Speaker 1: What only a few games left before the Super Bowl.
We're gonna break down conference championships up next on bet
on It. Kelly Stewart here, Yanni the Greek, and Marco DiAngelo.
This is bat on It, and we are going to
talk all things conference championships. We got two games this weekend. Guy,
something's gonna have three games left of football season. The
national Championship is gone. Congratulations. Any of those that took
my advice and did not lay more than minus one
twenty on their teasers, Okay, fine, I'm done bomb my pulpit. VR, Marco,
We're gonna get right into this. We're gonna go first
and foremost. Jared Sidham four bo Nicks has been the
talk of the week here. Patriots have bounced around from
the opening number four and a half up to five
and a half forty two and a half. Here is
the total. Hey, Drake may I kind of bashed him
the other day, said I was not impressed with his
playoff performance. I know he's had a really good regular season,
but over the last couple of weeks he started to falter,
especially when holding on to the football and or not
throwing it to other opponents. VR first and foremost Bonix
to Jared Stidham, I think this line has gotten way
out of control. There were look ahead lines Broncos minus
one and a half. There were look ahead lines Broncos
pick them. There were talks that the Patriots should have
been a favorite in Denver. Break down this one for
me from a power ratings perspective, and then we'll get
Marco's opinion on the quarterback drop off as well.
Speaker 2: Well, we know with Sentin Tea that here in Las
Vegas they were prepared to open Denver about a one
and a half point favorite with Bonnicks. That's what they're
saying now. The switch is about what we're looking at.
It was his high as five and a half, so
you're looking at about a seven point adjustment going through zero.
It's called six six and a half or so. So
you're talking about a touchdown difference between bone Knicks and
Jarrett's Didham. Here's the bottom line bone Knicks. When I
look at the passing success rate, all right, he's right
about average. He's nineteenth. The cutoff point the league average
is forty five point two. He's forty five point six,
So he's a league average quarterback in passing success rate,
which really isn't all that bad because I mean they
were like some like Baker Mayfield, you know, he was
thirty third, So I mean there were some quarterbacks and
even like some Stroud twenty third. There were some guys
that were just playing last week, you know, that had
a lower passing success rate.
Speaker 3: But it's not a top five guy.
Speaker 2: That's the bottom line, compared to may who is number
two in passing success rate. And we know that's one
of the highest correlations to winning football games. And it's
no surprise Stafford from the Ramses number three. You know,
they're all right there when you look at that that data.
But what should the dropoff be. You look at bon Knicks.
Here's his quarterback rating in twenty twenty five, Kelly eighty
seven point eight. Here's his QBR in twenty twenty four,
ninety three point three, So let's cut that down the middle.
Over the last two years, he's averaged about a ninety QBR.
We look at Jared Stidham. The last two years that
he had a decent sample size of passes was twenty
twenty three at Denver where he had an eighty seven
point seven and then in twenty twenty two in Las Vegas,
where he had an eighty nine point two. All right,
so his average is out over those his two seasons
of playing quarterback.
Speaker 3: Is about an eighty eight.
Speaker 2: So we have a ninety average for bo Nicks over
two seasons, and we have an eighty eight average over Stidham.
Not that big of a dropoff, as the betting line suggests.
With that said, that would stit them in twenty twenty two,
twenty twenty three. We're now in twenty twenty six. So
has he regressed a lot off of those two seasons.
If you think so, then you're getting the best of
it with New England. If you don't think that's the case,
and the drop off isn't as great, then it's an
automatic bet on the Denver Broncos. I will tell you this.
I thought, on a neutral field, New England, I mean
in Denver, all things being even, I thought New England
should be about a half point favorite. My power ratings
show they shouldn't even be about a one point favorite
over Denver. Now you add in the quarterback. From that perspective,
it's not as high because again they would have made
Denver the favor. I would have made New England the favorite.
So from my perspective, the dropoff isn't as significant as
it seems for Vegas Marco.
