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Speaker 1: Welcome to Sharper Square presented by Polymarket. We are part of the Volume Podcast Network. This is the show that makes the squares sharper and makes the wise guys pay attention. I am Chad Millman. I am joined as always by my co-host, my companion, my compadre, professional bettor, Simon Hunter. Hello, Simon.
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Speaker 2: Hello, Chad. How are we doing?
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Speaker 1: Brother. Look, it's been chaos the past 48 hours. We're going to talk about this in a second. People don't really understand how big election betting is for a lot of professional bettors, especially since prediction markets have become a thing. We're going to get to that in a second because it's connected to Sharp Call, so I don't want to preempt anything you're going to say. But, dude. We've had, since we did the show on Tuesday, quarterback trades, quarterback injuries, player injuries. It seems like three, four, five of the games that we talked about on Tuesday is suddenly in a different situation. So this is our Thursday NFL Week 9 show. We're going to hear sharp calls. We're going to do brass balls. We'll talk about our underdog and our favorite round robin parlay, Simon's biggest bets, sharp versus square, discord grouper of the week. This is the episode where Simon and I will start to narrow down our final five picks for the $ 25, 000 free NFL pick'em contest. But like I said, every week we discuss our picks on Tuesday. And by Thursday, Simon has gotten an earful from his professional betting team. colleagues about what we're getting right, what we're getting wrong, how we're stepping in it. It's time for Sharp Calls.
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Speaker 2: Who's there? I'm talking. A different week for Sharp Calls, Chad. I definitely got good info and beating around the bushes, but I was joking before the show that It's a rare time in the season where a lot of pros I know aren't betting as heavy this week and potentially next week because there was just so much money and time put into this election. There was just so much gambling, so much conversation. I was joking with you. I know you didn't go to a political party or whatever.
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Speaker 1: An election party.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, a viewing party. And I am somebody that totally is– people are very into politics. I'm on the betting side of it. I really– You know, I could go either way when it comes to politics. I get it. People are dug in on their sides. I'm not one of those people. But I went to a party, and the amount of people on the Polymarket app, because it's all different now. It was always different betting, you know, trading the politics and, you know, betting on midterms. But, yeah, this week, talking to a lot of people, it was just interesting how many guys are just Not betting this week because they've just won so much money riding that blue tsunami, whatever they're calling it now. To them, it was easy.
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Speaker 1: Blue nami. It's a blue nami.
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Speaker 2: To them, it was easy money. And I joke with you, I had a bunch of parlays from months ago on the Milwaukee Brewers and different things like that all tied to different center races and house races. And I'm the same boat as them, but I don't take weeks off. So that was kind of crazy calling guys up and being like, I'm in Mexico or I call a guy, but he's like, I'm in Puerto Rico. Like I'm taking the next week or two off. Like I, I made my bag this month. I'm not really worried about football. So I'm interested to see how it goes this week, where the money you are going to see this week to me will be very, very sharp NFL money. Like truly guys like me, who this is all we do. I don't do men's basketball or college. Like this is, this is our bread and butter is NFL. A lot of the guys are kind of, you know, half foot and half foot out. they're totally out this week. Those guys really aren't betting this week. So that's why these lines this week feel very, very sharp. And, you know, we can start right away. Guess with that Atlanta game, like that, that Atlanta game, I'm talking to a lot of pros who love Atlanta. I know it's in Spain and I know it's off the three and a half, but they still love it at the three. So that's the game I talked about. I was going to be on since he had the two and a half or the three. Maybe I'll just be very, very patient and wait. If it's two and a half, I'll take it. But if it stays at three, three and a half, apparently that's, That's where the pros are at. So that was one that jumped out to me right away, a lot of guys I talked to. A game I loved, not shocking, the pros came out with me. Panthers could have got it at plus three or three and a half. It's now basically two and a half at every shop. So, you know, I told you to shop around. I thought it was going to go that way. It's not too shocking to see it move that way. Another big one a lot of guys are talking about, obviously that cold side. It was plus six, six and a half against Dallas. So gross. Yeah, now I'm going to hit down to five, five and a half. And that was another one where it's like, oh, God, do I have to bet this game now? And it feels like we might have to. It's definitely a really respected spot by a lot of pros I respect. So another one that was a topic of conversation, Seattle. We were all over it. We got burned, right? The quarterback switch. Really interesting back and forth where that's a very heavily public side. And Arizona still heavily backed by the public. Every pro I know is all over Seattle. So that's another one we might end up with egg in our face. But that was a big topic of discussion. A lot of guys I talked to this week.
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Speaker 1: That is definitely one. Sorry to interrupt you. That is definitely one I want to dig in on because I feel like we're getting an even bigger edge. But continue.
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Speaker 2: You're sick. Patriots, they're two and a half. I told you guys Sunday night. I thought the pros were coming on it. It's not so much a ton of pros I know. It's specifically two really sharp groups I know. One West Coast, one East Coast. Both of them have taken large positions at a bunch of different shops on this Patriots number. I'm looking now. I think most places now are minus three and a half. That's really, really strong money from those groups to be moving that from two and a half all the way across three up to three and a half where I talked to you about this was going to be the most public side. Green Bay, people are really liking this team. And on the flip side, I don't think people are so in on the Patriots, especially with all the injuries the Patriots have had. So I am shocked to see that one grow to three and a half, honestly. That was another really hot topic. And the last one, Tampa. Tons of pros all over it. Everyone– I mean, you've probably seen it, Chad. You're on social media. The Chicago hype, the smoke being blown up Caleb's ass right now. Yeah. It's peak. It is really peaking right now. So it's– A hot topic between a lot of pros where it's like what we talked about, right? Ben Johnson, primetime games, 8-1 as ATS as a coach. It's incredible. He beats up these teams. But I gave people those DVOA numbers. This Bucs defense is legit. And we're about to find out real quick how legit they are because we basically have only seen one defense shut down this Chicago team, and that was the Vikings, who are also a very legit defense.
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Speaker 1: In a tsunami.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. In a tsunami.
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Speaker 1: A regular tsunami, not a blue tsunami.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. So that's been a really fun one to talk about with a bunch of people. And obviously the last one, Vikings, looking like it's going to be Carson Wentz. Tons of really smart pro groups all over the Vikings. They know it's going to be tons of bills and money. So most of the guys I've talked to, they've taken the three and a half on the Vikings. But they're saying to me the same thing I'm telling you guys. Be patient. If this is truly Carson Wentz against Josh Allen, Doesn't this get up to four, four and a half come Monday night where everyone in the general public is chasing their money on Monday night? So that was another really hot topic conversation this week, the two primetime games, the Bucs and the Minnesota Vikings.
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Speaker 1: You know, normally we try to not do both of those games. It's going to be hard to not at least have a conversation about them for our final five. Couldn't agree more on the Bears. We said exactly that on Tuesday, peak Bears right now. So we'll have to dig deeper on the Bucs. It's so funny, real quickly on the politics and the betting, you know, the prediction markets have come out this week and talked about the volume that they had in that single night and what an amazing night it was for their businesses. And if you look at the volume numbers, it's a tiny overall percentage compared to the volume they do on sports. Like make no mistakes, people are going to prediction markets to trade sports, even if politics was sort of the entry point for so many people, Simon, I remember in 2024, you and I first started talking about prediction markets. And I was sitting down at, I actually wrote about this in my book, because originally I wanted my book to be about Cauchy and Polymarket and sort of the growing rivalry. Couldn't get traction because not enough editors knew about prediction markets. So it became a book about sort of the world of high stakes sports betting and sports betting trading on prediction markets. But I remember you and I, I sat down in 2024, going to watch the returns. People are starting to do interviews at 7, 7.30. I'm settling in. I'm going to get John King giving me answers for what's happening in Kalamazoo County in Michigan. And I get a text from you And you go, it's over. I go, what do you mean? You go, you go, Trump won. I go, how do you know? The polls are just closing. He goes, check the prediction. I think he said, check polymarket. And it's like the price on Trump was so expensive that it was clear anybody who knew anything was betting into Trump to become president. So It's been an interesting ride to see how these have evolved over literally two years, like the quickest 24 months.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, the old school saying, I mean, everyone knows this saying, but men lie, women lie, numbers don't lie, right? Well, the big one now is the polls lie, the news lie, the betting markets do not lie. So I feel like anyone that was following along with Polymarket or wherever, you kind of knew like three days ago. what was going to happen. And you could, you could allot yourself and say, well, what do these guys know? We're talking billions and billions of dollars. Like Chad said, it's only 4%. It's 4% of a trillion dollars. It's the amount of money. I don't think people realize how much is being bet legally. This is just legal too. We're not talking about offshore either. This is legal money. The amount of money. I mean, just the Texas one was the craziest, right? We were looking at the Texas market. Insane. Yeah. Just sure. There were just two, three days ago, how blue it was. where I was joking with you, Telerico, whoever it was, I think it was like, it might've been last, it might've been in May. I was getting him a 10 to one to be the Senator of Texas. Like there was just, there was these crazy long shots. And then as they, the, the, it got closer to the election, they were all sort of flipping to being favorites. And everyone knows when it's a red state that flips to a blue state, now their favorite, that's very telling. And I feel like the only ones that were really, unsure of by most shops was kansas mississippi and iowa were these huge toss-ups coming down to the deadline and even then guys i really respect you bet politics you know for a living we're just saying no way you're getting good value right now in these red states you can bet republicans in these red states who are probably going to win no matter what and it was interesting talking to these guys after the fact where they're like well i'm maybe we didn't account for the diesel and the farmers. And that was a big movement in those states where Iowa historically read all this stuff. It was just interesting talking to these people. And I told you the weirdest part was being at these parties where, you know, I'm always, like Chad said, I can tell you four hours beforehand before the news can, who's won elections. That was a cool party trick because I used to have these markets other people didn't know about. Now I'm at this party, everyone knew it. Like it was like seven o'clock and everyone was already like new, just like I did, what was happening. I was like, ah, man, I kind of miss being ahead of everyone. But, Kind of wild to sit there and watch it unfold as someone that does this for a living.
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Speaker 1: It's a little bit like a Super Bowl party. Like midterms and presidential elections are now going to become these events where you're sending around squares, you're having a party about it. Because of the advent of prediction markets, it's just become so much more mainstream. This weekend, to take it back to sports, the Philadelphia Eagles are three and a half point home underdogs at the New York Giants. I bring it up because I don't think we're going to play the Eagles at plus three and a half. But remember earlier this week where Nick Sirianni was saying there would be no changes at coordinator or quarterback? There's going to be a change. It's going to be Joe Milton who's going to be the quarterback replacing Tanner McKee. And I wrote in the script and then Matt Mitchell said the same thing before we started recording. Joe Milton has been a preseason superstar. His arm is electric. But there's also a reason the guy keeps bouncing around from team to team to team to team. Is this enough of a change, especially with the Giants being peak sort of J.J. McCarthy is rehab, John Harbaugh is a genius, for us to want to seriously consider backing the Eagles at three and a half?
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Speaker 2: It is the pro side. The pros are all over it. They're taking a stand with the Eagles here. We talk all the time. It's a divisional matchup and a team that if they have any ounce of fight left to them, obviously the Eagles fight to the death here and try to steal and win this game. I just don't see it. I've talked about it. I've seen a team that's been totally checked out. I can't tell people to bet on the side. Like I keep saying, just fade them in the second half if you want to. Maybe this is it because Joe Milton comes in and sparks something different, but um like we've seen the kid he's got a good athletic talent he's got a great arm but being consistent being able to throw over the middle all these little things that matter as a quarterback getting third downs he he really can't do so um yeah as an egos fan i want us to lose every game possible i want a better draft pick and it's a total loss season so yeah i'm torn on this one as a fan where it's like yeah bring in milton but if he's too good and we win this game I mean, what are we doing here? Like we're really going to start Milton in the future. Like Chad said, there's a reason he's been bouncing around from team to team, but yeah, this is a game. If you want to handicap it, the pros are going to be all over the Eagles and the public is going to hammer the giants. Like they're just most public Joe public. I talked to, he was asking me, why is this not seven? It's like, You'd think the Giants and J.J. McCarthy should be favored by seven over any team on the road. So I do think we're getting a little bit of peak love for this Giants team here. And we've talked about the Eagles. We don't know where rock bottom is. Could this be it? That's what the pros are betting on. And it's like, I'm not there yet. The Eagles are a team. I want them to be firing people and making big-time movements to fire up this team rather than it's business as usual. Like Chad just said, Nick Sirianni thought it was still going to be Tanner McKee. just 48 hours ago. So it's like there's a lot of disconnect right now within the organization between the front office and the head coaching staff, clearly, because this is, to me, a Howie move. Like Howie, he went to him and said, hey, we're not playing Tanner again. I've seen enough. Let me see what this kid Joe has. So we'll see. The Eagles this week, you know, talked to a couple people in the locker room. I've talked about it before. The locker room feels like it's lost. But they said this week Hurts came in and has been a very local, heavy presence in the locker room. around the player. So maybe the guys rally and play hard for Jalen Hurts. Who knows? But I can't believe this number is held at three and a half. Even with Joe Milton coming in, it hasn't budged. So just shows you how much professional money is coming on this Eagle side.
