00:03 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Welcome to Circles Off, presented by Underdog. I'm Rob Pizzola, and joining us today is a true force in the sports betting world. He's a professional better who has carved out a reputation as one of the sharpest minds in NFL wagering. He's also carved out a reputation as being an agitator on gambling Twitter. Whether you love him, you hate him or you love to hate him, there's no denying that he brings a ton of insight, passion and a little bit of chaos as well, wherever he goes Diggs. Welcome to Circles Off. Glad to have you. 

00:37 - Diggs (Guest)
Hey, first time long time excited to do this. 

00:40 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yes, I will promote your Twitter handle. We'll put that in the description below if anyone wants to follow digs on twitter, because he has a lot of, uh, weird characters in there. It's digs, yet again, but there's some ones, there's some l's, some i's. It's very confusing. It'll be in the twitter description. Excuse me, the youtube description down below, if you do want to follow him on twitter. But digs, uh, it's been a long time in the making. I'm really looking forward to talking to you. We have a long and storied past on Twitter ourselves, dating back, I would say, more than a decade at this point, which we might get into at some point. But I want to start with your origin story, as we do here with our guests on Circles Off. How did you first get into sports betting and what led you to focus on the NFL? 

01:24 - Diggs (Guest)
Yeah, I don't really think I was around much gambling growing up. Like I know a lot of people in their family like play a lot of cards or people on parlay cards and stuff like that, but my parents are not gamblers in any way or any extended family. So for whatever reason, I just magnated to it and in eighth grade I started running like a weekly NFL pool, which is funny because I didn't like NFL was just not my favorite sport growing up and certainly not before we started gambling. But we I was in New York and like this was like late 90s, early 2000s, so baseball was like by far the biggest thing, just like Yankees, red Sox, and I was actually an Indians fan, so that was a lot of heartbreak with them just losing to the Yankees over and over. But so I started running a football pool which was $3 to enter, which was, I mean, significant when you're in eighth grade, yeah, and just pick every no spreads, just pick every game straight up, and it was like like you get extra points for picking an upset or picking the game of the week, but did that, started doing that and that you know it would be I don't know, 10, 20 people went to a small high school, uh, and then kept doing that through high school and this was also like poker boom time. So everybody was playing poker. So we would just like have a lot of home games and stuff and just like play, play with our friends and stuff. And then in college I played some online poker, because that's when that was like the full tilt, stuff was really taken off and I mean not not like especially well, but was playing that and got into some of the I don't know what, the first of the online sports books I signed up for, but those were obviously popping up all over the place so I would be betting like five dollars a game on college basketball and stuff and I guess just kind of worked into it over time. 

03:20
And uh, we were well, seaville comes from like Contrarianville, which was like just like a message board at one point and that was, like I would say, at the very beginning of my betting career a lot of our quote unquote strategy and I know everybody's an idiot at the beginning, but our strategy was just like almost like a Vegas nose type of thing. Yeah, like 80 percent of like the wager line people are on one side. Well, that's got to be evened out. So that must mean the sharps are on the other side. And I distinctly remember doing that. So obviously that like isn't really sustainable, but I distinctly remember doing that and betting at like having to kind of like bet us, and I'm not even exaggerating. They would have lines like college basketball lines this is 2008. They would have college basketball lines shaded to full points. So, like you would be getting it would be two and a half and you would be getting plus four and a half. 

04:27
And I remember, because we would post our picks on the on this message board, it was like, well, yeah, I mean I, you know, my bet is I would be betting plus two and a half because like that's the contrarian side or whatever. But I was like, well, I'm gonna just bet both sides of this one, because so I'm gonna bet four units on plus four and a half and then three units on minus two and a half. Because like I mean I didn't know what like the push percentages were, but it was like this seems like it can't be bad, like this is definitely better than whatever else up to it. So we got started with that and then I think I mean it's a slow process. But I think eventually it was like, well, yeah, if we're going to, if we want to bet this team, we might as well find the sports book that has the best odds on this team. 

05:20
You just kind of naturally go from there to figuring out well, if we can find the odds that are off, then we can. Just, we don't need any kind of contrarian strategy. We can just like find ARBs versus Pinney and like we had Sports Options, which was Sports Options was basically Don Best, don Best, I think, bought Sports Options, but they were rivals for a while, so we would use that and I mean just like steam chasing and, uh, that sort of any kind of future stuff. But even future stuff, a lot of it was just like what does Penny have on this and what are, what can we get? And that sort of thing was there a? 

06:04 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
so I I know you now as an originator in the space and we we talk offline every now and then in regards to nfl. So you know you start in the arbing space and and you know low-hanging fruit let's just call it what it is from for what you were doing at the beginning. How did you then go to that next step of actually like creating numbers on games? 

06:27 - Diggs (Guest)
it always seemed to seems to somehow come back to survivor. We were just like in these survivor pools this is way before like circus survivor, but just like random people was. The pool was called win or die and I think the guy I don't know if you were ever part of that, I think the guy running it like I don't know. I know one year I won like 9K in this pool and, like the FBI, like I wasn't involved but like I never saw my 9K, like the pool got something bad happen. But so we were doing these survivor pools and, as anyone knows, in Survivor survivor this was before there were a million websites that will show you future value. You just had to figure out yourself. And it was like, well, we need like to come up with some kind of team rating then to figure out, like what the future value is for these teams, what the spreads will be for their games later on. So, just like totally accidentally, just totally trying to do this for Survivor, eventually figured out like, well, my models, my absolutely terrible ratings, say this line should be four, but it's seven on Monday, and then it ends up being whatever five and a half at close and you kind of back into it. Well, it seems like I might be like onto something here which was totally accidental, right, but like the line is moving in the direction of my, like my ratings. That I'm basically just essentially doing by hand, not scraping any data, not really doing a whole lot of advanced stuff here and now. 

08:05
This was we'll get into this but this was 15 years ago where, like the NFL lines at Open 15 years ago or early in the week 15 years ago were, I would say, significantly less efficient than they are now. So I don't think if you were doing something like this now, you would ever stumble into this sort of thing, but that's what happened in 2010 or whatever. So it just progressed from I mean, you just slowly over time progressed from just like tinkering with power ratings, like moving a team, like basically what physics still does is what we were doing 15 years ago, and then eventually you figure out, oh, we should be, you know, scraping the play-by-play or using I was using a bunch of pff like player level stuff for a while, or whatever you end up doing. Um, but it definitely started with just like survivor ratings and I mean, I think most a lot of people's story, especially back then is just like totally by accident, and then, oh, I'm getting clv and nfl sides like cool. I feel like I should keep keep going with this I was. 

09:09 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Uh, I listen, I knew what I was getting into with this interview. I was wondering when the first physics shot was going to come, and it came fairly within the first couple of questions. So I think a lot of people will catch the unders on that one. For this particular interview. Um, when I talk to um different sports bettors who've made it and when I share my own personal experiences a lot of big-time bettors nowadays they credit a lot of their success to maybe an early influence or someone who helped them in their early days. Do you have someone that you looked up to in your early stages of betting or did you kind of figure this all out yourself? 

09:45 - Diggs (Guest)
Yeah, I mean, like you know, chad Merman, chad Billman, todd Furman no, I would probably just say Favre, who everybody knows on Twitter. I had a blog, as some people know, like in college and early days, and ended up just like through the links to the blog, finding, like it was a tucker max message board that like contrarian bill and stuff started on um, it's just like the gambling section of a message board and so we were doing our contrarian strategies that just weren't going to win on the message, like you you know, talking on the message board about it, and that eventually advanced to the Seville Mesh's board and obviously, once Twitter became a thing, that's kind of where everything ended up. But he's definitely the person that I've worked with the most and I mean I think he's just like he's very good at gambling and just has an incredible ability to process Like I think I'm pretty good at gambling um and just has an incredible ability to process like I think I'm pretty good at like processing information, like making decisions and making bets and stuff, and I think he is much better than me at it and has been like we used to do when I was still in college. This must be like 2008, 2009. This is like actually kind of a similar story to the survivor ratings thing. 

11:10
We would do like a blog post on one of our blogs or something about like guessing the lines for, like, the college basketball games that Saturday. So like after the games on Thursday and stuff. We would both like on our own, just like try to guess the lines, what the lines would be for Saturday, and this was mostly like just looking at past lines and trying to come up with relative stuff for each team and then, like you know, see who was closer on Saturday and like he would just always be closer, and it would drive me fucking crazy. But that was another thing. Like you start doing that and you come up with essentially, you, you're coming up with a fair line in some way. 

11:50
I mean, it's not your ratings, but it's you're trying to figure out what the line should be. And then you see where the line opens and you see where the line closes and you're like, yeah, my, what I came up with is predictive of how the line's going to move and the my, what I came up with is predictive of how the line's going to move and the the one thing that I think is beneficial about like the kind of silly, like contrarian stance at the beginning is like it's a good base to be like I'm an idiot, the market's right. Like whatever the lines close, that is what the lines should be for the most part, right? So like, if you have that like baseline, then that's the only way you could really figure out that like oh, the line is moving five and a half to three and a half. Like five and a half was a good bet, right. 

12:37
Like I mean still, I mean people, I guess, come up with every take under the sun, but still, you hear, I mean what's the take? That, like, the opening line is sharper than the closing line, right, like which obviously isn't true. But if you, you don't know anything when you're starting out, like especially 15 years ago, like now, there's less of an excuse. Like there's a lot of stuff like this podcast and a million other things where, like, you could at least get some idea, but in 2008, there, just there, just wasn't. It was just like so much less prevalent in every way. 

13:11 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yeah, I think back roughly would have been like 2010. That was pretty much my way of thinking. I I wanted to be. You know the sportsbook would set a line. I used to use a website I'll never forget scores and oddscom. It probably still exists as an affiliate site these days or something, but it would give me the opening line on every game and what the current line was in the market. And my theory at that time was well, I want to the sportsbook set the line and what they think it is, and now it's moved, I think I want to bet what it you know towards what the sportsbook line was in the early going extremely counterintuitive Cash action or whatever. 

13:46 - Diggs (Guest)
So it was right to begin with. 

13:52 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Exactly, Exactly. I convinced myself of that stuff and I didn't know any better. There's no information out. You couldn't. You couldn't Google stuff at this time and get relevant information. I mean, nowadays it's still challenging to do that in some capacity, but that that was me in 2010. In a nutshell, crazy. 

14:05 - Diggs (Guest)
Yeah, so I mean that that little stuff. I mean you figure it out eventually, but that little stuff does matter. Like if you think that the line is moving in the correct direction, then it gives you an idea that you're doing something right, versus if you thought all the line movement was bs. It would be like, oh well what? Like this doesn't matter. Like this isn't. These aren't good or bad bets. Like everything's a bad bet if they're, I mean if, if the openers are perfect, then like, then everything is a bad bet. 

14:34 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Like then there's nothing worthwhile of course, but you know when you don't know any better and you're just new into sport like I'm not, I'm not mocking anybody. 

14:43 - Diggs (Guest)
I'm just saying, like it, your way of thinking it like really affects, like, what strategies you end up employing and what you think ends up being worth pursuing yep, totally agree with that. 

14:54 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Um, there's many topics I want to get into with you today. Let's start with your disdain for touts. Let's's start there. You've been very vocal about touts as long as I have followed you under different Twitter accounts. That's never changed, dating back a decade. What specifically bothers you the most about the tout industry? 

15:22 - Diggs (Guest)
I think I just have a predisposition for just like not liking dishonesty, I guess, and I think by its nature. I mean, whenever you're trying to sell something right, you're trying to spin up the best face for it. So whenever you're trying to sell pics, you're trying to pimp your record, whatever it may be. So I think, just like, from a like personality standpoint, that's probably like where it started and it really I don't know it. A lot of it at the beginning and for a while was about like rj bell and pregame, uh, and I I just found him, always found him to be just like, so such, just like an unpleasant person and just so, just shitty and just like slimy, and that doesn't make him unique. But what's interesting is that and I don't know if you've had this experience, but RJ Bell got like pretty prevalent for a while inexperience, but rj bell got like pretty prevalent for a while, like I would say like before legalization, but like maybe in the mid 2010s. Like rj bell would be like on espn shows and stuff and like was all over the place. And now I mean, obviously he's blocked every twitter account I've ever had, but I I see a lot of people's tweets who've blocked me even before Elon did whatever change he did, and I like just never see stuff about RJ or Pregame Obviously, fezzik is like a brand and kind of a world unto himself, but I think that but anyway. So for a while it was just like kind of everywhere. So, yeah, I got into, but anyway. So for a while it was just like kind of everywhere. So, yeah, I got into. 

17:08
I don't know just like doing a lot of tracking stuff with that Like trying to. Me and another guy from Seville spent a lot of time. Like we figured out the pregame, like how the pregame URLs worked for all the picks, like I mean, it wasn't like rocket science, it was just like they were sequentially numbered so you could go and script, scrape all the urls and get each pick so you could actually track the record without. I mean, obviously they make it difficult to like go back and see everybody's picks forever, um, but you could do it in like a more automated way. So we ended up doing that for a while. And then there was that Ryan Goldberg, who's a freelance journalist, wrote the whole the big Deadspin article on RJ and pregame and that was probably like kind of the peak of it. I mean there's I guess I'm attacking touts on Twitter every day, so it never really ends, but that was definitely a big part of that. I don't know. That was Well. 

