Betting Public's Bullishness On Texans Makes Sean Pendergast Nervous

KILT-AM / SportsRadio 610

Sean Pendergast believes in the Texans. But the betting public's faith in them makes him nervous. He talked about that here with Seth Payne.

Transcript

00:00My my big reason that I am nervous about the Houston Texans uh and the Colts this Sunday

00:07has nothing to do with really any matchup or anything like that. I think the Texans have a

00:11good chance of handling Anthony Richardson. I think the Colts, I think it's going to be

00:15tough for them to find answers to CJ Stroud in this passing game uh to the point of our

00:20conversation with Ross Tucker in the previous segment. I am kind of interested to see how the

00:24mouths all get fed on Sunday. I'm not nervous about any of that. What I'm nervous about is

00:28you people out there that are hammering the Texans at minus two and a half. How many of you?

00:33Well I don't know the exact sheer volume in terms of bodies but I can tell you in terms of

00:39percentages that out in Vegas and the various sports books across our great nation, 85 percent

00:45of the bets, 91 percent of the money are on the Houston Texans minus two and a half on the road

00:55at Indiana. And Indy's not a bad team. They're not a bad team. Like normally

01:00you're favored on the road by nearly a field goal. You're probably playing you know unless

01:04you're the Chiefs and you're favored against everybody. You're like the Texans that either

01:09the Colts are getting disrespected here or the Texans are getting incredible respect.

01:14Yeah and I think whenever the public jumps on one side like the public that this is where I

01:20know it makes you nervous. When the public jumps on one side it's a lot of times an indication that

01:28people aren't thinking with their brains as much as their hearts and their guts.

01:32And it makes you nervous. I don't think it should make you nervous Sean in that

01:38the look the odds makers as close as they actually saw this game had it pretty close

01:45to an even matchup. And a lot of that like that doesn't change. The Texans were favored on the

01:53road. I think the odds makers and even if they had already adjusted for public perception at some

01:58point. I think they look at the Texans as right now a better team. If only you go by the fact that

02:04both have a lot of good a lot of pluses on the offensive and defensive side of the ball.

02:08But CJ Stroud is a much more proven commodity at this point than Anthony Richardson. That's a

02:13the giant wild card is that nobody really knows just what Anthony Richardson is as a quarterback

02:19right now. I agree with that. I think this is also a function of the the kind of almost Texans

02:27infomercial that this offseason has been with pundits around the league. You know like they

02:31everybody loves the Texans. They're everybody's surprise team. They're everybody's you know new

02:36contender. They're the answer to many people's who can challenge the Chiefs in the AFC

02:42question. I think it has I think it that has a lot to do with it as well like there's

02:48the the segment that we did like two weeks ago where we took Joe Fortenbaugh's thoughts on the

02:54Texans on on first take. Joe Fortenbaugh's a betting expert on ESPN and they had to do like

03:01who's the team that you think is going to be a disappointment and he he picked the Texans and he

03:05had some reasons for it. I don't know if I totally agree with them but they were sound debatable

03:09reasons for why. I just remember doing that segment. I'm like this is one of the only guys

03:14you can find right now in the national media who's saying this about the Texans. Everybody else for

03:19the most part is saying that the Texans are ready to take that next step and I think that's I think

03:23that's why the line started with the I mean the Colts were favored at one point in the offseason

03:29in this game by one. This thing has gone through the zero to the Texans now being minus two and a

03:34half. I forgot that they were plus one. They were yeah they were like the Colts were favored.

03:39The Colts were favored at one point during this offseason for again for the spread to move is one

03:43thing but for the public to decide we don't think this team is going to win that team is going to

03:48win is a big deal. And there's there's not anything really I guess the the one substantive thing that

03:53might have skewed things from the odds makers perspective was Anthony Richardson in that final

03:58preseason game where he threw a pick six. I thought that from an Anthony Richardson perspective

04:06going back and watching that game and they're going versus the the the Bengals twos and threes

04:10like honestly in watching that game it was a pain in the butt because I had to go back and find an

04:14old depth chart because half the guys on the Bengals defense aren't even on the Bengals team

04:19anymore. There I thought I saw more good than bad and I also think that Shane Steichen was specifically

04:26instructing Anthony Richardson not to run on a lot of the RPOs and the zone reads and things like

04:32that. So yeah I think that I think substantively nothing's changed other than that Christian

04:40Harris isn't going to be available for sure and and Will Anderson is injured so that shouldn't

04:46make it that heavily of a Texans favorite. The the injury report this week is is a is a is an

04:53interesting one to see if is you know I'm guessing totally guessing but Will Anderson

04:59should we hope for limited in practice like that would at least indicate that he's

05:04gonna play this weekend? I'm man all right he's been running for a couple weeks now

05:08and I think he plays I think right now it might be more gamesmanship than anything else that

05:14they're gonna we've seen this with the Texans they've done a good job of it it massive they've

05:18held things close to the vest when it comes to hey you know Davis Mills is nobody knew for sure

05:25who was going to start that game against the Titans and people assumed it was Davis Mills

05:28because the Texans didn't give out any information about it. I think that I think he's going to play

05:34but I think they're going to be very very coy about it. Yeah I'm just yeah I'm anxious to see

05:39how he's categorized going into this game Will Anderson with this ankle injury. Text message

05:44I think Indy runs the ball down our throats. I hope not. Right and that's it's one thing we

05:50talked about this a little bit earlier because Shane Steichen is so good at the RPOs and because

05:55that puts your linebackers in such a bind when you play against the Colts I think there is a little

06:00bit of you instructing your linebackers to be very very careful about being hyper aggressive versus

06:09the run. This is one thing that Anthony Richardson does well is raw and unpolished as he is as a

06:15passer he's got it he's got incredible arm talent despite his weird delivery and everything else

06:21like that he does have the ability to make really good throws but he's also still very young in some

06:26respects and unpolished both with his accuracy and some of his decision making but he's really

06:33good with his mechanics on the RPO side of things executing his fakes all of that and I think in

06:41some regard he is as tough as it was playing against Gardner Minshew in the RPOs it's that

06:48much harder with Anthony Richardson so I think they'll concede some yardage in the run game.

06:53I think that I think it's going to be very much about like we can't get we can't get crushed with

06:57play action the way we did so much of last year so I'm I'm not sitting here saying that it's cool

07:03if Jonathan Taylor runs for 188 yards but I think he's going to get his I think he's going to eat up

07:08a little bit. That makes sense.

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