In this episode host Sheldon Alexander and betting analyst Matt Russell celebrate an epic first week of picks, explain why you shouldn't overreact in week 2, a massive upset rocks the NCAA and finish with picks for both football games on Thursday Night.
In this episode host Sheldon Alexander and betting analyst Matt Russell celebrate an epic first week of picks, explain why you shouldn't overreact in week 2, a massive upset rocks the NCAA and finish with picks for both football games on Thursday Night.
Welcome to the DRF sports betting podcast brought to you by DRF sports. America's most trusted name in horse racing is now providing sports bettors with exclusive data analytics previews videos and expert picks on all major sports. That smarter and have more fun doing it. It's the DRF sports betting podcast. And now your host, Sheldon Alexander, ready, set.
Sheldon:This is the DRF sports podcast episode three, make sure you like and subscribe and follow wherever you get your podcast. As always, I'm your host, Sheldon Alexander. And a reminder we do this twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays talking football and of course gambling. As mentioned, this is week three of a brand new project for DRF sports, if you're not familiar with us daily racing form has been around for literally over 100 years, giving you all the information data and analysis for your horse racing needs. But now we're taking over the sports betting world as well check out the website DRF comm slash sports right now. And if you haven't signed up yet for a free DRF sports account, you can do sell again DRF comm slash sports to get the latest odds exclusive trends, projected winners betting insights and the 100 page 2021 football betting guide. You'll also receive free digital newsletters delivered to your inbox every Friday and Sunday. If you miss this past Sunday's edition, then you missed a trifecta of powerful betting angles that included a pair of underdogs winning outright. The Steelers victory in Buffalo and the saints trouncing the Packers also highlighted was an angle on the Rams ahead of their 20 point blowout of the bears on Sunday night. Essentially, if you haven't signed up, you're missing out. And no one wants to do that. Right. So make sure that you sign up right now. But for now, you've at least done one thing correct. As you've tuned back into this podcast where we've just been handing out winners. Week One of the NFL included a whole bunch of winners, including the Raiders plus four on Monday night and what a game that was what a week it was, as I finished 11 and five to start this season. But there was someone who had a way better week than that. So I had to invite him back on the pod so we can chop it up again. Of course his name is Matt Russell, and we're going to discuss what we learned from week one in the NFL recap a massive upset in the NCAA makes a mid week Thursday Night Football picks All that and more with Matt Russell of the score. And he joins me right now. Well, well well, I asked him to join us this week and part of me was actually surprised that he said yes, because I thought he might have taken all his winnings from week one and just ran away. What a week of picks for this guy. I know he helped me a lot on an 11 and five week and I still didn't listen as much as I should have last week but either way I'm pleased to welcome Mr. Matt Russell of the score back to the podcast my dude How you doing?
Matt:Man? If the audio back here is a little sketchy it's because construction work has started on the Gold doubloon silo that we're going to build out back after week one you know I got to work on my backstroke, breaststroke, etc etc here you know as as I'm gonna be swimming in gold doubloons The bad news is we set this bar Hey, like we talked last week about setting a bar for these football teams. We went and did some stupid we set the bar mega high when it came to this podcast and the pics basically winning everything last week and so now you know if we just have a small winning week or something like that, we're gonna look like a couple idiots and God forbid we actually have a losing week which by the way, everybody it happens right? That's the name of the game now hopefully we don't go Oh, when nine to match like the nine and oh, that we went last week. You know, so hopefully we tamper that down from a losing standpoint. But everybody let's just remain calm. Nobody freak out out there. Right. We're you know, we had a nice first week, a lot of cases depending on how you played things. You probably kind of paid for the rest of the season with some of these bets. But yeah, like what an absolutely ridiculous week one, five and oh, in Vegas contest. We hit the Carolina Panthers survivor pick, which is a little out on the limb. And a lot of people would say like, you know, yeah, but San Francisco la like those teams won as well. But if you took Carolina and survivor, you've got yourself a nice little path here. Not using one of those top two teams that I think looked pretty good on Sunday. I mean, as he said, what a time to be alive for sure. And I'm pretty sure I was looking. I was kind of squinting as I was watching the game last night because I wasn't sure if it was you or not in part of that end zone club they got there in Vegas as they opened up the first game with fans.