18:14 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I mean that was a long time ago. I want to say I have roughly the date here because we, if you recall, exchanged emails around that time. 

18:28 - Diggs (Guest)
Oh, I didn't think of it in that context, yeah. 

18:31 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
So this was roughly 2015, may of 2015. So there's a lot of my past that I'm not proud of, but one of the things was I used to listen to RJ Bell when I around that time and I have a tweet that still exists, which I've never deleted. It's just a reminder to me of like. This is where I was as a better more than a decade ago, which was me praising RJ Bell that all of you guys in Seville always used to retweet and come at me for. 

19:01 - Diggs (Guest)
Oh yeah, there's one like it. Tweet and come at me for. Oh yeah, there's one like it's not just like one specific trend, it's like saying he does really good work in general or something to that. 

19:10 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
That's exactly the tweet I. I don't remember, but it was a long. 

19:12
You know about that nobody's coming at you, it's I, it's fine, no I don't care, I, I, I don't, I don't care, I, I, I can, I can defend myself. At that time I tweeted what I believed and I didn't listen to people who were trying to advise me otherwise. On a lot of things I was very closed-minded and I've worked on that over the years. In fact, I owe a lot of what I have now to the people who used to come at me back in the day. But I reached out to you via email saying, like, what's your problem? You're retweeting all my stuff and um. Around that time I was being interviewed by ryan goldberg because okay, so that's like in the lead up to that article yes, so what? 

19:54
I had a very public beef with uh the philly godfather at that time and I used to also track every single one of their picks, and I'd post an update at the end of each month by the way, this was like 2015, like this was pre-legalization, but there were a lot of like soft offshore markets in 2015. 

20:16 - Diggs (Guest)
Like for both of us, like tracking touts picks was like a really bad use of time you know I did that on work time. 

20:26 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I was working at the score I, I think I was playing some dfs. I want to say I. I mean I was mailing it in at my day job. I'll tell you that because I spent hours upon hours tracking the, the animals and stuff and I had hours upon hours of conversations with ryan goldberg. He never included me in the Deadspin article I feel possibly was because of potentially you or others being like you can't listen to this Pizzola guy, which was actually the right move at that time, because I was- I possibly said that I honestly could not tell you either way that does sound like something I would have said though. 

21:02
I definitely wasn't qualified to. All I could have contributed to that article was that I tracked these guys for six months very diligently. Here were the results. That's all I should have really contributed, not my opinion. But yeah, you did respond to my email. I will say you did. 

21:20 - Diggs (Guest)
I didn't ignore you. 

21:21 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
You famously told me to just shut the fuck up and win, like everyone else. On a somewhat related note, an HBO sports segment calling out touts should not be seen as an opportunity to build your brand. Frankly, I'm not sure how qualified someone who pals around with Dave Koken rest in peace and whose tweet history to RJ Bell looks like this and you posted that tweet to me that I tweeted about RJ Bell as well. So, anyways, that was our first coming together many years ago. Yeah, I can look back on it now and laugh. I mean, what else am I going to do at this? 

21:59 - Diggs (Guest)
point in life. I read the email the other day like no notes. I think it's a great email. 

22:06 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Listen, yeah, each person has their own. You could have came across a little bit lighter. I would say I probably would have listened if you guys had come across a little bit lighter back in the day, but anyways, it's the way it is. 

22:20 - Diggs (Guest)
Everybody's in their 20s once. 

22:22 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yes it's true. That's true On the pick selling side of things. I understand the sleaziness of the sales tactics and stuff like that. Do you think that there is an ethical way that someone can sell picks? 

22:40 - Diggs (Guest)
Yeah, I mean I would. I think the answer to that is probably yes. I think what it ends up being is just like, no matter what you're doing, even if you're winning, like they're. Just. It just makes it so difficult one way or another. I mean, even if you look at like betting RAS stuff, like OK, like and they've got, obviously they've been selling picks for whatever 20 years. So like, assume the picks are, assume the bets are good, like that's a whole other discussion. Like and they've got, obviously they've been selling picks for whatever 20 years. So like, assume the picks are, assume the bets are good, like that's a whole other discussion. But even given that the bets are good, like once you get like a big following, like if you're betting college basketball totals in the morning and you're getting your bet in and then the line is moving two points or whatever it is, like it's really bad, like there's a good chance, there's something better you could be doing with that account than like. I mean it's just like betting the absolute most obvious shit you could ever come up with, and I mean obviously a lot of account. 

23:47
Longevity and that sort of thing is related to just, especially these days is just related to clv. Uh, so I I just think between that, between like I mean, there's always also going to be just like discovery bias, like, okay, this guy's won in the past, but that doesn't. If there are a thousand people who were selling picks, some of them are going to win, just because that's how variance works, and so, okay, you, you end up having these people with these documented winning records, but they're just going to kind of, I mean that's also just like one of the tout scams, right, it's just like sending half the picks, sending plus four to half the people and minus four to the other half. Half of them are going to win. Now you've got these people who won, do it again half and half. Now you've got these people won twice, do it again half and half. 

24:29
And I mean there's some of that just like, naturally, with just I mean there's a lot of people in the world, especially now, like posting their pics on twitter and that sort of thing. Um, so I mean there's just like so many issues you run into just like one way or another, and also just like I mean, as I think we'll talk about, just like edges erode over time. Yeah, so, especially if you're and I mean, that's a problem with touting just in terms of like, if you're explaining, like what you would want in some way is like a somebody who, like explain, has a rationale for their picks and is like why I think plus four is good here. But at the same time, if they're explaining what they're doing to everybody, then they're telling everybody what they're doing and like there are a lot of smart people out there and they're gonna, one way or another, just start doing the same thing and then it's gonna dry up yeah, that's a really valid point. 

25:24 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Um, I said I mean I'm very hesitant to put some things out there in the sports betting content space nowadays for that exact reason. I mean, there's so much of a following around nowadays, you say the wrong thing. Once I can say from my own personal learning in the sports betting space, I I used to listen to bet the process religiously. And uh, one thing I know about rufus he's a friend of mine but he loves to talk about himself and you know he was giving out stuff that was I'm like, oh, you know, I didn't. I never thought of this before and in his head he probably thought it was inconsequential. 

25:59 - Diggs (Guest)
But you know, slowly eroded some edges over time yeah, and I mean it's mean, and I'm not oblivious to the fact that I'm on this podcast right now, but anytime you're just like talking. Anytime people are just like talking about sports betting or about modeling or about whatever it may be. Like nothing is trivial. Like there can be stuff that you've thought of and it seems obvious to you and like, oh, I can talk about this, who cares? But there's plenty of people who haven't thought of it. 

26:30 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Like yeah, it's a good point. How do you feel about the current state of sports betting content? Do you think it's helping or hurting the ecosystem as a whole? 

26:43 - Diggs (Guest)
uh, I I don't know really how to answer that in terms of if it's helping or hurting. I think I find personally for like my nfl betting and stuff, a lot of the content that I uh listen to like consistently every week is actually like not betting content, like because a lot of the better like I don't, I don't care what people's pics are, like whatever, but just people talking. I mean whether it's people watching film or like people who have like their own charting and stuff which I guess is just watching film and charting it, but just people. I mean people. And there are like plenty of smart people out there who like have a weekly podcast or whatever it may be and are talking about what they think and what you know if this team is playing differently for a certain, for a certain way or whatever. They made a big thing about the Ravens with Kyle Hamilton switching where he was positioned and that, fixing their defense and stuff like that, which in that case, I was a little skeptical of, but in general, that's like really good stuff to pick up on, just in terms of, ok, this changed and OK, what was the data before and after this, and that sort of thing. So I do. 

27:59
I am a loyal listener to the Forward Progress Wednesday NFL show but I just I don't know. I I've tried out a lot of different because you know I want to. I want as much information as I can get right. I want to try to listen to everything, um, but most of it is just like not really worth the time. But there's plenty of content out there and you know you listen to a podcast for an hour. If you pick up one thing like can be worthwhile yeah, totally agree with that. 

28:29 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Some people ask me all the time like why are you listening to that? You don't have respect. I mean, I like ideas. I like to hear the way that other people think sometimes. Sometimes it just triggers stuff in my head. Sometimes I hate listen. I'll be honest, I do. I do that as well. I I mean, it's just it's who I am. I'll get back to my interview with Diggs in just a second, but this week, the NFL Conference Championship Games are here. 

28:51
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29:29
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30:16 - Diggs (Guest)
I mean I think some of this stuff, this is just like this isn't like a specific Twitter accounts thing, this is just like a more general like content thing. 

30:26
Yeah, I mean I'm sure a lot of it is good. I mean it all depends where you're at right, like I'm sure there's a good amount of stuff that's good, just on, like a basic level. If you're just like starting out and like we were talking about before, I mean you don't know anything, uh, then I mean that's just a lower bar. I do like some of the some of this. I don't consume a ton of the like non-NFL content, but the show you guys do on Wednesday I think is good, um, but I don't. 

30:58
I I don't a lot of the like betting specific content. I just don't even honestly, pay a lot of attention to like I was saying I I pay attention to a lot of the content, but I I think I get a lot more, even like other sports, like I would always rather listen to like low post than anything that would be focused on. And basketball is different because, like, talking about basketball betting during the regular season would be more difficult, um, but I, I don't know. I just I mean there's just like such. 

31:31
There's such a bias, right, because, like, if you're a smart person and you're not interested in betting, I think you're a lot more likely to be like doing a podcast and doing a lot of content or whatever then as like a way to make money right as like career, then if you're super interested in betting, either you're just betting or, like, you don't want to do, you don't want to give a lot of stuff away, or whatever it may be. So I just I think there's just a big bias there in terms of and kind of the same for touts right, like, if you're actually winning, you're not going to be selling picks for the most part, etc. Etc. So there, et cetera. So there's a huge selection bias, I think, with all this stuff, and I think that's why a lot of it just ends up being never good. 

32:16 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Well, all I needed you to say was that forward progress. Wednesday is good. We can get that up as a testimonial on hammerbet as well. Going forwards you actually produced some content, as you mentioned earlier. Going forwards, you actually produced some content, as you mentioned earlier. That was back in, I want to say the Vegas watch days, If, if I'm getting the right Twitter handle at that time there was another one I was, so you've had so many over the years. 

32:42 - Diggs (Guest)
Have you considered watching digs? There were three digs accounts for a while, which is why the spelling is all weird, but that was always a good bit, because like you'd be trolling somebody and they would block you. But then you could start replying to them with what seemed like the exact same account, but it was just an account with like an I instead of an l or whatever it was. But they blocked you. Like what the fuck? 

33:02 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
back in the day, someone created a rob pazola account but they uh, they changed one of the letters like I to L or something like that, and they were just harassing people online. People thought it was me. Everyone was unfollowing me. It was a disaster. Um, have you ever considered creating your own content again? 

33:22 - Diggs (Guest)
I mean not really. I mean I have a lot of fun on Twitter and like I don't know, maybe someday and I mean creating content right now, I guess, but have never really. I just I mean, as probably don't have to tell you, but I feel like even if you wanted to do it, just like carving out that time, like I've always thought with podcasts and that sort of thing, like it makes a huge difference, like how much people prep for it and like I mean you sent me like a two-page outline for this, like you obviously prep for this stuff and like you really need to have like a lot of prep and a lot of structure and like know what you're going to be talking about. So I I just feel like that would be just like a lot of time and effort. Like you know could do a weekly podcast during nfl, like everybody else does, but then it's just taken away from whatever else I'm doing. 

34:16 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yeah, I already don't find outside in the fall as long I will say from my own perspective as long as you enjoy the content you're doing, it doesn't really feel like work to have to to prep for it or anything like that. It's the minute that you stop enjoying doing it and then it's just. 

34:33 - Diggs (Guest)
Everything just seems like right, and I mean if you have to do it every week. I would imagine some weeks you're gonna want to do it more than others yeah, that was one of the challenges of. 

34:43 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Obviously. Me and johnny were co-hosts for a while and he's no longer hosting with me, but I would be much more. 

34:51 - Diggs (Guest)
Johnny didn't want to do it. 

34:52 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
It wasn't that he didn't want to do it. I don't want to put that on him. He, he has a lot going on with BetStamp there's. There's a lot of stuff behind the scenes. But certainly, you know, maybe a guest that I wanted to have on, I'd be a lot more interested in interviewing that person. But if, if Johnny came to the table and said, hey, you know, we should talk to this guy, you know, maybe it's just human nature, be like, okay, let's do it. You know I want to be a good guy, but maybe I'm not that interested. 

35:15 - Diggs (Guest)
So that contributes for sure when you're whenever you're doing content and that's like it seems like that's a big thing for like maintaining viewership and stuff. Like having a consistent, like 4 pm, thursday, every week schedule or whatever it is. Yeah, just like getting in, getting people's routine. 

35:32 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
People are listening to it on their way into work every friday morning, whatever it is yeah, there's so much I've had to learn about the content space that I really didn't know coming in. But anyways, it's a. It's a passion for me. Now I do quite enjoy it. Your passion would be the NFL. You are very much consumed by it. What is it specifically about the NFL that makes it your? 

