Colin Cowherd Podcast - Los Angeles Fires, Sharp Or Square - Betting Wild Card Weekend + The College Football Playoff Semifinals

it's interesting, Chad. One of the things I try not to fall into, and it's just rampant on the internet, is making things political when they don't necessarily need to be, you know, and the areas that were devastated, Malibu and Palisades, specific Palisades. I've actually driven around a lot over the last several years because I was looking to buy a home in Pacific Palisades. And one of the reasons I didn't, and my wife and I didn't is because the inaccessibility

of these windy roads and canyons. And I had said to my wife, if I got into trouble or had a heart attack, I mean it could take forty minutes for somebody to get here you an ambulance. And so you had this, You had four concurrent wildfires, eighty mile an hour winds, which meant planes were not allowed to fly over and drop water. So two things happened. Four concurrent wildfires historically bad wins, not even in fire season, and you couldn't use planes. It's like the world's worst tsunami.

You can blame the Coastguard. You can't prepare for it. And if people don't know this area and Topanga Canyon and Malibu, they have no idea what this place is like like most people that work nine to five. You can't live in Malibu because you can't get in and out of it in the morning. So you know, people are making this to completely. And I voted for Rick Caruso over Karen Bass, you know, because I thought the city needed somebody who was a development a builder for

their homeless issues. I thought he could really solve that and he had a real detailed plan on this and I got nothing four against Karen Bass. But sometimes things happened historically and you can't prepare or solve it. And I'm not saying I mean they had these water tanks available. They blew through three of them, millions of gallons of water, very very quickly. They could have had six of those reservoirs,

not three. It wouldn't have solved it. So it's one of those things for people asking me, do we have to make it political? Like this thing was historical. People don't understand the day of those They told you a day out in Los Angeles two days before there was a weather warning and they put the list of how strong the winds would be, and everybody in town was like, Oh, this is trouble. This is big trouble. So there was some sense it could be, it could be happening. But

and now there's arson. There's there's discussions of arson on some of these later fires. But I'm okay. The firefighters are amazing, but I don't think people understand this region. This area is a jungle. It is trees and canyons and narrow roads. And the fires were so intense on the flat lower levels it made it very difficult to get up and solve the upper tier, the upper parts of it. So that's my rant on it. I'm fine. I've got friends who have lost homes. It's gutting, it's awful,

it's terrible. But I just wish people sometimes not everything would have to be about politics.

fire where they need to have them. It all strikes me as a little disingenuous, because in either capacity, something is causing this. It's not the police and fire and lack of water that are causing eighty to one hundred mile and how or winds. And I don't really understand why it has to get political at all. Like you, someone's got to get people out, someone's got to go manage the fire. They are doing the best job they

possibly can. I'm always struck by when I'm driving around LA, especially in the hills, how the entire area is constructed like a Jenga set. Right. You see, there's a house on every single inch of property going up these winding roads. I know Palisades a little bit less and it's astonishing to me the way the city and the hills, especially houses have been constructed there. It's not surprising when you're seeing an area that is so compact with housing. The

fire is jumping from one place to the next. There's no opportunity for it to stop because there's so much fuel there. It is as someone who's three, you know, a thousand miles away and has a lot of friends like you who are in the area, it's frightening to watch. It's frightening to see the stories that are coming out of there. It's frightened to see the images. It's it really truly is apocalyptic. It's yeah, it's astonished.

You're asking them you can't use planes. The winds are eighty miles an hour. People are running out of their cars. It was it was a scene from an awful movie. And listen, it's it's just when you get these natural disasters. Boy, everybody's looking for perfection and everybody's pointing fingers. There are so many people, a thousand homes. I mean, you will look at area aerial footage now, you cannot believe, Chad, what it looks like. It is literally like a zip code, every house burnt down.

There's so many things I love about it. But you know, my wife's not as big a fan, and she misses her sister and her family in the Midwest. And by the way, I love Chicago and I still love la but you know, it's just just just one of those things where I don't want to ever use a singular reason for being mobile. I like Connecticut. You know, people always used to poke fun at Connecticut. It's boring, and I'm like.

we do give away. The winner of the season long contest gets forty thousand dollars first place prize. So we had the winner on the show today. The winner, by the way, discovered the Favorites podcast because he's a fan of Colin Cowherd and over the years he has seen me either on television with you at ESPN or on this show with you through the Volume and the various things that you've been kind enough to have me on and now with The Favorites on the Volume Podcast Network.

