 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 to a podcast network in numberfire.com Where today we are taking a look at some player props for the 2020 NFL season and try to sort through all the noise at training camp with Chris Raybaud at the action network Getting his thoughts on how you sit through all that noise try to find some good prop bets for 2020 My name is Jim Saunas. I am a senior writer and analyst for numberfire.com Joined here as always by Ed Fang you can find his work over at thepowerank.com. Ed NBA playoffs exciting so far They are in full swing and it's been fun. How you doing today? Doing pretty good and enjoying the NBA playoffs had the good fortune of one of the games I call was the the Mavericks Clippers game and Lucas shot and It was funny the markets didn't budge at all after that performance by Dallas and They kind of got obliterated last night. So So goes but you know, hopefully Dallas will win game six and we get a little bit of a game seven excitement Yeah, it's been it's been interesting. Again. I just like I love it hasn't been as much recently But I love having the games on during the day keeps my Twitter timeline exciting Which is always a high priority for me at least so it's definitely been fun But it's still uncertain to you when it comes to college football I want to get a sentiment reading from you. How are we feeling with regards to they're actually being those three conferences playing this fall? Yeah, we'll see when we got some bad news out of the University of Alabama this morning with with all their cases a caseload that You know would be news if it were some other country like New Zealand But you know, I'm kind of looking at what John Shearer is putting up on Fandall sportsbook So he's got he's got title odds for three conferences. So to me that tells me That he thinks they're gonna play he hasn't pulled win totals up for those conferences. Yeah data that I really need but But yeah, I really don't know. I you know kids are coming back on campus Everyone here in our hours freaking out because kids are already coming back and There's pictures of kids not doing the smartest things and that doesn't mean every kid is not doing the smartest things But there's there's certainly examples out there. So Yeah, I think there's a lot of uncertainty I Think the thing for me is that like I know I can get to the start of the NFL season have all my stuff ready And then I can get ready for college football. It's a nice little yeah Yeah, you get the NFL stuff the preseason stuff done and then transition to college I think that they have you in mind Ed when they're doing this. So Grateful to them for doing that They've had the same stuff here in Syracuse where they've had kids, you know doing what 18 year olds are gonna do I mean like it's hard to blame them when they're put in situation That's gonna happen But speaking of Syracuse our guest today is a Syracuse alum Chris Ray Bonn Make sure you find Chris on Twitter at Chris Ray Bonn also an alum of number fire calm He was a writer here for us back in the day has since graduated to some awesome things over at the action network He's one of their co-hosts on the action Network NFL podcast Which won an FS GA award this past year for the best betting podcast He's a senior editor at the action Network and find them on Twitter at Chris Ray Bonn We're gonna talk to Ray Bonn about the 2020 NFL season about talking about player props What we can actually get that's actionable out of training cancer information and the differences between fantasy football and betting So looking forward to having that conversation with Chris in just a bit But first the NBA playoffs are upon us and Fandal has you covered Compete of the Mountain Dew NBA free play from now through September 4th for your chance to win your seat in a virtual event With NBA legends Gary Payton and Ray Allen with each entry You'll also be entered into the king of the mountain three-point bonus for your chance to win a share of $15,000 brought to you by Mountain Dew official sponsor of the NBA for more details visit fandal.com or download the fandal at today Eligibility restrictions applied. This has also been a string of NFL podcast. We've had here on covering the spread We had Orlando Scandrick the former cornerback for the Dallas Cowboys and most recently the Philadelphia Eagles He talked about the impact of no training camp what that does for offenses defenses Which teams may be able to take advantage of that? We talked with whalecapper of course to get his thoughts on the NFL and also Aaron shots of football outsiders To talk about the DVOA projections for this upcoming year, and I'm happy to add Chris into that fold as well So let's get to Chris Ray Bonn again follow him on Twitter at Chris Ray Bonn Covering the present Let's welcome Chris Ray Bonn into covering the spread and back into the airwaves of number fire Chris It's great to borrow your brain once again here for number fire. How you doing today? I'm doing good man. My brain is for you guys. So, you know It's my pleasure It's awesome to have you back a little little reunion here back over on the airwaves with number fire and good timing too Because NFL season is just around the corner, but it's been a weird couple of months So what did you do to kind of fill the void when sports were on hiatus for so long? Different things went, you know, I was watching a lot of movies at first then I kind of switched once Sports started to come back. I was like betting obscure things like UFC in e-sports and now I'm really loving playoff basketball every day I mean, it's kind of cool to have, you know, three four games We were having, you know, three four games a day right in August. It's almost kind of Like I'm so excited about playoff basketball that the NFL season kind of snuck up on me a little bit I mean, I did bet every like spread, you know, five months ago, right for week one But nah, it's kind of sneaking up on me a little bit Did you stick with UFC or any of the e-sports stuff that you picked up or did those kind of go by the wayside once NBA was available? Yeah, those kind of went by the wayside, but I will say this if you know if anyone's out there That's kind of into betting you can follow me in the action network app And I put all my picks in there and each night to track them and you can see them, but I've been betting hockey I've been betting baseball. So I'm kind of well-rounded amongst the four at least, you know The major sports going on now Whatever I see value on I just kind of you know fire up. Yeah, I pulled it up and I was checking out your stuff You got a lot of stuff for NBA today So I appreciate you taking time away from the sweats To talk with us here. Were you always an NBA better or is this kind of a new thing for you? I Started with NFL. I mean, I got into you know, this industry, you know doing NFL But always love the NBA. I actually think the NBA