"I'm a cry baby"

This note is my weekly outlet to b*tch, complain, and vent about (mostly) everything that went wrong for me in the previous NFL week. My wins barely move the needle for me emotionally; but sometimes even the most innocuous losses can burn and boil my insides, lingering long into the Monday dawn.

Yeah, I'm a bit of a cry baby, but memorializing my pain may help me cope (and perhaps reveal some insightful lessons).

Performance:

I risk approximately $100 on my bets (shame me idgaf), and I cleared about $2,300 this week (so I guess you could say 20+ “units”, though I rarely think in these industry terms, as many traditional pregame betting heuristics don’t fit neatly into a live betting framework).

My risk/reward ratio is what I care most about, and how I evaluate my performance and the risks I take to generate returns. The payout on my size-weighted average bet was over +200 this week.

This was also my first week with access to a FanDuel account, and I took advantage. (The doubleheader MNF game is tonight, so there's still technically time to lose it all.)

Lamentations:

I didn’t hit any blow out SGPs. Some Tua/Waddle/Dolphins alts/Mac/Gisecki hit, but the juiciest ones fell short by just enough to be fun/irritating all game long, as Tua’s 249 passing yards missed the 250 benchmark and one nice drive short of the 325 for the truly obscene 100x to flirt with cashing).

Chiefs/Jaguars was a wet blanket – or – if you’ve ever heard of ‘edging’, it felt similar to what I imagine that is like (prudes, feel free to Google it; better yet, ask ChatGPT).

I had about $300 scattered across various deep out-of-the-money SGPs, leaning into Mahomes 3/300 and 4/350, along with some Lawrence/Ridley combos, and they all turned into donations.

I’m wrong on pregame script-based bets all the time (certainly more than 50%, otherwise massive SGPs would be hitting non-stop), so those losses didn’t bother me too much.

What really hurt - and stung pretty much all day - was betting into a free fall of the live in-game total. A total that never bounced, and never came close to bouncing.

Dead wrong.

A true ‘trying to catch a falling knife’ experience.

The only factors that mitigated a total trainwreck in that game was 1.) I didn't exceed my self-imposed limit on exposure to any single projected theme, and 2.) the autobet of Chiefs ML at near even money. Because of my existing totals and correlated SGPs exposure, however, I didn’t capitalize on the Chiefs discount nearly as much as I otherwise would have in fresh, unencumbered conditions. 

This is how poor performing bets can cascade beyond just the direct losses, but also into indirect losses from missed opportunities. As I type this out and it all crystalizes for me, this is probably the real reason this game haunts me so, despite the realized losses only being mildly painful.

Tears:

Elsewhere, my (small) pregame bets were mostly sh*t.

Our Circa entries were a mix of Chargers (L), Bengals (L), Bears (L), Giants (L), Jets (L), Bills (W), Chiefs (W) and Dolphins (W).

🤮 🤮 🤮

None of those losses are colorably defensible, except maybe the Chargers. They were up 11-0 and Titans was a fashionable public dog (a top 5 pick in Circa Million and registered as a top 5 pick from our podcast sentiment readings).

Fashionable public dogs are super cringe, and I’ll almost never bet into those circumstances (all else equal). Nonetheless, the handicap on why you’d fade the Chargers in this spot, at this spread, vs this team – all came to fruition. (Not to mention, I made no money actually trading this game, ugh)

Bengals was also frustrating. Got too cute with the -3.5 in Circa, overly romanced by the Ravens injury narratives, which were of course already more than baked into the existing -3.5. The -3.5 also never really even flirted with moving to -4. Some sharper books were even reluctant to move off the 3 to begin with, preferring to juice instead, likely knowing -110 +3.5s would attract meaningful Ravens money (even with the injuries). In Circa, we get +100 on both sides, and even still, we went with the Bengals.

Square asf (especially with limited evidence that there isn’t some sticky friction currently with this Bengals offense).

