Adam Levitan of Establish The Run

On this week's Bet the Process podcast, we have Adam Levittian from the established the run service. And we also talk a little bit of recap on the college football championship. And I quote a lot of lines incorrectly. And so with that, let's start the process. Bet the process is not that typical cookie cutter nonsense. If you came just for pictures in the wrong place find a town with the narrative to make a strong case. Instead of applying the assume and a team must be tanking. We're looking for the edge of messy P body rankings, crunching all the numbers in the simulation system, the break down the data analytically driven media coverage is Burt's camera is pathetic. Welcome to another episode of the process podcasts where Rufus is in Las Vegas. I am in I am in the most wonderful place in the world Orlando or the most. You know, you know, you know, I was last weekend. Where suburban Cleveland. So I mean, why are you in suburban. Not far behind Orlando. Why are you in suburban Cleveland? Why was I? Yeah, I was there for the National Squash League draft. What are you? Are you in the league? Are you do you have a team or what? No, no, Eli's well, Eli's owner of one of the teams. Are you really? Yeah, it's pretty cool. We're going to have to talk. We can both talk about like we can both talk about sports team owners. By the way, did you see that Cheetah was on risk of ruin? The most recent episode of risk of ruin is Cheetah and he did it because he heard Cheetah on our on our episode. And he's fascinated by the concept of a Mormon gambler. That's a good thing. I mean, I'm definitely risk of ruin is is is my favorite. It's good. It covers the crawly town stuff and it covers Cheetah and his journey. It's good. It's really well done. Yeah, I mean, I I enjoyed it and that that obviously if any of you guys don't listen to risk of ruin, you should because it's awesome. It's a fantastic podcast. Yeah, absolutely. And they're not. I'd call it right. What's up? Would you call it a narrative podcast? Is that the? I'd call it a good podcast as opposed to this one. But it's like it's it's more produced than it's, you know, I mean, that's so that's hard to believe. So much more produced. Right. I mean, that's why point it's it's a deal. Literally, I think I made 17 when we got Adam on it. I think I made 17 like pre preview that I make like 17 wrong assumptions about lines because I'm looking at the wrong stuff and my memory shot. Anyways, um, college football championship thoughts. Oh my god, dude. Okay, my portfolio was looking so freaking good at halftime there. You had under I had a bunch of I had a bunch of alt unders to yeah, and I ended up getting like smoked in that second half. Like literally I was looking at my college portfolio and it went down 200 that it went down $200,000 in the second half from where it was at halftime. But um, but in D and a one, which is nice. And so we we still do have any Miami position in the game because I ended up betting Miami. Like, remember, we were like, what will I end up doing? Well, I end up betting more and I and I actually put on a Miami plus eight and a half position. So I ended up middle. Appositions. My positions were kind of all over the place there in terms of what my number was it really came down to what you made home field advantage because Miami was playing at home like a typical a neutral field game there. I would have made Indiana minus eight and a half. But, um, a typical Miami home game there would have been. Like five point six five. Well, and I would that was with giving Miami full 100% attendance there. And so the icon of was like, let's see, let's kind of estimate how much the crowd is going to be Miami versus Indiana and get that is sort of a rough approximation and then manipulate the attendance numbers to get a good home field and then they. Do you think there is much of a home field? I would to be honest, I wasn't paying that much attention to the noise levels. I don't know. What do you think? I kind of like was watching it out. So I didn't hear the commentary or whatnot. So, but my perception was that like there probably wasn't that much of a home field. But I am. I mean, there was a red section of the like Indiana seems like they traveled really well. Yeah, surprisingly, you know, I would have I would have guessed before the game. It might have been like 7525 Miami, but I think it was probably a little closer to 7550. But, but so basically I settled it settled the number that was like Indiana minus 6.8 6.9. And then yeah, like I was I was on some Miami. I had a lot of Miami like alt stuff like Miami to win like, regard well around Miami like winning the game or even winning a blowout. So Miami like blown out Indiana. It wouldn't have been it would not have been bad for me, but. I was also able to like kind of I was trying to find ways to sort of hedge in pos in more interesting positive UV ways on the Indian a future and one of them was some of these like pre populated parles on on call she like I had I had a parlay of well, I guess it was in like the know on Indiana to win by over seven and a half and the game to go over 40 and a half for example, I had a no on Indiana winning in the game going over because I really liked the under in the game. So I think a lot for me a lot of it was centered around. I still, by the way, even though it lost, I still really like the under. Yeah, well luckily those pre populated parles were like used 48 and a half and so like and the price was like accordingly the price was different right like so I'm, you know, but but that was nice that it got me some that it wasn't a complete, complete loss there and I still by the way, do you do you think that his decision to kick a field goal there was the right decision. At the end of the game, yeah, yeah, I do. Why although I thought that the decision to not be more aggressive on, on like second, well, on third down maybe I wanted to see I was like are we going to see a quarterback run on third down. Obviously I didn't want him to kick a field