is the I don't want to say easiest because I don't think betting is easy But it's the most predictable sport in terms of you know, the day-to-day or game-to-game variants So it's a lot of fun to bet and the prop bets are really fun, too So love NBA. All right. So you talked about Chris about how work Football season is kind of sneaking up on you. I think that that's true for all of us It's true for me very much. So you look at like Google Trends It's the same thing where fantasy football has been not as searched and that's tough because we have no preseason And preseason gives us a lot of data for for fantasy But also for betting player props and both those things are dependent on news. They're dependent on training camp They're dependent on preseason. We don't have that news right now So what has it been like for you these past couple of weeks trying to get that information when things are so limited right now? I mean, I say the NFL season has been sneaking up on me. Meanwhile, I've had my player projections, you know You know done since like March, but I think that a lot of the time it can be information overload and You really have to I think whether you're betting or playing fantasy, whatever you're doing You have to understand what kind of information is actually going to you're actually going to be able to quantify and incorporate into You know, you're you know, how you're making your bets or how you know what you're gonna do in fantasy because if not You're just kind of jumping from place to put it's like monkey brain You know, you're just jumping from like report to report and you don't know what to do with all this information So for me at this time of year if we're talking about fantasy, I'm just kind of looking for things that could Influence my projections for player usage. You know, I don't really care You know, which guy had like a great day at camp or made all the throws or you know made somebody miss or gave the first team defense problems In less that is going to tangibly impact what I have projected for a player's usage and then forbidding it's kind of I think forbidding the most important thing is just kind of understanding How coaches think and what they You know, how they kind of view their teams and view strategy So I'm just always kind of reading and looking out for things like that because in the season I think the NFL betting market is more or less efficient, you know, there aren't gonna be any major just Bad lines out there. So to really get an edge in betting, you're going to have to kind of understand Coaching which I think, you know, there's been some work done on this But coaching has like a huge impact, but it's really hard to quantify, you know Right after quarterback play in quarterback efficiency. Coaching is really the thing that's going to Decide whether a team wins or loses and how they play. So I'm just kind of understanding not what I think coaches should do but What they think and what the organization thinks who's making the decisions and how this is going to impact What they do because during the season a lot of times it's it's really me, you know Kind of yeah, there's a number in mind in a model and you know some data behind it But whether I'm gonna actually pull the trigger on a bet a lot of times It's gonna come down to those intangible factors that are much harder to quantify like coaching Offensive line as well. So kind of looking out for things like that more than just the you know, whatever the buzz worthy headline of the day is So Chris, I mean you can definitely get a lot of coaching once we're in the season We're not in the season yet. Again, no preseason games What do you try to listen to coaches? Like how do you how do you get stuff from beat writers? Like what where where is your information flow? Now that we're in August. So I love the athletic. I have a subscription shout out to everybody there they do a great job and Just very detailed analysis, you know, usually new articles every day from from the beat writers and I Really like the 53 man roster projections because it kind of gives you an overview of the entire roster and You can kind of you get little tidbits about, you know Not only which players are standing out which players are likely to to play in kind of but you get by you also By relation get you know inside on scheme and again, just think you know Organizational philosophy coaching philosophy and things like that. So just really trying to soak in as much information Is possible rather than, you know, I don't necessarily seek out anything specific But I I tend to start with those 53 man roster projections because it's just giving me an overview And then from there I might have you know questions that come out of that that I say, you know, hey based on what you know I saw here You know, this team might you know run a lot more than I expected or this I didn't realize how much they might struggle with the O-line or something like that and then I'll go, you know from there Just do more research and just Google man. Just every there's so much good content out there And it's very specific between, you know reddit Google The athletic, you know things like that. So I'm just trying to soak in the information that I think is gonna again allow me to uh kind of Adjust a prediction or projection in some type of way that that will uh, that'll give me an edge I remember those 53 man projections were like so key for like pre-season dfs last year like Rest in peace preseason dfs, but like those were amazing for that too So I'd recommend those as well and you mentioned, you know, how you do kind of be selective in What you want to react to when it comes to preseason reports and stuff like that Have there been any nuggets that have come out that have actually inspired you to bet props for the upcoming season? Or have you been trying to hold off as a result of the lack of information? uh, well, so I bet a lot, right? I bet a lot every day and again if you follow me in the app the action app, you know this I'm making a ton of bets on the mba. I'll throw some hockey in there some baseball. So It doesn't make sense for me to kind of tie up a lot of my bankroll in futures bets And also when you kind of related to training camp The props that are posted are generally the star players the You know the most popular players and those guys you're not really learning Anything new about those guys in camp. So, you know, some of the props I haven't bet many but I did bet Ben Roffelsberger for a comeback player of the year a few months ago at I think like four to one I think he's in a really good spot, you know Pittsburgh through the ball the highest rate, you know the year he was Uh, before he got injured. They still have some pretty good talent out there So and they could win a lot of games, you know, and if they kind of challenge a marjaxon For that division, I think Ben will be in that conversation Little bit put it put a