Sheldon:Ever in Vegas, which was just absolutely incredible, but I want to let you brag a little bit and talk that talk and you know, this little thing I've heard about a round robin money line parlay, can you break a little bit of that down for us? Yeah, that's getting a lot of traction. And and who knew again, speaking of speaking of keeping the bar high, you know, first and foremost got to talk about last night, the Raiders game, you know, insane for the second straight week or the secretary podcast, you and I are peeling ourselves off the ceiling, you know, it peeled ourselves out of bed in the morning to get this podcast because that game is so outrageous. And listen, I wish I was sitting next to bug pre game having some of that jumbo shrimp that those guys were working on, like loving that. The round robin parlay. So basically how this works is, you know, it's sort of a lottery ticket of NFL betting, right? You go, Okay, we're going to make a bunch of bets on Sunday. I imagine people listening this probably have like double digit bets on Sunday. And so the round robin parlay is you take five teams, moneyline underdogs, and you parlay them in groups of three. So it ends up being 10 different combinations. And you can do one, that is the entire five, you know, five team parlay, and you'll want to split one unit, right, so essentially 1.1 units the same way that you would in a minus 110 spread bet so that if you lose, right, maybe only 200 dogs win, maybe zero 100 dogs mate doesn't really matter. But you need at least three for it to be profitable, you'll often get, you know, double your money, maybe a little bit more than that. But if for when it starts connecting all of the legs together, and if five when everything wins, and you start construction on a gold doubloon silo. And so that's what happened this past week. And so a lot of people got excited about that. So, you know, obviously I write about that every Wednesday over the score. And so you can check that out. But, you know, it's never gonna be that good again. So yeah, we were able to turn around some of your picks from last week, we've turned those from losers into winners. I imagine we'll probably do the opposite at some point this season. But again, week one, just hoping for the best but yeah, we've got Monday night staying positive here. We're saying positive. Yeah, positive vibes only got Yeah, we don't really, we don't really work that way in the betting industry, right. It's like all negative. It's like, if you lost one game, you're like, I can't believe you know, I'm still like rattled about the dalvin cook fumble, because I had a small bet on the Vikings. And I'm like he was dead on it's like, You did great man. Like you can hand some back. And in the case of a dalvin, cook fumble. That's just, that's just the way we treat things here in the betting world. That's just the way things go and what we're gonna plan to do every single Tuesday, we'll take a quick look back at certain games to see what we learned about certain teams. So we have to start with the Monday night and as we said, crazy game rollercoaster ride. Raiders were plus four. And that was the play that we were on. But for the first time with fans, I can't believe how insane that scene was. And just the ride of emotions that must have been, let's try to frame it this way. How much? Are we upgrading the Raiders? Are we downgrading the Ravens after that game? Like how do you kind of view that? Yeah, so the funny thing is about having a really successful week one is it usually means that you had teams rated pretty appropriately, right? Like if you found value. For instance, we talked last week about the chargers and like I liked the Chargers more than most people, I don't like Washington as much as most people. And so just fundamentally, that had to be a bet for me, even as I'm watching the line move up and it'd become a popular pick in this in the contest in Vegas. I'm like, I have my ratings. My ratings are my ratings. And so the thing with the Raiders and the Ravens is we were right, right, like these teams are closer than people think you know, and a part of that because of the Ravens injuries and that sort of thing right there. You know, Derek Carr was able to finally start moving the ball and connecting with some of these receivers, in part because the Ravens are missing two corners, I believe. And so when I look back, and I go, I can't really bump the Raiders up that much, because I watched that first half. And like Derek Carr stressing me out, right? And so I go into like, Okay, I'm not gonna really bump them up that much. And I'm also not going to knock down the Ravens, because I thought that was gonna be a tricky spot for the Ravens. So I'm not going to make a big adjustment because again, room, you know, we have to remember, it's one game here. So I'm not going to make too much of an adjustment on either of those teams, because I think we were pretty correct in just thinking that that game was going to be really close. And if you think that game is going to be really close, you just take as many points as you can get and listen, things got crazy and overtime. And like Doomsday guy over here is going the Ravens are going to somehow score a touchdown in overtime to cover like this is gonna be the worst, right? Like, that's just that's just life that we've chosen here. So yeah, I'm not I'm not gonna make that much of an adjustment off of one game. And like, there's going to be teams that I make adjustments off of one game, but I'm going to try to limit that as much as I possibly can because it's just one game. Yeah, and that's the thing to you look at a game like that where the spread is four points. And I always try to look at things as Okay, well, it's more than a field goal. And I think those teams are just way closer than you know, be
Matt:Unable to lay that many points. So, at the end of the game, when you're seeing fumbles, you're seeing interceptions go off like receivers hands off helmets into the air, you're seeing the play clock run down, almost like icing their kicker, but they have no timeouts. So it's a penalty, just like what is happening. Right? And that's where I fall into the normal trap of you're listening to last week's pod. It's like, just take the points.
Sheldon:But our theme, right has always been like, it's Plinko. Right? Like Plinko. It's musical chairs. That's our favorite one from from way back in the day, if you will, right. It's Plinko. Like at some point, like the you know, with the puck is just kind of bouncing, bouncing, bouncing and eventually it's gonna stop in some slot right? And just happen to stop in Raiders by six. Like, there's a bunch of different ways that could have been Raiders by three, there's a bunch of different ways that could have been ravens by three. And of course, there's a bunch of different ways that could have been rated Raiders by six. But you know, you look at it, you go, okay, like threes a win on either side for us, right? And so obviously, is Raiders by six. And so if we're going to get those three options, we're fine. Leaving that 1/4 option. You know, obviously, once we get to overtime, or certainly late in the game once it got tied, especially the first time, right. And so yeah, like take and this isn't again, general rule type thing, right. But if this game is going to be close, yeah, the rate there, ravens might actually win the game by seven. But you know, that's going to be in the minority relative to some of these other options. So we rather be on rather be on the majority side of things when it comes to win probabilities. And in terms of sticking with that theme, as we move on to some of the other big games of the week, we were able to sniff out the Steelers upset like outright upset against the bills as six and a half point underdogs as they come out with a 23 to 16 win. And we were we were kind of all over that. That wasn't one of them that you needed to talk me into. I was right there with you behind the mike Tomlin train. And I remember us talking about how Tomlin definitely would have been on these guys the whole offseason. You know, you guys are six and a half point dogs, and that defense was ready. But when you look at both of these teams, what did you kind of learn who or how much are you bigging up the Steelers? Or maybe looking at the bills? Or are you getting worried? Or is that too much to overreact to after week one? I think it's I think it's again, that's another one that it's just just too much to overreact to right. And I know like Steelers fans are gonna be like, what we won, like, you know, not gonna lose any credit. But again, part of it is I was already giving you credit like that's what the money is for. Right? Like that's what the bedding is for. We talked about six and a half points is too many. And I listen, if that game was lined at, you know, bills minus two and a half, guess who would have lost that game? I would have because I would have been on the bills, right? Like, there isn't a ton of there's no magic to it, right? Especially when you have a week like this, maybe there's a little magic in the air when you have a weak like we had in week one. But like there's no magic to it, right? If we think it's four points, and the line six and a half, like we're going to take the Steelers and that's going to mean that the money lines a little bit more valuable up at the plus 200 type of range. And these are just bets that you have to make and hope for the best now did we expect you know it was like breaking down tunt you know, blocking
Matt:film and going like Yep, Steelers are gonna find some vulnerabilities here like no, like, that's just kind of the football stuff that happens man random bleep happens in football all the time. And we were able to take advantage of that. What I take away from the Steelers is like Benny boy, like, not great. Bob like it was just it was a rough scene for Ben for a really really long time. Now again, the takeaway from the bills is they let the Steelers just you know hanging around hanging around right? Like they just let them linger for as long as possible. And eventually Roethlisberger made a couple of completions they got the lead and then they got you know, all throw, I'll say the word fluke, right? The fluke play on the punt block. And now all of a sudden like we're in great shape for the money line, right? Does that mean I'm looking to fade the Steelers like in every game going forward? You know, we just talked about the Raiders right? The Raiders have to peel themselves up. You know, speaking of the ceiling, they've now got to go to Pittsburgh next week. It's like Yeah, do it do I feel like six is a little much when I don't trust Pittsburgh offense whatsoever. Kinda but like I don't know how the Raiders get back up to this game. So you know like I'm just I'm just not looking like okay, we need to upgrade the Steelers it's like I actually kinda would almost downgrade them so I'm just gonna leave them where I have them Same thing with the bills right like we saw a full season on a Josh Allen I'm like I'm not going to downgrade them off of one bad game. But and I'm little worried right little worried about like some inaccuracies there. with Alan. So yeah, no changes as far as those things are concerned. It's just one game, especially when we're talking pump blocks, which almost never happened in the NFL. You know, you can't overreact. I got you. I got you. One thing that
Sheldon:You're gonna have to hold me back here a little from overreacting to but you ever so perfectly hunted down the saints, upsetting the Packers. I was I think my quote was Packers Packers Aaron Rodgers Packers close quote and you were like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second here.
