Hey there, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Betting Pros NFL podcast, brought to you by play MGM. I'm your host, Dan Harris. You can find me on Twitter at Dan Harris Adi. If you listen to our two shows last week, you now should feel pretty confident about the sports betting landscape and some of the best over unders for the NFC. Well, today we're going to tie a little bow on the season long over unders
by breaking down the AFC. And with me to do that is Jason Logan, the senior managing editor for Covers. He and everyone there provides outstanding information across the sports betting industry, and you can find him on Twitter at Covers j LO. Jason, thanks so much for joining me today. What's going on?
Not too much. I got some in laws in town, so my host is full of children run around and screaming and trying to get some work done around that, so that's awesome.
I'm hoping that this is going to be the I'm hoping this is going to be the first podcast that I do where my kids don't somehow inter rup me because they basically they have like a sixth sense or something about whenever I'm podcasting and they immediately breaking them office.
Absolutely I was before we went on here, I was doing television with a t with the station in San Diego and my son just comes marching down the stairs with NERF gun and like laser scope eye things on. Yeah. I was like, you gotta go better.
Now, that's some good TV. I'd watch that. Actually, if that I was just waiting.
I was just waiting to catch a NERF gun into the ear.
Absolutely. Well, Look, before we get started, I'm sure most people listening probably have the same question I do, which is how many angry dms have you gotten from Jennifer Lopez about your use of j LO and your Twitter handle, Because I mean it's got to be like five or six at this point, right.
No, No, not much from him. A lot from Alex Rodriguez. Yeah, a lot from Alex Rodriguez, but not not not any from from the actual.
All right, well that's good to know, I guess. I mean it's good for you because Frank O'harris he emails me like every day pissed off about the my Twitter handles. So look, you're a big name in the sports betting industry. But before we get into the AFC over unders. I was hoping you can kind of tell everybody a little bit about yourself, how you got into focusing on sports, beending what exactly you do over it covers your eight favorite foods, whatever you got.
Oh, I'm a tacos guy, so all right, any type of taco I'm in, softer, hard, doesn't matter.
No.
I started with covers back in two thousand and five, actually right before that Eagles Patriot super Bowl, So I was somewhat thrown into the fire. I started as what was called a content editor, so we did shift work, so we worked like a twelve hour day, nine in the morning till nine at night, and then you'd flip it and work nine at nights and nine in the morning. We had a twenty four hour crew at that time.
And then from there I went on and became a full time writer covered college basketball and baseball in the summer, and then went on to be an associate editor and then eventually took over to the department. So I mean, in a nutshell, I kind of manage all things content from the creative side. It could be articles, it could be our video products and podcasts, our social output as well too, So I kind of have my fingers in a lot of those pies as well. As you know.
I worked with our product teams and our development teams, sales and marketing teams, so lots of meetings every day. So when I do, when I do get to sit down and bang out some content around sports betting, it's therapeutic for me.
Yeah, your site is great. I've been. I've been checking it out basically all week. They've got a ton of stuff over there, basically sports betting from every angle, so it's really great to check out. I don't want to, you know, I don't want to dig too. Do you've been to ask you about your age or anything? But is this something that legitimately like did you start when you were a young guy, did you have a whole other profession or anything like that.
Nope, No, I started with covers. I was probably I was a year removed from school thinking of going back to school. But in terms of sports betting, I mean I I mean Canada. I'm located in Canada and we have a lottery system sports betting. It's not fantastic. It's a lot of parlays and skewed odds that returns aren't what they should be. But you know, eighteen eighteen year old,
you don't know the ins and outs and that. But I've been a lot of basketball and a lot of baseball at that time, and then I got the job with Covers and then just kind of learned the ins and outs of sports betting and you know, what is important what isn't important in terms of sports betting knowledge versus sports knowledge, versus fantasy knowledge, because there's all other it's a it's a different scope in which you need
to view sports through. You know, people say they're a big sports fan until they kind of step into the sports betting world and there's so many angles that you just don't think of. And even to this day, I mean I've been with Covers for almost fourteen years here and still learning things every day every day. So yeah, that's that's kind of my kind of progression through sports bet.
It's a great point that you bring up, because you know, I talked about a little bit last week with Dustin Goucher, who's a journalist who covers sort of the evolving sports
betting landscape in the United States. Yeah, no, I know, I know, Dustin, Yeah, Dustin, Dustin's great, but you know, the big thing is that, you know, people in the United States, it's just suddenly this whirlwind, right, you get a Supreme Court decision that overturns sort of a law that says no, they can legalize sports betting, and now nobody really knows sort of what to do. Everybody just kind of wants to run out and say, great, I can bet to the extent their state has legalized it.
And people don't really fully understand kind of what goes into it. And so, you know, that's kind of what we want to do today and here at this podcast is to kind of give people a little more guidance as to how to do that. So here's what we're going to do today. We're going to go division by division in the AFC and talk about the over unders for every team in each division. We'll start with the East,
then the North, the South, and then the West. And we're going to be using the consensus over unders from bettingpros dot com, which is basically the aggregate of available odds in the market, and we'll talk about any that we like or we don't like.
Has that sound yeah, that sounds great?
All right, good, But before we get into it, you heard at the top of the show that I mentioned that we're brought to you by play MGM, and I want to tell you about their new app, play MGM Sports. With the play MGM Sports app, if you're in New Jersey, you can bet on pretty much any sport you want, including college football, baseball, and of course the NFL. Now. Being able to bet on sports is great, but you know it's better being able to bet on sports with
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So just download the play MGM app, use the promo code Harris, and head to New Jersey to place here risk free wager. All right, let's start with the East here, and I'm going to just list the over unders for each team and then you can basically tell me which one, if any, stand out to you as a good bet. The Bills are over under at six and a half wins, the Dolphins are at five, the Patriots are at eleven,
and the Jets are at seven and a half. So do any of them stand out to you as particularly good value?