So that's how we discovered us. His job, he is a farmer in bow Bell's, North Dakota, which is a speck of a town with three hundred people. And he lives outside bow Bells, which is within the Canadian border shouting distance, right. So of course I'm like, you don't get I said to him, you don't get days off as a farmer. And North Dakota gets cold. What kind of coat are you wearing it to stay warm? And so we went through he's layering. He's got a good

car heart coat. That's how he stays warm when he's in the tractor and he's watching red Zone while he's making bets. That's how he's doing it. I feel like you need to make sure you're layering. I just want you to be comfortable when you're in Chicago. I don't want you to find any reason.

week in Miami or something. But I for those listening, if you've never gone to London, do it in your lifetime.

to it. And like the NFL, the Chiefs lost to the Raid late last year, that's okay, Well, it's now okay in college football you can be awful at home against Michigan and get into the playoffs. I have watched Ohio State's last two games and the games before Michigan. I think they're unbeatable at the college level. I think they're playing with a violence on defense, an explosion, and a consistency on offense. I think Will Howard had one awful game and a couple other average ones. I think

he's really good. And my problem with Texas is always the same thing. They're a splash offense. They will score, but they are not consistent penalties pass blocking when yours is hot and cold. I think Ohio State is going to run through this thing to the national championship. What do the guys say, sharper square.

matter who you lose to during the regular season. You just got to get to the playoffs and then you got to dominate, and then you can judge success based on that. Winning or losing That one game against Michigan is not the key factor in whether or not your season has been successful. So kudos to Ryan Day, Kudos to Chip Kelly, Kudos to that staff for turning around their season and coming out of the playoffs into the playoffs so hot, so dominant, doing things that they hadn't

been doing during the regular season. Really utilizing Jeremiah Smith in a way that makes him look like a man amongst boys. However, the same recency bias that is making you think Ohio State is the right side is also making this number leak a little bit higher than it should. Right. The power ratings on this are basically Ohio State minus three, maybe minus four. It's at minus six and as good as the Ohio State defense is, Texas defense has been

as good all season long. Some people will say the best defense we've seen that defense and what they've done quin yours. Yes, he's been inconsistent and we saw sort of the peak of their inability to move the ball offensively when they played Georgia in that SEC title game, but their defense kept them in that game the entire time. Wise guys will tell you, sure, quin Ewers hasn't been consistent, but he did get hurt in the last couple of games. He's been much much better than he had been as

he was coming back from the injury. So I do think that the wise guys here are looking at Texas because the number has gotten a little too big. It's almost a touchdown. Six points. That's that's just a lot of points.

possessions that they didn't necessarily need to win. All eight divisions were won by the eight best quarterbacks in their division. It had become a quarterback centric league a decade ago. That was an edge the new kickoff rules that new that the better quarterbacks didn't need. They were winning despite that, and now they're winning in clear fashion. That said, I'm going to take the Steelers plus nine and a half

against the Ravens. Zay Flowers is out. I know Pittsburgh hasn't been playing well, but I I just watched Baltimore klobber Pittsburgh. I do know this. Pittsburgh has a ton of pride, very good on defense. Baltimore in the playoffs. Memo to nobody to everybody that's watched them the last six years. They tend to play better in the regular season than the postseason. This number is out of whack to me. I'll take Pittsburgh plus nine and a half sharper square.

a lot of time in the offseason doing. Is really taking a look at the impact of the new kickoff rules on how teams covered or didn't cover, and did it really favor the favorites, because I think there was sort of some unintended consequence here. If you have a good quarterback and you're at the third you complete two passes, all of a sudden you're on the other side of

the field. If it's fourth and short, you might be more inclined to go for it earlier in the game on fourth down because you feel like, well, I might have a chance to get back here more quickly because of the way the kickoff rules are, and I also think coaches are just more inclined to go for it on fourth down. So a combination of the kickoff rules and more aggressive decision making based on the analytics has made it easier and more likely that favorites are going

to cover. Will that be a trend that goes forward, We don't know yet. I want to have a year's worth of data now that we have it, to look at it and review, because I think it's fascinating and I think it will be something that people have to make adjustments for going into next year. On this game, you mentioned the game they played on the twenty first of December. That game was pretty close through about three quarters.

