The Favorites - Guest Chris Fallica & Chicago Event Recap

After a wild, rowdy and successful Chicago live event, Action Network hosts Chad Millman and Simon Hunter begin today's show recapping all the Windy City festivities with producer Matt Mitchell. But more importantly, they also welcome very special guest Chris "The Bear" Fallica, formerly an ESPN producer and GameDay personality and today the biggest sports betting personality on Fox Sports. Chad and Chris reminiscence about their time together on the Behind The Bets podcast more than a decade earlier, before discussing the state of NFL quarterback play, the ever-changing American sports betting marketplace, Fallica's Bear Bets podcast and so much more. #Volume #herd

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to The Favorites, the podcast presented by BED three
sixty five. We are part of the Volume podcast Network.
I am Chad Millman of the Action Network. Today I'm
joined as always by my co host, my companion, Mike
padre My BFF Professional Better Simon Hunt et OSIMN.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Chad.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
How are you doing?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Brother, brother?

Speaker 1 (00:30):
We got a lot to unpack. Later in the episode,
we're going to be joined by one of the most
beloved people in all of sports media, Chris the Bear Felika,
my former colleague at ESPN now the betting analyst at
Fox Sports, host of Bear Bets the podcast.

Speaker 4 (00:51):
Very excited that he's coming on the show. But listen, brother.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Before we get to Chris, we got to get one
of the other most beloved people in all of sports
media and maybe right now in all of Chicago, because
we need to recap our amazing Chicago live show for
this audience. We can't talk about her to promote it
for a month and a half and not let everyone
know how it went quickly as a reminder of The

(01:17):
Favorites podcast is presented by BET three six five, who
also sponsored a live show new BED three sixty five.
Customers get one hundred and fifty dollars in bonus bets.
When you bet five dollars, sign up using promo code
favorites to posit ten dollars. Place a bet for five
dollars to get one hundred and fifty dollars in bonus bets.
Those bonus bets can be used on spreads, totals, player props, futures,
and more.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
Whatever the moment, it's never ordinary.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
At bet three six five must be twenty one hour
older and present in Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Louisiana,
North Carolina, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, or eighteen and
older in Kentucky. Gambling problem called one eight hundred gambler
or one eight hundred bets off in Iowa terms. Conditions
restrictions apply. All right, Matt Mitchell, great to see you, buddy.

(02:03):
By the way, Simon, do we not owe Matt Mitchell
a huge bouquet of flowers? He organized the event, He
was in charge of the details, He was the MC
of the event. He puts on an amazing show when
we are there, because it's part you and me talking.

(02:23):
In this case, we had stucky in Jim Ruth join
us for college basketball. But it's really Matt Mitchell taking
what people love about the show and incorporating it into
trivia and games and giveaways with him acting as the
PT Barnum and keeping people occupied.

Speaker 4 (02:43):
So Matt Mitchell, welcome to the show. Great job in Chicago.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Chat.

Speaker 5 (02:49):
It's like those old Vidal sasuon commercials where he would
end up by saying, if you don't look good, I
don't look good.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
And that's how it feels, just.

Speaker 4 (02:59):
A man with no that's right. I can appreciate the reference.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
Like all of the best hairstylists.

Speaker 5 (03:04):
Yes I'm bald as the Dickens, but yes, I had
a great time.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
You guys were fabulous.

Speaker 5 (03:12):
I want you guys in the correct ed space to
go in glad hand, which is definitely what you guys do.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
That's what they want to see.

Speaker 5 (03:19):
And they don't want you worried about, you know, handicapping
a Texas Tech basketball game. It's not what they're there for.
So I thought you guys were marvelous, but our fans were.
I mean, people drove from like three hundred miles away
from like two Blum Best in southern Indiana.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
It was insane.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
I'm always surprised by this, pleasantly surprised and thrilled. I
met a listener who drove five hours from outside Detroit
who like goes deep into the archives and said to me,
you guys never really bring up the Blackjack years, which
is like the year and a half two years where
black Jack Fletcher was a co host of the show

(03:54):
who was a great guy. Just like we morphed into
something different, and then Simon joined the show, but he
was like deep deep into the weeds on Action Content,
going back to ESPN Content, loved that there was a
whole group of buddies who traveled from Columbus. You mentioned
there was a couple from that drove from south of Bloomington, Indiana.

(04:19):
This was their date night away from their kids. Five
or six couples on date nights, and that's always my
favorite at these events. Everyone knows I love love, So
when we see couples coming to the show together, which
happens at every event we've had, there's always a half
dozen that I meet, it's just the best. Half the time,
it's the couple listens to the show together.

Speaker 4 (04:40):
Half the time.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Like the kid I met who's a grad student at
Northwestern who dragged his girlfriend to the show.

Speaker 4 (04:47):
She ended up talking to me and my death.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
I'm like, oh, please put a ring on that, brother,
because that is just next level commitment that she's coming
to this god forsaken show with two guys she's never
seen and she ends up talking to my nearly eighty
year old dad.

Speaker 6 (05:04):
You we mentioned the real trooper was the guy who
made his girlfriend come that had the torn acllo.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
And she couldn't have been more of a love. She
was so sweet, so kind.

Speaker 6 (05:13):
The fact that she came with that leg into that
bars running by just hooligans. I mean, people were absolutely
out of their minds and I was like, man, I
had go say hi to her. So that was really
cool talking.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
To her and her husband, Chad.

Speaker 5 (05:24):
That couple that came from southern Indiana was Kent and
Emily Summers, and I remember their name one because they're
just lovely and I hope to see them in Milwaukee,
but also because when the event concluded, Emily and my
wife became the very best of friends for many reasons,
but one of those was that Emily shared that it
had been it had been very tough because she had

(05:46):
had her daughter the week. Sports were canceled in twenty twenty,
and so did. My wife had our youngest Maxine Danger
Mitchell that same week. So bonding over that was a
lot of fun. They were a delight. And yet the
lady with the torny cl I forgot about that. She
was like she couldn't move at all. She was like
they got her in. She sat on a barstool with

(06:08):
her leg on another barstool and that's where she had
to stay around. Yeah, complete hooliganism. I also want to
shout out Chad's father, So if you're at home, I
want you to close your eyes.

Speaker 4 (06:18):
Barry Milman, Sure, yeah, just picture Chad.

Speaker 5 (06:20):
Noman in an even smaller, older body, just as big
of a mensch, and he looks like Stan Kroncky, the
owner of the Rams. It was a absolute pleasure. He
said the nicest things. What a sweet fellow your dad is.

Speaker 4 (06:37):
He is a fantastic guy. I love him to death.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
True man, that's a great way to describe so many
people in my life who said to me, oh Berry Moman,
class act menchi Ah, mensche guy.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
Speaking to hooligans. You had a group of buddies that
came Chad.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
I had high school buddies that came and this was
one of my favorites, Andy, Josh Dave. I got to
hang out with them, which was fantastic. And at one
point they were talking to a bunch of there were
you know, a lot of fans there who listened to
the show, and then a lot of fans who just
brought friends with them, right who don't listen to the show,

(07:12):
and that included This is one of my favorite moments.
This kid who graduated from Indiana, Simon, he grew up
until he was ten years old in Liverpool, moved to
the United States. I told him, your family's from Burnley
and he's like wow, Like even Liverpool looks down on Burnley,
that's how bad Burnley is. And he ended up playing

(07:32):
soccer in Indiana. Indiana has a great soccer program, always
does for generations. So we were talking about Indiana soccer
and they went to the final four, like two of
the three or three or four years he was there.
I went to Indiana. I had been on stage with
you no less than fifteen minutes earlier. And he looks
at me and we're talking and Andy or Josh or Dave,

(07:54):
one of my buddies had says something to me about
the show.