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Speaker 1: Listen, we're talking a lot about prediction markets and I think they're fascinating and they're a great tool. And while I've been working on this book, it's allowed me to experiment with them in ways that you can't As sort of a regular better on sports books, specifically on Polymarket, I built a custom market for the Bears, Bills, or Chiefs to win the Super Bowl. If you pre-order my book, The Number, which comes out January 12th, pre-order it between now and November 30th. If one of those teams wins it all, you will get your purchase price back. It's not a raffle. It's not a drawing. The first 1,000 copies sold in this window are going to get refunded. If you like sports betting, if you want to read about how $ 100 million bettors and billion-dollar prediction market traders make decisions, think about risk, this is the book for you. Go to chadmillman.com to pre-order. Sign up for this really fun pre-roll on prediction markets. Simon. Denver, Carolina, you just mentioned it. It's a two and a half. This was Simon Says, the trade of the week presented by Polymarket. It was trading at 46% the other day. I don't want to jinx you. We are going to talk more about this later in the show. Almost, Simon, almost a luck rankings game, meaning the Panthers have been unlucky. The Broncos, as we've said, they've been pulling rabbits out of their hat. might have gotten to three for a second after we were on the show. Cause I got it at three, but it's generally a two and a half. And like you said, the wise guys are aggressively coming in on Carolina.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was three to a bunch of places. And then definitely I think pros are the same view as I did. It's just, you have to take the three and bet this one down. And the general public is going to absolutely hammer Denver. I, I assume this will be one of the biggest needs of the shops this week. And, Same with Polly Market. They're going to need the Panthers, and that's always a nice position to be in. One side is heavily overrated, and the public is hammering it. And the Broncos, I don't want to be too hard that they're overrated because that's not fair to say. They've earned those wins. Bo Nix has played so well these fourth quarters. All that noise, but they're definitely a team that I think people think they're much better than they are because they're leading their division. They just had a huge win against the Chiefs where we both know like this is a Denver team that from week to week, you don't really know you're getting offensively from Bo Nix and flip side for Carolina. I know they've dropped two in a row here. I still think this is a team that has a ton of potential and we've seen that in certain games where when they put it all together, they're a really good team. And I totally get why people are kind of off of them right now. Right. That's, that was a more surprising part was people are just so dismissive of them where it's like, I mean, that was a, that was a tough loss against, you know, the bucks and, Yeah, it was super embarrassing, but they go from playing the Bucs, who I just talked about have a great defense, to playing Green Bay, where I feel like in that Green Bay game, every little thing was going wrong for them. They couldn't catch a break, even when they had that big turnover where Jordan left, there was a pick. They couldn't turn that into points. Bryson went out there and threw a meatball himself and threw it for a pick. So it was just an off game where I think this is the exact type of spot they had been. back. At home, in this heat against the Broncos team that, it's just like I keep saying, they just feel like they keep overachieving. And they've won four straight games. Each one has been an insane fourth quarter comeback other than that Arizona game. So, it just feels like we're due for a little bit of Bo Nix regression here at this point. Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely a pro side. I'm not going to lie. It's heavily, heavily public side in the Broncos.
00:20:13
Speaker 1: It's also the side with Carolina that we tend to want to be on. We like Ben Bryce Young when he's at home as an underdog. The defense to me for the Broncos, obviously their pass rush and their pressure rate is excellent, but they are middling in a in a lot of other categories. The pressure rate is what saves them. It's not what is like the best of many, many different things. So there are opportunities here for the Panthers. Detroit at Miami. Miami is a seven-point home underdog. I think this had a chance to be brass balls. It is not. The big news in this game is injuries. Jack Campbell carted off the field, progressing well thankfully. Brian Branch, concussion protocol, limited. Who knows if he's playing? Cade Mays, the center, limited. Who knows if he's playing? DJ Reed, limited in practice. Who knows if he's playing? Kirby Joseph, the safety for the Lions, is out in this game. Amon Ross St. Brown, limited in practice, a surprise with a rib injury. You know, we've had a nice run with the Dolphins. The line moved from eight and a half to seven and a half to seven. It's been sitting there. But now if you look at prediction markets, it's priced at six and a half not seven and a half which tells you there just continues to be more money coming in on the dolphins i will say i couldn't resist even though we missed the eight and a half i played the dolphins at seven you.
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Speaker 2: Don't hate i take a small piece on about i don't know what to do with this one because i'm worried i'm too close to a bit like i want to hammer miami and chad just named all those injuries that's making me want to bet even more and we've talked like this is usually a good Good situation for Miami facing a team in Detroit that as much praise we give golf, isn't this outdoors in the elements? Aren't they expected to have bad weather in this game as well?
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Speaker 3: I'm checking right now, Simon. They're basically been stuck in like a hurricane situation.
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Speaker 2: Type of rain pattern for two weeks down in my like miami area like there's some areas that have had over like three inches of rain which if you don't know what that means if you equate that to snow that's like three feet of snow in 24 hours in some areas of florida right now so we'll see if it stays that way come sunday me and chad coming here sunday morning it's a bad weather 1 p.m start i feel like we're gonna be all over miami especially with all the injuries chad just named They're a team that has really bad cornerbacks that are saved by having two really good safeties. Now both those safeties might be out of this game. Like it's just, it keeps making me want to take Miami. You know, I, I told you, I'm trying to time it right when we get off this Miami train. Cause I've been all over them now for feels like a bunch of weeks. It's eventually going to go the other way. The public is going to catch up to eventually, but Chad just nailed it. It's like, you look at the split charts, all the money, is all over Miami. All the tickets are all over Detroit. Like this week, I told you people, it's going to be a week of some big heavy hitters in the pro community taking big stands on some of these ugly dogs. And this is another one. So yeah, don't be shocked Sunday morning if we're in here taking this one. But obviously, we're not crazy about the six and a half. We want the seven, seven and a half. And that's why you got to shop around right now. The best you can get is seven.
00:23:52
Speaker 1: All right, Simon, it is time for our Polymarket Brass Balls Trade of the Week. I'm not surprised we're doing this, and I can totally believe it, and I believe in it, but we are going with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers trading at six and a half at Polymarket, trading at 51%. You know what it takes?
00:24:16
Speaker 2: It takes brass balls.
00:24:20
Speaker 1: When we were talking about this before the show... You said the key phrase. Isn't this peak bears right now? Like my experience on Monday night, it was a familial experience across generational groups of friends, across my mom, my sister, my niece, my brother-in-law who just got stuck on the chain because my mom included him, my son. I mean... There is nothing better. I texted with our boss, Colin Coward, about this. He now lives in Chicago. There is nothing better than the city of Chicago when the Bears are good. It is a spirit and a feeling. You're buoyant, right? But dude, six and a half against a defense. You already said it on the show. The best three and five DVOA team ever. There is something off. And we are getting an opportunity, I think, of a couple points of value because of what the Bears did against the Seahawks on Monday night.
00:25:34
Speaker 2: Every time you tell that story about getting your sister's daughter or whatever into football, I just think of that meme joke of my wife's husband's sister's boyfriend. It's like, what? Too many moving parts.
00:25:48
Speaker 1: My niece my niece is that easy enough.
00:25:51
Speaker 2: For you thank you thank you uh yeah it's it's just the numbers too big right i think we both can agree on that where this at best probably should be four and a half maybe three and a half but i think people are just like us a little uneasy about baker but when you really dive in the numbers like this bucks defense is so good and this is perfect test for them right a bulls old school type of defense and top bowls playing against the new school Ben, you know, Ben Johnson offense and nothing's really stopped as Ben Johnson off the right. It's, he's been absolutely juggernaut. The, the love for Caleb is just reaching max level right now where, you know, people are debating, is he a top three quarterback now? And is he already made it? And you have other people on the line, these, you know, They study the film, and they're posting the clips where it's like, yeah, we give a ton of praise to Caleb. Ben Johnson's got guys wide open for him.
00:26:41
Speaker 1: He is scheming.
00:26:42
Speaker 2: Wide open. Yeah, scheming the hell out of this right now.
00:26:45
Speaker 1: He is so brilliant, it's frightening.
00:26:49
Speaker 2: Yes. So we want to give a ton of flowers to Caleb, obviously, but it's all Ben, really is, where it's like you don't see guys five to ten yards wide open against Seattle. It just doesn't happen. And he had them on their heads spinning so hard. it didn't happen just once or twice. It felt like the entire game, there was guys schemed wide open. So we both are well aware we're walking into here, right? We're walking into literally the best team in football playing right now in the bears. But my whole view is it just feels like every week, this Bucks team has been consistently underrated, right? And it's because we talked at nauseam about it. They had a run that we'd never seen before. They had not covered in 11 straight games and, Little did they know that Baker getting hurt was going to change all that, but it did it. It did something different to this team where the defense played better after Baker went down. Whatever that was, they started buying into both systems more, and you've seen it these last couple weeks. I keep bringing it up, like that Pittsburgh loss, which we had money on, was a total outlier. What makes Aaron Rodgers so great, he came back and got that game where they were down, I think it was like 19-6 or 19-10 or whatever it was in that fourth quarter, able to come back tight and obviously win by a touchdown in overtime, but Every other game, Carolina beat a 43-13. It was based on their run game and the defense. Last week against Atlanta, it was based on their run game and the defense. Now, the Bears with Jeffrey Simmons, maybe this will throw a little bit of a wrench into this, but we've seen this Bears team. You can run on them. That's what I'm saying. Simmons might be the difference maker now with that. We have not seen him in the middle, but Bucky Irving and Kenneth Gainwell is a way different run scheme than they just went against Seattle. This is you could say one of the best two-headed running backs in the entire NFL right now. And the Bucs are leaning into it. So I'm really excited to see where this number goes. You've easily seen this drop to six, potentially five and a half. So, yeah, I'm making the brass bells because I want people to grab the six and a half now. And I get it. It takes some balls here to deck this one, people. I know it's tough to make, but I think you're not understanding. You're getting two free points of value here on the side that they're not as bad as the record shows. Like I said, they're three and five. But DVOA just shows they're one of the best teams to ever be in that position. And this defense has been great this season, and there's not good enough respect. So, yeah, really excited for this one, obviously. And I'm happy you're joining me on this position because I was wondering what I was going to ask you about where it's like, I know it's a tough one to take here, but this one's too hard to pass on for me.
00:29:11
Speaker 1: Listen, I'm with you 100% that it should be brass balls. Just so people know, before the show, I had four games that I– thought could be brass balls contenders. I listed them for Simon. There was one game that I think overlapped between what you were considering and what I was considering. And this was the one. So I'm totally into it. In my betting fund, that I do with all my buddies in which I manage our investments week to week, in which everyone is from Chicago except for one dude, I'm not sure I can put Tampa in because it will just drag down our enjoyment. But 100%. It's going to be brass balls. I need to tell you about this new prediction market called Polymarket. It's the best new way to trade in sports. In the past, if you wanted action on the game, you'd put some money in. And if your team was doing well and you wanted to cash out, they'd lock the trade or take a huge fee. But Polymarket is a prediction market, a stock exchange for sports where you can buy and sell on your teams. I've tried them all and Polymarket is simply the best prediction market. They're so confident you'll never go back. Two of the other guys, they're giving you a free $ 25 in your first trade when you deposit just $ 10. And now they've launched a new feature, Squads, a group chat where you can see what everyone is trading on. Check the link in the description to join my squad today and sweat pics together every Sunday in the Polymarket app. So download the Polymarket app today and use Sharp when you sign up. That's Sharp to get $ 25 free after you deposit just $ 10. The New York Jets are visiting the Kansas City Chiefs. I made this Chad's choice. It turns out not only is this Chad's choice, this is the only luck rankings game of the week. For those who don't know, Simon and I love the luck rankings, an invention by our old buddy, Dr. Nick Giffen at Action Network. Nick Giffen's a genius. He's a doctor because he has graduate degrees in math, put together this formula that categorizes lucky teams versus unlucky teams and finds the edge in the market. This is the only one that made the luck rankings this week. Luck rankings pick since 2018 of underdogs at a touchdown or more are 20 and four and two against the spread, Simon.
00:31:46
Speaker 2: 83%.
00:31:46
Speaker 1: I feel better about the Jets as a huge dog than I did when I even chose them on Tuesday.
00:31:58
Speaker 2: It's fair. I saw a very funny tweet that, um, is this the biggest coaching mismatch in the history of the NFL? Of course, Aaron Glenn's, uh, resume. And then you look at Andy Reed's resume. It's, it is crazy. And another crazy thing I saw is Aaron Glenn is making $ 12 million this year. The Jets are paying him $ 12 million.
00:32:20
Speaker 1: Dude, it's the going rate. There was that story.
00:32:24
Speaker 2: I know Brian Schottenheimer is the lowest paid coach in the NFL at $ 5 million. But Heron Glenn making $ 12 million, I literally cannot wrap my head around that. I couldn't imagine being the owner of the Jets and that's okay with me signing off on giving this man $ 12 million a year.
00:32:38
Speaker 1: You could also argue that the reason the Jets are unlucky is because their coaching is so bad. So they end up getting these terrible decisions on top of plays that might not go their way. And it's exacerbated because the coaching is so freaking bad. I mean, look, Mike Tomlin said it on Sunday Night Football. He's like, if you're that bad in the final two minutes of the first half and the end of the game, then what you do is that's all you coach for the week is you coach those two-minute segments. Aaron Glenn doesn't do that. They're a terribly coached team. You're not wrong. And that could be why they're so unlucky.