Speaker 1: We can talk about this for a very long time.
Let's just be real. There is going to be arguments
on the drop off the significance. We do know Sean
Payton has done very well with backup quarterbacks in his career,
but again, this is a new team now for Jared Sinhim,
though he's been on this roster for three years, does
that hold any weight in this handicap determining whether sin
Him is worth a drop off or not.
Speaker 3: Well, obviously, yeah, he hasn't gotten any playing time. So
here's the problem. We don't know what the drop off
value really is worth. You know, you always have, you know,
the player replacement, but we haven't seen him, So how
can you say what he's worth or what he's not worth.
Here's my problem, and here's where you know I disagree,
And now I'm not disagreeing with VR's power ratings, but
I'm looking at this from the reality of what we
saw with our eyes in what the mark market closed,
and we always say the market at close is the
most efficient. Okay, last week Denver closed a one and
a half point favorite versus Buffalo. Okay, right before we
went on the air, I asked U, Kelly and v
R what you would have made Denver or excuse me,
New England and Buffalo on a neutral field. Okay, Buffalo
would have been a favorite on a neutral field. And
we know that because they just played in New England
a couple of weeks ago. Buffalo was the road favorite
in New England, all right, And if Denver was laying
one and a half last week to Buffalo and now
they're coming in with New England, now I'm saying this.
Had bow Nicks played, I would have made the line
two and a half. And that's what I made the
number before I knew, you know, knew that bow Nicks
was hurt. I'm saying, if it was going to be
New England, it was going to be two and a half.
I think this line is too much of a move. Okay,
we don't know anything about Jared Stindham. But what I
do know is what I saw from bow Knicks. And
although he's, you know, a decent quarterback, he's not a
great quarterback. He's still only a second year quarterback as
is Drake May. He's not worth seven points and to me,
that's what the market is adjusted. Because I have this,
it would have been two and a half and we're
at four and a half right now. It was as
high as five and a half. I think there's too
much value with not looking at Denver and when you
break the game down in itself, Kelly, we don't know
what they're gonna do with him. There's no game film. Okay,
that's a huge advantage. Yeah, so disadvantages you don't have
bow knicks, but it's an advantage that what are you
gonna game plan for. You don't know what they're gonna
run with him. They're gonna run plays that are in
his comfort zone. He hasn't played in three years, Okay,
so there's really nothing to see to try to prepare for.
I think that gives Denver a huge advantage coming out
of the gate. And let's be honest. New England won
last week twenty eight to sixteen against a team that
turned the ball over five times. You know. CJ. Stroud was,
you know, passing out footballs like they were Christmas presents.
Last week. He had an absolutely horrible game, and yet
Houston was still in it until the pick six. This
is a spot where I think the line is too high.
But you know what, I'm not gonna go for the
full game. Here's the way I'm gonna attack it. I
think it's gonna be a tight, defensive game, and the
advantage is gonna go to Denver early because they said
the unknown factor. I'm gonna take Denver first half in
this game and get me to halftime at home, playing
in your stadium. The crowd's going to be in it.
They're gonna be conservative, you know that. But this defense
has played well and I think they can run the football.
If you look at what Houston or excuse me, New
England has done in the last few weeks. The last
three games, they did shut the teams down running. But
who did they play in the last three games? Miami
the last, you know, last game this season. Then you
played the Chargers, who the offensive line was an absolute mess.
And then last week, Yeah, they shut down Houston in
that game. That was impressive, but you go back to
three weeks before that, they gave up one hundred and
sixty four on the ground, one seventy one on the ground,
one sixty eight on the ground. I think Denver is
gonna be able to move the football in this game
on the ground, and I know Sean Payton he will
take some shots in here when you think he's gonna run.
Give me the points first half with Denver.
Speaker 1: I can't believe you gave that entire synopsis without using
the injured player theory.