little down on a deck press cop to win MVP I think we've kind of seen the the young star quarterbacks of the league have their times and My home's had his and he's still having his as has Lamar But I think that could kind of be the next guy to pop and win that award Especially if Dallas makes that leap they were Pretty unlucky last year if you look at their margin of victory I believe it was around plus five or so and margin of victory, of course for anyone not in the know Is more predictive of future Performance than something like win-loss record something based like that. So I'm Dallas actually was pretty good in that area Better than Philly yet finished eight and eight Philly goes nine and seven and makes the playoff So I think Dallas is is a team that's on a rise Unfortunately, they're also the chalk So like if you're trying to bet the NFC East who's going to win Dallas is 50 50 or something like that like even money or even the slight fave You know minus 110 or something That's just a bad bet because there's no team in a four team division Unless they are just like utterly ridiculously dominant and even then it's going to have you know 50 50 odds To win the division when there's three other teams in there. So like it's like It's kind of the key for betting is like understanding How you're going to actually utilize this information right and a lot of that comes down to What what lines the books are offering so you have to just understand like I always think in probabilities I think that's the biggest thing I learned from kind of diving into betting so much You know along with the fantasy is that you always have to think in probabilities Range of outcomes and then expected value. So, you know, when I see a line like Dallas's You know minus 110 to win the NFC. Some people might see that say that's not bad It's just like you know a spread bet, you know, I think they're the best team I think they're you know, most likely to win it But me I'm like, oh my god, they're they're real odds of winning the NFC east is probably like, you know, 37% That's still weeding the NFC east for me. But you know, it's there's no there's no value there If you're betting for value, you have to bet on the Giants because they're like 10 to 1 And they're just not that big of a spread and the Giants can play the Redskins twice just like the other two teams So, uh, you know, that's kind of how I'm thinking about things So basically you could use a Dak Prescott that is a way to buy low on the Cowboys without betting the team at the the chalk number Absolutely, and that's especially true for someone like me and you know people out there that kind of invest into you know predicting sports in a variety of ways. So, uh, you know In fantasy, we know that The optimal strategy is going to be weight round quarterback And if I am going to waste a bullet On an early round quarterback, it's going to be Patrick Mahomes Like I'm just going to go for the guy that might throw 60 touchdowns this year so The guy who threw 50 touchdowns in his first in career starts number two through 17 I'm not just going to kind of willy-nilly, you know, I can make a good case for anyone of the top six quarterbacks But it's just not the optimal strategy. So I'm going to be selective there. So, yeah Always looking for a way to kind of um, you know Buy in and invest. So that's a great point that you just made Yeah, for sure. Um, my number is a lot of Dak and uh, there's success rate numbers from last year So and I'm not too high on the rest of the vision. So definitely agree with you there, Chris Um, so you come from the DFS world and and a lot of those players are Coming in and betting player props like we just talked about What are some, uh, cautionary tales that you would tell these players when making this transition? The first thing always always always start Looking to bet unders like even if you see it over with good value Realize that the majority of betters that bet on props are Going to be casual betters Likely betting on their like hometown player or a guy that's been hot lately or whatever it may be and just in general the betting public Heavily skews Toward the over so pretty much every prop bet line that a book will set They set expecting people to bet the over so they'll usually make it too high. Um, the the real key though I would say beyond that is understanding Probability just basic probability. Um, for example, you know, you don't have to be like a Stat geek to just understand that if you see a line and they're usually like, you know over 4.5 There's always that 0.5 the hook or whatever Anytime you like let's say you project the player from more than that or his average is more than that There's a difference between the average and the median the median is the 50 percent You know what the you know, what's going to happen 50 percent of the time on each side So if like if you have a player projected for let's say 4.9 Uh Catches or something and his prop is four or four and a half and you say, okay My number's over that. I think it's got a good chance of hitting It's you probably don't because the median of a decimal number like that Usually if it's a low number, it's going to be something called a Poisson distribution But pretty much a good rule of thumb is the median is always going to be down So if a player averages you know Let's say 80 yards a game his median is likely to be 70 or something like that because you know zero is going to be the low end limit limiter but There's no there's not as much of an upper end limit like a guy who averages 80 yard could have a 200 yard game or something That's going to skew the average more than having like a negative two-yard game even will so Just always kind of remember that and um understand what the The juice Uh implies so, you know, I do this so much that I don't need to use like a probability calculator But um, you know, just understand like okay minus 110 It is about 50, uh, you know 52.5 percent or something like that and then minus 125 is about, uh, you know 56 percent and you just your your likelihood of hitting that bet Needs to be higher than the juice that that line implies and you need to have a little cushion too So I'm not just looking for like okay. Well, I think this is going to happen 53 percent of the time and the odds imply it's going to happen 52 percent So it's I'm going to bet it like I usually want A five, you know, or 10 edge at least because there's going to be variance, you know, just random unpredictable variance You're going to need an edge. There's always regression to the mean So to really get value you just need to kind of understand Understand, uh, what the the juice Implies in terms of the probability Yeah, and the player prop discussion too is relevant for like season long props because We see these huge numbers there. It's the same thing But there are so many paths to an under when it comes to those player props And I think