A Numbers Game | January 6, 2026 | Hour 2

0:00A number is called the story of those idiots who believe in analytics. This is a numbers game with Kill I like Xander. We said our number two of a numbers game at BCD sports betting that we're visa.com game plus I hard radio YouTube TV and of course series X of Channel 158 Kill I like Xander Kelly Midland. And at Circa Resort Casino downtown Las Vegas. Um, where the music's pumping where the music is pumping outside. It's just or they playing out there. I don't, I don't even remember, but it's just, it's funny how we get so used to it. Every once in a while, I'm just out there. And I'm like, yeah, it is 8 a.m. And it is just a blast. Remember the D though, we would like get out of our car and it would just be a club. Yeah. Maybe I'd go, oh my god. That was a whole other story. Yeah. I was like, could we turn this down a little please? And then it was Bob Seger. And then it was Bob Seger, the whole catalog. By the way, I just mentioned is Circa Resort Casino. You and I had that famous conversation with Fezick. You asked very sort of open ended. What makes a place a resort? And he was like, as Fezick only does, right? He has completely sure of his answer, right?

1:01Well, Resort is clearly called the Resort because of these factors. Concierge. That was his, that was his one thing, which I don't really know that that checks out. So Fezick just texted this to the group chat. Can I share a group chat text? Oh, please. Guys, I'm at the Caesars gym. I got to tell you this country's in trouble. There's an epidemic going on just looking around. There aren't enough machines to go around or benches. And people seem to be using them as their own personal storage areas to put their water bottles. Or you just sit and hang out and text people for five minutes like it's their home gym. Drives me crazy. Forgive the staccato reading of that, but Fezick doesn't use his fingers to text. He does voice, so you have to like edit it as you go. Uh, you know, okay, so this is weird. I'm going to agree, agree with Steve at first, okay? My brother has this exact same gripe about gyms. Oh, it blows my mind. And like, you know, guess what? There were fat Kelly did not go to the gym very often a few years ago.

2:02Right now I'm there all the time. It is mind blowing how often people like, they'll do one, one set and then it's like on the phone for like five minutes. I'm like, you're going to be here for four hours. What do you do with it? Like I'm trying to work out and get the hell out of here. So I'll give Steve that. This is like his Starbucks complaint. Like you're in the Caesars gym complaining about this stuff. Like just paid for a damn gym and go to a gym, Steve. First world problems. Three Jack age three, one, three, one on Twitter. Just heard Kelly say they have to be from somewhere, which leads me to wonder where are the college intros for each guest. And then somewhat kind of early on the radar. How about Jacob Miz for Sai Young at 50 to one? Jacob Miz, you're asking 50 to one for Sai. Is that right? Oh boy. I think I saw Dave Ross with four win tonal bets. Already? Yeah. Well, firing away. Well, he's got Jensen on with it. I got a firearm baseball on this early. Uh, by the way, just to translate. But three Jacks talking about three Jack thinks it will be funny. If from now on, the numbers game rule is every guest we have has to like in Monday night football style, say where they're from. So like will hill endless food university. That kind of thing. I know the next one. Drew Denson.

3:02Yeah, but like, I don't know, like I feel like a number needs to be involved. Number nine. I don't know. I don't know if he has a number. Drew Denson joins us now. Currently the progressive guest line. You can follow him on Twitter at whale underscore capper. He is the host of the deep dive podcast, which we had his co-host on with us in studio yesterday. Andy Molotor and also the co-host of NBC sports bet the edge, which a croucher drew joins us now from the LBC. How you doing, man? Do a great happening here, man. Drew Denson Duke University. We should point that out. Yeah, legendary swimmer. Yeah. Well, it's a new university. Hey, we got, we got a couple of Drew Denson questions before you even showed up on air today. Would you like to field of these questions? Fire away. The first one. The first one has to do with wine, because you did such a wonderful breakdown of wine last week. It's a real quick. This is a wine question for Drew. I says, Gammar, A-H-H-Ruff, I don't know what I'm saying. I'm loving the weekly wine segments with Drew now. Now it's weekly. My wife and I, my wife and I are having a truffle mushroom ragu tonight. Wow. Would you go with an Oregon pinon noir or old world burgundy

4:07with this dish? Also, your top 10 power rankings for sparkling wines would be fascinating. We can't do that. We can't do that much, but let's do the first one. Or, this is like a layup. I mean, the Oregon pinon noir is an amazing choice. Real earthy, real, you know, you want something from Eola Amity Hills. Not, not Yam Hill. Eola Amity Hills, you get a real, you know, the, the, the, the tear was completely different. And, and then, in general, those are drinkable now. You don't have to age them. A burgundy is going to be a much higher price point and probably should be laid down for a few years. So those are a little bit tougher to come by. Oregon was probably the breakout star of 2025 in the world of wine. They have all of the perfect conditions of burgundy in terms of growing. They planted pinon noir grapes there like 20 years ago. And the wine makers are just now kind of really fighting their feet and making world class wine. And while you may kind of shy away from a price point of,