there for for the odd purposes with the totals but like, you know, I do think it, I mean you have a good defense and you make Miami go the length of the field. Miami as a good kicker with range like, I don't know and I think you can your defense there I this isn't, you know, it's not the NFL. I think it was a really bad decision. What did you think of the decision to go for it on fourth and five when they're up three in I thought it was I think that was 100% the right decision the difference we talked about the difference we're going to three point lead in a six point lead. We've talked about that in the NFL. Why is this any different. Well, kickers, well, in general, kickers aren't as good in college so it's not the. Yeah, but you just said he had they have a good. I mean, I think this is no law this high level. I don't think it's any different. I think this was a bad decision you because and again, like, signati is an awesome coach and makes the right decision almost all the time. It's like fourth and five right four than four. It was it was not a it was not a small amount. It wasn't it wasn't insured. Yeah, I agree that it wasn't insured, but again, and I think your point that you're saying is even more what I'm saying too, which is like he just should have been more aggressive like on the previous place like they they got that second down this first down run was for a lot. And then they got that fall start and then they like that. I'll start. It killed them or I mean, yes, it killed them. I think the fall started at the time because I was like if they can get a first down on third down the game's over. Yeah, that's the same thing that I felt too. And I was worried because obviously I was holding eight and a half. I was worried about them scoring a touchdown. Yeah, I touched down would have been deaf because I would have lost both the under and and the hedge that I had done. So yeah, I mean, I did you think that they were going to lose when Miami started driving? Crazy. I thought they were going to know I was sort of like I mean, like me, Miami had a few big plays on offense in the second half, but I kind of thought that I felt pretty confident with the Indian defense there. I don't know and Carson back a quarterback. Well, Carson back a quarterback is the thing for me. I will be a Carson back hater for the duration. That was a tough situation with no time out there. I will say these college teams like aren't. I don't trust them as much in sort of these like two minute drills is NFL teams. I mean, if you look, yes, there's more port scored in college and all that and there's more quicker drives overall. But if you look at like, like, for example, you could look at the score in the last two minutes of the first half props and stuff like that. It's kind of like guaranteed generally you're going to get a score there in college. It's much more like given the toe. That was that was some less like a Marrow, Chris the ball magic at the end of that first half. Sorry. What he did at the end of the first half kind of settling for that field goal and trying to manage time that way. Yeah, yes, and now I mean like you like you. you like like making sure there's no other possession there? Yeah, I think teams don't do that enough. I agree. You know what I mean? Because it's literally like, you know, if you score a touchdown, sure, but like, I mean, make it so give yourself a chance to score a touchdown if you can. But like also don't give the other team up possession where they can do something. I think it's more again, I think it's bigger than the NFL. And I think that, so you know, he got the ball back and was that it was with. I think he was a little upset about the play calling and. It seemed oddly conservative there. Yeah. I mean, he was, he seemed content being up 10 points almost. But it's not like Indiana's a team that really has has turned over, his turnover prone at all. They've like lost one fumble all year, right? It's something insane. Crazy. All right, let's welcome in Adam Levittan from the ETR established the run. Is there a service, their service? Get service. Establish the run dot com dot com service. So and we'll talk to you guys all again next week. We now welcome in Adam Levittan to the about the process podcast. Adam, welcome. Hi, how are you guys doing? Good. A lot of our seven listeners, maybe a couple are not familiar with your work. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do. Yeah. Whenever people ask me that, I'm always say, uh, when normal people ask me that, I'm like, Oh, I'm in predictive analytics. And then they never ask me another question. It's easy. The answer for this audience is more like I founded established the run or co founded established the run and where, you know, hyper focused on player level projections is the bottom line. When did you guys start? Because obviously like that world has become very big now. How long have you guys been around? Yeah, we had no idea. We started this in 2019. We're just, you know, kind of fantasy guys trying to play DFS at a really high level and make the best possible player projections for that. Once sports betting and pass by and all that, uh, cantalegalization, uh, people were clamoring for our numbers to be released for things other than DFS and, uh, fantasy, which, you know, kind of took us off guard and that's one thing that, you know, I'm not really a businessman or anything, but one thing that I've learned from doing this is. There's always something like around the corner. There's always like a pivot coming and being able to do that stuff, I think is important. When the good, good, no, go ahead. I was going to say, what have the, what have been the challenges in growing? I mean, I know we've talked about in the past, like, you know, the problem, the, the difficult thing is once your projections kind of become mainstream and, and a lot of people have them. Does that, does that make it more difficult and, and have you, or his, the expanding market due to like prediction markets really helped? Yeah. At this point, I have no idea what people do with our numbers. Like, you know, if you told me somebody's going on an exchange and, and making a ton of money on some prediction market or exchange, uh, posting our lines, I, I have no idea. Uh, people have all these crazy PPH outs and, and who knows what else clearly? There's a huge cohort of people that find us that are very happy to get down 20 or 50 or $100 on a prop. Uh, on some legal and then there's a smaller, but, uh, still significant cohort of guys or people that want to bet as much as they possibly can. Um, and don't aren't interested in anything that's up on legal. They only want to talk about what's on PPH or builder or, or whatever else is going on, uh, there in props. