NFL Week 1 Super Contest Picks & Strategy — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:00] It's time for Fezzik Friday. Let's go. Whether it's at the sports book or anywhere else in the casino, he's always helping us find an edge. It's time for Fezzik Friday. Starring the only back-to-back winner of the Hilton Super Contest back in the day, Steve Fezzik.

[00:14] He's won multiple contests since. Steve Fezzik joins us now in studio. Follow him on Twitter at Gerald Peril at Fezzik Sports. What's happening, man? So a tumultuous 72 hours with Mr. Ed Golden over at Raz.

[00:27] I think we're good now. So Ed Golden, he'd be like my number two guy to put in the Sports Betting Hall of Fame. But I'd put in Dr. Bob first. And then Ed Golden, you know, and I know it's a recurring theme, so I won't spend a lot of time on it.

[00:41] I was thinking about this. If Dr. Bob or Ed Golden had been on one of these sports books and was running it with their expertise, the other odds makers would just be like ridiculed. Like, why weren't we doing this before?

[00:53] because, like, NGM's dealing 13 on this game, and everybody else is dealing 15. You know, they're dealing, like, a total of 54. Everyone else is at 56 and a half. Like, no other sportsbook does this.

[01:05] You know why, Gil? Because they tried. And when they put their opinions, like, if they got their butts kicked because they were wrong so often. What happened to them? Were their butts kicked? They got their butts kicked. Like, there's a reason, like, foot soldiers,

[01:17] they all line up, and they copy everyone else's numbers. It's not because they don't want to be different, but they've learned the hot stove. They've learned, oh, if I make the total 55, because I like the over, and everyone else is 54,

[01:30] it's raining and I just get smashed by the sharper bettors versus the bookmakers. So it's just ludicrous. I mean, Dr. Bob and Ed Golden are five times better than the best bookmaker in Vegas the past five years.

[01:44] And everyone knows this. Everyone knows this, except for the people that put people in the Sports Betting Hall of Fame. I love your passion for this subject. I do. And I agree with you about Bob and Ed. Everyone agrees.

[01:56] There's no one super ultra sharp that disagrees with me. Now, tons of people disagree with me, but they're just mainstream people. Let's get to last night's game. Because I put out on a group chat, group text exchange.

[02:11] I was like, anybody think it was weird how the Rams ended that game? They had the ball with the short field. I know they weren't going to win the game, but they put in Seth and Bennett. They had all three timeouts. They got inside the 20-yard line, for God's sake.

[02:24] And they just sort of just like piddled the game away and just like, yeah, whatever, we're done. Eddie Pinheiro misses a field goal down 20. Yeah, three scores. You've got the greatest show on turf. Well, not exactly, but you never know, right? And your response was pretty interesting, which was you just came back with,

[02:40] maybe the Rams just didn't care about this game from the beginning. I actually think it was a great strategy for the Rams. When you think about it, especially with the way the game played out, Everyone's like, oh, the Rams really dropped the ball. You know what? The Rams likely would have lost the game anyways.

[02:54] The Niners were all in. They did their kumbaya. They spent the week with the Wallabies, you know, getting acclimated and everything else. All in for this game. And the Rams are like, it's a 17-game season. Let's not mess up our season by going to Australia and spending a week and messing everything up.

[03:11] We'll just win. We'll come in, hope for the best. And I heard a lot of people, it's funny, I heard a lot of people say, well, clearly they did the wrong thing, but it was only 10% of the results. The Rams had problems. Now, wait, which is it?

[03:24] Is it that they did the wrong thing? I think they may well have done the right thing long term. Yeah. And they just rode off the game. It's fine. You know, it's one game. I know it's a division game, and that's a problem, but I tell you this.

[03:37] Going forward, the Rams, I know, is 72 hours of you-know-what, you know, but it's only 72 hours lost from their lives, and now they can get back to winning football. Yeah, I mean, I've said it all along.

[03:50] I believe the way back is going to be a problem for the Niners. They do get the good fortune of playing the Dolphins. Interestingly, by the way, the Niners asked to get the Monday night game after this one. They were denied, and the Rams ended up with it.

[04:02] But I'm with you on everything. We will never know the answer to how much the travel affected the outcome. We just won't. The sample size is not big enough. Yeah, it's really hard with the sample size. And, you know, the one thing, and I'm not past policy, I did say this.