Yeah, so I've got two season win total kind of picks that this. I've already previewed the AFC East and one of my articles here you can find that on covers. And surprisingly enough, the best over win total bet that I thought that was there in the AFC East was the Miami Dolphins. I know, clutch the Pearls clutch the Pearls four and a half four is where I'm seeing some of these ones. The AFCAS really isn't that tough a division, and you have the Patriots and then you
have everyone else. And Miami really did overachieve last year. You know, the seven wins. They ranked as the luckiest team if you saw them play. They scored a lot of big plays on special teams, on defense, on offense, just a lot of kind of fluky plays. They don't get the same soft schedule that they had last year, but because they played this weaker division, I could see them stealing at least two or three divisional wins here, picking up a couple victories, and non conference play, they
play the Giants, they host the Redskins. Those are two weaker teams, and then they have this late season game against Cincinnati a week sixteen. That's going to be the all or nothing game right there. I think that's what it's going to come down to. It's more a play against the rest of the AFC East than a play on the Dolphins. And I'm just asking them to be terrible, not horrific, just terrible.
Well, I mean, I think the big point is at five, which is at the consensus over under. That's the lowest over under that's available in the game right now, at least on the consensus over unders. Yeah, a couple of us.
I've seen the Dolphins between four four and a half five.
Yeah, so yeah, And look for me, I personally, I had no feel for that bet because there's just so many questions.
Right.
You look at last year and that's fine, but obviously Adam Gase was the head coach. You've got new quarterbacks with Ryan Fitzpatrick and Josh Rosen. We don't really know what Brian Floor is going to be as a head coach, right. I mean, he's already driving us nuts with the whole Klin Blage and Kenyan Drake, although Drake of course got
injured and is in a walking boot right now. And the defense is largely the same which was kind of mediocre, and now they're probably going to switch to a different system. So for me, I agree that if I was forced to choose one, I would go over, But I had just little feel for it because I feel like there's just a lot of question marks surrounding what the team's going to look like this year.
Yeah. Absolutely, And the Dolphins always have those games too, where they surprise you all of a sudden, they come out of nowhere. They've they've played the Patriots very at.
Home at home. The Patriots always seemed to struggle in Miami.
Yeah, yeah, so, I mean if they can, all they need to do is just steal a couple extra games and they'll have people sweating. I think that game against Cincinnati a week sixteen is going to be the be the tiebreaker for that one.
Yeah, certainly, Cincinnati is a team that you look at on the schedule and you get pretty excited about if you're an imposing team. For me, the game that stuck out with the I'm sorry, the team at the that stuck out for me where the Bills at six and a half, and I like the over here. Now. It's not anything where I think they're going to win ten games or anything like that, but they strike me as much more of a five hundred team. There's still a
lot of question marks, you know, around them. They don't have a great pass rush. It's really Jerry Hughes and not much else. There are major accurate accuracy concerns with Josh Allen, and you know he's not going to be I don't think the type of Lamar Jackson quarterback because although he had a ton of rushing yards, they were mostly scrambles last year. You know, it's not as if they're going to do that system that they did and
that they're going to do in Baltimore. But the thing for me is that they've they've just made a few changes that I really like. They've added a lot to their offensive line. It's not going to be an elite unit, but I think it's going to be pretty pretty improved. The run games should do enough. They've you know, nothing's outstanding there, but they've got a lot of depth with Leashau McCoy and Frank Gore and Devin Singletary and tj
Yeldin if he makes the team. They added John Brown, so now they have another deep threat and although Josh Allen is not accurate whatsoever, he can throw the deep ball with pretty much the best of them. And with their defense. Look, they don't have a great pass rush, but they're solid at linebacker. They've got Tredavius White. So for me, you mentioned the schedule. They won six games last year and they open at the Jets, at the Giants, and home against the Bengals. They could easily be three
and oh after the first three games. They've got the two games against Miami, They've got a home game against Washington and late in the season. Buffalo is a really tough place to play. You know that that crowd is crazy, it's gonna be freezing, it's gonna be hostile. I think they're more like an eight win team. So for me, the over at six and a half is really the one bet that set out to me is good value.
I'm gonna say you're wrong. I'm gonna say you're wrong that well. I'm going with the Bills. I'm going with the Bills under I have fans and the Bills mafia that I'm sure they're setting up the tables to like power bomb me through the cycle pass. I'm gonna go under here. Josh Allen was at his best, just like you said, when he was running for his life. And that's not what you want from you, young QB. This rushing attack is terrible, I said, I said in my
preview they have. There's less tread on the tires of this rushing attack than there isn't a Walmart shopping card. You got. Sean McCoy Frank or maybe TJ. Yelden. They've got the young kid out of what Florida Atlantic. He's been all right there in his one, you know, preseason appearance. You mentioned late season with the Bills and home might not be an issue for them, but the back end of this schedule is a bastard of a schedule. They play five of their final eight games away from home,
and they struggled last year. They went two and six as visitors last season. I like the defense, but I don't think it's enough to make up for just a lack of offense. And I look at their wide receivers there too. They have What Brown and Cole Beasley. There's there's no one there that really gets me excited. No one there that that's it's it's not pushing me over. I think the Bills are overhyped. I think it's a little bit of a fade the public play here.