35:58 - Diggs (Guest)
favorite sport to bet. I mean, I think, like we were talking before, I kind of accidentally fell into it with the survivor ratings and just ending up having that. I I think I found in general that I think golf is really fun to bet on, like I think golf is really fun to sweat when you have like a significant. I'm not, I don't have like a strong opinion, I don't play golf, I don't have a strong opinion on golf either way but I think when you have like a lot of money on a golf tournament, it's like really fun to watch. And I think also, obviously, if you have a lot of money on an NFL game, it's really fun to watch. And I think a lot of the reason for that is that, like there are these really obvious and discreet high leverage events like in the NFL, when it's third, third and eight, like it's third and eight, like either they're gonna keep the possession going or they're gonna punt. But this is the play. Like in golf, when they have the 14-foot putt, like this is they could make or miss this easily either way and it's I mean it's a stroke like this is this is what it comes down to, whereas and I love basketball, but basketball, if there's gonna be 300 points scored in the game not 300, but 240 points scored in the game not the all-star game there's gonna be 240 points scored in the game and there's no 10 pointer, like they're all one, two or three, so like there's no. I mean, obviously, when it comes down to it, with a minute left, like that's very exciting, but just watching a basketball game you have money on in the second quarter, versus watching a football game you have money on in the second quarter. 

37:34
I think watching football game is just like a way better sweat, which is like maybe not a good strategy for like deciding what sport you're going to bet on for a living, but I think, in terms of like actually enjoying, like watching the games and that sort of thing, I think that does make a big difference. And I never really thought of it until I was betting some golf and I was like why is this so much fun? Like it's golf, like this is like the stereotype would be. This would be boring as fuck, but it's like not at all. But I think it is just those. Okay, this is it. He's got to make this putt. They've got to convert this third down like you just know when the moment is, and there are only so many of them throughout the course of the game yeah, I like that answer. 

38:17 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I do love betting golf as well. I mean having an outright winner in play on a sunday afternoon yeah, the outright stuff. 

38:26 - Diggs (Guest)
Yeah, I mean golf. It's like, obviously with the matchups too, the out the outright stuff or top five stuff or whatever. I mean a lot of that is just like betting stuff with high payout odds is more fun, right. Like it's just like it's going to be 100 to 1 if this guy wins, right, so that makes it no, those are. 

38:46 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Those are fun too, yeah you talked about the efficiency of the NFL market a little bit earlier. In how you know, when you were first creating numbers, it wasn't that refined of a process and you could still be directionally correct against the market. It's become much more efficient over the years. How has that impacted your betting? 

39:10 - Diggs (Guest)
become much more efficient over the years. How has that impacted your betting? Well, I mean, I think it just kind of forces you to play better, like it. It forces you to not come up with ratings that you're moving up and down by 0.005 or whatever it is like. Just, I mean, I've gone through a lot of different uh iterations of modeling and taking different approaches to that. 

39:30
So I think I mean that's, you know, going from what I was doing in 2010 to what I'm doing now, and I mean I think especially like, like right at the beginning of COVID so like obviously March 2020, I was like all right, I've got all this time, I've got nothing to do. What am I going to do? And then just kind of decided okay, I'm just going to start over, like I'm just going to, okay, all this stuff that I've learned I've been doing this for 10 years or whatever I'm just going to basically do it Like I'm not going to use somebody else's success rate model or somebody else's EPA per play model or anything like that. I'm just going to like, do it all, like I'm going to have the value for everything like on my end and I, either via doing math or just like via general NFL knowledge or whatever it may be. Like I know how much this stuff is worth and I'm just going to have just have value for everything and just, and obviously it's never going to be perfect, um, and you're always going to be just revining it over time. 

40:35
But once you get to the point of like I mean it doesn't just go for the modeling side, like once you and obviously you know, I think when you're starting out it's like this is always a fun phrase to use, but you just want to be directionally correct, right, like you just want to be. You know you have these shitty ratings and you know they're shitty, but you're not trying to bet a post Like, you're just trying to find the softest lines and beat those, and I think that's probably where you start and where you end up is just like fuck that. I want to know everything like, I want to be able to model it, but I also want to know, like, what is the situational stuff that actually does matter? And obviously I mean I spent half my life reading tweets about fucking injuries, like and figuring out what's all this stuff worth like, and it's not binary if this guy's in or out, and like reading the news throughout the week and just everything, so I don't even remember what the question was. 

41:34 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
But yeah, I um it was. It was just basically how how your, your betting game, has evolved over the years. It's really interesting to hear you talk about the covet um era, and that may be what separates you as like a 99th percentile better from others in the space, including myself, because I remember once COVID hit, I was like you know what? I could really use a break from betting daily NHL at this point. This is going to be a nice you know few months to recharge my batteries and stuff like that, and you were going all in on like, okay, this is, you know time for me to refine the process. That's really commendable, honestly. 

42:15 - Diggs (Guest)
Well, at the same time, I wish I had spent more time outside in summer 2020 than I did. There's there's a trade-off for everything 100% Great point. 

42:27 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
You mentioned betting late in the week. I want to pick up on that. Let's just talk about the NFL market. How do you approach betting early in the week versus closer to kickoff? And just to add to that, like a second point of that question, will you bet close to kickoff in the NFL Because game day NFL NFL limits are high, notoriously tough to beat? How do you approach the entire week? 

42:55 - Diggs (Guest)
yeah, I think that's another thing that's changed a lot, I think. Well, I I know that like 2018 season, um, so this is like right at the beginning, I guess, of legalization. We're just betting offshore or in Vegas, whatever, but basically just offshore. And I remember waiting to bet until Saturday, like for basically whatever I was going to bet that week. Waiting to bet until Saturday night because Penny had some kind of limits bump on like the night for the game on Saturday night and I mean, maybe it was running good winning doing that in 2018, like betting on Saturday night, and I think that would be a very bad strategy in 2025. So I think, like just an incredible amount has changed between then and now. 

43:53
Uh, so I think, like back 10, 5, 10 years ago, whatever, like you would want to like get your bets in. Like you know, as long as you have places that you could bet enough, get your bets in early in the week because the lines were just wrong. Like the favorite, the game would just open five and a half when it should be three, like that's just how it was, um, and now, like that's just, it's just not the case now and you know they open the line sund night and you know there'll be some stuff that's off or you think it's, you know should be 2.8 and it's three and a half, and you know people bet that stuff on Monday. So like, if you think I'm the thing is, if you think on Monday that you're not worried about whatever is going to happen with injuries and news and stuff, if you think on Monday that a line is just like obviously off, you better fucking bet it, because if you don't bet it, somebody else is going to bet like very consistently and the and that gets into selection bias too because like all right, I'm not going to bet it be for whatever reason. And then you just like kind of circle back on Wednesday or Thursday and you end up betting it. Well, if the line's still there, that's probably not the one you wanted and the lines that moved are the ones you wanted. So I mean there's some stuff like that, but not even that much anymore. I mean a lot of it for me these days is okay. 

45:25
You, you know, update everything after the games on sunday, see what your takes are. Some of it is going to be like somewhat predictable if you're generally higher on one team or lower on another team, and then it's just I mean so much of it is just about the injuries and the news stuff during the week because, like that stuff is just such an unknown to everybody, or almost everybody. Some people definitely have more injury info than others, no matter how many tweets you read. But so it just becomes, you know, processing all that information as it comes in and the injury reports and the tweets and whatever updates you get throughout the week. 

46:07
And obviously I mean part of the reason that the injury stuff ends up being like such a big deal is that when there's more injury news that comes out later in the week, the limits are just higher. So like whether you just need to be able to bet more or like the other thing about limits being higher is just like you could end up just like picking off the best price on the screen for whatever they're taking. So it's just, even if you could end up just like picking off the best price on the screen for whatever they're taking. So it's just, even if you don't need to bet, you know at penny crisp, but you don't need to bet everywhere but it's going to help your ROI If you can just get full at one book versus just having to take whatever price is out there. 

46:47 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yep Makes a lot of sense Now, based off the way that you were talking there. It sounds so the example that you used about you know you got a line that's three and a half on Monday and you know you might not bet it and you get to Thursday and that line is still three and a half, like maybe that's not the greatest. It sounds like you're a big believer in the efficiency of the market. 

47:10 - Diggs (Guest)
Yeah, I mean for NFL sides. I definitely think that the stuff I mean, you know this is going back to just like open versus closed stuff, like the way the lines move throughout the week, is just the side you want to be on and the market market. Definitely I would love to see some kind of study on like over time from 2010 to 2025, just kind of some kind of metric for how efficient the lines were like, you know, monday morning, tuesday morning, wednesday morning, thursday morning, something like that. Because, without actually doing like a full analysis of that, I think it's like changed and I think we've talked about this and you kind of have the same take and I've looked at it some, but it's just changed an incredible amount. I know, I don't know the full story here, but I'll always remember in, I think, 2021 and this was so it must have been. 

48:08
At this point, I was like didn't expect like the sharp stuff to move very early in the week and kept seeing like this big line movement on like Monday and Tuesday. That was like stuff I wanted to bet and was like surprising me, surprising me. Then kept seeing the Caesars Sports Twitter account tweeting out these just anecdotes of bets they had taken Yep and it was like it was definitely six figures. It was like might be 200K, 300k, 500k, something like that. And it was just like the funniest shit because they would. It would be Wednesday or Thursday and they would be tweeting out. They're just doing it for promo. They're just like saying, oh my God, we took this huge bet but they would be tweeting out. We took this huge bet on Browns plus three and a half, and you look at the screen and it's two and a half and it wasn't just like a one-off. It was like all of them, like they're just tweeting out what had gotten steam, except they were taking 400k on it. And they would be taking 400k when circa and circa has for nfl, circa certainly like at this point, um, but pretty consistently circa has had the highest limits, like the highest limits they'll take from anybody. A lot of the time you can't find two other books that are more than whatever Circus Hicken. Caesars would be taking 400 K when Circus was taking 10. Like you could go through all the sharp books, like the top six sharp books in the world, and bet it, and you could bet at Caesars and you were getting like 10 times as much in the one Caesars bet. So they had. 

49:50
I don't know what the deal was with that. They had some kind of agreement with somebody, whether they were kind of getting tricked by somebody or whether it was they were. You know, there's benefit to taking sharp action, as Jeff Benson will tell you, but there's obviously benefit to the information. But it was so interesting because it would. I mean, I remember, like some QB injury games where I'm just sitting there with Don best up or whatever, and the game is red, circled everywhere and you see Caesars move like a significant amount, like maybe straight from three and a half to three and it'll be like all right, quarterback's not playing, like, and then 10 minutes later the entire screen would get blown up and I always wondered with that now we're getting way off topic. 

50:41
But I always wondered with that, like, should they have been betting it anywhere else? With that like, should they have been betting it anywhere else? Like, if you're getting 400k at caesars and obviously you don't only have to bet, like the books, like the books on screen, that light up the screen, that everybody knows. But it makes it a lot more obvious if you're steaming it everywhere in the world 10 minutes after you're betting it at caesars, like to some extent, if they're looking at it versus closed, they're going to figure it out Like this is like with any account If they're looking at it versus closed, if the bets are going to close good, they're going to close good, but it does make it. I mean, I think anybody worrying about account longevity stuff thinks about this Like you could close good, but if it happens four days later it might go into. 

51:30 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Like their data is the same, but it's not as obvious as if you are just blowing up the screen 10 minutes later on every single bet I think, um, I know that someone who watches or listens to this weekly is going to get a real kick out of that story, because I know that they were the origin of, um, of those caesar's moves. I used to get some messages beforehand that were almost joking messages of like wait for the caesar's twitter account to tweet out that we got this and, lo and behold, they would tweet out that they bet that. So I love that you brought that up. 

52:08 - Diggs (Guest)
I won't say more on that. Eventually it became a bit of a tell because, like I mean, obviously this is like a lot of top-down betting kind of approach. But if you know one book is going to move before everybody else and you see that book move, you've got to decide what you want to do. Right then, because if you want to bet plus four, this is your decide what you want to do, right then, because if you wanted that plus four, this is your opportunity and that's going to be it. 

52:33 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yeah, I mean, listen me, and Johnny did this episode a long time ago on like how to read an odd screen and stuff like that. But you pick up certain tells just from watching the screen of where the market is going to go. You know there was times and this doesn't happen as much anymore. But you know Joey Toons would have a release on his telegram and he'd be like release coming in you know five minutes or whatever, and you'd stick and you'd be like okay, well, this PPH just moved. That's going to be the play. We agree, we have to bet it and I felt bad, but that's the name of the game. I mean, market timing is so important when you're betting NFL. 

53:12 - Diggs (Guest)
Yeah, you can see it with some of the Rast NFL stuff too. I think this happened a lot more last season. But it would be like whatever it's Monday morning sometime and Rast sends out an email like we're going to release some picks in 20 minutes or something, and in those 20 minutes like it was not random, it was a bunch of people who are like I think there's a decent amount, decent chance that rast is going to release what I want to bet. So I'm just fucking betting it now. So you see, like a bunch of stuff move like right before they're going to release. I I mean it's having a way more effect than just rast releasing, because it's like driving a bunch of people to start betting earlier because they're I mean, everybody's just trying to cut each other in line. 