5:07you know, 50 to 70 dollars for a bottle of wine, like for the quality you're getting, that's actually somewhat of like reasonable. You know, you, you blink in five, 10 years and those are going to be 100, 10, 120 dollar bottles and, uh, you'll feel very, very lucky if you have a case of 50 dollar bottles sitting in your cellar. So yeah, Oregon Pino, great choice, burgundy. I will never shy away from a good burgundy, but much harder to find the right pairing and a little bit more sketchy because it has to come over from France to America. And sometimes the shipping can spoil the wine. You never really know unless you have a trusted importer. The one wild card I'll throw in there. When you have Truffle, the most kind of classic pairing for Truffle for me is Barolo. That's a Piedmont Italian wine. Again, you want a little bit of older one. But if you're, if you've had a pairing like what you're making with Pino before, and you have never tried it with Barolo, I would give that a go. That's of course the Nibbio low grape. And Barolo is a little town in the Piedmont that makes a wine that's famous for.

6:09It's haunting bouquet of the horror and roses. It's haunting bouquet. I love that. Drew did say everybody. Where is I mean, where's the applause? Where's the wine and tennis hot guy? Like this is two weeks in a row. I'm getting tired of waiting for the wine and tennis pot. Get a get a fowler on the phone. We're going to do this. Yeah, it's a lot standing. That's amazing. All right, Drew, there's no artful segue to this. Okay, see, trouble and paradise. What do we think? Okay, see, trouble and paradise. Yeah, sure, sure. I don't think they're making their, I don't think they're making the record win total. No, that's, I think that that ship has sailed. In seriousness, though, I don't know that the by-time has arrived yet. Most of what I'm seeing with OKC is a little bit of they played, they played a lot of basketball in the spring. I don't know if you remember back in the spring of 2025, the OKC Thunder, we're taken to seven games by the Nuggets and then taken to seven games by the Pacers. It was an arduous championship pursuit for the Thunder.

7:13That typically has a shadow. And we didn't see it in October, November, December. They played through it until they eventually hit the wall in the NBA Cup against the Spurs. And since then, they have been a bit of an exhale, a bit of a, we need to regroup here. And it's weirdly coincided with the return of Jalen Lambs, which doesn't really make sense mathematically. But it is certainly affected what was going on in terms of roles, responsibilities, because there's now another mouth to feed in that offense from what I can see. In general, I think they will, they're still playing outstanding defense, and the offense will figure itself out as we go through this next month or so. But I'm going to put a timer for just kind of looking at how sort of the ocean waves are rolling through here. I don't think that they're going to snap out of this magically in the month of January. Let's set a calendar alert for Groundhog Day to check the OKC Thunder price. But we're not going to bet him to win the title.

8:16We're going to bet him to win the West, because there's a lurking monster that could make that serious price in the finals look a little different than I think everybody assumes. And that, of course, is the Boston Celtics who are playing unbelievably well right now on top of now feeling likely that they're going to get back Jason Tatum for a championship pursuit here. So the finals that were promised last year that we did not get because of the Achilles injury to Tatum between the Celtics and the Thunder does feel like it may be on tap this year. And in that world, I'm not even sure what that price is going to be because the path for the Thunder through the West is so much more challenging. Celtics would be if they were at full strike coming through the East. So I'm pretty heavily staked on Celtics East at this point. And I think my paradigm has shifted a bit in terms of how I'm going to attack the Thunder in the future's pool. I don't really have much Thunder at all right now. I am breathing a deep sigh of relief that this swoon has arrived

9:16and that there's a little bit of air coming out of that price. But I think again, like sometime in February is when we jump on Thunder. Okay, I'm with you on the Celtics. I bet the Spurs to win it all. I bet the Spurs Celtics as they didn't even match up. Maybe I will back that up with a Thunder Celtics matchup as well. I just want to my theory at the beginning of the show. I just wanted to throw it out was from the beginning of last regular season through the playoffs, including the playoffs and this regular season. Only McCale Bridge has logged more minutes than SGA. And in fact, SGA has not stopped playing basketball international tournaments in between seasons since the beginning of the 2021 season. He has not stopped playing basketball. I'm just curious. Like, is that not a thing? That absolutely matters. That there's no, there's no world where that doesn't matter. Right. I'm fully convicted.

10:16The most, the most aggressive, you know, kind of effective fatigue that we have on record was the NBA 2021 into 2022 season. And the reason that that was so bad was because the season before backed up into the summer. And then all of the guys played the Olympics that, you know, in that 2021 Olympic window. And then went right into the next season. The fatigue disadvantage was the answer key. That whole season, it was ridiculous. And, you know, I think people do under count what the kind of cumulative effect of playing through the summer internationally is. Now, this year's cycle wasn't as intense as like, you know, a world championship or an Olympic cycle is typically. So I don't know that it's going to have, I don't know that it's going to mean as much, but your point is very valid,

11:18which is someone that even as good as a SGA who is reaching the peak of his powers now at this age, this point of his career is surely running himself into the ground to some degree. And I don't know that that's having a clear and obvious effect on the Thunder broadly or if it's more structural of how they're running their offense. But yeah, certainly they have fallen to last two weeks. The Thunder are the 15th best offense in the NBA, which is a far cry from championship. Asked to be brought up there. More with Drew on the other side is NBA players, Olympics and FL next. You're here because you want an edge. That's what separates listeners from winners, but let's be real. Mindset alone doesn't get bets home. Pros win because they've got the tools, the data and the discipline. And now so can you. Veece and Pro gives you access to the same real time insights the sharps use, no secrets, no fluff, just actionable info that moves markets. Tap the link and see why serious bettors are turning knowledge into profit with Veece and Pro.