Speaker 4 (07:57):
He goes, oh, you're a part of the show. Had
no idea.

Speaker 6 (08:02):
Yeah, I would say that was another cool part of
the I have so many cool things me and all
the fans. Was how many people there weren't actually gamblers.
They were just football fans and just fans of me
and Chad, like, which was shocking because I thought everyone
there would be big time gamblers. I talked to a
lot of people there just they love hearing our football opinions.
They love final long during the season, and they love
the off season when we do all the interviews.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
So that was great. And yeah, piggyback off.

Speaker 6 (08:25):
Like Matt Mitchell said, meeting Chad's dad and Chad's buddies
from kindergarten probably one of my favorite parts.

Speaker 3 (08:32):
Like seeing pictures of young Chad was.

Speaker 6 (08:34):
Really really funny, especially in your like eighties outfit, got
the high socks, the really short shorts, the T shirts
and then yeah, Matt, Matt Mitchell's wife and you know
the old saying behind every good man is a great woman.
Great woman just so cool, so down and you can tell,
like even talking to her about gambling.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
It's like fuck. I love women that love the gamble.
So Matt Mitchell obviously hit a home run.

Speaker 6 (09:00):
It was just great too, just run into everybody true
that we work with, right Stucky coming down having drinks
with him.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
It was it was a really good time.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
Well, dude, you've just transitioned to my favorite part of
the night. And I will say also that the pictures
of me and Simon and my dad are just treasures
because Simon is twice as tall as me and my dad.
I don't think if my dad was standing on my shoulders,

(09:27):
we would be as tall as Simon. My friends loved Simon.
They felt like they had been friends with Simon for
longer than he's been alive.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
Someone, I'm invited to the vacation.

Speaker 4 (09:39):
You can come on the vacation.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
And I forgot that my buddy Dave broke out pictures
of me from overnight camp yourself. But here's my favorite
part of the night. And then well then we'll get
to the show. It's the second half of the Duke game.
It's about to start.

Speaker 4 (09:57):
Simon.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
You and Irish, goodbye. Irish exited. God only knows when
I could not find you anywhere. I was surprised that
I was still hanging on. At this point, Stucky is
alone in the green room, lamenting all the Texas Tech
futures that he had that had blown up in the
final five minutes of that game. Matt's wife, Carinn is

(10:21):
having the time of her life at the bar, which
she would pay for the next day. Meanwhile, Matt, who
likes to go out and drink all night with Stucky
more than anybody I've ever met in his entire life,
in my entire life, like this dude, if he was Stucky,
he wants to be out until the sun rise. He
has to be somewhat responsible for the entire event. Still,

(10:43):
and I'm talking to a few listeners, including my favorite
email pen pal member of Chicagoland's bravest, huge, lifelong, long
suffering Bears fan, Matt O'Donnell, came to the event.

Speaker 4 (10:58):
One of the three fans that I'm.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
Talking talking to asks about Mitchell and I point him
out at the bar, and the guy says, and he goes, man,
that guy eats wings with rubber gloves.

Speaker 4 (11:11):
That is serious, serial killer vibes.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
So smart man. I'll note that he didn't approach me
or talk to me, so that's a good move on
his part.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
He didn't time. I was taken over that part of
the bar and nobody was coming in.

Speaker 5 (11:28):
Yep, I want to run through, so make sure that
listeners who did not participate here about quickly.

Speaker 3 (11:33):
One.

Speaker 5 (11:33):
I will say, the pictures of you, your dad and
Simon looked like one of those nesting dolls, but it's
missing several of the intermediary dolls.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
You just open up the big one and it's two
little ones in the middle. I loved that. I wanted to.

Speaker 5 (11:48):
Pander to your friends directly, Chad in my show intro,
so I started your intro onto the stage with he's
made a lifelong commitment to eating like a small Amazonian bird,
and two of your buddies that they're gonna have a
heart attack, and like that's it. Those are the only
two guys that left at that I thought they.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
Were gonna pass out.

Speaker 5 (12:06):
So I appreciate that the security guard that Joe's on
Weed shout out Joe's on Weed Elite venue couldn't read
us nice or at unbelievable hospitality. Go there anytime, watch
any game there. Can't recommend them enough. They gave us
a security guard to make sure no one goes upstairs
to the private area. World of our stuff is. He

(12:29):
looks like Ving Raims couldn't have been a nicer guy.
I also had a ton of features on Texas Tech
making the Final Four. While me and stuck here are
having our souls leave our bodies. It's a Florida bar
and he kind of leans over it season I'm not
not having a great time, and he goes, who are
you rooting for? And I realized he was a Florida fan.
He a little Florida pin on and I go, oh, uh, Florida,

(12:52):
and he goes, all right, fix your face. So for
that guy, I pretended to be a Florida fan for
the rest of the evening, So shout out to him.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
Loved him him.

Speaker 5 (13:00):
And I did have to load the four recliners that
we used. It was too expensive to rent, so we
just said, oh, let's just buy the recliners that the
four stars will sit down on the stage. But obviously
one of those is getting loaded into my car and
driven home because hell, we bought him.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
So if anyone in Milwaukee.

Speaker 5 (13:18):
Wants a recliner, it's only had an ass on it
for like fifty five total minutes.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
You just reach out to me. I'll put it right
out front, you can drive it away.

Speaker 5 (13:26):
And then, last, but not least, shout out to an old,
dear friend of mine from the University of Missouri nine
hundred years ago when I was there ad agency creative
dud Lawson, who was one of my favorite people who
loves the show, and I hadn't seen it in a
very long time. I'll note that I said, Hey, didn't
you have an insane business card when we were undergrads

(13:50):
twenty years ago?

Speaker 2 (13:51):
Do you have a picture of it?

Speaker 5 (13:52):
He goes, yeah, here it is, and he used this
card to get a job when he was twenty two.
The front is just mania with his information, but the
back this is what it reads. There's never anything interesting
written on the back of business cards. So I'm going
to tell you the best story I know. Once there
was this old man who found a bug in a

(14:13):
yellow rock. He used that bug to make some dinosaurs,
and he put those dinosaurs on an island. But before
anybody was allowed to go see the dinosaurs on the island,
a couple of scientists and Jeff Goldbloom had to say
it was safe.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
It was not.

Speaker 5 (14:28):
Newman tried to steal some of the dinosaurs in a
can of shaving cream, and a guy got eaten by
a t rex while sitting on a toilet. Samuel L.
Jackson was there too. He smoked a lot of cigarettes
and said hold on to your butts twice. That got
him a job because that's the rantings of a madman.

(14:49):
So if you are anywhere in America and you need
an outstanding ad agency creative, his name is Doud Lawson
Doudlawson dot com.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
He would hate that I'm doing this right now, but.

Speaker 5 (15:00):
He is terrific, one of my oldest and dearest and
I thank you for coming out and thanks for being
a fan of the show.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
And maybe Matt most important, our boosted parlay on bet
through five that day was floored on the money line
Duke under usc women. It cashed, So congrats to everybody
who played the boosted bet three six five parlay. We're
going to get to Felika. Want to make extra money
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(15:28):
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(15:49):
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Speaker 4 (15:50):
It's a no brainer.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
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(16:13):
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and now, on the heels of our interview with Stanford
Steve last month, we are delighted to finally welcome into
the Favorites Lounge, another towering figure in modern sports betting media.