It was the last ninety seconds of the quarter when things started to go out of control for the Steelers, right, But one of the big factors in that game, Joey Porter, missed the entire second half. When he was out, it went from the Steelers having a little bit of wiggle room to stay close to meeting to all of a sudden be perfect, and they couldn't be perfect rustled through

that pick six. They lost thirty four to seventeen. So this is a huge number in a game where people are thinking about the Steelers, who, by the way, that was the second game of what became a four game losing streak in which they didn't score more than seventeen points. The Ravens haven't scored fewer than thirty points since early December, so there is a huge We're talking about recency bias right with Texas and Iowa State. The recency bias in this game is massively in favor of the Ravens, which

is when you want to play the Steelers. Also, this series, historically, it's never this big even number and it's always a game that's within the spread. So that's another reason why you might want to think about the Steelers.

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spread during his tenure, especially as a dog. They are starting to see him as Mike Tomlin asking the way he can scheme not just the first fifteen scripted plays, but throughout a game and keep his team in a very close game, especially like four and a half points in a playoff game between these two teams is a lot.

So there is a portion of the betting community that is looking to buy the Packers at plus four and a half from an on the field scheme point of view, everyone who's betting on the Eagles is doing it because of what you just said. Their defensive line, Jalen Carter, Jalen Carter. If you pull the players, which happens, you are allowed to vote for All Pro as a player.

You can't vote for yourself or anyone on your team to play with the second most votes with Jalen Carter, like, he is just so good right now and so dominant and the one thing we know the Packers want to do,

We've seen him do it all year. You see every graphic for every game that is televised with the Packers, some point in the first fifteen minutes of game time, you're going to see a graphic about how well the Packers do with Josh Jacobs and how dominant he is running the ball early in the game, and then all of a sudden, teams adjust, he doesn't run as well later in the game. It's left up to Jordan Love and they can't execute as well in the second half.

So yeah, if people are betting the Eagles, it's because of what they can do defensively, not to mention, by the way, how good they are in coverage from the middle linebacker, from the linebacking position all the way through their secondary. Just powerful. Like if I'm buying a Super Bowl future right now, I might by the Eagles at plus seven hundred. The Lions are about plus two to eighty.

Do I think there's that big of a delta between the lines and the Eagles, given how good the Eagles defense is, probably not.

d line of the Bucks is pretty impenetrable. So if I go into a game and I get the veteran quarterback at home, that will have the complement of a strong run game that feels like about as good a bet as you can have. Bucks minus three sharper square.

bow Knicks, we got Jayden Daniels. The wise guys love the Bucks here because of Bucky Irving, because of the running game, because they think the Commanders have been getting by on Jaden Daniels and a little bit of luck, and they've got six games. They won. In the final seconds of the game, they were barely they were losing to Trey Lance right with Jayden Daniels playing. It was Jaden Daniels out of the game. Marcus Mariota comes in

like they were losing to the Eagles. They were going to get run off the field against the Eagles until Jalen Hurts got that concussion, and then they still needed a miracle to win that game because Kenny Pickett played well for about five minutes in that game, and it was the most important five minutes when the Eagles had to drive down the field and if not for Devonte Smith drop, they win that game. So the Commanders have been brilliant. Dan Quinn, great job. Jadan Daniels, rookie of

the year. But this is the playoffs are a different ballgame, and the wise guys are seeing so much love from the public for the commanders there on the Buccaneers.

trouble here. Yeah, and so the Rams are getting a point and a half. I'm going to listen to Greg co Sell. I'm going to go against my belief. I do get the better quarterback. I think I get as good a coach. I'm at home, and the Rams are as healthy as any team in the league right now. They have everybody, which is just remarkably good fortune. They were beat up until, like I mean, like November first. Yeah, Rams plus one and a half Sharper square, totally sharp.