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's changed all that stuff. A ton for sure legalization and lately the prediction markets too, I suspect. How much does your work influence the market? I mean, we have the, the classic thing that, you know, once she's, when you're good at something, you influence the market so much that it becomes not valuable to the, the people who pay for it anymore. Do you see that problem? Yeah. I mean, we release our NBA full stat numbers at 5 p.m. And I think, uh, 5 p.m. Eastern daily and I think relatively quickly, uh, the market goes to where we are at. I think it's less so in NFL where there is so many more market participants and I think it's a bit more liquid. I, uh, suspect, but yeah, I mean, that's why we do everything on a week to week basis. Like, if you can't get down, if you lose your outs, if you think we're not winning for whatever reason, like just quit, you know, it's, it's, it's, uh, we, we tell people all that time. Just, just quit, uh, you know, it's only week to week. So, so yeah. But we saw, like the main reason that we do all this stuff is still for fantasy and for DFS. That's still like the core reason that that we're doing all this stuff and all this other stuff is just kind of come along. Secondarily. So I mean, especially with fantasy and DFS, like the distribution stuff is so important, right? Like, as you can have a mean projection, it's the same for two guys and the tails could look, could look very different. Um, and, and I think that's another source, especially, uh, with legalization and all these ults being offered by legal books and prediction markets. Like there's a lot of opportunities there. And so how, um, how do you attack that? Um, and maybe we can even start talking a little bit about, you know, this weekend and, and having a quarterback playing for your hometown team. The Broncos who hasn't played a snap in, but three years, something like that. Yeah. Um, this has gone way over my head. You know, I'm not a stats guy like, uh, Rufus at all. We have gotten to the point where to stay ahead of the market. We need a full team of Rufus like people. So we have a lot of people smarter than me. We need a lot of people, uh, because the market, I mean, undoubtedly the props market has gotten so much more competitive. And the fantasy market has as well. So we have like a five person full time data side team. We also have contractors on projects. We also have like a 10 person team of quote unquote NFL ball knowers who are working on the inputs. What percent of the routes will Kishon booty have this week versus, uh, pop Douglas. Um, what percent will Zach Sharbinay? I'm sorry. What percent what Kenneth Walker have versus zero. For Lonnie play zero zero zero zero zero percent for Zach Sharbinay. Uh, no. So, uh, so yeah. If you know, when we, when I got into this, if you told us, if you told me how much money we'd be spending to model and work on the sim and work on all the inputs for the mean projections that go into the sim for the distributions, I'd be like, we shouldn't do this. It's just, it's just too expensive and it's too complicated. There's too many people, but that's kind of I think where you're at now to stay ahead of the market, which sounds crazy because props used to be, you know, obviously so so much easier to beat. They used to just be that the under. Yeah. I mean, one of one of the, one of the lessons that I think over the last couple of years that we've learned on, or people that've learned on this on the show was a little bit about this understanding of distribution because ultimately like if you think about what Judah does when he comes on and talks about all some things like that, he's implying that these distributions are not, you know, are not normal and what not. So how much edge do you think comes from that? And do we think that sportsbooks are, you know, because ultimately the, the theory would be that sportsbooks are just assuming similar distributions for every player. And that's why there's edges or similar distributions like they're kind of modeling this in a simplistic way. Do we, do we think that's still true or are they starting to adjust? Uh, I think they have started to adjust. I still think that the like some of the biggest edges that you find maybe are partly distribution, but also still like just recency bias stuff. You know, and we can talk about that with the Rams and the way the Rams played on Sunday, which actually caught me by surprise. They went to a ton of three wide receiver sets instead of what they did all season, which was multi tight end sets, two tight end, three tight end and like, why did they do that out of the stone blue? That's like not something you can model. And that's not something you can model, whether they go back to it, uh, this, whether they go back to heavy tight end this week, I think they will make they came out and said afterwards, he thought he made a mistake with the game plan. They have all their tight ends healthy here. I think he was trying to get more bears cornerbacks onto the field. And therefore went more three wide receiver sets, 91% of the snaps were three wide receiver sets. But like this is the kind of stuff where I think the biggest edges are, do you think that we should have mumfield, uh, for more routes in this game, then Parkinson, like it was last week, or