that's the way that if you don't have any probabilities You can think paths like what are the paths this person coming up short if there are like 16 paths to them hitting the under on that number should probably bet the under So it's a relevant discussion that you were just having uh, both for season long props But also for single game props. Let's go beyond just player props here chris How are you doing nfl future bets broadly with the uncertainty around this season? It seems like things are kind of stable in the nfl with the the covid testing numbers being after the the false positives being pretty good But still a lot of uncertainty here So have you made any alterations to your future's process to account for that uncertainty or is it pretty similar to past seasons for you? It's I mean, it's obviously a little different But I think you're you're always just looking to spot the the market inefficiencies and yeah, I think that So a big narrative this year and uh, I kind of want to say false narrative or at least something that's unproven Is that you know rookies are going to struggle and you know continuity blah blah blah? But at the end of the day, it's like It's hard to quantify that or prove that that's going to happen You know until it does the last time we had a lockout Or a work stoppage. I should say was 2011 We don't really you're always looking for relevant sample sizes when or you know when you're trying to discern Potential outcomes, right? So there was a work stoppage from mid-march all the way through july in 2011 and people were worried and players weren't even on zooms back then like there was just no interaction between The you know the franchises and their players and so you know, they come back and what ends up happening is Offenses set what were then records for Efficiency across a broad range of categories including you know passing You know yards per attempt and all that so you have to remember to kind of think through these things and don't just kind of lazily accept a narrative as true because People say, you know offences may struggle rookies may struggle, you know quarterbacks this and that but In reality the hardest thing to do is play defense When you're unprepared and so if a rookie for example has talent and fast Like a guy like Henry rugs, you know people kind of don't know what to do with him We're getting the brian Edwards, but it's now like I think Henry rugs is going to go bonkers this year because He's really fast deep fences. I haven't seen any tape not even anything in the preseason You know, we don't they just don't know they're not going to be prepared It's like the same reason in dfs or prop betting If there's a team of the backup corner or or a secondary that's kind of hasn't played together as much You're usually targeting that that secondary. So don't kind of get caught up in one side of things and Um, you know avoid the other so but at the same time, there are certain things where there are certain situations like Seattle I love Seattle. I think Seattle was extremely undervalued in the market and that's a situation where every year We see the same thing russia wilson in it since he was drafted in 2012 They've never had a losing season. They've averaged 10.75 wins per year and They are like plus 250 or something to win the division because you know of all the hype on the 49ers Which you know last year was the year to buy in a 49ers not this year And you know you get you getting pretty good odds for them to to make the playoffs You're getting pretty good odds for their their win total Super Bowl conference everything and they have an extremely good chance of getting there because the floor is so high So you're looking for range of outcomes and you're saying, okay I'm probably going to get a winning season regardless like Seattle had under the radar last season Season last year they won 11 games so It's like just looking for situations like that. Another one is when there are kind of two Favorites in a division or co-favorites and people are kind of discounting the the third team So I think that there's a situation where in the nfc west because everyone, you know now Finally loves the 49ers now. They're overvalued The seahawks are number two. They're a great bet, but there's also some some pretty good value on the ramp You know, they've never had a losing season in shawarma base tenure They're averaging 11 wins per year People are kind of just writing them off, but that's still a team that you know again pretty well coached Even in a bad year last year went nine and seven So, you know, if you're looking for kind of a long shot bet with with good value The the Cardinals are like the trendy pick, but the rams are actually I think the best value They're just a more well-rounded team and then there's the same situation kind of in the nfc north for a little bit of a different reason I think the Packers and Vikings everyone just kind of expects those two teams to be You know at the top but in reality if you look at the numbers and there's a lot of metrics you could use But essentially there's not really as much of a difference between the Packers the Vikings and the Bears as you would think The Packers got extremely lucky last year two and 13 games their their point differential Suggested that they should have been more of a nine and 17 They did not get better in the offseason If anything they got worse there might be a disconnect And this is one of those things that I kind of like to glean from from these reports where you don't even need necessarily Uh preseason or anything like that just kind of understanding green bay that there may be a disconnect between the floor and the the front office and the gm because you know I found out that the the gm and you know Gutenkoest He's doing a lot more in the draft process with his guys They kind of threw before a bone with that uh deguara pick But you know a lot of people are high and got like a j dealing a lot of people were head scratched You know scratching their head about jordan love But then you're like, oh it makes a lot more sense if you think about it from the perspective of the front office Is like hey this this will four guys playing Aaron jones so much that he's going to want too much money He played himself into too big of a contract. We're going to draft this dealing guy Give him might be a host he scratched this year to start the year then you have jordan love They draft him they don't draft the receiver and then Well four is out here saying hey, I want to have rogers to be my quarterback for a long time this and that It's very possible before I wasn't on board with that pixel just kind of understanding That you know, which you know, you say okay Well, the Packers maybe aren't as likely to play certain draft picks or you know Do things that you may think from other decisions that they've made and that you know You could just use that information is just kind of good