Transcript of Man vs Model Week 2 Picks with Cynthia Frelund

Welcome to NFL Daily, where it's always raining. I'm Greg Rosenthal here in Studio 5, Stage 5, I don't know what you call it, at NFL Network. And so lucky today to be joined by Cynthia Freeland for our weekly Man versus Machine, Man versus Model, The Rainmaker Rains, Show of the Week.

I like all of it.

Let's review Cynthia. Last week, if you were listening, we were both very effective, two and one, each of us. I got the Bucks and the Stealers right, barely lost on the bills by half a point. You got the Saints and your Lion's Right, and you lost on your Jets. What we do every week on this show, we pick our three favorite picks of the week. Why don't we start with you this week to feel a little luckier?I have a question.Yes..

This is a really important one. Yes. Are we allowed to do this for totals? Because I think there's one mispriced total. Okay.

You can do anything you want, Cynthia. The point is, I'm rooting for you. I want us both to have good records. I want to just have a better record than you over.

Well, right now we're tied.

Yes, we're Try it two and one. That's a good start. Yeah, you can do totals.

Okay, so I'm looking at this Pittsburgh game, and I understand it doesn't seem like there's going to be a lot of points scored, but any way you slice it for me, it's going to be more than 36 and a half. In fact, in the model, in the machine, if you will, the number is more than 37 points. In something like 56% of simulations, I'm a conservative modeler. That is a high number for me. I know it doesn't seem like a situation where you're going to be like, Hey, Broncos, Stealers, Point Fest, but you don't need it to be that much in order to hit that number.

Yes. I actually picked 18 to 12 in that game, and in my head, that was all field goals, six for the Stealers and four for the Broncos. But what about a defensive touch down.

There could easily be a defensive touch down.

You could throw that in, but that makes sense.

Why would you root against fun?

I'm not rooting against it. That's just what I see. I'm on the Stealers this year. I had them as an under... But that is not one of my three picks. That's not. But I do think they're going to win. No.

Lots of points. It is not. Lots of points.36.5..

Your first pick, over 36.5 in Steelers, Falcons. I like that. I'm going to go Titans plus 4 to start. If I'm going to pick them straight up, which I am doing, we did that on on our show on NFL Network, which people should check out. That's up on Sunday mornings before game day morning. I might as well take them plus four. It's as if week one never happened here. At least I think that's what this number looks like to me. What I saw from week one in the Titans, and tell me if you disagree, Cynthia, was a Reborn running game. The two Callahans, they show up and suddenly there's cohesion. The offensive line looks good. Run blocking. Tony Pollard has a ton of room, and he's got a ton of juice. I also saw a soft as hell Jets run defense. At the very least, I think they keep it within four, and they keep a low score, and it's a lot of ground game with Tajay Spears also in the mix. I think they can just win it straight up. If you're into going with the money line, that'd be fun, too. But for the sake of this show, Titans plus four.

Okay, well, I think there's a completely mispriced line in Arizona. The Rams are not favored. The Rams are underdogs. That makes absolutely zero sense to me. There is no way. And so if I believe they're going to win straight up, why would I not believe that they're going to win if you're going to give me an extra point? Why not? I think that the Rams, look, I understand that there are a lot of question marks in terms of injuries. The O-line has just been pretty decimated. But tell me who on that Cardinal's team is going to get after a guy like Matthew Stafford who can disproportionately handle pressure, to the point where... I watched him in Detroit. He didn't have an O-line there either. They were standing there. So ultimately, I think this is something he's been like a finely-tuned machine like me, like I'm a finely-tuned, whatever, to be able to handle this thing. And they can run with Kyron Williams. They always run against this Cardinals team. Go look at that number. Cooper Cupp, he's going to catch a billion passes.

I love that. I picked them as well. They're not one of my picks. They're not one of your picks? I mean, they're on my long list.

That's fine because that means I get to have them.