00:33:17
Speaker 2: It's a lot like solid. I will never get these organizations that get these defensive guys where I get the idea of it, but we've just seen the NFL now. It doesn't seem like it works. Going out and getting the defensive coach, like Aaron Glenn's defense gave up, what was it, 38 to the Vegas? Yeah. They gave up 28 to Miami. Are those a couple of juggernauts we're talking about here? I mean, they gave up 19 to New England without any receivers either. It's like, I just don't really get it. So that one jumped out to me right away. Yeah, obviously it's a giant coaching mismatch. Me, you tried to look into that stuff too much, but that definitely jumped out to me. I had a bunch of people bring it up to me, pros. Because I was asking why pros are betting the Chiefs. I just didn't really get it. I know some smart guys who are taking positions on the Chiefs at 9.5, and they're taking the 10. It's like, I'm shocked. I thought it was going to be all pros all over this Jets number, especially this big and what Chad is talking about, where it's like, jets once again they're not as bad as the people perceive like this season the only time they got blown out well i guess yeah they got blown out by the bears 23 12 with a backup quarterback obviously um but if you go back and watch that game like there's so many things where the bears could have won that game by 20 more points like i don't know if you remember that game but it was like they.
00:34:35
Speaker 1: Had tons of turnovers totally.
00:34:37
Speaker 2: Like the bears dominated that game so the jets i They've been this wonky team. They have been very competitive and played close, but they've also had a couple of real stinkers. So I totally get why there's pros that hesitant in this one. I'll support you. I'll be a good friend here on the Jets. But I'm honestly, I have very small amount of money invested in this Jets side. I just, there's other games this week that are just as gross that I'm investing in, but I'm with you. Like this number 10, I'm going to have a hard time avoiding it. It just feels like it's way too many points for a Chiefs team that they don't scare you. I mean, they really don't offensively and defensively. Like Chad said, they get no pressure. And that's great news for Geno. They might be down there two corners as well. So we'll wait and see, right? They got their own injuries right now. Like they might be down their number one receiver, the Jets. I thought about that. Yeah, they might still be down their number one running back. So there are some questions right now about this Jets offense, obviously. But like Chad's talking points were the biggest one. Geno not getting any pressure. He's been great this year and he's got time in the pocket. So I get your read on this game. I'm just having a tough time pulling the trigger.
00:35:38
Speaker 1: I thought about Garrett Wilson. He's in the concussion protocol. He might not play.
00:35:41
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:35:43
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's enough of a move. Like, Gino, when he's not getting pressure, it's not like Garrett Wilson is the only guy he's throwing to. And honestly, in that Raiders game, he was throwing to A.D. Mitchell and Kenyon Sadiq, and he was finding a lot of other options, especially against a secondary that you said, we already know they're going to be down. Legereus Sneed, he's on IR. Mansour Delon, we don't know yet. He's got a shoulder injury. It might just be something that he's got to play through. He was limited in practice. But if he's not getting pressure, Gino's a professional quarterback. He's going to find guys that are open. And I do think that they expect to have Brees Hall back this week. And with the development to Braylon Allen and Brees Hall coming back, I think that gives them a little bit of a dynamic offensively that they haven't been able to execute and probably haven't tried to execute because they didn't know sort of how effective Braylon Allen could be. Look, I could be talking myself into it. I could have some bias here. I could be looking for reasons, but I'm not afraid of it. Am I afraid of it at nine and a half in the contest versus betting it at 10? I'll be clear. I bet it at 10, not nine and a half. I waited to get to 10. So we'll have that conversation. A couple of games I want to get to quickly. Cleveland and New Orleans, New Orleans is minus three. Now could get to three and a half. A lot of that is because Deshaun Watson unexpectedly announced in the concussion protocol. We may get Shador Sanders.
00:37:19
Speaker 2: Yeah. Again, I got lucky on, I bet the saints minus one and a half because the line had moved.
00:37:24
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:37:25
Speaker 2: Pros have come in on Cleveland and I got a better room of the saints, but it obviously it's a downgrade with Shador. Um, it does throw a little bit of randomness into this position where I think most of us have the position of like, don't we hammer the Saints here? Like Shador coming in cold. You expect them to struggle here, especially where I think he kind of like mocked the Saints defense a little bit in an interview he did where you know the coach is going to show that to these guys where it's like this bench player is laughing at you guys. It's not even their starters mocking you guys. So that's easy bulletin board material for the Saints team. And it's another game where it's like, I have so many ugly, gross games I'm betting this week, I could easily avoid this game.
00:38:06
Speaker 1: Great.
00:38:07
Speaker 2: Yeah. Great.
00:38:09
Speaker 1: Indy is hosting the Dallas Cowboys. Again, this one is moved. I'm sorry. I missed. Well, Matt will do it, and then I'll go back. Indy is hosting the Cowboys. Went down from six to five and a half. I've kind of been hesitating because I didn't know if Jonathan Taylor was going to be on this team. But at a number, the Cowboys really don't deserve to be this big of favorites with this bad of an offense or defense against anybody, which is why the wise guys you mentioned in sharp calls are coming in on the Colts.
00:38:40
Speaker 2: I know. That's why I hate this week though. Cause they're telling me I have to bet the Colts. I don't want to, I don't want to at all, but I have to apparently. And like Chad said, like there's another number where if you were lucky and you got to six or six and a half, good as to you because it's, it really went away. I did not think it was going to go. I thought this was going to be, such a huge public side, which, you know, the teasers, the money line bets, like people are going to be hammering this Cowboys side. And the general public is like, they're getting tons of the tickets, but like Chad said, a bunch of, bunch of money is coming now on this cold side. That's really sharp. So even if you're looking at different betting charts, it's like 80% of the money, 80% of the tickets are all in the Cowboys, that 10% or that 20% of the money, that really sharp money is coming to the Colts. It's moved at a point through key numbers It moved it from 6.5 through 6 down to 5.5. That's a big deal. So it's a game I was hoping to avoid. I know the line's too big. I know there's value in the Colts, but Chad nailed it. It's like, I don't know what I'm getting from this Colts team. Have they given up? Have they quit on their coach in this season? I mean, that game last week, Daniel Jones, he tried his best. But everyone around him is just like, we have no chance with this guy at quarterback. He's just totally throwing meatballs and he's got no strength in his lower body to try to run the ball either. It's just, it's a huge injury. Like Achilles, we gave him a ton of respect coming into the year, but we talked coming into the year. It's like, how are you going to bet the win total over of the Colts? And you have a quarterback coming in seven months removed from Achilles injury. It was just too much. And on the flip side, everything's going wrong for the Colts. Their defense has been terrible. And yeah, for me, from the standpoint of, This is a week where the pros are taking a stand on all these terrible teams that are last in its effort. It's the Chargers. It's the Eagles. It's the Colts. We have a lot of ugly, gross teams we can play that we believe in. Will the Colts end up being one of those teams? I don't know as we sit here right now because I'm with Chad. It's like I don't want to bet this number, and often Jonathan Taylor's traded Seattle. This number balloons up to 7.5-8. I know it sounds crazy to think Jonathan Taylor's worth two points, and this matchup he is. If there is no Jonathan Taylor– To me, there is no bet on the Colts. We need our run game here to support Daniel Jones in this offense. So I'm like you. I'll be patient on it. We've already missed the best of the number. But, yeah, we come in here Sunday morning. Jonathan Taylor's still on the team. It's still five and a half. All the money in the world is on the Cowboys. How do we avoid this game? It's going to be very, very tempting to put the Colts in our contest.
00:41:05
Speaker 1: I apologize, Matt Mitchell. I skipped over Rams and Commanders. And I'm surprised this number has moved down from five and a half to four and a half. I can't really figure out why, because the way we've been talking about it all week, the wise guys were going to be on the Rams. Now they've lost Jalen Watson, their cornerback for the year with a shoulder injury. But should that move the number a full point from five and a half to four and a half? Like somebody, I don't know if it's a group, Simon, somebody is coming in on the commanders pretty heavily. with this number when it was at five and a half.
00:41:43
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's another, another instance of, I think there are a lot of pro groups out that I still don't believe in this Rams team. And if you look at underlying numbers, there are some stuff to point out to that. Yeah. Other than the pressure rate they're getting from their defensive line, their defense is actually kind of terrible, this Rams team. And you could actually run the ball on them. And, you know, Aaron Donald, as much as I was making fun of him for coming back, You do see every week he's getting a little better. He is getting his steps back. He's getting his power moves back. And that's to be expected, right? The NFL, no normal person, even he is human enough that if you sit out for two years, you do lose a step. It's just the game moves so fast. These guys who didn't take a year off were training football. You know, it's different than lifting weights at home, right? Football strength is something totally different than that. Like your body being in game shape is totally different. So most of the guys I've talked to took up positions on, This Washington team is really what we've talked about with Jayden Daniels, right? Jayden Daniels is electric. When he puts it together, he's so good, especially escaping the pocket and getting outside the pocket. Now, I know another injury like Terry McLaurin's out. That's another big deal, right, for a team that, you know, relying now heavily on digs. And to me, the tough part I'm having one is with the line movement here. Like Chad just said, it was five and a half. some really smart pros have come in and bet this down. Even the general public has shockingly joined this team, joined the public. I mean, the pros and joined them and betting this commander side. So yeah, it's, it's a line I just don't get. And I'm missing something on here. It's another game where it's a really bad team and the pros are heavily back in them where I told Chad, I wanted to be on the Rams here. So maybe I can just avoid this game. Like I'm still going to bet the Rams will still be on that side, but yeah, Chad's not wrong. There's some really smart money here coming on this commander side. And, I still just look at this, I'm just like, man, this Rams team, they're so much more complete. And I feel like last couple weeks, I've just seen them getting better week to week. Like that Vegas game they put up was a 35-21, and then obviously they won last week 24-9. I feel like we've seen something turn here after that Arizona loss. Like that was such an embarrassing, humiliating thing. I really am believing that McVay has gotten these guys on the right path here. So, yeah, I'm just having a tough time with this line here. I want to be on the Rams, and it's not going my way.
00:43:59
Speaker 1: Las Vegas Raiders, 10-point underdogs at the San Francisco 49ers. It was at 9.5. It was at 10. Now, if you look, you can shop around and you can get 9.5 or 10. So if you want the Niners, go find the 9.5. If you want the Raiders, go find the 10. I think we were partially waiting on this to see if Kirk Cousins was going to get traded. As always, a ton of injury news for the Niners. including Mike Evans, who may not play. That's huge. This is not the same team. I think Brock Purdy's quarterback rating is half of what it is between when Evans is on the field versus not on the field. Are you ready to pull the trigger on the Raiders?
00:44:51
Speaker 2: I am. And another number that just doesn't make sense and it feels way too easy. It's my only fear here. I can't believe we're getting 10 points here where this Niners team Mike Evans and they're fully healthy defensively. Yeah. I stay away like that, that perspective, the 49ers, they're the best team in football. They deserve to have this big of a spread, but that's not who they are right now. They have a ton of injuries. And I mean, you're just going through their schedule this year. It feels like every game's kind of close, right? Even when they're blowing teams out, they eventually let these teams back in. That's something that jumps out to me right away where it's like, I mean, you have made a living this year off Kirk back doing teams. He just always comes by and somehow finds a way. And, You know, this is secretly one of the best rivalries in all of football, right? Like the Bay Area versus formerly of Oakland Raiders. There's going to be a lot of Raiders fans to me in the stadium. Like they're going to travel for this game to come see their former team that they love. And, you know, at 4-4, this feels like a disrespectful line to the Raiders as well. Like I just– that's my hesitation here. I don't get it, and it feels like I'm the stupid sucker sharp that's just walking right into a trap here. It's like. after the game ends where they get blown up by 20 points ago. Oh, that's why it was 10. Cause to me, this is another number where it's like six and a half. The money will be evenly split at 10. It's going to be all Raiders money. Like sure. Some, some groups, some pros in the general public are going to tease and do whatever this Niners number, but overall the public and most pros I know they're going to hammer the Raiders here. It's just so many points. And we've seen this Kubiak offense. They can score like, you know, I love new coaches that come in. They don't care where a guy was drafted. Ashton Gentry has not performed well enough to be their number one running back. So what do they do? They made him their third down back. He's excelled. He's been an incredible receiving back of the back foot for Kirk. Washington has been a great one first down, second down running back for them. That's what I want in a coach. I do not care that you use number one pick on this guy. Like I want the best player in the best situation to play. that speaks to me a lot to the guys inside the locker room, the Raiders. They look at those type of things. That's how they deal with those players where it's like, this guy doesn't care. He's going to put the best guy out there for the best situation. So Chad's not lying. If it's Mike Evans out once again, because they're coming off a bye week here. We don't really fully know who's going to be playing right now for the 49ers, even though it's Thursday. They let guys sit. Veteran, like, you know, their coaching staff, Shannon's very cool about these veteran guys. Like they're, All four letting guys sit. Like McCaffrey, we saw last year, McCaffrey wouldn't practice all week. And then he'd be playing 30 to 40 carries, you know, come that Sunday. So that's what I'm having a tough time with. I don't know if Mike Evans is playing. And me and you have been banging the drum about this. That was a big reason we faded them last week against Atlanta. It's like you can't underestimate how big of a deal this guy is to this team. And his last game he played was against Seattle. They won that game, obviously. They didn't cover against Washington. They obviously didn't cover against Atlanta. You can factor those margins. That difference comes down to Mike Evans. Him not being there on third downs, that's such a big deal. And Chad gave you that pass rating. That's a big deal. Their drop-off from Brock Purdy having Mike Evans not, the numbers play that out. It makes total sense. Yeah, just too many points. At the end of the day, it's just too many points. And it's another game Sunday morning. I bet the 10. I haven't put a lot of money into it. This is going to be one of my bigger bets this week. If Mike Evans is out, I'm still getting 10 or 9.5 on this Raiders team. It just feels like way too many points for Kirk to be getting right now.