12:20Yeah. Numbers game on Veece and these sports betting network. Football meets flavor with Veece and Omaha stakes. The official spots are of tailgating. And right now when you spend $129 you can score two pounds of fully cooked chicken wings, close 50% off side wide at OmahaStakes.com slash VS. I end don't wait spend $129 get two pounds of wings too. And save 50% statewide or site wide part of my own stakes and more. And OmahaStakes.com slash VS I end that's OmahaStakes.com slash Veece and minimum purchase required C site for details. We get tweets beating the book. This is from everybody reacted to Druski. I don't think I got more tweet responses than last week when I brought up grilled wings and how how much better they are than fried. I didn't realize we were like involved in a war. Like I got so many tweets are like you're so right man. Like you got to like you got to keep telling people that it was like I didn't realize there was that big argument over this. A brown dad and jungle Lance has weekly wine discussion with the Drew

13:21must listen segment Chris Heath. Wait, Piedmont, Oregon and they come from France. Chad Lasso. Can you repeat that meal and wine that Drew recommended? I need to impress my girl on her anniversary coming up. And that sounds like the move. Dr. van no strat. Always love Drew's breakdowns. Whatever the subject, but I do wonder how he gets his hair so good while doing so and what appears to be an Amazon river hut. Wow. And John Balduci with the intro. He says John Balduci, Ithaca College. He said Michigan minus 20 sleeper Celtics. Borolo wine of the Nebula grape kind got it. He's log in the show. Mikey Pee as a wine guy myself. I love hearing Drew talk wine. Last week's conversation on Chateau new du pape. I'm saying that correct him probably not. Was awesome. Can't wait for the evolution of this weekly segment. Everybody's pushing it forward. Oh, the Friday deep dive pod. These guys do it. They do it. Yeah, every single week. I can't listen to I've told I've told you I can't listen to anymore. I go to the gym like Friday after the show. I got can't listen to Andy talk about like making prime rib or whatever

14:23outside and whatever wine Drew's going to pair with. I'm going to work out first. Uh, here's what here's what. Yeah, get through. They let you have the bench as we learned. Gamar, uh, loving the weekly wine segments with Drew. Here's the other question. He goes, my wife and I are having a truffle. Oh, no, that's the one I already read. Here was Tim Bowers. I'm sorry. So I saw commercial about the upcoming winter Olympics. I started scratching my neck. It's Chappelle style. And wondering if Drew will have any more of those Olympic picks or is his Olympic specialty limited to the summer Olympics? Oh, no, no, no. Drew Dinsick, kind enough to join us for a second segment here. As he always does, courtesy the progressive guest line again, whale underscore capper deep dive with Andy Molotor, bet the edge with Jay Cratcher. All right, we got to get your NBA picks. We got to get your Olympic thoughts. We got to get your NFL thoughts. Let's rattle through them. First of all, let's get the end. Go ahead. I'm sorry. I was going to say start with the Olympics because I don't have any bets yet. My handicap is about half cooked, but we'll get there for sure. If the listeners may know, I don't know if they know this. I'll be there. I'm going to, I'll be, I'm going to Super Bowl week

15:26in San Francisco for the first half of the week and then flying from there to Italy. So I'll be up in the, up in the Dolomites skin and watching skiing and watching curling and watching the luge. And yeah, I got, I'll have some thoughts for sure. I absolutely bet the winter Olympics. One of the heaviest sweats I had in the last cycle was under four and a half gold medals for France. I did my handicap and I was like, wow. So they're basically just giving that biathlete guy who's like 38. They're just giving, they're just writing him in for gold because there's no other way France is getting to five golds. And I was like, this is an absolute smash under, you know, four and a half France. Well, the margin was very fine because the biathlete did win both golds. And then I caught myself up in the middle of the night watching, you know, because I think it was, you know, the last cycle was Beijing. So the actual action was in the middle of the night much like Australian tennis. And up in the middle of the night watching

16:27at the live feed of ice dancing. And the French pair who was stealing the show had a wardrobe malfunction, which cost them dearly in the scoring and knocked them out of the gold. And I was like, wow, dodge the bullet there. And then it was just a matter of literally finding every French athlete in every random winter sport in week two and making sure that I had that kind of eyes on it. And it came, they ended up at four golds. It came down to the final event of the Olympics, which was side by side snowboarding, racing down the hill. I don't know if you've ever seen this before. So it's like snowboard solemn where they're on the, they're on the same course and they're just racing to the bottom of the hill. And it's just knockout. And this French guy was sun running. And he's 50 to one that he was going to win gold. And he's just knocking everyone out, who's favorite. And I'm like, this isn't happening. Come on, not on the last event, not like this. And he got silver. There you go. I managed to make it through by the skin of my teeth