I'm gonna go on, Yeah, the public is definitely in favor of the Bills going over as am I and you know, look, I'm going to keep this podcast going. But that's right off the bat where we're going up against each other. And look, I agree the end the end of the year schedule. Yes, they are on the road. They have a lot of tough games towards the end, at Dallas, at Pittsburgh, at the Patriots, but you know, they're they're at Miami as well, they're home against Denver,
They're home against the Jets. Those are certainly winnable games, and as I mentioned the beginning of the year, I think they're going to be able to kind of make a little run here, you know, at the Jets, at the Giants, and home against the Bengals. So for me, that's the What's funny is that is the one bet in the East that I really felt good about, so I'd be interested. You mentioned, you said maybe two that you had another one other than the Dolphins.
In the Apid it was it was the Dolphins, and then my and then it was my Bills.
Under that, oh you are the worst. The podcast where we're gonna all right, well, let me ask. Obviously, neither one of us feels particularly confident, but is there anything you know on the Patriots that you're you're necessarily thinking that, or the Jets or anything like that.
I mean, I really like the Jets. I think they're going to be a great against the spread bet this year. I think they're gonna be a great over bet this year. I think Le'Veon Bell is the ultimate wild card, especially when you look at things like third third down conversions. Look how terrible the Jets were last year, and then if you look what the Pittsburgh Steelers did when they had Bell out there and he was that big target
on some of those third downs, they were fantastic. They're converting converting third downs at like forty four and forty six percent. I think it's going to keep the chain moving for this for this Jets team. And I think I like Sam Darnold in his second season. I like their big Burley receiving corps when they're healthy too. I mean, they've got some big bodies out there. And they did did some improvement on the offensive line too. So I really like the Jets offense. I don't know, I think
their season win Toal, what's what's their season Wintal? What do you got?
Seven? Seven and a half?
Seven and a half. Yeah, I see them. I see them as I kind of see them as a seven and nineteen, which is which is which is a huge improvement. That's three three more wins and what they have last year, I see I see them as as kind of a seven or nine team. I'm not I'm not jumping in.
I am a Jets fan, unfortunately, and if you gave them, if you gave them a legitimate group of cornerbacks, if you gave them anything out there, I would buy the over without hesitation, you know, because I really like you know, I like their front seven. I think everything you said about Darnald is good. I feel good about Le'Veon Belle. They've got depth at running back too, right with Trenton
Cannon and to Montgomery and Elijah Maguire. It's the cornerback position is so thin that I mean, it's really something where frankly, they get even one more injury and I don't even know who necessarily is going to be out there. Tremaine Johnson is already dealing with his injuries. So, you know, I look at their schedule, it kind of seems to me seven and a half is exactly right. It's gonna be seven or it's going to be eight. I would be really surprised if it's gonna be anything more than that.
And speaking of the Jets, by the way, just because we're on it. I do want to mention I mentioned play MGM earlier. They have a preposterous promotion right now for Thursday's preseason game between the Jets and the Falcons that I just want to mention. They have something called an odds boost for new players, and it's really absolutely insane.
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normal team because they're just the Patriots. They haven't finished with fewer than eleven games, which is there over under mark since two thousand and nine. I would view them as probably about eleven without doing any real analysis because I don't think real analysis works with the Patriots because they're just not normal. So I would stay far away from this one. I don't know about you.
Yeah, it's it's one of these things. I always look out for the Patriots to start slow in the year. Sometimes they'll go like two and two out of the gate or one and one and three out of the gate, or they'll drop two of their first three games and everyone loses their mind and then the odds adjusts and stuff like that. But it's a bit of a different season this year or no Gronk, a lot of new faces in the receiving corps. So I want to see if Brady gets any snaps over the preseason. It was
weird last year. Last preseason he played a ton in this preseason, he hasn't. I don't expect them to play much at all, but he needs those reps with the new wide receivers, and I think we're gonna get a healthy dose of Sony Michelle. I think I think you're going to see a lot more leaning on him, much like they did through with the postseason last year. But again, it's you know, the Patriots. I think they just have to make the playoffs. I think that's just their main focus.
They don't care about kind of the final total, as long as they make the playoffs and they get in.
Yeah. I just you know, I look at their roster, I don't feel particularly great about it without Gronk, and I just think it doesn't matter, you know, I really, I just feel like at the end, they're probably going to be eleven and five, so I'm personally not going to go anywhere near them either, over undering, if I was forced to do something, I'd probably just take the push. So that's where i'd be. All right, let's move on to the Let's move on to the AFC North. You've
got the Ravens at eight and a half. You've got the Bengals at five and a half, the Browns at nine and a half, and the Steelers at nine. So which one of those is your favorite? If any?
So I got two here that I do like. I like the Cincinnati Bengals.
Over you were just talking so much against them, man, No, no, no.
I just said the Jets play Cincinnati in Week sixteen, and that could be the game in which it decided or not the Jets the Dolphins. The Dolphins play Sorry, yes, the Dolphins play them in Week sixteen. That could be the deciding, sweated out game for those season win total betters. I didn't say they were going to lose the game, all right, all right, what do you got their season win total? I've seen a six out there, what do you guys?
I've got it at five and a half. So you're gonna like it even more.