(16:40):
Someone are very very longtime listeners will know from his
original appearances on the Behind the Bets podcasts over a
decade ago, his solo spinoff with Stanford Steve on Behind
the Bets the College Years, former ESPN producer now and
College Game Day Maestro either Way now the most popular

(17:02):
sports betting figure across all of sports maybe in America.
Host of the Bear Bets podcast, handicapper of everything from
the Rose Bowl and the Breeders Cup to the Valero
Cup and the Battle for Atlantis. It's Chris the Bear Felika,
my brother.

Speaker 4 (17:19):
Great to see you, and.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
Don't forget the college Basketball Crown which is.

Speaker 4 (17:23):
Currently That's right, that's a huge event.

Speaker 7 (17:26):
I mean that was something where like weeks ago when
the NCAA Tournament started and the people knew this was coming.
It was one of those where like guys that I
know were like, we are just gonna blindly bet the
overs in these games because people are there's gonna be
no defense. People are gonna want to play them and

(17:47):
get boost nil and score and just go out and
have fun. And we saw four games on Monday just
completely soar over the total with relative in these games
were moving seven eight points and they were still going
over easily. Yeah, we added the college basketball crown to
our arsenalism.

Speaker 4 (18:03):
What's going on? Man, Hey, listen, that's what I love
about you. There is nothing. This is a little bit.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
You and Simon are sort of kindred spirits in this way.
Stanford a little bit too. You guys will fire away
on anything. You will find a way to handicap, examine
the games to discover the edge, no matter the event.

Speaker 4 (18:24):
The amount of conversations I've had with.

Speaker 1 (18:26):
You going deep in the weeds on horse racing, let alone,
like sports people actually pay attention to over the course
of your life is phenomenal. I love the fact that
you even went deep on the college basketball crown. Simon,
you can relate to that for me, Chad.

Speaker 3 (18:43):
The action is the juice.

Speaker 4 (18:45):
That's right there.

Speaker 6 (18:46):
We go.

Speaker 4 (18:48):
Well, you could tell people how you even got into bedding.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
Oh god, I was.

Speaker 7 (18:52):
I mean, I was like kind of like everyone else,
just a kid from kid from Long Island who grew
up around it, brings home the the parlay cards from
wherever the hell he got of worked all card prepare
shop or whatever the hell and no was but uh yeah,
I was just one of those and then put your
put your allowance on a three or fourteen parlay on

(19:13):
one of those little parlay cards.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
However young I was, and I kind of kind of
knew to follow it then. But my my dad's.

Speaker 7 (19:22):
Godfather used to write for a racing publication in New York.
We we we had a little a quarter horse track
Suffolk Meadows near where I grew up. We were always
going to the track and we had basically seasoned season
tickets or partial season tickets for Jets, Islanders, Yankees for forever.
So I mean, I was always around sports, and I

(19:43):
always kind of knew the knew the numbers, and knew
what was going on. So I was just kind of
kind of kind of kind of grew up about it.
And then going to school in Miami and being around
football and horse racing down there, it was just kind
of a u and a natural deal. But yeah, no,
it's a it's always dumb. Numbers and betting have always
been a part of my life and it's turned into

(20:06):
kind of a career as well.

Speaker 2 (20:07):
So kind of cool.

Speaker 4 (20:09):
I do feel like Miami accelerates the process. You think,
I do, I really do.

Speaker 1 (20:16):
I think you know, there was so much it's a
sneaky betting capital. Oh yeah, And there's a great story
Miami in the thirties and forties. There was this tug
and pull and the fifties really about the betting community,

(20:38):
and everybody knew in local government all the way up
to the governor that the people who visited Miami in
the winter wanted to be able to bet, and so
they relaxed all the gaming laws in Miami in the winter,
and then as soon as everybody left sort of around March,

(20:59):
there was a literally a one man betting vice squad
who would go around busting up all the bookies and
putting them in jail, finding them they'd try to make
money off the fines whatever, and then as soon as
the winter came back around, everybody was free to do
whatever they want to do. Again, Miami has always had
that edge for betting that would make people want to

(21:21):
bet even more.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (21:22):
Yeah, and certainly you got things like like highlie and
do dog racing down there. When when I was in
school there that kind of a lot of that fixing. Yeah,
you had you had the plenty of on campus bookies
that were willing to appease that I never got paid
by one of them kind of kind of disappointing. We

(21:45):
used to have a little bit of a a routine
where me and my me and my buddies. As soon
as we were done, I would get out of we'd
get out of our last class. We'd get together apartment
thirty three y. We would get together and kind of
come up with our plan for the evening. And at
the time, we used to love We used to love
like the reverses, and we didn't have a ton of money,

(22:06):
so we're betting like twenty five dollars reverses and it
was then like and we used to it was ninety
two ninety three around there, so.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
It was like the jazz and the sonics were like great.

Speaker 7 (22:17):
So it's in like for like every night we were
doing like a twenty five dollars reverse jazz and sonics
and they were it was winning like every night. And
then uh, then our boyfriend the podcast never paid us,
so it was kind of kind of shitty.

Speaker 4 (22:28):
Why how do you not have muscle?

Speaker 2 (22:31):
I had? I had no muscle back then.

Speaker 7 (22:34):
It was always all, yeah, there's an envelope coming that
I'm getting an envelope today, and then the envelope the
album never came and then it was like, Okay, we
need to we need to stop wasting our time and
disappointing ourselves.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
Dude, you know it's freaky. We never even talked about
this when I was starting at Sports Illustrated. This is like,
right out of college, there was a Super Bowl in Miami.
Might have been ninety four, I can't remember.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
That would have been Chargers Chargers Donners.

Speaker 4 (23:02):
Yes, exactly. I don't know if you were in school
then or not.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
I graduated in May ninety four.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
All right, So I was in Miami for Sports Illustrator.
We had decided to do a ex Simon wasn't even
born at this point, but uh, we had decided to
do a gambling issue, and because I was one of
the most recent graduates and could still connect with college
students at the magazine I was in Miami and asked

(23:28):
me to start reporting and like talk to kids at
U of M.

Speaker 2 (23:31):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (23:32):
I ended up doing an entire what's called a sidebar
about bookies at the U.

Speaker 4 (23:39):
Of M campus.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
Really yeah, wow.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
I spent a whole afternoon with a group of kids
who were in a fraternity at U of M who
were booking the Super Bowl.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
I wonder.

Speaker 7 (23:52):
I wonder if it was the saint one of the
one of the same guys. It could have been very
very easily could have been. Well, we'll have to share share,
We'll have to go back and look it up. So
we have to talk about that off the air. I
don't want to reveal any names, but you will any
trade secrets. But yeah, the the name would be recognizable
to uh, just some people.

Speaker 4 (24:12):
That's too funny.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
The surname would be would be would be.

Speaker 4 (24:15):
Recognizable, Simon.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
Doesn't it make a nostalgic for the opportunities to go
book on a college campus?

Speaker 2 (24:23):
Oh?

Speaker 7 (24:23):
Oh god, if we knew, if we knew now, it's
slim and what we knew, we could have known then
I screwed that up.

Speaker 6 (24:31):
The worst part of it though, that that work booking
with college kids and then having a track down when
you actually win to get your money was the worst.

Speaker 3 (24:39):
I think everyone went through that, right.

Speaker 6 (24:41):
Everyone had that guy that disappeared after he got into
a huge hole with a bunch of different people, and
it's like, oh, that guy just left our school because
he had so many people with money.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
So I'm with Chris, it's like the glory days.

Speaker 6 (24:51):
But it was also man dealing with that headache of
chasing people and running from people was definitely a thing
of the past.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
Well, FeliCa, like, you're an og You've been doing this forever.
You know, we're now legal, We're seven years into being legal.
We're coming up on the seven year anniversary of pass
the Professional Amateur Sports Protection Act being overturned. Like, what
do you see the difference between pre legalization and today?