17:29on under four and a half French golds. John, thanks to thanks to a wardrobe malfunction for the ice dancing team. John Stewart's line about the Winter Olympics. He says less sports than they are drunken dares. The entire thing, which I think is the best line about the Winter Olympics. Real real quick on the your NBA plays today because I want to get to the NFL real quick. What do you have? I don't have much in the NBA today. The only thing that popped from me was Dallas. I don't know if you have been following the Kings. But it looks like Tankathon is on. The Demontes bonus unavailable, Kigamer and the unavailable. No front court speak of it all here for a Kings team is currently 29th rated by my numbers. And if you just go with sort of a heat index power rating, which includes up waiting the last two weeks, they are 30th. Amazingly last two weeks subtracting garbage time there. A minus 16.2, which is absurdly poor. And decent fatigue advantage for the maps on top of it.

18:30So I think the maps when this one going away, and I laid the five and a half. Okay, NFL, the wild card matchups are set when they come out, and you then take your first look at the point spreads in the totals, your first reaction, your most visceral reaction was what? That triggered a bad. Well, we got it. We got to I need a little bit of help here. Much do we want to spoil? Oh, because you're on the Megapod this week. I don't want to listen. Would you just want maybe some thoughts? You're going to go through the whole card. I appreciate what you just did. First of all, let me just say from the bottom of my heart. That's very good. Why don't we do this? Why don't we give thoughts? Because you got four minutes here. Why don't you try to do 30 seconds on every game and hint at what the plays might be? Do your best. Of course, that's that now we're talking. So AFC is as flat as can be, by the way, in terms of future, in terms of power rating. Any of these seven teams, I guess I would be the most surprised with the Chargers, not just because they would have to go on the road to win three in a row, but because they don't have an

19:32offensive line. But the other six teams, like, yeah, I'm not going to be completely shocked if any of them get there. I think it's pretty funny. It's upside down. The Denver has the highest likelihood, because they only have to win two games. But they're pretty clearly like the fifth or sixth power rated team out of this group. I guess I would put them ahead of Pittsburgh and slightly ahead of the Chargers. The Jags Buffalo Bills is the game that interests me the most. Just from an entertainer and standpoint, Jags, you can say the same thing that people have been saying about the Patriots, and that they have played no one. I mean, you can say the same thing about every, pretty much every team in the AFC, because no one's good. So no one has played anyone. And so that kind of context is a little bit lost when people are really kind of whack them all in the Patriots for how weak their schedule is. You know, the Jags are sun running right now. They have been amazingly, amazingly good over the last

20:33was six, seven weeks. They played the Colts twice. They played the Jets. They played the Titans twice. Like they run in was against an exceptionally weak competition. The only tough game was Broncos, which of course they won on the road on the road. And maybe that's enough signal that you need to believe the Jags are a true contender. I do. I kind of, if you said, what price interests you of any of the AFC teams, the Jags are it. I think they match up well against the Bills. I think they match up against the Patriots. And we know they can be Denver and Denver. And there's a world where that's a home game for them. And they're playing one of the Texas or the Chargers. So yeah, it's a really fun AFC playoff picture right now. Worth noting that the Bills run defense is amazingly bad for a playoff team. Worth noting that the Broncos

21:36might just actually go, which I can't believe I'm saying this because I was pretty convicted that they were going to get to the playoffs and lose their first game. But they have an offense that's above the Mendoza line and a defense that might be good enough to win not unlike they did with Peyton Manning, who was a corpse against the Carolina Panthers. Yeah, AFC playoff picture is fascinating to me. And I can't believe how flat it is. The AFC playoff picture to me looks a lot more clear. I, you know, crystallized. I think the Rams are clearly the best team in this group. And the fact that they're the 5C doesn't spook me at all. They can go on the road and win. And I'm not really going to lose any sleep over it. They're getting healthier. And just in general, no one has any matchup for Puke Nakuha in this playoff field that I can see. I think it's being a little bit underappreciated that they're effectively 10 point favorites and they don't have a buy. They have to win a game on the road. But it's, you know, they're pretty clearly into the second round, in my opinion.

22:38And then there are clear flaws with everyone else in that AFC playoff field. So I think we're reliving 2021 where the Rams went to the Super Bowl and played a young, inexperienced Joe Burl and got a win. This feels like part two ring number two for Sean McVeigh. Sean McVeigh having multiple Super Bowl shouldn't shock anyone. And I think you Rams are your bad right now. Drew, love you. Thanks for reserving the sanctity of the Megapod. Appreciate that. You're good. We'll see you then. Thursday beating the book Megapod with Drew Dinsick, Todd Will and myself. Jeff Erickson, next on football. Numbers game on FESEN. These sports betting network. Back on the Numbers game. Live from Circa Resort Casino, downtown Las Vegas, Gil Alexander. Kelly Bidland, you followed me at beating the book on Twitter. Kelly at, uh, Kelly with an E. Bidland with a Y.