[04:14] I said, you know, I wonder, and I'm kind of kicking myself for not giving it out, that it sure seems like the second half made your advantage to the Niners. And that's how the game wound up playing out.

[04:26] So I'm like, why didn't they give that up? Because, you know, adrenaline, you show up, boom, you know, you haven't had enough sleep. You're like a zombie. And you got it out to start the game.

[04:38] But then at some point, especially if the game's not going so well, It's like the effects of it probably really compromised the Rams' second half. Can I have a point of contention with you and Crack? Because both you and Crack said the same thing after the Seahawks game,

[04:50] which is no one should have lost on this number, the cell three, da-da-da, da-da-da. You guys are big on the same end. Okay, it ignores, right, that the Seahawks starting quarterback got knocked out.

[05:02] Their Super Bowl winning quarterback got knocked out after five plays. And Crack's response was, well, the result is the result, which I'm sure is what your response is too. So that's fine that you guys get to say that, you know, apart from actual details of the game

[05:15] and the fact that the Seahawks should have covered it 50 times with all the different things that happened. But my problem with you guys when you say that kind of thing is I never hear from you when it doesn't work out that way.

[05:27] So you guys have this free roll on that kind of thing, and I just find it like intellectually, not dishonest, but almost like this brash arrogance that really isn't rooted in any fact.

[05:40] Oh, slow down, cowboy. No. True. No, you're wrong. Brash. It's your brash arrogance. You heard yourself on Twitter? It's not on Twitter, yes, but it's your brash arrogance. I'm going to throw you under the bus here where I'm Gil Alexander and I'm a big handicapper

[05:55] and Seattle's the right side and they were the right side. I 100% agree. Of course they were. But you completely neglected the fact that the marketplace was hitting and hitting New England hard for whatever reason.

[06:09] You should not have lost. You should not have given up minus three. If you listen to the last part of what I said, brash man, pounding your chest, the fact is you only talk about it when it works out in your favor. If you can come in here and talk about all the times that you were smarty pants with this and it didn't work out for you,

[06:22] then you're okay. But guess what? We never hear from you again. You're missing the point. No, I'm not. I'm not debating. No, I'm not debating whether Seattle was right or not. I'm just saying it was obvious. And we talked about this on the Megapod when you laid by 3.5 with Will,

[06:36] and I'm like, guys, this thing, this number's dropping at 3.25. We're not going to win laying 3.5. And you're right. It's one instance. It's one instance. But I would like, it's just my style. I would say, you know what? We'll be cool.

[06:49] We'll wait. We won't play it in contests, and we'll just lay 3 on game day. My 3, Seattle was clearly the right side. I accolade. And my 3 and a half, Seattle was the right side after we watched the game. I agree with you. Your handicap was very good. Okay, you like to talk about the clear right side.

[07:03] You have won in the NFL this Sunday. You say Houston is the clear right side against Buffalo. Well, and I might look stupid here because the market is not embracing Houston. What's this? I thought I could bet Houston plus one and a half at Reduce Vig today at one of the betting exchanges.

[07:20] I'm like, what is going on? Josh Allen always plays terrible against Houston. We want to play dogs week one. Houston should be a slight favorite. I know the good doctor thinks Houston should be a slight favorite. I think Houston should be a slight favorite.

[07:33] So Houston plus one-half is widely available. Put me down for the Houston Texans. Put him down. Does that mean you bet it? I bet plus one-half this morning. It's widely available. Are you able to get it without even laying minus one-tenth?

[07:47] Yeah. Let's talk about the marquee match of college football, Ohio State and Texas. Ohio State and Texas, you ever play on this? Yeah, so I'm opposite Raz here, and this will be controversial. Shocker Controversy So Raz likes Texas Ohio State over And I sure all the analytics say over But early in the season when a game a line pick

[08:07] it's a critically important game. I've seen this movie so many times where both teams are just too conservative. Fourth and one from midfield, they punt instead of going for it. The highly leveraged plays, they tend to just not be as aggressive as they should be.

[08:24] So I think Raz is totally correct. you know, in the analytics that the numbers should be in the low 50s. I just think that the play calling is going to be too conservative by both coaches. So I'm looking at under the 49.

[08:36] All right. What did you end up doing with contest? All right. Well, I got my 15,000 of hats. How do we feel about the color of the Circa Millions hat this year? So I think in pre-production, was it Kelly that said,

[08:48] boy, Circa's finally ran out of good color. We've played enough years where they finally ran into a bad color. Yeah, we're going to have a magenta. But, you know, we're going to be like, what's the tennis player's name that's in the semifinals?