00:48:19
Speaker 1: We got to talk about Arizona at Seattle. Seattle's an eight and a half point favorite. I said at sharp calls, I've been thinking a lot about this one. Along with the Jets, as of Tuesday, it was actually one of my bigger bets of the week. And that was when Seattle was at 10 and a half. And then the news about Donald comes out and the line drops to eight and a half. And I was totally bummed. And I felt like, like immediately, I'm like, am I going to buy out? Am I going to, at the other side? What do I want to do here? And then I thought about it. And I, like, I was never betting this game because of Sam Darnold. I was betting it because there's so much love for the Cardinals of what they did and Gardner Minshew, what he did for the Cardinals in the final 20 minutes of the game to come back and beat the Cowboys. And there's so much, so many people have a bias against the Seahawks because of how well the Bears played on Monday night. But I look at this and think Gardner Minshew coming off the bench to play pickup football is different than Gardner Minshew when he starts and is playing against a defense that you know is going to be significantly better than they were in the previous game. And I also think about the offensive line, like the Seahawks offensive line was not very good on Monday night. Jeffrey Simmons was amazing, no doubt about it. But the Seahawks had just traded for Quentin Nelson, Quentin Nelson, and they were clearly confused. They had moved Gray Zabel from left guard to right guard. There were a lot of issues with communication on that line. I think with another week of practice against a much more inferior opponent, Zach Charbonnet, another week of practice under his belt coming back from the ACL. This game to me isn't about Drew Locke and Sam Darnold. It's about the Seahawks' defense, Gardner Minshew, and the Seahawks' ability to move bodies as an offensive line more effectively than they could in their first game with Quentin Nelson. So I kind of still like Seattle minus eight and a half.
00:50:27
Speaker 2: Yep. Seattle at home. Nothing changed for me. I joke, Drew Locke and Sam Darnold, I really don't have that big of a difference.
00:50:35
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:50:35
Speaker 2: My model has it as a point and a half. The books, this got up to 12.5 after me and Chad talked about it. It's not the pro money. It came on Seattle. So now it's moved 4.5 points because Sam Darnold, who has been a turnover machine, is now not playing for them. I mean, we talk about that Chiefs game. That's the best you can get from Sam Darnold. He was on. His throws were incredible. Him and GSM were in total rhythm. You haven't been getting that a lot this year. And if you go back and watch the Drew Locke starts, yes, they play a little bit more cautious with him. They still let him rip it down, feel the JSN. Like that does not change at all in the offense. So that's why I'm telling people there's not that big of a drop off. So I'm not going to waste too much time here. Like to me, it's going to be my bigger bets. I'm all over it. If I'm on a big favor like this, which is very rare, it should be set off all the alarm bells where it's just Seattle at home against a Cardinals team that like Chad just said, Minshew, the magic tends to wear off pretty quick. And yeah, it's, It's a nice opportunity where I get why the general public is betting this Arizona team. It's a lot of points, but the difference between Dallas' defense and Seattle's defense, I can't explain to you how big of a difference it is on the math chart, where it's just like everything that the Cowboys struggle in the secondary, Seattle excels in. Caleb Williams made them look foolish. Ben Johnson, you just don't see that. And now you're having that. All week, they're watching tape all week. Mike McDonald's going to hammer that into their heads. Like, you guys just got embarrassed at home. This is just a horrible spot for the Cardinals. They're literally walking into a Super Bowl champion team that's insanely pissed off, that wants to just destroy the next team they play. So I love to. It's a 425 start. Like, you know, it's just perfect. Outdoors, 425 start in Seattle. I love this one so much. And, yeah, it's another thing Chad just talked about. We're getting good value here. Maybe I'm being a sucker here, but I couldn't believe when I moved that much more points. Not only did I bet more, I doubled the amount I already had on the game. Wow. Yeah, I went way heavier into it because it's just like, oh, my God, now it's under 10. Where I'm like you, I don't think there's that big of a drop off between Sam Darnold and Drew Locke. Now, Sam Darnold has been there before. Yes, if this was the playoffs, it would be a bigger deal than me. But regular season game at home, Drew Locke, full week of practice as well. I was never going to avoid this one. I love Seattle in this spot so much. It's a great number.
00:53:02
Speaker 1: All right. I'm glad we agree. Last one I want to talk about, we mentioned briefly, Buffalo, Minnesota. Minnesota is a three and a half point dog. Talk that Carson Wentz is going to play. I haven't seen that confirmed. Have you seen that confirmed at this point?
00:53:15
Speaker 2: Not confirmed. It's just Kyler's hurt. So it's more likely. But I would say the funniest thing is that rumor came out. This number didn't budge. Yeah, right. It stayed at three and a half for the most part.
00:53:26
Speaker 1: I don't know. I feel like we've got some other games we might like a little bit better and we can probably avoid this one.
00:53:31
Speaker 2: That's totally fair. Like, like this is another game where it's just, it's going to be pros. It's going to be the pros all over the Vikings. It's just a, it's a big number. Like I talked about last week, there's a thousand different ways that played out last week. We should have covered that number, let alone the Vikings probably should have won that game outright. And I know people will turn a little bit now on KOC, the general public is, and they're just, really questioning his view on the quarterback thing because just, you know, obviously JJ's played well, Sam's played well, and Kyler's just not played well at all this year. So, um, interesting if Wentz does come in, lights up a bad secondary, like the Bill's biggest weakness is obviously that secondary, like you can pass the ball on him. That's Carson Wentz's strength is pushing the ball downfield. So could this be the type of game Wentz comes in and finally KFC? Like, I know he went back to Kyler when Kyler came back from injury. At what point do you make the move to Wentz? Like it's, It's a really interesting game where a lot of sliding door moments here. So, yeah, it's a shock to no one. I like the plus three and a half. But, yeah, like you said, there's other games I'd rather bet on and look like an idiot betting. And this one, if I could avoid it, I'm happy to do so. There's so many unknown variables here. But, yeah, plus three and a half against this Bills defense, it's very tempting.
00:54:48
Speaker 1: Why bet a really good team with one of the best defenses ever as home underdogs getting the hook? When we could just as easily bet on the New York Jets. I mean, come on. Or we could bet on the Miami Dolphins. Or we could bet on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Why would we do something so sensible as to bet on an incredible defense at home as an underdog at three and a half? Simon, that's not what we do.
00:55:15
Speaker 2: It's a crazy week, though, for pros. I told you it's such a week of the public versus the pros. I mean, between this game, the Colts, Washington– that Eagles game. It's just every week there might be two or three games that jump out to that way. The numbers look off this week. There's feels like there's eight games, nine games, potentially the numbers don't, the number does not look right and it looks way off. So yeah, I might get caught here or I might make a ton of money. That's, that's the scary part about this week where I'm been pretty heavy into it. Cause I think the general public and the books are way off. And I, that one jumps out to me as well, where it's like, you know, We'll see Chad come Monday night, but this is another game where I'm not betting it right now. Because like I said, if it is Wentz, the public is going to hammer the bills. I might be able to get a four, four and a half. Who knows? Maybe there's a world that goes up to six. I just don't know what the books will do this one if it is Kyler's out in this matchup. So another game you can be patient on people. All right.
00:56:12
Speaker 1: We got a lot of games we're going to have to make some calls on. If I had to guess right now, I think we're doing Carolina, Tampa Bay, Seattle. I think the Raiders and the Jets will be a part of that conversation and so will Miami and Minnesota. I think that's probably what it'll come down to. Simon, I'm going to tell you what our Discord grouper of the week is. Buy my book! Buy my book! Buy my book! Listen, I want to remind everybody, if you pre-order the number in our Hedge the Number promo, in which you will be eligible until November 30th to get refunded your purchase price thanks to the custom market I built, the Futures Super Bowl market I built on Polymarket. If the Chiefs, the Bills, or the Bears win the Super Bowl and you pre-order between now and November 30th, you're getting your purchase price back. You also get invited into this fabulous Discord. And this week, Simon, I don't want to jinx it because it was your Simon Says, but the winning bet is Carolina plus two and a half. I think the group was persuaded by your argument on the show. Go to chadmillman.com, pre-order the book, get eligible for the refund and get into the Discord. All right. What should our Underdog, round robin, B.
00:57:55
Speaker 2: My dog likes your dog. Your dog likes my dog.
00:58:01
Speaker 1: We could get goofy.
00:58:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, my first one I'd put in is that Colts number, plus 200.
00:58:07
Speaker 1: I was going to say Eagles.
00:58:09
Speaker 2: Eagles, I don't hate. They're plus 140. Carolina, plus 130.
00:58:14
Speaker 1: Minnesota?
00:58:15
Speaker 2: I don't hate that. I mean, another big one, obviously, is Tampa is plus 250, plus 240. Like, I'm looking for something that's going to be breaking up all these teasers. Like, we've talked. This is– I think Evan Amos had the tweet. It's through eight weeks, every week we've had a seven-point dog win outright.
00:58:31
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:58:31
Speaker 2: First time in NFL history. So, will that trend continue? Who knows? But we have some big dogs this week where it's like there's some real tempting value. I know we only do three. So, yeah, for me, Panthers, Colts, and then what do you want to do for the last one? You want to do Eagles? Eagles.
00:58:50
Speaker 1: Let's do Eagles.
00:58:51
Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah.
00:58:53
Speaker 1: Okay. Our favorites.
00:58:57
Speaker 2: I'll do. Rams. Yeah. Like the Rams. Like New England.
00:59:03
Speaker 1: Seattle.
00:59:05
Speaker 2: Yeah. Seattle is minus 450. It's the big price. Yeah. we could do what I like doing, which is like you can move the numbers. Now you could take that down to two and a half or one and a half, whatever you feel safest with. Eat up some of that juice.
00:59:17
Speaker 1: Let's do that. Let's do that.
00:59:20
Speaker 2: Okay, let's do that.
00:59:20
Speaker 1: Rams, New England, Seattle, minus two and a half.
00:59:23
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:59:24
Speaker 1: Um, okay. We had four of our five. We did five and favorites in week three and we had four of them are on week eight. I'm sorry. Let's go through your biggest bets right now.
00:59:34
Speaker 2: Pull up those pants and be a man. I was betting. So having the political market, like my biggest bets here right now, like I said, Seattle, just because the numbers moved. Yeah. I rolled over a lot of that money on poly market right into Seattle. Uh, Carolina at the plus three took a really big position on, but that's honestly it. Like I'm, I've been waiting a lot of these lines to move in certain directions for me to take positions on, and it's not really broken that way for me in a lot of these games. Even the Saints, I basically put a penny into that one just because I was already trying to avoid that game in general. Carolina, Seattle, definitely right now as you sit here, those are my two biggest confidence bets. New England, if New England got back down to minus three or minus two and a half, that could potentially be one of them. A lot of these numbers have moved too much for me to take a big position on them.
01:00:22
Speaker 1: Sharp versus Square. You were the winner last week. I was the loser. I had Baltimore. You had Tampa Bay. You go first.
01:00:30
Speaker 2: I'm going to keep it rolling. Every week I take a favorite. I'll do my favorite favorite, Seattle.
01:00:35
Speaker 1: It's totally the one I wanted to take. That is a bummer. Screw it.
01:00:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, there we go.
01:00:43
Speaker 1: I'm going Miami.
01:00:45
Speaker 2: Wow. Plus seven or six and a half? Seven.
01:00:48
Speaker 1: Seven is publicly and widely available. All right. I think we're done with Survivor. Everybody I know at this point is out of Survivor. That's our show. We'll be back Sunday with our final, final bets. We'll give out our five picks for the official $ 25, 000 NFL Pick'Em contest. This has been Sharper Square, sponsored by Polymarket, part of the Volume Podcast Network. Watch or listen on YouTube at Sharper Square. Like this video. Subscribe to the channel. Download us on Spotify, Apple Pods, wherever you get your pods. Rate, review, subscribe. Leave us five stars. Say whatever you want. Feedback is a gift. Until next time, love you. But what's your high?
01:01:31
Speaker 2: Do you keep track of how many carries you have in a game?
01:01:34
Speaker 3: Well, my high will probably come in about another hour after the ballgame.
01:01:39
Speaker 2: We'll have a few beers out in the parking lot, I'm hoping. Don't blame you.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Sharper Square presented by Polymarket. We are part of the Volume Podcast Network. This is the show that makes the squares sharper and makes the wise guys pay attention. I am Chad Millman. I am joined as always by my co-host, my companion, my compadre, professional bettor, Simon Hunter. Hello, Simon.
