Mad Bets: Should you bet against the Patriots this year?
Betting on NFL team totals offered by BetMGM and possibly finding some value picking against the Patriots.
Video Transcript
MATT GOTHARD: Welcome back to "Mad Bets." This week, the NFL schedule is coming out, so we are looking at some team totals. Jared, give me one winner, one over-under for team wins that you are locked in on.
JARED QUAY: All right, I've been saying this for years, but this is the year it definitely comes true. I'm taking the New England Patriots to not get over nine wins. I think that's ridiculous. I think last year they had to stretch towards the end trying to get that much. They did get that much.
But I just feel like without Tom Brady, without Gronk-- I feel like they're gonna put Stidham at quarterback and think they're gonna get nine wins. Especially when the whole AFC is getting better. The Bills look good. The Jets are improving every year.
Hell, the Dolphins beat them once last year. They may beat them twice this year. They were tanking for Tua. They got Tua. I think the Patriots may finish at the bottom, and it may last for a couple of years. Patriot fans, fight me.
MATT GOTHARD: I disagree with you just because the Dolphins seem to always beat the Patriots. Every year, they're good for that one win. But the Jets are so bad. The Dolphins, I'm not buying in on them yet.
So I still feel like the Pats are gonna walk through that division. But I know that you're a little biased against the Pats. You're a little biased against them.
JARED QUAY: How? How? Gothard, please tell me. What are they gonna do? Julian Edelman gonna play quarterback again?
MATT GOTHARD: This is exactly what Bill Belichick wants out of his season. It's like taking Madden and playing on All Madden, and that's what Bill Belichick is doing. And he's super pumped to do that. So they don't got Brady anymore.
JARED QUAY: Can I say something? All right. All right--
MATT GOTHARD: Yeah.
JARED QUAY: --Belichick and Brady played together. Brady has excelled his whole career. But Bill Belichick was a coach before he was the coach of the Patriots. He coached the Browns, and they stunk.
It's not like his coaching powers are like, oh, I make regular players better players. No, I'm telling you right now. Patriots don't get nine wins. They'd be lucky to get seven.
MATT GOTHARD: Let's actually follow Tom Brady because I'm looking at the Bucs over-under 10 wins. And I'm taking under on here. Everybody and their mom is betting on the Bucs right now. They're a fun play.
They think they got Gronkowski. Brady is there now. But the problem is the Bucs just weren't that good of a team last year. And to think that they're gonna all of a sudden just win that division-- they have the Saints at 10 wins as well. There's no way they're both gonna go over 10 wins. I like the Saints to win that division, so I'm taking the Bucs under 10 wins.
JARED QUAY: Yeah, it's not a Brady factor, OK? This is what people don't realize. Tampa Bay was number one against the run last year as a defense. They bring back Suh. They bring back Pierre-Paul. They have a great defense.
They added Tom Brady. They added Gronk. They still have tremendous weapons on the outside. I just feel like this team is playing against the Carolina Panthers, who are gonna be bad. Atlanta Falcons, nobody knows what they're gonna get.
The only kind of conference challenge they're gonna get is from the Saints. They could get 11 wins. I'm not saying they gonna win the Super Bowl, but they can get 11 wins.
MATT GOTHARD: No, no, so here's the thing really quick before we move on. The Patriots defense last year had the least amount of points allowed in a game. The Buccaneers defense was the fourth most. Think about how much pressure that's putting on Tom Brady. He's going from a defense that could carry him last season to now he's gonna have to score points.
We saw with Jameis Winston. That's why he threw so many picks. He was always constantly playing comeback. I don't know if Tom Brady has that in him. And you could say Gronk's on that team, but Gronk hasn't played a full season in like five years. So--
JARED QUAY: It's not just--
MATT GOTHARD: --I'm not all in yet.
JARED QUAY: What about Mike Evans? What about Godwin?
MATT GOTHARD: What about Mike Evans? What about last year? They had seven wins.