Matt:The Packers as four point favorites, right? end up getting dummied 38 to three.
Sheldon:Wow. like can we really not look at that game and kind of be a little worried about Aaron Rodgers and the Packers going forward?
Matt:Yeah, but again, right like, you know, we were on that we were on that stoop right we were all in that we were here you hear Yang right old timey, you know, style here.
Sheldon:Again, 38 to three, like, was I finding an offline minus 34 and a half? No, right. Like he didn't think he was going to be a blowout, right? Just had it, you know, just felt like this was too many points. And I felt like this on a neutral saints Packers, you know, based on what I know about these teams felt like a pickup game to me. Right. And so that's why it was the red light special shout out TLC. It was the red light special, because it's like, you know what we're getting plus 170 on a thing that I think is a pickup. Now, if we played that game again, tomorrow, you know, you're not favoring the saints by 35 points. You're not favoring the saints by 10 points. You're probably not even favoring the saints in the market. Right. But it's not going to be for on a readjustment right? It's probably going to be closer to pick them and so like yeah, we'll take the victory lap not necessarily because the saints won the game but because that we were probably right beating the market to what that game should be now that we've seen those two teams play and so yeah, like everything that we talked about, you know, we went long right you just want to like a minute on this game. I stopped I drag this podcast to a halt on Friday by going like five or six minutes maybe more on this game because it's like the saints are gonna be able to run the ball check. The Saints defense is gonna be able to get to Aaron Rodgers because he's not comfortable behind that offensive line. And he has known that since he requested you know, his walking papers out of town. And you know, those two things right there he throw in jamis at a system or you know, he doesn't have to risk it we talked about the no risk no biscuit with Tampa Bay, like risk gets in his motto. And so like yeah, James doesn't have to risk anything. Sean Payton's giving him easy throws easy plays. You know, he's got five touchdown passes. But it's like little taps to Alvin Kamara. Right? It's like he's not exactly, slinging it into double coverage here. And like, the offensive line, top five offensive line, it's giving him time to drop back and pass and find the wide open guy that Sean Payton has schemed up. So to me again, like it's more about coaching. There's a lot of guys, you know, that we get all excited about from a planning standpoint, because they're the athletes, they're making outstanding plays. But fundamentally, and it's trickier to do because you have to, you know, track offensive coordinators and defensive coordinators, right. But listen, you know, I hopefully you checked out the Manning broadcast in the game last night, but what that like, sort of, it's awesome. And, you know, certainly for the first three quarters, fourth quarter, I'm like, Alex, it's winning time here. Let's get some play by play. But like the first the first three quarters, you're watching them talk and they're pointing out the defenses. And you think like, there are so many defenses, right, just like from a, you know, game planning standpoint. And, you know, the coaches are the ones moving these chess pieces around. So like, yeah, okay, this guy's out, or this guy's playing well, or this guy's whatever. But it's like, the coaches are making this decision as a cover three is a cover zero, like when they went to blitz when not to blitz, you know, and so you just go, okay, like, we have to give some of these coaches as much as we get frustrated with them from a timeouts and challenging and all of these sorts of the dumb stuff that they do and not to go for it. And it's like, Yeah, but from a game planning stuff, right? Like these are the guys who are making the difference. And so Sean Payton right now is making jameis Winston just a serviceable quarterback with a pretty big arm, right? Who can test the deep ball but doesn't have to the way that Bruce Arians asked him to do when he was over there. So does that mean we're buying the saints every single week the rest of the way? Absolutely not. But right it's just the point is is like these are the things that will give you an edge over other betters and other you know, the marketplace who come in and just say and you know, not just call you out, but like, you know, who will just say Aaron Rodgers Aaron Rodgers, Aaron Rodgers, but it's like, you know, like, if that were the case, they'd be 16 and oh, against the spread, right. And they're just not going to be so. Yeah, that was you know, we have to take our victory lap from that one because that was sort of the big focus from last week. For the record I'm absolutely not offended at all by said comment, I am okay with that. I am totally confident and okay with my place and my role representing the people. The average fan here so I'm okay money helps to write winning the bats helps to for sure. But hey, we're trying to learn we're all here trying to learn just get more information.