Well, hell yeah, I'll take that. Yeah, they do find themselves in one of the softer schedules here, twenty seventh, toughest schedule for Cincinnati. They didn't get much of a test there in twenty eighteen, but they just had so many injuries up and down, especially on the offense. It seemed like every week they were losing someone. And it seems like already the injury bug is still by the name. AJ Green's gonna miss at least six weeks here. They
started the season really strong last year too. They came out, they won four of their first five, and then all those missing pieces started kind of biting him in the ass. Marvin Lewis is finally gone. I think Taylor is a nice breath of fresh air here. You know, I willy do the same. Sean McVay magic. I don't know about that, but I really like Cincinnati's team on paper. I like this offense on paper. I love Tyler Boyd the way he stepped up last year. And I love Joe Mixon.
I think Joe Mixon might be a sleeper. I have him in one of my sleeper picks to win the rushing title this year. I think he's a fantastic running back. They did some improving on the offensive line, and they play other teams in this division really really tough.
Yeah, and frankly, you look at the rest of their schedule, it's not terrible. I mean, they get Oakland, you mentioned Miami, they get Arizona. I five and a half wins is low. I just don't have a great feel for it because I really don't know what it's going to look like with Taylor's system. And again, the Jonah Williams injury on the offensive line, I think really really hurts. So for me, that was one where I just didn't have a great feel for it. It feels like between five and six wins,
which is why it's at five and a half. So I really I didn't have a great sense. For me, I really feel pretty confident in the Ravens under eight and a half, which probably means you're gonna be like, oh, I feel great about the Ravens over.
No, No, I agree, I agree with you on the I'm not sold on the Ravens. You go ahead and then I'll see if there's anything.
Yeah, and no problem. I mean, look to me, we know that the question marks on offense, because you know they're basically they've got Lamar Jackson quarterback. You don't really know what it's gonna look like. I really think that you need that defense to be top notch, and I just don't really think that it's gonna be. I think they've lost too many pieces with Zadarius Smith and Brent Urban, CJ. Mosley and Terrell Suggs. So I don't really know how
the front seven is going to play. I don't really know if we're gonna be able to rely on Marlon Humphrey again being an elite cornerback, and Jimmy Smith and Brandon Cargan a little long in the tooth. So the defense, for me, it just doesn't really get me too excited. And with the offense, I know Greg Roman knows how to run this system, but you know, you saw what happened in that playoff game against the Chargers. It's just not really a style that I think is necessarily something
that can work over the long term. And you know, the NFC North, other than maybe the Bengals, is going to be tough, and then they get the NFC West, which means they've got to play in Seattle they've got to go up against the Rams, and they are one of the teams that goes to play in Buffalo at the end of the season. So for me, I can see a path to nine wins. If they won nine,
I wouldn't fall down on the floor. I don't really see a path to ten wins, which means basically, to lose the bet, you've got to basically thread that needle, and I would be willing to risk it. So Baltimore under eight and a half is the one that really stuck out to me in the NFC North.
Yeah, I think you're on the right track with Baltimore too, and sometimes too. I mean, they did have a good defense last year, but a lot of it too was because they ran the football and they chewed up the clock, so that defense was not on the field that much at all. At any time that they did have any weaknesses, they weren't really exposed on it. Roman says he's completely revamped in this playbook after what we saw the Bolts
do to them running what seven defensive backs o quarter defense? Yeah, and absolutely destroy them and just put a lot of speed out there, and that snuffed out the running attack and kind of forced Jackson to pass the ball, which he's not comfortable doing. I don't think you can win games by running the ball like that anymore, not in
this NFL. And especially if they do find themselves, if the defense is weak and they find themselves behind, I don't think they have the firepower to catch up quickly.
I think that's exactly it. I think in the end, they're just not suited to score a ton of points in any game, and I just don't see the defense as being the type of defense that's going to be able to allow them to kind of play up like that. Now Roman did it, of course with Kaepernick, but I feel like Kaepernick was I don't know. I don't know about Jackson. I don't know exactly what to expect from
him necessarily as a passer. But you know Kaepernick, they were able to run it in San Francisco, so maybe he can.
But just but if you saw it's almost a similar situation that you saw from Colin Kaepernick in that year with the forty nine ers, where he came in and it was this completely new generational quarterback almost the same way and last year came in and it was just such a change in direction that it threw other defenses off off their game and they you know, it finally took until that Wildcard round game for the Chargers to
figure it out. Very kind of similar situations. Yeah, I think with more tape on this on this offense now, I think defenses are going to have a leg up and I'm just not confident in their passing game.
Yeah, I completely agree with you there. Okay, what about the Browns at nine and a half or the Steelers at nine? Do you like or dislike either one of those?
I'm going under Browns. The Browns have been the most public team of the offseason. I mean, you look at their divisional futures, you look at their Super Bowl lodge. You look, I heard you hits, I heard you suck your teeth on that one. You're like, no, it's it's uh. And I think I think their numbers are a little bit inflated because of that. You know, Baker Mayfield is an exciting young quarterback. Yeah, the guy shotgun and beers at Tribe games. It's awesome. Oh they got OBJ in there. Yeah,
that's awesome. However, he is still a second year quarterback, and I think as teams get more tape, on him. You're going to see something catch up with him over time, and the expectations are are huge. Was the season win total.
Of nine, I've got it nine and a half, nine and.
A half, which is a massive jump. I think they have a season win total what six or five or something last year, which.
They were they were seven eight and one. There were seven eight one. Yeah no, but they's season win total the original yeah, yess.