53:55 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Basically every single week just to get an idea of I saw you shake your head there. I'll give you your opportunity, but I just to get an idea of what they might potentially release, because they're always going to give you a little bit of a heads up. We're going live, we're in 10 and you know Chernoff has to, he has to talk about what he likes, or or else the content is inauthentic. Anyways, he can't just like bypass stuff and so that's just like a little thing I do. People are like, oh, you listen to this, you listen to that. Like, yeah, because you know what this person can affect the market in some way. That's the point it's gotten to. Like it's pretty insane thinking about talking about this. If I told myself this five years ago. 

54:49 - Diggs (Guest)
I'd be. It's. It's kind of nuts that I'm actually doing stuff like that nowadays. No, I mean it just. You just want to know everything, like the answer is just like not, the answer isn't. Oh, I think it's the most important to watch film, or it's important to have good data, or it's important to this or that, it's it's most important. You just want to know everything. 

55:04 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yeah, it's true. Uh, in terms of the market efficiency conversation, we see a lot of games that get steamed right at post or before the hour leading up when limits are their highest. I have heard Fezzik say before that he would just blindly oppose those moves that are late. Who the hell is betting when the market is? Is this efficient? What do you make of all those, those late steam moves? And let's say that you know there was some late steam on a game that opened up what you would consider to be a good bet, do you? Do you bet it late? 

55:41 - Diggs (Guest)
uh, I don't end up betting it. I don't. There just ends up being like I mean, obviously there is movement on game day. It's, I think, in general, not stuff you are going to have a super high edge opposing, and again it's like kind of a selection bias thing, like there's not, especially these days. There's not like a ton of new information on Sunday in terms of like injuries and stuff. 

56:07
Like I feel like like sweating. They announced inactives in NFL 90 minutes before the game and I feel like sweating inactives used to be like a way bigger deal. Just like before the last six years or whatever, before there was so much more content and information and just like it's a lot of us for fancy too, just like people getting stuff out there. Like I just feel like like every once in a while there's something that's surprising, but I feel like there's just it's kind of you know, and they tweet even the stuff that like rap sheet and schaefter tweet like overnight on saturday night, it doesn't end up being like a lot of surprising stuff because there's just like so much reporting on it during the week and a lot of those tweets end up being like this guy's going to play, this guy's going to play, this guy's going to play, and it's just like not actual news. 

56:58
I do, yeah, I sometimes do wonder, I mean it's hard to know, but just like not not the game day, not like the Sunday morning moves, but like if stuff is moving like a lot like in the hour or so before kickoff and there's been no news and there's been no, like just nothing has happened. Sometimes it's like I don't know about that. I'm not saying you want to bet a ton of money against it and you know it can always be stuff like you know people laying action off or whatever it may be. But I would say yeah. So I would say like sometimes I think the like super late moves can be a little head-scratching, but other than that, like sun, I mean, I think there's Sunday like when people are blowing up, like everywhere. I mean what it Sunday morning Chris is at 50 or a hundred K circa, is that probably a hundred penny gets up to like a hundred. Like when you're the people who are waiting until Sunday morning to blow that stuff up. It's just big groups and it's just like stuff that's going to win. 

58:11 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I would agree with you there. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure, a lot of that stuff. 

58:17 - Diggs (Guest)
I think, being like, if it's like, oh, I think this quarterback's playing, but I don't think he's 100 percent, like I remember when was this think he's 100 like I remember when was this, I think, last, not this season, but last season like week one, I want to say bangles brown, like bangles at browns, and it was like burrows first game back from some kind of injury, which is like week one every year. But like, oh yeah, it was because burrow was banged up like the whole beginning of the season last year. But it was like the Browns getting absolutely blasted from like plus two and a half to pick, like the morning of the game and this line's been out for fucking five months or whatever. But like that sort of like, that sort of huge move. It's basically like we don't think Burrow is healthy and he's playing against what ended up being a great Browns pass defense and we think it's just going to be a huge problem for them. 

59:13
So like I mean a lot of this stuff, especially later in the week, like it's not going to be, I mean a lot of the, I think a lot of the edges in, like something like NFL Saj in general at this point you want to have something that's just not in the full season of data, like whether that's you think the more recent data is more important or less important, or you think this injury is more important or less important, or this matchup matters a lot or it's a bad matchup for this team, or something like that. 

59:42
Like where you can really get the bigger edges, I think like later in the week and when the limits are higher, you just like have to be a little bit more clever and, you know, end up being wrong and make some bad bets. But if it's kind of everybody like there's lots of people out there that can do math and there's lots of people that can look at success rate or EPA or whatever it is and have like reasonable ratings for teams and know what about what the line should be in week 10 based on the first nine weeks of data, like it's not rocket science, but it's when there's stuff and teams do change over the course of the season, for sure, and it's when there's stuff like that where it's just like not as obvious, it's not obvious to everybody, but if you think you've figured something out. 

01:00:32 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
How do you deal with a market move that goes against your position? 

01:00:36 - Diggs (Guest)
I mean, I think on a macro level it's just probably going to be bad. I think this is kind of like a vibes-based take, but it's happened some in the playoffs too, like there's a difference between when a line kind of drifts in one direction and when a line moves in one direction three percent, whatever at every book on the screen in like a minute yeah because like lines can drift. 

01:01:08
you know a lot of people are betting on the nfl, like a minute. Yeah, because like lines can drift. You know a lot of people are betting on the NFL. A lot of people are betting on the NFL. They have no fucking idea what they're doing. Like lines can drift or it can be, you know, it can be like public at like they're just taking more bets on one side and they're moving the line or they're. 

01:01:21
You know somebody wants to bet minus three and a half and it kind of drifts. 

01:01:29
But what you do see, I think a decent amount, and like I have seen in some of the games the last couple of weeks is like the line drifts like in one direction and it's like I don't think that makes any sense and then it'll just like come back, like a lot of some of these lines come back. 

01:01:44
Even the playoff lines like even the playoff lines without really much news, will come back, like in the 24, 48 hours leading up to the game. So it is, I mean I think it's kind of case by case. I think I mean, more often than not, like I mean if I bet, if I'm on minus three and the lines move to minus three and a half and it gets steamed back to three. Basically no, I mean, I think if you look at that subset of bets for me versus whenever, when the line doesn't get steamed back, like it's just that gets seen back or just going to be worse, you can be good at what you're doing, but you're just not the only one. And it doesn't mean you're going to lose, mean it's a terrible bet, but just on an overall level it's just a worse subset yep, that makes some sense. 

01:02:37 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
So mostly we've been talking about nfl sides. Do you ever use alternate markets, um, whether that's player props, do you look at stuff like that? 

01:02:50 - Diggs (Guest)
I don't do a whole lot with that, or like props and stuff, aside from like Super Bowl, which is kind of like it's a whole world into itself I probably should like, especially these days with I mean, this is, it is funny with like especially like I know this is not even what you're asking but like with the awards markets and stuff like and like a lot of this stuff. 

01:03:23
You like 10, 15 years ago, you just like couldn't bet on for any significant amount, or at least you could. I didn't know how to do it, even when I like betting a lot on nfl sides and stuff, and obviously that I mean that is one of the things maybe the biggest thing that has totally changed since 2018, even with, I mean, props have like just it's a completely different world with props now and I mean good and bad. Obviously you can bet more and the market generally gets more efficient when you can bet more. But and then obviously with SGPs and anything like that, but no, I mean I've always been so focused on, just like the main markets and stuff and you know it's one of those things where every year you say I'm going to add this or that and don't necessarily end up having the time to do it, but I don't do a lot. I don't do a lot with props and stuff like that. 

01:04:10 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
No, yeah, I find that interesting just because of the markets that are available nowadays relative to what they were, and also, you know, I'm just speaking from my own personal experience now, but you can get so much down on. I mean, maybe we're in a different league in terms of sports betting and what like. Like satisfies your bet type versus what satisfies mine, but the market is just so much bigger for props than it ever even used to be and I found myself in recent years gravitating a lot more towards props in addition to what I'm already doing, just because I didn't even realize how much you could possibly get down on some of this stuff. 

01:04:49 - Diggs (Guest)
Yeah, no, I mean honestly it's probably more of a failure to adapt on my part than anything else. But just getting old. 

01:04:56 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I mean it happens. You bet you get rooted in your ways every now and then. All right, I wanted to ask you you tweet a lot about Patrick Mahomes. I'd say maybe an obsession with Patrick Mahomes from my perspective. 

01:05:16 - Diggs (Guest)
What sparked that obsession with with Patrick Mahomes? 

01:05:20
I think the first thing was this not really the answer but the first game they played in week one of 2018, it was against the chargers and I had done a bunch of work like on the modeling stuff before that season. 

01:05:33
So everything was a little bit different, everything was a little bit new and I remember looking at like their offensive efficiency in that game. It's like his first real start in the nfl. He started the one game the week 18, week 17 game the week year prior, but this is his first real start. I remember looking at the data from that game, which I hadn't watched, and being like, well, something must be broken. Like this doesn't. Like this doesn't look right. This isn't like a normal offensive efficiency for an nfl game and obviously it was um. And then watching like I ended up betting on them in week two, I think mostly because, like the Steelers had injuries. It wasn't even really like a Mahomes take and I remember watching that. I will never forget watching that Chiefs-Steelers game and watching the first half, being like, all right, it seems like you know they obviously played well. I think they were like up big at the half, but I feel like, you know, mahomes missed a few open throws that like they he should have made. And then, like, looking at the box score, and he was like 18 for 21,. Literally had three incompletions. He was like 18 for 21 for 200 yards or something, but he had missed three open throws, like. So, if you're not making every like, those offenses were just ludicrous. They were absolutely insane, like in the data I have for like 2018 to 2024. Um, that 2018 chiefs offense, it was like one and a half points per drive above average, just like it is like just the best offense in the whole database. And they were doing it with this quarterback who had just never played in the NFL before. So it started with that and I remember I had I think I tweeted some stuff about like it was like in his first 23 starts, they scored at least 26 points in every game and, looking back the way the Chiefs are and the way Mahomes plays, it makes sense that there's kind of like a bar. They would clear consistently, you know, and the first year they averaged 35 points a game or something crazy. So obviously you're going to score 26 a lot, but they were scoring 26 in every game and I think that is. I was looking at this recently. I think that's the longest streak in NFL history of a team score, and I think they did in his first start in the week 18 game too. So I think they scored 26 points in 23 straight games and that's the longest streak in NFL history and it was just the first 23 games of Mahomes' career. Like, it's just like completely ludicrous and so obviously they were really good for the first few years. 

01:08:16
And then he had the really shitty second half of the AFC championship game against the Bengals that the Bengals fans still will not fucking shut up about, even though the Bengals can't even make the playoffs, and he just like totally fell apart. Um, I feel like that and like lebron against the mavs in the finals, however many in the, I think, the first heat year, yeah, it's like sometimes it's just like it goes bad and it goes bad and it just went bad in that half and I mean they, they were up big in the half in that game and they lost. And then I remember looking, so what it really started to answer the question was after the next season and I remember I think they got a bye and we're playing the Jags and they're like the divisional round and I don't know why I even started looking at this. I was probably like looking at it for teasers or something and I started cutting the data, like I posted on Twitter, in terms of first half versus second half, leading versus trailing and basically what it was, and there was a pretty big sample from Mahomes' career at this point. Basically what it was was he was fairly easily in the first half, stuff that just they had the best offense in the league. But what was interesting in the first half? Stuff that just like they had the best offense in the league. But what was interesting was the second half stuff because like it was second half, when they were leading he was, they were the best offense in the league over this five-year time span, whatever it was, but it was close, like they were very slightly ahead or tied or whatever, with whichever team or quarterback was second. But then if you looked at the other part, the other split of the second half stuff when it was tied or trailing again it's data that doesn't it looks wrong Like I spent a lot of time looking at NFL data and like that it's just like Mahomes when he was in the second half, when he was tighter, trailing their offensive efficiency and like it fit to what your personal experience had been like. 

01:10:16
The. The famous texans playoff game is not even in this data set. Uh, because the whole comeback was in the first half, right, but they went big and then it was like, okay, this seems pretty bad, they're down 21, nothing, and they just scored a touchdown in seven straight tries like they just went absolutely crazy. So it was, that was definitely the time and this was when he they had, quote unquote only won the one super bowl, so it wasn Mahomes. Has now this rep, especially after how many close games they've won, has this rep as just like a winner or whatever? It's really changed a lot, because the first year they're scoring 35 points a game, like there aren't a lot of close games, you're scoring 35 points a game, you're just winning by 20. But it's really developed into. I mean, they've won some unbelievable number of one score games in a row and his record in one score games is, uh, just like ridiculous for his whole career. So that was when I was like, okay, yeah, like. 

01:11:21
And that was also the first year without tyreek. So when they had tyreek it it was always like, yeah, obviously Mahomes is awesome, but they've got fucking Andy Reid and Travis Kelsey and Tyreek Hill Like they. They're pretty good with Alex Smith too. Yeah, like Tyreek is just and wide receivers are just. The elite wide receivers make such a huge difference. So it was really like and then they were so good the first season without Tyreek in 2022. They still like they really didn't fall off on offense basically at all and even looking back at that now, I think like they have not been as good like on a per play basis, on an offensive efficiency basis, the last two seasons. 