Matt:help those bets be better week in, week out. And speaking of bets, we're super lucky. And this is one of the lessons, I will say that I've learned over the years from this man, Mr. Matt Russell in terms of getting in on lines early on in the week, because we're talking about my San Francisco 40, Niners. Early on in the week, seven and a half. By the time the game rolls around, that was up to eight and a half, nine. And if you saw how that game played out, there's a little thing called Bad beats. And that might be one of the like, worst, most insane beats I've ever seen as the lions almost came back in one that game. Like what? What's the lesson here? Like talk to people about what the lesson here in watching that game play out? Even though it was complete insanity that you can't predict. But still line value, right? Yeah, yeah. shopping, right, though. And the margins of which, you know, we're dealing with here when it comes to sports better, right? Like, maybe you had an okay, Sunday, right? And you're four and four, or, you know, you bet nine games, you're five and four, you're four and five. But depending on when you've made your purchase on that game, you've either you know, that's either one in the wind column, or one in the last column. Now for me, you know, I came in late, I'm like, okay, I saw a Detroit plus 10. At like minus 116. I'm like, we're capturing a key number, we're only paying a couple extra bucks. Right isn't available, like one sports book. So I made a small bet. On Detroit, right? Not remotely. I don't think we even talked about this game on Friday, not remotely a game that I necessarily want to be on. But once I got to 10, I'm like, okay, like we're making this bet, like just kind of out of obligation, right. But if you make the minus seven and a half that you had all summer to make, which, you know, I probably should have bet the minus seven and a half at some point over the summer. I'm obviously just sort of, you know, wary, especially of that hook. If it had touched minus seven, I certainly would have bet on San Francisco. And so yeah, like, first and foremost, just an absolutely atrocious beat, like it was one that was an absolute bonus for me again, a game that like I didn't even really care that much about because I'm sweating, the Steelers money line, and the Eagles money line, the Cardinals money line, all the stuff that we talked about on Friday, and so like great bonus for me. But yeah, shopping, getting your price in now. Right. And I know that up, let's put it this way. There's a faction of you know, the betting internet, the betting twitterverse. Right, that thinks they invented sports betting. And, you know, if they'll tell you that if you're making bets on Sunday, like you're too late, right? Like you're, you know, you're an idiot for betting on Sunday, because all the value is gone, because we were all betting it on Monday. And it's like, to a degree, that's true, right? But if the lines are going to move to the point, where when probability starts to pick up in the case of the Detroit Lions, you know, again, they got smoked, right? From an app, you know, you're sitting there halfway through the fourth quarter, and you're like, minus 10, minus whatever, like, wouldn't shouldn't have mattered, right? But this is the NFL, right? Everything magnetically gravitates back to zero, right? It gravitates back to it, because San Francisco doesn't care about covering the spread. This isn't college, now you're starting to seep in, you know, the betting scene. And these coaches are like, what's the line 34 and a half, like, let's score a touchdown with 30 seconds to go when we're up by four touchdowns. doesn't work that way in the NFL, right? Like they are just happy to win a game doesn't matter whether it's against the lions, or against the Texans, you know, speaking of the game that we talked about, and still like, fundamentally, it's like, yeah, okay, if you missed out on minus seven and a half, you're sitting there at minus eight and a half or minus nine going like, well, what are the odds? it lands on eight? But if it does, right, like that changes your record, there's only 200 and you know, what, 80 games in the season now? And so at the end of the year, let's say you bet on half of those, you know, 140 games, you know the difference between going 71 and 69 or 70 and 70 is already you know, built into whether or not you won on that game if you bet that game right and so there wasn't a ton of games that came down to the point spread in that way. A lot of them like last night's game could have certainly gone either way from a point spread standpoint, but when we're talking about physically line shopping, and that game landing on eight like yeah, that was the worst beat of the week if you were on San Francisco late or if you're on Detroit early I don't know why you would ever be on Detroit early knowing that that number was kind of the only way it was gonna go before the gay yeah was go up to eight or eight and a half right so um, you know, but again like if you come in late and you get it the best of the number that week in this case Detroit plus Tanner, obviously even plus nine and a half ended up working out. That's going to benefit you in the long term. So again, price shop, you know, pick your side find out whether or not you think that line is going to move that's part of the name of the game right? Is this line going to go up gonna go down and am I getting the best of the number on Monday or can I wait till Sunday at 1258 to get the best of the number going against the grain here. Totally love it. Totally love it and just as much as I loved your little sneak in there of the Texans and
Sheldon:Other game that we were all over just in terms of weight, Jacksonville, favored by three against anybody on the road. That makes no sense at all. So, you know, yes. Enough of patting ourselves on the back. Let's get to Yeah, you know, sometimes you got to do it when it happens though, right? Because there's going to be other weeks we're gonna be here like, and I'm just gonna be cheesy. So we got to ride that way we got to ride that wave. But in terms of the overall week, and as I look at this week and you think of what's the theme of this week and being week one, the term overreaction comes up a lot. Am I wrong there? No, it's I mean, that's that's it, right? Like week two is the overreaction week. And it also just means that we're gonna make some absolutely stinky bets, right? Because one game, it's like, we always talk about this, right? Like, we watched the game on Sunday or Sunday night or Monday night or Thursday, right? And like, we just replay it in our head, like seven times, or maybe like 70 times, between now and the next week, right? Because there aren't any other games, right? NBA NHL, certainly, obviously Major League Baseball, it's like you play a bad game. You play the next day or two days later, and it's washed, right? We already kind of we don't lose our heads, you know, because the Toronto Maple Leafs lost three to nothing in the opening game like, Well, some people do. But you know, the general public doesn't Same thing with basketball, right? The Bulls lose by 20. Like it's not, you know, the sky is falling, everybody gets fired, right? Not the case in football. Like we sit here and we play these games over and over and over, right? The Cardinals have blown out the Titans like five times since that game actually played because we keep thinking about that game. So what that means is that there's going