Wins And that's a and that's a huge that's a huge jump. And then also two teams like the Browns aren't going to catch teams off guard anymore. People aren't gonna look at the Browns and say, oh, that's a cupcake game and look past them. Especially when you got Mayfield. You know he loves to get in front of the microphone. You got Obj, you know he's going to be running his mouth. And then once they get Kareem Hunt out there, there's gonna be a lot of people that want to
smack that guy in the mouth as well. I think the Browns have a big target on their back. I think people are going to come for them. I think people are going to love to shut them up. And again, this is this is a division where the rivalries will run deep. The blood is is very, very very hot. So yeah, I don't think that I'm not on the Browns over win total. I think they'll be I think the be a good team. But I'm not jumping off. I think it's a bit of a public inflated.
Okay, look, you did hear correctly, but I'm not sitting here saying ooh, I love the Browns at over nine and a half, not not anywhere close. The Browns for all the reasons that you said. They give me a really really uneasy feeling. And it's basically when the public buys in so much and gets so excited, I always just naturally am sort of like, okay, well, you know, let's take a step back here. But I look closely at the team and it's really hard for me to
kind of dislike them. And if I was forced to, this is one I would stay away from. I would not take the over, but if I was forced to, I think I probably would take the over. Again. I get everything with Mayfield, but they've added old Ell Beckham Junior. The offensive line has improved. The defense is going to be really solid overall, you know.
See, the defense is going to be disruptive like they were last year. They're going to be disruptive. They'll get their big sacks and they're going to get their takeaways and stuff like that, but they are going to give up big plays. I don't think this defense is going to be an elite unit by any means.
Yeah, I think I'm probably a little more bullish on them than New York. I don't think they're going to be elite, but I think they're gonna be pretty solid. I mean, you know, upfront with Miles Garrett and Olivier Vernon and Sheldon Richardson, I love Denzel Award, Greedy Williams is solid. They've got pretty solid linebackers. I'm gonna like it. I think they can really stay in most games. The biggest thing the NFC North, like you said, they just
beat the heck out of each other. That the AFC North that keep saying NFC sorry, they beat the heck out of each other. And so you could easily win or lose any game that you see them play at any given time. And I do think that you make a good point. I'm sure everybody's gonna hate Mayfield, and I'm sure anybody's gonna be gunning.
And here's another here's another thing to consider here, And this may be a bit of a stretch, but these guys play five of their first eight games on the road in twenty nineteen. If they start dropping a few wins here or a few games that they should have won, Guys like Beckham, guys like Mayfield, you know someone's gonna say something stupid. All that confidence, all that swagger could just get sucked out of the locker room pretty quickly.
So I think, I think, if I think, if Cleveland can survive the first half of the season, get through it without imploding with all those egos in the locker room, and I hope they do it. I would love to see Cleveland do well. I think there's such a fun team right now. But that's one thing that I kind of have my eye on there, is that they're gonna be They're gonna be pushed right out of the gate, and let's see if they crumble underneath that pressure.
No, it is a fair point. Although again I mean some of their road games. I mean at the Jets, at Baltimore, Fine, I mean, of course, at San Francisco. I mean, it's not it's not a murderer's road there to start the season. But you're right, and they're probably expected to win and not get off to a terrible start, and if they do, you never know what's going to happen.
It's right, you drop a few games, you drop a few games that you know, the Browns could be kind of browning some people. They could be like, oh we got this one, Oh we got this one, and then you know, the Browns end up smacking them in the mouth, like last year with a lot of teams.
So now that's a fair point. If it's a fair point, But if I had to, I personally would still take the over five. How about the Steelers at nine? Any feeling on that one.
I do like the Steelers this year. I think the Steelers. I like to pick the Steelers to win this division. I think, you know, departure of Antonio Brown is playing into this perception where the Steelers have maybe fallen off in the AFC. North Cleveland looks great. Baltimore is the reigning division champ. I think Roethlisberger is still an elite passer. He led the league in the yards last year. I
think Smith Schuster is fantastic. I think James Washington is going to be a fantastic wide receiver as well too. James Connor proved that he's a suitable replacement there. Maybe not the same runner as Le'Veon Bell, but a suitable replacement for the running game. They have a fantastic defensive line. They tied for the league in sacks last year. There's a lot of still very very good things with Pittsburgh. They're very tough at home. It's tough to go into
Hines Field and take a win from them. And I think Roethlisberger and Tomlin both have a lot to prove this season. I think Roethlisberger has a little bit of a chip on his shoulder saying, you know what, Yeah, I lost my two for best playmakers, but here's what I can do. And then Tomlin. You know, Tomlin got the courtesy extension before the preseason, but you know this guy's still playing for his job too.
Yeah, certainly motivation is going to be a factor. Roethlisberger makes me a little nervous just of course his age, but his efficiency historically has been really down without Brown. But I agree, it's hard to doubt this team, right. They're just very consistent. They do it pretty much every year. I don't I would not feel great about the over at all. I would stay away from this one. But if you had to bet, you're saying you would go with the over right, Yeah, I'm.
Gonna go with the over here. I like them. Then it's going to be a competitive division over nine. So they got a ten. Yeah, I could see them. I could see them there.
Yeah. I mean, if I had to pick, my guess is they're going to push, so I'd probably stay away from it. But either way, it's certainly not a terrible bet. Before we move on to the AFC South, I do want to remind everyone about our August contest. We are giving away a signed Christian McCaffrey panthers helmet from our
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thirty first to be entered. All right, let's go to the South here, and you know, unfortunately we're in a little bit of a holding pattern here with the Andrew Luck injury, where it's now some sort of high ankle thing, you know, not just his calf, so it sounds like his availability for the opener could even be in doubt. It makes thinking about the over under the Colts in particular, but really all the teams a little difficult, but let's go through it. So Vegas sees this as a pretty
even division overall. The Texans are at eight and a half wins, the Colts are at nine and a half, the Jaguars are at eight, and the Titans are at eight. So which one of these stands out to you is the best bet?
