense is a little bit rough, but I think the weather plays into this Uh, men's shoes, you know been a little bit limited with a shoulder injury this week. So For my money, I like use I like houston here. I just think from a numbers play. It makes a lot of sense So let's talk more about the shown watson because I think that While we have you here it's smart to utilize your knowledge of quarterbacks And I think it was the atlanta game his time to throw dipped like half a second in a week And it was very weird to see do you think that is a schematic change on the texans part? Is that just shown watson just being more mindful of the hurries? He's Welcoming in or is that sustainable or how are you viewing that for right now? I think it's all the all the above, but I do think it's one of those things where he is he's very He's he's altering the way he's playing the game And you see it in some of the underlying things is completion percentage is near 70 percent this year He's less high variance You know, his negatively graded throw rate is still relatively high for a player of his caliber but Is down from a season ago You know one of the things that I think has really been awesome about him is he's I believe our Highest second highest graded running quarterback behind Dak Prescott and we're talking more about scramble. So lemar jackson's up there, but not He's so much of a more designed player But what that all what that does so well for the texans offense It don't have a great offensive line and yet carlos hide who every team seemed to want to release The last few years is effective, right? I mean And what I think what what leads to that is how effective watson can be As a runner as a designed runner they he has to be accounted for in the box And that is opened up holes for carlos hide Which has led to things like either, you know avoiding throw down all together or giving them really manageable throw downs And we've been on We've been against the shan watson betting betting on him You know in every game except for last season when they played jackson bill And I'm telling you what the the thing that I hate the most and we were on the falcons in that game You were talking about the thing I hate the most is third down with the shan watson in the ball You know, he's just he demoralizes you as a defense for all the things you can do Escape ability. I mean he got kicked in the face and threw a touchdown pass last week And he's just there's so many things about him that make him otherworldly that You know when it comes to a game like this, I think to myself. Yeah, there's a lot of injuries on houston side There's also a lot of injuries on jackson bill's side To me, it's just you you lay a point with with the shan watson and and you you forget it You know and the fun fun thing about this game is it's standalone. So you get to watch him anyway, but like um To me that this is the the matchup where I think for once he's undervalued Excellent. Let's move on to packers or chargers. Uh packers are a three-point favorite here. The total is at 47 Uh, erin rogers has been has been good this year and the chargers defense Um, you know the pass defense has just been dreadful What are you seeing in this game? yeah, this is a great. This is a great one because It's one of those where I think the market is really caught up to where numbers based folks like us would be So for example, the total is 47 now. It's 48. I think that's probably a fair number um The spread is weird because it's really hard to pin down In a game like this where a team like the packers much like the stealers are going to travel a lot of fans So it they could even have a home field advantage in this game um So one of the places we looked and on our podcast the pfa forecast this morning We talked about is sort of an an undervalued place to look for For totals, which is first half team totals. Um, I post a graphic every week of how teams do In scripted plays first 15 plays and as I talked about earlier the packers Generate almost I believe it's like two-thirds of an expected play in the passing game In their first 15 plays of games Which is an enormous amount the league average is about a tenth of a point on a passing play um And they pass the ball more than every team in scripted plays except for kansas city And turn that over to the other side of the ball the chargers are giving up Point four expected points per early per early game passing play So to me if i'm looking to bet this game there's one place i'm looking to bet and it's packers over 13 Team total first half There's just so much there to me In terms of like, you know the match up there You're not betting a first quarter because you're worried about the coin flip and all that kind of stuff But you give the packers three or four possessions in the first half of that game And I think they get two touchdowns against this chargers defense Any thoughts on uh, you know chargers uh fired their offensive coordinator can whiz and haunt Is that factor into your analysis in any way or do you need to wait and see I think it speeds it up a little bit. I think um, you know the chargers this last season Were one of those teams were they were extremely efficient, but they were also slow So they their games played under a lot more than than a team with that like sort of quarterback and skill position player talent would would imply I think that they've continued to be slow But they're less efficient this year One of the things that they you know with a new offensive coordinator that they probably should do if they're self scouting at all Is try to pick up the tempo a little bit and and use the fact if you have philip rivers on his last year I'd rather him throw 40 passes than 30 passes, especially with a run game with melvin gordon that clearly isn't working Um, they I think they they should probably speed it up in which case, you know, I like I said I think the first the first half total is also probably something I bet over although It's moved from 22 and a half to 23 and a half