to know as you progress through the season So things like that Are what I'm looking for but uh, yeah the the really I think the the best values I found are I'm just kind of betting like those second or third place teams in certain divisions and uh I got the seahawks over on their wind total, but generally I'm betting unders on wind totals the Falcons Are a team that I think really didn't get better in it in the off season and You know, they're they Dan Quinn just has struggled especially He struggled to kind of meet expectations He's been really bad versus the spread which is another thing I like to look at For coaches because that just means you're not getting your team to play Up to what's generally a fair expectation of what they should because the market is pretty efficient Um, so Dan Quinn, you know when the falcons are favorites in a lot of spots They aren't very good and then you know, uh, when they're, you know underdogs by like more than three They're they're pretty bad. So like immediately I I jumped on Seattle You know going to Atlanta in week one at like a pick them I think the line has since moved to Seattle being favored, which it should have been the whole time But um things like that can kind of slip through so just understanding that always understanding again What's the 50% most likely outcome because a lot of times the lines will be shifted to what the public The general public is likely to bet because the books are just trying to draw You know either, you know, even action on both sides or action toward what they think is the square side Chris, I like what you said about Seattle and how rustle well since that's a pretty high floor Pretty glad I didn't bet under the wind total last year Even though I wanted to with how bad their defense was You really got to look at the quarterback position Can you apply the same logic to Deshaun Watson and Houston this year? Absolutely. I bet that's another I don't really bet overs Often on any type of prop Really even in on totals outside of certain spots in the NBA because they're just such talented players in the NBA now And um, you can kind of do a lot of things with projecting pace if you understand it in in different situations And like NBA gamescript is a whole another topic that we you know, obviously we don't have time to discuss but such an edge there so um Yeah, I think the Houston Texans their wind total seven and a half and You know, that's the over think And people have to understand that A quarterback and you know your projection based on that quarterback of passing efficiency, which quarterbacks I'm always looking for like um at what point does a sample become useful which means Uh, it stabilizes or it becomes more stable, you know about where more than uh, 50 percent or greater of the You know variation can be explained by what we've seen already. So with quarterbacks by the time you get to 300 400 dropbacks, which is usually in one season of data Uh, we could make predictions about a quarterbacks efficiency. Um, you know, this completion percentage everything but Really interception rate and to some extent touchdown rate But um, you know the like adjusted yards per attempt which incorporates both of those things is actually very predictable early on So um, that is gonna have such an outlying impact on the spread More than any other factor like if you're talking the magnitude of passing efficiency and Like the quarterback essentially versus running game It's you know, it's like 10 times more important and a lot of people don't understand that like, you know The running game is like a fraction of what's you know Determining the final outcome because if you think about it It's you can pick your spots at running like if you if you're a bad running team You could just pass and passing is more efficient and even when you are you know running You're still getting like four or five yards a carry or five yards a carry is considered efficient That's still nothing compared to you know the eight nine ten That you're getting if you're an efficient passing team or or just having an efficient stretch or a game or whatever So, um, you know just kind of understanding what really influences the spread versus all the noise Yeah, absolutely So speaking of spreads you mentioned that you already bet seattle on week number one And you actually had an entire piece up on the action network Detailing the different spreads you bet for week one back in when the the schedule is released So you've been thinking about this for a while. Are there any lingering lines any lingering numbers? You still like uh, see with value with two weeks before the regular season Yeah, so, you know the reason I bet some of those lines earlier because I knew I was gonna bet them anyway and Uh, a lot of times the best value in a line can be right when it comes out, especially More so for favorites, I think but because there's so much uncertainty A lot of times you will find kind of You know some favorites that you you're and again favorites are kind of like overs You should generally be looking to avoid them, but um in certain spots. I think it makes sense But I still like seattle, um, you know as a short fave against Atlanta. That's I think that's clearly Edge seattle in what the the books are essentially projecting is like a toss-up game So so that's the one that really Sticks out the most and I still like the bills at Weston a touchdown against the the jets I know some some money has come in on the jets, but uh, not buying it. Sean McDonough Sean excuse me. Sean McDonough. Sean McDonough Is a a very good coach and I love what he's done in Buffalo. Um, they've consistently exceeded expectations and They play well within You know what they have and they got better at this offseason. They might have finally Kind of unlocked the Best way to use Josh Allen like you're never going to make him a high volume passer But um a lot of things that kind of got blamed on Josh Allen weren't weren't really his fault You know, he's a guy that can can sling it deep and everyone's kind of calling him inaccurate But he was perfectly fine when he was throwing deep to John Brown But he was 3427 throwing to a combination of Cole Beasley Robert Foster Who was a Duke Williams Isaiah McKenzie all those Replacement level guys. Well, bees was a fine receiver. You just shouldn't be targeted 20 yards down the field So, you know, you replaced that with Stefan Diggs who was per pro football focus the number one receiver in terms of deep catches Yards touchdowns last year the most and one of the most efficient as well On low volume mind you like even lower volume than the bills You know had passing lines last year in Minnesota. So That could be a really key piece In you know, he's going to give you added rushing efficiency on the ground. They added a good Player in Zach Moss, um, you know, it's a kind of you know, they're a team that I think the running game matters a