JARED QUAY: Yeah, but that was seven wins with Jameis Winston. Tom Brady is at least three wins, right? Tom Brady is at least three wins.
MATT GOTHARD: I don't know. All right, so we're disagreeing early on. Do you have something we can agree on? What's your other team you're picking?
JARED QUAY: All right. You're not gonna like this one, but I love it a lot, all right? I'm taking the Los Angeles Chargers, who will hopefully have a home games-- I pray they have home games because I live in LA-- go over 7 and 1/2 and then get at least eight wins, all right?
Last year was a fluke. Every game they lost, with an exception to the Chiefs and they lost really bad to another team, they were within 7 points of every game. They won five games. All they got to win is three more on top of that.
Tyrod Taylor is not a bad quarterback. Tyrod Taylor took the Bills to the playoffs for like the first time in 15 years. And the NFL is changing. If you haven't seen Lamar Jackson play-- you need a running quarterback. Tyrod Taylor does that.
You add that with that hungry defense. You added Chris Harris to it, and they added Joseph from Minnesota. They're gonna be stout on defense, and they play against the Broncos and Raiders twice a year. They'll get eight wins.
MATT GOTHARD: Disagreeing yet again and for multiple reasons. First of all, Lamar Jackson is not the same as Tyrod Taylor. I'm just gonna go ahead and say that. They're not actually remotely close to the same talent level.
Second of all, I don't think Tyrod is gonna be the quarterback for the whole season. I think they're gonna bring in Justin Herbert after they lose a couple of games and the season's out the window, and all of a sudden eight games is a big climb when you get a rookie quarterback in there. Not to mention that they might not even have a home game. Come on, man, let's rethink this one a little bit. We got to rethink--
JARED QUAY: I mean, they didn't have a home game last year. Nobody goes to the Chargers games. Those were away games. If anything, it's gonna neutralize it out.
MATT GOTHARD: That's a fair point.
JARED QUAY: Look, I'm telling you, the Chargers are gonna be good. But now who you got? Who's your last team?
MATT GOTHARD: Well, I'm taking that same thought process, that California teams might not have that many home games. We might find out eventually that they do, but right now there's a lot of value in taking the under on the 49ers, on the Rams, on the Chargers.
But I also like the over for the Arizona Cardinals, 6 and 1/2. Now hear me out on this. Seattle and California are two places that have been hit majorly by this pandemic, and there's a chance that all of those teams-- the Seahawks, the Niners, and the Rams-- don't get a usual schedule of home games.
You know who is gonna have a usual schedule of home games? The Arizona Cardinals. And Kyler Murray now has DeAndre Hopkins as a wide receiver. I'm really excited about the Cardinals this year, and I think they could easily get seven wins.
JARED QUAY: I like the Cardinals, all right? I'm in Arizona right now. I think the Cardinals are a great team. I just know sophomore slump is a real thing, and they play in the toughest conference in football. One of them.
Even without that, even if they play them at home, the Rams are still gonna be hard to beat, the 49ers are gonna be hard to beat, and the Seahawks are gonna be hard to beat. So you're really relying on them to win a couple of non-conference games. Yeah, they play some bad teams on the schedule. But six wins is a lot of wins for a team that hasn't had six wins in a long time.
MATT GOTHARD: I'm gonna be looking like Kliff Kingsbury in his mansion there after I cash this bet.
JARED QUAY: I'm gonna be looking like-- I'm gonna put $10 on the under just so I can have something to laugh at when it happens.
MATT GOTHARD: All right, well if you guys want to get in on the action, go to betmgm.com/yahoo and sign up today. New users get a 100% bonus up to $1,000. We're adding Colorado to the list. So Colorado, New Jersey, West Virginia, Indiana, get in on the action.
JARED QUAY: You can bet in Colorado now?
MATT GOTHARD: Yeah, it just came out, dude. This has been "Mad Bets," everybody. We'll see you again next week.