[09:00] Tapio, what's his name? Tiafoe? Tiafoe is wearing Tapio. He looks like a big peach pumpkin the other night. He could wear it. I could wear it. He looks great in it. He does. But I'm like, I guess all the others.

[09:12] He ran out of blue and white outfits, and he's going to wear that. But he had to get it on Circa. So I want to ask you, what percentage? I don't know what the answer is.

[09:24] I would say 1.8% of the people lost last night playing on the Rams. I'm just guessing. You know what? And here's the key, before my palm jumps all over me. I could be completely wrong.

[09:36] It could be as high as 4%. It could be as low as 1%. It could be as low as 0.8%. We won't know until the deadline. We won't know. Now, why would people play the Rams just because they knew they could re-up?

[09:48] I don't care if they re-up. I actually am happy they re-up because anyone who played the Rams in their first go-round probably isn't a good contestant anyway, so I'd like them to re-up a million times. But the point is, let's say, let's be conservative and say it's 1.5%.

[10:02] Something like that. That's the same as Derek coming on, add 1.5% to the circus survivor pool. But you make a good point about that, because if it's stated that way, people get it for some reason.

[10:15] And it's the same exact thing. It would be like Derek said, we're going to roll one die, and whatever number it comes up, we're going to divide by two. If we roll a four, we're going to put 2% extra into the pool.

[10:27] If we roll a six, 3%, if we roll a one, only 0.5%. But just that alone, the idea that we talked about, some people forget to put their picks. And that certainly will happen, and that's an overlay. Well, this is, obviously,

[10:39] someone took the ramp. Okay. Heck, probably someone took the nine. How many millions and how many survivor? I did five survivor, 10 millions. I'm way better at millions. So that's the problem with survivors. I'm just not nearly as good at it

[10:51] as the best people in the world who, like, live and breathe and map everything. But I love the Gil Alexander North Star. You know, hey, I'll play the Spurs, I'll play the Chargers, I'll play the Jaguars. I'll play one of the obvious, close to optimal picks.

[11:08] Here are another contest. We'll find out the breadth of that. Stevie's got a bunch to say also beyond that, including a 9-11 note as well. and a whole bunch of unders, season win totals already added from Steve.

[11:21] Next, on another case. Torch D, the one who put the sadness in panties. Here's my survivor strategy this year. I bought a complete set of mini NFL helmets. I put them onto a tray and presented to my two-year-old daughter.

[11:33] Whatever she picks, I pick. Rolling with the Bengals week one, I suppose they do have the coolest looking helmet. Well done by the daughter. Steve Cohen, not the Steve Cohen who owns the Mets or our Steve Cohen here, He says, Gil, hoping not to hear you say the C word, a.k.a. carnage on Monday.

[11:48] Yeah. Yeah. We got to stop with that word. I'm totally responsible as well for it. Dub Sport, by far one of my favorite segments of the week. Hey, ask D for me how he feels about betting alt numbers by a point max.

[12:01] I'm aware even moving it just a click can be costly, but just wondering what he thinks. I hate the one point alt numbers. The reason being is like, hey, I woke up, it's 2026.

[12:14] There's all these prediction markets, betting exchanges. You can play minus 101 in each direction, all right? Literally minus 101. We can't do that on the alt markets. Those options aren't available.

[12:27] So now you're laying straddles of oftentimes minus 115 in each direction. So you're basically playing into a so much more difficult-to-beat marketplace. you'd almost always be better off just playing the primary market.

[12:40] Johnny Ringo, best segment ever. Accountability is what is missing in this world. You know, accountability is what's missing. I'll go back. I'm going to die on this show. It's talking about you, Steve. It's talking about you. Oh, yeah. It's still a great point. Yeah.

[12:52] I mean, the point is, how many people like, what's your record? And they're like, oh, well, I was 22 and 9 on totals when I gave out unders in the ACC.

[13:04] It's just a bunch of gobbledygook nonsense. No, what, like all your plays that you gave out, one year, three year, five year, widely available numbers, what's your record? I can't even get people to answer this question. Why are you just coming to Jesus on this now?

[13:16] Why, because you've been in that world for years and years and years. Why are you just figuring this out now? Hashtag ostrich. Hashtag head in the sand. Hashtag that's your stupid pheasant. That's your defense.