01:12:07
That 22 season, I think, is probably one of the best quarterback seasons of all time, just in terms of he didn't have as much to work with and it just didn't matter. So then he, right after he did that, he sprained his ankle against Jacksonville. He ended up basically playing on the sprained ankle the whole post season and then they ended up basically playing on the spring and then called the whole postseason and then they ended up beating the Eagles. But it really started with just looking at that data and just being like with that stuff. It's like you look at the data and you just you kind of have to decide if you believe it or not, right, like the data is right or not, but like, is this just random? And between, like, what a big margin, like between how big of an outlier it was, like with this stuff, and like I posted this third down thing recently and it just fucking looks wrong. 

01:13:01
Yeah, like you would think, like josh allen is awesome at football and you would think that, like third downs, josh Allen, he can run, he can pass, he can scramble to his right and he's falling out of bounds and completing the ball 20 yards downfield. You would like Patrick Mahomes is not the only good quarterback in the NFL, and the third down stuff and the trailing in the second half stuff is just like so unbelievable. So that is basically when I started to think that kind of there was just a different distribution in their games, like they were just going to win. Like if you're not, whatever it is, like it can be, play calling when you're leading in the second half, it can be. I mean, there is just an element of like when that guy is locked in, it's just like nobody else and that's going to have a lot of effects on just the literally just the distribution of margins in their games because you always have some kind of gravity to you know, offenses are just less efficient when they're leading and more efficient when they're trailing. But it just seemed like there was going to be so much more gravity and obviously I mean this is totally past posting, but this is just what happened, but it's obviously become a big thing. 

01:14:20
Like the chiefs win but don't cover, right, right, um, but, and you know, and it's hard, it's hard with any of this stuff. 

01:14:27
It's like such small data stuff that you don't know, like I mean you don't have enough data on like push percentages, and patrick mahomes starts because there's been 120 of them. 

01:14:38
So, like it's just it could be anything could be true, basically, but that's really when I started. So I mean you decide something like that. What ends up happening is you end up having a lot of money on their case because, like you have this take and you end up I mean I was trying to figure out recently what, like I'll happily bet against the chiefs, like against the spread, but when I, if I'm, if I bet, like browns plus six or whatever it is, I will end up betting like chief's money line at post, like or whatever the best price I could think I can, like I was trying to figure out the last time, like I was rooting for the chiefs to lose a game, right aside from like when they were trying against the broncos and shit like that but and I think it was before that, like what I'm talking about, like looking at the data and being like this guy when they're down or in basically close situations, right, it's just like off the charts. 

01:15:41 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yeah, listening to you talk that through, especially the early Mahomes, it actually reminded me a lot about some internal conversations I had to have with myself about Jaden Daniels this year. I'm not saying Jaden Daniels is going to be Mahomes, but in the early going that offense was so off the charts and you don't really. You're basically formulating educated guesses in real time because you, you, you have such a small sample of data to work with. Um, I, I kind of like that about the nfl. Honestly. I, I think I, I gravitate towards the nfl because I can still model it out and put a good number on a game, but I also can, can, develop my own educated opinions on certain things that I, I actually think. Maybe this is just like ego driven as well, but it's proven in winning money that there are sometimes better than other people in the marketplace, at least at the time that I'm betting. 

01:16:33 - Diggs (Guest)
But I'm curious like if you experienced the same with Jaden Daniels early on this season yeah, I think that was a really interesting one because their first excuse me, their first two games like it wasn't like super I, he was, they're good for like the first two starts for rookie quarterback, but they weren't like blowing the doors off of everything, but it was like they were like I think maybe they stole in the red zone a bunch of the first two games. 

01:17:05 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yeah, the first game was ugly against the Bucs, and then after that they really started to pick it up. 

01:17:11 - Diggs (Guest)
But I don't even think like I think that like I mean they also just the past defense in that week one game against Tampa was like ridiculously bad. Yeah, like Baker was just doing whatever he wanted in that game, so that affected it too. But like I think they're down-down stuff on dropbacks was fine and then obviously it I don't know in some of these situations it's kind of unfortunate. I think that like their crazy insane game against Cincinnati was. I think that was week three, I want to say Monday night. 

01:17:43 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yes. 

01:17:44 - Diggs (Guest)
And they just like scored a touchdown on every possession. So that I mean that was. I mean, obviously, if you're following at all and certainly if you're betting, it was like okay, like this is interesting, like the Bengals defense sucks, sure, and I think they were especially injured in that game and I mean they essentially just had no pass rush and he was just absolutely lighting them up downfield. But no, I do remember talking to a friend around that time and being like because the thing about the rookie quarterback stuff and this was kind of the case for Mahomes too is that like the baseline is just so bad, like rookie quarterbacks suck, it doesn't matter if you're picked second overall, like rookie quarterbacks are bad. So it's just when you have something like that that deviates so much from the baseline. Again, it's like this is why I think you brought up in the first place. But you just have to decide what you believe. And this is I mean obviously they're probably not going to score a touchdown in every possession, but they're also probably not going to be the offense of a median rookie quarterback. So it does become a really interesting exercise in how much do I want to weight stuff? What do I want to regress to Like what do I just like think is real here, and that, I think, has been an especially tricky one. So they continued like to be insane for a few weeks after that, I think, pretty much until he hurt his ribs, and that has been an interesting one all season because it's like then they've had some games where they struggled in the middle of the season. When you know these guys this is like another one of the difficulties of modeling football Like these guys just play hurt and they'll just lie about it. Basically, and whatever they're telling you about this guy playing through injury, it's probably worse, like a lot of the time you don't get. I mean, there was the thing with not to bring up bo nicks and jaden daniels in the same sentence, but right after, like the day after, the bronco season ended, they were talking about how bo nicks was playing with a fucking fractured back. Yeah, yeah, but they will. They will not tell you while he's still playing, like they will. They obviously there's just like competitive advantage reasons they don't want people to know his back is fucked up. But whatever your whatever information you're getting from press conferences or injury reports, like it's so hard to know, and then these guys come back and they're not like you know you miss time and you'd come back, but a lot of the time you know they're just trying to come back as fast as they can, so it's so hard to know. Basically, anytime anyone has a significant injury like it can definitely affect these guys for the rest of the season. 

01:20:33
I remember TJ Watt a couple of years ago. If you like, go and look on TJ Watts. We're talking about all of NFL pinnacle beaters guys right now. If you go and look at TJ Watts, like PFF grades it's like two years ago or something, maybe it's last year His like pass rush grade is like 70 and every other year it's like 90. And I think it was like a pec injury. Like he partially tore his pec and missed a little time or didn't whatever and came back and just like played the rest of the season with the injury and just wasn't TJ Watt because he probably just shouldn't have been out there. But that's not how the NFL works. So it's like okay, but you know TJ Watt's also getting older. So you don't, you never know, especially with the older guys, even the next season, if it's you know, how much of that is just playing hurt, how much of that is just aging and just falling off and that sort of thing? Yep. 

01:21:30 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
For those that don't follow Diggs on Twitter, he has a very common reply to some people in the football space, which is four letters. Y-d-k-b stands for you Don't Know Ball. As a certified ball knower Diggs yourself, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you at least one NFL question. I'm going to go with something that I find when I do content, it really dominates a lot of the conversation. So I do these live watch-alongs on Forward Progress. Quarterback will have a great game or a bad game. And then there's, like all these sorts of ranking conversations of like, well, is Sam Darnold better than Brock Purdy? Is he worse? Would you take Justin Herbert or Jaden Daniels? You know all these conversations. I want your thoughts on the current quarterback landscape. Here's what I want in particular who is overrated, who is under underrated? This is relative to how they are perceived by the average football fan. Who's an overrated quarterback? Who's an underrated quarterback? You can give me multiples if you want, putting you on the spot with this yeah, I don't even know if I have a great answer here. 

01:22:42 - Diggs (Guest)
I mean, I think to some extent it's been interesting because, like I think there's become kind of a consensus and I've had talked to a bunch of different people about this recently but like, who would you put in the top five, like right now? And I mean Mahomes has to be first. I think you're being unreasonable if you don't put Mahomes first and like I think you can reasonably argue between Josh and Lamar after that. Obviously Lamar had an unbelievable season. To me, I think the playoff successes, the playoffs, just really important, especially when you're gauging elite quarterbacks. And Lamar has been, we'll say, up and down and Lamar has been, we'll say, up and down and Josh, to his credit, his stats overall in the playoffs and metrics and stuff are actually quite good. And they've lost, obviously, the famous 13 seconds game, but they've lost just some high scoring game. Like the defense has just not held its own in a lot of these games, certainly when they played the chiefs. So I would definitely say, uh, mahomes, josh, lamar, one, two, three and then burrow fourth. 

01:23:55
And what's been fun is like trying to figure out who's fifth yeah and I mean my main take um on the quarterback stuff is just like there's so much recency, bias, and I don't mean like who played well last week, it's like I think people rate like the current season way too much and there's just so much if it's guys playing through injury or just like guys have way better offensive ecosystems like one year versus the next. And like if you look at the careers of some of these guys not the elite guys, but the guys like I mean Darnold's the obvious example and Baker is another good example. Baker also had a season with the Browns where he was playing for a while, where he was just hurt and should have been out there. But you just have to look at those guys' full body of work and not well. Darnold's been the worst player in the league and Darnold's been on a team that, whatever they end up this year 14-3. But then you see Darnold's last two games and you're like is it that different than it was 12 months ago? Realistically, and some teams are going to have to make a decision about that, but I mean the truth is somewhere in the middle, right, like Darnold just wasn't at. 

01:25:12
I mean part of the problem with the rookies and what's amazing about Jaden is that if the team was picking first and second, it's because they suck and it's because they don't have good players and there's a good chance they don't have very good coaching either. So you just come into these bad situations, whether it be bad offensive line or bad receivers or both, and being a rookie in the NFL is hard enough, but if you're up against it with that stuff, but anyway this is going to completely go against the recency bias thing, but I think Jaden has to be fit. I just don't think there's any way Like, I think Herbert's a good player. I think Stroud actually played pretty well in the two playoff games this year. He took a shit ton of sacks against Kansas City. That's another thing where people were saying some wild stuff about Stroud coming into this year. In retrospect it's really amazing that that offense was as good as it was last season because they had all the same problems. They couldn't run the ball last year no, they couldn't at all they couldn't. 

01:26:36
the whole year they were shifting their offensive line around constantly and it just didn't matter because he was so good throwing down field. But so I mean, you know, there's certainly still time for him and I would love if, for Houston's sake, if, they moved on and got a new offensive coordinator. But I think that's probably not going to happen, I would guess. 

01:26:58 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I doubt it, unless somehow Slowik moves on and ends up a head coach I guess a head coach. 

01:27:06 - Diggs (Guest)
Yeah, that probably would have been. They maybe weren't good enough this season for that to actually happen. 

01:27:12 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Well, I appreciate you giving me your top five quarterbacks, but you skirted the question completely here, so I'm going to put you back on the spot. Overrated and underrated, you can give me one guy, give you as many as you want, but just relative to how someone, an average person, views them I think baker's probably underrated at this point. 

01:27:37 - Diggs (Guest)
I think their offense, like what's weird is that they were like all right in 2020, they were good in 2023, certainly relative to expectations, and then canalis got hired based on the job he did with that offense in baker. But cohen, the guy who replaced him, actually ended up being way better. Yeah, then the guy it's just like one of the you never know with some of this stuff. But a lot of that stuff and this isn't a quarterback thing but if I had like a team, like if my team couldn't run the ball, I think the first thing I would look at is just like getting a new offensive coordinator, because a lot of that stuff seems to be just like so scheme-driven. Yeah, and like the thing about the coordinators and stuff and the head coaches too, it doesn't count against the salary cap like having good coaches is just like such a huge edge because you can pay them whatever you feel like paying them and it doesn't affect, obviously, the biggest constraint. That is just like fitting everybody under the cap. But I thought the bucks offense this season. I had I think you did too, but I had the Bucs in their game against the Commies, and I mean Baker and Lamar fashion. Just they found some stupid shit to do to blow the game and just like can't even snap the ball, which like not great, don't do that. But I think there was a stat in that game where they had the highest drop back success rate of any team that lost a playoff game, like in the history of the nfl. Yep, like the commies could not stop, like they were not stopped. They were going down the field when they were dropping back and they even had a couple drops and they were really moving the ball. So I think Baker played really well this season and just like obviously they didn't even win a playoff game. Their defense just they had so many injuries on defense, the secondary in particular, and they just couldn't hold. I don't know. I wonder what they'll do with like. I mean I certainly think they should just promote Cohen and like move on from Bowles, because if you look at just like their personnel at offense and defense versus how good their offense and defense are, it's clear that the coaching is a lot better on the offensive side. Yep, so it's like kind of either shit or get off the pot with cohen because he'll get a job somewhere else. Um, but I I mean I it's so interesting with the guys like baker who just have these roller coaster careers, but I think I just thought that offense was so good this season and he just did. I mean, obviously Mike Evans is pretty good in the scheme and the blocking and stuff, but I thought he had a really nice season. I don't even who is. 

01:30:35
I mean, what was really interesting is when I was posting a bunch of stuff last week with like the Mahomes propaganda and stuff. The quarterback that people were by far the most curious about was Hurts In terms of what is like Hurts maybe for some of the stuff didn't reach the cutoff, like the minimum dropbacks cutoff or whatever. So people wanted to know where he was at in the stats and just what I thought about him in general, like where he was at in the stats and just like what I thought about him in general. And I mean Hertz is such a weird player because I mean he's not like super impressive to like actually watch, I would say. But that's kind of just how it is with guys who add so much value with their legs and with the scrambling and with the tush push and stuff like. But I mean I would. 