(25:20):
Even three years ago and today?

Speaker 7 (25:22):
You see I mean, obviously you see the market flooded
a lot more, with just a lot more people trying
to get their share of it from whether it's a
pick sellers, social media influencers, just just kind of creating
that crossover between like just okay, here, I know what
I'm talking about and you should pick this. Is it

(25:44):
more of a an information based thing? Is it more
of a an entertainment based thing? Depending on who the
people on social media that you follow, But yeah, I
just know, I almost wonder if we're to point of
or maybe we've reached the point as well. I'd like
to ask if we reached a point of like saturation

(26:06):
in the market, where there's so much information and so
many people out there that we kind of at the
point where we're going to start to eat ourselves and
maybe we're going to see a little bit of a
pullback on You're going to see a lot of people
maybe getting out of it, falling by the wayside, and
it's going to kind of get back to just maybe
not moderation, but fewer people, fewer I don't want to

(26:31):
say talit, fewer pick sellers, fewer accounts out there, or
are we going to continue at this level because it
seems like we're at a point where there's just a
lot of bullshit out there.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
Well, look, I feel like in eighteen nineteen twenty, everybody
was trying to figure out how to be a sports
betting media analyst because that was their way to get
on TV. And I think very quickly there was recognition
of where there was authenticity and fluency with the language.

(27:05):
It's not easy to talk about these things and sound
like you know what you're talking about, right, you know, Felika,
When I used to go on Sports Center back in
the day before we started Action and even a little
bit after, the conversation was always who's the anchor who

(27:26):
can talk about totals, who can talk about spreads?

Speaker 4 (27:28):
Who can talk.

Speaker 1 (27:28):
About bookmakers outside of Scott van Pelt, right, Like, how
are we going to have that conversation? Because the anchors
aren't that comfortable with it, and to their credit, they
don't want to be put in the position where they
are uncomfortable with it. So it's hard to find the
people who can even communicate the language.

Speaker 4 (27:46):
I think that's a huge issue. Simon.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
You've been sort of growing up in this space the
past five or six years. You probably see a huge
difference between the people who look and sound legit and
the people who you can tell are just sort of
doing it for the face.

Speaker 6 (28:01):
Yeah, but it's always been this way, where I think
it's worse because it's so much more in our faces
right with social media.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
But you guys grew up in the same thing where
I did. With the eight hundred number.

Speaker 6 (28:10):
I mean, there's always guys in the radio selling picks,
selling their bullshit, and.

Speaker 3 (28:14):
You'd call up right they do that.

Speaker 6 (28:16):
We got three free plays this weekend and went three
to ozer call this number for the one play that
isn't free, Well, it's a guaranteed winner like that that
is instilled into gambling, the folklore and now it's a
little different because it's these faceless people, right, it's these
guys who make these Twitter accounts or social media accounts.

Speaker 3 (28:34):
They'll sell picks.

Speaker 6 (28:35):
People figure out quickly these guys are frauds, and they'll
delete the account and then make a new account and
then hit one of their parlays, post a ticket, get
people sucked in again. So I do think it's we're
in the weird stage of these people need to go
through these frauds and realize this is not a get
rich scheme, Like you're not gonna win millions of dollars
on parlays in your first year of gambling. And you

(28:58):
know that's the toughest part to watch it, because you know,
what are we supposed to do?

Speaker 3 (29:01):
We all we can do. I'm saying Chris has the
same idea.

Speaker 6 (29:04):
I can only focus on myself and try to be
as best as I can put out the best info
I can put out that I know is legit, rather
than waste time just bad mouthing all these people all
the time because.

Speaker 3 (29:13):
There's no point.

Speaker 6 (29:13):
Like That's why I love what we do is because
eventually you're gonna get figured out, like people if they're
gonna track you and follow your picks.

Speaker 3 (29:19):
They're gonna eventually figure out, Okay, this dude's a fraud.

Speaker 6 (29:22):
So I'm with Chris, like, I hate that side of it,
but luckily, I think we're kind of on the back
end of it. I think eventually people are getting kind
of wiser to it. And you know, me and Chat
we talk about this all the time. The news shift
is definitely the parlays, right, That's that's the new thing
in the sports media stuff where you know, me and
Chat like to give out our straight bets. We're now

(29:43):
in a position of, you know, maybe we should give
out one or two parlays a week because that's what
people like the bet. So that's that's an easy adjustment
we're trying to make, right Chat, We're trying to adjust
to what the people like the bet in the market.
Where as professionals we advise against it. But if it's
for fun, right, if there's a difference between betting five
I was on a game and betting one hundred dollars
on a parlay, right, So that's what we're trying to

(30:03):
really get into now.

Speaker 3 (30:04):
And I'm with Chris though, like there's some stuff.

Speaker 6 (30:07):
That makes my blood boil boil, that I see online
and I just I butite my tongue because I know
there's there's no there's no point, right, it's that crab mentality.
They'll just pull you down with you into the bucket,
so there's no point of viewing jumping in. They're just
gonna pull you down.

Speaker 3 (30:19):
So it is tough.

Speaker 7 (30:20):
Yeah, you know, you know what, just let them, let them.
You don't interact with them. You just let them do
their thing. And it's kind of out of sight, out
of mind. But but you did bring up something funny,
and I do have to just say now and now
a message from the world famous chiny DeMarco, the ex
coach doctor Ron Beash has a five star winner. There

(30:45):
used to be that used to be Saturday morning ritual
on a prior to college game day, seven am. We
would get to the site and Fowler was like Fowler
was like leading the charge because he just all of
the laughable entertainment value we'd throw on the sports advisors

(31:05):
and you'd.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
Have Stu Feiner and Ron Besh and whoever the.

Speaker 7 (31:10):
Hell Kelson maybe Kelso Sturgeon, all all of the Jim Feist,
all all the the capers of the day, the TV
cappers and we used to just you'd have you'd have
Stu Finer in front of a green screen of Arrowhead
Stadium behind him, and I'd literally see his face in
just nine hundred numbers and eight hundred numbers. It's flashing stars.

(31:34):
We we watching the sports Advisors on Saturday morning. Used
to be the uh, the way we would get fired
up for college game day. He just instant last it
was great.

Speaker 4 (31:43):
Well, I do think there's you know, it's Felika.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
We just had this event in Chicago over the weekend
and we had you know, a few several hundred people
that came.

Speaker 4 (31:52):
Yeah, listen, it was available, it was free. It was
free for the public.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
You could have come out. But next time you can
be a special. That would be a fun one. Get
Falika to comby a special guest. I was talking to
a bunch of kids who just graduated from Indiana. It's
the son of a buddy of mine and all of
his friends. All these really smart guys, really smart guys,

(32:17):
not sort of the sort of Indiana kids who don't
major in business. These were the top of the top
at Indiana and they want to be betting heroes. They
were excited about the same game parlay that they cashed
for fifteen hundred dollars, and I looked at the guy

(32:39):
and he thought I was going to be like, oh
my god, that's amazing. I'm like, yeah, you and every
other fuck are on the internet and it's like all
anybody will talk about is cashing their five dollars for
fifteen hundred dollars ticket.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (32:54):
It's like as you look at like your thumb across
your kings and FanDuel lugs, that's all I have early
access to in Connecticut here, and it's just like same
game parlay at thirty thirty, same game. I'm looking for
like a like a nice deposit bonus or like a
fifty boost on a single game or an underdog.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
Same game parlay, same game parlay, same game parla.

Speaker 4 (33:16):
I'm like, come on, I'm not gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (33:19):
I know.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
So that's impactful for you because you transitioned from sort
of back of the house sometimes on camera but mostly
producing supporting, researching, to now being fully on camera as a.