00:00:27
Speaker 2: Hello, Chad. How are we doing?
00:00:29
Speaker 1: Brother. Look, it's been chaos the past 48 hours. We're going to talk about this in a second. People don't really understand how big election betting is for a lot of professional bettors, especially since prediction markets have become a thing. We're going to get to that in a second because it's connected to Sharp Call, so I don't want to preempt anything you're going to say. But, dude. We've had, since we did the show on Tuesday, quarterback trades, quarterback injuries, player injuries. It seems like three, four, five of the games that we talked about on Tuesday is suddenly in a different situation. So this is our Thursday NFL Week 9 show. We're going to hear sharp calls. We're going to do brass balls. We'll talk about our underdog and our favorite round robin parlay, Simon's biggest bets, sharp versus square, discord grouper of the week. This is the episode where Simon and I will start to narrow down our final five picks for the $ 25, 000 free NFL pick'em contest. But like I said, every week we discuss our picks on Tuesday. And by Thursday, Simon has gotten an earful from his professional betting team. colleagues about what we're getting right, what we're getting wrong, how we're stepping in it. It's time for Sharp Calls.
00:02:05
Speaker 2: Who's there? I'm talking. A different week for Sharp Calls, Chad. I definitely got good info and beating around the bushes, but I was joking before the show that It's a rare time in the season where a lot of pros I know aren't betting as heavy this week and potentially next week because there was just so much money and time put into this election. There was just so much gambling, so much conversation. I was joking with you. I know you didn't go to a political party or whatever.
00:02:40
Speaker 1: An election party.
00:02:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, a viewing party. And I am somebody that totally is– people are very into politics. I'm on the betting side of it. I really– You know, I could go either way when it comes to politics. I get it. People are dug in on their sides. I'm not one of those people. But I went to a party, and the amount of people on the Polymarket app, because it's all different now. It was always different betting, you know, trading the politics and, you know, betting on midterms. But, yeah, this week, talking to a lot of people, it was just interesting how many guys are just Not betting this week because they've just won so much money riding that blue tsunami, whatever they're calling it now. To them, it was easy.
00:03:31
Speaker 1: Blue nami. It's a blue nami.
00:03:33
Speaker 2: To them, it was easy money. And I joke with you, I had a bunch of parlays from months ago on the Milwaukee Brewers and different things like that all tied to different center races and house races. And I'm the same boat as them, but I don't take weeks off. So that was kind of crazy calling guys up and being like, I'm in Mexico or I call a guy, but he's like, I'm in Puerto Rico. Like I'm taking the next week or two off. Like I, I made my bag this month. I'm not really worried about football. So I'm interested to see how it goes this week, where the money you are going to see this week to me will be very, very sharp NFL money. Like truly guys like me, who this is all we do. I don't do men's basketball or college. Like this is, this is our bread and butter is NFL. A lot of the guys are kind of, you know, half foot and half foot out. they're totally out this week. Those guys really aren't betting this week. So that's why these lines this week feel very, very sharp. And, you know, we can start right away. Guess with that Atlanta game, like that, that Atlanta game, I'm talking to a lot of pros who love Atlanta. I know it's in Spain and I know it's off the three and a half, but they still love it at the three. So that's the game I talked about. I was going to be on since he had the two and a half or the three. Maybe I'll just be very, very patient and wait. If it's two and a half, I'll take it. But if it stays at three, three and a half, apparently that's, That's where the pros are at. So that was one that jumped out to me right away, a lot of guys I talked to. A game I loved, not shocking, the pros came out with me. Panthers could have got it at plus three or three and a half. It's now basically two and a half at every shop. So, you know, I told you to shop around. I thought it was going to go that way. It's not too shocking to see it move that way. Another big one a lot of guys are talking about, obviously that cold side. It was plus six, six and a half against Dallas. So gross. Yeah, now I'm going to hit down to five, five and a half. And that was another one where it's like, oh, God, do I have to bet this game now? And it feels like we might have to. It's definitely a really respected spot by a lot of pros I respect. So another one that was a topic of conversation, Seattle. We were all over it. We got burned, right? The quarterback switch. Really interesting back and forth where that's a very heavily public side. And Arizona still heavily backed by the public. Every pro I know is all over Seattle. So that's another one we might end up with egg in our face. But that was a big topic of discussion. A lot of guys I talked to this week.
00:05:56
Speaker 1: That is definitely one. Sorry to interrupt you. That is definitely one I want to dig in on because I feel like we're getting an even bigger edge. But continue.
00:06:08
Speaker 2: You're sick. Patriots, they're two and a half. I told you guys Sunday night. I thought the pros were coming on it. It's not so much a ton of pros I know. It's specifically two really sharp groups I know. One West Coast, one East Coast. Both of them have taken large positions at a bunch of different shops on this Patriots number. I'm looking now. I think most places now are minus three and a half. That's really, really strong money from those groups to be moving that from two and a half all the way across three up to three and a half where I talked to you about this was going to be the most public side. Green Bay, people are really liking this team. And on the flip side, I don't think people are so in on the Patriots, especially with all the injuries the Patriots have had. So I am shocked to see that one grow to three and a half, honestly. That was another really hot topic. And the last one, Tampa. Tons of pros all over it. Everyone– I mean, you've probably seen it, Chad. You're on social media. The Chicago hype, the smoke being blown up Caleb's ass right now. Yeah. It's peak. It is really peaking right now. So it's– A hot topic between a lot of pros where it's like what we talked about, right? Ben Johnson, primetime games, 8-1 as ATS as a coach. It's incredible. He beats up these teams. But I gave people those DVOA numbers. This Bucs defense is legit. And we're about to find out real quick how legit they are because we basically have only seen one defense shut down this Chicago team, and that was the Vikings, who are also a very legit defense.
00:07:35
Speaker 1: In a tsunami.
00:07:36
Speaker 2: Yeah. In a tsunami.
00:07:38
Speaker 1: A regular tsunami, not a blue tsunami.
00:07:40
Speaker 2: Yeah. So that's been a really fun one to talk about with a bunch of people. And obviously the last one, Vikings, looking like it's going to be Carson Wentz. Tons of really smart pro groups all over the Vikings. They know it's going to be tons of bills and money. So most of the guys I've talked to, they've taken the three and a half on the Vikings. But they're saying to me the same thing I'm telling you guys. Be patient. If this is truly Carson Wentz against Josh Allen, Doesn't this get up to four, four and a half come Monday night where everyone in the general public is chasing their money on Monday night? So that was another really hot topic conversation this week, the two primetime games, the Bucs and the Minnesota Vikings.
00:08:16
Speaker 1: You know, normally we try to not do both of those games. It's going to be hard to not at least have a conversation about them for our final five. Couldn't agree more on the Bears. We said exactly that on Tuesday, peak Bears right now. So we'll have to dig deeper on the Bucs. It's so funny, real quickly on the politics and the betting, you know, the prediction markets have come out this week and talked about the volume that they had in that single night and what an amazing night it was for their businesses. And if you look at the volume numbers, it's a tiny overall percentage compared to the volume they do on sports. Like make no mistakes, people are going to prediction markets to trade sports, even if politics was sort of the entry point for so many people, Simon, I remember in 2024, you and I first started talking about prediction markets. And I was sitting down at, I actually wrote about this in my book, because originally I wanted my book to be about Cauchy and Polymarket and sort of the growing rivalry. Couldn't get traction because not enough editors knew about prediction markets. So it became a book about sort of the world of high stakes sports betting and sports betting trading on prediction markets. But I remember you and I, I sat down in 2024, going to watch the returns. People are starting to do interviews at 7, 7.30. I'm settling in. I'm going to get John King giving me answers for what's happening in Kalamazoo County in Michigan. And I get a text from you And you go, it's over. I go, what do you mean? You go, you go, Trump won. I go, how do you know? The polls are just closing. He goes, check the prediction. I think he said, check polymarket. And it's like the price on Trump was so expensive that it was clear anybody who knew anything was betting into Trump to become president. So It's been an interesting ride to see how these have evolved over literally two years, like the quickest 24 months.
00:10:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, the old school saying, I mean, everyone knows this saying, but men lie, women lie, numbers don't lie, right? Well, the big one now is the polls lie, the news lie, the betting markets do not lie. So I feel like anyone that was following along with Polymarket or wherever, you kind of knew like three days ago. what was going to happen. And you could, you could allot yourself and say, well, what do these guys know? We're talking billions and billions of dollars. Like Chad said, it's only 4%. It's 4% of a trillion dollars. It's the amount of money. I don't think people realize how much is being bet legally. This is just legal too. We're not talking about offshore either. This is legal money. The amount of money. I mean, just the Texas one was the craziest, right? We were looking at the Texas market. Insane. Yeah. Just sure. There were just two, three days ago, how blue it was. where I was joking with you, Telerico, whoever it was, I think it was like, it might've been last, it might've been in May. I was getting him a 10 to one to be the Senator of Texas. Like there was just, there was these crazy long shots. And then as they, the, the, it got closer to the election, they were all sort of flipping to being favorites. And everyone knows when it's a red state that flips to a blue state, now their favorite, that's very telling. And I feel like the only ones that were really, unsure of by most shops was kansas mississippi and iowa were these huge toss-ups coming down to the deadline and even then guys i really respect you bet politics you know for a living we're just saying no way you're getting good value right now in these red states you can bet republicans in these red states who are probably going to win no matter what and it was interesting talking to these guys after the fact where they're like well i'm maybe we didn't account for the diesel and the farmers. And that was a big movement in those states where Iowa historically read all this stuff. It was just interesting talking to these people. And I told you the weirdest part was being at these parties where, you know, I'm always, like Chad said, I can tell you four hours beforehand before the news can, who's won elections. That was a cool party trick because I used to have these markets other people didn't know about. Now I'm at this party, everyone knew it. Like it was like seven o'clock and everyone was already like new, just like I did, what was happening. I was like, ah, man, I kind of miss being ahead of everyone. But, Kind of wild to sit there and watch it unfold as someone that does this for a living.
00:12:43
Speaker 1: It's a little bit like a Super Bowl party. Like midterms and presidential elections are now going to become these events where you're sending around squares, you're having a party about it. Because of the advent of prediction markets, it's just become so much more mainstream. This weekend, to take it back to sports, the Philadelphia Eagles are three and a half point home underdogs at the New York Giants. I bring it up because I don't think we're going to play the Eagles at plus three and a half. But remember earlier this week where Nick Sirianni was saying there would be no changes at coordinator or quarterback? There's going to be a change. It's going to be Joe Milton who's going to be the quarterback replacing Tanner McKee. And I wrote in the script and then Matt Mitchell said the same thing before we started recording. Joe Milton has been a preseason superstar. His arm is electric. But there's also a reason the guy keeps bouncing around from team to team to team to team. Is this enough of a change, especially with the Giants being peak sort of J.J. McCarthy is rehab, John Harbaugh is a genius, for us to want to seriously consider backing the Eagles at three and a half?
00:14:05
Speaker 2: It is the pro side. The pros are all over it. They're taking a stand with the Eagles here. We talk all the time. It's a divisional matchup and a team that if they have any ounce of fight left to them, obviously the Eagles fight to the death here and try to steal and win this game. I just don't see it. I've talked about it. I've seen a team that's been totally checked out. I can't tell people to bet on the side. Like I keep saying, just fade them in the second half if you want to. Maybe this is it because Joe Milton comes in and sparks something different, but um like we've seen the kid he's got a good athletic talent he's got a great arm but being consistent being able to throw over the middle all these little things that matter as a quarterback getting third downs he he really can't do so um yeah as an egos fan i want us to lose every game possible i want a better draft pick and it's a total loss season so yeah i'm torn on this one as a fan where it's like yeah bring in milton but if he's too good and we win this game I mean, what are we doing here? Like we're really going to start Milton in the future. Like Chad said, there's a reason he's been bouncing around from team to team, but yeah, this is a game. If you want to handicap it, the pros are going to be all over the Eagles and the public is going to hammer the giants. Like they're just most public Joe public. I talked to, he was asking me, why is this not seven? It's like, You'd think the Giants and J.J. McCarthy should be favored by seven over any team on the road. So I do think we're getting a little bit of peak love for this Giants team here. And we've talked about the Eagles. We don't know where rock bottom is. Could this be it? That's what the pros are betting on. And it's like, I'm not there yet. The Eagles are a team. I want them to be firing people and making big-time movements to fire up this team rather than it's business as usual. Like Chad just said, Nick Sirianni thought it was still going to be Tanner McKee. just 48 hours ago. So it's like there's a lot of disconnect right now within the organization between the front office and the head coaching staff, clearly, because this is, to me, a Howie move. Like Howie, he went to him and said, hey, we're not playing Tanner again. I've seen enough. Let me see what this kid Joe has. So we'll see. The Eagles this week, you know, talked to a couple people in the locker room. I've talked about it before. The locker room feels like it's lost. But they said this week Hurts came in and has been a very local, heavy presence in the locker room. around the player. So maybe the guys rally and play hard for Jalen Hurts. Who knows? But I can't believe this number is held at three and a half. Even with Joe Milton coming in, it hasn't budged. So just shows you how much professional money is coming on this Eagle side.