we've talked about this before. If there are any quarterback I don't want to have the ball at the end of the game if I have bet the other side, Matthew Stafford is top five, right, Like it's it's Stafford, it's Mahomes, it's Josh Allen, it's a little bit of Lamar like those are the quarterbacks that you really are a Fred Joe Burrow, like, those are the quarterbacks that you're afraid of. Whise guys feel the same way. They

love Matthew Stafford. The thing that gets interesting, and this helps you justify a little bit the hierarchy and why you had the Rams one below the Vikings. If you look at the Rams after that Bills game, where Matthew Stafford was nearly the play perfect and they played perfect football, and they played the kind of football that everyone who has been backing the Rams and loves the Rams knows they can play. It was a perfect Sean McVay game.

Kyron Williams has been brilliant this year at top three running back in the NFL. Stafford has been very inconsistent with Pookah Nakua and Cooper Cup Like. There have been times where you think they're going to be brilliant and they're good for like a series, and so they lose to the Dolphins, They they get lucky beating the Niners, they struggle against the Jets. Like these things happen over the last month of the season. I think that's why

you might have had them below the Vikings. But now the season has ended, the second season has begun, We're going to find out do we have the Matthew Stafford and Sean McVay and Kyron Williams that we all believe

they can be. Because that's what betters are doing. Professional betters are saying, yes, we think they will have benefited from having this past week off and that the Vikings are starting on a downward trend, and Sam Donald might be a little bit happy feed because his offensive line isn't as good as it had been.

do against Buffalo. I watched Drake May and New England give them trouble a couple of weeks ago. Something is telling me eight and a half's too big, But god, Buffalo could be such a freight train offensively tell me where I should go here.

this week they've been bouncing around. You know, the Chargers in the Texans was three two and a half, three two and a half, and the Rams has gone from two and a half to one and a half, and even the Steelers and the Ravens has gone from seven and a half to eight and a half, nine, nine and a half, ten back down in nine and a half. This one was so stubborn it sat on eight and a half literally until late Thursday morning. It finally finally

ticked up to nine. Because what's happening is there's money coming in from professional betters on both sides for everything you just said. They're afraid of this Bills defense. Don't forget the Bills used to do things like blow out the Dolphins, right they let the Dolphins stay in it. This year, their defense has just not been very good. The things that wise guys who want to bet the Bills like is that Bonnicks has just been much worse against zone than against man. The Bills play a lot

of zone. A rookie quarterback in the first playoff game historically does not cover the spread. They feel like this is a game where Josh Allen can get everything right, and some times the Bills do blow out inferior opponents. The Broncos have been terrible against teams with a winning record one and seven this year minus thirty seven point differential.

Sean Payton scares a lot of people. He is. He's one of those coaches, right Mike Vrabel, Mike Tomlin, Matt lafor Bill Belichick over the past generation, who guys do not like to bet against. In a big number, I think, what did it for me? I bet the Bills eight and a half. I could be wrong, it's a fifty to fifty split. What did it for me is I think the Bills are going to be winning, and I think Sean Payton's going to have to put Bonnigs in a position where he's got to make uncomfortable throws. And

we've seen it often enough this year. Go back to that Bengals game. He threw the interception right to a guy right and they had the game locked up. So I think that could happen at the end of the game. And that's a next factor for me to bet on the Bills.

and we've seen this over and over again. It's why I think favorites have been winning. Good quarterbacks You've talked about that whole year, impeccable, unimpeachable decision making. More and more it used to be. You know this, It used to be if you're a head coach, your only job on Sunday, manage the timeouts, be there to tell someone if they're going to go four and fourth down. Those

decisions are becoming more important throughout the game. How you're managing the last two minutes of a half, going for it more often on fourth down. That used to be a variance of two to three times a game. Now it could be four or five times a game. Jim Harbaugh just beat the Broncos by managing the end of the first half in that game so well. That changed the game for the Chargers and change the game for

the Broncos. So I don't want to bet against Jim Harbough is a short favorite, even though it's on the road and the wise guys are saying otherwise.