little more because They're so good on defense the under It has an amazing hit rate in games that uh, that that that allen has started So buffalos are kind of a really consistent team. Uh, their defense doesn't usually make big mistakes they have you know great play on the back end and uh, they're usually one of my favorite teams to bet Whether it's the under or them to cover a spread that's a little shorter because um, people aren't kind of incorporating You know, when you talk about quarterback efficiency, um rushing is going to play into that to a certain extent And also, you know, the volume so with buffalos because they play a good defense They're not having to to to use a whole lot of past volume and really expose josh allen's Potential deficiencies. Um, they're really consistent at not doing that. So they're usually undervalued. So Buffalo's a team that I love to bet. I think the jets are generally going to be uh, A disaster. I mean you look at like what we've heard out of jets camp adam gates still has an infatuation with players that aren't good Frank gore and chris hogan have a team that Got really lucky down the stretch last season. Um, in terms of winning some games that they really Uh, you know, either the matchup was just so, you know, so easy or you know, they just had no business even winning And they pulled off a couple of made their season look respectable. Um, but this is a team that uh, this is like a 5 and 11 team That's going to go into struggle and I think they're just so kind of Uh ambiguous that people don't really realize how bad they are adam gates kind of a familiar name, but It's likely to be a disaster this year In uh, in the middle lands you're talking about josh allen I remember robert fosters default box score last year was one target zero catches 60 air yards Like every single time and uh, there were a lot of passes that just flew on past and but we I mean You know Stefan did it digs does make a difference. That's that's better And and you know, if you want to think about maybe your skeptical on digs Look at john brown statistics before coming to buffalo He was one of those inefficient receivers in the league his catch rate Uh, for his career hovered around 50 i think he had a few seasons under that. Um, just a guy who you know, wasn't You know catching the ball at a high rate Your quarterbacks weren't really getting the ball to him wasn't able to to be very efficient or productive Consistently and then he comes to Buffalo and has the you know, the most consistent and best year of his career I think um, and most of the numbers back that up so digs could be a major addition and and you know going back to the point on quarterbacks And kind of when things start to become predictive. We now have About, uh, you know 800 or so drop backs on sam darnold. We have a lot of data On sam darnold and he's Below average pretty much across the board in every metric like there's not One metric that sam darnold stands out on and and a quarterback is really just a component of his You know yards per attempt his touchdown rate his Interception rate and his sacrate if you're really thinking about his efficiency, you know and There's just nothing to point to for sam darnold. That's Above average or even average so sam darnold. He might not be like 32nd, but he's like a consistent like, you know 20th to 25th or high teens at best And that's just not good and that's not going to get it done and every team thinks they have a franchise quarterback Um, if he's a guy that like started for more than a season and didn't completely like blow up But like the nfl these days Is so spread out that offenses are just more efficient across the board. Interceptions are way down Uh, but that so that's not necessarily translating You have to kind of think of of it relative and and you know sam darnold is always going to be a guy Or at least he's been a guy to this point that uh, his efficiency is just not there and You know, usually that's the type of team that that you want to bet against Yeah, sam darnold right now is a less exciting james winston, which is not exactly what you want Out of your quarterback. That is chris ray bond Make sure you follow him on twitter at chris ray bond and check out all his work on the action network and in the action network app As well chris, we appreciate you swinging by good to have you back over here at number fire for a couple of minutes Appreciate it as always and good luck this nfl season. Thanks for having me guys. Let's get this money Covering the future Big thank you once again to chris ray bond for swinging by and talking about this upcoming nfl season again follow him on twitter at chris ray bond and check out The action network nfl podcast to the fsga award for best betting podcast or radio show For this past season ed a lot of good stuff from chris, which is not a surprise as mentioned He's a really smart guy, but just so much to dig through there. I thought it was a fun conversation Absolutely a couple things, you know, he talked about how the nba is a little bit more predictable Um, that's true and actually something like i'll talk a little bit about uncovering the future I talked about how interceptions you can't really get that in a in a small sample size and that's also true And also something i'll talk about in covering the future as well Uh, and i also got a chance to talk to about the sean watson in houston And you can probably tell by the way i asked that question which way i'm thinking about that As well i'm not going to talk about that in covering the future, but Probably in a covering the future pretty soon Yeah, I think that's a fascinating team. So yeah lots of good stuff from that conversation really enjoyed it And uh, I mean clearly he thinks in the right way, but yeah Well in how to deal with these bets and and uh, I thought that was great The predictability the nba is also key for other things outside of betting too like from a dfs perspective when you get a sample size of However many possessions it is per game That's a whole heck of a lot more possessions than you have in the nfl And that stabilizes things you have a larger sample size things can stabilize more quickly And having that knowledge of that of that sample size is is just so It's so nice and it helps you make better decisions too So I think that it was pertinent that he brought that up not just for betting Uh, but also for stuff like daily fantasy as well So big thank you once again to chris check out his work at the action network and the action network nfl podcast as well Let's dive into covering the future and ed you mentioned that uh, we there was some overlap Which is nice between what chris was saying and what you have to say chris was talking about how predictions or how Interceptions are not as predictable as other things and just so happens you're doing a little study about exactly that right now Yeah, absolutely. So I don't need