What's up, everyone?

Welcome to the Early Edge NFL Picks show brought to you by BetMGM, make it legendary.

I'm stepping in for Claudia.

Just today, she'll be back on this show next week.

We've got a lot of NFL to cover.

So let's just go ahead and bring in the stars of the show. We've got a lot of NFL to cover. So let's just go ahead and bring in

the stars of the show. We've got R.J. White. We've got Larry Hartstein. We've got Will Brinson.

And gentlemen, before we get to Thursday night football, and I think this is an interesting,

intriguing matchup between the Dolphins and the Ravens expecting Lamar Jackson back and

dolphins coming off their win

against Atlanta. Can I just talk about these favorites covering over the last couple of weeks,

really on the season, double digit favorites are covering at a pretty good rate, but just favorites

in general covering. Will, I want to start with you. Does that impact at all how you assess these

games coming up this week? Yeah, I mean, I think it does see it because, I mean, you still have to take the lines and look and, you know, you can't look at the lines as if they're inflated. But I do think when you see favorites cover it at a high degree, you're going to see the books push these lines up maybe a little bit. We kind of saw over the last, like the early part of the season, four and a half was the new three, right? We're like instead of being a three point favorite at home, you're four and a half point. I think we've seen some of the lines it might have been four and a half move up to six and a half. And you should be careful because even though there's some bad teams, bad teams can still cover. And I think it does present an opportunity for people like us on the show

to maybe take some of those stinky, stinky dogs. RJ, you are not afraid to take the stinky,

stinky dogs. Are you noticing at the very least, at least for a week nine, that these lines perhaps

are inflated enough to start really looking the other way? Or are they generally not there yet? Yeah, there are definitely some lines that are inflated, I would say, this week. But the problem with some of these bad dogs is that you take them because it looks like its value. And we've seen in the past, it doesn't work out with certain teams. You know, I remember thinking about that Brown's team from, you know, the Hugh Jackson era that a lot of people were taking week after week because it seemed like value and they just would make mistakes. And the Titans really kind of fall into that bucket, right? They sometimes don't seem to play like a team that shouldn't be covering and then Cam Ward will drop a ball and give the other team a free touchdown. So I think it's a little give or take. I think there will be opportunities to fade certain teams, but there are a couple teams in this league. I just don't want to get in front of right now. That's the thing, Larry. Before we get into Thursday night football, I find myself on a lot of favorites this week, and I hate to do it. We'll find out where everybody's at during the duration of this show. but are you finding even in week nine nine, you're kind of leaning towards a lot of the favorites? Are you going the other way? Yeah, some of these bad teams are really bad this year, starting with the Titans and the Saints. Tennessee's covered four of its last 25 games. You talked about the double-digit favorites, how they've been coming through. There have been nine double-digit favorites, and they've won all nine by an average of nearly 20 points per game. So, yeah, if you've been trying to catch the value, you've been burned so far, burn so far, but there will be some spots coming up where the line just gets out of hand. Yeah, we keep bringing up Tennessee. I had their win total under preseason, and I even

alt-undered it. In other words, I took their alt win total under, and I got a lot of heat from Tennessee fans. How we feel about that heat now? Let's go to the Ravens and the Dolphins. At BetMGM, we've got this line, gentlemen, at seven and a half. Arj, I'm going to start with you. It's a 50 and a half point total.

Again, I mentioned that I think there's a little bit of intrig I'm going to start with you. It's a 50 and a half point total.

Again, I mentioned that I think there's a little bit of intrigue, particularly on the Ravens side as favorites in their division with their record, but also the dolphins looked pretty good against Atlanta. Maybe it's a bit of smoke and mirrors. What's your bet in this game? Yeah, I think there's, this is one of those lines we talked about, right? there's probably value on the dog at seven and a half.

I'm not super confident taking it. I think Lamar Jackson is going to play pretty well in this matchup. I'm going to lean to the under here. Baltimore's defense is healthy and faces a Miami offense. That has struggled, you know, last week notwithstanding. We'll assume too it doesn't have back-to-back great games like that, just by what we've seen over the course of the rest of the season. I think Baltimore's offensive game plan with Lamar back in his first game could be to run the ball and try to dictate things with Derek Henry. And that will help keep the clock moving. That'll help keep scoring down as Lamar returns from a multi-week injury. So a 30-13 type of game kind of seems like it might be in play, even though I don't love the value on the Ravens on the spread. So I'm avoiding the spread altogether, taking under 50 and a half as my pick. All right, well, Larry, we've got a total under 50 and a half, but you like a team total over. Talk to me. I like the Ravens to get to 30. You can find some 29 and a halfs out there. Lamar's played three full games. They've

scored 40 twice. They scored 30 in the other game. And I'm not buying the Dolphins defensive

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