I like that we don't have all the same picks. They're dangerous. Oh, wait, they are one of my three picks. I'm going to go off. I I totally forgot. Good. Give people more. But I get the arguments against them because their defense, if they have a weakness, it's against the ground game. It's Kyler Murray, it's James Connor, it's Trey Benson, I actually got in the mix. But it matters to me that last year, the two games were not competitive at all. The Rams won these two by 40, so it's a division matchup where there's some familiarity there. I take it back. I actually will take the Rams as as one of my picks. I'm going to go for my third pick, Eagles minus 6.5. Can Kirk Cousins play football still at a high level? Can he move?

Well, do you really want to ask that question against the Philadelphia defense? Because that's not even just any old defense. That's a heck of a tough defense to make him... I mean, the Steelers is an awesome defense as well, but it was very different. The pistol, what was that? No play action? What was that? I'm not sure what was going on there? Maybe totally different game plan.

It's crazy to me that it would actually make sense to play Michael Pennix, I think, early this season and wait till Kirk is healthy because he just showed he wasn't healthy. When we're doing these picks, I'm mostly looking at the number, like you, and just seeing if it's a little bit off. But I do think early in the season, before we really know who's good, who's bad, you can get some funky numbers. This is actually a high number, and yet I'm just trusting my eyes and saying you can't overreact to what happened with Kirk Cousins in week one, and that they're going to have to show They know me that they have an offense and a quarterback that's actually functional. At this point, I don't really believe it, and I don't think their defense is very good either. So give me eagles minus 6.5..

Okay, so I'm staying with that same number, 6.5, and I'm going with a little bit of spice here because I think New Orleans keeps it closer than people expect. I think New Orleans plus 6.5, it's not straight. I don't have New Orleans winning straight up. I do think that the Cowboys are the winner of this matchup, but I think 6.5 is too high. I know that the Cowboys are playing at home, so that number is influenced by that. I did see what happened with both sides. However, we didn't really learn anything about a Mike Zimmer defense because they held the Browns to 54 total yards in the first half. So the second half data, totally skewed. And then on the same side, we didn't really learn anything about the Saints offense either because they were off to such a-Oh, come on.

They put up 47.

But that's my point. We don't know what they're going to do when they're under duress because they're going to be under duress. Three pressures. That's all of the number of pressures that Derek Carr faced. Micah Parsons is good for three pressures on his own, let alone... My point is this, we saw that it's a good offense when the defense was giving them a lot of favorable looks, but we don't know what's happening. It's a remade OC, a remade situation here. I'm not saying they're not good. I'm saying we just don't know who they are yet. We don't know their identity.

That's why I love the six points. I'm with you. I was debating, coming into the studio, do I go Eagles minus six and a half or do I go Saints plus six as my third pick? Do you want to know something really funny?

Yes. I actually had the same debate, and then you took it and I was like, Fine, I'll go with.

Okay, When you're thinking about these games early in the season, you're right, we don't know a lot about the Saints. We don't know a lot about the... So just take points. Because here's what I feel like I do know about the Saints offense. They're better than a year ago. Because at no point last year did their running game ever open up holes like that. They played the Panthers twice last year. I know the Panthers defense might be worse last year, but they played some of the worst defense in the league last year. They never did that. They never scored nine straight times. They never protected Derek Carr that well. They are going to be better this year. The Cowboys, that was a very strange game, too, In the second half, they only had 50 yards of offense. That half counts, too. When I look at their evaluation, I know they were playing against the Browns, so that gives me some concern. And maybe the Browns are just a total mess on offense. And so I look at this game and I'm just thinking it's relatively low It's close scoring, and it's going to be a close game.

And so give me the six points.

Yeah, I'm with you on all of that, except I do want to point out the NFL robbed us of something. Actually, it would actually be a John Fossil that robbed us of something. I think Brandon Aubrey could have made that 71-yarder, and I'm mad that we didn't get to see him try. So if it ever happens again, just let us see it because it's fun and exciting. It's a reason to love the NFL, a 71-yarder. He could have made it.

It's wildly conservative not to attempt that kick. Why not? Because you're so afraid of a kickoff return.