From SEC Bias To Cincinnati’s Wild Sports Weekend

Cold streaks make the best audits. We opened the books on a rough run, admitted the dog is beating most of our crew, and then got to the real work: finding small edges with oversized impact. From college hoops pricing to NFL coaching heat, this one moves fast and hits where the lines are soft.

We dig into Purdue’s rank whiplash, Houston’s steady covers, and why neutral-site tournaments twist perception. Then it’s Stay Frosty time: Brian Daboll is out, the Bengals’ defense needs a reset, and Jonathan Gannon lands on the hot seat as Arizona slides. If you bet futures or weekly sides, this is where coaching, context, and personnel combine into a cleaner read.

The NFL landscape is pure chaos: Denver dethrones its boogeyman, Kansas City flirts with desperation, the Colts’ record hides a brutal stretch ahead, and Chicago’s surprising push shakes up the NFC North. We also take a real-world detour through Cincinnati’s sports weekend—from high school playoffs in an NFL stadium to college hoops and MLS—and why venue design and crowd flow can tilt live-betting moments.

Our best value play comes with a simple operational fix: Jaguars -3 at Arizona. Trevor Lawrence finally embraced the play-call wristband, shaving precious seconds, reducing penalties, and boosting tempo. Books price star returns; they’re slower to price process upgrades. Pair that with a Cardinals team underperforming expectations, and the mismatch emerges.

If you’re here for sharp angles without the fluff, you’ll leave with a tighter card, a better read on market narratives, and a lock we’re willing to stamp. Follow and subscribe for weekly edges, share with a friend who needs sharper bets, and drop your take: does the dog get the trophy if he wins?

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome Back And Housekeeping
• 1:40 Weekly Record And Group Standings
• 4:55 College Hoops Top Shuffle And Picks
• 9:20 ESPN–YouTube Truce And Viewing Impact
• 10:40 Stay Frosty: Dayball Fired, Bengals Rant
• 15:30 Jonathan Gannon On The Frosty Throne
• 19:20 Coaching Carousel And ACC Chaos
• 22:20 NFL State Of Play: AFC And NFC Picture
• 28:20 Local Rant: Heritage Bank Arena Woes
• 34:20 SEC Bye Week And College Lines
• 38:20 Cincinnati’s Jam-Packed Sports Weekend
• 42:00 NFL Slate: Key Matchups And Leans
• 48:20 Group Locks And The Steve Dilemma
• 51:20 Lead-Pipe Lock: Jaguars Minus Three
• 58:00 Closing Notes And Dog Picks

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:03

Hey everybody, today is Friday, November 21st, and this is another edition of the Sportsbook Sharps. As always, I am your host Andy, and I am back in the studio. After taking a week off, I went and uh visited in Indiana my mother for her birthday. I took my brother Matt with me, so we drove over to Indiana, and uh guess we should have just brought the podcast equipment on the road. We could have, it's a couple three-hour road trip. We could have done a podcast in the car, but I didn't think about bringing the equipment with me. And uh that's fine. We'll take a week off here and there, and uh we'll come back. It's not like we're on fire or anything anyway, and you need to hear my picks. Um, I didn't even do the AI generated ones. We got back so late uh that I didn't even bother doing those by the time all the locks came in. So but we'll be back to normal this week. Uh we'll have the we had the dogs. Stanley got his right. Lady missed hers. Lady, the cowboys, our cowboys. How about them cowboys? We're playing Monday night, and the lady went against the cowboys. Very rude of her. She is new to the household. We got her this June. Uh, so she obviously doesn't understand that this is a cowboys house and that she should never go against the family. Uh it's a good thing I didn't have to whack her like uh Michael Corleone. But uh yeah, we'll keep her. Uh we'll have her out there again for this Monday. Big Sunday and Monday games this week. Uh, but let's get into some updates here. Let's do a little house cleaning here. Gambling update. Oh, good heavens. Three and five on the week. We cannot catch a break. We are terrible this year. We have not had, and I hope you're sitting down to hear this. We have not had a winning week since September 22nd that weekend. That was the last winning weekend the gambling group had. A reminder today is November 21st. Um, we went 7-1 that week, and we have been 4 4, or worse, every single week since Uncle John and I are tied for first. We are both 8-4. We are proudly carrying the entire gambling group. Uh, we are the only two above 500. Second place is currently sitting uh at 6-6. There's two people at 6-6, and then everybody else, the other four, are under 500, with Steve, my cousin Steve, inheriting the MacDaddy crown for most fatable with a record of 2 and 8 on the year. Uh, for the whole season, we are 44 and 49 44 and 49 on the year. And if you remember, the entire reason I started these dog picks when we, you know, had Breeze four years ago, uh, was I I told some of these people in the gambling group the dog could pick better than you. Okay, so just a reminder uh I am eight and four, Uncle John eight and four, everybody else six and six or worse. Stanley Poochie right now, because he only does the NFL, he didn't do week one, which was only college, so he only does NFL. He has picked 11 games, he is seven and four. The dog is better at making picks than six out of the eight gambling group people. And the only reason Uncle John and I are better is we've picked one more game. We may maybe not. We have the same number of misses, though. So when Poochie picks this Sunday night football game, he maybe go to eight and four, maybe tie us, or if if we both miss, maybe we'll be eight and five, and Stanley Poochie will be leading at eight and four. I don't know. I'll have to ask the gambling group if the dog finishes in first place, does he get the trophy? I don't know. We have a trophy, I'm the current owner of said trophy. Um, I don't know. I'll have to get a ruling clarification. If the dog finishes in first place, does he get a trophy? So it should be interesting too. It looks like I'm on pace. So our tiebreaker, this should Uncle John and I tie, are the uh season-long locks. We've both well, I haven't hit mine yet, but San Francisco very much looks like they're on pace to hit their season-long lock. He has already hit his, he picked like Southwest Missouri State or something over four wins. I forget what it was, but he already hit his. I am on pace to hit mine, so it'll be interesting if we both tie and we both hit the season long lock, it'll have to come down to a different tiebreaker. So stay tuned for that. Uh college basketball update, just a quick one. We had a little bouncy bouncy around in the top uh Purdue preseason number one. They have not been doing so great. They've been winning, but they haven't been covering the big spreads that they're getting. You're you know, some of these games are supposed to blow people out 25-30 points, whatever. They're not covering the 25-30 points, and Houston has been covering. Houston has been playing well. Uh, so about a week ago, week and a half ago, they they