Speaker 3: One same a time, Marco, that was on my notes
and I jumped over my eyesight's getting bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Marcos had like four eye surgeries since the
summertime and he still complains about his eyesight. So we
got any optometrists out there that I want to exchange
some great sandwich Delli picks for eye surgery. No, all
jokes aside Marco. That is the very first thing that
came to my mind.
Speaker 3: VR.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about this total forty two and a half
across the board on the Odds logic screen. Unlike the
side right, the sides four and a half, five, five
and a half, it's kind of a mixed bag if
you will, and I get it, five is a quote
unquote dead number, if you will in NFL betting. But
my thoughts here initially are how can you not win
about the over right? Like my brain goes over because
what we saw last from both of these teams.
Speaker 3: C J.
Speaker 1: Stroud did, as Marco said, hand the ball over a
ton in that game, so that obviously helped put the
Patriots in good field position. But I've been touting this
Denver defense all season long, and so I kind of
want to go contrarian here and take the under. Remember
the last time the Broncos won the Super Bowl with
a statue of a man wearing a glove named Peyton Manning,
it was on the backs of their defense. Talk to
me about this defense at home in the altitude. It
does look like it's gonna be nice weather, so that
does bode well for both teams and possibly some scoring.
Speaker 3: Well for me.
Speaker 2: I'll keep it real. I've been trusting my numbers. I
know some guys don't like hearing it, but I trust
my power ratings and they've steered me towards profit in
college football, and they've done the same in the NFL
and more importantly, in the divisional round. Just last week,
I went eight two and one, so I went eighty
percent in the divisional round. Eleven bets cash eight pushed
on one, picked up sixteen units and over forty four
percent return on investment. Tell you and I win, tell
you when I lose, And right now we're locked in.
Here's what I can tell you. I bet the over. Immediately,
my subscribers, that's what they pay me for. They got
over forty one. This is now forty two and a half.
So it's a much different bet. It's on you whether
you want to follow us or fade us. But here's
the bottom line. Our power rating made this total forty five.
So immediately I was looking to the over, but then
I needed to dig in and see does the matchup?
Does the handicap make sense? And I think it does
because even though we have a little recency bias of
high scoring. You know Denver putting up thirty three points
last week allowing thirty. When you look back over the
last couple weeks, Denver hasn't been putting all up that
many points. The week Pride they put up nineteen. The
week before that they put up twenty, the week before
that they put up twenty, and if you look at
the totals for Denver, they were thirty eight and a half,
thirty eight and a half, like there were some low totals.
So it's not like the narrative was this is a
high scoring team. Same thing with New England, known for
their defense this year Top five defense, number six inefficiency.
The argument is that's been against the weakest strength of schedule.
But with that said, over the last four opponents, they've
only allowed one to score more than ten points and
that was sixteen against Houston, a team that they beat.
So this defense has done their job, and all the
narrative is defense, because here's what I have when I
look at these two teams, they're very, very comparable. In fact,
everyone knocks New England for their thirty second strength of schedule.
Well guess what, Denver's thirty first.
Speaker 3: So that's it.
Speaker 2: Like Denver had just as easiest strength of schedule as
New England has, So both of them had the easiest
strength of schedules in the NFL. New England's tenths in
offensive efficiency, eighth in defense, Denver fifteenth in offense efficiency,
eighth in defense. Forgive me, New England was sixth in defense,
So six ten and six for New England, fifteen and
eight for Denver.
Speaker 3: What do both have?
Speaker 2: The strength is on the defensive side. I talked about
it and in last week's video, how we hit both
of those totals. That the bias is towards the under
because the defenses had been the standouts on both these teams.
So we're going to get a little lower number. But
what do we say last week? Defenses forced turnovers? Houston
did that and Denver did that. Short fields, special teams,
those things turning the points. So don't automatically go under
because you're talking defense. So I sound like a broken record,
But if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it.
And I stick to my numbers. I stick to my theories, and.