should we flip it back? And I think that's kind of where more ball knowing edges are and then get that into the sim and get the distributions from there and find some more edges there and just trying to stack edges on both ball knowing and modeling. I mean, I agree with that that it like I was honestly, I had a really tough time modeling out trying to figure out what the Rams, um, what the snap percentages and tar in route percentages were going to be just given the fact you had all three tight ends healthy again. You had you had who was it that returned the wide receiver, I mean, you had at well playing the last few weeks before and, um, I mean, it was kind of like you had everybody healthy again. It was like a saver Smith can they actually see the field at all, um, but winning him played a little bit of a role that I didn't see happening and what's that, yeah, winning time would whatever tyrone. No Jordan. Tyrone willing him was on the field. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but wait, I mean, I feel like when I go through this stuff, I'm like, it's less like, oh, let's apply this decay function overall. And it's more like let's try to figure out what's representative and where there's like a shift and it feels like so different from like the way I used to do it where. Just because you kind of have to and like we you have more data here disposal like before when I when I was doing this back in like 2008, 2009. and way back when, you know, I don't have snap count percentages. Like I'm literally just like, okay, this is what this guy sees an average was, we'll decay it this much like for his, you know, what percentage of the team's targets he got and like it's, I mean, it's, it feels like there's, there's levels of complexity that I still haven't gotten to yet that, you know, I mean, you can look at defenses in like, man zone, you can look at route types and expectations off of those, like it's, it's kind of a, it's an onion. There's always another layer to peel back. - Can we talk a little bit about that game last week with the Rams? Was that game more conditions or Rams, or bears defense? Because obviously the Rams often struggled score in a way that we really haven't seen them this year. - I don't think the Rams offense has played well for a while is the thing in that. I think that's kind of one of the reasons that McVeigh changed it up from personal perspective. I didn't think the Rams played particularly well on offense against the Panthers in the wild card round. In week 18, they went all out against Arizona. I don't think they played that well for much of that game. Week 17, in that Monday night game against the Falcons, their offense wasn't great either. So it has been a while since the Rams offense played well. So yeah, I think conditions played a factor there, clearly. Like you start stacking all these weather conditions, a little bit of wind, a lot of cold, a little bit of snow. And obviously it had an impact on the game. So yeah, I think they'll play much better here on offense, but I think one of the stories of this weekend is Rams offense, maybe not playing as well lately as they have on the balance of the season. And Broncos defense, not playing as well lately, or really since the buy as they have on the balance of the season. And Stafford hasn't looked particularly good at all the last few weeks. Right. Especially for a guy that was a shoe-in for MVP. Yeah. Is he? Is he a shoe-in? I don't know. My take is he will. I'm not saying I think it's really close who should win. I think from an analytics profile, Drake May clearly deserves to win. I think that Stafford-- people are like, oh, Stafford has Devante Adams and Sean McVey and Puccane to go. Well, to my opinion, those guys have Stafford. Stafford has elevated everyone around him for a long time, including obviously Calvin Johnson. But I'm talking about guys like Golden Tate and Marvin Jones. And you get guys off the street that Stafford comes in and has some really incredible seasons with. So I think Stafford deserves a lot of credit for what the Rams did last year. But if you wanted to vote for Drake May on the efficiency and analytics profile, I'd be fine with that. Also, I do think Stafford will win just because these voters, a lot of them just think, ah, Drake May has another 15 years to win MVP. I'm going to give this one to Stafford. And I think too much of that goes into the voting. But that's like, I bet a lot of this award stuff. So I think of it through the lens of these voters are not thinking like we are about Drake May's EPA per dropback and stuff like that. I mean, he's trading it. Stafford's trading it like 87. You can buy it 88 cents on the college sheet. And it's been 27 million total traded on that market. That's kind of insane, isn't it? Yeah. Really popular markets. Really, if you're good at this stuff, like those markets are more liquid than people realize the awards markets overall. I bet Philip Rivers not to be come back player of the year at one point. That's good, bet. Thanks. So going into this week's games, the Rams and the Seahawks, going into the playoffs, if you had guessed this line, it probably wouldn't have been what it is right now. Do we agree with this line move or what would have been about that? You think Seattle would have been favored by Mort? No, I think we could have been favored by Mort. What's up? Which game are you talking about? Seattle. Seattle. Yeah, you would have-- I don't know. I feel like I thought it would have been somewhere around here probably. I feel like Seattle and Rams are kind of like the co-best teams in football. Yeah, but they played in Seattle during the regular season. And the Rams were favored by what? Three points or something like that. So the Rams were favored by three in Seattle. Yeah, the Rams were favored in that game, I thought. I mean, how long have you been was that? That was week 16. Devante Adams didn't play in that game either. I don't remember what the closing line was on that game. