The Sportsbook Sharps
Your edge in sports betting. New episodes weekly.
The Sportsbook Sharps
Cone of Shame, Cone of Shameful Spreads
The bracket doesn’t need saving, but it does need protecting. I open with a full-throated case against expanding March Madness to 76 teams—why it muddles the bracket, rewards the wrong résumés, and makes office pools a midweek mess—then follow the money toward a bigger worry: private equity knocking on college sports’ front door. What happens to classes, rivalries, and the middle tier when financiers chase margins and rebrand conferences like product lines? If you care about the games more than the gloss, this part will hit a nerve.
From there, we recalibrate with on-field truth. Illinois puzzles USC, Georgia earns an ATS ban, and Oregon–Penn State delivers a double-OT jolt that reminds us why we watch. I dig into why Bama’s offense can’t be trusted laying big numbers, how to price Florida State’s top-ranked attack against Miami’s legit defense, and where the value lives in a week dotted with injury landmines. On the NFL side, we parse a wild tie, question the Eagles’ sustainability, weigh the Rams’ short-week edge against a shorthanded San Francisco, and make sense of those “bad team, close spread” traps you don’t need to touch to have a profitable Sunday.
We also update the ban list (sorry, Georgia and Chargers), put James Franklin on the frosty throne with unforgiving big-game numbers, and close with a confident lock: Giants +1.5 at New Orleans, with a sprinkle on the moneyline. If you want sharper bets and a saner sport, ride along, challenge the takes, and bring your card.
Enjoyed the show? Follow and subscribe, share it with a friend who loves the bracket as much as the bets, and drop a review with your favorite pick from the slate. Your feedback keeps the locks laser-focused.
Hey everybody, today is Thursday, October 2nd, and we have a new edition of the Sportsbook Sharps for you. As always, I am your host, and this week I am flying solo. We have got a pack show, even though it's just me in the studio this week. You have to listen to my voice and my voice alone. We have a lot to talk about. We got a lot of games I want to get to. A few to recap from last week. I have an old man yells at cloud. I have a Stay Frosty. But uh first we're going to start with an injury update. That's right, our first ever injury report here on the show. Lady, Lady Liberty, our new dog, is on the injury list this week. She is questionable with a paw. Now she did participate in practice today, but I don't know if she's going to be ready to make her pick for Monday night football. We've got a big game coming up Monday night, and uh she is out with a paw right now. So she, I don't know what she did. She leapt at me the other day and broke a nail, turned it sideways on her paw, had to take her to the vet yesterday, on Wednesday. They had to put her on anesthesia for a little bit, sedate her, cut the nail off. It went all the way back to the paw, so she is wearing one of those goofy cone things right now, and she's got her front right paw wrapped up. Uh, the wrap will come off before the weekend, so maybe she'll be able to hobble her way to a victory. But that is an update for Lady on the injury list this week. I want to be clear with everybody with the gambling that the dog is playing injured this week. So just a heads up on her gambling pick. Uh gambling update from last week, four and four. Very meh. Uh, after we dominated the week before and went seven and one, we regressed back to being average uh at four and four. I will say I am still undefeated. So we got that going for us. But uh yeah, not a great week, and I keep picking the wrong ones to bet from the gambling group. Maybe I just need to bet them all every week, but I'm picking the ones that are losers, and then I'm not betting the ones that are winners. So uh, yeah. But that's the gambling update. We have a few locks to go over this week. We've got my lock, of course, that we'll wrap the show up with. But we're gonna push a segment up to the front because I gotta talk about this right away. You know, just like Ice Cube said, he said, yo, Dre, I got something to say. I'm putting my old man yells at cloud right up in the front because I got a lot to say about college sports. College sports are fine as they are. Stop messing with a nearly perfect product. Sure, there can be some tweaks. The NIL, for instance, uh the name image likeness needs a total overhaul. Uh, the transfer rules along with it, every season is like free agency. Now, every time a coach gets fired, it fires off free agency for those players in the middle of the season. That that needs change. They know they need to adjust that. It needs some tweaks. However, this leads to my old man yells at cloud moment. Starting with basketball, this is a hot rumor that's fresh off the presses today. Rumors are that the NCAA tournament expansion to 76 teams overall is getting closer by the day. Stop. Just stop it. 68 is fine. 64 would be better. We could get rid of those four extra schools, but 68 is a fine number. We don't need no more. They are just itching to put 12 lost Big Ten and SEC schools on the bubble and talk about, oh, isn't it sad this 12 team got in, but this 12 loss team, you know, 12 SEC losses, 12 Big Ten losses. This one didn't get in, but this one did. Okay. I'm sorry. If you have double digit losses, I don't want to hear anything about you making it or not making it. Maybe don't get double digit losses in your conference. I'm talking in the conference. Disgusting. I don't need it. This would make the opening round, opening round, I'm doing air quotes there, opening round, when very few people play. I we don't call they called it that in the article I read. We don't call the first four games the opening round. That's not the opening round. They tried to do that uh and then they changed it. Uh that would