to be value on teams going forward, and it starts the pattern, right? There's like this, like, you know, hip hop, like beat or something like that, when it comes to the NFL season, where it's like, you see these games, and not every game is like this. There's maybe two three, I mean, week one, there's certainly a lot of them. But there are games where nobody wants anything to do with one side, right? Like we talked about, obviously, New Orleans, we talked about Houston, very briefly, but like, that's the point like nobody wants anything to do with those teams, then they win. And then the next week, maybe there's a matchup. And it's not gonna be the case with Houston necessarily. But it might be the case with the saints, right? where it's like, unless I was all over the saints. We just talked about that. But like, now they go on the road. And they're favored by three and a half points at Carolina. And yeah, they might win, they might cover and all of those sorts of things. But like, I just had to talk a bunch of people into the saints last week, including yourself. And now I'm going to have to talk a bunch of people out of the saints this week as road favorites. Think about that for a second, right because of one game. And so you know, the saints had all of this time to you know, put together a game plan. You know, the Packers didn't know what they were necessarily going to get from the saints offense. But now all that stuff's on tape. And so Carolina's at home and listen, they didn't look fantastic against the Jets, right? Like the Jets speaking of downgrades, or or keep them where we graded the Jets for the season. Right? Like they didn't look particularly great. But again, like are we gonna beat up Carolina? Because Sam Donald in his first game with a bunch of new players, right? Like are we gonna beat on beat up on them for not looking amazing, and a game that they won still pretty comfortably against an NFL football team. And so it's like, Okay, now we're gonna talk people out of the saints this week. And it's just funny how you can sort of hit that every single week. And whether that ends up being the saints. I remember the Patriots were like, we're like that for us. Last year. It was like, we had to talk people into the Patriots against the Ravens. And then they would go to Houston the next week and be favored. And we're like, we got to talk people out of the Patriots the next week. And then the next week, they'd be at home to like Arizona, and it was like, gotta talk people into the Patriots. Again, it's like, that's how this works, right? Because all these teams end up like eight Nate against the spread at the end of the season, right? with a couple of exceptions, maybe getting like a 10 and six record, obviously, we're 17 games this year, but in the past, and so it's like they're gonna get to eight and eight against the spread somehow. And it's going to be in these situations where like, one week, your four point underdogs and they win by three, the next week, they're four point favorites, and they win by three and it's like, yeah, there might be two and oh, record wise, but they're still just one on one against the spread. So that's the theme of this week when you're looking at games first and foremost, look for your bylo spots, right look for your, you know, situations where you're like, Okay, like we might be overreacting to this team, but just remember what our feelings were going into the week one games and how we're affected by that. And I think that one is a really, really good example of just being like, Alright, sorry, like the saints flag has to come down this week because people might be getting a little bit excited, over excited about the saints. And there's you know, every week that's going to be a theme so it's nice to get that going early on. Because you know as much as we love week one like there's still 17 more of these. Lots of time left indeed but as we switch gears to some college football here because that was a wild weekend of college football action as well. We had number 12 Oregon, as for
Matt:14 and a half point underdogs but they pull out the upset win over Ohio State. huge win for Oregon. Your we talked about this one last week as well. But who else in the NCAA benefits from the Ohio State loss getting the biggest loss of the season so far? So the short answer is everybody, right? Like, works benefits. Like that's the bad news, right? Heavy is the head that wears the crown, right. And when you're Ohio State, or, you know, Alabama, all these other teams, we talked about the start of the season, right? There are five teams vying for four spots. And it seemed really unlikely that it would be anyone other than those five teams, but what we need it right, what we needed is Oregon, a very good team, a lot of people sort of hyping them as the sleeper and listen, we can kind of talk about that for a second to as far as like, Listen, they win that game. And they're you know, plus 400 plus 500 plus 600, depending on your book, right. And, you know, the point was, like for Ohio State to lose a game this season in the regular season, they're gonna have to do so as to touchdown. You know, favorites, and their two touchdown favorites on the road against Minnesota, two touchdown favorites here. Right. And yeah, they lost, right. And so if we have no investment in the Ohio State Buckeyes, we were on the plus 14 and a half, you know, felt a little like we're on an island there, especially when Oregon was missing two of their top defensive players. But even if you were like, Yeah, I got my 50 to one Oregon bet, right? Problem is like, you could have just made the money line bet at say plus 400. taking that money. And now the adjustment is that they're 20 to 25 to one, right. And so if you take it, if you took that 4x that you already won, and you just put it now on them at 20 to one that's 80 to one, right. So like in the most simplest way possible, it was just way more viable for you to bet on Oregon to win outright here. Because then beating Ohio State was the only way that they were going to end up potentially qualifying for the college football playoff, right. So when we're looking at a team like Oregon, who has to go undefeated, you know, you don't have to parlay necessarily their money lines over and over and over again. So that's not the worst idea. But it's just find that one big game that is going to put them in the conversation that is going to make them you know, sort of a top five type new team here going forward. And so, you know, that's just a little explanation on why we wouldn't necessarily have bet them before the season started at 50 to one as sort of attractive as that looks. Now you go Wait a minute, like, you know, we can kind of synthetically make that 80 to one, but who does this benefit? Well, first and foremost. okhla, Houma. You know, the team that we were on before the season started Georgia and Alabama, right, like both of those teams, if they go undefeated, the rest of the way, they're going to face each other in the SEC championship game. Well, you know, whoever loses still probably in the college football playoff, obviously, Oklahoma now they don't have to worry necessarily about like a resume. You know, comparison with Ohio State once time comes to select those four teams, but the other teams that benefit the PAC 12, right, like Pac 12 is garbage, like look at how bad they weren't won, like Oregon almost lost a Fresno State who like appears to be pretty good. Now that we sort of start comparing and