Alas, while failing to recognize these insights pregame, I quickly appreciated them in-game. This prevented me from getting taken to the woodshed betting on a Bengals comeback. I cashed some Bengals +3.5s, but those canceled out some Bengals even money MLs. My exposure was very limited here; and I’m happy my pregame denseness didn’t cost me money in-game. But losing any Circa pick always makes me furious.

Not much to say on Jets, Giants, and Bears. We had them all in Circa, but I didn’t bet any of these teams pregame or in-game (except the Giants, and it took until they were down double-digits to whet my appetite, which has some conflicting signal in why we even took these teams in Circa to begin with).

Cheers, Guts, and Glory:

Some big comebacks this week, and I’m proud that I had the conviction to hit the buy button on nearly all of them.

Washington was a waterfall of profits, as I had no hesitation to execute on the view that the Broncos would be unable to hold a lead (especially since they accumulated the lead with still so much time left in the game).

I drafted Sam Howell as my only QB with the last pick in my 16-team fantasy work league and have futures on Washington to win the NFC East at +1700; which should tell you how much I believe in Howell as a potential top 10 QB (shoutout to our provocative buddy Joe and sidekick RTR (and early SPK supporters) as well for fueling my initial interest in late 2022). He takes too many sacks, but this is essentially his rookie campaign and some of his throws (including in this game) are jawdropping (and makes Bears fans like me weep).

Offenses that demonstrate the ability to move the ball early, but for whatever reason don't turn them into points, is the ideal setup for banking on a comeback and leaning into depressed in-game totals. This was the Commies through the 1st 20 minutes of the game.

My only misfire in this game was piling into the Commies a bit too early. I gobbled up +7.5s and +10.5s, and some MLs in the +300s, and didn’t want to overextend my exposure by the time prices dipped into the +1000s and +21.5s. I didn’t trade the bottom, but this was a beautiful moneymaker.

Some other games where the clear heavy favorite dipped to near even money, I nibbled but didn’t lever up as much as I should have.

I got about $300 on Bills -2.5s after the quick Raiders score on the 1st drive (another ideal setup to fade a heavy underdog). I could have made a killing on Bills alts, especially since we liked the Bills at -8.5 to open and had them in Circa. I'll blame being distracted by other games, but this was a whiff.

I also got about $200 on Niners -1.5 when the Rams went up 17-10. I didn't want to go too heavy because the early season Rams thesis has been flat out wrong.

I was barely watching the Giants game and was just annoyed that they were down 20-0 and that we picked them in Circa. But from a trading perspective, I was already cautious on them by Saturday night as the Circa consensus and Survivor picks were released (with heavy action on NYG). I was mentioning in our Discord how unjustified the imbalanced interest in the Giants was. The freakin New York Giants who were coming off a 40-0 blowout, on the road, as a -4.5 favorite, vs a team supposedly tanking but nearly won and did cover in Week 1.

Why so much confidence by so many bettors? Yuck.

I was cold, cold, cold on the Giants by kickoff.

I started to pay closer attention after halftime. Dobbs threw what would have been a pick-6, but was negated by a NYG penalty. Even still, the pick-6 seem to energize the defense and you could see a bit more urgency, excitement, and less disinterest from the defense. This shift in energy was all I needed to start to nibble on Giants MLs. I got +1000 and +400, and a flurry of +11.5s and +7.5s and +3.5s as they inched closer.

We all know what happened next.

Pats/Dolphins was a nice close to a great pnl day (shoutout Judah and Zach who both outlined beautiful setups to trade this SNF game, which I leaned into with conviction). Waited for a slow start to trigger and over 39.5 and waited for either team to get to +7.5 or better (which turned out to be the Patriots).

Send-off:

I’m $2300 richer after Week 2, but the Circa losses still put me in a sour mood. I'm a perfectionist to my own demise.

PS – GameTRADE live betting stream back this Thursday with Zach, and I’ll do my best to get online for a full Sunday slate. Let me know if you intend on joining.

Til’ next week, Kings.

(credit for win probability charts: www.rbsdm.com)