be 12 games. So 24 teams play a game to get down to 12, and then 52 teams would get a bye. So you'd then you'd get to 64. That's how you do the math. That's a little math for you people out there that don't know math. Uh, 12 plus 52, 64. I'm pretty sharp with the math. Uh 52 teams would get a bye. I don't like this one bit. For one, it's too many teams. I I already said it. You're gonna be arguing the bubble watch is gonna be mostly all double-digit teams, you know, arguing over who had the three worse losses than the other three worse losses, or whatever. It's gonna be just nobody wants to hear that. So that's the first thing. Way too many teams, and they're gonna be very mediocre teams that get in. You know, if they were do this and they would say, you know, out of those extra teams that get in now, because we're right now we're at 68, so this would be adding another eight teams. Uh, those teams that get in, they have to all all eight of them have to be from minor conferences, not the power four conferences, then I could hear it. You're throwing more A10 in, you're throwing more Mac in, you're throwing uh Mountain West in, all these other ones getting more teams in, that's fine. Because a lot of times there's teams with four or five losses in some of these conferences that, you know, they didn't win their conference tournament, they only send one, even though they had a wonderful season, they won the regular season, you know, they lost in the tournament and they're out. I'd be totally fine with that. Maybe that could be a provision. See, I'm spitballing here on the fly. You win your regular season, but you don't win that conference tournament. Well, now with these extra eight teams, we pick eight of those schools that happened into that situation and they make it in. I'd be fine with that. I mean, I'd rather just not add any. But if they're gonna add them, don't add Power 4 teams that are, you know, 12 through 15 losses, and we're sitting there and the teams 18 and 15, and we're like, oh, I can't believe they didn't make it in. No, stop with that. Second, and this is the more important part, it's hard enough to get people to fill out a bracket in time. They don't remember their login, even though you've used the same credentials for 10 years at work, you know, they you can't get them to fill it in. Now you want to try to push it up and try to get them in and to fill out a 76 bracket by Tuesday afternoon, because these games, they said they're gonna play them at two sites, six games at each site. Uh, so I would assume they're gonna play half of them on Tuesday, six on Tuesday, six on Wednesday. Uh right now they play two on Tuesday, two on Wednesday, but nobody fills those out in the bracket. But if we're doing 12 games, I would imagine you're gonna want to fill the bracket out for that. So they're never gonna get that in. Uh I I just I don't know how you get this done. I hate it. Every time they bring up expansion, it makes me want to throw up a little bit in my mouth. Ah, I can't stand it. So that's part one of my old man yells of cloud. This is gonna be a long old man yells of cloud, by the way. The next part, it's still about college sports, but we're talking, I guess football. It didn't specifically say football, I guess it would be for all of it, but the paper of record, that'd be the New York Times for those that don't know that, is reporting that the Big Ten, my boys, my conference, they are looking to inject private equity into college sports. This is absolutely diabolical. Did we learn nothing 35 years ago when Richard Gere cut up those companies in Pretty Woman? Private equity will strip everything from college sports and leave it barren and unrecognizable. No more classes. How can you explain to the bunch of a room full of investment bankers, oh, you know, we would have played better on Saturday, but you know, our yeah, you know, our star wide receiver, the backup quarterback, they didn't they, you know, they had the backup had to come in, but he had a bunch of classes, so he wasn't quite ready with all the game film. No. Now I know they don't always go to classes or whatever, but they still go, even if at North Carolina they make up the classes, they don't ever do their homework, whatever. A lot of schools still make the kids go to classes, not all of them, but a lot of the schools still make the kids go to classes, still make them turn in their homework. They're not using AI to generate their papers or answers or whatever, having somebody else do it for them. There's still the appearance that this is occurring. But once private equity is in, they're not gonna go to class. You're never gonna have a class with a football student again at any of these universities. They're not gonna go. Why would they go? And if you think conference realignment's bad now, wait until the capitalists decide that they only want, I don't know, we only want the top 20 teams in a conference. That's that's all we want. We don't want, uh we're gonna call it the big corporation. You know, we're gonna take the best of the big ten, we're gonna take the Ohio States, the Michigans, you know, the big brands, not even necessarily the best teams, but who has the best numbers. You know, Georgia, we're gonna go to the SEC, we're gonna take Georgia and Alabama and Texas, uh, you know, Texas is a big name. Uh, we're gonna take all these schools. We're maybe take Clemson from the ACC, and that's it. We're gonna cut them all in a big conference, and we're gonna call it the big corporate conference. And uh there's no room for all these other ones. Uh Ohio State, Michigan, you have a bunch of rivalry games against Wisconsin and and uh you know all these other schools, Indiana, Purdue, Northwestern, all these other ones. That's fine. You guys aren't big TV people. Like you don't you don't bring value. That'll be what they start to talk about. Instead of wins and losses, it'll