Speaker 4 (33:42):
Straight down the barrel sports betting talent. Is it what
you expected?

Speaker 2 (33:50):
Yes, yeah, it's been great, and it's something that.

Speaker 7 (33:55):
When we when we were at ESPN and when when
perhaps the first first got overturned, like the guys involved
on game Day new fraud, and that was people always
ask me like, like what we you like? Maybe maybe
they'll ask me or I'll just volunteer and say, like
the thing I was most proud of in my time
at college game day and my time it was like
being at the forefront of getting wagering type information out there,

(34:20):
whether whether it was a reaction to a spread or
a historical note that might find a game interesting. We
didn't beat around the butch. We knew people were betting
on games, and we were just gonna be in the forefront.
Like but the challenge for us before it was free
and legal, and it wasn't the wild Wild West. Was

(34:41):
just a way to phrase it and get it out
there where it isn't just like, ok we're laying eight
and a half with Ohio State today. It was like, Okay,
they had the odds makers expect Michigan State to lose
today against the number one Ohio State.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
They're a ten point underdog. But keep in mind.

Speaker 7 (35:00):
Games at Michigan State, where Mark d Antonio's team has
been a double digit underdog, they've won nine of them
out right and covered that. So it's like a way
to make it informative where the average fan who wasn't
gonna bet on a game still might find that interesting.
But the fact that we're ably able to do that
made me very happy at game day. And I think, uh,
not only myself, but Lea Fitting who was the producer

(35:20):
for the time for a long time, Fowler Herbstreet. They
always saw this by it and it's the same thing
that you saw when you met me and ran into me.
Just the passion and the knowledge and the getting animated
and getting the New York Hans and voice going loud
and and they're like, we need to capture this on television.

(35:41):
And then finally they were like, okay, game Day expanded
to like three hours, and it was like, you've got
no more say in the matter.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
We're I was always worried.

Speaker 7 (35:51):
I don't want to look like an idiot and start
rambling and get going. And I didn't necessarily worry about
like freezing or being scared of doing it.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
I was just like, I don't know. And then finally, no,
we're doing it, and I'm glad. I'm glad we did.

Speaker 7 (36:05):
We were able to figure out away with the board
and just kind of interacting and throwing some historical nuggets
in there at times, and it worked out well. And
that's one of the things that I don't want to
say it's pushbacker bows and arrows, but it's just a
little bit of depending on on your viewpoint of things,
like one of the things right now where I don't

(36:26):
struggle with it because I'm free, I'm fully transparent.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
I say like, I'm I'm a researcher at heart.

Speaker 7 (36:32):
That's how I got started in sports and numbers and
math and history and studying and digging through media guides
for a note in the middle of the night, like
all o, I'll come up with the historical, like a
bunch of historical notes about the NCAA tournament and what.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
Does this have to do with this year? And I like,
potentially nothing.

Speaker 7 (36:52):
I'm a I'm a historian, I'm a researcher at heart,
and I'm just throwing some inform. Not everything that I
put out there has to be gambling, really, but I
will say this a lot of like the specific things
that I'll tweet out during football season about maybe an
unranked team favored by a certain number over a top

(37:13):
fifteen team or whatever. Like, the teams may be different,
but the types of teams and the situations remain the same.
So I do think there is some value in some
of those situational type type deals where you've got things
that fit a system. Even though, like I said, might
when I make a game in two thousand and four

(37:35):
between Miami and Florida State might not have anything to
do with it between a game between Ohio State and
Michigan in twenty twenty four, But if the situation works
then then then it's still something I think that that's
interesting and maybe follow away in the back of the mind.

Speaker 4 (37:52):
You know, it's funny you bring that up. We have
Evan Abrams, who I'm sure.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
You are from.

Speaker 4 (37:57):
Where is he by the way, I don't know where
he is right now, Matt mc.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
I saw him on the invite. Yeah, Oh he's busy
doing March Madness videos for me.

Speaker 4 (38:06):
Oh he's doing something else.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
But you know, he'll come on the show every week
during the football season and he will always come on
and oh he's in there, he's in the chat, and
he will always come on and he will give this
incredible information similar to what you were just talking about
And I think the hardest part, Simon, I want you
to weigh in on this because I think this is
important for people listening is trying to decide how much

(38:32):
to let historical trends and precedents influence what we are
looking at in the moment. For me, it's always a
little bit of a mind fuck. I get it's hard
to determine when to lean into that and when to not.

Speaker 6 (38:48):
Yeah, but we say all the time chat it's just
another tool in the toolbox, like it's just something else
you can use try to find an edge. And I
love it because I am a big believer that history
just always repeats itself, Like you're always gonna have of
the outliers, right, Like Lesser City winning the Premier League
never gonna happen again the rest of our lives. Right,
This team that was five thousand to one to win

(39:09):
the Premier League never gonna happen. You know, Villan Nova
that what was eighty five having that crazy run, probably
never gonna see something like that ever again in the rest.

Speaker 3 (39:17):
Of our lives. Those are outliers.

Speaker 6 (39:18):
But a lot of other stuff, like you really dive
into your break it down. It's great info and something
you should really listen to and take serious. Like Evan
came on and literally told us if a team's greater
than what was it, eighteen to one or fifteen to
one to win March Badness, they're not gonna win.

Speaker 3 (39:32):
Like historical data shows us the top favorites.

Speaker 6 (39:35):
Even when it's a crazy year and George Mason's making a.

Speaker 3 (39:39):
Final four, the Chalk team still is probably gonna win
the end.

Speaker 6 (39:42):
And here we're sitting now with four teams in the
final four, and it's like, Okay, this is why Evan
gives us those type of stats where it's like this
might not ring true, but I'm trying to give you
guys an edge and the fact that mathematically, if you're
betting these long shot odds on these March Badness it's
a dumb bet. Go with the Chalk long term the
future market, it's going to pay out. And I mean,
like we just said, here we are, and it's like,

(40:02):
that's why Evan gives out that info. It's it's good info,
but he's not telling you to do it. He's just
showing you a path of the way that it could go.
That's why I love that stuff. It's like another great
tool to use.

Speaker 7 (40:12):
And that's one of the things too, Like I I
was like, when you when you fill out your bracket,
your odds are you're only gonna want to use it
in most two number one seeds because people are gonna
think that all than all the number ones are gonna
get through. And it just happened to be an outlier
that that's gonna be a great question moving forward.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
Is this year an outlier we're all for it.

Speaker 7 (40:31):
Is it just a situation where these four or five
teams were just better than everyone else, or is this
gonna be the norm moving forward where we're gonna get
three or four number one seed.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
But but that's one of all they're gonna we're good,
We're gonna get all four this year.

Speaker 7 (40:45):
But I'm just thinking of like a historical play on
like game theory, like if you're filling out.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
Your bracket, like you want to differentiate your bracket and
not have awful but hey this year.

Speaker 7 (40:56):
But you know, as a fan, that's the thing that
a lot of peop people struggle sometimes as separating better
and fan like as a fan, having these four teams
the best four teams that we've said all year long,
and watching them play is great as a better not
having a single money line upset in the in the
in the Elite eight or the Sweet sixteen, and the
fewest historical upsets ever in terms of points spread, it.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
Hasn't been great as it better.

Speaker 7 (41:21):
I mean maybe maybe it's a year where the public
is doing Look the NFL public did great in the NFL.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
I'm sure public's done great in college basketball. No underdogs
that won.

Speaker 7 (41:30):
Yeah, this is an easy business, Chad and Simon, money
line parlay all the favorites all.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
The time, right, yeah, sure, what has surprised you about this,
this tournament that has these four number one c's.