flip-flopped them, put Purdue two, put Houston number one in college basketball. Now they've flipped them back again because uh Purdue had a big win at Alabama last week. Uh, I think they were number 12 or 15 or something like that. I can't remember. They bounced around now that they've lost a game, but Purdue beat them at Alabama last week, so that flip-flopped them back around. And then a big game tonight, the Bahamas Championship game, Purdue at Texas Tech. Uh, well, at Texas Tech, it's in the Bahamas. Uh, but Texas Tech is the home team on record here. Not sure why that is exactly. But anyway, Purdue, three and a half point favorite. I I like that. I Purdue will cover the three and a half. Purdue will win this game. They did not shoot well last night, but they Memphis was a game all they could. Uh, they fought back. Memphis was up late. Um, it was a really good game. Uh, not if you're a Purdue fan, you were screaming at the TV, but just not enough uh oomph to put Purdue up. You know, I think they were 14.5 point favorites. I think they won by nine or eleven, but they just they let them hang around too long to beat them by the 14 uh and a half. I think they'll have no problem with Texas Tech tonight getting over three and a half. I do think it will be close. It's not like I don't think Purdue's gonna win by 10, but they took care of business. Alabama was a favorite at Alabama, and Purdue took care of business and won the game outright. Well, that doesn't sound right. Is that right? I'd have to look at the game again. Well, they said Alabama was number eight. Yeah, Alabama, two and a half point favorite. I thought, okay, I thought, all right. Uh, I guess because it was at Alabama. I don't know. Alabama's had some good wins this year, too. Remember, I talked about Bama um a couple of weeks ago. I mentioned how they need to get some early wins because their schedule is absolutely brutal. Um, they did get some of those wins, so they won at St. John's. Um, I told you to pick them to beat St. John's because I thought they could win. Um they did not beat Purdue, but then they beat number eight Illinois the other day by four points. And then they have Gonzaga coming up. So four straight games. They play five. Technically, Purdue was two, Illinois is eight, Gonzaga's 13. Um, and I think that's one of those tournaments, so they might. No, that's not a tournament. What is that then? I don't know what they're playing Gonzaga in on Monday. It's just the it just says it's a game on TNT. I'm not really sure. And then it says they play UNLV on Wednesday, so it must not be a tournament if they already have a game on Wednesday scheduled. Uh, but then remember, I mentioned they play in December, number four Arizona. Arizona and Gonzaga look really good this year. If Alabama splits that, I mean, that's really good. Um I look out for Alabama in March Madness. If they if they split or even take both of those games against Gonzaga and Arizona, I mean, if they take them both, they won't be a surprise. But if they split, they'll be a little lower seed. Uh, you should definitely watch out for Bama because they are a very, very tough school. Um yeah. So that's it. Um, there's not too many good games. Uh BYU and Wisconsin are both ranked. They play this weekend. Um, but not too many good ones. The the big games are next week uh during the week of Thanksgiving. They have a bunch of those tournaments, the battle for Atlantis, all that stuff, or maybe that's a Christmas. That might be a I don't know. There's some tournaments going on Maui's next week, so maybe that's the one I'm thinking of. But yeah, so check it out. Uh bunch of college football basketball coming up. Oh, and we got ESPN back. They finally, uh ESPN and YouTube were like, huh, we should probably land this little do-do-do that we have going on here. And uh they ended their TIFF. I have ESPN back, and boy, let me tell you, I I whatever, college football on Saturdays. If you're busy, uh if you're not in front of your TV on Saturday, whatever, without the ESPN, there's other games on. There's Big Ten on on Peacock, on NBC, on Fox, there's uh Big 12s on TNT and True TV and all these other channels. Like, there's other ways to find things. I was hunting around early last week without ESPN back, and the college basketball thing was a wasteland. There were women's games on FS1 and CBS Sports on certain nights. Without ESPN and their family of channels, you really, really are missing out on college basketball. As much as I despise ESPN, if you want to watch men's college basketball, you have to have ESPN. So I am very grateful and happy that they've signed the agreement and they are back together. So uh, but yeah, we'll keep doing more college basketball as uh we're getting close to the college football season winding down here. We'll have all the bowl games coming up soon and talk about those on here, but uh yeah. Um let's update uh Stay Frosty here. While we were off last week, there was some movement in the NFL. And uh uh New York Giants head coach Brian Dayball was fired. Now, if you've been listening to this podcast since its inception, you will know Dayball had been on Stay Frosty before. He was on there two seasons ago in season two of the Sportsbook Sharps. Um so this was no surprise. Uh somebody we had put up a while ago, I reread his uh thing, and I mean it was just hilarious reading it back from two years ago. He still made some of those basic mistakes when he's coaching. He he just he doesn't make the right play calls and execute well on game day. It was time for the Giants to part with him. I think they have two or three wins on the season. Like, it's it's just it's time to go. That the Giants are just a poorly run organization. They've done this thing where they fired the coach and kept the GM, and then they fired the GM and then kept the coach. I think that was last year. They fired their GM and kept Day Bull. Now they have the new GM and the coach is fired. So it's just like sometimes you just need a clean house, purge it all, reboot, and just start over. They're not heading in the right direction. Uh they've had some injuries this year, but everybody in the NFL has injuries. That's not an excuse. Um, yeah, I just yeah. I also don't understand an update that didn't happen. The Bengals, the Cincinnati Bengals, the local team here at uh Liberty Township. Uh we're home, uh we're a suburb of Cincinnati here. Uh, the number one sports gambling podcast in Liberty Township, by the way. Uh I don't understand how the Bengals didn't fire at least their defensive coordinator or the head coach. It just makes no sense. Their defense is one of the worst, if not the worst, 30-second defense in the league. They the the NFC North is still up for grabs. The Steelers look not so good, even though they're six and four. That Aaron Rodgers just doesn't look right in that uniform. It doesn't, he's not playing well. They're not playing well. Like they are not a very good team, even though they're somehow six and four. Um the Baltimore Ravens are looking a little better now that Lamar's back, but they're still under 500 or at 500. There's room that and the Browns just, I think the Browns have one