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm misremembering. Let me look. I think you would have been Seahawks minus three. Yeah, I think that the line I thought-- I don't really look at sides or totals or anything like that at all. The line I thought made sense to me from the perspective of the public is not going to want to pile in on the Rams after they struggled against the Panthers and the Bears. Two teams that I don't think anybody is overwhelmed by their qualities. So yeah, I thought the line was roughly right. I thought maybe something that from an injury perspective that people aren't thinking about too much on this game. Seattle's first string, second string, and third string left tackle are all hurt. Charles Cross has a foot injury. He left the game early. Last week, Josh Jones is the back up. He was hurt in a Mari Kite, the third stringer. He got hurt. He's not practicing either. And then their best pass protection backs, Zach Charbonne. He's obviously out for this game too with that torn ACL. So from that perspective, we know Darnal struggles with pressure. We know the 49ers are incapable of pressure. Darnal looked good last week. I thought on just 19 dropbacks. If I'm the Rams, I'm just going to blitz on constantly here, especially off that left tackle spot, and especially without Charbonne in there. So I think that's a factor in the game. I don't know if that's how much that matters to the line. But yeah, I mean, I think it's at least notable that they're very banged up in pass protection or the Seahawks here. Is the range of outcomes for Darnal just way greater than for this game than it would be typically? Because it's like-- And this is just anecdotally, it feels like he is a rhythm passer, where if he feels comfortable, he can just pick a part of defense, but if he is, and he can-- I mean, we've seen it. I mean, that is clear on pressure rate. Darnal is one of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL when he is under a lot of pressure. I also think there's the whole narrative, which-- I don't know if you've tried to quantify Rufus, it's hard. But big game, Darnal has not been good. In other words, in the biggest spots, Darnal has often melted down. I know, like, for golf stuff, you've looked at, like, hey, on Sundays, the guys choke off leads and stuff like that. I don't know how you would even quantify this really in the NFL, but that's the narrative round Darnal that in big games. He melts down-- I think it's more when he is pressured. He melts down, and that's why the left tackle stuff concerns me at least a little bit. And we said going into the-- That's a big game. Right, but is it just being pressured more? Well, no, but we said going into last game, remember, we said this is a perfect situation for him, because the Niners can't get pressure. And they tried. I mean, they sent guys, and Darnal did react relatively well. But I think when you have to send that many guys to get pressure, it's not that hard, ultimately. And I don't think the Rams are going to need to send as many guys. The one thing we know-- if you talk about the Rams a little bit, the regression has been offence and a little bit on pass coverage. But certainly, their pass rush has still been there, I think. So they're going to be able to get pressure with my guess. I just rechecked that the line was 1 and 1/2, C-Hawks in that game. So what are the sort of second order effects of the left tackle injuries for the C-Hawks and Charbonne out? Are there-- did the C-Hawks do anything different to try to protect him? Are there bringing more guys like more max-protect sets? Or-- Yeah. I mean, they have not-- I thought the trade for a sheet to heed at the deadline would actually be like a difference maker for them. I thought they needed someone like that to stretch the field and use him a ton. They have not. Anyways, Cooper Cup continues to run more routes. Then Rashid Shaheed, at least on offense. Shaheed has had an awesome impact on special teams, but not real and offense. So if they want to go to more two wide receiver sets here and get into more protection for Darnold, I could see that. Also last week, we only got-- Darnold only dropped back 19 times. I mean, they were all over the 49ers in this game. It's not like Darnold was tested at all. So like the big game stuff, he never really felt the pressure of a big game. They were just coasting the whole time. He only dropped back 19 times. So yeah. Any thoughts, either of you guys on the line in this game and over the total? I mean, I make it a little higher. I make a see-hawks of a bigger favor. I think the see-hawks are the better team. Again, this isn't factoring in the injuries and the matchup, but I would have made it closer to like four or an half. If you look at their two games, the Seattles moved the ball well on them. They've just had turnovers. That's been the issue with them in terms of-- so I think there's going to be a lot of scoring in this game personally. The line would be only being 42 and a half things low to me. Sorry. Sorry. I'm looking at that last game. I don't know what this current one is. Sorry. I don't have-- 46 and a half is actually the line. So that is more representative. Let's still light the over. Yeah. I don't have a take on the line or the total, but I figured, give the seven listeners a little bit of value. We have mean for Kenneth Walker receiving ours. Mean, we have 23.7 median 19.0, and there's some 24 and a half south there. So that would be my favorite bet on this game. if you don't want to mess with the side in the total. If you want to root for unders in player props, which every time I tweet about this, people tell me they don't want to root for unders, it's too boring, but yeah. That's the best. - What do you think Seattle will see? - We'll see, I don't mix anyone else in. - Yeah, so George Alani has not played since week 12. I thought that they thought Halani would be a decent prospect for him when Walker and Sharma and he were both healthy. They actually gave him a couple carries, meaningful carries in games earlier this year. He's been out for so long. I don't know that