Speaker 4 (41:46):
Do you think that there is a sea change?

Speaker 1 (41:48):
We're always trying to figure out get ahead of the market,
right in any respect? And I want to to ask
you about the NFL too. Last year was a really
hard year for NFL underdogs. This year has been a
really hard year for college basketball underdogs. Is this an anomaly?
Is this a sea change?

Speaker 7 (42:06):
I don't want to overreact, certainly in college basketball because
people the knee jerk reaction, and maybe maybe it's gonna
prove to not be a knee jerk reaction.

Speaker 3 (42:17):
Is that?

Speaker 2 (42:17):
Oh? Nil? Has destroyed it.

Speaker 7 (42:19):
All these mid majors and low major their best players
are gonna go to all of these teams and they're
they're gonna dominate and you're not gonna get these seed updates,
seed up upsets in the tournament anymore, or they were
just the points sport upsets. But I don't know, if
I want to just I'm not there yet. You look
at the last like you look at the last four years,

(42:40):
the seeds in the final four.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
You had two number ones.

Speaker 7 (42:43):
Last year, but you had a San Diego State who
was an eight seed and a Yukon who was a bad,
badly seeded team. They were four seed, but you had
Miami get to the final four. You had NC stated
is an eleven. You've had all these low all these
low seeds make the final four. So I don't know,
and you had I think the last I went back

(43:03):
and look yesterday I tweeted it out, but I think,
off the top of my head, it was like the
previous four years you had like eighteen, eighteen, twenty, and
nineteen upsets in the tournament to this point where you
had eleven this year.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
So like, I'm not willing to say this is going
to be a year in, year out type deal. So
I hope I'm wrong. I think we can get this
is a happy medium here.

Speaker 7 (43:27):
There's a happy medium of getting the upsets early in
the tournament, but having your your higher seeds win in
the elite, Elite eight in the Elite. In the Sweet sixteen,
you get a final four with two ones, a two,
and a three, and you get that. Maybe you get
an eleven seed in this Sweet sixteen, or you get
a ten seed or whatever.

Speaker 2 (43:45):
But getting back was funny.

Speaker 7 (43:47):
I was thinking thinking to what Simon was saying about
some of the stuff that Evan and I have put
out there, like how history tends to repeat itself. And
I think one of the interesting things was it's something
that Evan might have been involved in looking it up
initially when I was at ESPN with Keith Lipskimb as well,
when we put together the NCAA tournament pack. It was

(44:08):
just this kind of and I don't know if it
was with West Virginia one year, I don't know if
it was with Iowa Stay, I don't know who the
team was, but like these unranked teams at the start
of the year that wind up getting a two seed
and you had two of them this year in Michigan
State and Saint John's where they were unranked at the

(44:28):
start of the year. You have this completely off the
charts great regular season, and the previous thirty nine teams
to do it, none of them reached the final four.
And the theory is these teams that weren't necessarily thought
to be good before the year, magical runs to the
final four in the national title games just typically don't
come from nowhere in that sense, and it wind up

(44:50):
did hold in true again this year WITHOU Saint John's
and Michigan State coming up just short.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
Spartans made a good run.

Speaker 4 (44:56):
But that's what's great about that.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
We can all a complain, all the x ESPN heads complain,
can complain about a lot of things at ESPN. ESPN
freaking loves sports, yes, and the research to me, the
research group, whether it was you know, UH SIG or
any other part of it, like those are diehards. What

(45:21):
you and Evan would do in that entire team that
was involved in research in any way UH would do
with research and come up with those stats.

Speaker 4 (45:31):
It's freaking glorious.

Speaker 7 (45:33):
It was, And in part of it too, is just
you having the the financial backing and the creative backing
of being able to say, Evan Bear, go go build
an NCAA tournament database, Uh, go build an ap poll
database with all the historical spread like like being able

(45:54):
to just given free reign to be able to do
that and knowing that you're you're going to get a
payoff off of that was just incredible.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
And still use it today, update him and have my
own stuff and do it.

Speaker 4 (46:07):
It's great true story. In twenty seventeen, when.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
I had gotten the call from the Churning Group, who
was the company and the private equity business that wanted
to launch what would become Action.

Speaker 4 (46:24):
It wasn't anything yet.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
They called and said, do you want to come found
this sports media betting business with us? And I was debating,
am I going to leave a very comfortable life overseeing
ESPN Digital and living in Central Connecticut? Bear and like

(46:45):
a kid who was a freshman in high school and
you know a little bit another kid who was a
little bit younger, and they've got a great life. Am
I going to dump that to go to this startup
make half as much money on the hope that it
will all get paid back if we sell it. One day,
I'm sitting with John Skipper, who was the president of
ESPN at the time, and one of the things he

(47:06):
offered me to stay was to take over Stats and Information,
which called SIG, which is like a two to three
hundred person group that is the heartbeat of every stat
every bit of research you see across every show at ESPN.
I think it is an amazing group.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
Wasn't enough though, I was gonna say that that's a scoop? Yeah?
I know that.

Speaker 4 (47:32):
Wowse are good times.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
Bear.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
I want to ask you a little bit about the
NFL because you had a tweet the other day. Simon
read the tweet that he had because I feel like
you and I and Chris I'll have difference of opinion
on this particular topic.

Speaker 6 (47:50):
Yeah, Bear, I thought it was really interesting you tweeted out,
you know, four or five days ago that you would
love to know how the QP position and depth and
development got so bad in the NFL. Is it a
college things? The guy's been said freegency that makes zero
Sense's what's your viewing that you just think we have
really shitty QB player? Are you just talking about the
back end, like the back five to thirty two.

Speaker 7 (48:09):
Guy, it just amazes me that we are at a
point in twenty twenty five head the season that like
there is a demand that Russell Wilson and Aaron Rodgers
and Justin Fields like are like considered starting quarterbacks Like

(48:30):
like like, I don't know where where his the I
think someone who replied back like it's not that different.
There's always been really bad quarterback play at the end.
But is someone who watched the Jets last year like
I look, I love I rooted for Aaron. I was
excited when he came to the Jets, and it sucked

(48:52):
that the ruptured his achilles when he when he did it,
you're looking at a guy now that what's again forty
one started the year coming off with an achilles injury?
Like is the market that bad that you're really looking
to run out there and have this guy who with times.

Speaker 2 (49:07):
Last year looked like he was done. Like if you're.

Speaker 7 (49:10):
Mike Tomlin and the Steelers, are you is that really
your your end game? And I guess part of the
problem too is maybe it's just a league wide pandemic
where so much of the league.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
Maybe is in the middle.

Speaker 7 (49:24):
But you look at what look at what the uh
the the Bear like Joe justin fields like left and
like what he was able to what the Bears like
got for him, and there was no mark of him.
And now he's making whatever it is, like like it's
insane what the Jets are paying him compared to what
the market really really was for him that just a

(49:45):
year prior. But I lost my trainer of thought there.
But oh yeah, the Steelers had that. You're a perfect example.
They're a team that needs a quarterback. But like so
much of the league now with the parody and everyone's
in the middle, it's the worst place to be in
the NFL. And like you kind of think, Okay, we're
a quarterback away, we need that with one piece of

(50:07):
maybe it's lightning in a bottle with Russell Wilson. Maybe
we get one year at Aaron Rodgers and it's magic.
But like, you're never good enough to like make the
super Bowl, but you're never bottoming out where you're in
a position to draft a quarterback who's ultimately going to
be a team a team changer and get you on

(50:27):
court your year. You're you're nine and eight, you're making
the playoffs as a wild card. You're picking eighteenth every
year and it's like the worst place to be in
this So maybe that's part of it as well. But
maybe the college part of it as well, with with
the RPO and the in some of these spread offenses.
Maybe the maybe with the portal now in college football
where guys staying in the league earlier, they're older. I

(50:49):
don't I don't know what the answer is. I'm curious
to get your guys takes out, but it's just fascinating
to me that we're just kind of recycling these same
guys over and over again again. And maybe I don't
claim might know everything about the position, but it's amazing
the sport that I watch every Saturday, like and see
some of the guys that are there, I'm like, why

(51:10):
can't these guys be quarterbacks in the NFL.