win. Like, oof, stinky. Um, yeah. So they stink. Like they've this is very much open for them to grab. They should have fired the defensive coordinator. You could pick anybody off the streets of Cincinnati in downtown, and they could be just as efficient. Um, and if you hired somebody that has even an iota of coaching experience at defense, they would be an improvement. I mean, it's just embarrassing. I the guys are laying down on the field, they're missing every tackle. I you know what? I'll do it on the cheap. Bring me in, I'll have those guys cracking helmets, practicing tackles. It would be over. They would win this weekend against Baltimore if I was the defensive coordinator. I'll go out there on a limb and say that. Uh, that's how bad he is. And I have zero coaching experience. Uh I've resurrected max schools on college football. Uh, so that's my experience is playing NCAA football and Madden. Uh, that's my that's my resume. I would still be better than their defensive coordinator. Anyway, back to this week here. This week on Stay Frosty, I am putting up Arizona Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon up on the Frosty throne. The Cardinals are dead last in the hyper competitive NSC West. Four games behind third place. They are three and seven on the year. And while they weren't expected to make the playoffs, I don't think anybody preseason was like, oh, you know what? My Super Bowl Dark Horse would be is the Arizona Cardinals. Nobody thought that. But I think people expected them to win about seven to nine games. Like that was the sweet spot. Go about 500. Um, that was kind of the expectation, maybe even a little less than that, but they are not going to do that at all. Um, they went eight and nine last year. This is a major step back at sitting at three and seven. Uh Gannon in his three years at Arizona, this is his third year, so not full three years. 15 and 29. He was a defensive coordinator for only two seasons before getting the head coach job. And this is one of those cases, I think, of being promoted way too early before you're ready. Some of these guys are in such a hurry anymore in the NFL to promote the hot coordinator. Oh, this guy's been good for a year. This guy's been good for two years. You know what? He was the coordinator on the Eagles. The Eagles have really good defensive players. Like, I'm not trying to belittle his defensive uh prowess, uh, his ability to set up and have a good defense, but when you have really good players, you benefit by looking like a really good coach. Um I mean, yeah, sometimes it just works out that way. Like, it's it's I could think it's like the Phil Jackson effect. Like, who was the better? Was it Michael Jordan and Phil? Or was it Phil because Phil then went and did it with Shaq and Kobe? But Shaq and Kobe are two Hall of Fame players, too. So like it begs the question sometimes in sports, is it more a product of the coach, or is it more a product of the players? And I think with this Gannon, I think it's absolutely a product of the players. So what'd they do after he left? They only won a Super Bowl and went to another one uh since he departed. They've been to two Super Bowls and won one in three years, and he and he's been over uh flopping around in the desert uh for three years. Uh I put their old coach Cliff Kingsbury up, who after four seasons had a better percentage. So I've had the Cardinals on here before. Um, the Cardinals just seem to be one of those franchises that is consistently mediocre or bad. And I don't think Gannon is the guy to course correct that. So for that reason, I almost said Rich Gannon, Jonathan Gannon, you need to stay Frosty. Uh, just another quick update on Stave Frosty here. No new college coaches fired. I don't know if we'll have any more before the end of the season, but uh, we have our first big hire. Virginia Tech has hired former Penn State head coach James Franklin. I think this is a great hire. Uh there's often only one or two ranked teams in the ACC. Virginia Tech plays in the ACC. So big game choker James Franklin is a great hire for this mediocre conference. There's not that many big games to lose. So that's like that's a win-win. Franklin gets the coach again. He gets the coach at a very mid-conference. Um, and he he there won't be big games because uh he'll play like the 20th ranked Louisville or uh 5-5 Clemson. Like, whoo! Uh yeah, so no big games to choke. Good job, good hire. All right, let's do a quick recap here from previous weeks. Uh speaking of the ACC, Louisville, who was ranked number 20, lost to 5-5 Clemson last Friday night, ending any hope they had at getting into the ACC championship game. Now, it was a long shot. They already had uh a lot two losses. Now they have three. They're seventh in the ACC with the three losses, and there are four teams tied for first with one loss. There's only one game to go. Well, two games, I guess, to go for them, but uh, they can't make up enough ground. Um, the ACC currently looks like a one-bid team. Whoever wins that ACC championship, they'll get the automatic bid, and they're likely the only team that's getting into the college football playoff. We've got to make room, you know, the SEC's got five in right now. They're trying to talk everybody into Texas and squeeze a sixth team in. Um, yeah. So uh let's speaking of the uh highly overrated SEC, Texas AM, their number one school, the team leading it, needed a miracle second half win to win at home against South Carolina. Now, you're probably thinking, South Carolina, I haven't heard much about them this year. Are they ranked or something? Because everything in the SEC is ranked. No! They are not ranked. Do you know why they're not ranked? Because their record on the season after this game was 3-7. Typically, 3-7 teams don't get ranked. Typically, one of the greatest teams to ever take the field, Texas AM, should have blown out a 3-7 team at home. But no. In this game, Texas AM, one of the greatest teams ever assembled, probably one of the greatest teams in SEC history, as the Twitter people like to go. They were down 30-3 at halftime. Now they did have a great second half. They shut South Carolina out in the second half. They won the game 31 to 30. But did you hear anybody talk this week? Think back to all the discussion, college football discussion. Did anybody really talk about how bad of a win that was? No. No. Anytime a non-SEC school does exactly what they did, barely winning a game, or being down 30 to 3 at halftime, or and only winning against a three-win team by one point, uh, the conference is weak. The discussion is always, oh, this conference is so bad. The conference is weak. Even their top teams can't beat the bad teams. But if it's an SEC school down 27 to a three-win team at home, it's no big deal. We're just the business, we'll just move on. We aren't even going to talk about it. This just strengths. This just speaks to the strength of the SEC, blah, blah, blah. That's what they say on TV. I am so sick of college football and their SEC bias. It's ruining everything. They everybody's ranked in the SEC in the top eight. Uh, and then they beat up on each other, and then they talk about how tough