[13:28] Ostrich, head in the sand, stupid pheasant. It is. Bullet Godfrey. I don't know how this one got in there. He says, this current Fez dye job has him looking like William Macy. Oh, that doesn't seem nice. My goodness. You know, this hateful stuff on my physical appearance.

[13:40] You know what? For all those, like, who have sons and daughters and they're, like, in junior high school, talk to your kids and don't make fun of how anybody looks. That's not right. That's hateful. Dr. Van Nostrad, did I just hear Fez say he's not being brash?

[13:54] I love him, but Twitter says, like, General Patton brash. Here's one for you. This is Deepak48 on your site. He says, I can't believe I'm defending Steve on this one, But how many times has he come in and gave a game and the number has moved against him and he's admitted he's gotten the worst of it.

[14:07] He could have easily gave another play and never even mentioned he was. Oh, that's a different subject. I agree with you on that, Deepak. Because you and I both share this. We are highly annoyed at the people who never get the worst of the number. Yeah, never.

[14:19] And I love people that come out and say, oh, by the way, I took the commanders to have a good year and now it's not looking so good. And they're honest and open about it. It happens to everyone.

[14:31] All of us. Where we get the worst of the number. And, like, this has happened to me before. Like, literally, I'm working with my friend Dan in Huntington Beach, right? And he's a college football specialist. And a total comes up, and he's, like, he's ready to pounce on it.

[14:45] He's like, we're going to play the South Florida under 51 and a half. But whatever they open, if it's north of 50, this happened this week, we're going under, right? So they open 51. Bang, we play under 51, okay? Circuit goes to 49. Foot soldiers fall in line.

[14:57] Everybody comes to 49. It goes down to 48. And then what's this? like someone's doing a show like oh I got South Florida under 51 it's like no you didn't because we were there and it was our primary

[15:09] game and we smacked it within 8 seconds we got the 51 and it was the only one in the world so how the heck did you get 51 it just like and they saw because they saw the opener right and like well what that means and they just

[15:22] want to like sound smart and people do this all the time and I'm like I literally want to say show me the tickets I'm so frustrated I famously said both of these first two games, I got the worst of both numbers.

[15:34] Welcome back, NSL. I got the worst on the Seahawks. I got the worst on the Niners. You should be given an immediate, enormous promotion. You should be running the place. Because, like, let's solve this whole. And let me carry it.

[15:46] If Gil Alexander gives out Emma minus 120 to the subscribers, and then the next morning it's minus 140, and you say, I have Emma in my back pocket minus 120, I am so cool and happy with that. That's spot on.

[15:58] but you can just like go to your carbone go to your 2 2 dinner with Wischneb you know sleep You don get any sleep And they come in and say oh by the way I pocket

[16:11] I got minus 120. Like, but where? Where was the disclosure? Anyone can look and say, I got the Stewart's minus 2.5. Yeah, I got the good number against Atlanta. On this subject, you and I are completely aligned.

[16:23] By the way, last one here, Pittsburgh Billy. He says, can I go under 1.5% of contestants that took the Rams? I think there will be more no entries than Rams picks. Oh, I'll take Rams against no entries.

[16:35] I'll lay 1,000 on that. Let me know. Brian's breaking news at Intel. Call me up. Cessick's BS. Music to my ears. Thank you, Gero. Wow. That doesn't seem nice. Okay. You might disagree with me, but it's not BS. Wait a minute.

[16:47] We can have a discussion. I'm wrong all the time, but it's rarely BS. No, no. You're not. BS is not what you do. Okay. So, five survivors, 10 million.

[17:00] You're in other stuff, too, right? You're in the Friday Circa Invitational? Yes, I'm in the Friday Circa Invitational. I'm in the college football Westgate. I'll be in the Super Contest Westgate. I'll probably enter it three times. That's fine.

[17:14] Splash Sports. What's this? They've got these guarantees. We've got an even money contest at Splash Sports. They've got a 21 million guaranteed survivor. So, like, Surgis is going to get $28 million in Survivor. I don't know if Splash is going to meet that guarantee of $21 million.

[17:29] So, I think it's at $12 million. You know, I don't know if you noticed, but the NFL Week 1 is about to start. You can't enter it once Sunday morning hits. So, that is looking very attractive. Let's go back to the handicapping contest versus Survivor.