contrasting some of these teams, but like, you know, Washington's awful and like, you know, USC just fired clay Helton, and they lose to Stanford, it's like this old conference, it's garbage. It's like, let's not drag one team because the rest of the conference or a lot of the other con, a lot of the teams in the conference aren't doing so well here. But what that leaves right now with USC and Utah, also both losing speaking of the game that we talked about, and taking the points with BYU on Friday, it means Oregon, Arizona State and UCLA, all now at least have some a path, right? They have the respect. So if you beat Oregon, you are now the team that beat the team that beat Ohio State. Right? If you're at Arizona State where UCLA right, same thing, UCLA gets that win against LSU. So they've got that, you know, sort of pelt on their wall that anybody who beats UCLA gets kind of credit for in reverse, right? And so you can look at those, and you can kind of now pick one for a national championship type of a bet. Or at least make the college football playoff. And at least it's possible, right? At least it's not like oh, there's gonna be five undefeated teams in each of the conferences, and like Alabama and Georgia are gonna, you know, take up two spots just from the SEC. And like the PAC 12 will be sitting there with an undefeated team, like just holding the bag wondering what went wrong. Now, you know, they still might not make it because like maybe all of these teams end up finishing nine and three, but at least you can now look yourself in the mirror. If you now want to bet on UCLA or Arizona State or Oregon. One thing I want to circle October 2, not that far away, right. Arizona state at UCLA so there's, you know, already a showdown early season showdown. So I didn't lay off on betting either Arizona State or you
Sheldon:UCLA, see who wins that game, because that's gonna be big for their resume, but it's not going to move their, their odds to win the national title that much, because you know, Alabama still exists and Georgia still exists, etc, etc. So like that's really important. That's gonna be a really important game to sort of see who wins, who has the inside track. Now both those teams have tricky games this week, Arizona State is at BYU, and Fresno, you know, who gave Oregon everything they could handle? They are playing UCLA. So you know, things are gonna get really interesting. We'll talk about that on Friday. And then the last team Cincinnati, right, we talked about the five teams for four spots, but two of those teams now with Ohio State, and with Clemson now have ugly losses, right. And so now you go, Okay, well, if Cincinnati can go 12. And oh, right, that's gonna get them in over Ohio State at this point, that's going to get them in over Clemson. And now again, you know, they might have to start comparing themselves to whoever gets out of the PAC 12 if there's an undefeated team there, but again, at least now there's a path for Cincinnati, but we talk to you and I before the season started, about how we wanted to bet Cincinnati, and the concept of them getting to the playoffs and like we didn't want them to win. And we didn't want to bet them to win the national championship because they're going to be, you know, three touchdown underdogs to Alabama in the semi final. And then even if they win, that they're going to be to touchdown, Alabama and underdogs to Oklahoma or Georgia, whomever. But how do we want to bet that we wanted to bet Desmond Ritter Heisman, right, because if he is the key guy, which of course he would be with the bearkats. If he's the guy leading them to the playoffs, he's still sitting there he was 60 to one before the season started. He's still sitting there at 28 to one, right, and they've got a game against Indiana this weekend. And they still have a game against Notre Dame on schedule, right. And as much as Notre Dame looks a little shaky in the last couple days, they're still Notre Dame. So right, like if you're looking for ways to bet, kind of that fourth team, right. We talked Cincinnati with Desmond Ritter Heisman, and then trying to figure out which Pac 12 team might have the best Rep. Now it's no guarantee, they might not end up making it, they might all finish nine and three, because they're all gonna lose to each other. entirely possible. But what that loss for Ohio statement, right? It meant everything for all of these other teams and had already turned two weeks into the season, the narrative around that you and I were talking about with regards to five teams, four spots, it's now a bunch of teams for four spots. So that's at least something right. Yeah, I love it. And you also mentioned you touch there on the the Heisman watch, which is something we're going to jump back into each and every week as well. And with what's going on with Cincinnati, that initial pick you made still sounds even better at this point. But what else is going on when we think about the Heisman Trophy watch after the first couple of weeks here in the NCAA?
Matt:So we talked about the PAC 12. Right, and you go, okay, same sort of deal, right as as Ritter, where it's like, if there's an undefeated Pac 12 team, we don't necessarily love the team to beat Alabama once we get to the college football playoff. Right. But if that team looks good enough to get to the college football playoff, there's probably a key guy involved. Right. So CJ for Dell had a million yards on against Ohio State a bunch of touchdowns. Right running back. It's you know, the Heisman Trophy is kind of the only award that still give some credit two running backs these days. In, you know, NFL and college football. So CJ Brunel 25 to one, right, so around the same price as Oregon to win the national title. So same kind of deal as Ritter, right, where it's like, how do we skip the whole needing to beat Alabama thing? And how about we just bet on somebody who's going to put up a bunch of stats on the way to potentially an undefeated season. So we talked about well, okay, we're not guaranteeing Oregon's even going to be the team to get out of the PAC 12. So what's going on Arizona State Jaden Daniels, right? He's 40 to one. So if you like Arizona State, right, who hasn't really had a test yet this season? That one's coming this weekend against BYU. And then of course UCLA right with Dorian Thompson Robinson at 52 one so if any of these guys teams go undefeated, in the same way that if Cincinnati goes undefeated, there's a decent chance they get a ticket to New York for a Heisman ceremony Now again, does that mean they're going to beat Bryce young who is the you know, almost all odds on at this point favorite depending on your sports book, to win the Heisman again, it's just been a couple of games who knows what necessary is gonna happen with the Alabama quarterback but the one I want to talk about and we're, you know, we can talk about this for the pic segment on Friday, because I think that most fascinating thing this week is the Alabama game not because I necessarily think they're gonna lose against Florida. But Anthony Richardson is the you know, quote unquote, backup quarterback for the Florida Gators. And Dan Mullen has put in Emory Jones to start these games in the first two. And he has looked mad, right like they've been up on Florida Atlantic, they've beaten up on South Florida. Like everybody does that. And he's Look man, and the Gator Nation is going can we get Anthony Richardson in there because Anthony Richardson has come in for a few snaps and basically Every