Speaker 6 (51:14):
We've definitely seen a switch to where you know, we
had that lost generation right with that Andrew Luck RG three,
Like the only guys that felt like survived it was
Stafford and Rogers, right that little like two guys out
of that whole group that ten year run. We just
even when Cam Newton came in, he had a year
or two like a really incredible but was sustainable and
we've seen now, I think just because athleticism now has

(51:36):
moved to be such a crucial part of the quarterback position.
Like you know, along like Tom Brady. As much I
love Tom, we all know he's the goat. He wouldn't
be in the league now. Like you go back and
look at his tape from back in the night.

Speaker 4 (51:48):
It's crazy.

Speaker 6 (51:49):
He had he had led in his shoes, Chad. He
could not move, he could not run. You can't be
a drop back standing in the pocket pass and then
I fun anymore. If you are, you're gonna be Derek Carr.
You want Derek Carr and your team, Chad. No, you
don't want a guy who just stands back there. And
you don't want that anymore. It's evolved, right, You need
a mobile guy who can move, just because the athleticism

(52:10):
is just off the charts now. And it's funny going back,
even like I I before he came out, I went
back and looked and you know what were we working
with in two thousand and five, Like who were the
bottom guys? Because I just want to look at what
Chris was talking about here, and I looked at the
passing leaders, right, Dina looking at rushing just the passing leaders.
In two thousand and five, the bottom of the list
the worst quarterback in football Chris Simms not a shocker left,

(52:33):
Witch was right above him, Trent Dilfer right above him,
David Carr right above him. So it's like Aaron Brooks
right above him. So we've always had just the shit
at the bottom.

Speaker 3 (52:44):
Yeah, I agree with you.

Speaker 6 (52:45):
Now it feels like it's more so because everyone wants
alive to themselves to be like, well the forty nine
ers got there with Jimmy Garoppolo right, Or you could
say that Eli Manning got to two super Bowls and
won two Super Bowls, like Joe Flakil got to a
super Bowl and won a Super Bowl. Everyone thinks they
can get away with having a bad quarterback. But I
feel like Chris kind of nail it there that we
ventured this stage of it feels like it's impossible now

(53:08):
unless you have just one of the best teams ever
put together where it used to be you can kind
of hide the bad quarterback.

Speaker 3 (53:14):
Now to me, it's there's no hiding it.

Speaker 6 (53:16):
Like if he's not a great athlete, if he's not
a great passer, defense, are gonna figure out they're gonna
take away whatever you're good at, They're gonna take it
away and make you look like where we just talking
about a blow bottom twenty five quarterback. So yeah, it's
interesting hearing your view on it, and I just think
that we're just in a weird stage of we had
a dead period there.

Speaker 3 (53:34):
We had these lost years where we.

Speaker 6 (53:36):
Didn't have any quarterbacks really coming out because there was
a transition of that pocket passer to being mobile athlete.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
Like it's you look at the.

Speaker 6 (53:45):
Position now, Josh Allen. If you dropped him back, I mean,
think how crazy we were about Mike Vick. You drop
Josh Allen back to that time period, Holy shit, people's
heads would be exploding. It's like, wait, this six or
five white dude to weighs two fifty can bulldoze a
linebacker and in the same move ship like shift off
the cornerback and throw a deep ball.

Speaker 3 (54:05):
It's it's just crazy how much it's just grown the
last twenty years.

Speaker 6 (54:08):
Like especially going back and watching film from two thousand
and five, it just feels like a totally different sport.
I don't if you have to SAand view Chris, but
to me, it's just we're in different worlds now.

Speaker 7 (54:16):
Yeah, it isn't one thing that I was thinking of
as well. What you were I say, before Chad jumps in,
I wonder if this overreaching and like taking some of
these quarterbacks too high in the draft and guys just
absolutely flopping, Like whether it be a mac Jones or
a Zach Wilson or a Fields or a.

Speaker 2 (54:39):
Who meant name the quarter you can go down.

Speaker 7 (54:41):
The list is endless of guys that wind up going
in the top ten, top twelve that absolutely flopped.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
And I wonder if that's maybe part of it as well,
where like teams take.

Speaker 7 (54:52):
These guys who really shouldn't go this high and they
predictably fail, Like do we just have this negative.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
Kind of he stinks? He stinks, he stinks? Oh yeah,
would they want him? He stinks?

Speaker 7 (55:04):
So it's like, I wonder if it's kind of like
this self fulfilling prophecy on our end to just kind
of be negative.

Speaker 4 (55:10):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (55:11):
Nice This is all contextual. There are no absolutes here.
There are always going to be bad quarterbacks. There are
always going to be great quarterbacks. There are always going
to be quarterbacks who come out of nowhere and surprise
you to become great quarterbacks. And there's always going to
be quarterbacks taking the top of.

Speaker 4 (55:28):
The draft who absolutely.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
Flail and we're like this, dude sucks. I will say
this about Tom Brady. You don't become Tom Brady because
you don't adjust and what Tom Brady did, and I
think what a lot of quarterbacks don't do. They don't
spend the time to self scout. They don't spend the

(55:50):
time to be intellectually honest. You cannot succeed in anything
unless you are intellectually honest about what's in front of you,
whether it's what your tape says, what your numbers say, etc.
So you can actively improve for any better Simon, what
are we spending this whole offseason doing self scouting? Trying

(56:12):
to figure out where do things go right? Where do
things go wrong in the twenty twenty five season. Do
we need to make adjustments because of previous rules changes?
How do new rules changes impact what we might want
to be doing. Our favorites going to regress to where
they were before. Tom Brady was a master of self scouting.
Bill Belichick was a master of self scouting. That is

(56:33):
a gift that so many teams and so many coaches
are not accepting as a part of their responsibility. They
work out thinking they need to improve their body, they
need to improve certain elements of their game, but they
don't actually work on the elements as in depth as
they need to. They can actually make them better because
they were terrible at it. That's what Tom Brady did.

(56:56):
He would have adjusted. He did adjust, And I would
also argue it's not like Joe Burrow or Matthew Stafford
are the most mobile quarterback.

Speaker 3 (57:05):
It is Joe Brow, Chadwick Burn, No, let me finish.

Speaker 2 (57:08):
Let me finish.

Speaker 4 (57:09):
They're great in the pocket.

Speaker 1 (57:12):
Their mobility is defined to the space that they are
supposed to stay in and then ability to be creative
when they need to be creative within a you know,
ten yard radius in front of them, behind them, to
the left of them, to the right of them. Tom
Brady was great at that too, only he did that
within a two yard radius, right. It's just a little

(57:33):
bit of footwork to me, that is the difference.

Speaker 3 (57:36):
Hey, he was a goat. I mean we're not taking
that way.

Speaker 6 (57:38):
I'm just saying that if you took him and he
was a six round pick at that time because he
was good in the pocket. He was a good pocket passer.
No one would even throw his tape on now because
it's like you need a guy that can run outside
the pocket. Like that's what I'm trying to get to,
is that I look at the NFL now, Stafford's been
granting fathered in, right, He's of that last group like
Aaron Rodgers that passed. Aaron Rodgers was a great athlete

(57:58):
too when he was younger, so was Stafford. But we've
hit a point now of when I look at this
draft class, like there's no one just standing in the
pocket type of.