[17:41] Why a more realistic ROI, but Survivor in the handicapping one, much more difficult in Survivor? it's much more difficult to win in Survivor

[17:54] because the logger from Eastern Maryland, Darvin Moon, has to have like a miracle to get to the main event final table in the World Series of Poker. But if he plays Survivor and he just follows the Gil Alexander North Star,

[18:07] I'm going to take me one of these top five favorites every week. It's a pretty good strategy. It might even be a plus EV strategy because there's all these yahoos out there that are going to be releasing on the Jets-Titans game.

[18:21] People love to play contrarians. Just to put things in perspective, and I know this is extreme, if you took a 6.5, 7-point favorite on average every week,

[18:33] you've got a 1 in 1,000 chance of navigating around the world and getting to the finish line. If you took Pickham on every single play, you have a 1 in 1 million chance. So it just shows how much harder it is.

[18:45] As soon as you start stacking even one or two pick-em type of lines, my goodness, you're never going to make that back on the other end. Now, the one exception is the pig in the python funneling on a Thanksgiving week

[18:58] where you're trying to swallow the eight-point favorite, and 60% of the people are trying to swallow that pig. Yes, you can go contrarian then. Okay, I mentioned you have more new NFL-adjusted season win totals that you've played.

[19:14] Please. So let's keep it really simple, okay? What we're going to do is we're going to take a really lousy organization, a team that has had bad news during the summer, a team that they're cutting in line to bet against in week one.

[19:26] So you know everyone, all the Sharks are very much down on these teams, and we're just going to fade them all for their season wins, assuming that the bad week one line move against them is a proxy for future failure as the year goes on.

[19:39] I did play the Raiders under a 6.5. Brock Bowers knew it was a denty injury. I'm also adding Atlanta Falcons under 7.5, minus 140. I know there's extra VIG here.

[19:52] It just turns out you're better off playing the higher number because you don't get taxed nearly as much as what you should. I played the Browns under 6.5, minus 190. How are the Browns going to win seven games? I mean, Watson couldn't play quarterback for Florida A&M, based upon what I see.

[20:07] The commanders, your commanders, who I was high on back in May. So was I. No longer commanders under 7.5 minus 140. Money pouring in on Philadelphia. Remember, divisional dogs are great week one.

[20:21] No one wants the commanders for good reason. And the Carolina Panthers, this is a little controversial. There are some guys I know that like Panthers over, but they've got injuries at running back. They've got injuries on the line. I'm going Panthers under the 7.5 minus 160.

[20:35] I talked about this with Felica real briefly. the overreaction to the Miami game. What do you believe about that? Well, to them blowing? Yes. I think that you just run the ball up the middle once you're up 49-0.

[20:50] You can give your backups reps, and just by smash-mouth football, run the ball right up the middle, and don't throw the ball when you get in the red zone. Also, move the ball between the 20s, get the reps in,

[21:02] and then three straight line plunges, and kick a field goal. That's what we'd like to happen. But is there a betting lesson, though, that this is just a new way that... Yeah, all teams are different.

[21:15] Georgia's going to keep being conservative, and Dwayne Kiffin's going to pound you. You know, there's certain coaches that follow. Hey, Miami's going to win the national championship. Based upon that game, you know why? Because I watched the game. I know Florida A&M can't play away.

[21:28] You yawned and pressed at the quarterback and the receptions that the receivers were making. That team is chock full of athleticism. D-Mill3219, oh my God, can get your boy Todd some decent apparel to wear.

[21:40] Do you see Todd out in the sportsbook? Ryan Thompson, FYI, two listeners slash tweeters reference Dr. Van Nostrand and Bob Saccomano. Seinfeld characters pronounced Van-Nostrand and Saccomano.

[21:55] I'll show myself out. Thank you, Ryan, for the Seinfeld pronunciation guide. I appreciate that. All right, Stevie, a couple things. One housekeeping item. Oh, please. So we'd go into these ritzy, ritzy high-end tennis clubs, right?

[22:07] And they'd be mean to Todd, all right? And Todd was unhappy about it. And he's like, they're being mean to me because, and he would postulate a theory. And I was like, no, Todd, they're not being mean to you because of that.

[22:21] They're being mean because you look like you're dressed as a homeless person, you know, in the bad area of San Diego or Vancouver. and it has nothing to do with you or your background or anything like that, in my opinion.

[22:37] You know what's beautiful about this? He can't defend himself because he's not on the show right now. He's not on the show. He's not talking. Okay. A couple things. One, you're here, by the way, you're here to sign up for contests.