01:31:28
I've never really been that high on hurts, just just because I mean it's not even really scheme with them. I think it was at the beginning like a couple offensive coordinators ago, but at this point I think it's just like they've got an all-pro left tackle. They've got an all-pro right tackle when AJ Brown isn't reading a book or dicking around or yelling at somebody. Aj Brown is just an unbelievable player. And AJ Brown has been kind of weird because, like those titans teams too, he's never been in like a super vertical, like passing all the time offense, which has held back a lot of his like counting stats and stuff right, but a big round. I mean first of all look at the guys, but also just like his on off stuff and his like he is just so good and obviously smith for a second wide receiver is. So I just feel like, um, like so much of it is just like kind of this all-star cast and that I mean. The same thing happened with purdy. I don't know if purdy's overrated, underrated this bike. 

01:32:41
Purdy was gonna win the mvp like 13 months ago yeah um, he was certainly overrated at that point, but it was kind of the same deal. 

01:32:51
Like I always thought that that niners I mean the niners offense last year was fucking unreal, like their stats were insane, and it was like well is brock, pretty just the best quarterback of all time Probably. 

01:33:06
I mean the big tell there was always how good they had been with Garoppolo, yes, and then Garoppolo beats the Niners and he's not even a starting quarterback in the NFL. It's like this is just not a normal situation and it's not like I mean it's obvious, right, like everybody knows about the coach, but they still. I mean when all those guys were healthy, they've just got all pros at every position and especially after they added CMC, it was just like when all these guys are healthy and out there and the they have one of the best play callers in the world, it's just too much. It's just too much to deal with. Like at some point it's just not realistic to guard all these guys and that's how it was for basically the whole season. The other guy I'll throw out for overread is and I think this is maybe changed a little bit recently but jordan love. 

01:33:58 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yeah, that's where that's where I was gonna give my pick, and that's where you went right there, yeah, yeah. 

01:34:03 - Diggs (Guest)
I'm like, I'm just trying to think of like who am I like constantly like attacking in my group chats and stuff. But Jordan Love is an interesting like. Their offensive they obviously I mean I think he was hurt in the playoff game in Philly. There was just something going on with his elbow and they're going to downplay it and he's going to play, but he just didn't seem right but their offensive efficiency obviously they had the huge second half in 2023, and then they had even this year, like when he was healthy and out there, their dropbacks were really good. But one of the tells with these guys is just like how much do they actually drop back? Like in the playoffs, when, when mahomes is out there, like they're dropping back at every opportunity because the guy's unbelievable. 

01:34:57
The packers, the eagles are a little bit of a weird team, but lefleur does not trust like I. I just he just doesn't trust Love. And you can watch. Love is one of those guys where you look at the data after every game and it's like all right, not bad, pretty impressive. And then you watch these games and it's just like this, ain't it man? Like it's not impressive to watch Like. And the coach it's's just like why are you running this play on third and like it's like oh, you're doing this because you don't trust your quarterback, like that's that you can. 

01:35:34
It's really interesting to get a sense of like what and LeFleur, I think, is a great coach, um, and I mean, I think LeFleur is a lot of the reason their offense is good. They don't have like an AJ Brown, but it's really interesting to see what these coaches think of their own guys. It was really interesting like to watch McVay go through this whole process with golf because, like at the beginning it was like McVay was so happy to just like be a head coach and their offenses were really good and by the end he was like who was their backup? He didn't even want to fucking start golf. By the end of when golf was in la, like and it just you could see. And obviously then they trade for stafford, um, but you can just see how it had. Just like over time, mcvay was like all right, this isn't, this isn't doing it for me. 

01:36:28 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Yep, completely remember those days as well. I'll never forget that. Jared Goff Superbowl. I don't think anyone can honestly, yeah, it's just that was not a good day for me. Horrendous all around, all right. Well, we got some football takes from you. I'm going to get some gambling twitter takes from you. I don't even know what I'm gonna get in response to this. Who would you consider to be the best and worst accounts in the gambling twitter space right now? 

01:37:01 - Diggs (Guest)
all right, I actually did some prep with it for this, unlike my quarterback takes. I think my two favorite gambling twitter accounts are sprats, which is sprats better yep, and nfl pinnacle beater, which are two like extremely different accounts. What do you think of that? 

01:37:21 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
take rob, um, okay, okay, I love NFL pinnacle beater. It's funny that we're still using that, even though he didn't beat pinnacle when he was posting publicly and it's funny. Anyways, I really like that account. It's one of my favorites. I wish he would do this show. Honestly, it's still an open invitation for you NFL PB out there, sprott. 

01:37:44 - Diggs (Guest)
I think the thing about that and what has been interesting to me about his account is like, just like have a take, like of all people that guy's not scared to. Just like have an opinion, yep, and you can tell except for Josh Allen being better than Mahomes you can tell that it's his legitimate opinion and like this is what it's not like some. He heard it on a podcast and that's why he thinks this. Like it's just he's been looking at the data or watching the film or whatever it is and this is his take and you don't. It just has to be like a legitimate take. It doesn't have to always be right, like we're all wrong about lots of shit all the time. Like I have. 

01:38:24
I should go back in some of these group chats like the stuff I was saying about the commanders and the commanders roster. Like before the season started, like I thought they're going to be the worst team in the nfl. They're in the fucking nfc championship game. Yeah, like that happens everybody. And especially like I mean that stuff, I mean one. I think like, especially early season NFL people are just like everybody's way too confident. Like so much stuff changes from season to season and it's just like so hard to predict, no matter how much info and data and everything you have. Like I mean, the rookie quarterbacks are definitely the best example, but it's really just true with everything. 

01:39:12 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Right, good assessment there In terms of sprats um, sprats better. I don't know sprats um. We've interacted, maybe a little bit before, but I don't know him well. I I consider his let me choose my words carefully here his account to be like, not memorable whatsoever, like occasionally he'll tweet something where it'll make me laugh, but I've never gone out of my way to you know, see what he's tweeting about. He just kind of gets lost in the shuffle. For me, honestly, that's the best way that I can put it that's fair. 

01:39:38 - Diggs (Guest)
I I do, I do know him. I uh I know, do you know him a little bit personally and I I just I think I just like respect his opinion on like just like industry stuff and like that's like just takes on that sort of thing in general, whether it be like the regulated stuff or anything like that. 

01:39:56 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
So and he'll like actually you know certainly a decent amount of just like trolling, right, but I think he has some good takes on like actual, like the recent whatever, what was the bill they just were talking about in massachusetts yeah, I really I covered this on circle back this week, but yeah, that's um, there's like a lot that is actually in that bill that people don't realize and uh, it's way more thorough than the iowa bill to like ban bearding or whatever that they just threw into place. 

01:40:26 - Diggs (Guest)
Right, All right. I had a couple other positive ones to shout out. I like I don't know this guy at all, but Mr Peanut Better. I think his account has been good recently. 

01:40:38 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Love Mr Peanut, better Love him. 

01:40:40 - Diggs (Guest)
I said it, he's like some trolling and sarcasm, but a lot of just like actual takes and opinions, which is anytime you're getting takes and opinions from someone who's actually like betting seriously. I think that's generally positive. Losing underscore bettors account has been good recently, which is like it's kind of a shit show and kind of all over the place and somebody was tweeting the other day. They're like I don't think I've ever been sweating a game and like you weren't tweeting about it like like a hundred percent of the time, just like sweating something. So you have to respect that I I criminal criminally underfo. 

01:41:22 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Losing better Sam Losing underscore better Solid account. 

01:41:29 - Diggs (Guest)
And then I don't know if he should be on the good or the bad. I think maybe Fez should be on both the good and the bad list. There's nobody like Fez. Like it will literally be one tweet an hour later that could have been trolling his take from an hour before, and it's like not a one-off thing, it's like every day. It's like some kind of like oh my God, these touts are using lines that don't exist and then just immediately tout a line that doesn't exist Like really incredible content. This year I subscribed to his like NFL I think I described subscribed to all his football picks, actually at pregame, just like for the content, which was actually a little disappointing because it's like not even that much, not much volume on nfl supposedly the greatest nfl player in the world but it's like such a fascinating like to see what he's tweeting versus to see the picks he's actually releasing and to try to square it all up and you just like can't fucking do it. 

01:42:44 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
It's just like absolutely insane uh, no comment, I can't add anything to that. I, I see, you know, fez and me we text back and forth every now and then I get the exact. You know, I sent him a message the other day. It's like I, I think. I said I have no idea what you're even talking about right now. He just went on a tangent. I said, yeah, I don't know what you're saying to me, and then he explained it a little bit further. I, I do. I, you know, I do like the guy. Uh, it's why I, I I'm gonna toe the line here. I don't agree with a lot of the, the, the practices that are in place for releasing picks that are like DK only, south Point only, stuff like that. It's kind of, it's kind of ridiculous. Um, but I don't mind. Like, I find him incredibly entertaining. I would put him on the good, like the good list of you should. You should follow this guy. 

01:43:32 - Diggs (Guest)
I had him, I had him on the good list just in terms of like entertainment value, because it really I mean that's the right word yeah, we had uh, I go to like have an annual august vegas trip with some friends. 

01:43:46
Like we started for like football contest signup and we do it every year and this year I like invited Fez like from my Twitter account. I invited Fez like to one of our dinners and I tried to make it. It's just like us hanging out, it's nothing Right. And I tried to make it. I called it like something ridiculous. Like us hanging out, it's nothing right. And I tried to make it. 

01:44:04
I called it like something ridiculous like bet bash, except exclusive or something like that just like to try to get to come and he he was gonna come and like the week, the Monday of I dm'd him and was like, hey, are you still in for like dinner on Thursday or whatever it was he. He was like, yeah, like give me the info, I'm in. And then, like half an hour, an hour after, he was like oh no, I've got him too busy, I can't. I got too many, too much prep to do for football, like something like that just was not believable at all. So he definitely like had talked to somebody and like figured out that this was, this was actually we never, never got to this. But like way back in the day, maybe like 2011 or something, I was friends with. 

01:44:50
You know, uh keith law yeah the like baseball writer, yep, uh, and does he still work for espn? He worked for espn at the time and they were like trying to ramp up their gambling content this was probably before like perdom was even there and they were trying to ramp up their gambling content. So keith law recommended me I would like still had a day job at this point, right? Um, keith law recommended me and was like and I had my blog and stuff, uh, and to like for them to hire me, or at least hire me part-time or something, and it seemed like it was going to happen. And then one day he comes back to me and it's like hey, they talked to Chad Millman and Chad Millman is like this guy's just trolling me on Twitter every fucking day, like there's no way we're hiring him Makes sense. 

01:45:42 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Missed career opportunity. Missed opportunity right there. You could have been Simon. Could have been simon hunter instead of simon life would have been different. 

01:45:50 - Diggs (Guest)
I don't know what would have happened in that timeline, but I think it would have been different oh, 100 man who knows? 

01:45:57 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
that's it's actually insane to think about that. That was even a potential opportunity definitely sliding doors. 

01:46:04 - Diggs (Guest)
Yeah, I mean, maybe, maybe I would have been a lot more successful, I don't know could have went a number of ways um worst accounts. 

01:46:12 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I I'm I'm scared of asking you this question, but I would not be doing a service to the audience if I didn't worst accounts in the space right now okay, so qualify this with saying, like all of these people, I like don't like reading their tweets, so I like don't. 

01:46:31 - Diggs (Guest)
I read a lot of tweets by a lot of people, but I don't like have them on a list anymore. So it's possible that, like, these people have improved their content, although I find it like incredibly unlikely. But I just wanted to add that disclaimer these, these are people that I just like can't handle. 

01:46:48 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Uh, all right, rex buyers okay I don't do I need to like give an explanation for these I I wouldn't, I don't, I don't think we need to go deeper into it. I think I can understand why. Potentially, I, you know, I, I have, I've met so many how about I? 

01:47:09 - Diggs (Guest)
all right, I have a list of six people and I think you can probably infer what I wouldn't like about their content, so I'll just tee up the six people and then you can give your take I'm just wondering how many hammer creators are going to be this list, by the way? 

01:47:23 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
But okay, rex Byers I see Rex every single year at Bet Bash. I do like Rex. I understand why he would rub some of the sharper people the wrong way. Completely get it. 

01:47:39 - Diggs (Guest)
And like for other reasons other than their gambling opinions too. All right, next person up plus cv analytics yep, uh, matt buckhalter. 

01:47:51 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
He's been here on in the circle, not this studio, our old studio for circles off. He's done some shows with me. I'll golf with him a dozen times, probably this summer, hopefully. Um friend, sometimes I do want to message him on the side and just be like dude, stop tweeting. You're not, so I get that personally. Um, he's found a way to take on the entire sharp betting community somehow. 

01:48:17 - Diggs (Guest)
And he's not a world cluster, because at one point he just blocked everybody and then he like, unblocked everybody except apparently me, and then recently he unblocked me. So we had a really great discussion about uh, sean mcveigh, resting guys I remember that we're now resting guys and he just was not willing to admit he was wrong on the internet, which we all do yeah, people don't want to admit they're wrong. 