Speaker 3 (58:05):
Guy that goes high in the draft anymore.

Speaker 6 (58:07):
Like even when I go through all these previous shafts,
like we joked about Mac Jones, you know, he was
kind of a guy that was probably would have been
all right in the early two thousands. Now he's not
athletic enough, Like he's not mobile enough. He can't get
outside the pocket throwing the run.

Speaker 3 (58:20):
His career is over.

Speaker 6 (58:21):
And it's just I look at our list now where
all of our top ten guys we talk every year
coming in, they're all incredibly great athletes. Like it's just
the way it is where back in the day. Like
one of my favorite errors was that, you know, Peyton
Manning was a statue in the pocket. Tom Brady was
a statue in the pocket. Drew Brees was a statue
in the pocket. It was like, these guys were so

(58:42):
grifted mentally. They didn't need to run and scramble right,
they knew exactly where the defenders going to be. And
I think what we're talking a little bit about here
is that you need that smarts in the pocket. You
need the athleticism now, and that to me has been
the biggest shift of you know, people bitch every day,
they're like, oh, we don't have the five thousand yard
pass and in the sixty touchdowns. It's like that was
the one year anomaly we saw. That's never gonna happen again.

(59:05):
Like those are the forest outliers. Ever, it's just a
new age of you know, these guys are gonna throw
for maybe four thousand yards, but like Josh Allen, you'll
see maybe a thousand yards Russian and him rushed for
fifteen freaking touchdowns. It's like it's just so different now
that you know, we try to compare it to the
old age, and I just look at it. It's like
we've evolved. We've evolved so quickly that these new kids

(59:26):
coming in, Like we just talked about you know, Bo
Nicks and what world is here? First round pick? But
the new NFL he is now right and it worked.
Like Matt Mitchell was losing his fucking mind about it.
And it's like, you know, because he saw him in
college for what five six years, and now he comes
in and it works out. So it's just crazy got
shifted now where the studs in college who are just

(59:47):
dropped back passers, they just don't make it to the
league like they used to. You have to be able
to move in the pocket and scramble outside the bucket.
So that was just why I want to push on,
was just that, you know, I get where Chris is
coming from. But like you just said, Chad, there's always
just been dog shit from that twenty five to thirty two.
It's just always been that way.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
So I mean you said the magic two words. They're
draft props.

Speaker 7 (01:00:06):
If you guys seen anything out like it's in Connecticut.
I mean, we can't play them on DraftKings and FanDuel
or whoever else, but like do they exist anywhere? Like
I know there's potswheyo, who will be at the number
one pick? Yeah, who wants to Yeah cam Ward minus sixteen.
But like in terms of like the second quarterback is
going to be number of quarterbacks in the in the

(01:00:28):
first round, like like stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
Does this exist anywhere outside of the little bubble that
I'm in in the state of Connecticut.

Speaker 6 (01:00:35):
So the book makers I've talked to Bart, they got
crushed so bad these last three years in the draft
who they didn't want to put it out until maybe
two weeks beforehand, maybe even a week beforehand, just because
it's not worth it for him, Like they just they
can't beat the rumor mill, right, They're just behind on
the info.

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
So I'm with you.

Speaker 6 (01:00:54):
It's been really interesting where I remember even last year
I was able to get bets down after the combine
on the draft. Yeah, on things like that, and now yeah,
I think the book makers know that they can't leave
themselves open to it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
So I'm with you on it's brutal. Just been waiting
for these propsical.

Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
Out Chad, wouldn't you I'm gonna I'm gonna put you
as the book of Chad. Why don't you want to
post these things get people in the door, and you
know what, you lose a little bit and the player wins.
You know what, the player is gonna do.

Speaker 7 (01:01:24):
Player's gonna come back, and players gonna bet that money
that they just won right back at your shop.

Speaker 1 (01:01:29):
Yeah, I'm a little surprised that they wouldn't be more aggressive,
even for really small limits, right because you're capping it
at fifty bucks, you're still sort of letting people continue
to play and put their money into the book. But so, yeah,

(01:01:53):
it is a little bit surprising to me. I'm actually
looking for at that three sixty five to see what
kind of draft props I can find. It's hard for
me to find him quickly right now.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
Will tell you.

Speaker 7 (01:02:08):
It's the thing I always never know if I'm looking
under college football, if I'm looking under NFL, right, you're secial,
so you're a special NFL draft tab.

Speaker 4 (01:02:18):
Look, some is right.

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
There were years like just go back to the the
Mac Jones year. Was he going to go number three?
Was he not going to go number three? And books
got crushed on that because people like Simon, you know,
they're connected to the league. They were hearing things and
all of a sudden they're putting down six figures that

(01:02:40):
he's not going to go number three, and that's a
huge risk. And I do think that the books generally
are looking to it's a lot of jocking. It's a
challenging time to be a sportsbook operator, right. Everyone is
trying to acquire customers, not to get into the weeds
of the business as efficiently they can and drive revenue

(01:03:01):
as high as they can because those are the expectations,
and there are a lot of challenges, and things are
slower during the non football season than they are during
the football season. It's going to be harder to make
up that money on a quarterly basis for all these
publicly traded companies if they have to go out and
report they had huge losses in the NFL Draft and
they didn't make it up. With the beginning of Major

(01:03:22):
League Baseball or the March Madness or NBA just gets
harder and harder.

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
It's so funny.

Speaker 7 (01:03:28):
Simon mentioned bow Nick. I'm sitting here thinking, and I
always like him. I'm like, in Matt, like, what the
hell have we seen in bow Knicks playing six years
of college football that he's going to be a first
And I remember seeing the yes no, will bow n
X be a first round pick and you immediately bet
to know and then all the the the prices and
then about a week maybe before the draft last maybe

(01:03:54):
it's a week maybe maybe a little bit longer before,
Like I get a call someone who was He's like,
Bonix is going in the first round. I'm like, no,
it's like Bonix is going in the first round. I'm
telling you right now, Bonix is going in the first round.
So fortunately I was able to actually make a profit

(01:04:14):
because the the yes price was longer than the no
that I bet. But uh yeah, I was stunned.

Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
And you're right.

Speaker 7 (01:04:21):
It's the it's the information and just being kind of
a privy to things that not everybody can can get
it can get ahead on. So uh yeah, I I'd
love to just for a book to just to kind
of put themselves out there and throw a what will
Jackson Dart be the second quarterback taken in the in
the in the in the in the NFL draft over

(01:04:42):
under two and a half or three and a half,
Because I think we're I think we're definitely gonna get
three and I and I wonder, like I do make
mcshaye talking about Tyler shuck, I could. I don't know
if we'll get four, but I think we're definitely going
to get three quarterbacks in the first round, so I'm curious.

Speaker 2 (01:04:57):
I'm sure it'll be over two and a half. Juice
to the movie is what they'll wind up posted once
they do post the stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:05:03):
We'll get there as we get closer, for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
And Jackson Dart is the guy you know we're gonna
dig deep into the draft of the next few weeks.
He's the guy who's gonna be on everyone's board for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:05:14):
And then I'll throw on his Florida tape and the
Florida game where he was absolutely terrible and cost all
them as a playoff spot, and that'll be the that'll
that'll be the detractor's tape where it's a you want
to take this guy with the number whatever pick on
the draft, Look look at this game and he was
terrible against the Gators.

Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
Well, then we get into the space of you can
make anyone look good or bad. Yep, at any time. Bear,
It's great catching up with you, brother, Absolutely awesome to
see you. As a reminder, The Favorite Podcast is presented
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