they are. Well, if they were so tough, why did Tennessee get shellaced last year when they played Ohio State so tough? Huh? Why did they lose some of their non-conference games before their conference started, huh? I yeah, just get out of here with this SEC strength nonsense. They can't pay the players anymore on their own. They don't have the advantage like they used to in the 2000s when they were making payments under the table. So uh speaking of uh strength in the SEC, I guess they'll call this. Uh Oklahoma upsets Alabama 23-21. And the college football playoff did drop Bama some in their ranking. They'll still be in the playoffs, but they're they did take a hit in their positioning on it. But uh yeah, that was a that was kind of a shocking loss the other day. And then uh speaking of, I told you they want to still try to get Texas in there. Uh Georgia 35, Texas 10. Uh, I think Arch Manning stinks, right? Like that's the consensus after this season that is almost over here. Uh Texas is not back, and Arch Manning stinks. Uh, there's a reason he rode the pine all last year. He he's he's not very good. He stinks. Uh, can we be done with Texas now? They dropped to 17th in the college football playoff ranking. They have three losses. They aren't very good. They have like no signature wins. I think maybe one signature win. But uh my they don't pass my eyeball test. Like, if I'm watching them and they just got drummed by Georgia and they lost to Ohio State, like, okay, so we put them in there, we put them in as the sixth team from the SEC in the college football playoff, they're gonna lose. What's the point of putting a team in we know is going to lose that has no shot at winning? They've lost to Georgia, they've lost to Bama. Uh, they did beat Oklahoma, I guess that's their signature win. Um, so if they get matched up, I guess, against Oklahoma in the playoffs, they could maybe beat them again. I don't know if they would beat them again if they played a second time. They're not a top 12 team. They don't deserve to be in. Speaking of teams from the SEC, Ole Miss. Gotta talk about them. Interesting week. Allegedly, this is what the rumors are on the interwebs. They gave head coach Lane Kiffin an ultimatum. Agree to stay here before the Egg Bowl is played next week, or else. Allegedly, the you know, this I will say one thing about the college football that's in the positive. They have the best detectives in all the land. The people doing the flight tracker, tracking analysis, and all that stuff, it's incredible. They know where every plane flies during football season and you know, before football season, at the end of football season, when coaches are going around talking to teams. Somebody reported that there was like a private plane that went from Oxford to Baton Rouge, and then it also went over to Florida and back or something, and his family was on there, and he there was somebody that was camping out in Gainesville at the Florida airport or something that was taking pictures at the airport, and apparently there was even a rumor that Lane Kiffin was wearing a disguise. I kid you not, I do love that about college football and the SEC in particular. Incredible that somebody's just camping out taking photos or whatever. There was like a grainy photo posted online. I it may not even bend the right airport or any, I don't know. I love to buy into all that stuff, so I'm buying all in that it is. But this is such an odd thing to tell the coach, and then it sounds like the coach's agent flipped it on him and made that information public. It just seems really messy this week. Um, but they want Lane to make a decision if he's gonna stay or go before the egg bowl, and then if he's gonna go, they're just gonna be done with him, I guess. Um, which is very strange. They're currently sitting firmly in the college football playoff, so it'll be interesting to see if they kick him out uh or if he announces that he's going to Florida or LSU or whatever. Will they keep him in the top 12? Will they give him one of those at-large bids? I I don't know. We've never, I mean, this is only the second year of the college football playoff of the 12 team expanded one. We've never had when it was four teams and stuff that they were picking, we've never had a coach get pushed out or asked to leave. So I don't know. They may hold this against them. So I don't know. But that's it for the college football update. Now we're gonna pivot and go to the NFL. Pivot! Uh, since I've been off uh a week, I'm just gonna do kind of a state of the uh union update here for col for NFL. Um first let me start by saying the Denver Broncos, my wife's team, had a huge win last week against Kansas City. Kansas City is their Baba Yeaga, their boogeyman. Uh uh they defeated the boogeyman. They are 9-2, and they sit as one of the best teams in the NFL. And actually, right now, they haven't taken their bye yet. They're on bye this week. They are actually the number one seed in the AFC, and they would get the bye. Now the Colts are 8-2, and the Colts have the tiebreaker with Denver since they won the head-to-head game. As my wife will be quick to let you know, they won the game on a bonus lever uh bogus leverage call that gave Indy a second chance at a game-winning field goal as time expired. Uh, my wife loves to remind me of this every single Sunday. Anytime there's a field goal attempt and somebody puts their hand down on the defensive line, she'll scream leverage at the TV. Uh I think that was in week two. Not that she's bitter about it. We're in week 12, and I still hear that every time there's uh NFL football on and there's a field goal attempt. Leverage! Leverage! That's leverage! How come they didn't call leverage? They called leverage against the Broncos. The Broncos would only have one loss if they didn't call that leverage, um, which she's not wrong. I they you could call that leverage thing on anything, but anyway, I've talked about that on here before, I think. Um it's just funny that that uh gets brought up. But the Colts, I was looking at it, they have a lot of tough games left, so she may not need to worry about that loss to the Colts and the tiebreaker because this weekend the Colts are at the Chiefs, they still have to play the Texans twice, they play at the Seahawks, they host the 49ers, and they play the Jags twice. Uh there's a world where even if they're though they're right now sitting the Colts at 8-2, you could be looking at a team that finishes uh with three or four more losses and ends up uh with you know five, six, seven losses, uh, and doesn't even win the AFC South. That's a very real possibility because the Texans are looking really good right now. They just beat the Bills. They murdered Josh Allen. Um my boy, my poor boy. Josh Allen, oh, he was getting hit. I think he got sacked nine times last night, they said on the broadcast. He he was getting hit hard. Um but anyway, uh the Texans, they're looking very good. Uh I could see him beating the Colts twice. They seem to the Colts and the Texans, even when Manning was there, the Texans always gave them uh some problems and stuff. So uh also this game this weekend against the Colts is a must-win