01:48:44 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I I think one of the challenges plus cv love you man. Just speak in my mind. Um, people who are their own source of truth often make for the worst accounts to follow on twitter. There's just no rationalizing certain things with them. So when you go in with a preconceived mindset of like this is this and you're not willing to listen to other opinions which is what I see from the outside looking in with plus ev, that lands you on this type of list and I will say I follow him, I enjoy his tweets, but if he wasn't a friend of mine, I probably would be saying the exact same thing as as you right now. So that's my honest, real take about the situation all right. 

01:49:28 - Diggs (Guest)
Number three is feinberg. So we, we got some feinberg, what I just? I think it's unreasonable that feinberg has tried to carve out this brand of like being like the anti-sharp, like I can get, like like being the cop, like being the common man or whatever you're doing, but I think it's like I don't know like when remember when spanky had the thing this wasn't that long ago with like they were saying they were threatening people or whatever yeah and feinberg is like oh, I knew Spanky was a fraud all along. 

01:50:06
Like Spanky has made tens of million dollar. I don't know Spanky. He's made a lot of money betting on sports. Yeah, you can disagree like you can always find something wrong with everybody, but he's not a fraud. Like he's rich as fuck from betting on sports. 

01:50:21 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Like yeah, uh, so I can speak to that because I've talked to jeff multiple times about his obsession with rufus and spanky in particular, who he's gone after, and his his thing with that, which he has not portrayed in the best way, is that he just doesn't like people who talk about themselves a lot and their accomplishments a lot, and he finds that rufus and spanky do that. That's now equating them to a fraud. Different story. 

01:50:52 - Diggs (Guest)
I can't I can't for spanky though he when he came on the scene? 

01:50:57 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
yes, he very much so. Spanky's tweets now are very different from what they were even a year ago. 

01:51:04 - Diggs (Guest)
Yeah, no, I remember. 

01:51:06 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
He was the first guy doing the videos of getting banned at sports books. 

01:51:11 - Diggs (Guest)
The videos of being banned were like his like. That was like the first thing he ever did. Like as I mean not ever did, but like as part, as like the Twitter handle or whatever. 

01:51:22 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I will eventually get Jeff in a room with Spanky and Rufus and and whatever they can, I I cannot speak negatively of Jeff Feinberg. I am incapable of doing so. I've known the guy for too long and so I'm not attacking personality or character. I get your point of view. He, he did have. He did have the like the Rufus's shit stinks like ro, you know, smells like roses thing for a long time, which, even as a friend of mine, I would message him on the side and be like I don't know what you're doing with this, but he's entitled to to do that and you're entitled to your opinion on him being one of the worst accounts stand up for the advantage sports betting community. 

01:52:00 - Diggs (Guest)
My guys spanky and rufus. There you go for the advantage sports betting community. My guys Spanky and Rufus there you go. 

01:52:06
Your guys. I think I can't read Cleve TA's tweets. I think he's just like too. I think his ego is too big and I think he's just like too focused on I was right about this. I was right about this Like always bring up when he was right, despite the fact that, like, like we were just saying, like just we're all wrong all the time and it's just like. That's just not really how it works. 

01:52:36 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Okay, so we're at 50% hammer creators now with with TA. I like TA a lot as a friend. I can understand that point of view. I do think that he's very confident when it comes to his takes um I, I. I will push back a little bit in that. I think his twitter account. He actually tweets out a lot of relevant stuff related to the nfl. 

01:52:59 - Diggs (Guest)
That was an account I wanted to read for a while because look, anybody who's like researching stuff or doing anything like that, like I, I just want. I just want theories or ideas or whatever it may be, and I find that to be valuable, but I just couldn't handle it anymore. 

01:53:14 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Okay, you're entitled to that opinion as well. Let's see if we could get below 50%. Hammer creators. 

01:53:21 - Diggs (Guest)
How about if we just like stay at? 

01:53:23 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
okay, sure, I could probably guess the last one, I would assume uh, yeah, probably, uh, we'll get under 50 with ben fox. 

01:53:33 - Diggs (Guest)
Okay, I think is like it almost seems like it's not a real person, like it's some kind of like chat gpt account. That is like just tweeting out. It's like almost just like tweeting out these facts or just tweeting out I don't know, just like tweeting out the, what the line is or something really bland which I've always thought was just like kind of weird. 

01:53:58 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
And then, yeah, the last guy's kanish okay, let me talk about both of those. Ben fox I actually had a call with him a couple weeks ago. I've known ben for a long time. I like him a lot. I've actually asked him in person about his twitter account and the stuff that he tweets and he just, basically, is very true to. I am tweeting things that I think the average nfl, or like better, wants to see and that's how I'm going to run my account until the end of time. I disagree with that. I also don't like I don't. You know I hate the betting split stuff. I hate there's, but that's his thing there. Kanish, yeah, sorry. 

01:54:38 - Diggs (Guest)
I think Prodom has this issue too and, like Prodom, I think he at least for a while in his profile had, like Purdom, I think he at least for a while in his profile had like I report on gambling, but I'm not good at gambling or something to that effect. Right, I think. And I don't think Ben Fox is like a big bettor or even like really trying very hard to win money betting and I just think it's really hard to report on sports betting and like maybe this is just my bias, but it's just really hard to report on this stuff. And I always thought, like, if you're not like trying to win and having these same experiences, like I always thought, remember that big article that Purdom wrote about like years ago, about like sports books, limiting customers, and there was like a will hill quote, like a long quote from the will hill ceo or whatever it was, and the whole thing was just a fucking lie. Yeah, I'm like the the quote, like banning people, it's just that's just life. But it's just like ban them, sure, Ban them, and then say you ban them because they were cheating, like that's the stuff that really tilts me, because that's just like not what is going on with that. That's just not the reason you're doing it. It's just a lie, right? 

01:55:57
So, and I think, like you, just I think it makes such a difference to just have those experiences and many other experiences that you just naturally have, and like just the general curiosity that you have from, like trying to win money betting on sports, and I think I kind of feel like, and I get like trying to appeal I mean kind of like lowest common denominator, really just trying to appeal to everybody and tweeting stuff that everybody will understand but it also just like makes it so fucking bland, like it get a lot of this information just by like pulling up fanduel, like I can see I don't need you to tell me what the line is, man like everybody's got these apps on their phone got it, so your your issue with ben is the blandness of the content very vanilla I think that's fair okay, kanish, I mean I can let you speak to. 

01:56:52 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Kanish is polarizing. I think he, of all people, is going to be a love him or hate him type of guy. I love kanish. I don't stand for a lot of his opinions and outlooks on life. Some of the vocabulary that he uses I may have messaged him on the side about before as well, but I he's an agitator, like you're an agitator, digs, and I like yeah, but the lack of consistently frustrated consistency frustrates me. 

01:57:21 - Diggs (Guest)
Like I think, like if you're going to be Joey lib, like when you get your feelings hurt, you can't like post a photo of somebody's wife and call them a tranny yes, like it's just like there's. Yeah, that's way over the top, I agree you can't like just do ever whatever is most convenient at the time. It's just like I don't like that brand. 

01:57:42 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I I get it. I don't want you know, listen, I'm I'm very ashamed of some stuff that I tweeted back in the day as well. Um I was like last week yeah, but like people have been there before, is what I'm I'm getting at. I I'm not. You're very much entitled to that opinion. I think that was a really shitty thing to do. I've made my commentary on that. I don't think anyone at the hammer actually really supported him throughout that entire thing. 

01:58:08 - Diggs (Guest)
I think that was not yeah, not the right move what I'm saying is like if rex buyers tweets that, it's like at least on brand we'll end it. 

01:58:21 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
We'll end it there. Oh god, um, wow, what a pivot I'm gonna make right now. I, I, I have to ask. I see behind the, you know, behind you. There as well, you are a swifty, arguably one of the biggest um, you, you, you posted a, a flex, wow. Well, you flexed before with, like some floor seats at a, at a tay Swift concert. Yeah, some of these girls are way more into it than I am, though You're roughly my age, I mean where did this obsession start? 

01:58:57 - Diggs (Guest)
So I have, like I would say, generally normal music taste. Like I grew up in New York in like the late 90, late 90s, early 2000s, listening to a lot of like rap and hip-hop, like jay-z and naz, and then you know kanye kendrick, all all those guys and uh, but like I don't know, whenever 1989 came out so this is like 10 years ago or so there was a song called welcome to new york and my wife, I think, was just like listening to this like I don't know, like mostly as a joke, yeah, just like check this song out, it's about new york, etc. And I listened to it and I was like huh, this isn't bad. And then I just kept listening to the rest of that album and I think it's like I think if I had done this with almost any other Taylor Swift album, this like never would have become a thing. But like 1989 is still my favorite album of hers and I just think I mean it's like ranked as like whatever one of the top 25 albums of the century or whatever it may be. So I just thought it was like wow, this is. I would have never guessed this, but I actually think this is really good. And then I got into just I ended up listening to a lot of it during COVID. Like it was kind of a. I mean, as I was discussing, I was like sitting there going through NFL play-by-play data and like watching GameCast games from years ago, and some of the like higher tempo songs were like kind of what my brain needed at that point. And then when it really reached another level was about two years ago. 

02:00:38
So this is like March 2023, I guess, like during March Madness, it was the first year that Uukon won, yeah. So there was like a yukon. Yukon was in the elite eight, um, and they were playing the zags and the game was in vegas at a t-mobile and I had some friends in vegas that weekend. So I was like had like some futures. So I wanted to like, go figure, I'd go to the game. Like all right, I'm going to be in Vegas. Oh, there's this new Taylor Swift tour. It's like the second stop on the tour and it's that weekend. So it's like all right, well, how can I make this work? Like I want to go to both. I don't know, I definitely have somebody to go to the game with, I don't know. 

02:01:26
So I spent the week trying to find somebody to go to the concert with me and did not succeed. So I was like all right, well, the other issue here is that they're both on the same night, so the game is earlier than the concert, but I'm gonna have to like just go to both back to back. So I went to the game and it wasn't a very good game. You kind of won by like 30 or something. So right after the game I just wasn't a very good game. You kind of went by like 30 or something. So right after the game I just like got a. 

02:01:46
So I had bought like one floor seat to the concert and I I genuinely I had never been to a Taylor store concert. I just wanted to go check it out. I was just curious. So I had my one solo floor seat. So I like got a car from the T-Mobile to. It was at the Raiders Stadium Legion, so I got a car over there. But I was late to the concert because of the game, obviously. 

02:02:11
And what I will tell you about Taylor Swift concerts is people don't show up late. Like it's not a thing. Like Taylor Swift concert. You've been planning your whole life to go to the concert You're getting. People are getting their hours early, people are getting their hours before the opener comes on. So it's like 10 song concerts, obviously very long, but it's like 10 out of the 40 whatever songs into the concert. 

02:02:32
I'm getting there and I've never been to the stadium before. I don't know where I'm going. I like go in the wrong entrance. I'm like usually pretty good about finding seats and stuff, but I'm totally flustered. So eventually I get down to the floor and find my find. I'm trying to find my seat and I'm literally asking the ushers like hey, where is the section? And they're like this guy's bullshitting me, like there's no way, this is this guy's seat and he hasn't been here. We're 10 songs into the concert. This guy's just trying to find an open seat. So it's like all dark. 

02:03:02
I tried, I'm just trying to find my seat, finally get an officer to like point me to the right section. And I'm like so I'm seat 20 in the section and I get to the right seat, 20 in the row. I get to the right row and I like him in going in the wrong side and so I'm like all right, I got to get past all these Swifties to get to my seat all the way at the end of the row, so you know everybody's standing. It's not a big deal whatever. So I get to the end of the row and I'm like, all right, cool, looks like there's one open seat. I can't see the numbers or anything, but I bet I can figure this out. So I go to ask the girl who's like sitting at the second to last year in a row. And I go to the girl, I go, hey, are you 19? Which in retrospect I can appreciate was not the phrasing I should have used, but in the moment I was like just trying to figure this out, like it's been a long day. 

02:03:59
I just want to get back to the middle of the concert. So the girl responds no, I'm 20 and I have a boyfriend, which is not what I meant, but was obviously how she interpreted it. So obviously I'm horrified. I like scrambled to get my phone. No, no, no, no, no, that's not what I meant. Like I'm just not that guy, I'm just trying to find my seat. Just not that guy, I'm just trying to find my seat. So I scrambled to like find my phone and like find my ticket and show her like hey, no, I just meant that c20, yeah. 

02:04:33
So I've like it's takes a minute to figure out like what the fuck just happened. And then I was like okay, well, that's like gonna be a really good story. And I like texted my wife and I was like because she was like you're going to a taylor swift concert by yourself, like just be careful. Like this is not my, I'm not like guy who creeps on girls, that's just not me, right. But like you're going to a taylor swift concert by yourself. So before I even got to my seat, I totally fucked that up. But the other thing was that she was the girl in seat 19 who's 20 and has a boyfriend was like way like once it had happened, she was way more horrified than I was because of just like what her response had been. So like I'm sitting there by myself and the person sitting next to me for the next three hours like won't even look at me. So that was like. But even given that adversity, um, I was like, wow, this show is incredible and I mean she's a very good performer. 