be well, which school brings value? Who has a name brand or whatever? Uh there's no room for these small teams in the new world order. You think they want a bunch of drunks from IU or a bunch of farmers from West Lafayette? Uh no. They're gonna leave Bloomington, they're gonna leave West Lafayette behind. There's no room for them. Uh Champaign, Illinois? No. Illinois, bye. You're done. You're not gonna be in this new big corporate conference. Uh Upstart Indiana is one of the best stories in college football the last two years. They've been laying it on teams this year. They struggled a little bit with Iowa this week, but the rest of the games this year, they've been just drilling. They drilled Illinois two weeks ago. And I know people said, oh, this was turning into an IU podcast. I'm not an IU guy, but they're a good story. That story doesn't exist in big corporate world. Indiana is left behind in the dust. They're not in the new Big Ten, they're not in the new world order, they're out uh on their own somewhere. For the longest time, for a hundred years, you know, there were gray seats at uh Memorial Stadium or whatever the heck it's called in Bloomington. They their fans didn't show up. They're not gonna be invited to the big corporate event. You can't sell out your own place, you have no room in this new TV money world. You're done. You're stuck in uh they're gonna shove you in a closet with uh Purdue and Illinois and Northwestern and stuff like that. We're gonna call it the Little Midwest Conference, brought to you by Barbasol. Uh, and that's the other thing. Everything's gonna be branded. If private equity's in, it's not gonna be it's it's bad today. All the trophies, all the bowl games are sponsored. The conferences are gonna be sponsored. We're gonna have the Capital One Ohio State Buckeyes. They're not gonna be called Ohio the Ohio State. It's gonna be called the Capital One Ohio State, brought to you by State Farm. Like, it's it's gonna be terrible. They're gonna everything, everything's gonna have a brand to it. It's gonna be disgusting, gross. I don't want any part of this. Uh, and and it's wild to me. The reason that this was in the New York Times, the the reason they said they were running to private equity like this, a lot of these schools are taking on way too much debt for their athletic programs to build things out. They had the numbers. Incredibly, Illinois led the Big Ten. They are$312 million in debt in their athletic department. What is Illinois spending$312 million on? Their product on the field stinks, their product on the hardwood stinks. I don't know where all that money's going. Their court is one of the worst courts in the Big Ten. Uh, I I just don't get it. I don't understand that at all. Terrible. But that's my old man Yellows at Cloud. So we're gonna reset here. I'm gonna cool down a little bit after that. Uh let's get into a recap here. College football, let's recap the week. Speaking of Illinois, Illinois wins, beats USC, gives USC their first loss 34-32. First loss of the year on Alaska in field goal. Illinois just lost to IU 63 to 10. I don't understand. Is USC not that good? Was this a case of the West Coast team uh playing East? This was a noon kickoff, so it was 9 a.m. on the West Coast. That's when USC played. So is that the case? I don't know. But be on the lookout. As USC has a bye, and then they play in Michigan, and then at Notre Dame the next two weekends. Now is Notre Dame good or bad? I don't know. Is USC good or bad? I don't know. These are gonna be tell-all games. You're gonna know a lot after these next two weeks, three weeks, I guess, because they're off on bye this week. Uh but those games are both set 7.30 at night. So 4.30 Pacific. So maybe they'll be okay. I'm not sure. Uh, but that's one game from last week. The next one I want to get to, Ole Miss beat LSU. Matt was right. I don't know why I didn't see it coming. Brian Kelly often loses these big games, and LSU did. I sat here on the podcast and debated it with him, and I thought, you know, Lane also loses these sometimes, but not nearly as much as Brian Kelly. So hats off to Matt for getting that right. Uh Bama beats Georgia 24-21. Uh, okay. Georgia's offense stinks. So does Bama's. Bama's not great either. Uh we were flipping back and forth between the game last week. We had Oregon, Penn State, and Georgia, Alabama at the same time. This is how much their offense stinks both teams in this Bama-Georgia game. Here's the second half drives. Miss field goal, touchdown, loss on downs, punt, punt, loss on downs, punt, punt, kneel down to end the game. One score the entire second half. Just one score. Just a terrible game. Terrible offenses. It wasn't a defensive battle. The offenses were just wildly inept. There were throws that were sailing five, six yards over people, missed timing on routes. Their offense is just gross. And here's a fun stat. Georgia, a favorite of the Sportsbook Sharps here. We love to do what's that coming down the track? We've picked them twice this year with our locks. Georgia, the Bulldogs. Oh, ho, ho, ho. 0-4 against the spread this year. They are bums, and I am banning them from being selected again until they cover a spread. You're 0-4 on the year? Gross. You are shameful, and you're banned. Not allowed to be picked. And then game of the week, Oregon 30, Penn State 24. Double overtime game. Penn State scores first. Then they don't score again until the end of the game. They were down 17-3 in the fourth quarter. So we are in the third quarter. We kept it on the Bama game instead. Then we saw, you know, Penn State was driving. We flipped back over. They scored. They scored again to tie it in the fourth quarter. Overtime was electric. Penn State scored almost immediately. Then Oregon took a little bit to get their touchdown in, but they tied up, go to the second overtime. Oregon scores on one play. And then the very next play, Penn State gets the ball. Interception. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. I loved it. The Oregon players, they run over to the Penn State fan section. The Penn State fan section had been giving them lip all game. Oh, we're going to beat you, blah, blah, blah. I loved it. The Oregon players went over and waved goodbye to them. I loved it. I absolutely loved it. NFL highlights Sunday night football. And I only call this a highlight, at least it was high scoring, right, folks? Dallas Green Bay tie at 40. I only bring this up because it's the second highest scoring tie ever. The record is 43. There was a game, I think it said it was like 1967. I forget who the two teams were, but they tied at 43. So this is the second highest score ever. It was very funny. My mom texts me when the game was over. She said, this can end in a tie. And my sister-in-law said the same thing. Tara, she's like, wait a minute, they're just gonna end the game at 40? I'm like, yep, that's uh that's how the regular season NFL works. You play one 10-minute overtime, and if it's tied at the end of that, that's it. Everybody uh enjoy. Um I don't know what to make after this game. Uh the you know, I think if the Cowboys had CeeDee Lamb, they'd probably win that game. Even though Pickens was incredible, uh, you know, the Cowboys defense is a sieve. They I Jordan Love is not that good. I I you know I I sat here with Darby weeks ago and proclaimed that I loved, you know, for people that weren't in the top five or whatever, pick a Super Bowl kind of a dark horse or whatever. I said I get I love the Stollers, you know, with Rogers going there, and I love Green Bay with getting Micah Parsons. I don't I'm a little lukewarm on Green Bay now. That love is not looking that good this year. I know they scored 40 points, but Russ just cooked the Cowboys for 40-some points two weeks ago, and he's on the bench now. So that doesn't mean much you'd score a lot against the Cowboys. So I don't know what to think about Green Bay. I need to see some more tape on Green Bay, but I'm a little worried. I put a future out on Green Bay to win the Super Bowl after they got Parsons. Now I'm thinking maybe not Supi. Uh maybe playoffs, but not Super Bowl. I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. I'm a little lukewarm on the pack for now, but we'll see. We'll see after some more games. Uh speaking of teams, I'm flip-flopping on the Giants and Jackson Dart stunned the Chargers to get their first win of the season. I thought this was slam dunk Chargers. When they said Dart was starting, you know, I obviously I'm not a Russ guy. I don't need Russ hasn't been cooking for many, many years. He's been uh kind of bad. You know, he bounced to Denver. He was bad in Denver, wasn't great with the Steelers last year, and now he's with the Giants and he's already benched. Uh, so it's not like I'm a pro Russell Wilson guy, but I just thought, you know, rookie playing the Chargers, no way this guy's gonna win. They won. I was wrong. Uh Air Bear reverted to stink form again. Uh, you can't trust this guy. That's a you know, I I said I banned Georgia from being bet. For right now, the Chargers are banned from being bet as well. I'm not I'm not buying it. You can't trust Air Bear. I don't want to bet, I want to bet on sure things. That's what we do here. That's why I'm undefeated in my locks on the season. That's why I proudly stand behind my choices. I cannot be putting money on people like Justin Air Bear. He's a bum. I've always thought he's a bum. He looked really good last year. They started off 3-0 this year. I thought they were looking good. You can't, you can't lose. You can't throw two picks. You cannot lose to this Giants team. Everybody and their brother's injured on the Giants. And they started a rookie quarterback in his first game, and you lose that game. Great NFL quarterbacks don't lose that game. Air Bear is not a great NFL quarterback. So banned. Not betting on the Chargers for a while. I need to see more from them before I lift the ban on that. Uh, Philly beat Tampa Bay by six as Baker ran out of time to complete the comeback. Once again, Philly playing in a close game. I think they're a fake 4-0. I'm saying it here. And the Eagles fans, they're gonna cry and complain and they're gonna whine and they're gonna swear at me because that's what the Philly scumbag fans do. But because they're gonna say, oh, this podcast, they always think that the Eagles are worse than they are. Look, Jalen Hurts stakes. Zero pass completions in the second half. Think of that. In today's day and age of air the football out, you know, quarterbacks are slinging it 40, 50 times a game. That's the average, 40 times a game. Throwing the ball. He only had eight attempts in the second half, and he completed zero. Zero. Uh and Brown, he is so out. He he had some weird quote after the game about how you just kind of have to move on, but he is so checked out of the Eagles, like he is getting mad on the sidelines. There's gonna be some problems there because you got a guy that only attempts eight passes and and not getting the wide receiver star of the ball. Uh yeah, I don't get it. They got up 24-3 and said, Well, the only way we can lose this game is if Jalen Hurts throws a bunch of picks, so we're just not gonna let him throw that much. Uh, I don't know. I it still stuns me. I'm still shocked that the Eagles won the Super Bowl last year. I I don't get it. You start the second half and run the clock mode. I don't get it. You're one of the best teams. You're supposed to just dominate teams like this, Tampa Bay. Uh it's a wild thing to do to enter in run the clock mode to start the second half, but it worked for them. They ran the clock out. If Baker had 15 more seconds, we may be sitting here saying that, you know, Tampa Bay beat them by one, but they ran out of clock. And then the last game from last week I want to get to, Kansas City beats Baltimore. Uh duh. You think? I picked Kansas City for my lock of the week. Of course they're gonna cover. Lock it in. Uh second half, Lamar Jackson goes down. He goes out. He's out this week as well. I looked it up. Baltimore has 11 starters on the injury report this week. Yikes. That is not good. Uh adjust your bets this week accordingly. I forget uh I had it up here. Where is the Baltimore? Houston at Baltimore. So just keep that in mind when you see that line. Just keep in mind No Lamar and 10 other starters are on the injury report. Not just 11 players, you know, but 11 players total out of 52 being on the injury report a quarter of the way through the season. That's not surprising. 