they're gonna activate him and play him here. If they don't, Vellus Jones will probably be the backup. They also have KM acres. I think they want to use Kenneth Walker for as much as possible though. And if Kenneth Walker got up to 80% of the snaps in this game, 85%, that would not shock me at all. But these days, all that stuff's priced in. I mean, everybody knows that Kenneth Walker's gonna have a really big role here and you get some outsized numbers on him here, I think in the market. - Is there any great way? - I'm looking right now at Walker's, like his route percentage relative to his past snap percentage basically and it doesn't look like he's in past coverage a lot. - Yeah, I mean, they're past protection a lot, sorry. - Exactly. And so anytime they were in past protection, it's been sharp, they clearly prefer sharp, and I mean, so much bigger and so much better in past protection. So yeah, it's definitely a story here. How much will Kenneth Walker be on the field in true passing situations if he's gonna be asked to pass block or pick up blitz on some of them? - Yeah, I'm literally looking and like he's, like Kenneth Walker is, I don't think he said a game where he's had more than three snaps in past protection. Like that's, yeah, Sharma is the guy there. - Yeah. And Sharma is the guy in short yardage, which you know, all the fantasy people know 'cause it's very frustrating to watch Kenneth Walker shred and then Sharma and they come in and voucher. But yeah, Walker definitely a better bett to score and he's gonna touch down this week than he has, than he's been previously. - Is there any concern about like Walker usage 'cause I'm assuming like one of the reasons that they've always been, you know, tried to limit his usage as his injury and he isn't the biggest back. You have any concerns? I mean, he, I was handled the ball a lot last game and then comes back, you know, a week later and they're gonna give him the ball a ton of it again. - Yeah, I mean, we see this all the time in the NFL, I think where people like us want the dynamic player to play more and coaches want the success rate, guy that reliable, got to play more. I think what Mike McDaniel did with H&N is a perfect example. Like you wouldn't think Devon H&N is in every down back, can play 80, 90% of the snaps, turns out that he can and I think C-Ox will be willing to find out here on Walker, especially in like a one game, huge NFC championship. - All right, move on to the other game. What do we do instead of you have, are you a Broncos fan? Do you have any hope for this game? - I'm not a fan, but I, I, so Jared Stinem is Sean Patens guy. The first move that Sean Paten made when he came to Denver was to sign Jared Stinem. Now he saw Jared Stinem for a year and he decided to take Bonaix 12th overall. So it's not like he was like, oh my God, we have our guy, we have Jared Stinem, he still took Bonaix 12th overall. I think if you wanna see what Jared Stinem is capable of, I tweeted a video of his first career start, which was against the 49ers end of the 2022 season. Niners were playing their starters. Niners had a very good defense that year. And Stinem just shredded them, 365 yards, free touchdowns took no sacks. That's what he's capable of. Since then, he's had three more NFL starts. I don't think he's, you know, look particularly great in any of those following three, but has at least been capable. Like I would call him a top sevenish backup in the league. And I say that without a lot of confidence 'cause he only has four NFL starts. Now I don't think that Sean Payton's gonna change the game plan a ton. We have mild docs on pass rate. We have mild docs on how many plays they will get off. But in terms of efficiency, like Bonaix already was not the most efficient quarterback. It's hard to get lower on Stidem efficiency here. So I thought the line moved, you know, - With efficiency in a way. Like all of the like, complete percentage and yards per attempt stuff, all like the core kind of. - You don't think he'll be my tour, sir? - I don't. I mean, but I never thought that mixed would be great here in that spot either against the Patriots defense. And yeah, that's another story of this game that like, well, I'll stick on Stidem for a second. Stidem, I also think the Broncos and Sean Payton will have confidence. Stidem was unreal in the preseason. Like maybe the best quarterback that we saw this preseason for what that's worth. So I think a lot of confidence in him. I think he'll be competent. I think the line moved too much, but I don't have like numbers like Rufus might on what Nick's versus Stidem should be worth to the line. - I mean, I don't either. It's hard. Like, I mean, you can have. - Well, what would you have made the line with Nick's? - Rufus. I don't know because I didn't make it, but I think it, I would have had the Broncos is like, I mean, I would have had the Broncos is like three to four points better than they are now. Maybe we'll hire that. Like I have the Broncos is a below average team now. - You can't run your numbers for what it would have been for what if Nick's was playing. - Oh, I can, I just haven't. I just didn't. I did not know that this would be the question. - You didn't know that we would talk about the NFC, the AFC championship game. - Wow. - You know, I'm close to it. - You didn't know we would talk about what would actually gonna happen, which is still not playing, not next play. - Yeah, but the, so the narrative that everyone's talking about is, oh, the line moved too much, right? - I agree. - In order for us to understand how much the line moved, we, you understand what it would have been, right? So the question is, and I think that's the thing that everyone's kind of arguing about, was this a, you know, like, 'cause it opened it like five and half six, right? And it's down to four and a half now. And was this, you know, how much of a line moved was this? If it was, would the Broncos have been favored by, you know, one and a half to three points? And I'm in this NFL chat with some sharp betters. And they