time he touches the football, it turns into a touchdown. But he had like three, like three passes this past week for 150 yards and like he's running all over the place. And so the big question this week, and you know, hopefully we'll have some answers to it, but I would actually be surprised if we did by Friday. The big question is, is Dan Mullen really not going to start his best quarterback against Alabama? Like, is that really the plan? Daniel? Like, are you looking to do that? Or is Dan Mullen a genius, and he's only use this guy just to get some reps, right? Just to get a couple of reps in, and then like, he's going to unveil them, right? Like he's going to like take a cloak like a magician, and there's gonna be smoke. And then here comes Anthony Richardson. It's like Anthony Richards starting Oh, God, like, you know, Nick Saban. Never saw it coming like sabes is pretty good. He's going to be able to get this thing figured out one way or another. You'd think they're 14 and a half point favorites. But like, that's what I'm going to be interested in looking at because Anthony Richard Richardson, excuse me right now is 100 to one to win the Heisman. And there's nothing more highs mini than like the Gators pulling off an upset him superheroing you know, mixing metaphors here. But he's, he's coming out of a phone booth here to knock off Alabama. Like, doesn't that guy if that happens, doesn't he shoot up from like, 100 to one to like, four to one all of a sudden, and now again, maybe Marlin doesn't play him. Maybe he plays them two, three snaps and he does it the way that he's been doing it against South Florida. In which case it's moot. They're not going to win that game anyway. So we're talking about ways to bet games like if you think Florida has any hope to beat Alabama this weekend, forget the money line. Let's just go long term. And just and think of it as Anthony Richardson saving the day here and pulling off this crazy potential upset. So I don't know that he's going to announce that anything, anything this week. I certainly wouldn't if I was him. But that's the question, right? Is he crazy enough to not play Anthony Richardson for a full game given what we've seen out of the youngster from Florida. I totally love it. And as we kind of tiptoe into the next week of football games, there are midweek games that we can place some bets on. So let's start there. And we'll stick with the NCAA. We have Ohio at Louisiana, the region Cajuns favored by 20 points. That's a lot of points. I'd never like laying that many points. But what do you think my dude, where are you leaning here? Yeah, I don't like laying that many points either. Until you look up and it's 21 nothing at the end of the first quarter. I just, I was just checking my phone right now to see if it's if it's changed. Um, I'd love to get 21 Can we get 21? Anyone like auctioneer voice? Like, you know, 2121? When can we get 21 points here and back, Ohio. Now it's been ugly for Ohio. Right? They come out first game of the year and they score nine points against Syracuse. And we all think of Syracuse as this team that flat out stinks. Right? Like they got worked over last year. Right. But as much as we don't want to overreact to week one, whether it's college or the NFL, like we do have to take something from these games, right and so week two rolls around, we were on record last week, you know, pat on it selves on the back for a winner there. But like that was way harder than I thought it was going to be and Rutgers only scored 17 against Syracuse. So why Syracuse relevant all this? Well, Syracuse defense might be okay. Right like might not be a dumpster fire. Now, they're probably lose a bunch of games this season, and maybe by blowouts against some of the best teams in the ACC. But we should be giving Syracuse a little bit more credit. And when we give Syracuse a little bit more credit for how good their defense was. We then have to sort of ease up a little bit on beating up Ohio who was only a one point underdog going into that game. So the market decided that Ohio was about as good as Syracuse and yeah, it didn't go great for them. But from a total yard standpoint, it was 346 to 383 in that game, so they got 346 yards against that Syracuse defense, meanwhile, wreckers only at 195 yards in that win against Syracuse. So Ohio actually did better offensively than Rutgers did but Rutgers wins the game Ohio doesn't no problem is Ohio then loses last week to FCS Duquesne, which is not even a really good FCS team. It's not even a good team at all. Is it related to Bishop Sycamore by any chance or? That's right yeah, there's a whole regal lineage like yeah, it's just too much time to get into it. But meanwhile right like laugh at yet who everybody was like hot pick against Texas in week one didn't work out Texas truck them, and they did so right. Think about Texas for a second right like they beat up on last night yet. And then they go to Arkansas and they get trounced to the point where the starting quarterback is already gone. Right. Casey Thompson who I don't know why he wasn't the starting quarterback from the start of the season, but like now he's in and so it's like what am I supposed to love necessarily from the raging Cajuns first two games
Sheldon:That means that I should be laying three touchdowns now there's a brand element there and you know, obviously Ohio not the biggest brand in the world, but like their agent cages. People love betting on the agent Cajun so are we going to get to 21? That would be awesome. But even if we have to settle for 20 I just don't understand how this game isn't like relatively low scoring. I think Ohio can move the ball on rage occasions just because they're able to survive last week's game against Nicholls state. Speaking of FCS teams that aren't that good, right, like one team loses by to the other team wins by two against pretty similar competition. Again, I just don't know where this whole raging Cajuns 20 point favorite thing is necessarily coming from that's a ton of points. So yeah, if we're talking Thursday Night Football, maybe on the second screen, have Ohio, hit a plus 20 sweat that out a little bit on Thursday night. And speaking of Thursday Night Football, obviously there's another matchup if we go back to the NFL, and you mentioned low scoring. Well, we've got the Giants at the Washington football team. And for more on this game, for sure. We always like to to send you towards more information because we like giving out information here on this podcast. But for more on this game, you can head to DRF comm slash sports, where a guy Scott Grambling is expecting a low scoring game and he says in part, the Giants have tended to play relatively low scoring games away from home recently, and with the under having gone eight, two and one over the past 11 New York road games. The under is 15 six in one in giants Washington game since the start of 2010, which includes a six to in one under record over the past nine games in this head to head series. Overall, the under is 13. Three and one in giants game since the start of last season. That's a lot of unders unders and more unders makes for an ugly game. But is there something else that we can take from that as we look towards the line in this game, which is the football team being three point favorites here? We know Fitzpatrick is out which the Fitz magic didn't even get to begin. But short week Thursday's are always crazy. I don't like like laying points when you're involving all these crap. Well, the past few years crappy NFC East teams. Right? I don't like laying the point. But Which side are you lean in here? Yeah, listen, I think it's safe to say that both teams are crappy. Like that's okay. I think I don't think