11 starters. That's uh alarm bells are going off. Alright. Now I'm gonna get to my stave frosty here, and we got a coach uh oh wait, I gotta do a little recap here, real quick. We have a new addition to the coaches fired. Sam Pittman at year six of in Arkansas was let go this week. So he joins Deshaun Foster at UCLA, Brent Pry at Virginia Tech, Mike Gundy at Oklahoma State. All those coaches have been fired this season already. I'm putting another new one up on Stave Frosty. New for me. I think others that have been a guest on here have put him up before, but I am putting up, and I talked about this game earlier, Penn State head coach James Franklin. James Franklin can never ever win a big game. Here's some stats for you. His career record, he is 1 and 15 versus the top five, he is 4 and 21 against the top 10, and he is 4 and 17 against the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Michigan Wolverines. 4 and 17. This is a school, Penn State, that is always in the top 25. They're consistently in the top 15, and they are often in the top 10, and it's a joke. I'm sorry, if you have a 4 and 21 career record against the top 10, that's not what top 10 schools do. Top 10, I'm not saying it should be 500. They should maybe be 30%. You win a third of the time. You know, if you're if you're playing ones and twos and you're, you know, four, five, six, you should beat them sometimes. You shouldn't go four and twenty-one against top ten. That's just bad. Uh, fun fact for you too Penn State and Texas this season, we're in week six. We're heading into week six of college football season. Penn State and Texas, the only two teams in the top 25 that have not beaten a power four opponent. It's incredible. We're heading into the sixth week, and they don't have a power four win yet. So all their wins are against bad schools. If Penn State is happy being in the top 15, then yeah, keep him. I'll take him off the Frosty Throne. You're happy being in the top 15, and that's where you cap out, like, oh, you're a top 15 school. Uh, but if you ever want to win a big game, if you ever want to win a title, then you will yeet this man into the sun. He's a loser. He's been there 12 years. They have one Big Ten title in 2016 to show for it in 12 years. One Big Ten title. How how a team is cons is often during the season in the top 10, but they've only won one Big Ten title is incredible to me. The media department just must be absurd there. They they are such a good brand. We are Penn State, all this stuff. Oh, they, you know, the call and response and all that crap. Just incredible marketing by Penn State. Uh, but Penn State, you're supposed to be one of the premier football programs. Uh, in its first 14 years in the Big Ten, Joe Pa won the Big Ten title three times. Franklin has been there almost as long. He only has one title. And he's not picking up another one this year. So they still, Penn State, have to play at Ohio State, and they host Indiana. I think that's two more losses. Uh is Penn State fine with three losses and a New Year's Eve bowl game? I guess we'll see at the end of the season, because I think that's where they're heading. They're heading for a three loss season, and uh, you know, maybe they'll play in the Meinike Carbowl brought to you by Meinikey, whatever, brought to you by Old Spice. Uh stay Frosty J. James Franklin. Alright, now let's get into the big games for this week, and then we'll get into the locks and wrap it up. Wrap it up this week. First game up. Not a lot of big games in college football. This is kind of a lull. We're in the middle of the college football season. It's time to hit lull mode, apparently. We got number 16, Vandy, and number 10, Bama. 10 and a half point favorites, Alabama. Vandy did it last year. It had been forever. I think they said it had been since 1984 or something like that, that they beat Alabama. I think they've run it back. I think they could beat him again. Vandy's looking good this year. This Bama team didn't look great. I talked about it in the Georgia game. Their offense stinks. They didn't score. Bama didn't score in the second half. They missed a field goal, and that was as close as they got. I don't trust Bama. I almost made this my lock. This was borderline lock material here. But, you know, just sometimes Van Dy. They didn't. No show. So so I didn't make it my lock, but I do like it. I am gonna bet it. I am gonna take Vany plus 10.5. I might sprinkle a little money line just because I I don't believe in Bama. I don't think Bama covers 10.5. That's so many points for a team that doesn't score. I just it I I just I don't I don't see it. 10 and a half. I know it's at Bama. I just I don't see it. I don't see it. I almost ah man, I wish I had made that my lock. You know what? I'm not gonna, it's not my lock. I already picked my lock, I already sent it out to the gambling group. But boy, it's like lock adjacent. Oh, it's right there. I just bam, I don't believe in them. Well, I'm only gonna talk about one other college game this week. Uh we got number three Miami at number eight, Florida State. Florida State at home, four and a half point home dog. I don't know what to