23:38We never bring this up. I'm sitting here smirking because I just got a tweet from Sam Jones because hey, KB, listen every day. All the tweets that go is reading from fans. Where do I send those on Twitter or somewhere else? I can't find. Thanks, man. That beating the book. At beating the book. That's right. Speaking of which, I just want to read a couple here. Respect the process as the most, the most watched event in the Olympics will be women's skeleton. Ask Drew. If you know, you know, respect, he's okay. I mean, I guess they don't know, but it's, uh, it's pretty tight clothing that they wear for that. I don't know. I know that was my assumption. And then for all the praise that be stowed upon Drew, can I balance it out with one text, one tweet from Super Jerk? Is that allowed? I got one too. Super Jerk. Super Jerk, by the way, you're allowed to tweet us both at the same time. You can do that. You know, you tag us. No, he don't want to do it. He says, of course, of course, talking about you, we go. So of course this guy went to Duke. He couldn't have gone any place except Duke. My God, do I want a barf? Super Jerk, everybody. But the point counterpoint on all this.

24:41I remember the first, I remember the first time I found out he went to Duke was a, was during a break. This is probably a over, well over a year of me knowing Drew Dinsick. Didn't know where he went school. No, he never mentions it. Never mentioned it. We were in a break talking about something with college basketball. And I was just trashing Duke. And he was sitting set up and it was like, whoa, man, we knew, dude, we knew Drew for years and years and years. We didn't know he wanted to do. We didn't know he's a swimmer, dude. He's believed me. He's the opposite of what Super Jerk is portraying there. How dare you, Super Jerk? Although we look forward to your next tweet. You really do. Ladies and gentlemen, he's the co-founder of Rotawire. Sure, I could read what it says here on the page co-host of Rotawire Fantasy Sports Today. We're on Series X and 87 and also Rotawire Senior Editor. But the man was there when it began. Jeff Erickson joins us now at Jeff with the J underscore Erickson courtesy of Progressive Guest Line from his spot in Southern Cali. How you doing, Jeff? Happy New Year. I'm doing well. Very excited about this playoff weekend

25:41looking forward to the two college football games this weekend as well. We go Thursday through Monday. It's going to be glorious. We're talking about that on yesterday on guessing lines. You know, if I said if if October is my favorite month of sports in sports betting with baseball playoffs going on in football on the weekends, if March Madness has the best two days or four days, is this not the best five day stretch? What's your favorite stretch of sports? I think this is amazing. I think week one of the NFL is amazing too because we have all this fresh powder. We have every team playing. Every most everybody has hope. You still have a bit majorly baseball season and hopefully, you know, in the stretch run of the playoff getting to the playoffs as well. That's another great weekend as well. That's right. First round of the bad Humberg tournament on grass and tennis. That's one of my favorites as well. No two greater words in sports than bad Humberg. All right, Jeff, let's get to it. Wild car weekend. This was a line that I guessed on Monday as Eagles minus four and a half. It was not there at the time. It is there now. You have a thought on this game.

26:43Yeah, I love the Eagles side. I had it at minus five. I do a similar process. It's less formal. It's not on air. But I still try to guess the lines before I see them. And then try to find some angles. It's part of that there. Where am I right? Where am I wrong? But I really feel strongly about this Eagles side. This defense, it's got Jalen Carter healthy again. I think that's one of the big key considerations. The Niners, this has been a great run. Kyle Shanahan's maybe his best job of coaching so far. I'll be it though. He feasted on a pretty friendly schedule. One that we harped on all the way back to the summer. Yes. We were talking about wins totals with the Niners. You know, Kelly can remember that when we did our training camp, our visa and training camp and going back and talking about the Niners schedule. They did a good job with that schedule though, especially in the wake of all these injuries. I think it comes crashing down this week. I saw a preview on Saturday night against the Seahawks. The Eagles are cut out of a similar cloth defensively. And I think it's going to make life really tough for Brock Purti. Really tough for the passing game. And meanwhile, offensively,

27:44you know, I don't they certainly haven't solved anything. But Lane Johnson is going to cut return to practice on Wednesday. And it's a big, big deal with with without Lane Johnson. The Eagles are three and four this year and 18 and 28. Jeff McLean with that stat from the Philly and Quirer. There's just it's a it's a clear with and without serious situation. They get Lane Johnson back. I think it boosts all the Eagles like rushing props. Things of that nature. Yeah, I I took the Niners post the points. I thought it was going to the other way. So I grabbed the three and a half. So I got the worst of that. But I I would not be shocked there. I mean, there's there are games scenarios here where the where the Eagles kind of blow them out. On the other hand, if the Niners figure out a way to win this game and all of a sudden, it's everybody, you know, they'll have Trent Williams and Ricky Pearson for this game. Then Fred Warner is saying I might be back for the next one. So there's that to look forward to if you're a Niners fan. But I'm with you. Can the Eagles flip the switch and become the Eagles again? As they take on the Niners. That's really the great question. And I'll just throw a couple other things too.