Matt:I don't think I don't think that's I don't think that's an overreaction by any means. My favorite I just say favorite is if it's actually my favorite, but let's just you know use that term. My favorite stat right Daniel Jones here the guys you know it This is incredible. So you'll recall his debut right Danny dimes, right. He comes in takes over Peyton Manning against Tampa Bay. They you know, human jamis have a good old fashioned shootout and they basically win at the gun right since then. So our guide, our guy, Danny in 25 starts is seven and 18 in those starts, right? Like not great, Bob. So but here's the thing. Here are the teams that he's beaten in his career. Right? There was a weak 17 win against Dallas last year. Okay, not the most exciting thing that's ever happened in the universe. He's beaten the Philadelphia Eagles last season and he beat the Cincinnati Bengals last season after Joe burrow got hurt. There are four other games that he has won. Here is the list of those teams. Washington, Washington, Washington and Washington. My guy is foreign Oh, against the Washington football team, and three and 18 against the rest of the league. And one of those teams was a week 17 cowboys team without Dak Prescott one of those teams was the Cincinnati Bengals team who you know finished third, fourth last in the league last year, you know, and would have been even worse if they had you know, we're missing Joe burrow for the whole season but like the Joe Berlin's Cincinnati Bengals like he doesn't beat anyone except for Washington. Right And so we've already seen this line like this was a look ahead of like five and a half this is the funniest part about all of this but looking at line for this game was like five and a half points right with Washington being favored. Now Ryan Fitzpatrick gets hurt and Taylor hi Nikki comes in and like I don't know where you're at with Taylor Hi, Nikki. right you know now but like that was fun last year in the playoffs and like he certainly what did the cover teaser numbers I think for us and like maybe I think even covered like late numbers in that playoff game against the bucks and like that was really exciting. But it all feels a little smoke and mirrors II with hi Nikki like he had a couple of throws that were just like chuck it up for Terry Maclaurin and like somehow it worked out type of thing. And so this number goes down right when it comes you know, reopens night we're in a line for three and a half, right? And then everybody comes in on Monday and we wake up on Tuesday. And aligns down to three right? So it's drifting, drifting drifting towards the Giants now we just preached Hey like shop for the best number, etc etc rather than just take the points here isn't it just kind of worth a shot that like Daniel Jones for whatever reason, just kind of has Washington's number right and like the money line like a plus 150 something along those lines it kind of feels like either Washington's gonna win this by like two touchdowns or the giants are gonna win it outright because Daniel Jones has some weird Voodoo against Washington I'm going to steal I'm gonna steal a stat I you know I caught you're caught your boy Scott grandma's thing but a steal a stat from him. Ron Rivera. If you want to know the exact stat you can go to the you can go to the article but Roger vere is just flat out not good on Thursday night, right? He's just not good covering spreads. He's not good winning games, right? Obviously, a lot of that was with Carolina, I'm sure you recall a bunch of Thursday nights shaking her head about what Cam Newton is doing out there. Right. So like to beat up Washington for that doesn't necessarily, you know, isn't the most fair thing. But like, it just tells me that he just hasn't had his team's prepared on short weeks. Now, I don't know if Joe judge is necessarily any better than that, you know, than he is at this. But your judge comes from the patriots who are always prepared for those Thursday night games. So, you know, I just think there's a couple of reasons to like the giants. Obviously, they looked bad on Sunday, but they're still getting the money. Like it's funny that like we could all just, you know, shoot, you know, set sail on the Giants here and be like, no hard pass. But like money's coming in on the giants, right? And so whether it's not loving Taylor Hi, Nikki not loving Ron Rivera, or loving Daniel Jones for two games per year. Washington. Like that's where the money is headed. And it makes sense to me. Because, you know, I listen, the Daniel Jones owning Washington thing doesn't make sense to me. But the money moves on this makes sense to me. So yeah, in some form, or form or fashion. I'm gonna be on the Giants on Thursday. This is where I jump in once again to say, take the points take points. I'm joking. I'm joking. But something along those lines here. Well, in this case, take the value, right? Take the money line, take the Take, take the extra money, right take them less 150. Right, which is just sort of a second cousin or a cousin or sister to taking the points, right. It's all it's all in the same family one way or another. I gotcha. I gotcha. Well, what a great way to recap the start of the NFL season. This was just so much fun. Again, because the Tuesday pod it's whatever's going on, it will always be entertaining because we're celebrating or I'm going to be cheesed and crying and trying to figure out what to do to bounce back in the following week. But as of now, we're doing pretty good and so I was so happy that you're able to bless us again. And hopefully you will stop by again on Friday to keep the hot hand going. Stay hot Mr. Russell, stay hot. In the meantime, though, where can people find you on social media? Yeah, at Mrs. Authentic is the Twitter feed m r u s s and then authentic? All one word, if you will. You'll find everything that I do have a score on that feed as well and celebrating commiserating a lot of celebrating like you said this week. You know what, maybe week two, maybe we're wrong with some of these stinky bets that we're going to make and we have to do some commiserating. That's part of the fun too but the good news is we've got this nice pot of gold after week one right where we can give a little bit of a back just to make those sports weeks feel a little bit better about themselves. But we don't necessarily have to do and Lord knows are not going to try. So yeah, you can catch me there at Mrs. Authentic on Twitter and brother. Happy to come back on Friday. I know that I kind of have to write after a week one.
Sheldon:Got to stay hot. Gotta stay hot. Thanks again, man. Appreciate it. Thanks again to Matt for joining me and if you want to follow along on Instagram, you can check me out at Sheldon Alexander and on Twitter at Shell Alexander. And for more exclusive data analytics previews videos and expert picks on all the major sports head on over to DRF comm slash sports. You can also like us on Facebook, or subscribe to the DRF sports YouTube page. That's all I got for now. But don't forget to rate like and follow the pod wherever you get your podcasts. We're here twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays on the DRF sports podcast. So until next time, I'm Shaun Alexander CEO.
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