make of this game. Uh both teams have a big top 25 win in week one, but they're against schools that I don't are they having a down year? Like FSU beat Bama. I just said I don't trust Bama. So is that a big win? I mean, they just beat Georgia, so maybe. I guess it's a big win still. Uh, and then Miami beat Notre Dame, and I I'm not high on Notre Dame. I guess it depends on what you think of those two schools. Like, is Notre Dame more fake or is it Bama more fake this year? So that's gonna be how you kind of decide what you bet here. Uh, Florida State, number one on offense, Miami, number nine overall on defense. I think I'd like FSU to cover four and a half. I I don't know if they're gonna win, but four and a half when you score as much as FSU does, I think they said they were averaging 53 a game or something like that. Number one offense in all the land. I I kind of tend to decide like the offense, it's at home. The offense will still work, even though they're against a very tough top ten defense. I I think they cover it. I think they cover the four and a half. So I'm leaning FSU, but uh that's my thoughts on that game. I guess, like I said, think about what you think about Miami over Notre Dame, FSU over Bama, and use that to kind of configure what you're gonna bet there. The bye week start. We're going to the NFL. Bye weeks already. Bears, Falcons, Packers, Stolers on a bye this week. Thursday night football. We're gonna look at that game first. It's Thursday, and we're talking Thursday night football. Both teams are 3-1. We've got San Francisco at Los Angeles Rams. Rams minus 8.5. No Brock Purdy. That's official as of this morning. Brock Purdy is out for the game. They have so many injuries for San Francisco. No Kittle, no Purdy, no Ayuk, no Jennings. And I counted, I'm not going to list them all. There were like 14 other people that were injured or out for tonight, questionable or out for tonight. Uh I think the Rams are legit. They're 3-1. Obviously, both teams are 3-1. 3-1 is a very good record. But the Rams, they had two blocked field goals in the fourth quarter. Either field goal would have given them the lead against the Eagles. I like them to cover 8 12. I love the Rams here. Uh I think they cover it. Another big game. Uh, I think both these teams are three and one as well. Tampa Bay and Seattle. Seattle minus three and a half. Seattle at home is very good. I I don't know if they cover three and a half. I'm kind of a Baker believer. I kind of like them on the road, but I they didn't cover last week against the Eagles, and I think the Eagles are fake good. So I think you gotta kind of lean Seattle here, minus three and a half. It's at home. I I think they win it. Uh, do they cover three and a half? Oh, that hook, that hook could get you. It could be a three-point game, and you could be sitting there thinking, oh, I should have bought the hook. This one's gonna be a tight one. I like to watch this game on Sunday. Another one, Kansas City at Jacksonville, another three and a half point spread. Jacksonville home dogs, three and a half point home dogs. I I think after last week against Baltimore, though, Kansas City's turning it on. Jacksonville's very good. It's in Duval, but I think I like Kansas City to win by four more here. I think they're they're turning it on. They had a little lull at the beginning of the season where they started one and two. Now they're two and two. That was a big win against Baltimore. Uh, you know, that was Matt called that a loser leaves town match last week. 1-2 Baltimore versus 1-3 Kansas City. Lamar gets hurt. I mean, Baltimore's fortunes look totally upside down now uh compared to where they sat a week ago at 1-2. Now they're 1-3 with a hurt Lamar, and Kansas City's 2-2. They're right there. The Chargers lost last week, surprisingly, to the Giants. So I think now this is when Kansas City starts to win. All the Swifties are, you know, getting back into the football now that they're 2-2 and all that stuff. So uh Yeah. I think you take Kansas City here, even though it's in Jacksonville. In Duval. I think you pick uh Yeah, I think you pick Kansas City to cover it. Uh okay. There are a lot of close spread bad team games this week. I'm gonna run through them. I'm not gonna give you picks on all of them, but be careful out there this weekend. These are five games that feature what I think are bad teams, but it's a close spread. So when bad teams get close spreads, it's a bad team off. It could flip either way, so just be careful. We're gonna start with Dallas at New York Jets. Jets, two and a half point home dogs. I mean, Dallas's offense looks great. Their defense looks like one of the worst in the league. It's incredible to me. I don't, I don't, I can't make heads or tails. I mean, how do you not stop a team from scoring 40? They've given up 40 over 40 plus twice this season. I I don't I don't understand it. And the Jets just they stink. They're 0-3. They stink. They they stink. But I don't know what to do here. Like, does do the Cowboys give up a bunch of points? Do they not cover two and a half? I think the Cowboys win the game. It's at New York. Maybe they don't win the game. They're 1-2-1 on this season. It's not like it would be surprising if they went 1-3-1. Uh I don't know. Be careful. Uh Minnesota Cleveland in London. Now, Cleveland's made a change. Joe Flacco is out. He's done. They did not go to Shador. They went to their other rookie that they drafted. I don't. Shador had a weird press conference this week. He he he spoke in mime. I guess did you say spoke? I don't. Mimes don't speak. I don't know what you would say. He just kind of motioned through some stuff. He was being very weird. I think he's very big mad that he is not the starting quarterback that they went with the other guy, uh, whose name escapes me at this moment. Um Dylan Gabriel. I think that's his name. Uh, but look it up at