00:16:30
Speaker 1: Listen, we're talking a lot about prediction markets and I think they're fascinating and they're a great tool. And while I've been working on this book, it's allowed me to experiment with them in ways that you can't As sort of a regular better on sports books, specifically on Polymarket, I built a custom market for the Bears, Bills, or Chiefs to win the Super Bowl. If you pre-order my book, The Number, which comes out January 12th, pre-order it between now and November 30th. If one of those teams wins it all, you will get your purchase price back. It's not a raffle. It's not a drawing. The first 1,000 copies sold in this window are going to get refunded. If you like sports betting, if you want to read about how $ 100 million bettors and billion-dollar prediction market traders make decisions, think about risk, this is the book for you. Go to chadmillman.com to pre-order. Sign up for this really fun pre-roll on prediction markets. Simon. Denver, Carolina, you just mentioned it. It's a two and a half. This was Simon Says, the trade of the week presented by Polymarket. It was trading at 46% the other day. I don't want to jinx you. We are going to talk more about this later in the show. Almost, Simon, almost a luck rankings game, meaning the Panthers have been unlucky. The Broncos, as we've said, they've been pulling rabbits out of their hat. might have gotten to three for a second after we were on the show. Cause I got it at three, but it's generally a two and a half. And like you said, the wise guys are aggressively coming in on Carolina.
00:18:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was three to a bunch of places. And then definitely I think pros are the same view as I did. It's just, you have to take the three and bet this one down. And the general public is going to absolutely hammer Denver. I, I assume this will be one of the biggest needs of the shops this week. And, Same with Polly Market. They're going to need the Panthers, and that's always a nice position to be in. One side is heavily overrated, and the public is hammering it. And the Broncos, I don't want to be too hard that they're overrated because that's not fair to say. They've earned those wins. Bo Nix has played so well these fourth quarters. All that noise, but they're definitely a team that I think people think they're much better than they are because they're leading their division. They just had a huge win against the Chiefs where we both know like this is a Denver team that from week to week, you don't really know you're getting offensively from Bo Nix and flip side for Carolina. I know they've dropped two in a row here. I still think this is a team that has a ton of potential and we've seen that in certain games where when they put it all together, they're a really good team. And I totally get why people are kind of off of them right now. Right. That's, that was a more surprising part was people are just so dismissive of them where it's like, I mean, that was a, that was a tough loss against, you know, the bucks and, Yeah, it was super embarrassing, but they go from playing the Bucs, who I just talked about have a great defense, to playing Green Bay, where I feel like in that Green Bay game, every little thing was going wrong for them. They couldn't catch a break, even when they had that big turnover where Jordan left, there was a pick. They couldn't turn that into points. Bryson went out there and threw a meatball himself and threw it for a pick. So it was just an off game where I think this is the exact type of spot they had been. back. At home, in this heat against the Broncos team that, it's just like I keep saying, they just feel like they keep overachieving. And they've won four straight games. Each one has been an insane fourth quarter comeback other than that Arizona game. So, it just feels like we're due for a little bit of Bo Nix regression here at this point. Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely a pro side. I'm not going to lie. It's heavily, heavily public side in the Broncos.
00:20:13
Speaker 1: It's also the side with Carolina that we tend to want to be on. We like Ben Bryce Young when he's at home as an underdog. The defense to me for the Broncos, obviously their pass rush and their pressure rate is excellent, but they are middling in a in a lot of other categories. The pressure rate is what saves them. It's not what is like the best of many, many different things. So there are opportunities here for the Panthers. Detroit at Miami. Miami is a seven-point home underdog. I think this had a chance to be brass balls. It is not. The big news in this game is injuries. Jack Campbell carted off the field, progressing well thankfully. Brian Branch, concussion protocol, limited. Who knows if he's playing? Cade Mays, the center, limited. Who knows if he's playing? DJ Reed, limited in practice. Who knows if he's playing? Kirby Joseph, the safety for the Lions, is out in this game. Amon Ross St. Brown, limited in practice, a surprise with a rib injury. You know, we've had a nice run with the Dolphins. The line moved from eight and a half to seven and a half to seven. It's been sitting there. But now if you look at prediction markets, it's priced at six and a half not seven and a half which tells you there just continues to be more money coming in on the dolphins i will say i couldn't resist even though we missed the eight and a half i played the dolphins at seven you.
00:21:51
Speaker 2: Don't hate i take a small piece on about i don't know what to do with this one because i'm worried i'm too close to a bit like i want to hammer miami and chad just named all those injuries that's making me want to bet even more and we've talked like this is usually a good Good situation for Miami facing a team in Detroit that as much praise we give golf, isn't this outdoors in the elements? Aren't they expected to have bad weather in this game as well?
00:22:15
Speaker 3: I'm checking right now, Simon. They're basically been stuck in like a hurricane situation.
00:22:34
Speaker 2: Type of rain pattern for two weeks down in my like miami area like there's some areas that have had over like three inches of rain which if you don't know what that means if you equate that to snow that's like three feet of snow in 24 hours in some areas of florida right now so we'll see if it stays that way come sunday me and chad coming here sunday morning it's a bad weather 1 p.m start i feel like we're gonna be all over miami especially with all the injuries chad just named They're a team that has really bad cornerbacks that are saved by having two really good safeties. Now both those safeties might be out of this game. Like it's just, it keeps making me want to take Miami. You know, I, I told you, I'm trying to time it right when we get off this Miami train. Cause I've been all over them now for feels like a bunch of weeks. It's eventually going to go the other way. The public is going to catch up to eventually, but Chad just nailed it. It's like, you look at the split charts, all the money, is all over Miami. All the tickets are all over Detroit. Like this week, I told you people, it's going to be a week of some big heavy hitters in the pro community taking big stands on some of these ugly dogs. And this is another one. So yeah, don't be shocked Sunday morning if we're in here taking this one. But obviously, we're not crazy about the six and a half. We want the seven, seven and a half. And that's why you got to shop around right now. The best you can get is seven.
00:23:52
Speaker 1: All right, Simon, it is time for our Polymarket Brass Balls Trade of the Week. I'm not surprised we're doing this, and I can totally believe it, and I believe in it, but we are going with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers trading at six and a half at Polymarket, trading at 51%. You know what it takes?
00:24:16
Speaker 2: It takes brass balls.
00:24:20
Speaker 1: When we were talking about this before the show... You said the key phrase. Isn't this peak bears right now? Like my experience on Monday night, it was a familial experience across generational groups of friends, across my mom, my sister, my niece, my brother-in-law who just got stuck on the chain because my mom included him, my son. I mean... There is nothing better. I texted with our boss, Colin Coward, about this. He now lives in Chicago. There is nothing better than the city of Chicago when the Bears are good. It is a spirit and a feeling. You're buoyant, right? But dude, six and a half against a defense. You already said it on the show. The best three and five DVOA team ever. There is something off. And we are getting an opportunity, I think, of a couple points of value because of what the Bears did against the Seahawks on Monday night.
00:25:34
Speaker 2: Every time you tell that story about getting your sister's daughter or whatever into football, I just think of that meme joke of my wife's husband's sister's boyfriend. It's like, what? Too many moving parts.
00:25:48
Speaker 1: My niece my niece is that easy enough.
00:25:51
Speaker 2: For you thank you thank you uh yeah it's it's just the numbers too big right i think we both can agree on that where this at best probably should be four and a half maybe three and a half but i think people are just like us a little uneasy about baker but when you really dive in the numbers like this bucks defense is so good and this is perfect test for them right a bulls old school type of defense and top bowls playing against the new school Ben, you know, Ben Johnson offense and nothing's really stopped as Ben Johnson off the right. It's, he's been absolutely juggernaut. The, the love for Caleb is just reaching max level right now where, you know, people are debating, is he a top three quarterback now? And is he already made it? And you have other people on the line, these, you know, They study the film, and they're posting the clips where it's like, yeah, we give a ton of praise to Caleb. Ben Johnson's got guys wide open for him.
00:26:41
Speaker 1: He is scheming.
00:26:42
Speaker 2: Wide open. Yeah, scheming the hell out of this right now.
00:26:45
Speaker 1: He is so brilliant, it's frightening.
00:26:49
Speaker 2: Yes. So we want to give a ton of flowers to Caleb, obviously, but it's all Ben, really is, where it's like you don't see guys five to ten yards wide open against Seattle. It just doesn't happen. And he had them on their heads spinning so hard. it didn't happen just once or twice. It felt like the entire game, there was guys schemed wide open. So we both are well aware we're walking into here, right? We're walking into literally the best team in football playing right now in the bears. But my whole view is it just feels like every week, this Bucks team has been consistently underrated, right? And it's because we talked at nauseam about it. They had a run that we'd never seen before. They had not covered in 11 straight games and, Little did they know that Baker getting hurt was going to change all that, but it did it. It did something different to this team where the defense played better after Baker went down. Whatever that was, they started buying into both systems more, and you've seen it these last couple weeks. I keep bringing it up, like that Pittsburgh loss, which we had money on, was a total outlier. What makes Aaron Rodgers so great, he came back and got that game where they were down, I think it was like 19-6 or 19-10 or whatever it was in that fourth quarter, able to come back tight and obviously win by a touchdown in overtime, but Every other game, Carolina beat a 43-13. It was based on their run game and the defense. Last week against Atlanta, it was based on their run game and the defense. Now, the Bears with Jeffrey Simmons, maybe this will throw a little bit of a wrench into this, but we've seen this Bears team. You can run on them. That's what I'm saying. Simmons might be the difference maker now with that. We have not seen him in the middle, but Bucky Irving and Kenneth Gainwell is a way different run scheme than they just went against Seattle. This is you could say one of the best two-headed running backs in the entire NFL right now. And the Bucs are leaning into it. So I'm really excited to see where this number goes. You've easily seen this drop to six, potentially five and a half. So, yeah, I'm making the brass bells because I want people to grab the six and a half now. And I get it. It takes some balls here to deck this one, people. I know it's tough to make, but I think you're not understanding. You're getting two free points of value here on the side that they're not as bad as the record shows. Like I said, they're three and five. But DVOA just shows they're one of the best teams to ever be in that position. And this defense has been great this season, and there's not good enough respect. So, yeah, really excited for this one, obviously. And I'm happy you're joining me on this position because I was wondering what I was going to ask you about where it's like, I know it's a tough one to take here, but this one's too hard to pass on for me.
00:29:11
Speaker 1: Listen, I'm with you 100% that it should be brass balls. Just so people know, before the show, I had four games that I– thought could be brass balls contenders. I listed them for Simon. There was one game that I think overlapped between what you were considering and what I was considering. And this was the one. So I'm totally into it. In my betting fund, that I do with all my buddies in which I manage our investments week to week, in which everyone is from Chicago except for one dude, I'm not sure I can put Tampa in because it will just drag down our enjoyment. But 100%. It's going to be brass balls. I need to tell you about this new prediction market called Polymarket. It's the best new way to trade in sports. In the past, if you wanted action on the game, you'd put some money in. And if your team was doing well and you wanted to cash out, they'd lock the trade or take a huge fee. But Polymarket is a prediction market, a stock exchange for sports where you can buy and sell on your teams. I've tried them all and Polymarket is simply the best prediction market. They're so confident you'll never go back. Two of the other guys, they're giving you a free $ 25 in your first trade when you deposit just $ 10. And now they've launched a new feature, Squads, a group chat where you can see what everyone is trading on. Check the link in the description to join my squad today and sweat pics together every Sunday in the Polymarket app. So download the Polymarket app today and use Sharp when you sign up. That's Sharp to get $ 25 free after you deposit just $ 10. The New York Jets are visiting the Kansas City Chiefs. I made this Chad's choice. It turns out not only is this Chad's choice, this is the only luck rankings game of the week. For those who don't know, Simon and I love the luck rankings, an invention by our old buddy, Dr. Nick Giffen at Action Network. Nick Giffen's a genius. He's a doctor because he has graduate degrees in math, put together this formula that categorizes lucky teams versus unlucky teams and finds the edge in the market. This is the only one that made the luck rankings this week. Luck rankings pick since 2018 of underdogs at a touchdown or more are 20 and four and two against the spread, Simon.
00:31:46
Speaker 2: 83%.
00:31:46
Speaker 1: I feel better about the Jets as a huge dog than I did when I even chose them on Tuesday.
00:31:58
Speaker 2: It's fair. I saw a very funny tweet that, um, is this the biggest coaching mismatch in the history of the NFL? Of course, Aaron Glenn's, uh, resume. And then you look at Andy Reed's resume. It's, it is crazy. And another crazy thing I saw is Aaron Glenn is making $ 12 million this year. The Jets are paying him $ 12 million.
00:32:20
Speaker 1: Dude, it's the going rate. There was that story.
00:32:24
Speaker 2: I know Brian Schottenheimer is the lowest paid coach in the NFL at $ 5 million. But Heron Glenn making $ 12 million, I literally cannot wrap my head around that. I couldn't imagine being the owner of the Jets and that's okay with me signing off on giving this man $ 12 million a year.