actually said they thought the line would have been even with Nix, or they would have made the line even with Nix. So then it's only what, a four or five point move, which is essentially what you're saying you think it is, right, Rufus? The difference? - Yeah. - Yeah. My take is that the line is not only due to the quarterback stuff, but Denver's defense has sprung a ton of leaks over the last, really, really since the buy. And to me, that's the second biggest story of the game behind Nix. And I think why the line has kind of moved, maybe more than people think that it should. They got shredded by Jordan Love, by Josh Allen last week, by Trevor Lawrence. They continue to make big plays. It's like an awesome pass rush, but like they're giving up 5.8 yards per play, 5.7, 5.5. You know, it's like their defense has not been lights out. And I don't know, man, at this point, if I was just playing this game real life, I might want Patriots defense more than Broncos defense. I mean, since Patriots got Mil Williams and Robert Spalainback, they've been awesome. And so, yeah, to me, that's like a big concern for the Broncos here, is your defense going to get outplayed by Patriots defense on top of all the stadium stuff? - Do you have a pointy-boo on the game, Rufus? - By the way, Jeff, I kind of agree. I would have made it, I would have made it Broncos minus one that looks like before. And I have a movement of 4.5 points for Nix over Stim. - Thank you, Rufus, for-- - There you go. - Very sharing your announcement with us. - I mean, so I make the number of New England minus 3.7. - Right. Which way do you think this line will go? It's 4.5 right now. You know, obviously it came down from 6.5 and a half to 4.5. You guys see it moving? One more video. - I think you can go down. I mean, I don't think New England has been, I mean, they've. Yes, they've, I mean, I'm trying to think about trying to remember the game last weekend. But I don't think they've been a world beater. And I don't think, honestly, I don't think Drake, maybe I just had really high expectations of what Drake may would be. But I don't think he's played his two best games in the so far in the playoffs. And I could be very wrong. - Well, he definitely has it, right? - Yeah. - Adam, he probably have the stats, which is like turnovers and-- - Oh my God. - He's fumbled six times in two games. He now has 14 fumble, 14 fumbles on the season, which is Lee Kine, you're facing a pass rush, which generates tons of sacks. So like, he's aware of this though. They're very aware that they need to protect the ball on this game. Like, Dregme should be much more careful with the ball here. He knows coming into this game. That's the whole key. Can I protect the football against the Broncos pass rush? Because if they can, I think that they'll move the ball fine against this Denver defense. I really do. - I mean, this is obviously the key to any football game. But I think even more so, isn't it kind of the key? Is like Patriots of Void turnovers and Sam Donnell of Void's turnovers and that's the key to both games? - Yeah, I think Sam Donnell is gonna have to make more plays that Dregme clearly, but yeah. Yeah. - What are any interesting props that are props to look at in the Denver game? - Yeah, I'm looking right here. We have some, questionable stuff in the White receiver with we don't know if Mac Holland's gonna play or not didn't practice yesterday and Certainly the way that Kishon booties been playing. I don't think they should take Kishon bootie off the field at all And if you want to tell me they should take Kai Williams off the field. I'd be more okay with that The one spot I think like the best way to attack Denver is with Tide ends and running backs and teams challenge Riley Moss a lot because he plays opposite Patrick Sir Tan Ronnie Moss is catch rate allowed has been really really good. Yeah, he's committed a lot of penalties But catch rate allowed has been really really good. So the best way I think and we saw this last week, you know, can Cade went off Tight end and running backs. So like one thing that I see here that we're showing decent Evian is Austin Hooper to score a touchdown at plus 850 We are showing 34 dollars and 86 cents of Evian that and I know people love that the anytime touchdown bats. So Why not? I love rooting for a backup tie down or second tie down to score Yeah, that's like one of my favorite. How many full comments scoring that late touchdown for me on that incredible fork down throw Was nice for me. I had I had some cold commit overs and discord touchdowns nice Got very lucky Okay, anything else on the the Broncos game. I think one of the things I think is interesting is The way that that Broncos offense is designed they do so many of those like short passes and like the you know Those like quick screens and things like that and I'm guessing that stitum is gonna be fine at executing those It's gonna be the the you know dropbacks that everyone's gonna like hold their breath on third and longs Yeah, and mobility. I mean bonnicks is sneaky mobile good runner They actually call it's hunted designed runs for bonics. I don't think they're gonna do that was stitum And I think that I can move a little bit though a little bit. Yeah, not like bonus He's not staffered agree. It was interesting hearing me face comments. It's it doesn't make me um Sean patents comments saying that he's you know, he thinks stitums one of the top 32 I was like that's not a huge bit of confidence. That's like saying he could be the worst starter in the league I mean it's saying he's starting caliber quarterback is what he's trying to say. Yeah, I know Are you really gonna make someone precisely? Yeah, yeah, that's that's not like my starter my back up could be a starter in a lot of places It's he's like my back up could be a starter and at least for at least one team in the NFL Yeah, last thing I'd say on on New England If you watch the game last week you saw Remandre Stevenson leave for a pretty decent chunk of time with an eye issue and then come back and so like You