to tell anyone who's listening to this that interceptions mean a lot They're big plays If you do a little regression analysis, you can show that every pick is worth about five points uh, or negative five points To the team that throws it so so these these plays obviously have a big way of turning a game But they're actually notoriously difficult to predict So you can think about a quarterbacks interception rate You think about how sticky it is from season to season So you're essentially asking what uh, the correlation between an interception rate last season with an interception rate this season And so you can kind of think of this in terms of a plot, right? So you have um on the y-axis you have this year's interception rate That's what you're trying to predict on the x-axis the horizontal axis you have last year's interception rate And hopefully you you plot those points for all quarterbacks and you get like a relationship. They tend to hug a line um That's not what you get at all with interception rate. Uh, so last year's Interception rate explains about seven percent of the variance in this year's interception rate And essentially what that means is that scatter plot looks like a jackson pollock painting Like there's there's no relationship between the two quantities. And so this is entirely frustrating So I started thinking about this and I was like, okay, well, okay It's not very sticky from season to season But how else can we think about it and I started thinking about like can we separate skill from luck in interceptions? And there's a really nice framework to do that. Uh, michael mo bossy and wrote a book called the success equation And he he did exactly this He asked like, you know, how How much skill is involved in in a particular quantity versus luck and luck like, you know luck There's going to be if if nfl quarterbacks all Um through a thousand passes, right? There's going to be a little spread in their interception rates So the nfl average is about 2.4 percent over the last Uh last six years, right? So you're going to expect to spread and You know, uh, but it shouldn't be that big So when you get someone like james winston who's thrown over 2000 passes And he has an interception rate over this period of 3.5 percent Um, his spread should be within uh 0.3 of the average, right? So it should be somewhere between 2.1 percent and 2.7 percent So when he actually lands at 3.5 percent He's three and a half standard deviations away from where he should be based on his number of pass attempts So on the other side tom brady has a 1.5 percent Interception rate based on the number of pass attempts. He's thrown. He's like four standard deviations better than average Okay, so what you see is that like so this is suggesting like the the distribution of quarterback interception rate It's a lot wider than we would expect just from random and this is how you measure skill, right? Um that x's variance means like, you know, they're skilled with these guys that that in throwing interceptions So When you do the analysis you you actually see that there's a lot of skill in throwing interceptions When you do the analysis, uh, it's 66 skill So it's like two third skill one third luck in throwing interceptions And so to kind of put that in perspective, um, so malvasi and did the same analysis for Teams and leagues. So in the nfl, you know, you play 16 games You're gonna expect a pretty big scatter because that's a small sample size Um, so whatever, you know, whatever, um Spread you get in excess of that is the amount of skill and you actually get the nfl a 62 skill in terms of team winning games When you do the analysis for nba You have a 82 game season You're expecting a much smaller distribution just based on that number of games When you do the skill versus luck analysis, it turns out the nba is 88 skill So with that that's exactly what chris raybaum was talking about Um, it's a little bit easier to predict the nba because there's there's more skill involved And when you see the team like phoenix suns make a pretty good run That's more predictive than you know an nfl team Uh, making the same type of run. So, um So interceptions is is 67 it's it's high skill, but very low predictability And what's interesting is you actually that's the same thing that you see with three-point shooting percentage in the nba It's very high skill 78% like we all know that shooting is a skill But what is always like been really frustrating with three-point shooting is the low predictability It's not very sticky from season to season last season's, uh, three-point shooting percentage explains about 14.5 Of the variance this season So jim, I think you asked me off air a couple weeks ago about how three-point shooting and interceptions are related That's how so you it you know predictability and skill are usually going to be related So something like completion percentage in football It's a skill highly a skill about 86% and it's sticky from season to season Um, but that's not the case and that's usually going to be the case But in some cases you you just don't get that and the interceptions is one So this is the first part about like, you know, and that kind of suggests like we should be able to do better at Predicting interceptions than just taking last year's interception rate and um, that's what I get to into something. I'm calling the pick report it's A study about how to predict interceptions You can do a lot better than that and I'll leave those details for a future week And the pick report will be up on the power rank and on the football analytics show Next week you said next week unless I die. Yeah, it'll be up next week What's the what's the range of outcomes on ed's death like is that like a likely outcome at this point or are we good? No, it's not it's not a good outcome, but uh You know, I mean, it's just it's just kind of stressful putting on the last like the written report is almost done Um, but I definitely wanted to do an audio version two and wanted to put a bunch of figures in there as well because that definitely Explains a lot of things you can put your new your new youtube skills to use there Yeah, the youtube is not the youtube's not happening So it's You're gonna get a report you're gonna get some audio and you're gonna get a data file I was gonna put more work on your plate if that was okay. She should have more work on your plate That's my job here Yeah, so so anyways, that's something um, and yeah, you can always sign up for me The people on my email list, uh, we'll we'll get it first actually members of my site will get it first But um, but yeah sign up for that email list at powerink.com and we'll definitely let you know about it outstanding All right So with my cover in the future for today One to focus on week one because we had chris on today And if he's going to post all of his week one stuff in june, I should probably get to my first week one bet on august 26 