for Kansas City. Kansas City's currently 5-5, and they are in ninth place in the AFC, sitting out of the playoffs. The team that's been to a million Super Bowls in the last six seasons is sitting out of the playoffs. What a weird playoff picture right now. Kansas City and Baltimore are out, two of the preseason favorites to win the Super Bowl, and the Jags, or at least get there from the AFC. And the Jags, Colts, and New England. Huh? New England? Yes, are in. How about New England? If you haven't been paying attention, Drake may be for real. Uh, they have a really easy schedule left, too. I was looking at the schedule. Their only tough games left are against the Bills and the Ravens. And the Bills have looked shaky. And the Ravens, I don't know what to make of the Ravens. Uh, you know, they went so long. Without Lamar, it's hard to say what's going to happen with them. But yeah, just a wild uh you know, New England could end up with that one spot with their schedule left because I think they play like the Jets again. They I mean, just they have some really easy games left. Um then, as far as the NFC goes, I don't think that anybody's surprised. Uh, the defending champs, the Eagles, are 8-2 in the one seed. I mean, I nobody nobody's surprised by that. Uh, as much as I hate it as a Cowboys fan, uh, they look like the team to beat in the tough NFC. Um, however, I do think it would surprise you if you knew, and maybe you do know, maybe you're a fan of the NFC North and you know this, but the Chicago Bears, duh Bears, lead the NFC North and are the current three seed in the NFC playoffs. It's just, I I didn't realize, I guess I just thought Green Bay was still ahead of them. Um, but no, Green Bay is now a wild card team, and the Bears, duh Bears, are leading the division. Unbelievable. The NFC West also has three teams in with the Rams, the Seahawks, and the 49ers. Surprising preseason favorites like Detroit and Washington are sitting out of the playoffs right now. Although Detroit is only one game back, they still have a really good shot to get in. They still have games left against the Bears and the Packers, so they can they can make some noise and knock off one of those two teams and steal their spot, or they can still make some noise. Washington looks cooked, though. They are 3-8, they look very bad. Uh Jaden Daniels is hurt and out. I think he's out for the season. I'm pretty sure he's out for the season. Uh, so they're they're done. It's draft time thinking about their draft positioning. Um and the NFC West, they still have a lot of games against each other. I was looking at their schedules. So that could shake it up, and maybe one of those will get knocked out, and Detroit could grab one of those spots. So there's still opportunities uh for shakeups in in all the areas, um, but just a wild current state. So yeah, that's it for updates for those. Um let's do I I have a very brief uh quick old man yells at cloud here, and uh it's a local one, so if you're not a local person, this doesn't apply. But uh, for the local listener out there, I got something to complain about. Uh and this is in the news because there's a game there tonight. Uh Heritage Bank Arena, also known as US Bank Arena. It was that for a very long time. I went to many concerts and stuff when it was US Bank Arena, but it is now called Heritage Bank Arena. But if you Google it and type US Bank Arena, it still shows up. Uh this is a venue that's right next to the Red Stadium downtown. So if you're if you're looking uh east to west, it goes Heritage Bank Arena, Red Stadium, those two are almost touching. And then there's the development and the banks and the parking garage and all that stuff there, and then the Bengals Stadium on the westmost side of all that. This arena is an absolute dump. And I'm bringing it up because the Louisville and UC basketball play in it tonight, uh Friday night, and it's got a lot of people talking online about how bad of a venue it is, how they picked one of the worst neutral sites they could have possibly picked, uh, because this arena is an absolute dump. Um, the number one complaint I have about it though, uh, is uh I was there just this past weekend. Uh we went to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra. Side note on that. If you've never seen, and they're coming to the Schuster Center in Dayton December 6th or something like that, check me on that date. But if you're in the greater Cincinnati area or in the Dayton area, this is a must-see show. If you like Christmas music, if you like rock and roll, if you like fun uh pyrotechnics and laser lights and scaffolding that goes up and down and lifts and just a all-around cool concert, Transsiberian Orchestra is a must-attend event. It I've been a few times now. It never ever leaves you disappointed. There, they're so much fun. The guys up on stage and the ladies and the whole band and the orchestra and everything just have so much fun with it and everything. It looks like they really enjoy doing it, and it's just tremendous. Uh it's it's just a lot of fun. I got a lot of pictures and videos and stuff, and they drop snow, they drop you know fake snow, they have flames, the most flames you'll ever see at a Christmas concert. It's just it's awesome. It's a lot of fun. Anyway, uh that aside, it had been a minute since I'd been there. Uh I think I saw Nate Bargazzi there maybe two years ago. Maybe four years ago. It was right after COVID. It may have been three years ago, maybe it was in 2022, I think. Anyway, maybe 21, 22, post-COVID. I don't remember if I wore a mask or not. That's not the point. The point is, it'd been a few years. I forgot how big of a dump this place is. They only serve RC Cola at this place. I went up, Darby doesn't drink, I got me a beer, got Darby in a uh, I was like, oh, you got Coke or Pepsi? And the guy looks at me and goes, Oh, we don't have Coke or Pepsi, we got uh RC Cola and Diet RC Cola. And I was confused because I thought maybe I had stepped in a time machine accidentally and was transported back to like 1975. I who sells RC Cola? What I there I have family that are in their 20s that has probably never even had an RC Cola. And they're in their 20s. Like how long ago it blew my mind. I haven't seen an RC Cola in the wild. I don't even know. Do they still sell it? I meant to check that. We did I don't think I went to Kroger. I haven't been to Kroger yet. We're going to Kroger this weekend. I'm gonna check if they even carry RC Cola in a Kroger. I don't I it and of course it tasted awful. Now, I'm not a big Diet soda fan, I'm more of a zero, I'm a Coke Zero drinker or whatever. But I don't like Diet Pepsi, I don't really care for Diet Coke either. But it's drinkable. Uh I tried this Diet R.C. cola. I it it is a weird flavor. Like, it doesn't taste like Pepsi or Coke. It's its own thing. It it certainly is its own cola. Um I couldn't believe it. But anyway, it's just a dump of an arena. Uh the thing should be demolished. Years and years ago, they talked about demolishing it and they never did. I don't know why they haven't done it yet. It's a blight on the entire downtown area. They've built the banks up and made it beautiful. There's