00:32:38
Speaker 1: You could also argue that the reason the Jets are unlucky is because their coaching is so bad. So they end up getting these terrible decisions on top of plays that might not go their way. And it's exacerbated because the coaching is so freaking bad. I mean, look, Mike Tomlin said it on Sunday Night Football. He's like, if you're that bad in the final two minutes of the first half and the end of the game, then what you do is that's all you coach for the week is you coach those two-minute segments. Aaron Glenn doesn't do that. They're a terribly coached team. You're not wrong. And that could be why they're so unlucky.
00:33:17
Speaker 2: It's a lot like solid. I will never get these organizations that get these defensive guys where I get the idea of it, but we've just seen the NFL now. It doesn't seem like it works. Going out and getting the defensive coach, like Aaron Glenn's defense gave up, what was it, 38 to the Vegas? Yeah. They gave up 28 to Miami. Are those a couple of juggernauts we're talking about here? I mean, they gave up 19 to New England without any receivers either. It's like, I just don't really get it. So that one jumped out to me right away. Yeah, obviously it's a giant coaching mismatch. Me, you tried to look into that stuff too much, but that definitely jumped out to me. I had a bunch of people bring it up to me, pros. Because I was asking why pros are betting the Chiefs. I just didn't really get it. I know some smart guys who are taking positions on the Chiefs at 9.5, and they're taking the 10. It's like, I'm shocked. I thought it was going to be all pros all over this Jets number, especially this big and what Chad is talking about, where it's like, jets once again they're not as bad as the people perceive like this season the only time they got blown out well i guess yeah they got blown out by the bears 23 12 with a backup quarterback obviously um but if you go back and watch that game like there's so many things where the bears could have won that game by 20 more points like i don't know if you remember that game but it was like they.
00:34:35
Speaker 1: Had tons of turnovers totally.
00:34:37
Speaker 2: Like the bears dominated that game so the jets i They've been this wonky team. They have been very competitive and played close, but they've also had a couple of real stinkers. So I totally get why there's pros that hesitant in this one. I'll support you. I'll be a good friend here on the Jets. But I'm honestly, I have very small amount of money invested in this Jets side. I just, there's other games this week that are just as gross that I'm investing in, but I'm with you. Like this number 10, I'm going to have a hard time avoiding it. It just feels like it's way too many points for a Chiefs team that they don't scare you. I mean, they really don't offensively and defensively. Like Chad said, they get no pressure. And that's great news for Geno. They might be down there two corners as well. So we'll wait and see, right? They got their own injuries right now. Like they might be down their number one receiver, the Jets. I thought about that. Yeah, they might still be down their number one running back. So there are some questions right now about this Jets offense, obviously. But like Chad's talking points were the biggest one. Geno not getting any pressure. He's been great this year and he's got time in the pocket. So I get your read on this game. I'm just having a tough time pulling the trigger.
00:35:38
Speaker 1: I thought about Garrett Wilson. He's in the concussion protocol. He might not play.
00:35:41
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:35:43
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's enough of a move. Like, Gino, when he's not getting pressure, it's not like Garrett Wilson is the only guy he's throwing to. And honestly, in that Raiders game, he was throwing to A.D. Mitchell and Kenyon Sadiq, and he was finding a lot of other options, especially against a secondary that you said, we already know they're going to be down. Legereus Sneed, he's on IR. Mansour Delon, we don't know yet. He's got a shoulder injury. It might just be something that he's got to play through. He was limited in practice. But if he's not getting pressure, Gino's a professional quarterback. He's going to find guys that are open. And I do think that they expect to have Brees Hall back this week. And with the development to Braylon Allen and Brees Hall coming back, I think that gives them a little bit of a dynamic offensively that they haven't been able to execute and probably haven't tried to execute because they didn't know sort of how effective Braylon Allen could be. Look, I could be talking myself into it. I could have some bias here. I could be looking for reasons, but I'm not afraid of it. Am I afraid of it at nine and a half in the contest versus betting it at 10? I'll be clear. I bet it at 10, not nine and a half. I waited to get to 10. So we'll have that conversation. A couple of games I want to get to quickly. Cleveland and New Orleans, New Orleans is minus three. Now could get to three and a half. A lot of that is because Deshaun Watson unexpectedly announced in the concussion protocol. We may get Shador Sanders.
00:37:19
Speaker 2: Yeah. Again, I got lucky on, I bet the saints minus one and a half because the line had moved.
00:37:24
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:37:25
Speaker 2: Pros have come in on Cleveland and I got a better room of the saints, but it obviously it's a downgrade with Shador. Um, it does throw a little bit of randomness into this position where I think most of us have the position of like, don't we hammer the Saints here? Like Shador coming in cold. You expect them to struggle here, especially where I think he kind of like mocked the Saints defense a little bit in an interview he did where you know the coach is going to show that to these guys where it's like this bench player is laughing at you guys. It's not even their starters mocking you guys. So that's easy bulletin board material for the Saints team. And it's another game where it's like, I have so many ugly, gross games I'm betting this week, I could easily avoid this game.
00:38:06
Speaker 1: Great.
00:38:07
Speaker 2: Yeah. Great.
00:38:09
Speaker 1: Indy is hosting the Dallas Cowboys. Again, this one is moved. I'm sorry. I missed. Well, Matt will do it, and then I'll go back. Indy is hosting the Cowboys. Went down from six to five and a half. I've kind of been hesitating because I didn't know if Jonathan Taylor was going to be on this team. But at a number, the Cowboys really don't deserve to be this big of favorites with this bad of an offense or defense against anybody, which is why the wise guys you mentioned in sharp calls are coming in on the Colts.
00:38:40
Speaker 2: I know. That's why I hate this week though. Cause they're telling me I have to bet the Colts. I don't want to, I don't want to at all, but I have to apparently. And like Chad said, like there's another number where if you were lucky and you got to six or six and a half, good as to you because it's, it really went away. I did not think it was going to go. I thought this was going to be, such a huge public side, which, you know, the teasers, the money line bets, like people are going to be hammering this Cowboys side. And the general public is like, they're getting tons of the tickets, but like Chad said, a bunch of, bunch of money is coming now on this cold side. That's really sharp. So even if you're looking at different betting charts, it's like 80% of the money, 80% of the tickets are all in the Cowboys, that 10% or that 20% of the money, that really sharp money is coming to the Colts. It's moved at a point through key numbers It moved it from 6.5 through 6 down to 5.5. That's a big deal. So it's a game I was hoping to avoid. I know the line's too big. I know there's value in the Colts, but Chad nailed it. It's like, I don't know what I'm getting from this Colts team. Have they given up? Have they quit on their coach in this season? I mean, that game last week, Daniel Jones, he tried his best. But everyone around him is just like, we have no chance with this guy at quarterback. He's just totally throwing meatballs and he's got no strength in his lower body to try to run the ball either. It's just, it's a huge injury. Like Achilles, we gave him a ton of respect coming into the year, but we talked coming into the year. It's like, how are you going to bet the win total over of the Colts? And you have a quarterback coming in seven months removed from Achilles injury. It was just too much. And on the flip side, everything's going wrong for the Colts. Their defense has been terrible. And yeah, for me, from the standpoint of, This is a week where the pros are taking a stand on all these terrible teams that are last in its effort. It's the Chargers. It's the Eagles. It's the Colts. We have a lot of ugly, gross teams we can play that we believe in. Will the Colts end up being one of those teams? I don't know as we sit here right now because I'm with Chad. It's like I don't want to bet this number, and often Jonathan Taylor's traded Seattle. This number balloons up to 7.5-8. I know it sounds crazy to think Jonathan Taylor's worth two points, and this matchup he is. If there is no Jonathan Taylor– To me, there is no bet on the Colts. We need our run game here to support Daniel Jones in this offense. So I'm like you. I'll be patient on it. We've already missed the best of the number. But, yeah, we come in here Sunday morning. Jonathan Taylor's still on the team. It's still five and a half. All the money in the world is on the Cowboys. How do we avoid this game? It's going to be very, very tempting to put the Colts in our contest.
00:41:05
Speaker 1: I apologize, Matt Mitchell. I skipped over Rams and Commanders. And I'm surprised this number has moved down from five and a half to four and a half. I can't really figure out why, because the way we've been talking about it all week, the wise guys were going to be on the Rams. Now they've lost Jalen Watson, their cornerback for the year with a shoulder injury. But should that move the number a full point from five and a half to four and a half? Like somebody, I don't know if it's a group, Simon, somebody is coming in on the commanders pretty heavily. with this number when it was at five and a half.
00:41:43
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's another, another instance of, I think there are a lot of pro groups out that I still don't believe in this Rams team. And if you look at underlying numbers, there are some stuff to point out to that. Yeah. Other than the pressure rate they're getting from their defensive line, their defense is actually kind of terrible, this Rams team. And you could actually run the ball on them. And, you know, Aaron Donald, as much as I was making fun of him for coming back, You do see every week he's getting a little better. He is getting his steps back. He's getting his power moves back. And that's to be expected, right? The NFL, no normal person, even he is human enough that if you sit out for two years, you do lose a step. It's just the game moves so fast. These guys who didn't take a year off were training football. You know, it's different than lifting weights at home, right? Football strength is something totally different than that. Like your body being in game shape is totally different. So most of the guys I've talked to took up positions on, This Washington team is really what we've talked about with Jayden Daniels, right? Jayden Daniels is electric. When he puts it together, he's so good, especially escaping the pocket and getting outside the pocket. Now, I know another injury like Terry McLaurin's out. That's another big deal, right, for a team that, you know, relying now heavily on digs. And to me, the tough part I'm having one is with the line movement here. Like Chad just said, it was five and a half. some really smart pros have come in and bet this down. Even the general public has shockingly joined this team, joined the public. I mean, the pros and joined them and betting this commander side. So yeah, it's, it's a line I just don't get. And I'm missing something on here. It's another game where it's a really bad team and the pros are heavily back in them where I told Chad, I wanted to be on the Rams here. So maybe I can just avoid this game. Like I'm still going to bet the Rams will still be on that side, but yeah, Chad's not wrong. There's some really smart money here coming on this commander side. And, I still just look at this, I'm just like, man, this Rams team, they're so much more complete. And I feel like last couple weeks, I've just seen them getting better week to week. Like that Vegas game they put up was a 35-21, and then obviously they won last week 24-9. I feel like we've seen something turn here after that Arizona loss. Like that was such an embarrassing, humiliating thing. I really am believing that McVay has gotten these guys on the right path here. So, yeah, I'm just having a tough time with this line here. I want to be on the Rams, and it's not going my way.
00:43:59
Speaker 1: Las Vegas Raiders, 10-point underdogs at the San Francisco 49ers. It was at 9.5. It was at 10. Now, if you look, you can shop around and you can get 9.5 or 10. So if you want the Niners, go find the 9.5. If you want the Raiders, go find the 10. I think we were partially waiting on this to see if Kirk Cousins was going to get traded. As always, a ton of injury news for the Niners. including Mike Evans, who may not play. That's huge. This is not the same team. I think Brock Purdy's quarterback rating is half of what it is between when Evans is on the field versus not on the field. Are you ready to pull the trigger on the Raiders?
00:44:51
Speaker 2: I am. And another number that just doesn't make sense and it feels way too easy. It's my only fear here. I can't believe we're getting 10 points here where this Niners team Mike Evans and they're fully healthy defensively. Yeah. I stay away like that, that perspective, the 49ers, they're the best team in football. They deserve to have this big of a spread, but that's not who they are right now. They have a ton of injuries. And I mean, you're just going through their schedule this year. It feels like every game's kind of close, right? Even when they're blowing teams out, they eventually let these teams back in. That's something that jumps out to me right away where it's like, I mean, you have made a living this year off Kirk back doing teams. He just always comes by and somehow finds a way. And, You know, this is secretly one of the best rivalries in all of football, right? Like the Bay Area versus formerly of Oakland Raiders. There's going to be a lot of Raiders fans to me in the stadium. Like they're going to travel for this game to come see their former team that they love. And, you know, at 4-4, this feels like a disrespectful line to the Raiders as well. Like I just– that's my hesitation here. I don't get it, and it feels like I'm the stupid sucker sharp that's just walking right into a trap here. It's like. after the game ends where they get blown up by 20 points ago. Oh, that's why it was 10. Cause to me, this is another number where it's like six and a half. The money will be evenly split at 10. It's going to be all Raiders money. Like sure. Some, some groups, some pros in the general public are going to tease and do whatever this Niners number, but overall the public and most pros I know they're going to hammer the Raiders here. It's just so many points. And we've seen this Kubiak offense. They can score like, you know, I love new coaches that come in. They don't care where a guy was drafted. Ashton Gentry has not performed well enough to be their number one running back. So what do they do? They made him their third down back. He's excelled. He's been an incredible receiving back of the back foot for Kirk. Washington has been a great one first down, second down running back for them. That's what I want in a coach. I do not care that you use number one pick on this guy. Like I want the best player in the best situation to play. that speaks to me a lot to the guys inside the locker room, the Raiders. They look at those type of things. That's how they deal with those players where it's like, this guy doesn't care. He's going to put the best guy out there for the best situation. So Chad's not lying. If it's Mike Evans out once again, because they're coming off a bye week here. We don't really fully know who's going to be playing right now for the 49ers, even though it's Thursday. They let guys sit. Veteran, like, you know, their coaching staff, Shannon's very cool about these veteran guys. Like they're, All four letting guys sit. Like McCaffrey, we saw last year, McCaffrey wouldn't practice all week. And then he'd be playing 30 to 40 carries, you know, come that Sunday. So that's what I'm having a tough time with. I don't know if Mike Evans is playing. And me and you have been banging the drum about this. That was a big reason we faded them last week against Atlanta. It's like you can't underestimate how big of a deal this guy is to this team. And his last game he played was against Seattle. They won that game, obviously. They didn't cover against Washington. They obviously didn't cover against Atlanta. You can factor those margins. That difference comes down to Mike Evans. Him not being there on third downs, that's such a big deal. And Chad gave you that pass rating. That's a big deal. Their drop-off from Brock Purdy having Mike Evans not, the numbers play that out. It makes total sense. Yeah, just too many points. At the end of the day, it's just too many points. And it's another game Sunday morning. I bet the 10. I haven't put a lot of money into it. This is going to be one of my bigger bets this week. If Mike Evans is out, I'm still getting 10 or 9.5 on this Raiders team. It just feels like way too many points for Kirk to be getting right now.