Let's do that right now spreads are fun I tend to have more success betting totals than spreads and I think that's especially true for teams that have undergone big changes in the off season And not many teams have had more change than the carolina panthers this year And that's why I like the over in their game with the las vegas raiders Which is currently at 46 and a half. It is minus 115 on the over So do note that a little bit juicy, but I still think the over is the play here There are a couple of aspects on the panthers changes that play well towards an over Especially early on the first one is their offense because they've added joe brady as often as a coordinator And lsu was 25th in the nation in pace last year as far as plays per game go And they were more than willing to air things out And if you read into what joe what joe brady has said so far this year Kind of seems like they want to skew that way in the nfl as well We should expect the same here for this week or for this year Even if teddy bridgewater is not exactly joe burrow relative to his peers at that respective level The defense also I think should make us lean towards higher scoring gains because carolina last year Was 23rd in schedule adjusted offense or defense overall They were 13th against the pass in that night is a lot 13th against the pass is a good thing But they've lost so many contributors on that side of the ball that That doesn't matter and they weren't even that good to begin with their entire draft was defensive players They did not draft a single offensive player and they're probably gonna have to start a lot of those rookies With all the losses they've had They're gonna struggle defensively and the raiders may not be the world's most exciting offense But they were decently efficient last year. They've added peasants on offense to potentially make that offense You know higher upside in a single game perspective so they can score some points I think the panthers are going to be a team where we consistently want to bet the over To open the season. I think that offense should go at a decently fast pace. I think that defense is probably gonna suck So I want to lock in right now my first bet for week number one and go with the over On 46 and a half points for the panthers and the raiders I don't have a great lead on who will win that game But I'd expect there to be a lot of points and I'm excited to see if that one plays out And that'll be a stack for me when it comes to daily fantasy in week number one Ed, what are your expectations for the panthers given all the uncertainty given joe brady going to the nfl Any expectations for them heading into this year? I I certainly like uh getting teddy bridge water as your quarterback I think he he's a guy that's the that's a clear upgrade I'm a little less bullish on joe brady I think he had he had one season at lsu where everything went right and I don't know if that's joe brady or What's his the other joe b Why can't I remember the guy's name joe burrow or joe burrow? Yeah, is that joe burrow the other joe b? Yeah Um But I don't know. I'm not I'm not high on joe burrow. I I I can't see that guy having success this year at Cincinnati. I can't believe they're even going to throw him out there. Um, so Yeah, I don't I don't know from that perspective. I don't know what to think about about carolina I I will note that the the numbers on oakland from last year, you know, their pass offense was fourth in my adjusted Passing success rate their their defense was 29th and past defense by adjusted success rate so that's their look point into some overs And um supporting exactly what you're saying. I wanted to go over. I want those stacks Teddy bridgewater week one in dfs like it could go terribly But it might not that's that's my dfs philosophy. It may go terribly, but it might not what could be more Uh committal than that that is all that we have for this week here on covering the spread Make sure once again you check out chris ray bonds work over at the action network checking out On the action network nfl podcast the award-winning action network nfl podcast and checking out on the action network app As well if you want to follow his bets and follow chris on twitter at chris ray bond Ed what else you got going on this week? Or is it all just a preparation this week for the pick report? Well, there's a ton of prep Um, but I didn't want to mention a shield kappadia from the athletic on my podcast great conversation So he's written 3 000 words on 32 nfl teams Going into the aftermath that sounds that sounds frightening. It's it's a it's a pretty good size novel at 96 000 words Um, so I talked and they're all from an analytics perspective. So a lot of good things a lot of good numbers in there but also does the The whole journal listening where he tells you about all the personnel moves and coaching changes and stuff So so we talked about his process for doing that how he came up with doing it kind of the horror of actually Going through with 32 previews, which which is obviously like an unbelievable Amount of work and also take talking to chris today Like I had a really good conversation with him about the packers and just how misaligned the idea of like, um You know the basically the fact that that matt lefrere Ran a lot when he was an offensive coordinator at tennessee, you know, they drafted dylan. They drafted jordan love So so maybe yeah, maybe maybe they're not high on rogers Um, and you can obviously see that in some of their numbers from last year some of their efficiency numbers, so Obviously rogers is going to be the star this year. There's no doubt about that But how is that going to play out a really good conversation about that? Um, and also some conversations about some trends in the nfl playing more defensive backs Things you notice when you're trying to cover all 32 teams. So that was on the football and analytics show All right, so check that out on the football and analytics show Make sure you're subscribed to ads newsletter two to get the pick report once it is out And I'm sure we'll talk more about that next week as well. I am on twitter at jim sonnis j i m s a n And es you can also follow the fan dual podcast network ad fan dual podcast a lot of dfs stuff going on right now We have mlb nba nhl ufc nascar Dfs podcast all going up right now over on the number fire daily fantasy podcast feed weekly q&a shows on youtube too Uh to get you set for that day's mlb dfs action So make sure you are checking all of that out big. Thank you to calvin thea ball their video producer for the video side of Things here today. Thank you cal as always and thank you to everyone for tuning into covering the spread Good luck with your nfl week one bets as we are getting set for that so nba whatever it may be Hopefully things go in your favor. We'll talk to you again next week This has been covering the spread right here on the fan dual podcast network