tons of fun there. It's a Dora between the two stadiums, the baseball and the football. You can walk around. They have events and stuff there when there's games and stuff that people do and big tailgating things, and you can walk right up to a building and they'll hand you a beer and you walk around and just sip your beer and enjoy that you're out in the nice environment when it is that nice time of year. Bunch of nice restaurants and bars and stuff down there. They put buildings uh like mixed-use developments where people live above it and stuff and hang out there, and then you see this place that's like a relic from the 50s, and it's terrible. They they only have a few doors that let people in, so it takes forever. We we almost missed. If they weren't running behind, we would have missed, we would not have got to our seats in time. Um, like scanning in, it looks like the metal detectors are from 20, 30 years ago. Uh it just takes forever to get in there, and then when you do get in there, it's one of the smallest concourses you'll ever be on. And now, luckily, we went to like a three in the afternoon show, so there weren't like a lot of people queued up to go to the bathroom to get drinks, whatever. So we were able to actually maneuver around it pretty well. Um, now it wasn't sold out either. Um, but I've been there before, like I've been to Garth Brooks concert there. Like I said, I we went to Nate Bargazzi, and that was sold out. Um, and if the venue is packed, it can take you 20 plus minutes to get out of your seat, get to a bathroom, or get to a drink thing, and get back because the lines, like when they built it a million years ago, they didn't think about how lines work and cue up and stuff. The bathroom line crosses over the concessions lines because they like face into each other, like the bathroom. You'll it's like you're looking into the arena in the center of the arena, and the food is on the outer part of the arena, and so the two lines mix in and cross over, which then blocks the entire concourse. So if people are trying to move, you have two lines that intersect with each other and cross into each other, going in opposite directions. You have people that don't know where the line begins and ends trying to line up. You have people trying to push their way through to get to their back to their section. It is a disaster. It should be raised to the ground and never spoken of again, and they should put in an arena. The Reds they have one of the best concourses ever. They need to just go next door to figure it out. You can the Reds have shifted where they sell a lot of their beer and stuff, where you can still look out and see the field, so you don't miss any of the game. The bathrooms at the Red Stadium for the men's room. I've obviously I've never been in the women's room. The men's room, there are 70, 80 urinals. It is like a bunch of toilets, like boom, you were in and out. You're never waiting in line. Such a better experience going to Reds game versus Heritage Bank Arena, um, the RC Cola thing, just everything about it. Oh, and then my last piece, and then I'm done. This has been a long old man yells at cloud. I said it was gonna be a short one. They have no handrails at U.S. Bank Arena. So we had floor seats, we had to walk all the way down to the floor, no handrails whatsoever. So you're just going down the stairs, down past the little arena thing, onto the floor, not a single handrail in sight. Uh, so if you have shaky footing or it's super dark because you're going to a concert and it they turn the lights off at concerts, and so if you get there late or whatever, you're on your own. They don't have lights. Obviously, they don't have lights on the stairs. A lot of places uh we went to a rock concert at uh Taft Theater the other day. They had lights on the stairs. It's an older theater, but they've retrofit some lighting on stairs and stuff so you can move around and stuff. That was much easier to navigate and move. Now it's a smaller venue. Anyway, my point is what a dump. Tear this thing down, build something in its place, get rid of it, uh, and I will gladly start going to concerts there. I avoid going to concerts there if I can. Like I we we had talked about going up to the Schuster Center because it's a much nicer place for Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Um, but yeah, that's uh that's my old man yells at cloud. That place is a dump. Alright, big college games this week. Not too many. Uh, and the reason there's not too many is because it's SEC Bye Week. Happy SEC Bye Week to all who celebrate. Uh, let me be the first to wish you a happy SEC Bye Week. Um, here's some of the games. Here's some of the teams and the point spread that the best conference in football, the SEC, is playing this week. Now keep in mind, this is the second to last weekend. There's only one weekend of college football left. Cherish it. Um these are some of the teams that the mighty SEC is playing. They are playing Samford. Samford. 54 and a half point spread. Charlotte, they're playing Charlotte, 43.5 point spread. Eastern Illinois, 50.5 point spread. The Mighty Mercer, 27.5 spread. Coastal Carolina, 24. Western Kentucky, 21.5. Now, most conferences, they're playing conference games this week. But the SEC always does this the week before Thanksgiving, because they only play an eight conference schedule of games instead of nine, like every other conference does. This is an absolute joke, and this needs to end. I cannot believe there are 55-point spreads on the board this weekend for major universities. Just a disgrace to football. Uh, we got number 15 USC at number seven, Oregon. Oregon minus 10. I love the Ducks here. I think the Ducks roll. We got Ducks on the pond. Uh, they need to win this to stay in the college football playoff. If they lose this, they'll probably push them right out. Um, they have to win this game. I think they win it. I think they cover the 10. Uh, Oregon's look very good this year. Number 11, BYU at UC plus two and a half. Uh, honestly, not a lot of game, great games this week, but uh this is one of the closer spreads, so I wanted to talk about it. I think BYU covers here. Uh UC has faltered a little bit the last couple of weeks. Um, but really the reason I wanted to talk about it is to tie it back to my old man Yells at Cloud moment. Uh, and I already talked about the one game. Uh Cincinnati's having a big sports weekend. We got this game, uh Fox's big noon kickoff is coming into town for this game on uh Saturday, so that's very cool. They're coming to Cincinnati, not a place they often go to, but uh number 11 BYUs travel in there, so they're coming in. Uh, so that's cool. Uh Friday night, we've got the Louisville at UC at Heritage Bank Arena. I mentioned that already. Also, Friday Night Lights, the the playoffs are going on for a high school, and they actually flexed one of the bigger games out of the city of Mason and into Cincinnati at Pacor Arena, the Bengals Arena. Um, last I saw they've sold 20,000 tickets for this game. That's why they moved it. They moved it out of Mason. Obviously, Mason's high school venue was not nearly uh 20,000. I think the Bengals, they're