00:48:19
Speaker 1: We got to talk about Arizona at Seattle. Seattle's an eight and a half point favorite. I said at sharp calls, I've been thinking a lot about this one. Along with the Jets, as of Tuesday, it was actually one of my bigger bets of the week. And that was when Seattle was at 10 and a half. And then the news about Donald comes out and the line drops to eight and a half. And I was totally bummed. And I felt like, like immediately, I'm like, am I going to buy out? Am I going to, at the other side? What do I want to do here? And then I thought about it. And I, like, I was never betting this game because of Sam Darnold. I was betting it because there's so much love for the Cardinals of what they did and Gardner Minshew, what he did for the Cardinals in the final 20 minutes of the game to come back and beat the Cowboys. And there's so much, so many people have a bias against the Seahawks because of how well the Bears played on Monday night. But I look at this and think Gardner Minshew coming off the bench to play pickup football is different than Gardner Minshew when he starts and is playing against a defense that you know is going to be significantly better than they were in the previous game. And I also think about the offensive line, like the Seahawks offensive line was not very good on Monday night. Jeffrey Simmons was amazing, no doubt about it. But the Seahawks had just traded for Quentin Nelson, Quentin Nelson, and they were clearly confused. They had moved Gray Zabel from left guard to right guard. There were a lot of issues with communication on that line. I think with another week of practice against a much more inferior opponent, Zach Charbonnet, another week of practice under his belt coming back from the ACL. This game to me isn't about Drew Locke and Sam Darnold. It's about the Seahawks' defense, Gardner Minshew, and the Seahawks' ability to move bodies as an offensive line more effectively than they could in their first game with Quentin Nelson. So I kind of still like Seattle minus eight and a half.
00:50:27
Speaker 2: Yep. Seattle at home. Nothing changed for me. I joke, Drew Locke and Sam Darnold, I really don't have that big of a difference.
00:50:35
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:50:35
Speaker 2: My model has it as a point and a half. The books, this got up to 12.5 after me and Chad talked about it. It's not the pro money. It came on Seattle. So now it's moved 4.5 points because Sam Darnold, who has been a turnover machine, is now not playing for them. I mean, we talk about that Chiefs game. That's the best you can get from Sam Darnold. He was on. His throws were incredible. Him and GSM were in total rhythm. You haven't been getting that a lot this year. And if you go back and watch the Drew Locke starts, yes, they play a little bit more cautious with him. They still let him rip it down, feel the JSN. Like that does not change at all in the offense. So that's why I'm telling people there's not that big of a drop off. So I'm not going to waste too much time here. Like to me, it's going to be my bigger bets. I'm all over it. If I'm on a big favor like this, which is very rare, it should be set off all the alarm bells where it's just Seattle at home against a Cardinals team that like Chad just said, Minshew, the magic tends to wear off pretty quick. And yeah, it's, It's a nice opportunity where I get why the general public is betting this Arizona team. It's a lot of points, but the difference between Dallas' defense and Seattle's defense, I can't explain to you how big of a difference it is on the math chart, where it's just like everything that the Cowboys struggle in the secondary, Seattle excels in. Caleb Williams made them look foolish. Ben Johnson, you just don't see that. And now you're having that. All week, they're watching tape all week. Mike McDonald's going to hammer that into their heads. Like, you guys just got embarrassed at home. This is just a horrible spot for the Cardinals. They're literally walking into a Super Bowl champion team that's insanely pissed off, that wants to just destroy the next team they play. So I love to. It's a 425 start. Like, you know, it's just perfect. Outdoors, 425 start in Seattle. I love this one so much. And, yeah, it's another thing Chad just talked about. We're getting good value here. Maybe I'm being a sucker here, but I couldn't believe when I moved that much more points. Not only did I bet more, I doubled the amount I already had on the game. Wow. Yeah, I went way heavier into it because it's just like, oh, my God, now it's under 10. Where I'm like you, I don't think there's that big of a drop off between Sam Darnold and Drew Locke. Now, Sam Darnold has been there before. Yes, if this was the playoffs, it would be a bigger deal than me. But regular season game at home, Drew Locke, full week of practice as well. I was never going to avoid this one. I love Seattle in this spot so much. It's a great number.
00:53:02
Speaker 1: All right. I'm glad we agree. Last one I want to talk about, we mentioned briefly, Buffalo, Minnesota. Minnesota is a three and a half point dog. Talk that Carson Wentz is going to play. I haven't seen that confirmed. Have you seen that confirmed at this point?
00:53:15
Speaker 2: Not confirmed. It's just Kyler's hurt. So it's more likely. But I would say the funniest thing is that rumor came out. This number didn't budge. Yeah, right. It stayed at three and a half for the most part.
00:53:26
Speaker 1: I don't know. I feel like we've got some other games we might like a little bit better and we can probably avoid this one.
00:53:31
Speaker 2: That's totally fair. Like, like this is another game where it's just, it's going to be pros. It's going to be the pros all over the Vikings. It's just a, it's a big number. Like I talked about last week, there's a thousand different ways that played out last week. We should have covered that number, let alone the Vikings probably should have won that game outright. And I know people will turn a little bit now on KOC, the general public is, and they're just, really questioning his view on the quarterback thing because just, you know, obviously JJ's played well, Sam's played well, and Kyler's just not played well at all this year. So, um, interesting if Wentz does come in, lights up a bad secondary, like the Bill's biggest weakness is obviously that secondary, like you can pass the ball on him. That's Carson Wentz's strength is pushing the ball downfield. So could this be the type of game Wentz comes in and finally KFC? Like, I know he went back to Kyler when Kyler came back from injury. At what point do you make the move to Wentz? Like it's, It's a really interesting game where a lot of sliding door moments here. So, yeah, it's a shock to no one. I like the plus three and a half. But, yeah, like you said, there's other games I'd rather bet on and look like an idiot betting. And this one, if I could avoid it, I'm happy to do so. There's so many unknown variables here. But, yeah, plus three and a half against this Bills defense, it's very tempting.
00:54:48
Speaker 1: Why bet a really good team with one of the best defenses ever as home underdogs getting the hook? When we could just as easily bet on the New York Jets. I mean, come on. Or we could bet on the Miami Dolphins. Or we could bet on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Why would we do something so sensible as to bet on an incredible defense at home as an underdog at three and a half? Simon, that's not what we do.
00:55:15
Speaker 2: It's a crazy week, though, for pros. I told you it's such a week of the public versus the pros. I mean, between this game, the Colts, Washington– that Eagles game. It's just every week there might be two or three games that jump out to that way. The numbers look off this week. There's feels like there's eight games, nine games, potentially the numbers don't, the number does not look right and it looks way off. So yeah, I might get caught here or I might make a ton of money. That's, that's the scary part about this week where I'm been pretty heavy into it. Cause I think the general public and the books are way off. And I, that one jumps out to me as well, where it's like, you know, We'll see Chad come Monday night, but this is another game where I'm not betting it right now. Because like I said, if it is Wentz, the public is going to hammer the bills. I might be able to get a four, four and a half. Who knows? Maybe there's a world that goes up to six. I just don't know what the books will do this one if it is Kyler's out in this matchup. So another game you can be patient on people. All right.
00:56:12
Speaker 1: We got a lot of games we're going to have to make some calls on. If I had to guess right now, I think we're doing Carolina, Tampa Bay, Seattle. I think the Raiders and the Jets will be a part of that conversation and so will Miami and Minnesota. I think that's probably what it'll come down to. Simon, I'm going to tell you what our Discord grouper of the week is. Buy my book! Buy my book! Buy my book! Listen, I want to remind everybody, if you pre-order the number in our Hedge the Number promo, in which you will be eligible until November 30th to get refunded your purchase price thanks to the custom market I built, the Futures Super Bowl market I built on Polymarket. If the Chiefs, the Bills, or the Bears win the Super Bowl and you pre-order between now and November 30th, you're getting your purchase price back. You also get invited into this fabulous Discord. And this week, Simon, I don't want to jinx it because it was your Simon Says, but the winning bet is Carolina plus two and a half. I think the group was persuaded by your argument on the show. Go to chadmillman.com, pre-order the book, get eligible for the refund and get into the Discord. All right. What should our Underdog, round robin, B.
00:57:55
Speaker 2: My dog likes your dog. Your dog likes my dog.
00:58:01
Speaker 1: We could get goofy.
00:58:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, my first one I'd put in is that Colts number, plus 200.
00:58:07
Speaker 1: I was going to say Eagles.
00:58:09
Speaker 2: Eagles, I don't hate. They're plus 140. Carolina, plus 130.
00:58:14
Speaker 1: Minnesota?
00:58:15
Speaker 2: I don't hate that. I mean, another big one, obviously, is Tampa is plus 250, plus 240. Like, I'm looking for something that's going to be breaking up all these teasers. Like, we've talked. This is– I think Evan Amos had the tweet. It's through eight weeks, every week we've had a seven-point dog win outright.
00:58:31
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:58:31
Speaker 2: First time in NFL history. So, will that trend continue? Who knows? But we have some big dogs this week where it's like there's some real tempting value. I know we only do three. So, yeah, for me, Panthers, Colts, and then what do you want to do for the last one? You want to do Eagles? Eagles.
00:58:50
Speaker 1: Let's do Eagles.
00:58:51
Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah.
00:58:53
Speaker 1: Okay. Our favorites.
00:58:57
Speaker 2: I'll do. Rams. Yeah. Like the Rams. Like New England.
00:59:03
Speaker 1: Seattle.
00:59:05
Speaker 2: Yeah. Seattle is minus 450. It's the big price. Yeah. we could do what I like doing, which is like you can move the numbers. Now you could take that down to two and a half or one and a half, whatever you feel safest with. Eat up some of that juice.
00:59:17
Speaker 1: Let's do that. Let's do that.
00:59:20
Speaker 2: Okay, let's do that.
00:59:20
Speaker 1: Rams, New England, Seattle, minus two and a half.
00:59:23
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:59:24
Speaker 1: Um, okay. We had four of our five. We did five and favorites in week three and we had four of them are on week eight. I'm sorry. Let's go through your biggest bets right now.
00:59:34
Speaker 2: Pull up those pants and be a man. I was betting. So having the political market, like my biggest bets here right now, like I said, Seattle, just because the numbers moved. Yeah. I rolled over a lot of that money on poly market right into Seattle. Uh, Carolina at the plus three took a really big position on, but that's honestly it. Like I'm, I've been waiting a lot of these lines to move in certain directions for me to take positions on, and it's not really broken that way for me in a lot of these games. Even the Saints, I basically put a penny into that one just because I was already trying to avoid that game in general. Carolina, Seattle, definitely right now as you sit here, those are my two biggest confidence bets. New England, if New England got back down to minus three or minus two and a half, that could potentially be one of them. A lot of these numbers have moved too much for me to take a big position on them.
01:00:22
Speaker 1: Sharp versus Square. You were the winner last week. I was the loser. I had Baltimore. You had Tampa Bay. You go first.
01:00:30
Speaker 2: I'm going to keep it rolling. Every week I take a favorite. I'll do my favorite favorite, Seattle.
01:00:35
Speaker 1: It's totally the one I wanted to take. That is a bummer. Screw it.
01:00:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, there we go.
01:00:43
Speaker 1: I'm going Miami.
01:00:45
Speaker 2: Wow. Plus seven or six and a half? Seven.
01:00:48
Speaker 1: Seven is publicly and widely available. All right. I think we're done with Survivor. Everybody I know at this point is out of Survivor. That's our show. We'll be back Sunday with our final, final bets. We'll give out our five picks for the official $ 25, 000 NFL Pick'Em contest. This has been Sharper Square, sponsored by Polymarket, part of the Volume Podcast Network. Watch or listen on YouTube at Sharper Square. Like this video. Subscribe to the channel. Download us on Spotify, Apple Pods, wherever you get your pods. Rate, review, subscribe. Leave us five stars. Say whatever you want. Feedback is a gift. Until next time, love you. But what's your high?
01:01:31
Speaker 2: Do you keep track of how many carries you have in a game?
01:01:34
Speaker 3: Well, my high will probably come in about another hour after the ballgame.
01:01:39
Speaker 2: We'll have a few beers out in the parking lot, I'm hoping. Don't blame you.