You're going to prefix this to say all these teams were at these odds because there's plenty of sportsbooks now that are pulling down, especially the Colts. The Colts, I think I believe are off the board, and a few other books as well, to take the entire division off the board. And so I think that's the smart move here, because if Luck is not there for week one, or
even if he misses a few games. Here, we've seen first and knowledge over the last two years how good this team can be with Luck and how bad it can be without Luck. Per set, serviceable QB. But he's not Luck, teams aren't going to treat him as such. You know it was ten. It opened nine and a half at some places too. So a lot of people are very high on the Colts.
Let's see this, Let's see this. Let's let's imagine that we're two weeks later and Luck has been fully cleared, and so everything is going to be at these numbers, as if Luck is good to go for the open, all right, Texans eight and a half, Colts nine and a half, Jaguars eight, Titans eight. What do you think.
You put me up against the spot there the.
First if you want jump, no, no, no problem, okay. So I like to look at things as if let's just look because look, if Luck is hurt and you know we can't, you can't make any bets, then we are where we are. We can just skip the entire division. For me, I'll just look at it. If Luck gets cleared and if he's not going to miss a game, and if he's fine, then really, the one I like is the Colts, which opened at nine and a half. I mean, they're basically an elite team on every in every sense of the word.
Right.
Frank Reich is one of the best coaches. Luck is elite, Hilton is elite, the offensive line is elite. They've added Devin Funches and Paris Campbell. They've got Marlon Mack and Nam Hines. The defense was fantastic down the stretch. It is a tough schedule, but this is a Super Bowl contender if they're healthy. So if Luck is healthy at this point, and again if he's not, you just stay away from everything. And again you mentioned it. They've Vegas has pulled a lot of sportsbooks have pulled any of
these over unders, but especially for the Colts. But if he is healthy at nine and a half, I would jump all over that.
Yeah, I have to agree there. I really love Marlon Mack two as a complementary to a compliments, your piece to what Luck and Hilton can do with the passing game. I like Functius. That gives them a bigger target, a little a different kind of dynamic for his receiving game. And then their defense was was very very good there towards the end of last year. I guess I would at nine and a half. Yeah, I'll go over that. I like the little hook rather than sitting dead on the ten.
Yeah. Yeah, how about anybody else in this division? Anybody jump out of you as good value?
You know, I'm not. I'm not gonna pooh pooh Tennessee here, I've I've seen the season win total. Round eight. Yeah, what do you guys have there?
Eight?
Round eight? So, I mean this was very close to being a playoff team last year. They had that stupid Week one game in Miami that lasted forever. You know, had they won that game, they might have they probably would have been in the playoffs. Mariota got hurt it towards that heading into that Week seventeen, that final game against Indianapolis. Drell Casey was also for that game. So so two very important players on either side of the ball,
both for that. This is year two under Varibel, I expect chemistry and cohesion to be a little little better. I've never been a Matt Lafleur fan. I don't think the offense changes too much with Arthur Smith and there being the tight ends coach and kind of not wanting to mix stuff around. But I've never been a big Laflur fan. I'm not a big fan of them going to Green Bay. I'm not expecting big things from them. I think this defense is the heart and soul of
the team. Could be the best defense in the division. They gave up just under nineteen points per game last year. They're solid at just about every single level of that defense. And like I said, year two under Varabel, the chemistry comes together. I think Tennessee could could come in. I like they're over eight.
Yeah, you know, I don't like anybody in this event. I mean, even assuming Luck is healthy and everything, State word is I just well, the only.
Like they all play is the schedule for everyone scares you off. Because even Houston, even Houston on paper looks like a good team when they're healthy, but you look at that strength of schedule and the switch and strengths of schedule where you know, they played a cupcakes schedule last year and now they're you know, getting fed to the belly of the beast here.
Yeah, I mean, got to go They've got to go to New Orleans. You know, they've got to go play against the Chargers. They playing, you know, because the NFC South, it's going to be a good division. That's who they drew, you know, Atlanta and Carolina. They do not have anywy schedule. That's the point. You know, all the they're basically everyone's going to be around eight wins, and I think that's exactly right. So I just kind of you know, and
the Titans, I agree completely about their defense. I really like it. I just, man, I'm so down on Mariota at this point. He's just so inconsistent.
You know.
Corey Davis has been a bit of a disappointment. I know, you know, they They've added Adam Humphrees, they drafted Ada Brown, Derek Henry's already dealing with injuries. I just I don't know, it strikes me as eight is the right number, frankly, so I'm not really sure.
The thing I'm hoping that they do with Mariota is kind of, you know, let him be creative. The best. The best that Mariota is is when he's he's in these two minutes rills where he's able to come up to the line, call it, make the plays that he wants to play, play a little bit of school yard football. Lafleur didn't really necessarily allow him to do that. The same way he's kind of clamp it down on Aaron Rodgers a little bit and then sometimes you're hearing a
little bit of the pushback there. I would love to see Mariota be able to to kind of freestyle it a little bit up there, because that's when he that's when he plays his best football.
Well, let's hope they do it, right do we don't? Do we know what Arthur Smith is going to be doing, you know with the offense. I mean, that's the one thing I know.