02:05:33
But the the craziest part about those shows is just that like the vibe. It's just like it's like going to a sporting event, except when you're going to a sporting event, everybody is excited to be there, like big game, whatever, but they have anxiety about, like, how the game is going to go. Yeah, these concerts and I'm sure it's not just taylor swift but a concert like that when everybody is so excited to be there, it's only the excitement to be there, without the anxiety, and everybody is just having the time of their lives and there's no risk that, like taylor swift is gonna lose so and so I obviously. I mean I went to, I obviously posted the video of when I had very good seats and I ended up actually going to australia in, uh, like a year ago, like last february, to hang out with sprats, but also to go to a bunch of shows down there and those, those australians are rowdy. I could see that, yeah, like unbelievably loud, which it was always interesting to compare between concerts yeah, that's cool. 

02:06:44 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I uh, I'm not gonna lie to you I had strongly considered seeing taylor swift in toronto in november. 

02:06:50 - Diggs (Guest)
She had six dates I know back-to-back weekends it's and again, listen, it's, it's not. 

02:06:59 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
It's funny because I say it's not the money I can afford to see Taylor Swift, but it kind of was the money, in the sense that I'm like you know, it pained me. I bought tickets to see Metallica in March here for the two shows and I paid a couple grand I think. And that was like I had to have a conversation with myself of, like I've seen Metallica a million times. It's nice that they're back. When is a concert price too much, even if I can't afford to go? And I told myself I would like to experience the vibe that you're describing, because that's how everyone describes the Taylor Swift concerts. Right, they're like you just don't understand until you're there, like you don't get it. 

02:07:42 - Diggs (Guest)
It's like everyone which is totally annoying. 

02:07:45 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
And it's even more annoying because like well, you have to pay two thousand dollars and then you'll understand right, and and like you don't even want to fucking go to and I know myself like I'm probably gonna just leave and be like I don't understand the hype because it's not my music, right, like I actually sent you this video, um, last week. But I watch a YouTube channel called Drumeo. I don't play the drums myself but, um, I listen to a lot of metal music and they often get the best drummers into studio and a lot of them are metal drummers. They had one recently which was Mike Portnoy, who's the drummer for my favorite band, dream Theater, playing, um, a Taylor Swift song which he'd never heard before. So basically they play him the song Shake it Off without the drums and he gets to play the drums to the song and he's listening to it exactly how you know. 

02:08:35
I grew up, I played guitar for a long time. It's exactly how I hear a Taylor Swift song now and I can't really appreciate it because there's just from an instrumental side of things there's like happening. So I told myself I'm like I'm not gonna do this for one. I don't want to tell people. I went to a taylor swift concert and I I hated it and didn't enjoy it good content though I am. 

02:08:58
It's not like I'm in the content space or anything. You know where I would want to do something like that, but I I kind of do regret it now a little bit I never thought you were gonna go. 

02:09:08 - Diggs (Guest)
I did think kirk evans was gonna go, because he claims to be a swifty and he ended up just like totally bailing, so that was disappointing I mean I'm gonna. 

02:09:18 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I have no excuses, for kirk could easily do it. He's doing well betting. The nba could easily dished out out that cash. That's his prerogative. But yeah, I think at some point in life I might do that, maybe. All right, next tour, next tour, let's get you out here. I wanted to just ask you this A couple more questions, just for someone of your pedigree in sports betting. I like to ask this type of question. 

02:09:57 - Diggs (Guest)
What's the most memorable bet that you've ever made win or lose? I think the most memorable one was like just one of the ones. Starting out like just when was kind of trying to figure out what was what, and there was a I think there's like 2010 world cup. I remember we were betting at sports bettingag I think it would have been at the time yeah which is now like a bet online skin. But those books it was like sports betting and uh, sports interaction and bet US and stuff, yep that were. I mean, there were obviously bookmaker and all those two, but those were like the super like if you really didn't know what you were doing. Those books were like super soft, yep. And again, when I'm saying super soft, it's not like lagging behind by a half point. It's like I would be at work and a friend would email me like bet this college basketball game at sports interaction and it would be like two points off penny or whatever. But there it. There wasn't like a big rush, like it would just be like that like all day right, I know it's so weird to think about that it really is yeah 

02:11:01
but there, uh, there was like a world cup thing where it was like there was some like like, uh, halftime, full-time, like draw, draw, bet that was. It was literally like it was six to one at pinney and it was 26 to one at sports bettingag and you can bet I don't know whatever. I think it was to win 10k or so, which I mean I didn't know when he wasn't very good at sports, but it's like, holy shit, it could be 10K. So I just always will remember like being at work and like leaving at halftime and it was 0-0. 

02:11:34
And like going to meet my friend at a bar to watch and like sweating, obviously, the rest of the game so hard. I think it ended 0-0 and I was like, oh my God, god, I can't believe I won this much money. And like on my like shitty phone, like scrambling to like try to request a withdrawal, like immediately after the money was credited to my account, like they're gonna figure this out, they're gonna take the money back, like which I mean, anything could happen. But you do that a little more and you're like not as panicked when you actually win some money that you gotta like withdraw it right away. But that was a memorable one yeah, I can't. 

02:12:08 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I don't think of world cup 2010. Uh, this is before canada was making world cups. So my uh, my parents are both italian. I would cheer for italy and they finished dead last in that group, behind, uh, new zealand, slovakia and behind New Zealand, slovakia and Paraguay. What an absolute disaster that World Cup was. Yeah, bad memories. If you've enjoyed this episode, make sure you smash that like button down below. If you're new here just finding Circles Off, make sure you sub to Circles Off and, of course, comments always appreciated as well. We'll end on this Diggs Plus EV minus EV. I know you do watch or listen to circles off, so you know you know the drill by now. One thing you think that's plus. 

02:12:55 - Diggs (Guest)
CV in life. One thing that you think is minus CV in life. My plus CV is actually like gambling related and this is going to settle it to sound like a Jeff Benson ad. But think play like I think everybody should do circus survivor. I think, like survivor contests in general and that contest specifically, are like if you have, if your brain is wired the right way and like basically you're a nerd who likes sports and math, like a strategy in those contests is just like way more interesting to me than like probably any other aspect of sports betting, because, like it's so it's such a moving target in terms of like trying to predict what everybody else is going to do. But it's not like you can't just look at the consensus numbers because, like there's a lot of just like professional bettors who are entering the max amount of times in the contest. So just like figuring out the strategy and figuring out, I mean, the amount of time I spend, like I made it decently far this season and ended up losing. 

02:13:59 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Who did you win? Who did you win? 

02:14:09 - Diggs (Guest)
did you end? Uh, the two really bad ones were the saints at panthers game, yeah, which was like, uh, maybe bryce's first or second start back, and I mean the panthers were like, uh, probably minus 7.25 and ended up. I mean they're, they had a bunch of corners out. They just let Bryce go down the field at the end of the game. And then the last entry I lost was the Texans losing at home to Will Levis and the Titans Oof, which was still like that's one of those Like Bryce ended up obviously playing a lot better down the stretch and like that Saints team was a mess like. If they played that game tomorrow with those same players it wouldn't be minus seven, minus 120, it would be way shorter, right? 

02:14:52
Um, the Texans Titans one was like I mean Nico was. It was Nico's second game back, it was the game after they killed your Cowboys, I remember, and that game it was something crazy like Levis took maybe seven sacks in the first half but they had so many explosive plays that they were overcoming it and obviously I mean the Titans defense fell off so much like right after that game. But in that game they played really well against Stroud and Niko. And then I think Fairbairn missed a 29 yard something crazy. He missed a 29 yard field goal or something to tie it at the end, so that was brutal. 

02:15:30 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Just pulling up the box score for this game. Now, man that Houston offense this year, 4.8 yards per play on the Titans defense, three for 13,. Third down. That could be a frustrating one. 

02:15:41 - Diggs (Guest)
It was bad. They were just losing at the line of scrimmage, as they do. But so I mean, I think with Circuit Survivor it's really interesting. Like anyway, I just like spend so much time like talking about the strategy and stuff like every week with people and then just like so I think it's so interesting from like a math and a strategy perspective and then it's like a really good sweat a math and a strategy perspective and then it's like a really good sweat, like it's just more fun to sweat, like when you're probably gonna win but you're not sweating like some arbitrary number of points. You're just like rooting for the team to win the game. There's like something that's just better about that than rooting for them to cover three and a half. I would. 

02:16:23 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
I would agree with that. I would agree with that. 

02:16:25 - Diggs (Guest)
I would agree with that. All right, then I have a random one. Oh, is anybody else doing plus EV? 

02:16:34 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
We're so far out of ideas at this point. Here on Circles Off, johnny used to show up with a list of like 20 that he saved on his phone. They were all so bad I didn't have the heart to tell him he's like'm gonna do this when I'm like. Oh man, I'm like it's so bad, but anyways, the floor is yours, digs I have a random one for minus ev. 

02:16:54 - Diggs (Guest)
My minus ev is just like buying or wearing uncomfortable t-shirts. 

02:16:59
Okay, but my take on this is just like I don't know if it's been five years or ten years, but like when you used to like go to like some kind of charity event or something the t-shirt they would give you was like would be like so stiff and like just unpleasant to wear and like shirts have just gotten so much more like. 

02:17:22
I have a t-shirt from like some charity event, like a walk around some park with my dog that I wear all the time just because it's like it's like one of the homage t-shirts, it's just like incredibly comfortable. So I've just like eliminated all like of the old and I don't know it's like whatever percentage polyester, cotton, whatever it is. But like you know the homage t-shirts, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, like those t-shirts I think I'm wearing a Mahomes one right now, but those like they're so comfortable and like I've just made my entire t-shirt wardrobe and I normally just wear t-shirts and fucking sitting at home but out of just like that type of t-shirt and think it's so much better than just the what t-shirts used to be. 

02:18:07 - Rob Pizzola (Host)
Well, you know what? On that, I will give a plus ev move or a minus ev, depends on which way you. It's a little piece of advice. I shared this with the forward progress live watch along viewers this week. 

02:18:18
I used to work in retail when I was much younger and I was in a sports uh goods retail store but for some reason we sold a bunch of jeans. I can't explain why. Fubu was big at the time and they would have these reps that would come into the store and they tell you like here's how you sell more jeans and whatever. And I would be like you know how often should you wash your jeans and stuff like that? And this question comes up a lot. You should actually very infrequently wash your jeans, even if you wear them a lot. And somebody might say well, what about hygiene and stuff like that? Here's a little pro tip you take your jeans, you fold them up and you put them in the freezer. It deodorizes everything. You don't have to wash them. It also maintains the fabric, like the feel of the jeans, much better than constantly throwing them through the wash. 

02:19:11
People wash their jeans way too often. This came up in a friend group recently where I was asking people. They're like yeah one guy's like I wash them every single time. Guy's like every two times. You don't need to do that. You do not need to. You should wash. 

02:19:24
Wash your jeans very rarely, I'm not saying never wash them, but for the most part, take them off, fold them up, put them in the freezer. That works just as fine. So there's a little plus EV move of the week from me and uh, I learned that from a FUBU salesman back in the day could be completely wrong, but I've been doing it my whole life and it works. Jeans are fresh. No one's ever said to me Rob, you stink. My friends would say that. I'm telling you. Producer Jacob's giving me like a weird look right now. I've just never thought about that. I don't wash my jeans like very frequently, not like unhygienically, but just because I know you're not supposed to wash them very often. I just never crossed my mind to put them in the freezer. There you go. But yeah, maybe I'll, maybe I'll give it a go. Removes the odors. You're all good to go. There you go. Digs you learned something new today as well. 

02:20:15
It's you know that going in right great clothing advice, which I'm sure is why people tuned into this 100, I mean if they didn't love if, if they loved my frozen grapes in your summer beverages, they're going to love my clothing advice as well. Diggs really appreciate you joining us here on Circles Off. It was great chatting with you. I'm hoping we could do it again down the road. I'm not making you promise or guarantee anything, but yeah, it was really a pleasure. I mean I'll just speak really openly and honestly to you. 

02:20:46
I used to hate you for a very long time, like despised you as a human, as did I did a lot of members of seville and I at that time I was a losing better that had convinced myself I was a winning better. And when I finally got to the point of realization of I'm not winning, I basically started reviewing tweet after tweet that you used to send to me back in the day, and maybe Seth used to send to me a few other guys Norm Gambles back in the day you might remember him as well and I would be like you know what. There's a common theme here of what these guys are saying to me. Maybe I should actually take this seriously. So I say this in all sincerity had you guys not trolled me on Twitter back in the day, I probably wouldn't be where I am today. So weird way of saying thank you when you were actually being a real piece of shit to me, but I do owe you a thank you for that well, you're welcome. 

02:21:47
I'm happy to be a piece of shit anytime, and you know what I say that to people nowadays. I listen, I'm an asshole on twitter, but I I speak the truth, as at least from my perspective, and uh, I'd rather be an open book, um, even if I come across as an asshole sometimes than just, you know, sit on some of this stuff. So that's this stuff. So that's the way it is, that's the way it is Diggs. Everyone follow him on Twitter. We'll link him down in the description below. You can just click that link. Follow him. Yeah, you might not want to. It's completely up to you, your prerogative. We are back here on the Circles Off YouTube channel next Monday with another episode of Circle Back. Make sure you're subbed. Set notifications. See you next week. Peace out everyone.