Speaker 3: So far, so good.
Speaker 2: So over forty one was a four percent best bet
for me. At forty two and a half, I don't know.
I'd probably wait till Sunday and see if it could
drop back a little bit, because now you're talking about
some key totals forty two, forty three, those numbers matter
forty one, so I would look to get the best
of it.
Speaker 1: The are already answered my question very key number there
of forty two, So now sitting at forty two and
a half is probably a no play. If you missed it,
It's okay, it might come back. We'll see Marco, your
thoughts on this total and one to the over for
the Patriots Broncos coming off as straight off win five
and one to the over. That is the really hard
part for me. Right, These small sample sizes start to
kind of trickle in.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: I had somebody tweet the other day like, oh, Kelly
loves cherry picking eleven game sample size, and it's like
you're just trying to find a little bit of something
to back up what you're already. You know looking at right,
you're not necessarily the trends and angles guy. That is
our good friend Ralph Michaels, and he's gonna have tons
of stuff up for you guys for the Super Bowl.
You are a deli guy, so talk to me, mister
sandwich man, on what you like for the total here.
Speaker 3: Oh Kelly, I'm also a contrarian like you, in I
looked at it differently. You thought the contrarian play was
the under. I think the contrarian play is the over.
And the reason I say that is because the narrative
is if you look at New England's two games, they
were lower scoring games. They shut the Chargers down completely.
That game was sixteen to three, and last week. You know,
it was twenty eight to sixteen, and that's only got
to twenty eight because of CJ. Stroud and the five turnovers. Yes,
it looked like an over from the Denver side because
it was a thirty three point thirty track meet with Denver.
But the narrative is there's no bow Nicks, and if
Denver's gonna win this game, people are gonna think of
it as a correlated parlay. For Denver to win, they
got to win with the defense because they're not gonna
do anything with Jared Stidham. So to me, I think
the public's gonna think more about the under because of
the situation with the proposed defenses and the inability of
having to go to a guy that hasn't taken a
snap in three years. I think you'll see the opposite.
I think you'll see some scores here. If I played
the total, I would play the game over and that's
the way I would do it, because to me, that's
the contrarian play. All right, get.
Speaker 1: Into the next game, the NFC Championship game. Matthew Stafford
has had a interesting.
Speaker 3: Stretch, right.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't think he struggled at Carolina, but had to
make some plays late there to win that football game,
then in an absolutely other crazy fight there in Chicago
in the awful weather, and now they're on the road
for the third straight week. Marco, I'm gonna go to
you first. Rams are a two and a half point favorite,
total forty seven and a half. I want to tease
the Rams, and there's nothing to tease them with.
Speaker 3: Oh, Kelly, there isn't anything to tease them with. But
you know, I'm gonna go there and say, you know,
I would not totally hate teasing the Rams with Denver
because it is four and a half and using a
six point teaser, you are gonna get it to ten
and a half. If it gets back to five and
a half, you're going through another team number of eleven
in a game that has a low total. Know that's
not the traditional long teaser, but when you look at
low totals and you're gonna give me double digits, I'm
gonna be a little bit interested in that wager. So
I wouldn't totally rule that out. But you hit the
nail on the head that the Rams in the last
two weeks had to go right down to the end. Okay,
they had that quick fourteen to nothing lead over Carolina,
and then defense let them down and let Carolina back
in that game, and it was Stafford that had to
get that drive at the end of the game to
win it. And then last week was just pure and
other chaos. And you know, I'm sitting there watching that game,
and you know when Caleb Williams threw that fourth down
play from the forty yard line, just backing up, throwing
off his back foot and throwing an absolute strike to
the end zone for the touchdown, I sent you and
our buddy j D. I hate the fn Bears. You
know how many times do they get pull this off?