Maybe he said he said, he said, well here, you're coming from a tight ends coach, so he says, they want to be physical and they're going to look for a lot of Derrick Henry, a lot of rush. But I mean that's only going to get you so far. But outside of that, I don't see it changing. All too much. But I would like to see them kind of loosen loosen up on Mariota and let him and let him have some let him have some fun out there, because that's that's when he really does damage.
Yeah, I think that's fair and anything quickly on the Jaguars. You have a feel for them at eight wins.
If yeah, this defense, if they if they could, if the defense can be dangerous like they were two years ago, not last year, And that was a big thing that was missing for this team last year is that they just weren't a dangerous team. They were a good defense, you know, in the trenches, they were fairly good defense, but they didn't have the takeaways. They didn't have those big game changing plays. Just look at that their takeaways from last year compared to the twenty seventeen season, big
big difference. I think if they can find that danger element on defense, and then Nick Foles, Nick Foles is just an automatic improvement over Bortals, you.
Would be an automatic improvement over there.
I can sling it, brother, I'm sure, I'm yeah. I'm like Vinnie Testa Verdi. I'm trying to think of my I'm getting up there in age.
Now, vine Testaverdi would be an improvement.
There you go. Yeah, yeah, don't say that too loud, Vinnie testa Verdi.
Yeah, Hey, I'm a Jets fan, right was like my hero. Don't worry about it.
I'm a Cowboys fan. So we kind of got his his his gray years.
I think, you know, for me, I'm kind of irrationally fond of the Jaguars this year. I like a lot of what they did. I expect the defense to be better. And again, like you said, Nick Foles is an upgrade, because anybody would be an upgrade. And they've got a pretty pretty decent depth at wide receiver. And I think Fournette is you know, he's slim down, He's probably gonna be good. But when you look at their schedule, I just you know, there's like eight losses that just jump out.
You know, if Luck is healthy. You know, they've got two against the Colts, they got the Chiefs, the Saints, the Chargers, you know, they play in Carolina, in Atlanta, they'll probably split against the Texans. That's eight losses right there. So it's really hard. I'd love to be able to take the over, but you know, assuming that Luck is healthy, it's just not something that I'd be able to pull the trigger on. So all right, let's let's move on
here to the West, our final division. We've got the Broncos at six and a half, the Chiefs at ten, the Raiders at six, and the Chargers at nine and a half. So do any of those jump out to you as good value?
Yeah, I guess I'm gonna go Kansas City under Would you have ten and a half for Kansas City?
Just ten? Just ten?
Well, I've seen some ten and a half's out there as well, too. Tough start to the season here, they play three of their first four games on the road. Again, this is a team that caught a lot of people by surprise last season. Definitely not gonna be able to do that this year. The home games they do get here in the first six weeks, I get some some pretty tough teams. You got Baltimore, Indianapolis, in Houston, all of which were playoff teams in twenty eighteen. And then
the schedule is backloaded with road games as well. They play four of their final seven away from home, with stops in New England and Chicago. There, I think that it's going to be it's gonna be a sweaty finish to the season for anyone that bets the over or the under on this total. But I mean, I I full faced them in the homes. I just think that it's going to be a tougher sledding for them. They're
going to get everyone's best. They're not going to get you know, five for six weeks of grace where they kind of surprise teams last year.
No, I think all of those are really good points. It's a tough line at ten. I mean, I think that's what you said. Either side, you're going to be
swinning it out. So one of the things we do at Betting Pros, if you go on and you look at consensus over under and you click analysis, you can see every expert that has made picks what they've picked, and twenty four percent have gone over, ten percent have gone under, and sixty seven percent have it as a push at ten, which, frankly, that's basically exactly where I am.
I mean.
And that's, by the way, one of the things that you know we love about the site is that's kind of what it does. You can see generally where everybody whos submitting picks is on any given game, so at ten, ten strikes me at the number. I think if I had to at ten and a half, I would probably feel better about the under. At ten, I'd probably go push. I mean, I think you make a lot of great points. I just I don't really see value either way if you yeah.
I mean, and we saw defenses finally catch up with this team towards the back end of twenty eighteen. They especially if you measure up against the spread, they just kind of went from a cash cow to not covering at all because one of the public did adjust to it, but and the betting markets adjusted to it. But the defense has had a lot more tape on my homes. He was somewhat of an unknown commodity at that point, right, so they were able to I mean, the guy's fantastic
and he's gonna have another fantastic here. But it is interesting to see the difference of what they can do or what they can do with Kareem Hunt and the Tyreek Hill thing. That was one thing like I was reading to really go under on them when Hill was Hill's suspension was up in the air. Now that he's back, you know, that's why we're gonna stuck on the ten. Maybe that's why everyone's stuck on ten though.
Right, And you know, I think it's a really simple sort of explanation. But the bottom line is it is really hard in the NFL to win eleven games. I know the Patriots do it every single year, but it's just not I mean, you look at the Chiefs, You're like, oh, well, you know, they've got to win eleven games. That's a really high number. It's a really tough thing to do.