home. Whatever. I I think I've taken Minnesota here, but boy, uh Carson Wentz looks so bad last week. He he looked like Carson Wentz of old. He had that cute little Carson Wentz game two weeks ago where they won by a million, and they were like, oh, maybe he should replace JJ for this season. You know, they're poised to win this year. And then he went over to Ireland last week uh with all his ginger pals, and he threw a bunch of wounded ducks all around Ireland and looked terrible, and the Steelers, the Steelers were beating on them pretty good. They let him back into it at the end. It was only maybe a three-point game, but at one point, it was like a 20-point game. Uh yeah, they didn't look good over there. Now they do have the advantage. They stayed the week. So Minnesota's been over across the pond here for a couple uh two two weeks now, a week and a half, whatever. So maybe that gives them the edge to cover four. I don't know. I just don't like putting money on Carson Wentz. Like, I just I don't. I I told I said last week I'd like the Steelers, and they covered, and uh just Carson Wentz. That's uh these are two bad teams. Starting a rookie quarterback in London, I shh I don't know. Oof. So that's your options. You either are back in Carson Wentz or you're back in a rookie quarterback on the road in London. Uh so yeah, that's a bad game. Houston at Baltimore. Houston finally gets their first win last season, last week. Uh Baltimore 1-3. Like I said, no Lamar. Baltimore two-point underdog at home. What I I don't I don't know what this is another one. It's like you could flip a coin for this one. I have no idea. Baltimore without Lamar? Maybe Derrick Henry just carries them to victory and they win it outright. I it I if they go one and four, I think you can mark their season done. The Steelers are ahead of them. I guess that's it. The Bengals, they're without Burrow for weeks. Alright, maybe reverse course. Maybe not quite done at one and four. Because there's always Rogers is a malcontent. He could all of a sudden in the middle of the season be mad. He was big mad. He didn't like that the team didn't travel earlier. He would have preferred to have gone to London early. He said in the press conference that he disagreed with the way the team was handling it. And we were only in week four, and Rogers is already saying he didn't like how something was handled. So he's uh often a malcontent, and uh so I guess they they never you can never count Baltimore out, even if they start one and four with that division. The Browns certainly are not a contender. The Bengals without Burrow don't look like a contender. So uh yeah. I don't know what to do with that game. Maybe pick I don't know. Like I said, I'm not gonna make predictions on these. These are bad games, uh, but close spreads. Miami at Carolina plus 1.5. Yeah. I was looking at the both these teams because I needed a quarterback this week. Um, I think I ended up settling on starting a slightly injured Jaden Daniels for Washington against the Eagles because my other options were legit uh Tua or Lil Bryce. Uh I I these are two bad quarterbacks. These are two bad teams. Somebody has to win, or maybe they'll tie, and Carolina would cover in the event of a tie, so I don't know. And then we've got the Giants at New Orleans. New Orleans one and a half point favorite there. Uh, I'm not sure I get that. Uh I know it's on the road, but these are both very bad teams. New Orleans hasn't won yet this year. Uh I don't get it. So, yeah. So those are your bad games for the week, so be careful. Be careful out there. You remember, you don't have to bet every game. So maybe lay off some of these bad games this week. Uh let's go to some of the locks this week. First up, I love this one. Lions. Greg gave us lions minus eight and a half, the Bengals, the Bengals. The Bengals. They score the first three points. I'm sitting there with my wife. My wife, obviously, has been on the podcast. This is a Broncos house. She's a Broncos fan, so we support the Broncos in this house. Bengals go up 3-0. It's a little quiet in our house. We're a little concerned. Like I could tell she's she's not super worried, but she's a little like, hmm, they scored. Our defense is pretty good. What happened there? Well, what happened is they weren't quite awake at the beginning of the game because that was all the Bengals scored the whole game, three points. They never, I don't know if they crossed midfield again. That game was so bad my wife fell asleep during it on Monday night. Now it was the second game, but it wasn't like it was super late. It started at 8.15. But it was just such a bad game. I mean, the Bengals, they just are awful. They're horrible to watch. I feel bad for people watching them. Uh, one point late in the game, it was comical because I saw it, you know, while it was happening, and I was like, huh. I think Denver only rushed three people there. Maybe they'll show a replay, but they got the sack in like half a second, but that can't be right. Like, I must have missed, you know, sometimes they are they're very tricky with the blitz packages. You know, they have a guy on the line and he goes out in coverage, and a linebacker swings in, and they, you know, they uh defenses in the NFL are very creative with their blitz schemes. So sometimes you miss an extra guy here or there. No, no, they showed it on replay, and I saw it many times on social media. The Broncos rushed three and got to the quarterback in half a second. It was comical. They had four guys, they had three linemen, and the halfback step up, the halfback stepped up to the middle to block one guy. They had four guys blocking one guy in the middle, and then the two edge rushers just whooped the tackles. I mean, both tackles fell down, and they just sacked the quarterback in half a second. I mean, he had no time at all. That Bengals line is an absolute joke. Uh, so the