know, hopefully people like Rufus who are just like super data driven don't see that stuff and they have the split the way it was last week I think for anyone who was watching once Remandre was cleared they went back to heavy heavy heavy Remandre and so I don't think last I my point is I don't think last week split is indicative of what it will be this week between Remandre and Travion By the way, I mean that's a really good point out of him and I do think I mean It's important when you watch the games to see like oh this guy went out with an injury for a few plays He was in the medical tent and then he came back right it wasn't like this, you know like the reason Understanding the reason behind the splits and yeah, I feel like I need to go back and watch like Other games I mean see but but I mean you can you can find a lot from like Google and that stuff too, but like this guy left in this quarter because you know when you're looking through like when I'm looking through logs of Guys like I have a little chart in front of me so I can kind of like visualize it with different like kind of color coded and Like I'm like this guy's snap percentage went like was way down, you know He might be 60 60 40 like that to 60 and it's like why was he 40? Oh, he was you know hurt him out for You know knocked out in the third quarter of this game or The team had a 28 point lead in the third quarter and I'm like okay, they were probably pulling some of their starters. So it's kind of like I mean I Think the top things to try to think like I mean because you could have a game that ends up being a blowout You never anticipate one of these games like with lines close to pick being a blowout, but like you know I mean again, it's like the whole distribution in the tails, right like you could have a Game where like the third tight end gets Looks because the team is up a ton or Anyway, sorry, I'm just a There was Adam, we I think that was a great point We'd be remiss if we didn't talk a little bit about you know that the the recent scandals around prop bets is someone that you know Makes his living helping people do prop bets What's your point of view on the whole idea that you know like I've heard people say like oh you can only only bet overs or oh You know like you shouldn't get the opportunity bet against these guys or there shouldn't be these same game part of it Do you have a point of you on it? Yeah, well first of all I wouldn't bet anywhere where you can't bet the under you know like that. That's just like a ridiculous Setup you know and so yeah period for now. I'll say on the Like a lot of people in our space when something happens like Terry Rogier or John T. Porter they say look how great legalized sports betting is We never would have uncovered this if it wasn't for legalized sports betting and yeah, that's true I think people are kind of Missing a bigger point which is 10 years ago. I couldn't even bet on the ninth man on the Raptors or the eighth man on the blazers I couldn't bet their steals line or you know rebounds plus assist that stuff was even Posted on pph or offshore or even if I went to Vegas like that stuff was even posted And now we also at not only do we have lines for all those guys now you can also SGP them and Parlay them together now so I'm not capped at winning like some small amount by betting on the fourth wider sear for the Steelers or the third running back For the chief so when people talk about like regulation of the prop market I don't think we should in by any stretch eliminate props from menus. I don't think we will it just it's so popular. It's so much money for the states But if you wanted to tell me that we don't need lines on the ninth man for the Raptors or the eighth man for the blazers Or we shouldn't be able to SGP them like that would you know suck for us, but You know, I might agree with you, you know, and like I once have said that a while ago I was like man the games aren't rigged these guys, but And I would think anytime people would say they're rigged the rigged. I would say you're an idiot And now you know, I understand where they're coming from because these guys you bet a $20,000 SGP you can make a million with The right network to get down and stuff like that So I just think it's it's it's changed more than people give it credit for with the legalization stuff Did anybody did you guys fall see the the indictment? I was how many people like 27 people charged something like that and Point shaving a college basketball I did seasons in China and Cal yeah Did you bet any you bet any of those games that turned out like god damn extra games I honestly gonna like look I'm I kind of want to read through that indictment and and because there are specific games Manchains want to see if I was on the other side there because that kind of thing hurts me. It's a better clearly But yeah, well, but lap you remember last year rufus I last year was not very good in extra games for you guys if I remember correctly And one of those had something to do with that It exactly it may have I mean it was the those teams listed were almost all extra game teams. That's what I was saying yeah Adam thanks for joining us You know good luck in your bets and Good luck with the etr you want to tell everyone where they can see your work No, yeah, you can just go to my Twitter Adam Levittin all one word and that will send you down a path of Well, I don't know what else in you down a path of Yeah, baby, appreciate appreciate you guys having me always good time I'm on the water town it seems like they don't get it Puppet ease about to end just running off a letter none of it's organic it all sounds synthetic That's why fucks with Jeff Ma and his dog rufus The locks of the year did just tell you what that truth is maybe make your pockets better as the cookies get thinner Give the information turn to lose the better since the winners Yeah, sir. I'm huh Reffman Rutgers Jeff Ma Rufus P body Crunching all the numbers Messy P body rang Will will will if the liquor for the ad Annolytically tripping Crunching all the numbers