28:44No, no, Taden Bethune for the the for the Niners at linebacker. D winners might not play. They're really banged up at linebacker. And I think they're going to exploit it as far as that goes. They need more and her back this week, unfortunately. You have a prop in this game as well. Yeah, I like fading. John Jennings at his I think is 42 and a half on the receiving yards. Last four weeks, the Eagles are number three against wide receivers. Antide ends in terms of limiting fantasy production. I think that carries over to the props. I think it's going to be a tough look for Jennings this week. I don't think he gets super productive in this game. I think they're going to try to force it to kittle a lot. And I think they're going to force it to McCaffrey a lot. I think Jennings will struggle on the outside. And the the Eagles and the Niners are the night or excuse me, are the middle child of the three games on Sunday. The night cap on Sunday is the Chargers and the Patriots, which to me is the most interesting of all matchups. The Patriots against an easy schedule. You just talked about the Niners with easy schedule. Patriots, same deal. Chargers for me again, I think I'm higher on them than most.

29:48The way I put it is, second best quarterback in the AFC, if I give you Josh Allen, third best defense. I feel like they're sort of this forgotten team. Patriots favor by three and a half total is 46. Yeah, this is going to be a rock fight. I really believe in this Chargers defense. You saw what they did against the Chiefs. You saw what they did against the Cowboys, the following week. The Cowboys in Dallas, when they were still harboring playoff hopes, when they still were a high functioning offense, the Chargers went in there and just beat them up in the second half. It was a struggle early on for that team. And that's the one thing about the Chargers is you can beat them with an occasional deep ball. And we know Drake Bay is good at throwing deep balls. So that's one thing to watch a little bit there is, can they get off to the right start? But as the game progresses, the game tends to constrict with the Chargers. They're hard, they're a hard-hitting team. They're going to, I think the patch are going to take a lot of lumps. I like the under totals on this. I like fading a lot of the props. Hunter Henry in particular are there because the Chargers do a really good job

30:50of restricting tight ends. I think their linebackers are quietly some of the best in the business in trying to shut down tight ends. So I'm going to fade Hunter Henry. And I think I want to take the under 46 and a half. I set my own total at 44 in this game. 44 of that one. Okay. You mentioned Hunter Henry. Then receiving yards are going under with him as well. Let's go to the the Steelers and of course the Texas. This is the Monday night game. Steelers get there on just a unbelievable win against the Ravens. What an amazing football game that ends up being with Boswell missing the extra point. Only a second and four years. And then Tyler Loop turns around poor kid misses the 44 yard. People need to go easy on him. Texans were favor by two and a half. It's three now with extra juice. The total is 39 and a half. You are not going side or total. You have a prop in this game as well. Yeah. I do like the under. I did that with Dustin last night. So I want to give you guys something fresh. But I do like the under on that one as well. I think Pat Fryermuth is a guy that the Steelers are going to target regularly.

31:53The Texans do have a little bit of vulnerabilities up the middle a little bit as far as that goes. Tight ends have been pretty productive against them recently. And no Duane Washington on this one here. He's out for the season that broken arm. I think that's a big aspect of that. Fryermuth just being on the field a little bit more. And especially in the two-minute drill. Two weeks in a row now we've seen the Steelers kind of stuck in the mud. And then when they go into a little bit of a hurry up offense, they hit Fryermuth up the middle on a couple of key plays. And I think that's kind of the little bit of a formula for this team. I think they will be chasing in this game. And I think that's one of the things they will be trying to do a little bit more. I do want to check on the status of Kwame Lasseter. Because I think that would affect things on the outside with TK Metcalf. But you know, Lasseter missed the game against the NWK team. But obviously a lot of Houston Texans missed at least half of that game. In the case of Lasseter and Eco Cones, the entire game. So that's something I want to watch for too at the Houston Texans. In the case of Lasseter, he was really actually hurt. So something to watch for there too. But I think Fryermuth is someone that the Steelers are going to have to turn to. They're going to try to move them all against his Texans' stout defense. The way I ask you a Megapod question to close.

32:55And we'll do it for the six games of Wild Card Weekend, which is you live in a bizarre world and you must bet five sides, five different games. But you get one game that you want no part of whatsoever on the side. Which game is that? No part on the side. I think it's Green Bay, Chicago. It vacillates depending on which book you look at. You're seeing one and a half on either side. And I think that's appropriate. I think this bears have shown a couple of different faces in the last couple of weeks. The Packers, who knows when they've been resting their veterans, they've been kind of just trying to heal all their wounds as best as they can, as they were recovering from losing some major players. I'm going to stay away from that game. I'm just going to enjoy it on Saturday night. All right. Last stab at this. Playoffs about to begin. Fourteen teams. Who's in the Super Bowl, Jeff? I can't trust him, Darnell, in a big game. I'm going to go Rams. Probably the Broncos. It's such a, like, I have some serious bonus trust issues. But I think that defense carries the day.