Lions, they're just gonna destroy the Bengals. I mean, you could set this line hit 20, and I would still take it at 20. I mean, I might do the little adjustment slider thing. The Bengals may not score this week. I mean, they just Browning looks so bad. He looks like one of the worst backup quarterbacks in the NFL. I I can't believe they haven't made a phone call to try and get anybody else. I mean, they just they just look so bad. Horrible, embarrassing, bad. Uh, we got Uncle Mike giving us Chargers minus two and a half against Washington. Now, oh, I said earlier, uh, you know, I thought Washington was playing the Eagles. They're playing the Chargers. Uh, Jaden Daniels returns. I said it earlier in the podcast. I'm not betting on the Chargers right now. So I it's it's in LA, but I'm not I'm not taking this one, Uncle Mike. The Chargers are on the ban list. Maybe you didn't get the memo, but Justin Air Bear and the Chargers are banned right now. Jaden coming back. Jaden didn't look too good in his first two games. Uh Uncle Mike's trying to talk me into taking the Chargers and taking them off the ban list, but no. I said it earlier. The Chargers are banned. I'm keeping it. And then one last one, and then I've got my lock this week, and then we're wrapping it up here. Steve gave us Notre Dame minus 21. They host Boise State this week. Uh Steve, I don't know if you saw this. Notre Dame lost twice already, and uh they barely covered against a two-win Purdue team at home. Uh, and Purdue is much worse than Boise State. Uh and the spread was about the same. I think it was like 23, 24, and and they covered, but it would they won by like 26. It wasn't like they won by 40 or something, they barely beat Purdue. Uh I don't like this pick one bit. I don't trust Notre Dame to cover 21. I don't like this at all. Not at all. No, Steve. No, no, no, no, no. I don't 21's too much. Notre Dame doesn't cover that. Alright, this is the last one this week. This is my lock of the week. And I am giving you, I'm I'm going out on a limb here. I'm backing a rookie quarterback on the road. I'm giving you Giants plus one and a half at New Orleans, and I'm gonna tell you why. You know, Dart didn't look great last week, but Spencer Rattler is much worse. He is a quarterback for New Orleans. He is 0-10 to start his career. He is one of the worst quarterbacks ever with starting his career. Two more games, and he is tied. If he gets to 0-12, he is tied in second place all time with losses to start a career. That is just that is a stat. I don't understand. I said it earlier when I talked about this being a bad game. This is a bad game, but this is the one I'm gonna tell you to bet on. Out of all those bad games I give you, this is my luck. Giants, I sprinkle the money line, take them one and a half. I bet them just straight up money line. Giants are not losing this game. Spencer Rattler will be 0-11. He is a terrible quarterback. Uh, but like I said, two more, and he is tied for second. I'm gonna run through the list here for you. So this is when you think Spencer Rattler, think of these people. Uh he's currently tied with Zach Mettenberger. I don't know if you guys remember him. He was with the Titans like, I don't know, eight, ten years ago. Uh he actually finished his career 0-10. Uh, Brody Croyle, uh, Kansas City, 07 to 09, before Alex Smith went there, before uh Andy Reid went there as a coach. They they had some very bad down years in the late aughts. Uh Brody Croyel from Kansas City went 0-10 there. Derek Carr with the Raiders in 2014 went 0-10. And then you move up a little bit. Uh, if Spencer were to lose this week, he'd be tied with Stan Gellenball from the Cardinals Seahawks in 91 and 92. He started his career off 0-11. Troy Aikman, people forget, and maybe not with the documentary. I think they talked about this in the How about Them Cowboys documentary thing on Netflix. But in 89, his rookie year with the Cowboys, Aikman started off 0-11. They were very bad, the Cowboys, uh, in the 80s. Uh, Jack Trudeau, this is who he would be tied with. This is the second all-time to start his career, was with the Colts in 86 and 87 when they first moved to Indy there. Jack Trudeau, 0-12 with the Colts. And then number one of all time, how can you forget him? Number one, Deshaun Kaiser, 0-15 with the Browns in 2017. That was the year that they went 0-16. Uh and a little history on that. It's not like the Browns had a lot of talent at quarterback that season. So Deshaun went uh 0-15. Their backups that year, I looked it up, were Cody Kessler, who started his career 0-8 uh before being at the Browns, or with the Browns. He went 0-8 the year before. He was with the Browns the year before. That's why they made the switch to Kaiser, because Cody Kessler went 0-8. And then Kevin Hogan, who lost his only NFL start. He only started one game and it was a loss. So those were the backups. So you got a guy that goes 0-5, a backup of 0-1, and another backup of 0-8. Not a lot of choices in Cleveland. That's why they have the jersey with the quarterback names listed, you know, a mile long about all the quarterbacks they've run through. Just a bad organization. Of course, the record would be owned by the Browns, but that's my lock this week. I'm giving you Giants plus one and a half. That is my lock. That's gonna do it for this week's episode. Check us out. I'm doing all sorts of AI little fun picks for all the locks, you know, all eight locks every week. I tweet them out, I post them on Facebook. You can find me Andy Royce on Facebook, you can find me on TikTok. I post them on TikTok, I post them on Twitter, uh X at TSS Gambling. Find me all there. We'll be doing the dog picks this week again. Even though Lady is a little injured, I think she's gonna struggle through it and make a good pick for Monday night. But that is it for this week's show. Thanks for listening and good luck gambling, everybody.