only opening the bottom section of the arena, but I think they said they could accommodate 27,000 fans in the bottom part of the arena. That's very cool that they moved the game and got it there. I think that's gonna be awesome. Uh it's Elder at St. Xavier. Uh, like I said, almost 20,000 tickets sold last I saw, and maybe more walk-ups and stuff tonight. Um, and then Sunday, two big events. We got uh Bengals hosting the 9-2 New England Patriots, and there's a little discussion that uh a little guy named Joe Burroughs has been practicing this week. So that could be a huge game if Burroughs actually back and plays, and they're they end up defeating the Patriots somehow. That would be huge for Cincinnati. They really need wins if they're gonna think about the playoffs. They still have hope, uh, but they need to not lose again. Um very slim hopes, but still hope. Uh, and then there's a playoff MLS game between FCC and uh Miami. So just a huge weekend uh Cincinnati. Big Cincinnati Sports weekend here. So, yeah, that's gonna do it for the college football look. Let's do NFL here. Uh the team's on by, I already mentioned the Broncos, but the Chargers, Commanders, and Dolphins are also on by this week. Uh, first game I want to talk about a little bit. I just talked about it. New England at Cincinnati. Uh, if Joe Burrow plays, I like Cincinnati here, plus six and a half. Um if not, then uh I'm not so big on uh Cincinnati. The Bengals defense, I've talked about it a lot on this podcast. It's an absolute joke. It's the worst in the NFL, but it's on a historic level. I put stats in other podcast episodes, but they are historically one of the worst teams. Not just the worst this season, but in all of the NFL history, they're one of the worst. Uh New England's probably gonna hang 45 on them. So if they don't have Joe Burrow, I don't really like their odds here. Um Pittsburgh at Chicago, Chicago two and a half point favorite. Pittsburgh struggled recently. Rogers, he looks lost, he looks defeated. Uh, but worst of all, he looks angry. He looks angry all the time. Uh I would take Chicago here. They've looked very good. Caleb Williams doesn't look terrible this year. Uh, both teams really need this win for the playoffs. I think Chicago gets it, and I think they cover the two and a half. It's at home. I think you bear down. I think Chicago wins it. They they have looked very tough this year. Um, like I said, they're they're winning their division. So I think they win this one. Uh Indy at Kansas City, Kansas City minus three and a half. Um, I don't really get why Kansas City's favored here. Some were saying that uh Daniel Jones, Indiana Jones, has a little bit of an injury. He's a little banged up. Uh so I guess if he doesn't play, three and a half makes sense, but um I I I don't I'm surprised the Indy's not favored. I mean, Indy's, I think they're eight and two, I said. Um Kansas City's very mediocre this year. They're not, they're ninth in the AFC. Um but what's crazy is I I do think they'll win this game, even if Daniel Jones plays. And I'll tell you why. Because the history in the last six, seven years of Kansas City is they always win this game. When their back is against the wall, and you're like, oh, you're counting them out. Kansas City isn't the team that we thought they would be. All of a sudden they go on this huge run. Like, I could see this being the one, like the Broncos beat them last week. I could see Mahomes gathering everybody together and Andy Reid, and like, oh, nobody believes in us, or oh, they think we're gonna lose. Oh, oh, we're all uh that's not a very good Mahomes voice. But anyway, my point is I think that maybe Denver beating them will be kind of their rally call, and they're gonna rip off like six wins in a row. So even if Daniel Jones plays, I I think Kansas City wins this one. It seems to always happen. I I don't know. Until it doesn't happen, I'm gonna think that it will happen. So I'm gonna bet Kansas City minus three and a half here. Um I think they just they get it done. They they always do get it done. As much as people don't want to see that happen, it happens. Uh Tampa Bay at the Rams, Rams minus six and a half. Uh, I don't know what to think here. Uh, probably the Rams, but man, uh if Tampa loses here, that could tie them up with Carolina. So they Tampa really needs a win here. Um their defense has been shaky, though. I don't I don't know what's going on with the Buccaneers, but uh I I I don't know. Um it could go. I think this one, I'm this is gonna be my stay away game because I don't know who's gonna show up. Uh I think the Rams could win by double digits. I think Tampa Bay could win the game. Like, I don't know what to do with this game on the schedule. Um maybe, maybe I don't know, because the Rams are very good on offense. Like, if they get it going, I mean this could this could balloon quickly. You could be sitting there and it could be you know 21 to 3, and you're sitting there holding a ticket for Tampa Bay plus six and a half, and you'll be ripping it up at halftime. Like, I I don't know what to tell. I I don't know what to do on this game, so uh, this is my stay away game of the week. I don't I don't know which teams are gonna show up. I think the Rams they struggle sometimes, but then other times they win by 20. I so I don't know. I think Tampa Bay really needs this one, so it could be Tampa, but I'm just gonna stay away from this one. Um, and then the last game I want to talk about, uh Carolina at San Francisco minus seven. Brock is back again. Uh funny that these four teams, Tampa Bay, Rams, Carolina, and San Francisco, are playing the Sunday night and Monday night football. They did a good job with the scheduling on this because they all four need a win to be staying in the playoff hunt. Uh, you know, Rams and San Fran a little less than Tampa and Carolina. Uh Tampa and Carolina really need that win to either Tampa to stay ahead of Carolina or Carolina needs it to get in. And uh and but San Fran and the Rams can't lose too many because right there is Seattle. Uh, you know, Seattle, San Francisco, and the Rams are all fighting for their division. So uh if they want to win their division, they can't lose too many games. So but yeah, uh let's go over some of the locks this week. We got uh Greg giving us Missouri, Oklahoma, Oklahoma minus seven and a half. Uh I believe his exact quote when he made this pick was Missouri's beat nobody. Why are they ranked? Um yeah, I'll go with that. Uh yeah, I agree with that. I think Oklahoma's a pretty good team. I think they'll cover the seven and a half here. I like that lock, Greg. Uh, Missouri has not beat anybody. Um, Ethan is giving us an NFL pick this week. He's given oh, he already, this is Thursday night football. He gave us Buffalo minus three and a half. I would have said I agreed with that. I made that my pick in my uh wife and I's uh weekly picks where we pick all the games against the spread. I pick Buffalo minus, I got it for five and a half on the app. Um, so I didn't even come close to covering, and and neither did Ethan. So the gambling group starts off at 0-1 on the week. Uncle Mike's given us uh the Colts Chiefs. He's given us