But they found a way to win that game. The
narrative here is Seattle looked really good last week, okay,
and they split the regular season, both won on their
home field, but they were both close games. And in fact,
if you go back, five straight games in this series
has been decided by six or fewer points. But here's
where the narrative is, the last time these two played,
what the score was, and what the score was of
the two games of the Rams so far in the playoffs.
If you want to talk about being a contrarian, step
right up this is the game to be a contrarian
because these two teams went up and down the field
the last time they played. But I'm gonna point out
that was a Thursday night game, short week to prepare.
Now it's the playoffs, and I can tell you Seattle
does not want to get into another shootout with the Rams.
They won play field position. They want to establish the
run and continue to run the football until the Rams
prove they can stop it. Because you know, I like
Sam Darnald. I know he gets a bad rap for
the last two games of last year, but you know
you don't want to get into a shootout with Sam Donald.
You want him to be more of a game manager.
And I think the public's gonna look at this total
and they're gonna go over based on recency bias. And
you've got a five point adjustment from that Thursday night game.
How many times do we say, you know, don't overreact
to one score. This is a division game, they know
each other well, and they're not playing on a short week.
They've got the full time to look at preparing for
this game. I'm gonna go under in this one. I'm
gonna take the inflated line of forty seven and a half,
and you know what, because the public doesn't get involved early,
this probably ticks up to forty eight forty eight and
a half by Sunday.
Speaker 1: All right, VR, Before I get your opinion here on
the total, one of the things that I think that
Seattle does really well outside of their defense, outside of
Sam Donald when he's good Sam Donald and not making mistakes,
is running the football. Zach Sharvina out with an ACL
tear hasn't really been mentioned, and I get it. In
the new NFL, running backs just are not that valuable, right.
We don't pay them enough money or as much as
we used to. We don't really downgrade their backup much.
But I do think that the drop off is a
little something worth noting here, at least from Seattle side
of things. Two and a half across the board on
the Odds logic screen, do you agree with Marco? Is
this like a unique teaser situation kind of spot or
are we looking at the wrong side of this football game?
Speaker 2: Well, I already teased that I cheated. I teased that
went Indiana on Monday night.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say that because the last week that
the comment session got so mad at mean, they're like
Kelly tells us after the fact, So I didn't want
to be the after the bad guy. But yes, of
course I teased it with this listen.
Speaker 2: I didn't send it out to subscribers or anything like
that because my jobs to send plus CV stuff to
them and again do my best to make sure they're profitable.
And I felt, you know, I liked Indiana. I had
Indiana wanted some more action on them, and that was
a way to get down And I had liked the
teaser number on the RAMS and figured I'm not going
to get a better side the teas and that's why
I did it again because the numbers were available, and
I just thought, you know, these two teams, like Marco said,
know each other extremely well. They played very tight games,
and the teaser just made sense. Now as far as
this total goes, it's it's tough, man, because you had
the first game that went under and it was a
high total forty eight and a half, and then they
adjusted down to forty one and a half. That's what
was weird to me as I started digging through this game.
Why did they adjust so down to forty one and
a half, Because going in to that Seattle game on
Thursday night.
Speaker 3: The Rams had scored forty one the week before.
Speaker 2: That, forty five the week before that, twenty eight and
thirty four. So this was a team that had scored
like forty plus points average in four straight weeks and
it wasn't like their defense was holding anybody. They allowed
thirty four to Detroit, thirty one to Carolina, So they
really had a lot of respect obviously for this Seattle defense.
And that is also a little surprising because yet they
are number one in efficiency now. But going into that
game with La, yeah, I guess you could say they
were running good. You know, they had shut out Minnesota,
they allowed nine against Atlanta and sixteen against Indiana Indianapolis.
But before that, they were allowed on twenty twenty twenty
Tennessee La and Arizona. But it's been of late. Other
than that Rams late game, this defense has shown up.