So ten strikes me as right around the number that they're going to be at for me, my best bet, and it seems a little silly basically at this point to do it. But it would be the Raiders under six wins. They've got a couple of interesting things here. Antonio Brown is going to play. You know, They've got Tyroll Williams, Josh Jacobs and Hunter Renfro and they've added LaMarcus Joiner to the defense. So maybe they will improve off the four and twelve. But I mean, look look
at the schedule, and that's really what it is. Okay, they open at home against the Broncos and the Chiefs. I'll be generous and I'll give them the win against the Broncos. Okay, their next five weeks at Minnesota, at Indianapolis, home against Chicago, by at Green Bay, and at Houston. That's four of their next five games on the road against good teams, and a home game against the Bears. I'm having a hard time seeing a win there. And then you look at the rest of the schedule. They're
home against the Lions, I'll give them that. They're home against the Chargers. That's gonna be a loss. They're home against the Bengals, I'll give them that. They're at the Jets, I'll give them that. Then they're at the Chiefs. That's a loss. That is four wins so far with four games to play. They're not gonna win in Los Angeles against the Chargers. So to come in over the six wins,
they've got to win the other three games left. That means that they need to beat Tennessee at home, they need to beat Jacksonville at home, and they need to beat Denver on the road. I don't see them possibly winning those three games. And I think you mentioned it earlier. With another team you can see Antonio. I think the Browns.
You can see Antonio Brown mentally checking out this team gets off to a one and six start, right, So for me, this is just strikes me as a disastrous year for the Raiders, and I could I could see them easily coming in under. So that's my favorite one.
Yeah, there's a lot of new faces in that receiving core two that they have to fit in and get chemistry very very quickly with Derek Carr as well, and I think they off to a slow start for them. I like the under on Denver for this one here under what do you guys have seven?
I've got six and a half?
Six and a half. Yeah, I like the under with them. I could see them getting like they might be able to get four wins at home this season. Then it's kind of like, oh, okay, they're halfway there, but the road schedule is just wretched outside of Week one at Oakland, and even then you're saying Oakland goes in and beats beats Denver, right, and then they have Week twelve at Buffalo, But then, like, where do the other four wins come from? It's a really tough run for them if Fangio brings
some changes. But I'm not really I mean, I don't think anyone's really buying into a Flacco led offense, even if they run the ball to it every three snaps. He just like I said earlier, you can't compete in a pass first league, especially in this division where you know teams are gonna put up a ton of points. You can't. You can't do that with without being able to pass the football confidently and stretch it an opposing defense.
It's just not going to happen. So I like the under there for the Denver Broncos.
Yeah, I agree. That was the second one that I would like. My gain, my favorite the Raiders. If I had to do another one, it would be the Broncos under six and a half. And really, for all the reasons that you mentioned. I mean, if Emmanuel Sanders comes back and is in fact healthy by week one, then more power to him. But I just really don't think you want to rely on Joe Flacco.
Which doesn't matter, doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. You might be able to have Antonio Brown out there, and if Joe Flacker is your quarterback, get to him now.
Really, but you pointed out it's the schedule. I mean, it is a really, really tough schedule for the AFC West. They draw the NFC North and the AFC South, you know, and again they're in They're the team that's in Buffalo late in the season. That's a really really tough game to win. So I agree six and a half is under anything, go ahead.
I'm sorry that I was going to say, just look at the road games there, like so, they're they're at Oaklynn, that's maybe a win there. At green Bay always tough to play at the Chargers at Indy, at Minnesota, at Buffalo again and towards the end of November. So, like you said, cold weather, crappy place to play. They're at Houston at Kansas City.
And that's nice.
That is. I don't know where else they're going to find any wins now.
I agree. It's a really, really, really difficult schedule, particularly the breakdown as you said, between the home and away games. So it's certainly not something that I would be super excited about if I could, but I would go for the under there. And how about the final team, the Chargers. They were at nine and a half in the consensus hots.
Yeah, Chargers. Chargers are tough one Chargers. Last year, I wasn't really sold on the Chargers. I was waiting with baited breath to bet against the Chargers in the playoffs. Now, I did take them against Baltimore and that in that wildcard round, But then when they played the Patriots, I knew they were going to expose. I just saw last year that they played a lot of soft offenses. I thought that their defensive numbers were a bit puffed up
because of that. The offense is great and even with even without Melvin Gordon, if he holds out, it doesn't play. I think they're fine. I mean, Justin Johnson looked fantastic in the preseason, Austin Eckler is more than capable of of of taking over the number one running back roll, and then Philip Rivers is still an elite passer. So I think they're going to put up their points. They get Bosa back for a full year now, and he's a He's a one man wrecking crew out there, So
I could see. I could see San Diego going in, maybe maybe winning this division and going over. Yeah.
I agree, except that I have to correct it and we have to call them Los Angeles because.
I got Oh did I call them San Diego?
You did?
It's funny. I wonder how long we're gonna need how long we're going to need to do that, It's got to be three or four seasons, right, because I still do it too, and my producer has yelled at me before and I just did.
I just did San Diego television before and talked about the Los Angeles Chargers. Yeah. Yeah, I set my my over under on San Diego Chargers at three and a half season, so I'm already at one.
All right. Well, hopefully, hopefully we can have you back again late in the season and we can talk more and we can just talk about the San Diego Superchargers.
And that'd be great.
The San Diego Charger.
Yeah, absolutely. I just as long as they do the powder blue uniforms. I'm I'm okay with it at times. All right, that's gonna do it for today show, Jason. I know how busy you are. You were just on TV right before you came on this show, so I really appreciate you taking the time to talk a little football with me today. I hope we can do it again during the season.
Yeah, No, happy to do it anytime you guys want to chat. Man, I'm here, all.
Right, great, and I do want to remind everyone about play MGM, where you can place your first wager of up to one hundred dollars risk free. And to remind everyone about our Christian McCaffrey helmet giveaway. Just leave a review for the show on iTunes or Stitcher and screenshot it to contest at bettingpros dot com. Thanks for joining us today. We will be back next week with some more betting advice for the upcoming NFL season.
I'll talk to you then, Heavy Name. I think that I thought that have not been