Chiefs minus 3.5. You know, I talked about it earlier. That's good luck. That's uh I think I think this is that game that Kansas City wins. I already talked about it, so uh, I'm not gonna belabor it anymore. That I like that, Uncle Mike. Uh Steve giving us Atlanta plus one and a half at New Orleans. New Orleans has won like one or two games all year. I I it's at New Orleans, but like I like Atlanta to win here. I would take them, I'd take a money line. I think Steve gets his third win of the season. I'm not gonna fade Steve this week. Every week, that's the thing with Steve this year. It's never been games that I look at and I'm like, oh, that's a terrible pick. Like, why did he pick that? And I totally disagree with it. I if I'm looking at this and I and I did fill it out because I again I pick my wife and I in her work league thing, we pick every game against the spread every week. I had Atlanta plus one and a half here. New Orleans stinks. I I know it's at the dome in New Orleans, but like they stink. I no, I I like Atlanta here. I yeah, I good good luck, Steve. I think you get your third win. We'll get you we'll get you closer to 500 here. Uh, and then no locks uh from Uncle John, Matt, or Scott this week yet. So uh look for those. I'll put them on uh TikTok, I'll put them on Twitter, X, whatever it's called now. I'll get those out to the people. Uh when I get them, I'll do the little AI picks this week. But uh but yeah, I got one lock left, and it's my own lock. We're down to the end of the show here, and I'm giving you a stone cold lead pipe lock of the week here. I love this one on the board. I couldn't grab it fast enough and bet it. Uh Jacksonville minus three at Arizona. The Cactus Wrens are terrible. I just told you earlier they should fire their coach. I put him up on the Frosty Throne. 3-7 on the year, and Jacksonville's coming off their biggest win in the season, 35-6 over the playoff bound LA Chargers. But them being uh coming off a huge win, uh their team they're playing being 3-7 and just absolutely dreadful this year. That's not why I'm picking this. I have a legit reason that you should pick Jacksonville, and I don't think the sports books adjusted their formula based on this. This is on an article I read, an interview with Trevor Lawrence after the game last week when they rolled up the Chargers. Somebody, a reporter, asked him, What was the difference in this game? Why did you guys look so sharp today? And he said, I have one word for you. Huh? Now you're sitting there, you're saying, Well, wristband? What how did a wristband 35-6? How's a wristband? What? How's a wristband the key here? Trevor Lawrence wore a wristband with all the plays on his arm. You've seen it a million times. You've watched football, you've seen the quarterbacks always have these things on. Trevor Lawrence did not want one this year, one of those wristbands. He went the entire season up until last week without the wristband on his arm. And for the first time all season, they put the wristband on him and they won by a million. In the interview after the game, he said it made play calling faster and more efficient. Uh duh. You think, Trevor? There's a reason almost every quarterback out there wears one, especially in the NFL, but even in college, you'll see it. Turn a game on tonight. Turn a game on tonight. The quarterback has one of those wristbands on. There's a reason. The play calls are long as all get out. This is a sample. I I brought up a sample. This is a play. Here it is. This is what so Trevor was saying, oh, I just I don't want to have to look at a wristband, just have the coach read this to me, and then I'll read it back to the team or whatever. So I have to hear it in my ear, and then I have to read it back to the huddle. So this is what they have been doing, Jacksonville, all season. So this is a sample play call. Green left, twin nasty, Z peel right, past 37, Buster Bluff, X post, Y bite, kill 53, Titan left. Now, you have the advantage of seeing this on a on a podcast app or whatever or something. You can time how long that was there. That was like five, six seconds to read that all out. I'm gonna read it again. I'm gonna read it pretty quick too this time. So so track it here. This is what the head coach would read to him, and then he'd have to read it again. Green left, twin nasty, Z peel right, pass 37, Buster Bluff, X post, Y bite, kill 53, Titan left. That is so long. I I even when I read it fast, it felt like four four or so seconds. And remember, the play clock is 40 seconds in the NFL. The plays over, the whistle's blown, 40 seconds starts to tick. So that's four seconds there. I'm sure they read it faster. They're pros. Uh, but it may take them a minute or two. Uh maybe they don't read it faster because they're trying to think of all the stuff. I don't know. Um, but that's crazy that all that that includes uh the formation, green left, twin nasty, the receiver motion, Z peel right, or I'm sorry, Z peel tight, the protection scheme, 37 Buster Bluff, and the routes for the specific players. X post, Y bite, and then the final instruction kill 53 Titan left. That's to potentially audible out of the play. Uh the reason they wear those wrist pads is because the coach replaces that with just a number. So instead of reading all that, which I told you took four to six seconds, the coach says 52. And then the player lifts the wristband as the coach is saying that, finds what 52 is, and then reads that to the huddle real quick. 52. How boom? Less than half a second, 52, boom. That's so much faster. I I can't even imagine with the crowd being loud and everything. If he says 52, there's very it's very unlikely that you won't hear part of it. With the crowds and everything on the road and stuff, I can't even imagine trying to listen to four seconds of them saying that stuff and then trying to relay that back with fans screaming and and the play shaking and stuff. I I can't believe they thought this was okay to play without the wristband for 10 weeks. Just incredibly stupid on their part, but they've remedied that. And he said they're gonna wear the wristband the rest of the season. Uh yeah, yeah, you should wear the wristband. And because of the wristband and getting the plays in quicker, they only had one penalty last week uh for uh delay a game or whatever, where they've been struggling getting the right play calls in and running up to the line with the clock and stuff. So for that reason alone, I am giving you my lock of the week of Jacksonville minus three. They are gonna cover Bigley. That is my lock of the week. Thank you all for listening to the podcast this week. It's always a lot of fun pulling all this stuff together for all the listeners out there. We do have the dog picks coming, they'll be on TikTok for Sunday night football, Monday night football, big games this week. Uh, you know, I said Tampa Bay uh Rams might be my stay away game, but I don't know, Stanley Poochie's a little hot. Uh so if whatever Poochie picks, I'll probably bet it. I usually do. Uh so that's gonna do it for this week's show. At TSS Gambling is where you can find us on X, formerly Twitter and TikTok. Good luck gambling, everybody.