Uh throughout the week Yeah, and with mike palancy out the ground game is probably not going to get a lot better So it makes sense to be a bit more past happy there Let's move on to the sunday night marquee game between the patriots and the ravens I am beyond excited to watch this game We get lemar jackson against bill bella check and the patriots defense has been truly elite thus far But I would say at least to me. This is the best offense they've played I think that given how good the patriots have been their schedule doesn't matter all that much Like they'd be good against anyone at this point, but Can they keep up that dominance against a very good and a very unique offense? You bring the uniqueness is the huge thing right if you look at like the tendencies that the ravens have they run 11 personnel less than a lot of teams, right? They're bigger than a lot of teams offensively, but they face a loaded box less than most teams So somehow they have these teams in a position where they don't get to just stack the box against lemar jackson Because they know he can burn them with a big play but at the same time like the they The the ravens still get to block with a bunch of tight ends up front and still be efficient in the run game It's it's a pretty awesome offense And one of the cool things is, you know, we talk about the difference between passing efficiency And rushing efficiency But one of the real things that passing has for it is like you don't have to go through the line of scrimmage Right and going through the line of scrimmage causes, you know Players to be players to be hit it causes, you know, everybody to need to make a solid block You know this, you know from your offensive lineman analysis It's just easier to pass block than it is to run block because, you know Success to the fifth power is a lot lower than success to the first power, right? So But lemar jackson turns all that math on its head lemar jackson on on design runs averages more yards before contact Before he's touched then then I believe half of the teams in the nfl Average per carry alone So he just that offense just You know and you think about that like the first time lemar jackson is touched You can sort of think of them as air yards in the passing game Like it is his runs are a lot like passes in their efficiency And so that's going to be really hard for the patriots to catch up with The thing that I like about new england, however Is they use defensive backs liberally enough where they're not going to be in a situation where Adding a spy to their defense is going to be super prohibitive to them They play run defense with a lot of defensive backs They play pass defense with a lot of defensive backs And so for me for my money I think what they're going to they're going to have the best chance of any team to stop this ravens offense Now whether they do or not is another story If you're looking on the other side of the ball though The the the ravens, I think people are overvaluing their defense right now Just because they've given up so much in the front seven in free agency an injury That um, you know the the pats might just the pats might turn james white into like, uh, you know The second coming of marshal falk or Thurman thomas on sunday night, uh and and not face so much resistance Interesting and the thing with lamar jackson like from an expected points perspective a lamar jackson rush Whether it's a scramble or a design rush. I think is worth like It's like 0.5 or 0.6 expected points Which is like more than a pat mahomes drop back, which is like Kind of nuts and like it just changes the equation so much It's yeah and quarterback running stuff because There's this observation issue like a quarterback run as a sack until it's not, you know So there's there's some you know right skewiness there But but the design runs aren't the design runs are legitimately runs and you're right They are they're worth a substantial amount of expected points and The thing that we have to be cautious with the baltimore is that they haven't their schedule is also I mean They're a juju smith shuster fumble and overtime away from being in second place in that division to pittsburgh without A starting quarterback. So, you know, they're they've been impressive But there's been some things that have buoyed them a little bit, you know, namely getting to play the bangles The cardinals the dolphins right like we're all in this We're all in this role right now of trying to decide which teams are legitimate and we apply a lot of like Corrections to teams like the niners and the patriots and we sometimes stop Don't forget to stop and look at the ravens who are extremely impressive But have also had their fair share of luck too I mean that that came in seattle If if russia wilson doesn't throw a pick six to marcus peters while they're ahead by seven That game might be a drastically different than than what it ended up being. So I'm really interested to see because again the cool thing about the afc Is that the ravens the the chiefs? And the houston all have to play new england and and they probably also have to root for new england to get the Two seed themselves right and and a team like kansas city has already lost to houston and indianapolis and beaten baltimore So there's all these like head-to-head matchups that are really going to matter once it come playoff time for who's going to get that Two seed Yeah, do you have a lean on this game or is it just an efficient line to you? Uh, I think I would lay three with new england. Um, just for the reasons I said I think new england's being undervalued because of the schedule I think the ravens are not being necessarily as properly valued because of the schedule I think by weeks and and granted this might go out the window for well coach teams like the ravens who are very well coach But by weeks tend to elicit more rust sometimes and they do rest Uh, and so that might be an issue. Uh, and then for me, it's all about okay You look at the you look at the mismatches here