[22:49] You have like, you know, five figures worth of money on you and yet you're grinding out a $30 advantage slot win over here. This is Anthony Curtis of 101. want. Anthony's like, if you see $5 lying on the ground, you pick it up and it will

[23:01] pay off. So I just, I walk by a video poker machine. What's this? That's an advantage for me. So I pop in my $20 and I run my money through. So it's just the way that people like,

[23:13] the thing how ludicrous this is is you're putting $15,000 into these contests and you're basically reaching down to pick up $5 in expected value. But that's, you know what? It all

[23:25] accumulates towards the goal line. Also in your DNA, you drove to the Nevada, California border last night. Why? Oh, this is unbelievable. So Splash Sports has these great overlays right now.

[23:38] So I'm in on them. Specifically, I love the even money pick five contest. But I cannot enter Nevada. But I can submit in Nevada. Don't ask me why. I'm not a lawyer. All right? So I drive to Prim, Nevada, and I'm worried I'm right on the border.

[23:54] They're going to geolocate me in the wrong spot, right? So I go a good quarter mile into California and what there It the California Lottery Store And so it the one where whenever the California Lottery goes high literally these dumbos will drive out and they wait two hours in line for a lottery

[24:14] that they have a one in a zillion chance to win that has a plus EV, but not after you take out all the taxes and the amortization and everything else. However, now you actually have a huge plus EV. That's the optimal place to enter at Splash Court TV in Nevada.

[24:28] Where are all these tens of thousands of people that are wasting an entire afternoon to buy lottery tickets? Why aren't they all driving on I-15 to go to that lottery store to enter this blast? I can't explain it.

[24:40] Hey, could you promote the other V-CIN shows you're going to be on this football season where you don't call other people dumbos? Dumbo is one of my copyright things. They don't copyright dumbo. You're going to be more in the weeds on the games themselves, right?

[24:54] You're going to focus. What shows are you going to be on besides this one? Do you even know? I'm going to be with Scott Seinberg. Okay. Every Saturday night. We're still hammering out the time. I believe we're going to be on 945, and I'm really excited.

[25:06] Dr. Chow and I, we're going to be on Sunday doing the halftime report. That's going to be this Sunday. I believe we're going to do it this Sunday with Stormy and JVT. Early games with Stormy and JVT, late games with Matt Brown.

[25:19] Exactly. And I believe that Stormy, with her schedule, is going to be getting the pulse from the book at that time. So I think it's going to be with JVT. We're still working out the details. I'm super excited about working with JVT and with Stormy and with Matt on the Afternoon.

[25:37] Bet you won't call Story brash. Bet you won't do that on that show. You know what? I'm not going to mention any names, okay, because Todd is in the studio. But there's some people I can be critical of others, and I am just, like, so positive about Stormy and her work.

[25:52] It's just fantastic. He's fantastic. Yes, he is. Okay, regarding contests, there's someone you wanted to promote that you think is really good at what he does other than Dr. Bob?

[26:04] Yeah, so I don't know him very well. Jason Jarvis has just crushed it, and he's in the Beeson Invitational contest here. And when I say he's crushed it, he's in Circa Millions, and he doesn't have one.

[26:16] He has, you'll love this, he has two top ten finishes in Circa Millions. Oh, wow. That's like the World Series of Poker main event for poker. That's awesome. Making the final table. I don't know if he did it back-to-back years. I think he did, but at least two out of the last three years.

[26:30] That's Las Vegas Chris-esque. Exactly. Exactly. Very much a run like Las Vegas Chris. And here's what you're going to love about Jason. Jason doesn't even care about road numbers. All right? He plays the teams that he likes.

[26:44] So, like, yep, had the Niners last night, plus three and a half. He doesn't care that the market line was 3.7. So it is beyond impressive. He's not just doing it with skullduggery and good contest strategy.

[26:56] He's just picking the right winners. So, now, past performances, no guarantee of future results. But, you know, hats off to Jason Jarvis. And if you bought somebody else's NFL package and you don't even know where Jason Jarvis is,

[27:09] I would argue you're probably not looking close enough at who has done the best the last five years. All right. Optimal survival play. hey, let's cut it to brass tacks here, whatever that expression is, get to brass tacks. Who is the optimal survivor play, ultimately weak one for you?

[27:23] I don't know, because I don't know what the splits are going to be. I suspect it's going to be the Chargers, because I think they're... Well, you never know what the splits are going to be. That's the whole game. Well, but there's other survivors where you can peek in and see what people have been taking ESPN or those kinds of things.

