NFL Week 2 Survivor & Contest Bombs! Recap
CJ Sullivan runs the Thursday show off the Circa contest spreads. They hit that morning. So the NFL Week 2 survivor picks and the Circa Millions card were both on the table before anybody said a word about the Thursday night game. Then Luke the Young Sharp came back on, fresh off a Week 1 win. First the Lions and Bills got the ladder treatment. After that CJ tried to dig his contest card out of a 1-4 hole, and he was honest about how bad that hole looked.
Lions at Bills, and two ladders worth climbing
Detroit at Buffalo sat at 5.5. The total was 54.5, one of the highest numbers CJ has ever seen on a football game. He thinks it is honest. Good offense and bad defense on both sides. Neither one is stopping the other. But what pushed him to the points was fatigue as much as value. Detroit’s defense played 91 snaps in the overtime game against New Orleans. Buffalo’s was on the field for 79 against Houston, in a game that went to the wire. So he took Detroit +5.5 and leaned the under. Then he said flat out that he likes the props better.
Dalton Kincaid is the one he is all over. Kincaid went for 130 yards on five catches against Houston in Week 1. He is finally healthy after the MCL injury. His snap share and route participation are higher than anything he put up last season. The prop is over 3.5 receptions and 51.5 yards. CJ does not think that is high enough, because Buffalo runs crossers underneath to pull safeties out of position and spring Kincaid over the top. So he laddered it. First 65 yards at +140. Then 75 at +180, and 85 at +250. Finally 100 yards at +525. Plant the base, get two people to hold it, then climb.
The Lions side is Jameson Williams, longest reception over 24.5 yards. He had a bad game last week. There were drops. But the usage numbers never moved, and that is the part CJ cares about. Detroit has narrowed its offense down to a handful of guys. Jamo is one of them. So CJ laddered that one up to 35 yards at +173. His logic is hard to argue with. If he is catching a 25-yarder, he is catching a 35-yarder.
Surviving CJ and the NFL Week 2 survivor picks
Luke took the Jacksonville Jaguars over Cleveland in Week 1. It was over by the fourth quarter. Meanwhile the Chargers choked against Arizona. That one took out roughly 30 percent of the entire Circa survivor field in a single afternoon. What started at 25,000 entries is now under 17,000. The reaction on air says everything about how that feels to a player still alive. 25,000 seemed evil. 17,000 seems reasonable. Suddenly a contest nobody could win looks like a contest somebody has to win.
For Week 2 Luke is on the San Francisco 49ers over Miami. It is the biggest spread on the board. He walked through the Bobby Slowik connection and the Shanahan coaching tree. Then CJ cut him off to point out that nobody needs analysis to say the Niners are playing Miami. Luke had also floated Houston. CJ talked him out of it on the spot. He likes Houston as a bet. As a survivor play it is far too aggressive, because Burrow is banged up and the game is the best one on the board. The holiday rule came up too. Circa makes you pick on Thanksgiving and Christmas, so the teams playing both are worth hoarding.
Five bombs for the Circa Millions
Last week was 1-4. CJ called it an abysmal affair and did not dress it up. But his Week 2 theory is simple enough. Almost nothing real has changed since the look-ahead numbers came out. Most of the movement since then is perception. And perception is where the value hides, especially in a week when everyone is overreacting to one bad Sunday. So he went back to the look-aheads and bought the games the market had moved furthest.
First, Rams -7 over the Giants, down from a look-ahead near 9.5. Then Vikings +4.5 at the Bears, off a look-ahead of 3.5, because he is not laying points into that number after Chicago’s Week 1 outburst. Chargers -6.5 over the Raiders is next. That line was 8.5 a week ago, before Los Angeles lost outright to Arizona. That is exactly the overreaction he wants to buy. Also Packers -3.5 at the Jets, where Green Bay blew a fourth-quarter lead in Minnesota and New York beat a Tennessee team that looks bad. Matt LaFleur is 8-0 against the spread in Week 2 for his career. Finally Texans -2.5 over the Bengals, with Burrow’s back a real question. Four favorites and one dog, and CJ said he does not feel great about that.
In the Box
SGPN is still raising for earthquake relief in Colombia. The money is rebuilding the school where Picks Dundee’s mother-in-law taught. That is at sportsgamblingpodcast.com/relief. CJ is also at the Tacoma Comedy Club with TJ Miller on September 25 and 26. Then he got into the Robert Kraft and Macklemore blacklist mess, and landed on defending speech he has no interest in listening to himself. Finally he closed on the Arch Manning bit. A reporter asked about an AI video of Steve Sarkisian hitting Holly Rowe, and a room full of grown men laughed. CJ’s read is that the people who are good at making AI video are terrible at comedy, and everyone else has to sit through it.
Podcast Chapters
0:00 NFL Week 2 Survivor & Contest Bombs Cold Open
1:47 Welcome To Bottom Line Bombs
5:25 SGPN Colombia Earthquake Relief
7:08 Thursday Night Preview: Lions Vs. Bills
10:30 Kincaid & Jameson Williams Reception Ladders
18:18 Surviving CJ: Luke’s Week 2 49ers Pick
33:23 Circa Millions Week 2: Rams & Vikings
50:57 Circa Millions Week 2: Chargers, Packers & Texans
1:03:08 The Man In The Box: Tacoma Shows & Plugs
1:04:26 Robert Kraft Vs. Macklemore
1:09:49 Arch Manning & Holly Rowe AI Video Backlash
1:13:24 Final Plugs & Sign-Off