julian edelman is viewed as a slot player But he has actually played almost as many, uh snaps on the outside this season is has in the slot He's far less redundant with mohammed sinew as people think and then You know the patriots basically played the first month of the season without a tight end Benjamin watson has been pretty effective since he joined the team Again week six or seven so That and in addition to their front seven for the ravens being really weak I think that the patriots will get their fair share of opportunities here And so as long as they cannot be the absolute disaster against lemar jackson, I think they cover this All right, any other bets you see you like on the board for week number nine eric Um Well, so like let's just start with tonight. I think tonight's game is going to be a little bit more high scoring than people think I depending upon where you look 42 and a half 43 You know, uh, san francisco, arizona Um, and then I think another one that's sort of sneaky During during the the sunday games is seattle tampa bay. I think that game goes under uh, seattle is For one seattle wants to run the football tampa bay has been one of the best If not the best run defenses in the nfl sort of behind the scenes this season Um, seattle's played a lot of games under because they get ahead and they end up running the football and sort of You know let the game sort of clock away and then I think tampa bay is really going to after Basically 11 turnovers in the last two games We're really going to want to run the football and keep the ball out of james winston's hands so much And so I think that game plays under More than than people realize with two, you know, one really good quarterback and one high variance quarterback I think it's going to scare too many people away And we if if the seahawks were rationally coached they would throw the ball against tampa bay But assumption of rational coaching is especially not relevant With the with the way that they've run their offense. So I think that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, for sure. Yep All right, eric I want to thank you for swinging by here once again and talking a little nfl and we threw a lot of weird Stuff at you there. So I appreciate you being a nimble on your toes talking some quarterbacks and all that I appreciate it have fun on halloween. And hopefully we'll talk to you again soon You guys do a lot of fun to hang on chat ball. Absolutely. Thank you Covering the future All right one final thank you goes to dr. Eric You're for swinging by and breaking down the week nine of the nfl follow eric on twitter at pff underscore eric And and the thing that I like about eric is that we can throw in curveballs and ask him about a random Array of quarterbacks and he just knows off the top of his head how they grade it on a pro football focus So, uh, it's fun to talk football with him. You know, he knows his stuff And uh, I think that it's it's really fun to have guests like that on all time. Yeah, absolutely. I love talking to eric I mean, uh, I was lucky enough. He came up to an over for for michigan game And we we spent a couple hours just chatting. Yeah football embedding Over some beers, uh, which was great. Yeah So, uh, just you know, really fortunate to have him in the football analytics world and not professoring like he was before Uh, so so it's it's a benefit for all of us Absolutely We are all winners for eric's knowledge again follow him on twitter at pff underscore eric We'll take a look at covering the future in just one second But ed and I always preach searching for the best value embedding on games Look no further than the new odds comparison our engineers have developed over at number fire dot com Odds fire is a premier odds comparison experience across major bookmakers in the regulated us market Compare odds quickly identify the best value and even examine first party fan dual data all in one place Never settle always get the best odds check out the experience for free now on number fire or at odds fire dot com gambling problem Call 1 800 gambler. Let's dive in now to covering the future and ed you want to talk about that patriots and ravens game I am obsessed with this game. I want to watch every second of this game What is your lean on this one here between the paths and the ravens? Well, I mean if it's a patriot's game, you should always lean towards the patriots, right? I mean That's as a rule of thumb. Sure. Yeah. Yeah as a rule. I mean, I think they covered I don't know 53 ish percent of the time Yeah, um, and you know, it's it's always good when the patriots kind of have a A bad stretch. Yeah, because then you're actually getting value on it Um, you know where your numbers are kind of when the markets start to doubt them You know and brady's getting old and whatnot, but you know, I actually had them With with good Super Bowl odds before the start of the playoff last year, which I sent out to some of my Which I sent out to my members and you know, it was lucky to have that work out But anyways, you know, the Patriots are 8 no Halfway through the season and they look pretty invincible and you know, they're They're blowing out teams, you know, only the Buffalo game has been within one score And you don't have to look too hard to find out, you know, why the past defense has been amazing The only thing bad you can say is that they're second and my justice success rate behind san francisco Um, so definitely an elite unit and when you go on pff And look at the grades like the cornerbacks the fond Gilmore jonathan jones jason mccordy are all grading out so high So the they have their own no fly zone there And and that's a unit that's really going to propel them But there's some things that i'm kind of watching for with this new england team to see if there's any chinks in the armor And the first one's kind of obvious. They're plus 17 in turnover margin That is unsustainable. You expect them to be maybe a little bit better than average just because they're winning games and You