[27:38] So it's like if the Chargers have more than 40% of the people took the Chargers, I think they become suboptimal. If it's below 40%, I'm pretty sure, you know, just taking the 8.5 point favorite is the safest way to go.

[27:50] Certainly, Jack's of all times is 30%, 35%, somewhere in that. Is that right? Yeah. But I do think, like, these stealers, these sneaky stealers, I mean, they may charge you $100 for parking. Yeah. But they're going to get the job done.

[28:03] And they're up to minus 5. And the key is they were minus 3 all week. By the way, no one would lay minus 5. They were the most fair total dumbbell when they could have had minus 3 all summer. But the key is the Raiders were like a good pick like a month ago

[28:19] when the Raiders were minus three and a half and trending upwards. No Brock Bowers, gently banged up. Do we really want to invest in a Raiders team because they're only going to win that game 60% of the time? You're like, well, this is my only chance to use the Raiders.

[28:31] Good. Don't use them at all. There's 20 other perfectly capable teams we can use. So Steelers, most optimal-ish? I'm feeling Steelers. But Steelers, I would go Chargers still one. Steelers 2, Jacksonville 3, and I think Detroit would be the one I'd worry about.

[28:46] I wouldn't use Detroit. I have six entries. I will use some combination of Chargers, Steelers, and Lions. Actually, not Lions, because there's a consideration later in the year. Chargers, Steelers, and I don't know what.

[28:58] Now, as far as your value, like right now, there'll be some people that lost on the Rams, some people won't submit. Your ticket's worth $1,025, okay? It really doesn't matter. As long as you take one of these teams, it might be worth $1,040.

[29:11] If you take the very optimal one, it might only be worth $1,030 or $1,020. It's all good, unless you do something crazy like you're going to play the Tennessee Titans or the Jets. Then your ticket's probably only immediately only worth $800, and that's the dead money in the contest.

[29:25] And everyone who wins with the Jets will come back and say, says, you're an idiot, I'm in first place. But no one who had the Titans, after the Titans lose, will be hurt from. I know it's, listen, you're not often known for, you know, solemnity here on the show,

[29:41] But if you could, we have a solemn subject here with 9-11. You wanted to make a point about it before you left. So I hadn't been in New York. I'm from New York when I was a young boy.

[29:53] But I went back with my son and my wife last summer. And the one thing that I was totally unaware was not just the horrible tragedy 25 years ago, but that it has just continued year after year.

[30:06] The toxicity that was released within the city, people getting sick, staying sick their entire lives, and people are still dying each and every month from this terrible day.

[30:18] And what a terrible thing. And I was just, somehow that had just escaped me. And that's why when you get out, and I don't do enough of this, like when you actually go to a city, you can learn so much more than just reading on the Internet or AI and the like.

[30:32] And it really hit home how this tragedy has just, not just the grief, but just the deaths from it have just continued for generations. Were you here in Vegas at the time?

[30:44] I was in Los Angeles. My wife called me. She said there's been a terrible accident in Washington. I remember the first message. And then she called me again, and I woke up and said, well, what's going on? Yeah. Obviously, Pentagon got hit as well.

[30:57] I couldn't reach my mom for a while because all the phones were jammed. I mean, it was just amazing. About 25 years ago, phones were jammed. Like, you couldn't get through to folks. You know? You're getting pretty emotional here, Steve.

[31:10] Well, and I moved to Vegas two months later. Yeah. And I was just wrapping up my career. And I'm thinking to myself, like, I worked, you know, in downtown L.A. in a fairly, you know, not a tall building, but a building, you know?

[31:23] And so I'm thinking, my God, imagine someone who worked their whole life, you know, about to retire. Yeah. And they'd be in the 90th floor of one of those towers. Oh, it's unspeakable. Or someone who's just starting their career. Unspeakable. You know? Yeah.

[31:35] It's awful. If we appreciate it, we ran the gamut today. We laughed and we cried. We did it all. Put Dr. Bob in the Hall of Fame two years later. Put Ed in.

[31:47] And stop putting bookmakers in. Come on. Can you imagine a poker Hall of Fame? Let's put in the poker room managers. Hey, this guy invented a poker game. Let's put him into the Hall of Fame. By the way, when we go to commercial, he's still going to be.

[32:00] He's still going to happen. Maybe get Mike Manicello in there. you