33:57You have to play one last game. That by means so much. Yeah. So much. Jeff always a pleasure. We will see you next week. We'll talk to you next week. Appreciate it. Thanks, Kale. Thanks, Kale. Jeff Erickson, everybody. Right here on the numbers game. We'll come back our power rankings. And a great little chart from Cleave about facing backup quarterbacks next. ล Numbers game on FISA. These course betting effort. Don't forget to check out the sharp plays, unmatched transparency with records updated daily. And I betting analysis. Realtime Global Betting info alerts directly from the pros. Scan the QR code for more sharp plays dot com. Get Alexander. And Kelly Bidlin everybody. Where you can know if you're meet Kelly. you can behold his majestic stride. That's right. Absolutely. What you can do. It's right pronounced arms. I've had a multiple. I mean, it's been over the years.

34:57Not like there's a lot, but multiple listeners that have come up and said, wow, Gilles Wright. Like Gilles Wright. Gilles is very annoyed that I brought that up to you. It's very, it's kind of pronounced arm swing is what we're talking about. I will always circle back. It's one of those things. Yes. I hate you for bringing it up because it is one of those things that you know, we're all like self-conscious about little things. You don't know. You don't know. It's majestic is what it is. You don't know if you do something weird or not. You're like, I know I walk fast. That's an interesting thing, by the way. We make fun of Isaiah Wrinkle or I make fun of him that I can always tell his mood by how Isaiah's walking. I know I'm similar in that in that fact and it is when I get cruising man. So it's why I always talk about like you better watch out. If you're in my way in a casino, I might spin move around you. I might juke step like there's a lot of people are going, oh, look at all the pretty lights. And I got places to be. You are known for your swim moves. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. It's what you bring up an interesting point though. People being unaware of some of their their gate right or the way they laugh or the way they just like

36:00exact type of stuff. And you're like, do I do this a little weird? And then when on national radio when Gil Alexander is like, hey, you walk funny. Like you're like cool confirmed. You're very welcome. Confirmed that great public service. Tim Bowers on Twitter. I think we need I think we need to check the genealogy to see a phasic and super jerk are related. We'll check. We'll get a family. We'll go to the family tree immediately. So glad you read that text. That was so awesome. Do people still do family trees? Eric Pennell. Hope I'm gonna say that. Okay. So great to hear Jeff Erickson say that is I'm holding a Broncos Rams Super Bowl 150 to one bet on June 25th would have felt better about the Rams if they had home field advantage. Jason McKinney happy new year. Provocando Eloso poking the bear. He said I had the colds under win eight and a half and was sweating that was happy to see Notre Dame alum Riley Leonard do well until the pitchy-pitchy-woo woo. Sorry about that. Yeah. That was for people had live bets on that. We got screwed by that

37:00pitchy-pitchy-woo woo. Yeah, that's tough. That's tough. This is what we were going to do this earlier, but I just want to throw up the AFC playoff picture graphic and the NFC playoff picture graphic. Those are to win the conference and to win Super Bowl lots for all the respective teams. We're going to do our power ratings later. And the power ratings the disclaimer on the power ratings is they are not a reflection of what I believe the team's chances are though of winning the playoff of winning the Super Bowl getting to the Super Bowl and winning the Super Bowl because and we'll start with the very first team there. I don't think the Broncos rank very highly in the group of 14. Yeah, but the problem is is that they have a buy in the number one seed, not the problem, but the reality is that. And so while I don't think they're very good, it doesn't matter because they got to play one fewer games. Yeah, one less game. And so, you know, good on them. I mean, I'm going right there with you. I don't have them ranked very highly either, but can I argue with plus two three to win the AFC? Like, no, not really. Because they have that buy

38:03and it's it's who else, too, right? Who's who's the team? Hey, I mean, as Jeff just talked about who's the team? Who's the team? I don't know who it is. JVT and I were talking after the show yesterday. He's he planted something in my brain too. I'm not, uh, not really thrilled about like, man, there's a lot of Jags love, right? A lot of Jags love. Like too much kind of feels like the classic and like, look, the bills are being priced. I think they're being priced a little bit kind of like you've seen my homes and the chiefs in the playoffs, right? Like, you got to buy far the best quarterback. We're going to give you a little extra bump. And all of us betters are like, well, that bumps a little too far. We're going to the Jaguar side. Let's just do it in order. The Broncos with the number one seed and the only team with a buy plus two 30 to win the conference. Plus 650 on the Subaru. All right. Second short is the number two Patriots, number two seated Patriots in the AFC plus three 90 to win the conference. Then you have to go to the number six bills plus four 75 to win the conference. Then it's a tie between the three and five Jags

39:07and Texans at plus five 50. Then it's the number seven chargers at 13 to one and the number four Steelers at 18 to one. We're going to play, let's play the game if we had to make one bet. One bet. Oh, on the board here. Yeah. For the AFC because we'll do each conference. So in the conference. Yeah. This is actually relatively easy answer for me. Uh, I don't think they're, I'll say mine first. It's the Jags. I did bet on him this week. Like I think they are the most informed team right now is drew laid out though. They've played some easy opponents. It's not a bet I'm making. I'm not super confident in any one of these teams. It's the Jags or the chargers for me just on the number. I thought you'd say chargers. Yeah. Just because the number the number so far out there at 13 to one. And again, I can they lose this week? Of course they can. But I just feel like Jim, I just feel like this could be a run. It'd be Jags and then Texans actually be second for me. Yeah. Both plus five 50. You're right. The plus five 50. They're going to play the stealer. I'll tell you who it's not. It's not the Steelers and it's not the bills and it's not the Patriots. Yeah.