know when teams are down tend to throw more and the interception rate gets higher But you're not gonna you're not going to continue to be plus 17 over a stretch of eight games And you know, this really manifests like turnovers really manifest when you look at the the final margin of victory And so when I first got into this business, I started doing team rankings that take margin of victory and adjust for shrink the schedule I still find that to be a powerful predictor That metric says that the patriots are 15 points better than an average nfl team That's too much The other thing that i'm really looking at is the pass offense So when I look at success rate on passing plays, they're 15th, which is you know, not particularly good They actually get downgraded to 19th when I make schedule adjustments They haven't faced the best slate of past defenses only pittsburgh and cleveland rank in the top half of the nfl When you look at who they faced so again the the benefits of The schedule adjustments that I make for success rate And i'm not trying to say that that that tom brady is off his game or getting old But there are some interesting comparisons between this year and previous years So you can look at eight dot, which is average depth of target. So how uh, how ball in the ball is in the air and His it his a dot is 7.2 yards this year. Well, which is 23rd in the nfl. It's lower than it was last year Which was almost eight yards of air yards So, you know is is is part of it like his completion rates about the same But you know part of it might be that he's just not throwing his deep. There's no grok this year Josh Gordon's been out And then, you know a pff grade of 81 is very good But it's also the lowest that they've had for him since since 2013 as well. So Definitely things i'm looking for the turnover margin what their pass offense does Clearly this team can still win a super bowl just on their Being carried by their defense like their defense is is that good But we'll see if there are any chinks in the armor my number is like New england by 3.8 points, which actually suggests to lean on new england Like I said at the beginning you should always lean towards new england And it's going to be a fantastic game. And so you're saying more so a long term You want to see how they hold up As we get further into the season Yeah, for sure. I mean I I you know The road is definitely going to get tougher when my home comes back from Kansas City There's some interesting hurdles in the afc and You know, I mean, I think you always lean towards belly check and brady, but Just it was an interesting exercise to see what what was going on with this team and yeah Number fires numbers are also a bit skeptical of the passing offense. I would say David Andrews their center has been out their left tackle. Isaiah win is on IR Sounds like he may be one of the guys designated to return But they've had injuries on the offensive line and those aren't going to magically fix Andrews is out for the year their center So I think that there are some questions around the offense They're they're dev james devlin. They're they're full back too. I don't know how much an impact that makes but They've had some issues and those haven't shown up because they haven't faced great defense Now like Eric said the ravens aren't great and that's why your numbers probably still lean towards the patriots But eventually they're going to face good defenses and I want to see what the patriots do there So I think uh They'll definitely be a team to watch and sunday may tell us but the ravens defense isn't that much of a test either As far as mine goes I want to talk about the lions plus two against the raiders because We look at this game Derek Carr's been pretty good this year actually and I think that they should move the ball on the lions But the raiders we were talking about center injuries with the patriots the raiders will also play without their center Rodney Hudson this week Hudson grades out as being pro football focuses third best center overall this year and the second best guy in pass protection and when you break down the the Nuts and bolts inside Derek Carr's success this year a lot of his success has been because he has avoided sacks He should still be pretty good there because their left tackle colton miller has been much better this year than he was last year Trent browns on the right side, so he should still be okay there But if he takes a step back in the sack department, it could have a negative impact on this team's offensive efficiency as a whole Detroit has had its issues against the pass this year But they're still 13th against the pass based on number fires rankings Darius sleigh probably healthier now. So not a bad defense And they should get a bump with Hudson being out on the other side of the ball The raiders are 29th against the pass this year. They have been just gutted by Deshaun Watson and Aaron Rodgers the past two weeks And yeah, Deshaun Watson and Aaron Rodgers are really good quarterbacks But Matthew Stafford has been a really good quarterback this year too He has 7th in per drop back efficiency based on number fires metrics And he's actually one spot ahead of Aaron Rodgers in that department for the full season He is throwing the ball deep a ton. You were talking about the adod for tom brady Matthew Stafford has gone the exact opposite direction this year He is chucking it deep and it's working out really well when you have guys like Marvin Jones and Kenny Galladay on the receiving end Now the lions do go outdoors here So that efficiency could take a step back, but I still think they're going to move the ball very well here I think the lions money line is in play at plus 116 if you want to go that route But I also like the spread here lions plus two 72% of the bets and 64% of the money are on the lions according to odds fire So this line should hold pretty steady, but I'd be inclined to go grab that one now Regardless just to be safe. So I like the lions plus two here Ed. What do your numbers say about this game? Yeah, I mean my my My numbers like it as well. I mean they have Oakland winning by 1.3 points. So definitely Suggest the lines on the side. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned the adod of Stafford He's third in the NFL over 10 yards of air yards on average for every time he throws the ball All this information is now on pro football Pro football reference. Yeah. So all the sports reference sites Now have that And great resource and that's what I that's where I was looking up the adod stats for tom bray And that's something that bob stole talked about last week too was factoring air yards in and Deep passes are more efficient Matthew Stafford throwing deep more often It should not be a surprise that this offense has been more efficient So I was down in the lions entering the year their offense has Made me feel a lot better about them. So I want the lions plus two here against the raiders Ed anything else you want to address here before a close-up shot for the week? Yeah, I kind of got a funny story. So so last night my my wife She had to go get her nails done and there was some family drama My boys were like, oh, we want to go and I was like, well crap. I got nothing to do. So The four of us ended up walking into this nail salon and you know We tried to sit down next to her but that didn't work and so so my boys are like Well, we'll just go sit in the corner and watch a show But the place smelled so awful that the three of us could not like help but like holding our noses in there So we sit in there for two minutes and then we're like, sorry, honey. We're gone Like I don't know how women do it like I know they got to get the nails done and this is great But like I'm seriously like worried about my wife's health Yeah, like going and doing this um, it just Yeah, it was it was kind of toxic. So that's a lot of toxins to be inhaling and it's not like you go in for five minutes When you get your nails done, it's an hour. Yeah Like I don't think you want to sniff chemicals broadly Uh, maybe you do. I don't I don't want to speak for other people but like I don't think you want to sniff chemicals for five minutes much less an hour and I would be frightened. I I can't personally like do like manicures and pedicures because if people touch my feet I will kick them accidentally like not on purpose I am just very ticklish and it would not go very well So I keep myself Out of that for the safety of others Because I just I don't think I could do that with my feet Well, and even if I wanted to get my nails done like I'm not sitting in there for an hour, man Right. So you have like, uh Like even a nose plug doesn't work because you're still inhaling it. You just don't smell it like you're still inhaling the toxins Exactly. So is your wife acting a little weird today now? Or is she good? Well, she does this she does this like every other week right regular thing for her But I don't know it's kind of like yeah That's the problem is I look at my toes and I know I could use it Like I know I could use it deep down inside. I'm like I could use some pampering down there Uh, but I can't do it just I don't want to kick people in the face trying to avoid that You're trying to cut that out of my life. So, uh, I think that's a valid concern We'll have to look deeper into that Anything else popping for you the rest of the week over at the power rank or on the football analytics show Yeah, I mean you can always get my newsletter at the power rank, but actually I should really plug The guy's over at man versus model. It's a podcast Uh does some college football betting and they had me on the show this week We did it last night and it was super fun. I think it was a really good show These guys really put a lot of effort into preparing like jim son is levels of preparation into their rundown and what they're going to say Um, and you know, it's lighthearted and there's a lot of joking around and I don't know I actually actually even divulge why I was mad at bill connelly Um, which I actually haven't even told bill although I doubt it's it's not like you couldn't figure it out But it was just a fun conversation Uh, we talked about dr. Eric eager as well and and Keppel and and so, uh, it's man versus model Uh, it's not out right now, but it should be out by the time this podcast is out. Um Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Okay, interesting and uh What what is the the concept of the show? It's an interesting title Yeah, so it's it's it's this kind of battle royale between man versus, uh, uh model So william was one of the hosts he he has his own model and he he talks about that on the show And some of the other guys come from more traditional betting perspective and um, Yeah, that's that's the premise and they had me on as a guest. It was super fun Interesting. I have to check that out just to hear the bill connelly story because I'm very You can find all of ed's work over at the power rank.com You can follow him on twitter at the power rank and find his other podcast the football analytics show Wherever you get your podcasts. I am at jim sonnis on twitter j i m S a n n e s we put up our d f s week nine preview podcast with myself brandy gudula A gudula earlier today you can check that out by searching for the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed And you can also follow the fan dual podcast network at fan dual podcast big Thank you to calvin thea ball for keeping us on the air from a video perspective here today Thank you always as cal for doing that and thank you to everyone for tuning in for this week's episodes of covering the spread Again week 10 college football went up talking with ed about his adjusted success rate numbers You can find that by searching for covering the spread wherever you get your podcast and leaving a rating interview while you are there Good luck with your bets in week 10 and week 9 and we'll talk to you again next week This has been covering the spread right here on the fan dual podcast network