And I said number one in efficiency, but that's against
the twentieth strength of schedule. Now they're going up against
the number one offense in the Rams, who played the
number two strength of schedule, So we know the Rams
offense is legitimately the best offense in the NFL. They're
the best offense that Seattle is going to be facing. Luckily,
they faced them twice already, so they have, you know,
an understanding what they're going up against. And I think
that's why you're starting to see the sharp money coming
in on the under. Forty seven and a half's got
taken out. I saw forty seven juice at some of
the Sharper shops, so definitely it looks like sharp money
is on the under here. I haven't fired yet because
my power ratings actually show that this line should be
about forty nine. So that's where I'm having this issue.
And if I'm not able to confirm nothing, I'm just
going to pass on the total. No reason to force anything. Again,
there's tons of player prompts, tons of team total signs,
all kinds of stuff to get down to. But that's
what I could share there, that my power rating shows
the over, but the sharp Moneys on the under. I
could just tell you what I have up until right now.
So for me, this would be a pass. If it
was going off the night gun the head, I would
go under because it's a playoff game, because of the
high score in the last matchup, and because they didn't
adjust off of that, Like, again, they scored seventy something points.
The total is came down off of that game. Doesn't
make too much sense. So the market read tells me under.
Everything points to under except the power rating, and that's
where I'm stuck.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: A couple of programming notes. We are going to film
our Super Bowl special on Monday, February second, in the afternoon,
so it will be out that evening. Marco, you're doing
a college basketball version of the DELI tell me what's
going on with that, what people need to be looking
for and where they can find it.
Speaker 3: Kelly comes out on Fridays and what we do, and
obviously we're doing it on Friday morning. So I'm giving
you the situational stuff like I always do, the sandwich spots,
the trap games. I break it down for you, but
then I tell you come back in whenever you see
the video is posted. I will come back in after
the lines are out and they stabilize a little bit,
because you know, there's a lot of movement on these
basketball lines, and you know those first couple hours when
they do come out Friday evening, and I'll tell you
if all the plays are still plays in the comment
section four and two start to it. So if I
can go sixty seven percent for the season on the
deli with the basketball, we will be very happy with that.
So be sure to check that out on Friday. And Kelly,
don't forget we still have at wager Talk. They'll buy
seven day package for the price of three. That is
a great way to go. You get every play from
your favorite kapper for just sixty nine dollars for seven days.
Remember the weekend Warriors forty nine dollars. That's Saturday and Sunday.
Why not get a full week for twenty dollars more?
Right now, take advantage of it. It's gonna be expiring soon.
Seven days for sixty nine dollars.
Speaker 1: V are we talked about on last call last Saturday.
You're gonna start pivoting the steam room. Steamroom is gonna
be on Sunday this week?
Speaker 2: Yeah, to the super Bowl. Fill the super Bowl. Yeah,
and then right after the Super Bowl boom. We moved
to Saturday because of college basketball UFC and you know,
just so much live stuff that comes in. Plus, I
could go longer than the sixty minutes up until kickoff
in the NFL, so we could go ninety minutes two
hours so I could answer any questions, go over all
the risk management. So yeah, definitely Sunday through the Super
Bowl because I want to be there for all the
player prompts and all that that come in for conference
championships and the super Bowl. But then we're going to Saturdays,
and yeah, that's gonna be a lot of action then
for sure.
Speaker 1: And I'm pivoting as well. I'm gonna be joining the
Full Court Press guys on Saturdays for college basketball season.
I'm gonna see if I get VI in there for
the first ten or fifteen minutes to give me some
of his info. Of course, get that behind the counter
look from the Westgates super Book, and then do a
full hour of college basketball there. But don't worry, we'll
be back February second to do our Super Bowl show
that includes all of our favorite prop bets as well
as side in total and of course those best bets
just for you, guys. Just want to say shout out
to everybody hanging out with us all football season long.
Please give us that thumbs up, don't forget to hit
the subscribe button and tell us how you think about
some of these opinions. There in the comments section. Next
time we see you, guys, we will have the Super
Bowl set. Until then, let's beat on it.