40:08Given the prices, given the situation. Yeah. That Patriots Chargers game is so fascinating this weekend. I can't, I cannot wait to watch and obviously I have bets on it. So I have a rooting interest, but I can't wait to see how that goes. There's a lot of those, man. Like I'm with Jeff. I just ended up just in it. I teased up the bear's side too. So I have the bears and the packers both teased up. I think that game's going to be fascinating. We've already seen them split twice. NFC playoff picture, by the way, a little more straightforward, but not really because the Rams are the five seat and they sort of pollute the whole thing, right? The Rams are the Seahawks because they have the buy or the short shot plus one 55. The Rams then the five seat aren't right behind that plus two 25. Eagles, third at plus four 75. They're also the three seed. Then it just drops off a cliff. Two seeded bears 11 to one, seven seed packers 12 to one, six seeded nine is 15 to one, and the four seed Panthers, the eight nine Panthers 65 to one. Oh, man. This is. So if I had to, if I had to, it'd be Rams.

41:13Oh, I don't think there should be that being a price difference between Rams and Seahawks. It's a Rams or Eagles. And that's the thing with the Eagles, man. If the Eagles made a run here and got back to the zoo world, would you be shocked at all? I'm so glad you were to dig exactly like that. No, not at all. Not at all. Not at all, Gil. Would I be shocked though on the other hand if they went out and scored nine points this week and lost miserably? No, because they haven't showed us this whole season. I bet the Niners. This whole season that they can put this together game after game offensively and defensively. I want to see Brock Pretty doing the duggy. I'm actually surprised that Eagles price is that short. I didn't really look. Yeah, plus 475 on the Eagles to win the conference. All right, NBA, because we talked NBA would drew briefly. He didn't have much in the NBA. You? Yeah, it's a, it's a pretty ugly betting card. I have won this evening as well. I would say I would got pretty close to betting his debt. What he was on the maps, he said, right? He was laying the points of the maps. I got pretty close to that as well. The Sacramento team is well, but they have tackled being back in the line up to now too. So I'm kind of waiting to see how that pans out.

42:17Drew might be right though. They might be fully fully in tank mode and also keeping on some bonus. They might move him as well before the trade deadline. They got some interesting to watch with that team. My one play tonight though. This is a gross one. I bet them last week for the first time all season and they did not cover the Washington Wizards as we discussed earlier in the show. On the wizard side tonight at home catch in seven and a half against the Orlando magic since December 12th, Washington Wizards are six and six straight up eight and four against the spread 23rd best at rating in the NBA, but guilty. Usually they're 29, they're 30. Hey, so that's an improvement. Meanwhile, the Orlando Magic. Man, they just can't, they can't get any consistency with these injuries. He got jail and Sugs. Looks like he's going to be out of this game again. He just keeps getting banged up and he's such a good player, but they're five and six in that team. Same time span of minus 4.7 net rating real bad worse than the Washington Wizards. A 21st and offense, 22nd and defense. There's a struggle to find consistency right now.

43:18Four and 12 ATS in the last 16 games, one and seven on the road. So like Washington tonight, playing it plus seven and a half, not running to back the Washington Wizards with a ton of cash, but do like that one today, not to behave like a squirrel and be distracted by everything here, but I'm looking at a mock draft put out by Jordan Reed NFL now again. Oh, Jordan Reed on ESPN.com has the Raiders going for Nando Mendoza one, the Jets going Dante more the quarterback from Oregon to Cardinals going Francis, Francis Maui Goa, Maui Goa, sorry, the offensive tackle from Miami at three Titans going Arvel Reese line back from Ohio State at four and the Giants going Carnell Tade wide out from Ohio State at five. We have the number one, but there's a draft order, by the way, Cleveland at six Washington seven New Orleans eight Kansas City nine Cincinnati 10 current draft order. And the odds for the number one pick in the draft for Nando Mendoza now is a big favorite.

44:21And I think it is justified. He's minus 500 Dante more who Reed just had slated number two plus four 25 everybody else 22 to one or longer. I think it's Mendoza man. I really do. Raiders quarter back meaty. And what has Mendoza done, but just been awesome. Yeah, he's been great. I mean, this is I wonder how much of this odds movement is like people like here. It's just that getting to watch both these guys, especially more Mendoza like this past week and seeing the differences in the games. Man, Mendoza look good. He's great, but look, would I bet it at that number? Absolutely not because NFL teams have a way of changing their mind between the end of the college for both season and the draft in April. They think themselves and all kinds of pickles. So I wouldn't bet at that number. That's for sure. Our power ranking next.